Global Research

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon,

Allow me to skip any statements and monologues. You have seen and heard everything, a great deal. Let us get straight to questions.

Go ahead, please.

Question: Mr President, both experts and ordinary people, some of whom are rampaging near this building now, are known to have different opinions on the usefulness of G20 summits. At this summit, for example, there was more talk about your meeting with Mr Trump. And yet which of the issues discussed by the G20 is most relevant for Russia? Thank you.

We agreed on determining global economy sustainability principles, and this is vitally important for working along the same standards.

Then we continued with the issue which in fact had been launched in St Petersburg: money laundering and everything connected with tax havens and tax evasion. It is a crucial matter with practical implications.

Next, no less important and also connected with the economy, a related but very important issue – the fight against terror, tracking money flows to prevent the funding of terrorism.

Finally, a very big and very sensitive issue is climate change. I think in this respect the Federal Republic of Germany chairing the G20 has managed to reach the best compromise in a difficult situation the chairing nation has found itself in, namely due to the US quitting the Paris Climate Agreement. An agreement was reached, a compromise, when all the countries have recorded that the United States pulled out of the agreement but they are ready to continue cooperating in certain areas and with certain countries on addressing climate change challenges. I think this is a positive result in itself, which can be credited to Chancellor Merkel.

There are other issues we looked into. For example, digital economy. Here we proposed adopting common rules in the area of digital economy, defining cyber security and designing a comprehensive system of behaviour rules in this sphere.

We said today – the President of the South African Republic spoke very convincingly about it; in fact, this issue was touched upon in practically everyone’s speech and in some way it is reflected in the final documents – that we must be ready for the release of the labour force, we must make joint efforts, we must figure out what should be done with the workers who have lost their jobs, how to arrange retraining, what the deadlines are and what rules should be put in place.

Among other things I drew attention to the fact that trade unions will have to be engaged because they will protect not only the workers but also the self-employed individuals operating in the digital economy, and the number of such jobs is increasing. This is connected in one way or another with women’s rights and education for girls. This is being discussed at many forums but we talked about it today in the context of digital economy.

Overall, this forum is definitely effective, and I believe it will play a role in stabilising the global economy in general.

Question: Mr President, I would like to follow up on my colleague’s topic. Even though there were many political issues at the summit, they keep on surfacing at the G20 summits more and more often, yet you listed economic issues, which remain the priority anyway. Many speakers, ministers from different countries responsible for the economy, said that 2017 could become the year of global economic growth. How feasible is that and will this growth be seen in Russia in view of the current unfavourable trends – sanctions, restrictions and other factors?

Vladimir Putin: We have not seen any unfavourable trends so far, or they have almost disappeared at any rate. Certain factors are having a negative impact on economic development, including in the global economy, the economy in the Euro zone and in Russia, those same illegitimate restrictions you have mentioned. We call for lifting any restrictions, for free trade, for working within the World Trade Organisation, in line the WTO rules. By the way, one of the topics discussed here was free trade and countering protectionism. This is also one of the crucial areas that should be mentioned.

On the whole, there is some progress. However, the initial optimistic growth forecasts have been downgraded. Nevertheless, there is growth, and it is apparent, including in Russia.

I said recently and repeated it here that Russian economic growth is tangible, the Russian economy, and we can say this with certainty, has recovered from the recession. We have been growing for the third quarter in a row, and soon it will be the fourth quarter in a row. Growth exceeded 3 percent in May: it was 3.1 percent. I think we will have an average of 2 percent in 2017. This is also a significant contribution to the global economic growth.

Let me remind you that we also have low unemployment of 5.2 percent, our reserves are growing, including the reserves of the Central Bank and the Government. The Central Bank reserves have already reached $412 billion. The federal budget revenues grew by 40 percent, and all this is happening against the background of fairly low inflation of 4.4 percent. All this taken together certainly gives us optimism; however, one cannot say with certainty that this is a long-term trend. We must take care to sustain this growth trend. I have every reason to believe that we will manage to do it.

Question: Mr President, your meeting with President Trump was literally the focus of everyone’s attention at the summit. How do you access the results of this meeting? It is no secret that US President had voiced a rather tough rhetoric in Poland, and there had even been unfriendly statements from US media in the run-up to the summit. Did Mr Trump ask you directly about Russia’s interference in the US [presidential] election? Did you like him personally? Do you think you will get along?

Vladimir Putin: The US President asked me this question directly, and we discussed it. And this was not a single question, there were many, and he gave much attention to this issue. Russia’s stance is well-known and I reiterated it. There is no reason to believe that Russia interfered in the US election process.

But what is important is that we have agreed that there should not be any uncertainty in this sphere, especially in the future. By the way, I mentioned at the latest summit session that this directly concerns cyberspace, web resources and so on.

The US President and I have agreed to establish a working group and make joint efforts to monitor security in the cyberspace, ensure full compliance with international laws in this area, and to prevent interference in countries’ internal affairs. Primarily this concerns Russia and the United States. We believe that if we succeed in organising this work – and I have no doubt that we will – there will be no more speculation over this matter.

As regards personal relations, I believe that they have been established. This is how I see it: Mr Trump’s television image is very different from the real person; he is a very down to earth and direct person, and he has an absolutely adequate attitude towards the person he is talking with; he analyses things pretty fast and answers the questions he is asked or new ones that arise in the course of the discussion. So I think that if we build our relations in the vein of our yesterday’s meeting, there are good reasons to believe that we will be able to revive, at least partially, the level of interaction that we need.

Question: To follow up on of your answer, could you please say if President Trump has accepted your denial of Russia’s involvement, Russia’s interference in the US election?

Vladimir Putin: I repeat, he asked many question on this matter. I answered all of his questions as far as I could. I think he took note and agreed. But it would be better if you asked him about what he thinks about it.

Question: One more question about the domestic policy, if I may. Actually, it is unrelated to the G20 but the question is about Russia’s domestic policy. I would like to ask what you think of Alexei Navalny and his activities. And why you do not say his name and surname when you answer questions about him.

Vladimir Putin: I think we can engage in dialogue, especially at the level of the President or the Government, with the people who propose a constructive agenda, even if they voice criticism. But if the point is to attract publicity, this does not encourage dialogue.

Question: Earlier this morning you had a meeting with the French President and the German Chancellor. I assume you had an in-depth discussion on the situation in Ukraine. Did a new vision emerge, and is there any hope that Donbass will come out of the ordeal gripping it right now? Can the discussion of the issue launched with the US President play its role, or do the interests of Russia and the United States still diverge in Ukraine, or may be even oppose each other in some matters? Which, by the way, can be presumed from the background of the US diplomat who was appointed special envoy.

Vladimir Putin: The interests of Russia and Ukraine, the interests of the Russian and Ukraine people – and I am fully and profoundly confident of this – coincide. Our interests fully coincide. The only thing that does not coincide is the interests of the current Ukrainian authorities and some of Ukraine’s political circles. If we are to be objective, of course, both Ukraine and Russia are interested in cooperating with each other, joining their competitive advantages and developing their economies just because we have inherited much from the Soviet era – I am speaking about cooperation, the unified infrastructure and the energy industry, transport, and so on.

But regrettably, today our Ukrainian colleagues believe this can be neglected. They have only one ”product“ left – Russophobia, and they are selling it successfully. Another thing they are selling is the policy of dividing Russia and Ukraine and pulling the two peoples and two nations apart. Some in the West like this; they believe that Russia and Ukraine must not be allowed to get closer in any areas. That is why the current Ukrainian authorities are making active and successful efforts to sell this ”product.“

But I think this will eventually come to an end. Russia, at any rate, wants for this situation to be over as soon as possible.

As regards the United States’ involvement in settling the situation in Ukraine, President Trump and I have talked about this and we agreed – and actually, this has already been done – that a special representative of the administration would be appointed to handle this issue on a permanent basis and to be in constant contact both with Russia and Ukraine, with all the parties interested in settling this conflict.

Question: Mr President, I have a question about the Middle East, which is seething at the moment: Syria, Qatar and other countries. You must have had discussions on Syria at the G20 Summit. How do you assess the prospects for the Syrian settlement after those discussions and after the recent meeting in Astana? Has the stance of the new US Administration on this issue changed or become more constructive, especially in view of yesterday’s agreements?

And also about Qatar, if I may. How do you assess the situation? Was it discussed at the G20 Summit?

And one more question, if I may…

Vladimir Putin: I will have to make a full report to you. (Laughter.)

Question: Well, one does not often get this chance. On the terrorism issue: as far as I know, agreeing on the Statement on Countering Terrorism was a difficult process. If it is not a secret, what were the major contradictions?

Vladimir Putin: To be honest, I am not aware of the difficulties, you had better ask the Sherpa. In my view, there were no basic objections from anyone. Maybe some of the wording. But, to be honest, I am not aware of that. I know that the text was agreed on. At any rate, at the level of delegation heads, heads of state, there were no problems or tensions. Everyone admits that this is a common threat and everyone states their readiness to fight this threat.

As for Qatar, the problem was not discussed. It is a fairly burning regional issue, and can impact certain processes, by the way, including in the economy, in the energy area and in terms of security in the region, but I did not discuss this issue with anybody during the Summit.

About Syria. Yes, we discussed this issue with almost all of my interlocutors. As for whether the US stance has changed or not – I would say it has become more pragmatic. It does not seem to have changed in general, but there is an understanding now that by combining efforts, we can achieve a lot. Yesterday’s deal on the southern de-escalation zone is clearly the result of this change. You know, others may react as they like, but I can tell you, this is one of the breakthroughs we have made in our work with President Trump. This is a real result of cooperation, including with the United States. Jordan has joined in the effort, and so have several other countries in the region. We have held consultations with Israel and will continue them in the near future. Still, this is a very good result, a breakthrough of a kind. Therefore, if we move the same way in other directions, towards other de-escalation areas…

We have discussed this very thoroughly with the President of Turkey today. This does not entirely depend on us, of course, as much has to do with the controversy between the countries in the region. Everyone has their own concerns, everyone has their own preferences, their own interests, I mean legitimate interests, so this is the way we must treat these – as their legitimate interests; we need to look for compromises.

You know, sometimes we find them. In any case, the fact that active military operations have ceased, the fact that we are now discussing de-escalation zones is a huge step forward.

Now we need to agree on the exact boundaries of these zones, and how security will be ensured there. This is a painstaking, even tedious effort, and it is extremely important and responsible work. Based on the recent positive experience, relying on the good will of Iran, Turkey, and of course, the Syrian Government and President al-Assad, we can take further steps.

The most important thing is – we have actually reaffirmed this, also in the documents establishing this zone in the south on the border with Jordan, and the area that borders on the Golan Heights – the most important thing is to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity, eventually, so that these de-escalation zones become the prototype of regions that could cooperate with each other and with the official Damascus. If we manage to do this, we will lay the groundwork, create the prerequisites for resolving the entire Syrian problem by political means.

Question: We have already talked about interfering in the elections but we have new elections coming up in Germany.

Vladimir Putin: Here in Germany?

Question: These days we say “we have elections in Germany” in September. Is Russia planning to interfere in them? Did you notify Angela Merkel about how we are going to do it? Maybe you will give me a hunch as well? (Laughter in the audience.)

Vladimir Putin: You are asking rather provocative questions. But I told you that we had not interfered in the United States either. Why should we make trouble here as well? We have very good relations with the Federal Republic. It is our largest trade and economic partner in Europe country-wise, one of our leading trade partners in the world. We have large joint projects on the agenda that we support, for example, Nord Stream 2. There are a lot of tales being told about it, arguments and even resistance but it is absolutely evident that it is in the interests of the European economy and in the interests of the German economy, which wants to abandon nuclear power.

Why would we do it? Interfering in domestic political processes is the last thing we would wish to do.

If you look at the press, the German press or the European press in general, the French press, it is they who keep on interfering in our domestic affairs. But we are not concerned about it because we feel confident.

Question: Thank you very much, Mr President, for the opportunity to ask you a question on behalf of my television network. We meant to ask you about your meeting with President Trump, but my colleague has already asked the same question. And you said we should ask President Trump about what had happened.

Vladimir Putin: No, I did not. You should ask him about how he sees it, what he thinks about my answers. As to what happened – nothing happened, we did not interfere.

Remark: Unfortunately, the White House offers practically no information about what is going on.

Vladimir Putin: We will give them a piece of our minds. (Laughter.)

Remark: Could you just share what President Trump said during your meeting when you told him that Russia had not interfered in the political process?

Vladimir Putin: He started asking probing questions, he was really interested in some details. I gave him fairly detailed answers as much as I could. I told him about my dialogues with the previous administration, including with President Obama. But I do not feel that I have the right to give details of my conversations, say, with President Obama, it is not an accepted practice at this level. I think it would not be quite appropriate of me to give details of our conversation with President Trump. He asked me and I answered him. He asked probing questions, and I offered explanations. I think he was satisfied with those answers.

Remark: Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: You are welcome.

Question: Going back to the issue of boosting economic growth, to the measures that could be taken, the Government has already drafted a plan, and as far as we know, you have read it but for some reason the plan is classified. We know some parts of it from what you said about them.

Vladimir Putin: Let me explain. As you must know, we have several groups working on this issue: a group headed by Mr Titov with the involvement of the business community, and a group headed by Mr Kudrin, who has gathered a large number of respected experts. The Government is also working. But we should make a plan that will be acceptable, optimal for the next steps to be taken in the economy starting in 2018. And we must review all the proposals, assess them and in the end, make the final decision.

It may not be one of the proposals submitted; it may be something based on all three proposals. But work is currently underway, and we do not talk about it in advance.

But the Government has certainly done a great deal in this area, and we will rely largely on the Government’s proposals. We cannot ignore the results of Mr Kudrin’s work, and Mr Titov also has some sensible suggestions. This is why we are working at present to decide what the final variant will be out of the proposals for the development of the Russian economy from 2018 onward.

That is all. There are no secrets. What is the point? The point is that it is wrong to announce what has not been adopted yet. We could just send the wrong signals to the economy, and that is it. It all comes down to that.

Question: I have a question about domestic policy. I have learned that you have been briefed on the [limo] car of the Cortege project, which is to be used at the 2018 presidential inauguration.

Vladimir Putin: You seem to know this better than me: this is the first time I have heard about it.

Question: Have you thought of going for a drive in this car at the official event, that is, at the inauguration?

Vladimir Putin: No, I have not, because the car is not ready yet. You can go for a drive in it yourself, I will see how it goes, and later we can test it out together.

Question: You have spoken about the meeting with Mr Erdogan. Could you please elaborate – when you touched upon the issue of the first zone, the northern one, did you discuss the issue of the Kurds and particularly the territory of Afrin, where representatives of the Russian Centre for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides are present? The Turkish media are already preparing the ground for the Turkish army’s intervention to this area. Also, did you discuss the future of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad with Mr Trump and Mr Erdogan? For instance, Mr Tillerson said yesterday that this person has no future in the Syrian politics. He did not say how and when, but that was what he said.

Vladimir Putin: Let me answer the second question first. Mr Tillerson is a well-regarded man, he received the Russian Order of Friendship, and we feel great respect for him and we like him. But he is not a Syrian citizen, and the future of Syria and President al-Assad as a political figure has to be determined by the Syrian people.

As regards the Kurdish issue, this is a very big and complicated problem. We keep in contact with many Kurdish groups and make no secret of this. But with regard to military support of their activities, here our US colleagues are far ahead of the game; they are making much greater efforts in this regard.

Our servicemen – not advisers – who are monitoring the ceasefire are indeed present in many regions of Syria, where the truce agreement has been reached. But speaking of the regions you have mentioned, there are one or two of them there, they are not military units. They are performing the task that everyone is interested in fulfilling. But so far, we are not witnessing any preparations for military action; quite the opposite, we expect that our preliminary developments on establishing the de-escalation zones in several regions – in the Idlib area, in the north – will be accomplished. And this cannot be done without Turkey’s support.

Question: My colleagues here have already recalled the words President Trump said in Warsaw. He made yet another statement about the United States being ready to begin direct supplies of liquefied natural gas to Poland and Central Europe. What do you think of these plans, especially in the context of our plans for the Nord Stream? What if gas becomes a new cause of tension in US-Russian relations?

Vladimir Putin: I view these plans highly positively because healthy competition is good for everyone. We support an open market and healthy competition.

The US President said yesterday during the discussion that the United States stands for open, fair competition. And, by the way, when I spoke, I supported his point. So, we are absolutely all right with this; if it is so, if there is open and fair competition, no political motives or political resources involved, it would be quite acceptable for us. Because to date, it is an obvious fact that any specialist would tell you: the cost of production and delivery of liquefied natural gas from the United States is much higher than our LNG – even LNG – and is not even comparable to Russian pipeline gas. So, there is no doubt that we have an absolute competitive advantage. But to keep it, our market participants must work hard. They need to retain these competitive advantages.

Let us wrap this up. Go ahead, please.

Question: After the first meeting with President Trump, do you think it would be possible to gradually pull Russian-US relations out of deep crisis they are in, or is it difficult to say anything at all yet?

Vladimir Putin: I very much hope so, and it seems to me that we have built certain prerequisites for this.

Thank you very much. All the best.

All images in this article are from the original source.

Featured image: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. (Source: Flickr/Creative Commons/U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers)

I went to a meeting the other night with some Donald Trump supporters who, like me, had voted for him based on expectations of a more rational foreign policy. They were suggesting that the president’s attempts to move in that direction had been sabotaged by officials inside the administration who want to maintain the current warfare state. Remove those officials and Trump might just keep his pledge to leave Bashar al-Assad alone while improving relations with Russia.

I was somewhat skeptical, noting that the White House had unilaterally initiated the April 7 cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase as well as the more recent warning against an alleged “planned” chemical attack, hardly moves that might lead to better relations with Damascus and Moscow. But there are indeed some administration figures who clearly are fomenting endless conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere.

One might reasonably start with Generals James Mattis and H.R. McMaster, both of whom are hardliners on Afghanistan and Iran, but with a significant caveat. Generals are trained and indoctrinated to fight and win wars, not to figure out what comes next. General officers like George Marshall or even Dwight Eisenhower who had a broader vision are extremely rare, so much so that expecting a Mattis or McMaster to do what falls outside their purview is perhaps a bit too much. They might be bad choices for the jobs they hold, but at least they employ some kind of rational process, based on how they perceive national interests, to make judgments. If properly reined in by a thoughtful civilian leadership, which does not exist at the moment, they have the potential to be effective contributors to the national-security discussion.

But several other notable figures in the administration deserve to be fired if there is to be any hope of turning Trump’s foreign policy around. In Arthur Sullivan’s and W. S. Gilbert’s The Mikado, the Lord High Executioner sings about the “little list” he is preparing of people who “never will be missed” when he finally gets around to fulfilling the requirements of his office. He includes “apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,” indicating that the American frustration with the incompetence of its government is not unique, nor is it a recent phenomenon.

My own little list of “society’s offenders” consists largely of the self-described gaggle of neoconservative foreign-policy “experts.” Unfortunately, the neocons have proven to be particularly resilient in spite of repeated claims that their end was nigh, most recently after the election of Donald Trump last November. Yet as most of the policies the neocons have historically espoused are indistinguishable from what the White House is currently trying to sell, one might well wake up one morning and imagine that it is 2003 and George W. Bush is still president. Still, hope springs eternal, and now that the United States has celebrated its 241st birthday, it would be nice to think that in the new year our nation might be purged of some of the malignancies that have prevailed since 9/11.

Number one on my little list is Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who is particularly dangerous as she is holding a position where she can do bad things. Haley has been shooting from the lip since she assumed office and, it has become clear, much of what she says goes without any vetting by the Trump administration. It is never clear whether she is speaking for herself or for the White House. That issue has reportedly been dealt with by having the State Department clear in advance her comments on hot button issues, but, if that is indeed the case, the change has been difficult to discern in practice.

Haley is firmly in the neocon camp, receiving praise from Senators like South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and from the Murdoch media as well as in the opinion pages of National Review and The Weekly Standard. Her speechwriter is Jessica Gavora, who is the wife of the leading neoconservative journalist Jonah Goldberg. Haley sees the United Nations as corrupt and bloated, in itself not an unreasonable conclusion, but she has tied herself closely to a number of other, more debatable issues.

As governor of South Carolina, Haley became identified as an unquestioning supporter of Israel. She signed into law a bill to restrict the activities of the nonviolent pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the first legislation of its kind on a state level. Haley has also stated that

“nowhere has the UN’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel.”

On a recent visit to Israel, she was applauded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating

“You know, all I’ve done is to tell the truth, and it’s kind of overwhelming at the reaction…if there’s anything I have no patience for, it’s bullies, and the UN was being such a bully to Israel, because they could.”

But Haley sometimes goes far beyond trying to “tell the truth.” In February, she blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a congressional hearing this past week, she was asked about the decision:

“Is it this administration’s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the UN are mutually exclusive?”

Haley responded yes, that the administration is “supporting Israel” by blocking any Palestinian from any senior UN position because Palestine is not recognized by Washington as an independent state.

At various UN meetings Haley has repeatedly and uncritically complained of institutional bias towards Israel, asserting that the “days of Israel bashing are over,” without ever addressing the issue that Israeli treatment of the Palestinians might in part be responsible for the criticism leveled against it. Her description of Israel as an “ally” is hyperbolic and she tends to be oblivious to actual American interests in the region when Israel is involved. She has never challenged the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as well as the recent large expansion of settlements, which are at least nominally opposed by the State Department and White House.

Haley is inevitably a hardliner on Syria, reflecting the Israeli bias, and consistently hostile to Russia. She has said that regime change in Damascus is a Trump administration priority. Her most recent foray involves the White House warning that it had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime.” Haley elaborated in a tweet,

“…further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.”

Earlier, on April 12, after Russia blocked a draft UN resolution intended to condemn the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Haley said,

 “We need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people.”

Haley’s analysis of who is doing what to whom in Syria is certainly questionable at a minimum. And her language is hardly supportive of possible administration diplomatic attempts to mend fences with the Russians and can also be seen as quite dangerous as they increase the likelihood of an “accidental encounter” over the skies of Syria as both sides harden their positions and seek to expand the areas they control. She has also said that,

“We’re calling [Russia] out [and] I don’t think anything is off the table at this point. I think what you’re going to see is strong leadership. You’re going to continue to see the United States act when we need to act.”

Regarding Moscow’s role on the UN Security Council, she complained that,

“All they’ve done is seven times veto against Syria every time they do something to hurt their own people. And so Russia absolutely has not done what they’re supposed to do.”

Regarding Ukraine, Haley has taken an extreme position that guarantees Russian hostility. In February, she addressed the UN Security Council regarding the Crimean conflict, which she  appears not to understand very well. She warned that sanctions against Russia would not be lifted until Moscow returned control over the peninsula to Kiev. On June 4, she doubled down, insisting that the United States would retain “sanctions strong and tough when it comes to the issue in Ukraine.”

Haley is also increasingly highly critical of Iran, which she sees as the instigator of much of the unrest in the Middle East, again reflecting the Israeli viewpoint. She claimed on April 20, during her first session as president of the UN Security Council, that Iran and Hezbollah had “conducted terrorist acts” for decades within the Middle East, ignoring the more serious terrorism support engaged in by U.S. regional allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. She stated last week that the Security Council’s praise of the Iran Nuclear Agreement honored a state that has engaged in “illicit missile launches,” “support for terrorist groups,” and “arms smuggling,” while “stok[ing] regional conflicts and mak[ing] them harder to solve.” All are perspectives that might easily be challenged.

Haley is also much given to rhetoric reminiscent of George W. Bush during his first term. Regarding North Korea, on May 16 she told reporters that,

“We have to turn around and tell the entire international community: You either support North Korea or you support us,” echoing George W. Bush’s sentiment that, “There’s a new sheriff in town and you’re either with us or against us.”

So Haley very much comes across as the neoconservatives’ dream ambassador to the United Nations–full of aggression, a staunch supporter of Israel, and assertive of Washington’s preemptive right to set standards for the rest of the world. That does not necessarily make her very good for the rest of us, who will have to bear the burdens of imperial hubris. Nor is her tendency to overstate her case a plus for the Trump administration itself, which is clearly seeking to work its way through Russiagate–and just might be considering how to establish some kind of modus vivendi with Vladimir Putin.

If Donald Trump really wants to drain the Washington swamp and reduce interference in other nations, he might well continue that program by firing Nikki Haley. He could then appoint someone as UN ambassador who actually believes that the United States has to deal with other countries respectfully, not by constant bullying and threats. In the lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan, she’s on my list and “she will never be missed.”

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

Featured image: African Union First Ladies’ Commission at 29th Summit on July 3-4, 2017

On July 3-4 the African Union (AU) held its 29th Annual Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia while the continent is faced with monumental challenges from Cairo to Cape Town.

Held under the theme of “Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investment in Youth”, the gathering recognized the necessity of economic and social development to ensure a prosperous and sustainable future for Africa. A recent decline in commodity prices impacting the raw materials, energy and agricultural producing states illustrates the need to plan for an independent strategy of guaranteeing the health and well-being of over one billion people.

The two leading economic countries on the continent, South Africa and Nigeria, are both in recession. Unemployment is growing and the national currency of these states has fallen into precipitous decline. Bond rating agencies based in the United States are issuing reports which question the capacity of the ruling parties of each nation to engineer remedies that will make them more creditworthy to international finance capital.

South Africa and Nigeria encompass growing youth populations placing social and political pressure on their governments to address the need for accessible employment opportunities for all. Nonetheless, the dependence upon foreign markets for the export of natural resources and cash crops systematically undermines strategic planning within the present world division of labor and economic power.

Just three years ago western financial publications were hailing what they described as phenomenal growth in many African nations. The Federal Republic of Nigeria was proclaimed to have surpassed the Republic of South Africa as the leading power house of the region.

Countries such as Angola, Algeria, Gabon, Nigeria and Ghana experienced an influx of foreign direct investment largely due to the rising oil and natural gas prices. However, by 2015, the prices of oil, natural gas and other resources had declined by over 60 percent.

These factors compounded the social and political instability brought about as a result of the U.S. and NATO wars against the governments in Libya and Ivory Coast which resulted in the collapse of these societies fueling the migration from Africa across the Mediterranean and into Southern, Central and Eastern Europe.

Similar western interventions in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and the unresolved question of Palestine independence, has worsened the crisis of displacement. United Nations agencies have reported that the situation of dislocated persons domestically, as well as refugees and migrants, with estimates numbering 65-75 million people, easily surpasses any period since the conclusion of World War II.

In his opening address, AU Chairperson President Alpha Conde of the Republic of Guinea noted that the organization was:

“Aware of the importance of human capital, the AU has decided to harness the African youth, to find ways and means of developing the youth which constitute 70 percent of the total population. The holistic management of the challenges faced by the youth call on us to find alternatives to build economies that are resilient and capable of ensuring the space for the youth in our continent.” (Zimbabwe Chronicle, July 4)

If these issues are not the focus of AU policy the future painted by Conde would not be a desirable one. A region so rich in minerals and land could further deteriorate making conditions unlivable to even larger numbers of people across the continent.

Conde went on to emphasize that:

“It is imperative on us African leaders that if we don’t invest in the youth, we would have failed our duty and compromised dangerously the future of our youth. We would have condemned them to unemployment and immigration to become parasites and beggars.”

These observations are poignant in light of the hostility that African migrants are met with in Europe and the U.S. The migration issue is being utilized by the ultra-right wing neo-fascist groups and political parties as a wedge to win political power and advance policies which reinforce racism and national discrimination against people from the former colonial territories of Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific.

Gender Equality, the Role of Youth and Economic Development

Although the AU mandated at its conception in 2002 the full integration of women within the governing structures of national and regional centers of power there is still considerable work to be done in this arena. In some countries women are represented in significant numbers within cabinet and parliamentary bodies, the civil service and professional fields. However, the onus of the declining economic situation, foreign intervention and internecine conflict falls upon the backs of women and youth.

The 19th Ordinary General Assembly of First Ladies of Africa (OAFLA) took place simultaneously with the overall AU Summit. H.E. Ms. Amira El Fadil Mohamed, who is the Commissioner for Social Affairs of the AU Commission stressed that there is a pressing need for a systematic and integrated strategy aimed at tackling all four areas of the thematic demographic dividend pillars. These areas include health and well being; employment and entrepreneurship; education and skills development and rights and good governance. Without adequate progress in all four areas there cannot be long lasting growth, social stability and genuine development.

According to a press release issued by OAFLA on July 4, it says:

“Sustainable and affordable access to maternal and child health care, HIV testing and counselling and immunization services, according to the Commissioner of Social Affairs, will ultimately result in young people meaningfully contributing to the socio-economic development of their society, thereby enabling them to make the right informed decisions about their health.” (Au.int.)

Ms. Mohamed said of the challenge that:

“The youth of our continent need to be guaranteed social and economic development if they are to contribute to their nations’ and continents’ economic development.”

Also H.E. Mrs. Roman Tesfaye emphasized:

“It is high time that African nations put in place favorable policies and increase youth targeted investments. We need to lift and break the barriers faced by African youth in accessing and utilizing reproductive health information and services.”

Pan-Africanism, Self-Reliance and National Liberation

Republic of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe followed through on a previous commitment when he served as AU Chairperson two years earlier. Mugabe presented a check for $1 million to the AU Foundation saying it was a “modest contribution” aimed at breaking the cycle of donor dependency.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe presents fundraising check of $1 million to the AU Summit

Zimbabwe and other anti-imperialist states had criticized the AU’s readmission of the Kingdom of Morocco earlier this year absent of the resolution of the Western Sahara question. Now both the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and their occupiers based in Rabat are members of the continental organization.

Morocco has carried out a diplomatic offensive among the AU member-states. Its offers of economic assistance have swayed numerous governments to agree on a compromised position on the inherent anti-colonial mission of the organization.

In the aftermath of the 29th Summit in Ethiopia, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the SADR, Mohamed Salem Ould Essalek, convened a press conference in the Algerian capital saying that the AU would however deploy a task force to explore solutions to the Western Sahara crisis. The UN has gone on record calling for an internationally-supervised referendum on the future of the SADR.

Nevertheless, Morocco continues to object to such an election claiming that the Western Sahara was an integral part of the Kingdom. During the early 1980s, the SADR was admitted as a full member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the AU. These decisions prompted the withdrawal of Morocco from the OAU/AU which lasted over three decades.

Essalek highlighted the decision of the AU Summit during the press conference in Algiers saying:

“The AU will not accept the continuation of the conflict between the two states since Morocco has signed and adopted its constitutional charter whose articles 3 and 4 stipulate the imperative respect of the borders established at independence and peaceful dialogue between member countries.”

He went on to say the AU Summit had:

“Defeated the plan of the Morocco occupier attempting to repeal AU’s traditional decisions on the Saharawi cause.”

Essalek claims the decisions in Addis Ababa:

“reiterates and reinforces the positions of the AU after the accession of Morocco, a decision that frustrates Morocco. This is the first time the AU has taken such a decision since 1991.”

It will remain to be seen how vigorous the approach of the AU will be in regard to winning national liberation for the SADR. The resolution of this conflict and other border issues is essential in building the necessary political trust that can move the continent towards full social and economic integration.

Only a collective approach to genuine independence and sovereignty will lay the foundation for the realization of a functioning Pan-Africanism. Moreover, the AU member-states must transform their governing structures into truly representative institutions with the mandate of the workers, farmers and youth which can effectively break with the world capitalist system and move toward socialist reconstruction.

All images in this article are from the author.

The false reality constructed for Americans parallels perfectly the false reality constructed by Big Brother in George Orwells’ dystopic novel 1984.

Consider the constant morphing of “the Muslim threat” from al-Qaeda to the Taliban, to al-Nursra, to ISIS to ISIL, to Daesh with a jump to Russia. All of a sudden 16 years of Middle East wars against “terrorists” and “dictators” have become a matter of standing up to Russia, the country most threatened by Muslim terrorism, and the country most capable of wiping the United States and its vassal empire off of the face of the earth.

Domestically, Americans are assured that, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing, that is, flooding the financial markets with newly printed money that has driven up the prices of stocks and bonds, America has enjoyed an economic recovery since June of 2009, which must be one of the longest recoveries in history despite the absence of growth in median real family incomes, despite the growth in real retail sales, despite the falling labor force participation rate, despite the lack of high value-added, high productivity jobs.

The “recovery” is more than a mystery. It is a miracle. It exists only on fake news paper.

According to CNN, an unreliable source for sure, Jennifer Tescher, president and CEO of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, reports that about half of Americans report that their living expenses are equal to or exceed their incomes. Among those aged 18 to 25 burdened by student loans, 54% say their debts are equal to or exceed their incomes. This means that half of the US population has ZERO discretionary income. So what is driving the recovery?

Nothing. For half or more of the US population there is no discretionary income there with which to drive the economy.

The older part of the population has no discretionary income either. For a decade there has been essentially zero interest on the savings of the elderly, and if you believe John Williams of shadowstats.com, which I do, the real interest rates have been zero and even negative as inflation is measured in a way designed to prevent Social Security cost of living adjustments.

In other words, the American economy has been living on the shrinkage of the savings and living standards of its population.

Last Friday’s employment report is just another lie from the government. The report says that the unemployment rate is 4.4% and that June employment increased by 222,000 jobs. A rosy picture. But as I have just demonstrated, there are no fundamentals to support it. It is just another US government lie like Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and so forth and so on.

The rosy unemployment picture is totally contrived. The unemployment rate is 4.4% because discouraged workers who have not searched for a job in the past four weeks are not counted as unemployed.

The BLS has a second measure of unemployment, known as U6, which is seldom reported by the presstitute financial media. According to this official measure the US unemployment rate is about double the reported rate.

Why? the U6 rate counts discouraged workers who have been discouraged for less than one year.

John Williams counts the long term discouraged workers (discouraged for more than one year) who formerly (before “reforms”) were counted officially. When the long term discouraged are counted, the US unemployment rate is in the 22-23 percent range. This is born out by the clear fact that the labor force participation rate has been falling throughout the alleded “recovery.” Normally, labor force participation rates rise during economic recoveries.

It is very easy for the government to report a low jobless rate when the government studiously avoids counting the unemployed.

It is an extraordinary thing that although the US government itself reports that if even a small part of discouraged workers are countered as unemployed the unemployment rate is 8.6%, the presstitute financial media, a collection of professional liars, still reports, in the face of the government’s admission, that the unemployment rate as 4.4%.

Now, let’s do what I have done month after month year after year. Let’s look at the jobs that the BLS alleges are being created. Remember, most of these alleged jobs are the product of the birth/death model that adds by assumption alone about 100,000 jobs per month. In other words, these jobs come out of a model, not from reality.

Where are these reported jobs? They are where they always are in lowly paid domestic services. Health care and social assistance, about half of which is “ambulatory health care services,” provided 59,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality provided 36,000 jobs of which 29,300 consist of waitresses and bartenders. Local government rose by 35,000. Manufacturing, once the backbone of the US economy, provided a measly 1,000 jobs.

As I have emphasized for a decade or two, the US is devolving into a third world workforce where the only employment is available in lowly paid domestic service jobs that cannot be offshored and that do not pay enough to provide an independent existence. This is why 50% of 25-year olds live at home with their parents and why there are more Americans aged 24-34 living with parents than living independently.

This is not the economic profile of a “superpower” that the idiot neoconservatives claim the US to be. The American economy that offshoring corporations and financialization have created is incapable of supporting the enormous US debt burden. It is only a matter of time and circumstance.

I doubt that the United States can continue in the ranks of a first world economy. Americans have sat there sucking their thumbs while their “leaders” destroyed them.

In 1951, as the Cold War was intensifying, the CIA decided to see how Voice of America radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe compared with Soviet efforts. In a remarkably candid document, the Agency critically assessed the similarities and differences between U.S. and Soviet propaganda.

Today, VOA claims that it was founded during the Second World War to provide “Unbiased and accurate information.” The CIA officers assessing VOA in 1951, though, saw the service as essentially similar to Soviet propaganda, going so far as saying that most Americans would be surprised by the similarities between the two.

The document proposes that similarities could be the result of opposing countries imitating the propaganda put out by their rivals, and even posits the existence of an “international propagandists culture” that tended to produce similar techniques.

The document includes a list of 33 main similarities between Soviet and American propaganda, including the “impression of objectivity,” “avoiding obvious lying on tangible facts,” blurring distinctions within enemy camp,” and “not dignifying opponent’s position by quoting it.”

However, it was in identifying where the two styles differed that the Agency saw the most strategic value.

Some of the differences that the CIA identified included “Soviet Conflict-Mindedness” …

which was directly opposed to “Greater American Fact-Mindedness”

Changes in the National Defense Authorization Act this year ignited fears that VOA could be marketing itself to an American audience. If it does, the American public may get a direct demonstration of exactly what the “international propagandists culture” looks like today.

Read the complete report here.

Featured image from United Artists

Featured image: Leopoldo Lopez speaking to a crowd. (Source: Zfigueroa / Wikimedia Commons)

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

In September 2015, anti-Bolivarian fascist coup plotter Leopoldo Lopez was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison for inciting months of violence and related crimes against the state.

They resulted in 43 deaths, many injuries and destruction of public property. Lopez got off lightly. In America, he’d likely have been prosecuted and convicted of sedition, sentenced to decades or life in prison.

At the time, President Nicolas Maduro compared him to the 2002 coup plotters – calling him “the face of fascism.”

Along with co-conspirators, he launched a US-supported La Salida (the Exit) campaign, openly calling for ousting Venezuela’s government, inciting street violence to replace Bolivarian social democracy with fascist rule.

The Obama administration supported his criminality. His State Department irresponsibly called Venezuela’s “judicial process and verdict” politically motivated – “to suppress and punish government critics.”

The NYT, neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post and other media commented as expected – blasting Maduro for “persecuting” Lopez, claiming he acted in “desperation.”

Why he was released to house arrest is unclear. He’s free through cohorts to incite continued violence and other seditious acts – though his activities will likely be closely monitored, risking re-imprisonment if he steps too far out-of-line.

Commenting on his release, The NYT lied calling him a “political prisoner,” ignoring his high crimes, falsely claiming his transfer to house arrest is “a sign that the government was starting to buckle in the face of months of public demonstrations and growing diplomatic isolation.”

“This is a step toward freedom, not just Leopoldo’s, but also a step that brings all Venezuelans closer to freedom,” opposition fascist lawmaker Freddy Guevara blustered.

Lopez’s lawyer Jared Genser said

“(n)ow is the time for sustained pressure on Maduro,” claiming his client’s release to house arrest “confirms that the relentless pressure is working” – a highly disputable comment.

In a statement released by Genser, Lopez said

“I am not willing to give up my fight for the freedom of Venezuela. And if that means that I must return to a cell in Ramo Verde, I am willing to do so.”

If he resumes his criminality, he’ll likely end up back where he belongs, along with other insurrectionist elements.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court called his transfer to house arrest a “humanitarian gesture,” citing unexplained health issues.

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Lopez said his release is evidence of Bolivarian “tolerance and dialogue.”

The move comes at a time of likely US-orchestrated street violence since April, leaving scores dead, many others injured and hundreds arrested.

In June, US Senate legislation authorized $20 million for regime change in Venezuela, another $10 million for so-called “democracy building” Washington abhors.

Before taking office as secretary of state, Rex Tillerson said he’ll “seek a negotiated transition to democratic rule in Venezuela” – code language for regime change.

Dark forces in Washington are likely plotting their next moves, aiming to replace Bolivarian fairness with fascist rule serving there interests – eliminating Venezuelan sovereign independence and gaining control over its immense oil reserves.

That’s what years of US hostility toward the country is all about under Chavez and Maduro.

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.

In early March 2011, right before the carefully calculated and planned imposed war and invasion in Syria, Vogue Magazine published a surprisingly positive article titled: Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert.

“Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her “the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.” “She is the first lady of Syria”.

Asma Al-Assad with students (Source: The Rabbit Hole) 

The article gave readers an inside view of what life was like for the Assad’s In Syria. It didn’t exaggerate, or misrepresent information and had a seemingly unbiased tone.

“Back in the car, I ask what religion the orphans are. “It’s not relevant,” says Asma al-Assad. “Let me try to explain it to you. That church is a part of my heritage because it’s a Syrian church. The Umayyad Mosque is the third-most-important holy Muslim site, but within the mosque is the tomb of Saint John the Baptist. We all kneel in the mosque in front of the tomb of Saint John the Baptist. That’s how religions live together in Syria—a way that I have never seen anywhere else in the world. We live side by side, and have historically. All the religions and cultures that have passed through these lands—the Armenians, Islam, Christianity, the Umayyads, the Ottomans—make up who I am.”

“Does that include the Jews?” I ask. “And the Jews,” she answers. “There is a very big Jewish quarter in old Damascus.”

Also included in the article is some background information on the first lady. Asma Akhras was born in London in 1975 to a Syrian-born cardiologist and his wife, a diplomat who had served as first secretary at the Syrian embassy. She went to Queen’s College a private school, graduated from King’s College London, and worked for some time at JP Morgan in Manhattan. She was accepted into the prestigious ivy league school Harvard but instead of attending she accepted a marriage proposal from President Bashar in 2000 after secretly dating for some time.

The article detailed some other information as well, but nothing that would strike the knowledgeable reader as pretentious, over the top, or propaganda material. The response however from other publications written by disgruntled journalists was outrageous. They spoke as if they had more knowledge about conditions in Syria than a journalist that actually went to Syria and wrote about the experience.

Soon after the Vogue article was published the war in Syria began, with a staged uprising in Daraa. Another war against Vogue Magazine and this article, in particular, was waged by many publications, in particular, those that had ties or were sympathetic to the illegal state of Israel.

These publications shamed, insulted, belittled and demanded that this story be retracted or changed to fit the demonization campaign that spawned in mainstream media.

A few years prior in 2009 The Huffington Post published a slide show entitled, “Asma Al Assad: Syria’s First Lady And All-Natural Beauty.”

In 2010 the Harvard Arab Alumni Association’s website promoted an event featuring Asma by praising her as an avid supporter of “a robust, independent and self-sustaining civil society.” Asma convened a conference for the Syria Trust for Development about “the emerging role of civil society in development.”

As reported in Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs website, The First Lady

“…opened the conference by declaring that the state wanted to open more space for civil society to work, develop and partner with the government in designing and implementing development-oriented policies. We will learn from our mistakes, she said, and a law will be passed soon — after consultations with civil society — to provide non-governmental organizations the safeguards they need to operate effectively. She challenged them, for their part, to rise to the occasion and achieve higher levels of efficacy and professionalism. Her overall theme of partnership reflected a realization that the government alone could not provide all the expertise or services needed to develop the country at the pace that its citizens expect.“

Syria hosted a conference of Harvard Arab Alumni with Asma leading the event.

The website was enthusiastic about Mrs. Assad’s role in Syrian national life and the connection between her work and that of her husband’s:

‘‘In her role as Syria’s first lady, Her Excellency Asma al-Assad applies her experience, energy, and influence to her country’s social and cultural development. Her role reflects the significant economic, political and social change that is happening in Syria today. Asma al-Assad’s work supports that of President Bashar al-Assad by fostering the emergence of a robust, independent and self-sustaining civil society.’’

Harvard Arab Alumni met in Damascus, “Under the Patronage of H.E. Mrs. Asma al-Assad, The First Lady of Syria.” “We are honored that Harvard Vice Provost for International Affairs, Prof. Jorge Dominguez, will be joining us in Damascus to deliver the Harvard Guest Address.“

In 2010, French Elle voted Asma “the most stylish woman in world politics,” and Paris Match called her “an eastern Diana,” a “ray of light in a country full of shadow zones.”

Even US Politicians appreciated and admired the Assads before this war bloody war was waged on the sovereign nation. Paying them visits and speaking about them in positive and affirmative tones.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stood on Syrian soil in April 2007 and famously declared that “the road to Damascus is a road to peace.” During her visit, Pelosi had an enjoyable shopping tour through Damascus markets.

Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bought the Assad-is-a-reformer narrative, telling CBS News on March 27, 2011:

“There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.”

Senator John Kerry, President Obama’s former informal envoy to Syria. Kerry feverishly pushed to revive diplomatic engagement with the Assad regime. Indeed, he was a frequent guest of Bashar’s; the two men and their wives were known to dine together in Damascus and discuss bilateral relations. He delivered a speech in Washington that heaped praise on Assad for the generosity he personally extended to the former Democratic presidential candidate during his many visits to Damascus.

All seemed well in Syria according to politicians and media alike. Was that all just a front? Were they all lying? Or were they dubbed into believing something that wasn’t true? Maybe they were tricked? Could it be that the Assad’s had put them all under a spell? No, no, no.

They were not handed a memo yet that going forward they would be limited to derogatory terms and hate speech however ridiculous or nonsensical it may be when speaking about the Assad’s. It was a requirement or else they would face ridicule much like what happened to Vogue Magazine after they published their article on the first lady.

They needed to quickly recant their support, respect, and admiration in order to fit with the new script. New terminology would replace the old, regime and dictator instead of government and president. Also, going forward all mainstream media outlets are required to mention barrel bombs, chemical weapons, and how the US will protect and save poor syrians who are being bombed by their “brutal dictator” by well.. bombing them. Wait.. what?

Why this sudden change in March 2011?

Simply because mainstream media completely flipped it’s scripted and started to demonize this “Rose in the Desert” along with her husband President Dr. Bashar Al Assad in an all-out propaganda campaign that fit the US/NATO “regime change” narrative. Asma Al-Assad never was nor is she evil. President Bashar Al Assad is not a ruthless dictator but instead they both are very much loved and respected in THEIR country by their people which is all that should matter.

Before this invasion took place in 2011 and over 300,000 foreign mercenaries came in from over 80 countries, Syria was one of the safest countries in the world, and the only secular, nonsectarian and united country in the Middle East. For the first ten years of his presidency there were no major issues, no bombings, beheadings by terrorists, none of that so how is this something that President Bashar brought to the country? That is a huge misconception, one of many that the western media has helped instill in the minds of gullible people who have completely refused to use logic and critical thinking or to even question what they are being told.

The agenda in most mainstream media outlets globally soon became to destroy the first Assad’s image by any means possible, with a proliferation of lies and negative press. The same demonization that was used previously by imperialist nations in pursuit of destabilizing yet another country in the region. The modus operandi was the same, create an over the top propaganda media campaign to win the public’s sympathy and wage a “humanitarian intervention” in order to save the people of a country from their corrupt “dictatorship” run government by ousting the elected president, installing a puppet president approved by the US/NATO, stealing their resources, and establishing a long-term military base on the pretense that they are helping to rebuild the nation they themselves unapologetically destroyed. Much like they did with other countries they were “spreading democracy” in prior such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya etc.

The plethora of articles one will find by doing a simple google search that reek of propaganda and are filled to the rim with bias, sectarian hate speech, and outright lies is profound. For the knowledgeable reader, they are simply infuriating to read.

I have included one such propaganda spewing article below published by The Guardian and some interesting information I found about the author as well.

“Asma al-Assad is a cheerleader for evil. Her UK citizenship should be revoked” was written by Nadhim Zahawi.

In this poorly written and utterly pathetic excuse for an article, Zahawi states

“The Assad regime has a seemingly infinite capacity for evil, and an inability to be touched by compassion. At the very best he is dangerously deluded about what is happening, and the atrocities he has ordered. But most likely he is a monster.” Even though his article was supposedly about Asma Al-Assad he took whatever invalid and fact-deprived hits that he could at her husband as well.

Interestingly enough Mr. Zahawi a Kurdish Iraqi politician who visited Syria in 2011 and resides in the U.K. also had this to say “Removing Mrs. Assad’s citizenship is not illegal, because she is also a citizen of Syria. The home secretary has the power to do so when she believes it would be “conducive to the public good”. Asma al-Assad should never be welcome in our country again.” On that note, I hope Mr. Zahawi is forbidden to return to Syria as well.

After looking into Mr. Zahawi a little further I found that he is the vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kurdistan Region in Iraq, which receives secretarial support from Gulf Keystone Petroleum International, an oil company of which Zahawi is Chief Strategy Officer. Concerns have been raised about how MPs’ independence might be compromised by such links between APPGs and private companies, and specifically about how Zahawi’s connections with the oil industry affect his role as MP. Zahawi has been co-chair or vice-chair of this APPG since it was established in 2008/9.

Also worth noting, in November 2013 Zahawi “apologized unreservedly” after The Sunday Mirror reported that he had claimed £5,822 expenses for electricity for his horse riding school stables and a yard manager’s mobile home.[19] Zahawi said the mistake arose because he received a single bill covering both a meter in the stables and one in his house. He would repay the money though the actual overcharge was £4,000.[20] An article in The Independent also drew attention to the number of legitimate but “trivial” items on Zahawi’s expenses.

In January 2011, Zahawi appeared in the Commons debate discussing the end of the Education Maintenance Allowance scheme wearing a musical tie which proceeded to play during his contribution. The Deputy Speaker advised him to be more selective when choosing ties to avoid a musical accompaniment to debate in the chamber.

An investigation by the Guardian has revealed close links between a Conservative MP and two companies based in a tax haven. Nadhim Zahawi has financial ties to Balshore Investments and Berkford Investments, which operate from a lawyer’s’ office in Gibraltar. He does not declare a connection to either company on the MPs’ register of interests.

The same script in mainstream media is used repeatedly yet people still fall for it. Isn’t it time for the masses to recognize this repetition and bring an end to these bankers wars based on lies? We are all of one race, the human race and we need to end these countries destructive imperialist driven plots. World domination by the elite is not in the best interest of humanity.

The United States has been practicing this destructive behavior in toppling sovereign nations for their own benefit since 1898. New imperial influence of U.S. (1898-1917): New territories gained in Spanish American War: Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines. Up until present day with Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, the Philippines etc. At some point, this bloodshed has to end. Sovereignty has to be preserved. Cultures and customs need to be protected against greedy nations who only have their own best interest at heart. Whether it be neo-colonialism, imperialism, economic imperialism, etc. These ruthless regimes will do whatever it takes to complete their bloody missions.

Antikrieg TV -In 2010, the Syria’s First Lady Asma al-Assad talked to diplomats and intellectuals at the Paris Diplomatic Academy. She spoke without notes, about Syria’s history and how that heritage informs daily life.

“Some often ask me how then can Syria remain stable, moderate and influential in a region that is increasingly being surrounded by extremism, ideologism (sic), sectarianism and all other forms of negative perceptions in our society,” she told the gathering. “The typical answer I get is because of military, political, security reasons. Again, I believe I have a different view.

“It’s the very essence of our culture. It’s what our history teaches us of openness and engagement,” she said. “It’s the sense of identity and pride that we have knowing who we are in the world and knowing what we’ve contributed to the world over thousands of years that give us that sense of stability and that sense of moderation.

“Some of you might think I am talking politics. … Trust me, I have no interest in politics,” she continued. “My interests are elsewhere. But living in the region for as long as I have, I realize that politics affects every facet of our lives.”

Many people who have never heard of Syria before it became front page news after this imposed war was launched by outside forces on it’s land, think they have the right to speak ill about a nation that people like myself are originally from. Their profound arrogance is matched by their ignorance. What they may not realize is that they are indirectly contributing to the bloodshed by spreading this false propaganda. It would be better for them to never speak about Syria than for them to carelessly spread information that is nothing more than dirty gossip that they heard on their T.V. If they truly care, they need to educate themselves by reading and watching alternative media sources and listening to independent journalists, that do not have a vested interest in seeing Syria crumble and fall into the hands of the vultures in the West and their allies.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and political commentator. Her articles can be read at the Rabbit Hole.

Donald Trump came to the White House with a reputation as a top notch businessman. He built an international real estate empire and is worth billions. He then went into reality television, where his signature line as he dismissed incompetent potential employees was, “you’re fired!”

On Friday, President Trump held a long-awaited face-to-face meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The meeting was scheduled to be a brief, 30 minute meet and greet, but turned into a two-plus hour substantive session producing a ceasefire agreement for parts of Syria and a plan to continue working together in the future.

After the extended session, which was cordial by all accounts, President Trump said the meeting was “tremendous.”
President Trump indicated that the issue of Russian interference in the US elections came up in conversation and that Putin vehemently denied it. It obviously was not a make or break issue in the conversation. President Trump’s latest statement on the issue is that “we don’t know for sure” who was behind any meddling.

Later on Friday, President Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said of the Syria agreement that,

“I think this is our first indication of the U.S. and Russia being able to work together in Syria.”

On Sunday, President Trump Tweeted in praise of the Syria ceasefire agreement, adding that,

“now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!”

It suddenly appeared that the current reprise of a vintage 1950s US/Soviet face-off in relations had turned the corner back to sanity. Perhaps we will be pulling back from the edge of WWIII with thermonuclear weapons!

Then President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations, the notorious neocon Nikki Haley, showed up on the weekend talk shows.

To CNN’s Dana Bash, she directly contradicted her boss, Donald Trump, and undermined his official position regarding Russian involvement in the US election.

Said Ambassador Haley of Trump’s meeting with Putin:

One, he wanted to basically look him in the eye, let him know that, yes, we know you meddled in our elections. Yes, we know you did it, cut it out. And I think President Putin did exactly what we thought he would do, which is deny it. This is Russia trying to save face. And they can’t. They can’t. Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections.

As The Hill correctly pointed out,

“Haley’s description runs counter to the versions offered by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Trump himself.”

But Hurricane Haley was not finished. She poured ice water on President Trump’s agreement with President Putin to work together on cyber-security, telling CNN,

“[w]e can’t trust Russia, and we won’t ever trust Russia. But you keep those that you don’t trust closer so that you can always keep an eye on them and keep them in check.”

It is absolutely clear that hyper-neocon Nikki Haley has gone rogue and is actively undermining the foreign policy of her boss and President, Donald Trump. From her embarrassing, foaming-at-the-mouth tirades in the UN Security Council to this latest bizarre effort to sabotage President Trump’s first attempt to fulfill his campaign pledge to find a way to get along better with Russia, President Trump’s own Ambassador has become the biggest enemy of his foreign policy.

Surely the President — who as an enormously successful businessman has hired and fired thousands — can see the damage she is doing to his Administration by actively undermining his foreign policy.

President Trump needs to reprise his signature television line. He needs to pick up the phone, ask for Nikki, and shout “you’re FIRED!” into the telephone.

Featured image from Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

In an obscure interview back in 1956, the entertainer Elvis Presley was quoted as saying: “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.” But But none of Elvis’s many song-writers ever wrote a song that included that wonderful truism.

However, Bob Dylan, in his iconic “The Times They Are A-Changing” (1962), immortalized the phrase. It is not likely that Dylan stole the phrase from one of Presley’s songs because Elvis once admitted: “I’ve never written a song in my life.”

Dylan’s poetic truism has always stayed with me. To remind readers of its power, here is the fourth verse of that song:

“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

There is a surge of anti-intellectualism and anti-science belief systems in the United States. People who know nothing about climate science are ridiculing altruistic climate scientists who know what they are talking about.

Respected, unbiased scientists (those who are not in the back pockets of the fossil fuel and coal industries) are fulfilling their moral duty to warn the rest of us about the imminent danger of potentially unstoppable – and catastrophic – warming of the planet, a reality that could easily make the planet unlivable for animal life in the near future (like the gradually expanding Sahara Desert has been exhibiting for us for years).

Unbiased geological scientists, scholars and assorted well-informed citizen activists (at least those who have not been hired and thus co-opted by Big Mining) understand the potentially catastrophic dangers of sulfide mining that is threatening my home state of Minnesota. These altruistic scientists and citizen activists are being viciously demonized (even with death threats) by some folks who happen to live in the boom-and-bust (non-sulfide) iron ore country that now has commercially-viable copper sulfide ore deposits in the water-rich part of the state.

Truly unbiased geological scientists know what they are talking about when they try to explain to the uninformed that copper appears in nature as a copper sulfide ore which, when ground into the fine powder (that is an essential part of the extraction process) leaves behind many highly poisonous waste metals (including the toxic metals lead, arsenic, cadmium, vanadium, antimony, manganese and mercury) PLUS sulfuric acid when the liquid mine slurry is pumped into the permanently toxic tailings ponds (which will be stored for an eternity in nearby dumps that are just waiting for the inevitable deluge of rain that could melt and burst the earthen dams and permanently destroy the watershed, lakes and inhabited river communities downstream.

Sulfuric acid, it needs to be understood, is inevitably formed when waste sulfide tailings are exposed to water and air, thus making any abandoned sulfide mining open pit poisonous to every living thing, especially humans, fish and water birds.

(http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/12/14/8500_lessons_from_the_most_toxic_open_pit_copper_mine)

And then there is the pure science that is coming from truly unbiased scientists (pharmacological, chemical, medical, neuroscientists, etc) who know what they are talking about when it comes to the obvious dangers of America’s over-vaccination agendas for vulnerable babies, children, soldiers and the elderly.

And here is where the CDC, the FDA, the NIH, the IOM, the WHO and various trade associations and Big Pharma lobbying groups (like the AAP, the AMA, the AAFP and even the OB-GYN trade groups) are involved. Whereas these groups hide their financial and professional relationships with Big Pharma, they feel obligated to also hide the many reasons that their unholy alliances with corporate elites have been doing so much damage to their patients, to whom they have pledged to “first do no harm.”

So the common denominator for the examples listed above (and below) is that those politicians and cunning special interest groups – who have been co-opted and/or duped by well-funded front groups that are denying the unbiased, provably true science and are “criticizing what they don’t understand”.

Below are a number of other recent publications outlining examples from non-corporate-controlled medical journals that never gets aired in the largely corporate-controlled mainstream print media or discussed in a fair and balanced manner on the largely corporate-controlled television or radio stations.

Any true scientist (or person with an open mind and no conflicts of interest) who values the Precautionary Principle, the Hippocratic Oath and the principle of Fully Informed Consent will surely pause to consider the veracity of the following journal articles that validate (AGAIN) the testimony of the hundreds of thousands of vaccine-injured or vaccine-killed American children and soldiers (especially the parents who now have understandably lost any trust in the medical profession, certain governmental agencies and the pharmaceutical industry).

Also validated are the many researchers that know (and are trying to warn patients) about the many neurotoxic ingredients and contaminants that are in all of the cocktails of intramuscularly-administered infant vaccines – inoculations which are causing (or at least contributing to) the epidemics of childhood and young adult neurodevelopmental disorders that were uncommon prior to America’s over-vaccination era that began with a vengeance after the Reagan administration in 1986 made it illegal for the parents of vaccine-were responsible.

And thus, any ethical medical profession, which claims to value the Hippocratic Oath and the Informed Consent principle, should be immediately ordering a moratorium on the current over-vaccination schedules so vigorously promoted and defended by the CDC, the FDA, the AMA, the IOM, and the AAP – until the evidence is fully re-examined by unbiased investigators. Any such re-assessment should obviously involve no Big Pharma shills’ no CDC or FDA or AAP ”experts”; no co-opted pediatricians who benefit financially from over-vaccinating their patients; no academic physicians with financial ties to Big Pharma; no lobbyists;, no politicians who have taken campaign bribes from Big Pharma; no journalists who write pro-vaccine articles;, AND no Big Pharma-paid trolls (such as those that blog at sciencebasedmedicine.org, scienceblogs.com, snopes.com, retractionwatach.com, sciencemag.org, skeptic.com, etc, most of whom seem to be given preferential positions on the first two pages of Google’s search engine when Big Pharma is threatened by unwelcome truth.

It is a near certainty that the AMA, the AAP, the IOM – and the recent critics of this column’s statements of scientific fact regarding the many dangers of the neurotoxicity of America’s over-vaccination programs – have little or no knowledge of the following research studies that totally debunk their claims that all vaccines are both safe and effective and that Big Medicine and Big Pharma can be trusted to implement their over-vaccination agendas, even to the point of forcibly vaccinating people against their wills.

***

Dirty Vaccines: New Study Reveals Prevalence of Contaminants

Every Human Vaccine Tested Was Contaminated by Unsafe Levels of Metals and Debris Linked to Cancer and Autoimmune Disease, New Study Reports

By Celeste McGovern

Go to: http://medicalveritas.org/dirty-vaccines-new-study-reveals-prevalence-of-contaminants/

(Ed note: This article is a commentary on: the International Journal of Vaccines and Vaccination Vol 4 Issue 1, 2017, which was entitled: “New Quality-Control Investigations on Vaccines: Micro- and Nano-contamination”. The author of the study was Antonietta Gatti, PhD and it was published on Jan 23, 2017. The original article can be found at: http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04-00072.pdf

Researchers examining 44 samples of 30 different vaccines found dangerous contaminants, including red blood cells in one vaccine and metal toxicants in every single sample tested – except in one animal vaccine.

Using extremely sensitive new technologies not used in vaccine manufacturing, Italian scientists reported they were “baffled” by their discoveries which included single particles and aggregates of organic debris including red cells of human or possibly animal origin and metals including lead, tungsten, gold, and chromium, that have been linked to autoimmune disease and leukemia.

In the study, published this week in the International Journal of Vaccines and Vaccination, the researchers led by Antonietta Gatti, of the National Council of Research of Italy and the Scientific Director of Nanodiagnostics, say their results “show the presence of micro- and nano-sized particulate matter composed of inorganic elements in vaccine samples” not declared in the products’ ingredients lists.

Lead particles were found in the cervical cancer vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, for example, and in the seasonal flu vaccine Aggripal manufactured by Novartis as well as in the Meningetec vaccine meant to protect against meningitis C.

Samples of an infant vaccine called Infarix Hexa (against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, poliomyelitis and haemophilus influenzae type B) manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline was found to contain stainless steel, tungsten and a gold-zinc aggregate.

Other metal contaminants included platinum, silver, bismuth, iron, and chromium. Chromium (alone or in alloy with iron and nickel) was identified in 25 of the human vaccines from Italy and France that were tested.

GSK’s Fluarix vaccine for children three years and older contained 11 metals and aggregates of metals. Similar aggregates to those identified in the vaccines have been shown to be prevalent in cases of leukemia, the researchers noted.

Many of the vaccines contained iron and iron alloys which, according to the researchers, “can corrode and the corrosion products exert a toxicity affecting the tissues”.

The researchers supply an image of an area in a drop of Sanofi Pasteur MSD’s Repevax vaccine (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio combined) “where the morphology of red cells – we cannot tell whether they are human or animal- is clearly visible” along with the presence of “debris” composed of aluminum, bromine, silicon, potassium and titanium.

Feligen, the only veterinary vaccine tested in the 44 total vaccines sampled, proved to be the only sample free from inorganic contamination.

***

From the Rom J Intern Med. 2014;52(3):189-91 

The Role of Heavy Metals in Autoimmunity 

(Ed note: This applies to the metals that are in many infant vaccines, whether intentional or inadvertant.) 

By M. COJOCARU; B. CHICOŞ

Go to: http://www.intmed.ro/attach/rjim/2014/rjim314/art09.pdf

Excerpts:

“The toxic metals cadmium, lead, mercury, and aluminum may interact metabolically with nutritionally essential metals. Iron deficiency increases absorption of cadmium, lead, and aluminum. Cadmium and aluminum interact with calcium. Lead replaces zinc on heme enzymes and cadmium has the potential to replace zinc.”

“…metals have the potential to induce or promote the development of autoimmunity in man. The molecular, biochemical, and cellular events involved in the induction of metal-induced autoimmunity are still unclear. Exposure to heavy metals may result in autoimmune responses to various self-antigens as well as autoimmune diseases.”

***

From the Journal of Translational Science (JTS) – April 24, 2017 

Pilot Comparative Study on the Health of Vaccinated and Unvaccinated 6- to 12-year old US Children

By Anthony R Mawson et al – April 24, 2017

Go to: http://oatext.com/Pilot-comparative-study-on-the-health-of-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-6-to-12-year-old-U-S-children.php

Chronic Illness Excerpt:

Vaccinated children were significantly more likely than the unvaccinated to have been diagnosed with the following chronic illnesses:

3.7-fold higher odds of any neurodevelopmental disorder (i.e., learning disability, ADHD, or ASD)

4.2-fold increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder (“ASD”)

4.2-fold increase in ADHD

5.2-fold increase in learning disabilities

30.1-fold increase in allergic rhinitis

3.9-fold increase in other allergies

2.9-fold increase in eczema/atopic dermatitis

2.4-fold increase in any chronic illness

No significant differences were observed with regard to cancer, chronic fatigue, conduct disorder, Crohn’s disease, depression, Types 1 or 2 diabetes, encephalopathy, epilepsy, hearing loss, high blood pressure, inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, obesity, seizures, and Tourette’s syndrome.

http://www.oatext.com/Pilot-comparative-study-on-the-health-of-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-6-to-12-year-old-U-S-children.php#Article

A cross-sectional study of mothers of children educated at home was carried out in collaboration with homeschool organizations in four U.S. states: Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oregon. Mothers were asked to complete an anonymous online questionnaire on their 6- to 12-year-old biological children with respect to pregnancy-related factors, birth history, vaccinations, physician-diagnosed illnesses, medications used, and health services. NDD, a derived diagnostic measure, was defined as having one or more of the following three closely-related diagnoses: a learning disability, Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. A convenience sample of 666 children was obtained, of which 261 (39%) were unvaccinated.

The vaccinated were less likely than the unvaccinated to have been diagnosed with chickenpox and pertussis, but more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia, otitis media, allergies and NDD. After adjustment, vaccination, male gender, and preterm birth remained significantly associated with NDD.

However, in a final adjusted model with interaction, vaccination but not preterm birth remained associated with NDD, while the interaction of preterm birth and vaccination was associated with a 6.6-fold increased odds of NDD (95% CI: 2.8, 15.5).

In conclusion, vaccinated homeschool children were found to have a higher rate of allergies and NDD than unvaccinated homeschool children. While vaccination remained significantly associated with NDD after controlling for other factors, preterm birth coupled with vaccination was associated with an apparent synergistic increase in the odds of NDD. Further research involving larger, independent samples and stronger research designs is needed to verify and understand these unexpected findings in order to optimize the impact of vaccines on children’s health.

***

Note in the following two American graphs that deaths from both measles and whooping cough had declined by 98% prior to either a measles or whooping cough vaccine being available, thus exposing the lie that vaccinations deserved the credit for eliminating the threats of childhood infectious diseases. Similar graphs are available for other childhood infectious diseases. The truth is that improved sanitation, nutrition, public health measures, refrigeration, safer drinking water, etc were responsible for the decline in mortality and not the vaccines.

***

From vactruth.com:

A Truthful Vaccination Informed Consent Form

(That No Aware Mother Would Sign)

Go to: http://vactruth.com/2015/05/25/truthful-vaccine-consent-form/

***

What to do if your child dies after a vaccination: A Parent’s Guide

By Norma Erickson and Catherine Frompovich – July 1, 2017

Go to: http://sanevax.org/a-parents-guide-what-to-do-if-your-child-dies-after-vaccination/

***

From VaccinationCouncil.org:

Vaccines and Brain Inflammation

By Harold E. Buttram, MD and Catherine J. Frompovich – June 1, 2011

Go to: http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/06/01/vaccines-and-brain-inflammation/

***

From Greenmedinfo.com:

There are 271 New Vaccines in Big Pharma’s Pipeline: Into Whose Bodies Will They be Injected?

By Gary G. Kohls, MD – Posted August 25th 2015

Go to: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roll-your-sleeves-folks-271-new-vaccines-big-pharma-s-pipeline

***

From http://blog.drbrownstein.com:

1) The AMA Further Besmirches its Once Honored Reputation in American Medicine and Science (by Scandalously Proclaiming that the Cocktails of Neurotoxic  [“Unavoidable Unsafe”] Vaccine Ingredients – Aluminum, Mercury and Live Viruses – Need NOT be Further Investigated by Independent Scientists)!!

By Dr David Brownstein (excerpts from his “AMA Opposes Vaccine Research – A Reply”)

– June 23, 2017

Go to: http://blog.drbrownstein.com

“The combined and cumulative effects of 55 shots, 209 vaccine antigens, 525 mcg of mercury and 13,425 mcg of aluminum that have been injected into a child by 18 years of age in accordance with the CDC’s 2017 childhood immunization schedule has never been examined. In fact, it has never even been questioned.” – David Brownstein, MD

The American Medical Association (AMA) has released a position statement that opposes the creation of a new federal commission on vaccine safety whose task is to study the association between autism and vaccines.

“The AMA fully supports the overwhelming body of evidence and rigorous scientific process used by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices which demonstrate vaccines are among the most effective and safest interventions to both prevent individual illness and protect the health of the public,” William E. Kobler, MD said in a statement. Dr. Kobler is a member of the AMA Board of Trustees.

(https://wire.ama-assn.org/ama-news/ama-backs-evidence-based-vaccine-policy-opposes-new-commission)

Here is Dr Brownstein’s response:

Autism is occurring at epidemic rates.  We now have over 1,000,000 U.S. children diagnosed with autism.  Something in our environment is responsible for causing the autism epidemic.  It is not due to genetics.  Could it be the increasing numbers of vaccines given to our children?  Why wouldn’t any rational person want to study this association?  A simple study comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated children could help decide whether vaccines are responsible for causing the autism epidemic.  But, the Powers-That-Be, like the AMA, do not want this study done as it may turn their world upside down.

In response to the AMA edicts supporting more vaccines and stating that no further research is needed, I and my colleagues have released a reply to the AMA letter.

Response to AMA’s Status Quo Vaccine Policy, Trumping Safety – 23 June 2017

Since 1996, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has led a concerted effort on driver safety. Its excellent results reduced highway fatalities by 50 percent, per 100,000 licensed drivers, from 23.21 down to 15.26 in 2014.(1)

Over the same period, autism cases per 100,000 have skyrocketed from 2.1 to 25.8 cases, or from 1 in 500 (1995) to 1 in 68 babies born in 2014, more than a seven-fold increase. (2)

If those statistics aren’t damning enough, for the first time since 1993, U.S. “life expectancy” has declined(3) and a HHS-sponsored study in 2011 reported that nearly 43% of US children (32 million) had at least 1 of 20 chronic health conditions (including the autoimmune epidemic), increasing to 54.1% when overweight, obesity, or being at risk for developmental delays are included.(4)

Of course, we are supposed to believe that the dramatic spike in childhood illness and cases of autism has nothing to do with tripling of the number of vaccines on the CDC’s Childhood Immunization Schedule between 1996 and 2017.(5,6) It should be obvious that such a powerful correlation should be examined. But it is not being investigated.

How can the FHWA get safety so right, but the three federal agencies tasked with the safeguarding of the health of U.S. citizens—the CDC, the NIH, and FDA—get safety so wrong?

That begs the question, where is the American Medical Association (AMA) demanding more research to determine why our children are suffering through an autism epidemic?

One answer: Big Pharma-funded professional organizations, like the AMA and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), have gone to great lengths to ensure that vaccine safety remain in the hands of policymakers (who are largely influenced, either financially by Big Pharma or because of professional loyalty to their subspecialty lobbying groups); they have systematically blocked the efforts of investigations by independent scientists.

Deep Flaws Within the Three Letter Agencies

The AMA’s view on vaccine safety—that the status quo is fine and needs no changes—runs counter to the evidence. None of the three-letter agencies are capable of ensuring vaccine safety. The entire system of checks and balances has been so upended that safety, quality control, and quality assurance within the U.S. immunization program has been completely compromised. The flaws are so deep and pervasive that nothing short of a total overhaul should be undertaken. Soon, the crumbling edifice of “vaccine safety” will collapse under its own weight. So how can the AMA condone “flawed science” and “political manipulation” at the CDC, the NIH, FDA, and within the IOM? Does the AMA believe the echolalia repetition of “safe and effective” is the same as “science-based evidence?” Why does the AMA continue to condone the CDC’s efforts, even after the domestic (Dr. William Thompson whistleblower(7) and international (Danish scientist Poul Thorsen(8,9) fraudulent science studies have been exposed?

Response to AMA’s Status Quo Position

On June 19, AMA News senior staff writer, Sara Berg, published an Opinion: “AMA backs evidence-based vaccine policy, opposes new commission.”

For many doctors, lawyers, professionals, advocates, and parents of autistic and chronically ill children, we stand against the AMA and the rest of our severely broken, corrupt system of government organizations. They have done nothing as an entire generation of children has spiraled down in a litany of debilitating illnesses, more than at any time in human history.

Vaccines are currently advocated for the elderly, the infirm, all adults, all pregnant women and their fetuses, and all children of all ages, including preemies and micro-preemies. The standards of vaccine safety must be closely examined. Vaccine trials are only interested in the development of an antibody after a muscle has been injected with foreign matter. The combined and cumulative effects of 55 shots, 209 vaccine antigens, 525 mcg of mercury and 13,425 mcg of aluminum that have been injected into a child by 18 years of age in accordance with the CDC’s 2017 childhood immunization schedule has never been examined. In fact, it has never even been questioned.

The AMA’s blathering that, “physicians remain concerned that the current federal administration may attempt to establish new vaccine policy based on unfounded and unscientific facts” is a red herring. It is meant to distract from the current state of poor health experienced by today’s children.

A new, fully transparent Vaccine Safety Commission must be formed. With nearly 250 vaccines in the developmental pipeline,⁽¹¹⁾ examining the safety of injections cannot be overstated. The three-letter agencies, which would subvert this effort, are clearly looking through tainted rose-colored glasses intent on protecting the status quo.

We call on Dr. Kobler and the AMA to a public discussion of, and if necessary, debate on vaccine safety issues.

Signatories:

David Brownstein, MD West Bloomfield, MI
Sherri Tenpenny, MD, DO, AOBNMM, ABIHM Cleveland, OH
James O. Grundvig, Journalist, New York, NY
Toni Bark, MD, MHEM, LEED AP
Christian Bogner, MD, Detroit, MI
James Lyons-Weiler, PhD, Pittsburgh, PA

***

Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. He writes a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, the area’s alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns deal with the dangers of American fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, malnutrition, Big Pharma’s psychiatric drugging and over-vaccination regimens, and other movements that threaten the environment, prosperity, democracy, civility and the health and longevity of the planet and the populace. Many of his columns are archived at 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls; 

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2; or at 

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

***
Sources at 

http://blog.drbrownstein.com/ama-opposes-vaccine-research-a-reply/

1) https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

2) https://www.waisman.wisc.edu/news2014-autism-rates.htm

3) https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-life-expectancy-declines-for-the-first-timesince-1993/2016/12/07/7dcdc7b4-bc93-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?utm_term=.cdd0f0160e56

4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21570014

5) https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00039897.htm

6) https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/child/0-18yrs-child-combined-schedule.pdf

7) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSlOOHGXssE

8) https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/fugitives/profiles.asp

9) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EEQ9BSM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

10) https://wire.ama-assn.org/ama-news/ama-backs-evidence-based-vaccine-policy-opposes-newcommission?&utm_source=BHClistID&utm_medium=BulletinHealthCare&utm_term=062017&utm_content=MorningRounds&utm_campaign=BHCMessageID

11) http://catalyst.phrma.org/new-report-highlights-more-than-250-vaccines-in-development

Scenes in the 2013 BBC Panorama special Saving Syria’s Children reveal that the award-winning team of reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway OBE were embedded with jihadi group Ahrar al-Sham which, according to Human Rights Watch, had three weeks earlier worked alongside Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra as one of “the key fundraisers, organizers, planners, and executors” of an attack in which at least 190 civilians were killed. [1]

In its October 2013 report “You Can Still See Their Blood” – Executions, Indiscriminate Shootings, and Hostage Taking by Opposition Forces in Latakia Countryside Human Rights Watch identifies 190 civilian fatalities “including 57 women and at least 18 children and 14 elderly men” killed by opposition forces including Ahrar al-Sham on August 4, the first day of the 2013 Latakia Offensive. Over 200 civilian hostages were taken. [2]

Pannell and Conway began filming for Saving Syria’s Children on 23 August 2013 [3]. The programme professed to show Syria’s humanitarian crisis through the eyes of two British doctors, Rola Hallam and Saleyha Ahsan.

On the morning of 26 August, in order “to see what medical care is available for children closer to where the fighting is”, Hallam and Ahsan travel to a frontline clinic. Pannell states (10:18):

“Western journalists have been targeted in Syria, so I have to travel with my own security. The doctors are able to be more low key and take their own vehicles.” [4]

A number of vehicles are shown setting off in convoy, including a white pickup truck with a distinctive ornament and the Ahrar al Sham emblem on its bonnet:

White pickup truck in convoy transporting BBC reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway on 26 August 2013 bears the former logo of Salafist militant group Ahrar al-Sham (Saving Syria’s Children, BBC1, broadcast 30 September 2013)

Stanford University’s Mapping Militants Project states that “Ahrar al-Sham worked with the Islamic State (IS) until January 2014″. The partnership would seem to be amply borne out by the scenes of Pannell and Conway’s entourage passing unmolested through an ISIS checkpoint at 11:00 in the programme. [5]

Ian Pannell and Darren Conway’s convoy approaches an ISIS checkpoint in Saving Syria’s Children

Armed ISIS checkpoint guard filmed from rear of white pickup truck, presumably by BBC cameraman Darren Conway, Monday 26 August 2013. Up until January 2014 an alliance existed between ISIS and Ahrar al-Sham, whose logo is visible on the pickup’s bonnet.

As the convoy passes through the checkpoint Pannell narrates:

“This is an ISIS group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This is a group that’s affiliated with Al Qaeda.”

Pannell’s words belie the links between Al Qaeda and the very group within which he and his cameraman are embedded. Wikipedia notes:

[Ahrar al-Sham] aims to create an Islamic state under Sharia law, and in the past has cooperated with the al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.

Stanford University fleshes out the picture:

Ahrar al-Sham has been coordinating operations with its closest ally, former Al Qaeda (AQ) affiliate Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (Tahrir al-Sham), formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra), since late 2012, and both groups are part of the Jaysh al-Fatah umbrella organization.

Stanford also records that one of Ahrar al-Sham’s co-founders, Abu Khalid al-Suri, who was killed in 2014

acted as Al Qaeda’s (AQ) representative in Syria and was charged with facilitating reconciliation among regional Islamist militants.

The FDD’s Long War Journal website reported in 2013 that Spanish investigators had identified Al Suri – real name Mohamed Bahaiah – as “one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted couriers”

Bahaiah is a longtime al Qaeda operative who worked as a courier for the terror network. Spanish authorities think he may have delivered surveillance tapes of the World Trade Center and other American landmarks to al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Afghanistan in early 1998.

In addition to being a senior member of Ahrar al Sham, Bahaiah today serves as [current al-Qaeda leader] Ayman al Zawahiri’s representative in the Levant.

At the wheel of Pannell’s convoy car in Saving Syria’s Children is the programme’s credited Fixer/Translator Mughira Al Sharif. On the same day Al Sharif posted an image to Instagram expressive of the camaraderie between the Panorama team and the Ahrar al-Sham “security” men who accompanied them. It is possible that these men were among those who had participated in the mass slaughter and kidnap of civilians in Latakia twenty-two days earlier. [6] [7]

(Above) Fixer/Translator Mughira Al-Sharif driving Ian Pannell’s convoy saloon car in Saving Syria’s Children. Pannell is second from right. (Below) Al Sharif poses with two of the Ahrar al-Sham men in an Instagram post of the same day, describing them as “friends”. The post was subsequently deleted.

Later the same day Pannell and Conway travelled with Hallam, Ahsan and Al Sharif to Atareb Hospital, Aleppo where they were on hand to record harrowing scenes of the alleged victims of an alleged incendiary attack in footage which formed the dramatic climax of Saving Syria’s Children. (See links below for discussion of these sequences).

In May 2017 it was announced that Ian Pannell was leaving the BBC to join ABC News [8] as a senior foreign correspondent, stationed in London. In a note to staff ABC News President James Goldston paid this tribute:

He has an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time…

Notes

[1] The five groups which Human Rights Watch identifies as primarily responsible for the August 4 attack are:

– Ahrar al-Sham

– Islamic State of Iraq and Sham

– Jabhat al-Nusra

– Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar

– Suquor al-Izz

[2] The report states:

Eight survivors and witnesses described how opposition forces executed residents and opened fire on civilians, sometimes killing or attempting to kill entire families who were either in their homes unarmed or fleeing from the attack, and at other times killing adult male family members, and holding the female relatives and children hostage.

[3] “Mr Pannell has confirmed that his “journey” began on 23 August 2103 [sic]. The visit to the frontline clinic occurred on the morning of 26 August”, BBC Editorial Complaints Unit Final Report, 19 May 2014 (p2 of PDF download). Full complaints correspondence with the BBC re: Saving Syria’s Children is logged here.

[4] Pannell’s narration in the sequence from 10:28 to 11:40 is as follows:

Western journalists have been targeted in Syria, so I have to travel with my own security. The doctors are able to be more low key and take their own vehicles.

The war in Syria is now in its third year. Sectarian differences and extremism have taken hold on both sides and the conflict threatens the stability of the region.

Travelling around Syria has never really been more dangerous, both foreign journalists and foreign aid workers have been targeted, some have been killed. We’re just going through a checkpoint now, put the camera down a bit.

Rival rebel factions now fight each other as well as the government. Lawlessness prevails and areas that were once safe can become dangerous almost overnight.

This is an ISIS group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This is a group that’s affiliated with Al Qaeda. Increasing numbers of Jihadis have come into Syria, they’re setting up checkpoints so it means that any foreigners in particular travelling around the country, run the gauntlet of these checkpoints every few miles or so.

And the worst thing about driving around is that you’re never sure what lies behind the next corner.

[5] Despite Pannell’s assessment (10:47) that “travelling around Syria has never really been more dangerous” it would appear that Conway is able to hop between vehicles with impunity in the immediate vicinity of an ISIS checkpoint. At 10:55, seated in the rear of his saloon car, Pannell states “we’re just going through a checkpoint now” and instructs the cameraman – presumably Conway – to “put the camera down a bit”. Seconds later, in footage presumably also shot by Conway but filmed from the rear of another vehicle (the white pickup truck), we see an ISIS guard inspecting vehicles at a checkpoint.

Ian Pannell presumably instructing his colleague, cameraman Darren Conway, to “put the camera down a bit” on the approach to an ISIS checkpoint.

Scenes filmed from a different vehicle, ostensibly moments later, as the convoy passes through the ISIS checkpoint. The footage is presumably also shot by Saving Syria’s Children’s sole credited cameraman Darren Conway, seemingly indicating that he has moved freely between vehicles in an ISIS held area.

[6] In 2012 Al Sharif was photographed bearing the standard of the now defunct Idlib Martyrs Brigade:

Instagram, 13 August 2012 (subsequently deleted)

Another of Al Sharif’s Instagram photos is jarring when one considers that it was uploaded on 27 August 2013, the day after he had driven Pannell’s car through the ISIS checkpoint and, later, supposedly witnessed appalling carnage as dozens of child victims of an incendiary attack were rushed into Atareb Hospital:

Mughira Al Sharif uploaded this jocular image celebrating “the formation of the special battalions” one day after he had been present at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo, supposedly witnessing the aftermath of an incendiary attack on a nearby school playground in which scores of children had been killed or horrifically burned. https://www.instagram.com/p/dhg4o4GV5a/

These images and other material were submitted in a 2014 appeal to the BBC Trust which argued that Al Sharif’s involvement in Saving Syria’s Children breached BBC Editorial Guidelines. In rejecting the appeal the Trust’s Editorial Standards committee did not deign to address the point.

Some of Al Sharif’s more recent Instagram images demonstrate the prestigious connections he currently enjoys:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BP9-EEZA241/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOfg2JHAyPH/

[7] The identity and/or role of other uniformed and/or armed or professionally equipped individuals filmed by Darren Conway and others at Atareb Hospital on 26 August 2013 remains unclear:

Militarily attired male with microphone headset (See https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/#european)

Two militants who transported a female alleged incendiary attack victim to Atareb Hospital. (See https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/#black-dress)

Yusuf Zou’a, formerly a commander of the Ansar Brigade and military commander of Jabhat al-Nusra ally Jaysh al-Mujahideen (Army of Mujahideen). Zou’a was killed circa August 2016. In this scene Zou’a refers to “seven martyrs and about 50 wounded from the religious college for women and girls”, in stark contrast to the scenes recorded by Darren Conway and screened in Saving Syria’s Children, in which the overwhelming majority of alleged victims are adolescent males. (See: https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/#Halabhttps://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/#_ftn21http://en.mehrnews.com/news/118834/Syrian-army-establishes-control-on-a-number-of-positions-in-Aleppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1siwEfWixw&feature=youtu.be)

Male of European appearance carrying a camera. In other scenes (e.g. top right in montage immediately below) he can be seen using a walky-talky. Saving Syria’s Children editor Tom Giles has stated that he has “no idea” who this man is. (See: https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/western-male-filmed-at-atareb-hospital/)

At least seven individuals can be seen using walkie-talkies in scenes filmed at Atareb Hospital or at Urm al-Kubra, the location of the alleged incendiary attack. (See: https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/who-are-these-men/)

Individual bearing emblem of the Free Aleppo Governorate Council at 35:06 in Saving Syria’s Children. According to a 2014 MENASource blog post “The Council formed in March 2013 to provide services and administrative assistance for civilians living in free areas of Aleppo Province”.

[8] “ABC News is the news division of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), owned by the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company” – Wikipedia

All images in this article are from the author.

Drone Wars UK will be in court next week seeking to overturn the refusal of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to release how many of the UK’s fleet of ten armed Reaper drones are deployed and where they are located. The MoD currently releases such deployment details about its other armed aircraft, but has insisted since late 2014 that such information cannot be released about its armed drones.

The Information Tribunal, will take place in central London on 11th and 12th July, but will be partially heard behind closed doors with campaigners and the public excluded. Drone Wars will argue that given the ethical and legal concerns about the use of armed drones, it is in the public interest that there should be at least as much transparency about the deployment of armed drones as for the UK’s other armed aircraft.

During operations in Afghanistan, the UK MoD regularly detailed the number of armed Reaper drones deployed, as well as their location at Kandahar airport.  However it appears when the decision was made to continue to use armed drones beyond Afghanistan (the Reaper fleet was originally acquired under urgent operational requirement rules only for use in Afghanistan, and bypassed normal procurement procedures) the decision was also taken to refuse to give such details in the future.

The MoD regularly insists that armed drones are no different from other military aircraft.  However, in refusing to release the numbers and location of Reapers deployed on operations against ISIS while doing so for its other armed aircraft, drones are clearly being treated differently.  This would appear to be because the MoD wants to use them, or at the very least have the option to use them, on secret operations.  However, given the serious ethical and legal concerns about the use of armed drones, shrouding their  deployment in secrecy is a recipe for disaster.  Transparency will enable proper scrutiny and accountability, helping to ensure they are not deployed beyond the battlefield, and that the ability that drones give, to undertake remote air strikes with virtual impunity, does not erode international legal norms particularly around ‘last resort’.

Beyond Iraq and Syria?

While it is publicly knowledge that some of Britain’s fleet of ten armed Reapers have been deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Shader (as the UK military deployment against ISIS in Iraq and Syria is named) it is not clear if all the UK’s armed drones are deployed there, or if some  have been deployed on operations elsewhere, or if some remain in storage in the UK. Without the release of basic deployment information, we simply cannot know. MP’s like Richard Burden, who have raised this issue in parliament, have simply been rebuffed.

In the dark: There should be as much information in the public domain about the deployment of armed drones as other warplanes

Since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Britain’s Reapers have been used at least once outside of Operation Shader; to undertake the targeted killing of Reyaad Khan in August 2015.  While this strike took place in Syria, it was before parliament authorised the use of force there. The then PM, David Cameron, told the House of Commons that the strike was “the first time in modern times that a British asset has been used to conduct a strike in a country where we are not involved in a war.”  Senior military officers too acknowledged that the strike represented the ‘crossing of a Rubicon’ and the MoD insist in its FoI answers that the strike was not carried out as part of Operation Shader. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has made it clear that the UK is prepared to carry out further such drone targeted killings.

Mainstream media as well as specialist defence press regularly name the Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait as the base for UK Reaper operations in Iraq and Syria, although the MoD has never confirmed this officially. In May 2016, the MoD arranged visits to the location of the UK’s armed drones for a small, select group of media organisations: The Sun, Sky News, and Conservative US news site, The Daily Signal. While the location was not directly mentioned, there was enough information contained in the reports to confirm the previous reporting.

Public Interest

It may be that all the UK’s Reapers have not been deployed on operations and some are simply in storage in the UK (probably at RAF Waddington). If true, this is likely due to there not being enough crew to operate the Reaper fleet.  Both the RAF and USAF have had trouble recruiting and retaining drone crew partly due to the heavy workload. As a former Reaper pilot told Drone Wars in an interview last month, the UK’s drone operations have been “incessant”.

However it would be a particular matter of public interest if some of the UK Reapers were mothballed given that last December the government signed initial contracts to spend $1 billion acquiring up to 26 additional armed drones. There would be serious questions around this huge expenditure to expand the UK’s armed drone fleet given that it is not possible to keep the current fleet of ten in the air.

UK Responsibility and opportunity

The MoD’s perspective appears to be that that it is in the public interest that they should be able to operate these systems outside of public view and without the need for public accountability. From a wider international security perspective however, it is crucial, as more and more nations acquire armed drones, that there is a strong expectation and culture of transparency and public oversight of the deployment of armed drones.  As one of the few countries operating these systems beyond its own borders, the UK should recognise that it has both the responsibility and also the opportunity to set high standards internationally for such transparency. However if the UK refuses such basic details as the number of armed drones deployed, other nations acquiring such systems are likely to follow this lead.

The deployment of armed drones in particular needs to be carefully monitored as they have become the preferred means of undertaking extra-judicial targeted killings. Indeed it can be argued that the technology has hugely expanded the use of targeted killing. There is also growing concern – and evidence – that armed drones are lowering the threshold for use of force.

Details of other UK aircraft deployed on operations publicly released, but drone deployments kept secret

It has long been argued that there should be parliamentary authorisation for the British use of military force overseas. Currently it is a prerogative of the Crown within the hands of the PM. However in 2011 the Government acknowledged that a convention had emerged whereby the House of Commons should have the opportunity to debate and vote on the deployment of military forces except in the event of an emergency. It has been argued by all the main parties (when in opposition!) that this convention should be enshrined in a War Powers Act, though such calls are regularly dropped when parties get into power.

Asked by Tom Watson MP in June 2014 whether the government would seek approval for the deployment of armed drones after operations in Afghanistan, the then MoD Minister Mark Francois replied sarcastically that there was “no intention for parliamentary approval to be sought before decisions on deployment or redeployment of individual items of equipment are made.” Eighteen months later in January 2016 amid discussion of UK military intervention in Libya, Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones, David Anderson MP, again asked the MoD if they would ensure that parliament had an opportunity to debate the deployment of UK Reapers outside of Syria and Iraq. Michael Fallon gave a dismissive, one word answer: “No”.

If following the lead of the United States, multiple nations begin to undertake strikes from remotely controlled drones without detailing, or even acknowledging such deployments, there will be a significant and damaging decrease in international security. The UK needs to recognise it has a global responsibility on this issue and take an important lead. It should set an important benchmark for transparency on this issue by releasing the number of its armed drones deployed overseas together with their general location, and commit to bringing the deployment of armed drones within the convention that parliament approves the deployment and use of military force overseas.

All images in this article are from the original source.

The Syrian Army and its allies have continued operation against ISIS in the countryside of Palmyra where government troops are advancing in the direction of the ISIS-held town of Sukhna. Government forces have captured a major part of the al-Haid gas fields and now are attempting to secure the area from ISIS attacks.

A group of self-propelled multiple rocket launcher systems, including MB-27 Uragan, have been spotted in the Arak gas field area. Summing up this and recent photo and video evidence showing artillery pieces and technical vehicles armed with various weapons arriving the area, it’s possible to suggest that the army and its allies will soon launch a major push in order to retake Sukhna from ISIS.

The Turkish military has allegedly deployed ATILGAN short-range air defense systems to the area of al-Bab in the province of Aleppo. The Erdogan government has been increasing its military presence in Syria since the start of the operation Euphrates Shield. According to pro-Kurdish sources, now, Turkey and its proxy forces are preparing for a military operation in order to retake Tall Rifat from YPG and YPJ. Kurdish militias are a core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The Kurdish political leadership represented by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) heavily relies on the US support. Recently, it has made a series of steps worsening its relations with Syria, Iran and Russia, thus, opening a window of opportunities for Ankara that seeks to clear the Syrian border area from militarized Kurdish organizations.
The Kurdish-Arab tensions are also growing in the area of Raqqah where the so-called Arab Elite Forces led by Ahmad Jarba have withdrawn from the battle of Old Raqqah as a result of disagreements with the SDF. In turn, pro-SDF sources argue that the SDF command has decided to do this because of the bad behavior of Arab fighters. The US-led coalition is trying to mediate the situation. In any case, this has already slowed won the advance against ISIS.

According to opposition sources, the United States agreed with Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra, to establish a military base in Al-Shaddadi city in the southern Hasakah countryside. According to sources among Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra members, the military base will become a foothold for the US-backed push towards the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor.

On Sunday, a ceasefire was implemented in the provinces of Daraa and Quneitra as a result of another US-Russian deal over Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the agreement includes

“securing access of humanitarian aids, establishing contacts between the opposition in the area and a monitoring center being established in the Jordanian capital”.

State Rex Tillerson said that

“I think this is the first indication that the United States and Russia can work together in Syria.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has arrived Mosul city to announce its liberation. Al-Abadi toured Mosul and congratulated the Iraqi soldiers, officers, and civilians, after Iraqi forces had liberated the entire Old Mosul area from ISIS. Al-Abadi held a meeting with commanders at the Federal Police HQ in western Mosul, and stressed the need to ensure security and stability in the city, to remove mines and explosives left by ISIS, and to protect civilians. However, according to local sources sporadic firefights between ISIS members and security forces are still ongoing in Old Mosul. Following the declaration of the liberation of Mosul, Iraqi forces will likely focus their efforts on liberation of Tal Afar.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Air Force has carried out airstrikes on ISIS targets in the Syrian area of al-Mayadin. The Iraqi Air Force conducts airstrikes against ISIS in the Syrian border area in accordance to the agreement with the Syrian government.

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video above

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

All we know about Putin/Trump talks is what each side reported – Russia in some detail, the Trump administration offering little.

Most likely both leaders got along amicably, no comments from either suggesting otherwise. Their body language on camera was positive.

Moscow genuinely wants improved relations with Washington. Dark forces holding Trump hostage to their agenda have other ideas – irresponsibly calling Russia America’s main threat.

On Sunday, Rex Tillerson said US sanctions on Russia won’t be lifted unless it “reverses (its) actions” on Ukraine, falsely claiming they violated the country’s “territorial integrity.”

Nothing of the kind occurred – no so-called “Russian aggression,” no “annexation of Crimea,” no hostile, improper or illegal actions of any kind against Ukraine – the US-installed putschist regime, replacing its democratically elected governance.

In Kiev, meeting with its puppet president Poroshenko, Tillerson talked tough to please his host, cozying up to an illegitimate figurehead, reaffirming US support for his regime, disgracefully continuing unfounded anti-Russia accusations.

After meeting with Putin, Trump tweeted

“sanctions were not discussed,” adding “(n)othing will be done until the Ukrainian & Syrian problems are solved.”

In June, Senate members overwhelmingly approved tough new sanctions on Russia, targeting its intelligence and defense apparatus, its energy, railways and shipping industries – along with Russian officials wrongfully accused of corruption and human rights abuses.

House members have yet to act. It’s unclear if Trump will support the measure if it reaches his desk. It won’t matter if by a veto-proof margin as is likely.

Separately in June, deputy White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the Trump administration is committed to existing sanctions “until Moscow fully honors its commitments to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.”

America bears full responsibility, Russia wrongfully blamed for its criminality. Easing tensions between both countries toward improving relations remains an unattainable goal because neocons infesting Washington want Moscow remaining an adversary, not ally.

Days earlier, Tillerson appointed Kurt Volker as special envoy for helping to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Russia’s good faith efforts since 2014 were undermined by Washington – perpetuating conflict, not ending it.

Irreconcilable differences between both countries remain. Nothing in prospect suggests remedying a bad situation.

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.

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Genetically Modified Bread Given Green Light by Vatican

By Julian Rose, July 10, 2017

This is not a criticism of these individuals. It is the institution which must be first to answer for its deviousness. All the evidence exposing institutional corruption is contained in cardinal Sarah’s proclamation that genetically engineered bread is acceptable – and gluten-free bread is not.

Why Palestine Is Still the Issue

By John Pilger, July 10, 2017

What enrages those who colonise and occupy, steal and oppress, vandalise and defile is the victims’ refusal to comply. And this is the tribute we all should pay the Palestinians. They refuse to comply. They go on. They wait – until they fight again. And they do so even when those governing them collaborate with their oppressors.

Trump Cannot Improve Relations with Russia When Trump’s Government and the US Media Oppose Improved Relations

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, July 10, 2017

President Trump has been contradicted by his own government, which has lined up against him in favor of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and the Russophobic Presstitute Media that serves the military/security complex and the neoconservatives.

Gaza: A Place Closer to Hell Than to Heaven

By Irwin Jerome, July 10, 2017

Sadly, this persecution now includes the Palestinian peoples themselves, caught in the grip, as they are, of a fatal death spiral as they viciously fight and squabble; as oppressed peoples predictably often do amongst themselves once their forced to ‘circle the wagons’ and then begin shooting each other over what few scraps of power and hegemony remain.

The Trump-Putin Meeting: Establishment of a Personal Relationship, “There was Positive Chemistry Between the Two”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 10, 2017

The Trump-Putin meeting is also a slap in the face for the Deep State Neocons and the US media –not to mention Hillary et al–, who continue to blame Moscow for having intervened in the 2016 US presidential elections while casually portraying Trump as a Manchurian candidate controlled by the Kremlin.

Featured image: Cardinal Robert Sarah (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In what will surely to be considered a highly controversial statement, Vatican cardinal Robert Sarah, has stated that Catholic priests can use genetically modified bread during the Eucharist – but not ‘gluten-free’ bread. 

In an article in the Guardian online* Sarah is quoted as saying that guidance was needed now that Eucharist bread can be found in supermarkets and even over the internet.

Sarah had earlier reminded bishops that the bread should be made by people “distinguished by their integrity.” He also stated

“It is altogether forbidden to use wine of doubtful authenticity or provenance.”

The wine he is referring to is that taken with the bread during holy communion, which, quoting the Guardian

“Catholics believe turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.”

Somehow or other, in giving the OK to the use of GM unleavened bread, this statement encapsulates everything which is antithetical to basic, informed wisdom – never mind spiritual guidance. To deliberately distort the composition of the genetic code of life, is to go against the principle of reverence for the species. Doubly so since this is only undertaken to increase the profits of the corporations that patent the engineered plants.

The cardinal then states that such bread should only be made by  people “distinguished by their integrity.” Well, well, clearly the Vatican has a whole other concept of what ‘integrity’ means, than I do, and indeed millions of others. The article is capped-off by the statement citing Catholics’ belief that the bread and the wine issued to the congregation during communion, symbolizes the body and blood of Jesus.

Even to take this in a non literal sense, raises severe questions about the origins of this ritual. Nobody needs to imbibe the blood and body of Christ, even symbolically, in order to gain support from divine sources. Rather the opposite, to believe it is necessary to engage in a ritualistic form of cannibalism (however disguised) in order to receive divine blessing, places a block on the ability to see the sacred in everything. Rather it encourages a return to the dark ages of sacrificial worship.

I do not wish to cause offense to Catholics, especially those who follow their conscience, but the church has made it plain for all to see, that it is following a whole other doctrine than the one which supports nurturing an increase in spiritual awareness. We are witnessing a false dogma laid bare; and, in a sense, we should thank Sarah for so brazenly exposing this fact.

For the sake of brevity, I am going to resist going into every hypocritical nuance which the Vatican proclamation raises. Others have covered in depth, the prevalence of dark guidance which flows through this institution. But one cannot help but feel a shiver of horror when one links together the hundreds of cases of priestly pedophilia, the sacrilegious ingestion of symbolic body and blood and the promotion of GMO.

There is much more, but these three are quite sufficient in alerting all of us that it’s time to stand back and see the bigger picture.

A great swathe of the world’s activities are run from the Vatican, in its link-up with Washington DC and The City of London. None of which are government or citizen controlled. They are tax-free  ‘corporations’, boasting their own private police forces and independent status from the rest of society.

Here is where the hierarchical sudo-elite devise their ‘new world order’ ambitions. Their plans to take control over all aspects of planetary life. They work closely with the international banking cabal and with heads of state. They comprise the top end of the 0.2% pyramid elite whose ethos is to dominate within the construct of a totalitarian world, in which all those ‘below’ act as their minions.

There are many good and thoughtful individuals who follow the teachings of the church. Likewise there are priests performing valuable supportive efforts to those under repression all over the planet.

This is not a criticism of these individuals. It is the institution which must be first to answer for its deviousness. All the evidence exposing institutional corruption is contained in cardinal Sarah’s proclamation that genetically engineered bread is acceptable – and gluten-free bread is not.

Throughout the world 70 to 80% of individuals are against the use of GMO in the food chain. They perceive, in spite of mega bucks worth of corporate attempts to sell the GM message, that this laboratory inspired experiment is a dangerous and crass distortion of nature, with historical links to Nazi programmes promoting genocide. They also deeply distrust the agrichemical corporations trying to market it.

Who is right: the church and the corporations or the people?

It’s time to leave the dogma behind us and move on. A rise in human consciousness is not going to be achieved via regression into religious fanaticism. Humanity needs to break-free from all forms of institutional repression, and take inspiration directly from the true source of divine wisdom

*https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/09/gluten-free-bread-for-holy-communion-is-toast-says-vatican

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer and international activist. He is currently President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside. Julian is also the author of two acclaimed titles: ‘Changing Course for Life’ and ‘In Defense of Life’. You can purchase these books and read more at www.julianrose.info

TEHRAN (FNA)- A leading Egyptian newspaper released a number of documents proving that Saudi Arabia’s new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his counterpart in Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan have long been supporting the ISIL and al-Qaeda terrorist groups’ global operations.

The documents also revealed the detailed activities and operations of the two Yemeni nationals in support of the al-Qaeda and the ISIL as well as Saudi Intelligence Chief Khalid bin Ali bin Abdullah al-Humaidan‘s financial support for them.

The documents were revealed after a new report released by a British think tank on Wednesday said that Saudi Arabia is the “foremost” foreign funder of Islamist extremism in the UK and other western countries.

The Henry Jackson Society — a right-wing think tank — said that overseas funding primarily from the governments and private charities of Persian Gulf countries has a “clear and growing link” to the onslaught of violence the UK and other western states.

The group estimated that the Saudi government and charities spent an estimated $4 billion exporting Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism (also practiced by ISIL and other terrorist groups), worldwide in 2015, up from $2 billion in 2007. In 2015, there were 110 mosques in the UK practicing Salafism and Wahhabism compared to 68 in 2007. The money is primarily funneled through mosques and Islamic schools in Britain, according to the report.

“Influence has also been exerted through the training of British Muslim religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, as well as the use of Saudi textbooks in a number of the UK’s independent Islamic schools,” the report said.

Although many Western countries, including the United States, have acknowledged the threat of foreign terrorist financing, Britain “has seen far less of a response from policy makers supporting moves to tackle the challenge of foreign-funded Islamist extremism,” the report said.

Featured image from Farsnews

When I first went to Palestine as a young reporter in the 1960s, I stayed on a kibbutz. The people I met were hard-working, spirited and called themselves socialists. I liked them.

One evening at dinner, I asked about the silhouettes of people in the far distance, beyond our perimeter.

“Arabs”, they said, “nomads”. The words were almost spat out. Israel, they said, meaning Palestine, had been mostly wasteland and one of the great feats of the Zionist enterprise was to turn the desert green.

They gave as an example their crop of Jaffa oranges, which was exported to the rest of the world. What a triumph against the odds of nature and humanity’s neglect.

It was the first lie. Most of the orange groves and vineyards belonged to Palestinians who had been tilling the soil and exporting oranges and grapes to Europe since the eighteenth century. The former Palestinian town of Jaffa was known by its previous inhabitants as “the place of sad oranges”.

On the kibbutz, the word “Palestinian” was never used. Why, I asked. The answer was a troubled silence.

All over the colonised world, the true sovereignty of indigenous people is feared by those who can never quite cover the fact, and the crime, that they live on stolen land.

Denying people’s humanity is the next step – as the Jewish people know only too well. Defiling people’s dignity and culture and pride follows as logically as violence. 

In Ramallah, following an invasion of the West Bank by the late Ariel Sharon in 2002, I walked through streets of crushed cars and demolished houses, to the Palestinian Cultural Centre. Until that morning, Israeli soldiers had camped there.

I was met by the centre’s director, the novelist, Liana Badr, whose original manuscripts lay scattered and torn across the floor. The hard drive containing her fiction, and a library of plays and poetry had been taken by Israeli soldiers. Almost everything was smashed, and defiled.

Not a single book survived with all its pages; not a single master tape from one of the best collections of Palestinian cinema.

The soldiers had urinated and defecated on the floors, on desks, on embroideries and works of art. They had smeared faeces on children’s paintings and written – in shit – “Born to kill”.

Liana Badr had tears in her eyes, but she was unbowed. She said,

“We will make it right again.”  

What enrages those who colonise and occupy, steal and oppress, vandalise and defile is the victims’ refusal to comply. And this is the tribute we all should pay the Palestinians. They refuse to comply. They go on. They wait – until they fight again. And they do so even when those governing them collaborate with their oppressors.

In the midst of the 2014 Israeli bombardment of Gaza, the Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer never stopped reporting. He and his family were stricken; he queued for food and water and carried it through the rubble. When I phoned him, I could hear the bombs outside his door. He refused to comply.

Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2009 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Mohammed’s reports, illustrated by his graphic photographs, were a model of professional journalism that shamed the compliant and craven reporting of the so-called mainstream in Britain and the United States. The BBC notion of objectivity – amplifying the myths and lies of authority, a practice of which it is proud – is shamed every day by the likes of Mohamed Omer.

For more than 40 years, I have recorded the refusal of the people of Palestine to comply with their oppressors: Israel, the United States, Britain, the European Union.

Since 2008, Britain alone has granted licences for export to Israel of arms and missiles, drones and sniper rifles, worth £434 million.

Those who have stood up to this, without weapons, those who have refused to comply, are among Palestinians I have been privileged to know:

My friend, the late Mohammed Jarella, who toiled for the United Nations agency UNRWA, in 1967 showed me a Palestinian refugee camp for the first time. It was a bitter winter’s day and schoolchildren shook with the cold. “One day …” he would say. “One day …”

Mustafa Barghouti, whose eloquence remains undimmed, who described the tolerance that existed in Palestine among Jews, Muslims and Christians until, as he told me,

“the Zionists wanted  a state at the expense of the Palestinians.”

Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician in Gaza, whose passion was raising money for plastic surgery for children disfigured by Israeli bullets and shrapnel. Her hospital was flattened by Israeli bombs in 2014.

Dr. Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist, whose clinics for children in Gaza — children sent almost mad by Israeli violence — were oases of civilization.

Fatima and Nasser are a couple whose home stood in a village near Jerusalem designated “Zone A and B”, meaning that the land was declared for Jews only. Their parents had lived there; their grandparents had lived there. Today, the bulldozers are laying roads for Jews only, protected by laws for Jews only.

It was past midnight when Fatima went into labour with their second child. The baby was premature; and when they arrived at a checkpoint with the hospital in view, the young Israeli soldier said they needed another document.

Fatima was bleeding badly. The soldier laughed and imitated her moans and told them, “Go home”. The baby was born there in a truck. It was blue with cold and soon, without care, died from exposure. The baby’s name was Sultan.

For Palestinians, these will be familiar stories. The question is: why are they not familiar in London and Washington, Brussels and Sydney?

In Syria, a recent liberal cause — a George Clooney cause — is bankrolled handsomely in Britain and the United States, even though the beneficiaries, the so-called rebels, are dominated by jihadist fanatics, the product of the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the destruction of modern Libya.

And yet, the longest occupation and resistance in modern times is not recognized. When the United Nations suddenly stirs and defines Israel as an apartheid state, as it did this year, there is outrage – not against a state whose “core purpose” is racism but against a UN commission that dared break the silence.

“Palestine,” said Nelson Mandela, “is the greatest moral issue of our time.”

Why is this truth suppressed, day after day, month after month, year after year?

On Israel – the apartheid state, guilty of a crime against humanity and of more international law-breaking than any other– the silence persists among those who know and whose job it is to keep the record straight.

The barrier between Israel and Palestine and an example of one of the Israeli-controlled checkpoints (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

On Israel, so much journalism is intimidated and controlled by a groupthink that demands silence on Palestine while honourable journalism has become dissidence: a metaphoric underground.

A single word – “conflict” – enables this silence. “The Arab-Israeli conflict”, intone the robots at their tele-prompters. When a veteran BBC reporter, a man who knows the truth, refers to “two narratives”, the moral contortion is complete.

 There is no conflict, no two narratives, with their moral fulcrum. There is a military occupation enforced by a nuclear-armed power backed by the greatest military power on earth; and there is an epic injustice.

The word “occupation” may be banned, deleted from the dictionary. But the memory of historical truth cannot be banned: of the systemic expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. “Plan D” the Israelis called it in 1948.   

The Israeli historian Benny Morris describes how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was asked by one of his generals:

“What shall we do with the Arabs?” 

The prime minister, wrote Morris, “made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand”.

“Expel them!” he said.

Seventy years later, this crime is suppressed in the intellectual and political culture of the West. Or it is debatable, or merely controversial. Highly-paid journalists and eagerly accept Israeli government trips, hospitality and flattery, then are truculent in their protestations of independence. The term, “useful idiots”, was coined for them.

In 2011, I was struck by the ease with which one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists, Ian McEwan, a man bathed in the glow of bourgeois enlightenment, accepted the Jerusalem Prize for literature in the apartheid state.

Would McEwan have gone to Sun City in apartheid South Africa? They gave prizes there, too, all expenses paid. McEwan justified his action with weasel words about the independence of “civil society”.

Propaganda – of the kind McEwan delivered, with its token slap on the wrists for his delighted hosts – is a weapon for the oppressors of Palestine. Like sugar, it insinuates almost everything today.   

Understanding and deconstructing state and cultural propaganda is our most critical task. We are being frog-marched into a second cold war, whose eventual aim is to subdue and balkanise Russia and intimidate China.

When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke privately for more than two hours at the G20 meeting in Hamburg, apparently about the need not to go to war with each other, the most vociferous objectors were those who have commandeered liberalism, such as the Zionist political writer of the Guardian.”

“No wonder Putin was smiling in Hamburg,” wrote Jonathan Freedland. “He knows he has succeeded in his chief objective: he has made American weak again.”

Cue the hissing for Evil Vlad.

These propagandists have never known war but they love the imperial game of war. What Ian McEwan calls “civil society” has become a rich source of related propaganda.

Take a term often used by the guardians of civil society — “human rights”.  Like another noble concept, “democracy”, “human rights” has been all but emptied of its meaning and purpose.

Like “peace process” and “road map”, human rights in Palestine have been hijacked by Western governments and the corporate NGOs they fund and which claim a quixotic moral authority.

So when Israel is called upon by governments and NGOs to “respect human rights” in Palestine, nothing happens, because they all know there is nothing to fear; nothing will change.

Mark the silence of the European Union, which accommodates Israel while refusing to maintain its commitments to the people of Gaza — such as keeping the lifeline of the Rafah border crossing open: a measure it agreed to as part of its role in the cessation of fighting in 2014. A seaport for Gaza – agreed by Brussels in 2014 – has been abandoned.

The UN commission I have referred to – its full name is the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia — described Israel as, and I quote, “designed for the core purpose” of racial discrimination.

Millions understand this. What the governments in London, Washington, Brussels and Tel Aviv cannot control is that humanity at street level is changing perhaps as never before.

People everywhere are stirring and more aware, in my view, than ever before. Some are already in open revolt. The atrocity of Grenfell Tower in London has brought communities together in a vibrant almost national resistance.

Thanks to a people’s campaign, the judiciary is today examining the evidence of a possible prosecution of Tony Blair for war crimes. Even if this fails, it is a crucial development, dismantling yet another barrier between the public and its recognition of the voracious nature of the crimes of state power – the systemic disregard for humanity perpetrated in Iraq, in Grenfell Tower, in Palestine. Those are the dots waiting to be joined.

For most of the 21^st century, the fraud of corporate power posing as democracy has depended on the propaganda of distraction: largely on a cult of “me-ism” designed to disorient our sense of looking out for others, of acting together, of social justice and internationalism.  

Class, gender and race were wrenched apart. The personal became the political and the media the message. The promotion of bourgeois privilege was presented as “progressive” politics. It wasn’t. It never is. It is the promotion of privilege, and power.

Among young people, internationalism has found a vast new audience. Look at the support for Jeremy Corbyn and the reception the G20 circus in Hamburg received. By understanding the truth and imperatives of internationalism, and rejecting colonialism, we understand the struggle of Palestine.

Mandela put it this way:

“We know only too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

At the heart of the Middle East is the historic injustice in Palestine. Until that is resolved, and Palestinians have their freedom and homeland, and Israelis are Palestinians equality before the law, there will be no peace in the region, or perhaps anywhere.

What Mandela was saying is that freedom itself is precarious while powerful governments can deny justice to others, terrorise others, imprison and kill others, in our name. Israel certainly understands the threat that one day it might have to be normal.

That is why its ambassador to Britain is Mark Regev, well known to journalists as a professional propagandist, and why the “huge bluff” of charges of anti-Semitism, as Ilan Pappe called it, was allowed to contort the Labour Party and undermine Jeremy Corbyn as leader. The point is, it did not succeed.

Events are moving quickly now. The remarkable Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) is succeeding, day by day; cities and towns, trade unions and student bodies are endorsing it. The British government’s attempt to restrict local councils from enforcing BDS has failed in the courts.

These are not straws in the wind. When the Palestinians rise again, as they will, they may not succeed at first — but they will eventually if we understand that they are us, and we are them.

This is an abridged version of John Pilger‘s address to the Palestinian Expo 2017 in London. John Pilger’s film, ‘Palestine Is Still the Issue’, can be viewed at http://johnpilger.com/videos/palestine-is-still-the-issue

I – Poison Colonies

“Indian civilisation is based on gratitude, to our farmers and all beings who contribute to our food.” — Annadata Sukhibhava

5 Jul 2017 – We believe in  “Uttam – Kheti, Madhyam – Vyapar, Neech – Naukri.” India’s small farmers produce more diversity, more food and nutrition per acre than farmers in industrialised countries. Even today, they feed more than 1.3 billion people.

Then why are Indian farmers committing suicide today?

The root cause is the separation of agriculture from nutrition, and from ecology.

For 10000 years we have farmed to produce nourishment for the soil and society. The combination of the “Green Revolution” in Punjab (imposed in the 1960’s) and the corporate globalisation “reforms” (which started in the 1990’s) have created policies for “Annadata Dukhi Bhava”, undermining our 10,000 year civilisational heritage of Earth first and farmers first policies. The dominant policies of agriculture today, driven by global corporations, are corporate profits first, farmers last, the earth lost.

The consequence is a rapid unfolding of social and ecological non sustainability, threatening our farmers and the future of भारत as a living, life giving civilisation. Our agriculture is eroding, down to a toxic blueprint designed by the poison cartel. 3,18,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1995 – when globalisation of agriculture flagged off the hijack of our seeds, our agriculture, our food systems. The suicides continue.

Now farmers have started to wake the nation up, to the farming crisis, with the strike in Maharashtra and MP. Instead of gratitude and justice, they got bullets. This is not what democracy looks like, from any angle, with any filter, with or without spin. This is not the expression of our civilisational values.

The suicides are concentrated in regions where the Green Revolution has invaded agriculture – destroying diversity, destroying indigenous agriculture, destroying farmers self reliance, destroying soil and water. Suicides are taking place where globalisation policies have destroyed the diversity of crops and diversity of markets. Farmers are growing monocultures and are dependent on a single buyer – the government or a corporation – to buy what they grow, as a commodity for trading posts.

The Roots of the contemporary Agrarian Crisis lie in 50 years of the chemical intensive, capital intensive, monoculture based “Green Revolution”, and 20 years of corporate globalisation, which has transformed Indian Agriculture into a market for costly seed and chemical inputs and a supplier of cheap commodities. Continuing on the path shaped by global corporations and US interests will only make the crisis worse. Getting rid of the small farmer has been the intention of Industrial Agriculture. Getting rid of India’s small farmers has been the aim of every government since globalisation was forced upon us. It continues to be the main call after the farmers protests started in June 2017. Farming without farmers is the new slogan of industry. But this means farming with more fossil fuels, more chemicals. The end of farmers, is the end of real food, an end to producers; it is the rise of the processors.

We must change our agriculture from a chemical intensive, capital intensive, debt and dependency creating, path to a biodiversity intensive, ecologically intensive, zero external input system which rejuvenates the earth and farmers prosperity, and with it provides real food to citizens and creates true prosperity of a people and their nation.

The Green Revolution works against the Earth. It is based on war chemicals, and manifests as a war against the earth, against the farmers, our Annadatas, and against innocent citizens suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases because they are being condemned to eat nutritionally empty, toxic commodities, instead of food.

Debt for purchase of costly non renewable seeds and unnecessary toxic inputs is the primary reason for farmers suicides and farmers protests. While the immediate short term measure is debt relief and higher MSP, the longer term, lasting solution to the agrarian crisis is a debt free internal input  ecological agriculture called by a variety of names – agroecology, organic, zero budget, permaculture, biodynamic, vedic krishi, natural farming etc etc.

The government – driven and controlled by MNCs – is planning to deepen this debt trap, to create more markets for costly seeds and chemicals. The 2017 budget has Rs 100,000 Crores allocated for agricultural credit, which means encouragement to farmers to get into more debt for more chemicals and more hybrid and GMO seeds from multinationals. This is a recipe for a deeper debt trap and an increase in the resulting suicides.

We have, across the country, success stories of farming without chemicals – producing more food, more nutrition, while increasing farmers incomes. Navdanya’s own experience has shown that chemical free biodiversity based farming produces more nutrition per acre and can feed two India’s. Farmers using their own seeds and their own ecological inputs, growing diverse and nutritious foods that people need and want, and creating their own markets without middlemen, can increase their incomes 10X to 100X.

There is absolutely no reason for a single farmer to commit suicide, nor for a single child to be wasted and stunted in our abundant Bharatvarsh.

Wherever farmers are practicing biodiverse ecological farming and participate in diverse markets they control, there is no debt, no farmers suicides. Suicides are taking place where farmers have become dependent on buying costly seeds and costly chemicals as inputs, they have been forced to  give up diversity, to grow a commodity crop which can only be sold to government or traders, or the corporations behind both. Buyers are driving prices down. Squeezed between ever increasing costs and falling prices, the farmers are trapped, and in hopelessness they are committing suicide.

The way out of the epidemic of farmers suicides:

LOWER COSTS : lower the costs of production to zero through natural, ecological, organic farming and saving, selecting, breeding, and exchanging indigenous open source seeds.

INCREASE NET INCOMES : increase net incomes by saving on unnecessary expenses for toxics, including toxic seeds , and growing diverse , healthy, nutritious, chemical free crops for diverse markets.

INCREASE CLIMATE AND MARKET RESILIENCE : In addition to high costs of chemical farming, chemical farming is making farmers vulnerable to climate change, and exposed to volatile money markets. Diversity creates resilience, both to an unpredictable climate and an exploitative market.

Small farmers are our Annadatas :They are the foundation of Bharat, her health, her prosperity. They produce more than large industrial farms.

There is a common myth – that small farms are unproductive and that an increasing population requires an increase in productivity, which in turn requires large farms, which in turn requires a concentration of land ownership. To feed the people, the industrial, empirical prerogative is to take away their land.

All the scientific evidence is showing that small farms are more productive than large farms.

The International Assessment of Agriculture Knowledge, Science and Technology (IAASTD ) has clearly shown that small agroecological farmers are more productive.

IAASTD’s Agriculture at a Crossroads report, vol. V

removed from

http://www.unep.org/dewa/agassessment/reports/subglobal/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Volume%20V_Sub-Saharan%20Africa_Subglobal_Report.pdf

still available at

http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/Investment/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Global_Report_IAASTD.pdf

The UNCTAD Trade and Environment Review 2013 Titled “Wake Up Before it is Too Late”  stresses that a paradigm shift is needed – from chemical intensification to ecological intensification.

http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf

The United Nations Environment Programme in “Preventing Future Famines”  shows how small ecological farms enhance productivity through ecological functions.

https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2012-UNEP-Avoiding-Famines-Food-Security-Report.pdf

Lancet, the leading medical journal has recognised that only small farms have diversity, and diversity is vital for health.

https://www.google.co.in/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Small+farmers+produce+more&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=JSVRWbLpE4jy8Af7q7WgBg

http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/about/news/170405-lancet.html

https://blogs.csiro.au/ecos/small-farms-need-protection-to-safeguard-nutrients-and-diversity/

Navdanya’s report on Biodiversity Based Productivity and Health per Acre shows that small biodiverse farms produce more food and more nutrition than chemical monocultures.

http://www.navdanya.org/attachments/Health%20Per%20Acre.pdf

Navdanya’s 1 acre diverse model farm can produce Rs 400,000 worth of grains, vegetables, fodder, medicinal plants over the rabi and kharif season. This is evidence from studies of small biodiverse ecological farms.

India is a land of small farmers, and the small farmers feed the nation of 1.3 billion. They are India’s Annadattas. Today our Annadatas, are trapped in debt. 300,000 famers have committed suicide since 1995, and the epidemic of farmers suicides is increasing as the seed slavery and food slavery (created by giant corporations) spreads through globalisation and neo-liberal economic reforms.

Globalisation is based on the myth that small farmers are unproductive and should be driven off the land and replaced by giant industrial farms. This is scientifically false, and socially unjust. All scientific evidence shows that small farms are more productive than large farms.

As our former Prime Minister Charan Singh wrote:

“Agriculture being a life process, in actual practice, under given conditions, yields per acre decline as the size of farm increases (in other words, as the application of human labour and supervision per acre decreases). The above results are well nigh universal :output per acre of investment is higher on small farms than on large farms.Thus, if a crowded, capital scare country like India has a choice between a single 100 acre farm and forty 2.5 acre farms, the capital cost to the national economy will be less if the country chooses the small farms”.

Globally, small farms produce 70% of the food we eat using 25% of the land, while industrial farms produce only 30% food, using 75% of the land, and also destroying 75% of the soil, water, biodiversity, while emitting 50% of the Green house gases that are polluting the atmosphere and destabilising the climate system.

Industrial agriculture produces commodities, not food. 90% of corn and soya grown in the world go for Biofuel and animal feed. Real food can only be produced on small farms which are biodiverse, ecological and chemical free. Large farms grow monocultures, using intensive chemicals, and energy intensive mechanisation. The costs of production in chemical, industrial agriculture systems is higher than the value of the output. Without giant subsidies they cannot survive. Industrial farming is inherently unviable.

Making farmers dependent on purchase of costly inputs is the source of super profits of global corporations. It is also the reason for farmers debt and distress. Toxic Corporations like Monsanto are also trying to own the seed. They are creating new commodities to sell to farmers, and get them trapped in deeper debt and slavery. Monsanto has bought the climate data corporation to sell climate data to farmers as well as insurance. Monsanto sees the insurance market as $3 trillion. Monsanto has bought the Soil Data corporation and will sell soil data to farmers. In addition it has joined hands with Silicon Valley firms to create spyware for farm machinery and for surveillance drones. This is a vision of slavery and total destruction of seed freedom and food freedom. It is s.m.a.r.t.slavery.

We have successfully resisted over the last 30 years, and will continue to resist corporate rule over the next 30. We will continue to defend our small farms to grow healthy, poison free food for our country. Corporations as middle men are siphoning off 99% of the value of food farmers produce through multiple forms of Lagaan. They make additional profits by extracting nutrition from food through industrial processing. Both producers and eaters loose, while corporations make profits from both.

II – Corporate Globalisation

A death knell for Small Farmers

The second major contributor to farmers distress is corporate globalisation. Written in the WTO – referred to as “economic reforms“  by the neo liberal policy makers who ran the erstwhile planning commission and now run the Niti Aayog. Corporate agriculture has always had the aim of driving small farmers off the land (first as workers, into factories, now being told the future is without work ). Both because the small farmers show there is a better way of farming, and because they are sovereign producers. The freedom and high productivity of small farmers has therefore been at the centre of all policies of industrial, corporate agriculture.

The rules of corporate globalisation were written by global corporations.They were designed to destroy India’s food and agriculture production and wipe out India’s small farmers. This is precisely what they have done.

The WTO rules that are causing distress in Indian agriculture have also aggravated the hunger, malnutrition and disease epidemic, they are:

1. The TRIPS agreement drafted by Monsanto. Through which Monsanto tried to seek patents on seeds. Even though India does not allow patents on Seeds, Monsanto has been collecting royalties illegally for Bt cotton Utility- Collecting royalties is the main reason for pushing GMOs. This is also the reason the Bayer GMO mustard is being pushed with Pental as a Trojan horse.
2. The Agreement on Agriculture drafted by Cargill and the agribusiness industry.
   Utility- for market access to domestic markets through trade liberalisation
3. The SPS agreement  drafted and promoted by the global food processing industry such as Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Tyson etc. Utility- to impose pseudo safety standards in order to shut down the household and cottage food processing industry in India, and deregulate the unhealthy industrial food processing operations.

Globalisation Myths in Food and Agriculture

Pseudo Productivity, Pseudo Competition & Pseudo Surpluses 

Globalisation is supposed to improve efficiency and productivity, and it is supposed to increase competition and choice. In the area of food and farming, globalisation is based on three faulty assumptions:

• Globalisation will lead to a spread of the most productive and efficient farming systems. It will therefore lead to increased food production as well as conserve land, water and biodiversity.
• Globalisation will lead to increased access to the best food and will lead to decrease in food scarcity and hunger. It will improve food security and food safety.
• Globalisation will lead to increased competition and will improve the incomes and condition of farmers by increasing their bargaining power and choice.

However, the reality of globalisation and its impacts on food and farming is contrary to this projected mythology of prosperity and abundance.

Globalisation of food and agriculture has led to: 

• Globalisation of non.sustainable industrial agriculture.
• Globalisation of rural poverty, and destruction of farmers’ livelihoods and dramatic decline in farmers’ incomes.
• Globalisation of hunger.

Our food and farming systems are in deep crisis. Food scares are spreading (highlighted by the Mad Cow Disease and GMOs). Farmers are committing suicides in thousands or selling their kidneys to pay back debts incurred for high cost agricultural inputs – such as seeds and pesticides, which were supposed to have brought them prosperity by increasing their productivity.

The prosperity that globalisation was supposed to spread is also proving elusive. Prices of agricultural commodities are collapsing, as import restrictions are removed and uber-subsidised products flood domestic markets, while domestic producers are denied price support and procurement subsidies.

Farmers loose, consumer looser.

Low prices to farmers does not mean low prices for Third World consumers, the majority of whom are desperately poor and already malnourished. Food prices are rising in the Third World, as food subsidies are removed, and the polarisation, between prices farmers receive and prices consumers pay, increases. Prices of food are also increasing as vertical integration increases corporate profits, and as pseudo hygiene laws are used to legally ban low cost, culturally and economically appropriate food processing systems — like the ghanis (tiny cold pressed oil mills) the chakkis (the small family run flour mills) the halwai shops (sweet and savoury snack makers).

The livelihoods and food rights of millions are being robbed, as Indian agriculture is being reduced to a market for global corporations — for their seeds and agrichemicals, for their processed foods, for dumping their subsidised grains and commodities. The corporate takeover of Indian agriculture has been facilitated by the globalisation of agriculture, through the imposition of Structural Adjustment – by the World Bank and IMF, and the trade rules of W.T.O. as embodied in its Agriculture Agreement and TRIPs Agreement. This corporatisation is now part of the National Agriculture Policy. US interest, our policy?

The trade liberalisation rules have camouflaged the corporatisation of agriculture by creating meaningless jargon around “competitiveness”. “market access”, “aggregate measure of support”, “etc.”, which hide the emergence of corporate monopolies, the dumping of subsidised products, and the growth of corporate subsidies.

Demystifying Trade Liberalisation

This report is aimed at demystifying trade liberalisation in the food and agriculture sectors: highlighting its impacts on the livelihoods of farmers, food security and food rights of all, and proposing changes, both in global trade policy and in the national agriculture policy to ensure that the natural resource base of agriculture is conserved, livelihoods of small farmers are protected, the nutritional security and food security of consumers is Increased and the productivity of our agriculture is enhanced.

The report addresses the crisis of non-sustainable food production, the crisis of food security and hunger, of food rights and food entitlements and the crisis of farm prices and marketing, resulting from the growth of monopolies and anti-competitive practices.

Outside In – the Globalisation of Non-sustainability

Pseudo Productivity and the Myth of Efficiency 

70% of the world’s food is produced by local farming communities, especially women. Farming systems of the world have been diverse, reflecting diverse agro-climatic features on the one hand, and diverse food cultures on the other. In fact, the diversity of agricultural systems and cultural diversity of food systems have co-evolved by a mutual interplay of nature and culture, of biodiversity and cultural diversity.

Globalisation of agriculture had led to the rapid destruction of diverse farming systems and displacement of small farmers worldwide. The destruction of the environment and rural livelihoods is an inevitable consequence of the globalisation of industrial agriculture. This is usually justified as necessary in order to produce more food.

Industrial agriculture includes the chemicalisation and mechanisation of agriculture as in the case of the Green Revolution. It also includes genetic engineering. The farmers crisis is not per-chance. It has been designed, and enacted through globalisation and neo liberal policies that put corporate profits first, and farmers last. Beginning with the 1991 new economic policies imposed on agriculture as part of the World Bank Structural Adjustment policies (SAP), “development” of the design commenced.

Globalisation is based on external liberalisation. External liberalisation is foreign trade and foreign investment driven liberalisation. External liberalisation serves external interests. Agriculture liberalisation under SAPs is an example of such external liberalisation, it consists of the following elements:

1. Liberalising fertiliser imports, and deregulating domestic manufacturing and the distribution of fertilisers.
2. Removing land ceiling regulation
3. Removing subsidies on irrigating electricity and credit, thereby creating conditions to facilitate the trading of canal irrigation water rights
4. Deregulating the wheat, rice, sugarcane, cotton, edible oil and oilseed industries
5. Dismantling the food security system
6. Removing controls on markets, traders, and processors, and subsidies to cooperatives
7. Abolishing the Essential Commodities Act
8. Abolishing the general ban on future trading
9. Abolishing inventory controls
10. Abolishing selective credit controls on inventory financing
11. Treating farmers’ cooperatives on an equal footing with the private sector

The foregoing elements of SAP are recipes for removing centralised state control over agriculture. But concentrating it, now even further into the hands of agribusiness and Transnational Corporations (TNCs) such as Monsanto, Cargill and PepsiCo —who are emerging as the new Zamindars controlling not just land use, but also water use and seeds.

Internal liberation

What is required for us is not external liberalisation but an internal liberalisation of agriculture. Internal liberalisation implies liberating agriculture in the direction of enhancing self-regenerative ecological processes and enhancing ecological and livelihood security.

In particular, this includes:

1. Freeing agriculture from high external inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides and making a transition to sustainable agriculture based on internal inputs for ecological sustainability
2. Freeing farmers from capital intensive farming and debt
3. Freeing peasants from landlessness
4. Freeing farmers from fear of dispossession by monopolies of land, water and biodiversity
5. Freeing the poor from the spectre of starvation by ensuring food as a human right
6. Freeing rural people from water scarcity by ensuring inalienable and equitable water rights
7. Freeing knowledge and biodiversity from IPR monopolies
8. Rebuilding local food security, reinvigorating local markets

The attack on Farmers Seed Sovereignty 

Monsanto did not succeed in getting patents on seeds through, because our national democratic efforts led to the introduction of Art 3j in our amended Patent law, disallowing patents on Plants, Animals and Seeds  India also introduced the Plant Variety and Farmers Rights Act.

However, Monsanto illegally introduced Bt Cotton in India in 1998. Monsanto established a monopoly, and extracted super profits via illegally collected royalties on Bt cotton seeds, from Indian farmers, trapping farmers in debt, pushing hundreds of thousands of cotton farmers to suicide them to suicide. Without conference, without information, sans consent.

Monsanto is challenging Article 3j in the High Court of Delhi. Its lawyer was a member of the group of neolibs writing a new IPR policy.

Monsanto is challenging the Competition Commission of India that is investigating its Bt Cotton Seed Monopoly.

Bayer has now merged with Monsanto. Bayer is pushing a herbicide resistant GMO mustard which was rejected in 2002, using Pental as a trojan horse. Pental is also arguing against Article 3j of our patent law. Most of the patents related to the GMO mustard are Bayer patents.

Inspite of the evidence, that Bt cotton has failed, and that the GMO mustard has lower yields than non GMO mustards, the NITI Aayog is pushing GMO seeds as the future of India’s agriculture. Hell bent on breaking down the protections we have built into our systems.

Anil Madhav Dave, the late environment minister was not ready to give approval to GMO mustard. He died mysteriously on 18th May 2017, much like  Lal Bahadur Shastri – who was not giving approval to the Green Revolution, and also died mysteriously, in Tashkent on 11th Jan 1966.

Rising Costs, Falling Prices: The attack on farmers’ hard earned income and the creation of the negative farm economy.

Agrichemical and agribusiness corporations wrote the rules of WTO. They have only one objective: to make profits by increasing their markets.

Increasing markets for chemicals and corporate seeds translates into higher costs of production for the farmer. Farmers land holdings have not increased, thus an increase in profits comes from:

• increased subsidies
• increased market penetration, or
• increased price of industrial product

Increasing markets for agribusiness means falling prices for farm produce.

Farmers falling incomes, with costs of production outstripping the price of the produce, is making agriculture unviable under corporate driven policies.

Their are 2 ways in which agribusiness is capturing the Indian agriculture market.

• Firstly, by importing and dumping subsidised, inferior products.
• Secondly, by capturing domestic trade by destroying APMCs and local distribution channels, creating private corporate procurement, and imposing contract farming.

The creation of import dependency for oilseeds and pulses are examples of the destruction of local economies, and with them the livelihood of farmers growing oilseeds and pulses.

Unnecessary import of Fake Edible Oil: Palm Oil and GMO soya

India can produce enough oilseeds that are diverse, healthy, safe, and culturally appropriate.

1990s

In the 1990’s India had become self sufficient in edible oils as a consequence of the conscious commitment to grow more oilseeds. The policy was called the “Yellow Revolution. It worked. In 1993-94 India was producing 97% of her requirements.

In 1998, the same year that Monsanto sneaked in its BT cotton, the MNC’s engineered a crisis, got indigenous oilseeds banned and dumped GMO soya oil on India by manipulating a drop in Import Duties. India had bound its import duties at 300% in the WTO. The US lobbies had soya oil duties reduced to 45%. In the stage-managed crisis of 1998, the duties were dropped to 0%. In addition, the soya bean was subsidised by $190/tonne by the US govt, and Rs 15/kg by India.

No wonder India was flooded with imports, not because of domestic scarcity but because of manipulated prices, manipulated trade and manipulated policy. The women of the slums of Delhi called me, to say their children could not eat the food cooked in Soya oil, that they wanted the mustard oil back. So we organised the “Sarson Satyagraha” in 1998 and saved our mustard.

But the imports kept increasing through dumping and manipulating of policy. Compared to1.02 million tonnes edible oil imports in 1996-97, India’s imports doubled to 2.98 million tonnes in 1998-99, and then jumped to 5 million tonnes in 1999-2000.

Today

Today we are importing more than 60% of our domestic requirements. And destroying our coconut, sesame, groundnut, safflower, niger, mustard, linseed diversity and healthy food economy, for GMO soya which is destroying the Amazon, and palm oil which is destroying the Indonesian rainforests. The planet is loosing, Indian farmers are loosing livelihoods, Indian citizens are loosing health.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/oil/article9349762.ece

Enough

We can grow enough oilseeds to meet India’s needs. As the farmers’ organisations wrote in a letter to the Environment Minister, Anil Dave –

“Oil seed production has taken a hit due to bad pricing/procurement support from the government, and inappropriate anti-farmer import policies adopted by the government. It is not because we are unable to produce enough or do not have the seeds or know how. If the pricing, procurement and import policies are made farmer friendly we assure you that we can produce all the mustard and other oil seeds the country needs.”

The government of India is (again) being manipulated by the same interests that forced the edible oil imports on us, in order to force GMO Mustard  on us in the name of reducing import dependence. While the argument is one of reducing imports, the government did not procure oilseeds from India’s farmers in 2017, further increasing their distress.

Unnecessary Import of Fake Pulses and Corruption 

Pulses are truly the pulse of life for the soil, for people and the planet. In our farms they give life to the soil by providing nitrogen. This is how ancient cultures enriched their soils. Farming did not begin with the green revolution and synthetic nitrogen fertilisers. The displacement of biodiversity, by monocultures of Bt cotton and sugarcane, in the semi arid regions of Maharashtra, has contributed to both water scarcity and the farmers crisis.

This area  earlier grew pulses. We are therefore growing nearly 10 million tonnes less pulses.

Further, under the new private partnership of the government of Maharashtra with ADM, farmers are receiving half the MSP.

http://www.ficci.com/spdocument/20539/SOYBEAN-Report.pdf

With the artificially created pulse scarcity India, prices of pulses have taken dal beyond the reach of Indians. Tur reached Rs 200 a kilo in 2015. The govt is using the scarcity to import pulses. Today we are the biggest importers. And since the rest of the world does not grow the diversity of pulses we grow, what is being imported cannot replace the diversity necessary for the Indian diet. Large quantities of yellow pea from US and Canada are imported at the cost of billions of dollars.

In 2012 the CAG had audited the pulse imports. The CAG had particularly pointed to the import of yellow pea.

“YELLOW PEAS

Without taking into consideration the food patterns, the Government in 2007 imported yellow peas.

When the peas found no takers, they were sold after prolonged delays, at very low rates, with heavy losses to the importing agencies.”

The MoCA and F&PD decided in 2008 that the agencies need not go for further contracts of yellow peas, but the Union Cabinet in 2009 decided to  allow the agencies to import these.

The agencies continued to import even when they had huge unsold stocks, resulting in a loss of Rs. 897.37 crore, 75 per cent of the total loss of Rs. 1,201.32 crore”

But the loss is not only to the exchequer.

Import of yellow pea translates into importing nutritional deficiency for people and the soil and decline in soil health. In 2015-16 India planned to import more than 5 million tonnes of yellow pea from Canada and US, we will not be told whether it happened.

Yellow pea has only 7.5 percent protein compared to indigenous pulses having 20-30%. Importing 5 million tonnes of yellow pea instead of growing our own pulses is thus equal to 1 million tonnes of protein debt created for Indians. Not growing 5 million tonnes is depriving our soils of more than 1 billion kg of nitrogen.

https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/generic/green-or-yellow-split-peas-dry-cooked?portionid=51928&portionamount=100.000

In 2017 farmers had abundant pulse production. But in-spite of promises, the government failed to procure and offer the just MSP.

In June 2016 the Government had announced a bonus above MSP of Rs 425 for Tur and Moong.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/MSP-of-pulses-and-oilseeds-hiked-to-motivate-farmers/articleshow/52545498.cms

http://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/pulses-import-to-fall-by-20-in-fy18-on-better-domestic-output-117050400820_1.html

But at harvest time the government was missing, making an abundant harvest turn into farmers distress. Design.

And the imports were not stopped in-spite of an abundant harvest, showing clearly that the government has higher commitments to corporations and their kickbacks than justice to farmers, that in the neo-library, trade trumps farms. Execution.

Pulse imports grew 20% to 5.67 million tonnes in the financial year 2017, farmers’ harvest cheaply procured for the food “industry”.  Success.

“A record high crop output, along with record imports, has created a mayhem in pulses market, with farmers unable to sell pulses even at the minimum support price announced by the government. In FY17, the total import if pulses increased 19.9 per cent to 5.67 million tonnes, which, along with 22.14 million tonnes of crop, has improved the availability for the year by around 27.8 million tonnes, against the average normal consumption of 24 million tonnes”

http://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/pulses-import-grew-20-per-cent-to-5-67-million-tonnes-in-fy17-117050300247_1.html

Solution

Reversing the Agrarian Decline and Stopping Farmers Distress, Taking the Road to Samriddhi through Swalamban

The first and immediate step in stopping the distress is freedom from debt. Farmers have been forced into debt by government policies promoting corporate agriculture. Since the government has promoted corporate driven policies, it is responsible for the debt crisis farmers face.

It must waive the loans of farmers, and stop creating new debt traps through credit, intended to expand corporate markets and financed through corporate driven insurance, and paving the road for dependence on climate and soil data as “Big Data “ is sold by corporations as a new commodity.

All imports of oilseeds and pulses must be stopped.

In 2017 farmers had grown enough pulses. Many farmers who committed suicide in 2017 had been unable to sell their dal. Instead of importing fake yellow pea dal, the govt needs to buy from farmers. The government owes it to our farmers to provide fair and just MSP since it has promoted a government-dependent and corporate-driven marketing and distribution system .

Policies for local, regional and national self reliance and food sovereignty must be evolved. This is necessary, both, to secure farmers markets, and people’s food and nutritional security. Wheat and rice do not provide nutritional security as the Umian Declaration from the ICAR conference on Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture has pointed out. Forcing farmers to grow chemical intensive monocultures is increasing their vulnerability, both by increasing their costs and making them vulnerable to volatile, unjust, trader and corporate controlled agriculture markets, which exploit farmers.

Contract farming will make the crisis worse, since it will lock the farmer to growing one commodity and selling it at a price the corporation determines. This is what happened to Punjab farmers growing tomato and potato farmers contracted to Pepsi, and this is also what is happening to west Bengal farmers.

Every Indian deserves culturally appropriate, nutritious and adequate food. Only Indian farmers can grow the diversity and quality we need. No other country can provide it. Destroying our farmers means destroying our nutritional security and our future.

We must grow what we need, and buy what our farmers grow. The new colonisation of Indian agriculture begins with Seed. The new freedom begins with Bija Swaraj – Seed Soveregnty.

For this, we must:

1. Stop GMOS, including GMO mustard.
2. Stop Government subsidies to corporate seeds.
3. Defend 3 j of our patent act.
4. Make Monsanto pay for the damage it has caused, including driving farmers to suicide.
5. Prevent new seed law on Compulsory Registration by farmers of their seeds
6. Create Community seed banks everywhere.
7. Create scientist farmer partnerships for participatory and evolutionary breeding.

Make Poison Free Agriculture the basis of health and nutrition 

Corporations are colonising our agriculture through chemicals and poisons, spreading the myths that ecological farming cannot produce enough food and small farms are unproductive. Our work in Navdanya over 3 decades has shown that through poison free ecological agriculture ,we can produce enough nutritious food food for two Indias (Health per Acre ).

Diversity is vital for health. There is no short-hand for diversity, there is no shortcut. Small farmers growing biodiversity without poisons are our doctors and physicians, because they are growing health.

Increase farmers income through freedom from corporate inputs and corporate purchase of commodities 

Farmers debt and negative incomes occur because corporations sell costly inputs and buy cheap commodities. The farmer is sandwiched between the corporate buyer and corporate seller.

Food is not a commodity. Locking farmers into raw material supply chains feeding into global junk food giants like Pepsi, is a recipe for farmers distress, as seen in the case of farmers in Bengal growing potatoes for Pepsi.

When farmers are sovereign in their seeds, in their ecological production, and fair trade, they can increase farm incomes 10 to 100 times (Wealth per Acre ) as the Navdanya experience has evidenced.

Indians eat diversity. Ayurveda asks us to eat six tastes for a balanced diet. Diversity is health for the soil. It ensures farmers economic health. It ensures health to the eater. (Health per Acre and ANNAM from Navdanya). Corporate agriculture needs globalisation, centralisation, costly external inputs, monocultures and uniformity.  Ecological agriculture and healthy food systems are based on national sovereignty, decentralisation, internal ecological inputs, and diversity at every level – of varieties, of species, of crops, of foods, of markets.

Diversity can only exist in small farmers. That is why small farmers are necessary for sustainability of farmers livelihoods, and the health of society. That is why we need diversity on our farms, and in our thalis. We need diversity in our markets and our cultures.

III – The deadly legacy of the Green Revolution

The Green Revolution destroyed soils, water, biodiversity and made farmers dependent on purchased chemical inputs, trapping farmers in debt.

The Green Revolution, first applied in Punjab, was given a Nobel Peace Prize, based on the false narrative that the new seeds and chemicals would create prosperity and hence peace. But by 1984, Punjab was a land of violence and war. 30,000 people had been killed in the Punjab violence. It was this divergence between the myth of the Green Revolution and the unfolding reality of violence, that compelled me to research what was happening in Punjab, for a programme on Peace and Global Transformation, of the United Nations University. My book, The Violence of the Green Revolutionwas the result of my study going to the roots of the conflicts and violence in Punjab.

The Green Revolution was nonsustainable – ecologically, economically, socially.

Ecologically it lead to the death of the soils due to excessive use of chemical fertilisers. On 2% cultivated area, Punjab uses 10% of the synthetic fertilisers used in the country. Between 1970-71 and 2010-2011, the overall fertiliser use, has jumped from 213,000 tonnes to 1,911,000 tonnes. Synthetic fertilisers need intensive irrigation. 89% of the  land in Punjab is irrigated: with 27% from surface waters, and 71% from ground water. Over irrigation has created salinated and waterlogged deserts, and is pushing Punjab to a water famine.

Albert Howard reminded us “The birthright of all living things is health. This law is true for soil, plant, animal and man; and health for these four is one connected chain”.

Since synthetic fertilisers do not return organic matter to the soil, Punjab soils are diseased and dying owing to their use. The replacement of the rich diversity of Punjab, with monocultures of rice in the kharif season, and wheat in the rabi season, has also contributed to the impoverishment of the soils and the farmers of Punjab.

Between 1960-61 and 2010-2011 acreage under wheat has gone up from 29.58% to 44,5%, and rice from 4.79% to 25%. Meantime area under pulses has dropped from 19% to 0.21%, oilseeds has dropped from 3.9% to .71%, millets have dropped from 11.26% to 0.21%. When measured in terms of Nutrition per Acre and Health per Acre, Punjab is actually producing less food and nutrition as a result of the Green Revolution.

Diversity of crops has disappeared. Before the Green Revolution, Punjab farmers grew 41 varieties of wheat, 37 varieties of rice, 4 varieties of maize, 3 varieties of bajra, 16 varieties of sugarcane, 19 species/varieties of pulses, 9 species/varieties of oilseeds.

In place of wheats with names like Sharbati,Darra, lal Pissi, lal Kanak, Bansi, Kathia, Malwa, Pakwan, Dawat Khan, which describe the quality and origins of the crop, we have the personality-less HD 2329, PBW 343, WH 542 – infested with pests and diseases, requiring ever higher doses of pesticides.

The high cost external input agriculture has turned farming into a negative economy. While costs of production in 2011-12 were Rs 1,700 for rice, and Rs 1,500 for wheat, the MSP was lower, at Rs 1,285 and Rs 1110 respectively. Between 1995-2001 and 2001-2005, net income of Punjab farmers has dropped from Rs 77/-  to Rs 7/- for rice, and Rs 67/- to Rs 34/- for wheat.

As a consequence the farmers are in deep debt, with an average of Rs 41,576/acre. 17% having debts of Rs 80,000/acre.

The pain of the negative economy started to be felt in the late 1970s as inputs increased and subsidies were reduced. The 1984 farmers protests in Punjab were early protests that pointed to the roots of the crisis.

By the 1980’s Punjab farmers were organising themselves on grounds of being treated like a colony of the Centre to feed India. As the “Gurmata” passed at a Sarbat Khalsa on 13 April, 1986 declared:

“If the hard –earned income of the people or the natural resources of any nation or region are forcibly plundered: if the goods produced by them are paid arbitrarily determined prices, while the goods bought by them are sold at high prices, and in order to carry this process of economic exploitation to its logical conclusion, the human rights of people or a nation are crushed, then these are indices of slavery of that nation, region or people. Today,the Sikhs are shackled by the chains of slavery.”

In 1984, Punjab farmers were protesting against this slavery. On 31st Jan, they organised a RastaRoko. On 12th March, they gheraoed the Governor’s House. During April 1984, farmers organised a campaign against indebtness called Karja Roka. In May, the Governors House was again gheraoed. On 23rd May a call was given to not sell grain to FCI.

The violence, rooted in a violent agriculture whose seeds had been sown by the Green Revolution, was responded to with militarised violence of Operation Blue Star. The army was sent into the Golden Temple, the most sacred shrine of the Sikhs. And the vicious cycle of violence deepened, with Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and with the following brutal killing of 3000 Sikhs. The issue of justice for the Sikhs, and the Punjab farmers, is still alive, as is the issue of justice for the victims of Bhopal. Both disasters caused by the Poison Cartel.

The democratic response to the anger and discontent building up in Punjab would have been to listen to the farmers protests, and respond with a policy for ecologically, economically and socially sustainable agriculture. The military response failed to address the roots of the problem of discontent.

If in the 1980s the crisis led to militancy, today it is expressed in epidemics of farmers suicides and cancers.

Instead of learning lessons from 1984, and the continuing legacy of a violent and toxic Green Revolution, Punjab government is signing MOU’s with Monsanto, and the centre wants to spread the poisonous legacy of the Green Revolution, eastwards.

There is no place for poisons and war chemicals in our food and agriculture. Pesticides are poisons. GMOs are poison producing plants. Bt genes in Bt crops, and herbicide resistant genes in herbicide resistant crops, are toxins.

We can grow more food, more peace, more prosperity through ecological and organic farming.

We need to make a national commitment to a Poison free agriculture and food system, to protect our beloved Bharat from recolonisation through chemicals, to stop farmers suicides, to reverse engineered hunger, malnutrition and disease.

In our indigenous seeds and indigenous ecological agriculture, lie the seeds of resurgence of Bharat, her farmers, her soil, her biodiversity, her waters, her spirit.

TRANSCEND Member Prof. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers. She is the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and has campaigned for biodiversity, conservation and farmers’ rights, winning the Right Livelihood Award [Alternative Nobel Prize] in 1993. She is executive director of the Navdanya Trust.

All images in this article are from the author.

I am afraid that The Saker and Finian Cunningham are correct. Nothing can come of Trump’s meeting with Putin, because, as Cunningham puts it, “Trump doesn’t have freedom or real power. The real power brokers in the US will ensure that the Russophobia campaign continues, with more spurious allegations of Moscow interfering to subvert Western democracies. Trump will continue to live under a cloud of media-driven suspicions. And thus the agenda of regime change against Syria and confrontation with Russia will also continue. Trump’s personal opinions on these matters and towards Vladimir Putin are negligible—indeed dispensable by the deep powers-that-be.”  

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/395782-trump-putin-meeting-media-syria/  

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47392.htm  

Cunningham points out that instead of lauding the meeting as the beginning of the process to defuse the high tensions between the two major nuclear powers, the US media denounced Trump for being civil to Putin in the meeting.

What is missing from the media in the entirety of the Western world and perhaps also in Russia is the awareness that the dangerous tensions are orchestrated not only by Hillary and the Democratic National Committee, the neoconservatives, the US military/security complex, and the presstitutes, but also by President Trump’s own appointees.

Trump’s own ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and Trump’s own Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, sound exactly like Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, the neoconservatives, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN and the rest of the totally discredited presstitute media that is committed to raising tensions between the US and Russia to the point of nuclear war.

On the same day that President Donald Trump said

“it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia,” and the day after he said “I had a tremendous meeting yesterday with President Putin,”

the ignorant, stupid, Nikki Haley, who Trump appointed as US UN Ambassador, publicly contracted her president, forcefully stating:

“we can’t trust Russia and we won’t ever trust Russia.” 

The ignorant stupid Haley is still in office, a perfect demonstration of Trump’s powerlessness.  

The ignorant stupid Haley has gone far beyond Obama’s crazed UN Ambassador, neocon Samantha Power in doing everything in her power to ruin the prospect of normal relations between the two major nuclear powers. Why does Nikki Haley work in favor of a confrontation between nuclear powers that would destroy all life on earth? What is wrong with Nikki Haley? Is she demented? Has she lost her mind, assuming she ever had one?  

How can President Trump normalize relations with Russia when every one of his appointees wants to worsen the relations to the point of nuclear war?

How is President Trump going to improve relations with Russia when President Trump stands powerless in face of his dressing down by his UN Ambassador? Clearly, Trump is powerless, a mere cipher.

Joining Nikki Haley was Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. Tillerson, allegedly a friend of Russia, is also working overtime to worsen relations between the two nuclear powers by publicly contradicting the President of the United States, thereby making it clear that Trump is barely even a cipher. Tillerson, a disgrace, said that Putin’s refusal to admit that Putin elected Trump by interfering in the US election “stands as an obstacle to our ability to improve the relationship between the US and Russia and it needs to be addressed in terms of how we assure the American people that interference into our elections will not occur by Russia or anyone else.” 

Trump’s incompetence is illustrated by his appointments. There is no one in “his” government that supports him. Everyone of them works to undermine him. And he sits there and Twitters.

So, what is President Putin’s belief that an understanding can now be worked out with Washington worth? Not a plugged nickel. Trump has zero authority over “his” government. He can be contradicted at will by his own appointees. The President of the United States is a joke. You can find him on Twitter, but nowhere else, not in the Oval Office making foreign or military policy. The president Twitters and thinks that that is policy.

The Trump administration was destroyed when the weak Donald Trump allowed the neoconservatives to remove his National Security Advisor, General Flynn. Trump has never recovered. “His” administration is staffed with violent Russophobes. Wars can be the only outcome.

We know two things about the alleged Russian interference in the Trump/Hillary presidential election. One is that John Brennan, Obama’s CIA director, and Comey, Obama’s FBI director, implied repeatedly that Trump was elected by Russian interference in the election, but neither the CIA nor the FBI have provided any evidence whatsoever that any such interference occurred. Indeed, months into the case, the special prosecutor, the former FBI director, can produce no evidence. The whole thing is a sham, but it is ongoing. There will be no end to it as it is designed to undermine President Trump with the people who elected him. The message is: “Trump is not for America. Trump is for Russia.”

This is astounding! The NSA has intercepts of all transmitted data. If Russia interfered in the US presidential election the evidence would be obvious and immediately available.  

Despite the obvious lies told by Brennan and Comey, the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the scum, no one has been arrested and put on trial for their efforts to overthrow the elected president of the United States. This proves beyond all doubt that the President of the United States is a non-entity. A figurehead incapable of action independently of the Deep State that controls him.

If Vladimir Putin really believes from his meeting with Trump that all of the orchestrated false charges against Russia can now be removed and normal relations restored, Putin is in la-la land. Nikki Haley says that the US will NEVER trust Russia. If Putin trusts Washington, Russia will be destroyed. And the rest of the world with Russia.

The highly anticipated encounter of the two presidents went better, much better than anybody predicted. There was a lot of anxiety, and expectations were low as heavy rain clouds, especially after Trump’s visit to Warsaw where he obediently repeated the Cold War platitudes dictated by his minders. Trump had been sent off to Hamburg by Washington establishment with warnings a convent novice gets before an unfortunate but unavoidable meeting with a Don Juan. They didn’t trust the inexperienced youngster, and insisted he should speak with Vlad only in presence of grown ups, like Auntie Fiona (Hill) or Uncle HR (McMaster), well known for their aversion to Russians.

They warned him that, short of a nuclear strike, every other reaction will be considered betrayal of the Shining City upon a Hill. Every neocon and Cold Warrior in the West gave his advice to the President, how should he humiliate Putin and put him on his place, below the salt. They actually didn’t allow Trump to have a proper meeting with Putin, with full agenda, advisers and ministers, preferably a few days long, in a Camp David format or similar. But they failed profoundly.

The meeting on the margins of G-20 had become the central event, while G-20 became a meeting on the margins of Putin-Trump summit. When Donald and Vlad had met, there was no stopping: a great sympathy they had felt for each other manifested itself in every smile. At the beginning, Putin had been quite reserved; he steeled himself to a possible rejection, to a possible affront, even to insult. But Trump skillfully put him at ease.

Instead of planned thirty minutes, they spoke for over two hours; even an attempt by Trump’s wife to restrain her husband wasn’t crowned with success. They just could not tear themselves apart. After a few hard months of enforced separation by the self-appointed duennas, the pals were together, at last.

The Western media, trying its damnedest to cause ill feeling between the two men, spoke of Putin’s victory, of the Russian becoming the boss, the top dog. A typical reaction was that of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund, which declared that Trump had “just unilaterally surrendered to Russia”. They hoped that vain Trump would be upset at being bettered by Vlad. We shall not join their legion by ceding victory to Putin. Both won, and we won with them.

At such an event, one can hardly expect real tangible results. The results need more time. Creating conditions for future work together would suffice. And still there were some achievements.

President Vladimir Putin and Oliver Stone

I’d suggest you watch the long but rewarding film “Putin Interviews” by Oliver Stone as prolegomena to the meeting reports. In the film, Stone asks Putin about accusations of cyber-meddling in the US elections, and Putin gives a full explicit answer. He said that he had offered President Obama a treaty on cyber security, properly describing what the states can, and can’t do in cyberspace to each other.

Obama did not take the offered ball, for the US felt it had vast superiority in the field, and didn’t want to give the advantage away.

“According to an unnamed senior intelligence official with the US government, the Obama administration has penetrated Russia’s electric grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin’s command systems. The purported hack means that critical parts of Russia’s infrastructure are now vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons”, reported Australian news agency.

Indeed complaints of “Russian hackers” sound false, bearing in mind that NSA spies against everybody in the world, including Russia. Millions of Russian calls are intercepted by the American secret services annually, as Snowden told us. The idea of drafting and concluding a treaty forbidding offensive hacking is a good and timely one. At the meeting in Hamburg, President Trump agreed with that, and the presidents decided to appoint a bilateral commission to sort it out and to prepare the treaty. It will be good for all the nations, not only for Americans and Russians, as NSA spied even on American allies like Mme Merkel.

The treaty should also deal with really dangerous viruses, like Stuxnet that was unleashed against Iran, and its newer versions like WannaCry. Julian Assange provided us with the provenance of the viruses: they are from the NSA collection of tools, and they already caused mayhem from Russian banks to British hospitals. The NSA factory of viruses should be brought under control by the treaty.

Interference in elections is also a valid point addressed by the two presidents. Not the silly story of Russian interference in the last American elections, but the very real one of American interference in the elections in Russia, France and elsewhere. President Trump apparently agreed that it should be covered by the treaty and stopped. Professional Cold Warriors were alarmed: how can you compare Russian meddling with our Western pro-democracy drive! That reminds me of an old Jewish joke, preceding World War One: – Let us go and kill some Turks! – And what if they will kill us? – Why would they? We didn’t wrong them!

“How can you compare” is a favourite Jewish cliché, frequently used if you compare a killed Jew and a killed Palestinian. I never could understand it. If it is ok for the US to meddle in Russian elections, why can’t Russians meddle in the US elections? Perhaps the two presidents will agree to cease meddling, but I won’t bet my socks on it.

They made a move forward in Syria, too, by approving the agreement prepared by their teams in Amman, Jordan. For a first time, this agreement contains a declaration in favour of the territorial integrity of one, undivided Syria; this is an important Russian achievement. If carried out, the agreement will bring a ceasefire to South-Western Syria, in the area adjacent to Jordanian border and to the Israeli armistice line on the Golan Heights.

In a surprising move, President Trump agreed that the area would be patrolled by Russian military police. This suggestion had been hotly argued against by the Israelis. Despite their frequent visits to Moscow, they really trust only the US. There should be American troops on the ground in Syria, and no Russian troops close to our lines are acceptable, said Israeli politicians. If indeed Russian military police will patrol the area, the Israelis will eat a big fat frog.

Kadyrov (right) with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

There is an additional nuance: the Russian military police in Syria have been staffed with Chechens, who are good fighters, Muslim by faith, and devoted to President Putin – though he fought them, defeated them, and brought them back under Kremlin rule. There was a time when the enemies of Russia would profess their love of Chechens, but not anymore. Now their own leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the son of their previous rebel president and a former rebel himself is a strong supporter of Putin, and a subject of a hate campaign by Western liberals – and by Russian nationalists. Placement of Chechens in the military police in Syria is a success of Putin’s national policies, especially relevant in the light of a new development.

This week, the Russian authorities blocked public access to the Russian far right nationalist site Sputnik and Pogrom, as you can read in the column of my worthy colleague Anatoly Karlin. It’s got its name from (allegedly) the only two Russian words that have entered English dictionaries. They are Nazi sympathisers, like the Ukrainian nationalists, and that is not a popular view in Russia, which bore the brunt of fight with Nazis. Their chief editor published a column on June 22, saying that every good Russian was happy when the Germans invaded their country.

They are also extreme anti-Communists, and this is also not too popular a view in Russia. This site had been established with help of Western secret services to sow discord between Russian citizens of different ethnic origin, just like the US-sponsored Radio Liberty did in the Soviet days, and the Germans during the war it, too. They do instigate hostility between Russians and Ukrainians, between Russians and the people of the Caucasus.

Typically for such political organisations, despite the site’s name (pogrom was, after all, an anti-Jewish riot), they are quite pro-Jewish and fervently pro-Zionist. Otherwise, the CIA wouldn’t dare support them. However, they always have something bad to say about Putin (they hate him) and the Chechens and their leader.

Now we see that Putin was right in encouraging the Chechens to fight for Russia. It is indeed a good idea to use Sunni Muslims as a police force in this heavily Sunni Muslim area being liberated from ISIS, and Chechens are known as fierce fighters that nobody wants to mess with. It is better to have them on the side of Moscow than on the side of its enemies, and it is definitely worth while to block the Sputnik and Pogrom, leaving moral considerations aside.

The two presidents spoke about North Korea. Some years ago, Russians had supported sanctions against DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea), and the Americans had no problem in passing a sanctions-enforcing resolution in the Security Council. Not anymore. Last month, the Russians made a radical shift on Korea. Now they are strongly against sanctions likely to economically strangle the country and definitely against military action there. So, the Russian position has become quite close to the North Korean one, surprisingly more so than that of the Chinese, although Chinese trade with Korea dwarfs the Russian trade. If the Americans want the North Koreans to stop their nuclear tests, Putin said to Trump, they should refrain from carrying out large-scale military exercises. The Russians also want to encourage North-South dialogue. Such dialogue had been very successful and popular in its time, but then the US interfered in South Korean elections and blocked pro-dialogue politicians. The Northern rulers, however, would like the dialogue to resume with unification of Korea in mind. The Russians and their Chinese allies object greatly to the American THAAD missile defence system being installed in South Korea.

On Ukraine, the presidents agreed to establish a special bilateral channel of communications between the US special envoy and his Russian counterpart. They also confirmed their faith in the Minsk agreements, and this is an important diplomatic achievement for the Russians. However, these agreements did not prevent Kiev troops shelling the cities of Donbass.

To sum it up, Putin and Trump managed to save the day, despite all odds. Their immediate achievements are indeed modest, but they established the ground for progress. Future steps will depend mainly on Trump’s ability to withstand the pressure, to set himself free from his minders. He is the first American president experiencing such a continuous media onslaught, and he still stands. It seems that his advisers urge him to surrender to his enemies in the media and in the congress, but he is a stubborn man. He also discovered that in Vladimir Putin, he can have a real friend and partner.

The world has changed: in 1980s, the Russians were happy that their leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had met with Ronald Reagan and that he was admired and lionised by Western media. They thought it natural that Gorbachev admires Reagan. Then, the Western support was a real asset for a Russian politician. Gorbachev came to power in aftermath of Margaret Thatcher’s blessing.

Now, the Russians are happy that they have a leader who can withstand any pressure, a leader who is admired for his strength. If he is hated in the West, they feel he is doing something right. Probably the Western media, if they want to undermine Putin, should begin to sing him dithyrambs.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review.

Featured image from Reuters/ Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung

The recent confessional “I Like Gaza”, written by Uri Avnery –Peace Activist, Journalist, founding member of the peace bloc Gush Shalom, former publisher and editor-in-chief of the news magazine Haolam Hazeh, founding member of the Knesset, founding member of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, and columnist for Internet – will break the heart of anyone who has ever anguished over the plight of the Palestinian peoples; especially  over the ensuing long decades since the Zionists first invaded Palestine in 1948, with the blessings of the world, and Israel ever since has continued its heinous, incessant racist, apartheid persecution of the Palestinian people, again with the continued blessings of the world.

Sadly, this persecution now includes the Palestinian peoples themselves, caught in the grip, as they are, of a fatal death spiral as they viciously fight and squabble; as oppressed peoples predictably often do amongst themselves once their forced to ‘circle the wagons’ and then begin shooting each other over what few scraps of power and hegemony remain. What is now occurring in Gaza could spell the final chapter in this ugly saga of what human beings everywhere, since time immemorial, seem hopelessly destined to do to one another in whatever contentious theatre of human endeavor.

Meanwhile, the world – in the body of the United Nations and all its affiliate nations, organizations and bodies – either intentionally fosters or helplessly and hopelessly looks on and, as it has done on so many previous occasions of mayhem in recent human history, makes what few anguished, obligatory, hollow gestures and responses, like it has done for nearly 70 years in the case of the Palestinians, while nothing appreciably changes for the better but only the worse.

Uri Avnery poignantly writes,

Uri Avnery (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

“I HAVE a unique confession to make: I like Gaza! Yes, I like this far-away corner of Palestine, the narrow strip on the way to Egypt, in which two million human beings are crowded, and which is closer to hell than to heaven.

My heart goes out to them. I HAVE spent quite a lot of time in the Strip. Once or twice I stayed there with Rachel for a couple of days. I became friendly with some people whom I admired, people like Dr. Haidar Abd-al-Shafi, the leftist doctor who set up the Gazan health system, and Rashad al-Shawa, the former Mayor, an aristocrat from birth.

After the Oslo agreement, when Yasser Arafat came back to the country and set up his office in Gaza, I met him there many times. I brought to him groups of Israelis. On his first day there he sat me on the dais next to him. A photo of that occasion now looks like science fiction.

I even came to know the Hamas people. Before Oslo, when Yitzhak Rabin deported 415 Islamic activists from the country, I took part in setting up protest tents opposite his office. We lived there together, Jews, Christians and Muslims, and there Gush Shalom was born.

After a year, when the deportees were allowed back, I was invited to a public reception for them in Gaza and found myself speaking to hundreds of bearded faces. Among them were some of today’s Hamas leaders. Therefore I cannot treat the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip as a faceless gray mass of people. I couldn’t stop thinking about them during last week’s terrible heat wave, about all the people – the men and women, the old, the children, the toddlers, the babies – languishing in awful conditions without electricity and air conditioning, without clean water, without medicines for the sick. I thought about those living in the houses severely damaged in the last wars and not repaired since. My heart was bleeding, and asking, “Who was to blame?”

Yes, WHO IS to blame for this ongoing atrocity? ACCORDING TO the Israelis, “the Palestinians themselves are to blame”. Fact: the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah has decided to reduce the electricity supply to Gaza from three hours a day to two. (The electricity is supplied by Israel and paid for by the Palestinian Authority). This seems to be true. The conflict between the Palestinian Authority, ruled by Fatah, and the Palestinian leadership in Gaza, ruled by Hamas, has come to an ugly climax.

The uninvolved bystander wonders: how can that be? After all, the entire Palestinian people are in existential danger. The Israeli government tyrannizes all Palestinians, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. It keeps the Strip under a strangling blockade, on land, in the sea and in the air, and is setting up settlements all over the West Bank, to drive the population out. In this desperate situation, how can the Palestinians fight each other, to the obvious delight of the occupation authorities?

That is terrible, but, sadly, not unique. On the contrary, in almost all liberation struggles, something similar has happened. During the Irish struggle for independence, the freedom fighters fought against each other and even shot each other. During our own struggle for statehood, the Haganah underground turned Irgun fighters over to the British police, who tortured them, and later shot up a ship bringing recruits and arms to the Irgun. But these and many other examples do not justify what is happening now in Gaza. The struggle between Fatah and Hamas on the backs of two million people condemns these to inhuman living conditions. As an old friend of the Palestinian people in their fight for liberation, I am deeply saddened.

BUT THERE are more partners to the atrocious blockade on Gaza. Israel can blockade the Strip only on three sides. The fourth side is the Egyptian border. Egypt, which has in the past fought four major wars against Israel on behalf of the Palestinian brothers (in one of which I was wounded by an Egyptian machine-gunner) is now participating in the cruel blockade on the Strip.

What has happened? How did it happen? Everyone who knows the Egyptian people knows that it is one of the most attractive peoples on earth; a very proud people; a people full of Humor, even in the most trying circumstances! Several times I have heard in Egypt phrases like: “We do not like the Palestinians very much, but they are our poor cousins, and we cannot abandon them under any circumstances!” And yet here they are, not only abandoning, but cooperating with the cruel occupation.”

This writer, like so many others who feel compassion for the Palestinians and anguish what can be done to alleviate their situation, is deeply moved by Uri Avnery’s commentary. And now, unfortunately, we must continue to turn to yet another raw, gaping wound of the human spirit, and as yet unresolved debacle of the human condition, called Syria!

OMG! Will Things Never Be Otherwise Until the Human Race Finally Expunges Itself?

Jerome Irwin is a freelance writer and author of “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a three volume account of his travels as a spiritual sojourner, during the 1960’s, 70’s & 80’s, among Native Americans & First Nations in North America. It encompasses the Spiritual Renaissance & Liberation Movements among native peoples throughout North America during the civil rights era. In 2014, Irwin authored a series of articles on Israel, Gaza, Palestine and Syria (“Gaza & World’s Collective Soul Besieged”; “Gaza at Christmas”, “The Battle For Pqlestine”, “Israeli Zionism” and “Syria’s Civil War & Human Folly”). Irwin also is the publisher of The Wild Gentle Press

Featured image from Countercurrents

The immediate prospect for significant improvement in U.S.-Russia relations now depends on something tangible: Will the forces that sabotaged previous ceasefire agreements in Syria succeed in doing so again, all the better to keep alive the “regime change” dreams of the neoconservatives and liberal interventionists?

Or will President Trump succeed where President Obama failed by bringing the U.S. military and intelligence bureaucracies into line behind a cease-fire rather than allowing insubordination to win out?

These are truly life-or-death questions for the Syrian people and could have profound repercussions across Europe, which has been destabilized by the flood of refugees fleeing the horrific violence in the six-year proxy war that has ripped Syria apart.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)

But you would have little inkling of this important priority from the large page-one headlines Saturday morning in the U.S. mainstream media, which continued its long obsession with the more ephemeral question of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would confess to the sin of “interference” in the 2016 U.S. election and promise to repent.

Thus, the headlines: “Trump, Putin talk election interference” (Washington Post) and “Trump asks Putin About Meddling During Election” (New York Times). There was also the expected harrumphing from commentators on CNN and MSNBC when Putin dared to deny that Russia had interfered.

In both the big newspapers and on cable news shows, the potential for a ceasefire in southern Syria – set to go into effect on Sunday – got decidedly second billing.

Yet, the key to Putin’s assessment of Donald Trump is whether the U.S. President is strong enough to make the mutually agreed-upon ceasefire stick. As Putin is well aware, to do so Trump will have to take on the same “deep-state” forces that cheerily scuttled similar agreements in the past. In other words, the actuarial tables for this cease-fire are not good; long life for the agreement will take something just short of a miracle.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will have to face down hardliners in both the Pentagon and CIA. Tillerson probably expects that Defense Secretary James “Mad-Dog” Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo will cooperate by ordering their troops and operatives inside Syria to restrain the U.S.-backed “moderate rebels.”

But it remains to be seen if Mattis and Pompeo can control the forces their agencies have unleashed in Syria. If recent history is any guide, it would be folly to rule out another “accidental” U.S. bombing of Syrian government troops or a well-publicized “chemical attack” or some other senseless “war crime” that social media and mainstream media will immediately blame on President Bashar al-Assad.

Bitter Experience

Last fall’s limited ceasefire in Syria, painstakingly worked out over 11 months by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and approved personally by Presidents Obama and Putin, lasted only five days (from Sept. 12-17) before it was scuttled by “coalition” air strikes on well-known, fixed Syrian army positions, which killed between 64 and 84 Syrian troops and wounded about 100 others.

In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials a few days before the air attack on Sept. 17, showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov agreement – like sharing intelligence with the Russians (an important provision of the deal approved by both Obama and Putin).

Secretary of State John Kerry (right) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. (U.N. photo)

The Pentagon’s resistance and the “accidental” bombing of Syrian troops brought these uncharacteristically blunt words from Foreign Minister Lavrov on Russian TV on Sept. 26:

“My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the U.S. military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the U.S. Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia … apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.”

Lavrov specifically criticized Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia despite the fact, as Lavrov put it,

“the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama [who] stipulated that they would share intelligence.”

Noting this resistance inside the U.S. military bureaucracy, Lavrov added,

“It is difficult to work with such partners.”

Putin picked up on the theme of insubordination in an Oct. 27 speech at the Valdai International Discussion Club, in which he openly lamented:

“My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results. … people in Washington are ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice.”

On Syria, Putin decried the lack of a “common front against terrorism after such lengthy negotiations, enormous effort, and difficult compromises.”

Lavrov’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, meanwhile, even expressed sympathy for Kerry’s quixotic effort, giving him an “A” for effort.after then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter dispatched U.S. warplanes to provide an early death to the cease-fire so painstakingly worked out by Kerry and Lavrov for almost a year.

For his part, Kerry expressed regret – in words reflecting the hapless hubris befitting the chief envoy of the world’s “only indispensible” country – conceding that he had been unable to “align” all the forces in play.

With the ceasefire in tatters, Kerry publicly complained on Sept. 29, 2016:

“Syria is as complicated as anything I’ve ever seen in public life, in the sense that there are probably about six wars or so going on at the same time – Kurd against Kurd, Kurd against Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sunni, Shia, everybody against ISIL, people against Assad, Nusra [Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate]. This is as mixed-up sectarian and civil war and strategic and proxies, so it’s very, very difficult to be able to align forces.”

Admitting Deep-State Pre-eminence

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. (Source: Consortiumnews)

Only in December 2016, in an interview with Matt Viser of the Boston Globe, did Kerry admit that his efforts to deal with the Russians had been thwarted by then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter – as well as all those forces he found so difficult to align.

“Unfortunately we had divisions within our own ranks that made the implementation [of the ceasefire agreement] extremely hard to accomplish,” Kerry said. “But it … could have worked. … The fact is we had an agreement with Russia … a joint cooperative effort.

“Now we had people in our government who were bitterly opposed to doing that,” he said. “I regret that. I think that was a mistake. I think you’d have a different situation there conceivably now if we’d been able to do that.”

The Globe’s Viser described Kerry as frustrated. Indeed, it was a tough way for Kerry to end nearly 34 years in public office.

After Friday’s discussions with President Trump, Kremlin eyes will be focused on Secretary of State Tillerson, watching to see if he has better luck than Kerry did in getting Ashton Carter’s successor, James “Mad Dog” Mattis and CIA’s latest captive-director Pompeo into line behind what President Trump wants to do.

As the new U.S.-Russia agreed-upon ceasefire goes into effect on Sunday, Putin will be eager to see if this time Trump, unlike Obama, can make a ceasefire in Syria stick; or whether, like Obama, Trump will be unable to prevent it from being sabotaged by Washington’s deep-state actors.

The proof will be in the pudding and, clearly, much depends on what happens in the next few weeks. At this point, it will take a leap of faith on Putin’s part to have much confidence that the ceasefire will hold. 

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  As a CIA analyst for 27 years, he led the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and, during President Ronald Reagan’s first term, conducted the early morning briefings with the President’s Daily Brief.  He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Featured image from AP

Featured image: “The U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria is now the heaviest since the bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s-70s, with 84,000 bombs and missiles dropped between 2014 and the end of May 2017,” Davies writes. (Photo: DVIDSHUB/flickr/cc)

This is the state of war in the United States in July 2017.

The U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria is now the heaviest since the bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s-70s, with 84,000 bombs and missiles dropped between 2014 and the end of May 2017. That is nearly triple the 29,200 bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq in the “Shock and Awe” campaign of 2003.

The Obama administration escalated the bombing campaign last October, as the U.S.-Iraqi assault on Mosul began, dropping 12,290 bombs and missiles between October and the end of January when President Obama left office. The Trump administration has further escalated the campaign, dropping another 14,965 bombs and missiles since February 1st.  May saw the heaviest bombing yet, with 4,374 bombs and missiles dropped.

The U.K.-based Airwars.org monitoring group has compiled reports of between 12,000 and 18,000 civilians killed by nearly three years of U.S.-led bombing in Iraq and Syria. These reports can only be the tip of the iceberg, and the true number of civilians killed could well be more than 100,000, based on typical ratios between reported deaths and actual deaths in previous war-zones.

As the U.S. and its allies closed in on Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and as U.S. forces now occupy eight military bases in Syria, Islamic State and its allies have struck back in Manchester and London; occupied Marawi, a city of 200,000 in the Philippines; and exploded a huge truck bomb inside the fortifications of the “Green Zone” in Kabul, Afghanistan.

What began in 2001 as a misdirected use of military force to punish a group of formerly U.S.-backed jihadis in Afghanistan for the crimes of September 11th has escalated into a global asymmetric war. Every country destroyed or destabilized by U.S. military action is now a breeding ground for terrorism. It would be foolish to believe that this cannot get much, much worse, as long as both sides continue to justify their own escalations of violence as responses to the violence of their enemies, instead of trying to deescalate the now global violence and chaos.

There are once again 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan, up from 8,500 in April, with reports that four thousand more may be deployed soon. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been killed in 15 years of war, but the Taliban now control more of the country than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2001.

The US is giving vital support to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, supporting a blockade of Yemeni ports and providing intelligence and in-air refueling to the Saudi and allied warplanes that have been bombing Yemen since 2015. UN reports of 10,000 civilians killed are surely only a fraction of the true numbers killed, and thousands more have died from disease and hunger.

Now Yemen is facing a humanitarian crisis and a raging cholera epidemic due to lack of clean water or medicine caused by the bombing and the blockade. The UN is warning that millions of Yemenis could die of famine and disease. A Senate bill to restrict some U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia was defeated by 53 votes (48 Republicans and 5 Democrats) to 47 in June.

Closer to home, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) recently hosted a conference with the presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in Miami. This signaled a further militarization of the U.S. war on drugs in Central America and efforts to limit immigration from those countries, even as a report by State and Justice Department inspector generals held State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents responsible for the killing of four innocent civilians (one man, two women and a 14-year-old boy) by machine-gun fire from a State Department helicopter near Ahuas in Honduras in 2012.

The inspector generals’ report found that DEA officials repeatedly lied to Congress about this incident, pretending the Hondurans were killed in a shoot-out with drug traffickers, raising serious doubts about accountability for escalating U.S. paramilitary operations in Central America.

Right-wing opposition protests in Venezuela have turned more violent, with 99 people killed since April, as the protests have failed to mobilize enough popular support to topple the leftist government of Nicolas Maduro. The U.S. supports the opposition and has led diplomatic efforts to force the government to resign, so there is a danger that this could escalate into a US-backed civil war.

Meanwhile in Colombia, right-wing death squads are once again operating in areas where the FARC has disarmed, killing and threatening people to drive them off land coveted by wealthy landowners.

Looming over our increasingly war-torn world are renewed U.S. threats of military action against North Korea and Iran, both of which have more robust defenses than any that U.S. forces have encountered since the American War in Vietnam. Rising tensions with Russia and China risk even greater, even existential dangers, as symbolized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, whose hands now stand at 2-1/2 minutes to midnight.

Although our post-9/11 wars have probably killed at least 2 million people in the countries we have attacked, occupied or destabilized, U.S. forces have suffered historically low numbers of casualties in these operations. There is a real danger that this has given U.S. political and military leaders, and to some extent the American public, a false sense of the scale of U.S. casualties and other serious consequences we should look forward to as our leaders escalate our current wars, issue new threats against Iran and North Korea, and stoke rising tensions with Russia and China.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapters on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.

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

The G-20 summit highlighted a transition in geopolitical power that has been developing for years. The process has escalated in recent months since President Trump took office, but its roots go much deeper than Trump. Europe is tired of the US spying on its leaders and creating a massive refugee crisis from its chaos creating wars. Russia and China are being pulled together as the US threatens both with missiles and bases on their borders.

Now Trump seeks more money from everyone to reduce the US trade deficit and holds the world back on the climate crisis. The United States is losing power, a multi-polar world is taking shape and people power is on the rise as the world unites for people and planet before profits.

The G-20 bordered on being a G-19, with the US a loner on key issues of climate change, trade and migration. These are some of the biggest issues on the planet. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been saying lately

“We as Europeans have to take our fate into our own hands.”

This is an indication they no longer see the US as the leader or even a reliable partner on key issues. In a summation of the G-20, Politico writes:

“Hamburg will also go down as a further mile marker in Europe’s slow emancipation from the U.S.”

We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of US Empire.

The United States Loses World Power

At the same time that Europe is setting its own course, Russia and China have been moving toward each other and acting in tandem, often with positions opposite the United States. While Washington was trying to isolate Russia, it has been building new friendships and alliances.

Presidents Putin and Xi have met on more than 20 occasions over the past four years. Xi now refers to Russia as China’s foremost ally. In that time, the United States built a wall of bases and missiles around both countries, intruded on China’s maritime space in the Asia Pacific and fomented regime change in Ukraine to turn that country against Russia. US aggression is backfiring and creating a multi-polar world. After meeting with Russia, President Xi met with Chancellor Merkel to sign trade deals.

Presidents Putin and Xi met before the G-20 to continue to build their alliance. Putin and Xi made  deals on trade agreements and energy sales, created a $10 billion joint investment fund and came to a common approach regarding North Korea. Their approach: “dialogue and negotiation”, coupled with firm opposition to the THAAD missile system being installed by the US in South Korea.

North Korea is another issue where the US is out of step with the world. While the US was lobbying for an aggressive confrontation with North Korea over nuclear weapons, other countries were not joining in and Russia and China were urging restraint and diplomacy. The Los Angeles Times reports

 “White House officials have been dismayed to see China and Russia teaming up to advocate for a ‘freeze for peace’ strategy in which North Korea agrees to stop moving forward with its nuclear weapons development, in exchange for the international community easing sanctions and making other concessions.”

Even Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been a lap dog for the United States, called on China and Russia to help mediate the Korean crisis.

US B-1 Lancer nuclear bombers (Source: PopularResistance.Org)

Instead of diplomacy, President Trump sent B-1 Lancer bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons toward the North Korean border where they released 2,000 pound inert bombs. Others in Congress are suggesting more economic sanctions, including sanctions that will negatively impact China and other countries. These actions are driving North Korea to develop ICBM nuclear missiles in order to protect itself from the United States, and driving other nations away from the US.

North Korea responded by calling the US’ action a dangerous provocation that could lead to nuclear war.  “More of the same” will not only continue to raise tensions but misses a tremendous opportunity to transform the relationship with North Korea and end the Korean War. Russia sought to reduce tensions by providing the United Nations with information demonstrating North Korea did not produce an ICBM, but only a mid-range missile. The world knows that North Korea is not the real threat to world peace, the United States is the problem, as William Boardman explains.

President Moon, the new president of South Korea, wants a ‘sunshine policy’ of constructive engagement with North Korea, including building economic ties. Already divisions are showing between the US and South Korea, especially over the THAAD missile system. The system was rushed into Korea during the recent elections, despite Moon’s warnings. Moon has said that South Korea must take a lead role in reducing tensions. He ordered an investigation of bringing THAAD equipment into the country.

Globalization is Leaving the United States Behind

While Trump is calling for trade that puts America first, i.e. decreases the massive US trade deficit through trade protectionism, other countries are taking a different approach. Pepe Escobar reports

 “At the BRICS meeting on the sidelines of the G-20, they called for a more open global economy and for a rules-based, transparent, non-discriminatory, open and inclusive multilateral trading system.”

Throughout the Obama term, trade negotiations were bogged down because the US was out of the mainstream, calling for greater transnational corporate power than other countries would accept. This was one reason why negotiations slowed and the TPP was killed under election year pressure that made the agreement toxic. Now Trump wants to be even more extreme in favoring US corporations.

As Finian Cunningham writes, the world understands US economic problems better than US leaders. He writes the world knows that US

“trade imbalances with the rest of the world are not because of ‘rotten deals’, as Trump would have it, but rather because the American economy has ruined itself over many decades. The off-shoring of jobs by American corporations and gutting of American workers with poverty wages are part of it.”

Some Good News

One potential piece of good news this week was President Trump meeting with President Putin for more than two hours. The meeting overcame the Russia-phobia put forth by a barrage of anti-Putin, anti-Russian propaganda that has been produced for many years. The US desperately needs a positive relationship with Russia, not just to avoid conflict with a nuclear and economic power, but because the US is becoming isolated. While not a lot came out of this first meeting, it did provide a good start for the potential resolution of many conflicts – Syria, Ukraine, North Korea, Iran and nuclear weapons (where they should work to achieve the goal of no more nuclear weapons voted for in the UN), to name a few.

The meeting produced a small step that could grow into a significant positive change. The US and Russia announced a ceasefire in part of southwestern Syria that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have been discussing for weeks. This could allow the US to play a positive role in Syria, in a war it has been losing.

But, this is also a test for President Trump – is he in control of the US government? Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, who led the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and gave the daily intelligence briefing to multiple presidents, asks whether the Trump-Tillerson ceasefire will survive better than an Obama-Kerry ceasefire also negotiated with Putin-Lavrov. In the Obama case, four days into the ceasefire, the US air force attacked Syrian troops, sabotaging the agreement. McGovern asks two questions critical to the lives of Syrians and the future of Europe and the Middle East:

“Will the forces that sabotaged previous ceasefire agreements in Syria succeed in doing so again, all the better to keep alive the ‘regime change’ dreams of the neoconservatives and liberal interventionists?”

“Or will President Trump succeed where President Obama failed by bringing the U.S. military and intelligence bureaucracies into line behind a ceasefire rather than allowing insubordination to win out?”

The RussiaGate myth was the top priority of the media and bi-partisans, rather than the potential Syria breakthrough. While the propaganda on alleged Russia interference continues, the US political class ignores the positive potential of the cease fire in Syria, closes its eyes to the potential undermining of the agreement by the Pentagon and talks about the myth that Russia elected Trump. As each new RussiaGate myth is published, it is shown to be false.

People Over Profit

Finally, another lesson from the G-20, people around the world are angry at political leaders who are failing them, including Donald Trump for holding back urgent action on climate change, fed up with globalization that puts people’s needs far behind the profits of transnational corporations, and are demanding changes to a system that does not listen.

Protests began before the summit and grew in size and anger as the summit progressed – always met with extreme police violence. The protests in Hamburg were large and loud. The rioting got a good deal of attention, but people expressed their concerns on multiple issues in many ways. Srecko Horvat writes about the importance of protests to show opposition and power, but also the need to continue the work of building alternatives to the current failed systems.

A growing political movement is expressing what is so desperately needed. People look at world leaders posing in group photo to show an image of success as false emperors and empresses wearing no clothes. Angel Merkel, the host of the event was careful not to exaggerate, summing up the meeting merely saying “The summit took place.” The realities are growing inequality, increasing impact from climate change and political systems that are less responsive to the people and more corrupted by transnational corporate power.

The root problem for the G-20 is they are unable to break from free market neoliberalism that is bringing devastation to the world. The people must force them to face the reality that transformation to economic democracy is needed — a new economy where people share the wealth and have influence in the direction of economic policy.

This new global alignment is a positive. The US has dominated the world for too long and must learn to become a cooperative partner. And as US power is waning on the world stage, there is an opening for people power in solidarity across borders to grow.

Featured image from PopularResistance.Org

Yesterday, we banned nuclear weapons. 

It’s still hard to believe this is the case. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet, the enormity of what just happened. Even as survivors, activists, politicians, and diplomats celebrated in New York and around the world, many expressed amazement that we actually pulled it off. 

It was a long campaign. Activism against nuclear weapons has been fierce and determined for over seventy years. But it wasn’t until recent years, when a few courageous diplomats in partnership with a group of civil society actors working as part of or in collaboration with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons decided to take a leap into the unknown, that we managed to finally develop international law condemning and prohibiting these last weapons of mass destruction.

Working together, we foregrounded our actions in resistance and hope. Resistance to the pressure from nuclear-armed and nuclear-alliance states. Resistance to attitudes of cynicism and of defeatism. Resistance to staying the course, being placated, being told to be patient, that the “important” countries will handle this matter. Hope that change is possible. Hope that by working together we can achieve something that can disrupt some of the most powerful, heavily militarised structures and doctrines in the entire world. Hope that a shared sense of humanity could prevail against all odds. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney quoted Seamus Heaney in his remarks on Friday, that

“hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is a good worth working for.”

There were incredible obstacles in our way. We were challenging power. In response, many forces of that power were unleashed upon us—politically, and sometimes personally. In her closing statement, Ambassador Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko of South Africa noted the “an incredible amount of pressure” on her continent not to participate. We saw this pressure placed on many countries in October before the General Assembly voted to begin these negotiations. We saw it even when states were organising conferences to examine the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons.

The key was not to allow these obstacles to be insurmountable. This is a choice. One can either give up or keep fighting. No obstacle is actually too big; it’s just a matter of figuring out how to go under, around, over, or through it. On Friday, 7 July, 122 governments voted yes for humanity. They took courage in their collective endeavor, and in the support of civil society filling the gallery behind them beyond capacity. They also took courage in their “moral duty,” as Ambassador Mxakato-Diseko put it, noting that

“to have voted no would have been a slap in the face to the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”

Banning nuclear weapons was not an insurmountable challenge, just as achieving the elimination of nuclear weapons is not insurmountable. The day after the adoption of this treaty we are already seeing the flood of commentary on how useless what we did is. How this treaty will change nothing; how we’ve only created divisions; how we haven’t eliminated a single nuclear weapon. It will continue to be an epic mansplaining session until the trolls, who have invested their academic or political careers in reinforcing the status quo by explaining ad nauseam that this is how things are and that things can never change, get bored and move on. (Proving them wrong is apparently not sufficient—they said we could never ban nuclear weapons and now that we have, the issue its utility, not its possibility.)

It’s okay, they can have their space to complain and critique—they have always taken up this space, and until we do more to disrupt the structures that keep them safely ensconced in that space, they will continue to do so. In the meantime, the feminists, the queers, the people of colour, the survivors, the determined diplomats, the passionate politicians, the thoughtful academics, the fierce activists—the rebels and the brave—will do what we can to keep making change. We do so to honour the people who have suffered from nuclear violence. We do so to ensure that respect, dignity, courage, and love are the dominant traits of humanity, rather than our capacity for self-destruction, selfishness, or fear.

There is time for celebration but not self-congratulation. There is only time for more work. Just like the critics warned, this treaty has not magically eliminated nuclear weapons over night. We always knew it would be harder than that. But as atomic bomb survivor Setsuko Thurlow said in her remarkable closing statement to the conference on Friday,

“This is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.”

This treaty was conceived of as a tool that could help change the politics and economics of nuclear weapons as a means of facilitating disarmament. The text that we adopted on Friday is well suited to this task. It provides a solid foundation to change policies and practices, as well as to shift the thinking and discourse on nuclear weapons even further than the process to ban them already has.

We have not, as a species, been able to figure out how to solve everything at once. We struggle sometimes to even keep things on the right track, tenuous and fragile as that track can sometimes be. But we can work together to do extraordinary things—and we should do it more often. It just takes courage. It sounds over simplified, but it’s really not. We’re taught that this is a naive approach to the world—it’s engrained in us as we become adults that idealism and activism are youthful pursuits. They are not. They are the pursuits of the brave, of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs.

This is a treaty made by people. By diplomats who got inspired by an idea and went home to change their government’s positions. By activists writing, thinking, and convening, bringing together governments and civil society groups to figure out how to make things happen. By survivors who give their testimony despite the personal trauma of reliving their experiences. By direct action crews who get arrested for breaking into nuclear weapon facilities or blockading nuclear transports or military bases. By campaigners who mobilise nationally to raise awareness and pressure their governments. By politicians who truly represent the will of their people and speak the truth in parliaments. By academics who write the theory or record the process.

This treaty is an amazing feat of collective action by people who came together to do something that had not been tried before. Like anything created by people, it has its imperfections. But it’s a good start on the road to abolition, and it gives a glimpse of what is possible in this world. That, all on its own, has meaning.

Featured image from Pax Christi

For years, criticism has been mounting against the Neoliberal Economic principles  espoused by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and applied on all countries that stumble economically and seek the IMF’s help.

Many of these unfortunate countries, most of which are poor and/or developing, ended up in dire straits, sometimes worse than they began with. They were all coerced to deregulate their markets and open them to foreign capital and companies, thus losing control of their resources and sources of income. It was akin to inviting the fox into the chicken coop.

No doubt, the IMF’s policies did benefit some countries, but in all cases, the fox was let-in to take up permanent residence.

The main tenets of Neoliberal Economics are the deregulation of markets and opening them up to foreign capital flows, and shrinking the public sector to reduce government budget deficits and hence, the need to borrow.

This all sounds nice and logical, but in reality, is too general and superficial, and cannot be applied to all countries and economies in the same manner or equal doses – Countries are not a “one-fit-all” sock. Economies differ according to their constituents, stages of development and the causes of their poor performance.

After almost forty years of total belief in Neoliberal Economics, a group of IMF research economists realized its inherent flaws and published a Paper in the IMF journal (June 2016) critiquing these policies. Although the Paper concentrated on part of the IMF’s policies, it does reflect a beginning of change in the thinking process, which it is hoped catches on, and spreads to the executive divisions.

[GR Editor’s Note: This is not the first time the IMF has indulged is self-criticism. The ultimate purpose is to give a human face to IMF, without contemplating a major revamping of its policy conditionalities, M.Ch]

The Paper stressed on two “standard” IMF policies: Opening markets to foreign capital flows, and the austerity policies designed to shrink government spending. It questioned the viability of those two policies, and concluded that, more often than not, they have led to negative results, such as a drop in economic output and an increase in social and economic inequalities.

Opening financial markets to foreigners has, in many cases, led to currency volatility and economic crises. Especially, when the incoming foreign capital is speculative and/or short term in nature, regardless if it cloaked as direct investments or loans. It tends to accentuate booms and busts, depending on the phase of the economic cycle the economy is in, at the time of arrival or departure of the foreign capital. The Paper points out that 20% of the countries that the IMF had intervened in since 1980 have been hit with a financial crisis (the most famous is Thailand).

Also, in the absence of a clear government vision, a deep understanding of the concepts involved and capable institutions to control and monitor the opening up of the financial markets, the damage of such policies is likely to be magnified. Despite following the IMF’s policy recommendations, such countries fail to achieve economic growth, and only succeed in increasing social and economic inequality.

As for the policy to shrink the size of governments and reduce expenditures through and austerity program (or privatization), the Paper expressed alarm and a warning against its implementation in a general manner in all economies as a cure-all pill.

The Paper also addresses Public Debt, and concurs that large public debts are detrimental to economic growth, and should be reduced as soon as possible. However, it warns that raising taxes and shrinking expenses could change economic behavior in the market and damage the chances of growth. There is a delicate balance between public debt and the speed of reducing it. It differs from one country to another, and hence, requires custom treatment in each case.

The Paper concluded that austerity can stunt economic growth and increase inequality, which forces governments to increase welfare spending to maintain peace in society. But increased welfare spending has to be financed; most likely by new taxes (and rates), which further hurts growth and increases welfare spending, and so on – a hopeless viscous cycle.

To mitigate the negative effects of austerity policies, the Paper recommends implementing policies that redistribute income and wealth, minimize the impact of austerity on lower income classes and increase spending on education and re-training to improve job finding opportunities and thus reduce inequalities. However, such corrective policies are, by their nature, medium and longer term, and time and good planning are needed. Sudden cost cutting or tax and rate increases, may worsen a precarious condition.

The above referred to Paper is an admission from, so to speak, “The horse’s mouth”, i.e. the Economic Research Department at the IMF. We can only hope that its findings are translated into new policies for developing countries seeking economic assistance. But, above all, we hope that the Paper’s message is understood by the governments of the second and third world countries, contributes to a change in their current conventional wisdom and encourages them to develop new strategies, suitable for their unique cases.

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

Featured image: Attendees sit during the opening of the 41st session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee at the ICE Krakow Congress Centre in Krakow, Poland, July 3. (Source: Daily Sabah)

Israel, not for the first time, is royally P.O.’ed at UNESCO. The UN organization’s World Heritage Committee has been holding a meeting in Krakow, Poland–and in a session on July 4, the body passed a resolution naming Israel as an “occupying power” while at the same time condemning its tunneling and underground excavation activities in the old city of Jerusalem.

Said excavations, presumably for archaeological purposes, started up several years ago. I first put up a post about them back in 2014 after it was reported that they were causing structural problems with Palestinian homes in the area, so it’s good that UNESCO is addressing the issue. But the resolution angered the Israeli representative, who threw a temper tantrum by calling for a moment of silence for “six million murdered Jews.” And this is what we see in the video below:

As you can see, the representative from Cuba charged the Israeli–rightfully in my opinion–with turning the meeting into a “politicized circus.” She then reciprocated by calling for a moment of silence for Palestinians who have died. As the video shows, the overwhelming majority of people in the auditorium rose to their feet. It did not sit well with the Israelis.

According to a report here, one Israeli official accused the UNESCO committee of being “detached from reality,” while the Zionist state’s Foreign Ministry is quoted as saying,

“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people, and no decision by UNESCO can change that reality.”

That all was, as I say, on July 4.

Three days later, on July 7, Israel again had a hissy fit over a resolution–passed by the same committee. This time the measure had to do with Hebron, specifically recognizing its old city as an endangered World Heritage site. Hebron’s old city includes a site known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque (or Mosque of Abraham) and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs. In that regard it has significance to both religions. But the committee voted to recognize the old city of Hebron as a Palestinian World Heritage site–rather than an Israeli one. This of course makes perfectly logical sense because Hebron is in the West Bank and the West Bank is internationally recognized as rightfully belonging to the Palestinians. But again Israelis resorted to tantrums.

“Not a Jewish site?!” thundered Netanyahu. “Who is buried there? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah – our patriarchs and matriarchs!”

Of course, the committee didn’t say it wasn’t a Jewish site; they just said it was a Palestinian site–because the site is, after all, in Occupied Palestine. In fact, according to a report here, the resolution–which passed by a vote of 12-3 with six abstentions–“emphasized the importance of the site to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.”

But Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotoveli charged the committee with attempting to “appropriate the national symbols of the Jewish people,” and she went on to further accuse the UNESCO delegates of maliciously spreading lies.

“This is a badge of shame for UNESCO, who time after time chooses to stand on the side of lies,” she is quoted as saying.

You might recall I put up a post about Hotoveli a week ago. This was after she did an interview with 60 Minutes Australia in which she expressed the view that “it’s not because of the Israelis” that Palestinians live under such abject conditions. No, “it’s really dependent on them,” she insisted, adding that “their leadership doesn’t give them the ability to live under democratic values.”

From turning a meeting into a circus sideshow by calling for a moment of silence for “six million murdered Jews,” to accusing a people living under a brutal occupation of being responsible for their own misery and suffering–there is something about the behavior of Israeli officials that somehow always seems to remind me of the proverbial rude guest who showed up for a party uninvited.

By the way, in case you missed it, Israel recently confiscated an array of solar panels that had been donated by the Dutch government to a Palestinian village in the West Bank. Despite being surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements, the village in question, Jubbet al-Dhib, is not connected to the national electric grid. The Dutch government has called the action “unacceptable,” and Holland’s prime minister, Mark Rutte, has reportedly now lodged a formal protest. The solar panels cost approximately $600,000.

Featured image: Demonstrations against the Iraq War in Montreal, 15 March 2003. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s laudatory remarks[1] about a Canadian soldier’s record-setting sniper attack on an Iraqi combatant belies darker truths.

International lawyer David Jacob explains in an interview on the Taylor Report[2] that, first, Trudeau broke a promise (as per usual). In 2015 he promised that he would end Canada’s combat mission in Iraq and that there would be no direct involvement. Troops would be involved strictly in advise and assist roles.

Second, notes Jacob, the Canadian government is violating the National Defence Act by engaging in combat when we are not being attacked.

Third, NATO is not being attacked. NATO is the aggressor in Iraq.

Finally, issues of war and peace should pass first through Parliament.

There are good reasons to follow the rule of law in these matters. A compelling reason, totally ignored by mainstream agencies of indoctrination, is that Canada’s on-going, direct, illegal, aggressive warfare against non-belligerent nations (especially Libya, Syria, and Iraq), since September 11, 2001, amounts to war crimes and state terrorism.

In Libya and Syria especially, we are and have been supporting terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda. In Iraq we are directly involved in the destruction of the country’s territorial integrity and its sovereignty. In the Ukraine, we are supporting a neo-Nazi infested illegal coup government.

These are war crimes, and none of this should be swept under the carpet.[3]

Canada is and has been directly involved in the commission of a modern-day holocaust. Dr. Gideon Polya explains in “An Iraqi Holocaust 2.7 Million Iraqi Dead From Violence Or War-imposed Deprivation” that “Holocaust 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.”

He explains further,

The Anglo-American Iraqi Genocide since 1990 has been associated with 2 million under-5 year old infant deaths comprising 1.2 million (1990-2003) and 0.8 million (2003-2011), 90% avoidable and due to gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demand that an Occupier must supply their conquered Subjects with food and medical requisites to “the fullest extent of the means available to it” [17]. The Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide was also war criminal mass infanticide and mass paedocide.[4]

Beneath the veneer of Trudeau’s “sunny ways”, the Canadian government is directly supporting an overseas holocaust. This should be front-page news.

Notes

[1] Lee Berthiaume, “Record-breaking Canadian sniper should be celebrated, Trudeau says.” The Canadian Press, June 27, 2017,(http://www.torontosun.com/2017/06/27/record-breaking-sniper-shot-in-iraq-should-be-celebrated-trudeau-says) Accessed July 09, 2017.

[2] “Canadian Soldiers In Iraq Join The Fighting, Trudeau’s Flaming Trousers.” June 26, 2017,

(http://www.radio4all.net/files/[email protected]/16-1-CanadianSoldiersJoinIraqFight.mp3), Accessed June 09, 2017

[3] Mark Taliano,“The West’s Hidden Holocaust.” Whatsupic, July 28, 2015, (http://whatsupic.com/special-usa/14380-the-wests-hidden-holocaust.html) Accessed July 09, 2017.

[4] 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.

On July 4, 2017, Xi Jinping was welcomed to Moscow by Putin. Their twenty-first official meeting was useful for coordinating their next moves concerning the international issues on the agenda ahead of the G20 meeting.

More than twenty agreements have been signed between Russia and China, amounting to almost twelve billion dollars worth of investment. Such figures are reflective of these two nations that define their bilateral relations as the most balanced and fundamental in the world, evidenced by the unprecedented levels of relations between Moscow and Beijing. The ease with which complicated and wide-ranging agreements are realized emphasizes the level of confidence and development cooperation developed personally by Putin and Xi Jinping.

In their third annual meeting, the most prominent themes on the agenda were also discussed with a view to the upcoming G20 meeting. The intention is to coordinate the next steps together on the world stage in order to express a common point of view on many themes, mutually reinforcing their positions in the process. This is the case with matters to do with Syria and North Korea.

With regard to international tensions, the G20 in Hamburg has finally seen the most anticipated meeting of the year, that between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.  In this sense, the meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping assumes a very powerful symbolic value: Trump and the rest of the world are aware that talking with Moscow about the events in North Korea means taking Chinese considerations into account, while discussing Syria with Beijing necessarily takes Russian concerns into account.

Moscow and Beijing intend to mutually support each other in negotiations with Washington in order to strengthen their common strategy of reaching beneficial arrangements for all parties involved. An example that illustrates this is the alignment of Sino-Russian positions on an international investigation into the alleged chemical incident in Syria in April. Another is the firm opposition to any military attempt to influence events in North Korea.

It is difficult to imagine a bright outcome for Putin and Trump’s meeting, given that Trump has been harassed for more than a year over alleged ties with Moscow by the out-of-control mainstream media. These are of course lies and propaganda created specifically to hobble the possibility of dialogue of any kind between Moscow and Washington. An important part of the American ‘deep state’ wishes to sustain a model where unilateral decisions are imposed on the rest of the world. They still live in a world where America is the sole super-power, a world order that existed in the 1990s but which is now almost completely superseded by a multipolar world order. This unipolar vision contrasts openly with a US administration that at least proposes to establish a civil dialogue between superpowers on more delicate international issues.

The best that one can hope for from the G20 in Hamburg and from the meeting between Trump and Putin is either for the arrangement of a visit to Moscow/Washington or for the two parties to deepen mutual understanding. Putin and Xi Jinping are aware that Trump is in a very uncomfortable position, facing daily attacks that leave him with little room for maneuver. At the same time, however, they know that they are faced with a president who has no experience in international relations and who tends to delegate decisions to his generals or those in his intimate circle. The problem with this is that it only fuels competition between deep-state factions. Those who want to bomb Syria sometimes prevail over those who want dialogue and strategic cooperation. Trump’s preference for delegation only exacerbates these rivalries.

The Syrian example is emblematic. Recently, the US Department of State held a press conference where more was revealed than was intended. The spokesperson, in a Freudian slip, admitted that once the offensive in Syria was over and ISIS driven out of the territory, Raqqa would be occupied by its “own” Syrian citizens. What Heather Nauert should have said, or wanted to say, is that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), after conquering the city, would retreat and leave the city in the hands of Syrian citizens (AKA Damascus authority), free to return to the city.

Nervousness, or perhaps inexperience, may have affected Nauert, causing her to reveal America’s true intentions in Syria. The relocation of about 150 fighters from al-Tanf to a site under the control of the SDF north of Deir ez-Zor leaves open for Washington and its allies in the region the hope of controlling the borders with Iraq by taking control of Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and the nearby oilfields. Having known defeat in Aleppo and having areas near Idlib and Homs sealed off, thanks to the agreement in Astana (where Washington was excluded), terrorist allies had only one chance to alter events, which was to balkanize Syria by placing two big cities indirectly under their control and controlling the borders with Iraq. Of course it is a desperate strategy that does not take into account a number of factors, such as the will of the Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian central governments toward re-establishing previous land connections. This is without forgetting Russian influence and support for the Syrian Arab Army that will certainly not be pulled back in the race to Deir ez-Zor and towards Iraq’s borders.

The meeting between Trump and Putin will also serve to emphasize once again the importance of military communications between Washington and Moscow in an environment as fluid as Syria. After the US Air Force downed the Syrian Su-22, communications between the militaries of the two world powers seized completely. In a conflict that sees dozens of opposing factions supported by different nations, it is important that Putin and Trump can at least discuss in person what the red lines are not to be crossed.

The issue of North Korea has been enlivened by Pyongyang’s demonstration of its ability to launch an ICBM (initially pooh-poohed by the West as a medium-range missile before admitting that it was an intercontinental missile) into the Sea of Japan. It is the country’s final demonstration of strength, brought on by decades of military threats from the United States and its allies in the region (South Korea and Japan). With this latest test, North Korea has demonstrated that it has the capacity to hit Washington and its allies in case of the type of aggression Trump has repeatedly threatened. The only alternative to such a war benefitting no one is strong diplomatic negotiations. It seems that Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing are coordinating a common front following the launch of the ICBM. Putin and Xi Jinping condemned the North Korean launch, but at the same time re-launched Kim Jong-Un‘s proposal for a moratorium on nuclear tests in exchange for a renunciation of South Korea’s military exercises with the United States close to the North Korean coast.

Putin and Xi Jinping will have the important task of trying to bring Trump closer to their strategic vision on these delicate issues. The hope is to influence the American decision-making process, while being aware of the strong internal divisions within the United States and Trump’s limited capacity to personally make autonomous decisions in international politics, preferring to delegate those decisions to his subordinates instead.

Divisions, grievances, tensions between the Western bloc and vassal nations in the Middle East seem also to be on the agenda. The United States is divided internally, with an eternal battle between the various souls of the deep state, from the Bush-style intervention faction to the Obama human-rights crowd. Such divisions have reverberated in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Following the visit of the US President to the Middle East, the UAE and Saudi Arabia triggered the most violent internal division within the Council, with Riyadh ready to implement unprecedented measures against Qatar. In Europe, the continued flow of migrants, coupled with the events related to Brexit, and with the attitude of some European leaders towards Trump, has ended up producing a series of frictions between many European countries and the US administration.

It is no surprise that international relations, in such an environment, represented by the smooth and clear relations between Moscow and Beijing, will flourish. An example of how the international environment is changing is represented by Turkey, where, for example, it has common positions with Qatar and Saudi Arabia in Syria, but also openly supports Doha in its recent disputes with Riyadh. While Ankara has bad relations with Berlin, with the personal chemistry between Erdogan and Merkel reflecting this, Turkey’s intention, through the Turkish Stream, is to become an energy hub for Europe. With mixed feelings, London and Washington nevertheless appear to be aligned on future priorities, such as on the need to increase the military spending of NATO member countries (many of whom are facing difficult budget conditions, and are therefore reluctant to pour tens of billions of dollars into armaments), as well as creating strong divisions among European Union countries.

The next G20 will hardly be able to produce sensational or wide-ranging agreements. However, it will be the first open confrontation at the same table, among the many factions that compose the Western consensus and the Sino-Russian alliance. The hope of Russia and China will be to pick up from the Euro-American legacy (often used to advance their interests at the expense of the world community) to guide the world towards goals that avoid conflict, such as in North Korea and Syria. Whether these goals are possible to achieve will depend on Western partners and their willingness to come to compromise.

Featured image from Strategic Culture Foundation

Featured image: Disputed areas between Bhutan and China (Source: see bigger picture here – yesheydorji.blogspot.in)

The recent illegal entry into Chinese territory by Indian border troops cannot be backed by any historic facts or legal basis, an expert pointed out on Saturday, adding that the real ulterior motives behind its groundless action is to finally “occupy” and “control” the area by creating new “disputed areas” in delimited section.

Sun Hongnian, a researcher with Center of China’s Borderland History and Geography Research under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, unmasked the truth in a signed article published on People’s Daily, days after Indian troops illegally crossed the delimited Sikkim section of the China-India boundary and obstructed the normal activities of Chinese border troops in Doklam.

What the Indian border guards did tramples on the international law and rules, stressed Sun, also researcher with Collaborative Innovation Center for Territorial Sovereignty and Maritime Rights.

The historic facts over China, Bhutan and the Indian state of Sikkim, the three parties involved in the latest incident incited by India, are clear-cut, Sun noted.

He further elaborated that conflicts never took place between China and Bhutan as both sides have been exercising their respective jurisdiction based on a traditional customary line.

Sun reviewed that the boundary between China and the Sikkim state of India was demarcated as early as 1794, while the Britain began its incursions into Bhutan and Sikkim in the 18th century, and invaded China’s Tibet in 1888.

Sikkim section of the China-India border was defined in the Convention between Great Britain and China Relating to Sikkim and Tibet signed in 1890, according to the scholar, adding that the convention explicitly stipulates that Doklam undoubtedly belongs to China’s territory.

Former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (Source: biography.com)

The delimitation over the Sikkim section of the China-India border never changed since 1890, Sun emphasized, furthering that former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru confirmed several times, on behalf of the Indian government, that the Sikkim-Tibet border was defined by the 1890 convention.

Abundant historic facts and legal basis have proven that Doklam has always been part of China’s territory and under its effective jurisdiction, the expert reiterated China’s position, adding that both China and Bhutan have a basic consensus on the functional conditions and demarcation of their border region.

India’s actions came amid the recent rise of some forces who instigated the country to inherit the so-called “heritage” of the Great Britain by continuing “protecting” and controlling its neighbors in South Asia, Sun wrote in the article.

Those advocates, upholding an outdated Cold War mentality, preached a tough attitude towards China, he further explained.

In the eyes of those forces, India can seek a so-called “absolute security” of its Siliguri Corridor by creating new “disputed areas” in the delimited section of the China-India boundary and ultimately securing a long-term occupation, as the country now enjoys a friendly global atmosphere, according to the researcher.

He added that by doing so, they hope to obstruct border negotiations between China and Bhutan, as a result, consolidate India’s “hegemony” in South Asian Sub-Continent.

India is an initiator of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, but with an intention to seek “absolute security” of its Siliguri Corridor, it crossed into the Chinese territory by taking “protecting Bhutan” as an excuse, Sun criticized.

Incumbent Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Source: Prime Minister of India)

The scholar added that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi once called on both sides to deal with ties with a strategic and long-term horizon, enhance strategic mutual trust and manage their divergences.

What the trespassing troops did has tread on the commitments made by the Indian government, trampled on the international law and the basic norms governing international relations, and also severely damaged its images among the Chinese public, he highlighted.

Persisting in addressing border disputes through bilateral peaceful negotiations, China has settled land border demarcation with 12 of its 14 neighbors, including Myanmar, Nepal, Afghanistan and Vietnam.

Doklam is a part of China’s territory which is sacred and inviolable, the scholar stressed, reaffirming that firmly opposing the actions of the overstepping Indian troops, the Chinese people also object to the colonial rule based on which the stronger tyrannizes the weak while imposing imperative “protection” on neighbors.

China has the rights to take all necessary measures to uphold its territorial sovereignty, he reiterated.

The correct way out for India is to abide by the provisions of the boundary convention and pull all of the troops that have crossed the boundary back to its own side immediately and unconditionally, Sun concluded at last.

Featured image: A protester is arrested during a “die-in” against the Republican draft health care Bill outside the office of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 22. (Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Frontline)

Disabled Americans came in wheelchairs into the United States Senate to register their protest against the harsh Republican plan to slash health care. ADAPT, a disability rights group, staged a die-in right before the office of the leading Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. About 60 protesters tried to block the entrance to McConnell’s office. Their goal was to show the rest of America what would come out of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which the Republicans sought to push through as an alternative to Obamacare. The police arrested 43 protesters and wheeled out others from McConnell’s hallway.

The McConnell plan would slash Medicare, a government plan that provides health-care coverage for low-income Americans and for those with disabilities. One of the elements of the plan envisages cutting funds for in-home assistance that allows disabled Americans to remain in their own homes rather than move to nursing homes. Fourteen million Americans will lose any access to health insurance.

One of the people who got out of her wheelchair to be arrested was Stephanie Woodward, director of advocacy for the Center for Disability Rights. She was arrested by the officers in the Senate, who carried her out. “We have a right to live,” Stephanie Woodward said. “And by live, I don’t mean just breathe. I mean be a part of the American dream, be in the community, raise a family, go to work. These Medicaid cuts will force people into institutions who don’t need to be there.”

Harsh budget

Evidence of a major assault by the Trump administration on the social safety net in the U.S. was already there in Trump’s budget proposal. He sought to cut funds for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Medicaid and the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Cuts to affordable housing and to homeless assistance programmes were a centrepiece. But so too are cuts that would hurt the disabled. Sally Johnston, president of the Disabled in Action of Greater Syracuse, said: “Trump’s proposed budget will cut trillions of dollars in domestic services. How can this make America better?”

Harshness towards the vulnerable defines Trump’s agenda. There was a whisper of this when Trump mocked a disabled reporter for The New York Times, Serge Kovaleski, and when 12-year-old J.J. Holmes, who has cerebral palsy, was ejected from a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida. The disregard shown to people with disabilities reveals the kind of agenda that Trump was always going to drive. Generosity towards people is not his metier. His is a harsh project, to push aside the vulnerable in a social Darwinist drive to excellence. Weakness is reviled. Strength is applauded.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin

In late June, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin married the Scottish actress Louise Linton. They had a lavish wedding, attended by Trump, his Vice President and most of the Cabinet. Mnuchin and Louise Linton live in a $12.6 million home in an exclusive part of Washington, D.C. The money is Mnuchin’s, what he made as a partner in Goldman Sachs. Mnuchin is not the only fabulously wealthy person in Trump’s cabinet. He sits at Cabinet meetings near Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Deputy Commerce Secretary Todd Ricketts. Trump’s Chief Economic Adviser is Gary Cohn, another former Goldman Sachs president. All are worth hundreds of millions of dollars each.

At a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, just after the Mnuchin wedding, Trump mused about the wealth in his Cabinet.

“Somebody said—why did you appoint a rich person to be in charge of the economy? No, it’s true. And Wilbur’s a very rich person in charge of commerce. I said—Because that’s the kind of thinking we want’.” What kind of thinking would that be? The thinking of someone who was willing to set aside any social agenda for his individual gain.

Trump’s base is made of a combination of people of great wealth—who are few—and the immense white-collar middle-class sector that has found itself made vulnerable by globalisation. Business process outsourcing struck the white-collar middle class, which formed the base of the Tea Party and then the Trump movement. He promised this base that he would not become wedded to Wall Street but would put Main Street in charge. That has not come to pass.

“I love all people, rich or poor,” Trump said, “but in those particular positions I don’t want a poor person.”

No poor or middle-class person should direct commercial or budgetary policy. That should be left to the rich. This is an honest assessment of Trump’s project—to appeal to the mass of white-collar vulnerable workers, but to deliver the reins of power to the very wealthy.

In a new book, Duke University professor Nancy MacLean goes into the intellectual roots of the radical Right and the vision of the current agenda, as articulated by Trump. The Right, she shows in Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of The Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, is interested in the destruction of “society” and the creation of pure individualism. Charles Koch, one of the major financiers of the radical Right, relied upon Baldy Harper. Harper argued, decades ago, that support for vulnerable populations would erode liberty. He suggested that liberal policies that helped the poor and the disadvantaged would be like a disease against society.

“Once the disease has advanced,” he wrote, “a bitter curative medicine is required to gain already-lost liberty.”

These are harsh words. The idea of a “bitter curative medicine” is something that is natural to the Trump team. The vicious knives they wield against any social policy for the poor and the vulnerable are sharp and are used with gusto. One can see the way they cut away at precious social policies in the budget and in their health care plans.

Nancy MacLean describes the agenda of the economist James Buchanan, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Buchanan is a favourite of the radical Right, for whom he acts as an important intellectual standard. A clear sentiment of Buchanan’s vision is available in a 2005 document, where he attacks people who have not been able to save enough for unforeseen circumstances or for retirement. If they fall catastrophically ill or lose their jobs, they should have prepared for this eventuality through prudent savings. If not, Buchanan wrote, they

“are to be treated as subordinate members of the species, akin to animals who are dependent”.

The language here is ferocious. It is mimicked by Trump and his Cabinet.

Let us return to Trump’s budget. He proposes to cut $2.5 trillion in programmes for the working class and the indigent. Food stamps, the essential means for the poorest Americans to access food, would go. It is important to underline that one in six Americans struggles with hunger—49 million Americans have a hard time putting food on their tables. One in five children is at risk of hunger, with the ratio higher—one in three—for African-American and Latino families. There will be no easy way for Americans who struggle with food insecurity to feed themselves. They will be left to starve, like “subordinate members of the species”.

‘Poverty a state of mind’

In a radio interview, Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson said:

“I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind.”

Aid to the poor, says the Trump team, does not work. The poor must be made to “go to work”, said Trump’s Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. But how to go to work when jobs are simply unavailable, as Trump himself has said on many occasions? In fact, the office that helps the poor find jobs has also been slated to be cut. That means even those few programmes to assist the unemployed to find work will no longer be available. In fact, as New York University Professor Jonathan Morduch and Rachael Schneider say in their new book The Financial Diaries, even those who have jobs at low pay struggle to make ends meet. Many of them rely on government assistance to get by. If they do not get access to government programmes, they turn to credit card loans and payday loans to cover their bills. There is great fragility in the budgets of the working poor.

There is cruelty in Trump’s vision. It throws the poor to the lions of desperation. The remnants of liberalism are being withdrawn. This is the end of the social contract.

HAMBURG, Germany, July 7 – Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday delivered a speech at the 12th Summit of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies. The following is the full text of the speech:

Chancellor Merkel,

Dear colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to be with you in Hamburg, the City of Bridges, to discuss ways of building a bridge of cooperation to advance our shared prosperity. First of all, I express heartfelt appreciation to you, Chancellor Merkel, and the German government for your warm hospitality.

The global economy is showing signs of moving in the right direction. The related international organizations forecast that it will grow by 3.5 percent this year, the best performance that we have seen in several years. This would not be possible without the efforts of the G20. On the other hand, the global economy is still plagued by deep-seated problems and faces many uncertainties and destabilizing factors.

Facing such challenges, the G20 agreed in Hangzhou last year on the path forward: building an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy. This year, building on the theme of the Hangzhou Summit, the Hamburg Summit has made “Shaping an Interconnected World” its theme. What we need to do now is to work together to translate our vision into action. With this in mind, I wish to state the following:

Firstly, we should stay committed to building an open global economy. This commitment of the G20 to build open economies saw us through the global financial crisis, and this commitment is vital to reenergizing the global economy. Various international organizations have revised upward forecast for this year’s global growth, mainly because of a projected 2.4 percent growth for global trade and 5 percent growth for global investment. We must remain committed to openness and mutual benefit for all so as to increase the size of the global economic “pie”. As the world’s major economies, we should and must lead the way, support the multilateral trading system, observe the jointly established rules and, through consultation, seek all-win solutions to common challenges we face.

Secondly, we should foster new sources of growth for the global economy. Innovation, more than anything else, is such a new source of growth. Research shows that 95 percent of the world’s businesses are now closely linked with the Internet, and the global economy is transitioning toward a digital economy. This means we should boost cooperation in digital economy and the new industrial revolution and jointly develop new technologies, new industries, new business models and new products. Another source of growth derives from making greater efforts to address the issue of development and implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and such efforts will both benefit developing countries and generate business and investment opportunities for developed countries. In other words, this will be a win-win game for all. At the Hangzhou Summit last year, we reached important consensus on innovation and development. This momentum of cooperation created has been sustained this year under the German chairmanship of G20. Going forward, we should see that more substantial and concrete outcomes are delivered.

Thirdly, we should work together to achieve more inclusive global growth. Currently, global economic growth is not balanced, and technological advances work against job creation. According to the projection of the World Economic Forum, artificial intelligence will take away more than 5 million jobs in the world by 2020. The G20 has an important mission, which is to reaffirm the vision of pursuing inclusive growth agreed upon at the Hangzhou Summit last year, and strike a balance between fairness and efficiency, between capital and labor, and between technology and employment. To achieve this goal, we must ensure synergy between economic and social policies, address the mismatch between industrial upgrading and knowledge and skills, and ensure more equitable income distribution. The G20 needs to place more importance on cooperation in education, training, employment, business start-up and wealth distribution-related mechanisms, as progress on these fronts will make economic globalization work better.

Fourthly, we should continue improving global economic governance. In the wake of the global financial crisis, the G20 has done a lot to improve macroeconomic policy coordination, reform international financial institutions, tighten international financial regulation and combat tax avoidance, thus ensuring financial market stability and recovery. We should build on these achievements. In particular, we should strengthen coordination of macroeconomic policies, forestall risks in financial markets and develop financial inclusion and green finance to make the financial sector truly drive the development of the real economy.

China recently hosted a successful Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Acting in the spirit of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, the forum participants achieved fruitful outcomes in terms of boosting the connectivity of policies, infrastructure, trade, finance and people. Guided by a new vision of governance, we built a new platform of cooperation to tap into new sources of growth. The commitment of the Belt and Road Forum is highly compatible with the goal of the G20.

A German saying goes to the effect that, “Those who work alone, add; those who work together, multiply.” In this spirit, let us work together to promote interconnected growth for shared prosperity and build toward a global community with a shared future.

Thank you.

Bearing in mind that the majority of the Jewish Diaspora is not Zionist – only less than half reside in Israel, the majority being permanently resident in the US, and Europe – plus the documented fact that the overwhelming  proportion of Zionists are not even Jewish but are Evangelical Christians who number something in the region of 50 million – it is reasonably clear that the Jewish majority who currently live and work in the Diaspora, not only have no desire to move to one of the world’s most dangerous, geo-political trouble spots, but would dismiss the idea of the State of Israel being a safe haven for anyone, whether Jew or Gentile.  

So, what are the facts?

• The OECD in 2016 ranks Israel as the country with the highest rates of poverty among its members. 21% of Israelis live under the poverty line – (more than Mexico, Turkey or Chile).
• Israel has a population of about 8.5 million and is the 34^th most densely crowded country in the world.
• 20% of Israelis are Muslim Arab; a further 20% from the former USSR and another 20% being from North Africa. There is little commonality of ethnicity or purpose with the EU or any Western Europe state.
• Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages.

As a result of Likud government intransigence, there is now no peace process with the over five million indigenous Muslim Arabs, half of whom are forced to live under a 10 year Israeli blockade, of essential supplies, designed to try to break them. Tragically, there is now virtually no electricity or power in Gaza for its 600,000 families the majority of whom are deliberately kept unemployed and hungry.

However, there is an absolute imperative to recognise the difference between Jewish Diaspora communities in Europe and America, and the hard . 

The Jewish worldwide Diaspora is universally respected for its various talents (and its loyalty to its host countries), whereas the State of Israel is held in fear because of its massive, undeclared arsenal of nuclear warheads that could bring disaster to the world. There is virtually no commonality between the two. Israel is a secular, nuclear weapons state that has little connection with Judaism, or any respect for human dignity and life.

Meanwhile the region simmers on the brink of another expected war with Hezbollah, which would almost certainly involve heavy fatalities on both sides.

Hardly a place to holiday, much less a Dar-es-Salaam, by any stretch of the imagination.

Featured image from Wikimedia Commons

The Donald Trump seen on television is different from the one in real life, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the G20 summit, adding that after his meeting with the US leader in Hamburg, he felt like relations between the two countries could at least partially be restored.

First, we have the manner in which the Americans have been preparing the G20 summit. As we all know, in diplomacy actions count as much, or even more, than words.

Here are just a few of the actions recently taken by the Americans in preparation for the G20 summit and Trump’s first meeting with Putin (in no particular order):

• The US rejected the joint Russian-Chinese plan to defuse the crisis over the Korean Peninsula even though that plan was simple, straightforward common sense and, frankly, the only game in town to avoid war.
• The US accused the Syrian government of preparing a chemical attack and warned of a “heavy price to pay”.
• The US sent its bomber of overfly the Chinese islands in the South China Sea.
• The US accused Russia of destabilizing Eastern Europe.
• The US threatened “severe consequences” against North Korea.
• The US declared that it would deploy Patriot missiles in Poland to protect the Poles from the Russian Iskander missiles (LOL!  Good luck with that, my Polish friends)
• The US also promised the Poles US LNG to “secure Poland’s energy independence from Russia” (and good luck with that too, my Polish friends)
• The US sent a Polish F-16 to intercept Russian Defense Minister’s civilian (and long announced) aircraft in international airspace over the Baltic Sea.
• The US sent a guided-missile destroyer near Triton Island in the South China Sea
• The US withdrew from the Paris climate agreement.
• The US criticized German trade practices.
• The US criticized China for its trade with the DPRK.
• The US accused China of “trade rape”.

Going down this list, you got to admire the American sense of timing and diplomacy…

But, seriously now,

It does not really matter of these actions are just the result from imperial hubris and delusion, a complete lack of diplomatic education, the consequences of simple and straightforward human stupidity or all part of some diabolical plan to set the US on a collision course with the entire planet. What matters is the mind-blowing arrogance of it all, as if the USA was a white knight in shining armor worthy only of praise and adulation and as if the rest of the planet was composed or rowdy schoolchildren who needed to heed the words of their principal and better start behaving or else get a good spanking from Uncle Sam.

If that is how Trump hopes to make “America Great Again” he might want to consider other options as that kind of attitude makes “America” (he means the USA, of course) look not “great” but arrogant, out of touch and supremely irritating. Let’s talk on the world, everybody at the same time seems to be the grand plan of this administration.

The result of all these “diplomatic” efforts were predicable: nothing.

Well, almost nothing. Here is what “nothing” looks in diplomatic language:

According to Foreign Minister Lavrov Presidents Trump and Putin,

were “motivated by their national interests” (who would have thought?!) and they agree on a number of concrete measures:

1. an acceleration of the procedure to appoint new ambassadors – RU-US and US-RU
2. they discussed the Russian diplomatic facilities seized by Obama
3. they create a work group to discuss a number of issues including terrorism, organized crime, hacking and cybersecurity.
4. they discussed Syria and the Ukraine and talked for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

According to RT, Russia and the US agreed on a ceasefire in the Daraa, Quneitra and As-Suwayda provinces of Syria.  That is very good, of course, but this is in the one corner of Syria (southwest) were very little action is taking place (right now all the important stuff is taking place between Raqqa and Deir-Az-Sor).  Oh, and there are de-escalation zones already in place in the southwest:

So unless Trump and Putin are keeping something really important secret, it seems that this summit has yielded exactly what I feared it would: nothing, or something very very close to nothing. If we find out later that in spite of everything, the two sides did discuss something of importance and agreed on something important, I will post and update here. And, believe me, nobody will be happier than me if that happens.

But, alas, it appears that many months of a sustained Neocon campaign to make darn sure that Russia and the US could never seriously collaborate have been very successful.

So where does this all leave us, the million of people who had at least *some* hopes about Trump being an outsider who could try to make some real changes happen and maybe liberate the United States from the Neocon regime in power here since at least Bill Clinton (if not earlier)?

On February 14th of this year, following the anti-Flynn coup and Trump’s betrayal of his friend, I wrote that “it’s over folks” and “Trump betrayed us all”. I took a lot of flak for writing this, especially since I had come strongly on Trump’s side against Hillary during the campaign. Sadly, I believe that my conclusions in February are now proven correct.

I understand while some will want to present this meeting as, if not a success, then at least “good start” or a “semi-success”. For one thing, being the bearer of bad news never made anybody popular. Second, those who support Trump or Putin (or both) will want to show that the leader they support achieved something. Finally, if both sides report that the meeting has been a success, who are we to say otherwise?

I don’t know about anybody else, but I always have and always will call it as I see it. And what I see is simply nothing or something very close to nothing. Sorry folks, I wish I could say something else.

As for apportioning blame for this non-event, I place 100% of the guilt on the US side which did everything wrong with an almost manic determination and which will now find itself in the rather unenviable position of fighting pretty much the entire planet all on its own. Oh, sorry, I forgot. Poland unconditionally supports the USA and Trump!

Well, good for them. They richly deserve each other.

Featured image from AP

A six-day long national policy conference was held from June 30-July 5 by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in the Republic of South Africa designed to answer questions and plan the future of the continent’s most industrialized state. This conference was attended by 3,500 delegates from all provinces and regions of the country.

South African and ANC President Jacob Zuma in his opening address remarked on the nature of the conference saying there may never be another gathering of this length. The amount of time designated for the event is related to the internal and external challenges being faced by the ruling party which has maintained control of the national government since the end of apartheid-colonialism in May 1994.

ANC President Jacob Zuma (Source: Africa-Online)

At present the economy of the country has fallen into recession with rising unemployment and a declining currency exchange-rate. South Africa is by no means the only African and Southern Hemispheric nation facing these difficulties.

With the decline in commodity prices for raw materials and energy resources produced in emerging states, governments across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America are in crisis. The so-called Great Recession of 2007-2010, which began on Wall Street in the United States and spread internationally created structural problems for the sustainability of genuine growth and development along with worsening poverty among the working class and poor globally.

South Africa gained its national independence through a combination of mass, armed and labor struggles which spanned decades. Between 1976, when the national student uprising erupted and 1994, the year of Freedom, thousands of people lost their lives, tens of thousands were imprisoned and millions more were displaced throughout the region of the sub-continent.

Zuma severely criticized the role of the corporate media in regard to fostering a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty about the future of the ruling party, the state and South African society as a whole by focusing on the economic crises amid allegations of factionalism and corruption at the highest levels of government. The president jokingly told the delegates that the press often claims to know more about the internal workings of the party than the membership itself.

Placing the emphasis for party renewal on the branches of the organization at the grassroots level, Zuma stressed:

“The delegates here come from the branches of the ANC. You know best the conditions in which the people live. You know better than anyone else if the most pressing need is for a clinic or a school. That is why branches determine the policy of the ANC. Amandla asemasebeni. What we are here for is ultimately to find a common understanding on how best to address those needs in the shortest and most satisfactory manner.”

The president, who is in his final term as the head of the ANC and government, drew upon the legacy of the former leader Oliver R. Tambo. This year represents the centenary of Tambo’s birth and Zuma quoted him in relationship to the task at hand for the ruling party as the custodians of the state.

Tambo, according to Zuma, made prophetic statements when he implored to the national liberation movement during the guerrilla and mass struggle phase, saying:

“Comrades, you might think it is very difficult to wage a liberation struggle. Wait until you are in power. I might be dead by then. At that stage you will realize that it is actually more difficult to keep the power than to wage a liberation war. People will be expecting a lot of services from you. You will have to satisfy the various demands of the masses of our people’’.

Challenges in the Alliance, the Status of Women and the National Democratic Revolution Assessed

In recent months differences over how to proceed within the context of policy and governance have become pronounced in open polemics by elements within the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The leadership of the SACP along with some officers in COSATU has called upon Zuma to resign his position as president.

However, several attempts by opposition parties within the South African Parliament to seek a vote of no-confidence against Zuma have all failed. The rationale behind such efforts led by the right-wing Democratic Alliance (DA) and the putative ultra-left wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) range from possible violations of the constitution by Zuma, allegations of corruption by leading party and governmental officials and most-recently the notion of “state capture.” The “state capture” lexicon centers on the supposed influence of the Gupta family’s business interests in determining official appointments and overall economic policy.

ANC Policy Conference (June-July 2017) (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

Zuma and other leaders denied the charges of corruption and called for a commission of inquiry into the matters. The president reiterated the primacy of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as the guiding objective of the ANC in the present period.

The president said during his opening address, that:

“The ANC is guided by the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution. As outlined in our Strategy and Tactics document, the main content of the NDR remains the liberation of Africans in particular and Blacks in general from political and socio-economic bondage. It means uplifting the quality of life of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female.”

He continued by noting:

“The NDR seeks to resolve the main and interrelated contradictions of national oppression based on race, class especially the exploitation of black workers, and the triple oppression of women. The ANC also remains committed to the objective of the NDR of uniting South Africans in building a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.”

Zuma remarks on the status of women drew applause in light of the worsening phenomenon of gender-based violence inside the country. Although the National Policy Conference is not designed to elect the future leaders of the party, it appears that Zuma is siding with the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) which is saying that it is time to elect a woman as the leader of the party and government. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the former wife of the president, has expressed her desire to led the party and stand as its candidate for president in 2019 when Jacob Zuma is scheduled to leave office.

The other major candidate for leadership is Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, the former Secretary General of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a major affiliate of COSATU, who was a chief negotiator in the transition from apartheid to current political dispensation. Ramaphosa seems to be the favorite candidate of COSATU and the SACP as well. The deputy president was a featured speaker at the SACP Gala Dinner held on the eve of the National Policy Conference. The elections for the new leadership of the party will be made later i December of this year at the ANC National Conference.

Dlamini-Zuma, the former African Union Commission Chairperson and South African cabinet member, has called for the expropriation of white-controlled farm land without compensation supporting those within the ANC demanding a radical economic transformation of the state. The character of the enemy was debated over whether to utilize the term “white monopoly capital” as opposed to “monopoly capital.”

It appears as if the concept of “monopoly capital” won out during the conference. Either formulation is bound to send shockwaves through the largely European-owned mining, manufacturing and agricultural interests which are firmly encapsulated within the overall system of international finance capital based in the U.S. and Western Europe. The South African capitalist class has systematically disinvested from the country since the early days of ANC rule in the 1990s.

In a proposal to counteract the burgeoning factionalism in the ANC, Zuma has called for the encompassing of contestants within the leadership structures. Having deputy presidents and other joint leadership bodies could broaden the scope of administration and decision making.

“Let us not get rid of one who did not win, let us need the one who became number two or who did not win to be a deputy of the one who won,” Zuma said. “Comrades have proposed that we find a matured and sound way of politically managing possible contestation of leadership.”

2019 Elections Will Be Crucial in Determining the Future of South Africa

Speakers from various structures of the ANC noted the loss of electoral support in the 2016 local governmental elections. Although the ruling party won a 54 percent majority of the votes cast, this represented a more than ten percent decline as compared to the national elections held in 2009 and 2014.

Several of the largest municipalities in South Africa such as Johannesburg, Tshwane (Pretoria) and Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) have fallen to DA leadership as a by-product of its alliance with the EFF on a local level. The ANC party leadership recognizes that people in South Africa want jobs, land, housing, education and quality service delivery above all else.

In an article published by ANC Today entitled “Radical Social Transformation to End Poverty”, a staff reporter wrote:

“If we are to realize a more egalitarian society as envisioned in the Constitution- society has to be radically transformed. This is particularly with regards to advancing social cohesion and building a common national identity for our people. The Social Transformation commission, chaired by Comrade Lindiwe Sisulu- has been sitting at the organization’s National Policy Conference (NPC) in Nasrec, Soweto.”

Continuing this line of thinking the report continued saying:

“A bed rock of so-called first generation rights, social transformation is key to the ANC’s electoral mandate and to realizing a Better Life for All. Delegates discussed a wide range of proposed interventions to advance social transformation amidst a climate where there has been a resurgence of social ills such as racism and patriarchy. In a society fractured along race and class lines: the ANC as the leader of society must be at the forefront of pushing for societal transformation.” (July 4)

The existing alternatives to the ANC in parliament have no real vision for the country. Both the DA and EFF utilize disruptive tactics absent of a coherent social theory related to the realities of South Africa within the context of the continent and the international situation.

On numerous occasions the DA has been exposed for its racism and pro-imperialist stances involving events such as the interference in African affairs by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ANC posture towards the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and independence, and the role of the state in economic transformation. The EFF, despite its militant rhetoric, has objectively aligned itself with the conservatives whose de facto leader Helen Zille’s public nostalgic praise for the days of colonialism in Africa forced the existing DA officials to rebuke her comments.

Some branches of the SACP have called upon the national leadership to run candidates on its own and not within the framework of the ANC. Nonetheless, the time to have tested such an initiative would have been during the 2016 local elections. The atmosphere in 2019 could be quite toxic politically if the economy continues to stagnate or decline.

The general policy thrust of the imperialist states with the U.S. in the lead aims at the reversal of all progressive and revolutionary advances in the former colonial territories since the post-World War II period. Consequently, the necessity of a broad based united front of anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, pro-liberation and socialist-oriented political forces is imperative for South Africa, Africa as a whole and indeed the international community in general going into the concluding years of the decade.

Zuma in his opening address to the conference re-emphasized that:

“Our revolution is an integral part of the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement for a new world order. Africa is part of us as we are part of Africa first and foremost. Our struggle is inextricably linked with the struggle against neo-colonialism and imperialism on our continent. Our pan-African and internationalist position informs our support for the struggles of the people of Western Sahara and Palestine for self-determination. It informs our solidarity with the people of Cuba and against the economic embargo on this revolutionary nation by the U.S., and our demands for institutional reform of the United Nations. We remain steadfast in our demand for the representation of Africa among the permanent members of the UN Security Council.”

Featured image from SABC

In order to understand the hype surrounding the phenomena of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, we need to understand the prevailing global economic order and its prognosis. What the pragmatic economists have forecasted about free market capitalism has turned out to be true; whether we like it or not. A kind of global economic entropy has set into motion: money is flowing from the area of high monetary density to the area of low monetary density.

The rise of BRICS countries in the 21^st century is the proof of this tendency. BRICS are growing economically because the labor in developing economies is cheap; labor laws and rights are virtually nonexistent; expenses on creating a safe and healthy work environment are minimal; regulatory framework is lax; expenses on environmental protection are negligible; taxes are low; and in the nutshell, windfalls for multinational corporations are huge.

Thus, BRICS are threatening the global economic monopoly of the Western capitalist bloc: that is, North America and Western Europe. Here, we need to understand the difference between manufacturing sector and services sector. Manufacturing sector is the backbone of economy; one cannot create a manufacturing base overnight.

It is based on hard assets: we need raw materials; production equipment; transport and power infrastructure; and last but not the least, a technically-educated labor force. It takes decades to build and sustain a manufacturing base. But the services sector, like the Western financial institutions, can be built and dismantled in a relatively short period of time.

If we take a cursory look at the economy of the Western capitalist bloc, it has still retained some of its high-tech manufacturing base, but it is losing fast to the cheaper and equally robust manufacturing base of the developing BRICS nations. Everything is made in China these days, except for high-tech microprocessors, softwares, a few internet giants, some pharmaceutical products, the Big Oil and the all-important, military hardware and defense production industry.

Apart from that, the entire economy of the Western capitalist bloc is based on financial institutions: the behemoth investment banks that dominate and control the global economy, like JP Morgan chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs in the US; BNP Paribas and Axa Group in France; Deutsche Bank and Allianz Group in Germany; and Barclays and HSBC in the UK.

After establishing the fact that the Western economy is mostly based on its financial services sector, we need to understand its implications. Like I have contended earlier, that it takes time to build a manufacturing base, but it is relatively easy to build and dismantle an economy based on financial services.

What if Tamim bin Hammad Al Thani (the ruler of Qatar) decides tomorrow to withdraw his shares from Barclays and put them in an Organization of Islamic Conference-sponsored bank in accordance with Sharia? What if all the sheikhs of the Gulf States withdraw their petro-dollars from the Western financial institutions; can the fragile financial services-based Western economies sustain such a loss of investments?

In April last year, the Saudi foreign minister threatened [1] that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets if Congress passed a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible for any role in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Bear in mind, moreover, that $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the US, if we add its investment in the Western Europe, and the investments of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf’s investment in North America and Western Europe.

Similarly, according to a July 2014 New York Post report [2], the Chinese entrepreneurs had deposited $1.4 trillion in the Western banks between 2002 to 2014, and the Russian oligarchs were the runner-ups with $800 billion of deposits.

Moreover, in order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf’s oil in the energy-starved industrialized world, here are a few rough stats from the OPEC data: Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production exceeds 10 million barrels; Iran and Iraq, each, has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day, each; while UAE and Kuwait, each, has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3 million barrels per day, each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold more than half of world’s 1500 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves.

Additionally, regarding the Western defense production industry’s sales of arms to the Gulf Arab States, a report [3] authored by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International Policy found that the Obama Administration had offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during its eight years tenure.

Similarly, during its first international visit after the inauguration to Saudi Arabia in May, the Trump Administration signed arms deals worth $110 billion, and over 10 years, total sales would reach $350 billion.

Notwithstanding, we need to look for comparative advantages and disadvantages here. If the vulnerable economy is their biggest weakness, what are the biggest strengths of the Western powers? The biggest strength of the Western capitalist bloc is its military might.

We must give credit to the Western hawks that they have done what nobody else in the world has the courage to do: that is, they have privatized their defense production industry. And as we know, that privately-owned enterprises are more innovative, efficient and in this particular case, lethal. But having power is one thing and using that power to achieve certain desirable goals is another.

The Western liberal democracies are not autocracies; they are answerable to their electorates for their deeds and misdeeds. And much to the dismay of pragmatic, Machiavellian rulers, ordinary citizens just can’t get over their antediluvian moral prejudices.

In order to overcome this ethical dilemma, the Western political establishments wanted a moral pretext to do what they wanted to do on pragmatic, economic grounds. That’s when 9/11 took place: a blessing in disguise for the Western political establishments, because the pretext of the “war on terror” gave them a free pass to invade and occupy any oil-rich country in the Middle East and North Africa region.

No wonder then, 36,000 United States troops have currently been deployed in their numerous military bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Middle East in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which states:

“Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

During the last 16 years of the so-called “war on terror,” the Western powers have toppled only a single Islamist regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan and three “unfriendly” Arab nationalist regimes: Saddam’s Baathist regime in Iraq, Qaddafi’s Afro-Arab nationalist regime in Libya and for the last seven years, they have desperately been trying to overthrow another anti-Zionist Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

More to the point, it is only a “coincidence” that Iraq holds 150 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels of oil per day, while Libya has 45 billion barrels reserves and it used to produce 1.6 million barrels per day before the civil war.

Al-Udeid Airbase (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Regarding the Pax Americana which is the reality of the contemporary global political and economic order, according to a recent infographic [4] by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel are currently stationed all over the world; including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East (of which, 28,000 have been deployed in the Persian Gulf alone, including 11,000 in the sprawling Al-Udeid airbase in Qatar).

By comparison, the number of US troops in Afghanistan is only 8,500 which is regarded as an occupied country. Thus, the Gulf Arab principalities are not sovereign states, as such, but the virtual protectorates of the corporate America.

In this reciprocal relationship, the US provides security to the ruling families of the Gulf Arab states by providing weapons and troops; and in return, the Gulf’s petro-sheikhs contribute substantial investments to the tune of trillions of dollars in the Western economies.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Notes

[1] Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?_r=0

[2] Why $10 billion of China’s money is laundered every month:

http://nypost.com/2014/07/26/why-10b-of-chinas-money-is-laundered-every-month/

[3] The Obama administration’s arms sales offers to Saudi top $115 billion:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-security-idUSKCN11D2JQ

[4] What the U.S. Gets for Defending Its Allies and Interests Abroad?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/16/world/trump-military-role-treaties-allies-nato-asia-persian-gulf.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Featured image: A B-1B Lancer drops back after air refueling training Sept. 30. (Source: United States Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III / Wikimedia Commons)

In a further calculated provocation on the eve of talks between US President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, two US B1-B strategic bombers flew over the South China Sea on Thursday. Trump and Xi are due to meet today on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany, where the US is expected to demand tough sanctions to compel North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.

Japanese fighters joined the American bombers for a night exercise over the East China Sea, where Japan is engaged in an intensifying dispute with China over rocky outcrops known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. The US aircraft then flew south over the South China Sea to conduct a “freedom of navigation” operation to challenge Chinese territorial claims.

The bomber flight came less than a week after a US guided-missile destroyer deliberately intruded within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit claimed by China around Triton Island in the Paracel Islands. Beijing reacted by condemning that incursion as “a serious political and military provocation.”

Asked about yesterday’s flight by US bombers, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said there was no problem with freedom of navigation or overflight for the East and South China Seas. However, he added:

“China resolutely opposes individual countries using the banner of freedom of navigation and overflight to flaunt military force and harm China’s sovereignty and security.”

Two US officials told Reuters yesterday the US planned a test of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system in the coming days. China and Russia have both opposed the installation of a THAAD battery in South Korea, pointing out that its powerful X-band radar can spy on military installations deep within their territory. While the THAAD test will take place in Alaska, it can add to the tensions with Beijing and Moscow.

Xi will meet Trump after the US seized on a North Korean test on Tuesday of a purported intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The US called a UN Security Council emergency session on Wednesday where US ambassador Nikki Haley demanded that all countries, particularly China, impose crippling sanctions on Pyongyang. She warned that the US was prepared to use its “considerable military forces” against North Korea if that failed.

Yesterday, the US handed China a draft of the resolution it intends to place before the UN Security Council, a resolution likely to include punitive sanctions on finance and the sale of oil to Pyongyang. China and Russia have both opposed sanctions that will strangle the North Korean economy and any US attempt at regime-change or military action against North Korea.

In a bitter attack in the UN Security Council on Russia and China, Haley declared:

“To sit there and oppose sanctions or to sit there and go in defiance of a new resolution, means you’re holding the hands of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un.”

She warned that the US was prepared to impose secondary sanctions on countries that failed to implement US demands. Last week the US Treasury placed bans on two Chinese companies for doing business with North Korea.

In a bid to completely cut off North Korea from the global financial system, US prosecutors have obtained warrants to seize funds that involve eight of the world’s largest banks. According to legal filings unsealed this week, five major US banks, including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, along with three European banks are accused of processing more than $700 million of “prohibited” transactions linked to North Korean entities banned under US sanctions. The legal moves are clearly a broader warning aimed at choking off Pyongyang’s access to international finance.

The Trump administration is not only exploiting this week’s missile launch by North Korea to put pressure on China and Russia. Amid growing schisms with Europe, the White House is trying to haul European allies back into line. The tensions over North Korea are a sharp manifestation at the G20 summit of the deepening crisis of global capitalism that is fueling geo-political tensions, threats of trade war and the growing danger of military conflict.

In the immediate lead-up to the Xi-Trump meeting today, the Trump administration backed away from statements that its efforts to enlist China’s help on North Korea had failed. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared yesterday that the US had “not given up hope” in persuading Beijing to do more in what he called the “peaceful pressure campaign” against North Korea.

Tillerson said China had taken “significant action” but had paused and failed to go further. He referred to the US imposition of secondary sanctions on Chinese firms, implying it was prepared to inflict more. In another barely veiled threat of military action, he added:

“This is a campaign to lead us to peaceful resolution because if this fails we don’t have very many good options left.”

Tillerson echoed Trump’s remarks yesterday that he would “never give up” when asked whether he no longer had faith in President Xi. The comment was clearly at odds with previous remarks by Trump that Chinese efforts to force North Korea to bow to US demands had “not worked out.” In fact, just before leaving Washington for the G20 summit, Trump accused China of boosting trade with North Korea by 40 percent.

“So much for China working with us—but we had to give it a try!” he tweeted.

This tweet suggests that Trump’s meeting with Xi is a last-ditch effort to force China to impose crushing penalties on North Korea to compel it to give up its nuclear arsenal. The flight by B1-B bombers along with last Sunday’s naval intrusion into Chinese-claimed waters, a major arms sale to Taiwan and sanctions on Chinese companies are clear warnings of what China will face if it defies US demands.

The US threats against China demonstrate that the alleged threat posed by small, impoverished North Korea is simply a convenient pretext for a confrontation with Beijing, which Washington regards as the chief obstacle to ensuring its dominance in Asia.

Featured image: Syria, after six years of U.S.-manufactured war. (Source: Venezuela Photo: PRENSA LATINA | [email protected] / SANA)

As the danger of a major conflagration in Syria continues to grow, the silence of the corporate media and political establishment is ominous.

The U.S. has dropped tens of thousands of bombs on Syria and sent thousands of U.S. troops to the region. Major world powers are already involved.

The Donald Trump administration threatened a dangerous escalation on June 26 when Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed Syrian government forces were potentially planning to stage a chemical attack and Washington would make Syria pay a heavy price.

The announcement was made without a shred of evidence. Instead, there were vague claims that U.S. intelligence had “identified potential preparations” for a chemical attack. These were all too familiar, after the phony pretext for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The White House statement was immediately followed by a Twitter statement from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley:

“Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia and Iran.”

She was expressing Washington’s frustration that despite its bombing sorties and despite pulling 10 other countries into the war, Washington’s plan for regime change has failed.

Acting on cue five days after the White House statement, a counterrevolutionary group, Failaq al-Rahman, accused the Syrian army of using chlorine gas against its fighters in battles east of Damascus. The Syrian military immediately denied these charges, calling them a fabrication.

The group making this charge is a past recipient of U.S. military aid and equipment and is affiliated with Washington’s client group, the Free Syrian Army. It claimed that more than 30 people suffered gas suffocation as a result of an attack in Ain Tarma, a suburb of Damascus, the capital.

The group, allied with al-Qaida forces, has been fighting both the Syrian government and rival opposition forces in a chaotic internecine conflict in an insurgent enclave in East Ghouta. Thousands of mortar shells and rockets have been fired from this enclave into nearby Damascus over the past few years.

Not only are counterrevolutionary factions in Syria fighting each other, but U.S. government departments are at odds. According to Fox News on June 27,

“Several State Department officials typically involved in coordinating such announcements told the Associated Press they were caught completely off guard by the warning, which didn’t appear to be discussed in advance with other national security agencies.”

British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said the U.S. had not shared any evidence of a specific threat of a chemical weapons attack.

Media self-censorship escalates

The major corporate media gave headline coverage to the unsubstantiated charges against Syria. But questions and controversy were buried deep within the articles.

Overtly suppressed by all major corporate media in the U.S. and Britain was an exposé released June 25, the day before the White House statement, by award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

Hersh challenged the U.S. claim that the Syrian government had launched a sarin gas attack in April. According to Hersh, only the German publication, die WELT, was willing to publish the fact that Trump had ignored intelligence reports from U.S. agencies when he ordered a “Tomahawk” missile attack on the Syrian air base on April 6.

Hersh is neither a revolutionary nor a left-wing journalist. He never attacks U.S. imperialism in general. But his carefully calibrated exposés, usually carried in major U.S. and British publications, have criticized egregious acts in U.S. wars, such as the mass murder of villagers in My Lai, Vietnam, in 1969.

Major U.S. and British media carried his exposés on Korean Air Flight 007 in 1986, an exposé of Israel’s nuclear arsenal in 1991, and President Bill Clinton’s bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. In 2004, he reported on U.S. systematic torture of hundreds of detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

Hersh’s exposés and analyses have won the Pulitzer Prize, Polk Award and National Book Award. Yet he had to go to Germany to get his latest exposé published.

That none of the major U.S. or British publications would touch it shows broad ruling-class support at the highest levels for a continued and expanded U.S. war against Syria. This was also shown by the general applause from Republican and Democratic politicians as well as the corporate media when Trump launched the April 6 attack. They described him as “presidential” for that.

It was the first praise since the election coming from Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Frustration with Syria’s success

The new charge of a “potential” gas attack comes amid growing U.S. frustration after years of covert efforts to overthrow the sovereign government of Syria have failed.

Aid funneled through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to tens of thousands of mercenary and reactionary forces have also failed to bring down the Damascus government.

The war has displaced almost a third of the Syrian population and created millions of refugees. But the Syrian government’s success shows it benefits from the deep determination of millions of Syrians to maintain Syria as a secular and sovereign state.

In September 2014 the Obama administration began direct bombing of Syria, claiming to be targeting the so-called Islamic State group (IS). The Syrian government has consistently opposed this direct military intervention and past covert intervention.

The Pentagon then pulled Britain, France, Turkey, Australia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Morocco into its air campaign. After a year of the bombings, the Syrian government appealed to Russia for air support.

Israel has also used every opportunity to bomb Syrian government forces, the latest being on July 1.

Further provocations as millions oppose wider war

In May the U.S. military attacked Syrian ground forces near the Al Tanf Crossing on the Iraq-Syria border. The Syrians were engaged in a campaign to open the major highway to Damascus and clear the surrounding region of military saboteurs.

The logo of the “New Syrian Army” (now called the Revolutionary Commando Army) rebel organisation in Syria (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

U.S. and British Special Forces were in the area advising and providing advanced offensive weapons to a Syrian mercenary group called the Revolutionary Commando Army. To protect these covert forces, the U.S. bombed Syrian troops using the preposterous claim of self-defense. U.S. and British Special Forces are in another country attacking soldiers of that country who had not attacked or killed any of them. How could that be self-defense?

A U.S. jet shot down a Syrian fighter jet west of Raqqa on June 18. General Joseph Dunford, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, resorted to using a 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force as legal justification. The AUMF was worded to target governments and individuals who supported the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center bombing.

The Syrian government has never attacked the U.S. It is fighting against al-Qaida and IS. Meanwhile U.S. allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have aided al-Qaida and IS in Syria.

Despite wholesale media censorship and complete support from the political establishment for continuing the war on Syria — both Republicans and Democrats, from Trump to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — polls show millions are opposed to this war.

The movement against U.S. wars must be more confident and outspoken in mobilizing opposition.

The growing danger of a wider war forces this onto our agenda.

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

Earlier US agreed on ceasefires were observed only by Syria, its allied ground forces and Russia.

Washington and its terrorist foot soldiers flagrantly breached them. Will this time be different? Will America turn a new leaf from warrior nation to peace champion?

Straightaway in office, Trump showed he’s a warrior president like his predecessors. He infested his administration with extremist neocons, delegating warmaking authority to hawkish generals.

He inherited Obama’s war on Syria and escalated it. US terror-bombing massacres civilians daily. US special forces on the ground aid ISIS and other terrorists combat government and allied troops.

His administration has been undermining peace talks in Astana and Geneva. Months of on and off negotiations achieved no breakthroughs. None are in prospect.

Washington continues maintaining the myth of “moderate rebels.” None exist.

Another dubious US/Russia ceasefire was agreed on in southwest Syria, effective July 9 at midnight local time.

In Hamburg, Germany at the G20 summit, Sergey Lavrov announced it following the meeting between Putin and Trump, saying

“(t)he United States has made a commitment that all the groups present (in southern Syria – Daraa, Quneitra and Sweida) will observe the ceasefire.”

The deal is separate from the Russian-drafted agreement on de-escalation zones, details being finalized before being signed by Moscow, Iran and Turkey, Washington not part of the deal, at least not so far.

Separately, Lavrov said called Putin/Trump talks “long and substantive,” adding

“both presidents are driven above all by the national interests of their countries and understand these interests in seeking mutually beneficial agreements, rather than trying to play confrontational scenarios…”

They agreed to establish a communication channel on Ukraine to work for conflict resolution according to Minsk terms Washington and Kiev putschists it installed sabotaged straightaway.

They discussed cybersecurity, combatting terrorism (Washington supports) and other issues. Agreeing to work together cooperatively is belied by implacable US hostility toward Russia.

Nothing in prospect suggests meaningful and durable improved relations. Reportedly Trump pressed Putin on (nonexistent) Russian US election hacking.

Lavrov addressed the issue, stressing during months of accusations, “not a single fact has been presented.”

“And President Trump said that he heard President Putin state clearly that it is not true, that the Russian government did not meddle” in America’s election.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov numerous times called the spurious accusation “absolutely groundless.”

The Big Lie without a leg to stand on persists. Putin’s meeting was scheduled to last from 30 minutes to an hour. It went on for over two hours, both leaders with much to discuss – maybe prelude for more talks ahead.

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

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

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

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

The existence of nuclear weapons is an ugly symbol of the violent consciousness that plagues humanity. Despite tremendous technological advancements, developments in health care and wonders of creative expression, little of note has changed in humanity’s collective consciousness: Tribalism, idealism and selfish desire persist, negative tendencies that under the pervasive socio-economic systems are exacerbated and encouraged. People and nations are set in competition with one another, separation and mistrust is fed, leading to disharmony, fear and conflict.

Such engineered insecurity is used as justification for nations to maintain a military force, and in the case of the world’s nuclear powers, arm themselves with weapons that, if used, would destroy all life, human and sub-human alike. Despite this, unlike biological and chemical weapons, landmines and cluster munitions, possession of nuclear weapons is not prohibited under international law, although launching them would, according to CND, breach a plethora of conventions and declarations.

Sustainable security is not created through threats and the cultivation of fear, but by building relationships, cooperating and establishing trust. As long as nuclear weapons exist there is a risk of them being used, of an accident – and there have been many close shaves since 1948 – and subsequent annihilation. As the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW) rightly states,

“Prohibiting and completely eliminating nuclear weapons is the only guarantee against their use.”

George P. Shultz, U.S. Secretary of State, July 16, 1982 to January 20, 1989 (Source: US Government / Wikimedia Commons)

The rational thing to do is to move towards a nuclear free world and with some urgency; this necessarily entails the nuclear powers disarming, either unilaterally or bilaterally. Someone has to begin the process; by taking the moral initiative others will be under pressure to follow, whereas, as former US Secretary of State George Shultz put it, “proliferation begets proliferation.”

Clearing the world of these monstrous machines would not only be a major step in safeguarding humanity and the planet, it would represent a triumph of humane principles of goodness — cooperation, trust, unity — over hate, suspicion and discord.

There can be little doubt that the vast majority of people and nations in the world would like nuclear weapons to be decommissioned.  It is the Governments of some of the most powerful countries that stand as obstacles to common-sense and progress: Corporate-State governments motivated not by a burning desire to help create a peaceful world at ease with itself, but driven by self-interest, pressure from financial investors and the demands of the arms-industry.

Towards the end of 2016, the United Nations general assembly adopted a landmark resolution to begin to “negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.” Talks began in February this year, when the first leg of a two stage conference was held in New York; 123 nations voted to outlaw them, while the nine nuclear powers (USA, China, France, Britain, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea), rather predictably stood in opposition to a ban and voted against the proposal, as did nuclear host and alliance countries such as Belgium, Italy, Croatia and Norway, among others: Shame on them all. These obstructive governments do not represent the wishes of their populations, their motives are corrupt, their actions irresponsible.

It’s interesting to note that the countries that possess nuclear weapons seem to believe it’s fine for them to have these tools of destruction, but not for other nations, particularly those that have a different world view. Between them, these nine nations boast around 15,000 nuclear weapons; America and Russia own 93% of the total of which some 1,800 are reportedly kept on ‘high-alert status’, meaning they can be launched within minutes. Just one of these warheads, if detonated on a large city, could kill millions of people, with the effects persisting for decades.

Modern nuclear weapons are a great deal smaller and many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, which, far from ending the war, was completely unnecessary, and caused death and destruction on a scale hitherto unseen. As Admiral William D. Leahy, the highest-ranking member of the U.S. military at the time, wrote in his memoirs, the atomic bomb “was of no material assistance” against Japan, because “the Japanese were already defeated.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower echoed this view, saying,

“Japan was at the moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of ‘face’. It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” In dropping the bombs, Leahy said, the U.S. “had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

False, Expensive Logic

The perverse attitude surrounding the possession of nuclear weapons was evident during the UK election campaign when Jeremy Corbyn – a lifelong peace activist and co-founder of the Stop the War Campaign – was repeatedly criticized by the right-wing media (including the BBC), Conservative politicians and manipulated members of the public, for refusing to say whether he would, or would not, launch a nuclear attack. He met such irrational hypotheticals with composure and suppressed irritation, saying that he would do all he could to avert conflict in the first place and that every effort should be made to rid the world of these ultimate weapons of mass destruction.

He is right and should be applauded for taking such a sane, common-sense approach, but the collective imagination has been poisoned to such a degree that advocating peace, and engaging in dialogue with one’s enemies is regarded as a sign of weakness, whereas sabre rattling and intransigence are hailed as displays of strength.

In addition to the rick of human and planetary death, the financial costs of producing, maintaining and developing these instruments of terror is staggering and diverts resources from areas of real need – health care, education, dealing with the environmental catastrophe, and eradicating hunger. Globally, ICAN reports that the “annual expenditure on nuclear weapons is estimated at USD 105 Billion – or $12 million an hour”. Unsurprisingly America spends the largest amount by far; equivalent, in fact, to the other eight nuclear-armed nations combined. Between 2010 and 2018 the US will spend at least $179 billion and probably more, while 50 million of its citizens live in grinding poverty.

In 2002 the World Bank forecast that “an annual investment of just US$40–60 billion, or roughly half the amount currently spent on nuclear weapons, would be enough to meet the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals on poverty alleviation by the target date of 2015.” But the powerful and tooled up prefer to invest in an arsenal of total destruction. It makes no sense; it is another example of the insanity that surrounds us.

The irrational political choice of maintaining a nuclear arsenal is justified by duplicitous politicians as a means of establishing of peace; it is they claim, a necessary deterrent against aggression. This is not only dishonest, it is totally false logic: far from making the world a safer place, the very possession of nuclear weapons by any one country allows for and encourages their proliferation, thereby increasing the risk of them being used, or accidentally detonated.

If retaining nuclear weapons is not to deter would be invaders what is the reason for the massive financial investment and the dangers that are inherent in patrolling the Earth with these weapons of total destruction?

National image and bravado, the men with the biggest sticks ruling the roost, sitting around the UN Security Council (a remnant of the past that should be scrapped altogether) is, no doubt, one factor, but the primary reason why the nuclear powers consistently block moves to rid the world of these killing machines lies in the world of business. The companies and financial investors involved in developing, manufacturing and maintaining the weapons as well as trading in related technology, parts or services do not want to see an end to the cash cow of nuclear indulgence.

In its detailed report Don’t Bank on the Bomb ICAN relates that in America, Britain, India and France private companies are given contracts worth billions of USD to develop “new, more useable, and more destabilizing nuclear weapons.” In Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea this work is done by government agencies, where no doubt corruption is rife. Financial institutions, including high-street banks and insurance companies, are investing in companies involved in manufacturing and maintaining nuclear weapons; such organizations should reveal their investments and be boycotted by the public. I would go further and say that investment in firms connected with making these abominations should be illegal.

If peace is the collective objective, nuclear weapons must be regarded as a major obstacle and those connected in their construction, including investors, seen as collaborators in the creation of an atmosphere of mistrust and conflict, facilitators of fear and insecurity. The contemporary threats to national security come not from potential armed invasion, but from terrorism, cyber-security issues, poverty and the environmental catastrophe – which, unless drastic steps are taken, will result in an unprecedented worldwide refugee crisis. In the light of such threats, nuclear weapons as a so-called deterrent are irrelevant.

Peace will not be established by ever-larger arsenals of nuclear weapons held by more and more nations. It will be built on a firm foundation of trust, and as Pope Francis has said “on the protection of creation, and the participation of all in public life,” as well as “access to education and health, on dialogue and solidarity.” It is by negating the causes of conflict that peace will be allowed to flourish. Such causes are rooted in social injustice, community divisions, prejudice and discrimination, competition and inequality, and must be countered by demonstrations of tolerance, the cultivation of cooperation and expression of compassion.

Graham Peebles is a freelance writer. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Graham, or visit Graham’s website.

Featured image from Nuclear Weapons Free

The London Bridge terror attack saw a repeat of a now familiar narrative in which every suspect involved had been long-known to both British security and intelligence agencies.

The London Telegraph in an article titled, “Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba named: Everything we know about the London Bridge terrorists,” would reveal:

The ringleader of the London Bridge massacre never bothered to hide his violent, extremist views. Khuram Butt was so brazen that he openly posed with the black flag of the so-called Islamic State in Regent’s Park in the centre of London for a Channel 4 documentary, entitled The Jihadis Next Door.

Butt and other extremists linked to the banned terror group al-Muhajiroun were even detained by police for an hour over the stunt in 2015 but were released without being arrested.

The al-Muhajiroun terror group is headed by British-based extremist, Anjem Choudary, who for years helped fill the ranks of militant groups fighting governments the US and UK sought to overthrow in Libya, Syria and beyond. Choudary inexplicably escaped the consequences of his open advocacy and material support for known terrorist organizations for years, with the London Guardian in an article titled, “Anjem Choudary: a hate preacher who spread terror in UK and Europe,” going as far as speculating he did so because he was actually an informant or operative working for the British government.

The article would also admit that Butt was under investigation by British intelligence up to the day of the attack:

MI5 and counter-terrorism officers began an investigation into Butt, which remained ongoing even as the 27-year-old launched his terror attack on London Bridge. Butt, who was wearing an Arsenal shirt and a fake bomb strapped to his chest, was shot dead by police on Saturday night.

A second suspect, Rachid Redouane, was repeatedly brought to the attention of police who ignored warnings he was an extremist and a member of the so-called “Islamic State.”

The Telegraph reports that a third suspect, Youssef Zaghba, was also known to police:

He was reportedly arrested at Bologna airport in March 2016 trying to get to Syria and was also understood to be on an Italian anti-terror watch list.

The fact that these three suspects evaded capture and were able to carry out their attack despite being known and even monitored actively by British security and intelligence agencies lends even further credibility to the notion that they and others like them work for the British government, not against it.

Unable to Reach Syria, West’s Dogs of War Bite Local Population 

Networks like al-Muhajiroun and the extremists they cultivate help fill the ranks of “moderate rebel” groups the US, UK, other European nations including France, as well as regional allies like Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar are arming, funding and providing direct military support for in Libya, Syria, Yemen and beyond.

This fact goes far in explaining why extremists are allowed – for years – to openly advocate violence and recruit members into what is essentially a terrorist organization operating under the nose of British security and intelligence agencies – if not with their collective and eager complicity.

While these terrorists are labeled “moderate rebels” when fighting abroad, they are only labeled as such by the Western media out of necessity in an attempt to differentiate them from the extremists that are in fact fighting the West’s proxy war for it in places like Syria.

Suspects like Youssef Zaghba even attempted to travel to Syria to fight among the ranks of Western-backed militant groups – and failing to do so – participated in armed violence in the UK instead. Had he traveled onward to Syria, it would have been innocent Syrians instead of innocent British civilians terrorized, attacked, maimed and killed.

A Strategy of Terror and Tension

And despite the reality of the US and UK along with other European and Persian Gulf allies openly fueling terrorism at home and abroad, in the wake of tragic events like in London, Manchester, Paris, or Brussels, the very government organizations clearly responsible for presiding over these terrorists and their networks, sometimes for months and even years before an attack, are granted even more power to address a problem of their own intentional creation.

These organizations are able to do so in plain sight of the public specifically because of another conflict they openly orchestrate, pitting the general public against one another along lines of “anti-Islamic” fervor versus social justice advocates.

What both sides of this manufactured and intentionally perpetuated divide fail to realize is that Muslims are dying by the tens of thousands in places like Syria actively fighting against extremism springing not from Islam or the Qu’ran, but from the Pentagon, Westminster, Paris, Brussels, Riyadh, Ankara and Doha. It is not a clash of civilizations, but a manufactured conflict designed to perpetually fill the ranks of mercenaries abroad while exploiting their violence at home to procure more power and wealth through fear, anger and hysteria.

With wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and beyond adding up to trillions for defense contractors and including weapon systems designed to fight them, with the F-35 joint strike fighter alone topping one trillion US dollars and as the West continues to openly act with impunity when and where it pleases despite violating the very international law it claims it is upholding globally, it is clear that, for now, this strategy is working.

If and when the general public understands the truth of why their lives are put in danger and their nation’s resources are being squandered abroad instead of at home for building their own futures, this strategy will be less successful. Until then, it appears that simplistic propaganda still works in convincing the public that governments like in London are simply incapable of arresting terrorists who appear regularly on TV, in the media and who openly operate in public with apparent and otherwise inexplicable impunity.

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

Featured image from New Eastern Outlook

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

Nations providing universal coverage offer one of three forms for their people: 

1. government provided single-payer; 

2. two-tier providing basic care, along with secondary coverage offering more services based on the ability to pay; and

3. mandate insurance from an employer or individually purchased, supplementing national coverage.

Countries offering universal coverage by date established and type system are the following: 

Norway, 1912, single payer 

New Zealand, 1938, two tier 

Japan, 1938, single payer 

Germany, 1941, insurance mandate 

Belgium,1945, insurance mandate 

Britain, 1948, single payer 

Kuwait, 1950, single payer 

Sweden, 1955, single payer 

Bahrain, 1957, single payer 

Brunei,1958, single payer 

Cuba, 1959, single payer (constitutionally mandated) 

Canada, 1966, single payer 

The Netherlands, 1966, two-tier 

Austria, 1967, insurance mandate 

United Arab Emirates, 1971, single payer 

Finland, 1972, single payer 

Slovenia, 1972, single payer 

Denmark, 1973, two-tier 

Luxembourg, 1973, insurance mandate 

France, 1974, two-tier 

Australia, 1975, two tier 

Ireland, 1977, two-tier

Italy, 1978, single payer 

Portugal, 1979, single payer 

Cyprus, 1980, single payer 

Greece, 1983, insurance mandate 

Spain, 1986, single payer

South Korea, 1988, insurance mandate 

Iceland, 1990, single payer 

Hong Kong, 1993, two-tier 

Taiwan, single payer

Nicaragua, single payer

Singapore, 1993, two-tier 

Switzerland, 1994, insurance mandate 

Israel, 1995, two-tier 

Venezuela, 1999, single payer (constitutionally mandated) 

Other Latin American countries with some form of government provided healthcare include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, and Peru. 

Other countries with some type of universal coverage include Belarus, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Latvia, single payer in Libya under Gaddafi, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macau, Malaysia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Panama, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uruguay. 

The world’s richest country, America, lacks universal healthcare, millions of its citizens without coverage, most others way underinsured. 

Under Trumpcare if enacted in either House or Senate form, conditions for most Americans will go from bad to worse. 

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), an explosion of “junk insurance” will occur in states opting out of Obamacare protections – leaving millions with worthless coverage in cases of serious illnesses, diseases or injuries, especially when involving surgery and/or expensive drugs. 

Low premium junk insurance will cover only certain health problems, supplemental plans needed for other expenses, while fixed-dollar indemnity plans will provide a designated amount per day toward medical expenses, not nearly enough when high-cost. 

The CBO considers individuals with this type coverage uninsured “because they do not have financial protection from major medical risks.” 

Minimal coverage plans in America have been around a long time. They work OK for healthy people, not sick ones, especially with expensive illnesses. 

The cost of medical care in America is double the annual per capita amount in other developed countries, why it’s the leading cause of personal bankruptcies. 

If healthy individuals buy cheap junk insurance, others with health issues needing comprehensive coverage will end up paying much more than now – because insurers know people buying more expensive plans believe they’ll need them. 

Commissioner Mike Kreidler (Source: OIC Graffiti / Wikimedia Commons)

Washington state insurance commissioner Mike Kreidler calls this arrangement “the worst scenario.”  

Premiums will rise for fuller-coverage plans. Insurers will exit markets because “the only people you’re insuring are the” ones needing it to pay high medical expenses. 

“Giving people more choices always looks popular,” he explained. Below the surface, standards are lacking, so “you wind up (with) a race to the bottom.” 

Sick individuals end up needing high-cost plans they can’t afford. Healthy ones either buy junk insurance without catastrophic coverage or none at all. 

The solution not taken is obvious – government-provided universal coverage, everyone in, no one left out, the world’s richest nation failing to uphold a fundamental human right. 

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

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

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

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

Featured image from PYMNTS.com

The man who designed the NSA’s electronic intelligence gathering system (Bill Binney) sent us an affidavit which he signed on the Fourth of July explaining that the NSA is still spying on normal, every day Americans … and not focused on stopping terror attacks (I’ve added links to provide some background):

The attacks on September 11, 2001 completely changed how the NSA conducted surveillance …. the individual liberties preserved in the U.S. Constitution were no longer a consideration. In October 2001, the NSA began to implement a group of intelligence activities now known as the “President’s Surveillance Program.”

The President’s Surveillance Program involved the collection of the full content of domestic e-mail traffic without any of the privacy protections built into [the program that Binney had designed]. This was done under the authorization of Executive Order 12333. This meant that the nation’s e-mail could be read by NSA staff members without the approval of any court or judge.

***

The NSA is still collecting the full content of U.S. domestic e-mail, without a warrant. We know this because of the highly-detailed information contained in the documents leaked by former NSA-contractor, Edward Snowden. I have personally reviewed many of these documents.

I can authenticate these documents because they relate to programs that I created and supervised during my years at the NSA.

[U.S. government officials] have also admitted the authenticity of these documents.

***

The documents provided by Mr. Snowden are the type of data that experts in the intelligence community would typically and reasonably rely upon to form an opinion as to the conduct of the intelligence community.

[The Snowden documents prove that the NSA is still spying on most Americans.]

When Mr. Snowden said that he could read the e-mail of a federal judge if he had that judge’s e­mail address, he was not exaggerating.

***

The NSA is creating a program that shows the real-time location of all cell phones, tablets and computers in the world, at any time. To have a state-actor engaging in this sort of behavior, without any court supervision, is troubling.

***

In their public statements, [government officials] claim that collection of information is limited, and is being done pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”). FBI Director James Comey recently described Section 702 of FISA as the “crown jewel” of the intelligence community.

Defendants, however, are not being candid with the Court. Collection is actually being done pursuant to Executive Order 12333(2)(3)(c), which — to my knowledge — has never been subject to judicial review. This order allows the intelligence community to collect “incidentally obtained information that may indicate involvement in activities that may violate  federal, state, local or foreign laws.” Any lawyer can appreciate the scope of this broad language.   [Background.]

***

Susan Rice (Source: U.S. State Dept. / Wikimedia Commons)

According to media reports, President Obama’s former National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, requested e­mail and phone records on President Trump and various members of his political campaign during and after the 2016 election.

According to these reports, the National Security Council (“NSC”) has computer logs showing when Rice requested and viewed such records. The requests were made from July 2016 through January 2017, and included President Trump and various members of his campaign staff According to an internal NSC report, the accessed information contained “valuable political information on the Trump transition.” Rice’s requests into Trump-related conversations increased following the presidential election last November. None of the requests were reviewed by any independent court.

***

We also know that certain NSA staffers have used their access to e-mail and phone calls to conduct surveillance on current and former significant others. The NSA has referred to this sort of action as “LOVEINT,” a phrase taken from other internal-NSA terms of art, such as “SIGINT” for signals intelligence.

***

Bulk collection makes it impossible for the NSA to actually do its job.

For example, consider the Pinwale program, discussed above, in which the NSA searches the collected data based on certain pre-defined keywords, known as the “dictionary.” The results from the dictionary search are known as the “daily pull.”

Eighty percent of the NSA’s resources go towards review of the daily pull. The problem is that the daily pull is enormous. It is simply not possible for one analyst to review all questionable communications made by millions of people generating e-mail, text messages, web search queries, and visits to websites. Every person making a joke about a gun, bomb or a terrorist incident theoretically gets reviewed by a live person. This is not possible. When I was at the NSA, each analyst was theoretically required to review 40,000 to 50,000 questionable records each day. The analyst gets overwhelmed, and the actual known targets — from the metadata analysis — get ignored.

This is clear from some of the internal NSA memos released by Edward Snowden and published by the Intercept. In these memos, NSA analysts say:

“NSA is gathering too much data. . . . It’s making it impossible to focus.”

“Analysis Paralysis.”

“Data Is Not Intelligence.”
“Overcome by Overload.”

Bulk collection is making it difficult for the NSA to find the real threats. [Indeed.]  The net effect from the current approach is that people die first. The NSA has missed repeated terrorist incidents over the last few years, despite its mass monitoring efforts. The NSA cannot identify future terrorism because 99.9999% of what it collects and analyzes is foreseeably irrelevant. This is swamping the intelligence community, while creating the moral hazards and risks to the republic ….

After a terrorist incident occurs, only then do analysts and law enforcement go into their vast data, and focus on the perpetrators of the crime. This is exactly the reverse of what they should be doing. If the NSA wants to predict intentions and capabilities prior to the crime, then it must focus on known subversive relationships, giving decision-makers time to react and influence events.

There is a second reason why data mining bulk collected data is a waste of time and resources: the professional terrorists know that we are looking at their e-mail and telephonic communications. As a result, they use code words that are not in the dictionary, and will not come up in the daily pull.

***

Thus, collecting mass amounts of data and searching it to find the proverbial needle in a haystack doesn’t work. It is fishing in the empty ocean, where the fish are scientifically and foreseeably not present.

Binney explains what we should do instead:

The truth is that there has always been a safe, alternate path to take. That’s a focused, professional, disciplined selection of data off the fiber lines.

***

I serve as a consultant to many foreign governments on the issues described in this affidavit. As such, I have testified before the German Parliament, the British House of Lords, and the EU Libe Committee on Civil Liberties on these issues. I also consult regularly with members of the European Union on intelligence issues.

***

it is my understanding that the European Union intends to adopt legislation requiring its intelligence community to get out of the business of bulk collection, and implement smart selection.

***

Smart selection is not enough. Governments, courts and the public need to have an absolute means of verifying what intelligence agencies are doing. This should be done within government by having a cleared technical team responsible to the whole of government and the courts with the authority and clearances to go into any intelligence agency and look directly into databases and tools in use. This would insure that government as a whole could get to the bottom line truth of what the intelligence agencies were really doing

I would also suggest that agencies be required to implement software that audits their analytic processes to insure compliance with law and to automatically detect and report any violations to the courts and others.

Indeed, Binney has patiently explained for many years that we know how to help prevent terrorism … and corruption is what’s preventing us from doing it.

Binney thinks we should get serious about motivating the intelligence agencies to do their job.

“I think it’s very clear that we could not reach consensus, but the differences were not papered over, they were clearly stated.” – Angela Merkel, BBC News, Jul 8, 2017

Such gatherings and summits are not always smooth, but on a planet bearing witness to a Trump presidency, there was always going to be a chance for more excitement at the G20 meet at Hamburg. Storm clouds have been brewing over economics, trade, and security, and these threatened to open with a deluge of resentment and threat. As proceedings continued, a general sense did eek through discussions: the G20 would have been far more appropriately termed the G19+1.

Opening shots suggesting this discord came from Jean-Claude Juncker, who described the EU as being in “elevated battle mood” at the US slide towards protectionism, notably on promises to protect the steel industry.

“I won’t want to tell you in detail what we’re doing. But what I would like to tell you is that within a few days – we won’t need two months for that – we could react with countermeasures.”[1]

Germany’s Angela Merkel has also expressed concern on several fronts. Prior to the summit, she insisted that US departure from the Paris climate accord made Germany, and the EU “more determined than ever to lead it to success.” By virtue of circumstance, she has become the anti-Trump alternative, drawing enthusiastic moths to her veteran flame.

In a classic abdication of analytical responsibility, media outlets have become “handshake” watchers, pioneering a new field of irrelevance in what not to say. How would the handshake between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump pan out? Would Merkel actually receive one? Would Trump return for a vigorous “rematch” with Macron?[2]

A survey from Vox was a gaze-and-a-half. Emmanuel Macron of France and Justin Trudeau of Canada gave “adoring” treatment to the German Chancellor. Putin “mansplained” himself, causing Merkel’s eyes to “roll”.[3]

All eyes were on Trump-Putin, though there wasn’t much to go on, at least on the surface of the anticipated encounter. Trump gave journalists the usual serving:

“We look forward to a lot of very positive things happening for Russia, for the United States and for everyone concerned.”

He then claimed it was, “an honour to be with you.”

Putin reciprocated:

“I’m delighted to be able to meet you personally Mr President. And I hope as you have said, our meeting will yield concrete results.”

Such results were two-fold: a concession to Russia having not been involved in hacking the presidential elections last year; and a ceasefire deal affecting southwestern Syria.

The leaders have been engaged in a shadow play, with Trump’s admiration for Putin tempered by the necessities of imperial disapproval from establishment hacks. On Thursday, the US president insisted that Russia was a destabilising force and testing the resolve of the Western powers.

Russia was to “crease its destabilising activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran”. Sounding like a heavily scripted necessity, Trump suggested Russia “join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in the defence of civilisation itself”.

When things did get down to the matter of business, an often sterile affair notable for what it omits, the G20 Leaders’ Declaration, optimistically claiming to shape “an interconnected world” suggested much in the way of disconnection. Old canards, albeit shaken ones, persist.

“Expanding on the results of previous presidencies, in particular the 2016 G20 Summit in Hangzhou, we decide today to take concrete actions to advance the three aims of building resilience, improving sustainability and assuming responsibility.”[4]

There were the usual nostrums: globalisation had to be shared in its benefits, though this has slowed; markets had to be kept open (a poke at protectionism), though there was recognition “that the benefits of international trade and investment have not been shared widely enough.”

But just to emphasise how things have nudged, of only a little, away from the obsession with open markets, the communiqué did note that states had a right to protect their own markets. How that objective fits within the religion of free trade is more than problematic.

The same went for the acknowledgment of the sovereign right of states on the issue of controlling refugee and migrant flows, a situation that simply perpetrates an ongoing parochial order based on “national interests and national security”. Responsibility seemed less relevant.

The global financial system had to be rendered resilient through reform; greater financial transparency and international tax cooperation had to be fostered (the shadow of the Panama papers looms).

Then came the issue of climate change. Yes, the members remained “collectively committed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions” through a range of technologies using clean, efficient energy. But the elephant in the room did get described: “We take note of the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.” The reaction, one couched in a diplomatic slap, was that the “Paris Agreement is irreversible.”

On the ground, protesters were keeping the authorities busy. The agendas there were standard ones, but have been given a certain punchiness since 2016. Figuring prominently in the gallery of detested subjects: Trump, Putin, wealth inequalities and climate change. Such points were expressed through looting, setting fire to vehicles, and violent encounters with the police.

In sum, another summit with little resolution, another indicator of a fractured international community, with more, rather than less discordance, to come. Trump was pleased enough:

“Law enforcement & military did a spectacular job in Hamburg. Everybody felt totally safe despite the anarchists.”

How flattering for the otherwise toothless anarchists.

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

Notes

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/07/eu-battle-mood-us-protectionist-steel

[2] http://globalnews.ca/news/3584470/g20-summit-key-moments/

[3] https://www.vox.com/world/2017/7/7/15937780/merkel-putin-trump-trudeau-g20-russia-germany-macron-europe-eye-roll

[4] https://www.g20.org/gipfeldokumente/G20-leaders-declaration.pdf

Featured image from CTV News

After the Intercontinental Ballistic Missle (ICBM) test by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the US has called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This matter has the Americans on edge as a serious new threshold of technology has been reached. Previously, US intelligence agencies claimed that the DPRK would not be capable of testing an ICBM until at least the year 2020. This latest test completely destroys this claim. The US is worried because their intelligence was dead wrong.

Pyongyang said its Hwasong-14 ICBM flew some 933 kilometres in 39 minutes reaching an altitude of 2,802 kilometres, according to the country’s state television.

We’re now faced with a situation where the DPRK is not only capable of developing nuclear warheads but is now capable of delivering them across continents. This means that the mainland US can now be struck with some of the most powerful weapons available on Earth. Previously the US could take solace in the fact that the technology was low enough that no major threat to the US mainland existed. But now, they’re forced to deal with the possibility of large US casualties if they do invade the DPRK.

The red line has been crossed. For the US the point of no return has been reached, it’s too late. The strategy of strategic patience has failed to stop the DPRK from obtaining a significant nuclear capability. Any military actions by the US now will have dire consequences. Invasion of the DPRK is now no longer a real option to take. The US may bluster all they wish about a military action, but it’s simply not feasible anymore. The day the US was attempting to avoid is here now. All the sanctions and threats were intended to stop this day from coming. All of those efforts were a failure.

It has been proven that sanctions do not work. Every effort to punish the DPRK for building the means to defend themselves has failed. Blocking trade, hindering the development of necessary goods for the people of the DPRK has been all for nothing. The suffering the people of the DPRK had to go through by the hands of the US, has proven completely fruitless.

Both Russia and China confirmed their commitment to a denuclearized DPRK. The stance may seem a betrayal of the DPRK’s right to self-defense. But we must keep in mind that both countries have signed on to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). As members of the treaty, they’re not allowed to encourage others to develop nuclear weapon technology. It is almost certain that both Russi and China would prefer it if the DPRK did not have weapons, but that THAAD also is removed. The less destructive power there is on the peninsula the less of a chance there is a totally destructive scenario.

The goal of the treaty is to halt the development of nuclear weapons, with the hopes of abolishing them worldwide. No one actually expects the world to be de-nuclearized under such an international treaty. The world remains piled to the brim with such weapons. Anyone who refuses to develop, or disposes of their weapons is essentially laying themselves vulnerable to such an attack.

Many find the treaty to be wholly self-serving. Those who already have nuclear weapons are allowed to keep them with the promise of not developing anymore. Those who don’t have them are prohibited from developing them. This is tantamount to banning guns from everyone who doesn’t have one. It abolishes the nuclear deterrent from anyone who doesn’t already have it. This leaves many states who are under threat from US imperialism in an extremely vulnerable position. We can see why the DPRK has labelled their nuclear program as “non-negotiable.”

In truth, the NPT is a tool used by the United States to maintain as much global hegemony as possible. This prevents smaller states from developing a capability as to deter US imperialism from assaulting their country. The US would rather have these countries with their hands tied, unable to resist.

DPRK has no moral obligation to the NPT. Their signing on to the agreement was coerced by US imperialism. The DPRK had debilitating sanctions placed upon them for refusing to sign the agreement. This is signing an agreement under duress. The DPRK was threatened with starvation and suffering if they didn’t agree to it. Food aid, medicine, medical technology, and necessary trade were blocked in order to twist the DPRK’s arm into compliance.

The US speaks of a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons and a peaceful relationship with the DPRK. Yet they forced them to sign an agreement they didn’t want to sign. Based on this fact, the DPRK has no obligation to follow that agreement.

The DPRK has every right to build an effective deterrent to US invasion. The US has spent decades maintaining a hostile stance towards them threatening the most inhumane of actions. The DPRK has ever right to defend themselves from US imperialism.

Jason Unruhe is a contributor to PressTV and long time blogger and amateur journalist on YouTube.

Anti-capitalist and anti-globalist protesters, by the thousands, have greeted world leaders and their entourage in Hamburg, Germany, for the G20 summit. About 15,000 demonstrated on Thursday, July 6, 2017, and the riot police cracked down on them with water cannons set on armored vehicles. The local police expect a massive assault in the coming two days, when as many as 100,000 protesters, including anarchists from France, Italy, Scandinavia, Spain, and Switzerland, will join the German black-block. Even though some of the protesters were comically made up and shuffled like zombies, being a brain dead puppet is a characteristic widely shared by the elite of fake leaders.

Entertainment is what they mostly do, while sinister forces plot, barely hidden, to wage war and spread misery for the common man. The zombified world public opinion watches dazed, confused and hypnotized by the merry-go-round of one crisis, real or manufactured, after another. The rule of thumb is now preferably several crises at once. Thus the brainwashing mission is accomplished, as most people lack the time or ability to focus on any specifics. It is about inducing fear, anxiety, paranoia, and hatred in a permanent kaleidoscope to create despair and a collective psychosis. When the global elite create chaos to manipulate people into submission, they should expect a backlash from the streets.

Shake down in British Petroleum’s magical kingdoms

If one manages to analyze logically the parameters of the science to generate chaos, one comes to understand that crises like the one between Saudi Arabia and Qatar do not happen in a vacuum. This one, if not quickly resolved, could deal a fatal blow to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), paradoxically an organization that President Trump’s visit was supposed to prop up and turn into a Middle Eastern NATO. Imagine this! Not only is the GCC moribund in the aftermath of the Saudi-Qatari rift, but it is dragging along even African countries. It could, by design or not, put a wedge between predominantly Sunni Muslim countries. Many countries, willingly or by some form of coercion, have joined the Saudi-led coalition by severing ties with Qatar: like Bahrain, Comoros, Egypt, the UAE, the Maldives, Mauritania, Libya (at least the so called House of Representatives in Tobruk), and Yemen (that is the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, which is backed by the Saudis in Yemen’s bloody civil war). Others have more cautiously downgraded their relations with Doha, such as: Chad, Djibouti, Jordan and Niger. On the side of Qatar, Turkey has strongly stepped in, and Iran has provided food shipments to the Qatari suffering from the Saudi embargo.

The rift between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is due to many factors, including religious ideology, and a struggle for regional influence and share of the energy market. To reduce it to one cause would be a disingenuous simplification. The relationships in the Gulf have been problematic since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991. This is when the smaller states realized that Saudi Arabia, despite its posturing, did not offer much protection against military aggression from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. This is when Doha let the United States military set up a base in Qatar, and in 26 years the US empire military footprint there has grown to more than 10,000 troops.

Once the US military has set up a base in a country, invited or not, they never leave. Germany, South Korea and Japan should know this. Therefore, in case of a real crackdown on Qatar by the US, the 10,000 invited guests could easily become an occupying force. The tensions between the Saudi kingdom and Qatar reached an apex during the Arab Spring when Doha briefly had the upper hand, with Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, a candidate Qatar supported, was elected president. Saudi Arabia and the US were behind the military coup that put General Abd El-Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi in power.

Unholy alliance to wreck and exploit

The destruction of Syria was at first a joint venture of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as the US and its European vassals, namely the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, with the blessings of Israel, in what I then called an “unholy alliance to wreck and exploit.” They tried to apply in Syria the same approach they had used in Libya to topple Qaddafi. This plan of fake revolutions by proxy jihadists, which was the genesis of ISIS or Daesh backfired horribly as the jihadist groups became their own masters with their own agenda. The main cause of the Syrian conflict was not to stop the pipeline project to Europe, through Turkey, that the Qatari had planned to build. That would have been the icing on the cake. Washington’s neocon agenda, with Tel Aviv’s approval and still very much in effect today, was regime change. The main goal was to topple Bashar al-Assad so as to weaken the influence of Iran and Russia, and by doing so, cut off Hezbollah. This is why the US and its European allies kept repeating the mantra, “Assad must go!”

Once Russia stepped in, and Turkey started to distance itself from Washington and the Saudis, the dynamics changed. Turkey and Iran have sided outright with Qatar in the crisis and condemned the embargo, but Russia has been more cautious. This could give Russia, as well as China and the European Union, more legitimacy in finding a diplomatic resolution to the simmering crisis. In fact, it would be judicious for a regional and international peace conference to take place involving all parties, big and small, including Hamas and Hezbollah. After all, the region is in shambles, and the problems that affect Syria also affect Iraq.

Qatar, despite its initial support for the al-Nusra front, appears to have wised up with regard to Syria. The unprovoked hostility of Saudi Arabia will only bring Doha closer, not only to Tehran and Ankara because of their support during the crisis, but also to Moscow, which will likely see its Middle East influence increase. Russia could help to resolve the crisis and prevent an outright war between the two blocks. France, Iran, Kuwait. Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey, and the US have offered to serve as mediators. So far, instead of appeasing the tensions, the US has inflamed them with its schizophrenic discourse. During the Obama administration, there was a dichotomy between US foreign policy action and discourse. During the Trump administration, the sometimes laughable discord between the White House, State Department and Pentagon is truly alarming.

It is hard to see a coherent plan from the US, unless this is to continue to demolish the Middle East for the immediate benefit of the military-industrial complex, which has gained even more influence over US affairs during the Trump administration. I do not see any US foreign policy approach for the region unless, with an Orwellian twist, one pretends that chaos can be planned. Charles de Gaulle once said,

 “you may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.”

He was too kind. There is clearly a Machiavellian element to this agenda, which falls under the neocons’ Project for a New American Century and follows the old divide-and-conquer imperialist adage.

It is rather obvious that Washington gave the green light to the palace coup of Crown Prince Mohammed bin-Salman, probably with Israel’s approval. The embargo and soft coup immediately followed Trump’s visit to Riyadh then Tel Aviv. One of bin-Salman’s nicknames is Mr. Everything, and since the coup he has controlled Saudi Arabia with absolute power, being the Minister of Defense, Minister of Interior, and head of the oil and gas state-controlled giant ARAMCO. Unfortunately for the region, the brash 31-year-old, who fancies himself to be a warrior-prince, could get used by the US and Israel to give them their regional Holy Grail, which is a war with Iran. If this is the plan, it must be prevented for the sake of the Arab world, peace within Islam, and relative stability worldwide. The US, which has largely, deliberately or not, instigated the crisis, cannot provide a diplomatic solution. Therefore Russia, China and the EU will have to step in and play a decisive role in diffusing the crisis.

US isolation on the horizon?

Newly elected French President, Emmanuel Macron, has been quite active on the international scene, and he appears to be more independent from Washington than his predecessor, Francois Hollande. With regard to the Middle East, Macron’s major shift was to drop the “Assad must go” stance and say that there is no viable alternative to Bashar al-Assad. It is refreshing to see European leaders not drinking as much of Washington’s Kool-Aid as before! There is also on the part of France and Germany an effort at detente with Russia. It is not a coincidence that Vladimir Putin was invited to Paris shortly after Macron’s election. Both Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron understand the erratic nature of the Trump administration. On the issue of Syria and the Gulf crisis, there seems to be a newfound convergence between Paris and Berlin. German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel concurred with Macron on the Assad issue, and he recently shuttled between the Gulf states to offer some mediation in the Saudi-Qatari crisis.

Paradoxically, by trying to isolate Qatar, as was done with the economic sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, the US could wind up isolating itself if the EU grabs this opportunity to wise up, and side, at least on critical occasions, with Russia. Germany, Austria and France have already strongly said that they will not be bullied by Washington’s whims out of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project with Russia’s Gazprom. This is a concrete example of what Europeans can do to reclaim their sovereignty from the US, and this could include putting a European military force, outside of NATO, on the fast track.

US doctrine: shoot first talk later

The G20 summit meeting in Hamburg between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump might not offer much solution unless the Russian leader schedules side talks with critical people in the Trump administration. By contrast to Mr. Putin, who is in charge of his administration, Mr. Trump throws his weight around and acts like he is in charge, but real US policy decisions seem to come alternately from a weakened State Department and more powerful Pentagon that can define troop levels in Afghanistan and directly command, bypassing the executive branch, various military operations elsewhere, as in Yemen, Somalia and Syria. The State Department, Pentagon and White House, however, share a common passion for weapons sales. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently arranged the sale of $1.42 billion of weapons to Taiwan, which angered China, and despite the White House siding with Saudi Arabia, Secretary of Defense James “mad dog” Mattis sold $12 billion of weapons to Qatar.

Sometimes elected officials gain some gravitas from the office they hold. This has not been the case for President Donald Trump, whose histrionics have antagonized countless people domestically as well as foreign officials. The main problem for the international community is to figure out who is really in charge of the US government apparatus and then apply, within reason, the appropriate pressure. Recently Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov met with 94-year-old Henry Kissinger, who has advised Donald Trump officially at least once. Perhaps Lavrov got a glimpse into the enigma: who runs the US administration, if anyone, and what should be expected? In the Trump era it is “shoot first, talk later.” The international community must find the right people to talk to in order to avoid worst case scenarios.

The power of dissent

The massive protests scheduled to disrupt the gathering of the rarefied, and often incompetent elite of the 20 countries wrongly deciding our global fate might give the leaders of the G20 Hamburg summit a sense that dissent, and popular anger can be a lot more powerful than they are, and that sound leadership is supposed to serve the will of the people: the many, not the few. At the end of the game of life, the kings, the queens, the bishops and the pawns all end up equal in the same box.

Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire.

All images in this article are from the author.

Updated below

A wide review of news sources finds an undeniable patter of international “Russian hacking” claims:

• Many, if not all such accusation, are based on say-so by some anonymous “official” or self-promoting “expert”.
• Many, if not all such accusation, are rebutted within a few days or weeks.
• News about any alleged “Russian hacking” is widely distributed and easy to find.
• News of the debunking of such claims is reported only sparsely (if at all) and more difficult to retrieve.

Examples:

Source: Jeff Darcy, Cleveland.com – see bigger picture here

Ukraine

• Russia hacked into Ukraine artillery units, report claims, CBCnews – Dec 22 2016
• Ukraine’s military denies Russian hack attack, AFP – Jan 6 2017

United States

• Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say, WaPo – Dec 31 2016
• Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, say people close to investigation, WaPo – Jan 2 2017

Germany

• Sicherheitskreise: Russland hackte geheime Bundestagsakten (Russia hacked secret parliament papers), FAZ – Dec 11 2016
• Quelle für Enthüllungen im Bundestag vermutet (Internal source suspected in parliament leaks), FAZ – Dec 17 2016

Germany

• Russian Hackers Are Targeting Germany Now, Too, Wired – Dec 10 2016
• German Intelligence Agencies Find No Evidence Of Russian Interference, Newsweek – Feb 7 2017

France

• Cyberattack on French presidential front-runner bears Russian ‘fingerprints,’ research group says, WaPo – Apr 25 2017
• France Says No Trace of Russian Hacking Macron, AP – Jun 1 2017

Qatar

• CNN Exclusive: US suspects Russian hackers planted fake news behind Qatar crisis, CNN – Jun 7, 2017
• Qatar says news agency hacking linked to states boycotting Doha, Reuters – Jun 20 2017

United Kingdom

• Cyber-attack on UK parliament: Russia is suspected culprit, Guardian – Jun 25 2017
• Private not state hackers likely to have targeted UK parliament: sources, Reuters – Jul 6 2017

The undeniable patter of “Russian hacking” is that any claim thereof is likely not true and will be debunked in due time.

These remarks on the “Russian hacking” allegation in relation to the U.S. election are therefore quite appropriate:

President Trump again cast a skeptical eye on intelligence community assessments that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election, saying Thursday while on a visit to Poland that “nobody really knows for sure” what happened.
…
Trump also compared the intelligence about Russian interference with the faulty assessment that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2002, which provided President Bush with a justification to go to war.”Guess what, they were wrong, and that led to one big mess,” he said.

Update (July 7 3:00am Est):

To frame today’s Trump-Putin talks at the G20 meeting in Hamburg (and to prove the above, timely post correct?) U.S. media issued three new story today implicating “Russian hacking”. The stories are made up of rumors, fearmongering and of reports of banal phishing attempts on some administrative systems. While all three implicate Russia they naturally contain ZERO evidence to anything related to that country.

• Russia steps up spying efforts after election, CNN – Jul 6 2017
• Hackers Are Targeting Nuclear Facilities, Homeland Security Dept. and F.B.I. Say, NYT – Jul 6 2017
• Russians Are Said to Be Suspects in Nuclear Site Hackings, Bloomberg – Jul 6 2017

In the very likely case that the above described pattern of “Russian hacking” holds, all three stories will be debunked within the next few days or weeks.

On Friday the United Nations concluded the creation of the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty in over 20 years, and the first treaty ever to ban all nuclear weapons. While 122 nations voted yes, the Netherlands voted no, Singapore abstained, and numerous nations didn’t show up at all.

The Netherlands, I’m told by Alice Slater, was compelled by public pressure on its parliament to show up. I don’t know what Singapore’s problem is. But the world’s nine nuclear nations, various aspiring nuclear nations, and military allies of nuclear nations boycotted.

The only nuclear country that had voted yes to begin the process of treaty-drafting now completed was North Korea. That North Korea is open to a world without nuclear weapons should be fantastic news to numerous U.S. officials and media pundits apparently suffering traumatic fear of a North Korean attack — or it would be fantastic news if the United States were not the leading advocate for expanded development, proliferation, and threat of the use of nuclear weapons. The U.S. ambassador even staged a press conference to denounce this treaty when its drafting was initiated.

Our job now, as citizens of this hapless world, is to lobby every government — including the Netherlands’ — to join and ratify the treaty. While it falls short on nuclear energy, it is a model law on nuclear weapons that sane human beings have been waiting for since the 1940s. Check it out:

(a) Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

(b) Transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly or indirectly;

(c) Receive the transfer of or control over nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices directly or indirectly;

(d) Use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

(e) Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

(f) Seek or receive any assistance, in any way, from anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

(g) 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.

Not bad, huh?

Of course this treaty will have to be expanded to include all nations. And the world will have to develop a respect for international law. Some nations, including North Korea and Russia and China, may be quite reluctant to give up their nuclear weapons even if the United States does so, as long as the United States maintains such enormous dominance in terms of non-nuclear military capacities and its pattern of launching aggressive wars. That’s why this treaty has to be part of a broader agenda of demilitarization and war abolition.

But this treaty is a big step in the right direction. When 122 countries declare something illegal, it is illegal on earth. That means investments in it are illegal. Complicity with it is illegal. Defense of it is shameful. Academic collaboration with it is disreputable. In other words, we have launched into a period of stigmatizing as something less than acceptable the act of preparing to annihilate all life on earth. And as we do that for nuclear war, we can build the groundwork for doing the same for all war.

Featured image: US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. (Source: Reuters/Carlos Barria)

From the start, the “positive chemistry” in the Mother of All Sit-Downs was a given. The format – with only the four principals, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and two translators – prevented any leaks. What was originally scheduled for 35 minutes went on for 2 hours and 16 minutes, and not even an impromptu appearance by First Lady Melania Trump – they were late for the Elbphilharmonie pomp and circumstance – managed to stop the flow.

They needed to deliver. They needed headlines. They got plenty. Including a possible first step at real cooperation; a ceasefire deal in southwestern Syria. Yet the real headline is that diplomacy beats demonization.

Still, from the toxic, overwhelmingly Russophobic Beltway point of view, that dystopia masquerading as a summit – the actual G-20 – was a mere backdrop; the only thing that mattered in this parallel G-2 was confirmation of an obsessive narrative; Russian interfered in the US elections.

Spin City gave us slightly conflicting views. Tillerson admitted “intractable” differences but stressed Trump was “rightly focused on how do we move forward”, while an uncharacteristically irritable Lavrov said Trump had accepted Putin’s denial, adding what is, in fact, the real clincher; Putin wants proof and evidence of Russian interference.

That won’t happen. The “Russian hacking” tsunami ebbs and flows, always following the same pattern; accusations by some proverbial “anonymous official” or “expert”, usually debunked. If the acronym jungle of US intel had concrete, definitive evidence, that would have been splashed on every single front page long ago.

The real test for a possible reset will be the US-Russia ceasefire in southwestern Syria. Tillerson and Lavrov had been discussing it for weeks now. And it’s a Russian idea.

Essentially, that would lead towards American/Jordanian peacekeeping forces near the Golan; Damascus allowing Iranian and Russian peacekeeping forces around the capital; Turkey ensconced between Jarablus and Al-Bab in the north with Russians around them; and the Americans in the northeast all the way to Raqqa alongside the Kurdish YPG.

In a nutshell; a regional balance of power which, assuming it holds, might slowly lead towards a final all-Syria settlement.

Jordan – and Israel – are not warring parties in Syria, and yet the deal directly concerns them. It’s not clear whether US forces will have to be back to Jordan. It’s not clear how the ceasefire will complement the Astana negotiation – the actual top frontline decider – involving Russia, Iran and Turkey. It’s not clear whether Daesh will be eradicated for good. It’s not clear whether the Pentagon will stop sporadically attacking the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

The real big story

And then, there’s the big story of the G-20 in Hamburg, which actually started three days earlier in Moscow, in a full-fledged official summit between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi repeatedly extolled the “strategic alliance”, or “the fast-growing, pragmatic cooperation”, or even the “special character” of China’s ties with Russia.

Pres. Putin and Pres. Jinping (Source: Strategic Culture Foundation)

Putin once again pledged to support the New Silk Roads, or One Belt, One Road initiative (Obor), “by all means”, which includes its interpenetration with the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU).

The Russian Direct Investment Fund and the China Development Bank established a joint $10 billion investment fund.

Gazprom and China’s CNPC signed a key agreement for the starting date of gas deliveries via the Power of Siberia pipeline; December 20, 2019, according to Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller. And that will be followed by the construction of Power of Siberia-2.

They kept discussing a military cooperation roadmap.

And at a closed Kremlin meeting the night before their official summit, in which they clinched yet another proverbial raft of deals worth billions of dollars, Putin and Xi developed a common North Korea strategy; “dialogue and negotiation”, coupled with firm opposition to the THAAD missile system being installed in South Korea.

Xi, in an interview to TASS, had already expounded on US missile defense – an absolute top priority for the Kremlin – “disrupting the strategic balance in the region”.

This was Putin and Xi’s third meeting in 2017 alone. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana, Putin had already hinted that this one, in Moscow, would be “a major event in bilateral relations.”

The giveaway: that’s where they not only deepened their joint strategy for Eurasia integration but also coordinated their common approach to Trump at the G-20. This is what a strategic partnership is all about.

How to restart a reset

Considering the toxicity levels in the Beltway, Putin and Lavrov went to the G-20 harboring no expectations that a package deal could be achieved between Russia and the US.

They knew this would be a strictly political meeting – and not economic; an easing of sanctions was out of the cards.

They also knew there’s not much Trump could offer to the Russian economy. This exhaustive report sets the record straight.

Even under sanctions, Russia should expect a “handsome recovery”, with an expected growth of 3% to 4% in 2017. There has been an “extraordinary decrease in the share of oil & gas revenue in Russia’s GDP.” Russia has “the lowest level of imports (as a share of the GDP) of all major countries.” And the clincher; Russia “must focus on China, the East, and the rest of the world.”

That’s already happening. At the BRICS meeting on the sidelines of the G-20, they called for a more open global economy and for a “rules-based, transparent, non-discriminatory, open and inclusive multilateral trading system.”

Putin and Lavrov faced Trump and Tillerson knowing full well that political factions in the US won’t waiver in their mission to keep the tension with “peer competitors” Russia and China at a very dangerous level.

At the same time, they knew Trump and Tillerson really aim for a reset – incipient as it may be at the start.

Syria is an ultra-complex case where the sphere of influence is mostly Iranian but the hard, cold facts on the ground and in the skies are mostly Russian. With this ceasefire deal, it’s as if Putin and Lavrov are inviting a losing Washington to be part of a solution that satisfies – sort of – all parties, including Israel and Turkey.

Trump did not make any substantial concessions in Hamburg, at least according to what both Tillerson and Lavrov volunteered to disclose. The Beltway is barking that Trump gave Putin a win. As usual, they’re wrong; Putin and Trump stage-managed a win-win.

After a decade-long effort by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and 72 years after their invention, today states at the United Nations formally adopted a treaty which categorically prohibits nuclear weapons.

Until now, nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction without a prohibition treaty, despite the widespread and catastrophic humanitarian consequences of their intentional or accidental detonation. Biological weapons were banned in 1972 and chemical weapons in 1992.

On adoption of the treaty, ICAN’s executive director, Beatrice Fihn, said:

“We hope that today marks the beginning of the end of the nuclear age. It is beyond question that nuclear weapons violate the laws of war and pose a clear danger to global security.

“No one believes that indiscriminately killing millions of civilians is acceptable – no matter the circumstance – yet that is what nuclear weapons are designed to do. Today the international community rejected nuclear weapons and made it clear they are unacceptable.

“It is time for leaders around the world to match their values and words with action by signing and ratifying this treaty as a first step towards eliminating nuclear weapons.”

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted Friday morning and will open for signature by states at the United Nations in New York on 20 September 2017. Civil society organizations and more than 140 states have participated in negotiations.

This treaty is a clear indication that the majority of the world no longer accepts nuclear weapons and does not consider them legitimate tools of war. The repeated objection and boycott of the negotiations by many nuclear-weapon states demonstrates that this treaty has the potential to significantly impact their behavior and stature.

As has been true with previous weapon prohibition treaties, changing international norms leads to concrete changes in policies and behaviors, even in states not party to the treaty.

“The strenuous and repeated objections of nuclear-armed states is an admission that this treaty will have a real and lasting impact,” Fihn said.

The treaty also creates obligations to support the victims of nuclear weapons use (known in Japanese as “hibakusha”) and testing and to remediate the environmental damage caused by nuclear weapons.

From the beginning, the effort to ban nuclear weapons has benefited from the broad support of international humanitarian, environmental, nonproliferation, and disarmament organizations in more than 100 states.

Significant political and grassroots organizing has taken place around the world, and many thousands have signed petitions, joined protests, contacted representatives, and pressured governments.

Featured image from ICAN

Widely reported as a US offer of cooperation on Syria given ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson‘s recent comments on Syria are actually rather scandalous and self-righteous:  

In a statement, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. is open to establishing no-fly zones in Syria in coordination with Russia as well as jointly setting up a truce monitoring and humanitarian aid delivery mechanism.

Tillerson noted that the U.S. and Russia have a variety of unresolved differences but said Syria is an opportunity for the two countries to create stability in Syria.

He said that Russia, as an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and a participant in the conflict, “has a responsibility to ensure that the needs of the Syrian people are met and that no faction in Syria illegitimately re-takes or occupies areas liberated from ISIS’ or other terrorist groups’ control.” Tillerson added that Russia has “an obligation to prevent any further use of chemical weapons of any kind by the Assad regime.”

What Tillerson has said here is that Syria attempting to regain control of any parts of Syria which have been taken by US-Kurdish or US-rebel forces from ISIS would be considered “illegitimate” by the US, and that Russia must ensure it does not happen.

Bizarrely the US believes it and its proxies have more legitimacy to hold Syrian territory than does the internationally recognized Syrian government which sits in its UN chair in New York.

Given such rhetoric by the “moderate” Tillerson we wonder what the US offer of cooperation on “no-fly zones” means. Neither Russia nor Syria have been talking about any such zones except in the sense of offering them to the opposition if the latter signs under Astana process and breaks off from al-Qaeda (Tahrir al-Sham).

Probably what Tillerson means is that the US is ready to cooperate on establishing no-fly zones over Syria for Syrians and Russians.

Featured image from Russia Insider

Featured image: Protesters clash with riot police during the protests at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017 (Source: Pawel Kopczynski / Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Earlier on Friday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a briefing said the first meeting between Trump and Putin revealed that a clear and positive chemistry and connection existed between the two leaders.

The meet was initially scheduled for 30 minutes, but lasted for over two hours, during which the leaders addressed some of the most pressing issues in US-Russia relations including sanctions and cyber warfare along with the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

SYRIA, UKRAINE TENSIONS

Trump and Putin agreed on Friday to enforce a new ceasefire across southern Syria that will come into effect within two days at noon Damascus time on Sunday. And for the first time ever, Trump committed the United States to active involvement in implementing the Minsk Accord on Ukraine.

As for the crisis on Russia’s border, the US State Department announced that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appointed former Permanent Representative to NATO Kurt Volker as special representative for Ukraine negotiations. Tillerson said he named Volker as a representative upon Putin’s request.

University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle told Sputnik the initial meeting delivered key outcomes on Syria and Ukraine.

“I am encouraged. The meeting produced substantial progress on two of the most important and dangerous issues that had separated Russia and the United States during the Obama administration: Syria and Ukraine,” Boyle said.

Syria especially was developing into a serious potential flashpoint between the Russian and US armed forces but Trump and Putin in their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg had both recognized the danger, Boyle pointed out.

“This was an existentially dangerous situation because at any time Russian and American military forces could have struck each other with unpredictable and catastrophic consequences,” he said.

Trump’s decision to appoint veteran US diplomat and former Washington ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker as the new first US envoy to Ukraine to help implement the Minsk agreement was also a historic step forward, Boyle explained.

“For the first time ever, the United States government has bought into the Minsk accord, which is the only way forward on dealing with the situation in Ukraine,” Boyle said.

Volker served as US permanent representative to NATO for presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He refused to sign a 2016 open letter from scores of foreign policy experts associated with the Republican Party denouncing Trump during his successful election campaign.

“Of course the anti-Russian Factions here in the United States in the news media, the Deep State, punditry and academia will fight back ferociously,” Boyle warned.

However, Trump and Putin had succeeded in laying the potential foundation for an improved relationship between the superpowers that could end the poisonous legacy of the Obama years, Boyle suggested.

“Their G20 Meeting will hopefully commence a new and constructive relationship between the US and Russia instead of the anti-Russian warmongering by Obama, Clinton, Brzezinski,” he said.

Obama while president continued to use former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, known for his lifelong hostility to Russia, according to many reports.

Relations also deteriorated markedly when Hillary Clinton served as Obama’s first secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

BOOST TO US-RUSSIA RELATIONS

Historian and retired US Army Major Todd Pierce told Sputnik he welcomed the emerging reports of Trump’s talks with Putin, showing that the US president’s focus on improving ties with Moscow is paying dividends.

“If true, these headlines are very good news,” he said. “Of the many reasons to complain of about Trump, avoiding war with Russia should not be one of them.”

Pierce praised Trump for his repeated efforts to improve relations with Russia, often in the face of scurrilous and unproven personal allegations against him in the US media.

Trump had outraged warmongering elements in the United States, Pierce pointed out.

“Unfortunately, many of his American opponents oppose him because he has talked rationally of the need to maintain peace with Russia,” he said.

Pierce also acknowledged the value of the ceasefire agreement on Syria that Trump had reached with Putin.

The US leader had agreed “to work with Russia in reducing violence in hotspots, such as Syria,” he said.

However, such moves flew in the face of the long-running campaign by other groups in the United States to stir up hatred and suspicion against Russia in order to justify massively bloated arms expenditures and aggressive international policies, Pierce noted.

Trump’s attempt to reduce the danger of clashes over Syria, therefore, “goes against US militarist’s constant incitement of war with Russia that we’ve now seen for many years,” he remarked.

Featured image from REUTERS/ Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung

We are “on the cusp of a truly historic moment,” said the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on Thursday morning, “when the international community declares, unambiguously, for the first time, that nuclear weapons are not only immoral, but also illegal.”

The development—and hopeful adoption—of this treaty represents a breaking point with the status quo, with subservience to the powerful, with the patriarchal world order of massive nuclear violence. Whatever happens on Friday, this treaty has already impacted the nuclear establishment and, more broadly, international relations. Its adoption and implementation will bring even more positive change.

This treaty prohibits the policies and practices that sustain nuclear weapons, including those related to nuclear “deterrence”. Whatever is not explicitly prohibited in its provisions is implicitly prohibited through the spirit of this treaty. It outlaws all aspects of nuclear weapon activities, from development to use and everything in between. As ICAN, as well as many states on Wednesday said,

“The absence of explicit references to [certain activities] in no way implies that they are lawful. This ban is comprehensive.”

This is important in a world where governments that support the continued existence of nuclear weapons are actively investing in their modernisation and maintenance. Just this week, a review commissioned by the German parliament determined that “the country could legally finance the British or French nuclear weapons programs in exchange for their protection.” It is exactly this type of activity that the nuclear weapon ban treaty will help prevent. As the New York Times notes, this plan “would face steep public opposition and diplomatic hurdles.” After tomorrow, it will (if the ban is adopted) also be in contention with international law.

Thus the nuclear weapon ban treaty will help prevent future risks to humanity, as Vanessa Griffen of FemLINKpacific said to the conference. It will also “address the damage caused by past development of these weapons through nuclear testing,” she said, noting that the treaty contains “vital provisions for the people, land, and oceans that have borne the brunt of nuclear testing.” This treaty was borne out of the recognition that the humanitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons are catastrophic. This provided the motivation for governments around the world to finally break the taboo against pursing new international law on this issue without the support of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. It was a daring move, supported and inspired by the courage of civil society actors and parliamentarians that wanted to challenge the status quo and take real action to create a better future.

This treaty will affect even those states that did not participate in these negotiations. Nuclear-armed and nuclear-alliance states may not have been in the room, but they will now be challenged by the new reality this treaty is creating. Their legacy of radioactive violence will be confronted with a future of vibrant political, legal, economic, and social opposition. Senator Scott Ludlam from the Australian Green Party said he and other parliamentarians and civil society representatives from all of the nuclear-armed and nuclear-alliance states commit to “make our way home and campaign for our governments to recognise that this treaty is the best chance we have to build a truly secure world free of nuclear weapons. One by one,” he said, “we will bring them into the room.”

On Friday, as they decide whether to adopt this treaty, states have a choice to make. Are they for nuclear weapons or against them? Do they think it is legitimate for a handful of heavily militarised countries to be able to commit instant genocide? These questions have, over the years, been drained of their stark vibrancy, black and white muddled to grey. This was deliberate. Concepts like nuclear deterrence replaced the horrors of burning flesh, flattened buildings, and generations of cancers. The ban treaty brings everything back into focus. What kind of world do we want to live in? What kind of world do we want to actively build, against the interests of the structures of power that rely on violence, intimidation, fear, and hate to sustain themselves?

“Simply banning nuclear weapons is not simple at all,” said Senator Ludlam.

It has taken decades of activism, years of discussions and strategising, and months of complex negotiations. Now we are here, with a simple question on the table and majority of committed states standing around it. For or against?

Featured image from Preserve Articles

2017 is the make or break year for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Seven years in, the flaws of the ACA are clear – tens of millions are still without health insurance, premiums and out of pocket costs are rising and causing people to either avoid and delay care or go into debt, and the US continues to rank poorly in health outcomes. There is one way to fix the ACA, and I call it the Private Extraction.

What are we to do?

The Republicans are seeking a way to keep their promise to repeal and replace the ACA, but they are finding that this is not very easy to do. There are deep divides within the party over cuts to Medicaid and subsidies for premiums. And the changes they are currently proposing will leave tens of millions more people without insurance. This is highly unpopular with the public, and the Republicans are being hit with widespread opposition. President Trump is so discouraged that he’s calling for an all out repeal now with a replacement to be determined down the road. This would be political suicide if they can’t come up with a solution.

Despite the Democratic base’s overwhelming support for National Improved Medicare for All single payer health care, the Democrats are saying that we can’t do that yet because first they want to fix the ACA. We hear Democrats and their supporters in the media and non-profit world saying that we just need to “stabilize the market” and suggesting the addition of a public insurance, which they call a public option, or allowing people to buy into Medicare as a way to insure more people.

This was the same message that the Democrats gave in 2009 when their base wanted single payer to be included in the health reform debate. Democrats said that the people were asking for too much and told them to work for something more practical, a public option, instead. This effectively divided and weakened single payer supporters. The saddest part of that story is that the public option was never intended to be in the final legislation. The White House and Congressional leadership actively worked to keep it out of the final bill when the tide of support was moving lawmakers to include it.

So, here we are again. Even Senator Sanders, considered to be a champion of Medicare for All after campaigning on it heavily in the presidential primary, is saying that we have to fix the ACA first and then we can work for single payer. We know how that works out, but in case you are not familiar with the scenario: if and when the ACA is tweaked, we will then be told that we have to wait and see if that worked, and when it doesn’t, then another tweak will be proposed, and so on. Single payer’s day will never come until we organize and work specifically to make it a reality.

Let’s look at the Democrat’s proposals:

“Stabilizing the market” basically amounts to giving the private health insurance corporations more money through direct subsidies or tax credits so they will lower premiums and still make enough profits to satisfy their investors. The Center for American Progress, a Democratic Party think tank funded by the health insurance industry lobby group AHIP, offered a “bipartisan proposal” this week “that proposes repairing Obamacare’s exchanges through a mixture of new subsidies to help insurance companies cover their most expensive patients, and lower taxes to encourage insurers to set up shop in under-served markets.”

Jeff Stein goes on to describe CAP’s plan further:

“The second component is a $15 billion ‘reinsurance’ fund. It calls for giving states federal money to give insurers funding for their most expensive, high-cost enrollees — which Spiro says would in turn reduce premium payments for everyone else on the exchanges.”

Here is the translation: the plan would use public dollars to reimburse private insurers for actually having to pay for health care. If you step outside of the matrix for a moment, it becomes clear that is a ridiculous idea.

And while Democrats rail about the Republican’s efforts to repeal the taxes in the ACA, the Democrat’s proposal essentially does the same thing by funneling more public dollars into the pockets of the medical industrial complex and their Wall Street investors. Applying market language to health care, which is a public necessity, reveals that the Democrats view health care as a commodity and not a human right. It can’t be both.

A public option is the term applied to a public health insurance that people could choose to purchase instead of private health insurance. It is often described as a way to compete with private insurers because theoretically it would be able to offer lower premiums since it would not have a requirement for profit. The reality is that adding another insurance to our already complex and heavily bureaucratic system just adds more complexity and bureaucracy. And thinking that it could effectively compete with private insurance, which already has a large grip on the market, is naive.

To create a public option, either each state or the federal government would need to set up a new health insurance plan, recruit health professionals to participate in it, negotiate rates for healthcare services, and then market the plan to customers as a lower cost viable alternative and hope enough people sign on to make it work. This is a big lift. And in the past, private health insurers have been willing to temporarily drop premiums to stifle just this kind of competition.

What is most likely to happen is that the public insurance becomes a relief valve for the private insurers by attracting people who actually need health care. I call it the Profiteer’s Option. Private insurers are very talented at finding ways to encourage people to leave them when they become sick. One way they do this is by severely restricting their provider networks so that when a person becomes ill and finds out that the doctor or hospital they need is not in their network, they seek an alternative. Or they can do it in a more passive-aggressive way by offering lower quality service to people who start racking up high health bills.

A natural experiment in public-private competition is found in Medicare. There is a public Medicare, often referred to as traditional Medicare, and there are private Medicare plans, misnamed Medicare Advantage plans. People who enroll in Medicare Advantage plans are healthier overall than those in traditional Medicare. When a Medicare Advantage enrollee starts to need more care, they quickly find that the Advantage plan has less generous coverage or doesn’t include the health professional they need to use and they drop out. This leaves traditional Medicare to cover the sickest population.

A public option will, in the end, struggle to have enough healthy enrollees to cover the costs of covering people who need health care and it will end up either raising premiums, so it is no longer competitive with private plans, or dropping benefits. A Medicare buy-in would essentially be another form of public option that would attract people who have higher healthcare needs. With any form of public option, the overly-complex and expensive healthcare system in the United States remains essentially unchanged. It does nothing to address the fundamental flaws in our system.

The United States spends more than twice as much per person each year on health care as other industrialized nations, which are universal and have better health outcomes, because the US doesn’t have a healthcare system that was designed for health. The US has the highest administrative costs, a third of our healthcare dollar goes to administration, and the US pays the highest prices for healthcare services and pharmaceuticals because we don’t have an overall system that negotiates the prices. There is no rationale for the costs of care; it is based on what the market will bear.

[Dark blue is public spending and light blue is private spending. The red bar is the average.] Source: Health Over Profit

The United States is also unique because private health insurers are not designed to pay for healthcare; they are financial services designed to make a profit for their investors. They do this by charging the highest premiums they can, shifting as much of the cost of care onto the individual through co-pays and deductibles and restricting coverage. Let that sink in for a moment. Private health insurers are predators designed to suck money out of our healthcare system.

A fix for the Affordable Care Act

There is one way that we can fix the ACA, and I call it the Private Extraction. A private extraction means that we would remove the private health insurance industry from the system. No more tax credits for private plans. No more subsidies or re-insurance to private health insurers. No more government marketplaces and employees to sell their plans to the public. This would save hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars every year.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that more than $300 billion would be spent on federal subsidies for the purchase of private insurance in 2016. That’s more than 300 billion of taxpayer dollars that are feeding the industry’s high CEO salaries and Wall Street investor’s bank accounts instead of paying for care. Since the ACA was passed in 2010, health insurance stock has performed two times better than all stocks. The New York Times reported this year that:

“The numbers are astonishing. The Standard & Poor’s stock index returned 135.6 percent in those seven years through Thursday, a performance that we may not see again in our lifetimes. But the managed care stocks, as a whole, have gained nearly 300 percent including dividends, according to calculations by Bespoke Investment Group. UnitedHealth, the biggest of the managed care companies, with a market capitalization that is now more than $160 billion, returned 480 percent, dividends included. An investment of $100 in the company’s stock when Obamacare was signed into law would be worth more than $580.50 today.”

If we want to fix the ACA, we can’t spend more federal dollars trying to out-compete an industry that is more than twice as strong as it was when the ACA was passed. We can’t give them more money and hope they’ll cover more care for people who are sick or create a public insurance to take people with healthcare needs off their hands. We need to perform a curative procedure: a private extraction.

Then, what could we do to make sure that every person living in the United States has their health needs covered? The answer is simple and it already has the support of the majority of the population. It is National Improved Medicare for All as embodied in HR 676: The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act. For those who are unfamiliar, I describe it in more depth here.

The sooner we do this, the sooner we will be on track to healing our ailing healthcare system. This must be our demand to all political parties. The winning solution is Medicare for All.

Featured image from Health Over Profit

Featured image: A US Air Force MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, carrying a Hellfire air-to-surface missile lands at a secret air base in the Persian Gulf region on January 7, 2016. (Photo: John Moore/Getty Images via Truthout)

The House Appropriations Committee unexpectedly passed an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations bill last week that would repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. If this effort to revoke the AUMF proves successful, the repeal would effectively limit Donald Trump‘s ability to use military force against North Korea, Iran and elsewhere.

In the 2001 AUMF, Congress authorized the president to use military force against groups and countries that had supported the 9/11 attacks. Congress rejected the George W. Bush administration’s request for open-ended military authority “to deter and preempt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States.” ISIS (also known as Daesh) did not exist in 2001.

Although Congress limited the scope of the AUMF, it has nevertheless been used as a blank check for military force more than 37 times in 14 different countries, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Bush relied on the 2001 AUMF to invade Afghanistan and start the longest war in US history. Barack Obama used the AUMF to lead a NATO force into Libya and forcibly change its regime; ISIS then moved in to fill the vacuum. Obama also invoked the AUMF to carry out targeted killings with drones and manned bombers, killing myriad civilians. Trump relies on the AUMF for his drone strikes in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Afghanistan, which have killed thousands of civilians.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) introduced the new amendment, tweeting,

“GOP & Dems agree: a floor debate & vote on endless war is long overdue.”

Lee was the only Congress member to vote against the AUMF in 2001. She said,

“I knew then it would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, anytime, for any length by any president.”

Lee clarified that her amendment would repeal “the overly broad 2001 AUMF, after a period of eight months after the enactment of this act, giving the administration and Congress sufficient time to decide what measures should replace it.”

It remains to be seen whether Lee’s amendment will be defeated in the House of Representatives, as it is opposed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which said it “should have been ruled out of order” because the Appropriations Committee lacked jurisdiction over the matter.

The AUMF Should Be Repealed to Constrain Trump’s War-Making

Lee’s amendment raises the issue of how much war-making authority Congress should delegate to the president.

The 2001 AUMF should be repealed. But Congress should not give Trump a newer, more tailored, one. Trump cannot be trusted with war-making authority.

Tensions with North Korea continue to escalate. In response to Pyongyang’s ballistic missile test, the Trump administration participated with South Korea in a massive live-fire ballistic missile exercise as a warning to Kim Jong-un. Trump warned he is considering “some pretty severe things.”

Trump’s recent saber-rattling against North Korea led Laura Rosenberger, a former State Department official who worked on North Korea issues, to warn that Trump is “playing with fire here — nuclear fire.”

Trump has indicated his willingness to use nuclear weapons. As he said on MSNBC in 2016,

“Somebody hits us within ISIS, you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?”

Secretary of Defense James Mattis cautioned against war with North Korea. In May, he stated on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that a conflict in North Korea “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.” It would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale,” he said at a Pentagon press conference.

Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the United Nations, warned the Security Council,

 “One of our capabilities lies with our considerable military forces. We will use them if we must, but we prefer not to have to go in that direction.” But, she said, North Korea is “quickly closing off the possibility of a diplomatic solution.”

The UN Charter requires the pursuit of peaceful alternatives to the use of military force. Christine Hong, associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote in the Progressive,

“Unsurprisingly, few media outlets have reported on North Korea’s overtures to the United States, even as these, if pursued, might result in meaningful de-escalation on both sides. To be clear: peaceful alternatives are at hand. Far from being an intractable foe, North Korea has repeatedly asked the United States to sign a peace treaty that would bring the unresolved Korean War to a long-overdue end.”

But Trump, not known for his patience, is unlikely to pursue a diplomatic solution for long.

Moreover, his uses of military force thus far have been conducted unlawfully.

Trump’s Unlawful Military Attacks

Trump’s drone strikes cannot be justified by the 2001 AUMF or any other act of Congress. They thus violated the War Powers Resolution.

Passed in the wake of the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution requires the president to report to Congress within 60 days of initiating the use of military force. The Resolution allows the president to introduce US Armed Forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities in only three situations:

First, after Congress has declared war, which has not happened since World War II. Second, in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” which has not occurred. And third, when there is “specific statutory authorization,” such as an AUMF.

The UN Charter requires that countries settle their disputes peacefully. The Charter forbids a country from using military force against another country, except in self-defense or with the approval of the Security Council.

Trump launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Syria in retaliation for an unproven claim that the Syrian government was responsible for a deadly chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

“There’s no doubt that international law, the UN Charter, prohibits the use of military force for retaliation or for reprisal, punishment,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame. “You can only use military force in self-defense, and he did not.”

Trump’s Tomahawk missiles in Syria did not comply with the UN Charter or the War Powers Resolution.

The Trump administration utilized a self-defense rationale for shooting down a Syrian fighter jet and two Iranian-made drones. But neither Syria nor Iran had attacked the United States. And the Security Council did not sanction the US strikes. Those shoot-downs also violated the UN Charter.

The Stakes of the Effort to Repeal the AUMF

Trump’s military interventions and the frightening prospect that he may attack North Korea raise the question of whether the 2001 AUMF should be repealed.

In 2015, Obama proposed repealing the 2001 AUMF and replacing it with a new one. Obama’s proposal contained no geographical limitation and would have allowed the use of military force against ISIS and “associated forces,” which is overly broad. And although it would have prohibited “enduring offensive operations,” it contained a loophole that would have permitted the limited use of ground troops by labeling operations “defensive.”

Obama essentially asked Congress to bless endless war against anyone he wanted, wherever he wanted. Congress declined Obama’s invitation.

Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Congress should retain that authority as the framers intended, not hand it over to an unpredictable and volatile president. The fate of the world is at stake.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse; Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. Visit her website: MarjorieCohn.com. Follow her on Twitter: @MarjorieCohn.

Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

This article was originally published on August 9, 2011 (five months after the onslaught of the US-NATO led jihadist insurgency in Daraa, Southern Syria.

Published under the title A “Humanitarian War” on Syria? Military Escalation. Towards a Broader Middle East-Central Asian War? the article raised the role of the terrorist insurgency directed against Syria in relation to the broader issue of an extended Middle East War. “The Road to Tehran Goes Through Damascus”. 

War preparations to attack both Syria and Iran were in “an advanced state of readiness” several years prior to the onset of the war on Syria in mid-March 2011.

“The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003  categorizes Syria as a “rogue state”, as a country which supports terrorism. … A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, a destabilization campaign (“regime change”) including covert intelligence operations in support of rebel forces directed against the Syrian government.” ( Michel Chossudovsky, August 2011)  

Part II of this article was published under the title The Pentagon’s “Salvador Option”: The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria (August 16, 2011). The latter was published as a chapter in The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity, Global Research, Montreal 2015. 

Michel Chossudovsky, July 8, 2017

*       *       *

An extended Middle East Central Asian war has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board since the mid-1990s.

As part of this extended war scenario, the US-NATO alliance plans to wage a military campaign against Syria under a UN sponsored “humanitarian mandate”.

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Escalation is an integral part of the military agenda. Destabilization of sovereign states through “regime change” is closely coordinated with military planning.

There is a military roadmap characterised by a sequence of US-NATO war theaters.

War preparations to attack Syria and Iran have been in “an advanced state of readiness” for several years. The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003  categorizes Syria as a “rogue state”, as a country which supports terrorism. 

A war on Syria is viewed by the Pentagon as part of the broader war directed against Iran. President George W. Bush confirmed in his Memoirs that he had “ordered the Pentagon to plan an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and [had] considered a covert attack on Syria” (George Bush’s memoirs reveal how he considered attacks on Iran and Syria, The Guardian, November 8, 2010)

This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil reserves and pipeline routes. It is supported by the Anglo-American oil giants. 

The July 2006 bombing of Lebanon was part of a carefully planned “military road map”. The extension of “The July War” on Lebanon into Syria had been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. It was abandoned upon the defeat of Israeli ground forces by Hizbollah. 

Israel’s July 2006 war on Lebanon also sought to establish Israeli control over the North Eastern Mediterranean coastline including offshore oil and gas reserves in Lebanese and Palestinian territorial waters.

The plans to invade both Lebanon and Syria have remained on the Pentagon’s  drawing board despite Israel’s setback in the 2006 July War:

“In November 2008, barely a month before Tel Aviv started its massacre in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro’ot III (Crossing Arms III).  The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon” (See Mahdi Darius Nazemoraya, Israel’s Next War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon?, Global Research, January 17, 2009)

The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, a destabilization campaign (“regime change”) including covert intelligence operations in support of rebel forces directed against the Syrian government.  

A “humanitarian war” under the logo of “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) directed against Syria would also contribute to the ongoing destabilization of Lebanon. 

Were a military campaign to be waged against Syria, Israel would be directly or indirectly involved in military and intelligence operations.

A war on Syria would lead to military escalation.

There are at present four distinct war theaters: Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine and Libya.

An attack on Syria would lead to the integration of these separate war theaters, eventually leading towards a broader Middle East-Central Asian war, engulfing an entire region from North Africa and the Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The ongoing protest movement is intended to serve as a pretext and a justification to intervene militarily against Syria. The existence of an armed insurrection is denied. The Western media in chorus have described recent events in Syria as a “peaceful protest movement” directed against the government of Bashar Al Assad, when the evidence confirms the existence of an armed insurgency integrated by Islamic paramilitary groups.

From the outset of the protest movement in Daraa in mid-March, there has been an exchange of fire between the police and armed forces on the one hand and armed gunmen on the other. Acts of arson directed against government buildings have also been committed. In late July in Hama, public buildings including the Court House and the Agricultural Bank were set on fire. Israeli news sources, while dismissing the existence of an armed conflict, nonetheless, acknowledge that “protesters [were] armed with heavy machine guns.” (DEBKAfile August 1, 2011. Report on Hama, emphasis added)

“All Options on the Table”

In June, US Senator Lindsey Graham (who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee) hinted to the possibility of a “humanitarian” military intervention directed against Syria with a view to “saving the lives of civilians”. Graham suggested that the “option” applied to Libya under UN Secuirty Council resolution 1973 should be envisaged in the case of Syria:

“If it made sense to protect the Libyan people against Gadhafi, and it did because they were going to get slaughtered if we hadn’t sent NATO in when he was on the outskirts of Benghazi, the question for the world [is], have we gotten to that point in Syria, …

We may not be there yet, but we are getting very close, so if you really care about protecting the Syrian people from slaughter, now is the time to let Assad know that all options are on the table,” (CBS “Face The Nation”, June 12, 2011)

Following the adoption of the UN Security Council Statement pertaining to Syria (August 3, 2011), the White House called, in no uncertain terms, for “regime change” in Syria and the ouster of President Bashar Al Assad:

“We do not want to see him remain in Syria for stability’s sake, and rather, we view him as the cause of instability in Syria,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday.

“And we think, frankly, that it’s safe to say that Syria would be a better place without President Assad,” (quoted in Syria: US Call Closer to Calling for Regime Change, IPS, August 4, 2011)

Extended economic sanctions often constitute a leadup towards outright military intervention.

A bill sponsored by Senator Lieberman was introduced in the US Senate with a view to authorizing sweeping economic sanctions against Syria. Moreover, in a letter to President Obama in early August, a group of more than sixty U.S. senators called for “implementing additional sanctions… while also making it clear to the Syrian regime that it will pay an increasing cost for its outrageous repression.”

These sanctions would require blocking bank and financial transactions as well as “ending purchases of Syrian oil, and cutting off investments in Syria’s oil and gas sectors.” (See  Pressure on Obama to get tougher on Syria coming from all sides – Foreign Policy,  August 3, 2011).

Meanwhile, the US State Department has also met with members of the Syrian opposition in exile. Covert support has also been channelled to the armed rebel groups.

Dangerous Crossroads: War on Syria. Beachhead for an Attack on Iran

Following the August 3 Statement by the Chairman of the UN Security Council directed against Syria, Moscow’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned of the dangers of military escalation:

“NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran,…

“[This statement] means that the planning [of the military campaign] is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa,” Rogozin said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper… The Russian diplomat pointed out at the fact that the alliance is aiming to interfere only with the regimes “whose views do not coincide with those of the West.”

Rogozin agreed with the opinion expressed by some experts that Syria and later Yemen could be NATO’s last steps on the way to launch an attack on Iran.

“The noose around Iran is tightening. Military planning against Iran is underway. And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region,” Rogozin said.

Having learned the Libyan lesson, Russia “will continue to oppose a forcible resolution of the situation in Syria,” he said, adding that the consequences of a large-scale conflict in North Africa would be devastating for the whole world. “Beachhead for an Attack on Iran”: NATO is planning a Military Campaign against Syria, Novosti, August 5, 2011)

Military Blueprint for an Attack on Syria 

Dimitry Rogozin’s warning was based on concrete information known and documented in military circles, that NATO is currently planning a military campaign against Syria. In this regard, a scenario of an attack on Syria is currently on the drawing board, involving French, British and Israeli military experts. According to former Commander of the French Air Force (chef d’Etat-Major de l’Armée de l’air) General Jean Rannou, “a  NATO strike to disable the Syrian army is technically feasible”:

“Nato member countries would begin by using satellite technology to spot Syrian air defences. A few days later, warplanes, in larger numbers than Libya, would take off from the UK base in Cyprus and spend some 48 hours destroying Syrian surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and jets. Alliance aircraft would then start an open-ended bombardment of Syrian tanks and ground troops.

The scenario is based on analysts in the French military, from the specialist British publication Jane’s Defence Weekly and from Israel’s Channel 10 TV station.

The Syrian air force is said to pose little threat. It has around 60 Russian-made MiG-29s. But the rest – some 160 MiG-21s, 80 MiG-23s, 60 MiG-23BNs, 50 Su-22s and 20 Su-24MKs – is out of date.

….”I don’t see any purely military problems. Syria has no defence against Western systems … [But] it would be more risky than Libya. It would be a heavy military operation,” Jean Rannou, the former chief of the French air force, told EUobserver. He added that action is highly unlikely because Russia would veto a UN mandate, Nato assets are stretched in Afghanistan and Libya and Nato countries are in financial crisis. (Andrew Rettman, Blueprint For NATO Attack On Syria Revealed, Global Research, August 11, 2011)

The Broader Military Roadmap  

While Libya, Syria and Iran are part of the military roadmap, this strategic deployment if it were to be carried out would also threaten  China and Russia. Both countries have investment, trade as well as military cooperation agreements with Syria and Iran. Iran has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Escalation is part of the military agenda. Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.

The Role of Israel and Turkey

Both Ankara and Tel Aviv are involved in supporting an armed insurgency. These endeavors are coordinated between the two governments and their intelligence agencies.

Israel’s Mossad, according to reports, has provided covert support to radical Salafi terrorist groups, which became active in Southern Syria at the outset of the protest movement in Daraa in mid-March. Reports suggest that financing for the Salafi insurgency is coming from Saudi Arabia. (See Syrian army closes in on Damascus suburbs, The Irish Times, May 10, 2011).

The Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan is supporting Syrian opposition groups in exile while also backing the armed rebels of the Muslim Brotherhood in Northern Syria.

Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) are behind the insurrection. Both organizations are supported by Britain’s MI6. The avowed objective of both MB and Hizb-ut Tahir is ultimately to destabilize Syria’s secular State. (See Michel Chossudovsky, SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention”, Global Research, May 3, 2011).

In June, Turkish troops crossed the border into northern Syria, officially to come to the rescue of Syrian refugees. The government of Bashar Al Assad accused Turkey of directly supporting the incursion of rebel forces into northern Syria:

“A rebel force of up to 500 fighters attacked a Syrian Army position on June 4 in northern Syria. They said the target, a garrison of Military Intelligence, was captured in a 36-hour assault in which 72 soldiers were killed in Jisr Al Shoughour, near the border with Turkey.

“We found that the criminals [rebel fighters] were using weapons from Turkey, and this is very worrisome,” an official said.

This marked the first time that the Assad regime has accused Turkey of helping the revolt. … Officials said the rebels drove the Syrian Army from Jisr Al Shoughour and then took over the town. They said government buildings were looted and torched before another Assad force arrived. …

A Syrian officer who conducted the tour said the rebels in Jisr Al Shoughour consisted of Al Qaida-aligned fighters. He said the rebels employed a range of Turkish weapons and ammunition but did not accuse the Ankara government of supplying the equipment.” (Syria’s Assad accuses Turkey of arming rebels, TR Defence, Jun 25 2011)

Denied by the Western media, foreign support to Islamist insurgents, which have “infiltrated the protest movement”, is, nonetheless, confirmed by Western intelligence sources. According to former MI6 officer Alistair Crooke (and high level EU adviser): “two important forces behind events [in Syria] are Sunni radicals and Syrian exile groups in France and the US. He said the radicals follow the teaching of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a late Jordanian Islamist, who aimed to create a Sunni emirate in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria called Bilad a-Sham. They are experienced urban guerillas who fought in Iraq and have outside finance. They infilitrate protests to attack Assad forces, as in Jisr al-Shagour in June, where they inflicted heavy casualties.” (Andrew Rettman, Blueprint For NATO Attack On Syria Revealed, Global Research, August 11, 2011, emphasis added).

The former MI6 official also confirms that Israel and the US are supporting and financing the terrorists: “Crooke said the exile groups aim to topple the anti-Israeli [Syrian] regime. They are funded and trained by the US and have links to Israel. They pay Sunni tribal chiefs to put people on the streets, work with NGOs to feed uncorroborated stories of atrocities to Western media and co-operate with radicals in the hope that escalating violence will justify Nato intervention.” (Ibid, emphasis added).

Political factions within Lebanon are also involved. Lebanese intelligence has confirmed the covert shipment of assault rifles and automatic weapons to Salafi fighters. The shipment was carried out by Saudi-backed Lebanese politicians.

The Israel-Turkey Military Cooperation Agreement

Israel and Turkey have a military cooperation agreement which pertains in a very direct way to Syria as well to the strategic Lebanese-Syrian Eastern Mediterranean coastline (including the gas reserves off the coast of Lebanon and pipeline routes).

Already during the Clinton Administration, a triangular military alliance between the US, Israel and Turkey had unfolded. This “triple alliance”, which is dominated by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, integrates and coordinates military command decisions between the three countries pertaining to the broader Middle East. It is based on the close military ties respectively of Israel and Turkey with the US, coupled with a strong bilateral military relationship between Tel Aviv and Ankara. ….

The triple alliance is also coupled with a 2005 NATO-Israeli military cooperation agreement which includes “many areas of common interest, such as the fight against terrorism and joint military exercises. These military cooperation ties with NATO are viewed by the Israeli military as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.” (See Michel Chossudovsky,”Triple Alliance”: The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon, August 6, 2006)

Meanwhile, the recent reshuffle within Turkey’s top brass has reinforced the pro-Islamist faction within the armed forces. In late July, The Commander in Chief of the Army and head of Turkey’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Isik Kosaner, resigned together with the commanders of the Navy and Air Force.

General Kosaner represented a broadly secular stance within the Armed Forces. General Necdet Ozel has been appointed as his replacement as commander of the Army the new army chief.

These developments are of crucial importance. They tend to support US interests. They also point to a potential shift within the military in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood including the armed insurrection in Northern Syria.

“New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey… [T]he military power is able to carry out more ambitious projects in the region. It is predicted that in case of using the Libyan scenario in Syria it is possible that Turkey will apply for military intervention.” ( New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey : Public Radio of Armenia, August 06, 2011, emphasis added)

Muslim Brotherhood Rebels at Jisr al Shughour Photos AFP June 16, 2011

[Note: this photo is in many regards misleading. Most of the rebel gunmen are highly trained with modern weapons.]

The Extended NATO Military Alliance

Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) are partners of NATO, whose forces could be deployed in a campaign directed against Syria.

Israel is a de facto member of NATO following an agreement signed in 2005.

The process of military planning within NATO’s extended alliance involves coordination between the Pentagon, NATO, Israel’s Defense Force (IDF), as well as the active military involvement of the frontline Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt: all in all ten Arab countries plus Israel are members of The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

We are at a dangerous crossroads. The geopolitical implications are far-reaching.

Syria has borders with Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. It spreads across the valley of the Euphrates, it is at the crossroads of major waterways and pipeline routes.

Syria is an ally of Iran. Russia has a naval base in North Western Syria (see map).

Establishment of a base in Tartus and rapid advancement of military technology cooperation with Damascus makes Syria Russia’s instrumental bridgehead and bulwark in the Middle East.

Damascus is an important ally of Iran and irreconcilable enemy of Israel. It goes without saying that appearance of the Russian military base in the region will certainly introduce corrections into the existing correlation of forces.

Russia is taking the Syrian regime under its protection. It will almost certainly sour Moscow’s relations with Israel. It may even encourage the Iranian regime nearby and make it even less tractable in the nuclear program talks.( Ivan Safronov, Russia to defend its principal Middle East ally: Moscow takes Syria under its protection, Global Research July 28, 2006)

World War III Scenario

For the last five years, the Middle East-Central Asian region has been on an active war footing.

Syria has significant air defense capabilities as well as ground forces.

Syria has been building up its air defense system with the delivery of Russian Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles. In 2010, Russia delivered a Yakhont missile system to Syria. The Yakhont operating out of Russia’s Tartus naval base “are designed for engagement of enemy’s ships at the range of up to 300 km”. (Bastion missile systems to protect Russian naval base in Syria, Ria Novosti,  September 21, 2010).

The structure of military alliances respectively on the US-NATO and Syria-Iran-SCO sides, not to mention the military involvement of Israel, the complex relationship between Syria and Lebanon, the pressures exerted by Turkey on Syria’s northern border, point indelibly to a dangerous process of escalation.

Any form of US-NATO sponsored military intervention directed against Syria would destabilize the entire region, potentially leading to escalation over a vast geographical area, extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with Tajikistan and China.

In the short run, with the war in Libya, the US-NATO military alliance is overextended in terms of its capabilities. While we do not forsee the implementation of a US-NATO military operation in the short-term, the process of political destabilization through the covert support of a rebel insurgency will in all likelihood continue.

This article was updated on August 11, 2011.

Many of the issues raised in the above article are analyzed in detail in Michel Chossudovsky’s 2011 book:

Towards a World War Three Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War
Michel Chossudovsky 

For further details click here

Order your copy of this important new book from Global Research here

DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

A New War Theater in North Africa
Operation Odyssey Dawn
Nuclear Weapons against Libya? How Real is the Threat?
America’s Long War: The Global Military Agenda
How to Reverse the Tide of War
World War III Scenario
Acknowledgments

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

The Cult of Killing and Destruction
America’s Mini-nukes
War and the Economic Crisis
Real versus Fake Crises

CHAPTER II: THE DANGERS OF NUCLEAR WAR

Hiroshima Day 2003: Secret Meeting at Strategic Command Headquarters
The Privatization of Nuclear War: US Military Contractors Set the Stage
9/11 Military Doctrine: Nuclear Weapons and the “Global War on Terrorism”
Al Qaeda: “Upcoming Nuclear Power”
Obama’s Nuclear Doctrine: The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review
Post 9/11 Nuclear Doctrine
“Defensive” and “Offensive” Actions
“Integration” of Nuclear and Conventional Weapons Plans
Theater Nuclear Operations (TNO)
Planned Aerial Attacks on Iran
Global Warfare: The Role of US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM)
Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization
Israel’s Stockpiling of Conventional and Nuclear Weapons
The Role of Western Europe
Germany: De Facto Nuclear Power
Pre-emptive Nuclear War: NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept
The World is at a Critical Crossroads

CHAPTER III: AMERICA’S HOLY CRUSADE AND THE BATTLE FOR OIL

America’s Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East
“Homegrown Terrorists”
The American Inquisition
Washington’s Extrajudicial Assassination Program
The Battle for Oil
The Oil Lies in Muslim Lands
Globalization and the Conquest of the World’s Energy Resources

CHAPTER IV: PREPARING FOR WORLD WAR THREE

Media Disinformation
A “Pre-emptive” Aerial Attack Directed Against Iran would Lead to Escalation
Global Warfare
US “Military Aid”
The Timetable of Military Stockpiling and Deployment
World War III Scenario
The United Nations Security Council
The American Inquisition: Building a Political Consensus for War

CHAPTER V: TARGETING IRAN WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Building a Pretext for a Pre-emptive Nuclear Attack
“Theater Iran Near Term”
The Military Road Map: “First Iraq, then Iran”
Simulated Scenarios of a Global War: The Vigilant Shield 07 War Games
The Role of Israel
Cheney: “Israel Might Do it Without Being Asked”
US Israel Military Coordination
Tactical Nuclear Weapons directed against Iran
Radioactive Fallout
“The Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) Slated to be Used Against Iran
Extensive Destruction of Iran’s Infrastructure
State of the Art Weaponry: “War Made Possible Through New Technologies”
Electromagnetic Weapons
Iran’s Military Capabilities: Medium and Long Range Missiles
Iran’s Ground Forces
US Military and Allied Facilities Surrounding Iran

CHAPTER VI: REVERSING THE TIDE OF WAR

Revealing the Lie
The Existing Anti-War Movement
Manufacturing Dissent
Jus ad Bellum: 9/11 and the Invasions of Yugoslavia and Afghanistan
Fake Antiwar Activism: Heralding Iran as a Nuclear Threat
The Road Ahead
The Antiwar Movement within the State Structure and the Military
Abandon the Battlefield: Refuse to Fight
The Broader Peace Process
What has to be Achieved

Order your copy of this important new book from Global Research here

In the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany on July 7-8, Donald Trump stands in an awkward position as he meets for the very first time Vladimir Putin.  He also gets the chance to confront Angela Merkel who previously announced strong political and economic ties with China, another powerful opponent of the US. Will this conference result to a peaceful settlement to all unrelenting differences or will it just fan the flame of animosity and indifference? Read our compilation below.

US President Donald Trump set the tone for a summit of bitter and open confrontation by preceding his arrival in Germany with a trip to Poland, which has been sharply at odds with Germany’s rise as the new hegemon in Europe. (Bill Van Auken)

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The G20: Is the West Governed by Psychopaths?

By Peter Koenig, July 08, 2017

 “Welcome to Hell!” is the slogan with which G20 protesters greet the self-appointed leaders of the world to their summit on 7 and 8 July 2017 in Hamburg, Germany, under Madame Merkel’s auspices to discuss the calamities of our globe and how to resolve them. Never mind that the distress of Mother Earth has been mostly caused by those who represent the West, and now pretend to fix it.

Breaking, Video: Trump Meets Putin at G20, Ceasefire in Syria is Announced

By Global Research News, July 08, 2017

Putin’s Assessment of Trump at the G-20 Will Determine Our Future

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, July 07, 2017

The backdrops to the Putin/Trump meeting are the aspirations of Israel and the neoconservatives. It is these aspirations that drive US foreign policy.

Geostrategic Insights Into the Joint Polish-Croatian “Three Seas Initiative”

By Andrew Korybko, July 07, 2017

The joint Polish-Croatian initiative aims to bring together three distinct blocs of countries occupying the strategic space between several of Europe’s seas, which will ultimately work out to the US and China’s benefit while negatively impacting on Russia and the EU..

Trump Speech in Poland Fans Conflict with Germany, Russia

By Patrick Martin, July 07, 2017

The most important passages in the speech, drafted for Trump by his foreign policy team and delivered without any obvious deviations, declared sympathy for the plight of Poland, trapped geographically between more powerful nations, Germany and Russia, sometimes partitioned or overrun by them.

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