Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Hussein Obama is counting his final days in the White House and has given his farewell speech in Chicago to recap his accomplishments and  encourage the public to become more politically engaged and fight for their dying democracy. Ironically, Mr. Obama was elected twice because of his message of hope and change, but unfortunately, we got nothing in the last eight years but “more of the same.”

The following list will constitute some but not all of Mr. Obama’s accomplishments, and as a result, the reader will be the judge of his legacy.

1. U.S. interventions to influence elections in multiple foreign countries extending from Russia to Africa and from Asia to the Middle-East.³

2. Regime changes in several countries through American financed color revolutions and covert hybrid wars.⁴

3. Assassination of foreign leaders and American citizens.⁶

4. Increase of the national debt by trillions of dollars to finance low intensity wars, feed the beast of the Military Industrial Complex, and bail out Wall Street and the banks.

5. Failure of Obamacare that was written by the insurance companies and their lobbyists.

6. Creation of a new housing bubble.

7. Formation of a stock market bubble.⁷

8. Production of low wage jobs, while stagnating and lowering the existing American salaries, resulting in utter decline in the standards of living.⁸

9. Expansion of the government oligarchy, and the establishment of Czars ”R” US.²

10. Expansion of law enforcement agencies and the surveillance state under the guise of safety.

11. Fomenting fake news, then, signing on December 24^th, 2016 the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which is an unconstitutional measure against First Amendment freedom.¹

12. Aiding and facilitating the killing of hundreds of thousands of people across the globe through covert operations, regime change, and weapons sales.

13. Displacement of millions of people across the world after destabilizing their nations (e.g. Syria, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine, etc).

14. The implementation of the “Oded Yinon” vision of the Middle-East and the fighting of Zionist-Israeli wars to balkanize the region, make Israel a regional power secretly equipped with hundreds of nuclear warheads, while exploiting the wealth of these disintegrating countries.

15. The Islamification of America by bringing millions of Moslem refugees to the U.S. after destroying their countries and looting their wealth.

16. The balkanization of the world to keep it divided and dependent on American guns and corporations.

17. Keeping Guantanomo Bay open for future uses despite Obama’s promises to do otherwise.⁵

18. The re-killing of the dead Osama Bin Laden (previous U.S. intelligence asset) in Pakistan as Obama’s “Magnum Opus” accomplishment against terror.

19. The financing of training of Moslem fundamentalists across the globe through proxies like Sandi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, and Arab Sheikdoms.

20. The creation of ISIS by morphing Al Qaeda and transforming it into a virulent pseudo-state to give it location and a sense of physicality instead of the usual abstract enemy of a terrorist lurking in the shadows or in caves as Al Qaeda was. As a result, perpetual war will continue to defeat an illusory ” bogeyman” that was created to destabilize, partition, and remap countries, as well as terrorize the ignorant masses, sustain never-ending wars, and create additional means to control the primitive multitudes.

21. By his own admission as a citizen of the world, Mr. Obama bolstered the globalization process through trade deals to benefit the global corporations.

22. While speaking of unity, freedom, and engagement, Mr. Obama engendered more division, subjection, and fear to maintain the empire, keep the proles divided, subdued and totally dependent on Big Brother.

Conclusion:

These were some of Mr. Obama’s accomplishments as his legacy of shame will always be remembered. Like his predecessor, he completed his mission of eroding the republic and the constitution in order to advance his global money masters’ agenda of accumulating the wealth and the power into the hands of the few while exerting total control over the people. Moreover, Mr. Obama’s legacy has brought us the great chameleon“Donald Trump” who will continue Obama’s work.

References:

1. Lendman, S. (2016). “Big Brother” Watches Everyone in America: Obama Signs “Ministry of Truth” into Law Legislation Opposing Speech and Media Freedom. CRG. 12/29/16.
2. Skaff, R. (2009).  Obama’s Czars “R” US. CRG. 07/01/2009.
3. Nina, A. (2016). The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other count.              Los Angeles Times, 12/21/16.
4. Korybko, A. (2015).  Hybrid wars: The indirect approach to Regime Change.
5.  Negrin, M (2012). Guantanomo Bay: Still open, despite promises. abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/guantanamo-bay-
6. WWW.salon.com/2010/04/07assassinations
7. WWW.cnbc.com/2016/10/11/the-stock-market-is-on…
8. WWW.wnd.com/2016/08/obamaclinton-economy-low-<…

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released the long-awaited unclassified version of its report allegedly proving Russian interference in the U.S. elections. The media in the United States have run with this story as the final confirmation that Russia deliberately interfered in the presidential elections with the aim of electing Donald Trump.

With the result being that tensions with Russia, the other truly major nuclear power, are higher than they have been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

With the stakes being so high, the report itself is shockingly underwhelming. The 15-page report consists of, in addition to various cover pages and explanatory sheets, five pages recapitulating information already released by the government—without any evidence, even of the most general kind. Then, seven pages of bizarre content analysis and freshman-level marketing summaries on the television channel RT. Even more bizarre, the bulk of the information related to RT is five years old, yet somehow is being used as evidence of interference in the 2016 election.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. | Photo: Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Even a number of anti-Russia specialists who do believe the general assertions have issued statements ripping the report for failing to prove anything. For instance, professional Putin-basher (and to be fair, noted political analyst) Julia Ioffe took to Twitter to say that “a lot” of “Russia watchers” none of whom “like Putin/Trump” are very skeptical.

The ‘evidence’

The bulk of the “evidence” presented consists simply of assertions—statements like, “We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks.” And that’s it. Whether it’s the alleged hacking by Russian agencies or the direct involvement of Vladimir Putin and the general motivations of various Russian actors, it’s the same script, an assertion of Russian malfeasance without even the remotest reference to any of the “sources or methods” used to determine these assertions.

Most of this “evidence” has already been presented in the public sphere, leaked by intelligence agencies to pliable media sources who for months now have dutifully reported that Russia—beyond a shadow of a doubt—interfered in the elections to help Trump.

There are a number of problems with this. First and foremost, there is no unanimity in the cybersecurity world as to the allegations’ truth or falsehood, and many experts have raised serious doubts. More important though is why the media (and DNC) is reporting the absolutely certainty of the fact when the explanatory note in the report itself is not so sure. For instance, the CIA/NSA/FBI all have high confidence that Russia interfered. But what does “high confidence” mean?

High confidence generally indicates that judgments are based on high-quality information from multiple sources. High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong.

In terms of the allegations that it was done directly to help Donald Trump, the NSA only has “moderate confidence.” Well what does that mean?

Moderate confidence generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.

So in their own words, the “intelligence community” is telling the world that while they think this is what happened they don’t know it happened. This is extraordinary given the complete certainty the media and large sections of the Democratic Party establishment are telegraphing to the public about these claims.

This is really the upshot of all these claims regarding hacking and influence peddling. Many nations, in particular the United States, frequently seek to influence the politics and policies of other nations. For instance, a September 2014 New York Times report outlined how many nations spend big bucks funding U.S. think tanks in order to push particular policies. The report highlights in particular Norway’s $5 million donation to the Brookings Institution in return for Brookings’ scholars promoting a doubling of funding for a particular foreign-aid program Norway liked.

Also, of course, Israel regularly uses its influence in America elections. Haim Saban, for instance, a top donor to Hillary Clinton and many Democrats, said his only goal in donating money was to influence pro-Israel policy. And of course that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Stations like RT and Radio Sputnik principally run programming highlighting elements of the political sphere in the U.S. rarely heard on mainstream media, including many commentators from socialist backgrounds as well as libertarians and varying varieties of progressive ideological views. Everyone from well-liked progressive radio commentator Thom Hartmann, to Pulitzer Prize-winning radical journalist Chris Hedges have shows on the RT Network, for instance.

Nothing illustrates this better than the report itself. In listing evidence that RT is seeking to nefariously influence America the report notes RT has run programs highlighting anti-fracking messages, third-party political candidates, and Occupy Wall Street (coverage for which RT was nominated for an Emmy). They also list, as further proof of RT’s demonic agenda, that RT reports often “allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality and drone use.”

In other words RT capitalizes on the fact that mainstream media in America refuses to provide any significant coverage for anything outside of the agenda of the centrist, pro-capitalist, two-party duopoly. Not surprisingly non-mainstream commentators often have beliefs that differ from American foreign- and domestic-policy establishments. Some of these views are similar to those taken by the Russian government, which is neither strange nor nefarious.

What is the report really about?

So, again, the report does two things. It makes several pages of entirely unsourced assertions and it establishes that Russia, like Norway, Israel and just about every other nation with the means, seeks to influence political conversations in America. Further, the report itself outlines that this influencing actually consists of highlighting varying political commentators who happen to not be the people you routinely see on CNN and who have a different perspective, and often whose issues and stories are woefully under covered.

In other words, the report shows nothing, it simply compiles information already known that does not in fact show definitively that Russia tried to tip the election for Trump or hacked the DNC. It isn’t that either couldn’t be true, just that there is no proof.

Essentially, intelligence agencies are asking us to “trust” them. This report emanates from the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office. Clapper, you may remember, was caught red-handed lying—under oath—to Congress about NSA spying. Lying, that is, about intelligence “sources and methods,” the same thing we are being told to trust them on now.

We can, of course, go further and note that the CIA/FBI/NSA not only have long and well-documented histories of deliberately misleading the American public but also include numerous examples of using journalists as vectors for disinformation.

So what could really be going on here?

Well, we have “high confidence” that what appears to be happening is that elements of the national security state and the Democratic Party high command are working in league to accomplish two goals. One, to prevent major changes in U.S. policy with Russia, and two, to cover up the incompetence of the Democratic presidential campaign, which led directly to the rise of Trump. In the process, the NSA and CIA are heavily rehabilitating their image.

Net favorability among Democrats in terms of how they view the CIA was at -4 percent in 2015; it stands at 32 percent today.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States and NATO have pushed relentlessly East. Containing and hobbling Russia, preventing it from returning to the world stage, has been a key geopolitical goal. However, Russia is capitalist. So unlike during the Soviet period, there is little formally standing in the way of a more friendly relationship between the two nations. Indeed, many American corporations have done lucrative business in Russia. Before the last round of sanctions from the Obama administration, pro-business trade associations in the United States, including the largest, the Business Roundtable, expressed reservations about moving forward with more sanctions.

Donald Trump promised better relations with Russia. Most of those focused on continuing a cold war-type posture backed by Hillary Clinton. Her loss portended a changing of the guard in U.S.-Russia policy. Until now, where Trump is painted into a corner, any move he makes towards closer relations with Russia will appear too many and certainly be presented by the media and the Democrats as treasonous.

Maintaining a variation of the status quo, then, is the easiest way to avoid looking like a dupe.

Further, the heavy focus on Russia’s role has partially obscured the Democratic Party’s weak campaign, which alienated significant sectors of its core base. The workers in the Rust Belt who switched to Trump and those in the inner cities who stayed home clearly were not driven by Putin. Deindustrialization and Clinton’s limited record regarding Black America (including cheerleading mass incarceration) were already known.

Further, the broad outlines of what the DNC report revealed were visible almost from the beginning of Sanders’ campaign. Well before anything was leaked, the hashtag #BernieorBust was well known.

However, if it was Russia’s fault, as opposed to a failure to address the needs of broad sectors of working class and oppressed people, then a full examination of the corporate sycophancy of the top Democratic leadership need not take place.

As for Republicans, the right-wing media has conducted a 20 or so year hate campaign against Hillary Clinton, all without the help of Russia. It is dubious that the Russian influence was greater than the alt-right fever swamps in terms of creating and promoting absurd stories aimed at undermining her, or that such filth would not have surfaced without Russian involvement.

Clearly, a massive misdirection play is being run right now. If the claim being made was simply that Russia tried to influence politics in the United States, this would be uncontroversial. Instead, the best guesses of the intelligence community as to who allegedly hacked (some experts believe it was a leak not a hack) the DNC and John Podesta are being presented as gospel truth and weaponized—with the only result so far being the rehabilitation of the CIA’s image and the partial derailment of a true reckoning among Democrats for why Hillary Clinton lost.

Neither, of course, are good reasons to risk taking the world’s two largest nuclear powers closer to the brink.

Notes

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/democrats-now-give-cia-higher-marks-republicans-do-s-really-n703206

Some thoughts on “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election,” the newly released declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

1. The primary purpose of the declassified report, which offers no evidence to support its assertions that Russia hacked the U.S. presidential election campaign, is to discredit Donald Trump. I am not saying there was no Russian hack of John Podesta’s emails. I am saying we have yet to see any tangible proof to back up the accusation. This charge—Sen. John McCain has likened the alleged effort by Russia to an act of war—is the first salvo in what will be a relentless campaign by the Republican and Democratic establishment, along with its corporatist allies and the mass media, to destroy the credibility of the president-elect and prepare the way for impeachment.

A detail of a page in the declassified report. (Jon Elswick / AP)

The allegations in the report, amplified in breathtaking pronouncements by a compliant corporate media that operates in a non-fact-based universe every bit as pernicious as that inhabited by Trump, are designed to make Trump look like Vladimir Putin’s useful idiot. An orchestrated and sustained campaign of innuendo and character assassination will be directed against Trump. When impeachment is finally proposed, Trump will have little public support and few allies and will have become a figure of open ridicule in the corporate media.

2. The second task of the report is to bolster the McCarthyist smear campaign against independent media, including Truthdig, as witting or unwitting agents of the Russian government. The demise of the English programming of Al-Jazeera and TeleSur, along with the collapse of the nation’s public broadcasting, designed to give a voice to those not beholden to corporate or party interests, leaves RT America and Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! as the only two electronic outlets with a national reach that are willing to give a platform to critics of corporate power and imperialism such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Ralph Nader, Medea Benjamin, Cornel West, Kshama Sawant, myself and others.

Seven pages of the report were dedicated to RT America, on which I have a show called “On Contact.” The report vastly inflated the cable network’s reach and influence. It also included a few glaring errors, including the statement that “RT introduced two new shows—‘Breaking the Set’ on 4 September and ‘Truthseeker’ on 2 November—both overwhelmingly focused on criticism of the US and Western governments as well as the promotion of radical discontent.” “Breaking the Set,” with Abby Martin, was taken off the air two years ago. It could hardly be tarred with costing Hillary Clinton the election.

The barely contained rage of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at the recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on foreign cyber threats was visible when he spat out that RT was “promoting a particular point of view, disparaging our system, our alleged hypocrisy about human rights, et cetera.” His anger was a glimpse into how the establishment seethes with hatred for dissidents. Clapper has lied in the past. He perjured himself in March 2013 when, three months before the revelations of wholesale state surveillance leaked by Snowden, he assured Congress that the National Security Agency was not collecting “any type of data” on the American public. After the corporate state shuts down RT, it will go after Democracy Now! and the handful of progressive sites, including this one, that give these dissidents space. The goal is censorship.

3. The third task of the report is to justify the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization beyond Germany, a violation of the promise Ronald Reagan made to the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Expanding NATO in Eastern Europe opened up an arms market for the war industry. It made those businesses billions of dollars. New NATO members must buy Western arms that can be integrated into the NATO arsenal. These sales, which are bleeding the strained budgets of countries such as Poland, are predicated on potential hostilities with Russia. If Russia is not a threat, the arms sales plummet. War is a racket.

4. The final task of the report is to give the Democratic Party plausible cover for the catastrophic election defeat it suffered. Clinton initially blamed FBI Director James Comey for her loss before switching to the more easily demonized Putin. The charge of Russian interference essentially boils down to the absurd premise that perhaps hundreds of thousands of Clinton supporters suddenly decided to switch their votes to Trump when they read the leaked emails of Podesta. Either that or they tuned in to RT America and decided to vote for the Green Party.

The Democratic Party leadership cannot face, and certainly cannot publicly admit, that its callous betrayal of the working and middle class triggered a nationwide revolt that resulted in the election of Trump. It has been pounded since President Barack Obama took office, losing 68 seats in the House, 12 seats in the Senate and 10 governorships. It lost more than 1,000 elected positions between 2008 and 2012 nationwide. Since 2010, Republicans have replaced 900 Democratic state legislators. If this was a real party, the entire leadership would be sacked. But it is not a real party. It is the shell of a party propped up by corporate money and hyperventilating media.

The Democratic Party must maintain the fiction of liberalism just as the Republican Party must maintain the fiction of conservatism. These two parties, however, belong to one party—the corporate party. They will work in concert, as seen by the alliance between Republican leaders such as McCain and Democratic leaders such as Sen. Chuck Schumer, to get rid of Trump, silence all dissent, enrich the war industry and promote the farce they call democracy.

Welcome to our annus horribilis.

Last night, January 10, 2017, Barack Obama gave his farewell address to the nation. The scene was a strange and disappointing attempt that failed, to replicate the hope, the energy, and optimism of his first 2008 address to the nation.

Instead of celebrating the unity of all those who joined to put him in office, the mood was downbeat, with Obama warning listeners that the country had become more divided than ever during his intervening years in office, that Democracy was threatened on many fronts—cultural, legal, and economic—and that the people to whom he was speaking, and throughout America, now had the task to take up the fight to protect what’s left and restore it–for clearly he had not been able to do so.

At times the fire of hope, dominant in his 2008 victory speech, briefly returned. Obama declared, referring to 2008 and 2012, that “maybe you still can’t believe we pulled this whole thing off”. But what exactly was ‘pulled off’? What was accomplished that was so great is hard to know. But he apparently thinks something was.

During the speech he listed a series of accomplishments that represent, in his view, the high marks of his presidency: As he put it, he ‘reversed the Great Recession, rebooted the auto industry, generated the longest job creation period in Us economic history, got 20 million people health insurance coverage, halved US dependency on foreign oil, negotiated the Iran nuclear proliferation deal, killed Osama Bin Laden, prevented foreign terrorist attacks on the US homeland, ended torture, passed laws to protect citizens from surveillance, and worked to close GITMO.’ Sounds good, unless one considers the facts behind the ‘hurrah for me’ claims.

The auto industry was rescued, true, but auto workers wages and benefits are less today than 2008 and jobs in the industry are still below 2008 levels. So too are higher paid construction jobs. Half of the jobs created since 2008 include those lost in 2008-2010, and the rest net gains in new jobs since 2010 have been low paid, no benefits, part time, temp, ‘gig’ service jobs that leave no fewer than 40% of young workers under thirty today forced to live at home with parents. More people are working two and three part time jobs than ever before. Five million have left the workforce altogether which doesn’t get counted in the official employment and unemployment rate figures. If one counts the part time, temp and those who’ve left the labor force or not entered altogether, the jobless rate is not today’s official 4.9% but 10% of the workforce. That’s 15 million or more still, after eight years. Meanwhile, those who do have jobs are victims of the great ‘job churn’, from high to lower wage, from a few, if any, benefits to none at all.

As for ending the Great Recession, that depends ending ‘for whom’ and what constitutes an ‘end’. The US economy grew after 2009, but at the slowest rate of growth historically post-recession since the 1930s.

But he did end the great recession for the wealthy and their corporations. Corporations have distributed more than $5 trillion in stock buybacks and dividends to their shareholders since 2010, as corporate profits more than doubled, as stock and bond markets tripled in value, and as more than $6 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and investors (beyond the $3.5 trillion G.W. Bush provided) were passed on Obama’s watch. (Not to be outdone by Obama and the Democrats, Trump and the Republican Congress are now about to pass another $6.2 trillion for investors and businesses, to be paid for in large part by tax hikes for the rest of us and the slashing of education spending, Medicare, Medicaid, healthcare, housing, and what’s left of the US social safety net).

In his farewell address Obama also cited how the country ‘halved its dependency on foreign oil’. True enough, at the cost of environmental disasters from Texas to the Dakotas to Pennsylvania, as oil fracking replaced Saudi sources, and in the process generating irreversible water and air contamination in the US. In foreign policy, he noted he signed the Iran deal, but left out mentioning that during his administration the US set the entire middle east aflame with failed policy responses to the ‘Arab Spring’, with Hillary’s coup in Libya, to support of various terrorist groups (including Al Queda) in Syria, and to the arming of Saudis to attack Yemen.

Looking farther east, Obama foreign policy outcomes are no better. The US is still fighting in Afghanistan 16 years later, the longest war in US history, as the Afghan government now collapses again in a cesspool of corruption and graft. And the US is still engaged in Iraq. A related consequence of the failed US middle east policy has been the destabilization of Europe with mass refugee migrations, that have been only temporarily suspended by equally massive payoffs to Turkey’s proto-fascist Erdogan government (which also blames the US for the recent failed coup there by the way).

Other failures on the Obama foreign policy front must include the US militarization of the Baltics and East Europe, following Obama’s inability to rein in Hillary’s US State Department neocons in 2013-14, who made a mess out of their US financed coup in the Ukraine in 2014. That debacle has driven the US and Russia further toward confrontation, which perhaps Hillary and the neocons may have wanted in the first place (along with a US land invasion of Syria at the time which, in this case, Obama to his credit resisted).

And what about Obama’s much heralded ‘pivot to China’? On his watch China’s currency achieved global reserve status, that country launched a major trade expansion, and a government Asia-wide investment bank. The collapse of the US sponsored TPP will also mean a China-Southeast Asia ‘TPP’, which was already well underway.

On the domestic front, Obama’s legacies must include the most massive deportation of Latinos in US history on his watch, nothing but words spoken from the comfort of the White House about police and gun violence and black lives murders on the streets of the US, and the rollback of voting rights across the country. And let’s not forget about Barack the great promoter of free trade, signing bilateral deals from the very beginning of his administration, and then the TPP, all of which gave Trump one of his biggest weapons during the recent election.

The media and press incessantly refer to the 2010 Obamacare Act and the 2010 bank regulating Dodd-Frank Act as two of his prime achievements. But Obamacare is about to implode because it failed to control health care costs, now more than $3 trillion of the US total GDP of $19 trillion—the highest in the advanced economy world at nearly 18% of GDP (compared to Europe and elsewhere that spend on average 10% of their GDP on healthcare). The 8% difference, more than $1 trillion a year, going to the pockets of middle men and paper pushers, like insurance companies, that provide not one iota of health care services.

In his address Obama touted the fact that on his watch 20 of the 50 million uninsured got health insurance coverage, half of them covered by Medicaid which provides well less than even ‘bare bones’(provided one can even find a doctor willing to provide medical services). The rest covered by Obamacare mostly got high deductible insurance, often at an out of pocket cost of $2-$4 thousand a year. 10 million thus got minimal coverage, and the health insurance industry got $900 billion a year, what the program costs. No wonder the health insurance companies did not oppose such a windfall. Obamacare is best described therefore as a ‘health insurance industry subsidy act’, not a health care reform act.

Obama will be remembered for scuttling his own program in 2010 by unilaterally caving in to the insurance companies and withdrawing the ‘public option’ and for his party refusing to even allow discussion of expanding Medicare for all—the only solution to the continuing US health care crisis. In the wake of Obamacare’s passage, big Pharmaceutical companies have also been allowed to price gouge at will, driving up not only private health insurance premiums but Medicare costs as well, and softening up that latter program for coming Republican-Trump attacks.

As for Dodd-Frank, that’s been known as a joke for some time, providing no real controls on greedy bankers and investors who were given five years after its passage in 2010 to lobby and pick it apart, which they’ve done. The one provision in Dodd-Frank worth anything, the Consumer Protection Agency, is about to disappear under Trump. And for the first time in US economic history, no banker or investor responsible for the 2008 crash went to jail on Obama’s watch.

So much for Obamacare and banking reform as his most notable ‘legacies’.

The true legacies that will be remembered long term will be the accelerating rate of income inequality, the real basis for the growing divisions in America, and the near collapse of the Democratic Party itself.

Under Obama, the wealthiest 1% accrued no less than 97% of all the net national income gains since 2008—as stock markets tripled, bond markets and corporate profits doubled, and $5 trillion was passed through to investors as $6 more trillion in their taxes were cut. Under George Bush the wealthiest 1% households was 65%. Under Clinton 48%. So the rate accelerated rapidly during Obama’s term. Apart from talking about it, Obama did nothing the last 8 years to abate, let alone reverse, the trend.

The other true legacy will be the virtual implosion of the Democratic Party itself during his administration. As the leader of a party, one would think ensuring its success in the future would be a priority. But it wasn’t. On his watch, nearly two thirds of all state legislatures and governorships, and countless court positions, have been captured by the Republicans. To be fair, the Democratic Party has been in decline for decades. It has won at the presidential level only when the Republicans split their vote, as in 1992 when Ross Perot challenged daddy Bush, and when baby Bush, George W., aka ‘the shrub’, crashed the entire US, and much of the global, economy in 2008.

Obama and the Democrats had an historic opportunity to turn the country in a progressive direction for a decade or more, as Roosevelt did in 1932 and then 1934—by bailing out Main St. with another ‘New Deal’. But Obama chose to double down in 2010 on bailing out Wall St. and the big corporations with another $800 billion tax cut, leaving Main St. America behind. Unlike FDR in 1934, who swept the midterm elections that year, giving him a Congress to pass the New Deal in 1935, Obama doubled down on more for investors and corporations and the 1%. He paid dearly for that in 2010 losing control of Congress. American voters gave him one more chance in 2012, but he again failed to deliver. The result is a Democratic Party ‘debacle 2.0’ in 2016 and he leaves a Democratic Party in shambles. That too will be remembered as his longer term legacy.

Returning to his farewell address, the affair was a poorly rehearsed caricature of his 2008 inaugural, during which so many had so much hope of change, but ended up with so little in the end. Like a touring theater troupe putting on its last performance blandly, eager to change into street clothes and get out of town. True, the Republicans played hard ball and blocked much of his initiatives, but Obama did little to fight back in kind. If he was a community organizer, he was of the most timid of his genre. He kept extending a hand to the Republican dog that kept biting it at every overture. He wanted everyone to unite and pull together. But in politics winning is not achieved by reasoning with the better nature of one’s opponents. That’s considered weakness, and the biting thereafter is ever more vicious.

But perhaps Obama’s greater political error was he never went to the American people to mobilize support, instead sitting comfortably within the oval office in the White House and enjoying the elite circus that is ‘inside the beltway’ Washington. He never put anything personal or physical on the line. And that does not an organizer make. He repeatedly talked the talk, and never walked. The results were predictable as the Republican hardballers—McConnell, Ryan and crew—threw him beanballs every time he came up to bat. He struck out, time and again, calmly walking back to his White House dugout every time.

So farewell Barack. Your speech was a nostalgic call to your hometown fans in Chicago, to go out and organize for American democracy because it’s now in deep ‘doo-doo’. Take up where I left off, your message? Fair enough. Do what I failed to accomplish, you say? OK. See you at the country club, buddy, after your lunch with Penny Pritzger, the Chicago Hilton Hotels billionairess, who put you in office back when in 2008.

And now America changes one real estate wheeler-dealer for another, this time one who takes the direct reins of government. And he’s Obama’s legacy as well….

Powerful elites are using the credibility of the US Intelligence agencies to demonize Russia and prepare the country for war. This is the real meaning of the “Russia hacking” story which, as yet, has not produced any hard evidence of Russian complicity.

Last week’s 25-page report, that was released by the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, illustrates to what extent intelligence is being “fixed around the policy”.  Just as the CIA generated false information related to Weapons of Mass Destruction to soften public resistance to war with Iraq, so too, the spurious allegations in the DNI’s politically-motivated report are designed to depict Russia as a growing threat to US national security. The timing of the report has less to do with the election of Donald Trump as President than it does with critical developments in Syria where the Russian military has defeated US-proxies in Syria’s industrial hub, Aleppo, rolling back Washington’s 15-year War of Terror and derailing the imperialist plan to control vital resources and pipeline corridors across the Middle East and Central Asia. Russia has become the main obstacle to Washington achieving its strategic vision of pivoting to Asia and maintaining its dominant role into the next century. The Intelligence Community has been coerced into compromising its credibility to incite fear of Russia and to advance the geopolitical ambitions of deep state powerbrokers.

The “Russia hacking” flap shows how far the Intel agencies have veered from their original mandate, which is to impartially gather and analyze information that may be vital to US national security. As we have seen in the last two weeks, the leaders of these organizations feel free to offer opinions on  issues that clearly conflict with those of the new President-elect. Trump has stated repeatedly that he wants to reduce tensions and reset relations with Russia, but that policy is being sabotaged by members of the intelligence community, particularly CIA Director John Brennan who appeared just last week on PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

We see that there are still a lot of actions that Russia is undertaking that undermine the principles of democracy in so many countries. What has happened in our recent election is not new. The Russians have engaged in trying to manipulate elections in Europe for a number of years…

the Russians tried to interfere in our electoral process recently, and were actively involved in that. And that is something that we can’t countenance. (“Interview with CIA Director John Brennan”,  PBS Newshour)

Brennan, of course, provided no evidence for his claims nor did he mention the hundreds of CIA interventions around the world. But Brennan’s accusations are less important than the fact that his appearance on a nationwide broadcast identifies him as a political advocate for policies that conflict with those of the new president. Do we really want unelected intelligence officials — whose job it is to provide the president with sensitive information related to national security– to assume a partisan role in shaping policy? And why would Brennan –whose is supposed to “serve at the pleasure of the president”– accept an invitation to offer his views on Russia when he knew they would be damaging to the new administration?

Powerful people behind the scenes are obviously pushing the heads of these intelligence agencies to stick to their ‘anti-Moscow’ narrative to force Trump to abandon his plan for peaceful relations with Moscow.  Brennan isn’t calling the shots and neither are Clapper or Comey. They’re all merely agents serving the interests of establishment plutocrats whose geopolitical agenda doesn’t jibe with that of the incoming administration. If that wasn’t the case, then why would the Intelligence Community stake its reputation on such thin gruel as this Russian hacking gibberish? It doesn’t make any sense. The people who launched this campaign are either supremely arrogant or extremely desperate. Which is it?  Here’s an excerpt from an article by veteran journalist Robert Parry sums it up like this in an article at Consortium News:

The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.

But the case, as presented, is one-sided and lacks any actual proof. Further, the continued use of the word “assesses” – as in the U.S. intelligence community “assesses” that Russia is guilty – suggests that the underlying classified information also may be less than conclusive because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.” (“US Report Still Lacks Proof on Russia ‘Hack’”, Robert Parry, Consortium News)

Bottom line: Brennan and his fellow spooks have nothing. The report is little more than a catalogue of unfounded assumptions, baseless speculation and uncorroborated conjecture. In colloquial parlance, it’s bullshit, 100 percent, unalloyed Russophobic horse-manure. In fact, the authors admit as much in the transcript itself when they say:

 Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.

What kind of kooky admission is that?  So the entire report could be BS but we’re supposed to believe that Putin flipped the election? Is that it???

What’s really going on here?  Why have the Intelligence agencies savaged their credibility just to convince people that Russia is up to no good?

The Russia hacking story has more to do with recent developments in Syria than it does with delegitimizing Donald Trump. Aleppo was a real wake up call for the US foreign policy establishment which is beginning to realize that their plans for the next century have been gravely undermined by Russia’s military involvement in Syria. Aleppo represents the first time that an armed coalition of allied states (Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah) have actively engaged US jihadist-proxies and soundly beat them to a pulp. The stunning triumph in Aleppo has spurred hope among the vassal states that Washington’s bloody military juggernaut can be repelled, rolled back and defeated. And if Washington’s CIA-armed, trained and funded jihadists can be repelled, then the elitist plan to project US power into Central Asia to dominate the world’s most populous and prosperous region, will probably fail. In other words, the outcome in Aleppo has cast doubts on Uncle Sam’s ability to successfully execute its pivot to Asia.

That’s why the Intel agencies have been employed to shape public perceptions on Russia.  Their job is to prepare the American people for an escalation of hostilities between the two nuclear-armed superpowers. US powerbrokers are determined to intensify the conflict and reverse facts on the ground. (Recent articles by elites at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institute reveal that they are as committed to partitioning Syria as ever.)  Washington wants to  reassert its exceptional role as the uncontested steward of global security and the lone ‘unipolar’ world power.

That’s what this whole “hacking” fiasco is about. The big shots who run the country are trying to strong-arm ‘the Donald’ into carrying their water so the depredations can continue and Central Asia can be transformed into a gigantic Washington-dominated corporate free trade zone where the Big Money calls the shots and Capital reigns supreme. That’s their dreamstate, Capitalist Valhalla.

They just need Trump to get-with-the-program so the bloodletting can continue apace.

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].

US commander of US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) General John Nicholson’s December 2016 briefing was paradoxical and perhaps indicative of the bankrupted foreign policy that defines America’s occupation in Afghanistan.

The US Department of Defense published General Nicholson’s full briefing titled, “Department of Defense Press Briefing by General Nicholson in the Pentagon Briefing Room.” In it, three truths in particular emerged.

1. “Stronger Afghan Military” Still Requires Years More of US Hand-Holding

The briefing paradoxically claimed that America’s proxy regime in Kabul it has attempted to prop up for the past 15 years is gaining strength and independence from US-NATO assistance, even as US Marines prepared to deploy back to Afghanistan’s Helmand province for what the Pentagon announced will be years more of US troop rotations.

The Washington Post in an article titled, “Thousands of Marines fought in southern Afghanistan. Now, the service is going back,” would report that:

About 300 Marines with a unit called Task Force Southwest will deploy, advising the Afghan army’s 215th Corps and Afghan national police with the 505th Zone. The forces will work in part from a large Afghan installation known during earlier Marine operations as Camp Leatherneck, but will be based in other locations and could face combat, senior Marine officers said Friday.

The Post would also report:

Senior Marine officials did not say why the service will take over the mission in Helmand, but it is expected that there could be several rotations of Marine task forces there in coming years.

In other words, promises of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, promises that formed the foundation of political campaign promises for years, were made in vain with US troops facing an unending, futile commitment to occupying the Central Asian state for years to come, just as US troops did in Vietnam during the 1960s-1970s.

Likewise, claims by military commanders and US policymakers that Afghanistan’s government is becoming increasingly “independent” defies even the most basic admissions the US military and government themselves provide in terms of statistics and US troop deployment schedules.

Like the now non-existent South Vietnamese government, the current Afghan government cannot sustain itself without a significant foreign presence, because despite the immense amount of monetary, military and political resources poured into it, it lacks legitimacy in Afghanistan itself where it matters most.

2. US Taxpayers Will Pay Twice for Afghanistan’s Ineffectual Military 

General Nicholson’s briefing also revealed that the military assets US taxpayers have provided Washington’s proxy regime in Kabul will essentially be rendered void since most of them depend on Russian parts and maintenance assistance no longer available under Washington’s ever-expanding sanctions targeting Moscow.

General Nicholson, in response to a question during the briefing, would state:

…the Afghans traditionally had a core of MI-17 pilots who were trained on the airframe and some of them very experienced. So early before Crimea, Ukraine, before sanctions, there was international support for continuing with Russian-made airframes.

That all changed after 2014 and after those sanctions were imposed. So the issue now is the sustainment of that — of that fleet to continue while we field a new fleet. President Obama forwarded to the Hill a request and the supplemental for purchase of UH-60 alpha model helicopters. So these helicopters will be modified with an improved drivetrain transmission so to enable them to operate better in the environment up there. But it will involve a transition for the pilots.

This means fleets of Mil Mi-17 transport helicopters Afghan forces have used for years will be replaced by US-made Sikorsky (owned by defense giant Lockheed Martin) UH-60 Black Hawks.

With this move, not only will pilots have to be retrained to fly the Black Hawks, but part inventories, airport infrastructure, supply chains, ground crew training and all other aspects necessary to sustain the Black Hawks will have to be established and maintained as well.

In essence, US taxpayers find themselves paying twice for helicopter transport capabilities with the Black Hawks costing drastically more – the entire plan costing hundreds of millions of dollars more according to Reuters – to support an Afghan military already struggling just to survive.

3. The US is not Fighting Terrorism in Afghanistan  

During General Nicholson’s briefing, he claimed that the US presence in Afghanistan persisted in order to defeat Al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS). However, it was clear that listening to his briefing, that the US-backed proxy regime in Kabul’s primary threat was the Taliban.

General Nicholson berated Pakistan, Russia and Iran for what he claimed was their collective “malign influence” within Afghanistan. In particular, he condemned Russian and Iran for lending legitimacy to the Taliban.

General Nicholson would claim:

Russia has overtly lent legitimacy to the Taliban. And their narrative goes something like this: that the Taliban are the ones fighting Islamic State, not the Afghan government.

However, General Nicholson strategically omits the fact that the US and some of its closest allies in the Middle East have lent the Taliban legitimacy as well, with the US attempting to negotiate with the group and its ally Qatar allowing the Taliban to open what is for all intents and purposes an embassy in Doha, Qatar’s capital.

UK newspaper, The Times, in a 2011 article titled, “Taliban office in Qatar approved by US,” would report that:

The US has given its blessing for the Taliban to be brought in from the cold with a critical step towards reconciliation as the world paused to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Washington has endorsed plans for the Islamist network to open political headquarters in the gulf state of Qatar by the end of the year. The move has been devised so the West can begin formal peace talks with the Taliban.

More recently, the US State Department’s Voice of America media platform in a December 2016 article titled, “Taliban Seeks Recognition for Qatar Office, Direct Talks With US,” would report:

The U.S. State Department released a statement Friday that acknowledged American officials have seen the Taliban’s statement, and appeared not to explicitly rule out the prospect of talks with the militant group.

“As we have long said, the only way to end the conflict in Afghanistan is through a peace and reconciliation process with the Taliban. We are ready to accept any political resolution of the conflict between the Afghan government and the Taliban so long as the outcome of any process ensures that the Taliban cease violence, break associations with international terrorism, and accept Afghanistan’s constitution, including its protections for women and minorities,” the statement said.

This clearly conflicts directly with General Nicholson’s statements.

By recognizing the Taliban as a legitimate political movement, and with US allies affording the Taliban offices in their capital cities from which to bolster their legitimacy, the US, not Russia, has done the most to undermine its own narrative regarding the so-called “War on Terror” and the entire premise with which it justifies its continued presence in Afghanistan.

While the US claims that it is fighting Al Qaeda and the so-called “Islamic State” in Afghanistan, it is clear that the real battle it fights is against the Taliban and its control over the country vis-a-vis America’s proxy regime in Kabul. The negotiated settlement it is trying to concurrently strike with the Taliban as its military campaign against the movement approaches two-decades, is both a bid to save its struggling proxy regime in Kabul, and an acknowledgement of the limitations of US influence in the region.

Coverage of America’s ongoing presence in Afghanistan has dwindled within the US and European media specifically because the alleged narrative underpinning the occupation has diverged so drastically from reality. Over the next year, for those who carefully follow the conflict, the US will continue manufacturing excuses to remain in the country while it focuses on both negotiating with the Taliban and attempting to diminish them politically and militarily.

For the Taliban, time is on their side, and if General Nicholson’s statements are true about the Taliban receiving protection and resources from abroad are true, then no amount of negotiations or military might within Afghanistan itself will render victory for Washington and its proxies in Kabul.

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

Last night, Syrian army troops, backed up by artillery strikes, attacked ISIS units north of the Kuweires Airbase. There are no detailed reports from the area, but pro-government sources argued that the army had been able to kill some 4 ISIS members in the area.

The government forces’ activity north of Kuweires allowed some sources to release speculations about the possible attack of the Syrian army in the direction of al-Bab. However, this has not been confirmed by developments on the ground yet.

Clashes continued in the area of Wadi Barada northwest of Damascus where the Syrian army continued attacks against Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) to restore the water supply line to the Syrian capital. Government forces lost some 2 units of military equipment in the clashes in the area.

The Syrian army and the National Defense Forces, supported by Russian attack helicopters, have repelled another ISIS advance on the Tyas Airbase in the province of Homs. The goal of government forces in the area is to build a larger buffer zone near the strategic airbase in order to secure it and its supply lines from attacks. ISIS terrorists aim to prevent this. Pro-government sources say that 23 ISIS members were killed in the recent clashes. The total ISIS manpower west of Palmyra is estimated between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters.

Four Russian Su-25 close-air-support aircraft and an Il-76 transport aircraft were spotted near the city of Hama in western Syria en route to the Russian Khmeimim Airbase in Latakia on January 10. This means that the Russian-Iranian-Syrian alliance is ready to restore major-scale operations against terrorists in case of fail the ceasefire efforts.

The propaganda campaign by the NATO war alliance against Russia has several components. The newest elements are the surreal allegations being made by the Obama regime, suffering a fit of apoplexy over the victory of Donald Trump in the American elections, that Russia interfered in the elections, that President-elect Trump is a Russian agent, and that Russia is conducting a war against American “democracy.”

The other components are that Russia invaded Ukraine and Crimea, massacres civilians in Syria, threatens hybrid war operations in the Baltic, threatens the German elections, threatens European “democracy” in general and is about to invade Europe. Each component is as egregious and absurd as the rest but one of the most vicious of these absurdities is the campaign directed against Russia concerning the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over east Ukraine on 17 July, 2014.

The Americans were quick to blame the Donbass republic forces and Russia for the downing of the airliner, claiming, without any evidence, that the plane was shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft missile launcher from an area controlled by Donbass forces. Ignored was the fact that the Donbass had no such air defence system operational in that area and neither did Russia but the Kiev forces did. Also ignored was the eyewitness evidence of civilians on the ground who observed at least one Kiev Sukhoi 25 fighter jet ascend and approach the civilian airliner and that, immediately afterwards, the plane crashed. There were reports as well that a Spanish air traffic controller in Kiev, known as Carlos, sent out messages on Twitter contemporaneous with the shoot down, using the Twitter address @Spainbuca, that he observed this on his radar and overheard the pilot’s conversations with Kiev air traffic control confirming that the Ukraine jet shot down the plane. There are later reports that a Ukrainian pilot admitted he flew the plane that shot it down. Both these men have since disappeared from view. Remarkably, the investigating body has never followed up these important facts.

They have never followed up the data provided by the Russian government as well as other technical information establishing that neither Donbass nor Russian forces were involved either deliberately or accidentally. Since the plane was downed in the Donbass territory of Donetsk, it would seem logical that the Donetsk Republic would have charge of the investigation and The Convention On International Civil Aviation states that the country in which the incident occurs is responsible for the investigation. But the Donetsk Republic was denied that role by the Kiev regime which claimed it took place in Ukraine territory and so assumed the role of investigator and then, under NATO, and especially American pressure, delegated the investigation to NATO, in the guise of the Dutch Safety Board, on the justification that the majority of the passengers were Dutch.

Since then, what should have been an open, international and objective investigation has descended into a burlesque of deception, fraud, and cover up of mass murder by the NATO powers. For whoever brought down that plane is guilty of mass murder. Since there is persuasive and compelling evidence that it was the forces of the Kiev regime that brought it down, and since they had to have done it either with the real time connivance or later assistance of the United States and its allies, then the governments of all those countries are guilty of a crime against humanity, a war crime. The motive for this crime is unclear. It is thought by some that the Kiev regime hoped to assassinate President Putin who, it was reported, was flying through the area on a similar plane, though the Russians have not confirmed this. The only other explanation is that the Kiev regime murdered all those people in order to discredit the Russian government. Both motives would be to the benefit of NATO in its on going aggression against Russia. As to possible Russian or Donbass motives, I can think of none.

The Dutch Safety Board, who took on the role as investigative authority, issued its report on October 13, 2015. It is clear to anyone who reads that report that the data and the investigatory methods are selective and selected to arrive at a desired conclusion. All the evidence pointing to the responsibility of the Kiev regime and its allies has been omitted from consideration, including reports of Kiev jets in the area and the Russian air traffic control data. There was no mention made of the round holes in the fuselage that match the 30mm cannon shells used by the Kiev Sukhoi 25’s that were seen approaching the plane, which were noted by an observer of the OSCE, the Organisation For Security and Cooperation, Michael Bociurkiw. Any reasonable person has to conclude that the Dutch safety Board report is a sham document designed to cover up the role of Kiev and NATO and to cast suspicion on Russia.

That this is what is going on was further confirmed on January 9th 2017, when it was reported that two Dutch journalists returning from the Donbass were detained at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and had all their equipment, cameras, cell phones, and all data and notes on the MH17 downing seized by the Dutch police. This data included street interviews. An attempt by the Dutch Journalists Union, a day later, to get back their possessions was refused by a Dutch court. Though the court did order the data and equipment be placed under seal so the police cannot look at it, the Dutch police already had it in their possession for many hours before that order took effect. The order also effectively prevents the journalists from sharing it with the public. But since the police had time to copy everything on the journalists’ hard drives, disks, phones and cameras, they have complete access. We have none.

It is reported that the two journalists, Michael Spekkers and Stefan Beck, spent nine days in Donbass with British videographer, Graham Phillips. They returned to The Netherlands January 7 when their detention and seizure of their property took place. The two reported that, in contradiction to the Dutch Safety Board’s statements, they found it safe to conduct their investigations in The Donbass and there is no excuse for the Dutch not go there and investigate properly.

The journalists are rightly angered by this attack on journalists’ freedom, and the right of the public to know the facts. It is a blatant attempt by the Dutch government to suppress the evidence these journalists gathered. It is only reasonable to conclude that the NATO authorities are worried in case these journalists found evidence confirming NATO culpability for the incident. After all, the journalists had written an article about it and announced that they were willing to share the information with the Dutch government. But apparently there is a fear in NATO that they might share too much with too many and so pounced on them and robbed them and us of the information they had before they could. The Dutch government has yet to offer a legal justification for this seizure.

This latest incident in the MH17 saga is relevant to the recent American elections. Donald Trump is being accused of outright treason by the Obama regime and the major US media; he is accused with a vehemence and intensity that surpasses that which poisoned the atmosphere surrounding President Kennedy just before he was assassinated and surpassing that which threatened a coup against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930’s when his New Deal programs caused open talk of military coups against him.

During the American elections Trump caused more consternation in Washington and New York wen he stated that he doubted the media version of events concerning MH17 and stated that their should be an independent investigation. Now that Trump has been elected, a group, including this writer, led by the German journalist Billy Six, has written an open letter to President-Elect trump calling on him to honour his statements. The letter, dated November 25, 2016 states as follows:

“Dear Mr. Trump,

Your election has raised hopes that easing of tensions, between U.S. and Russia, and peacemaking in Europe in general is achievable. Settlement of the ongoing conflict in Eastern Ukraine and lifting the sanctions against Russia, which is vital for the world community, has a realistic chance now.  With this in mind, there is also hope for a higher quality investigation into the disputed downing of MH17, as you expressed your doubts in an October 2015 interview, regarding the proof of Russian guilt:

‘They say it wasn’t them. It may have been their weapon, but they didn’t use it, they didn’t fire it, they even said the other side fired it to blame them. I mean to be honest with you, you’ll probably never know for sure.’ (MSNBC)

Indeed, we agree with you, we will never be sure, with the kind of investigation we have seen over the past two years.  The official investigation of the “Dutch Safety Board“ (DSB) and the “Joint Investigation Team“(JIT) was neither independent nor convincing.  This kind of investigation forms a huge burden particularly to the families who lost their loved ones in the downing of MH17.  They need to know the truth.

WE ARE ASKING YOU, TO PLEASE PUSH FOR A NEW INVESTIGATION.  This could happen within an international framework like the U.N. comprising the following aspects:

1. A team of international, independent scientists who would be able to exclude veto power for any government.  This exclusion of veto is especially important, due to the overwhelming role of one of the involved parties, Ukraine.  The main source of information to the DSB and JIT used for their official investigations was SBU, the Ukrainian secret service.
2. Keeping all scenarios on the table.
3. Declassifying and releasing “available satellite images” claimed by Secretary of State, John Kerry, on 20th of July 2014; or (if not) disclaiming their existence.
4. Conducting forensic examination of impact holes (for metal residues) in the MH17 wreckage and reproducing the same pattern of damage by shelling tests (as usually done in crime cases). Completing key information fields, such as body forensics, voice recorder, radar data etc.
5. Prior construction of, a clear path to an international, objective trial in the U.N. framework with judges from countries which are not connected with the crash.

FURTHERMORE, WE ARE ASKING YOU TO PLEASE INITIATE PEACE TALKS WITH ALL PARTIES CONCERNED (including but not limited to Russia, Ukraine, and the EU) aiming at settling the dispute and establishing a reconstruction plan for Eastern Ukraine including the compensation of the MH17 families.

Thank you so much, in advance, for your attention to this matter.

Independent journalists & experts on MH17.”

Signed by,

• MARK BARTALMAI, journalist & Ukraine documentaries producer, GERMANY
• DR. THIERRY BAUDET, journalist, publicist & initiator of Dutch referendum on EU/Ukraine association agreement, NETHERLANDS
• BERND BIEDERMANN, missile defense colonel ret., military attaché ret. & book author, GERMANY
• CHRISTOPHER BLACK, international criminal lawyer, CANADA
• NORBERT FLEISCHER, investigative journalist, GERMANY
• PROF. DR. ELMAR GIEMULLA, lawyer of German MH17 victims, GERMANY
• DR. HERMANN HAGENA, airforce general ret. & author of MH17 military study, GERMANY
• PROF. DSC. OTTO-FRIEDRICH HAGENA, physicist, GERMANY
• PETER HAISENKO, journalist, publisher & former “Lufthansa” pilot, GERMANY
• JOHN HELMER, longest-serving foreign correspondent in Russia, UNITED STATES
• FRANK HÖFER, journalist & film producer, GERMANY
• DIETER KLEEMANN, airforce colonel / trainer ret. & book author, GERMANY
• PATRICK LANCASTER, investigative journalist with 100s of hours on MH17 site from day one & U.S. Navy veteran, UNITED STATES
• DR. JAMES O´NEILL, barrister on human rights & geopolitical analyst, AUSTRALIA
• JOOST NIEMÖLLER, journalist & MH17 book author, NETHERLANDS
• GRAHAM PHILLIPS, investigative journalist, UNITED KINGDOM
• PROF. DR. KEES VAN DER PIJL, political scientist, peace activist & author, NETHERLANDS
• HECTOR REBAN, political analyst & blogger on MH17, NETHERLANDS
• NORBERT K. REISBERG, Lt.-Col. ret., airforce pilot ret. & military scientist, GERMANY
• DAN SHEPPARD, private MH17 researcher, AUSTRALIA
• JOACHIM SIEGERIST, journalist, publisher & author, GERMANY
• BILLY SIX, investigative journalist & book author, GERMANY
• MAX VAN DER WERFF, blogger & private MH17 investigator, NETHERLANDS
• PROF. KAREL VAN WOLFEREN, journalist, political analyst & book author, NETHERLANDS
• MOHD AZAHAR ZANUDIN, technician, supplier for army/police & blogger on MH17, MALAYSIA

To this date we have no reply from Mr. Trump but he should seriously think about a reply because this will be another litmus test for Mr. Trump and those hoping against hope that his regime will adopt a friendlier approach to Russia; that is, whether he is serious about resetting relations with Russia or, instead, his statements to that effect are just more of his opportunistic rhetoric. Assuming he is allowed to take office, of course. And what world is it in which we all wonder whether an elected US president will be allowed to take office by the opposing party? We can only watch in fearful fascination as the struggle for power within the United States develops. For if Trump is serious then one of the first things he can do is to act on his word and call for an international investigation into MH17. Just that one step would go a long way to showing his good faith towards Russia. But will that one step be just one step too far?

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

There is no doubt that US President Barak Obama is a war criminal as are his military and intelligence officials and most of the House and Senate.

Obama is the first president to keep the US at war for the entirety of his eight-year regime. During 2016 alone the US dropped 26,171 bombs on wedding parties, funerals, kid’s soccer games, hospitals, schools, people in their homes and walking their streets, and farmers tilling their fields in seven countries: Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. 

http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2017/01/05/bombs-dropped-in-2016/

What does the administration have to show for eight years of illegal military interventions in seven countries, none of which comprised a danger to the US and against none of which the US has declared war? Terrorism was created by US invasions, no wars have been won, and the Middle East has been consumed in chaos and destruction. Worldwide hatred of the United States has risen to a record high. The US is now the most despised country on earth.

The only purposes of these crimes is to enrich the armaments industry and to advance the insane neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony. A tiny handful of despicable people have been able to destroy the reputation of the United States and murder millions of peoples, sending waves of war refugees to the US and Europe.

We call these “wars,” but they are not. They are invasions, largely from the air, but in Afghanistan and Iraq from troops on the ground. The invasions by air and land are entirely based on blatant, transparent lies. The “justifications” for the invasions have changed a dozen times.

The questions are: If Trump becomes president, will Washington’s massive crimes against humanity continue? If so, will the rest of the world continue to tolerate Washington’s extraordinary evil?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

Todos los procesos mundiales son cíclicos y la historia de la humanidad siempre estará en constante movimiento, tal es así que la multipolaridad del siglo XX, después de la desintegración de la Unión Soviética, cedió lugar al mundo unipolar bajo el dominio norteamericano caracterizado por el caos, la violencia y el desorden.

Sin embargo, después de dos décadas de la nueva ‘Pax americana’ y su orden global neoliberal, estos empezaron a colapsar y se inició una crisis global por el poder caracterizada por el descontento, la decepción y el desengaño, canalizados en EEUU con la elección de Donald Trump como presidente.

A tal extremo llegó la crisis global neoliberal que hasta los dos acérrimos veteranos partidarios y promotores del mundo unilateral Zbigniew Brzezinski y Henry Kissinger tuvieron que reconocer que para salir de la crisis actual era necesario crear una conexión trilateral entre EEUU, China y Rusia. En el reciente Foro Oslo del Premio Nobel de la Paz, ‘EEUU y la Paz Mundial después de la Elección Presidencial en EEUU’, Brzezinski tuvo que reconocer que a pesar de los muchos esfuerzos de Washington y sus aliados de Bruselas no se pudo dislocar a Rusia, ni influir en el cambio de la política del Gobierno de Putin. Tampoco pudieron impedir la formación de la alianza entre Rusia, China e Irán. A esto se agrega también el fracaso del golpe de Estado en Turquía, detrás del cual estaban Norteamérica y la OTAN.

Entonces, de acuerdo a la conclusión de Brzezinski, en la era nuclear “la precaución y la colaboración deben prevalecer entre Estados Unidos, China y Rusia, si se desea evitar un conflicto fundamental”. En otras palabras, el acierto de Zbigniew Brzezinski significa la necesidad del retorno al mundo multipolar bajo la dirección del G-3 (EEUU, China y Rusia). Henry Kissinger, a la vez, se convirtió en un asesor ‘ad hoc’ de Donald Trump para mejorar las relaciones de Norteamérica con Rusia haciendo reconocer el espacio geopolítico de Moscú en el mundo actual pero siempre tratando de alejar a Rusia de China y de Irán. Ya no le quedaba otra alternativa a Washington y hasta uno de los más influyentes voceros del neoliberalismo, The Washington Post, tuvo que reconocer que “Putin ganó el año 2016”.

Lo interesante de la actual situación geopolítica, que tanto Brzezinski como Kissinger ya no están tomando en cuenta, es que la Unión Europea se convirtió por la voluntad de los burócratas de Bruselas en un simple satélite norteamericano. Según la publicación alemana Spiegel Online, “el 15 de diciembre de 2016, Angela Merkel y sus colegas europeos decidieron transferir parte de su soberanía militar a EEUU”. A tal extremo llegó la situación con la Unión Europea, que la publicación cita a Henry Kissinger, que alguna vez se preguntó: “¿A quién tengo que llamar si quiero hablar con Europa?”. La respuesta es evidente, a partir del próximo 20 de enero habrá que llamar a Washington para consultar sobre esto a Donald Trump. Los varios emisarios de Berlín enviados a Washington ya informaron a Angela Merkel que a la Unión Europea (UE) le esperan años difíciles para las relaciones transatlánticas.

Los estudiosos de todos los países del mundo tratan de encontrar las causas del fracaso del actual orden global neoliberal. El editor asociado de Financial Times, Wolfgang Münchau, en su artículo ‘The elite’s Marie Antoinette moment’ (27-11-16) afirmó que el “orden liberal global está colapsando porque la clase dominante global dejó de percibir el sentimiento del pueblo hacia el mundo”. Según Münchau, “la insurrección popular” tanto en EEUU como en la UE “está creciendo porque la gente tiene miedo a la reducción de protección de los consumidores y el aumento del poder de las transnacionales”. En la percepción de este analista, la globalización neoliberal empezó a adquirir el carácter caótico y violento debido a la distribución extremadamente desigual de los ingresos impulsada por la elite mundial y por su política de “flujos incontrolables de capital y personas”.

Münchau considera que “la acción más correcta sería dejar de insultar a los votantes, solucionar los problemas del sector financiero que está fuera de control, de los flujos de capital y personas y la distribución desigual de ingresos”. Sin embargo, el 1% de los ricos y poderosos que controlan el mundo occidental jamás aceptará estas soluciones a la actual crisis neoliberal. Dale Carnegie, en su libro ‘Cómo ganar amigos e influir sobre las personas’ (1936) anotó que “solamente el 15% de los más ricos y poderosos lo lograron a través de su conocimiento científico o técnico, mientras que el 85% restante obtuvieron su riqueza debido a la manipulación psicológica de la gente o usando lo que se llama ‘la Ingeniería Psicológica'”.

Refiriéndose a EEUU, el país está en manos, según los científicos políticos norteamericanos Martin Gilens (Princeton University) y Benhamin Page (Northwest University), de la plutocracia corporativa y financiera que excluyó a los ciudadanos ordinarios de la participación en las decisiones del Gobierno, especialmente en los últimos 20 años, lo que produjo descontento popular. En realidad, Donald Trump y su equipo han utilizado precisamente los postulados de la Ingeniería Psicológica para lograr el voto de la clase obrera blanca y los sectores empobrecidos por la política de globalizadores acentuada especialmente desde la Presidencia de Bill Clinton en 1993.

Durante los ocho años de Gobierno de Barack Obama, que se inició en 2009, la “economía real”, definida por el filósofo francés de origen argelino Pierre Rabhi como “un sistema orientado a destinar recursos para satisfacer las necesidades de la mayoría de la población”, dejó de existir debido a la monetización de la economía orientada exclusivamente al proceso en el que “el dinero produce dinero”. La política exterior norteamericana desde el trágico 9/11 también había sido concebida por el sector industrial militar y el financiero como una forma de ganar dinero apoderándose de los abundantes recursos energéticos de Oriente Próximo.

Sin embargo, la guerra no solamente produce ganancias sino también estragos físicos y financieros al país envuelto en una aventura militar en calidad de agresor. La recuperación económica de la que hablan los medios globalizados de comunicación sigue siendo un deseo y no una realidad. De acuerdo al expresidente del Council of Economic Advisers bajo Obama, Alan Krueger, “el 94% del aumento de puestos de trabajo —unos 10 millones— en la década pasada fue en calidad de ‘trabajo alternativo'”, es decir, empleo a tiempo parcial, contratistas o trabajo independiente que en la mayoría de los casos no aporta ningún beneficio.

La política exterior norteamericana del Premio Nobel de la Paz, Barack Obama no lo hizo convertirse al presidente de la paz sino en promotor del caos. Como lo definió el político norteamericano Ron Paul, el líder norteamericano Obama ordenó “lanzar bombas sobre siete países y se convirtió en el primer presidente en la historia de EEUU bajo cuya dirección Norteamérica ha estado en guerra cada día durante los ocho años de su Administración”. También durante su Presidencia se programó que EEUU no estaría presente, por primera vez desde 1945, en tres negociaciones fundamentales de paz: primero, el Acuerdo de Minsk sobre Ucrania de Rusia, Ucrania, Bielorrusia, Francia y Alemania; segundo, la próxima cumbre sobre Siria en la que participarán Rusia, Turquía e Irán; y finalmente la reunión sobre el futuro de Afganistán con la asistencia de Rusia, China y Pakistán.

Precisamente, el caos propagado por la Administración de Obama en Oriente Próximo y la Unión Europea, sumado con la crisis económica, para la que Washington y Bruselas hasta ahora no encontraron una solución y se enfrascaron en todo tipo de acusaciones contra Rusia para distraer la opinión pública mundial, han creado las condiciones para el vacío del poder geopolítico. China y Rusia lo ocuparon inmediatamente, tal y como lo reconocieron Brzezinski y Kissinger, creando así las condiciones para el retorno al mundo de una nueva composición pluripolar mundial cuyo liderazgo sería compartido por EEUU, China y Rusia en el orden de países definido por Brzezinski.

Vicky Peláez

Vicky Peláez: Periodista y columnista peruana.

President-elect Donald Trump called BuzzFeed a ‘failing pile of garbage’ over the report that Moscow has been blackmailing him over past sex adventures in Russia. He also refused to answer a question from CNN, another outlet that published the report.

“Be quiet. I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news,” Trump told CNN reporter Jim Acosta at the press conference in New York on Wednesday, where he announced transferring the company to his sons to avoid conflicts of interest.

On Tuesday, CNN reported that a memo claiming that Russia had compromising materials on Trump was shared with the outgoing president and the president-elect by the US intelligence community.

Later in the day, Buzzfeed News published the entire set of memos, which were purportedly “prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent.” The dossier had been circulating among elected officials, journalists and the intelligence community for weeks, according to Buzzfeed’s Ken Bensinger.

Included in the report was the accusation that Trump has “personal obsessions and sexual perversion,” including for graphic sex acts.

“It is disgraceful” that the US intelligence agencies allowed the two-page report that was “false and fake and never happened” to be made public, Trump said of the report published by BuzzFeed, which he called a “failing pile of garbage.”

CNN, which also published the report, said that they tried to get a comment on the story from Trump’s team for “more than half a day.”

“What I suspect you’re seeing here is an attempt to discredit” genuine news sources, said CNN host Jake Tapper immediately after Trump’s press conference.

Tapper added that he could understand why the president-elect was upset by uncorroborated accusations being posted on the internet.

“I would be too,” he said. “That’s why we didn’t publish any of the details.”

Acosta later tweeted that he got another reporter to ask the question. He told CNN that Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer threatened to eject him from the press conference if he tried asking another question.

CNN has sought some distance from BuzzFeed on Wednesday, saying they were “fully confident” in their own reporting and calling on Trump and his team to “identify, specifically, what they believe is inaccurate” in the network’s coverage.

President-elect Trump’s appointment of David Friedman (known for his support of the settlements) to be the US ambassador to Israel, his appointment of Walid Phares (a Maronite Christian known for his pro-Israel track record and distaste for the Palestinians) as his Middle East advisor, and charging his son-in-law Jared Kushner (who is a staunch supporter of Israel and was recently appointed as Senior Advisor to the President) to take the lead in the search for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, all suggest there could be a major change in US policy toward the conflict.

These appointments, coupled with Trump’s campaign promise to relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, may well translate to unfettered support for settlements and the annexation of more Palestinian territory. Should this come to pass, it will jeopardize the prospect of a two-state solution and the future of Israel as a viable Jewish state, not to mention the endless violence that would ensue.

We are already hearing the alarm bells from various Arab capitals. The victory of the Palestinians on the passage of UN Resolution 2334 that condemns the Israeli settlements has now been overshadowed by a sense of deep trepidation, while stirring major concerns among moderate Israelis and Europeans who don’t know what to expect and how troublesome the situation may become.

Many members of the Israeli government feel emboldened by these developments. Education Minister Naftali Bennett has called for the annexation of the third largest settlement Ma’ale Adumim, a few minutes’ drive from East Jerusalem, which would virtually cut the West Bank in half and prevent the rise of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state. He further implored Netanyahu to rule out the establishment of a Palestinian state during his first meeting with President Trump, stating “The next few weeks present a unique window of opportunity for Israel.”

For Netanyahu, Trump as president is simply heaven-sent. He believes that even though he won’t succeed in convincing Trump to shred the Iran deal because of the international repercussions which Trump cannot dismiss, the Trump administration will leave him to his own devices to expand the settlements and gradually render the prospect of a Palestinian state unfeasible by creating irreversible facts on the ground.

The irony here is that many of those who claim to care about Israel’s future security and wellbeing do not want to acknowledge that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not a fading phenomenon. Yes, Israel can build another 100 settlements and annex much of the West Bank, but what then? Will the Palestinians, the Arab world, and the international community simply sit on their hands and do nothing?

Those unflinching supporters of Israel should be true to themselves and answer—where will Israel be in 10 or 15 years? Will it be a Jewish state? A democratic state? An apartheid state? A bi-national state? What legal system will be in place to govern the West Bank? Will it be civilian or military? Will there be two different laws, one for the Palestinians and one for the settlers?

What is the vision of the detractors who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state about the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians? What does Netanyahu mean when he repeatedly invokes the Jews’ claim to the entire “land of Israel?” Does Bennett have any clue what will happen following the annexation of Ma’ale Adumim, or the annexation of Area C which represents 61 percent of the West Bank?

What will be the reaction of the Arab states? Can Netanyahu count on their cooperation during the next Palestinian uprising, which is bound to erupt once their hope for a state is dashed completely? What will be the outcome of the next Gaza war, and what will be the extent of the collateral damage?

Yes, Israel can reoccupy Gaza and decapitate Hamas’ leaders (as Israel’s Defense Minister Lieberman recently retorted), but is Israel willing to govern over 1.8 million Palestinians? At what cost, in both blood and treasure? If not, what happens when the next round of rockets rains down daily, terrifying every Israeli?

Can Israeli technology and anti-terror capabilities that Netanyahu boasts about bring peace? How, one might ask? Will the Arab states simply forget about the Palestinians’ plight only because they are currently collaborating with Israel on matters of security and intelligence-sharing to lessen Iranian threats?

Finally, have Netanyahu, Bennett, and their like considered the international outcry, condemnation, and sanctions that would ensue, and how isolated Israel will be? Have they thought about what Jews around the world would be subjected to? Anti-Semitism will intensify and Jewish businesses and organizations will be seen as ‘fair targets’ for terrorism.

The young generation of Jews will be further alienated, whose immigration to Israel is already in decline. They will no longer view Israel as a safe haven for Jews but as a major liability, and do not want to enlist in the IDF and be assigned to oppress the Palestinians and deny them the right to be free.

What many Israeli madmen and women in and out of the government (like Netanyahu, Bennett, Lieberman, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Culture Minister Miri Regev, and their cohorts) refuse to realize is that they can manipulate, maneuver, manage, or mar the Palestinians only up to a point—but they cannot control them indefinitely. Netanyahu in particular skillfully uses fear tactics and takes advantage of Palestinian incitement to justify his claim that they are not interested in peace.

Their most blatant lie is the contention that once Israel evacuates the West Bank, the territories will become just another Gaza (a ‘Hamastan’), a launching pad for rockets and terrorism, when in fact the withdrawal from Gaza was unilateral without any coordination with the Palestinian Authority in charge of Gaza at the time.

The economic dependency of the Palestinians in the West Bank on Israel, and security cooperation will not end once there is a peace agreement. Israel is and will remain the economic lifeline for the Palestinians for decades. The Palestinians seek political independence but they cannot (nor do they want to) simply divorce themselves from Israel completely because of these ties. They know about Egypt and Jordan’s extensive collaboration with Israel in these areas and how much they benefit from having peace with Israel.

I do not, however, exempt the Palestinians for one moment from responsibility. It is time they stop living in the past; violence and incitement against Israel will do nothing but deprive them of the very thing they want to achieve–a state of their own. They must be prepared to pay the price for wanting to be free.

They must learn how to shoulder their responsibility, clean up their corrupt political system, and focus on building the infrastructure and institutions of a state. Above all, they must stop poisoning the next generation of Palestinians against Israel, as doing so only victimizes these young boys and girls and deprives them of a better and more promising future.

Before Friedman, Phares, and Kushner advise the president on how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they must answer all of these questions which have major bearing on Israel’s very future. I absolutely believe they all genuinely care about Israel and want to do everything they can to ensure its security and prosperity, at peace with its neighbors. But here is where tough love is needed. As Nietzsche succinctly put it, “This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.”

This is precisely the point. Because of their commitment to Israel’s wellbeing, they must carefully think about the ramifications if they recommend to the president to fulfill his campaign promise to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem without simultaneously acknowledging the right of the Palestinians to establish their own capital in East Jerusalem once a peace agreement is achieved.

They must warily consider the implications if Israel were to annex Ma’ale Adumim without agreed-upon land swaps while ensuring a future Palestinian state maintains land contiguity. They must be extraordinarily cautious not to give Netanyahu a blank check to expand the settlements and scuttle the two-state solution and put Israel’s future in peril.

As a deal maker, Trump knows that no unilateral action by one party can seal a deal. An agreement between Israel and the Palestinians must be equitable—a non-zero sum approach that answers to the aspirations of both people, especially because they have no choice but to coexist. Their destiny, like it or not, is intertwined—either they live in peace and harmony, or in perpetual violence, death, and destruction. Neither can have it their way only.

Here is where you, Mr. Trump, can play a historic role. As a deal maker, I implore you, do not give Netanyahu what he wants. If you do, you will rob the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians of everything they aspire for and set in motion an unrelenting cycle of violence that will spare neither side decades of more pain, agony, death, and destruction. A good and sustainable deal requires give and take; each side must make the necessary concessions and create a mutuality of vested interests to ensure its durability.

Kushner is the least zealous; he knows the Israeli scene well and understands that anything short of evenhanded peace will be to Israel’s detriment. We can only hope that he will use his influence as a senior advisor and pave the way for President Trump to make the deal that all of his predecessors failed to achieve.

As the visionary David Ben-Gurion, who was the leading founder of the state of Israel and its first Prime Minister, put it, “Better a Jewish state on part of the land than all of the land without a state.”

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Centre for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and
Middle Eastern studies.
[email protected]                           
Web: www.alonben-meir.com

The United Kingdom has Brexit. The United States, an incoming president Trump. And Israel now has Elor Azaria. It may not have the same ring, but ultimately the turning point could prove as decisive.

Two fallacious narratives have greeted the army medic’s manslaughter conviction last week, after he was filmed firing a bullet into the head of a wounded and helpless Palestinian, 21-year-old Abdel Fattah Al Sharif.

The first says Azaria is a rotten apple, a soldier who lost his moral bearings last March under the pressure of serving in Hebron. The second – popular among liberals in Israel – claims the conviction proves the strength of Israel’s rule of law. Even a transgressing soldier will be held accountable by the world’s “most moral army”.

In truth, however, the popular reaction to the military court’s decision was far more telling than the decision itself.

Only massed ranks of riot police saved the three judges from a lynching by crowds outside. The army top brass have been issued bodyguards. Demands to overrule the court and pardon Azaria are thunderous – and they are being led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Azaria is no rogue soldier. He is “everyone’s child”, according to much of the public. The unexceptional nature of his act is vouched for by the complete indifference of his colleagues as Azaria pulled the trigger. Polls show overwhelming support – 84 per cent – for Azaria among 18- to 24-year-olds, the age of ­Israel’s conscript army.

The trial, meanwhile, reflected not the law’s sanctity – it is 12 years since the last soldier, a Bedouin, was convicted of manslaughter. It revealed only the growing pressures on Israel. Cameras in phones are making it harder to cover up soldiers’ crimes. By prosecuting Azaria in a case where the filmed evidence was unequivocal, Israel hopes to ward off war crimes investigations by the International Criminal Court.

As Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea noted, Azaria’s defence team also erred. Riding a wave of populist indignation, they accused Azaria’s superiors of lying and bullying. Prosecutors had already reduced a murder charge to manslaughter. The court would probably have settled for convicting a repentant Azaria of misusing a firearm. But given the defence’s framing of the case, the judges had to choose: side with the soldier or the army.

Like Brexit and Trump, Azaria’s trial exposed not only a deep social fissure, but also a moment of transition. Those who see a virtuous system punishing a rotten apple are now outnumbered by those who see a rotten system victimising a hero.

Polls show the Israeli public’s faith plummeting in most institutions, from the courts to the media, which are seen, however wrongly, as dominated by the “extreme left”. Only the army is still widely revered.

That is in part because so many Israeli parents must entrust their sons and daughters to it. To doubt the army would be to question the foundational logic of “Fortress Israel”: that the army is all that prevents Palestinian “barbarians” such as Sharif from storming the gates.

But also, unlike those increasingly despised institutions, the army has rapidly adapted and conformed to the wider changes in Israeli society.

Rather than settlers, we should speak of “settlerism”. There are far more settlers than the 600,000 who live in the settlements. Naftali Bennett, leader of the settlers’ Jewish Home Party and education minister, lives in Ranana, a city in Israel, not a settlement.

Settlerism is an ideology, one that believes Jews are a “chosen people” whose Biblical rights to the Promised Land trump those of non-Jews such as Palestinans. Polls show 70 per cent of Israeli Jews think they are chosen by God.

The settlers have taken over the army, both demographically and ideologically. They now dominate its officer corps and they direct policy on the ground.

Azaria’s testimony showed how deep this attachment now runs. His company, including his commanders, often spent their free time at the home of Baruch Marzel, a leader of Kach, a group banned in the 1990s for its genocidal anti-Arab platform. Azaria described Marzel and Hebron’s settlers as like a “family” to the soldiers.

By their very nature, occupying armies are brutally repressive. For decades the army command has given its soldier free rein against Palestinians. But as settler numbers have grown, the army’s image of itself has changed too.

It has metamorphosed from a citizens’ army defending the settlements to a settler militia. The middle ranks now dictate the army’s ethos, not the top brass, as ousted defence minister Moshe Yaalon discovered last year when he tried to stand against the swelling tide.

This new army is no longer even minimally restrained by concerns about the army’s “moral” image or threats of international war crimes investigations. It cares little what the world thinks, much like the new breed of politicians who have thrown their support behind Azaria.

The soldier’s trial, far from proof of the rule of law, was the last gasp of a dying order. His sentence, due in the next few days, is likely to be lenient to appease the public. If the conviction is nullified by a pardon, the settlers’ victory will be complete.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

At the beginning of March 2017, it will be exactly six years since the beginning of the conflict in Syria. Some journalists even make unfavorable forecasts wondering about the very possibility of reconciliation. Complicated by the foreign intervention on the part of Israel war in Lebanon, for example, had been for about 15 years. But even a six-year term it is too long.

That is why we may hope that the meeting in Astana scheduled on January 23 will eventually lead to a positive result. And then there will be an occasion to consolidate the success of the negotiations in Geneva under the auspices of the UN. So what the negotiations in Astana may lead to?

 THE LATEST STATEMENTS OF THE MAIN ACTORS

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev backed the initiative to conduct the negotiations and announced its readiness to provide a platform and to support unconditional assistance to the peace process.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad considers the possibility of reaching the agreement on the Syrian crisis settlement and is ready to discuss with the anti-government forces any questions regarding fixing the conflict up to the referendum on the new constitution of Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that it is possible to give birth to the idea of Syrian-Syrian talks in Astana and that a nationwide cease-fire will be signed as a result. Then practical negotiations on a political reconciliation might be launched.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expresses concerns about the violations of the ceasefire agreement because the talks planned could not take place as a result of that. Therefore Russia and Turkey are working on the issue of implementing sanctions against those violating the ceasefire.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura also said at the briefing that the meeting in Kazakhstan is very important and depends on the truce observance in Syria. The UN expects that Russia and Turkey will influence the parties of the conflict to stop violence. The UN guess to have positive results which might be used in Geneva talks scheduled on February 8.

Some opposition members expressed strange attitude. They have repeatedly stated about the termination of the preparations for the meeting despite their commitments to form a delegation for the talks with the Syrian authorities in Astana.

So it’s strange in this context to hear the words of John Kirby, the press secretary of the US State Department. The United States won’t object if the UN secretary general’s special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura abandons the meeting on Syria in Astana. It turns out in fact the U.S. opposes UN involvement and tries to distance from the talks, isn’t it?  It may benefit the meeting’s participants. The cooperation of Russia, Turkey and Iran without the US has proved its effectiveness: more than 100,000 people were evacuated from Aleppo during the largest humanitarian campaign in history.

REASONS WHY ASTANA COULD WORK OUT

First, Ala’a Arafat, a member from the Change and Liberation Front opposition party, expected commitment from the parties involved in the current cease-fire, despite breaches each side accuses the other for. According to CCTV, he pointed out that the recent deal was concluded between Russia and Turkey only, excluding the U.S. and other regional players, such as Gulf States, at least for now, which means two of the most influential powers from each party of the conflict are directly involved.

The absence of the U.S. involvement in the deal will have a positive impact because Americans and Europeans were behind the failure of previous deals, either directly or indirectly. And the current Turkish-Russian agreement seems better than the one struck between Russia and the United States late last year, Arafat said, noting that the U.S.-Russian deal was criticized by the U.S.-led strike on Syria’s army posts in Deir al-Zour last September, killing over 90 Syrian soldiers, enabling IS to benefit from the Syrian army’s losses.

Second, it’s also worth noting that Russia and Turkey named themselves as “guarantors” of the cease-fire, and stated that the next step will be holding talks in Astana. Both pledged to monitor the deal and prevent any potential breach, which translated into a strong guarantee for both the government and the opposition forces.

Third, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said last week that the cease-fire is a potential starting point for a political process, speaking highly of the chances of success, due to what he called the “strong guarantees” from Moscow. The opposition rebels hold the same view, as they have unwavering trust in Ankara due to Turkey’s support of the rebels in Syria which was crucial for their survival when facing the Russian-backed administration of President Bashar al-Assad.

Forth, in the new talks, armed factions are going to be present and they agree on the political negotiations. The main obstacle was the representation of the opposition groups, particularly the Saudi-backed Higher Negotiations Committee, which played an “obstructionist role,” seen by many as an adamant stance, demanding the departure of Assad as a prerequisite to any negotiations, which of course was the stance of the supporters.

CONCLUSION

Although Russia and Turkey seek different goals in the Syrian conflict but the sides were able to broker. The large-scale operation of evacuating militants from Aleppo, the successful cooperation between the two sides may hold on. Moreover, on January 9, 2017, the Turkey will witness the start of consultations between Iranian, Russian and Turkish diplomats held to discuss the Astana meeting.

Thus, the Astana meeting is highly demanded, and it has to be expanded. A road map of regulating the Syrian crisis in short terms. It could envisage the form of power transition and the date of the referendum on Constitution, and amnesty for the opposition. Moreover, the full ceasefire agreement is expected to be fully implemented during the meeting in Astana. The sides should also draft the further peace process and the issues to be discussed in Geneva.

The Astana talks could be a historic opportunity to end the crisis and should succeed.

Cuando Donald Trump ganó la elección presidencial de Estados Unidos en noviembre, tenía muchos seguidores chinos. Pero la popularidad de Trump desde entonces se desplomó, debido a sus declaraciones -muchas veces vía Twitter- sobre cuestiones controversiales, como Taiwán y el Mar de la China Meridional. Esta no es la primera vez que la visión que tiene China de un líder estadounidense se deteriora rápidamente.

El abrupto cambio en el sentimiento chino hacia Trump es reminiscente de lo que le sucedió al presidente estadounidense Woodrow Wilson después de su reelección hace un siglo. En aquel momento, muchos intelectuales chinos, entre ellos el joven Mao Tse-tung, admiraban a Wilson, politólogo y ex decano de la Universidad de Princeton. Luego, en 1919, Wilson respaldó el Tratado de Versailles, que transfería el control de los ex territorios alemanes en la provincia de Shandong a Japón, en lugar de devolvérselos a China. Wilson rápidamente perdió todo encanto en China.

El cambio fue similar -pero las razones son muy diferentes-. Hace un siglo, China se vio motivada a respaldar a Wilson, y luego a aborrecerlo, por sus propias debilidades. Hoy, la fuerza de China es lo que guía la visión que tiene del presidente estadounidense.

En 1916, el año en que Wilson fue elegido para ejercer su segundo mandato, China atravesaba una situación muy difícil. Si bien la república establecida en 1912 era ostensiblemente una entidad única, en verdad estaba sumamente fragmentada. Líderes militares controlaban las diferentes regiones, mientras que las potencias extranjeras, mediante sobornos e intimidaciones, se apoderaban de grandes extensiones de territorio en China. Para los chinos intelectuales, Wilson representaba un contraste ilustrado para hacer frente a la matonería de los caudillos militares.

Pero el atractivo de Wilson en China creció más allá de su imagen. En 1918, la popularidad de Wilson se disparó -y no sólo en China- luego de un discurso ante el Congreso en el que hizo un llamado a la “autodeterminación” nacional. Los intelectuales en países arrasados por el imperialismo como Egipto y Corea se tomaron a pecho su declaración y empezaron a verlo como un salvador y un defensor de los oprimidos, olvidándose del respaldo de Wilson a Jim Crow en Estados Unidos y de la invasión de Haití bajo su supervisión.

Los patriotas chinos, en particular, esperaban que, bajo el liderazgo de Wilson, Estados Unidos pudiera profundizar su participación en Asia de maneras que ayudaran a proteger a China de las depredaciones del Japón imperial. Para ellos, el respaldo de Wilson del Tratado de Versailles fue una enorme traición.

La China de 2016 es infinitamente diferente de la China de 1916. Ha superado inclusive a países avanzados en la jerarquía económica global. Está unificada bajo un liderazgo sólido y focalizado. Y es muy grande, ya que incluye casi todos los territorios que formaban parte del Imperio Qing en su apogeo. Una rara excepción es Taiwán, pero la ficción diplomática de “una sola China” sustenta la fantasía de que algún día, de alguna manera, la isla democrática y el continente autoritario volverán a estar integrados.

En resumen, China ya no necesita la protección de Estados Unidos. Por el contrario, quiere un presidente norteamericano que se ocupe esencialmente de las cuestiones domésticas, y que no se preocupe demasiado por restringir el ascenso de China, como era el caso de Barack Obama. De esa manera, China podría dedicarse a reacomodar las relaciones de poder en Asia para beneficio propio, sin tener que preocuparse por la interferencia estadounidense.

Antes de la elección, Trump ya era conocido por lanzar acusaciones agresivas contra China, por lo general relacionadas con cuestiones económicas como el comercio. Pero su aparente falta de interés por la política internacional les resultaba muy atractiva a los líderes chinos. Parecía mucho más probable que Trump, a diferencia de su contendiente, la ex secretaria de Estado norteamericana Hillary Clinton, dejara en paz a China. Su sugerencia de que estaría menos comprometido que sus antecesores con el respaldo de aliados tradicionales de Estados Unidos en Asia, como Corea del Sur y Japón, era música para los oídos de los nacionalistas chinos, de la misma manera que su cuestionamiento de los compromisos norteamericanos con la OTAN eran música para los oídos del presidente ruso, Vladimir Putin.

Al igual que Wilson, Trump también ganó un respaldo considerable simplemente en virtud de una personalidad que es atípica para un político. Por supuesto, Trump no es un ratón de biblioteca. Pero a mucha gente le gustaba el hecho de que parecía decir (o tuitear) lo que sentía, ofreciendo una “conversación franca” que contrastaba marcadamente con la estrategia de políticos más refinados, incluido el presidente Xi Jinping, que cuida cada una de sus palabras.

Un deseo similar de “autenticidad” ha alimentado -aunque de una manera muy diferente- la popularidad de otro funcionario de Estados Unidos, Gary Locke, que fue nombrado embajador de Estados Unidos ante China en 2011. Las fotografías de Locke donde se lo ve llevando su propia mochila y comprando café en Starbucks -actos humildes que los altos funcionarios chinos les exigen a sus subordinados- desataron una ráfaga de comentarios online que lo elogiaban y catalogaban como un empleado de gobierno virtuoso. Cuán diferente puede ser Estados Unidos, decían sus seguidores, de China, donde las autoridades corruptas y sus hijos consentidos llevan estilos de vida lujosos que recuerdan a las familias imperiales de los tiempos dinásticos.

Es difícil imaginar que ese contraste particular entre Estados Unidos y China ahora tenga peso, ya que siguen apareciendo fotos del llamativo penthouse de Trump en Manhattan y sus opulentas fiestas en Mar-a-Lago. Y, si bien el estilo de comunicación de Trump sigue siendo despampanante, especialmente en comparación con el de Xi, se vuelve mucho menos atractivo cuando uno es el blanco de sus comentarios terminantes sobre temas espinosos. De la misma manera que una China débil no pudo contar con la protección de Wilson, una China fuerte no podrá contar con que Trump no se interponga en su camino -al menos sin antes dar unos codazos.

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom: Profesor de Historia en la Universidad de Californa en Irvine.

EU-Canada trade deal CETA, like its more well-known ‘evil twin’ deal, TTIP, is a new form of trade deal which targets the removal of social, health and environmental regulations, locks in privatisation of public services and introduces a ‘corporate court’ system so big business across North America can sue European governments in a private justice system. Worse still, CETA will worsen runaway climate change warns MARK DEARN

Tomorrow  (January 12), British MEPs will be among those voting on whether CETA is bad news for the environment, public health and food safety – ahead of a final vote on the deal in February. Liam Fox bypassed parliamentary scrutiny to sign the UK up to the deal under its first stage of ratification.

CETA has already put rocket boosters under runaway climate change by bringing high-polluting tar sands oil into Europe. NASA scientist James Hansen warns that if tar sands oil is exploited as projected it will be “game over for the climate“.

CETA doesn’t merely threaten to undermine the Paris climate commitments. Its very existence is an affront to the fight against climate change; an unholy alliance of corporate lobbyists and US, Canadian and British government pressure ensured CETA derailed the Paris agreement before it took place, making a mockery of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s “greenest ever government” spin and Canadian premier Justin Trudeau’s claim that Southern countries “shouldn’t be punished for a problem they didn’t create“.

Secret CETA negotiations only progressed in 2009 after the European Commission shelved crucial climate change legislation. These rules stopped high-polluting fossil from entering Europe, including tar sands oil, which emits 23% more greenhouse gases over its lifetime than traditional fossil fuels. Research shows that 85% of the high polluting fuel must be left in the ground to meet climate change commitments.

Canada has spent more than £24 million lobbying against the rules, securing more than110 meetings in two years. Freedom of information documents reveal that the British government did all it could to support Canadian efforts, with BP “bending the ear” of then transport minister Norman Baker in order to demolish the “regulatory burden”. Then, in June 2014, the first tar sands oil shipment arrived in Europe. As EU trade expert Yannick Jadot – now the French Green Party’s presidential candidate – explained, the legislation: “… effectively vanished into obscurity for close to five years. And the CETA negotiations proceeded.”

It was only after CETA negotiations finished that the now diluted legislation re-surfaced.  “Coincidence?” asked Jadot. “Of course not.”

But importing tar sands oil into Europe is just one way CETA worsens runaway climate change. As with EU-US deal, TTIP, it contains a ‘corporate court’ mechanism granting fossil fuel corporations yet another means to block clean energy transition.

Time and again, this private justice system (investor-state dispute settlement) has been used to block green policies, which would harm Big Oil or energy firm profits. In total, some 35% of cases relate to oil, mining, gas and electricity.

Under these corporate court powers, Germany has been sued by a Swedish energy firm for €4.7 billion for banning nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster; Canada has been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars for passing a moratorium on fracking – were the UK to retract fracking permissions, it too could face similar cases even after Brexit; and Uganda, among others, has faced a secret corporate law suit for daring to levy windfall taxes on oil companies.

As the European Commission told ExxonMobil in a secret TTIP meeting, these deals are about far more than trade between two blocs: their intention is to set a template for the world, one which is “in the interest of the energy sector, and especially globally active companies like Shell or ExxonMobil”.

What Big Oil companies see as “burdensome regulations” are for millions around the world the difference between life and death.

If CETA passes, those politicians who failed to vote against this deadly deal will be complicit in the climate devastation it triggers.

Mark Dearn is a Senior Trade Campaigner at War on Want and Board Member of the Trade Justice Movement UK

CNN operated as the Clinton News Network throughout the political season, delivering one-sided election coverage, press agent journalism, not the real thing.

At his Wednesday news conference, Trump justifiably blasted the network as “fake news,” a “terrible” organization, refusing to take a question from its reporter-impersonator Jim Acosta.

His incoming press secretary Sean Spicer criticized Acosta for his offensive conduct, tweeting “(r)egardless of party,@acosta behavior was rude, inappropriate and disrespectful. He owes @realDonaldTrump and his colleagues an apology.”

Senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway tweeted MSNBC’s “Morning Joe Attacks CNN, Buzzfeed report on Trump and Russia: ‘There’s No Story Here.’ “

Trump should have gone much further than just excoriating CNN and BuzzFeed for willfully reporting misinformation. He should continue what he did effectively while campaigning.

They’ll keep attacking him viciously once in office, whether justified or not. They won’t give him a moment’s peace. No skin is thick enough to take it without responding appropriately.

NYT editors called his straight talk press conference “bombastic, vain and slippery,” claiming he displayed “petulance and braggadocio…He ducked and dodged when reporters asked whether he or members of his staff colluded with Russia before the election…”

This from the self-styled newspaper of record, serving as Hillary’s press agent throughout the 2015-16 political season, bashing Trump relentlessly daily, continuing its deplorable viciousness.

The Times gave feature op-ed space to neocon Max Boot. He blasted Trump, suggesting he may be “a modern Manchurian candidate.”

He claimed fabricated accusations of Russian US election hacking to help him defeat Hillary are true. He suggested thoroughly debunked allegations about Russia having compromised material on him may be accurate.

“(A) Watergate-style scandal (may) engulf the Trump presidency…Just because the allegations are unproven…does not mean they are all false,” he ranted.

Media are frantic over possible improved Russia/US bilateral ties with Trump succeeding Obama.

They want adversarial relations continued, no softening whatever in the interest of world peace, security and stability.

Media are on the wrong side of virtually all issues mattering most, especially geopolitical ones.

Trump should blast them all as illegitimate purveyors of fake news. Keep tweeting to get your message across without misquotes, distortions, deletions or other ways of trying to undermine you.

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

GM proponents who constantly drone on with untrue claims that the science has clearly demonstrated GMOs as safe were dealt yet another blow shortly before Thanksgiving this past year.

This is because yet another study has been published demonstrating the negative health effects of GMOs on the intestinal tract.

This study by Ibrahim and Okasha entitled “Effect of genetically modified corn on the jejunal mucosa of adult male albino rat.,” and published in the journal Experimental and Toxicologic Pathology has demonstrated that rats fed GM Bt corn MON810 for only 90 days did indeed suffer rather serious damage to the surface mucous membranes of the jejunum – which is part of the small intestine.

The specific type of corn fed to the rats was MON810: Ajeeb YG. This is a GM version of Ajeeb, which is a local species of corn grown in Egypt. The GM version was created by Monsanto for the Egyptian market.

The rats who were fed the GM corn were given the MON810 corn as 30% of their diet. The control group was given the same amount of non-GMO corn.

In the group fed GM corn, the finger-like structures in the intestine known as villi that absorbs nutrients from food were clearly damaged. They were both distorted and flattened and some cells were even joined together.

The study includes images and shows photographs of the damage. There were also signs of inflammation around the areas of damage in the form of white blood cell infiltration. The mucosal glands were disturbed and blood vessels were congested. There was also an increased level of shedding of mucosal cells, higher rates of division of cells lining the mucosal glands and larger numbers of mucous secreting goblet cells.

The damage to the GM-fed rats was so obvious, that the researchers concluded, “consumption of GM-corn profoundly alters the jejunal histological [microscopic] structure”

They also added that,

Results from the current study could show that in spite of the assuring reports on GM products, GM corn has profoundly altered the histological structure of the jejunal mucosa at many levels and revealed several alarming signs, as the proliferative and eroded hemorrhagic lesions in addition to several ultrastructural alterations described here for the first time for jejunum under GM corn influence.

The researchers also called for more research to be done in order to determine exactly how this strain of GM corn inflicted this type of damage on the intestinal system. Their suppositions include direct damage as a result of the Bt toxin or indirect damage as a result of gut bacteria disruption.

The limitations of the study include the fact that the control group was not given the Ajeeb non-GM variety and there was no analysis in terms of the possibility of the presence of pesticide residues and other contaminants. Still, the findings of this new study are extremely significant in that they demonstrate that at best, GM MON810: Ajeeb YG causes damage to the intestinal system.

However, the results do seem to indicate that it is the process of genetic modification that is the cause of this damage. This is not the only study of its kind.

As GM Watch writes,

Two earlier rat feeding studies by Egyptian scientists on the same GM corn, MON810: Ajeeb YG, showed harm in the GM-fed animals. In these cases, the comparator was the appropriate non-GM parent variety Ajeeb, so the ill effects shown in the rats were due to the GM process.

In the first study, rats fed the MON810: Ajeeb YG for 45 and 91 days showed differences in organ and body weights and in blood biochemistry, compared with rats fed the non-GM Ajeeb parent variety grown side-by-side under the same conditions. The authors noted that the changes could indicate “potential adverse health/toxic effects”, which needed further investigation.[3]

In the second study, histopathological (microscopic) investigations by the same group of researchers found toxic effects in multiple organs in the rats fed the GM MON810: Ajeeb YG Bt corn for 91 days. Effects included abnormalities and fatty degeneration of liver cells, congestion of blood vessels in kidneys, and excessive growth and necrosis (death) of the intestinal villi. Examination of the testes revealed necrosis and desquamation (shedding) of the spermatogonial cells that are the foundation of sperm cells and thus of male fertility.[4]

It is significant that the findings of the second study, namely cell abnormalities, congestion of blood vessels, and damage to the intestinal villi were also found in the new study by Ibrahim and Okasha.

It should be noted, that in both of these studies the non-GM Ajeeb variety was used for the control group, thus demonstrating that the process of genetic modification is most likely the culprit for such damage. Likewise it should be noted that the rats showed now outward signs of illness (possibly due to the short duration of the study) but they were clearly sick.

Perhaps now we can begin putting to rest the disingenuous claims by GMO proponents that there are no studies showing the dangers of GMOs. As more and more studies are published demonstrating the danger of GMOs – corporations, governmental regulatory bodies and scientific call girls as well as the fake news media outlets that constantly tout the benefits of GMOs will continue to lose their credibility.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies,Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria,and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 600 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

It is clear, from the overwhelming opposition to Donald Trump’s taking office on January 20th as the U.S. President, opposition on the part of the entire U.S. Establishment — the aristocrats and their agents in the government and media and think tanks — that any opportunity to replace Trump with the Democratic Party’s Establishment Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, or any other Establishmentarian, would be welcomed by the Establishment.

First, there were the efforts to have vote-recounts in the three states where Trump’s victory over Clinton were the narrowest; then, there was the orchestrated campaign to switch to her enough Electoral College electors for her to ‘win’; then, there was the effort to portray Trump’s win as having been engineered in Moscow and thus illegitimate. But now, could come the tactic that actually has the highest likelihood of succeeding, and it would replace Trump with his own Establishment Republican Vice President, Mike Pence. Here’s how it would work:

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution asserts:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of… the principal officers of the executive departments… transmit to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department, or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session.

Trump has appointed, as being far over a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments — i.e., majority of his 15-person Cabinet — Establishment Republicans, who favor continuation of the Cold War against Russia. This continuation of that hostility on the American side had started when the Establishment Republican U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, on 24 February 1990, confidentially instructed not only his Cabinet, but heads-of-state of America’s European allies, that NATO and NATO’s hostility toward Russia, was to continue in secret, even after the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance would end, which end of those Soviet entities occurred in 1991. Under Obama, the old American «Cold War» (henceforth against Russia on the alleged basis of both Ukraine and Syria) was getting hotter than it had been since at least the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, but candidate Trump was now promising to stop it.

Either Trump will reverse his many public statements supporting rapprochement with Russia, or else the U.S. Establishment — which includes almost every living member and former member of Congress, and virtually all of the think tanks and newsmedia, and also the Establishmentarian Pence, whom Trump himself had appointed; and, also, the mostly Establishment Republicans whom Trump had selected for his Cabinet — will likely remove him from office and hand the Presidency to the Constitutionally assigned substitute, the U.S. V.P., Mike Pence himself.

In either case, America’s war against Russia would likely resume, as it was under Obama, and perhaps even as bad as Trump’s Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton had been promising to escalate it (which would be to World War III).

The Democratic political commentator, Keith Olbermann, already on 5 January 2017, was propagandizing for this outcome; but he didn’t say that he would actually prefer Pence to be President; he instead showed that he wanted Pence to be President; he showed it by his there urging that it happen.

NOTE: Olbermann misstated there, at 7:14- in that video, the U.S. Constitution, by his saying that the overthrow would be «by the Vice President and the Speaker of the House using the 25th Amendment» — that’s not what the 25th Amendment actually authorizes; it instead authorizes «the Vice President and a majority of» the Cabinet, to overthrow the elected President, and it makes no mention there of «the Speaker of the House», at all. Earlier, on 23 November 2016, Olbermann had gotten that matter right. Perhaps as Olbermann is getting older, he’s losing his memory (thus forgetting what he had known a month or so earlier, on November 23rd), and increasingly is just winging it (instead of rechecking his key facts), and this might be why he now thinks that such a coup can be carried out merely by the «Vice President and the Speaker of the House» — i.e., by (the two Establishmentarians) Mike Pence and Paul Ryan. It’s fortunately not true. If it were that easy, then Trump might not be able to last as the President for even a month. Getting a majority of the Cabinet to participate in the conspiracy would be far less likely than that, even though they’re part of the Establishment. Some, even of the Establishment faction (and thus inclined toward dictatorship), might have a conscience.

What’s important here, however, is that this clause of the 25th Amendment does allow the Establishment Republican V.P. Pence, plus «a majority of» the Establishment Republican Cabinet that Trump has (unfortunately) selected, to throw Trump out and make the reactionary Pence become America’s President in his place. Trump, by choosing an Establishment V.P. and an Establishment Cabinet, has virtually invited an Establishment coup, unless he buckles early to the Establishment and violates every progressive promise he had uttered during his campaign for the Presidency.

What is especially remarkable here is that a putative «progressive Democrat», Olbermann, is actually proposing this fascist takeover of the U.S. Government, which the 25th Amendment allows, and which Trump himself was stupid enough to enable, by his having chosen so many conservative Republicans for his Cabinet, and for V.P.

Unfortunately, Trump seems not to have been bright enough to have known of this feature of the U.S. Constitution, and so might have been tragically unaware of the necessity for him to select anti-Establishment people for his V.P. and Cabinet; and, so, if Trump himself doesn’t rule as an Establishment President (which will become clear within two months at the most), a coup overthrowing him would actually be fairly easy, and the major question would be the coup’s timing. Presumably, the aristocracy would delay it until there is clarity that Trump is serious about reversing some of their key policies — such as NATO’s pushing Russia into a World War. Remarkably, this would be an entirely Constitutional coup — one that takes advantage of the stupid drafting of the 25th Amendment.

Stupidity might be rampant, but the American aristocracy (who are united behind GHW Bush’s 24 February 1990 plan) take advantage of every opportunity that’s available to them — and this is certainly a major one. Consequently, the next four years are remarkably likely to be a conservative rape of the U.S., and even of the world (along the lines of Hillary Clinton’s plan to finish GHW Bush’s plan, but overseen by Pence and the Republicans instead).

Up to the present moment at least, Trump is still displaying the courage to repudiate the U.S. aristocracy’s top priority, of continuing the war against Russia that GHW Bush started, and that Obama had been raising to a fever-pitch. If Trump sticks with this repudiation, and (somehow) survives in office, then, right there — on that one issue alone — he will be reversing the horrible U.S. history after 24 February 1990 (which the U.S. Establishment are obsessed to continue and culminate), and finally setting the world onto the most essential path to peace and prosperity (prosperity, that is, in all but the ‘defense’ industries), so that authentic progress can, perhaps, begin to be made on domestic issues, both inside the United States, and around the world.

PERSONAL NOTE: Although I expect the worst, I hope that subsequent events will prove me to have been wrong.

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.

Electo hace más de 2 meses y sin llegar aún a la Casa Blanca, Donald Trump no ha tenido lo que llaman «estado de gracia» sino más bien todo lo contrario. El presidente electo es blanco de una campaña de estigmatización a escala internacional. Rompiendo lanzas por sus amos estadounidenses, los europeos –en vez de luchar por su propia soberanía– se unen a coro al concierto de críticas –no siempre justificadas– bajo la batuta de las élites de la ribera occidental del Atlántico. Invocando la «democracia», incluso desfilan contra el resultado de las elecciones.

rack Obama fue designado «santo subito», o sea “santo de inmediato”: en cuanto entró en la Casa Blanca, en 2009, se le entregó a título preventivo el Premio Nobel de la Paz por «sus extraordinarios esfuerzos por fortalecer la diplomacia internacional y la cooperación entre los pueblos». Eso fue mientras su administración ya preparaba en secreto, a través de la secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton, la guerra que 2 años más tarde destruiría el Estado libio, guerra que se extendería después a Siria e Irak mediante los grupos terroristas, instrumentos de la estrategia de Estados Unidos y la OTAN.

Donald Trump, por el contrario, ha sido demonizado de inmediato, incluso antes de entrar en la Casa Blanca. Lo acusan de usurpar el puesto destinado a Hillary Clinton, gracias a una operación maléfica ordenada por el presidente ruso Vladimir Putin. Las “pruebas” vienen de la CIA, incuestionablemente experta en materia de infiltraciones y golpes de Estado. Basta con recordar sus operaciones destinadas a provocar guerras contra Vietnam, Cambodia, Líbano, Somalia, Irak, Yugoslavia, Afganistán, Libia y Siria; o sus golpes de Estado en Indonesia, Salvador, Brasil, Chile, Argentina y Grecia. Y sus consecuencias: millones de personas encarceladas, torturadas y asesinadas; millones de personas desplazadas de sus tierras, convertidas en refugiados, víctimas de una verdadera trata de esclavos. Y sobre todo las mujeres, adolescentes y niñas sometidas a la esclavitud, violadas, obligadas a ejercer la prostitución.

Habría que recordar todo eso a quienes, en Estados Unidos y en Europa, organizan el 21 de enero la Marcha de las Mujeres para defender precisamente esa paridad de género conquistada en duras luchas y constantemente cuestionada por posiciones sexistas, como las que expresa Trump. Pero no es por esa razón que se apunta con el dedo a Trump en una campaña sin precedente en el proceso de transmisión del poder en la Casa Blanca. El hecho es que, en esta ocasión, los perdedores se niegan a reconocer la legitimidad del presidente electo y están implementando un impeachment preventivo. Donald Trump está siendo presentado como una especie de Manchurian Candidate que, infiltrado en la Casa Blanca, estaría bajo el control de Putin, enemigo de Estados Unidos.

Los estrategas neoconservadores, artífices de esta campaña, tratan de impedir así un cambio de rumbo en la relación de Estados Unidos con Rusia, que la administración Obama ha retrotraído a los tiempos de la guerra fría. Trump es un «trader» que, aunque sigue basando la política estadounidense en la fuerza militar, tiene intenciones de abrir una negociación con Rusia, probablemente para debilitar la alianza entre Moscú y Pekín.

En Europa, quienes temen que se produzca una disminución de la tensión con Rusia son ante todo los dirigentes de la OTAN, que han ganado importancia gracias a la escalada militar de la nueva guerra fría, y los grupos que detentan el poder en los países del este –principalmente en Ucrania, en Polonia y en los países bálticos– que apuestan por la hostilidad anti-rusa para obtener mayor respaldo militar y económico de parte de la OTAN y la Unión Europea.

En ese contexto, no es posible dejar de mencionar, en las manifestaciones del 21 de enero, las responsabilidades de quienes han transformado Europa en la primera línea del enfrentamiento, incluso nuclear, con Rusia.

Tendríamos que salir a la calle, ciertamente, pero no como súbditos estadounidenses que rechazan a un presidente “malo” sino exigiendo uno “bueno”, para liberarnos de lo que nos ata a Estados Unidos, país que –sin importar quién sea su presidente– ejerce su influencia sobre Europa a través de la OTAN. Tendríamos que manifestar, pero para salirnos de esa alianza guerrerista, para exigir la retirada del armamento nuclear que Estados Unidos tiene almacenado en nuestros países.

Tendríamos que manifestar para tener derecho a opinar, como ciudadanas y ciudadanos, sobre las opciones en materia de política exterior que, indisolublemente ligadas a las opciones económicas y políticas internas, determinan nuestras condiciones de vida y nuestro futuro.

Traducido al Español por la Red Voltaire

Manlio Dinucci

Manlio Dinucci: Geógrafo y politólogo.

Wall Street Journal analysis uncovers scope of Trump’s web of debt and the financial institutions ‘in a potentially powerful position over the incoming president’While concerns over Trump’s conflicts of interest continue to mount, the president-elect has thus far failed to address the issue. 

As many suspected, President-elect Donald Trump’s web of business conflicts is much more complicated than he has let on.

Entre el 17 y el 20 de enero próximos, el enclave suizo de Davos-Klosters será sede del 47° Foro Económico Mundial. Ese encuentro funciona como uno de los dos clubes exclusivos donde las principales corporaciones coordinan directivas y lanzan lineamientos estratégicos. Junto al Club Bilderberg – un espacio menos visible y más reducido pero de características similares – el Foro de Davos pretende erigirse en una suerte de gobernanza global paralela de carácter privado, colocando al liderazgo, al emprendedurismo empresarial, la innovación tecnológica y a las formas verticales de dirección por sobre esquemas democráticos nacionales y formas tradicionales de articulación internacional como las Naciones Unidas.

En esta oportunidad, el último día  de la cita coincide de manera sugestiva con la asunción del cuadragésimo quinto  presidente norteamericano, el magnate inmobiliario Donald Trump. A pesar de contar con un perfil relativamente adecuado para el cónclave – al menos en lo que hace a capacidades monetarias –, Trump, mandatario electo de un país perteneciente al G-20, no está formalmente considerado en las invitaciones, ya que asume recién después. Sin embargo, está previsto que asistan miembros de su gobierno como el designado Director del Consejo Nacional Económico Gary Cohn – ex presidente del banco Goldman Sachs y participante regular en Davos.

Otras ausencias significativas – y algo sorpresivas – del mundo político, serán las de la canciller alemana Merkel y la del presidente francés Hollande. Otro ausente con aviso será el primer ministro canadiense Justin Trudeau, quien anunció que tampoco asistirá a los actos protocolares con los que Trump asumirá su mandato, decisión por demás relevante, toda vez que ambos países están sumamente relacionados a través del espacio económico NAFTA.

En cuanto al Foro Económico Mundial el participante más destacado será sin duda alguna Xi Jinping, siendo la primera vez que un presidente chino acuda a esta hipercumbre del capitalismo.

Pero Trump, el gran ausente, estará presente en todas las mesas, exposiciones y diálogos. El fantasma del malestar mundial generado por la hipertrofia financiera y la concentración del capital asusta a los miembros del club de los ricos y tiene un nombre: populismo.

La sucesión de triunfos neonacionalistas como el de Trump o el Brexit junto a la previsión de los posibles avances políticos de la ultraderecha en las próximas elecciones en Holanda, Francia, Alemania o República Checa, hicieron sonar la alarma de los regentes del mundo corporativo. La amenaza cierta de que el proteccionismo modifique el tablero de la globalización que las corporaciones construyeron para facilitar sus movimientos, es un escenario ante el cual el concilio de Davos no puede permanecer pasivo.

La perspectiva de que una parte importante de las poblaciones, austerizada y pauperizada por la debacle sistémica, decida dar la espalda a regionalizaciones controladas por el poder económico como la Unión Europea, es una imagen que difícilmente pueda ser aceptada por los davoístas.

Como lo señala el texto de convocatoria al Foro de Davos 2017 cuyo lema es “Liderazgo sensible y responsable”: “El debilitamiento de múltiples sistemas ha erosionado la confianza en los niveles nacionales, regionales y globales. Y en ausencia de pasos innovadores y creíbles hacia su renovación, aumenta la probabilidad de una espiral descendente de la economía global impulsada por el proteccionismo, el populismo y el nativismo.”

Si no fuera por los sucesos políticos, el Foro continuaría impasiblemente avanzando hacia la reconversión capitalista que propugna y que ha dado en llamar la Cuarta Revolución Industrial.

Esta “revolución” – en palabras del fundador y presidente del Foro, el casi octogenario profesor alemán Klaus Schwab – “se caracteriza por la fusión de tecnologías que van borrando las líneas entre las esferas físicas, digitales y biológicas.“ Las anteriores revoluciones tecnológicas, señala Schwab, usaron agua y vapor para mecanizar la producción, electricidad para masificarla y a la electrónica y la informática para automatizarla.

Los impulsores de Davos – las principales empresas del planeta – ven en este “nuevo mundo” en desarrollo oportunidades exponenciales de negocios. En el marco de refinados prospectos empresariales, afectos a destacar las posibles ventajas para quien adquiera sus productos y adhiera a sus ilusiones, es claro que no puede faltar la alusión a las enormes posibilidades que esto podría brindar a millones de personas. En las argumentaciones sobre los beneficios potenciales, destaca hasta una posible “y completa (!)” reconversión del proceso degenerativo medioambiental –  que esas mismas empresas han ocasionado -, posibilidades ilimitadas que derivan de la acción combinada e integrada – Schwab dixit – de “la inteligencia artificial, la robótica, la internet de las cosas, los vehículos autónomos, la impresión 3D, la nano- y biotecnología, las ciencias de la materia, los nuevos dispositivos de almacenamiento de energía y la computación cuántica.”

Estos caballeros de la orden (y a la orden) del dinero son atrevidos y se atreven a revolucionar el mundo. Lo único que parece permanecer inalterable en su imaginario es la existencia y preeminencia del poder económico por sobre el bienestar y la decisión soberana de las mayorías.

Sin embargo, en la presente edición de Davos, no parece ser viable poder avanzar en los planes absolutistas de tecnologización social sin tomar en cuenta, mínimamente al menos, el caos social que produjeron anteriormente. Y producirán aún más, si las innovaciones tecnológicas toman la velocidad rasante que están deseando. Si hoy la miseria, el hambre y la desigualdad social asola vastas latitudes, éstas corren peligro de incrementarse más aún si la “cuarta revolución” es manejada por estas corporaciones y sus lacayos.

Una completa e integrada automatización en la producción conlleva la eliminación de millones de puestos de trabajo. De no mediar una inversión de la relación de fuerzas entre el poder efectivo de los pueblos y el poder económico concentrado, ello significaría una atroz competencia entre asalariados, que mendigarían subsistencia a cambio de su entrega existencial total.

Los mismos analistas del campo corporativo auguran que es muy posible que se produzca un ensanchamiento de las brechas entre los segmentos mejor pagos – los que requieren conocimiento y especialización – y otro tipo de tareas – esencialmente servicios de poco valor agregado habitualmente reservados a los más pobres entre los pobres.

Lo que la transformación tecnológica podría significar para el ser humano – viéndolo en positivo –, una creciente liberación de tareas, un aumento de opciones y posibilidades creativas, una extensión de la vida y el bienestar, lo que podría llevar a una profunda e interesante reconsideración sobre perspectivas vitales que no tengan al trabajo como centro, principal condicionamiento o propósito excluyente, redundará tan sólo – de no haber mediación social y popular real – en un aumento de los rendimientos empresariales, arrojando a una gran parte de la humanidad al basural de la inadaptación y a la consiguiente descalificación como material desechable.

Aquello que preocupados empresarios, académicos y políticos temen en Davos, asociándolo a las tragedias del fascismo del siglo pasado, aquello que desprecian, tildándolo de “populismo” – evidenciando un rechazo visceral y plutocrático por lo “popular” – no es sino una señal clara que están dando las poblaciones en rechazo a las visiones empresariales de antaño, que prometían portentosos beneficios para todos por la ruta del neoliberalismo.

De algún modo, en la presente edición de Davos habrá algo que comienza a socializarse. La incertidumbre ya no parece ser sólo potestad exclusiva de los desposeídos.

Javier Tolcachier

Javier Tolcachier: Investigador perteneciente al Centro Mundial de Estudios Humanistas, organismo del Movimiento Humanista.

The meetings between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and senior Republicans in Dallas, Texas last Sunday will only heighten tensions between the United States and China ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president next week. Tsai met with Senator Ted Cruz and Texas Governor Greg Abbott during a stop-over on the way to visit several Central American countries.

Yesterday, to underline Beijing’s concerns about closer US ties with Taiwan, the Chinese navy sailed its aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, through the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese military scrambled F-16 jet fighters and dispatched a frigate to “surveil and control” the passage of the Chinese warships.

Trump has already destabilised relations with China by declaring last month he would not “be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things.” Under the One China policy, formally adopted in 1979, the US recognised Beijing as the sole legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan, and ended diplomatic relations with Taipei.

Trump’s threat to overturn the One China policy was accompanied by denunciations of China over trade, its failure to rein in North Korea and its land reclamation activities in the South China Sea. Just days earlier, Trump upended decades of diplomatic protocol by taking a phone call from the Taiwanese president—the first direct contact between US and Taiwanese leaders since 1979.

During his congressional confirmation hearing yesterday, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, signalled his determination to challenge China in the South China Sea. Describing Chinese activities as “extremely worrisome,” he declared: “We are going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

Likening China’s island building as “akin to Russia’s taking Crimea,” Tillerson accused the Obama administration of an inadequate response. His remarks set the stage for a direct military confrontation between China and the United States, two nuclear-armed powers. Any attempt by the US to block Chinese aircraft and ships from accessing the islets it controls in the South China Sea would lead to a clash that could rapidly escalate into war.

After his meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai on Sunday, Senator Cruz also took a provocative stance toward China. Beijing is particularly sensitive to any hint that the US is treating Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province, as a sovereign nation, and has warned that it will take military action to prevent any formal declaration of Taiwanese independence.

Cruz, who challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, declared in a statement that he had been “honoured” to meet Tsai, who belongs to Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party and champions greater Taiwanese autonomy, which is anathema to Beijing. Cruz described the meeting as an opportunity “to upgrade the stature of our bilateral relations in a wide-ranging discussion that addressed arms sales, diplomatic exchanges and economic relations.”

In what amounted to a slap in the face to Beijing, Cruz publicly rebuffed China’s appeals for US officials not to meet Tsai. China needed to understand, he said, “that in America we make decisions about meeting with visitors for ourselves. This is about the US relationship with Taiwan, an ally we are legally bound to defend.”

Cruz’s strident tone reflects a broader anti-China stance taken by the Republican Party in its 2016 platform, which bluntly declared: “China’s behaviour has negated the optimistic language of our last platform concerning future relations with China.” It contained blistering denunciations of China over human rights, its “preposterous claim to the entire South China Sea” and island building, its currency manipulation and mockery of copyright “in an economy based on piracy.” The document also reaffirmed “strong support” for Taiwan, including through greater trade, arms sales and backing Taiwan’s participation in international organisations.

Trump’s incoming administration contains officials, such as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who are committed to trade war measures against Beijing, including branding China as a currency manipulator and imposing huge tariffs, of up to 45 percent, on Chinese goods. Among the officials are also figures with strong ties to Taiwan, such as Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who met with Tsai in 2015 before she became Taiwanese president last year.

Commenting on Tsai’s meeting with Cruz, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman declared: “We firmly oppose leaders of the Taiwan region, on the so-called basis of a transit visit, having any form of contact with US officials and engaging in activities that interfere with and damage China-US relations.”

A spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, Ma Xiaoguang, did not draw a direct connection to Tsai’s discussions and the passage of the Liaoning through the Taiwan Strait, saying only that it was part of scheduled training. However, he did warn that the Taiwan-China relationship would face “increasing uncertainty, looming risks and challenges” in the coming year.

An editorial in Beijing’s hard-line Global Times issued a menacing warning against further “provocations” by the United States or Taiwan. “The US and Taiwan should restrain, or be forced to restrain, themselves,” it stated. The state-owned newspaper continued: “If Trump reneges on the one-China policy after taking office, the Chinese people will demand the government to take revenge. There is no room for bargaining.”

China’s flexing of military muscle, which included a flight by an H-6 strategic bomber into the South China Sea last weekend, plays directly into Washington’s hands and only heightens the danger of conflict. The Chinese Communist Party regime, which represents the tiny layer of super-rich oligarchs who have enriched themselves through the processes of capitalist restoration since 1978, is organically incapable of making any appeal to the international working class—the only social force that can halt the US drive to war.

Tsai is due to transit the United States again over the weekend after visiting Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador—four of the 21 small, impoverished countries globally that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than China. She is desperate to shore up these ties as Beijing ramps up its own diplomatic offensive to encourage these countries to break with Taiwan. Last month, the tiny African nation of Sao Tome and Principe ended diplomatic ties with Taipei.

The Trump transition team has indicated that neither Trump nor his advisors would meet with President Tsai, who is due to stop over in San Francisco on January 14. Asked on New Year’s Eve about Tsai’s trip, Trump declared: “I’m not meeting with anybody until after January 20, because it’s a little inappropriate from a protocol standpoint.” But, he added, “we’ll see.”

Any further meeting by US officials, especially Trump, with Tsai would only add further fuel to what is already a looming confrontation between the US and China following Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

The meetings between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and senior Republicans in Dallas, Texas last Sunday will only heighten tensions between the United States and China ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president next week. Tsai met with Senator Ted Cruz and Texas Governor Greg Abbott during a stop-over on the way to visit several Central American countries.

Yesterday, to underline Beijing’s concerns about closer US ties with Taiwan, the Chinese navy sailed its aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, through the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese military scrambled F-16 jet fighters and dispatched a frigate to “surveil and control” the passage of the Chinese warships.

Trump has already destabilised relations with China by declaring last month he would not “be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things.” Under the One China policy, formally adopted in 1979, the US recognised Beijing as the sole legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan, and ended diplomatic relations with Taipei.

Trump’s threat to overturn the One China policy was accompanied by denunciations of China over trade, its failure to rein in North Korea and its land reclamation activities in the South China Sea. Just days earlier, Trump upended decades of diplomatic protocol by taking a phone call from the Taiwanese president—the first direct contact between US and Taiwanese leaders since 1979.

During his congressional confirmation hearing yesterday, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, signalled his determination to challenge China in the South China Sea. Describing Chinese activities as “extremely worrisome,” he declared: “We are going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

Likening China’s island building as “akin to Russia’s taking Crimea,” Tillerson accused the Obama administration of an inadequate response. His remarks set the stage for a direct military confrontation between China and the United States, two nuclear-armed powers. Any attempt by the US to block Chinese aircraft and ships from accessing the islets it controls in the South China Sea would lead to a clash that could rapidly escalate into war.

After his meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai on Sunday, Senator Cruz also took a provocative stance toward China. Beijing is particularly sensitive to any hint that the US is treating Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province, as a sovereign nation, and has warned that it will take military action to prevent any formal declaration of Taiwanese independence.

Cruz, who challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, declared in a statement that he had been “honoured” to meet Tsai, who belongs to Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party and champions greater Taiwanese autonomy, which is anathema to Beijing. Cruz described the meeting as an opportunity “to upgrade the stature of our bilateral relations in a wide-ranging discussion that addressed arms sales, diplomatic exchanges and economic relations.”

In what amounted to a slap in the face to Beijing, Cruz publicly rebuffed China’s appeals for US officials not to meet Tsai. China needed to understand, he said, “that in America we make decisions about meeting with visitors for ourselves. This is about the US relationship with Taiwan, an ally we are legally bound to defend.”

Cruz’s strident tone reflects a broader anti-China stance taken by the Republican Party in its 2016 platform, which bluntly declared: “China’s behaviour has negated the optimistic language of our last platform concerning future relations with China.” It contained blistering denunciations of China over human rights, its “preposterous claim to the entire South China Sea” and island building, its currency manipulation and mockery of copyright “in an economy based on piracy.” The document also reaffirmed “strong support” for Taiwan, including through greater trade, arms sales and backing Taiwan’s participation in international organisations.

Trump’s incoming administration contains officials, such as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who are committed to trade war measures against Beijing, including branding China as a currency manipulator and imposing huge tariffs, of up to 45 percent, on Chinese goods. Among the officials are also figures with strong ties to Taiwan, such as Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who met with Tsai in 2015 before she became Taiwanese president last year.

Commenting on Tsai’s meeting with Cruz, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman declared: “We firmly oppose leaders of the Taiwan region, on the so-called basis of a transit visit, having any form of contact with US officials and engaging in activities that interfere with and damage China-US relations.”

A spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, Ma Xiaoguang, did not draw a direct connection to Tsai’s discussions and the passage of the Liaoning through the Taiwan Strait, saying only that it was part of scheduled training. However, he did warn that the Taiwan-China relationship would face “increasing uncertainty, looming risks and challenges” in the coming year.

An editorial in Beijing’s hard-line Global Times issued a menacing warning against further “provocations” by the United States or Taiwan. “The US and Taiwan should restrain, or be forced to restrain, themselves,” it stated. The state-owned newspaper continued: “If Trump reneges on the one-China policy after taking office, the Chinese people will demand the government to take revenge. There is no room for bargaining.”

China’s flexing of military muscle, which included a flight by an H-6 strategic bomber into the South China Sea last weekend, plays directly into Washington’s hands and only heightens the danger of conflict. The Chinese Communist Party regime, which represents the tiny layer of super-rich oligarchs who have enriched themselves through the processes of capitalist restoration since 1978, is organically incapable of making any appeal to the international working class—the only social force that can halt the US drive to war.

Tsai is due to transit the United States again over the weekend after visiting Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador—four of the 21 small, impoverished countries globally that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than China. She is desperate to shore up these ties as Beijing ramps up its own diplomatic offensive to encourage these countries to break with Taiwan. Last month, the tiny African nation of Sao Tome and Principe ended diplomatic ties with Taipei.

The Trump transition team has indicated that neither Trump nor his advisors would meet with President Tsai, who is due to stop over in San Francisco on January 14. Asked on New Year’s Eve about Tsai’s trip, Trump declared: “I’m not meeting with anybody until after January 20, because it’s a little inappropriate from a protocol standpoint.” But, he added, “we’ll see.”

Any further meeting by US officials, especially Trump, with Tsai would only add further fuel to what is already a looming confrontation between the US and China following Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is preparing a blacklist of Israeli companies working in the illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, an Israeli newspaper reported on Tuesday. According to Israel Hayom, the list is an initiative “prompted” by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and is scheduled to be released later this year.

Former UN Special Rapporteur in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, is said to have come up with this idea six years ago when he was in office. Describing him as a “known BDS activist”, the newspaper said that Falk now has the support of a number of Arab states.

Pro-settlement group NGO Monitor has written to the UN claiming that such a list “would be a violation of international law” as it would target “Jewish-owned” companies. This, it argues, violates the UNHRC’s own guidelines against discrimination based on national origin.

BDS is an international initiative of Palestinians living under Israel’s brutal military occupation. It is an entirely peaceful movement which has spread across the world and discourages commercial and cultural trade with Israel and those companies which benefit from the occupation.

Interestingly, the Israel Hayom article does not mention the word “occupation” at all. It refers instead to companies “operating beyond the Green [1949 Armistice] Line” in “Judea and Samaria”, the Zionist term for the occupied West Bank.

In the last full week of Barack Obama’s eight year tenure as President of the United States of America, dozens of political prisoners still sit in cages across the nation’s prisons, rotting away as Obama consciously chooses not to exercise the power to simply free them with the stroke of a pen. Many activists for Puerto Rican independence, Native American and African American rights, and other causes were targeted by the political police’s illegal COINTELPRO program and convicted in sham trials. Now elderly, some in poor health, they may effectively be facing death sentences unless Obama’s decides within the next two weeks to grant their appeals for clemency.

“We’re here in the United States of America, in front of the government that has enslaved us for more than 100 years. The government that in exchange for a passport took our families to its wars. The government that experimented with our people, since they came implanting its language by force. The government that performed medical experiments on our grandparents injecting them with cancerous cells. The government that experimented with anticonceptive pills on our island. We, who understand [López Rivera’s] fight, are here to tell this government – the only government in the history of humanity to fire atomic bombs – that they have in prison a hero much braver than Washington. That this hero has been imprisoned longer than Mandela. That this hero became a hero without hoping for anything in return. We, who understand the fight of Oscar López are in front of the White House to tell this government that every additional second Oscar López spends in prison converts him in a hero much bigger than any of the heroes the United States has had. We are here to tell this government that even though the history books don’t tell us the real history that includes heroes like Oscar López, we will take charge of telling it. We, who understand the fight of Oscar López, are here to tell this government that we will never ask forgiveness for defending our right to be free. So we don’t ask them to forgive Oscar, but that they recognize the true history of the world, that they recognize the history of Puerto Rico, and maybe some day, after they free Oscar, we will forgive them.”

The Russian-Iranian-Turkish Tripartite is preparing to mediate a new round of intra-Syrian talks in Astana sometime soon, and President Assad just announced that he is ready to negotiate on “everything” provided that the process follows the legal mechanisms laid out in the Syrian Constitution.

Australian professor and prominent Syrian activist Tim Anderson is correct when he wrote in his latest article for the Centre for Research on Globalization that “wars are always concluded with political settlements”, and that’s certainly going to be the case with the War of Terror on Syria. The game-changing Tripartite partnership between Russia, Iran, and Turkey – originally forecasted by the author over six months ago in a series of articles listed at this link – is taking the lead in resolving this conflict by organizing the upcoming intra-Syrian talks in Astana, which importantly exclude the participation of the US.

President Assad told French media in an exclusive interview that he’s willing to negotiate on “everything”, but that the process must be in line with the legal mandates set out in the Syrian Constitution. If any sort of compromise is reached which leads to an outcome separate from that which is allowed under existing Syrian law, then the constitution must be changed in order to accommodate this, and the Syrian people must formally agree to any amendments by means of a referendum. This is an important checks-and-balance system which ensures that the results of the peace process will be democratic and represent the will of the Syrian people.

The State Of Affairs

The Russian Drawdown:

Taking stock of the state of affairs in the run-up to the Astana talks, the first thing to be mentioned is that Russia has recently decided to once more draw down its military forces in Syria. It should be remembered that Moscow’s official motivation for accepting Damascus’ intervention request in the first place was to fight terrorism in the Arab Republic, and it appears as though Russian decision makers believe that the historic liberation of Aleppo last month qualifies as significant enough of a victory to justify reducing the Aerospace Forces’ in-country deployment.

Nevertheless, Daesh still occupies Raqqa, Palmyra, and the stretch of desert between these two cities, so Russia isn’t by any means fully withdrawing its military assets from the country until all of it is freed from the terrorists. Plus, it can always redeploy its forces as needed if the situation calls for it, just like it did following the first drawdown last spring. Considering this, there are two mutually inclusive interpretations that can be offered in explaining the military curtailment decision.

The first one is that this is a goodwill gesture to the consensually agreed-upon “moderate opposition” (the groups participating in the present ceasefire) to encourage their flexibility during the upcoming Astana talks, which would make this a tactical move aimed at promoting a political settlement which corresponds to Russia’s stated aversion to a solely military solution. The second possibility, however, is that this is a signal to President-elect Trump that Russia is potentially interested in carrying out symbolic joint strikes against Daesh if the incoming leader is serious about consecrating his talked-about détente with Moscow, and that both sides could cooperate in carrying out the grand liberation of Raqqa, Palmyra, and the other occupied cities in Syria (so long as Damascus agrees, of course).

The Tripartite:

About the Tripartite, it’s plain to see that its members are actively cooperating with one another, and it can confidently be inferred that Russia and Iran are indirectly liaising between Syria and Turkey, both of whom don’t have any relations with one another and might not be comfortable publicly admitting to secret talks due to their respective domestic political sensitivities. This isn’t just wild speculation either, as it’s extremely unlikely that Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria would have been passively accepted by Damascus (despite its official condemnation at the time) and its Russian and Iranian international protectors had there not been some degree of advance coordination between all sides.

Even so, the presence of Turkish forces in northern Syria is still technically an illegal act because Damascus didn’t give its open and explicit permission for them to be there, regardless if it discretely agreed to this in secret earlier. Therefore, one of the long-term goals that the Syrian government has going into the Astana talks is to encourage the conditions which would eventually result in a Turkish withdrawal. This brings the discussion to the point of analyzing Ankara’s official reason for conventionally intervening in northern Syria, which was to prevent the PYD-YPG Kurds from unilaterally establishing a “federalized” (internally partitioned) statelet all along the southern Turkish borderland.

The Kurdish Question

It’s relevant at this time to recall that the Syrian Ambassador to Moscow vehemently rejected the PYD-YPG Kurds’ “federal” declaration in early 2016 by unequivocally declaring that:

When one speaks of the federalization of our country, this directly threatens the integrity of our country, runs counter to the Constitution, contradicts the national concepts, even is at variance with the international resolutions and decisions, so all statements of the kind are illegitimate.

This sentiment was soon followed up by President Assad himself who reaffirmed that “most Kurds want to live in a unified Syria, under a central system, not in a federal system”, later on adding that any prospective “federal” solution would have to be agreed to by the Syrian people through a referendum and that the current structure is therefore “temporary”. President Assad is evidently aware of the PYD-YPG Kurds’ hate-filled “federal” manifesto, the contents of which the author analyzed in a three-part series for the Moscow-based Katehon think tank, and it shouldn’t be seen as a coincidence that the Tripartite chose to exclude this group from the upcoming Astana talks.

Going by Turkey’s official ‘justification’ for commencing its military operation in northern Syria (and which must evidently have been accepted by Russia, Iran, and Syria otherwise they would have actively resisted it at the time), the only condition which would convince Erdogan to withdraw his country’s troops from the Arab Republic is if the PYD-YPG “federal” menace is neutralized. The PYD-YPG Kurds recently removed the ethno-supremacist “Rojava” label from their self-declared and illegal “Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria” likely as a superficial effort to quell Damascus and the Tripartite’s unyielding resistance to their geopolitical project by crafting the illusion that it’s “inclusive” of all of Syria’s other various identities.

Curiously, the Washington Post just reported that the PYD-YPG Kurds are indoctrinating their Arab allies of the Kurdish-dominated “Syrian Democratic Forces” militant umbrella with the radical Marxist ideology of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan and the complementary ideas of so-called “democratic confederalism” from their 2015 manifesto. From the looks of it, the anti-government Kurds in Syria’s north are trying to disguise their “Greater Kurdistan” project by dressing it up as an “inclusive” effort which is also supposedly promoted by token Arabs, but this might inadvertently backfire on them if the wily Turkish leader senses an opportunity to advance his country’s own self-declared interests in this part of Syria and exploits their latest moves.

Erdogan’s End Game

Everyone’s been wondering what Erdogan’s end game is ever since he made the decision to deploy Turkey’s conventional forces into northern Syria last August, but it finally looks like the answer is revealing itself. Turkey has reiterated on multiple occasions that it will not allow a Kurdish-led “federal” (internally partitioned) statelet to take shape in northern Syria, arguing that this entity would become a terrorist safe haven for the PKK and other anti-Ankara militant groups. Together with this, the Turkish government regularly floated the idea of a so-called “safe zone” in this region in order to supposedly counter terrorism and prevent the unification of both Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria.

Bridging these two objectives together in tangible practice, Turkey has been systematically seeking to replace the PYD-YPG Kurdish militant presence in this part of Syria with the pro-Ankara “Free Syrian Army” (FSA, which the author personally feels should stand for the “Fake Syrian Army”). Now that the Kurds removed the ethno-supremacist “Rojava” label from their illegal self-declared “federation”, it’s possible that Turkey could soon throw its weight behind the creation of an FSA-led “federalized” border strip in northern Syria in order to simultaneously cleanse the region of Kurdish militant groups and ‘formalize’ what Erdogan might be led to believe is a sustainable buffer zone (the so-called “zone safe” which he’s always desired).

No matter how hard Erdogan may want an FSA proxy state in northern Syria, there’s no way that the country will be “federalized” unless the people themselves agree to this in a forthcoming constitutional referendum, and it’s widely expected that they’d reject this plan anyhow. As a means of bettering his hand and improving his odds, however, Erdogan might secretly convey that Turkey could formally reverse its calls of “Assad must go”, officially recognize the Syrian leader as the country’s democratically elected president, restore the close pre-war political and economic relations between both states, and commit an undetermined amount of reconstruction funding (reparations) to Syria in exchange for Damascus accepting this proposal.

No matter how enticing such an offer might seem in the short-term, it would actually be a long-term trap meant to permanently restrict Syria’s post-war independence and should thus be absolutely avoided unless there’s literally no other realistic option available. If it becomes necessary for Syria to compromise, then Damascus could propose the creative solution of “municipal autonomy” as a possibly acceptable decentralized middle ground between centralization and devolution, the details of which were discussed in the author’s earlier Oriental Review article about “Syria’s Diplomatic Ammo Going Into The Astana Political Fight” and would of course have to be confirmed by the Syrian people through a subsequent referendum.

All told, the upcoming Astana talks are meant to be the first tangible step in concluding the War on Syria with a political settlement, just as Professor Anderson wrote, and Damascus must be prepared for pioneering a solution to the seemingly intractable contradictions between its own sovereign interests and the interlinked threats posed by the PYD-YPG Kurds, “federalization” (internal partition), and Turkey’s geopolitical designs in northern Syria.

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency.

Muchas miradas se centran hoy en China a pocos días que el presidente de este país, Xi Jinping, asista al Foro de Davos donde tiene previsto defender las perspectivas económicas y la postura de esta nación ante dificultades mundiales actuales.

Los planes y logros de desarrollo de la economía china y una globalización más inclusiva forman parte de la agenda de Xi, durante su primera participación en la cumbre de Davos y que es al presente, un hito por ser el primer mandatario chino en asistir a ese tipo de evento reconocido como una influyente cumbre política a escala internacional.

Solo algunos primeros ministros chinos han participado en las cumbres de Davos desde 1992.

De acuerdo con el viceministro de Relaciones Exteriores de China, Li Baodong, la presencia de Xi en la reunión 47 del Foro Económico Mundial (WEF, por siglas en inglés) ayudará al mundo a entender mejor la situación del gigante asiático en ese ámbito.

Por invitación del fundador y presidente ejecutivo del WEF, Klaus Schwab, Xi asistirá el 17 de enero a la reunión anual en Davos, Suiza.

En la ceremonia de inauguración, Xi pronunciará un discurso y luego dialogará con Schwab y demás asistentes de los sectores empresarial, mediático y académico, según adelantó Li.

Explicó el funcionario de alto rango que China ofrecerá propuestas para realizar esfuerzos a fin de dirigir la globalización económica hacia un desarrollo más inclusivo, y abogará porque todas las partes logren un entendimiento objetivo y profundo de la economía de este territorio.

Uno de los planteamientos que defenderá Xi es el rechazo de este Gobierno al proteccionismo comercial por lo que apoyará las soluciones inclusivas y abiertas para las disputas en esa esfera.

Expertos afirman que la misión de Xi en Davos es ‘reducir la incertidumbre’ mediante la inyección de confianza y solidaridad en la comunidad empresarial internacional.

Además de participar en la cita de Davos, Xi cumplimentará su primera visita de Estado a Suiza del 15 al 18 de enero, por invitación del Consejo Federal Suizo.

En la agenda divulgada por la Administración, figura un encuentro del mandatario chino con la presidenta de la Confederación Suiza, Doris Leuthard, quien asumió el 1 de enero la directiva rotatoria de un año.

Igualmente, dialogará con líderes de la Asamblea Federal y conversará con representantes del círculo económico suizo.

Suiza fue uno de los primeros estados europeos en reconocer el estatus de economía de mercado de China.

Como parte del periplo, Xi también visitará la oficina de las Naciones Unidas en Ginebra y las sedes de la Organización Mundial de Salud (OMS), con la que rubricará documentos de cooperación en el marco de la iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta, y del Comité Olímpico Internacional, además de pasar por la ciudad suiza de Lausana.

Xi pronunciará asimismo un discurso sobre el establecimiento de una ‘comunidad de destino compartido’ -uno de los más importantes conceptos diplomáticos que China ha propuesto en los últimos años- en el Palacio de las Naciones.

Por otra parte se reunirá con el secretario general de la ONU, António Guterres, en lo que será su primer encuentro desde que éste asumió el cargo el 1 de enero.

Prensa Latina

The latest news being disseminated, again, hysterically by the mainstream media is that the Russians “have dirt” on Trump, and that this could compromise his independence as president. This is Fake News by definition and from the get-go. For one thing, everyone who has not been living under a rock, and who is not completely blinded by the political fog enveloping the American system, knows that Trump, as a businessman who has openly admitted he did not file taxes on various occasions, is good at being a “mechanic”, good at working the system.

As well, his appreciation for the opposite sex is well documented, in fact, scandalously well documented, thanks to the mainstream media guardians du jour. But more than 60 million Americans were probably quite aware of this and still voted for him, proof that their pain under the current ruling establishment, and rage at its Olympian disregard for their class interests aggravated by overwhelming hypocrisy had reached a point of  no return.

But there’s more to this filthy story. Getting dirt on key politicians is what ALL major spy agencies do, the Western ones—the American CIA and its allies—the British, French and Israeli—leading the pack. It’s an old technique used to blackmail people into submission, also used to recruit or “neutralise” otherwise uncooperative players. J Edgar Hoover—a consummate blackmail artist— used the technique for decades to insure immunity from removal by successive presidents. His post soon became a sinecure, he was the real “Untouchable”.

Obviously the Western Intel mafia and their loyal coterie of media prostitutes (which shamefully but to be expected includes most of the major shills for the liberal and “left” establishment) think that no one ever heard of this. Perhaps the majority of the benighted masses never did (and hence the playing of this card in the open). In any case, despite the public show of alarm and hair-pulling, nothing about this latest “appendix” to the DNI’s Russian Hacking report fiasco is any more credible than the main report itself. The stench of fabrication, of this being yet another ruse in an ongoing psyop to block Trump and antagonize Russia is overwhelming.

Consider:

TIMING

(1) The report appears precisely when the “Russian hacking” claim is losing momentum due to its very lack of substantiation;
(2) The accusation against the Russians’ “unique” perfidy surfaces precisely when Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s chief and current nominee for Secretary of State is about to face questions on Russian ties at his confirmation hearing. (This “coincidence” is also calculated to force Trump to nominate someone less likely to normalize ties with Russia, but grilling Tillerson, representative of a major and usually commanding sector of the global bourgeoisie, the oil industry, also shows the deep fissures within the ruling class, with Trump & Co. representing the old America first approach while the Clintonites and the CIA stand for the MIC’s globalism and unipolar hegemonism at any cost.).

OBJECTIVES

(3) Putting more obstacles in Trump’s assumption to the imperial throne, and/or laying the groundwork to control him more effectively.
(4) They are trying to put a wedge between Trump and the Russians and facilitate his “cease & desist” from any detente with Russia to continue the criminally dangerous Neocon policies favored by Obama, the Bushes, and the Clintons of encircling, defaming and baiting Russia, China, Iran, and everyone else on this planet opposed to the idea of American global hegemony.
(5) They are providing Trump with a “face-saving” excuse should he finally cave in under pressure and renege on his promise of better relations with Russia.

SUMMATION

As the great George Carlin might have said, (1)  this is a transparent case of Fake News, “Grade A, Prime cut, pure American bullshit.” The country’s unequalled product and export. Nothing comes close. Accept no imitations.

FAKE NEWS by definition, carried out as a psyop by the ruling system, and as credible as the entire report—so called—they floated to confirm the non-existent Russian hack (which, incidentally we know from reliable sources was an internal leak by a DNC staffer).  It’s clear the deep state is up to its eyeballs trying to corner Trump into following their orders or else. They will try anything, and the prostitutes in the media will blare it from the rooftops without challenging anything.  Disgraceful. But what else can we expect from a system so rotten and criminal that all we have now is one layer of deception upon another?  Below I have the pleasure of reposting analysis and opinion by fine and honest observers of the current reality. We all seem to be on the same page. The commentary is preceded by some random examples of mainstream media fake news on this topic.

—PG

CALL IT WHAT IT IS: BULLSHIT

Thankfully Trump appears to be firm in his denials of this nonsense:

“Reported” CBS: Published on Jan 11, 2017

Congress is focusing on what the Russians may know about President-elect Donald Trump. The issue was raised at the confirmation hearing for Sen. Jeff Sessions, attorney general nominee, and it may come up when secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerson, testifies at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Nancy Cordes reports.

And to compound the dose of stinking manure they inflict on the American mind every morning, here’s CBS, again, featuring Samantha Power, a sociopathic promoter of the imperial wars in the Middle East, being offered a precious media platform to further pollute the understanding of this critical topic. Notice how one of the regular idiots on the show, Norah O’Donnell, is utterly friendly and deferential to Power. Strong stomach required.

Published on Jan 11, 2017

U.N. ambassador Power on Russia, Israeli settlements, what’s next

Ambassador Samantha Power has been the U.S Permanent Representative to the United Nations since 2013, where she has denounced atrocities committed by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and criticized Russia for its repeated vetoes of U.N. resolutions on the conflict. Power, who will leave office with the rest of the Obama administration on January 20, joins “CBS This Morning” to discuss foreign policy and what she plans to do next.

Donald Trump’s press conference Wednesday morning was an hour-long demonstration of oligarchic arrogance and contempt for democratic principles that has no parallel in modern American history.

The occasion for the press conference was the president-elect’s announcement of plans to put the Trump Organization, his main business entity, under the management of his two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric. The senior Trump would step down from all formal management roles while retaining his status as the principal owner.

These arrangements have been denounced by former government ethics officials as a travesty of longstanding norms: every US president in the modern period, no matter how wealthy, has been compelled to place all his assets in a blind trust to prevent overt conflicts of interest.

The event was dominated, however, by the issue of alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 elections, with many questions relating to a document containing unverified allegations that the Russian government collected compromising material on Trump with an eye to future blackmail.

While the Democratic Party has chosen to center its critique of Trump on material provided by its allies in the CIA, the real assault on the public embodied in the incoming administration was visibly demonstrated at the news conference.

A significant portion of the event was given over to Trump’s legal advisor, who declared that the “business empire built by President-elect Trump over years is massive,” and proceeded to explain why conflict-of-interest statutes do not apply to Trump. She assured the American people that Trump “is not exploiting the office of the presidency for his personal benefit.”

Trump aides piled up hundreds of manila folders allegedly comprising documents showing the various arrangements to be made with respect to the Trump Organization. While the president-elect boasted of his wealth and success, he reiterated that he is exempt from conflict-of-interest rules (due to an obscure 1978 law passed to retroactively legitimize the free pass given to billionaire Nelson Rockefeller when he was appointed vice president by Gerald Ford in 1974).

Trump was not just citing a legal technicality. He was declaring the complete immunity of the super-rich from the laws and regulations that apply to lesser folk. It is the 21st century version of the aristocratic principle asserted by the nobility before the French Revolution: society is divided into two camps—those who make the rules, the wealthy elite at the top, and those to whom the rules apply, the vast majority, the working people.

Insisting that he had the right to do whatever he wanted, Trump at one point declared: “As president, I could run the Trump organization, great, great company, and I could run the company—the country. I’d do a very good job [at both], but I don’t want to do that.”

The Freudian slip, mixing up “company” and “country,” was the most revealing moment in the press conference. For Trump, the “country” and the “company”—and, more broadly, the oligarchy—are one and the same.

Particularly significant during the news conference was Trump’s menacing of the press. He flatly refused to take a question from CNN reporter Jim Acosta, accusing the network of being “fake news” because it was the first news outlet to report on the document claiming that Russia had obtained compromising material on him. Trump also made an ominous threat against the Buzzfeed website, which published the document online, declaring, “They’re going to suffer the consequences. They already are.”

There was a heavy-handed atmosphere of bullying throughout the event, which had a fascistic smell to it. There is no question that the administration is prepared to use extreme levels of violence abroad and within the United States against what it perceives to be its main threat, the working class.

The personnel of Trump’s cabinet shows—in such figures as billionaire asset stripper Wilbur Ross, multi-millionaire fast food magnate Andy Puzder, former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, and billionaire heiress and charter school advocate Betsy DeVos—that the new administration will be one of unrelenting war against the working class, destroying jobs, social services such as education and Medicare, and any remaining restrictions on the exploitation of labor.

Behind it all is an overpowering element of decay, nepotism and social filth—a new low, even by the tawdry standards of American capitalist politics. It represents the establishment in the United States of government of, by and for the financial oligarchy.

The new occupant of the White House is the personification of what has been developing over decades: an ever-increasing concentration of wealth at the very top of American society, and the crystallization of a semi-criminal ruling class whose wealth is derived from financial manipulation, not the development of the productive forces.

The Democratic Party bases its opposition to Trump not on the social character of the new administration as a government of the oligarchs, but on disputes over foreign policy, in which the Democrats happily embrace the opportunity to adopt a neo-McCarthyite anti-Russian stance and align themselves closely with the military-intelligence apparatus.

This is because the Democratic Party too is a political instrument of the billionaires, a different variant on the same theme. Indeed, everything that Trump will implement has been prepared by the Obama administration.

There is deep and growing anger among workers and youth. According to the latest poll figures, Trump—the most unpopular president-elect in history—now has a favorable rating of only 37 percent, with the majority of the population viewing him unfavorably. This is before he even takes a single action as president of the United States. Masses of people are in for a shock beyond anything they are prepared for.

There must and will be mass opposition. It will come from the working class, the vast majority of the population that is completely excluded from official political life. To prepare for these struggles, the working class must be politically organized and mobilized, and armed with a revolutionary and socialist perspective.

“EE. UU. es un país que no está en paz si no está en guerra”, afirma en ‘Entrevista’ de RT, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, político y sacerdote nicaragüense, un hombre que ha sido testigo de la historia contemporánea.

El padre recuerda cómo con sus propias manos ayudó a construir la paz en Nicaragua y su nombramiento como representante de Libia ante la ONU por Gaddafi. Además, reflexiona sobre qué será de la especie humana teniendo en cuenta la “obsesión de EE.UU. por dominarlo todo”.

Nacido en 1933 en Los Ángeles (EE.UU.), el diplomático, político y sacerdote nicaragüense Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann es un hombre que ha dedicado toda su vida a luchar por la verdad, la justicia social, la dignidad y la paz en todo el mundo. En la década de los 70 se unió al movimiento político de izquierdas del Frente Sandinista.

“Me uní al Frente Sandinista porque debía estar entre los que luchan por un mundo diferente y de justicia”, explica d’Escoto. “Mi conciencia me dijo que tenía que apoyar a mi pueblo en una lucha por la paz verdadera”, añade.

D’Escoto gozó durante años de la confianza de exlíder libio, Muammar Gaddafi, quien le designó representante de Libia ante la ONU, nombramiento al que Washington se opuso enérgicamente. “EE.UU. siempre ha creído que yo soy muy insolente e irrespetuoso porque digo la verdad”, aclara el diplomático nicaragüense. “Gaddafi no aceptaba la imposición hegemónica de EE.UU., por lo que era un problema que no obedeciese”, recuerda.

Para el sacerdote nicaragüense, el deseo de EE.UU. de dominar el mundo entero supone una amenaza para la supervivencia de la humanidad. “Algunos dicen que que ya estamos en guerra y esa es la guerra de EE.UU. contra todos”, señala d’Escoto.

EE.UU. “es un país que no está en paz, si no en guerra”, agrega. “Tenemos que lograr la paz entre todos, porque si viene la guerra, también desapareceremos todos”, apunta el político y sacerdote nicaragüense.

Habría que remontarse mucho tiempo atrás para encontrar a un presidente norteamericano, que dejara a su sucesor una situación internacional más compleja y deteriorada que la que Barack Obama está dejando a Donald Trump.

 Quizás tendríamos que recordar a Richard Nixon, quien debió asumir la derrota de Vietnam o a Jimmy Carter, escarnecido por los jóvenes de revolucionarios iraníes, que en sus narices, expulsaron del poder a Mohammad Reza Pahlaví, el más importante de los secuaces que Washington tenía en la región.

Aunque quizás Nixon y Carter, tengan algunas excusas ya que en el caso del primero la derrota frente al Viet-Minh, ha tenido grandes colaboradores como John Kennedy o el principal promotor de la intervención norteamericana en el sudeste asiático Lyndon Baines Johnson. Carter, a la vez, podría haber hecho un poco más por Phalevi, pero en realidad la figura del Sha estaba carcomida por sus flagrantes violaciones a los derechos humanos y el latrocinio constante contra su pueblo, lo que sin duda a Carter, un demócrata al fin, le molestaba mucho y así lo pagó.

Pero volviendo al primer presidente negro de los Estados Unidos, al premio Nobel de la Paz, al nuevo Kennedy, tendremos que decir que no tuvo más excusas que su propia incapacidad, su inaptitud política para comprender las consecuencias de sus actos y su falta de carácter frente al complejo Industrial-Militar y los innumerables lobbies que siempre han controlado a los presidentes norteamericanos.

Obama, no puede permitirse el lujo de responsabilizar a George W. Bush, de la actual situación, que si bien, ¿y qué duda cabe?  Fue quien comenzó con las carnicerías en Afganistán e Irak, el presidente número 44 de la Unión, la amplificó hasta poner a mundo al borde de una nueva guerra mundial (al-Ghutta, Siria, Agosto de 2013) y reactualizando de hecho, la guerra fría. Además de elevar por su propia torpeza, al presidente Vladimir Putin al centro de la escena, que consiguió un prestigio y un reconocimiento internacional, que ningún jefe de estado ruso conoció desde la muerte de Joseph Stalin.

El punto de inflexión de su torpeza fue haber colocado a cargo del Departamento de Estado, a Hillary Clinton que piloteó, con la destreza y puntería de un kamikaze japonés, la política exterior norteamericana desde 2009 a 2013, cinco años que le sirvieron para hacer arder Medio Oriente, el Magreb, el Sahel y Asia Central.

Un rápido recuento nos obliga a pensar en la planificación de la Primavera Árabe en 2011, que despertó una serie de protestas en toda la cuenca sur del Mediterráneo y no solo provocó la guerra en Libia y Siria, donde había dos claros exponentes del nacionalismo laico árabe, el Coronel Muhammad Gadaffi y el presidente Bashar al-Assad. El primero asesinado, en plena invasión terrorista, lo que llevó a Libia a convertirse en un estado  fallido. Respecto a Siria, si bien no alcanzó para derrocar a al-Assad, si para generar una guerra, que ya lleva, por ser conservador en las cifras, más de un millón de muertos, incontables heridos y mutilados, cerca de siete millones de desplazados y la literal demolición de millones de viviendas, junto a la destrucción de la infraestructura de un país que vivía en un estado de bienestar, envidiado no solo en Medio Oriente, sino en muchas regiones del mundo.

Como frutilla de esta torta, Obama alentó con su torpeza a la constitución de una alianza impensable hace unos años y que puede ser demoledora para cualquier enemigo: Rusia, China, Irán y el mundo chií, incluyendo obviamente a Siria y a la cada vez más poderosa organización libanesa Hezbollah.

Las torpezas del dúo Obama-Clinton, como daños colaterales, podrían anotarse la caída de uno de sus hombres claves en la región el presidente egipcio Hosni Mubarak, fiel cancerbero de la causa palestina, durante treinta años; y la caída del presidente yemení, Ali Abdullah Saleh, que terminó arrastrando al país a una guerra civil entre los Houtíes, chiitas y sunitas pobres, contra el ejército y los estamentos altos de la sociedad sunita, perpetuadores del poder de Saleh, en la figura de su vice Abd al-Mansur Hadi quien solicitó a al reino de Arabia Saudita, a  que declaré la guerra a su país en marzo del 2015, que hasta el día de hoy no se resuelve, y que se calcula ha provocado entre 4 y 7 mil muertos civiles.

El tornado Obama, también agitó las serenas arenas del Sahel, esa franja sumida en la pobreza y el desamparo que se extiende de Índico al Atlántico, al sur del Magreb, donde gracias a las políticas de Hillary Clinton y sus socios europeos, se reprodujeron como hongos los grupos salafistas vinculados en un primer momento a al-Qaeda y después del 2014 al Daesh.

Hoy podemos señalar que desde el somalí al-Shabaab, hasta el nigeriano Boko Haram,  junto a infinidad de grupos como Ansar al-Din, (Defensores de la Fe) el AQMI (Al-Qaeda para el Magreb Islámico) o el  MUJAO (Movimiento para la Unicidad y la Yihad en África Occidental), que campean a su antojo en Níger, Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Sudán, Etiopia, Kenia, han incrementado sus fuerzas por una sola y determinante razón: para miles de estos jóvenes la opción es incorporarse a alguno de estos grupos, emigrar o languidecer hasta que alguna enfermedad, la droga o la violencia estatal los mate, Incluso en Egipto, se ha reactivado la violencia salafista, donde la organización vinculada a el Daesh, Wilayat Sinai, ataque cada vez con más virulencia.

Las trágicas políticas de Obama en Medio Oriente y África, son la única razón de que ahora, aproximadamente un millón de refugiados estén pululando por las rutas europeas, en procura de un refugió, sin contar el millón y medio llegando en 2015 y los 4.5 que esperan en Turquía.

Sería injusto olvidar también que Obama, junto a los líderes europeos, es culpable de cada uno de los muertos en los atentados producidos en Europa en estos últimos años.

La jungla afgana

Por allí cuenta la leyenda que el 24 de diciembre de 1979, el Presidente Jimmy Carter, miraba por televisión la entrada del ejército soviético a Afganistán, junto a su Secretario de Seguridad, el polaco, Zbigniew Brzezinski y que de golpe este último saltó de su asiento gritando: “Acabamos de regalarle un Vietnam a los rusos”. El zorro polaco sabía muy bien que decía, porque había sido parte del complejo entramado que se había tejido con los muyahidines afganos y el gobierno de Pakistán, para convertir las montañas afganas en la jungla vietnamita. Allí, el Ejército Rojo no solo iría a perder cerca de 16 mil hombres, sino que se iniciaría el proceso de disolución de la propia Unión Soviética. ¿Dónde habrá un Brzezinski? se habrá preguntado muchas veces en sus ocho años de mandato el oscuro presidente Obama, cada vez más hundido en las movedizas arenas afganas.

El 44 presidente llegó a la Casa Blanca, con la promesa, una de miles, de traer a toda la tropa norteamericana destinada a Afganistán de vuelta a casa. Para cuando asumió en 2009 el Talibán era una sombra difusa que se movía con precaución en lo alto de las montañas, tras la embestida enceguecida de George W. Bush como respuesta a los ataques del 11 de septiembre.

A diez días de abandonar el poder Obama, está muy lejos de “el final responsable” que pretendía respecto a Afganistán. No solo que nunca terminó de repatriar a los miles  hombres, que uno y otra vez a lo largo de estos últimos años dijo retiraría de Asia Central, sino que se vio obligado a ordenar un envió de un “pequeño grupo de asesores” para contener al Talibán en la provincia de Helmand, la principal productora de opio, y con importantes yacimientos de uranio, casualmente.

El opio es la fuente de financiación fundamental para armar y pagar a los más de 55 mil hombres del Mullah Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, máximo jefe talibán desde mayo pasado.

El contingente, según la Casa Blanca, será de unos 300 hombres pertenecientes a la unidad Task Force Southwest. La misión que llegara en las próximas semanas, se extenderá “solo” por nueve meses.

Desde el retiro de la misión militar la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN) en enero de 2015, la insurgencia talibán se reactivó  y hoy controla un tercio del territorio afgano.

Lo que ha obligado a Washington, que mantenía una dotación de 5500 hombres, fundamentalmente en Kabul y la base de Bagram, a disponer de refuerzos.

Después de largos debates, la administración Obama reconoció que las fuerzas armadas afganas, unos 350 mil hombres, que ellos mismos organizaron, entrenaron y armaron, no están en condición de detener el avance del Talibán, por lo que se han dispuesto nuevos ataques aéreos contra la insurgencia fundamentalista.

Como para despedir a Obama, este último martes, en Kabul se produjo uno de los mayores atentados de los últimos años. El ataque se produjo en Dar-ul-Aman, el barrio donde se encuentran el Parlamento afgano y el edificio de la principal agencia de inteligencia del país, el Directorio Nacional de Seguridad (NDS),

El ataque, que  hasta ahora causó 80 muertos y más de un centenar de heridos, fue organizado ya con la clásica estrategia de que primero un atacante se detone, en este caso en la puerta del edificio al-Haqqi, una dependencia del Parlamento, a unos dos kilómetros de la sede principal, tras la explosión, cuando algunos miembros de la seguridad se había acercado a socorrer a las víctimas, un coche bomba fue detonado en apariencia por otro suicida.

Según algunos expertos no se esperaban ataques del Talibán, ya que no lo suelen hacer e invierno, este cambio de estrategia, sin duda esta no solo despidiendo a Barack Obama, sino dándole la bienvenida a Donald Trump, que quizás esté intentando ubicar en algún mapa la jungla afgana.

Guadi Calvo

Guadi Calvo: Escritor y periodista argentino, analista Internacional especializado en África, Medio Oriente y Asia Central. 

En los últimos días de su gobierno, Barack Obama ha puesto al mundo en una grave peligro bélico, dijo el sociólogo norteamericano, profesor James Petras en su columna de análisis de la coyuntura internacional por Radio Centenario (CX36). “Estamos frente al más peligroso período, le quedan sólo 11 días de Presidencia y aún siguen vigentes los graves peligros de una guerra nuclear”, subrayó. Al respecto explicó que los ataques de EEUU “es un proceso, una ola bélica norteamericana que va desde Latinoamérica con los golpes, hasta las agresiones contra Rusia, China e Irán. Es realmente una amenaza global en este momento y es difícil imaginar un gobierno peor en este sentido que el de Obama”, sentenció.

Efraín Chury Iribarne: Buenas tardes James Petras, bienvenido en este horario especial desde California. ¿Cómo estás?

James Petras: Mucho mejor. El día que salimos teníamos más de 20 cm de nieve y una temperatura de 30° bajo cero. Por eso estamos felices y contentos aquí, comiendo naranjas y disfrutando del sol.

EChI: Muy bien.

Se viene el discurso de despedida de Barack Obama, que termina el mandato atacando a Rusia.

JP: Debemos entender que la política económica de Obama ha tenido un gran valor para el gran capital de Wall Street; los banqueros recibieron más de 900 mil millones de dólares para salvarse de la crisis 2008/2009.

Más allá de eso, entre los hechos trascendentes se encuentra que Obama lanzó siete guerras destruyendo países como Libia, Siria y otros países de Medio oriente.

Es cierto que el desempleo bajó con Obama pero el empleo mal pago, el empleo de 20 horas o menos por semana aumentó tremendamente. Si incluimos eso, el desempleo del 4.8% que dan como cifra los defensores de Obama, sube al 11% o más.

Entonces hay una mezcla en el período de Obama de estatizaciones, guerras, favoritismo a los grandes capitales. Esto ha hecho que haya bajado mucho el respeto a Obama, incluso entre los sectores afroamericanos hay un gran desencanto.

Podríamos decir que más allá de eso enfrentamos situaciones muy graves cuando leemos hoy que las fuerzas marítimas de Obama están atacando al ejército naval iraní.

La información dice que ayer las fuerzas marítimas estadounidenses lanzaron tres bombas frente a Irán. Es decir, a pocos kilómetros.

Mientras las fuerzas marítimas iranies protegen sus fronteras, EEUU atacan con el pretexto de que las fuerzas iraníes corren demasiado rápido.

Por tanto, la marina de EEUU no sólo está frente a Irán sino que además pretende controlar el ritmo y velocidad de las fuerzas navales iraníes.

Por otro lado, hay cientos de carros blindados, tanques estadounidenses, invadiendo Europa frente a Rusia. Cientos de tanques, vehículos blindados y camiones de guerra se están colocando en la frontera rusa.

Y finalmente tenemos la entrevista de ayer, domingo, acusando e insultando a Rusia.

Finalmente podemos decir que el fin del período de Obama está lleno de las peores y más peligrosas provocaciones que podríamos imaginar, contra Siria, contra Irán, contra Rusia. Y no es nada para desestimar. Estamos frente al más peligroso período, le quedan sólo 11 días de Presidencia y aún siguen vigentes los graves peligros de una guerra nuclear.

EChI: ¿Es verídica la posibilidad, que en el contexto del conflicto en Siria, se desencadene una guerra, que enfrente al régimen israelí con la participación de Rusia?

JP: Si, absolutamente.

Israel no quiere enfrentar a Rusia porque una bomba nuclear rusa terminaría la historia israelí.

Más allá de eso, Israel quiere mejorar sus relaciones con Rusia por razones tácticas y estratégicas en este momento. Si EEUU provoca un conflicto con Rusia, Israel se va a quedar al margen tratando de beneficiarse de lo que pase en un conflicto; tal vez utilizarlo como pretexto para tomar lo que queda de Palestina.

Pero en el momento, los peligros de Israel son de otra índole: Son peligrosos en el Medio Oriente; actúan como matones en sus embajadas en el exterior; pero más que nada sus prioridades actuales son extender su influencia en el Medio Oriente y principalmente ocupar todo lo que era Palestina, echar a los palestinos y convertir a Jerusalén en su capital.

EChI: Acá en CX36 hemos estado informando sobre la creciente presencia israelí en la Patagonia argentina y chilena, que se hacen llamar “mochileros sin fronteras”. ¿Qué sabes de esto?

JP: No hay dudas que Mauricio Macri busca aliados externos entre los que comparten su política.

Macri ofrece una base militar a los EEUU, quiere asociarse con la OTAN, hace tiempo ha invitado a Israel para revisar las fuerzas armadas y la policía represiva, quiere profundizar los vínculos con el Mossad –la agencia de seguridad secreta de Israel-, y busca de cualquier forma reabrir el ‘caso Nisman’, que estaba investigando se suicidó durante el período de Cristina Fernández.

Entonces, Israel está trabajando con Argentina en todos los niveles del gobierno de Macri. Y no sólo Israel, sino también EEUU, la OTAN y cualquier otro poder reaccionario para aumentar la represión interna y compensar la debilidad y el desgaste interno.

Es común que los gobiernos neoliberales reaccionarios busquen apoyo externo para compensar y fortalecer la posibilidad de seguir aplicando sus políticas reaccionarias.

EChI: Se ha hablado en estos días del manual norteamericano para derrocar gobiernos y nombra a un tal Gene Sharp como el cerebro de los “golpes blandos” creado por EEUU. ¿Es conocido esto allí en los EEUU?

JP: No. Hay muy poca información. Incluso en la prensa alternativa sobre las formas en que EEUU mueve fuerzas para derrocar gobiernos. El único caso que ha recibido alguna noticia en la prensa alternativa son los esfuerzos por golpear y derrocar al gobierno de Venezuela, pero las otras conspiraciones recibieron menos publicidad.

Algunos izquierdistas publicaron cuando el golpe en Brasil, con Michel Temer; discuten la intervención norteamericana en Bolivia y Ecuador, pero son de menor influencia en el público norteamericano.

Lo más fuerte de propaganda actual en EEUU es que está en contra de Rusia en primera instancia; segundo los ataques frente a Irán; y ahora tratan de presionar a China con armamento poderoso instalado en Corea del Sur. Entonces, es un proceso, una ola bélica norteamericana que va desde Latinoamérica con los golpes, hasta las agresiones contra Rusia, China e Irán. Es realmente una amenaza global en este momento y es difícil imaginar un gobierno peor en este sentido que el de Obama.

Y es posible que toda la propaganda contra Rusia y Trump sea para evitar alguna política menos bélica y un esfuerzo de reconciliación y conciliación sobre los grandes peligros que enfrentamos en los últimos días de Obama.

EChI: El viernes cumplió 74 años Oscar López Rivera, dirigente político independentista puertorriqueño que lleva 36 años detenidos en las cárceles estadounidenses, 12 de los cuales los purgó ya en aislamiento total; y se le reclama a Obama su liberación.

JP: Es dudoso que Obama vaya a tomar alguna medida humanitaria antes de irse, por las exigencias de la gran mayoría del pueblo de Puerto Rico. Además, los medios de comunicación no han hecho ningún esfuerzo en publicar y denunciar los hechos.

Además tenemos a Leonard Peltier, el dirigente indígena que lleva en la cárcel más de 40 años; también tenemos al gran líder afroamericano en Pennsylvania. En otras palabras, tenemos encarcelados por años a líderes de las grandes minorías, indígenas, afroamericanos y puertorriqueños. Es una situación muy grave y llevan cerca medio de siglo de encarcelamiento y todavía no hay ningún indicio de que es el momento de perdonarlos y liberarlos, que en muchos casos fueron acusados falsamente incluso falsificando testigos.

Es cruel esta forma de tortura que también usan para amenazar a los activistas minoritarios, como los mexicanos y los latinos, que están preparando la lucha contra las expulsiones. Creo que este castigo cruel es para dar ejemplo y leccioens negativas a los pueblos que están en lucha.

EChI: ¿Hay otros temas en tu agenda?

JP: Hemos comentado las provocaciones de EEUU en el último período de Obama. Pero quiero citar dos cosas importantes para mostrar el poder del sionismo israelí sobre los gobiernos occidentales.

Hace dos días recibimos el audio de una charla, una discusión, en la que aparece un representante de la Embajada de Israel en Inglaterra, donde el sionista decía que Israel debe “derribar” a varios diputados británicos que “causan problemas” a Israel, entre ellos al actual viceministro de Exteriores británico, Alan Duncan, porque está a favor de los palestinos, está en contra de las colonias israelíes en Palestina.

Es decir, el israelí Shai Masot -al que algunos medios británicos apuntan como oficial de inteligencia y que según publican varios medios israelíes es un militar israelí contratado oficialmente por la embajada para asesorar en asuntos políticos-, dijo que había que “eliminarlos”. Y salieron los ingleses a decir que estaban preocupados. Pero ¿qué significa una persona planificando y justificando el asesinato?

Es decir, cualquier otro representante en el mundo que dice eso es retirado de inmediato, pero Israel dice que cometió un error y que lo van a retirar.

Creo que cualquier gobierno en cualquier parte del mundo, lo entrega a la policía para enjuiciarlo, pero al ser Israel, escapa de cualquier expulsión y mucho más de un juicio. Y eso es porque en Inglaterra el lobby sionista es muy poderoso y tienen una asociación de laboristas, conservadores y liberales que actúan como los apoyantes de Israel en el Parlamento.

Finalmente quiero incluir los últimos datos que tenemos sobre una gran epidemia que tenemos en EEUU. En los últimos años 500.000 personas adictas murieron por sobredosis con recetas médicas.

Esta epidemia que afectó a medio millón de personas es producto de medicinas legales, como analgésicos, etc. que es una forma de adicción y en la que tienen gran responsabilidad las grandes compañías farmacéuticas y los médicos. Ninguno ha pasado por ningún juicio.

Y hay tanta adicción porque el sistema de salud no trata de ayudar a las personas con dolores porque no tienen un plan de Salud, o el plan de Salud no cubre los dolores que sufren en primera instancia los trabajadores por ejemplo, de industrias pesadas o construcción.

Es otro indicio de cómo el complejo militar político económico funciona en Estados Unidos completamente libre de cualquier precaución y juicio.

EChI: Muy bien Petras, muchas gracias por este completo panorama. Nos reencontramos el lunes

JP: Hasta el próximo lunes a la misma hora. Un abrazo a los oyentes.

 James Petras

James Petras: Sociólogo estadounidense conocido por sus estudios sobre el imperialismo, la lucha de clases y los conflictos latinoamericanos.

Resumir los eventos del pasado mes de noviembre como beneficiosos para los objetivos geopolíticos de Rusia sería una bruta subestimación. De hecho, fue simple y llanamente quizá el mejor mes que la administración Putin haya experimentado.

En una de las derrotas más sorprendentes en la historia, el disidente Donald Trump aseguró la victoria sobre Hillary Clinton en las elecciones presidenciales de EEUU. Esto señala un cambio radical en la política exterior de EEUU lejos del papel de “policía mundial” y hacia una visión del mundo introspectiva y pragmáticamente auto-interesada, algo con lo que Rusia puede negociar muy fácilmente como se plantea firmemente en la tradición realista. Además, Bulgaria y Moldavia, eligieron presidentes que improbablemente serán hostiles a Moscú. Justo recientemente, uno puede añadir a la lista de eventos positivos, el colapso del gobierno Renzi en Italia, y la nominación de François Fillon a la carrera presidencial con la UMP en Francia. De manera lenta pero segura, la determinación tras la provocativa campaña de sanciones contra Rusia, encabezada inicialmente por RU y Alemania, está colapsándose.

Digo más, incluso hay noticias más positivas. Las negociaciones con la OPEP parece que han encontrado un modo para salir de la caída en el mercado de petróleo, e incluso los  “portales de noticias” neoliberales parecen estar en la etapa de aceptación del inconveniente por la causa perdida del derrocamiento del gobierno sirio. Parece que la tercera guerra mundial puede haber sido evitada.

Observar la importancia de los acontecimientos anteriormente mencionados es bastante fácil, pero sacarles el máximo partido es otro asunto. Desde el fin de la guerra fría, el papel de Rusia ha estado en cuestión. No está exactamente claro cuál es su auto-imagen, y qué rumbo tiene la voluntad de trazar tras expulsar finalmente a los agentes extranjeros de sabotaje y control después de la década de 1990. Desde ese tiempo, bajo el liderazgo de Vladimir Putin, Rusia ha sido un actor regional comportándose de tal modo para asegurar su soberanía. Este es el motivo por el que intervino en Georgia, Crimea, y ciertamente en Siria. Todo fue fundamental para la seguridad regional rusa, o para la idea de defender a los rusos étnicos atrapados al otro lado de las fronteras post-soviéticas.

A pesar de que algunos pueden calificar a estos actos como “provocación”, la Federación de Rusia nunca ha transgredido la soberanía de otros Estados donde no había estado acosada para actuar así por intromisiones extranjeras con el statu quo. Rusia no tiene una guerra de Irak en su nombre. Esto ha sido enormemente beneficioso para la mejora de la posición internacional del país, hasta el punto donde la narrativa dominante fuera de Siria ha sido que Putin ha intentado mantener la paz, mientras que el Departamento de Estado de EEUU ha demandado guerra, y los hechos confirman esto. Pero esto no es simplemente suficiente para ser percibido como un Estado sin intenciones malévolas. Esto en solitario, solamente asegurará la indiferencia internacional.

En el siglo pasado, Rusia consiguió asegurar el apoyo internacional para sus objetivos a través de medios ideológicos, la difusión activa de programas comunistas y la exportación de la revolución a otros países alrededor del mundo. El supuesto propósito de Rusia era la liberación del proletariado frente al dominio de la opresión capitalista. Las ilusiones ideológicas de dicha era se han desvanecido desde entonces, sus fundamentos se han demostrado como inapropiados. Rusia ya no puede ser definida por la ideología, porque la ideología empujada al extranjero solamente fomenta resentimiento en los pueblos a quienes es extraño su carácter (de ahí el porqué de la aversión al país es todavía fuerte en ciertas partes de Europa oriental).

En vez de eso, Rusia debería basar cualquier consideración ideológica en torno a un objetivo esencial: La destrucción del liberalismo.

La razón de ser para esto es el claro y decidido propósito de Rusia. El liberalismo entraña por necesidad la destrucción de los rusos, justo del mismo modo que entrañó la destrucción de los alemanes, los franceses, los suecos, etc. El liberalismo nunca puede vivir en paz con Rusia a menos que garantice que los Rusos están puestos en la misma senda que las poblaciones anteriormente mencionadas, que no solamente continúen sufriendo por diferentes problemas sociales que afligen a la ciudadanía, sino que por encima de esto, se conviertan en blandos y débiles, en tolerantes a los peores elementos dentro de ellos mismos y peor todavía, en promotores de tales elementos hasta los puestos más altos. El liberalismo nunca estará satisfecho simplemente con “contener” a Rusia, su objetivo es “cambiar” Rusia, lo que por supuesto entraña la desintegración del espacio geográfico ruso y la reducción de su población gobernante al papel de un domicilio conveniente para el “espíritu de la época”. Durante tanto tiempo como exista el liberalismo, será una amenaza existencial a Rusia, que fue reconocida en tiempos anteriores por la respuesta zarista a la Francia revolucionaria.

Si Rusia es un contrapunto al liberalismo, si tiene los recursos y la auto-confianza para reasumir esta identidad en el sentido más pleno, entonces estamos en el precipicio de un “momento ruso”, y por eso me refiero a un periodo en que Rusia altera radicalmente el curso de la historia. Europa ha alcanzado el ápice de la crisis, donde al menos algunas partes de las poblaciones nativas están despertando ante el hecho de que están siendo lentamente hervidos vivos mediante el cambio demográfico no deseado, la atomización secular, el control corporativo, y la corrupción de la élite. Quieren salir de la locura pero por ahora las fuerzas del poder político establecido están logrando mantenerles sentados, según vimos en las recientes elecciones austriacas. Ciertos comentaristas han estado ansiosos por afirmar que la “primavera populista” que estalla por todo el mundo es resultado de la recesión de 2008, y ha de pasarse, sin embargo estos deseosos pensadores no entienden las ansiedades que subyacen al apoyo por candidatos como Marine Le Pen y Matteo Salvini, que están enraizadas en temas más complejos de identidad en vez de en lo económico. Apoyar estas identidades tradicionales es de vital interés para Rusia, al igual que lo es la oposición a las identidades artificiales.

La respuesta a la pregunta de por qué esas identidades benefician a Rusia yace en su rechazo embrionario del paradigma liberal. Si el liberalismo es ciertamente una amenaza existencial a Rusia, entonces solamente por lógica se deduce que Rusia preferiría tener Estados no-liberales a lo largo de sus fronteras, Estados que se reflejen a Bielorrusia más que a Canadá. Ha sido declarado muchas veces que incluso una insinuación de agenda neocolonial en Moscú condenaría tal proyecto de divulgación, y ese es el motivo por el que occidente está tan deseoso de hacer sonar las alarmas sobre la incipiente invasión de Polonia que nunca ocurrirá. Si Moscú, en cambio, es visto como un amigo para la causa de la identidad, algo de un valor más elevado que lo simplemente material, entonces de seguro que está en posición de ganar cuando la desesperación en Europa anule su sentido de comodidad.

El poder establecido de un fenómeno geopolítico natural, un eje París-Berlín-Moscú basado en la soberanía, identidad, continentalismo realista, y valores cristianos tradicionales (digo “tradicionales” para distinguirlos de los burgueses pseudo-cristianos) proporcionarían a Rusia su seguridad necesaria, pero de manera más importante, podrían lograrse sin los males de la ocupación y sin la amenaza de la guerra nuclear.

Todo esto requeriría que los europeos rechazasen el atlantismo y los denominados valores “occidentales” por desesperación. Por supuesto, no podemos depender de la argumentación para alcanzar fines positivos. La argumentación ha sido intentada por las mejores mentes en los últimos 300 años y fracasaron. Es la desesperación lo que facilitará el surgimiento de personas virtuosas que harán causa común con una Rusia rejuvenecida, y la entropía de la dinámica actual en juego en la sociedad occidental garantiza tal desesperación en el futuro próximo.

Cuando consideramos lo que realmente significaría un momento ruso, estamos preguntándonos hasta qué punto y en qué forma Rusia puede ser el modelo para cierta perspectiva, más que un tipo específico de sociedad o ideología política / económica. Los problemas internos del Estado ruso representan solamente la primera posibilidad. Incuso descontando el trabajo de potencias extranjeras agresivas y organizaciones no gubernamentales, hay verdaderas fallas en la sociedad rusa en general, desde las tasas de abortos a los delitos menores, desde los problemas de infraestructuras hasta la economía de productos básicos. La gente que tenga los ojos nublados sobre tales cosas no solamente estará decepcionada, sino que no entenderá el elemento de Rusia que es fácilmente transferible a Europa, y este es una perspectiva; una perspectiva que está anclada en la auto-comprensión, la celebración de la historia nacional, y de manera mucho más importante, de una visión de progreso que no está necesariamente atada a las riquezas, la tolerancia, la libertad, o ‘el fin de la historia’, sino a la heroica belleza de la civilización greco-romana, y la puridad ascética de las enseñanzas cristianas. Cada europeo puede identificarse con estos elementos una vez que se limpien  de Kant y Rousseau por la dura y fría realidad de las redes políticas de pedófilos, el terrorismo sin cesar, la ruptura de la familia, y la destrucción de la cultura.

El momento ruso depende de si puede ser un modelo claro para tal perspectiva. En el presente, está teniendo éxito, y los acontecimientos alrededor del mundo están allanando el camino para que Rusia recoja la cosecha más rica y abundante que llega por estar en primera línea del cambio paradigmático global. Si Rusia continúa su avance por este camino, al final estará en su liderazgo, y quizá de manera más importante, aquellos que ayudaron a modelar la narrativa, dirección y actitud de ese liderazgo.

A través de la historia, es deber de los vecinos comprenderse mutuamente, pero los problemas con la división presente este/oeste es que no es simplemente una división de etnicidad, cultura, religión, o incluso filosofía política. Es una división de perspectiva, un abismo que ningún cambio de tratados puede cerrar. Rusia no puede comprender a occidente, y occidente ciertamente no puede comprender a Rusia. Ellos se han separado de manera decisiva, especialmente en los últimos 300 años, y este es el motivo por el que occidente perdió la vista de sí mismo, perdió su fundamento en los pueblos que lo hicieron, reemplazándolos con ideologías, que una tras otra, son sombras pálidas sombras de la cristiandad medieval y el imperio romano. Si ha de haber alguna paz o seguridad para el sufriente pueblo ruso y sus equivalentes en países occidentales, entonces este abismo de perspectiva debe ser cerrado, algo que sólo puede lograrse mediante la terminación del ‘moderno occidente’, y la modernidad misma, como paradigmas existentes. Con una verdadera Europa, con una Europa de la tierra más que del mar, Rusia debe buscar el respeto mutuo, la amistad, y el interés común. Con una falsa Europa, y la convicción ideológica que la apuntala, a saber: Liberalismo, Rusia está forzada a perseguir una guerra implacable y sin fin.

Mark Citadel

El combate a la corrupción en todos los niveles forma parte de una campaña que el Partido Comunista de China (PCCh) tiene propuesto endurecer en el 2017 y así lo mantienen hoy autoridades de esta nación.

El desvío de recursos asignados por el Gobierno a los diversos departamentos para el alivio de la pobreza o paliar la contaminación ambiental, figuran entre las principales causas de violaciones que encaran miles de funcionarios en este país.

En rueda de prensa ofrecida por la Oficina de Información del Consejo de Estado, Luo Dongchuan, director del Departamento de Revisión de Casos de la Comisión Central de Control Disciplinario (CCDI) del PCCh, respondió a Prensa Latina que el castigo por la malversación de fondos para aliviar la pobreza o mejorar las condiciones ambientales siempre ha sido el punto culminante de las inspecciones disciplinarias.

En 2016, la CCDI hizo planes para enviar a los departamentos designados informes sobre la irregularidad en el manejo de los fondos para aliviar la pobreza en varias formas, expuso.

Según explicó, las principales causas encontradas en el uso indebido de suministros para aliviar la pobreza, recaló en las ofertas preferenciales realizadas por altos funcionarios o administrativos a miembros de la familia y amigos así como la falsificación de informes para pedir apoyo financiero.

Castigaremos severamente a los funcionarios de nivel comunitario acusados de abandono, inacción y mala conducta. En 2016, impusimos sanciones a más de 390 mil miembros del Partido y funcionarios de nivel municipal. En los últimos cuatro años desde el XVIII Congreso Nacional del PCCh, hemos adoptado medidas respecto a 1,14 millones de funcionarios comunitarios, dijo a esta agencia.

De igual modo explicó que los severos castigos que se aplican a los miembros del Partido acusados de ese delito están encaminados a limpiar la gobernanza educando y advirtiendo a funcionarios corruptos, a fin de instruir a todos los cuadros del PCCh.

Desde el XVIII Congreso Nacional del PCCh, los cuadros del Partido que recibieron castigos han tenido que corregir sus errores con la ayuda de la educación, la gestión y las supervisiones.

Una vez que terminan sus penas, pueden recibir oportunidades laborales estipuladas por las disposiciones legales y políticas pertinentes para ayudarles a regresar a la sociedad como personas honradas que respetan la ley, detalló.

Las autoridades mantienen el objetivo de ‘aplastar la corrupción’, declaró Luo.

Sin embargo, aclara la CCDI, que el año pasado por primera vez desde el inicio de la campaña en 2012, disminuyó el número de casos de corrupción.

En 2016, 57 mil integrantes del Partido Comunista se presentaron en forma voluntaria ante las autoridades anticorrupción.

La campaña anticorrupción de China se intensificó después del XVIII Congreso Nacional del PCCh a fines de 2012.

Un sondeo realizado por el Buró Nacional de Estadísticas revela que cerca del 92,9 por ciento de los encuestados están satisfechos con los esfuerzos de la Administración así como con el trabajo sobre gobernanza honesta en 2016.

Damy Vales

After several rather lame false starts, the Neocons have now taken a step which can only be called a declaration of war against Donald Trump.

Las posiciones inconstitucionales que asumen sectores opositores y mayoritarios en la Asamblea Nacional (AN) de Venezuela llevan hoy a interrogantes sobre qué fines persiguen.

Legislar o derrocar al gobierno del presidente constitucional del país, Nicolás Maduro, es la disyuntiva que enfrentan los integrantes de la llamada Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), estiman comentaristas políticos de la realidad venezolana.

Muchas son las preguntas en el ambiente morocho, en especial si el órgano legislativo busca ser disuelto por el Gobierno, algo que utilizarían como argumento para arreciar los ataques contra el chavismo.

Este martes, el jefe del Bloque de la Patria a la Asamblea Nacional, Héctor Rodríguez, introdujo ante el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ), en Caracas, un recurso de nulidad contra la acción inconstitucional del parlamento de insistir en declarar una supuesta responsabilidad política contra el presidente Maduro.

Los opositores desconocen que su intentona no está contemplada en el marco constitucional vigente, dijo el político, por lo que algunos se preguntan hacia donde se mueven estos sectores.

Para cualquier venezolano, es obvio, es notorio que el presidente Maduro está en pleno y absoluto ejercicio de sus funciones constitucionales, nos puede gustar o no, pero no son los órganos legislativos los responsables de evaluar la gestión de un gobernante, es una lógica absurda, apuntó Rodríguez.

Entonces, qué buscan los parlamentarios opositores, cuya mayoría en el órgano legislativo al parecer solo sirve para entorpecer el desarrollo del país, comentan venezolanos de a pie consultados por Prensa Latina.

Según la Constitución, el gobierno tiene el poder de disolver el foro legislativo pero hasta ahora, Maduro evitó enfrentar las provocaciones para que proceda en esa dirección y una y otra vez llamó a sus contrarios a unirse a un diálogo que favorezca a todos sus compatriotas.

La Constitución Bolivariana faculta, a través de diversos artículos, al presidente de la República para disolver la Asamblea Nacional.

El Artículo 236 de la Carta Magna establece cuáles son las funciones a realizar por el primer mandatario nacional; el numeral 23 de este apartado señala que una de las atribuciones del presidente es ‘Disolver la Asamblea Nacional de acuerdo con lo establecido en esta Constitución’.

Asimismo, el 240 explica que se procederá a disolver el Parlamento cuando en un mismo período constitucional la Asamblea apruebe la remoción del vicepresidente del país por medio del voto censura, tres veces.

Se aclara además que el decreto de disolución del congreso venezolano conlleva a la convocatoria de elecciones para una nueva legislatura, las cuales se deberán realizar en los 60 días siguientes.

Por otra parte, con respecto a las funciones de la Asamblea Nacional, la Carta Magna establece, en su Artículo 197, que los parlamentarios deben laborar a dedicación exclusiva, en beneficio para los intereses del pueblo, mantenerse vinculados con sus electores, atender sus opiniones y sugerencias, y mantenerlos informados.

Como van las cosas, es probable que sean los diputados quienes enfrenten un referéndum revocatorio, algo que contempla el máximo documento de la nación si continúan con su acción ilegal, inconstitucional, golpista y en su intento permanente de desestabilizar la paz del país, explicó Rodríguez, legislador chavista y líder de la minoría en la AN.

El ambiente de contradicción llevó este martes al presidente Maduro a juramentar a los integrantes del Comando Antigolpe, instancia creada para preserva la paz y la estabilidad del país frente a las pretensiones golpistas de sectores conservadores.

Esto de golpista no es descartable, pues tras continuados intentos de variar el rumbo del país, a los partidos de oposición le quedan pocas alternativas, entre ellas las de recurrir a la violencia.

Luis Beaton

by The_Real_Fly

German politicians have raised concern about thousands of NATO troops and equipment, along with hundreds of tanks, that have been sent to Poland and countries bordering Russia in what has been touted by Washington as “defense against Russian aggression.”

As remarked on our January 6 report:

When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the relevant powers launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump.

The ultimate aim of the cabal is to kick him out of office and have a reliable replacement, like the Vice-President elect Pence, take over. Should that not be possible it is hoped that the delegitimization will make it impossible for Trump to change major policy trajectories especially in foreign policy. A main issue here is the reorientation of the U.S. military complex and its NATO proxies from the war of terror towards a direct confrontation with main powers like Russia and China.

The “deep state” campaign against Trump opened new grounds today with the publication of completely fake and thereby unverifiable anonymous assertions that Trump had some fun in a Moscow hotel and that Russian secret services is using that to manipulate him.

The assertions come in 35 pages of “reports” by an anonymous (claimed) former British intelligence operator with dates ranging from June 20 2016 to December 13 2016. They say that Russia has some tapes of Trump watching sex games in 2013, they claim that Trump campaign officials coordinated the Clinton campaign leaks with Russia and that the Russian President Putin was highly involved in all of this.

Here is how the claimed former intelligence operator typically describes his sources in the “reports”:

Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively, the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting U.S. Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP for at least five years. Source B asserted that the TRUMP operation was both supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir PUTIN.

The anonymous former British operator hears from an anonymous asserted compatriot what two anonymous sources, asserted to have access to inner Russian circles, claim to have heard somewhere that something happened in the Kremlin.

They assert that Trump was supported and directed by Putin himself five years ago while even a year ago no one would have bet a penny on Trump gaining any political significant position or even the presidency.

There is a lot more of such nonsense in these new Hitler diaries. It is bonkers from a to z.

Even as they are obvious fake the FBI tried to use these “reports” to get a wide warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court to listen in on Trump campaign officials. The court thankfully denied or at least narrowed the request.

The first “reports” were created as part of the opposition research by a Republican candidate running in the primaries against Trump. They were later produced for and paid by the Democratic campaign. They have been shopped around in Washington for several month. The NYT, the WSJ, CNN and the FBI investigated the assertions in them. Despite the considerable combined investigative capacities they could verify none of them. All publications refrained from publishing the claims during the campaign because there was no evidence at all that supported them. Buzzfeed now pushed these out despite also saying that there is nothing verifiable in them.

Even worse, the Director of National Intelligence Clapper (who once claimed Saddam’s non-existing WMDs were shipped to Syria) presentedthese to Congress and the president elect Trump as “annex” to his baseless U.S. Intelligence report of “Russian hacking”.

A murky preview of the assertions had been given by David Corn in a Mother Jones piece in October. He talked with the said to be author of the “reports”:

“It started off as a fairly general inquiry,” says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, “there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit.”

The current publication of the full barrel of bullshit comes a day after members of the Trump cabinet have been successfully confirmed by Congress and hours before his long expected press conference. It is thereby destined to overshadow a successful start of the Trump presidency.

There are signs that the “reports” were written with some Ukrainian nationalist and anti-semitic background. Just consider this passage from the July 26 “report”:

In terms of the FSB’s recruitment of capable cyber operatives to carry out its, ideally deniable, offensive cyber operations, a Russian IT specialist with direct knowledge reported in June 2016 that this was often done using coercion and blackmail. In terms of ‘foreign’ agents, the FSB was approaching U.S. citizens of Russian (Jewish) origin on business trips in Russia.

Such tropes are typical of the anti-semitic Ukrainian “nationalist” (aka Nazi) narrative. Russian services would, unlike Mossad, not recruit IT hackers conditioned on “Jewish” ethnic relations or believe. We have seen more Ukrainian “nationalists” involved in the “Russian hacks” propaganda claims. A July 2016 Yahoo piece by (Clinton campaign mouthpiece) Michael Isikoff wrote:

Just weeks after she started preparing opposition research files on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort last spring, Democratic National Committee consultant Alexandra Chalupa got an alarming message when she logged into her personal Yahoo email account.
…
Chalupa — who had been drafting memos and writing emails about Manafort’s connection to pro-Russian political leaders in Ukraine — quickly alerted top DNC officials.
…
“I was freaked out,” Chalupa, who serves as director of “ethnic engagement” for the DNC, told Yahoo News in an interview, noting that she had been in close touch with sources in Kiev, Ukraine, including a number of investigative journalists, who had been providing her with information about Manafort’s political and business dealings in that country and Russia.

Chalupa is somewhat involved with the ProPornOT list, promoted by the Washington Post, of alleged pro-Russian propaganda websites. This website, Moon of Alabama, is also on that list 🙂 (see at end of piece). (Unfortunately though we have never received a penny, or anything else, from Russian sources, are critical of Putin’s neoliberal economic policies and have been plagiarized by the Russian government financed Russia Today without any compensation.) The ProPornOT Twitter account says it is “Ukrainian-American” and it used the Ukrainian fascist salute of the OUN-Bandera gangs “Heroiam Slava!” to hail Ukrainian hackers attacking Russia. The ProPornOT list is designed after a Ukrainian model used to smear Ukrainian anti-fascist media and journalists.

Chalupa is a main promoter of the “Russia hacked the Democratic campaign” allegations based on thin if any evidence. She was named by the same Isikoff of Yahoo as one of 16 people who shaped the 2016 election.

Chalupa is also:

founder and president of the Ukrainian lobby group “US United With Ukraine Coalition”, which lobbied hard to pass a 2014 bill increasing loans and military aid to Ukraine, imposing sanctions on Russians, and tightly aligning US and Ukraine geostrategic interests.

Moreover Chalupa coordinated her anti-Trump/anti-Russian campaign with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC:

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.A Ukrainian-American operative[, Alexandra Chalupa,] who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The foreign influence on the presidential race through the Ukrainian (fascist) connection to the Clinton campaign is much more grounded in reality than the alleged but unproven Russian connections to the Trump campaign.

We have a Ukrainian-American nationalist Democratic campaign operator promoting anti-Russian and anti-Trump claims in cooperation with the Ukrainian government, a Ukrainian-American ProPornOT blacklist for smearing website of being “Russian propaganda” and Ukrainian fascist tropes used in fact-less “reports” intended to smear Trump as a Russian puppet. Above of this we have a U.S intelligence community that is feverishly fighting against a Trump presidency which is likely to cut back its many excrescences.

The CIA, the MI-6 and the German BND (a CIA controlled outlet) have pampered and promoted the again very active anti-Russian Ukrainian fascist circles since (at least) the late 1940s. A U.S. National Archive book about Hitler’s Shadows – Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence and the Cold War (PDF) notes:

British operations through Bandera expanded. An early 1954 MI6 summary noted that, “the operational aspect of this [British] collaboration [with Bandera] was developing satisfactorily. Gradually a more complete control was obtained over infiltration operations and although the intelligence dividend was low it was considered worthwhile to proceed….”
…
In June 1985 the General Accounting Office mentioned Lebed’s name in a public report on Nazis and collaborators who settled in the United States with help from U.S. intelligence agencies. The Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the Department of Justice began investigating Lebed that year. The CIA worried that public scrutiny of Lebed would compromise QRPLUMB and that failure to protect Lebed would trigger outrage in the Ukrainian émigré community. It thus shielded Lebed by denying any connection between Lebed and the Nazis and by arguing that he was a Ukrainian freedom fighter. The truth, of course, was more complicated. As late as 1991 the CIA tried to dissuade OSI from approaching the German, Polish, and Soviet governments for war-related records related to the OUN. OSI eventually gave up the case, unable to procure definitive documents on Lebed. Mykola Lebed, Bandera’s wartime chief in Ukraine, died in 1998. He is buried in New Jersey, and his papers are located at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.

There is no evidence yet for a direct connection between the three anti-Russian/anti-Trump items above, the Ukrainian-fascist movement and John Brennan’s “deep state” CIA. There are consistencies in tone and message, some common history including the 2014 putsch in Ukraine and a connecting Ukrainian-American person in the Clinton campaign.

But even that is more than the baseless assertions in the “Russian hacking” DNI intelligence reports and the now published MI-6 smears. Seen from a distance the “Intelligence Community” is more compromised by these “leaks” than the President elect Trump.

It is not predictable who will win this fight, the “deep state” cabal that wants to keep the U.S. on an anti-Russian course or the somewhat outsider isolationist Trump. My bet is on the bullshit artist Trump.

In the bigger international picture the fight itself, and the publicity it gets, lets the U.S. look like the Banana republic it is destined to become.

The first hearing on confirmation of a Trump cabinet selection, Senator Jeff Sessions, the nominee for attorney general, demonstrated two central facts of American politics in 2017: the Trump administration will be the most right-wing and repressive in American history, and the congressional Democrats will do nothing to oppose it.

At Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sessions defended a long litany of ultra-right positions hostile to democratic rights. These include his support for the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act and his embrace of state actions to limit voter access to the polls in the name of fighting nonexistent “vote fraud.”

Sessions declared his backing for keeping open the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay and for the panoply of anti-democratic measures undertaken by the Bush and Obama administrations in the name of the “war on terror:” the Patriot Act, mass surveillance of the Internet and telecommunications, drone-missile assassinations and the like.

Asked about the detention of American citizens indefinitely without a trial, if the government asserts that the individual is linked to a foreign terrorist organization, Sessions said there had to be a habeas corpus proceeding to review evidence, but left open the possibility that this review could be through a military tribunal or other expedited procedure, rather than through a court proceeding where the defendant’s constitutional rights were observed.

Sessions is an implacable opponent of abortion rights. While he claimed that he would enforce current laws, he reiterated his longstanding position that the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling was wrongly decided and should be overturned. He suggested a similar attitude towards the more recent Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage.

Much of his opening statement sounded a “law and order” theme, dovetailing with Trump’s entirely false depiction of the United States as overrun by a wave of violent crime. “It is a fundamental civil right to be safe in your home and your community,” he said. “It will be my priority to confront these crises vigorously, effectively and immediately.”

He criticized the publicity given to police murders of young people, and particularly African-Americans, saying, “In the last several years, law enforcement as a whole has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the actions of a few bad actors and for allegations about police that were not true.”

Sessions is opposed to even the token measures taken by the Obama administration on police brutality, suggesting that the “consent decrees” negotiated with particularly flagrant local police departments, as in Cleveland, Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, should be reviewed. He concluded that “to smear whole departments places those officers at greater risk.”

Sessions distanced himself from the pronouncements of President-elect Donald Trump in only two areas, giving carefully rehearsed answers that were undoubtedly cleared with the Trump transition team in advance. He said he would oppose banning immigrants and visitors from the United States because they were Muslim, and conceded that current US law (which he voted against) prohibits waterboarding as a form of torture.

After prolonged wrangling with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Sessions said he had no reason to disbelieve the conclusion of the report issued last week by US intelligence agencies that the Russian government had intervened in the US elections by hacking the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

Despite his ultra-right views, there is little prospect that Sessions will be rejected either by the Judiciary Committee or the full Senate. All 52 Republicans are expected to vote for confirmation, along with at least a smattering of Democrats. The biggest display of opposition is expected to come Wednesday, with testimony before the committee by leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus. But this is entirely for show, to be followed by the rubber-stamping of the nomination.

One of the first issues discussed at the hearing was the prospect of the new attorney general appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while secretary of state in the Obama administration. Trump repeatedly threatened such an action during the campaign, prompting his supporters to chant “lock her up, lock her up” at rallies, including many where Sessions appeared side by side with Trump.

Sessions said that he would recuse himself from any decision in relation to Clinton’s email or the Clinton Foundation because his comments during a “contentious” campaign “could place my objectivity in question.” While declaring, “We can never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute,” he continued with language that left open the possibility for such a politically-motivated prosecution: “This country does not punish its political enemies but this country ensures that no one is above the law.”

Sessions grew up in rural Alabama, just outside of Selma, and was 19 years old at the time of the 1965 civil rights march there. There is no indication that he broke personally or politically with the racist politics of that time. On the contrary, he joined the College Republicans at the time when segregationist Democrats were switching to the Republican Party en masse because of their opposition to civil rights reforms.

Thirty years ago Sessions was rejected by the same Judiciary Committee when Ronald Reagan nominated him to become a federal district judge because of allegations of racism based on his role in prosecuting civil rights workers for helping elderly black voters to cast their ballots. The allegations against Sessions were supported by testimony from African-American co-workers.

Sessions went on to make a political career as a conservative Southerner allegedly victimized by Northern liberals, winning election first as Alabama state attorney general and subsequently, in 1996, winning an open US Senate seat. He has been on the extreme right of Senate Republicans ever since, and was the only senator to endorse Donald Trump prior to the string of primary victories that won the billionaire real estate mogul the Republican nomination.

In his opening statement to the committee, Sessions denounced the charges of racism that torpedoed his judicial nomination in 1986 and proclaimed himself a supporter of civil rights, including the right to vote, for all US citizens, including African-Americans. He maintained this posture despite repeated protests from members of the hearing audience, with more than a dozen dragged out by Capitol Hill police after they denounced him as a racist and an anti-gay bigot.

As a long-time member of the Judiciary Committee, Sessions was treated with unctuous courtesy, not only by the Republican members of the committee, but also by nearly all the Democrats, many of whom prefaced their token criticisms with professions of personal affection and high regard.

The real attitude of Senate Democrats to Trump’s policy of mass repression and attacks on democratic rights was shown at a second confirmation hearing, held Tuesday afternoon, for retired General John F. Kelly, nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security.

General Kelly was treated to a bipartisan love fest, with an introduction to the committee by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Thomas Carper, and an opening testimonial by former Bush and Obama defense secretary Robert Gates.

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the committee’s top Democrat, gushed over General Kelly’s credentials and made no objection to putting a career military officer in charge of the largest police force in the United States, an agency that includes the Border Patrol, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a dozen other units responsible for repressive actions of one kind or another.

McCaskill asked Kelly about the intelligence agency report on Russian hacking in the US election and Kelly immediately declared that he endorsed its conclusions “with full confidence.”

At the same time, in response to Republican questioning, he outlined a perspective of border defense going far beyond the wall proposed by Trump. In his view, Kelly said, “defense of the southwest border starts about 1,500 miles further south.” Based on his experience as head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, which covers most of Latin America, Kelly cited the importance of gaining the cooperation of the right-wing governments in Central America and the Andean countries of South America to halt the movement of immigrants and drugs.

Syrian national army has discovered Saudi-made stocks of chemical weapons in the recently liberated city of Aleppo.

The large supply of chlorine chemical agents originally belonged to militant groups that previously dominated the eastern parts of the city have Saudi marks on them, Al Masdar news site reported.

Based on the report, Syrian national forces discovered thesupply of chemical agents during a patrol in the Old Aleppo District on Tuesday night.

The bags filled with the chemicals were supplied to terrorist groups in Aleppo by a Saudi company named “Sachlo” that is based in Riyadh.

Aleppo was divided between militant and terrorist groups on the eats and national forces on the west for over two years. The Syrian national army, however, managed to liberate and reunite the whole city last month.

The victory was a great blow to terrorist groups that threatened to use chemical weapons on civilians as their last resort and even did use the weapon in some limited instances.

Saudi Arabia has been known for supporting militant and terrorist groups in Syria fighting to topple the government of President Bashar Assad.

US media outlets on Tuesday reported the existence of a previously undisclosed document from a former British intelligence official alleging secret contacts with officials in Moscow by Donald Trump and his campaign team. The document includes salacious details on Trump’s personal activities.

The document, initially prepared last year at the request of Republican and Democratic opponents of Trump, was reportedly obtained in December by Republican Senator John McCain, one of the most vociferous advocates of aggression against Russia. McCain then passed the document on to US intelligence agencies. A summary of the document was included in the report given last week by top US intelligence officials on alleged Russian interference in the US election to President-elect Trump and President Barack Obama.

The release of the document is the latest and most explosive episode in an escalating political struggle within the state apparatus that is without precedent. The conflict is centered on foreign policy issues, with sections of the state, led by the CIA, concerned that Trump will shift away from an aggressive stance toward Russia in favor of a more immediate focus on China.

The release of the document appears to be a last-ditch effort by sections of the intelligence apparatus to prevent the inauguration of Trump, which is only 10 days away. There will likely be congressional hearings into the allegations that could begin even before Trump takes office, assuming that he is inaugurated.

The document was leaked on the eve of Trump’s first scheduled press conference since July, slated for Wednesday.

Trump responded to the reports with a Tweet Tuesday night: “FAKE NEWS—A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”

CNN first reported on the document Tuesday evening, citing “multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings” to Obama and Trump—that is, intelligence officials. One hour later, Buzzfeed published the full 35-page document prepared by the British intelligence official, from which a two-page summary was produced for the Obama and Trump briefings.

According to the Guardian, it and other media outlets had access to the revelations several weeks ago but declined to publish “because there was no way to independently verify them.”

The full document alleges an “extensive conspiracy between Trump’s campaign team and the Kremlin,” organized by Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. It asserts that Trump was aware of Russian involvement in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails, and that in return for the leaks agreed to sideline Russian involvement in Ukraine as a major campaign issue.

The document also claims that Russian officials had obtained evidence of Trump’s “perverted sexual acts” while he was staying at a hotel in Moscow in 2013, and that the officials used the information to blackmail the current president-elect.

According to the media reports, the document was assembled by the former British intelligence official hired by a Washington research firm working for opponents of Trump during the 2016 election campaign. The official gave the information to the FBI sometime during the campaign, but FBI Director James Comey decided not to make it public. McCain reportedly found out about the document last month and again presented it to Comey and likely to other intelligence agencies.

The release of the document follows the publication last Friday of an unclassified version of the report by US intelligence agencies on allegations of Russian hacking of Democratic Party emails. The report contains no actual evidence of the charges, but it has been used by the media and those sections of the political establishment favoring aggression against Russia to demand harsher measures.

McCain has repeatedly called the hacking an “act of war,” while his close ally in the Senate, Republican Lindsey Graham, demanded over the weekend that Trump “make Russia pay a price for trying to interfere” in the election.

FBI Director James Comey sat in the hot seat to testify to congress about the “fake news” Russian hacks.

In his testimony Comey had to admit that “Russian hackers” did not break into the servers of the Trump campaign or the RNC.

Comey testified that the FBI had to rely on a “private company” to decide whether the DNC servers where hacked. That private company is Crowdstrike…

It should be noted that Crowdstrike had three funders:  1) Warburg Pincus.  Tim Geithner, is president of Warburg Pincus, former Secretary of Treasury under Obama, and formerly worked in the Clinton administration… Uh-oh. Warburg Pincus was a contributor to the DNC and Clinton campaign. 2) Accel Partners is also a Crowdstrike funder. According to the Clinton Foundation website, Accel is a venture capitalist partner in the Endeavor Investor Network created by the Foundation. Uh-oh. 3) And the last funder of Crowdstrike is Google Capital, now CapitalG, managed under David Drummond of Google who was instrumental in ‘realigning’ Google search engines to favor Hillary’s campaign. Big uh-oh!

So what we actually have is the authority of one company, Crowdstrike, which derived all of its funding from venture capitalists linked to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. Funny, they didn’t hide their tracks very well for a high powered security breach company.

Why would the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate their servers?

We wonder what the DNC and Hillary Clinton could possibly be hiding?

How could the FBI conclude that Russia (and Putin) ordered the hacking of the DNC servers when the FBI never even got a look at the servers (first hand)?

For the first time in his eight-year presidency, Barack Obama said no to Israel.

When the Security Council voted to condemn Israel for building illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, the Obama administration abstained, allowing the resolution to pass.

President Barack Obama addresses the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 20, 2016. (UN Photo)

Resolution 2334 says the settlements have “no legal validity,” calls them “a flagrant violation under international law,” and demands Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities.”

Although 2334 is consistent with prior resolutions of the council, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw a tantrum, calling the US abstention a “declaration of war.” In light of Obama’s unwavering enabling of Israel’s illegal policies, Netanyahu was likely shocked that Obama finally said no.

The United States, a permanent member of the council, vetoed a resolution in 2011 that would have condemned the building of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. And in 2014, the U.S. opposed a draft resolution demanding Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank within three years.

Since 1967, Israel has transferred more than a half million of its own citizens into Palestinian territories, continuing to build settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice affirmed that the Palestinian territories are under Israeli occupation and Israel’s settlement building violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.

A state occupying territory not its own cannot build settlements on that territory and transfer its own citizens into them. Article 8.2(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC) defines “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” as a war crime.

Israel took over the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem by military force in 1967 and has held it under military occupation ever since.

Like Security Council Resolution 242, passed in 1967, Resolution 2334 reiterates “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Although Resolution 242 called for “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” Israel continues to occupy the Palestinian territories it acquired in the “Six-Day War.”

“Over 4.5 million Palestinians live in these occupied territories, but are not citizens of Israel,” Jimmy Carter wrote in the New York Times. “Most live largely under Israeli military rule, and do not vote in Israel’s national elections.”

Complete Control

Israel exercises complete control over every aspect of Palestinian life in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. That includes borders, airspace, ingress and egress of people and goods, and the seashore and waters off the coast of Gaza. The occupation violates fundamental human rights of the Palestinians.

A section of the barrier — erected by Israeli officials to prevent the passage of Palestinians — with graffiti using President John F. Kennedy’s famous quote when facing the Berlin Wall, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” (Photo credit: Marc Venezia)

Flavia Pansieri, former U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights, said last year that human rights violations “fuel and shape the conflict” in the occupied Palestinian territories, adding, “[h]uman rights violations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are both cause and consequence of the military occupation and ongoing violence, in a bitter cyclical process with wider implications for peace and security in the region.”

Building illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories is not the only war crime Israeli leaders have committed. In 2014, Israel invaded Gaza and killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians. Nearly 10,000 Palestinians were wounded, more than 2,000 of them children. Tens of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes and infrastructure was severely damaged. Numerous schools, U.N. places of refuge, hospitals, ambulances and mosques were intentionally targeted.

Israel used the “Dahiya doctrine” to apply “disproportionate force” and cause “great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilians populations,” as defined in the 2009 U.N. Human Rights Council (Goldstone) report. Those acts constitute evidence of war crimes under Article 8 (2)(a) of the Rome Statute.

The ICC can investigate and prosecute these crimes. Yet, in order to prevent such investigation and prosecution, the United States consistently opposed Palestine becoming a party to the Rome Statute. Palestine, which was recognized as a non-member observer State by the U.N. General Assembly, acceded to the Rome Statute in January 2015 and asked the ICC to investigate Israel for building illegal settlements and committing war crimes in Gaza.

In January 2015, Fatou Bensouda, the ICC prosecutor, opened a preliminary investigation into the illegal settlements and Israel’s 2014 bombing of Gaza. Netanyahu is upset because the new Security Council resolution bolsters the case for ICC war crimes prosecution of Israeli leaders.

Violating U.S. Law

The United States’ unwavering support for Israel violates U.S. law. Under the Leahy Law, military units that commit human rights abuses cannot receive U.S. training or weapons, and individuals who commit human rights abuses are denied U.S. visas. The State Department’s annual report has documented Israeli violations. And the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits assistance to any country “which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

President Barack Obama stands with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the President’s official arrival ceremony in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Yet, throughout his presidency, Obama has unconditionally supported Israel and shielded it from accountability for the war crimes of building settlements and targeting civilians in Gaza.

In September, Obama promised Israel a record $38 billion in military assistance over the next 10 years, becoming the strongest financial supporter of Israel ever to occupy the White House. Obama, whom Israeli journalist Gideon Levy dubbed “the patron of the occupation,” increased the amount of money the U.S. provides Israel each year from $3.1 to $3.8 billion.

Netanyahu called the increase in U.S. aid “unprecedented” and “historic,” characterizing it as “the greatest accomplishment since sliced bread,” according to Aaron David Miller, vice president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable,” Obama declared, as he and Netanyahu shook hands.

The annual $3.8 billion, more money than the U.S. gives to any other country, will fund the continuing Israeli military occupation of Palestinian lands, now in its fifth decade. Obama, however, is to be commended for finally standing up to Israel, albeit at the 11th hour. We cannot expect President-elect Donald Trump to follow suit.

Trump intervened unsuccessfully to prevent Resolution 2334 from coming to the council floor. He stated he will move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, even though, as Resolution 2334 states, East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory. David Friedman, Trump’s incoming ambassador to Israel, is notorious for funding the rightwing orthodox Beit El settlement near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

A Voice of Reason

We can hope Trump will listen to Gen. James Mattis, his nominee for Secretary of Defense. “I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel,” Mattis said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado in 2013.

Retired Marine General James Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to become Secretary of Defense.

Mattis criticized Israel for building settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying they “are going to make it impossible to maintain the two-state option.” He added that the settlements might weaken Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state and could lead to Israel becoming an “apartheid” state.

“If I’m in Jerusalem and I put 500 Jewish settlers out here to the east and there’s 10,000 Arab settlers in here, if we draw the border to include them, either it ceases to be a Jewish state or you say the Arabs don’t get to vote — apartheid,” Mattis said.

Meanwhile, Resolution 2334 has propelled the illegality of Israel’s settlements into the public discourse. While Israel has pledged to defy the council and continue building illegal settlements, Jewish Voice for Peace and other human rights organizations have called for “increasing grassroots pressure on Israel, through Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] campaigns, until full human rights of Palestinians are realized.”

Indeed, the text of Resolution 2334 implicitly invites countries to engage in BDS by saying they should “distinguish . . . between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Her most recent book is ‘Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.’ Visit her website at http://marjoriecohn.com/and follow her on Twitter @MarjorieCohn.

Less than two weeks after stepping down as U.N. Secretary-General, a move many interpreted as an indication of his intention to run for the Presidency of South Korea, two of Ban Ki-Moon’s relatives have been indicted in the U.S. on charges of bribery.  According to the Daily Mail, Ban Ki-Moon’s brother, Ban Ki-sang, and nephew, Joo Hyun “Dennis” Bahn who is a New York real estate broker, have been indicted for an alleged scheme to bribe a Middle Eastern official to use his country’s sovereign wealth fund to purchase a struggling $800 million real estate complex in Vietnam.  Joo Hyun Bahn has been arrested in New York City and is expected to appear in court later today according to the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Two relatives of former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon have been indicted on U.S. charges that they engaged in a scheme to bribe a Middle Eastern official in connection with the attempted $800 million sale of a building complex in Vietnam.

Joo Hyun “Dennis” Bahn, a New York real estate broker who is Ban Ki-Moon’s nephew, and his father Ban Ki-sang, Ban Ki-moon’s brother who was a senior executive at South Korean construction firm Keangnam Enterprises Co Ltd, were charged in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.

Bahn is in custody and expected to appear in court later on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. Defense lawyers could not immediately be identified.

Per the Daily Mail, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang agreed to pay an upfront $500,000 bribe to a gentleman named Malcom Harris, a self-described arts and fashion consultant and blogger, who claimed to have a direct connection to a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund that would be willing to purchase their failed Vietnamese real estate project.  Unfortunately, proving that you can pretty much never trust an “arts and fashion consultant and blogger,” the whole thing turned out to be a complete scam and Harris spent the entire upfront payment on lavish gifts for himself.

According to the indictment, in 2013, Keangnam was facing a liquidity crisis and turned to Bahn to secure an investor for a Vietnamese building complex called Landmark 72 in exchange for a potential $5 million commission.

Rather than obtain financing legitimately, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang engaged in a scheme to pay bribes to an unnamed Middle Eastern official to convince his country’s sovereign wealth fund to acquire Landmark 72, the indictment said.

The bribes were paid through Malcolm Harris, a self-described arts and fashion consultant and blogger who was also charged and who the indictment said claimed to be an agent of the official.

Based on communications with Harris, in April 2014, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang agreed to pay an upfront $500,000 bribe and another $2 million upon the sale’s closing, the indictment said.

But Harris did not have the relationship he claimed with the official, the indictment said, and stole the $500,000, which he spent lavishly.

Of course, this news couldn’t come at a worst time for Ban Ki-Moon who was considered to be the front-runner for the Presidency of South Korea after lawmakers there just voted 234-56 to impeach current President Park Geun-hye over accusations of bribery, abuse of power and violating her constitutional duties (see “South Korea President Park Impeached In Corruption Scandal“).  Somehow we suspect South Korean voters will not respond favorably to this news just weeks after impeaching their current president for similar allegations.

The ongoing biases against Russia lead to new matters to refute. Matching the gross one-sidedness of her Washington Post (WaPo) employer, Kathleen Parker’s January 6 essay «If Obama Is a Muslim, Is Trump a Russian Spy?», overlooks some damning points running counter to her faulty slant. Donald Trump has taken back his comments that questioned whether Barack Obama is American born.

For its part, The WaPo continues to denigrate Russia in a factually challenged manner. (The use of the crank Propornot website and the false claim of a Russian hacking of the Vermont power grid being prime examples, along with continuous top heavy anti-Russian op-ed pieces and news reports.)

Parker suggests a double standard favoring Muslim bashing over her presented claim of Russian mischief against the US. She describes Russia as an «enemy». Her overlooked hypocrisy concerns the select outrage over anti-Muslim stances (real and hyped), while being soft on the frequent instances of bias against pro-Russian advocacy.

Lacking specifics, Parker’s «proof» against Russia is the faith based US Intel report, which unlike her doesn’t refer to Russia as an «enemy», while claiming a concerted Vladimir Putin approved Russian government effort to support Trump by defaming Hillary Clinton. Regarding that report, the mind reading point about the Russian government and Russia’s mass media preferring Trump over Clinton is in the no kidding and so what category. Trump has openly sought better US relations with Russia, as Clinton was the preferred choice of the anti-Russian neocons.

The January 8 exchange between Fox News host Chris Wallace and Trump’s Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus included the latter saying in the beginning that «he thinks» that Trump accepts the claim of Russian hacking of Democratic Party emails. Wallace’s persistent questioning led Priebus to change course later on in the discussion, saying that the president-elect accepted the Intel take of Russian hacking. In any event, Trump (for now) doesn’t seem to believe that this matter should cloud the effort to improve US-Russian relations.

There’s a difference between hacking from the Russian government and Russian hackers who hack en masse, independent of the Kremlin. For several years, there’ve been reports of hacking from Russia, the US and elsewhere against ordinary Americans and others throughout the world. Ideally, there should be conclusive proof that the Russian government used a third party to advance their purported cause, as has been suggested in some circles.

With confidentiality respected, a CNN host privately asked how I could consider Julian Assange’s take over US Intel? For the record, I didn’t specifically say such. Is Assange less biased than the Democratic Party utilized CrowdStrike, that has also essentially been used to promote negativity towards the counter-Euromaidan rebels in Ukraine? CrowdStrike has ties to the Atlantic Council – a group that has been overly partisan against Russia.

I’m not alone in believing that the trustworthiness of US Intel is compromised by its politicized element and a past that has been found to not always be honest. This politicization was noted last week by Fox news host Brett Baier, who said that Trump’s criticism of Intel has been misrepresented. Opposing politically driven and questionable Intel claims doesn’t necessarily belittle the need for accurate Intel and recognizing that not everyone associated with that grouping has the faulty slants of John Brennan, James Clapper, Malcolm Nance and Michael Hayden. (Nance and Hayden are former US Intel personnel, who’re frequent US mass media talking heads.)

There’s ample reason to seriously question if the released Democratic party emails (however done) made a difference in the outcome of the 2016 US presidential result. To date, I’m unaware of any poll revealing that the released Democratic Party emails had significantly changed the outcome of that vote.

The Democratic Party should be faulted for having a lax cyber security regimen, along with saying some ethically challenging things. Not to be overlooked are the numerous instances of US government meddling in the elections of other countries  and the reality of major powers (perceived allies and otherwise) spying on each other.

On January 3, there were two segments featuring different perspectives on the released Democratic Party emails in question. Fox News’ Sean Hannity, had a lengthy one on one with Assange, that brought up the criminal charges made against the WikiLeaks founder. The PBS NewsHour segment with CIA Director John Brennan, included this quote from him:

«We see what he has done in places like Crimea and Ukraine and in Syria. he tends to flex muscles, not just on himself, but also in terms of Russia’s military capabilities. He plays by his own rules in terms of what it is that he does in some of these theaters of conflict.

So I don’t think we underestimated him. He has sought to advance Russia’s interests in areas where there have been political vacuums and conflicts. But he doesn’t ascribe to the same types of rules that we do, for example, in law of armed conflict. What the Russians have done in Syria in terms of some of the scorched-earth policy that they have pursued that have led to devastation and thousands upon thousands of innocent deaths, that’s not something that the United States would ever do in any of these military conflicts».

Own rules as in what Turkey has done in northern Cyprus and the Clinton led NATO in Kosovo? It was a shameful example of journalism on the part of PBS to let Brennan’s comments go unchallenged. PBS had earlier run a pro-CrowdStrike feature. It’s not as if there aren’t any expert cyber security/ intelligence sources offering a different perspective.

As for the devastation of thousands of civilians during war (raised by Brennan), consider some past US actions like what happened in Japan during WW II, the Cold War activity in Southeast Asia, as well as post-Cold War actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The collateral damage emphasis has been hypocritically applied. Along with the subjectively dubious comments of Hayden and Nance, the above excerpted comments from Brennan are indicative of a (past and present) politicized element within US Intel.

Among Russia friendly circles, some kudos has been given to Fox News‘ Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Like their employer, these two individuals have a preference for Trump over the Democrats. However, like many pro-Trump sources, Hannity and Carlson maintain some of the anti-Russian biases, as The WaPo and some others speak of a possible unknown money trail linking Trump to Russia.

Trump has had known business interests involving China and some predominately Muslim countries. That aspect hasn’t prevented him from saying things that aren’t favored in these countries. There’re other Americans besides Trump who favor improved US-Russian relations in opposition to the neocon/neolib preference.

Pat Buchanan serves as an example of an anti-Communist patriotic American, who second guesses the negative image of Putin and Russia. There’s also the community of anti-Communist White Russians in the US and elsewhere, which have a good number opposed to the current hostility towards Russia. From a more left leaning perspective, Stephen Cohen and some lessor known individuals aren’t anti-American in believing that the US (from its interests) shouldn’t be so antagonistic towards Russia. American foreign policy realists include disagreement with the need for having unfriendly US-Russian relations.

An example of the ongoing bias is the obligatory «Putin is a thug» disclaimer frequently bandied about. As has been confidentially acknowledged to me, some well meaning folks do this as a means to soften criticism against their commentary, which otherwise goes against the neocon/neolib slant. Talk about «self-censorship».

From a distance, Putin (IMO) doesn’t come across as being more mean spirited than Clinton, John McCain and some others who disparage him. With the pro-Trump/anti-Russian leaning people in mind, was Trump elected for being a nice guy? The personal insults against Putin are hypocritically petty. Upon a reasonable objective and comprehensive overview, the litany of negative claims against him are quite suspect. Yet, they keep getting uncritically rehashed in a way that exhibits a lack of diversity in US mass media and body politic.

Short of providing greater attention to the likes of Lindsey Graham and McCain, the provocative name calling and other forms of posturing against Putin/Russia haven’t worked. It’s not in America’s best interests to use Russia as a political football to get at Trump and cater to anti-Russian advocacy. Trump should be accorded the opportunity to pursue better US-Russian relations.

My last Strategic Culture Foundation article of January 1, counters the presentation of Obama and his predecessors (Bill Clinton and GW Bush) seeking to pursue that endeavor.

This is a translation from the Russian original, which appeared Saturday, Christmas day, (Russian calendar) on Ms. Simonyan’s personal blog.  

The author is the head of the Russian global news network RT.com, sometimes referred to by its old name, ‘Russia Today’, and of the Russian global news agency, ‘Sputnik‘. 

..

Dear CIA,

You get a total F for this thing you wrote.

You don’t cover the subject in enough detail, some sources are un-named, and those you do name are either out of date, or simply untrue.  The whole thing reads like something a schoolboy would write for a homework assignment.

At my KGB high school, you would have been flogged with a birch switch for this kind of incompetence, which, incidentally, is rather painful.

I’m going to have to step in here and give you a little friendly mentoring as you work to correct your mistakes.  Let’s start with a few basic facts.  These facts are indisputable and heavily documented.

Your assignment is to write out each fact legibly three times in neat handwriting with no mistakes, and not using an eraser.

After the holidays the teacher himself will grade your work!

——

In 2001 at the age of 21 I covered the elections in Crimea.  Then, as always, actually, there existed a very strong pro-Russian mood.  Ever since that two-week assignment, it never subsided.  These facts are indisputable.

My former very serious boyfriend whom I was living with, Andrei Blagodyrenko, runs the Sputnik news agencies in the countries of the former USSR.  I offered him the job after we broke up.  Under his leadership, Sputnik has become a market leader in those countries.  What we have here is scientific proof that Russian propaganda spreads through body fluids.  These facts are indisputable.

I met several times with Julian Assange.  You can confirm this by checking the security cameras at the Ecuadorean embassy, or even just by reading my rather careless tweets about it.  The meetings took place in London.  London iz ze kepital aff Grait Breettun.  These facts are indisputable.

RT was the first global news channel to get a billion views on Youtube, already in 2013.  It is blindingly obvious, therefore, that Russia hacked every Youtube user, because it is not blindingly obvious how else this many peeps could be gorging themselves on Russian propaganda without at least the benefit of horseradish and mustard.  These facts are indisputable.

Alexei Gromov is indeed my contact in the Kremlin.  Our meetings are not infrequent and sometimes involve adult beverages.  I prefer German beer, while he is fond of Russian vodka.  These facts are indisputable.

Once, Alexei, returning home from mushroom hunting in the forest, stopped by my home and left a basket of porcinis.  You can confirm this by checking the security cameras of my village.  Shortly after, an employee of the US Department of State visited me.  You can check the same cameras to confirm this.  I served fried porcinis to my guest, craftily claiming they are a traditional Russian delicacy.  These facts are indisputable.

One year ago we made a video showing how after retiring, Obama and Kerry will end up watching RT at home, sobbing.  You can see this video as it is public on an information network known as the internet.  To reach it, you have to type the address into your browser, or click, that is, press on the button of your mouse on these words right here.  These facts are indisputable.

And last but not least.  At the age of 15, having neither contacts nor money, I studied in the US on a school exchange program paid for by US taxpayers.  At that time, Donald Trump was already a significant taxpayer.

Draw your own conclusions.

Former IMF functionary Alassane Ouattara exposed in military rebellion over treatment of soldiers

Thousands of troops in the military forces of the Ivory Coast defied orders and rebelled against the national government of President Alassane Ouattara. The troops were reportedly angry over the deplorable conditions they are living under inside the country.

Since the eruption of violence, the security establishment leaders have been terminated from their positions by the government.  General Soumaila Bakayoko, the army leader; Gervais Kouakou Kouassi, the superior commander of the National Gendarmerie; and Bredou M’Bia, director-general of the National Police, were relieved of their duties by the president’s office.

Military leader General Soumaila Bakayoko – the previous head of a 2002-2011 rebel army, who obviously had fallen out of favor with his troops, was replaced by his deputy, General Sekou Toure. Gervais Kouakou Kouassi, superior commander of the National Gendarmerie, and Director General of the National Police Bredou M’Bia were also replaced by their seconds in command.

These decisions came soon after the resignation of Daniel Kablan Duncan, the prime minister, which prompted the dissolution of the government. These measures had been anticipated as a result of the elections held in late 2016 where Ouattara was declared the winner.

Nonetheless, Duncan was re-appointed as Vice-President on January 10. It is believed that this move was made to ensure his positioning as a successor to Ouattara after 2020 when he is slated to end his term of office.

Duncan is a close ally of Ouattara who said: “This is a person of experience, a great servant of the state, who has demonstrated his exceptional personal and professional qualities in all the high functions he has occupied.”

From the political capital of Abidjan to Bouake and other cities, army personnel took over barracks, blocked roads and held governmental officials hostage in lieu of a commitment to address their concerns.

Reports of unrest within the military began in Bouake on the morning of Friday January 6 when soldiers began to fire rocket-launchers. The unrest quickly spread to the cities of Man, Daloa, Daoukro, Odienne and Korhogo. By the following day soldiers had taken control of the military headquarters in Abidjan.

Later in the evening of January 7, President Ouattara took to the airwaves of national television announcing that a deal had been reached. He said to the public: “I confirm that I have agreed to take into account the demands of the soldiers over bonuses and better working conditions.”

Ouattara was out of the country when the rebellion erupted attending an inauguration ceremony in neighboring Ghana for the installation of the newly-elected President Nana Akufo-Addo. This was the second time in three years that the army has protested violently over the failure of the government to pay adequate salaries and provide quality housing for themselves and their families.

Nonetheless, by January 10 there was still conflicting reports over whether the situation had been adequately resolved to the satisfaction of the discontented soldiers. The promised bonuses remained unpaid and hostility towards the government was still considerably high.

Background to the Crisis

Many of the mutinous troops were the former rebels that were utilized in the French-backed Operation Unicorn that toppled the previous President Laurent Gbagbo under the guise of a United Nations peace mission on April 11, 2011. Gbagbo defied the dictates of France and the United States saying that the disagreements over the elections should be resolved internally within Ivory Coast.

The bonuses in question were promised to rebel soldiers in 2011 as an incentive for their participation in the coup against the Gbagbo government. French paratroopers stormed the Gbagbo’s residence arresting him, members of his government and family. He was later transported against his will to the Netherlands where he is under the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In addition, the former First Lady Simone Gbagbo, a political figure in her own right, is currently imprisoned inside Ivory Coast. Mrs. Gbagbo was prosecuted in a highly politicized trial in 2015 for a number of alleged offenses including distributing arms to those who engaged in violent actions against opponents of President Gbagbo. She was given a twenty year sentence.

Later in August 2016 she faced a second trial over charges of human rights violations. Her attorneys argued that there was no concrete evidence to implicate her in the purported crimes that were committed.

During the proceedings in October 2016, her defense lawyer Rodrigue Dadje emphasized that: “The prosecutor has witnesses that are not credible. They’re able to testify what they have seen but cannot prove any links towards Mrs. Gbagbo. Otherwise we will have a whole day of witnesses telling stories, but you will clearly see that there is no link with Mrs. Gbagbo.”

A spokesman for the mutinous soldiers claimed that they had been promised over $19,000 (U.S.) in 2011. The funds were supposed to have been paid on January 9 as part of the settlement to end the mutiny which was negotiated between the soldiers and Defense Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi.

The payment of the funds would cost the Ivorian government the equivalence of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars. Defense Minister Donwahi has subsequently denied promising to pay this amount in funds and claims instead that there would be what he described as “mission bonuses” handed over to the soldiers.

Donwahi told the international press that it was the negotiators for the disgruntled troops that requested a delay in the bonus payments, a claim that the soldiers emphatically deny. “There’s a timetable that was made with their leaders. Their leaders know what we are doing,” Donwahi told Reuters. “We were ready. They themselves told us to wait.” (Jan. 10)

Imperialism and the Role of the ICC

The situation in Ivory Coast is a clear indication of the links between the imperialist states which have intervened in African affairs and the ICC. Deposed President Gbagbo was a leading figure in the political and trade union opposition to the neo-colonial regime in Ivory Coast for many years having been imprisoned and forced into exile under the regime of the first French-allied President Felix Houphouet- Boigny.

President Gbagbo came to power in 2000 after he was declared the winner in an election. The military junta leader Robert Guei then controlling Ivory Coast was toppled by a mass uprising. The Ivorian Popular Front took control of the government and maintained authority until the disputed election in 2010.

Gbagbo accused the opposition led by Ouattara of engaging in massive fraud in nine provinces in 2010. However, the former colonial power of France and their allies within the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) declared Ouattara as the winner.

Later the Ivorian Constitutional Council examined the results and decided that Gbagbo was the victor. The president refused to step down under enormous pressure from ECOWAS and France. His forced removal by French paratroopers coincided with the imperialist war efforts against the governments of Col. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Since 2011, three African states have withdrawn from the ICC. These governments are Gambia, Burundi and the South Africa. The African Union (AU) during its 50^th anniversary commemoration of the founding of its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), held extensive discussions on the problems associated with the ICC and its approach to continental affairs.

The ICC has been pre-occupied with investigations and prosecutions of African heads-of-state and non-governmental actors. President Gbagbo was the first sitting leader to be arrested and transported to the Netherlands to stand trial at the ICC.

At present the incumbent President of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, is under pressure from ECOWAS to relinquish power in the aftermath of an election in which he subsequently declared was marked by irregularities. If the electoral dispute in Gambia is not resolved through negotiations there is the possibility of yet another military intervention in West Africa.

Last evening, ISIS terrorists launched a counter-attack against US-backed YPG forces northwest of al-Raqqah, attacking the areas of Sweidiya al-Saghirah and Job Shaeer.

As a result of a series of intense firefights, ISIS units retook control of Sweidiya al-Saghirah and advanced on YPG positions in the area of Jabar.

YPG forces, backed up by US-led coalition warplanes, repelled the terrorist group’s attack on Job Shaeer.

ISIS-linked sources released reports that about 70 Kurdish fighters were killed in the ISIS counter-attacks. Pro-Kurdish sources claimed that some 46 ISIS members were killed in clashes for Sweidiya al-Saghirah.

The recent ISIS operation is an illustration of SouthFront’s previous report that the terrorist group implements a fluid defense approach, strategically withdrawing to well-prepared defensive positions near the city of al-Raqqah.

This is now the main reason behind the rapid YPG advance in the al-Raqqah countryside.

The Ruling Establishment Does Not Intend For Trump To Become President.

The latest “explosive” fake news is that “multiple US officials with direct knowledge” told CNN that they have “classified documents” that Russia has compromising documents on Trump that would allow them to blackmail the US President. The documents consist of memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative “whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible.”

According to antiwar.com

“the dossier claimed several figures in the Trump campaign were in league with the Russian government during the campaign, and that Russia had been conspiring with them to groom Trump as an ally for ‘at least five years.’ It also claims exchanges of information between Trump and the Kremlin for ‘at least eight years,’ . . . The dossier names former Trump adviser Carter Page, his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, as well as incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as having personally and repeatedly met with Kremlin officials on anti-Clinton leaks.”

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is the former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. If such a high level US intelligence official is repeatedly meeting with Kremlim officials and the CIA has to learn about it from memos written by an unidentified former British intelligent agent, the CIA is totally incompetent.

The dossier claims that in Russian hands are videos of “wild sex parties” staged by Trump on his numerous trips to Moscow. And it gets wilder.

The New York Times also ran with the story but did state that there was at the present time no confirmation for the story.

Consider these three questions:

How would a former British intelligence operative get such extraordinary documents from Russian intelligence?

If he had such documents, why would he hand them over instead of selling them to Trump for a major fortune?

Why would such a crazy story be on CNN and in the New York Times unless the ruling establishment intends to use it to block Trump from the presidency?

What this elevation in wild charges tells me is that the CIA’s effort to sell Trump on the Russian hacking did not succeed, and the CIA has escalated its attack on the president-elect.

Here are the URLs to the CNN, NYTimes, and antiwar.com reports:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/index.html

http://news.antiwar.com/2017/01/10/leaked-dossier-claims-russia-has-blackmail-videos-on-trump/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-intelligence.html?emc=edit_na_20170110&nlid=31655120&ref=cta&_r=0

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

On Tuesday evening, Obama delivered his self-styled farewell address – as demagogic and duplicitous as all his others.

A separate article discussed what he left unexplained – the enormous harm he inflicted on humanity at home and abroad throughout his tenure.

His farewell address included a recitation of democratic rights he abhors – “among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” freedoms he spent eight years destroying at home and abroad.

“(S)triv(ing) together (for) a common good, a greater good” was polar opposite his ruthless agenda – raping, destroying and pillaging one country after another, responsible for millions of casualties on his watch.

America is “exceptional,” he blustered – only in its unprecedented wickedness, worst of all under eight appalling Obama years.

Saying “our founding creed (was) to embrace all, and not just some” is polar opposite US policy throughout its sordid history – exterminating its native people, enslaving Black Africans, institutionalizing wage slavery under Bush/Cheney and Obama, mass incarcerating millions in America’s global gulag.

Obama: We “reverse(d) a great recession…unleashed the longest stretch of job creation in our history…open(ed) a new chapter with (Cuba), shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program…took out the mastermind of 9/11, (and) secured the right to health insurance for” millions.

Fact: Protracted Main Street Depression conditions festered throughout his tenure because he took no corrective action – letting rich and powerful Americans amass greater than ever wealth at the expense of exploited ordinary people.

Fact: The vast majority of jobs created continue to be rotten low-pay, poor-or-no-benefit ones. Most households need two or more to survive. Homelessness, hunger and deprivation reached record levels on Obama’s watch. Over 100 million working-age Americans have no employment.

Fact: According to annual US intelligence community assessments, Iran had no nuclear weapons program to shut down.

Fact: Obama didn’t kill Osama. He died of natural causes in December 2001 – widely reported at the time.

Fact: America’s illegal embargo on Cuba remains unchanged with no prospect of it being lifted.

Fact: Obamacare enriched drug companies, insurers and large hospital chains at the expense of providing affordable healthcare for all Americans.

Obama: “America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started.”

Fact: America is the world’s most reviled pariah state, more than ever under Obama and his neocon infested administration.

Obama: “I committed to President-Elect Trump that my administration would ensure the smoothest possible transition, just as President Bush did for me.”

Fact: Pro-Hillary dark forces continue going all out to undermine Trump’s legitimacy – a White House sponsored coup attempt to deny him the office he won or make his tenure untenable.

Fact: The latest despicable tactic calls Trump a virtual Manchurian candidate, manipulated by Russia to serve its interests – despite no evidence suggesting it, more lies to delegitimize him.

In response, Trump tweeted “BuzzFeed Runs Unverifiable Trump-Russia Claims’ #FakeNews”

“The online news site BuzzFeed on Tuesday published a letter containing salacious allegations – which even the website acknowledged were unverifi…”

“FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”

Trump has 19.4 million Twitter followers, numbers increasing daily, a huge audience he’s able to reach, media scoundrels and others unable to distort his messages.

Obama’s Tuesday evening address was a exercise in undeserved self-adulation and duplicity – ignoring the horrors he inflicted on humanity for eight, long horrific years.

With few days remaining in his tenure, who knows what further viciousness he intends before leaving office.

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

The eagerly awaited Director Of National Intelligence’s (DNI) report “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” didn’t need such a long winded title. They could have just called it: “We Really Don’t Like RT.”

Almost every major western news outlet splashed this story. But it was probably the New York Times’ report which was the most amusing. America’s “paper of record” hailed the DNI’s homework as “damning and surprisingly detailed.” Then a few paragraphs later admitted the analysis contained no actual evidence.

Thus, in a few column inches, the Gray Lady went from describing the DNI’s release as something conclusive to conceding how it was all conjecture. “The declassified report contained no information about how the agencies had collected their data or had come to their conclusions,” the reporter, one David E. Sanger, told us. He then reached further into his bag of tricks to warn how it is “bound to be attacked by skeptics.”

Russia Today newsroom © Evgeny Biyatov / Sputnik

Yes, those skeptics. Aren’t they awful? Like, imagine not accepting an intelligence document at face value? Especially when it warns that a nuclear armed military superpower is interfering in the American democratic process, but then offers not a smidgen of proof for its assertions. Not to mention how it appears to have been put together by a group of people with barely a clue about Russia.

For instance, RT programs such as “Breaking The Set” and “The Truthseeker” are mentioned in a submission supposed to be about how RT seemingly cost Hillary Clinton the US Presidential Election. But both of these programmes went off air around two years ago.

And, back then, Clinton wasn’t even the Democratic Party candidate for the 2016 contest. Furthermore, it’s deeply odd how this seems to be part of a super old report, with just a tiny disclaimer in that regard.

The stream of obsolete information continues. Readers could be led to believe that the head of RT’s Arabic Service is Aydar Aganin and the London bureau is headed by Darya Pushkova. The problem is neither of these individuals currently work at RT, nor have done for a long time. And the focus on the latter is presumably because she’s defined as “the daughter of Aleksey Pushkov, the current chair of the Duma Russian Foreign Affairs Committee.” But even if she were employed at RT, what would be unusual about it anyway? After all, many journalists have family members who’ve been involved in politics at one time or another. For instance, CNN host Christiane Amanpour’s husband James Rubin was an advisor to Hillary Clinton, and served as a US Assistant Secretary of State under her husband, Bill.

Plumbing the depths

So how bad is this report? You’d have to say on a scale of 1-10, it’d be eleven. The core message appears to be that having a point of view which is out of sync with the liberal popular media is considered a hostile act by US spooks. And it’s specifically the liberal press’ worldview they are defending here. Now, it’s up to you to judge whether this support, from state actors, is justified or not. The DNI’s submission is ostensibly the work of highly qualified intelligence experts, but everything you learn about RT comes from publicly available interviews and Tweets posted by this channel’s own people. Yet, we are supposed to believe how the best Russia brains of three agencies – the CIA, FBI and NSA – laboured to produce this stuff? That said, the latter doesn’t appear to be fully on board, offering “moderate” confidence, in contrast to the other’s “high confidence.” Approximately a third of the document centers on RT. And it appears that we should swallow how RT succeeded where the combined might of CNN, NBC, CBS, The Washington Post and the New York Times and others failed in influencing the US election. Not to mention the reality where 500 US media outlets endorsed Clinton and only 25 President-elect Donald Trump. It’s time to scream: “stop the lights!” Meanwhile, the “background info” on RT offered here appears to have been compiled on the basis of poorly translated decade old articles and long-obsolete stats. As a result, the only current stuff, actually relevant to the 2016 election, comes down to “Russia hacked US election because RT criticized Clinton.” The absurdity of the claim is evidently lost on the authors.

Fragile facts

The mistakes are myriad. Audience figures are out of date. And the general feel is of some kind of amateurish compilation from a think tank. In fact, you could argue that many lobby firms’ anti-Russia reports have been more polished than this offering. But they are chancers, with faux academic sounding titles, and the DNI is supposed to boast the finest minds of US intelligence.

Of course, it could also be argued that it’s the inevitable result of how funding for Russian studies was choked in the US after the Soviet collapse. And many have argued this point. Because it’s abundantly clear that all three agencies urgently need to hire better experts for their Russian desks. For example, people who’ve spent a bit of time in the country and can point to a rudimentary grasp of the language.

More outdated facts follow. When it comes to YouTube views, the report cites a figure of 800 million for RT. However, it’s five times higher, at four billion, and counting. Indeed, the English language channel alone can be proud of over 1.5 billion hits at present.

The point needs to be laboured because it exposes how shoddy this submission is. The compilers plainly couldn’t have been bothered to engage an intern to update their figures before publication. And it speaks volumes. So too when a Kommersant article, dated 07/04/2012 is explained as the fourth of July, as opposed to the seventh of April. Because you’d imagine Russia focused spies would be able to understand the European dating style, wouldn’t you?

Then there’s how the ‘investigators’ refer to Dmitry Kiselev and Vladimir Zhironovsky as somehow influential here. They allege the former’s TV show was biased towards Trump’s candidacy. But it’s a domestic programme, in Russian, aimed at people who live in Russia and can’t vote in US elections. Likewise, Zhirinovsky’s presence is bizarre (he’s described as a ‘Kremlin proxy’) because he’s an ageing clown. And, as it happens, his remark about “drinking champagne’ in the event of a Trump victory is rather mild given his track record. We are talking about a man who once predicted that George Bush’s soldiers would be “torn to pieces” if they invaded Iraq. So Nostradamus, he ain’t. And his clout with Putin is probably somewhere between slim and none.

The DNI’s report is beyond bad. And it’s scary to think how outgoing President Obama has stirred up a nasty diplomatic battle with Russia based on intelligence so devoid of insight and quality. There is nothing here which suggests the authors have any special savvy or insight. In fact, you could argue how a group of students would’ve assembled something of similar substance by simply reading back issues of The New York Times.

But the biggest takeaway is that it’s clear how the calibre of Russia expertise in America is mediocre, if not spookily sparse. And while this report might be fodder for amusement, the actual policy implications are nothing short of dangerous.

Bryan MacDonald is an Irish journalist, who is based in Russia

Syria’s Water, Irish Fascism & the White Helmets Murder Gang

Just before Christmas 2016, NATO’s Syrian rebels threw thousands of tonnes of diesel into Damascus’ water reservoirs before blowing up the wells to divert the water into nearby rivers, which immediately flooded. The result of this war crime is that the 5 million civilians of Damascus have been without water since then.

Mothers do not have water for their babies, hospitals do not have clean water and, incredibly, Irish aid organisations are directly complicit in this war crime by giving succour to the White Helmets who, as the above letter shows, have given their imprimatur to this war crime.

The White Helmets themselves are a NATO funded ISIS auxiliary force, the worst of the Black and Tans with the best PR agents and crocodile smiles Gulf State money can buy. Even though not a single one of the 100,000 civilian hostages rescued from East Aleppo had ever heard of them, let alone seen the White Helmets in action, Western organisations paid this al Nusra and ISIS affiliated group tens of millions of dollars supposedly to rescue women and children, with USAID alone paying them a whopping $23 million to spread their fictions and their bile

Such was the mega hype around this fraudulent group that brain-dead Hollywood actors, British MPs and Irish aid organisations all heavilypimped them for the Nobel Peace Prize – despite their documented serial collusion in al Nusra’s war crimes and despite there being no independent evidence of them ever having performed even one rescue mission.

Irish groups which supported these war criminals’ attempts to win the Nobel Peace Prize include GOAL, Trócaire and the Irish branch of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Controversial Irish journalist Mary Fitzgerald has predictably been unstinting in her praise of this gangster group, which has even been allowed to address the Irish Parliament on more than one occasion.

The Irish edition of the Daily Mirror even says the main thing Irish people can do to help Syria is to donate to the White Helmets, a group which acts as al Nusra’s undertakers and which thinks poisoning the water supply for Damascus, which has a population akin to that of the entire island of Ireland, is an acceptable tactic, whereas such barbarities have always been regarded as the war crimes that they are.

The Daily Mirror is wrong. The worst thing Irish people can do is to support terror groups like the White Helmets. The best thing they can do is to do their humanitarian duty and oppose them and all in Ireland who give them succour.

If that includes Trócaire as well as GOAL and Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF), so be it.

A senior Israeli diplomat in London has been reprimanded after he admitted a plot to “take down” Britain’s deputy foreign minister to an undercover journalist.

Shai Masot, a senior political officer at the Israeli Embassy, admitted that was working to damage the career of Sir Alan Duncan MP, who is outspoken in his support of the Palestinian state.

Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, apologised to Duncan on Friday, while a spokesperson for Israel said “the embassy considered the remarks to be completely unacceptable”.

Masot refused the opportunity to comment personally or to explain what he meant when he said he wanted to “take down” a number of MPs.

Speaking with Maria Strizzolo, a political aide to the Conservative minister, Robert Halfon, Masot says Duncan is “doing a lot of problems” and references a list of MPs that he wants to take down.

Masot was filmed in October as part of an Al Jazeera investigation, which reveals “attempts by the Israeli government’s to influence British democracy“.

The programme, which has not yet been released, showcases the Israeli government’s attempts to infiltrate the Conservative and Labour parties in order to manipulate their policies and agendas.

Two other politicians named during the conversation included Crispin Blunt MP, the pro-Palestinian chairperson of the foreign affairs select committee and Boris Johnson MP, the UK’s foreign minister, whom Masot was seemingly uninterested in.

“You know [Boris] is an idiot, but so far he has become the Minister of Foreign Affairs without any kind of responsibilities,” said Masot.

The Soft Coup Collapses – CIA Bluffing, Russia Did Not Hack, Blackmail Revealed – What Next?

By Robert David Steele, January 09 2017

CIA was bluffing, produced no evidence – Russians did not “hack” the election. Is this the beginning of the end of the Deep State in the USA? Can Trump clean house & wage peace?

Russian ‘Cyberattacking’ – When the Most Flagrant Lie Becomes the Truth

By Peter Koenig, January 10 2017

Russian ‘Hacking’ and tilting the American elections in favor of Donald Trump’s is one of the most flagrant lies the White House has thrown around the world. Yet, Mr. Obama is desperate to make the American people and the world believe it did actually happen. As Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, said some 70 years ago, and many before and after him, “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth”.

Here’s How Goldman Sachs Became the Overlord of the Trump Administration

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens, January 10 2017

How did a candidate who repeatedly demonized Goldman Sachs as the poster child for a corrupt establishment that owned Washington end up with Goldman Sachs’ progeny filling every post that even tangentially has the odor of money or global finance? One answer is family ties; another may be something darker.

Billionaires to Key Cabinet Positions: Is Donald Trump the “Back Door Man” for Henry A. Kissinger & Co?

By F. William Engdahl, January 10 2017

The term Back Door Man has several connotations. In the original blues song written by Willie Dixon, it refers to a man having an affair with a married woman, using the back door to flee before the husband comes home. During the Gerald Ford Presidency, Back Door Man was applied to Dick Cheney as Ford’s White House Chief of Staff and his “skills” at getting what he wanted through opaque means. More and more as Cabinet choices are named, it looks like the entire Trump Presidency project is emerging as Henry A. Kissinger’s “Back Door Man,” in the Cheney meaning of the term.

The End of Ideology in Cuba?

By Arnold August, January 10 2017

In Cuba, in the last year or so, there has been a steady increase in the End of Ideology code words and buzz phrases emitted by some marginal Cuban bloggers and intellectuals. They were timid at first but became increasingly bold. To mention just a few: complaining of what they see as a “sterile dichotomy between socialism and capitalism”; advising Cuban revolutionaries to be “balanced and more profound in offering their criticism” of U.S. imperialism; opposing what they consider the extremist “Fidelista” and “anti-Castro” positions, placing both on the same footing; labelling those who are Marxist-Leninist or Fidelista as “extremists” or “fanatics”; writing about “two major fallacies of what it means to be a revolutionary in Cuba, from the left and right,” both being based on “exclusive dogma”; and, finally, asserting that “life is much more profound than even ideology.”

Barack Obama fu «santo subito»: appena entrato alla Casa Bianca fu insignito preventivamente nel 2009 del Premio Nobel per la pace grazie ai «suoi straordinari sforzi per rafforzare la diplomazia internazionale e la cooperazione tra i popoli». Mentre la sua amministrazione già preparava segretamente, tramite la segretaria di stato Hillary Clinton, la guerra che due anni dopo avrebbe demolito lo stato libico, estendendosi poi alla Siria e all’Iraq tramite gruppi terroristici funzionali alla strategia Usa/Nato.

Donald Trump è invece «demone subito», ancor prima di entrare alla Casa Bianca. Viene accusato di aver usurpato il posto destinato a Hillary Clinton, grazie a una malefica operazione ordinata dal presidente russo Putin. Le «prove» sono fornite dalla Cia, la più esperta in materia di infiltrazioni e colpi di stato. Basti ricordare le sue operazioni per provocare e condurre le guerre contro Vietnam, Cambogia, Libano, Somalia, Iraq, Jugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libia, Siria; i suoi colpi di stato in Indonesia, El Salvador, Brasile, Cile, Argentina, Grecia. Milioni di persone imprigionate, torturate e uccise;  milioni sradicate dalle loro terre, trasformate in profughi oggetto di una vera e propria tratta degli schiavi. Soprattutto bambine e giovani donne, schiavizzate, violentate, costrette a prostituirsi.

Tutto questo dovrebbe essere ricordato da chi, negli Usa e in Europa, organizza il 21 gennaio la Marcia delle donne per difendere giustamente quella parità di genere conquistata con dure lotte, continuamente messa in discussione da posizioni sessiste come quelle espresse da Trump. Non è però questa la ragione per cui Trump è messo sotto accusa in una campagna che costituisce un fatto nuovo nella procedura di avvicendamento alla Casa Bianca: questa volta la parte perdente non riconosce la legittimità del presidente neoeletto, ma tenta un impeachment preventivo. Trump viene presentato come una sorta di «Manchurian Candidate» che, infiltrato alla Casa Bianca, verrebbe controllato da Putin, nemico degli Stati uniti.

Gli strateghi neocon, artefici della campagna, cercano in tal modo di impedire un cambio di rotta nelle relazioni degli Stati uniti con la Russia, che l’amministrazione Obama ha riportato a livello di guerra fredda. Trump è un «trader» che, continuando a basare la politica statunitense sulla forza militare, intende aprire un negoziato con la Russia, possibilmente anche per indebolire l’alleanza di Mosca con Pechino.

In Europa temono un allentamento della tensione con la Russia anzitutto i vertici Nato, cresciuti d’importanza con l’escalation militare della nuova guerra fredda, e i gruppi di potere dei paesi dell’Est – in particolare Ucraina, Polonia e paesi baltici  –  che puntano sull’ostilità alla Russia per avere un crescente appoggio militare ed economico da parte della Nato e della Ue. In tale quadro, non possono essere taciute nelle manifestazioni del 21 gennaio le responsabilità di quanti hanno trasformato l’Europa in prima linea del confronto, anche nucleare, con la Russia.

Dovremmo manifestare non come sudditi statunitensi che non vogliono un presidente «cattivo» e ne chiedono uno «buono», ma per liberarci dalla sudditanza verso  gli Stati uniti che, indipendetemente da chi ne sia presidente, esercitano la loro influenza in Europa tramite la Nato; per uscire da questa alleanza di guerra, per pretendere la rimozione delle armi nucleari Usa dai nostri paesi. Dovremmo manifestare per avere voce, come cittadine e cittadini, nelle scelte di politica estera che, indissolubilmente legate a quelle economiche e politiche interne, determinano le nostre condizioni di vita e il nostro futuro.

 Manlio Dinucci

The Syrian army has repelled a major Jabhat Fatah al-Sham-led attack in eastern Hama. Last night, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and its allies advanced near the villages of Ramlieh, Khunayfis and Sultanieh, engaging Syrian army units in an intense fighting in the area. However, army troops, backed up by warplanes and artillery units, foiled the attack and kept their positions in the area. The situation remains tense.

On Sunday, government forces liberated the most part of the Hazrama town and seized the village of Tal Farzat in the Eastern Ghouta region or Rif Damascus. Jaish al-Islam units made a number of attempts to regain the lost areas from the Syrian Army’s Republican Guard and the National Defense Forces (NDF) but failed to do this. On Monday, clashes continued there.

On Saturday, the Syrian government and militant groups operating in the Wadi Barada area reached a reconciliation agreement, according to which militant groups were set to allow the restoration of the water supplies to Damascus , to hand over light, medium and heavy weapons to the Syrian army, and to surrender itself to government forces or to withdraw from Wadi Barada.

The agreement was made due to the recent gains of government forces in the area and a mediation the Russian military delegation that had arrived in the area.

On Sunday, the Syrian army and the NDF resumed an offensive operation in Wadi Barada. The main reason was that militants blocked entry of government engineers to fix the water supply line to Damascus.  On Monday, government forces were in control of Dahr al-Masaby, several hills northwest of Deir Meqren and continued to develop the advance. The military pressure by government forces will likely push local militant groups to fulfill the terms of the recently concluded agreement within this week.

Last weekend, the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force bombed ISIS targets in eastern Homs.  Russian and Syrian warplanes and combat helicopters reportedly conducted raids against ISIS terrorists near the Tyas Airbase, Jabab Hamd, Dhabat al-Malah, Shaer gas fields, Arak gas fields, the al-Shoumeriyeh mountain and al-Sukhnah. The delivered military strikes resulted in killing of some 60 ISIS members and wounding dozens others.

The Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force kept focus on this region due to a tense situation near the government-held Tyas Airbase which ISIS sees as its main target in the province.

Meanwhile, pro-ISIS sources released a fresh photo-report from the area of al-Bab where the Turkish Armed Forces and pro-Turkish militant groups were attempting to break ISIS defenses near this key Syrian town. The photo report included an alleged photo of the Russian Su-35 (or Su-30) multi-role fighter. According to reports, the warplane had been operating in the area, supporting Turkish forces advancing against ISIS. If true, it will be the first real evidence of reports that Russia provides an air support to Turkish forces in northern Syria.

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I was returning with other volunteers in our fire department’s SUV after our community training course. This was last autumn, not long after the Republican Party convention. Not unreasonably, our conversation during the long drive home turned to Donald Trump. Frank, usually rather taciturn, turned to a younger member of our crew with uncharacteristic passion: “They’ll take all our guns away. Wait and see,” he declared. Frank was not applauding Trump as much as he was cursing a generic government which he sees threatening his right to own guns. Frank proceeded determinedly to declare how the US government is encroaching on our lives– not his life, ours– with its excessive regulations: “Look around us here, look at this beautiful country! They want to control it. Just leave the land alone”, he pleaded.

Frank hunts deer and turkeys in season and is a proud owner of several guns. But I wouldn’t describe Frank as right-wing or violent. He volunteers his time to the local fire department, he opposes fracking (oil and gas drilling technology that has aroused much debate and warnings from environmentalists), and his simple dream is to buy land in the next county to build a small farm. Despite his support for Trump’s candidacy, I felt Frank was neither attacking Democrats nor hailing Republicans. (He is dissatisfied, or fearful– doubtless partly due to his bleak job outlook.) I suspect that he championed the Republican front-runner as someone who offers him better odds that his prospects will improve.

I first met Frank at our community fire hall. He was stretched out under one of the fire engines attaching a trailer hitch to the chassis. He happily spent several hours there, wrench in hand, shirt soiled, grunting and chuckling. As a volunteer first-responder, Frank is provided with accident insurance, but only if injured on a call. Neither he nor his wife—she works as a waitress for minimum wage at a local café– nor their son has family health protection.

As a part-time house painter with a local contractor, Frank’s income is low. He leftNew Jersey for upstateNew Yorktwo years ago because, at forty-five, he had back problems and had to quit his previous job stacking cement blocks. Notwithstanding his affection for guns—I think it’s the mechanics of guns that he enjoys, similar to his fondness for his old truck and his motorbike– Frank holds values which people identifying as ‘liberal’ would consider progressive. He’s an organic food enthusiast, for example. And what he can’t grow in the back garden (of his rented house), he willingly pays premium prices for at organic markets. The family’s eggs come from hens he feeds with organic fodder. Not unreasonably, he prides himself on his discerning tastes: he prepares sushi and sashimi, his favorite food. And he drinks only ‘craft beer’, a new industry popular with young liberals. With his wife, Frank visits nearby towns to compare local brews– a favorite evening pastime for them.

Although Frank highlights gun ownership in his politics, I doubt if guns are what really draws him to Trump. In fact many people I know in our town who are keen hunters are actually Democrats. (N.Y.’s Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, like Bernie Sanders, endorses the sport and thereby supports gun ownership.) It’s complicated, as they say.

Americans residing outside metropolises are not as simplistic and monocultural—nor are they ‘racist’– as news articles purport. Gun owners like Frank who live in rural areas (Trump Country?) really do not fit the one-dimensional mould others with different hobbies cast them in. I see no evidence that Frank and fellow beer aficionados are more ignorant, bigoted, intolerant, or racist than anyone else.

This corresponds to what the prolific sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild concludes from her experience in Louisiana. Her fine new book, Strangers in Their Own Land,  is based on her comprehensive five-year study of Lake Charles, an “arch-conservative Louisiana bayou” community. A timely project employing anthropology research methods, Hochschild’s work was published just as America’s deep cultural fault lines were exposed during the recent presidential campaign. Hochschild story of “anger and mourning in the American right” portrays a community unlike what outsiders have ever seen and known: their members are kind, religious, and not at all intolerant. (This picture is reinforced by another recent release, the memoir Hillbilly Elegy

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062300546/hillbilly-elegy.)

Indeed, they reject accusations of racism from our ‘liberal press’. And they can argue convincingly for their conservative positions. Their stories, recorded by Hochschild in extensive and vivid biographies, expose ambiguities and differences among people impacted by industrial pollution and low employment prospects. The wider public and journalists in particular would do well to make note of the detailed picture this highly skilled scholar provides.

Still I would caution that we not accept Hochschild’s portrait as exclusive to this ‘far-right’ (Trump Country) corner ofAmerica. Conditions she describes, I would argue, are not confined to a depressed, industry-exploited region. There’s a danger that we assumeLake Charles,Louisiana, represents an alien and unworthy hinterland of the American south. (Examining election statistics for New York, we’d be shocked to learn that in this proudly ‘liberal state’, only 19.7 % of registered voters cast ballots during recent presidential primaries, a record that is second worst in the country to– guess where?Louisiana.)

What most disturbs me is not the character of these communities, or Frank’s mixed values. More troubling is how putative ‘liberals’ view fellow Americans who are Republican Party supporters as personally and culturally deficient. (Did you notice the distinction pre-election pollsters made of non-college educated and college graduates?)

In October, at Democratic Party candidates’ field offices in my district, I overheard shockingly derisive comments from volunteer canvassers about Republican opponents (comments overlooked by the presiding field officer). If uttered by ‘conservatives’, there’d be accusations (from ‘liberals’) of bigotry and racism.

Had I not known about Frank’s fondness for Japanese sushi, seen his pride that his 14-year-old son forgoes cafeteria meals at school for the organic sandwiches prepared by his father, and had I not witnessed Frank’s commitment to our fire  department and his care for his garden, I might have assigned him to ‘Trump Country’ and kept my distance.

Maybe because I’m an anthropologist and journalist, I’m curious to know Frank; I can easily approach him to learn about his life and his ideals. Most Americans who consider themselves ‘liberal’ would remain aloof from Frank, if not out of some irrational fear, then due to a perceived class or occupational divide. This is worrisome. And I’m not the first observer now questioning the real nature (perhaps the myth) of ‘liberal’ America. It’s evident that this sector of our citizenry is less well informed than it believes it is, more driven by emotion and prejudice than it realizes. And it harbors dangerous biases. Perhaps it is itself guilty of racism. The November 8^th election results exposed ‘liberals’’ imprudence of being better educated and more qualified for leadership as misguided. As one Marxist Nepali critic I recently spoke to observed ofClinton’s much heralded pre-election rally inPennsylvania with music celebrities: “They went to the concert to see the stars, not her.”

 Barbara Nimri Aziz, a New York-based anthropologist and writer, hosted RadioTahrir on Pacifica-WBAI in New York City for 24 years. Her 2007 book Swimming Up the Tigris: Real Life Encounters with Iraq is based on her 13 years covering Iraq. Aziz’ writings and radio productions can be accessed at www.RadioTahrir.org.

The political future of Iraq is uncertain because of the intensified domestic splits between its constituent Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish communities which were exacerbated by Daesh over the past couple of years. Post-2003 Iraq has been continually plagued by communal violence, but never before had each of its three communities been so divided from one another.

Up until this point, none of them were able to stake a plausible claim to quasi-independence, except of course the Kurds, but even so, Erbil would have been unlikely to succeed with this so long as the Iraqi Army projected an image of strength. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what it was – an image – since it’s well-known how quickly they retreated in the face of Daesh’s advances in summer 2014. The present situation of dramatic domestic divisions within Iraq are most directly attributed to that moment, as the presumably “unified” state thenceforth ceased to exist once Baghdad’s authority was essentially restricted to the capital, and even there, it wasn’t functionally present in all neighborhoods.

The ongoing liberation campaign in Mosul is progressing at a snail’s pace, and that’s partially attributable to both the dangerous mistrust between all “allied” factions and the US’ efforts to maximize the latter in order to further divide and rule over its former de-facto military colony of Iraq. Moreover, the involvement of two other foreign powers aside from the US – Turkey and Iran – makes Iraq a cauldron of proxy conflict on par with Syria and Afghanistan.

Generally speaking, Turkey supports the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) due to the intimate pro-Ankara ties that its leader Masoud Barzani has cultivated for years, Iran supports the Shiite militias, and the US stands behind the Iraqi Army and select Sunni tribesmen. Although there have been reports of tension between the Kurds and Shiites (and more broadly, one could generalize as being between Turkey and Iran via their Iraqi proxies), the crux of potential civil conflict in Iraq is between the Sunnis and each of these two groups.

Additionally, Baghdad – no matter which ethno-religious faction is controlling it at any given time – is for the most part consistently reluctant to further devolve the state, meaning that it will resist Identity Federalism in a post-Daesh political environment, though it’s uncertain if it would go as far as commencing a civil war over this issue. This brings the analysis around to discussing the prospects for a renewed period of domestic conflict after Daesh is cleansed from Iraq. Neither Turkey nor Iran wants to have their shared neighbor embroiled in a prolonged and unresolvable war, though both of course have their own interests to protect within their mutually adjacent state.

However, given that Tehran and Ankara are enjoying a renaissance of relations with one another ever since the failure of last summer’s pro-American coup against Erdogan, it’s unlikely that they’ll take any dangerous and unilateral moves which could be interpreted by their counterpart as potentially sparking a civil war. Therefore, it’s much more likely that both Mideast Great Powers will likely advocate in favor of expanded federalism in Iraq and the legal establishment of three de-facto independent statelets centered on the country’s three constituent identities.

To be fair, the pro-American Sunni minority in the country is also somewhat in favor of this, and had been previously agitating for it. The problem – as they perceive it – is that the prospective Kurdish and Shiite regions of an Identity Federalized Iraq contain the majority of the country’s oil and most of its economic activity, meaning that the Sunni portion of this political arrangement would likely be the poorest and least developed, which could possibly provide fertile ground for the cultivation of radical ideologies and the subtle prolongation of Daesh sympathies.

Even if the Sunni part of the country were to somehow reach a deal for resource and revenue sharing with the other two portions – which is very unlikely – there’s no guarantee that this could serve as a panacea for its economic and ideological ailments. Therefore, no matter the domestic constitution of post-Daesh Iraq – whether federal or otherwise – it’s foreseen that the Sunni-majority parts will remain the most conflict-prone and susceptible to outside ideological influence and provocations, ergo why the US appears to favor it.

Washington understands that this community can provide a reliable platform for dividing and ruling the interconnected “Syraq” battlespace, and while the Kurds could also function in a similar strategic fashion – and actually do to a large extent, given their close ties with the US and ‘Israel’ – there’s a strong chance that the Tripartite ‘Concert of Great Powers’ between Russia, Iran, and Turkey could succeed in neutralizing or at the very least mitigating this geostrategic threat. However, it’s less likely that they could do this when it comes to the transnational and ultra-‘traditionalist’ Sunni communities straddling the rural areas of “Syraq”, as the optics involved would be extremely negative and could inadvertently provoke wider regional tensions, to say nothing of dividing the incipient Tripartite by isolating Sunni-majority and Muslim Brotherhood-influenced Turkey.

Looking forward, the on-the-ground division of forces in post-Daesh Iraq, dependent and influenced to a large degree by the ongoing liberation campaign in Mosul, will provide the firmest indication of which political direction Iraq is headed in. The potential for identity conflict in the immediate aftermath or just prior to the conclusion of this war is very high, and the US and its Gulf allies might seek to provoke this scenario in order to more easily divide and rule “Syraq” and create asymmetrical challenges for Turkey and Iran.

The ideal eventuality would be if Iraq were to somehow return to its tense but “unified” former nature, but this is all but impossible, meaning that it’s much more likely that Identity Federalism will be implemented to a large degree sometime in the future. This brings with it a host of problems, namely over the territorial reorganization of the country, particularly as it relates to Kurdish claims over Kirkuk. Other expected problems could be over revenue sharing, the organization of each statelet’s own military forces, the division of Baghdad, and the authority that the central government and its organs (military, tax, diplomatic, etc.) will hold over each of the three entities.

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency.
Hamsa Haddad is the Syrian researcher based in Moscow.