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French Presidential Election 2017: Nothing Succeeds Like Success. Macron “Selected”. Billionaires and Bankers Rejoice

By Diana Johnstone, May 08, 2017

The list is long of billionaires, bankers and establishment figures who have a right to rejoice at the extraordinary success of a candidate who got elected President of the French Republic on the claim to be “an outsider”, whereas nobody in history has ever been so unanimously supported by all the insiders you can name.

France Chooses Banker Macron as President

By Jack Rasmus, May 08, 2017

Today France elected Emmanuel Macron, the former banker, as its next president. The voting result was 65% for Macron, a newcomer in the election cycle who didn’t even have a political party, but who did have the massive business backing and traditional political elites united behind him, providing unlimited media and financial assistance to his campaign.

Macron and Le Pen: Two Faces of the Same Con

By Gilbert Mercier, May 06, 2017

Macron’s trajectory is similar to that of Trump in the sense of pretending to be anti-establishment and not to belong to the conventional political class. Like Trump, Macron’s recipe for success is the made-up charm of the fake political outsider. Of course Macron is purely an establishment tool, a company man just like Trump, and he will be France’s next president, handpicked by the Rothschild family.

France: A Nation’s Conscience and the Question of Terror

By Adeyinka Makinde, May 06, 2017

One constant in these episodes of national meditation has been the matter of re-asserting pride in La Grande Nation. The restoration of national pride as well as the reassertion of national independence formed the backdrop to President de Gaulle’s resistance to the irresistible rise of the American empire which saw de Gaulle evicting Nato from its original headquarters in Paris, removing France from the military command hierarchy of the United States dominated Nato and maintaining a nuclear deterrence capability independent of America.

Congressional demands for personal and business information from several of Donald Trump’s campaign advisers demonstrate how the Russia-gate investigation continues to spill over into a new breed of McCarthyism infringing on civil liberties, including freedom of speech and freedom of association.

The original thinking had been that congressional and other investigations would concentrate on specific concerns from alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, such as whether a Trump intermediary somehow conveyed purloined Democratic emails to WikiLeaks for publication on the Internet.

WikiLeaks denies getting the leaked emails from Russians and the Trump campaign denies colluding with Russians, but President Obama’s intelligence chiefs claimed that Russian agents hacked the emails and then used intermediaries to get the material to WikiLeaks – although no real evidence of that has been presented publicly.

However, instead of zeroing in on that central question, the Senate investigation appears engaged in a fishing expedition looking at virtually every contact between Trump advisers and Russians, who may or may not have ties to the government. The demands are so broad that they could entrap the targets for perceived obstruction of an official investigation if some name or contact is left off, intentionally or by accident.

For instance, the Senate Intelligence Committee has demanded from ex-Trump foreign adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business dealings and personal contacts in Russia, the names and details of pretty much anyone he contacted over an 18-month period who could be a Russian official or somehow connected to a Russian business.

In a letter dated April 28, the committee’s top Republican, Richard Burr of North Carolina, and top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia, gave Page until May 9 to provide:

“A list of all meetings between you and any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests which took place between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017. For each meeting listed, please include the date, location, all individuals present, and complete copies of any notes taken by you or on your behalf.”

Meetings with Campaign

Further, the committee set a deadline of May 19 for Page to also supply:

“A list of all meetings of which you are aware between any individual with the Trump campaign and any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests which took place between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017. For each meeting listed please include the date, location, and all individuals present.”

By the same deadline, the committee demanded:

“All communications records, including electronic communications records such as e-mail or text messages, written correspondence, and phone records of communications which took place between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017, to which you and any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests was a party.

“All communications records, including electronic communications records such as e-mail or text message, written correspondence, and phone records, of communications related in any way to Russia, conducted between you and members and advisors of the Trump campaign.

“All information regarding your financial and real estate holdings related to Russia between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017, including those financial securities or real estate holdings which you sold or from which you divested in that time period.”

Similar information requests reportedly have been sent to other Trump campaign advisers, including Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn.

Given the extent of Page’s dealings in Russia, which included having lived there for several years, the broad information demand amounts to a perjury trap because even if Page tried his best to supply all the personal, phone and email contacts, he would be sure to miss something or someone, thus setting him up for prosecution for obstructing an investigation or lying to investigators.

A FISA Warrant

Also, since the Obama administration reportedly obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Page last summer, the U.S. government may well have more complete records of Page’s contacts and communications than he would, thus putting him into even greater legal jeopardy for an omission.

The FISA warrant was allegedly obtained, in part, because of a speech that Page delivered in Russia on July 7, 2016, that was mildly critical of U.S. foreign policy toward the countries of the former Soviet Union. Beginning in late July, that FBI investigation then expanded into a much wider probe of people connected to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign with possible links to Russia.

In an article about the origins of the investigation of Page and other Trump advisers, The New York Times characterized Page’s July speech to the New Economic School in Moscow as critical of “American policy toward Russia in terms that echoed the position of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.”

The Times then quoted one line from the speech in which Page said,

“Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change.”

The Times article by Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman added:

“His [Page’s] remarks accorded with Mr. Trump’s positive view of the Russian president, which had prompted speculation about what Mr. Trump saw in Mr. Putin — more commonly denounced in the United States as a ruthless, anti-Western autocrat.”

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

In reality, Page’s speech was much more nuanced than the Times presented. His central point was that the hasty transformation of the former Soviet Union from state-controlled to free market economies led to unintended consequences, including increased corruption.

“As the state remained dominant and new markets were simultaneously established following the breakup of the Soviet Union, members of these societies devised other methods and means of survival through corruption,” Page said, adding that the West was not entirely innocent of similar problems:

“These approaches mirror several corrupt tendencies at times found in Western societies. Some may be clear-cut such as the Bernard Madoff scandal in financial markets and Enron in the energy sector, while others are more subtle such as the perceived societal injustices highlighted by the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

In other words, Page’s comments fell well within a reasonable assessment of the troubles that have occurred within the countries of the former Soviet Union. Page also recognized that the West – despite its sometimes holier-than-thou attitude toward less-developed nations – has its own problems with both criminal corruption and the more subtle variety of Wall Street machinations. After all, the 2008 financial crisis stripped common citizens of both America and Europe of trillions of dollars in lost assets and costs from government bailouts.

Echoing Putin?

But note how The New York Times characterized Page’s remarks as having “echoed the position of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia,” suggesting that Page, a former U.S. Navy officer, was somehow demonstrating disloyalty.

The Times also suggested that Page’s opinions as expressed in his speech contributed to the Obama administration’s decision to seek and obtain a FISA warrant that allowed the U.S. government to monitor his communications as a suspected foreign agent.

Normally, such intrusive government action against a citizen for expressing his opinions – whether they “echoed” the views of President Putin or not – would alarm defenders of civil liberties. However, since Page briefly served as a foreign policy adviser to Trump – and much of the civil liberties community has enlisted in the #Resistance to Trump over his presumed threats to civil liberties – there has been extraordinary silence about the McCarthyistic treatment of Page and other Trump advisers.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as President Trump’s national security adviser, has already had a taste of how the U.S. government’s surveillance powers can entrap a citizen in a “process” crime, such as lying to investigators or obstructing justice.

On Dec. 29, 2016, several weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Flynn – while vacationing in the Dominican Republic – took a phone call from Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in which they apparently discussed mounting tensions between Washington and Moscow, as U.S. intelligence officials surreptitiously listened in.

Because Flynn was not officially part of the government at the time of the call, Obama administration appointees at the Justice Department created a pretext for a criminal investigation by citing the Logan Act, a law enacted in 1799 to prohibit private citizens from negotiating with foreign adversaries but never used to convict anyone, ever. The law also is of dubious constitutionality and was surely never intended to apply to a president-elect’s advisers.

However, based on that flimsy pretext, FBI agents – with a transcript of the electronic intercept of the Kislyak-Flynn phone call in hand – tested Flynn’s memory of the conversation and found his recollections incomplete. Flynn also has come under criticism for giving a paid speech in 2015 to a dinner in Moscow honoring the tenth anniversary of the Russian television station, RT. Under mounting media and political pressure, President Trump fired Flynn.

The New McCarthyism

So, while one can legitimately criticize Flynn’s judgment, the larger civil-liberties issue surrounding the Russia-gate investigation is the prospect of criminalizing otherwise innocuous contacts with Russia and punishing American citizens for resisting the New Cold War.

Many Democrats, liberals and even some progressives appear excited over the prospect of wielding this new McCarthyism against Trump’s advisers with the hope that Russia-gate can be built up into a case for Trump’s impeachment.

But the precedents that are being set could be very dangerous for the long term. If Americans can be put under invasive FISA warrants for going abroad and criticizing U.S. policies or if intercepted phone calls can be used to test the memories of citizens during FBI interviews, many of the warnings from civil libertarians about the dangers of “war on terror” surveillance powers being applied more broadly may be coming true.

After receiving the sweeping congressional demands for documents and other data, Carter Page, who is an oil industry consultant with numerous foreign contacts including in Russia, responded by taking note of the reported FISA surveillance of him, writing to Senators Burr and Warner:

“I remain committed to helping the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in any way that I can. But please note that any records I may have saved as a private citizen with limited technology capabilities will be miniscule in comparison to the full database of information which has already been collected under the direction of the Obama Administration during last year’s completely unjustified FISA warrant that targeted me for exercising my First Amendment rights, both in 2016 as well as in years prior.

“As a starting point for this latest step in the witch hunt which you suggested per the cumbersome chores defined in your … letter, I would request that you please begin by sharing [with me] the same information which you currently have … Based on the database of my personal information already collected during the Obama Administration’s domestic political intelligence operations which reportedly began at some point last year, it seems clear that many of the weighty task[s] you assigned will have already been largely completed.

“As a lone individual, I can assure you that my personal administrative capabilities pale in comparison to the clerical juggernaut represented by the numerous staff in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. Government which have heretofore been allegedly involved in this unscrupulous surveillance for many months on end.”

Whether justified or not, the FISA surveillance of Page – and thus likely others whom he contacted – may create the basis for some kind of criminal charges against him. Other Trump advisers may be tripped up on various process crimes, such as failure to report properly under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, another law that gets enforced selectively mostly against people without political pull.

In an interview on Friday, Page told me that he was a small player who was innocent of violating any laws but who became an “obvious” target for the Obama administration’s effort to undermine the Trump campaign.

“I don’t have [political] protection and I have genuine, deep Russian connections,” he said, adding that compliance with the Senate’s demands would require him reviewing “thousands of emails and hundreds of phone calls. … It defies all logic and common sense.”

But the reality of Official Washington is that once momentum builds up around a “scandal,” someone has to get convicted of something – or all the Important People who have weighed in on the “affair” will look stupid. In Russia-gate, however, important principles about the right to dissent, the right to privacy and the right to associate freely are getting trampled.

[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Did-You-Talk-to-Russians Witch-hunt.”]

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).

On May 4, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to impose new sanctions on North Korea targeting its shipping industry and slave labor among other things as tensions continued to mount over North Korea’s advancing nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The Korean Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act (H.R. 1644) is designed to undercut North Korea’s economy by cracking down on the network of banks and industries that help it avoid Western sanctions. In particular, it cracks down on North Korean shipping and use of international ports.

The bill bars ships owned by North Korea or by countries that refuse to comply with UN resolutions from operating in American waters or docking at US ports. The legislation also targets those who employ North Korean slave labor. Anyone who uses the slave labor that North Korea exports to other countries would be subject to sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The Act also requires the Trump administration to determine within 90 days whether North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism. Such a designation would trigger more sanctions, including restriction on US foreign assistance.

The bill includes “inspection authorities” over Chinese, Iranian, Syrian and Russian ports. The latter include the ports of Nakhodka, Vanino and Vladivostok.

No UN Security Council’s resolution delegated the authority to inspect foreign seaports to the United States. The inclusion of such measures is seen as a hostile act. The legislation is a flagrant violation of international law.

Perhaps, the US lawmakers have not been informed that inspections of ships in Asia-Pacific are regulated by the Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control in the Asia-Pacific Region, known as the Tokyo MOU, which has been in force since April 1994. Its section 3 called Inspection Procedures, Rectification and Detention describes in detail the procedures of ships inspections. Under the document, the US has no special rights to inspect foreign ships.

Suppose Russia or China introduced a special legislation foreseeing “inspection authorities” regarding US merchant vessels and specific American seaports, would the Congress accept it? Would the US administration and lawmakers put up with it? Do the representatives not realize that the bill violates the concept of international security and will be met with an adequate response?

The text of the bill calls for compliance with the UN resolutions but no Security Council resolution ever mentioned Russian seaports. Do the lawmakers not understand that the idea of inspecting Russian seaports and ships is as realistic as dogs complying with barking ban? It’s surprising that the bill in question was approved by such overwhelming majority without much debate regarding the consequences if it becomes law.

The previous Congress went to any length to spoil the bilateral relations with Russia. The current Congress is doing the same thing. As soon as the prospects for improving the Russia-US relations open up, Congress steps in to create artificial hurdles on the way. Always the same song and dance.

Here is another example. On May 3, the House of Representatives passed the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) for Fiscal Year 2017. The bill envisions the creation of a new powerful committee across the security to thwart “covert Russian political interference around the world”. The new body would bring together the representatives of the FBI, State Department, Pentagon, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Justice Department, Treasury Department, the 16 intelligence agencies and any other agency, if the president deems it necessary.

Its activities can be broadened to include “such other duties as the president may designate” what constitutes a potentially expansive mandate. The bill requires the committee to prepare an annual report to key congressional panels on anti-Russian efforts. So, there will be a new committee created to duplicate the work of other agencies. This is a good example of what bloated bureaucracy means.

The bill would also restrict Russian diplomats from traveling more than 50 miles from official embassies and consulates without the effective permission of the FBI Director.

The Russian and US presidents talked on the phone on May 2, discussing the prospects for cooperation on such burning problems as North Korea and Syria. Neither can be solved without coordination of activities between the two great powers. The issues are hot on the world agenda and the interest is common. If the abovementioned bill becomes law, confrontation would be unavoidable. Nobody will win, everyone will lose. Hopefully, Senate and President Trump would be reasonable enough to prevent it from happening.

Filming undercover in East Timor in 1993 I followed a landscape of crosses: great black crosses etched against the sky, crosses on peaks, crosses marching down the hillsides, crosses beside the road. They littered the earth and crowded the eye. 

The inscriptions on the crosses revealed the extinction of whole families, wiped out in the space of a year, a month, a day. Village after village stood as memorials. 

Kraras is one such village. Known as the “village of the widows”, the population of 287 people was murdered by Indonesian troops.

Using a typewriter with a faded ribbon, a local priest had recorded the name, age, cause of death and date of the killing of every victim. In the last column, he identified the Indonesian battalion responsible for each murder. It was evidence of genocide. 

Kraras massacre

I still have this document, which I find difficult to put down, as if the blood of East Timor is fresh on its pages. 

On the list is the dos Anjos family. 

In 1987, I interviewed Arthur Stevenson, known as Steve, a former Australian commando who had fought the Japanese in the Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1942. He told me the story of Celestino dos Anjos, whose ingenuity and bravery had saved his life, and the lives of other Australian soldiers fighting behind Japanese lines. 

Steve described the day leaflets fluttered down from a Royal Australian Air Force plane;

“We shall never forget you,” the leaflets said.

Soon afterwards, the Australians were ordered to abandon the island of Timor, leaving the people to their fate.

When I met Steve, he had just received a letter from Celestino’s son, Virgillo, who was the same age as his own son. Virgillo wrote that his father had survived the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, but he went on:

“In August 1983, Indonesian forces entered our village, Kraras. They looted, burned and massacred, with fighter aircraft overhead. On 27 September 1983, they made my father and my wife dig their own graves and they machine-gunned them. My wife was pregnant.” 

The Kraras list is an extraordinary political document that shames Indonesia’s Faustian partners in the West and teaches us how much of the world is run. The fighter aircraft that attacked Kraras came from the United States; the machine guns and surface-to-air missiles came from Britain; the silence and betrayal came from Australia. 

The priest of Kraras wrote on the final page:

“To the capitalist governors of the world, Timor’s petroleum smells better than Timorese blood and tears. Who will take this truth to the world? … It is evident that Indonesia would never have committed such a crime if it had not received favourable guarantees from [Western] governments.” 

As the Indonesian dictator General Suharto was about to invade East Timor (the Portuguese had abandoned their colony), he tipped off the ambassadors of Australia, the United States and Britain. In secret cables subsequently leaked, the Australian ambassador, Richard Woolcott, urged his government to

“act in a way which would be designed to minimise the public impact in Australia and show private understanding to Indonesia.”

He alluded to the beckoning spoils of oil and gas in the Timor Sea that separated the island from northern Australia.

General Suharto 

There was no word of concern for the Timorese.

In my experience as a reporter, East Timor was the greatest crime of the late 20th century. I had much to do with Cambodia, yet not even Pol Pot put to death as many people – proportionally — as Suharto killed and starved in East Timor. 

In 1993, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Australian Parliament estimated that “at least 200,000” East Timorese, a third of the population, had perished under Suharto. 

Australia was the only western country formally to recognise Indonesia’s genocidal conquest. The murderous Indonesian special forces known as Kopassus were trained by Australian special forces at a base near Perth. The prize in resources, said Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, was worth “zillions” of dollars.

In my 1994 film, Death of a Nation: the Timor Conspiracy, a gloating Evans is filmed lifting a champagne glass as he and Ali Alatas, Suharto’s foreign minister, fly over the Timor Sea, having signed a piratical treaty that divided the oil and gas riches of the Timor Sea. 

I also filmed witnesses such as Abel Gutteras, now the Ambassador of Timor-Leste (East Timor’s post independence name) to Australia. He told me,

“We believe we can win and we can count on all those people in the world to listen — that nothing is impossible, and peace and freedom are always worth fighting for.” 

Remarkably, they did win. Many people all over the world did hear them, and a tireless movement added to the pressure on Suharto’s backers in Washington, London and Canberra to abandon the dictator. 

But there was also a silence. For years, the free press of the complicit countries all but ignored East Timor. There were honourable exceptions, such as the courageous Max Stahl, who filmed the 1991 massacre in the Santa Cruz cemetery. Leading journalists almost literally fell at the feet of Suharto. In a photograph of a group of Australian editors visiting Jakarta, led by the Murdoch editor Paul Kelly, one of them is bowing to Suharto, the genocidist. 

From 1999 to 2002, the Australian Government took an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue from one oil and gas field in the Timor Sea. During the same period, Australia gave less than $200 million in so-called aid to East Timor. 

In 2002, two months before East Timor won its independence, as Ben Doherty reported in January,

“Australia secretly withdrew from the maritime boundary dispute resolution procedures of the UN convention the Law of the Sea, and the equivalent jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, so that it could not be compelled into legally binding international arbitration”. 

The former Prime Minister John Howard has described his government’s role in East Timor’s independence as “noble”. Howard’s foreign minister, Alexander Downer, once burst into the cabinet room in Dili, East Timor, and told Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri,

“We are very tough … Let me give you a tutorial in politics …” 

Today, it is Timor-Leste that is giving the tutorial in politics. After years of trickery and bullying by Canberra, the people of Timor-Leste have demanded and won the right to negotiate before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) a legal maritime boundary and a proper share of the oil and gas. 

Australia owes Timor Leste a huge debt — some would say, billions of dollars in reparations. Australia should hand over, unconditionally, all royalties collected since Gareth Evans toasted Suharto’s dictatorship while flying over the graves of its victims. 

The Economist lauds Timor-Leste as the most democratic country in southeast Asia today. Is that an accolade? Or does it mean approval of a small and vulnerable country joining the great game of globalisation? 

For the weakest, globalisation is an insidious colonialism that enables transnational finance and its camp-followers to penetrate deeper, as Edward Said wrote, than the old imperialists in their gun boats. 

It can mean a model of development that gave Indonesia, under Suharto, gross inequality and corruption; that drove people off their land and into slums, then boasted about a growth rate. 

The people of Timor-Leste deserve better than faint praise from the “capitalist governors of the world”, as the priest of Kraras wrote. They did not fight and die and vote for entrenched poverty and a growth rate. They deserve the right to sustain themselves when the oil and gas run out as it will. At the very least, their courage ought to be a beacon in our  memory: a universal political lesson. 

Bravo, Timor-Leste. Bravo and beware.

On May 5, John Pilger was presented with the Order of Timor-Leste by East Timor’s Ambassador to Australia, Abel Gutteras, in recognition of his reporting on East Timor under Indonesia’s brutal occupation, especially his landmark documentary film, Death of a Nation: the Timor Conspiracy. 

Filming undercover in East Timor in 1993 I followed a landscape of crosses: great black crosses etched against the sky, crosses on peaks, crosses marching down the hillsides, crosses beside the road. They littered the earth and crowded the eye. 

The inscriptions on the crosses revealed the extinction of whole families, wiped out in the space of a year, a month, a day. Village after village stood as memorials. 

Kraras is one such village. Known as the “village of the widows”, the population of 287 people was murdered by Indonesian troops.

Using a typewriter with a faded ribbon, a local priest had recorded the name, age, cause of death and date of the killing of every victim. In the last column, he identified the Indonesian battalion responsible for each murder. It was evidence of genocide. 

Kraras massacre

I still have this document, which I find difficult to put down, as if the blood of East Timor is fresh on its pages. 

On the list is the dos Anjos family. 

In 1987, I interviewed Arthur Stevenson, known as Steve, a former Australian commando who had fought the Japanese in the Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1942. He told me the story of Celestino dos Anjos, whose ingenuity and bravery had saved his life, and the lives of other Australian soldiers fighting behind Japanese lines. 

Steve described the day leaflets fluttered down from a Royal Australian Air Force plane;

“We shall never forget you,” the leaflets said.

Soon afterwards, the Australians were ordered to abandon the island of Timor, leaving the people to their fate.

When I met Steve, he had just received a letter from Celestino’s son, Virgillo, who was the same age as his own son. Virgillo wrote that his father had survived the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, but he went on:

“In August 1983, Indonesian forces entered our village, Kraras. They looted, burned and massacred, with fighter aircraft overhead. On 27 September 1983, they made my father and my wife dig their own graves and they machine-gunned them. My wife was pregnant.” 

The Kraras list is an extraordinary political document that shames Indonesia’s Faustian partners in the West and teaches us how much of the world is run. The fighter aircraft that attacked Kraras came from the United States; the machine guns and surface-to-air missiles came from Britain; the silence and betrayal came from Australia. 

The priest of Kraras wrote on the final page:

“To the capitalist governors of the world, Timor’s petroleum smells better than Timorese blood and tears. Who will take this truth to the world? … It is evident that Indonesia would never have committed such a crime if it had not received favourable guarantees from [Western] governments.” 

As the Indonesian dictator General Suharto was about to invade East Timor (the Portuguese had abandoned their colony), he tipped off the ambassadors of Australia, the United States and Britain. In secret cables subsequently leaked, the Australian ambassador, Richard Woolcott, urged his government to

“act in a way which would be designed to minimise the public impact in Australia and show private understanding to Indonesia.”

He alluded to the beckoning spoils of oil and gas in the Timor Sea that separated the island from northern Australia.

General Suharto 

There was no word of concern for the Timorese.

In my experience as a reporter, East Timor was the greatest crime of the late 20th century. I had much to do with Cambodia, yet not even Pol Pot put to death as many people – proportionally — as Suharto killed and starved in East Timor. 

In 1993, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Australian Parliament estimated that “at least 200,000” East Timorese, a third of the population, had perished under Suharto. 

Australia was the only western country formally to recognise Indonesia’s genocidal conquest. The murderous Indonesian special forces known as Kopassus were trained by Australian special forces at a base near Perth. The prize in resources, said Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, was worth “zillions” of dollars.

In my 1994 film, Death of a Nation: the Timor Conspiracy, a gloating Evans is filmed lifting a champagne glass as he and Ali Alatas, Suharto’s foreign minister, fly over the Timor Sea, having signed a piratical treaty that divided the oil and gas riches of the Timor Sea. 

I also filmed witnesses such as Abel Gutteras, now the Ambassador of Timor-Leste (East Timor’s post independence name) to Australia. He told me,

“We believe we can win and we can count on all those people in the world to listen — that nothing is impossible, and peace and freedom are always worth fighting for.” 

Remarkably, they did win. Many people all over the world did hear them, and a tireless movement added to the pressure on Suharto’s backers in Washington, London and Canberra to abandon the dictator. 

But there was also a silence. For years, the free press of the complicit countries all but ignored East Timor. There were honourable exceptions, such as the courageous Max Stahl, who filmed the 1991 massacre in the Santa Cruz cemetery. Leading journalists almost literally fell at the feet of Suharto. In a photograph of a group of Australian editors visiting Jakarta, led by the Murdoch editor Paul Kelly, one of them is bowing to Suharto, the genocidist. 

From 1999 to 2002, the Australian Government took an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue from one oil and gas field in the Timor Sea. During the same period, Australia gave less than $200 million in so-called aid to East Timor. 

In 2002, two months before East Timor won its independence, as Ben Doherty reported in January,

“Australia secretly withdrew from the maritime boundary dispute resolution procedures of the UN convention the Law of the Sea, and the equivalent jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, so that it could not be compelled into legally binding international arbitration”. 

The former Prime Minister John Howard has described his government’s role in East Timor’s independence as “noble”. Howard’s foreign minister, Alexander Downer, once burst into the cabinet room in Dili, East Timor, and told Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri,

“We are very tough … Let me give you a tutorial in politics …” 

Today, it is Timor-Leste that is giving the tutorial in politics. After years of trickery and bullying by Canberra, the people of Timor-Leste have demanded and won the right to negotiate before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) a legal maritime boundary and a proper share of the oil and gas. 

Australia owes Timor Leste a huge debt — some would say, billions of dollars in reparations. Australia should hand over, unconditionally, all royalties collected since Gareth Evans toasted Suharto’s dictatorship while flying over the graves of its victims. 

The Economist lauds Timor-Leste as the most democratic country in southeast Asia today. Is that an accolade? Or does it mean approval of a small and vulnerable country joining the great game of globalisation? 

For the weakest, globalisation is an insidious colonialism that enables transnational finance and its camp-followers to penetrate deeper, as Edward Said wrote, than the old imperialists in their gun boats. 

It can mean a model of development that gave Indonesia, under Suharto, gross inequality and corruption; that drove people off their land and into slums, then boasted about a growth rate. 

The people of Timor-Leste deserve better than faint praise from the “capitalist governors of the world”, as the priest of Kraras wrote. They did not fight and die and vote for entrenched poverty and a growth rate. They deserve the right to sustain themselves when the oil and gas run out as it will. At the very least, their courage ought to be a beacon in our  memory: a universal political lesson. 

Bravo, Timor-Leste. Bravo and beware.

On May 5, John Pilger was presented with the Order of Timor-Leste by East Timor’s Ambassador to Australia, Abel Gutteras, in recognition of his reporting on East Timor under Indonesia’s brutal occupation, especially his landmark documentary film, Death of a Nation: the Timor Conspiracy. 

There is great rejoicing tonight in places accustomed to rejoicing. The best champagne must be flowing in places that have plenty of it, chez Bernard Arnault, for example, first fortune in France (eleventh in the world), owner among so much else of the newspapers Parisien, Aujourd’hui France and Echos, all fervent supporters of Emmanuel Macron. The glasses should be clinking also wherever the peripatetic billionaire Patrick Drahi finds himself, born in Morocco, double French-Israeli nationality, resident of Switzerland, owner of a vast media and telecom empire, including the epitome of post-May ’68 turncoatism, the tabloid Libération, which ran a headline calling on voters to cast their ballots for Macron a day after the public campaign was legally over.

The list is long of billionaires, bankers and establishment figures who have a right to rejoice at the extraordinary success of a candidate who got elected President of the French Republic on the claim to be “an outsider”, whereas nobody in history has ever been so unanimously supported by all the insiders you can name.

There should also be satisfaction in the embassies of all the countries whose governments openly interfered in the French election – the U.S. of course, but also Germany, Belgium, Italy and Canada, among others, who earnestly exhorted the French to make the right choice: Macron, of course. All these champions of Western democracy can all join in gloating over the nonexistent but failed interference of Russia – for which there is no evidence, but part of the fun of a NATOland election these days is to accuse the Russians of meddling.

As for the French, abstention was nearly record-breaking, as much of the left could not vote for the self-proclaimed enemy of labor law but dared not vote for the opposition candidate, Marine Le Pen, because one just cannot vote for someone who was labeled “extreme right” or even “fascist” by an incredible campaign of denigration, even though she displayed no visible symptom of fascism and her program was favorable to lower income people and to world peace. Words count in France, where the terror of being accused of sharing World War II guilt is overwhelming.

Surveys indicate that as much as 40% of Macron voters chose him solely to “block” the alleged danger of voting for Marine Le Pen.

Others on the left voted for Macron vowing publicly that they will “fight him” once he is elected. Fat chance.

There may be street demonstrations in coming months, but that will have little impact on Macron’s promise to tear up French labor law by decree and free labor and management to fight it out between themselves, at a time when management is powerful thanks to delocalizations and labor is disorganized and enfeebled by the various effects of globalization.

As Jean Bricmont put it, outgoing French President François Hollande deserves a Nobel Prize for political manipulation.

At a time when he and his government were so unpopular that everyone was looking forward to the election as a chance to get rid of them, Hollande, with zealous assistance from of the major media, leading banks and oligarchs of various stripes, succeeded in promoting his little-known economic advisor into the candidate of “change”, neither left nor right, a totally fresh, new political star – supported by all the old politicians that the public wanted to get rid of.

This is quite an amazing demonstration of the power of “communications” in contemporary society, a triumph for the advertising industry, mainstream media and the billionaires who own all of that.

France was perceived as a potential weak link in the globalization project of eliminating national sovereignty in favor of the worldwide reign of capital. Thanks to an extraordinary effort, this danger has been averted. At least for now.

Twice in seven days the United States shot nuclear-capable long-range missiles toward the Marshall Islands, but the same government refused in March to join negotiations for a new treaty banning nuclear weapons.

Tests conducted April 26 and May 3 from Vandenberg Air Force Base launched modernized Minuteman-3 ballistic missiles, and the US Air Force said in a statement that such tests ensure

“the United States’ ability to maintain a strong, credible nuclear deterrent as a key element of US national security…”

A Taurus rocket carrying Taiwan’s ROCSAT-2 satellite lifts-off from Space Launch Complex 576E at Vandenberg AFB.
Image courtesy U.S. Air Force.

In late March, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley explained why the US would boycott the “treaty ban” negotiations that began March 27 at the UN in New York City. Haley said about nuclear weapons,

“[W]e can’t honestly say that we can protect our people by allowing the bad actors to have them, and those of us that are good, trying to keep peace and safety not to have them.”

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley

North Korean president Kim Jong-un could have said the same thing about his seven nuclear warheads, especially in view of US bombs and missiles currently falling on seven countries — Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya — and engagement in massive war games off the Korean peninsula.

Ambassador Haley managed to avoid being two-faced on one level. Joining the ban treaty talks would have been openly hypocritical while her colleagues in the war department were preparing both new nuclear weapons production and a series of test launches. Another April test, at the Tonopah bombing range in Nevada, dropped a so-called “B61-12” the newest US H-bomb now in development and scheduled to go into production after 2022.

Jackie Cabasso, of the Western States Legal Foundation, explained April 20,

“In 1997… President Bill Clinton signed Presidential Directive-60, reaffirming the threatened first use of nuclear weapons as the ‘cornerstone’ of US national security.… President Obama left office with the US poised to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years to maintain and modernize its nuclear bombs and warheads…. Over the past couple of years, the US has conducted a series of drop tests of the newly modified B61-12 gravity bomb…. Each new bomb will cost more than twice its weight in solid gold.”

Of the 480 B61s slated to become B61-12s, about 180 are scheduled to be placed at six NATO bases in Europe.

US military: “We are prepared to use nuclear weapons”

As it did Feb. 21 and Feb. 25, 2016, the Air Force regularly tests Minuteman-3s. Deputy Pentagon Chief Robert Work explained before the Feb. 25 launch that the US had tested “at least” 15 since January 2011,

“And that is a signal … that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country if necessary.”

This is a Big Lie. To “use” nuclear weapons produces only massacres, and massacres are never defensive.

Jason Ditz put the rocket tests in context for Antiwar.com:

“Everywhere and (mostly) without exception, the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) would be angrily condemned by the United States as a dangerous provocation, and the firing of a nuclear-capable rocket would be treated as tantamount to an act of war. Not today [April 26], of course, when the missile in question was test-fired from California by the United States flying some 4,000 miles before hitting a test target near the Marshall Islands. The missile was identified as a Minuteman III, a nuclear-capable weapon of which the US has 450 in service.”

The two times Haley flubbed her March 27 “peace and safety” speech were alarming. Haley stumbled once saying,

“We would love to have a ban on nuclear treat… nuclear weapons.”

A ban on nuclear treaties is clearly what Haley’s bosses do want. So she didn’t correct herself when she said,

“One day we will hope that we are standing here saying, ‘We no longer need nuclear weapons.’”

Translation: today the US does not even hope to get rid of nuclear weapons.

Instead, the United States is simultaneously bombing and rocketing across the Middle East, hitting civilians with drones, Cruise missiles, depleted uranium, and even a 21,600-pound “Massive Ordnance Air Blast” or MOAB bomb, also tested April 13, destroying caves in Afghanistan. This giant “thermobaric” or “fuel-air” explosive (FAE) has the mass of five Lincoln Continentals, and reportedly killed 95 people including a teacher and his son. Such is the peace and safety delivered by “those of us that are good.”

One Defense Intelligence Agency report uncovered by Human Rights Watch said that because

“shock and pressure waves cause minimal damage to brain tissue…it is possible that victims of FAEs are not rendered unconscious by the blast, but instead suffer for several seconds or minutes while they suffocate.”

On March 29, two days after her UN speech Haley spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations and cleared up any confusion the Pentagon’s bombing spree might cause. Haley declared,

“The United States is the moral conscience of the world.”

Well, “And I,” Dorothy Parker said, “am Marie of Romania.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

John LaForge is on the Nukewatch staff and edits its Quarterly.

NATO was primarily founded by the US with then-12 members in 1949 as a bulwark against Soviet aggression. NATO’s mission terminated following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Warsaw pact in 1991. At that time, there was no giant beyond Soviet Union to take up position, though the US scrambled to keep NATO running, otherwise the disbandment of NATO could mean a recipe for the US’s shrinking of supremacy over the world.

The other advantage by maintaining NATO is that it is a combined force that allows US to hold an overall grip on the European region. NATO involves 25 European member states among others while the European Union and the NATO have 22 members in common. In this row, France, Britain and the US are nuclear powers.

According to NATO treaty’s article 5,

if a member of the organization faces direct incursion from outside powers, the rest of members shall spring into its defense.

The most spectacular example and the only tragedy ever seen that represents this article was 9/11 attacks. The NATO powers were, indeed, on their own to go for helping the US, yet the enormity of world trade center’s havoc earned their sympathy to join US forces in the invasion of Afghanistan.

NATO’s latest mission began in 2003 in Afghanistan where it deployed thousands of troops through International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). By the term NATO, the finger is pointed at those few member states that really run things and hold a massive stake on the ground. The US and UK are the only two spearheads when it comes to the Afghan war. The rests below these two in the list are just operating under NATO with far fewer troops or some may even contribute to appease the US.

The US deployed NATO forces in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Indian Ocean, of which Uzbekistan demanded several million dollars as payment for exploitation of its soil against Afghanistan.

The second to US at the helm of NATO is the UK. This leading NATO member played more like an influential conduit for the passage of NATO’s proposals and plans into the European Union. But this trend seems to start faltering after the revolutionary Brexit referendum in the UK last year. Although the NATO and UK officials have ruled out a likely split of UK from the NATO following Brexit, it is presumed that the deadlock would start to loom in the longer term – if not in near one.

NATO binds its members to dedicate at least 2 percent of their GDP for defense spending, while only five members including the US, the UK, Greece, Poland and Estonia are less or well above the target. Amazingly, the powerful economies such as Germany and France are falling short in this area.

As aftereffect of the Brexit referendum, the UK could lose the most senior military position of Deputy Supreme Allied Commander which it held for more than 60 years. The deputy leadership among other key roles could possibly slip to France.

The other turning point triggered by Brexit is the EU’s intention to speed up the creation of independent military headquarters outside NATO. This idea, however, was frequently downplayed and turned down by the UK which it saw as a threat to the role of NATO. The UK had said last year it would veto such a proposal, because it may possibly undercut UK’s vigorous engagement in NATO.

Given the pre-emptive use of force, NATO’s chief Jens Stoltenberg last year in a meeting in Brussels urged allies to keep anti-Russian sanctions alive. He said:

“The international community must keep pressuring Russia to respect its obligations”.

If it sees all this allegations to be hurled at Russia over Ukraine’s standoff, then NATO too has to end a protracted and costly war in Afghanistan, which Russia terms as “offensive”.

It was until Russia’s annexation of Crimea when NATO and Russia led easy marriage and would strike several cooperation deals. In the wake of Crimea’s annexation – whose reason was inferred as Russia’s fear over NATO’s plan to build military headquarters there – the organization froze relationship with Russia.

As a major determinant of NATO, Germany press for exercising of sanctions against Russia at a time this country is Russia’s largest trade partner, followed by France and Italy. By all this, we discover that the NATO and the EU go on the same trajectory after the latter approved anti-Russian bans and embargoes over Ukraine’s crisis which was sparked by NATO in the first place. While others believe the EU is NATO in the guise of a Union.

Given the EU’s drastic need for Russia’s energy resources as well as the broad Russian markets for European products, the EU, more or less, is eager to cut the intensity of sanctions and edge it towards the end. Moreover, the German businessmen and economists have vocalized opposition to further and tougher sanctions on Russia.

On the heyday of NATO deployments and engagements in Afghanistan, some wrecked sectors of this victimized country were shared out among a number of members for the purpose of revival. The US assumed the training and strengthening of the Afghan Army, Japan was handed over the “Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration” (DDR) project, Germany undertook training of the Afghan police, the UK picked war on narcotics and stationed only in southern Helmand province despite having second highest number of troops following the US, and Italy took on the responsibility of the justice sector reform.

Fewer would fit into their tasks, as Japan had no servicemen or armed forces at the time to forcefully disarm the militias. And the UK’s failure to tackle narcotics is largely on display in the eyes of world as Afghanistan still ranks the first for feeding world habits of addiction, let alone the booming drug business worldwide. Lastly, Italy was a poor choice for the justice sector’s reform thanks to being a big law-breaker and Mafia country in the Europe.

On the Syrian side, the latest chemical attack bears out the fact on the collusion and conspiracies of critical NATO members behind peppering of blames on Assad’s regime. First the US used every effort at disposal to direct the blame on Syrian government. Later the UK’s – also first in toeing the US’s line – foreign minister Boris Johnson meaninglessly called off an official trip to Russia allegedly over this country’s involvement in Syria and the gas attack. In third place, France inconsiderately released a report blaming Syrian government for chemical gas attack without a shred of evidence.

All these concurred attacks come as the international neutral investigators as well as Russian team sought to inspect the chemical attack for findings, but they said the US blocked them from participating in a formal investigation.

If it was not for NATO or concerted conspiracies, the UK’s Boris Johnson or French report had nothing to do with a far-regional chemical weapon attack, even if it was perpetrated by very Assad’s government.

The NATO’s pro-war European members are the cornerstone of the US’s decision-making process on waging a war or invading a country. North Korea, for example, might be on the brink of bursting into a war with US. Apart from South Korea’s opposition to the US-DPRK’s likely armed strife, the US might still strongly hesitate to instigate another endless conflict without consent of leading NATO members, importantly because it is unwilling to bear the brunt of costs and arms alone, and that’s why compelling of the NATO members to raise defense spending matters.

Back in 2003, France and Germany stood critical to the US war plans against Iraq. The Wall Street Journal at that time accused Germany of actively promoting American defeat. It concluded by declaring

“What President Bush calls ‘a coalition of the willing’ will become America’s new security alliance”, even though the two states continued to take several diplomatic initiatives to avert a military strike against Iraq which were not well covered in media.

The same year, French president Jacques Chirac and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin presented a joint declaration by France, Germany and Russia calling for extended weapons inspections in Iraq. It said:

“There is still an alternative to war. The use of violence can only be the last resort”.

It was a riposte to President Bush’s remarks just a week earlier that said,

“The game is over”.

After NATO representatives from Germany, France and Belgium vetoed military preparations for the protection of Turkey in case of war in Iraq, President Bush publicly accused Berlin, Paris and Brussels of “damaging NATO”.

Most NATO allies were distaste to the US’s invasion of Iraq, because the ploy to draw them into this [Iraq] war was not as elaborate as that of Afghanistan [9/11 attacks] and unconvincing for the European members. More than a decade later now, we notice a U-turn or a fair degree of rotation in some European and NATO members’ posture towards globalization of war and warmongering. It can be concluded that if major aides of the US – the UK, France and Germany – withhold military and non-military support to this superpower, the peace may descend into the earth over the long haul.

War threats before a major political election had been effective in the past in swinging the South Korean electorate to the right, but not this year. The conservative camp is battered and split into two warring parties following the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye. The general public—its collective consciousness heightened through the mass protests that successfully ousted Park—is no longer rallying behind hawkish candidates who fan public paranoia to garner votes.

Barring a last-minute surprise upset, liberal democrat Moon Jae-in will be the next president of South Korea. But does he truly represent the interests of the millions who took to the streets to unseat Park and demand systemic change? And what are the tasks facing the left vis a vis the new administration? These are the questions this article will discuss, but first, let’s quickly review the field of candidates.

A Brief Run-down of the Candidates

Moon Jae-in

Front-runner Moon Jae-in is arguably the greatest beneficiary of the mass protests that led to Park’s impeachment. Widespread discontent against Park and her party as well as the public’s desire for political change have catapulted Moon of the main opposition Minjoo Party to the front of the pack with a significant lead over all other candidates.

Moon was the Chief of Staff for the late former President Roh Moo-hyun, who ruled from 2003 to 2008 and continued his predecessor Kim Dae-jung’s “sunshine policy” of engagement and economic cooperation with North Korea. If elected, Moon will likely reverse South Korea’s policy toward North Korea to one of engagement. He has pledged to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Complex—the joint inter-Korean economic project that was the last remaining hallmark of peaceful North-South engagement before it was shut down by the Park Geun-hye administration in 2016.

The question is, if Moon is elected, will the United States be willing to recalibrate its strategy to allow Moon to lead? And if not, how much will Moon stand up to the United States to chart an independent path?

Ahn Cheol-soo

The runner-up, according to polls, is Ahn Cheol-soo, who defected from the Minjoo Party to establish the centrist People’s Party in the lead-up to the 2016 general election. His public branding as a successful entrepreneur and political outsider had once made him wildly popular among young people. But his rightward shift in an attempt to court the conservative vote in the aftermath of Park’s impeachment has estranged him from his former fans. He promotes strengthening South Korea’s alliance with the United States and expanding it to a “comprehensive strategic alliance” that includes closer cooperation not just militarily but also in the areas of politics, economy and culture.

Hong Jun-pyo 

Neck and neck with Ahn is Hong Joon-pyo, the governor of South Gyeongsang province and the candidate of the Liberty Korea Party, the right-wing faction of the conservative split. Hong has appealed to South Korea’s far right by doubling down on his conservative positions and slinging mud at his liberal opponents. He has said he wants to bring U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea and has blamed gay people for the spread of HIV/AIDS. 

Sim Sang-jung

Support for Sim Sang-jung of the left-leaning Justice Party climbed to a record 11.4 percent in the week leading up to the election. Disaffected voters disappointed by Ahn Cheol-soo’s rightward shift are turning to Sim whose progressive and principled stance on issues such as LGBT rights appeals to young voters seeking change. After splitting off in 2012 from the Unified Progressive Party, which was forcibly dissolved a few years later by Park Geun-hye, the Justice Party has embraced pragmatism over left ideology and rebranded itself as a reformist party to appeal to a broader public. The leaders of the party will likely take official positions in the new liberal democratic administration. Whether the party can consolidate forces on the left to build on the momentum of the mass movement that ousted Park and push for systemic change remains doubtful. 

Yoo Seong-min

Trailing far behind the rest of the pack is Yoo Seong-min, who represents the moderate, anti-Park faction of the conservative camp. He once served as Park Geun-hye’s chief of staff when she was a lawmaker in the National Assembly. But the two grew apart when his open criticisms of her policies drew her ire and he was excluded from the Saenuri Party’s nomination process in the 2016 general election. During Park’s political scandal, Yoo left the Saenuri Party to help found the splinter Bareun Party. His strongest base is in the conservative stronghold of Daegu and North Gyeongsang province.

Whoever is President, the Mass Movement Cannot Rest

Park’s historic impeachment, which created the opportunity for the upcoming election, did not come about through the political strength or deft maneuvering of the opposition parties. It was the organized power of millions of ordinary people, who rejected Park’s corrupt rule and took to the streets week after week, that pushed the wavering opposition parties into action. 

And that mass movement has now just about handed the presidency to Moon Jae-in. As a liberal democrat, Moon is far better than Park whose authoritarian rule rolled back decades of gains made by the country’s pro-democracy forces. But his party has done little to challenge the previous administration’s labor market reform initiative or block the ongoing deployment of a controversial U.S. missile defense system in Seongju. South Korean progressives note with bitterness that negotiations on the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, which has led to privatization of public services, such as healthcare, began when Moon was in the Blue House as the chief of staff for former President Roh Moo-hyun. 

Clearly, the mass movement that ousted Park cannot rest after May 9 if it wants real change. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this year’s election is that while people power created a historic opportunity for change, there is no political party that can consolidate that power and build on its momentum to fight for issues that are important to the broad majority of working people.

A decade of conservative rule—from Lee Myung-bak to Park Geun-hye, who jailed many opposition leaders, including Han Sang-gyun, the president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and forced the dissolution of the opposition Unified Progressive Party—has battered and fragmented South Korea’s organized left. Whoever is president after May 9, the left has a lot of ground to regain.

The Rise and Fall of the Democratic Labor Party

The South Korean left’s entry into the political arena has its roots in the mass uprisings of 1987, a pivotal year for the country in many regards. The decades-long South Korean struggle for democracy culminated in the June people’s uprising of 1987 and finally put an end to a succession of U.S.-backed military dictatorships. The following months of mass labor strikes in industrial manufacturing zones across South Korea laid the groundwork for the eventual formation of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. And for the first time since the division of Korea in 1945, masses of South Koreans openly called for reconciliation towards peaceful reunification. The formation of the National Council of Student Representatives (Jeondaehyeop) led to South Korean participation in the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students in Pyongyang in 1989 and the historic, defiant crossing of the DMZ by the late Reverend Moon Ik-hwan and then-student activist Lim Su-kyung. 

1987, paradoxically, also marked the year that South Korea’s economy, once tightly controlled by an autocratic state, began its transition to a neoliberal market economy modeled after Reagonomics. Thus, the South Korean political forces post-1987 comprised of a political and economic ruling class that embraced neoliberalism and trampled on the rights of workers in the name of “globalization,” on the one hand, and a new democratic force borne out of militant resistance against the system of national division and capitalist exploitation on the other.

Despite major political differences on questions of strategy, the forces at the helm of the pro-democracy struggle, labor unions and social movement organizations joined together in 1987 to form the People’s Victory 21, which became the foundation for the establishment of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) in 2000. The DLP went on to garner 13% of the general vote and gain ten National Assembly seats to become the third largest political party in South Korea in 2004. Its success in 2004 was due in part to a change in election law, which, for the first time, allowed proportional representation, but it would not have been possible without disparate political forces reaching beyond their differences to come together in a united front.

For a relatively small party, the DLP played a key role in South Korean politics from 2000 to 2008. Through direct democracy, the party kept itself firmly rooted in the struggles of workers, farmers and the urban poor, who made up the majority of its membership. Its principled and persuasive positions on behalf of politically marginalized sectors forced the established parties to adopt progressive reforms and had the effect of pulling South Korea’s entire political spectrum to the left. Before its forced dissolution in 2014, the DLP’s heir, the Unified Progressive Party was the most vocal opponent of Park Geun-hye’s policies on a range of issues, from privatization of public services to her hostile stance towards North Korea. 

In the last two decades, South Korea’s political and economic system began to show signs of faltering. The inter-Korean summits between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il in 2000 and Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il in 2007 shook the very foundation of South Korea’s decades-old political system based on national division. South Korea’s economy, which once grew rapidly through neoliberal policies that forced its workforce to tighten their belts and endure longer and harsher working conditions, faced persistent crises, and its core, festering with corrupt collusion between the country’s largest conglomerates and the government, is now laid bare for the entire world to see. 

The mass candlelight protests of 2008—which brought out tens of thousands to protest the reversal of a U.S. beef import ban as part of South Korea’s free trade negotiations with the United States—and the recent protests to oust Park Geun-hye were the embittered expressions of a populace frustrated with the country’s outdated political and economic system and in search of an alternative. The words to their anthem, sung in unison at every candlelight protest, is article one of the constitution: “The Republic of Korea is a democratic republic. All state authority shall emanate from the people.” More than just expressions of discontent over rotten beef or the president’s secret shamanic advisor scandal, the protests raised a fundamental question: the meaning of true sovereignty.

The left, unfortunately, has not provided an answer. Friction due to political differences on questions of strategy led to a split in the DLP in 2008 and created deep rifts within the South Korean left. 2008 also marked the beginning of a decade of conservative rule, which systematically eroded the gains made by the pro-democracy forces in the previous decades. The previous Park Geun-hye administration’s transgressions against the people—from its mishandling of the Sewol Tragedy to its backdoor deal with the Japanese government to silence the former “comfort women” who endured sexual slavery by the Japanese imperial army during WWII—are too many to enumerate. What’s more egregious is the incompetence of the existing opposition parties that have failed to stand up to these overt acts of authoritarianism. The undisguised degeneration of South Korean politics and the rightward shift of the opposition parties are a direct result of the marginalization and isolation of the organized left following the DLP’s break-up.

Time to Regain Lost Ground

The South Korean people, who declared “Basta ya!” and gave Park Geun-hye the boot are still fighting—in the melon fields of Seongju, by the watery grave at Paengmok Harbor and on picket lines small and big across the country. Whoever wins the election on May 9, the mass movement that ousted Park will need to build on the momentum of its victory and keep the pressure on in a number of fronts.

Former President Park Geun-hye

The most pressing task for the new administration will be to mediate the current crisis between the United States and North Korea. Despite Trump’s declared willingness to sit down with Kim Jong-un, no one—not even China—is able to broker such a meeting. That has to be the task of the incoming South Korean leader. For reconciliation with the North and permanent peace on the peninsula, the South Korean people will need to press the new administration to stand up to the Trump administration and chart an independent path. Demanding the United States end its provocative war exercises in exchange for a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests and withdraw its dangerous missile defense system in Seongju is now more urgent than ever.

The fight against the government’s labor market reform initiative—aimed at turning South Korea’s entire workforce into a disposable pool of temporary and precarious labor and undermining the power of unions—will intensify even with a liberal democrat in the Blue House. Unless the mass movement continues to press the next administration, the corrupt system exposed through the Park Geun-hye-Choi Soon-sil scandal—the cozy back-scratching relationship between South Korea’s largest conglomerates and its political leaders—will remain unchanged.

Abolishing the National Security Law—mainly used to punish political opponents, dissolve social organizations and political parties and suppress progressive voices—is a task that even Moon Jae-in failed to do as Roh Moo-hyun’s chief of staff. It will take an organized fight from the left to overturn the archaic law once and for all.

What the movement to impeach Park Geun-hye laid bare is that South Korea’s current political and economic system is no longer sustainable. It also showed clearly that state power, which confines the democratic aspirations of the people, can also be pushed back by their organized power. The fissures in the political system exposed by their struggle are openings for the broader left. 

But people power does not emerge spontaneously. Only when the people are organized through social movements and have a political party that can fight for their interests can they mount effective and sustained resistance to challenge the status quo. A left political party cannot exercise its power in the political arena without the organized social movement of the disenfranchised, who make up the party’s base. Likewise, without a political party that can fight for their interests in the political arena, social movements can easily be defeated. A unified political party fighting in tandem with a social movement of the organized masses is essential for systemic change.

After May 9, the movement that ousted Park cannot rest, as the South Korean majority seeks, as a matter of survival, a political force that will forge a new path. Creating that force—by building social movements and unifying the left to build political power—should be top on the agenda of everyone on the left. And supporting that effort should be a priority for all those outside Korea who were inspired by the awesome mass protests that toppled Park Geun-hye’s regime.

Today France elected Emmanuel Macron, the former banker, as its next president. The voting result was 65% for Macron, a newcomer in the election cycle who didn’t even have a political party, but who did have the massive business backing and traditional political elites united behind him, providing unlimited media and financial assistance to his campaign.

Approximately 25% of all voters in France, the most in nearly fifty years (since 1969), abstained from voting, however. It is also estimated that 25% of Macron’s 65% vote margin were voters who voted ‘against Le Pen’ and the far right national front party, and did not vote ‘for’ Macron. How solid is Macron’s support, and whether the French people support what will be his continuation of European neoliberalism, remains to be seen.

Macron’s victory as an ‘independent’, with no party, just a ‘movement’ called En Marche, was made possible by several unique developments during the recent election cycle.

First was the convenient scandals that early on knocked out of the election cycle his other business-backed challengers, Juppe and Fillon. It appears the political elite may have encouraged the publicizing of the scandals in order to unite business, bureaucracy, traditional elites, and professional classes behind one candidate, the newcomer Macron. Business interests were thus united, while the left and right alternative parties were divided.

Another convenient development enabling Macron’s election victory was the failure of the French left to unite early behind a challenger. The Socialist party’s candidate, Benoit, was burdened with the massive failure of the Socialist Party that ruled France under Francois Hollande, the outgoing president, who leaves office with barely 5% popularity. Benoit’s candidacy in part split the left alternative. The strongest ‘left challenge’ was led by a new face, Melenchon, who started late in the campaign and could not shift the election media-driven message from ‘vote for Macron to stop Le Pen and the far right’. Other left parties failed to unite behind Melenchon as well.

Source: New York Times

A tactical failure in the campaign appears to have been the ‘leaks’ posted on the internet about Macron’s campaign and backers. Whoever was behind them is unknown, but the leaks appeared just an hour before the ‘black out’ on the election last Friday, not enough time for voters to digest the results. As in the US, the media and Macron are now claiming Russian hackers were behind the leaks.

Other similarities with the US 2016 election are also interesting. US voters last November rejected the US Democrat party’s neoliberal policies advocated and defended by Hillary Clinton, thinking they would get something else in Trump. Trump won by creating the appearance he was against these policies. However, in just 100 days it is now clear Trump represents a continuation of the same US neoliberalism–with a nasty social twist of anti-immigrant, anti-environment, anti-social program overlaid on traditional pro-business tax cuts, deregulation, and bilateral free trade proposals.

Macron further represents a strategy to save European neoliberalism similar to that which Britain and the US economic elites put forward in the 1990s when they put Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in office.–i.e. so-called ‘new democrats’ at the time. Emmanuel Macron is France’s ‘new democrat’, and a reflection of elites in France putting a ‘shiny new young face’ on its prime politician just as UK elites did with Tony Blair and US with Bill Clinton. Macron is thus the ‘Tony Clinton’ (or ‘Bill Blair’ if you prefer) of France. However sustaining a ‘Tony Blair’ or ‘Bill Clinton’ strategy and solution in France may not be possible at this juncture, nor in the case of France in general. Time will tell if the ‘shiny young new face’ solution works in France, given its current discrediting in UK and US.

Macron is also a former banker, and therefore also represents the trend of a deepening influence and control of bankers and finance capitalists in the governments of the advanced economies like the US, UK, Japan and Europe in general.

In the US, big bankers like Goldman Sachs now run nearly all the key cabinet positions and agencies in the US administration under Trump. Under Obama in 2008, all the recommendations for cabinet-agency positions put forward by the megabank, Citigroup, were eventually adopted by Obama. France 2016 appears a continuation of this trend, as banker-finance capitalists maneuver in new ways to retain their dominance of the political system in the advanced economies in an age of growing economic disruptions.

Macron has promised to pick up the baton of ‘labor reform’ in France introduced by Socialist Party Holland. That means laws that will weaken unions, collective bargaining, allow firing of workers, eliminate strikes, cut social benefits, privatize the healthcare and education systems in France. So now the conflict in France moves from the electoral arena to the workplace. During the recent election cycle shopfloor resistance in France continued to grow rapidly. Many unreported short strikes were called to protest the plans to implement the new anti-worker labor laws. It is not unlike what began to occur in 1967 as DeGaulle and the capitalist parties laid out plans to strip workers of rights and benefits. That plan resulted in nationwide strikes and a shutdown of the economy and widespread protests called ‘May 1968’, which in turn led to the resignation of then president, DeGaulle. Will Macron’s presidency be a repeat? Is France now embarking on the same trajectory with Macron, who like deGaulle, has vowed to aggressively implement the anti labor reform laws? The largest union in France, the CGT, has already called for more intense opposition at the company level and preparation for a general strike. Whether Macron, a champion of the anti-labor laws is willing to stake his presidency on the direct conflict with labor at the economic level will be interesting to watch.

As US workers today cross their fingers and hope that Trump isn’t lying about bringing jobs back to the US (which he is), France’s workers may be preparing for a confrontation in coming months of a more united and militant kind. It will be interesting to see how far the Macron-Business-Banker elites in France are willing to go to face off the growing militancy ‘from below’ in the coming months.

In any event, with the election they have bought themselves some additional time. Watch the stock markets boom in Europe on Monday, as investors intensify their financial bets on the rise in stock markets in France, Europe and elsewhere and cash in on yet more capital gains and financial profits.

Washington wants war and regime change in Syria rather than conflict resolution. 

On Thursday, Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed on creating four de-escalation zones in the Syria, these nations serving as guarantors.

Sergey Lavrov said America

“proposed (the idea) at the beginning of this year, with a view to creating conditions to ensure safety of the civilian population, to stop violence in those regions where fierce fighting was underway between government and armed opposition forces.”

Not exactly following Thursday’s announcement. Washington isn’t part of the agreement. It supports halting all aerial operations in designated zones – except its own.

According to Pentagon spokesman Major JT Rankine-Galloway on Friday,

“the [so-called US-led] coalition will continue to target ISIS wherever they operate to ensure they have no sanctuary,” adding:

The US continues “to effectively de-conflict coalition operations. However, we are not going to discuss the specifics of how we de-conflict operations in the highly congested and complex battle space in Syria.”

“Opposition groups” haven’t accepted the plan, expressing “fears and doubts.” They reject Iran as a guarantor country.

Their spokesman Abo Zayd called it “incomprehensible (for) Iran (to be involved as) a peacemaker, adding ceasefire is “unsustainable” under these conditions.

US-backed opposition terrorists are preparing a formal response to Russia’s plan – now in effect. In a show of good faith, Moscow ceased all aerial operations in de-escalation zones on May 1.

Kremlin envoy to conflict resolution talks Alexander Lavrentyev said de-escalation zones are now closed to Russian, Syrian, Turkish and US-led coalition aircraft.

“There are absolutely no arrangements for the operation of aircraft, in particular, those of the (so-called US-led) coalition, with or without notification. The subject is closed,” he stressed.

“As guarantors, we will see to it,” he added.

Monitors will check for violators. The Pentagon supports cessation of Russian, Syrian and Turkish aerial operations, not its own, on the phony pretext of combating ISIS which Washington supports, shows how shaky the agreement is, unlikely to succeed like earlier failed Moscow good faith efforts.

Russia, Syria and Iran can be counted on to refrain from aerial operations in agreed on de-escalation zones. Although Trump expressed support to the plan with Putin by phone days earlier, Washington appears unwilling to go along.

US-supported terrorist opposition groups walked out of the Astana, Kazakhstan signing ceremony, refusing to accept Iran as a guarantor state, a phony pretext to reject the deal, likely to continue hostilities, not end them.

The State Department expressed

“concerns about the Astana agreement, including the involvement of Iran as a so-called ‘guarantor.’”

Russia, Syria and Iran alone are committed to keep working for conflict resolution. Washington and its rogue allies want endless war and regime change.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new 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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

A registered “charity” with buckets of donations from arms manufacturers and other corporate sources is aggressively trying to push Canadian foreign policy further towards militarism and the use of violence.

And the right-wing Canadian Global Affairs Institute seems to be growing in influence, or at least media prominence.

Since last month’s federal budget, senior CGAI analyst David Perry has been quoted throughout the media arguing for increased military spending.

“I’m stunned this budget is actually taking money away from the military and pretending to give it back several decades in the future,” Perry told CBC.

In its reports, conferences and commentary, the Calgary-based institute promotes aggressive, militarist positions. In the midst of a wave of criticism towards General Dynamics’s sale of Light Armoured Vehicles to Saudi Arabia, CGAI published a paper titled “Canada and Saudi Arabia: A Deeply Flawed but Necessary Partnership” that defended the $15-billion deal. At least four of the General Dynamics-funded institute’s “fellows” wrote columns justifying the sale, including an opinion Perry published in the Globe and Mail Report on Business titled “Without foreign sales, Canada’s defence industry would not survive.”

Previously, CGAI has called for Ottawa to set up a foreign spy service — think CIA, MI6 or Mossad. At the height of the war in Afghanistan, they commissioned a survey claiming most

“Canadians are willing to send troops into danger even if it leads to deaths and injuries as long as they believe in the military’s goals.”

Watch Justin Trudeau’s interview with Huffpost Canada here.

Beyond the media work most think tanks pursue, the institute expends considerable effort influencing news agencies. Since 2002 the institute has operated an annual military journalism course together with the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. A dozen Canadian journalism students receive scholarships to the nine-day program, which includes a media-military theory component and visits to armed forces units.

The stated objective of the course is “to enhance the military education of future Canadian journalists who will report on Canadian military activities.” But that description obscures the political objective. In an article titled “A student’s look inside the military journalism course,” Lola Fakinlede writes:

“Between the excitement of shooting guns, driving in tanks, eating pre-packed lunches, investigating the insides of coyotes and leopards — armoured vehicles, not animals — and visiting the messes, we were learning how the military operates. … Being able to see the human faces behind the uniform, being able to talk to them like regular people, being able to see them start losing the suspicion in their eyes and really start talking candidly to me — that was incredible.”

Captain David Williams was forthright concerning the broader political objective of the program. In 2010 he wrote,

“The intent of this annual visit has always been to foster a familiarity and mutual understanding between the CF and the future media, two entities which require a symbiotic relationship in order to function.”

Along with the Conference of Defence Associations, the institute gives out the annual Ross Munro Media Award recognizing a “journalist who has made a significant contribution to understanding defence and security issues.” The winner receives a handsome statuette, a gala dinner attended by Ottawa VIPs and a $2,500 prize. The political objective of the award is to reinforce the militarist culture among reporters who cover the subject.

Journalist training, the Ross Munro award and institute reports/commentators are a positive way of shaping the discussion of military matters. But CGAI also employs a stick. In detailing an attack against colleague Lee Berthiaume, Ottawa Citizen military reporter David Pugliese pointed out that it’s

“not uncommon for the site to launch personal attacks on journalists covering defence issues. It seems some CDFAI [CGAI’s predecessor] ‘fellows’ don’t like journalists who ask the government or the Department of National Defence too many probing questions. … Last year I had one of the CDFAI ‘fellows’ write one of the editors at the Citizen to complain about my lack of professionalism on a particular issue. … The smear attempt was all done behind my back but I found out about it. That little stunt backfired big time when I showed the Citizen editor that the CDFAI ‘fellow’ had fabricated his claims about me.”

The institute has received financial backing from arms contractors.

While it may not have succeeded in this instance, online criticism and complaints to journalists’ superiors do have an impact. If pursued consistently this type of “flack” drives journalists to avoid topics or be more cautious when covering an issue.

While not exactly forthcoming about its funders, the institute has received some military backing. The Canadian Forces identified CGAI’s predecessor, the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, under the rubric of “defence-related organization and defence and foreign policy think tanks.” DND’s Security and Defence Forum provided funding to individuals who pursued a year-long internship with the Institute and CGAI has held numerous joint symposiums with DND, NATO and NORAD.

The institute has received financial backing from arms contractors. General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin Canada, as well as Edge Group, C4i, Com Dev, ENMAX, SMART Technologies, the Defense News Media Group and Canadian Council of Chief Executives have all supported CGAI.

Beyond weapons makers, the institute has wealthy patrons and ties within the corporate world. Rich militarist Frederick Mannix helped found the registered charity, and recent directors include the CEO of IAMGOLD Steve Letwin, Royal Bank Financial Group executive Robert B. Hamilton and ATCO director Bob Booth.

A bastion of pro-corporate, militarist, thinking, the Canadian Global Affairs Institute is increasingly influential in shaping the foreign policy discussion in this country.

Canadians who disagree with militarism, who wish for diplomacy over war, and who support a Do Unto Others as We Would Have Them Do Unto Us foreign policy must raise their voices loudly and clearly so that we, too, are heard by government.

There is a nasty thorn growing inside the perfumed garden of Europe and releasing its poisonous spores across the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made it his mission to establish a new Islamic state and do away with secularism.

After the questionable referendum result on April 16, Turkey is about to be transformed forever. Erdogan cannot wait to change the Constitution and name himself as the all-powerful Grand Sultan of Turkey. In opposition to his obsession a massive 50% of the Turkish citizens resist his theocratic ambitions and another attempt to topple him cannot be discounted.

Last year’s failed coup sparked a hidden trait of his to flare up; a trait not seen before! He was so horrified of nearly losing power he behaved like a child terrified someone was about to steal his candy. Now, the world has become his “enemy” and he lashes out at anyone who disagrees with him.

Badly shaken by the experience, he launched a campaign of brutality imprisoning over 170,000 innocent men, women and young people. Undeterred by international condemnation he continues to imprison people and there is no end to it. Paranoid about his illusionary enemies, he has recently fired 13.000 civil servants, police and army officers and academics. With the help of a network of snoopers across the land his paranoia has reached new levels. Meanwhile he cracks down on mass media, free expression, the Internet, Wikipedia and all means of rapid communication but also against those that spread “moral deterioration”.

Notwithstanding, he produced a list of hundreds of Turks living in 40 countries demanding that those “traitors” be arrested and extradited back to motherland and face Turkish justice. His request outraged governments learning that this man was actually using Turkish Embassies in their countries as a network of spying centers against their citizens.

But his paranoia has now gone one step beyond. He plans to bring back the death penalty to legitimize the execution of phantom enemies or anyone who poses a threat to his rule. Listening to him speak in rallies one immediately recognizes that Hitler used similar tactics during his notorious rousing hate speeches.

He branded EU governments as Nazis for not allowing his political campaigns there and in retaliation he imposed sanctions against “Muslim enemies”. Red with fury, he threatened that from now on:

“no European citizen in any part of the world can walk safely on the streets”, and decreed that:“all Muslim families living in Europe to have a minimum of five children per family” and to cause an ethnic flooding of Muslims in Europe.

What kind of mentality is that coming from a world leader of 80 million people that resorts to such dastardly blackmailing tactics? He seems prepared to use all available means at his disposal including the use of Islamic State to establish his Neo-Ottoman empire. Despite Ankara’s objections, Turkey has been accused of harboring IS activities in banking, recruiting of IS fighters, arms procurement, human smuggling and selling pilfered oil by IS and Turkish agents on the black market. If these tyrannical activities persist, chaos will rise out of the ashes of despair and destabilize Turkey and the region for years to come.

One country that’s exposed to Erdogan’s Islamization ambitions is the small island of Cyprus. Strategically located, the Republic of Cyprus with a population of less that 750.000 Greeks and 250,000 mixed ethnic minorities is gravely vulnerable to Erdogan’s whim. He is very unpredictable and he can mobilize his 40.000 occupying Turkish troops stationed on the island at the snap of his fingers. To provoke even further one of his ministers has lately announced that,

“they captured Cyprus shedding blood and they are prepared to give more blood to keep it”.

Erdogan is so unpredictable, that no sooner had the resumption of the Bi-communal talks started but the very next day Ankara sent its seismic vessel Barbaros Hayreddin Pasa to survey for gas in the Exclusive Sea Protection Zone of the Republic of Cyprus. Sea and Air military provocations were also conducted simultaneously using live ammunition as if to say – I am the boss here and you cannot stop me! 

That’s what the Republic is faced with: Turkey’s constant military provocations, and Cyprus is obliged to negotiate under the threat of a gun. Yet, the Cyprus Government refuses to understand that Ankara will not abandon its military trophy. It insists on negotiating with Ankara’s lame puppet Mr. Akinci for a mythical solution knowing very well that Ankara decides and not this man. After so many years of failed talks, the charade continues to no end. It’s as if the Government is incapable or afraid to forge a new defence policy to protect the island from Erdogan’s threats and Islamization plans.

President Trump and world leaders have condemned N. Korea’s missile provocations and showed their readiness to retaliate against this brutal dictator. Yet, when it comes to another dictator and a Menace of the Med  – Sultan Erdogan of Turkey – the best they can do is tolerate his military aggression.

The present “good boy” attitude has to change. If not, there are much darker clouds on the way. Adopting a defiant new foreign policy by terminating the pseudo-negotiations until a better climate develops may be a good place to start. Shutting the crossings would also send a signal to Ankara and to the Turkish Cypriot leadership that the Republic of Cyprus can no longer tolerate the current farce.To ostracize and pressure Turkey politically and economically through the EU would certainly help produce results – 80% of Turkeys exports go to EU markets!

EU-Cyprus can make it very difficult for Turkey economically and politically if it chooses to do so. It has the ability and the means to use its EU membership to its advantage but it demands a strong decisive leadership that Cyprus so far has been short of.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Cypriot side continues to play dubious games. It pretends to negotiate for a solution on the basis of a BBF and yet, it makes it abundantly clear that TCs wish fora self-governing separate state under Turkey’s protectorate. They also insist on the right to a veto on all national decision-making processes and further demand that all Turkish illegal settlers be given EU visas as a fast track entry to EU from the back door -typical Ottoman games!

Those demands are not co-incidental but well orchestrated and aim to serve Turkey’s objectives in the Eastern Mediterranean. A separate TC state would provide the legal platform for Ankara to establish a defence dyke for its underbelly. If successful, Ankara would then gain control of the entire region but also assert its influence over the entire island and control its massive gas reserves! It has already claimed that Plot Six located south of the island “belongs to Turkey” and she will defend it militarily at the threat of starting a war against any attempts to drill for gas.

Can the Cyprus government stop Turkey’s bullying tactics, provocations and traps? Under the present policy the answer is – No! That is why Cyprus desperately needs a strong leadership and strong allies. Turkey is not about to give up so easily and there are much greater dangers lurking in the future!

Weather Cyprus likes it or not, it was reported that Turkey aims to flood the island with over one million Muslim settlers in the occupied area. Under EU directives the Republic would be powerless to alter the fate of the island. Erdogan’s objective is to change the demographic character of Cyprus and he is doing it systematically. There are over 400.000 illegal settlers living in the occupied area and its no wonder a string of Mosques are sprouting everywhere including the largest Islamic School there.

At this rate, the fast growing Islamization process will certainly bring about the end of Cyprus as a Hellenic nation. A new EU-Cyprus will be established but certainly not a Hellenic. Cyprus will be transformed forever. What will happen next it’s anyone’s guess!

Mounting evidence suggests media outlets across the United States and Europe are selectively labeling leaders from around the world as “autocrats,” “despots” and “dictators” based not on their actual human rights records, policies or actions, but rather on where they fall along the spectrum of obedience to and complicity with the ambitions of Wall Street, Washington, London and Brussels.

No clearer example of this can be seen than the media’s treatment of current Thai prime minister, Prayut Chan-O-Cha.

In an AFP article titled, “Thai junta chief accepts Trump invite,” the media service claims:

Thailand’s junta chief has accepted an invitation to visit the White House from President Donald Trump, his spokesman said Monday, the latest autocrat to be embraced by the US leader.

In an attempt to justify AFP’s claims of the Thai prime minister being an “autocrat,” AFP states:

Thailand’s former army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power three years ago, anointing himself prime minister and ushering in the kingdom’s most autocratic government in a generation. 

The coup strained ties with the Barack Obama administration as the military jailed dissidents, banned protests and ramped up prosecutions under the kingdom’s draconian lese majeste law.

In reality, AFP is intentionally misleading readers while grossly mischaracterising the current state of politics in Thailand. AFP is also contributing to a much larger deception regarding the principles the United States allegedly stands for and US foreign policy in actual practice.

Thailand’s “Autocrat” Ousted a Very Real (US-backed) Autocrat

Former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra

The 2014 coup after which Prime Minister Prayut assumed power, ousted a regime which up to the very eve of the coup was mass murdering protesters in the streets. Protests spanning 2013-2014 were aimed at removing Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from power for a series of abuses, corruption and the fact that she served openly as a proxy for her brother, Thaksin Shinwatra, ousted from power earlier, convicted of corruption and currently residing abroad as a fugitive.

During the protests, the Shinawatra regime organised cadres of heavily armed militants who used assault rifles, grenades, grenade launchers and other weapons to attack demonstrators, at some points during the crisis, on a nightly basis. Up to 20 would die and many more left injured or maimed.

Thaksin Shinawatra, who served as Thai prime minister from 2001 to 2006, stands guilty of serial abuses of human rights including a 2003 “war on drugs” that left approximately 3,000 innocent people extrajudicially executed in the streets over a 90 day period. Human Rights Watch would, at the time, catalogue Shinwatra’s bout of mass murder in two reports, “Thailand’s ‘war on drugs’,” and “Not Enough Graves.”

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra

Under Shinawatra’s administration, his political enemies were systematically targeted with both intimidation and assassination. Media critical of his policies and actions were also systematically targeted with both legal and physical intimidation. The New York Times in a 2005 article titled, “Thaksin accused of ‘dirty war’ on media,” would report:

Prime Minister Thaksin has an agenda all his own. Although he is the founder of a telecommunications empire and keen to project Thailand as a fast-modernizing part of the global economy, Thaksin has little tolerance of the criticism aired in a free press. His concentrated political power and the considerable resources of his family’s commercial empire have been combined to muzzle critics in both the broadcast and print media.

Worse than mere “muzzling,” Shinwatra’s administration also presided over the systematic assassination or attempted assassination of critics. According to Amnesty International, 18 human rights defenders were either assassinated or disappeared during his first term in office.

While AFP’s article accuses the current Thai government of “ushering in the kingdom’s most autocratic government in a generation,” the facts clearly indicate it replaced the most autocratic and abusive government in a generation. Only through intentional and repetitive dishonesty has AFP convinced readers otherwise.

And AFP not only failed to mention Shinwatra’s time in office, or the abuse and violence carried out under his sister’s regime leading up to the 2014 coup, AFP also failed to mention two failed, incredibly violent bids by Shinawatra to seize back power via street protests organised by him and his supporters in 2009 and 2010 respectively. The former of the two attempts saw nearly 100 killed as armed militants mingled with protesters and fought gun battles against government troops and carried out large scale arson within Thailand’s capital of Bangkok.

As to why Shinawatra’s serial crimes against humanity have been glossed over by media organisations like AFP, it is a simple matter of Shinawatra being a willing collaborator with US and European interests, while the current Thai government has leaned more toward its neighbours in Asia for closer ties.

AFP’s article would even admit as much, referring to Thailand as a “former staunch US ally that has moved closer to Beijing since the coup.”

It’s clear then that the current Thai government’s status as “autocratic” stems not from actual metrics of freedom, peace and stability being enjoyed or repressed in Thailand, but from the ability (or now, inability) of the United States to influence Thailand’s internal political affairs and policies. Many of those reportedly “repressed” by the Thai government are in fact US-funded and directed agitators engaged in political, economic and even armed subversion.
The AFP, through its reporting, exposes itself as yet another outlet engaged in lobbying, not journalism, despite the carefully constructed reputation it uses to carry that lobbying out behind.

US Hypocrisy Explained

The media meme of “Trump embracing autocrats” exists in an alternate reality. In this reality, regardless of who occupies the White House, the US has backed some of the worst dictatorships in modern history. This includes Saudi Arabia which has enjoyed US support for decades and who participated in the largest arms deal in American history, not under Trump, but under Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Barrack Obama.

Closer to Asia, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi quite literally contrived an entire office to place herself in power in order to circumvent the nation’s constitution banning political candidates who themselves or their children hold duel citizenship. And since taking power, Suu Kyi and her political party have doubled down on a violent campaign of ethno-terror waged against the nation’s Rohingya minority.

Incumbent State Counselor of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi

Suu Kyi’s ability to sidestep US and European condemnation stems from her long-term commitment to the interests of Wall Street, Washington, London and Brussels ahead of those of Myanmar itself. When Suu Kyi appears to be cosying up to Beijing, US and European fronts posing as rights advocates “gently” remind the world of her and her support base’s aversion to the “Rohingya” people.

Regarding Trump’s invitation to Thailand’s prime minister, it should be noted that meetings alone are meaningless. Obama had met with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi several times and apparent cooperation between Libya and the United States was underway before a US-led war was launched against the North African nation and both Gaddafi and virtually all immediate members of his family were targeted for arrest or assassination.

Ultimately, the AFP story is just one of many constituting genuinely “fake news,” entirely contrived by political motivation, and utterly divorced from journalistic integrity.

Thailand’s current government remains far from ideal with much room for improvement, but to characterise it as an “autocracy” while states like Myanmar and Saudi Arabia are given free passes, along with the previous, brutal regime that was ousted in Thailand before the current government took power, is intentionally dishonest. AFP’s story is part of a systematic process of distorting reality in order to place public pressure on governments targeted for regime change.

Thailand is currently one of those governments being targeted, and just as US and European media lied ahead of regime change elsewhere, the mischaracterisation of Thailand’s political crisis indicates increased tensions, not rapprochement, lie ahead between Washington and Bangkok.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The unwelcome US deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense (MD) system in Seongju, South Korea is not only a significant threat to regional peace but is also a major environmental catastrophe waiting to happen.

The reason is that rocket fuel contains a deadly chemical component called perchlorate. And since the Seongju area is a melon farming community the risk of ground water contamination by perchlorate should be alarming to all concerned.

Perchlorate, the explosive ingredient in solid rocket fuel, has leaked from military bases and weapons and aerospace contractors’ plants in at least 22 states, contaminating drinking water for millions of Americans.

In the US scientists have warned that perchlorate could cause thyroid deficiency in more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age. This thyroid deficiency could damage the fetus of pregnant women, if left untreated.

Reports indicate that 20 million to 40 million Americans may be exposed to the chemical.

“We know that the Center for Disease Control has found perchlorate in 100 percent of the people they’ve tested, so there’s widespread exposure, through contaminated drinking water and also through contaminated food,” one expert reported.

The government has found traces of a rocket fuel chemical in organic milk in Maryland, green leaf lettuce grown in Arizona and bottled spring water from Texas and California.

Iceberg lettuce grown in Belle Glade, Florida had the highest concentrations of perchlorate discovered anywhere.  The greens had 71.6 parts per billion (ppb) of the compound, the primary ingredient in rocket propellant. Red leaf lettuce grown in El Centro, California had 52 ppb of perchlorate. Whole organic milk in Maryland had 11.3 ppb of perchlorate.

Next week South Koreans go to the polls to elected a new president after the previous right-wing President Park was impeached.

The Pentagon rushed the THAAD deployment ahead of schedule wanting to lock-in the controversial MD system before a new government took office.  The US fears that the likely new President Moon (a progressive) would ultimately delay or possibly even prevent the US from deploying the interceptor system due to the outrage coming from China and Russia who view THAAD as really being aimed at them rather than North Korea.

As the people of Seongju continue their fight against THAAD they’d be wise to begin to talk about the likely groundwater contamination from the rocket fuel that will be transported and stored on site at the new base presently being constructed at a former golf course.  It’s only a matter of time that perchlorate will be seeping into the water and ultimately impacting their health and their melon crops.

Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America’s declining empire….

The New York Times’ failure to provide “sufficient context” goes well beyond not explaining Israel’s charges against Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.

Last month, imprisoned Palestinian parliamentarian Marwan Barghouti was provided op-ed space by the New York Times to explain why he and his fellow inmates were going on a hunger strike. Instructively, the article caused an uproar not because of Israel’s violations of their rights, but because Mr. Barghouti’s bio stated simply that he “is a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.” Under criticism, the Times added an editor’s note stating:

This article explained the writer’s prison sentence but neglected to provide sufficient context by stating the offenses of which he was convicted. They were five counts of murder and membership in a terrorist organization. Mr. Barghouti declined to offer a defense at his trial and refused to recognize the Israeli court’s jurisdiction and legitimacy.

The Times’ public editor, Liz Spayd, also wrote an article titled “An Op-Ed Author Omits His Crimes, and The Times Does Too”, in which she praised the decision to add this editorial note because of “the need to more fully identify the biography and credentials of authors, especially details that help people make judgments about the opinions they’re reading.”

What the Times has done here, however, is not provide readers with information to help them judge Barghouti for themselves, but to prejudge Mr. Barghouti for them.

The title of Spayd’s article implicitly judges Barghouti as guilty. The inherent assumption of her headline is that since he was convicted in an Israeli court, therefore he must have been guilty of the crimes he was accused of.

The boldness of this assumption is all the more remarkable since it was specifically to highlight Israel’s abuses—including his lack of a fair trial—that Mr. Barghouti wrote his op-ed.

Ms. Spayd writes that Barghouti wrote the piece

“to draw attention to a mass hunger strike for what he calls Israel’s arbitrary arrests and poor treatment of Palestinian prisoners.”

This statement assumes that it is merely Mr. Barghouti’s opinion that Israel makes arbitrary arrests and treats prisoners poorly. This assumption, too, fails to provide readers with details to help readers make an objective judgment.

Had Ms. Spayd wished to be objective, she would have acknowledged that Israel’s abuses against Palestinian prisoners have been extensively documented.

It wouldn’t have taken Spayd long to determine whether Barghouthi’s “claim” was true; she could have Googled “arbitrary arrests occupied Palestinian territory” and clicked on the first result (at the time of this writing) to read the section from Amnesty International’s annual global report on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. She could have scrolled down and read the details under the subheading “Arbitrary arrests and detentions”, as well as the following section, “Torture and other ill-treatment”.

She could also have clicked on the second result and read the report of the UN Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in the occupied territories and scrolled down to read the sections “Torture and ill-treatment in detention”, “Administrative and arbitrary detention”, and “Arrest and Detention of Children”.

Spayd could have clicked the link provided in Barghouti’s op-ed to the report of the Inter-Parliamentary Union finding that Israel’s “numerous breaches of international law”, including Barghouti’s unlawful arrest and transfer to Israel, made it “impossible to conclude that Mr. Barghouti was given a fair trial.”

As Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament, recently wrote in Newsweek with respect to Barghouti’s conviction,

It is a conviction that says nothing about him and everything about the Israeli judicial system, just as the conviction of Mandela and his sentence to lifetime imprisonment said more about the apartheid regime then [sic] about those fighting it.

Likewise, the Times’ addendum and the public editor’s commentary tell readers nothing about Mr. Barghouti and everything about the nature of the Times’ reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Another assertion of Mr. Barghouti’s that Ms. Spayd could have also easily verified is that “eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates, 120 governments and hundreds of leaders, parliamentarians, artists and academics around the world” have campaigned for his release.

In the “Robben Island Declaration for the Freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and all Palestinian Prisoners”, which was inaugurated from Nelson Mandela’s former cell on Robben Island, South Africa, signatories—including Nobel Peace Prize Laureates former US President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mairead Maguire—called for his release, noting that

The treatment of Palestinian prisoners from the moment of their arrest, during interrogation and trial, and during their detention, violates norms and standards prescribed by international law.

Had the Times’ Public Editor dug a bit deeper, she could have discovered that Israel had admittedly tried twice to assassinate Barghouti before the decision was made to capture him, and that

“The army officers who captured Barghouti are convinced that he should now be set free. The same view was held by Ehud Barak”—the former Prime Minister of Israel.

“Have you lost your mind?” Barak, who was a private citizen at the time of Barghouti’s arrest, asked Shin Bet Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz.

“What’s the story with Barghouti? If it’s part of your struggle against terrorism, it’s meaningless. But if it’s part of a grand plan to make him a future national leader of the Palestinians, then it’s a brilliant scheme, because what’s really missing in his résumé is direct affiliation with terrorism. He will fight for the leadership from inside prison, not having to prove a thing. The myth will grow constantly by itself.”

Spayd might also have noted that Barghouti has consistently called for non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation, has expressed his unequivocal support for “the idea of two states for two nations”, and has been heavily critical of the existing Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership. Polls have consistently shown that if there were to be elections in which Barghouti was a candidate, he would handily win.

As Barghouti wrote in a 2002 Washington Post op-ed,

Let us not forget, we Palestinians have recognized Israel on 78 percent of historic Palestine. It is Israel that refuses to acknowledge Palestine’s right to exist on the remaining 22 percent of land occupied in 1967….

I still seek peaceful coexistence between the equal and independent countries of Israel and Palestine based on full withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and a just resolution to the plight of Palestinian refugees pursuant to U.N. resolutions. I do not seek to destroy Israel but only to end its occupation of my country.

The Post’s bio for Barghouti read,

“The writer is general secretary of Fatah on the West Bank and was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council.” He was unlawfully imprisoned in Israel three months later.

Even the government of the United States has advocated Barghouti’s release from prison.

Elliot Abrams, writing at the Council on Foreign Relations, makes the same fallacious assumptions as the Times’ public editor, his headline declaring, “The New York Times Calls a Convicted Terrorist a ‘Parliamentarian’”. With the editor’s addendum and Spayd’s commentary, it’s the New York Times rather calling a parliamentarian a convicted terrorist.

Far from providing Times readers with “sufficient context” to “help people make judgements about the opinions they’re reading”, what the newspaper’s public editor has done is to prejudge the op-ed contributor. Liz Spayd rather tells readers what judgement they are supposed to make about Barghouti while denying them the relevant context that would allow them to make up their own minds.

The editorial note appended to Barghouti’s op-ed was intended to inform readers the crimes Barghouti was accused and convicted of, but its purpose was not to provide sufficient context to help people make an objective judgment. Rather, its purpose was to prejudice the reader’s opinion of Barghouti—otherwise the Times editors would also have noted that the op-ed contributor was correct to say that he did not receive a fair trial and that Israel’s capture and transportation of Barghouti to a prison in Israel was itself a violation of international law.

Spayd closes by writing that she is

“pleased to see the editors responding to the complaints, and moving to correct the issue rather than resist it. Hopefully, it’s a sign that fuller disclosure will become regular practice.”

Fuller disclosure of relevant context from the New York Times would indeed be a welcome change. For the Times editors to act with such blatant prejudice in the name of objective journalism is rank hypocrisy—but par for the course for America’s “newspaper of record”.

This article was originally published at Foreign Policy Journal.

“German government officials have  proposed giving Britain access to the European Union’s single market in return for a fee, …

The 35-page report on the potential costs of Brexit to Germany said Britain’s departure from the EU risked “serious economic and stability relevant consequences; effects in particular on the real economy.” The ministry officials calculated Berlin would have to pay an additional 4.5 billion euros ($5 billion) a year into EU coffers as a result of Britain’s departure from the bloc. To mitigate the cost, they floated the idea of charging Britain for access to the single market. 

“Such a future financial contribution should be used to alleviate the financial consequences of Brexit (reduction in EU spending or increase in payments for other member states),” Focus quoted the officials as saying. … (Reuters, May 6, 2017)

It’s hilarious! – Germany offering Britain post-BREXIT access to the European market for an annual “fee”! And this, from the looks of it, just so that Germany does not have to pay some US$ 5 billion more into the wasteful kitty of the overloaded, over-paid and incompetent bureaucracy of the EU apparatus in Brussels.

We can only hope BREXIT will be followed by many others, like, for example, FREXIT, France leaving the European Non-Union. It would be the end of the EU which would be a blessing for Europe. Eighty percent of the French want a referendum on France leaving the European Union. It will never happen if Macron becomes President.

How many French, or Europeans for that matter, know that Macron made his rapid political ascent by starting his career with the Rothschild banksters and then was catapulted by Hollande and PM Valls into the position of French Minister of Finance, basically to deregulate everything of the economy that had not yet been deregulated, as well as pushing through a PM decree, the infamous anti-union French Labor law. He is a neoliberal globalist, defending a new-fascist economy. That is not what the media portray, and surely not what the people want.

Today, May 7, as many disenchanted French voters say, there is the choice between the Pest and Cholera, voting for Macron or for Le Pen. But there is indeed another choice – Abstention; showing the powers that be their disgust with ongoing lie-propaganda and resulting politics.

Who do you think has financed the massive propaganda that brought Macron to prominence from an almost unknown past? – The banksters, worldwide, and their interest groups, of course. Globalization must not die. The world hasn’t been sucked entirely dry yet. If France were to exit the system, like the Brits decided almost a year ago, the globalization empire might crumble – with neo-fascism at peril.

Hence, the massive pro-Macron propaganda for tomorrow’s elections, led by Brussels and Washington and the related Big Finance and Industrial interests and lobbyists. – They don’t want a collapse of the EU – the elite on either side benefits greatly from the current system, as usual, at the detriment of the populations.

But back to Britain: The UK does NOT need the EU. In fact, London has already had preliminary talks with China for bilateral agreements. If they materialize, they will most likely encompass more than just China, namely the entire Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which comprises also Russia, most of Central Asia, Pakistan, Iran with India as an aspiring candidate.

If such agreements were to materialize, Britain’s market would be linked to more than half of the world’s population and about a third of the globe’s economic output. There would be no need for the decaying European Union and her faltering western allies. Let’s be clear: The future is in the East. The West is passé.

May we just hope that the Brits will not fall for Germany’s ‘generous’ offer of access to the EU market.

*********

All of this is not to say that a European Union per se would be bad. However, NOT and I repeat NOT under the current premises, under the current set-up. This construct has to be dismantled, the faster the better. It was not even a European idea in the first place, but a CIA initiative just after WWII – and Washington’s objective even before WWII, to create a Continent of Vassals, united in a “Union of European States”, but without a Constitution, therefore without common political goals (a “non-union”), and with one currency, the Euro, that was created according to the same fraudulent principles as the dollar and fully dependent on the dollar, so the new puppet union could be easily economically manipulated and controlled.

It is fraudulent, because money is made by private banks, from thin air, without any backing, therefore ideal for manufacturing crisis after crisis for the benefit of the banksters and the rich.

That’s precisely what has happened. And we, in Europe, are about to wake up. The Brits with BREXIT were first. We can just hope it’s not too late.

A new European Union should be born in Europe, by Europeans and for Europeans – and WITHOUT interference from outside, especially not form Washington. A new Europe should be free to choose her alliances from the east and west without restrictions and without fear of sanctions, for not behaving according to a self-imposed foreign Master’s dictate.

This article was in part based on an interview of the author with Press TV

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

A Small Battleground in a Large Culture War

A few weeks ago my book Palestine’s Horizon: Toward a Just Peace was published by Pluto in Britain. I was in London and Scotland at the time to do a series of university talks to help launch the book. Its appearance happened to coincide with the release of a jointly authored report commissioned by the UN Social and Economic Commission of West Asia, giving my appearances a prominence they would not otherwise have had. The report concluded that the evidence relating to Israeli practices toward the Palestinian people amounted to ‘apartheid,’ as defined in international law.

There was a strong pushback by Zionist militants threatening disruption. These threats were sufficiently intimidating to academic administrators, that my talks at the University of East London and at Middlesex University were cancelled on grounds of ‘health and security.’ Perhaps, these administrative decisions partly reflected the awareness that an earlier talk of mine at LSE had indeed been sufficiently disrupted during the discussion period that university security personnel had to remove two persons in the audience who shouted epithets, unfurled an Israeli flag, stood up and refused to sit down when politely asked by the moderator.

In all my years of speaking on various topics around the world, I had never previously had events cancelled, although quite frequently there was similar pressure exerted on university administrations, but usually threatening financial reprisals if I was allowed to speak. What happened in Britain is part of an increasingly nasty effort of pro-Israeli activists to shut down debate by engaging in disruptive behavior, threats to security, and by smearing speakers regarded as critics of Israel as ‘anti-Semites,’ and in my case as a ‘self-hating,’ even a self-loathing Jew.

Returning to the United States I encountered a new tactic. The very same persons who disrupted in London, evidently together with some likeminded comrades, wrote viciously derogatory reviews of my book on the Amazon website in the U.S. and UK, giving the book the lowest rate possible rating. This worried my publisher who indicated that how a book is rated on Amazon affects sales very directly. I wrote a message on my Facebook timeline that my book was being attacked in this way, and encouraged Facebook friends to submit reviews, which had the effect of temporarily elevating my ratings. In turn, the ultra-Zionists went back to work with one or two line screeds that made no effort whatsoever to engage the argument of the book. In this sense, there was a qualitative difference as the positive reviews were more thoughtful and substantive. This was a new kind of negative experience for me. Despite publishing many books over the course during this digital age I had never before had a book attacked in this online manner obviously seeking to discourage potential buyers and to demean me as an author. In effect, this campaign is an innovative version of digital book burning, and while not as vivid visually as a bonfire, its vindictive intentions are the same.

These two experiences, the London cancellations and the Amazon harassments, led me to reflect more broadly on what was going on. More significant, by far, than my experience are determined, well-financed efforts to punish the UN for its efforts to call attention to Israeli violations of human rights and international law, to criminalize participation in the BDS campaign, and to redefine and deploy anti-Semitism so that its disavowal and prevention extends to anti-Zionism and even to academic and analytic criticism of Israel’s policies and practices, which is how I am situated within this expanding zone of opprobrium. Israel has been acting against human rights NGOs within its own borders, denying entry to BDS supporters, and even virtually prohibiting foreign tourists from visiting the West Bank or Gaza. In a remarkable display of unity all 100 U.S. senators recently overcame the polarized atmosphere in Washington to join in sending an arrogant letter to the new UN Secretary General, António Guterres, demanding a more friendly, blue washing, approach to Israel at the UN and threatening financial consequences if their outrageous views were not heeded.

Israel’s most ardent and powerful backers are transforming the debate on Israel/Palestine policy into a cultural war of aggression. This new kind of war has been launched with the encouragement and backing of the Israeli government, given ideological support by such extremist pressure groups as UN Watch, GO Monitor, AIPAC, and a host of others. This cultural war is implemented at street levels by flame throwing militants that resort to symbolic forms of violence. The adverse consequences for academic freedom and freedom of thought in a democratic society should not be underestimated. A very negative precedent is being set in several Western countries. Leading governments are collaborating with extremists to shut down constructive debate on a sensitive policy issue affecting the lives and well-being of a long oppressed people.

There are two further dimensions of these developments worth pondering:

(1) In recent years Israel has been losing the Legitimacy War being waged by the Palestinians, what Israeli think tanks call ‘the delegitimation project,’ and these UN bashing and personal smears are the desperate moves of a defeated adversary in relation to the moral and legal dimensions of the Palestinian struggle for rights. In effect, the Israeli government and its support groups have given up almost all efforts to respond substantively, and concentrate their remaining ammunition on wounding messengers who bear witness and doing their best to weaken the authority and capabilities of the UN so as to discredit substantive initiatives;

(2) while this pathetic spectacle sucks the oxygen from responses of righteous indignation, attention is diverted from the prolonged ordeal of suffering that has long been imposed on the Palestinian people as a result of Israel’s unlawful practices and policies, as well as its crimes against humanity, in the form of apartheid, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and many others. The real institutional scandal is not that the UN is obsessed with Israel but rather that it is blocked from taking action that might exert sufficient pressure on Israel to induce the dismantling of apartheid structures relied upon to subjugate, displace, and dispossess the Palestinian people over the course of more than 70 years with no end in sight.

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

On the eve of Sunday’s French presidential election runoff, establishment candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign claimed he was targeted by a “massive and coordinated” cyberattack – disclosing potentially damaging 11th hour information.

His campaign railed about hackers anonymously releasing emails, documents and other materials “to sow doubt and misinformation,” claiming:

“Intervening in the final hour of the official campaign, this operation is clearly a matter of democratic destabilization, as was seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign.”

Anonymous hackers released damning documents, emails and images, showing Macron’s alleged involvement with La Providence, a Limited Liability Company in the Caribbean island of Nevis.

He allegedly created the firm as an offshore tax haven. Reportedly it’s connected to the Cayman Islands-based First Caribbean International Bank, earlier involved in tax evasion cases.

Leaked materials purport to show Macron hid unknown amounts of wealth offshore to avoid French taxes.

Macron denied stashing wealth secretly offshore, saying

“I have never had accounts in any tax havens whatsoever, firstly because it is not in my nature and secondly because I have always wanted to return to the public domain.”

His campaign claimed material released is part of a Russian effort to smear him in favor of Le Pen – providing no evidence proving it because none exists.

On Friday, WikiLeaks tweeted

“Who benefits? Timing of alleged dump is too late to hit vote but will surely be used to boost hostility to Russia & intelligence spending.”

France votes on Sunday, Macron heavily favored to win. Will the damning dump materially affect the outcome? We’ll likely know shortly after polls close.

The NYT supports all deplorable establishment candidates in US-allied countries. Its editors accused Russia of meddling in France’s election, citing no evidence. None exists.

They claimed Putin favors Le Pen. He’d “dearly like to see (Macron) weakened,” they said – calling the former neoliberal Rothschild investment banker/economy minister “strong on maintaining Russian sanctions and favors strengthening the European Union.”

Separately, The Times claimed

“(g)roups linked to Russia…have previously been accused of trying to breach the Macron organization.”

The self-styled newspaper of record cited unnamed security experts, saying they believe “Russian hackers” were behind the latest dump of damning Macron materials.

No evidence suggests Russian interference in foreign elections anywhere – not America’s, France’s or others.

False accusations persist anyway, part of longstanding Russia bashing.

A Final Comment

On May 6, France’s Election Control Commission

“ask(ed) the media, and websites in particular, not to report on the content of the (leaked Macron) data,” stressing “dissemination of false information is liable to fall within the scope of the law, in particular criminal law.”

French oligarchs and aristocrats want neoliberal globalist Macron elected president on Sunday – threatening to prosecute anyone publishing leaked defamatory information about him.

Suppressing free and open expression is a hallmark of police state governance.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new 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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

“As somebody said, this could be a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.”-U.S. Senator John McCain (April 30, 2017) [1]

Tensions between the U.S. and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) have heightened in recent weeks leading some to believe some sort of shooting war may be imminent.

On March 6, the DPRK fired four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan as part of a drill targeting American military assets. The test was soon followed by the arrival in South Korea of the US-built THAAD anti-ballistic missile system, which China vigorously opposes. A week later, US, South Korean and Japanese militaries would dispatch missile defense ships to the site of the previous ballistic missile firings. [2]

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Within weeks, the situation escalated with the DPRK firing more missiles, and the US dispatching a naval strike group, including the 97,000-ton carrier, the USS Carl Vinson. As if to prove he meant business, Trump authorized a missile strike in Syria, and later the dropping of the never before battle-tested Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB) over an ISIS position in Afghanistan. [3]

By the end of April, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to the UN Security Council calling on the 15 member body to take action to dismantle the country’s nuclear and missile capacity. Meanwhile, as of May 1st, the THAAD system in South Korea is deployed and operational. [4][5]

What is behind this jousting between nuclear powers, and what could be the consequences for the region and the world? These are the questions we hope to address in this week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour, featuring this week’s special guest Michel Chossudovsky.

Over the course of the hour, the discussion will delve into the true reasons for the Korean War, the intended target of the THAAD anti-missile system, the prospect of Trump’s unpredictable foreign policy as a Nixonian ‘Madman’ strategy, the disturbing normalization of the use of nuclear weapons within Washington’s civilian bureaucracy, and the necessary conditions for reversing the drift toward a third and final world war.

Michel Chossudovsky is founder and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is Professor (Emeritus) of Economics at the University of Ottawa and the award-winning author of eleven books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), and The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

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Transcript- Michel Chossudovsky Interview, May 2, 2017

(minor edits by Global Research)

Part One

Introduction

Michel Chossudovsky’s latest book entitled the Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity  includes a detailed analysis of the Korean crisis and the looming dangers of a nuclear war. 

Global Research: What was the Korean War really all about it? Was it a fight for freedom, as it’s portrayed in the popular media? Or was there some other agenda at stake there?

Professor Michel Chossudovsky: Well, the war against the people of Korea, 1950-1953 was essentially a colonial war waged by the United States. It was a war of conquest, or at least attempted conquest. And it was a genocide.

And we don’t need to necessarily debate the figures on the casualties of that war inflicted by the United States because General Curtis LeMay who coordinated the bombing raids against North Korea brazenly acknowledged, and I quote:

“Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population. We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea too.”

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And historians now acknowledge that the population of North Korea, which was of the order of 8 to 9 million, and that during the 37 month long hot war from ’50 to ’53, the Korean nation had a mortality which was something of the order 30% of its population, which is unprecedented in world history. Or at least, if you compare those figures to casualties of major countries involved in World War II.

In other words, we have to reflect on a country which has lost one quarter, at least one quarter of its population in a US–led war.

What is their perception of national security?

Who is a threat to their national security?

It’s obviously the United States of America: not a single family in North Korea has not lost a loved one during that war.

And people in America don’t know. Imagine what would happen if a quarter of the population of the United States of America were liquidated by some foreign country. That is what happened to North Korea.

And then we have to also understand that at the end of the Korean War, there was never a peace treaty. The North had requested the signing of the peace treaty. There was an armistice agreement, and since 1953, there have been persistent US threats which envisaged the uses of nuclear weapons against the DPRK. In fact, the threat of nuclear attacks against North Korea started in 1950. And it was wasn’t carried out because then the Soviet Union had also acquired nuclear capabilities. 

But, bear in mind, we’re talking about a period from 1950 to 2017, in other words, 67 years of nuclear threats against a small country. Today: some 25 million people.

And if you look at pictures of what Pyongyang looked like in the wake of that war, it was totally destroyed. More than ninety percent, it was almost every single building. And, bear in mind, that’s confirmed by the US military, they don’t deny it. In other words their actions were directed against civilians. They destroyed everything!

Now they have rebuilt! And Pyongyang is a city with skyscrapers. It’s a modern city. It’s interesting to look at what it was in 1953, when it had been totally destroyed, and look at it today. [See images below]

 

So, how is it that this country which lost a quarter or more of its population during the Korean War, could be considered a threat to the security of the United States of America, which happens to be thousands of miles away, whereas in turn, the United States of America has more than thirty thousand troops stationed in South Korea.

And that is the only US military facility on the East Asian continent. There are others, of course, bases in Okinawa and elsewhere in East Asia but on the East Asian continent it is the sole US military facility.

GR: The Korean peninsula borders on both Russia and China. You talk about it being a colonial war. Was it essentially with an eye to getting US bases right next door to those giants?

MC: Well, it was essentially to take over the territories of the Japanese empire, and of course also to threaten China and Russia. But bear in mind: the United States essentially wanted to establish a sphere of influence in East Asia, which they have acquired. They have troops stationed in South Korea since the end oof World War II. They interfere in Korean politics…I’m talking about South Korea in the same way as they interfere in other parts of the world.

We must understand that there are two things which are very important.

1: If there is a nuclear attack against North Korea, that nuclear attack is in fact also against the entire Korean nation, both North and South. That has to do with geography, and people in the West have to understand geography. The distance between the centre of Seoul and the demilitarized zone, in other words the border with North Korea, is 57 kilometres. Now that’s pretty much the distance between Manhattan and New Jersey or Toronto and Mississauga. I live 50 kilometres from Montreal. So, in other words, the distances are such that any kind of attack against North Korea using nuclear weapons would radiate over the entire nation. And of course it would have global implications because it  could ignite a Third World War!

2: But, the other issue which we must understand is that the THAAD missiles are not intended for North Korea. They’re intended for Russia and China, specifically China.

And I should mention, there is a very strategic island which is located south of the Korean peninsula, Jeju Island. It was a naval base of the Japanese forces during World War II.

It has now become both a naval as well as an air force facility, with major partners being the United States, Japan and South Korea. And Jeju Island is almost within …it’s directly opposite Shanghai, okay? It’s directly opposite Shanghai. You could practically swim it! It’s within a few hundred kilometres of Shanghai, and it’s very strategically located, so that, in effect, there’s another process which is ongoing, is the militarization of all the waterways surrounding China.

GR: South China Sea?

MC: Well from the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan Westwards to the South China Sea….all these strategic waterways are militarized, and China is in a sense  surrounded by US military facilities. Its sovereignty is threatened.

And then there are US military based located on China’s western frontier. In other words in Pakistan, Afghanistan in particular.

In other words, you have to look at the broader geopolitics. That is why the Korean peninsula is very important from a US strategic standpoint. .

And there’s another aspect. In South Korea, as well as in the North, there’s a strong movement for re-unification. And this has been a big debate in both North and South for years. But the United States doesn’t want that reunification, and if it were to accept it would be on their terms….

GR: On their terms…

MC: …Yes, I quote from US military documents. They say that if Korea is to reunify, then we would station troops in North Korea. That is the scenario which is contemplated by US military planners

GR:  I know there have been protests lately in South Korea but they seem to be protesting US involvement in a different context, in contrast to what  the rest of us are hearing about the belligerence and dangerousness of the North Korean government, so to what extent is a pro-unification as well as an anti-US involvement?

MC: There’s a very strong grassroots movement – in South Korea against US – the stationing of US troops. And that’s been ongoing. In other words, they want those troops out, okay? They’re a sovereign country. They want them out.

They’re NOT a sovereign country. And in fact, the entire military of South Korea is under the command of the US! They have a military cooperation agreement. In the case of war, it’s not the Commander-in -Chief, which is the president of the Republic of Korea (ROK), who calls the shots, it’s a three-star general appointed by the Pentagon. And that’s very, very clear.

protesting the THAAD missile system

They want sovereignty. They want political sovereignty, namely the choice of their Head of State, and they want sovereignty from the point of view of military affairs.

And the Korean people both North and South want the reunification of the two Koreas under the “Sunshine Policy”.

As far as the grassroots movements in the Republic of Korea is concerned, they don’t see this in terms of separate issues. The THAAD missiles, the presence of US troops, the war games, these various issues are interrelated. They constitute a threat to the sovereignty of the ROK.

And there is another important dimension: South Korea is a very powerful industrial nation integrated into the world economy. But if South Korea and North Korea were to be reunited, you’d have an even more powerful nation, which not only has capabilities in leading high-tech production (South Korea), but also with an advanced strategic weapons industry in North Korea. 

But, I think what is very important, people in the US, Canada, Europe, have to realize that, yes, a quarter of the population of that country was killed by US carpet bombing. We are talking about genocide (under international law)

Who is the threat to global security? North Korea or the United States of America?

I think the answer to that question is pretty obvious in view of what’s happening both in Asia as well as in other parts of the world – what’s happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Afghanistan.

And it’s a killing machine. And it is essentially a killing machine directed against civilians.

GR: I know that back in September 2001, in the wake of 9/11, there was an announcement pertaining to the Axis of Evil by the Bush Administration: namely Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Are current military maneuvers unprecedented, i.e. in comparison to 67 years of nuclear threats against  North Korea, which you referred to earlier. I mean, have we come been this close to a nuclear or other conflict with North Korea before or have there been “close calls…” 

MC: No there’s been several comparable maneuvers.

GR: So this isn’t unprecedented?

MC: This is not unprecedented. It’s mainly different because you have a different rhetoric and you’ve got Donald Trump who is a very unpredictable individual – who has absolutely no understanding of geopolitics and who could press the button during a …you know… during a dinner event with…I’m recalling the dinner event with the Chinese President at Mar al Lago…

GR: Yeah…

MC: …What I think is very dangerous danger is that the decision makers, those who push the button, in the case of a nuclear war, believe in their own propaganda and they believe that nuclear weapons are “harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground” – that is with regard to the tactical nuclear weapons.

And they think that they can actually wage a nuclear war and come out clean without blowing up the planet. No, that won’t occur. But they believe in it, and they don’t have the foggiest idea of the causes and consequences of nuclear war, which are amply documented by a large body of scientists and analysts.

I looked into US nuclear doctrine starting immediately after the 9/11 attacks and in 2002 what does the US Senate do?

They reclassify the tactical nuclear weapons, which have an explosive capacity between one third and twelve times the Hiroshima bomb as conventional weapons which can be used in the conventional war theatre and do not even require the authorization of the Commander-in Chief. Very (few) people know about that!

There was another thing – that was in 2003 – when the Pentagon called a meeting at Strategic Command Headquarters in Nebraska – that’s where they filmed Dr. Strangelove.

And they invited the defense contractors, the analysts, the research labs, to a meeting, and it was held between the sixth and the ninth of August 2003, which happened to coincide with commemoration of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945)

But they were not commemorating. They were planning the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons. These plans have now been carried out. The trillion dollar budget allocated to a new generation of nuclear bombs.

They don’t need anymore nuclear bombs. They’ve got seven thousand nuclear bombs! Why would they need to have another generation of nuclear bombs?

But I think that what they want is to have is a first strike which would annihilate the capabilities of any kind of response on the part of a so-called rogue enemies i.e Russia or China. .

But, talking about scenarios, I’ve been looking analyzing Pentagon World War III scenarios for some time. My book on Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War was published in 2011.

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People got scared with this kind of title. But, when we talk about scenarios of World War III, they do them every year! They have them. They’re not active war games. And some of them are made public.

You mentioned the rogue states. With regard to World War Three Scenarios there are four rogue states which are defined in US military doctrine. They are Iran, Russia, China and North Korea.

In 2007, under what was called the Vigilant Shield war games, they were simulating a war with four fictitious countries, which were called Irmingham, Ruebek, Churia, and Nemazee

Now, Irmingham is Iran, Ruebek is Russia, Churia is China and Nemazee is North Korea.

And this is a very detailed scenario which I analysed in my book, and it starts with a road to conflict, it’s a simulation of the whole sequence of events which ultimately leads to World War III. And to say that they’re not into envisaging and analyzing World War III… they are!

But the public is totally unaware because nuclear war is not front page news. 

What they [the decision makers] don’t envisage the consequences of their actions.

Because they believe that World War III is a peacemaking undertaking.

And so we have a combination of diabolical, idiosyncratic decision-making, which could lead the planet to the unthinkable, where top officials believe in their propaganda. So, it’s not simply a question of convincing the public – that’s one area of propaganda.

There’s an internal propaganda which is directed against whom? …In favour of whom? It’s politicians within the US Congress, the Senate. It’s people – the academics. It’s people in the military. It’s people, of course, in the areas of business, the military-industrial complex, Wall Street.

All these people if you ask them, what do you think will happen if we use nuclear weapons, they don’t know! and they do not care. They are totally misinformed. 

Intermission

Part Two

GR: Can I just get you to comment on April 13th, according to the Pentagon, the MOAB, the Mother Of All Bombs or Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb as it’s called was dropped over an area in Nangarhar Province in Afghanistan, bordering onto Pakistan, supposedly it’s where ISIS forces were suspected of having tunnels and buildings. So when you see an incident like that happening at this time, what does that mean? What’s the point? Is it really as they say, or is there another message that’s being communicated? Where do you position that event in this broader context that we’re looking at?

MC: Well, that event, I think…there are two central issues. 

First, it is a test of the bomb, a live test of that bomb. We’re not sure whether it actually occurred previously. It might have occurred in Iraq. But they tested that bomb in a remote area of Afghanistan bordering onto Pakistan and it was framed in a such way, by saying we’re going after ISIS.

RThere is a major contradiction, a non-sequitur, because ISIS is a creation of US Intelligence, it is well-known and documented that the ISIS is not an independent force in its own right. It’s a wing of al Qaeda, and it’s supported, covertly, and it’s supported and financed by America’s allies, including Saudi Arabia.

And then of course, they go after the ISIS to give us the impression that there’s a counter-terrorism agenda. There is no real counter-terrorism agenda because the al-Qaeda terrorist group and its various affiliates are supported by those who are waging the counter-terrorism agenda.

Now, following the MOAB explosion, there were several unsubstantiated reports; we don’t know anything about what actually happened. There’s no photographic evidence.

GR: Was it a Pentagon statement? ..

MC: There was a Pentagon statement as well as statements from the Afghan government.

They said that there were ninety six people were killed and all of them without exception were ISIS operatives. It took place in a mountainous area.

We haven’t seen any pictures of what this bomb has done. It’s an earth-penetrating bomb. And at the same time it would have released a mushroom cloud, similar to that of a nuclear bomb. It’s the largest conventional bomb in the US arsenal. It’s an enormous heavy bomb. You can’t send it in [by missile], you have to drop it. And that’s what they did.

But, I think that the incident was also there to serve as an instrument of propaganda to show, “well this is the kind of bomb that we might drop on North Korea”.

GR: There is a tendency to portray this – the Trump presidency, as somehow idiosyncratic and what not. But I wanted to evoke, and maybe get your thoughts on this. Back at the time of the Nixon administration they practiced what he himself called the ‘madman theory.’ And this was something documented by his staff. And what he said was that I want; This is a quote:

“I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that ‘For God’s Sake, you know, Nixon is obsessed about communism, we can’t restrain him when he’s angry, and he has his hand on the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”

This idea that the head of the most armed country in the world is kind of crazy. Do you think maybe Trump might be trying to deliberately – or maybe his advisers are trying to portray him in this way – to employ that madman strategy toward North Korea, and by extension China and Russia, and could such a strategy, if true, could it succeed?

MC: Well I think we have to address the decision-making processes behind the use of these weapons of mass destruction, and it’s not the Head of State, it’s not the President of the United States, who actually will make that decision on his own in any case.

Although, of course, from a legal point of view he has the last word, he could block it or he could say yes.

It’s an army of advisers and consultants and ideologues with think-tanks, intelligence, the military. But ultimately it’s not the military that calls the shots either. It’s really civilians who will determine whether we use it or not. But I should mention that in the present context,  Trump is probably more idiosyncratic and unpredictable than Richard Nixon.

But I don’t think that ultimately he decides, it’s his political entourage, the people who are in his Cabinet who are dangerous so to speak, particularly Mad Dog Mattis, Tillerson maybe to a lesser extent, but they reflect in a sense the continuity of US foreign policy going back to the Truman Doctrine of the late 1940s formulated by George Kennan at the time…Namely an imperial agenda, which euphemistically is called US foreign policy. This idea of killing millions of civilians is ingrained in this imperial agenda

Of course, you never mention it officially, but if you look at history and the loss of lives attributable to US-led wars…. we’re talking about Korea, one quarter of the population killed in North Korea. We’re talking about Vietnam. We’re talking about Indonesia, where the CIA ordered up to one million communist partisans and their families to be assassinated. That again is a massive casualty event it’s not through an act of warfare, but it’s the kind of thing which the United States does.

And then you look at other wars around the world which are very often considered to be civil wars like those in Sudan or in the Congo. But in fact, we’re talking about millions and millions of people who lost their lives! The war in Sudan is barely mentioned. Several million people lost their lives through various mechanisms. As well as mass starvation. So that is the agenda.

And then they have to convince the broader public that killing the dudes, the ‘bad guys,’ is a peace-making operation. But there are so many millions of alleged ‘bad guys’ who are targeted.

And now you have this wave of Islamophobia, which is directed against, you know, a large – we’re talking about what – the Muslim population in the world, there’s more than a 1.8 billion population (almost a quarter of the World population). Now it just so happens that more than 60% of the reserves of crude oil happen to lie in Muslim countries.

What do you do? You demonize the inhabitants of those countries. If these oil producing countries had been occupied by Buddhists then the Buddhists would have been demonized. 

But people don’t realize that. Why are we going after the Muslims? Why are they the ‘bad guys?’

Well, it just so happens that they come from countries which the oil, okay. It’s something of the order of 60-69% of crude oil reserves, I’m not talking about the tar sands and so on, and natural gas.

Crude oil…they control it within their territory. They have the oil. And the US is waging a battle for oil. That is why we go after them.

GR: Talking about going after, I mean, maybe shifting way across to the other side of the world. I feel the need to bring up Latin America with you, particularly Venezuela where we seem to be seeing an increase in tensions, the opposition to Nicolas Maduro…It’s not as obvious as people with guns and MOAB bombs. What you’re seeing is a mobilization, a weaponization of popular sentiment. And I wonder if you could comment briefly about what you see happening in Venezuela and maybe if there’s any historical analogs that you might be familiar with.

MC: The historical analog is the fact that Venezuela was a colony of the Texas oil companies going back to a dictator which they installed, Juan Vicente Gómez.…he was a US sponsored dictator as in many other countries of the South American continent.  Then it was Pérez Jiménez, also a dictatorship, and then ultimately there was a movement towards democratic government, which in large part was controlled by the United States, up to a point.

And when  Hugo Chávez emerged, they established a policy of sovereignty over their oil reserves. I don’t want to get into the complexities of what happened, but ultimately I think that what is at stake is the fact that this country asserted in one form or another its sovereignty over its resources, over its territory, and now of course, that is in the process of being reversed with a regime-change agenda directed against the Maduro presidency.

GR: And so with such a regime-change operation, the consequences are not just for Venezuela, but throughout the entire continent. If I’m not mistaken, the fate of the Bolivarian revolution is going to be affected by whatever happens in Venezuela.

MC: In fact, that has already happened, You have a number of so-called progressive governments on the continent, some of them – essentially Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba have taken on a policy stance against US imperialism. Although at the same time they’ve been obliged to compromise in a number of areas.

Brazil and Argentina which had progressive governments up to a point, that has been reversed to a large extent due to regime change, so that I think to get back to the broader issue we have to examine at what some analysts call non-conventional warfare or hybrid warfare,

In other words, regime change is intimately related to, to the broader military and economic agenda. So in some countries you go in with your armed forces, and in other countries you trigger a regime change, or you send in special forces and. In other words, you don’t need to invade those countries. There are so many mechanisms to subvert and destroy countries, and the objective is ultimately to transform countries into open territories for the free market. So it ties into neo-liberalism.

In Syria and Iraq, the objective is not necessarily to win a war. The objective is ultimately to ensure that that country will not be able to rebuild in a sovereign way.

That’s what happened to Vietnam. The United States withdrew from Vietnam. The Vietnamese said ‘we won the war,’ but what is Vietnam today? It’s a cheap labour colony of  Western capitalism. Western and Japanese. I mean everything has been ultimately destroyed. It applies neoliberalism. It’s under the guidance of the International Monetary Fund. The wages are amongst the lowest in the world, of the order of a hundred dollars a month. It’s a cheap labor haven for the relocation of industry. So that everything they fought for has been lost.

I should mention there’s another very important transition that’s taking place, that took place in Vietnam, in that it was really the defeat of French colonialism, and the replacement of French colonialism by the new order of American imperialism. And that has been happening in different parts of the world. And that’s why France is also becoming in a sense a dependent nation, losing its own sovereignty.

France has no more colonies of its own. And if you want to be significant in the capitalist global order, you have to have colonies. You have to have dependent states, and they don’t. And they are themselves becoming a dependent state.

Intermission 

Part 3

GR: Recapping a little bit about what you’ve been saying over the last conversation, that first of all with Trump, it’s not just Trump. There’s this whole apparatus – the elements behind him – so much of the bureaucracy – of the civilian bureaucracy has been infected with this – with these neocons that have festered to the point where this is affecting the decision-making apparatus and you’ve got a whole bunch of people in there who – it’s not just that they’re lying in order to secure the colonies and the dominance of the petro-dollar and maintaining areas for bases and what not, they actually seem to believe these things and so that ends up enabling the desires of the bankers. But I guess there’s a point where you might potentially have created a Frankenstein monster that’s destroy everything.

MC: Well, in this regard I think what’s very dangerous is that the “Lie has become the Truth”. And the lie has become a consensus. In other words, the whole system relies on lies and fabrications. I’m talking about a whole series of lies – let’s say that the lie is a composite. If we  establish certain truthful statements, and we can corroborate them. What happens? Nothing, because the Lie has replaced the truth, and you no longer necessarily need to discuss or debate whether the lie is truthful or not.

People believe that Russia intervened in the elections,

People believe that nuclear weapons are harmless to civilians,

People believe that genetically modified seeds and so on are good for health, and so on,

And they’re led to believe things which can be easily refuted and anybody with common sense can refute.

Or that the ‘bad guys’ are there in Guantanamo, and so on, so forth, and that torture is good, because it’s going to help make the world safer, and extra-judicial killings are also good, because we’ll go after the bad dudes and so on, so forth. It’s a whole composite.

But what I’m saying, is that when the lie becomes the truth, there’s no moving backwards. We are, in a sense precipitated into what I would describe as an inquisitorial environment. In other words, the Spanish and French inquisitions of the Middle Age were based on the notion that you don’t question the Spanish authority, okay? They say, “well, these people are witches. We accept that.”

And today they’ll say, “well, these people are conspiracy theorists”, and we accept that.

And then there is – Donald Trump or his military advisers who say, “nuclear weapons are good for your health,” people will accept it.

And in fact I can tell you that is exactly what is contained in the military manuals when they describe the tactical nuclear weapons. They’re changing the label of the nuclear weapons.

And so, we’re being told a whole pack of lies, and people are incited to accept those lies as indelible truths, okay?

It’s an Orwellian environment but it’s gone much further than the Orwellian framework. And that is what I’d call the American Inquisition.

It’s not even a question of saying, “Oh, uh, provide the evidence that this is not a lie, or that this is truthful.”

You don’t need to hide the fact that people are being tortured because they’re doing it – they’re actually showing us in Guantanamo how people are being treated. Okay? We don’t need to start investigating. And then eventually people say, “well, this is the new normal. Guantanamo is acceptable, because these people at Guantanamo are the bad guys.” And so on.

GR: We’ve only got a couple of minutes left. I don’t know if there’s anything that you could say in terms of providing some, uh, escape valve from this build-up. I know Global Research has been around since 2001. Have you seen any signs that the kind of truth-telling that Global Research and other independent online news sites are putting out this information and undermining the legitimacy of these powers that be. 

Are you seeing any signs of hope that we can escape this death spiral?

MC: Well, what I think we can say – and that’s not being very optimistic – is that the anti-war movement is dead. There is no anti-war movement and in large part it’s because progressive elements within anti-war collectives consider that the wars in Syria or in Libya are humanitarian wars. And that includes even Noam Chomsky who has given his support to US actions in Syria.  Saying that Assad is committing ‘monstrous atrocities’. And so, there’s a certain complicity of the progressive left, particularly in the United States, but also in Western Europe. You can see it in France!

And, in effect what we have to start doing is to rebuild the anti-war movement. We have to rebuild it outside the realm of tax-free foundations which fund the social summits and all that. It has to be an extensive grassroots movement. It mustn’t be partisan. It has to integrate people from all walks of life. Workplaces, schools, universities, parishes, and so on. But that in itself is not going to change the decision-making processes unless, at the same time, we have a movement within the armed forces, within Intelligence, within the realms of decision-making and civilian government.

In other words, history tells us that if you really want meaningful change you have to have internal change within the internal decision-making apparatus. It’s not by simply going out in the streets and chanting, you know, “Stop the War in Syria” and “No to nuclear war in North Korea” that things will change. They don’t! That’s what I call anti-war sentiment.

What you have to do is to start creating an environment where there is confrontation of ideas and so on within the armed forces. Also, refuse to fight, you know. .

GR: And support those who refuse to fight!

MC: Of course! Because those who are fighting those wars are indoctrinated. They believe that they’re actually fighting al Qaeda. Okay? That they’re going after ‘bad guys’. After terrorists.

Some of them, of course, when they come back from the war theater, they speak out.

It’s not sufficient simply saying let’s go out and do what we did before the war in Iraq when millions of people went to the streets. But it didn’t prevent the war from occurring. That’s because Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld [under Bush] was committed to waging his blitzkrieg.

And so, we need to have people within the realm of government at all levels: the Central government, the State and municipal governments. And it has to be global. It has to be world-wide.

So that’s not an easy proposition. Certainly not an easy proposition. But it has to be – we have to understand where we’re going.

And people have to organize.

And it’s not the Left that wo is going to do it!

I’m saying not the Left, the so-called co-opted Left, which is going to do it. Because they’re paying lip service to these wars.

 They pay lip service to the invasion of Afghanistan. They pay lip service to the invasion of Libya. And we can check it out.

So that we have to rebuild social movements.

We have to also understand the relationship between war and the neoliberal agenda. They’re not two separate processes.

When I was involved with going to world summits, or counter-summits, I noticed that the issue of war was never actually mentioned. Neoliberalism was on the table but they never looked at the geopolitical or strategic or military dimensions of neoliberalism.

And so we were looking at things very separately. And the fact of the matter is that all those counter-summits are funded precisely by the people who are funding the wars!

GR: We’re talking about the manufacture of dissent. I think that’s your phrase for it.

MC: Well, that is the issue. It’s the manufacture of dissent. It’s the fact that dissent is funded by the Rockefellers and so on, and the same financial interests which support the official agenda, whether it’s the neoliberal agenda as well as the so-called Defense agenda. These are people who will be funding dissent in some form or another, but also at the same time with a view to actually maintaining dissent within a certain realm of debate.

GR: There’s the saying that the revolution will not be televised, and unfortunately the fake revolutions are being televised. So, Professor Chossudovsky it’s really been a pleasure speaking with you, I know you’ve got a lot of things to work on today but, I think that our listeners appreciate your insights as always, and hopefully we can have you back again to share more of your thoughts!

MC: Well, thank you very much. We do need the support of our listeners and our readers at globalresearch.ca as well as  our French language website: Mondialisation.ca,

And we’ve now started up with a Spanish website which is globalizacion.ca which is located in Mexico City.

But we must acknowledge that there is a process of smearing the independent media, which means that than ever we need to our readers to get the word out. In social media and across the land, these issues must be understood and debated.

Again, the Global Research News Hour is playing a very important role in this regard.

Thank you very much Michael for this invitation.

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Notes

1. https://twitter.com/CNN/status/858668937046831104
2. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/18/asia/north-korea-donald-trump-timeline/
3. ibid
4. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-29/us-says-failure-to-act-on-north-korea-could-be-catastrophic/8482088

Macron, who in all likelihood will be elected president of France, is a servant of this global corporate imperialism, but so is Trump despite his original nationalistic and non-interventionist rhetoric of a supposed outsider. Plus cela change, plus c’est la même chose, until la France Insoumise decides to forget the ballot box and take its revolt into the streets. (Gilbert Mercier)

In the UK, over the last 18 months, we have also seen Jeremy Corbyn ridiculed and attacked relentlessly. Corbyn has been described by prominent figures in the Conservative government as a threat to security and as a threat to Britain. He has been demonised in a similar to Putin. Corbyn was always going to be a target for the Establishment because he swims against the Washington consensus of neoliberal capitalism, war and imperialism. (Colin Todhunter)

Macron and Le Pen: Two Faces of the Same Con

By Gilbert Mercier, May 06, 2017

The French presidential election is getting worldwide attention like no other French election ever before. This is because it superficially opposes the Rothschild-certified globalist Macron to the nationalist Le Pen. In what seems to be the universal political debate of our times, the nationalist alternative right, which supported Trump and now supports Le Pen, fails to understand that you can only be anti-globalist if you are also anti-capitalist, or at least anti-corporate imperialist. In the US the remaining Trump supporters cheer for Le Pen and attack Macron.

France: A Nation’s Conscience and the Question of Terror

By Adeyinka Makinde, May 06, 2017

While many French may wish to perceive themselves as an independent nation only somewhat impeded by obligations imposed by its membership of the European Union, the truth is that France has lost a great deal of control over its foreign policy.

Is France’s Fifth Republic About to Marry Macron? A Proxy for Globalist Forces

By Oriental Review, May 05, 2017

A young man with an evident Oedipus complex who has never held a single elected office and who was almost unknown just three years ago is now preparing to fill the seat once occupied by Georges Clémenceau and Charles de Gaulle in the Élysée Palace.

A Victory for Theresa May Will See Britain Dragged Further Towards War with Russia

By Colin Todhunter, May 05, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin was told by the UK ambassador to the United Nations Matthew Rycroft that he is on the “wrong side of history” because of his support for the “barbaric” Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Rycroft added that supporting the Assad regime would result in “shame” and “humiliation” for Russia.

Breaking, French Elections: Macron versus Le Pen in Run-off. Discredited Socialist Party. A Vote against Neoliberalism

By Diana Johnstone, April 23, 2017

The leaders of the failed Socialist Party are rushing to find a place in Macron’s ill-defined movement, “En Marche!”

So now we are faced with the choice between a fake left – Macron – and a fake “extreme right”: Marine Le Pen.

The Future of Our Children: Jeremy Corbyn’s Speech on Education Policy

By Jeremy Corbyn, May 01, 2017

The task is clear: we must build an education system that suits the needs of our children and the opportunities they will have in the jobs market of tomorrow.

* * *

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On Sussex Drive in Ottawa, just a few steps away from the enormous US embassy, stands the Peacekeeping Monument. The structure titled “Reconciliation” was erected to honour the more than 125,000 Canadians who have served in United Nations peacekeeping forces since 1947. The current article documents one particular instance –the February 2004 intervention in Haiti – where the historical record conflicts with the “good peacekeeper” narrative communicated by the Canadian government, reiterated by the corporate media, and represented by “Reconciliation.”

Seeing themselves as a generous people, most Canadians also consider that their noble ideals are reflected in the foreign policy of their government. The importance of nurturing this positive image both at home and abroad is well ingrained in the national psyche and, every now and again, surveys are conducted to confirm its resilience.[1]

Walter Dorn, Associate Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, writes that:

For Canadians, peacekeeping is about trying to protect people in mortal danger… about self-sacrifice as well as world service. These notions of courage and service resonate with the public, and politicians across the political spectrum have readily adopted the peacekeeping cause… Canadian support for its peacekeeping role has been so strong for so long that it has become a part of the national identity.[2]

Canada’s intervention in Haiti is represented and legitimized in such terms. On the very first line of the section of its website devoted to Haiti, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) boasts how

“Canada has committed to allocate $555 million over five years (2006-2011) to reconstruction and development efforts in Haiti.” Such “special consideration” is given to Haiti because “[t]he Government of Canada is committed to helping the people of Haiti improve their living conditions.”[3]

Unequivocally endorsing the government’s line as reiterated by its Ambassador to Haiti, Claude Boucher, Maclean’s Magazine answers its own question in an April 2008 feature article:

“it’s easy to forget that what Boucher says is true. Haiti is a less dangerous, more hopeful place than it has been for years, and this is the case, in part, because of the United Nations mission there and Canada’s involvement in it.”[4]

The Ottawa Initiative

In contrast to Maclean’s pronouncement, a growing number of international critics insist that what is happening in Haiti is instead an odious imperialist crime in which Canada is shamefully complicit.[5] These skeptics argue that in January, 2003 the Canadian government organized a meeting to plan the illegal and violent overthrow of the democratically-elected government of the small Caribbean nation for political, ideological and economic reasons.[6] The meeting, called the “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti,” was held at the government’s Meech Lake conference centre in Gatineau, Québec, on January 31 and February 1, 2003, one year before the February 29, 2004 coup d’état.

The extraordinary decisions taken at this gathering of non-Haitians were first leaked to the general public in Michel Vastel’s March 2003 article, published in French-language magazine l’Actualité. Under the prophetic title “Haiti put under U.N. Tutelage?,” Vastel described how, in the name of a new Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, parliamentarians of former colonial powers invited to Meech Lake by Minister Denis Paradis, decided that Haiti’s democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had to be overthrown, a Kosovo-like trusteeship of Haiti implemented before January 1, 2004 while the US- subservient Haitian Army, the Forces armées d’Haiti (FAdH), would be reinstated alongside a new police force. The UN trusteeship project itself first surfaced in 2002 as mere rumor (or trial balloon?) in the neighboring Dominican Republic’s press.

While Canadian soldiers stood guard over Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, the president of Haiti and his wife were put on an airplane by US officials before dawn on February 29, 2004. According to world-renowned African-American author and activist Randall Robinson, who interviewed several eye-witnesses, the aircraft was not a commercial plane. No members of the Aristide government and no media were at the airport as Mr. and Mrs. Aristide were effectively abducted and taken to the Central African Republic against their will, following a refueling stop in the Caribbean island of Antigua.

***

In its December 10, 2004 report titled “An Economic Governance Reform Operation,” the World Bank bluntly declared that (thanks to the coup),

“The transition period and the Transitional Government provide a window of opportunity for implementing economic governance reforms with the involvement of civil society stakeholders that may be hard for a future government to undo.”[7]

Within the same post-coup period, said transitional government adopted a budget plan baptised “interim cooperation framework” (ICF) which outlined extensive privatization measures, accompanied by massive layoffs of public sector employees. This was done without the benefit of any legal sanction from a Haitian parliament. De facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, who was hand-picked by the U.S. to implement the ICF, promptly began the distribution of $29 million dollars to remobilized soldiers and paramilitaries whom the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had recruited and trained for the coup over the previous years in neighboring Dominican Republic and whom Latortue dubbed “freedom fighters”. The announcement of special pay to Latortue’s “freedom fighters” was made within days of a December 6, 2004 announcement of new “aid to Haiti” by the Canadian government.[8]

As of September 2008, most of the objectives attributed to the Ottawa Initiative have come to fruition. Haiti’s democratically–elected government has been overthrown, the country has been put under UN tutelage, new armed forces have been formed, and former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is still in exile. As for Canada’s promised “improvement to living conditions”, such improvements can easily be demonstrated for the over 9000 foreign troops (police and military) whose salaries have in many instances doubled during their tour with the UN force in Haiti (MINUSTAH). However, as far as the overwhelming majority of Haitians are concerned, there are no reasons to rejoice. In the past five years, they have been subjected to an unprecedented wave of kidnappings, rapes and murders, among other forms of urban violence. The Haitian state has been further weakened and destabilized. The trauma and social divisions of the Haitian people have been greatly exacerbated as a consequence of the coup. Understandably, many charge that the R2P doctrine has proven to be “a nightmarish and violent neo-imperialist experiment gone terribly mad” conducted on Haitians in blatant contravention of international law.[9]

At the time of the first leak of the Ottawa Initiative meeting to the public, Canadians of Haitian origin warned Prime Minister Jean Chrétien not to engage in such “a foolish adventure in neocolonialism.”[10] But these warnings were to no avail. After several changes in government in Ottawa, there is no indication of any change in policy. On the contrary, Canadian officials are steadfastly implementing the same ill-fated policy while disingenuously diverting blame for failure onto its victims. Does it not speak volumes that in Haiti, as in foreign-occupied Iraq or Afghanistan, kidnappings and the “brain drain” are two phenomena that have markedly intensified with the arrival of the foreign troops?[11]

Four shaky pillars

The post-coup regime in UN-occupied Haiti rests on four unstable pillars: money, weapons, class solidarity and racism.

Money: Those who call the shots in Haiti today are those who control the bank accounts. Contrast, for example, the $600 million budget of the UN force with that of the Republic of Haiti. The latter grew from $300 million in 2004-05 to $850 million in 2005-06 to 1.8 billion in 2006-07 and finally to $2 billion in 2008-09, with the caveat that above 60% of the budget is dependent on foreign sources and their associated conditions. President Préval’s pleas for MINUSTAH tanks to be replaced by construction equipment remain as futile as they are incessant.[12] The “grants” allocated to Haiti at never-ending donors’ conferences are largely directed towards the donor’s own selected non-governmental organizations.

In response to last year’s food riots, Préval vowed in a speech delivered in Creole that he would no longer subsidize foreign rice imports but would instead stimulate the production and consumption of Haitian rice. This statement was retracted in a matter of hours, and Préval announced instead that he was in fact using the country’s meager resources to subsidize imported (American) rice to reduce the retail price by 16 percent.[13] The balance of power being what it is in these complex relationships, Haiti is expected to accept without a whimper the poisoned gifts “donated” by her generous benefactors in the name of “peace” or “humanitarian aid.” I recall how in 1997, when confronted with the poor quality of a foreign “expert’s” report submitted to the Minister, a junior Canadian NGO staff person, who was supposedly working in support of Haiti’s Ministry of Environment, arrogantly interjected that “beggars cannot be choosers.”

Weapons: MINUSTAH, comprised of some reputedly ruthless forces of repression including those of Brazil, China, Jordan and the U.S. has no rival on the ground in terms of sheer fire power. MINUSTAH’s marching orders are especially clear following the “suicide” of its former military leader, Brazilian General Bacellar, who was found dead on January 7, 2006, following a night of heated exchange with members of Haiti’s business elite who were openly critical of him for being too “soft” with “slum gangs”, “bandits” or “chimères.” MINUSTAH serves the role of place holder for the defunct Haitian army (FAdH), the traditional tool by which Haiti’s elites and their foreign allies have kept the “black masses” under control.

“In the context of a country with an estimated 210,000 firearms (the vast majority of which remain securely in the hands of its ruling families and businesses)”, writes Peter Hallward, “it may be that a ‘chimère’ arsenal of around 250 handguns never posed a very worrying threat.”[14]

The dramatic increase of weapons entering Haiti by way of Florida immediately after the 2004 coup suggests that the powers in place aren’t willing to take any chances.

Class solidarity: By caricaturing the base of support for the toppled Lavalas government as a violent underclass of “chimères” (monsters), mainstream media inside and outside of Haiti helped the coup forces to gather much sympathy. The attack on Lavalas was systematic, but the casualties of the coup went far beyond a single political party. Today, there remains not a single political party in Haiti which is independent of the foreign forces. Préval himself declares that he does not belong to a political party.[15] The Lespwa platform under which he was elected is already in shambles. Hallward provides an in-depth analysis of 20 years of efforts deployed by the US and its allies to destroy Haiti’s emerging popular democracy. The devastating impact of the assassinations in the 1990s of key figures of the progressive bourgeoisie linked to Lavalas, such as the Izmery brothers, attorney Guy Malary, agronomist and journalist Jean Dominique, are key to understand the class struggle still unfolding in Haiti. The web of connections between the Port-au-Prince-based ambassadors, NGO directors, food importers and sweatshop owners, all of whom live in the same neighborhoods, send their kids to the same schools and have developed an acute sense of (Apartheid-like) community is an important element that remains to be thoroughly researched, documented and analyzed. Meanwhile, mainstream media continues to propagate the stereotypes which sustain this mentality of a “besieged class” that must be protected from “savage others.”[16]

In order to meet the class-based “responsibility to protect” they have assumed in post-Aristide Haiti, Canada, the US, the UN and the Préval Government are steadfastly enforcing undemocratic and illegal practices such as the maintenance in African exile of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the exclusion of his Fanmi Lavalas party from the Senatorial elections of April 19, 2009[17]. Clearly, rather than contribute to inter-Haitian reconciliation, social appeasement or political stability, such practices further exacerbate political tensions among a people that has heroically struggled for peace but have consistently been denied the benefit of genuine international brotherhood.

Racism: The lingering influence of white supremacist ideology in world affairs is seldom referred to in mainstream publications about Haiti. Yet, it is a key pillar of the Ottawa Initiative and the R2P doctrine on which it was predicated. Indeed, the racial features of the conflict brewing in Haiti are quite visible.

At the international level, the anti-coup and pro-Haitian sovereignty positions adopted by members of the US Congressional Black Caucus, the nations of the Caribbean and Africa, have consistently stood in sharp contrast to those in the US White House, Canada and Europe.

In Haiti, the black majority stands in opposition to a foreign-backed minority represented by the likes of white American sweatshop owner André Apaid, his brother-in-law and unsuccessful presidential candidate Charles Baker, American Rudolph Boulos, his brother Reginald Boulos, Hans Tippenhauer, (uncle and nephew of the same name), Jacques Bernard, etc.[18]

The similarities abound with the 1915 US occupation of Haiti which resulted in the imposition of a string of light-skinned, U.S.-subservient, dictators ruling Haiti: Sudre Dartiguenave, Louis Borno, Elie Lesco, Louis Eugene Roy and Stenio Vincent. As in 1915-1934, members of Haiti’s black majority resisting the humiliating occupation of their land today are deemed to be a horde of “bandits” who endanger “private property.” Back in the 20th century the private property being protected by Yankee troops was mostly American. Today, MINUSTAH’s ‘responsibility to protect’ also extends to important Canadian investments such as Gildan Active Wear’s sweatshops and Ste-Geneviève Resources’ gold exploration concessions.[19]

In a research paper titled Defining Canada’s role in Haiti, Canadian Armed Forces Major J.M. Saint-Yves writes that:

“While the solutions may sound colonial in nature it is clear that the endemic corruption of Haitian society will prevent the establishment of a sound economic solution to Haiti’s problems under Haitian control. Rather, foreign investment under foreign control is required to establish a new Haitian economy based on industries that will directly benefit the rural Haitian population”.[20]

As we will see in further detail, the “foreign control” Saint-Yves is calling for is already in place. But, it appears that the results of such racist and imperialist take-over have thus far proven to be the kind of ugly orphan that no one wants to officially claim as their own.

Documenting Canada’s Role

From the early hours of the coup, Haitian-American activist and attorney Marguerite Laurent has been a powerful and relentless voice denouncing the overthrow of the Aristide government and in documenting its consequences for thousands of people worldwide.

“If justice, and not power, prevailed in international affairs,” writes Laurent, “the coup d’état corporatocracy in Haiti, that is, the governments (US/France/Canada), international banks and rich multinational corporations, and their Haitian minions who funded the overthrow of Haiti’s elected government, would be paying reparations to the people of Haiti who lost and continue to lose loved ones, property, and limbs.”[21]

Ten days after the coup, Stockwell Day, then-foreign affairs critic for the Conservative opposition, declared in Parliament that

“… we have an elected leader Aristide. We may not have wanted to vote for him… But the (Canadian) government makes a decision that there should be a regime change. It is a serious question that we need to address. That decision was based on what criteria?”[22]

At first, the Liberal government attempted to cast doubt on whether the infamous coup-plotting meeting of January 31, 2003 ever took place. Records of a March 19, 2003 Senate hearing titled “Meeting on Regime Change in Haiti” include Senator Consiglio Di Nino inquiring about a “secret initiative referred to as the “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” that is being led by the Secretary of State for La Francophonie.” The Senator asked:

“Can the leader of the government in the Senate tell us if this meeting actually took place?” to which Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs answered: “I cannot honestly say whether this meeting took place. I have no information whatsoever on such a meeting.”[23]

Since this exchange in the House of Commons, successive governments – Liberal and Conservative alike – have steadfastly pursued the agenda developed under “The Ottawa Initiative on Haiti”, the minutes of which have yet to be made available as requested by New Democratic Party MP Svend Robinson. Vancouver-based Journalist Anthony Fenton, who eventually obtained a severely edited set of documents concerning the meeting and its aftermath under Access to Information, wrote to the author as follows:

It remains a reasonable question to ask why these full, uncensored minutes haven’t been tabled in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs. Since the coup, the same committee has heard Haiti-specific testimony on at least thirteen separate occasions. Between May and June of 2006, the Committee heard from over thirty ‘witnesses,’ in the course of conducting their ‘Study on Haiti.’ This resulted in the December 2006 tabling of the ‘Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Canada’s International Policy Put to the Test in Haiti.’

Fenton notes that, of course, no reference to a coup or Ottawa Initiative is to be found in the Report or the Government’s response.

In “Canada in Haiti: Waging War on The Poor Majority,” written with colleague Yves Engler, Fenton documents various aspects of Canada’s involvement in the 2004 coup d’état.[24] Of particular note is the role CIDA played in both the destabilization campaign that prepared the way for the coup and the PR campaign which followed. In Damming the Flood, a book published by UK-based Canadian author Peter Hallward, Canada is deemed to have executed “its client functions in rare and exemplary fashion” in the eyes of the US, the ultimate leader of the multinational coup. “Canada’s foreign minister Pierre Pettigrew reportedly met with leading figures in the anti-Aristide opposition and insurgency shortly before the February coup and, as we have seen,” Hallward continues, “CIDA provided significant financial assistance to pro-coup pressure groups like the National Coalition for Haitian Rights-Haiti (NCHR-Haiti) and SOFA.”[25]

Upon analysis, the case of CIDA’s funding to NCHR-Haiti is particularly disturbing in that it provides direct evidence of collusion between the highest level of Canadian government and a pro-coup NGO of much disrepute in the eyes of Haitians and international observers alike. NCHR-Haiti is said to have caused great harm to the cause of peace and justice in Haiti. Chiefly among NCHR-Haiti’s damages, critics often point to the wrongful jailing of Haiti’s Prime Minister Yvon Neptune for over two years on trumped-up charges that were – through the CIDA/NCHR-Haiti connection – essentially financed by Canadian tax-payers. NCHR-Haiti has been so discredited on account of the Yvon Neptune wrongful imprisonment scandal that its US-based parent organization demanded that it change its name, which has since been modified to Réseau national de défense des droits humains (RNDDH).

In his well-researched article “Faking Genocide,” Kevin Skerrett writes that:

Within days of the coup, accusations of Prime Minister Neptune’s responsibility for a major massacre, a “genocide” of 50 people, were published by a human rights organization called the National Coalition for Haitian Rights-Haiti (NCHR-Haiti)…The particular episode of violence and political killings for which Neptune was being blamed took place in the city of St. Marc on February 11 2004, during the three-week “death squad rebellion” that began February 5 in Gonaives and was then spreading through the north of Haiti. The attacks launched through this “rebellion” culminated in the coup of February 29.[26]

Documents obtained in 2007 through Anthony Fenton’s Access to Information Request (CIDA A-2005-00039) reveal that, in the name of the victims of coup violence, NCHR-Haiti submitted a $100,000 project to CIDA on Friday March 5, 2004. By Monday March 8, Mr. Yves Petillon, Chief of Canadian Cooperation at the Embassy in Haiti, received a recommendation from his staff to approve the funding and on Thursday, March 11 (within less than 5 working days from the original submission), Mr. Pétillon signed and approved the 10 page grant request. As someone with over 17 years of experience in the federal grant funding world, the author can attest that this is an unusually rapid response time.

In their March 5 funding proposal, the applicants wrote:

“Just as NCHR aided and assisted victims of the Lavalas regime, the organization has the obligation to do the same for Lavalas supporters now coming under attack.”

Yet, the same document confirms NCHR’s deliberate decision to limit the dates covered by the victims’ fund to February 9 through 29, 2004. Thus, they purposely exclude the victims of anti-Lavalas violence which peaked as the death squad “rebellion” hit Gonaives in the first days of February and in the days following Aristide’s removal on February 29, 2004. In addition, NCHR openly refused to enter the Bel Air neighborhood to investigate widespread reports of killings of unarmed Lavalas supporters by foreign occupiers in early March 2004.[27]

Two days after the coup, in an interview given to journalists Kevin Pina and Andrea Nicastro, Prime Minister Yvon Neptune declared:

“The resignation of the President is not constitutional because he did that under duress and threat. The chief of the Supreme Court was brought here into my office by representatives of the international community. I was not invited or present when he was sworn in”.[28]

In sharp contrast to the CIDA-funded reports produced by NCHR-Haiti, the above statement goes a long way to explain the true motivations behind the illegal incarceration and torment suffered by Haiti’s constitutional Prime Minister during the post-coup period when “Haitian” justice and prison systems effectively fell under Canadian control. While Mr. Neptune was being punished in jail for his refusal to condone the coup, Paul Martin went to Haiti in November 2004. This was the first ever official visit of a Canadian Prime Minister to Haiti. During his visit, Martin, who dubs himself a proud champion of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, was quoted by Agence France Press as saying that “there are no political prisoners in Haiti.”[29]

Haiti’s Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune, was eventually freed under René Préval’s presidency. His release occurred after all risk was effectively cleared that dozens of illegally incarcerated top leaders of Fanmi Lavalas would register and win the foreign controlled elections of 2006.

Months after his return to Canada, Prime Minister Martin was publicly denounced by activist Yves Engler with the infamous heckle “Martin lies, Haitians die” for his shameful behavior in Haiti. During another episode of colourful protest, Engler decorated then Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew’s hands in the red of Haitian blood. For his efforts, Engler ended up spending several days in jail.[30]

What is becoming clearer is the hugely embarrassing contradiction between the multi-million dollar contributions which the Canadian government boasts having made to help fix the Haitian police and justice systems and the fact that said systems are deemed by several independent studies to be in much worse shape several years after the coup. The suggestion that this “failure” is solely that of Haitians also falls flat in the face of scrutiny. Consider the bold statements made by Chief Superintendent David Beer, Director General of International Policing at the RCMP at the April 3, 2008 meeting of The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development:

“Mr. Chair, I think the committee might be interested to know that although our numbers are down to a certain degree in the total number of almost 1,900 serving police officers, in the mission Canada continues to have very key roles. Indeed, Canada holds the position of deputy commissioner of operations, senior mentor and advisor, and senior mentoring unit for the police for the city of Port-au-Prince. We are in charge of the Bureau de la lutte contre le trafic des stupéfiants, the counter-narcotics unit. We’re also in charge of the anti-kidnapping unit. We also contribute to border management, the academy, and la formation de la police nationale. Also, we’re involved in a financial integrity and assets management project within the Haitian National Police. Finally, Mr. Chair, the vetting and registration of the HNP is also a responsibility of a Canadian police officer”. [31]

The conspicuous exchange of funds between CIDA and NCHR-Haiti which financed Mr. Neptune’s ordeal may never make the front pages of Maclean’s Magazine or the Globe and Mail. Generally speaking, Canadians meet with great surprise and disbelief the recurring corruption scandals involving their political elite. One of the cases currently in front of the courts involves former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who is accused of having accepted bribes in cash, while in office, from German arms dealer Karlheinz Shreiber. Many are shocked by the case. However, that the Mulroney-Shreiber deal in question allegedly involved the purchase of weapons destined to “peacekeeping” has attracted no special attention. If anything, it seems, Brian Mulroney stands to benefit from the “peacekeeping” connection that he volunteered about his dealings with the infamous arms dealer.

Peace Be Unto Them . . . With Tanks and Bullets

In fact, bloody foreign interventions dubbed ‘peacekeeping’ enjoy such a positive aura in Canada that para-governmental bodies such as FOCAL are openly calling for Canada to engage ever deeper in the imperialist adventure that is The Ottawa Initiative.

Source: www.focal.ca

It is this aura which inspires military figures such as Major Michael D. Ward to write that

“strong commitment to the sovereignty [and] independence … of Haiti is a crucial barrier to the international engagement required to rebuild and reform the Haitian state.”[32]

Such crude and condescending statements explain why the North-South Institute cautioned, as early as October 2005, that

“The Canadian government’s justification for the 2004 intervention in Haiti, without open debate from an R2P perspective, has damaged the R2P campaign, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.”[33]

The CIDA-funded think tank proceeds to lament how ‘peace-building’ in Haiti has been compromised by de facto collaboration with paramilitary leaders responsible for past human rights violations.

In the very document produced by the R2P Commission, it was boldly highlighted how governments engaged in such interventions must prove themselves to be very agile at spinning and controlling information.

“The key to mobilizing international support,” it states, “is to mobilize domestic support, or at least neutralize domestic opposition.”

Further, it highlights the crucial role that government-funded entities (wrongly referred to as ‘non-governmental agencies’ – NGOs) have to play in this regard:

“NGOs have a crucial and ever increasing role, in turn, in contributing information, arguments and energy to influencing the decision-making process, addressing themselves both directly to policy makers and indirectly to those who, in turn, influence them.”[34]

It thus falls to heavily-funded NGOs to ensure that racism is seen as humanism and imperialism as peacekeeping – no matter the native body count. It is hardly surprising, then, that in the eyes of people of African-descent worldwide, Canada’s “good” image has suffered a considerable blow as a result of the 2004 coup and its aftermath.

Commenting on the food riots that rocked Haiti in April 2008, veteran journalist John Maxwell, wrote in the Jamaica Observer:

“Today, and especially for the last few weeks, the starving people in Haiti have been trying to get the world to listen to their anguish and misery…Mr Bush and Mr Colin Powell and a mixed gaggle of French and Canadian politicians had decided that freedom and independence were too good for the black people of Haiti. Lest you think I am being racist, there is abundant evidence that the conspiracy against Haiti was inspired by racial hatred and prejudice…I have gone into this before and I will not return to it today . . . Suffice it to say that the US, Canada and France, acting on behalf of the so-called ‘civilised world’, decided on the basis of lies that, as in the case of Iraq, a free and independent people had no business being free and independent when their freedom and independence was seen to threaten the economic interest of the richest people in Haiti and, by extension, the wealthiest countries in the world”.[35]

Conclusion

According to Walter Dorn, there exist two groups of advocates of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

“The idealist or internationalist school often clashes with the realpolitik school, whose members are usually called realists (although not necessarily realistic),” says the military professor. “Canadian realists hold that Canada’s contributions do not arise from the purity of our souls or national benevolence, but because of basic national interest.” Dorn tells us that, for the realists, “Canada’s large contributions to the UN’s successive missions in Haiti are also explained in part by a desire to assist the US in the continental backyard.”

Speaking about his own ‘civilized world’s responsibility to protect ‘others’ in early 2003, then-Minister for la Francophonie Denis Paradis was quoted by journalist Michel Vastel as follows:

“I do not want to end up like Roméo Dallaire…” “Time is running out because, it is estimated that Haiti’s population could reach 20 million in 2009,” observed Vastel, before proceeding to quote Minister Paradis describing Haiti’s 99 percent African population as “a time bomb which must be stopped immediately! ”[36]

It is frightening for a historically-conscious person, especially one of African descent, to observe how the logic of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘White man’s burden’ emanates so easily from the minds of high-ranking Canadian officials and intellectuals, and then is translated into foreign policy that is implemented with brute force. As Sherene Razack writes in Black Threats, White Knights,

“Peacekeeping today is a kind of war, a race war waged by those who constitute themselves as civilized, modern and democratic against those who are constituted as savage, tribal and immoral.”[37]

A report issued by the International Commission argues that

“there is much direct reciprocal benefit to be gained in an interdependent, globalized world where nobody can solve all their own problems: my country’s assistance for you today in solving your neighbourhood refugee and terrorism problem, might reasonably lead you to be more willing to help solve my environmental or drugs problem tomorrow.”[38]

One is indeed well advised to ask the crucial question: What are they talking about as far as R2P is concerned? This so-called responsibility is to protect who from what? Are soldiers being mobilized to protect vulnerable populations from massive human rights horrors or to protect the interests of world elites from threats such as Haiti’s perceived black “time bomb”, or Europe from the advances of the wretched of the earth arriving by way of Morroco and Spain?

While seeking the answer to that pivotal question, I am mindful of the shocking statement made by the Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, in front of myself as well as several other witnesses at Haiti’s Hotel Montana, on December 31, 2003:

“The real problem with Haiti” said Luigi Enaudi, “is that the ‘International Community’ is so screwed up & divided that they are actually letting Haitians run Haiti.”

Less than two months after Einaudi uttered these words, US Marines entered the residence of Haiti’s president, while Canadian RCMP soldiers secured the airport to facilitate the coup and occupation of Haiti. Since that fateful night, Haitians are no longer running Haiti and the bloodbath the foreign invaders claim to have intervened to avoid has reached unprecedented proportions, with full involvement of the UN forces engaged in what can only be defined as class and race warfare. Meanwhile, the world still awaits a serious report on the circumstances surrounding the death of U.N. Commander Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar, at Hotel Montana, on January 7, 2006.

“there is a limit to how much we can constantly say no to the political masters in Washington. All we had was Afghanistan to wave. On every other file we were offside. Eventually we came onside on Haiti, so we got another arrow in our quiver.”

Bill Graham, Former Canadian Foreign Minister in January 2007 interview cited in Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang, The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (Toronto, ON: Viking Canada, 2007), pp. 126-27

What Should Canadian Policy Towards Haiti be? – beyond figurehead politics… making a real paradigm shift!

Contrary to the IMF style of “aid”, the Cuba-Venezuela model is, in essence, what activists for peace with justice have been advocating for several years. Unfortunately, successive Canadian governments have chosen to ignore this message and, instead, have multiplied workshops, conferences, meetings (usually, with little or no Haitian participation) to coordinate even more “aid” to Haiti. This is done in blatant disregard of the evidence that Haiti has, for far too long, been “aided to death” by its self-appointed foreign friends.

The appalling poverty found in Haiti is no recent phenomenon due to “bad governance,” as is often posited by apologists for the violent conquest of this continent. The endemic vulnerability of the African and First Nations populations of the Americas stems from 500 years of inhumane colonial and neo-colonial policies. A strategy consisting in piling up money and weapons, while patching up a brick school, a dispensary and a few prisons in return for shameless waving of countless Canadian flags, is no solution at all.

Commenting the current world hunger crisis, Jeffrey Sachs suggested that the long-term solution involves putting brakes on the U.S. ethanol industry, creating a $5-billon fund for agriculture, and financing better research and development for crop technologies in the developing world.[39] Laudable goals, indeed! However, judging from the Haitian experience, governments of enriched societies who built their wealth on racial slavery, theft of indigenous land and shameful trickery of the world financial system, can hardly be counted upon to make such a radical 180 degree conversion. It will necessitate a mass mobilization of peoples worldwide to force these urgently needed changes. Reversing the situation requires us all to force the enriched states to adopt new policies and approaches, rather than rehashing the same old racist practices, masked or not, with clever and cynical humanitarian rhetoric. Their challenge is to first stop doing harm, and then repair the damage already done. Our challenge is to consistently practice genuine people-to-people solidarity.

NOTES

[1] “World Sees Canada as Tolerant, Generous Nation,” Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research (November 12, 2006).

[2] Walter Dorn, “Canadian Peacekeeping: Proud Tradition, Strong Future?” Canadian Foreign Policy, Vol. 12, No. 2, (Fall 2005)

[3] Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) website [www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/EN/JUD-12912349-NLX]

[4] Michael Petrou, “Haiti: Are we helping?,” Mclean’s (April 7, 2008)

[5] See Marguerite Laurent, “It’s Neither Hope nor Progress when the International Community is Running Haiti,” Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, [www.margueritelaurent.com] and Aaron Lakoff, “The Politics of Brutality in Haiti: Canada, the UN and “collateral damage,” Dominion Paper (January 21, 2006).

[6] Anthony Fenton and Dru Oja Jay, “Declassifying Canada in Haiti” Global Research [www.globalresearch.ca]; and Canada Haiti Action Network website [www.canadahaitiaction.ca]

[7]Report No. 30882-HT, “Program Document of TheInternational Development Association to the Executive Directors for an Economic Governance Reform Operation”, World Bank, (December 10, 2004)

[8] DeWayne Wickham, “Payoffs to Haiti’s renegade soldiers won’t buy peace,” USA Today (January 3, 2005)

[9] Jean Saint-Vil, “Please Fix Canada’s Policy Towards Haiti,” Letter to Minister Peter McKay, (May 29, 2008) [www. archivex-ht.com]

[10] Jean Saint-Vil. “New Canadian Premier Gets Sound Advice on Haiti,” Letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, (February 6, 2006) [www. windowsonhaiti.com]

[11] Five LDCs — Haiti, Cape Verde, Samoa, Gambia and Somalia — have lost more than half their university-educated professionals in recent years because these professionals have moved to industrialized countries in search of better working and living conditions. UNCTAD, “Least Developed Countries Report 2007: Knowledge, Technological Learning and Innovation for Development” [www.unctad.org] (July 19, 2007)

[12] President René Préval’s Inaugural Speech, Haiti, (May 14, 2006) [www.margueritelaurent.com]

[13] The New York Times appears to have been better connected to the real powers running the show in Haiti. Because of its precipitous attribution of the price reduction measure to Mr. Préval, the Times issued a correction note dated April 10, 2008, in which one reads “A picture caption last Thursday about rioting in Haiti over high food prices misstated President Rene Préval’s position on the issue. He urged Haitians to become agriculturally self-sufficient; he did not say he would urge Haiti’s congress to cut taxes on imported food.” See “Haiti’s President Tries to Halt Crisis Over Food,” New York Times (April 10, 2008).

[14] Cited in Robert Muggah, “Securing Haiti’s Transition,” Small Arms Survey Occasional Paper no. 14 (October 2005)

[15] In interview with Haitian President René Préval, March 2006, Ottawa.

[16] “An Inside Look at Haiti’s Business Elite, An Interview with Patrick James,” Multinational Monitor (January/February 1995)

[17] HAITI: Fanmi Lavalas Banned, Voter Apprehension Widespread, By Jeb Sprague, IPS (april 17, 2009)

[18] Jean Saint-Vil, “Haiti’s ‘Ambassador’ to Canada” Znet (June 9, 2005) [www.zmag.com]

[19] Reed Lindsay, “Haiti’s future glitters with gold,” Toronto Star (July 21, 2007)

[20] Maj. J.M. Saint-Yves, “Defining Canada’s Role in Haiti”, (Toronto: Canadian Forces College Master of Defence Studies Research Project, 2006), [http://wps.cfc.forces.gc.ca]

[21] Marguerite Laurent, “Debt Breeds Dependency Equals Foreign & Corporate Domination” [www.margueritelaurent.com], (January 4, 2005)

[22] Hansard,House of Commons, 37th Parliament, 3rd Session (March 10, 2004)

[23] Hansard, Debates of the Senate, 2nd Session, 37th Parliament,
 (March 19, 2003)

[24] “Using NGOs to Destroy Democracy and the Canadian Military Connection,” excerpt from: Canada in Haiti Waging War on the Poor Majority by Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton. Fernwood Publishing, 2005

[25] Peter Hallward, “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment”, Verso Books, 2007

[26] Kevin Skerrett, “Faking Genocide: Canada’s Role in the Persecution of Yvon Neptune,” Znet (June 23, 2005) [www.zmag.org]

[27] Tom Reeves, “Haiti’s Disappeared,” Znet [www.Zmag.org] (May 5, 2004)

[28] Kevin Pina and Andrea Nicastro, “Interview with Prime Minister Yvon Neptune,” Haiti Action (March 2, 2004) [www.haitiaction.net]

[29] “Canada in Haiti for long run, says PM,” Caribbean Net News (November 19, 2004)

[30] Marcella Adey and Jean Saint-Vil, “Human Rights worker arrested for heckling Prime Minister Paul Martin” globalresearch.ca (December 4, 2005)

[31] Hansard, 39th Parliament, 2nd Session, Number 021 “Evidence” Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, (April 3, 2008)

[32] Major Michael T. Ward, “The Case for International Trusteeship in Haiti” Canadian Forces Journal, vol. 7, no. 3 (Autumn 2006)

[33] Stephen Baranyi, “What kind of peace is possible in the post-9/11 era?” North-South Institute , (October 2005)

[34] ICISS (IBID)

[35] John Maxwell, “Is Starvation Contagious?” Jamaica Observer (April 13, 2008)

[36] Michel Vastel, “Haiti mise en tutelle par l’ONU?” L’Actualité, (March 15, 2003)

[37] Sherene H. Razack, “Black Threats & White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeing, and the New Imperialism”, University of Toronto Press, (2004)

[38] ICISS, “Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty” (page 71), [www.iciss.ca] (December 2001)

[39] Sinclair Stewart, “Facing a food crisis, optimist finds hope in the dismal science,” The Globe and Mail (Wednesday April 30, 2008)

According to the director of the Kazakh MFA Department for Asia and Africa Aidarbek Tumatov, the Astana process of signing a new memorandum on tensions de-escalation zones will allow to stop bloodshed in Syria and initiate a new political dialogue.

The main points

According to the document at our disposal, 4 zones of the escalation of tensions are to be created in Idlib governorate, to the north of Homs, Eastern Ghouta and in the south part of Syria. The exact coordinates of the zones will be determined by guarantor states May 22. The working group will be created within five days.

It is expected that the usage of arms will be prohibited inside the zones and the humanitarian organizations will be provided with all the necessary assistance. The measures on restoring urban infrastructure, water supply and other life support systems will be also taken.

Along the de-escalation zones borders it is planned to create lines of demarcation to prevent ceasefire violations. There also should be checkpoints for civilians, delivery of goods and humanitarian aid.

It was also said that Iran, Russia and Turkey act as a guarantor of peace and security in the region and at the same time support the territorial integrity and independence of Syria.

Opposition’s view

Inside Syria Media Center tried to find out opposition’s point of view on this issue.

On May 12 the much-heralded QLINE will be launched along Woodward Avenue in the city of Detroit.

This transportation vehicle looks like a hybrid of both a street car and an extended bus which operates on rails.

The project has been touted by the corporate media as the latest edition in a number of other business ventures which ostensibly represent the renaissance of the city.

However, if this effort had undergone any serious analysis, evaluation and debate among the people of Detroit it would have never been funded at the level of the official cost of $140 million. Any debate and electoral referendum in favor of the QLINE would have failed if the desire was to meet the needs of the people of Detroit.

This QLINE scheme was ten years in the making when it was first broached in 2007 under the administration of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. There were persistent funding shortfalls until the federal government under the Department of Transportation, along with the State of Michigan agreed to provide assistance.

Nonetheless, it was the same federal government which reduced subsidies to municipalities in 2009 at the height of the Great Recession which brought massive cuts in public transportation services throughout the metropolitan Detroit area. The Southeast Michigan Regional Transportation Authority (SMART) in response to federal cutbacks slashed routes which would take people from the central city to the suburbs and back. Within the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT), whole routes were eliminated and dozens of bus lines were rescheduled to run less frequently providing no services at certain times of the day.

Such a policy does not provide the people of the city, documented as being the poorest of any other major urban center in the United States, with the public transport needs to travel to work, for shopping, medical visits and other necessities. Most of the people who are new residents in the Midtown and Downtown areas of Detroit own automobiles or utilize Uber, Lift and Zipcar.

In addition to the QLINE, there is the new hockey and basketball arena owned by Ilitch Holdings through the granting of free land, massive tax breaks and the transferal of public revenue to private interests. The Ilitch operation located on the edges of downtown was a totally unnecessary project since Joe Louis Arena on the riverfront was perfectly suited for the same sports activities. Joe Louis Arena, named after the legendary African American boxing champion of the 1930s and 1940s, is scheduled to be demolished with its land turned over to a private bond holding group which was involved in the forcing of the City of Detroit into financial ruin.

To build the arena which is to be accompanied by another entertainment and housing district for the partaking of wealthy white residents who are expected to re-locate and frequent these establishments, thousands of people were systematically forced out of the area previously known as the Cass Corridor. The Ilitch Holdings arena-entertainment complex is uncritically praised as a hallmark of the commitment of the billionaire ruling class to the rebuilding of the city.

The City of Detroit’s first white corporate-imposed mayor in 40 years, Mike Duggan, announced in late April that there was a new acquisition of land in the Cass Corridor, now often referred to as Midtown by the local business and government-funded news outlets, to the tune of $77 million in investments to construct a housing complex. Undoubtedly, if the trend continues for Midtown and Downtown apartments, lofts and condominiums, the prices are far above the level of affordability for the majority of the African American people who constitute over 80 percent of the population.

Although the Duggan publicity narrative about the latest Cass Corridor/Midtown site is that the location is vacant after the closing years before of the Wigle Recreation Center, its abandonment being a manifestation of the economic and social downturn in Detroit, a group says that it has already rejuvenated the location through a sporting association.

According to the Detroit News,

“The site is the home of ‘the Wig,’ a DIY skatepark built by Community Push three years ago, when [Derrick] Dykas says the area surrounding the Wigle Recreation Center was in disrepair. At that point, the center had been shut down for almost a decade, and left in its place was tall grass and trash.” (May 1)

This same report goes on to quote this local activist as saying,

“When we came and started building, we were picking up dirty needles, condoms, and there were kids that were right out here playing on recess while there’s guys shooting up in the building next door,’ Dykas said, pointing to a school across the street. We got them out of here. We made this place safe again.”

Such an occurrence as this illustrates clearly that none of the projects being promoted by the leading corporate interests now effectively running the municipal government are designed to encourage African Americans, Latinos, Middle Easterners and working class people in general to remain in the city. At present tens of thousands of owner-occupied homes across Detroit and Wayne County are slated for tax foreclosure.

Moreover, there is no documented proof that the proliferation of a small number of prestige projects can actually generate sustainable economic growth. Beyond the construction of the arena and high-priced housing units how many people will be able to benefits from the profits gained through the exorbitant rents charged by the landlords who are given tax breaks in such operations?

Poverty and Displacement: By-products of a Failed Policy

Despite the propaganda of the Duggan administration and his corporate backers, Detroit is still the most underdeveloped major municipality in the United States. The decline of the automotive industry (1975-2009) and its subsequent packaged-bankruptcy and restructuring, has not benefited the people of Detroit as a whole.

Left: Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan

Car transportation was deliberately promoted in the city for decades. In 1956, the remaining street car lines which at one time had provided citywide and regional transportation links were pulled up at the aegis of the automotive industry. Nothing was ever implemented as an alternative for the needs of the working population and poor except the insufficient bus lines which have suffered from neglect and downsizing for years.

These factors are compounded by the predatory municipal lending practices of the financial institutions that ensnarled the declining population in unrepayable loans and interests-rate swap swindles. In 2013, under the undemocratic imposition of emergency management, the City of Detroit was forced into bankruptcy by a corporate law firm, Jones Day, in contravention of the electoral will of people throughout the state of Michigan.

Over 600 people with employment, residential and business interests in the city filed objections during the initial bankruptcy court proceedings before Judge Steven Rhodes in 2013. Yet Rhodes continued with the farcical process further transferring wealth from pensioners, the City of Detroit public assets and its homeowners to the same banks which engineered the economic crises.

Transportation, Housing and Education: The Keys to a People’s Revitalization

The Motor City Freedom Riders (MCFR), a grassroots organization which has advocated the development of a genuine regional transportation system in metropolitan Detroit, recently called for a demonstration on the opening day of service for the QLINE. MCFR will gather at the northern starting point of the QLINE on Woodward Avenue near Grand Boulevard early on the morning of May 12 to expose the utter waste of public resources and lack of practicability of such a venture.

In a May 2 statement issued by MCFR it emphasizes that,

“the region’s political and economic elite is breaking out the champagne to celebrate the QLINE, but they’ve shown little interest in a new push for real regional transit that will address the transit crisis and make a positive difference for bus riders and the broader public. If they refuse to act, we will…. The transit crisis is an issue which intersects with so many others: education, environmental health, access to employment, disability justice, economic development, climate change, racial equality, and independence for our elders, and so much more.”

When there is inadequate public transportation and a burgeoning housing crisis this can only lead to further population decline. During the census period of 2000-2010, the city of Detroit lost approximately 237,000 residents, one-quarter of its people. This was largely due to the elimination of industrial jobs and the targeting of the majority African American neighborhoods for predatory mortgage lending resulting in 100,000 foreclosures after 2006.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs has waged a campaign for the last nine years to halt both mortgage and property tax foreclosures in Detroit and around the state of Michigan. Federal Hardest Hit Funds, the pittance of the Congressional bailout monies allocated ostensibly to the people in late 2008, are not being utilized in Detroit to keep working families in the neighborhoods. These resources are misallocated for demolition purposes through the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA), a supposed quasi-public entity which is under Department of Justice investigation based upon its corrupt practices. The Duggan administration has pressured the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) to redirect all funds from the Hardest Hit program to demolition furthering the displacement of Black and working class people. (www.moratorium-mi.org)

A restructured K-12 educational system transforming the Detroit Public Schools into a Detroit Community School District has not resolved the deterioration which under state-control for more than a decade resulted in the closure of over 250 buildings and the elimination of thousands of employees. There are more for-profit charter schools providing largely sub-standard education to Detroit youth than the public system.

It is impossible to revitalize a municipality without quality education being available to the families living there. The majority of students attending charter and public schools come from households which fall below the poverty line.

Until the questions of housing, public transportation, education and water services are seriously addressed there cannot be a genuine reconstruction of the city of Detroit. As an edict of the Duggan administration’s policy, some 18,000 households are scheduled for the termination of their water services over the coming weeks.

The policy orientation of Duggan is weighed heavily in favor of the wealthy conglomerates controlled by the likes of Dan Gilbert, Roger Penske and the Ilitch family. The banks work in conjunction with the local capitalist class to perpetually disempower the African American majority.

This reality is mirrored across the U.S. where increasing amounts of the wealth of American society is utilized for the enrichment of the corporate elites. Only a redistribution of wealth and empowerment of the working and oppressed peoples will remedy the situation creating a viable system of living and governance in the urban areas.

In October, 2011, Canadian peace and human rights activist Ken Stone attended a conference in Iran dealing with Apartheid, Israel’s illegal oppression of Palestinians.

In January, 2012, Stone wrote an op-ed for the Hamilton Spectator, in which he criticized the Canadian government for demonizing Iran, which the Canadian government continues to falsely describe as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Subsequently, in January 2013, two Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officers made an unannounced visit to Stone’s home, questioning him about his trip to Iran. Stone felt anxious and intimidated. He felt that the visit amounted to a suppression of his Constitutional rights of freedom of expression. Consequently, he filed a complaint with the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC).

SIRC dismissed Stone’s complaint, but recommended that the spy agency revisit its interviewing policy, and chided the officers for their sloppiness with note-taking.

Stone, for his part, takes solace from the fact that, despite the dismissal, the case highlighted for a broader Canadian audience, that talking to agents in the aforementioned circumstances is voluntary.

Canadian peace and human rights activist, Ken Stone

All of this was covered by Canada’s mainstream media. But the broader issue of the irony of the incident was entirely omitted.

The irony is this. Whereas Canada continues to falsely condemn Iran as being a state sponsor of terrorism, Canada itself is a state sponsor of terrorism.

Stone explains in an article, dated November 12, 2013, entitled Canada’s Harper Government Supports Covert Mercenary War On Syria, Funds al Qaeda Affiliated Groups that

if CSIS is looking to find state sponsors of terrorism, they should look much closer to home – in Ottawa, in fact, at 26 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s residence. Under the Harper government, Canada played a significant role in organizing the proxy war for regime change in Syria, in which terrorist mercenaries from over 80 countries (including Canada) have taken part. In December 2011, for example, the Canadian ambassador to Tunisia, Glenn Davidson, was tasked with organizing the pre-conference to the founding conference of the so-called “Friends of Syria” Group of Countries (FSG).

The FSG was founded a few months later in Tunis in February 2012, with Hilary Clinton sitting in the front row. The FSG was the international group of countries that organized, recruited for, co-ordinated, and funded the proxy war for regime change in Syria, which resulted in nearly half a million deaths and widespread destruction inside of Syria. In June 2013, the Harper government hosted a meeting of the Economic Sanctions Subcommittee of the FSG in Ottawa. That meeting, which Canada chaired, created a regime of broad international economic sanctions against Syria, which were illegal because the sanctions did not have the approval of the United Nations Security Council. However, the FSG illegal sanctions were very effective. They rendered hundreds of thousands of Syrians jobless, put the price of food out of reach of working people, and turned hordes of Syrians into refugees.

The Harper government also hosted representatives of the so-called Free Syrian Army in Ottawa and foreign minister, John Baird, appeared several times abroad in public with FSA “rebel” leaders.

The FSA referenced in the above passage are sectarian terrorists. In 2013, they and their al Qaeda counterparts occupied and committed atrocities in the ancient, primarily Christian town of Maaloula Syria, and in the same year they committed genocide in Latakia, Syria, fighting shoulder to shoulder with other al Qaeda affiliated terrorists. “Moderate” terrorists never existed in Syria.

Mainstream media (MSM) messaging about Syria amounts to criminal war propaganda, and Canada’s direct support and sponsorship for all of the terrorists infesting Syria — where there were none prior to the West’s dirty war on this non-belligerent country – constitutes the supreme crime of War of Aggression according to Nuremberg Standards.

Without a doubt, Canadians’ freedom to express – and learn — the truth is almost completely suppressed in this country. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya writes in The Globalization of NATO that

(t)he mainstream media is a vital instrument for inundating society with the views of the most powerful groups and organizations. It helps shape the views of what the sociologist C. Wright Mills has termed a mass society, one where most members are not involved in expressing their opinions as outputs, but only receiving opinions as instructions and as a form of social programming …

Stone’s case presents a window through which we can better perceive the blindness that the warmongering elites are imposing on us through their apparatus of social programming and deception.

It is sad that a nation defined by a great revolution has come to this: the docile copycat of a pseudo-ideological struggle at play elsewhere between globalism and nationalism. It is sad that in the country of Danton, Mirabeau, Montesquieu and de Gaulle millions have become resigned to their fate and submissive like farm animals. It is sad when lions behave like sheep, but it doesn’t have to be that way in France. The French electoral system and its two-round presidential election gave citizens a lot of options for their big-ticket item.

Yet, after the first round, from either impulses dictated by anger and fear, or some convoluted Byzantine calculus, the French people have once again shot themselves in the foot and embraced their own collective submission in the old adage: plus cela change, plus c’est la même chose. It seems that, regardless of the country, the handful of kingmakers of the global corporate elite finds ways to con the citizenry into dead-end choices, ways to breed an eternal status quo that serves their interests and places their servile politicians in apparent positions of power. In a global economic system where eight men own as much as one half the world population, income and wealth have been siphoned upward at an alarming rate. Banker Nathan de Rothschild once bluntly said,

“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”

Anti-establishment Rothschild man

One of Emmanuel Macron’s keys to success in the first round of the French presidential election was to pose as a political outsider. Let us keep in mind that he was a member of the Socialist Party and also Minister of Economy and Finance for two years in the unpopular Hollande administration. As a matter of fact, he was groomed at the exclusive École Normale d’Administration (ENA), which is the hallmark of almost all the so-called French top public servants. Pretending to be an outsider is his best campaign trick. In 2016, Macron shrewdly did a bait-and-switch and started his own En Marche! Party, to distance himself from Hollande. One cannot help but notice the Orwellian irony of a former Rothschild banker’s party name echoing a verse and the mood of the revolutionary song “La Marseillaise.”

As expressed by last year’s movement Nuit Debout, France, like most countries worldwide, is fed up with its conventional political class. The French term raz le bol captures this notion best and also implies that, at any given point, spillovers will occur in the form of social unrest.

Many in the international press, for the sake of analogy and simplification, compare Emmanuel Macron to Hillary Clinton and Marine Le Pen to Donald Trump but, as a matter of fact, Macron’s trajectory is similar to that of Trump in the sense of pretending to be anti-establishment and not to belong to the conventional political class. Like Trump, Macron’s recipe for success is the made-up charm of the fake political outsider. Of course Macron is purely an establishment tool, a company man just like Trump, and he will be France’s next president, handpicked by the Rothschild family. The country’s political system has become moribund and democracy not much more than a con game. Case in point: regardless of the French people’s fate, the global financial market was already salivating after the first round at the prospect of a Macron victory.

Vichy patriot

After five years of the corporate technocrat fake-socialist François Hollande’s presidency, many in France were hoping that Jean-Luc Mélenchon would be in the second round against Marine Le Pen to give the country a real-left political option.

image left Macron and Hollande

But Mélenchon came in fourth, behind Fillon, Le Pen, and Macron respectively third, second, and first. What was remarkable about the French presidential first round is that the top four candidates came within less than a four-percent margin bracket in the polls, in a range of 19 to 23 percent of the votes. The third-placed François Fillon has already urged his supporters to vote Macron. The leader of La France Insoumise, Mélenchon, who has denounced the elections as a charade and said that France was on its way to become a banana republic, came up short of endorsing Macron but said that he would vote in the second round and that it will be under no circumstance for Le Pen. It happened before in France: a sort of union sacrée is shaping up to prevent the Front National’s candidate from getting elected.

Many French people feel that they now have a moribund democracy, at least as far as the executive branch of government, which has been reduced to a lesser of two evils scenario all too familiar to American voters. It is incredibly ironic that Marine Le Pen has lately styled herself after General de Gaulle, and even called her supporters patriots, after shamelessly seeking some form of foreign endorsement from both Moscow and Washington. Le Pen’s fans in Russia and the United States, as well as her sometimes gullible French supporters, should remember that the Front National ancestor, called Action Française, was the ideological force behind the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy in the 1930s. Older generations of French people will not forget that her father and former Front National leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was on the side of the military junta that wanted to topple the French Republic in a coup during the war in Algeria.

Marine Le Pen has said that

“Macron is the candidate of the oligarchy and I am the candidate of the people.”

She is right about Macron, but wrong in her case, as she still represents La France aux Français, a notion with a clearly noxious Vichy aftertaste. Le Pen’s fundamental xenophobia makes her a candidate of exclusion in a country that has become a racial and, to some extent, a cultural melting pot brought in the form of the poetic justice of colonialism in reverse. One look at the French national football team, largely composed of players with African or North-African ethnic roots, is a testimony of France’s multi-racial reality. Le Pen might drape herself under the patriotic tricolor, but she still exudes the stench of the World War II pro-German Vichy government.

Ideological con: globalism versus nationalism

The French presidential election is getting worldwide attention like no other French election ever before. This is because it superficially opposes the Rothschild-certified globalist Macron to the nationalist Le Pen. In what seems to be the universal political debate of our times, the nationalist alternative right, which supported Trump and now supports Le Pen, fails to understand that you can only be anti-globalist if you are also anti-capitalist, or at least anti-corporate imperialist. In the US the remaining Trump supporters cheer for Le Pen and attack Macron. This is a conveniently exotic distraction from the fact that Trump has fully embraced the neocon globalist ideology of his predecessors and is therefore getting high marks from the likes of John McCain and Paul Wolfowitz. It’s amazing what a few bombs dropped randomly on Syria and Afghanistan can do for a president’s popularity!

The victim of the global con game is democracy itself, an electoral chance to the real left. Far-right nationalists are on the rise worldwide because they have adopted an anti-globalist discourse partially stolen from the left, and also because the global domination of finance has become so extreme that it is now a form of dictatorship. Macron, who will be elected president of France, is a servant of this global corporate imperialism, but so is Trump despite his original nationalistic and non-interventionist rhetoric of a supposed outsider. Plus cela change, plus c’est la même chose, until la France Insoumise decides to forget the ballot box and take its revolt into the streets.

Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire. Photographs one, two and four by Thierry Ehrmann; three, five and six by Jeanne Menjoulet; and eight by Christian Bachellier.

The French presidential election being contested by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen has provided analysts with much to ponder over the direction offered by two candidates who are presenting themselves to the electorate as non-establishment outsiders.

Points of demarcation over foreign and domestic policy often posit Macron and Le Pen respectively as  representing “internationalism” versus “nationalism” and of “centrism” against “neo-fascism”.

Elections also provide a platform for grappling with national existential anxieties. The French nation is one which is perennially involved in soul-searching; of presenting a rationale for its nationhood and the ‘mission’ it has within the global community of nations and cultures. Such soul-searching has included periods in history concerned with the ceding of global power and influence to the Anglo-Saxon nations, the experience of defeat and temporary occupation by Germany during World War Two, the loss of empire and more recently the impact on national identity of immigration from non-white and particularly Muslim lands.

Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron

One constant in these episodes of national meditation has been the matter of re-asserting pride in La Grande Nation. The restoration of national pride as well as the reassertion of national independence formed the backdrop to President de Gaulle’s resistance to the irresistible rise of the American empire which saw de Gaulle evicting Nato from its original headquarters in Paris, removing France from the military command hierarchy of the United States dominated Nato and maintaining a nuclear deterrence capability independent of America.

But Gallic pride has often blinded its people to facts and realities. For instance, the Gaullist-inspired narrative of the French Resistance having liberated France during the Second World War has been definitively exposed as a myth. It was pride and with the objective of underscoring her nationalist credentials that Marine Le Pen recently claimed that France was not to blame for the round-up and deportation of Jews during that war.

Her statement contradicted the 2009 ruling of a French high court which held France

“responsible for damages caused by actions which did not result from the occupiers’ direct orders, but facilitated deportation from France of people who were victims of anti-Semitic persecution.”

The disconnect between national sentiment and reality continues to the present day.

While many French may wish to perceive themselves as an independent nation only somewhat impeded by obligations imposed by its membership of the European Union, the truth is that France has lost a great deal of control over its foreign policy.

President Nicolas Sarkozy

For one, France’s decision under President Nicolas Sarkozy to reintegrate into all structures of Nato in 2009 has effectively put it under direct American influence. Far from representing, as Sarkozy put it, a

“strengthening of our sovereignty”,

France’s mutation to a certain kind of vassalage was exposed in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis.

An American stage-managed coup d’etat on Russia’s border created the conditions for a Russian reaction -the annexation of Crimea- which was interpreted as Russian aggression; an act that warranted the imposition of sanctions.

The imposition of American-directed sanctions under the auspices of the European Union forced France to cancel a multi-billion dollar sale of warships to the Russians. Sanctions have also proved harmful to French agriculture. In early 2017, the former forerunner in the presidential race, Francois Fillion declared the regime of anti-Russian sanctions to be “pointless”.

An exchange between Macron and Le Pen during the recent debate in the forthcoming presidential run-off also provides evidence of an inability on the part of many of the French to be self-critical and to appraise the realities of their subservience to external interests.

When Le Pen accused Macron of being weak in regard to the threat of Jihadists in the midst of the country -vowing that she would make France safer by expelling all foreign suspects- Macron, not unreasonably, responded by noting that a great many terrorists were in fact French and that France needed to examine its own conscience for letting that happen.

Much of the media viewed that as an own goal by Macron which perceived Macron to be making France as responsible for the situation as the terrorists. The public reaction was as unfavourable to Macron as was the reaction to his comments made earlier this year castigating France for its colonial history in Algeria which he described as a “crime against humanity”.

If the French are still resistant to the idea of acknowledging responsibility for facilitating the deportation of Jews and waging brutal wars in their colonial territories to suppress the right to self-determination, they appear equally resistant in present times in acknowledging their part in facilitating the United States-led wars of aggression in the era of the so-called ‘war on terror’.

After taking the lead in protesting the US-led invasion of Iraq which was accomplished under the false pretext of removing Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, France resumed a role of supporting the United States in a number of ill-fated military adventures which have only served to stir the cause of jihadism.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi

Even before Sarkozy re-integrated France into Nato’s military command structure, French troops served in Afghanistan. The French air force took the lead in bombing Libya to smithereens, in the process overthrowing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and creating the circumstance of lawlessness that has allowed the country to be taken over by jihadi-supporting Islamists as well as becoming the staging post for invasions of swarms of migrants heading to parts of Western Europe including France.

The war in Syria has provided the impetus through which the numbers of homegrown Jihadists has expanded as well as enabling an increase in the numbers of European-bound refugees. Yet, many refuse to acknowledge France’s part in this self-inflicted crisis.

The revelation in 2013 by Roland Dumas, France’s former foreign minister, that the war in Syria was the result of an operation which was pre-planned by Western intelligence agencies provides a great deal of illumination.

While France may have been the dominant colonial power in Syria, its interest in overthrowing the secular government of Bashar al-Assad is not readily apparent. If an argument can be made that French policy is based on following the dictates of its ally, the United States, an equally persuasive argument can be made of French policy toward the Middle East being framed by the needs of the state of Israel.

As Dumas related,

“In the region (i.e. the Middle East), it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a very anti-Israeli stance…and I have this from the former Israeli prime minister who told me “we’ll try to get on with our neighbours, but those who don’t agree with us will be destroyed.”

The influential French Jewish umbrella organisation CRIF is implacably opposed to the government of Syria. In 2008 it denounced a decision by then President Sarkozy to invite Assad to National Day celebrations although at a 2012 dinner hosted by the organisation Sarkozy predicted that the regime of Assad would fall. Sarkozy, who would be publically critical of his successor Francois Hollande’s perceived weakness in failing to militarily attack Syria, was alleged to have been inspired to intervene in Libya by the French Zionist media intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy.

It was Levy who, before an audience of the first National Convention of the CRIF in November of 2011, claimed that

“it is as a Jew that I participated in the political adventure in Libya. I would not have done it if I had not been Jewish. I wore my flag in fidelity to my name and my loyalty to Zionism and Israel.”

When bombs explode and bullets are fired during episodes of terroristic violence on French soil, anti-Muslim sentiment is ratcheted up while critical commentary related to the policies pursued by the French state which have arguably contributed to the cycle of violence is correspondingly suppressed.

But it was revealed in 2012 that France had funded Syrian rebels. It is clear that the overwhelming majority of militias described as rebel factions in Syria have an Islamist agenda. Many of those militias portrayed as ‘secular’ have close working arrangements with more overtly Islamist ones who in any case have consistently proved to be militarily stronger and in many documented incidents have acquired Western supplied munitions and equipment from other rebel factions whether consensually or by force. In 2014, President Francois Hollande confirmed that France had delivered arms to Syrian rebels.

Mohamed Merah, the alleged perpetrator of terror attacks in Toulouse and Montauban was believed to have been a double agent working for French intelligence. Merah was not the first or last Islamist apparently under the radar of French intelligence who nonetheless managed to leave and re-enter France with relative ease even after travelling to war zones or countries which are hotbeds of jihadist activities.

In November 2015, the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafri revealed that an attempt made two years earlier by the Syrian government to share the names of French citizens fighting in Syria was rebuffed by the French authorities.

The truth is that France has slavishly followed the United States-led policy of using Islamist insurgents as proxies in overthrowing secular Arab regimes. In doing so, France has been complicit in providing the cover used by the United States to intervene in the affairs of Muslim nations which in turn has provided the circumstances through which many young Muslims have been radicalised into becoming terrorists and jihadist insurgents. These wars have also contributed to an increase in refugees from those affected nations.

The institution of anti-terrorism laws covering state-sanctioned surveillance of citizens as well as the curtailment of freedoms through the evolution of a perpetual state of emergency have arguably effectively brought the republic to an end.

France’s resolute support for intervention in Syria does not come with the promise of any substantive political or economic benefits. While some among the French elite view it as a recolonisation project that will reassert French grandeur in the region, the proceeds to be obtained from the destruction of Syria will be largely acquired by other state actors including Israel which has claims on Syrian territory and is also anxious to profit from economic opportunities in the eastern Mediterranean.

The largely negative response to Emmanuel Macron’s call for the French to examine their conscience once again demonstrates a recurring blind spot in a nation with a historical predilection for self-examination, and the costs to its national interests are all too apparent.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, issued the following statement in reaction to the House of Representatives passing the American Health Care Act.

This immoral legislation – a tax bill benefiting the very wealthy masquerading as a health care measure – is perhaps the most disgraceful proposal put forth by Congress since it was founded in 1789.

The American Health Care Act (AHCA) is the equivalent of a death sentence for thousands of Americans who will be thrown off of health insurance. Millions of others who will not get to a doctor when they must will get extremely sick, losing their jobs, their homes, and their way of life.

There’s no question that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — including its so-called ‘Cadillac Tax’ which is going to drop like a hammer on working families — is flawed. So, let’s fix it, and include Medicare for all as a basic healthcare benefit. We can pay for this by reducing unnecessary expenditures and expanding current taxes. We should also put in place strict price controls on greedy hospitals and drug companies.  This would be a huge savings to average Americans and finally make us equal to people all over the world regarding our health care – a basic human right.

Borrowing from Bill Clinton, when it comes to the ACA, we should mend it, not end it. While changes are certainly needed, any sane person can understand that ripping away a person’s life preserver and tossing them a twig is unconscionable.

Author’s Note

To understand recent developments in Syria and Iraq, it is important to address the history of Washington’s Middle East war.

The 2011 US led war on Syria was planned well in advance. Already in 2003, in the immediate wake of the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration had identified Syria as the next stage of the Middle East “roadmap to war”.

The bombing of presumed ‘terrorist bases’ in Syria were targeted by the Israeli Air Force in October 2003, a few months after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, with a view to providing a justification for subsequent military interventions against Lebanon (2006) and Syria (2011)

Ariel Sharon launched the attacks with the approval of Donald Rumsfeld. 

This planned extension of the war into Syria announced in 2003 by the Pentagon (analyzed in my 2003 article):

“means that Israel becomes a major military actor in the US-led war, as well as an ‘official’ member of the Anglo-American coalition.”

Adm. Elmar Schmaelling and Prof. Michel Chossudovsky at Humboldt University, December 2003

The following text first published in December 2003 was presented at two public lectures, the Society for the Defense of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, 10-11 December, 2003 and Humboldt University, Berlin, 12 December 2003. 

Michel Chossudovsky, May 8, 2019,

 

*     *     *

We are the juncture of the most serious crisis in modern history.

The US Administration has embarked upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

The wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are part of a broader military agenda, which was launched at the end of the Cold War. The ongoing war agenda is a continuation of the 1991 Gulf War and the NATO led wars on Yugoslavia (1991-2001).

The post Cold War period has also been marked by numerous US covert intelligence operations within the former Soviet Union, which were instrumental in triggering civil wars in several of the former republics including Chechnya (within the Russian Federation), Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the latter, these covert operations were launched with a view to securing strategic control over oil and gas pipeline corridors.

US military and intelligence operations in the post Cold War era were led in close coordination with the “free market reforms” imposed under IMF guidance in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, which resulted in the destabilization of national economies and the impoverishment of millions of people.

The World Bank sponsored privatization programmes in these countries enabled Western capital to acquire ownership and gain control of a large share of the economy of the former Eastern block countries. This process is also at the basis of the strategic mergers and/or takeovers of the former Soviet oil and gas industry by powerful Western conglomerates, through financial manipulation and corrupt political practices.

In other words, what is at stake in the US led war is the recolonization of a vast region extending from the Balkans into Central Asia.

The deployment of America’s war machine purports to enlarge America’s economic sphere of influence. The U.S. has established a permanent military presence not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has military bases in several of the former Soviet republics on China’s Western frontier. In turn, since 1999, there has been a military buildup in the South China Sea.

War and Globalization go hand in hand. Militarization supports the conquest of new economic frontiers and the worldwide imposition of “free market” system.

The Next Phase of the War

The Bush administration has already identified Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”. The bombing of presumed ‘terrorist bases’ in Syria by the Israeli Air Force in October (2003) was intended to provide a justification for subsequent pre-emptive military interventions. Ariel Sharon launched the attacks with the approval of Donald Rumsfeld. (See Gordon Thomas, Global Outlook, No. 6, Winter 2003)

This planned extension of the war into Syria has serious implications. It means that Israel becomes a major military actor in the US-led war, as well as an ‘official’ member of the Anglo-American coalition.

The Pentagon views ‘territorial control’ over Syria, which constitutes a land bridge between Israel and occupied Iraq, as ‘strategic’ from a military and economic standpoint. It also constitutes a means of controlling the Iraqi border and curbing the flow of volunteer fighters, who are traveling to Baghdad to join the Iraqi resistance movement.

This enlargement of the theater of war is consistent with Ariel Sharon’s plan to build a ‘Greater Israel’ “on the ruins of Palestinian nationalism”. While Israel seeks to extend its territorial domain towards the Euphrates River, with designated areas of Jewish settlement in the Syrian heartland, Palestinians are imprisoned in Gaza and the West Bank behind an ‘Apartheid Wall’.

In the meantime, the US Congress has tightened the economic sanctions on Libya and Iran. As well, Washington is hinting at the need for a ‘regime change’ in Saudi Arabia. Political pressures are building up in Turkey.

So, the war could indeed spill over into a much broader region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian sub-continent and China’s Western frontier.

The “Pre-emptive” Use of Nuclear Weapons

Washington has adopted a first strike “pre-emptive” nuclear policy, which has now received congressional approval. Nuclear weapons are no longer a weapon of last resort as during the cold War era.

The US, Britain and Israel have a coordinated nuclear weapons policy. Israeli nuclear warheads are pointed at major cities in the Middle East. The governments of all three countries have stated quite openly, prior to the war on Iraq, that they are prepared to use nuclear weapons “if they are attacked” with so-called “weapons of mass destruction.” Israel is the fifth nuclear power in the World. Its nuclear arsenal is more advanced than that of Britain.

Barely a few weeks following the entry of the US Marines into Baghdad [April 2003], the US Senate Armed Services Committee gave the green light to the Pentagon to develop a new tactical nuclear bomb, to be used in conventional war theaters, “with a yield [of up to] six times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb”.

Following the Senate decision, the Pentagon redefined the details of its nuclear agenda in a secret meeting with senior executives from the nuclear industry and the military industrial complex held at Central Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The meeting was held on August 6, the day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 58 years ago.

The new nuclear policy explicitly involves the large defense contractors in decision-making. It is tantamount to the “privatization” of nuclear war. Corporations not only reap multibillion dollar profits from the production of nuclear bombs, they also have a direct voice in setting the agenda regarding the use and deployment of nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has unleashed a major propaganda and public relations campaign with a view to upholding the use nuclear weapons for the “defense of the American Homeland.”

Fully endorsed by the US Congress, the mini-nukes are considered to be “safe for civilians”.

This new generation of nuclear weapons is slated to be used in the next phase of this war, in “conventional war theatres” (e.g. in the Middle East and Central Asia) alongside conventional weapons.

In December 2003, the US Congress allocated $6.3 billion solely for 2004, to develop this new generation of “defensive” nuclear weapons.

The overall annual defense budget is of the order of 400 billion dollars, roughly of the same order of magnitude as the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Russian Federation.

While there is no firm evidence of the use of mini-nukes in the Iraqi and Afghan war theatres, tests conducted by Canada’s Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC), in Afghanistan confirm that recorded toxic radiation was not attributable to ‘heavy metal’ depleted uranium ammunition (DU), but to another unidentified form of uranium contamination:

“some form of uranium weapon had been used (…) The results were astounding: the donors presented concentrations of toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times greater than in the Gulf War veterans tested in 1999.” www.umrc.net

The Planning of War

The war on Iraq has been in the planning stages at least since the mid-1990s.

A 1995 National Security document of the Clinton administration stated quite clearly that the objective of the war is oil. “to protect the United States’ uninterrupted, secure U.S. access to oil.

In September 2000, a few months before the accession of George W. Bush to the White House, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) published its blueprint for global domination under the title: “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.”

The PNAC is a neo-conservative think tank linked to the Defense-Intelligence establishment, the Republican Party and the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which plays a behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy.

The PNAC’s declared objective is quite simple – to:

“Fight and decisively win in multiple, simultaneous theater wars”.

This statement indicates that the US plans to be involved simultaneously in several war theaters in different regions of the World.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had commissioned the PNAC blueprint prior to the presidential elections.

The PNAC outlines a roadmap of conquest. It calls for

“the direct imposition of U.S. “forward bases” throughout Central Asia and the Middle East “with a view to ensuring economic domination of the world, while strangling any potential “rival” or any viable alternative to America’s vision of a ‘free market’ economy” (See Chris Floyd, Bush’s Crusade for empire, Global Outlook, No. 6, 2003)

The Role of “Massive Casualty Producing Events”

The PNAC blueprint also outlines a consistent framework of war propaganda. One year before 9/11, the PNAC called for “some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor,” which would serve to galvanize US public opinion in support of a war agenda.

(See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NAC304A.html )

The PNAC architects seem to have anticipated with cynical accuracy, the use of the September 11 attacks as “a war pretext incident.”

The PNAC’s reference to a “catastrophic and catalyzing event” echoes a similar statement by David Rockefeller to the United Nations Business Council in 1994:

“We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

Similarly, in the words Zbigniew Brzezinski (left) in his book, The Grand Chessboard:.

 “…it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus [in America] on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter was one of the key architects of the Al Qaeda network, created by the CIA at the onslaught of the Soviet Afghan war (1979-1989).

The “catastrophic and catalyzing event” as stated by the PNAC is an integral part of US military-intelligence planning. General Franks, who led the military campaign into Iraq, pointed recently (October 2003) to the role of a “massive casualty-producing event” to muster support for the imposition of military rule in America.

(See General Tommy Franks calls for Repeal of US Constitution, November 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/EDW311A.html ).

Franks identifies the precise scenario whereby military rule will be established:

“a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur] somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event.” (Ibid)

This statement from an individual, who was actively involved in military and intelligence planning at the highest levels, suggests that the “militarisation of our country” is an ongoing operational assumption. It is part of the broader “Washington consensus”. It identifies the Bush administration’s “roadmap” of war and “Homeland Defense.” Needless to say, it is also an integral part of the neoliberal agenda.

The “terrorist massive casualty-producing event” is presented by General Franks as a crucial political turning point. The resulting crisis and social turmoil are intended to facilitate a major shift in US political, social and institutional structures.

General Franks’ statement reflects a consensus within the US Military as to how events ought to unfold. The “war on terrorism” is to provide a justification for repealing the Rule of Law, ultimately with a view to “preserving civil liberties.”

Franks’ interview suggests that an Al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attack will be used as a “trigger mechanism” for a military coup d’état in America. The PNAC’s “Pearl Harbor type event” would be used as a justification for declaring a State of emergency, leading to the establishment of a military government.

In many regards, the militarisation of civilian State institutions in the US is already functional under the facade of a bogus democracy.

War Propaganda

In the wake of the September attacks on the World Trade Center, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created to the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), or “Office of Disinformation” as it was labeled by its critics:

“The Department of Defense said they needed to do this, and they were going to actually plant stories that were false in foreign countries — as an effort to influence public opinion across the world. (Interview with Steve Adubato, Fox News, 26 December 2002.)

And, all of a sudden, the OSI was formally disbanded following political pressures and “troublesome” media stories that “its purpose was to deliberately lie to advance American interests.” (Air Force Magazine, January 2003)). “Rumsfeld backed off and said this is embarrassing.” (Adubato, op. cit. ) Yet despite this apparent about-turn, the Pentagon’s Orwellian disinformation campaign remains functionally intact:

“[T]he secretary of defense is not being particularly candid here. Disinformation in military propaganda is part of war.”(Ibid)

Rumsfeld later confirmed in a press interview that while the OSI no longer exists in name, the “Office’s intended functions are being carried out”.

(Quoted in Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Secrecy News, http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2002/11/112702.html ,

Rumsfeld’s press interview can be consulted at:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html ).

A number of government agencies and intelligence units –with links to the Pentagon-remain actively involved in various components of the propaganda campaign. Realities are turned upside down. Acts of war are heralded as “humanitarian interventions” geared towards “regime change” and “the restoration of democracy”. Military occupation and the killing of civilians are presented as “peace-keeping”. The derogation of civil liberties –in the context of the so-called “anti-terrorist legislation”– is portrayed as a means to providing “domestic security” and upholding civil liberties.

The Central Role of Al Qaeda in Bush’s National Security Doctrine

Spelled out in the National Security Strategy (NSS), the preemptive “defensive war” doctrine and the “war on terrorism” against Al Qaeda constitute the two essential building blocks of the Pentagon’s propaganda campaign.

The objective is to present “preemptive military action” –meaning war as an act of “self-defense” against two categories of enemies, “rogue States” and “Islamic terrorists”:

“The war against terrorists of global reach is a global enterprise of uncertain duration. …America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.

…Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction (…)

The targets of these attacks are our military forces and our civilian population, in direct violation of one of the principal norms of the law of warfare. As was demonstrated by the losses on September 11, 2001, mass civilian casualties is the specific objective of terrorists and these losses would be exponentially more severe if terrorists acquired and used weapons of mass destruction.

The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction- and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, (…). To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”12

(National Security Strategy, White House, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html )

To justify pre-emptive military actions, the National Security Doctrine requires the “fabrication” of a terrorist threat, –ie. “an outside enemy.” It also needs to link these terrorist threats to “State sponsorship” by the so-called “rogue states.”

But it also means that the various “massive casualty-producing events” allegedly by Al Qaeda (the fabricated enemy) are part of the National Security agenda.

In the months building up to the invasion of Iraq, covert ‘dirty tricks’ operations were launched to produce misleading intelligence pertaining to both Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Al Qaeda, which was then fed into the news chain.

In the wake of the war, while the WMD threat has been toned down, Al Qaeda threats to ‘the Homeland’ continue to be repeated ad nauseam in official statements, commented on network TV and pasted on a daily basis across the news tabloids.

And underlying these manipulated realties, “Osama bin Laden” terrorist occurrences are being upheld as a justification for the next phase of this war. The latter hinges in a very direct way:

1) the effectiveness of the Pentagon-CIA propaganda campaign, which is fed into the news chain.

2) The actual occurrence of “massive casualty producing events” as outlined in the PNAC

What this means is that actual (“massive casualty producing”) terrorist events are part and parcel of military planning.

Actual Terrorist Attacks

In other words, to be “effective” the fear and disinformation campaign cannot solely rely on unsubstantiated “warnings” of future attacks, it also requires “real” terrorist occurrences or “incidents”, which provide credibility to the Washington’s war plans. These terrorist events are used to justify the implementation of “emergency measures” as well as “retaliatory military actions”. They are required, in the present context, to create the illusion of “an outside enemy” that is threatening the American Homeland.

The triggering of “war pretext incidents” is part of the Pentagon’s assumptions. In fact it is an integral part of US military history.(See Richard Sanders, War Pretext Incidents, How to Start a War, Global Outlook, published in two parts, Issues 2 and 3, 2002-2003).

In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had envisaged a secret plan entitled “Operation Northwoods”, to deliberately trigger civilian casualties to justify the invasion of Cuba:

“We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,” “We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington” “casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.” (See the declassified Top Secret 1962 document titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba”16

(See Operation Northwoods at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NOR111A.html ).

There is no evidence that the Pentagon or the CIA played a direct role in recent terrorist attacks, including those in Indonesia (2002), India (2001), Turkey (2003) and Saudi Arabia (2003).

According to the reports, the attacks were undertaken by organizations (or cells of these organizations), which operate quite independently, with a certain degree of autonomy. This independence is in the very nature of a covert intelligence operation. The «intelligence asset» is not in direct contact with its covert sponsors. It is not necessarily cognizant of the role it plays on behalf of its intelligence sponsors.

The fundamental question is who is behind them? Through what sources are they being financed? What is the underlying network of ties?

For instance, in the case of the 2002 Bali bomb attack, the alleged terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiah had links to Indonesia’s military intelligence (BIN), which in turn has links to the CIA and Australian intelligence.

The December 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian Parliament –which contributed to pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war– were allegedly conducted by two Pakistan-based rebel groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba (“Army of the Pure”) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (“Army of Mohammed”), both of which according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) are supported by Pakistan’s ISI.

(Council on Foreign Relations

 http://www.terrorismanswers.com/groups/harakat2.html, Washington 2002).

What the CFR fails to acknowledge is the crucial relationship between the ISI and the CIA and the fact that the ISI continues to support Lashkar, Jaish and the militant Jammu and Kashmir Hizbul Mujahideen (JKHM), while also collaborating with the CIA.

(For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Fabricating an Enemy, March 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO301B.html )

A 2002 classified outbrief drafted to guide the Pentagon “calls for the creation of a so-called ‘Proactive, Pre-emptive Operations Group’  (P2OG), to launch secret operations aimed at “stimulating reactions” among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction — that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to ‘quick-response’ attacks by U.S. forces.” (William Arkin, The Secret War, The Los Angeles Times, 27 October 2002)

The P2OG initiative is nothing new. It essentially extends an existing apparatus of covert operations. Amply documented, the CIA has supported terrorist groups since the Cold War era. This  “prodding of terrorist cells” under covert intelligence operations often requires the infiltration and training of the radical groups linked to Al Qaeda.

In this regard, covert support by the US military and intelligence apparatus has been channeled to various Islamic terrorist organizations through a complex network of intermediaries and intelligence proxies. In the course of the 1990s, agencies of the US government have collaborated with Al Qaeda in a number of covert operations, as confirmed by a 1997 report of the Republican Party Committee of the US Congress.

(See US Congress, 16 January 1997,

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html ).

In fact during the war in Bosnia US weapons inspectors were working with Al Qaeda operatives, bringing in large amounts of weapons for the Bosnian Muslim Army.

In other words, the Clinton Administration was “harboring terrorists”. Moreover, official statements and intelligence reports confirm links between US military-intelligence units and Al Qaeda operatives, as occurred in Bosnia (mid 1990s), Kosovo (1998-99) and Macedonia (2001).

(See Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation, The Truth behind September 11, Global Research, 2003, Chapter 3,

The Bush Administration and NATO had links to Al Qaeda in Macedonia. And this happened barely a few weeks before September 11, 2001, Senior U.S. military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon, were fighting alongside Mujahideen in the terrorist attacks on the Macedonian Security forces. This is documented by the Macedonian press and statements made by the Macedonian authorities. (See Michel Chossudovsky, op cit).

The U.S. government and the Islamic Militant Network were working hand in glove in supporting and financing the National Liberation Army (NLA), which was involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia.

In other words, the US military was collaborating directly with Al Qaeda barely a few weeks before 9/11.

Al Qaeda and Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI)

It is indeed revealing that in virtually all post 9/11 terrorist occurrences, the terrorist organization is reported (by the media and in official statements) as having “ties to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda”. This in itself is a crucial piece of information. Of course, the fact that Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA is neither mentioned in the press reports nor is it considered relevant to an understanding of these terrorist occurrences.

The ties of these terrorist organizations (particularly those in Asia) to Pakistan’s military intelligence (ISI) is acknowledged in a few cases by official sources and press dispatches. Confirmed by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), some of these groups are said to have links to Pakistan’s ISI, without identifying the nature of these links. Needless to say, this information is crucial in identifying the sponsors of these terrorist attacks. In other words, the ISI is said to support these terrorist organizations, while at same time maintaining close ties to the CIA.

September 11

While Colin Powell –without supporting evidence-pointed in his February 2003 UN address to “the sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network”, official documents, press and intelligence reports confirm that successive US administrations have supported and abetted the Islamic militant network. This relationship is an established fact, corroborated by numerous studies, acknowledged by Washington’s mainstream think tanks.

Both Colin Powell and his Deputy Richard Armitage, who in the months leading up to the war casually accused Baghdad and other foreign governments of “harboring” Al Qaeda, played a direct role, at different points in their careers, in supporting terrorist organizations.

Both men were implicated –operating behind the scenes– in the Irangate Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration, which involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to finance the Nicaraguan Contra paramilitary army and the Afghan Mujahideen. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration,

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO303D.html )

Moreover, both Richard Armitage and Colin Powell played a role in the 9/11 cover-up. The investigations and research conducted in the last two years, including official documents, testimonies and intelligence reports, indicate that September 11 was an carefully planned intelligence operation, rather than a act conducted by a terrorist organization. (For further details, see Centre for Research on Globalization, 24 Key articles, September 2003)

The FBI confirmed in a report made public late September 2001 the role of Pakistan’s Military Intelligence. According to the report, the alleged 9-11 ring leader, Mohammed Atta, had been financed from sources out of Pakistan. A subsequent intelligence report confirmed that the then head of the ISI General Mahmoud Ahmad had transferred money to Mohammed Atta. (See Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalization, op.cit.)

Moreover, press reports and official statements confirm that the head of the ISI, was an official visit to the US from the 4th to 13th of September 2001. In other words, the head of Pakistan’s ISI, who allegedly transferred money to the terrorists also had a close personal relationship with a number of senior Bush Administration officials, including Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage, whom he met in the course of his visit to Washington. (Ibid)

The Antiwar Movement

A cohesive antiwar movement cannot be based solely on the mobilization of antiwar sentiment. It must ultimately unseat the war criminals and question their right to rule.

A necessary condition for bringing down the rulers is to weaken and eventually dismantle their propaganda campaign.

The momentum of the large anti-war rallies in the US, the European Union and around the world, should lay the foundations of a permanent network composed of tens of thousands of local level anti-war committees in neighborhoods, work places, parishes, schools, universities, etc. It is ultimately through this network that the legitimacy of those who “rule in our name” will be challenged.

To shunt the Bush Administration’s war plans and disable its propaganda machine, we must reach out to our fellow citizens across the land, in the US, Europe and around the world, to the millions of ordinary people who have been misled on the causes and consequences of this war.

This also implies fully uncovering the lies behind the “war on terrorism” and revealing the political complicity of the Bush administration in the events of 9/11.

September 11 is a hoax. It’s the biggest lie in US history.

Needless to say, the use of “massive casualty producing events” as pretext to wage war is a criminal act. In the words of Andreas van Buelow, former German Minister of Technology and author of The CIA and September 11:

“If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up behind bars.”

Yet it is not sufficient to remove George W. Bush or Tony Blair, who are mere puppets. We must also address the role of the global banks, corporations and financial institutions, which indelibly stand behind the military and political actors.

Increasingly, the military-intelligence establishment (rather than the State Department, the White House and the US Congress) is calling the shots on US foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Texas oil giants, the defense contractors, Wall Street and the powerful media giants, operating discreetly behind the scenes, are pulling the strings. If politicians become a source of major embarrassment, they can themselves be discredited by the media, discarded and a new team of political puppets can be brought to office.

Criminalization of the State

The “Criminalization of the State”, is when war criminals legitimately occupy positions of authority, which enable them to decide “who are the criminals”, when in fact they are criminals.

In the US, both Republicans and Democrats share the same war agenda and there are war criminals in both parties. Both parties are complicit in the 9/11 cover-up and the resultant quest for world domination. All the evidence points to what is best described as “the criminalisation of the State”, which includes the Judiciary and the bipartisan corridors of the US Congress. .

Under the war agenda, high ranking officials of the Bush administration, members of the military, the US Congress and the Judiciary have been granted the authority not only to commit criminal acts, but also to designate those in the antiwar movement who are opposed to these criminal acts as “enemies of the State.”

More generally, the US military and security apparatus endorses and supports dominant economic and financial interests – i.e. the build-up, as well as the exercise, of military might enforces “free trade”. The Pentagon is an arm of Wall Street; NATO coordinates its military operations with the World Bank and the IMF’s policy interventions, and vice versa. Consistently, the security and defense bodies of the Western military alliance, together with the various civilian governmental and intergovernmental bureaucracies (e.g. IMF, World Bank, WTO) share a common understanding, ideological consensus and commitment to the New World Order.

To reverse the tide of war, military bases must be closed down, the war machine (namely the production of advanced weapons systems like WMDs) must be stopped and the burgeoning police state must be dismantled. More generally we must reverse the “free market” reforms, dismantle the institutions of global capitalism and disarm financial markets.

The struggle must be broad-based and democratic encompassing all sectors of society at all levels, in all countries, uniting in a major thrust: workers, farmers, independent producers, small businesses, professionals, artists, civil servants, members of the clergy, students and intellectuals.

The antiwar and anti-globalisation movements must be integrated into a single worldwide movement. People must be united across sectors, “single issue” groups must join hands in a common and collective understanding on how the New World Order destroys and impoverishes.

The globalization of this struggle is fundamental, requiring a degree of solidarity and internationalism unprecedented in world history. This global economic system feeds on social divisiveness between and within countries. Unity of purpose and worldwide coordination among diverse groups and social movements is crucial. A major thrust is required which brings together social movements in all major regions of the world in a common pursuit and commitment to the elimination of poverty and a lasting world peace.

On Human Rights Day, 10 December 2003, Michel Chossudovsky was awarded The 2003 Human’s Rights Prize of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM). [details deutsch ]

Photos of GBM event in Berlin, click here

The German Text was published by Junge Welt: Vortrag von Michel Chossudovsky Neuordnung der Welt Der Krieg der USA um globale Hegemonie (Teil 1)

The original URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO312A.html

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America’s “War on Terrorism”

by Michel Chossudovsky

Order directly from Global Research

In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

The arrest of a German army officer suspected of plotting the assassination of leftist politicians and high-ranking state officials has exposed the operations of neo-Nazi forces at the highest levels of the German military (Bundeswehr).

The information that has emerged thus far indicates that the suspected officer-terrorist was part of a broader network of fascists within the Bundeswehr, and that his activities were known to his superiors and covered up by them.

Most astonishing is the official reaction to these alarming revelations. They have prompted an outpouring of anger in the German media and from the establishment parties directed not at the existence of this network and evidence of its toleration by high-level state forces, but at mild criticisms of the military by Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen.

Given the historic crimes of German imperialism in the 20th century and the current revival of militarism in Germany, it is remarkable how little attention has been paid to these developments in the American and international press.

Lieutenant Franco A., 28, was arrested last week after coming to the attention of Austrian police when he sought to retrieve a weapon hidden at the airport in Vienna. It quickly emerged that the officer had been leading a double life. In addition to his activities in the Bundeswehr, Franco A, who does not speak a word of Arabic, had registered as a Syrian refugee and been recognized as such.

He apparently intended to carry out a terror attack under a false flag. A police search of his home uncovered a list of possible targets, which included, together with leftist politicians and activists, Justice Minister Heiko Maas and former German President Joachim Gauck.

Franco A. did not operate alone. The police have recovered shells and handguns from a 24-year-old accomplice, who was also arrested. The Defence Ministry has informed the parliamentary defence committee that the arrested officer may be part of an ultra-right network within the Bundeswehr.

The reaction of the military leadership suggests that this network is far more extensive and reaches much higher than has thus far been revealed. Defence Minister von der Leyen cancelled a planned trip to the US and invited 100 high-ranking military officers to Berlin on Thursday “to discuss the implications and consequences of the accumulated cases in the Bundeswehr.”

It is now clear that, for some time, Franco A.’s superiors were aware of his fascistic views and shielded him. As far back as 2014, his graduate thesis at the French military university Saint-Cyr was rejected on the grounds that it was not a scholarly work, but rather “a radical nationalist, racist appeal,” calling for “existing conditions to be adapted to the alleged natural law of racial purity.” The responsible French general advised Franco A.’s German superiors to sack him, but the latter concluded that he was not a racist. They hushed up the case and promoted his military career.

The neo-Nazi views of the first lieutenant were an open secret in the French town of Illkirch, where he served in a Franco-German unit. Investigators from the Bundeswehr have found “indications of right-wing and racist ideas” in his room. In addition to a swastika carved on an assault rifle, they discovered pictures glorifying Hitler’s army, the Wehrmacht.

Racist and authoritarian views and the glorification of violence are not only widespread in the Bundeswehr, they are actively encouraged by its leaders. The military intelligence service is currently investigating 275 extreme right-wing suspects. These investigations are exercises in damage control. Charges were dropped against one soldier who placed a photo of a machine gun on the Internet with the caption:

“The fastest German asylum procedure: rejects up to 1,400 requests per minute.”

The tradition of Hitler’s Wehrmacht continues to be officially cultivated in the Bundeswehr. Many barracks bear the names of military officers who were implicated in the Nazis’ genocidal racial and war policies.

The universities of the Bundeswehr in Munich and Hamburg have repeatedly generated headlines by promoting right-wing extremism. In Munich, there was a controversy in 2011 surrounding the student magazine Campus when three of its editors expressed their support for the Conservative Revolutionary movement, one of the leading ideological forbears of the Nazis.

In Hamburg, the book Armee im Aufbruch (Army on the Move) was published in 2014 with contributions from sixteen officers who studied at the Bundeswehr University there and had combat experience in Afghanistan. The book is full of language typical of Nazi literature glorifying war.

The officers consider themselves to be an elite, opposed to a “hedonistic and individualistic” society focused on “self-gratification, consumption, pacifism and egoism,” a society that has no appreciation for the “striving for honour through great sacrifice,” for a “patriotic attitude to the people (Volk) and Fatherland” and for “courage, loyalty and honour.”

There was no protest against the book within the German political establishment. The right-wing, dictatorial standpoint it expressed is shared across the political spectrum.

When Defence Minister von der Leyen, a member of the ruling Christian Democratic Union, responded to the exposure of the Franco A. case by warning that

“the German army has an attitude problem and it apparently has weak leadership at different levels,” she provoked a storm of protest.

She may well lose her post, not because terror attacks on the former president and current ministers and members of parliament were planned from within the ranks of the Bundeswehr, but because she spoke out too sharply against it!

The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the Left Party are protesting the loudest against von der Leyen. SPD Chairman Martin Schulz accused the defence minister of lacking a sense of responsibility. SPD defence expert Rainer Arnold called on her to apologise to her troops. Former Deputy Juso (SPD Young Socialists) Chairman Lars Klingbeil accused von der Leyen of “stabbing hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the back.”

The Green Party defence expert Tobias Lindner declared,

“It is not the Bundeswehr’s fault if it is increasingly attractive to right-wing extremists.”

His colleague from the Left Party, Alexander Neu, proclaimed his opposition to placing all soldiers under general suspicion due to the case of Franco A.

These developments reveal the enormity of the swing to the right by the entire German ruling class and the advanced state of its campaign to again make Germany the hegemon of Europe and a world military as well as economic power. The deepening crisis of world capitalism and rising economic and geo-political tensions are tearing Europe apart and fracturing the Atlantic alliance, increasingly pitting Germany against the United States.

Under these conditions, German imperialism must seek to sanitize its criminal past and rewrite its history to rehabilitate fascism, as it transforms the Bundeswehr into a lethal force of professional killers, capable of waging war all over the world.

Claims that the German ruling class learned its lesson from the Holocaust and the crimes of the Nazis, and that the military had purged itself, are exposed as myths.

In a commentary on Tuesday, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung co-editor Berthold Kohler derided the “fantasy image” of the Bundeswehr “as a kind of missionary military that spreads the gospel of the German constitution so that the German spirit shall heal the world.” He wrote:

“Whoever sends soldiers into crises and wars must prepare themselves and the soldiers for the harshness and cruelty that awaits them.” Because the Bundeswehr has to teach its recruits “to fight and kill … it must be able to go to the limits of what is permissible in terms of hardship in training its fighting units.”

The spread of militarism into all spheres of society is an international phenomenon. In the US, Donald Trump, the most right-wing president in American history, has appointed generals to all the main security-related ministries, as American imperialism spearheads the drive to World War III. In France, heavily armed soldiers routinely patrol the streets since the imposition of a state of emergency a year and a half ago.

The general silence to date of the international media on the growth of fascistic forces within the German military is itself an expression of the turn by the ruling classes of the world toward war and dictatorship.

Following the results of the fourth round of Syrian talks in Astana the representatives of guarantor-states (Iran, Russia and Turkey) signed a memorandum on de-escalation zones in Syria.

According to the agreement, the de-escalation zones are to be created in the provinces of Idlib, Hama, Aleppo, northern part of Homs, Eastern Ghouta, Daraa and Quneitra for six months, with the option of further prolongation.

The memorandum, which comes into effect on May 5, envisages the cessation of hostilities between the sides, conditions for returning refugees, the restoration of destroyed urban infrastructure and the access of humanitarian organizations. Moreover, the checkpoints to control the movement of civilians and the ceasefire regime will be created along the de-escalation zone borders.

It is notable, that the agreement doesn’t apply to Islamic State and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists, it doesn’t depend on whether they are inside a zone or not.

Moreover, the flights of the U.S.-led International Coalition are strictly forbidden in the area. The airspace will be also controlled by the guarantor-states.

The treaty caused positive reaction of the world community. In general, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres highly appreciates the achievement of the guarantor-states. He also believes, that the memorandum should really improve the citizens’ lives.

The head of the Syrian delegation in Astana Bashar Jaafari expressed gratitude to the efforts of Kazakhstan, Iran and Russia, as the memorandum opens new opportunities for the political settlement of the crisis.

Even Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir supports the creation of de-escalation zones.

Unfortunately, during the signing of the memorandum a number of the opposition delegates opposed the peacekeeping initiatives. The actual initiatives of the opposition are unknown. As a mark of protest, a number of the “opposition delegates” decided to leave the room, referring that the adoption of the document violates the territorial integrity of Syria. In addition, the armed opposition insists that Iran can’t be a guarantor state and they don’t adduce any weighty arguments.

It sounds strange that the “opposition” has rejected the memorandum. The primary target of guarantor states’ initiative is the protection of civilians, and as it is temporary, it won’t affect Syria’s sovereignty. That’s why the actions of the armed opposition can show to the world community that they are not interested in the fast settlement of the crisis. In this case the armed opposition doesn’t differ from ISIS or Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

That’s why the guarantors have taken the initiative to save Syria as the hesitation of the Syrian government’s opponents is a heavy burden for the country – innocent people keep dying and the civilian infrastructure is being damaged.

It was a scrappy affair, and it resulted in a predictable result: the re-election of veteran administrator John Coates as president of the Australian Olympic Committee by 58 votes to 35. Such a process was all in all dull but for the notable lid it had blown off regarding Olympic harmony down under.

King Coates, as it were, has ruled for 27 years, and had faced no elections. He has made sports personalities drivel with delight at his maneuverings, praising his genius as a politician. (Sports personalities, by this logic, should be kept away from sporting administration.) Over time, he started to resemble a long-in-tooth equatorial dictator, immune from criticism.

The length of such a reign had begun troubling a few in the sports establishment. Disagreements started to froth and bubble, notably in the Coates cosmos. Allegations were made that Coates’ loyal media director Mike Tancred had bullied former AOC chief executive Fiona de Jong.

AOC President John Coates

De Jong had no intention of keeping the matter quiet, further suggesting that a culture of bullying had flourished in the AOC hothouse since 2004. It had become, in the words of an email chain, a “sheltered workshop” where incidents could be housed and concealed.

A challenge eventually took form with former hockey player Danielle Roche, who marketed herself as saviour and grand mop, cleaning up a mess produced by a “broken” Olympic family. Coates, in turn, read the matter politically, treating de Jong as an incompetent chief executive, and Roche as the unreflective extension of her master, the Australian Sports Commission.

His grievances were outlined in a letter published by News Corp last month.

“There is clearly a coordinated and sadly vindictive campaign to damage me personally, and to tarnish all that has been achieved by the AOC.”

Among Roche’s targets was Coates’ hefty remuneration: $729,000 per annum.

“I can certainly change the percentage straight away by not accepting $3 million over a four-year period,” claimed Roche on the campaign stump, sounding much like a noble celebrity politician happy to sacrifice a large wage in the name of public service.

Had she won, she claims she would have reduced the wage to $100,000 and waived it for the first term.

On that wave, Roche predicted a “very, very close” vote that would “come down to the wire.” But her political nose was evidently less developed than her sporting sense. Coates had already been given a “non-unanimous” nod from the AOC athletes’ commission provided he take a few of Roche’s suggestions on board, including a review of the salary package while embracing a “planned and strategic transition”. The final piece in this list of requests was a promise to hold an independent investigation into the bullying culture of the AOC.

Danielle Roche

Coates won in a canter, and the grand dark eminence that always shadowed discussions was the International Olympic Committee, to whom Coates owes his loyalty. The canny administrator’s voice, rather than an athlete’s outraged conscience, was always going to win through.

The issue very much on point here involved pitting the reform suggestions of an Australian movement born in local indignation, against an organisation arguably on par in terms of corruption with FIFA, football’s answer to an internationalist mafia movement.

While Coates may well have seen Roche as annex and puppet of the ASC, he is the voice and cardinal of the IOC down under, romanticised foolishly by followers as a noble advocate of Olympism and its grand civilisational ideals. Any student of the movement will understand that the original premise has long been undermined, toss overboard in favour of finance, manipulation and racketeering.

A few veteran sporting figures insisted like card carrying members of the Olympic cult that the IOC line be towed, to be followed like an unquestionable deity. It was administrators in the IOC who dictated the various conditions under which their emissaries in other parts of the globe would operate under. It did not matter that Coates had a mammoth salary relative to his position, or that he seemed impregnable: the IOC would not have it any other way.

One such figure was former Olympian Jane Flemming were more or less suggesting that Australia had to march to the same tune of corruption and practice, embracing a policy of concealment when needed.

To introduce, for instance, fixed terms to such presidential positions or up the element of democratic accountability would be impractical if not impossible. That is the language, not of reform but submission, and was always the most likely outcome.

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

Attempting to further spread its tentacles, the global multinationalist octopus often has to resort to baiting the masses in order to attract them, so that it can gain confidence in an approval of its actions. Globalisation is a complex and difficult process and demands a lot of effort while normalizing its deeds.

As such, measures that would instantly appeal to the masses are needed. Hollywood, video games, bestsellers, popular music, cultural and even religious trends are just some of the many ways how the ruling world order is trying to penetrate people’s lives and keep them under control, making sure they will not “slip” to the other side.

When making millions by selling the things that please and appeal to the masses, the establishment of course does not forget to exploit every single opportunity to push its agenda and convince the people of what is “right”, while also carefully spinning its propaganda driving wheel. Although the term “propaganda” is often associated with the so-called “undemocratic totalitarian systems”, which often accused of attempting to take complete mind control of the people that are said to be serving them, the extent of propaganda in the so-called “civilized and free democratic world”, has actually reached an exponent, much higher than in any other system.

Indeed, if we only take a look at Hollywood’s movie industry, known for having very close ties to the military-industrial complex, we can see what instrumental role did it have in shaping social- histo-geopolitical viewpoints and orientation of masses of people ever since the time of the Great War. Those unfamiliar with history and geopolitics might not notice anything in particular, however the people familiar with these things and the way the world is functioning, will eventually recognize several references to the historical and geopolitical reality, made in these movies and television series.

The biggest danger here lies within complete manipulation and brainwashing of the people who, over a certain period, become accustomed to the things they are seeing and are being surrounded with, and start taking them as normal. For instance, in the movie Rambo a US super-soldier is literally crushing waves of evil, greedy and savage Vietnamese Communists who are the biggest threat to the world peace.

While this, of course, is all the work of fiction, this “fiction” eventually started to become reality for millions of average people, especially after many similar movies were also made. In addition, this all got paired with the fact that daily news reports and documentaries were not that much different when peddling the globalist narrative, hence the high level of manipulation, distortion and general lack of knowledge among the average people, shall not come as a surprise.

Crushed by the defeat in Vietnam and ashamed of the atrocities, the US establishment wanted to launch a mass campaign that would brainwash the people to a degree that it was in fact the US side which was the brave, winning and righteous one, but eventually made a tactical retreat so that the “evil Vietnamese” would no longer be able to shed the blood of the innocent people. A similar concept was also introduced towards other “negatives” around the time of the cold war, namely the Soviets, the Chinese, the Germans, North Koreans and Arab socialist states.

What is also interesting about Hollywood propaganda is that it often degrades the “negative opponent” down to the bottom. Not only are the people on the “wrong” side portrayed as the worst kind of evil, they also happen to be ugly, dirty, stupid, clumsy, lazy, irrational, ignorant, heavily miscalculative, naive, weak and badly mannered. All that at once. Given their extremely unusual and unrealistic characteristics of the weakest kind, one is absolutely amazed upon seeing how much effort does the opposite side in fact need to make in order to bring them down.

This alone shows how quickly people are actually buying into these lies, manipulations and distortions, without having to use their brain at least once. Although everyone understands that this is all just the work of fiction, all intelligent beings would nonetheless issue a protest in their mind when coming in contact with such utter nonsense.

Some of the propaganda material is even so poorly prepared that it contains basic historic and geographical errors, made by the people in charge of the script and scenario. For example, in one of the episodes of MacGyver, a US television series that aired during the 1990s, the protagonist (a well-built, intelligent and good looking American male, working for one of the government agencies) is after the “bloodthirsty” Serbs who are terrorizing the innocent people of Chechnya. Yes, Chechnya and nothing else.

Although the TV series might not deal with the strict geopolitical reality, this nonetheless is highly ridiculous, given that it was made in the early 1990s when anti-Serbian campaign in the Western media was at its peak, meaning the creators of the series would be able to throw in anything that came in their way, only to lash out against the Serbs, even if for a price of a grave geographic and political error.

A similar situation to that in Hollywood also exists in the world of video games that has since become the milking cow for the multinational corporation and a loud beating drum for the governments and their oversea escapades. Video games are attractive, especially for the young people because they are interactive and often bring technological innovations that fascinate the youths.

Perhaps the most notorious video game as regards lies, manipulations and distortions would be Soldier of Fortune, released in 2000. In this game player assumes the role of John Mullins, a bearded middle-aged American Hercules, who, in a fashion similar to that of John Rambo, is eradicating the waves of Neonazi skinheads, Serbs, Iraqis and Russians by merely touching the trigger. Yes, all of them are evil and very much connected to one another. Not only was the game notorious for its exceptional amount of graphic violence and gore, the game even allow the player to kill as many Iraqi civilians as possible.

Although the game indeed tolerates the deaths of up to 3 civilians, killed by player in a “friendly fire”, this is not the case with Iraqi civilians that can be killed in hundreds, with no negative effect on the player. On top of that, whenever the player approaches Iraqi civilians, the crosshair never turns green as is the case with all other civilians, but rather remains red, just like when player is involved fighting armed and violent opponents. This is a rather disturbing thing and highly unlikely a technical bug. By implementing this, the developer basically wanted to tell the player that the Iraqi people are a such “utter scum” that they can be mercilessly killed as all terrorists in the game.

Every day the people watch news reports on TV, in addition to being surrounded with them while surfing the web. However, the range of influence in shaping the picture of events and occurrences of the popular culture is much greater than that of the daily news, since not all people are interested in following politics or local events. Many simply don’t care, while at the same time, hardly anyone of the average people is not caring movies, video games and TV series.

On top of that, the age range of consumers of the popular culture is a lot wider since children and teenagers, who are some of the largest consumers of the popular culture, are usually not interested in following daily news. Given their age and level of experience, the adolescents are particularly vulnerable to succumb to the lies, manipulations and distortions, carefully wrapped up in their favourite comic books, movies and video games.

Indeed, movie and video game stories of superheroes, fighting in the ranks of the US Army who fight against evil forces, coming from the desert on the other side of the world and literally crush everything evil that comes their way, have actually inspired lots of older teenagers to start actively thinking of joining the US Army and going to Iraq.

For many, the Iraqi experience turned out to be a complete disaster as instead of a much loved, congratulated and loaded superheroes with a bunch of attractive women by their side, they came back in complete psychological ruins, thanks to the shock that started to devastate them the very first moment when they engaged in violent confrontations with their opponent. Their 18 years of dreaming the American dream was followed by a crude reality.

On the other hand, their peers, growing up in the so-called non-free totalitarian world never had that kind of a problem. At least not if we are to compare the fate of the youths who survived the siege of Stalingrad to those who went on a little adventure in Iraq.

War has indeed become perpetual and peace no longer even a fleeting wish nor a distant memory. We have become habituated to the rumblings of war and the steady drum beat of propaganda about war’s necessity and the noble motives that inspire it. We will close hospitals. We will close schools. We will close libraries and museums. We will sell off our parklands and water supply. People will sleep on the streets and go hungry. The war machine will go on.

What are we to do? The following text is Part VI of a broader analysis entitled War and the State: Business as Usual.

For Parts I-V, click here.

***

Suppose we chose to join hands with our anti-Federalist ancestors and decided we want to live in a Nation where, “peace, union, and industry, under a mild, free, and steady government” prevail (Storing, 67). Is such an outcome possible? How could we bring it about?

Well, it certainly is possible. Above I offered five examples of countries past and present that were Nations, not States:

1) India;

2) Holland in the 17th century;

3) the United States in the decade between 1776 — the Declaration of Independence — and 1787 — the signing of the Constitution;

4) Switzerland;

5) Iceland.

There is no reason why the United States — now a State — cannot return to its roots and become a federation of fifty states — a Nation — with a weak central government like the one that existed under The Articles of Confederation. The mechanism is a simple one. We . RedirectHere is an excellent example of how that works.

The Bank of North Dakota

The United States has a central banking system. Although the Board of Governors are presidential appointees, basically The Federal Reserve Bank — the “Fed” —is run to serve the interests of a small number of private banks deemed “too big to fail.” In 2008, billions if not trillions of dollars were passed along to these banks to help them recover the monies they lost from bad bets while ignoring the needs of those who lost their life savings and their homes and were reduced to living in tents. There was an economic collapse from which the country has not fully recovered nine years later. Now let’s take a look at what happened in the state of North Dakota.

In 1836, the U.S. Congress failed to renew the charter for the Second Bank of the United States, (today the Federal Reserve). Subsequently, the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois, Vermont, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina all created banks that were completely owned by the state government. None of those banks survived.

The movement for state banking was revived in the early 1900’s when mid-western farmers were at the mercy of privately held banks. Farmers counted heavily on loans for equipment and loans to get them through harsh growing seasons when wheat yields were meager. Banks in Minneapolis and Chicago continued raising interest rates. Farmers were left in a precarious position. In response an independent political party was formed known as the “Non-Partisan League.” The “League” gained control of the North Dakota state government in 1918. In 1919, the state legislature established the Bank of North Dakota (BND).

The mission of the BND is to serve North Dakota agriculture, commerce and industry. It does not compete with privately held banks but partners with them in lending monies to local business. In 1967, BND made the first federally insured student loan in the country and currently has one of the lowest interest rates for state loans.

About twenty years ago, the bank began buying home loans made by local banks and credit unions. By buying up mortgages BND gave local banks a way to move loans off their books, thus freeing them up to make new loans, but without handing the business to their competitors.

BND services the mortgages it buys, ensuring that the mortgage interest homeowners pay each month stays in the state rather than flowing to Wall Street. Between BND’s mortgages and those held by local banks and credit unions, roughly 20-25 percent of the state’s mortgage debt is held and serviced within North Dakota.

The primary deposit base of the BND is the State of North Dakota.  All state funds and funds of state agencies (excluding pension funds and trusts managed by the state) are deposited with the bank. Over the last 21 years, BND has generated almost $1 billion in profit.  Nearly $400 million of that, or about $3,300 per household, has been transferred into the state’s general fund, providing support for education and other public services, while reducing the tax burden on residents and businesses.

One of the core missions of the Bank of North Dakota is to cultivate the state’s economy by supporting local banks and credit unions. Thanks in large part to BND, community banks are much more numerous and robust in North Dakota than in other states. While locally owned small and mid-sized banks and credit unions account for only 29 percent of deposits nationally, in North Dakota they have  83 percent of the market. By helping to sustain a large number of local banks and credit unions, BND has strengthened North Dakota’s economy, enabled small businesses and farms to grow, and spurred job creation in the state.

In November 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that the BND was more profitable even than J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. And yet in 2014, BND was lending money for school infrastructure at 1%. In 2015, it introduced new infrastructure programs to improve access to medical facilities, remodel or construct new schools, and build new road and water infrastructure. A bank can be profitable and serve the common good.

In 2008-2009 when the United States economy suffered one of its worst economic crises, BND had one of its most profitable years. There was no credit freeze. BND created its own credit and the economy flourished. BND acts as a kind of mini-fed for the state, providing liquidity, clearing checks and buying up loans when there is risk to share.1

A Multiplicity of State Banks

With the formal beginning of the UK General Election with the dissolution of Parliament, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street and started milking the nationalistic fervour of Brexit for all it was worth. Mrs. May declared that Brussels was attempting to “interfere” with the British General Election. The day before she crudely stated the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker would soon find out what a “bloody difficult woman” she was, taking that label first pinned to her by her fellow Tory colleague the wonderful Ken Clarke (who would make a fantastic Prime Minister).

According to an account of a working dinner recently held in Downing Street between Mrs. May and President Juncker the food was awful and Mrs. May was living in another “galaxy”. At the close of the dinner President Juncker said he was “10 times more skeptical” about the chances of a successful deal than he was before. As his brilliant Chief of Staff Martin Selmayr reflected Brexit cannot and will not be a success, it is a “sad and sorry event” that must be at best managed and contained. It would seem reality still has not sunk in with Mrs. May, her party, their followers and at least half the population in Britain.

The first piece of reality to bite was when the President of the European Council Donald Tusk ruled out striking a UK-EU Free Trade Agreement within the two year divorce proceedings. Mr. Tusk, backed up by the European Council, European Commission and all 27 loyal members of the European Union made it quite clear before any talks could even begin on the subject of a future UK-EU Free Trade Agreement the issues of “people, money and Ireland” would have to be sorted out. The divorce bill for Britain to leave the EU and honour it’s budgetary and contractual obligations has risen sharply and now Brussels is calculating it could be anywhere between 80-100 billion Euros.

I think this will be the sticking point at which no deal is reached given the slippery nature of the British State in honouring its financial commitments. Amazingly, back in October Bloomberg News released a report which showed the pound sterling became the world’s worst performing currency in October 2016 against the dollar, even below the Romanian and Colombian currencies and it has not much improved since then. One wonders by the time Brexit takes effect if there will be a pound sterling left? The cliff that the pound has fallen off is already putting severe pressure on prices back in the UK.

President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker

The UK is already one of the most extortionate places in the developed Western world for prices. The cost of living in the United States, once one strips out the cost of university and healthcare, is actually much cheaper than Britain. This is due to the United States having a moderate sales tax of 9%. In Britain, it is an eye watering, unbelievable 20%. It could go even higher if the Tories are returned.

Mrs. May has pledged not to increase it before 2022 but her word is meaningless. She was for Remain and now is for a Hard Brexit. She was against holding an early General Election but broke that pledge too. May and her ghastly Chancellor Hammond attempted to raise National Insurance contributions for the self-employed only a few weeks ago even though the Tories manifesto at the last General Election promised not to do so. A pattern is developing which is you simply cannot trust a word the Tory Party and Mrs. May say.

One of the immediate effects of Brexit and the collapse of the pound is that prices have already risen sharply. There was the infamous Unilever spat with Tescos back in the autumn and that was just a taste of things to come. Whether it be food, energy, transport, water rates, rents, services etc. the cost of living in the UK is through the roof while the quality of the goods and services one gets is not equal to the price one pays and customer service is appalling. The UK is one of the most places in the developed, Western World for value for money and good customer service.

The UK supermarket Morrisons has had to hike the price of marmite by a staggering 12.5%. Meanwhile the National Institute for Economic and Social Research warned correctly that inflation in the UK would start rising fast in 2017. Indeed it jumped from 1.8% in January to 2.3% in February, quite an increase between one month and could go as high as 4% or more with the increase of import costs inevitably feeding through to the high street. As I said, the UK is already an egregiously and peculiarly overpriced place to live in, whether it is prices in the supermarket or on the high street, or the overinflated housing market and out of control rental sector. If prices are this expensive with an inflation rate currently at some where just over 2%, it will not be fun to see what prices stand at this time next year with an inflation rate of 4%.

Here I think about hard working and hard pressed people like a taxi driver in Cambridge I spoke with recently. He told me he works all the hours God sends him, seven days a week. And he still is only making ends meet and has no money left over at the end of the month to put aside for saving for a mortgage. Yet, according to Mrs. May Britain is such a great country to live in. So great, it has to spell it out by inserting the Great into its formal title. If someone has to tell you how great they are, you can bet your bottom dollar, they aren’t.

Then there is the issue of the Single Market. Britain’s main export market is the European Union. Indeed, the UK does more trade with Ireland than with China. As the German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated on the morning of the referendum result:

“The British people have made it clear. They do not want to be part of the European Union. They do not want to be part of its Single Market”.

Mrs. May confirmed this with her dreadful, contradictory and incoherent “Global Britain” speech back in January. So, with no prospects of a quick and easy UK-EU trade agreement the years ahead for the UK, quite possibly crashing out of the EU and it’s Single Market on to World Trade Organisation tariffs will be very painful for British businesses and customers. This is why the reassurances that the British Government have given Nissan regarding tariff free access for the UK motor industry and its pronouncements that there will be no change in the border arrangement between Northern and Southern Ireland are worthless. It is not going to be up to the UK Government whether or not the motor industry will be free from EU tariffs or whether or not the island of Ireland is going to be subjected to an EU border.

Brussels holds all the cards on these matters and it will be down to Brussels to decide if the UK motor industry is not subject to EU tariffs and whether border controls and customs checks should be introduced between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. Britain perhaps has some leverage on these matters but it does not have the final control over them. Ultimately, the UK will have to dependent upon the good will and good graces of the EU with regards to the final outcome on these matters.

This is why Mrs. May is playing a very dangerous and counter-productive game now with stirring up even more anti-European xenophobia for short-term, petty political gain as if the monstrous UK Referendum was not bad enough with the current British Foreign Secretary coming out with statements likening the project of the European Union to Hitler’s vision for Europe. By being so hostile and aggressive with comments such as her “bloody difficult woman” statement and her vulgar declaration on the steps of Downing Street that Brussels was scheming and plotting to undermine British democracy, she is not building the bridges of good will and constructive relationships Britain will need to get a good deal from the European Union.

Last weekend the 27 EU leaders – Theresa May was not present – approved within a minute or so the guidelines for the EU’s negotiation of Brexit first issued on 31 March by President of the European Council Donald Tusk. EU officials said leaders burst into applause as the negotiating stance was waved through. The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said:

“We are ready… we are together”.

As outgoing French President Francois Hollande said there would inevitably be

“a price and a cost for the UK – it’s the choice that was made”.

This is after all, what the British people voted for, so let them have it. I suspect there will be no deal at the end of the two year talks due to my belief that I can not envisage the UK honouring its financial contractual commitments. Thus, the UK will come crashing out without any deal.

If the EU chooses to subject the UK motor industry to tariffs and decides to institute an EU border between Northern and Southern Ireland, there will be nothing the UK can do to stop it. If the EU decides to make life difficult for the millions of British people who holiday on the glorious European continent each year to escape the miserable British weather and sour, passive-aggressive behaviour of their countrymen, there is nothing the UK will be able to do to stop it. There could be huge queues of cars at Dover and a plethora of customs checks. This is why the Leave campaign was such a fantasy, telling people that the UK could vote to leave the EU and still enjoy access to the Single Market.

This was one of the biggest lies told by Leave, just as big as their pledge to spend the extra money saved from EU budget contributions on the NHS. That pledge has quickly evaporated because it was based on lies and I doubt very much once the UK finally exits the EU in 2019 there will be any new money available to spend on the NHS. Indeed, it will be interesting to see what happens to the NHS which is staffed heavily with EU nationals and internationals because of the UK’s inability to train and retain home grown talent. As Matthew Norman writing in The Independent recently said:

“Those who disdain free movement of workers from inside and outside the EU (until they find themselves in hospital, or the washing machine breaks down)”.

Of all the EU Heads of Government, it has been the German Chancellor who has been the most moderate in her pronouncements on the consequences for Britain of leaving the EU. Now however even Angela Merkel’s patience with the foot dragging and flights of fantasy of the British Government is wearing thin. The Chancellor recently spoke of the “illusions” that some in the British Government still harboured regarding how difficult Brexit and it’s negotiations were going to be. Previously the Chancellor had said that:

“It is going to be rough going I think. It will not be that easy”.

This goes to nub of the predicament that the UK has placed itself in.

When it comes to Brexit it is the EU which holds all the cards. That is why perhaps it would have been wiser and in the national interest not to have appointed the “three Brexiters” of Johnson, Fox and Davis to the key posts that will oversee the massive amount of work involved over the coming years in disentangling the UK from the EU. Those appointments hardly sent a conciliatory and emollient message to EU capitals. In fact, it raised the hackles of many in Paris, Berlin et al and Mrs. May bangs on and on like a robot about how she is the only leader in Britain best placed to handle the Brexit negotiations. I think from her performance so far and that of her Government Ministers who brought about this crisis for Britain, it is clear she is the last person well suited to the task ahead.

It is not just an economic and financial storm which is on the horizon for the UK, but a constitutional crisis which could see the breakup of the United Kingdom itself. While the country as a whole voted by 52% to 48% to leave, a more complex and nuanced picture emerges when one examines the breakdown of the regional voting. Scotland overwhelmingly voted to remain. As did Northern Ireland. The Scottish Nationalist First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been quite right to demand another Scottish Independence Referendum. The Scottish Referendum was held when the UK was still a part of the EU and Scotland was voting to remain part of a UK inside the EU. It would have made more sense to have held the Scottish Referendum after the EU Referendum, not the other way around.

But then, this is Britain after all where there is such poor planning and design with very little though and rigour ever put into anything whether it be the management and running of public services or the design and layout of public buildings. If it gets to such a vote, Scotland could well opt for independence this time as a means to re-enter the EU and gain access to the Single Market, a market place far bigger and far more important for Scotland than remaining in a union with England.

Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, the decision to leave the EU could very well achieve what thirty plus years of the bombs and bullets of the Provisional IRA failed to do – force a British Exit – with the North reunified with the South within the European Union. For the first time ever in the recent local Northern Ireland Assembly elections the unionists lost their majority for the first time ever and Sinn Fein is now only one seat behind the largest of the unionist parties.

As General de Gaulle said in his statement when he vetoed the UK’s first application for EEC membership in 1962: “England is insular”. It is not just England. Many parts of the UK are insular and brutally provincial, totally un-cosmopolitan and un-globalised. Many British people barely know the correct facts about the composition of their own country, let alone about the rest of Europe and the world.

No one in England (outside of the political, media, diplomatic and business elites) rarely calls the country by its formal title – the United Kingdom or even Britain – it is simply England for many people and most describe themselves as English rather than British. So one side effect of Brexit will probably be the end of the artificial construct known to only a few as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain is well and truly on the Brink and .

Due caccia F-35 statunitensi sono arrivati il 25 aprile nella base aerea di Ämari, in Estonia, per il loro «primo spiegamento addestrativo in Europa», ossia per la loro prima esercitazione di guerra in Europa. Poco dopo, il 28 aprile, altri due caccia sono arrivati allo stesso scopo nella base aerea di Graf Ignatievo in Bulgaria. Essi fanno parte del gruppo di sei F-35A Lightning II trasferiti il 15 aprile dagli Stati uniti nella base inglese di Lakenheath.

È il primo «spiegamento addestrativo» di F-35 statunitensi oltremare, comunica la U.S. Air Force, sottolineando che esso «rafforza la sicurezza dei nostri alleati Nato e partner europei e dimostra il nostro impegno per la sicurezza regionale e globale». Il ministro estone della difesa Tsahkna ha dichiarato, alla cerimonia di benvenuto, che «ospitare un aereo talmente avanzato costituisce un riconoscimento dell’importante ruolo svolto da questa base». Ämari è infatti la principale base della missione Nato di «pattugliamento aereo» del Baltico, dove cacciabombardieri forniti a rotazione dai membri dell’Alleanza (Italia compresa) sono pronti al decollo ventiquattr’ore su ventiquattro per «reagire rapidamente alle violazioni dello spazio aereo». La base si trova a circa 200 km dal territorio russo e a circa 400 km dall’enclave russa di Kaliningrad, che un caccia può raggiungere in pochi minuti. Strategicamente importante anche Graf Ignatievo, una delle 4 basi Usa in Bulgaria, a poco pià di 500 km dal territorio russo.

La scelta di queste basi per la prima esercitazione degli F-35 al di fuori del territorio statunitense ha molteplici scopi. Anzitutto quello di rafforzare la «European Reassurance Initiative», l’operazione lanciata dagli Stati uniti nel 2014 per «rassicurare» gli alleati Nato e partner europei di fronte a «una Russia che vuole sempre più imporsi con le sue azioni aggressive». Per tale operazione, in cui rientra lo schieramento della 3a Brigata corazzata Usa in Polonia, sono stati stanziati 3,4 miliardi di dollari per l’anno fiscale 2017.

L’esercitazione degli F-35 serve allo stesso tempo a «integrare il nuovo caccia di 5a generazione nell’infrastruttura Nato». Per ora, comunica la U.S. Air Force, non si prevede di usare l’F-35 nel «pattugliamento aereo» del Baltico, ma «se necessario, il caccia potrebbe essere usato in combattimento».

Altro scopo dell’esercitazione, effettuata a ridosso della Russia, è quello di testare la capacità dell’F-35 di sfuggire ai radar russi. È in sostanza una prova di attacco nucleare: il nuovo caccia è infatti destinato ad essere il principale vettore della nuova bomba nucleare B61-12 che gli Usa sostituiranno alle attuali B-61 a partire dal 2020. L’Italia disporrà sia degli F-35 che delle B61-12, impiegabili in operazioni sotto comando Usa.

Ulteriore scopo dell’esercitazione è dimostrare che il nuovo caccia della Lockheed Martin, nonostante i molti problemi tecnici, è ormai «combat ready» (pronto al combattimento), smentendo le previsioni di quanti erano fiduciosi che non avrebbe mai volato. Il 26 aprile, la Lockheed Martin ha ricevuto un contratto da 109 milioni di dollari per l’upgrade di uno dei tanti software del caccia. Il 1° maggio, ha ricevuto un altro contratto del valore di 1,4 miliardi di dollari, per la produzione iniziale di 130 F-35 Lightning II del lotto 12, destinati agli Stati uniti e ad altri paesi.

Essenziale ora è che il caccia «combat ready» sia usato in qualche guerra per essere dichiarato «combat proven», provato in combattimento. In attesa, viene inviato in Estonia e Bulgaria a combattere la nuova guerra fredda contro la Russia per «rassicurare» noi europei.

 Manlio Dinucci

Image. Sauron in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

“The problem is that the world has listened to Americans for far too bloody long.” — Dr. Julian Osborne, from the 2000 film version of Nevil Shute’s 1957 book.

Their insane plan is as follows: Washington will ring Russia and China with anti-ballistic missile bases in order to provide a shield against a retaliatory strike from Russia and China. Moreover, these US anti-ABM bases also can deploy nuclear attack missiles unknown to Russia and China, thus reducing the warning time to five minutes, leaving Washington’s victims little or no time in which to make a decision.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping

The neoconservatives think that Washington’s first strike will so badly damage the Russian and Chinese retaliatory capabilities that both governments will surrender rather than launch a response. The Russian and Chinese leaderships would conclude that their diminished forces leave little chance that many of their ICBMs will be able to get past Washington’s ABM shield, leaving the US largely intact. A feeble retaliation by Russia and China would simply invite a second wave US nuclear attack that would obliterate Russian and Chinese cities, killing millions and leaving both countries in ruins.

In short, the American warmongers are betting that the Russian and Chinese leaderships would submit rather than risk total destruction.

There is no question that neoconservatives are sufficiently evil to launch a preemptive nuclear attack, but possibly the plan aims to put Russia and China into a situation in which their leaders conclude that the deck is stacked against them and, therefore, they must accept Washington’s hegemony.

To feel secure in its hegemony, Washington would have to order Russia and China to disarm.

This plan is full of risks. Miscalculations are a feature of war. It is reckless and irresponsible to risk the life of the planet for nothing more than Washington’s hegemony.

The neoconservative plan puts Europe, the UK, Japan, S. Korea, and Australia at high risk were Russia and China to retaliate. Washington’s ABM shield cannot protect Europe from Russia’s nuclear cruise missiles or from the Russian Air Force, so Europe would cease to exist. China’s response would hit Japan, S. Korea, and Australia.

The Russian hope and that of all sane people is that Washington’s vassals will understand that it is they that are at risk, a risk from which they have nothing to gain and everything to lose, repudiate their vassalage to Washington and remove the US bases. It must be clear to European politicians that they are being dragged into conflict with Russia. This week the NATO commander told the US Congress that he needed funding for a larger military presence in Europe in order to counter “a resurgent Russia.”

https://www.rt.com/news/387063-nato-counter-resurgent-russia/

Let us examine what is meant by “a resurgent Russia.” It means a Russia that is strong and confident enough to defend its interests and those of its allies. In other words, Russia was able to block Obama’s planned invasion of Syria and bombing of Iran and to enable the Syrian armed forces to defeat the ISIS force sent by Obama and Hillary to overthrow Assad.

Russia is “resurgent” because Russia is able to block US unilateral actions against some other countries.

This capability flies in the face of the neoconservative Wolfowitz doctrine, which says that the principal goal of US foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any country that can serve as a check on Washington’s unilateral action.

While the neocons were absorbed in their “cakewalk” wars that have now lasted 16 years, Russia and China emerged as checks on the unilateralism that Washington had enjoyed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. What Washington is trying to do is to recapture its ability to act worldwide without any constraint from any other country. This requires Russia and China to stand down.

Are Russia and China going to stand down? It is possible, but I would not bet the life of the planet on it. Both governments have a moral conscience that is totally missing in Washington. Neither government is intimidated by the Western propaganda. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said yesterday that we hear endless hysterical charges against Russia, but the charges are always vacant of any evidence.

https://sputniknews.com/politics/201705041053274379-lavrov-russia-us-relations/

Conceiveably, Russia and China could sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of life on earth. But this same moral conscience will propel them to oppose the evil that is Washington in order not to succumb to evil themselves. Therefore, I think that the evil that rules in Washington is leading the United States and its vassal states to total destruction.

Having convinced the Russian and Chinese leaderships that Washington intends to nuke their countries in a suprise attack (see, for example, http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/04/us-forces-preparing-sudden-nuclear.html ), the question is how do Russia and China respond? Do they sit there and await an attack, or do they preempt Washington’s attack with an attack of their own?

What would you do? Would you preserve your life by submitting to evil, or would you destroy the evil?

Writing truthfully results in my name being put on lists (financed by who?) as a “Russian dupe/agent.” Actually, I am an agent of all people who disapprove of Washington’s willingness to use nuclear war in order to establish Washington’s hegemony over the world, but let us understand what it means to be a “Russian agent.”

It means to respect international law, which Washington does not. It means to respect life, which Washington does not. It means to respect the national interests of other countries, which Washington does not. It means to respond to provocations with diplomacy and requests for cooperation, which Washington does not. But Russia does. Clearly, a “Russian agent” is a moral person who wants to preserve life and the national identity and dignity of other peoples.

It is Washington that wants to snuff out human morality and beome the master of the planet. As I have previously written, Washington without any question is Sauron. The only important question is whether there is sufficient good left in the world to resist and overcome Washington’s evil.

On Thursday, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum in Astana, Kazakhstan on establishing four de-escalation zones in Syria – these countries acting as guarantors.

According to Tass, zones will be in

“Idlib province and some neighboring territories (Latakia, Hama and Aleppo) to the north of Homs, East Ghouta and some provinces in southern Syria (Daraa and Quneitra).”

Checkpoints will be set up on borders of zones for security, safe passage of civilians, and delivery of humanitarian aid.

“Points of monitoring the ceasefire will be also arranged there,” Tass explained.

Russia’s Presidential Envoy on the Syrian Settlement Alexander Lavrentyev said Moscow will do everything possible to assure no aerial or ground operations in these zones.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry made similar comments. Lavrentyek said Russian

“combat operations (in) this territory” will cease, but only if no efforts are taken…to destabilize the situation (in) the country’s other territories.”

Moscow is ready to send observers to monitor compliance and address violations. The agreement becomes effective on May 6.

Within 10 days of its signing, guarantor states will establish a joint working group, firming up precise de-escalation zones and borders. By late May, maps will be drawn up to show them.

Hostilities in “tentatively designated” de-escalation zones will stop for six months, longer if all parties agree.

Ceasefire observance depends entirely on opposition groups complying with the agreement – very doubtful based on past experience and the reaction of these groups in Astana, rejecting the plan, refusing to accept Iran as one of the guarantor countries.

Syria and Russia can be counted on to fully observe what’s proposed – not US-supported terrorists, the Trump administration, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states or Israel, making de-escalation shaky before beginning.

Discount a State Department statement, saying

“(t)he United States supports any effort that can genuinely de-escalate the violence in Syria, ensure unhindered humanitarian access, focus energies on the defeat of ISIS and other terrorists, and create the conditions for a credible political resolution of the conflict.”

False! Washington initiated conflict to destroy Syrian sovereignty, oust Assad and replace him with a pro-Western puppet. Its objective remains unchanged.

America supports ISIS and other terrorist groups. It obstructs humanitarian aid. It wants endless war, not resolution.

Expect continued US efforts to undermine Russia’s de-escalation plan the way it sabotaged five years of on-and-off peace talks.

Alexander Lavrentyev

State Department: We…encouraged the Syrian opposition to participate actively in the discussions despite the difficult conditions on the ground.”

Fact: The opposite is true. US obstruction since Geneva I in 2012 aimed to prevent conflict resolution.

State Department:

“We continue to have concerns about the Astana agreement, including the involvement of Iran as a so-called ‘guarantor.’ “

“Iran’s activities in Syria have only contributed to the violence, not stopped it, and Iran’s unquestioning support for the Assad regime has perpetuated the misery of ordinary Syrians.”

“In light of the failures of past agreements, we have reason to be cautious. We expect the regime to stop all attacks on civilians and opposition forces, something they have never done. We expect Russia to ensure regime compliance.”

Fact: Russia and Iran are committed for conflict resolution. Washington wants endless war and regime change.

State Department:

“We look forward to continuing our dialogue with the Russian Federation on efforts to that can responsibly end the Syria conflict. We continue to strongly support the UN-led process in Geneva…”

Fact: Washington and its rogue allies are part of the problem, not the solution.

Fact: Russia, Iran and Syria alone can be relied on for good faith efforts to end over six years of US-instigated aggression.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new 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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Iran, Turkey and Russia have signed a memorandum on the creation of four security zones in Syria during another round of the peace talks in Astana on May 4. According to the document, security zones were proposed in the province of Idlib, in the area north of the city of Homs, in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus and in southern Syria.

“Guarantors within five days after signing the memorandum will create a working group at the level of authorized representatives to determine the boundaries of disarmament, areas of tension and security areas, as well as to address technical issues related to the implementation of the memorandum,” the text of the document reads.

All technical issues, including borders of the zones, should be solved until May 22. The next round of the  Astana peace talks will take place in mid-July when the trilateral group will report about the process of the reconciliation.

If the initiative achieves at least partly success, this will likely mean that in May or June the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allied forces, backed up by Russia and Iran, will launch a large operation against ISIS in central Syria, aiming to reach the key city of Deir Ezzor besieged by ISIS. However, these will be possible only if the situation near Damascus, Daraa and Homs will be calm.

The SAA, led by the 105th Brigade of the Republican Guard, stormed the remaining militant defense lines in the southeastern part of the Qaboun district in eastern Damascus and captured a number of buildings from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Al-Rahman Corps.

Reports appeared that dozens of members of HTS and the Al-Rahman Corps fled the Al-Qaboun district and arrived the Eastern Ghouta through underground tunnels. They will help their counterparts in the ongoing fight against Jaish al-Islam in Eastern Ghouta. If confirmed, this move will weaken further militant defenses in Qaboun and will lead to more gains by pro-government forces.

There are also reports that Qaboun militants and government representatives are now negotiating on a possible withdrawal agreement from the area. This is another move that could lead to a full liberation of the area.

In Eastern Ghouta, the Al-Rahman Corps and HTS launched an attack against Jaish al-Islam in the town of Arbeen. The Al-Rahman Corps and the HTS seized a major part of the town after a fierce battle with Jaish al-Islam members. The fighting is ongoing.

On May 4, a number of media activists and media outlets reported that ISIS withdrew from the town of Tabqah and the nearby Tabqah dam in the province of Raqqah and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) got full control over these sites. These reports appeared to be untrue. The SDF press center officially denied them in a statement at its website and said that clashes continued in northern Tabqah and near the dam. On May 5, clashes continued in the same area.

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Hillary Clinton’s explanation for her electoral defeat – putting much of the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin – clashes with her own chronology of her campaign’s collapse in key Rust Belt states that put Donald Trump into the White House. 

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour at the Women for Women International conference on Tuesday, Clinton stated that if the election had been held on Oct. 27, 2016, she would have won, but that her hopes were derailed on Oct. 28.

However, what happened on Oct. 28 wasn’t anything that Putin may or may not have done. It was FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that he was reopening the investigation into possible security violations related to Clinton’s use of a private email server as Secretary of State.

Then, just two days before the Nov. 8 election, Comey again injected the Clinton-server issue into the campaign by announcing that he was once more closing the inquiry.

In other words, Comey delivered what amounted to a double-whammy by reminding voters of a key reason why they distrusted Clinton (the private email server) and then creating the appearance that she was getting special treatment for conduct that might have put a “lesser” person in prison (by absolving her of legal guilt).

However, regarding Clinton’s chronology of her defeat and the supposed role of Russia in exposing Democratic emails, the timing doesn’t fit. WikiLeaks began publishing the purloined emails of Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta three weeks before Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement. The first batch was released on Oct. 7 and others were made public over the next couple of months.

Though those emails surely embarrassed the Clinton campaign – because they revealed the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street and some pay-to-play features of the Clinton Foundation – there was no clear correlation between their publication and Clinton’s late drop in the polls.

As Harry Enten reported for FiveThirtyEight, a web site that specializes in electoral predictions,

“Clinton’s drop in the polls doesn’t line up perfectly with the surge in Wikileaks interest. When Wikileaks had its highest search day in early October, Clinton’s poll numbers were rising. They continued to go up for another two weeks, even as Wikileaks was releasing emails.”

Indeed, on Oct. 7, The Upshot, The New York Times’ daily tracking of the election’s odds, gave Clinton an 82 percent chance of winning, a prospect that brightened to 92 percent by Oct. 27 before sliding after Comey’s announcement to 85 percent on Election Day.

In other words, Clinton’s chances continued to improve in the three weeks after the WikiLeaks’ publications and only dropped in the wake of Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement of the reopened server investigation.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Comey said he disclosed the reopened investigation on Oct. 28 because he had earlier informed Congress that he had closed the inquiry and that saying nothing would have required an “act of concealment.”

WikiLeaks’ Denials

Regarding the Podesta emails, there’s also the evidentiary question of whether Russia did, in fact, provide them to WikiLeaks, whose founder Julian Assange has denied getting the material from Russia. One WikiLeaks associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, indicated that the Podesta emails and an earlier batch of Democratic National Committee emails came from two different American insiders.

President Obama’s intelligence chiefs, however, asserted with high confidence – but without presenting specific evidence – that Russia was the original source, supposedly having hacked into the email accounts of Podesta and the DNC.

In her comments on Tuesday, Clinton treated the Russian hacking allegations as flat-fact and gave Russia and WikiLeaks top billing in explaining her defeat, even over Comey.

“Every day that goes by we learn more about the unprecedented interference by a foreign power whose leader is not a member of my fan club,” Clinton said in reference to Putin without using his name. “He certainly interfered in our election. And it was clear he interfered to hurt me and to help my opponent.”

But Clinton slid into conspiracy mode by suggesting that Putin, Trump or someone else somehow arranged to have the first batch of Podesta emails released on Oct. 7, 2016, to blunt the impact of that day’s disclosure of Trump’s 2005 hot-mic comments to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about grabbing women by the “pussy.” (Regarding the timing of that release, NBC explained that a producer recalled the comment and dug the tape out of the archive, before it was leaked to The Washington Post, which published the lewd remark on Oct. 7.)

“Ask yourself this,” Clinton said on Tuesday. “Within an hour or two of the Hollywood Access tape being made public the Russian theft of John Podesta’s emails hit Wikileaks. What a coincidence!”

So, is the former Secretary of State suggesting that there was such direct collusion among Trump, Putin and WikiLeaks that they coordinated the timing of the Oct. 7 release to distract from the release of Trump’s “pussy” comment? U.S. intelligence agencies have cited no proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia regarding the email leaks.

But Clinton went even further, suggesting that Trump was coordinating his public statements with Putin.

“If you chart my opponent and his campaign’s statements, they quite coordinated with the goals that that leader who shall remain nameless had,” Clinton said.

Yet, while primarily blaming Putin and Comey for her defeat, Clinton offered no specific examples of her own failings during the campaign. She responded to a question about her supporters’ disappointment and anger  by accepting blame only in general terms.

“I take absolute personal responsibility,” Clinton said. “I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had. … It wasn’t a perfect campaign. There is no such thing. But I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on Oct. 28 and Russian Wikileaks raised doubts in the mind of people who were inclined to vote for me but were scared off.”

Donald Trump speaking at the Iowa Republican Party’s 2015 Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa. May 16, 2015. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)

While promising more specifics about her mistakes in an upcoming memoir, she avoided any references to problems that other analysts have cited, such as her controversial decision as Secretary of State to use a private email server; her acceptance of six-figure speaking fees from Wall Street and other special interest groups after leaving the State Department; her description of half of Trump’s supporters as “deplorables”; her hawkish foreign policy, including her support for the disastrous Iraq War and her key role in the botched Libyan regime change; her campaign’s lack of an inspirational or coherent message; her heavy reliance on negative advertising against Trump; her association with past scandals involving her husband, Bill Clinton; and her neglect of the traditionally Democratic states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which gave Trump the electoral votes he needed to win.

A Passive-Aggressive Style

In contrast to President Obama who avoided pinning his political problems on race, Clinton pointed to misogyny as another reason for her defeat and depicted women’s rights as the premier issue facing the world.

“Women’s rights is the unfinished business of the Twenty-first Century,” Clinton said. “There is no more important larger issue that has to be addressed.”

As important as women’s rights are — and as popular as the line may have been to her audience — Clinton’s statement had a discordant ring since there are many other examples of “unfinished business of the Twenty-first Century,” such as global warming, endless warfare, nuclear weapons, racism, religious bigotry, poverty, lack of health care, etc.

It was also somewhat ironic that Clinton sat before a slogan, #SheBringsPeace, given her militaristic approach toward American foreign policy, including her infamous celebration of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s grisly murder in 2011, when she declared, “we came, we saw, he died” and clapped with joy.

Despite her off-putting passive-aggressive attitude for much of the half-hour interview, Clinton was at her best toward the end when she began discussing detailed domestic policies and the future challenges to the jobs of Americans from robotics and other high-tech developments.

Only then did the viewers get a sense of Clinton’s greatest strength, her wonky interest in the nitty-gritty of what the government can do for people, a favorable contrast to President Trump’s surprise at how complicated many of the issues are that land on the President’s desk.

But the bulk of the interview focused on blame-shifting her defeat largely onto Russia as she presented herself as a new fighter in the anti-Trump #Resistance.

“I’m now back to being an activist citizen and part of the Resistance,” Clinton declared.

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).

Obamacare was bad enough – a deplorable rationing scheme to enrich insurers, drug companies and large hospital chains.

Trumpcare makes things far worse. Family subsidies to help low-income households without employer or VA coverage are slashed to $2,000 – $4,000, largely based on age.

Insurers can charge older Americans up to five times more than younger ones – making coverage, or enough of it, unaffordable for millions not eligible for Medicare.

Medicaid as an open-ended entitlement is ended for the nation’s poor. States will receive allotted amounts of federal funding as a lump-sum block grant with few restrictions – giving them the option of aiding their poor residents or restricting it, perhaps diverting some of the funds for other purposes.

Over the next 10 years, Medicaid for the nation’s most vulnerable will be slashed by $880 billion. Millions of poor households will increasingly be denied vital healthcare when they most need it for expensive treatments.

If continuous coverage is interrupted for any reason, insurers can impose a 30% surcharge on premiums to restore it.

States can opt out of federal mandates, prohibiting higher premiums for emergency services, maternity care, and for individuals based on their health status, namely pre-existing conditions.

Insurers cannot charge sick people higher premiums unless a state has a high-risk pool or reinsurance program – to help residents with serious illnesses.

States will get $138 billion over 10 years – to be used at their discretion for subsidizing health insurance premiums, covering residents with pre-existing conditions, and treating drug addiction.

Corporations and high-net worth households get a $600 billion tax break windfall over the next 10 years.

America’s low-income, poor and most vulnerable face draconian cuts in a fundamental human right. Millions will be denied it altogether.

Trumpcare is a scheme to benefit business and America’s rich at the expense of providing vital healthcare equitably for everyone.

Trump’s Thursday celebratory photo-op White House Rose Garden beer bash for GOP lawmakers was testimony to his reckless indifference for the rights and needs of ordinary Americans.

His (Un)American Healthcare Act now goes to the Senate for consideration where its fate is uncertain.

Healthcare advocacy groups intend all-out efforts to stop its enactment into law. The welfare of millions of Americans depends on it.

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) president Dr. Carol Paris said Thursday’s House vote

“shows (its) leaders are not only out of ideas on health care, but out of touch with their own constituents.”

“In polls and at town hall meetings, Americans consistently demand Medicare for all, the only plan that is universal, sustainable, and proven to work in every other industrialized nation.”

“The Medicare for all train is leaving the station and the majority of Americans are on it. Members of Congress need to get on board or get out of the way.”

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new 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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In Cairo, Pope Francis, once again, did what he usually does best: he snapped at the state of immorality and selfishness, which is governing the world, particularly in the West. The message to Egypt’s priests could actually be directed at the population of the European and North American cities:

“The first temptation is to letting ourselves to be led, rather than to lead… The second temptation is complaining constantly… The third temptation is gossip and envy… The fourth temptation is comparing us with those better off… The fifth temptation is individualism, ‘me, and after me the flood’… the final temptation is ‘keep walking without direction or destination…”

Pope Francis gave speeches, and met the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El Sisi. He appealed to Egypt to

“Save the world from famine of love”.

The Egyptian Gazette, an official English language newspaper, carried a headline with a photograph of Pope Francis and the President (and ex-general El Sisi), smiling at each other, as if this odd couple could truly become the entity capable of returning both love and passion to the world.

“Although the Pope’s speeches were good, I have a big problem with anyone meeting the murderer El Sisi,” one of my friends wrote to me from exile in Paris, one of the ‘revolutionary doctors’, a man who used to be imprisoned and tortured here in Egypt.

And El Sisi he did meet, and they grinned at each other for the camera lenses.

*

There is one point that is hardly made in the local and international media: the Christians in Egypt fully embraced the military coup of July 2013, during and after which allegedly thousands of people were massacred (some in the poorest slums of Cairo), tens of thousands tortured, and more than a million imprisoned.

In 2012 and 2013 I was filming in Egypt for Telesur, directing and producing a documentary film about the end of the Arab Spring and the crashing of all hopes for a better, socialist Egypt. After witnessing the horrors of El Sisi’s crackdown on Morsi’s supporters, as well as on the Egyptian left, I went to the famous ‘Hanging Church’ in Coptic Cairo and asked the believers about the coup. They refused to even use the word ‘coup’, and expressed their unconditional support for the military junta.

Today, almost 4 years later, I went back to the same church, and confronted two leading Orthodox Christian clerics of Egypt, Father Jacoub and Father Samuel (they claim that in their mind there is “no difference between the Catholics and Orthodox Christians).

“Now that Egypt is bleeding and people are pushed to the edge, do Christians still support the military government?” I asked point-blank.

First, Father Samuel replied:

“Yes, now it is the same unwavering support as before. The church was behind the President, El Sisi from the very beginning, and it is with him now.”

Then Father Jacoub joined the litany:

“El Sisi protected us; he saved our country.”

Then Father Samuel again:

“President Sisi came to power during the difficult time for Egypt. He’s doing well, changing the country.”

“Isn’t it all sectarian, religious?” I wanted to know. “ Aren’t you supporting El Sisi because he attacked the Muslim Brotherhood?”

Another honest answer followed:

“Yes it is religious… Yes, it is one of the reasons for our support.”

*

I spoke to people in slums and on the street. Almost all of them were desperate. Food prices were skyrocketing and periodically, there have been shortages, even of some basic food.

A person with whom I used to work before, during the ‘days of hope’, was subdued, frustrated, and angry:

“Now people are really furious. Everything is getting more and more expensive. But currently, people don’t even dare to protest: the police and the army closely monitor everything. You dare to go to the streets, and they disappear you; you get immediately arrested. There are some 2 million people in our prisons, now… Perhaps one or two more years and things will explode again. It really cannot continue like this, forever.”

Egyptian people are well informed, but frightened and fragmented. They clearly comprehend what is taking place, but they are waiting for the right moment to return to the streets. I personally know those who were imprisoned and tortured in Egypt, after the coup. Every trip back here reminds me of extremely close calls, when I could have been killed myself, be it in Port Said, in Alexandria, and in Cairo. But Egypt is ‘addictive’: once you begin writing about it, it is extremely difficult to leave, forever.

“The military is everywhere,” I’m told inside the monumental Citadel built by the great Sultan Saladin, who fought against the European crusaders, defending vast areas between Egypt, Syria and Iraq:

“The military and the police; they are paid by the West, particularly by the United States. For decades, they were corrupted; they control Egyptian businesses, from A to Z. It would be suicidal to criticize them openly. And they love the West. Many of our people also have no choice but to ‘love the West’, because the economy of this enormous country has already collapsed. You are either miserably poor, or you are part of the armed forces, or in the tourist industry, or the few other services which are all somehow intertwined with the West.”

The same pattern as in Afghanistan, I realize. Endemic corruption mostly injected from outside, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of treasonous families, the elites, whoproduce nothing tangible but live well from selling their own country to the imperialist Western rulers. And then there are of course the army, the police, and dozens of their branches with complicated and proud names.

And countries are going to the dogs, while the Western mass media is busy demonizing Syria, Venezuela, the Philippines and North Korea.

*

This is an S.O.S. written to me a few months ago by one of the left-wing “revolutionary doctors”, with whom I was working on my Egypt film:

“The counter revolution has triumphed… Sisi dictatorship strengthened… All opposition parties and organizations squashed… thousands of revolutionaries imprisoned… Hundreds executed by court orders or liquidated by the police… Media suppressed and directly controlled by the regime… The military economic investment in the country has soared… Neoliberalism is taking hold… People are suffering.”

Is the Pope blind? Or is there perhaps some other, more complex game, which is being played?

Pope Francis is, after all, from Argentina, and his own country is deeply divided about his role during the military dictatorship there in the 1970s.

“POPE OF PEACE, IN EGYPT OF PEACE” one reads from the thousands of posters hanging on the electric poles of Cairo.

Really? Egypt of peace…

“The famine of love!”

He and the General (currently President), together, are now ready to tackle it, heroically, hand in hand, while millions are rotting in prisons, and the country is gradually collapsing.

*

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.

Since the beginning of this century successive government’s have continually legislated away the civil liberties and human rights of the British people in exchange for a false sense of security. From the Terrorism Act and RIPA – now used to catch pigeon feeding and under-age sun bed use, Public Space Protection Orders to ban gatherings of more than three people, secret courts, unlawful imprisonment and now the Espionage Act. This new Act has one main purpose – to stifle free speech by treating whistleblowers and journalists reporting the wrong-doing of those in power as foreign spies with hugely extended prison sentences and to dismantle the basic integrity of Britain’s democratic principles. In the space of little more than  fifteen years Britain is now on the trajectory of becoming an authoritarian state. But don’t take my word for it….

From Open Rights Group

Today marks the end of the Law Commission’s public consultation on their proposals to create a new Espionage Act that would jail whistleblowers and journalists who handle official data. Open Rights Group gave them exactly what they asked for―the voices of 23,385 members of the public, delivered right to their offices at the Ministry of Justice.

ORG’s petition broadly rejects The Law Commission’s proposals and demands they be dropped.

The threat of up to 14 years in prison would have a chilling effect on whistleblowers and the reporters they contact, weakening free speech and the integrity of UK democracy.

Thank you to all the ORG supporters that signed the petition or emailed the Commission: they now know that thousands of citizens refuse to live in a country where journalists and government staffers are afraid to expose corruption.

We urge the Law Commission to take your requests seriously. That would be a huge improvement over the sham “consultation” that barely took place while the initial report was developed.

Contrary to the Commission’s statements, they worked closely with government officials and lawyers while organisations like ORG, Liberty and the Guardian were given short shrift.

Whether the Commission’s final recommendations will take the public consultation into account remains to be seen. Meanwhile ORG supporters have given them no option to claim public support for a new Espionage Act.

ORG also submitted a comprehensive report along with the petition detailing concerns about the Commission’s proposals. Highlights include:

• The Law Commission is not being upfront about their aims. Their proposals are obviously in response to the Snowden leaks but they do not mention this or other major cases related to the disclosure of official data. It is blatantly disingenuous to overlook such important cases and not consider how the powers in a new Espionage Act could have been used in these cases.

• Their proposals go against the very essence of whistleblowing by requiring concerns about corruption or malpractice be reported to an internal ombudsman. Whistleblowers have often tried to raise concerns internally and got nowhere. Whistleblowing is a last resort to expose hidden injustices that are not being dealt with within organisations.

• Their proposals take away far too many rights from the accused. The Government would only have to show that a defendant was aware of the damage that could be caused by disclosing information – even if no actual damage was caused. So even if journalists expose wrongdoing, like the MPs expenses scandal, they could not use a statutory public interest defence.

• The proposals threaten free speech. Editors, journalists and whistleblowers would be intimidated by the risk of up to 14 years in prison just for handling data.

• The UK Government recently enacted the most extreme surveillance law of any democracy, the Investigatory Powers Act. At a time when these powers should be scrutinised, these proposals would criminalise whistleblowers and journalists acting in the public interest.

From Democratic Audit

The Commission’s proposal to replace the Official Secrets Acts with a single ‘Espionage Act’ might sound sensible, but it threatens to chill free speech and investigative journalism.  It also overlooks the fact that some sections of the acts, including the 1920 Official Secrets Act, have been modernised several times after failed prosecutions of journalists and the Sunday Telegraph in 1969, the 1977-78 (the ABC trial) and in light of the acquittal of whistleblowing civil servant Clive Ponting in 1985. The Law Commission report, astonishingly and reprehensibly, appears to have been written in ignorance of these cases, the criticism which followed them and the legal changes then made.

From The Committee To Protect Journalists

British Prime Minister Theresa May has been warned by various political leaders in Britain not to rush to attack Syrian government forces if she wins the general election in June. The Guardian reported that she might hold a vote on military action this summer. If this is the case, it would imply that she wants to press ahead without UN backing.

May appears to want the support of parliament to have the freedom to join US in airstrikes against Syria in the event of another chemical attack. This is despite the fact there is no concrete evidence that Syrian forces carried out such a recent attack, just as there was no evidence to support similar claims in 2013 when David Cameron tried but failed to get parliamentary approval to bomb Syria.

Taking about the chemical attack that occurred on 4 April in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said:

“We think it would be constructive for the UN Security Council to accept a resolution that would not only investigate the incident but the accusations against Damascus. We have different facts, we don’t want to impose them but we stand for objective, impartial, honest investigation.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has cautioned May against unilateral military action in Syria:

“We don’t need unilateral action. We need to work through the UN but, above all, we need to bend ourselves totally to getting a political settlement in Syria.”

As with Iraq in 2003, the clear danger is that ‘evidence’ is being cooked up to fit a preconceived policy; in this case, the removal of Assad from power which was planned as far back as at least 2009: Syria is essentially a ‘war for energy, capital and empire‘.

The demonisation of Putin and Russia

Since Russia intervened at the behest of the Syrian government, the Syrian conflict has swung away from the opposition (terrorist) groups which the US has been supporting to defeat Assad, an ‘unspoken truth’ in the mainstream media (see ‘The Dirty War on Syria‘). However, the US seems increasingly desperate to intensify its military intervention to bring its plan for Syria and the wider Middle East region to fruition. This does not just mean attacking Syrian government forces. It also involves putting pressure on Russia to step aside.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin was told by the UK ambassador to the United Nations Matthew Rycroft that he is on the “wrong side of history” because of his support for the “barbaric” Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Rycroft added that supporting the Assad regime would result in “shame” and “humiliation” for Russia.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin

Rycroft said the Security Council had been

“held to ransom by Russia’s shameless support for the Assad regime.”

He added that Russia’s credibility and reputation across the world have been poisoned by its toxic association with Assad.

It might appear to some that Rycroft resides in an alternative universe. Where is the credibility and reputation of the US given its destruction of Panama, Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Syria (see ‘Five Invasion Plots, Three Continents, Identical Lies‘)? Where does its reputation lie when much of the world beyond the bubble Rycroft exists in recognises that the US has supported terror groups to destroy Syria?

Rycroft continued discussing Russia:

“They have chosen to side with a murderous, barbaric criminal, rather than with their international peers. They have chosen the wrong side of history.”

What he means by “international peers” is the often-used term “international community” which in turn means the US, NATO and its allies. This tirade against Russia and Assad is intended for the consumption of a Western public courtesy of the mainstream corporate media that peddles the narrative of the US and NATO being civilising forces in a barbaric world.

In response to Rycroft’s statements, Russia’s UN representative, Vladimir Safronkov, responded:

“Stop putting forward these unprofessional arguments and accusations against my country. These are not diplomatic. These are lies. Don’t even try to get into fights in the Arab world. Nothing will work and nothing will be achieved. All Arab countries recall your colonial hypocrisy.”

The anti-Russia rhetoric has been incessant in recent years. Following the US-instigated coup in Ukraine and with no hint of irony intended, British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that NATO must be ready for Russian aggression in “whatever form it takes.” He added that Russia is a “real and present danger.”

Former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Admiral James Stavridis deems Russian aggression a greater threat than terrorism. He depicts Putin as someone capable of disregarding international law and seizing situations to his advantage. This from someone who represents a country that has flagrantly disregarded international law to carry out illegal wars, torture, drone assassinations and mass murder as and when it deems necessary.

Jim Comey, director of the FBI, recently branded Russia the “greatest threat of any nation,” while answering questions at a Senate hearing on Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Again, no proper evidence has been offered to support this allegation and Comey failed to providence any.

Lies for perpetual war

In the UK, over the last 18 months, we have also seen Jeremy Corbyn ridiculed and attacked relentlessly. Corbyn has been described by prominent figures in the Conservative government as a threat to security and as a threat to Britain. He has been demonised in a similar to Putin. Corbyn was always going to be a target for the Establishment because he swims against the Washington consensus of neoliberal capitalism, war and imperialism.

Following Corbyn being elected as leader of the Labour Party in Britain, Michael Fallon stated:

“Labour are now a serious risk to our nation’s security, our economy’s security and your family’s security.”

If anything is a threat to Britain and the world, it is the underhand destabilisations and wars it participates in as it stands shoulder to shoulder with Washington and its agenda. Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has called the UK a danger to the world.

Murray has stated:

“I’ve seen things from the inside and the UK’s foreign interventions are almost always about resources. It is every bit as corrupt as others have indicated. It is not an academic construct, the system stinks.”

As far as Iraq is concerned, Murray said that he knew for certain that key British officials were fully aware that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. He said that invading Iraq wasn’t a mistake, it was a lie.

It was a lie just like the ongoing demonisation of Putin and Russia is based on a series of lies. We now have the situation in Syria where deception once again trumps reality as the US seeks to gain support for broadening its military campaign to balkanise Syria and redraw the map of the Middle East. Unfounded claims about Assad using chemical weapons are front page news and mirroring the lie of WMD in Iraq. Millions are dead in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan as the US and its allies play out a continuation of a modern-day ‘Great Game’.

The US thinks it and it alone has the right to act as it deems fit to protect its interests and to maintain global dominance. No other power will be allowed to rise to challenge the US.

The US has over a period of decades created a long list of bogeymen and bogus reasons to remove leaders and destroy sovereign states that have stood in the way of its geostrategic agenda. In terms of a massive military budget, worldwide military bases, illegal wars and destabilisations, it is not Russia but the US which poses the greater threat to humanity, that much is clear.

Jeremy Corbyn

Trajectory towards nuclear war

This is a recipe for perpetual war. It is a recipe that is leading humanity towards nuclear conflict as the US seeks to destroy Russia as a functioning state or at least replace Putin with a compliant puppet. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has pressed ahead both in a technological sense and a strategic sense to the point where it believes it can win a nuclear war with preemptive strike against Russia.

Since when did Russia become an ‘adversary’, we might ask. The answer is when Washington decided to break prior agreements with Moscow and then encircle it with troops and missiles. Eric Zeusse writes:

“The expectation and demand is clearly that Russia must allow itself to be surrounded by NATO, and to do this without complaint, and therefore also without taking military countermeasures, which NATO would call yet more “aggression by Russia.” Any defensive moves by Russia can thus be taken by the West to be unacceptable provocation and justification for a “pre-emptive” attack against Russia by NATO.”

There are well over a million dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya as a result of direct military intervention or covert actions by the Western powers and their allies (the death count for Iraq alone between 1990 and 2012 could be 3.3 million as a result of Western economic sanctions and illegal wars). But the ultimate price for everyone – both rich and poor – will be a world war fought with nuclear weapons.

The machinations of empire alongside a crisis of capitalism and an increasing reliance on militarism in a futile to deal with it has placed the US (and the whole of humanity) on an accelerating trajectory towards conflict with Russia (and China) that it might find impossible to escape from.

Matthew Rycroft, Theresa May and Michael Fallon all read from the same script handed to them by the neoconservatives in Washington. As they play chicken with Russia and gamble with all our lives, it is they who are on the wrong side of history.

Unfortunately, there will be no one left to prove that once they have reduced us all to ashes.

A US House of Representatives bill establishing control over the Russian Far East ports envisions a show of force and thus amounts to a declaration of war, the chairman of the Russian upper house of parliament’s international committee told Sputnik.

“This bill, I hope will never be implemented because its implementation envisions a scenario of power with forced inspections of all vessels by US warships,” Konstantin Kosachev said Friday.

His comments follow the reported passage on Thursday of a House bill enhancing sanctions against North Korea, outlining “inspection authorities” over Chinese, Iranian, Syrian and Russian ports. The latter include the ports of Nakhodka, Vanino and Vladivostok.

“Such a power scenario is beyond comprehension, because it means a declaration of war,” Kosachev underscored.

“The holding of mass demonstrations and antiwar protests is not enough. What is required is the development of a broad and well organized grassroots antiwar network which challenges the structures of power and authority.” (Prof. Michel Chossudovsky)

“This extreme danger is the new global reality. If the elimination of the threat does not come from the U.S. White House, the culmination of the threat will — regardless of which side strikes first. The decision — either to invade Russia, or else to cancel and condemn America’s decade-plus preparation to do so — can be made only by the U.S. President.” (Eric Zuesse)

America’s Top Scientists Confirm: U.S. Goal Now Is to Conquer Russia. “Disarming Enemies with a Surprise Nuclear First Strike”

By Eric Zuesse, May 04, 2017

The key turning-point that led up to the present crisis was the gradual and increasing acceptance, on the American side, of the concept of using nuclear weapons for conquest instead of only for deterrence.

What the North Korean “Crisis” is Really About. Pretext to Nuke Both Russia and China?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, May 04, 2017

THAAD in S. Korea is directed against China’s retaliatory forces. It is part of Washington’s preparations to nuke both Russia and China with minimal consequence to the US.

Slavehood 2017: Social Chaos and Global Warfare. “Puppet Leaders’ Greed for Power and Money”

By Peter Koenig, May 04, 2017

Today we have become all slaves; slaves to the powers of mafia bankster of finance; slaves to the western lie-propaganda; to the lobbies and their giant all dominating corporations – to the war-industry.

How to Reverse the Tide of War. A Global People’s Movement. Say No to Nuclear War

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, May 03, 2017

When a US sponsored nuclear war becomes an “instrument of peace”, condoned and accepted by the World’s institutions and the highest authority including the United Nations, there is no turning back: human society has indelibly been precipitated headlong onto the path of self-destruction.

Dangerous Crossroads: US General Says NATO is Ready to Fight Russia in Europe

By Adam Garrie, May 04, 2017

“Today we face the most dynamic European strategic environment in recent history,” he said in his testimony. “In the east, a resurgent Russia had turned from partner to antagonist as it seeks to undermine the Western-led international order and reassert itself as a global power. (General Curtis M. Scaparrotti)

U.S. to Launch Another Provocative Minuteman III ICBM Test, Amidst Accusations Directed against North Korea

By Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, May 03, 2017

“How does one test the effectiveness of a weapons system that is designed as a deterrent, that is, to prevent others from ever using nuclear weapons against us?”

 *     *     *

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The Balkans has always been cursed by a recurring theme: that each entity within it can, at some point, become greater and more consuming in territory than the next neighbour. Each nation has, and in some instances continues, to nurse dreams of enlargement, pecking away at borders and assuming that few will notice. 

Strategies of expansion tend to have one problem: they are hard to evaluate in the way of conventional agreement, contract or conspiracy. For decades, historians of various shades would attribute to Imperial Germany a conscious, global goal of conquest, mistaking the plans of contingent invasion with actual policy.

In the Albanian context, the gnawing phenomenon, one of a terrier insistent on chewing away at the sinews of a larger opponent, has been taking place since Yugoslavia imploded in spectacularly bloody fashion in the early 1990s.

A cementing aspect of the old project of unity, one that saw the creation of Tito’s Yugoslavia, was Kosovo; central to the current Albanian project of consolidation and security is the increasing influence of figures within southern Serbia and Macedonia, generally Albanian nationalists of various colours of severity who dare to dream. With Serbia the tainted bogeyman of Europe, their chances are better than ever.

The writing is already being scribbled on the wall – with feverish enthusiasm. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama had expressed the view that an Albanian-Kosovo union would be very much on the cards if the EU were to make admission more challenging.  Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaçi [former leader of the KLA, on the Interpol list] was even blunter, his words having the effect of a threateningly deployed mallet:

“all Albanians in the region will live in a single, united country so that the integration into the European family may continue”.[1]

The fear to Serbia’s north, in Belgrade, is amply reflected by Serbian cabinet minister Aleksandar Vulin:

“Pristina and Tirana have clearly said what their goal is, it is a ‘Greater Albania’ and unification of all Albanians, regardless of where they live, into a single ethnic area.”

Accordingly, this could “only be accomplished through a great Balkan war, and Brussels (EU) must be clear on all of this.”[2]  Given the current obsession with the unraveling of the EU, best indicated by the groans of Brexit, it is unlikely whether any eyes are being peeled on that score.

Members of a nation, as opposed to the idea of a state, remain the great problem international relations after the First World War. No better illustration of this was offered than the nationalist gymnastics that unfolded in the aftermath of a destroyed Europe.

Demography has become central in these latest disputes. In southern Serbia, where the breath of Greater Albania blows, ethnic Serbs are in demographic retreat before their more virile Albanian neighbours. This situation seems calm, but is actually electric, a surface energy that  may well only resolve itself by the power of the gun.

In its broader theatre, Albanian leaders are cunningly playing the pro-Western card to keep western powers on side.  This is to be expected, given the shrewdness that resourcefulness entails. As the Albanian foreign minister Ditmir Bushati explained in his April visit to Washington, his country provided an appropriate, stern bastion against Russian influence in the Balkans.

These broader ambitions are not to be taken lightly. Technically, it could see Serbia amputated as far as Niš.  This point is perceived as another territorial reassertion, given the expulsion of Albanians from the area during the Serbian campaigns of the 1870s.

Municipalities in southern Serbia have griped and groaned over the nationalist issue, centred upon Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac. Hot heads, from time to time, reach for their flags with heart. Editorials of irritation, barely tempered, are written.

The issue of secessionist violence is far from a moot point, given the insurgency in the Prešovo Valley from 1999 to 2001 mounted by the Liberal Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac. The violence reached such levels that the then Yugoslav President Vojislav Koštunica urged the NATO-led KFOR to intervene, given the handbrake that had been applied to Serbian freedom of action.

In Macedonia, a country with a strong Albanian voice, similar issues are on the march. A vigorous Albanian push (some argue putsch) remains a persistent reality for the Macedonian majority. The fraying began last December with the opposition Social Democrats achieving a parliamentary majority by going into coalition with parties representing ethnic-Albanian interests.

The long standing VMRO-DPMNE government, backed by President Gjorge Ivanov, refused to budge, fearing the new power arrangements. Matters duly got violent with a coalition attempt to elect a new parliamentary speaker.

The deputy leader of the Social Democrats, Radmila Šekerinska, deemed by Balkan Insight to be “Brussels’ favourite Macedonian”, was duly assaulted when Parliament was stormed by 200 protestors on April 27. Social Democratic Union leader Zoran Zaev and lawmaker Ziadin Sela, leader of the Albanian Alliance, were also injured.

The government beef was an ethnic one. It was claimed by such figures as Ivanov that too much was in the offing by way of concessions to Macedonia’s Albanians, who were exerting a natural gravitational pull on the Social Democrats.

Šekerinska insists that that issue is tactical, designed to obscure the need to create “a new reform-oriented government” that would hold various politicians accountable for criminal theft and corruption.[3]  Prime Minister Nikola Guevski and his associates, claims Jove Kekenovski,

“are ready to do anything, including ethnic conflict, to escape jail.”[4]

Some of that is bound to be true, though blood tends to be thicker than reform in Balkan politics. A resort to the gun over the boardroom; this is the Balkan vice, tainted by active or cynical indifference from outside powers.

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

Notes

[1] https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2017/04/20/thaci-albanians-to-unite-if-eu-closes-door-to-kosovo/

[2] https://inserbia.info/today/2017/04/vulin-eu-must-know-that-greater-albania-means-great-war-in-balkans/

[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39799208

[4] http://www.politico.eu/article/post-election-limbo-deepens-macedonian-stand-off-gjorge-ivanov/

With an introduction by Peter Dale Scott

The following important essay, by the respected and reliable journalist Allan Nairn, reports what Indonesian generals and others have told him of an army-backed movement to overthrow Indonesia’s civilian-led moderate constitutional government. Its thesis is alarming: that “Associates of Donald Trump in Indonesia have joined army officers and a vigilante street movement linked to ISIS in a campaign that ultimately aims to oust the country’s president… Joko Widodo (known more commonly as Jokowi).”

More recently a New York Times editorial, pointing to the electoral defeat on April 19 of Jakarta’s incumbent Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (or Ahok), has also expressed concern about the fate of Indonesia’s fragile democracy.¹ But the threat perceived by the Times is that from “hard line Islamic groups” (many of them Saudi-funded), not that from the leaders (often U.S.-trained and financed) of the Indonesian army. The editorial reflects the fear of many scholars that traditional Indonesian Islam, relatively tolerant but unable to compete with Saudi wealth, may lose out to well-funded Salafi extremism. (Last October Margaret Scott warned in the New York Review of Books that it was “far-fetched” to think that Indonesia’s Islamic moderates “can stop Salafi recruitment, much less ISIS recruitment.”²)

Important in both narratives are the massive recent protests in Jakarta by Islamist thugs (preman) of the Islamic Defenders Front or FPI (Front Pembela Islam) that led to Ahok’s defeat.

The FPI was founded in 1998 with military and police backing, and at first served as the army’s proxy to beat up left-wing protesters at a time of transition in Indonesian politics.³ 1998 was a key year: with the retirement of Suharto, the end of over three decades of “New Order” army dictatorship, and reforms (reformasi) that led to the army’s surrender of its domestic security function to a newly created civilian police force.

To others, the army’s connection to the FPI is less clear now than it was in 1998. At that time the connection was reminiscent of the army’s use, in its 1965 suppression of the Communist PKI, of paramilitary preman or thugs from its creation, the Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth). Eventually the FPI, initially financed by Police General Sutanto, began to be supported by funds from Saudi Arabia.⁴ As the FPI expanded, its makeup and policies became more diverse.

According to Nairn, the army still prevails:

In repeated, detailed conversations with me, the key protest figures and officials who track them have dismissed the movement against Ahok and the charges against him as a mere pretext for a larger objective: sidelining the country’s president, Jokowi, and helping the army avoid consequences for its mass killings of civilians — such as the 1965 massacres that were endorsed by the U.S. government, which armed and backed the Indonesian military.

Allan Nairn has been following and exposing the brutalities of the Indonesian Army (TNI) for decades. He has also been remarkably successful in gaining access to key figures, notably former General Prabowo Subianto, “a US trainee and protege … implicated in torture, kidnap and mass murder.”⁵ Prabowo in particular is a poster boy for America’s duplicitous policies in Indonesia. Congress cut off funds for training his Kopassus shock troops in 1991, after they murdered up to 270 protesters, including schoolchildren, at a peaceful demonstration in East Timor. But the Pentagon, undeterred, secretly continued the training under a Pentagon project called JCET (Joint Combined Education and Training).⁶

As Commander of the Army Strategic Reserve Command, KOSTRAD, Prabowo repressed the bloody 1998 Jakarta riots that led to the resignation of his then father-in-law Suharto. Prabowo was subsequently discharged from the TNI, after he acknowledged responsibility for the kidnapping of thirteen activists who “disappeared.”⁷ He then became a multibillionaire businessman, but also sought a political career. With the support of two pro-military parties he contested the 2014 election, losing narrowly in a runoff to the civilian populist Jokowi.

Underlying Nairn’s latest story is the desire of Prabowo, the TNI generals and their parties, to preserve what they can of their former privileges, in a new age of Reformasi as civilians like Jokowi nudge Indonesia slowly towards a more egalitarian future. Nairn’s chief source, Gen. Kivlan Zen, is a Prabowo ally and associate from KOSTRAD. Kivlan in turn points to the central role in the alleged “coup” plan of Prabowo’s 2014 campaign manager Fadli Zon, who as Nairn reports “is known for publicly praising Donald Trump and appeared with the candidate at a press conference at Trump Tower during the opening days of the [Trump] presidential campaign.”⁸

Given Nairn’s sterling press record, we can be confident that he has accurately reported what Kivlan and Admiral Ponto and others told him. What we can ask is the reason for their apparent candor: is it simply to reveal truth, or is it rather to restore the threatening image that the generals long used to maintain their influence? (As someone who has never been to Indonesia, I cannot say, but my main Indonesian source advises me not to trust Kivlan Zein “when he says anything.”)

It does seem clear that the Prabowo faction have reached out to Trump and taken heart from Trump’s election. Prabowo himself has boasted to Nairn about his excellent connections with the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency that was once headed by Trump’s now disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.⁹ And it is indeed telling that Fadli Zon, Prabowo’s contact with Trump, has been an active defender of the FPI and appeared with their leader in the FPI-led anti-Ahok demonstrations.

Americans should also be concerned that the Freeport-McMoRan Mining Company has engaged as attorney Munarman, an FPI spokesperson and former Commander of the FPI’s paramilitary group Laskar Islam. Historically Freeport has not been friendly to democracy in Indonesia. A declassified U.S. State Department cable reveals that by April 1965 (when Sukarno was still in power) Freeport Sulphur had reached a preliminary “arrangement” with unnamed Indonesian officials for what would become a multi-billion dollar investment in West Papua.¹⁰ Today Freeport is currently in a dispute with the Jokowi government, and reportedly may be “on the verge of losing what is arguably its most important asset, as Indonesia prepares to strip ownership from it of the massive Grasberg copper and gold mine.”¹¹

Indonesia’s democracy is fragile, and its constitution will continue to be challenged by both generals and Islamists with foreign backing. But the complexity of Indonesia’s pluralist society, which makes it difficult for democracy to function smoothly, also makes it difficult to overthrow it. So many conflicting forces are at work. As Nairn points out, Jokowi’s military defender, Gen. A.M. Hendropriyono, (former BIN chief and CIA asset), has also been implicated in major crimes.

We should not forget that in 2014 Allen Nairn posted a warning similar to his present one, that Indonesia’s army special forces (Kopassus) and the state intelligence agency (BIN) are involved in a covert operation … designed to ensure that the July 9 [2014] vote count will be won by General Prabowo Subianto, the former Kopassus commander who was a longtime protege of the Pentagon and US intelligence.¹²

Nairn’s warning then was well documented. But Jokowi won.

We in America should pursue what Nairn’s current essay has to tell us about Trump’s global alliance in Indonesia. Elsewhere he has reminded us that after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 there were actually presented, at the White House and at Camp David, proposals for a US Special Forces attack on Indonesia. The idea was for a dramatic strike to send a message to the Muslim world. It would involve simultaneous moves against Indonesia and other countries.¹³

No such attack was launched. But if such ideas could be discussed in the presence of George W. Bush, what may not be contemplated in Donald Trump’s call to fight “Islamic terrorism all over the world”?

A Morning Consult poll published on April 28th showed that “roughly half (51 percent) of Americans said the national political media ‘is out of touch with everyday Americans,’ compared with 28 percent who said they ‘understand the issues everyday Americans are facing’.” Plus: “Thirty-seven percent of Americans said they trusted Trump’s White House to tell the truth, while 29 percent opted for the media.” So: the U.S. ‘news’ media are widely distrusted by the American people.

Among Republicans, 72% trusted “Trump’s White House” over (or more than) “National Political Media,” and 10% trusted the media over Trump, and that’s a ratio of 7.2 to 1 trusting Trump over the media. Among Democrats, however, 54% trusted media over Trump, and 12% trusted Trump over media, and that’s a ratio of 4.5 to 1 trusting media over Trump. So: Democrats there were far more trusting of the media than were Republicans. 

The big turning-point on the trust of U.S. ‘news’ media was 2003. Americans had trusted the media not to be mere stenographers for the George W. Bush White House back before we invaded and wrecked Iraq on 20 March of that year, and Americans gradually discovered that the media instead had been mere stenographers, not authentic journalists at all — not journalists in any genuinely democratic country. (In any country where the newsmedia can’t reasonably be trusted, and this must include any stenographic press, no real democracy is even possible.) Other studies have shown that Republicans trust Fox News and other Republican Party organs the most as ‘news’media, and that Democrats trust CNN and other Democratic Party organs the most as ‘news’media. Practically everyone seeks ‘news’ that ‘confirms’ his/her particular political myths.

And Gallup has found that during 1997 to 2005, Democrats’ “Trust in Mass Media” gradually rose from around 60% in 1997, to a peak of 70% in 2005, as Democrats’ suspicions of the Republican White House after Bush’s invasion of Iraq soared when no WMD were found there and the ‘news’ media were by now blaming the ‘errors’ upon allegedly ‘faulty intelligence’, instead of upon America’s real dictatorship — the actual regime in power and its stenographic ‘news’ media. From 2005 till now, that 70% figure among Democrats has declined to 51%, as increasing numbers of Democrats come to recognize that we live in a dictatorship. Meanwhile, Republicans during the period 1997 to the start of 2003, trusted the “Mass Media” at percentages ranging in the 40s, but this figure suddenly plunged down to 31% after the invasion of Iraq when the ‘news’ reports from Iraq disconfirmed all of the Republican regime’s allegations — Republicans distrusted the press the more, as the truth started to be reported the more.

By the start of 2015, those Republican percentages were still around 31%, and Republicans were still trusting the most, the Republican news network Fox News, which had cheer-led Bush’s invasion of Iraq. But then, on 14 September 2016, Gallup headlined “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low”, and reported that the main reason for the new low was that now only a record low of 14% of Republicans still trusted the “Mass Media.” It had plunged more than half since the prior year’s 32% figure for Republicans. And, at that same time, 51% of Democrats still trusted the “Mass Media,” which was a record-low percentage for Democrats too, but still remained higher than every Republican percentage for trusting the media except for the 52% Republican trust in the “Mass Media” back in 1998, when the Democrats’ Lewinsky affair and impeachment of Bill Clinton dominated the ’news’. 

In other words: people trust the media if and to the extent that the media are confirming their suspicions. American politics is two imaginary ‘realities’, both controlled by the same aristocracy: the Republicans’ ‘reality’, and the Democrats’ ‘reality’ — and both ‘realities’ are dominated by the same lies, but different bumper-stickers representing them. (These shared bipartisan lies are the falsehoods that are essential to supporting the entire oligarchy, and they mainly concern international relations.)

Trust in the ‘news’ media is sinking, but remains unrealistically high, unrealistic especially amongst Democrats (since they still overwhelmingly trust the ‘news’); and this trust is the chief thing that keeps the U.S. regime — both the “Democratic” and the “Republican” wings of it — in power, as a two-Party dictatorship, both of whose Parties represent the same aristocracy.

During the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaigns, it was clear to any intelligent American that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton was at all trustworthy, and so the country split even more sharply than before along purely partisan lines. There was really nothing else for voters to go on; it was just a selection between two competing psychopaths. Not voting at all in such an ‘election’ is to allow all other voters to make the choice instead; and this can be an efficient thing to do in such a desperate situation, if both of the psychopaths are approximately of equivalent evil — just letting everyone else do the ‘coin-tosses’.

The least intelligent Americans chose instead the inefficient way to allow everyone but oneself to make this political choice: these were the voters who cast ‘protest’ votes for third-party candidates whose only real participation in the contest was to draw off more voters from one major-Party candidate than from the other and so to throw the ‘election’ to the one whose lying rhetoric sounded the more different from that given third-party candidate’s political rhetoric. This ‘symbolic’ act (third-party voting) was merely enhancing the prospects that a minor-party candidate could become a ‘kingmaker’ between the two real candidates, and thus adding still further to the pervasive corruption. It happened with Nader in 2000 (who was crucially funded by major Republican donors), but that was the only successful recent third-party Presidential candidacy up till then — Bush v. Gore would never even have been possible, and both Florida and New Hampshire would have incontestably gone to Gore, if Nader hadn’t thrown that ‘election’ from Gore to Bush, but Nader was the only recent successful “spoiler.” 

In an oligarchy, public politics is always a choice between two evils (not really more than that). It’s an attempt to select the lesser evil. What protects the oligarchs the most, is whatever sustains the lie that the nation is (or that it remains) a democracy — in other words: the longer that the myth of there being (or still being) a democracy can be sustained among the public, the safer the oligarchy will be. Maintaining this lie is maintaining the existing dictatorship.

However, it’s not only the ‘news’media that serve this essential function for the aristocracy. For example, Google, now officially known as “Alphabet Inc.,” is a major determinant of the ‘news’ that the public receives from web-searches; and in order for Google to be able to shift blame onto “an error by one of our contractors” whenever an online site that Google wants to bury discovers that Google has been hiding the given site from the public, Google has selected contractors who understand the objectives of the people who control Google; and, when those contractors then suppress a site, they cite the best-sounding excuse they can, so that the company that’s paying them, Google, will always have some excuse for its (contracted-out) censorship, and can always override the contractor’s decision as having been a mere ‘mistake’ if ever the suppressed site is already big enough to be able publicly to embarrass Google for having censored it out. Thus, for example, as “Business Insider,” one of the aristocracy’s ‘news’media explains it,

“A vendor hired by Google employs contractors to rate the websites that appear in its search results — the rating is used to improve search quality, helping Google’s automated search algorithm prioritize higher-rated, reliable information.”

And, after the large anti-Establishment InfoWars site complained,

“Google said Monday that a vendor mistakenly told staffers working for the search engine that InfoWars should be ranked as a low-quality site.”

In other words: the censorship then can be described as having been a “mistake.” (But, of course, the contractor doesn’t usually get fired for a ‘mistake’ — unless it really was that, which rarely is the case.) And, so, “Google’s representative distanced the company from the contractor’s instructions, telling Business Insider that it does not instruct quality raters how to grade specific websites.” “Quality raters” — as if Google really cares about quality, instead of about its own bottom-line, which depends not upon quality, but upon satisfying the rest of the aristocracy (which means to provide low quality, deceiving the public in the ways that the aristocrats want).

More commonly, Google’s “quality raters” target little-known, truly independent, sites, which have no allegiance to any Party but only to truth. (Some people care about truth, no matter how unprofitable it might be.) For example, when Google threatened one of my publishers, RINF, it was over a specific article, which Google (probably actually one of their “contractors”) demanded the site to remove. The site refused to remove it. No issue of “quality” was even involved, merely a demand, and an implicit threat. The site’s owner ultimately decided that he’d rather just quit than participate in Google’s censorship of the web; and so he instead chose to ignore the threat. These are small sites, anyway; so, almost everyone who goes there is a repeat visitor, and becoming rich isn’t such a site-owner’s chief objective. These are individuals who really do care about democracy, and this means also about truth.

Incidentally, Google was deeply committed to Hillary Clinton’s becoming America’s President, and also participated importantly in her State Department’s successful coup in Ukraine, and in its (as-yet-unsuccessful) effort to overthrow Syria’s Russia-and-Iran-allied government and replace it with one that allies instead with the owners of Saudi Arabia and of Qatar, and with their allied governments, which control the U.S. and Israel.  

So, international affairs are a rich thicket of deceptions, and of power; and the largest international corporations are intimately involved in it. Trump’s voters thought that he would resist that, but instead his international policies (and also many of his domestic policies) seem to be just continuing those of his predecessor, whose international policies he had intensely condemned. Mass-deception is at the basis of this ‘democracy’. But it’s not only the media, and it’s not only the government; it is the whole corrupt system, and especially the coterie of perhaps as few as a hundred people (perhaps most of which are hidden from the public, and there is no guess here as to whom are at the very top) who collectively control it. 

The higher one gets, the darker it gets, but this is the only thing that’s clear, about the system. The ‘news’media serve that system, and cast any light they shed, only downward from it — below and away from it, where the stage is, not where the scriptwriters and directors and producers are, which can be very different places. 

It’s all just a show, even if it’s not an entertaining one. It’s where the public are, split into various prejudices, and the prejudices that are their opposites. It’s organized truth-evasion, on ‘both’ sides.

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.

These are strange times in American politics. And stranger still is the emerging character of the Trump presidency. Events are appearing with growing frequency, raising the question who is really running the White House and the US government? Is Trump really the President?

Trump sits there on the second floor, spending late evenings into early mornings tweeting to the world. In itself, that’s politically weird. But even more strange is what he’s tweeting and the next day fallout.

We hear about the aircraft carrier task force in Asia that was reportedly steaming at full speed to the North Korean coast a few weeks ago, only to learn soon after it was actually headed in the opposite direction to Australia. Did Donald imagine that? Was the US Navy informed or requested by its titular commander in chief to turn around and go north…and then didn’t? Was Trump’s command to go north perhaps countermanded by some head of Naval operations, or maybe someone else in the White House or government? Or did he just imagine it all and never even informed the Navy to head to Korea? All the possibilities are strange. Very strange.

And then there was the tweet by Trump that his big budget was going to be announced in a few days. It wasn’t even prepared. Government bureaucrats had to quickly slap something together in a couple of pages to provide to the press.

Trump did it again, tweeted announcing his big tax cuts. Again the bureaucrats were caught off guard and had to throw some general outline together and issue it to the press. All this happened after it was generally known that the tax cut proposals were not going to be developed until late summer, and that the Obamacare Repeal bill had to go forward first. The Obamacare repeal was a necessary prerequisite for the general tax cut. Its $592 billion in tax cuts for business and investors had to come first. Until it was resolved, it made no sense to publicize elements of the yet bigger tax cuts of trillions of dollars more scheduled to follow. But Trump tweeted it anyway, and the bureaucracy jumped, putting something down on paper. Who’s communicating what to whom? Is Donald just lobbing electronic policy missiles out of the second floor of the White House, hoping some bureaucrat will catch them before morning?

Or perhaps Trump is being allowed to sit up there on the second floor of the White House and do his tweet thing, while others actually run the government. By others, perhaps it is vice-president Pence in charge, working with some inside committee of key cabinet officers and the intelligence spooks in the NSA-CIA-FBI?

Is Trump being allowed to ‘play at President’ for public consumption, while the generals, spooks, and Goldman Sachs financial pirates run the show?

It’s hard to believe that the members of his administration and the government State bureaucracy knew in advance of Trump’s recent tweets welcoming Philippines President, Duterte, to the White House. Or that Trump would tweet recently that he’s willing to meet with North Korea’s president, for whom he, Trump, had great respect. You can imagine the political constipation that comment caused the spooks and the generals in charge of State, Defense, and National Security.

Last November 30, 2016 this writer wrote a piece predicting that Trump the right wing populist would be successfully ‘tamed’ by the political elites of this country that really run the show. I laid out some ideas how that would be accomplished. (see my blog, jackrasmus.com). But I didn’t think it would happen so fast and so easily.

The past month has witnessed Trump doing a total ‘about face’ on virtually all his right wing populist proposals during the election. He’s backtracking so fast it’s a wonder he hasn’t tripped over himself. (Check that, he has). What explains his 180 degree turnabout?

Was his talk of right wing populism during the campaign all political election hype? Tell the people whatever they want to hear to get elected, and then go do whatever the moneybags really running the show want from you—which is big tax cuts, massive across-the-board deregulation, end the taxation on Obamacare and we don’t care what happens to the rest of it, give us some infrastructure spending deals that resurrect wheeling-dealing commercial property investments with big tax loopholes, and just tweak and rearrange existing free trade treaties.

So what we actually got so far from Trump during his first 100 days is government by ‘executive orders’—i.e. repealing environmental protections, gutting immigrants’ rights, going after sanctuary cities, opening up national monuments and parks to mining and cattle exploitation, subsidizing killer coal companies, attacking consumer protection, smoke and mirror changes to H1-B skilled worker import quotas that haven’t changed, gutting K-12 education and shifting funds to private schools from public, opening up offshore drilling, and so on. But elsewhere it’s been a wholesale retreat from his election positions, proposals and promises. Here’s a short list:

Trump does a reversal on China, from declaring it a currency manipulator to offering it major concessions at the Mar-a-Lago meeting, in exchange for help with North Korea. One wonders if China’s offshore islands expansion is also part of the deal.

From NATO is a waste of money and unnecessary, Trump shifts to NATO is the great bulwark against Russia. From Putin the great leader to Putin is responsible for Syria using poison gas–of which still no proof thereof by the way. (Is it true, or is it all in that great American tradition of ‘yellow cake’ (2003), ‘babies thrown from incubators’ (1990), ‘tonkin gulf’(1965), ‘the war on drugs’ (Panama invasion), ‘Soviets are in Grenada’, and ‘remember the Maine’ (Spanish-American War) incidents that always precede and justify US going to war).

From Mexico is going to pay for the wall, to there’ll be no wall (latest per Homeland Security Secretary). From dumping NAFTA, to ‘I’m not going to terminate NAFTA’ (Trump quote).

And then there’s Trump’s staged press conferences with companies like Carrier Corp., indicating they’re not going to export some jobs to Mexico for now (as they continue to plan to export still others at the same time). And the list of companies announcing jobs they intend to hire in the US without saying when, or that they already had planned to hire them anyway prior to the press conference.

From cancelling the TTP free trade deal (already killed in Congress), to declaring a reopening of the TTIP free trade deal with Europe. And what about the silent deal Trump struck with Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, when he was here? It’s been leaked that Japan will pick up the lead on the TPP renegotiations and the US will join it later. Or Mexico’s recent offer to the US to just apply the TPP terms to a new ‘reform’ of NAFTA by Mexico and the US? Watch both these back door free trade resurrections, they’re coming too.

And what about Trump’s organizational about face, with right wing ideologue Steve Bannon banished from the National Security Council and pro-Russia general Flynn banished from the government?

What I also find interesting is the intense media attack on Trump— focusing on his Russia connection, his tax returns, nepotism in the White House, his companies’ benefiting (a violation of the emoluments clause of the US constitution) and calls for impeachment in Congress—all of sudden all the above have disappeared from view in the media front page. They’ve been put on the back burner in Congress and the press. And there’s no more damaging leaks coming weekly from the intelligence spooks either. Instead, what we hear is talk about ‘now he’s coming around’, beginning to appear presidential! Is all that just coincidental? Hmmm.

Is this a presidency where the Donald gets to sit on the second floor of the White House and do his late night tweets, and the bureaucrats scurry the next day to clean up? Where Donald is brought downstairs to the oval office for Executive Order signings or occasional reporter interviews and then trotted back upstairs? Is it a presidency where he makes his late night calls to his moneybag friends, like the billionaire Mercers and others, to find out ‘how am I doing guys’? While the rest of the representatives of the economic and political elite run the show?

Is this a Trump presidency, or a government by Generals-Goldman Sachs-Pence, with son in law Kushner functioning as intermediary between them and the Donald? A government of second floor tweets and first floor executive order signing events?

The quality of the American presidency has been in steady decline for decades. From the crook Nixon to the inept peanut farmer, Carter; from the movie-actor, camera friendly Reagan to the morally sleezy opportunist Bill Clinton; from know-nothing George Bush to the super-cautious false progressive Obama; and now to the fake right populist, blowhard, tweety-bird called Donald Trump.

We’re going to need a lot of luck to get through the next three and a half years folks!

Something that was originally conceived as a grandiose pageant of political marketing will come to a conclusion next Sunday in France. A young man with an evident Oedipus complex who has never held a single elected office and who was almost unknown just three years ago is now preparing to fill the seat once occupied by Georges Clémenceau and Charles de Gaulle in the Élysée Palace.

Although it went unnoticed by the public, his campaign actually began back in June 2014. That was when Jacques Attali, the recognized “éminence grise” of the Fifth Republic, first introduced his young protégé, at a Bilderberg Club meeting in Copenhagen. Back then, the latter was serving as the deputy secretary general to the president of France.  But given President Hollande’s dismal approval ratings at the time, he was advised to distance himself from his boss, which he did, resigning 10 days after returning from Denmark. By that August, owing to a government crisis, Macron ended up as the economy minister for a period of 24 months, during which he was best remembered for having underpriced the powerhouse of the French high-tech industry, Alstom, when it was sold to General Electric, as well as for a string of scandals over the misappropriation of government funds and for forcing through an odious law written at Attali’s behest called “Equality of Economic Opportunities” (an innocent-enough sounding name for what was actually  a crackdown on labor laws – and legislated by a nominally “socialist” government!)

It’s hardly news that Macron is acting as a proxy for globalist forces intent on definitively consigning to the grave the France that has been the guardian of European republican traditions. But ultimately, he is not the first vassal of the Rothschild clan to emerge over the course of the almost six decades of the Fifth Republic’s existence. Their first “project” in a top government position was the French prime minister – and later president – Georges Pompidou, who began working for the Rothschilds in 1954. Interestingly, Pompidou was no expert in banking or finance, but this did not stop Guy de Rothschild (1909-2007) from appointing this man to head the Messieurs de Rothschild Frères bank despite his professional background as a high-school literature teacher.

In the dramatic month of May 1968, Pompidou was directed by his bosses to issue a challenge to the founder of the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle, in order to win his own entrance into the Élysée Palace the following year. In 1973 Pompidou passed a law that some spiteful tongues dubbed “la loi Pompidou-Giscard-Rothschild,” under which private bankers gained de facto control over the French financial system. Ironically, it was while Pompidou was in office that the famous writer and rebel Jean-Paul Sartre founded his celebrated leftist newspaper Libération in 1973, so that the French would finally have a periodical that spurned both big banks and advertising.

But just over 40 years later, the banker Édouard de Rothschild became the biggest shareholder in the troubled Libération, adding that newspaper to his media empire. As a result, just a glance at this single web page is enough to gain an appreciation for the magnitude of the “Macron-mania” that has been raining down upon the heads of the dispirited French in recent months from the pages of the Rothschild-controlled media.

Naturally Macron is a champion of pop-futurism. He is going to turn the French into the ideal nomads, à la Attali – a precariat class that has acquired a few skills and some passable English, but lacks a steady job, a reliable profession, a real salary, and a future.

He spins fairy tales for French young people about the “creative class” – the dream of a degenerate civilization – but he fails to mention that the society of the future will have no use for all the slackers who vote for him. He is guided by the neoliberal premise that the main task of a declining state is to give its citizens the chance to ceaselessly change and adapt to the infamous global market, instead of doing anything at all to protect jobs, decent pensions, and the national interests. Therefore, the May 7 victory of yet another mousy little man that is being strenuously programmed by the media may well be the last in the history of the Fifth Republic – and it is certainly no harbinger of the Sixth. France is poised to step into the grave that has already been dug for her.

The liberal press gleefully reported May Day protests against Trump. Trump is the ugly face of an ugly system. Obama was the refined face of the same ugly system. Trump is not likeable. But precisely as crass and mean-spirited, he’s the wrong target for May Day marches. We see his flaws and separate ourselves. It’s easy, even reassuring. It’s about him, not us. 

May Day is about solidarity, which involves sacrifice. Che Guevara warned of a facile view: You support a cause, wishing “the victim success”, as if “cheering on the gladiators in the Roman circus”. Instead, he pointed out, solidarity is joining “the victim in victory or death.” It can’t be done without giving up something. The sacrifice part of the idea gets lost.

May Day celebrates solidarity with the oppressed. It is not “fellow feeling”. Fellow feeling is that sense of togetherness we get under a banner or a flag. Existentialists called it the “public mind”. It’s useless for solidarity with the oppressed. They are the ones invisible to the public mind.

Activists for missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada have made the point. They urge settler Canadians to see our personal stake in the centuries-old discrimination of First Nations peoples. It means losing an identity-conferring history, and taking on that revolutionary emotion called shame. 1

It can’t be done comfortably. Trump is a red herring. But the May Day confusion goes deeper. Neither solidarity nor “the people” arise from fellow feeling, at least not the kind above. Guevara argued that they become possible through shared humanity, which must be discovered.

Well known political philosophers talk about “shared humanity” 2 but they don’t believe in it. If they did, they’d ask how to know it. They don’t. Latin American independence leader, José Martí, asked this question. So did Guevara. In some ways, it was the centre of 200 years of independence struggle.

Indeed, Martí went so far as to name “false erudition” a major barrier to independence. 3 He meant Europeans’ view of knowing. It was about gain: possessing knowledge. Martí wasn’t against knowledge. But being learned is more interesting, and challenging, than a headful of knowledge.

We can’t be educated, Martí proposed, without sensitivity. To be educated, to be cultured, we have to be able to feel. We have to be capable of response, of connection: human connection. It’s a bit of a lost art. But it is how people – the ones previously unknown, and unrecognized – become known.

The May Day marches against Trump had an eerie feel. At best, considered against the “vanguard of the beautiful march of humanity” 4 against imperialism, they passed like ships in the night: marches going a different direction, not knowing what is missed.

But it’s worse than that. The distortion of solidarity is also the undermining of moral imagination. It is the refusal of discovery, of innovation, not just in ethics but in science. For, science also depends upon values. Science also, ultimately, requires shared humanity.

In J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, a male dog is beaten when, on sensing a bitch, he became excited and unmanageable. 5 The result was that the “poor dog didn’t know what to do…. it would chase around the garden … whining, trying to hide.” Coetzee comments that a dog can be punished for wrongdoing— for chewing a shoe — but not for going against its nature. The result is despair and confusion, a dog that punishes itself.

Human beings are punishing ourselves. Marx did not say, as some accuse him, that in a socialist society there will be no greed and hatred. 6 Instead, in a society better fitted to human nature, people will be less likely to build lives informed by greed and hatred.

To make everything about gain, including education, contradicts human nature. It is against our need to know. In Caracas (1999) after Hugo Chávez’ election, Fidel Castro said people suffer because of an idea: the “nicely sweetened but rotten idea” that human beings are essentially motivated by material gain.

Fidel Castro

It turns out not to be true. Studies show that only for simple, uninteresting tasks do material incentives inspire better results. 7 Anyone who thinks about it sees it’s a silly idea. Human beings go to great lengths for activities that bring no material gain.

Nonetheless, we build societies on the idea that what matters is gain. Education, travel, relationships are all about gain: the possession of knowledge, experiences, memories, stories. It’s all about collecting. And so we experience despair and confusion, like the dog in Coetzee’s story.

Yet the greater risk is not experiencing despair and confusion. May Day marches in Havana are against a world-order that glorifies gain. Cuba’s May Day is about ideas: solidarity, among others. If such ideas could be recognized, even just as worth pursuing, we might have productive confusion: small but useful doubts about the absolute priority of gain. Not raising such questions is really the bigger danger.

Susan Babbitt is author of Humanism and Embodiment (Bloomsbury 2014) and José Martí, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Global Development Ethics (Palgrave MacMillan 2014).

Notes

1. Marx said shame is a most revolutionary emotion.

2. E.g. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (1999), 283

3. “Our America” in Martí: Selected Readings, Esther Allen tr. (Penguin, 2002): 290

4. Martí, Obras completas, 1963– 66: v. 8: 336

5. (Secker and Warburg 1999) 89– 90

6. The (arguably) best book on Marx’s philosophy, including human nature, is Allen Wood, Karl Marx, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2004)

7.  E.g. Pink, Dan (2010). The surprising truth about motivation. RSA Animate. YouTube video retrieved from http:// www .youtube .com /watch ?v = u6XAPnuFjJc [Accessed November 19, 2013].

Conflict in Syria continues raging. Peace remains elusive because Washington wants war and regime change.

While Putin and Erdogan discussed Syria and other issues in Sochi, Russia, anti-Assad terrorists comprising the Western-sponsored Syrian National Coalition (SNC), an artificial construct walked out of the latest round of Astana, Kazakhstan peace talks.

Its spokesman Ahmad Ramadan said the “delegation…suspend(ed) (participation)…until shelling stops across all Syria” – wrongfully accusing government forces of targeting civilians.

Talks were scheduled to focus on creating “de-escalation zones” in terrorists-held Idlib and Homs provinces, along with Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

In Sochi, Putin said

“(for) the development of the (Syrian) political process, a ceasefire must be provided…Russia, Turkey and Iran have all the time been thinking of how to secure this practice of a ceasefire. One of the methods is creating safe zones, or de-escalation zones.”

Moscow earlier discussed them with Syria, Iran and Trump when the two leaders spoke on Tuesday, also with Erdogan during his Wednesday meeting with Putin.

Different sides in the Syrian conflict should be the ones to make “the final decision,” Putin stressed. They’re “in charge of the country’s fate.”

Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed to be guarantors. Moscow and Ankara concur about “safe zones…lead(ing) to further conciliation and strengthening of the ceasefire regime,” Putin said.

Russia and Tehran are committed for peaceful conflict resolution. Turkey can’t be trusted. Erdogan rules despotically.

Last August, he invaded northern Syria. He wants areas his troops occupy annexed, a prescription for continued conflict, not resolution.

America can never be trusted, saying one thing, doing another, talking peace while waging war on multiple countries, others in its queue to attack.

Putin stressed Russia’s commitment for peaceful conflict resolution. He’ll continue combating terrorism, he said – the scourge America supports.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new 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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

A Russian military adviser, Alexei Buchelnikov, was killed in Syria by a sniper from the ranks of militants, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on May 2. Buchelnikov was “a member of the group that had been training personnel of the Syrian artillery units.”

Experts note that according to photo and video evidence the Russian military has recently expanded a number of military advisers embedded with Syrian army units as well as intensified efforts aimed at training Syrian military personnel.

These developments came amid a significant increase of the number of US troops and military equipment deployed in the Kurdish-held area in northeastern Syria and embedded with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Thus, both global powers involved in the war are increasing their activity on the ground in an attempt to speed up operations of their allies on the ground against ISIS.

Meanwhile, Russian military servicemen accompanied with members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have visited the Runbar refugee camp in the Afrin Canton, a YPG-held area in northwestern Syria. Earlier this week, the camp came under shelling from Turkish military forces.

The visit of the Russian military delegation to the area followed reports that Russia was setting up observation posts in order to monitor Turkish actions against the YPG and population in the YPG held area in Afrin near the Turkish-Syrian border as well as actions of pro-Turkish militants in northern Aleppo. Photos from Afrin also show Syrian flags at the observation posts, confirming the presence of government forces.

The YPG-held areas in northern Syria could be visualized as three separate sections:

• The first is the Afrin Canton where government forces and Moscow have a notable influence.
• The second is the Manbij countryside where government forces, Moscow and Washington have been de-facto operating jointly since they prevented a possible Turkish military operation against the town of Manbij, controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – the YPG is a core of this group;
• The third is the eastern bank of Euphrates where the United States and its coalition have a significant influence and deployed lots of forces on the ground.

This structure of relations formed during the war under the necessity of an urgent need to combat terrorist groups such Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS in northern Syria and now is strengthening amid a constant threat of another Turkish military invasion in Syria that will be aimed against Kurdish militias.

Meanwhile, the SDF has got control over the important town of Tabqa in the province of Raqqah. An unknown number of ISIS terrorists are remaining in the ISIS-held part of the nearby Tabqa dam. In April 2017, pro-SDF and US sources argued that there were about 700-800 ISIS fighters inside the town. However, no photo or videos evidence were released that could confirm that this number of ISIS members were neutralized inside the town. There is a notable chance that a majority of ISIS fighters has left the town of Tabqa via some kind of “open corridor” during the storm.

Meanwhile, the situation became relatively halt in northern Hama. This week, government forces have not made major attempts to reach the important town of Lataminah controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Instead, government forces, led by the 5th Assault Corps, resumed operations in the countryside of Palmyra advancing on the Shumriyah Mountains. This could be linked up with an increased activity of US-backed militants along the Syrian-Iraqi border.

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The North Korean “crisis” is a Washington orchestration. North Korea was last at war 1950-53. N. Korea has not attacked or invaded anyone in 64 years. N. Korea lacks the military strength to attack any country, such as South Korea and Japan, that is protected by the US.  Moreover, China would not permit N. Korea to start a war.  

So what is the demonization of N. Korea by the presstitutes and Trump administration about?

It is about the same thing that the demonization of Iran was about. The “Iranian threat” was an orchestration that was used as cover to put US anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia’s borders. An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is intended to intercept and destroy nuclear-armed ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and prevent them from reaching their targets.  

Washington claimed that the anti-ABM bases were not directed at Russia, but were for the protection of Europe against Iran’s nuclear ICBMs.  Insouciant Americans might have believed this, but the Russians surely did not as Iran has neither ICBMs nor nuclear weapons.  The Russian government has made it clear that Russia understands the US bases are directed at preventing a Russian retalliation against a Washington first strike.

The Chinese government also is not stupid. The Chinese leadership understands that the reason for the N. Korean “crisis” is to provide cover for Washington to put anti-ballistic missile sites near China’s border.

In other words, Washington is creating a shield against nuclear retaliation from both Russia and China from a US nuclear first strike against both countries.

China has been more forceful in its reply to Washington’s efforts than have the Russians. China has demanded an immediate halt to the US deployment of missiles in South Korea. 

https://www.rt.com/news/386828-china-thaad-south-korea/  

In order to keep Americans confused, Washington now calls anti-ABMs THAAD, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. China understands that THAAD has nothing whatsoever to do with N. Korea, which borders S. Korea, making it pointless for N. Korea to attack S. Korea with ICBMs.

THAAD in S. Korea is directed against China’s retaliatory forces.  It is part of Washington’s preparations to nuke both Russia and China with minimal consequence to the US, although Europe would certainly be completely destroyed as THAAD or anti-ABMs are useless against Russian nuclear cruise missiles and the Russian air force.

But no Empire has ever cared about the fate of its vassals, and Washington is uninterested in Europe’s fate. Washington is interested only in its hegemony over the world.

The question is: now that Russia and China understand that Washington is preparing for a preemptive nuclear strike against them in order to remove the two constraints on Washington’s unilateral behavior, will the two countries sit there and wait for the strike?

What would you do?

On April 27 I posted on this website a column, “Washington Plans to Nuke Russia and China.” My column was a report that this was the conclusion of the Russians and Chinese themselves. I quoted Russian Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir, Deputy Head of Operations of the Russian General Staff and provided links for his expression of concern such as: https://www.rt.com/news/386276-us-missile-shield-russia-strike/ 

Read the column here:

Washington Plans to Nuke Russia and China

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, April 28, 2017

As the readers of my website are a self-selected group of intelligent and concerned people who want to know what is the reality as opposed to what is The Matrix, I was somewhat taken aback when several wrote to me that they disagreed with me that Washington planned to nuke Russia and China. 

I write clearly; yet here were several readers who mistook my report on the conclusion of the Russian general staff for my opinion! I was also amazed that the readers thought that it mattered what they think or what I think. All that matters is what the Russian and Chinese leadership think.  

I then looked at the comment sections on other sites that repost my columns, and there were the trolls hired by the CIA, Mossad, National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros, NATO, US State Department, and others denouncing me for promoting nuclear war. Of course, it is Washington that is promoting nuclear war, and it is Washington that has convinced Russia and China that a preemptive nuclear strike is in their future.

Washington, being full of hubris, thinks that this will scare Russia and China and that the two governments will submit to Washington.

Possibly they will, but I would not bet the life of the planet on it. 

It is conceiveable that education in the US and throughout the Western world is so poorly done that readers educated in recent decades simply cannot comprehend what they are reading.  How else to explain the mischaracterizations of my report on the conclusion of the Russian General Staff?  The only other explanation is that websites that have comment sections provide the opportunity for the ruling elites to hire the slander of truth-tellers.  

I seldom see an intelligent comment on websites that have comment sections. Most comments come from people too ashamed to speak in their real names and who are unwilling to provide their real email addresses. Almost all comments come from narcissistic ignorant fools hiding behind fake names and fake email addresses and from paid trolls.

I don’t write in order to be slandered by paid trolls and ignorant narcissistic fools. I regard it as highly irresponsible for websites to undercut their writers with anonymous accusations from no one knows who. There should be no comment sections unless there is a firm check on the commentator’s real name and real email address.  

Sites that do not have this requirement no longer have my permission to repost my columns.

Washington, as the Russian and Chinese governments comprehend, has placed life on earth under dire threat. This is serious business. There is no space for ignorant narcissistic idiots and paid trolls to be using the Internet to attack the few who truthfully report the dire threat that all life faces from Washington’s drive for world hegemony.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a study, on 1 March 2017, which opened as follows:

“The US nuclear forces modernization program has been portrayed to the public as an effort to ensure the reliability and safety of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal, rather than to enhance their military capabilities. In reality, however, that program has implemented revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the US ballistic missile arsenal. This increase in capability is astonishing — boosting the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three — and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.” 

It continues:

Because the innovations in the super-fuze appear, to the non-technical eye, to be minor, policymakers outside of the US government (and probably inside the government as well) have completely missed its revolutionary impact on military capabilities and its important implications for global security.

This study was co-authored by America’s top three scientists specializing in analysis of weaponry and especially of the geostrategic balance between nations: Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, and Theodore Postol. Their report continues:

This vast increase in US nuclear targeting capability, which has largely been concealed from the general public, has serious implications for strategic stability and perceptions of US nuclear strategy and intentions.

Russian planners will almost surely see the advance in fuzing capability as empowering an increasingly feasible US preemptive nuclear strike capability — a capability that would require Russia to undertake countermeasures that would further increase the already dangerously high readiness of Russian nuclear forces. Tense nuclear postures based on worst-case planning assumptions already pose the possibility of a nuclear response to false warning of attack. The new kill capability created by super-fuzing increases the tension and the risk that US or Russian nuclear forces will be used in response to early warning of an attack — even when an attack has not occurred.

The authors explain why an accidental start of World War III or global annihilation would be more likely from Russia than from the U.S.: 

Russia does not have a functioning space-based infrared early warning system but relies primarily on ground-based early warning radars to detect a US missile attack. Since these radars cannot see over the horizon, Russia has less than half as much early-warning time as the United States. (The United States has about 30 minutes, Russia 15 minutes or less.)

In other words: whereas Trump would have about 30 minutes to determine whether Putin had launched a blitz-first-strike attack, Putin would have less than 15 minutes to determine whether Trump had — and if at the end of that period, on either side, there is no certainty that no blitz-first-strike attack had been launched by the other, then that person would be obligated to launch a blitz attack against the other, upon the assumption that not to do so would result not only in a toxic planet with nuclear winter and universal starvation, but also in a humiliating and scandalous absence of retaliation against that perpetrator, which would be a humiliation on top of an annihilation, and thus a sharing of blame along with the actual perpetrator, which sharing, for whatever term might remain during that passive party’s continued existence, would probably be an unbearable shame and result quickly in suicide, if that national leader’s own surviving countrymen don’t execute him before he kills himself.

Inevitably, the strictly personal morality and self-image of a nation’s leader in that type of situation are factors other than the very public global consequences that will determine the person’s decision; but, with only (at most) 15 minutes to decide on the Russian side, and 30 minutes to decide on the American side, there is an inestimably high chance now, that a nuclear war will terminate the lives of everyone who currently exists and who doesn’t soon die from the ordinary causes before then. Even the most dire projections of the dangers from global warming come nowhere close to matching that danger.

The question, now, then, is: How did the world come to this extraordinarily ominous stage? The co-authors repeatedly refer to the secretiveness at the top of the American government as one essential source, such as “… which has largely been concealed from the general public …” and “… policymakers outside of the US government (and probably inside the government as well) have completely missed …,” and these passages refer to an ordinary phenomenon in conspiracies at the top of a large criminal operation such as corporate criminality, where only a very small circle of individuals, commonly a half-dozen or even less, are made aware of the operation’s chief strategic objective and of the main tactical means that are being put into place so as to execute the plan.

In this particular instance, it wouldn’t include the head of every Cabinet department, nor anything nearly so broad as that; but, clearly, since the key decision, to implement the “super-fuze” on “all warheads deployed on US ballistic missile submarines” was made by Obama, he is the principal person reasonably to be blamed for this situation.

However, Trump as the person who has inherited this situation from his predecessor has, as yet, given no indication at all of reversing and eliminating the now-operative top U.S. strategic objective of conquering Russia. The more time that passes without Trump’s announcing to the public that he has inherited this morally repulsive operation from his predecessor and is removing all of the super-fuses, the more that Trump himself is taking ownership of Obama’s plan.

Typically in such a situation, the leader who has inherited such a plan will be assassinated if he gives any clear indication of an intention to reverse or cancel it (the key insiders are typically obsessive about ‘success’, especially at so late a stage in it); and, so, if Trump were to try to do that, he would almost certainly try to hide that fact until the inherited plan has already become effectively deactivated and no longer a threat.

The key turning-point that led up to the present crisis was the gradual and increasing acceptance, on the American side, of the concept of using nuclear weapons for conquest instead of only for deterrence — the prior system, for deterrence, having been called “MAD” for Mutually Assured Destruction, the idea that if the two nuclear superpowers were to go to war against each other, then the entire world would be destroyed so catastrophically as to make any idea of a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’ in such a conflict a grotesque distortion of the reality: that reality being mutual annihilation and an unlivable planet. A landmark event in the process of reconceptualizing such a war as being ‘winnable’, was the publication in 2006 of two articles in the two most prestigious journals of international relations, Foreign Affairs and International Security, both formally introducing the concept of “Nuclear Primacy” or the (alleged) desirability for the U.S. to plan a nuclear conquest of Russia.

Until those two articles (both of which were co-authored by the same two authors), any such idea was considered wacky, but since then it has instead been mainstream. As the final link above (the article that’s linked-to immediately before) explains, the source even prior to George W. Bush goes all the way back to 24 February 1990 when his father, then also the U.S. President, secretly initiated the operation ultimately to conquer Russia, and within that article are links to the ultimate source-documents about that origin of the path toward world-ending nuclear war; so, getting to the original causes of the steady progression after 24 February 1990 in the direction of a conquest of Russia by the U.S. (assisted by its allies) can now be addressed by historians, even though only now is it finally being revealed to the public as news, though 27 years after it had actually begun in a very fateful decision by George Herbert Walker Bush, which has already cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars for no good purpose and resulting perhaps in the ghastliest ultimate end.

This article is being submitted for publication to all news-media without charge, in the hope that the current U.S. President will comment publicly upon it, even if only to ridicule it so as to avoid being assassinated for referring to it at all. This is an extremely dangerous time in history, and Donald Trump is now on a very hot seat, which any intelligent and accurately informed person recognizes to be the case. If ever the world needed courageous great leadership, now is the time; because, without that, we might all soon be entering hell. To avoid it, starting now 27 years after the U.S. government initiated this path, would be enormously difficult, but not yet totally impossible. This is where we are at the present time; and, ever since the coup in Ukraine in 2014, the purchases of ‘nuclear-proof’ bunkers have been soaring as a result. 

This extreme danger is the new global reality. If the elimination of the threat does not come from the U.S. White House, the culmination of the threat will — regardless of which side strikes first. The decision — either to invade Russia, or else to cancel and condemn America’s decade-plus preparation to do so — can be made only by the U.S. President. If he remains silent about the matter, then Putin can reasonably proceed on the assumption that he’ll have to be the one to strike first. He didn’t place himself in that position; the U.S. regime did. Let’s hope that the U.S. will stand down the threat, now.

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.

“Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said that his country has information that Jordan is planning to send its troops into southern Syria in cooperation with the United States….’Jordan is not an independent country. Whatever the United States wants, it will happen,’ said Assad.” — Middle East Monitor

“In the event of a de-facto partition of Syria, the US and its allies will get a strategically important region. It is through Deir Ezzor that the proposed gas pipeline from Qatar is supposed to run….The Deir Ezzor province is also home to Syria’s largest oil deposit, the Al-Omar. …the city and the province are of particular value since the deposits there contain the highly valuable light sweet crude usable in the production of gasoline and diesel fuel.” — South Front, “The Stronghold of Deir Ezzor; What You Need to Know”

The United States is not going to launch a preemptive attack on North Korea. The risks far outweigh the rewards and, besides, the US has no intention of getting bogged down in a conflict that doesn’t advance its geopolitical objectives. The saber-rattling is just an attempt to divert attention from the Syria-Jordan border where the US and Jordan are massing troops and equipment for an invasion of Syria. That’s what’s really going on. The Korean fiasco is a smokescreen.

True, the Trump administration is milking the situation for all its worth, but that doesn’t mean that they want a war with the North. That’s not it at all.  Washington wants to deploy its controversial THAAD anti-missile system to South Korea, but it needs a pretext to do so. Hence, the ominous threat of an “unstable, nuclear-armed North Korea”, that’s all the justification Washington needed to get its new weapons system deployed. Mission Accomplished.

But the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) isn’t aimed at North Korea, it’s aimed at China, and China knows it which is why it has protested its deployment repeatedly. The US wants to surround China and Russia with military bases and missile systems that are integrated into its broader nuclear weapons system. These lethal systems are a crucial part of Washington’s plan to pivot to Asia and rule the world into the next century. Here’s the rundown from Tass:

“Anti-missile elements that are being deployed around the world are part of a very dangerous global project aimed at securing US’ overall overwhelming superiority to the prejudice of security interests of other states….The US missile defense architecture is tilting the strategic balance of forces in the area of offensive weapons and creates more and more serious risks of global instability.” (“US anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe violate INF Treaty”)

And here’s how Russian President Vladimir Putin summed it up:

“The US is developing an anti-missile defense system which”….when it is operational… “there will be a moment in time when our entire nuclear capability will be neutralized, which means that the entire global balance of power will be overturned.. This means one of the powers will have absolute security and be able to do whatever it likes in regional conflicts. We’re talking about unrivaled power in global conflicts. ..This system forces us to create weapons that can nullify the system asymmetrically.” (Tass)

Is missile defense something the American people should want?

Heck no. Just think of the number of people that Uncle Sam has slaughtered in the last 16 years. Now try to imagine if all the constraints on Washington’s rampaging were removed allowing the US to conduct its bloody war on the world with complete impunity?

No one in their right mind would ever give the Washington crazies that kind of power. It’s a prescription for global annihilation. Besides, absolute security for one country means no security for everyone else.

But deploying the THAAD anti-missile system is just one part of Washington’s North Korea swindle. The fear-mongering is also being used to grease the wheels of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Here’s the scoop from The Hill:

Sen. John McCain

“Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) push for a $7.5 billion fund to bulk up the U.S. military’s capabilities in the Asia-Pacific is gaining momentum as tensions with North Korea mount. The commander of U.S. forces in the region threw his support behind the idea this week, “This kind of money can help us bring together our allies and partners,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. …The … proposal has gained more visibility amid the intensifying concerns over North Korea and its nuclear program.” (“McCain plan gains momentum amid North Korea threats”, The Hill)

So the MIC lackeys in Congress had already been pushing this latest boondoggle, but they needed a trumped up crisis in North Korea to put them over the finish line. Typically, the process is called “creative advertising”, which means scaring the shit out of the public so you can rip them off. Here’s more from the same article:

“I’d like to thank Chairman McCain and this committee for proposing and supporting the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative,” Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said at Thursday’s hearing. “This effort will reassure our regional partners and send a strong signal to potential adversaries of our persistent commitment to the region.”

The weapons manufacturers love sugar-daddy McCain who’s always on-hand with gobs of moolah.

Here’s more:

“We can thank North Korea for one thing in this,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest”. “They’re amplifying the imbalance in the Asia-Pacific.” (The Hill)

Good idea, let’s thank North Korea for this latest windfall for the weapons makers. Why not? Let’s send Kim a nice big valentine from the American taxpayer with John McCain’s name writ large at the bottom.

In any event, Washington’s policy towards North Korea hasn’t changed. All the chest thumping and fireworks are just part of a circus sideshow designed to justify additional defense splurging and missile deployment. At the same time, the media is trying to divert attention from critical developments in the Middle East, particularly the Syria-Jordan border where Washington has rallied its proxy-fighters into a makeshift army that will (likely) invade southern Syria, charge northward to Deir Ezzor,  establish a no-fly zone over the occupied territory, and partition the area east of the Euphrates preventing loyalist forces from reestablishing Syria’s sovereign borders. That appears to be the basic game-plan. Check this out from the Middle East Monitor:

“The Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad said that his country has information that Jordan is planning to send its troops into southern Syria in cooperation with the United States…

“We have this information, not only from mass media, but from different sources”…
Speaking to The Washington Post, King Abdullah of Jordan reiterated that a planned joint operation could take place against terrorists. “It is a challenge, but we are ready to face it in cooperation with the US and Britain.” (“Assad accuses Jordan of planning Syria invasion”,  Middle East Monitor)

The pretext for the invasion will be to fight ISIS, but the real goal is to seize the eastern part of the country consistent with a plan that was concocted by the Brookings Institute two years ago. After 6 years of covert support for CIA-backed militants on the ground, the Trump administration appears to be leaning towards a more traditional military approach. Here’s more from the LA Times:

“Reports have also emerged of Jordanian and U.S. troops on the section of the Jordanian border opposite southwest Syria, a possible prelude to a campaign in which rebels, supported by Jordanian and coalition forces on the ground, would overrun Islamic State’s pocket in the Yarmouk basin, near southwestern Syria’s borders with Israel and Jordan.” (“How long can Jordan keep walking the Middle East tightrope?”, LA Times)

Naturally, Moscow is concerned about the developments on the Jordanian border. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a statement saying,

“We will pay special attention to the issues most important for us which concern the situation on the Jordan-Syria border.”

Also worrisome, is the fact that US Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis has been traveling across the Middle East rallying Washington’s allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. Mattis sees the fighting in Syria as a proxy-war between the US and Iran for influence in the region. This same erroneous view is shared by all of the main powerbrokers in the Trump administration.

“Everywhere there’s trouble in the region, you find Iran,” Mr. Mattis said on a stop in Riyadh, adding that nations in the region are working to “checkmate Iran and the amount of disruption, the amount of instability they cause.”

These latest developments take place just days before the resumption of negotiations in Astana, Kazakhstan (May 3 and 4). Russia, Turkey, Iran and a number of the leaders from the rebel groups will gather to see if they can agree on the terms of a ceasefire and an eventual settlement to the 6 year-long war. The Trump administration’s cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase in early April has boosted the morale of many of the jihadists militias and is keeping them away from the bargaining table. In other words,  Trump’s unexpected escalation has sabotaged Putin’s efforts to resolve the crisis and end the hostilities. The last thing Washington wants in Syria is peace.

A number of reports have confirmed that Trump has handed control of his foreign policy to his Generals, Mattis and McMaster. And while Mattis has shown little interest in getting more deeply involved in the Syrian conflict, McMaster sees Russia as a “hostile revisionist power” that “intimidates our allies, develops nuclear weapons, and uses proxies under the cover of modernized conventional militaries.”

McMaster is a hard-boiled militarist with a driving animus towards Russia.  In a speech he delivered at The Center for Strategic and International Studies, McMaster offered this remedy for so called ‘Russian aggression’. He said:

“what is required to deter a strong nation that is waging limited war for limited objectives… is forward deterrence,  …(is) convincing your enemy that (he) is unable to accomplish his objectives at a reasonable cost.”

McMaster can be expected to use his  “forward deterrence” theory in Syria by trying to lure Putin into a confrontation with US forces east of the Euphrates. But there’s no reason to think that Putin will fall into the trap, in fact, it seems highly unlikely given the potential for a catastrophic face-off between the two nuclear-armed superpowers. Instead, Putin will probably take the high-road, present his case to the UN Security Council, and denounce  the US intervention as another example of Washington’s destabilizing and expansionistic foreign policy.

Putin’s worst mistake would be to base his strategy entirely on the situation on the battlefield. He doesn’t need to liberate every inch of Syrian soil to win the war. Let the US and its proxies seize the territory, establish their military bases and no-fly zones, throw up a DMZ along the Euphrates, and wade deeper into the Syrian morass. Putin has other fish to fry. He needs to focus on winning hearts and minds, strengthening alliances and building a broader coalition. He needs to look like the only adult in the room, the rational leader whose sole ambition is to end the dispute and restore security. He needs to establish a contrast between his behavior and that of his recklessly-violent and mentally-unstable rival, Washington, whose flagrant  disregard for international law and civilian lives has plunged the Middle East and Central Asia into chaos and carnage.

If Putin’s ultimate goal is to rebuild the system of global security based on the bedrock principles of national sovereignty and greater representation for all the countries in the world, he must lead by example. Restraint and maturity in Syria will move him closer to that goal.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

On Wednesday, addressing State Department staff, Rex Tillerson stressed “leaning hard” on China to pressure Pyongyang on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula “backed up by very strong (US) resolve…”

“So it’s a pressure campaign…to lean into people” to go along with Washington’s agenda. “We’ve told them we’re watching what you’re doing.” Punishment will be administered to non-compliers by sanctions and other means, he said.

His message was meant mainly for Beijing – on North Korea, trade and South China Sea issues. Friendly bilateral relations depend on playing ball with America was his message.

If Beijing doesn’t come down hard on Pyongyang, Washington could sanction its banks, commerce and industry dealing with the DPRK, he warned, adding:

“(W)e’ve got a lot of work left to do to keep that pressure on.”

Major Sino/US differences remain unresolved – notably on North Korea, trade and Beijing’s South China Sea activities.

Rex Tillerson shaking hands with President Xi Jinping

During his confirmation hearing as Trump’s ambassador to China, former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad said he intends raising tough issues with Beijing.

Asked if he considers China an ally or enemy, he said “it’s a tough question,” stressing its government’s obligation “to play by the rules” – US ones, he failed to explain.

On Monday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said China’s help on North Korea “trumps trade.” On Monday, he infamously called Trump’s April 7 aggression on Syria “after-dinner entertainment,” adding “it didn’t cost the president anything” – other than mostly civilian lives lost and flagrantly breaching international law, he didn’t explain.

Separately on Wednesday, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published a commentary titled “Refrain from making reckless remarks undermining the DPRK-China relations,” criticizing Beijing for what it called “a wanton violation of (the DPRK’s) independent and legitimate rights, dignity and supreme interests.”

It defended the nation’s nuclear program as its right to self-defense. It criticized “ignorant (Chinese) politicians and media persons” for their views on this issue.

“(T)he DPRK(’s) strategic interests have been repeatedly violated due to insincerity and betrayal on the part of its partner,” Beijing, it said.

Uncharacteristic tough talk about its most important ally!

It said

“China should acknowledge in an honest manner that the DPRK has just contributed to protecting peace and security of China, foiling the US scheme for aggression by waging a hard fight in the frontline of the showdown with the US for more than seven decades, and thank the DPRK for it,” adding:

“China had better ponder over the grave consequences to be entailed by its reckless act of chopping down the pillar of the DPRK-China relations.”

Pyongyang feels threatened by possible US aggression. It relies heavily on China as its most important strategic, political and economic partner.

For its part, Beijing wants war on the Korean peninsula avoided. It wants normal relations with all nations.

It’s treading a delicate balance in dealings with Washington, Pyongyang and other regional countries – a major test for its diplomatic skills.

Can war on the Korean peninsula be avoided? Trump’s rage for belligerent confrontations isn’t reassuring.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new 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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Chemical weapons kill by causing a terrible death mostly to innocent people not involved in the conflict, but just by being nearby. That inevitably includes children. Those who do not die immediately will live scarred for life physically and mentally.

There is a reason why the use of chemical weapons is banned. They kill and maim indiscriminately. Considering that nuclear weapons have a more long-lasting and wider lethal effect should make them the primary target of a total ban. Why nuclear weapons are not banned for the same reason is beyond rationale.

But, beware. Chemical weapons can also have long term and broader effects.

Nowadays our main concern is about the use of chemical weapons because they have recently caused the death of a reported 80 people including many children near the city of Homs in Syria.

The U.S. has accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons that Syria is not even possessing, as confirmed by the UN. Based on their own unproven accusation the U.S. decided to strike Syria with a reported 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. It is important to say “unproven” because there is no evidence of responsibility.

The U.S. track record speaks loudly!

The U.S. develops and keeps chemical weapons.

The U.S. facilitates the distribution of chemical weapons.

The U.S. has used chemical weapons infamously in Vietnam.

The U.S. has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

The U.S. has used nuclear weapons.

The U.S. promotes a warmongering bloody foreign policy.

And finally, we have all seen over and over how the U.S. uses disinformation to justify its own imperial interventions.

Why would this time be different?

But let me suggest how the danger of this U.S. psychopathic behaviour transcends the current event in Syria, and how the disinformation about chemical weapons can become a long-range political weapon beyond the borders of Syria.

Since last April 4, right-wing opposition protesters in Venezuela have led violent demonstrations against the government of Maduro, throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at police.

Venezuelan police have largely been on the defensive, using shields and water cannons to protect themselves from protesters, and tear gas to disperse uncontrolled crowds committing vandalism against public and private property.

On Saturday, April 8, however, when protesters intensified their attacks on police, opposition leaders claimed President Nicolas Maduro’s administration used “toxic weapons” to shut down anti-government demonstrations.

El Hatillo Mayor David Smolansky, a leading figure of the opposition Popular Will party, alleged on Twitter that

“Nicolas Maduro is beginning to use chemical weapons as they are using in Syria.”

Notice the intentional link.

But Smolansky wasn’t the only opposition leader spreading this unsubstantiated allegation.

Venezuelan National Assembly member Armando Armas also claimed Maduro

“attacked the population with red toxic gas,” calling him a “dictator” on Twitter.

And Popular Will coordinator Marcela Maspero said

“police are using a red gas to repress us,” adding that “it can be neutralized with soda and lemon.”

These allegations are fake news intended to discredit the government by raising the protests to the level of the occurrences in Syria.

They are fake first and perhaps most obviously, because hundreds of people would have instantly died if the alleged “red toxic gas” was a chemical weapon.

Second, because the Venezuelan government does not possess chemical weapons, nor has it ever possessed them, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Finally, because the right-wing opposition has no proof whatsoever of the alleged chemical weapons used against them.

Maduro has remarked on how violent opposition forces will stop at nothing to provoke war, including an open treasonous call to foreign intervention in Venezuela.

“U.S. imperialism is based on lies in order to undertake its interventions against nations,” Maduro said while commenting on Syria, citing Libya and Iraq as other examples.

We fully share Maduro’s concern about U.S. interventions and spreading of wars that are falsely justified.

In order to stop this mad race to more wars, we need a multipolar world. I cannot see any other possibility. We need a multipolar world that can challenge the imbalanced expansion of the U.S. empire.

Russia and China are strong forces that can play a good role in Syria and the rest of the world, including Latin America.

But ultimately I want to emphasize the message that we – the anti-war movement – must also have an active role in the new multipolar world. We must position ourselves to be part of it. For that we must be strong and united.

Nino Pagliccia has two Master’s Degrees from Stanford University and is a retired researcher on Canada-Cuba collaborative projects at the University of British Columbia. He has published many peer-reviewed journal articles and has contributed chapters to books on topics about Cuba, the Cuban healthcare system and solidarity. He has been a long-time activist and has organized groups to do voluntary work in Cuba for almost 15 years. Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ninopagliccia.