Global Research

Introduction

Over the past quarter century progressive writers, activists and academics have followed a trajectory from left to right – with each presidential campaign seeming to move them further to the right. Beginning in the 1990’s progressives mobilized millions in opposition to wars, voicing demands for the transformation of the US’s corporate for-profit medical system into a national ‘Medicare For All’ public program. They condemned the notorious Wall Street swindlers and denounced police state legislation and violence. But in the end, they always voted for Democratic Party Presidential candidates who pursued the exact opposite agenda.

Over time this political contrast between program and practice led to the transformation of the Progressives. And what we see today are US progressives embracing and promoting the politics of the far right.

To understand this transformation we will begin by identifying who and what the progressives are and describe their historical role. We will then proceed to identify their trajectory over the recent decades.

We will outline the contours of recent Presidential campaigns where Progressives were deeply involved.

We will focus on the dynamics of political regression: From resistance to submission, from retreat to surrender.

We will conclude by discussing the end result: The Progressives’ large-scale, long-term embrace of far-right ideology and practice.

Progressives by Name and Posture

Progressives purport to embrace ‘progress’, the growth of the economy, the enrichment of society and freedom from arbitrary government. Central to the Progressive agenda was the end of elite corruption and good governance, based on democratic procedures.

Progressives prided themselves as appealing to ‘reason, diplomacy and conciliation’, not brute force and wars. They upheld the sovereignty of other nations and eschewed militarism and armed intervention.

Progressives proposed a vision of their fellow citizens pursuing incremental evolution toward the ‘good society’, free from the foreign entanglements, which had entrapped the people in unjust wars.

Progressives in Historical Perspective

In the early part of the 20th century, progressives favored political equality while opposing extra-parliamentary social transformations. They supported gender equality and environmental preservation while failing to give prominence to the struggles of workers and African Americans.

They denounced militarism ‘in general’ but supported a series of ‘wars to end all wars’. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson embodied the dual policies of promoting peace at home and bloody imperial wars overseas. By the middle of the 20th century, different strands emerged under the progressive umbrella. Progressives split between traditional good government advocates and modernists who backed socio-economic reforms, civil liberties and rights.

Progressives supported legislation to regulate monopolies, encouraged collective bargaining and defended the Bill of Rights.

Progressives opposed wars and militarism in theory… until their government went to war.

Lacking an effective third political party, progressives came to see themselves as the ‘left wing’ of the Democratic Party, allies of labor and civil rights movements and defenders of civil liberties.

Progressives joined civil rights leaders in marches, but mostly relied on legal and electoral means to advance African American rights.

Progressives played a pivotal role in fighting McCarthyism, though ultimately it was the Secretary of the Army and the military high command that brought Senator McCarthy to his knees.

Progressives provided legal defense when the social movements disrupted the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

They popularized the legislative arguments that eventually outlawed segregation, but it was courageous Afro-American leaders heading mass movements that won the struggle for integration and civil rights.

In many ways the Progressives complemented the mass struggles, but their limits were defined by the constraints of their membership in the Democratic Party.

The alliance between Progressives and social movements peaked in the late sixties to mid-1970’s when the Progressives followed the lead of dynamic and advancing social movements and community organizers especially in opposition to the wars in Indochina and the military draft.

The Retreat of the Progressives

By the late 1970’s the Progressives had cut their anchor to the social movements, as the anti-war, civil rights and labor movements lost their impetus (and direction).

The numbers of progressives within the left wing of the Democratic Party increased through recruitment from earlier social movements. Paradoxically, while their ‘numbers’ were up, their caliber had declined, as they sought to ‘fit in’ with the pro-business, pro-war agenda of their President’s party.

Without the pressure of the ‘populist street’ the ‘Progressives-turned-Democrats’ adapted to the corporate culture in the Party. The Progressives signed off on a fatal compromise: The corporate elite secured the electoral party while the Progressives were allowed to write enlightened manifestos about the candidates and their programs . . . which were quickly dismissed once the Democrats took office. Yet the ability to influence the ‘electoral rhetoric’ was seen by the Progressives as a sufficient justification for remaining inside the Democratic Party.

Moreover the Progressives argued that by strengthening their presence in the Democratic Party, (their self-proclaimed ‘boring from within’ strategy), they would capture the party membership, neutralize the pro-corporation, militarist elements that nominated the president and peacefully transform the party into a ‘vehicle for progressive changes’.

Upon their successful ‘deep penetration’ the Progressives, now cut off from the increasingly disorganized mass social movements, coopted and bought out many prominent black, labor and civil liberty activists and leaders, while collaborating with what they dubbed the more malleable ‘centrist’ Democrats. These mythical creatures were really pro-corporate Democrats who condescended to occasionally converse with the Progressives while working for the Wall Street and Pentagon elite.

The Retreat of the Progressives: The Clinton Decade

Progressives adapted the ‘crab strategy’: Moving side-ways and then backwards but never forward.

Progressives mounted candidates in the Presidential primaries, which were predictably defeated by the corporate Party apparatus, and then submitted immediately to the outcome.

The election of President ‘Bill’ Clinton launched a period of unrestrained financial plunder, major wars of aggression in Europe (Yugoslavia) and the Middle East (Iraq), a military intervention in Somalia and secured Israel’s victory over any remnant of a secular Palestinian leadership as well as its destruction of Lebanon!

Former US President Bill Clinton

Like a huge collective ‘Monica Lewinsky’ robot, the Progressives in the Democratic Party bent over and swallowed Clinton’s vicious 1999 savaging of the venerable Glass Steagall Act, thereby opening the floodgates for massive speculation on Wall Street through the previously regulated banking sector. When President Clinton gutted welfare programs, forcing single mothers to take minimum-wage jobs without provision for safe childcare, millions of poor white and minority women were forced to abandon their children to dangerous makeshift arrangements in order to retain any residual public support and access to minimal health care. Progressives looked the other way.

Progressives followed Clinton’s deep throated thrust toward the far right, as he outsourced manufacturing jobs to Mexico (NAFTA) and re-appointed Federal Reserve’s free market, Ayn Rand-fanatic, Alan Greenspan.

Progressives repeatedly kneeled before President Clinton marking their submission to the Democrats’ ‘hard right’ policies.

The election of Republican President G. W. Bush (2001-2009) permitted Progressive’s to temporarily trot out and burnish their anti-war, anti-Wall Street credentials. Out in the street, they protested Bush’s savage invasion of Iraq (but not the destruction of Afghanistan). They protested the media reports of torture in Abu Ghraib under Bush, but not the massive bombing and starvation of millions of Iraqis that had occurred under Clinton. Progressives protested the expulsion of immigrants from Mexico and Central America, but were silent over the brutal uprooting of refugees resulting from US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the systematic destruction of their nations’ infrastructure.

Progressives embraced Israel’s bombing, jailing and torture of Palestinians by voting unanimously in favor of increasing the annual $3 billion dollar military handouts to the brutal Jewish State. They supported Israel’s bombing and slaughter in Lebanon.

Progressives were in retreat, but retained a muffled voice and inconsequential vote in favor of peace, justice and civil liberties. They kept a certain distance from the worst of the police state decrees by the Republican Administration.

Progressives and Obama: From Retreat to Surrender

While Progressives maintained their tepid commitment to civil liberties, and their highly ‘leveraged’ hopes for peace in the Middle East, they jumped uncritically into the highly choreographed Democratic Party campaign for Barack Obama, ‘Wall Street’s First Black President’.

Progressives had given up their quest to ‘realign’ the Democratic Party ‘from within’: they turned from serious tourism to permanent residency. Progressives provided the foot soldiers for the election and re-election of the warmongering ‘Peace Candidate’ Obama. After the election, Progressives rushed to join the lower echelons of his Administration. Black and white politicos joined hands in their heroic struggle to erase the last vestiges of the Progressives’ historical legacy.

Obama increased the number of Bush-era imperial wars to attacking seven weak nations under American’s ‘First Black’ President’s bombardment, while the Progressives ensured that the streets were quiet and empty.

When Obama provided trillions of dollars of public money to rescue Wall Street and the bankers, while sacrificing two million poor and middle class mortgage holders, the Progressives only criticized the bankers who received the bailout, but not Obama’s Presidential decision to protect and reward the mega-swindlers.

Under the Obama regime social inequalities within the United States grew at an unprecedented rate. The Police State Patriot Act was massively extended to give President Obama the power to order the assassination of US citizens abroad without judicial process. The Progressives did not resign when Obama’s ‘kill orders’ extended to the ‘mistaken’ murder of his target’s children and other family member, as well as unidentified bystanders. The icon carriers still paraded their banner of the ‘first black American President’ when tens of thousands of black Libyans and immigrant workers were slaughtered in his regime-change war against President Gadhafi.

Obama surpassed the record of all previous Republican office holders in terms of the massive numbers of immigrant workers arrested and expelled – 2 million. Progressives applauded the Latino protestors while supporting the policies of their ‘first black President’.

Progressive accepted that multiple wars, Wall Street bailouts and the extended police state were now the price they would pay to remain part of the “Democratic coalition’ (sic).

The deeper the Progressives swilled at the Democratic Party trough, the more they embraced the Obama’s free market agenda and the more they ignored the increasing impoverishment, exploitation and medical industry-led opioid addiction of American workers that was shortening their lives. Under Obama, the Progressives totally abandoned the historic American working class, accepting their degradation into what Madam Hillary Clinton curtly dismissed as the ‘deplorables’.

With the Obama Presidency, the Progressive retreat turned into a rout, surrendering with one flaccid caveat: the Democratic Party ‘Socialist’ Bernie Sanders, who had voted 90% of the time with the Corporate Party, had revived a bastardized military-welfare state agenda.

Sander’s Progressive demagogy shouted and rasped on the campaign trail, beguiling the young electorate. The ‘Bernie’ eventually ‘sheep-dogged’ his supporters into the pro-war Democratic Party corral. Sanders revived an illusion of the pre-1990 progressive agenda, promising resistance while demanding voter submission to Wall Street warlord Hillary Clinton. After Sanders’ round up of the motley progressive herd, he staked them tightly to the far-right Wall Street war mongering Hillary Clinton. The Progressives not only embraced Madame Secretary Clinton’s nuclear option and virulent anti-working class agenda, they embellished it by focusing on Republican billionaire Trump’s demagogic, nationalist, working class rhetoric which was designed to agitate ‘the deplorables’. They even turned on the working class voters, dismissing them as ‘irredeemable’ racists and illiterates or ‘white trash’ when they turned to support Trump in massive numbers in the ‘fly-over’ states of the central US.

Progressives, allied with the police state, the mass media and the war machine worked to defeat and impeach Trump. Progressives surrendered completely to the Democratic Party and started to advocate its far right agenda. Hysterical McCarthyism against anyone who questioned the Democrats’ promotion of war with Russia, mass media lies and manipulation of street protest against Republican elected officials became the centerpieces of the Progressive agenda. The working class and farmers had disappeared from their bastardized ‘identity-centered’ ideology.

Guilt by association spread throughout Progressive politics. Progressives embraced J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI tactics:“Have you ever met or talked to any Russian official or relative of any Russian banker, or any Russian or even read Gogol, now or in the past?” For progressives, ‘Russia-gate’ defined the real focus of contemporary political struggle in this huge, complex, nuclear-armed superpower.

Progressives joined the FBI/CIA’s ‘Russian Bear’ conspiracy: “Russia intervened and decided the Presidential election” – no matter that millions of workers and rural Americans had voted against Hillary Clinton, Wall Street’s candidate and no matter that no evidence of direct interference was ever presented. Progressives could not accept that ‘their constituents’, the masses, had rejected Madame Clinton and preferred ‘the Donald’. They attacked a shifty-eyed caricature of the repeatedly elected Russian President Putin as a subterfuge for attacking the disobedient ‘white trash’ electorate of ‘Deploralandia’.

Progressive demagogues embraced the coifed and manicured former ‘Director Comey’ of the FBI, and the Mr. Potato-headed Capo of the CIA and their forty thugs in making accusations without finger or footprints.

The Progressives’ far right- turn earned them hours and space on the mass media as long as they breathlessly savaged and insulted President Trump and his family members. When they managed to provoke him into a blind rage . . . they added the newly invented charge of ‘psychologically unfit to lead’ – presenting cheap psychobabble as grounds for impeachment. Finally! American Progressives were on their way to achieving their first and only political transformation: a Presidential coup d’état on behalf of the Far Right!

Progressives loudly condemned Trump’s overtures for peace with Russia, denouncing it as appeasement and betrayal!

In return, President Trump began to ‘out-militarize’ the Progressives by escalating US involvement in the Middle East and South China Sea. They swooned with joy when Trump ordered a missile strike against the Syrian government as Damascus engaged in a life and death struggle against mercenary terrorists. They dubbed the petulant release of Patriot missiles ‘Presidential’.

Then Progressives turned increasingly Orwellian: Ignoring Obama’s actual expulsion of over 2 million immigrant workers, they condemned Trump for promising to eventually expel 5 million more!

Progressives, under Obama, supported seven brutal illegal wars and pressed for more, but complained when Trump continued the same wars and proposed adding a few new ones. At the same time, progressives out-militarized Trump by accusing him of being ‘weak’ on Russia, Iran, North Korea and China. They chided him for his lack support for Israel’s suppression of the Palestinians. They lauded Trump’s embrace of the Saudi war against Yemen as a stepping-stone for an assault against Iran, even as millions of destitute Yemenis were exposed to cholera. The Progressives had finally embraced a biological weapon of mass destruction, when US-supplied missiles destroyed the water systems of Yemen!

Conclusion

Progressives turned full circle from supporting welfare to embracing Wall Street; from preaching peaceful co-existence to demanding a dozen wars; from recognizing the humanity and rights of undocumented immigrants to their expulsion under their ‘First Black’ President; from thoughtful mass media critics to servile media megaphones; from defenders of civil liberties to boosters for the police state; from staunch opponents of J. Edgar Hoover and his ‘dirty tricks’ to camp followers for the ‘intelligence community’ in its deep state campaign to overturn a national election.

Progressives moved from fighting and resisting the Right to submitting and retreating; from retreating to surrendering and finally embracing the far right.

Doing all that and more within the Democratic Party, Progressives retain and deepen their ties with the mass media, the security apparatus and the military machine, while occasionally digging up some Bernie Sanders-type demagogue to arouse an army of voters away from effective resistance to mindless collaboration.

On Monday 10^th July, a ruling was handed down by London’s High Court, which should, in a sane world, exclude the UK government ever again judging other nations leaders human rights records or passing judgement on their possession or use of weapons.

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) lost their case to halt the UK selling arms to Saudi Arabia, the case based on the claim that they may have been used to kill civilians in Yemen.

Anyone following the cataclysmic devastation of Yemen would think it was a million to one that the £3.3Billion worth of arms sold by the UK to Saudi in just two years, had not been used to kill civilians, bomb hospitals, schools, markets, mosques, decimate vital and economic infrastructure and all necessary to sustain life.

In context, a survey released by the Yemen Data Project in September last year found that between March 2015 and August 2016 in more than 8,600 air attacks, 3,158 hit non-military targets. (1)

How casual the slaughter is, Saudi pilots (as their British and US counterparts) apparently do not even know what they are aiming at. So much for “surgical strikes” – as ever:

“Where it could not be established whether a location attacked was civilian or military, the strikes were classified as unknown, of which there are 1,882 incidents.” All those “unknown” killed had a name, plans, dreams, but as in all Western backed, funded or armed ruinations “it is not productive” to count the dead, as an American General memorably stated of fellow human beings.

In context, the survey found that:

“One school building in Dhubab, Taiz governorate, has been hit nine times … A market in Sirwah, Marib governorate, has been struck 24 times.”

Commenting on the survey, the UK’s shadow Defence Secretary, Clive Lewis, said:

“It’s sickening to think of British-built weapons being used against civilians and the government has an absolute responsibility to do everything in its power to stop that from happening. But as Ministers turn a blind eye to the conflict … evidence that Humanitarian Law has been violated is becoming harder to ignore by the day.”

Forty six percent of Yemen’s 26.83 million population are under fifteen years old. The trauma they are undergoing cannot be imagined.

Activists rally in front of the UK Parliament to protest British arms sales to Saudi Arabia. (Source: PressTV)

The original CAAT Court hearing which took place was a Judicial Review in to the legality of the UK government’s arms sales to Saudi, held on 7^th, 8^th and 10^th of February in the High Court.

CAAT stated, relating to the case:

“For more than two years the government has refused to stop its immoral and illegal arms sales to Saudi Arabia – despite overwhelming evidence that UK weapons are being used in violations of International Humanitarian Law in Yemen.”

They also quoted Parliament’s International Development and Business, Innovation and Skills Committees, who opined in October 2016:

“Given the evidence we have heard and the volume of UK-manufactured arms exported to Saudi Arabia, it seems inevitable that any violations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law by the coalition have involved arms supplied from the UK. This constitutes a breach of our own export licensing criteria.” (Emphasis added.)

UK supplied arms since the onset of the assault on Yemen are:

• £2.2 billion worth of ML10 licences (Aircraft, helicopters, drones)
• £1.1 billion worth of ML4 licences (Grenades, bombs, missiles, countermeasures)
• £430,000 worth of ML6 licences (Armoured vehicles, tanks.)

Contacting CAAT spokesman Andrew Smith I queried what “countermeasures” might be (point two.) He said technically, protective items, however: “CAAT feels that the overwhelming majority will be bombs and missiles including those being used on Yemen.”

On 5^th June CAAT had pointed out some further glaring anomalies:

“The last two months have seen three terrible terrorist attacks carried out in the UK. The attacks were the responsibility of those that have carried them out, and they have been rightly condemned.”

However: “Last week it was revealed by the Guardian that the Home Office may not publish a Report into the funding of terrorism in the UK. It is believed that the Report will be particularly critical of Saudi Arabia.”

Andrew Smith commented:

“Only two months ago the Prime Minster was in Riyadh trying to sell weapons to the Saudi regime, which has some of the most abusive laws in the world. This toxic relationship is not making anyone safer, whether in the UK or in Yemen, where UK arms are being used with devastating results.”

Nevertheless: “Delivering an open judgment in the High Court in London, Lord Justice Burnett, who heard the case with Mr. Justice Haddon-Cave, said:

“We have concluded that the material decisions of the Secretary of State were lawful. We therefore dismiss the claim.” (2)

CAAT called the ruling a “green light” for the UK government to sell arms to “brutal dictatorships and human rights abusers”.

Interestingly, in increasingly fantasy-democracy-land UK: “The Court (also handed down) a closed judgment, following a case in which half of the evidence was heard in secret on national security grounds.”

What a wonderful catch-all is “national security.”

Moreover: “UK and EU arms sales rules state that export licences cannot be granted if there is a ‘clear risk’ that the equipment could be used to break International Humanitarian Law. Licences are signed off by the Secretary of State for International Trade, Liam Fox.” (Emphasis added.)

Mind stretching.

So the oversight of what constitutes a “clear risk” of mass murder and humanitarian tragedy, goes to the Minister whose Ministry stands to make £ Billions from the arms sales. Another from that bulging: “You could not make this up” file.

‘The case … included uncomfortable disclosures for the government, including documents in which the Export Policy Chief told the Business Secretary, Sajid Javid, then in charge of licensing:

“my gut tells me we should suspend (weapons exports to the country).”

‘Documents obtained by the Guardian showed that the UK was preparing to suspend exports after the bombing of a funeral in Yemen in October 2016 killed 140 civilians. But even after that mass murder, the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, advised Fox that sales should continue, adding:

“The ‘clear risk’ threshold for refusal … has not yet been reached.”

Johnson with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and the UAE’s Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in London, 19 July 2016 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

For anyone asleep at the wheel, Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, is supposed to be the UK’s chief diplomat. Definition: “a person who can deal with others in a sensitive and tactful way. Synonyms: Tactful person, conciliator, reconciler, peacemaker.” Comment redundant.

‘CAAT presented “many hundreds of pages” of reports from the UN, European Parliament, Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, Amnesty International and others documenting airstrikes on schools, hospitals and a water well in Yemen, as well as incidents of mass civilian casualties.’

However, to further batter the mind: “The reports “represent a substantial body of evidence suggesting that the coalition has committed serious breaches of International Humanitarian Law in the course of its engagement in the Yemen conflict”, the Judges wrote. “However, this open source material is only part of the picture.”

In two eye watering fox guarding henhouse observations: ‘The Saudi government had conducted its own investigations into allegations of concern, the judges noted, dismissing CAAT’s concern that the Saudi civilian casualty tracking unit was working too slowly and had only reported on 5% of the incidents. The Kingdom’s “growing efforts” were “of significance and a matter which the Secretary of State was entitled to take into account” when deciding whether British weapons might be used to violate international humanitarian law.’

So Saudi investigates itself and the Secretary of State over views his own actions in the State profiting in £ Billions from seeminglyindiscriminate mass murder and destruction.

‘There was “anxious scrutiny – indeed what seems like anguished scrutiny at some stages” within government of the decision to continue granting licences, wrote the Judges. But the Secretary of State was “rationally entitled” to decide that the Saudi-led coalition was not deliberately targeting civilians and was making efforts to improve its targeting processes, and so to continue granting licences.”

Pinch yourselves, Dear Readers, it would seem we live in times of the oversight in the land of the seriously deranged.

CAAT’s Andrew Smith, said:

“This is a very disappointing verdict and we are pursuing an appeal. If this verdict is upheld then it will be seen as a green light for government to continue arming and supporting brutal dictatorships and human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia that have shown a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law.

“Every day we are hearing new and horrifying stories about the humanitarian crisis that has been inflicted on the people of Yemen. Thousands have been killed while vital and lifesaving infrastructure has been destroyed.” The case had exposed the UK’s “toxic relationship” with Saudi Arabia.

On Wednesday 12^th July, UK Home Secretary, Amber Rudd again invoked “national security” (something Yemenis can only dream of in any context) and presented Parliament with a paltry four hundred and thirty word “summary” of the Report on the funding of terrorism,origins of which go back to December 2015.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott encapsulated the thoughts of many, telling Parliament:

“ … there is a strong suspicion this Report is being suppressed to protect this government’s trade and diplomatic priorities, including in relation to Saudi Arabia. The only way to allay those suspicions is to publish the report in full.” (3)

Caroline Lucas, co-Leader of the Green Party said:

“The statement gives absolutely no clue as to which countries foreign funding for extremism originates from – leaving the government open to further allegations of refusing to expose the role of Saudi Arabian money in terrorism in the UK.”

Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Fallon condemned the refusal of the government to publish the Report as: “utterly shameful.”

Amber Rudd concentrated on pointing to individuals and organisations which might be donating, often unknowingly to: “ … inadvertently supporting extremist individuals or organisations.”

Peanuts compared to UK arms to Saudi Arabia.

CAAT’s appeal is to go back to the High Court and: “If it fails, will go to the Court of Appeal” states Andrew Smith.

It also transpires that Saudi has dropped British made cluster bombs in Yemen, despite the UK being signatory to the 2008 Ottawa Convention on Cluster Munitions, banning their use, or assistance with their use. The Scottish National Party said it was a:

“shameful stain on the UK’s foreign policy and its relationship with Saudi Arabia, as well as a failure by this government to uphold its legal treaty obligations”. (4)

Final confirmation that the British government’s relations with Saudi over Arms and Yemen lies somewhere between duplicity and fantasy would seem to be confirmed in an interview (5) with Crispin Blunt, MP., former army officer and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Inspite of the legal anomalies and humanitarian devastation, he assured the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse that the Saudis were “rigorous” in making sure there were no breaches of international law and adopted the sort of high standard of the British army.

In that case, the cynic might conclude, given the devastation caused by the British army in Afghanistan and Iraq, perhaps it is not only arms and money that are the ties that bind the two countries, but scant regard for humanity itself.

Notes

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/16/third-of-saudi-airstrikes-on-yemen-have-hit-civilian-sites-data-shows

2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/10/uk-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia-can-continue-high-court-rules?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

3. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/12/uk-terror-funding-report-will-not-be-published-for-national-security-reasons

4. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/19/saudis-dropped-british-cluster-bombs-in-yemen-fallon-tells-commons

5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0481zgm

A cura di Manlio Dinucci
Voce Margherita Furlan
Editing Stefano Citrigno

O Tratado sobre a proibição das armas nucleares, adotado por grande maioria nas Nações  Unidas em 7 de julho último, constitui um marco na tomada de consciência de que uma guerra nuclear teria consequências catastróficas para toda a humanidade.

Com base em tal compreensão, os 122 países que votaram se comprometem a não produzir nem possuir armas nucleares, a não usá-las nem ameaçar usá-las, a não as transferir nem as receber direta ou indiretamente. Este é o ponto forte fundamental do Tratado que visa a criar “um instrumento juridicamente vinculante para a proibição das armas nucleares, que leve à sua total eliminação”.

Não obstante a grande validade do Tratado – que  entrará em vigor quando, a partir de 20 de setembro, for assinado e ratificado por 50 países – deve-se ter em conta os seus limites. O Tratado, juridicamente vinculante apenas para os países que aderirem, não os proíbe de fazerem parte de alianças militares com países possuidores de armas nucleares. Além disso, cada um dos países aderentes “tem o direito de retirar-se do Tratado se decidir que eventos extraordinários relativos à matéria do Tratado ponham em perigo os supremos interesses do próprio país”. Fórmula vaga que permite que a qualquer momento qualquer país aderente rasgue o acordo, dotando-se de armas nucleares.

O maior limite consiste no fato de que não adere ao Tratado nenhum dos países possuidores de armas nucleares: os Estados Unidos e as outras duas potências nucleares da Otan, a França e a Grã Bretanha, que possuem um total de oito mil ogivas nucleares; a Rússia que possui muitas; a China, Israel, a Índia, o Paquistão e a Coreia do Norte, com arsenais menores mas nem por isso desprezíveis.

Não aderem ao Tratado os demais membros da Otan, em particular a Itália, a Alemanha, a Bélgica, a Holanda e a Turquia que hospedam bombas nucleares estadunidenses. A Holanda, depois de ter participado das negociações, expressou parecer contrário no momento do voto. Não aderiram ao Tratado 73 Estados membros das Nações Unidas, entre os quais os prinicpais parceiros dos EUA e da Otan: a Ucrânia, o Japão e a Austrália.

O Tratado não está portanto em condições, no estado atual, de diminuir a corrida aos armamentos nucleares, que se torna cada vez mais perigosa, sobretudo no aspecto qualitativo. Estão na frente os Estados Unidos que aviaram, com tecnologia revolucionária, a modernização das suas forças nucleares: como documenta Hans Kristensen, da Federação dos Cientistas Americanos, esta modernização “triplica a potência destrutiva dos atuais mísseis balísticos dos Estados Unidos”, como se estivesse planificando ter “a capacidade de combater e vencer uma guerra nuclear desarmando os inimigos com um first strike  (primeiro ataque) de surpresa”. Capacidade que compreende também o “escudo anti-míssil” para neutralizar a represália inimiga, tais como aqueles instalados pelos EUA na Europa contra a Rússia e na Coreia do Sul contra a China.

A Rússia e a China também estão empenhadas na modernização dos próprios arsenais nucleares. Em 2018, a Rússia instalará um novo míssil balistico intercontinental, o Sarmat, com alcance de até 18 mil quilômetros, capaz de transportar de 10 a 15 ogivas nucleares que, reentrando na atmosfera com velocidade hipersônica (mais de 10 vezes a do som), manobra para fugir dos mísseis  interceptores perfurando o “escudo”.

A Itália está entre os países que não aderiram ao Tratado, na esteira dos Estados Unidos. A razão é clara: aderindo ao Tratado, a Itália deveria desfazer-se das bombas nucleares estadunidenses em seu território. O governo Gentiloni, definindo o  Tratado como “um elemento fortemente divisor”, diz porém estar empenhado na “plena aplicação do Tratado de Não Proliferação (TNP), pilastra do desarmamento”.

Tratado na realidade violado pela Itália, que o ratificou em 1975, uma vez que compromete os Estados militarmente não-nucleares a “não receber de quem quer que seja armas nucleares, nem exercer o controle sobre tais armas, direta ou indiretamente”. A Itália, ao contrário, pôs à disposição dos Estados Unidos o próprio território para a instalação de ao menos 50 bombas nucleares B-61 em Aviano e 20 em Ghedi-Torre, para cujo uso estão sendo treinados também pilotos italianos. A partir de 2020 será deslocada para a  Itália a bomba B61-12: uma nova arma dos EUA de first strike nuclear. De tal modo, a Itália, formalmente um país não nuclear, será transformada na primeira linha de um ainda mais perigoso confronto nuclear entre EUA/Otan e a Rússia.

Para que o Tratado adotado pelas Nações Unidas (mas ignorado pela Itália) não fique somente no papel, deve-se pretender que a Itália observe o TNP, definido pelo governo como “pilastra do desarmamento”, ou seja, pretender a completa denuclearização do nosso território nacional.

Manlio Dinucci

Artigo em italiano :

Publicado em Il Manifesto, 9 de Julho de 2017.

Tradução de José Reinaldo Carvalho para o Resistência

Manlio Dinucci é geógrafo e jornalista.

Chi dice che scarseggiano gli investimenti nel Mezzogiorno? La ministra Pinotti ha annunciato ieri la realizzazione di una grande opera a Napoli: l’Hub per il Sud. Dopo l’incontro con il capo del Pentagono James Mattis, ieri a Washington, ha dichiarato: «Siamo soddisfatti che sia stata accolta la nostra richiesta di trasformare il Comando Nato di Napoli in Hub per il Sud». Il comando di cui parla è il Jfc Naples, il Comando della Forza congiunta alleata con quartier generale a Lago Patria (Napoli), agli ordini dell’ammiraglia statunitense Michelle Howard che, oltre ad essere a capo del Comando Nato, è comandante delle Forze navali Usa per l’Europa e delle Forze navali Usa per l’Africa.

I tre comandi di Napoli, sempre agli ordini di un ammiraglio statunitense nominato dal Pentagono, hanno un’«area di responsabilità» che abbraccia l’Europa, l’intera Russia, il Mediterraneo e l’Africa. La guerra alla Libia nel 2011, con il determinante contributo italiano, è stata diretta dalla Nato attraverso il Jfc Naples. Sempre da Napoli sono state condotte le operazioni militari all’interno della Siria. Questa è la prima causa del drammatico esodo di profughi e della «crisi dei migranti che l’Italia sta vivendo quasi in solitudine», come l’ha defiita a Washington la Pinotti quasi che fosse una maledizione caduta dal cielo.

Il nuovo Hub per il Sud, rientrante anch’esso nella catena di comando del Pentagono, costituirà la base operativa per la proiezione di forze terrestri, aeree e navali. Le forze e le armi necessarie saranno fornite dall’intera rete di basi Usa/Nato in Italia, in parricolare Aviano, Camp Darby, Gaeta, Sigonella, Augusta, mentre la stazione Muos di Niscemi e altre si occuperanno delle comunicazioni. Per tali operazioni, che la Nato definisce «proiezione di stabilità oltre i nostri confini», è disponibile la Forza di risposta della Nato, aumentata a 40 mila uomini, in particolare la sua Forza di punta, che può essere proiettata in 48 ore «ovunque in qualsiasi momento».

James Mattis ha riingraziato l’Italia sia per la sua «ospitalità verso oltre 30000 militari, impiegati civili e familiari statunitensi», sia per la sua importante cooperazione nell’affrontare le «minacce alla sicurezza nel Mediterraneo, in Medioriente e Africa». La Pinotti ha prospettato, tra l’altro, la possibilità di estendere i compiti dei 1400 militari italiani in Iraq, anche in funzione di addestramento a Raqqa.

Riguardo all’Hub per il Sud la ministra ha annunciato, con soddisfazione, che «nell’ultima riunione ministeriale Nato si sono già individuate le risorse per la sua realizzazione». Non le ha però quantificate. Si possono comunque stimare in miliardi di euro, con una notevole parte a carico dell’Italia. Solo la costruzione del nuovo quartier generale del Jfc Naples, inaugurato nel 2012 a Lago Patria (85 mila metri quadri coperti espandibili, in cui lavorano 2500 militari), è venuto a costare circa 200 milioni di euro. Tutto denaro pubblico, che va ad aggiungersi alle spese Nato per la «Difesa» in continuo aumento (quella italiana è stimata in una media di circa 70 milioni di euro al giorno).

Al Jfc Naples, annuncia la Pinotti, si sta implementando il personale perché, diventando Hub per il Sud, il comando deve assumere anche la capacità di «ricostruire Stati falliti». Lavoro a ciclo continuo: dopo aver trasformato la Libia in «Stato fallito» demolendola con la guerra, ora lo stesso comando va a «ricostruirla».

Manlio Dinucci

Foto : difesa.it

On Sunday, The New York Times followed up with a report that stated Trump Jr. “was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with the Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign.”

Those in attendance of the meeting besides Trump Jr. included — Paul Manafort, President Trump’s campaign manager at the time, and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and current advisor according to The Times.

The person who set up the meeting was Rob Goldstone, a music publicist and personal friend of Trump Jr.

Goldstone has been active with the Miss Universe pageant once owned by Trump and works as a manager for Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop star.

Members of the president’s legal team have identified Goldstone as the acquaintance “who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS,” according to a report by Circa News.

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (Source: The Inquisitr)

Viewing Vaselnitskaya’s Instagram and Facebook it becomes apparent she is heavily anti-Trump and anti-Putin, so why would she claim she has evidence to help Trump from the Kremlin? It becomes quickly obvious that something is not right and does not add up.

Veselnitskaya even posted an anti-Trump article on her Facebook page four days prior to her meeting with Donald Trump Jr. on June 9th. So was she a plant to sell the “Russia hacked the election” narrative?

Full archive of Veselnitskaya’s Facebook can be seen here.

The article she posted was entitled “NY Attorney General: Trump University Is a Straight Up Fraud Case (Video)” regarding the investigation into Trump University for fraud.

Here’s where things get weird and what the mainstream media is refusing to talk about. Not only is she adamantly anti-Trump but she is coincidentally connected to Fusion GPS – the same firm that former MI6 Christopher Steele was employed by to collect information on then-candidate Donald Trump.

According to Veselnitskaya’s affidavit filed in New York in January 2016, she managed to get “special permission” to enter the United States after having been denied a visa. Her company, Kamerton Consulting, defended Denis Katsyv, representing his company Prevezon Holdings. The actual date of the hearing in the case U.S. v. Prevezon Holdings was the exact same date as the meeting in Trump Tower — June 9th 2016.

Prevezon Holdings is a beneficiary of Fusion GPS, reported Circa News.

Katsyv is the son of a vice president of state-owned Russian Railways who was charged with money laundering in the United States over a case tied to an alleged massive Russian tax fraud scheme. That case was settled in New York in May for $6 million dollars.

Veselnitskaya has for several years been leading a campaign to have the Magnitsky Act overturned by the U.S. government – an Act that was established after Sergei Magnitsky a lawyer with investment advisory Hermitage Capital died in prison. Magnitsky uncovered the alleged $230 million dollar Russian tax fraud scheme.

The Act was put into U.S. law to target those Russians who may have been responsible for his death.

As part of her effort she allegedly hired GPS Fusion. A complaint filed last year by Senator Chuck Grassley claimed that Fusion GPS headed a pro-Russia campaign to kill the Magnitsky Act.

Fusion has denied claims that it facilitated the meeting between Veselnitskaya and Trump Jr. despite having ties to the Russian lawyer and employing someone for opposition research within the same time frame of the meeting.

“Fusion GPS learned about this meeting from news reports and had no prior knowledge of it. Any claim that Fusion GPS arranged or facilitated this meeting in any way is false,” Fusion GPS said.

Veselnitskaya also denied claims that she spoke about any matters regarding the presidential campaign at the meeting.

“Nothing at all about the presidential campaign [was discussed at the meeting. I have] never acted on behalf of the Russian government never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the Russian government.” Veselnitskaya told The New York Times.

Veselnitskaya told NBC News on Monday she was not with the Kremlin as was reported by The New York Times.

Kamerton Consulting, is based in a Moscow suburb and does not even have a website, which begs the question is it a shell company?

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Monday that the Kremlin is unaware of a meeting between Trump’s senior staff and Veselnitskaya and “does not know who that is.”

“No, we don’t know who that is and obviously we can’t monitor all meetings Russian lawyers hold both in Russia and abroad,” Dmitry Peskov said.

It’s has also been reported that Veselnitskaya was seen sitting next to Obama’s Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, during a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia and the Ukraine that took place on June 14, 2016, 8 days after meeting Trump Jr.

She also helped set up an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. where pro-Russian supporters showed a movie that challenged the Magnitsky Act.

Then there is the fact that Obama’s Justice Department at the behest of Loretta Lynch allowed Veselnitskaya into the U.S. right before the meeting at Trump Tower.

The question on everyone’s mind now is, Who is Natalia Veselnitskaya and why was she seated at a committee hearing on Russia and the Ukraine? Only time will bring more answers to who this woman really is.

Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Follow us at Twitter and Steemit. This article is Creative Commons and can be republished in full with attribution.

US President Donald Trump’s support came in no small part from those Americans who believe terrorism, and more specifically, “Islamic” terrorism pose an existential threat to the United States and the wider Western World.

It is curious then that President Trump’s first trip abroad was to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the sociocultural source code of the very extremism infecting both the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as well as the wider, global extremism it inspires and fuels everywhere from Southeast Asia, western China and even in the streets of North America and Europe.

Far from a geopolitical gaff, US associations with Saudi Arabia and their mutual link and contribution to (not fighting against) terrorism is increasingly becoming an embarrassing, “open secret.”

It was the US Defense Intelligence Agency in a 2012 memo leaked to the public that revealed the creation of terrorist organizations like the Islamic State (referred to in the memo as a “Salafist principality”) were encouraged by “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey.”

Leaked emails from former US Secretary of State and 2016 US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would include direct references to Saudi Arabia and Qatar in regards to their complicity in arming the Islamic State. More specifically, both nations were accused of, “providing clandestine financial and logistic support” to the Islamic State.

While the US postures to the world as engaged in a global war on terrorism, it is clear that those nations in the Middle East cooperating closest with Washington are in fact those also perpetuating this seemingly endless war. Why?

It turns out that perpetual war is a lucrative affair in both terms of acquiring wealth and power. It is this equation of wealth and power that takes precedence, even at the expense of narrative continuity and political legitimacy.

Dollars, Oil and Arms

Was President Trump’s visit to Riyadh to deliver a stern warning regarding its extensive history of state sponsorship of terror? On the contrary. It was to seal an unprecedented weapons deal with Saudi Arabia amounting to an immediate $110 billion, and $350 billion over the next 10 years, according to the New York Times.

The New York Times also revealed the participants in the massive arms deal to include Lockheed Martin.

It was no surprise then that US policy think tanks like the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) encouraged members to submit op-eds praising President Trump’s trip to prominent US and European media sources including The Hill.

The Hill’s op-ed, “Trump gets it right in Saudi Arabia,” for example, was penned by Anthony Cordesman, a CSIS member. His op-ed would conclude by passionately arguing:

This speech is the right beginning — in remarkably well crafted terms — and it deserves bipartisan and expert respect.

It is no surprise considering the sponsors who keep the lights on at CSIS and Mr. Cordesman in a job. The think tank’s most prominent corporate donors include Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and, most telling of all, Lockheed Martin. It is also sponsored by Saudi Aramco, the central nexus of the US-Saudi petrodollar network propping up what many think tanks call the US-led “international order.”

Governments that donate to CSIS include the United States and Saudi Arabia itself. Together, corporate and government donations account for over 60% (34% and 27% respectively) of CSIS’ overall funding, according to its 2016 annual report.

Of course, a man’s “opinion” of President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, including a multi-billion dollar arms deal favoring Lockheed Martin, will be positive, when the organization he works for is funded directly by both Lockheed Martin and the government of Saudi Arabia.

It is an example of  how the media in the United States actually works and how special interests, not the “truth,” shape narratives and drive agendas in complete contradiction to reality and the best interests of the vast majority on the planet.

Threatening America’s “international order” are competitors that exist independent of or even opposed to Washington and its corporate partners both on Wall Street and in Riyadh.

This is why US President Trump praised Saudi Arabia, a nation that serves as a virtual model for the Islamic State, and condemned Iran whose forces have fought for 6 years against both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda affiliates who have flooded into Syria and Iraq.

Clearly, based on the fact that the US’ closest ally in the Middle East is also one of the worst human rights offenders on the planet and the premier sponsor of global terrorism, ideological and humanitarian concerns are strictly a rhetorical facade.

It was never about ideology, humanitarianism or truly fighting “terrorism.” It is not a matter of “good and evil.” It is as simple dollars and cents, Saudi riyals, oil and arms and maintaining hegemony across a region and upon a planet to prevent this wealth and influence from being usurped either by a competitor of equal footing or a general trend toward multipolar geopolitical decentralization.

The media is awash in politically-oriented rhetoric attempting to divide and distract the public along strictly political lines. The common denominator among all of this propaganda is the fact that all of the narratives, no matter how apparently contradictory, conveniently allow the singular agenda of amassing dollars, oil and arms in pursuit of global hegemony to move forward.

As this very simple reality is understood and acted upon by more people than pay into this prevailing political facade that perpetuates it, multipolar geopolitical decentralization will continue to incrementally replace this current US-dominated “international order.”

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

Featured image from New Eastern Outlook

This piece is part of Fighting for Our Lives: The Movement for Medicare for All, a Truthout original series.

As members of Congress return today after their July 4 break, they are hoping to rapidly conclude their attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The health bill overhaul, one of Trump’s consistent campaign promises, has been vexing his administration and angering the general US population. In fact, only 12 percent of Americans support what Trump and the Senate aim to do with the country’s health care system.

Doctors, nurses, churches and myriad other health care workers and affiliates have expressed vehement opposition to the attacks on health care inherent in the “repeal and replace” plan put forward by Trump and the Senate.

“The whole proposal is egregious,” Aaron Katz, a principal lecturer in the field of health services and policy at the University of Washington, told Truthout.

Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Featured image from Michigan Medicine

On June, 26, 2017 ⎯ Amnesty International announced its submission for the UN Universal Periodic Review of Republic of Korea(South Korea), 28th Session of the UPR Working group, November 2017.

In this submission Amnesty International expresses its concern about the National Security Law (NSL), pointing out the NSL restricts on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. And it criticizes that the government of Korea fails to protect human rights. In particular, it presents the imprisonment of former lawmaker Lee Seok-ki and the dissolution of the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) as representative human rights violations by the NSL over the past several years.

Furthermore, Amnesty International urges the Korean government not only to abolish the National Security Law in order to guarantee freedom of expression and association, but also to unconditionally release all persons who were unjustly indicted and imprisoned.

The unconditional release of Lee Seok-ki is required by the international community in accordance with international human rights standards. In addition, the international community has continued to propose the injustice of the dissolution of the UPP.

The government of President Moon Jae-in that launched by the Candlelight Revolution should respond to such demands of the international community. Freedom of expression and association is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Currently, many prisoners of conscience including Lee Seok-ki and Han Sang-kyun were arrested on the reason that they had exercised these rights legally. Releasing all the prisoners of conscience is the first step to overcome the anti-humanitarian legacy of the former Park Geun-hye administration. Through it, Republic of Korea will be able to be reborn as an advanced nation of democracy and human rights that abides by international human rights standards.

Amnesty International: Human Rights Situation on the Ground
Freedom of Expression and Association

Among the cases of alleged breaches of the NSL during the last few years are the criminal prosecution and imprisonment of lawmaker Lee Seok-ki and six other members of the Unified Progressive Party (UPP). In December 2014, the Constitutional Court ruled to dissolve the UPP on the basis that the party had violated the country’s “basic democratic order”.14 This is a particularly alarming development, as it is the first time since 1958 that a political party has been disbanded in the Republic of Korea.

Recommendation for Action by the State Under Review

Amnesty International calls on the government of the Republic of Korea to:

Freedom of Expression and Association

Abolish or fundamentally amend the National Security Law so that it conforms to international human rights law and standards and ensure it is not used arbitrarily or to harass and restrict the rights to freedom of expression, opinion and association;

Immediately and unconditionally release all individuals unjustly charged and sentenced to prison terms solely for the legitimate exercise of their rights to freedom of expression and association.

For the full text of Amnesty International’s UN UPR submission: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa25/6500/2017/en/

Inge Höger
Revisited Korea for Solidarity

Inge Höger, a member of the Bundestag(The Left Party), speaks in the Candlelight Festival at the Gwanghwamoon Square, July, 8. ⓒ Reporter Yang Ji-woong of the Voice of People

Inge Höger, a member of the Bundestag (The Left Party), visited Korea again after 2014. While staying in Korea, she had lots of meeting with people who struggle for the peaceful society. She made a remark for solidarity.

Full Statement

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen! Dear friend!

It is my honor to be present at this rally. Since last October I have been pursuing with great interest how here in South Korea millions of people have stood up against corruption and oppression.

I am deeply impressed by the courage and determination which finally succeeded in compelling Park Geun-hye to resign. We, Europeans, can and should learn from these protests. Too much is also fundamentally wrong with us. I thank you for your tireless resistance. The candles in Seoul inspired people in other regions of the world!

But we must never forget those who, before last October, have dedicated their health and freedom to struggle for justice. It is intolerable that people are treated as criminals because of their commitment to peace and social justice.

That’s why I want to say quite clearly to the new government:
Free the arrested unionists!
Free the peace activists!
And above all, let Lee Seok-ki free! He has been in jail for too long.

Four years of Park Geun-hye have destroyed a lot in this beautiful country. To build a new democratic and peaceful South Korea we need the people who are still looking forward to their freedom. Democracy only works if nobody has to be afraid to be arrested for his/her political opinion and protests. That is why the fate of Lee Seok-ki is also a symbol of how democratic the new South Korea is.

I have been a member of the German Bundestag for twelve years. I am the spokesperson for disarmament policy for my group in DIE LINKE. I have repeatedly criticized the German government for selling weapons to South Korea on a large scale. Last year alone, Germany sold almost $ 400 million to South Korea.

I am firmly convinced that lots of weapons will no longer bring peace, but will increase the danger of war. This also applies to the deployment of the US missile system, THAAD, in South Korea. We all know that this not only increases the tension with the north but also with China! Let us fight together for disarmament and relaxation policy! The new arms race is dangerous!

But it is also dangerous for the government, police and intelligence agencies to believe that they can control people’s thinking and prohibit access to books and information.

As the representative of the left-wing group in the Committee on Human Rights of the German Bundestag, I often have to deal with violations of fundamental human rights. Still, I was really surprised when I heard that the representative of “Books of Labors” in Korea had been arrested. It is inconceivable to me that it is a violation of the National Security Act to upload and make books of Marx or Lenin. If the global school were to do so, whole departments would have to close down from universities. Such as economics, political science, philosophy, and sociology would lose essential foundations. These accusations are both ridiculous and deeply undemocratic.

Reading and thinking are not crimes. It is a crime to prohibit this!
It is time that the arbitrary national security laws are abolished!

On the ruins of the World War, advanced international structures such as the United Nations emerged in the 1940s. In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris adopted a basic condition for protecting the dignity of every individual. Later, these conditions were concretized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Those who assembled at that time agreed that freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the right to organize politically are necessary mechanisms for protecting human rights.

Unfortunately, we are still far from being able to implement these rights globally. In my home country too, fundamental political rights are always restricted.

For example, the demonstrations against the G20 summit, which currently took place in Hamburg, were seriously banned. In a 34-square-kilometer area no protest may take place. Respect for democracy and human rights is also nowhere.

Political liberties, social justice and peace can only be achieved together. Here in South Korea, Germany and global! Solidarity makes us all stronger! In this sense let us fight together for the release of political prisoners.

Dear President Moon Jae-in, release Han Sang-gyun, the chairperson of the Korean Trade Union Confederation (KTCU).

Leave the peace activists and war veterans free!

And above all, let Lee Seok-ki free!

Inge Höger visits So-seong-ri to express her solidarity with the struggle against THAAD, July, 9. ⓒ Free Prisoners of Conscience, Korea.

2017 International Petition Campaign

New standards for peaceful protest resulted in peaceful removal from the office of those who used the powers entrusted upon them by the people.

Many other political activists, trade unionists, and peace activists are still unjustly jailed.

This is a serious violations of the Rights to Freedom of Thoughts, Conscience, Opinion, Expression, Association and Assembly which are the realization of human rights as laid down by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.

Sign the petition: en.savelee.kr

For more information on KCSL

Address : 03735, CI Building 304, 20, Chungjeong-ro 11-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea

General Inquiry : (+82) 02-6385-8900

Personal Contact : (+82) 010-6293-0127

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Websites :

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(국민은행) : 292501-01-212646 Jung Jin Woo(정진우 구명위)

We really need your support and partnership. Through your help, we will be able to improve the situation regarding on human rights and peace in Korea. Here’s our banking account.

All images in this article are from the source.

The momentum against the Trump administration is building, and it should come as no surprise that it comes via the least original of avenues: the Russians did it, and someone must pay. For decades, the feared Russian has played a vital role in shaping US paranoia and a domestic landscape famous for its reactionary bursts and fearful lurches.

That paranoia has assumed galloping proportions. The US president’s approach to this assertion has been confused and varied. There is nothing surprising in this: from blanket, emphatic denial about any connections even smelling of a Russian touch, Trump has stated another variant of denial. He claims ignorance over his son’s attempts to tap Russian sources for electoral gain, notably that with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya which revealed squat in the scheme of things.

What, then, is the problem with Donald Trump Jr? Negotiating is way out of a brown paper bag, for one. In June 2016, he received word from Rob Goldstone, manager of Azerbaijani pop figure Emin Agalarov, outlining Russian interest to supply the Trump campaign with “official documents” of a “very high level” nature against Hillary Clinton “as part of Russia and its government support for Mr Trump.”

He was enthusiastic (“love it”), though the June 9 meeting was subsequently described as one covering “the adoption of Russian children”. Children or not, it was certainly interesting enough for Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort to be encouraged to drop in.

Much of the assumed indignation, at this point, is one of circumspection. Surely Trump Jr would have been questioning on this score, consulting lawyers, considering the prospect that he would be becoming an unwitting accomplice to broader interests.

Such an attitude confuses the need for advanced political prescience to hold the business instinct in check while embracing the Stars and Stripes. Clinton was a rival to the campaign and material of any compromising material was being sought with a near mindless rapacity. Source was less relevant than impact; motivation for the supplier was less significant than the use it would be put to by the recipient. But most importantly of all, patriotism was irrelevant.

What the Trump campaign should have done, suggests one line of argument, is follow the approach taken by Tom Downey, formerly a close advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. On September 14, 2000, Downey received an anonymous package with over 120 pages of planned debate strategies (Bush was, after all, such a debater) along with George W. Bush’s efforts at practising.[1] Downey and his lawyer immediately surrendered the material to the FBI, and the world was spared a round of laughs on the skills of a future president.

The Trump Jr email chain is deemed unacceptable to the consortium of analysts at Lawfare, who suggest that covert collusion may itself risk letting Trump off the hook. They also seek the patriotic silver lining here without success. “It risks accepting that all is okay with the Trump-Russia relationship unless some secret or illegal additional element actually involves illicit contacts between the campaign and Russian initiatives.”[2]

Before Sean Hannity, Trump Jr. claimed that “in introspect he would have handled the matter differently.” And how. He claimed to have not referred the matter to his father – why should his kingpin Dad be appraised of everything? The meeting, he concluded, was a “waste”.

Hardly important, claims Laurence Douglas. “Imagine a criminal accused of conspiring to receive stolen property. At trial, the accused testifies that he hired a big truck to carry away the goods, but when he arrived at the stash all he found was worthless garbage.”[3] A short changed criminal doesn’t alter that criminality.

David French at the National Review Online prefers a historical argument: that the Russians never really went away from the US political scene, and should be seen as continued dangers. “I don’t want to use an over-worked term like ‘kompromat’, but compromising information doesn’t need to truly ‘turn’ someone to have its impact.”[4]

With disapproval, he takes to task those, including fellow conservatives, who refuse to see the fact that Russian interference has been standard fare, whether it be the KGB actions of the past, or the efforts made by such individuals as Teddy Kennedy to seek Soviet help in an effort to undermine Ronald Reagan. French was happy to suggest that this was a disease of the Left in the US, and mournful that Republicans decided to “pursue a similar course – dancing with the devil to win debates at home.”

French’s argument suffers in ignoring the obvious point that electoral interference, or dancing with foreign devils for local advancement, is the natural outcome of political calculation made by power players. If the outcome of a state’s election matters, it is fair game. The British, for one, supplied a classic example of this in efforts to slander the America First campaign before the US entry into the Second World War. It was calculating, ruthless and indifferent to US sovereignty.

The result of the latest fanfare is an attempt to tie in the Trump family to Trump himself, to target a specific culture of management indifferent to the borders of ethics, even legality. In short, critics are on the hunt for the beating patriotic heart, the chest-thumping ideologue they cannot find.

The use of the term “witch hunt”, a favourite of the Trump family, is not inaccurate. A family member is intended for burning, and the establishment high priests across the political spectrum want a sacrifice for flag and country.

It’s not that corruption, collusion or entertaining interests deemed inimical to the state do not take place in rampant, easy-going fashion: it’s the fact that Trump has become something of a realisation: that the business of US officials for decades has been business rather than patriotism. It is a sin that has been closeted rather than spoken about.

The nexus between the nakedly private and the political, between graft and the pursuit of enterprise, has been revealed. The question of illegality, however, remains unanswered, and Robert Mueller’s task has simply gotten more interesting.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/07/us/ex-aide-to-media-firm-is-charged-in-theft-of-bush-debate-tape.html

[2] https://www.lawfareblog.com/wall-begins-crumble-notes-collusion

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/12/donald-trump-jr-smoking-gun-russia

[4] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449406/donald-trump-jr-russia-meeting-campaign-explanation-naive-dangerous

Peaceful, or not, Islam is only a religion just like any other cosmopolitan religion whether it’s Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism. Instead of taking an essentialist approach, which lays emphasis on essences, we need to look at the evolution of social phenomena in its proper historical context.

For instance: to assert that human beings are evil by nature is an essentialist approach; it overlooks the role played by nurture in grooming human beings. Human beings are only intelligent by nature, but they are neither good nor evil by nature; whatever they are, whether good or evil, is the outcome of their nurture or upbringing.

Similarly, to pronounce that Islam is a retrogressive or violent religion is an essentialist approach; it overlooks how Islam and its scriptures are interpreted by its followers depending on the subject’s socio-cultural context. For example: the Western expat Muslims who are brought up in the West and who have imbibed Western values would interpret a Quranic verse in a liberal fashion; an urban middle class Muslim of the Muslim-majority countries would interpret the same verse rather conservatively; and a rural-tribal Muslim who has been indoctrinated by the radical clerics would find meanings in it which could be extreme. It is all about culture rather than religion or scriptures per se.

Islam is regarded as the fastest growing religion of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are two factors responsible for this atavistic phenomena of Islamic resurgence: firstly, unlike Christianity which is more idealistic, Islam is a practical religion, it does not demand from its followers to give up worldly pleasures but only insists on regulating them; and secondly, Islam as a religion and ideology has the world’s richest financiers.

06 Aug 2003, Kirkuk, Iraq – A worker maintains production at the North Oil Company in Kirkuk. North Oil Company, which produces two-thirds of Iraq’s total, has been unable to export due to sabotage on the pipeline, twice last month. (Source: Ed Kashi/Corbis)

After the 1973 collective Arab oil embargo against the West, the price of oil quadrupled; the Arab petro-sheikhs now have so much money that they are needlessly spending it on building skyscrapers, luxury hotels, theme parks and resort cities. This opulence in the oil-rich Gulf Arab States is the reason why we are witnessing an exponential growth in Islamic charities and madrassahs all over the world and especially in the Islamic World.

Moreover, although it is generally assumed that the Arab sheikhs of the oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the conservative emirates of UAE sponsor the Wahhabi-Salafi sect of Islam, but the difference between numerous sects of Sunni Islam is more nominal than substantive. The charities and madrassahs belonging to all the Sunni denominations get generous funding from the Gulf States as well as the Gulf-based private donors.

Notwithstanding, all the recent wars and conflicts aside, the unholy alliance between the Americans and the Wahhabis of the Persian Gulf’s petro-monarchies is much older. The British stirred up uprising in Arabia by instigating the Sharifs of Mecca to rebel against the Ottoman rule during the First World War. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire backed King Abdul Aziz (Ibn-e-Saud) in his struggle against the Sharifs of Mecca; because the latter were demanding too much of a price for their loyalty: that is, the unification of the whole of Arabia under their suzerainty.

King Abdul Aziz defeated the Sharifs and united his dominions into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 with the support of the British. However, by then the tide of British Imperialism was subsiding and the Americans inherited the former possessions and the rights and liabilities of the British Empire.

At the end of the Second World War, on 14 February 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt held a historic meeting with King Abdul Aziz at Great Bitter Lake in the Suez canal onboard the USS Quincy, and laid the foundations of an enduring American-Saudi alliance which persists to this day; despite many ebbs and flows and some testing times, especially in the wake of 9/11 tragedy when 15 out of 19 hijackers of the 9/11 plot turned out to be Saudi citizens.

During the course of that momentous Great Bitter Lake meeting, among other things, it was decided to set up the United States Military Training Mission (USMTM) to Saudi Arabia to “train, advise and assist” the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces.

Apart from USMTM, the US-based Vinnell Corporation, which is a private military company based in the US and a subsidiary of the Northrop Grumman, used thousands of Vietnam War veterans to train and equip the 125,000 strong Saudi Arabian National Guards (SANG) that does not comes under the authority of the Saudi Ministry of Defense and which plays the role of the praetorian guards of the House of Saud.

Moreover, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Force, whose strength is numbered in tens of thousands, is also being trained and equipped by the US to guard the critical Saudi oil infrastructure along its eastern Persian Gulf coast where 90% of Saudi oil reserves are located. Furthermore, the US has set-up numerous air bases and missile defense systems that are currently operating in the Persian Gulf States and also a naval base in Bahrain where the Fifth Fleet of the US Navy is based.

The point that I am trying to make is that left to their own resources, the Persian Gulf’s petro-monarchies lack the manpower, the military technology and the moral authority to rule over the forcefully suppressed and disenfranchised Arab masses, not only the Arab masses but also the South Asian and African immigrants of the Gulf Arab states.

One-third of the Saudi Arabian population is comprised of immigrants; similarly, more than 75% of UAE’s population also consists of immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka; and all the other Gulf Arab States also have a similar proportion of immigrants from the developing countries; moreover, unlike the immigrants in the Western countries who hold the citizenship status, the Gulf’s immigrants have lived there for decades and sometimes for generations, and they are still regarded as unentitled foreigners.

Notwithstanding, it is generally assumed that political Islam is the precursor of Islamic extremism and terrorism, however, there are two distinct and separate types of political Islam: the despotic political Islam of the Gulf variety and the democratic political Islam of the Turkish and the Muslim Brotherhood variety.

The latter Islamist organization never had a chance to rule over Egypt, except for a brief year long stint; therefore, it would be unwise to draw any conclusions from such a brief period of time in history. The Turkish variety of political Islam, the oft-quoted “Turkish Model” however, is worth emulating all over the Islamic World.

I do understand that political Islam in all of its forms and manifestations is an anathema to liberal sensibilities, but it is the ground reality of the Islamic World. The liberal dictatorships, no matter how benevolent, had never worked in the past, and they will meet the same fate in the future.

The mainspring of Islamic radicalism and militancy isn’t the moderate and democratic political Islam, because why would people turn to violence when they can exercise their right to choose their rulers? The mainspring of Islamic militancy is the despotic and militant political Islam of the Gulf variety.

The Western powers are fully aware of this fact, then why do they choose to support the same Arab autocrats that have nurtured extremism and terrorism when the ostensible and professed goal of the Western policymakers is to curb Islamic radicalism and militancy?

It is because this has been a firm policy principle of the Western powers to promote “stability” in the Middle East rather than representative democracy. They are fully cognizant of the ground reality that the mainstream Muslim sentiment is firmly against any Western military presence and interference in the Middle East region.

Additionally, the Western policymakers also prefer to deal with small cliques of Middle Eastern strongmen rather than cultivating a complex and uncertain relationship on a popular level; it is certainly a myopic approach which is the hallmark of the so-called “pragmatic” politicians and statesmen.

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.

The corporate media’s constant use of Cold War terminology to describe the meeting of the U.S. and Russian presidents as a meeting of the “two superpowers” masks the present relationship of forces.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin met at the Group of 20 summit on July 7 in Hamburg, Germany.

Old preconceptions and terms must be challenged in order to have an accurate view of the present international situation. Russia today, as a capitalist country, is not even a fifth-rate economic power.

The Russian economy is smaller than the economy of Brazil, South Korea or Canada. According to World Bank and International Monetary Fund measurements, Russia now ranks 12th globally in its gross domestic product. This measurement is the market value of goods and services.

Today’s Russian Federation is a vastly different state — socially, politically, economically and militarily — from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of even 27 years ago.

It is important to understand what Russia is today in order to understand the real intent of the constant Russia baiting in the media.

In stockpiled nuclear weapons from the Cold War, the U.S. and the Russian Federation may have somewhat even nuclear firepower — more than enough to incinerate the world in one launch.

But U.S. military expenditures are estimated at 36 percent to almost 50 percent of total global military expenditures. Russia’s expenditures are 4 to 5 percent of the global total.

The Pentagon maintains more than 800 military bases around the world and 300,000 troops stationed outside the U.S. Russia has a naval base in Syria and a few communication centers in former Soviet Republics.

The U.S. Navy has 19 aircraft carriers, each of which includes jet aircraft, helicopters, destroyers and nuclear subs. Russia has one 27-year-old carrier propelled with oil-fired boilers rather than a nuclear reactor.

Russia’s resources a target

Russia is a target of U.S. imperialism because of its vast resources. Eighty percent of Russian exports abroad are now in raw materials, primarily gas and oil. The petroleum industry in Russia is one of the largest in the world. It is the largest exporter of natural gas. Coal, iron, aluminum, precious metals, lumber and cereals are other major exports.

This makes Russia’s economy especially vulnerable to global commodity swings and drastic downturns.

There is an insatiable drive to control Russia’s great wealth by the largest banks and corporations. All currents of the U.S. and Western imperialist ruling class are desperate to have unlimited access to this great stream of profits, which they had finally laid their hands on just a few years ago. Remember: Imperialism’s very survival depends on expansion and profit.

Photo ops, handshakes and reports of cooperation at the G20 meeting do not change or lessen U.S. imperialism’s desperation to hammer down any form of resistance to its global domination. Any country attempting independent development is immediately targeted.

There is an irresolvable contradiction between the need of the majority of countries in the world to develop their productive forces and the need of Wall Street to maintain its place at the center of the world economy. However, Washington’s position is clearly slipping, despite daily military threats that assert its global dominance.

New Russian capitalists

Privatization campaigns of the 1990s facilitated the transfer of significant Soviet-era wealth to a relatively small group of Russian business oligarchs. These pirates were willing to make the most corrupt deals with the West to maintain their stolen wealth.

As long as Russian politicians and privateers were totally compliant with the devastating looting of the country, they were showered with glowing media coverage. The Group of 7, the largest imperialist countries, invited Russia to join.

The problem for the new capitalist oligarchs is that when the Soviet state was overthrown, there was no room for a new capitalist power in the global economy. All the banks and multinational corporations aggressively moved in to take advantage of the chaos.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. imperialism and the Western imperialist powers expected to have totally free rein to loot Russia at will. For almost 15 years they did have a free hand. The results in Russia were devastating.

Cost of capitalist restoration

Seumas Milne, a British journalist with the Guardian News, summarized Stephen F. Cohen’s book, “The Failed Crusade,” on this transition to a capitalist economy. Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University.

“In the most cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial country in history … [u]nder the banner of reform and the guidance of American-prescribed shock therapy, perestroika became catastroika.

“Capitalist restoration brought in its wake mass pauperization and unemployment; wild extremes of inequality; rampant crime; virulent anti-Semitism and ethnic violence; combined with legalized gangsterism on a heroic scale and precipitous looting of public assets. …

“By the late 1990s, national income had fallen by more than 50 percent. … The market experiment has produced more orphans than Russia’s [20 million-plus] wartime casualties, while epidemics of cholera and typhus have re-emerged, millions of children suffer from malnutrition and adult life expectancy has plunged.”

The 1990s was a downhill slide from “a centralized, publicly owned economy to … robber-baron capitalism. …

“For developing countries, in particular, the destruction of the second superpower — which had championed the anti-colonial movement and later the third-world cause — largely closed off the scope for different alliances and sources of aid and sharply increased their dependence on the West.”

NGOs as Western missionaries

Into the economic chaos and social dislocation came not only Western bankers, stockbrokers, real estate schemers and speculators. Every major corporation, including Rockefeller, Ford and the Soros foundations, religious groups and the U.S. Agency for International Development lavishly funded nongovernmental organizations.

These NGOs set up staffs and funded schools, religious organizations and publications to promote capitalist values, Western “democracy” and civil society and to glorify competition and private property. They wrote property laws and textbooks and were thoroughly enamored with Western capitalism.

The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization reported:

“There are at least 600,000 registered non-governmental, non-commercial organizations operating in Russia” in 2005.

Forces in the Russian Duma, the elected assembly, began a nationwide government campaign against foreign-funded NGOs. In 2012 USAID was kicked out of Russia. The “foreign agent” law put 33 percent of Russia’s NGOs out of business in 2013.

NATO expansion

The bankers’ policy was about subjugating and recolonizing not only Russia but all the countries of the former socialist bloc, including the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics.

In order to lock this violent and chaotic transformation in place, the U.S.-commanded military alliance, NATO, was expanded to include every East European country and former Soviet Republic, right up to the borders of Russia. In 2013-14 this untenable absorption came to a crisis over U.S. and German attempts to totally seize Ukraine.

During the years of violent transition to a capitalist economy, the Ukraine had still maintained deep economic ties and extensive trade with Russia, but it also had increasing ties to the European Union. The EU, however, would not settle for sharing Ukraine with Russia. A total break was demanded by the bankers.

U.S. and EU seizure of Ukraine

Former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych

When Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych was negotiating about Ukraine’s entrance into the EU, the EU refused to allow Ukraine to continue trading with Russia. It also demanded that Ukraine join NATO. This meant that the Crimea, the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and only warm water port, would be handed over to NATO.

To carry out a coup against the elected Ukrainian government, the Euromaidan movement, led by neoliberals and fascists, received enormous Western support and funding. The reactionary movement seized the center of the capital, Kiev, and held it for three months. U.S. and West European media and politicians poured into the encampment with unanimous support.

Despite Russian and Ukrainian government efforts to negotiate, and a Russian pledge of debt cancellation and new funds, the elected Ukraine government was labeled “corrupt” and overthrown by a fascist gang, which seized government buildings on Feb. 22, 2014.

Faced with the loss of its only warm water port, Russia took control of the small peninsula and the Russian port in Crimea.

Fearing a wave of privatizations and quick industrial shutdowns that have come with every step of capitalist restructuring, the workers’ movement in Eastern Ukraine, the industrial heartland, seized factories and communication centers in self-defense against the fascist coup in Kiev.

The result was that Russia lost a major trading partner. Its sphere of economic relations became much smaller, and it faced an all-out effort at economic ­strangulation.

Banks and sanctions

Economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and EU at this time were specifically designed to hit Russia in its energy sector, where the country is most vulnerable.

Suddenly no U.S. oil company could do business with Russia, nor could any companies sell drilling technology to access oil and gas reserves. The sanctions restrict access to Western financial markets. U.S. banks cannot issue long-term loans to Russian businesses for energy- focused projects.

Russian state banks are now excluded from raising long-term loans in the EU. The U.S. also put sanctions on Russian banks, banning U.S. companies from receiving or loaning money to them.

All this was intended to force the new capitalists around Putin to break with his policies and to submit to a total takeover to protect their own profits.

Russia is now on the defensive, and since 2014 it’s been clear that the imperialists’ plan is total dismemberment. Strengthening the state sector under Putin and tightening controls on foreign-funded NGOs and on capital flight out of the country were a matter of economic survival.

Defense of Syria

The U.S.-led effort to overturn the government in Syria threatens to take another major trading partner away from Russia. Russia’s only naval facility on the Mediterranean is in Syria.

The appeal of the Syrian government to Russia for assistance, after four years of war, tens of thousands of mercenaries and funded extremist forces, and a year of U.S. and 10 other countries bombing Syria, has now led to daily confrontations.

There is a broad agreement that if U.S. plans succeed in overturning the government in Syria, following the overturns that have occurred in Iraq and Libya, then Russia and Iran are undeniably next on the list.

Russia’s assistance to Syria is of a defensive character. Self-defense is a critical link in the global axis of resistance based not on ideology, but necessity. Without Russian help, Syria would have fallen.

But with significant Western funding for development blocked, new avenues have opened. Russia is increasingly relying on China for loans, is now providing 60,000 tons of wheat per month to Venezuela, and has canceled Cuba’s $30 billion Soviet-era debt.

The growing web of trade and economic relations among economic formations like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and the Chinese One Belt One Road proposal are all signs of growing efforts among many targeted countries to fight isolation and resist imperialist dismemberment.

During discussion about global warming at the G20 meeting, it was the U.S. colossus that appeared increasingly isolated.

Sole superpower status has not benefited population

Military expenditures continually drain every needed social program in the U.S. But they are extremely profitable for the largest corporations, such as DynCorp International, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

According to the World Health Organization, U.S. life expectancy, ranked 31st globally, is one of the lowest in developed countries. It is the same for basic education; at 38th, the United States ranks behind every major industrialized country.

The measures for infant mortality, maternity care, housing and infrastructure reflect the true cost at home of U.S. imperial­­ism’s determination to loot the world.

Featured image from Workers World

The Hillsborough Disaster in 1989 that resulted in 96 deaths and 766 injuries eventually produced an inquiry that has now led to manslaughter charges being brought in 2017 i.e. 28 years later!

The NHS Contaminated Blood scandal of the 70s and 80s that left at least 2,400 people dead and thousands being infected with Hepatitis C and HIV is now going to be the subject of a Public Inquiry i.e. 42 years later!

The Grenfell Tower disaster of 2017 that killed between 80 and 180 residents, last month, (the exact figure will never be known) is the subject of current inquiries by the government and the police: the final conclusions and recommendations of which regarding culpability will almost certainly be known to the public by 2047 i.e. in 30 years’ time. This, notwithstanding that it is public domain knowledge that the conflagration that enveloped the building was caused by the application of polymer foam insulation to the external face of the building when it was well known to the architects, the town planners, the council, the engineers, the surveyors, the manufacturers, the suppliers and the contractors that such foams are highly combustible and furthermore highly toxic when ignited, and should never be used either inside or outside residential buildings as they become a severe threat to life during any fire. These facts have been known for at least thirty years.

Will this now take 30 years of ‘cover-ups’ and prevarication in attempts to evade responsibility before anyone is actually apprehended and brought before the Courts for gross criminal negligence resulting in multiple manslaughter?

Featured image from The New European

Hasan Breijieh is a Palestinian activist and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He participates in weekly protest activities against the Israeli military presence in the West Bank (aka occupation), the illegal Jewish colonies turned into townships on stolen Palestinian land (aka settlements) that choke off Palestinian villages around Bethlehem and elsewhere, and the illegal Apartheid wall that Israel has constructed, much of it on Palestinian lands. 

The Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a Palestinian leftist political party, a member of Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO ). Like the Palestinian Islamic political party Hamas, it is classified as a terrorist organization by both the United States and Israel.

Hasan Breijieh was quoted recently in Mondoweiss in his capacity as a spokesperson for PFLP responding to an Israeli statement accusing Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) who is currently “administratively detained” – i.e. imprisoned by Israel on “secret evidence” without charge or trial.

In her latest arrest, Khalida Jarrar was seized in a pre-dawn Israeli military raid from her family home in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on July 2, 2017.

“Jarrar was arrested,” says the Israeli spokesperson as quoted in Haaretz, “following her involvement in promoting terrorist activity through the PFLP and without any connection to her being a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.”

Hasan Breijieh’s matter-of-fact response, as reported in Mondowiess, is:

“Israel’s statement is false. Khalida’s work within the PLC as an elected member of the legislature is as a representative for the PFLP party – the two are explicitly linked.”

As usual, it is Israel’s “official statement” about Khalida Jarrar, rather than what Hasan Breijieh says, that gets the coverage in the mainstream media, and is generally presumed to come from a “legitimate” source, whose veracity is not seriously questioned.

Israel’s strategic framing of this picture of Palestinian Arabs as terrorists, even members of the Legislative Council, was intensified after 9/11, when global security fears regarding “Islamist terror” began to proliferate. After all, most, if not all, Palestinian Arabs are Muslim.

One of Israel’s most effective steps in framing Palestinian resistance as terror was mounting a successful case that designated both Hamas and PFLP as terrorist organizations. In doing so, Israel drew on an already existing general syndrome in the United States, in which some people’s humanity is somehow obscured from view while that of others is always in full view in the media.

Way back in 1985, for example, two terror killings took place in the same week, one of an American Jew (Leon Klinghoffer, killed by four Palestinian hijackers on board of the cruise liner Achille Laura) and the other of an American Palestinian Arab (Alex Odeh, killed by the Jewish Defense League in a bomb explosion mechanism attached to his office door in southern California).

Odeh’s life, though no less peaceful and gentle than that of Klinghoffer’s, was virtually ignored by the national media at the time. Not so Klinghoffer’s.

Again, during the 2014 Israeli onslaught on Gaza when Israel was obliterating whole Palestinian families, there was nevertheless a need for a website called “Humanize Palestine”, which included statements like: “Iman Khalil Abed Ammar was just nine years old. She was killed on 20 July in the Shujaiya massacre along with her brothers, four-year-old Asem and thirteen-year-old Ibrahim.”

Why are such websites needed? Because, as Steven Salaita says (commenting on a Canadian poll regarding Omar Khadr’s law suit settlement for being held and tortured at 15 in Guantanamo Bay):

“People like Omar Khadr—brown, scary, deviant, foreign—are grown at birth, deprived by faith and culture the opportunity of ever being innocent.”

Hasan Breijieh, a Palestinian activist (Source: @HasanBre / Twitter)

The pattern of dehumanizing Palestinian Arabs and/or deliberately obscuring their humanity are factors that have facilitated Israel’s project of designating Palestinian resistance movements as terror organizations.

Terrorism is defined and understood as such by its motivation as well as its violent nature and targets. If one removes the “human” part of this definition (human motivation), one is left with sociopath violence “committed to Israel’s destruction”.

To Israel and the United States, Palestinians have no cause (no motivation) to resist violently or otherwise; their sole motivation is an animus against the Jewish state to be explained by their savage nature. They have no fundamental human rights that either state recognizes.

Israel, on the other hand, has a “right to exist as a Jewish state” (or so Israel and much of the Western world keep barking at Palestinians) and a right to terrorize Palestinian populations openly, proudly and fiercely – a right the Jewish state has been exercising for 70 years with total impunity.

But, in fact, it is the Jewish state that is a terrorist entity.

Here is a definition of political terrorism as expressed by George Lopez and Michael Stohl that exactly fits Israel’s actions:

“the purposeful act or threat of violence to create fear and/or compliant behavior in a victim and/or the audience of a threat.”

Israel has used terrorism as defined above to “establish” itself in part of Palestine in 1948, to occupy the rest of Palestine and annex East Jerusalem nineteen years later, and to brutally maintain the subjugation of the Palestinian people.

Terrorism is a tool used by the militarily strong – like Stalin’s terror regime in Russia – as well as the militarily weak.  The militarily strong have various ways to terrorize – military raids, torture, imprisonment, siege, home demolitions, collective punishment, and “mowing down” people.

Hasan Breijieh knows all about that first hand. He has a brother, Imad, who joined the ranks of thousands of Palestinian “martyrs” – i.e., he was killed in one way or another by Israeli forces. He has a mother whose indomitable spirit has recently won her a seat in the local council in al-Ma’sara village, Bethlehem. It’s worth listening to her, a Mother Courage explaining the human motivation behind Palestinian resistance.

Video clip: Fatmeh Breijieh, mother of martyr Imad Breijieh, al-Ma’asara village, Bethlehem

“I have decided to continue to resist until the last breath. And to continue to urge people to resist and teach my children resistance, and to instill resistance in their milk .Resist, there is nothing for us but to resist. Peaceful resistance .. any opportunity you have, resist. And the least you can do is resist peacefully. This is what’s in our hands, to expose to the world. The civilized world, what is called the civilized world, is concerned about the smallest of injuries. If a thorn pricks someone, anywhere, they say human rights. The UN says, run to the rescue, there are human rights. Until it comes to the Palestinian people, then no human rights, no UN, nothing. Since 1948, we have had UN resolutions, and today we want to demand these resolutions, and to resist, and through this peaceful resistance, we expose the occupation army and the other side. Today in Europe, they started to think, a little bit, that there is a people, that the Palestinian people exists. Like this guy who is running in the American elections, he says the Palestinian people is a myth. We are a people here. We live here –they say that they were here 3,000 years ago since our lord Jacob – but we were here 7,000 years B.C. We came before them; our roots are firm. We, this land … we are from this land. Look at our dark hue and look at the soil; you will find that the soil is our color. We know every blade of grass; they don’t know anything; they only know to carry weapons and steal. They steal our water; they steal our blessings everywhere.”

Israel, not Hamas or PFLP, is a terrorist organization – a deadly one that has secured funding in US military aid to the tune of $38 billion for the next ten years. The Jewish entity means to use this obscene funding against an unarmed (for all practical purposes) people in order to continue to dispossess and subjugate Palestinian Arabs for the sake of its bogus and unconscionable “right to exist as a Jewish state”.

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.

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

A neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post report is one of numerous examples. It lied, claiming America’s defeat (sic) of ISIS in Mosul shows how it how it can succeed militarily in the Middle East.

In numerous articles on Mosul, I discussed US aggression, Pentagon terror-bombing, indiscriminately massacring countless thousands of civilians, blasting Iraq’s second largest city to rubble.

It no longer exists. A scorched earth wasteland replaced it. Rebuilding, if done, could take decades and cost tens, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars.

Naked aggression without mercy was waged, a humanitarian disaster created, affecting hundreds of thousands of city residents.

Mosul was raped and destroyed, not liberated as falsely claimed. Washington supports ISIS. Most of its fighters were redeployed last year to Syria.

Government and allied forces, greatly aided by Russian air power, continue smashing their ranks – polar opposite US-led coalition warplanes providing them with aerial support.

WaPo and other media  suppress US support for ISIS and other terrorist groups, using them as imperial foot soldiers wherever they’re deployed.

Reluctantly, WaPo admitted “(w)e may never know how many thousands of civilians lie under the rubble” – maybe tens of thousands largely massacred by US terror-bombing.

WaPo calling the battle for Mosul a “strategy (that) worked militarily” ignored the unspeakable suffering of around 1.7 million city residents – victims of US imperial viciousness.

WaPo: “Credit for this innovative campaign goes to the US military…to…Obama…to…Trump…”

The battle for Mosul is one of numerous US high crimes against peace, showing its contempt for fundamental human rights and rule of law principles.

While battle raged, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “(i)t’s time to ring alarm bells.”

A humanitarian disaster in the city “soared to an unprecedented degree” – hundreds of thousands facing famine conditions, along with no medical care and other essentials to life.

Reality on the ground is far different from distorted Western media reports. Indiscriminately terror-bombing civilian neighborhoods created an “urban graveyard.” Civilians interviewed reported “chilling” horrors.

Sergey Lavrov blasted the “chaotic” withdrawal of civilians from the city, “increas(ing) the number of victims,” he explained – the unacceptable price they paid.

A previous article said (h)istory correctly told will equate America’s rape and destruction of Mosul to its gratuitous Hiroshima/Nagasaki nuking, along with its ruthless fire-bombing of Dresden and Tokyo during WW II, three post-1948 Israeli terror wars on Gaza, imperial Japan’s rape of Nanking, and Nazi Germany’s infamous terror-bombing of Guernica, among other horrific high crimes of war and against humanity.

US ruthlessness exceeds the worst of history’s earlier empires. Countless millions of corpses attest to its barbarism.

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

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

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

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

On June 14th, Human Rights Watch headlined “Danger From US White Phosphorous”, and linked to far more evidence of America’s firebombings in Syria and Iraq, than had ever been presented regarding the alleged-by-America April 4th sarin gas event that allegedly resulted in Syria from one of Assad’s bombs on that day having hit a ‘rebel’ warehouse that might have had sarin in it — a mistake if it had even happened as America charged it happened.

America then on April 7th missile-bombed in ‘retaliation’ one of Assad’s military airports, a supposed ‘punishment’, which was praised by U.S. ’news’media for that additional U.S. invasion of Syria’s sovereign territory, where the U.S. is an occupier and an enemy-invader instead of any legal participant in the war there. (Russia and Syria urged an independent investigation to determine what had actually happened on April 4th; it was “blocked by Western delegations without any explanations.”)

Will Assad (or Russia, perhaps) now respond as Trump did: bomb one of America’s military airports, in order to retaliate against what can only be called this additional illegal invasion of Syria by the U.S. and by its jihadist allies (the foreign jihadists who had been brought in by the Sauds, Qataris, and America’s other allies trying to overthrow Syria’s government), and now by America’s firebombings there?

Why not? Is it because Syria’s government isn’t as barbaric, nor as hypocritical, as is America’s government (which constantly condems Assad as ‘brutal’, for less)?

Usage by America of white phosphorous firebombs, and even of carcinogenic depleted uranium munitions, against populated areas, is almost routine. As I had documented on 3 February 2015, “Brookings Wants More Villages Firebombed In Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation’”, the Brookings Institution had wanted the Obama Administration to increase military assistance to the racist-fascist regime that the Obama Administration had imposed upon Ukrainians in the wake of the Obama regime’s February 2014 coup overthrowing the democratically elected Ukrainian President for whom 90% of the residents in this far-eastern part of Ukarine had voted — firebombed them in order to get rid of the people there, who had voted 90% for the man whom Obama’s people had overthrown. And Brookings wanted even more of them firebomed to death by the U.S.-installed fascist regime’s white phosphorous bombs.

But, this time, it’s America’s own firebombing (and depleted-uranium bombing) of Raqqa, and of Mosul — not by a U.S.-installed Ukrainian junta — and also not the merely alleged usage, by the Syrian government, of sarin; but the U.S. even admits to having done it. However, unlike the alleged sarin attack, these firebombings and nuclear contaminations by the U.S., in both Iraq and Syria, receive very little attention in the Western press.

Here’s a video of that firebombing in Mosul Iraq on June 3rd:

This is the longer version of Amaq video of White phosphorous used yesterday in Zanjili neighborhood of west Mosul #Iraq pic.twitter.com/9QTQhAlDSw

— Fazel Hawramy (@FazelHawramy) June 4, 2017

The other examples are in Raqqa Syria. Here’s one of the Syria videos from June 8th:

#Raqqa #US-led Coalition targeting #Raqqa city neighborhood with WP ammunition. #Syria pic.twitter.com/eciPMrZain

— الرقة تذبح بصمت (@Raqqa_SL) June 8, 2017

Here’s another:

Here’s another, the next day:

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/video-us-warplanes-bomb-isis-neighborhoods-raqqa-illegal-incendiary-airstrikes/

And then another video later during that June 9th firebombing-series:

web-beta.archive.org/web/20170611043038/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HKSL46Jeh0

And that last video also shows repeat firebombings by the U.S. there, and also some close-ups of the raging fires that night there:

But, is the U.S., this time, condemning the usage of illegal weapons, and at the same time prohibiting any independent analysis of the video evidence there, such as happened when the U.S. was accusing Bashar al-Assad of using “barrel-bombs” and ‘sarin’? No. Instead, the U.S. is simply prohibiting any follow-up investigation at all of the evidence, even though the U.S. itself presumably (once ISIS is completely defeated there) will be able to control the area and to allow in investigators to examine what remains after those fires, and to have independent investigators determine whom is responsible for these firebombings — which the U.S. government would be roundly condemning if only the white-phosphous bombing had been perpetrated by the sovereign government there, instead of by the invading American government.

When America invades and commits war-crimes, it’s supposed to be ‘okay’.

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

Featured image from Human Rights Watch

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

Anything about Russia, Trump, his family and team consistently is overblown, misrepresented and lied about by what he justifiably calls the “dishonest media.” Indeed!!

Trump Jr.’s meeting and email correspondence with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya amounted to much ado about nothing.

A nothing story became a cause celebre, anything to bash, denigrate and weaken Trump for the wrong reasons, ignoring plenty of justifiable ones – done directly or through other parties, in this case his son.

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (Source: The Inquisitr)

Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya is a private citizen unconnected to the Kremlin. There was nothing improper or illegal about Trump Jr. meeting with her. No “collusion” occurred, no connection to Russia, no other known criminal activity of any kind.

Trump Jr. published emails between himself and Veselnitskaya, showing they had nothing to do with Russia. Issues discussed related to adoption of children and related charitable activities.

Emails between himself and publicist/tabloid writer Rob Goldstone claimed a Russian government lawyer had incriminating documents about Hillary, yet nothing of the sort was discussed or transmitted.

Goldstone said he had no knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s connection to the Kremlin. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian government knows nothing about this woman.

On June 9, 2016, Trump Jr., presidential campaign manager at the time Paul Manafort, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with her at Trump Tower in New York.

Trump Jr. said the following:

“I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign.”

“I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend, but told them nothing of the substance.”

Veselnitskaya said

“she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton.”

“(H)er statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

“She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act.”

“It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.”

Goldstone called the meeting “the most insane nonsense I ever heard.” In a Tuesday interview on NBC News, Veselnitskaya denied any connection to Vladimir Putin or Russia’s government, explaining she didn’t meet with Trump Jr. to discuss Hillary or last year’s presidential campaign.

Unprincipled claims by undemocratic Democrats and US media about alleged Trump team wrongdoing, including possible treason, show how low they’re willing to stoop to damage the president for the wrong reasons.

It’s more hard evidence of the deplorable state of America, a serial aggressor, a fantasy democracy, an unscrupulous rogue state.

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.

A year ago the UK voted to leave the EU after a stupid, unnecessary referendum. And although Brexiteers pronounced this an ‘overwhelming’ result, the true facts were that, out of the total electorate, 37 per cent voted Leave, 35 per cent voted Remain, and 28 per cent didn’t bother to vote. Hardly overwhelming. 

Not only that, but it has emerged that the Brexit campaign was funded by some secretive and dodgy deals. The campaigns on both sides misled the public with the result that people voted without understanding the issues. So where are we now?

The United Kingdom is in a large hole, and Theresa May’s Brexit team just keep on digging, regardless of what is happening to the nation, the citizens, the impoverished ‘you and I’ who are increasingly having to use food banks, live on the streets of rich cities, or live with their family in a bed-and-breakfast hotel room. Not that it matters to senior Tory MPs who are well supplied with private funds.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, has just enlarged the hole – Boris never worries about where he puts his careless feet. As part of the process of leaving the EU, the UK has to settle any financial obligations and commitments it has made with the EU. This is part of the ‘divorce’ settlement and might be a sizeable sum. Johnson said the EU could ‘go whistle for it’.  A diplomat he is not.

Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier carefully explained the situation. This is not a price charged by the EU for leaving the EU. It is not the EU trying to ‘punish’ the UK or ‘demanding’ an extortionate sum. But the UK must acknowledge the obligations it has signed up to. Until that is sorted talks on the future relationship with the EU cannot proceed. “I cannot hear any whistling,” said Barnier, “only a clock ticking.” A quiet hint, perhaps, that Johnson and his colleagues are wasting Barnier’s time?

In the last few weeks major voices have been saying we made a mistake. There are calls for, at the very least, a ‘soft’ Brexit – the Norway option, wherein the UK would be a member of the European Economic Area with access to the Single Market.

‘Hard’ Brexiteers insist we must leave both the Customs Union and the Single Market, even while arrogantly claiming the UK should keep the benefits of staying in both. But leaving the Customs Union means we can never trade with any EU country. Do they even understand that? Michel Barnier says not.

And people are changing their minds. As more facts come out about what we’d lose, and how far away any realistic trade deals are; as EU workers leave the UK, leaving damaging gaps in our hospitals, schools, universities and businesses; as prices rise and wages stagnate, ever more people regret voting to leave.

It can be hard to understand what pro-Brexit people were thinking when they voted Leave. Take the Brexit-voting farmer Harry Hall, who now complains he’ll go out of business because he won’t be able to access the 2500 EU workers he needs to pick his fruit. And in case you’re wondering, such farmers can’t persuade British workers to fill the jobs – too much hard work for a nation that has got used to a soft life.

Many of those reluctant workers will have voted to leave, and if we do leave the EU they’ll moan when they can’t afford to buy the fruit and vegetables they won’t harvest. Harry Hall says his vote was about ‘sovereignty’. Like so many Leave voters, he had been led to believe by the Brexiteers that the EU had somehow stolen the UK’s sovereignty.

But we have never been without our sovereignty – that has always been a massive red herring trailed by people who quite simply don’t like ‘Johnny Foreigner’, and want something to blame for everything wrong in their lives. Even the government with its cabinet of hard Brexiteers now admits we never lost our sovereignty and have stopped claiming we’re ‘getting it back’. Bit late to admit that now, isn’t it?

Nobody but Theresa May and her cronies have ever believed ‘Brexit means Brexit’. It was nothing more than a meaningless phrase from a meaningless Prime Minister. Asked to explain it she could only, endlessly, repeat it, making it obvious that neither she nor her cabinet (or indeed her weird wardrobe) actually knew what to do.

Once Article 50 was triggered, committing the UK to leaving Europe, and May’s useless team of ‘negotiators’ were staring at the vast problem of trying to divorce our country from the best trading partner in the world, May started to intone ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ in answer to any awkward questions – well, any questions at all really.  She is notable for not answering questions. Mrs May, no deal is a bad deal.

She is sartorially as well as politically challenged. Many of her suits look like material boxes hiding the body inside.  Her skirts are tight as well as short. When she sits down she displays far too much middle-aged thigh. But the key to her state of mind are the necklaces she sports. Starting with strings of round beads like ball bearings and the occasional chain, as Brexit approached the ball bearings grew and the chains had larger links. In the closing days of her disastrous general election campaign, the ball bearings were approaching golf-ball size and the chain had VERY LARGE links.

Her Chancellor Philip Hammond says the ‘people want a sensible Brexit’. Actually – no. By now a slowly growing majority seems to be saying there is nothing at all sensible about Brexit.

Dominic Cummings, one of those who headed the Leave campaign, admits  that leaving the EU might be an error. He has even labelled  those in government as ‘morons’. Business leaders are demanding an indefinite (like forever?) delay in leaving the Single Market. More than 2 million UK workers are with companies that rely on EU funding, and over 40,000 Britons who live in the UK but work in Europe could lose their jobs. None of those had crossed the government’s radar.

The problems associated with leaving the EU look very messy and will damage all our lives. As more people waver, those wedded to the dream of Brexit are becoming much more angry, defensive and loud in their demand for a complete severance from the EU.

One year on from the EU referendum, I found myself standing on a bridge over a busy main road, waving EU flags.  The response from the drivers below was telling. Yes, many cars ignored us but there was a surprising amount of reaction from both Remain and Leave people. Hitting the car horn was popular. Remainers gave a quick series of jolly toot-toot-toots. Leavers expressed their displeasure with prolonged angry blasts.

Remainers gave the thumbs-up to us and our flags. Families driving to and from the coast waved up at us, husband and wife in front and children’s’ hands sticking out of the back windows. Now, a thumbs-down from the Brexiteers would be okay, but as I said, they are angry, so it was pumping fists, V-signs and the finger – not just rude but crude.

They are seeing the possibility of their dream fade. They know by now they won’t get the Brexit they want. I could see that from where I stood on the bridge. The wavers and thumbs-up outnumbered the Brexiteers by quite some margin. A majority of people now back a second referendum. And our future starts to look a little more positive.

And what should the Labour Party be doing? Some Remainers point accusing fingers at Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying he wants a ‘hard Brexit’. The fact that such a thing would seriously hit the rights of the average UK worker, which surely must be against his principles, is not taken into consideration.

It is true that he appears not to think too much of the EU, but which bits of it are we talking about? He is, after all, an internationalist. Many people, including myself, look at some aspects of the EU and despair. It is in desperate need of reform, something that Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has supported, alongside Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis.

People worry that Corbyn and his Party are doing nothing, standing aside while the Tory government stumbles towards a Brexit disaster. But really, what could or should they do at this precise point, when things are changing around them?

Of course some call for another referendum, seeing that the last one was so dishonest and disastrous. But that would still leave us with those Tory/UKIP people constantly creating divisive trouble – something not to be desired if this divided country wants to be at peace with itself.

Corbyn has been widely reported in the mainstream media as being anti-EU. He himself has been silent on the matter. Prior to the referendum he appeared to be campaigning on the basis of ‘yes’ to EU and ‘yes’ to reform of the EU, but that was barely mentioned by the media.

His silence is not appreciated by many people. Is he sitting on the fence?However, the Labour Party does have some very anti-EU members and the last thing people want is a Labour equivalent of the Tory anti-EU MPs making trouble. So, while Theresa May and her hated team make such a mess of Brexit, Labour need do nothing but sit back and watch the Tories destroy their own party.

There is a further point. Since Corbyn, totally out of the blue, became leader, many more people have become members of his Party. And millions registered to vote after May called the June general election, particularly young people. Many back Labour, but they also back the EU, which they see as their future.

Corbyn believes utterly in democracy. He has campaigned against nuclear weapons all his life and while he personally wishes to see an end to the UK’s Trident nuclear missile programme, the Party policy is to renew Trident – because that was what members voted for at the Labour Party Conference. So what he could do, seeing that he is the leader of a party with several hundred thousand members, is to set up an on-line poll of those members on whether they now want to leave or stay with Europe. A poll of such proportions would have far greater weight than the usual poll of 1000 or 2000 people.

If the majority of those members vote to stay with the EU, then Corbyn’s democratic principles and belief in the membership will demand that Labour must lobby, agitate, work flat out to prevent Brexit – for the sake of our rights, our businesses, our jobs, our EU residents and neighbours, our environment, and all those other things that should make living in this country worthwhile for the 99% (the Tory Party being firmly wedded to the 1%).

If Corbyn regards the 2% majority vote for Leave as a democratic result that must be upheld, then surely even a low percentage of members in favour of remaining would demand that Labour fights in their interests.

With the government in such disarray and trying every dirty deal to stay in power, it can’t be long before another election and a government headed by someone who much prefers real, non-confrontational diplomacy. And then, cap in hand and with much humility, something that has been entirely missing from the Tory Brexit team (the Tories being noted for entitlement) we may get to stay in the EU.

Featured image: Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Rwandan President Paul Kagame (Source: Geeska Afrika Online)

On July 9, Rwandan “President” Paul Kagame arrived in Israel for another of his many visits to reinforce the longstanding pact between his military dictatorship and Israel’s brutal settler colonial regime. This time Kagame enjoyed an unusual honor not even afforded to President Trump when he visited Israel in May; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin both showed up to greet him upon arrival. The Jerusalem Post suggested that the special welcome had to do with Rwanda’s seat on the UN Human Rights Council—seriously. President Rivlin appeared to confirm this in his remarks:

“Rwanda is now going to be a member of the UN Human Rights Council. This is a body which is always against Israel, unfortunately. So we welcome all those, all those who are prepared to speak for us. And we appreciate your support very much.”

Kagame’s totalitarian regime is infamous for human rights abuse inside Rwanda, including the murder and imprisonment of journalists and political opponents, and the imprisonment of Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who dared to challenge him for the presidency in 2010. It’s also infamous for crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as confirmed in the UN’s own UN Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2003 to 2010, which says that the Rwandan army’s massacre of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees would be charged as genocide if brought to court. Kagame’s powerful friends have of course made sure that’s never happened; as Bill Clinton says, “It hasn’t been adjudicated.”

The UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in their 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2008 reports, documented Rwanda’s invasion and plunder of Congo. The 2012 UN Panel of Experts report identified Rwandan Defense Minister James Kabarebe as the top commander of the M23 militia then ravaging the native populations of eastern Congo.

So, after all these damning UN reports, how could Rwanda have been elected to the UN Human Rights Council? How could it now be pledging to use its seat in defense of Israel?

That wasn’t difficult at all, and no more fraught with contradiction than other elections to UN officialdom. In 2014, the UN General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee elected Israel’s representative Mordehai Amihai to serve as its vice chair. The Jerusalem Post actually managed to expand on that Orwellian illogic by calling it “an island of relative normality in the raging sea of injustice and outright absurdity that characterizes the UN’s workings.”

Also in 2014, the General Assembly elected Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa to serve as its president for the next year, even though the UN Charter criminalizes wars of aggression against sovereign member nations, and Uganda has invaded three of them—Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan—over the past 27 years, leaving millions dead. No matter how many human rights abuses, wars of aggression, and mass atrocities member nations may have to their names, they move into UN positions of moral authority when it’s deemed to be their turn.

The UN Human Rights Council, where Rwanda has pledged to defend its friend Israel, is a human rights abusers council as much as not. Its 47 members include Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, the Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the United States of America, to name a few. The General Assembly elects its members to three-year terms through direct and secret ballot. Votes are putatively based on “the candidate States’ contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard.” They are in fact the result of politicking, vote trading, and slates in the five geographical groups represented: Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, Western Europe and Other [Western] States, and Eastern Europe. The African nations simply rotate off and on, so that none are ever singled out as unfit to serve.

The Council has nevertheless managed to make Israel cry persecution and call on Rwanda to come to the rescue. In March of this year alone, it passed five resolutions censuring Israel—with the United States and Togo joining to vote against all five. According to AIPAC,

“the UN Human Rights Council has passed 67 resolutions condemning the Jewish state since its inception in 2006, more than it has levied against all other countries combined.”

Who could be better suited to the task of standing up to such injustice than Rwanda, Israel’s perpetual partner in persecution? Upon Kagame’s arrival this week, Netanyahu repeated the “never again” pledge at the root of the Israel/Rwanda pact and the US/NATO ideology of humanitarian military “intervention”:

“We have pledged, I think, both our peoples, one simple pledge. Never again. Never again. We who witnessed the greatest holocaust in history, you who witnessed perhaps one of the most recent ones. Never again. That’s another great bond between us.”

Kagame, in turn, welcomed Israel’s expansion on the African continent:

“Ever since the Prime Minister’s historic visit to East Africa last year, Israel has continued to follow through on its commitment and objective of scaling up engagement across Africa. This is a very positive trend which can only be welcomed and merits our support. We are looking forward to reinforcing our collaboration with Israel on common challenges of mutual interest.”

Current collaborations include Israel’s security forces training Rwanda’s. By the second day of his visit, Kagame was claiming that he needs Israel’s help to defeat jihadists in Rwanda—a nation that is more than 95 percent Christian—because al-Shabaab might spread south from Somalia, Boko Haram east from Nigeria.

“We need these capacities,” he said, “to prevent that from happening and to deal with it when it happens.”

In fact, Kagame needs a fierce, all-pervasive military police force to control his own people, the majority of whom are Hutus who have been demonized, impoverished, and/or imprisoned by his de facto Tutsi dictatorship, much like Palestinians in their own homeland.

Donald Trump Jr’s. emails regarding an apparent overture regarding Russian information on Hillary Clinton has created an absolute firestorm.

Whether or not the emails are a “smoking gun” or simply horrible optics, momentum towards impeachment has just taken a big leap forward.

This is largely true because four U.S. intelligence agencies state as fact that Russia hacked the Democrats and released that information to WikiLeaks in order to sway the election in Trump’s favor.

But a number of people with direct knowledge or an informed opinion have stated that the Democratic emails were leaked by American insiders unhappy with the DNC … not hacked by Russia.

Since the intelligence agencies have not publicly shared any credible and verifiable evidence one way or the other about Russian hacking of the Democratic email, is Trump doomed?

No …

Trump could – if he’s innocent – nip this in the bud in an instant.

How?

The President has the power to order any information declassified … and to share it with whoever he wants.

So Trump can order the declassification of all information which the NSA has on the Democratic party (I.e. DNC and Podesta) emails.

The man who created the NSA’s global electronic data-gathering system told Washington’s Blog that – if the DNC and Podesta were hacked – the NSA would already have the data in their files proving who did it. And see this.

So if Trump is innocent, his best shot at avoiding impeachment is order the NSA to declassify its data on the “hacking” of the DNC’s servers and Podesta emails.

Featured image: John Brennan briefs President Obama (Official White House photo/Pete Souza)

A January intelligence product has served as the basis for a series of Congressional hearings into the issue of Russian meddling into American elections—and has taken on a near canonical quality that precludes any critical questioning of either the authors or their findings. There is one major problem, however: the supposedly definitive assessment was not that which it proclaimed to be.

On January 6, the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (DNI) released a National Intelligence Assessment (NIA), Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections. Billed as a “declassified version of a highly classified assessment” whose “conclusions are identical to those in the highly classified assessment,” the report purported to be “an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies.”

A National Intelligence Assessment, like its big brother, the National Intelligence Estimate, is supposed to reflect the considered opinion of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Products such as the Russian NIA are the sole purview of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), whose mission is to serve as “a facilitator of Intelligence Community collaboration and outreach” through the work of National Intelligence Officers (NIOs) who are the Intelligence Community’s experts on regional and functional areas—such as Russia and cyber attacks.

Although published under the imprimatur of the NIC, the cover of the Russian NIA lacks the verbiage “This is an IC-Coordinated Assessment,” which nearly always accompanies a NIC product, nor does it provide any identification regarding under whose auspices the Russia NIA was prepared. (Normally the name of the responsible NIO or identity of the specific office responsible for drafting the assessment would be provided.)

Simply put, the Russia NIA is not an “IC-coordinated” assessment—the vehicle for such coordination, the NIC, was not directly involved in its production, and no NIO was assigned as the responsible official overseeing its production. Likewise, the Russia NIA cannot be said to be the product of careful coordination between the CIA, NSA and FBI—while analysts from all three agencies were involved in its production, they were operating as part of a separate, secretive task force operating under the close supervision of the Director of the CIA, and not as an integral part of their home agency or department.

This deliberate misrepresentation of the organizational bona fides of the Russia NIA casts a shadow over the viability of the analysis used to underpin the assessments and judgments contained within. This is especially so when considered in the larger framework of what a proper “IC-coordinated assessment” process should look like, and in the aftermath of the intelligence failures surrounding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the lessons learned from that experience, none of which were applied when it came to the Russia NIA.

A Most Sensitive Source

Sometime in the summer of 2015, the U.S. intelligence community began collecting information that suggested foreign actors, believed to be Russian, were instigating a series of cyber attacks against government and civilian targets in the United States. The first indications of this cyber intrusion came from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British spy agency tasked with monitoring communications and signals of intelligence interest. GCHQ had detected a surge of “phishing attacks” targeting a wide-range of U.S. entities, and reported this through existing liaison channels to NSA, its American counterpart organization.

Among the targets singled out for this “phishing attack” was the Democratic National Committee; malware associated with these intrusions mirrored the operational methodologies and techniques previously used by Russian actors some cyber security analysts believed were affiliated with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Both the NSA and the FBI began actively monitoring this wave of attacks, tipping off entities targeted, including the DNC, that there computer systems had been compromised.

Separate from the phishing attacks, the DNC claims to have detected a separate cyber intrusion into its servers in April 2016. The DNC called in a private cybersecurity company, Crowdstrike, to investigate, despite the fact that it was in active discussions with the FBI about the earlier intrusion. Crowdstrike claims to have discovered evidence of a separate malware attack, which Crowdstrike concluded was being directed by Russian Military Intelligence (GRU). Curiously, the DNC made no effort to coordinate its findings with the FBI, or to turn over its servers to the FBI for forensic examination, instead opting to go to the Washington Post, which published the Crowdstrike findings, including its attribution of responsibility for the intrusions to Russian intelligence services, on June 22, 2016.

The Washington Post/Crowdstrike attribution took on domestic political import when, in July 2016, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention where Hillary Clinton was to be nominated as the Democratic Party candidate for president, the online publisher Wikileaks released emails sourced from the DNC that were embarrassing to the Democratic Party and considered damaging to the Clinton campaign. Despite claims by Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange that the emails did not come from Russia, the Clinton campaign immediately charged otherwise, and that the leak of the emails to Wikileaks was part of a Russian campaign to undermine the campaign.

According to reporting from the Washington Post, sometime during this period, CIA Director John Brennan gained access to a sensitive intelligence report from a foreign intelligence service. This service claimed to have technically penetrated the inner circle of Russian leadership to the extent that it could give voice to the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin as he articulated Russia’s objectives regarding the 2016 U.S. Presidential election—to defeat Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump, her Republican opponent. This intelligence was briefed to President Barack Obama and a handful of his closest advisors in early August, with strict instructions that it not be further disseminated.

The explosive nature of this intelligence report, both in terms of its sourcing and content, served to drive the investigation of Russian meddling in the American electoral process by the U.S. intelligence community. The problem, however, was that it wasn’t the U.S. intelligence community, per se, undertaking this investigation, but rather (according to the Washington Post) a task force composed of “several dozen analysts from the CIA, NSA and FBI,” hand-picked by the CIA director and set up at the CIA Headquarters who “functioned as a sealed compartment, its work hidden from the rest of the intelligence community.”

The result was a closed-circle of analysts who operated in complete isolation from the rest of the U.S. intelligence community. The premise of their work—that Vladimir Putin personally directed Russian meddling in the U.S. Presidential election to tip the balance in favor of Donald Trump—was never questioned in any meaningful fashion, despite its sourcing to a single intelligence report from a foreign service. President Obama ordered the U.S. intelligence community to undertake a comprehensive review of Russian electoral meddling. As a result, intelligence analysts began to reexamine old intelligence reports based upon the premise of Putin’s direct involvement, allowing a deeply disturbing picture to be created of a comprehensive Russian campaign to undermine the American electoral process.

These new reports were briefed to select members of Congress (the so-called “Gang of Eight,” comprising the heads of the intelligence oversight committees and their respective party leadership) on a regular basis starting in September 2016.  Almost immediately thereafter, Democratic members began clamoring for the president to call out Putin and Russia publicly on the issue of election meddling. These demands intensified after the November 2016 election, which saw Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Intelligence collected after the election, when viewed from the prism of the foregone conclusion that Putin and Russia had worked to get Trump elected, seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of the intelligence analysts and their Congressional customers (in particular, the Democrats). Calls to make public intelligence that showed Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election intensified until finally, on December 9, 2016, President Obama ordered the U.S. intelligence community to prepare a classified review of the matter.

The review was completed by December 29, and briefed to the President that same day. Brennan’s task force did the majority of the analysis, which solidified the premise of Russian interference that emanated from the original foreign intelligence report that started this process back in early August. President Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian recreation facilities the FBI believed were being used to spy on American targets, as well as levied sanctions against persons and entities in Russia, including those affiliated with Russian intelligence, in retaliation for the Russian meddling in American electoral affairs detailed by the intelligence review.  

Remember ‘Curveball’

Any meaningful discussion of the analytical processes involved in the production of the Russia NIA must take into account the elephant in the room, namely the October 2002 NIE on Iraq, Iraq’s Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Iraq NIE will go down in history as the manifestation of one of the greatest intelligence failures in U.S. history. The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, created under Presidential order in 2004 to investigate this failure, was unforgiving:

“We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure.”

The problem was more than simply getting the assessments wrong.

“There were,” the commission noted, “also serious shortcomings in the way these assessments were made and communicated to policymakers”—in short, the NIE process had fundamentally failed.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2004, Congress mandated the creation of the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in an effort to encourage the free flow of intelligence information between the various agencies comprising the U.S. intelligence community to prevent the kind of intelligence failures that led to the failure to detect and prevent the 9/11 attacks. While the ODNI was created after the publication of the Iraq NIE, and had as its impetus the intelligence failures surrounding the 9/11 terror attacks, and not Iraq, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities believed that this new structure was a step in the right direction toward resolving some of the underlying systemic failures that led to the intelligence failure regarding Iraq. The Commission, moreover, made several recommendations regarding the organization of the U.S. intelligence community that were designed to forestall the kind of systemic failures witnessed in the Iraq case.

One of these recommendations was the need to create “mission managers” who would “ensure that the analytic community adequately addresses key intelligence needs on high priority topics.” One of the ways Mission Managers would achieve this would be through the fostering of “competitive analysis” by ensuring that “finished intelligence routinely reflects the knowledge and competing views of analysts from all agencies in the Community.” In this way, the Commission held, mission managers could “prevent so-called ‘groupthink’ among analysts.”

The Commission made other recommendations, including that the DNI build on the statutory requirement for alternative analysis and the existing “red cell” process that postulates speculative analytical positions in response to more formal assessments, and formally empower specific offices to generate alternative hypothesis and part of a systemic process of alternative analysis. In doing so, the DNI would ensure that the kind of blinder-driven analysis such as which took place with the Iraq NIE—such as not considering that Saddam Hussein would have gotten rid of his WMD stocks in 1991—would never again occur.

Most of these recommendations were approved by President Bush and subsequently acted on by the DNI. The heads of the National Counterintelligence Center, the National Counter-proliferation Center, and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center were converted into functional National Intelligence Managers, while the NIOs serving under the aegis of the National Intelligence Council became regional National Intelligence Managers. Cyber-driven issues took on a new importance, with a new Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center being formed in 2015, following the creation of a new NIO for cyber Issues in 2011.

The CIA followed suit, embarking on a program that broke down the powerful regional divisions that had dominated the agency since its founding in 1947, and replacing them with new “mission centers” headed by “mission managers” drawn from the ranks of the most experienced senior CIA officers in their respective fields. There is no “Cyber Mission Center” per se; instead, the CIA created a new “Directorate of Digital Innovation” in 2015, whose officers support the work of the existing functional and regional mission centers.

The CIA was mandated to incorporate “red cell” alternative analysis processes into its work in the aftermath of 9/11; rather than replicate this activity, the DNI instead published new analytic standards in 2015 that required the incorporation of “analysis of alternatives”—the systematic evaluation of differing hypotheses to explain events of phenomena—into all analytical products.

All of these new mechanisms were in place at the time of the “phishing attacks” detected by GCHQ unfolded in the summer of 2015, emails stored on the computer servers of the DNC were compromised in the summer of 2016, and Brennan obtained his foreign-intelligence report directly attributing Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 Presidential election to Russian President Vladimir Putin. And yet none of these “lessons learned” were applied when it came to the production of the Russia NIA.

The decision by Brennan early on in the process to create a special task force sequestered from the rest of the intelligence community ensured that whatever product it finally produced would neither draw upon the collection and analytical resources available to the totality of the national intelligence community, nor represent the considered judgment of the entire community—simply put, the Russia NIA lacked the kind of community cohesiveness that gives national estimates and assessments such gravitas.

The over reliance on a single foreign source of intelligence likewise put Brennan and his task force on the path of repeating the same mistake made in the run up to the Iraq War, where the intelligence community based so much of its assessment on a fundamentally flawed foreign intelligence source—“Curveball.” Not much is known about the nature of the sensitive source of information Brennan used to construct his case against Russia—informed speculation suggests the Estonian intelligence service, which has a history of technical penetration of Russian governmental organizations as well as a deep animosity toward Russia that should give pause to the kind of effort to manipulate American policy toward Russia in the same way Iraqi opposition figures (Ahmed Chalabi comes to mind) sought to do on Iraq.

The approach taken by Brennan’s task force in assessing Russia and its president seems eerily reminiscent of the analytical blinders that hampered the U.S. intelligence community when it came to assessing the objectives and intent of Saddam Hussein and his inner leadership regarding weapons of mass destruction. The Russia NIA notes,

 “Many of the key judgments…rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior.”

There is no better indication of a tendency toward “group think” than that statement. Moreover, when one reflects on the fact much of this “body of reporting” was shoehorned after the fact into an analytical premise predicated on a single source of foreign-provided intelligence, that statement suddenly loses much of its impact.

The acknowledged deficit on the part of the U.S. intelligence community of fact-driven insight into the specifics of Russian presidential decision-making, and the nature of Vladimir Putin as an individual in general, likewise seems problematic. The U.S. intelligence community was hard wired into pre-conceived notions about how and what Saddam Hussein would think and decide, and as such remained blind to the fact that he would order the totality of his weapons of mass destruction to be destroyed in the summer of 1991, or that he could be telling the truth when later declaring that Iraq was free of WMD.

President Putin has repeatedly and vociferously denied any Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Those who cite the findings of the Russia NIA as indisputable proof to the contrary, however, dismiss this denial out of hand. And yet nowhere in the Russia NIA is there any evidence that those who prepared it conducted anything remotely resembling the kind of “analysis of alternatives” mandated by the ODNI when it comes to analytic standards used to prepare intelligence community assessments and estimates. Nor is there any evidence that the CIA’s vaunted “Red Cell” was approached to provide counterintuitive assessments of premises such as “What if President Putin is telling the truth?”

Throughout its history, the NIC has dealt with sources of information that far exceeded any sensitivity that might attach to Brennan’s foreign intelligence source. The NIC had two experts that it could have turned to oversee a project like the Russia NIA—the NIO for Cyber Issues, and the Mission Manager of the Russian and Eurasia Mission Center; logic dictates that both should have been called upon, given the subject matter overlap between cyber intrusion and Russian intent.

The excuse that Brennan’s source was simply too sensitive to be shared with these individuals, and the analysts assigned to them, is ludicrous—both the NIO for cyber issues and the CIA’s mission manager for Russia and Eurasia are cleared to receive the most highly classified intelligence and, moreover, are specifically mandated to oversee projects such as an investigation into Russian meddling in the American electoral process.

President Trump has come under repeated criticism for his perceived slighting of the U.S. intelligence community in repeatedly citing the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction intelligence failure when downplaying intelligence reports, including the Russia NIA, about Russian interference in the 2016 election. Adding insult to injury, the president’s most recent comments were made on foreign soil (Poland), on the eve of his first meeting with President Putin, at the G-20 Conference in Hamburg, Germany, where the issue of Russian meddling was the first topic on the agenda.

The politics of the wisdom of the timing and location of such observations aside, the specific content of the president’s statements appear factually sound. When speaking on the issue of U.S. intelligence community consensus regarding the findings of the Russia NIA, President Trump commented,

“I heard it was 17 agencies [that reached consensus on the Russian NIA]…it turned out to be three or four. It wasn’t 17.”

Trump went on to opine about allegations of Russian hacking:

“Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure…I remember when I was sitting back listening about Iraq—weapons of mass destruction—how everybody was 100 percent sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Guess what? That led to one big mess. They were wrong.”

On both counts, the President was correct.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.  He is the author of “Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West’s Road to War” (Clarity Press, 2017).

Featured image: Striking workers during the 2016 Verizon walkoff. (Source: joegaza / Flickr)

As nativist right-wing populism surges across the Global North amidst the exhaustion of social democracy and “Third Way” liberalism, the United States finds itself at the forefront. Elsewhere, right populist parties have led in the polls, as with the Front National in France and the PVV in the Netherlands, or played key roles in seismic political events, as with UKIP and Brexit. But so far, only in the US has the right populist wave captured a major political party and ridden it to power. The improbable election of Donald Trump reflects deep crises within the US political system, but also this broader crisis of modern liberalism.

The early months of the Trump administration have been chaotic, but one thing remains clear: despite Trump’s rhetorical appeals to the working class, actual workers and unions have reason to be worried. His public pronouncements about bringing back coal and manufacturing jobs are based on pure sophistry, while his less public moves to gut labor regulations and workers’ rights will hurt workers. Labor’s dire situation predates Trump by decades, but it is likely that his accession to the Oval Office will further embolden labor’s foes, much as Ronald Reagan’s election did in the 1980s.

An Anti-Worker Cabinet

Early indications have confirmed these suspicions, as the candidate who portrayed himself during the campaign as a tribune of the working class has packed his cabinet with billionaires and business leaders.

Of particular concern for workers are his picks to head the Departments of Labor and Education. While personal controversies and popular mobilization derailed Trump’s first choice for Secretary of Labor, CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder, his replacement, R. Alexander Acosta, presents more conventional but still troubling challenges for labor. His record while serving on the National Labor Relations Board in the early 2000s suggests an employer-friendly attitude towards labor policy common among mainstream Republicans. Meanwhile his Secretary of Education, Amway billionaire Betsy DeVos, has made her name promoting school privatization and attacks on teachers’ unions in her home state of Michigan and elsewhere.

Policy-wise, Trump has run into trouble implementing much of his agenda, most notably with his failure thus far to repeal Obamacare and courts blocking his Muslim travel ban. However, he and his Republican counterparts in Congress have had much less difficulty rolling back a slew of worker protections proposed or enacted under the Obama administration. These include an effort to raise the threshold above which salaried workers cannot receive overtime pay, regulations requiring federal contractors to disclose pay equity and workplace safety violations, rules on mine safety and exposure to beryllium, and mandates for private sector employers to collect and keep accurate data on workplace injuries and illnesses.

On the judicial front, Trump has nominated two reliably anti-union attorneys, William Emanuel and Marvin Kaplan, to fill vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They are likely to reverse recent pro-labor rulings holding parent companies liable for the labor practices of their franchisees and allowing student workers at private universities to organize.

More significantly, after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last year prevented the Supreme Court from overturning decades of legal precedent and allowing right to work laws throughout the public sector via the Friedrichs case, a new case called Janus v. AFSCME has been filed in Illinois which will allow a Supreme Court now supplemented by the conservative Neil Gorsuch to revisit the issue.

At the state level, labor’s situation continues to worsen. On top of recent labor setbacks in Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the first months of 2017 saw Kentucky and Missouri become the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh right-to-work states. In Iowa, lawmakers passed House File 291, which, like Wisconsin’s Act 10, restricts public sector unions’ ability to bargain over anything but wages, eliminates workers’ ability to have their union dues deducted automatically from their paychecks, and requires regular union recertification votes.

For its part, labor remains stuck in an organizational and political rut. Total union density currently stands at 10.7 percent, and 6.4 percent in the private sector. This is a level not seen since the Great Depression, and well below levels reached in the mid-twentieth century, when one third of US workers were union members.

Economically, union decline is a key reason that inequality has risen to levels also not seen since the Great Depression. Politically, it has undercut labor’s organizational clout. Not only are there fewer union voters, but unions are less able to educate and mobilize their existing members.

In the 2016 election, despite unions spending millions of dollars and deploying major voter mobilization programs to support Democrats, Trump won 43 percent of union households, and 37 percent of union members. In some of the decisive Rust Belt states, Trump won outright majorities of union households.

All told, it’s a grim picture. Some of the details may be new, but they are part of a decades-long pattern of union decline that is quite familiar at this point. As we enter the Trump era, we are not entering uncharted territory. We’ve been here before.

Dead Ends

The question is how to respond. For at least the next few years, two of labor’s well-worn tactics are off the table.

First, labor law reform is not happening, and anti-labor measures like a national right-to-work law are almost certain. Second, with Democrats now shut out at the federal level, and Republicans in control of either the governor’s house or state legislature in forty-four states, with full control in twenty-five, labor cannot rely on favors from sympathetic Democratic Party politicians.

Leaving aside the deep crises the Democratic Party currently faces, or the extent to which such a reliance has ever been a good idea, this “inside strategy” is simply not available now. Even less viable is a strategy of “cautious engagement” with Republicans, which is what AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten seem to be promoting.

At the same time, as frightening as the situation seems, now is not the time for labor to retreat. Unfortunately, that is precisely the approach that some unions seem to be taking.

Most notably, SEIU’s response to Trump’s election was to plan for a 30 percent budget cut. Instead, labor should follow the advice that SEIU President Mary Kay Henry gave in 2015, when unions were anticipating an adverse decision in the Friedrichs case:

“You can’t go smaller in this moment. You have to go bigger.”

Understanding and addressing the threats that the Trump administration poses to workers is a challenge. First, it requires analyzing the particularities of labor’s current challenges in the United States within the broader context of what has happened to labor movements and politics in the Global North in recent decades. Second, it requires addressing a problem that goes deeper than unions’ declining numbers and bargaining power: their eroding ability to shape and mobilize workers’ political identities.

The Broader Context

Much about Trump and his administration is unique, some say unprecedented. His pre-dawn tweets, his disregard for notions of truth and evidence with which he does not agree, his lack of concern with handling much of the basic day-to-day mechanics of governing, and much more, has dumbfounded his critics on the left and right alike.

At the same time, much of his policy agenda and his method of governing has a long lineage. His budget proposal reprises the combination of tax cuts for the wealthy, combined with massive increases in defense spending and massive cuts to social welfare programs, scientific research, and funding for the arts and humanities that President Reagan and subsequent Republican presidents have long championed.

Equally Reaganesque is his penchant for appointing cabinet members whose primary qualification involves attacking the mission of the agency they are tasked with leading. Meanwhile, his “America First” economic nationalism goes back further, echoing a perspective prevalent in the pre-World War II era, and which lives on today in various “Buy American” campaigns.

Likewise, many of the factors underlying Trump’s victory are particular to the US context. Leaving aside the contingencies surrounding the election itself, these include institutional factors like the entrenched two-party system and the disproportionality of the Electoral College.

The first ensured that Trump’s populist mobilization was expressed within the confines of the Republican Party, as opposed to a separate far-right party as is common in Europe, while the second allowed him to win the presidency while losing the popular vote. Also particular is Trump’s electoral alliance with evangelical Christians, as compared to either the resolute secularism or revanchist Catholicism of the European far right.

At the same time, Trump’s success is part of a broader right-populist trend that extends far beyond the United States. Globally, these movements share several common traits, including charismatic leaders; a focus on mobilizing around racial and ethno-religious divisions, particularly Islam; and a deep skepticism of experts and elites. Looking beyond the present moment, historical research suggests that such movements tend to grow in the aftermath of major economic crises such as that in 2008.

Importantly for labor, right populism has emerged in response to a political vacuum on the Left.

Part of this has been the result of a crisis of “third way” social democracy, whereby the traditional parties of the Left adopted the policies of financial deregulation and fiscal austerity that led to economic crisis, abandoning, attacking, and alienating their traditional working-class base in the process. Equally important has been a global decline in labor union power, which has both given employers the upper hand while leaving more workers without any form of collective organization.

The resulting disorientation of the Left has created fertile ground for the upsurge of the populist Right. Beyond simply opposing labor and the Left, it seeks to replace them as the “natural” political home for a (white, native-born) segment of the working class.

These twin crises of working class representation have hit particularly hard in the United States. Politically, social democracy was never as established as in Europe, and while the Democratic Party was unable to serve as a functional equivalent to the social democratic parties of Europe, its Clintonite turn in the 1990s did provide a blueprint for the rest of the Third Way.

Socially and economically, unions are especially weak in the United States, with union density among the lowest in the Global North. And while European unions have generally taken a strong stance against the far right, US unions have been far more fragmented in their response to Trump, as evidenced by Trumka’s abovementioned policy of “cautious engagement” and the building trades unions’ outright endorsement of Trump.

The “Special Interest” Trap

Taken as a whole, today US labor faces today a crisis of legitimacy.

For all the problems that US unions had in their post-World War II heyday, they were a force to be reckoned with. They negotiated master contracts in auto, steel, mining, and trucking that set wage and working condition patterns for entire industries. Labor leaders like Walter Reuther, John L. Lewis, and Sidney Hillman were household names whose opinions were worthy of regular news coverage.

That is no longer the case. Today, few labor leaders get attention outside a small circle of labor scholars and activists, and far from setting industry wages and working conditions, they are more likely to cite non-union competition as a rationale for getting their members to accept concessions. Meanwhile, labor’s concerns are portrayed as those of a narrow, parasitic “special interest.”

Partially this is the result of decades of sustained anti-union attacks, which have now penetrated traditional labor strongholds like Michigan, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. But that is not the whole story. After all, labor has withstood far more vicious attacks in the past, including facing down state, federal, and mercenary armies. A key part of the problem is that the “special interest” label tends to stick. Even within progressive circles, unions are pegged as one among many “special interest groups,” albeit one with deep pockets and a knack for getting Democratic voters to the polls.

Perhaps most indicative of this problem is the care with which unions like SEIU and UFCW have sought to downplay their involvement in recent campaigns like the Fight for $15, the fast food strikes, and Walmart organizing, even as these campaigns have won remarkable victories. Presumably the unions fear that these broad-based campaigns might be tainted if they are too closely linked to labor.

The result, as Jake Rosenfeld notes, is that even as labor scores big wins for large swaths of the working class, few are aware of labor’s role. Meanwhile, unions are mainly thrust into the spotlight over political attacks like right-to-work laws that boil down to arguing over technical language about union membership requirements, or contract disputes that are vitally important for the members involved, but can seem distant from the general welfare.

Identity and Organization

Fundamentally, labor today lacks its own core identity.

To be sure, any competent labor leader or organizer can rattle off a list of labor’s accomplishments, as well as the tangible benefits that come with the “union advantage.” More sophisticated labor leaders and organizers can discuss and implement smart organizing tactics and strategic campaigns.

But as any seasoned organizer knows, movements aren’t built on cost-benefit balance sheets and clever tactics. They are built on vision and relationships. Together, these create powerful collective identities, a sense of being on the same side, of sharing a common fate.

Collective identities are crucial because they bring groups of relatively powerless individuals together and change their assessment of where they stand, what is possible, and what they are capable of. Without that reassessment process, workers will quite rationally conclude that organizing is too risky and too likely to end in defeat, and not get involved.

At the same time, the lack of a powerful self-defined collective identity gives movement opponents space to define the movement. In the case of the US labor movement, that’s what has allowed the “special interest” identity to stick.

It hasn’t always been this way. US labor has a long and storied track record of forging powerful collective identities. Going back to the nineteenth century, early unions like the Knights of Labor organized around powerful ideas of “labor republicanism” and the “cooperative commonwealth” to articulate a broad vision of industrial democracy. In doing so, they highlighted the contradiction between their status as formally free citizens in the political realm, and their status as wage slaves at work.

In the early twentieth century, it was the Industrial Workers of the World’s vision of “One Big Union” that mobilized hundreds of thousands of workers. In the 1930s and ’40s, the CIO’s vision of industrial unionismand the spectacle of the sit-down strikes galvanized millions. As an example of how contagious this CIO vision was, soon after its founding in 1935, tens of thousands of workers north of the border in Canada flocked to the CIO banner, even though nobody in the CIO leadership was aware of what was going on, let along lending any kind of material support.

In the 1960s, as an explosion of public sector organizing accompanied the growing civil rights movement, striking sanitation workers in Memphis captured the confluence of both movements with their slogan “I Am A Man.” More recently, we can think of the slogan “Part-Time America Won’t Work,” which united part-time and full-time Teamsters at UPS in their victorious 1997 strike against the shipping giant, or the Chicago Teachers Union’s framing of their successful 2012 campaign as “fighting for the schools our children deserve.”

While these examples showcase the galvanizing potential of collective identities, it is important to recognize that they have a downside. Identities work by creating dividing lines that define who is on which side. Depending on how those lines get drawn, collective identities can divide as well as unify workers. We need only think of the sordid history of divisions based on race, national origin, gender, or craft within the labor movement to see how this has worked.

Similarly, unions’ efforts to forge “partnerships” with employers, or to promote protectionist “buy American” strategies, can divide workers by company or country, while blurring divisions between workers and management. The resulting identities can help or harm labor’s fighting capacity.

It is also essential to recognize that durable collective identities, the kind that can create deep and lasting social change, are made up of more than words. They are not the product of proper “messaging” or “framing” of issues. Rather, collective identities are created, maintained, and reshaped through sustained, organized collective action.

More than anything, it’s this combination of galvanizing ideas tied to durable, deep organization that is missing from today’s labor movement.

We can certainly find elements of each. Despite decades of decline, unions still have plenty of organizational infrastructure at their disposal. But this is not tied to a compelling idea or collective identity.

Leaving aside forgettable efforts at doing so like AFL-CIO’s “Union Yes!” and “Voice@Work” campaigns, the ideological work of even more sophisticated campaigns like SEIU’s Justice for Janitors has not been aimed at creating a sense of collective identity among its members. Rather, it has been aimed at creating “public dramas” using scripted confrontations to shame corporate targets into making deals with union leaders. Workers in such a model function not as the collective force driving the campaign, but as what Jane McAlevey refers to as “authentic messengers” dispatched by union leadership to influence media coverage and public opinion.

We have also seen galvanizing ideas take hold in recent years. These include the aforementioned Fight for $15 (and a union, which usually gets dropped), the powerful counterposition of “the 99 percent” versus “the one percent” that animated the Occupy movement, and Bernie Sanders’ message of working-class justice and solidarity that fueled his improbable run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

These, however, have lacked firm organizational links. In the case of Fight for $15, the real organizational tie to unions was deliberately hidden. Occupy, for all its accomplishments in forcing economic inequality back onto the political agenda, foundered on its inability to build lasting organization. As for Sanders, not only was his campaign hampered by most unions’ reticence to back it, but there is little infrastructure beyond email and fundraising lists to organize the millions of people who backed him.

Strikes, Workplaces, and the Future of Democracy

Historically, unions have used two methods to link ideas and organization: strikes and shop floor organization.

The first has gotten plenty of attention, grabbing headlines and filling the pages of labor history books. The second, while often overlooked, has been equally important, a necessary building block for the first. Labor scholars, not to mention any seasoned organizer, know the painstaking, day-to-day work that goes into building a strike. Even in cases where strikes seem spontaneous, there is always organization lurking behind.

Source: West Side Rag

But beyond strike preparation, shop floor organization has been what gives substance to the well-worn slogan “we are the union.” Not only has it provided a necessary check on management’s authority, but it has created the setting for the everyday interactions that build trust, solidarity, leadership, and the confidence that members can act collectively. It was an essential part of union building efforts from the nineteenth century to the CIO and lives on in certain pockets of the labor movement.

For the most part though, strikes and shop floor organization are things of the past. Not only are strike rates are near an all-time low in the United States, but evidence suggests that they are no longer as effective as they used to be. Meanwhile, corporate consolidation, financialization, and restructuring means that power and authority have moved not just further up the organizational chart, but have disappeared into a hazy thicket of investment funds, shell companies, and merged mega-corporations.

In this new environment, many argue, workplace organizing can only have limited effects. Unions’ leverage must be exerted elsewhere, either in politics or capital markets. Almost by definition, that means that unions’ primary activities must happen at the staff level, in the strategic research and legislative action departments — not in the workplace. Unsurprisingly, unions that subscribe to this analysis, most notably SEIU, have transformed themselves in ways that make their workplace presence even more remote.

Without denying that these changes are real, and that global strategies that reach beyond the workplace are necessary to confront globalized capital, giving up on the possibility of workplace organizing has troubling implications for labor, politics, and democracy more broadly.

If labor has no way of tying global leverage strategies to workplace organizing, then it is unclear how whatever agreements are worked out between corporations, governments, and unions can actually make daily life on the job better for workers. Agreements mean little without enforcement.

At a basic level, workplace organization is necessary not only to make sure that corporations abide by their agreements, but to provide a check on management’s unbridled authority. Janice Fine’s work on the “co-production of enforcement” offers some ideas as to how this might happen, but labor needs to prioritize workplace organization for these ideas to reach the necessary scale.

More broadly though, if labor abandons the workplace, it implies that workers have no hope of shaping their own destiny; that they remain at the mercy of forces beyond their control, and that they must rely on others to do battle on their behalf. If this is the model of organization and social change that labor has to offer workers in the age of Trump, then the future is indeed dire. If unions are no longer capable of organizing workers on a mass scale to make their voices heard collectively, then that leaves workers vulnerable to demagogues like Trump who proclaim that

“I am your voice.”

Fortunately, there is another way. We saw it in the massive majorities of Chicago teachers who struck against Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2012, and then forced him to back down again in 2016. We saw it in the CWA strikers who struck against Verizon for forty-five days last year to beat back the company’s concessionary demands and win pension increases and protections on outsourcing.

Politically, we saw it in the work of the Las Vegas Culinary Union, UNITE HERE Local 226, which managed to get even white workers in a right-to-work state to reject Trump this past November. We also saw it in the work of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which organized against both major parties and billionaire-funded charter school PACs to defeat Question 2, which would have dramatically increased the number of charter schools in the state.

These are isolated examples and do not yet approach the scale needed to respond to the challenges that labor faces in the coming years. But they show that it is still possible to strike, and it is still possible to win. In each case, building workplace union culture and organization was key. Broadening this model outwards could provide ways of reversing labor’s fortunes.

In a recent message to supporters, Senator Bernie Sanders stated that

“The great crisis that we face as a nation is not just the objective problems that we face…. The more serious crisis is the limitation of our imaginations.”

In bringing workers together and changing their assessment of what is possible and what they are capable of, labor has the capacity to transcend that limitation. To survive Trump, that work is more necessary than ever.

Barry Eidlin is an assistant professor of sociology at McGill University and a former head steward for UAW Local 2865.

It is hard to imagine that along with the catastrophe that has been inflicted on Syria for the past six years, another calamity is unfolding in Yemen of damning proportions while the whole world looks on with indifference. What is happening in Yemen is not merely a violent conflict between combating forces for power, but the willful subjugation of millions of innocent civilians to starvation, disease, and ruin that transcends the human capacity to descend even below the lowest pit of darkness, from which there is no exit.

Seven million people face starvation, and 19 out of 28 million of Yemen’s population are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Both the Saudis and the Houthis are restricting food and medicine supplies from reaching starving children; many of them are cholera-ridden, on the verge of joining the thousands who have already died from starvation and disease. More than 10,000 have been killed, and nearly 40,000 injured. UNICEF reports nearly 300,000 cholera cases, and a joint statement from UNICEF and the World Health Organization declares the infection is spreading at a rate of 5,000 new cases per day.

The AP documented at least 18 clandestine lockups across southern Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Yemini forces, where torture of unimaginable cruelty is routine. The torture of prisoners is reducing them to less than an animal ready for the slaughter. One example of such extreme torture is the “grill,” in which the prisoner is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire.

Another method of slow death is where detainees are crammed in shipping containers and guards light a fire underneath to fill it with smoke, slowly suffocating detainees. Prisoners are blindfolded and shackled in place in a box too small to stand in for most of their detention. Constant beating by steel wires is common, which often results in the death of the detainee. As Dostoyevsky said:

“People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel.”

The US has been aware for some time of allegations of torture, but professes that there have not been such abuses.

Moreover, the blockade of imports of food, medicine, and fuel, which Yemen is completely dependent on, is making the situation dire beyond comprehension. If humanitarian aid is not provided immediately, millions of children will starve to death, even though the international community is cognizant of this ominous situation.

Yemeni President Abu Rabu Mansour Hadi with Saudi King Salman

The conflict escalated in March 2015 when the Saudi-led coalition (including Bahrain and Sunni-majority Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Sudan, Qatar, and the UAE) began a military operation to restore the internationally-recognized government of Abu Rabu Mansour Hadi to power.

The Saudis’ targets are the Houthi forces, who are a Zaydi Shiite Muslim minority and have been fighting for control of the country. They are loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was deposed in 2011 following a popular uprising instigated by the Arab Spring. The Houthis have suffered immense discrimination, and their grievances have been addressed neither before nor after the Gulf Cooperation Council’s March 2013 initiative that launched a National Dialogue Conference, which failed to resolve the dispute over the distribution of power.

The Houthis joined forces with Saleh and expanded their influence in northwestern Yemen, culminating in a major military offensive against the military and a few rival tribes in which they captured the capital Sana’a in September 2014. The Saudis’ bombing against the Houthis has been indiscriminate: schools, hospitals, homes, marketplaces, weddings, and even funeral homes were targeted to maximize casualties, egregiously violating the laws of war and continuing to do so with impunity.

The Saudis claim Iran is behind the Houthis’ rebellion. Although Iran and the Houthis adhere to a different school of Shiite Islam, they share similar geopolitical interests. Iran is challenging Saudi Arabia for regional dominance, while the Houthis are the main rival to Hadi and the US-Saudi backed government in Sana’a. For the Saudis, losing Sana’a would allow Iran to exert major influence in the Arabian Peninsula in addition to its alliances with Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The Saudi coalition is meant to signal to Iran that it will not be allowed to gain any influence in Yemen.

The US along with the United Kingdom have for many years been selling offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, which are now used to attack Houthi-held areas. The UAE, Kuwait, and Jordan received licenses to sell and service American-made military helicopters for Saudi Arabia, which sends a clear message to this unholy coalition that they can kill with impunity.

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd shamelessly said [selling arms is] “good for our industry”—not an acceptable reason to sell offensive weapons that kill people indiscriminately. Nevertheless, the US does have national security and economic interests in the Arabian Peninsula: particularly, it seeks to ensure free passage in the Bab al-Mandeb, through which 4.7 million barrels of oil pass each day; and the support of a government in Sana’a that would cooperate with US counter-terrorism battles. That said, the US’ direct involvement in the conflict makes it complicit in the coalition’s violation of the laws of war, and top US officials could be subjected to legal liability.

Sadly, the Trump administration has forfeited its moral responsibility by not insisting that Saudi Arabia, over which it exercises tremendous influence, open the ports to ensure that enough food and aid enters the country, without which millions will starve to death.

The conflict is going from bad to worse as international efforts to press both sides have been woefully inadequate, and media attention is nearly absent. Continued fighting will further fuel the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and contribute to other regional conflicts. Moreover, the prospect of finding a peaceful solution is becoming increasingly difficult and laden with uncertainty, as the Trump administration believes that a solution lies with more military force. Trump justifies his bellicose approach as he sees Iran as the culprit who is raging a proxy war against the Saudis and benefiting from continued instability.

Destroyed house in the south of Sanaa, 13 June 2015 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

For these reasons, the EU’s neutrality has allowed it to maintain contact with all the conflicting parties, and is best positioned to build on its credibility to persuade both sides to agree on a ceasefire and settlement. The Houthis want to negotiate with someone with authority rather than a mediator, and refuse to have talks with UN-appointed envoy Ismail Ould Sheikh Ahmed, who they consider to be biased. They also view the US and the UK with suspicion, as they are the chief suppliers of weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Although France and Britain are supportive of the military campaign, they can be coaxed by the EU into introducing a UNSC resolution that must first, focus on a ceasefire; second, address the humanitarian crisis; and third, work on a permanent solution that would take the Houthis’ interest into full account. As Gandhi once observed:

“Three-fourths of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world will disappear if we step into the shoes of our adversaries and understand their standpoint.”

The conflict in Yemen can end only through a political solution, as no solution secured by force will survive. The Trump administration must learn from Iraq and Syria’s intractable violent conflicts, which could not be resolved through military means. To resolve the conflict in Yemen, the US must join hands with the EU to achieve a peace agreement and put an end to the unconscionable tragedy inflicted on millions of innocent people.

Just take a look at the eyes of a starving, sick, and dehydrated little child whose heart is just about to stop. Multiply this image by tens of thousands and ask yourself, where have we gone wrong? We have gone wrong because it has been long since we lost our humanitarian and moral compass.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

[email protected]  Web: www.alonben-meir.com

The implications are grim. Bees and other pollinators play a role in the production of about a third of the food eaten. Without them, basics such as coffee, chocolate and almost every fruit and vegetable would become scarce at best.

Neonicotinoids may not be solely responsible for the bee crisis. But of the many stresses contributing to declining populations, pesticide use is the easiest to control. A hungry and sick bee is more likely to die if it is also poisoned. The scientific findings point to the need for action.

The un-named author of a recent FT View opens by reminding readers of many factors often cited by scientists that may be behind the decline in bee populations across Europe and the US: habitat loss, disease and nutritional stress.

There are an estimated 3tn honey bees across the world. With their wild relatives they have been providing an essential service to mankind for millions of years.

The role that certain pesticides play in their decline has been fiercely disputed by environmentalists, farmers and industry lobbyists. In an earlier FT article Chloe Cornish recalls that previous studies indicated that neonicotinoids do harm bees, but were criticised because they were laboratory-based and did not replicate complex real world conditions.

It was conducted over a year at 33 sites across the UK, Hungary and Germany, over an area spanning 2,000 hectares. It concludes that neonicotinoids — a widely used group of pesticides applied to seeds before planting — can indeed damage the ability of bees to establish new populations.

The $3m field study was joint funded by the chemical companies Syngenta and Bayer companies which produce most of these pesticides, and The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology’s contributed £400,000.

The findings add to an accumulating body of scientific research suggesting that “neonics” are a big contributor to the problem. They have played a part both in the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, in which commercial bees suddenly and mysteriously die off, and also in the tragic decline of wild bee populations in Europe and the US.

Richard Pywell

Facing denial in the face of this growing evidence lead authors Richard Pywell and Richard Shore told reporters in London that they were braced for hostility, acknowledging that this was a contentious area. Bayer and Syngenta have dismissed the report’s conclusions as simplistic and inconsistent— reminding the writer of the tactics once used by tobacco companies to fend off health-related regulation.

The implications are grim. Bees and other pollinators play a role in the production of about a third of the food eaten. Without them, basics such as coffee, chocolate and almost every fruit and vegetable would become scarce at best.

Neonicotinoids may not be solely responsible for the bee crisis. But of the many stresses contributing to declining populations, pesticide use is the easiest to control. A hungry and sick bee is more likely to die if it is also poisoned. The scientific findings point to the need for action.

Richard Shore

EU regulators decided the link was worrying enough to place restrictions on the use of clothianidin, thiamethoxam and another neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, in 2013. This moratorium comes up for debate again later this year – meanwhile regulators are re-evaluating the three and will present their findings in November. FT View ends:

“On the latest evidence, the partial ban should be extended. The danger, of course, is that farmers will resort to using something with equally nefarious effects — the western world’s record for regulating pesticides is terrible.

“It is time that changed. It is time to look after bees as well as they look after us”.

All images in this article are from the author.

When I was a young boy completing catechism in preparation for my first communion, I had to learn the proper procedure for auricular confession, a primary ritual of Roman Catholicism.

At that age I did not really understand what I was supposed to do or really why. In fact, catechism, save for the fact that it offered about two hours leave from regular school instruction on Thursdays, would have been a torture except that I liked my teacher. I was just never good at memorising things and learning long texts like the Apostles’ (Nicene) Creed posed an insurmountable challenge. However, a first confession must be performed if I was to get my first communion—a sort of graduation ceremony in which we got to wear something like priestly or academic vestments (and I always liked getting dressed up).

In preparation for the confession we had to learn things like what “sin” is and why our sins have to be forgiven before we can take the host (a wafer that tastes like plastic, perhaps calculated to avoid cultivating carnivorous appreciation of the deity). The concept of sin is at best abstract for an eight-year-old. Although there was a kind of primitive devotion in our family—my grandmother was very faithful to the church calendar—I cannot recall sin or morality playing much of a role in our home. Things were handled very pragmatically. A few rules and some decorum were stated and if you violated these there was summary judgment: confinement to quarters or a few lashes with father’s belt. Back then men at home still wore proper trousers instead of athletic attire from some high-end sweatshop magnate. So the morality at home was very secular and utterly lacking in celestial allusions.

This made confession into a ritual of inventing things to tell the priest which somehow conformed to the language of the catechetic catalogue of proscribed acts or thoughts. In essence this was an exam to be passed to get the white robes for the first grand ceremonial wafer feast at high mass (still Tridentine rite). After passing the exam in the first part I struggled to remember the lines of the Ave Maria and Pater Noster we had to repeat to ourselves for penance. I found myself grateful that I was never told to recite the Credo or I would never have left the pew.

Following the first grand communion, when one feels almost like an acolyte, if not a priest, the whole ceremony gets boring. The flavours never change. One had to avoid breakfast before Sunday mass and wearing an ordinary suit and tie just did not make one feel “part of it all”.

Later it was explained to me that we really didn’t have any sins to confess when we were eight. I had not killed any classmates with my father’s shotgun while medicated for not paying attention in class. I grew up with sisters, so girls were just normal company and the term “Carnal Knowledge” (a risqué film of that era) meant nothing at all to me. I also learned, but maybe that was dubious or disputed theology, that the Eucharist was itself a sacrament of higher rank than the act of contrition so I only had to be truly contrite to take the host without any conversation with an unnamed source of grace in a little wooden cubicle.¹

But there was a valuable social lesson in all this early psychological training. Namely, confession is a tool for manipulation of the parishioner. It is a complex tool. On the one hand the parishioner learns in childhood that a proper confession is one which tells the priest what he wants to hear. Already as a child one is told what to confess and how to say it. On the presumption that one must have sinned—whatever that means—the verification that a sin was, in fact, committed came when the priest said, yep, yep, followed by some inscrutable Latin words, concluding with “go my son, and sin no more”. Then one heard the screen slide closed in the little box and off it was to the pew to repeat some lines five or ten times, after which one could finally go back home and play.

I would say I was as honest and sincere as any child my age in such an environment. Nonetheless I learned another lesson. What one did in the confessional to get the absolution was just as effective outside. Lying outright is simply too much work. You just have to know your confessor and what he (or she) wants to hear. This was my first lesson in the power of euphemism and circumlocution. So when I knew that I was coming home too late and that my mother would be quite cross with me (my father had died too young to enjoy this phase), I began to consider along the way home what my mother would find to be ameliorating circumstances or a valid excuse. In order that I would not lie outright I reviewed all the events of the day, all the people I had met, what could be checked and what was impeachable. When I arrived home I knew the first question would be “where have you been?” This was just another way to say, “you are late and you are in trouble!” So I would choose the least incriminating or least objectionable answer that would either excuse my tardiness or result in a misdemeanour rather than a “felony”.

Years later as a teacher I would tell my pupils this too. First, I wanted to discourage outright and stupid lies, and, second, I wanted my pupils to grasp that not every factually correct statement is a true answer to the question being asked. In fact, the sensible critique—back when there was a critique—of formal education argued the same point for all exams. Blacks did disproportionately badly on exams in white run schools because they did not know what the real questions were—not because they were incapable of giving correct answers. Hence the much-praised (mainly by white folks) return to standardised testing was really a return to the same psychological manipulation I was taught as a young catechist. It was a ruse to separate the rulers from the ruled. Passing the tests—whether an IQ test or an SAT—was a ritual to keep those not deemed adequate from those who were best susceptible to indoctrination. Like the SCUM say when they explain that Parris Island is intended to assure that they get just “a few good men”—to kill on command.

Robert Gibb, The Thin Red Line (1881) displayed in Scottish National War Museum (Source: Dissident Voice)

Now before getting into the meat of this argument, let me make a historical note. The term “thin red line”, a bit of British military sentiment, is supposed to have originated during the Crimean War. On 25 October 1854, the 93rd Highland (Sutherland) Regiment faced a Russian cavalry charge in the Battle of Balaclava. There some five hundred foot soldiers stood in two lines to face the charge.

It is important to understand infantry tactics and weaponry of the day to grasp the significance of this. (If any one wants to see this today then I recommend watching the Trooping of the Colour at Horse Guards Parade held every year on the official birthday of the British monarch—it can be found in the Internet.) Since the machine gun had not yet been invented four lines of massed infantry produced “rapid fire”. The first line fires, drops to its knees and reloads while the second line fires and so forth.

By this method (graphically demonstrated in the film Zulu), single shot rifles can be brought to a very deadly rate of fire—very effective against men with spears and swords. A further elaboration of this tactic is the square. The line can be turned outward or inward—should the enemy breach the line—and fire directed at any side without interruption and with relatively little risk of troops shooting each other (assuming the inward square is not too tight). The Sutherlands did not have enough soldiers for a classic four-line infantry barrage so they stood their ground with two lines. They managed—at least this is the report—to deter the Russians and protect the unprepared troops in the rear. The battle is deemed heroic because of the meagre contingent facing a full cavalry assault. However, it has been written that the Russians withdrew because they believed that such a small force had been deployed as a diversion. Not wishing to waste their strength against the Sutherlands they went in search of the main force. Hence the heroism of the individual soldiers actually meant an unintended feint—using a small force to create the impression of more might than was actually available and fooling the enemy. Of course, even unintentional deceit is often just as useful as that which is planned. Moreover deceit does not necessarily rely on a falsehood but upon knowing, or being grateful as if one knew, how to create an impression in the mind of the target to which he or she is already susceptible.

And that brings me to today’s homily. An article has been posted throughout the alternative media that has led to a serious dispute. Ironically the piece is called “Trump’s Red Line.” The apparent reference is to what under a previous POTUS was called “the red line”. The implicit meaning of this term “red line” is that of the “line in the sand”—the kind of schoolboy-bully dare usually leading to a serious fight. I think this is the wrong way to understand the term in the current situation. Not that bullies—with a schoolboy mentality—are not involved but also, that the historical use I describe above is not only more appropriate to describe the principals but that the ruse is analogous.

First publication of the article is attributed to Die Welt am Sonntag, a newspaper in the German Axel Springer publishing group, which posted it on 25 June 2017 in English. On the same day Die Welt posted another item from the author in German titled “So einen Scheiß kann ich mir nicht mal ausdenken” (roughly “I could not even dream this shit up.”). It is described as the protocol of a “chat” between a former US “Sicherheitsberater” (presumably one of those “national security advisers” described in Trump’s Red Line or the senior adviser from whom the reader will read a lot below) and a US American soldier (of unspecified rank or grade). The subject is events in Khan Shaikhoun, Syria. Die Welt editors advise the readers that the places where the parties to the exchange are assigned are known to them but that personal statements that could provide information about military operations have been abridged so as not to endanger sources.

As a result of the dispute arising from the publication of the article “Trump’s Red Line”, another article was posted defending the author of the first.² The defence lodged, however, is not a counter to the criticism but underscores the problem—extending the “thin red line” so to speak. In what follows I will describe the “Battle of Khan Sheikhoun” as it is recounted by the regimental scribes whose task it is to present the battle in the most favourable light—for the regiment that is and those who deployed it.

In Trump’s Red Line, posted here on 4 July 2017, the author begins by stating that:

On April 6, United Stated President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the US intelligence community that it has found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon. The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all US, allied, Syrian and Russian Air force operations in the region. Some American military and intelligence officials were especially distressed by the president’s determination to ignore the evidence. “None of this makes any sense,” one officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb. “We KNOW that there was no chemical attack… the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth… I guess it didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.”

Within hours of the April 4 bombing, the world’s media was saturated with photographs and videos from Khan Sheikhoun. Pictures of dead and dying victims, allegedly suffering from the symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, were uploaded to social media by local activists, including the White Helmets, a first responder group known for its close association with the Syrian opposition.

I take the liberty of citing this article’s first paragraphs in full because it is necessary to examine the way this story is told from the very beginning. For what follows I will refrain from lengthy citation where possible and refer the reader to the piece itself.

As to the scene-setting first paragraphs some questions arise which are by no means trivial.

1. While it is a matter of record that the attack occurred one must ask: How does the author know or how should we know that the order issued by Trump was actually based on the stated grounds—alleged use of a chemical weapon? The US is at war with Syria and has been for a long time. Bombing countries is the weapon of choice for the US. Ask any Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Iraqi, Afghani, et al. When the US is at war it bombs. It has given all sorts of excuses—Tonkin Gulf comes to mind. It even bombs its own citizens when they are deemed belligerents as anyone in Philadelphia or Waco can attest. So what difference does it make whether the alibi was a chemical weapon or a fantasy attack against a US destroyer violating territorial waters of a sovereign country?
2. Who is the US intelligence community? The police red squad in Washington, the FBI, Naval Intelligence, a Homeland Security fusion centre, the CIA, et al., their wives, retired officers?
3. What is “available intelligence”? From whom? Of what nature and for what purpose?
4. Who are jihadists?
5. What is a “high-value target” in a sovereign country where the US has no authority under any colour of law to aim?
6. Which American military and intelligence officials? Those assigned to Fiji or in Venezuela?
7. Why is the outcome of the last presidential election of relevance to this story?
8. If the world’s media was saturated with photographs and videos, who verified that they are of or from Khan Sheikhoun?
9. If the depicted injured and dead—unverified—are allegedly suffering from the symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, who alleges this and what credibility do these allegations have without substantiated image documents?
10. Who are “local activists”, the rebels? “Including the White Helmets…” The White Helmets is not known “for its close association with the Syrian opposition. It is known that they were organised by a British defence contractor for the so-called Syrian opposition. The principal funders of the organisation are the same as those who finance the mercenaries themselves. They are, in fact, a part of that so-called opposition. That opposition is also known to comprise bands of mercenaries funded by the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the rest of the countries allied with US-Israeli efforts to topple the Assad government or Balkanise it (here the comparison is appropriate since the CEO of the company that created the White Helmets cut his teeth—and who knows what else—in Bosnia).³

In the following paragraph we find the sentence:

“The provenance (jargon) of the photos was not clear and no international observers have yet inspected the site, but the immediate popular assumption worldwide was that this was a deliberate use of the nerve gas agent sarin, authorised by President Bashar Assad of Syria.”

1. Perhaps I am not on the same planet but I did not wake up one day in April and assume that Mr Assad used nerve gas. So where does this popular assumption originate?
2. The sudden use of Mr Assad’s full name is purely rhetorical. It is clearly intended to reinforce the impression that such an act would be a highly personal order issued from the US archenemy. It is certainly not intended to educate the reader as to the correct name of a head of state against which the US happens to be at war. Or is this equal time because the article begins with “United States President Donald Trump” thereinafter just “Trump”?
3. Why would Trump refer to “Syria’s past use of chemical weapons”—apparently referring to a time prior to his presidency? A reasonable person would be excused for concluding that Trump merely followed an assumption that his predecessor propagated based on precisely the same “available intelligence”.

Then come the handkerchiefs again:

“To the dismay of many senior members of his national security team, Trump could not be swayed over the next 48 hours of intense briefing and decision-making. In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect (jargon) between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Scheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect (again jargon) in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4.”

1. Who were the senior members in dismay?
2. What was the nature of the briefing and decision-making? Did it have anything to do with the public statements rationalising the attack? How do we know that the alleged intelligence had anything to do with the briefings or decisions to be made?
3. With whom were the interviews conducted?
4. What is “disconnect”? Is Trump on a dialysis or heart-lung machine?
5. What is “an understanding of the nature of Syria’s attacks”? Is it an opinion? Is it a report of observations of the scene? Or is it perhaps just a word because maybe the people concerned have no understanding of the case?
6. Who provided “real-time communications”? Why should these be considered reliable testimony of the facts—if there are any?

The article follows with a quaint press release explanation of what the US regime has said it is doing to avoid outright war with Russia. I think it is fair to say that it can be treated with all the credulity applied to any government press release. Or are we to believe that the US war establishment is more honest now than it ever was in the past?

Then Michael the Archangel enters the scene in the form of “a senior adviser to the American intelligence community, who has served in senior positions in the Defence Department and Central Intelligence Agency. Does the author mean someone of the rank of Richard Helms or William Colby—with the same established credibility?⁴

Michael the Archangel then proceeds to tell the author minutiae about the supposed target of Syria’s bombing raid. We get some more jargon; e.g., POL. This shows that the author is versed in the terms of the trade, as if he were one of them, and can translate daily war operations like an Edward Murrow—naturally without even the pretence of being at the front (a point to which I will return).⁵

Then comes the real fun:

“One reason for the Russian message to Washington about the intended target was to ensure that any CIA asset or informant who had managed to work his way into the jihadist leadership (again who are they?) was forewarned not to attend the meeting.” This is third rate Ian Fleming. It has been established and even acknowledged that the CIA funds, directly and indirectly, these mercenaries and has done so since the dean of Carter’s covert wars, Zbigniew Bzrezinski, helped create them in Afghanistan. Bzrezinski never ceased to brag about this—because he felt it promoted his war against Russia (then called the Soviet Union).⁶

It is more likely that the Russian message to Washington—assuming there was one and that it had anything like the character the author’s St. Michael alleges—was intended to enforce the ostensible agreement to combat these mercenaries by forcing coherence between public statements and actual conduct. To date Russia has been rather unsuccessful in achieving that goal. We only have the senior adviser’s word for it that the Russians have anything to say to the US regime, which it feels obliged to respect. The recent destruction of a Syrian Air Force combat aircraft by US Forces ought to be sufficient proof of that—without input from St. Michael—who then gets quite folksy by telling the author about the Russians: “They were playing the game right.” The language is offensive on its face. Since 1945, the Russians and most of the rest of the world has “played the game right.” It is the US regime that does not. Of course, that is the fact that cannot be stated openly. Only the Russians can be suspected of perhaps “not playing the game right.” That is what is meant too, so the author lets this remark stand as if it were a sign of “fair play” on the part of the US regime—for whom the senior adviser still works.

Then the author throws in some other meaningless words: “a time of acute pressure on the insurgents” and people “presumably desperately seeking a path forward in the new political climate”. This is just State Department boilerplate. What is “acute pressure” from what or whom? What is “a path forward” in what direction, where and with what aim?

Then we get some names finally—but not of people in the “intelligence community”. Trump and “two of his key national security aides… Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley”. First of all, since when is the Secretary of State “an aide”? The Secretary of State is a member of the cabinet and heads the entire US diplomatic corps and Foreign Service, and even in the line of presidential succession, hardly an “aide”. Even if UN Ambassadors, with the notable exception of former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Vernon Walters, are not usually identified as members of the “intelligence community” (if that term has any meaning under statute), Nikki Haley also has cabinet rank.⁷ She is not listed in the Foreign Service List with the rank of an “aide” to the president. The author’s only reason for this blatant inaccuracy is to suggest that Trump and his senior cabinet members are not fully competent or qualified to participate in the serious business the author wishes to explain to the readers.

Then we get another jargon-laced description of martial skill and military superiority. The story that follows purports to be an analysis of the situation at the scene (in Syria, where our author is conspicuously absent). To spare the reader the details, which can be read in the article itself, I just list the questions I had. Others could be asked:

1. If the gas in question is or can be made undetectable how are the “locals” to identify the weapon with anything even approximating certainty?
2. Who provided the Bomb Damage Assessment and why should it be believed? Body counts in Southeast Asia come to mind.
3. If there is no confirmed account of deaths what deaths are at issue here? Whose “intelligence estimates” does the author use and what good are they?
4. Who are the “opposition activists” reporting? Why is CNN an authority?
5. What significance can the observations or reports by MSF (Médicins Sans Frontières) have from a clinic 60 miles north of the target? Recently we have heard how fire brigades and other emergency personnel in London were unable to provide reliable information in the immediate vicinity of the Grenfell Tower. Sixty miles in Syria where inland transport and communication are interrupted by war can scarcely be called on site.
6. If all of the indicators cited to imply the use of some kind of chemical weapons are taken as a whole, then it is entirely possible to infer that the mercenary forces in the course of their operations caused such injuries. So why is it even necessary to consider the Syrian government forces as potential perpetrators?

Of course, one purpose of detailed description of a weapon that may not even have been used is to implant in the readers’ minds the expectation that it could be used—to support in other words what the author initially calls “the immediate popular assumption”.

Then the perpetuum mobile upon which this entire story relies—the Internet—“swings into action” all by itself, of course, like divine providence. This is another ruse because the target readers have been trained for years now to see the Internet as a truth machine instead of the largest weapons system in the US arsenal—after atomic bombs, which it was designed to complement. That US intelligence is at it again—“tasked with establishing what had happened.” Isn’t this curious? We still do not know who this is. Despite the fact that the past decade has been full of apparent exposures of how large, differentiated and competitive the bureaucracies are that are formally constituted (we don’t know how much is off the books) to perform what are euphemistically called intelligence functions, we are supposed to attach meaning to this statement.

Then we find that “those in the American intelligence community understood, and many of the inexperienced aides and family members close to Trump may not have…” Translation: St. Michael’s employers versus the Secretary of State, UN Ambassador and people holding positions of trust in the Trump administration who are members of his family (as if the US regime, like the medieval papacy, only now was rife with nepotism). St. Michael, the “senior adviser”—whom an attentive reader will sooner or later notice is the ONLY source for this story—wants the author to say—and he does throughout—that the “intelligence community” should be making the decisions not the president or his cabinet. The only reason for this slight of hand is to distract the reader from the fact that the “intelligence community” is nothing of the sort and it already does make the decisions—including what Trump is to say or not to say.

Then follows some more sobbing. Thereafter we learn that Trump is a “constant watcher of television news”. The author is not describing a unique Trump attribute but something all presidents have done. So what is the point—to compare him with St. Ronald or LBJ or the last Bush in the White House? Or put another way, was the author watching television with Trump and the king of Jordan? Or was this an episode of reality TV and everyone could see the two of them sitting in front of the screen? The purpose of this is to soothe the consciences of the McNeill – Lehrer News Hour (later The News Hour with John Lehrer) fans and other PBS addicts.

Then the senior adviser tells us about the national defence apparatus instructed by Trump. Now who or what is this? The National Security Act of 1947 created what was called The National Defence Establishment. This was later renamed the Department of Defence. Has Congress created a new instrument and no one bothered to announce it? Then we read that “planners” asked the CIA and DIA for some evidence that Syria had sarin. Who are the planners? Again the question ought to be why is this important? If the US is at war and it is going to bomb—which is what it always does, both for doctrinal and business reasons—then the only point of this question could be “can we use sarin as an alibi?”

The psychological profile of Assad given in brief by unnamed persons is a “throwaway”. It is already part of the official language that all US enemies are willing to use atomic, biological and chemical weapons (ABC in the house jargon). It is part of the strategy of deniability. By planting in the public consciousness the presupposition that all US enemies are willing to use such weapons—even if they do not have them—the actual deployment of those weapons by the US regime can be plausibly denied by attribution to the enemy. This strategy is as old as the US regime’s annihilation of Native Americans. It has done little or no good to show for over a century now that it was white settlers and militias under US control that introduced scalping—not the Native Americans. This is school bully tactics at its finest.

The reader should be more than irritated that the author insists on writing “provenance” when he means “source”. I leave it to the sensitive reader to consider why. The late George Carlin in his wonderful routine on “euphemisms” explained how “shell shock” in WWI became PTSD after Vietnam. “More syllables less meaning” was his conclusion.  I would even recommend listening to Carlin’s complaints before reading the rest of my argument.

Then Michael, aka the senior advisor, tells a true fairy tale of bureaucratic life.

“Intelligence analysts do not argue with the president. They’re not going to tell the president, ‘if you interpret the data this way, I quit.’”

This may be true of certain retired intelligence professionals who loyally briefed Ronald Reagan and now complain about the service. However, there are numerous people who quit the service because they saw what it does and what the president does together with the service. Of course, they have names and have made their cases in public, even in print, but they are not sources for the author of “Trump’s Red Line.”

After that come unnamed national security advisers (presumably not the national security adviser since he has a name).⁸:

“Trump wanted to respond to the affront to humanity committed by Syria and he did not want to be dissuaded…”

This is the smoking gun so to speak. The author complains through the voices of the unnamed advisers that Trump was not to be dissuaded from a response. However, the author leaves the reader to agree that Syria committed an unproven or unnamed “affront to humanity”. The author tells the readers that the “popular assumption” really is correct and should still be held dearly. Then Trump meets with unnamed people again, this time in Florida. And now he gets the options. St. Michael phrases the options carefully to fit the readers’ well-cultivated prejudices: an affront to humanity that is ignored. That is impossible. “The available intelligence was not relevant.” We still do not know what that was and what, if any, bearing it had on the discussion. That must mean that none of Trump’s staff was able to recommend action. So who did? The CIA director was absent. Hmm. Getting a tan at the beach or was this for plausible deniability? Tillerson is again described in terms fitting with his previous designation as an “aide”.

Option two is “a slap on the wrist”. Since when is the head of one sovereign state entitled to “slap the wrist” of another? Oh, let’s just bomb a pharmaceutical factory or a peasant village or an airfield in a foreign country. The senior adviser said the Russians should be alerted first—“to avoid too many casualties.” Given the fact that no reliable body counts have ever been alleged or proven—who is to say how many is too many? Then we are told about the impressive sounding “strike package” presented to Obama in 2013 and that it was rejected. This option was, in jargon again, “decapitation”. This is actually prohibited by national and international law. But the author sees no more scruple here than his provenance the “senior adviser”.

Finally Trump is quoted as having said,

“You’re the military and I want military action.”

The rest of the alleged discussion is too obscene to repeat. But clearly the quote is intended to portray Trump as a simpleton. Whether he is or not is unimportant. However, the author needs this redundancy because it is part of his and St. Michael’s story. St. Michael, true to the trade whose patron saint he is, tells the author “The lesson here was: Thank God for the military men at the meeting. They did the best they could when confronted with a decision that had already been made.” That may be true. What we do not know is who actually made the decision. We are left—without any substantiation—to believe that it was Trump. However, to anyone familiar with the history of the US regime this is simply nonsense.

Here I have to ask a silly question? Why were only fifty-nine missiles fired? Why not sixty? Why not ninety-nine? One answer is statistics. An odd number appears more realistic as detail than an even number. It is also like going to the hypermarket and buying something for 1.99 instead of 2.00. Gives you the feeling you saved something. So maybe the author thought 59 missiles sounds more restrained than 60 or 100.

St. Michael continues:

“It was a totally Trump show from beginning to end. A few of the president’s national security advisers viewed the mission as a minimized bad presidential decision and one that they had an obligation to carry out. But I don’t think our national security people are going to allow themselves to be hustled into a bad decision again. If Trump had gone for option three there might have been some immediate resignations.”

Here we see the other real message of the author’s article. Does St. Michael ask the reader to believe that some of his fellow knights would fall on their swords if Trump authorised what those same people recommended to Obama? Which national security people does he mean? If they are employees under the authority of the president, then they have no business even talking about being “hustled”—they have orders and they are to be executed. The president is the supreme executive authority in the US—at least that is what the country’s Constitution says. Or does he mean that there are national security people (now are they in the “intelligence community” or the “national security apparatus” or the “US intelligence community” or where in hell) who are not subject to presidential authority? Now we are getting to the point. As Fletcher Prouty already wrote years ago, there most certainly are “national security people” for whom the office of the president is a legal fiction.⁹ However, if this is what St. Michael really means—then the attempt to make all of this supposed error “a totally Trump show” must be deception.

Then the author finally appears to be writing on his own account and continues by placing the Trump show in the long line of presidential testosterone secretions by pointing to Trump’s poll results after the attack. This follows with an utterly revisionist platitude, which is the stock-in-trade of the US war propaganda apparatus (the national security establishment + 99% of the mass media + 99% of academia): “America rallied around its commander in chief, as it always does in times of war.” This is simply false. Throughout most of US history only the white elite and its acolytes have rallied around the US war machine. Wars have cost nearly every US President votes and popularity—to the point of election defeat or impeachment. Only the enormous power of the propaganda machine, to which the author of the article under review belongs as a highly decorated veteran and reserve combatant, has been able to make the US population support the wars US presidents nominally lead. I have covered that history elsewhere.¹⁰ Suffice it to say that almost exactly 100 years ago this machine was inaugurated as the Committee on Public Information aka as the Creel Commission.¹¹

Five days later we are told, there was a background briefing given by the Trump administration on the Syrian operation. Now it is no longer a bombing. We do not know who issued the invitation (what office?). Instead we learn that a senior White House official “who was not to be identified” gave everyone the official talking points. He points out that none of the reporters present challenged or disputed the background briefing. He does not say a) was he in attendance? b) did he challenge or dispute the official assertion?

Finally—yes, we are almost done with the author’s story—three criticisms are mentioned that arise from this unofficial official event. They are inconsequential.

The author praises “the briefer” for his careful use of words like “think”, “suggest”, and “believe” during the 30 minutes of the event. The briefer refers to “declassified data” from “our colleagues in the intelligence community”.

Then comes the clincher which is made just for all those who believe that they do not follow the mainstream press: “The mainstream press responded the way the White House had hoped it would: stories attacking Russia and ignoring the briefer’s caveats. We read that the author senses a “renewed Cold War”. Then there is some obfuscation about the putative importance of calling something “declassified information” or “a declassified intelligence report” and “formal intelligence” and a “summary based on declassified information”. Of course, one can detail semantic differences but it is more important how and in what context and for whom the words are used—but our author says nothing of this because that is a trade secret.

“Trump’s Red Line” ends with some boilerplate from official policy talking points. Then ends with a deceptive disclaimer. Since by now it should be apparent that this is a very crafted and crafty propaganda piece addressed to precisely those who pride themselves on not believing the journals of record (at least not in public), it is once more necessary to show that the author is a sincere investigator who, like a few other professionals in the political warfare field, is sometimes frustrated in his search for truth, we learn that the author sent specific questions to the White House via e-mail on 15 June and received no answer. We do not know what questions and to which office in the White House or even what answers he expected. This should all be superfluous if St. Michael the Senior Adviser was a reliable source, one would think…

Vietnamese women and children in Mỹ Lai before being killed in the massacre, March 16, 1968. According to court testimony, they were killed seconds after the photo was taken. The woman on the right is adjusting her blouse buttons because of a sexual assault that happened before the massacre. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In the by-line, the author of “Trump’s Red Line”, is identified “as an investigative journalist and political writer who first gained wide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War”. Presuming that there were any of the statements made in open source references like Wikipedia false or unsubstantiated the author would have directly or indirectly effected their correction and because this is a common source of information today, I would like to call attention to some points that at best qualify the acclaim implied by the 1969 reporting. I have written elsewhere on the mythical status of Vietnam War reporting and the reader is directed to those articles for further background.¹²

In the English language Wikipedia entry about the author there is a passage about My Lai 4. The story is attributed to a tip (since he was not in Vietnam at the time) from Village Voice columnist Geoffrey Cowan. Now when one reads Cowan’s biography one finds that after leaving the Voice his jobs were at VOA and USIA.

My Lai Massacre

According to Wikipedia:

On November 12, 1969, Hersh reported the story of the My Lai Massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968.  The report prompted widespread condemnation around the world and reduced public support for the Vietnam War in the United States. The explosive news of the massacre fueled the outrage of the US peace movement, which demanded the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. Hersh wrote about the massacre and its cover-up in My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath (1970) and Cover-up: The Army’s Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4 (1972). For My Lai 4, Hersh traveled across the United States and interviewed nearly 50 members of the Charlie Company. A movie was also produced, based on this book, by Italian director Paolo Bertola in 2009.

Hersh had been directed to the Calley court-martial by Geoffrey Cowan of The Village Voice and later remarked, “Yeah, part of me said, ‘Fame! Fortune! Glory!’ The other part was very pragmatic [in thinking] about, ‘How are you going to prove this?’”  A critical attitude to Hersh perceives him as the mere instrument by which the My Lai massacre became public knowledge and a part of the machine with which the army built its case against a scape-goat. According to this view, Hersh served in this way to shape the memory the military wanted—an exceptional atrocity, an anomaly, that was dealt with.

So let us imagine that the author was introduced to a St. Michael or some other “senior adviser”, someone who needed to get a story into the public domain. The author is still relatively new in the business or at least he has not hit it big. He is offered a story based on a tip by Cowan.

It had been decided (by the “intelligence community”) that a leak must be arranged to again tar the Army with atrocities and distract from the actual command element (CIA) and this was done through Cowan, who then gets Hersh to do the writing. The Hersh Wiki page (in German but not in English) says Cowan had published an article on the Phoenix program in the Voice and that Cowan had given him (Hersh) the tips.¹³ Yet apparently neither Cowan nor Hersh see (or are supposed to see) a connection between Phoenix and My Lai 4.

The German version of the Wiki entry says:

Ebenfalls im Jahr 1969 erlebte Hersh seinen Durchbruch auf internationaler Ebene. Durch den Journalisten Geoffrey Cowan, der seinerzeit in einem Artikel über die Operation Phoenix Details berichtete, unter anderem, dass die CIA vietnamesische Zivilisten ermordete, die im Verdacht standen, dem Viet Cong zu helfen, bekam Hersh einen Tipp. Cowan hatte einen Informanten im Pentagon, der ihn und somit Hersh in Kenntnis setzte, dass ein US-Offizier wegen Mordes an Zivilisten in Vietnam angeklagt war und dieser Fall vertuscht werden sollte.

Note that in the German Wiki entry it is the CIA that is killing Vietnamese civilians, while in the English entry it is the US Army. In the German Wikientry, Cowan had an informant in the Pentagon that gave him and hence the author the information that a US officer was charged with murder of civilians in Vietnam. In other words, the German version points to our St. Michael—while there is no mention of a Pentagon informant in the English version.

So if one were to give Hersh the benefit of a doubt that before his article on My Lai he may have been doing legitimate investigative journalism (I find that hard to believe since that is no way to make a career) then Cowan was essentially the conduit (cut out) for a bribe (a chance to become famous and advance one’s career) and a distraction. (If Cowan were genuine why wouldn’t he have done the story in the Village Voice, which at least in those days had a certain impact beyond maintaining New York’s pretensions to cultural radicalism?) Hersh goes after the Army (not the CIA) and gets famous. One reason why Cowan might not have pursued the story himself– even as an agent or collaborator– was to protect his position in the Village Voice. Another reason could have been that someone else needed to place the story in the NYT and the key establishment media– to which at that time the Voice still did not belong.

The fact that Cowan spent the rest of his career in government service at the Voice of America (VOA) and United States Information Agency (USIA/ and USIS abroad) does not prove but does lend plausibility to a strong undisclosed relationship to the other government agencies that worked with VOA and USIA in political warfare.¹⁴

Here it ought to be recalled that Die Welt am Sonntag, as a publication of the Axel Springer Verlag, has always had close relationships with the secret services, especially those of the US. This is not to rule out domestic German political motives for presenting the war in particular ways or Trump in an unfavourable light. Germany is the most powerful country in Western Europe and the support of its electorate is important to US policy aims in Europe. The German mass media in the past years has supported almost without qualification US anti-Russian policy although much of Germany—albeit for various reasons, is far from anti-Russian. Hence psychological warfare in Germany is a very important part of NATO strategy. The encouragement of the strong pro-American factions is needed to counter those who see—logically and historically—Russia as the preferred trading partner.

But the significance of first publication in Germany ought to be clear to those who are familiar with Operation Mockingbird. The CIA and other propaganda activities in the US government would release through various channels stories to the foreign press in the certainty that they would be picked up by US media and reprinted, quoted or rebroadcast. The point is that normal means would make it very difficult to trace the provenance back to the US government and the story would appear as if it were independently produced and therefore merely borrowed from abroad—giving the colour of objectivity if not the substance.

The author enjoys respect, especially on the Left, bordering on canonisation. He stands for loyal opposition. The Left imagines that he is in opposition and the rest know he is loyal. Moreover celebrity in the US is a kind of wealth and it endows people who enjoy it with power that others do not have. The condescending compatible Left has its Ellsberg and Hersh from the “good old days” when the white middle class imagined they toppled the government and ended the war in Vietnam. It needs these celebrities because they distract from the necessity to think for oneself. There are a few international saints and some who have only reached the rank of venerable or blessed. The differences can be seen in the lecture fees and the book receipts or how often they appear on TV—mainstream or otherwise. Like with my grandmother, there is a kind of primitive devotion that has to be served and so it is almost irrelevant who does it, but it has to be done.

But some of these venerated are not just ordinary celebrities; they are knights of the church militant. They wield their celebrity as a weapon to elevate or suborn others who might threaten the realm of which they are a part.

These “knights Templar” who wield the pen as a sword on behalf of the Establishment are both martial and priestly. They have learned the creed and know all the sacraments, especially the pseudo-sacrament of confession. The journalist of this type has his/her code of honour but it is a military code and as such strictly hierarchical. They have learned professionally what I only learned by accident of catechism: confession is a transaction between a willing deceiver and a willingly deceived. This consent is maintained by highly structured ritualistic language and jargon, which allows the deceiver to conceal his desires and motives and the deceived to ignore or so distort them that they satisfy expectations. The Central Intelligence Agency subjects its personnel, especially those officers who work outside headquarters, to regular polygraph tests. Like all military-type organisations (including the Catholic Church) the hierarchy exercises an absolute authority which, given the highly selective nature of recruitment, assures almost absolute control throughout the ranks. Just like in the Church every officer has his “confessor”. So the executive management knows in detail what information is moving in and out through its public interfaces.

There must be a presumption—willingly denied on the Left—that “leaks” are authorised if they have not been punished. Conspicuously the two most important insider stories of how the CIA works, Philip Agee’s CIA Diary and John Stockwell’s In Search of Enemies, are almost entirely ignored by the Left and absolutely ignored by Sy Newhouse’s star investigative reporter. The CIA harassed Agee until the end of his life. All the proceeds of Stockwell’s book were attached and awarded to the CIA as damages. We have yet to hear the name of someone punished by the Agency for breach of his or her secrecy oath in revealing something to the star investigative reporter.

“Trump’s Red Line” was written by a thin red line comprising a small regiment of propagandists who by deliberately positioning themselves visibly but in apparent weakness deceive their targets into believing they are greater and truer than they actually are. They serve as a front for the massed but often poorly managed viciousness of the ruling class. Their job is to make the rest of us think that we are basically on the “right side” on “the side of good and the brave”. They provide the intellectual pageantry, which flatters and induces people to want to join, “for king and country” as it was a century ago.

They do this by means of the confessional, for Catholics a cubicle, for white Protestant America, the Oprah Winfrey show or for the highbrow, The New Yorker. The “exposure” or “disclosure” or “whistleblowing” are all forms of eroticism, often oral, which titillate and relieve the pressures of daily self-deception. The narrative is one of sin and guilt. The compatible Left is deeply implicated in the maintenance of white supremacy and imperialism in the US (and throughout the NATO member-states). They need occasional absolution for this complicity and that is what the confessors deliver. It is a dialogue that has little to do with truth or accuracy or change—and nothing in common with democracy. Quite the contrary it is a dialogue between the State and its loyal subjects aimed at purifying consciences while maintaining the system itself, even reinforcing it. The compatible Left is bound to its confessors—and the confessors know that. It is a dance of mutual deception by which the rest of the world’s population can continue to be starved, robbed and bombed.

This reporting has no other function but to distract people from what the US regime is actually doing, to maintain the illusion that stated policy is actual policy and thereby maintain the criminal enterprise of which the CIA—in the widest sense of that term– remains one of the core elements. As I have argued above, it is not necessary to lie to be a propagandist for liars—it is only necessary to do exactly what Robert McNamara did when he said “I never answered the questions others asked. I made it a rule only to answer the questions I think they should have asked.”¹⁵ The task of the “thin red line” is to control the range of questions and assure that everyone learns the right answers. The regiment of journalists is like the 93rd Highlanders at Balaclava, they are there to pose like truth before the hordes, but unlike the Sutherlands, they do it with other people’s blood.

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

Notes

1. Henry Lea, A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences (1896) This book by the US historian who documented the real reasons for the Catholic Inquisition, demonstrates that the theology of confession was in fact a dubious justification for church espionage and just good business for the Church—and often clearly seen as such. [↩]

2. Jonathan Cook, “Useful Idiots Who Undermine Dissent on Syria” posted here also on 4 July, 2017. [↩]

3. We must start from the fact that ISIS and all the groups in the US-Israel-Saudi Arabia-managed terrorist coalition against Syria are a creation of the CIA. The beginning of the ISIS “regimental history” was when the CIA created the Mujahdeen in Afghanistan and that has never been denied. Therefore it is ludicrous to say there are “embedded terrorists” in the “White Helmets”. The accurate formulation is that the White Helmets is a part of the terrorist organization. The technical term for this is “armed propaganda”. When US Special Forces are deployed in pacification they have people who perform what are technically called “civil affairs” operations: starting and running schools, clinics, SAR teams etc. Civil affairs operations are still subordinate to military/paramilitary control, the people involved may just happen not to be carrying weapons or killing at that particular time. Since there has been no serious discussion even in the alternative media about the actual organisation and structure of “civil affairs” and “armed propaganda” (Phoenix-type) operations, a lot of time and ink or bytes describing things out of context. Hersh and others exploit this ignorance or incomprehension. Civil affairs operations are designed to conceal military operations and as the reporting on them shows — very successfully. [↩]

4. For those too young or ill-informed to know, former CIA director Richard Helms was convicted of perjury because he lied to the Congress in testimony under oath during investigations into CIA activity. He made it clear to those in power that he was not going to jail for implementing government policy and indeed he did not. William E. Colby, while CIA director, gave testimony to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, also “Church Committee” after its chair, which if followed carefully, indicates the function of information and the role of “intelligence” in the US “intelligence community”. Helms lived to a ripe old age. Colby drowned while fishing. A parallel investigation by the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Pike Committee) has been virtually ignored. Its final report was suppressed. The final report eventually became available in the UK, but not in an official version. [↩]

5. Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) was a broadcast journalist for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). He became famous for his radio broadcasts during WWII. He was treated as a mentor and/or icon of broadcast journalism well into the TV era. [↩]

6. “What was more important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of central Europe and the end of the Cold war?” [↩]

7. Vernon A. Walters (1917-2002) served not only as US ambassador to the UN and Germany and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (1972-76), he was military advisor for many (if not all) of the military coups d’état (overthrow of the government by the armed forces) and other covert actions now popularly called “regime change”, instigated and supported by the US during his professional career. It is very likely that his appointment as ambassador to Bonn in 1989 was for the purpose of coordinating the collapse of the democratic GDR government to facilitate its absorption FRG, including what became known as the “donation scandal” (Spendenaffäre) by which massive illegal funds were delivered to Helmut Kohl’s CDU, just around the time of the GDR elections. Kohl, who died this year, will have taken many of those secrets with him. [↩]

8. First there was Michael T. Flynn. He was encouraged to resign and Lt Gen H R McMaster USA was appointed in his place. [↩]

9. L. Fletcher Prouty (1917-2001) served as Chief of Special Operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff under President John F. Kennedy. He published his book The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World in 1973. [↩]

10. See my Viet Nam series: here; here; here; and here. [↩]

11. George Creel (1876-1953) also among other things an investigative journalist and writer was chairman of the Committee on Public Information (hence Creel Commission). He detailed the commission’s propaganda functions and operations, many of which were covert, in his 1920 book How We Advertised America. The committee was constituted in July 1918 and its activities (including foreign operations) ended officially in August 1919. [↩]

12. See Footnote 15. [↩]

13. The definitive work on the CIA’s Phoenix Program was written by Douglas Valentine (also reviewed in DV). In it he documents and explains how Lt. Calley’s unit was part of Phoenix—that is a CIA operation. The intimate connection between war crimes committed by regular US soldiers in Vietnam and the CIA’s overall initiative and guidance of the wars in Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia were not disclosed in any of the work for which Hersh is credited in respect to Vietnam. [↩]

14. See description of USIA/ USIS and one of its officers during the war against Vietnam. After graduating from America University he went to the CIA-sponsored East-West Centre which Scotton said “… was a cover for a training program in which Southeast Asians were brought to Hawaii and trained to go back to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to create agent nets.” (This is also where Obama’s parents met.) When he had finished his training and passed the Foreign Service exam he was advised by his patron/ confessor to join the USIS, “which dealt with people”… see Valentine (2000, 2014) p. 49.

In Frank Scotton’s memoir Uphill Battle (2014) it is clear that he was a close friend of Daniel Ellsberg. He writes in his memoir that he had cognisance of Ellsberg’s private possession of documents from the report on which Ellsberg had worked to produce an internal history of the war in Vietnam which he would later supply to the New York Times. (page 247) Ellsberg’s leak became the famous Pentagon Papers. However the documents leaked and those chosen for publication in the New York Times omitted any mention of the CIA role in the war or that the CIA was the principal agency driving the war from the 1950s when they were advising the French in Indochina. Both Prouty, in his 1973 book, and Valentine, in numerous articles, shed considerable doubt as to the real motives and actions behind the ostensible leak. [↩]

15. Errol Morris, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). McNamara gave this explanation for how he performed in public; e.g., at press conferences. [↩]

Reports have once again emerged that the supposed leader of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed – possibly in a recent Russian airstrike in Syria.

News confirming the death of Baghdadi, would appear to have significant implications regarding the terrorist organization and its now global-spanning operations stretching from North Africa, across the Middle East and Central Asia, and even reaching into Southeast Asia as ISIS-linked militants continue to occupy a city in the south of the Philippines.

However, beyond the possibility of undermining the US rationale for maintaining a significant and growing military presence across regions of the planet inflicted with ISIS operations, Baghdadi’s death would have little to no impact at all on these actual operations.

ISIS is a State-Sponsored Militant Proxy – Not an Independent Organization 

ISIS is first and foremost a proxy military organization, created by and for the state sponsors that fuel it politically, financially, and militarily. As revealed in a 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document (PDF), these include the United States itself, its European partners, NATO-member Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan, as well as Israel.

The summation of ISIS’ fighting capacity stems from a torrent of cash, weapons, supplies, and military protection provided to the group, particularly in the establishment of safe havens within Turkey, Jordan, and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights where Syria and its allies are unable to strike.

US presence in Syria is large and growing. It will only “pull the plug” on ISIS if it plans on replacing it with something more permanent. ISIS itself has many other “safe houses” worldwide to preserve itself in, courtesy of US foreign policy.

Within Syria itself, virtual safe havens have been likewise established by US and Turkish occupations, preventing Syria and its allies – including Russia and Iran – from fully rooting the organization from within Syria’s borders. On numerous occasions, Syrian forces have even come under direct US military attack while engaging ISIS militants.

Furthermore, as the US footprint in Syria expands, its need for ISIS as a pretext to build the necessary infrastructure to encircle and pressure Damascus with wanes. Replacing ISIS with something more permanent – such as US occupied “safe zones” Syrian forces and its allies cannot attack – appears to already be underway. “Pulling the plug” on ISIS in Syria would be of paramount political convenience, allowing ISIS fighters to redeploy to other “safe houses” US foreign policy has afforded them – particularly Libya and Afghanistan.

The death of a single figurehead – under these geopolitical conditions – would have virtually no impact on the organization. Only identifying, exposing, and disrupting the state-sponsorship of ISIS would impact its activities on the ground in any of the now numerous countries it is operating.

Bin Laden’s “Death” Followed by Al Qaeda’s Renascence

In many ways, the death of Al Qaeda’s supposed leader – Osama Bin Laden – was nothing more than America’s way of closing the book of “Al Qaeda the villain” and opening another where the villainous nature of Al Qaeda could be portrayed as somewhat more ambiguous – with its activities, agenda, and motives running parallel to that of Washington and its allies – and at times – cooperating with the West.

While many believed the death of Bin Laden would be followed by the fall of Al Qaeda, today the terrorist organization has standing armies in Syria, Libya, and Iraq, with the entire northern Syrian city of Idlib under its control and sections of Libya ruled by warlords tied to the terrorist organization, thrust into power by NATO’s 2011 overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi.

There is also Al Qaeda’s lingering presence even in Afghanistan itself where the US is preparing to enter its seventeenth year of occupation allegedly aimed at preventing the Central Asian state from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorism – despite clearly being one at the moment.

ISIS Will Effortlessly Survive Baghdadi’s “Death”  

The elimination of these figureheads – whether it is Baghdadi or his predecessor Bin Laden – serves only to manipulate the narratives behind which geopolitical agendas unfold. The agendas themselves, along with the wealth and power driving them, require a much more robust and practical approach to challenge, obstruct, or defeat altogether.

The process of identifying the sources of wealth and power, as well as practical alternatives that can challenge and eventually replace them upon the geopolitical gameboard are the only means of truly defeating the sort of proxy terrorism Al Qaeda and ISIS represent. Before this takes place, more immediate, but costly and uncertain military operations like those currently underway by various nations around the globe including in Syria seek to isolate and eliminate proxy terrorism within their specific borders.

Such military campaigns are not only costly, but ultimately unsustainable if the root cause of proxy terrorism and the state sponsors perpetuating and exploiting it are not ultimately dealt with. As long as the true source of ISIS’ power remains intact in Washington, London, Brussels, Ankara, Riyadh, and Doha, ISIS itself will effortlessly survive Baghdadi’s otherwise insignificant passing.

The need to tick off the tactical and strategic boxes in the interminable war against Islamic State is so pressing it acquires the quality of ham acting, where generals and leaders become thespians of exaggerated promise before the camera.

Nothing typified this more than the euphoric statements outlined by the Iraqi leadership in the aftermath of its efforts to retake Mosul after nine months of fighting. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was almost shrill in declaring victory on Monday, making the all too optimistic assertion that the Caliphate was dead, that terrorism had been quashed.

What Islamic State did do was represent a tailored common enemy, a convenient point of unity that kept Iraq’s traditionally murderous sectarianism at bay. The faux Caliphate, in many ways, supplied a temporary necessity, a cloak of consensus.

It kept the Sunni-Shia divide in check, though it never resolved it. Gains made by ISIS in 2014 came more easily largely given the Sunni-majority population’s feeling of neglect in the post-invasion era. But it went deeper, given the more dominant Shia presence in Baghdad.

Now, the Kurdish forces stand out as a force to be reckoned with, a situation that Baghdad will find hard to avoid. A Kurdish independence referendum is also slated for September. As if these niggling points were not enough, oil revenue, and its disputed regime of distribution, plays a part.

Much scepticism should be shovelled onto triumphalism, and notions of a noble battle waged by the forces of light against those of pure darkness obscure the pattern of crimes committed by a number of forces.

At issue here are the instrumental methods used in battle. Iraqi forces and members of the coalition deployed, to considerable extent, Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions in densely populated civilian areas. Air strikes were also used.

In the words of an Amnesty International report released on Tuesday,

“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 and in some cases appears to have constituted disproportionate attacks.”

The Islamic State forces made happy use of civilians, and also restricted civilian movement, condemning the effectiveness of any leaflet drops warning of imminent attacks. This, in addition to their more traditional methods of brutality inflicted on the populace.

A cosmopolitan town has also been emptied – some 897,000 people have been displaced, a point that puts it at risk of de-Sunnification. The city that will spring up from the rubble is bound to look different from that which preceded its seizure by Islamic State, one less colourful, and in all likelihood less pluralistic.

Much of this will depend on the calculus of retribution that tends to take effect in the aftermath of such victories. In the sectarian, religious game, scores are always settled, while the law is kept taped and muzzled. Mosul risks becoming yet another powder keg of resentment dotting Iraq’s devastated landscape.

It also risks becoming another example of reconstruction failure. (Ramadi and Falluja remain pictures of post-ISIS devastation.) The rebuilding phase, if history is an example to go on, risks falling into a quagmire of faulty finance, economic woe, corruption and security. And there is much reconstruction to take place, with three-quarters of the city’s roads destroyed, most of its bridges and 65 percent of its electrical infrastructure.

Money supplied is often money denied, with special political interests sucking the available funds before they can go into tangible efforts at reconstruction. The more one looks at the agenda to rebuild, the more one is struck by the fact that government institutions remain the problem.

“We need a lot of money,” claimed a glum Emad al-Rashidi, advisor to the governor of Nineveh province, “and we don’t get much help from the world, because the money is stolen by policymakers that pretend they are rebuilding Mosul.”[1]

The begging bowl, as a matter of fact, is a big one. It is being passed around even as the city smoulders. A plethora of partners and agencies are involved, giving it the impression of an industry in need of oiling. The UNHCR, for instance, has demanded $126 million in funding to perform its necessary work.

The Special Inspector general for Iraq Reconstruction has claimed that the $60 billion in US funds spent over 10 years has produced little, while the Iraqi government’s own effort over $138 billion fared little better.[2] Such efforts, ruinously delayed, will provide sweet music for the next militant upsurge.

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

Notes

The imperial agenda of the United States has wreaked havoc across the globe – economically, politically and socially. Millions have died and are threatened through its diabolical machinations including the funding of terrorists as well as unlawful interventions and militarization.

Global Research has compiled some articles that showcase the destructive foreign policy of the US.

The evidence is compelling. NATO willfully blew up with meticulous accuracy containers of toxic chemicals with the intention of creating an ecological nightmare. (Prof. Michel Chossudovsky re Catastrophe in Yugoslavia)

*     *     *

Syria, A “Civil War” Supported by Washington and Its Allies. US Wants to Partition and Reconfigure the Middle East

By Ollie Richardson, July 12, 2017

USA wants to partition and reconfigure the Middle East according to the desires of neocons. The means and ways of achieving this aim have chopped and changed throughout the war, but the general theme of “temporary business partners” hasn’t changed at all.

NATO Willfully Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe In Yugoslavia

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 12, 2017

At the outset of the War, NATO had reassured World opinion that “precise targeting” using sophisticated weaponry was intended to avoid “collateral damage” including environmental hazards.

US to Act Alone on North Korea. Strangle Pyongyang Economically

By Stephen Lendman, July 12, 2017

Decades of US hostility toward Pyongyang could be resolved by America saying let’s talk, followed by officials of both countries meeting face-to-face for good faith discussions – something neocons infesting Washington reject.

US Looks to Dramatically Escalate Involvement in Libya, Setting Up a Permanent Military Base

By Jason Ditz, July 12, 2017

US officials familiar with the situation say that the Trump Administration is likely to announce a dramatic “ramping up” of US involvement in Libya, appointing a new US ambassador, and setting up a permanent US military presence in the nation.

Dangerous Crossroads, Threatening Russia: US Sends Missile Warships, Navy SEALs to Massive War Games Off Ukraine Coast

By RT News, July 12, 2017

Several US missile warships, over 800 sailors and a Navy SEALs team have arrived in the Black Sea to take part in the 12-day Sea Breeze 2017 naval exercise off Ukraine, which will include maritime forces from 16 countries.

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

By Mark Taliano, July 12, 2017

The warmongers successfully de-populated and destroyed Iraq’s second largest city. The terrorists (the supposed enemies) — all armed and supported by the West [2]—and the terror bombing [3], including the use of illegal, weaponized white phosphorus munitions, and carpet bombing – achieved their criminal objectives.

*     *     *

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Predictably, as with the Influenza A H1N1 outbreak, the World Health Organization is taking a cavalier attitude towards MERS-CoV, or Middle East Respiratory Sindrome-related Coronavirus, which appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and in five years has caused 2.027 cases and 710 deaths, a mortality rate of almost 30 per cent.

With Influenza A (H1N1) in 2009/10, the response of the WHO was to sit back and inform us as the virus went through the six phases until reaching Pandemic status. By then the pharmaceutical industry had prepared billions of doses of an anti-viral medicine which made those involved a fortune (many countries bought up too much stock then destroyed it) and which was linked to neurological disorders and death in a number of cases around the world.

In the last two years there have been around one thousand new laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS-CoV, a unique strain of Coronavirus (which causes the common cold) endemic in the Middle East and linked to contact with camels. However, the virus can be transmitted from human to human and has since spread to the Far East.

The World Health Organization admits that there are proven human-to-human chains of transmission, admits that “the risk of individual travelers becoming infected and bringing the coronavirus back to their country could not be avoided”, yet with this highly pathogenic illness (with its 30 per cent mortality rate), the WHO does not recommend any travel restrictions. Does this make sense? If this deadly disease becomes a global pandemic, which it is threatening to do, it will kill over one third of its victims, becoming the twenty-first century’s Black Death.

Can we ask if there is collusion between WHO and the Pharma Lobby?

Once again we see the WHO standing back, stating that the spread of MERS-CoV to the Far East does not constitute a “public health emergency of international concern”. So we may ask, how competent is the World Health Organization in handling such outbreaks? Or can we also ask, is there any collusion between the WHO and the pharmaceutical industry in allowing diseases to reach pandemic proportions so that the pharma giants can make billions?

When did MERS-CoV appear?

This disease first appeared in the Arabian Peninsula in September 2012, when it was reported as a SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Infection). It was originally linked to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), linked to civets, which broke out in the Far East in 2005 but tests revealed it was caused by a novel form of Coronavirus (the type that causes the common cold).

How many cases have there been?

Originally breaking out in Saudi Arabia, 2.027 laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS-CoV have been recorded, causing 710 deaths (a mortality rate of 30%) in Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen (Middle East) and Algeria, Austria, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom (UK), and United States of America (USA) (travel-related cases).

What are the symptoms?

Some cases are asymptomatic (patients do not have any symptoms). Most cases have respiratory symptoms (difficulty in breathing), fever and cough, pneumonia, sometimes diarrhea and in severe cases, respiratory and kidney failure and death.

How dangerous is MERS-CoV?

It kills 30% of those infected and is particularly dangerous for the elderly, those with suppressed immune systems (including transplant patients) or with chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer or chronic lung disease.

Where does it come from?

It is thought that the disease made a species jump from bats to camels and it is thought that humans can be infected by drinking camel milk or urine or badly cooked camel meat. It is also clear that human-to-human transmission chains have taken place through close contact.

They say it is difficult to catch

Healthcare workers have been infected by coming into close contact with patients, infected patients have passed the illness on to other patients and visitors, so there is a great need for precautions, including education in infection prevention.

Do we know anything about the infection mechanism?

No we do not. Neither do we understand exactly where it comes from, nor do we fully understand the transmission mechanism, nor is there a vaccination or a cure.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, editor, director, project manager, executive director in TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru.

Twitter: @TimothyBHinche; [email protected]

Featured image from PravdaReport

The handling by government and their officials of the Grenfell Tower fire puts into question the UK’s capability of dealing with any national disaster, let alone a single fire in a single block. However, after weeks of non-stop criticism the Home Office eventually issued an offer of 12 month’s immigration amnesty for survivors which, has since been described as little more than a trap by a leading human rights group.

The amnesty programme, which came after several weeks of pressure from campaigners, allows survivors to access services without facing immediate immigration enforcement, but the catch is; they have to supply the authorities with their full biometric data.

“Theresa May promised the government wouldn’t use this tragedy as a reason to carry out immigration checks,” Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, said. “That’s exactly what they’re doing – and they’re dressing it up as an act of compassion.”

“This policy lures undocumented Grenfell survivors in at their most vulnerable, gets their data on file, gives them a brief reprieve, then exposes them to the same inhumane policies the Home Office inflicts on other undocumented migrants – enforced destitution, denial of basic services and the constant threat of detention and removal.”

The amnesty was demanded by campaigners following fears that a number of undocumented migrants living at Grenfell Tower were not receiving the care and support required because they were frightened of coming into contact with Home Office enforcement.

Eye witnesses and residents have confirmed that there were as many as 600 people in the building. Less than 300 have been confirmed as escaped and less than 100 remains have been identified.

The Home Office gave in to demands from migrant organisations, including the Runnymede Trust and Migrants’ Rights Network, a petition by the Good Law Project and support from London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

An annotated version of the Home Office guidance to staff by Liberty demonstrates that the offer effectively acts as a trap for applicants once on the authorities’ databases, creating the exact dynamic protesters were concerned about in the first place – causing considerable anger.

The Home Office require all biometric information must be submitted to sign up to the programme. But now the government is already admitting after questioning that “biometrics will be retained” after the 12-month period is over.

Campaigner’s have also lodged complaints about the exclusion of asylum seekers from the scheme, which somewhat defeats the original purpose; that of allowing the identification of victims.

“The only way to ensure undocumented survivors can access the help and support they so desperately need is to grant them a permanent amnesty,” Spurrier added.

Liberty has also recommended that survivors considering signing up to the Home Office’s offer consults organisations helping undocumented survivors, such as; Doctors of the World, North Kensington Law Centre and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.

The Home Office has since tried to calm the matter by insisting that it will not conduct immigration checks on survivors.  Immigration minister Brandon Lewis said:

“The government has been clear that our priority is to ensure that victims of this tragedy get the access they need to vital services, irrespective of immigration status. This period of leave to remain for those directly affected by the fire will provide survivors with the time to deal with the extremely difficult circumstances in which they find themselves and start to rebuild their lives whilst considering their future options, as well as to assist the police and other authorities with their enquiries about the fire.”

The Government is already facing an estimated bill of more than £600m for replacing flammable cladding on housing blocks after the Grenfell Tower disaster. This does not include other government buildings such as schools and NHS buildings.

Whatever your views on the immigration status of the survivors of Grenfell Tower, be it undocumented, illegal, asylum or pending, the government is undermining its own abilities to be able to deal with matters of national emergency, In the meantime, political perceptions and confidence in government continues to dive.

After three weeks, just nine of 139 offers to rehouse survivors have been accepted. Many were offered accommodation in high-rise towers, away from schools or work, in cramped conditions or bed & breakfast. Instead of dealing with this tragic event with all the effort required, the government have stumbled from one newsworthy disaster to the next.

Featured image from TruePublica

In this report, first published in 2000 (on GR in April 2004), Michel Chossudovsky provides conclusive documentary and photographic evidence that contrary to the statements of various international observers, the environmental catastrophe at the Pancevo petrochemical plant near Belgrade was neither the result of ‘collateral damage’ (that is, an accident of war) nor a case of criminal negligence (that is, resulting from criminal disregard of consequences).

Rather, the evidence is compelling. NATO willfully blew up with meticulous accuracy containers of toxic chemicals with the intention of creating an ecological nightmare

First published on GR in April 2004

*   *   *

At the outset of the War, NATO had reassured World opinion that “precise targeting” using sophisticated weaponry was intended to avoid “collateral damage” including environmental hazards:

• “We do everything we possibly can to avoid unnecessary collateral damage. We take it very seriously, work very hard at doing that, spend a lot of time planning for the missions.“1

At the Pancevo petrochemical complex located in the outskirts of Belgrade, however, exactly the opposite occurred. “State of the art” aerial surveillance and satellite thermal image detection were not only used to disable Yugoslavia’s petrochemical industry; they were willfully applied to trigger an environmental disaster.

The air raids on the Pancevo complex started on April 4th 1999 and continued relentlessly until the 7th of June. The Pancevo complex also included an oil refinery facility (built with technical support from Texaco) and a Nitrogen Processing Plant producing fertilizer for Yugoslav agriculture. The petrochemical plant was bombed extensively (41 bombs and 7 missile attacks). The bombed areas were within less than two hundred meters from residential buildings.

At the beginning of the war, workers at the plant were actively involved in removing toxic materials from the site, emptying several large tanks and containers of chemicals precisely to avert the risks of “collateral damage“. Little did they realize that NATO was watching them through air-to-ground surveillance systems and satellite images. Using thermal detection, NATO military planners knew which of the containers had been emptied and which remained full.

How does this work?

All objects in the Pancevo plant –including the containers of toxic chemicals– emit infrared radiation. A thermal imager from a spy satellite or an aircraft can detect infrared radiation emitted from any object situated on the petrochemical plant and convert its readings into a high-resolution video or snap picture.

The thermal imager can detect temperature differentials as small as 0.1 degrees centigrade which enables NATO planners to easily “categorize” and distingush between full and empty containers. NATO warplanes were equipped with various advanced imaging systems including infrared/electro-optical sensors. Thermal satellite images were relayed to the Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) in Vicenza, Italy where the bombing raids had been carefully scheduled. Other advanced surveillance systems were used including small unmanned predator (UAV) drones and high altitude U2 spy planes. In the words of a Pentagon spokesman, the U2 “snaps a picture from very high altitude, beams it back in what we call a reach-back, to the States where it is very quickly analyzed”. And from there, “the right targeting data” is relayed to the CAOC in Vincenza which then “passes [it] on to people in the cockpit”.2

NATO planners also had detailed information on the layout of the plant, which had been designed and built on contract with a US multinational engineering company Foster Wheeler (a firm specializing in the construction of petrochemical and polymer plants). NATO knew exactly where things were. In a cruel irony, US investment in Yugoslavia (financed with loans from the World Bank) was being bombed by Uncle Sam. Did the pilots sitting in the cockpit know that they were destroying a plant which was “Made in America“?

A large number of the containers had been emptied. By using thermal images, NATO was able to identify which of the tanks were still filled to the brim with toxic chemicals. Among these noxious liquids were containers of ethylene-dichloride (EDC), ethylene, chlorine, chlorine-hydrogen, propylene and vinyl chloride monomers (VCM). Well documented by environmentalists, the VCM monomer used to produce plastics (eg. PVC resin) is a dangerous cancerogenic contaminant (see photo 2). Vinyl chloride also has the potential to cause neurological and liver damage, as well as damage to the fetus causing serious birth defects.

If NATO’s intent were solely to disable the plant without risking “collateral” environmental damage, they could have done it by smart bombing the equipment and machinery. Why did they also decide to hit with utmost accuracy the tanks containing noxious liquids?

The “smart bombs” were not dumb; they went where they were told to go. NATO had scrupulously singled out the containers, tanks and reservoirs, which still contained toxic materials. According to the petrochemical plant director, NATO did not hit a single empty container: “This was not accidental; they chose to hit those that were full and these chemicals spilled into the canal leading to the Danube“. Moreover, according to the plant director, the ethylene-dichloride (EDC) spillovers had contaminated 10 hectares of land on and in the vicinity of the plant. 3

When the smart bombs hit their lethal targets at Pancevo (see photos below), noxious fluids and fumes were released into the atmosphere, water and soil. The containers were deliberately blown up or perforated. The soil at the petrochemical complex is still soaked with toxic ethylene-dichloride. According to a report of the Regional Environment Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC):

• “More than one thousand tons of ethylene dichloride spilled from the Pancevo petrochemical complex into the Danube [through the canal which links the plant to the river]. Over a thousand tons of natrium hydroxide were spilled from the Pancevo petrochemical complex. Nearly 1,000 tons of hydrogen chloride spilled from Pancevo into the Danube River”4

Eight tons of mercury also escaped from the petrochemical complex spilling into the soil. The wastewater treatment plant was also bombed thereby contributing to exacerbating the ecological impacts. 5

NATO military strategists knew precisely what they were doing and what would be the likely consequences. At the neighboring oil refinery, two NATO missiles had hit on April 4th the refinery’s control rooms killing three staff members. The strikes had set the plant on fire, reducing it to a toxic wreck. The objective was not to avoid an environmental disaster. The objective was to create an environmental disaster (see photos). NATO was expecting that by ruthlessly bombing Pancevo among other civilian sites, this would intimidate Belgrade into accepting the Rambouillet Agreement including its infamous Military Appendix which essentially gave NATO the right to occupy all parts of Yugoslavia.

In the wake of the bombings, the Greens from Germany and experts from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) as well as other groups visited the Pancevo plant. The UNEP report dismisses the environmental impacts caused by the bombings while underscoring in its main conclusions that Pancevo and other petrochemical plants in the country were an ecological hazard prior to the bombings due to lax environmental standards.6 The UNEP report is a carefully worded cover-up. It whitewashes NATO; it downplays the seriousness of the environmental catastrophe, while placing the blame (without supporting evidence) on the Yugoslav authorities. Tacitly upholding the legitimacy of the Western military alliance, UNEP’s findings are in overt contradiction with those of other scientific studies including that of the Regional Environment Center for Central And Eastern Europe (REC) prepared for the European Commission (see footnote 4).

The complicity of UNEP –a specialized agency of the UN with a track record of integrity– is yet another symptom of the deterioration of the United Nations system which now plays an underhand in covering up NATO war crimes.

A ‘smart bomb’ hit this container with perfect accuracy. (Pancevo petrochemical complex ( ©Michel Chossudovsky, March 2000 )

The container on the right was targeted by NATO because it was full of highly cancerogenic VCM ( © Michel Chossudovsky, March 2000 )

Notes

1. Statement of General Charles Wald of the Pentagon, Department of Defense Press Briefing, Washington, 12 April 1999.

2. Department of Defense Press Briefing, Washington, May 14th, 1999.

3. Interview conducted by the author in Pancevo, March 2000.

4. See the report of the REC entitled Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Military Activities During the Yugoslavia Conflict at http://www.rec.org/REC/Announcements/yugo/background.html )

5. Interview conducted by the author in Pancevo, March 2000.

6. The UNEP report entitled The Kosovo Conflict: Consequences for the Environment & Human Settlements prepared for the European Commission can be consulted at

www.grid.unep.ch/btf/final/index.htmlhttp://www.grid.unep.ch/btf/final/index.html

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

Decades of US hostility toward Pyongyang could be resolved by America saying let’s talk, followed by officials of both countries meeting face-to-face for good faith discussions – something neocons infesting Washington reject.

Instead, the Trump administration intends instituting tougher anti-DPRK measures than already – stiffer sanctions and whatever else it has in mind.

Trump officials signaled policies coming to try strangling Pyongyang economically and financially, including more sanctions on China for failure to observe Washington rules.

The tougher US policies get, the more determined the DPRK becomes to strengthen its nuclear and ballistic missile deterrents, its best defense against possible US aggression.

Trump officials lied, claiming greater than ever stakes following Pyongyang’s July 4 ballistic test – an intermediate-range one, Russia explained, not an ICBM as Western sources and media reported.

Alaska and Hawaii aren’t close to being in range of North Korean ballistic missiles. Most important, its government has no aggressive intentions. It solely wants a deterrence capability if attacked – what’s important for all nations.

North Korea has no known assets in the West to freeze. China is another story. In late June, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin announced US sanctions on China’s Bank of Dandong for alleged dealings with North Korea.

Without corroborating evidence, he claims it’s a

“gateway for (the DPRK) to access the US and international financial systems, facilitating millions of dollars of transactions for companies involved in North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”

Sanctions were also imposed on two Chinese individuals and a Chinese company. New ones may target Beijing’s Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Material Co.

Again with no corroborating evidence, Trump officials claim it’s one of the largest importers of North Korean goods. Other Chinese banks may be targeted for alleged dealings with Pyongyang.

According to Mnunchin,

“(w)e will continue to look at these actions and continue to roll out sanctions.”

Last week, during a Security Council session on North Korea, neocon US UN envoy Nikki Haley threatened “the full range of our capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies.”

Sanctions may not be enough, she added, suggesting possible military force – risking unthinkable nuclear war on the Korean peninsula if launched.

US imperial madness threatens everyone everywhere.

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

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

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

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

US officials familiar with the situation say that the Trump Administration is likely to announce a dramatic “ramping up” of US involvement in Libya, appointing a new US ambassador, and setting up a permanent US military presence in the nation.

While the military operation appears primarily aimed at supporting the “unity government” in Tripoli, officials suggest it might also see some US troops deployed to war-torn Benghazi, currently under the control of a rival faction, with an eye toward eventually uniting the country under unity government rule.

President Obama decided to back the unity government during the Sirte offensive, sending US troops to fight ISIS there with the expectation that the unity government’s victory would give them a massive advantage over the rival governments. This has not proven the case, however, with East Libya mostly dominated by the Tobruk parliament and the LNA, and the unity government struggling with the Tripoli parliament over the capital.

The US officials say that the administration is happy with their increased involvement in Somalia, and is looking to replicate that sudden escalation in Libya, trying to carve out a permanent US presence in the country, and ensure that whoever ends up in power becomes a US client.

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz

Featured image from Antiwar.com

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

On the morning of Monday July 10th, broke online from three reporters at The Intercept — Ryan Grim, Ben Walsh, and Clayton Swisher — the headline, “Jared Kushner Tried and Failed to Get a Half-Billion Dollar Bailout from Qatar”, recounting events which could also have been titled (perhaps more interestingly) “Evidence Trump Sparked Saud Boycott of Qatar to Salvage His Fortune and that of Daughter Ivanka”. Here are key portions of that narrative, which will be introduced and accompanied by other details of this case, which add even more to the picture of the U.S. President’s using his political position so as to protect, and add to, the wealth of Donald Trump and, even more, of Ivanka Trump.

Jared Kushner (Source: 6sqft)

Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, had used his father Charles Kushner’s fortune to buy, in 2007, at the highest price ever paid for any building in NYC, 666 5th Avenue at 53rd Street; and, now, this investment could turn out to have been so bad as to bankrupt his father’s, and his and his wife’s company, Kushner Properties: 

On 13 March 2017, Bloomberg News reporters David Kocieniewski and Caleb Melby had bannered “Kushners May Get $400 Million From Chinese on Tower” and reported that a:

“planned $4-billion transaction includes terms that some real estate experts consider unusually favorable for the Kushners. It would provide them with both a sizable cash payout from [China’s] Anbang Insurance Group for a property that has struggled financially and an equity stake in a new partnership” that “would make business partners of Kushner Cos. and Anbang, whose murky links to the Chinese power structure have raised national security concerns over its U.S. investments. In the process, an existing mortgage owed by the Kushners will be slashed to about a fifth of its current amount,”

thus enabling Kushner Properties to avoid being bankrupted by Jared’s 2007 purchase-decision. (Two days later, on March 15th, news became public that Anbang declined the deal.)

Just weeks prior to that news-report, Dow Jones had headlined on 16 February 2017, “One of Government’s Largest Landlords Pays Millions Each Year to Trump Company” and Alexandra Berzon and Peter Grant reported that: 

President Donald Trump‘s company receives tens of millions of dollars a year from Vornado Realty Trust, which relies on the federal government for a significant portion of its revenue and is vying for new work from Mr. Trump’s administration. … Two of the most valuable real-estate assets in Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, are 30% stakes in a pair of office buildings controlled by Vornado. … Vornado decides how much Mr. Trump’s company — the properties’ only other owner — receives from the partnership each year. … It is up to Vornado to decide how much of their incomes are held for capital upgrades and other long-term expenses and how much of the income is profit. Of that bottom-line figure, Vornado has to distribute 30% annually to Mr. Trump’s company. … 

Vornado bought a 49.5% stake in the mixed-use tower at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan from Kushner Cos., where Mr. Kushner at the time was chief executive. The next year, Vornado purchased retail space in the building for $710 million. … The company [Vornado], a major owner of buildings in Washington and other U.S. cities, counts the U.S. government as its largest tenant. … Government vacancies, he [the head of Vornado] said on an investor conference call that year, are “the eye of the storm for our company.”

So, 666 5th Avenue is no longer owned fully by Kushner Properties, but also by Donald Trump’s major business partner, Vornado (which is heavily dependent upon decisions by U.S. President Trump), and both could be bankrupted if some other investors cannot be quickly found to take on the burden of Jared’s 2007 decision to purchase that building. (After Anbang said no, the Kushners were really desperate.)

This brings us to The Intercept’s July 10th report, that U.S. President Trump might have requested the Sauds to blockade Qatar so as to punish the family who own and control Qatar, the Thanis. It says:

Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Throughout 2015 and 2016, Jared Kushner and his father, Charles, negotiated directly with a major investor in Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, known as HBJ for short, in an effort to refinance the property on Fifth Avenue, the sources said.

Trump himself has unsuccessfully sought financing in recent years from the Qataris, but it is difficult to overstate just how important to Kushner the investment at 666 Fifth Avenue is for him, his company, and his family’s legacy in real estate. Without some outside intervention or unforeseen turnaround in the market, the investment could become an embarrassing half-billion dollar loss. It’s unclear precisely how much peril such a loss would put Jared, or his family’s, finances in, given the opacity of their private holdings.

HBJ, a former prime minister of Qatar who ran the country’s $250 billion sovereign wealth fund, is a billionaire and one of the world’s richest men. He owns a yacht worth $300 million called Al Mirqab, the same name he gave to the private investment firm that Kushner pitched. The former emir of Qatar summed up HBJ’s power with a quip: “I may run this country, but he owns it.” …

Meanwhile, the water is rising on the Fifth Avenue investment. And the blockade continues.

Had the Qataris known where things were heading diplomatically, said the source in the region, they’d have happily ponied up the money, even knowing that it was a losing investment. “It would have been much cheaper,” he said.

The Intercept’s reporting-team present strong circumstantial evidence that, as they put it,

“THE CRISIS DATES TO MAY, when President Trump visited Saudi Arabia and met with regional leaders there, laying his hands on the now-famous orb.”

That “orb” is pictured here, atop my earlier article documenting that the Sauds’ power-competition against the Thanis to lead the global fundamentalist-Sunni movement, had long preceded the Sauds’ boycott of Qatar, and that the Sauds quite likely requested from Trump during his visit there on May 20th, whether he would back them on a boycott of the Thanis’ Qatar, and that Trump (whether for personal business reasons or otherwise) was eager to say yes to that proposal from them.

But, in either case (as I document there with links), Trump’s pro-Saud position is supporting what the U.S. federal government has long been stating, in confidential communications, is, in fact, the world’s biggest financial backer of Al Qaeda and other fundamentalist Sunni jihadist organizations. The royal Sauds are even bigger in that than the royal Thanis are. If Trump does this (supports jihadism) out of incompetency, or if he does it out of greed, makes no difference to his being able to be impeached and removed from office and replaced by Mike Pence. 

Also, it should here be pointed out — which neither The Intercept’s report, nor the Huffington Post’s report that it linked to (including in the excerpt that’s quoted here from the TI article) as backup for it, noted, but should have noted — that Clayton Swisher, who wrote all of the HuffPo’s article and co-authored TI’s article, is an employee of the Thanis: as TI puts it,

“Clayton Swisher is the Doha-based director of investigative journalism with Al Jazeera Media Network.”

HuffPo failed to publish that essential information, but said only the far less relevant:

“Clayton Swisher is an investigative journalist and author of two books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

What readers need to know, is that to be an employee of Al Jazeera is to be an employee of the Thani family. Swisher writes as one of their agents. He also is the only one of the three co-authors of the TI article who lives and works in Qatar (Doha); so, he was probably the lead investigator among the three. The other two (Grim and Walsh) are U.S.-based and had previously worked for the Huffington Post, which has always been a Democratic Party organ (and the Democratic Party want President Trump to be impeached and Mike Pence to become President).

Whereas the ‘Russiagate’ argument against Trump is built upon so much misrepresentation as to be basically the Democratic Party’s turning of the Republican Joseph R. McCarthy now 60 years later, into a ghost against his own Republican Party and turning today’s Democrats into McCarthy’s mere imitators long after communism has gone, there is real and solid substance to the argument against Trump regarding his backing of the royal Sauds.

The evidence against Trump on Saudi-Qatar-gate is clearly damning against Trump in either case, and the only real questions are the initiating motive behind, and the precise sequence of events immediately preceding, the 5-6 June 2017 boycott-blockade of Qatar. Trump is now clearly impeachable if the Republican Party decides that Pence would serve their purposes more effectively than Trump does.

At this stage, it’s only a political judgment-call by Republicans. They won the 2016 elections, and they will decide what to do with their prize — whether, going forward into the 2018 mid-term elections, theirs will be the Trump brand, or become switched to the Pence brand. Corruption isn’t, by any means, the only issue; there also are real policy-differences at stake, even within just the Republican Party. Pence built his base amongst fundamentalist Christians. And the judgment-call here will be made by Republicans, not by Democrats.

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.

On Friday, July 7, Jordan, Russia and the U.S. agreed upon the de-escalation zones in Deraa, Quneitra and Suweida provinces in southwest Syria. The truce came into effect on July 9, noon Damascus time. According to the sources of Inside Syria Media Center, no violations of the ceasefire have been registered.

The UN welcomed the agreement.

“This is a significant step towards reducing violence and increasing humanitarian access across Syria. It is in line with the pursuit of the goal of a comprehensive, nationwide ceasefire that has been endorsed by multiple Security Council resolutions,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

The ceasefire was also praised by the armed opposition. However, according to Chief of Staff of the so-called ‘Free Syrian Army’ Ahmed Berri, opposition forces seek a comprehensive truce not just in several areas but also across the whole country.

Such a stance shows the opposition experiences quite a number of issues. And it’s not surprising that with pressure exerted by the Syrian army (SAA), it is being affected by internal problems. Thus, on July 2, it was reported that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group arrested more than 100 people in Idlib for participating in Euphrates Shield on the side of the Turkish army. On July 6, clashes between the fighters of the group and Jaish al-Islam took place in Eastern Ghouta. These are not the only recent conflicts between the terrorists.

Obviously, as the SAA advances, there will be more and more such accidents. That is why Ahmed Berri wants a comprehensive ceasefire, to have a chance to preserve what’s left of unity.

A truce across the whole of Syria shall be a long-waited resolution for all Syrians as the war affects everyone.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to say how the opposition will act because it can use the truce for regrouping and provocations like in September, 2016.

In any case, the fragile ceasefire in southwest Syria bears a hope of the return of peace and may become a groundwork for the crisis’ diplomatic solution.

Featured image from MintPress News

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies conducted a surprise operation against US-backed militants in the desert east of Damascus. Government forces liberated Dier Nasrani, Rajm Bakar, Jabal Makhoul, Bi’r Makhoul, Jabal Seis, Tal Sad Risha, Al-Qasr, Khirbat umm Atayiq, Banat Baeir, Surat Aliyah, Tulul al-Faddayn, Tal al-Asfar, and nearby points.

The aim of the operation was to clear the militant-held pocket northeast of Suweida and to oppress the units of US-backed militant groups operating in the area since they pose a threat to the countryside of the Syrian capital.  According to some sources, US-backed forces have already withdrawn from the area.  However, this still has to be confirmed.

US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) recaptured the village of Ukayrishah from ISIS in the southeastern Raqqah countryside. The SDF is slowly moving along the Euphrates River capturing villages located near the road to Deir Ezzor. The goal of these efforts, being taken during the battle for Raqqah, is to set conditions for an expected operation against ISIS in the Deir Ezzor countryside.

If the SDF reaches and captures the town of Maadan, the US-backed force will have a useful position for an attempt to seize oil fields located in the northern countryside of the government-held part of Deir Ezzor City besieged by ISIS. This could also be used for a push towards the ISIS-held town of al Maydan. Capturing it would enable the SDF to cut off the Deir Ezzor-Baghdad highway and to secure a position for an advance on another ISIS-held town, al-Bukamal.

Meanwhile, SDF units continued their attempts at retaking the Old Raqqah area in the ISIS-held city of Raqqah. Following a heavy bombardment campaign by US-led airpower and artillery, the SDF captured some of Old Raqqah but faced fierce resistance from ISIS.  Intense fighting is on-going in the area.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has officially declared the liberation of the city of Mosul from ISIS terrorists. The declaration of the liberation of Mosul followed the victory of Iraqi security forces over ISIS in the Old Mosul area. However, the security situation in the city remains complicated. Iraqi forces are working to remove IEDs and mines set up by ISIS as well as searching for the terrorist group’s sleeper cells.

Voiceover by Harold Hoover

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Featured image: Russian and Chinese Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at the Kremlin, Russia on 4 July 2017 [Source: PPIO]

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Kremlin on Tuesday during which the two leaders held wide-ranging talks on a host of issues including bilateral ties and international hotspots like Syria and North Korea.

“We invariably have economic matters at the top of our agenda, but they are not the only issues we address. We also coordinate our efforts on the international stage, in the area of security and in the fight against modern threats and challenges,” Putin said.

Putin also announced Russian plans to create a joint investment forum with the Bank of China at a joint press conference following talks with the Chinese President.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund and the China Development Bank (CDB) also agreed to establish a Russian-Chinese investment fund worth 68 billion yuan ($10 billion).

The new fund, to be called the Russia-China RMB Cooperation Fund, “will give a powerful impetus to increase the volume of cross-border direct investment and significantly increase the number of jointly implemented projects” according to Russian Direct Investment Fund chief Kirill Dmitriev.

“We have expressed our support for the agreement between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the China Development Bank towards the creation of a joint investments fund worth 65 billion yuan [$9.56 billion]. We agreed to continue consultations on a more wide use of national currencies in mutual payments and investments. I am sure that the opening of the first foreign office of the Central Bank of Russia in China will contribute to that,” Putin said.

Moscow and Beijing also reiterated their opposition to the US deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system to South Korea.

“Russia and China will work in close coordination to advance a solution to the complex problem of the Korean Peninsula in every possible way,” a joint statement from the two foreign ministries said after the Putin-Xi talks.

The statement called on Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington, South Korea and the United States to back a Chinese de-escalation plan for the Korean peninsula.

The statement also alleged that Washington was using North Korea as an excuse to expand its military infrastructure in Asia.

On Syria, the two countries stuck to their stated positions while denouncing “regime change via illegal external intervention”.

China and Russia are also calling for an independent investigation into the Syrian chemical weapons issue, according to the joint statement.

The US is backing rebel fighters against the Syrian government in the protracted civil war.

At the Kremlin on Tuesday, Xi referred to the close ties between the two heads of state saying “the two of us have met 22 times over these years” since 2013.

“Russia is the country that I visited the most, and among foreign leaders I maintain the closest contacts and ties with you. This is indicative of the high level and special nature of the relations between our two countries,” Xi told Putin during talks on Tuesday.

A joint statement set emphasis on further expansion of the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation and on the current global situation.

On Tuesday, China and Russia also pledged to jointly push for implementation of the Paris agreement on climate change.

Earlier last month, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would withdraw from the pact and seek to negotiate a better deal, in a move that attracted widespread criticism from counterparts in Europe and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Russia and China also discussed bilateral trade ties including Russian agriculture exports to China.

“The decision was made to increase supplies of Russian wheat. Negotiations around a document authorising other grain crops to enter the Chinese market is at the final stage. The issue of canceling China’s import restrictions for Russian meat and poultry products was also discussed,” Putin said.

Russian Rosneft energy company and China’s CEFC also signed a strategic cooperation agreement.

According to the head of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom), Alexey Likhachev, Putin and Xi instructed their governments to sign a package of documents on building four nuclear power projects in China before the end of 2017.

Featured image: Artist’s impression of type 055 destroyer. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) launched the first Type 055 Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG) on June 28th, 2017. The vessel represents a major technological step forward for China’s navy. The Type 055 meets and likely exceeds the capabilities of the U.S. Arleigh Burke Class DDG, the Japanese Atago Class DDG, and just about any other DDG in service in the world today.

Word first surfaced of China’s intention to field a large surface warfare ship in late 2013, and photos of a full size test mock-up of the vessel first appeared in March of 2014. The test mock-up located at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology gave hints to the general size and displacement of the new vessel, and possible general arrangement. Additional satellite imagery appeared online in late November of last year that seemed to show one vessel in advanced stages of hull construction, as well as the early stages of construction of a second vessel, at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai.

The Type 055 DDG was designed and constructed in roughly a three and a half year period, quite an accomplishment in many respects. The Type 055 DDG program highlights the rapid pace at which China has been able to envision, design and construct complex warships.

Built to supplement the smaller, yet very formidable Type 052 Class DDG, which is already fielded in significant numbers in both the South and East Sea Fleets, the new vessel will provide the PLAN with a larger, more capable surface combatant than ever before seen in the ranks of the PLAN. Envisioned as a fleet or task force command ship, a powerful ASW/AAW platform for aircraft carrier strike group escort duty, or as a powerful stand-alone naval power presence asset, the Type 055 will add one more powerful tool to the PLAN’s toolkit.

Although the PLAN has publicly disclosed that the vessel has a loaded displacement of 10,000 tons, she is probably closer to 12,000 tons fully loaded. Weapons systems include two 64 cell VLS quad-packed with a mixture of anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), land attack cruise missiles (LACM), anti-aircraft missiles (SAM), and anti-ship missiles (ASM). A dual-purpose 130mm deck gun is also fitted, as well as anti-submarine rockets and torpedoes, and close-in defense weapons comprising of FL3000N and 30mm CWIS. Most analysts agree that the Type 055 is most likely fitted with an updated Type 346A active phased array radar (APAR) as well an X-band radar. The integrated mast atop the forward superstructure most likely carries radar panels used in friend-or-foe identification (FFI), fire control and electronic countermeasures. While the Wuhan test bed mock-up had an exposed electronic support measures (ESM) mast, the finished vessel has a much more low-profile, radar masked mast.

This Type 055 DDG will most likely be the first of at least six vessels in class. Although there is a second vessel currently under construction at the Jiangnan Shipyard, the vessel now launched must undergo lengthy sea trials and will not be commissioned until early 2018.

These sea trials should reveal any design flaws or shortcomings that need to be rectified in follow-on vessels. If the PLAN intends to equip future aircraft carrier strike groups (CSG) with one Type 055 each, six vessels will be required at a minimum, with one vessel active while another is ashore for repairs/refit or training. The second PLAN aircraft carrier, and the first 100% indigenously built, the CV-17 Shandong, should be commissioned at the beginning of 2018, with a third and totally new design to follow. The third aircraft carrier will most likely be of an entirely new design, of larger dimensions and displacement, and will be a catapult assisted take off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) design. If the Type 055 DDGs serve a similar function in the CSG as the U.S. Ticonderoga Class CGs, six vessels will be required to support three PLAN CSGs (1 active, 1 ashore). With the first PLAN aircraft carrier, the CV-16 Liaoning, serving as a training platform for the foreseeable future, the most likely date of the PLAN fielding three combat capable CSGs is 2025 at the earliest, unless a major global conflict occurring before that time necessitates an expedited aircraft carrier construction program.

SouthFront has been closely monitoring the development of the Type 055 DDG for at least the past year and a half. An early review of the vessel appeared in a detailed analysis of the Type 052D destroyer, followed by an analysis of next-generation destroyers being designed by both China and Russia, as well as an in depth update on the progress of the vessel’s construction at the beginning of this year. It is significant to note that although Russia is a few years away from building the Lider (Leader) Class destroyer (Project 23560), the Russian Defense Ministry has purportedly adopted the draft design of the vessel proposed by the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). This announcement was made on the very same day that the first Type 055 was launched in Shanghai.

Voiceover by Oleg Maslov

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Jess Rowlands, a US expert exposed in the “Monsanto Papers” in a possible collusion with Monsanto, intervened in EFSA’s glyphosate assessment, providing information which comforted EFSA in its decision to discard the conclusions of a key study showing cancer in mice exposed to glyphosate. Following the revelation, EFSA told the press and civil society that it had double-checked Rowlands’ information. But when requested by CEO to prove it had actually performed these double-checks, EFSA had nothing to show.

The 2001 Kumar study was the only one that EFSA acknowledged showed “a statistically significant increased incidence of malignant lymphoma” in mice exposed to glyphosate. Rowlands argued that these mice had suffered from a viral infection, and EFSA used this argument, among others, to explain why it had refused to take the study’s findings into account, enabling it to say that glyphosate was “unlikely” to cause cancer in humans.

In its response to questions by the press and NGOs, EFSA confirmed Mr. Rowlands’ intervention but also explained that

“The information Mr. Rowland provided at the expert consultation in September 2015 merely served to provide additional explanations for the inconsistent results of Kumar (2001) study, which were checked and confirmed after the teleconference by EFSA experts“.

To check the reality of these additional verifications, we introduced a public access to documents request to EFSA, requesting “all documents, such as correspondence (including emails), briefings or meeting minutes, which relate to or contain the above-mentioned checks and confirmations by EFSA experts of the information provided by Mr. Rowland, following the teleconference (so between September 2015 and November 12 2015 [publication date of EFSA’s final conclusions on glyphosate])“.

After extending the deadline, EFSA finally responded. With nothing to show:

“EFSA is not in the possession of any other documents (correspondence, briefings or meeting minutes) falling within the scope of your access request, besides the TC 117 meeting minutes available on-line. […] a presumption of legality is attached to a statement made by an Institution concerning the non-existence of documents requested“.

Asked why they were unable to show any evidence for their checks into Rowlands’ allegations, EFSA emailed back to CEO that

“There is no particular reason why additional written documents (beyond the information already published on our website) do not exist, nor is there anything particular to infer from this.“

So, EFSA pretends in a public statement to the press and the public that they double-checked the “additional explanations” of a very controversial expert, fails to shows any evidence for it when asked to, and pretends that there isn’t “anything particular to infer from this“.

Really? How about:

– If EFSA did perform these additional verifications, its response means that either it did so without writing anything anywhere, or that it refuses to disclose its evidence on the matter, in breach of EU’s Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents.

– If EFSA did not perform these additional verifications, its response means that it lied to the press and the public by pretending it performed double-checks it didn’t perform.

Which is it? Illegal/careless behaviour or lies?

To double-check, we also sent an access to documents to EFSA to obtain its correspondence with Rowlands. EFSA denied our request on the ground that the documents at stake contained personal data. We will now appeal this refusal.

Background Information

In EFSA’s glyphosate assessment, much discussion took place on how to interpret the results of the 2001 Kumar study [1]. EFSA published a description of the discussion[2] in its final conclusions.

EFSA’s experts had already criticised the study for using high doses and a mice strain prone to develop cancer, but these arguments were weak (see a detailed criticism of EFSA’s arguments, pp.3-4). The viral infection argument, on the other hand, offered the possibility to close the discussion by dismissing the study entirely. EFSA kept using the argument as one of the main explanations for its decision to discard this study (see f.i. this EFSA presentation from December 2016, on year after its conclusions). Had it not being brought in, EFSA’s final verdict, that glyphosate was “unlikely” to cause cancer in humans, would have been even weaker.

According to toxicologist Dr. P. Clausing (also working for NGO PAN-Europe), EFSA told him that this argument had come from an EPA expert who had participated as an observer on the TC 117 call, J. Rowlands. Rowlands was later exposed in the “Monsanto Papers” as being very close from Monsanto’s interests (he would have said to a Monsanto executive that if he could “kill” a review into glyphosate safety by the US Department of Health and Human Services he should “get a medal”), to the point that the EPA has now launched an internal investigation for a possible collusion. According to recently published “Monsanto Papers”, Mr. Rowlands no longer works for the EPA but provides consultancy work to two chemical companies and a third unknown one. This puts his intervention into strong suspicion, all the more that the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) said (p.72) about the same study and the viral infection argument that “the actual basis for the EPA’s decision [to discard this study based on this argument] is not known“.

Notes

1. “Carcinogenicity Study with Glyphosate Technical in Swiss Albino Mice” (Kumar, 2001). The raw data of this study was obtained by CEO but we cannot publish it for legal reasons (it was commissioned by a pesticides company which never published it).

2. See also the short account of the relevant discussion in the TC 117 minutes contained in EFSA’s detailed report (p.1428-1429)

Featured image from Corporate Europe Observatory

Featured image: U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet / Flickr

Several US missile warships, over 800 sailors and a Navy SEALs team have arrived in the Black Sea to take part in the 12-day Sea Breeze 2017 naval exercise off Ukraine, which will include maritime forces from 16 countries.

Featured image: Mordechai Vanunu in 2009 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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

Vanunu is a heroic whistleblower, viciously persecuted by Israel for revealing its nuclear armed and dangerous.

In 1986, he was kidnapped, beaten, drugged, secretly tried, and politically imprisoned for 18 years, mostly in harsh solitary confinement – for revealing what everyone has a right to know.

Since release in 2004, he’s been relentlessly hounded and monitored, imprisoned without justification, his fundamental freedoms denied, re-imprisoned several times.

Israel won’t give him a moment’s peace even though he has no updated information on its nuclear program since the mid-1980s. He’s got no new secrets to reveal.

He’s denied the right to renounce his Israeli citizenship, leave the country, and be free from its ruthless persecution. He’s barred from having unauthorized contacts with journalists, including Israeli ones.

He’s denied the right to do most everything without official permission. Israel holds him hostage to its viciousness.

Earlier explaining why he revealed information on its nuclear program, he earlier said

“I am neither a traitor nor a spy. I only wanted the world to know what was happening.”

Daniel Ellsberg called him “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era.” He’s vulnerable to rearrest any time for any contrived reason.

All he wants is his freedom, he said, waiting over 30 years in vain. On July 10, the Jerusalem Post headlined “Israeli Nuclear Secret-Leaker sentenced for contact with foreigners,” saying:

“…Jerusalem’s Magistrate’s Court gave…Vanunu a two-month suspended jail sentence on Monday for violating the conditions of his previous release, having met with foreigners in recent years.”

If he commits a “similar violation in the next three years,” he’ll be re-imprisoned for two months, maybe longer if Israel intends severer punishment – for exercising his fundamental rights recognized by all just societies.

He was also sentenced to 120 hours of unspecified community service. In May 2016, he was irresponsibly charged with:

• meeting with two US nationals in East Jerusalem in 2013 without permission;
• moving to a new apartment in the same building in 2014 without notifying Israeli authorities; and
• appearing on Israel’s Channel 2 television on September 4, 2015, discussing his 1986 arrest and imprisonment, as well as dangers of Israel’s nuclear program, including its Dimona plant hazards.

In January, he was acquitted of these charges. Yet unrelenting Israeli mistreatment continues.

Nuclear ambiguity remains official Israeli policy. It neither confirms or denies what’s common knowledge. The nation is nuclear-armed and dangerous.

Despite agreeing to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), effective January 2016, permitting Iranian nuclear development solely for non-military purposes, its government continues being wrongfully accused of seeking nuclear weapons.

In contrast, the world community remains largely silent about Israel’s longstanding nuclear weapons program – supported by Washington from its earliest stages.

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.

Throughout the “civil war” (all of the terrorists are supported by external States) in Syria, which began – according to the official narrative – in 2011, the parties involved either on the side of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or on the side of the “Syrian revolution” (jihadists but with the western PR firms and media behind it) and their aims and objectives have been clearly laid out either directly from the horse’s mouth or from independent journalists and scholars who dare to read between the lines:

• ISIS from the very beginning of the group’s creation sought to create a so-called “Islamic State”, where shia muslims are to be massacred and Islam as a whole perverted via a false concept of sharia law. Most of the terrorist organisation’s members come from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Caucasus.
• The “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) receive US and EU training, weapons, and financing in order to fight directly against the Syrian Army, and thus push for Assad’s removal. They also curse shia muslims and behead captured soldiers, sometimes even eating their organs. In the ranks of this terrorist organisation are also Turks and Saudi nationals, but they are mostly traitorous Syrians who sold their soul for a few dollars.
• Al-Qaeda (all versions of Jabhat al-Nusra) is the father of ISIS and more or less seeks the same thing, although instead of building an “Islamic State” being the main aim, an “Islamic Emirate” is preferred instead. The difference is the latter is directly financed by the Gulf and Israel, and the former, apparently, is not.
• Turkey wants to expand its borders but at the same time to prevent a Kurdish State from popping up. Turkey also would like some influence over the governments in Syria, Iraq, Iran etc, and also wants to be the heart of the Sunni world. At first Turkey achieved its aims in Syria via its proxy “FSA” forces, but when the US suddenly propelled the creation of the Kurdish federation project “Rojava” Ankara injected its regular Army all the way up to al-Bab.
• Iran, which feels it has a debt to pay to Syria after its support during the Saddam Hussein era in Iraq, wants to keep Assad in power and ensure the stability and territorial integrity of the Syrian State. The main reason for this policy is known to all – to fend off Israel and Wahhabism. Hezbollah also falls under this category too.
• Russia is acting in the Middle East both on behalf of and along with all nations who refuse to tolerate Anglo-Saxon aggression but are unable to combat it directly – either because of a lack of firepower or financing. Whether it is through the use of Sukhois, MiGs, T-90s, S-400s, Kornets, Tochkas – Russia will not allow the Syrian State, which was loyal to the USSR for so long, fall into the dirty hands of anti-Humanity and its western sponsors.
• USA wants to partition and reconfigure the Middle East according to the desires of neocons. The means and ways of achieving this aim have chopped and changed throughout the war, but the general theme of “temporary business partners” hasn’t changed at all.

And then there are the Kurds. Their aims and objectives, at least from the perspective of the outside world, have changed considerably: before the battle of Aleppo they seemed happy to help out Assad and to work with Syrian military volunteers in order to cleanse the land from ISIS. Russia even opened up a Kurdish representative office in Moscow, and Putin insisted on retaining good relations with the Kurds. But then the latter became impudent, and launched an attack on Al-Hasakah, ousting the Syrian Army from the town. This served as the Kurdish “heel turn”, as is known in professional wrestling, and ultimately resulted in Ankara and Moscow agreeing on a plan to jointly curtail the energy of the Kurds, which seemed to be focused on joining the North East of Syria to the North West for the purposes of building an autonomous State.

But today, after the liberation of Aleppo and now Mosul, and after the Syrian war has reached its last but longest phase – a settlement between all the belligerents, has the plan of the Kurds changed? Well, it would appear that not only have they not changed, but they have acquired an even more worrisome character than one could have perviously imagined. What does this mean?

Thus, the reader is advised to now spend some time reading this article written by Elijah Magnier, who compiled his own primary research, the sources of which are based in the command rooms in Syria/Iraq/Iran/Kurdistan.

Do you – the reader – notice a theme? Other than Israel (or the pre-1948 founders of the “promised land” concept) seemingly being behind most projects that aim to partition the Middle East and remove undesirable-for-them leaders, what should immediately jump out from historical memory is the similarities between the Kurds in 2017 and the arab tribes in 1918.

Besides being involved in removing the Kaiser, who wanted to build a railway trade network from Berlin to Baghdad and beyond, the British Empire also had its eye on the vast oil riches in the Middle East. In 1916 Britain signed a diplomatic accord with France, Italy, and Tsarist Russia. This is indeed known as the “Sykes-Picot” Agreement, which was nothing other than the looting of Mesopotamia’s resources. In order to implement this plan, Britain transferred over 1,500,000 troops from the European front to the vicinity of the Ottoman Empire. London justified this move with the excuse “we need to ensure the transfer of Russian grain through the Dardanelles and more manpower in general”.

By 1918 the British troops were still stationed in the Eastern theatre, and this temporary transfer was starting to look like a permanent occupation. As the British landed blow after blow on the Turkish Empire, the French felt betrayed by this move, as it weakened their ability to fight the Kaiser. One million killed and two million wounded troops later, and Paris began to look like total pushovers. Following the Russian revolution of 1917, the details of this once secret “Sykes-Picot” Agreement were revealed, and it became known that France had negotiated concessions with Britain in the form of a slice of the occupied Ottoman lands (area “A” of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which is modern day Syria and Lebanon). The assigned role of land protectorate to France hoped to dupe the arab tribes in the region into compliance in exchange for “independence” from Turkey. Area “B” of the Agreement – modern day Iraq, Kuwait, and Jordan – was supposed to be given to Britain. Italy and Tsarist Russia would promised other peripheral areas, such as the Turkish coast and islands.

After World War 1 the notorious “Lawrence of Arabia”, who was tasked with gaining the external support of the Hashemite Emir of Mecca for London’s land grab, admitted that Britain indeed planned to dupe not only the French troops, but also the leaders of arab tribes in the region into fighting for the British crown in order to usurp the Ottoman ruling power:

“I risked the fraud on my conviction that Arab help was necessary to our cheap and speedy victory in the East, and that better we win and break our word, than lose … The Arab inspiration was our main tool for winning the Eastern war. So I assured them that England kept her word in letter and spirit. In this comfort they performed their fine things; but of course, instead of being proud of what we did together, I was continually and bitterly ashamed.”

Thomas Edward Lawrence, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. London: Cape, 1935, page 24.

After the plans were revealed and were no longer secretive, a new French-British declaration was issued, which strived for 

“the complete and definite emancipation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks, and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations”.

In 2017 the Kurdish people are willing to fall for the same trick used in 1918.

As is said – the rest is history. And it would appear that not only does history repeat itself, but with each repetition the consequences become more and more grave. In 2017 the Kurdish people are willing to fall for the same trick used in 1918. The use of the expression “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” may seem harsh in this context, as it is unfair to bracket all Kurdish people with the leadership of the YPG and PKK, but do the Kurds really expect the magic “Rojava” paradise to drop from the heavens just because America and friends sent their butchers to further carve up the already carved up Middle East? Is becoming cannon fodder for yet another illegal US military base the future the 20+ million Kurds envisaged? If so, then they can’t say that they weren’t warned…

Ollie Richardson is a Paris-based geopolitical analyst.

The case surrounding the approval of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is coming to a head on the back of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommending approval. The final decision now rests with Harsh Vardhan, minister of the environment. As India’s first commercial GM food crop, the concern is that it is in effect a Trojan horse crop and an unlawful attempt to impose GM food crops on the country. At present, the only GM crop planted in India is cotton.

The government has stated that it would await the verdict of a case currently before the Supreme Court (SC), although given how things are moving, this seems doubtful. As the lead petitioner Aruna Rodrigues has petitioned the SC to acquire “a moratorium on the release of any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment pending a comprehensive, transparent and rigorous biosafety protocol in the public domain conducted by agencies of independent expert bodies, the results of which are made public.” No such protocols are currently in place.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan (Source: Dr. Harsh Vardhan)

If GM mustard is approved, it would involve the side-lining of four high-level reports advising against the adoption of these crops in India:

• the ‘Jairam Ramesh Report’ of February 2010, imposing an indefinite moratorium on Bt Brinjal;
• the ‘Sopory Committee Report’ [August 2012];
• the ‘Parliamentary Standing Committee’ [PSC] Report on GM crops [August 2012];
• and the ‘Technical Expert Committee [TEC] Final Report’ [June-July 2013]).

Rodrigues contends that the processes surrounding the testing, assessment and now approval of GM mustard have been based on outright scientific fraud and regulatory delinquency and have been subverted as a result of serious conflicts of interest. There is much concern about why GM mustard is being pushed through in such a manner, especially as it is not wanted or needed in the first place.

On 27 May, some public sector scientists, fellows of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) in India, sent a letter to Prime Minister Modi “complimenting” the GEAC for approving mustard based on “comprehensive deliberations and stringent appraisal of scientific data”, urging him to lend his weight to the required approval by the central government of herbicide tolerant (HT) mustard (hybrid) DMH 11.

Their letter is little more than pro-industry corporate-inspired spin. There have been no stringent appraisal or comprehensive deliberations. Data has been hidden, deliberations have been kept from the public and the science has been manipulated. Aruna Rodrigues has submitted an additional affidavit to the SC contending that the letter is most unfortunate and disquieting, given that the facts based on hard data and science have not just been ignored but twisted round to present the opposite case.

In their letter, the scientists argue that genetic engineering is essential to high output agriculture. They assert that this technology will be vital for ensuring sustainable higher yields, improved nutritional quality and resilience in the face of climate change.

It is alleged that GM crops have helped to alleviate poverty and conserve biodiversity. In India, they argue that Bt cotton has been a resounding success, with pesticide use having decreased and cotton production having doubled. They advocate this ‘success story’ must be repeated with other crops, not least mustard.

They also argue about the need to increase oil seed production to decrease the import bill in the face of what they argue is the slow and sluggish yields of oil seed crops in India.

The letter is a blend of wishful thinking, misrepresentations and spin. Each one of the assertions made has already been challenged and shown to be bogus (see this, this and this). The lawyer Prashant Bhushan has expressed deep anxiety about the opaque and unscientific regulatory oversight of GM mustard. He has outlined the flawed approval for commercialisation by the GEAC.

The need for this mustard has not been proven, and, both as a GMO and a herbicide tolerant crop, it will pose serious dangers to people, soil and biodiversity. Bhushan argues that the type of regulatory delinquency (mirroring what happened in the previous case of GM brinjal) we have witnessed is not merely due to slippages, oversight or human error but is indicative of collusion of the worst kind: gross cover-up and misconduct.

GM mustard clears hurdle in India but more remain (Source: Investing.com)

Bhushan also dismisses the assertion that this GM mustard will displace imported edible oil seeds in a significant way (and reduce the oil seeds bill). Such an assertion is ludicrous, entirely lacking any semblance of logic. Moreover, the nearest equivalent to Indian mustard (brassica juncea) is rape-seed oil (canola), imported from Canada (which is essentially GMO) and represents just 2% of India’s edible oil imports.

He concludes that the stated regulatory intent is to deregulate HT DMH 11 as a policy agenda, based on no science, and to convert India’s mustard agriculture in a massive and dangerous experiment to (GM) HT hybrid mustard, (variants of DMH 11).

Professor P C Kesavan has written to the president of the NAAS outlining his concerns about its resolution to approve the commercialisation of this mustard, which underpinned its letter to the PM.

The NAAS presently comprises 625 fellows. It is noted that the resolution was adopted at the Annual General Body Meeting of the Academy on 5 June 2017.

Kesavan writes:

“There are two pertinent points: the first is that I was not informed of this important resolution that was planned by NAAS and presumably the other members were not informed either and second, how many fellows happened to attend this meeting and were a party to the resolution? I would appreciate your reply to these two points.”

In his letter to NAAS, Kesavan then proceeds to address the points raised. As far as the much-touted ‘success’ of Bt cotton is concerned, he provides a great deal of data to debunk the claim that it has been a success in India (see this as well). He states:

“I am therefore somewhat surprised that the failure of Bt cotton to perform in yield and sustainability is being converted, somehow, into a myth of its great success.”

Is the NAAS deliberately attempting to mislead the PM and political leaders? As Kesavan points out, political leaders understandably accept the authority of scientific institutions like NAAS. In other words, they would hope to receive valid information and not be misled.

Kesavan then debunks the claim that GM crops are a sustainable technology by drawing on various sources. He notes the emergence of weed resistance (superweeds), the increasing use of herbicides and a treadmill of even more toxic herbicides. He adds that glufosinate (DMH11 is designed to be resistant to this chemical) is a neurotoxin that is banned in the EU. Moreover, he states that HT crops are unsuitable in a country like India with its smallholder farming.

Apparently, such concerns are to be brushed aside. According to food and trade policy analyst and agricultural scientist Devinder Sharma:

“The GEAC has also denied that the GM Mustard is actually a herbicide-tolerant crop in disguise. It was shocking to know that some GEAC members had even told a group of civil society representatives that they know DMH-11 will push in herbicides but since the chemicals are expensive they expect farmers will refrain from purchasing the herbicides. If this is a scientific explanation, please tell me what is unscientific?”

To anyone who has been following this case, they will be aware that Kesavan is not the first to have raised these concerns. Previous submissions to the SC by Aruna Rodrigues have presented a good deal of evidence to support these assertions. Numerous other points are raised which again have been addressed by others, not least the fact that contamination of India’s mustard germ plasm is a real concern: India is a centre of genetic diversity for mustard.

Kesavan refers to the experience with the Bt brinjal biosafety dossier (Bt brinjal – what would have been India’s first GM food crop – eventually failed to make it to market). He says international experts critiqued different aspects of the raw data. Their critiques exposed deep incompetence, including regulatory incompetence and a lack of basic understanding of genetically engineered crops.

So, what should we expect from a still secret biosafety dossier on GM mustard, asks Kesavan? It’s a dossier kept out of the public domain and the critical gaze of independent scientists. The promoters of this crop have not even established the first step of need.

The NAAS’s impassioned plea to Modi to approve GM mustard gives “a wink and a nod to the regulatory delinquency that denies transparency is in contempt of the constitution, democratic polity and SC court orders,” says Keshavan, who concludes

“It is quite simply a false notion bereft of agri sense and science that we should even consider that India’s mustard agriculture be converted to hybrid DMH II and its variants.”

It might seem perplexing that the current Modi-led administration seems to be accelerating the drive for GM given that the BJP manifesto stated:

 “GM foods will not be allowed without full scientific evaluation on the long-term effects on soil, production and biological impact on consumers.”

Yet none of this has occurred.

See this to access the author’s numerous articles on the issue of GM mustard in India.

Featured image from Scientific India Magazine

The case surrounding the approval of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is coming to a head on the back of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommending approval. The final decision now rests with Harsh Vardhan, minister of the environment. As India’s first commercial GM food crop, the concern is that it is in effect a Trojan horse crop and an unlawful attempt to impose GM food crops on the country. At present, the only GM crop planted in India is cotton.

The government has stated that it would await the verdict of a case currently before the Supreme Court (SC), although given how things are moving, this seems doubtful. As the lead petitioner Aruna Rodrigues has petitioned the SC to acquire “a moratorium on the release of any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment pending a comprehensive, transparent and rigorous biosafety protocol in the public domain conducted by agencies of independent expert bodies, the results of which are made public.” No such protocols are currently in place.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan (Source: Dr. Harsh Vardhan)

If GM mustard is approved, it would involve the side-lining of four high-level reports advising against the adoption of these crops in India:

• the ‘Jairam Ramesh Report’ of February 2010, imposing an indefinite moratorium on Bt Brinjal;
• the ‘Sopory Committee Report’ [August 2012];
• the ‘Parliamentary Standing Committee’ [PSC] Report on GM crops [August 2012];
• and the ‘Technical Expert Committee [TEC] Final Report’ [June-July 2013]).

Rodrigues contends that the processes surrounding the testing, assessment and now approval of GM mustard have been based on outright scientific fraud and regulatory delinquency and have been subverted as a result of serious conflicts of interest. There is much concern about why GM mustard is being pushed through in such a manner, especially as it is not wanted or needed in the first place.

On 27 May, some public sector scientists, fellows of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) in India, sent a letter to Prime Minister Modi “complimenting” the GEAC for approving mustard based on “comprehensive deliberations and stringent appraisal of scientific data”, urging him to lend his weight to the required approval by the central government of herbicide tolerant (HT) mustard (hybrid) DMH 11.

Their letter is little more than pro-industry corporate-inspired spin. There have been no stringent appraisal or comprehensive deliberations. Data has been hidden, deliberations have been kept from the public and the science has been manipulated. Aruna Rodrigues has submitted an additional affidavit to the SC contending that the letter is most unfortunate and disquieting, given that the facts based on hard data and science have not just been ignored but twisted round to present the opposite case.

In their letter, the scientists argue that genetic engineering is essential to high output agriculture. They assert that this technology will be vital for ensuring sustainable higher yields, improved nutritional quality and resilience in the face of climate change.

It is alleged that GM crops have helped to alleviate poverty and conserve biodiversity. In India, they argue that Bt cotton has been a resounding success, with pesticide use having decreased and cotton production having doubled. They advocate this ‘success story’ must be repeated with other crops, not least mustard.

They also argue about the need to increase oil seed production to decrease the import bill in the face of what they argue is the slow and sluggish yields of oil seed crops in India.

The letter is a blend of wishful thinking, misrepresentations and spin. Each one of the assertions made has already been challenged and shown to be bogus (see this, this and this). The lawyer Prashant Bhushan has expressed deep anxiety about the opaque and unscientific regulatory oversight of GM mustard. He has outlined the flawed approval for commercialisation by the GEAC.

The need for this mustard has not been proven, and, both as a GMO and a herbicide tolerant crop, it will pose serious dangers to people, soil and biodiversity. Bhushan argues that the type of regulatory delinquency (mirroring what happened in the previous case of GM brinjal) we have witnessed is not merely due to slippages, oversight or human error but is indicative of collusion of the worst kind: gross cover-up and misconduct.

GM mustard clears hurdle in India but more remain (Source: Investing.com)

Bhushan also dismisses the assertion that this GM mustard will displace imported edible oil seeds in a significant way (and reduce the oil seeds bill). Such an assertion is ludicrous, entirely lacking any semblance of logic. Moreover, the nearest equivalent to Indian mustard (brassica juncea) is rape-seed oil (canola), imported from Canada (which is essentially GMO) and represents just 2% of India’s edible oil imports.

He concludes that the stated regulatory intent is to deregulate HT DMH 11 as a policy agenda, based on no science, and to convert India’s mustard agriculture in a massive and dangerous experiment to (GM) HT hybrid mustard, (variants of DMH 11).

Professor P C Kesavan has written to the president of the NAAS outlining his concerns about its resolution to approve the commercialisation of this mustard, which underpinned its letter to the PM.

The NAAS presently comprises 625 fellows. It is noted that the resolution was adopted at the Annual General Body Meeting of the Academy on 5 June 2017.

Kesavan writes:

“There are two pertinent points: the first is that I was not informed of this important resolution that was planned by NAAS and presumably the other members were not informed either and second, how many fellows happened to attend this meeting and were a party to the resolution? I would appreciate your reply to these two points.”

In his letter to NAAS, Kesavan then proceeds to address the points raised. As far as the much-touted ‘success’ of Bt cotton is concerned, he provides a great deal of data to debunk the claim that it has been a success in India (see this as well). He states:

“I am therefore somewhat surprised that the failure of Bt cotton to perform in yield and sustainability is being converted, somehow, into a myth of its great success.”

Is the NAAS deliberately attempting to mislead the PM and political leaders? As Kesavan points out, political leaders understandably accept the authority of scientific institutions like NAAS. In other words, they would hope to receive valid information and not be misled.

Kesavan then debunks the claim that GM crops are a sustainable technology by drawing on various sources. He notes the emergence of weed resistance (superweeds), the increasing use of herbicides and a treadmill of even more toxic herbicides. He adds that glufosinate (DMH11 is designed to be resistant to this chemical) is a neurotoxin that is banned in the EU. Moreover, he states that HT crops are unsuitable in a country like India with its smallholder farming.

Apparently, such concerns are to be brushed aside. According to food and trade policy analyst and agricultural scientist Devinder Sharma:

“The GEAC has also denied that the GM Mustard is actually a herbicide-tolerant crop in disguise. It was shocking to know that some GEAC members had even told a group of civil society representatives that they know DMH-11 will push in herbicides but since the chemicals are expensive they expect farmers will refrain from purchasing the herbicides. If this is a scientific explanation, please tell me what is unscientific?”

To anyone who has been following this case, they will be aware that Kesavan is not the first to have raised these concerns. Previous submissions to the SC by Aruna Rodrigues have presented a good deal of evidence to support these assertions. Numerous other points are raised which again have been addressed by others, not least the fact that contamination of India’s mustard germ plasm is a real concern: India is a centre of genetic diversity for mustard.

Kesavan refers to the experience with the Bt brinjal biosafety dossier (Bt brinjal – what would have been India’s first GM food crop – eventually failed to make it to market). He says international experts critiqued different aspects of the raw data. Their critiques exposed deep incompetence, including regulatory incompetence and a lack of basic understanding of genetically engineered crops.

So, what should we expect from a still secret biosafety dossier on GM mustard, asks Kesavan? It’s a dossier kept out of the public domain and the critical gaze of independent scientists. The promoters of this crop have not even established the first step of need.

The NAAS’s impassioned plea to Modi to approve GM mustard gives “a wink and a nod to the regulatory delinquency that denies transparency is in contempt of the constitution, democratic polity and SC court orders,” says Keshavan, who concludes

“It is quite simply a false notion bereft of agri sense and science that we should even consider that India’s mustard agriculture be converted to hybrid DMH II and its variants.”

It might seem perplexing that the current Modi-led administration seems to be accelerating the drive for GM given that the BJP manifesto stated:

 “GM foods will not be allowed without full scientific evaluation on the long-term effects on soil, production and biological impact on consumers.”

Yet none of this has occurred.

See this to access the author’s numerous articles on the issue of GM mustard in India.

Featured image from Scientific India Magazine

President Donald Trump is 71 and Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is 33 [35 according to DPRK sources], but if they ever met, would there be a grown-up in the room?

One of them knows full well that North Korea is not a threat to world peace and is not even a serious threat to South Korea. The one who knows that is not Donald Trump. Or if he does know it, he’s choosing to inflate the North Korean “threat” even more than some of his predecessors.

But wait, didn’t North Korea just fire a missile in the general direction of the United States? Yes indeed, and like every other North Korean missile (except the ones that blew up on launch), it hit smack dab in the Sea of Japan, unpleasantly for aquatic life but a danger to no one else. This is, after all, exactly what the US does periodically to the Pacific Ocean from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, generally causing yawns around the world.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work witnessed just such a US test (the 15th or so in five years) in February 2016, after telling reporters the purpose was to demonstrate an effective US nuclear arsenal to Russia, China, and North Korea:

That’s exactly why we do this. We and the Russians and the Chinese routinely do test shots to prove that the operational missiles that we have are reliable. And that is a signal … that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country if necessary.

Not only is that perspective less than comforting, it includes a major tell. For reasons that may be obvious but unspoken, North Korea is not allowed to do what the US, Russia, and China do. That’s the price of being a member of the US-determined Axis of Evil. That may be a stupid foreign policy position (Exhibit A: Iraq), but it’s American stupidity, not Korean stupidity. The North Koreans are well aware that they do not have “operational missiles that … are reliable.”

Do as US says, not as US does

US-imposed rules forbid other countries like North Korea or Iran from following rational patterns of self-defense, even in the face of overt US threats. And when North Korea ignores US rules and hits the ocean with another rocket, the US ratchets up the hysteria as if the North Korean launch were a hostile act while the Vandenberg launches are only benign peace-keeping splashes. The US framing of the world is clearly nuts, but we’re so used to it we hardly notice anymore.

Not only does North Korea pose no serious threat now, its hypothetical future threat is largely imaginary. Whatever military might North Korea has is unlikely to be used outside its own country unless the US or someone else attacks it first. That might well lead to all hell breaking loose, but it’s the only thing that will as far as North Korea is concerned. Washington is baffled: What doesn’t North Korea understand about its duty to do what the US tells it to do?

Fear-mongering over North Korea hasn’t worked — ever

Assessed objectively, North Korea’s missile tests demonstrate a missile program proceeding haltingly, with frequent failures as well as “terrifying” successes. What terrified Washington about the July 3 North Korean missile launch is the presently imaginary threat that the Independence Day ICBM prototype could deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States. It can’t. That’s a pure future threat, if it’s a threat at all.

Capturing the widely proclaimed fear with merely modest hype, Business Insider led its report on the new North Korean missile with this: “North Korea claims that it has launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, which experts say could have the ability to reach Alaska.” (Reuters upped the ante, reporting that “some experts believe [the missile] has the range to reach Alaska and Hawaii and perhaps the U.S. Pacific Northwest.” As with other reports, these experts go unnamed and unchallenged.)

Unpack all that and what do you have?

A North Korean claim, inflated by anonymous experts, selling a worst-case scenario. The North Koreans also claimed that the missile could hit any location on the planet. So nobody’s even trying to tell the truth here. The missile actually went about 580 miles, which isn’t even close to qualifying as an ICBM. The nearest point in Alaska (not target, just rocks) is about 3,000 miles away. Any point on the planet is 12,000 miles away, give or take a few thousand.

But the North Koreans have nuclear weapons. Yes they do, maybe even 20 of them, all smaller than the one the US dropped on Hiroshima. At this point there’s no evidence North Korea can deliver its nuclear weapons anywhere by any technology much more advanced than donkey cart. By comparison, the US nuclear arsenal, which was once over 31,000 warheads, is now down to 4,000, with about 1,900 methods of delivery to anywhere on the planet, and almost all those warheads are many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. For all that some worry about aging nuclear weapons, the US is not even close to being an inviting target to attack with impunity.

Not to minimize nuclear weapons of any sort, but seriously, some sense of proportion is expected of mature leadership. Chicken Little cluckings of impending doom is not mature leadership.

Isn’t 64 years long enough to get a peace treaty?

The Korean War began June 27, 1950, when North Korea invaded the south. The armistice was signed July 27, 1953, ending hostilities, but not the war. There is a cease-fire but no peace treaty. The US entered the war under UN auspices. Congress never declared war, but supported the war with appropriations. Currently, some in Congress are seeking legislation to prevent the president from taking any military action against North Korea without explicit permission from Congress. That hardly seems to matter.

The new president of South Korea wants to negotiate with North Korea, but that hardly seems to matter either. South Korea engaged in perennial massive war games with the US that North Korea deems threatening, as would any neighboring country facing the same reality. Worse, the US has introduced anti-missile weapons into South Korea without telling the South Korean president.

And President Trump publicly blames China for not bringing North Korea to heel, as if China had either that responsibility or ability. China has increased trade with North Korea by a reported 40 percent, which should be a stabilizing factor, especially over the long term. But the US is demanding short-term results.

What could the world community do to reverse this growing threat, real or imagined, from North Korea? It would help to allow North Korea to feel safe and unthreatened, maybe even as safe and unthreatened as Vermont. That, as Korea expert Christine Ahn argued on Democracy NOW, would require President Trump to do what he claims to be good at: negotiating, making a deal. Something very like this view was formally articulated to President Trump in a June 28 letter from such policy experts as former secretary of state George Schultz, former defense secretary William Perry, and former senator Richard Lugar:

As experts with decades of military, political, and technical involvement with North Korean issues, we strongly urge your administration to begin discussions with North Korea…. Talking is not a reward or a concession to Pyongyang and should not be construed as signaling acceptance of a nuclear-armed North Korea. It is a necessary step to establishing communication to avoid a nuclear catastrophe. The key danger today is not that North Korea would launch a surprise nuclear attack. Kim Jong Un is not irrational and highly values preserving his regime. Instead the primary danger is a miscalculation or mistake that could lead to war. [emphasis added]

A more colloquial way of saying much the same thing might be that you don’t control a bratty child by burning down the house, unless you’re another bratty child yourself, and you don’t really care all that much about the house.

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Featured image from Medium

In its reporting on a dubious lawsuit alleging Iranian meta-involvement in 9/11, the New York Times badly misunderstood the case and maintained for more than three years, in the paper of record, that the government of Iran “sponsored” the September 11, 2001, attacks. The belated correction, issued late Wednesday night on two widely spaced articles on the topic, unceremoniously noted that Iran did not, in fact, help commit the 9/11 attacks.

The correction came after a report about a lawsuit last week mistakenly claimed that Iran sponsored 9/11, something that had not been alleged in the suit. The article (6/29/17,archived) originally read:

The government has agreed to distribute proceeds from the building’s sale, which could bring as much as $1 billion, to the families of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks, including the September 11 attacks.

That 9/11 was an “Iranian-sponsored terrorist attack” is a spectacular claim, and one that would radically alter the official narrative of 9/11, just casually thrown into an article by the Times. In fact, it isn’t even something the lawsuit alleged. The case in question was a class action lawsuit for families of all terrorism victims, and since Iran was a “state sponsor of terrorism,” they were held generically responsible. (The US State Department maintains that Iran is a “state sponsor of terrorism” chiefly because of its support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Iraq’s Kata’ib Hizballah, whose attacks have been mainly directed at other combatants.)

Even if this had been what the lawsuit was alleging, it’s remarkable that reporter Vivian Wang simply took this as fact: No “alleged,” no “lawsuit claims”—Iran’s guilt was simply asserted. And that assertion stood for a week until someone, evidently, got word it was grossly wrong. Late Wednesday night (6/29/17, correction updated 7/5/17), the Times quietly added this correction to the piece:

Correction: July 6, 2017 An article on Friday about a jury’s decision to let the federal government seize a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper it says is controlled by Iran overstated Iran’s responsibility for the September 11 attacks. While a federal court found that Iran had some culpability for the September 11 attacks as a state sponsor of terrorism, it has not been established that Iran sponsored the attacks, which were planned and executed by Al Qaeda. (A similar error occurred in a September 25, 2013, article in the Times.)

It’s as if the editors at the Times just got the memo about who was responsible for 9/11. But the week it took to correct this massive error was nothing compared to the close to four years it took to update the very same claim the paper made in September 2013. The original article, by Julie Satow (9/26/13, original archived), read:

Proceeds from a sale would probably be used to pay some of the $6 billion in damages claimed by family members of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, including victims of the 9/11 attacks.

This article, published in the first year of Obama’s second term, finally got corrected this week (9/26/13, correction updated 7/5/17), with basically the same correction that ran on last week’s story:

Correction: July 5, 2017 An article on Sept. 25, 2013, about the federal government’s efforts to seize a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper it says is controlled by Iran overstated Iran’s responsibility for the September 11 attacks. While a federal court found that Iran had some culpability for the September 11 attacks as a state sponsor of terrorism, it has not been established that Iran sponsored the attacks, which were planned and executed by Al Qaeda.

The corrections, belated as they were, minimized the defamation of the original articles in a  lawyerly manner, conceding only that “it has not been established that Iran sponsored the attacks.” It has also not been established that Israel or Saudi Arabia or the Bush administration sponsored 9/11, but imagine the New York Times framing allegations against those actors this way. It’s unthinkable but, because Iran is an Official Enemy of the United States, it is not subject to the same editorial standards as those in good standing with the US State Department.

Source: FAIR

Per the North Korea Law of Journalism—which states that “editorial standards are inversely proportional to a country’s enemy status”—the Times can casually smear Iran as sponsoring  the deadliest act of terror on US soil, and it’s not taken seriously by anyone. Just thrown into an article, forgotten about and only corrected—with no special note by the paper—almost four years later.

One would be curious what the New York Times public editor would say about such a glaring error but the paper eliminated the position a month ago (FAIR.org, 6/1/17). Perhaps the Times’ in-house media analyst, Jim Rutenberg, who spends much of his time hand-wringing over “fake news” and RT, could spare a column on how this happened. This is unlikely, since with an Official Enemy, no amount of libel—no matter how egregious—merits a meaningful response from the paper of record.

Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org.

Featured image: Thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed in recent months by imprecise bombings by the U.S.-led coalition in Mosul. (Source: arif_shamim/Flickr/cc)

As Iraqi forces celebrate their victory over the Islamic State (ISIS) in Mosul, a damning new report by Amnesty International sheds light on the killing of Iraqi civilians at the hands of the U.S.-led coalition which “may constitute war crimes”—and demands that the coalition acknowledges the loss of civilian life and takes steps to lessen non-military casualties.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in Mosul and millions have been displaced since ISIS took control of the city in June 2014. The crimes of the group have been well documented by Amnesty International and other human rights groups. The report notes that ISIS deliberately put thousands of civilians in harm’s way, using them as human shields in the city’s conflict zones, and killing people who attempted to escape.

The report also focuses on the human cost of the U.S.-led coalition’s actions in Mosul. Amnesty interviewed 150 witnesses, experts and analysts about dozens of attacks, and focused on a pattern of attacks that took place between January and July 2017.

“The horrors that the people of Mosul have witnessed and the disregard for human life by all parties to this conflict must not go unpunished,” says Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty’s director of research for the Middle East. “Entire families have been wiped out, many of whom are still buried under the rubble today. The people of Mosul deserve to know, from their government, that there will be justice and reparation so that the harrowing impact of this operation is duly addressed.”

The coalition’s attacks were largely carried out with Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions (IRAMs), explosives with unsophisticated targeting abilities, which “wreaked havoc in densely-populated west Mosul and took the lives of thousands of civilians,” according to the report. Air strikes by U.S. planes were also frequent during this time period, and the report says the coalition did little to protect civilians from these attacks.

“They did air-drop leaflets into [ISIS]-controlled areas of the city, instructing civilians to stay away from [ISIS] or to hang children’s clothes on the roof to mark civilian homes. These warnings, however, took little account of the realities of living under [ISIS]. Staying away from [ISIS] was impossible for west Mosul residents and fighters would execute anyone caught with a flyer in their hands. Houses with children’s clothes on the roof were still hit by air strikes.”

“ISIS’s use of people as human shields does not lessen the legal obligation of pro-government forces to protect civilians,” says Maalouf. “Military planners should have taken extra care in the manner in which they used their weapons to ensure that these attacks were not unlawful.”

Amnesty International is demanding that Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition limit the use of IRAMs in the fight against ISIL; it says the weapons “should never be used in densely populated civilian areas.” It also joins other human rights groups in calling for an urgent increase in funding for humanitarian assistance for those who have fled the fighting in Mosul.

Mosul: “The fighting may be over, but the humanitarian crisis is not”#ChildrenUnderAttack need food, water, shelter & medicine @UNICEFiraq pic.twitter.com/c87i3f0G3o

— UNICEF (@UNICEF) July 10, 2017

The report also notes that the coalition must publicly acknowledge the human cost of the fighting in Mosul. In his official statement on the retaking of Mosul by the Iraqi forces, President Donald Trump made no mention of civilian deaths that resulted from coalition attacks, instead acknowledging only the Iraqis who have been killed and displaced by ISIS.

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

The “liberation” of Mosul, Iraq, needs to be understood within a context of historical and present-day facts.

The first fact is that the West is committing a holocaust in Iraq which began well in advance of the illegal Anglo-American invasion in 2003.

Dr. Gideon Polya explains that

“(h)olocaust is the destruction of a large number of people and 9 million Iraqi deaths from Anglo-American violence or violently-imposed deprivation certainly constitutes an Iraqi Holocaust.”[1]

The second fact is that the terrorists occupying Mosul, Iraq (and Syria) are the West’s strategic assets/proxies. They help to commit and perpetuate the holocaust.

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”.

The warmongers successfully de-populated and destroyed Iraq’s second largest city. The terrorists (the supposed enemies) — all armed and supported by the West [2]—and the terror bombing [3], including the use of illegal, weaponized white phosphorus munitions, and carpet bombing – achieved their criminal objectives.

The Western-imposed warfare murdered countless civilians and displaced over 800,000 people [4].

The big picture is chaos and destruction, and genocide. Iraq is being partitioned and destroyed. “Creative Chaos” [5], a term coined by neo-con Condoleeza Rice equals holocaust and genocide.

This is the evidence-based reality.

Notes

[1] Dr. Gideon Polya, “An Iraqi Holocaust, 2.7 Million Iraqi Dead From Violence Or War-imposed Deprivation.” “ICH”, March 27, 2015, (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41378.htm) Accessed July 09, 2017.

[2] DilyanaGaytandzhieva, “350 diplomatic flights carry weapons for terroristsAzerbaijan’s Silk Way Airlines transports weapons with diplomatic clearance for Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo.” July 2, 2017, (https://trud.bg/350-diplomatic-flights-carry-weapons-for-terrorists/) Accessed July 11, 2017. 

[3] Stephan Lendman, “Mosul Raped and Destroyed, Not Liberated.” Global Research, July 1, 2017, (http://www.globalresearch.ca/mosul-raped-and-destroyed-not-liberated/5597026) Accessed July 11, 2017.

[4] Report from UN High Commissioner for Refugees, “Iraq Situation: UNHCR Flash Update – 9 July 2017.” July 9, 2017, (http://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-situation-unhcr-flash-update-9-july-2017) Accessed July 11, 2017.

[5] Mark Taliano, “Creative Chaos” and the War Against Humanity. US-NATO Supports ISIS.” Global Research, May 29, 2017, (http://www.globalresearch.ca/creative-chaos-and-the-war-against-humanity-us-nato-supports-isis/5592499) Accessed July 11, 2017.

Featured image from Murica Today

The military situation in Syria took a significant step for the worse on 19 June 2017 when an American fighter jet shot down a Syrian fighter jet carrying out operations against ISIS. That was the latest in a series of foolhardy moves by the Americans which have included the bombing of Syrian army forces in south eastern Syria causing more than 100 casualties, and the shooting down of an Iranian drone in the same region.

The Russian Defence Ministry immediately announced it was suspending cooperation with US forces, and that henceforth all kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected to the west of the Euphrates River will be tracked by the Russian SAM systems as air targets.” The obvious inference is that they will at risk of being shot down. David Wroe, defence correspondent for the Fairfax media wrote (SMH 21 June 2017) that the shoot down “triggered a belligerent response from Russia.” His article was entitled “RAAF halts air strikes after Russian threat.”

As is almost invariably the case with Australian reporting of the Syrian war, inappropriate language and a failure to report accurately on the issues is more often than not the case. Wroe’s article and other western media reports of the American action and the Russian response illustrate the point.

US General Joseph Dunford referred to the incident as justified under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, (AUMF) a resolution passed in 2001 following the “9/11” events in Washington and New York of that year.

Dunford also used the term “collective self defence of partnered forces.” That neither the AUMF nor the term collective self-defence are remotely applicable to the war in Syria is never discussed in the Australian media. Their default position appears to be that if the Americans claim it, then it must be correct. There is similarly no discussion at all as to the right of the Americans or their coalition allies, including Australia, to even establish a base on Syrian soil.

The “collective self defence “ justification was also used by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop when she was asked on ABC National Radio in late 2015 to explain the legal basis for Australia’s announced intention of intervening in the Syrian war. Her answer then was identical to that of Dunford. Neither of them was correct.

Article 51 of the UN Charter does provide for collective self-defence in tightly defined circumstances. The ICJ has stipulated what those circumstances are. It requires as a minimum that a State is attacked by another State, and that the party being attacked requests assistance. It does not apply in the case of attacks by non-state actors.

Manifestly, neither applies to either the US or Australia in the case of Syria. The legitimate sovereign government of Syria has not sought the help of either country. Both are operating in Syria in contravention of international law. Both the US and Australia are quick to invoke the ‘rule of law’ or the ‘rules based international order ‘ when it suits them but are singularly incapable of applying those same principles to their own conduct.

The absurdity of the US led coalition’s position is further seen in the US claim that they were defending a self declared “deconfliction zone” in south eastern Syria at the confluence of the Jordan, Syria and Iraq borders.

Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran had in fact agreed upon the establishment of deconfliction zones within Syria, which the US has failed to acknowledge or even participate in the negotiations. They are now citing a wholly illegitimate zone of their own as theirs to defend while they train the so-called moderate terrorists. That they neither sought nor obtained the consent of the Syrian government to these activities is simply ignored by the western media. That the Americans should attack Syrian forces that are themselves attacking terrorists is beyond irony. The profound hypocrisy of the US and Australian position was never more obvious than in south-eastern Syria.

The area around al Tanf in south-eastern Syria the Americans are defending extends for 50km from the town. The significance of this area is not that the Americans are combatting terrorism as the media would have us believe, but that is a critical part of the logistics flow between Iran and Syria. At al Tanf and elsewhere the Americans are more than willing to intervene on behalf of the ISIS proxies, as senior US military personnel have acknowledged for some time.

This is also illustrated in the specific case of the military base the Americans and their coalition allies have set up at al Tanf on the Syrian side of the border. The militants being trained there by the Americans and others belong to a group known as Maghawir al Thawra. Video footage shows these militants driving around in new Toyota land cruisers identical to those supplied by Saudi Arabia to ISIS and other terror related groups.

One of their spokesmen, Abu al Atheer has said that the goal of the US forces they are being trained by is to take the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. As Syrian government forces hold that city, it is difficult to see a benevolent rationale behind the desire of militants to take control of the city.

In truth, Maghawir al Thawra is no more than yet another of the multiple terrorist proxy forces being used by the Americans. Their rebranding of such terror groups as “moderates” is no more than a cynical exercise to conceal the fact that the US and its allies are waging an illegal war in pursuit of their overriding objective of regime change in Syria.

The shooting down of a Syrian fighter in this context clearly marked a red line for the Russians. Quite simply, they have had enough and their announcement of tracking and potentially shooting down Coalition planes was the least that could be expected. If one were the apply Wroe’s terminology of a “bellicose reaction” to the Syrian situation then the US and its loyal acolyte Australia are much stronger contenders.

Commentators such as Wroe seem completely unable to understand that the Americans are pursuing much wider objectives. Apart from the aforementioned regime change, a major secondary goal is the blocking of Chinese, Russian and Iranian access to the eastern Mediterranean. These three countries are cooperating in much more than preventing Syria from joining the lengthy list of failed States that have suffered from decades of US geopolitical ambitions. That cooperation manifests itself in the increasingly important Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the massive Belt and Road Initiative that is transforming the geopolitical structure of Eurasia.

Syria and Iran are key states in the development of these peaceful alternative to the perpetual war model preferred by the Americans and their allies. What Pepe Escobar accurately calls ‘blood on the tracks of the New Silk Roads reflects the determination of the US to cling to its unipolar ambitions. What is currently being played out in Yemen, Qatar, Syria, Iraq and Iran are symptoms of that ambition.

One faint glimmer of hope is that President Trump is endeavouring to keep a door open to negotiations with Russia. The blatant violations of international law that characterises American behaviour in Syria suggests that the neocon element in US foreign policy is doing all it can to sabotage any Trump initiatives (as confused and weak as they are) for a peaceful resolution of the Syrian conflict. That may be crediting Trump with more goodwill than is justified.

In the light of the Russian warning, Australia prudently chose to cease its illegal military activities in Syria. One would hope that such prudence is the beginning of a greater wisdom about the true costs of unthinking adherence to failed policies. Again however, judging by Australian political statements on the Syrian conflict, and the quality of journalistic commentary cited above, that also may be a vain hope.

James O’Neill, an Australian-based Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image from New Eastern Outlook

Featured image: A businessman walks by the 666 Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by Kushner Companies in New York on March 29, 2017. (Source: The Intercept)

NOT LONG BEFORE a major crisis ripped through the Middle East, pitting the United States and a bloc of Gulf countries against Qatar, Jared Kushner’s real estate company had unsuccessfully sought a critical half-billion-dollar investment from one of the richest and most influential men in the tiny nation, according to three well-placed sources with knowledge of the near transaction.

Kushner is a senior adviser to President Trump, and also his son-in-law, and also the scion of a New York real estate empire that faces an extreme risk from an investment made by Kushner in the building at 666 Fifth Avenue, where the family is now severely underwater.

Qatar is facing an ongoing blockade led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and joined by Egypt and Bahrain, which President Trump has taken credit for sparking. Kushner, meanwhile, has reportedly played a key behind-the-scenes role in hardening the U.S. posture toward the embattled nation.

Jared Kushner

That hard line comes in the wake of the previously unreported half-billion-dollar deal that was never consummated. Throughout 2015 and 2016, Jared Kushner and his father, Charles, negotiated directly with a major investor in Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, known as HBJ for short, in an effort to refinance the property on Fifth Avenue, the sources said.

Trump himself has unsuccessfully sought financing in recent years from the Qataris, but it is difficult to overstate just how important the investment at 666 Fifth Avenue is for Kushner, his company, and his family’s legacy in real estate. Without some outside intervention or unforeseen turnaround in the market, the investment could become an embarrassing half-billion-dollar loss. It’s unclear precisely how much peril such a loss would put Jared’s or his family’s finances in, given the opacity of their private holdings.

HBJ, a former prime minister of Qatar who ran the country’s $250 billion sovereign wealth fund, is a billionaire and one of the world’s richest men. He owns a yacht worth $300 million called Al Mirqab, the same name he gave to the private investment firm that Kushner pitched. The former emir of Qatar summed up HBJ’s power with a quip:

“I may run this country, but he owns it.”

HBJ ultimately agreed to invest at least $500 million through Al Mirqab, on the condition that Kushner Companies could raise the rest of a multibillion refinancing elsewhere. The negotiations continued long after the election, carried out as recently as this spring by Charles Kushner. “HBJ basically told them, we’re good for 500, subject to a lot of things, but mainly subject to you being able to raise the rest,” said one source in the region with knowledge of the deal. The talks were confirmed by two additional sources with knowledge of the talks. One of those sources claimed that the potential deal was not contingent on the rest of the money being raised and that the HBJ investment was on hold as the overall structure of the financing was reconsidered. None of the sources would agree to talk on the record about a private financial transaction that has until now remained a secret.

After the election, Kushner Companies found many more suitors interested in doing business, one of the sources, who is U.S.-based, said. One of the investors taking the deal more seriously in late 2016 and early 2017, the U.S. source said, was “Hamid bin what’s-his-name,” referring to HBJ. Top executives at Kushner Companies, the source said, “are dumb enough to not know that why they want to deal with them has nothing to do with the real estate. Around the New Year they were like, ‘LPs” — industry slang for limited partners, or investors — “are engaging more!’ It’s like, I wonder why?”

Or, perhaps, they know quite well what’s going on. The $500 million still left the Kushners far short, and to try to fill the financing hole, the company turned to China. An insurance firm there with close ties to the country’s ruling elite had been pursued for months, but, like the other investors, wasn’t truly interested in the deal until after the election. (A source familiar with the dealmaking said that the Kushners had been in discussions with HBJ since before Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. When a potential deal with Anbang was first reported by the New York Times in January 2017, company spokeswoman Risa Heller said the talks began “well before the president-elect’s victory,” right around when he officially sealed the Republican nomination.)

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks referred questions to Kushner Companies; a spokesman there declined The Intercept’s request for comment. HBJ declined to comment.

In March, the details of the talks between Kushner and the firm, Anbang, became public. Anbang would invest $400 million in the project and the Kushners would put up $750 million, and additional investors, of which The Intercept’s sources say HBJ was to be one, would contribute a total of almost $2 billion more, according to a document being shown to investors that was shared with Bloomberg. The investment would have fit a trend of increasing Qatari investment in New York City real estate: Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, which HBJ used to run, has increased its investment in New York City real estate in recent years, and HBJ has a number of property investments in London and New York.

Anbang’s $400 million, plus $100 million from other investors, would flow to the Kushners, meaning the family would recoup the entirety of their initial $500 million investment, a startling turnaround given that the New York Times’s detailed analysis of the building’s woes found the Kushners’ investment was now essentially worthless.

Crucially, in addition to the cash investment, the deal called for Anbang to take out a $4 billion loan to finance the demolition of the current building and the construction of an 80-story Zaha Hadid-designed residential and retail tower in its place. (The total cost for the project would be around $7.5 billion.) Only a handful of companies in the real estate business, such as Blackstone and Brookfield, are big enough to secure a loan of that size, and to date they appear unwilling to take on the level of scrutiny the deal would bring, never mind offer terms as favorable as Anbang’s. Additionally, any borrower would have to get their loan from somewhere, and one dynamic stymying the deal may be that any bank that underwrote such a loan would face just as much scrutiny for their financial and political judgment as the investor they gave it to.

Anbang pulled out after the deal was criticized as a conflict of interest, given Kushner’s role in the White House. With Anbang, and its ability to secure a $4 billion construction loan, out, the Qatari condition wasn’t met, and the Gulf deal fizzled, according to a source in the region. That chain of events was disputed by a source who said the deal between HBJ and the Kushners wasn’t dead, but on hold as the deal’s mix of loans and equity was reconsidered.

The revelation of the half-billion-dollar deal raises thorny and unprecedented ethical questions. If the deal is not entirely dead, that means Jared Kushner is on the one hand pushing to use the power of American diplomacy to pummel a small nation, while on the other his firm is hoping to extract an extraordinary amount of capital from there for a failing investment. If, however, the deal is entirely dead, the pummeling may be seen as intimidating to other investors on the end of a Kushner Companies pitch.

THE CRISIS DATES to May, when President Trump visited Saudi Arabia and met with regional leaders there, laying his hands on the now-famous orb. The Emir of Qatar met with Saudi King Salman, a high-level Qatari source told The Intercept, and it went well.

“The Emir was in Jeddah before the summit, had a meeting with King Salman. King Salman did not bring up any subject about differences with Qatar,” he said. “After the summit, the Saudis and the Emirates, they thought, after signing all these contracts, they can have the upper hand in the region and they don’t want any country not to be in the same line.”

Whatever the reasoning, on June 5, a diplomatic crisis broke out, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with Egypt and Bahrain, downgraded ties with Qatar, citing Qatar’s funding of terrorist organizations. Weeks earlier, the same countries blocked a number Qatari-backed media outlets citing derogatory public comments by the Emir, which Qatar insisted were fabricated and the result of a hack.

On June 6, President Trump took sides, taking credit for the moves by the Gulf nations.

During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

…extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

On June 9, after Saudi Arabia and the UAE had begun to blockade Qatar, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to calm nerves, calling for mediation and an immediate end to the blockade.

Within hours, Trump, at a White House ceremony, contradicted Tillerson, slamming Qatar again and claiming it had “historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”

Trump’s White House remarks, Tillerson came to believe, had been written by UAE Ambassador Yousef Al-Otaiba and delivered to Trump by Jared Kushner.

The blockade continued. At a private fundraiser in late June, he aimed at Qatar again, this time mocking the pronunciation of the country’s name.

“We’re having a dispute with Qatar — we’re supposed to say Qatar. It’s Qatar, they prefer. I prefer that they don’t fund terrorism,” he quipped, according to an audio recording of his speech obtained by The Intercept.

THE KUSHNERS’ PURCHASE of 666 Fifth Avenue for a record-breaking $1.8 billion in 2007 was a capstone to an era marked by high prices and reckless amounts of debt. The Kushners invested $500 million in the building, and took out debt to cover the rest. But even at the height of a bubbling New York real estate market, there were clear signs that the price was too high and the debt was too much. The Kushners paid $1,200 a square foot, twice the previous per square foot record of $600, while records show that even with the building initially almost fully rented out, revenue only covered about two-thirds of the family’s debt costs.

When the financial crisis hit, rents went down, vacancies went up, and the Kushners were short on cash to pay their debts. They sold off the Fifth Avenue retail space for $525 million and used the proceeds to pay off non-mortgage debt on the building. Then, in 2011, the Kushners sold off just under 50 percent of the building’s office space to Vornado, as part of a refinancing deal with the publicly traded real estate giant.

The $1.2 billion interest-only mortgage is due in February 2019. The office space is worth less than its mortgage and “there is no equity value” left in the office section of the building, Jed Reagan of Green Street Advisors told the New York Times in April. (Because they sold the retail space to make payments on other debt tied to the building, the office space is the only part of the tower the Kushners still have a stake in.) As a result, the family’s initial $500 million investment, once heralded as an example of Jared’s emergence as a brash real estate star, has for now effectively been wiped out. A massive refinancing and construction of a new tower that dramatically increases the building’s value is one way to try to get out of that hole.

The Kushners are also looking for loans totaling $250 million to pay off debt used to build an apartment building in Jersey City, Bloomberg first reported in June. The tower, called Trump Bay Street, was financed in part by Chinese investors. Those investments were made through the E5-B visa program, which gives green cards to wealthy foreigners in exchange for investments in the U.S. The family also owes CIT Group $140 million, which it must repay by September. A company spokesman later confirmed to the New York Times that it was indeed seeking the $250 million loan.

The Kushners came under fire in May when the New York Times reported that Jared’s sister Nicole Meyer had pitched her family’s ties as part of a roadshow to raise money for another Jersey City building under the same pay-for-residency visa program. After the report, the family backtracked and said they would not take part in the roadshow going forward.

Meanwhile, the water is rising on the Fifth Avenue investment. And the blockade continues.

Had the Qataris known where things were heading diplomatically, said the source in the region, they’d have happily ponied up the money, even knowing that it was a losing investment.

“It would have been much cheaper,” he said.

It is one of the great ironies that the United States, a land mass protected by two broad oceans while also benefiting from the world’s largest economy and most powerful military, persists in viewing itself as a potential victim, vulnerable and surrounded by enemies. In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.

And even given that, I would have to qualify the nature of the threats. Russia and China are best described as adversaries or competitors rather than enemies as they have compelling interests to avoid war, even if Washington is doing its best to turn them hostile. Neither has anything to gain and much to lose by escalating a minor conflict into something that might well start World War 3. Indeed, both have strong incentives to avoid doing so, which makes the actual threat that they represent more speculative than real. And, on the plus side, both can be extremely useful in dealing with international issues where Washington has little or no leverage, to include resolving the North Korea problem and Syria, so they U.S. has considerable benefits to be gained by cultivating their cooperation.

Also, I would characterize international terrorism as a faux threat at a national level, though one that has been exaggerated through the media and fearmongering to such an extent that it appears much more dangerous than it actually is. It has been observed that more Americans are killed by falling furniture than by terrorists in a year but terrorism has a particularly potency due to its unpredictability and the fear that it creates. Due to that fear, American governments and businesses at all levels have been willing to spend a trillion dollars per annum to defeat what might rationally be regarded as a relatively minor problem.

So if the United States were serious about dealing with or deflecting the actual threats against the American people it could first of all reduce its defense expenditures to make them commensurate with the actual threat before concentrating on three things. First, would be to establish a solid modus vivendi with Russia and China to avoid conflicts of interest that could develop into actual tit-for-tat escalation. That would require an acceptance by Washington of the fact that both Moscow and Beijing have regional spheres of influence that are defined by their interests. You don’t have to like the governance of either country, but their national interests have to be appreciated and respected just as the United States has legitimate interests within its own hemisphere that must be respected by Russia and China.

Second, Washington must, unfortunately, continue to spend on the Missile Defense Agency, which supports anti-missile defenses if the search for a modus vivendi for some reason fails. Mutual assured destruction is not a desirable strategic doctrine but being able to intercept incoming missiles while also having some capability to strike back if attacked is a realistic deterrent given the proliferation of nations that have both ballistic missiles and nukes.

Third and finally, there would be a coordinated program aimed at international terrorism based equally on where the terror comes from and on physically preventing the terrorist attacks from taking place. This is the element in national defense that is least clear cut. Dealing with Russia and China involves working with mature regimes that have established diplomatic and military channels. Dealing with terrorist non-state players is completely different as there are generally speaking no such channels.

It should in theory be pretty simple to match threats and interests with actions since there are only a handful that really matter, but apparently it is not so in practice. What is Washington doing? First of all, the White House is deliberately turning its back on restoring a good working relationship with Russia by insisting that Crimea be returned to Kiev, by blaming Moscow for the continued unrest in Donbas, and by attacking Syrian military targets in spite of the fact that Russia is an ally of the legitimate government in Damascus and the United States is an interloper in the conflict. Meanwhile congress and the media are poisoning the waters through their dogged pursuit of Russiagate for political reasons even though nearly a year of investigation has produced no actual evidence of malfeasance on the part of U.S. officials and precious little in terms of Moscow’s alleged interference.

Playing tough to the international audience has unfortunately become part of the American Exceptionalism DNA. Upon his arrival in Warsaw last week, Donald Trump doubled down on the Russia-bashing, calling on Moscow to “cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran.” He then recommended that Russia should “join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.”

The comments in Warsaw were unnecessary, even if the Poles wanted to hear them, and were both highly insulting and ignorant. It was not a good start for Donald’s second overseas trip, even though the speech has otherwise been interpreted as a welcome defense of Western civilization and European values. Trump also followed up with a two hour plus discussion with President Vladimir Putin in which the two apparently agreed to differ on the alleged Russian hacking of the American election. The Trump-Putin meeting indicated that restoring some kind of working relationship with Russia is still possible, as it is in everyone’s interest to do so.

Fighting terrorism is quite another matter and the United States approach is the reverse of what a rational player would be seeking to accomplish. The U.S. is rightly assisting in the bid to eradicate ISIS in Syria and Iraq but it is simultaneously attacking the most effective fighters against that group, namely the Syrian government armed forces and the Shi’ite militias being provided by Iran and Hezbollah. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that at least some in the Trump Administration are seeking to use the Syrian engagement as a stepping stone to war with Iran.

As was the case in the months preceding the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003, all buttons are being pushed to vilify Iran. Recent reports suggest that two individuals in the White House in particular have been pressuring the Trump administration’s generals to escalate U.S. involvement in Syria to bring about a war with Tehran sooner rather than later. They are Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Derek Harvey, reported to be holdovers from the team brought into the White House by the virulently anti-Iranian former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Cohen-Watnick is thirty years old and has little relevant experience for the position he holds, senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council. But his inexperience counts for little as he is good friend of son-in-law Jared Kushner. He has told the New York Times that “wants to use American spies to help oust the Iranian government,” a comment that reflects complete ignorance, both regarding Iran and also concerning spy agency capabilities. His partner in crime Harvey, a former military officer who advised General David Petraeus when he was in Iraq, is the NSC advisor on the Middle East.

Both Cohen-Watnick and Harvey share the neoconservative belief that the Iranians and their proxies in Syria and Iraq need to be confronted by force, an opportunity described by Foreign Policy magazine as having developed into “a pivotal moment that will determine whether Iran or the United States exerts influence over Iraq and Syria.” Other neocon promoters of conflict with Iran have described their horror at a possible Shi’ite “bridge” or “land corridor” through the Arab heartland, running from Iran itself through Iraq and Syria and connecting on the Mediterranean with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

What danger to the U.S. or its actual treaty allies an Iranian influenced land corridor would constitute remains a mystery but there is no shortage of Iran haters in the White House. Former senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar sees “unrelenting hostility from the Trump administration” towards Iran and notes “cherry-picking” of the intelligence to make a case for war, similar to what occurred with Iraq in 2002-3. And even though Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster have pushed back against the impulsive Cohen-Watnick and Harvey, their objections are tactical as they do not wish to make U.S. forces in the region vulnerable to attacks coming from a new direction. Otherwise they too consider Iran as America’s number one active enemy and believe that war is inevitable. Donald Trump has unfortunately also jumped directly into the argument on the side of Saudi Arabia and Israel, both of which would like to see Washington go to war with Tehran on their behalf.

The problem with the Trump analysis is that he has his friends and enemies confused. He is actually supporting Saudi Arabia, the source of most of the terrorism that has convulsed Western Europe and the United States while also killing hundreds of thousands of fellow Muslims. Random terrorism to kill as many “infidels and heretics” as possible to create fear is a Sunni Muslim phenomenon, supported financially and doctrinally by the Saudis. To be sure, Iran has used terror tactics to eliminate opponents and select targets overseas, to include several multiple-victim bombings, but it has never engaged in anything like the recent series of attacks in France and Britain. So the United States is moving seemingly inexorably towards war with a country that itself constitutes no actual terrorist threat, unless it is attacked, in support of a country that very much is part of the threat and also on behalf of Israel, which for its part would prefer to see Americans die in a war against Iran rather that sacrificing its own sons and daughters.

Realizing who the real enemy actually is and addressing the actual terrorism problem would not only involve coming down very hard on Saudi Arabia rather than Iran, it would also require some serious thinking in the White House about the extent to which America’s armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap on a suicide vest and have a go. Saudi financing and Washington’s propensity to go to war and thereby create a deep well of hatred just might be the principal causative elements in the rise of global terrorism. Do I think that Donald Trump’s White House has the courage to take such a step and change direction? Unfortunately, no.

Featured image from The Unz Review

At approximately 11AM on July 7, 2017, following a recorded vote of 122 states in favor, 1 opposed (Netherlands in opposition, on behalf of all NATO states), and 1 abstention (Singapore), Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rican Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and President of the “United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination,” announced the adoption of this treaty, which had been awaited for 70 years, the legally binding norm prohibiting nuclear weapons. 

Following Ambassador Whyte’s announcement, the entire assembly of ambassadors, other delegates and non-government organizations in Conference Room 1 immediately stood, many embraced and all 122 States in support exultantly applauded this historic and long overdue achievement by the majority of member states of the United Nations, none of whom possess nuclear weapons, and all of whom are unified in seeking to end the reign of terror imposed on the world by certain of the states possessing nuclear weapons.

Excerpts from the preamble to this landmark treaty state:

“The States Parties to this Treaty,

PP1:  Determined to contribute to the realization of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

PP2:  Deeply concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from any use of nuclear weapons, and recognizing the consequent need to completely eliminate such weapons, which remains the only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons are never used again under any circumstances,

PP4:  Cognizant that the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons cannot be adequately addressed, transcend national borders, pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, including as a result of ionizing radiation,

PP5:  Acknowledging the ethical imperatives for nuclear disarmament and the urgency of achieving and maintaining a nuclear-weapon-free world, which is a global public good of the highest order, serving both national and collective security interests,

PP9:  Basing themselves on the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, in particular the principle that the right of parties to an armed conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited, the rule of distinction, the prohibition against indiscriminate attacks, the rules on proportionality and precautions in attack, the prohibition on the use of weapons of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, and the rules for the protection of the natural environment,

PP10: Considering that any use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, in particular the principles and rules of international humanitarian law,

PP11:  Reaffirming that any use of nuclear weapons would also be abhorrent to the principles of humanity and the dictates of public conscience,

PP14:  Concerned by the slow pace of nuclear disarmament, the continued reliance on nuclear weapons in military and security concepts, doctrines and policies, and the waste of economic and human resources on programmes for the production, maintenance and modernization of nuclear weapons,”

The 24 paragraphs of the preamble set forth incontestable reasons for the imperative and immediate adoption of this treaty by all member states of the United Nations. Reference to the full text of this treaty makes this imperative explicit, and in great detail.

The operative section of the treaty includes 20 Articles. Article 1, entitled “Prohibitions” states:

“1.   Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to:

• Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

• Transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly or indirectly;

• Receive the transfer of or control over nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices directly or indirectly;

• Use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

• Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

• Seek or receive any assistance, in any way, from anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

• Allow any stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or at any place under its jurisdiction or control.”

Although none of the states possessing nuclear weapons participated in the negotiations leading to the adoption of this treaty, it is, nevertheless a major achievement of the United Nations, and a fulfillment of one of the most important sections of the United Nations Charter. It is the expectation of those member states who participated in this long and grueling process culminating in the successful adoption of this treaty, that the very establishment of this treaty provides a legal norm which will exert significant pressure upon the states possessing nuclear weapons, and places the nuclear weapons states in de facto violation of international law. This newly adopted United Nations based legal norm stigmatizes the nuclear weapons states precisely for their possession of these ultimate weapons of mass destruction.

During the September 26, 2016 meeting calling for this treaty, it was emphasized that there are treaties prohibiting the possession and use of biological weapons, there are treaties prohibiting the possession and use of chemical weapons, but at that time there was absolutely no legal prohibition against the possession and use of the most devastating and horrific of all weapons of mass destruction ever devised by the human species, nuclear weapons. At that time powerful calls for this just adopted treaty were made by many states, in particular, forceful and eloquent speeches by South Africa, Sweden and numerous others.

On October 27, 2016 the UN General Assembly voted on Resolution L.41, to convene negotiations in 2017 on a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.” It is of great significance that, alone among the states possessing nuclear weapons, only the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea voted “yes,” in support of these negotiations to create a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons,” which is powerful and virtually incontestable evidence that North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons is purely and exclusively defensive.

The Press Statement by the US, UK, and France

At 12:51 AM on July 7, a joint press statement was issued by the Ambassadors of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, and reads:

“France, the United Kingdom and the United States have not taken part in the negotiation of the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it.”

The statement then comments, irrationally, and absurdly, that the new treaty will create “even more divisions at a time when the world needs to remain united in the face of growing threats, including those from the DPRK’s ongoing proliferation efforts.

This treaty offers no solution to the grave threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program.” No sane person would consider that the tiny number of defensive nuclear weapons allegedly possessed by the  Democratic People’s Republic of Korea could possibly be a threat in any way comparable to the more than 15,000 advanced, sophisticated nuclear weapons possessed by the US, the UK and France, a nuclear arsenal capable of obliterating all life on earth. The exploitation of the DPRK’s tiny defensive weapons as a cynical justification for retaining the gargantuan arsenals possessed by the authors of this press statement also reveals dangerous paranoia by the most militarily powerful nations on earth. Indeed, even The New York Times, on July 9, page 10 acknowledges that:

“During the Korean War, North Korea was hit with thousands of tons of American bombs. The conflict technically continues, and North Korea claims it needs a robust defense program to protect itself in case of a renewed American attack.”

It is surprising that the U.S., the U.K. and France have issued a statement flaunting their violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty: they are required by Article 6 of that treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” which is precisely what the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons constitutes.

The authors of this press statement evidently consider themselves above international law, and not beholden to any legal restrictions on their use of force. With this press statement, the US, the UK and France have forfeited moral legitimacy, and as permanent members of the Security Council are divested of any authority to sanction North Korea. Further, they should themselves be sanctioned for their violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Their indifference to this new treaty’s basis in international humanitarian law, one of the treaty’s pillars, gives the lie to their pretense of concern for humanitarian considerations which they frequently cite, deceptively, during their speeches at the Security Council.

But July 7, 2017 will remain a pivotal date in the history of the United Nations, the day on which the majority of countries of the developing world, and many of the responsible and mature nations of the “developed world” have confronted the nuclear states with the uncivilized character of their possession of nuclear weapons, and the moral and practical imperative of divesting themselves of these insane instruments of horror.

Carla Stea is Global Research’s correspondent at United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.

Featured image: A B-1B Lancer with wings swept full forward (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In a menacing move as leaders gathered at the G20 summit in Germany, the US Air Force flew two B1-B strategic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Friday and unleashed inert bombs as part of a joint military exercise involving US and South Korean fighter aircraft.

US Air Force commander in the Pacific, General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, branded North Korea as a threat to the US and its allies.

“If called upon we are trained, equipped and ready to unleash the full lethal capability of our allied air forces,” he warned.

General Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy is Commander, Pacific Air Forces; Air Component Commander for U.S. Pacific Command (Source: U.S. Air Force)

The US bombers then flew with Japanese fighters over the East China Sea before returning to Guam. Just the day before, two US B1-B bombers provocatively flew over the South China Sea in a so-called freedom of navigation operation to challenge Chinese territorial claims in the disputed waters.

North Korea denounced the US-South Korean bombing drill as a “reckless military provocation” and warned that the US was pushing “the risk of a nuclear war on the [Korean] peninsula to a tipping point.”

The bombing practice follows massive joint US-South Korean war games earlier this year involving more than 300,000 personnel, along with warships, military aircraft and other sophisticated weaponry. On Wednesday, the South Korean and US militaries carried out missile drills aimed against North Korea.

The Trump administration has exploited the test launch last Tuesday of what was claimed to be a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to ramp up tensions on the Korean Peninsula and put pressure on the G20, particularly China, to take tougher action against Pyongyang.

The US efforts to put North Korea on the G20 agenda were effectively blocked by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Backed by China and Russia, she insisted that the summit was concerned with economic matters.

Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in a bid to pressure China to impose crippling sanctions on North Korea to force it to abandon its nuclear arsenal. During the brief public portion of the meeting, the US president declared “something has to be done” about North Korea and warned “there will be success in the end, one way or the other.”

Source: South China Morning Post

As well as the B1-B flights, the US has taken provocative steps in recent weeks, including a major arms sale to Taiwan, two “freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea, and sanctions on two Chinese companies over trade with North Korea. These moves are, in effect, threats of further action if Beijing does not carry out Washington’s bidding.

Trump, who left the G20 meeting without giving a press conference, claimed in a tweet that he had just finished “an excellent meeting on trade and North Korea” with Xi. No details were provided, however.

Briefing the media, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described the discussion as “very direct.” He continued:

“I think there were substantive discussions about the financing of North Korea, we had substantive discussions about ways of dealing with North Korea together.”

The reference to financing is significant. Mnuchin announced a ban on a Chinese bank just over a week ago for allegedly breaching US sanctions on North Korea. The Trump administration is demanding that all countries, particularly China, cut North Korea off from the global financial system and threatening secondary sanction against countries and companies that fail to do so.

Trump’s upbeat tweet after meeting Xi is in marked contrast to previous remarks indicating that Trump had given up on China as the means for compelling North Korea to submit to US demands. Just last week, he issued another tweet alleging a 40 percent increase in trade between China and North Korea.

“So much for China working with us—but we had to give it a try!” he declared.

Xi’s comments following his meeting with Trump were low-key. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, he told Trump China had already stated its position on North Korea multiple times. Before the G20 meeting, Xi with the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, reiterated Beijing’s proposal that North Korea freeze its nuclear and missile tests if South Korea and the US halt their military exercises, opening the way for talks.

Speaking to the media at the G20 meeting last Friday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared Washington was not interested in the Chinese and Russian proposal about freezing North Korea’s “very high level of capability.” Instead, he insisted, any talks with Pyongyang must be about charting a course “to cease and roll back” its nuclear program.

Xi also repeated China’s opposition to the US deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile battery in South Korea. While the THAAD installation is nominally directed against North Korea, its powerful X-band radar can look deep inside Chinese territory and undermines China’s ability to retaliate against a US nuclear attack.

The bitter disagreements over the THAAD system highlight the fact that the US military build-up in Asia, on the pretext of the alleged threat posed by North Korea, is primarily aimed against China, which the US regards as the main obstacle to its supremacy in the Asia Pacific.

Following the US lead, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull used their meetings with Xi at the G20 summit to press for tougher Chinese penalties against Pyongyang. The US has already foreshadowed a new UN Security Council resolution to block finance and oil for North Korea, among other sanctions.

If crippling sanctions fail to bring the North Korean regime to heel, the US B1-B bomber flight is the latest reminder that “all options are on the table,” including pre-emptive military attacks.

Last Friday, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis declared that while the US focus was “diplomatic and economic efforts,” North Korea’s missile test last week was “a very serious escalation.” He warned Pyongyang that any attempt to start a war would lead to “severe consequences.”

Saudi Arabia has unleashed a good deal of power against Qatar since the very suspicious incident of emails being leaked to the media. The Qatari national news website was hacked and had emails allegedly from the government showing links to terrorist groups and growing ties to Iran. With these “revelations” the Saudis have pounced on the opportunity to carry out hostile actions against them. Many believe that this is an attempt to force Qatar back to its client state status from decades ago.

It should not be seen as a coincidence that this hacking and the resultant hostilities come as Qatar has lifted its moratorium on the development of the North Field natural gas region back in April. In 2005 the government halted development after they decided they needed to study the effects on the reservoir that would develop as a result of increased output.

Thirteen demands were made of Doha by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) spearheaded by the Saudis. They include cutting ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, scaling back cooperation with Iran, and shutting down the state broadcaster Al-Jazeera. Qatar has dismissed them as ‘unrealistic’. Qatar is under no obligation to bow to the demands of the GCC who have no legal basis for threatening them.

Since the diplomatic row between Qatar and its neighbors, Doha has suffered from an economic blockade. The Saudis have been able to do this because they control the only land connection Qatar has. As it is, Qatar imports 80% of the food it consumes. 40% of that comes across the land border with the Saudis. Qatar was also importing $5 billion worth of goods from the blockading countries Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain.

They, however, have not been left without support. In the absence of these goods, alternative sources of milk, eggs, and cheese have been offered by other countries. Most notably, Turkey and Iran. The irony is that, as they’ve demanded Qatar pull away from Iran, they have only moved closer out of necessity.

Despite the impact of the economic war on Qatar, there has been little real damage to the economy. The central bank currently has a huge foreign currency exchange reserve which it can use to support its currency. As of 2016, Qatar’s Foreign Exchange Reserves as a percent of their GDP was reported at 19.79%. They’ve also made it clear that additional liquidity will be made available to anyone who requires it.

Qatar has the power to withstand a Saudi financial assault.

When demands were made by the Saudis, Qatar took a moment to think them over, using up the time that they were given to answer. Their response was a casual dismissal that told them that their demands were unrealistic. The almost off-handed manner with which they replied must have irked the Saudis something fierce. Few states in the region wield the significant political capital to do such a thing. This says something very important about how Qatar views their chances in further hostilities.

The Saudis have certainly underestimated the tenacity of the Qatari government. They’ve also underestimated the willingness of other Arab states to assist them during this time. Perhaps they have had a free hand by US imperialism for so long that they’ve forgotten what the situation in the Middle East is like. Materially and politically we’ve seen other countries step up and give support for the Qatari government. The Saudis thought they would have them over a barrel unable to defend themselves. They have most certainly been proven incorrect.

Many are concerned that the tensions between the two countries could break out into a war. The prospect is very unlikely. As it is the Saudis are already bogged down in a vicious struggle in Yemen. The rest of their military capacity is focused on controlling terrorist forces in Syria and Iraq. There isn’t really any forces to speak of left to carry out a campaign on their northern border. The manpower simply isn’t available to them. The recent low gas prices also begs the question as to whether they have the budget for it as well. The Saudis cannot carry out any kind of military action against Qatar on a large scale.

It’s also very unlikely that Qatar will launch a military campaign against the Saudis. Qatar’s air power alone is quite modest in comparison to Saudi Arabia’s. Qatar is not a large spender when it comes to its military. Qatar’s defence expenditures were a total of $1.913 billion, about 1.5% of the national GDP, as of 2010. By contrast, Saudi Arabia spent $63.7 billion, about 10% of the national GDP, as of 2010. It should be noted that the Saudis are the fourth largest military spenders in the world.

The Saudis must have thought themselves gods. They have attempted to manipulate the entire region to their whims. Every time they have struggled to dominate someone, they have encountered significant resistance. The region, it seems, is unwilling to kowtow to the Saudi Royal family. It also looks as though the Qataris will be no different in their resistance.

Jason Unruhe is a contributor to PressTV and long time blogger and amateur journalist on YouTube.

Featured image from Strategic Culture Foundation