Global Research

Sana’a (GPA) – Saudi Arabia decided to honor the final day of Ramadan in typical Saudi fashion by conducting over 50 airstrikes on various Yemeni provinces in just 24 hours.

35 airstrikes were carried out in the province of Marib, slightly east of Sana’a. 14 airstrikes hit various districts of Hajjah province including Midi and Herad. They also carried out three raids in both Taiz and Sa’ada provinces.

Saudi warplanes dropping bombs over various areas of Yemen is certainly nothing new. In fact Yemenis have been living under airstrikes for over 800 days now. But for the past month, Saudi Arabia has drastically increased airstrikes in both numbers and locations.

Yemeni resistance forces have steadily fought back on the ground. Troops in Taiz have been fending off Saudi-backed mercenaries in various parts of Taiz. In northern provinces of Jizan, Najran, and Asir, Yemeni forces have managed to take-out many Saudi-backed troops, weapons facilities, and vehicles.

President of Sana’a’s Supreme Political Council, Saleh Alsmad, spoke at Yemen’s al-Quds demonstration in Sana’a.

“So-called resistance movements against ‘terrorism’ are worthless. The Saudi regime is at the top of all systems involved in the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.”

Just recently, Saudi Arabia has taken measures to normalize relations with the Zionist state of Israel.

Featured image: Geopolitics Alert

Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is challenging the Trump administration’s version of events surrounding the April 4 “chemical weapons attack” on the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun – though Hersh had to find a publisher in Germany to get his information out.

In the Sunday edition of Die Welt, Hersh reports that his national security sources offered a distinctly different account, revealing President Trump rashly deciding to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase on April 6 despite the absence of intelligence supporting his conclusion that the Syrian military was guilty.

Hersh draws on the kind of inside sources from whom he has earned longstanding trust to dispute that there ever was a “chemical weapons attack” and to assert that Trump was told that no evidence existed against the Syrian government but ordered “his generals” to “retaliate” anyway.

Marine General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Marine General, now Defense Secretary James “Mad-Dog” Mattis ordered the attacks apparently knowing that the reason given was what one of Hersh’s sources called a “fairy tale.”

They then left it to Trump’s national security adviser Army General H. R. McMaster to further the deceit with the help of a compliant mainstream media, which broke from its current tradition of distrusting whatever Trump says in favor of its older tradition of favoring “regime change” in Syria and trusting pretty much whatever the “rebels” claim.

According to Hersh’s sources, the normal “deconfliction” process was followed before the April 4 strike. In such procedures, U.S. and Russian officers supply one another with advance details of airstrikes, such as target coordinates, to avoid accidental confrontations among the warplanes crisscrossing Syria.

Russia and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the flight path to and from Khan Sheikhoun in English, Hersh reported. The target was a two-story cinderblock building in which senior leaders – “high-value targets” – of the two jihadist groups controlling the town were about to hold a meeting. Because of the perceived importance of the mission, the Russians took the unusual step of giving the Syrian air force a GPS-guided bomb to do the job, but the explosives were conventional, not chemical, Hersh reported.

The meeting place was on the floor above the basement of the building, where a source whom Hersh described as “a senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community,” told Hersh:

“The basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons, and ammunition … and also chlorine-based decontaminates for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial.”

A Bomb Damage Assessment

Hersh describes what happened when the building was struck on the morning of April 4:

“A Bomb Damage Assessment by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of fertilizers, disinfectants, and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.

“According to intelligence estimates, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92.”

Due to the fog of war, which is made denser by the fact that jihadists associated with Al Qaeda control the area, many of the details of the incident were unclear on that day and remain so still. No independent on-the-ground investigation has taken place.

But there were other reasons to doubt Syrian guilt, including the implausibility of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad choosing that time – while his forces were making dramatic strides in finally defeating the jihadists and immediately after the Trump administration had indicated it had reversed President Obama’s “regime change” policy in Syria – to launch a sarin attack, which was sure to outrage the world and likely draw U.S. retaliation.

However, logic was brushed aside after local “activists,” including some closely tied to the jihadists, quickly uploaded all manner of images onto social media, showing dead and dying children and other victims said to be suffering from sarin nerve gas. Inconsistencies were brushed aside – such as the “eyewitness” who insisted, “We could smell it from 500 meters away” when sarin is odorless.

Potent Images

Still, whether credible or not, these social-media images had a potent propaganda effect. Hersh writes that within hours of watching the gruesome photos on TV – and before he had received any U.S. intelligence corroboration – Trump told his national security aides to plan retaliation against Syria. According to Hersh, it was an evidence-free decision, except for what Trump had seen on the TV shows.

Hersh quotes one U.S. officer who, upon learning of the White House decision to “retaliate” against Syria, remarked:

“We KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious – claiming we have the real intel and know the truth…”

A similar event had occurred on Aug. 21, 2013, outside Damascus – and although the available evidence now points to a “false-flag” provocation pulled off by the jihadists to trick the West into mounting a full-fledged assault on Assad’s military, Western media still blames that incident on Assad, too.

In the Aug. 21, 2013 case, social media also proved crucial in creating and pushing the Assad-did-it narrative. On Aug. 30, 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry pinned the responsibility on Assad no fewer than 35 times, even though earlier that week National Intelligence Director James Clapper had warned President Obama privately that Assad’s culpability was “not a slam dunk.”

Kerry was fond of describing social media as an “extraordinarily useful tool,” and it sure did come in handy in supporting Kerry’s repeated but unproven charges against Assad, especially since the U.S. government had invested heavily in training and equipping Syrian “activists” to dramatize their cause. (The mainstream media also has ignored evidence that the jihadists staged at least one chlorine gas attack. And, as you may recall, President George W. Bush also spoke glowingly about the value of “catapulting the propaganda.”)

Implications for U.S.-Russia

To the extent Hersh’s account finds its way into Western corporate media, most likely it will be dismissed out of hand simply because it dovetails with Moscow’s version of what happened and thus is, ipso facto, “wrong.”

But the Russians (and the Syrians) know what did happen – and if there really was no sarin bombing – they recognize Trump’s reckless resort to Tomahawks and the subsequent attempts to cover up for the President. All this will have repercussions.

This is as tense a time in U.S-Russian relations as I can remember from my five decades of experience watching Russian defense and foreign policy. It is left to the Russians to figure out which is worse: a President controlled by “his generals” or one who is so out of control that “his generals” are the ones who must restrain him.

With Russia reiterating its threat to target any unannounced aircraft flying in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates, Russian President Putin could authorize his own generals to shoot first and ask questions later. Then, hold onto your hat.

As of this writing, there is no sign in “mainstream media” of any reporting on Hersh’s groundbreaking piece. It is a commentary on the conformist nature of today’s Western media that an alternative analysis challenging the conventional wisdom – even when produced by a prominent journalist like Sy Hersh – faces such trouble finding a place to publish.

The mainstream hatred of Assad and Putin has reached such extraordinary levels that pretty much anything can be said or written about them with few if any politicians or journalists daring to express doubts regardless of how shaky the evidence is.

Even the London Review of Books, which published Hersh’s earlier debunking of the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin-gas incident, wouldn’t go off onto the limb this time despite having paid for his investigation.

According to Hersh, the LRB did not want to be “vulnerable to criticism for seeming to take the view of the Syrian and Russia governments when it came to the April 4 bombing in Khan Sheikhoun.” So much for diversity of thought in today’s West.

Yet, what was interesting about the Khan Sheikhoun case is that was a test of whom the mainstream media detested more. The MSM has taken the position that pretty much whatever Trump says is untrue or at least deserving of intense fact-checking. But the MSM also believes whatever attacks on Assad that the Syrian “activists” post on social media are true and disbelieves whatever Putin says. So, this was a tug-of-war on which prejudices were stronger – and it turned out that the antipathy toward Syria and Russia is more powerful than the distrust of Trump.

Ignoring Critics

The MSM bought into Trump’s narrative to such a degree that any criticism, no matter how credentialed the critic, gets either ignored or ridiculed.

For instance, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity produced a memo on April 11 questioning Trump’s rush to judgment. Former MIT professor Ted Postol, a specialist in applying science to national security incidents, also poked major holes in the narrative of a government sarin attack. But the MSM silence was deafening.

In remarks to Die Welt, Seymour Hersh, who first became famous for exposing the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam War and disclosed the Abu Ghraib abuse story during the Iraq War, explained that he still gets upset at government lying and at the reluctance of the media to hold governments accountable:

“We have a President in America today who lies repeatedly … but he must learn that he cannot lie about intelligence relied upon before authorizing an act of war. There are those in the Trump administration who understand this, which is why I learned the information I did. If this story creates even a few moments of regret in the White House, it will have served a very high purpose.”

But it may be that the Germans reading Welt am Sonntag may be among the few who will get the benefit of Hersh’s contrarian view of the April 4 incident in Khan Sheikhoun. Perhaps they will begin to wonder why Chancellor Angela Merkel continues with her “me-too” approach to whatever Washington wants to do regarding tensions with Russia and warfare in Syria.

Will Merkel admit that she was likely deceived in parroting Washington’s line making the Syrian government responsible for a “massacre with chemical weapons” on April 4? Mercifully, most Americans will be spared having to choose between believing President Trump and Seymour Hersh. 

Ray McGovern works with the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  During his 27 years as a CIA analyst, he was Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch; he also prepared the President’s Daily Brief, and conducted the early morning briefings of President Reagan’s top national security advisers.

Featured image: credits to the owner

At a UN media briefing this week for the United Nations Correspondents Association in New York, nuclear experts and presenters at a UN conference to negotiate a new nuclear ban treaty discussed the current, acute state of nuclear weapons threats, the decline of the post-Cold War nuclear arms regime, and a new initiative led by non-nuclear weapons states to ban nuclear weapons. The briefing was organized by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and co-sponsored and moderated by Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Unlike existing arms control agreements, the treaty to ban nuclear weapons now under negotiation will be based on humanitarian law, not military law. A draft has been published, and the treaty is likely to be adopted at the current UN conference underway in New York, which ends July 7.

Nuclear weapons states are not participating in the negotiations, but the treaty could still affect them and address growing nuclear threats in important practical ways. Other nuclear treaties were led by nuclear weapons states, which invited non-weapons states to join. For the first time, the ban treaty process reverses that pattern, and presents a new opportunity to change global norms.

That opportunity comes none too soon. From North Korea to Crimea, nuclear tensions and risks are higher now than any time since the height of the Cold War. That contrasts sharply with the expectations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime and other post-Cold War nuclear arms agreements, which call for progressive deep cuts and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.

“We had huge reductions in nuclear weapons after the Cold War, but now the pace of reduction has slowed, as if we’ve already cleaned out the weapons we wanted to get rid of, and we now estimate our total global inventory of nuclear weapons to be just below 15,000, including many thousands of retired warheads awaiting dismantlement,” said Hans M. Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists and co-author of the World Nuclear Forces overview in the SIPRI Yearbook. “Nuclear weapons in the military arsenals now number about 9500, of which about 1800 are on alert and ready to fly on short notice.”

“All these numbers have declined compared to the Cold War, and the nuclear weapons states emphasize that when they want to show the progress they’re making,” said Kristensen. “Yet nuclear dangers are growing. There’s now a clear trend towards increasing the role of nuclear weapons in limited regional scenarios and improving the effectiveness of nuclear weapons by increasing the accuracy to use lower-yield weapons for targets that used to require higher yield. That tends to make them more credible in the eyes of warfighters and more usable in the eyes of others. We must now change that and reduce nuclear weapons’ role. The ban treaty is an expression of frustration about the lack of progress under the existing treaty regime in doing that.”

“Both US and Russia are modernizing their nuclear arsenals,” said Dr. Matthew McKinzie, Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Scientist and Director of NRDC’s nuclear program.

Press conference by the five Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nuclear weapon states at the UN Office, Geneva in 2013. (Source: United States Mission Geneva)

He and Hans Kristensen are co-authors of a study revealing recent upgrades in targeting capability of US nuclear weapons that have made them significantly more destructive.

“That reveals an expectation that instead of reducing and eliminating nuclear arsenals, we will have these weapons for generations to come. That’s not the future we want.”

“Hans and I count about 1800 nuclear weapons currently on high alert, capable of being launched within ten minutes,” said McKinzie. “Our survival now literally depends on proper day-to-day function of nuclear weapons command and control personnel, computers and systems. What happens if they ever falter? Beyond the power of these weapons, we need to understand the vulnerability they create, including for the states that possess them.”

Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, framed the current situation in historical context:

“Briefing President Truman in April 1945, Henry Stimson wrote, ‘if the problem of the proper use of this weapon can be solved, we would have the opportunity to bring the world into a pattern in which the peace of the world and our civilization can be saved.’ This illustrates how nuclear weapons were conceived as weapons of coercion, unilaterally forcing the rest of the world into a ‘pattern.’ The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was an instrument against unilateral, first-strike thinking, but it was renounced by the US in 2002. Much of today’s nuclear tensions originate from that. Today we have a much more complex context than a nuclear monopoly or duopoly.”

“The nuclear ban treaty takes the right view,” said Makhijani. “It is a statement that nuclear weapons are not in not in compliance with humanitarian norms and law; they are out of bounds. Safety cannot be, as Churchill once said of nuclear weapons, ‘the sturdy child of terror’ and survival cannot be ‘the twin brother of annihilation.’”

“The ban treaty is a sturdy seedling of hope, and we must all undertake its care,” said Mary Olson, Southeast Director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “It represents a tectonic shift from military to humanitarian law. The first treaty of this kind, based in humanitarian law, was the landmine ban treaty, which is the most successful treaty in the history of treaties. The land mine ban provides a template, it is in the jurisdiction of Humanitarian Law because of the impacts of land mines on noncombatants, on children and through time. Nuclear weapons also have a disproportionate impact on women, children and on future generations.”

“The second point of the draft nuclear ban treaty preamble refers to disproportionate impacts by gender,” said Olson. “US use of nuclear weapons in Japan left a data set that tells us adult males are ten times more resistant to the health effects of exposure than young females. Those exposed as children had more cancer over their lifetimes. Twice as many girls who were exposed got cancer as boys. In the case of adult exposures, for every two men who died of cancer, three women died. We don’t know why yet, but we know the consequences of exposure are worse than previously thought, and worse than what we’d expect if we only consider adult males.”

“Physicians and scientists have been at the forefront of the nuclear ban treaty negotiations,” noted Jeff Carter, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, who moderated the briefing. “The medical community grounds nuclear weapons policy in terms of the empirically known consequences of the use, testing, and development of these weapons on human lives. Informed consent guides the medical community. Patients must understand the consequences of treatment. Similarly, citizens deserve to know the catastrophic harms of nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons states’ boycott of the ban treaty negotiations illustrates a denial of medical science.”

“All of the evidence points to the consequences of nuclear weapons production, testing and use being worse than we originally thought,” said Dr. Tilman Ruff, MD, Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. “There has been willful denial of the severity, duration and indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons’ effects. The evidence was often not collected, and where it was collected it was often suppressed and ignored. But there is groundbreaking scientific analysis showing that using less than half a percent of today’s nuclear arsenals (less than a tenth of a percent of their total yield) on cities would cool, darken and dry the surface of the whole planet, decimating agriculture and putting billions in jeopardy from starvation. Britain, France, China, Israel, India and Pakistan have smaller arsenals, but even these pose a global threat.”

“It’s not enough to present this evidence. We have a responsibility to make sure the evidence is understood, its implications seen and acted upon. The ban treaty does this. Food security, health impacts, disproportionate impacts on women and girls are all included. It brings the interests of global humanity and democracy towards eliminating nuclear weapons. I have no doubt it will have a substantial impact, including on the nuclear weapons states, despite the fact they are not here negotiating it. In the General Assembly, the United States wrote to its allies warning them that if the ban treaty negotiations proceed, not to join them. They argued the ban treaty would delegitimize nuclear weapons and planning. That means the US recognizes that the treaty will work as intended.”

Featured image: In My Short Sleeve

Local sources disclosed on Sunday that several terrorists, who had been wounded in the battle with the Syrian government forces in Quneitra province, have been taken to an Israeli hospital.

The sources reported that a number of injured members of Al-Nusra Front (also known as Fatah al-Sham Front or the Levant Liberation Board) have been transferred to the Israeli hospitals via al-Hamidiyeh region in Quneitra countryside.

The army troops repelled Al-Nusra Front’s offensives in the Southwestern province of Quneitra, leaving tens of terrorists dead and many more wounded. Later, the Israeli aircraft attacked the Syrian government forces’ tanks and artillery positions South-West of the war-hit country.

This is not the first time that Al-Nusra terrorists have been transferred to Israeli hospital after sustaining injuries in clashes with the army soldiers.

In September and November 2016, tens of wounded fighters of Fatah al-Sham (formerly know as the Al-Nusra) Front were transferred from Quneitra battlefields to Israeli hospitals in the occupied Golan Heights, as several Israeli ambulances entered Syria’s Southern province of Quneitra and transferred those terrorists injured in clashes with Syrian Army troops to their hospitals in the occupied part of the Golan Heights.

Also, scores of fighters of Fatah al-Sham succumbed to their injuries in Israeli hospitals and their bodies were handed over to the Takfiri terrorists in Syria’s Quneitra.

Fatah al-Sham received these bodies and transferred them to its own field-hospital in the village of Jabata al-Khashab near Quneitra city.

In October, sources disclosed that Fatah al-Sham Front dispatched its wounded members to Israeli and Jordanian Hospitals via Syria’s Southern borders.

Featured image: AhlulBayt News Agency

Pushed by its Zionist ambitions, Israel has been taking part in the global war OF terrorism. On the one hand, backing Washington with the notorious Saudi royal family, Israel has contributed to “collateral damage” in the Syrian “civil war” since at least 2014. On the other, it has continued its egregious criminal moves to displace Palestinians. See our selection of articles below to know: .

Al-Qaeda attacked a Syrian Arab Army position in Madinat al-Baath (map) next to the Israel occupied Golan heights. Al-Qaeda requested Israeli fire-support by launching some mortars towards empty space in the Israel occupied area. The Israeli Defense Force accepted the request and destroyed two Syrian Arab Army tanks. Two Syrian soldiers were killed. The SAA held steady and the al-Qaeda attack on its position failed. (Moon of Alabama)

*     *     *

Syria: Israeli Airstrikes in Support of al Qaeda

By Chris Tomson, June 26, 2017

Israel is likely in direct military talks with jihadist commanders in Quneitra province whom have now established a joint operations room for the ongoing border offensive against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

Israel’s Fire Support for Its Al-Qaeda Mercenaries Started Three Years Ago

By Moon of Alabama, June 26, 2017

Israel wants to steal and occupy even larger parts of Syria than the parts of the Golan heights it illegally holds. It pays al-Qaeda and supports it by fire to achieve that. The main stream reporting on this is at least three years late. Why is it now starting to publish about this? Is there a new media advisory that Haaretz and the WSJ are now allowed (or required) to report on the issue? To what purpose?

The NYT Big Lie About US Combating ISIS

By Stephen Lendman, June 25, 2017

Terrorist groups can’t exist without foreign support. Their tanks, rockets and other heavy weapons don’t materialize out of thin air. They’re supplied by America, NATO, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Closing Bank Accounts: Israel’s New Policy to Displace Palestinians Out of Jerusalem

By Middle East Monitor, June 24, 2017

In a press release, the organisation said the Israeli occupation’s moves against social, cultural, educational, relief, housing, legal or engineering institutions were political and go hand in hand with the Israeli policy of collective punishment against the defenseless Palestinian civilians in order to Judaise the city by force.

18 Israeli Fighter Jets Landed in Saudi Arabia to Prevent Coup

By AhlulBayt News Agency, June 24, 2017

After the decision was announced, the Israeli air force sent 18 of its fighter jets, including F16I, F15CD and F16CD, along with two Gulfstream aircraft, two tanker airplanes and two C130 planes, special for electronic warfare, to Saudi Arabia at the demand of the new crown prince bin Salman to block his cousin (bin Nayef)’s possible measures.

*     *     *

Truth in media is a powerful instrument.

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

Consider Making a Donation to Global Research 

Featured image: credits to the owner

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.

America created and supports ISIS, al-Qaeda and other well-known terrorist groups – using their fighters to advance its imperium.

In December 1991, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was formed, Russia its leading member, along with eight other nations and two associate ones – all former Soviet republics.

According to CIS Anti-Terrorist Center (ATC) head General Andrey Novikov, ISIS is shifting its main focus from Syria and Iraq to Central Asia, including Afghanistan, saying:

The terrorist group “exports a new model of extremist and terrorist activity from (Syria and Iraq) battle zones to the Central Asian states.”

Earlier ISIS announced the creation of a new “province” centered in Afghanistan, including territories of other Central Asian states.

According to Novikov,

“(a)nalysis of military clashes (in Afghanistan shows local) militants adopting not only the strategy, but also tactical military concepts” used by ISIS.

Its fighters are trying to seize areas, intending expansion to surrounding territories.

They “set a goal of expanding (their) influence in the northern regions of Afghanistan and gaining access to the border regions of the Central Asian states as well as to the Chinese Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” Novikov explained.

They’re battling Taliban fighters in some areas for control, an apparent diabolical US plot to create greater conflict and turmoil in Central Asia than already, ISIS terrorists used as imperial foot soldiers.

According to Novikov, over 7,000 CIS citizens are wanted for terrorist-related activities, more than 2,000 now fighting as mercenaries.

Afghanistan is America’s longest war in modern times (1979-), a forever war supported by neocons infesting Washington.

It’s unrelated to 9/11, a phony pretext used to wage endless wars of aggression against multiple countries.

Trump escalated what his predecessors began, his pledged noninterventionism while campaigning renounced.

ISIS and other terrorist groups are instruments used by Washington to advance its imperium, raping and destroying one nation after another – all sovereign independent countries targeted for regime change, notably Russia and China.

Moscow is focused on preventing ISIS and other terrorist groups from invading its territory, a key reason why it intervened in Syria at Assad’s request – committed to defeating the scourge there rather than face it domestically.

Its growing Central Asian infestation puts its fighters dangerously close to its borders – a likely US plot to destabilize and create turmoil in Russia.

America’s rage for unchallenged global dominance risks unthinkable war between the world’s leading nuclear powers, threatening humanity’s survival.

Trump proved he’s as ruthless and reckless as his predecessors. His deep swamp infested with neocons, generals, and monied interests threatens life on planet earth.

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: Inside Syria Media Center

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (2:00 A.M.) – Israel is likely in direct military talks with jihadist commanders in Quneitra province whom have now established a joint operations room for the ongoing border offensive against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

Preempted by supportive Israeli airstrikes earlier in the day, Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions attacked SAA positions around Baath city and overran multiple points, leading to the capture of the Mashtal Al-Zohor area on Saturday afternoon.

In the evening however, the SAA regrouped in Baath city and mobilized all its military capabilities for a swift counter-offensive which saw government troops retake all lost points within a couple hours, thus driving the jihadist militants back to their initial positions.

Amid the skirmishes, at least 20 jihadist militants were left dead on the battlefield while 1 tank and 1 technical were destroyed, a military source told Al-Masdar News.

Throughout the waves of insurgent attacks and following SAA counter-offensive, rearguard Syrian artillery units pounded the hostile jihadist belligerents.

With the tables suddenly turned in favor of the Syrian Government, the SAA is currently encroaching upon long-standing rebel heartland on the border with Israel. In turn, this could prompt Tel Aviv to launch fresh airstrikes against the SAA.

On Saturday afternoon, the Israeli Air Force destroyed two SAA tanks at the Municipal building area on the outskirts of Baath city, rendering it an easy target for rebel forces whom seemed well-prepared for offensive operations ahead of the Israeli sorties, suggesting at least tacit cooperation between the two parties in the face of a common foe.

Statement regarding the newly established Quneitra operations room dubbed ‘Army of (Prophet) Muhammad’, led by HTS commanders that maintain close ties to Al-Qaeda:

All images in this article are from the author.

Al-Qaeda attacked a Syrian Arab Army position in Madinat al-Baath (map) next to the Israel occupied Golan heights. Al-Qaeda requested Israeli fire-support by launching some mortars towards empty space in the Israel occupied area. The Israeli Defense Force accepted the request and destroyed two Syrian Arab Army tanks. Two Syrian soldiers were killed. The SAA held steady and the al-Qaeda attack on its position failed.

This was very easy to predict. Israel has supported al-Qaeda in the area since at least 2014. The al-Qaeda fire-request-by-mortar scheme has been in place for at least three years. In October 2014 the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which back then still covered the area, reported to the UN Security Council:

On 23 June [2014], Israel targeted nine Syrian army positions with tank fire and air strikes after mortar fire from the Syrian side the previous day killed an Israeli civilian. Israel’s assessment is that most of these incidents are due to errant fire resulting from fighting in Syria. Israel said that armed opposition groups were probably responsible but that its forces fired on Syrian military positions to stress that Syria was responsible for security on its side of the ceasefire line.

The UN observers mentioned the “black flags” the “rebels” were using. The “rebels” in that area are al-Qaeda forces. This “fire support request by mortar” scheme has been repeated again and again. The Israeli argument is an insult to logic: “The Syrian army is responsible for keeping al-Qaeda out of the area so we respond to “errant” al-Qaeda fire by destroying the Syrian army.”

12:13 PM – 24 Jun 2017

12:16 PM – 24 Jun 2017

2:24 PM – 24 Jun 2017

But “western” and Israeli media did and do not report or analyzed the obvious scheme. This even as this theater act gets repeated over and over again. They lie and simply report the “errant fire” nonsense even when it is clear that this is coordinated military support for al-Qaeda. For years they have hidden Israeli support for al-Qaeda and its deep involvement in the Syrian war. Witness Haaretz which only today(!) headlines: Analysis – Israel’s Slow Creep Into the Syrian Civil War. That “slow creep”, which Haaretz describes and analyzes as a new phenomenon, started at least three years ago and was neither slow nor a creep. It is full fledged support for terrorism and has been such since its beginning.

The Wall Street Journal, also three years late, reported last week that Israel had set up a special IDF unit to advise, train, support and control al-Qaeda in the Golan area: Israel Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels

Israel even pays al-Qaeda’s salaries:

The person familiar with Israel’s assistance confirmed that cash moves across the border but said it goes for humanitarian purposes. However, rebels interviewed said they use the cash to pay fighters’ salaries and to buy weapons and ammunition—something the Israeli military wouldn’t comment on.

Israel wants to steal and occupy even larger parts of Syria than the parts of the Golan heights it illegally holds. It pays al-Qaeda and supports it by fire to achieve that. The main stream reporting on this is at least three years late. Why is it now starting to publish about this? Is there a new media advisory that Haaretz and the WSJ are now allowed (or required) to report on the issue? To what purpose?

Featured image: credits to the owner

“The disparity in income between the rich and the poor is merely the survival of the fittest. It is the working out of a law of nature and a law of God.” –John D. Rockefeller, 1894. 

During the first 70 years that followed this pronouncement by one of the 19^th-century’s leading “robber barons,” the worst excesses of unfettered free enterprise were curbed by government regulations, increases in the minimum wage, and the growth of the labour movement. Strong unions and progressive governments combined to have wealth distributed less inequitably. Social safety nets were provided to help those in need. 

Corporate owners, executives, and major shareholders resisted all these moderate reforms. Their operations had to be forcibly humanized. They always resented having even a small fraction of their profits diverted into wages, taxes, and social benefits; but until the mid-1970s and early ‘80s they couldn’t prevent it. Now they can.

Empowered by international trade agreements and the global mobility of capital, they can overcome virtually all political and labour constraints. They are free once more, as they were in the 1800s, to maximize profits and exploit workers, to control or coerce national governments, to re-establish the survival of the fittest as the socioeconomic norm.

This resurgence of corporate power is eroding a century of social progress. We are in danger of reverting to the kind of mass poverty and deprivation that marked the Victorian era. Indeed, this kind of corporate-decreed barbarism and inequality is already rampant in many developing countries, and even in some developed one. Including Canada.

Millions of people in this country have been forced to live in poverty by the outsourcing of good-paying industrial jobs under “free trade” and the erosion of social benefits. For them, a reversion to the bleak era of the 19^th-century robber barons is already well underway.

Middle-class Canadians, of course, still cling to good jobs and live in relative comfort, but many are not nearly as secure in their lifestyle as they seem to think. They don’t know how badly their forebears were mistreated in the workplaces of the 1800s, so the prospect of a reversion to Victorian times doesn’t worry them. It should.

A brief history lesson may therefore be in order.

Industrial serfdom 

Working hours in the mines and factories were from sunrise to sunset, about 72 hours a week. Wages, in 1910 currency, averaged less than $3 a day. Workers had to live in shacks or overcrowded tenements. They couldn’t afford carpets on the floor or even dishes for their meals.

Most workplaces were dirty, dimly lit, poorly heated. In many factories there were no guards on saw-blades, pulleys, or other dangerous machinery, because owners were not held responsible for industrial accidents. Workers took jobs at their own risk. If they were killed or injured at work, as many thousands were, they were blamed for their own “carelessness.” Uncounted thousands also died of tuberculosis, pneumonia, and other diseases caused by inadequate heat or sanitation.

Conditions in the mines were especially bad, with most miners dying from accidents or “black-lung” disease before they reached the age of 35. Hundreds of thousands of children, some as young as six, were forced to work 12 hours a day, often being whipped or beaten.

A Canadian Royal Commission on Child Labour in the late 1800s reported that “the employment of children is extensive and on the increase. Boys under 12 work all night in the glass-works in Montreal. In the coal mines of Nova Scotia, it is common for 10-year-old boys to work a 60-hour week down in the pits.

“These children work as many hours as adults, sometimes more. They have to be in the mill or mine by 6:30 a.m., necessitating their being up at 5 for their morning meal, some having to walk several miles to their work.”

This Royal Commission found that not only were children fined for tardiness and breakages, but also that in some factories they were beaten with birch rods. Many thousands of them lost fingers, hands, even entire limbs, when caught in unguarded gears or pulleys. Many hundreds were killed. Their average life expectancy was 33.

As late as 1910 in Canada, more than 300,000 children under 12 were still being subjected to brutal working conditions. It wasn’t until the 1920s, in fact, that child labour in this country was completely stamped out.

An enterprising union organizer managed to get into a cigar factory in 1908. He found young girls being whipped if they couldn’t keep up their production quota. Many girls wound up at week’s end owing the boss money because they had more pay docked for defective cigars than they earned.

A visitor to a twine-making factory in 1907 counted nine girls at one bench alone who had lost either a finger or a thumb.

A surgeon who lived in a mill town related in his memoirs that, over a 15-year period, he had amputated over 1,000 fingers of children whose hands had been mangled when forced to oil or clean unprotected mill machines while they were still running.

Child labour defended 

This callous mistreatment of working people was not only condoned, but even extolled – and not just by the business establishment. The daily newspapers of the time also defended the employers. So did the major religions. In 1888, when labour leader Daniel O’Donaghue proposed a resolution at a public meeting in Toronto calling for the abolition of child labour, all 41 clergymen who attended the meeting voted against it.

In Quebec, for many years, the Catholic Church forbade its members to join a union “under pain of grievous sin” – and many bishops and priests went so far as to deny union members a Christian burial when they died.

Blessed by the clergy, the press, and the politicians, employers considered it their God-given right to treat workers as virtual slaves. Said railroad tycoon George F. Baer,

“The interests of the labouring man will be cared for, not by the labour agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God has given control of the property rights of the country.”

In the United States, another robber baron, Frederick Townsend Martin, was even more candid. In an interview he gave to a visiting British journalist, he boasted:

“We are the rich. We own this country. And we intend to keep it by throwing all the tremendous weight of our support, our influence, our money, our purchased politicians, our public-speaking demagogues, into the fight against any legislation, any political party or platform or campaign that threatens our vested interests.”

Back to the future 

Today’s big business executives are not so outspoken, at least not in public, but privately they could make the same boast.  Their basic agenda is not that much different from that of their 19^th-century forerunners, whom they envy and seek to emulate. And what’s really scary is that they now have amassed almost as much of the political and economic power they need to recreate the “bad old days” of the industrial robber barons.

A modern descendant of John D. Rockefeller — his great-grandson, banker David Rockefeller — put it plainly in a speech he gave back in the 1990s:

“We who run the transnational corporations are now in the driver’s seat of the global economic engine. We are setting government policies instead of watching from the sidelines.”

A long-time proponent of a corporate New World Order, David Rockefeller has also declared that:

“The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual élite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practised in the past.” He also said: “All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

Whether 9/11 or the 2008 financial crash was the major crisis Roosevelt yearned for, they have both resulted in an upsurge of corporate power. Today’s CEOs are unquestionably calling the shots, having harnessed almost all governments to their regressive agenda. The only thing they aren’t sure about is how long it will take them to obliterate the last vestiges of the hated “welfare state” and establish the neo-Victorian New World Order David Rockefeller predicted would be the ultimate corporate triumph.

Already, in many developing nations, they have brought back child labour. Conditions in most factories operated by or for the transnational corporations in Asia and parts of Latin America are not much better today than they were in North America and Europe in the 1800s. Thousands of boys and girls are being compelled to work 12 hours a day in dirty, unsafe workshops, for 40 or 50 cents an hour.

One 15-year-old girl who started working in a maquila sweatshop in Honduras when she was 13, testifying before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on child labour 20 years ago, told how she and 600 other teenaged girls were compelled to sew cotton sweaters from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. They were beaten by their bosses if they make a mistake, forbidden to speak to co-workers, allowed only half an hour a day for lunch, and just two visits a day to the bathroom. She was paid 38 cents an hour to make sweaters that were sold in the U.S. for $90.

This flinthearted exploitation of child labour may never be repeated in Canada, mainly because there are so many children in poorer nations who can more easily be exploited. But don’t rule out the possibility that much of our adult work force will be driven back into a modern-day version of serfdom. With our labour laws impaired and laxly enforced, with workers’ unions and bargaining rights weakened, with well-paid manufacturing jobs being replaced by low-paid part-time or temporary work, the regression of our labour force into 19^th-century-style servitude is far from a dystopian fantasy.

Canadians should take a good hard look back at the age of absolute corporate power that doomed millions to dire poverty and serfdom in the late 1800s. If they did, they might be more concerned about having to relive that blighted and benighted past – and become active in the struggle to avert it.

Featured image: credits to the owner

“…one shouldn’t put one’s trust in speeches like that from the gentlemen, for on such occasions the gentlemen liked to say agreeable things, but they had little or no significance and, once uttered, they were forgotten for all time, but admittedly, on the very next occasion one got caught again in their trap.” (Franz Kafka)

With these words Kafka described the modern condition, each one of us trapped in the sticky web of technology and deceit designed to manipulate us to act and think against our selves, to accept the role of monkeys offered bananas in a cage, surrendering the struggling to escape it.

The most dangerous element of that technology is the constant and increasing flood of images of war, of “terror,” of cities destroyed, cultures erased, entire progressive socio-economic systems torn apart, or threatened with destruction, not by the “terrorists” but by the states that declared their “war on terror,” by the states that in reality created the terror in all its forms; the worst being the constant threat of instant and universal annihilation in a nuclear war.

That threat, the threat of nuclear war is more dangerous with every passing day as we see the NATO build-up along Russia’s western borders echoing the Nazi build-up before their invasion in 1941, the rolling invasion of Syria by American and allied forces, the hysterical rhetoric and military movements against North Korea, and the increasing contempt for Chinese sovereignty. Any of these threats from the United States could lead to nuclear war but the threat that concerns all of us is the one against Russia because a nuclear war with Russia is, as President Putin pointed out recently, not survivable. Yet, it is the threat against Russia that is building, building, building; increased military pressure on all fronts, increased economic warfare, called “sanctions,” increased hybrid warfare ranging from hacking of Russian computer systems, to direct attacks on Russian forces in Syria, from expulsion of diplomats to verbal abuse against and assassination of ambassadors. But the extent of the danger is to be seen not outside the United States but in the internal political turmoil that is taking place inside the United States.

Their propaganda against Russia as the “enemy” trying to destroy America through various forms of subversion is daily fare in all the mass media. The alleged subversion is stated as fact. The fact that the allegations are patently absurd means nothing when those who mould opinion refuse to say so and openly lie to the people with every word they utter. But the level of the threat against Russia is signalled by the willingness among the war faction to sacrifice anyone, no matter who they are or what position, in order to advance this propaganda. We now watch as the US Congress holds hearings in which senior government officials are called to defend themselves against charges of having had Russian connections. The President of the country is himself subject to a barrage of accusations of treason.

This scandal is not just about the bickering between the losing party in the US elections and the winning party with the losers willing to risk the security of the people of the country in a bid to take power denied them at the ballot box. There is an element of that. The war faction does want to have its finger directly on the button. Elections and democracy mean nothing to them so long as they take the power. But they could have used any scandal to try to do that. They have concocted the “Russian threat to democracy” because they want war with Russia and to convince the people of the United States and the world that this war is necessary and just, are willing to destroy even their own leaders, and their country’s democratic system, as weak and non-representative of the needs of the people as it is, in order to achieve their purpose.

The longer this spectacle in the United States goes on the worse it is going to get. But those under attack do not seem to understand what is happening to them, that they are being used to advance this propaganda, that they are being set up as scapegoats and in fact they even play along with the game, with Jeff Sessions, the US Attorney-General, today, the 13 of June, telling the US Senate Intelligence investigative committee that the accusation he “colluded” with Russia was “an appalling and detestable lie” but playing his role in this propaganda show by adding,

“that he was concerned the President did not realise the severity of the threat from Russia interference that can never be tolerated.”

The former FBI Director James Comey, a man with deep state connections, testified to the same committee that he was fired because of his investigation into the Russian allegations even though he provided no proof there was anything to investigate. Again, the facts don’t matter. The only thing that matters is the impression left, that Russia has and is attempting to subvert the United States and has succeeded in infiltrating its agents into the presidency and senior government and military levels.

To further advance this propaganda theme purges are necessary to add to the drama and we have seen Comey leave, General Flynn resign and others forced out of office or threatened with it. But the main objective of these hearings and the mass media coverage of them is to generate peoples hostility towards Russia, and this seems to be succeeding, as polls indicate. The next level of the propaganda war will be to create such an intense situation in the United States that the calls for war by the people will be the natural reaction of their outrage and, in any case, this is what the war faction and media will tell us, that the people demand action.

President Putin can meet with celebrities like Oliver Stone to correct the facts and state the truth. He can successfully dance circles around bubble headed American journalists in interviews, but he cannot control the mass media in the west that rarely allows Russian points of view to be heard. Still the attempt must be made.

The United States is in a crisis. The games being played there are dangerous for its people. The logic of the demands made by those making the allegations means that President Trump must resign or be charged with treason. If he refuses to go there will be attempts to force him. If he is forced out, the people that voted for him and support him will feel rightly cheated and they will react. And who is to replace him? It can only be one of the war faction or a puppet and if that cannot issue be resolved peacefully then the military could step in to “manage” things in a time of “threat” and “urgency.” There have been coup d’états before in the United States. We are witnessing another now.

The United States is in a crisis generated by people who have no idea how to control all the possible consequences of the events they have begun and because of this they are very dangerous to themselves and to the world. While the Russians prepare for the worst and hope for the best we in the west must do what we can to challenge the war propaganda, the propaganda of hostility and hatred that is inflicted on us by the criminals in control of the western governments and western media. Each of us is just one voice, but our voices united become a shout and with our shout we can level the walls of hostility that keep us from the peaceful coexistence that the peoples of world need to continue the struggle for economic and social justice, for real democracy, for progress, against the forces of reaction and fascism that always threaten us. Let’s not get “caught again in their trap.”

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds”. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Featured image: New Eastern Outlook

This will not take long. I am able to give this guarantee because I am writing about the British Government’s “Plans”. This is a subject matter that is almost bereft of content: in all essential substantive particulars, Conservative Planning is a nullity.

On Monday, 20th March, on a visit to Wales Theresa May informed an expectant British public that “We have a Plan for Britain”. Since then keyboards have melted and forests have died in the search for the specific, real terms of this “Plan”. Nobody has found it, or uncovered any content at all. Nothing has “leaked” into the public domain either; typically a sign that there is nothing there to leak (for all Government is deliberately constructed as a sieve).

We have already been given a ‘dry-run’ of Conservative planning capacities, from the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote; when the Brutus and Cassius of Conservative Leave, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, faced with the prospect of leading the Referendum victors, and presenting Britain with the substance of their vision, their “Plan”: immediately and abjectly fled the field. The Conservative Party, subject to its own long history of bad judgements about people; immediately appointed Theresa May Prime Minister, in order to put the Conservative Party firmly ahead of the National Interest, and lead us into this risible Coalition of Chaos. Since Theresa May’s disastrous appointment to an office she does not have the capacities to fill, what passes for the actual management of Brexit in the Conservative Government effectively handed the problematic functional process to David Davies and – far more importantly – the Whitehall Civil Service.

There rests an even more intractable problem for Britain than the crude, maladroit nature of Conservatism. The Civil Service does not possess the resources, the capacities, the knowledge or the experience to negotiate the Brexit process; of course nobody can admit this, but there it is. The Civil Service does not possess these resources now; nor does the Civil Service have the capacity, or the time, to repair the abyss between where they are now, and where they need to be. Currently the Civil Service are hiring people by the hundred to close an impossible gap; but not from a pool of applicants that already have the professional expertise or the accumulated detailed experience required to cope with the scale of the operation. This kind of international knowledge, the deep, longstanding culture and skilled resources required to consider undertaking such a process and expect viable outcomes, can only be found in very few, very large civil international operations. On the scale required for Brexit, and across so many complex areas, these skills are typically to be found only in the US or EU. The EU has been negotiating on Britain’s behalf in international trade for forty years. The EU therefore possesses not just all the EU’s knowledge, but effectively, ours. In this specific world they know more about us than we do. The EU, and the EU alone already has all the necessary expertise and resources because that is what it is designed to do; for us. It follows that it possesses the culture and the knowledge we need: and we do not.

Deep down the meaning of “no deal is better than a bad deal” reflects more critically than ‘choice’ or (laughably) Britain’s ‘freedom’, the fact that Britain has entered a world in which it is “over its head” and far out of its depth. “No deal”, cruelly but realistically, represents an important indication not of our negotiating ‘stance’, but of our real capacity to do any deal in the time, and on the scale required.

“Deep down the meaning of “no deal is better than a bad deal” reflects more critically than ‘choice’ or (laughably) Britain’s ‘freedom’, the fact that Britain has entered a world in which it is “over its head” and far out of its depth. “No deal”, cruelly but realistically, represents an important indication not of our negotiating ‘stance’, but of our real capacity to do any deal in the time, and on the scale required.”

More important than “no deal is better than a bad deal”, as a measure of Britain’s idea of a “Plan” is Theresa May’s other great contribution to the lexicon of the utterly meaningless: “Make no mistake, the central challenge we face is negotiating the best deal for Britain in Europe.” (19th May). The words “the best deal for Britain” have been repeated more often by Conservative politicians than any other statement on Brexit. The Conservatives have already turned it into a form of devout conviction. Let the buyer beware. What does it mean? Nobody knows. Nobody knows because nobody knows what is in the “Plan”. The Conservative solution to the ensuing problem; how do you persuade a gradually more anxious and suspicious electorate that they do not need to know the “Plan” to believe in the “best deal”; but can trust in the Conservatives to deliver it? Tell them that the Plan is a secret because we cannot give away our ‘negotiating hand’ to the “other side”: the EU. This is what we are asked to believe. It misrepresents the nature of these negotiations and the priorities of the EU, but that line of argument – after all – was always a ‘red herring’.

The Conservative insistence in telling the British people nothing about the British negotiating position is not based on wise negotiating strategy, but is rather a simple function of the chaos at the heart of Conservatism. The Conservatives do not understand enough about the complexities and consequences of adopting any final position on anything specific at all in the negotiations for reasons of simple ignorance of the facts, because in twelve months they have still learned virtually nothing. The Conservatives are terrified of discovering, soon after negotiating any specific issue, that they may have alighted on a ‘hostage to fortune’ (their whole 2017 election strategy is a recent example of this outcome). The “best deal for Britain” is not a secret because of what the EU would then know, but has a much simpler purpose. The “best deal” is a secret because the British Government requires to keep it a secret from the British people, not the EU; revealing the (largely illusory) “Plan” to the British people is not an option for a Conservative Government and Party intent on remaining in power, no matter what.

Neither Theresa May nor the Conservative Party can afford to negotiate any deal at all in the EU, and return to the British people with a negotiated settlement of any kind that is not the “best deal”. Which means a deal that nobody in Britain could then unpick, undermine or politically exploit (from any or all sides). How do you achieve this? By defining whatever deal the Conservative Government negotiates as the “best deal”; and then using the Party, the resources of its donors, and its obedient media and press to sell the deal negotiated as the “best deal”, in a total propaganda tsunami. This can only be done if the Government refuses to tell the public anything at all about its “Plan” beforehand, or the content of the best deal. The Conservatives have no idea what the “best deal” will look like; because the ‘best deal’ has to be whatever they say it is, and whatever they have chosen, or are able to negotiate. Think about it.

Featured image: Bella Caledonia

Image Free Syrian Army (FSA), source Freedom House

This conversation was provided to Seymour Hersh. It is between a security adviser and an active US American soldier on duty on a key operational base about the events in Khan Sheikhoun. We have made abbreviations: American soldier (AS) and Security Advisor (SA). WELT AM SONNTAG [Welt on Sunday] is aware of the location of the deployment. For security reasons, certain details of military operations have been omitted.

[Die Welt is one of Germany’s foremost daily news media in print and online]. 

April 26, 2017

American Soldier: We got a fuckin‘ problem

Security-Adviser: What happened? Is it the Trump ignoring the Intel and going to try to hit the Syrians? And that we’re pissing on the Russians?

AS: This is bad…Things are spooling up.

SA: You may not have seen Trump’s press conference yesterday. He’s bought into the media story without asking to see the Intel. We are likely to get our asses kicked by the Russians. Fucking dangerous. Where are the goddamn adults? The failure of the chain of command to tell the President the truth, whether he wants to hear it or not, will go down in history as one of our worst moments.

AS: I don’t know. None of this makes any sense. We KNOW that there was no chemical attack. The Syrians struck a weapons cache (a legitimate military target) and there was collateral damage. That’s it. They did not conduct any sort of a chemical attack.

AS: And now we’re shoving a shit load of TLAMs (tomahawks) up their ass.

SA: There has been a hidden agenda all along. This is about trying to ultimately go after Iran. What the people around Trump do not understand is that the Russians are not a paper tiger and that they have more robust military capability than we do.

AS: I don’t know what the Russians are going to do. They might hang back and let the Syrians defend their own borders, or they might provide some sort of tepid support, or they might blow us the fuck out of the airspace and back into Iraq. I honestly don’t know what to expect right now. I feel like anything is possible.  The russian air defense system is capable of taking out our TLAMs.  this is a big fucking deal…we are still all systems go…

SA: You are so right. Russia is not going to take this lying down

SA: Who is pushing this? Is it coming from Votel (General Joseph L. Votel, Commander of United States Central Command, editor‘s note)?

AS: I don’t know. It’s from someone big though. . . . This is a big fucking deal.

AS: It has to be POTUS.

AS: They [the russians] are weighing their options.  Indications are they are going to be passive supporters of syria and not engage their systems unless their own assets are threatened..in other words, the sky is fucking blue.’

April 7, 2017

SA: What are the Russians doing or saying  Am I correct that we did little real damage to Russia or Syria?

AS: We didn’t hit a damn thing, thankfully. They retrograded all their aircraft and personnel. We basically gave them a very expensive fireworks display.

AS: They knew where ships were and watched the entire strike from launch to end game.

AS: The Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real Intel and know the truth about the weapons depot strike.

AS: They are correct.

AS: I guess it really didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump. Fuck.

AS: No one is talking about the entire reason we’re in Iraq and Syria in the first place. That mission is fucked now.

SA: Are any of your colleagues pissed or is everyone going along with it and saying this is OK

AS: It’s a mad house. . . .Hell we even told the Russians an hour before impact

SA: But they clearly knew it was coming

AS: Oh of course

AS: Now Fox is saying we chose to hit the Syrian airfield because it is where the chemical attacks were launched from. Wow. Can’t make this shit up.

SA: They are. I mean, making it up

AS: It’s so fuckin evil

SA: Amen!!!

April 8, 2017

AS: Russians are being extremely reasonable. Despite what the news is reporting they are still trying to deconflict and coordinate the air campaign.

SA: I don’t think the russia yet understands how crazy Trump is over this. And i don’t think we appreciate how much damage the Russians can do to us.

AS: They’re showing amazing restraint and been unbelievably calm. They seem mostly interested in de-escalating everything. They don’t want to lose our support in the help with destroying Isis.

SA: But I get the get the feeling are simply trying this approach for as long as they feel it might work. If we keep pushing this current aggressive stance they’re going to hit back.

Featured image: credits to the owner

Saudi Prince Khalid Bin Farhan al-Saud, who lives in Germany, has revealed what he claims are the US conditions for helping Mohamed Bin Salman to become King of Saudi Arabia before his father’s death, thenewkhalij.org reported on Friday.

Writing on Twitter, Khalid said that he had received the information from an informed source within Saudi Arabia’s ruling family.

The alleged conditions include

“absolute obedience to the US and Israel and carrying out whatever they ask him to do.”

Three other conditions, claimed Khalid, are stated in return for helping Bin Salman take the throne before the death of his father:

“Working to settle all Gaza residents in north Sinai as an alternative homeland and Saudi Arabia along with the UAE will afford the needed funds; getting rid of Hamas and whoever supports it; and getting Sanafir Island from Egypt.”

Bin Farhan said that the last condition would make the Gulf of Aqaba international waters instead of Egyptian territorial waters, which would facilitate Israeli shipping to and from the port of Eilat. It would also help Israel to carry out a project planned to operate in parallel to the Suez Canal. A retainer of around $500 million is also involved, he claimed.

The prince said that this issue split the ruling family even before the death of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz in 2015, as a wave of royal decrees ousted several officials from within the royal family and others.

Featured image: Jim Mattis / Flickr

In July 1974 the US-controlled Athens military junta organized a coup d’état in Cyprus and an assassination attempt against the President of Cyprus Archbishop Makarios. Everything was executed in exactly the same way as it had been a year before in Santiago Chile. (Cyprus is an island of great strategic importance, now a member of EU and Eurozone. 82% of his population are Greek by nationality and 18% Turkish Cypriots. The country obtained its independence from Britain in 1960, after one of the most successful national-liberation struggles after the 2nd World War)

Unlike Salvador Allende, Makarios escaped death and with him his state survived also, albeit mutilated by the Turkish invasion that followed suit. Kissinger had to admit that Cyprus had been the greatest failure of his career.

Why did he do all this? Because Kissinger was the early neocon prototype, albeit much more capable than what his epigones proved to be. In spite of using his intellectual skills to build his image, he could never be something like Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher king, nor even like the shrewd Rabin, who knew when the time had come to transform into a permanent peace, from a hegemonic position, what he had won in the war.

Kissinger wants to play God (even though he should know that sometimes hubris is followed by nemesis. But this is not the kind of argument to stop such a man).

He has enormous capacities, great charisma and a global strategic vision, even if not everybody would agree with it. He was by far the most astute of the great cold (and also hot) warriors. By achieving an otherwise impossible alliance with the leader of the Chinese Communist Revolution, by what he did in Europe, the Middle East, Japan and even Latin America, he was able to encircle Russia and lay the strategic foundations for the demise of the USSR. His influence upon US foreign policy and strategy has lasted much longer than the time of his service as Secretary of State and National Security advisor.

The Master of Deception

His unparalleled achievements were due to the combination of two weapons he knows how to use very well.

One, he never hesitates. Every time he thinks it necessary to use every possible method, he has no moral, or any other, scruples. The end justifies the means, as the Jesuits used to say (or probably their opponents claimed they said).

The second and even more fearful weapon is his capacity to understand, better than they themselves do, what all the various players in a given game are thinking: their mentality, their needs. He is thus able to send all of them, including his rivals, the signals that are right for his purposes, signals formulated in the language the most likely to persuade them and make them move in the direction he wants them to go. Even if they continue to harbour some doubts, he is the master of the game because he knows what he wants and he does not hesitate for a moment. That was the secret of his triumphs.

I think even now Kissinger is one of the very few people who can maintain very good relations with both camps in what seems very much like a civil war at the very top of the Empire, probably between globalizers and practitioners of chaos, something like the war between the emperors Antonius and Octavius in ancient Rome.

Cyprus: a masterpiece of deceptive diplomacy

In 1974 Kissinger was able to prepare his Cyprus coup first by deceiving everybody about his real intentions, including the Greek dictator Ioannides, Archbishop Makarios and Soviet FM Gromyko (when he met both of them in Nicosia weeks before the coup), the British government and even his own President Richard Nixon, probably exploiting his serious troubles with Watergate.

It was a masterpiece of deceptive diplomacy, even if this is something he cannot openly claim.

In March 1974 Major-General Ioannides the Greek dictator invited to his office the ship owner Aristotelis Onassis. He told him, according to one of the very close associates of Onassis,

“Aristotelis, everything is fine with foreign policy. The Americans told me to get rid of the priest (Archbishop Makarios, President of Cyprus) and they will give us the island” (Cyprus to be united with Greece).

Ioannides was a little bit mad and the only thing Onassis could think of saying to him was “And why they don’t do it themselves?”. Such a question was not enough to make Ioannides think, let alone deter him from what he was already planning.

When Ioannides realized after the coup that he had been deceived and that it was Turkey not Greece that was to be “united” with Cyprus, he ordered the Greek Armed Forces to defend the island by all means and attack Turkey on all fronts. Nobody did anything. The USA were controlling all the Greek military hierarchy. The Turkish troops invaded the island essentially without resistance, proceeding to ethnic cleansing of the Greek population from the zone they controlled. Cyprus lost 3% of its population during this operation, which is more than the Iraqi losses during the invasion of 2003.

Ioannides, a veteran of anticommunist struggles in Greece, died in prison, always refusing to explain what had happened. He said only

“I don’t speak because if I speak all Greeks will become Communists”.

Some time after the events the Greek Parliament itself adopted a special provision to stop any investigations about Cyprus, invoking the need not to disturb the foreign relations of Greece.

Kissinger meeting Makarios and Gromyko

Just before the coup Kissinger himself visited Cyprus and there met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and Archbishop Makarios. We don’t know much about what was said during their conversations except that Kissinger told the Archbishop as he was leaving the island:

“Monseigneur, you are too great a leader for such a tiny place.”

It was a flattering remark for this son of peasants to hear such words from one of the most powerful men on Earth.

If we don’t know what was said in those talks we do know what happened afterwards. Makarios began to act with increasing assertiveness in his relations with the junta, ignoring desperate messages from some people in Athens, that they were planning to kill him. He even wrote the junta a letter asking them to recall their officers from Cyprus. This served as the final pretext for the coup against him.

As for the USSR, it reacted only a posteriori to the chain of events and only by the usual diplomatic means. It was the opposite attitude to the one Nikita Khrushchev had adopted in 1964. Then, warned by Makarios’s envoy Vassos Lyssarides, the Cypriot socialist leader, who had met him personally at his southern resort, he had send a strong message to US President Lyndon Johnson explaining that a Turkish plan to invade the island would be unacceptable for the Soviet Union. Johnson sent a letter (published since) to the Turkish leader Inonu, telling him to cancel the invasion plans.

But all plans may have some problematic points. Not only did Makarios survive but the Socialists and other democrats resisted the coup on the ground. Kissinger’s chosen man in Cyprus, Clerides, who had in the meantime become the acting President, and Kissinger’s friends in Athens, could not do much finally but accept the return of the Archbishop to his island after some months abroad. He had saved his state, but nearly half of the island was already occupied and hundreds of thousands of refugees were living in tents. His heart broken, he died three years later.

Turkey enters the game

The Turkish forces invaded the island in July 1974 to “protect the Republic of Cyprus and Turkish Cypriots”. The constitutional order of the Republic had been restored on the island, nobody there was in any real danger, the Athens junta had collapsed. But one month later, while negotiations were being held in Geneva, the Turkish Army began its second phase of the invasion, occupying nearly half of the island, where it still stands. According to relevant UN documents the Northern occupied zone of Cyprus remains the most militarized region on Earth. The day before the second military operation Kissinger and the Turkish PM Ecevit had had 14 telephone conversations.

In November 1974 Kissinger met Denktash and explained to him what kind of solution he should demand for Cyprus. Later, US undersecretary of State Clifford explained to Makarios what kind of solution was fit for the island.

On the basis of a solution of this type, decades later, the “Annan Plan for the solution of the Cyprus conflict” was developed and presented to the Cypriot people in a 2004 referendum. Cypriots rejected the proposal.

From Kissinger to Nuland – from modernity to postmodernism (with Turkey invited to join EU)

Now Mrs Nuland wants exactly the same solution before she leaves the State Department. She wants to impose it on Cyprus through a new coup d’état, of a very different, less dramatic and more dangerous type. The coup d’état is to take place in Geneva, on 12th January.

She knows that she cannot win a referendum under the given circumstances. She will therefore try to take everything she can from the powers of the existing Cypriot state, on a legal and political level and at the level of international law, before holding probably two and not one referenda, which is logical as there will be not one but two states in Cyprus after January 12. She will hold the promised referendum she cannot win under the circumstances only when she has changed those circumstances. And she will hold two, not one.

All of this is illegal, but if Anastasiades and Tsipras or Kotzias sign the agreements under pressure from her, there will be not be many people around even to protest, as they did during the Iraq war. They will not survive such an act, politically, but I am not sure how they interpret the situation. The more so as most of the international players in fact prefer such a “solution”, and many of them, unbelievable as it may seem, just do not know the real details and provisions of the Annan plan. They know only that they have to support it! If all this planning does not falter somewhere in the next few days, it will soon be announced on the screens of CNN and world TV: Breaking News: Peace in Cyprus. The two sides announce the creation of a new partnership. Historic foes Greece and Turkey sign a Pact of Alliance.

At some point in the future Cyprus will be transformed into a Bosnia. But who will then remember what was on the CNN screen that day? Do you hear anything now about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? They will just say: “Oh, those Greeks and Turks, they are at it again. They never know how to behave. They are genetically or culturally disposed to violence.

The Cyprus settlement risks becoming, simultaneously, the last victory of the old “globalization” and a prelude to the new Order of Chaos!

One small detail: the Annan-Anastasiades-Nuland plan also provides for Turkey to become something like a full member of the EU, a decades-old project of US policy, which now seems all but unachievable through normal means.

One more reason for Mr. Obama and Mr. Erdogan to eye the cheese and ignore the trap. The only thing I don’t know is what Netanyahu thinks of all this.

Kissinger: The reasons I did it

Speaking to a closed seminar under Chatham House rules, Mr. Kissinger justified his policy by saying that whoever rules Cyprus, Crete and Malta “rules the world”. Given that he had already lost Malta, he could not afford also to lose Cyprus, ruled by this “red priest”, the “Mediterranean Castro”.

This is misrepresentation. Makarios was a very anticommunist, pro-American, conservative, right-wing politician. The only reason that he was flirting with the Soviet Union and that he became a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, was the threat of extinction of his state, which was always London’s and Washington’s policy aim for Cyprus. .

As the Colonial Secretary of the United Kingdom said of the Commonwealth Harry Hopkins said, answering a question about Cyprus from Labour’s ex-colonial secretary Griffiths in the House of Commons,

“It has always been understood and agreed that there are certain territories in the Commonwealth which, owing to the particular circumstances, can never expect to be fully independent”. (28.7.1954)

Cyprus is an island like Britain and (strategically speaking) the USA. From there you can attack anybody in the Eastern Mediterranean, but nobody can easily attack you. When the British PM Disraeli acquired the island from the Ottoman Empire he said “we have got the link we were missing”. Imperial planners not only always thought it would be too risky to let the inhabitants of the island rule themselves (this used to be, and still is, the “Cyprus problem”). They often used the most destabilizing methods to attain their goal of taking the island from them.

Kissinger can say whatever he wants. He all but destroyed the South East wing of NATO. Monteagle Sterns, US Ambassador to Athens, said the only reason the Soviet Union was not able to make huge strategic gains out of the mess produced by Kissinger was its own unwillingness or incompetence.

Negotiations continue between Theresa May’s crisis-ridden Conservative government and Northern Ireland’s far right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) on terms for a formal coalition or a “confidence and supply” deal to pass key items of legislation.

By the time of the May government’s Queen’s Speech, agreement remained only, in the words of the prime minister’s newly appointed deputy, Damian Green, “a possibility”—with the Tories resisting DUP demands for billions for Northern Ireland infrastructure and health spending, as well as increased arms spending.

May seeking a governing relationship with the DUP’s 10 MPs is the only way she can form a majority government, but it is reckless in the extreme.

Former Conservative Prime Minister John Major said Northern Ireland’s peace process

“should not be regarded as a given. It’s not certain, it’s under stress, it’s fragile.”

Major warned, referring to paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, “hard men are still there, lurking in the corners of communities deciding whether they wish to return to some sort of violence.”

Writing in the Financial Times, Labour’s Jonathan Powell, one of the leading negotiators of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which brought three decades of “the Troubles” to a close, explained that, in his view, “since 1990, the British government has been neutral in Northern Ireland, backing neither the unionists or the nationalists.” If May depends on the DUP to form a British government, then that government cannot be neutral on the current negotiations to revive the Northern Ireland Assembly, suspended since early this year, he said. “Failure will catapult Northern Ireland into a serious crisis and back onto our front pages, where is has been happily absent for 20 years.”

Aside from such official concern, a petition describing May’s collusion with the DUP as a “disgusting, desperate attempt to stay in power” and pointing to the DUP’s long association with loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland attracted over 750,000 signatures before being presented to 10 Downing Street.

The DUP is indelibly associated with its founder and arch demagogue, the Reverend Ian Paisley.

In October 1966, the Newsletter, newspaper of the Socialist Labour League, the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, described Paisley as an “extreme Protestant fanatic who is building the nearest thing to a mass fascist movement in Western Europe.”

The Newsletter explained that Northern Ireland was in deep crisis, with the economic basis of the Northern Irish six-county state established through the partition of Ireland in 1921-22 coming under intense pressure. Partition was imposed by the wealthy Protestant Ulster based capitalists to defend their industrial interests from the revolutionary threat posed by the working class by carving off the industrial North and imposing sectarian divisions by pogrom and systematic religious discrimination against the Catholic minority.

By the 1960s the large concentrations of industry around Belfast and Derry, resting on a highly organised but religiously polarised working class, were increasingly vulnerable to international competition. This expressed in a particularly acute form the bankrupt and outmoded character of much of British industry.

The Northern Ireland premier, Terence O’Neill of the Ulster Unionist Party, sought to overcome the isolated character of industry by exploring links with the Catholic-dominated Republic of Ireland in the south, which was beginning to attract significant international investment. Paisley, speaking through his Protestant Telegraph, denounced O’Neill as a tool of the Vatican and mobilised support both among sections of the Protestant, particularly rural and middle-class layers of Protestant workers.

The Newsletter explained that the future of Paisley’s movement

“depends both on the depth of the struggles aroused by the crisis, its capacity to enrage and provoke these social classes to violent solutions as they are squeezed between the monopolies and the mass of the workers, and on the decisions by more powerful sections of capital and the establishment to finance and encourage such a ‘plebian’ solution to the threat from the working class.”

The article continued,

“The immediate problem is heightened by the great militancy of the Dublin working class in the last two years. A series of violent unofficial strikes has been met with new legislation from the government of Lemass [Sean Lemass, Fianna Fail Taoiseach] and has raised again the spectre of a fighting unity of the workers of all Ireland.”

Paisley, the Newsletter explained, found some measure of mass response because he put forward the most extreme version of the established system of prejudice and discrimination.

“By insisting on the religious ‘truths’ of Protestantism, as interpreted exclusively (among the living that is) by Paisley himself, Paisley builds up an ideological barrage against the socialist movement which is the only salvation of the working class in every country.”

In 1969, the British Labour government sent in thousands of troops to guard capitalism in Northern Ireland. The SLL stated,

“Every working class organisation throughout the length and breadth of Britain must act now, to force the immediate withdrawal of all troops and all support for O’Neill’s government.”

The SLL statement went on,

“The real threat to the Unionist government is, of course, not the sporadic bomb attacks, which they want to use as a pretext for armed intervention, but the mighty upsurge of the workers’ movement. Their nightmare is that this will unite with the mounting militancy of the workers of Eire, and the struggle of trade unionists in Britain against the Labour government.”

The central purpose of the subsequent British deployment of tens of thousands of troops and the monstrous security/intelligence/spy apparatus was to head off this threat. This applies equally to the loyalist organisations and parties, who saw, and see, closer relations with Dublin as a threat to the middle class interests they represent.

The DUP was founded in 1971 as an extension of Paisley’s Ulster Protestant Volunteers and the Free Presbyterian church. In 1973, the DUP was part of the Ulster Unionist Coalition (UUUC) set up to oppose the terms of the Sunningdale power sharing agreement between the British government, the leading unionist and nationalist parties in Northern Ireland and the Irish government.

Throughout the decades of the “Troubles”, the party grew as the most consistent mouthpiece for loyalism.

The DUP was the only one of Northern Ireland’s major parties which opposed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The agreement largely ended armed conflict in the North by laying the basis for Sinn Fein to join the Stormont Assembly, under complex sectarian power-sharing arrangements intended to create economic and political stability while still ensuring the continued religious division of the working class.

Reflecting the long-standing loss of influence by the once powerful Ulster capitalists bound up with the destruction of heavy industry, the agreement amounted to a joint unionist and republican effort, overseen by the British and Irish governments, to attract global mobile investment. The agreement allowed the British Army to be largely removed from Northern Ireland and deployed internationally.

Anti-Conservative Party and anti-Democratic Unionist Party in protest (Source: Sputnik)

The DUP denounced the agreement as a capitulation and betrayal to Rome and the IRA and set out to displace the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), through being the most trenchantly sectarian party in Stormont.

By 2005, the tactic paid off, when the DUP eclipsed the UUP as the largest unionist party. Having secured pole position, the DUP sought the most favourable terms under the St Andrews Agreement of 2006, orchestrated by the British and US governments. Paisley famously agreed to share government with Sinn Fein, in return for Sinn Fein offering full support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the former Royal Ulster Constabulary, while the IRA wound up their operations.

The two parties entered power in Stormont in 2007 with Paisley and Sinn Fein’s late Martin McGuiness as respectively First and Deputy First ministers.

Over the subsequent decade both parties happily collaborated in the imposition of the austerity demanded by capitalism against the working class, scrabbled to service the interests of the rival sections of the increasingly wealthy upper middle-class layers for whom they speak while carefully maintaining sectarian tensions. Peter Robinson replaced Paisley as First Minister until a succession of investment-related corruption scandals undermined support for him. His replacement was his close ally, Arlene Foster, currently First Minister of the suspended Northern Ireland Executive.

The Northern Ireland Assembly is presently suspended ostensibly over Sinn Fein’s objections to the DUP’s role in a corruption scandal, but matters were in fact brought to a head over Brexit.

Foster’s DUP campaigned for Brexit, Sinn Fein to Remain, and Northern Ireland voted by a substantial 56 to 44 percent to remain in the European Union.

Despite its pro-Brexit position, the DUP is forced to recognise that Northern Ireland is one of the most exposed areas of Britain to economic fallout from leaving the European Union. Considerable press coverage has focused on the complexities of finding a means for Northern Ireland to leave the EU along with the rest of the UK, while avoiding a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The border, established by partition and, during the Troubles, policed by hundreds of British troops and helicopters, is today almost invisible and traversed daily by thousands of travelers, commuters and truckers, reflecting the advanced state of the island’s economic integration. While all parties claim to want to avoid a “hard border,” no clear means has been established from this to be done while the line of partition is an external border of the EU.

The DUP’s current policy, it seems, is simply to extract as much as possible from the British government to offset the economically catastrophic impact from Brexit, while maintaining Northern Ireland’s position in the UK. For Sinn Fein, Brexit has been seized on to push, with backing from both the Irish government and the EU itself, for a new “border poll” on Northern Ireland’s continued membership of the UK. The European Council, as part of an aggressive response to the UK, indicated that, were Northern Ireland to vote to rejoin the Irish Republic, it would be recognised as part of the EU.

Neither option has the slightest progressive content and both contain the inevitability of some form of intensified sectarian conflict. The situation is fraught with dangers for the working class. As in the 1960s, but in far more advanced conditions, the key to workers advancing their own interests is the development of an independent and unified political movement in Ireland, North and South, seeking socialism in Ireland and Britain as a part of the United Socialist States of Europe.

Featured image: Belfast Telegraph

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and the realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” –Rachel Carson

“We are who we are waiting for/We can make a change” -the author, singing to his daughter recently

There’s a storm coming, folks. The police state has already been with us awhile now. The two attacks in the UK could be a preview of things to come, even across the pond, here in the US.

Just two weeks before the UK elections, we’ve seen two horrific incidents in Manchester and London. Is this a coincidence? One wonders whether these attacks have been orchestrated or allowed to happen by the US-UK intelligence services to swing the vote towards Theresa May. The most recent attack on June 3^rd could even be a distraction from Trump’s reneging on the Paris Agreement. Or perhaps the play is to ratchet up public fear for a possible US-UK-backed war against Syria or Iran. How deep down the rabbit hole are you prepared to look?

In a recent essay, John Pilger destroys the UK official narrative that Abedi, the supposed perpetrator of the Manchester bombing, wasn’t well known among intelligence agencies. If Abedi, his father, and other Libyan jihadis were allowed travel all over the UK and Europe, it’s fairly certain they were some sort of patsies or agents of UK spymasters and their military-corporate overlords. At least one of the London attackers was also reported to the authorities, who apparently did nothing.

Don’t be so naïve to think that it couldn’t happen this way. Since WWII, the Anglo-American axis has destroyed North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and the list goes on. US-UK black ops have been coordinating and killing anti-capitalists, revolutionaries such as Che Guevara, and human rights activists like Oscar Romero for decades. US intelligence has in the past cooked up such treachery and villainy as Operation Northwoods, the attack on the USS Liberty, almost certainly was involved in JFK’s assassination, and has overthrown and killed elected leaders in Guatemala, Iran, Chile, the Congo, Haiti, and more.

Soon, there could easily be a lockdown in London, perhaps in other UK cities, in France and/or Germany, and possibly even here in the US if things deteriorate. The blowback from our wars in the Middle East and North Africa region are coming back to haunt us with a vengeance.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the necessary urgency among many self-described Leftists, activists, and journalists, even those in the alternative media.

I don’t mean to scare, my aim is to prepare. We all have to start making preparations to transform our lives, individually and collectively.

For starters, peace activists must form a movement to remove all NATO troops from the most severe conflict areas: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Further, we must vacate all US bases from overseas, and put an end to the multiplying special operations around the world and increasingly in Africa, as Nick Turse explains here.

The media is going to do everything it can to spook us into submission, into obeying the orders of our politicians. We must resist this mainstream “culture of fear”. This fear is pervasive in mainstream politics.

There is a sort of sixth sense that we all have, observing the energies that different people give off, which cannot be quantified or empirically observed by science, yet exists nonetheless. There’s a sort of ominous aura that emanates from mainstream talking heads as well as our political and military leaders.

There is very low frequency energy; fearful, dark, unstable energetic vibrations occurring when you watch a blowhard imperialist on CNN or Fox News, or watch a leader such as Trump, Obama, Bush, or Clinton speak. The same applies to foreign leaders like Xi, Duterte, Putin, Erdogan. They worship power and money. Passively viewed by millions who accept their arguments based on authority, this dark energy is disseminated and transferred, the populace inculcated to support the leader’s worldview, and compassionate humanitarian instincts atrophy.

Power is given to an unaccountable few, trauma is transmitted, societies become divided, democracy is shattered, the fear and blood-craving is reproduced, and you’ve created an obedient mass of killers, and those too cowardly to speak out against the atrocities. There are so many little Eichmanns now, around the world.

To rise above this, anti-war activists and non-violent protestors must continue the epic struggle to raise consciousness, to continue to give off “good vibrations”. Part of that means not being frustrated and outraged over every political fiasco: there is nothing new here, those in power are simply doing what they’ve always done, spreading chaos and death.

Activists must begin to hold attention. The technocratic neoliberal era is waning, and right-wing authoritarians are ascending power worldwide. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event of our planet, with species disappearing at about 1000 times the background rate. Overpopulation and lack of resources are fueling ethnic conflicts in Syria and South Sudan, most notably. There must be a voluntary worldwide acknowledgment to begin lowering the world’s population right now, to avoid ecosystem destruction and present and future human generations from the ever-increasing chances of mass devastation.

This year, twenty million people are at risk of starving, the highest since WWII. The world is soon headed for another large-scale recession at the least, despite what the Wall Street lucre-worshippers may say. Most of the developing world has been dealing with imperialism and colonialism for centuries. They know collapse, because they’ve always been living in it, as have their ancestors.

The predictable repressive and authoritarian response to come by the UK government in response to these attacks can be viewed as a form of social collapse. It reveals a cultural deafness, and a lack of critical thought in regard to the plight of those killed, maimed, and traumatized by war. It also reveals a wide-ranging ignorance of how Western-NATO backed war fans the flames of hatred and terrorism. Immigrants, refugees, minorities, and terrorists are denounced as invaders, as inherently “evil”, with no social or historical analysis as to the root causes.

Neoliberalism now lies in ruins. The oppressive propaganda of mainstream media is no longer working, and Western populaces are revolting, although the true enemies, sexism, racism, class warfare, poverty, and militarism, are not addressed. The real issues have been displaced by the elite one-percenters and their quislings, who conjure up pseudo-conflicts in order to distract from the real issues of our age.

This is the sort of social disintegration that Nietzsche foresaw when he defined the “Last Man”, the coward who will always choose comfort, security, and material affluence over the hard struggle for liberation of the human spirit. With the socio-cultural collapse already well underway, and no left movement to hit the brakes on neoliberal globalization, the material and economic collapse is the next logical step, and nearly inevitable at this point.

Of course, the crumbling of the empire will fall hardest on the developing world, and if systemic change doesn’t occur, the West will continue to lie, turn its eyes away, obfuscate, and give token gestures to those less fortunate in order to assuage its own guilt.

Another aspect to consider is that presidents and prime ministers get what they want, if not in the legislature, but in the realm of geopolitics. Many times, it would seem they don’t even have to ask. Thus, we can imagine that just as some statements are dog-whistles for voters, other public speeches could be considered dog-whistles for the military and intelligence communities.

When May calls for a “strong and stable” country, when Trump tweets that “if we don’t get smart it will only get worse” regarding terrorism, one can imagine fascist spooks and military officers would be willing, if not outright excited, to conspire to carry out false flags on behalf of their authoritarian masters.

Only an engaged and vigilant, united public can combat such barbarism. It must be acknowledged that if the US and UK governments are willing to commit mass atrocities abroad; there is no reason to believe they haven’t and will not try it domestically, to rally support for an ever-expanding police state.

There isn’t time to wait around to elect a new congress or president: our representatives are controlled by corporations and lobbyists in the current system. Only a mass protest movement, coordinated in all major cities and Washington DC, practicing nonviolence and civil disobedience, and promoting egalitarian democracy, social justice, and ecological wisdom, will be able to smash the power structure.

The time to act is now, the stakes have never been higher, and there are no superhero saviors waiting in the wings: we are who we’ve been waiting for.

Featured image: credits to the owner

This will present a typical example in which the U.S. promotes Al Qaeda and other jihadists, and then honors that promotion by calling this PR not “propaganda” as it really is, but instead outstanding “news reporting,” and then honors that “news reporting,” with prestigious ‘journalism’ awards from the Overseas Press Club, and The Peabody.

Throughout, the jihadists in Syria are being referred to in these ‘news’-reports as ‘the rebels’ and they are backed by the U.S. government, and (obviously) also by the aristocracy that own (and advertise in) the ‘news’ media, and whose lobbies also apparently control the President, and the Congress. Deception of the American public, by the American press, is that blatant and that egregious, as will here be documented (but will continue to be suppressed by the ‘free press’ in this ‘democracy’ where the press never exposes its own systematic lying — as will here be shown).

Documentation for everything here will consist of excerpts from the relevant news-reports themselves (so the story will be told by the evidence itself), and will close with excerpts from an AlterNet news report by Ben Norton, which was vastly more worthy of winning journalism awards than anything from CNN (or any of the others) has been, but is suppressed instead of pumped, by the U.S. press. I have added boldface in some places, in order to make easier a reader’s quickly noticing things which will become more important subsequently, in this presentation of excerpts. The excerpts are arranged so as to tell a narrative that makes sense and has continuity.

Excerpts are used here instead of paraphrases, because otherwise an intelligent reader might think that the paraphrases are overstating how appalling the U.S. ‘news’ media are. It’s better for the perpetrators to display their wares, than for someone else to do it for them. So, I let them do it.

Here are those excerpts; here is their story, told by the participants themselves:

***

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/14/

The truth about Syria

Undercover behind rebel lines

By Clarissa Ward with Salma Abdelaziz, CNN

[Salma Abdelaziz covers the Middle East for CNN, based in London.]

Updated 1:40 PM ET, Fri March 18, 2016

Rebel-held Syria (CNN) There’s a sickening moment between hearing the planes and waiting for them to drop their payload. A pit forms in your stomach. You know you could die, but you also know there’s no way to divine where the strike will hit.

On a hill overlooking Ariha, our guard Abu Youssef seems to have located the jet in the sky and is following it with his eyes. “Russian planes,” he says. …

Monitoring groups say nearly 2,000 civilians have been killed since the Russian intervention began. …

Syria is hell. But standing in the warm sun, watching the silver green olive leaves shiver in the breeze, it is also paradise. A ceasefire has been in place for a couple of days, though based on what we saw and heard, it’s difficult to have much faith that it will hold.

We are preparing to leave, saying our goodbyes. We hand over a bag full of British chocolates to our security guards. Abu Youssef thanks us and quietly hands each of us a folded piece of white paper with our initials on it.

“Promise me you won’t read these until you get back home to London,” he says.

Two flights and 72 hours later, we open the letters.

“I hope you have a good idea of us,” they read. “Please tell the world the truth about Syria.”

***

https://twitter.com/

Nidal

@Nidalgazaui

18 Years old Freedom Activist from Germany. Visited the YPG in Syria. MENA Analyst, Focusing on Terrorism and Jihadist Groups in Middle east and E Asia

Germany

nidalgazaui.wordpress.com

Nidal

@Nidalgazaui

#ISIS Fighter from #Gaza, Abu Youssef Al-Ghazawhi killed recently in #Aleppo while fighting the Syrian army near #DeirHafer in #Aleppo Prov.

11:58 PM – 22 Mar 2017

***

[NOTE: It’s bad enough that the reporter, Ward, in Aleppo, was emotionally close to and was being protected by someone, “Abu Youssef,” who was clearly partisan — in his case, against Syria’s government and also against Russia, which means on the ‘rebel’ side, which in Aleppo meant being on Al Qaeda’s side there. Wikipedia’s article “Battle of Aleppo (2012–2016)” says:

“Rebel groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Shamia Front and the Ahrar al-Sham established Sharia system in areas they control, imposing torture or other ill-treatment as punishment. Human rights activists, lawyers and journalists have been subjected to kidnappings.”

These ‘rebels’ were religious fanatics. But if that person was also the “#ISIS Fighter from #Gaza, Abu Youssef Al-Ghazawhi killed recently in #Aleppo while fighting the Syrian army near #DeirHafer in #Aleppo Prov,” then this places the reporter as being under the protection of an “ISIS fighter,” and ISIS is supposed to be so fanatical that even the U.S. government condemn them — but maybe not CNN, nor the Overseas Press Club, nor The Peabody.]

***

https://www.theguardian.com/

Aleppo ‘hell’ prevents Syria peace talks, say diplomats

With 2 million terrified citizens trapped and brutal fighting continuing, UN-backed talks in August seem impossible

Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor Tuesday 9 August 2016 16.53 EDT

… In a bid to restart the talks US secretary of state John Kerry met Vladimir Putin in mid-July to propose a deal whereby the Syrian air force ended its lethal bombing campaign in return for American agreement that one of the leading rebel forces – the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front – be designated a terrorist group, and so no longer party to a new ceasefire [Wintour is using code here, for: allowed to be bombed during the ceasefire — Obama refused to accept that condition, and he insisted that Russia discontinue bombing them but bomb only ISIS during a ceasefire, and he stuck with that stance until the very end, when he sabotaged Kerry’s deal with Lavrov]. American sponsored rebel forces have long been entangled with al-Nusra, and many Washington-backed forces would regard an attack on al-Nusra as an attack on the Syrian revolution itself.

The US proposal has been made more complex by the announcement last week that al-Nusra had “broken” with al-Qaida, and was now forming a new group, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. Western diplomats doubt the sincerity of this change in ideology [he’s using code for: change in name].

But Washington seems reluctant to denounce this new group as a bogus rebranding, partly because it knows so many of the already weak rebel groups it does support are willing, or even eager, to work with the effective and disciplined al-Nusra forces. Many of these moderate forces [as if there were ‘moderates’ when jihadists were waging war to replace a secular government] feel abandoned by the west.

At the UN session on Monday, Clarissa Ward, a celebrated CNN war correspondent, also warned Russia was playing into the hands of jihadists. She told the Russian envoy:

“From my experience on the ground – which is considerable – bombing hospitals, court houses, bakeries and fruit markets does not eliminate terrorism. If anything it is the oxygen which terrorists breathe and it spreads like wildfire.”

***

[NOTE: For a “celebrated CNN war correspondent” to be so partisan against Russia, as to have charged that “Russia was playing into the hands of jihadists,” when she herself was blatantly and actually in the hands of jihadists — and being protected by them, while those jihadists were trying to kill and were being bombed by Russia — is stupid.

Was this person that stupid? Or, perhaps, was she instead so closed-minded to the fact that in order to slaughter the jihadists, it was necessary that some of the people whom the jihadists were using as human shields would also die?

Does Clarissa Ward possess even a modicum of the objectivity that’s required of any authentic journalist — especially when covering a war — or is she receiving ‘journalism’ awards because in the United States, ‘journalism’ has sunk to the level of sheer propaganda?

But the British Guardian’s reporter is no better, referring to jihadists as ‘rebels’, and referring to the Syrian government’s war against them as a ‘lethal bombing campaign’ as if there were any other type than ‘lethal’. And he referred to the jihadists’ war against the Syrian government as ‘the Syrian revolution’ even though most of those jihadists were foreigners recruited into Syria from around the world and financed by the royal Sauds and armed and trained by the U.S. government.]

***

https://www.undispatch.com/

CNN Journalist Clarissa Ward Snuck Behind the Front Lines in Syria then Briefed the Security Council About What She Saw

Mark Leon Goldberg  August 29, 2016

Clarissa Ward is an award winning journalist who has covered conflict for over a decade, mostly in the Middle East. She is now with CNN and earlier this year she and a small crew snuck into rebel held territory in Syria, including the city of Aleppo from where she filed several intense and harrowing stories.

In August, Clarissa was invited to a special meeting of the [U.N.] Security Council about the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo. We kick off discussing her Security Council briefing and latest reporting trip to Syria. …

***

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/

‘There are no winners in Aleppo’

Updated 0906 GMT (1706 HKT) August 15, 2016

Source: CNN

‘This is Hell’: Clarissa Ward addresses U.N. on Syria 09:11

Editor’s note: On August 8, 2016 CNN’s Senior International Correspondent Clarissa Ward spoke at a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo. The following are her full remarks. …

The thing that has been killed in Syria that is much more difficult to rebuild than a bombed out building, is trust.

There is no trust.

No trust in the Assad regime.

No trust in ceasefires or the cessation of hostilities or humanitarian corridors.

No trust in the Russians, and no trust in you by the way, in us in the international community, who have been wringing their hands on the side lines while hospitals and bakeries and schools have been bombed, while phosphorus and cluster bombs have killed countless civilians.

The only ones who have emerged as heroes on the ground — alongside brave doctors like Dr Attar and Dr Sahloul, alongside the White Helmets[link there added by E.Z., not by Ward] — are the Islamist factions, even to those who hate fundamentalism.

Even to those who see that the rebels themselves are carrying out atrocities.

And not because the people there are all terrorists but because the Islamists are the ones who have stepped in to fill the void. …

***

[NOTE: Ward has “No trust in the Assad regime” but has loads of trust in the jihadists, the ‘heroes’, “because the Islamists are the ones who have stepped in to fill the void” that they’ve created by trying to turn Syria’s multi-ethnic, multi-religious, secular, non-sectarian government — the only secular government in the Middle East — over to the head-choppers, who will serve the aristocracies of the U.S. and of Saudi Arabia.] 

***

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.

21 March 2017, 10:33 AM ET

Overseas Press Club Honors CNN for ‘Undercover in Syria’ Series

The Overseas Press Club of America has honored CNN’s ‘Undercover in Syria’ series with the David Kaplan Award for Best TV or video spot news reporting from abroad. They will present the award, which honors the finest international reporting, at its annual ceremony on Thursday, April 27 in New York. CNN President Jeff Zucker will be on hand to deliver the keynote address.

Reported by senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward and produced by Salma Abdelaziz, ‘Undercover in Syria’ took viewers inside rebel-held territory for an exclusive series of reports on what life was like under the bombs. CNN was the only Western media to witness the effects of

***

http://www.peabodyawards.com/

THE PEABODY 30: AWARD WINNERS FOR 2016

CNN: ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Undercover in Syria, Battle for Mosul (CNN)

Winner 2016 | CNN

… Clarissa Ward went undercover into northern Syria to document Russian influence on the fighting and to navigate the ongoing devastation. Graphic images of the wounded and the bloodied brings the senselessness of the fighting to the foreground, as do haunting images of young children who’ve only seen and experienced a world of airstrikes, fear, pain, and loss. … For its steadfast commitment to intrepid reporting from the battlefield and for detailing the costs and damages of a war that continues to pose a moral challenge to the rest of the world, a Peabody Award goes to CNN.

***

http://www.mediaite.com/

Even as Election Dominates Cable, Bravo CNN for Critical Reporting From Syria

by J.D. Durkin | 1:38 pm, March 18th, 2016

… Major kudos are due to CNN for its recent coverage of the harrowing Syrian Civil War and the work of Clarissa Ward, the network’s Senior International Correspondent. CNN has given significant airtime and clearly devoted resources to Ward’s most recent trip to, quite literally, the frontlines of terror.  … Ward believes that this most recent trip along with her producer Salma Abdelaziz marked the first time in a year-and-a-half that any Western journalist had covered the calamitous developments on the ground. … All elements of the CNN enterprise have championed Ward’s work with prime placement, including digital and social media platforms. Ward’s Facebook Live discussion this week reached 1.7 million viewers alone.

It’s a bold and admirable programming move. … As Ward told me, the devastation for the Syrian people is far from over, and her role covering the crisis will likely continue until a specific, clear objective is reached:

“Really it comes down to one key demand,” Ward told me. “President Bashar al-Assad must step down. For the people on the ground, it’s a dealbreaker.” [My note: repeated polling throughout Syria by U.S.-and-allied polling organizations shows that over 50% of Syrians want Bashar al-Assad to remain as the President and that 82% of Syrians blame the U.S. for the tens of thousands of foreign jihadists who have invaded Syria to oust and replace him. However, those same polls also show that some areas in Syria support the jihadists and want Assad ousted. But, in any case, Ward’s assertion is rabidly false, that: “President Bashar al-Assad must step down. For the people on the ground, it’s a dealbreaker.” Furthermore, twice in one day, the Secretary General of the U.N., Ban ki-Moon, rebuked this U.S. position and he said “The future of Assad must be determined by the Syrian people”and not by the U.S. or any other foreign government dictating Assad be removed from power.]

***

http://www.thewrap.com/why-

Why CNN’s Clarissa Ward May Be the Biggest Badass in Cable News

“Your body responds with this surge of adrenaline, shock and fear,” the war correspondent says of getting caught in an airstrike

Brian Flood | April 10, 2016 @ 1:43 PM

CNN’s Clarissa Ward recently traveled undercover to a rebel-held area of Syria, where she witnessed 11 people die in an airstrike, but she didn’t miss a beat and reported on the chaos as it unfolded. …

Ward, filmmaker Bilal Abdul Kareem and producer Salma Abdelaziz were filming at the top of a hill when the airstrikes hit and the plume of smoke was visible in the background of her video. Instead of taking shelter, they immediately jumped in a car and headed toward the devastation. …

“It’s so shocking on a physical level. Your body responds with this surge of adrenaline, shock and fear. It all kind of collides in one,” Ward said.

For that kind of reporting, the 36-year-old Yale graduate has already won just about every journalism award out there — Peabody, Emmy, DuPont, Murrow and a Royal Television Society award with CNN’s coverage of the Paris attacks last November. In November, she will be honored with the International Center for Journalists’ Excellence in International Reporting Award. …

As Maddox said, “One of the reasons CNN hired Clarissa is because she’s an incredibly talented journalist who is committed to telling stories the world needs to know.”

***

https://www.facebook.com/

Bilal Abdul Kareem

June 16 [2017] at 12:33pm

Piece I filmed w/CNN (Undercover in Syria) won the prestigious Overseas Press Club & Peabody awards but CNN “forgot” to mention me. High respects to CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward for mentioning me even if CNN didn’t! Alhamdo lilaah I got another award from some good hearted Syrians that’s worth more than those put together. Check it out!

15K Views

VIDEO:

“You know, there was a piece that I did, along with other members of OG and staff, called Undercover in Syria. This was with CNN, and their correspondent Clarissa Ward, which I have big-time respect for, big-time respect, as a journalist, and as a person. Now, this Undercover in Syria — you can google it — won the prestigious Peabody Award, and it won the prestigious Overseas Press Club award, which are basically the highest awards in journalism!”

***

[NOTE: The following excerpts, from AlterNet, cut down a 4,366-word news-report about Bilal Abdul Kareem, to a still lengthy 1,669 words. Though that’s long, this is a sensationally good news-report; and, even including here these 1,669 words from it, all of the 3,847 words of excerpts taken together are still significantly shorter than the entirety of that single AlterNet news-report, which is far the best and most truthful of the articles that are excerpted here:]

***

http://www.alternet.org/world/

Bilal Abdul Kareem, Prominent U.S. ‘Journalist’ in Syria, Serves as Mouthpiece for Violent Extremists

A closer look at Bilal Abdul Kareem’s body of work reveals an established record of creating sectarian propaganda for extremist Syrian rebels.

By Ben Norton / AlterNet December 29, 2016, 4:54 PM GMT

During the final days of rebel control over the eastern areas of Aleppo, the Western media depended almost entirely on a handful of English-speaking, self-described activists to relay news of the situation to a captivated public. These figures served a dual purpose, acting as spokespeople for the beleaguered Syrian opposition while deflecting attention from armed insurgents dominated by extreme Islamists. Nestled among them was an American, Bilal Abdul Kareem, who may be one of the most remarkable characters of the Syrian civil war. The uncritical promotion and reflexive praise this character has received from a variety of U.S. media outlets raises serious questions about the coverage of a conflict that is often presented as a one-sided slaughter at the hands of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies. …

Abdul Kareem has helped produce a series for CNN, and has also produced reports with the U.K.’s Channel 4, the BBC and Skynews. He has written for Al Jazeera and has been featured in segments on an array of major media outlets. He even participated in a panel discussion at the [neoconservative, pro-invade-anywhere] Brookings Doha Center alongside the extremely hawkish Syria analyst Charles Lister, titled “Syria and Iraq: The Future Prospects of Jihadism.”

Yet what these media outlets and institutions have not disclosed about Abdul Kareem is that he has a long and established record of creating what is essentially propaganda for extremist groups in Syria. Abdul Kareem has conducted dozens of glowing interviews with militants from extremist groups, including Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate and its hardline allies. Worse, he appears to have expressed support for Anwar Al-Awlaki, the extremist preacher credited with inspiring multiple attacks, including the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base. (Abdul Kareem did not respond to multiple requests for comment from AlterNet for this article.)

AlterNet reviewed scores of Abdul Kareem’s videos, and in not one did he address the atrocities any of the ultra-sectarian Islamist groups have carried out against civilians, minorities in particular. …

Not only has Abdul Kareem consistently facilitated the dissemination of his guests’ extreme views, he even gives them opportunities to call on viewers around the world to join them in their fight in Syria. …

Abdul Kareem makes it clear that he opposes democracy in Syria, claiming such a system is “alien” to the Syrian people whereas “a governing style of Islam is something that is familiar to them.” …

Abdul Kareem defends the extremist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham. … On his website, Abdul Kareem laments that the hard-line Islamist group “has been getting a bit of a bad reputation as of late for some of their political stances,” and stresses, “this Islamic revolution would not be where it is today without Ahrar Asham.”

Ahrar al-Sham has collaborated with and fought alongside Syrian al-Qaeda. It has engaged in sectarian attacks on civilians, such as the killing and kidnapping of Alawite [Shia] women and children in the village of Zara. Amnesty International also documented how Ahrar al-Sham and the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda have destroyed churches and confiscated the homes and stolen the belongings of Christian Syrians. Christians in the major rebel-held city of Idlib reported being told they must convert or leave. …

One of the first videos Abdul Kareem released on his Facebook page is an interview with a fighter from Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria’s arm of al-Qaeda. It was filmed in early August 2015 at the frontline of fighting between the extremist group and secular, leftist Kurdish fighters. …

The first long-form interview Abdul Kareem published to his Facebook page is an August 2015 discussion with Abu Firas al-Suri, a leader of Jabhat al-Nusra. …

“Our mission is guiding the people, taking them by the hand and helping them so we all are able to achieve the supremacy of the sharia of Allah on Earth. And our mission in Syria is a part of that mission,” Abu Firas proclaimed. He added, “Our goals are not limited only to Syria, however our current battle is in Syria.”

The only criticisms Abdul Kareem levied at the al-Qaeda leader in his interview were from the perspective of those who were even more radical. “Your group now controls large territories,” Abdul Kareem noted, “but some criticize you saying that you don’t apply the Islamic Sharia.” …

Abdul Kareem also invited Abu Firas to talk about the social services al-Nusra provides to people in Syria. Abu Firas, who associated himself with al-Qaeda in the interview, said they offer medical services, education, road repair, water delivery, houses and electricity.

Although Jabhat al-Nusra is an enemy of ISIS, Abu Firas stressed on Abdul Kareem’s video program, “We didn’t initiate fighting or criticising ISIS.” He continued, “As for fighting them, we’re not keen to fight them; we’re not keen to fight anyone who’s not an obstacle facing Islam.”

“We didn’t choose to oppose ISIS militarily or even politically,” Abu Firas explained. …

Demonizing Shia Muslims

On June 17, Bilal Abdul Kareem published a high-quality animated trailer for an upcoming episode of “Face the Truth” that promised to reveal who Shia Muslims truly are. “The Syrian crisis has quickly become a sectarian war between Sunnis-Shiite-Alawites,” he claimed in his Facebook post. Abdul Kareem implied that Shia might not actually be Muslims, writing, “Are they all just Muslims fighting one another? Or do their beliefs say otherwise?”

Three days later, Abdul Kareem published a lengthy interview with the ultra-sectarian Sunni preacher Abdur Razaaq Mahdi, in a video combatively titled “Sunnis vs Shia’.” …

Mahdi deplores Alawites as “Nusayri” unbelievers. “Oh Allah, destroy the Alawites and those who ally with them from the thugs, the Shia, the Russians, the Iranians!” he proclaims in the video. “Kill them all! …

Recruiting foreign fighters

Abdul Kareem’s interview with the Syria-based Saudi warlord Abdallah al-Muhaysini might be the most disturbing instance of promoting violent extremism. …

Al-Muhaysini continued claiming, “The war in Syria or jihad in Syria, today we’re in jihad against Shia, Alawites and Khawarij.” …

“Does that mean I should leave my family and everything I studied at university?” Naturally, al-Muhaysini replied in the affirmative, insisting it is a true believer’s duty, and they will be rewarded for it.

“Read the six rewards Allah gives to the martyr and you will forget everything,” al-Muhaysini countered. …

Opposing democracy

… In an interview posted in May, Abdul Kareem gave an Islamist rebel a platform to condemn democracy and instead argue for the importance of creating a theocratic society in Syria.

“Jihad is our way and pride,” Abu Osama al-Shawkani insisted in the video. “Democracy is ungratefulness.” He added, “Secularism is not our way.”

Abdul Kareem’s guest argued that experiments at implementing democracy in Algeria and Egypt “just failed.” He even went out of his way to pit Islam, the religion of 1.7 billion people, against such a form of governance.

They “will never accept applying Islam through democracy, and the one who says that he wants democracy doesn’t understand,” al-Shawkani insisted. Democracy “is a method against Allah’s method.” Abdul Kareem concluded the interview telling al-Shawkani, “May Allah reward you, brother.”

Abdul Kareem does not hide this extreme sectarianism and opposition to democracy; these views pervade his videos and are visible on his Facebook page. But in their apparent zeal to cultivate a pro-rebel narrative, major media outlets have consistently failed to acknowledge this fact.

Media coverage

Despite his ties to extremist groups, a vast array of influential media outlets have relied on Bilal Abdul Kareem’s reporting from Aleppo, and have treated it as reputable.

CNN, for which Abdul Kareem helped produce a series of reports alongside the international correspondent Clarissa Ward, interviewed Abdul Kareem on Dec. 13 for a segment on the Syrian government’s recapture of rebel-held eastern Aleppo. CNN’s Hala Gorani described him simply as an “independent journalist,” without any other background information or context.

Abdul Kareem told Gorani, “I don’t think that anybody here is happy with the way things have turned out.” He also claimed civilians do not want to go to government-held western Aleppo. In reality, many interviews with former residents of eastern Aleppo who escaped to the government-controlled western side revealed that rebels shot at them. The U.N. has also said rebels obstructed civilians from leaving. …

Even left-leaning websites that traditionally criticize corporate media outlets for toeing the party line have been derelict. Truthout ran an article that cited Abdul Kareem’s castigation of Turkey and Gulf regimes, simply identifying him as a “journalist.”

The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain likewise gave a substantial platform to Abdul Kareem back in June, applauding him for providing “a unique perspective on the conflict in Syria.” …

On the Ground News and helpers

In 2015, Abdul Kareem supplemented his interview program “Face the Truth” by launching On the Ground News, an outlet that features more traditional journalistic reports from inside rebel-held areas in Syria.

On the Ground News saw a marked increase in production quality, with videos accompanied by slick animations and graphic design. In some, Abdul Kareem could be seen seated in front of a green screen, declaring that he was broadcasting from “our studios.” Where On the Ground News gets its funding from is not clear and, as mentioned, Abdul Kareem did not respond to AlterNet’s requests. …

Applauding the Fort Hood shooter

In 2009, two years before the Syrian civil war erupted, Abdul Kareem composed a post in a Google group for expats in Dubai that endorsed an article by an extremist preacher who heroized the gunman who had just carried out a mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. …

***

In closing:

A series of three articles that I did for the Strategic Culture Foundation, and which was subsequently published together in one article at the Signs of Our Times website, describes the U.S. government’s support for Al Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria) ever since at least 2012, America’s assisting Al Qaeda, and working with Al Qaeda’s royal Saudi, Qatari and UAE funders, to overthrow Syria’s government — using U.S.-Saudi-backed jihadists to topple and replace yet another Russia-allied head-of-state. The U.S. government is pro-jihadist because those jihadists are ‘our’ boots-on-the-ground, waging war, as ‘our’ proxies, against Russia. And, America’s ‘news’ media cheer this rampant butchery on, and even award ‘journalism’ prizes to its slickest propagandists, who pour forth on TV and at ‘journalism’ awards ceremonies, jerking tears from the gulls. This also explains how it can be that, as Gallup headlined on 19 June 2017, “George W. Bush and Barack Obama Both Popular in Retirement”. Democracy is impossible in such a country, just as it was in the novel 1984.

***

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

Featured image: Newsmedia

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

In his important book titled “The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance,” Tim Anderson explained America’s war “relies on a level of mass disinformation not seen in living memory.”

ISIS is the pretext for endless war without mercy, Assad the target, regime change the objective, wanting pro-Western puppet governance replacing Syrian sovereign independence.

All wars are based on disinformation and Big Lies. Truth-telling exposes the fabricated pretexts for waging them. Syria is Obama’s war, now Trump’s.

It isn’t civil as falsely claimed. Syria was invaded by ISIS and other terrorist death squads, recruited from scores of countries, supported by Washington and its rogue allies – the country raped by US imperial lawlessness.

Terrorist groups can’t exist without foreign support. Their tanks, rockets and other heavy weapons don’t materialize out of thin air. They’re supplied by America, NATO, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Instead of explaining what’s going on, media suppress hard truths – The NYT the worst offender because of its global reach and influence on other media reporting.

The Times maintains the myth of US forces combating ISIS – instead of explaining the terrorist group and likeminded ones are US creations.

The Times:

“American military gains in Syria have far outpaced any diplomacy toward a political settlement of the Syrian civil war.”

Fact: So-called “American military gains” involve attempting to separate northern and southern Syria from Damascus control – wanting the country balkanized, its sovereignty destroyed if the scheme works, along with looting its resources in parts of the country.

Fact: Washington rejects diplomatic efforts toward conflict resolution, wanting endless war in pursuit of its objectives.

Fact: Ongoing war is US-orchestrated naked aggression. There’s nothing civil about it.

The Times:

Obama’s “instructions to the Pentagon (were to) “(d)efeat” ISIS.

Fact: No such instructions were given. US-led so-called coalition warplanes serve as the air force for terrorist groups in Syria – these fighters used as imperial foot soldiers to try toppling Assad.

The Times:

ISIS “is now reeling in Syria…battered by” US and coalition airstrikes. It’s “lost” most of the territory it once controlled.

Fact: ISIS may indeed be “reeling” – no thanks to Washington and its rogue allies, supporting the scourge they claim to oppose.

Fact: All gains against the terror group and others in Syria are from efforts by government and allied forces, along with vital Russian airpower.

Liberating the country requires their continued commitment defeat the terrorist scourge Washington and its rogue allies support – no simple task.

***

The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance 

Author: Tim Anderson

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-8-4

Year: 2016

To purchase Tim Anderson’s book, click here.

 

 

 

***

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: credits to the owner

The government is spying on most Americans through our computers, phones, cars, buses, streetlights, at airports and on the street, via mobile scanners and drones, through our credit cards and smart meters, televisions, dolls, and in many other ways.

Yesterday, ZDNet reported that the NSA uses a trick to get around the few flimsy American laws on spying … they shuttle internet traffic overseas so they can pretend they’re monitoring foreign communications:

A new analysis of documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden details a highly classified technique that allows the National Security Agency to “deliberately divert” US internet traffic, normally safeguarded by constitutional protections, overseas in order to conduct unrestrained data collection on Americans.

According to the new analysis, the NSA has clandestine means of “diverting portions of the river of internet traffic that travels on global communications cables,” which allows it to bypass protections put into place by Congress to prevent domestic surveillance on Americans.

***

One leaked top secret document from 2007 details a technique that allows the intelligence agency to exploit the global flow of internet data by tricking internet traffic into traveling through a set and specific route, such as undersea fiber cables that the agency actively monitors.

Leaked NSA document from 2007. (Image: source document)

The document’s example noted Yemen, a hotspot for terrorism and extremist activity. It is difficult to monitor because the NSA has almost no way to passively monitor internet traffic from the cables that run in and out of the country. By shaping the traffic, the agency can trick internet data to pass through undersea cables that are located on friendlier territory.

Goldberg’s research takes that logic and focuses it on US citizens, whose data and communications is out of bounds for the intelligence agencies without a valid warrant from the surveillance court.

The government only has to divert their internet data outside of the US to use the powers of the executive order to legally collect the data as though it was an overseas communication. Two Americans can send an email through Gmail, for example, but because their email is sent through or backed up in a foreign data center, the contents of that message can become “incidentally collected” under the executive order’s surveillance powers.

Thomas Drake – one of the top NSA executives, and Senior Change Leader within the NSA – blew the whistle on this deceptive practice more than a decade ago.

For his troubles, Drake was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and literally framed by the government.

Postscript: Drake also notes that the government is storing for the long-term just about everything they’re collecting.

But don’t worry … the government would never think of doing anything mean with the information.

Featured image: credits to the owner

The French president in an interview with El Pais (22 JUN 2017) said that the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power is no longer a priority in resolving the Syrian crisis.

“France no longer sees the displacement of Assad as a priority for anything as well as I do not see who could become his legitimate successor,” Macron said.

Here and on this occasion, the French president also called on the countries to concentrate on the fighting terrorism. He stressed it is necessary to work out an entirely new plan of actions in Syria. Special attentions, he said, must be dwelt on the allies of Assad adding that combating the threat of terrorism effectively requires the active participation of all the parties, and especially Russia.

During the interview, Macron allowed himself to criticize Barack Obama for not keeping promises. Namely, the former U.S. President announced a tough answer in case Assad would cross the so-called Red Line. At the same time, the president of France hinted that the country is ready to launch air strikes on Syria without the U.S. support.

It turns out that the French president contradicts himself when he claims that there is no real evidence of the Syrian president’s involvement in chemical attacks.

“If the evidence of the use of chemical weapons arose,… and we would know who used it and where this weapon came from, France will respond immediately by carrying out airstrikes,” Macron said.

The second question also is how could the world community compete to accuse Assad then? Indeed, Emmanuel Macron made it clear that there are no real reasons for this as of today. The absence of chemical weapons in the hands of the Syrian president was claimed by the OPCW as early as in 2014.

Follow the latest developments by reading Inside Syria Media Center.

Sophie Mangal is a special investigative correspondent and co-editor at Inside Syria Media Center.

All images in this article are from the author.

According to the New York Times, the U.S. Administration sends a group of civilians to Syria with the aim to try to restore stability in some areas. In particular, the issue at stake here is about territories liberated from ISIS by the so-called and U.S. – supported moderate opposition.

The New York Times claims the group consists of seven people from the U.S. State Department and security services. The purpose of the mission is allegedly to prevent the humanitarian crisis and to help the Syrians to return home. ‘Specialists’ will have to organize work on cleaning up the territories from roadside bombs left behind by the terrorists, to restore electricity and to gain access to drinking water. (Does State Department have such specialists?) It is noticed also that information about this step and about the deadlines (time frames of the action) was not made public.

The more so, sending such a small group leaves open the question of whether these efforts will be sufficient to solve the complex task of restoring normal conditions for the lives of millions of Syrians or not.

In fact, it is not entirely clear how the seven representatives of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. security services will be able to organize works on cleaning up the territories from bombs and restoring civil infrastructure, not to mention such a vast territory. There should be much more specialists to carry out such the objectives. In addition, they must be narrowly specialized and experienced in this field.

“This is a minimalist approach and the problems that may arise would require more significant efforts,” said James Dobbins, the former U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At present the mission looks not like as a humanitarian action, but as some kind of a covert operation with the aim, for example, to conduct separate peace negotiations. We can only guess who, when and why will be sent to Syria.

Discover the Differences

Graduates of a police force trained by the United States. They are expected to be deployed in Raqqa when in retaken. (Source: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Follow the latest developments by reading Inside Syria Media Center.

Sophie Mangal is a special investigative correspondent and co-editor at Inside Syria Media Center.

All images in this article are from the author.

The recent series of terrorist incidents in Europe has produced the inevitable finger pointing regarding the ability of the security services to respond and has also reopened the debate over what might be done to prevent the attacks in the first place. 

Similar discussions have been going on in the United States for some time, to include consideration of the Violent Radicalism and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 by the House of Representatives. The bill, sponsored by then congresswoman Jane Harman, was fairly toothless, seeking to establish a national commission and study center, but it was strongly criticized for many of its assumptions and definitions, with some critics noting how it might be exploited to enable the prosecution of “thought crimes.” It was passed in the House by a 404 to 6 vote but, fortunately, later died in the Senate.

More recently, congressman Peter King has held hearings on radicalization of Muslim Americans that ran intermittently for nearly two years between 2010 and 2012. As terrorist incidents actually declined in number during that period, there was little desire on the part of Congress to initiate any draconian new legislation in response to the often conflicting “evidence” compiled by King’s House Homeland Security Committee.

It should surprise no one that the Europeans are much more advanced in their creation of anti-terror legislation than is the United States, if only because they have been more often on the receiving end of ideologically motivated violence. Assuming that America might well be arriving tomorrow where Europe is today in counter-terror, it is instructive to look at one of the proactive frameworks currently in place to analyze both its effectiveness and legality.

Britain has experienced three terrorist attacks in three months. The government response has been defined by the British Counter-Terrorism and Security Act of 2015, popularly referred to by the acronym “Contest.” Contest consists of four so-called “workstreams”: “Pursue” to physically interdict terrorist attacks; “Protect” to establish physical barriers against terrorist tactics and weapons; “Prepare” to minimize the after-the-fact impact of a terror attack; and “Prevent,” which is a highly aggressive and controversial program to prevent radicalization.

Prevent is the program that has received the most attention. It relies on the so-called conveyor belt theory which postulates that someone who is either alienated or critical of the status quo will inevitably graduate to even more extreme views and eventually cross the line from nonviolence to violence. Those who are identified as vulnerable by Prevent are sometimes entered into a government funded but privately managed counseling program referred to as “Channel,” which has worked with 8,000 mostly young Muslim men in an effort to avoid radicalization.

The problem with evaluating Prevent’s effectiveness is that it is the government doing the assessing. It equates success with the numbers going through the program and it ignores the many critics who note that it has so alienated the Muslim community that it actually creates more new potential militants than it succeeds in deradicalizing. The fundamental issue is that there is no actual model or profile of a terrorist that one can focus on in an effort to prevent radicalization, so the definition of who might be a threat has been continuously broadened lest anyone escape the net. Nearly all of the recent terrorist attacks in Britain were carried out by young men born in Britain who were at least nominally Muslim, but beyond that they had very little in common in terms of education, family and social background or even religiosity. Their belief in a violent solution to what troubled them certainly sets them apart but it is unlikely that the security services would be able to discern that in any event, so their names frequently join the 23,000 others on the British “subjects of interest” potential terrorism database. From a policing point of view, those 23,000 are joined by thousands more names submitted by ordinary Britons as part of the Prevent program, each one of which has to be investigated and either cleared or added to the database.

The British security agencies have inevitably been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of terror suspects. Surveillance of a suspect is extremely labor intensive, even when assisted by Britain’s extensive CCTV system, which covers large parts of the country’s cities and towns as well as the roads connecting them, so it is safe to assume that very few dangerous individuals are actually being watched at any given time. This asymmetry makes the odds very much in the terrorist’s favor as he can strike anywhere with any kind of weapon while the police must try to protect everywhere.

Due to the public outcry over the recent attacks, the British government is currently undertaking a sweeping security review on terrorism. It will likely expand the Prevent program in spite of uncertainty at all levels over whether it is actually working or not. In addition to encouraging citizens to support suspicious behavior, the legislation actually compels institutions that are in any was connected to the government to actively seek out and identify those exhibiting potential terrorist sympathies. That includes, schools, universities, libraries and any government office that deals with the public. The establishing legislation for Prevent defines early warning signs of terrorist sympathies as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

A recent article in the London Review of Books entitled “Don’t go to the doctor,” explores how Prevent sometimes works in practice in an educational environment. Universities and other schools are required to aggressively seek out radicalized students. They have to submit regular reports demonstrating that they are complying with the law to include specific information regarding individual cases and follow-up action to make sure that they are diligently seeking out radicals. In one case cited, an instructor at Oxford, in dealing with a Muslim university student who was struggling with her course work, learned that the woman had gone to see her doctor regarding depression. Due to Prevent, she felt obligated to ask the student whether she was being radicalized.

Similarly, a librarian at a major university was asked by another college to provide a professional reference for a colleague. One of the questions was “Are you completely satisfied that the applicant is not involved in extremism?” Other universities in Britain have stopped allowing Muslim students to use college rooms for gatherings out of fear that the meetings will be used for radicalization. Guest lists for many university sponsored meetings that are open to students must now be provided 48 hours prior to the event for security screening. College authorities are allowed to search the rooms of Muslim students “on suspicion.”

Some might regard Prevent as a relatively innocuous but necessary measure to combat radicalization. I do not agree as any program that focuses on a particular minority while compelling ordinary citizens to report on other ordinary citizens opens the door to many types of abuse. In any event, the U.S. Constitution would seem to make the type of legislation that established Prevent in Britain unimaginable on this side of the Atlantic, but one should not relax too soon as this is the home of the Patriot and the Military Commissions Acts.

Prevent operates on the principle that individuals who are maladjusted will eventually become pathologically so if they are not counseled and convinced to abandon their wicked ways. It neither addresses nor in any way concedes that many of the disaffected that it targets are actually angry for reasons that are at least comprehensible, including what the British government continues to do to fellow Muslims overseas, which is sometimes referred to as “blowback.” End the bombing of Syrians and Iraqis and much of the motivation to bomb in Birmingham just might disappear. Oddly enough, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn raised that very issue in the recent British electoral campaign, saying that terrorism was often a response to the policies that the government was carrying out in the Middle East. His comment was largely ignored by the British media, but the Labour Party went on to win many more votes than anticipated and Corbyn nearly became Prime Minister. Perhaps the real message on what actually causes terrorism is beginning to get through to the public. Let us hope so.

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

Featured image: Flickr / CreativeCommons / David Holt

San Francisco.

The security guard grinned at the bag with rheumy eyes. It had already begun to ache, the shoulder strap held down by writing material and a bottle of water. “Thank you, sir!”, came the emphatic note of approval. The bag had passed the test, as did its owner, who was frisked for anything unduly metallic. Nothing was to go wrong at this San Francisco Pride event, part of a weekend celebration that is a statement of assertion, defiance and sex.

Across the Civic Centre were tents and stalls: face and body painting; events for the gay community; information for the evening kick-on. There was some material on LGBT events, though historical information was sparse. (History tends to be, not so much another country here as another galaxy).

Source: SFGate

Sparse as well were the clothing items, which were less matters of fashion than anti-fashion, a poke-in-the-eye confidence starring flopping genitals with scrotal assuredness, painted nipples and clamps. There also seemed to be a high correlation between age and sheer, unshackled nakedness, leaving aside the rainbow ribbons, straps or cock socks.

The more weather worn veterans, brandishing their sugar alcoholic drinks, were very keen to let everyone know that this was their day of the year: nothing on, and thank you very much. But their nude forms belied an almost robotic routine: it was simply part of the course (as, indeed, it was the cause) to go uncovered for this occasion. To have been clothed would have not just seemed unthinkable, but obscene, a tribute to the nasty set of conformity.

Such an absence of wear revealed bodies milk white and translucent, pinking in the California sun. Dark shiny black figures, chocolate mixes, and tanned flesh reveal this to be a show of bods, rods and mammary glands, an aesthetic tyranny that is only challenged by the occasional hefty buffoon heaving himself about in torn underwear, or an enormous woman with a rump so expansive it signals boldness.

Other than that, it is an arms race of flesh and sexual projection. “Who is going to get sex tonight?” trumpets a hip hop artist inquiringly of his listening audience. Hoots are emitted and hands shoot up enthusiastically.

Such an event also provides a platform for ham activism, which tends to come a distant second to the entertainment value people seek. This is despite such calls as that from Robin Tyler writing in the Lesbian News in January 2017 in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s inauguration:

“Every Pride event in the USA and internationally should not have a Pride ‘Parade’ this year”, instead focusing on a “March against ignorance, prejudice, racism, misogyny, homophobia, climate change, nuclear threat, in other words, against Donald Trump!”

Musicians duly announce that they are “taking a stand against fascism in America”. Across a world, a “war is being waged on trans people.” Another act is far less political, and gets straight to the flesh in an uncomplicated fashion. “We want the hot bodies on stage now!” goes a band claiming to be the “hottest act in the US”. Do not let modesty muddy pride: if they don’t convince themselves, who will?

Each year is always marked by the same theme: love, sweet love. It is a search for the elusive perfection of harmony and self, battling insecurity by flaunting, screaming and hoping for the best. Songs about bullying and suicide are sung to ward off the demons who always threaten to crumple the vulnerable.

Behind the tolerance is a certain rehearsed, even strained quality. These are not safe times, though a Pride event is always edgy in the name of the tolerant persuasion. The policing hand is firm. “Safety monitors” roam. Since 2016, security measures for the San Francisco Pride Celebration have involved the discouraging of large unwieldy bags. A screening process was also implemented.

After the exhortative performances to tolerance conclude, and the flesh seems that much stretched, the time comes to veer through the Tenderloin, where the homeless and drug addled prove indifferent to the shaking noise of the Pride event. Identity politics in this part of SF is indifferent, even nonexistent. There is no directed noise in the name of sexual politics here but rambles of the non-existent life that fail to hit their mark. A bit of building graffiti makes a solemn promise: “World ends at 10; highlights at 11.”

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

Featured image: The San Francisco Examiner

We’ve pointed out for years that failing to prosecute torturers would ensure that the U.S. tortures again in the future.

Unfortunately, no one was prosecuted (except the guy who blew the whistle on torture; and the Department of Justice refused to even read the Senate’s report on torture), so now we’re involved in torture again. The Associated Press reports:

Hundreds of men swept up in the hunt for al-Qaida militants have disappeared into a secret network of prisons in southern Yemen where abuse is routine and torture extreme — including the “grill,” in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire, an Associated Press investigation has found.

***

Several U.S. defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the topic, told AP that American forces do participate in interrogations of detainees at locations in Yemen, provide questions for others to ask, and receive transcripts of interrogations from Emirati allies. They said U.S. senior military leaders were aware of allegations of torture at the prisons in Yemen ….

None of the dozens of people interviewed by AP contended that American interrogators were involved in the actual abuses. Nevertheless, obtaining intelligence that may have been extracted by torture inflicted by another party would violate the International Convention Against Torture and could qualify as war crimes, said Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University who served as special counsel to the Defense Department until last year.

***

The network of prisons echoes the secret detention facilities set up by the CIA to interrogate terrorism suspects in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In 2009, then-President Barack Obama disbanded the so-called “black sites.” The UAE network in war-torn Yemen was set up during the Obama administration and continues operating to this day.

“The UAE was one of the countries involved in the CIA’s torture and rendition program,” said Goodman, the NYU law professor. “These reports are hauntingly familiar and potentially devastating in their legal and policy implications.”

This is hauntingly familiar, indeed …

According to NBC News:

• Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based upon the testimony of people who were tortured

• At least four of the people whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators information as a way to stop being “tortured.”

• One of the Commission’s main sources of information was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was not even allowed to read

• The 9/11 Commission itself doubted the accuracy of the torture confessions, and yet kept their doubts to themselves

In fact, the 9/11 Commission Report was largely based on third-hand accounts of what tortured detainees said, with two of the three parties in the communication being government employees.

As the 9/11 Commission Report itself states:

Chapters 5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al Qaeda members. A number of these “detainees” have firsthand knowledge of the 9/11 plot. Assessing the truth of statements by these witnesses-sworn enemies of the United States-is challenging. Our access to them has been limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations where the actual interrogations take place. We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting.

In other words, the 9/11 Commissioners were not allowed to speak with the detainees, or even their interrogators. Instead, they got their information third-hand.

The Commission didn’t really trust the interrogation testimony. For example, one of the primary architects of the 9/11 Commission Report – Ernest May – said in May 2005:

We never had full confidence in the interrogation reports as historical sources.

End Notes

1. The U.S. is committing other war crimes in Yemen, as well.

2. All of the top interrogation experts agree that  torture does not produce useful information.

3. It’s not just torture. Failure to punish any type of crime encourages more of that type of crime. For example, we’ve known for hundreds of years that failure to punish financial fraud ensures that banksters will carry out bigger and bigger frauds on the country, since fraud goes up as prosecutions go down.

Featured image: credits to the owner

(Updated last graphs on June 24 9:00am est)

Today the Saudi ruler issued an ultimatum to Qatar that was written to be rejected. Such has happened before and one should not forget the lessons to be learned from it.

After the crown prince of the Austria-Hungary monarchy, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was shot and killed in Sarajevo, the government of Austria waited three weeks to issue a 10 point ultimatum to Serbia which it held responsible for the incident. At least three of those points concerned the suppression of “propaganda against Austria-Hungary” and the Austrian Monarchy by Serbian private and state entities. It demanded a response within two days:

Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, commented that he had “never before seen one State address to another independent State a document of so formidable a character.”

The Austrian ultimatum was an offer to be refused. But Serbia did not fall into that trap. It conceded everything but two minor points. This was to no avail. The issues and plans Austria had were not about the assassination of [the disliked] Franz Ferdinand or the demands issued in the ultimatum. Two days later Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia. Allies jumped to either side. World War I had started.

See bigger picture here

The now official demands by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and some minor Gulf sheikdoms against Qatar have a similar smell to them. They are also “an offer to be refused.”

The demands come late, three weeks after Saudi Arabia first accused Qatar of “supporting terrorism”, three weeks after it closed the border and laid siege on the country.

(Qatar is surely “supporting terrorism”. So is the U.S. – the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service just rejected an asylum request because the person in question has relations with the Free Syrian Army which the C&I-Service considers to be an “undesignated terrorist organization”. The CIA built and supports the FSA. According to the U.S. government the U.S. government is a state sponsor of terrorism. But the biggest terrorist sponsor of all are and have been the Saudis.)

Spats between member of the Gulf Cooperation Council are usually mediated by the U.S. government. But without any official demands issued against Qatar there was nothing to mediate about. Three day ago U.S. Department of State finally issued a rather angry statement towards Saudi Arabia:

“We are mystified that the Gulf states have not released to the public, nor to the Qataris, the details about the claims that they are making toward Qatar,” explained State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert on Tuesday.
…
“At this point, we are left with one simple question: Were the actions really about their concerns about Qatar’s alleged support for terrorism, or were they about the long-simmering grievances between and among the GCC countries?” Nauert asked.

The real issue for Saudi Arabia is the support for the Muslim Brotherhood by Qatar. The MB provides an alternative model of Islamic government to the hereditary kingdoms of the Gulf sheiks. They are a danger to the Saudi ruling family. A second point are Qatar’s relative good relations with Iran, the external enemy the Saudis (and Israeli) rulers need to keep their people in line.

The “terrorism” accusation was never the real issue. What the Saudis demand is subjugation. A summary of the thirteen point ultimatum:

In effect, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain are asking Qatar to hand over control of its foreign policy to them. It will not be allowed to have diplomatic relations with Iran and its contact with Iran will be limited to trade and commerce that “complies with US and international sanctions”. Qatar will not be allowed contact with political opposition figures in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain — even though other countries (including western countries) do so routinely. In addition, Qatar is being asked to hand over all its files on those opposition groups.
…
Qatar is also being asked to “end interference in sovereign countries’ internal affairs” while allowing Saudi Arabia, the UAE, etc, apparently unlimited interference in Qatar’s own affairs. Qatar, according to the list of demands, must “align itself with the other Gulf and Arab countries militarily, politically, socially and economically”.Then there’s the closure of Qatar’s TV station, al-Jazeera. Obviously, the Saudis, Emiratis, etc, don’t like it. … Qatar is also told to stop funding several other news organisations, including Middle East Eye and al-Arabi al-Jadeed (also available in English as The New Arab).
…
Finally, Qatar is being asked to sign blank cheque covering “reparations and compensation for loss of life and other, financial losses caused by Qatar’s policies in recent years”.

The Saudi ultimatum ends on July 3, the anniversary of the Saudi sponsored military coup against the Qatari backed Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. One demand in the ultimatum is for Qatar to end all support for the Brotherhood.

The ultimatum will likely be rejected. Qatar will simply not respond until the Saudis and others lift their blockade of the country. If the Saudis want war they should launch it right away, the Qatari ruler thinks. Doha is sure that the U.S. will not allow that. Ten-thousand U.S. troops are stationed in Qatar. It hosts a major U.S. air base and the important Central Command, which leads the war against ISIS and Syria. Qatar just bought U.S. fighter jets for $12 billion and is offering to take a 10% share of American Airlines.

Turkish troops have arrived to protect the sheikdom. One unexpected Saudi demand is that all Turkish troops leave Qatar. The Erdogan government, a Muslim Brotherhood branch, responded with a snippy “Make me do so”:

Turkey’s Defense Minister Fikri Işık rejected the demand, saying any call for the base to be shut would represent interference in Ankara’s relations with Doha. He suggested instead that Turkey might bolster its presence.

There is no “or else” in the Saudi ultimatum. The Saudi ruler, the clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, is not a strategist. He likely has not thought through what he could do would if Qatar says “no” to him.

The Trump administration is considering a Camp David-style summit to solve the conflict:

“The president now wants to bring all the key players to Washington,” he said. “They need to disavow groups like the [Muslim] Brotherhood for the stability of the Middle East at large. It’s not just about Qatari elements funding the Brotherhood but disavowing support for extremism in general,” [a senior White House official] said.

The real issue for the Trump administration is to unite the GCC behind its plans against Iran. There is only a small chance that such can be achieved. Iran is an important commercial partner for Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Oman. Those countries have nothing to win from any war with it.

So far Iran is the sole winner of the GCC spat. Should the Saudi blockade of Qatar continue Iran’s farmers will sell over 400,000 tons of food per year to Qatar. Steel and concrete are other potential exports products for Iran. Lucrative air traffic in Iranian air space has increased by 17% since the Saudis blocked Qatar Airlines flights through their airspace. Iran will sell more natural gas should Qatar’s gas exports be damaged.

Saudi Arabia as well as Qatar are Wahhabi extremist states. They both spend their huge resources to spread their deadly sectarian and racist believes. Qatar’s ideological export is handled by Al-Jazeerah Arabic know for vile sectarianism and support of ISIS and al-Qaeda. The Saudis finance extremist mosques and madrassas all over the world. Let them fight each other and spend their resources against each other. The world can only win from that.

But there is also danger in such a fight. As the historic example of Serbia demonstrates, allies jumping in on either side, each with their own agenda, may spread the fire way beyond the local conflict. What if Pakistan takes the Saudi sides and India, which receives some 90% of its gas imports from Qatar, joins the Qatari one?

The Saudis and Emiratis surely did not think of this when they launched their belligerent plans. They had hoped that Qatar would fold within a day or two. They never though about real fighting or of a possible escalation beyond the local conflict. As both sides have now taken hardened positions it will be difficult for each to climb down. It will now take a year or two, if not longer, for this conflict to end.

Featured image: Strategic Culture Foundation

A little more than a week after launching the strike that reportedly killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, Russian navy ships and a submarine launched six cruise missiles at ISIS targets in Syria’s Hama province, destroying an ISIS command center and ammunition depot, according to Russia Today. The missiles were launched from the eastern Mediterranean by Russian Navy frigates the Admiral Essen and the Admiral Grigorovich, the Defense Ministry said.

The cruise missile strike follows a similar attack by Russian forces on May 31, when a nearly identical arrangement of Russian warships and a submarine also struck ISIS targets near Palmyra.

And, like three weeks ago, today the missiles were launched from Russian Navy frigates: the Admiral Essen and the Admiral Grigorovich, as well as a submarine, the Krasnodar, from the eastern Mediterranean, the Defense Ministry said in a Friday statement. The submarine fired its missiles while submerged.

The strikes targeted Islamic State command and control centers, as well as ammunition depots in the Syrian province of Hama, and hit a large ammunition depot near the town of Aqerbat, which detonated after being hit. Russia had warned Israel and Turkey in advance about the strikes via a military-to-military hotline.

But, apparently, not the US.

The strike was launched after a large Islamic State convoy, comprising 39 vehicles and 120 militants, was spotted outside the city of Raqqa.

“The terrorist convoy of 39 pickup trucks was detected and destroyed by the air force on its way to Palmyra,” a military source told RT. The trucks had been equipped with large-caliber machine guns.

Over the past week, Islamic State militants made numerous attempts to escape the besieged city of Raqqa and head towards Palmyra using a “southern corridor,” RT reported, citing sources in the Russian military. The terrorists were moving forces through rugged terrain to the Hama province during the night and setting up command posts and ammunition depots in large buildings there, it added.

Featured image: Zero Hedge

The only word I find for it is cloddish. I refer to the latest CIA-instigated attempt to initiate regime change against outspoken Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The so-called ISIS terror attack in the minerals-rich southern Philippines island of Mindanao, a predominately Muslim part of the mostly Christian nation of 100 million people, took place literally in the midst of President Duterte’s talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Duterte Putin talks in turn followed Duterte’s attendance in Beijing on May 15 for the first New Silk Road or Belt Road Forum. America’s colonial asset since 1898 was clearly walking away from the Washington “reservation.”

The terrorist siege in Marawi City is blatantly a desperate Washington try to topple the very popular (80% popularity in polls) Duterte, who successfully won the Presidency last June over a US-backed Mar Roxas, a US-educated former Wall Street banker. Since taking office Duterte has made bold and quite courageous steps to steer the former US Colony towards a Eurasian alliance with China and Russia as his major supporters. In Beijing in October last year, Duterte met China’s Xi Jinping and signed numerous trade deals with China. Critically, taking an opposite policy to his pro-US predecessor Benigno Aquino III, Duterte agreed to resolve the South China Sea dispute between Philippines and China through peaceful diplomatic talks, and to as he put it, “seek a separation from the United States.”

Since then Duterte has sought closer ties with Russia as well, in a further effort to bring his nation out from under the yoke of a de facto US control. This does not sit well with the circles of the so-called Deep State in Washington –the CIA and their nefarious friends. Should the US lose the Philippines, it would pose a devastating strategic geopolitical loss to the US military containment strategy against China and Russia in the Pacific. Devastating.

The recent attacks and siege in Mindanao were nominally done by the terrorist Maute gang and Abu Sayyaf criminal terrorist organizations, both nominally tied to the US-created ISIS fake Islamist operation, a CIA terrorist project created with Saudi money going back to the CIA’s Osama Bin Laden Al Qaeda Mujahideen Operation Cyclone during the 1980’s against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Duterte’s Eurasian Pivot

It comes as no surprise to anyone closely following the evolving dialogues between Duterte and the leaders of China and now, Russia that the CIA would try to destabilize Duterte at this critical time. They simply hide behind the black skirts of their psychopathic drug-running Maute and Abu Sayyaf, both now tied to the CIA and Mossad-created and Saudi-financed ISIS.

In Moscow, despite having to cut short his talks with Putin to fly back home and deal with the terrorist crisis in Mindanao, the Philippine leader and his Secretaries of Defense and Foreign Affairs managed to sign a number of critical agreements with Russia. These included 10 major agreements aimed at deepening bilateral defense, strategic and economic relations. The two countries signed an Agreement on Defense Cooperation, a legal framework for military-to-military exchanges, training, intelligence-sharing. The Philippines and Russia also signed an intelligence exchange agreement to bolster counter-terror cooperation. That does not please Washington at all.

A ‘Country Bumpkin’ Not

Western mainstream media has delighted in portraying the 71-year-old veteran politician Duterte as a crude country bumpkin, a lower-than-peasant creature who is only capable of vulgar statements, such as when shortly after his inauguration he called the US Ambassador to Manila a ”gay son of a bitch“ for criticizing Duterte’s war on drug lords and dealers plaguing the country. Whether Duterte was factually correct, he clearly won sympathy of millions of his countrymen for having the courage to stand up against the American power.

After closely watching Duterte and his choice of close advisers now for almost a year, I’ve come to the conclusion a country bumpkin Duterte is definitely not. Rather, he is a shrewd political actor who is determined to bring his country out of the colonial servitude status it has held since the first Spanish colonialization in 1565.

Duterte is the first Mindanaoan to hold the Presidential office. Ethnically he is of Visayan descent. This fact is not irrelevant. The Visayans in Mindanao and other Philippine islands led a war for independence against Spanish occupation in 1896.

The United States, posing as the supporter of the Visayan-led war of independence from Spain, betrayed the trust assured the Philippines, double-crossed them and signed a Treaty with Spain, the Treaty of Paris of 1898, under which Spain ceded Cuba and The Philippines to the United States. The USA refused to recognize the independence of their erstwhile ally, the Philippines, and took the country by military force, America’s first genuine imperial grab. The nascent First Philippine Republic then formally declared war against the United States in 1899, unsuccessfully. It was put under US military control. It took until 1946 before the country could be recognized as an independent sovereign state, at least in name.

That historical heritage of Duterte as a Visayan clearly is a living fact for Duterte. He graduated from the University of the Philippines and earned a degree in law in 1972. As a lawyer, he was prosecutor in Davao City in Mindanao and later Mayor, one of the longest-serving mayors of the Philippines with seven terms over 22 years. As Mayor, Duterte passed the city’s Women Development Code, the only such code in the country. Its aim is “to uphold the rights of women and the belief in their worth and dignity as human beings.” He pushed for the Magna Carta for Women in Davao, a comprehensive women’s human rights law that seeks to eliminate discrimination against women. As President he has made a domestic focus on poverty reduction.

There is clearly more to the man than lurid western media reports reveal. Now this very popular President is determined to make his country a sovereign nation able to choose with whom it allies and for what ends, and how its economy develops. This is why the CIA and its fake Jihadist networks are being jacked up to try to get rid of Rodrigo Duterte.

ISIS: Bloody Pawprints of CIA and Mossad

The networks of the US Deep State, primarily the CIA have chosen their favorite cover, the otherwise laughable deception of head-choppers calling itself the Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL or DAESH (CIA central casting seems to have trouble settling on a name). In reality IS, or the groups that spring up conveniently in Syria, in Iraq, in Chechnya–wherever the CIA decides it needs a terror hit squad–are trained mercenary killers, trained variously by CIA or Pentagon Special Forces; by Pakistani ISI intelligence, at least formerly, or by Mossad, also known as Israeli Secret intelligence Service, or by MI-6. In the Philippines, the IS alleged affiliates, especially the Maute group that has laid siege to Marawi City, are little more than a criminal band that finances itself by terror, occasional beheading to exert ransom in a protection racket, recruiting child fighters. Recently the networks of the CIA have been pouring in their foreign mercenaries from Syria, Libya and other places to beef up Maute’s gang for the attack on Duterte’s rule, portraying it as a religious-based “liberation struggle.”

Maute group in Mindanao (Source: dwiz882am.com)

ISIS came out of the CIA’s Al Qaeda franchise called Al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2010 its name was changed to ISIS. Then as Israeli journalists pointed out the embarrassing fact that the English acronym for the Hebrew spelling of Mossad was ISIS (Israeli Secret Intelligence Services abruptly they decided to call their band of mercenaries with their black flags and US M16 assault rifles, IS for Islamic State. Conveniently in Syria they control the very territory where competing Qatari and Iran gas pipelines to the Mediterranean would run. Curiously, despite the fact they are active in the Golan Heights where Israel has its eye on stealing a huge amount of newly-discovered Syrian oil, they have never attacked Israel. The one time an accidental hit on an Israeli target took place, IS apologized…Do real head-choppers ever apologize?

When the fake CIA Sarin gas attack in Ghouta in 2013 failed to get a UN mandate for all-out war to depose Bashar al Assad–Obama’s infamous “red line”–the NATO and NATO-linked networks created the monster they now call IS in 2014.

Today the CIA uses IS as the cover to justify keeping US forces in Iraq after the government asked them to leave; a cover to bomb Syria in order to topple Assad, something Russian presence has made embarrassingly difficult since September, 2015. And they use it to recruit thousands of young psycho recruits from over the Muslim work, train them and send them back to places like Chechnya in Russia or Xinjiang in China, or Balochistan Province in Pakistan where the Chinese have built a new deep water port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea near Iran, the heart of its $46 billion China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a strategic part of its One Belt, One Road Eurasian infrastructure project.

Now the West’s favorite terrorist mercenaries are being told to take down Duterte in the Philippines. They probably are too late and have badly underestimated their adversaries. But then with the deterioration over recent decades in the quality of American university education, the current generation of strategists at Langley likely missed the basic course in Sun Tzu’s the Art of War, especially the part that cautions generals who wish to be victorious to “know yourself and know your enemy,” something that Duterte seems to have thought about. How the IS destabilization try in the Philippines unfolds in coming weeks may well determine a major turning point towards creation of the emerging China-Russia-centered Eurasian Century.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Featured image: New Eastern Outlook

In the wake of London and Manchester, politicians around the world are trying to convince the public that the free flow of information on the internet is a terror threat.

In reality, independent online media are exposing the real terrorists:

the politicians and their deep state handlers who are funding, arming, aiding and enabling false flag terror. This is the GRTV Backgrounder on GlobalResearch.ca

First released  by GRTV on June 9, 2017

 

The US has embarked on a military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking. 

Breaking the “big lie”, which upholds war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force. This profit-driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.”. (Michel Chossudovsky) 

In the face of economic and political crises and in the shadow of nuclear annihilation, the anti-war movement has evaporated.

Now Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the Centre for Research on Globalization is calling for a new movement of counter-propaganda and activism to delegitimise the lies that prop up the military-industrial complex.

This is the Feature Interview on GRTV, with your host James Corbett and our special guest, Michel Chossudovsky.

---

 

WW III has been contemplated by the U.S. and its allies for well over ten years as revealed in Michel Chossudovsky’s 2012 best-seller:  “Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War“

click book cover image to order directly from Global Research

Nuclear war has become a multi-billion dollar undertaking, which fills the pockets of US defense contractors. What is at stake is the outright “privatization of nuclear war”.

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously.

Central to an understanding of war, is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. A good versus evil dichotomy prevails. The perpetrators of war are presented as the victims. Public opinion is misled.

The object of this book is to forcefully reverse the tide of war, challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them. 

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3  |  Year: 2012  |  Pages: 102 Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling) PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Ordering from Canada or the US? Save on bulk orders of “Towards a World War III Scenario”:

3 copies for $25.00

10 copies for $65.00

90 copies for $540.00

Combined offer: 2 books for 1 price!

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“Professor Chossudovsky’s hard-hitting and compelling book explains why and how we must immediately undertake a concerted and committed campaign to head off this impending cataclysmic demise of the human race and planet earth. This book is required reading for everyone in the peace movement around the world.” –Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois College of Law

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” by Michel ChossudovskyAvailable to order from Global Research!  ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3  |  Year: 2012  |  Pages: 102 Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling) PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

For Kindle edition, click to visit Amazon.com

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

Opium is used to produce heroin and other illicit opioids.

In his book titled “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” Alfred McCoy documented CIA and US government complicity in drugs trafficking at the highest official levels.

It continues today in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South and Central America, facilitating the global supply of illicit drugs.

Peter Dale Scott explained

“(s)ince at least 1950 there has been a global CIA-drug connection operating more or less continuously” to this day.

“The global drug connection is not just a lateral connection between CIA field operatives and their drug-trafficking contacts.”

“It is more significantly a global financial complex of hot money uniting prominent business, financial and government, as well as underworld figures,” a sort of “indirect empire (operating alongside) existing government.”

Heroin and other illicit drugs produce hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues – a US government-supported bonanza for corrupt regime officials in various countries, the CIA, organized crime and Western financial institutions, heavily involved in money laundering.

America is one of numerous countries involved, the most harmful and disturbing because of its imperial power and global reach, influencing or affecting virtually everything worldwide.

The CIA relies on involvement in drugs trafficking for a significant amount of its revenues.

Pre-9/11, Afghanistan under Taliban rule eradicated 94% of opium production according to UN estimates, one of various reasons why Bush/Cheney launched naked aggression on the country in October 2001.

One of the objectives was increasing opium production. Afghanistan was transformed into the world’s largest producer – at one point growing more than total global demand, now accounting for at least 90%.

Only a tiny fraction of what’s produced remains in-country, the rest supplying demand worldwide.

Illicit drugs trafficking is big business – complicit governments cashing in along with money-laundering Wall Street and other big banks, traffickers, and rogue agencies like the CIA.

As long as Afghanistan remains occupied under US-installed puppet rule, opium production will flourish, vitally needed eradication steps ruled out.

RT interviewed Layla Haidari, founder of a Kabul “Mother” organization, helping drug addicts.

“Every day, it is getting worse, not better,” she said. “It’s politics. The ministries, the politicians…want poppy cultivation to continue.

Corrupt Afghan officials like their counterparts elsewhere profit hugely from illicit trafficking, not about to give up a good thing.

Nor will the CIA and major Western banks end a lucrative source of revenues – the human cost of these drugs of no consequence in their decision-making.

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: credits to the owner

In the maelstrom that has followed the Grenfell Tower fire, it has fallen to a perhaps unlikely figure to speak up for the residents and ask searching questions of the authorities.

Lily Allen lives in the shadow of the tower block and witnessed the unfolding tragedy in the early hours of June 14. Since then, she has been a constant presence at the scene, helping the victims and attempting to understand their concerns, but also giving commentary on the relief efforts and exploring the reasons behind the disaster.

It is a role that has won her both praise and criticism. The response of Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine to the singer’s heartfelt attempt to understand the tragedy and give voice for those whose lives its destroyed, or took? The sneer that she should not “pretend to be a journalist”.

Neither the praise nor criticism matters to Allen, though, for whom actions are more important than words. That means helping out in any way she can, while also chronicling the potentially dangerous sense of unease she can see brewing in the local community.

Lily Allen speaks to the media at a protest outside Kensington Town Hall

On the night of the fire, she arrived at the scene at around 2.30am, almost two hours after the blaze first took hold.

“I’d finished recording at the studio late, and was literally just jumping into bed, and I saw on Twitter from the police that there was a fire. An alert came on to my phone, because events such as these come up as part of this London alert scheme that was set-up after the attack at London Bridge.

“Immediately, I thought ‘it’s another terrorist attack’. It said it was on the Lancaster West Estate, and it’s right in between my house and my husband’s house, where my kids were with their dad.

“So instinctively, I just wanted to get to my kids, in case they blocked off the area. I thought, ‘I won’t be able to get them and they won’t be able to get out’. So, I said to my boyfriend ‘let’s just go’.

Messages left at the scene

“I didn’t know what to expect, to be honest, until I started driving down St Mark’s Road, and we could see it. My immediate reaction was just sheer disbelief. I think the first thing I said was, ‘God, I hope there is no one in there’. But it became almost immediately obvious that there were.

“When we got close, about half-way there, we could see it burning, and as we got even closer, we could see there were police setting-up some cordons. We asked them what was going on. We asked was it a terrorist attack and they said, ‘no, there’s been a fire’. People were already, at that point, coming up with crates of water and stuff for the fire brigade.

“The helpers asked us to help carry these things, so we carried them. Then we got even closer and the police were taking them from there. And then we could hear it – the screams. It was at that point I felt ‘well, it doesn’t really feel appropriate to get in my car and drive away and go to my nice house at the top of the road’.

“You could hear there were shouts for help. Then the crying stopped, then there was sense of calm. The moment that hit me, obviously, we were all praying that people were getting out. But it was looking less and less likely, as time went on.

“People were jumping from the upper floors to escape. When the ambulances turned-up, at about 3.30am / 4 o’clock, they all parked up along Bramley Road. There must have been over 40 of them – and then the authorities started to tell people to clear out of the roads because they were going to start bringing people out. But then it just didn’t happen. No-one came out. None of the ambulances left.

“It was at that point we knew they were are all dead. None of them left. It was that vision which confirmed to everyone, what had happened – everyone was dead. That’s when I knew that people hadn’t survived.

“People went to bed and expected to wake-up the next morning to this national news, that so very many of our friends had died. But the news said just six people were dead. “Everyone there was looking to the news for that validation, but it wasn’t there. If you were given that figure of only six dead, and you had a family in there, in the building, you would try to find them. It gave people false hope that their loved ones were still in there.

“That’s when all the missing persons’ posters started going-up and everyone was running round. Everyone was getting their information from the news because the council weren’t here to give them any.”

The day after the fire, Allen raised the issue of the death toll on Channel 4 News telling presenter Jon Snow she felt it was being “downplayed” by the media, who were acquiescing in an attempt by the government to “micro-manage” people’s grief. Her comments attracted criticism from many of those Sarah Vine might describe as “proper journalists”, who argued they could only deal in the details they were provided with.

But Allen remains convinced that the drip-feed of official death rates – which still do not seem to correspond with the scale of those missing – combined with the disconnect between ordinary people and the mainstream media, is taking a heavy psychological toll on residents.

“The thing I would like to convey is that what is being put across, as an official line, doesn’t match the experiences of the people who were there. The different messages don’t make sense. It’s infuriating, and has been met with disbelief from the residents. This is something everyone saw with their own eyes – they saw people die.

“Not only the residents, but the local people running in to help, who didn’t come out. But now, they are stopping talking about it – because they are not talking about it in the newspapers.

“People are having to retreat within their own experiences – because they are not being corroborated – and accept them, and deal with them, on their own, in their own mind, because they have not been corroborated by the authorities. And that’s really dangerous on a psychological level – that’s where post traumatic stress happens, that is where it comes from.

“There are hundreds of people who saw what happened in that building. People are trying to suppress that experience within themselves now, people are in denial, because it’s easier to just try and move on, and forget. It will come back to haunt all of us.

“Whether it happens in weeks or months or years – those images that cannot be wiped from memory, the pain of people we know from around here. It’s not something that goes away, unless you actually send them away to other boroughs, which is what seems to be happening. It’s like a ‘get the problem out’ mentality from the authorities.

“But as long as that tower is standing, it’s not going to go away. Which is why I feel they are going to have to bring it down soon – people are not going to stop talking about it. It’s the elephant in the hood.”

On the hottest day of year, I joined Allen as she trekked from mosque to community centre, from sports club to storage unit, talking or messaging regularly on her mobile to the three main organisers of the grassroots relief effort. All three of them are ordinary people who have been thrown into leadership by circumstance. One is a hero who ran into the burning building and has won the trust of the refugees.

Messages left at the scene

Allen follows a routine she has followed every day since the disaster. She also breaks down in tears on several occasions.

“Lots of people, like myself, want to help. It’s not about making the right noises. People need things – information, access to legal advice, advice on how to get money and emotional support. I haven’t seen any evidence that is happening on a local or government level.

“Perhaps, if when Theresa May visited, she had spoken to the people in the community, instead of just talking to the fire brigade, she would have understood what is needed. How was she to know anything? She didn’t talk to anyone. Maybe, if she had stepped outside, and seen what was going on – the lack of help here on the ground – then she might have been able to implement something. But she didn’t – she stayed behind a wall and spoke to some firemen. There has been a total lack of presence.

“We can’t get back to normal. People can’t get on with their lives until their questions are answered. Obviously, what I can offer is getting the message out, giving people a voice, amplifying their voices really.

“But the reason, I haven’t been doing that on TV every day is because people are really fragile. I definitely do not want to become any kind of public face of Grenfell Tower – that’s not what I’m here for.

“But when it is the right time and there is a specific push that is needed for something, then I will use my platform to try to get that. I started to do some of my own investigations, and it’s been well documented the Grenfell housing community had been talking about fire safety, and their own concerns were met with angry emails and even threats of legal action.

“I am here every day. I just start walking round in a loop, going from one help centre, to the next. There is no central line of communication or central line of command. Everyone wants to protect the residents and the families here, but there are a lot of different people with different agendas being pushed.

“People are not hearing anything that tallies-up with what happened and people disconnect. Unless there is someone there to pick-up the pieces, then they have no option but to retreat, and that is what is happening now. People are becoming defensive.

“It feels like being a small child let out in the world with no adult to take charge. But people want political answers, and if that doesn’t happen, then there will be a lot of anger and people will start to demand them.”

The absence of answers and any clear line of command on the ground is already leading to confusion and tension.

Allen says:

“Because a lot of residents don’t have ID to collect cash it’s something of a free-for-all. Because nothing official has been put out there, and there are various names on different websites where people have tried to put together lists of victims, the information is quite easily assessable. And people are taking advantage of that, saying ‘I’m so-and-so from flat so-and-so… and turning up to places. And they are not so-and-so from flat so-and-so.

“So now you’ve got sort of bouncers on the doors at all the relief centres and it’s very untrusting here on the ground. It’s not a very nice atmosphere at all. It went from quite a nice atmosphere, in the sense that there was lots of community spirit and people coming together and trying to help. But that help? I’m not even sure whether that effort got through. So, it’s gone from people trying to help, to an edgy situation where no one is actually sure of anything.

“People have sort of shut down and are isolated now. It’s kind of like the damage has been done. I would have thought that they can’t suppress it much longer. But it wouldn’t surprise me if this is being done because of the state of Parliament at the moment, and because their primary focus is this DUP deal and trying to get that through. And it’s like, ‘we will deal with Grenfell after we know if we are going to be governing the country or not. Lets make sure we are governing the country before we take care of these people whose relatives have been killed’.”

The result of all this, Allen feels, is that the local community is being manipulated.

“We can’t gaslight the entire community like this,” she says. “That’s what’s happening – it’s gaslighting.”

From what she has heard, while working on the ground, Allen has come to suspect there has been a deliberate concealment of facts. In particular, she has called for an investigation into the possible significance of gas pipe repairs which were taking place near the 24-storey block.

“People are being suppressed, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the suppression is deliberate. They have been shut-down. You have to wonder why there is what I believe to be a cover-up going on, and there are serious questions that need to be asked about the roadworks going on down at Bramley Road. And about access to the flats on the night of the fire. I’d like to hear from the fire brigade.

“There were gas works going on, and in fact we had confirmation today, that definitely the rescue effort was effected – to what degree, I don’t know because I would have to speak to the fire authority to get a report. If those gas works were in relation to the tower, as people are saying they were because of power surges, then questions have to be answered. I can’t believe that access to the tower was blocked-off because of gas works – insane.”

Allen’s calls for such answers will continue. But in the meantime – more than a week on from the blaze – there are still many pressing needs to be met.

“The problem is the people in the tower were poor,” she says. “They are worried – worried about access to benefits. Many of them don’t speak English but there are no translators on the ground.”

As we are talking, Allen is told that residents must go to their local GP to be signed off work if they want to claim employment support allowance.

“All the residents need is cash,” she says. “There are boxes and boxes of clothes for sorting, but they are not needed.

It’s a just distraction to keep people busy – clothes and food for people who have already died.

“People were being told they still needed to turn-up on time to get employment benefit or lose their benefits. Amir Khan (the boxer) came down and donated a big amount of money through an Arabic speaking volunteer, acting as a community relief leader, no-questions-asked. But it’s down to these volunteers to hand out cash. People at the mosque are dealing primarily with victims that were Muslim and their families.

“In each of these relief centres, there are short term conversations going on, there are care packages being put together, there are lots of women who need specific types of baby milk. There is just all sorts of help going on at all different levels.

“People are just sort of using their own areas of expertise. There are lawyers who are here and there are people that are counsellors, doing that kind of thing.”

There are also other well-known people doing their thing, too, discreetly. As we are talking, I see Marcus Mumford come out from the mosque behind us. Cars continually pull up, bringing more and more boxes of clothes and toys.

For Allen, it is more proof that the relief effort is one in which the public, not public bodies, have taken the lead.

“It’s a disgrace, in the richest borough in the country,” Allen adds. “If this had been a fire at the Kensington Palace Gardens hotel, then you better believe that the army would have been here. There are vacant flats and accommodation all over the borough, where up to 1,000 people could be housed. When you say that to the residents they are like, ‘well why aren’t we there already?’ You can’t say to them, ‘it’s because you are poor. Because they can get £1,750-a-week for those houses’. Nice big, Victorian houses with high ceilings. They don’t want these people getting a sniff of what’s available.”

Such talk will doubtless further enrage the Daily Mail, but in using the fire and her empathetic response to it to make a wider point about the glaring inequalities that exist, cheek by jowl, in society, Allen performs a public service.

As we stand outside the charred remains of the tower, she points at it.

“That’s what everyone here is waking up to every day,” she says. “And knowing that so very many died. That is what these people are going through.”

All images in this article are from the author.

Thank you for the introduction. My name is Inder Comar and I am an attorney in The United States. I live and work in San Francisco and New York, and it’s a great privilege to be here and to speak about this topic.

I’m going to focus my comments on what are called colloquially in the United States, ‘The Travel Bans’, and I don’t know how they’re called in other countries, but this is referring to two executive orders that were issued by our current President, President Donald Trump very soon after his inauguration and have been reviewed extensively now by the courts. At least one court of appeal has determined that the travel ban has been subject to, or was the source of discrimination; specifically religious discrimination against Muslims, that the ban targeted Muslims.

What I’ll make clear, especially as I get to the end of my talk, is that we have to look at the travel bans in the context of American history. There are really two American histories; there’s one that every American has the right and obligation to be proud of, in terms of our innovations with respect to due process, and with respect to really remedying and attacking this form of race hatred that has existed in a lot of different places, but also in the United States.

But there is also another America that is really important to talk about that doesn’t get talked a lot about, and that is an America that unfortunately both from a cultural and a government perspective has the unfortunate tendency of labeling certain groups as enemies, or as others. Then supporting through law forms of discrimination against those ‘others’. So, when we’re talking about the travel bans, the travel bans start to make a lot of sense in that historical tradition.

First, I want to talk about the travel bans. There have actually been two travel bans:

The first travel ban was issued one week after the inauguration of Donald Trump, so it was issued on January 27, 2017.

In the first travel ban, the President suspended for ninety days both the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry of foreign persons from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

The First Executive Order also placed a lot of constraints on the admission of refugees into the country. So, it dropped the number of refugees who could be admitted to just 50,000 and it barred indefinitely the admission of Syrian refugees. Id. § 5(c)–(d). So Syrian refugees were just not permitted at all. It further ordered the government to review this program and then when it resumed doing this type of work, the Secretary of State was to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals of religious minority groups only. So, the idea being that only Christians or Sabeans, Yazidis, or minorites, non-Muslims could apply for refugee status.

As noted in court papers throughout the US court system, the President issued these Orders without consulting any relevant national security agencies whatsoever, and in fact prevented and shielded the acting Attorney General at the time from even learning about the contents of the Order. So a lot of people learned about the Order when they read the news or turned on the television that day.

As we all know now, the ban resulted in chaos. One of the primary results of the ban was to target family groups and to threaten families from being joined together. People who were coming back from visiting from overseas, and as I’ll get to at the end of my comments, destruction of the family or targeting the family is part of this other American tradition. When we talk about this American tradition of stigmatizing and vilifying, the primary mechanism that you see in American history is threats and targets of the family.

Activists have gathered outside US airports, as seen here at Portland International Airport on Jan 29, to protest against Mr Trump’s travel ban. (Source: The Straits Times)

What happened at that point, is two American states, the states of Washington and the state of Minnesota immediately challenged the ban. They won at the district court, the lower court level. That went up on appeal, and on appeal, the Ninth Circuit court of appeal which is the Federal Court of Appeal, concluded the travel ban was illegal on the grounds of Due Process. So, it didn’t touch the religious claims, or the discrimination claims, but it said as a matter of just sheer Due Process, what you’ve done, it’s just not going to work, and we’re not going to let you do it.

So, in response to that, President Trump issued a second ban. He told the Court,

‘O.K., you won, I’m not going to fight this, and I’m going to issue a second ban, so give me a couple weeks to do that.’

He got a couple weeks and he issued the Second Travel Ban, and that was issued on March 6, 2017.

Basically what happened there, is the list of seven countries dropped down to six, so Iraq was removed from the list. The second ban did not bar lawful refugees as the first ban had. It also did not talk about preferential treatment for religious minorities.

Right after the second travel ban was released, two reports that came out from the US Department of Homeland Security, both of those reports concluded that they did not reference the ban but they concluded that the ban was kind of useless. The first report stated that increased vetting was unlikely to reduce terrorism-related offenses. A separate report indicated that citizenship is not a reliable indicator of whether anyone poses a terrorist threat.

The second ban was immediately subject to further litigation, and just a couple weeks ago, and as early as last week, we have a couple more court orders.

So the first is from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal, which is a Federal Court of Appeal, and it covers Maryland, the Carolinas, the Virginias. It issued its opinion on May 25, 2017, and that court said that the second ban was likely unconstitutional on the grounds of religious discrimination. So what it did is it looked at pre-administration statements, statements that President Trump had made in the campaign trail. It also looked at Statements that the Administration had made while in office. It easily concluded that the ban was a targeting of Muslim people. It went behind the Administration’s defense is, the Administration says that there’s no mention… the word Muslim doesn’t appear in the ban, was basically the defense.

What this court has said was, no actually, what you said on the campaign trail, and I can list some of the comments… I have a list here… On the campaign website, the Trump Campaign Website had proposed “a total and complete shut down ofMuslims entering into the United States.” This link was only taken down March 2017.

In January, former New York mayor, Rudolph Giuliani issued a statement on Fox News where the President reportedly called him up and said,

‘How do we make this legal?’

And Giuliani said,

‘Well don’t focus on the religion, talk about the countries and that’s how it’ll be legal.’

The Court look at all that stuff and said,

‘You can’t… this is a pre-text… you can’t have said all these things on one side of your mouth and now you’re coming to us and claiming that it’s neutral. That’s not how this works.’

So that decision is now up on appeal to the Supreme court.

Just a week ago the 9th Circuit, so a different Federal Court, it also said the ban was unconstitutional but it didn’t reach the religious issues. It said that it was unconstitutional on the basis of immigration law. So now all of these decisions are going to be reviewed, they are being reviewed as we speak by the US Supreme Court.

Historical context

As I wanted to do earlier, I want to talk about the historical context of these bans, because when you look at the history of this historical legacy, I think the bans are quite naked in terms government-sanctioned targeting of an “other”.

Slavery offers the most well-known example of this and discrimination against people with dark skin, black skin in the United States. There’s a recent book by Professor James Whitman at Yale Law School, who examines the ways in which German National Socialists in the 1930s, their lawyers actually picked up on and studied American Jim Crow laws in depth to understand how they could model their laws to define how Jews should be discriminated against. They were really interested in how America and US States defined terms such as “Negro” or “Mongol.” So National Socialist lawyers were looking at this stuff.

The destruction of indigenous communities by state and federal governments, whether it was through their own conduct or in turning a blind eye to mob violence, is another example of a group of people who were deemed unworthy and unfit to belong to the definition of what it meant to be “American” – which has always carried a historical overture of being people with white skin.

In the 4th Circuit’s recent opinion, which I talked about, there are several citations to Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). This is a very famous Supreme Court opinion which approved of the internment of Japanese individuals, or individuals of Japanese descent, including American citizens, based on the fact that they were Japanese. So this was permitted and approved, and Japanese people were stuck in camps. And as noted in a dissent the decision to intern people of Japanese ancestry was based on little more than, and I’m quoting now “misinformation, half- truths and insinuations that for years have been directed against Japanese Americans by people with racial and economic prejudices—the same people who have been among the foremost advocates of the evacuation.” The parallels with the Travel Bans are clear.

But I want to talk about another, largely unknown case that I think provides the best comparison with the travel bans, and then I’m going to finish up.  This is the case United States v. Bhagan Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923). In this case, a Punjabi-born Indian male, he applied for U.S. citizenship on the basis that he was a high-born caste member in India, and he was a member of the“Aryan race” and that he was “Caucasian,” meaning, that his ancestors had from the Caucasus Mountains. The immigration court bought it and said, ‘Yea, that sounds right.” And they gave him his citizenship, at a time when Inidians did not get citizenship in the United States. The government appealed, and this went all the way up to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court reviewed this and said,

“Look, your theories of Aryanism are interesting, but we don’t buy them. We also reject the idea that you’re “Caucasian,”.”

The Court concluded, and I think it is worth reading their conclusion in full:

“The children of English, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry.” The Court concluded that the great body Americans would instinctively recognize such differences and “reject the thought of assimilation.”

The Travel Bans, and the demagoguery that produced the bans, can be traced very clearly back at least through that decision, and its conclusion that the law in the United States was “intended to include only the type of man whom [the original framers of the law] knew as white.”

Thinking people have to confront the reality that a de facto, race-based society remains alive and well in the United States, that’s in competition with some of these other American values. There’s a real battle right now in the hearts and minds of Americans, is that how that’s going to turn out.

The Travel Bans are a symptom of a long disease which, however in remission it may have been, is now in violent metastasis. Instead of the Irish, the Italians, the Mexicans, or the Japanese, it is now Muslims, and particularly Arab Muslims, who are being targeted and labeled as an enemy, as an “other”, and who are being subject to discrimination both culturally, and by the government. And by a government that can barely seem to hide avowedly racist and discriminatory priorities.

When you think about the slave market, the native reservation, Jim Crow, the prison system in the United States which is overwhelmingly black and brown, Japanese concentration camps, you should think about too, Arab and Muslims detainees in Guantanamo, being held without trial, and the numerous unlawful and criminal wars of aggression that target weak and largely brown and black nations. These are the cousins and colleagues of the Travel Bans. It is no longer possible for good thinking people to aid and abet these policies.

Featured image: Inder Comar

Today’s lengthy Washington Post’s story makes it clear that former CIA boss John Brennan is largely responsible for driving the claim that Russia hacked the election.

But Brennan is a proven, documented liar. He was busted for lying to Congress and the American public by claiming  that the CIA wasn’t spying on the Congressional investigation into torture … when it was.

Indeed, the Washington Post called on Brennan to be fired for lying.

And Brennan lied when – as Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor – he said that in the past year there had not been a single collateral death from drone strikes. (He later changed that that slightly to say there was no “credible evidence” of such deaths.) But there was abundant and credible evidence of collateral deaths from drone strikes. As just one example among many, a March 2011 CIA drone attack in Pakistan killed some 50 people, including tribal elders who were gathered for a tribal conclave.)

Trevor Timm pointed out at the Guardian:

Internal intelligence documents leaked to McClatchy later confirmed Brennan to have lied at the time ….

When Brennan was approved by the Senate, many of his friends told the media he wanted to get the CIA out of the drone business and hand operations over to the Pentagon, but of course once he assumed his office, he seems to have reversed course and kept the drone program under CIA control.

Brennan also fed the public wildly inaccurate details about the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011, and despite condemning leaks of classified information from others, he has often leaks classified information himself to suit his own needs.

***

This is the type of spy … who lies because he doesn’t like to tell the truth.

Indeed, Brennan’s CIA even created hacking techniques to frame other countries for hacking incidents.  

Why is the media taking Brennan’s claims at face value?  Especially when some of the other claims of Russian hacking have officially been debunked?

As Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Seymour Hersch said in January in a story questioning the whole Russian hacking story:

[If I had been covering the story,] I would have made [John] Brennan into a buffoon. A yapping buffoon in the last few days. Instead, everything is reported seriously.

Postscript: The other intelligence official behind many of the Russian hacking claims – James Clapper – is also a confirmed liar.

And see this and this.

Featured image: credits to the owner

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

In 2005, US forces captured Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Iraq, holding him for several years at Camp Bucca.

Little is publicly known about his capture, detention, or how he became ISIS leader. In 2008, the Bush administration transferred authority of all detainees in US custody to Iraqi forces, including Baghdadi.

In 2010, he was freed, assuming leadership of ISIS the same year. He first became known publicly in summer 2014 when its fighters began capturing territory in Iraq and Syria.

Was the Obama administration behind his release? Was he chosen to head the little known terrorist group at that time, serving as imperial foot soldiers?

On May 28, Russian warplanes struck an ISIS command post in northern Syria where Baghdadi and others in his chain of command were discussing exit routes for its fighters from Raqqa through a southern corridor.

At the time, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it’s believed he was “killed in the airstrike” along with other high-ranking ISIS commanders and hundreds of its fighters.

Emir of Raqqa Abu al-Haji al-Masri, Emir Ibrahim al-Naef al-Hajj, “who controlled the district from the city of Raqqa to the settlement of es-Sohne,” and ISIS head of security Suleiman al-Sawah were reported killed by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

On Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ole Syromolotov said

“(a)ccording to the Russian Defense Ministry, it is highly likely that Daesh leader al-Baghdadi was eliminated as a result of a Russian Aerospace Forces strike on the terrorists’ command post in the southern suburb of the city of Raqqa in late May this year,” adding:

This “information is now verified through various channels.” In mid-June, Sergey Lavrov said he was unable to confirm al-Baghdadi’s death.

He was reported killed several times before, only to turn up alive. Is the latest report of his death premature?

Russia’s Defense Ministry believes he’s dead. Satellite images of four buildings where he and his chain of command were meeting show they were obliterated – making it appear no one inside could have survived.

How his death along with other ISIS commanders, if true, affects the terrorist group remains to be seen.

Syrian and allied forces, greatly aided by Russian airpower, continue making steady gains against ISIS and other terrorist groups.

At the same time, US imperial designs on Syria haven’t changed – wanting pro-Western puppet governance replacing Assad.

As long as this objective remains unchanged, ending Syria’s long nightmare remains elusive.

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: credits to the owner

“Democracy Now! is funded entirely through contributions from listeners, viewers, and foundations. We do not accept advertisers, corporate underwriting, or government funding. This allows us to maintain our independence.” – from the Democracy Now website. (emphasis added)

“If they don’t like what we’re doing, we don’t get funded next year.” – TomPaine.com Executive Director John Moyers (quoted on Gatekeepers chart)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

The long-running program Democracy Now boasts of its independence from corporate and state sponsorship, which would compromise its ability to critique in a sustained way the powerful for-profit and government interests potentially linked to their paymasters. As a result, the program’s coverage of the 2003 Iraq War, the Israel-Palestine conflict and other foreign engagements has generally been superior to that of the Washington Post, CNBC, FOX, the New York Times, and other major outlets.

However, there seem to be media narratives this ‘unembedded, independent news hour’ does not challenge. One of them is Syria.

DN typically upholds the official line of Syrian president Assad as a tyrant and the principal cause of suffering of the Syrian people. Journalists like Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley who cite the US/NATO backed militants as a more significant menace to Syrian society rarely appear as Democracy Now host Amy Goodman’s interview guests. For instance, Beeley’s credible reporting on the role of the so-called White Helmets as an arm of the terror groups and as a propaganda instrument for US/NATO is completely shunned by producers of the show.

This distortion has become evident to many of the program’s regular listeners. It inspired a peace group representing Berkeley and the East Bay region in California to compose and distribute an open letter and petition calling for more diversified coverage of the Syrian conflict. (Readers can add their name to the petition here.)

One significant reason why DN’s Syria coverage may be aligning with U.S. imperialist narratives might be the philanthropic foundations that fund the show.

In a previous interview, journalist Cory Morningstar explained how foundations with their roots in Wall Street financiers have manipulated much of the environmental movement, thereby restricting the kinds of activities the activists engage in. She posited that environmentalists are channeling their energies into promoting divestment away from fossil fuels and into the so-called ‘green economy’ which happens to advance the goals of the Rockefellers, Bill Gates, and other wealthy elites seeking new frontiers for investment. Such actions, however do not deconstruct or challenge the very financial system which is destroying the planet and exploiting marginalized peoples around the world. (Listen to that interview here.)

Journalist Bob Feldman explains how this same effect impacts ‘dissident’ media in his 2007 paper Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest? The Ford Foundation, which is connected to the CIA, the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment, the Tides Foundation, the Open Society Institute have all donated millions into “left” media outlets. These include Democracy Now, Working Assets Radio, Counterspin, The Nation, Z Magazine, and Mother Jones among others.

The critical scrutiny of State oppression is therefore cunningly restricted. To quote journalist Brian Salter, “..the big establishment foundations are successfully sponsoring the kind of ‘opposition’ that the US ruling elite can tolerate and live with.”

The question of how and why trusted alternative media outlets like Democracy Now is failing in its accurate reporting on Syria is the focus of this week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour radio program.

In the first half hour we hear from Vanessa Beeley. She is an independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She has researched the background of the White Helmets and has been visiting Syria since July 2016. Beeley is an Associate Editor and contributor to 21st Century Wire, and contributes to UK Column and Mint Press News, and her work is published at Global Research among other online outlets. She acquaints listeners with what she has seen and experienced in Syria that leads her to believe the Western Press is wildly misrepresenting the facts on the ground.

We next hear from Daniel Borgstrom. He is a former U.S. Marine who served from 1959 to 1963. He is now an activist and a member of East Bay Veterans for Peace, chapter 162. Borgstrom is the author of the open letter and petition directed at Democracy Now. He explains his campaign and his thoughts about DN’s distorted reporting on Syria and other issues near the middle of the program.

Finally, we hear from Bob Feldman. Feldman is a journalist and researcher who has investigated the extent to which philanthropic foundations fund and control left media outlets and think tanks. In 2007, he authored the paper Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest? for the on-line journal Critical Sociology. Before that he, together with colleague Brian Salter, composed a series of articles on the Left Gatekeeper phenomenon for their site questionsquestions.net. He elaborates on his research in the last twenty minutes of the show. Links to his various blogs can be found at Where’s the Change.

Special thanks to journalists Barrie Zwicker and Ann Garrison for their assistance in connecting with this week’s guests.

[Correction: In the narration of the episode, and in a previous version of this article, it stated that Daniel Borgstrom served in Vietnam. The veteran never served in Vietnam. – MAW]

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

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

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

An unprecedented report from the corporate press claims U.S. forces have participated in extreme torture and abuse of detainees accused of affiliation with Al Qaeda in Yemen — including “the ‘grill,’ in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire,” the Associated Press finds.

A network of secretive prisons in southern Yemen provide the backdrop for the alleged barbaric acts allegedly carried out by forces from the U.S. and United Arab Emirates — many of those detention facilities remain hidden in plain sight.

That some of the covert prisons sit inside military bases might not be much of a shock, but others are located in ports, an airport, private villas, and even a nightclub — and all, according to the AP, remain untouchable by the embattled Yemeni government.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden weighed in on the new revelations, tweeting,

The U.S. military and/or the CIA outsourced parts of their ongoing torture campaign in Yemen to the United Arab Emirates, reports AP. Some “interrogations” are done in the presence of U.S. personal and on U.S. ships:

MUKALLA, Yemen (AP) — Hundreds of men swept up in the hunt for al-Qaida militants have disappeared into a secret network of prisons in southern Yemen where abuse is routine and torture extreme — including the “grill,” in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire, an Associated Press investigation has found.Senior American defense officials acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses.
…
At one main detention complex at Riyan airport in the southern city of Mukalla, former inmates described being crammed into shipping containers smeared with feces and blindfolded for weeks on end. They said they were beaten, trussed up on the “grill,” and sexually assaulted. According to a member of the Hadramawt Elite, a Yemeni security force set up by the UAE, American forces were at times only yards away.

There have long been rumors in Yemen that detainees were transported to U.S. ships off the coast for intense “interrogations”:

@BaFana3 – 3:42am · 6 May 2016
All on #Yemen now : US aircraft carrier, 2 naval destroyers, amphibious ready group & Marine expeditionary unit. That’s near 15,000 troops
Now I know whose ships the captured AQAP militants are being ferried to from Al Mukalla, Hadhramaut.

AP now:

A Yemeni officer who said he was deployed for a time on a ship off the coast said he saw at least two detainees brought to the vessel for questioning. The detainees were taken below deck, where he was told American “polygraph experts” and “psychological experts” conducted interrogations.
…
Two senior Yemen officials, one in Hadi’s Interior Ministry and another in the 1st Military District, based in Hadramawt province where Mukalla is located, also said Americans were conducting interrogations at sea, as did a former senior security official in Hadramawt.
…
Former detainees and one Yemen official provided the AP with the names of five suspects held at black sites who were interrogated by Americans.

The UAE had been part of the CIA’s “black sites” torture apparatus. Its agents are thereby well trained. The U.S. military and/or the CIA now seem to have outsourced (vid) most of the “dirty” stuff to them. That does not make them less culpable.

The Obama administration has called this acting “by, with and through” allies. The Trump administration continues with the scheme.

The tortured “militants” were most likely not al-Qaeda chaps. Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula held the harbor city of Mukalla in Yemen. The UAE “liberated” the city in April 2016 by making a deal with AQAP and letting them go. It is allied with the group while fighting the Yemeni Houthi. If the U.S. torture crews believe that they are “interrogating” real “al-Qaeda” they are hoodwinked by the UAE operators.

The U.S. military is, of course, denying all torture accusations and the CIA is, of course, not commenting, but denigrating the accusers. We have heard such denials before.

—
Yesterday an al-Saud family clown prince replaced another al-Saud family clown prince to replace the old al-Saud family king who will be offed soon. This in a country named after the al-Saud family. It is change you can believe in. The soon to be dictator-king Muhammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the guy who has debt-to-GDP, is fawned over in U.S. media. That is no wonder. He has lot of money and no idea of its value. He paid €500 million for a used ship that had cost only €300 million when it was build six years earlier. Some of his money will drop here or there when a journalist writes a pretty piece about him. If the journo is really good at it s/he will get paid off in some CIA endorsed weapon deal with the Gulf sheiks. Bin Salman is not very bright. He visited Israel and is in constant contact with Israeli officials. His development program for Saudi Arabia, based on austerity, was written by McKinsey consultants and is thereby likely to fail. With his extreme anti-Iranian stand he looks like a mere U.S.-Israeli puppet.

The 26 million people he rules over will not like either. Many Arab peninsula citizens will want to see his head on a pike. The House of Saud is now a house of cards destined to fall.

The rise and installation of Muhammad bin Salman as Saudi King is, in part, a project of his mentor, the Emirati clown prince Mohammed bin Zayed. Bin Zayed rules the UAE. “By, with and through” allies comes to mind.

—
The Saudi rulers sponsored, together with Qatar, the ISIS takeover of Iraq and parts of Syria. They also helped finance the Clinton campaign. The Islamic State terrorists just blew up the 845 year old al-Nuri mosque in Mosul. ISIS leader Baghdadi had declared himself Caliph in that mosque and the Iraqi military was on the verge of re-taking it.

The NYT report of the mosque destruction calls the the ISIS nihilists “militants”:

Almost from the beginning of its rule, the Islamic State systematically destroyed or damaged one important monument or shrine after another[…] In Mosul’s library, militants burned thousands of old books and manuscripts.

Another NYT report recently called Bernie Sanders followers “militant”:

The growing tension between the party’s ascendant militant wing and Democrats competing in conservative-leaning terrain, was on vivid, split-screen display over the weekend. In Chicago, Senator Bernie Sanders led …

Demanding single-payer health care is obviously comparable to the sectarian massacring of thousands or to blowing up century old places of worship. Only “militants” do such. But don’t you dare to compare Saudi sponsoring of ISIS and of Hillary Clinton. Even when the Saudis are doing both.

Drawing connections from the UAE/CIA torture in Yemen, the UAE mentoring of the coming Saudi king, Saudi sponsoring of the CIA endorsed Clinton campaign, the U.S./Saudi caused famine, as well as the terror of ISIS in not kosher – even when there are direct lines between all of these. Trump is, by the way, no better than Clinton in this. His endorsement of the aggressive new Saudi ruler while a U.S. jet shoots down a Syrian plane which is attacking ISIS is likely not just a coincidence.

But its the progressives who are “militant”.

Featured image: credits to the owner

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the National Defense Forces (NDF) and other pro-government factions have further advanced against ISIS and US-backed militants in the province of Homs. On Thursday, government troops captured Tal Ghurab northwest of the US garrison of Zquf near the Syrian-Iraqi border. With the liberation of Tal Ghurab, the SAA and its allies increased pressure on US-backed militants operating in the area and strengthened the Syrian military position at the border with Iraq.

Separately, the SAA and the NDF captured Zahar Abah and clashes with ISIS at the Arak gas fields area. ISIS militants fiercely defend their positions east of Palmyra.

In the province of Raqqah, the SAA and the NDF have resumed attempts to re-take the Ithriyah-Resafa road from ISIS terrorists. An intense fighting is ongoing.

Earlier this week, the SAA seized a large ISIS workshop in Resafa, capturing a notable number of battle tanks and other equipment.

Turkey, Russia and Iran have been working on a plan to deploy their troops in de-escalation areas in Syria, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told media on Thursday.

“We will probably be most prominent in the Idlib region with the Russians; mostly Russia and Iran around Damascus, and a mechanism involving the Americans and Jordan in the south in the Daraa region is being worked on,” Ibrahim Kalin said, adding that the sides will further discuss the de-escalation agreement during talks in the Kazakh capital Astana in early July.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Shamanov, head of the defense committee at Russia’s State Duma said that Moscow has been negotiating with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan suggesting them to deploy some forces into the recently established de-escalation zones.

Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a deal in Astana on May 4 to establish four de-escalation zones in order to minimize violence in the war-torn country.

On Thursday, reports appeared that the government and militants operating in Daraa have reached comprehensive reconciliation agreement and the SAA may re-establish control over the border with Jordan in the area. However, these reports were not confirmed by government officials. Clashes in the area continued.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continued an advance south of Raqqah, capturing Al-Kamb from ISIS. If the SDF seizes Mustajid Naqib, ISIS units will be fully encircled inside the city. ISIS launched a series of counter-attacks in Raqqah but didn’t regain any large areas.

Featured image: South Front

Israel is closing the bank accounts of Arab institutions in Jerusalem in an effort to displace Jerusalemites and force them out of the city, the Department of Jerusalem Affairs has said.

In a press release, the organisation said the Israeli occupation’s moves against social, cultural, educational, relief, housing, legal or engineering institutions were political and go hand in hand with the Israeli policy of collective punishment against the defenseless Palestinian civilians in order to Judaise the city by force.

Organisations had been told verbally seven months ago that their accounts could be closed however no paperwork was issued to confirm the action, the Director of the Yabous Cultural Centre, Rania Elias, told Quds Press.

“The bank specified an amount of money for us to deposit in the account and of course we did that. The bank was to be informed in the case that any sum was added to clarify the source of the funds. And this is what we have actually done,” Elias explained.

“Since the first procedure took place months ago, we tackled the issue from a legal standpoint and hired a lawyer in order to keep track of the issue and pursue all the unjustifiable requirements of the bank so as not to offer them any alleged reason to close the account.”

However, this was in vain as the Israeli bank rejected a bank transfer coming from the EU for no reason.

The groups affected have maintained that their operations are legal, their operations comply with the missions and objectives they have set up for themselves when they were launched and registered, their taxes are paid and that they Israeli auditors to ensure their operations comply with the law.

Featured image: Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency via Middle East Monitor

On June 21 the editorial board of the Washington Post, long a propaganda instrument believed to be in cahoots with the CIA and the deep state, called for more sanctions and more pressure on Russia.

One second’s thought is sufficient to realize how bad this advice is. The orchestrated demonization of Russia and its president began in the late summer of 2013 when the British Parliament and Russian diplomacy blocked the neoconned Obama regime’s planned invasion of Syria. An example had to be made of Russia before other countries began standing up to Washington. While the Russians were focused on the Sochi Olympic Games, Washington staged a coup in Ukraine, replacing the elected democratic government with a gang of Banderite neo-nazi thugs whose forebears fought for Hitler in World War II. Washington claimed it had brought democracy to Ukraine by putting neo-nazi thugs in control of the government.

Washington’s thugs immediately began violent attacks on the Russian population in Ukraine. Soviet war memorials were destroyed. The Russian language was declared banned from official use. Instantly, separatist movements began in the Russian parts of Ukraine that had been administratively attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders. Crimea, a Russian province since the 1700s, voted overwhelmingly to seperate from Ukraine and requested to be reunited with Russia. The same occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

These independent actions were misrepresented by Washington and the presstitutes who whore for Washington as a “Russian invasion.” Despite all facts to the contrary, this misrepresentation continues today. In US foreign policy, facts are not part of the analysis.

The most important fact that is overlooked by the Washington Post and the Russophobic members of the US government is that it is an act of insanity to call for more punishment and more pressure on a country with a powerful military and strategic nuclear capability whose military high command and government have already concluded that Washington is preparing a surprise nuclear attack.

Are the Washington Post editors trying to bring on nuclear armageddon? If there was any intelligence present in the Washington Post, the newspaper would be urging that President Trump immediately call President Putin with reassurances and arrange the necessary meetings to defuse the situation. Instead the utterly stupid editors urge actions that can only raise the level of tension. It should be obvious even to the Washington Post morons that Russia is not going to sit there, shaking in its boots, and wait for Washington’s attack. Putin has issued many warnings about the West’s rising threat to Russian security. He has said that Russia “will never again fight a war on its own territory.” He has said that the lesson he has learned is that “if a fight is unavoidable, strike first.” He has also said that the fact that no one hears his warnings makes the situation even more dangerous.

What explains the deafness of the West? The answer is arrogance and hubris.

As the presstitute media is incapable of reason, I will do their job for them. I call for an immediate face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin at Reykjavik. Cold War II, begun by Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, must be ended now.

So, where is President Trump? Why is the President of the United States unable to rise to the challenge? Why isn’t he the man Ronald Reagan was? Is it, as David Stockman says, that Trump is incapable of anything except tweeting? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47310.htm

Why hasn’t President Trump long ago ordered all intercepts of Russian chatter gathered, declassified, and made public? Why hasn’t Trump launched a criminal prosecution against John Brennan, Susan Rice, Comey, and the rest of the hit squad that is trying to destroy him?

Why has Trump disarmed himself with an administration chosen by Russiaphobes and Israel?

As David Stockman writes,

Trump “is up against a Deep State/Dem/Neocon/mainstream media prosecution” and “has no chance of survival short of an aggressive offensive” against those working to destroy him. But there is no Trump offensive, “because the man is clueless about what he is doing in the White House and is being advised by a cacophonous coterie of amateurs and nincompoops. So he has no action plan except to impulsively reach for his Twitter account.”

Our president twitters while he and Earth itself are pushed toward destruction.

Featured image: credits to the owner

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz announced on Wednesday his decision to replace Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz with his own son, Mohammed bin Salman.

After the decision was announced, the Israeli air force sent 18 of its fighter jets, including F16I, F15CD and F16CD, along with two Gulfstream aircraft, two tanker airplanes and two C130 planes, special for electronic warfare, to Saudi Arabia at the demand of the new crown prince bin Salman to block his cousin (bin Nayef)’s possible measures.

According to a royal decree, Mohammed bin Salman, 31, was also named deputy prime minister, and shall maintain his post as defense minister, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Wednesday.

Saudi media announced that King Salman has called for a public pledge of allegiance to the new crown prince in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday night.

The SPA also confirmed that 31 out of 34 members of Saudi Arabia’s succession committee chose Mohammed bin Salman as the crown prince.

Just days ago, the Saudi king stripped Nayef of his powers overseeing criminal investigations and designated a new public prosecution office to function directly under the king’s authority.

In a similar move back in 2015, the Saudi king had appointed his nephew, then deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef as the heir to the throne after removing his own half-brother Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud from the position.

Under the new decree, King Salman further relieved Mohammed bin Nayef of his duties as the interior minister. He appointed Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef as the new interior minister and Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Salem as deputy interior minister.

Mohammed Bin Salman is already in charge of a vast portfolio as chief of the House of Saud royal court and chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs, which is tasked with overhauling the country’s economy.

The young prince was little known both at home and abroad before Salman became king in January 2015.

However, King Salman has significantly increased the powers of Mohammed, with observers describing the prince as the real power behind his father’s throne.

The power struggle inside the House of Saud came to light earlier this year when the Saudi king began to overhaul the government and offered positions of influence to a number of family members.

In two royal decrees in April, the Saudi king named two of his other sons, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Prince Khaled bin Salman, as state minister for energy affairs and ambassador to the United States, respectively.

Late April, media source disclosed that Mohammad bin Salman has literally bribed the new US administration by paying $56m to Donald Trump.

According to reports, bin Salman is paying off the US to buy its support for finding a grip over the crown.

“Since Uncle Sam’s satisfaction is the first step for the Saudi princes to get on the crown, paying off Washington seems to be a taken-for-granted fact,” Rami Khalil, a reporter of Naba’ news website affiliated to the Saudi dissidents wrote.

He added that since the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) is like a sword over the head of the al-Saud, they have no way out but to bribe the US, noting that the Yemen quagmire is also another reason for Riyadh to seek Washington’s support.

Also, a prominent Yemeni analyst said earlier this month that the US has been paid several trillion dollars by Saudi Arabia to protect its crown, adding that Riyadh has recently bribed Washington’s support for the Yemen war with $200bln.

“Washington has asked for more money to defend the Saudi regime and Riyadh has recently paid $200bln to the US for the costs of its support for the war in Yemen,” Saleh al-Qarshi told FNA.

“This is apart from the huge amounts of money that Saudi Arabia pays to the US treasury for protecting its crown,” he added.

According to al-Qarshi, former Saudi Intelligence Chief Turki al-Feisal revealed last year that his country has bought the low-profit US treasury bonds to help the US economy.

As the defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman has faced strong international criticism for the bloody military campaign he launched against neighboring Yemen in 2015 amid his rivalry with bin Nayef, the then powerful interior minister.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 14,000 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in Yemen also announced that more than a thousand Yemenis have died of cholera since April 2017 as Saudi Arabia’s deadly campaign prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, continues hitting residential areas across Yemen.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

According to several reports, the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has drove the impoverished country towards humanitarian disaster.

Nearly 3.3 million Yemeni people, including 2.1 million children, are currently suffering from acute malnutrition. The Al-Saud aggression has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.

The WHO now classifies Yemen as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the world alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.

Featured image: AhlulBayt News Agency

The US decision to shoot down a Syrian aircraft should be considered “an act of war” which must be taken to international courts, says a political analyst.

Scott Rickard made the remarks on Tuesday when asked about a Syrian warplane that was shot down by the US earlier in June.

On June 18, the Syrian army said that the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group had targeted one of its Sukhoi Su-22 warplanes over al-Rasafa area in the southern countryside of Raqqah Province.

The Syrian General Command of the Army and Armed Forces announced in a statement that the military aircraft was on a combat mission against Daesh terrorists, noting that the pilot of the jet had gone missing after the “flagrant aggression.”

“Well, unfortunately the United States has gone so far as to shoot down a Syrian aircraft and this is obviously a huge act of war, this is very similar to what happened with the Turkish military air force when they shot down the Russian airliner in Syria,” Rickard, a former American intelligence linguist, told Press TV.

“The United States has gone way beyond international law…. and we’re looking at an opportunity where international law is going to basically look at this as a war crime and an act of war if it’s ever taken to a court. That’s the thing that really needs to happen here,” he added.

“The United Nations is not going to be effective obviously, but the international crimes or war crimes courts will be the best area to go to fight this obviously,” he stated.

Following the announcement by Syria, the US-led Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement that pro-government Syrian forces had attacked the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the town of Ja’Din south of Tabqa, wounding a number of US-backed militants and driving the rest from the town.

The United States, without the Syrian government’s consent, is conducting a military campaign in Syria purportedly striking Daesh targets in the war-torn country.

On April 7, US warships in the eastern Mediterranean launched a barrage of 59 Tomahawk missiles against Shayrat Air Base in Syria’s Homs Province, which Washington alleged was the origin of a suspected chemical attack on the town of Khan Shaykhun in Syria’s Idlib Province earlier that month.

Washington has so far failed to provide any evidence to support the accusations, prompting criticisms from many countries and international intuitions that the US took unilateral military action hastily and without proof.

The strike drew praise from anti-Damascus militant groups as well as the countries long viewed as their staunch supporters, including Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey.

Featured image: WFAA-TV

Kiev, Ukraine. In remarkable events, that now look strangely related, the Ukrainian speaker of Parliament, the Rada-has announced Ukraine has an agreement with the United States of America to deploy combat troops to “assist” their martial law operation or reintegration of Donbass plan.

A security agreement with the United States has been signed that provides for the deployment of US military forces on the territory of Ukraine, as stated by the head of the Verkhovna Rada, Andriy Parubiy, on the air during a broadcast of the program “Freedom of Speech” on Kiev television.

“The agreement envisages special operations, joint scientific and technical developments, and even the deployment of military troops from the United States of America in Ukraine,” he said.

According to the Speaker, the practice of such agreements has long been used in the US, and similar documents have been signed with Japan, Australia and Israel. He noted that the agreement provides a prerogative right to provide military-grade lethal arms to Ukraine.

Parubiy believes that the question of providing lethal weapons can be resolved in the near future. As previously reported, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke in favor of giving Ukraine defensive weapons.

US forces are currently acting as advisers and operate on a secret basis in Donbass. The actual deployment of US forces as a backup force to Ukrainian units involved in martial law duties fighting in Donbass is a sharp, severe escalation of the Donbass conflict to a level not seen previously.

Featured image: credits to the owner

Il «Fondo per la difesa», che l’Unione europea ha lanciato il 22 giugno, è stato definito un «passo storico» dal presidente della Commissione europea, Jean-Claude Juncker. Resta da vedere in quale direzione.

Il Fondo rappresenta una massiccia iniezione di denaro pubblico nell’industria bellica europea. Esso comincia con lo stanziare 90 milioni di euro nel 2017-2019 per la ricerca su nuove tecnologie militari, in particolare sistemi robotici per le forze navali e terrestri. Dal 2020 lo stanziamento per la ricerca militare salirà a 500 milioni di euro l’anno.

A questo si aggiunge uno stanziamento ancora maggiore per incentivare la cooperazione tra i paesi Ue nello sviluppo congiunto e nell’acquisizione di sistemi d’arma: essi possono, ad esempio, investire congiuntamente per sviluppare lo stesso tipo di drone o acquistare in blocco lo stesso carrarmato per ridurne il costo (una sorta di «gruppo di acquisto solidale» per la guerra). Per tale settore il Fondo stanzia 500 milioni di euro per il 1919 e 2020 e un miliardo di euro l’anno dopo il 2020. Grazie all’«effetto moltiplicatore» si prevede di generare investimenti complessivi nell’industria bellica Ue pari a 5 miliardi euro l’anno dopo il 2020.

Il Fondo non è alternativo ma complementare agli impegni finanziari che i paesi Ue membri della Nato hanno assunto nella Alleanza, di cui fanno parte (dopo la Brexit) 21 dei 27 membri dell’Unione europea. Nel 2014 essi hanno assunto l’impegno, richiesto dall’amministrazione Obama, di destinare al militare almeno il 2% del pil. Finora, oltre agli Usa, solo Grecia, Estonia, Gran Bretagna e Polonia hanno superato tale soglia. L’Italia, calcola il Sipri, spende per il militare l’1,55% del pil, ossia circa 70 milioni di euro al giorno di denaro pubblico. Salendo al livello della Grecia (2,36%, nonostante la crisi economica), spenderebbe oltre 100 milioni al giorno; salendo a quello degli Usa (3,61%), spenderebbe oltre 160 milioni di euro al giorno. Il 2%, insiste Trump, è ormai insufficente per i crescenti compiti della Alleanza.

La spesa militare dell’Italia, che il Sipri colloca all’11° posto mondiale nel 2016, è in realtà più alta di quella iscritta nel bilancio del ministero della Difesa. Nell’ultima Legge di bilancio vengono stanziati (sempre con denaro pubblico) quasi 10 miliardi di euro per produrre carri da combattimento Freccia e Centauro 2, fregate Fremm, elicotteri da attacco Mangusta. Sotto la voce «Edilizia pubblica, compresa quella scolastica» sono stanziati 2,6 miliardi per il Pentagono italiano, voluto dalla ministra Pinotti per riunire in un’unica struttura i vertici di tutte le forze armate. Essa sorgerà nella zona aeroportuale di Centocelle a Roma, dove è già stata trasferita la Direzione generale degli armamenti con il suo staff di 1500 persone.

La Direzione degli armamenti dovrà ora ingrandirsi per gestire l’ulteriore potenziamento dell’industria bellica italiana, già in ottima forma. Nel 2016, l’export italiano di armi è aumentato di oltre l’85% rispetto al 2015, salendo a 14,6 miliardi di euro. Grazie alla vendita di 28 cacciabombardieri Eurofighter al Kuwait, un maxi-contrattto da 8 miliardi di euro, merito della ministra Pinotti, efficiente piazzista di armi.

Nel disegno di legge per l’implementazione del «Libro Bianco per la sicurezza internazionale e la difesa», approvato lo scorso febbraio dal Consiglio dei ministri, l’industria militare viene definita «pilastro del Sistema Paese». Esso viene ora rafforzato dal Fondo Ue per la «difesa», mentre si demolisce l’Articolo 11, pilastro della Costituzione.

Manlio Dinucci

The national Democratic Party and many liberals have bet heavily on the Russia-gate investigation as a way to oust President Trump from office and to catapult Democrats to victories this year and in 2018, but the gamble appears not to be paying off.

The Democrats’ disappointing loss in a special election to fill a congressional seat in an affluent Atlanta suburb is just the latest indication that the strategy of demonizing Trump and blaming Russia for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat may not be the golden ticket that some Democrats had hoped.

Though it’s still early to draw conclusive lessons from Karen Handel’s victory over Jon Ossoff – despite his raising $25 million – one lesson may be that a Middle America backlash is forming against the over-the-top quality of the Trump-accusations and the Russia-bashing, with Republicans rallying against the image of Official Washington’s “deep state” collaborating with Democrats and the mainstream news media to reverse a presidential election.

Indeed, the Democrats may be digging a deeper hole for themselves in terms of reaching out to white working-class voters who abandoned the party in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to put Trump over the top in the Electoral College even though Clinton’s landslide win in California gave her almost three million more votes nationwide.

Clinton’s popular-vote plurality and the #Resistance, which manifested itself in massive protests against Trump’s presidency, gave hope to the Democrats that they didn’t need to undertake a serious self-examination into why the party is in decline across the nation’s heartland. Instead, they decided to stoke the hysteria over alleged Russian “meddling” in the election as the short-cut to bring down Trump and his populist movement.

A Party of Snobs?

From conversations that I’ve had with some Trump voters in recent weeks, I was struck by how they viewed the Democratic Party as snobbish, elitist and looking down its nose at “average Americans.” And in conversations with some Clinton voters, I found confirmation for that view in the open disdain that the Clinton backers expressed toward the stupidity of anyone who voted for Trump. In other words, the Trump voters were not wrong to feel “dissed.”

It seems the Republicans – and Trump in particular – have done a better job in presenting themselves to these Middle Americans as respecting their opinions and representing their fears, even though the policies being pushed by Trump and the GOP still favor the rich and will do little good – and significant harm – to the middle and working classes.

By contrast, many of Hillary Clinton’s domestic proposals might well have benefited average Americans but she alienated many of them by telling a group of her supporters that half of Trump’s backers belonged in a “basket of deplorables.” Although she later reduced the percentage, she had committed a cardinal political sin: she had put the liberal disdain for millions of Americans into words – and easily remembered words at that.

By insisting that Hillary Clinton be the Democratic nominee – after leftist populist Bernie Sanders was pushed aside – the party also ignored the fact that many Americans, including many Democrats, viewed Clinton as the perfectly imperfect candidate for an anti-Establishment year with many Americans still fuming over the Wall Street bailouts and amid the growing sense that the system was rigged for the well-connected and against the average guy or gal.

In the face of those sentiments, the Democrats nominated a candidate who personified how a relatively small number of lucky Americans can play the system and make tons of money while the masses have seen their dreams crushed and their bank accounts drained. And Clinton apparently still hasn’t learned that lesson.

Citing Women’s Rights

Last month, when asked why she accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking to Goldman Sachs, Clinton rationalized her greed as a women’s rights issue, saying:

“you know, men got paid for the speeches they made. I got paid for the speeches I made.”

Her excuse captured much of what has gone wrong with the Democratic Party as it moved from its working-class roots and New Deal traditions to becoming a party that places “identity politics” ahead of a duty to fight for the common men and women of America.

Demonstrating her political cluelessness, Clinton used the serious issue of women not getting fair treatment in the workplace to justify taking her turn at the Wall Street money trough, gobbling up in one half-hour speech what it would take many American families a decade to earn.

While it’s a bit unfair to personalize the Democratic Party’s problems, Hillary and Bill Clinton have come to represent how the party is viewed by many Americans. Instead of the FDR Democrats, we have the Davos Democrats, the Wall Street Democrats, the Hollywood Democrats, the Silicon Valley Democrats, and now increasingly the Military-Industrial Complex Democrats.

To many Americans struggling to make ends meet, the national Democrats seem committed to the interests of the worldwide elites: global trade, financialization of the economy, robotization of the workplace, and endless war against endless enemies.

Now, the national Democrats are clambering onto the bandwagon for a costly and dangerous New Cold War with nuclear-armed Russia. Indeed, it is hard to distinguish their foreign policy from that of neoconservatives, although these Democrats view themselves as liberal interventionists citing humanitarian impulses to justify the endless slaughter.

Earlier this year, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found only 28 percent of Americans saying that the Democrats were “in touch with the concerns of most people” – an astounding result given the Democrats’ long tradition as the party of the American working class and the party’s post-Vietnam War reputation as favoring butter over guns.

Yet rather than rethink the recent policies, the Democrats prefer to fantasize about impeaching President Trump and continuing a blame-game about who – other than Hillary Clinton, her campaign and the Democratic National Committee – is responsible for Trump’s election. Of course, it’s the Russians, Russians, Russians!

A Problem’s Deep Roots

Without doubt, some of the party’s problems have deep roots that correspond to the shrinking of the labor movement since the 1970s and the growing reliance on big-money donors to finance expensive television-ad-driven campaigns. Over the years, the Democrats also got pounded for being “weak” on national security.

Further, faced with Republican “weaponization” of attack ads in the 1980s, many old-time Democrats lost out to the Reagan Revolution, clearing the way for a new breed of Democrats who realized that they could compete for a slice of the big money by cultivating the emerging coastal elites: Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and even elements of the National Security State.

By the 1990s, President Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council defined this New Democrat, politicians who reflected the interests of well-heeled coastal elites, especially on free trade; streamlined financial regulations; commitment to technology; and an activist foreign policy built around spreading “liberal values” across the globe.

Mixed in was a commitment to the rights of various identity groups, a worthy goal although this tolerance paradoxically contributed to a new form of prejudice among some liberals who came to view many white working-class people as fat, stupid and bigoted, society’s “losers.”

So, while President Clinton hobnobbed with the modern economy’s “winners” – with sleepovers in the Lincoln bedroom and parties in the Hamptons – much of Middle America felt neglected if not disdained. The “losers” were left to rot in “flyover America” with towns and cities that had lost their manufacturing base and, with it, their vitality and even their purpose for existing.

Republican Fraud

It wasn’t as if the Republicans were offering anything better. True, they were more comfortable talking to these “forgotten Americans” – advocating “gun rights” and “traditional values” and playing on white resentments over racial integration and civil rights – but, in office, the Republicans aggressively favored the interests of the rich, cutting their taxes and slashing regulations even more than the Democrats.

The Republicans paid lip service to the struggling blue-collar workers but control of GOP policies was left in the hands of corporations and their lobbyists.

Though the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American president, raised hopes that the nation might finally bind its deep racial wounds, it turned out to have a nearly opposite effect. Tea Party Republicans rallied many white working-class Americans to resist Obama and the hip urban future that he represented. They found an unlikely champion in real-estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump, who sensed how to tap into their fears and anger with his demagogic appeals and false populism.

Meanwhile, the national Democrats were falling in love with data predicting that demographics would magically turn Republican red states blue. So the party blithely ignored the warning signs of a cataclysmic break with the Democrats’ old-time base.

Despite all the data on opioid addiction and declining life expectancy among the white working class, Hillary Clinton was politically tone-deaf to the rumbles of discontent echoing across the Rust Belt. She assumed the traditionally Democratic white working-class precincts would stick with her and she tried to appeal to the “security moms” in typically Republican suburbs by touting her neoconservative foreign policy thinking. And she ran a relentlessly negative campaign against Trump while offering voters few positive reasons to vote for her.

Ignoring Reality

When her stunning loss became clear on Election Night – as the crude and unqualified Trump pocketed the electoral votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – the Democrats refused to recognize what the elections results were telling them, that they had lost touch with a still important voting bloc, working-class whites.

Rather than face these facts, the national Democrats – led by President Obama and his intelligence chiefs – decided on a different approach, to seek to reverse the election by blaming the result on the Russians. Obama, his intelligence chiefs and a collaborative mainstream media insisted without presenting any real evidence that the Russians had hacked into Democratic emails and released them to the devastating advantage of Trump, as if the minor controversies from leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta explained Trump’s surprising victory.

As part of this strategy, any Trump link to Russia – no matter how inconsequential, whether from his businesses or through his advisers – became the focus of Woodward-and-Bernstein/Watergate-style investigations. The obvious goal was to impeach Trump and ride the wave of Trump-hating enthusiasm to a Democratic political revival.

In other words, there was no reason to look in the mirror and rethink how the Democratic Party might begin rebuilding its relationships with the white working-class, just hold hearings featuring Obama’s intelligence chieftains and leak damaging Russia-gate stuff to the media.

But the result of this strategy has been to deepen the Democratic Party’s reliance on the elites, particularly the self-reverential mavens of the mainstream media and the denizens of the so-called “deep state.” From my conversations with Trump voters, they “get” what’s going on, how the powers-that-be are trying to negate the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump by reversing a presidential election carried out under the U.S. constitutional process.

A Letter from ‘Deplorable’ Land

Some Trump supporters are even making this point publicly. Earlier this month, a “proud deplorable” named Kenton Woodhead from Brunswick, Ohio, wrote to The New York Times informing the “newspaper of record” that he and other “deplorables” were onto the scheme.

“I wanted to provide you with an unsophisticated synopsis of The New York Times and the media’s quest for the implosion of Donald Trump’s presidency from out here in the real world, in ‘deplorable’ country. … Every time you and your brethren at other news organizations dream up a new scheme to get Mr. Trump, we out here in deplorable land increase our support for him. …

“Regardless of what you dream up every day, we refuse to be sucked into your narrative. And even more humorously, there isn’t anything you can do about it! And I love it that you are having the exact opposite effect on those of us you are trying to persuade to think otherwise.

“I mean it is seriously an enjoyable part of my day knowing you are failing. And badly! I haven’t had this much fun watching the media stumble, bumble and fumble in years. I wonder what will happen on the day you wake up and realize how disconnected you’ve become.”

So, despite Trump’s narcissism and incompetence – and despite how his policies will surely hurt many of his working-class supporters – the national Democrats are further driving a wedge between themselves and this crucial voting bloc. By whipping up a New Cold War with Russia and hurling McCarthistic slurs at people who won’t join in the Russia-bashing, the Democratic Party’s tactics also are alienating many peace voters who view both the Republicans and Democrats as warmongers of almost equal measures of guilt.

The crowd at President Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)

While it’s certainly not my job to give advice to the Democrats – or any other political group – I can’t help but thinking that this Russia-gate “scandal” is not only lacking in logic and evidence, but it doesn’t even make any long-term political sense.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Featured image: credits to the owner

A pocketful of loose change can feel like a pocketful of treasure. Those shiny gold- and silver-colored coins jangle so nicely when there’s plenty of them in reach. Even if coins mostly represent small amounts of money, it’s easy to imagine them as being much more valuable. So how much are they really worth, when you forget about their official value?

We’ve all heard stories of pirates with chests of gold and bags of silver. In fact, gold coins were used as far back as 643 BC. Today, your coins are more likely to be made of copper or zinc – but these metals also come at a cost!

Most national mints are pretty careful to make sure the value of their coins is mainly symbolic. Over time, however, the price of metal can change significantly. For example, ‘wheat pennies’ were made from copper during the first half of the twentieth century, and the metal alone is now worth at least double the face value. You’d need quite a lot to make it worth melting them down, though.

Today’s quarters are also mostly made of copper, yet the cost of the copper is only 1/10th of the 25¢ spending value. There’s a little bit of nickel in your quarter too – around $0.004-worth. They’re probably best off in your piggybank for now!

Our new infographic takes a look at common coins from around the world, and analyzes just what they cost to make in terms of the metal used.

It’s a fascinating peek into the world of that most everyday of objects: the noble coin.

Sources

Coin Inflation (2017). United States Circulating Coin Values coinflation.com

Trading Economics (2017). Commodities tradingeconomics.com

2-Clicks Coins (2016). What are Canadian coins made of 2-clicks-coins.com

Euro Coin Collector (2017). Physical Properties of the Euro Coins euro-coin-collector.com

Copper Alliance (2014). Metals in Britsih Coins copperalliance.org.uk

Royal Australian Mint (2017). One Dollar ramint.gov.au

Reserve bank of India (2017). Contemporary coins rbi.org.in

Colnect (2017). Hong Kong Bauhinia Series colnect.com

Central Bank of Russia (2017). Banknotes Coins cbr.ru

Royal Mint (2017). aRMour royalmint.com

Colnect (2017). South African Bimetallic Coin Composition colnect.com

Colnect (2017). Chile Bimetallic Composition colnect.com

Chard (2017). Gold coins – a brief history . taxfreegold.co.uk

Warnick, J. 2016). Common coins worth more than face value. nbc12.com

Featured image: USA Coin Book

As eleições presidenciais no Equador, vencidas no segundo turno pelo candidato governista Lenín Moreno sobre o banqueiro Guillermo Lasso, com pequena margem de votos, foram sem dúvida as mais acirradas da história do país andino e de suma importância para a América Latina, dado o atual momento histórico da região mais rica em biodiversidade do planeta, e um dos maiores campos petrolíferos do globo.

Com uma agenda extremamente neoliberal, prometendo abrir completamente a economia equatoriana ao capital estrangeiro, Lasso do movimento CREO – SUMA desde o início da campanha, antes do primeiro turno afirmava que não aceitaria uma vitória de Moreno, de Aliança País, escolhido pelo presidente Rafael Correa: qualquer resultado contrário, seria alegado fraude por parte do candidato não apenas revelado por WikiLeaks como favorito de Washington, mas também que, fato descoberto entre o primeiro e o segundo turno, possui ações em ao menos 49 empresas em paraísos fiscais, e simplesmente comprou o instituto de pesquisas Cedatos, a fim de divulgar preferência de votos da sociedade equatoriana a seu favor antes do primeiro turno, o que acabou comprovado documentalmente.

Desde que o Conselho Nacional Eleitoral equatoriano anunciou a vitória de Moreno na noite de 2 de abril, o país andino vive sob focos de ebulição: Lasso incita frequentemente seus seguidores a extravasar a raiva nas ruas, o que tem gerado violência. “São maus perdedores”, afirma o presidente de saída, Rafael Correa, há dez anos no poder desde que prometeu implantar a Revolução Cidadã, projeto de cunho socialista autêntico que prevê a preservação ambiental através dos direitos da natureza, em oposição à mercantilização dos recursos naturais como uma de suas prioridades através da política denominada Bem Viver.

Um dos formuladores desta revolução é o renomado economista, professor universitário e político Alberto Acosta, presidente da Assembleia Nacional Constituinte de Montecristi (2007-2008) e Ministro de Energia e Minas (2007), quem logo rompeu com o governo para se tornar incisivo opositor em favor dos movimentos sociais, especialmente indígenas.

Candidato à Presidência equatoriana em 2013 pela Coordenadora Plurinacional das Esquerdas (coalizão de partidos progressistas e de movimentos sociais) e professor da Flacso, uma das mais importantes faculdades latino-americanas de Ciências Sociais, Acosta fala sobre as eleições equatorianas, comenta de maneira altamente crítica os dez anos do governo Correa, segundo ele engodo propagandista que se configura a outra face de uma mesma moeda neoliberal no país andino, e traça perspectivas e soluções para que a Revolução Cidadã volte às origens.

Acosta expõe abertamente repressão a movimentos sociais e povos originários, corrupção governamental, uso indevido da mídia, concentração de poder e forte personalismo por parte de Correa, e políticas que favorecem as grandes empresas, especialmente as multinacionais, com ênfase nas chinesas que fazem com que, segundo ele, a China exerça hoje em seu país imperialismo ainda mais nocivo que o norte-americano.

A seguir, a longa e reveladora entrevista com Alberto Acosta, trazendo fatos ocultados pelos mais diversos setores midiáticos, mas que sem dúvida refletem a reclamação das minorias e da própria natureza que o atual governo tanto diz defender.

Edu Montesanti: Qual sua análise do desempenho dos principais meios de comunicação do Equador nas eleições presidenciais deste ano?

Alberto Acosta: Todos os meios de comunicação, privados e governamentais, embarcaram em um processo eleitoral em que muito poucas questões substantivas foram discutidas.

Entre outras razões, isso explica a enorme apatia que reinou na campanha eleitoral, especialmente no primeiro turno.

A informação difundida pelos partidários do Movimento Aliança País é que grande parte da mídia equatoriana está em mãos privadas, as quais se opõem fortemente ao governo, estando a menor parte delas em mãos públicas ou estatais. Também é dito que há grande participação dos cidadãos na mídia pública. Isso tudo condiz com a realidade?

Isso é falso. Embora ainda haja grandes meios de comunicação privados no país, em termos de conglomerados de mídia quem ganha o jogo hoje é o governo. Nunca antes na história do Equador existiu um grupo oligopólico neste campo tão forte e com tanta cobertura, ainda que em enorme medida com um medíocre nível jornalístico.

Além disso, neste país o termo “meios públicos de comunicação” é uma falácia: não há mídia pública, que seja controlada pela sociedade. Tais meios de comunicação são, na verdade, controlados pelo partido do governo. Chegamos ao extremo de que até os noticiários transmitidos nesses meios de comunicação empenharam-se mais na campanha pelo candidato do partido no poder e contra o candidato da oposição, que em informar sobre os acontecimentos do país.

Poderíamos citar aqui, por exemplo, a escassa ou nenhuma informação divulgada na mídia sobre a onda de acusações de corrupção que sufocam a correísmo, incluindo os casos da Odebrecht e da Petrobras. Lembre-se que o presidente Correa expulsou a Odebrecht em 2008, como empresa “corrupta e corruptora”, mas alguns anos mais tarde, depois de uma reunião com o presidente Lula, a recebeu novamente entregando-lhe contratos multimilionários de licitação.

Simultaneamente, os dois líderes também concordaram, naquela reunião, com a saída protegida da Petrobras, empresa envolvida em várias transações fraudulentas no Equador que representam várias centenas de milhões, ou talvez bilhões de dólares de perda para este pequeno país andino.

E, finalmente, no Equador até agora não se conhece os nomes dos funcionários atuais e de outros governos que receberam subornos da Odebrecht, algo que já se tornou público em quase todos os países.

Como chegamos a este ponto? Pois o Estado assumiu e adquiriu, de várias maneiras, uma série de meios de comunicação que se mostraram úteis ao correísmo a fim de transmitir ao público a imagem de um Equador “que já mudou” ou que “o país já é de todos”.

Basta mencionar que o Estado possui 11 meios audiovisuais, incluindo seis canais de TV, o que contrasta com o ano de 2007, quando o Estado só tinha uma rádio. E continua expandindo sua esfera de influência, direta e indireta, através de um hostil sistema de radiofrequências, que ameaça o fechamento de vários meios contrários ao regime.

Como resultado disso tudo, o correísmo impõe uma imagem de “esquerda” em grande parte do imaginário coletivo, especialmente nos estratos populares. Assim, tanto a imagem do líder “revolucionário” como um governo de “esquerda” são, basicamente, apenas uma construção midiática.

Construção fundamentada em várias frentes, incluindo: aumento do consumismo exacerbado graças às enormes receitas do petróleo; oportunismo disfarçado de “devoção” por parte de vários funcionários do poder; o uso da propaganda onde o “culto da personalidade” de Correa tornou-se diário; a divulgação internacional de falsas mensagens tal como essa bobagem de “milagre equatoriano”, poucos meses antes do estouro da crise no país; o uso de centenas de pessoas responsáveis ​​por perseguir adversários em redes sociais; e até mesmo o fechamento ou bloqueio de páginas da web com conteúdo incriminador contra o correísmo.

Esse conjunto de medidas permitiu ao correísmo esvaziar o conteúdo e deslegitimar o discurso de grupos realmente de esquerda e populares, e até mesmo persegui-los permanentemente. Adjetivos como esquerdistas, indígenas ou ambientalistas “infantis”, “esquerda tola”, e outros emitidos por Correa tornaram-se diários e ampliados pelos meios de comunicação nas mãos do correísmo.

E, por outro lado, esta máquina poderosa de mídia é usada para vampirizar conceitos revolucionários, tal como o Bem Viver, transformados em um dispositivo para disciplinar a sociedade e aumentar o poder do presidente.

É verdade que existem grandes grupos de mídia privados ligadas ao poder, mas todos esses meios incluindo os pequenos estão atemorizados por um marco jurídico repressivo nestes anos de correísmo. Assim, enquanto o número de meios controlados pelo Estado tem aumentado, da mesma maneira tem crescido o controle e o fechamento violento de meios não-estatais, particularmente mídia comunitária.

A Superintendência de Comunicação (Supercom) desempenha o papel do “Ministério da Verdade”, como narrou George Orwell em seu romance “1984”. Através da correísmo, a Supercom impõe sanções excessivas: de 2013 a 2016, foram abertos mais de 600 julgamentos de jornalistas e meios com 462 sancionados, dos quais mais de 97% são penalidades contra meios privados. Tem ainda os cartunistas perseguidos, como acontece na Turquia Erdogan.

Assim, a disputa eleitoral evidenciou um cenário que, raramente, é reconhecido explicitamente pela esquerda: não testemunhamos a luta entre os meios que representam os interesses dos grandes grupos econômicos, e os meios de comunicação que representam o povo. Não. Apenas a luta midiática de distintas facções das próprias classes dominantes. No meio dessa luta, as classes subordinadas são meras espectadoras…

Quanto a mídia tem influenciado a atual polarização, ódio e violência entre os setores políticos e entre setores da própria sociedade equatoriana? E como normalizar essa situação?

Na medida em que os meios, tanto privados quanto governistas, evitaram questões substantivas, facilitou-se uma campanha dominada por ataques pessoais e desinformação, especialmente no segundo turno. Nunca esteve na agenda discutir realmente a crise, a partir de múltiplas abordagens, mas tudo o que importava era apostar em um cavalo para vencer em meio a uma corrida caótica que parece levar a um colapso.

Do lado do governo tentou-se, sistematicamente, levar a discussão para questões que ultrapassaram os problemas atuais. Seu candidato, Lenín Moreno, esquivou-se dos debates. E com “boa razão”, pois era notória a falta de preparação do candidato.

Neste contexto, os meios de comunicação do governo desferiram uma grande quantidade de ataques frontais contra os candidatos da oposição, usando e abusando da manipulação da informação.

Também deve-se notar que a ação midiática do governo, em todos estes anos, tem sido caracterizada pela intolerância e violência verbal; basta apenas ouvir as “sabatinas” presidenciais. Para piorar a situação, nos últimos anos nem sequer se viu um Correa enfrentando os grandes grupos de poder econômico, que lucram com o correísmo incluindo os grandes bancos, mas temos visto Correa exercendo a violência verbal contra o próprio esquerda que lhe deu a oportunidade de ser presidente.

Desta maneira, vemos que foi o próprio correísmo quem aumentou ,os ventos extremos que causam violência na sociedade, por si mesma violenta por causa da exploração impiedosa dos trabalhadores e dos setores populares em geral, e da natureza .

Neste ponto pode-se destacar que, longe das propostas democratizantes da Constituição de Montecristi de 2008, o correísmo recorreu à criminalização, à repressão e à perseguição de líderes populares, especialmente aqueles que defendem os direitos humanos e a natureza. Inclusive as proporções parecem ser mais elevadas que as da “noite neoliberal”: mais de 800 pessoas foram duramente reprimidas em 90 casos de criminalização dos protestos sociais entre 2007 e 2017, dos quais cerca de 20 casos possuem aspecto de “terrorismo”, inexistente no país.

No lado da mídia privada, tampouco houve uma tentativa de aprofundar o debate. E as poucas vezes que tais meios abordaram questões cruciais como a crise econômica, cada vez ganha mais força o discurso neoliberal da “velha escola”, que ganhou força devido à falha gestão econômica do correísmo.

Além disso, como os meios de comunicação estão aterrorizados e enfrentam claramente a censura, nem se atreveram a ser atores de primeira linha na implantação de uma oposição frontal ao candidato do governo. E por buscar o equilíbrio informativo nos meios privados, algo que os meios do governo não tentaram absolutamente nada, não se obteve o equilíbrio em termos globais no campo da comunicação durante o processo eleitoral, e muito menos abriu as portas para um debate democrático sério.

Portanto, ressalto que, o Equador vive hoje uma polarização acentuada entre as diferentes facções das classes dominantes: a velha direita neoliberal, e uma nova direita correísta.

Talvez a melhor maneira de responder a uma situação tão polarizada, e até mesmo reconstruir um novo tecido social mais justo e equitativo diante dos estragos que virão, quando qualquer uma dessas duas direitas apliquem seu programa de ajuste diante da crise, é esclarecer ao público que nenhum dos dois caminhos indicam a saída.

Você tem que pensar em uma terceira opção que realmente sincronize, de baixo para cima e à esquerda, em defesa dos interesses populares. Com isso, tentar desarmar tanto o correísmo quanto a reanimada direita é uma tarefa urgente.

Há os que defendem a ideia de que algumas medidas mais duras medidas por parte de determinados governos são necessárias, no atual contexto local e regional de sabotagem contra governos progressistas, de tentativas de golpes e de assassinatos sob influência externa. O Equador, particularmente, está constantemente na mira do governo e das elites dos Estados Unidos, e o presidente Correa mesmo foi vítima, em 2010, de uma tentativa de magnicídio. O senhor acredita que esses fatos possam justificam uma postura, em determinadas ocasiões. mais severa por parte do governo equatoriano? Ou se o senhor não concorda com tais medidas, seria essa defesa, uma prevenção que estaria na mente do presidente Rafael Correa e dos seus apoiantes?

Para começar, a democracia se defende sempre com mais democracia. E um processo revolucionário se defende aprofundando a revolução. De maneira nenhuma podem ser justificadas medidas repressivas contra os setores populares, como no Equador do presidente Correa.

Neste pequeno país andino, onde através de um mandato constitucional está garantido o direito à resistência, no artigo 98 da Constituição de 2008, mais de oitocentas pessoas têm sido perseguidas e criminalizadas, muitos delas estão inclusive presas.

Sobre os acontecimentos deploráveis de 30 de setembro de 2010, ainda há muito o que ser discutido, e afirmar que “foi uma tentativa de assassinato” ainda merece maior análise sem negar que, no final daquele violento dia, atiraram contra o veículo presidencial.

Falta a transparência necessária para esclarecer um ato repreensível, que matou várias pessoas havendo briga na frente de um hospital. No entanto, o que está claro é que não houve um golpe de Estado, não houve ações no sentido de se mudar governo. Em vez disso, o que podemos dizer é que, naquele dia, houve um golpe ao Estado constitucional de direito.

O Estado, através da insurreição policial e militar que reivindicava uma série de reclamações salariais, entrou em greve. O presidente, humilhado e em situação de extrema vulnerabilidade, foi mantido como refém em uma delegacia de Polícia, privado de suas funções.

Quanto a isso, não há nenhuma dúvida de que foi imprudente e desnecessária a presença do presidente na delegacia, o que colocou em risco as instituições do país diante de um problema que poderia ser resolvido através do diálogo.

Mas foi precisamente esse um dos maiores fracassos correísmo: querer resolver tudo pela força. Ou que, ao menos, essa força fosse utilizada contra os grandes grupos de poder, mas não: é usada dependendo dos caprichos do caudilho, especialmente contra grupos populares e movimentos sociais.

Foram tão desmedidas as ações da polícia naquele dia, que até as atividades públicas e privadas foram interrompidas de forma violenta. A cidadania ficou indefesa. A cúpula do governo não respondeu adequadamente. A incapacidade da Assembleia Nacional foi evidente. Até a escassa mobilização de Aliança País para apoiar o presidente nas ruas, apesar de ser a principal força eleitoral, apresentou limitações como força política organizada.

E para fechar tal cenário de caos desnecessário, as Forças Armadas foram transformadas novamente em “fiadores” da democracia, uma instituição conscientemente abolida na Constituição de Montecristi.

Infelizmente, desde aquela data, em vez de radicalizar a democracia e a revolução, o governo do presidente Correa acelerou a transição para um regime caudilho autoritário, aprofundando o extrativismo e, pouco depois, retornando às práticas neoliberais.

E, com certeza, isso de que “o Equador está constantemente na mira dos Estados Unidos” me parece um exagero. Não acredito que este pequeno país andino gere maiores preocupações no Império cujo governo, justamente o de Donald Trump, foi um dos primeiros a reconhecer Lenín Moreno como futuro presidente do Equador, embora nem sequer ainda tivessem sido proclamados oficialmente os resultados . Acredito que a atenção esteja, por enquanto, em outras partes da região, como na Venezuela.

Conclusivamente, qualquer processo revolucionário que precise exercer violência contra o próprio povo, no fundo não é revolucionário. Talvez seja necessária uma ação firme e forte contra grandes grupos de poder, mas nunca contra as camadas populares e, menos ainda, contra as forças sociais que carregam os gérmens de profunda mudança, como é o caso de muitas das organizações dos povos indígenas, de trabalhadores, mulheres, ambientalistas, professores, alunos…

Revolução implica a transformação radical das estruturas sociais que limitam a vida das pessoas, é um processo de libertação, não o contrário.

Se o correísmo precisou de violência para impor seu projeto político, para deslocar populações inteiras a fim de promover extrativismo como a megamineração, para silenciar a oposição em relação à criminalização da luta social com tentativas de destruir movimentos sociais, nada disso se deve à necessidade de defender o projeto político.

O correísmo tornou-se um processo contra-revolucionário modernização do capitalismo, com um objetivo claro: reconstruir a hegemonia das classes dominantes, e silenciar o ímpeto de luta de uma sociedade que vinha derrubando presidentes em série e, se seguisse assim, talvez fosse até contra o próprio sistema capitalista.

A oposição tem denunciado fraude, sem apresentar provas tanto no primeiro quanto no segundo turno. Antes do primeiro turno, o candidato Guillermo Lasso havia dito que se perdesse não aceita os resultados. Já é habitual à direita regional não aceitar resultados, o Estado de direito se ela perde eleições. Qual sua análise disso, por que isso acontece, que “fenômeno” é este na região, professor Acosta?

Primeiro, quero ressaltar: aqui não há uma direita, mas duas. O correísmo não é de “esquerda”. A verdadeira esquerda é democrática, e o correísmo não é. Não é nem mesmo em termos eleitorais, pois a lista de violações aos padrões estabelecidos são enormes: atrasos na apresentação de resultados eleitorais, mesmo quando foram oferecidos em questão de horas; “Falhas técnicas” nos sistemas de contagem tanto no primeiro como no segundo turno; cédulas eleitorais inconsistentes; pesquisas que apontavam o vencedor o candidato governista horas antes do final das eleições, incluindo uma pesquisa falsa forjando o logotipo de uma universidade norte-americana, distribuído por um funcionário do governo; contagens rápidas como a da Escola Politécnica Nacional, que serviu apenas para confundir a população já que nem sequer divulgaram a informação primária; ameaças a organizações da sociedade civil, como a Participação Cidadã; ataques a um pesquisador não relacionado com o correísmo; etc.

Sem a pretensão de afirmar que houve fraude no domingo, 2 de abril, dia do segundo turno, a verdade é que no Equador um sistema eleitoral fraudulento funciona e que, com tantos problemas, não inspira nenhuma confiança. Para começar, o Conselho Nacional Eleitoral (CNE) e o Tribunal Eleitoral estão inteiramente nas mãos do partido no poder: são compostos por pessoas próximas ao governo do presidente Correa, ou que inclusive tenham sido funcionárias do seu governo.

Desta maneira, o correismo é responsável pelos abusos acima mencionados. E depois, como nos processos anteriores, por exemplo em 2013, a oposição teve que jogar em um campo que se inclinava a favor do candidato do governo, Lenín Moreno.

O que aconteceu no domingo 2 de abril pode ter sido apenas mais um passo longo a ser dado a fim de se restringir as áreas de transparência e do controle cidadão das eleições.

Às cinco da tarde daquele dia, quatro pesquisas publicaram os resultados sobre pesquisas de boca de urna, sendo que três deram vitória ao candidato da oposição, Guillermo Lasso. Entre as cinco e oito horas da noite, o sítio oficial da CNE não operou normalmente, mas esteve fora do ar. Às oito horas, o sítio voltou ao ar, e com os resultados que deram Lenín Moreno como vencedor.

A reação a essa diferença entre os resultados de boca de urna e os da CNE, além das irregularidades no processo eleitoral, causou mal-estar no público e provocou vários protestos.

É compreensível, então, que a falta de confiança no CNE tenha feito com que os resultados eleitorais tenham que ser legitimados a partir da pressão cidadã nas ruas. Esta ação, plenamente justificada, é contudo inaceitável em uma república que se gabe de sê-la. É mais uma prova da profunda crise do sistema político promovida pelo correísmo.

Portanto, somente com pressão social conseguiu-se que o próprio partido do governo aceitasse a recontagem dos votos, requerida pela oposição. O candidato da oposição, por sua vez, continua exigindo a recontagem total e manual de todos os votos. Esta questão ainda provoca disputas profundas.

E apenas para deixar no ar a dúvida: se em vez de deixar que os problemas eleitorais tivesses se agravado, o próprio Conselho Nacional Eleitoral tivesse disposto a recontagem de todos os votos desde o início, talvez a esta altura a recontagem já estivesse concluída e o CNE tivesse retornado a confiança popular no processo eleitoral.

O saldo, de qualquer forma, é lamentável para a democracia. E o possível governo de Moreno terá de suportar uma carga enorme de ilegitimidade pela dúvida de que seu triunfo tenha sido produto de fraude, ao menos segundo a visão de grandes segmentos da população.

Quais pontos políticos, incluindo a externa, econômicos e sociais deveriam ter sido colocados em questão, e discutidos na última campanha presidencial a seu ver, professor Acosta?

Conforme observado anteriormente, na última campanha presidencial houve muito pouca discussão sobre questões substantivas. Uma das primeiras questões a serem discutidas é a situação económica e, de fato, a necessidade de construir instituições democráticas, que começa no estabelecimento da base de igualdade e equidade em todas as esferas da vida da sociedade equatoriana, junto com a expansão de liberdades em todos os sentidos. Sem igualdade e sem igualdade, não há liberdade; mas sem liberdade tampouco haverá a igualdade nem equidade.

Para completar o quadro, podem ser brevemente mencionados alguns pontos urgentes.

Em termos econômicos: como recuperar os postos de trabalho destruídos entre 2015-2016; como conter a queda da renda do trabalho nos anos mencionados, especialmente dos trabalhadores informais; quais são atividades económicas requerem uma ação urgente; como reduzir a dependência das importações de insumos produtivos e bens de capital, que pressionam a saída maciça de dólares do país; como lidar com as distorções causadas pela expansão do extrativismo na economia do país; como superaremos o método agrário-exportador de acumulação; como tornaremos as estatísticas económicas transparentes; como sustentaremos o emprego; como desconcentraremos os grandes grupos econômicos manipulados pelos mercados; como podemos fazer como que os grandes e não pequeno, paguem pela crise; e muitos outros aspectos que, de fato, alguns já discutimos há algum tempo. Um exemplo é a reflexão que estamos fazendo em conjunto com o economista equatoriano John Cajas Guijarro, sobre o legado econômico do correísmo.

Em termos políticos: como podemos garantir a independência das várias funções do Estado, especialmente à justiça, mas sem cair na velha armadilha da direita; como enfrentaremos os graves casos de corrupção que se abateram sobre o correísmo, especialmente nos últimos anos; como reconstruiremos os movimentos sociais, tão abalados pelo correísmo, sob sério risco de perder a identidade; como devolveremos a legitimidade do discurso de esquerda para grandes segmentos da população que estão desiludidos, se não mesmo enraivecidas pelas ações do correísmo; como desmontar todo o aparato repressivo construído legalmente pelo Estado…

Em termos de condução externa: como vamos fazer o mundo enxergar o verdadeiro Equador, não aquele que vende “Revolução Cidadã” as mas o país cujo salário mínimo é dos que menos garantem a cesta básica a nível regional; como criar uma nova opção regional de esquerda após toda a confusão feita pelos “progressistas”; como direcionaremos os processos de reintegração; como controlaremos o ressurgimento da dívida externa regional (inclusive do próprio imperialismo chinês)…

Ou seja, sobram problemas. O que falta é vontade e sujeito político para resolver esses problemas.

Retornando ao tema da eficiência do sistema eleitoral equatoriana, professor Acosta, a organização Missões de Observadores Internacionais e a Missão da União das Nações Sul-Americanas (Unasul), entre outros observadores internacionais, disseram que as eleições no Equador deste ano foram altamente democráticas e realizadas com toda a segurança. “Um processo eleitoral sob coordenação exemplar”, afirmou o chefe da missão da Unasul e ex-presidente do Uruguai, José “Pepe” Mujica. A missão da OEA ressaltou que não observou nenhuma discrepância entre os resultados da CNE e as cédulas eleitorais que receberam em suas observações. Qual sua análise dessas conclusões?

Tenho muito respeito pelo presidente Mujica. Admiro muitos suas realizações, como o de não se agarrar ao poder como fazem outros líderes na região.

Mas daí a aceitar como verdade revelada suas declarações sobre o recente processo eleitoral equatoriano, há um abismo.

Duzentos observadores espalhados pelo país chegaram a apenas alguns dias antes das eleições, o que não é suficiente. Além disso, o trabalho foi muito superficial, quase turístico… Teria sido interessante, por exemplo, que uma auditoria internacional do sistema informativo utilizado, que autorize inclusive a presença de uma comissão de verificação da União Europeia, cuja chegada não foi aceita pelo Conselho Eleitoral Nacional, inteiramente nas mãos do correísmo.

Comprovou-se que o candidato Lasso comprou um instituto de pesquisas antes da realização do primeiro turno, a Cedatos. Além disso, o governo tem argumentado que, se tivesse havido fraude sob sua influência sobre os resultados, não teria havido um segundo turno já que Moreno deixou de vencer no primeiro turno por apenas 0,7%. E, mais tarde, uma fraude pró-governismo não teria permitido, no segundo turno, outra vitória por margem tão curta de votos. Como o senhor responde a esses fatos, professor Acosta?

Não ouvi isso, de compra da Cedatos pelo candidato banqueiro. E se acusamos disso a alguns, porque não acusarmos também de “compra” pelos pesquisadores do correísmo? Voltamos ao mesmo ponto: dois grupos que lutam para tomar o poder, subtraindo às vezes o pior de si mesmo, e a população no meio disso, vivemos uma crise…

A verdade é que os pesquisadores vendem seu trabalho para vários candidatos, incluindo para o governo, e os resultados são usados ​​com ferramenta política de propaganda e de distração.

Isso não é novidade. A novidade, e extremamente questionável, é que feito o a acusaão ao mencionado instituto. Existe alguma acusação para os pesquisadores que apontaram Lenín Moreno como vencedor no primeiro turno com margens de votos completamente fora de qualquer erro estatisticamente aceitável? Duvido.

Se é questionável qualquer conspiração entre o candidato banqueiro, um instituto de pesquisa e alguns meios de comunicação privados na divulgação dos resultados no dia do segundo turno, é tão condenável também a ação tomada pelo presidente Correa, que um instituto de pesquisas financiado pelo governo e meios de comunicação do governo proclame o candidato oficial como vencedor no primeiro turno. E no meio, as classes exploradas e subordinados são apenas espectadoras ou bucha de canhão, seja a favor dos interesses de uma direita ou de outra.

O presidente Correa tem denunciado uma nova Operação Condor na região: o senhor está de acordo com isso? E acredita que setores da oposição, especialmente o banqueiro Guillermo Lasso possui ligações com Washington a fim de desempenhar seu papel nessa Operação?

O presidente Correa, em sua estratégia para consolidar o poder, por muitos anos tem recorrido ao “inimigo externo” e em prenunciar campanhas de desestabilização traçadas por várias forças internacionais. Sem negar, absolutamente, a existência de certas forças políticas que não veem com bons olhos governos progressistas, a verdade é que a única coisa que este tipo de denúncias correístas tem conseguido, é desviar a atenção de parte da opinião pública do Equador e do exterior, onde ainda se acredita equivocadamente que Correa lidera um governo de esquerda, e até mesmo socialista. Dentro do Equador, há um problema sério em termos econômicos, políticos e até mesmo institucionais cuja principal responsabilidade não é do lado de fora, é o correísmo.

Internacionalmente, a propaganda correísta também tem sido eficaz: discursos “revolucionários” em vários fóruns internacionais; documentários onde Correa é o protagonista, inclusive com o patrocínio de empresas privadas como a Odebrecht; campanhas multimilionárias em favor da imagem presidencial no exterior; e mesmo acadêmicos internacionais anunciando ao mundo a ideia de “milagre” econômico equatoriano.

Com tanta propaganda interna e externa, o que se busca é a construção de uma imagem de vitórias, que não se sustenta quando a realidade é analisado com cuidado: as falácias surgem de todos os lados da gestão correísta.

A crise em si foi contratado para mostrar as costuras econômicos de um governo que desperdiçou uma oportunidade histórica para mudar o país, e até mesmo feitas de forma responsável uma previsão do que vinha desde 2015.

Na verdade, o presidente Correa foi o grande modernizador do capitalismo, tarefa que assumiu com uma proposta própria de profunda restauração conservadora.

Há muitos anos sabemos que Correa não optaria por nenhuma alternativa, muito menos revoluções, e pior ainda utopias como as ideias propostas do Bem Viver, ou Sumak Kawsay.

Sobre os interesses dos Estados Unidos no Equador, o país andino é muito mais rico em recursos naturais que, por exemplo, o Paraguai, vítima de golpe parlamentar em 2011 sob influência direta de Washington. Temos visto outros golpes semelhantes, apoiados e até mesmo financiados pelos norte-americanos como contra o governo de Honduras em 2009. No caso do Equador, cabos liberados por WikiLeaks revelam interesses do Império no Equador, contrários aos do atual governo, além de estreitas ligações de Guillermo Lasso com o Departamento de Estado e a Embaixada dos Estados Unidos em Quito. Um cabo emitido pela Embaixada dos Estados Unidos no Equador divulgado por WikiLeaks, evidencia “relações estreitas entre Lasso e Viteri com a Embaixada dos Estados Unidos no Equador”. Outros telegramas secretos mostram a mesma Embaixada, de acordo com análise de diplomatas dos EUA, afirmando “como os Estados Unidos perderam Equador”. Em um destes cabos, a Embaixada norte-americana temia que o governo Correa excluísse da tomada de decisões o setor privado, e implementasse políticas econômicas que afetassem negativamente os Estados Unidos e os investidores estrangeiros no Equador.

Qual sua análise desses fatos, professor Acosta?

Desconheço os vínculos mencionados. Mas me lembro que WikiLeaks também mencionou vários funcionários do correísmo como “amigos” da Embaixada dos Estados Unidos.

E sejamos claros em um ponto, o progresso em termos de soberania dos primeiros momentos da “Revolução Cidadã” diluíram-se através do entreguismo do correísmo, especialmente ao capital transnacional: a transferência dos grandes campos petrolíferos Sacha, e Auca à empresa francesa Schlumberger, e as negociações com a empresa chinesa CERG, uma situação que Rafael Correa, em 2005, antes de se tornar presidente, considerava uma traição; a imposição à “ferro e fogo” da megamineração em favor do capital chinês; a concessão dos portos de Posorja, Puerto Bolívar e Manta ao capital estrangeiro, com a cumplicidade de grupos econômicos locais relacionados ao correísmo; a assinatura de um acordo de livre comércio com a União Europeia, entregando pontos-chave soberania econômica equatoriana, tais como a propriedade intelectual; aumento da dívida externa do imperialismo chinês para mais de 8 bilhões; privatizações onde até projetos hidrelétricos podem acabar nas mãos do capital estrangeiro; etc…

Sem ter-nos libertado das pressões imperialistas norte-americanas e europeias, o Equador está cada vez mais nas garras do imperialismo chinês, especialmente através de dívida com este país que já é o principal credor.

Assim, mesmo se fosse verdade o racha com Washington, algo não muito provável, com Pequim o correísmo parece estar vendendo a alma a fim de ganhar mais alguns anos de sobrevida.

Explique o que é o Bem Viver, formulado exatamente pelo senhor logo que se instalou a Revolução Cidadã no Equador.

O Bem Viver sintetiza experiências em vez de conceitos ou teorias. Surge das comunidades indígenas. Inspira-se em seus valores, em suas experiências e, especialmente, nas suas mais diversas práticas.

Não vem de uma universidade nem de um partido político. E à medida em que reflete a continuidade da vida em harmonia dos seres humanos vivendo em comunidade, e desta em harmonia com a natureza há centenas de anos, oferece uma série de lições sobre como se poderia imaginar outros mundos onde caibam todos os mundos, garantindo sempre justiça social e justiça ecológica.

O que podemos considerar a comunidade indígena, em termos gerais, possui um projeto coletivo de futuro com uma clara continuidade desde seu passado. Uma demonstração clara de responsabilidades com a própria vida.

Essas utopias andinas e amazônicas relacionadas a outras formas similares de vida em todo o planeta, de maneiras diferentes refletem-se em seu discurso, em seus projetos políticos e, especialmente, nas práticas sociais e culturais, incluindo a econômica. Aqui reside um dos maiores potenciais do Bem Viver.

A tarefa, então, é compreender as experiências de povos que souberam viver com dignidade e harmonia desde tempos imemoriais; isso sim, sem chegar a idealizar a realidade indígena. Isso não significa que você pode fazer uma cópia dessas propostas em todos os lugares. Um dos maiores desafios será pensar como construir o Bem Viver nas cidades.

Essas visões de mundo, ligadas a territórios específicos representam diferentes opções da visão de mundo ocidental ao surgir de raízes comunitárias não capitalistas, harmonicamente relacionadas com a natureza.

A partir desta leitura, o Bem Viver representa uma transformação de alcance civilizatório ao ser biocêntrico e não antropocêntrico; na verdade, trata-se de uma trama de relações harmoniosas vazias em torno do centro. Comunitária, não só individualista; sustentada pela pluralidade e pela diversidade, não unidimensional nem monocultural. Para compreendê-lo, particularmente faz a precisão de um profundo processo de descolonização política, social, econômica, e certamente cultural.

Um ponto deve ficar claro ao falar do Bem Viver, ou Sumak Kawsay (em quéchua), como se diz no Equador. Ou seja, imaginamos boas convivências ao invés de um único e homogêneo Bem Viver, o qual é impossível se cristalizar.

O Bem Viver, definitivamente, não poderia exigir-se em um mandato global único como aconteceu com o fracassado conceito de “desenvolvimento”, desde meados do século XX.

Estes avanços de conotação revolucionários, feitos na Constituição de 2008 do Equador, resumiram-se simplesmente em uma série de disposições constitucionais. Os direitos da natureza, nunca abordados pelo presidente equatoriano, foram utilizados por ele para angariar aplausos internacionalmente, mas na prática são desrespeitados.

E o Bem Viver, esvaziado do seu conteúdo transformador, tornou-se instrumento de propaganda para consolidar o poder do líder do século XXI: Rafael Correa. Algo semelhante acontece na Bolívia, com Evo Morales.

Então, não se pode cair na “armadilha” da propaganda do Bem Viver dos governos desses países, onde terminou-se de esvaziar seu conteúdo para coloca-lo a serviço dos desejos de se concentrar o poder e disciplinar suas sociedades. O Bem Viver funciona como dispositivo de poder para modernizar o capitalismo, uma verdadeira aberração.

A reforma agrária não foi impulsionada no Equador. Como o senhor vê essa questão, e há perspectiva de avanço?

Correa não aceita a reforma agrária. Não estamos dispostos a cumprir os mandatos da Constituição de 2008 que proíbe a grilagem de terras, e a posse e privatização da água. Ele chegou inclusive a afirmar, em sua busca permanente por competitividade e produtividade do desenvolvimento, que “a pequena propriedade rural vai contra a eficiência da produção e a redução da pobreza […], repartir uma grande propriedade em muitas pequenas, é repartir a pobreza” (1 de outubro de 2011).

Em concordância com essas palavras estão as próprias estatísticas governistas segundo as quais, por exemplo, o Coeficiente de Gini de concentração de terra permanece praticamente intacto ao longo da década correísta: cerca de 0,81. No caso da água, há uma situação igual ou ainda pior, onde 80% da água destinada à irrigação é realizada por exportadores agrícolas, como o próprio correísmo afirmou.

Isso explica seu apoio às grandes monoculturas e ao agronegócio, sem desenvolver nenhuma proposta à recuperação agrícola baseada na soberania alimentar, outra determinação constitucional. Esta política agrícola, que afeta os camponeses, se aprofundará mais ainda através do acordo de comércio assinado por Correa no final de 2016 com a União Europeia, favorecendo apenas os grandes exportadores de matérias-primas agrícolas e da pesca, além de enraizar muito mais o tipo de acumulação agro-exportadora.

A estes fatos vale acrescentar uma crescente deterioração da situação do emprego agrícola: os salários diminuíram sua participação no valor adicionado das atividades primárias, e inclusive os trabalhadores agrícolas permanecem como aqueles que sofrem com os mais altos níveis de exploração do país.

Dado que o Equador tem alcançado maior soberania e destaque na região nos últimos anos, até protagonismo na integração latino-americana ao contrário do período anterior à Revolução Cidadã, qual a importância para a atual conjuntura da América Latina a eleição de Lenín Moreno à presidência do país?

É verdade que no início das etapas de gerenciamento de Correa foram tomadas medidas para recuperar a soberania nacional. Por exemplo, o cumprimento do mandato constitucional que proíbe a presença de tropas estrangeiras em território nacional, expulso da base dos EUA em Manta. Mas isso é estória. Soberania, no momento, é apenas uma parte do discurso oficial.

Correa, em menos de dois anos de administração, abandonou as propostas de mudança estrutural. Como bom economista keynesiano e tecnocrata, com raízes conservadoras profundas ele logo se juntou ao desenvolvimentismo, a eficiência tecnocrática, a provisão de infraestrutura e o aumento do consumo.

E vale observar que, nem sequer em termos tecnocráticos, o correísmo tem sido capaz de satisfazer as próprias propostas, bastando apenas mencionar o retumbante fracasso que significou o cumprimento das metas relativas à “produção matriz de transformação”, incluída como alvo 10 do Plano Nacional do Bem Viver…

Retomando à questão da soberania, o governo correísta acabou assinando o Tratado de Livre-Comércio com a União Europeia, contrário aos seus compromissos iniciais. Tem privatizado, sem concorrência, os grandes campos petrolíferos, bem como os quatro maiores portos do país; anuncia ainda a venda de várias hidrelétricas construídas durante sua administração, pelo Estado.

É o maior promotor de megamineração, especialmente a favor dos capitais chineses. Ele hipotecou as exportações de petróleo que, aliás, têm servido ao enriquecimento ilícito de vários ex-funcionários do regime.

Ele está embarcando em um processo agressivo de endividamento externo. Penhorou mais da metade da reserva de ouro físico, em troca de um empréstimo com Goldman Sachs.

Retornou à gaiola do FMI, e está desenvolvendo várias políticas neoliberais; mais do que o anteriormente enunciado, podemos destacar, por exemplo, a flexibilidade laboral e as limitações na sindicalização pública.

A recuperação do Estado adveio em detrimento do fortalecimento da sociedade, serviu para dar lugar a uma restauração profunda conservadora. Assim, Correa aprofundou as características clientelistas de controle e disciplina da sociedade. Para este fim, impôs sanções até mesmo sobre alguns de deputados de seu próprio partido por se atreverem a propor a discussão do aborto por estupro no parlamento.

E assim, o Estado fortalecido serviu ao Correa para impor sua autoridade, disciplina e ordem em nome da pátria. Tudo isso a fim de modernizar o capitalismo. Em suma, Correa enterrou as propostas iniciais de mudança, e transformou-se no caudilho do século XXI.

Por favor, professor, explique a relação tensa entre movimentos sociais e o presidente equatoriano Correa mencionada pelo senhor: como se dá essa tensão, como têm sido reprimidos, e por quê?

O triunfo eleitoral de Rafael Correa em 2006 só pode ser explicado pelas lutas populares das décadas anteriores. A mobilização permanente dos grupos indígenas, dos trabalhadores, das mulheres e dos ambientalistas, de estudantes, professores e grandes segmentos da população criou condições para se propor uma mudança fundamental.

Por um lado, a resistência ao neoliberalismo e até mesmo ao colonialismo, por outro o aumento da construção de propostas alternativas propiciaram as condições para o triunfo da agora mal chamada “Revolução Cidadã”, que de revolução e de cidadã não tem nada.

Gradualmente, especialmente após a aprovação da Constituição de Montecristi, o governo Correa aprofundou o extrativismo e, finalmente, abandonou os compromissos iniciais.

A partir desse extrativismo, petroleiro, megamineral, agricultural, da pesca, lorestal, aprofundaram ainda mais as características coloniais da sociedade e da economia.

Assim, no Equador de Correa a megamineração foi imposta, ampliou-se a fronteira petrolífera, favoreceu-se as monoculturas… e tudo isso, conforme já observado, consolidou profundamente a característica agro-exportadora dominante de acumulação, dos tempos coloniais.

Merece uma observação especial o fracasso, nas mãos do correísmo, da proposta de deixar o petróleo no subsolo dos campos de Ishpinto-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT), atravessando o Parque Nacional Yasuni.

Talvez a retórica desta proposta funcione quase que perfeitamente, o que é realmente a forma de o correísmo atuar: uma forma de dominação burguesa que usa a propaganda para fazer uma imagem revolucionária transformadora do mundo, mas que, no fundo, só interessa ajudar a intensificar a exploração dos seres humanos e da natureza em favor do capital.

Ao correísmo já nem sequer interessa o respeito ​​à “democracia formal”, como quando impediu a realização de um referendo, precisamente, para decidir sobre o futuro da ITT. Correa revolucionário, é um grande exagero.

A megamineração, também desconhecida neste país anteriormente, especialmente pela resistência das comunidades, é imposta por Correa, literalmente, a sangue e fogo. Basta observar os detalhes da repressão em Tundayme, província de Zamora-Chinchipe, ou em Nankints na província de Morona-Santiago.

Desta maneira, várias regiões do Equador aparecem como terra de conquista e colonização, em um esforço miseravelmente justificado sob a ilusão desenvolvimentista. Um atrevimento que conjura todos os tipos de violência e até mesmo a morte de líderes antimineração.

Essa violência não é só material, mas é também simbólica. Surge quando povos inteiros são culturalmente destruídos, quando pressionam psicologicamente indivíduos isolados ou organizados, criminalizando-os ou perseguindo como fundamentalistas, rotulando-os de ambientalistas infantis ou “ancestrais disfarçados”.

Toda essa violência, praticada em nome da lei e da ordem, amparada na retórica do progresso e do “desenvolvimento” não são apenas consequência das atividades da megamineração ou do petróleo. Este tipo de violência é uma condição necessária para implementar tais extrativismos. Desde suas origens coloniais, tal violência tem sido indispensável para sustentar os processos de acumulação no capitalismo periférico.

E a partir dessa perspectiva o presidente Correa tem defendido sobretudo os interesses dos chineses como se fossem os seus próprios, e converteu o Estado equatoriano em polícia das transnacionais daquele país. Causa impressão até que o ataque do imperialismo chinês é muito mais poderoso que a investida imperialista norte-americana de décadas passadas.

Desde que o governo da “Revolução Cidadã” abriu as portas para a megamineração, completando a tarefa empreendida pelos governos da “longa noite neoliberal”, as ações repressivas e violentas praticadas pelo Estado para acessar os recursos minerais têm aumentado.

Diante disso, os movimentos sociais, grupos mais atingidos pelo governo de Correa, têm resistido. E essa resistência ocorre em condições muito adversas: o correísmo, através de uma postura totalitária, não só reprime essas forças populares como também construiu organizações paraestatais de trabalhadores, indígenas, professores, estudantes, mulheres. Se alguém soube aplicar o critério “dividir para governar”, esse alguém, certamente, foi Correa…

O presidente norte-americano Donald Trump traçou novas (velhas) medidas políticas em relação a Cuba nesta sexta-feira (16), ao mesmo tempo que qualificou a normalização das relações com a ilha caribenha empreendida por seu antecessor na Casa Branca, Barack Obama, de “terríveis e equivocadas”.

“De maneira eficaz e imediata, cancelo o acordo totalmente unilateral da administração anterior com Cuba”, disse Trump em um discurso ao pior estilo Guerra Fria, para uma plateia entusiasmada em Miami repleta de membros da comunidade cubano-norte-americana, que se opuseram à política de Obama em relação ao governo cubano de Raúl Castro.

Em uma diretiva presidencial assinada no final do discurso, Trump ordenou aos departamentos de Tesouro e Comércio que elaborem novas regras para substituir os pontos das mudanças de política de Obama.

Com mais esta política regressiva de Trump, os estadunidenses não têm mais a liberdade proporcionada pela administração de Obama para realizar viagens particulares à ilha caribenha, e até estudantes deverão comprovar que não são turistas. As empresas dos Estados Unidos não poderão mais realizar negócios com empresas controladas por militares ou serviços de inteligência cubanos, o que dificulta o acesso de empresas norte-americanas a setores estratégicos da economia de Cuba, incluindo o turismo.

Tudo isso, segundo Trump, para preservar o povo cubano e defender a liberdade e a democracia na ilha caribenha: para a Casa Branca, tais medidas devem forçar o governo de Cuba a ceder às pressões de Washington para que estabeleça o livre-mercado no país, além do que os Estados Unidos acusam de políticas repressivas em território cubano. “Não nos manteremos em silêncio diante da opressão comunista”, afirmou o mandatário norte-americano.

A Câmara de Comércio dos Estados Unidos, por sua vez, disse que as modificações do presidente estadunidense “limitarão a possibilidade de mudanças positivas na ilha”. Funcionários da Casa Branca afirmam que as medidas presidenciais em relação à Cuba tardarão alguns meses para serem implantadas.

“Aqueles dias acabaram: agora, nós damos as cartas”, afirmou o presidente dos Estados Unidos, mantendo a típica postura arrogante e imperialista de seu governo, e da própria política externa histórica de seu país. E não apenas isso: segue a política de contradições de sua administração e dos governos norte-americanos anteriores, sem exceção: em seu giro no mês passado pelo Oriente Médio, Trump reforçou relações comerciais com a Arábia Saudita, um dos países mais crueis do planeta.

“Não devemos buscar perfeição, mas parcerias”, afirmou desavergonhadamente Donald Trump na capital saudita de Riad, na mais absoluta contraposição à caça comunista contra Cuba ao estilo McCarthy, sem o menor constrangimento diante de excessiva hipocrisia enquanto, entre outras parcerias com a Casa de Saud, estabelecia comércio de armas na casa dos 100 bilhões de dólares, provavelmente o maior acordo bélico da história com um governo saudita que, além de exageradamente repressivo, comprovadamente fornece armas ao Estado Islamita e à Al-Qaeda, não apenas à sua filial na Síria, a Al-Nusra, como historicamente à organização terrorista do falecido Osama bin Laden desde tempos de combates no Afeganistão.

E no final de sua visita à região mais efervescente do planeta, em Israel e na Palestina Trump tampouco ofereceu propostas para acordos de paz,a pós tanto discurso que, sempre ficou claro, eram inócuos.

Isso tudo, além do fato que as históricas “políticas” exteriores norte-americanas semelhantes a esta de Trump em Cuba não apenas não têm surtido o efeito que Washington diz pretender gerar, como faz com que aumente ainda mais a rejeição internacional aos Estados Unidos, ou seja, gera efeito reverso seja no combate ao que a Casa Branca qualifica de regimes repressivos, Guerra ao Terror, às Drogas etc, sempre encontrando e arrefecendo inimigos em toda a parte, o que acaba justificando a disseminação de bases militares de Tio Sam em todo o planeta.

A dupla-moral norte-americana é tão descarada quanto infinita, essência de sua “democracia profundamente fracassada”, nas palavras de John Kiriakou, ex-agente da CIA detido por dois anos por ter deixado a agência, e denunciado as torturas secretas na prisão de Guantánamo. “Os Estados Unidos mudam de presidente, mas não mudam sua política”, disse o presidente russo Vladimir Putin mais recentemente, falsamente demonizado pela mídia ocidental.

Edu Montesanti

Lawfare as used by the Zionist organization The Lawfare Project and others is meant to persuade every Jew in the world (and not just Israeli Jews) that his or her Jewish identity, welfare and security are inextricably related to the continued suppression of justice, equality and freedom of Palestinian Arabs or, in other words, to the Apartheid Zionist Jewish state.

Lawfare is a tool used by Zionist organizations to suppress pro-Palestine activity by conflating anti-Semitism (in its sense of “anti-Jewish animus”) with anti-Zionism, the ideology that perpetuates Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights.  A case in point is the lawsuit against San Francisco State University (SFSU) currently being heard in a U.S. federal court brought by the right-wing Zionist organization The Lawfare Project, which relies on the complete conflation of anti-Jewish animus with criticism of Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights to assert that SFSU violated the constitutional and civil rights of Jewish students and community members. The true intent of the lawsuit is clear: to ensure that advocates for Palestinian rights are punished for standing up for human rights and justice for Palestinians, who have been dispossessed, occupied, and deprived of basic human rights for 70 years.

What The Lawfare Project is doing is simply consolidating the final stage “in the evolutionary method of Zionist policy” in Palestine as described in a long letter (written by Chaim Arlosoroff in 1932) addressed to Chaim Weizmann (an early Zionist born in Belarus) that appeared in the October 1948  Jewish Frontier under the title “Reflections on Zionist Policy”:

… The next “stage” will be attained when the relationship of real forces will be such as to preclude any possibility of the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine, i.e., when the Jews will acquire such additional strength as will automatically block the road for Arab domination. This will be followed by another “ stage” during which the Arabs will be unable to frustrate the constant growth of the Jewish community through … immigration, colonization and the maintenance of peace and order in the country…

The farcical decades-long “Peace Process” notwithstanding, the Zionist movement has so far succeeded in precluding the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state in any part of Palestine, claiming all of it for Jews (the “Hebrew Nation”) worldwide. Having established Israel through the ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs seventy years ago, and occupied the rest of the Palestinian territory a mere nineteen years later, the Zionist movement is today all out to consolidate and build on its achievement using, not only the economic, military and political strength of Israel itself (which is already considerable), but also the worldwide support of Jews (while also cultivating the support of American evangelist Christians).

Whereas the kind of brainwashing in which The Lawfare Project is engaged is standard fare in many synagogues and has been working, with very few exceptions, for decades, recent polls indicate that young Jews no longer buy what Israel packages and sells to them. Predictably, that is only spurring Brand Israel to redouble its efforts:

Brand Israel says that ‘Instead of stating dry facts, professionals must highlight Israel’s decency, morality and the diversity of the Israeli society in general’. This is an act of self-deception. Israel is a society where a plurality of Jews support the physical expulsion of Israel’s Palestinians and where ‘Death to the Arabs’ is the favourite chant of the Right.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

Featured image: National Vanguard

There is a small courthouse from the ‘British era’, standing right in the center of Hong Kong. It is neat, well-built, remarkably organized and some would even say – elegant. 

Earlier this year I visited there with an Afghan-British lawyer, who had been touring East Asia for several months. Hong Kong was her last destination; afterwards she was planning to return home to London. The Orient clearly confused and overwhelmed her, and no matter how ‘anti-imperialist’ she tried to look, most of her references were clearly going back to the adoptive homeland – the United Kingdom.

“It looks like England,” she exclaimed when standing in the middle of Hong Kong. There was clearly excitement and nostalgia in her voice.

To cheer her up even more, I took her to the courthouse. My good intentions backfired: as we were leaving, she uttered words that I expected but also feared for quite some time:

“You know, there are actually many good things that can be said about the British legal system.”

*

I thought about that short episode in Hong Kong now, as I drove all around her devastated country of childhood, Afghanistan. As always, I worked without protection, with no bulletproof vests, armored vehicles or military escorts, just with my Afghan driver who doubled as my interpreter and also as my friend. It was Ramadan and to let him rest, I periodically got behind the wheel. We were facing countless detentions, arrests and interrogations by police, military and who knows what security forces, but we were moving forward, always forward, despite all obstacles.

From that great distance, from the heights of the mountains of Afghanistan, the courthouse in Hong Kong kept falling into proportion and meaningful perspective.

It was surrounded by an enormous city, once usurped and sodomized by the British Crown. A city where ‘unruly locals’ were being killed, tortured, flogged and regularly imprisoned.

And it was not only Hong Kong that has suffered: the entire enormous country of China with one of the oldest and greatest cultures on Earth had been brutally ransacked, including its splendid capital – Beijing – that was invaded and almost totally destroyed by the French and British troops. For a long period, China was divided, humiliated, impoverished and tormented.

But the courthouse, a little neat temple of colonialist justice, now stood in the middle of the once occupied city, whispering about the days when it offered certainty and pride to all those who came to Hong Kong as colonizers, as well as to all those who served and licked the boots of their British masters.

The courthouse was providing confidence to people who were longing for one, just as they did during the grotesque and perverse days, as well as now.

Behind its walls ruled clearly defined and meticulously obeyed spirit of fairness: if one’s chicken got slaughtered, or if one’s tricycle god smashed by a hammer of a mad shopkeeper, the legendary British justice was administered promptly and properly.

Some people would argue, of course, that the entire colonialism was unjust, that the killing of tens of millions of people in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere was much more noteworthy than settling fairly and justly some domestic or real estate dispute. Such voices, however, have been always quickly silenced, or bought (with money, diplomas, or other means).

Certainly, the British Crown has been busy subjugating entire countries and continents, murdering innocent people, freely plundering and enslaving men, women and children. Tens of millions died in the British-triggered famines alone, on the Sub-Continent and elsewhere. But that was done “outside” the legal framework, and it was never fit to be discussed publicly in a ‘polite society’, by both the English people as well as by the émigré elites.

Now the UK has been absorbed by the ‘great’ Western Empire, governed by its offspring. Global genocides continue to murder millions. For those, no one gets punished, while the fines for speeding or not wearing seat belts are getting transparently dispersed among the servile citizens of the British Isles.

You kick your dog in public, and you could get arrested, then fined, or perhaps even thrown into jail. You shout at your girlfriend, she runs to police, and they open a ‘criminal investigation’ against you.

You shoot a few missiles at some independent country, killing dozens of innocent people, and it is business as usual. You overthrow some ‘unruly’ African government, and no court of justice, local or international, would even bother to hear the case against you, properly and seriously.

Alexander Thomson from‘UK Column News’ in the UK, commented for this essay:

“British justice is fine for peer-to-peer disputes such as breakages and traffic accidents. You’ll most likely get a fair hearing. But at the macro level? The British and their offspring have pillaged entire continents. Where’s the justice there? If there’s none but “victors’ justice”, should that legal system be honoured by the nations of the world?”

I often wonder whether even the British citizens themselves should honor such a charade?

*

The renowned Canadian international lawyer, Christopher Black, has doubts about the entire international legal system which is literally dictated by Western countries, predominantly by the US and UK. He wrote for this essay:

“Instead of peaceful and mutually respectful relations between nations, adherence to the fundamental principles of the peaceful resolution of conflicts and disagreements between nations set out in the UN Charter, of the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement, the world is faced with ultimatums, bribes, threats and assault. Their brutality would be unimaginable if it was not so routine.”

The question is: should the legal system, which coerces dozens of countries all over the world, be taken seriously, even respected? Isn’t it ridiculous, even debauched, to honor the US and British courts, considering that they are serving the most aggressive and morally defunct system in the world?

Christopher Black continues:

“The most important question that arises from the discussion of how to establish a just world in which every nation has equal rights and status, in which national sovereignty is respected and the peaceful resolution of international issues as a matter of course is what type of legal mechanisms and structures need to be established in order to achieve and maintain this equilibrium. 

It is not a simple matter since laws and legal structures reflect the socio-economic structure of a society. This necessarily creates a conflict between different socio-economic and legal systems that is difficult to resolve. The legal systems of socialist societies with their emphasis on socio-economic protection and support of the workers, are completely different from those of the capitalist societies, in which the central role of law is to protect private property and ease the flow of capital, in opposition to the interests of the workers. This creates conflict between nations with different socio-economic systems…” 

It is a well known fact that those systems that are antagonistic to the Western dictates get routinely attacked, even destroyed. Right now several countries are under direct attack from the West: from Venezuela to Syria, to name just two victims out of dozens.

On closer examination, it is all nothing more than a ‘mafia justice’, or call it a terror.

*

I refuse to respect such a system, including its courts and its entire farce called‘justice’. To me, it is all ‘illegal’ and corrupt. If confronted, I’d refuse to accept the authority of the Western legal system; I’d just laugh in the faces of its judges.

Lawyers serving such a system are, at least from my personal point of view, nothing more than collaborators or at least –spineless gold-diggers.

During the Nazi era in Germany, family or real estate disputes were resolved fairly and briskly. However, that doesn’t mean that Slavs, Roma, Jews, or non-white people should have had any respect for the German ‘justice’ of these years.

Certainly, your goat could be avenged if slaughtered illegally, but the next day, no one would save you from going up in smoke from the chimney of a concentration camp crematorium.

From the heights of totally destroyed and miserable mountain villages in Afghanistan, all this is suddenly clear and ‘obvious’.

It is also very clear when observed from Syria or Latin America, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, where of course almost no Westerner would bother to travel.

Christopher Black concludes:

“Attempts to establish a world order in which a dialogue of civilizations is the norm instead of conflict between civilizations are foundering on a crude return to a “might makes right” attitude against which any attempt to insist on adherence to international law and norms, even common morality, is viewed as a weakness to be exploited. 

The question therefore arises as to how nations and peoples can establish the necessary legal mechanisms to survive and flourish when there exist those who oppose any such mechanisms being established and act to destroy the mechanisms that do exist. The answer is to take the power from those who want this unjust world order, this world for the criminals. We know what is to be done. But that is not good enough. We have to determine how it is to be done.” 

The first step is, surely, to refuse this criminal ‘justice’ system, even to mock it, and ridicule it.

To serve criminals is a crime itself. To legitimize this illegitimate system by pretending that justice could be served inside its frame is itself immoral.

A courthouse in Hong Kong is not a temple of fairness. To pretend that it is would be a cynical mockery, a ‘spit in the face’ to millions of those who lost their lives in China and all over the world, at the hands of the British and Western colonizers.

And one more comment about Western justice: if just slightly exaggerating, one could easily arrive to the conclusion that in a world ruled by brutal and unbridled imperialism, the only honorable place to dwell in is jail!

Kabul – New Delhi

June 2017

*

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and  “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

Featured image: Nikkei Asian Review

A recent headline in The Atlantic (6/9/17) earnestly pondered if the US was “Getting Sucked Into More War in Syria.” “Even as Washington potentially stumbles into war…” was how the article’s discussion began.

One of the most common tropes in US media is that the US military always goes to war reluctantly—and, if there are negative consequences, like civilian deaths, it’s simply a matter of bumbling around without much plan or purpose.

This framing serves to flatter two sensibilities: one right and one vaguely left. It satisfies the right-wing nationalist idea that America only goes to war because it’s compelled to by forces outside of its own control; the reluctant warrior, the gentle giant who will only attack when provoked to do so. But it also plays to a nominally liberal, hipster notion that the US military is actually incompetent and boobish, and is generally bad at war-making.

This is expressed most clearly in the idea that the US is “drawn into” war despite its otherwise unwarlike intentions.

“Will US Be Drawn Further Into Syrian Civil War?” asked Fox News (4/7/17).

“How America Could Stumble Into War With Iran,” disclosed The Atlantic (2/9/17),

“What It Would Take to Pull the US Into a War in Asia,” speculated Quartz (4/29/17).

“Trump could easily get us sucked into Afghanistan again,” Slate predicted (5/11/17).

The US is “stumbling into a wider war” in Syria, the New York Times editorial board (5/2/15) warned.

“A Flexing Contest in Syria May Trap the US in an Endless Conflict,” Vice News (6/19/17) added.

“Sliding,” “stumbling,” ”sucked into,” “dragged into,” ”drawn into”: The US is always reluctantly—and without a plan—falling backward into bombing and occupying. The US didn’t enter the conflict in Syria in September 2014 deliberately; it was forced into it by outside actors. The US didn’t arm and fund anti-Assad rebels for four years to the tune of $1 billion a year as part of a broader strategy for the region; it did so as a result of some unknown geopolitical dark matter.

Syria especially evokes the media’s “reluctantly sucked into war” narrative. Four times in the past month, the Trump administration has attacked pro-regime forces in Syria, and in all four instances they’ve claimed “self-defense.” All four times, media accepted this justification without question (e.g., Reuters, 6/19/17), despite not a single instance of “self-defense” attacks occurring under two-and-a-half years of the Obama administration fighting in Syria. (The one time Obama directly attacked Syrian government forces, the US claimed it was an accident.)

Why the sudden uptick in “self-defense”? Could it be because, as with the bombing of ISIS (and nearby civilians), Trump has given a green light to his generals to adopt an itchy trigger finger? Could it be Trump and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who has a decades-long grudge against Iran, want to blow up Iranian drones and kill Iranian troops? No such questions are entertained, much less interrogated. The US’s entirely defensive posture in Syria is presented as fact and serves as the premise for discussion.

When US empire isn’t reluctant, it’s benevolent.

“Initially motivated by humanitarian impulse,” Foreign Policy‘s Emile Simpson (6/21/17)  insisted, “the United States and its Western allies achieved regime change in Libya and attempted it in Syria, by backing rebels in each case.”

“At least in recent decades, American presidents who took military action have been driven by the desire to promote freedom and democracy,” the New York Times editorial board (2/7/17) swooned.

“Every American president since at least the 1970s,” Washington Post’s Philip Rucker (5/2/17) declared, “has used his office to champion human rights and democratic values around the world.”

Interpreting US policymakers’ motives is permitted, so long as the conclusion is never critical.

Vanity Fair (12/28/16): No “stumbling” for Vladimir Putin.

In contrast, foreign policy actions by Russia are painted in diabolical and near-omnipotent terms.

“Is Putin’s Master Plan Only Beginning?” worried Vanity Fair (12/28/16).

“Putin’s Aim Is to Make This the Russian Century,” insists Time magazine (10/1/16).

Russia isn’t “drawn into” Crimea; it has a secret “Crimea takeover plot” (BBC, 3/9/15).

Putin doesn’t “stumble into” Syria; he has a “Long-Term Strategy” there (Foreign Affairs, 3/15/16).

Military adventurism by other countries is part of a well-planned agenda, while US intervention is at best reluctant, and at worst bumfuzzled—Barney Fife with 8,000 Abrams tanks and 19 aircraft carriers.

Even liberals talk about war in this agency-free manner. Jon Stewart was fond of saying, for example, that the Iraq war was a “mistake”—implying a degree of “aw shucks” mucking up, rather than a years-long plan by ideologues in the government to assert US hegemony in the Middle East.

War, of course, isn’t a “mistake.” Nor, unless your country is invaded, is it carried out against one’s will. The act of marshalling tens of thousands of troops, scores of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and coordinating the mechanisms of soft and covert power by State and CIA officials, are deliberate acts by conscious, very powerful actors.

Media shouldn’t make broad, conspiratorial assumptions as to what the bigger designs are. But neither are they under any obligation to buy into this mythology that US foreign policy is an improvised peace mission carried out by good-hearted bureaucrats, who only engage in war because they’re “sucked into” doing so.

Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org.

Featured image: FAIR

Given that June 20 is World Refugee Day I want to take the opportunity to share some observations and opinions that may ruffle some feathers, but urgently need to be stated, especially by Muslim immigrants in the west. ^[1]

Part I. An Encounter With a Syrian Refugee

The other day I met a Syrian refugee family that had recently come to Canada. They moved next door to some friends of mine and I said hello to them in Arabic when I saw them sitting on the porch. The wife, a bubbly hijabi woman named Amira who is around my age, was overjoyed to meet someone that spoke Arabic and quickly struck up a conversation with me.

In a matter of minutes I learned that the family had left their small Syrian village three years ago for neighbouring Lebanon and lived there till they were approved to come to Canada as refugees, just three months ago. I also quickly learned that Amira and her husband, like many Syrian refugees, are ardent haters of Bashar Al Assad and critics of secular culture. Amira told me (in Arabic) that, while it was hard for her to leave her family back home, it my be fate that they ended up in Canada so that they can “spread the Muslim faith.” Uh oh…

To a secular Muslim—or, more appropriately, someone that can be described as culturally Muslim, since I was raised by Muslim parents in a Muslim immigrant household but do not practice religion—this set off some alarm bells. This woman left a secular Muslim country—yes, for all the supposed concern over radical Islam, the west is currently trying to destroy a secular Muslim country, with a very open and tolerant mixed society—for asylum in a western secular country and hopes to spread her religious beliefs here? Is that what we’re dealing with, Muslim missionaries? Amira seemed excited about the prospects of spreading the faith and told me that she felt Canadians were far more accepting of Muslims, and receptive to Islam, than Christian Arabs in Lebanon. She also offered to give me “religious advice” in exchange for English lessons in the future.

While Canada is a multi-cultural country that prides itself on religious tolerance and diversity, as a secular or non-religious person, I should also be tolerated and respected, and not subjected to religious peer pressure or attempts to make me “more religious.” During my conversation with the newly arrived Amira, I was asked why I do not wear the hijab (Muslim headscarf), if I practice Ramadan fasting and if my husband was a Muslim. While she was very friendly about it, the conversation quickly digressed into a religious guilt trip and interrogation. This is something I have experienced many times from “deeply religious” and rather prying Muslims that are “concerned for my soul” for one reason or another. As she talked, I could see her looking me up and down with a judging smirk, as if to evaluate my holiness, or lack there of.

I do not tolerate religious sermons from my own family members, even when I am visiting family over seas. And I should not have to experience it from a complete stranger that has been here for mere months, and is my age if not younger. Now before any apolitical liberals or fake lefties—who fail to see the connections between certain segments of the Syrian refugee population and western sponsored political Islam and Wahhabism—accuse me of being Islamophobic let me remind you that a) I am Muslim and b) I would not tolerate religious lecturing or “shaming” from someone of any other faith as well.

While some might assume that Amira felt comfortable lecturing me in this way because I am Arab and Muslim, and, that she likely would not submit non-Arabs and non- Muslims to the same pressure and religious guilt trip, let me remind you that she specifically told me that she believes that she was destined to end up in Canada so that she “can spread the faith.” While all Syrian refugees probably do not think this, the fact that even some do, is worrisome in a secular country such as Canada. Practicing one’s faith is one thing, pushing it on others is another thing altogether. While non-Arab or non-Muslim Canadians may be too afraid or polite to say this, I believe that I have a responsibility to say it as a secular Muslim.

And so do other secular, non-religious, cultural or “moderate” Muslims. We have a responsibility to speak out against the radicalization that is occurring in the Arab and Muslim world—which has been largely sponsored by the imperial west and its allies in the region like Israel and Saudi Arabia—and the ease with which overly religious people are able to encroach on the public and private lives and views of non-religious or secular types. ^[2] I should note that I do not like the word (or prefix) “moderate” because it implies that the majority of Muslims are non-moderate or fanatical. While Muslim radicalization has indeed increased and while Arab secularism has practically vanished—phenomena driven partly by the imperial geopolitical aims and objectives of certain states—not all Muslims are fanatical, radical or even practicing, for that matter.

And those Muslims that are secular, “moderate” or wary of religious radicalization have a responsibility to speak out against it. More importantly, we must speak out about the causes of this radicalization. Part two of this article explores some of those causes.

Part II. The End of Arab Secularism and the Rise of Radicalization

In order to understand the increase in outward religiosity and religious radicalization that has been occurring in the Arab/Muslim world for decades, a critical and historical understanding of geopolitics and western imperialism/Empire is necessary. Without it, we are simply criticizing the symptoms of a much deeper and extremely nuanced problem.  Western imperialism is not the only radicalizing factor in the region. There are other internal factors at play, which may or may not be linked to western imperialism. For the purposes of this article I focus mainly on the former.

As I have noted elsewhere, the Muslim/Arab World was once secular and “modern.” It is well known that “from the 1950s to perhaps even the 1980s, the strongest political trends in the Arab world were secular.” ^[3] This trend shifted for several reasons; a major one being that the west—and the US in particular—started to pursue a full fledged agenda to radicalize Muslims, aligning and allying itself with Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism, which is a Saudi interpretation of Islam; and a very fundamentalist and archaic one.

Before Saudi Arabia and the US fully joined forces in radicalizing the region, there was the bygone era of Arab secularism. “That world can be glimpsed in old newsreels from the Arab cities of the 1950s and 1960s. The cities of the post-war period – Cairo, Beirut and Damascus, Baghdad and Aden – look much the same as many developing countries of the time: American-built cars, European-style suits, a certain easy mingling of men and women.” ^[Ibid.] It was also the era of the secular pan-Arab Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasserism and secular pan-Arabism are far too broad and nuanced a topic to cover here.

For now, I simply want to point out that Nasser’s attitude towards political Islam and Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood reflects much of the public Arab sentiment around religion at that time: That religion and religious practice is a personal matter than cannot and should not be dictated publicly.

A well-known antidote that demonstrates this point comes from a speech given by Gamel Abdel Nasser in the years after the Muslim Brotherhood was suspected of attempting to assassinate him. In that speech, which is available online, Nasser recounts a meeting with the Brotherhood’s leader in 1953 wherein he asked Abdel Nasser to make the wearing of the hijab or tarha (as Egyptians call it) mandatory in Egypt. Nasser tells the crowd that he told the MB leader that wearing the hijab is a personal matter and choice. Nasser also tells the Muslim Brotherhood leader that he knows that he has a daughter studying medicine, and she doesn’t wear the hijab:

“Why haven’t you made her wear the hijab?”

Nasser asks, before delivering a now famous punchline:

“If you cannot make one girl – who is your own daughter – wear the hijab…how do you expect me to make 10 million women wear the hijab, all by myself?”

The crowd roars and laughs in approval.

As Faisal Al Yafai explains, Nasser’s joke reflects the worldview of Egyptians, especially educated middle and upper class Egyptians, back in the 1950s:

“that it was ridiculous that the wearing of the hijab could be enshrined in law.”

As Yaifa explains, Egyptians

“…considered the proper role of religion to be private, outside the realm of government and politics. Nasser himself explicitly declared the same thing.”

He continues,

“Contrast that with today’s Egypt, and indeed the wider Arab world, and it is clear how much has changed in just half a century”  ^[Ibid.] 

Yafai maintains that Nasser’s punchline–millions of women wearing the hijab–has become Egypt’s reality and that secularism as a worldview has disappeared in the Arab world. Yafai explores only the internal or Arab causes for this change, failing to even mention western meddling and external influences. Still, he is correct that the once secular Arab and Muslim world has changed tremendously in the last half century. In my opinion, it is a change for the worse.

I am not criticizing Arab/Muslim people for wearing the hijab, far from it. I have the utmost respect and tolerance for people’s religious beliefs and practices. I simply want to demonstrate that once upon a time in the Arab/Muslim world, religion was rightly a personal matter and practice, rather than a public expression and pressure. When I hear Syrian refugees like the friendly and chatty Amira tell me that she feels that it is her destiny to spread the Islamic religion in Canada, I interpret that as a public mission rather than a matter of personal religious observance. To me, that is alarming; and it reflects the de-secularization and Islamic radicalization occurring in the Arab world.

The West’s Connection to Islamic Radicalization

The forces of Islamic radicalization are very nuanced and complex. The motives for radicalizing the Arab world are also nuanced and complex. A large part of the motivation is controlling Mid East oil and the oil trade. Much of the radicalization efforts came after the formation of OPEC and the Saudi-US oil alliance, which forced the world to use the US dollar to purchase oil while also securing the pre-eminence of Saudi Arabia and its promotion of Wahhabi, extremist Sunni Islam throughout the region.

Wahhabism is a strict orthodox Sunni Muslim sect founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92). It advocates a return to the early Islam of the Koran, rejecting later innovations; the sect is still the predominant religious force in Saudi Arabia. The phrase “rejecting later innovations” implies that there were innovations to the orthodox or literal interpretation of Islam and that Muslims were modernizing or becoming less literal in their practice, like most people do with time. While Wahabbism was the predominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia, it had not deeply impacted (and infected) the rest of the Muslim world. This is evidenced by the reality—which I spoke of earlier—that the political and public sentiment of the Arab world was largely secular till the early late 1970s and early 1980s.

While there are internal factors that contributed to the death of secularism and the rise of a more literal, orthodox and archaic form of religiosity, there is a big external factor that cannot be overlooked: the massive oil alliance that was formed between the United States and Saudi Arabia after the oil embargo of 1973 (that occurred due to conflicts with Israel). This is when Saudi Arabia buried the hatchet with Israel and the US, and became oil partners and staunch political allies. In exchange for Saudi Arabia only accepting US dollars for oil, giving the US and its currency global economic hegemony, the US allowed and (indirectly) helped the Saudis to spread Wahhabism and radical Sunni Islam (and terrorism) across the Middle East.

Strategically, both the US and Israel benefit from the rise of radical Islam. For Israel, having “radical neighbours” in the region helps legitimize its illegal occupation and actions towards the Palestinians. It also ensures that the Muslims and Arabs will be busy fighting among themselves over sectarian religious issues and conflicts between Sunnis and Shias. The US also benefits from these internal divisions and conflicts. The exploitation and exacerbation of divisions between Sunnis and Shias—the two main Muslim sects—goes a long way towards servicing the imperial agenda of divide and conquer. Moreover, the existence of terrorist groups–that are often created and or aided by the US–allows the US to justify its global war on terror and the billions spent on it.

For the US, the rise of Islamic radicalism and terrorist groups allows these groups to be deployed against secular Muslim countries and leaders that do not play ball with the US and do not accommodate its interests (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Syria).  While it has cozied up to and allied with fundamentalist states like Saudi Arabia, the US has simultaneously pursued an agenda of attacking and destabilizing secular Muslim countries and leaders that do not bend to its imperialist demands and agenda (i.e., put their own national interests before that of the US’). These include Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and, presently, Syria’s Bashar Al Assad. But the attack on secular Muslim leaders began even earlier with the joint US-UK 1952 coup against secular Iranian president Mohammed Mossadegh, for instance. He had committed the sin of nationalizing his countries oil and attempting to reclaim it from the UK.

Undermining Russia

Another US motivation for radicalizing Muslims was to undermine communism and the Soviet Union. The US has been arming and backing Islamist radicals and terrorist groups for decades, especially in its efforts to undermine the influence of Russia in the region.  As the US admitted in the 1990s, American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahideen—presently known as the Taliban—in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet-Afghan war began in 1979, suggesting that the terrorist group was partly a creation of the US (in collaboration with countries like Pakistan). Ultimately, promoting Islamic extremism and terrorism was one western response to the so-called communist threat (read as the threat to NATO and US power) posed by the Soviet Union. ^[4]

The same is true today of the US’ indirect support of terrorist groups like ISIS in Syria. As I argue elsewhere,

“an obvious yet unspoken component of the US/NATO campaign in Syria, as well as their efforts in Ukraine, and the so-called Missile Defense Shield in Europe, is to undermine Russia’s ability to not only project power but also to defend itself strategically. These are examples of the West’s attempts to militarily and economically contain Russia.” ^[Ibid.]

This is something secular anti-imperial Muslims should oppose, not least because Russian and Soviet influence in the region has been a secularizing force (or one that reinforced the already secular politics of post-war Arab countries). Arab countries aligned with Russia after WWII and during the Cold War (and even those that were officially non-aligned) tended towards notions of secularism, anti-foreign interference, and, with the rise of the Soviet Union, socialism. But Arab secularism was not a by-product of Russian influence alone; it is a truly Arab tradition.

“The secular conception of the state that animated both nationalist and pan-Arabist politics was widespread in political life.”

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, there was a deep degree “of popular attachment to a secular state among the political class.”  Indeed, “with the exception of Saudi Arabia, no country of the Arab world, from Sudan and Yemen, to Iraq, to Algeria in the Maghreb, was without its secular, nationalist parties.” [5]

But since the 1980s, Saudi Arabia, bolstered by it relations and alliance with the US, has been able to promote Wahabbism in the region. Saudi Arabia has spent millions and billions of dollars propping up and arming Islamist movements and groups in the Arab world; while other Gulf countries, such as (former) Saudi ally Qatar, have been bolstering media outlets that are sympathetic disseminators of extremism and political Islam. These heavily funded entities have been able to influence the culture and population of various Arab/Muslim countries, guiding them even further away from secularism and towards greater and more regressive religiosity.

Western Intervention/Destabilization and Migration Patterns

Alongside all of the above there have been decades of foreign intervention, destabilization, and war making in Arab and Muslim world by western powers. One result of this policy of war and destabilization in the region has been the dramatic increase and influx in immigrants and, especially, refugees from the region. Simply put, the west is “forced” to take refugees and immigrants from countries that they create conflicts and destabilization in, in the first place. If we look at the trends in migration by Muslim people to Europe and North America over the last 30 years, a pattern emerges. Many, if not most, Muslim refugees and immigrants have come from countries that NATO and the US have invaded, attacked, destabilized, regime changed or all of the above.

These include countries like Somalia and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s; Iraq and Sudan in early to mid 2000s; and more recently, Libya and Syria. All of these countries have suffered from western meddling and destabilization efforts, which have included the support and propping up of radical Islamist or Salafi regimes. And many of those that fled and are currently fleeing to the west as migrants and refugees are people that may be  hostile to the pre-invasion (often secular) governments and may indeed support a very radical or extremist Islamic ideology and practice. This is something we must take into consideration when exploring whether certain migrants and refugees are compatible with secular western culture. This is not Islamophobia. I say this as a secular Muslim immigrant in the west that is well aware that political Islam/Islamism is an Empire serving form of religiosity that may not be compatible with secular society and culture; be it Western or Middle Eastern.

Final Thoughts

One can only hope that as certain secular and/or non-Islamist countries such as Syria (with the help of the Russian military) and Egypt continue to resist and withstand the US-Saudi-Israeli sponsored Islamist offensive against them, and as other countries in the region—such the duplicitous Turkey and the recently changed Qatar—move away from the western-Islamist alliance/agenda and cozy up to Russia, that political Islam will fade, leading to a much needed de-radicalization and re-secularization of the region. But it will be an uphill battle, since the forces of radicalization are strongly and deeply rooted.

The great irony in all of this is that while the west, and the US in particular, claims to be at war with Islamic terrorism and radical Islam, it is actually directly and indirectly in bed with it. Directly, the US is a major ally and financial beneficiary to and of Saudi Arabia, which has a radical and extremist interpretation and practice of Islam. Indirectly, the US sells weapons to Saudi Arabia and others—that turn around and arm terrorist groups in the region. It also provides clandestine support for various terrorist groups in the region. Such is the case with ISIS in Syria, a “conflict” that is mainly fueled by western interests and the west’s incessant “meddling”  in the region.

US support for terrorism (including against the Syrian government) has been noted by numerous independent news media as well as by US congress members, such as former Rep. Cynthia McKinney and current Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. When Rep. Gabbard visited Syria in 2016 she reported that the US was giving support to terrorist groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda and others. ^[6] It is important to note that most if not all of these murderous terrorist groups claim to be Islamist and deeply religious. Now, of course, no one that commits such horrific acts as these groups do–such as the brutal beheading of a young boy by the US-backed “moderate” terrorist group Nour al-Din Zenky in Syria last year–can be said to be truly holy or god fearing. But the fact that these terrorist groups operate under the banner of political Islam and extremist religious ideology, is reason enough to be wary of political Islam or any form of political (and public) religiosity.

Many—but certainly not all—of the Syrians that fled the country and are now living in Canada and Europe, as refugees, are sympathetic to the radical religious ideology of these lunatic groups. If you are Arab and/or Muslim it is pretty easy to suss out if a person is pro-Wahhabi/Salafi Islam—which is a very extremist and archaic interpretation of Islam—in just a few conversations, since politics and religion invariably come up in conversations with people from the region. Such was the case with my aforementioned conversation. As a secular person living in a secular country I get nervous about extreme forms of public religiosity by people of any faith.

Another strange irony is the undiscerning support for religious extremists—including refugees ^[7] —by so-called progressives. Many of these progressives do not see a contradiction or tension in supporting things like women’s rights and gay rights while simultaneously fighting for the human rights of certain extremely religious Muslim refugees or migrants, whose orthodox religious views would potentially see them ideologically pitted against women’s rights or gay rights. Lacking nuanced ideological discernment and anti-imperial analysis, so-called progressives’ blanket and apolitical defense of “human rights” does not allow them to see how their genuine concern could be co-opted or exploited for imperial ends. In Egypt and the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s it was the educated middle class that supported secularism and rejected religious dogma and orthodoxy. Today, ironically, in the west, it is the educated middle class–especially the young identity politics “left” and  campus “social justice warriors”–that are advocating and demanding the unequivocal tolerance of, and support for, even the most extreme forms of public religious expression, in a non-religious (i.e., secular) society.

Secular Western states are presently scurrying to accommodate refugees that could potentially have religious extremists, or individuals that are intolerant of secular culture, among them. ^[Ibid] There is a two-fold irony in this current refugee crisis a) The west created or helped to create the conflicts in the refugees’ home countries in the first place; meaning it helped create the conditions of displacement and b) The west contributed to radicalization in these countries, which may now affect western states as blowback.

I wish to close by stating that there is a marked difference between my critique of radical Muslims and refugees and those that come from racist and Islamophobic sources. In addition to being bigoted, the latter are often also pro-Empire and pro war.  On the contrary, mine is an anti-imperialist and anti-war perspective that identifies the dangers of and collaborations between radical Islam, political Islam, and western imperialism.

To all those Muslims that share my position and analysis, it is important to speak up and call for a return to secularism in the Arab/Muslim world; a return to a politics and society that does not promote and exploit religious sectarianism and religious  extremism in the service of Empire.

Notes

[1] My Parents immigrated to North America from the MENA region when I was just two years of age.

[2]  Everyone is free to believe and practice their faith, and to whatever extent they wish. I simply want to stress that people do not have the right to pressure, guilt or shame those that may not believe or practice the same thing (or to the same extent), and vice versa.

[3] http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/the-death-of-arab-secularism#page5

[4] http://www.globalresearch.ca/on-syrias-continued-resistance-russia-and-the-threat-to-western-power/5566176

[5] http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/the-death-of-arab-secularism#page5

[6] http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-why-is-the-us-helping-al-qaeda-and-other-terrorist-groups-rep-tulsi-gabbard/5571358

[7] It goes without saying that this is not referring to all Syrian refugees. Most refugees coming from Syria are likely not religiously extreme. There are also many secular (Muslim and Christian) refugees.

Featured image: Ghada´s SoapBox

President Donald Trump has been portrayed as a protectionist. His immediate cancellation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) upon assuming the presidency, as well as his support for the border adjustment tax proposed by the Republican leadership in Congress, seems to confirm this portrayal of his foreign economic policy leanings. However, a different conclusion emerges from a closer reading of Donald Trump’s business interests, of his trade agenda as published in the 2016 Annual Report on the Trade Agreements Program by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), and of American trade negotiation history. Trump will use large trade deficits to pressure trading partners to open up their markets. Companies which are successful in exporting to the U.S. market from those countries will be scared by protectionist announcements and will therefore most likely pressure their governments to give in to the demands of the Trump administration.

In other words, the Trump administration will further the liberalization of cross-border economic activities. From the perspective of development economics, one could call it protectionism, because it is about protecting the interests of the most advanced U.S. corporations which operate on the basis of intellectual property rights and access to large-scale data.

Donald Trump is not engaged in businesses that face import competition. His real estate business in the U.S. is quite dependent on the flow of foreign finance. He has made ample use of foreign banks to finance his projects. His business abroad is based mostly on fees for branding, that is fees for using his name in different projects. His lawyers are, therefore, trying to secure trademark protection for his name in as many countries around the world as possible. Therefore one can assume that the free flow of capital and the protection of brand names are important for him as a businessman.

Trade Policy Agenda: Bilateral Negotiations

The president’s trade policy agenda emphasises “breaking down unfair trade barriers in other markets” (USTR 2017: 1). The agenda is about promoting “reciprocity with our trading partners (USTR 2017: 1) and this shall be done by using “all possible sources of leverage” to “open foreign markets” (USTR 2017: 2 and 4), specifically by means of bilateral and not multilateral negotiations. In such negotiations, the country with the larger purchasing power has an advantage because companies from the other country are more dependent on the larger market for their profitability than vice versa. The U.S., with the biggest market and the biggest trade deficit, is clearly in a strong position in relation to all other nations, except possibly those collected in the European Union.

The agenda also mentions the specific tool that should be used in bilateral negotiations: section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, also called Super 301. Super 301 “authorises the USTR to take appropriate action in response to foreign actions that (…) are unjustifiable, or unreasonable or discriminatory, and burden or restrict United States commerce” (USTR 2017: 3). Who has the right to determine what is unjustifiable? Under this law it is the presidency. However, the U.S. became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995. The WTO includes a dispute settlement process. While the U.S. president might consider a trade measure of another country unjustifiable and respond with, for example, a retaliatory tariff under Super 301, the sanctioned country has the right to challenge the retaliatory measure in the dispute settlement process. Thus it will be the WTO dispute settlement board that will ultimately decide whether the trade practices of the incriminated country were justifiable or not.

In other words, Super 301 lost its bite when the United States joined the WTO. For this reason, the 2017 Trade Agenda takes pain to point out that “WTO reports are not binding or self-executing,” (USTR 2017: 3). It says,

“The Uruguay Round Agreements Act states that, if a WTO dispute settlement report ‘is adverse to the United States, [the U.S. Trade Representative shall] consult with the appropriate congressional committees concerning whether to implement the report’s recommendation and, if so, the manner of such implementation and the period of time needed for such implementation’,” (USTR 2017: 3).

This prerogative is being reclaimed to make Section 301 effective again.

Trump’s Priorities

The 2017 Trade Agenda names some of the so-called trade barriers which the administration wants to address. Securing the intellectual property of U.S. corporations is first on the list of specific negotiation objectives (USTR 2017: 2 and 4), and is also mentioned in the May 12 draft letter concerning NAFTA renegotiations. Next on the list are restrictions on the flow of digital data and services (USTR 2017: 4). In the negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the U.S. negotiating team criticised the European Union for requiring data to be processed within the confines of the European member states. Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative under Trump, criticised the aborted Transpacific Partnership for a ban on data localization that excluded the financial services sector, and for excluding tobacco products from the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (Leonard 2017).

Among the other practices that are supposedly hurting U.S. businesses, the trade agenda mentions foreign government subsidies, unfair competitive behaviour by state owned enterprises, and currency manipulation. China is not specifically mentioned, but it is the obvious target given policy statements from members of Trump’s team and the general thrust of the 2017 Trade Agenda paper. The agenda blames China’s accession to the WTO for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. (USTR 2017: 6) and calls for a systematic analysis of economies “that do not fully adhere to free market principles” and criticises those countries “whose legal and regulatory systems are not sufficiently transparent” (USTR 2017: 5).

In listing the key objectives of the new trade agenda, “ensuring that U.S. workers … have a fair opportunity” comes first. Among the concrete items, one also finds a bullet point for “enforcing labour provisions in existing agreements.” These provisions refer in the main to enabling rights such as freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. It does not seem likely that the enforcement of these labour rights clauses will be a priority, against the background of the anti-union behaviour of Trump’s businesses and his first choice for labour secretary, a fast food executive with a long record of labour law violations. The TPP envisioned rather effective labour rights clauses, but these had been the target of Republicans in Congress and, as already mentioned, Trump’s first trade action was to withdraw from TPP. (The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was spared because of its low profile in the USA.) It seems more likely that President Trump will take a leaf from the book of the Russian president, Putin, and will try to gain workers’ support by rescuing individual plants from closure as he has already done as president elect.

The Historical Precedent

Using the trade deficit to pry open foreign markets has a historical precedent. Against the background of a meteoric rise in trade deficits during the Reagan years, “strategic trade policy” became popular among some economists. It would force other countries to open their markets by threatening to close the U.S. market. In addition to companies from the high technology sector, suppliers of sophisticated services and owners of copyrights joined the group of open market strategists. Together with various think tanks, they popularized the notion that services could be rendered transnationally, that national regulations of the respective sectors prevented this, and that, consequently, these barriers had to be dismantled by tough negotiations. The nationalist rhetoric camouflages neoliberal objectives which would provoke resistance if they were openly stated.

Paradoxically, the trade deficit gave the U.S. bargaining power. Foreign countries were much more dependent on access to the U.S. market than the U.S. economy was on access to foreign markets. Thus Washington could function as a battering ram against the national self-interests of transnational corporations from other countries. The threat of imposing sanctions – occasionally enforced – compelled not only Japan but also Western Europe to lower non-tariff trade barriers and to deregulate their economies. At that time, U.S. demands were welcomed in both regions by many economists, the top leadership of business groups, and parts of the ministerial bureaucracies (Scherrer 1999).

Conclusion

The Trump administration is still in its infancy, and his nominee for the office of the United States Trade Representative has only recently been confirmed by the Senate. An assessment of Trump’s trade agenda is, therefore, fraught with uncertainties. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to believe that his “America first” strategy includes the threat of protectionism but aims to gain access to other countries’ markets for the USA’s technologically advanced companies. The deficit may well function as a battering ram against the national self-interests of corporations in other countries. Strengthening the rights of corporations is always at the expense of labour.

Christoph Scherrer is Professor for Globalization and Politics at University of Kassel, Germany. He is also executive director of the International Center for Development and Decent Work and a member of the steering committee of the Global Labour University, where this article was first published.

Sources

Leonard, J. (2017) Lighthizer says renegotiated NAFTA could go beyond TPP provisions, in: Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online.

Scherrer, C. (1999) Globalisation against will? The enforcement of liberal foreign trade policy in the USA (in German). Berlin, Edition Sigma.

USTR (2017) “2017 Trade Policy Agenda and 2016 Annual Report,” Office of the United States Trade Representative, Washington.

Featured image: Socialist Project

As shown below, the allegations that Russia has been hacking the entire world have been thoroughly vetted and verified.

Germany

Germany’s intelligence agency accused Russia of deploying cyberattacks to destabilize the government!

(But German intelligence agencies later found no evidence of Russian interference.)

And last December, German security officials said that Russia hacked secret German communications and provided them to Wikileaks (English translation).

(But German officials later concluded that the communications were likely leaked from an insider within the German parliament, the Bundestag (English translation)).

France

The Washington Post, New York Times (and here), Reuters, Politico, Register and many other mainstream publications  claimed that the Russians hacked the French election, just like they hacked the U.S. election.

The head of the NSA claimed that the NSA watched the Russians hack the French elections:

(But the French government later said there was no trace of Russian hacking.)

Qatar

CNN reported that U.S. officials suspected that Russia had hacked Qatar’s state news agency, causing a rift with Saudi Arabia.

(But the Qatari government later said it wasn’t Russia.)

America

The Washington Post published a story claiming that Russian hackers penetrated the US power grid through a utility in Vermont.

(The Post subsequently admitted that – according to officials close to the investigation – “the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility”, that the incident only involved a laptop not connected to the electrical grid, and there may not even have been malware at all on this laptop.)

When a treasure trove of secret NSA tools were revealed, Russian hackers were blamed.

(But it turns out that it was probably a leak by an NSA insider.)

And of course the evidence that the Russians hacked Democratic party emails and leaked them to Wikileaks – and otherwise stole the election away from Clinton – is extremely strong.  After all, the mainstream press has said so.

(Maybe not so much …)

So you see? It’s been proven that Russia has hacked the world …

</sarc>

Featured image: wccftech.com

On June 16, Amazon announced a bid to purchase US grocery giant Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. The deal, which is expected to close later this year, sent Amazon’s shares soaring and netted $2.88 billion for CEO Jeff Bezos in a single day.

The Whole Foods purchase gives Amazon a foothold in the $800 billion grocery industry and ownership of over 460 grocery stores across the US, Canada and Great Britain. The expansion is an expression of the unprecedented concentration of economic power among a handful of corporations that dominate the world capitalist economy.

The Wall Street Journal reported on June 17 that Amazon’s purchase “is just the most extreme example of a larger, more consequential phenomenon”—the fact that many businesses across industries “are going to get bought or bulldozed and power and wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few companies in a way not seen since the Gilded Age… We’re going to have to ask ourselves, as a country and as a civilization, just how much power we’re comfortable having consolidated in the hands of so few businesses.”

The move foretells a ruthless assault on the jobs, wages and working conditions of Whole Foods workers, which will mark a new stage in the assault on all retail service workers. Bloomberg News noted that Amazon “wants fewer employees in each [Whole Foods] store, with those who remain providing product expertise, rather than performing mundane tasks.” Amazon workers’ horror stories of super-exploitation will give Whole Foods workers an idea of what they can expect.

Amazon has not only grown to become the largest online retailer, it increasingly owns the infrastructure of the marketplace, netting $1 out of every $2 spent online. Its algorithms conduct the flow of billions of dollars of products across the world each day. It has used its domination of the online market as a springboard into other industries, leveraging its economic clout to drive less powerful companies out of business by artificially lowering prices and then sweeping up market share.

Lina Khah wrote in a 2017 Yale Law Journal in regard to Amazon’s growing monopoly, that

“in addition to being a retailer, Amazon is a marketing platform, a delivery and logistics network, a payment service, a credit lender, an auction house, a major book publisher, a producer of television and films, a fashion designer, a hardware manufacturer, and a leading provider of cloud server space and computing power. For the most part, Amazon has expanded into these areas by acquiring existing firms.”

Amazon’s cloud data storage service, for example, controls 33 percent of total market share, more than Microsoft, IBM and Google combined. Its clients include leading corporations and the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Department of Defense.

The company controls a significant portion of the logistical veins of international distribution, linking together roughly 400,000 warehouse workers at hundreds of fulfillment centers spread across five continents. Amazon commands a fleet of trucks, freighters, drones and airplanes, plus a small army of Uber-like flex delivery drivers who transport goods to over 100 countries.

Amazon’s growing dominance is part of a broader concentration of power across all industries. The share of GDP produced by America’s largest 100 corporations rose from 33 percent in 1994 to 46 percent in 2013. The five largest American banks now account for 45 percent of total banking assets, nearly double from 25 percent in 2000.

Each industry—airlines, telecommunications, health care, computers, pharmaceuticals, etc.—is dominated by a smaller and smaller number of corporations. This is the product of deliberate policies enacted by the Democratic and Republican Parties gutting corporate regulations and pulling the teeth from already meager anti-trust laws from the early and mid-20th century.

As a result, mega corporations are linked by a common network of owners concentrated in the financial industry. A small number of Wall Street firms own most of Amazon and Whole Foods, with institutional shareholders owning 62 percent and 93 percent, respectively. Three financial companies—BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street—are among the largest institutional shareholders of both Amazon and Whole Foods.

When their ownership stakes are combined, these three financial institutions represent the largest shareholder of 1,662 of the 3,900 publicly traded US corporations, employing over 23 million people and with a market capitalization almost equal to the GDP of the United States.

The domination of the banks and monopolies fuels competition among corporations to intensify the extraction of surplus labor value from their workforces, drastically expanding social inequality.

One 2017 study by two academics from Colombia University and the University of Girona in Spain, titled “Finance and the Global Decline of the Labour Share,” found that up to 57 percent of labor’s declining share of world income is explained by the growing domination of finance capital over the world economy, further enriching the financial oligarchy. According to US data from a 2016 report by economists Saez, Picketty and Zucman, 89 percent of all corporate equities are owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population.

Amazon’s vast international operation testifies to another subterranean process taking place in the world economy. The organization of global supply lines, spurred by advancements in the areas of communication, transportation and engineering, are transforming social relations, linking the international working class in different industries together in the process of production like never before.

The conditions for bringing the world economy into harmony with the needs of the human race are already present. But under capitalism, these progressive tendencies are turned against the working class and society as a whole. The advances in technology and the global integration of production become weapons in the hands of the capitalist class to destroy jobs and living standards for the broad masses of people, while the conflict between the global character of economic life and the nation-state system of capitalism erupts in the form of militarism and war.

What is required is the socialist transformation of the world economy, expropriating the wealth of corporations like Amazon and turning them from for-profit exploitative giants into international public services, organized and directed democratically by the workers themselves.

Amazon’s international logistics network is a prime example. Instead of enriching Amazon shareholders and facilitating the exploitation of the working class, the precision and rationality of Amazon’s supply lines could be used to rationally organize the distribution of goods across the world, from each region according to its ability, to each region according to its need, on a real-time basis.

Amazon’s vast data troves and its Echo device could be used to detect emergencies, disasters or areas of general social need. At the click of a button, workers could direct the distribution of medical equipment, building materials, clean water and food from all corners of the world. Thousands of schools, libraries, museums, hospitals, theaters, water treatment facilities and parks could be built. Geographic limitations would no longer determine the availability of resources or the cultural level of the inhabitants.

In May, the International Committee of the Fourth International launched the International Amazon Workers Voice, an online publication aimed at reporting on the struggles of hundreds of thousands of Amazon workers and providing a political strategy based on the understanding that the fight against this international behemoth requires an internationally unified response. The IAWV has been met with overwhelming enthusiasm from workers in dozens of countries, thousands of whom follow the IAWV on Facebook.

The growing opposition to the company dictatorship among Amazon workers reflects the response of the working class to social inequality and the concentration of wealth and power among a handful of banks and corporations.

To defend their rights, workers must establish their own factory committees, based on the principle of the class struggle and free from the influence of the company, the nationalist and pro-capitalist trade unions, and the parties of the ruling class. The aim of these committees will be to link up with their class brothers and sisters around the world in a united international fight. This must be connected to a political struggle of the entire working class to end the dictatorship of the giant banks and corporations and establish a society based on social need, not private profit.

To learn more, contact the IAWV today and join the fight for socialism.

Featured image: Mashable

In what amounted to a barely disguised threat, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday declared that China had to “exert much greater economic and diplomatic pressure” on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs, if it “wants to prevent a further escalation in the region.”

In other words, if Beijing fails to rein in the Pyongyang regime, the US could resort to military measures.

Tillerson’s remarks followed a top-level meeting in Washington between him and US Defence Secretary James Mattis and their Chinese counterparts—China’s foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui, chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s joint staff department.

Tillerson called on China to make greater efforts to halt “illicit” revenue streams to North Korea that allegedly help fund Pyongyang’s military programs. Just last week, he told a congressional committee the Trump administration was “at a stage” where “we are going to have to … start taking secondary sanctions”—that is, penalise countries and corporations that engage in economic activities with North Korea.

Unilateral “secondary sanctions” imposed by the US would, above all, fall on Chinese companies. China is, by far, North Korea’s largest trading partner. US officials and the media have repeatedly accused Beijing of failing to do enough to choke off trade and finance with the Pyongyang regime. Any penalties against Chinese individuals or entities would quickly sour relations between the US and China.

Just before the talks, US President Donald Trump signaled that time was running out for China to force North Korea to bow to US demands.

“While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi [Jinping] and China,” he tweeted on Tuesday, “it has not worked out.”

While Tillerson’s remarks indicate the US continues to pressure China for action against North Korea, Trump’s tweet is a warning that the US will resort to other measures—including military action—if there are no results.

Asked about Trump’s tweet, Defence Secretary Mattis told the joint press conference with Tillerson:

“What you’re seeing I think is the American people’s frustration with a regime that provokes and provokes and provokes and basically plays outside the rules, plays fast and loose with the truth.”

Mattis denounced Pyongyang in particular for the death of Otto Wambier—the American student imprisoned in North Korea who died on Monday after being flown back to the US last week. The Trump administration is considering a ban to prevent Americans from visiting Pyongyang. Three other US citizens are currently jailed in North Korea.

The comments of Mattis and Tillerson suggest that relations with China could deteriorate rapidly, especially if North Korea conducts another nuclear test or a long-range missile launch. In comments to CNN, unnamed US officials claimed this week that satellite imagery showed new activity at North Korea’s underground nuclear test site and suggested that a sixth nuclear detonation could be imminent.

Ahead of yesterday’s talks in Washington, US State Department officials indicated that Mattis and Tillerson would press their Chinese counterparts not only on North Korea, but a range of other sensitive issues, including the South China Sea and the so-called war on terrorism.

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Susan Thornton, told Voice of America that “all parties should freeze any construction or militarisation of features” in the South China Sea—a comment directed especially at China. Last month, the US navy carried out another provocative “freedom of navigation” operation, sending a guided missile destroyer within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit claimed by China around one of its islets.

Trade and economic issues were excluded from yesterday’s US-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue but remained just below the surface. During last year’s presidential election campaign, Trump repeatedly denounced China’s trade policies and threatened punitive trade war measures. In seeking Beijing’s assistance to pressure Pyongyang, Trump suggested the US could make concessions on trade.

Having tweeted that Chinese efforts have “not worked out,” the implicit threat is that the US could ramp up the pressure on China over trade.

“What Trump is saying is, I don’t need you on North Korea now, and therefore maybe we should have it out on these other issues, like trade,” analyst John Delury told the New York Times.

China is reluctant to impose new sanctions that will cripple North Korea’s economy and provoke a political crisis that could be exploited by the US and its allies. At yesterday’s talks, Chinese officials reiterated Beijing’s call for renewed negotiations based on a freeze by Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile tests and a freeze by Washington on its joint military exercises in South Korea. The US has flatly rejected the proposal.

Above all, the threat of US military strikes against North Korea hangs over Asia. Earlier this week, the Pentagon again sent two B-1 strategic bombers on a mission over the Korean Peninsula in a provocative show of force. The US Navy has two aircraft carrier strike groups stationed in the area, with another on its way.

Any US military action against North Korea threatens to trigger an all-out conflict on the Korean Peninsula that could draw in other powers, including China, with devastating consequences. The Trump administration’s recklessness is underscored by the fact that it is engaged in an escalating confrontation in Syria that threatens to provoke a clash with Russia and Iran, even as it is ramping up tensions in North East Asia.

Featured image: credits to the owner

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

Instead of fulfilling a campaign promise to improve bilateral relations, Trump so far continues acting provocatively.

He’s pursuing the same reckless agenda as Obama, pushing the envelope toward possible direct confrontation with Russia.

Despite neither country wanting war, unfolding events may cause the unthinkable to happen by accident or design.

Among major powers, Russia is the world’s leading peace and stability champion – America just the opposite.

It’s recklessly waging wars in multiple theaters, threatening conflicts against North Korea, Iran, and perhaps Russia the way things are going.

Madness defines US policy, state terror on a global scale, naked aggression its main expression, controlling planet earth, its resources and people its objective – risking potentially life-destroying nuclear war.

Last week, Senate members near unanimously imposed new illegal sanctions on Russia, including on its energy sector. House action awaits.

On Monday, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it “reinforced existing sanctions on Russia by designating or identifying a range of individuals and entities involved in the ongoing conflict under four Executive orders (EOs) related to Russia and Ukraine,” adding:

“US sanctions on Russia related to the situation in eastern Ukraine will remain in place until Russia fully honors its obligations under the Minsk Agreements.”

“US sanctions related to Crimea will not be lifted until Russia ends its occupation of the peninsula.”

Fact: Russia wages peace, not war. Alone it’s gone all-out to resolve things in Ukraine diplomatically, its good faith efforts sabotaged by Washington.

Fact: Crimea is Russian territory, its newest republic, supporting the will of its people, correcting a historic error.

Fact: The territory won’t be handed back to US-installed putschists running Ukraine. Its people won’t be betrayed for Washington or anyone else.

Russia and America are world’s apart on Syria. Moscow seeks diplomatic conflict resolution, the country’s sovereignty respected, its territorial integrity preserved.

Washington wants endless conflict, puppet governance it controls replacing overwhelmingly popular Assad, reelected president in June 2014 by an 89% majority.

International observers called the process open, free and fair despite ongoing war, creating enormous hardships for its people. They want no one else leading them.

They want their sovereign independence respected. They reject foreign meddling in their affairs – especially by America, NATO, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and their rogue allies.

On Wednesday morning, a NATO F-16 warplane, likely a US one, provocatively tried following closely behind Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s aircraft over Baltic Sea international waters while en route to Kaliningrad.

Russian Su-27 fleet fighters escorted his plane. As the likely US warplane approached, a Russian Su-27 maneuvered between both aircraft, waving its wings, displaying its arms, sending a clear message to back off or risk being downed.

The F-16 few off, ending the provocation, avoiding a possible serious incident. An unacceptable NATO statement said the alliance “can confirm that three Russian aircraft, including two fighters, were tracked over the Baltic Sea earlier today (21 June 2017).”

“As the aircraft did not identify themselves or respond to air traffic control, NATO fighter jets scrambled to identify them, according to standard procedures.”

“NATO has no information as to who was on board. We assess the Russian pilots’ behavior as safe and professional.”

Several Russian Su-34 aircraft escorted Shoigu’s return flight from Kaliningrad, NATO warplanes, likely US ones, following from a distance.

Baltic Sea provocations by US warplanes with Russian aircraft increased in recent weeks – risking possible direct confrontation if they continue.

America’s rage for unchallenged global dominance risks unthinkable nuclear war, its recklessness threatening humanity’s survival.

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: credits to the owner

“If the Nuremberg Laws were applied, then every post-war American President would have been hanged” – Noam Chomsky

Eurasia

Henry Kissinger, one of the fundamental figures in creating and maintaining the US policy of global hegemonism during the Cold War[1], was quite clear and precise in his overviewing the issue of the American geopolitical position, national goals and foreign policy. His remarks can be summarized in the following points:

1. The US is an island off the shores of the large landmass of Eurasia.
2. The resources and population of Eurasia far exceed the resources and population of the US.
3. Any domination by any single state from Eurasia (either from the European or the Asian part) is a critical danger for the American geopolitical and geoeconomic aims as well as national interest regardless during or after the time of the Cold War.
4. A mortal danger for the US is formation of any political-military coalitions between the Euroasian great powers (primarily between the USSR/Russia and China) as such coalition would have a real capacity to outstrip both the US economy and military.
5. The US strategic global geopolitical interest is to thwart creation of such Eurasian coalition (the USSR/Russia-China).[2]

In fact, H. Kissinger recognized two fundamental facts in dealing with global geopolitics:

1) Eurasia is of crucial global geopolitical importance; and

2) Russia is a Heartland of Eurasia.[3] Therefore, to have a control over Russia means to have a control over Eurasia and to control Eurasia means to control the rest of the world. For that reason, the US struggle against the communist USSR during the Cold War or Putin’s Russia today is nothing else than a formal pretext for a realization of the basic US geopolitical task from the global perspective: to have a control over the Heartland of Eurasia. Subsequently, any kind of independent and/or stronger Russia is not acceptable solution for the American policymakers.

A Nature of the US

In order to properly understand the post-Cold War global hegemony foreign policy by the US Administration, it is necessary to realize the very nature of the US as a state. Basically, the US foreign policy of global hegemony is shaped by two most important internal processes which exist from the very beginning of the US independence and statehood (declared in 1776):

1. A mass consumerist mentality of her citizens that is deeply permeated throughout American (sub)culture;

2. Corresponding policy of maintaining world’s military supremacy for the sake to ensure privileged possession of the global goods, energy, natural resources and credit. For example, there are 800 US military bases across the globe and one of the biggest of them is located in Kosovo (Bondsteel) – one of the richest regions in Europe according to its reserves of the natural resources (at least 500 billion $US).[4]

The American strategy of global hegemony after the WWII was not only to compete the Soviet military power and political influence but it was and is much more important to establish such world that is going mandatory to be hospitable for the growth of the US economy. Therefore, the American military-political global dominance was ideologically justified by anti-communism and the US alleged leading role in defending the “free world”. However, after the end of the European communism, dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and dismemberment of the USSR, Washington simply justified a continuation of its Cold War policy of global hegemony by defending Europe (and probably the rest of the world) from the “Russian aggression”. A “free world” was identified with a full acceptance of the American values, norms, political and economic systems and (sub)culture. According to such geopolitical project, all of those governments who rejected to “dance according to the American playing” became proclaimed as the enemies of “free world” threatened to be bombed and occupied (like the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999). Nevertheless, the fundamental allegory of the American promotion of independence and democracy (the basic components of “free world”) is that this country is not either really independent (being the West Bank of Israel from 1948 onward) nor fully democratic (not being even among the first 30 democratic states in the world).

A numerous US military interventions after 1945, as an instrument for the realization of the geopolitical project of global hegemony, however, very much undermined the very meaning of democracy and leading at the same time to large-scale human rights abuses.The concept of Pax Americana is having as its crucial strategy to maintain cheap supplies of raw materials and especially of the cheap supply of oil as the crucial energetic source for the US consumerism economy. Therefore, immediately after the WWII the basic US strategy became to establish the American hegemony in the oil-rich countries in the region of the Middle East supporting there all kinds of non-democratic and even dictatorial regimes who expressed political loyalty to Washington as the regimes of Iran (Persia) from the CIA/M16-sponsored coup in 1953[5] up to the Islamic Revolution in 1978−1979, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and above all of Saudi Arabia.

The Middle East and the “Resource War”

The beginning of this process of making the regional client states started in 1945 when the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a strategic partnership with Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud who was a founder of the modern Saudi royal family and ruling dynasty.

The deal was that the US will protect the dynasty, which is from the beginning supporting the fundamentalist Wahhabi brand of the Sunni Islam,from all inner and outer enemies for the exchange of the US privileged access to the Saudi oil.[6] Iran was the second country of importance for the US regional “oil policy” where the fundamental American influence was established in 1953 when the CIA-M16 backed coup against democratically elected PM Mohammad Mossadegh brought to power in fact the Western oil companies.[7]

Therefore, it is not of any surprise that the Iranian Revolution was ideologically and politically an amalgamation of the Islamic Shiite theocracy and very strong anti-Americanism. The US hegemonic design to prevent any hostility actor to gain any foothold in geostrategically and energetically extremely important region of the Middle East was clearly formulated in the 1980 “Carter Doctrine”. One of the fundamental reasons for formulating such doctrine was, of course, protection of the existence of the Zionist Israel and its policy of ethnic cleansing of the domestic Palestinians. Therefore, the US policy to project military power into the region of the Middle East became increased substantially followed by abnormal militarization of Israel.

President Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz Meeting on the USS Quincy, February 14, 1945. (Source: SUSRIS)

In the years of R. Reagan’s Administration, the US transformed Afghani Taliban’s into its sponsored movement and created long-time partnership with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for the maintaining Islamist mujahedeen Taliban military capabilities against the Soviet army in Afghanistan but at the same time and opening possibilities for the emergence of different anti-Western jihadist military groups like al-Qaeda of Saudi Osama bin Laden who will turn back their arms against their sponsors once the Soviet army left Afghanistan. Therefore, the regional militant anti-Western Islamism in different forms that emerged after the Cold War did not arise suddenly out of the framework of the US imperialistic and hegemonic geopolitical ambitions in the Middle East.

A new phase of US policy in the Middle East came into force in 1990−1991 with the First Gulf War that was fought from the US point of view (like and the Second Gulf War in 2003 that resulted in the military occupation of Iraq) for the geopolitical maintenance of the ideology of economic security that was just wrapped into the propaganda of the 2001 G. W. Bush’s doctrine of the “War on Terror”.

In essence, the US Administration fought the First Gulf War for the sake to prevent possible post-Cold War challenges to its hyperpower in global politics in the face of “… the world’s effective policeman”.[8] G. W. Bush’s Government skilfully exploited the atmosphere of fear of the further terror attacks in the US society after the terrorist attack of 9/11 that was most probably self-constructed US-Israeli action in which al-Qaeda just played a role of executors in front of the TV cameras. Subsequently, the most hawkish faces around the US President had fantastic reason to start the realization of a long-prepared project of the US world’s supremacy, unilateral actions and non-limited use of the military capacity of the Pentagon.

After the US-led coalition’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, that was extremely important for having direct control over the production and distribution of the Afghan heroin on the global market (one road goes via the US colony of Kosovo) and for founding a geostrategic base for the invasion of Iran (the main enemy to Israel after 1979), the invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (fully sponsored by the US Administration of R. Reagan in the war against Iran in the 1980s) became a highest priority of Washington’s foreign policy of establishing a global empire. The Pentagon calculated that a new Iraqi colonial regime would transform its country into the US base of military operations in the very centre of the region of the Middle East – a region which is of the fundamental geostrategic global importance with huge reserves of oil and natural gas. Therefore, the region would be in total control by the US with its military bases in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq followed by strong Israeli and Turkish armies.

Another fact is that the US is still the most oil-dependent economy in the world with a biggest mechanized war machine which consumes enormous market and therefore Washington’s goal was and is to prevent any global supply disruptions and/or price fluctuations. For the reason that the demand for the oil consumption was constantly growing on the world’s level and that global oil reserves became of extreme importance for the global strategic power in the recent future, the US Administration decided after the Cold War to transform whole region of the Middle East into its own courtyard for political and economic exploitation. The realization of the plan was going smoothly up to 2014 when Moscow finally decided to crucially defend Syria from the American policy of global banditry, at the same year when the Western Russophobic DrangnachOsten policy was finally stopped in the Euromaidan’s Ukraine.

From this point of view, the doctrine of “War on Terror” is crucially bound up with the American attempts to establish geostrategic dominance in extremely petrol-rich region of the Middle East for both oil consumption and prevention of rising power of China to be significantly infiltrated into the region which has to be reserved mainly for the supplying of the US economy. Essentially, the US proclaimed “War on Terror” is nothing else but profit driven the “Resource War”.[9]

Pax Americana and the “Wars of Humanitarian Intervention”

President B. Obama’s Administration continued the same G. W. Bush’s imperialistic policy of “Resource War” just embracing a more multilateral style of diplomacy and going slowly out of the big ground wars and direct invasions of sovereign states. Nevertheless, he practiced vigorous use of the American military machinery to attack those whom the Pentagon perceived to be mostly hostile to the US hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East but also in the East Africa and the South Asia. The strategy included expanded use of “kill/capture teams” operated by the US military Joint Special Operations Command, drone strikes executed by both the CIA and the US army. B. Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize regardless to the very fact that during his presidency there was no a single day of peace. It is calculated that Obama the Bomber dropped during his 8 years of presidency (two terms) a bomb every 20 minutes. For instance, only up to February 2012,

“…the Obama’s Administration has carried out at least 239 covert drone strikes, more than five times the 44 approved under George W. Bush. And after promising to make counter-terrorism operations more transparent and rein in executive power, Obama has arguably done the opposite, maintaining secrecy and expanding presidential authority”.[10]

The US aggressive, time to time brutal and humanless foreign policy of militarism and globalization of war for the sake of Pax Americana can be understood only within the full context of the nature of capitalism and logic of capital itself.[11] An integral part of the US foreign policy of global hegemony is the implementation of bilateral agreements with other states to prevent the US soldiers from extradition to the International Criminal Court. In order to force certain countries to conclude such agreement, the US Government is threatening them to withdraw its military and other forms of support if they would not be willing to sign the agreement. Many states accepted such deal like Israel, Romania or East-Timor[12] and therefore legitimised the US Army to legally violate basic human rights and rules of war.

On the other hand, the US authority is using military means for interventions formally for the humanitarian purposes or for protections of human rights. However, that is just a moral excuse for the realization of the American foreign policy’s goals it was clear in many cases but the most obvious one was in 1999 with the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for the formal sake to protect Kosovo Albanian human and minority rights.

Nevertheless, the prohibition of the use of force by the international law, as it is clearly formulated, for instance, in the UN Charter Article 2, Paragraph 4, is as well as extended to the so-called “humanitarian intervention” that refers to the unilateral threat or use of armed force by any state against another to protect the life and liberty of nationals of the latter from acts by their own governments.[13]

However, there is only one possibility, according to international law, to use the force, including and in the cases of “humanitarian interventions“: it has to be accepted by the UN Security Council. In other words, only if the SC UN according to the UN Charter Articles 39−42 decides that the human rights violations in some country pose a treat to the international peace and regional security and that the measures of a military interventions are necessary, a military intervention against the other state (or its regime) is sanctioned by the international law and community. However, as a matter of fact, the US authority never received such permission for any of its “humanitarian interventions” what practically means that the US Government is de facto above the international law and community.

The bombing of Belgrade on March 24, 1999. (Source: Sputnik)

The US “Wars of Humanitarian Intervention” in overwhelming majority of cases are based on politically motivated “false flags” produced by the intelligence service (the CIA) information backed by the global mainstream medias’ “fake news” at the same time. The Western academic writings even by the most prestigious world’s universities and publishing houses, unfortunately, are directly supporting such imperialistic wars by giving unproved and false “academic” feedback as it is, for instance, the case with the publication Understanding Global Security by a Senior Lecturer Peter Hough at Middlesex University and published by Routledge. The publication suggests, for instance, that the NATO “humanitarian intervention” in 1999 against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was to “Protect Kosovar Albanians from Serb massacres”,[14] regardless the fact that the only reason for such NATO aggression was to establish proper political conditions for Kosovo independence from Serbia, transformation of the region into the American political and economic colony and continuation of the historical Albanian ethnic cleansing of the local Serbs and non-Albanians.[15]

A Soft Power as a Method

The use of a Soft Power is another method implied by Washington in dealing with the world politics and international relations. The method refers to the capability of state (or any other actor in global politics) to influence other states, governments or actors to do what the influencer wants but through persuasion, not force or direct threats. In principle, a Soft Power attracts or co-opts members of government, politicians or citizens by different means including, for instance, bribing, financial donations, offering certain benefits, education, financing political parties, organizing public seminars, etc., but it does not directly force them to do what is required. In this respect, the formal NGOs can play very important role in promulgation of a Soft Power method of the American global imperialism like New York-based Soros Foundation and its Central European University in Budapest. The method is covering a wide scope of areas like culture, values, ideas, politics, national identity, history, rights, etc., representing in essence different but in many cases not lesser forms of influence if compared to the method of a Hard Power which implies much more direct and essentially coercive measures (like ultimatums, economic sanctions or threats of use of the military force). Therefore, a Soft Power method is an another way of achieving the goals by involving persuasion and encouragement usually, but not necessarily, rooted in shared norms, values or/and beliefs.

In general, the method of a Soft Power relies on two instuments:

1. Persuation – the ability to convince someone by real or false arguments.
2. An ability to attract the people by all possible means.

Banditry as a “Business as Usual”

The ruling US Neo-Con establishment started to push the American foreign policy towards the US domination over Eurasia already from the second half of the  1990s that simply meant a geopolitical struggle with Russia. The Kosovo War in 1999 became the fist direct challenge to Russia’s national dignity and geopolitical interests in the region. The architects of the US “Eurasia’s imperialism” understood quite well that a broader Middle East (including and the Balkans and the North Africa) was at the heart of the Eurasian problem from different points of view: geopolitical, ideological, economic and strategic.

Therefore, both Gulf Wars and the Kosovo War and the Afghan War in between were fought primarily in order to demonstrate the US strong intention to absolutely dominate over a Greater Middle East in the post-Cold War era. The Second Gulf War in 2003 was a war of showing to the rest of the world that the US foreign policy of the open banditry is going to be a “business as usual” which had to be silently accepted by the international community. For the matter of fact, it was quite clear that Iraq in 2003 could not develop any kind of effective weapons of mass destruction including and any kind of the ABC weapons due to the effective UN economic and other sanctions against S. Hussein’s Government. Furthermore, in 1991 Iraq already was seriously defeated that it could not think for a longer period of time even about just revitalizing of its regular army which became weakened even after the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s. In general, after the First Gulf War in 1991, there was no any serious threat to the US interests in the Persian Gulf region and therefore even did not exist a real reason for the Pentagon to keep up the US presence there.

The US Neo-Con’s right-wing hawks became enough influential in the Clinton’s and later the Bush’s Administrations to decide to compel Kissinger’s goal of continued US domination over a Greater Middle East as in their mind the First Gulf War was a failure war for the reason that the American unchallenged dominance over the region was not established. Such foreign policy shift in the Clinton’s Administration became led by a Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her mentor a Polish born Zbigniew (Zbig) Brzezinski who was a US National Security Advisor in the J. Carter’s Administration and above all an ardent Russophobe. Therefore, the US imperialism started and completed three wars in the area of a Greater Middle East during the Clinton’s and the Bush’s Administrations from 1999 to 2003: the Kosovo War in 1999, the Afghan War in 2001 and the Second Gulf War in 2003. However, the Arab Spring in 2011 and especially the Russian military intervention in Syria from 2014 onward clearly have shown that the area of the Middle East is still not an exclusive American colonial domain.

Conclusion

To conclude, from the very beginning of the existence of the USA in 1776 warfare was, is and probably is going to be an integral par of American life. 16] This very fact is a direct product and consequence of the nature of the economic system of the US and a consumerism mentality of its citizens. The effects on the world’s security and global peace are obvious.

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography” –Mark Twain

Notes

[1] Henry Kissinger was a National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under the US Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He also advised many other American Presidents on the US foreign policy and global politics. He was one of the most responsible persons for the CIA-organized military putsch in Chile in 1973 and for the US involvement and atrocities committed in Vietnam. Nevertheless, H. Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Prize and Medal of Liberty, among other awards. He is one of the most notorious symbols of the US gangster-style foreign policy.

[2] John Rees, Imperialism and Resistance, London−New York: Routledge, 2006, 18. On this issue, see more in: Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1994; Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21^st Century, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2001; Henry Kissinger, World Order, New York: Penguin Books, 2015.

[3] Срђан Перишић, Нова геополитика Русије, Београд: Медија центар „Одбрана“, 2015. 

[4] Кавкаски Албанци лажни Илири, Београд: Пешић и синови, 2007.

[5] James C. Van Hook (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952−1954: Iran, 1951−1954, Washington: United States Government Publishing Office, 2017.

[6] Michael Klare, „Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World’s Oil“, Foreign Policy in Focus, 2004: www.fpif.org.

[7] On the CIA’s „dirty wars“, see (Douglas Valentine, The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, INC, 2017).

[8] John Rees, Imperialism and Resistance, London−New York: Routledge, 2006, 17.

[9] Michael Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism” in the Wake of 9/11, Second edition, Montréal, Canada: Center for Research on Globalization, 2005.

[10] David Rhode, “The Obama Doctrine: How the President’s Drone War is backfiring”, Foreign Policy, 2012-02-27: http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/the-obama-doctrine/.

[11] On the US globalization of war phenomena, see in (Michael Chossudovsky, The Globalization of War: America’s ‘Long War’ against Humanity, Montréal, Canada: Center for Research on Globalization, 2015).

[12] Peter R. Baehr, Monique Castermans-Holleman, The Role of Human Rights in Foreign Policy, Third edition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 21.

[13] ArieBloed, Peter van Dijk (eds.), Essays on Human Rights in the Helsinki Process, Dordrecht: MartinusNijhoff, 1985, 34−35. 

[14] Peter Hough, Understanding Global Security, 2nd Edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2008, 127.

[15] Hannes Hofbauer, Eksperiment Kosovo: Povratakkolonijalizma, Beograd: Albatros Plus, 2009.

[16] On this issue, see (Paul Atwood, War and Empire: The American Way of Life, London: Pluto Press, 2010).

Featured image: credits to the owner

There is trouble in oil paradise.

It seems that all the elements of an already explosive geopolitical concoction are getting vigorously stirred. The palace coup in Saudi Arabia, conducted by King Salman’s own son, Prince Mohammad bin Salman, on June 21, 2017, should be understood as the second salvo of a potentially hot war between two Sunni blocks: on one hand, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain; on the other hand, Qatar and its allies of circumstance, Turkey, Palestinian Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood network, and a likely Shiite coalition with Iraq and Iran.

The two blocks, quickly assembled, could enter a terrifying hot war over this new crisis, which would tear apart the entire Sunni Muslim community as well as draw in the Shiites of Iran and Iraq. The entire region could easily become like the current-day Syria of killing fields and ruins.

Source: Archive of Freedom House / Flickr

The pot calling the kettle black

Prince bin Salman has assumed complete control of the Saudi kingdom’s government apparatus. This is a sign that the Saudi hardliners, vis-a-vis the crisis they created with Qatar, have won the prelude of the battle. As Saudi Arabia’s minister of defense, bin Salman was the architect of the nasty war in Yemen, which until the split between the two nations, included Qatar. What happened to the beautiful friendship between the Saudi and the Qatari rulers? Its apex was the sponsorship of jihadists, first to topple Gaddafi in Libya, and their ultimate collaborative proxy-terrorism accomplishment was the creation of ISIS to wreck Iraq, and to topple Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Terror and war might soon come home to roost in the magical kingdom and emirates of princes and sheiks, with made-in-the-USA missiles flying over Riyadh and Doha. Can the crisis be diffused, or is it actually engineered by the United States, its Western NATO vassals and Israel? For the sake of the entire Middle East, the looming crisis must be prevented at all cost.

Source: Archive of The White House / Flickr

Prince bin Salman’s coup was the second preliminary salvo, the first one occurred two weeks before that. On June 5, 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump’s flamboyant visit to Saudi Arabia, the expanding rift with the kingdom and Qatar went into full-blown crisis mode. There followed a complete suspension of all diplomatic relations with Qatar, unilaterally decided by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain. The sanctions established a ban on travel of Qataris to the three states as well as a full economic embargo for all goods and services on Qatar, which is the biggest liquid gas producer in the world. Qatari diplomats were expelled, and all land, air and sea travel routes were cut off on allegations that Qatar supports terrorist groups. This almost immediately triggered a panic in Doha, where people feared a food shortage in supermarkets, considering that more than 40 percent of Qatar’s food supplies come by truck through its border with Saudi Arabia.

US foreign policy: schizophrenia or Machiavellian demolition plan?

A couple of days after Saudi Arabia cut off Qatar, President Trump aligned himself with his new regional royal best friends. He wrote on Twitter, his favorite way to communicate his stream of consciousness on policy, that he agreed with the Saudis and that Qatar should be isolated for its support of terrorism. Mr. Trump got carried away, however, and forgot two essential facts. First, Qatar provides a base for 10,000 American troops, which is the biggest US military base in the region and is of critical importance for military operations not only in Syria, but also in Afghanistan. Secondly, right after Trump’s statement on the issue, on June 14, Secretary of Defense James Mattis signed an agreement with Qatar for the sale of $12 billion in weapons systems, including big-ticket items such as 36 F15 fighter jets.

Therefore, by their own admission, and perhaps in a symptom of full-blown administrative schizophrenia, US officials are selling sophisticated weapons to a state that supports terrorism! Adding his voice to the US administration’s cacophony was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who contradicted Trump and sternly warned Saudi Arabia to deescalate the tensions with Qatar. This new crisis, engineered or real, if nothing else, confirms that the administration’s de facto commander-in-chief is General Mattis.

There is something more sinister about all this. Suppose the schizophrenic aspect of it all is just a decoy to hide a Machiavellian plan that has been the hallmark of US policy for decades: the simple divide-and-conquer imperial rule, with the distinction of arming both sides of the potential conflict. In the Middle East, this plan was started during the Reagan administration when President George Bush senior’s crew nicely fueled and fostered the Iran-Iraq war. It seems that, once again, under the mad impulse of its unchecked military-industrial complex, the US, and whatever unwise vassals might join in, is setting the stage for a huge regional conflict. The beast has an unquenchable thirst for blood and oil, and what better place to find both than in a region that is already half wrecked? In this mad logic, if one thinks of who would ultimately benefit from this additional crime of a further destruction of the Middle East, besides the war machine of the military-industrial complex, it would have to be Israel, in the context of a Greater Israel project to be built on the rubble of the Arab world.

The current war project looks like an expansion of the insanely murderous plan that has been implemented in Iraq and Syria: a tabula rasa scenario, with gargantuan sales of weapons to both sides of the conflict, which is as American as apple pie. To degrade their respective cash flows, the Saudi and UAE oil fields would become the prime targets for bombs and missiles from Qatar and their militarily powerful allies; in return, the Qatar natural gas infrastructure would be hit by the Saudi or Egyptian military. Just like during Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, when the oil fields were hit in large numbers, a worldwide side effect of an outright war between Saudi Arabia and Qatar would be a major spike in oil and natural gas prices, which in turn could trigger a massive financial market crash. In our global Orwellian construct 2+2=5, and world order is chaos. By any name, however, chaos cannot be controlled.

Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire.

All images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated.