Global Research

Featured image: Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the Israeli army’s deputy chief of staff (Source: TheFreeThoughtProject.com)

Jerusalem – Last year, a top Israeli general’s comments during the country’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day address sparked controversy when he likened the atmosphere in modern day Israel to 1930’s Nazi Germany.

“If there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is discerning nauseating processes that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany specifically back then, 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and seeing evidence of them here among us in the year 2016,” Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the Israeli army’s deputy chief of staff said.

Now, the outgoing IDF Deputy Chief has doubled down on his remarks and in an interview this week, defended his controversial speech.

As the Times of Israel reports, Golan, speaking in a new video interview produced by the military, said he “didn’t realize it would go to the very political place that it went,” but added that he “doesn’t take back the remarks.”

Golan went on to note that Israel  — “as a light unto the nations” — has a responsibility to maintain “moral superiority.”

“Morality is you compared to you. You compared to your standards, not to those around you. Around [Israel], there are murderous people who don’t hesitate to kill one another in fear-inducing quantities. That should give us no repose,” he said.

“On this issue, we shouldn’t cut ourselves any slack,” Golan added.

The reaction from Israeli hardliners to Golan’s comments highlighted the deep divisions within Israeli society on what is one of the country’s most solemnly revered days.

Nationalist Jewish home party leader and Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett called on Golan to revise his comments or be seen as comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis. However, he refused and stood strong for over a year — in spite of the backlash.

Sadly, Bennett fails to understand that’s precisely what Maj. Gen. Golan was implying in 2016, as he implored those in power “to fundamentally rethink how we, here and now, behave towards the other.”

“The Holocaust, in my view, must lead us to deep soul-searching about the nature of man,” Golan said. “It must bring us to conduct some soul-searching as to the responsibility of leadership and the quality of our society. It must lead us to fundamentally rethink how we, here and now, behave towards the other.”

“There is nothing easier and simpler than fear-mongering and threatening. There is nothing easier and simpler than in behaving like beasts, becoming morally corrupt, and sanctimoniousness.”

“On Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is worthwhile to ponder our capacity to uproot the first signs of intolerance, violence, and self-destruction that arise on the path to moral degradation,” Golan said.

During his original speech, Golan referenced the Hebron incident, in which an IDF soldier was filmed executing an already incapacitated Palestinian assailant that was lying on the ground defenseless.

The soldier in question, Sgt. Elor Azaria, was arrested and brought up on manslaughter charges by a military tribunal for the killing — a move that has been met with ferocious opposition by Zionists who claim that the brazen execution was somehow justified.

Hard-liners accused the military of abandoning the soldier by indicting him for manslaughter, and polls showed most Jewish Israelis shared the sentiment. Many Israeli Jews also now openly oppose the equal rights of the one-fifth of the country’s 8 million citizens who are Arabs — who, in turn, are growing increasingly alienated from the Jewish state, according to the AP.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called his defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, after Golan’s speech to express displeasure, according to The Haaretz daily.

The Israeli military then issued a clarification, claiming Golan did not intend to compare Israel and its army to “the horrors” of Nazi Germany.

“This is an absurd and baseless comparison that he never would have made and it was never his intention to criticize the Israeli government,” the Israeli military said.

Regardless of how the Israeli government spun Golan’s words or pressured him to rebuke his comments, they clearly reveal a grave concern about the increasingly callous manner in which Palestinians are being treated and the path that these actions will ultimately lead Israeli society down.

Having such rationale and logic, Golan said he was surprised that the political leaders and large chunk of the population reacted the way they did.

“I thought I was saying things that were clear, that every reasonable person would say, ‘Hey, he said what had to be said.’ I didn’t think I was saying something that was blatantly controversial,” he said.

As the Times of Israel reports, eloquent in both Hebrew and English, Golan holds a master’s degree from Harvard University. He was wounded but continued to command during a shootout with Hezbollah fighters in 1997 and is a well-regarded officer in the IDF, holding a number of top positions in his 37-year career.

From ISIS to America, the state is able to convince their enforcers to commit horrid acts in their name — all the while their subjects cheering it on as patriotism. In spite of Golan’s dedication to the IDF, he is still able to see the potential for such destruction and his words should be considered by all countries.

Throughout history, very small groups of humans have been able to convince very large groups of humans to carry out evil and immoral acts of murder and abuse. It’s time to stop this.

While the citizens bash each other over silly issues of right vs. left or Islam vs. Christianity, those at the top get richer, more powerful and more tyrannical.

Race has disconnected us, religion has separated us, politics has divided us, and wealth has classified us. It is time we shatter this paradigm and see each other as humans — not flags, crosses, or classes. If we don’t, humanity’s short time on this planet will inevitably be brought to a violent end.

There were no major changes  in the situation in Syria since our last post. Several smaller steps have further consolidated the position of the government of Syria and its allies while the positions of its enemies continue to deteriorate.

In the north-west Idleb governate and the city of Idleb saw new infighting between Ahrar al-Sham and al-Qaeda in Syria under its current moniker Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Ahrar, historically also an al-Qaeda offspring, was supported by Qatar and Turkey while al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al Nusra aka HTS) was said to have support from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Rudiments of local CIA paid Free Syrian Army gangs are intermixed with these.

Their primary task was to collect supplies from the CIA in Turkey and to distribute those to their friends in al-Qaeda and Ahrar al-Sham. Each of these groups received support in the range of at least $1 billion per year.

Source: Fabrice Balanche/WINEP

The spat between Qatar and Saudi Arabia mostly ended their interest in their proxies in Syria. The Trump administration decided to end the CIA support program for its FSA proxies in the north-west (but not for others elsewhere). This was a significant change of the situation for each group.

After losing their paymasters the local FSA gangs melted away. Ahrar held on to the border crossings with Turkey and collected “taxes” for everything that went through them. Al-Qaeda in Syria needed money. It attacked Ahrar al-Sham to eliminate the competition and to gain control over the only income source left. Last week al-Qaeda overran nearly all Ahrar al-Sham positions. It managed to capture and hold the Bab al-Hawa border station with Turkey. It also controls all other border stations. Taxing all trucks going through is a very significant sources of money. Al-Qaeda will now feed off all im- and exports between the Idleb area and Turkey. Ahrar al-Sham is practically done. It lost most of its weapon and ammunition storages and several subgroups left to join with al-Qaeda in Syria.

In an effort to support Ahrar al-Sham Turkey transferred some of its Syrian proxies from the Euphrates Shield area it holds north-east of Aleppo towards the Turkish side of Idleb border station. But those forces are too few and too little motivated to take up al-Qaeda in Syria. Ahrar is now too depleted and weak to win and control Idleb. The Turkish move was too little too late. Idleb is now for most parts consolidated al-Qaeda territory.

The usual “expert” propagandists have long claimed that Ahrar and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had no longer anything at all to do with the original al-Qaeda. But today al-Qaeda central published a letter that asks both of these groups to stop there infighting. What will those propaganda goons make out of that?

South from Idleb a pocket of various insurgent groups (Ahrar, al-Qaeda, ISIS) controls the mountains around the Lebanese city of Arsal right next to the border with Syria. In June several Lebanese army personal were killed in the area. The Takfiri insurgent groups are a continuing danger to Lebanon as well as to Syria. Several offers for their transfer to Idleb were rejected.

Last week a united front of Lebanese and Syrian forces started to clean up the pocket and to eliminate all insurgents in area. The Lebanese army took control of Arsal city and will protect it against infiltration. About 5,000 Hizbullah fighters were allocated to attack the insurgents within Lebanon while 3,500 Syrian army personal will mop them up from the Syrian side. The Syrian air-force provides support within Lebanon and Syria. The Hariri government of Lebanon (a Saudi puppet) as well as the U.S. have agreed to the operation. So far it ran without a hitch. After several losses on the first day Hizbullah gained significant ground (see map below) during the last two or three days. Nearly half of the insurgent area is already under control and it will not take long for the rest to be liberated. Those insurgents who do not want to get killed and give up their fight may be send to Idleb where they can join the infighting between their brothers.

The U.S. and Russia had agreed on a deescalation zone further south next to the border with Israel and Jordan. While Israel was consulted on the issue it later voiced disagreement. The Israeli government wants a permanent U.S. forces in the area to cover the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan height. Neither the Trump administration nor the U.S. military have any interested in such a costly entanglement. Israel has long paid, supplied and supported Takifiri groups in the area. It gave them fire support whenever they were in fighting the Syrian government forces. The deescalation agreement foresees the supervision of the deescalation area by Russian military policy. That regime will be installed during the next few weeks and further Israeli shenanigans in the area will become difficult. Russia will react harshly against any interference with its troops’ task.

In the north-east the Kurdish YPG is the U.S. proxy forces for the fight against ISIS in Raqqa. When the YPG submitted to U.S. command was told (video) to rename itself and became the “Syrian Democratic Forces”. It is still the same anarcho-marxist cult that it was before but is ordered to hide it (video). It is still the same group that is killing Turkish soldiers within Turkey. The U.S. military believes that it can sustain the support for the group and continue to occupy the north-east of Syria after ISIS is defeated:

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last month left open the possibility of longer-term assistance to Kurdish YPG militia in Syria, saying the United States may need to supply them weapons and equipment even after the capture of Islamic State’s Syria stronghold of Raqqa.

The U.S. plan to split up Syria and Iraq after ISIS is defeated is still in force. But neither the Turkish nor the Iraqi nor the Syrian government will allow the consolidation of a U.S. protected Kurdish minority in east-Syria that they all see as a threat to their sovereignty:

The question remains: how can new Kurdistan states” survive with four countries surrounding it (Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran), all determined to do everything to neutralise a future Kurdish state in Mesopotamia and/or Bilad al-Sham? The Kurds really believe they can rely on two US and one British military bases in Kurdistan Iraq and on Saudi Arabia monies, and on six US military bases in the north of Syria to impose their “state”?

The YPG/SDF has already huge difficulties to defeat ISIS in Raqqa. There is little progress but the losses are considerable. Last week it had to discontinue its attack and wait for fresh forces to arrive. Raqqa is only a medium size city but with many high-rise buildings and a still significant population. Bombing support by the U.S. and heavy artillery shelling will be requited to eliminate ISIS from the city. This may well take several additional months. The city will be destroyed and the attacking Kurds will have high losses. There will be many civilian casualties. All this for a city that even after ISIS is defeated will never submit to Kurdish control and will eventually fall back to the Syrian government. One wonders how the political leadership of the YPG will justify this costly effort when questioned by its constituency.

On the southern bank of the Euphrates the Syrian government forces have now encapsulated the SDF forces around Raqqa. They make continues progress towards Deir Ezzor where a Syrian government forces is still under siege of ISIS.

Source: Weekend Warrior/@evil_SDOC

The Syrian government attack against ISIS around Deir Ezzor will come on multiple axes. But there are still some 80 kilometers to go and even though the area is mostly an empty semi-desert ISIS commandos are still active there. Only last week some 25 Syrian soldiers were killed in one ISIS commando attack at the T-3 pumping station near Palmyra.

The Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was interviewed (video) by some (know-nothing) journalist of NBC. He rejected the claims of a stop of CIA support to the insurgents (25:20):

“I understand that the US supports much more groups than just the ones, which were announced as being left without the American weapons.”

Lavrov also warned against any thoughts of establishing permanent U.S. bases in Syria.

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

The smell of rotting corpses pervades the city. Over 40,000 civilians were ruthlessly massacred, mostly by US terror-bombing – discussed in a previous article.

The city resembles a moonscape, few signs of life visible anywhere. Civilians able to get out are displaced refugees, largely on their own to survive – their homes, possessions and futures destroyed.

Tens of thousands of others are buried under rubble. Mosul is an open-air graveyard, one of many examples of US viciousness, what imperialism is all about – a rage for wealth, power and dominance no matter the human cost.

Contrast a sanitized NYT report with a candid one by Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi after visiting the city and witnessing the devastation firsthand.

The Times: Iraqi “Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi…congratulat(ed) (the nation’s) armed forces for wresting the city from the Islamic State (ISIS).”

The Times admitted months of battle left the city in ruins, killing thousands, displacing around a million of its residents.

Its report stressed triumph over genocidal mass slaughter and destruction. It said nothing about indiscriminate US terror-bombing, nothing about Washington’s support for ISIS and likeminded terrorist groups.

Source: RT News

It was silent about Ali Arkady’s firsthand reporting and photographic evidence of torture, abuse and cold-blooded murder of Iraqi military captives, civilians suspected of ISIS ties.

Embedded in an elite Iraqi interior ministry emergency response division, Arkady witnessed brutal interrogations to obtain forced confessions from suspected ISIS captives or sympathizers.

He later fled the country, taking his photographic and video evidence with him, exposing the brutality of regime practices – installed by Washington to serve its interests.

The Times quoted Abadi saying he came to Mosul “to announce its liberation and congratulate the armed forces and Iraqi people on this victory.”

Mosul was raped and destroyed, not liberated, the horror ongoing for months largely ignored by Western media, devastation and human suffering mostly suppressed – including horrific crimes of war and against humanity committed by US and Iraqi forces.

Marandi explained what The Times and other media failed to report. Interviewed by RT International, he said

“(t)he city is almost empty.”

“The devastation across the city, and it’s the second-most important city in Iraq, is extraordinary.”

“Those we spoke to were all seemed very pleased for the city to have been retaken, but they all said the American airstrikes were very devastating and very hurtful to ordinary people, and many civilians were killed.”

Marandi discussed Western media coverage of Aleppo last year and Mosul, saying:

“We also visited Aleppo after the liberation as well, and what was very interesting, or very unfortunate, was the devastation of East Aleppo, which was occupied by al-Qaeda in Syria, was very similar to the devastation we saw in West Mosul.”

“The bombing by the Americans destroyed so much of the west side of the city, yet the Western media said almost nothing about it.”

During the aerial and ground campaign to liberate Aleppo from US-supported al-Nusra terrorists, Russian and Syrian forces made extraordinary efforts to avoid or minimize civilian casualties – polar opposite how US and Iraqi forces operated in Mosul.

Western media wrongfully claimed Russian and Syrian forces indiscriminately targeted civilian areas. They ignored US terror-bombing of Mosul. The double standard needs no further elaboration.

Moscow established humanitarian corridors for Aleppo residents to leave the city. It provided vital humanitarian aid. America, other Western nations and the UN supplied nothing.

Marandi:

“Iraqis have been saying all this devastation since Saddam Hussein (was toppled) and up to now, the United States is to blame more than anyone else because they supported” him for many years.

America “create(d) ISIS, alongside the Saudis and unfortunately the Turkish government and the Qataris.” 

“They funded the extremist groups as we know from the defense agency documents of 2012, and also the WikiLeaks documents which show that Hillary Clinton knew that in 2014, the Saudis and the Qataris were helping ISIS.” 

“So the Iraqi people are very much aware of what’s going on, and they believe for over forty years of devastation, the United States more than anyone is to blame, alongside its regional allies.”

America’s imperial ruthlessness bears full responsibility for the rape and destruction of Iraq, Syria, and many other countries.

Its diabolical agenda is humanity’s greatest threat.

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.

Turkey reached an agreement with Russia to purchase the latter’s most sophisticated missile-defense system, the S-400, a senior Turkish military official told Bloomberg last week.

Under the $2.5 billion agreement Ankara would receive two batteries of the antiaircraft missile from Moscow within the coming year and then produce two more batteries in Turkey.

At the beginning of June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready to deliver the missile system, and a Russian military-industry official said an agreement on technical details had been reached in mid-June.

Turkey stepped up efforts to acquire its own missile-defense system after the US, Germany, and the Netherlands — all NATO members — decided at the end of 2015 not to renew their Patriot-missile deployments in southern Turkey. Spanish and Italian missile batteries remain in the country, but those systems are linked to the NATO air-defense system.

The deal has not been finalized and could still fall through, as has happened before — under pressure from the US, Turkey scrapped plans to buy missiles from a Chinese state-run company that had been sanctioned for allegedly selling missiles to Iran. (Ankara has also sought out alternative missile systems from the US and France.)

But the agreement has deepened concern that Turkey is drifting away from its longstanding alliance in NATO, which it joined during the security bloc’s first enlargement in 1952.

The S-400 deal “is a clear sign that Turkey is disappointed in the US and Europe,” Konstantin Makienko, an analyst at Moscow-based think tank the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Bloomberg.

“But until the advance is paid and the assembly begins, we can’t be sure of anything.”

“The problem is, how do you inter-operate in the NATO system with Russians? They’ll never inter-operate,” US Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters on Friday. “We’ll have to see — does it go through? Do they actually employ it? Do they employ it only in one area? All that kind of stuff. But you know, we’ll have to take a look at it.”

The S-400 system can detect and target manned and unmanned aircraft and missiles and hit targets up to 250 miles away. But it is not compatible with NATO systems, nor would it be subject to the same NATO limits on deployment, meaning that Ankara could set it up in places like the Armenian border or Aegean coast.

A Turkish official also told Bloomberg that the S-400s delivered to the country would not have friend-or-foe identification systems, making them deployable against any target.

While Russia is unlikely to supply Turkey with its most up-to-date missile system, the deal would give Ankara a leg up on its goal to build defense-industry capacity — which may stem in part from Western reticence to exchange advanced technology with Turkey.

The licensing agreement allowing Turkey to produce S-400 batteries domestically would save it some of the billions needed to create a new industry, Makienko told Bloomberg.

“Either way, this is in line with Turkey’s massive weapons modernization drive that saw the emergence of new land, air and sea-based systems for domestic use and export,” Center for Naval Analyses researcher Sam Bendett told The National Interest.

Turkey has also discussed a missile-system purchase with a Italian-French joint venture, and agreements with Russia may be a means to gain leverage in those negotiations.

The deal may also serve political purposes.

Turkey’s relationship with other NATO members has been strained, in part because of the ongoing war in neighboring Syria — sentiment that appears to have intensified after the attempted coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016.

Turkish officials were reportedly disappointed in NATO countries’ response to the coup, and Erdogan’s crackdown in the months since has been criticized by members of the security bloc. Ties with Germany are especially strained, and Berlin is currently redeploying its troops and equipment from a base in southern Turkey to positions elsewhere.

It may also be Turkey’s way of spurning the EU, the political and economic bloc that has in the past recognized Ankara as a candidate for membership. Foundering accession talks were scrapped by the EU in late 2016, amid Erdogan’s post-coup-attempt crackdown.

On Sunday, Erdogan accused the EU of “messing us about,” citing the bloc’s broken promises over issues like visa deals and Syrian migrants.

“We will sort things out for ourselves,” he said. “There’s no other option.”

Turkish officials have said more than once that dealings with Russia shouldn’t be seen as a search for an alternative to either the EU or NATO. But observers in Russia described it as a significant development

The S-400 system would “close Turkish skies,” to Western aircraft in particular, Makienko, the Moscow-based analyst, told Russian news site Vzglyad, according to Russian state-owned outlet Sputnik.

“If the Turks really purchase Russia’s missile defense systems, it will be a tectonic shift, a game-changer in the arms market,” he said.

Featured image from Sputnik/ Sergey Malgavko

The new General Secretary of the UN does nothing to stop the wars that are destroying Libya, Syria, Yemen or those threatening to erupt in Qatar, in Lebanon or against Iran or North Korea. He is doing nothing to stop the war against life by Donald Trump and the multinationals behind him. He does nothing about the many other explosive problems the planet is facing.

A large part of his activity is devoted to another goal: to destroying the Republic of Cyprus, in order to facilitate, among other goals, the new great war looming in the Middle East! This is the whole aim of the sinister operation named “solution of the Cyprus problem”.

Behind all the recent efforts to “solve the conflict in Cyprus” (which means in reality destroying the Cypriot state and its population, transforming a second member of the EU into a kind of postmodern protectorate, ready to explode at any moment), there is the same goal as the one to be found behind last year’s failed coup, supported by US neocons, in Turkey; behind the effort to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn by forcing an early election in Britain; behind the close, very “cosy” relations developed between Netanyahu’s Israel and the western Far Right (both Trump and Le Pen), in an effort to reshape  Western “anti-globalisation” sentiments” into a huge anti-Muslim political force, preparatory to launching a war in the Middle East much greater than those of the past.

Coups d’état, wars, dictatorships, regime changes are not something very original in the history of southern Europe and the Mediterranean countries. What is original about the Cyprus coup (disguised as an effort to “solve the conflict in Cyprus”) is the attempt totally to destroy the state in Cyprus, not just control its orientation or politics, and thus bring about the destruction of its population. Given the enormous strategic importance of this otherwise small country, such an outcome, if achieved, will be one of the biggest victories of Western imperialism and Western neo-totalitarian forces since the eruption of the “Eastern Question” two and a half centuries ago.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

What makes “a solution to the Cyprus conflict” so urgent is that full control of both Cyprus and Turkey is absolutely necessary for  the task of encircling and neutralizing the Russian forces in Syria. And for Western imperialism in general and neocons in particular there is no more urgent need than encircling and neutralizing Russian forces in Syria. Besides, the independence of Cyprus (and of Greece for that matter) was never fully accepted by Washington, London and its allies. As for US bases in Crete and British bases in Cyprus, they are considered the most important in a region stretching from Norfolk, Virginia to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean! It seems rather clear that a hidden geopolitical agenda lurks behind both the Greek bail-out and the Cypriot bail-in programs.

For 25 years, since the first Gulf War was permitted by Gorbachev’s Kremlin in 1991, the USA, Israel, Great Britain and their allies have been making the law in the wider “Middle Eastern” region as a whole: they destroyed the most important Arab countries and they have been dominating the whole region in a way unprecedented in history.

But since 2015 and the Russian intervention in Syria, which was also probably a response to Western aggression in Ukraine, the situation has been simply unacceptable for Western imperialism, for Israel and for the neocons. If the Russian presence in the centre of the wider Middle East region is stabilized, the West will face a strategic defeat more significant than the one it suffered in Vietnam. And it will become much more difficult, if not impossible, to wage war against Iran.

Cyprus is a small country, but one of enormous strategic importance for all of the Eastern Mediterranean. From an island one can attack whomever one wants, whereas to be attacked is difficult. This is one of the secrets underlying the domination of the world first by Great Britain and then by the United States. From Cyprus one can control the Suez Canal, Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, the Syrian and the Turkish coasts, including the port of Ceyhan, and also Greece, given the fact that no Greek government can remain indifferent to the fate of Greek Cypriots. It is enough to spend three minutes looking a map of the Eastern Mediterranean to understand why Cyprus is the real strategic centre of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Eastern Mediterranean in its turn regulates access of Russia to warm water seas (and vice versa, the possibility of encircling and attacking Russia), but also access of Western Europe, of France and Germany to the Middle East and of Israel to Europe.

“Whoever controls Gibraltar, Malta, Crete and Cyprus rules the world,” Kissinger is said to have declared.

Another country on which Mr. Kissinger has always placed much emphasis since his first and quite controversial book on nuclear strategy, is Libya. We know what happened to that country after the decision of Sarkozy, at the behest of Bernard Henri-Levy and on behalf of neocons, (who faced difficulties in Washington in the aftermath of the Iraq war), to use mainly France and Britain for the operation of attacking it. The pretense then was that Sarkozy wanted to save its population, and nowadays slaves are freely sold in the country’s markets. In 2011 in the Security Council Medvedev’s Russia and the Chinese leadership did not block the plans for the attack against Libya. By retreating all they achieved was to bring upon themselves  even more difficult problems in Ukraine, Syria or Korea! It will be interesting to watch what position Moscow, Paris and Beijing will now adopt on Cyprus in the Security Council.

Mr. Guterres has no bombers to send against Cyprus. The world’s top diplomat is using other means. He convened an international conference in Switzerland whose sole aim has been take the island’s sovereignty away from its inhabitants, overriding the consideration that it happens to be a member of the EU and the Eurozone! This Conference is open-ended, like the Holy Inquisition – every time it convenes it is removing a part of Cypriot sovereignty, and it  never ends. It will end only when the defendant, the Cypriot people, agrees to lose its state and commit suicide, like Mr. K. in Kafkas’s Trial.

At this Conference two countries are represented that in the past have waged bloody wars against Cyprus: Britain and Turkey. Greece is represented, but the Republic of Cyprus itself is not – only the two biggest communities of the island.

What do they discuss there? The Constitution of the Cypriot state and its international status: whether it will be an independent state or whether other powers will have some rights over it! Yes. Unbelievable as it may seem, it is not a Constitutional Assembly elected by the citizens but an international conference deliberating in secret in Switzerland that is deciding the Constitution of the future Cyprus, and also what rights Britain and Turkey will have on the island!!! No citizen of Cyprus knows exactly what is being debated in Geneva, what the proposals of the participants, or of Mr. Guterres, are!!!

What we are witnessing is the return of Europe to the situation predominating in the continent during the Holy Alliance! An international Conference is being held to decide the fate of a small nation.

From leaks to the press and the declarations of the Greek Foreign Minister to the German DPA news Agency (January 2017) we know the general outlines of what is being discussed

– The majority of the population (Greeks, 82%) is to be put on an equal footing with the minority (Turks, 18%) making it necessary for foreign dignitaries to be introduced to rule the state, most probably representing the interests of the USA, Britain, Israel and the empire of Finance (they will probably accept some role for the Security Council, to permit the Russians and Chinese to swallow their own defeat, as they did with Libya in 2011)

– The new Cyprus will be disarmed. It will not have the right to self-defence, like all other normal states in the world. Its armed forces will be dissolved

– The island will be put under the supervision of an “International Police Force”.

Just in passing, given the influence that Ankara has over Turkish Cypriots, such a scheme will be tantamount to providing Ankara (and also Washington, London and Tel Aviv) with  influence and a veto on the Cypriot vote in the EU. It will also clearly mean  the transformation of a second member of the EU, after Greece,  into a post-modern protectorate. In practical terms it is not going to work and it will most probably lead to new bloody conflicts in Cyprus, as in the past.

All this became possible because the policy of the European Union in the Mediterranean is decided by Britain, the USA and Israel and also because of the policy of the SYRIZA party in Greece, which, in order to stay in power has accepted the role of organizer of Greek national and social suicide, transforming itself from a party of the “radical left” into a party of “radical neoliberalism”, surrendering all Greek foreign and defence policy to the USA, Great Britain and Israel.

Greece and Cyprus now provide us with an extreme – but not unique – indication of where we are heading in all of Europe in terms of national sovereignty and democracy. The decision made in Berlin to hand the economic “governance” of the continent over to the empire of Finance, the IMF and Goldman Sachs is now beginning to yield its first major political and geopolitical fruits.

As for Mr. Guterres, there is nothing strange about a European “Socialist” playing such a role. From the time the leaders of the German SPD sided with the Kaiser in the First World War through the time that  the French “Socialists” supported the campaigns against Libya, Mali and Assad, there is not any serious imperialist crime which did not find enthusiastic support from European “Social Democracy”.

On the three year commemoration of the tragic shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17, Brisbane, Australia based Watchdog Media has released the most thorough and accurate chronological portrayal of events occurring between the start of Ukraine’s Euromaidan in November 2013 and the tragic destruction of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 on July 17, 2014.

Between 2013 and 2017, the Watch Dog Media Institute compiled and archived the largest known video volumes of first-person video related to the Ukraine war, as well as the largest and most substantial amount of all mainstream media footage related to such.

These volumes have been aptly and poetically titled “Roses Have Thorns”, and are accessible at the Watchdog Media You Tube page linked below. These chronological video volumes include 17 videos totaling over 32 hours of first-person and MSM video clips related to the war. This downloaded and archived footage has been thoroughly sorted over the past two years and placed into a 5 hour video timeline that reveals the true and terrible nature of the Ukraine war and its horrific effects on the civilian population. This is the most revealing video in existence highlighting what actually took place in Ukraine.

This video thoroughly reveals that the western mainstream media’s narrative related to events in Ukraine was not accurate in relation to what the first-person captured videos show. It also clearly shows that there was a substantial amount of video footage placed online that revealed that fascist battalions from Kiev attacked innocent ethnic Russian Ukrainian civilians in a number of locations and repressed dissent in horrific and murderous ways……on camera.

A number of those on-camera murders are included within the video footage. Within the videos, there is also a large amount of location verifiable footage (largely unseen in western countries) of Ukraine’s BUK missile launchers active and on-the-move in the Ukrainian war zones prior to, and during the time of, the shootdown of MH-17. This is highly important due to the fact that the rebels, (labeled as terrorists by Kiev) in the eastern breakaway regions, had no air force for the Ukrainian BUK missile launchers to be used against. Thus, it begs the questions “what were the Kiev troops using these BUK missile launchers for?” And “why did US senator John McCain state on CNN that the new post coup Kiev government had no BUK’s in their possession?”

(McCain video proving his statement linked below).

The uniqueness of this particular Watchdog Media video is that, not only does it include fascinating relatively unseen video footage and unknown information along with professional translation and subtitles, but it also utilizes map zooming techniques that allow the viewer to fully comprehend the ongoing nature of the war related events, by zooming them into map locations and videos filmed at those particular precise locations by citizens under duress and directly involved in war related events, thus allowing for a broader view of what actually took place in relation to what the western mainstream media was reporting at that specific time. This is all carried along via well-placed video timeline insertions and accompanied by a soundtrack and easy to comprehend translation which gives the viewer the feel of watching a major war movie in the cinema. At times one feels almost as if they can’t wait to see how it all turns out, although by now most well-informed people are quite aware that the war was sold on an assortment of lies told by western mainstream media, in the same manner as the Iraq, Libya and Syria wars.

From a personal perspective, as someone who watched the Ukraine war online from the very beginning and also compiled a massive amount of videos and information myself that has now seen over 5 million views (primarily on Live Leak), I can honestly vouch for this newest Roses Have Thorns piece to be the best work I have ever seen on the subject of the Ukraine war. It is truly astounding and a great service to humanity. I recommend that people share this video (and this important post) widely so that it stands as a record to what really occurred in Ukraine, so that future generations can learn the truth and help prevent such horrific events from ever happening again.

Official site

Roses Have Thorns – Watch Dog Media Institute

Link to my Clarity of Signal posts on the Ukraine War – My entire two and a half years of compiled research on the war crimes of the Ukrainian Nazis now surpasses 5 million views

https://clarityofsignal.com/2017/01/04/my-entire-two-years-of-compiled-research-on-the-warcrimes-of-the-ukrainian-nazis/

Regarding the passage of flight MH-17 in Ukraine – although it wasn’t reported in the western English-speaking media, expert aviation witnesses who spoke to the Dutch Safety Board stated on record that Ukraine’s statement that it had all 3 of its primary radar stations offline at the time of the MH-17 crash (as stated by Kiev authorities) was not believable. However, the Dutch Safety Board has proceeded with its desired, pre-determined ‘investigative’ result just the same.

A number of questions are still to be answered, along with questions about the ‘investigation’ itself. Why did the DSB not mention the complete lack of primary radar availability in Eastern Ukraine airspace in the final report? Despite the fact that the Ukraine air traffic controller did not have primary radar available, airspace was not closed on July 17, 2014. Without primary radar, an air traffic controller cannot see military aircraft on his radar screen. Thus, if a civil aircraft needed to descend and ATC does not have a clue about the position of military aircraft in the national airspace there could have quite easily been a crash. Normally airspace would be closed, especially over a war-zone, if there was no radar working for air traffic control.

Something Most People Don’t Know About MH17……Ukrainian Gov’t Claims Radars Were Not Operational

https://clarityofsignal.com/2017/01/09/something-most-americans-dont-know-about-mh17ukrainian-govt-claims-radars-were-not-operational/

The following articles proving such were all published by Dutch media outlets in late January 2016. This story was completely ignored by western media and did not even have an English article available on Google during the time it came out. I located them by scanning through Dutch media articles at the time and using Google translate.

MH17 Experts: Strange That Radars Were Not Operational – ADL Netherlands

http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/31544/Rampvlucht-MH17/article/detail/4230233/2016/01/22/Deskundigen-MH17-Vreemd-dat-radars-uit-stonden.dhtml

More news on Ukraine’s missing MH-17 radar information: From Google translate. Experts MH17: Strange that radars were not operational

Piet van Genderen, Radar Expert University of Technology and Riemens, CEO of Air Traffic Control the Netherlands (LVNL) during the hearing on the policy response to the research about the MH17. © Reuters. It is strange that three radar systems in Ukraine were disabled for maintenance during the disaster of flight MH17 said radar expert Piet van Genderen at TU Delft on Friday in the lower house, where among other things the report by the Dutch Safety Board on disaster of flight MH17 is being discussed.

Markus Schiller, Missile Expert, ST Analytics GmbH, Munich, Pascal Paulissen (M), senior researcher Weapon Systems (principal investigator sub-report TNO) and Louk Absil (R), Director Force Protection, TNO during the hearing on the policy response to the research about the MH17 . © Reuters.

Van Genderen said that it is unlikely that there was planned maintenance occurring simultaneously on the three ‘primary’ radar systems.

***

2nd Dutch article:

http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2016/01/minimaal-vier-radarsystemen-moeten-beelden-hebben-van-ramp-mh17/#

From Google translate. A Minimum of Four Radar Systems Should Have Images of MH17 Disaster
By Michael van der Galien January 22, 2016

Professor and radar expert Piet van Genderen, TU Delft, says that at least four radars should have picked up the images of flight MH17 being downed.

That is a remarkable statement because it proves the government has no radar images and also has not been able to get their hands on them. During a hearing in the House, Van Genderen said the following:

“The primary radar images of these four facilities are the most important because the chances are that they picked up the image of the BUK missile and it should be seen. Also, the disintegration of the aircraft is on these images, it should almost certainly be noticeable.”

This involves three radar stations in Ukraine and one in Russia. All four facilities would see what brought down the plane. These countries, however, deny they have these images.

Van Genderen trust it for a penny:

“That these facilities were all out of operation or undergoing maintenance as Ukraine and Russia claim is not credible.”

Satellite Expert Marco Langbroek adds that he finds it strange that the government is doing nothing to retrieve the satellite imagery.

“Three of these satellites covered Ukraine at the time of the crash. It seems to me that to see justice served there is every interest to have this information. Indeed, the evidence can thus be substantiated.”

***

Link to 3rd Dutch media source on Ukraine radars not being operational on July 17, 2014

http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/25060848/___Vier_civiele_radarsystemen_bij_MH17___.html

From Google translate: Four radars were active for MH17 ‘
by Paul Eldering and Jolanda van der Graaf

THE HAGUE –

The shootdown of down MH17 was imaged by at least four radars in the vicinity said Professor and radar expert Piet van Genderen at TU Delft during a hearing in the Parliament. “The primary radar images of these four facilities are the most important because the chances are that the they picked up a BUK missile and it should be seen. Also, the disintegration of the aircraft is on these images, it should be almost certainly noticeable. ”

It involves three Ukrainian systems – one in the Lugansk airport and two long-range radar in the vicinity – and a fourth Russian radar at Rostov.

“That all these facilities were all not in operation or under maintenance as Ukraine and Russia claim is not credible,” said the professor.

Like Van Genderen, satellite expert Marco Langbroek believes that the images are crucial to the criminal investigation as to who the perpetrators are. According to Langbroek there must exist a large number of satellite images of the disaster. This includes the so-called Space Based Infrared Systems, the top-secret radar systems of the Americans.

“Three of these satellites covered Ukraine at the time of the crash,” said Langbroek. “It seems to me that justice has every interest to have this information. Indeed, the evidence can thus be substantiated.”

The following paragraphs and image captures are from the “What really Happened to Flight MH-17” investigative researchers site and include official Dutch Safety Board final report images and links.

1. Ukraine did not mention in NOTAMS about combat actions in Eastern Ukraine. Russia did mention the closure of lower airways ‘DUE TO COMBAT ACTIONS ON THE TERRITORY OF THE UKRAINE NEAR THE STATE BORDER WITH THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’. See this blogpost with information on that.DSB states at page 207 of the final report:   Ukraine did not inform the reason for airways restrictions in their NOTAMs while Russia did

Image from DSB report:

2. Ukraine did not mention in NOTAMS about one of the primary radar stations being destroyed and the other in maintenance on July 17.

3. Ukraine did not mention in NOTAMS about the loss of GPS signals over Eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines informed the crew of MH17 about the loss of GPS in this message. The message was taken from Appendix A-U of the DSB final report. DSB wrote in the final report :

This is what DSB reported about the loss of GPS – (image from official DSB report)

Conclusion – There were many reasons to close the airspace over Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

Link to lawsuit against the state of Ukraine for not closing its airspace, includes official Ukrainian response for not doing so:

Ukraine response to ECHR application “domestic remedies not exhausted”In April 2017

In April 2017, the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice submitted an appeal on a judgment by Court Midden Holland to release all documents related to the DSB investigation of MH-17. Now the case is handled by the Dutch Raad van State.

At July 11, 2017, an appeal by RTL, NOS and Volkskrant is discussed at Raad van State.

Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice in higher appeal because it is not willing to make public MH17 documents

Having access to all the above information, and knowing what is known now, international investigators should be asking “who had the means, motive, opportunity, and benefited most from the shootdown of flight MH-17 over Ukrainian airspace?” and “why were flights allowed over Ukraine when Kiev’s authorities now state on record that they had no operational radar?” If that is truly the case, then “how did they track and allow for European air traffic in the air corridors over Ukraine on July 17, 2014?” and most importantly…….”why has the Dutch Safety Board allowed Ukraine a free pass and even collaboration with their ’investigation’? Specifically, “which Dutch authorities are responsible for the statement that they did not need Ukrainian radar images, and then later requested radar images from Russia?”, “Who is responsible for this double standard that allows the Kiev authorities a free pass regarding the missing radar data?”

Watchdog Media’s new video series brings into focus the true nature of the Kiev regime and its fascist battalions that took power in Ukraine on February 20th, 2014, and thus, also reveals that they were quite capable of killing innocent civilians and falsely portraying events in order to fit their barbaric Ukrainian takeover agenda. Like a mirror from the past, the Kiev regimes false flags in Odessa and Mariupol carry ghostly echoes of the German Reichstag Fire and other atrocities carried out by the Nazis during the time of World War II. Thus, they should be considered as the primary suspects in the shootdown of flight MH-17.

I hope my highlighting this important video series will help wake people up to the strong likelihood that it was actually fascist troops operating under the control of the coup imposed Kiev regime that shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 on July 17th, 2014, as a false flag to be used as a reason to implement western sanctions against Russia. The innocent deceased from the war, and the family members of the victims aboard flight MH-17, still deserve justice. Due to the coverups by the corrupt western media and government entities, true justice for the victims, those affected by the crime, and the world as a whole, is yet to be served.

For reference:

False statement by US Senator John McCain (31 second mark): US Senator John McCain states on CNN that Ukrainians do not possess BUK missile capability.

August 27, 2014 Corbett Report Presentation on MH-17 evidence from the time of the shootdown –

All images (except the featured image) and videos in this article are from the author.

“This agreement with Europe is part of a series…They are not trade agreements. They were labeled trade agreements to fool the public… They are investment and power agreements. They’re to… take power away from the people and give it to foreign banks and corporations.”

-The Honourable Paul T. Hellyer (October, 2016)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

CETA a Trojan Horse

During the Trojan War, Greek soldiers hid inside a large wooden horse which was presented to Troy as an offering to the goddess Athena. The soldiers eventually emerged from the horse, opened the gates and allowed Greek soldiers stationed outside to be able to enter and lay siege to the city.[1]

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union (CETA) might be viewed in such terms. Proponents of the agreement hail it as “the most ambitious and progressive trade deal ever negotiated by Canada or the European Union,” and claim CETA “will create jobs, strengthen economic relations and boost Canada’s trade with the world’s second-largest market.”

However, critics argue CETA, like other so-called trade agreements contain provisions that undermine national governments to the benefit of trans-national banks and corporations.

Paul Hellyer is one such critic.

In particular, he sees the ability of sovereign governments to finance critical infrastructure, environmental and other initiatives being jeopardized by CETA. Hellyer believes the time has come for a new social contract, but CETA once ratified would impede forever Canada’s ability to undertake these vital nation-building projects.

Paul Hellyer presented on this topic in front of an audience of about a hundred people at the University of Winnipeg as part of a speaking tour coinciding with talks between Canada and the European Union to finalize and sign the CETA.

Video courtesy of Canadian Bank Reformers, and was originally recorded by community videographer Paul S Graham. Find the original raw recording here.

CETA was signed in Brussels about ten days after this talk took place. It is now on course for provisional application by September 21, 2017.

For more background on CETA and monetary reform, as well as a Canadian Constitutional court challenge of the deal, please visit canadianbankreformers.ca

Paul Theodore Hellyer is an engineer, and political commentator. He is the longest serving member of Canada’s Privy Council having served in Canada’s House of Commons as far back as 1949 under Prime minister Louis St. Laurent. Hellyer has served as Minister of National Defence, and as acting Prime Minister. He founded the Canadian Action party in 1997 to provide Canadians with an economic nationalist option in the face of Free Trade and other legislation threatening the sovereignty of Canada. He has written multiple books addressing the theme of money, and threats to Canadian democracy. These include Funny Money: A Common Sense Alternative to Mainline Economics  (1994), Goodbye Canada (2001) , Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Survival Plan for the Human Species (2010), and The Money Mafia: A World in Crisis (2014).

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . The show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in everyThursday at 6pm ET.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

Notes:

1) https://www.britannica.com/topic/Trojan-horse

A decade ago in 2007 John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Academic Dean of the Kennedy School from 2002-2006, published The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

The publisher was the prestigious publishing house, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The authors made a convincing case that Israel operating through its American lobbies, which are not registered as foreign agents, succeeds in using US foreign policy in Israel’s interests. The authors conclude that the use of US foreign policy in Israel’s interests is damaging to both America’s national interests and to Israel’s long-term security.

Many were pleased that two distinguished experts had breached a taboo issue. But the Israel Lobby was not among them. Instantly, the authors and the book were denounced as anti-Semitic. The demonstration that Israel had influence was misrepresented as the claim that Israel controlled the US government. The authors were denounced for their “extremism” which some alleged could result in a new holocaust.

Other critics took a different approach and claimed that there was no difference between Israeli and US interests and that anything that served Israel also served America. Some evangelicals added: “and also serves God.”

The authors remained dispassionate throughout the long controversy and stuck to their point that Israel’s influence on US foreign policy was not in the interest of either country.

If we think of a spectrum with influence at one end shading into control at the other, in the decade since The Israel Lobby was published Israel has moved closer to the control end of the spectrum. For example, we learn from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that a bill in the US House of Representatives “would require U.S. to consult with Israel before selling arms in Mideast”.

Last month the House of Representatives unanimously passed HR 672 titled “Combating European Anti-Semitism Act of 2017.” Former CIA official Philip Giraldi reports that “the bill requires the State Department to monitor what European nations and their police forces are doing about anti-Semitism.” In other words, the bill makes Washington an enforcer over Europe for Israel. There is a companion bill in the US Senate.

And then there is S. 722 backed by AIPAC, titled “An act to provide congressional review and to counter Iranian and Russian aggression.” Iranian and Russian “aggression” exist by assertion, not by fact. The bill more or less makes it impossible for President Trump to remove the sanctions and normalize relations.

And there is much more since 2007. In 2010 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Netanyahu’s boast that America was a country easy for him to manipulate. In 2015 Congress without consulting President Obama invited Netanyahu to address Congress on the appropriate US foreign policy toward Iran. Congress is accustomed to grovelling at Israeli feet. Every year Congress attends AIPAC’s meeting and pays homage to its liege lord. One would think that the sight of the legislative body affirming its allegiance to Israel would raise questions about what country Congress represents.

If Mearsheimer and Walt have the strength, the time is ripe for a second edition of The Israel Lobby.

Featured image: Dr. Wolfgang Jamann – secretary general and CEO of CARE International. (Source: Care International)

International humanitarian agency Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) has voiced alarm at the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, calling the situation a “shame on humanity”.

“We are now in the 21st century and the current situation is an absolute shame on humanity,” the head of the NGO Wolfgang Jamann told reporters on Saturday after a five-day visit to the country.

“Sixty percent of the country is food insecure and over half the population is unable [to access] safe drinking water,” he said.

“Many areas in Yemen are just one step away from a famine situation,” the body’s CEO said, urging the international community to “end the suffering”.

Ravages of war

He also touched on the massive bloodshed and destruction which has been plaguing the country since Saudi Arabia began bombing the country in 2015.

More than 12,000 people have died, and much of the country turned into death traps for civilians since the onset of the invasion, meant to restore Yemen’s former Saudi-allied government. More than 44,500 people are estimated to have been wounded.

The US and the UK have been providing the bulk of the military ordnance used by Saudi Arabia in the war. The UK has licensed 3.3 billion pounds worth of weapons since the beginning of Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen in March 2015.

The US also sealed a multibillion arms deal with Saudi Arabia when President Donald Trump made his maiden visit abroad in May. The deal, which is worth $350 billion over 10 years and $110 billion that will take effect immediately, was hailed by the White House as a significant expansion of the security relationship between the two countries.

“Thousands of civilians have died since the start of the conflict and millions more have been displaced inside the country,” Jamann said.

Yemen is currently in the grip of a cholera outbreak that has killed 1,828 people since it erupted in late April. On Friday, the World Health Organization said the number of suspected cholera infections in the Arab world’s most impoverished country had risen to nearly 370,000 as of July 19.

The charity Oxfam, on the other hand, said the number of suspected cases of cholera could rise to more than 600,000, making the epidemic “the largest ever recorded in any country in a single year since records began.”

The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has warned that the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear war is closer than since 1953. As explained by the Bulletin, in 1947 it devised the Doomsday Clock “using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet”.

Each year “the decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel laureates”. In 1953 the Clock was at two minutes to midnight. In the worst years of the cold war it was at 3 minutes to midnight when, in 1984 it was recorded that “US-Soviet relations reach their iciest point in decades. Dialogue between the two superpowers virtually stops. Every channel of communications has been constricted or shut down; every form of contact has been attenuated or cut off…”

And now, in 2017, it is apparent that channels of communication with Russia are being deliberately cut off — and the hands of the Doomsday Clock have been placed at just two-and-a-half minutes from midnight.

Disaster looms.

And as it looms, the United States Senate is heightening its global confrontational approach and announced that it intends to penalise Russia for a number of supposed misdemeanours.

Senator Lindsey Graham

Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS News that the Senate will “punish Russia for interfering in our elections” — concerning which allegation there has not been one shred of proof provided by anyone. All-embracing inquiries are under way, of course, but be assured that if there were the slightest, tiniest, most microscopic morsel of actual proof of any interference, it would by now have been leaked to the media and made headline news.

Senator Graham excelled himself by telling President Trump, via CBS News, that

“You’re the commander in chief. You need to stand up to Russia. We’re never going to reset our relationship with Russia until we punish them for trying to destroy democracy. And that starts with more sanctions”.

Then the CBS interviewer brought up the subject of the many inquiries into allegations of Trump-Russia plotting and mentioned that a Democrat had said the investigations were a “fishing expedition… What’s your response to that?”

The Senator replied

“That’s not your, none of your business. We’re going to do what we think is best. The Russians interfered in our election. They’re doing it all over the world. No evidence yet that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. I don’t believe the president colluded with the Russians, just because of the way he behaves. There’s zero evidence that President Trump did anything wrong with the Russians. There’s overwhelming evidence that Russia is trying to destroy democracy here and abroad. And if you forgive and forget with Putin, you’re going to get more of the same and you’re going to entice Iran and China to come in 2018 and 2020”.

The US Senate believes there is “zero evidence” that President Trump had help from Russia in his election campaign — which is true — but also thinks there is “overwhelming evidence” that Russia is trying to influence voting in America, although there is not a shred of proof to that effect.

The Senator spoke with the authority, force and majesty of the US Senate, and the world has to accept that his pronouncements represent the wishes of the legislators of his mighty nation which is intent on imposing harsher sanctions on Russia. As observed by Forbes, the new Bill “punishes Russian oil and gas firms even more than the current sanctions regime… Russia has no friends on Capitol Hill”.

It is intriguing that the sanctions focus on oil and gas production, and Bloomberg reported that Germany and Austria consider “the measures sought to bolster US economic interests and included an unacceptable intervention in the region’s energy sector”. In an unprecedented expression — indeed, explosion — of disapproval, Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern said in a joint statement that “Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Europe, not the United States of America… instruments for political sanctions should not be tied to economic interests” and that the Senate’s amendment heralded a “new and very negative quality in European-American relations”.

As London’s Financial Times reported,

“the Russia sanctions outline opposition to Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that will double capacity for Gazprom… to supply gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea. The measures could affect European energy companies, including Shell, Engie and OMV, which are financing the pipeline. Shares in all four companies tumbled on Thursday”.

Washington’s mission of lucrative destruction was partly achieved, but that’s where we come to the essence of the matter. The part of the Sanctions Bill involving Russia was an add-on to a series of vindictive measures against Iran, but it seemed a good idea to also sanction Russia’s oil and gas production, because nobody would benefit more than the oil and gas companies of the United States.

Bloomberg explained that the Nord Stream pipeline “would compete with US exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe”. And the Senate made it plain that the US government “should prioritize the export of United States energy resources in order to create American jobs, help United States allies and partners, and strengthen United States foreign policy”.

It’s difficult to see how the Senate’s arrogant dabbling might “help allies and partners,” but those in America who own energy resources and want to continue making vast profits continue to help their allies and partners in the Senate and the House. Without their financial support, many legislators would never have got to Washington.

As recorded by Open Secrets, companies closely associated with oil and gas production gave US politicians over fifty million dollars in 2015-2016 to help their democratic election:

Top Contributors, 2015-2016

Source: By kind permission of the Center for Responsive Politics

And Senator Lindsay Graham was given a bundle by many commercial organisations, headed by Nelson, Mullins, whose $254,247 in 1993-2016 no doubt helped him along the way. Nelson Mullins, incidentally, has attorneys who “have experience in advising electrical and pipeline providers on legal matters”. Then he got $175,605 from SCANA, which is “a $9 billion energy-based holding company, based in Cayce, South Carolina… Its businesses include… natural gas utility operations and other energy-related businesses”. Another of Senator Graham’s generous sponsors is the Fluor Corporation ($94,801) which “understands the critical success factors driving onshore oil and gas production and terminal businesses, providing practical solutions to maximize project investment”.

It doesn’t matter to these people, or to the legislators they’ve bought with their donations, that the Doomsday Clock has ticked closer to the midnight of Armageddon, and that the hostile approach of the United States is alienating a proud nation that can take only so much before it reacts against Washington’s aggressive confrontation. The sleazy hypocrisy of US legislators is legendary, but it is their ignorance greed and arrogance that are worrying.

While Senator Graham was dancing to the tune of his oil angels, the Washington Post reported that seven percent of American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. That is “16.4 million misinformed, milk-drinking people”. The representative of FoodCorps which encourages sensible nourishment said this was unfortunate, and “We still get kids who are surprised that a French fry comes from a potato, or that a pickle is a cucumber. Knowledge is power. Without it, we can’t make informed decisions”.

Just like the US Senate.

Brian Cloughley is a British and Australian armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan.

Featured image from Strategic Culture Foundation

Which is the most important bilateral relationship in the international arena today? Many analysts would argue that it is the relationship between the United States of America and China that has the greatest significance for the world.

Some see it as the relationship between an established power and a rising power which has often led to war in the past. They quote the great 4th century BC Greek historian, Thucydides who had observed that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Contemporary thinkers like Graham T. Allison who coined the term ‘The Thucydides Trap’ point out that over the last 500 years there have been 16 instances in which an established power had felt threatened by a rising power and 12 of them ended in war. One of the most devastating was the war between Britain and Germany which was at the crux of the First World War from 1914 to 1918. On the other hand, the US took over the mantle of British imperial power after the Second World War in 1945 in a relatively peaceful manner.

I do not see the US and China going to war. Burdened by perpetual wars and massive debts running into trillions of dollars, a huge segment of the US populace has no appetite for another conflagration that will further sap the nation’s energies. At the same time, the Chinese leadership knows that a war with a technologically superior military power will be a severe blow to the country’s economic and social development which remains its foremost goal. However this does not mean that the US and China will be able to transact a peaceful transfer of power. The US it is obvious is not prepared to accept with equanimity its overall decline as a hegemon. This is why there will be skirmishes and conflicts from time to time as we witness the end of the era of US helmed Western global dominance and the birth of a new phase in international relations.

At the core of this new phase is another bilateral relationship which I regard as far more critical in shaping the present and the future. This is the relationship between China and Russia which is at its zenith at this point in time. It is a relationship that covers the entire gamut from finance, energy and agriculture to military and security ties and to close coordination on regional and global political issues. The leaders of the two countries, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, who have forged a strong inter-personal bond, approved in July 2017 the 2017-20 implementation outline for the Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation between China and Russia.

This ever strengthening bond between the world’s most populous nation and its biggest geographical entity will not only hasten the demise of US hegemony but will also accelerate the emergence of a multi-polar global order. A number of other states are already linked to China and Russia through BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). These bodies are further buttressed by initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project and the Eurasian Economic Union. Though the participants in all these endeavours are not always on the same page on various challenges confronting the human family today, they will help to diffuse and disperse power at the regional and global levels. A multi-polar world by definition will allow for the growth of multilateral institutions and the enhancement of international law. In short, it will be good for global peace.

Of course, the developing Sino-Russian bond is not without its challenges. Let us not forget that China and Russia (the Soviet Union) in spite of their common communist ideology, quarrelled with one another from the fifties to the eighties, over a variety of issues pertaining to economic approaches, political strategies and simply power and influence in other parts of the world.This time however by emphasising solid economic cooperation and forging common political positions on global conflicts that affect both nations, Presidents Xi and Putin have succeeded in anchoring Sino-Russian ties in shared interests that really matter to them. Besides, the US’s pursuit of its hegemonic agenda in the vicinity of China and Russia has undoubtedly brought the two states closer together. Chinese and Russian leaders are only too aware that there are concerted moves by the intelligence apparatus in the US and elsewhere to drive a wedge between China and Russia. If anything it has increased their determination to remain united.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

A report that a school in the town of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan was subjected to indiscriminate bombing by the so-called Western coalition came as no surprise to analysts who closely follow events unraveling in this Central Asian state. As it was announced by the Education Department Director of the Kunduz province, Janat Gul Nasiri, this latest air raid against Afghan civil infrastructure resulted in human victims.

Reports about the mounting civilian death toll in Afghanistan due to the careless and outright criminal actions of the US and their allies appear in the media quite often. However, much less often do we hear the Pentagon admitting its responsibility for these attacks, and when it does it is belated. The US military command in Afghanistan waited for more than two months to come to the conclusion that a total of 33 civilians were killed by US warplanes in Kunduz province last November.

At the same time, according to the representatives of the Pentagon, those responsible for the incident will not be held responsible for their actions. As a result, yet another war crime has been written off as self-defense or collateral damage.

Among the string of similarly brutal incidents, the most well-known was the US strike on a hospital run by the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Kunduz province, which occurred in October 2015. Despite apologies from Washington presented to the Afghan side, its military brass still believes that a half-hour bombing raid was an “unintentional event” that doesn’t qualify as a war crime.

At the beginning of the year The Intercept published a lengthy article straightforwardly titled “The Crimes of the SEAL Team 6.” The article tells little about the heroism or professionalism of the servicemen of the American special forces unit SEAL Team 6, which Hollywood and bestselling authors are so fond of. The Intercept took the courage to investigate the darker side of war – crimes that are being routinely committed by US servicemen. The investigation into SEAL Team 6 was conducted for two years and included 18 interviews with former and current soldiers and officers of the unit. The Intercept article is somewhat reminiscent of The New York Times piece on the same topic published back in 2015.

Under the pretext of taking DNA samples, according to the Intercept, the soldiers of SEAL Team 6 practically removed scalps of Afghans fighters during their first deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The foreign fighters who suffered these V-shaped wounds were either killed in battle and later shot at close range or finished off while dying. Among members of SEAL Team 6, this practice of desecrating enemy casualties was called “canoeing.”

No investigation of those barbaric practices of the SEAL Team 6 has ever been conducted, so no serviceman has ever received any form of official punishment for these offenses. The worst that has ever happened to soldiers engaged in such inhumane practices was a transfer to another unit without any measure preventing them from returning to SEAL Team 6.

However, US servicemen are not the only ones to commit war crimes in Afghanistan as numerous journalistic investigations show. More recently, the Australian media corporation ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), due to leakage of classified documents from the Ministry of Defense, has begun releasing scandalous facts about how operations of the Australian special forces in Afghanistan were conducted. A series of articles published under the title of “The Afghan Files” has triggered a massive scandal both in Australia and the UK.

Judging by the documents, from 2009 to 2013, at least ten cases were reported when Australian special forces opened fire on unarmed Afghans, including children when they and their actions were verbally opposed.

In April 2013, Australian special forces would cut off the hands of dead Taliban fighters for no practical reason, except as “trophies” to take back home. The scandal unfolded in 2013, but only now has become public due only to the leak of the above mentioned documents.

The press and the Australian public seem to agree that these latest leaks shed light on the culture of impunity, recklessness, and outright disrespect to the lives of Afghans that are now common among Western special forces operatives.

Moreover, according to a number of commentators, the environment of unpunished crimes, no matter how brutal they are, and the logic of “shoot first, ask questions later” that has been adopted by Western coalition forces, results only in ordinary Afghans supporting the Taliban and its cause more, solely due to the hatred provoked in them by the conduct of  Western military forces.

As allegations about the war crimes committed by American, British and Australian special forces begin to pile up, one starts questioning the overall effectiveness of punitive raids that have become a common practice for Western special forces units.

After sixteen years of war in Afghanistan and hundreds, if not thousands, of such raids carried out by special forces, there is still no end in sight for Taliban activity. These raids fail to reduce the support this movement has been enjoying among the population, in fact, they’ve made the Taliban even more powerful. In 2002, the Taliban forces were believed to amount to seven thousand fighters, in 2016 the estimated number of militants fighting for its cause has surpassed twenty five thousand people. The continuous raids committed by Western special forces, in spite of the mounting death toll of the Afghan population, have not changed the course of the war.

As the number of war crimes committed by the US and its allies across the Middle East and Central Asia continue to grow, one can only wonder if the criminals will ever be brought to justice?

Jean Périer is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

Featured image from New Eastern Outlook

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

Unlike Obama’s frosty relations with Putin, Trump appears genuinely interested in getting along with his counterpart and improving bilateral ties with Russia.

It’s the only way to prevent confrontation. The alternative is possible conflict between the world’s dominant nuclear powers – the unthinkable risk of nuclear war, assuring losers, not winners, if launched, putting humanity’s survival up for grabs.

Congress and key administration members oppose improved bilateral relations, holding Trump hostage to their agenda, hamstringing his outreach, blocking any attempt on his part to lift illegally imposed sanctions, along with working cooperatively with Putin on key geopolitical issues.

On Saturday, GOP and undemocratic Democrat House and Senate leaders agreed on legislation, imposing harsh new sanctions on Russia over nothing – phony reasons, wanting adversarial relations continued unobstructed by Trump’s efforts to improve things.

Neocon Dem Senator Ben Cardin said

“(a) nearly united Congress is poised to send President Putin a clear message on behalf of the American people and our allies, and we need President Trump to help us deliver that message.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said voting on the Russia, Iran and North Korea Sanctions Act is scheduled for July 25.

The measure is certain to pass both houses overwhelmingly, maybe by unanimous voice vote, preventing Trump’s ability to stop it by presidential veto if he chooses this option.

On any congressional legislation pertaining to Russia, he’s between a rock and a hard place, virtually without options to go his own way – other than stating his views, expressing a desire for improved bilateral relations.

Making this choice would further isolate him from Washington’s political establishment and hostile media.

Publicly opposing congressional action, along with going his own way on Russia, would make him more vulnerable to impeachment and removal from office than already.

In June, Senate members overwhelmingly passed the earlier version of the measure by a 98 – 2 vote. Doing so violated the Constitution’s “blue slip” clause, requiring legislation involving revenue raising to originate only in the House.

Negotiations between House and Senate leaders of both parties resolved the issue to move forward toward passing legislation – likely this week in both houses.

The measure targets Russia’s intelligence and defense apparatus, its energy, mining, railways and shipping industries, along with Russian officials wrongfully accused of corruption and human rights abuses.

The first concrete weight coated (CWC) pipes for the planned 1,200 kilometre Nord Stream 2 twin pipelines arrived today by rail at the Port of Koverhar in Hanko, Finland. (Source: Nord Stream 2)

It aims to hamper construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. If completed as planned, it’ll be the world’s longest underwater pipeline.

It’ll be able to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas, its capacity to be doubled by an additional line, the project scheduled for completion in 2019.

According to the Nord Stream 2 web site, it’ll “transport natural gas into the European Union to enhance security of supply, support climate goals and strengthen the internal energy market.”

Russia’s huge natural gas reserves and proximity to other European countries makes it “a natural partner for a new transportation route…”

Brussels and Berlin oppose congressional efforts to undermine the project. A European Commission statement said the measure “is driven primarily by domestic considerations.”

“As we have said repeatedly, it is important that any possible new measures are coordinated between international partners to maintain unity among partners on the sanctions.”

“We are concerned the measures discussed in the US Congress could have unintended consequences, not only when it comes to Transatlantic/G7 unity, but also on EU economic and energy security interests.”

Russia is being targeted for its nonexistent “aggression” in Ukraine and nonexistent US election hacking – baseless accusations to assure adversarial relations remain unchanged.

Given near unanimity in Washington against improving them, Trump is hamstrung in anything he might try to change things.

His choice is between going along or risking impeachment and removal from office by defying Congress.

He’s hostage to their deplorable agenda.

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

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

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

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

Illinois is teetering on bankruptcy and other states are not far behind, largely due to unfunded pension liabilities; but there are solutions. The Federal Reserve could do a round of “QE for Munis.” Or the state could turn its sizable pension fund into a self-sustaining public bank.

Illinois is insolvent, unable to pay its bills. According to Moody’s, the state has $15 billion in unpaid bills and $251 billion in unfunded liabilities. Of these, $119 billion are tied to shortfalls in the state’s pension program. On July 6, 2017, for the first time in two years, the state finally passed a budget, after lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto on raising taxes. But they used massive tax hikes to do it – a 32% increase in state income taxes and 33% increase in state corporate taxes – and still Illinois’ new budget generates only $5 billion, not nearly enough to cover its $15 billion deficit.

Adding to its budget woes, the state is being considered by Moody’s for a credit downgrade, which means its borrowing costs could shoot up. Several other states are in nearly as bad shape, with Kentucky, New Jersey, Arizona and Connecticut topping the list. U.S. public pensions are underfunded by at least $1.8 trillion and probably more, according to expert estimates. They are paying out more than they are taking in, and they are falling short on their projected returns. Most funds aim for about a 7.5% return, but they barely made 1.5% last year.

If Illinois were a corporation, it could declare bankruptcy; but states are constitutionally forbidden to take that route. The state could follow the lead of Detroit and cut its public pension funds, but Illinois has a constitutional provision forbidding that as well. It could follow Detroit in privatizing public utilities (notably water), but that would drive consumer utility prices through the roof. And taxes have been raised about as far as the legislature can be pushed to go.

The state cannot meet its budget because the tax base has shrunk. The economy has shrunk and so has the money supply, triggered by the 2008 banking crisis. Jobs were lost, homes were foreclosed on, and businesses and people quit borrowing, either because they were “all borrowed up” and could not go further into debt or, in the case of businesses, because they did not have sufficient customer demand to warrant business expansion. And today, virtually the entire circulating money supply is created when banks make loans When loans are paid down and new loans are not taken out, the money supply shrinks. What to do?

Quantitative Easing for Munis

There is a deep pocket that can fill the hole in the money supply – the Federal Reserve. The Fed had no problem finding the money to bail out the profligate Wall Street banks following the banking crisis, with short-term loans totaling $26 trillion. It also freed up the banks’ balance sheets by buying $1.7 trillion in mortgage-backed securities with its “quantitative easing” tool. The Fed could do something similar for the local governments that were victims of the crisis. One of its dual mandates is to maintain full employment, and we are nowhere near that now, despite some biased figures that omit those who have dropped out of the workforce or have had to take low-paying or part-time jobs.

The case for a “QE-Muni” was made in an October 2012 editorial in The New York Times titled “Getting More Bang for the Fed’s Buck” by Joseph Grundfest et al. The authors said Republicans and Democrats alike have been decrying the failure to stimulate the economy through needed infrastructure improvements, but shrinking tax revenues and limited debt service capacity have tied the hands of state and local governments. They observed:

State and municipal bonds help finance new infrastructure projects like roads and bridges, as well as pay for some government salaries and services.

. . . [E]very Fed dollar spent in the muni market would absorb a larger percentage of outstanding debt and is likely to have a greater effect on reducing the bonds’ interest rates than the same expenditure in the mortgage market.

. . . [L]owering the borrowing costs for states, cities and counties should not only forestall tax increases (which dampen individual spending), but also make it easier for local governments to pay for police officers, firefighters, teachers and infrastructure improvements.

The authors acknowledged that their QE-Muni proposal faced legal hurdles. The Federal Reserve Act prohibits the central bank from purchasing municipal government debt with a maturity of more than six months, and the beneficial effects expected from QE-Muni would require loans of longer duration. But Congress was then trying to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” so all options were on the table. Today the fiscal cliff has come around again, with threats of the debt ceiling dropping on an embattled Congress. It could be time to look at “QE for Munis” again.

Getting More Bang for the Pensioners’ Bucks

Scott Baker, a senior advisor to the Public Banking Institute and economics editor at OpEdNews, has another idea. He argues that the states are far from broke. They may not be able to balance their budgets with taxes, but a search through their Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) shows that they have massive surplus funds and rainy day funds tucked away around the state, most of them earning minimal returns. (Recall the 1.5% made by the pension funds collectively last year.)

The 2016 CAFR for Illinois shows $94.6 billion in its pension fund alone, and well over $100 billion if other funds are included.  To say it is broke is like saying a retired couple with a million dollars in savings is broke because they can earn only 1.5% on their savings and cannot live on $15,000 a year. What they need to do is to spend some of their savings to meet their budget and invest the rest in something safe but more lucrative.

So here is Baker’s idea for Illinois:

1. Make an iron-clad pledge by law, even in the State Constitution if they can get quick agreement, to provide for pension payouts at the current level and adjusted for inflation in the future.
2. Liquidate the current pension fund and maybe some of the other liquid funds too to pay off all current debts.
3. This will leave them with a great credit rating . . . .
4. Put the remaining tens of billions into a new State Bank, partnering with the beleaguered small and community banks . . . . Use that money to finance state and local businesses and individuals instead of Wall Street schemes and high fund manager fees that will no longer be necessary or advisable, saving the state hundreds of millions a year.

The Public Bank could be built roughly on the model of the hugely successful Bank of North Dakota example, one of the country’s greatest banks, measured by Return on Equity, and scandal-free since its founding in 1919.

The Bank of North Dakota (BND), the nation’s only state-owned bank, has had record profits every year for the last 13 years, with a return on equity in 2016 of 16.6%, twice the national average. Its chief depositor is the state itself, and its mandate is to support the local economy, partnering rather than competing with local banks. Its commercial loans range from 2.4% to 7.5%. The BND makes cheaper loans as well, drawing on loan funds for special programs including infrastructure, startup businesses and affordable housing. Its loan income after deducting allowances for loan losses was $175 million in 2016 on a loan portfolio of $4.7 billion. (2016 BND CAFR, pages 28-29.)That puts the net return on loans at 3.7%.

Illinois could follow North Dakota’s lead. Looking again at the Illinois CAFR (page 45), the amount paid out for pension benefits in 2016 was only $1.833 billion, or less than 2% of the $94.6 billion pool. An Illinois state bank could generate that much in profit, even after paying off the state’s outstanding budget deficit.

Assume Illinois guaranteed its pension payouts, as Baker recommends, then liquidated its pension fund and withdrew $10 billion to meet its current budget shortfall. This would significantly improve its credit rating, allowing it to refinance its long-term debt at a reduced rate. The remaining $85 billion could be put into the state’s own bank, $8 billion as capital and $77 billion as deposits. [See chart below.] At a loan to deposit ratio of 80%, $60 billion could be issued in loans. At a return similar to the BND’s 3.7%, these loans would produce $2.2 billion in interest income. The remaining $17 billion in deposits could be invested in liquid federal securities at 1%, generating an additional $170 million. That would give a net profit of $2.37 billion, enough to cover the $1.8 billion annual pensioners’ payout, with $570 million to spare.

The salubrious result: the pension fund would be self-funding; the state would have a bank that could create credit to support the local economy; the pensioners would have money to spend, increasing demand; the economy would be stimulated, increasing the tax base; and the state would have a good credit rating, allowing it to borrow on the bond market at low interest rates. Better yet, it could borrow from its own bank and pay the interest to itself. The proceeds could then go to its pensioners rather than to bondholders.

Where there is the political will, there is a way. Politicians and central bankers will take radical, game-changing steps in desperate times. We just need to start thinking outside the box, a Wall Street-imposed box that has trapped us in austerity and economic servitude for over a century.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, a Senior Fellow of the Democracy Collaborative, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. A 13^th book titled The Coming Revolution in Banking is due out this fall. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

This article was originally published by Web of Debt Blog.

Featured image from MacombNewsNow.com

The following graph of “Non-farm Payroll Jobs in United States” shows America’s economic recoveries from recession, in numbers of jobs, and indicates very clearly that ever since the peak in 2000, the two recoveries (G.W. Bush, and Obama) have been far less than before; they were only 4% during the G.W. Bush recovery from the Clinton dot-com crash, and 3% during the Obama recovery from the G.W. Bush real-estate crash. This compares with a far higher 21% gain following the G.H.W. Bush slump, and a 19% gain after the prior, the Carter, post-Vietnam-War crash. Both Reagan and Clinton had better results than did Obama.

The opposite side of this coin is the greatly increased sluggishness of the two post-2000 recoveries, especially Obama’s:

This has been a summary of an excellent 15 March 2017 article by Ryan McMacken at the libertarian von Mises Institute blog, titled “The ‘We’ve Created Millions of Jobs’ Myth”.

McMacken, being a libertarian, wasn’t interested in what types of “jobs” those were, or the pay of those “jobs” (because libertarians are uninterested in the distributions of income, and of wealth — or of anything, including “jobs”). However, as has been well-publicized, the distribution, of both wealth and income, has become far more heavily skewed toward the high end after 2000 than it was prior, and the U.S. economy has been hollowed-out so that wages are now flat or going down in the post-2000 U.S. economy, and economic opportunity for people in the lower half is declining, while economic opportunity for the top 5% has been soaring. (Maybe we’ll end up with a world in which there are a few trillionaires, plus millions of robots, and billions of impoverished people who survive as zombies.) A progressive prefers equality of opportunity, and so is disturbed by such gross inequalities, which vastly exceed any natural differences, but a libertarian ignores inequity and simply trusts in the ‘justice’ of “the market.” However, at the time when America’s economy was at its peak, both in growth and in distributional equity, which was 1975-1980, the U.S. economy was much more resilient, and more able to recover quickly from slumps, than it has since become. There is a positive association between equity and growth in economics (they increase together, as shown here and here), even though libertarians ignore it and often go so far as to assume a negative correlation between equity and growth (thereby ‘justifying’ their obsession with only growth). The post-2000 governmental money-funnel, from the masses to the classes, has actually stifled not promoted economic growth in the U.S., just as those studies (the “here and here”) indicate has happened throughout the world. That’s empirical economic data (worldwide, not just in the U.S.). But economic theory — upon which libertarianism is based — ignores such data, because these data are inconvenient for the theory. Data that disprove the aristocracy’s ideology — that disprove that a person’s worthiness is measured by his or her net worth (wealth or poverty), and that therefore disprove that the most effective way to increase per-capita GDP or a nation’s economic success is to treat everybody’s dollars as being equal in terms of personal welfare and not only in terms of interpersonal trade; i.e., that disprove that the interpersonal distribution of wealth does not matter and has no effect on or does not affect the nation’s per-capita GDP — such economic data have no impact on, and do not significantly extent affect, economic theory. A new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, has just been published by historian Nancy MacLean and is summarized by columnist George Monbiot in the July 19th Guardian; it describes the rape (or prostitution, at least) by American billionaires after World War II, of the economics profession, and of the Nobel prizes in economics, so as to keep economic theory this way (which it has actually been ever since at least the 1700s, “laissez faire”).

Anyway, since 2000, both growth and its distribution have performed poorly in the U.S., and this has been a bipartisan, Republican and Democratic Party, economic failure.

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.

First published by Global Research on October 19, 2016

During most of the past two decades Washington has aggressively launched military and economic wars against at least nine countries, either directly or through its military aid to regional allies and proxies.  US air and ground troops have bombed or invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

More recently Washington has escalated its global economic war against major economic rivals as well as against weaker countries.  The US no longer confines its aggressive impulses to peripheral economic countries in the Middle East, Latin America and Southern Asia:  It has declared trade wars against world powers in Asia, Eastern and Central Europe and the Gulf states.

The targets of the US economic aggression include economic powerhouses like Russia, China, Germany, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba and the Donbas region of Ukraine.

There is an increasingly thinner distinction between military and economic warfare, as the US has frequently moved from one to the other, particularly when economic aggression has not resulted in ‘regime change’ – as in the case of the sanctions campaign against Iraq leading up to the devastating invasion and destruction.

Prof. Jame Petras (right)

In this essay, we propose to examine the strategies and tactics underlying Washington’s economic warfare, their successes and failures, and the political and economic consequences to target nations and to world stability.

Washington’s Economic Warfare and Global Power

The US has used different tactical weapons as it pursues its economic campaigns against targeted adversaries and even against its long-time allies.

Two supposed allies, Germany and Saudi Arabia, have been attacked by the Obama Administration and US Congress via ‘legal’ manipulations aimed at their financial systems and overseas holdings.  This level of aggression against sovereign powers is remarkable and reckless.  In 2016 the US Justice Department slapped a $14 billion dollar penalty on Germany’s leading international bank, Deutsche Bank, throwing the German stock market into chaos, driving the bank’s shares down 40% and destabilizing  Germany’s financial system.  This unprecedented attack on an ally’s major bank was in direct retaliation for Germany’s support of the European Commission’s $13 billion tax levy against the US-tax evading Apple Corporation for its notorious financial shenanigans in Ireland.  German political and business leaders immediately dismissed Washington’s legalistic rhetoric for what it was: the Obama Administration’s retaliation in order to protect America’s tax evading and money laundering multinationals.

The chairman of the German parliament’s economic committee stated that the gross US attempt to extort Deutsche Bank had  all the elements of an economic war.   He noted that Washington had a “long tradition of using every available opportunity to wage what amounted to a  trade war if it benefits their own economy” and the “extortionate damages claim” against Deutsche Bank were a punitive example.  US economic sanctions against some of Germany’s major trade partners, like Russia, China and Iran, constitute another tactic to undermine Germany’s huge export economy.  Ironically, Germany is still considered “a valued ally” when it comes to the US wars against Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, which have driven millions of refugees to Europe creating havoc with Germany’s political, economic and social system and threatening to overthrow the government of ‘ally’ Angela Merkel.

The US Congress launched an economic-judicial war against its closest ally in the Gulf region when it approved legislation granting US victims of Islamist terrorism, especially related to the attacks on September 11, 2001,the right  to sue the government of Saudi Arabia and seize its overseas assets.  This included the Kingdom’s immense ‘sovereign funds’ and constitutes an arbitrary and blatant violation of Saudi sovereignty.  This opens the Pandora’s Box of economic warfare by allowing victims to sue any government for sponsoring terrorism, including the United States!   Saudi leaders immediately reacted by threatening to withdraw billions of dollars of assets in US Treasuries and investments.

The US economic sanctions against Russia are designed to strengthen its stranglehold on the economies of Europe which rely on trade with Russia.  These have especially weakened German and Polish trade relations with Russia, a major market for German industrial exports and Polish agriculture products.   Originally, the US-imposed economic sanctions against Moscow were supposed to harm Russian consumers, provoke political unrest and lead to ‘regime change’.   In reality, the unrest it provoked has been mainly among European exporters, whose contracts with Russia were shredded and billions of Euros were lost.  Furthermore, the political and diplomatic climate between Europe and Russia has deteriorated while Washington has ‘pivoted’ toward a more militaristic approach.

Results in Asia have been even more questionable:  Washington’s economic campaign against China has moved awkwardly in two directions:  Prejudicial trade deals with Asian-Pacific countries and a growing US military encirclement of China’s maritime trade routes.

The Obama regime dispatched Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to promote the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) among a dozen regional governments, which would blatantly exclude China, Asia’s largest economic power.   In a slap to the outgoing Obama Administration, the US Congress rejected his showpiece economic weapon against China, the TPP.

Meanwhile, Obama ‘encouraged’ his erstwhile ‘allies’ in the Philippines and Vietnam to sue China for maritime violations over the disputed ‘Spratly Islands’ before the Permanent Court of Arbitration.   Japan and Australia signed military pacts and base agreements with the Pentagon aimed at disrupting China’s trade routes.  Obama’s so-called ‘Pivot to Asia’ is a transparent campaign to block China from its markets and trading partners in Southeast Asia and Pacific countries of Latin American.  Washington’s flagrant economic warfare resulted in slapping harsh import tariffs on Chinese industrial exports, especially steel and tires.  The US also sent a ‘beefed up’ air and sea armada for ‘joint exercises’ along China’s regional trade routes and its access to critical Persian Gulf oil, setting off a ‘war of tension’.

In response to Washington’s ham-fisted aggression, the Chinese government deftly rolled out the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with over fifty countries eagerly signing on for lucrative trade and investment deals with Beijing.  The AIIB’s startling success does not bode well for Obama’s ‘Pivot to Pacific Hegemony’.

The so-called US-EU-Iran accord did not end Washington’s trade war against Teheran.  Despite Iran’s agreement to dismantle its peaceful uranium enrichment and nuclear research programs, Washington has blocked  investors and tried to undermine trade relations, while still holding billions of dollars of Iranian state assets, frozen since the overthrow of the Shah in  1979.  Nevertheless, a German trade mission signed on a three billion trade agreement with Iran in early October 2016 and called on the US to fulfill its side of the agreement with Teheran – so far to no avail.

The US stands alone in sending its nuclear naval armada to the Persian Gulf and threatens commercial relations. Even the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the longstanding enemy of the Iranian Islamic Republic, has agreed to a cooperative oil production arrangement at a recent OPEC meeting.

Washington’s declaration of economic warfare against two of its most strategic powerful allies, Germany and Saudi Arabia and three rising competitor world powers, has eroded US economic competitiveness, undermined its access to lucrative markets and increased its reliance on aggressive military strategies over diplomacy.

What is striking and perplexing about Washington’s style of economic warfare is how costly this has been for the US economy and for US allies, with so little concrete benefit.

US oil companies have lost billions in joint exploitation deals with Russia because of Obama’s sanctions.  US bankers, agro-exporters, high-tech companies are missing out on lucrative sales just to ‘punish’ Russia over the incredibly corrupt and bankrupt US coup regime in Ukraine.

US multi-national corporations, especially those involved in Pacific Coast transport and shipyards, Silicon Valley high tech industry and Washington State’s agro-export producers are threatened by the US trade agreements that exclude China.

Iran’s billion dollar market is looking for everything from commercial airplanes to mining machinery.  Huge trade deals have has been lost to US companies because Obama continues to impose de facto sanctions.  Meanwhile, European and Asian competitors are signing contracts.

Despite Washington’s dependence on German technical knowhow and Saudi petro-dollar investments as key to its global ambitions, Obama’s irrational policies continue to undermine US trade.

Washington has engaged in economic warfare against ‘lesser economic powers’ that nevertheless play significant political roles in their regions.  The US retains the economic boycott of Cuba; it wages economic aggression against Venezuela and imposes economic sanctions against Syria, Yemen and the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.  While these countries are not costly in terms of economic loss to US business interests, they exercise significant political and ideological influence in their regions, which undermine US ambitions.

Conclusion

Washington’s resort to economic warfare complements its military fueled empire building.

But economic and military warfare are losing propositions.  While the US may extract a few billion dollars from Deutsch Bank, it will have lost much more in long-term, large-scale relations with German industrialists, politicians and financiers.  This is critical because Germany plays the key role in shaping economic policy in the European Union.  The practice of US multi-national corporations seeking off-shore tax havens in the EU may come to a grinding halt when the European Commission finishes its current investigations.  The Germans may not be too sympathetic to their American competitors.

Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has not only collapse, it has compelled China to open new avenues for trade and cooperation with Asian-Pacific nations – exactly the opposite of its original goal of isolating Beijing.  China’s Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) has attracted 4 time more participants than Washington’s TPP and massive infrastructure projects are being financed to further bind ASEAN countries to China.  China’s economic growth at 6.7% more than three times that of the US at 2%.  Worse, for the Obama Administration, Washington has alienated its historically most reliable allies, as China, deepens economic ties and cooperation agreements with Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan, Cambodia and Laos.

Iran, despite US sanctions, is gaining markets and trade with Germany, Russia, China and the EU.

The Saudi-US conflict has yet to play-out but any escalation of law suits against the kingdom will result in the flight of hundreds of billions of investment dollars from the US.

In effect, Obama’s campaign of economic warfare may lead to the infinitely more costly military warfare and the massive loss of jobs and profits for the US economy.   Washington is increasingly isolated. The only allies supporting its campaign of economic sanctions are second and third rate powers, like Poland and current corrupt parasites in Ukraine.  As long as the Poles and Ukrainians can ‘mooch’ off of the IMF and grab EU and US ‘loans’, they will cheerlead Obama’s charge against Russia.  Israel, as long as it can gobble up an additional $38 billion dollars in ‘aid’ from Washington, remains  the biggest advocate for war against Iran.

Washington spends billions of US tax-payer dollars on its military bases in Japan, Philippines and Australia to maintain its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.   Its allies, though, are salivating at the prospect for greater trade and infrastructure investment  deals with China.

Economic warfare doesn’t work for the Washington because the US economy cannot compete, especially when it attacks its own allies and traditional partners.  Its regional allies are keen to join the ‘forbidden’ markets and share in major investment projects funded by China.  Asian leaders increasingly view Washington, with its ‘pivot to militarism’ as politically unreliable, unstable and dangerous.  After the Philippine government economic mission to China, expect more to ‘jump ship’.

Economic warfare against declared adversaries can only succeed if the US is committed to free trade with its allies, ends punitive sanctions and stops pushing for exclusive trade treaties that undermine its allies’ economies.   Furthermore, Washington should stop catering to the whims of special domestic interests.  Absent these changes, its losing campaign of economic warfare can only turn into military warfare – a prospect devastating to the US economy and to world peace.

In less than a year, the US-led siege in Mosul has not only resulted to a horrendous shedding of blood and countless of properties transformed into rubble; more than the physical damages are the psychological effects it has wrought in the lives of those who survived the US-led bombings.

Question is, what did they gain from this brutish destruction? After Mosul has been raped and destroyed, is it qualifying to call it a “liberation”? Read our selection of articles below.

*     *     *

Corporate Media Largely Silent on Trump’s Civilian Death Toll in Iraq

By Adam Johnson, July 23, 2017

The expulsion of ISIS from Mosul by the US-led coalition did receive coverage, but the US role in killing civilians was uniformly ignored.

Empire of Destruction

By Tom Engelhardt, July 23, 2017

In recent weeks, another major city in Iraq has officially been “liberated” (almost) from the militants of the Islamic State. However, the results of the U.S.-backed Iraqi military campaign to retake Mosul, that country’s second largest city, don’t fit any ordinary definition of triumph or victory.

Iraqi Sources Place Real Death Toll in US-led Siege of Mosul at 40,000

By Bill Van Auken, July 23, 2017

The sheer scale of the killing makes the siege of Mosul one of the greatest war crimes of the post-World War II era. While before the city fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in June of 2014 it had a population of approximately 2 million, by the time the siege began, there were still at least 1.2 million civilians trapped in Mosul. This population was subjected to horrific violence.

US-Installed Iraqi Regime: Torture and Murder

By Stephen Lendman, July 17, 2017

US forces are directly involved in combat operations and their aftermath, aware of the brutality inflicted on detainees, maybe encouraging it, civilians held hostage by ISIS enduring similar or harsher treatment from their Iraqi captors.

The Engineered Destruction and Political Fragmentation of Iraq

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 14, 2017

The ISIS, a construct of US intelligence  was dispatched to Iraq in Summer 2014. With limited paramilitary capabilities it occupied Mosul.

Iraqi forces were coopted by the US to let it happen. The Iraqi military commanders were manipulated and paid off, They allowed the city to fall into the hands of the ISIS rebels without “a single shot being fired”.

The “Liberation” of Mosul: Another Fallujah, Dresden – or Hiroshima?

By Felicity Arbuthnot, June 01, 2017

Mosul, as so much of Iraq, has suffered unimaginably under ISIS – but it is hard to spot the difference from how Iraq suffered under the US and UK (and are again.) The US bombed the city during the 2003 invasion, murdered Saddam Hussein’s two sons and fifteen year old grandson there in July 2003 – no Judge or jury, just US ISIS style summary executions – as across the nation.

US-NATO Holocaust in Iraq: The Depopulation and Destruction of Mosul

By Mark Taliano, July 12, 2017

The end result, therefore, is not the liberation of Mosul, but rather the destruction of Mosul for the perceived benefit of criminal, genocidal, imperial warmongers who hide their crimes beneath the Big Lies of the “War on Terror” and “Humanitarian Invasions”.

*     *     *

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Earlier this week, human rights group Amnesty International issued a lengthy report accusing US-backed forces of “repeated violations of international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to war crimes,” in Mosul, Iraq, causing the deaths of at least 3,700 civilians. Neither this report, nor the broader issue of the civilian toll in the US war against ISIS, has come close to penetrating US corporate media.

The only major radio or television outlet to report on Amnesty’s claims was NPR (7/12/17). While traditional print outlets, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, did run Reuters (7/11/17) and AP (7/12/17) articles, respectively, on the report, neither covered it themselves. Neither Amnesty’s charges, nor the broader issue of civilian deaths in Mosul,  garnered any coverage in television news, with no mention on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN or MSNBC.

The expulsion of ISIS from Mosul by the US-led coalition did receive coverage, but the US role in killing civilians was uniformly ignored.

CBS News’ reports (6/25/17, 7/4/17, 7/9/17) made no mention of US responsibility for civilian deaths, referring only vaguely to “a rising civilian death toll” and “whole neighborhoods” that “cease to exist.” The role of US bombing role in that rising death toll or those no-longer-existing neighborhoods was never mentioned.

In one report (6/23/17), correspondent Charlie D’Agata, standing over a pile of rubble, said to the camera,

“Whole buildings, whole neighborhoods have been wiped out, this is what it cost to get rid of ISIS.”

Who helped “wiped out” the buildings and neighborhoods is left a mystery.

Amnesty International’s report on the plight of civilians in Mosul, where ISIS “has systematically moved them into zones of conflict, used them as human shields and prevented them from escaping to safety,” while they “have also been subjected to relentless and unlawful attacks by Iraqi government forces and members of the US-led coalition.”

One slight exception was ABC Nightline (7/14/17), which reported on summary executions and torture by Iraqi special forces, but made no mention of direct US responsibility for the bombing of Mosul. It did, however, accuse the US of “turning a blind eye” to crimes committed by others.  The remaining ABC News reports (7/5/17, 7/12/17), like the others, overlooked US-caused civilian casualties.

One 10-minute report for Nightline (7/12/17) made reference to “thousands killed,” but pinned the blame for those deaths squarely on ISIS. After hearing an airstrike in the distance, correspondent Ian Pannell sang the praises of bombing raids, insisting,

“It’s hard to imagine that [Iraqi fighters] would have got this far forward—despite their brave fighting—without their support.”

He then profiled two victims of US-led airstrikes and Iraqi army gunfire, but said they were “forced to help [ISIS], they were used as human shields. ISIS fighters made them run into the line of fire of the advancing Iraqi army.”

CNN (6/26/17, 6/29/17, 7/10/17) likewise didn’t mention US responsibility for civilian deaths, repeating the “ISIS using human shields” justification advanced by all major outlets.

(To be clear, as Amnesty pointed out, ISIS certainly is using civilians as human shields, but this doesn’t nearly account for all casualties: The US and its allies “continued to rely upon imprecise, explosive weapons, ignoring the ever-growing toll of civilian death and injuries.” Similarly, civilians in Aleppo were not allowed to leave by jihadist groups like Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, according to the UN, but Russia and Syria still bombed heavily for years.)

NBC/MSNBC stuck to a similar line. In one nine-minute segment (MSNBC, 7/14/17), Andrea Mitchell didn’t mention Iraqi civilians once, much less their massive death toll—and incidentally painted Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, which killed an estimated half million people, as an unfortunate error, insisting it was full of “tragic miscalculations.”

Democracy Now! (7/18/17) was one of the few outlets to cover Amnesty’s report on Mosul atrocities.

A separate segment by Richard Engel (MSNBC, 7/14/17) on Pete Reed, an ex-Marine who is treating civilians in Mosul, made no mention of deaths caused by US bombing, instead—as with ABC’s Ian Pannell—framing all the deaths as the sole responsibility of ISIS. After showing a 12-year-old girl blinded by shrapnel, Engel opaquely refers to “an airstrike” that caused the injury, but curiously doesn’t say whose airstrike it was. He then insists the doctor treating her wouldn’t be able to do so under the Islamic State, because she is female—thus turning the treatment of a victim of a US airstrike into evidence of why that airstrike was justified. Everything is reframed as pro–US bombing, even when highlighting the victims of said bombing.

Can one imagine this frame in reporting on Russia’s siege of Aleppo? Can one imagine highlighting Syrian and Russian doctors, treating the very civilians their governments just bombed, in such an uncritical manner? Can one imagine the US media blaming all the deaths caused by Russian bombing as the sole fault of those occupying the city?  Unlike reporting on Aleppo (FAIR.org, 1/4/17), Engel makes no mention of civilian deaths caused by US bombs, no figures, no mention of war crimes, no mention of Trump’s open disregard for civilian casualties. It’s a breathless Pentagon press release that never questions the motives or effect of Trump’s bombing campaign.

Obviously, the two instances aren’t exactly the same, but the stark 180-degree difference in how the Russian and US sieges were covered is an object lesson in nationalistic ethos. Because ISIS is seen as an unmitigated evil, and the US as an unmitigated good, no death toll is too high. Indeed—no death toll is even worth mentioning. The Americans rode in, the baddies got theirs, and any costs to human life US bombing may have caused are incidental and unworthy of mention.

Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org.

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

The Trump administration on Friday officially announced that Anthony Scaramucci (image on the left)—a former Goldman Sachs executive who describes himself simply as an “American entrepreneur”—will be the new White House communications director.

At an afternoon briefing, Scaramucci spoke with reporters for the first time and announced that Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be taking over as White House press secretary in the wake of Sean Spicer‘s resignation earlier in the day. Spicer, according to reports, resigned from his post at least partially due to Trump’s decision to bring Scaramucci on board to lead the communication’s team.

Not widely known, here are at least a few things you should know about Scaramucci, including a few highlights from Friday’s briefing.

First of all, Scaramucci loves literature

In 2012, “The Mooch” tweeted, “Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like its heaven on earth,” and falsely attributed the quote to Mark Twain.

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like its heaven on earth. MarkTwain

— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) June 15, 2012

A Strange Choice or Sound Judgement?

In tweet back in February 2012—which has since been deleted—Scaramucci referred to Trump as “odd” and said he has “no judgment.” During a segment on Fox Business in 2015, he referred to Trump as a “hack politician” who was “un-American.” He also said,“I don’t like the way he talks about women.”

“The Mooch” also told Donald Trump to “bring it” after calling him “an inherited-money dude from Queens County.”

“I’ll tell you who he’s gonna be president of, you can tell Donald I said this: the Queens County Bullies Association,” Scaramucci added.

Watch:

Back when he was backing Bush, Walker, Scaramucci called Trump a hack, anti-American, predicted his candidacy would end before Thanksgiving pic.twitter.com/J44iwa3Q6N

— Adam Khan (@Khanoisseur) July 21, 2017

The Wall Street “Mooch”

Scaramucci worked at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers before establishing his own hedge fund, SkyBridge Capital, in 2005. On Wall Street he was known by the nickname “The Mooch,” and he’s been criticized for shady hedge fund practices and his self-promotion habits.

Amateur Hour!

Reportedly, no one wanted Trump to hire “The Mooch.” Top Trump administration officials told The Daily Beast they were “worried that the Scaramucci hiring would perpetuate the notion of ‘amateur hour’ in the West Wing.”

Scaramucci is reportedly in the process of wiping his Twitter account of comments he’s made in support of gun control, though some evidence remains:

Weirdly these are being deleted! But the Internet is forever, Anthony Scaramucci. pic.twitter.com/wYTeULnxMW

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) July 21, 2017

If the President Says It… It’s Not A Lie

When asked during Friday’s press conference what he thinks of President Trump‘s claim that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, Scaramucci responded,

“If the president said it, there’s probably some level of truth to it.”

“Huge, Enormous Respect for Steve Bannon”

Scaramucci, when asked about nature of his relationship with Steve Bannon: "He's got a strong personality. I have a strong personality." pic.twitter.com/lUtEtEj94S

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 21, 2017

Professional Schmoozer

Fusion‘s Hamilton Nolan noted that while “Scaramucci has a Harvard and Goldman Sachs pedigree…no one has ever accused him of being an investment genius; rather, he has built his career on a preternatural ability to schmooze, which is powered by a very genuine, almost pathological, need to be liked.”

Everything is fine in Trump’s White House. Everything is just fine.

[Prefatory Note: Below is an Open Letter prepared under the direction of Vida Samiian of State University of California at Fresno on behalf of California scholars defending against any effort to abridge academic freedom anywhere in the world, but particularly in California and the United States. The group has been recently sensitive to issues surrounding Israel/Palestine, Zionism, and alleged Anti-Semitism, but it also references attacks elsewhere in the world that encroach upon academic freedom.

The Open Letter references a defamatory article about me that recycles the by now familiar litany of mistakes, distortions, smears, and array of cherrypicking (mis)interpretations to create a false impression as to my actual views on controversial current issues. The evidentiary background of the article relies on the work of UN Watch, a supposed NGO that takes on all critics of Israel, especially at the UN, and made a habit of regularly launching harassing attacks on me during my six years as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine. Their efforts included writing long derogatory letters to UN diplomats and public officials in governments complaining about my views, and urging my dismissal by the UN Secretary General. On this occasion as discussed in the Open Letter the attacks on me were contained in an article in the current issue of the conservative magazine written by intern, National Review, and can be found here.

Such an attack is part of the concerted Zionist pushback against its critics, what I call ‘the Zionist War of Cultural Aggression,’ with the main current battlefields being university campus venues that host events or speakers critical of Israel or give aid and support to the BDS campaign. Unlike the South African anti-apartheid movement that relied on similar tactics to those relied upon by supporters of the Palestinian national struggle where apologists for apartheid were hostile to the movement, there was never an attempt as here, to take punitive action against those who expressed their hostility to apartheid by advocating various forms of militant nonviolence as expressive of global solidarity. Here the focus is on the role of the right-wing media in creating a climate of opinion that supports frantic Zionist efforts to intimidate and punish vocal critics of Israel, creating a crisis of confidence with regard to the exercise of academic freedom.]

***

OPEN LETTER

CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM

The Extremist Zionist Media Campaign Gone Too Far

As recently as five years ago Zionist extremists would engage campus speakers or events perceived as pro-Palestinian with substantive questions. Sometimes it was obvious that these questions were prepared in advance by some lobbying group as the student who spoke had a list of questions, was surrounded by several supporters, and usually left the conference hall without even waiting for a response. It was a disconcerting abuse of the discussion dimension of campus treatment of a controversial issue of great importance to the society as a whole.

This pattern of involvement has been abandoned in recent years by Zionist extremists. Instead a more insidious set of tactics has been adopted. Substantive engagement, even of a purely argumentative kind, is no longer even attempted, likely reflecting the reality that both the law and the moral dimensions of the Israel/Palestine relationship overwhelmingly support Palestinian grievances if fairly considered and give almost no aid and comfort to Israeli claims.

Instead of substantive engagement, the most ardent Israeli supporters smear critics of Israeli government policies, contending that criticism of Israel is ‘the new anti-Semitism,’ a position sadly endorsed by the Obama State Department and the Republican Congress, as well as several state legislatures. From such a standpoint, Palestinian supporters and their undertakings are demeaned and smeared while engaging in highly legitimate political discourse. Even the most qualified speakers are attacked before their scheduled appearances, often reinforced by back channel efforts. Usually stimulated and facilitated by more extremist national Zionist organizations, pressures are exerted on university administrations to cancel events. Additionally, local media is alerted so as to shift the focus of public interest as much as possible from message to messenger. The whole idea is to wound the messenger badly, and by so doing, create enough noise to drown out the message, a technique that often engages a compliant local media.

These tactics also seek a punitive backlash directed at Palestinian solidarity initiatives, especially the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Campaign, a nonviolent approach to ending abuses of the Palestinian people, which organizes advocacy of economic disengagement from commercial relationships with unlawful Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as academic, economic, and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions that serve to prolong the occupation and otherwise defy international law. Such tactics resemble the anti-apartheid campaign of the 1980s that proved so effective in bringing about the collapse of the racist regime in South Africa. What is most relevant to notice is that even those who opposed the South African BDS campaign never sought to ban its demonstrations or degrade and punish its leaders, which is what opponents of the Israel BDS campaign are intent on doing.

What we are describing amounts to a Zionist cultural war of aggression against academic freedom in the United States, but also in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It targets professors, student activists, and campus activities, which has an overall chilling effect (1). For every speaker or event that is cancelled, many more are not undertaken for fear of the backlash. These wider, largely invisible repercussions are rarely discussed, but their impact is significant. More junior colleagues are advised to avoid such zones of potentially toxic consequences that could cast a dark shadow over an entire career as has been the case with even such a notable established scholar as Norman Finkelstein, as well as disrupting the academic future of promising junior scholars such as Steven Salaita.

We also take note of the wider reach of these efforts to discredit scholars who undertake public service beyond the confines of the academic community. The National Review in its issue of July 1, 2017 devotes an entire article to showing what a bad organization the United Nations has become because it had appointed an allegedly notorious anti-Semite, Richard Falk, to assess the Israeli treatment of Palestinians living under occupation. In fact, Richard Falk is one of the most highly respected and recognized international scholars of human rights law. He is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus at Princeton University and has been a Visiting Distinguished Professor and Research Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 2002. He taught international law and politics at Princeton University for forty years. He has served the United Nations in several capacities, including acting as a formally designated advisor to the President of the General Assembly in 2009. He has been a vice president of the American Society of International Law and currently serves as Senior Vice President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Board of Directors.

The fact that an established conservative magazine would publish an article filled with smears, distortions, mistakes, and malicious cherry picking is of a piece with this concerted wider effort to discredit those who speak truth to power, while warning others to maintain silence or face the consequences.

Under these conditions two things seem imperative. First, calling attention to and seeking to counteract the alarming magnitude and insidiousness of this assault on academic freedom. Secondly, organizing support for and solidarity with those who are victimized, both directly and indirectly, by these Zionist tactics detrimental to academic freedom.

Contact persons for Cs4af:

Sondra Hale, Research Professor
University of California, Los Angeles
sonhale@ucla.edu

Manzar Foroohar, Professor of History
CSU San Luis Obispo
manzarforoohar@gmail.com

Claudio Fogu, Associate Professor Italian Studies
University of California Santa Barbara
claudiofogu@ucsb.edu

Nancy Gallagher, Research Professor
Department of History
University of California, Santa Barbara
[email protected]

Katherine King, Professor of Comparative Literature
University of California Los Angeles
[email protected]

Dennis Kortheuer, History, Emeritus
California State University Long Beach

David Lloyd, Distinguished Professor of Englis
University of California, Riverside
[email protected]

Lisa Rofel, Professor of Anthropology
University of California, Santa Cruz
[email protected]

Vida Samiian, Professor of Linguistics & Dean Emerita
California State University, Fresno
[email protected]

***

CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM (cs4af) is a group of over 200 scholars who defend academic freedom, the right of shared governance, and the First Amendment rights of faculty and students in the academy and beyond. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere. California Scholars for Academic Freedom investigates legislative and administrative infringements on freedom of speech and assembly, and it raises the consciousness of politicians, university regents and administrators, faculty, students and the public at large through open letters, press releases, petitions, statements, and articles.

Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He initiated this blog partly in celebration of his 80th birthday.

Note

1. http://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/california-scholars-academic/

You remember. It was supposed to be twenty-first-century war, American-style: precise beyond imagining; smart bombs; drones capable of taking out a carefully identified and tracked human being just about anywhere on Earth; special operations raids so pinpoint-accurate that they would represent a triumph of modern military science.  Everything “networked.” It was to be a glorious dream of limited destruction combined with unlimited power and success. In reality, it would prove to be a nightmare of the first order.

If you want a single word to summarize American war-making in this last decade and a half, I would suggest rubble. It’s been a painfully apt term since September 11, 2001. In addition, to catch the essence of such war in this century, two new words might be useful: rubblize and rubblization. Let me explain what I mean.

In recent weeks, another major city in Iraq has officially been “liberated” (almost) from the militants of the Islamic State. However, the results of the U.S.-backed Iraqi military campaign to retake Mosul, that country’s second largest city, don’t fit any ordinary definition of triumph or victory. It began in October 2016 and, at nine months and counting, has been longer than the World War II battle of Stalingrad. Week after week, in street to street fighting, with U.S. airstrikes repeatedly called in on neighborhoods still filled with terrified Mosulites, unknown but potentially staggering numbers of civilians have died. More than a million people — yes, you read that figure correctly — were uprooted from their homes and major portions of the Western half of the city they fled, including its ancient historic sections, have been turned into rubble.

This should be the definition of victory as defeat, success as disaster. It’s also a pattern. It’s been the essential story of the American war on terror since, in the month after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush loosed American air power on Afghanistan. That first air campaign began what has increasingly come to look like the full-scale rubblization of significant parts of the Greater Middle East.

By not simply going after the crew who committed those attacks but deciding to take down the Taliban, occupy Afghanistan, and in 2003, invade Iraq, Bush’s administration opened the proverbial can of worms in that vast region. An imperial urge to overthrow Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, who had once been Washington’s guy in the Middle East only to become its mortal enemy (and who had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11), proved one of the fatal miscalculations of the imperial era.

So, too, did the deeply engrained fantasy of Bush administration officials that they controlled a high-tech, precision military that could project power in ways no other nation on the planet or in history ever had; a military that would be, in the president’s words, “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” With Iraq occupied and garrisoned (Korea-style) for generations to come, his top officials assumed that they would take down fundamentalist Iran (sound familiar?) and other hostile regimes in the region, creating a Pax Americana there.  (Hence, the particular irony of the present Iranian ascendancy in Iraq.) In the pursuit of such fantasies of global power, the Bush administration, in effect, punched a devastating hole in the oil heartlands of the Middle East. In the pungent imagery of Abu Mussa, head of the Arab League at the time, the U.S. chose to drive straight through “the gates of hell.”

Rubblizing the Greater Middle East

In the 15-plus years since 9/11, parts of an expanding swathe of the planet — from Pakistan’s borderlands in South Asia to Libya in North Africa — were catastrophically unsettled. Tiny groups of Islamic terrorists multiplied exponentially into both local and transnational organizations, spreading across the region with the help of American “precision” warfare and the anger it stirred among helpless civilian populations. States began to totter or fail. Countries essentially collapsed, loosing a tide of refugees on the world, as year after year, the U.S. military, its Special Operations forces, and the CIA were increasingly deployed in one fashion or another in one country after another.

Though in case after case the results were visibly disastrous, like so many addicts, the three post-9/11 administrations in Washington seemed incapable of drawing the obvious conclusions and instead continued to do more of the same (with modest adjustments of one sort of another). The results, unsurprisingly enough, were similarly disappointing or disastrous.

Despite the doubts about such a form of global warfare that candidate Trump raised during the 2016 election campaign, the process has only escalated in the first months of his presidency. Washington, it seems, just can’t help itself in its drive to pursue this version of war in all its grim imprecision to its increasingly imprecise but predictably destructive conclusions. Worse yet, if the leading military and political figures in Washington have their way, none of this may end in our lifetime. (In recent years, for example, the Pentagon and those who channel its thoughts have begun speaking of a “generational approach” or a “generational struggle” in Afghanistan.)

If anything, so many years after it was launched, the war on terror shows every sign of continuing to expand and rubble is increasingly the name of the game. Here’s a very partial tally sheet on the subject:

In addition to Mosul, a number of Iraq’s other major cities and towns — including Ramadi and Fallujah — have also been reduced to rubble. Across the border in Syria, where a brutal civil war has been raging for six years, numerous cities and towns from Homs to parts of Aleppo have essentially been destroyed. Raqqa, the “capital” of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, is now under siege. (American Special Operations forces are already reportedly active inside its breached walls, working with allied Kurdish and Syrian rebel forces.) It, too, will be “liberated” sooner or later — that is to say, destroyed.

As in Mosul, Fallujah, and Ramadi, American planes have been striking ISIS positions in the urban heart of Raqqa and killing civilians, evidently in sizeable numbers, while rubblizing parts of the city. And such activities have in recent years only been spreading. In distant Libya, for instance, the city of Sirte is in ruins after a similar struggle involving local forces, American air power, and ISIS militants. In Yemen, for the last two years the Saudis have been conducting a never-ending air campaign (with American support), significantly aimed at the civilian population; they have, that is, been rubblizing that country, while paving the way for a devastating famine and a horrific cholera epidemic that can’t be checked, given the condition of that impoverished, embattled land.

Only recently, this sort of destruction has spread for the first time beyond the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa. In late May, on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, local Muslim rebels identified with ISIS took Marawi City. Since they moved in, much of its population of 200,000 has been displaced and almost two months later they still hold parts of the city, while engaged in Mosul-style urban warfare with the Filipino military (backed by U.S. Special Operations advisers). In the process, the area has reportedly suffered Mosul-style rubblization.

In most of these rubblized cities and the regions around them, even when “victory” is declared, worse yet is in sight. In Iraq, for instance, with the “caliphate” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi now being dismantled, ISIS remains a genuinely threatening guerrilla force, the Sunni and Shiite communities (including armed Shiite militias) show little sign of coming together, and in the north of the country the Kurds are threatening to declare an independent state. So fighting of various sorts is essentially guaranteed and the possibility of Iraq turning into a full-scale failed state or several devastated mini-states remains all too real, even as the Trump administration is reportedly pushing Congress for permission to construct and occupy new “temporary” military bases and other facilities in the country (and in neighboring Syria).

Worse yet, across the Greater Middle East, “reconstruction” is basically not even a concept. There’s simply no money for it. Oil prices remain deeply depressed and, from Libya and Yemen to Iraq and Syria, countries are either too poor or too divided to begin the reconstruction of much of anything. Nor — and this is a given — will Donald Trump’s America be launching the war-on-terror equivalent of a Marshall Plan for the region. And even if it did, the record of the post-9/11 years already shows that the highly militarized American version of “reconstruction” or “nation building” via crony warrior corporations in both Iraq and Afghanistan has been one of the great scams of our time.  (More American taxpayer dollars have been poured into reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan alone than went into the whole of the Marshall Plan and it’s painfully obvious how effective that proved to be.)

Of course, as in Syria’s civil war, Washington is hardly responsible for all the destruction in the region. ISIS itself has been a remarkably destructive and brutal killing machine with its own impressive record of urban rubblization. And yet most of the destruction in the region was triggered, at least, by the militarized dreams and plans of the Bush administration, by its response to 9/11 (which ended up being something like Osama bin Laden’s dream scenario). Don’t forget that ISIS’s predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a creature of the American invasion and occupation of that country and that ISIS itself was essentially formed in an American military prison camp in that country where its future caliph was confined.

And in case you think any lessons have been learned from all of this, think again.  In the first months of the Trump administration, the U.S. has essentially decided on a new mini-surge of troops and air power in Afghanistan; deployed for the first time the largest non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal there; promised the Saudis more support in their war in Yemen; has increased its air strikes and special operations activities in Somalia; is preparing for a new U.S. military presence in Libya; increased U.S. forces and eased the rules for air strikes in civilian areas of Iraq and elsewhere; and sent U.S. special operators and other personnel in rising numbers into both Iraq and Syria.

No matter the president, the ante only seems to go up when it comes to the “war on terror,” a war of imprecision that has helped uproot record numbers of people on this planet, with the usual predictable results: the further spread of terror groups, the further destabilization of state structures, rising numbers of displaced and dead civilians, and the rubblization of expanding parts of the planet.

While no one would deny the destructive potential of great imperial powers historically, the American empire of destruction may be unique.  At the height of its military strength in these years, it has been utterly incapable of translating that power advantage into anything but rubblization.

Living in the Rubble, a Short History of the Twenty-First Century

Let me speak personally here, since I live in the remarkably protected and peaceful heart of that empire of destruction and in the very city where it all began. What eternally puzzles me is the inability of those who run that imperial machinery to absorb what’s actually happened since 9/11 and draw any reasonable conclusions from it.  After all, so much of what I’ve been describing seems, at this point, dismally predictable.

If anything, the “generational” nature of the war on terror and the way it became a permanent war of terror should by now seem too obvious for discussion. And yet, whatever he said on the campaign trail, President Trump promptly appointed to key positions the very generals who have long been immersed in fighting America’s wars across the Greater Middle East and are clearly ready to do more of the same. Why in the world anyone, even those generals, should imagine that such an approach could result in anything more “successful” is beyond me.

In many ways, rubblization has been at the heart of this whole process, starting with the 9/11 moment. After all, the very point of those attacks was to turn the symbols of American power — the Pentagon (military power); the World Trade Center (financial power); and the Capitol or some other Washington edifice (political power, as the hijacked plane that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania was undoubtedly heading there) — into so much rubble.  In the process, thousands of innocent civilians were slaughtered.

In some ways, much of the rubblization of the Greater Middle East in recent years could be thought of as, however unconsciously, a campaign of vengeance for the horror and insult of the air assaults on that September morning in 2001, which pulverized the tallest towers of my hometown. Ever since, American war has, in a sense, involved paying Osama bin Laden back in kind, but on a staggering scale. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, a shocking but passing moment for Americans has become everyday life for whole populations and innocents have died in numbers that would add up to so many World Trade Centers piled atop each other.

The origins of TomDispatch, the website I run, also lie in the rubble. I was in New York City on that day. I experienced the shock of the attacks and the smell of those burning buildings. A friend of mine saw a hijacked plane hitting one of the towers and another biked into the smoke-filled area looking for his daughter. I went down to the site of the attacks with my own daughter within days and wandered the nearby streets, catching glimpses of those giant shards of destroyed buildings.

In the phrase of that moment, in the wake of 9/11, everything “changed” and, in a sense, indeed it did. I felt it. Who didn’t? I noted the sense of fear rising nationally and the repetitious ceremonies across the country in which Americans hailed themselves as the planet’s most exceptional victims, survivors, and (in the future) victors. In those post-9/11 weeks, I became increasingly aware of how a growing sense of shock and a desire for vengeance among the populace was freeing Bush administration officials (who had for years been dreaming about making the “lone superpower” omnipotent in a historically unprecedented way) to act more or less as they wished.

As for myself, I was overcome by a sense that the period to follow would be the worst of my life, far worse than the Vietnam era (the last time I had been truly mobilized politically). And of one thing I was certain: things would not go well. I had an urge to do something, though no idea what.

In early October 2001, the Bush administration unleashed its air power on Afghanistan, a campaign that, in a sense, would never end but simply spread across the Greater Middle East. (By now, the U.S. has launched repeated air strikes in at least seven countries in the region.) At that moment, someone emailed me an article by Tamim Ansary, an Afghan who had been in the U.S. for years but had continued to follow events in his country of birth.

His piece, which appeared at the website Counterpunch, would prove prescient indeed, especially since it had been written in mid-September, just days after 9/11. At that moment, as Ansary noted, Americans were already threatening — in a phrase adopted from the Vietnam War era — to bomb Afghanistan “back to the Stone Age.” What purpose, he wondered, could possibly be served by such a bombing campaign since, as he put it, “new bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs”? As he pointed out, Afghanistan, then largely ruled by the grim Taliban, had essentially been turned into rubble years before in the proxy war the Soviets and Americans fought there until the Red Army limped home in defeat in 1989. The rubble that was already Afghanistan would only increase in the brutal civil war that followed. And in the years before 2001, little had been rebuilt. So, as Ansary made clear, the U.S. was about to launch its air power for the first time in the twenty-first century against a country with nothing, a country of ruins and in ruins.

From such an act he predicted disaster. And so it would be. At the time, something about that image of air strikes on rubble stunned me, in part because it felt both horrifying and true, in part because it seemed such an ominous signal of what might lie in our future, and in part because nothing like it could then be found in the mainstream news or in any kind of debate about how to respond to 9/11 (of which there was essentially none). Impulsively, I emailed his piece out with a note of my own to friends and relatives, something I had never done before. That, as it turned out, would be the start of what became an ever-expanding no-name listserv and, a little more than a year later, TomDispatch.

A Plutocracy of the Rubble?

So the first word to fully catch my attention and set me in motion in the post-9/11 era was “rubble.” It’s sad that, almost 16 years later, Americans are still obsessively afraid for themselves, a fear that has helped fund and build a national security state of staggering dimensions. On the other hand, remarkably few of us have any sense of the endless 9/11-style experiences our military has so imprecisely delivered to the world. The bombs may be smart, but the acts couldn’t be dumber.

In this country, there is essentially no sense of responsibility for the spread of terrorism, the crumbling of states, the destruction of lives and livelihoods, the tidal flow of refugees, and the rubblization of some of the planet’s great cities. There’s no reasonable assessment of the true nature and effects of American warfare abroad: its imprecision, its idiocy, its destructiveness. In this peaceful land, it’s hard to imagine the true impact of the imprecision of war, American-style. Given the way things are going, it’s easy enough, however, to imagine the scenario of Tamim Ansari writ large in the Trump years and those to follow: Americans continuing to bomb the rubble they had such a hand in creating across the Greater Middle East.

And yet distant imperial wars do have a way of coming home, and not just in the form of new surveillance techniques, or drones flying over “the homeland,” or the full-scale militarization of police forces. Without those disastrous, never-ending wars, I suspect that the election of Donald Trump would have been unlikely. And while he will not loose such “precision” warfare on the homeland itself, his project (and that of the congressional Republicans) — from health care to the environment — is visibly aimed at rubblizing American society. If he were capable, he would certainly create a plutocracy of the rubble in a world where ruins are increasingly the norm.

Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Back on 27 February 2017, after already more than a month as President, he said “Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated,” and that “I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject.” For him, as someone who never had really thought about it before, this fact (the need for authentic expertise in the interests of the public, not of himself) came as an unpleasant shock — after already several weeks in the White House.

He has made clear that he’ll be happy to sign anything that Republicans in the U.S. Senate and House can have enough agreement with each other about so as to get onto his desk for him to sign into law.

The latest iteration of this is that Trump, it has recently become clear, would even be delighted to sign into law a healthcare bill that would strip away almost all regulations — almost all legal limitations — on what health insurance companies are allowed to do in the insurance policies they sell. Philip Klein, in the Washington Examiner, on the morning of Wednesday July 19th, headlined “Trump calls Mike Lee in attempt to revive Senate healthcare bill”, and reported that Trump had just spoken with Senator Lee — who along with Rand Paul is one of the Senate’s two libertarians (believers in eliminating all economic regulations) — and Klein reported there that:

Trump reached out to Lee, R-Utah, on Tuesday afternoon to take his temperature and, according to a spokesman for the senator, Lee reiterated his position that he wanted to free the market from Obamacare’s regulations in an effort to drive down premiums and provide more choices.

Trump, according to the spokesman, seemed receptive.

In other words: Trump is “receptive” to eliminating almost all of the Obama regulations on the insurance policies that insurance companies can sell. Lee, who is a sincerely committed libertarian, has demanded that Obamacare be eliminated altogether before it is replaced, and the reason he has required this is that Obamacare has placed legal limitations upon the insurance policies that are allowed to be sold in the United States, and that Lee wants to get rid of all of them.

Almost everyone in Congress is either an ideologue or else corrupt, or else both (which combination is possible if corruption is acceptable within that person’s ideology). Mike Lee is specifically a libertarian ideologue, and no one has been able to corrupt him to violate his ideology, which, one can reasonably infer from this and other examples, excludes him from corruption — from selling it out.

Klein’s news-report stated, however, that Lee was willing to compromise it, just a little, if the Republicans can strip out all but the most popular Obamacare regulations:

Lee has indicated that he would be inclined to support the bill if it included a provision that he helped write with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that would allow insurers to offer plans that do not have to abide by Obamacare’s regulations as long as they offer plans that meet all of the requirements. Cruz eventually agreed to a compromise that would allow insurers to get around most of the regulations, but that maintained Obamacare’s requirement that all insurers operate a single risk pool in a given state. That means that as written, insurers would be governed by two drastically different regulatory regimes within a single risk pool, which Lee determined would put upward pressure on premiums.

Lee, it is clear, believes that regulations “put upward pressure on premiums.” Reduce the regulations and the cost of “premiums” would go down, he believes. But what about the costs that health insurance isn’t even covering? Just forget about that, is the attitude. The obsession is: “premiums.” What a consumer gets for those premiums, most members of Congress don’t even care — they don’t think it’s their business to be involved in that. Certainly, most of the Republican ones don’t. To be involved in that would be “regulation” — and anyone who is even just partially libertarian is against “regulation.” The very concept has a bad odor to them.

However, that view, libertarianism, is exactly the opposite of the true understanding not only of health care, but even of just health insurance, because all international experience has made unequivocally clear that in order to drive down even only “premiums,” libertarianism is actually poison: libertarianism actually drives up both health-insurance premiums, and uncovered healthcare costs. Libertarians — even people who are only partially and not exclusively that — ignore the total picture (which includes both premiums and what’s not covered by premiums). But when premiums are being driven down by means of driving up what consumers pay out of their own pockets (i.e., by means of reducing insurance-coverage), consumers tend to put off or delay care until their healthcare-problem becomes very expensive or impossible to treat — and that’s not at all the efficient way for a healthcare-system to function. It reduces instead of increases health.

The obsession of politicians, who don’t want to draw attention to the broader picture of driving down all healthcare-costs (while increasing health), including not just “premiums” but out-of-pocket (uncovered) costs, is “premiums,” but premiums don’t by any means include paying for everything in health care. See the link at the phrase, “quality of care; and the U.S. quality of care is low in comparison to other advanced nations,” in this article, wherein America’s unique combination of low quality and astronomically high cost is documented and is also placed into its broader perspective so that it can also be understood, not be at all confusing. This is what public-policymaking is really all about: it’s about the entire system, if it’s public-policymaking in an authentic democracy. An incomplete view of the system — such as libertarianism demands — is toxic to the public. If politicians don’t care about the public but only about their big campaign-donors, then calling the holders of public office “Representatives” of the public is a lie, that’s not a real democracy but only a fraudulent one. The U.S. has both the least regulated, and the most expensive, healthcare in the world, and it’s inferior even to that in many countries where healthcare costs-per-capita are less than half as high as in the United States.

Moreover, America’s healthcare also costs twice as high a percentage of GDP as in those other countries. That fact (America’s having by far the costliest, and also one of the lowest quality, healthcare-systems of all industrialized countries) is too “complicated” for the neophyte policy-thinker Trump to grab hold of (he doesn’t really care about it), or for the libertarian ideologue Mike Lee even to care at all about (since it contradicts his false theory, libertarianism); but it’s undeniably true, nonetheless: America is the corrupt laughingstock of all other countries, when it comes to healthcare. Ideologues such as Lee, and also plain psychopaths such as Trump, have made it become that way; but, still, it’s not yet enough “libertarian” to suit them. They want even more of it. (Certainly their megadonors do.)

Libertarianism is actually chaos, and that’s what America now has in its healthcare; and it’s both very expensive and very inefficient. Chaos is unregulated, but it is “unbelievably complex,” because the options and sub-options in a chaotic social system regarding healthcare or anything else, are so numerous and so incompatible with one-another, so that the less regulated the system (that’s provided under the law) is, the more numerous the regulations themselves must necessarily be. There must be exceptions all over the place — and this frees up anyone who wants to get an edge on the ‘free market’, to do whatever he or she wants to do — thus it’s ‘libertarian’, such as the U.S. is famous for being: ideologically committed against socialism, no matter how democratic, how anti-authoritarian, that socialism may, in fact, be. It’s all ‘communism’ they say: Denmark has it, so does Sweden, so do many countries, but did we oppose them during the Cold War? Of course not! That type of thinking is for idiots, but plenty of them exist.

And both Lee and Trump want them to wade through all those choices that, even Trump himself now admits, are “unbelievably complex.” He thinks it’s “complex” for him, but not too complex for ordinary hardworking Americans to study fully and carefully enough so that they can intelligently choose the optimum insurance-policy to meet their own actuarial probability of this disease or that disease, or this type of accident, or that type of on-the-job health-risk? Really?

Trump is running into this same learning-curve when it comes to international trade; and, like with healthcare, he’s not learning.

Also on July 19th, Shane Savitsky and Jonathan Swan at Axios headlined, “Trump’s own words put his trade policy in jeopardy”, and they wrote:

President Trump wants to invoke a national security provision to stop the “dumping” of cheap steel into America, but trade lawyers believe Trump’s public statements — and dubious legal reasoning — could expose the administration to significant legal problems.

The White House’s rhetoric: The administration in April identified dumping as the impetus for Trump “standing up” for the steel and aluminum industries.

Trump last week on Air Force One:”They’re dumping steel and destroying our steel industry, they’ve been doing it for decades, and I’m stopping it.”

Why it matters: International trade experts, including NYU Law professor Robert Howse, told Axios that Trump made a big mistake by identifying “dumping” as his basis for imposing retaliatory tariffs on national security grounds. There are already laws on the books to remedy dumping, and if Trump invokes the national security provision to impose new tariffs, other nations will immediately challenge him because they’re operating under a World Trade Organization agreement that has no national security exceptions. … 

… The Trump administration has launched an investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act to explore how to stop foreign countries “dumping” artificially cheap steel into the U.S. market. The Trump administration labels this a national security threat because it undermines American manufacturers. Trump’s team would likely try to justify its actions to the WTO by citing Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which allows countries to make trade decisions based on “the protection” of “essential security interests.”

But the White House might never be able to use its preferred defense for steel tariffs using the GATT because the WTO already has a superseding Anti-Dumping Agreement that specifically disciplines such cases — and it doesn’t allow for a dumping case based on “national security” or contain any national security exceptions. Given that the administration has been clear that dumping is a centerpiece of its Section 232 investigation, a WTO member could choose [to] bring a legal challenge under the Anti-Dumping Agreement to preempt the administration’s Article XXI plan.

The approach has other problems: Trade experts view Article XXI — designed for emergencies or wartime — as a third rail in international trade law. If Trump invokes it he would threaten the WTO’s legitimacy and potentially spark a global trade war. The U.S. also has domestic laws surrounding dumping that were recently expanded by Congress early last year, and White House could face a domestic legal challenge to any action against steel dumping — for example, from an auto manufacturer or a foreign exporter — before it has to face down the WTO.

What trade lawyers are asking: Is this the strategy of a nationalist administration set to paint either an international trade organization or the judicial branch as diametrically opposed to its America first policy or, similar to the roll-out of the travel ban, is the administration not prepared for the impact of the president’s public statements?

This displays from Trump the same incompetency at systems-thinking that he displays in regards to healthcare. He doesn’t really “give a damn” about public policy.

The best thing that can be said about Trump as President is that, unlike his political opponent Hillary Clinton, who had an extensive track-record proving her commitment to overthrowing every head-of-state that is at all friendly toward Russia, and was so determined to do it as to be willing to bring about nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, Trump just doesn’t care at all, except about himself and his family. He had no track-record at all in public life, and, fortunately, had no “regime-change in Syria” commitment at all (though America’s neoconservative ‘news’media still grasp at the straws of hope for him to change on that and thus for him to become even more similar to his opponent than he already is turning out to be). His psychopathy gives the world at least a possibility it’ll survive his term in the White House. Thus, if Clinton were the President, I’d be even less optimistic than I am, about the next few years. Furthermore, there is now the possibility of massive political gridlock in Washington. That could be a great relief. Sometimes, incompetency in a person is a gift to be treasured, to ward off that person’s becoming really dangerous — or, at least, more dangerous than he/she would otherwise be. But, of course, the same would have been true regarding Mrs. Clinton. And, either way, it was a con, not a functioning democracy. That’s the first thing to understand about America, regardless who won the White House. 

UPDATE: Just as this article was being completed, on the evening of July 19th, the neoconservative Washington Post headlined the most important breaking news story thus far in Trump’s Presidency, “Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria, a move sought by Moscow”, and reported, 

“President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials. The program was a central plank of a policy begun by the Obama administration in 2013 to put pressure on Assad to step aside, but even its backers have questioned its efficacy since Russia deployed forces in Syria two years later.” Obama Administration officials, and other neocons, were quoted there saying such things as, “This is a force that we can’t afford to completely abandon. … If they are ending the aid to the rebels altogether, then that is a huge strategic mistake.” 

These ‘moderate’ ‘rebels’, as the U.S. regime and its ’news’media called them, were overwhelmingly jihadists, whom Obama had been using as cheap boots-on-the-ground — proxies for far costlier American corpses — so as to overthrow Assad and install a pro-Saud Islamic Sharia-law regime to run Syria instead; Hillary Clinton had been intent upon finishing that job — even if it would mean war against Russia. This action by Trump is a sea-change for the better. It is a heroic act by a U.S. President whom the U.S. aristocracy have been trying to oust (in favor of the committed neoconservative Mike Pence) so as to overthrow Assad and any other head-of-state who is allied with Russia. Maybe Trump is learning something important, after all. And maybe he is starting to care, finally, about the welfare of the American public. The present observer, at any rate, is again in a wait-and-see mode, about him.

“Make America Great Again” was Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. It appeals to the people whose hearts beat with patriotic fervor. But what does such a slogan explicitly point out?

Syntactically, Trump is telling Americans that the United States of America is not great. A country can only become something again when it is currently not that something it seeks to recapture – in this case, that something is greatness. So currently the US is not great according to the mantra of Trump.

Two questions are raised by this?

1. When was America great?

2. How will Trump make America great again?

When was America great?

Obviously, to be become great again, America must have at one time been great. When was that?

Was America great at its inception? In an era when it was killing Indigenous peoples, violating treaties, and stealing their land? Can you be great when the early colonists, many professedly Christians, broke sacred commandments like “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal”?

Was going to war with Mexico from 1846 to 1848 to aggrandize the US landmass great?

Was it great when the US allowed slave labor for the profit of slave owners? The Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until 1863, so unless a person believes that a country in which slavery can be practiced is great, then greatness must not have been possible until the later half of the 19th century. There are, however, some niggling complications to be discussed below.

In 1893, US corporate interests engineered an overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and annexed the islands. Was this great? Yes, the US Congress apologized, but how great of an apology is that? If someone steals your car and says sorry, but that person does not return your car and instead continues driving it around town, would you be content with the apology? Can such an apology even be construed as sincere?

“The Maine entering Havana harbor. January 1898.” HD-SN-99-01929. (Source: U.S. Dept. of Defense / Wikimedia Commons)

Near the close of the 19th century, the US went to war with Spain. While docked in Havana Harbor, an onboard explosion occurred sinking the USS Maine with huge loss of life. The cause of the sinking remains mysterious; some point to a spontaneous combustion fire. Nevertheless, despite unclear etiology, the US government, urged on by the yellow journalism of newspaper magnates, blamed Spain and went to war.

Spanish colonies fought with the US against Spain. At the war’s end, the US subsumed administration of the former Spanish colonies. Aspirations for self-determination by Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were crushed. After bloody wars against the US, the Philippines finally gained independence in 1946. Cuba liberated itself in 1959 (although Guantanamo Bay remains occupied by the US). Guam and Puerto Rico remain de facto colonies of the US.

The 20th century also does not look great on the moral front for the US. The US entered WWI and WWII in the later stages of each war, and it helped to defeat imperialist warmongers in Europe and East Asia. It came up with the Marshall Plan to help Europe back on its feet again and provide markets for US capitalism. [1] Then in 1969, the US accomplished a spectacular feat by placing the first men on the moon. However, at the same time back on planet Earth, the US was waging war against an already war-ravaged Viet Nam that wound up killing millions of Vietnamese, and this came on the heels of waging war against North Korea also killing millions of Koreans. Neither of these countries posed a military threat to the US, and both wars imposed military defeats on the US. As soon as China entered the war in Korea, it pushed the US back from the Yalu River all the way to the 38th parallel. The US war on Viet Nam was a resounding defeat for the US, one that witnessed US troops scampering, at war’s end, from a Saigon rooftop to be transported to safety by helicopters.

Elsewhere, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, lies the Chagos archipelago, the site of more questionable American greatness. There the British government conspired with the US to remove all Chagossians from the British colony (which Britain had severed from Mauritius) to serve as an unfettered American military installation. It remains an ethnically cleansed strategic platform for American imperialism and militarism, as well as a site for extraordinary renditions.

Slavery was long ago outlawed, but racism and discrimination were still rife in 20th century America. It wasn’t until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that the legal sanctions of racist Jim Crow laws were repealed.

Aside from the violence against Blacks on the homefront, the US was involved in several violent incidents in the 20th century such as the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the invasion of Grenada, Panama, Chile, etc. Is greatness conferred by waging violence? Especially violence against smaller, less militarily armed countries?

Has America ever been a noble beacon on the hill? Has it been an exemplar for democracy, freedom, human rights, and equal opportunity – values that would indicate greatness?

Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Source: Notable Biographies)

Has the 21st century seen a move toward American greatness? In 2003, the Persian Gulf Slaughter, led by the US, saw a genocide committed against Iraq based on a contrived casus belli.

In 2004, the US, abetted by Canada and France, orchestrated a military coup against the elected president of Haiti that forced Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile overseas.

Then there is the ongoing war against Afghanistan; the war against Libya; the warring against Syria; a US-backed coup in Honduras; US-backed coup plots against the government in Venezuela; and unabated, continued support for the occupation and oppression of Indigenous Palestinians by the Jewish state. The litany of moral depredations that America wreaks upon peoples or that it is fully complicit with demand legal redress.

Given the above, this writer regards with extreme skepticism the notion of America ever having been great in any meaningful sense. Granted, great deeds have been accomplished in America, including developing a leading university system; technological breakthroughs in astronomy, aviation, transportation, communication, armaments; entertainment; sports; etc. However, the deeds do not add up to a great nation.

How will Trump make America great again?

Or, more correctly posed: how will Trump make America great?

Because it seems that America was never truly great. As per the foregoing arguments, I will dismiss the “again” part of Trump’s slogan. Sans the “again,” the slogan is not quite appealing. After all, a reformulated slogan like “Let’s finally make America great” probably wouldn’t be great for attracting votes. Better to appeal to the capricious American dream. But Trump’s slogan alone will not reify American greatness. So how is Trump going to make America great?

By building a wall to keep Mexicans out?

Trump is also pushing for a ban on travel from, originally seven now, six predominantly Muslim countries. Is this selective isolationism — identifying certain, purportedly undesirable nationalities and keeping them out — a nascent sign of greatness?

Is eliminating health insurance for millions of people while cutting taxes for the wealthy a great idea?

Is Trump chumming with Saud clan fat cats — the kleptocratic, misogynistic moneybags for ISIS — a great choice of allies?

Is shooting down a Syrian plane in Syrian airspace, unilaterally setting up US military bases in sovereign Syria, and bombing the country legal, ethical, or a sign of greatness?

Was the lethal US raid on Yemen and its ongoing involvement is a siege creating a cholera epidemic that is killing thousands of children a sign of America becoming great?

Is it great that Donald Trump is repeating the folly of the inarticulate former US president George W Bush who back-tracked on a deal to keep North Korea nuclear free? The result is that North Korea became a nuclear-armed nation. Despite having certified that Iran is compliant with the terms of a 2015 nuclear deal, Trump is determined to undermine the deal by violating the terms. Did Trump learn nothing from the US breaking its deal with North Korea? [2]

Is championing fossil fuels, disregarding the precautionary principle, and jettisoning participation in the Paris climate accord a sign of greatness?

One wonders, just how is it that Trump will make America great, regardless of whether it is again or for the first time?

The Chinese way to Greatness

Greatness is not conferred by having the most billionaires and neither by having the biggest corporations. When at the same time there are millions of working poor and unemployed what is indicated? When there are millions who are homeless and nourished by dumpster diving what does this tell one about the greatness of a country? Clearly, there is a wide chasm between the haves and have-nots. This is not greatness. The number of skyscrapers, the number of overseas military bases, the number of nuclear weapons, Silicon Valley, and the glitz of Hollywood do not mask the stench of a having a huge underclass that refutes any claim to greatness.

Greatness is a transcendent quality that sets itself above all else. Greatness is anathema to moral turpitude. The destruction of Indigenous peoples, the subjugation of others to slavery, the constant resort to lethal violence to impose one’s will, and the deteriorating quality of life for millions of people on the domestic front point toward a quality that rebuts any claim to greatness.

Instead of his bellicose rhetoric against China, Trump would be better advised to consider how the Chinese are pursuing a peaceful path to greatness. Unlike the US, China has pledged no first use of nukes. Although China has strengthened itself militarily (and who can blame it given that China is ringed by US military bases, and given the way an unfriendly US conducts itself in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the world), Chinese Communist Party chairman Xi Jinping affirms that peace is the way to settle disputes. China has an extraordinary goal: it is on target to eliminate poverty by the year 2020. Imagine that! No manned moon landing can compare since the elimination of poverty is not based on a vicarious pride; rather, it is a social development that affects every citizen directly. Moreover, the rising dragon is also poised to place humans on lunar soil. Instead of imposing the scourge of war on small countries, China is a country that aspires to greatness through peaceful dialogue and by ridding itself of the scourges of hunger, homelessness, and other attributes of poverty. China partners with other nations develop their economies; as such it funds and engages in multilateral economic development with a host of nations. Africa is not just a source for resource exploitation; China invests heavily in African infrastructure development. Across Asia and into Europe China invests in the mega Belt and Road Initiative that is spurring economic activity across Eurasia.

Is China great? In terms of the nation state, some kind of agreed upon definition is required. Assuredly, any meaningful definition of greatness would preclude wreaking violence on others. And how great are you if you can not properly care for and provide the basic necessities for your own citizens? I am not ready to pronounce China to be great, [3] but the policy directives and the steps China has embarked on appear promising.

In the case of America, to become genuinely great a first step is demanded. Since America exists as a nation state through its denationalization of Indigenous nations, it must first address and atone for this longstanding injustice. Second, America must sincerely address the historial wrongs committed against African-Americans. And should that day arrive — and hopefully soon — when America has ridden itself of racism, poverty as well as resolutely disavowing violence, then it may be considered to have genuinely attained greatness.

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

Notes

1. In Understanding Power (New York: The New Press, 2002) anarchist professor Noam Chomsky says, “… the Marshall Plan was designed largely as an export-promotion operation for American business, not as the noblest effort in history …” p 39.

2. It must be noted that the US National Intelligence Estimate of 2007, endorsed by senior officials in 2011, concluded that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program.

3. At this stage of development, which chairman Xi notes is in the primary stage of socialism, China is still plagued by serious income inequality, albeit this inequality is tapering.

According to intelligence reports from Iraq, the US-led massacre in Mosul has claimed a staggeringly higher toll of Iraqi civilian lives than had previously been reported.

More than 40,000 men, women and children were killed in the grinding nine-month-long siege of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, according to a report published Thursday by the veteran Middle East correspondent for the British daily Independent Patrick Cockburn.

Cockburn’s source is the former finance and foreign minister of the Iraqi government, Hoshyar Zebari, an Iraqi Kurd with close ties to Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government. The figure was supplied by Kurdish intelligence.

Hoshyar Zebari (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

“The figure given by Mr Zebari for the number of civilians killed in the nine-month siege is far higher than those previously reported, but the intelligence service of the Kurdistan Regional Government has a reputation for being extremely accurate and well-informed,” reports Cockburn.

The sheer scale of the killing makes the siege of Mosul one of the greatest war crimes of the post-World War II era. While before the city fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in June of 2014 it had a population of approximately 2 million, by the time the siege began, there were still at least 1.2 million civilians trapped in Mosul. This population was subjected to horrific violence.

Earlier, the UK-based monitoring group Airwars had provided an estimate of 5,805 civilians killed in airstrikes by the US-led “coalition” between February 19 and June 19. This figure excluded those killed in the four preceding months of the siege, as well as those who died in the last three weeks of the intensive bombardment that reduced western Mosul’s Old City to rubble.

In his interview with Cockburn, Zebari attributed a significant share of the carnage to the relentless artillery bombardment of western Mosul by Iraq’s militarized federal police, using weapons that are inaccurate and of use only in terms of demolishing entire neighborhoods rather than targeting fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The report issued earlier this month by Amnesty International, “At Any Cost: The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul,” also pointed to the devastating effect of these bombardments, which were used to compensate for the lack of sufficient numbers of adequately trained Iraqi troops to throw into combat in the crowded streets and alleyways of Mosul’s Old City.

“Pro-government forces relied heavily upon explosive weapons with wide area effects such as IRAMs (Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions),” Amnesty charged. “With their crude targeting abilities, these weapons wreaked havoc in densely populated west Mosul, where large groups of civilians were trapped in homes or makeshift shelters. Even in attacks that seem to have struck their intended military target, the use of unsuitable weapons or failure to take other necessary precautions resulted in needless loss of civilian lives.”

The report described the artillery and rocket launchers employed by the Iraqi forces, working closely with US special forces “advisors,” as “indiscriminate weapons” that “must never be used in the vicinity of civilians.”

One indication of the scale of the killing has come, unintentionally, from the Iraqi government itself. Since proclaiming Mosul’s “liberation” on July 10, Iraqi officials have put out a statement claiming that its forces had “liquidated 16,467 terrorists.” When the siege began, US commanders estimated that there were somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 ISIS fighters in the city. An obvious explanation for this discrepancy is that any male Iraqi killed in the city, fighters and civilians alike, has been designated as a member of ISIS.

Despite the fanfare by the Baghdad government over Mosul’s “liberation” and victory over ISIS, fighting is still being reported within the city, with guerrilla bands carrying out lethal attacks on Iraqi government units.

At the same time, there have been multiple reports indicating that the government forces and allied militias have been engaged in savage acts of collective punishment against Mosul’s survivors, including mass summary executions and torture.

Human Rights Watch reported Wednesday that international observers had discovered an “execution site in west Mosul.” It recounted their testimony that they found inside an empty building “a row of 17 male corpses, barefoot but in civilian dress, surrounded by pools of blood. They said many appeared to have been blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their back.” The human rights group cited a large number of similar incidents along with “relentless reports, videos, and photographs of unlawful executions and beatings by Iraqi soldiers.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi made it clear that the government will do nothing to halt these atrocities. He described them as “individual acts and not widespread.”

The US corporate media has all but blacked out the reports of massive civilian casualties and the war crimes carried out since the retaking of Mosul. The Iraqi government itself has sought to bar reporters from the city in order to conceal the scale of the bloodshed and continuing executions.

While largely dropping its coverage of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Mosul, the New York Times Thursday published a hypocritical editorial titled “Avoiding War With Iran,” which expressed some trepidation over the increasingly bellicose acts of the Trump administration aimed at provoking just such a conflict.

The “newspaper of record” suggests that “It is useful to recall the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War arguably America’s biggest strategic blunder in modern times.” It criticizes the Bush administration for launching a war to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein “even though he had nothing to do with Sept. 11 and had no nuclear weapons.” It adds, “Mr. Bush decided to fight a pre-emptive war without a solid justification or strategy. Such a stumble into war could happen again.”

Conveniently forgotten in this cynical presentation is the fact that the Times as an institution played a major role in advocating and facilitating the Iraq war.

Its senior correspondent Judith Miller worked intimately with US officials to promote and embellish upon phony “intelligence” on non-existent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” Thomas Friedman, the paper’s chief foreign affairs columnist, churned out columns advocating what he openly acknowledged would be a “war of choice” against Iraq, justifying it in the name of democracy, human rights and oil.

The newspaper set the tone for the rest of the media in terms of propaganda that paved the way to a criminal war of aggression that claimed the lives of over one million Iraqis and continues to generate mass murder in Mosul.

Even more chilling was an editorial column on Mosul titled “The City Is the Battlefield of the Future,” that appeared in the Wall Street Journal Thursday under the byline of one Maj. John Spencer, deputy director of the Modern War Institute at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York.

“The battle for Mosul represents the future of warfare,” Major Spencer argues, adding “U.S. commanders ought to imagine how they would handle a similar environment.”

Clearly, they have more than imagined it–in terms of Iraq–with US commanders directing much of the destruction rained down on the city.

Echoing what is now standard Pentagon doctrine, the major insists that the wars that the US military will confront will be fought in “cities — dense, often overpopulated and full of obstacles: labyrinthine apartment blocks, concealed tunnels, panicking civilians.”

His primary concern is that the Pentagon presently has no systematic training of its troops for urban combat, and that the word “siege”–the barbaric strategy employed against Mosul–does not appear in its training manuals.

He insists that US forces “need to be equipped to operate in large cities with new equipment, formations and doctrine.” He advances a modest proposal for meeting this need: “Major cities such as Detroit and the outer boroughs of New York have large abandoned areas that could be safely redeveloped as urban training sites.”

In other words, American troops are to be trained in the art of urban combat and siege warfare inside American cities. The proposal suggests that what the major is really urging Pentagon commanders to “imagine” is using the military to suppress revolutionary upheavals in the US itself.

On July 20, 2017, William F. Pepper, Ed.D., J.D., spoke at the National Press Club about his previous day’s filing of a 200-page petition regarding Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan, jailed since 1968, is , late New York U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate. Organized by Andrew Kreig, J.D., editor of the Justice Integrity Project, the well-attended conference enabled Dr. Pepper to discuss his long-sought evidentiary hearing.

As Sirhan’s lawyer for many years, Pepper conceded that the legal remedies for his client in the United States have been exhausted–at both the State and federal levels. California, where Kennedy had been murdered in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen, did not assure a fair trial. Essentially, ineffective assistance of counsel got the accused wrongly convicted. Grant Cooper, his attorney, under threat of a sealed felony indictment, did almost nothing to defend Sirhan. He failed to investigate the matter, obtain the autopsy report, or examine ballistics tests. He spent most of the court proceedings arguing that Sirhan was guilty and, that because of diminished capacity, should not be given the death penalty.

Sirhan also got no relief in the federal system, neither with with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, nor with the extremely liberal and contrarian U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, nor with the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review the case.

Now, Pepper is staking Sirhan’s chances on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an Organization of American States (OAS) body. His goal is either a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. The filing alleges that the California and U.S. justice systems violated Sirhan’s right to a fair trial, as required under the OAS Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. By treaty, the IACHR may review U.S. cases and those from 34 other nations when domestic remedies have been exhausted.

Pepper, who had been a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, is known for his winning defense of King’s supposed murderer, James Earle Ray, during a 1993 mock trial on HBO. In a celebrated wrongful death proceeding in 1999, Pepper obtained a symbolic award based on 10 years of dogged pursuit of relevant evidence and witnesses. He is doing the same now with Sirhan.

Noting that the U.S. media is controlled, by high level businessmen, bankers, and other influential figures who move in and out of government, such as John J. McCloy one-time U.S. High Commissioner for Germany and member of the Warren Commission, Sirhan’s lawyer said that the “conclusive evidence” reported as news was, in realty, extremely weak. There was never a hearing on the facts, he commented. Such an investigation would have shown that Sirhan, the claimed criminal, was nowhere near Kennedy when the shooting started. Thomas Noguchi, Los Angeles’ chief medical examiner at the time, swore that Kennedy was struck by three shots fired within inches of his body, from behind. Sirhan got off two shots at Kennedy from a six-foot distance, in front. Sirhan was immediately tackled and pinned down while still pulling the trigger on his handgun. However, Sirhan fired only eight shots total yet a carefully-examined sound recording heard thirteen rounds. Moreover, the shots came from different directions.

Yet, the Los Angeles Police Department, Pepper revealed, failed to preserve the physical evidence from the crime scene, such as ceiling tiles, doors, and door frames with bullets buried in them. The cops’ excuse? There was no space in which to store them. Pepper went on to say that the Los Angeles police had long-standing and very close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The suspicion is, Pepper remarked, that Sirhan appeared to fit the parameters of the infamous CIA drug and consciousness-altering program, MK-ULTRA. (Its former director, Sid Gottlieb, destroyed most of the operation’s records in 1973.) Dr. Daniel Brown, Harvard Medical School, spent nearly 70 hours examining Sirhan through hypnosis and questioning, concluding that the Palestinian Christian had undergone a variety of procedures coupled with drugs to make him controllable. Notably, Pepper said, this could have occurred while Sirhan had mysteriously disappeared for two weeks before the assassination. Seen as a patsy, he was prepped as a distraction while the real murderer fired the close-up shots killing Kennedy, Pepper continued. Sirhan had apparently had a handler, a woman in a polka dot dress, the attorney remarked. She disappeared after she pinched the scapegoat on the neck, apparently triggering Sirhan’s belief that he was really shooting at a paper, man-shaped target from a firing range.

COMMENT. Despite Andrew Kreig’s extensive and most vigorous efforts, only a few members of the press turned up at the conference: an intern from the Washington Times, a representative from Al-Mayadeen TV, Beirut, along with a knowledgeable White House correspondent for an alternative news site. This appeared to validate Dr. Pepper’s view of the heavily-managed American media. And it bodes ill for what seems to be the attorney’s goal in filing with the OAS–to generate enough adverse publicity to force the United States to re-examine the questionable trial of Sirhan Sirhan. Indeed, a casual search of the Internet turns up a number of references about “conspiracies” revolving around the problematically convicted man.

Perhaps everyone involved in this matter should take a look at Dr. Jack Shaheen’s writings on Arabs, notably Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People.

This article was originally published by Haus Frau Leaks.

Featured image from the author

Particularly, in the US and some European States, the Israeli and Zionist versions of history are widespread. Israel’s narrative relies on a collection of myths aimed at bringing the moral right and the ethical behavior of the Palestinians into twilight and making their claim to their country appear as illegitimate. Israel’s negation of Palestinian existence in the Land of Palestine is, however, a falsification of history.

“Ten Myths About Israel” came out in Germany in 2016 under the title “What’s wrong with Israel? The Ten Main Myths of Zionism”. The mainstream media ignored it, which could also be the case in the US. It’s sad but that how media power works in favor of Israel.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, who lives in exile in Britain, deals in this book with the myths of Zionism and exposes them as legends consisting of half-truths and fabrications of history. The Zionist narrative has only little to do with historical reality and truth.

The “Running Gag” of the Zionist historical narrative is the story of the “empty land” of Palestine, into which people without a land had finally returned after 2000 years of exile. The slogan of a country without a people, for people without a country, is the most prominent expression of the Zionist mythology. For Pappe, it’s less important whether the Jews existed as a people, rather than that the Zionists deny the existence of a Palestinian population but simultaneously claim that the State of Israel represents all the Jews of the world and does everything for their benefit and acts for them. Such a claim is just as daring as the identification of Zionism with Judaism because it takes Jews hostage for Israel’s despising policy.

The Zionists presented the colonization of Palestine with biblical rhetoric; this served only as a means to an end. The highest prophet of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, even considered Uganda and other places instead of the Zionist Promised Land. Finally, they found their roots in Palestine. “From then on, the Bible became both the justification and the guideline of the Zionist colonization of Palestine,” writes Pappe. He describes Zionism as a “colonial settler movement” and Israel as a “Settler Colonial State.”

The author points out that the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1947/48 was “ethnic cleansing.” Likewise, the 1967 June war, which is also called the Sixth Day War, was not an act of self-defense of the “little David” against an overpowering “Goliath,” but an Israeli attack on which the Israeli security establishment has minutely prepared for years.

The claim of being the “only democracy in the Middle East” is put in the right perspective. Israel resembles rather an “ethnocracy” than a democracy in the classical sense of the meaning. The “peace process,” which was highly praised by the Western political establishment ended in the acceleration of the colonization of Palestine and in the establishment of Palestinian regime that has to do the dirty work for Israeli occupier.

In his book, Ilan Pappe gives his backing for the historical truth that the Israeli political establishment must face if it is interested in peace. Israel’s security establishment abuses Judaism because it equates its Zionist expansionist and oppressive policy with Judaism. Enlightenment is, therefore, more than a necessity, which the book does excellently by deconstructing the mythological web that surrounds the history of the State of Israel.

This book is an absolute must for an interested public, the political and the media class to understand what Israel is all about.

***

Title: Ten Myths About Israel

Author: Ilan Pappe

Publisher: Verso (May 2, 2017)

ISBN-10: 1786630192

ISBN-13: 978-1786630193

Click here to order.

Featured image from Verso

On Wednesday, his staff announced that the US Senator had been diagnosed with a brain tumor called glioblastoma discovered during recent testing at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona.

Since then warm wishes and tributes have been pouring in for the former Republican Presidential candidate. Both the US media and political establishment have closed ranks and are rallying around the Senator to help soften the blow.

Putting previous feuds aside, President Donald Trump was magnanimous and cordial to the Arizona Senator, wishing him and his family the very best.

“Melania and I send our thoughts and prayers to Senator McCain, Cindy, and their entire family,” said Trump. “Get well soon.”

Even former electoral rival President Barack Obama pitched in a little love for the 80 year old:

John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I've ever known. Cancer doesn't know what it's up against. Give it hell, John.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 20, 2017

Regarding McCain’s diagnosis, we all can acknowledge the difficulties and risks involved with various cancer treatments, especially with brain cancer. Likewise, nearly everyone these days can attest to losing a friend, a loved one or family member to the disease.

As with anyone suffering from this terrible condition, we wish the Senator well, along with a successful treatment and recovery.

Still, McCain has a lot in his favor. Unlike most Americans, he will not have to worry about his medical care, and will be receiving the best cancer treatment money can buy, if not the best in the world, and with absolutely no expense spared. In this way, the Senator is extremely fortunate.

And for those reasons, this is not an easy article to write. For fear of appearing too cruel in the face of his dramatic medical disclosure, one would be expected to suspend any political critique for now. Hence, the media has placed an unofficial moratorium on any negative coverage of McCain.

That said, he is a special case. As much as any political leader – he deserves to be panned, even under the present circumstances, because his geopolitical handiwork continues to cause havoc in certain corners of the world.

Cancer Treatment in Syria

Immediately after McCain’s major health announcement, the US mainstream media and Republicans began fretting over the prospect that his extended absence from the legislature might jeopardize his party’s ability to pass legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare).

With that in mind, maybe it’s worth asking: how many innocent Syrians have been denied basic medical treatment, supplies and pharmaceuticals as a result of the harsh US-led regime economic sanctions imposed on Syria? This brutal campaign of collective punishment has been led by US Senator John McCain.

Of course, the idea of sanctions as a form of economic warfare hardly registers in the West as being at all harmful to the population of Syria. “Sanctions? They’re not against the people of Syria, only against Assad.” That’s the general mainstream phantasm when it comes to sanctions, even though the official numbers show a vivid tale of devastation.

One can only imagine how many among Syria’s population of 20 million are no longer able to receive cancer treatment in Syria as a result of McCain’s insistence on punitive sanctions. Before the conflict in Syria began in 2011, citizens were able to get free medical treatment including high-end state-of-the-art cancer treatment (consider that one simple aspect of this war, as men like John McCain still claim to be delivering ‘freedom’ to the Syrian people by backing armed terrorist factions).

Before the terrorist forces occupied the eastern part of the city, Aleppo was home to one of the Middle East’s top cancer treatment centers, Al-Kindi Hospital. This is important because after McCain’s secret trip to the Aleppo area in May 2013, the very same ‘rebels’ he was cavorting with and supplying weapons to – the ‘Free Syrian Army’ (under the command of Jabbat al Nusra aka al Qaeda in Syria) would later order the bombing on this cancer treatment hospital.

Professor Tim Anderson explains the destruction of Al Kindi Hospital in December 2013, including the shameful spin applied after the fact by BBC and western mainstream media:

In an Orwellian revision of events the BBC (21 December 2013) reported the destruction of Al-Kindi with the headline: “Syria rebels take back strategic hospital in Aleppo”. The introduction claimed the “massive suicide lorry bomb” had managed “to seize back a strategic ruined hospital occupied by Assad loyalists.” Al-Kindi was said to have been “a disused building” and “according to an unconfirmed report, 35 rebels died in the attack”. In fact, these ‘rebels’ were a coalition of Free Syrian Army and Jabhat al Nusra, while the ‘Assad loyalists’ were the staff and security guards of a large public hospital.

Watch as McCain’s ‘freedom fighters’ in Syria drive a suicide truck bomb into the ground level of Al Kindi Cancer Treatment Center in Aleppo:

How many Syrian lives were needlessly cut short as a direct result of that bombing carried out by McCain’s own Free Syrian Army? For the cost of McCain’s treatment at the world-famous Mayo Clinic, who knows how many Syrians could have received desperately needed treatment at Al Kindi or other similarly crippled facilities in Syria? One hundred, or possibly one thousand?

Add to this, how many have died or suffer permanent health afflictions as a direct result of US economic sanctions which have crippled Syria’s own National Health Service? One hundred thousand, or maybe five hundred thousand? One million? One day, those figures will be recorded and we will have the answer.

The other piece of US legislation currently on the table which Republicans are desperate to pass is the $1-trillion US infrastructure spending package. Juxtapose that scene next to the systematic destruction of Syria’s infrastructure by US Coalition and IDF airstrikes and destruction by proxy militant forces on the ground. Estimates for the cost to Syria range from $180 billion to $275 million. If the conflict continues past 2020, then these numbers could easily double.

In spite of all this, John McCain claims to have no regrets about the damage that he and his fellow war hawks have inflicted on Syria.

The Cancer of Conflict

At the same time that political figures like Barack Obama dutifully respect the official Washington line on John McCain as the consummate “Vietnam War hero”, very few in the establishment would dare to criticize the powerful Arizona Senator for his central role in engineering instability and violent conflict in foreign countries.

John McCain sneaks into Syria illegally in May 2013 to meet with known terrorists, promising them weapons and regime change by way US bombs would drop in the Fall of 2013. 

Americans should be reminded that more than any other single US official, John McCain has been the driving force behind the training and arming of violent jihadist and terrorists fighting groups in Syria, and that those same terrorists have slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent civilians including women and children in Syria and beyond – all sacrificed at the altar of a US-led geopolitical power play in the Middle East, and in the name of Israeli ‘security interests.’

Back in 2012, a delusional McCain, along with another dotty war enthusiast, Connecticut Senator Joe Liberman, insisted that the US needed to arm the ‘rebels’ in Syria in order to “save lives.” Their statement read:

“The bloodshed must be stopped, and we should rule out no option that could help to save lives. We must consider, among other actions, providing opposition groups inside Syria, both political and military, with better means to organize their activities, to care for the wounded and find safe haven, to communicate securely, to defend themselves, and to fight back against Assad’s forces.”

From the onset of hostilities in 2011, the bold-faced lie that McCain and partner Lindsey Graham have promulgated is that violent jihadists were nothing more than affable “moderate rebels.” That piece of Washington fiction has been widely discredited by now.

Later on in 2015, McCain announced that the US should be supplying stinger missiles to the so-called ‘rebels’ in Syria:

“We certainly did that in Afghanistan. After the Russians invaded Afghanistan, we provided them with surface-to-air capability. It’d be nice to give people that we train and equip and send them to fight the ability to defend themselves. That’s one of the fundamental principles of warfare as I understand it,” said McCain.

Soon after that statement, thousands of US-made TOW Missiles were smuggled into Syria and used by terrorists groups under the command umbrella of Al Nusra.

In her recent exposé for Trud Newspaper, Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva revealed the massive scale and scope of the illegal US-NATO weapons trafficking operation to arm thousands of terrorist fighters in Syria.

Despite the overwhelming destruction in Syria and the abject failure of his policies, McCain has never given up on the policy of illegal weapons trafficking in Syria. Just this week, McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, openly protested against the Trump Administration’s latest announcement to bring an end to the CIA’s failed program of illegally arming and training ‘anti-Assad’ terrorists in Syria. Rather than admitting what everyone else in the world seems to know already – that the US “train and equip” program has been a debacle – instead he feigns defiance, while demonstrating a breathtaking level of ignorance by accusing the White House of being part of a Russian conspiracy:

“If these reports are true, the administration is playing right into the hands of Vladimir Putin.”

“Making any concession to Russia, absent a broader strategy for Syria, is irresponsible and short-sighted.”

When promoting their latest war, McCain is normally part of a tandem act, accompanied by his geomancing interest, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who arguably views the world through an even more deranged, albeit binary comic book prism:

“Breaking Syria apart from Iran could be as important to containing a nuclear Iran as sanctions.”

“If the Syrian regime is replaced with another form of government that doesn’t tie its future to the Iranians, the world is a better place.”

Like a world view gleaned straight from Ian Flemming’s Goldfinger.

In his seminal 2008 interview with McCain heading to the GOP presidential nomination, The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg asked, “What do you think motivates Iran?”.… to which McCain replied:

“Hatred. I don’t try to divine people’s motives. I look at their actions and what they say. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the state of their emotions. I do know what their nation’s stated purpose is, I do know they continue in the development of nuclear weapons, and I know that they continue to support terrorists who are bent on the destruction of the state of Israel. You’ll have to ask someone who engages in this psycho stuff to talk about their emotions.”

McCain’s views on Iraq were even more disturbing, essentially surmising that the invasion and occupation was a good thing, and that we shouldn’t have left because ‘leaving Iraq gave rise to al Qaeda.’ OK. Admittedly, it’s a bit counter intuitive, but it works for neoconservatives.

These statements by McCain and Graham are not admissions made by normal well-adjusted individuals, but rather by cold, dark hearted sociopaths who generally view the lives of Arabs (along with Slavs, Russians and others) as necessary cannon fodder in the pursuit of military industrial profits for a select cadré of transnational corporate ‘defense’ contractors – whose interests Senator John McCain represents in his home state of Arizona; Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and the list goes on, and on.

The geopolitical hubris doesn’t end there, as McCain still maintains – even after 6 years of absolute implosion of his own foreign policy agenda – that removing Syrian President Bashar al Assad from power is still a “key pillar” of the US strategy for Syria.

“The administration has yet to articulate its vision for Syria beyond the defeat of ISIL, let alone a comprehensive approach to the Middle East,” said McCain this week.

The reality, of course, is that ISIL/ISIS could have been defeated already had the US-led ‘Coalition’ and Israel not illegally intervened in Syria territory. Far from doing much to “defeat ISIS” since they have invaded Syrian airspace since 2014, the US has conveniently stretched-out the ‘ISIS problem’ through the extension of its own self-styled international mandate which was originally intended to serve as a precursor to the eventual break-up of Syria into federal states and ethnic cantons. This might explain McCain’s rush to enact regime change in Syria before lording over the eventual break-up of the sovereign nation-state.

All Things Russian

The other country which McCain is determined break is Russia.

“Vladimir Putin is a murder and a KGB thug,” crowed McCain on CNN last year, as he protested against positive statements about Russia made by then candidate Trump.

Suffice to say, he, along with the boards of Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, are all extremely happy about NATO pressing right up against the Russian border in eastern Europe.

But 2013 was indeed a busy year for the Senator stirring up trouble internationally. As part of his opening gambit against Moscow, it was McCain who was the driving force behind the US-backed coup d’etat in Ukraine in February 2014 – which ultimately led to a bloody civil war which continues to this day in the Ukraine. Apparently, this was McCain’s way of ‘stopping Putin.’

His is a very dodgy track record; whether it’s NeoNazis, or Jihadi Terrorists, McCain seems always ready to do a deal with the devil, and that’s what makes him particularly dangerous.

Below we can see McCain helping to whip-up Nazi-linked, neofascist street mobs in Kiev helping to bring the ensuing junta into power. Some mainstream US pundits have claimed that this never happened, and that it’s just a conspiracy theory invented by ‘Russian propagandists’ to discredit McCain. Unfortunately for them – it is true, and here is the photo to prove it:

Senator John McCain (AZ) shares the stage in Kiev with far-right, NeoNazi Right Sector strongman, Oleg Tyhanbock, ahead of violent street protests in Ukraine in December of 2013, in advance of the US-backed coup. 

Looking back at his erratic and flippant behavior, attacking nearly anyone who even suggested détente with Russia or that supplying lethal arms to militants in Syria was a bad idea, it’s no surprise that cognizant onlookers have questioned whether or not McCain is in a normal frame of mind.

Frankly speaking, how could any one in their right mind be so consistently on the wrong side of every issue? How could any politician’s judgement be that poor? Unless there was something else going on below the surface…

The questions didn’t stop there. McCain’s performance during a recent Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing on “Russian Influence in US Elections” was an embarrassment. Onlookers were stunned when McCain lost the plot during the hearing when asking former FBI Director James Comey:

“Well, at least in the minds of this member, there’s a whole lot of questions remaining about what went on, particularly considering the fact that as you mentioned, it’s a “big deal” as to what went on during the campaign, so I’m glad you concluded that part of the investigation, but I think that the American people have a whole lot of questions out there, particularly since you just emphasized the role that Russia played.”

“And obviously she was a candidate for president at the time. So she was clearly involved in this whole situation where fake news, as you just described it, is a big deal took place. You’re going to have to help me out here. In other words, we’re complete, the investigation of anything former Secretary Clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we don’t have to worry about it anymore?”

… to which Comey replied:

“With respect to — I’m a little confused. With respect to Secretary Clinton, we investigated a criminal investigation with her use of a personal email server.”

McCain then finished digging his own hole by responding:

“So at the same time you made the announcement there would be no further charges brought against then-Secretary Clinton for any activities involved in the Russia involvement and our engagement and our election. I don’t quite understand how you can be done with that but not done with the whole investigation of their attempt to affect the out of come our election.”

It was clear McCain had no idea what was going on. At that point any reasonable person would have concluded that John McCain had in fact lost his mind – and was no longer fit to serve in public office.  In fact, 21WIRE made this very same case back in 2013 after McCain was caught playing video poker on his iPhone during a Senate Committee where lawmakers were debating the very war of which he is a chief architect. Here is the photo:

As stunning displays of ignorance go, the video poker incident was one of McCain’s greatest ever, and certainly should have been a warning to everyone that this man had no business making military decisions, let alone litigating war and peace between nuclear superpowers like the United States and Russia.

Perhaps an announcement is forthcoming, but it’s surprising after being diagnosed with brain cancer at 80 years old – why McCain has not yet announced his resignation from office?

It’s fair to say that while this Senator is being treated in the world’s leading medical facilities, thousands of innocents will have died needlessly because of US sanctions and support for terrorists – all in the name of defense, energy and ever vast corporate profits. Strange as that might sound to some, for those who consider themselves members of a ruling elite and its mandarin management class, that is perfectly acceptable quid pro quo in 2017.

After World War II, the military industrial complex and the international arms trade has spread conflict like a disease across the planet, metastasizing in ways, in places, and on a scale which no one could have previously imagined before. Undoubtedly, over the last decade, John McCain has played a key role in spreading that anguish. For the people of Syria, Afghanistan and the Ukraine, that will be his legacy, not the chimerical image of a ‘maverick’ Senator or the ‘war hero.’

Once again, we implore the Senator to do the right thing by the American people and for those innocents around the world who have suffered at the hands of an arms industry whose interests John McCain represents.

Please retire.

All images in this article are from the author.

What will entertainers do in his absence? White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was more than grist to the mill of celluloid delights, becoming, by the admission of the US President, a “tv hit” smoking the ratings. When a press secretary’s conduct is valued, not for the substance of his material, but the entertainment he garners, the Republic is surely stuttering towards vacuity and ruin.

But journalists and the entertainment industry have also colluded with this complex, feeding off the critical host. Such establishment venues as the New York Times have walked in step with Trump, noting how “the White House briefing – once a Sisyphean burden for rumpled reporters – became the hottest reality show in town, a star-making showcase for journalists where heated exchanges went viral and drove big ratings.”[1]

The Guardian similar intoned that the Spicer tenure had been one of turbulent propulsion, excitement and impossibilities.

“In the space of six months, Spicer had become a reality TV celebrity doing what critics said was the toughest job in the world: defending the indefensible.”[2]

As for Conor Duffy writing in The New Daily, Spicer “hasn’t just broken the first rule of being a spin doctor – becoming the story – he’s smashed it. Spectacularly.”[3] Instead of being denigrated and mocked into oblivion, the press secretary began, over time, to cultivate an affection of the sadomasochistic sort.

Precisely because idiot box ratings are what matters as a measurement of value in Trumpland, such displays as the Spicer Show, launched from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, have been indispensable to the West Wing. He hectored, bullied, cajoled and stumbled, directing his fury at the fake news industry with monomanic desperation.

As one correspondent is reported to have said, Spicer “tore a strip off the media as wide as an Iowa farm”. But in time, he found himself a convict to the press brief lectern, the gargantuan incoherence of the Trump machine proving impossible to capture. If you can’t beat the show, transform into it.

April D. Ryan (Source: @AprilDRyan / Twitter)

In a fundamental sense, then, the Spicer show has been symbiotic to American cultural and media life. Spicer brought the shine to careers otherwise kept in miniature spotlight, such as April D. Ryan of American Urban Radio. He latched on to Ryan early, sniffing a journalist peddling an agenda.

“It seems like you’re hellbent on trying to make sure that whatever image you want to tell about this White House stays.”[4]

What irritated Spicer, in an encounter that got a viral shot, was Ryan’s disapproving head movement.

“You’re asking me a question and I’m going to answer it. I’m sorry, please stop shaking your head again.”

This was gold dust for those obsessed with detecting gender or racial overtones. Ryan fit the casting, being a black female reporter. The social media feeding frenzy began. The hashtag #BlackWomenatWork made its inexorable march to “trending” status. Actors such as Whoopi Goldberg were outraged.

Naturally, Hillary Clinton had to add her bit to a script that was essentially writing itself. Ryan, respected, oozing integrity, “was doing her job just this afternoon in the White House press room, when she was patronized and cut off trying to answer a question.”

The Spicer promotion show has also been indispensable to such actors as Melissa McCarthy, whose Spicer impression earned an Emmy nomination.[5] The Trump administration may not be making America great again (in truth, probably revealing its long anticipated fall from grace) but it is minting careers in media industries and alternate realities.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, New White House Press Secretary (Source: The White House / Wikimedia Commons)

In recent weeks, the Spicer show has been gradually wound down, suggesting that the director and producer were not overly pleased. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who, with little surprise to anyone, has assumed the mantle of press secretary, started to feature more regularly. Under her strengthening hand, live audio and video coverage of the daily briefings has been banned. Transparency, hardly a word to feature in the Trump argot, has been kicked downstairs.

The new White House communications director seems to have been the catalyst for Spicer’s jump. Anthony (“the Mooch”) Scaramucci has stood in for Spicer at stages since May, suggesting that he was being warmed up as an addition to the show. Speculation abounds that Spicer’s resignation was prompted by his disapproval of Scaramucci’s rising star.

“I can say,” explained Sanders, “that he understood that the president wanted to bring in and add new people to the team, and Sean felt like it would be best for that team to be able to start with a totally clean slate.”[6]

Never muddy pools, even ones filled with impurities.

Scaramucci has shown himself in the past as a shape changer. He initially backed Hillary Clinton, deeming her “incredibly competent” and “the real deal”. Trump, in contrast, was “anti-American” and a mere “hack politician”. On Fox Business in August 2015, he ventured the view that his current employer would become the president of the “Queens County Bullies Association”.

The game, then, has been upped, and the communications director will face a similarly impossible task in crafting a “communications strategy”. In the temper of an atypical White House, the Mooch wished Spicer well, hoping he “goes on to make a tremendous about of money”. B-Grade directors, take note.

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

Notes

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/business/media/sean-spicer-show.html

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/21/sean-spicer-quits-and-the-world-loses-another-reality-tv-celebrity

[3] http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2017/06/28/sean-spicer-nostalgia/

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/business/media/april-ryan-white-house-spicer-trump.html?mcubz=2

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/21/sean-spicer-saturday-night-live-melissa-mccarthy

[6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/sarah-huckabee-sanders-press-secretary_us_597247f3e4b0e79ec19910b0

But then I think, no! This can’t be so, how can life be so cruel?

But then I think, we have so little power but so much comprehension, so maybe that’s it;

Comprehend but do nothing.

This is Grenfell Tower, so much comprehension, so much understanding, so little power.

The unpacking begins. The explorations wander through mazes. We catalogue, we classify, we empathise, we explicate, we condemn, but do nothing.

The act of describing is enough. Enough is enough.

Is enough.

And as the days roll by, more explications roll by.

The tests. I laugh!

The tests a sham.

The tests begin – again.

Then bizarrely music fills my brain. Somehow, the music explains.

I hear chords, they strike a chord.

The corpses, they pile up in a strange land. Corpses are the same everywhere. And not surprisingly, the Grenfell corpses are identical to Aleppo corpses, as are Mosul corpses, are the same as the…I can’t go on.

This has to stop!

But then I think, this can’t be so.

But it is.

That woman, blonde she was, well coiffed she was. Beautiful nails, she spoke and out came shit, nothing but empty shit, and so well coiffed, but shit just the same.

How can this be so? So much is known, so little acted on.

They explicate, they analyse, they categorise, they bury us with little truths, piled up like corpses in a stairwell, each one a truth, each truth a little death.

Lots of little deaths don’t make one big death.

Perhaps the causes somehow change the end. The end becomes the beginning and in doing becomes the end.

They bury us with little truths

The truths pile up like corpses

Each corpse a truth, each truth a lie

Each lie a death

Each death a life.

St. Thomas’s Hospital, 22 July 2017

This poem was originally published by Investigating Imperialism.

Featured image from 21st Century Wire

Apart from its propaganda value, U.S President Trump’s recent announcement to stop funding “rebels”[1] in Syria is meaningless.

The U.S-led coalition has been funding and arming all of the terrorists in Syria, and they will continue to do so.

Arms will continue to be shipped covertly by the CIA via airways such as Silk Way airlines, and through U.S firms such as Chemring, Culmen International, Orbital ATK and Purple Shovel.[2]

But the stories, repeated incessantly, and sold to an ever gullible public, are shifting. The original story that there were “moderate” terrorists and that they were somehow “legitimate” is running into difficulties – despite the fact that it is patently absurd and the public usually swallows stories that are the polar opposite to the truth – so now a back-up story is being introduced to divert attention from the previous lies.

In an earlier article I explained this CIA strategy:

The strategy of “stories within stories”, and using competing narratives to confuse, to distract, and to lead the public down false paths (red herrings) is entirely consistent with the 9/11 crimes, the subsequent “War On Terror”, and the criminal invasion of Syria.[3]

Now the minority Kurds are being portrayed as the “good guys”, and so they will be deemed “legitimate” by the purveyors of “official narratives”.

The PKK terrorists from Turkey are now being re-packaged as YPG and SDF in Syria – an alphabet soup of confusion, and the perfect foundation for more stories within stories.

These terrorists are also proxies for the U.S in Syria, and, as with all of the terrorists, they are being used to destroy Syria’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity. Apart from their differing ideological outlooks, the Kurds and ISIS serve the same functions on behalf of their imperial masters.

Now that the U.S is setting up illegal military installations in Syria[4] with the apparent pretext of aiding their Kurdish allies, the Kurdish terrorists in Syria might be more useful than their ISIS, and al Qaeda et al. predecessors. All of which is a recipe for more conflict, death, and destruction – exactly what the imperialists want — so that they can better sell the familiar “It’s a (white man’s) burden, but we are here to help” story.

Notes

[1] Washington Post, “Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria, a move sought by Moscow.” July 19, 2017, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ends-covert-cia-program-to-arm-anti-assad-rebels-in-syria-a-move-sought-by-moscow/2017/07/19/b6821a62-6beb-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html?utm_term=.760c7e36c0e1) Accessed July 22, 2017.

[2] Thierry Meyssan, “Billions of Dollars’ Worth of Weapons Brought into Syria, ‘Arms Traffic Organized by CIA and Pentagon.’ “Global Research, July 20, 2017 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/billions-of-dollars-worth-of-weapons-brought-into-syria-arms-traffic-organized-by-cia-and-pentagon/5600204) Accessed July 22, 2017.

[3] Mark Taliano, “ ‘Stories within Stories’: The CIA’s Strategies to Dupe the American Public.” Global Research, July 24, 2016. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/stories-within-stories-the-cias-strategies-to-dupe-the-american-public/5537635) Accessed July 22, 2017.

[4] Sophie Mangal, “The U.S. Military Bases in Syria: Their Precise Location Revealed by Turkish Government?” Global Research, July 22, 2017. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-military-bases-in-syria-their-precise-location-is-known/5600527) Accessed July 22, 2017.

Featured image from South Front

350 “diplomatic” flights transporting weapons for terrorists – Trud

Azerbaijan’s Silk Way Airlines transported hundreds of tons of weapons under diplomatic cover to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan Congo

• the weapons and ammunition are usual from east Europe (Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine …)
• the contracts are with U.S. companies themselves hired by the CIA and/or Pentagon as well as with Saudi and Israeli companies
• offloading during unusual “fueling stops” allowed to disguise the real addressee of the loads

With lots of details from obtained emails.

Ten thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition to al-Qaeda and other Takfiris in Syria also came first from Libya by ship, then on at least 160 big cargo flights via Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Turkey and during the last years by various ships under U.S. contracts from mostly east-European countries.

***

With all the Trump-Russia nonsense flowing around one person’s involvement in the creation of the issue deserves more scrutiny:

McCain and the Trump-Russia Dossier: What Did He Know, and When? – Reason

A British spy. An Arizona senator. And one inflammatory dossier on Donald Trump. The connection between them is starting to unravel…

• there are indications that McCain was the one who hired the company which created the infamous Steele dossier.
• there is evidences that he distributed it to the CIA, FBI and to the media.
• the issue is now in front of a British court.

***

Another Scorpene Submarine Scandal – Asia Sentinel (a bit older but it was new to me)

Document hack could imperil subs in Oz, India, other countries

• a commercial cyber-crime case but likely with state involvement
• French submarine sales usually include the payment of various “commissions” with kickbacks to French politicians
• sometimes people involved in the business end up dead

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

Obama’s war on Yemen, escalated by Trump, bears full responsibility for what Oxfam calls the worst outbreak of cholera “ever recorded in any country in a single year.”

Since April, they’ve been over 360,000 known cases, likely many more not officially reported, numbers rising exponentially.

By end of summer, they could double because of devastating war, creating conditions for the outbreak and spread of the disease.

It’s an infection of the small intestine, caused by contaminated food or water.

Symptoms include uncontrolled watery diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, rapid heart rate, and abdominal cramps, among others. Untreated severe cases can cause death.

Over two years of US-supported Saudi terror-bombing targeted residential areas, hospitals and medical clinics, mosques, schools, food storage areas, and other civilian targets.

Yemen, the region’s poorest country in more normal times, is devastated by naked aggression, cholera and other diseases, famine and overall deprivation – the world community doing virtually nothing to stop the carnage.

Arms makers love it, profiting from genocide, destruction and human misery.

There’s no end of it in sight, civilians harmed most. A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from war-related malnutrition and starvation alone – a shocking indictment of imperial viciousness.

Weapons and munitions makers share guilt with America, Riyadh and their warring partners – guilty of the supreme high crime against peace.

Genocide stalks Yemen – terror-bombing and blockade creating famine and rampant diseases as a weapon of war.

Around 2,000 Yemenis died from cholera, according to estimates, likely many more, maybe multiples more than the reported number.

After returning from a fact-finding mission to the country, Oxfam’s humanitarian director Nigel Timmins said the following:

“It is quite frankly staggering that in just three months more people in Yemen have contracted cholera than any country has suffered in a single year since modern records began.”

“Cholera has spread unchecked in a country already on its knees after two years of war and which is teetering on the brink of famine. For many people, weakened by war and hunger, cholera is the knockout blow.”

“This is a massive crisis needing a massive response – if anything, the numbers we have…likely… underestimate the scale of the crisis. So far funding from government donors to pay for the aid effort has been lackluster at best, less than half is what is needed.”

“Cholera is easy to treat and simple to prevent. We need a massive well coordinated effort to get clean water and decent sanitation to people and simple things like soap to keep them safe from disease. We need an end to country entry restrictions of supplies and people so that we can get on with the job.”

“The war has destroyed the economy and left millions without jobs or the means to earn a living and forced 3 million people to flee their homes.”

“It has precipitated a crisis which has left 7 million people on the brink of starvation. And the war has destroyed or damaged more than half the country’s health facilities and ushered in one of the world’s worst cholera outbreaks in over 50 years.”

“Vital public servants such as health workers have not been paid for nearly a year. Hospitals, ports, roads and bridges have been bombed. All this is crippling efforts to tackle the cholera crisis.”

“Those countries providing the arms and military support, such as the US and the UK, are fueling a war that is causing widespread suffering and tipping a whole nation towards a catastrophe.”

“It is hard to imagine how much more Yemen can take before it collapses entirely.”

Explaining the horror of conditions doesn’t get more stark than that. The death toll is likely multiples more than officially reported, mostly affecting civilians, the scale of human suffering beyond what words can explain.

All essentials to life are in short supply or unavailable to millions. Most Yemenis have no access to clean water and sanitation. Millions face potential starvation.

The only viable solution is ending devastating war, carnage and blockade. Otherwise millions of Yemenis could perish if ongoing horrors continue endlessly.

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

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

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

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

Featured image: A screenshot from Bana al-Abed’s alleged Twitter account (Source: Activist Post)

Ever since the start of the Syrian crisis, the Western corporate media has presented the public with a number of human symbols of “Assad’s brutality” and the Syrian government’s “Crimes against humanity.” One by one, these symbols have been revealed to be the frauds that they are whether it is “Syria Danny,” “Gay Girl In Damascus,” “Little Omran,” or others.

One of the more recent propaganda stunts is the use of a seven-year-old girl named Bana al-Abed. Bana’s alleged Twitter feed has been used and cited by the Western media as not only a tired symbol of the “evil Assad government” but as a rather transparent tool of anti-Syrian propaganda. However, as time moves on, the little Twitter star is being revealed for being much different than what is presented by Western media outlets. In fact, it is rather clear by now that Bana is not a precocious little girl just trying to survive the war but that she (her social media profile) is actually an adult(s), adult terrorist(s), and perhaps a network of people not only connected to terrorist organizations but also to Western intelligence.

Bana al-Abed

Bana’s propaganda story began in September, 2016 when a supposed seven-year-old girl began allegedly tweeting from Eastern Aleppo (terrorist held area) about the tragedy of living under “Assad’s day to day bombing” and “war crimes.” The official narrative regarding Bana is that she lived with her parents and two brothers and that her mother, Fatemah, manages her Twitter account. Her father, Ghassan, allegedly worked in the “legal department of the local council.”

Bana’s First Tweet

Bana’s first tweet was simple enough and poignantly framed to gather attention from Westerners who still have hearts, albeit hearts that only bleed when they are told.

“I need peace,” her tweet read.

After that, Bana tweeted around twenty times, each time complaining about Assad and Putin’s “war crimes” and demanding that both men be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

As Barbara McKenzie wrote for 21st Century Wire in her article, “Syria: Child Exploitation: Who Is ‘Bana Of Aleppo?”

Wee Bana hit the ground running on 24 September with about 20 tweets, and has continued at a good rate ever since, managing over 120 on 4 October (including retweets). I myself used twitter for weeks before I used hashtags and I was slow to learn the jargon. Bana, however, was up to speed from the beginning, and over the first two days we got #Aleppo, #HolocaustAleppo #MassacreInAleppo #StopAleppoMassacre. She is well up on acronyms like POTUS and OMG. Followers were impressed with Bana’s command of English idiom:

***

To have mastered English contractions like ‘I’ll’ and idiomatic expressions such as ‘horrible dream’ at the age of seven puts Bana in the genius category. The problem is, when cute Bana was videoed, it became apparent that she wasn’t a child prodigy at all, in fact she couldn’t put two words of English together if not rote-learned. It was clear that whoever wrote the tweets was nothing to do with the small actor reciting, eg. on her 1st day of tweeting (yes, that was all set to go from the outset too):

McKenzie is right to question Bana’s English skills which seem obviously non-existent to anyone who watches the interviews with her attempted by foreign media outlets in English. It appears Bana’s only English words are “Save the children of Syria.” In one video produced from just such an interview, Bana can be seen being prompted by her mother in answering questions posed to her. At one point, the interviewer asks her “What do you like?” to which she responds “Save the children of Syria.”

So the question then becomes, if Bana can’t speak English, who is authoring her Tweets?

Aside from her lack of English skills, one need only look at the fact that her mastering of the English language as it appears on Twitter is much more advanced than any normal seven year old. This is in addition to the fact that she is able to reference historical facts that few adults (in the Western world at least) are aware of as well as intelligent (albeit wrong) geopolitical analysis. It does not take a highly educated investigative reporter to discover that the Bana Twitter account is entirely fake and nothing more than propaganda.

The Bana Twitter Community

“After three weeks Bana was following 51 people,” writes McKenzie. “None of them would be an obvious pick for a seven year old girl: without exception they were politicians, corporate media or social media activists. Most of them could be considered sympathetic to the war on Syria; many of them have strong links with terrorist groups.”

McKenzie continues,

Iyad el-Baghdadi, Louisa Loveluck, Julian Roepcke, Sophie McNeill – all determined supporters of the Syrian ‘revolution’, are very familiar to pro-Syrian activists who spend any time on Twitter. Bana is also following the pro-terrorist National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces and the White Helmets – the fake humanitarian organisation that presently has a petition calling for a No-Fly (i.e. NATO bombing) zone in Syria. A particularly sinister choice is @IranArabSpring, which is focused on regime change in Iran, presumably by the same bloody route.

One of the first to be followed by Bana, and typical, was the Australian journalist Sophie McNeill who was instrumental in promoting the Madaya hoax/beatup in January 2016. The story went that inhabitants of Madaya, a town besieged by the government, were starving and that it was all the fault of the Syrian government who were preventing aid from reaching the town. In fact many if not all the photos were fake, aid for three months had gone into Madaya in October, and the chief problem was terrorists selling food at exorbitant prices. Many of the others followed by Bana are likewise involved in pushing misinformation on the Syrian war.

Bana built-up a huge following within days, reaching 65,000 by 3 October. A very large proportion of the followers appeared to be fake accounts, which again suggests that very savvy people are managing the project.

The corporate media, however, have without exception taken Bana to their hearts, with poignant articles free of all doubt appearing in the Telegraph, the Guardian, and on all the main television channels. The New Statesman went on the attack against the many people who have made fun of the account.

I highly encourage accessing Barabara McKenzie’s article “Syria: Child Exploitation: Who Is ‘Bana Of Aleppo?’” for a sizeable sample of Bana’s tweets.

Bana’s Connection To Terrorists And Terrorism

Tim Hayward of 21st Century Wire has written an insightful piece regarding Bana’s family entitled “Bana: The Heartbreaking Story Of Child Exploitation, Propaganda, And Media Falsehood,” where he sources the work of Syrian journalist Khaled Iskef, who lives in Aleppo. Ever since the liberation of East Aleppo, Iskef has been able to travel to the Eastern portion and investigative a number of elements of the war that had previously gone unreported.

Hayward writes,

In this latest video, Khaled takes us on a short walk around the Alabed house and environs, accompanied by Nour Al Ali doing the filming and photography. They show us into the Alabed house, and then into the Al Nusra headquarters adjacent to it.

The proximity of the house to the Al Nusra headquarters is demonstrated – each a few meters from a shared street corner. This explains why the house was in an area being bombed. About 100 men were quartered in the basement of the adjacent building, according to a local witness interviewed.

We learn about the Alabed family. The paternal grandfather was running a weapons dealership and repair workshop for Al Nusra and other militant groups; his sons worked there; one of them had served a criminal sentence, even before the war, for gun smuggling; and we are shown a photo of the now famous granddaughter at about 3 years posing with a serious-looking weapon that is as big as her.

Her father Ghassan worked as a lawyer, before joining the armed groups. We see photos of Ghassan, armed, with the militant factions Al Nusra and the Islamic Safwat Brigade. We see documents showing he served in the Sharia Court based in the ‘Eye Hospital’. Amidst other papers strewn about the abandoned house is one that indicates he was ‘assistant director of the Civil Registry of Aleppo Council’ – a “rebel” organisation with links to foreign states and armed groups in the governorate.

Another document shows he worked as a military trainer and investigating judge for the Islamic Safwa brigades. Prior to 2015 he had been working with ISIS in the Sharia court in the Eye Hospital. We see a photo of him brandishing an AK47 beneath an ISIS flag; and another of him in the midst of an armed Asafwa group. We see him with four brothers, each holding a serious weapon, outside the store.

Also lying around is a dog-eared piece of paper with one of Bana’s famous #StandWithAleppo messages on.

Outside, and a few steps just around the corner, we are taken into the basement. We are now inside the headquarters of Al Nusra. There we see rolled militant flags, Turkish supplies, and a prison.

On this and the other videos there is much more to see. So I recommend them. They don’t have the slick production values of Channel 4 and the other corporate media outlets. What they do offer is honest and dispassionate testimony. Or as dispassionate as a participant observer can be under the circumstances.

As a resident of Aleppo, Khaled is visibly affected by the whole situation. He expresses something close to despair about “the exploitation of children in politically motivated attempts to distort the image of his government.” His fellow citizens in that part of town have confirmed on the video that they had been human shields for the militants.

Khaled also has a word about the little boy Omran who, photographed in the orange-seated ambulance, was another major media sensation in the West. We meet Omran today in videos with Khaled (and others, like this and this). He is in Aleppo, back in his original home, not Turkey. He was thrust into the world’s media spotlight against his family’s wishes. His family is glad Aleppo was liberated from the likes of those that created the propaganda for #Bana.

The Purpose of the Twitter Account

Barbara McKenzie, who has covered the Bana Project at length says there is no doubt that the whole show is a scam and that it is nothing more than propaganda aimed to promote the NATO narrative of the war and to demonize the Syrian and Russian governments as well as Assad and Putin individually.

She writes,

The sympathies of the Bana Project are totally with the extremists who are terrorising residents of eastern Aleppo, shelling western Aleppo, and are in imminent danger of being forced out by the Syrian Arab Army and allies like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Al Quds brigade.

From the first days Bana accused Assad and Putin of perpetrating a holocaust, a massacre, of carrying out a bombing campaign using cluster bombs, phosphorus, thermite bombs, and of course barrel bombs. Since then the account has continued the theme of bombing and Assad/Putin culpability, along with constant calls for the world to do something, ‘to stop the bombing’.

***

No mention is ever made of the terrorists who mow down demonstrators in the streets of eastern Aleppo and prevent humanitarian aid reaching the area. Bana’s family may be in a position to repeat the dubious claim that Russia bombed a school in Idlib, but show no interest in the atrocities caused by hellfire cannon directed by terrorists at western Aleppo. When young swimmer Mireille Hindoyan was killed by a terrorist shell in the Armenian quarter in western Aleppo, the Bana Project, along with the Independent (UK), smoothly implied that this was due to Russian bombing.

***

The purpose of the Bana Project is to create in the outside world a conviction that Russia and Syria are committing serious war crimes by recklessly bombing civilians [eastern Aleppo]. In fact both Russia and Syria have denied that they are bombing in Aleppo, and given that Syria has launched a massive land operation to take Aleppo it seems most unlikely that the alliance is bombing at the same time.

The Defense Of Bana By Other Propaganda Outlets

After Bana’s role as patsy for the propaganda mill, a number of media outlets and typical terrorist-supporters like BellingCat have run to the defense of the shadowy adult running the Bana Twitter account. Of course, all of their defenses center around three straw man arguments they have created themselves. For instance, the defenders seek to disprove the idea that

1.) Bana does not exist

2.) Bana herself is a terrorist

3.) Bana does not live in Aleppo.

Personally, I have never heard anyone argue the first two claims as they are ridiculous. Thus, the claims are likely the result of people like Bellingcat himself who wish to create a straw man, debunk it, and then claim intellectual victory.

The third, however, is legitimate. There is little way to know for sure at this point, but one question that must be asked is how Bana and her family were constantly able to tweet from East Aleppo when there was no power where she was supposed to be located? Indeed, the independent journalists who traveled to East Aleppo during that time all reported extreme difficulty in accessing the Internet, if not outright impossibility. Thus, it is hard to believe that the Bana Twitter account had access to the only Internet and power supply in the entirety of East Aleppo.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, Bana, who mainstream media outlets, never missing a chance to pimp the holocaust, have named the “Anne Frank of Syria,” is just one more in a long line of propaganda figures produced by the U.S. State Department, Western-backed White Helmets, and the corporate media. Ironically, it is now being reported that Bana is preparing a book of memoirs, no doubt a vomit-inducing pamphlet that will be shoved down the throats of Westerners in order to pull on what little heart strings they have left. The evidence is clear, however, where Bana al-Abed may be, she is most certainly not on Twitter.

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

Massive aid effort and cease-fire needed as rainy season approaches.

The number of people with cholera in Yemen is now the largest ever recorded in any country in a single year, Oxfam said today. At over 360,000 suspected cholera cases in just three months since the outbreak started, it is now already the largest number of cases in a year, topping the previous annual record of 340,311 in Haiti in 2011. 

Though there are signs that the increase in numbers is slowing, the country’s rainy season from July to September will increase the risk of the disease spreading further. It is feared that the total number of people infected could eventually rise to over 600,000, making it one of the largest outbreak since records began in 1949.

Almost 2,000 people in Yemen have died from suspected cholera since late April this year and many more are now at risk, weakened by hunger, disease and the ongoing war.

Nigel Timmins, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Director who has just returned back from a fact finding mission to Yemen, said: 

“It is quite frankly staggering that in just three months more people in Yemen have contracted cholera than any country has suffered in a single year since modern records began. Cholera has spread unchecked in a country already on its knees after two years of war and which is teetering on the brink of famine. For many people, weakened by war and hunger, cholera is the knockout blow.

“This is a massive crisis needing a massive response – if anything the numbers we have are likely to underestimate the scale of the crisis. So far funding from government donors to pay for the aid effort has been lacklustre at best, less than half is what is needed.

“Cholera is easy to treat and simple to prevent. We need a massive well coordinated effort to get clean water and decent sanitation to people and simple things like soap to keep them safe from disease. We need an end to country entry restrictions of supplies and people so that we can get on with the job.

“The war has destroyed the economy and left millions without jobs or the means to earn a living and forced 3 million people to flee their homes. It has precipitated a crisis which has left 7 million people on the brink of starvation. And the war has destroyed or damaged more than half the country’s health facilities and ushered in one of the world’s worst cholera outbreaks in over 50 years.

“Vital public servants such as health workers have not been paid for nearly a year. Hospitals, ports, roads and bridges have been bombed. All this is crippling efforts to tackle the cholera crisis.

“Those countries providing the arms and military support, such as the US and the UK, are fuelling a war that is causing wide-spread suffering and tipping a whole nation towards a catastrophe. It is hard to imagine how much more Yemen can take before it collapses entirely.”

War has had a devastating effect on Yemen’s people and its infrastructure – almost 5,000 civilians have been killed in the fighting and parts of the country stand on the brink of famine. Health, water and sanitation systems have been bombed to the point of collapse leaving over 15 million people without adequate access to clean drinking water and safe sanitation. Millions more are hungry and need help in getting a decent meal.

Waste is piling up on the streets and in the settlements of displaced people because sanitation services, severely damaged by the two year war, cannot cope. Aid agencies tackling the cholera crisis are in danger of being overwhelmed by the scale of the outbreak.

Meanwhile, the world’s major arms exporters – which include the UK and US – are making more money from arming the Saudi led coalition force than they are spending on Yemen’s humanitarian appeal. In 2016, Saudi Arabia spent nearly $3 billion on arms from the world’s major arms exporters. As of this month, many of those same governments had given just $620 million toward the $2.1 billion UN appeal for Yemen.

Oxfam is calling for an immediate cease-fire to enable a nationwide cholera campaign to tackle the disease unhindered by fighting and allow people to get their lives back together. It is calling for the opening of ports and Sanaa airport to allow a massive injection of aid and for the UN and aid agencies’ appeal to be fully funded.

Featured image: Northeast exposure of Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Haram al-Sharif, in the Old City of Jerusalem. Considered to be the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. (Source: Andrew Shiva / Wikimedia Commons)

As usual, commentary on the latest stand-off between Israel’s forces and Palestinian Muslims due to the closure of al-Aqsa mosque compound to Friday prayers on July 21, 2017 was confusing.

One commentary goes like this: Yes, these are Muslims being killed, gassed and pushed around, but the “clashes” are not really about the encroachment on al-Aqsa by the so-called Temple movement – a messianic Jewish extremist movement supported by the Israeli government that aims to replace Al-Aqsa with a Jewish temple; that’s just a pretext, a provocation designed to allow Israel to perfect its Jewish nationalist goals in Jerusalem or to cloak colonialism.

Yes, Israel has been vigorously judaizing illegally annexed and occupied East Jerusalem, but the thousands of devout Jews colonizing the city have nothing to do with Judaism – they are there simply as a front for the settler colonial state – and a provocation to push Palestinian Arabs out, who just happen to be mostly Muslim.

Well, it looks like Muslims in Palestine on either side of the Green Line, not to mention in the Gaza enclave, believe deeply Israel is all about Judaism – as much or even more so than about nationalism – especially in al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Since Palestinians on the street are praying, speaking and shouting in Arabic, much of what they are saying goes over the heads of the non-Arabic speaking TV viewer, and that includes the majority of Israeli Jews.

The following is a translation of a speech, captured on video and posted on Facebook. The setting is Salah-al-Din Street close to one of the gates of the Old City (Bab al-Amoud). The speaker is addressing a crowd of worshippers who had been prevented by Israeli police from accessing al-Aqsa mosque for Friday prayer.

These crowds standing here are sending one message to the whole world that al-Quds is Arabic, Islamic and Palestinian, a city that raises the heads of al umma up high everywhere – this is how al-Quds was; this is how al-Aqsa was and so it will be. (Chants of Allahuakbar). We repeat, these crowds of people come here to pray and nobody can put a stop to them or the freedom of worship. The majority of Muslims in this homeland are unable to reach al-Aqsa mosque. That’s why the occupation is responsible. We refuse the gates because they are coming from the occupation; if they place roses in al-Aqsa, we will refuse it because it is coming from the occupation … we are for life, not death, but a life with dignity. Life needs a stand for dignity and as we said in the past and say and repeat now al-Aqsa mosque is a place of worship for Muslims period. During the time of the Crusades and foreign invasions the gates of the al-Aqsa mosque were closed for 90 years. The foreigners left and al-Aqsa mosque remained and that is what must be. Be certain that the stand you are taking now is one that has moved the world – the stand of the youth with whom we stood in solidarity all week is what has moved the world and that is what will impose justice and truth that al-Aqsa is for Muslims (chants) You are chanting here that al-Aqsa mosque is sorrowful. You are here to make a stand for the dignity and authenticity of al-Aqsa whether they like it or not. Say it along with me – al-Aqsa mosque is a place of worship for Muslims. May the blessing and mercy of God be upon you (assalmu alaikum wa rahmatu allahu wa barakatoh).

The attitude reflected by Jewish youth who have been parading through the Old City on Jerusalem Day since May 12, 1968, shouting racist chants against Arabs (a euphemism for Muslim), has much to do with Judaism and the role that the city plays in its ancient traditions.

Unfortunately for the Zionist project, it is Palestinian Arabs – Jews, Christians and Muslims – who are the true heirs of that tradition and not immigrant or colonizing Jews.  The Palestinian speaker above claims the heritage of Al-Aqsa for all the Muslim “umma”, but he understands it as a spiritual heritage, not as a nationalist one.  It’s the same for Christians worldwide; the Holy Land has not been turned into a real-estate bargain for Christians worldwide despite their historic connection to the land.  But by claiming Palestine for all Jews worldwide, Zionist nationalism as a “homeland for Jews” does not make any distinctions.

In The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader, Arthur Hertzberg writes:

Zionism cannot be typed, and therefore easily explained, as a ‘normal’ kind of national risorgimento. To mention only one important difference, all of the other 19th-century nationalisms based their struggle for political sovereignty on an already existing national land or language (generally there were both). Zionism alone chose to acquire both of these usual conditions of national identity by the elan of its nationalist will. It is therefore a maverick in the history of modern nationalism, and it simplifies the task of general historians to regard it, at least by implication, as belonging only on the more parochial stage of the inner history of the Jewish community.

The “right” to establish Israel in Palestine is predicated on the powerful mythical idea of Palestine as the religious homeland of the Jews and both secular Zionists as well as religious Zionists are wedded to this notion.  It is a mistake to believe that the religious war brewing now in Palestine is not part and parcel of the Zionist project in a fundamental way, and not simply as a political strategy.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

In the wake of Senate Republicans’ ever-deepening debacle over their flailing attempts to strip health insurance from 22 million people, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is desperate to do something – anything – to show that he can get legislation passed. To this end, he’s bypassing the standard committee review process to push a complex 850+ page energy bill straight to the full Senate floor. Perhaps not surprisingly, this legislation, the Energy and Natural Resources Act of 2017, would be a disaster for public health and our climate.

Despite its benign-sounding name, the bill would be a catastrophe, effectively locking the US into fossil-fuel dependency for decades. This dirty energy legislation would allocate millions of dollars for the discovery and extraction of fossil fuels off US coastal waters, speed up the review period required for fracked gas terminals, and instruct the Bureau of Land Management to create a program to expedite drilling and fracking permits. These are shameful giveaways to the oil and gas industry—directly in line with Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda.

Even worse, the bill gives no mention of clean wind and solar power – precisely at a moment in our history when we need to transition to 100 percent renewable energy now. The science is clear: If we’re going to have a chance of avoiding the worst of climate catastrophes and public health crises in coming years, we need to get off fossil fuels immediately.

Thankfully, the Trump/McConnell dirty energy bill could be shelved indefinitely. After all, the Republicans are looking for an easy win, and any significant opposition from Democrats to this bill would deter them from proceeding. But as of this publication, not a single Senate Democrat has come out against the legislation!

Senate Democrats need to hear from all of us urgently – tell them to oppose the Trump/McConnell Dirty Energy Bill now.

We know who Trump and McConnell are really looking out for: their deep-pocketed Big Oil and Gas donors. But we have a chance to stop this bill and move immediately on the path to the Clean Energy Revolution. We must each tell our senators to stand up to this dangerous bill, and publicly oppose it. Our health and the future of our planet depend on it.

Featured image from Food & Water Watch

For informational purposes only (GR Editor)

On 18.7.2017 the Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, gave a declaration on the creation of a new federal state, Malorossiya, which will become the legal successor of ‘Ukraine’. The new state formation will consist of 19 regions of the former Ukraine with the capital in Donetsk city. Kiev remains a historical and cultural center without the status of the capital city.

Here is the full English translation of the declaration:

Political Declaration

The project of the state of “Ukraine”, formulated one hundred and fifty years ago and implemented in different versions during the twentieth century, has reached its logical conclusion and led to the country’s disintegration, the civil war and the death of tens of thousands of people, including children, women, and elderly people. And this process is irreversible. An attempt to turn the story back will result in “balkanization” of the conflict, expansion of chaos, escalation of the civil war and even bigger number of casualties.

To stop the civil war and avoid new victims, we, representatives of the majority of the regions of the former “Ukraine” assembled in Donetsk on July 18, 2017, discussed the current situation and came to the following conclusions:

– the state of “Ukraine” has revealed itself as a failed state and demonstrated its being incapable of granting its inhabitants a peaceful and prosperous present and future;

– the current authorities – ‘president’ Poroshenko and the Verkhovna Rada – elected in Kiev after the coup d’etat against the backdrop of political terror and the absence of elections in the Crimea and Donbass, are illegitimate;

– the state of “Ukraine” is on the brink of economic catastrophe and depopulation;

– an ultranationalist coup is brewing in Kiev, as a result of which outright neo-Nazis will come to power instead of “Banderites with a European face”;

– as a result of the neo-Nazi coup, a civil war of all against all will begin in the country and cause its subsequent disintegration;

– the Ukrainian nationalistic project (the Galician one) has discredited itself by the shedding of civilians’ blood in the country;

– the ideology of “Ukrainism” has proved to be misanthropic, mixed with xenophobia (Russophobia, anti-Semitism, Polonophobia) and neo-Nazism (the ideology of national exclusivity and superiority);

– resulting from historical development and due to the Maidan, the word “Ukraine” is forever associated with the names of the Nazi accomplices Bandera and Shukhevich, with the tragedies of the Baby Yar, the Volyn massacre and Khatyn, and, nowadays, with mass murders of people on the Maidan, in the Trade Unions’ House in Odessa, and the Genocide of the Donbass people.

On the basis of the above, we believe that the state of “Ukraine” in the form it was established after the collapse of the USSR is UNSERVICEABLE.

We, representatives of the regions of the former “Ukraine”, propose to re-establish the state and to proclaim the state of MALOROSSIYA under historical background out of the former “Ukraine”. In this case, it is of fundamental importance to rename the country, since “Ukraine” as a state is guilty of war crimes, mass terror and genocide of its own people.

In turn, the new name of the country based on historical traditions will enable us to reunify those pieces of the former “Ukraine” that seemed to have parted ways forever, including because of participation in the civil war on different sides of the front line.

We must turn the page of our people’s history which is flooded with the blood of our brothers and sisters.

Malorossiya is an INDEPENDENT, SOVEREIGN state with a new name, a new flag, a new constitution, a new state structure, new principles of social and economic development, and new historical prospectives. But this is NOT A REVOLUTION! This is a return to history. This is a novelty that restores, not destroys.

In view of the economic plight of the country, the chaos and disintegration potential, regarding the possibility of launching a “war of all against all”, we consider it necessary to declare a state of emergency for the transition period – up to 3 years. During this time, the process of adoption of the new Constitution and the establishment of the rule of law should be completed.

Under a state of emergency, a ban on the activities of political parties and foreign funds is to be introduced, and penalties for criminal offenses, especially against the person, are to be increased. The fight against corruption will be toughened, as well as penalties for it. The shadow arms market is to be eliminated, including by registering weapons in accordance with the new law.

In the same period, an investigation is to be carried out with the involvement of foreign specialists – from Russia, Belarus, the European Union – into the crimes committed by the Maidan Kiev regime: murders on the Maidan, the murder of Odessa citizens in the Trade Unions’ House on May 2, 2014, war crimes in Donbass in the so-called ATO.

In the same period, the People’s Tribunal is to be prepared to charge the state criminals who have led the country to disintegration and civil war: V.F. Yanukovich (with a request to Russia for his extradition), P.A. Poroshenko and his clique: Turchinov, Yatsenyuk, Kolomoisky, Paruby, Nalivaichenko and others.

We are sure that, having recovered from the criminal neo-Nazi ideology of “Ukrainism”, we will be able to build a new society on the basis of friendship and mutual assistance, but not hatred and envy. The creative genius of our people will manage to bring Malorossiya to the forefront of global civilization and play a role in history. The role of Good and Truth.

Official translation by the DONi Donbass News Agency

All images in this article are from the author.

In recent times, there hasn’t been much cheery in the power circles of Washington. The US is gradually finding itself unmoored and floating from international agreements at a dizzying rate. Its president is cool-mad distant, self-serving and occasionally clenching in peculiarity. And the traditional buffet room of conflict continues to be stacked with US interests and US armaments, armaments sales and exchanges.

Last week, however, activity of a different sort took place. The House of Representatives, often asleep at the wheel of history, arose from their ignorant slumber. The issue of concern was the war in Yemen, where the US-backed Saudi-UAE effort against the Houthi-Saleh alliance continues its blood-soaked merry way.

Yemen has every reason to be on the US radar, though how if filters through to the body polity is something else. A Navy SEAL was lost in a raid against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula as one of the first authorised foreign acts of engagement by President Donald Trump. It was a raid sizzling with some notoriety, not least because it cost the lives of 8-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki and involved the actual physical deployment of US boots on the ground.

The range of interests at play in the small country is bewildering: the Saudis on the one hand, pushing for their case for the overthrown Sunni government; the Iranians on the other, vicariously, and actively, supplying their Shia Houthi counterparts; and the US itself, keen on focusing on the bubbling fundamentalists of al-Qaida.

Congress has shown varied degrees of interest in the conflict, even if has been tinged with ample amounts of disingenuousness. Blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to cut US humanitarian assistance was certainly laudable. Even better was the appropriating of $1 billion of additional aid to the beleaguered state.

But what is given with one pure washed hand is taken away with the other grubbier one, notably in terms of allowing the munitions and equipment for the conflict to continue. US arms exporters, as Trump has made so clear, will not be denied.

US representatives saw their chance to make a further contribution to the debate with amendments to the annual National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) on the subject of support for Riyadh. Rep. Ro Khanna from California was keen to cut the funding line to refuelling coalition aircraft, while also calling for an inspector general report on the possible perpetration of war crimes by the coalition. That very fact would bar the continued supply of air-to-ground munitions.[1]

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) also advanced an amendment forbidding US military action in Yemen that does not fall within the 2001 Authorisation for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF). The motivation behind this legislative measure should, technically, be a non sequitur, given the fact that US participation in Yemen is not, in any case, authorised by the AUMF with the one caveat about operations against al-Qaida. But spelling out the obvious is such an important feature of these political engagements, a back hand confession of confused illegality.

There is, at least, some awareness about the indispensable nature of Washington’s backing to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. “The Saudis,” noted Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, “simply could not operate this bombing campaign without us. Their planes can’t fly without US refuelling capacity.”[2]

Senator Murphy, at the very least, notes the gruesome fact that American largesse and Yemeni citizens share an inseparably bloody bond in the conflict. “There’s a US imprint on every civilian death inside Yemen that’s caused by the Saudi bombing campaign.” The munitions dropped have been US in provenance; intelligence was being shared and distributed between the Saudi-UAE grouping and US officials.

Since October, the Saudi-led coalition has proven particularly voracious in, of all things, the re-fuelling department. Washington has doubled the amount, while most of the bombers that have been fuelled by the US, according to Pentagon sources, are from the UAE.

The theme of the useless obviousness also tells with the Nolan amendment, advanced by the Minnesota Democrat Nolan which prohibits the deployment of US troops to the Yemen conflict. One thing to be said about this particular measure is that it would block the US refuelling of UAE and Saudi aircraft operating against targets in Yemen.[3]

Things are not looking for rosy for a mutilated Yemen, now in the grip of famine and a cholera outbreak that has affected tens of thousands. The terms of suffering are staggering for a state essentially on death row, with 18.8 million Yemenis needing humanitarian assistance. The point is further hampered by the partial aerial and naval blockade of the state imposed by the coalition.[4]

In what can only be regarded as the pale sick irony of the entire conflict, Saudi Arabia’s new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was not only a key decision maker in pushing the Yemen conflict, but also an enthusiastic donor to UNICEF and the WHO’s anti-cholera efforts.[5]

This remains a conflict without end, violent in its circularity and contradictions. The one group that can truly be said to have done well in amidst the slaughter and disease is al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Their existence remains a siren call for the next haphazard US mission.

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

Notes

Now, and for many decades past, the American public has displayed far higher confidence and trust in “The Military” than in any other “Institution” (including than churches, schools, the Presidency, the police, courts — any). 

And yet — according to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense — many billions, and sometimes even trillions, of dollars, in the Department’s periodic financial reports, are not documented. What has happened to the taxpayers’ money is unknown — it’s missing (alleged to have been spent, but to payees unidentified). 

According to the DOD’s IG, this goes on year-after-year (yet without at all reducing Americans’ trust in “The Military”). Apparently, Americans, as a lot, are gluttons for punishment — or else our ’news’media haven’t sufficiently reported the “waste, fraud, and abuse” that “The Military” are doing to the American public. Either way, there is this extraordinarily high public confidence in the military ongoing year-after-year though the U.S. DOD continues to be the only unauditable federal Department, and expenditures amounting (over the years) into trillions of dollars remain unaccounted-for. But here will now be the American ‘news’media’s chance to call to the public’s attention this discrepancy between the military’s reality and the public’s perceptions of that reality, by publishing this documentation:

On July 14th, Catherine Austin Fitts posted to her website links to some of the key relevant federal documents. Her site is linked-to below, and some of the documents that refer to trillions of dollars unaccounted-for are also linked-to below, and are then quoted from, so that a reader can obtain a sense both of the enormity of the corruption, and also of the authoritativeness of the official statements that are being made here, regarding that corruption. 

I am using here the word “corruption” because whenever an official finding by a U.S. government agency is reporting trillions of dollars of taxpayer money that have been spent for purposes and recipients that are unknown, I call it “corruption,” on the basis that: regardless of whether or not the matter is intended or is instead sloppiness, even mere sloppiness is heinous if it ranges into trillions of dollars of taxpayer-money missing or wrongly spent. Even sloppiness of that magnitude, in the expenditure of taxpayer funds, reflects corruption, if it continues on for years, or especially (as it is shown to do here) for decades, and still has not been stopped.

In fact, the most recent such IG report makes clear (on page “7 of 74”) that 

“Army and Defense Finance and Accounting Service Indianapolis personnel did not adequately support $2.8 trillion in third quarter adjustments and $6.5 trillion in yearend adjustments made to Army General Fund data during FY 2015 financial statement compilation.” 

These “adjustments” had been made to prior unacceptable reports, but were still failing to explain where the money had gone. Here is the main site (solari, of Catherine Austin Fitts), and excerpts from the main documents, which excerpts are posted immediately below it:

***

https://solari.com/blog/dod-and-hud-missing-money-supporting-documentation/

DOD and HUD Missing Money: Supporting Documentation

Catherine Austin Fitts, News & Commentary on July 14, 2017 at 11:07 pm 

***

1. 2015 Semiannual Report to Congress

http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2016-113.pdf

“We determined that 236, totaling $2 trillion, of the 263 third quarter JV adjustments in our sample, and 170, totaling $2.1 trillion, of the 194 yearend JV adjustments in our sample, were in fact unsupported.”

***

6. 2010 Testimony of the Deputy Inspector General, DOD

http://www.dodig.mil/IGInformation/IGInformationReleases/DoDIG_Testimony_Final%20(HOGR-20110923).pdf

“We found the Department’s review process included less than half of the fiscal year 2010 first quarter gross outlays.10 Comptroller officials stated that the $167.5 billion in outlays the Department did not examine for improper payments included internal and intragovernmental transfers. Those outlays were not subject to the OMB reporting requirements since the payments did not leave the Government. However, we later determined that Comptroller officials did not perform a reconciliation to determine whether these outlays were internal or intragovernmental transfers. A complete reconciliation is still needed to demonstrate that all outlays are being examined for overpayments and in order to accurately report the extent of the overpayments. Specifically, DoD did not review approximately $167.5 billion of the $303.7 billion in gross outlays for high dollar overpayments. Additionally, some overpayments that we or the Department identified were not reported, and the First Quarter FY 2010 High Dollar Overpayments Report did not include sufficient information about recoveries and corrective actions.”

“Unless DoD improves its methodology to review all its disbursements, it will continue to understate its estimate of overpayments and will likely miss opportunities to collect additional improper payments.”

“We are concerned with the accuracy and reliability of the Department’s estimation process. Without a reliable process to review all expenditures and identify the full extent of improper payments, the Department will not be able to improve internal controls aimed at reducing improper payments. 12 The Department’s financial management processes are not always adequate to prevent or detect improper payments. For example, in our recent audit of a contract supporting Broad Area Maritime Surveillance, we found DoD personnel did not validate that the contractor was entitled to $329.3 million it received as of January 12, 2010. These are costs paid to contractors that Defense Contract Audit Agency questioned because they do not comply with rules, regulations, laws and/or contract terms which meets the definition of an improper payment. These improper payments the audit agency identified are greater than the $1.3 billion of improper payments the Department identified during 2004 to 2010.”

***

https://solari.com/00archive/web/solarireports/2017/unsupported_adjustments/DOD/DODIG-2016-113.pdf

Inspector General U.S. Department of Defense Report No. DODIG-2016-113 JULY 26, 2016 Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported.

“OASA(FM&C) and DFAS Indianapolis personnel did not adequately document or support adjustments made to AGF data during FY 2015 financial statement compilation. Specifically, OASA(FM&C) and DFAS Indianapolis personnel did not adequately support $2.8 trillion in JV adjustments for third quarter and $6.5 trillion in JV adjustments for yearend.17”

***

https://solari.com/00archive/web/solarireports/2017/unsupported_adjustments/DOD/00-167.pdf

STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. LIEBERMAN ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE BEFORE THE TASK FORCE ON DEFENSE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT Report No. D-2000-167 DELIVERED: July 20, 2000

“The audits of the FY 1999 DoD financial statements indicated that $7.6 trillion of accounting entries were made to compile them. This startling number is perhaps the most graphic available indicator of just how poor the existing systems are. The magnitude of the problem is further demonstrated by the fact that, of $5.8 trillion of those adjustments that we audited this year, $2.3 trillion were unsupported by reliable explanatory information and audit trails or were made to invalid general ledger accounts. About $602.7 billion of accounting entries were made to correct errors in feeder reports.”

***

IN CLOSING:

Here, from the list of the 100 largest, are the 20 largest recipients of U.S. federal government money:

http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Top-100-Defense-Contractors-2015.html

1. Lockheed Martin Corp.

2. The Boeing Company

3. Raytheon Company

4. General Dynamics Corp.

5. Northrop Grumman Corp.

6. United Technologies Corp.

7. L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.

8. BAE Systems plc

9. Humana Inc.

10. Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.

11. Bechtel Group Inc.

12. Health Net Inc.

13. Unitedhealth Group Inc.

14. SAIC Inc.

15. General Atomic Technologies Corp.

16. McKesson Corp.

17. Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office

18. AmerisourceBergen Corp.

19. Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp.

20. United Launch Alliance L.L.C.

As is obvious, all or almost all of these firms are contractors to (recipients of money from) the U.S. Department of Defense; and they may reasonably be presumed to be benefiting significantly from some of the unaccounted-for payments from the U.S. DOD. However, if the money isn’t going to them, then where is it going? And why? And for what? Why is there no congressional investigation to answer these questions? And why are U.S. ‘news’media not publicizing this matter so as to force such investigations? Are payoffs involved — payoffs for silence? Why are none of the ‘news’media that have the resources to explore these questions, publishing their own investigations into it, since Congress won’t investigate? And, since the Inspector General’s reports into these matters have had no impact, why isn’t the focus finally shifting away from studying to find how much is missing, toward instead prosecuting the people who — at the very least — failed to do what they were being paid to do: keep track of every cent of taxpayers’ money? If doing that job is too dangerous, then shouldn’t the people who are tasked to do it be paid more, so as to cover their exceptionally high personal risk? Is all of this secrecy really necessary in order to keep “The Military” way on top as the most respected of all institutions in the United States — even after all of the harms that the U.S. military has actually caused in Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc., destroying those countries and others? How much would the public’s respect for the military — the mass-killing institution — be brought down, if the truth about it were known? Would the mass-killing institution deserve to be the most respected institution even if it weren’t so corrupt?

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.

As it was to be expected, the reaction of the U.S. Department of Defense (the US DoD) to the publication on the location of the U.S. military bases in Syria was not slow in coming.

Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian Rankin-Galloway said the US Department of Defense is concerned about the disclosure of secret military bases in Syria, which was due to the publication of a map of American positions by the Turkish state news agency.

“The publication of the secret military information exposes coalition forces to unnecessary risk and may disrupt current operations to defeat ISIS. And although we cannot independently verify the sources that contributed to this publication, we would be very concerned if NATO ally officials deliberately put our forces at risk,” told the spokesman.

An expert of the Atlantic Council (Editor’s note: it is an American think tank in the field of international affairs founded in 1961 that provides a forum for international political, business, and intellectual leaders), Aaron Stein, claims the information on the location of the notorious military bases the Anadolu news agency received came from the Turkish authorities. Mr. Stein, however, did not comment on why the Turkish government decided to leak damaging info about the U.S. bases in Syria.

It should be noted that the news source stated the data on the location of the bases was obtained not as a result of a leak but in the wake of their s own investigation, as well as from publications of Kurdish fighters in social networks. The person who wrote the article for Anadolu, correspondent Levent Tok even stated that

“the U.S. leadership should have thought about the possible development of events ages ago, when Washington was only about to plan to cooperate with a terrorist organization” (Editor’s note: Kurds).

To be recalled is that the map with the pointed ten U.S. bases in the Syrian provinces of Al-Hasakah, Manbij and Raqqa, as well as in the areas of Harab-Isk and Rmeilan, was published on Tuesday by Turkey-controlled leading media, Anadolu Agency. The source also reported on the number of the U.S. servicemen deployed at these bases.

Thus, the true source of data on American bases in Syria remains unclear. It is also unknown what purpose the source of leak pursued when sharing the materials.

Who declassified the data on the location of the U.S. military bases in Syria? What was the purpose? A special investigation report at Inside Syria Media Center is to appear soon.

Follow the latest developments by reading Inside Syria Media Center.

Sophie Mangal is a special investigative correspondent and co-editor at Inside Syria Media Center.

Featured image from the author

Featured image: Left to Right: Carlos Salinas de Gortari, George H. W. Bush, Brian Mulroney 

This article was first published by Global Research in February 2002

The Enron scandal is but the tip of the Iceberg. Fully documented by the US and British media, the Bush family has been implicated in a string of financial scams since the 1980s.

The following text based on a compilation of press excerpts (first published in December 2000 in the wake of the US presidential elections) is self-explanatory.

The personal links between the Bush and Salinas de Gortiari families are also documented. The Salinas family was closely tied to the Mexican drug cartel.

When Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican State apparatus became criminalised with key government positions occupied by members of the Cartel. The Minister of Commerce in charge of trade negotiations leading up to the signing of NAFTA was Raul Salinas Lozano, father of Raul Junior the Drug kingpin and of Carlos the president.

The Bush Family and the Savings and Loans (S&L) Scandal (1980s)

In the 1980s, George W Bush‘s younger brother Neil was involved in the Savings and Loan scam. According to the Los Angeles Times, other members of the Bush family were also involved:

Neil Bush (Source: Wikipedia)

“As a director of the defunct Silverado Savings & Loan in Denver, Neil Bush [brother of George W] was found by federal regulators to have engaged in a conflict of interest by participating in the approval of loans totaling $132 million from the S&L to his own business partners. In 1990, when George W. Bush’s little-known firm, Harken Energy, was awarded a lucrative contract from the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain, the deal was widely seen as an effort on the part of Bahrain’s royal family to win favor with the White House.

In 1985, Jeb Bush [brother of George W and Governor of Florida] interceded with officials of the Health and Human Services Department on behalf of Miguel Recarey Jr., the owner of a health-maintenance organization who later fled the country after being charged in what is believed to be the nation’s biggest Medicare scandal. Jeb Bush received $75,000 from Recarey for a business deal that never materialized. Likewise, Prescott Bush [brother of former President George Bush] has been accused of taking advantage of his brother’s sympathetic approach to China to negotiate business deals in that country.” (Los Angeles Times, 10 May 1992)

According to the Dayton Daily News:

Marvin Bush (Source: Wikipedia)

“After Silverado, Neil got a $ 2 million loan from the Small Business Administration and walked on it. Son Marvin Bush also has a spotty business record, and our own Gov. Shrub (George W. Bush) was accused of violating securities laws governing insider stock sales when he sold his shares of Harken Oil on the eve of the Persian Gulf war. (Nothing ever came of the allegations.)” (Dayton Daily News, 10 May 1992)

The Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) Scandal (1992)

According to the Wall Street Journal:

“Lawyers in class-action suit against Bank of Credit and Commerce International identify presidential sons George Bush and Jeb Bush as potential witnesses in their case.”(Wall Street Journal, 10 March 1992)

In the course of his investigation, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau in charge of prosecuting the BCCI case had looked into Harken Energy: In a December 1991 story the Wall Street Journal pointed out

”numerous links among Harken, Bahrain and individuals close to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.” Stephens is one of them. Several years ago, the Journal said, Stephens arranged for a Swiss bank to provide Harken with $25 million at a time when the bank was a partner with BCCI in another project. When snags developed, Stephens lined up Abdullah Bakhsh, whose business partners include an alleged BCCI front man and whose banker had been a large BCCI shareholder. Bakhsh became Harken’s third-largest stockholder — and also owns 10 percent of Stephens’s Worthen Banking.” (quoted in Common Cause Magazine, Spring 1992) “Stephens was the investment banker for Harken Energy, which in early 1990 won rights to drill for oil off Bahrain — surprising since the company had never drilled an offshore well. Further questions were raised because presidential son George W. Bush, a friend of Stephens, serves on Harken’s board. (The San Diego Union Tribune, 17 January 1992)

The Mexican Drug Cartel: What links to Raul Salinas de Gortiari? (1995)

According to the Houston Chronicle and the Ledger (Lakeland, Florida), Jeb Bush (brother of George W) –before becoming Governor of the Sunshine State– was a close friend of Raul Salinas de Gortiari, and brother of former President of Mexico Carlos Salinas. Raul –who was a leading member of the Mexican Drug Cartel– is now serving a 27 year jail term for having murdered a political opponent:

Raul Salinas de Gortiari (Source: ahuizote.com)

“There has also been a great deal of speculation in Mexico about the exact nature of Raul Salinas’ close friendship with former President George Bush’s son, Jeb. It is well known here that for many years the two families spent vacations together — the Salinases at Jeb Bush’s home in Miami, the Bushes at Raul’s ranch, Las Mendocinas, under the volcano in Puebla. There are many in Mexico who believe that the relationship became a back channel for delicate and crucial negotiations between the two governments, leading up to President Bush’s sponsorship of NAFTA.” (Houston Chronicle, 9 March 1995)

The personal relationship between the Bush and Salinas families is a matter of public record. Former President George Bush — when he worked in the oil business in Texas in the 1970s– had developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas and his father, Raul Salinas Lozano. According to Andres Openheimer writing in the Miami Herald (February 17 1997):

“witnesses say former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortiari, his imprisoned brother Raul and other members of country’s ruling elite met with drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego at a Salinas family ranch; Jeb Bush admits he met with Raul Salinas several times but has never done any business with him.”

According to a report published in The Dallas Morning News, behind the scam was Raul Salinas Lozano, the family patriarch father of Carlos and Raul Junior. The former private secretary to Raul Salinas Lozano:

“told [US] authorities [in testimony] that Mr. Salinas Lozano was a leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortiari, his son-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and other leading politicians, according to the documents. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was assassinated in 1994.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997).

According to former DEA Michael Levine, the Mexican drug Cartel was a “family affair”. Both Carlos and Raul were prominent members of the Cartel. And this was known to then US Attorney General Edward Meese in 1987 one year prior to Carlos Salinas’ inauguration as the country’s president.

Back row, left to right: Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, at the initialing of the draft North American Free Trade Agreement in October 1992. In front are Mexican Secretary of Commerce and Industrial Development Jaime Serra Puche, United States Trade Representative Carla Hills, and Canadian Minister of International Trade Michael Wilson. (Source: Wikipedia)

When Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican State apparatus become criminalised with key government positions occupied by members of the Cartel. The Minister of Commerce in charge of trade negotiations leading up to the signing of NAFTA was Raul Salinas Lozano, father of Raul Junior the Drug kingpin and of Carlos the president.

And it is precisely during this period that the Salinas government launches a sweeping privatisation program under advice from the IMF. The privatisation program becomes a multibillion dollar money laundering operation. Narco-dollars are channelled towards the acquisition of State property and public utilities.

Richard Barnet of the Institute for Policy Studies, testified to the US Congress (April 14, 1994) that “billions of dollars in state assets have gone to supporters and cronies” (Dallas Morning News, 11 August 1994). These included the sale of Telefonos de Mexico, valued at $ 3.9 billion and purchased by a Salinas crony for $ 400 million.(Ibid). Raul Salinas was behind the privatisation programme. He was known as ”Mr. 10 Percent” “for the slice of bid money he allegedly demanded in exchange for helping acquaintances acquire companies, concessions and contracts [under the IMF sponsored privatisation program”(The News, InfoLatina, .Mexico, October 10, 1997).

NAFTA Negotiations with the Salinas Family

According to the Dallas Morning News report cited above, the Bush administration was fully aware of the links of the Salinas presidency to organized crime. Public opinion in the US and Canada was never informed so as not to jeopardize the signing of NAFTA:

“Other former officials say they were pressured to keep mum because Washington was obsessed with approving NAFTA”.

“The intelligence on corruption, especially by drug traffickers, has always been there,” said Phil Jordan, who headed DEA’s Dallas office from 1984 to 1994. But “we were under instructions not to say anything negative about Mexico. It was a no-no since NAFTA was a hot political football.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997)

Michael Levine had confirmed that Carlos Salinas role in the Mexican drug cartel was known to US officials including US Attorney General Edward Meese prior to his inauguration as President of Mexico.

US President George Bush is regularly briefed by officials from the Department of Justice, the CIA and the DEA. In other words, at the time the NAFTA Agreement was signed, both Bush and Mulroney must have been informed that one of signatories of NAFTA had links to the Mexican Drug Cartel.

In 1995 in the wake of the scandal and the arrest of his brother Raul for murder, Carlos Salinas left Mexico to take up residence in Dublin. His alleged links to the Drug Cartel did not prevent him from being appointed to the Board of the Dow Jones Company on Wall Street, a position which he held until 1997:

Salinas, who left Mexico in March 1995 after his brother, Raul, was charged with masterminding the murder of a political opponent, has served on the company’s board for two years. He was questioned last year in Dublin by a Mexican prosecutor investigating the murder in March 1994 of Luis Donaldo Colosio, who wanted to succeed Salinas as president. A Dow Jones spokesman last week denied that Salinas had been forced out of an election for the new board, which will take place at the company’s annual meeting on April 16… Salinas, who negotiated Mexico’s entry into the free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, was appointed to the board because of his international experience. He was unavailable for comment at his Dublin home last week.” (Sunday Times, London, 30 March 1997).

Washington has consistently denied Carlos Salinas involvement. “it was his brother Raul”, Carlos Salinas “did not know”, the American media continues to uphold Salinas as a model statesman, architect of free trade in the Americas and a friend of the Bush family.

What bothers me is not that we are unable to find the solution to our problems, what bothers me more is the fact that neoliberals are so utterly unaware of real structural issues that their attempts to sort out tangential issues will further exacerbate the main issues. Religious extremism, militancy and terrorism are not the cause but the effect of poverty, backwardness and disenfranchisement. 

Empirically speaking, if we take all other aggravating factors out: such as poverty, illiteracy, disenfranchisement, deliberate training and arming of certain militant groups by regional and global players and, more importantly, grievances against the duplicitous Western foreign policy, I don’t think that the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the likes would find abundant supply of foot soldiers that they are getting now in the troubled regions of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Although I do concede that the rallying call of “Jihad in the way of God” might be one reason for abundant supply of foot soldiers to jihadists’ cause, but on an emotional level it is the self-serving and hypocritical Western interventionist policy in the energy-rich Middle East that adds fuel to the fire. When Muslims all over the Islamic countries see that their brothers-in-faith are dying in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan, on an emotional level they feel outraged and seek justice.

This emotional outrage, in my opinion, is a far more potent factor than the sterile “rationalist” argument of God’s supposed command to fight holy wars against the infidels. If we take all other contributing factors out of the equation, which I have described above, I don’t think the Muslims are an “exceptional” breed of human beings who are hell-bent on killing heretics all over the world.

Identifying the victims and beneficiaries of neocolonialism:

It’s very easy to distinguish between the victims of structural injustices and the beneficiaries of the existing neocolonial economic order all over the world. But instead of using words that can be interpreted subjectively I’ll let the figures do the talking.

Pakistan’s total GDP is $300 billion and with a population of 200 million, its per capita income amounts to a paltry $1450; similarly, India’s per capita income is also only $1850. While the GDP of the US is $18 trillion and per capita income is well in excess of $50,000.

Likewise, the per capita incomes of most countries in the Western Europe are also around $40,000. That’s a difference of more than twenty times between the incomes of Third World countries and the beneficiaries of neocolonialism, i.e. North America and Western Europe.

Only the defense budget of the Pentagon is $700 billion, which is more than twice the size of Pakistan’s total economy. A single multi-national corporation based in the Wall Street and other financial districts of the Western world owns assets in excess of $200 billion which is more than the total GDP of many developing economies. Examples of such business conglomerates are: Investment banks – JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, HSBC, BNP Paribas; Oil majors – Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, RDS, Total, Vitol; Manufacturers – Apple, Microsoft and Google.

On top of that, semi-legit wealth from all over the world flows into the Western commercial and investment banks: in July 2014, the New York Post published a report [1] that the Russian oligarchs have deposited $800 billion in the Western banks from 2002 to 2014, while the Chinese entrepreneurs have similarly deposited $1.5 trillion in the Western financial institutions during the same period of time.

Moreover, in April this year the Saudi foreign minister threatened [2] that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow the Americans to sue the Saudi government in the US courts for its role in the September 11, 2001 terror attack.

Bear in mind, however, that $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the US, if we add its investment in the Western Europe, and the investments of oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf’s investment in North America and Western Europe.

The first and foremost priority of the Western powers is to save their corporate empire, and especially their financial institutions, from collapsing; everything else like eliminating terrorism, promoting democracy and “the responsibility to protect” are merely arranged side shows to justify their interventionist foreign policy, especially in the energy-rich Middle East.

How the neoliberal mindset is structured? 

The irony is that the neoliberal dupes of the mainstream media justify and validate the unfair practices of the neocolonial powers and hold the victims of structural injustices responsible for their misfortunes. If a Third World’s laborer has been forced to live on less than $5 a day and a corporate executive sits on top of hundreds of billions of dollars of business empire in the Wall Street, neoliberals don’t find anything wrong with this travesty.

Regardless, we need to understand that how the neoliberal mindset is structured? As we know that mass education programs and mass media engender mass ideologies. We like to believe that we are free to think, but as a matter of fact human beings don’t exist in vacuums; the human mind is always socially constituted and socially situated.

Thus, our narratives aren’t really “our” narratives. These narratives of injustice and inequality have been constructed for the public consumption by the corporate media, which is nothing more than the mouthpiece of the Western political establishments and their business interests.

The media is our eyes and ears through which we get all the inputs and it is also our brain through which we interpret raw data. If the media keeps mum over vital structural injustices and blows the isolated incidents of injustice and violence out of proportions, then we are likely to forget all about the former and focus all of our energies on the tangential issues which the media portrays as the real ones.

Arranged sideshows to distract attention from structural injustices: 

Monopoly capitalism and the global neocolonial political and economic order are the real issues, while Islamic radicalism and terrorism are the secondary issues which are itself an adverse reaction to the former. This is how the mainstream media constructs artificial narratives and dupes its audience into believing the absurd: during the Cold War it created the “Red Scare” and told its audience that communism is an existential threat to the free world and the Western way of life. Its audience willingly bought this narrative.

Then, the West and its regional collaborators financed, trained and armed the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” and used them as proxies against the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, they declared the former “freedom fighters” to be terrorists and another existential threat to the free world and the Western way of life. Its gullible audience again bought this narrative.

And finally, during the Libyan and Syrian proxy wars, the former terrorists once again became freedom fighters – albeit in a more nuanced manner, this time around the corporate media sells them as “moderate rebels.” And the naive audience of the mainstream media has once again willingly bought this narrative. It really stretches the limit of human credulity that how easy it has been for the mainstream media to sell “fake news” and false narratives to its uncritical audience.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Notes

[1] Why $10 billion of China’s money is laundered every month:

http://nypost.com/2014/07/26/why-10b-of-chinas-money-is-laundered-every-month/

[2] Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?_r=0

With the recruitment of novice French President, Emmanuel Macron, the US Israel lobby can now boast a powerful political agent inside the corridors of power of the Élysée Palace, to liaise with those agents already resident in the British Parliament and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington. It is, of course, no small achievement to have managed to recruit half of the European Union as well as the United States Senate to support the dispossession of five million indigenous Arabs who have populated the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Gaza for over a thousand years.

No small achievement of the powerful minority Zionist movement of America to enforce its political agenda upon the United Nations Assembly in direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334.

Hiding behind the usual accusations of ‘antisemitism’, the US Zionist movement is now in a position to control EU foreign policy as well as that of America through the new French President, the British Prime Minister (CFI) and the US Congress (AIPAC) together with the tacit approval of Germany’s Angela Merkel (who has already supplied Israel with a fleet of submarines now armed with nuclear cruise missiles). Not a bad achievement for a neo-colonial, minority political Zionist movement, in the 21^st century!

So, what would be the likely consequence in the event of Political Zionism succeeding in its expansionist agenda?

1. Under the pretext of a future pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah, US-backed Israeli forces are expected to attack both Lebanon and Gaza in order to occupy and control the entire Eastern Mediterranean seaboard from Rafah to Beirut – a coastline of some 312 kms (194 miles) in length.

2. The next objective of the ‘Greater Israel’ project would be to consolidate all the land up to and including the Jordan River in the East; to Eilat in the South; Beirut in the North and the Mediterranean in the West. This would entail the forced displacement of millions of Lebanese, Gazan and Jordanian citizens as well as the original Palestinians, to neighbouring states, plus the expropriation of their land and wealth by turning the population into refugees within their own countries – countries now occupied by Political Zionist migrants from Europe, FSU and America.

However, such a ‘Greater Israel’ project can only end one way, and that is in a nuclear war, which is not an existential threat that the Macron presidency, or the EU, should facilitate because gamma radiation recognises no borders.

Note: ‘Greater Israel: a nuclear-armed, US-aided, Zionist state with an agenda to confront Iran and Turkey for regional hegemony.   Intended eventually to extend from the Euphrates to the Nile by gaining control of large areas of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq plus the Sinai Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean from Cairo to Beirut.’

The Washington Post is reporting that Trump has “decided to end” CIA’s program to funnel arms, money and training to Syria’s largely Islamist rebels.

There’s a couple of things to say about that.

1. We’re going to need confirmation that this has indeed happened. Ideally from people who have a direct line to some of the CIA-backed groups.

2. Is this the definite end of the CIA program, or a temporary halt? The aid was already frozen once before, in February-March of this year, but was then restored.

3. Is the end of CIA backing going to be coupled with instructions to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to stop their aid to rebels as well? Seeing how inclined the US is to appease the Saudis, and how fast its influence over Turkey is shrinking, I don’t see it.

4. Will the end of the CIA program be coupled with increased aid to the rebels by the Pentagon? Will the CIA-backed groups actually be cut off, or just go from CIA-backed to Pentagon-backed? That’s a particularly pertinent question for southeastern Syria around al-Tanf where Pentagon-backed groups like Commandos of the Revolution rub shoulders with CIA-backed groups like Lions of the East. Many of these CIA-backed groups were trained by US Special Forces hired out to the CIA, so links between them and the US military already exist.

The Washington Post and the rest of the establishment media want to paint this decision as Trump appeasing Russia, but that is highly unlikely. There are a number of far better reasons why it came to this.

1. This is the natural evolution of the trajectory the US was already on since mid-2016. Recall that in September 2016 under the Kerry-Lavrov deal the US basically agreed to enter the war against extremist elements of the Syrian Islamist rebellion. Also recall that just before leaving office Obama sent B-52s against Jabhat al-Nusra and claimed over 100 killed.

2. Trump has been an outspoken opponent of US backing for Syrian rebels for years. You only need to glance at his Twitter to see that.

Remember, all these ‘freedom fighters’ in Syria want to fly planes into our buildings.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2013

3. The US military, which between Mattis and McMaster is highly influential in the Trump administration, never liked the CIA program. Recall the bombshell Seymour Hersh story from 2015 detailing how the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency kept warning the Obama administration that toppling Assad would lead to chaos and possible takeover by jihadis. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey went so far as to secretly leak information on jihadis to the Russians, while the DIA chief, Mike Flynn was sacked when he made his opposition public.

4. The new CIA director was not wedded to the program. The Washington Post says the decision CIA would stop funneling arms into Syria was made by General McMaster and CIA’s new chief, Mike Pompeo. Even within the CIA, John Brennan, its director under Obama, was probably the biggest supporter of what was dubbed sardonically “Brennan’s war”. It was his pet project and he was the driving force behind it. Almost whoever was going to replace Brennan was likely to at least scale it down.

5. Along with increased infighting between the rebels, particularly in their main territory in Idlib, there has been consolidation of the rebel groups into two rival blocs, both of them led by salafist jihadists. Continuing to arm the rebels now would at best mean directly arming Ahrar al-Sham, whose leadership includes former al-Qaeda members, and which used to be extremely cozy with Syrian al-Qaeda (Jabhat al-Nusra).

An end to the CIA fanning the flames of war in Syria is a good thing, but it doesn’t mean the US is retreating from the country. It only means the reigns have been handed over to the Pentagon. The Pentagon has pursued a more rational course in Syria than the CIA, but it has been, if anything, even more heavy-handed.

Recently there has been a dramatic upsurge in Pentagon deliveries of military aid to the secessionist Syrian Kurds, along with an upsurge in US base building in Syria, in part to accommodate the transport planes hauling in this vast aid.

Also we’ve seen the US military repeatedly bomb the Syrian armed forces, cruise missiled one of its airbases, and shoot down one of its jets.

With Pentagon fully in control of US Syria policy regime change is finally out completely, but the danger of a US-orchestrated partition and permanent occupation of the east only increases.

Featured image from Russia Insider

Catherine Austin Fitts just published documentation of Department of Defense (DOD) official audit reports from 1998 that acknowledge “losing track” of $6.5 trillion, along with Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) admission of “losing” over $100 billion. This is euphemistically termed “unaccounted,” and literally means that DOD agrees they received these funds, agrees the funds are gone, and then claims to not have records of where the money went.

This is the work of Dr. Mark Skidmore and graduate students; Dr. Skidmore is the Director of the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development at Michigan State University and Professor and Morris Chair in State and Local Gov’t Finance and Policy. Catherine was managing director and member of the board of directors of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. Inc., Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner for HUD in the first Bush Administration, and president of Hamilton Securities Group, Inc. She has designed and closed over $25 billion of transactions and investments to-date, and has led investment strategy for $300 billion of financial assets and liabilities.

I wrote last year upon publication of DOD’s report. Of course, such “official” looting never happens with lawful accounting because records always show where the money goes. This would be like your bank agreeing they received a $65,000 deposit from you, agreeing the money was gone, and not refunding your account while claiming no further information of this “unaccountable,” “lost,” and “missing” money.

The most common historical explanation of governments “losing” money is, of course, embezzlement to enrich an oligarchy.

$6.5 trillion means how much now?

• ~$65,000 per US average household, based upon ~$50,000 annual income. This means if your household’s annual income is ~$100,000, your family was looted ~$130,000.
• Embezzling a billion dollars from a US military project 6,500 times.
• Embezzling a billion dollars of our tax money every day for 18 years (that’s $10 from every US household everyday).

Please read those three real-world comparisons twice to allow your emotions to feel the outrageous .01% looting of your family.

An Inspector General is supposed to be head of an independent and non-partisan auditing organization to discover and investigate waste, embezzlement, and fraud. They are supposed to act as “watchdogs” to ensure government agencies are transparent and lawful, with power to subpoena and take testimonies under oath.

You may recall that DoD’s claims of trillions of our tax dollars somehow going missing isn’t new, and reported as $2.3 trillion by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on September 10, 2001 as “a matter of life and death” the day before a claimed airplane bulls-eyed into the Pentagon’s accounting department, killing the very accountants tasked to find the “missing” money.

3-minute CBS report:

The fact that the Inspector General has not investigated with subpoenas and testimonies under oath speaks strongly as evidence of criminal complicity with the embezzlers.

A similar condition exists with the Federal Reserve, but we’re allowed a little clarity from this 5-minute video of Congressman Alan Grayson (an economist) asking questions of the Fed’s Inspector General during the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in 2009, where she admits she has no idea who received trillions in off-balance-sheet transfers from the Fed:

Both cases are .01% oligarchs transferring public funds to “other than public” recipients; that is, massive theft.

This could never occur within an ethical, law-abiding government, but would occur within a dictatorial empire. Let’s look at connected facts:

• DoD engages in ongoing Orwellian unlawful Wars of Aggression.
• DoD’s wars are started with lies known to be false as they were told, as fully disclosed by official US government documentation.
• Corporate media is criminally complicit by “covering” these crimes.
• As with any historical empire, what is used for money has to also be controlled to enrich “masters” and pay minions, and is with the Federal Reserve system. In contrast, obvious reforms can quickly be calculated at ~$1,000,000 per US household.
• Taken together, the US cannot be defined as a constitutional republic, but has become a rogue state.
• This US behavior reaches back deep into history.

Therefore: DoD acts as its Orwellian opposite: Department of Offensive Wars.

Therefore: Government of the people, by the people and for the people acts as its Orwellian opposite: Government of the oligarchs, using the people, and enriching themselves.

Essential economic facts showing .01% looting & lying

Before we consider the obvious solution of We the People seeing the Emperor’s New Clothes facts and demanding arrests to stop these OBVIOUS crimes centered in war, money, and lies, a few more data points of more trillions of our dollars looted from us by oligarchs:

• We’ve already documented how the global so-called “elite” 1% are now wealthier than the 99% while ~30,000 children die daily from preventable poverty in gruesomely-slow agony. Just 62 people on Earth own more than the bottom 50%, with the most recent data of just five humans owning almost more than the poorest half of us (a ratio of 5: 3,500,000,000 or 1:750,000,000).
• The US .1% own more than the bottom 90%.
• The top 20 Americans (.000006%) own more than the bottom 50%.
• The top three public benefits of monetary and banking reform would add ~$1,000,000 to every US household. The lies of omission and commission by US “leaders” with legal fiduciary responsibility to communicate full and transparent economic data to never advise Americans of these options is a massive crime causing damages in the trillions of dollars yearly.
• Our current system of creating what we use for money as debt has the so-called “developed” and “former” colonial nations $50 trillion in debt, and lying for public austerity rather than admit the option of monetary and banking reforms.

For Americans still zombiefied to “believe” in America, please embrace the reality that 40% of US children live at least one year of their lives in under-measured poverty, while oligarchs most responsible literally laugh in grandiose glee of the poverty they euphemise as “income inequality.” Please absorb this 1-minute reality check:

John Perkins’ 2-minutes of context as an illustration of what the US rogue state executes:

More game-changing economic data that confirm what we receive for economic leadership is literal criminal fraud:

• decaying infrastructure getting uglier from “deferred maintenance,”
• real unemployment near 25% with most families demanding both parents work longer and longer hours,
• real inflation well above official reports,
• US poverty of 20% among children, 40% for living at least a year in poverty,
• 72% of California students in schools with over half the children classified as “socio-economically disadvantaged,”
• the annual interest payment of ~$450 billion for the US national debt is over four times the amount needed to invest for ending all forms of global poverty (~$100 billion/year for ~10 years).
• a rigged-casino economy designed for “peak inequality,”
• “too big to fail” banks demand public subsidies (so-called “bailouts”) while gambling with over $200 TRILLION in derivatives,
• these “too big to fail/jail” banks deriving most of their income from subsidies and apparent market manipulations,
• Daily and never-ending Orwellian criminal-complicit lies of corporate media.
• US college Class of 2015 students average $35,000 in debt, with the total for 2015 graduates nearly $70 billion: more than ten times the amount from just 20 years ago. The average time to pay this debt is now 15 years (think paying until age 40).
• half of US 25-year-olds live with their parents, more than twice the number from 15 years ago.
• Over one million US college students are “Sugar babies”: selling sex as part-time employment. The UK has the same condition (here, here).
• 31% of US adjunct professors live in poverty.

15-minute video of obvious solutions: Mark Anielski and Ellen Brown’s powerful 15-minute response to an interview at the Seizing an Alternative conference (and here, with videos here) with former World Bank economist Herman Daly and co-author John B. Cobb of For the Common Good (video should start at 1:04:43):

81-minute interview with Byron Dale and Greg Soderberg of WealthMoney.org (the three of us have combined over 90 years of research on this topic):

Demand .01% arrests for Orwellian lies and crimes

Obviously, when the truth is rogue state empire annually killing millions, harming billions, and looting trillions, the foremost response for justice is public call for .01% arrests.

Obviously. 

I mean really, this is beyond anyone’s imagination of psychopathic Big Lie crimes (although the facts will show more .01% horrendous crimes when Truth is unleashed).

The categories of crime we can demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt now include:

• Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit).
• Likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths.
• Crimes Against Humanity for ongoing intentional policy of poverty that’s killed over 400 million human beings just since 1995 (~75% children; more deaths than from all wars in Earth’s recorded history).
• Tens of trillions in looting beyond the $6.5 trillion just reported by the US Department of “Defense” as “lost.”

In just 90 seconds, former US Marine Ken O’Keefe powerfully states how you may choose to voice “very obvious solutions”: arrest the criminal leaders (video starts at 20:51, then finishes this episode of Cross Talk):

Note: I make all factual assertions as a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History, with all economics factual claims receiving zero refutation since I began writing in 2008 among Advanced Placement Macroeconomics teachers on our discussion board, public audiences of these articles, and international conferences (and here). I invite readers to empower their civic voices with the strongest comprehensive facts most important to building a brighter future. I challenge professionals, academics, and citizens to add their voices for the benefit of all Earth’s inhabitants.

Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS, for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at [email protected]

Let us be under no illusions.

Washington objective is to fracture and break up Syria as well as establish a permanent military presence in both Northern and Southern Syria. 

(Michel Chossudovsky, GR, Editor)

*  *  *

Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency has publicized the locations of 10 US bases in northern Syria, many of them previously unknown to the wider public.

For Turkey revealing the extent of increased US support for the Kurdish YPG militia—which Turkey insists is one and the same with the Kurdish PKK group it faces at home—serves to mobilize its public against the US.

Blowing the cover of the Americans is just a cherry on top.

#AA'nın 'PKK/PYD'ye ABD desteği' haberi uluslararası basında yankı uyandırdı https://t.co/8IJbm9w16D pic.twitter.com/svt4u9v5CD

— ANADOLU AJANSI (@anadoluajansi) July 19, 2017

The angle US media is centering on is just how upset the US is with Turkey for publishing this. Pentagon has asked US outlets not to reprint the information published by Anadolu and claimed doing so would endanger lives of US soldiers.

The Daily Beast:

Spokesmen for Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, and for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, asked The Daily Beast not to publish the detailed information reported by Anadolu.

“The discussion of specific troop numbers and locations would provide sensitive tactical information to the enemy which could endanger Coalition and partner forces,” wrote Col. Joe Scrocca, coalition director of public affairs.

“Publishing this type of information would be professionally irresponsible and we respectively [sic] request that you refrain from disseminating any information that would put Coalition lives in jeopardy.”

RT:

“While we cannot independently verify the sources that contributed to this story, we would be very concerned if officials from a NATO ally would purposefully endanger our forces by releasing sensitive information.”

However, we’d like to point out there is a party that has far more reason to be upset than the US. That would be Syria itself.

Along with the base at Al-Tanf the the US now has at least 11 permanently manned installations on the territory of Syria — all of them illegal.

All images in this article are from the author.

In the utter confusion distinguishing the European Union, improvisation is the dominant feature. At the height of the US election campaign, the European Commission President Junker dared to issue a surprising statement: the idea of forming a European army was now on the agenda.

Someone picked up his statement; many wondered where the idea came from, while most of the platoon stayed silent.

The topic is about “Danger: high voltage!” And, moreover, Junker is a prudent man and, by announcing the new agenda, he made sure not to explain what he meant. But the message came from Washington, where candidate Donald Trump had repeatedly said that Europe is worth far less than we believe and that America would have bothered less about the lives of Europeans and more about its own interests.

Junker then launched a counter-message: if by chance, the US reduced its Atlantic claims, Europe will take a few steps aside. So let’s start thinking about whether to defend ourselves. Naturally, a nonsense idea, like anyone should have understood. This is a “threat” that is equivalent to a toy trumpet sound. Europe is entirely entrusted with “American protection” throughout the course of NATO’s existence. Europe never mattered at all in any of NATO’s decisions, limiting itself to obey American commands that have invariably been renewed without even consulting their own European friends. Europe could never do anything without NATO.

Do not even think about it. But the fact is that there are many people in Europe who are still able to do the math and to connect the dots. And when it comes to the issue of its lost sovereignty, it is to be assumed that no real sovereignty will be allowed, by remaining within NATO. Neither tomorrow nor ever. So Junker and the people behind him had to deal with a possible reaction coming from people who care for sovereignty. He did so by releasing a safety valve. You know how things are going: they open a debate on baloney and drag it on for months, maybe for years, leaving the commentators to indulge in the hypothesis, but making sure nothing will change.

Then Trump was elected and his mind changed: not only does NATO remain a key pillar for him to protect Europe, but he will have to increase spending. And the request to European allies has become pressing: pay! That is “raise your defense costs to at least 2% of GDP in each country”. For a struggling Europe, the shot has been strong. Someone got away. Others, such as Italy, immediately bowed down. The Baltic states, for example, have applauded. Junker was left speechless.

But the ‘sovereign people’ of every flag have done the math a second time: they wonder if it would not really be the case to create a European defense spending less money than what Donald Trump is requiring. At a first glance, their probability of success is close to zero. Could it be done? Perhaps it could, it will be enough to stop thinking of Russia as a deadly enemy. But, in reality, this is very unlikely to happen. Yet the Atlantic fear of such an outcome is so great that, in order to prevent such an eventuality, they are preparing all the European forces available for battle.

In recent days, the meeting between Ms. Federica Mogherini and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was followed by an uprising of the numerous cohorts of NATO’s supporters. The “European Leadership Network”, usually silent, has gathered no less than 61 senior military and diplomatic personalities to express a true statement of support for the “deepening of EU-NATO cooperation”, inviting peremptorily “governments to invest a greater Political energy in such an effort.”

The depth of the ELN document has certainly required many joint efforts. Among the participants and signatories are a former NATO Secretary-General (Willy Claes); a former deputy commander of allied forces (Gen. Sir John McColl); ten former Foreign Ministers (including Massimo D’Alema); and seven former Defense Ministers (including Admiral Giampaolo di Paola) …

We then assume that the debate around a “European army” has definitely been cut off. It is not known if Junker was informed of the event.

Global Research Editor’s Note

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which are backed by the US are said to be fighting the ISIS which is also backed by the US. (Covertly supported by the US and its allies since Summer of 2014). 

The Terrorists R Us:

So what is the purpose of this diabolical process. The ISIS is a proxy force controlled by US intelligence. It is integrated by “special forces” which are directly or indirectly in liaison with the Western military alliance. 

The unspoken objective is the destruction of Syria as a Nation State under the banner of a fake war on terrorism.  

The terrorists are “intelligence assets”, they are paid killers. They are being used in the pursuit of a criminal military agenda. And the Western media serves to mislead public opinion through lies and fabrications.

In turn, the media upholds Western intervention as part of a humanitarian endeavor. 

And if the truth is not reaching the broader public, it’s because the corporate media controls the internet.

Visibly, the independent and alternative online media is being filtered out by the search engines and social media. 

Michel Chossudovsky, July 21, 2017

*    *    *

An intense fighting is ongoing between government forces and ISIS terrorists in the area of the Homs-Palmyra highway and near the border with Iraq.

According to pro-government sources, 30 ISIS members were killed and over 50 were injured during clashes in the area of Humaymah near the border with Iraq. 2 Syrian soldiers were killed as a result of the ISIS attack at the Al-Musheirefah Hill in the eastern Homs countryside.

At the same time, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies advanced north of the Homs-Palmyra road and captured the Al-Alam Hill south of Taliaa al-Gharbia.

Meanwhile, Russian airstrikes destroyed at least 3 ISIS vehicles in the area of Jub Al-Abied east of Salamiyah.

According to local sources, government forces are going to resume the operation in the eastern Hama countryside within few days. The SAA, the National Defense Forces (NDF) and the Desert Hawks Brigade still see the liberation of Uqayrabat as a key part of the wider effort against ISIS in central Syria.

Right now, government forces cannot push to Deir Ezzor because of a high number of ISIS units operating in the rear of its logistical lines. Sukhna is another point that has to be liberated to resolve the situation.

An intense fighting is ongoing in eastern Damascus where the SAA and the NDF have been attempting to pressure Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the  Syrian branch of al-Qaeda), Faylaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam on multiple fronts. The main clashes are ongoing in the Ayn Tarma area. However, sporadic firefights were also reported in the northeastern part of the pocket. According to pro-militant sources, over 30 government soldiers were killed in the recent clashes.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed up by the US-led coalition, are storming the neighborhoods of Nezlit Shehada and Al-Shaddadi in Raqqah city. According to pro-SDF sources, over 27 ISIS members were killed in the recent clashes and an IED plant was captured. According to ISIS, 8 SDF members were killed recently.

The battle for Raqqah has turned into a very complicated task for the US-backed force. While there is little doubt that the city will be liberated, the question is how much time and manpower will this effort take?

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected], BTC: 1PvKhgVDoXp96Yyp7Pgs5uMPkChSMA2G5n or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) reports that total expenditures on Ontario hospitals increased to $23.7-billion in 2016. This is an increase of 2.4% since 2015 and 6.1% since 2012. While provincial government expenditures increased 4.7% over the four years between 2012 and 2016, private sector expenditures on hospitals increased at a much faster rate – 15.8%. That is more than three times the percentage increase of the provincial government increases.

Private sector expenditures increased $124.9-million in 2016 to $3.62-billion. That was a typical increase. The four year private sector increase was $493.1-million, averaging $123.3-million per year. That’s a lot more than chump change.

Hospitals are now relying significantly more on private sector funds. In 2012 private sector expenditures accounted for 13.99% of total expenditures on hospitals but by 2016 they accounted for 15.27%.

Looking deeper, this in fact continues a decades long trend of an increasing portion of expenditures on hospitals coming from the private sector.

In 1975 just 6.17% of expenditures on hospitals came from the private sector. But this has continuously increased:

The average increase in private sector expenditure on hospitals since 1975 has been 8.9% compared with a total average expenditure increase on hospitals of 6.4%. Over the last 41 years, private sector percentage increases have averaged almost one-third more than public sector expenditure increases.

Over the last four years, however, private sector percentage expenditure increases have been over twice as much as total expenditure increases.

Here is a comparison of the annual percentage increases for the last four years:

This is an alarming trend – private payments are made for a purpose and that purpose is likely access to some aspect of hospital service on better terms than the general public.

As this change is four decades long, it likely reflects some deeply entrenched trends that will not be easy to reverse, unfortunately. It certainly sounds like it fits with the squeeze of public services and the increasing inequality that has characterized developed capitalist societies since the 1970s.

But the larger role of private sector expenditures on hospitals also indicates that provincial government or public sector expenditures no longer paint a full story of hospital funding.

Even with provincial government (austerity) expenditure increases of only 4.7% over the last four years, total expenditures on hospitals increased 6.1% thanks entirely to a 15.8% increase in private payments.

The relevant CIHI numbers are embedded here. For all the CIHI healthcare expenditure data, download “data tables” on this CIHI hyperlink.

Doug Allan writes the blog Defend Public Healthcare.

Featured image from Mark Martinez’ Blog

Global Research strives for peace, and we have but one mandate: to share timely, independent and vital information to readers across the globe. We act as a global platform to let the voices of dissent, protest, and expert witnesses and academics be heard and disseminated internationally.

We need to stand together to continuously question politics, false statements, and the suppression of independent thought.

Stronger together: your donations are crucial to independent, comprehensive news reporting in the ongoing battle against media disinformation. (click image above to donate)

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Geopolitical Turbulence in the Caucasus

By Stephen Karganovic, July 21, 2017

The occasion for the flag display was the visit of US lieutenant-general Frederick Hodges, commander of US forces in Europe, who arrived on a special mission, ostensibly to commend the performance of Georgian troops who were undergoing combat training at the US military base in Oberpfalz, in Germany.

Demands of Colonialism Reparations to the Caribbean

By Colonialism Reparation, July 21, 2017

On June 23, 2017 dozens of organizations and five Nobel Peace Laureates supported the demand for justice of the Haitian people by calling on the United Nations Security Council delegation visiting Haiti for the complete withdrawal of MINUSTAH and the compensation of victims of the cholera epidemic.

United States Drowning in an Ocean of Subjectivism. Make America What?

By John Stanton, July 21, 2017

Everywhere in the United States the disease of subjectivism is present. The evidence abounds: The polarization of the political system; the dismissal of history because of discomfort with historical facts; “trigger” warnings for literary texts that offend sensibility; the vicious censure befalling authors for developing literary characters of a different race or ethnic experience, applying the rules of law for some and not others; or disavowing a higher spiritual power of some sort.

Political Insanity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Crisis in Qatar, The Plight of the Camels

By Felicity Arbuthnot, July 21, 2017

With the imposition of the embargo the Saudi government expelled the Qatari owners of more than fifteen thousand camels and ten thousand sheep, with nine thousand camels reportedly expelled in just thirty-six hours. 

Afghanistan: A Morally Corrupting War

By Prof. Alon Ben-Meir, July 21, 2017

Nearly 2,400 American soldiers have been killed and 20,000 wounded; over 33,000 Afghani civilians have lost their lives. A record number of civilians—1,662—were killed in the first six months of 2017 alone, and over 3,581 civilians were wounded. Overall, Afghani casualties are estimated at 225,000, with 2.6 million Afghani refugees and more than one million internally displaced.

“Electronic Money” under “The One World Order” (OWO): Are We Becoming Western Money Slaves? Solutions? “Resistance Economy”, “De-dollarization”, “De-globalization”

By Peter Koenig, July 20, 2017

Why reduced to the Occident? – Because the Orient, China, Russia and the other countries belonging to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and to the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU) have already largely delinked themselves from the western dollar-based system of fraud. They are saved from slavehood.

Someone wanted the public to know that the new Saudi clown prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MbS) took up his new position by unceremoniously disposing his predecessor Mohammed bin Nayef (MbN) by force. The juicy details, true or not, were briefed to Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times on the same day:

As next in line to be king of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Nayef was unaccustomed to being told what to do. Then, one night in June, he was summoned to a palace in Mecca, held against his will and pressured for hours to give up his claim to the throne.By dawn, he had given in, and Saudi Arabia woke to the news that it had a new crown prince: the king’s 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman.

Bin Nayef was a darling of the CIA and his disposal was not welcome. It may well be that the author of the tale of his ouster has his office in Langley, Virginia.

We had correctly called the MbN removal a coup and predicted that “the old al-Saud family king [..] will be offed soon.” From the current Reuters piece:

Quoting a witness at the palace, one Saudi source said King Salman this month pre-recorded a statement in which he announces the transfer of the throne to his son. The announcement could be broadcast at any time, perhaps as soon as September.

We also wrote that “[m]any Arab peninsula citizens will want to see [the new clown prince’s] head on a pike.”

The details of how MbS deposed the previous crown prince MbN will enrage additional parts of Saudi Arabia’s population. Additional leaks about extensive MbS contacts with Israel will increase the bad feelings against him. This especially as Israeli is further encroaching on the al-Haram a-Sharif and the Al-Aqsa mosque on the (likely falsely) claimed Jewish temple mount.

MbS’ attempt to push Qatar around has, as predicted, failed. The four countries that had joined against Qatar could not agree to increase the pressure. The demands made to Qatar have now been retracted. This is a huge loss of face for MbS and his Emirati mentor Mohammad bin Zayed. The Saudi war against Yemen kills many civilians and costs billions of dollars but is militarily lost. The announced big economic reforms have made no progress. The Gulf Cooperation Council is defunct and may fall further apart.

Everything MbS has touched failed. His actions violate traditions and religious commandments. His coup has set an example that can now be used against himself. It would not be astonishing to see a revolt against Mohammed Bin Salman even before he is able to make himself king. The way he shifted MbN to the side broke all traditional rules. The example he set with the ouster of the former crown prince can now be used against himself.

UPDATE: Bin Salman is now consolidating all internal security organizations and functions under himself. The Interior Ministry, traditionally headed by the Nayef family branch, will be stripped of all significant powers. MbS is afraid. He knows that many forces, including the CIA, are now working against him. This attempt to coup-proof his rule is probably coming too late.

“Our soils are sick from greed-based, irresponsible agricultural practices, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, erosion and mineral depletion, all of which stop or reduce adequate microbial activity in the soil, rendering them sick and/or dead and sterile. Sick soils make for sick plants and sick plants make for sick humans and animals.” Scott Tips, president of the National Health Federation, Crashing Monsanto’s Pesticide Party in Beijing.

In the area of food and agriculture, you may be aware of various reports and discussions about GMOs, pesticides and organics. You might also know about the power, influence, crimes and shameful lobbying practices of transnational agribusiness companies like Monsanto. And you might have also discovered what (GMO) chemical-intensive agriculture is doing to soils, rivers, biodiversity, human health and crops.

It’s all been well documented. But what you might find little mention of is Codex Alimentarius (Latin for ‘food code’), a collection of international food standards, guidelines and codes of practice that are supposed to contribute to the safety, quality and fairness of international food trade.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission is based in Rome and was created in 1963. An international organization jointly run by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), it has 27 different committees. Codex’s published goals are to develop and adopt uniform food standards for its member countries and to promote the free and unhindered international flow of food goods, thereby eliminating trade barriers to food and providing food safety.

Biotechnology, pesticides, food additives and contaminants are some of the issues discussed in Codex meetings. The FAO says:

“Codex standards are based on the best available science assisted by independent international risk assessment bodies or ad-hoc consultations organized by FAO and WHO.”

Although Codex offers recommendations for voluntary application by members, Codex standards serve in many cases as a basis for national legislation. The reference made to Codex food safety standards in the WTO’s Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures (SPS Agreement) means that Codex has far reaching implications for resolving trade disputes. WTO members that wish to apply stricter food safety measures than those set by Codex may be required to justify these measures scientifically.

Codex began in 1963 and seemingly got off on the right foot in terms of having some good intentions. However, consider that, among other things, Codex decides on minimum food residue levels for pesticides, allowable amounts of aluminum, lead and arsenic in food and which substances or products are dangerous. These decisions affect the products and markets of huge corporations that have hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

Do you think the agrochemical companies, for instance, are going to sit back and do nothing? Or do you think they would, as is usually the case, get together and attempt to lobby away or discredit any potential decision that may affect their bottom line?

The National Health Federation

Established in 1955, the National Health Federation (NHF) is a health freedom organization that works to protect individuals’ rights to choose to consume healthy food, take supplements and use alternative therapies without government restrictions.

With consumer members all over the world and a board of governors and advisory board containing representatives from different countries, it is the only such organization with a seat at Codex Alimentarius. Moreover, it is one of only five consumer groups present at Codex meetings in a room of country and industry delegates whose motivations, according to NHF, “are often at odds with the best interest of the people of the world.”

The NHF has monitored meetings of the Codex Alimentarius Commission since the mid-1990s and has been present at these meetings since 2000. It obtained official Codex-recognised status as an international non-governmental organisation (INGO), which allows it the right to speak out in support of health freedom at these Codex meetings.

By having an official voice at Codex, the NHF can actively shape global policies for food, beverages and nutritional supplements. And by having an accredited seat at Codex, the NHF can submit scientific research and arguments about food standards and guidelines, speak out during the many meetings of delegates and influence the wording of final reports on all meetings that thNHF attends.

Over the last decade, the NHF has worked to keep steroids and dangerous antibiotics out of the global meat and honey supply, to reduce the allowable amounts of aluminum, lead and arsenic in food, to get aspartame declared a dangerous and harmful artificial sweetener and for standardised full-disclosure food labelling. Today, it continues to work against the harmful agendas of big agriculture/pharmaceuticals concerns.

Scott Tips, President of the NHF (Source: Truthjuice)

The NHF reflects the widely held belief (based on a good deal of evidence; for example, see this, this, this and this) that a small elite has gained control of governmental agencies, not least the large agribusiness corporations. Attendees at Codex meetings are therefore regulatory bureaucrats who very often are unduly influenced by commercial interests.

Scott Tips, president of the NHF:

“What we see here all too often is that some government agencies are nothing more than regional field agencies for corporate interests.”

Tips contends that the Codex Alimentarius Commission is heavily influenced by the appointments it makes and its infiltration by powerful sectors: food, agricultural, biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

As a result, unhealthy guidelines are being established.

Codex and pesticides

Codex Alimentarius Commission answers to the WHO and FAO. The WTO is the enforcement arm of Codex on issues brought before it. In the absence of a trade dispute, each country that incorporates Codex standards and guidelines into its rules and regulations enforces them. In other words, Codex matters!

During April 2017, The Codex Alimentarius Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR) met in Beijing. Scott Tips attended the meeting and says of the giant agritech corporations:

“They have been running amok for years, unchallenged. The Codex Alimentarius Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR) is their playground and they know it. Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow, Bayer, and other agrochemical companies – cozily snuggled together at Codex as the disarmingly named, front group CropLife – sent no fewer than 39 representatives to the 49th session of the CCPR meeting held in Beijing, China from April 24-29, 2017, to coerce, charm and bedazzle government regulators.”

Tips argues that the agrochemical companies tell us these compounds are safe and are ensuring adequate food production to feed the world, but the facts tell us another story. He adds that glyphosate tops the list of poisons applied every day to plants and soil that in turn destroy humans, animals, and our environment. Some 9.4 million tons of glyphosate have been spread on our fields. It is in our water table, our soil, crops, the food industry and over 90% of people in the West have it in their bodies and even breast milk.

Tips says:

“Glyphosate is poisoning our soil, destroying our gut biome, and laying the foundation for destroying our ability to produce healthy foods for future generations. Industry and regulators claim that glyphosate is safe for humans and animals because the means by which it kills weeds (the shikimate pathway) is not present in in humans and animals. However, the shikimate pathway is present in bacteria, which dominate human and animal gut biomes. The glyphosate preferentially destroys beneficial gut bacteria, thereby allowing disease and inflammation to take hold.”

In Beijing, a growing list of approved and soon-to-be-approved pesticides was before the Committee for its consideration, a list that included chlorpyrifos-methyl, buprofezin, teflubenzuron, saflufenacil, fluazifop-p-butyl, flupyrdifurone, and glyphosate. Figures representing the interests of the agrochemical companies were all present, but Tips spoke out over the four-day meeting against the pesticides listed above. Depending on the pesticide, NHF argued that they were carcinogenic, killed bees and other vital insects as well as aquatic life and damaged the environment, including the oceans in the case of glyphosate.

In addition, there was much debate about the maximum residue limits (MRLs) for numerous pesticides.

When attending Codex meetings, given the presence of the agritech giants and co-opted officials, Tips is often a lone voice. He says of the objections he raised in Beijing:

“These solitary objections in a roomful of hundreds of delegates reminded me of the same circumstances I had found myself in at the Food Additives Committee meeting in 2008 and the Contaminants Committee meeting in 2009 when I was the only one to speak against aluminum in food additives and melamine contamination levels in infant formula. A few years later and both committees had come around entirely to the NHF positions and adopted them.”

He adds:

“Of course, CropLife and its captured regulators in Australia and New Zealand did all that they could during the meeting to advance pesticide MRLs that fail to protect consumers but do protect worldwide sales.”

Scott Tips and his colleagues at the NHF are tireless in their efforts to roll back corporate influence at Codex. In the profit-motivated world of big business where bought science and scientists, shady lobbying, smear campaigns and corrupt politics are the norm, integrity doesn’t count for much.

In the world of Tips, however, integrity is everything.

He concludes:

“The fight rages on. There are victories, such as in the 55 lawsuits filed against Monsanto in Northern California, where the court recently ordered release of Monsanto e-mails and other documents showing probable collusion between the company and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

If at the mention of Azerbaijan its delicious lamb and rice national dish plov comes to mind, or the equally tasty vinegret salad in the case of Georgia, that certainly would not be the wrong association. Lamentably, however, both countries – as well as the entire Caucasus region where they are key strategic players – are increasingly becoming notable for reasons far less innocuous than outstanding gastronomy.

To put it very simply, after Syria the Caucasus – barely 800 miles to the northeast – is literally Russia’s second line of defense, its “soft underbelly,” to use a worn but apposite phrase. Quite understandably, Russia is in Syria, among other reasons, precisely to make sure that it would not have to fall back to the aforementioned defense line. Its geopolitical opponents, however, are doing their utmost to see to it that it does. Hence the intense turbulence and maneouvering between Baku and Tbilisi, and beyond.

NATO Flags in Tbilisi. On a recent day, the main street of Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi was awash with American flags. Like neighboring Azerbaijan, Georgia is another strategically positioned former Soviet republic in the Caucasus. The occasion for the flag display was the visit of US lieutenant-general Frederick Hodges, commander of US forces in Europe, who arrived on a special mission, ostensibly to commend the performance of Georgian troops who were undergoing combat training at the US military base in Oberpfalz, in Germany. But as it turns out, the US is also constructing a new military facility in Georgia.[1] According to Georgia’s defense minister Levan Izoriya, the base is expected to open before the end of this year.

It takes little imagination to appreciate that the training Georgian soldiers are currently undergoing could, at some point in the future, come in handy for hypothetical operations such as, for instance, raising tensions on the border with Abkhazia or again, as in 2008, South Ossetia. True enough, with Saakashvilli’s unregretted departure Georgia now seems to have a leadership that is disinclined to become involved in such reckless adventures. It is also true, however, that the US military presence in Georgia is not confined to maintaining just a special forces training facility. A slew of foreign operated antennae, radar installations, and other surveillance facilities in Georgia attests to that. The US and NATO, Georgia’s prospective membership in the latter is again becoming an active conversation topic, apparently are committed to some long-range goals in this particular part of the world.

Georgian and NATO flags on top of the Sakrebulo (local government) building in Tbilisi. (Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge)

The scope of observable foreign activities would be incomprehensible on the theory that they are designed to serve no more than purely regional ambitions. Their true goal is more likely to be significantly broader: to extend US and NATO presence beyond the Caucasus. In that context, Georgia is no more than Washington’s stepping stone, a forward post. At a recent meeting with Georgia’s foreign minister Mikhail Janelidze, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson promised “full US support.”

“The US is ready to back Georgia in any situation,” Janelidze gloated ominously after the meeting. Ominously, because backing Georgia means getting involved in its myriad border disputes and internal separatist issues.

A bit of recent Georgian political history could come in handy. During the post-Soviet period Georgia had four presidents. The first, the poet Zviad Gamsahurdia, wanted Georgia to be neutral, a goal which the prosaic realists in NATO and Washington, bent on occupying the post-Soviet space left vacant by Moscow’s withdrawal, found utterly repugnant. The more cooperative successor whom they subsequently installed, Eduard Shevernadze of perestroika memory, attempted a two-track policy. On the one hand, he signed agreements allowing the construction of Western-sponsored pipelines in his country. On the other, in 1994 he made Georgia a member of the post-Soviet grouping, Commonwealth of Independent States (SNG).

After the wavering Shevernadze was thrown under the bus, his successor Mikhail Saakashvilli pursued a clearly delineated and radical pro-Western policy, presumably more likely to impress his overseas backers. During Saakashvilli’s presidency diplomatic relations with Russia were broken off. Borders between the two countries were closed for a long period. Saakashvilli did his best to drag Georgia into NATO.

“Our presidents are continuously dashing off to the US and other Western countries as mere vassals. We are subservient to the West. For at least nine years we have had nothing resembling our own independent policy,” laments Georgian political analyst Hatuna Lasagidze.

“Balanced politics,” Azerbaijani style. For the West, Azerbaijan is a strategically important country, capable of supplying the European Union with gas while bypassing Russia. It can also become a staging area for access to other Central Asian energy supplies. As a result, Azeri leadership has had little choice but to maneouver continuously between the various power centers while implementing the so-called “policy of balance.” That is no easy task, particularly at a time when the competing interests of Russia and the West seem more polarized than ever.

The Eastern Partnership project seeks to link six former Soviet republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldavia, Ukraine, and Belarus – as closely and inextricably to the EU as possible. Three of those countries, Georgia, Moldavia, and Ukraine, signed EU Association Agreements in 2014. As far as Azerbaijan is concerned, its adherence to “European values” has been proceeding somewhat less smoothly. Azerbaijan refused to sign the Association Agreement so as not to undermine its good relations with Russia. So says, at least, Azeri parliament deputy Azay Guliev.

Azeri public opinion for the moment seems dead set against an overtly pro-European policy and is calling upon President Ilham Aliev not to rush to coddle the arrogant Europeans, whose perceived double standards with regard to the Nagorno Karabakh dispute with Armenia many find irritable. For over twenty years Azerbaijan has been in a state of frozen conflict with Armenia on the Karabakh issue. More than a million Azeris have been expelled and have found refuge elsewhere (which is a little known fact). There is armed conflict from time to time. In April 2016 it intensified to the point that a genuine four-day war was fought between Azeri and Armenian forces.

Ilham Aliyev with his first lady during the Moscow Victory Day Parade, 9 May 2015 (Source: Kremlin.ru / Wikimedia Commons)

Azerbaijan is at a delicate stage in the transition process. Government overreaction to criticism is far from rare. Nepotism is rampant. Azeri president Ilham Aliev appointed his wife the country’s first vice-president. According to the constitution, the first vice-president is slated to take over the reigns of government if the president is incapacitated.

In the meantime, apathy reigns in Azerbaijan and citizens are showing little interest in politics.

A compromised opposition. While the story line in the West increasingly is that “non-government organizations” are experiencing hard times in Azerbaijan, political sources in Baku, on the other hand, maintain that this is not the whole truth of the matter. They point out that, while pursuing their strategic interests, several European countries and the US are, in fact, generously funding Azeri “NGO’s”. Those outfits are, in turn, obliged to earn their keep.

In that regard, it is also relevant to point out that since the Aliev clan (the current president Ilham and his predecessor in the office, Geydar) have been in charge of the country, Azerbaijan has been conducting an evenhanded, neutral foreign policy. There is no indication of that changing any time soon at the top levels of the government. Against such a background, radical Islam has been gaining strength in the country and is rapidly turning into a major internal problem and source of instability. With encouragement and financing from the Saudis (as well as “all the usual suspects”), Wahabbi ideas are being aggressively disseminated throughout Azerbaijan. In the process, Islamists have been using internal political conditions skillfully to their advantage. The opposition is gradually gathering under the Islamists’ banner notwithstanding the fact that, as in other Central Asian post-Soviet republics, the authorities are doing their best keep it as confined as possible.

US ambassador in Baku Robert Cekuta has been working hard to broaden the ranks of the secular at the expense of the clerical opposition. Washington has apparently awakened to the fact that the greatest threat to its strategic interests locally comes precisely from the Islamist factor. Nevertheless, perhaps as a reflection of the West’s less than entirely coherent current policy of keeping the Azeri government just enough off-balance to be cooperative but not so much as to push it off the cliff just yet, last year Islamists who were being held in confinement in Azerbaijan were for the first time officially listed by EU as having the status of “political prisoners.”

Those with reasonably good memory will recall that in the past such dilettantish experiments with opening the Pandora’s Box not a few times have blown up in the faces of the mad scientists attempting them, often with devastating consequences for the luckless countries selected to serve as their laboratory.

So far this year, Western financial support to the Azeri opposition is said to exceed 60 million dollars. Most of the funding originates from the US, Great Britain, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Most of the money is funneled through Georgia, which for all practical purposes has been turned into a staging area for exerting political influence in Azeri affairs.

That is quite unsurprising because Georgia has been for some time the springboard of Western hegemonism for expanding Western political and ideological influence throughout the region. On Saakashvilli’s watch, Georgia was made to take the Azerbaijani opposition under its wing. Nothing changed in that regard after his departure. As a result, the Azeri underground continues to feel quite at home in Tbilisi. This subversive pattern is literally cut-and-paste of how in the year 2000 the Western-backed “Otpor” opposition in Yugoslavia was logistically and financially supported from neighboring Hungary against the sovereign-minded Milosevic government.

Leaders of the Azeri opposition such as R. Ibrahimbegov and E. Namazov (National Council of Democratic Forces), A. Kerimli (Azeri National Front), N. Jafarli, and A. Gajili (Musavat Movement), as well as their close associates, are regular visitors in Tbilisi. In the Georgian capital they maintain regular contacts with their Western mentors from the Prague Democracy Center [2] as well as other notable “democracy” heavyweights such as The Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, People In Need, [3] and the National Democratic Institute. Meetings of Azeri opposition figures with high-ranking US and Dutch diplomats are also becoming more frequent. A veritable “perfect storm” of democratic activism is taking place. The Azeri government would be ill-advised not to take note off, including evidence of its ultimate provenance.

Map of the Caucasus (Source: Wikivoyage)

To cover their operating costs, on their visits to Tbilisi Azeri opposition leaders have been receiving significant sums of money that  are ultimately traceable to such “pro-democracy” outfits as NED, IREX, [4] and the Heinrich Boell Foundation.[5] Notably, such pow-wows are known to take place on the eve of opposition events scheduled in Azerbaijan. Allegations have been rife that opposition leader Ali Kerimli was recently awarded the tidy sum of $100,000 by some Western embassies. Of this sum, Kerimli distributed around about $30,000 for political activities, while keeping the remaining $70,000 for himself, according to Baku investigative journalist Maksud Talibili. By all accounts, Western sponsorship of protest operations and attempts to corrupt principal opposition leaders in Azerbaijan are in full swing.

Azerbaijan may not be a paradise… Azerbaijan is far from being a paradise, according to Samed Seidov, chairman of the foreign relations committee of the Azeri parliament. But it is also far from being a hell-hole, he is quick to add. He is critical of what he calls the double standard of Western politicians and journalists:

“There are abuses in Azerbaijan, but they can also be found in Armenia and Georgia. Except that they draw attention only when they occur in Azerbaijan. Then they are investigated, analyzed, and take the form of resolutions. But not when such things are happening elsewhere.”[6]

To be fair, Azerbaijan has been through some economic hard times, but it has managed to overcome the consequences of the global financial and economic crisis relatively painlessly. In 2001 poverty was estimated to affect about 50% of the population, while currently it stands at 7.6%. Economic growth has continued steadily thanks to oil and gas revenues. But in order to keep up the current pace of growth the government will have to diversify the economy. The Azeri market has also proved attractive for German firms. About 80% of Germany’s trade with South Caucasus is with Azerbaijan.

The Azeri economy can benefit from the transit of goods and raw materials, inasmuch as the country happens to be located between Russia and Iran. On the strategic level, Azerbaijan’s current relations with Russia are satisfactory, though not without tensions. Trade volume is on the rise. There is a high level of mutual political trust, which is reflected in continuous dialogue and increasing contacts. Business and trade cooperation between the two countries is on the rise, according to Fariz Ismailzade, vice-rector of Baku’s prestigious ADA University.[7]

“We do not want to be Western puppets. They are exerting pressure in order to undermine our relations with Russia and to make us choose between Russia and the West,” observes Azay Guliev, chairman of the “NGO Support Council” in the office of Azerbaijan’s president.

Significantly, Azerbaijan’s parliament recently voted not to join the “Eastern Partnership” program. Disobedience has a price, and the machinations we have described are designed to make Azerbaijan pay it. Political rumblings in the Caucasus are about much more than gastronomic rivalry, plov versus vinegret. Stay tuned.

Notes

[1] https://report.az/en/region/us-to-build-military-base-in-georgia/

[2] https://democracyctr.org/about/; as for the Center’s funding, see here: https://democracyctr.org/about/funding/

[3] https://www.clovekvtisni.cz/en

[4] https://www.irex.org/about-us

[5] https://www.boell.de/en

[6] A case in point: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/amnesty-condemns-arrest-of-another-human-rights-activist-in-azerbaijan/40538014

[7] http://www.ada.edu.az/en-US/Pages/home.aspx

Oil prices remain below $50 per barrel. Saudi Arabia and its longtime ally Qatar are now clashing. The situation on the Korean Peninsula is intensifying. The USA is being more and more hostile to China, while Venezuela faces an internal crisis.

How does one make sense of all this? Are these just random world events, which happen to all be occurring simultaneously? Hardly. These events can be understood and explained in the context of the ongoing global conflict. Much like during the Cold War, two different social and political systems are clashing with each other. Unlike the Cold War, the lines are not at all ideologically clear, but the underlying contradiction remains the same.

The dominant force in the world today is western liberal capitalism. Banking institutions and major corporations controlled by very wealthy people in New York City, Silicon Valley, London, Paris, and Frankfurt sit at the center of a global financial empire. They function as monopolists, collaborating with states to eliminate their competitors and keep the profits of the world market flowing directly toward them.

A bloc of independent countries are resisting their domination. The emerging bloc of nations seek to bring themselves up from poverty. They do not want to remain impoverished client states within the western financial apparatus, but rather to become modernized, self-reliant and developed countries. In order to develop and establish independence, these countries have been forced to adopt more or less state controlled, centrally planned economies.

The Siege Against “Petro-Socialism”

Venezuela, Russia, and Iran all have economies centered around government control of oil and natural gas. These natural resources are in the hands of the state, and while each of these countries have a large market sectors, the state controlled natural resources are the center of the economy, and the market sector is subordinated to them. The governments of Russia, Iran, and Venezuela draw support from a loyal, well organized population, which receives many benefits paid for with state oil revenue.

The Islamic Republic of Iran emerged from the 1979 popular revolution. The US backed dictator was toppled, and with slogans of “Not Capitalism But Islam” and “War of Poverty Against Wealth” the new government seized power. The Islamic Republic draws its support from the Revolutionary Guards and the Bassigue who act on a local level to enforce policy. Oil proceeds have been used to industrialize the country, provide free healthcare and education for the population, and establish a vibrant domestic economy.

In Russia, the state controlled oil and natural gas resources were utilized to restore order to the country, following the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. As oil and natural gas prices boomed during the first years of the 21st century, the Putin government was able to reassert state control over the economy and restore industrial production. Preaching what some call the “New Russian Patriotism” along with the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian state has become an independent, powerful entity, working on behalf of its population, often against the wishes of western and domestic capitalists.

The Bolivarian government that was elected in Venezuela in 1999 became much stronger in 2002 after defeating an attempted coup d’etat. With the proceeds of state controlled oil, Venezuela has built hospitals, schools, and universities across the country. It has drastically reduced poverty, increased home ownership, and wiped out illiteracy.

While neither Venezuela, Iran, or Russia are “socialist” in the sense that the Soviet Union was, they cannot be called capitalist either. Capitalism means private ownership of major economic heights with the drive for profits being central. In all three of these countries, the decisions of state bureaucracies, not the drive of owners to make money, sets the economic agenda. The market sectors are subordinated to the power of state controlled, not for profit, economic entities, funded by government controlled oil and natural gas companies.

As for any government, the loyalty of the population is essential. In the “Petro-Socialist” countries loyalty has been won with economic benefits like education, healthcare, state investment, government jobs and subsidies.

The western elite has seized on the fact that these “Petro-Socialist” economies are so dependent on oil and natural gas as a weakness. Starting in 2014, Saudi Arabia, a longtime vassal of Exxon-Mobile, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, and British Petroleum, has flooded the market with cheap oil.

This glut was further compounded by the rise of hydraulic fracking. Now pulling oil and natural gas from shale, the United States has become the top oil and natural gas producer in the world. The USA has lifted the 1974 oil export ban, and began selling its oil on the world market.

The efforts of Saudi Arabia and the United States to flood the world market with oil and drop the price are not accidental. The intent is to cash-starve the state sectors of Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, and weaken the stability and popularity of the governments.

By drastically reducing state revenue, a domestic crisis of inflation has been created in Venezuela. Food importing companies have coordinated with opposition activists to create a shortage. Sanctions from the United States have made it very difficult for Venezuela to function on the world market. The Venezuelan government is now fighting for its life as opposition forces burn food, and foment riots and chaos in the streets, while many citizens who were formerly loyal to Bolivarianism are now cynical.

While the US media blames the socialist government for the crisis, Venezuela’s Minister of Urban Agriculture has pointed out that the USA is actively working to prevent food imports, saying

“The United States pressures shipping companies that if they make purchases, sales or transactions with Venezuela, they will be sanctioned.”

While Iran and Russia have suffered due to the oil price drop, both governments have managed to prevent any domestic crisis from erupting. Venezuela seems to be the primary target, as oil prices still hover below $50 per barrel, and the crisis in the country deepens.

The Sunni Alliance Cracks

In addition to dropping oil prices by flooding the market, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been key in the direct military effort to defeat independent governments. Saudi Arabia was key in providing weapons and funding to the extremist groups and “rebels” that toppled the Islamic Socialist Government of Libya in 2011.

Since the fall of Gaddafi’s “Petro-Socialist” oil exporting regime in Libya, oil production has dramatically decreased, as this once most prosperous African country has been reduced to poverty and chaos. Nigeria has now replaced Libya as the top oil producer in Africa.

Salman Abedi (Source: Voltairenet.org)

Many of the extremists who toppled Gaddafi, including the Islamic Fighting Group of which the Manchester bomber Salman Abedi had deep connections, are adherents to a Saudi interpretation of Islam called “Wahabbism.” Almost all terrorists who embrace Islam such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra, are adherents of the Wahhabi interpretation. The Wahhabi teaching calls for enforcing Islamic government at the point of a gun, and killing non-believers as well as other Muslims deemed to be “apostates.”

In addition to being embraced by terrorists, the Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam is also widely promoted by the Saudi Arabian government. Wahhabi broadcasts and propaganda are funded by Saudi Arabia and spread across the world.

Much like in Libya, Wahhabi extremists armed and funded by Saudi Arabia are now the primary core of the fighting force working to bring down the Syrian Arab Republic. Various factions in Syria, many made up of non-Syrian foreign fighters, seek to transform the secular, religiously plural country into a pro-western, Islamic caliphate. Many of them openly state their intent to slaughter Alawites and forcibly expel the Christians in the process of creating a Sunni Muslim regime in Syria.

The Syrian government, which was on the verge of constructing a pipeline to connect Iranian oil fields to the Mediterranean Sea, is now fighting for its life in a bloody civil war. From among the religiously motivated anti-government fighters in Syria, sponsored by the USA and Saudi Arabia, the monstrous ISIS terrorists have emerged to horrify the world.

The Wahhabi terrorists who toppled Gaddafi with help from NATO bombs and now terrorize Syria, have had a critical ally in their efforts to conduct “regime change.” Alongside them has been the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Sunni Muslim extremist organization. The Muslim brotherhood is a religious mass movement that originated in the Middle East, and began working with the United States in the 1950s, seeing the rise of Arab Nationalism and Socialism as anti-Islamic. The Muslim Brotherhood provides services to its followers, and is based among small business owners who believe in a kind of Islamic capitalism, and view secular Arab Nationalism, Shia radicals, Israel, Socialists, and Communists as their enemies.

The monarchy of Qatar is a primary funder of the Muslim Brotherhood and its activities around the world, and the Qatari sponsored TV network Al-Jazeera promotes the activities and worldview of the Brotherhood across the planet. The Erdogan government in Turkey draws its support from the Muslim Brotherhood, and also funds its activities.

First in Libya and now in Syria, while Saudi backed terrorists bombed and killed, Turkish and Qatari backed organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood raised money and conducted propaganda work to promote regime change. The Muslim Brotherhood regime in Turkey allowed terrorists to cross the border into Syria. Muslim Brotherhood organizations, under the guise of humanitarian work, have funneled money to anti-government forces in Syria. Qatar has provided weapons and funding, while Al-Jazeera often reports favorably on the activities of Wahhabi “rebels” and demonizes the Syrian government.

Across Europe and even in the United States, Muslim Brotherhood linked Mosques and community organizations have held rallies to support the so-called “Syrian Revolution” and work to build up public relations in support of bombing and military intervention in Syria by western powers.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia outlaws the Muslim Brotherhood within its own borders, and has a deeply different theological perspective. Regardless, on the international sphere, Saudi backed Wahhabism, and Qatari-Turkish backed Muslim Brotherhood affiliates have been close allies.

When Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and attempted to build an “Arab NATO” against Iran, Qatar seemed reluctant. While Qatar generally sides with Saudi Arabia against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it still maintains diplomatic relations. The Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni, but it does not consider Shia Muslims such as those who rule Iran as being “apostates” worthy of death.

As the Muslim Brotherhood refuses to go all-in with the US-Saudi effort to target the Iranian government, Qatar now finds itself at odds with Saudi Arabia. Possibly in an effort to please the Saudis, Donald Trump has accused Qatar of funding terrorism. Saudi Arabia demands that Qatar shut down Al-Jazeera and its activities in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, possibly because the Brotherhood exists as a competing ideology to Wahhabism among radicalized Muslims around the world.

In response, Qatar has now released a large number of documents purporting to show Saudi and UAE connections to ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, Erdogan’s Brotherhood linked regime in Turkey seems much less hostile to Russia than just a few years prior, and has loudly protested against US funding and arming of Kurdish forces in Syria.

The Wahhabi-Brotherhood alliance utilized by the USA for “regime change” in Syria and Libya seems to be coming apart. The Muslim Brotherhood linked organizations seem more and more reluctant to trust the USA and Saudi Arabia, and much more open to friendly relations with Iran and Russia.

It should be noted that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian affiliate is Hamas, the primary battlefield enemy of Israel. Trump has positioned himself as a strong ally of Israel, and Israeli pressure against the Muslim Brotherhood and its backers may have an influence on the continuing split.

Low Oil Prices Do Not Weaken Chinese Socialism

While the non-capitalist economies of Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are centered around the revenue created by oil and natural gas exports, China’s state directed economy depends on oil imports.

During the Mao era, when China maintained a Soviet style model, China’s domestic oil resources were adequate to provide for the gradually emerging industries. However, in 1978, China’s economy was drastically altered. The Soviet style “command economy” was abandoned. Deng Xiaoping adjusted China to a model known as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” While banking and major industries like steel manufacturing remained under state control, much of China’s economy was privatized. “Free Economic Zones” were established, and joint ventures between Chinese capitalists and western investors became widespread.

Under “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” China’s economy continues to be subject to five year plans of development, and despite market forces being prevalent, the 90 million-member Communist Party maintains control over the market. China is known to execute billionaires and capitalists who run afoul of the party or endanger the public, and corporations have no real property rights or economic freedom respected by the state.

As China’s apparatus of production greatly expanded, a need for resources developed. In 1993, China became a net oil importer. As production boomed on China’s mainland, China became increasingly dependent on oil imports. Today, 60% of Chinese oil consumption involves imported petroleum.

The more China’s economy grew, the more dependent it became on oil. One of the key factors in the rise of Bolivarian “Petro-Socialism” in Latin America was China’s willingness to purchase from previously untapped reserves of oil. Sanctions from the United States did not deter China from purchasing oil from Venezuela.

President of Bolivia Evo Morales (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Evo Morales visited China after being elected President of Bolivia. The Socialist politician praised Mao’s “Proletarian Revolution” during his state visit to China, and since Morales election, China has purchased natural resources from Bolivia at a very high rate. China’s investments throughout south and central America have greatly increased in the last two decades. Petrobas, the state owned oil company in Brazil, has greatly benefitted from Chinese investment. China has also assisted Brazil in constructing hydro-power plants and bringing electricity to impoverished rural areas.

The “Oil Veto” in the South China Sea

While the low oil prices since 2014 have hurt the economies of the petro-socialist, oil centered countries, the state controlled centrally planned economy of China has been strengthened. Cheap oil has enabled China to continue to expand its apparatus of production and influence around the world.

Today, half the steel in the world is produced in China’s government controlled steel industry. China’s state owned industries are also churning out huge amounts of copper, iron, and other metals. The wages of Chinese workers are increasing, and almost every day another Chinese millionaire is created.

US media echoed alarmist reports on a “Chinese Slowdown” in 2015, but the economy did not falter. The rate of growth has slightly decreased, but remains around 7%, a rate that is envious to almost every other country on earth.

While a very small amount of China’s oil imports comes from land pipelines, the majority of it comes by sea on oil tankers. China has worked very hard to secure the South China Sea, and make sure that nothing can interfere with the flow of oil to the Chinese mainland via its ports in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

The USA has long had power over China’s growing economy via a potential “oil veto.” A naval blockade from the United States in the South China Sea could easily bring production on the mainland to a grinding halt by cutting off the flow of oil.

The existence of the Philippines as a pro-US regime hosting American military forces has long been a potential source of weakness for China. However, the government of Rodrigo Duterte has altered this situation. Duterte’s anti-US speeches, and willingness to negotiate with China has been a big game-changer in the pacific. The populist President linked to anti-drug vigilante groups has reached an understanding with China, and effectively enabled China-bound oil tankers in the South China Sea to be far more secure than before.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula

The THAAD Missile System being erected in southern Korea is also a threat to China’s security. The missile system has a radar that penetrates deep into Chinese territory, and the system is “strike enabling” allowing US forces in Korea to potentially attack China, Russia, or North Korea, and then deflect any response.

As soon as the first components of the THAAD system were unloaded in Korea, China responded with economic penalties. The world took notice of how the economy in southern Korea screamed in response to a sudden loss of Chinese cooperation.

Shortly afterward, the widely unpopular and corrupt President who had arranged for THAAD to be constructed, was removed from office. The rightist President Park, daughter of the military dictator, was driven from office, and replaced with Moon Jae-In, who is far friendlier to China and more skeptical of the United States.

The United States has lashed out at China on the floor of the UN Security Council for its alleged economic ties to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. China maintains all of its relations with DPRK are consistent with international agreements, but the USA is now demanding complete isolation of the state in northern Korea.

China and Russia have opposed Korea’s nuclear proliferation and missile tests, but also opposed continued US war games in the south, rehearsing invasion and destruction of the DPRK. The proposal from Russia and China for the DPRK, the US, and South Korea to all de-escalate the military activity on the Peninsula seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The USA maintains that it has the right to engage in provocative war games, but the DPRK does not have the right to continue proliferating nuclear weapons or testing missiles.

In Latin America, China’s influence has continued to grow despite the crisis of Petro-Socialism. China seeks to secure maritime trade routes in order to ensure that oil can flow safely and that its state controlled economy can continue to produce. The pro-US regime in Panama gives the USA a certain control over global Sea routes. For example, shipments to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea from Cuba were stopped and inspected in June of 2013.

China is now working with the Socialist government of Nicaragua to construct an alternative to the Panama Canal that will be controlled by anti-capitalist forces. China has rewarded Nicaragua for its cooperation with a huge amount of investment. The Wall Street Journal reports an increase of 36% in Nicaragua’s GDP between 2007 and 2016, along with a 30% reduction of poverty. The United Nations World Happiness Index report for 2016, lists the greatest increase in happiness for 2016 as taking place in Nicaragua. The life expectancy is also rising.

Nicaragua’s socialist government is led by the Sandinistas and uses the slogan “Christianity, Socialism and Solidarity.” Like China’s economy, Nicaragua’s socialism is not dependent on state controlled oil, but imports, rather than exports, oil. Socialism in Nicaragua is emerging in the form of state controlled industries and cooperatives, often done with heavy investment and cooperation from China. The US congress now has a bill in the works to place sanctions on this highly successful, socialist government, which the US media often labels as a “dictatorship” that violates “human rights.”

Internal Conflict in Both Camps

As the western capitalist powers clash with the rising block of planned economies, both sides face internal conflict. In the west, the computer revolution has eliminated millions of industrial jobs and reduced the next generation to a far lower standard of living.

Western capitalism has “globalized” and in the process, driven wages and living standards down across the board. Workers in western countries now compete with workers in third world free market states. The poverty and drug chaos taking place under free market capitalist regimes in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras has resulted in a crisis of mass migration to the USA. Poverty and terrorism in the Middle East has resulted in a mass flow of refugees into Europe.

In the western capitalist countries, the rising poverty and migration has accompanied a rise in police state repression and government spying. In the political sphere, the far left and far right have become more powerful, as centrist forces who believe in free markets and social liberalism prove unable to resolve the crisis.

Meanwhile, in the anti-imperialist countries, a clash and divide is also growing. The pro-American private capitalists of Iran, for example, are growing more and more hostile to the Revolutionary Guard and the principalists associated with the state sector. In the midst of a political crisis, Venezuela’s state has become much more dependent on the grassroots Communist and Socialist activists who brought Bolivarianism into power. A constituent assembly is being formed to adjust the constitution, and the Communes and “Collectivos” are functioning as organizing centers. Armed Bolivarian militias of ideological young people are being formed to defend the government from the opposition, alongside the military.

In China, Xi Jinping is rapidly centralizing the leadership of the Communist Party, and reintroducing a more ideological tone. A nationwide crackdown on corruption and bribery is forcing the party and the government sector to act in a more disciplined and coordinated manner, and to be less friendly and tolerant of questionable activities from foreign capitalists.

China pushes an alternative form of globalization with its New Silk Road and One Belt, One Road initiative. While neoliberal trade organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank usually mandate reduction of the state sector and privatizations, China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank loans money to states in order to build highways, railways, hospitals, universities, and airports. Infrastructure tends to strengthen the domestic economy, while privatizations tend to weaken it. China’s particular interest in modern infrastructure like high speed rail tends to embarrass western countries like the United States where the mass public transportation systems are plagued with disrepair, delays, accidents, and underfunding.

In the west, the ideology of globalist free market capitalism is on the defensive as right-wing nationalists and left-wing socialists blame it for the crisis, and offer more radical sounding alternatives. The western elites are hoping to contain the growing outrage, and redirect the public with increasing anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda campaigns. Within the anti-imperialist blocks, the more pragmatic forces are being challenged by more ideological and radical sections of the state apparatus, that are committed to the anti-capitalist foundations. Meanwhile, market sector forces are being more widely viewed as a potential fifth column.

While 21st century political science is filled with proclamations of “post-ideology” and “non-ideological thought” on both sides of the global conflict, ideology seems to be in high demand. Some kind of explanation of the crisis and its roots, and some kind of ultimate solution is something many are desperately searching for.

China was once the “sick man of Asia” dominated by western powers amid mass poverty, drug addiction, and national humiliation. Today, China is the second largest economy on earth. The horrors of the post-Soviet period in the 1990s have been radically corrected by Putin, who is now one of the most popular leaders in the world. Russia is a force to be reckoned with on the global stage once again. In Latin America and Asia many countries are being pulled into the orbit of the two Eurasian superpowers as they forge an alternative to western free market globalism.

The ongoing clash between the two economic models is not likely to erupt into some dramatic explosion at this time. Rather, the two economies will attempt to coexist with each other despite their obvious contradiction.

However, in places like Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine, the clash between the two forces has broken out into open warfare, with the two blocs lining up respectively behind their allies. While peace is in the universal interests of humanity, the danger of war increases, and tensions are getting higher.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image from New Eastern Outlook

Reports by major Western news outlets such as the Washington Post regarding US President Donald Trump’s undertaking to end the covert CIA operation to arm rebels in Syria are essentially misleading. It assumes that there is truth to the official sanitized narrative of a bona fide faction of insurgents who could be classified as ‘moderate rebels’. This was of course publicly discredited by the revelation that a 500 million-dollar investment aimed at creating a viable rebel force yielded a grand total of five guerrillas.

The whole point about the anti-Assad insurgency was to introduce fanatical Islamic warriors to destabilise and then balkanise Syria.

General Wesley Clark, the retired former supreme commander of Nato, once said during a CNN interview words to the effect that you don’t put up recruitment posters in the Middle East exhorting the masses to volunteer for a militia in order to make the world a better place. In other words a conventional idealist is not the sort of person who in Clark’s words “will fight to the death against Hezbollah.”

The so-called Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, the former a renegade group metastasized from al-Qaeda and the latter, an al-Qaeda affiliate, are precisely the sort of militias that have benefitted from a covert operation which has been overseen by the state and military intelligence agencies of the United States.

The unvarnished truth is that the United States, alongside its regional allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has overseen the recruitment, training and financing of Syrian and foreign jihadis. The state of Israel has also provided jihadis operating near the Golan Heights with medical, financial and logistical support.

There have been episodes where the United States-led West has provided overt support for jihadis. For instance, the United States clearly sought to help al Nusra during the siege of Aleppo through a combination of disinformation and military intervention. The former relates to the role of the Western media in propagating the narrative of a Russian-induced humanitarian calamity, while the latter consisted of at least one significant military act of intervention: the supposedly ‘accidental’ killing of dozens of Syrian Army personnel in Deir al-Zour.

With the defeat of the Islamic State nearing, Trump’s undertaking to President Vladimir Putin amounts to a piecemeal concession. The defeat of Islamic State and others by a coalition of the Syrian military, Russia, Hezbollah and Iran -effectively a defeat for the United States- will not put out the fires in Syria.

This is because the United States will continue striving to ensure that Syria is balkanised. The instrument through which it will work towards achieving this end is through its support for Kurdish militias. The attack using Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian airbase which was ordered by Trump himself despite the lack of evidence that the Syrian military used chemical weapons, was designed to aid Kurdish rebels.

Israel, which for all of its existence has been committed to the balkanization of the Arab world, also supports the creation of a Kurdish state. While the secular government of President Bashar al-Assad has not been overthrown, it will take comfort from weakening of a neighbouring nationalist Arab state. The dismantling of Syria would, the Israelis hope, nullify or at least make more difficult any future claims by a successor state to the Golan Heights which Israel illegally annexed in 1981.

Trump’s undertaking does not mean that after being displaced from the territories of which they took control, the Islamic State and al-Nusra will not continue to receive funding in order to operate underground as saboteurs and assassins much as the Muslim Brotherhood once functioned with Western support against the governments of Egypt and Syria. Turkey will oppose any efforts to create a Kurdish state and Israel will continue in its efforts to weaken the Assad government.

Thus with the future involvement of the United States, Turkey and Israel in Syrian affairs a guaranteed matter, Donald Trump’s apparent concession is unlikely to bring an end to the tragedy of Syria.

Adeyinka Makinde is a London-based law lecturer with an interest in intelligence and security matters. He can be followed on Twitter @AdeyinkaMakinde.

Colonialism Reparation supports the demands of reparations to the Caribbean and calls on the United Nations for the complete withdrawal of MINUSTAH and the compensation of victims of the cholera epidemic.

On June 1, 2017 the Court of Basse-Terre in Guadeloupe has concluded the trial for the demand of reparations for slavery to the French State fixing the date of the sentence on September 7. The lawyers of the CIPN (Comité International des Peuples Noirs) have called for the appointment of a panel of experts to assess the suffered damages and to propose the reparatory measures for the descendants of the victims.

On June 23, 2017 dozens of organizations and five Nobel Peace Laureates supported the demand for justice of the Haitian people by calling on the United Nations Security Council delegation visiting Haiti for the complete withdrawal of MINUSTAH and the compensation of victims of the cholera epidemic.

From 4 to July 6, 2017 was held in Grand Anse, Grenada, the thirty-eighth Summit of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community with the participation of about twenty delegations. During the meeting the Caribbean Nations noted responses to the letters sent to European leaders and mandated the CARICOM Reparations Commission to coordinate the preparation of a diplomatic, communicative and training strategy to advance the reparations claim.

Colonialism Reparation supports the demands of reparations to the Caribbean and calls on the United Nations, as already done in November 2011 and September 2016, for the complete withdrawal of MINUSTAH and the compensation of victims of the cholera epidemic.

For further information, inquiries and interviews:
Colonialism Reparation http://www.colonialismreparation.org/
Press Office: [email protected]

***

Colonialism Reparation is part of the movement for the condemnation, the reconciliation, the apologies and the compensation for colonialism.

Colonialism Reparation promotes, supports and spreads non-violent activities aimed to create awareness of the current world situation and thereby to encourage the achievement of its objective

• that the colonizing nations condemn their colonial past recognizing it as a crime against humanity and that the colonized nations exert pressure to make it happen
• that the colonizing nations reconcile with their past, permanently distancing themselves from it by officially apologizing the colonized nations
• that the colonizing nations compensate the colonized nations for the atrocities and abuses committed thus allowing an improvement in their socio-economic conditions.

The contribution of every person who recognizes the importance of this activity to the creation of a climate of friendship and cooperation between peoples is necessary and appreciated. This contribution will create an extremely positive precedent in international relations as well, promoting the supremacy of the “force of law” on the “law of force”.

Featured image: The croissant stand in Aamarie district of Thomas Gate is known not only to Damascenes but visitors from other areas of Syria. While prices for most goods have risen all across Syria, the stand keeps its prices low: 125 Syrian pounds per sumptuous croissant. On the first day of ‘Eid celebrations the stand is packed. (Source: MintPress News)

Damascus — On prior visits to Damascus, staying in the Old City, the sound of mortars being fired from terrorist-held districts outside of the city was a constant. In recent months, the mortars on Damascus have stopped. Previously, Jebhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria), Jaysh al-Islam and the Free Syrian Army, among other terrorist factions, rained mortars daily on residential areas of Damascus, hitting schools, homes, vehicles and pedestrians, killing and maiming indiscriminately, leaving civilians, including children, with critical injuries and amputations.  

With the recent absence of mortars, Damascenes have opened outdoor establishments where before it was formerly too dangerous. Sidewalks cafes and outdoor eateries open at night were unthinkable less than half a year ago, let alone rooftop cafes and lounges. Although Syrians suffer immensely from an economy devastated by war and western sanctions, in Damascus there is a renewed sense of defiance, a refusal to give in, or as a young man in his twenties visiting from Aleppo said:

“They have their own war against death by living.”

A snapshot of life in Damascus, June and July 2016:

Wedding procession in the Old City of Damascus. Love and life continue. A newcomer to Syria might be surprised by the vibrancy of life among Damascus residents, who have lived under al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Islam mortars for years, as well as cruel sanctions. “Tawadna” is a phrase that is heard often in Syria: “We got used to it.” Even when mortars rained down, Syrians celebrated their weddings and festivals. Now, in Damascus at least, it is safer to do so outside.

The book market near the President’s Bridge and Damascus University is an institution in Damascus, known to book lovers who can’t afford bookstores. It is one Damascus venue which refused to shut down over the years, mortars or not. In addition to its Arabic books, one can find English language books and cookbooks, English literature, popular English-language thrillers and taudry romance novels.

In the narrow lanes of Old Damascus, a wooden mosaic artisan explains the techniques of his trade. The tediously-crafted and beautiful woodwork is a favourite for tourists. In spite of the dearth of customers in the past five and a half years, craftsmen and women continue to practise their skills in hopes that when peace returns to Syria, so too will tourists.

The Abu Zolouf bar is one among many bars and lounges opened in the East Gate quarter of the Old City in recent months. Two years ago, I sat with the adjacent restaurant owner, Nabil, outside his then-vacant restaurant discussing the frequent mortars that Jebhat al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army were firing on Damascus, from Jobar, less than 1 km to the northeast. As mortars fell in nearby districts of the Old City, Nabil narrated close-calls he had had with such mortars hitting outside his restaurant. He also lamented the loss of customers in recent years. Since their May 30, 2016, opening, the Abu Zolouf bar has nightly from 70 to 150 patrons looking to relax outdoors.

Le Visage, also in the East Gate quarter, was among the first outdoor establishment to open after the mortars stopped some months ago. From its rooftop position, one can look down on the historic Straight Street leading up to East Gate, as well as see life on balconies opposite, where months prior they were empty. A display of lighted alcohol bottles gleam in the dark, with Jobar less than 1 km beyond. A Damascus youth noted: “Imagine, ISIS are about 4 km away and we are opening new bars. This is the Syrian people.”

In an artsy restaurant along the Straight Street, stone walls are adorned with the owner’s brightly-coloured paintings and a solitary board with the words “Cup of Coffee Pending” at the top. Hekmat Daoud, an artist and prominent costume designer, also the eccentric hospitable owner of Kasida Dimashqia restaurant, employs a tradition he says is common in Naples, Italy.

“When paying for their bill, people can pay extra towards free drinks for students or those too poor to afford one.”

After a thirsty weekend, only a few promises of coffee remain.

“There were more before, but students came and wanted arak and beer,” Daoud laughed.

A shared meal with local family in the Old City. After over five years of the war on Syria, prices for all basic goods have risen dramatically, while incomes remain the same or shattered. The Western sanctions on the Syria worsen the situation, hurting the Syrian people and social services the most.

Behind the Umayyad Mosque in Old Damascus, one of tens of volunteers daily helps prepare the Iftar (fast-breaking) meals that the Saaed Association was serving to impoverished Damascus residents, even delivering to those unable to pick up meals themselves. Starting with 3,000 recipients, by the end of Ramadan, the volunteers were providing 10,000 meals daily in Damascus alone, with another combined 7,000 meals prepared in Hama and Homs.

Volunteers from the Saaed Association relax after the second day of ‘Eid activities for children. Instead of clothes or money, “we gave children hope and joy,” one volunteer said. In contrast to the sectarianism imposed on Syria by Gulf States and Turkey, Syrians maintain their unity and secularism, emphasized by such volunteers whose allegiance is to humanitarianism and helping the less fortunate.

The phenomenon of children begging in the streets was not common in Syria prior to 2011. While some children work to help support their families who have been rendered destitute due to various effects of the war on Syria, according to Damascus locals, the majority of these children work in a sort of forced labour for ring-leaders coming from the eastern Ghouta region. Many associations work to provide basic services to these children. One such volunteer organization provides education and meals, teaching children not only the basics of reading and writing, but also works to instill moral values and give opportunities, however briefly in their work-day, for children to be children.

Statistics from the Syrian Ministry of Information (November 2015) cite as many as 50 “members of Syrian mass media establishments” killed while at work or reporting. Thaer Al-Ajlani, top left, was killed on July 27, 2015 when hit with shrapnel from a mortar fired by Jebhat al-Nusra, then occupying much of Jobar. Other martyred journalists have been killed by terrorists’ sniper attacks, point-blank assassinations, shellings and gunfire while reporting. Corporate media and international associations to protect journalists have largely ignored the deaths of Syrian journalists killed by western-backed terrorist factions.

Stopping to buy water in an Old City shop, the owner’s only issue with me taking a photograph of his fridge is that he wants to dust off the photos of President Assad a bit first, apologizing that they are old, from well-before the current crisis.

“We are here and will stay here. Our leader and our army is our hope.” The sign speaks the sentiment of Syrians I have met in Aleppo, Homs, Latakia, Sweida, Ma’loula, and Damascus. The popularity of President al-Assad has even been admitted by western sources in recent years as at least 70%, although popular sentiment on the streets would put the figure even higher.

Children on the second day of ‘Eid. Although Damascus is largely secure and safe, many living in the city are directly affected by the war on Syria, with many having lost a family member, been rendered financially-insecure, or been displaced from areas of the country.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian activist/freelance journalists covering the Middle East, especially the Syrian conflict. 

All images in this article are from the author.

In early January 1918, the Soviet government suspended payment on foreign debt, and in early February 1918 it decreed that all Tsarist debts were repudiated as were those contracted to continue the war by the provisional government between February and November 1917. At the same time, it decided that all assets of foreign capitalists in Russia would be confiscated and returned to the national heritage. In repudiating these debts, the Soviet government was implementing a decision made in 1905 by the soviet (people’s council) of Petrograd (St Petersburg) and the various parties that supported it. This triggered a wave of unanimous protest from the capitals of the major allied powers.

Decree on Peace

The Soviet government proposed peace with neither annexation nor compensation or reparations. It also added a clause enacting the self-determination of peoples. This was the application of totally innovative and revolutionary principles to relations between States. It turned out that the Soviet government’s policy simultaneously confounded and influenced that of the US president Woodrow Wilson |1| who had made the right to self-determination of peoples a central element of US foreign policy. |2| Certainly, the Bolsheviks and the United States had different motives. The US, not having significant colonial territories, saw an interest in weakening the British and German Empires and the powers of Belgium, the Netherlands and France, in order to step into their shoes, though using other methods. Their strongest diplomatic and humanitarian argument was the right to self-determination of African, Caribbean and Asian peoples still under the colonial yoke. As for the Bolsheviks, they wanted to have done with the Tsarist Empire that they denounced as a prison of peoples.

The desire for peace was one of the basic causes of the revolutionary uprising of 1917. The great majority of Russian soldiers were set against pursuing war. Almost all were peasants who wished to go home and work on the land. Moreover, for many years, since long before the start of the war, the Bolsheviks, who had been members of the Socialist International until its betrayal of the working classes in August 1914, had opposed the policy of preparation for war. They maintained that what was needed was a common struggle to bring capitalism and its imperialist phase and colonized territories to an end.

To bring this orientation to bear, the Soviet government was forced to enter separate negotiations with Berlin and its allies as in 1917, London, Paris and Washington wished to carry on with the war. The Soviet government did endeavour to bring these capitals of the allied nations to the negotiating table but to no avail. Having signed an armistice with the German Empire in mid-December 1917, it managed to drag out the negotiations with Berlin over five months in the hopes of seeing several populations of Europe, especially the German people, rise up against their governments to demand peace. It also vainly hoped that President Wilson would support Soviet Russia against Germany |3|. The Soviet government also wanted to show international public opinion that it wished for universal peace embracing East and West and that only as a last resort would it agree to sign a separate peace treaty with Berlin.

From December 1917, the Soviet government began to make public numerous secret documents revealing how the major powers were preparing to share out territories and populations with scant regard for their right to self-determination. One of the most sensitive of these was an agreement between Paris, London and Moscow dating from 1915 which established that at the time of victory, the Tsarist Empire would be entitled to take Constantinople, France would recover Alsace-Lorraine and London could take control of Persia |4|. Early in March 1918, the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Berlin. The cost was high, with the German Empire taking a large portion of the western territory of the Russian Empire: part of the Baltic countries, part of Poland and Ukraine. In short, the treaty would deprive Russia of 26% of its population, 27% of cultivated areas and 75% of its steel and iron production.

Intervention of the Allied Powers against Soviet Russia 

The Soviet government’s call for worldwide revolution combined with its desire to end the war, its repudiation of debts demanded by the Allied Powers and its nationalization measures convinced the Western leaders that they should launch a massive attack against Soviet Russia to bring down the revolutionary government and restore capitalist order. The foreign intervention began in the summer of 1918 and finished at the end of 1920 when the Western capitals took stock of their failure and were obliged to acknowledge that the Red Army had taken back control of the territory. Fourteen countries sent troops to take part in this attack. France sent 12,000 soldiers (to the Black Sea and the North), London sent 40,000 (mainly to the North), Japan 70,000 (in Siberia), Washington 13,000 (in the North with the British and the French), the Poles 12,000 (in Siberia and Murmansk), Greece 23,000 (to the Black Sea), Canada 5,300 |5|. The Japanese intervention was to last until October 1922. According to Winston Churchill, Minister of War in the British government, there was a total of 180,000 allied foreign troops.

Allied troops on parade in Vladivostok, 1918

The French government was the most bitterly hostile towards the Soviet government, right from the start. There were several reasons for this: firstly, it was feared that the revolutionary movement initiated by the Russian people might spread to France as much of the French population was vehemently opposed to carrying on with the war; secondly, the Soviet decision to repudiate debt affected France more than any other country since Russian loan bonds had been issued in Paris and were mainly held in France.

It is now known that in 1917 the French government had begun secret talks with Berlin hoping to conclude a peace treaty that would allow the German Empire to spread eastwards to the detriment of revolutionary Russia, on condition that Alsace and Lorraine be returned to France. Berlin’s refusal to make this concession to Paris brought negotiations to an end |6|.

The armistice of 11 November 1918 signed between the Western capitals and Berlin made provision for German troops to stay temporarily in the “Russian” territories that they were occupying. According to article 12 of the armistice, Germany was to evacuate all former Russian territories as soon as the Allies deemed it opportune, in view of the internal situation of those territories |7|. The idea was to help the imperial army prevent the Soviet government from rapidly regaining control over the territories they had conceded to Germany under the Brest-Litovsk treaty. The Allies meant to enable anti-Bolshevik forces to take over these territories which would then serve as a rear-base while they overthrew the government.

The British historian E. H. Carr shows how unpopular the intervention against Soviet Russia was :

“In January 1919 when the allied statesmen, assembled in Paris for the peace conference, discussed the occupation of Russia by allied troops, the British Prime Minister [Lloyd George] bluntly assured his colleagues that ‘if he now proposed to send a thousand British troops to Russia for that purpose, the armies would mutiny’, and that, ‘if a military enterprise was started against the Bolsheviki, that would make England Belshevist and there would be a soviet in London’. Lloyd George was talking for effect, as was his manner. But his perceptive mind had correctly diagnosed the symptoms. Serious mutinies in the first months of 1919 in the French fleet and in French military units landed in Odessa and other Black Sea ports led to en enforced evacuation at the beginning of April. Of the troops of several nationalities under British command on the Archangel front the Director of Military Operations at the War Office reported in March 1919 that their morale was ‘so low as to renderthem a prey to to the very active and insidious Bolshevik propaganda which the enemy are carrying out with increasing energy and skill’. The details were disclosed much later through official American reports. On March 1, 1919, a mutiny occurred among French troops ordered to go up to the line; several days earlier a British infantry company ‘refused to go to the front’, and shortly afterwards an American company ‘refused for a time to return to duty at the front’. It was in the light of such experience that the British government decided in March 1919 to evacuate north Russia, though the evacuation was not in fact completed till six months later.” |8|

The Russian Civil War 1917

Winston Churchill was one of the main hawks in the Western camp. Taking advantage of the absence of Lloyd George and President Wilson at a summit meeting held in Paris on 19 February 1919, Churchill intervened to persuade the other governments to complete their intervention by directly supporting the army of the White Russian generals. He suggested sending them “volunteers, technical experts, arms, munitions, tanks, aeroplanes, etc.” and “arming the anti-Bolshevik forces” |9|.

The Allies tried to persuade the new (pro-Western) German government to take part in the action against Bolshevik Russia. Despite strong pressure from the Western capitals, in October 1919 the Reichstag (the German parliament), where socialists (SPD) and liberals held the majority, voted unanimously against Germany’s participation in the blockade on Soviet Russia decreed by the Allies. To give the full picture, it should be added that at the same time certain German generals like Ludendorff, and especially Von der Goltz, who led the last organized remnants of the former imperial army, supported military actions in the East to help out the anti-Bolshevik White Russian generals. This, with the support of the Western capitals |10|.

It is quite clear that both the Western governments and those of the defeated central powers (the German Empire and Austria-Hungary) feared that revolution would spread to their own countries. Lloyd George wrote in a confidential memorandum early in 1919: The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution. There is a deep sense not only of discontent but of anger and revolt amongst the workmen against pre-war conditions. The whole existing order in its political, social and economic aspects is questioned by the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the other” |11|. This fear of revolution was by no means fanciful and largely explains the violence of the attacks against Bolshevik Russia.

Foreign intervention backed up the White Russian generals’ attacks and prolonged what was an extremely bloody civil war (it caused more deaths than the World War in Russia |12|). The cost of the foreign was considerable, in terms of human lives and of material destruction; the Soviet government later demanded that this be taken into account in the international negotiations regarding debt repudiation (see below).

The economic and financial blockade against Soviet Russia and the blockade on Russian gold

From 1918, the Allied powers led a blockade against Soviet Russia. The Soviet government was prepared to pay in gold to import goods of absolute necessity, but none of the major banks or any government in the world could accept Soviet gold without crossing swords with the Allied governments. In fact Paris, London, Washington, Brussels all considered that they had a right to Russian gold to compensate Russia’s expropriated capitalists and repay debts. This became a huge obstacle to Soviet trade. In the United States any person or company wishing to use gold for any transaction or to take gold into the country had to sign an official statement that the gold in their possession had nothing to do with the ‘so-called’ Bolshevik government and that they guaranteed that the US had a right on it without any reservation |13|.

It should be mentioned that after the German capitulation of November 1918, France managed to recover the heavy ransom in gold that Berlin had got from Russia in application of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty signed in March 1918 |14|. France refused to return this gold to Russia, considering it as part of the reparations Germany owed Paris. The blockade of Russian gold was carried on to some extent for years. This was how France again managed in 1928 to get the Washington authorities to prohibit a payment in Russian gold for a contract between Russia and a private US company.

Part 1: Russia: Repudiation of debt at the heart of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917

Part 2: From Tsarist Russia to the 1917 revolution and the repudiation of debt

Eric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. He is the author of Bankocracy(2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012 (see here), etc. See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. Since the 4^th April 2015 he is the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt.

Translated by Vicki Briault in collaboration with Christine Pagnoulle

Notes

|1| Thomas Woodrow Wilson, born in Staunton on 28 December 1856 and died in Washington, D.C. on 3 February 1924, was the 28^th president of the United States. He was elected for two successive mandates, from 1913 to 1921.

|2| See W. Wilson’s declaration of February 1918: “every territorial settlement in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the population concerned, and not as part of any mere adjustment compromise of claims amongst rival states”. See also his declaration made at the signature of the pact founding the Society of Nations in 1919: ”The fundamental principle of this treaty is a principle never acknowledged before… that the countries of the world belong to the people who live in them”. These two citations are due to Odette Lienau, Rethinking Sovereign Debt : Politics, Reputation, and Legitimacy in Modern Finance, Harvard University, 2014, p. 62-63. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog….

|3| In January-February 1918, President Wilson adopted an apparently benevolent public attitude towards Soviet Russia. See especially point 6 of his declaration in 14 points to the US Congress on 8 January1918. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourt… 
However in the end Wilson did not give any aid to the Soviets.

|4| See Edward H. Carr. 1952. (A History of Soviet Russia), The Bolshevik Revolution (1917-1923) Vol. 3, Norton Paperback Editions, New York, 1985 (Macmillan, 1953) chapter 21, pp; 12-13, note 3.

|5| See in particular, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allie…

|6| Lloyd George reported these talks in his memoirs: Lloyd George, War Memoirs, IV, 1934, 2081-2107. See Edward H. Carr. 1952. (A History of Soviet Russia), The Bolshevik Revolution (1917-1923) Vol. 3, Norton Paperback Editions, New York, 1985 (Macmillan, 1953) chapter 22.

|7| See Edward H. Carr. 1952. (A History of Soviet Russia), The Bolshevik Revolution (1917-1923) Vol. 3, Norton Paperback Editions, New York, 1985 (Macmillan, 1953) chapter 28, p. 308.

|8| See Edward H. Carr. 1952. (A History of Soviet Russia), The Bolshevik Revolution (1917-1923) Vol. 3, Norton Paperback Editions, New York, 1985 (Macmillan, 1953) chapter 23, pp. 126-7.

|9| Ibid., chapter 23, p. 111.

|10| E. H. Carr, Vol. 3, p. 308.

|11| Quoted by E. H. Carr, vol. 3, p.128.

|12| On the Russian Civil War, see among other scholarly studies Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, Pegasus Book, 2007.

|13| See The New York Times, 2 April 1921 quoted by Alexander N. Sack, “Diplomatic Claims against the Soviets  (1918-1938)”, in New York School of Law Contemporary Law Pamphlets Series 1 No.7, N Y University Quarterly Review, 1938.

|14| See: Alexander N. Sack, “Diplomatic Claims against the Soviets (1918-1938)”, in New York School of Law Contemporary Law Pamphlets Series 1 No.7, N Y University Quarterly Review 253, 1938-1939.

All images in this article are from the author.

“The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his creation.”

“We should value those who solicit our votes by other standards than have recently been in fashion. While we believe that good is something to be invented, we demand of our rulers such qualities as “vision,” “dynamism,” “creativity,” and the like. If we returned to the objective view we should demand qualities much rarer, and much more beneficial – virtue, knowledge, diligence and skill. Vision is for sale, or claims to be for sale, everywhere. But give me a man who will do a day’s work for a day’s pay, who will refuse bribes, who will not make up his facts, and who has learned his job.” The Poison of Subjectivism, CS Lewis

CS Lewis has a great point. Everywhere in the United States the disease of subjectivism is present. The evidence abounds: The polarization of the political system; the dismissal of history because of discomfort with historical facts; “trigger” warnings for literary texts that offend sensibility; the vicious censure befalling authors for developing literary characters of a different race or ethnic experience, applying the rules of law for some and not others; or disavowing a higher spiritual power of some sort.

Be forewarned that going forward, every individual and in-group in the United States is cautioned to stay in their own lane with their own histories. In this new American society you run the danger of being pilloried if you express an opinion outside your own individual/in-group reality. The reasoning goes something like this: “You weren’t there, how can you have an opinion on that?” The response might be, “Sure, I wasn’t around when Alexander the Great was rampaging across the world, but I have some opinion based on studies I’ve done.” And the response you’re likely to get these days is, “No good, you are not Macedonian.”

Make America What?

This calls into question the very notion of what it means to be an American. Is there such a thing as the United States? What does anyone have in common any longer? It is as if “the educators, conditioners and creators”, that Lewis refers to, have tried to apply the Many World’s Theory from Quantum Mechanics in creating and managing society, a society in which all possible outcomes are sought and all outcomes are obtained, each in a different world/reality that only you and your in-group are aware of.

In this new American society “reality” exists at two different poles. One reality seeks shelter in its own individual/in-group world and is content to live a two dimensional as described in Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland. They are not aware that they are being manipulated by realities at the other end of the pole and shun those who posit that such manipulation exists or even in the reality of other worlds.

At the other pole exists a “reality” in which the individual/in-group are able to create ever more realities in which compasses show no direction, alternative histories exist and problems/issues are dealt with by wiping one reality out for another. Every day is new, yesterday is forgotten, fads and technology appear and disappear, politicians and corporate heads sell vision and disruption, you create your own news and reality; and, well, hubris leads humanity to believe it is the highest order species in any world or universe.

Excess and Passivity

According to William James in his lecture The Dilemma of Determinism,

“Subjectivism everywhere fosters the fatalistic mood of mind. It makes those who are already too inert more passive still; it renders wholly reckless those whose energy is already in excess. All through history we find how subjectivism, as soon as it has a free career, exhausts itself in every sort of spiritual, moral, and practical license. Its optimism turns to an ethical indifference, which infallibly brings dissolution in its train. It transforms life from a tragic reality into an insincere melodramatic exhibition, as foul or as tawdry as anyone’s diseased curiosity pleases to carry it out.”

“I have heard a graduate of this very school express in the pulpit his willingness to sin like David, if only he might repent like David. You may tell me he was only sowing his wild, or rather his tame, oats; and perhaps he was. But the point is that in the subjectivistic oat-sowing, wild or tame, it becomes a systematic necessity and the chief function of life. After the pure and classic truths, the exciting and rancid ones must be experienced; and if the stupid virtues of the philistine herd do not then come in and save society from the influence of the children of light, a sort of inward putrefaction becomes its inevitable doom.”

Subjectivism will destroy the country unless some commonalities are agreed upon to unite the country. Who does not long, as CS Lewis said, for

“Virtue, knowledge, diligence and skill. Vision is for sale, or claims to be for sale, everywhere. But give me a man who will do a day’s work for a day’s pay, who will refuse bribes, who will not make up his facts, and who has learned his job.”

This is no call for a return to the “good old days” in which slavery, racism, anti-LGBTQ, and a “woman’s place in the kitchen” were widespread. What is needed is a set of beliefs or fundamentals that all citizens in the USA—human beings—can adhere too to find common bond. There must be ideals, codes that go beyond crass alliances that seek to cut taxes or undercut healthcare for the young and the old. Americans need to get out of their lanes and take care of each other.

As it stands now, it seems that Americans are segregated themselves into stovepipes, as if by some sort of invisible hand. What follows that is distasteful.  Lewis warned that subjectivism is the mother of fascism. The “F” word is on a lot of people’s minds these days as authoritarian leadership seems to be on the upswing not only in the United States, but elsewhere in the world. New realities are being created.

“Many a popular “planner” on a democratic platform, many a mild-eyed scientist in a democratic laboratory means, in the last resort, just what the Fascist means. He believes that “good” means whatever men are conditioned to approve. He believes that it is the function of him and his kind to condition men; to create consciences by eugenics, psychological manipulation of infants, state education and mass propaganda. Because he is confused, he does not yet fully realize that those who create conscience cannot be subject to conscience themselves. But he must awake to the logic of his position sooner or later; and when he does, what barrier remains between us and the final division of the race into a few conditioners who stand themselves outside morality and the many conditioned in whom such morality as the experts choose is produced at the experts’ pleasure?” CS Lewis

John Stanton can be reached at [email protected]