Recent weeks have seen a series of incidents, mainly on the Donbass, suggesting a large-scale escalation of combat operations cannot entirely be ruled out. Ukrainian forces have stepped up bombardments of frontline LPR/DPR positions and of Novorossia cities and towns. There have been a number of efforts by regular UAF forces and by “volunteer battalions” to seize key terrain features and occupy abandoned villages located in the “no-man’s land” separating the warring parties.

The head of LPR Igor Plotnitskiy barely survived an assassination attempt. Most recently, the FSB has thwarted a terror plot in the Republic of Crimea hatched by infiltrators from Ukraine proper at the cost of the deaths of two Russian servicemembers and the wounding of several others. One of the detainees is a so-called “ATO veteran”, and is reputed to be working for Ukraine’s military intelligence. These events suggest that there indeed are parties interested in a military escalation. Who are they?

The Hillary Clinton Campaign

Even though Barack Obama, who is by now a lame-duck president, and Secretary of State John Kerry have pursued a relatively moderate line toward Ukraine and Russia since the winter 2014/15 campaign, it does not mean everyone in the Washington establishment shares their priorities. There are plenty of hotheads in Ashton Carter’s Defense Department, the intelligence establishment, as well as the State Department itself, and they are both betting that Hillary will be their next president and doing their utmost to ensure she gets elected.

Because she will need all the help she can get. In spite of a massive fundraising advantage and the endorsements of Washington establishment, Hillary is not decisively ahead of Trump in the polls. Many former Bernie Sanders supporters are looking to Donald Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The candidates have yet to undergo the customary three televised debates, and in the primary battles Trump performed rather better than Clinton in that venue.

The wild accusations of the Hand of the Kremlin interfering in US elections are a clear-cut reflection of the ill-concealed panic felt by the Democratic Party establishment. Unable to deal with the problems inherent in their candidate and campaign, they seek to divert attention by accusing Russia of somehow being behind Trump’s candidacy. Since these accusations are not having their desired effect, why not change the news cycle by having Ukraine, which has been all but forgotten by Western media, since its problems are an embarrassment to the Western leaders who were behind the Maidan “revolution of dignity”, return to Breaking News-level coverage because of, once again, “Russian aggression.” Given the extensive backing Hillary enjoys among the foreign policy establishment, it is entirely possible the appropriate encouragement could be unofficially given to the relevant parties in Kiev, behind the backs of the Kerry and even Obama himself. But who are the relevant parties in Kiev?

Kiev Hardliners

They are the usual suspects. National Security and Defense Council chief Turchinov, Minister of the Interior Avakov, and the whole array of “volunteer battalions” are the most interested in an escalation, and the sooner the better.  Using the SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office, Poroshenko has been steadily encroaching on the Turchinov’s and Avakov’s empires, including their most important assets–the volunteer battalions. Normalization of relations with Russia would spell doom to these formations, and even the absence of active fighting is sufficient to undermine their raison d’etre for while the population at large could accept the existence of these marauders in their midst as long as the masses were convinced “Russia was invading”, when there is no fighting their presence is turning large swaths of the population against them. Therefore it is no accident that Turchinov is always among the first to call for the introduction of “martial law” in Ukraine. But for that you need a war, and if Poroshenko is unwilling to give them one, they can very easily manufacture one themselves by escalating on the Donbass, staging assassination attempts, and even infiltrating terrorists into Crimea.

Kiev “Moderates”

All of that is placing Poroshenko is a difficult spot because he really does not want to choose between Putin and the hardliners. Given the state of the military and its infiltration by nationalist elements, it is by no means clear that Poroshenko would emerge the winner of a general civil war. The UAF is badly short of equipment and experienced personnel, has been reduced to issuing World War 2-vintage weapons to its troops, and is experiencing shortages even of small-arms ammunition as it has no munitions factories of its own. Moreover, Vladimir Putin’s reaction to the capture of a Ukrainian operative in Crimea left Poroshenko little wiggle room.

Putin not only made it clear he is not interested in further “Normandy Format” talks, but also referred to the Lugansk People’s Republic by its full name for the first time ever thus hinting at its recognition by the Russian Federation, and in general used language very similar to that used vis-a-vis Turkey following the shoot-down of the Su-24. Poroshenko no doubt caught the suggestion that he is now expected to end his double game and make a firm choice in favor or either peace or war. Historically, Poroshenko has preferred something in the middle, knowing that a wrong step in one or the other direction would surely cost him his presidency. Peace would force him to face popular discontent with the economy and corruption that the imitation of war with Russia helps keep at bay. Outright war would lead to a swift military defeat and replacement by one of the hardliners who could rightly place all of Ukraine’s failings at Poroshenko’s feet. But now the pressure on Poroshenko to make peace appears to be increasing, in the same way that it was ratcheted up against Erdogan.

Kiev “Tourists”

The final component is the Georgian diaspora, most visibly represented by Georgia’s ex-president Saakashvili, with many senior officials seeded throughout Ukraine’s state administration. Their numbers, status, and ties to the West (which are far more extensive than any of the other two factions’) make them a potent faction in their own right, a veritable tie-breaker in any conflict between the hardliners and “moderates”. They, too, favor an escalation because peace means death for them too.  Fixing Ukraine is beyond their abilities, even if it ever was their intent, for their eyes have always been oriented toward Georgia. Saakashvili and others dream of returning to Georgia as conquering heroes, flush if not with their successes at reforming Ukraine’s economy and political system, then at least on the wings of US military support. For that reason, as far as they are concerned, escalation is the only card remaining for them to play.

Meanwhile in the Rest of the World

In the rest of the world things are not going Ukraine’s way. Not only has Turkey’s president Erdogan come to Moscow to apologize for the Su-24 shoot-down and thank Putin for his support during the coup, it looks like UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May is about to follow suit. EU’s continental powers have had enough of Ukraine and want the problem to go away as quickly as possible, now that Turkey is once again threatening to flood the continent with refugees. All of that, plus the never-ending economic malaise, mean that Europeans are unwilling to continue the current course of sanctions, though no single European leader wants to be the first to travel to Moscow and imitate Erdogan’s performance, though May’s visit just might trigger something of the kind. The shift in the public and elite opinion away from the idea of desirability of confrontation with Russia is also a restraining factor on Ukraine’s actions, though it has to be noted that Europe’s “softness” represents a major reason for Hillary’s minions to undermine the looming Russia-West rapprochement.

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“Regime Change” in Syria is the ultimate objective, coupled with the US-Turkey-NATO invasion and military occupation of Northern Syria.

The end goal is the installation of an Islamic State. Ultimately what is contemplated is the conquest of the entire country and the surrender of the Damascus government. 

French President Francois Hollande calls for the “neutralization” of Syria’s president Assad as “a precondition for peace”: 

“We must reduce the terrorist influence without maintaining Assad. The two are bound up together,”

We must create a political transition in Syria, it’s a necessity.

He laid out three conditions for resolving the crisis — the first of which was the “neutralization” of Assad.

The second was to offer “solid guarantees to all the moderate opposition forces, notably the Sunnis and Kurds, and to preserve state structures and the unity of Syria.”

The final condition, which he said would be “decisive”, was to bring together regional actors with a stake in the conflict.

“I’m thinking of the Gulf countries, I’m thinking also of Iran. I’m thinking of Turkey which must get involved in the fight against Daesh (an alternative name for the Islamic State group) and resume the dialogue with the Kurds,” Hollande said.

Syria’s foreign ministry reacted angrily to Hollande’s speech, saying it “constituted a flagrant intrusion in internal affairs and shows that France contributes to the spilling of Syrian blood”.

“The French government should know that as long as it maintains these positions, we will not accept any role for France in a political solution,” the ministry’s statement added.

Hollande said France would continue to support “moderate” members of the Syrian opposition and coalition airstrikes against IS in neighboring Iraq.

“Terrorism threatens all the actors in the region… and all world powers,” he said. “Resolving the Syrian crisis demands the participation of all, and France is ready to play its part.” Naharnet

In a bitter irony, while US-NATO is waging a counter-terrorism campaign, the various Islamic terrorist entities are supported by the Western military alliance as a means to destabilizing and destroying the institutions of the secular state.

Syria’s foreign ministry reacted to Hollande’s speech, saying it:

“constituted a flagrant intrusion in internal affairs and shows that France contributes to the spilling of Syrian blood.”

“The French government should know that as long as it maintains these positions, we will not accept any role for France in a political solution,” the ministry’s statement added.

The counter-terrorism campaign against the Islamic State is bogus, The precondition for peace is the “neutralization” of the “State sponsors of terrorism” including Obama, Erdogan, Hollande among others.

Michel Chossudovsky contributed to this report

Interview to Chinese daily newspaper “People`s Daily” (Renmin Ribao)

Recently NATO held its summit in Warsaw. Warsaw used to be the place where the Warsaw Treaty was signed. Is there something special for NATO to choose such place to hold its summit?

Choosing Warsaw for the last NATO summit reflects acceleration of NATO expansionist strategy toward East.  Poland being, after Germany, the second largest and strongest country in the Baltic region plays very important role in the implementation of this strategy. In NATO plans Poland has particular role in overseeing Baltic Sea Basin and Baltic – Anatolia (Turkey) continental belt. Poland was first country to accept USA anti- rocket shield base on its territory, dislocation of so called rotating NATO commands, troops and weaponry. Generally, in the strategy of encircling and confronting Russia, USA relies more on fidelity and anti-Russian orientation of leaderships of former Warsaw Pact member countries than on some traditional West European allies. Probably, for the same reason, some earlier important NATO summits had also been held in East European countries:  Check Republic (2002), Latvia (2006), and Rumania (2008).

As a counterpart of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, is there any necessity for NATO to exist? How should it transform itself in the changed situation?

NATO was founded in 1949 as defensive alliance and Warsaw Pact six years later.

Fifty years after NATO became offensive Alliance. A turning point was 1999 NATO aggression on Serbia (Yugoslavia). It was engaged in an offensive action outside territory defined by own Founding Act, against the country which did not posed any danger to any NATO member state, violating UN Charter and undermining the role of UN Security Council. Although pretending to be democratic Alliance, Parliaments of member countries never approved such transformation.
NATO aims at achieving ultimate control of all world resources on behalf of multinational corporative capital, particularly on behalf of military-industrial, energy and financial sectors.

Analyzing NATO evolution from defense to aggressive force since the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, it may be concluded that NATO has become armed feast spreading and serving the interests of : a) neo-liberal corporate capitalism; b) world-wide privileges of the West headed by USA; and c) uni-polar world order. That`s NATO`s “Saint Trinity”. This strategy has led, among other, to: arbitrary proclaiming of national interest of major NATO member countries beyond any territorial, political or moral standards; undermining of the World order established after the Second World War, especially, the UN System; rise of global mistrust and arms race; eroding of democratic parliamentary system; and militarization of political decision making to suit the interests of military industrial sector.

On the other side, unprecedented trends in the world towards multi-polarity, sovereignty and independence lead to conclusion that NATO aims are not achievable. Serious question – whether this is understood and accepted by NATO decision makers – remains, up to now, without convincing answer. History teaches us that imperial pattern of thinking has no firm sense of reality. And, exactly here lays the reason for great worry about our future.
Otherwise, frankly speaking, I do not believe that NATO could evolve into peace and justice-loving association. It has gone too far in reasoning that the might is right and that wherever the law blocks NATO objectives it`s got be removed.

NATO is a relic of Cold War era. It does not serve objectives of peace, justice and sovereign equality of nations. Therefore, in my opinion, it should be dissolved as Warsaw Pact was dissolved. Being large as it is, NATO can hardly escape gradual weakening by internal divisions and conflict of interests until its final destination – history of aggressors, with all accompanying records. Current NATO problems provoked by unsuccessful coup d’état in Turkey might appear only as a peak of approaching iceberg.

Did the enlargement of NATO contribute to regional security? What effect has NATO made in the security of the Balkans? 

USA/NATO policy of expansion to the East (new “Drang nach Osten” doctrine) is just a segment of their strategy of domination and hegemony in the world. The process which has been going on for some time now in the Far East and Pacific appears as blueprint of those in Central and Eastern Europe. Don’t we also hear of arms and forces deployments there, of NATO hybrid expansion, muscles showing military exercises, lining up of USA/NATO allies, old and new ones?
To justify its existence and growing military expenditure after the end of Cold War NATO has been engaged in producing tensions, mistrust, fear and false justifications for introducing global interventionism and militarism.

Wherever NATO intervened, from Afghanistan and Iraq, to Libya and Mali it was leaving behind destroyed societies, fragmented states, hundreds of thousands of killed civilians, tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons, growing terrorism, tribal and religious wars, lasting misery and despair. Europe has been and still is collective victim of USA/NATO strategy of domination. Europe pays for USA/NATO hegemonic strategy, wars, sanctions, “colored revolutions”, “export of democracy”, regime changes etc. in terms of losses of sovereignty, development opportunities, own identity and dignity.

NATO was established as a regional Alliance. In the meantime it has been expanding in all parts of the world, including Far East and Pacific, trying to dominate globally. In addition to 28 formal members from Europe and North America, it has developed other forms of association, such as “Partnership for Peace”, special partnership and other arrangements which expand NATO associates to several dozens more.  Thus, NATO today is present in almost all corners of the world including Pacific, Indian and Atlantic, including even, Sothern Atlantic (Couracao).

Concerning Balkan, it should be noted that NATO played crucial role in fragmenting two Yugoslavia (SFRY and FRY) and even Serbia, undermining basic principles of OSCE and UN Charter. In 90-es its member countries had been helping transfer of Bin Laden`s mujahidin from Afghanistan, Chechnya, Middle East and Maghreb countries to Bosnia`s civil war. They also financed, armed and trained UCK terrorists in Serbia`s Province of Kosovo and Metohija. During 1999 military aggression on Serbia (FRY) NATO allied with UCK. Then, in 2008 NATO member countries were the first ones to recognize unilaterally proclaimed independence of the Province.

Could all that be constructive, in the interest of stability and development? Today, USA/NATO tries to reinforce their domination in the Balkans, particularly to contain normal relations and cooperation of regional countries with traditional partners and friends like Russia and China.

Moscow says the West is the aggressor, citing the eastward expansion of NATO. It has voiced its displeasure at the idea of any further enlargement. What do you think about it?

USA/NATO openly treats Russia as their enemy. At the same time USA/NATO military bases have been mushrooming closer to western Russian boarders (Baltic Republics, Poland). Several USA so called missile shield defense bases have been installed at the doorstep of Russia, particularly in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria.

In recent years USA/NATO have established many new military bases in Europe. Today Europe hosts more foreign military bases and hardware then at the time of the peak of Cold War! The first of the large network of new bases was “Bondstil”, USA base in Serbian Province Kosovo and Metohija (under occupation) established immediately after the end of NATO 1999 aggression on Serbia (FRY). Following three USA bases were established in Bulgaria, then four in Rumania and so on, closer to the Russian boarders. Why, what for? Warsaw summit reaffirmed obligation of each member country to devise 2% of GDP for military spending thus further fueling arms race. What for? Decision was taken to dislocate new 5.000 NATO soldiers in Poland, Baltic republics, Rumania and Bulgaria.

These are just liaison officers tasked to prepare conditions for dislocation of tens of thousands of forces, if and when USA/NATO decides so. What for? At the same time, NATO anti Russian propaganda is reminiscent of that of the Cold War time.

So, what else to expect from Russia than relevant answers to adequately protect own legitimate interests, first of all, security!

It is high time for western leadership, first of all USA, to recognize that military buildup, threats to encircle Russia and China and Cold War rhetoric – lead to nowhere. Major international problems – economic and financial crisis, growing international terrorism, migration crisis, nuclear arms proliferation and all others – cannot be resolved by the logic of domination and uni-polar reasoning. The world has already changed bringing back full meaning of sovereign equality and real partnership in solving international problems.

There must be something seriously wrong with policy makers who proclaim for enemies those whom they badly need to solve own problems.

Civil society groups in South Korea protested the start of the U.S-South Korean Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG) joint military exercises on August 22. Peace and anti-war organizations gathered in front of the U.S. embassy to demand an end to the joint military exercises, which increase war and military tensions on the Korean Peninsula as well as the Northeast Asia region.

The UFG military exercises will continue until September 2. Over 25,000 U.S. and 50,000 South Korean troops are participating in the military exercises. Despite denial by the United Nations, U.S. and South Korea on the provocative nature of these war games, the UFG will include the exercise of Operation Plan (OPLAN) 5015, a war plan designed to carry out pre-emptive strikes against North Korean nuclear and missile bases, as well as the “decapitation” of North Korean leadership. The OPLAN 5015, which includes the “4D” strategy (Detect, Disrupt, Destroy, Defend), was first practiced at the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises earlier this year in March.

Civil society organizations protesting in front of the U.S. embassy included Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK) and member organizations of the National Action to Oppose War and Realize Peace. The groups emphasized that the UFG military exercises are not for the defense of peace in the region but rather for pre-emptive attack intended to collapse North Korea’s leadership.

Over half of 1.4 million guns U.S. shipped into Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 are unaccounted for in DoD’s own records, watchdog discovers

The U.S. government has shipped over 1.4 million guns to Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, according a new analysis by the U.K.-based watchdog Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), but the Pentagon is only able to account for fewer than half of them.

AOAV released its analysis of publicly available data on U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) contracts on Wednesday, and added that when requested to provide its own accounting for the small arms provided to the war-torn nations, “the DoD data shows that over 700,000 small arms were sent from the U.S. to Iraq and Afghanistan within these periods. However, this amount only accounts for 48 percent of the total small arms supplied by the U.S. government that can be found in open source government reports.”

AOAV also noted that the total number of small weapons the U.S. provided to Iraq and Afghanistan is likely to be far higher than even the group’s count, as the Pentagon kept such shoddy records of the planeloads of weapons it dispatched to those countries—if it kept any records at all.

“Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,” observed C.J. Chivers in the New York Times Magazine, “the United States has handed out a vast but persistently uncountable quantity of military firearms to its many battlefield partners in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today the Pentagon has only a partial idea of how many weapons it issued, much less where these weapons are. Meanwhile, the effectively bottomless abundance of black-market weapons from American sources is one reason Iraq will not recover from its post-invasion woes anytime soon.”

“This failure shows the lack of accountability, transparency and joined up data that exists at the very heart of the U.S. government’s weapon procurement and distribution systems,” AOAV wrote.

Chivers added:

All together, the sheer size of the expenditures, the sustained confusion about totals and the multiple pressures eroding the stock combine to create a portrait of the Pentagon’s bungling the already-awkward role it chose for itself—that of state-building arms dealer, a role that routinely led to missions in clear opposition to each other. While fighting two rapidly evolving wars, the American military tried to create and bolster new democracies, governments and political classes; recruit, train and equip security and intelligence forces on short schedule and at outsize scale; repair and secure transportation infrastructure; encourage the spread or restoration of the legal industry and public services; and leave behind something more palatable and sturdy than rule by thugs.

Any one of these efforts would be difficult on its own. But the United States was trying all these things at once while buying and flying into both countries a prodigious quantity of light military weapons and handing them out to local people and outfits it barely knew. The recipients were often manifestly corrupt and sometimes had close ties to the same militias and insurgents who were trying to drive out the United States and make sure its entire nation-building project did not stand. It should not have been a surprise that American units in disaffected provinces and neighborhoods, and their partners, could encounter gunfire at every turn.

Today, “no one knows where many of the weapons are, until they turn up on social media or announce themselves in combat or crime with the crack of incoming fire, a reminder of tens of billions of dollars gone into nations where violence and terrorism continue apace,” Chivers wrote.

“What to do?” the Times reporter wondered. “If past is precedent, given enough time one of the United States’ solutions will be, once again, to ship in more guns.”

A new study out today from Johns Hopkins in Environmental Health Perspectives revealed associations between fracking and various health symptoms including nasal and sinus problems, migraines and fatigue in Pennsylvanians living near areas of natural gas development.

The study suggests that residents with the highest exposure to active fracking wells are nearly twice as likely to suffer from the symptoms.

This is the third study released by Hopkins in the past year that connects proximity to fracking sites with adverse health outcomes. Last fall, researchers found an association between fracking and premature births and high-risk pregnancies, and last month, found ties between fracking and asthma.

A natural gas rig side by side with homes in Washington County, Pennsylvania.B. Mark Schmerling

What’s more, a 2014 investigation revealed how health workers in Pennsylvania were silenced by the state Department of Health (DOH) and told not to respond to health inquiries that used certain fracking “buzzwords.” Documents obtained by Food & Water Watch last year indicate the DOH was inundated with fracking-related health concerns ranging from shortness of breath and skin problems to asthma, nose and throat irritation, which were ignored or pushed aside. While the industry will no doubt continue to refute the expanding science about the dangers of fracking, we can’t afford to ignore it. The public health and climate impacts of extreme fossil fuel extraction requires bold leadership to keep fossil fuels in the ground and transition swiftly to renewable energy.

“El grado de civilización de una sociedad se mide entrando a sus cárceles” , Fiódor Mijailovich Dostoyevski

Foto extraída de artículo de La Nación (Costa Rica) del 2012 titulado “Cárceles tocan cifra record de hacinamiento”.

Medios de prensa en Costa Rica han dado a conocer en los primeros días de este mes de agosto del 2016 la decisión del juez Roy Murillo Rodríguez de ordenar al Estado, el pasado 20 de julio, el cierre definitivo de la Unidad de San Sebastián, por tratarse de una verdadera “jaula humana” (ver  nota  de La Nación del 1/08/2016). En esta otra  nota del medio digital CRHoy, se precisó que las autoridades de Costa Rica debían reubicar a más de 1260 personas privadas de libertad.

A pocos días de esta primera noticia, se informó que la jueza Xinia Solis Pomares en Alajuela también ordenó a las autoridades que no ingresaran más personas al denominado  “Ambito B” en otro centro penal, el de La Reforma (ver el  texto  completo de la medida correctiva reproducida en DerechoAlDía así como la nota de La Extra del 11/08/2016).

En esta última, leemos que para el Director de Adaptación Social, la situación en el “Ambito B” no es muy distinta a la de los demás pabellones: “Actualmente podría decirle que en similar condición están los ámbitos A, C, D y F, esas son estructuras que datan de más de 30 años, y que lastimosamente ya han cumplido su vida útil, ahora con esta problemática de la sobrepoblación carcelaria, pues los espacios son totalmente reducidos para tanto privado de libertad”.  No obstante lo anterior, en esta otra  nota  de La Nación, leemos, por parte del mismo funcionario, que: “De momento, consideramos que no es necesario hacer una circular. Vamos a intentar reubicar a los muchachos en los distintos módulos de esa prisión”: no cabe duda que reubicar a privados de libertad en otros ámbitos con condiciones similares a las del Ámbito B puede resultar un tanto extraño para un observador.

Finalmente, el pasado 22 de agosto, la prensa indicó que las autoridades optaron por cerrar otro ámbito de la Reforma, el ámbito F: se lee en esta  nota  de prensa de La Nación del 22/08/2016 que para el actual Vice Ministro de Justicia de Costa Rica: “Nosotros llegamos y nos encontramos con una infraestructura que es absolutamente violatoria de los derechos humanos. Tiende a despersonalizar a la gente que está encerrada. El tema del aislamiento es muy delicado, debe ser algo muy restringido porque genera efectos muy dañinos sobre la salud de las personas. Por ejemplo, nos encontramos con gente que ya se le dificulta hablar. Y eso es inhumano”.

Cabe precisar que tanto la jueza Xinia Solis Pomares como el juez Roy Murillo Rodríguez son jueces ejecutores de la pena: se trata de una figura legal que no necesariamente existe en todas las legislaciones penales de América Latina, y que permite  a quienes ostentan este cargo, proceder a visitas regulares a centros de detención, como parte de sus funciones.

La falta de atención a señalamientos anteriores

Hace tres años, se leyó por parte de otra entidad pública costarricense a cargo de visitas regulares a los centros de detención en Costa Rica (ajena al sistema judicial) que:

“La Defensoría de los Habitantes consideró que las cárceles costarricenses “son depósitos de personas” que violan la dignidad humana tanto de reos, como del personal técnico y de seguridad. Así se consignó en el informe anual sobre la situación en el 2012, del sistema penitenciario, trabajo elaborado por el Mecanismo Nacional de Prevención de la Tortura de la Defensoría” (ver  nota  de La Nación del 28 de mayo del 2013).

Políticas de “mano dura”, “mano firme”, y leyes altamente represivas en Costa Rica adoptadas hace algunos años, así como el uso abusivo de la detención preventiva ante la presión ejercida por los medios de comunicación, explican, al menos en parte, el problema de hacinamiento actual que sufre el sistema carcelario costarricense (y en particular la Unidad de San Sebastián), al igual que muchos otros sistemas penitenciarios en América Latina. Con relación a la detención preventiva, se lee en una reciente  nota  publicada en Perú en el sitio Ius360, algunas valoraciones que pueden aplicar a la situación de algunos jueces costarricenses:

“Coyuntura y realidad nacional: En muchos casos, los magistrados de los juzgados de investigación preparatoria tiene un rol provisional en la jerarquía judicial; con lo cual, esperan cumplir con la exigencia social de aplicar “mano dura” contra la delincuencia y temor al escándalo mediático. Medios de Comunicación: Es común que los medios de comunicación ataquen tanto al propio Estado como a los operadores de justicia en su accionar; más aún si este accionar no es acorde con lo esperado por el común de las personas (no siempre lo legalmente correcto o debido)”.  Reciente se leyó por parte de un defensor público costarricense de una nueva especie protegida en Costa Rica: “La gota que derrama el vaso se da con la creación de los tribunales de flagrancia, que han facilitado las posibilidades de los jueces para dictar prisión preventiva. El atún de supermercado es la especie más protegida del país. Nunca he visto cómo un sistema tiene un fracaso tan exitoso como el punitivo. Estamos encerrando sin criterios científicos, de manera vergonzosa” (ver nota de La República titulada “Cárceles detonan bomba de tiempo en sistema de justicia”).

Sobre las penas de cárcel, el mismo juez Roy Murillo Rodríguez, en una entrevista en el año 2014 concedida a la periodista Natalia Rodríguez Mata, recordaba que mientras la tenencia de droga se sanciona en España con 4 o 5 años, 3 años en Argentina, el mínimo impuesto en Costa Rica es de 8 años (ver   entrevista  en YT, del Programa Sobre la Mesa, Canal 15 UCR, emisión del 19/06/2014, “Política Carcelaria en Costa Rica”, Minuto 21:00).

Merece también mención un estudio de una entidad de Naciones Unidas que tiene su sede en Costa Rica: se trata del Instituto Latinoamericano para la Prevención del Delito y el Tratamiento del Delincuente (ILANUD). Su Director Ejecutivo, Elías Carranza, ya señalaba en el 2011 en un muy completo  estudio  sobre la situación penitenciaria en América Latina que:

“… las políticas públicas en materia de criminalidad y justicia penal tienen que ser verdaderamente integrales, no solo penales, y deben ir acompañadas de políticas que reduzcan la inequidad de la distribución del ingreso. Numerosos documentos de política criminal de las Naciones Unidas lo han dicho a lo largo de los años, explicando que el delito es un fenómeno social y que para lograr niveles bajos de delito y buena justicia penal es imprescindible lograr buenos niveles de justicia social”.

La luz de una visita ante la oscuridad rampante

Más allá de la poca preocupación que parece haber generado la falta de justicia social en Costa Rica (evidenciada en la evolución del coeficiente Gini que mide la desigualdad con relación a la tendencia inversa en el resto de América Latina – ver sexto  gráfico  elaborado por el OPALC – con excepción de República Dominicana y de Costa Rica – ver nota de prensa),  estas recientes medidas correctivas ordenadas por jueces ponen también en entredicho las políticas punitivas adoptadas en Costa Rica en los últimos años (y cuyo último eslabón lo constituye precisamente la población privada de libertad).

Es bien sabido que, tradicionalmente, las cárceles de un Estado constituyen lugares sombríos, mantenidos voluntariamente en una suerte de oscuridad institucionalizada. En ese universo hermético, la única ventana de esperanza para los que en el cohabitan a diario, es la luz que puede arrojar la visita de un ente fiscalizador externo al sistema carcelario como tal. Sobre este punto preciso, vale la pena recordar que de 1991 al 2002, Costa Rica lideró exitosamente duras negociaciones en el seno de las Naciones Unidas: estas culminaron con la adopción, el 18 de  diciembre del 2002, en Nueva York, de un novedoso instrumento internacional, bajo la forma de un protocolo facultativo. El objetivo de este tratado arduamente negociado (y cuya adopción se dio mediante un inusual voto, con tan solo cuatro votos en contra: Estados Unidos, Islas Marshall, Nigeria y Palau) es el de prevenir significativamente los malos tratos y la tortura en los centros de privación de libertad con base en un sistema de visitas regulares a lugares en los que, por alguna razón, personas se encuentran privadas de su libertad (Nota 1).

Adoptada en diciembre del 2002,  el escándalo provocado por fotos difundidas en el 2003 sobre tortura, maltratos físicos e humillaciones  a prisioneros iraquíes en la cárcel de Abu Ghraib por parte de personal militar norteamericano permitiría entender mucho mejor la frontal oposición de Estados Unidos a esta novedosa iniciativa de Costa Rica en Naciones Unidas.

En efecto, el sistema establecido en el Protocolo Facultativo a la Convención contra la Tortura de Naciones Unidas consta de un mecanismo internacional (el Subcomité para la Prevención de la Tortura o SPT) y uno nacional, el Mecanismo Nacional de Prevención (MNP), que cada Estado Parte debe establecer en función de su marco normativo e institucional.

En el caso de Costa Rica, un Estado que ratificó el Protocolo en el 2005, el MNP es un órgano adscrito directamente a la Defensoría de los Habitantes (u Ombudsman), creado mediante la ley 92014 adoptada en febrero  del 2014 (ver  sitio oficial  del MNP).  Anterior a esta ley, un Decreto Ejecutivo del 2005 designaba de manera provisional a la Defensoría de los Habitantes como MNP.  La solución costarricense de designar como MNP a su Ombudsman (en vez de crear un órgano independiente en el que pudieran participar profesionales, gremios y entidades de la sociedad civil) no es exenta de críticas. Fue seguida por otros Estados, como México o la misma España (ver  informe  del MNP español adscrito al Defensor del Pueblo): a diferencia de lo que ocurrió en Costa Rica, en el caso de España, la discusión previa a la designación del MNP en el 2010 dio  lugar a un intenso debate, muchas entidades desconfiando de la labor del Defensor del Pueblo en esta delicada materia  (Nota 2). En el 2015, en el caso particular de las visitas a lugares de detención en Cataluña, el Tribunal Constitucional español falló en contra del Sindic  de Greujes catalán, y a favor del Defensor del Pueblo: se leyó en esta  nota  de prensa que: “desde 2010 ha visitado 188 centros de detención (comisarías, cárceles, centros de protección de menores) en el marco de su lucha contra la tortura, mientras que el Defensor del Pueblo solo ha realizado 16 visitas a Cataluña en el mismo período”.

En el caso de México, la designación de su Ombudsman como MNP fue antecedida por una serie de consultas entre el 2004 y el 2007 auspiciadas por Naciones Unidas, en aras de intentar conciliar posiciones ante entidades de la sociedad civil igualmente desconfiadas (Nota 3).

En su primer informe de labores del 2014 luego de su creación mediante ley (ver texto completo), el MNP de Costa Rica concluyó recordando las serias limitaciones con las que desempeña sus labores: “Se reitera que el MNPT adolece de una infraestructura (oficina) adecuada y suficiente para desarrollar su trabajo, lo cual representa un problema, debido a que no se tiene espacio para alojar a los (as) dos funcionarios (as) nuevos (as), para lo cual se deberán tomar medidas emergentes. De tal manera, para el presupuesto del año 2016, se solicitarán los recursos correspondientes para la construcción de las oficinas del Mecanismo Nacional de Prevención de la Tortura” (p. 59).

Al momento de redactar estas líneas, el Protocolo Facultativo cuenta con 81 Estados Partes (ver  estado oficial  de firmas y ratificaciones). Mientras que, con excepción de Belice, los demás Estados anglófonos del hemisferio americano (incluyendo a Canadá y a Estados Unidos) se mantienen distantes de dicho instrumento, en América Latina, faltan al llamado Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Haití y República Dominicana (Estados que, al igual que los precitados Estados anglófonos, no han considerado oportuno ni tan siquiera suscribirlo); así como Venezuela, que lo ha firmado más no ratificado.

En sus observaciones al informe de Colombia de mayo del 2015, el Comité contra la Tortura (CAT) de Naciones Unidas externó, entre otros temas, que:

“20. El Comité valora la creación de la Comisión de Seguimiento de las condiciones de reclusión del sistema penitenciario y carcelario, así como la activa presencia de la Defensoría del Pueblo y la Procuraduría General de la Nación en los centros penitenciarios. No obstante, lamenta las informaciones según las cuales no se estaría dando el debido seguimiento a las recomendaciones formuladas por la Defensoría. Además, el Comité constata la ausencia de un mecanismo plenamente independiente encargado de inspeccionar todos los lugares de detención, incluidas las comisarías, los centros de internamiento para menores y los hospitales psiquiátricos (art. 2). El Estado parte debe velar por que todos los lugares de detención sean objeto de inspecciones periódicas e independientes, incluidas las actividades de vigilancia que llevan a cabo las organizaciones no gubernamentales. El Comité alienta al Estado parte a ratificar el Protocolo Facultativo de la Convención contra la Tortura y Otros Tratos o Penas Crueles, Inhumanos o Degradantes” (ver   observaciones finales  al informe de Colombia, punto 20, también disponibles en este  enlace  oficial de Naciones Unidas)

Imagen extraía de portada de  publicación  sobre la implementación del Protocolo Facultativo a la Convención de Naciones Unidas contra la Tortura, (APT/Suiza).

De algunas iniciativas novedosas

Mencionemos que el tema de la privación de libertad ha generado desde varios años en Costa Rica valiosas iniciativas por parte de algunas entidades sociales y personas,  en particular en el ámbito cultural y artístico: ver por ejemplo esta  nota  del 2014 sobre presentación en la Alianza Francesa de un poemario, así como esta  nota  sobre encuentro sobre danza y cárceles del 2011 y el artículo de la Revista Perfil “El arte, redescrubiendo a los privados de libertad” del 2011.  En una reciente entrevista a una poeta costarricense galardonada en el 2016 en España, Paola Valverde Alier (ver  nota ), se lee que: “Me tocó trabajar durante cuatro años dando clase de poesía en una cárcel de hombres aquí en Costa Rica. Tenía 17 años y me acompañaba mi mamá al no tener cédula”.  En esta  nota  del 2006 de La Nación sobre otro espacio para la poesía en varias cárceles de Costa Rica, se lee que: “Uno de los grupos, integrado por Espinoza, Marenco, Valverde, Ilama y Mora, llegó al centro penal de Cocorí, ubicado en Cocorí, a las 9:30 a. m. Lo jóvenes regalaron cuatro rondas de poemas a más de 40 internos que se reunieron en el gimnasio de la cárcel. Con el lema de que “la poesía salva”, Paola Valverde presentó a los invitados y, de inmediato, cada quien se lanzó con su artillería”. En una nota anterior, del año 2003, sobre los talleres de poesía de Paola Valverde Alier, se lee que: “Creo que es un espacio de formación muy importante porque amplía los horizontes de los privados de libertad. Ellos siempre están deseosos de aprender y muestran un gran interés en la materia, sus apreciaciones y sus comentarios son mucho más profundos que otros que he escuchado como profesor universitario”.

También merece mención la elaboración y venta de artesanías en exposiciones nacionales por parte de los privados de libertad (ver  nota  de CRHoy del 2013). Las posibilidades de trabajo de los privados de libertad fue objeto de una interesante tesis en el 2011 (ver  texto completo ) de Licenciatura en Derecho en la Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR), por parte de la entonces estudiante Maricel Gómez Murillo, en cuanto a su alcance real en la práctica y las mejoras requeridas. Según el autor de otra tesis universitaria (ver  nota  publicada en el Semanario Universidad del 2013) “para los privados de libertad, la oportunidad de participar en la expresión creativa puede convertirse en una experiencia exitosa en cuanto a su rehabilitación y sus procesos de reeducación, pues se ha demostrado que el disfrute y los logros alcanzados propician una reintroducción al sistema educativo de muchos de ellos“.

No obstante estas y muchas otras iniciativas que no dejan siempre rastro en medios de prensa, las condiciones de hacinamiento y el deterioro de la infraestructura están alcanzado niveles tan críticos en Costa Rica, que hacen a un lado estos esfuerzos, e interpelan al sistema carcelario costarricense y, más generalmente, a la sociedad costarricense como tal.  La cárcel de San Sebastián, o al Ambito B de La Reforma no son los únicos en mantener altos índices de hacinamiento. Por ejemplo, en este   artículo   del mismo juez Roy Murillo Rodríguez publicada en la Revista de la Maestría en Ciencias Penales en el 2014, leemos que:

“en la cárcel de San José (San Sebastián) con espacio para 664 internos, hay 1191 –un 79,6% de hacinamiento, el más alto por centro penitenciario en estos momentos – y en San Carlos, con espacio para 442 personas tenemos a 763 sujetos – 72,6%. Peor aún, en este último recinto carcelario, en la unidad de indiciados, con espacio para 104 hay 236 personas, sea un hacinamiento del 126,9%” (p. 659).

Notemos que el próximo 1ero de setiembre, las cárceles y el arte se darán nuevamente cita fuera de las primeras, esta vez en las tablas (y ello hasta noviembre): en efecto, se estrenará en Costa Rica una adaptación en el teatro Espressivo de la novela del escritor costarricense José León Sánchez, La isla de los hombres solos (ver  sitio  de este esperado evento cultural en Costa Rica  y la entrevista al mismo autor realizada por La Nación en junio del 2016). Algunas páginas de la primera edición del manuscrito de 1963 se pueden apreciar en forma integral en este  enlace.

Sobre esta obra literaria costarricense, se leyó recientemente que: “La isla de los hombres solos es un documento de barbarie, una memoria colectiva que recoge el dolor humano, que permite pensar los mecanismos de control social, los distintos modelos penitenciarios y, además, nos abre ventanas para pensar lo costarricense. Él la escribió, eso me cuenta, sentado en una esquina de ese pabellón infernal, con cabos de lápices y en hojas de cemento. Una de ellas la tiene enmarcada en su casa, se la envió la esposa de un reo que la conservó a pesar del paso del tiempo” (ver nota del Semanario Universidad sobre la visita realizada en mayo del 2016 por el escritor a la antigua cárcel en la Isla de San Lucas).

Esta adaptación de la novela de José León Sánchez a cargo de la dramaturga norteamericana Caridad Svich ha creado mucha expectativa en Costa Rica, y también fuera de ella: para el director José Zayas (Puerto Rico): “Es un testimonio estremecedor, es una historia carcelaria -que hay variaciones de eso en todo el mundo-, pero saber que  conocí a la persona que la escribió y que vivió dentro de la isla y que hay un mito alrededor de lo que él ha creado, fue impresionante y tiene un poder visceral” (véase  entrevista  a José Zayas publicada por Redcultura.com).

Las razones alegadas por el juez Roy Murillo Rodríguez en el caso de San Sebastián

Luego de repasar de forma muy detallada la gran cantidad de sentencias de la  Sala Constitucional  de la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Costa Rica no acatadas por las entidades recurridas del Ministerio de Justicia a cargo de la Unidad de San Sebastián;   y luego de precisar, datos en mano,  sus hallazgos en calidad de juez ejecutor de la pena, el juez Roy Murillo Rodríguez concluye que:

“En definitiva la cárcel de San Sebastián es hoy una jaula humana deteriorante, aplastante y humillante y esa situación no puede ser tolerada por esta autoridad. El hacinamiento unido a las pésimas condiciones de infraestructura y la gravísima limitación para el acceso a luz y ventilación natural –nótese que se trata de una estructura de tres niveles donde los pocos espacios para la luz y el aire se han ido limitando por razones de seguridad al techar esos accesos- han convertido ese espacio carcelario en un calabozo gigante. Nos encontramos ante un evidente ejercicio de terror de Estado que no es válido en una Democracia y que no puede prolongarse sino que por el contrario se hace necesario cesar con urgencia. Ya no se trata solamente de un problema de hacinamiento sino de una infraestructura y condiciones penitenciarias deterioradas y lesivas de la dignidad humana.  Son más de veinte años que la autoridad judicial ordinaria y constitucional ha esperado soluciones y la degradación y trato inhumano que esa cárcel impone no puede tolerarse bajo ningún motivo o razón. Conforme el pacto fundacional de la sociedad democrática costarricense, ni un solo ciudadano puede ser expuesto a condiciones degradantes y humillantes como las que impone el Centro de Atención Institucional de San José. ”

(Véase “Medida correctiva de cierre definitivo del Centro de Atención Institucional de San José, N° 1023-2016” con fecha del 20 de julio del 2016,   texto completo  reproducido por DerechoalDia).

En la parte final y resolutiva de su resolución, se lee que:

“Por lo tanto, conforme los artículos 5 de la Convención Americana de Derechos Humanos, 33 de la Constitución Política, 51 del Código Penal, las Reglas Mínimas, los Principios y Buenas Prácticas para la Protección de las Personas Privadas de Libertad en las Américas y el Reglamento de Derechos y Deberes de los Privados y Privadas de Libertad, así como la Ley de Creación del Mecanismo Nacional de Prevención de la Tortura, se ordena la clausura o cierre definitivo del Centro de Atención Institucional de San José, el que vencido el plazo de dieciocho meses a partir de la firmeza de esta resolución, no podrá funcionar más para la custodia de población penal institucionalizada, plazo que se otorga considerando los efectos y la crisis que generaría el cierre inmediato del centro penal, ordenándose a la autoridad penitenciaria que a partir de la notificación de esta resolución NO INGRESARÁ UN SOLO PRIVADO DE LIBERTAD MÁS a dicho Centro Penitenciario y en adelante, deberá asegurar el egreso –por resolución judicial que ordene libertad, por traslado a otros centros penitenciarios o a otros programas de atención- de al menos setenta privados de libertad cada mes, hasta su completo desalojo”.

Es menester indicar que una solicitud del mismo juez relacionada con la misma Unidad de San Sebastián, sólidamente respaldada desde el punto de vista técnico (ver  nota  de prensa publicada en La Extra), había ordenado en setiembre del 2013 que no se ingresará a más personas en San Sebastián (véase  texto completo  de las medidas correctivas del 24 de setiembre del 2013, reproducidas por DerechoalDia). Se leyó en aquel entonces por parte de la jurista Cecilia Sánchez Romero (quien ostenta desde el 2015 la cartera del Ministerio de Justicia en Costa Rica) que:

“No permitamos hoy que la propia institución conspire contra esta garantía, pretendiendo someter a revisión la decisión de un juez de ejecución de la pena, que no ha hecho más que cumplir con sus obligaciones constitucionales y legales. Un juez que resuelve con fundamento jurídico, con apoyo en normativa procesal, con sólido respaldo de pronunciamientos de la Sala Constitucional en la materia y, por supuesto, con un elemental sentido de humanidad” (ver   nota   publicada en DerechoalDia).

Razones alegadas por la juez Xinia Solis Pomares en el caso del Ámbito B de La Reforma

La juez Xinia Solis Pomares en su medida correctiva precitada procede a una minuciosa descripción de la infraestructura a la que se puede remitir el lector revisando el texto completo. Entre muchos puntos, nos permitimos reproducir los puntos 9 y 10, dejando a cada lector el imaginar lo que puede ocurrir en las cocinas del Ámbito B por las noches, e invitando a salubristas públicos a acompañar a un juez ejecutor a la hora de visitar una cocina en la condiciones de las del Ámbito B:

“NOVENO: SOBRE INFRAESTRUCTURA:  Se realizó un recorrido en el Ámbito B, en el cual se observa  el mal estado de toda la infraestructura, tanto por afuera como por dentro. Las paredes con huecos, incluso se observa que los privados de libertad han tratado de tapar los mismos con botellas de refrescos desechables, agregando que por esos huecos se introducen roedores, entre ellas ratas, cucarachas y todo tipo de insectos. Por otra parte con respecto al piso, el mismo se encuentra en pésimo estado, incluso en algunos dormitorios las aguas del piso del baño no tienen salida, así también como la acumulación de la basura.

DÉCIMO: SOBRE LA COCINA (PREPARACIÓN DE ALIMENTOS) INFRAESTRUCTURA:

Con respecto a la cocina, la misma se observó en pésimas condiciones de higiene.  En el piso había comida esparcida por varios lados, al igual que residuos de cascaras de verduras. Asimismo, se observa gran cantidad de agua dispersa en el piso en la cual no se observa salida, ni nadie que la escurra con escoba o cualquier otro medio. Incluso, en tres ocasiones me resbalé y por poco me voy al suelo. El repollo, tomate y  pepino que se encontraban picados no se encontraban tapados y las moscas andaban encima de ellas. Se puede observar en una de las fotografías que hay moscas encima del tomate.- Véase los baldes que se utilizan para el café los cuales estaban sucios, razón por la cual se encontraban inundados de moscas,  precisamente por estar sucios y destapados. Si al menos, los mismos a pesar de estar sucios se mantuvieran tapados las moscas no estarían adentro de ellos.”-

En la parte resolutiva, se lee por parte de la jueza que:

”De conformidad con el artículo   476 y siguientes del Código Procesal Penal, artículo 5 de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos, numerales X, XII y XVII de los Principios y Buenas Prácticas sobre la Protección de las Personas Privadas de Libertad en las Américas, numerales 8 y 19 de las Reglas Mínimas para el Tratamiento de los Reclusos y la jurisprudencia constitucional, las competencias y obligaciones de esta autoridad según lo dispone la misma normativa citada y reiteradas resoluciones de la Sala Constitucional, se ordena a la Ministra de Justicia, a la Dirección General de Adaptación Social, al Director del Instituto Nacional de Criminología, al Director del Programa de Atención Institucional y a la Directora del Ámbito B del Centro de Atención Institucional La Reforma y se ordena comunicar: 1)  El cierre del Ámbito B del Centro de Atención Institucional La Reforma.  Se prohíbe de manera indefinida el ingreso de más privados de libertad, independientemente de su condición jurídica, al ámbito B del Centro de Atención Institucional La Reforma, salvo de forma excepcional y previa valoración minuciosa por intercambio de privados de libertad y por necesidad institucional”.

Remitimos al lector sobre los hallazgos realizados por el MNP de Costa Rica en el Ámbito F (Máxima Seguridad Vieja)  de La Reforma – pp. 17-18 de su  informe  de labores 2015 – en el que sus integrantes señalan, entre otros aspectos, que: “Por ello el MNPT afirma que el Ámbito de Convivencia F representa un fracaso administrativo de las autoridades del Sistema Penitenciario, las que, a lo largo de casi 14 años, no han podido realizar una reconstrucción de este ámbito, y lo grave es que han permitido que siga trabajando bajo un modelo represivo de 23 horas de encierro y una hora de sol, en celdas malolientes, oscuras, con servicios sanitarios tipo turco y con espacios de encierro que representan tratos degradantes para las personas privadas de libertad”. 

Sistema penitenciario ante escrutinio internacional

Se podría pensar que un espacio que se  sitúa en las mismas entrañas de un Estado, como lo son sus cárceles, no interesa mayormente la esfera internacional. Es posiblemente lo que algunas autoridades estatales recelosas desearían, dejando a manos de entidades fiscalizadoras adscritas al mismo aparato estatal represivo el examinar la situación que impera en ellas.

No obstante, la realidad es otra: la situación de los privados de libertad dentro de un Estado no escapa al ámbito del derecho internacional. Por ejemplo, cuando en materia de derechos humanos se menciona la lucha contra la tortura (o su prevención), se incluye también la lucha contra los tratos o penas crueles, inhumanos o degradantes que violentan los principios más básicos de la dignidad humana: los malos tratos que lleguen a calificarse como inhumanos, o crueles, o degradantes, son tan violatorios como la tortura, razón por la que ambas expresiones son indivisibles y así consta en los numerosos instrumentos internacionales de derechos humanos.

Los estándares internacionales, en particular los establecidos en el marco del sistema interamericano de derechos humanos, así como la jurisprudencia en materia de integridad personal y privación de libertad (ver  estudio ) de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos constituyen a ese respecto una útil guía para todos los Estados del hemisferio americano. En uno de sus fallos (ver sentencia en el caso Montero Aranguren y otros versus Venezuela), la Corte Interamericana sentenció que:

“el espacio de aproximadamente 30 centímetros cuadrados por cada recluso es a todas luces inaceptable y constituye en sí mismo un trato cruel, inhumano y degradante, contrario a la dignidad inherente del ser humano y, por ende, violatorio del artículo 5.2 de la Convención” (párr. 89).

Para dar otro ejemplo en América Latina, el mismo Procurador General en Colombia, en el año 2003, ya advertía en un pronunciamiento (ver  texto completo ) que:

“De acuerdo con el parámetro internacional, cualquier sistema de reclusión o prisión que trabaje bajo condiciones de hacinamiento superiores a 20 por ciento (es decir, 120 personas recluidas por 100 plazas disponibles) se encuentra en estado de “sobrepoblación crítica”. Una situación de “sobrepoblación crítica” puede generar violaciones o desconocimiento de los derechos fundamentales de los internos” (p. 3).

Foto extraída de  artículo  de prensa del 2015 titulado “Hacinamiento en cárceles alcanza cifra récord de 51%”, La Nación (Costa Rica), 11 de marzo del 2015

Recientemente, en el mes de marzo del 2016, la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH), a raíz de la inspección in situ realizada por otro ente habilitado a realizar visitas, el Relator sobre Derechos de las Personas Privadas de Libertad, había hecho públicas sus recomendaciones al Estado costarricense sobre el deplorable estado en el que se encuentran sus cárceles. La Unidad de San Sebastián no escapó a dicho examen, al externar por parte del Relator de la CIDH que:

“Asimismo, la Relatoría observó con suma preocupación las precarias condiciones de infraestructura y salubridad. En particular, la Relatoría constató la falta de ventilación en los dormitorios y el calor que prevalece en los mismos. De igual forma, en los diferentes pabellones visitados en la Cárcel de San Sebastián, la delegación de la CIDH observó la falta de privacidad en el uso de servicios sanitarios, así como la total ausencia de espacios para guardar objetos de tipo personal. La Relatoría también recibió diversos testimonios de los internos respecto a las dilaciones en sus procesos judiciales respectivos. Asimismo, expresaron quejas relacionadas con la supuesta falta de atención médica, en particular, sobre la demora en recibir dicha atención y la falta de servicios dentales” (ver texto del informe detallado reproducido en esta  nota  de nuestro blog).

Con relación a la detención preventiva, el órgano interamericano señaló que en vez de ser usada de manera excepcional, es la solución a la que recurren los jueces costarricenses con excesiva frecuencia y de manera abusiva. En su informe de marzo del 2016 sobre Costa Rica, sobre este preciso punto, se lee que:

“… una persona privada de libertad en la cárcel de San Sebastián manifestó que “No nos investigan para detenernos. Nos detienen para investigarnos”. En la cárcel de San Sebastián, que alberga únicamente a internos en prisión preventiva, las autoridades penitenciarias informaron que el 34% de las personas salen de la cárcel a más tardar 15 días después de su ingreso, y que el 60% deja el penal en un periodo de 60 días; no obstante, refirieron también que en muchos casos la permanencia de los internos era “indefinida”,  incluso personas que habían permanecido en el centro penitenciario por más de ocho años. De igual forma, las autoridades manifestaron su preocupación ante el “regular” uso de la prisión preventiva –que se reflejaría en que aproximadamente una tercera parte de personas en prisión preventiva permanece en la cárcel durante 15 días– y las consecuencias que su uso traería en el aumento del hacinamiento, el “desgaste económico” para el Estado, y el estigma en la vida de las personas. Por otra parte, una funcionaria judicial señaló que “la permanencia entre uno y tres meses de la mayoría de los reos demuestra que en realidad no se justifica la aplicación de [esta medida]””.

Cabe indicar que en el 2013, en su  informe  sobre el uso de la detención preventiva, la misma Comisión exhortaba en sus conclusiones a todos los Estados Miembros de la OEA a:

“1.  …adoptar las medidas judiciales, legislativas, administrativas y de otra índole requeridas para corregir la excesiva aplicación de la prisión preventiva, garantizando que esta medida sea de carácter excepcional y se encuentre limitada por los principios de legalidad, presunción de inocencia, necesidad y proporcionalidad; evitando así su uso arbitrario, innecesario y desproporcionado. Estos principios deberán guiar siempre la actuación de las autoridades judiciales, con independencia del modelo de sistema penal adoptado por el Estado. 

2. Intensificar esfuerzos y asumir la voluntad política necesaria para erradicar el uso de la prisión preventiva como herramienta de control social o como forma de pena anticipada; y para asegurar que su uso sea realmente excepcional. En este sentido, es esencial que se envíe desde los niveles más altos del Estado y la administración de justicia un mensaje institucional de respaldo al uso racional de la prisión preventiva y al respeto del derecho presunción de inocencia” (p. 121 del informe de la CIDH titulado “Informe sobre el uso de la prisión preventiva en las Américas”, 2013).

Gráfico publicado en el 2014 por el Mecanismo Nacional de Prevención (MNP) de Costa Rica, órgano técnico adscrito a la Defensoría de los Habitantes, sobre el aumento vertiginoso de la tasa de personas privadas de libertad por cada 100.000 habitantes en Costa Rica

Al analizar brevemente las recientes observaciones realizadas por otra entidad internacional, el Comité de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas, al informe de Costa Rica, nos permitimos referir (ver nuestra breve  nota   publicada en DerechoalDía del 10 de abril del 2016) a un aspecto que, según todo pareciera indicar, no ha despertado mayor interés por parte de la prensa nacional y mucho menos por parte de las autoridades costarricenses:

“Finalmente, entre muchos de los señalamientos realizados, quisiéramos incluir en estas muy breves referencias lo que se lee en el punto 25 por parte del Comité de Derechos Humanos, y que ameritaría una explicación detallada por parte de las autoridades: “25. Preocupa al Comité que el Estado parte no haya proporcionado información sobre investigaciones y sanciones por violaciones de derechos humanos cometidos por agentes del orden en centros de detención y por miembros de la Policía, especialmente relacionadas con tortura y malos tratos (art. 7 y 10) ”.

Tampoco se ha tenido registro de sanciones contra funcionarios penitenciarios cuyo comportamiento, en el 2011, a raíz de un intento de fuga, dio lugar a la siguiente aseveración por parte del MNP de Costa Rica (ver  informe  del MNP sobre visita efectuada el 24/05/2011):

“Indicaron que los agentes de seguridad del Sistema Penitenciario les destruyeron todas las pertenencias personales que tenían en la celda, tales como televisores, radios, la espuma para dormir, los implementos de higiene y toda la ropa, a tal grado que algunas personas se quedaron solamente con la ropa interior, por lo que algunos compañeros de otras celdas los tuvieron que suplir con ropa. Indicaron que los agentes de seguridad penitenciaria ingresaban a las celdas y les arrojaban el café y agua en la cabeza, además, los maltratos de palabra, amenazas de muerte y las agresiones psicológicas son frecuentes. En forma general las personas privadas de libertad indicaron que en los últimos nueve días cesaron las agresiones físicas por parte de los agentes de seguridad penitenciaria, no así las amenazas de muerte, las provocaciones y las agresiones. Además manifestaron que la escuadra de seguridad que estaba laborando el día de los hechos es la que realizó las agresiones físicas y la que ha estado efectuando agresiones psicológicas y provocaciones”.

A modo de conclusión: el resultado de advertencias desoídas

Sin lugar a dudas, la situación de las personas privadas de libertad se ha convertido en Costa Rica en un verdadero lunar en materia de derechos humanos. Recomendaciones de unos y otros no parecieran encontrar eco alguno ante un parco aparato estatal. Una obra que lleva el sello de la Comisión Nacional para el Mejoramiento de la Administración de la Justicia (CONAMAJ) publicada en el 2003 concluía ya que:

“Mientras tanto, en lo que respecta a esta realidad tantas veces invisibilizada, todo indica que tras los muros de la prisión costarricense sigue prevaleciendo el “universo del no-derecho”, cimentado sobre la persistente devaluación de los derechos fundamentales de las personas privadas de libertad” (Nota 4).

Una zona de “no derecho” en un Estado de Derecho constituye un señalamiento que, en buena teoría,  debiera ser inmediatamente objeto de atención por parte de sus autoridades: en efecto, el “no derecho” desatendido tiende, usualmente, a extenderse.

Hace unos años, en esta breve   nota   de Informa-tico publicada el 25 de junio del 2014, titulada “Día Internacional de la lucha contra la Tortura y los malos tratos La lucha contra la tortura y los malos tratos en Costa Rica“, nos permitíamos concluir nuestras líneas con las palabras redactadas en el 2001 (es decir hace … 15 años) por el entonces Presidente de la Sala Constitucional de la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Costa Rica:

“Nuevamente, ante reclamos desatendidos y advertencias desoídas, se recurre a entidades internacionales, con una leve diferencia con relación a otras experiencias recientes: no se trata de víctimas o de comunidades indignadas por la desatención del Estado a sus legítimos reclamos, sino que se trata esta vez del mismo Estado costarricense procediendo a hacer un llamado a estas entidades internacionales… para forzarlo (¿forzarse?) a cumplir con exigencias mínimas en cuanto a condiciones de detención se refiere. Las consecuencias para un sistema penitenciario (ya colapsado) de las políticas represivas de las últimas administraciones debería de constituir un primer ejercicio al que se proceda, en aras de encontrar vías y soluciones duraderas a un problema que, lejos de circunscribirse a las paredes de una cárcel, afecta a la sociedad costarricense como tal. Ya en el año 2001 el Presidente de la Sala Constitucional de Costa Rica, Luis Paulino Mora alertaba: “Con mucha razón se ha dicho que el grado de verdadera democracia y libertad de un país puede medirse por el tipo de cárceles que tenga. Si ello es así, vergüenza nos da a muchos vernos en el espejo de cárceles desgarradas” (Nota 5).

Pese a esta y otras innumerables advertencias hechas, sea desde fuera de Costa Rica o desde la misma Costa Rica, sea desde el mismo sistema judicial, sea desde fuera del mismo, la situación ha ido empeorando. Con relación a las diversas sentencias judiciales relacionadas a la Unidad de San Sebastián, sería muy interesante verificar si no estamos ante un caso en el que el Estado costarricense se muestra particularmente renuente a acatar lo que le ordenan… sus propios jueces.

 Nicolas Boeglin

Nota 1: Remitimos a nuestro lector a la descripción detallada de dicho proceso de negociación internacional en el que Costa Rica puso a disposición de este instrumento lo que posiblemente haya sido el mejor equipo de su aparato diplomático en muchos años en IIDH – APT, EL Protocolo Facultativo a la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra la Tortura y Otros Tratos o Penas Crueles, Inhumanos o Degradantes, San José- Ginebra, APT / IIDH, 2004, en particular páginas 50-73. Texto completo de la obra disponible aquí.  

Nota 2: En el caso de España, además de fustigar la falta de transparencia en el diálogo durante el proceso de designación del MNP español (ver nota de la AEDIDH  – Asociación Española para la Aplicación del Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos –  del 2007), se criticó duramente la designación de la Defensoría del Pueblo como MNP. Se lee en un comunicado de varias ONG españolas del 2010 que: “al estar incluido dentro de la estructura de otra institución del Estado, no se garantiza su independencia funcional del Mecanismo, ni dispondrá de recursos y financiación propios y diferenciados; al estar dentro de la estructura del Defensor del Pueblo, la amplitud de su mandato podría hacer que pasara desaperciba la función de prevención del mecanismo, basado en las visitas periódicas y que requieren alto grado de especialización”.  Se leyó, por parte de especialistas, que. “Sería recomendable, si se quiere potenciar el impacto del Protocolo, que en España se optase por la creación de un órgano mixto en el que tuviesen cabida el Defensor del Pueblo y las organizaciones de la sociedad civil, incluyendo no solo a las ONG, sino también al sector académico, las asociaciones de familiares de presos, asociaciones religiosas, etc…”: véase CEBADA ROMERO A., “El Protocolo Facultativo a la Convención de Naciones Unidas contra la tortura y los centros de internamiento de extranjeros en España”, in MARIÑO MENENDEZ F.M. & CEBADA ROMERO A. (Editores), La creación del mecanismo español de prevención de la tortura, Madrid, Iustel, 2009, pp. 195-221, p. 211. 

Nota 3: El suscrito tuvo la oportunidad de asistir a tres de las cuatro rondas de consultas que se organizaron en México entre el 2005 y 2007 entre autoridades nacionales y organizaciones mexicanas de la sociedad civil, con presencia de observadores internacionales (León, Guanajuato, diciembre del 2005; Querétaro, mayo del 2006 y México DF, marzo del 2007). Perceptible, y pese a los ingentes esfuerzos de organismos internacionales invitados a participar y facilitar el diálogo, la desconfianza pareció imponerse ronda tras ronda y, al final, la designación inconsulta por parte de las autoridades de México de la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH) como MNP en el 2007, evidenció que la desconfianza por parte de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil era fundamentada. El mismo miembro mexicano del Subcomité Internacional para la Prevención de la Tortura, el académico Miguel Sarre es enfático: “es inaceptable que la CNDH monopolice la función de MNP, cuando sólo debiera ser una parte, una pieza del mecanismo que ya constituye el sistema nacional no jurisdiccional de protección a los derechos humanos en México, formado por 32 comisiones públicas locales de derechos humanos y la CNDH”: véase SARRE M., “El Protocolo Facultativo de la Convención contra la tortura: un instrumento generador de cambios estructurales necesarios para prevenir la tortura”, in MARIÑO F.M. MENENDEZ & CEBADA ROMERO A. op.cit., pp. 99-116, p.113. Las conclusiones y recomendaciones de estas cuatro consultas realizadas en México están consignadas en la siguiente publicación: OACNUDH, Oficina de México, Aportes al debate sobre el diseño e implementación en México del Mecanismo Nacional de Prevención de la Tortura y Otros Tratos o Penas Crueles, Inhumanos o Degradantes, México DF, 2008, pp. 323-345. Texto de esta publicación disponible aquí.

Nota 4: Véase CHAN MORA G. y  GARCÍA AGUILAR R., Los derechos fundamentales tras los muros de la prisión, CONAMAJ, San José, 2003, p. 214.

Nota 5: Véase MORA L.P., “Sobrepoblación penitenciaria y derechos humanos: la experiencia constitucional”, in CARRANZA E., (Coord.), Justicia Penal y sobrepoblación penitenciaria, San José, ILANUD, 2001, pp. 58-84, p. 84.

Nicolas Boeglin :  Profesor de Derecho Internacional Público, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR)

El 16 de julio de 2016 hubo un aparente conato de golpe militar contra el gobierno del dictador Recep Tayyip Erdoğan en Turquía. En realidad, un operativo militar planeado y ejecutado milimétricamente por el Pentágono, la OTAN y el propio Erdogan para mostrar a Turquía en una situación de viraje hacia Rusia y así desarmar el posicionamiento geopolítico de este país (Rusia) en Siria y Oriente Medio. Y ocurre cuando en estos últimos días el ejército antiimperialista sirio junto a sus aliados (Rusia, Irán y el Hezbolla) prácticamente estaba aplastando a las fuerzas paramilitares estadounidenses que operan en su territorio.

Las transnacionales de la información han cumplido su papel. Han descargado toneladas de desinformación para distorsionar este hecho. El asunto era mostrar a Turquía y Estados Unidos enfrentados. Esto no es nuevo, lo hacen desde hace mucho tiempo con el Estado Islámico. Y el operativo militar fue pintado como un golpe de estado fallido del Pentágono contra Erdogan.

Desde aquí reto a quienes sostienen esto que me demuestren que en un plazo de tres meses Turquía este fuera de la OTAN. ¿Un golpe de estado del Pentágono sofocado? ¿Sabéis de lo que estáis hablando? Si en verdad hubiera sido así, entonces aquello sería un acontecimiento de tremenda envergadura histórica (una verdadera revolución en el mundo) que de inmediato estaría conduciendo, primero, a la retirada de Turquía de la OTAN, luego, a la finalización de la agresión a Siria y, finalmente, a la pérdida definitiva de la hegemonía mundial estadounidense con grandes cambios en Europa y el mundo entero. Entonces semejante acontecimiento no es cualquiera y, no lo ejecuta cualquier individuo. Para esto deben cumplirse algunas precondiciones. Sus ejecutores deben poseer una solvencia moral revolucionaria a toda prueba. Y Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ciertamente no está a esa altura. Definitivamente.

Además, si hubiera constituido para el Pentágono un intento fallido de golpe militar, ahora mismo estaríamos frente a una seguidilla de nuevas intentonas golpistas hasta echar del gobierno a Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Sin embargo no ha ocurrido así. Hay tranquilidad en las relaciones bilaterales turco-estadounidense. Es más, el Pentágono ni siquiera ha respondido verbalmente.

Veamos esto:

I.-  Oriente Medio una región geoestratégica de primer nivel para la subsistencia del sistema capitalista.

Ante todo reafirmo la existencia de los grandes cambios. En realidad cambios históricos. Es bueno estar claros en esto. No está demás repetir que esto proviene a consecuencia de la gran crisis económica en que está envuelto el mundo desde el año 2008 y en el marco del ciclo económico largo de contracción y crisis que envuelve el sistema desde 1973, el mismo que ha llevado a la bancarrota económica y la pérdida de la hegemonía mundial estadounidense, la ascensión económica de China como primera potencia capitalista, el surgimiento de nuevas potencias económicas, la fractura estadounidense en Oriente Medio, etc. Esta es la tendencia actual del planeta.

Pero el surgimiento de nuevas potencias económicas no solo está referido a los países agrupados en torno al llamado grupo económico BRICS, sino también a algunos países del área de dominio estadounidense que en este caso ha corrido al empuje de los grupos monopólicos que se habían visto afectados por la gran crisis económica y los grilletes que les había impuesto aquel (Estados Unidos), esto sobre todo en los países europeos que tras el brItxis británico del 23 de junio de 2016 se ha hecho muy claro, por lo que aquellos bloques económicos no solo están referidos a los grupos emergentes, sino, también abarcan antiguos grupos monopólicos que incluso controlan estados nacionales de gran incidencia en los destinos del planeta y que han venido re-direccionando sus posturas respecto a la política exterior estadounidense. Y la consecuencia final de esto es el actual proceso, muy fuerte, de reparto de mercados y zonas de influencia que sacude el planeta inmerso en duros enfrentamientos de bloques.

En este marco Oriente Medio es una región muy estratégica para la supervivencia del sistema imperialista (segunda y última fase del capitalismo) por el asunto energético, es decir, por el  petróleo y el gas, base del desarrollo del sistema de producción capitalista, máxime si se tiene en cuenta que toda burguesía financiera (incluida la china) son absolutamente contrarias a cualquier alternativa al petróleo, sobre todo, en una situación de grave crisis económica que los aplasta. Cierto, todas estas burguesías viven aferradas al petróleo. Sin equivocarnos podemos decir que los actuales conflictos en el mundo provienen de la codicia de estas burguesías por el control de este valioso elemento energético. Y tengamos presente que el reservorio más grande de petróleo del mundo está ubicado justamente en esta región (Oriente Medio).

En esto si efectuamos una operación muy sencilla consistente en sumar los niveles de producción petrolera de Arabia Saudita, Irán, Iraq, Qatar, etc., es decir, la producción petrolera de todo el Oriente Medio el resultado es fabuloso. Una impresionante cantidad que ha perturbado la mente de las burguesías financieras haciéndolas crecer exponencialmente sus codicias.

Estas son las razones por las que, por ejemplo, Estados Unidos este agolpado desesperadamente sobre esta región (Oriente Medio). Pero también lo están China y Rusia que tienen esas mismas perspectivas. Esas mismas agitaciones. Por eso la conmoción en esta región.

Consecuentemente es de entender que las agitaciones de las burguesías financieras por el control del Petróleo pueden cambiar el rumbo de los más grandes e influyentes gobiernos, es decir, el destino de gobiernos y el equilibrio político de regiones enteras.

Entonces históricamente Oriente Medio ha sido el centro de grandes disputas por el control del petróleo. Los pueblos árabes han soportado dolorosas guerras por este asunto.

Además, es por esta razón y no por alguna casualidad, que aquí los estadounidenses hayan ubicado el depósito más grande de armas, convencionales y estratégicas del planeta (Israel), también su flota naval más importante (V flota) en Manama (Bahréin) que había entrado en operaciones el 26 de abril de 1944. Además instituyendo a Arabia Saudita en el altar como su joya estratégica.

Pero centremos nuestra inquietud en los tiempos recientes, particularmente en los que corren desde principios del presente milenio.

A inicios de este milenio, tras una década de jolgorio por la implosión de la ex URSS (1991) y de la instalación del sistema unipolar, Estados Unidos se vuelve a la realidad asustado por el renacimiento de Rusia y los avances económicos en China. Entonces observa con particular interés el Este del planeta sobre todo el Oriente Medio y, para concretar aquellos planes trama el auto atentado a las Torres Gemelas el 11 de septiembre de 2001. Por los buenos resultados que había obtenido en Afganistán (1979) con sus bandas paramilitares, llama a esta nueva ofensiva, una operación antiterrorista. A partir de entonces el mundo ingresaba a una espiral de violencia, excesivamente trágica y furibunda (Afganistán 2001, Irak 2003).

Además, no olvidemos que todos estos hechos ocurren inmersos en el ciclo económico largo de contracción y crisis del sistema de producción capitalista que estaba en curso desde 1973.

Hasta el año 2008 Walls Street, el pentágono y los gurús económicos hicieron todo, porque la crisis económica jamás llegara hasta su territorio en las dimensiones actuales. Entonces la contención del ascenso económico de China fue llevada a un nivel muy fuerte y que posteriormente (finales de 2010) llevó a la ruptura del acuerdo estratégico que en el nivel económico existía desde 1978 entre Estados Unidos y China. Además, la guerra monetaria (exige en todo momento la revalorización del yuan) y el proteccionismo económico se hicieron persistentes. Y aun así la crisis llegó en 2008 y, no fue una simple crisis, sino una gran crisis que condujo de inmediato su economía a la bancarrota.

En 2010 estaba decidida a la consolidación de su posicionamiento en Oriente Medio. Debía golpear a Irán para luego ir directamente sobre Rusia. Pero previamente debía ocupar otros países, en este caso Libia y Siria. No olvidemos que Afganistán e Irak ya estaban bajo su férula desde el 2001 y 2003 respectivamente, reconvertidas en la “Edad de Piedra”, es decir, devastadas.

El asunto fue muy serio. En Libia a finales de 2010 no tuvo reparos, asesinó a su presidente, el coronel Al Gadafi, a vista y paciencia del mundo. El genocidio fue atroz. Allí golpeó sin contemplaciones los intereses de China. No le interesó para nada. En 1999 ya habían bombardeado, en los Balcanes, su embajada.

Pero cuando a finales de 2011 el Pentágono fue a Siria se encontró con que Rusia y China habían pasado a la ofensiva. Primero en el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas fueron vetadas sendas resoluciones de instalación de “Espacio Aéreo” sobre territorio sirio. Querían un “Espacio aéreo” como habían hecho en Libia. En efecto el 14 de octubre de 2011 Rusia y China se opusieron en el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas a una resolución contra Siria elaborada por Inglaterra, Francia y Alemania a nombre de Estados Unidos. Y luego enviaron equipamiento de defensa antiaérea (los mortíferos S-300). El pentágono estaba furibundo de rabia. Esto era inesperado. No estaba en sus planes. Entonces se instaló de forma automática un gran impasse muy difícil de remontarla. La ocupación de Irán estaba cada vez más lejos.

Ante esta situación sus tácticas se volvieron hacia sus bandas paramilitares. Saltaron a la palestra de forma inusitada Al Qaeda y el Estado Islámico. Este último en 2014. Pero la derrota militar estadounidense estaba sellada. Sus bandas paramilitares nada podían hacer, a lo mucho solo retrasar esa derrota, pero el heroico pueblo sirio necesariamente los iba derrotar, la tendencia mundial estaba a su favor. Una disyuntiva sencilla que los “doctores” del Pentágono no entendían y no lo entenderán nunca.

Entonces Estados Unidos tramo en forma desesperada algunos mecanismos para seguir en su intento por ocupar Siria y viabilizar sus negros propósitos: ir sobre Irán y Rusia. En realidad fueron mecanismo de grandes trascendencias. Según sus “cerebros grisis” orientadas en lo fundamental contra Rusia que obstaculizaba el cumplimiento de sus planes a fin de hacerlo retroceder en Siria. Algunos dicen que son mecanismos maquiavélicos, que en realidad es esto lo único que le queda, pues en términos generales la hegemonía mundial estadounidense está quebrada. Esto es determinante en los fracasos de sus planes en Oriente Medio. Se sabe que Rusia, China e incluso algunos países europeos (Alemania, Francia, etc.) están en mejores condiciones.

II.- El acuerdo nuclear iraní:

Este es el primer mecanismo que utiliza el grupo de poder de Washington para salvaguardar sus intereses y su posicionamiento geoestratégico en Oriente Medio. Se puso en ejecución tras los fracasos de sus fuerzas paramilitares en  el terreno de la guerra en Siria.

En efecto por las circunstancias anteriores, Estados Unidos se vio obligado a firmar el acuerdo nuclear iraní con el grupo de los cinco más uno (Reino Unido, China, Francia, Rusia y Estados Unidos) más Alemania, el 14 de julio de 2015 en Viena (Austria) y con levantamiento efectivo de sanciones, estadounidenses y europeas, el 16 de enero de 2016. La firma de aquel acuerdo fue en forma desesperada por la parte estadounidense abrumada por los fracasos militares de sus secciones paramilitares y jugándose el todo por el todo, incluso afectando a su gran joya estratégica y del conjunto del sistema imperialista (Arabia Saudita), buscando salir airoso de la gran crisis económica, apuntalando contra Rusia a fin de hundir su economía, supuestamente obligándolo a competir con Irán, tratando de quebrar su alianza con este país (Irán) y finalmente arrojarlo de Siria. A este respecto hay que agregar por ejemplo el desplazamiento de Arabia Saudita por Rusia en el suministro de petróleo a China. En efecto en mayo de 2015 estos suministros desde Rusia han superado siete veces los importes desde Arabia Saudita.

Entonces, el impulso del acuerdo iraní por parte de Estados Unidos no ha sido porque este país haya querido zanjar sus diferencias con Irán o porque ya no soportaba más la invulnerabilidad de su soberanía (o tal vez del Estrecho de Ormuz), como sostiene la vulgaridad de la prensa occidental y bajo bombo de algunas prensas medio progresistas (Rebelión), sino, porque entendía a cabalidad la importancia geoestratégica de Oriente Medio en la actual coyuntura, sobre todo, de vida o muerte para su dominio sobre esta región.

Al final, como estaba previsto, esto fue un contundente fracaso, pues Rusia e Irán lejos de ingresar a un conflicto geopolítico más bien se han convertido en importantes socios estratégicos: probablemente en el próximo conclave de la Organización de Cooperación de Shanghái (OCS) Iran sea admitida como miembro pleno. Entonces Estados Unidos empezó a desconocer aquellos acuerdos. Las últimas noticias a este respecto indican la advertencia de Irán por la violación de tales acuerdos.

Veamos el siguiente apunte:

“Pese a la eliminación de las sanciones, empresas de todo el orbe se quejan de que las relaciones comerciales con Irán siguen siendo difíciles debido a la preocupación persistente de acciones punitivas estadounidenses. Irán exige a Washington que tome medidas para que los bancos europeos abandonen las reticencias, por temor a represalias estadounidenses, a realizar negocios con Irán en la era postsanciones. El pasado 14 de junio, el Líder de la Revolución Islámica de Irán, el ayatolá Seyed Ali Jamenei, denunció que EE.UU. no ha cumplido, hasta la fecha, la mayor parte de las obligaciones estipuladas en el JCPOA y advirtió que si Washington rompe el acuerdo, Irán también “lo quemará” (1).

III.- Operativo militar del 16 de julio de 2016 milimétricamente planificado y ejecutado por el Pentágono, la OTAN y Erdogan, para desarmar el posicionamiento geopolítico de Rusia sobre Siria y Oriente Medio.

En efecto este operativo militar viene a constituir el segundo mecanismo llevado adelante por el grupo de poder de Washington para salvaguardando sus intereses y su posicionamiento geoestratégico en Oriente Medio

Pero para un mejor entendimiento de este tema previamente debemos observar las potencialidades geoestratégicas de Turquía. El asunto es: ¿Por qué es muy importante para el Pentágono este país?

Primero, Estados Unidos tiene depositado armamento nuclear en Europa en cinco países que son: Alemania, Italia, Bélgica, los Países Bajos y Turquía.

Se dice que en la base aérea de Incirlik están depositadas 90 ojivas nucleares. Esta base aérea (en turco, İncirlik Hava Üssü) es una instalación de la United States Air Force de los Estados Unidos que está ubicada a 8 kilómetros (5 millas) al este de Adana, la quinta ciudad más grande del país y en un subterráneo muy profundo debidamente estructurado.

Segundo, como consecuencia de lo anterior Turquía es un miembro de gran valor estratégico para la OTAN, la alianza trasatlántica en la que Estados Unidos sostiene su trascendencia mundial. Ni que hablar de su ejército, este es punta de lanza de la OTAN en esta región (Oriente Medio) junto a Israel sionista. El derribo del Sukhoi Su-24 ruso el 24 de noviembre de 2015 y el establecimiento del cuartel general de las bandas paramilitares estadounidenses en el sur de Turquía, así lo ameritan.

Tercero, Turquía tiene los estrechos del Bósforo y los Dardanelos como zonas muy estratégicas que dan paso entre el mediterráneo y el mar negro y, también sirven de puente entre Europa, Asia e incluso África. En realidad una región sumamente estratégica.

Wikipedia dice a este respecto lo siguiente: “El mar Negro se sitúa entre el sureste de Europa y Asia Menor. Está cerrado por Europa, la península de Anatolia y el Cáucaso. El estrecho del Bósforo lo conecta con el mar de Mármara y el estrecho de Dardanelos conecta a este con el mar Egeo, que es una región del mar Mediterráneo. Estas aguas separan Europa del Este de Asia Menor. También está conectado con el mar de Azov por el estrecho de Kerch. Tiene una superficie de 436 400 km2 (sin incluir el mar de Azov), una profundidad máxima de 2212 m2 y un volumen de 547 000 km3.3”

Cuarto, sobre Recep Tayyip Erdoğan debemos apuntar lo siguiente: ha ganado tres elecciones consecutivas. El AKP, su partido, ha ganado en 2002, ganó de nuevo en 2007 y finalmente en 2012. Es decir es una pieza clave en el control y dominio de Estados Unidos sobre Turquía. Este no es ningún nacionalista como algunos suponen. Es un declarado agente de los mandos militares más oscuros y putrefactos de Washington. Un agente completo de la CIA. Un declarado títere del imperialismo estadounidense que sigue a pie juntillas sus mandatos y directivas. Consecuentemente es falso que este conduciendo un gran cambio e incluso haya virado hacia Rusia.

Y en estas condiciones debemos destacar que la lucha entre las potencias capitalistas por el control de las zonas petroleras, los mercados petroleros y los pasos marítimos, particularmente en Oriente Medio y el mercado europeo, es a muerte.

Sobre esto quisiera tomar nota lo escrito por German Gorraiz Lopez, que es el que mejor ha resumido este asunto.

Veamos:

“Teniendo en cuenta que el consumo doméstico de EEUU se movería en la horquilla de los 16 a los 20 millones de barriles diarios. El proyecto del gasoducto conocido como Nabucco West ,(proyectado por EEUU para transportar el gas azerí (Azerbayan) a Europa a través de Turquía, Bulgaria, Rumania y Hungría y así evitar el chantaje energético ruso), fracasó al haberse inclinado Turkmenistán, Uzbekistán y Kazajistán por el proyecto ruso del gasoducto South Stream y retirarse finalmente Azerbaiyán del proyecto en junio de 2013, siendo elegida la vía alternativa del gasoducto transadriático, (TAP, Trans Adriatic Pipeline), mediante el cual Azerbaiyán exportará su gas hacia Europa a través de Grecia, Albania e Italia pero que sólo puede transportar un tercio del proyecto Nabucco, por lo que no supone ninguna amenaza para los intereses de Rusia. Asimismo, la coalición de intereses ruso-alemanes ideó el proyecto Nord Stream inaugurado en el 2011 y que conecta Rusia con Alemania por el mar Báltico, con una capacidad máxima de transporte de 55.000 millones de metros cúbicos (bcm) de gas al año y con una vigencia de 50 años. Dicha ruta se estima vital para Alemania y los Países Nórdicos, por lo que ha sido declarado de “interés europeo” por el Parlamento Europeo y crucial para la geoestrategia energética rusa pues con dicha ruta se cerraría la pinza energética rusa al descartar a las Repúblicas Bálticas y Polonia como territorio de tránsito”.

Continua: “Por parte rusa, en el 2007 presentó el proyecto del gasoducto South Stream , gasoducto de 39.000 millones de dólares que recorrería Rusia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungría, Eslovenia e Italia y que debía garantizar el suministro de gas ruso a la UE (evitando el paso por la pro-estadounidense Ucrania tras la crisis del gas del invierno del 2.006 y los recortes de suministro producidos en incontables países de la UE (el 80% del total del gas que la UE importa de Rusia pasa por Ucrania y abastece en más de un 70% a países como los Países bálticos, Finlandia, Eslovaquia, Bulgaria, Grecia, Austria, Hungría y República Checa), dormirá en el limbo de los sueños tras la negativa de Bulgaria a participar en dicho proyecto debido a las fuertes presiones de EEUU.  Así, el objetivo inequívoco de EEUU es sustituir la rusodependencia energética europea (30% del gas que importa la UE procede de Rusa) por la frackingdependencia, inundando el mercado europeo con el GNL (gas natural frackeado en EEUU y transportado mediante buques gaseros) para hundir los precios del gas ruso así como impulsar la utilización de la técnica del fracking en todos los países de la Europa Oriental, el llamado “arco del fracking europeo” que se extendería desde los Países Bálticos hasta la Ucrania europea, pasando por Polonia, República Checa, Eslovaquia, Hungría, Rumania y Bulgaria y que dependerá de la tecnología de empresas estadounidenses como Chevron o Shell” (2).

Con este preámbulo pasamos de frente a explicar este asunto:

1.- Lo que han dicho y aun dicen las prensas:

Telesur, el 16 de julio de 2016, a unas cuantas horas de los hachos, dijo lo siguiente (A este respecto debo aclarar que las prensas que más estaban agitadas han sido las prensas rusas: Sputnik y Rusia Today):

“Al caer la tarde de este viernes (15 de julio de 2916), el movimiento de tropas y el paso de aviones militares sobre Ankara, la capital de Turquía, pusieron en alerta a la población. Un comunicado posterior confirmó que una facción del Ejército turco estaba intentando tomar el poder con el fin de proteger el orden democrático y mantener los derechos humanos en el país euroasiático. Los militares disidentes impusieron la ley marcial en todo el país, desplegaron tanques en las autopistas de acceso a Estambul y Ankara, la dos ciudades más importantes del país. Estas medidas fueron apoyadas por blindados, cazas y helicópteros del Ejército”.

Continua: “Casi siete horas después, el presidente Erdogan aterrizó en el aeropuerto internacional Atatürk de Estambul, luego de que el portavoz de la presidencia anunciara el fin de la intentona golpista. Desde las afueras del aeropuerto internacional, el mandatario confirmó ante los medios de comunicación que el golpe fue sofocado y el Gobierno seguía en funciones. Además, advirtió de que “los involucrados pagarán un alto precio” (3).

Inmediatamente hubo un “contragolpe” que significaba una razzia descomunal de expulsiones de elementos anti-Erdogan, es decir, anti-estadounidense (sobre esto más información, abajo).

Luego tuve noticias que indicaban, casi de forma inmediata, que Turquía estaba retirando sus militares y agentes de inteligencia de Alepo e Iraq.

Veamos:

“Por otra parte, el Ejército turco ha ordenado a sus tropas estacionadas en Iraq que se retiren inmediatamente del país y vuelvan a sus guarniciones en Turquía. La decisión del Ejército turco se produjo tras el fracaso del golpe de estado en Turquía en la noche del 15 de Julio” (4).

El 19 de julio de 2016 circuló en, katehon.com, que el intento de golpe militar habría sido ejecutado por los partidarios del líder islamista Fethullah Gülen que vive en Pennsylvania, en los Estados Unidos, y su movimiento “Khizmat” a causa del acercamiento de Turquía con Rusia, Irán y China. Aunque esta versión ya había sido manoseada con persistencia desde el inicio de estos hechos, que incluso confundió a algunos reconocidos analistas del mundo.

Veamos:

“La red de Gülen actuó por órdenes de los EE.UU. una vez que los altos mandos Kemalistas, cuyo ideólogo es el destacado político Dogu Perincek, plantearon la cuestión de acelerar radicalmente el curso del acercamiento de Turquía con Rusia, Irán y China, e incluso salir de la OTAN. La estructura de Gülen penetró hasta el escalón más alto de los servicios gubernamentales y de inteligencia. Erdogan entiendó el peligro de esta secta sólo en el último momento, cuando los gulenistas, una vez más a las órdenes de los Estados Unidos, intentaron llevar a cabo una revolución de color en la plaza Taksim, tratando de unir a Kemalistas, liberales y todo aquel que se opone a Erdogan. Las purgas siguientes, sin embargo, no liquidaron toda la estructura. El intento de golpe militar pro-estadounidense se hizo en el mismo momento en que Erdogan cambió su curso en la política exterior y comenzó a construir una alianza estratégica a lo largo del eje de Ankara-Moscú, incluyendo el cambio de su posición sobre el tema sirio. Con el fin de evitar la creación de un eje euroasiático Ankara-Moscú, los EE.UU. trataron de organizar un golpe de estado recurriendo a sus redes (el movimiento “Khizmat” y los partidarios del líder islamista Gülen, residente en los Estados Unidos y que coopera activamente con las agencias de inteligencia de los Estados Unidos)” (5).

El Partido Comunista, de Turquía se pronunció el 26 de julio de 2016, en realidad ni fue muy claro ni muy contundente, solo describiendo el golpe como “una lucha de poder entre los seguidores de Erdoğan y el movimiento Gulen el cual habría adquirido una nueva dimensión con las grandes purgas de Gulenistas recientemente. “Mientras el peso económico y político de esta lucha aumenta la lucha también tiene una dimensión internacional y los centros imperialistas están apoyando a estas facciones. Es verdad que la mayoría de los oficiales que participaron en el intento de golpe son Gulenistas y que el movimiento Gulen tiene conexiones con EEUU. Hasta un cierto punto es correcto pensar que un golpe de estado no tomaría lugar en Turquía sin la aprobación de EEUU ya que Turquía es un aliado militar cercano y miembro de la OTAN. La principal razón para que la mayoría de los altos oficiales en las Fuerzas Armadas Turcas, frustrados con el AKP (Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo) no intentaran un golpe fue el apoyo brindado por parte de EEUU al AKP” (6).

El 31 de julio de 2016 Sputnik hizo circular la noticia que indicaba que el presidente turco, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pasaba a tener el control directo sobre las Fuerzas Armadas de Turquía.

Veamos:

“Asimismo, el mandatario y el primer ministro del país se han otorgado el derecho de emitir órdenes directas a las tropas sin que tengan que ser previamente aprobadas por cualquier otra persona autorizada. De esta manera, los militares se ven obligados ejecutar las órdenes que dicten los dos dirigentes de forma inmediata, destaca el medio. Además, según el nuevo decreto, también se cierran todas las academias militares, que posteriormente serán transformadas e integradas en la Universidad Nacional de Defensa compuesta por las academias profesionales. Además, la Academia Médica Militar de Gulhate, en Estambul, pasa a estar bajo el control del Ministerio de Salud” (7).

El 06 de agosto de 2016 se volvió a insistir sobre el supuesto cierre del paso fronterizo de Turquía hacia Siria, Bab al-Hawa, esto según informa Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten.

Veamos:

“Militantes del Ejército Libre Sirio, grupo armado apoyado por EEUU, ya no pueden acceder a Siria desde Turquía, después de que Ankara cerrase el paso fronterizo de Bab al-Hawa, informa Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten. De esta manera, el líder turco, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, no hizo solo un esfuerzo para normalizar las relaciones con Bashar Asad, sino que se puso al lado de Moscú en el conflicto sirio, concluye la edición alemana. “Nuestro principal objetivo es establecer buenas relaciones con Siria, Irak y los países vecinos del Mediterráneo y el Mar Negro”, cita el Deutsche Nachrichten Wirtschafts al primer ministro turco Binali Yildirim” (8).

Finalmente mientras estaba finalizando las últimas correcciones a este artículo, el 09 de agosto de 2016, llegó a mis manos la noticia que indicaba que Erdogan estaba aliándose con Putin para fortalecer a Al-Asad y desesperar a Estados Unidos: En realidad este tipo de noticias han sido persistentes en los últimos días. Según la avanzadilla del ejército estadounidense el denominado “Observatorio Sirio para los Derechos Humanos” (OSDH): “Después de la tentativa militar, se ha reducido significativamente el flujo de municiones y armas desde el territorio turco hacia Siria”. Algo que da mucho que pensar.

Veamos

“El cerco impuesto a esa área de Alepo dio el mes pasado un impulso inesperado cuando un fallido golpe militar en la vecina Turquía allanó el camino para el acercamiento de Ankara y Moscú, cuyas relaciones se habían enfriado por el derribo de un caza ruso por aviones turcos. De hecho, en medio de las críticas del Occidente, sobre todo Washington —acusado por Ankara de ser cómplice de los golpistas— por la reacción de Turquía al fracasado golpe, el presidente turco, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, decidió acercase a su par ruso, Vladimir Putin, forjando así una nueva alianza estratégica. Después de la tentativa militar, se ha reducido significativamente el flujo de municiones y armas desde el territorio turco hacia Siria. Las fuerzas sirias “no habrían podido asediar a Alepo sin el acercamiento turco-ruso. El apoyo militar ya no es como antes”, según responsables del OSDH” (9).

2.- Lo que realmente sucedió:

Como hemos dicho en la introducción de esta nota, el 16 de julio de 2016 hubo en Turquía una operación militar planificada y ejecutada milimétricamente por el Pentágono, la OTAN y el propio Recep Tayyip Erdogan a fin de distraer, confundir y desarmar el posicionamiento geopolítico de Rusia en Siria y Oriente Medio, esto ocurre en un momento crucial de sus fuerzas paramilitares en ese país (Siria), pues, estos prácticamente están siendo diezmados en estos últimos días y su derrota huele a una derrota vergonzosa.

Asimismo el operativo militar del 16 de julio de 2016 estaba destinado a prevenir y liquidar de raíz a una corriente que empezaba a germinar en el seno de las fuerzas armadas turcas descontentas ante los últimos hechos, sobre todo, en los últimos meses (acuerdos de balcanización de Turquía por gran colusión), pretendiendo así empujar a Rusia a un nuevo retroceso en el conflicto sirio. Bien se sabe que Turquía es un actor de primer nivel, en realidad punta de lanza, en la tentativa de ocupación de este país. Los monopolios de la desinformación, estadounidenses y europeos, cumpliendo su parte, han hecho correr ríos de tinta y toneladas de desinformación y tergiversación. Incluso han querido afectar la “Teoría de los Cambios Históricos” (Equiparación de fuerzas, estructura multipolar, China primera potencia capitalista, bancarrota económica y perdida de la hegemonía mundial estadounidense y, carrera armamentística) que en la actualidad es la única teoría que explica de forma científica los profundos cambios que están ocurriendo en el planeta.

Y como consecuencia de estos hechos, que en realidad era un objetivo, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, el Pentágono, la OTAN y la CIA, han iniciado una razzia descomunal de expulsiones de elementos anti-Erdogan, es decir, anti-estadounidense.

Se dice que hay más de 60.000 personas sancionadas, 18.000 arrestados, “decenas de miles de profesores han sido expulsados, sus licencias revocadas, el consejo de investigación científica turco (Tubitak) ha sido allanado y varios de sus miembros detenidos, miles de soldados, jueces y funcionarios del Estado se encuentran tras las rejas, junto a decenas de periodistas que han visto 24 medios de distintos tipos cerrados por el régimen. Hay denuncias de torturas y los espías del régimen están, día y noche, señalando a opositores del gobierno, tanto en territorio turco, como entre las comunidades turcas en otros países. El ensañamiento ha llegado incluso al más allá: los soldados muertos durante la intentona de golpe, están siendo arrojados en una fosa común, marcada con el nombre de “traidores”, atrás de una perrera, prohibiéndose el servicio religioso, para que, según palabras del alcalde de Estambul, no tengan paz siquiera en la tumba [2].” (10).

Además:

No es casualidad que los lumpenes, en realidad, estructuras paramilitares, en medio de estos hechos, ejecutaron despiadados linchamientos contra soldados y “la saturación chovinista, las turbas de Erdoğan atacaron a barrios kurdos, refugiados sirios, barrios tradicionalmente de izquierda y barrios de la minoría religiosa Alevi [12]. Erdoğan les ha facilitado la tarea declarando transporte público gratuito y mensajes de texto gratuito durante varias semanas, para que sus partidarios pudieran comunicarse y movilizarse libremente, representando el ejército de choque que da una dimensión de masas al golpe al estilo de Fujimori que Erdoğan desarrolla desde su palacio. Su rol es intimidar a la posible oposición y convertirse en la voz que demanda el linchamiento mediante medidas como la pena de muerte por razones políticas, para que aparezca como una decisión popular y no como lo que realmente es, una decisión del propio gobierno. (11).

Más aun estos hechos se producen en medio de cruciales circunstancias en que estaban las fuerzas agresoras en Siria, es decir cuando en efecto es insostenible la situación de sus fuerzas paramilitares, incluso cuando Rusia había bombardeado una de base militar clandestina del Pentágono en territorio sirio el 16 de junio de 2016. (12).

Entonces, como dicen las transnacionales de la desinformación, si el fallido golpe militar hubiera estado dirigido por Estados Unidos contra Erdogan porque este habría estado desviándose hacia Moscú, ya en estos momentos hubiéramos tenido dos o tres contragolpes hasta expulsar o asesinar a Erdogan. Pero no fue así. Fue una operación de distracción para salvar su posicionamiento geoestratégico en Oriente Medio.

Consecuentemente allí no estaba en germinación ningún movimiento rupturista contra los grilletes impuestos por este imperialismo y esto no podía estar, mil veces, en la personalidad y el grupo criminal pro-estadounidense de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

En mis análisis anteriores hable acerca de una Gran Colusión. Entonces aquella estaba referida a la instalación del llamado estado Kurdistán con el objeto de balcanizar esta región y en el que Turquía ciertamente estaba incluida. Entonces hacia este objetivo estaban agolpados Estados Unidos, Rusia, China e incluso el YPG (kurdos sirios) supuestamente para dar viabilidad al gran impasse existente allí. Por supuesto, esto era al margen de todo lo que significaba el verdadero e histórico sentir de los pueblos kurdos por el Kurdistán histórico que en las actuales circunstancias plantearla, en confabulación con el imperialismo estadounidense, es simplemente una concesión de enormes dimensiones a este rapaz imperialismo.

Sin embargo aquel proyecto debe tener en estos momentos serias dificultades en su implementación, si es que no ha sido cancelada, que Estados Unidos y Rusia son incapaces de resolverla. En esto se ubica en primer lugar la firme resistencia del gobierno, el ejército y el pueblo antiimperialista sirios.

Sobre la existencia de esta Gran Colusión ya hay algunos apuntes que están circulando, aunque aún, en forma de cabos sueltos:

Veamos:

“Uno de los líderes del YPG, Salih Muslim Muhammad, traicionando los planteamientos del líder del PKK, Abdullah Oçalan, y de su visión de un Kurdistán unido, entró en contacto y negociaciones con Erdogan y el presidente francés Hollande, a quienes le visitó al menos un par de veces en París, de cara a crear un pseudo-Kurdistán, un Kurdistán a la medida de Erdogan, fuera de Turquía, y que pudiera recoger los kurdos turcos, ya que Erdogan no está dispuesto a reconocer un Kurdistán centro de sus fronteras. Este Kurdistán que haría tabla rasa de los kurdos de Turquía, es el que defendía Salih Muslim y del que pretendía ser su dirigente. Hubo sectores del YPG que discrepaban de esta postura, que estaban de acuerdo con las reivindicaciones de Oçalan y que rompieron con Salih Muslim. La dinámica actual de los kurdos sirios coaligados con los norteamericanos, que son el peor enemigo de Siria, de Kurdistán y de todos los pueblos del mundo, los creadores e impulsores del terrorismo islámico, y de la dominación y destrucción de los pueblos, nos hace dudar mucho de las orientaciones actuales de los kurdos sirios. Más teniendo en cuenta la extraña coalición de la que forman parte, la de las Fuerzas Democráticas Sirias (FDS) en coalición con grupos sirios “rebeldes” apoyada por los EEUU” (13).

El asunto es muy serio: Estados Unidos prácticamente esta fracturado en Oriente Medio (pende de un hilo su expulsión de Siria con todas sus estructuras paramilitares, su pretendida ocupación de Irán esta fracasado, su acuerdo nuclear con irán ha debilitado en extremo a Arabia Saudita e Israel (en verdad cuánto me hubiera gustado un giro estratégico en Turquía, con lo cual esta fractura hubiera sido completa).

Sin embargo el Pentágono sigue con su hemorragia militar sobre el norte de Siria tratando de evitar su vergonzosa expulsión que en las actuales circunstancias su exigencia se habría reducido al control de una pequeña franja en esa zona (Norte de Siria) evitando la fractura de Turquía tal como al parecer exigía Rusia. Esto en concreto es el fracaso de toda colusión y lleva a una tensión muy fuerte a estas dos superpotencias. Por lo que en este momento existe una fuerte presión sobre Rusia a fin de que acepte aquella exigencia del pentágono: por el momento se sabe que están llegando fuerzas militares de Alemania, Francia, Inglaterra, etc., sobre Siria. Por su parte Rusia está en fuerte ofensiva. Su participación en Siria es muy fuerte. Prácticamente han vuelto sus fuerzas aeroespaciales.

Entonces el asunto geopolítico en Oriente Medio es muy complejo que hay que saber enfocarla correctamente tomando en cuenta sus distintos aspectos. El análisis implica obligatoriamente introducirse en sus estructuras internas y sus inter-relaciones con los distintos posicionamientos geopolíticos que hay que ser sagaces para percibirlas.

3.- Los últimos hechos que demuestran esta situación:

De la descomunal confusión informativa, en realidad guerra informativa, es posible rescatar las siguientes notas que demuestran esta situación:

Primero, el ejército antiimperialista sirio, con el apoyo de la aviación rusa, continúa atacando las posiciones de las bandas paramilitares que actúan en el norte de Siria (Alepo).

Veamos:

“En los cuadros se puede ver a los civiles, que reciben a los partidarios de Asad con alegría, celebrando la liberación de la ciudad. “Hemos sufrido mucho a causa de los rebeldes, ellos nos han tratado mal, pero ahora nos defiende el Ejército sirio”, declara una habitante de la ciudad. Mientras tanto, los enfrentamientos se hacen más fuertes y, desde el pasado domingo, los rebeldes intentan detener el ataque —en lo que quizá sea su última oportunidad—, antes de que la urbe sea rodeada completamente por las tropas de Asad” (14).

Segundo, el miércoles 03 de agosto de 2016 cazas rusos han bombardeado un convoy de vehículos que llevaba combustible y suministros a la primera línea de combate en el sur de Alepo. (15).

Tercero, el 07 de agosto de 2016, a más de 20 días del supuesto golpe fallido en Turquía, se tuvo noticias desde Telesur (Ver el siguiente enlace: https://tenacarlos.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/a-ee-uu-no-le-agrada-como-a-israel-que-siria-y-rusia-liberen-alepo-de-terroristas/), cuyo corresponsal en Damasco, Hissan Wasnnous, impresionante la información que ha brindado este periodista, dijo: “En la batalla decisiva de Alepo estaban  atrapados militares (oficiales) de varios países que dirigen las operaciones de los grupos paramilitares “desde un centro de mando establecido en Turquía en el que operan integrantes de la Alianza atlántica de Estados Unidos, Arabia saudita y Qatar …y Alepo constituye la principal ruta de suministro de los terroristas desde Turquía hacia los diferentes frentes del país suministrando dirección y tropas hacia siria” (16).

Cuarto, por otra parte el 07 de agosto de 2016 la agencia AFP dio cuenta de la manifestación pública que organizó el presidente turco Recep Tayyip Erdogan el sábado 06 de agosto de 2016 en el recinto de Yenikapi de Estambul para condenar mediante una manifestación el fallido golpe de Estado del pasado 16 de julio de 2016, pero, mostrándolo como un baño de masas con un millón de asistentes. Con la excepción de Selahattin Demirtas, presidente del partido izquierdista y prokurdo HDP, quien simplemente no había sido invitado. (17).

Quinto, como estaba prevista la reunión de este 09 de agosto de 2016 en la ciudad de San Petersburgo entre Erdogan y Vladimir Putin fue improductivo, pues en lo esencial, no se discutió el asunto sirio que es lo más importante en estos momentos.

Veamos:

“El presidente ruso además añadió que “existe un entendimiento general, estoy seguro de ello, de que la lucha contra el terrorismo es un elemento clave de nuestro trabajo conjunto”…Mientras que presidente turco subrayó la intención de examinar a fondo la solución de la crisis siria…En primer lugar quiero decir que en el curso de las negociaciones que hemos tenido todavía no hemos discutido este tema (el conflicto en Siria), después de la conferencia de prensa tenemos la intención de examinarla”, dijo Erdogan (es decir el asunto sirio paso a segundo plano en esta reunión) …El mandatario turco señaló, además, que el proyecto Turk Stream “se llevará a cabo”. Por su parte, Vladímir Putin señaló que la realización del proyecto del gasoducto “puede arrancar próximamente” (18).

Sexto, y en medio de los duros combates que se registran en el Norte de Siria (Alepo) el 09 de agosto de 2016 HispanTV dio cuenta que Estados Unidos volvió a exigir a Rusia, que presione al Gobierno sirio, esta vez, para que termine’ con el cerco que mantiene en Alepo contra sus fuerzas paramilitares. Recordemos que unos días antes el secretario de Estado estadounidense, John Kerry, ya se había manifestado en ese sentido.

El apunte:

“Una vez más, instamos a Rusia a dejar de facilitar estos asedios y a utilizar su influencia para presionar al régimen a que acabe, de una vez por todas, con sus cercos en toda Siria”, dijo el lunes (08 de agosto de 2016) la embajadora estadounidense ante la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), Samantha Power. Power pronunció estas palabras durante una reunión informal del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas (CSNU) que organizaron los representantes de Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido, Francia, Nueva Zelanda y Ucrania, para hablar sobre la situación de la ciudad siria de Alepo. (19).

Enrique Muñoz Gamarra

NOTAS:

1.- “Irán advierte que EEUU pagará ‘muy caro’ si viola el acuerdo nuclear”. Nota publicada el 09 de julio de 2016, en: HispanTV.

2.- “¿Quién Ganará El Pulso Energético EEUU-Rusia En Europa?”. Por Germán Gorráiz López. Nota publicada el 04 de agosto de 2016 en: periódico alternativo.

3.- “Golpe de Estado fallido en Turquía: ¿cómo se dieron los hechos? Nota publicada el 16 de julio de 2016, en Telesur.

4.- “Turquía retira sus militares y agentes de inteligencia de Alepo y de Iraq”. Nota publicada el 16 de julio de 2016, en Al Manar.

5.- “El bloque euroasiático en Turquía: Erdogan y los kemalistas contra Guylen y los EEUU”. Nota publicada el 19 de julio de 2016, en: http://katehon.com/

6.- “El análisis del Partido Comunista, de Turquía sobre el intento de golpe de Estado”. Nota publicada el 26 de julio de 2016, en: http://comunistas-mexicanos.org/index.php/noticias/internacional/2122-el-analisis-del-partido-comunista-de-turquia-sobre-el-intento-de-golpe-de-estado

7.- “Erdogan pasa a tener el control directo sobre las Fuerzas Armadas de Turquía”. Nota publicada el 31 de julio de 2016, en: Sputnik.

8.- “¿Erdogan cambia de bando en el conflicto sirio?.”. Nota publicada el 06 de agosto de 2016, en: Plataforma Global Contra las Guerras.

9.- “Erdogan se alía con Putin para fortalecer a Al-Asad y desesperar a EEUU”. Nota publicada el 09 de agosto de 2016, en: HispanTV.

10.- “Erdoğan y su proyecto nacional-islamista”.Por José Antonio Gutiérrez D. Nota publicada el 10 de agosto de 2016, en: Odio de clase.

11.- “Erdoğan y su proyecto nacional-islamista”.Por José Antonio Gutiérrez D. Nota publicada el 10 de agosto de 2016, en: Odio de Clase.

12.- “Defensa rusa comenta el bombardeo de una base secreta de EEUU en Siria”. Nota publicada el 23 de julio de 2016, en: Sputnik.

13.- “Siria avanza en su lucha por la soberanía frente al terrorismo patrocinado por el imperialismo”. x Iñaki Urrestarazu. Nota publicada el 02 de agosto de 2016, en: La Haine.

14.- “Los rebeldes de Alepo están en las últimas”. Nota publicado el 04 de agosto de 2016, en: Sputnik.

15.- “VIDEO: Cazas rusos bombardean convoy de terroristas en Alepo”. Nota publicada el 04 de agosto de 2016, en: HispanTV.

16.- “A EEUU no le agrada, como a Israel, que Siria y Rusia liberen Alepo de terroristas”. Nota publicada el 07 de agosto de 2016, en: https://tenacarlos.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/a-ee-uu-no-le-agrada-como-a-israel-que-siria-y-rusia-liberen-alepo-de-terroristas/

17.- “Erdogan se da un baño de masas en una manifestación contra el golpe”. Nota publicada el 07 de agosto de 2016, en: La Vanguardia Internacional.

18.- “La conferencia de prensa de Putin y Erdogan “. Nota publicada el 09 de agosto de 2016, en; Sputnik.

19.- “EEUU vuelve a instar a Rusia a presionar a Damasco; esta vez por Alepo.”. Nota publicada el 09 de agosto de 2016, en; HispanTV.

Enrique Muñoz Gamarra: Sociólogo peruano, especialista en geopolítica y análisis internacional. Autor del libro: “Coyuntura Histórica. Estructura Multipolar y Ascenso del Fascismo en Estados Unidos”. Su Página web es: www.enriquemunozgamarra.orgpp

Russia is ready to respond to any provocation, but the last thing the Russians want is another war. And that, if you like good news, is the best news you are going to hear.”

We also know how painful it is to realize that the US is damaged beyond repair, or to acquiesce to the fact that most of the damage is self-inflicted: the endless, useless wars, the limitless corruption of money politics, the toxic culture and gender wars, and the imperial hubris and willful ignorance that underlies it all… This level of disconnect between the expected and the observed certainly hurts, but the pain can be avoided, for a time, through mass delusion.

This sort of downward spiral does not automatically spell “Apocalypse,” but the specifics of the state cult of the US—an old-time religiosity overlaid with the secular religion of progress—are such that there can be no other options: either we are on our way up to build colonies on Mars, or we perish in a ball of flame. Since the humiliation of having to ask the Russians for permission to fly the Soyuz to the International Space Station makes the prospect of American space colonies seem dubious, it’s Plan B: balls of flame here we come!

And so, most of the recent American warmongering toward Russia can be explained by the desire to find anyone but oneself to blame for one’s unfolding demise. This is a well-understood psychological move—projecting the shadow—where one takes everything one hates but can’t admit to about oneself and projects it onto another. On a subconscious level (and, in the case of some very stupid people, even a conscious one) the Americans would like to nuke Russia until it glows, but can’t do so because Russia would nuke them right back. But the Americans can project that same desire onto Russia, and since they have to believe that they are good while Russia is evil, this makes the Armageddon scenario appear much more likely.

But this way of thinking involves a break with reality. There is exactly one nation in the world that nukes other countries, and that would be the United States. It gratuitously nuked Japan, which was ready to surrender anyway, just because it could. It prepared to nuke Russia at the start of the Cold War, but was prevented from doing so by a lack of a sufficiently large number of nuclear bombs at the time. And it attempted to render Russia defenseless against nuclear attack, abandoning the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, but has been prevented from doing so by Russia’s new weapons. These include, among others, long-range supersonic cruise missiles (Kalibr), and suborbital intercontinental missiles carrying multiple nuclear payloads capable of evasive maneuvers as they approach their targets (Sarmat). All of these new weapons are impossible to intercept using any conceivable defensive technology. At the same time, Russia has also developed its own defensive capabilities, and its latest S-500 system will effectively seal off Russia’s airspace, being able to intercept targets both close to the ground and in low Earth orbit.

In the meantime, the US has squandered a fantastic sum of money fattening up its notoriously corrupt defense establishment with various versions of “Star Wars,” but none of that money has been particularly well spent. The two installations in Europe of Aegis Ashore (completed in Romania, planned in Poland) won’t help against Kalibr missiles launched from submarines or small ships in the Pacific or the Atlantic, close to US shores, or against intercontinental missiles that can fly around them. The THAAD installation currently going into South Korea (which the locals are currently protesting by shaving their heads) won’t change the picture either.

There is exactly one nuclear aggressor nation on the planet, and it isn’t Russia. But this shouldn’t matter. In spite of American efforts to undermine it, the logic of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) remains in effect. The probability of a nuclear exchange is determined not by anyone’s policy but by the likelihood of it happening by accident. Since there is no winning strategy in a nuclear war, nobody has any reason to try to start one. Under no circumstances is the US ever going to be able to dictate its terms to Russia by threatening it with nuclear annihilation.

If a nuclear war is not in the cards, how about a conventional one? The US has been sabre-rattling by stationing troops and holding drills in the Baltics, right on Russia’s western border, installing ABM systems in Romania, Poland and South Korea, supporting anti-Russian Ukrainian Nazis, etc. All of this seems quite provocative; can it result in a war? And what would that war look like?

Here, we have to look at how Russia has responded to previous provocations. These are all the facts that we know, and can use to predict what will happen, as opposed to purely fictional, conjectural statements unrelated to known facts.

When the US or its proxies attack an enclave of Russian citizens outside of Russia’s borders, here are the types of responses that we have been able to observe so far:

1. The example of Georgia. During the Summer Olympics in Beijing (a traditional time of peace), the Georgian military, armed and trained by the US and Israel, invaded South Ossetia. This region was part of Georgia in name only, being mostly inhabited by Russian speakers and passport-holders. Georgian troops started shelling its capital, Tskhinval, killing some Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in the region and causing civilian casualties. In response, Russian troops rolled into Georgia, within hours completely eliminating Georgia’s war-making capability. They announced that South Ossetia was de facto no longer part of Georgia, throwing in Abkhazia (another disputed Russian enclave) for good measure, and withdrew. Georgia’s warmongering president Saakashvili was pronounced a “political corpse” and left to molder in place. Eventually he was forced to flee Georgia, where he has been declared a fugitive from justice. The US State Department recently gave him a new job, as Governor of Odessa in the Ukraine. Recently, Russian-Georgian relations have been on the mend.

2. The example of Crimea. During the Winter Olympics in Sochi, in Russia (a traditional time of peace) there occurred an illegal, violent overthrow of the elected, constitutional government of the Ukraine, followed by the installation of a US-picked puppet administration. In response, the overwhelmingly Russian population of the autonomous region of Crimea held a referendum. Some 95% of them voted to secede from the Ukraine and to once again become part of Russia, which they had been for centuries and until very recently. The Russians then used their troops already stationed in the region under an international agreement to make sure that the results of the referendum were duly enacted. Not a single shot was fired during this perfectly peaceful exercise in direct democracy.

3. The example of Crimea again. During the Summer Olympics in Rio (a traditional time of peace) a number of Ukrainian operatives stormed the Crimean border and were swiftly apprehended by Russia’s Federal Security Service, together with a cache of weapons and explosives. A number of them were killed in the process, along with two Russians. The survivors immediately confessed to planning to organize terrorist attacks at the ferry terminal that links Crimea with the Russian mainland and a railway station. The ringleader of the group confessed to being promised the princely sum of $140 for carrying out these attacks. All of them are very much looking forward to a warm, dry bunk and three square meals of day, care of the Russian government, which must seem like a slice of heaven compared to the violence, chaos, destitution and desolation that characterizes life in present-day Ukraine. In response, the government in Kiev protested against “Russian provocation,” and put its troops on alert to prepare against “Russian invasion.” Perhaps the next shipment of US aid to the Ukraine should include a supply of chlorpromazine or some other high-potency antipsychotic medication.

Note the constant refrain of “during the Olympics.” This is not a coincidence but is indicative of a certain American modus operandi. Yes, waging war during a traditional time of peace is both cynical and stupid. But the American motto seems to be “If we try something repeatedly and it still doesn’t work, then we just aren’t trying hard enough.” In the minds of those who plan these events, the reason they never work right can’t possibly have anything to do with it being stupid. This is known as “Level III Stupid”: stupidity so profound that it is unable to comprehend its own stupidity.

4. The example of Donbass. After the events described in point 2 above, this populous, industrialized region, which was part of Russia until well into the 20th century and is linguistically and culturally Russian, went into political turmoil, because most of the locals wanted nothing to do with the government that had been installed in Kiev, which they saw as illegitimate. The Kiev government proceeded to make things worse, first by enacting laws infringing on the rights of Russian-speakers, then by actually attacking the region with the army, which they continue to do to this day, with three unsuccessful invasions and continuous shelling of both residential and industrial areas, in the course of which over ten thousand civilians have been murdered and many more wounded. In response, Russia assisted with establishing a local resistance movement supported by a capable military contingent formed of local volunteers. This was done by Russian volunteers, acting in an unofficial capacity, and by Russian private citizens donating money to the cause. In spite of Western hysteria over “Russian invasion” and “Russian aggression,” no evidence of it exists. Instead, the Russian government has done just three things: it refused to interfere with the work of its citizens coming to the aid of Donbass; it pursued a diplomatic strategy for resolving the conflict; and it has provided numerous convoys of humanitarian aid to the residents of Donbass. Russia’s diplomatic initiative resulted in two international agreements—Minsk I and Minsk II—which compelled both Kiev and Donbass to pursue a strategy of political resolution of the conflict through cessation of hostilities and the granting to Donbass of full autonomy. Kiev has steadfastly refused to fulfill its obligations under these agreements. The conflict is now frozen, but continuing to bleed because of Ukrainian shelling, waiting for the Ukrainian puppet government to collapse.

To complete the picture, let us include Russia’s recent military action in Syria, where it came to the defense of the embattled Syrian government and quickly demolished a large part of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Islamic Caliphate, along with various other terrorist organizations active in the region. The rationale for this action is that Russia saw a foreign-funded terrorist nest in Syria as a direct threat to Russia’s security. Two other notable facts here are that Russia acted in accordance with international law, having been invited by Syria’s legitimate, internationally recognized government and that the military action was scaled back as soon as it seemed possible for all of the legitimate (non-terrorist) parties to the conflict to return to the negotiating table. These three elements—using military force as a reactive security measure, scrupulous adherence to international law, and seeing military action as being in the service of diplomacy—are very important to understanding Russia’s methods and ambitions.

Turning now to US military/diplomatic adventures, we see a situation that is quite different. US military spending is responsible for over half of all federal discretionary spending, dwarfing most other vitally important sectors, such as infrastructure, public medicine and public education. It serves several objectives. Most importantly, it is a public jobs program: a way of employing people who are not employable in any actually productive capacity due to lack of intelligence, education and training. Second, it is a way for politicians and defense contractors to synergistically enrich themselves and each other at the public’s expense. Third, it is an advertising program for weapons sales, the US being the top purveyor of lethal technology in the world. Last of all, it is a way of projecting force around the world, bombing into submission any country that dares oppose Washington’s global hegemonic ambitions, often in total disregard of international law. Nowhere on this list is the actual goal of defending the US.

None of these justifications works vis-à-vis Russia. In dollar terms, the US outspends Russia on defense hands down. However, viewed in terms of purchasing parity, Russia manages to buy as much as ten times more defensive capability per unit national wealth than the US, largely negating this advantage. Also, what the US gets for its money is inferior: the Russian military gets the weapons it wants; the US military gets what the corrupt political establishment and their accomplices in the military-industrial complex want in order to enrich themselves. In terms of being an advertising campaign for weapons sales, watching Russian weaponry in action in Syria, effectively wiping out terrorists in short order through a relentless bombing campaign using scant resources, then seeing US weaponry used by the Saudis in Yemen, with much support and advice from the US, being continuously defeated by lightly armed insurgents, is unlikely to generate too many additional sales leads. Lastly, the project of maintaining US global hegemony seems to be on the rocks as well. Russia and China are now in a de facto military union. Russia’s superior weaponry, coupled with China’s almost infinitely huge infantry, make it an undefeatable combination. Russia now has a permanent air base in Syria, has made a deal with Iran to use Iranian military bases, and is in the process of prying Turkey away from NATO. As the US military, with its numerous useless bases around the world and piles of useless gadgets, turns into an international embarrassment, it remains, for the time being, a public jobs program for employing incompetents, and a rich source of graft.

In all, it is important to understand how actually circumscribed American military capabilities are. The US is very good at attacking vastly inferior adversaries. The action against Nazi Germany only succeeded because it was by then effectively defeated by the Red Army—all except for the final mop-up, which is when the US came out of its timid isolation and joined the fray. Even North Korea and Vietnam proved too tough for it, and even there its poor performance would have been much poorer were it not for the draft, which had the effect of adding non-incompetents to the ranks, but produced the unpleasant side-effect of enlisted men shooting their incompetent officers—a much underreported chapter of American military history. And now, with the addition of LGBTQ people to the ranks, the US military is on its way to becoming an international laughing stock. Previously, terms like “faggot” and “pussy” were in widespread use in the US military’s basic training. Drill sergeants used such terminology to exhort the “numb-nuts” placed in their charge to start acting like men. I wonder what words drill sergeants use now that they’ve been tasked with training those they previously referred to as “faggots” and “pussies”? The comedic potential of this nuance isn’t lost on Russia’s military men.

This comedy can continue as long as the US military continues to shy away from attacking any serious adversary, because if it did, comedy would turn to tragedy rather quickly.

• If, for instance, US forces tried to attack Russian territory by lobbing missiles across the border, they would be neutralized in instantaneous retaliation by Russia’s vastly superior artillery.
• If Americans or their proxies provoked Russians living outside of Russia (and there are millions of them) to the point of open rebellion, Russian volunteers, acting in an unofficial capacity and using private funds, would quickly train, outfit and arm them, creating a popular insurgency that would continue for years, if necessary, until Americans and their proxies capitulate.
• If the Americans do the ultimately foolish thing and invade Russian territory, they would be kettled and annihilated, as repeatedly happened to the Ukrainian forces in Donbass.
• Any attempt to attack Russia using the US aircraft carrier fleet would result in its instantaneous sinking using any of several weapons: ballistic anti-ship missiles, supercavitating torpedos or supersonic cruise missiles.
• Strategic bombers, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles would be eliminated by Russia’s advanced new air defense systems.

So much for attack; but what about defense? Well it turns out that there is an entire separate dimension to engaging Russia militarily. You see, Russia lost a huge number of civilian lives while fighting off Nazi Germany. Many people, including old people, women and children, died of starvation and disease, or from German shelling, or from the abuse they suffered at the hands of German soldiers. On the other hand, Soviet military casualties were on par with those of the Germans. This incredible calamity befell Russia because it had been invaded, and it has conditioned Russian military thinking ever since. The next large-scale war, if there ever is one, will be fought on enemy territory. Thus, if the US attacks Russia, Russia will counterattack the US mainland. Keeping in mind that the US hasn’t fought a war on its own territory in over 150 years, this would come as quite a shock.

Of course, this would be done in ways that are consistent with Russian military thinking. Most importantly, the attack must be such that the possibility of triggering a nuclear exchange remains minimized. Second, the use of force would be kept to the minimum required to secure a cessation of hostilities and a return to the negotiating table on terms favorable to Russia. Third, every effort would be made to make good use of internal popular revolts to create long-lasting insurgencies, letting volunteers provide the necessary arms and training. Lastly, winning the peace is just as important as winning the war, and every effort would be made to inform the American public that what they are experiencing is just retribution for certain illegal acts. From a diplomatic perspective, it would be much more tidy to treat the problem of war criminals running the US as an internal, American political problem, to be solved by Americans themselves, with an absolute minimum of outside help. This would best be accomplished through a bit of friendly, neighborly intelligence-sharing, letting all interested parties within the US know who exactly should be held responsible for these war crimes, what they and their family members look like, and where they live.

The question then is, What is the absolute minimum of military action—what I am calling “a thousand balls of fire,” named after George Bush Senior’s “a thousand points of light”—to restore peace on terms favorable to Russia? It seems to me that 1000 “balls of fire” is just about the right number. These would be smallish explosions—enough to demolish a building or an industrial installation, with almost no casualties. This last point is extremely important, because the goal is to destroy the system without actually directly hurting any of the people. It wouldn’t be anyone else’s fault if people in the US suffer because they refuse to do as their own FEMA asks them to do: stockpile a month’s worth of food and water and put together an emergency evacuation plan. In addition, given the direction in which the US is heading, getting a second passport, expatriating your savings, and getting some firearms training just in case you end up sticking around are all good ideas.

The reason it is very important for this military action to not kill anyone is this: there are some three million Russians currently residing in the US, and killing any of them is definitely not on strategy. There is an even larger number of people from populous countries friendly to Russia, such as China and India, who should also remain unharmed. Thus, a strategy that would result in massive loss of life would simply not be acceptable. A much better scenario would involve producing a crisis that would quickly convince the Russians living in the US (along with all the other foreign nationals and first-generation immigrants, and quite a few of the second-generation immigrants too) that the US is no longer a good place to live. Then all of these people could be repatriated—a process that would no doubt take a few years. Currently, Russia is the number three destination worldwide for people looking for a better place to live, after the US and Germany. Germany is now on the verge of open revolt against Angela Merkel’s insane pro-immigration policies. The US is not far behind, and won’t remain an attractive destination for much longer. And that leaves Russia as the number one go-to place on the whole planet. That’s a lot of pressure, even for a country that is 11 time zones wide and has plenty of everything except tropical fruit and people.

We must also keep in mind that Israel—which is, let’s face it, a US protectorate temporarily parked on Palestinian land—wouldn’t last long without massive US support. Fully a third of Israeli population happens to be Russian. The moment Project Israel starts looking defunct, most of these Russian Jews, clever people that they are, will no doubt decide to stage an exodus and go right back to Russia, as is their right. This will create quite a headache for Russia’s Federal Migration Service, because it will have to sift through them all, letting in all the normal Russian Jews while keeping out the Zionist zealots, the war criminals and the ultra-religious nutcases. This will also take considerable time.

But actions that risk major loss of life also turn out to be entirely unnecessary, because an effective alternative strategy is available: destroy key pieces of government and corporate infrastructure, then fold your arms and wait for the other side to crawl back to the negotiating table waving a white rag. You see, there are just a few magic ingredients that allow the US to continue to exist as a stable, developed country capable of projecting military force overseas. They are: the electric grid; the financial system; the interstate highway system; rail and ocean freight; the airlines; and oil and gas pipelines. Disable all of the above, and it’s pretty much game over. How many “balls of flame” would that take? Probably well under a thousand.

Disabling the electric grid is almost ridiculously easy, because the system is very highly integrated and interdependent, consisting of just three sub-grids, called “interconnects”: western, eastern and Texas. The most vulnerable parts of the system are the Large Power Transformers (LPTs) which step up voltages to millions of volts for transmission, and step them down again for distribution. These units are big as houses, custom-built, cost millions of dollars and a few years to replace, and are mostly manufactured outside the US. Also, along with the rest of the infrastructure in the US, most of them are quite old and prone to failure. There are several thousand of these key pieces of equipment, but because the electric grid in the US is working at close to capacity, with several critical choke points, it would be completely disabled if even a handful of the particularly strategic LPTs were destroyed. In the US, any extended power outage in any of the larger urban centers automatically triggers large-scale looting and mayhem. Some estimate that just a two week long outage would push the situation to a point of no return, where the damage would become too extensive to ever be repaired.

Disabling the financial system is likewise relatively trivial. There are just a few choke points, including the Federal Reserve, a few major banks, debit and credit card company data centers, etc. They can be disabled using a variety of methods, such as a cruise missile strike, a cyberattack, electric supply disruption or even civil unrest. It bears noting that the financial system in the US is rigged to blow even without foreign intervention. The combination of runaway debt, a gigantic bond bubble, the Federal Reserve trapped into ever-lower interest rates, underfunded pensions and other obligations, hugely overpriced real estate and a ridiculously frothy stock market will eventually detonate it from the inside.

A few more surgical strikes can take out the oil and gas pipelines, import terminals, highway bridges and tunnels, railroads and airlines. A few months without access to money and financial services, electricity, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, air transport or imported spare parts needed to repair the damage should be enough to force the US to capitulate. If it makes any efforts to restore any of these services, an additional strike or two would quickly negate them.

The number of “balls of flame” can be optimized by taking advantage of destructive synergies: a GPS jammer deployed near the site of an attack can prevent responders from navigating to it; taking out a supply depot together with the facility it serves, coupled with transportation system disruptions, can delay repairs by many months; a simple bomb threat can immobilize a transportation hub, making it a sitting duck instead of a large number of moving targets; etc.

You may think that executing such a fine-tuned attack would require a great deal of intelligence, which would be difficult to gather, but this is not the case. First, a great deal of tactically useful information is constantly being leaked by insiders, who often consider themselves “patriots.” Second, what hasn’t been leaked can be hacked, because of the pitiable state of cybersecurity in the US. Remember, Russia is where anti-virus software is made—and a few of the viruses too. The National Security Agency was recently hacked, and its crown jewels stolen; if it can be hacked, what about all those whose security it supposedly protects?

You might also think that the US, if attacked in this manner, could effectively retaliate in kind, but this scenario is rather difficult to imagine. Many Russians don’t find English too difficult, are generally familiar with the US through exposure to US media, and the specialists among them, especially those who have studied or taught at universities in the US, can navigate their field of expertise in the US almost as easily as in Russia. Most Americans, on the other hand, can barely find Russia on a map, can’t get past the Cyrillic alphabet and find Russian utterly incomprehensible.

Also consider that Russia’s defense establishment is mainly focused on… defense. Offending people in foreign lands is not generally seen as strategically important. “A hundred friends is better than a hundred rubles” is a popular saying. And so Russia manages to be friends with India and Pakistan at the same time, and with China and Vietnam. In the Middle East, it maintains cordial relations with Turkey, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Iran, also all at the same time. Russian diplomats are required to keep channels of communication open with friends and adversaries alike, at all times. Yes, being inexplicably adversarial toward Russia can be excruciatingly painful, but you can make it stop any time! All it takes is a phone call.

Add to this the fact that the vicissitudes of Russian history have conditioned Russia’s population to expect the worst, and simply deal with it. “They can’t kill us all!” is another favorite saying. If Americans manage to make them suffer, the Russian people would no doubt find great solace in the fact they are making the Americans suffer even worse, and many among them would think that this achievement, in itself, is already a victory. Nor will they remain without help; it is no accident that Russia’s Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, previously ran the Emergencies Ministry, and his performance at his job there won him much adulation and praise. In short, if attacked, the Russians will simply take their lumps—as they always have—and then go on to conquer and win, as they always have.

It doesn’t help matters that most of what little Americans have been told about Russia by their political leaders and mass media is almost entirely wrong. They keep hearing about Putin and the “Russian bear,” and so they are probably imagining Russia to be a vast wasteland where Vladimir Putin keeps company with a chess-playing, internet server-hacking, nuclear physicist, rocket scientist, Ebola vaccine-inventing, polyglot, polymath bear. Bears are wonderful, Russians love bears, but let’s not overstate things. Yes, Russian bears can ride bicycles and are sometimes even good with children, but they are still just wild animals and/or pets (many Russians can’t draw that distinction). And so when the Americans growl about the “Russian bear,” the Russians wonder, Which one?

In short, Russia is to most Americans a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and there simply isn’t a large enough pool of intelligent Americans with good knowledge of Russia to draw upon, whereas to many Russians the US is an open book. As far as the actual American “intelligence” and “security” services, they are all bloated bureaucratic boondoggles mired in political opportunism and groupthink that excel at just two things: unquestioningly following idiotic procedures, and creatively fitting the facts to the politics du jour. “Proving” that Iraq has “weapons of mass destruction”—no problem! Telling Islamist terrorists apart from elderly midwestern grandmothers at an airport security checkpoint—no can do!

Russia will not resort to military measures against the US unless sorely provoked. Time and patience are on Russia’s side. With each passing year, the US grows weaker and loses friends and allies, while Russia grows stronger and gains friends and allies. The US, with its political dysfunction, runaway debt, decaying infrastructure and spreading civil unrest, is a dead nation walking. It will take time for each of the United States to neatly demolish themselves into their own footprints, like those three New York skyscrapers did on 9/11 (WTC #1, #2 and #7) but Russia is very patient. Russia is ready to respond to any provocation, but the last thing the Russians want is another war. And that, if you like good news, is the best news you are going to hear. But if you still think that there is going to be a war with Russia, don’t think “Armageddon”; think “a thousand balls of flame,” and then—crickets!

The Globalization of War

America’s “Long War” against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky 

Professor Chossudovsky’s latest book describes America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine —coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world. The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.

There is an intimate relationship between the Globalization of War and the Economic Crisis.  This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history. It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.

Michel Chossudovsky views “economic conquest” as an integral part of the US military agenda. The US military and intelligence apparatus consults with Wall Street and the Texas oil conglomerates. Conversely the IMF and the World Bank are in permanent liaison with the Pentagon and the US State Department.

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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity:

America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the “Globalization of War” whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine —coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world. The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.

This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history.

It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.

The ultimate objective is World conquest under the cloak of “human rights” and “Western democracy”.

Reviews:

“Professor Michel Chossudovsky is the most realistic of all foreign policy commentators. He is a model of integrity in analysis, his book provides an honest appraisal of the extreme danger that U.S. hegemonic neoconservatism poses to life on earth.”

In a widely-publicized speech delivered Wednesday at a community college in Reno, Nevada, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sought to exploit the increasingly fascistic tenor of the Donald Trump campaign to make an appeal for support from conservatives and Republicans.

Clinton used the speech, her only major public appearance in the second half of August, to shift her campaign further to the right, openly appealing for the support of more traditional right-wingers on the grounds that Trump was beyond the pale politically.

“This is not conservatism as we have known it, this is not Republicanism as we have known it,” she declared, adding that the November election was “a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump.”

To refer to the modern Republican Party as the “Party of Lincoln” is a political travesty, as is the attempt to present the Trump phenomenon as something totally alien to the political establishment in general and the Republican Party in particular.

Beginning with the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy,” the political and geographic base of the party was transformed, as diehard Southern racists who left the Democratic Party during the civil rights struggles were integrated into the Republican Party.

Clinton presented the Republican Party leadership as anti-racist–pointing favorably to presidential candidates Bob Dole and John McCain as well as former President George W. Bush. But as she well knows, the Republican Party has engaged in a devil’s bargain with the remnants of white supremacy over many decades. Among the plotters involved in the “vast right-wing conspiracy” about which Clinton warned at the time of the impeachment campaign against her then-president husband were unreconstructed segregationists in Arkansas and other Southern states.

It was Ronald Reagan, still invoked today as the chief Republican deity, who began his 1980 presidential campaign with a rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the rural town where three young civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. Before an all-white audience, he pledged to defend “state’s rights,” the banner under which the segregationists had fought their losing battle.

Clinton pointed to the Republican candidate’s recent appointment of Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of the ultra-right Breitbart News, as his campaign CEO. This, she argued, showed that the Republican Party was being taken over by the alt-right, racist and white supremacist elements, previously on the fringes of the party, but now being “brought into the mainstream” by Trump.

Clinton cited a number of Trump’s most outrageous statements and positions, from his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States to his vilification of a federal judge because his parents were born in Mexico. She declared, “These are racist ideas. Race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women.”

Trump has provided ample ammunition for such an attack. The day before Clinton’s speech, he appeared at a campaign rally in Mississippi with ultra-right British politician Nigel Farage. The former head of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Farage spearheaded the successful “Leave” campaign in the recent referendum on continued British membership in the European Union, mounting a racist campaign against immigrant workers.

The new Trump campaign chief, Stephen Bannon, is everything Clinton says and more: a neo-fascist (a word Clinton was careful to avoid), who seeks to transform the Republican Party along the lines of the National Front in France, the Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party in Austria and Farage’s UKIP.

Based on Clinton’s speech, however, one could only conclude that Trump’s appeal is based simply on racism and the significant support he has attracted, including among lower income and working class voters, reflects a broad popular constituency for racist views. Clinton did not, and could not for definite political reasons, acknowledge that there is an objective social basis for a response to Trump’s right-wing populism–namely, the desperate social crisis facing broad sections of the American population due to the right-wing policies of the Democrats no less than the Republicans. Trump is exploiting the absence within the political system of any expression of the interests and needs of ordinary people.

He is able to get a hearing because millions of people are being driven into economic insecurity and poverty while the rich and the super-rich continue to amass obscene levels of wealth. He is able with some success to divert mass discontent along reactionary nationalist and racialist channels precisely because what passes for the “left” in American politics, anchored by the Democratic Party, has moved ever further to the right, culminating in the Obama administration, which has presided over endless war and an unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top of the economic ladder.

There was no hint in Clinton’s speech of the attacks on economic inequality that she occasionally indulged in when she was facing the primary challenge of Bernie Sanders. On the contrary, she denounced Trump’s recent pretensions of sympathy for the appalling conditions of poverty and unemployment among African Americans in many US cities by declaring, “He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field, the vibrancy of the black-owned businesses, or the strength of the black church.”

The other major component of Clinton’s campaign is racial and identity politics, which are used to divide the working class and secure the support of privileged social layers–including a thin layer of upper-middle class blacks, Hispanics and women–for American imperialism.

Trump was spawned by the rise of a parasitic financial aristocracy whose fortunes are based on speculation rather than the development of industry. This process has been accompanied by a vast growth in the political influence of the military-intelligence apparatus in the course of 25 years of nearly continuous US wars.

Clinton does not care to discuss these processes because she herself is demonstratively vying for the favor of Wall Street and the national security state, presenting herself as the most reliable “commander-in-chief” for US imperialism, while deriding Trump as unstable, if not outright disloyal.

That explains the seemingly bizarre detour in Clinton’s speech, as she went from mentioning Trump’s appearance with Nigel Farage to declaring that “the grand godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism is Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

She continued, “Trump himself heaps praise on Putin and embraces pro-Russian policies. He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, giving the Kremlin a free hand in Eastern Europe. American presidents from Truman, to Reagan, to Bush and Clinton, to Obama have rejected the kind of approach Trump is taking on Russia.”

Clinton’s right-wing election campaign—based on praise for Obama’s “legacy,” a refusal to even acknowledge the existence of a social crisis, and warmongering denunciations of Russia—demonstrates that support for the Democrats and claims that they can be pressured to the left do not halt the growth of extreme right forces such as Trump. On the contrary, they fuel the spread of such tendencies.

The precondition for a serious struggle against war, inequality and attacks on democratic rights is a complete break with the Democratic Party and bourgeois politics as a whole, and the development of an independent political movement of the working class.

When sections in a piece of legislation assume their own properties, the state of debate is bound to be strained. In Australia, the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA), notably section 18C, has again become a central ball of political play.

Sections 18C and 18D were introduced as legislative responses to the 1991 National Inquiry into Racist Violence and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.  The assumptions of these reports attribute to words, particularly those used in a certain way, dangers that can cause emotional and psychological harm.

Australia then joined much of the world in legislating against speech of a certain variety.  In many European states, bad ideas expressed with the good faith of a denialist, specifically on the subject of the Holocaust, is bound to earn you a prison sentence or a steep fine.

In placing Australian society on the road of good intentions, section 18C renders unlawful something reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone (a person or groups) because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin.  Given that individuals take offence regularly using race as a poor alibi should already demonstrate that the argument, and implementation, are bound to be flawed.

The defenders of the provision argue that haters, dissenters and rabblerousers dabbling in the seedy world of racial discrimination are perfectly protected (within bounds of decency, of course), by Section 18D.

The dispensing section is supposedly enlightened, exempting the application of section 18C in cases of artistic works, scientific debate and fair comment on matters of public interest.  The railroading proviso is that these are all made “reasonably” and in “good faith”.

This is all fine for Meredith Doig, who writes that the courts “have consistently held that the conduct under question must involve ‘profound and serious’ effects, not ‘mere slights’.”  Doig triumphantly produces a statistic that is meant to prove the rule.  “Less than 3 per cent of racial hatred complaints ever make it to court.”[1]  You have to begin somewhere.

Given that much argument and hate is fought in a world of insult (the cleverer the better) often waged intemperately and unreasonably, the protections of such an exempting section are bound to be skimpy. Australia’s continued hostility to a Bill of Rights insists that judges and lawmakers, not the public, which is regarded with suspicion, should determine reason and good faith.

A sense of the state of such argument can be gathered every time chatter about reforming Section 18C disturbs the political landscape.  Self-proclaimed vulnerable groups come out of the woodwork agitating against inappropriateness.  Submissions are rushed off, with free speech being their enemy.

In 2014, when this issue of reforming the RDA also cropped up, the Australian Tamil Congress submission to the Attorney General’s department (Apr 29) spoke of the constant stream of “stories from Australian Tamils of racism and racial discrimination.”[2]

The organisation wanted to be “free from verbal insults and offensive comments when walking down the street, when on public transport, in the workplace and online, let alone when they are reading the newspaper, listening to the radio or watching television.”  A world, in other words, cocooned from anything that might smack of any form of offence based on race.

The reformers have not come up with decent truck on the subject either. Former Federal Court Judge Ronald Sackville argues that two amendments might do the trick in balancing legitimate protection of groups against vilification with the pursuit of free speech.

This would involve replacing “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” with “degrade, intimidate or incite hatred or contempt”.  Supposedly, the latter is meant to be more onerous to demonstrate, though again, it would be a judicial matter as to how degradation or intimidation is measured.  In free speech land, many on the losing end of an argument, notably touching on the untouchables of racial identity, would argue to be intimidated and degraded.

The second point would entail that most deceptive, problematic and foolish of legal devices, the surpreme excuse for judicial meddling: the objective test that simply conceals subjective prejudices and assessments.

For Sackville, the legislation’s effects might be softened by abandoning the subjective test on hurt and offence and adopting an objective test on how “a reasonable member of the community at large” would respond to certain words and conduct.

The policing of words and the means to give a stern refutation, rebuke or attack, however vicious, is always a flirtatious move towards broader policing.  Such policy also attributes to a few individuals (the courts, in other words) the means to decide what might have constituted “fair comment” or appropriateness on words.  The unfree mind is a safe one, and the authorities will help you stay that way.

Free speech remains the terror of the Antipodean mind, one ever faithful to penal control and state regulation.  If a multi-ethnic society cannot broach the subject of discussing race, as opposed to its more hideous alternative of banishing discussion altogether, then its claims to legitimacy must be questioned. One can only be genuinely tolerant in accepting those who are intolerant, even foolishly so. Let me be degraded, in due course, before the sheer force of well-founded argument.

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

While Bernie Sanders was doing a brilliant job of ripping into the Trans-Pacific Partnership during the livestreamed launch of the Our Revolution organization on Wednesday night, CNN was airing a phone interview with Hillary Clinton and MSNBC was interviewing Donald Trump’s campaign manager.

That sums up the contrast between the enduring value of the Bernie campaign and the corporate media’s fixation on the political establishment. Fortunately, Our Revolution won’t depend on mainline media. That said, the group’s debut foreshadowed not only great potential but also real pitfalls.

Even the best election campaigns aren’t really “movements.” Ideally, campaigns strengthen movements and vice versa. As Bernie has often pointed out, essential changes don’t come from Congress simply because of who has been elected; those changes depend on strong grassroots pressure for the long haul.

It’s all to the good that Our Revolution is encouraging progressives around the country to plan far ahead for effective electoral races, whether for school board, city council, state legislature or Congress. Too many progressives have treated election campaigns as impulse items, like candy bars in a checkout line.

Opportunities await for campaigns that might be well-funded much as Bernie’s presidential race was funded, from many small online donations. But except for presidential races, the politics of elections are overwhelmingly local — and therein lies a hazard for Our Revolution.

A unified set of positions nationwide can be helpful; likewise publicity and fundraising for candidates across state borders. But sometimes hidden in plain sight is a basic fact: National support does not win local elections. Local grassroots support does.

Backing from Our Revolution will be close to worthless unless people are deeply engaged with long-term activism in local communities — building relationships, actively supporting a wide range of sustained progressive efforts, developing the basis for an election campaign that (win or lose on Election Day) will strengthen movements.

Sooner or later, some kind of culture clash is likely to emerge when social-change activists get involved in a serious election campaign. Running for office involves priorities that diverge from some tendencies of movement activism (as I learned when running for Congress four years ago). The urgencies and practicalities of election campaigns aren’t always compatible with how grassroots progressive groups tend to function.

As a 501c4 organization, Our Revolution won’t be running campaigns. Instead, it’ll raise funds and provide support for campaigns while being legally prohibited from “coordinating” with them. And — most imminently with the urgent need to stop the TPP in Congress during the lame-duck session — Our Revolution could make a big difference in pressuring lawmakers on key issues.

Overall, the livestreaming debut of Our Revolution continued a terrific legacy from the Bernie campaign of educating and agitating with vital progressive positions on such crucial matters as economic justice, institutional racism, climate change, Wall Street, corporate trade deals and health care.

But throughout Our Revolution’s livestream, war went unmentioned. So did Pentagon spending. So did corporate profiteering from the massive U.S. military budget.

In that sense, the evening was a step backward for Bernie. After virtually ignoring foreign policy and military-related issues during his campaign’s early months last summer, he gradually criticized Hillary Clinton’s record of supporting regime change. In early spring, during the New York primary campaign, he laudably called for evenhanded policies toward Israel and Palestinians. Although he never delivered more than occasional and brief glancing blows at the military-industrial complex during the campaign, Bernie did offer some valuable critiques of foreign policy.

But from the debut of Our Revolution, including Bernie’s 49-minute speech, you wouldn’t have a clue that the United States is completing its fifteenth year of continuous warfare, with no end in sight.

Now, sadly, there may be a need to reactivate the petition headlined “Bernie Sanders, Speak Up: Militarism and Corporate Power Are Fueling Each Other,” which 25,000 people signed on a RootsAction webpage 12 months ago:

“Senator Sanders, we are enthusiastic about your presidential campaign’s strong challenge to corporate power and oligarchy. We urge you to speak out about how they are intertwined with militarism and ongoing war. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced what he called ‘the madness of militarism,’ and you should do the same. As you said in your speech to the SCLC, ‘Now is not the time for thinking small.’ Unwillingness to challenge the madness of militarism is thinking small.”

As the petition page noted, Dr. King “explicitly and emphatically linked the issues of economic injustice at home with war abroad.” In a society desperately needing “adequate funds for programs of economic equity and social justice,” the challenge remains clear: “Overcoming militarism is just as vital as overcoming oligarchy. We won’t be able to do one without the other.”

If Bernie and Our Revolution continue to evade the present-day realities of “the madness of militarism,” their political agenda will be significantly more limited than what our revolution requires for a truly progressive future.

Norman Solomon, national coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network, is co-founder of the online activist group RootsAction.org. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Since the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) declared a caliphate in June 2014, Muslim extremism has once again become a major topic in the media and therefore in the public mind. Islamophobic attacks have skyrocketed in the West in recent years, as many people tarnish over one and half billion Muslims with a single brush. In the distorted logic of the modern-day Islamophobe, all Muslims are intrinsically violent savages who are responsible for the actions of ISIS fighters, simply because ISIS is carrying out atrocities under the banner of Islam.

With support from the US Air Force and military “advisers,” Turkish soldiers expanded their invasion of northern Syria Thursday.

Operation Euphrates Shield is being justified by Ankara as necessary to seize the town of Jarablus from Islamic State forces and push back the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) east of the Euphrates River. In reality, the military operation marks a major escalation of the US-backed regime change operation in Syria aimed at overthrowing the government of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus which threatens to plunge the entire region into conflict and draw in the major powers.

This was underscored Wednesday by a statement released by the White House in response to a United Nations-sponsored investigation which claimed that Assad’s forces had conducted two chemical weapons attacks over the past two years. Even though the inquiry found it impossible to apportion blame for the use of chemical weapons in six of the nine cases it examined, White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price baldly declared in a statement,

“It is now impossible to deny that the Syrian regime has repeatedly used industrial chlorine as a weapon against its own people in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 2118.”

The Obama administration has repeatedly exploited fabricated allegations of chemical weapons use to increase pressure on the Assad regime and create a pretext for war. Earlier this month, unverified claims of a government chlorine gas attack in Idlib province were widely trumpeted, while confirmed instances of gas attacks by opposition forces on civilians in Aleppo were ignored.

Washington came to the brink of full-scale war with the Assad regime in August 2013 when a manufactured campaign claiming that the Syrian government had launched a chemical weapons attack in Gouta near Damascus was concocted, as a subsequent investigation by journalist Seymour Hersh proved. A substantial section of the political and military establishment in the US have never forgiven Obama for deciding against direct US intervention.

Predictably, Price made no mention of the atrocities conducted by the so-called moderate Islamist forces being financed and armed by the CIA and US military in Syria. The US-initiated war for regime change has seen Syria’s population shrink from 22-24 million to 17.1 million people, of which 12.2 million require humanitarian assistance and 8.7 million are internally displaced refugees. A further 4.8 million Syrians were recorded as refugees abroad by the UN in July.

The United States’ backing for the Turkish invasion, including from Vice President Joseph Biden who happened to be visiting Turkey the day it was launched, adds further fuel to a highly combustible political and military situation in the Middle East. Little more than a month has passed since a US-backed coup sought to overthrow the Erdogan government in Ankara, which was in part motivated by the Turkish president’s attempts to rebuild ties with Russia and Iran. Those tensions were on display Wednesday as Biden was questioned about the extradition of Turkish cleric Fathullah Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania and is blamed by Erdogan for masterminding the 15 July coup attempt.

It is clear that Washington’s support for the Turkish invasion is aimed at creating the conditions for a broader intervention to topple the Assad regime. Turkey intends to establish a zone under its control in northern Syria along the Turkish border so as to block the emergence of a Kurdish-controlled area. But the seizing of Syrian territory in violation of international law prepares the ground for a direct clash or fabricated attack involving Assad’s forces that would serve as a justification for a wider NATO intervention. This would increase the likelihood of a war with nuclear-armed Russia, which intervened in Syria last year to defend its sole military base outside of the former Soviet Union and prop up its main ally in the region.

Just days before the Turkish intervention, the US accused the Assad regime of carrying out bombing raids close to an area where US special forces were operating in support of the YPG militia fighting ISIS in the town of Hasakeh. General Stephen Townsend, the US Army’s military commanding officer in Iraq and Syria, subsequently warned that US forces would defend themselves if they felt threatened–a tacit threat that Syrian government forces, or their Russian allies, would be fired upon.

Townsend also unveiled plans to step up US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq to assist its local proxy forces in the capture of Mosul and Raqqa from ISIS.

The Russian defence ministry reported Friday that two ships in the Mediterranean fired long-range cruise missiles for the first time against Jihadi targets within Syria. This comes on the heels of Moscow’s use of Iranian air bases to fly attacks in Syria.

Washington’s policies in Syria and the region more broadly are shot through with contradictions. Efforts at a rapprochement with Ankara threaten to undermine its previous policy in Iraq and Syria of relying on Kurdish militias, which have been supplied with extensive weaponry and training by the US and its allies, as key collaborators in the fight against the Islamic State. That this could have explosive consequences beyond these two countries by further stoking the civil war already raging in Turkey was shown on Wednesday, when the leader of the Turkish opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) narrowly avoided two assassination attempts by Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) militants.

Even the immediate consequences of the Turkish incursion remain difficult to predict. Turkish and western officials claimed Thursday that YPG forces west of the Euphrates had begun retreating, but Kurdish representatives contacted by AP refused to confirm this. Turkey reportedly gave a deadline of a week for Kurdish forces to retreat.

Late yesterday, Turkish forces reportedly opened fire on US-backed YPG units south of Jarablus in what the Anadolu news agency referred to as warning shots. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the YPG advanced eight kilometres northwards in a move aimed at preempting territorial gains by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. Colonel Ahmad Osman, head of the Sultan Murad Group fighting alongside Turkey, explicitly threatened direct confrontation with the YPG if they failed to retreat. “We are currently planning not to confront them, but if we have to confront them, we will,” he told Reuters.

Clashes involving Turkish troops and the Kurdish militias could rapidly see the Syrian conflict, which has already claimed an estimated 400,000 lives, spill over into Turkey, a NATO member home to substantial deployments of US and other NATO forces and weaponry.

The very real prospect of a regional war rapidly spiralling out of control and engaging the major powers is the product of more than a quarter century of war waged by US imperialism and its allies throughout the Middle East, beginning with the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. The sectarian divisions flaring up in Syria and across the region and the destruction of entire societies are rooted in Washington’s reckless drive to secure its hegemony over the world’s most important oil-producing region at the expense of its geopolitical rivals, above all Russia and China.

The US media has responded to the latest escalation of military violence in the Middle East by stepping up its propaganda campaign in favour of all-out war. Two pieces in the New York Times by two of the paper’s most notorious warmongers, Roger Cohen and Nicholas Kristof, attempted to provide Washington’s predatory imperialist interests with a veneer of “humanitarian” propaganda.

Cohen denounced Obama in his piece for his refusal to intervene more aggressively in Syria and pinned the blame exclusively on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Assad for the bloody civil war. Lamenting Obama’s failure to wage war in Syria in 2013 following the previous manufactured chemical weapons claim, Cohen proclaimed, “No outcome in Syria could be worse than the current one. Assad’s bomb-spewing jets and his airfields should have been taken out early in the war, before ISIS. The red line should have stood.”

In a nauseating piece of human rights hypocrisy, Kristof equated the Assad regime with Nazi Germany by arguing, “Today, to our shame, Anne Frank is a Syrian girl” and urging Obama “to do more to try to end the slaughter in Syria.”

These proponents of human rights imperialism ignore the fact that such well-worn pretexts have been invariably employed to legitimise a vast escalation of US-led militarist violence that has claimed the lives of millions of men, women and children across the region and beyond. Nor does it seem to trouble Cohen and Kristof that Washington’s allies in the Syrian bloodbath are extremist Islamist forces which only one month ago were the official Syrian section of the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Shawn Lucas, Process Server for One Source Process, Delivering the Lawsuit Against the Democratic National Committee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz on July 1, 2016

Representative of the Syrian Republic to the UN, Bashar al-Jaafery, spoke to Sputnik in an exclusive interview regarding the deadly chemical attacks that took place in Syria back in 2013 and the involvement of France in these attacks.

Forces aligned to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya made gains in Sirte, Monday, as they continue to battle the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS; formerly ISIS/ISIL). Reportedly, the pro-government militias captured the main mosque and the Internal Security Agency, which was used as a morality prison by the Islamic State.

Government forces began their campaign to capture Sirte in May. The US Air Force has reportedly conducted around 40 strikes on IS positions in support of the government troops since the start of August. IS militants still control several residential areas of the city though the recent capture of the city’s alleged IS headquarters represents an advance in the GNA’s mission against the militant group.

PressTV: How do you see this new US intervention in Libya? And what is its historic background and perspective?

Peter Koenig: We have to start from the premise that Washington does NOT – and I repeat NOT – want peace in the Middle East. Washington wants chaos. With chaos you can control and divide, plus chaos requires constant warfare.

These two objectives – among selective others, depending on the area – is what Washington needs to sustain its profit generating war industry – and I mean insane profits! – and to stay in power – power that eventually – they hope – will lead to Full Spectrum Dominance- full hegemony of the world.

Libya is but one step in that direction, albeit an important step, because Libya has the highly coveted ‘light petrol’; Libya is strategically located; from Libya you control the Mediterranean Sea which is itself a strategic gulf towards encircling Asia, particularly Russia. Besides it is said that the Mediterranean Sea has untold, and so far, unexploited hydrocarbon resources.

As a parenthesis – it will be a great step towards peace when the world moves away from hydrocarbon as the chief resource of energy!!!

The US is trying everything to destabilize Libya. A stable Libya, for example with the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), does not serve Washington. Therefore, the need for bombing. The bombing, in reality, is not directed against the Islamic State, it’s the same game they are playing in Syria – it is rather supporting the destabilization through the foot soldiers which are the IS for the US and NATO.

Because Libya was a center of stability not only for the Middle East and North Africa, but also for Africa, Gadhafi had to go, had to be killed. It is a horrible crime committed by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State – and it would be a disaster if such a criminal person would be the next US president. – Well, I guess there are other forces behind the US presidents – and whoever is selected by these forces will have to fulfill the mandate of these Masters of the Universe, who also control the western monetary system – which Gadhafi wanted to circumvent with the gold dinar. He also tried to free Africa from exploitation by the west, by introducing the gold dinar to Africa, which was a key reason why he had to go.

It’s a good thing that there is now Russia in the Middle East, and it’s also a positive sign that Erdogan seems to steer Turkey towards the East, cooperating with Russia and China. It is a definite advantage that Iran has put their Hamadan base at Russia’s disposal.

The US-NATO forces realize that this triangle of stability, Russia, Iran, Syria – plus Hezbollah and possibly Turkey – may emerge in a sea change for not only the Middle East, but the entire world.

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

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, recently condemned US policy for destabilising the Middle East. The Phnom Penh Post in an article titled, “US policy destabilised Middle East, says Hun Sen,” would report that:

He’s no more a progressive revolutionary than any other member of Congress, nor Washington’s bipartisan criminal class, bureaucrats included – Sanders a card-carrying member throughout his deplorable political career.

Endorsing Hillary Clinton after rhetorically campaigning against what she represents exposed his duplicity – a progressive in name only. An opportunist for his own self-interest, he wants his extended 15 minutes of fame made more long-lasting.

Claiming his new initiative “will fight to transform America and advance the progressive agenda (he) believe(s) in” belies his deplorable House and Senate voting records, on the wrong side of most major issues, especially supporting most US wars of aggression.

A separate Sanders Institute intends operating like his Our Revolution initiative. Maybe his real aim is cashing in on his high-profile persona – including a new book due out in mid-November titled “Our Revolution: A Future To Believe In.”

Save your money. Its contents are clear without reading it – the same mumbo jumbo he used while campaigning.

It excludes his deplorable history of promising one thing, doing another, going along with Washington scoundrels like Hillary to get along, betraying his loyal supporters – the real Sanders he wants concealed.

On August 24, The New York Times said his Our Revolution initiative “has been met with criticism and controversy over its financing and management.”

It’s “draw(ing) from the same pool of ‘dark money’ (he) condemned” while campaigning. After his former campaign manager Jeff Weaver was hired to lead the group, “the majority of its staff resigned,” said The Times – described as “eight core staff members…”

“The group’s entire organizing department quit this week, along with people working in digital and data positions.” They refused to reconsider after Sanders urged them to stay on.

A major concern is the group’s tax status as a 501(c)(4) organization able to get large donations from anonymous sources – meaning the usual ones buying influence, letting Sanders pretend to be progressive and revolutionary while operating otherwise.

Claire Sandberg was the initiative’s organizing director. “I left and others left because we were alarmed that Jeff (Weaver) would mismanage this organization as he mismanaged the campaign,” she explained.

She fears Weaver will “betray its core purpose by accepting money from billionaires and not remaining grassroots funded and plowing that billionaire cash into TV instead of investing it in building a genuine movement.”

Vermont GOP vice chairman Brady Toensing blasted Sanders for “preach(ing) transparency and then tr(ying) to set up the most shadowy of shadowy fund-raising organization to support” what he claims to endorse.

“What I’m seeing here is a senator who is against big money in politics, but only when” it applies to others, not himself, Toensing added.

Campaign Legal Center’s Paul S. Ryan said “(t)here are definitely some red flags with respect to the formation of this group…We’re in a murky area.”

Is Sanders’ real aim self-promotion and enrichment? Is his Our Revolution more a scheme than an honest initiative?

Is it sort of like the Clinton Foundation, Sanders wanting to grab all he can – only much less able to match the kind of super-wealth Bill and Hillary amassed?

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 atsjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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

When the first reports came through about the unfolding Holocaust during the Second World War, audiences were incredulous.  Surely no industrialised society could quite go so far?  Killings, yes; butcheries, certainly.  But a mass-scale industrialised gassing and massacring of whole populations was simply not tenable.  The same treatment could be said in the context of the gulag system and Stalinist purges.

The scale of such killings, the inventive lengths of such cruelties, were not believable.  The dooms dayers were dismissed as inventive cranks. They were the troublemakers whose words were taken with the most generous pinch of salt.

The only credible technique in dealing with such denialist claims would be pictures and snapped images; a relentless string of numbing images that would enable the individual to take stock, to process and even to catalogue the horrors on a mental map.

US General Dwight D. Eisenhower was one such figure cognisant of the power of the image.  Visits were made to an assortment of German concentration camps, with the general insisting that he would also be in the grisly snaps.

The visit to the Ohrdruf subcamp of Buchenwald on April 12, 1945, in the company of Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley, shook him. General George C. Marshall, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, received a cable after that visit about the “visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality” that proved “so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick.”[1]

Members of the US Army Signal Corps recorded some 80,000 feet of moving film and still photographs, processing 6,000 feet of that material in what became the one-hour documentary Nazi Concentration Camp. It would be used, with some prosecutorial effect, at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials.

Instances of memorialised, even spectacular cruelty, are matters for the modern, social networked citizen.  Text is only a poor substitute for the image: the image of drowned Syrian child Alan Kurdi always says more in its spell binding terror than a description released from an asylum seeker in a processing centre. Bureaucrats, as they always do, kill personality in favour of systems and paper clips.

Reacting to cruelty, broadly speaking, has various mechanisms.  In the absence of images coming out of Nauru on the mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees, disbelief and justification are twinned answers.  Together, they form apologias of the establishment, one that insists that regional camps are appropriate over Australian community centres; where humans are treated as unclean defectives who need to be processed into order to be rendered pure.

The processing motif here is important: wrapped in the deceptive plastic of dignity and legitimacy, compliant with the laws of a country, the human arrivals will be assessed.  But if found to be refugees, they will be refused entry into Australia.

Distant, not merely spatially but emotionally, the refugees and asylum seekers in the Australian context assume invisible forms.  Their humanity is irrelevant, and even more strikingly, deniable. What matters is that they are processed in detention centres from afar.  Money and guards are supplied to man the camps in a privatised capacity by Canberra, whose politicians insist on the falsehood that control over such camps is an entirely sovereign matter.

Tactics to undermine, discredit and sanitise the hideousness of the camp system are also used with propagandistic dedication.  In the wake of the release of the “Nauru Files” by The Guardian, documenting the assortment of abuses taking place on the island, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was immediately at hand with desensitising advice.

“The documents published today,” went the mopping press release of August 10, “are evidence of the rigorous reporting procedures that are in place in the regional processing centre – procedures under which any alleged incident must be recorded, reported and where necessary investigated.”[2]

A deft reversal was suggested: that such matters were reported was evidence of professionalism and efficiency, not institutionalised, intolerable cruelty.  Besides, came the executing backhand, “Many of the incident reports reflect unconfirmed allegations or uncorroborated statements and claims – they are not statements of proven fact.”

While it would be a stretch to claim that the Nauru Regional Processing Centre, or the soon to be closed Manus Island facility, be classed as concentration camps par excellence, they are very much centres of ritualised and applied cruelties, shielded by regulations and silence.

The only testimonies that have shattered such smug layers of secrecy have come from whistleblowers, former camp guards, and employees connected with the camp system.  One such figure was Tracey Donehue, a teacher at the Nauru centre until November 2015.

Her question broadcast on the ABC’s Q&A program potentially breached the secrecy provisions of the Australian Border Force Protection Act in noting the “appalling treatment” of rape victims and injuries inflicted by “people in the community.”[3]

Again, images have greater truck in an environment of interpretation emptied of imagination. That much can be gathered by the limits placed on Australia’s politicians in visiting those camps, a striking and chilling contrast to the reality jolt insisted upon by Eisenhower in 1945 on arranging editors and “a dozen leaders of Congress” to visit the liberated sites.

Any medium or means that would humanise the asylum seeker and refugee, be it by sight or by document, continues to be religiously and studiously avoided.  Besides, alleges immigration minister Peter Dutton, “some people do have a motivation to make a false complaint.”

The Nauru government obsequiously agrees with this theory of natural mendacity: “Most refugee & advocate claims on Nauru fabricated to achieve goal to get to Aust.[sic].”[4] Denialism and repudiation of the human spirit remain cold and damnable companions.

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

Notes

[1] https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006131
[2] http://newsroom.border.gov.au/releases/the-nauru-files
[3] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-23/australia-has-shared-responsibility-for-nauru-detainees-fifield/7775626
[4] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-16/nauru-data-leak-abuse-claims-fabricated-nauru-government-says/7747420

When the first reports came through about the unfolding Holocaust during the Second World War, audiences were incredulous.  Surely no industrialised society could quite go so far?  Killings, yes; butcheries, certainly.  But a mass-scale industrialised gassing and massacring of whole populations was simply not tenable.  The same treatment could be said in the context of the gulag system and Stalinist purges.

The scale of such killings, the inventive lengths of such cruelties, were not believable.  The dooms dayers were dismissed as inventive cranks. They were the troublemakers whose words were taken with the most generous pinch of salt.

The only credible technique in dealing with such denialist claims would be pictures and snapped images; a relentless string of numbing images that would enable the individual to take stock, to process and even to catalogue the horrors on a mental map.

US General Dwight D. Eisenhower was one such figure cognisant of the power of the image.  Visits were made to an assortment of German concentration camps, with the general insisting that he would also be in the grisly snaps.

The visit to the Ohrdruf subcamp of Buchenwald on April 12, 1945, in the company of Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley, shook him. General George C. Marshall, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, received a cable after that visit about the “visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality” that proved “so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick.”[1]

Members of the US Army Signal Corps recorded some 80,000 feet of moving film and still photographs, processing 6,000 feet of that material in what became the one-hour documentary Nazi Concentration Camp. It would be used, with some prosecutorial effect, at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials.

Instances of memorialised, even spectacular cruelty, are matters for the modern, social networked citizen.  Text is only a poor substitute for the image: the image of drowned Syrian child Alan Kurdi always says more in its spell binding terror than a description released from an asylum seeker in a processing centre. Bureaucrats, as they always do, kill personality in favour of systems and paper clips.

Reacting to cruelty, broadly speaking, has various mechanisms.  In the absence of images coming out of Nauru on the mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees, disbelief and justification are twinned answers.  Together, they form apologias of the establishment, one that insists that regional camps are appropriate over Australian community centres; where humans are treated as unclean defectives who need to be processed into order to be rendered pure.

The processing motif here is important: wrapped in the deceptive plastic of dignity and legitimacy, compliant with the laws of a country, the human arrivals will be assessed.  But if found to be refugees, they will be refused entry into Australia.

Distant, not merely spatially but emotionally, the refugees and asylum seekers in the Australian context assume invisible forms.  Their humanity is irrelevant, and even more strikingly, deniable. What matters is that they are processed in detention centres from afar.  Money and guards are supplied to man the camps in a privatised capacity by Canberra, whose politicians insist on the falsehood that control over such camps is an entirely sovereign matter.

Tactics to undermine, discredit and sanitise the hideousness of the camp system are also used with propagandistic dedication.  In the wake of the release of the “Nauru Files” by The Guardian, documenting the assortment of abuses taking place on the island, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was immediately at hand with desensitising advice.

“The documents published today,” went the mopping press release of August 10, “are evidence of the rigorous reporting procedures that are in place in the regional processing centre – procedures under which any alleged incident must be recorded, reported and where necessary investigated.”[2]

A deft reversal was suggested: that such matters were reported was evidence of professionalism and efficiency, not institutionalised, intolerable cruelty.  Besides, came the executing backhand, “Many of the incident reports reflect unconfirmed allegations or uncorroborated statements and claims – they are not statements of proven fact.”

While it would be a stretch to claim that the Nauru Regional Processing Centre, or the soon to be closed Manus Island facility, be classed as concentration camps par excellence, they are very much centres of ritualised and applied cruelties, shielded by regulations and silence.

The only testimonies that have shattered such smug layers of secrecy have come from whistleblowers, former camp guards, and employees connected with the camp system.  One such figure was Tracey Donehue, a teacher at the Nauru centre until November 2015.

Her question broadcast on the ABC’s Q&A program potentially breached the secrecy provisions of the Australian Border Force Protection Act in noting the “appalling treatment” of rape victims and injuries inflicted by “people in the community.”[3]

Again, images have greater truck in an environment of interpretation emptied of imagination. That much can be gathered by the limits placed on Australia’s politicians in visiting those camps, a striking and chilling contrast to the reality jolt insisted upon by Eisenhower in 1945 on arranging editors and “a dozen leaders of Congress” to visit the liberated sites.

Any medium or means that would humanise the asylum seeker and refugee, be it by sight or by document, continues to be religiously and studiously avoided.  Besides, alleges immigration minister Peter Dutton, “some people do have a motivation to make a false complaint.”

The Nauru government obsequiously agrees with this theory of natural mendacity: “Most refugee & advocate claims on Nauru fabricated to achieve goal to get to Aust.[sic].”[4] Denialism and repudiation of the human spirit remain cold and damnable companions.

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

Notes

The ‘Burkini Ban.’ Whatever the French state’s proclivities towards knee-jerk reactionary politics might be, having French police force Muslim women to remove their clothes on a public beach is definitely NOT the right answer.

Far from being a dramatic climax to this conversation, it’s only the beginning…

If she is truly keen to diffuse the current situation, the Muslim female author featured below,Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, might do well to look at little closer into the string of so-called ‘terrorist’ and ‘ISIS-inspired’ attacks across Europe this year. Are they all as advertised? Nonetheless, she’s made many important points in her essay – many of which are the fundamental building blocks of civil liberties in a modern nation state. She also nails home the residual cause and effect dynamic set in motion by French colonialism. Sure, French mainstream ‘intellectuals’, leisurely journalists and political geniuses can ignore these important arguments, as they are now, but only at their peril.

It’s crucial to note here that one of the main exhibits held-up by the French state and its reactionary media – to justify the emergence of the newer, nastier version of itself, now permanently suspended in a ‘state of emergency’ – is the notorious Nice Attacks. The only problem with this pop-up mainstream narrative is that all available evidence indicates that the French authorities not only had foreknowledge of the alleged ‘terror’ suspect, but they also stood down in the moments before the attack – effectively letting the chaos ensue on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

Later we learned how the truck driver cum-terrorist whom authorities had attributed the incident to was hardly Islamist material, in fact, quite the opposite. According to multiple media reports and witnesses, the Tunisian driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was described in the media as “a violent loner who liked to drink, lift weights and go salsa dancing,” and was subsequently revealed to be a career criminal, prolific thief, drug addict and bisexual sex adventurer who was a regular on the local dating app scene – and was completely on the police radar, and had no previous indications of radicalization – making the official story even more improbable. Bouhlel fits the ideal confidential police informant profile, or the ideal patsy in a private contractor-run operation.

In other words: French security services would do well to investigate its own police informant cells and ‘security drills’,  rather than infuse this newly contrived ‘Clash of Civilizations’ narrative with a level of toxicity that will almost certainly provoke a real civil war in Europe. Or, perhaps that what their masterplan to begin with.

Isn’t it funny how western feminists, by subscribe to the mindless media-driven group think of ‘regime change’ in Syria – are by default backing the very same jihadist takeover of Syria that we saw in Libya. That wouldn’t be very good for the millions of women in Syria. Neither is forcing Muslim women to disrobe in European public spaces. You see, basic logic is now completely abandoned by politically confused and ill-informed feminists and ‘left’ activists in the west.

Oh, and by the way… what good is it for the French to be up in arms about women wearing burkiniswimming apparel – when the French government itself, along with NATO member states, have been supplying weapons and training to listed Islamist Terrorist organizations in Syria (French President François Hollande admitted this already in a Le Monde interview)?

Time to wake up. If you haven’t already worked it out, this sequence of high profile ‘terror’ events and the corresponding vapid media commentaries are being weaponized to trigger a hyper-reactionary culture designed to manipulate and divide factions of the public against each other.

On it’s present trajectory, this current situation in France, and Europe, can only get worse…

Dear white people of France: being forced to undress wasn’t exactly the liberation I was longing for

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

The Independent

I’ve been putting off writing this post. I was hoping I wouldn’t need to, hoping I wouldn’t bother. Hoping that I’d see outrage fill people’s timelines and all the usual feminist social media spaces so I wouldn’t feel forced to write something, anything, explaining my outrage.

But here I am. Here I am writing about feminism and Muslim women again and namely responding to the deafening, choking, claustrophobic silence from White Feminists.

What we are seeing in France is part of the continued criminalisation of being Muslim. Particularly the criminalisation of visibly Muslim people – particularly Muslim women. What we are seeing is a vulgar display of White Feminism codified and legislated by the state. We’re seeing women being forced to conform to something held up as ‘liberty’ with no irony at all. Women are coerced – with the threat of force –  to take off their burkinis at the beach. A Muslim woman was ordered off the beach in Cannes and fined for simply wearing her headscarf. We know already, of course, that the French implemented the ‘burqa ban’, we know that headscarves ‘and other religious symbols’ are banned in state schools and there have been multiple incidents of school-girls being forbidden from wearing ‘long skirts’ to school – not when they’re worn as a fashion statement, but when they’re worn by Muslim girls because then it suddenly becomes a ‘religious symbol’.

Cannes, in France, has banned the burkini because it “could risk disrupting public order while France was the target of terrorist attacks” and because burkinis are “not respectful of [the] good morals and secularism” of France.

Read complete article  in The Independent

On August 24, Turkey, in close cooperation with the United States, destroyed the hopes of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) to link up Kurdish cantons in northern Syria and de facto set up a semi-independent state along the Turkish border. The Turkish Armed Forces and militant groups loyal to Ankara entered Syria, supported by the US Air Force, and seized the strategic city of Jarablus and nearby villages from ISIS. First clashes with usage of small arms, military equipment and artillery, were reported between the Turkish-led forces and the forces loyal to the PYD (they operate under the brand of the so-called “Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF”) south of Jarablus late on this day.

The US clearly supported Ankara’s wiliness to knock out Kurds from the west of the Euphrates River the very same day when Vice President Biden warned Kurdish forces that the US will cut all support to them if they do not comply with the Turkish demands.

Initially, YPG Spokesman Rêdur Xelil said that they will withdraw their forces from west of Euphrates and nobody can subject them to such an imposition and blamed Ankara for the intervention. However, on August 25, the US Department of Defense informed that the SDF have moved east across the Euphrates to prepare for the eventual liberation of Raqqa. It remains unclear what forces will keep control of Manbij after this. Another prize in northern Aleppo province is the ISIS-controlled city of al-Bab. The Turkish-led forces will likely advance on it after securing the area along the Syrian-Turkish border.

Following the Hasakah incident and repetitive claims that the Kurds are ready to coordinate their actions in Syria only with the US, the PYD leadership faced the reality of such coordination. Officially Moscow and Damascus condemned the Turkish intervention. However, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry unofficially said that Moscow’s attitude towards the Turkish actions will depend on the level of their coordination with Moscow and Damascus.

Visit us: http://southfront.org/

Reports of Turkish forces alongside Western-backed militants crossing into northern Syria and entering the Syrian city of Jarabulus preceded what many expected to be intense clashes with the self-titled “Islamic State.” However, there were none.

It is alleged that Islamic State militants either surrendered without a fight or fled, an outcome uncharacteristic of years of clashes involving the international designated terrorist organisation. Analysts and even the Turkish foreign minister himself have revealed in recent months that Islamic State militants have been based within Turkish territory for years, reinforcing their positions in Syria both with men and materiel with little to no resistance from the Turkish government.

A May 2016 Washington Times article titled, “Turkey offers joint ops with U.S. forces in Syria, wants Kurds cut out,” would reveal (our emphasis):

Joint operations between Washington and Ankara in Manbji, a well-known waypoint for Islamic State fighters, weapons and equipment coming from Turkey bound for Raqqa, would effectively open “a second front” in the ongoing fight to drive the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from Syria’s borders, [Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu] said.

Analysts and strategists are likely to point out that if this was the case, according to Turkey’s own foreign minister, then why wasn’t the fighting capacity of the Islamic State not uprooted at its very source, Turkish territory? The fact that the Islamic State is apparently operating out of Turkey may explain why Turkish forces and accompanying militants were able to move so easily into Jarabulus without a fight.

Islamic State fighters likely didn’t “flee” or “surrender,” but were instead absorbed by the advancing force.

Now there exists in northern Syria a bastion protected by Turkish forces and by extension of NATO agreements, NATO’s entire membership including the United States. As pointed out earlier, this is the fulfilment of longstanding US plans dating back to 2012 involving the establishment of “safe-havens” in northern Syria from which to prolong the fighting and strike deeper into Syrian territory.

However, when these plans were drafted in 2012, Russia and Iran were not so directly involved in the conflict. Turkey also has shifted, if even superficially, from its geopolitical stance four years ago.

Analysts are divided over whether Turkey’s advancement into Syrian territory represents the fulfilment of US designs, or something else entirely, possibly even diametrically opposed to those plans. Reactions from Syria and its allies are still forthcoming, and until actions are taken (or not taken) against or with Turkey in regards to its cross-border foray, little can be said for certain

But what can be said for certain is that NATO troops are now occupying an enclave in northern Syria and occupied it with little to no resistance from Islamic State fighters who have bitterly contested every other square meter of Syrian territory they have invaded over the last several years.

The next moves will be critical, proving once and for all which side Turkey has finally come down on, and whether it is bringing Islamic State troops with it if and when it moves south and west deeper into Syrian territory.

The New Atlas is a media platform providing geopolitical analysis and op-eds. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

Though the Obama administration in March put a halt on drilling for oil and gas in the Atlantic, the dolphins and whales inhabiting the waters are still at risk, says one ocean conservation group, as proposed seismic airgun blasting to look for reserves of the fossil fuels would leave the marine mammals “profoundly impacted.”

The scale of the threat they face was laid bare on Wednesday with a pair of new maps released by by Oceana. Based on extensive research from Duke University’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, the maps—one for bottlenose dolphins and the other for endangered humpback, fin, and sperm whales—show the overlapping areas of the proposed blasting in the area stretching from Delaware to Florida and the density of the whales and dolphins in those waters over a 12-month period.

“These animated maps clearly show that marine life, including dolphins and whales, would be profoundly impacted by the proposed seismic blasting,” stated Dr. Ingrid Biedron, marine scientist at Oceana.

With this kind of exploration, Oceana states, blasts are “repeated every ten seconds, 24 hours a day, for days to weeks at a time.” The impacts of such blasting, as the group has explained, can include temporary or permanent hearing loss, and, because whales and dolphins “rely on their hearing to find food, communicate, and reproduce, being able to hear is a life or death matter.” The Center for Biological Diversity has also described the blasting as “actually a blunt-force weapon,” as it emits “the loudest human sounds in the ocean, short of those made by explosives.”

A sperm whale, one the species at risk from proposed seismic airgun blasting off the U.S. East Coast. (Photo: Tim Cole/NOAA)

By the government’s own estimates, Oceana adds, up to 138,000 whales and dolphins could be harmed, and millions more disturbed, by the blasting.

“The noise from these blasts is so loud that it can be heard up to 2,500 miles from the source, which is approximately the distance from Washington, D.C. to Las Vegas,” Biedron added.

According to Claire Douglass, campaign director at Oceana, the “maps confirm what we’ve long feared, that dolphins and whales along the East Coast are at risk from dangerous seismic airgun blasting for oil and gas.”

“Hearing that whales and dolphins could be injured is one thing, but seeing the scale of the threat is another. President Obama should stop seismic airgun blasting and protect our coast,” Douglass said.

Twenty-eight marine biologists have also urged Obama to call off the blasting, expressing specific concern about its impacts on the endangered North Atlantic right whale. They wrote in a letter to Obama in April that the blasting “may well represent a tipping point for the survival of this endangered whale, contributing significantly to a decline towards extinction.”

Similarly, 75 marine scientists sent a letter (pdf) last year to Obama to express their concern over seismic blasting in the waters, writing, “Opening the U.S. East Coast to seismic airgun exploration poses an unacceptable risk of serious harm to marine life at the species and population levels, the full extent of which will not be understood until long after the harm occurs.”

It’s not just scientists sounding alarm. On top of environmental advocacy organizations, local municipalities and business intersts have vocalized their opposition, and concerns are also being expressed by some lawmakers. Last month, as Facing South writes, “a bipartisan group of 69 state legislators from North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell citing the multiple threats seismic testing presents and asking the administration to block all requested permits.”

The banning of the entire Russian team at the Paralympics in Rio is the latest example of how sport has become a front in the US-led propaganda war against Russia.

We’ve gone electric, and there’s no going back at this point. Lithium is our new fuel, but like fossil fuels, the reserves we’re currently tapping into are finite—and that’s what investors can take to the bank. 

You may think lithium got too popular too fast. You may suspect electric vehicles are too much buzz and not enough real future. You may, in short, be a lithium skeptic, one of many. And yet, despite this skepticism, lithium demand is rising steadily and sharply, and indications that a shortage may be looming are very real.

It won’t be a shortage in terms of ‘peak lithium’; rather, it will be a game of catch-up with the electric car boom, with miners hustling to explore and tap into new reserves.

Consider the number of battery gigafactories that are being built around the world. We have all heard about Tesla’s (NYSE: TSLA) Nevada facility that will at full capacityproduce enough batteries to power 500,000 electric cars per year by 2020.

This, as the carmaker proudly notes, is more than the global total lithium ion battery production for 2013. That’s a pretty impressive rate of demand growth over just three years—but this growth also represents the culmination of a sea change in the way we think.

Lithium is powering pretty much everything upon which our present depends on and our future is being built. It’s a viable alternative to petrol and in consumer electronics market segment alone, there is no sign of contraction—only expansion. Think the Internet of things, or smart houses, or smart cities, eventually. All these fascinating ideas are powered in some way by lithium.

But the real and present coup has been launched by electric vehicles. Forecasts from market research firms seem to be unanimous: EVs are on the rise, EVs are hot, and EVs will be increasingly in demand as people all over the world are eagerly encouraged to cut their carbon footprint. According toLux Research, the EV market will grow to $10 billion within the next four years. Navigant Research forecasts EV sales will rise from 2.6 million last year to more than 6 million in 2024. So, whether we like it or not, EVs are coming—and in force.

Indeed, says Nevada Energy Metals (TSX-V:BFF) executive Malcolm Bell, “It may be time to start worrying about a shortage, but it’s not a question of whether we have enough lithium—it’s a question of tapping into new reserves. Those who don’t see the supply wall looming, will hit with a resounding thud. Those who start tapping into new reserves will be extremely well-positioned for the future.”

From where everyone is standing right now, it may seem that the world’s got a fair amount of lithium. According to global estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, there is enough lithium in the world – 13.5 million metric tons of it – to last us over 350 years in batteries.

What’s missing from this prediction, however, is … the future, and indeed, the present. This calculation takes into account only the current rate of lithium ion battery usage. It does not account for the entrance of EVs into the mainstream. It does not account for Tesla, not to mention the growing ranks of Tesla rivals. And it most certainly doesn’t account for what is by all means a pending energy revolution that sees lithium as its leader.

Already, the present is clear: Demand is growing fast, faster than production, and for now this new demand is coming increasingly from the electric vehicle industry.

Tesla’s is by no means the only battery gigafactory out there. There are others being built around the world (at least 12, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence) and these gigafactories will raise the global demand for lithium batteries to some 122 GWh by 2020. That’s up from 35 GWh currently. It’s a phenomenal rise over a very short period of time.

In the U.S., there is already one gigafactory—Tesla’s, in Nevada—operating. A second gigafactory is in the works, courtesy of LG Chem. Brine-based lithium production in the country is concentrated in one place only, at least for now, and this place is Nevada. That’s because it is the only confirmed place with lithium deposits. The biggest actively mined area is the Clayton Valley, with presence from both mining majors like Albermarle (NYSE: ALB) and smaller, pure-play lithium miners such as Nevada Energy Metals. This makes Clayton Valley ground zero for the U.S. lithium rush and everyone wants to be there, but it’s the pure play miners who are set to explode onto this scene from an investors’ perspective.

Clayton Valley can hardly contain the lithium rush, and it is already time to look in the surrounding areas to secure future supply for soaring demand predictions. Those with enough foresight are diversifying their Nevada holdings and banking on geological clues that suggest there’s plenty more lithium in Tesla’s backyard, and whoever gets to it first will be far ahead of the game.

“When everyone starts paying attention to Nevada’s geology, we’ll see a land rush that makes the current one pale by comparison,” says Bell, who heads of acquisitions forNevada Energy Metals, one of the pure play movers in this playing field that sees the wider lithium potential in Nevada.

“Nevada’s geothermal footprints are large and extend well beyond the Clayton Valley. If you put a mirror up to Clayton Valley, there is endless opportunity here. The real race here is to create the next U.S. lithium powerhouse,” says Bell.

How to Play Lithium

Look everywhere, and then look again. Securing an investment in Clayton Valley is a good place to start—but it’s also potentially only a flash in the pan. The best way to secure a foothold in lithium right now is to think outside the box and look for those companies who see the bigger picture but are also smart enough to keep one foot in the proven lithium hunting grounds.

But you also have to understand the supply and demand picture here.

Macquarie Research estimates that in 2015 demand for lithium already exceeded supply, while this year, lithium output will again fall short of demand.

In 2017, thanks to so much new production capacity the metal’s fundamentals will near an equilibrium, which will last for about a year before deficit rears its head once again—but this time the deficit will stick. Despite new efforts to ramp up supply, it will take a while before supply corresponds to the demand.

The future is pretty clear: We’re looking at a period of shortage, and shortage is where the savvy investors make real money. The lithium feeding frenzy has only just begun. Consumer electronics keeps it safe and steady, as always; the electric vehicle boom skews the demand picture dramatically, and the future’s energy storage and powerwall evolutions take it over the edge.

The reserves are there, and there’s geologists estimate there’s plenty of unproven reserves out there as well—it’s just a matter of who finds them first, and who starts extracting first.

Lithium has the purest of fundamentals of any ‘commodity’ out there, and the next oil barons look set to actually be lithium barons. In fact, in this respect, electric vehicles will likely be the cause of the next oil crisis. Demand and supply are simple and shockingly visible, and that means there’s a lot of new money floating around for lithium exploration. If you’re not a believer, the immediate future will sweep you off of your feet.

By James Stafford of Oilprice.com 

If the West in general and the United States in particular, left the Arab and Muslim world alone and in peace, we would most likely never see all those terrorist attacks, which are rocking the world from Indonesia to France. There would be no Mujahedeen and its mutation into al-Qaeda; in Afghanistan or elsewhere. There would be no traces of the ISIS (or ISIL or I.S. or Daesh or however you choose to call it), in Syria, Iraq, Libya or anywhere else.

And the super-conservative Wahhabi Islam, that outdated, freak Saudi mutant, would remain in the religious schools of the ultra-regressive Kingdom, instead of gaining ground all over Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Secular Islam

But the West embarked on a brutal, Machiavellian path: it decided to destroy socialist Islam – that (historically) moderate, compassionate and progressive religion. It smashed once secular Egypt; it overthrew the government in socialist Iran and then in near-Communist Indonesia, implanting in all these places horrifically degenerate and fully outdated religious concepts. It used extremists to destroy healthy patriotism and socialism. Like the Brits in the 19^th Century (“You can control people’s brains, while we will control your natural resources”), the West embraced Wahhabi teaching, because it was able to guarantee full obedience, dictatorial (pro-Western) governance and oppressive feudalism.

Islam has been used and abused, manipulated and virtually stripped of its essence. The process has gone so far that two leading Iranian scholars, during my visit last-year to Teheran, declared to me: “In so many parts of the world, the West created an absolutely new religion. We don’t recognize it, anymore. It has nothing to do with Islam.”

“If the West in general and the United States in particular, left the Arab and Muslim world alone and in peace, we would most likely never see all those terrorist attacks, which are rocking the world from Indonesia to France…”

Correct. Like a naughty, spoiled and heartless child, the West, after destroying the Soviet Union, painstakingly constructed its new enemy – “militant Islam” – so it could continue indulging in its favorite activity, which is perpetual conflict, endless wars and plunder.

It is as simple as that.

The greatest oppressors of the Muslim people, those in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Indonesia have all been closely allied to the West. The most terrible terrorist “Muslim” organizations, from Al-Qaida to ISIS, have been created, armed and supported by the West and its cronies.

In Europe and in the United States, the “fear of terrorists” is fully exploited by the Western regime—a global class alliance plutocrats, in actuality, with headquarters in Washington, where the main military and media muscle reside. It still clings to power mainly thanks to such fear implanted in the brains of ‘ordinary people’.And what about the “War on Terror”? Yes, there really is such war, but the West is not the one who fights it. As this goes to print, the war against terrorism is being fought by Russia, Iran, China, Syria, Hezbollah and their allies!

The West is still closely collaborating with the terrorists. It miraculously ‘avoids targeting them’ when ‘fighting wars against them’; it financially supports some and trains others. It criticizes and antagonizes those who are actually fighting the extremist militant groups.

Extremists have been unleashed, like Rottweiler fighting dogs, against almost all progressive governments in the Middle East, but also against China and Russia. Extremist Muslims, extremist Christians, even extremist Buddhists!

In turn, the politicians in the United States are regularly supported, financially, by the regimes (including those of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc.) that are spreading, relentlessly, throughout the world, the most intolerant and grotesquely violent religious concepts.

Despite their essential servility and cowardice, even some North American mainstream media outlets are now actively discussing various schemes involving the financing of the Clinton Foundation by Saudi Arabia (alongside several leading transnational corporations and Wall Street’s largest banks).

On its “Breaking News”, as far back as in 2008, CNN reported:

The donations to the William J. Clinton Foundation include amounts of $10 million to $25 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and real estate mogul Stephen Bing, a personal friend of the Clintons.

The Clintons came under intense pressure during Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination to release the names of donors to both the Foundation and to the Clinton presidential library in Arkansas.

Bill Clinton agreed to the release of the list after President-elect Barack Obama nominated Hillary Clinton to become Secretary of State.

The governments of Kuwait and Qatar are also on the list, as is Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid, who has close ties to the Saudi royal family. Saudi Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi, reputed to be one of the richest men in the world, is among the donors as well. Both Saudis contributed in the $1 million to $5 million range. A group called Friends of Saudi Arabia and the Dubai Foundation appear in the same category.  

As recently as on August 20^th, 2016, The New York Times wrote something similar, essentially reconfirming the validity of the earlier reports, while adding many more details and adjusting the figures:

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated more than $10 million. Through a foundation, so did the son-in-law of a former Ukrainian president whose government was widely criticized for corruption and the murder of journalists. A Lebanese-Nigerian developer with vast business interests contributed as much as $5 million.

For years the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation thrived largely on the generosity of foreign donors and individuals who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the global charity. But now, as Mrs. Clinton seeks the White House, the funding of the sprawling philanthropy has become an Achilles’ heel for her campaign and, if she is victorious, potentially her administration as well.

Long time Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin (who spent part of her childhood in Saudi Arabia) has been an intermediary between the former Secretary of State and pro-Saudi interests. She also negotiated financial support for Ms. Clinton from Mr. Chagouri and other individuals, organizations and businesses originating from the Middle East.

The accusations and evidence keep coming in, from different media outlets, both left wing and right wing. On August 1^st, 2016, the conservative Breitbart News stated:

Khizr Khan, the Muslim Gold Star father that the mainstream media and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been using to criticize Donald J. Trump, has deep ties to the government of Saudi Arabia—and to international Islamist investors through his own law firm. In addition to those ties to the wealthy Islamist nation, Khan also has ties to controversial immigration programs that wealthy foreigners can use to essentially buy their way into the United States—and has deep ties to the “Clinton Cash” narrative through the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton’s dependence on Saudi sponsors has been strongly influencing her decision to maintain a foreign policy in the service of Riyadh and support for various terrorist groups controlled by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in and beyond the Middle East region.

In reality, she is simply representing ‘continuity’ of an already existing, deadly trend. The regime has been ‘evolving’ for decades, but especially since the Ronald Reagan years. Republicans or Democrats: it truly matters very little. Both parties spread terror all over the world. True, George W. Bush invaded Iraq, but people like Bill Clinton are close friends and supporters of Paul Kagame, the Rwandese ‘butcher of Congo’, with the blood of some 10 million people on his hands. Democrat and ‘moderate’, Bill Clinton, was also responsible for the criminal bombing and destruction of socialist Yugoslavia. And so it goes…

But under Barack Obama’s rule, the last hope for an independent Middle East and the Arab world has virtually evaporated. Libya has been destroyed; the Syrian civil war was launched from Washington, London and Paris. Saudis bathed rebellious Yemen in blood using UK and US produced weapons. Virtually all ‘Arab Spring revolutions’ were infiltrated and diverted. And in Bahrain, the Shi’a majority was literally raped by Saudi Arabia and its own ruthless rulers, with British advisors standing-by.

The US and Europe have kept selling arms to the Gulf, building new military bases while supporting the most appalling and bloodthirsty regimes.

The ‘Obama/ (Hilary) Clinton Era’ has greatly ‘improved’ the symbioses of Western imperialism, big business, and pro-Western fascist regimes worldwide, but particularly in the Middle East and Africa.

This toxic embrace has proved fatal to millions of people in these two parts of the world. Hopes for self-governance have been ruined. Corpses keep piling up in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and elsewhere.

The West does not care, as long as it stays in charge of the ‘show’, and for as long as hundreds of billions of dollars are made by weapons’ producers. Even if millions are dying, there is still an uninterrupted flow of raw materials to the West and Japan. Therefore, it is ‘business as usual’. ‘Un-people’ and their lives are worth nothing.

At one point, Russia, Iran, China and others have said “enough is enough; let’s fight against the true terrorists! Let’s fight ISIS and other bigots! Let’s give a hand to the independence-minded, socially-oriented patriots”.

Predictably,. this led to total outrage in Washington, London, and Paris (and Tokyo). Disobedience and rebellion against the global (Western) order could not be tolerated! It had to be crushed, even at the cost of new and deadly world war.

NATO, Washington, Europe, Japan, and South Korea –all started a direct confrontation policy against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea (DPRK) and other members of the ‘Coalition of Daring’. Brazil, an important member of BRICS, was recently destroyed by the extreme-right coup supported by the West.

Even the Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, in his rare moments of sanity, is clearly aware of the danger. He does not wish to confront Russia. He is obviously not willing to sacrifice tens of millions of human lives for some grotesque dreams of total world domination by a market fundamentalism backed by the white (or Western) supremacist dogmas.

But Trump’s moments of sanity are defined as ‘madness’ by the mainstream propaganda. Not surprisingly! As was correctly stated by the great Indian thinker, Arundhati Roy, some several years ago: “now war is called peace and black is called white”. Orwellian indeed, with a vengeance.

The Clinton Campaign

The Clinton campaign has gone into overdrive. It attempts to distract attention from its own funding scandals, by accusing Donald Trump’s aides of receiving financing from abroad. Trump is now described as ‘Russia’s agent’.

This game – it is all self-serving: nothing to do with the interests of the world, or even the interests of the common ‘American people’.

For as long as the general political trend of the West does not radically change, or for as long as the West is not stopped by outside forces, perpetual wars will continue. Monstrous genocides in Africa, the destruction of entire states and regions in the Middle East, all this could easily spread to other parts of the Planet.

It is clear now that if provoked and confronted, countries like China, Russia and Iran would not hesitate to fight back. They also may fight for others – for their tortured allies.

The Western implants and their buddies, Mujahedeen/Al-Qaida, have already destroyed Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. ISIS, another mutant unleashed by the West and its allies, have been devastating Iraq, Syria, Libya and now what is left of Afghanistan.

These ‘movements’ have really nothing to do with Islam. They were manufactured in Washington, Riyadh, London, and Doha (and most likely even in Tel Aviv), for several concrete purposes, all of them thoroughly foul.

They are making sure to ruin the socialist nature of Islam, insisting exclusively on the implementation of outdated, medieval fundamentalist interpretations.

Huma Abedin’s mother, Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is one of the founding members of the Muslim Sisterhood, and chairperson of the “International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child” (IICWC). She is also a well known writer and editor based in Saudi Arabia. Her organization (IICWC) had repeatedly argued that laws banning female circumcision should be revoked, as well as laws prohibiting child marriage and marital rape. During her visit to KSA, Hillary Clinton spoke at the Islamic college of Dar El-Hekma (where Dr. Saleha Abedin was a vice-dean) shoulder-to-shoulder with her favorite aide – Huma.

Was this just an insignificant episode? Like those millions of dollars in Saudi Arabian funding for Clinton’s foundation? Like the US ‘foreign policy’ in the Gulf and in the Middle East, like spreading Muslim extremist groups to all corners of the world, from Africa, the Middle East, to Southeast Asia and even China? Like unleashing conservative Islam against socialist Muslim countries?

Too many ‘episodes’! Too much blood… It is time to say what is by now obvious: “The US establishment is not fighting ‘Muslim terrorism’ or even ‘extremism’; it is manufacturing it, and injecting it everywhere.”

The only real enemy that Washington, London and Paris have, for decades, even for centuries, is the anti-colonialist struggle, and the burning desire of people, worldwide, to terminate the West’s global dictatorship.

Waging genocidal war on a defenseless country was never so baldly and honestly put on any agenda for talks among US secretary of state John Kerry, representatives of Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship, and their mutual allies, even though they are all engaged in an endless genocidal war on Yemen. This war is a war of aggression, started by Saudi Arabia in March 2015, with crucial US blessing, participation, personnel, and ordnance. The US has been a willing, guilty partner and enabler in 18 months of military atrocities in a one-sided war that everyone involved knew – or should have known – was a pure war crime based on a paranoid delusion.

American participation in this war of aggression was a war declared by press release from the National Security Council on March 25, 2015, another example of the imperial presidency’s ability to act by fiat without fear of serious objection from the public, the media, or even Congress:

President Obama has authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council]-led military operations. [emphasis added]

The fundamental crime in Yemen is waging a war of aggression, which encompasses all the subsequent war crimes including bombing civilians, using cluster bombs, bombing hospitals, bombing food supplies, and trying to starve a population to submission or death. Yemen, with a population of 26 million people, was the poorest country in the region even before it was attacked. What the US supports and sanctions against Yemen makes any US complaint about Russian actions in Crimea sound like howling hypocrisy.

For all that the Saudis frame their war on Yemen as a defense against a threat from Iran, there has never been any credible evidence of any credible threat to Saudi Arabia from any element of the miniscule Iranian presence in Yemen. Yemen is fighting a civil war, a new version of the same old civil war Yemenis have been fighting for decades, both before and after Yemen was two separate countries. The Iran “threat” is the paranoid delusion supposedly justifying a merciless war on a civil population already beset by a four-sided civil war. There is no way that those who decided to wage this war of aggression could not have known the reality in Yemen if they had wanted to know it. Presumably they knew it all full well and chose a war of aggression anyway, recklessly, perhaps even thoughtlessly, but criminally all the same. The Saudi goal was always get rid of a longstanding threat on its southwestern border, where the tribal land of the Houthis lay both in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. When the long-oppressed Houthis, a Shia minority in a Sunni world, drove out the Sunni government of Yemen in 2015, the Saudis, without saying so in so many words, decided on a course of action that could lead to a final solution. And everyone knew, at the time, and no one objected, according to this account by the highly reliable Andrew Cockburn on Democracy NOW (whose piece in Harper’s Magazine for September 2016, ironically titled “Acceptable Losses,” provides an excellent exegesis of the war on Yemen, but with a more elegiac tone):

I was told, very early on in the war, Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken went to Riyadh to ask the—this is two weeks—yeah, it was two weeks into the war [mid-April 2015], when they had already been bombing away, using the U.S. bombs, U.S.-supplied bombs, using U.S. weapons, killing already dozens, if not certainly, you know, hundreds of civilians, destroying factories. And finally, Blinken turns up in Riyadh and asks, “By the way, what are you trying to accomplish here?” And the Saudis effectively said, or at least the Americans understood them to say, “Well, we basically want to wipe out the Houthis.” Well, they termed it as “end all Iranian influence in Yemen.” So, the Americans—Blinken was a bit shocked by that, so I’m told, and said, “Well, you know, that’s going a bit far. But it’s—you should certainly stop the Houthis taking over the country.” And that, effectively, gave the Saudis carte blanche to continue this kind of mindless carpet bombing….

By 2015, American hands were already bloody with the US drone assassination program that had killed not only innocent civilians, but American citizens, without a trace of due process of law. In effect, already enmeshed in its own nexus of war crimes in Yemen, the US green-lighted the Saudi-led war of aggression that would make American crimes pale by comparison. As American policy over the years would have it, American weapons have been dispersed all over Yemen since 2006.

Kerry to consult on terrorism, but not US or Saudi terrorism

Terror bombing, an example of which is Saudi pilots flying American planes dropping American bombs on defenseless Yemeni civilian targets, is probably not the terrorism Secretary Kerry wants to discuss – ever – with the Saudis and their allies, never mind other weapons suppliers like France and the United Kingdom. As the official State Department notice put it in deadly opaque prose:

Secretary Kerry will travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a series of meetings with senior Saudi leaders, his counterparts from the Gulf Cooperation Council, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen. His discussion will focus on the ongoing conflict in Yemen and efforts to restore peace and stability….

Those “efforts to restore peace and stability” notably include the destruction of two schools, another hospital, and a potato chip factory, along with the associated men, women, and children, especially at the schools. Perhaps the latest great military “victory” achieved by the war criminals known as the Saudi-led coalition is to drive the world’s leading medical crisis-zone organization out of Yemen by targeting its hospitals over and over and over and over since March 2015. Of course, America the Exceptional does not stand for this betrayal of human decency, and our presidential candidates of all parties have railed ceaselessly against this indiscriminate murder of patients, their families, their doctors and other medical personnel, forcing the White House to take action to bring to an end 17 months of aggressive war and other war crimes and crimes against humanity – no, wait, that’s not happening, is it?

Actually, if any presidential candidate of any political party has expressed the slightest objection to the Saudi-coalition’s genocidal war on Yemen, such evidence is so hard to come by that it may as well not exist. (In August 2015, Jill Stein of the Green Party mentioned in passing that the Saudis “are committing war crimes right now in Yemen,” and more recently she called for an end to US funding for Saudi Arabia and Israel because of their violations of human rights laws, but she does not tend to make a point of the US support for a war of aggression in Yemen. But she’s better than any other candidate on Yemen.) At this point, a year and a half into our shared war of aggression, every candidate is complicit in this horrendous, unjustified war promoted and pursued with smug disdain for anything like peace by our peace prize winning President Obama. The blood drips from all their hands, their feet, their tongues and eyelashes, but most of all from every pore of our Nobel Laureate in the White House. (As the book Double Downreported in 2012: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people,” Obama said quietly, “Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”)

With the US at war, Congress has nothing to say about any of it

The US is at war with Yemen, in support of the Saudi-led coalition that launched its undeclared war of aggression on March 26, 2015. US war-making includes, but is not limited to: US intelligence services providing intelligence to the aggressor nations; US military personnel participating in daily target planning and attack assessment; US tanker aircraft re-fueling aggressor nation aircraft bombing Yemen (46,500 acknowledged sorties in the first 11 months of war); US drones targeting and attacking under US control; US military contractors servicing the Saudi F-15s that bomb Yemen; US personnel training Saudi military; US military personnel operating in Yemen; and the US Navy reinforcing the Saudi blockade intent on starving Yemen into submission.

The US Congress has never debated, never authorized US participation in a war of aggression against Yemen. The US president has never asked Congress for such authorization of a war of aggression against Yemen. Neither house of Congress has acted on any bill that directly addresses the war of aggression against Yemen. More than a year after the war started, two Democratic members of Congress (joined by two Republicans) introduced identical bills intended to respond to the war. California congressman Ted Lieu (joined by Florida congressman Ted Yoho) and Connecticut senator Christopher Murphy (joined by Kentucky senator Rand Paul) asked their colleagues to address the horrors of the war (briefly enumerated in the bill), not by ending the war, but only by temporarily limiting US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. That’s it. They did not mention US participation in the war. Both their bills were referred to committee. At the time there was a spotty ceasefire in Yemen while peace talks proceeded in Kuwait (the talks were suspended in early August, leading to the Saudi escalation currently killing more civilians).

Incredibly, this non-response response to war crimes in Yemen has gotten Rep. Lieu some recent positive press coverage, in The Intercept of August 22 and elsewhere, even though his bill is designed to have no immediate impact on the carnage. Rep. Lieu is a colonel in the US Air Force Reserve. When he was on active duty he taught the law of war to other Air Force officers. His interview rhetoric, like most of his public action, is soft-edged even though he knows perfectly well his country is committing war crimes. He almost said as much in an August 15 statement objecting to the Saudi attack on a school in Haydan, Yemen, that killed 10 children:

The indiscriminate civilian killings by Saudi Arabia look like war crimes to me. In this case, children as young as 8 were killed by Saudi Arabian air strikes. By assisting Saudi Arabia, the United States is aiding and abetting what appears to be war crimes in Yemen. The Administration must stop enabling this madness now. [emphasis in original]

Rep. Lieu and others have also objected to the State Department’s certification of another arms sale to Saudi Arabia: this one is $1.15 billion for 153 tanks, hundreds of machine guns, and other war materiel. This is in addition to the record $100 billion in arms sales to the Saudis already made by the Obama administration. The latest arms deal suggested to Rep. Lieu “that the administration is, at best, callously indifferent to the mass amount of civilians dying as a result of the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing.” He did not openly consider whether 153 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and other weaponry might open the way for the air war of aggression to be matched by an escalation of the ground war of aggression as well. Twenty of those new US tanks are specifically designated as replacements for tanks lost in combat, some of them in Yemen. On the other hand, the official State Department notice of the Abrams Tank sale assures Congress: “The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region.” That’s hardly reassuring in a region where wars of attrition and military quagmires are killing not only thousands of Yemenis, but Palestinians, Israelis, Lebanese, Syrians, Saudis, Turks, Kurds, Iraqis, Afghans, and god knows who else, more often than not with Made-in-USA weapons and munitions.

The proposed US tank sale has drawn the attention of several NGOs (non-governmental organizations) looking to wash American hands of the war on Yemen by blocking the sale, or at least having a debate about it in Congress. Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote a letter to Secretary Kerry August 19, with temperate language of concern about several countries, including Yemen. HRW asked Secretary Kerry “to emphasize the potential consequences if Saudi Arabia fails to improve its conduct.” But it did not suggest what those consequences might be in light of the reality that the US has coordinated and condones all Saudi conduct to date. CODEPINK is supporting a petition to support the Congressional letter that urges President Obama to postpone the US tank sale to the Saudis.

Even The New York Times is expressing something shy of anguish over “American complicity” and “carnage” and targets that are not “legitimate” under international law as it supports efforts to block the tank sale in Congress. The Times doesn’t mention that this is the same Congress that in June – supporting a White House request – refused to block the sale of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia for fear of “stigmatizing” cluster bombs. That’s a reflection of the American version of reality, since cluster bombs are already stigmatized by most countries of the world and using them on civilians, as US-Saudi forces do in Yemen, is widely understood to be a war crime. The solution, according to the Times:

Congress should put the arms sales on hold and President Obama should quietly inform Riyadh that the United States will withdraw crucial assistance if the Saudis do not stop targeting civilians and agree to negotiate peace.

That can’t happen in the real world, where the president and the Saudis all know they are war criminals and are, like Macbeth, so steeped in blood “that should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

There is no reason to expect any good to come to Yemen until a whole lot more Americans face the reality of their country’s support for a genocidal war of aggression. When enough Americans recognize that, then they will have to do a lot more about it than stop selling tanks to the aggressors. Until then the US-sponsored atrocity of ethnic cleansing in a poverty-stricken country that threatens no one will continue unabated.

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

On Wednesday morning, Turkey abruptly launched an all-out military assault on Syria, sending in tanks, troops, and engaging in airstrikes, in concert with airstrikes from the United States, to the northern portions of Syria near the Turkey-Syria border under the guise of combating ISIS forces. At this time, the military operations seem focused around Jarablus.

According to the BBC, “A dozen Turkish tanks and other vehicles have rolled across the Syrian border after heavy shelling of an area held by so-called Islamic State (IS). Military sources told Turkish media 70 targets in the Jarablus area had been destroyed by artillery and rocket strikes, and 12 by air strikes.”

For those who may be wondering exactly what the Turkish goal might be, two points must be mentioned in regards to Turkey’s actions which should go some length to demonstrate that the Turks are still focused on destroying the Syrian government as well as preventing the establishment of a Kurdish enclave either in Syria or Turkey.

First, the Turkish military is acting as the frontal assault for “moderate” rebel forces like the FSA who are marching in directly behind the Turkish military to hold territory conquered by the Turks. Any association with the Free Syrian Army, a gaggle of Western-backed extremistsindistinguishable from ISIS, should be a major warning sign to any informed observer that the goal is not to aid in the destruction of terrorist forces in Syria or to assist the Syrian government in its goal to do so. Second, the Turkish invasion was accompanied by American airstrikes which clearly indicates that the Turks are operating closely with the United States, which has been chomping at the bit to either directly destroy the Syrian government via military invasion or to create “buffer zones” and “safe zones” in the country to act as forward operating bases for future terrorist proxy operations.

Al-Masdar reports on the progress of the Turkish military offensive by writing:

The Turkish Special Forces, alongside the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Faylaq Al-Sham, reportedly captured their first village during this new offensive dubbed “Operation Euphrates Shield.”According to Faylaq Al-Sham’s official media wing, their forces captured the village of Tal Katlijah after the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) terrorists quickly abandoned the area in order to reinforce Jarabulus.

ISIS has mostly abandoned the small area between Jarabulus and the Turkish border, leaving only small units to resist the advancing Turkish-backed rebels.

The Turkish-backed rebels are now attacking the hilltop village of Tal Sha’er, which is along the road to Jarabulus.

The Turk agenda here is also two-fold: On one hand, Turkey’s Erdogan wants to continue to work with NATO and the United States to destroy the secular government of Bashar al-Assad while, on the other hand, Turkey needs to do all it can do to prevent an autonomous Kurdish enclave on its border with Syria. An effective way to do this is to create a “buffer zone” between the Kurds and Turkey while, at the same, making sure that the dimensions of the “buffer zone” are the same as the “safe zone” desired by NATO two years ago in order to keep terrorist supply lines moving through Turkey and in to Syria. That narrow and porous jihadist corridor has become known as the Jarablus corridor, the same areas which the Turks are now invading and filling up with terrorists as we speak.

For its part, the Syrian government has condemned the Turkish invasion. As ABC News reports,

Syria’s government has denounced Turkish military incursion, describing it as Turkey’s “blatant violation” of Syrian sovereignty.

In a statement reported by state-run news agency SANA on Wednesday, the government says that “any move to combat terrorism on Syrian territories should have been coordinated with the Syrian government and army.”

The statement also calls for an immediate end to the Turkish “aggression,” which it says is being carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

It says: “Fighting terrorism cannot be undertaken by ousting Daesh and replacing it with other terrorist organizations directly backed by Turkey.” Daesh is the Arabic language acronym for IS.

The YPG has likewise condemned the Turkish involvement in Syria, labeling it a “blatant aggression in Syrian internal affairs.”

Turkey’s move raises even more questions now regarding the nature of its recent “failed” coup as well as its relationship with Russia and the United States. A troubling new dimension has also been added to the Syrian crisis as the Turks have now officially invaded a sovereign country in an already volatile region. Undoubtedly, we will be watching these events closely.

Brandon Turbeville is the author of seven 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 650 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers – as well as Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers – leave from the Iranian Hamadan airfield to bomb jihadis and assorted «moderate rebels» in Syria, and immediately we’ve got ourselves a major, unforeseen geopolitical game-changer.

The record shows that Russia has not been present militarily in Iran since 1946; and this is the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iran allowed another nation to use Iranian territory for a military operation.

Bets could be made the Pentagon would, predictably, freak out like a bunch of pampered, irate teens. They did not disappoint, complaining that Russia’s advance warning did not allow enough time to «prepare» – as in blaring all across the planet another episode of «Russian aggression», on top of it in cahoots with «the mullahs». Further desperation ensued, with Washington claiming Iran might have violated UN Security Council resolutions.

Moscow’s spin, in contrast, was a beauty; this was all about logistics and cost cutting. Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, chair of the State Duma’s Defense Committee and a former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, gave a lovely explanation of the modus operandi:

It is expensive and takes a long time to fly from bases in the European part of Russia. The issue of the cost of military combat activities is, at present, a priority. We must not go over the current Defense Ministry budget. Flying Tu-22s from Iran means using less fuel and carrying larger payloads… Russia won’t be able to find a friendlier and more suitable, from the point of view of security, country in that part of the world, and strikes must be carried out if we want to end this war… Airfields in Syria are not suitable because of the constant [need for] flying over areas of combat activities.

Don’t mess with the SCO

All fine and dandy then. The Pentagon will keep crying foul. Enraged Zionists in Israel and fanatic Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia will throw tantrums and turbo-charge the proverbial «Iranian existential threat» to apocalyptic levels. Whatever. These «facts in the skies» cannot be altered. Especially because if they open the way for a decisive victory in the battle for East Aleppo, the foreign-imposed Syrian civil war will be all but over.

Ali Shamkhani, head of Iran’s National Security Council, made no mistake this is all about Iran-Russia strategic cooperation in a – real – fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh terror, and not, as spun by Western corporate media, the return of Iran as a «military asset» of a great power.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, for his part, stressed, «I allowed the bombers to fly over because we received clear information about them. They make precise strikes, avoid casualties among civilians. So, we will consider all the requests concerning security of civilians in Syria».

This was code for Baghdad coolly allowing Russian access through Iraqi airspace for the TU-22M3 bombers. Next inevitable step would be the Russian Caspian fleet launching cruise missiles over Iranian and Iraqi airspace towards those Beltway-protected «rebels» in Syria.

And there’s more, much more.

A 2015 Moscow-Damascus agreement has now been ratified by Russia. That, in effect, turns the Russian air base at Khmeimim into a permanent military base in the eastern Mediterranean.

Beijing and Damascus, for their part, have just agreed on closer military ties on top of Chinese humanitarian aid. Syrian Arab Army personnel will eventually be trained by Chinese military instructors.

Beijing is now directly involved in Syria for a key national security reason; hundreds of Uyghurs have joined Daesh or follow al-Qaeda goon Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the much-appreciated-in-the Beltway leader of the Army of Syrian Conquest – and may eventually return to Xinjiang to wage jihad.

And then, there’s the absolutely delicious cherry in the cheesecake, as professor of Middle East Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, Zhao Weiming, told the Global Times; Beijing’s new power play in Syria is payback for Pentagon interference in the South China Sea.

So what will Hillary do?

All of the above points to the new look of what used to be a white elephant in the room; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) now means serious business.

As the «4+1» (Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, plus Hezbollah) started to share intel and operation procedures last year, including a coordination center in Baghdad, analysts such as Alistair Cooke and myself saw it as en embryo of the SCO in action. This was definitely, already, an alternative to NATO’s «humanitarian» imperialism and regime change obsession. For the first time NATO was not free anymore to roam around the world like an out-of-control Robocop. Even though only Russia and China were SCO members, and Iran an observer, the cooperation involved – at the request of a government fighting jihadis and still a target for regime change – already qualified as a major, new geopolitical fact on the ground.

Now, this variant of the New Silk Roads – New Silk Airways? – involving Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria and precisely targeting Salafi-jihadism, qualifies once again as accelerated Eurasia integration. Both SCO heavyweights China and Russia will not only admit Iran as a full member as early as next year; they know Iran is a key strategic asset in a battle against NATO, and they will never let Syria become the new Libya. In parallel, Russia’s strategic moves in Crimea and Syria are set to be dissected in excruciating detail in Chinese military academies.

Eurasia integration is being progressively intertwined with the SCO.

Whatever Tel Aviv and Riyadh – with their massive Washington lobbies – may fear about Russian-Iranian security cooperation, it’s NATO that’s livid. And much more than NATO, Hillary «Queen of War» Clinton.

The record shows Hillary with a severe crush on Assad to be dispatched the Gaddafi way. In the event of a Hillary presidency, bets can be made she will force the Pentagon to impose a no-fly zone in northern Syria and weaponize assorted «rebel» remnants to Kingdom Come.

And then there’s Iran. During the 2008 US presidential campaign, I was on the floor as Hillary addressed the AIPAC conference in Washington, a truly frightening spectacle. Using the – false – premise of an Iranian attack on Israel, she said, «I want the Iranians to know that if I’m president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them».

Oh really? Over Russia-Iran strategic cooperation? Over a progressively integrated SCO? Bring it on, Queen of War.

“The continuing existence of IS serves a strategic purpose,” wrote Efraim Inbar in “The Destruction of Islamic State Is a Strategic Mistake,” a paper published on Aug. 2.

By cooperating with Russia to fight the genocidal extremist group, the United States is committing a “strategic folly” that will “enhance the power of the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus axis,” Inbar argued, implying that Russia, Iran and Syria are forming a strategic alliance to dominate the Middle East.

“The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction,” he added. “A weak IS is, counterintuitively, preferable to a destroyed IS.”

Inbar, an influential Israeli scholar, is the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank that says its mission is to advance “a realist, conservative, and Zionist agenda in the search for security and peace for Israel.”

BESA also says it “conducts specialized research on contract to the Israeli foreign affairs and defense establishment, and for NATO.”

In his paper, Inbar suggested that it would be a good idea to prolong the war in Syria, which has destroyed the country, killing hundreds of thousands of people and displacing more than half the population.

Read Complete article on Salon

Under the pretext of “strengthening Turkey’s security by clearing terrorist groups from the border and maintaining Syria’s territorial integrity,” the Turkish army launched a major escalation of the war in Syria on Wednesday with a cross-border operation codenamed Euphrates Shield.

Turkish units began their assault on ISIS and Kurdish militia forces at 4 AM local time, backed by tanks and supported by intensive artillery bombardments and airstrikes, including air support from the US-led coalition. The incursion marked the first time since last November, when Turkey shot down a Russian jet near the Turkish-Syrian border, that Turkish warplanes have struck inside Syria.

The invasion comes only days after a series of mortar shells targeted the Turkish town of Karkamis from the Syrian side of the border. Turkish authorities evacuated thousands of inhabitants.

There have also been a number of ISIS attacks in Turkey over the past two years, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. ISIS is the prime suspect in a deadly blast last Saturday at a wedding in the southeastern province of Gaziantep that left 54 people dead. After the suicide bombing, the Turkish government vowed to “completely clear the Turkish border” of terrorist elements.

Operation Euphrates Shield entails invading Syria and establishing a buffer zone, in blatant violation of Syrian sovereignty. This has long been advocated by the Turkish government and, at various times, by NATO allies. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is calling for the imposition of a “safe zone” in Syria as a means of carving out a base of operations directed above all against the Russian- and Iranian-backed regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus had said earlier this week that proposals to establish a “secure zone,” an internationally policed buffer area, should be reconsidered.

The Turkish escalation will sharply increase tensions in an already unstable and explosive situation, with the United States, the major European powers, Iran, Russia and China all intervening to back competing factions in the Syrian war.

Once the invasion was underway it became clear that Washington was throwing its weight behind it. While the situation remains extremely fluid, it appears that the Obama administration, having undermined its relations with Turkey by tacitly backing the July 15 military coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is trying to rebuild its ties to Ankara at the expense of the Kurdish militias it has been supporting.

US Vice President Joseph Biden arrived in Ankara as the invasion of Syria was unfolding. After reiterating Washington’s claim, lacking all credibility, that it “did not have any foreknowledge” of the coup, he declared the US government’s support for Ankara’s invasion of Syria and endorsed its key aims.

At a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, Biden insisted that Syrian Kurdish forces had to bow to Turkish demands and return to the eastern bank of the Euphrates River if they wanted to continue receiving US support. “We have made it absolutely clear that they must go back across the river. They cannot and will not, under any circumstances, get American support if they do not keep that commitment,” he said.

Russian officials, who had sought to develop closer ties with the Turkish regime in the aftermath of the abortive coup, indicated their concern over the military escalation. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Turkey’s air and ground operation could lead to “further degeneration of the situation in the conflict zone” and “flare-ups of interethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs.”

Both the Assad regime and the Syrian Kurdish militias denounced the invasion. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it “condemns the crossing of the Turkish-Syria border by Turkish tanks and armored vehicles towards the town of Jarabulus, with air cover from the US-led coalition, and considers it a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty.”

A Foreign Ministry source added, “Any party that wishes to fight terrorism on Syrian soil must coordinate with the Syrian government and army… What is happening in Jarabulus now is not a fight against terrorism. Rather, it is substituting one form of terrorism for another.”

The Kurdish militias, which have once again been double-crossed by their US imperialist backers, are providing yet one more example of the bankruptcy of their bourgeois nationalist orientation and their reliance on imperialism. Redur Xelil, spokesman for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia operating in Syria, complained that Turkey’s move was a “blatant aggression in Syrian internal affairs,” while Syrian Kurdish politician Aldar Xelil said the operation was a “declaration of war” on Kurdish autonomous administrations in northern Syria.

In an attempt to justify the incursion, Turkish authorities referred to United Nations resolutions calling for a fight against ISIS. They said Turkey was engaged in an act of “legitimate self-defense enshrined in the UN Charter.”

Turkish President Erdogan said, “Right now, unfortunately, all the attacks that happened in Gaziantep and Kilis…brought this issue to this point.” Referring to last Saturday’s Turkish security summit, Erdogan said Turkish officials had decided they “have to solve the problem.”

Speaking at a news conference in Ankara hours after the invasion, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the aim of the operation was to clear ISIS from the southern border. Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala underscored that the operation would continue until the “terror threat at our border is eliminated.”

Turkish authorities also insisted that Turkey was not invading Syria on its own, but operating in coordination with the US-led coalition and in support of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters aiming to recapture the northern Syrian city of Jarabulus from ISIS.

However, the aim of the Turkish invasion is not limited to clearing ISIS from Jarabulus. Operation Euphrates Shield is a preemptive strike to block any attempt by Syrian Kurdish militias to capture Jarabulus before the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is able to take control. Making no distinction between ISIS and the YPG, Ankara has strengthened its FSA proxies against the Syrian Kurdish militias, the lead force within the so-called Syria Democratic Forces alliance (SDF) backed by the United States.

The growing influence in Syria of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the crossing over to the western side of the Euphrates River of its military arm, the YPG, earlier this month alarmed Ankara, which fears the establishment of a US-backed autonomous Kurdish region in the Syrian-Turkish border region. Yesterday, following the onset of the invasion, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu called on Syrian Kurdish forces to go back to the eastern side of the Euphrates. “The US also supports this… I am saying very clearly that we will do what is necessary,” he said.

Last week, after Syrian war planes bombed US-backed Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian town of Hasakeh and Washington threatened to respond by attacking the Syrian regime, Turkey launched artillery barrages against both ISIS and Kurdish fighters near Jarabulus.

The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are supporting the Turkish invasion. Speaking at a press conference following a Central Executive Board meeting, CHP spokeswoman and deputy chair Selin Sayek Boke expressed her party’s support for Operation Euphrates Shield, while criticizing the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government for waiting so long to attack ISIS both inside and outside of Turkey. The MHP is widely known as the leading advocate of an invasion of northern, Kurdish regions of Syria and Iraq.

Amid US-South Korean war games and heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea conducted the test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Wednesday. The missile, which was launched from waters near the coastal city of Sinpo, flew about 500 kilometres and landed in Japan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ).

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un bragged that the test had been the “greatest success and victory” and placed North Korea in “the front rank of the military powers fully equipped with nuclear attack capability.” The launch followed two unsuccessful attempts in April and July during which the missile flew just 10 and 30 kilometres respectively.

Pyongyang’s missile launch and militarist bluster, along with its bellicose threats, are reactionary. They do nothing to enhance the security of the North Korean people. In fact, by providing a pretext for Washington’s military build-up in North East Asia as well as Japanese rearmament, North Korea’s actions only heighten the danger of a devastating war in the Asia Pacific region.

The missile launch provoked immediate condemnations from Japan, South Korea and the United States as well as criticism from China. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared: “It is a grave threat to Japan’s security and an unforgivable act that damages regional peace and stability markedly.”

South Korea’s foreign ministry denounced the missile firing, saying it was a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and would only result in tougher sanctions. The US Pacific Command branded the launch as a “provocation” that will only increase the determination of the “international community” to implement existing UN sanctions.

The US and Japan called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council, which convened late last night. Malaysia’s ambassador Ramlan Bin Abrahim, the current council president told the media that “there was a general sense of condemnation” by most UN members at the closed-door meeting.

The condemnations of North Korea by the US and its allies are utterly hypocritical. Washington as part of its “pivot to Asia” and military expansion in Asia has deliberately sharpened tensions on the Korean Peninsula by beefing up its military ties with South Korea, including preparations to install a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea supposedly to counter North Korea.

The US and South Korea began their annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint military exercises this week involving 25,000 American and 75,000 South Korean personnel. The war games are premised on Operational Plans 5015(OPLAN 5015) adopted last November by Washington and Seoul, which involve pre-emptive strikes on North Korean targets and assassination raids against its top leadership, including Kim Jong-un.

Unlike the case of Iran with which it actively sought a rapprochement, the Obama administration has made no attempt to end the tense standoff with North Korea through talks. In fact, Obama has maintained the confrontational stance of President Bush and shunned six-party negotiations sponsored by China, insisting that Pyongyang must dismantle its nuclear arsenal in advance of any discussions.

While Washington hypes up the threat posed by its latest missile launch, Pyongyang’s nuclear weaponry and delivery systems are still primitive. North Korea has an outdated fleet of about 70 submarines with Soviet-era technology that are unlikely to be able to fire a ballistic missile. The missile was likely fired from a 2,000-tonne vessel known as Gorae, “whale” in Korean, which has a limited range, is relatively noisy and thus easily detectable.

The missile launch took place during the annual meeting of foreign ministers from Japan, China and South Korea in Tokyo. All three condemned the test with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, declaring: “China opposes North Korea’s nuclear and missile process, actions that cause tension on the Korean Peninsula.” He said that the three neighbours, despite the disputes between them, should work together to deal with regional threats such as those posed by North Korea.

In its article on the trilateral meeting, the New York Times mused that the missile test had brought “temporary unity in East Asia.” In reality, the three nations are opposed to North Korea’s actions for widely differing and antagonist reasons. The two American allies—Japan and South Korea—are using Pyongyang’s sabre rattling to strengthen ties with the US and to boost their own military capacities.

The Abe government will undoubtedly exploit the missile test as further justification for remilitarisation and its push to revise the Japanese constitution to end limitations on its ability to wage war in pursuit of its imperialist interests.

China, however, confronts a deepening dilemma. Beijing is well aware that Washington’s “pivot to Asia” and military build-up is primarily aimed at preparing for war against China not North Korea. While criticising its formal ally, China also does not want to precipitate a political implosion in Pyongyang that could lead to the establishment of a pro-US regime on its border. It is also concerned that North Korea’s nuclear tests, most recently in January, could provide Tokyo and Seoul with the pretext to develop their own nuclear weapons.

Foreign Minister Wang’s appeal for closer collaboration with South Korea and Japan is aimed at trying to ease regional tensions and marginalise the United States. The US, on the other hand, has a definite interest in maintaining the dangerous standoff on the Korean Peninsula to strengthen defence ties with its two allies and justify its preparations for war against China.

As Washington has more aggressively pursued the “pivot,” Beijing has more publicly hit back. A commentary yesterday in the state-owned Xinhua news agency was sharply critical of the US role in stoking up tensions on the Korean Peninsula. While noting that the North Korean missile launch was “a new violation of UN resolutions,” the article stated that it was in response to this week’s joint US-South Korean military drills.

The comment warned that “Washington and Seoul are playing a dangerous game” by seeking to deter North Korea through sabre rattling. Their plan, it declared, was doomed to be wishful thinking, “as muscle-flexing leads to nowhere but a more anxious, more agitated and thus more unpredictable Pyongyang.” It made an appeal for South Korea to pursue its security though “good neighbourly and friendly relations with its neighbours, rather than a bunch of US made [THAAD] missiles.”

However, China, like North Korea, is seeking to counter the US through a military arms race that can only end in a disaster for humanity. Its whipping up of Chinese nationalism, and in particular anti-Japanese xenophobia, only drives a wedge between the working class in the region and internationally—the only social force capable of putting an end to capitalism and the drive to war.

Many have responded with a mixture of surprise, shock and horror to the “Civil Defence Concept” (KZV) officially presented by German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière on Wednesday. Extending over 69 pages, it details a series of measures to prepare the population for a war.

“One must pause for breath after reading these 69 pages,” wrote the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Monday in a preliminary report on the document, noting that it dealt with issues one would rather suppress.

“How to be protected against attacks using biological or chemical weapons? How will the population be taken to safety if a radioactive cloud spreads? Where will the federal government hide if an attack is threatened? Where will cultural treasures be stored in the case of war? How can men and women be made to report for work in ‘sectors vital to life and defence?’”

These questions had to be asked, the newspaper stated, because it was necessary to “prepare for the worst.”

The “Civil Defence Concept” appeared in parallel with the “White Paper 2016 on Security Policy and the Future of the German Army,” which proposed a major strengthening of the military. Whoever thought this meant only an expansion of military deployments abroad can now clearly see that the German government is preparing for wars that will transform Germany and Europe into a battlefield—and within the foreseeable future.

The “Civil Defence Concept” calls on the population to establish a personal store of water and food to last ten days. It recommends that a first aid kit, warm blankets, coal, wood, candles, torches, batteries, matches, charged batteries and cash reserves be kept at the ready.

Further measures to prepare for a “state of defence” include the “strengthening of building materials” for public and private buildings; the establishment of a “dependable alarm system” via radio, TV, sirens, loudspeakers, text messages and the Internet; and the creation of hospital “decontamination stations” in case of nuclear, biological or chemical attack.

The document declares it necessary to consider the reintroduction of compulsory military service and the implementation of a secure method for the call-up and mobilization of military personnel. It argues that the Federal Labour Agency should have the power to compel men and women to work in “sectors vital to life and defence.”

These measures are not about Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union “electioneering” or an attempt to “spread panic,” as the Greens and the Left Party claim. Nor is the “Civil Defence Concept” a mere redrafting of routine instructions for disaster situations, as some media outlets have argued in an attempt to downplay its significance. On the contrary, the document makes explicit and repeated references to war and chemical and nuclear weapons attacks.

Twenty-five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a nuclear war on European soil is a real danger. NATO has systematically encircled and threatened Russia militarily. The Western alliance is openly preparing for war. Last July, Der Spiegel cited Danish NATO officer Jacob Larsen as saying, “We have to learn once again how to fight a total war.”

German imperialism, which has already on two occasions plunged the world into the abyss, is playing a central role in this. Since the German government announced the “end of military restraint” at the beginning of 2014, German foreign policy has been following an aggressive path similar to that which preceded World War I and World War II.

Together with Washington, Berlin played the leading role in the coup that overthrew the elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in early 2014 and replaced him with a regime led by pro-Western oligarch Petro Poroshenko and based directly on fascist groups and militias. Since then, NATO has been building up its military forces on Russia’s borders, working closely with the ultranationalist, anti-Russian governments in Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine.

Earlier this summer, the largest ever NATO exercise took place in Eastern Europe. Operation Anaconda, which included 31,000 soldiers, 3,000 vehicles, 105 aircraft and 12 ships, simulated a war with Russia. A month later, the NATO summit in Warsaw agreed to station several battalions and create a missile defence system in Romania and the Baltic states.

The military situation is now so tense that an incident, intended or not, could trigger an uncontrollable chain reaction.

Factions within the US ruling elite pushing for a military confrontation with Russia are gaining strength. The hawks are for the most part not in the camp of the semi-fascist Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but lined up behind the Democrat Hillary Clinton, who is also backed by Germany’s ruling elite.

The agitation against Russia is assuming hysterical dimensions in Germany. Even Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who prepared the way for the return of German militarism and played a leading role in the Ukraine coup, is too soft for most of the media.

Last week, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung accused him of viewing “the motives of Moscow fundamentally differently” than German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “While Merkel allowed Moscow’s actions to be termed cynical, Steinmeier travelled to Ekaterinburg to dream in a speech,” the newspaper wrote. It went on to accuse Steinmeier of turning towards “those for whom an understanding for Russia and a hearty distrust of America are always two sides of the same coin.”

The two most important German foreign policy think tanks, the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP) and the Foundation of Political Science (SWP), produce a steady flow of papers accusing Russia of aggression, violations of international law and the destabilisation of Europe.

A DGAP paper authored by Jana Puglierin from the Green Party-aligned Heinrich Böll Foundation concluded with the demand that NATO “demonstrate its decisiveness” towards Russia and “operate from a position of strength.” This means, it explained, “the limiting of confrontation by ‘containment’” and a turn to military means by a “strengthened NATO that can credibly deter Russia,” along with the “maintenance of the economic and political sanctions.”

The confrontation with Russia is not the only source of conflict threatening war. In the Syrian war, where the front lines are increasingly difficult to identify, the US and its allies are preparing a military escalation that could expand into a confrontation with Russia, a nuclear power. Germany is also on the front lines here. The same applies to the imperialist wars in other parts of the Middle East and Africa.

With the crisis of the European Union, national antagonisms are breaking out once again in Europe. While Germany arrogantly claims to be the “hegemon” and “leading power” in the EU, other European powers are rearming and stoking up nationalism.

There is no opposition among the establishment parties to the government’s war drive. On the contrary, both opposition parties in the Bundestag, the Left Party and the Greens, are inciting it further.

The Left Party parliamentary group chairwoman, Sahra Wagenknecht, accused the government Tuesday of giving backing to the “terror potentate Erdogan,” the Turkish president who has been threatened with exclusion from the US-led coalition in Syria, and supporting his “unspeakable policies.” The foreign affairs spokesperson for the Green parliamentary group, Omid Nouripour, accused the government of a thoughtless foreign policy. “It weakens Germany’s influence and reduces our room for manoeuvre if the federal government does not speak with one voice,” he declared.

The Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Socialist Equality Party) is the only party warning of the war danger and mobilising workers and young people against it. The PSG has placed the struggle against war at the heart of its election campaign in the Berlin state elections and clearly identified the cause of the war danger—the global crisis of capitalism.

“The German ruling elite do not intend to emerge empty-handed from the new redivision of the world and the struggle for raw materials and markets,” the PSG wrote in its election manifesto. The election statement further declared that a “new anti-war movement can be successful only if it is international, is based on the working class, and combines the fight against war with the struggle against capitalism.”

A dozen Turkish tanks rolled across the Syrian border as part of a military operation backed by jets and US-led coalition warplanes after heavy Turkish shelling of an area held by Daesh [Arabic acronym for “ISIS” / “ISIL”].

Military sources told Turkish media 70 targets in the Jarablus area had been destroyed by artillery and rocket strikes, and 12 by air strikes.

Turkish Special Forces entered Syria earlier as part of the offensive.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation was aimed against both Daesh and Kurdish fighters.

Turkey shelled Syrian Kurdish forces in the region this week, determined not to let them fill the vacuum if Daesh leaves.

The concern in Ankara is that the Kurds could create an autonomous area close to the border which might foster Kurdish separatism within Turkey itself.

The tanks were followed by pick-up trucks believed to be carrying Turkish-backed Syrian militants from the so-called “Free Syrian Army”.

“At 04:00 [01:00 GMT] our forces began an operation against the Daesh and PYD [Kurdish Democratic Union Party] terror groups,” President Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

The offensive is aimed at “putting an end” to problems on the border, he said.

The Turkish town of Karkamis – just across the border from Jarablus – was evacuated as a precaution following earlier Daesh mortar attacks.

Turkey has vowed to “completely cleanse” Daesh from its border region, blaming the group for a bomb attack on a wedding that killed at least 54 people in Gaziantep on Saturday.

A source at the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates denounced this military intervention by Turkey on Syrian territory.

The Syrian Arab Republic reaffirms that the fight against terrorism on Syrian soil by any party must be conducted in coordination with the Syrian government and the Syrian Arab army, which has been engaged in these battles for more than five years,” he was quoted by SANA as saying.

He went on to say that the Syrian government “condemns this violation of sovereignty and stresses that the fight against terrorism is not in the expulsion of Daesh and replacing them with other terrorist organizations backed by Turkey.”

The same source pointed out that “What is happening in Jarablos now is not a fight against terrorism as claimed by Turkey, but a replacement of a terrorist by another.

Accordingly, “Syria demands an end to this aggression and calls upon the United Nations for the implementation of related resolutions, in particular, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the ministry source said.

The source demanded that “Turkey and the US-led coalition respect international resolutions, particularly those related to the closure of the border and the eradication of terrorism.”

In another development, US Vice-President Joe Biden arrived in Turkey on Wednesday in the highest-ranking visit by a Western official since the failed coup on 15 July.

This is Turkey’s first known ground incursion into Syria since a brief operation to relocate the tomb of Suleyman Shah, a revered Ottoman figure, in February of last year.

The air strikes are Turkey’s first inside Syria since the downing of a Russian jet in November. Moscow and Ankara only mended ties in June after punitive Russian sanctions.

In 2006, the Kremlin denounced the proliferation of foreign associations in Russia, some of which would have participated in a secret plan, orchestrated by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to destabilise the country. To prevent a “colour revolution”, Vladislav Surkov drew up strict regulation over these non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In the West, this administrative framework was described as a “fresh assault on freedom of association by Putin the “Dictator” and his adviser”.

This policy has been followed by other States who in their turn, have been labelled by the international press as “dictators”.

The US government guarantees that it is working towards “promoting democracy all over the world”. It claims that the US Congress can subsidize NED and that NED can, in turn and wholly independently, help directly or indirectly, associations, political parties or trade unions, working in this sense anywhere in the world. The NGOs being, as their name suggests, “non-governmental” can take political initiatives that ambassadors could not assume without violating the sovereignty of the States that receive them. The crux of the matter lies here: NED and the network of NGOs that it finances: are they initiatives of civil society unjustly repressed by the Kremlin or covers of the US Secret Services caught red-handed in interference?

In order to respond to this question, we are going to return to the origins and function of NED. But our first step must be to analyze the meaning of this official US project: “exporting democracy”.

The puritans that founded the United States wanted to create a “radiant city” whose light would illuminate the whole world. They considered themselves the missionaries of a political model.

The puritans that founded the United States wanted to create a “radiant city” whose light would illuminate the whole world. They considered themselves the missionaries of a political model.

What Democracy?

The US, as a people, subscribes to the ideology of their founding fathers. They think of themselves as a colony that has come from Europe to establish a city obeying God. They see their country as “a light on the mountain” in the words of Saint Mathew, adopted for two centuries by most of their presidents in their political speeches. The US would be a model nation, shining on top of a hill, illuminating the entire world. And all other people in the world would hope to emulate this model to reach their well-being.

For the people of United States, this very naïve belief implies without more that their country is an exemplary democracy and that they have a messianic duty to superimpose it on the rest of the world. While Saint Mathew envisaged propagating faith exclusively through the example of a righteous life, the founding fathers of the United States thought of illumination and propagating their faith in terms of regime change. The English puritans beheaded Charles I before fleeing to the Netherlands and the Americas, then the patriots of the New World rejected the authority of King George III of England, proclaiming the independence of the United States.

Impregnated by this national mythology, the people of the United States do not perceive their government’s foreign policy as a form of imperialism. In their eyes, it is all the more legitimate to topple a government that has the ambition to take the form of a model which is different from theirs and thus evil. In the same way, they are persuaded that due to the messianic mission that has been thrust upon them, they have arrived to impose democracy by force in the countries that they have occupied. For example, at school they learn that GIs brought democracy to Germany. They do not know that history indicates quite the opposite: their government helped Hitler to topple the Republic of Weimar and set up a military regime to fight the Soviets. This irrational ideology prevents them from challenging the nature of their institutions and the absurd concept of a “forced democracy”.

Now, according to President Abraham Lincoln’s formula, “democracy is the government of the people, by the people for the people”.

From this point of view, the United States is not a democracy but a hybrid system where executive power is returned to the oligarchy, while the people limit its arbitrary exercise through legislative and judicial powers that can check it. Indeed, while the people elect Congress and some judges, it is the states of the federation that elect executive power and the latter appoints the high judges. Although citizens have been called to determine their choice of president, their vote on this matter only operates as a ratification, as the Supreme Court pointed out in 2000, in Gore v. Bush. The US Constitution does not recognize that the people are sovereign, because power is divided between them and a federation of states, in other words, between the leaders of the community.

As an aside, we observe that in contrast, the Russian Federation’s Constitution is democratic – on paper at least. It declares: “the holder of sovereignty and the sole source of power in the Russian Federation is its multinational people.” (Title I, Ch. 1, art.3).

This intellectual context explains that the US supports its government when it announces that it wants “to export democracy”, even if, its own constitution signals that it is not one. But it is difficult to see how it could export something it does not possess and does not wish to have at home.

For the last thirty years, this contradiction has been supported by NED and given specific form through destabilizing a number of States. With a smile that a clean conscience blesses upon them, thousands of activists and gullible NGOs have violated the people’s sovereignty.

A Pluralist and Independent Foundation

In his famous speech on 8 June 1982 before the British Parliament, President Reagan denounced the USSR as “the empire of evil” and proposed to come to the aid of dissidents over there and elsewhere. He declared: “We need to create the necessary infrastructure for democracy: freedom of the press, trade unions, political parties and universities. This will allow people the freedom to choose the best path for them to develop their culture and to resolve their disputes peacefully”.

On this consensual basis of the struggle against tyranny, a commission of bipartisan reflection sponsored the establishment of NED at Washington. This was established by Congress in November 1983 and immediately financed.

The Foundation subsidizes four independent structures that redistribute money abroad, making it available to associations, trade unions and members of the ruling class, and parties on the right and left. They are:

Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI), today renamed American Centre for International Labour Solidarity (ACILS), managed by the trade union AFL-CIO;

Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), managed by the US Chamber of Commerce;

International Republican Institute (IRI), run by the Republican Party;

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), run by the Democratic Party.

Presented in this manner, NED and its four tentacles appear to be anchored in civil society, reflecting social diversity and political pluralism. Funded by the US people, through Congress, they would have worked to a universal ideal. They would be completely independent of the Presidential Administration. And their transparent action could not be a mask for secret operations serving undeclared national interests.

The reality is completely different.

In 1982, Ronald Reagan established NED in partnership with the United Kingdom and Australia to topple the “Empire of Evil”.

Henry Kissinger, administrator of the NED. A “representative of civil society”?

Consequently, the Board of Directors of the Foundation is only a transmission belt of the NSC. To maintain appearances, it has been agreed that, as a general rule, CIA agents and former agents could not be appointed to the board of directors.

Known also as Solidarity Centre, ACILS, a trade union branch of NED, is easily its principal channel. It distributes more than half the Foundation’s donations. It has replaced the previous organizations that served during the Cold War to organize non-communist trade unions in the world, from Vietnam to Angola, by-passing France and Chile.

The fact trade unions were chosen to cover this CIA programme is a rare perversity. Far from the Marxist slogan, “Proletariats from all countries – unite”, ACILS brings together US working class trade unions in an imperialism that crushes workers in other countries.

In 1981, Irving Brown places Jean-Claude Mailly as an assistant to André Bergeron, the Secretary General of the Force Ouvrière (FO). The latter will acknowledge financing its activities thanks to the CIA. In 2004, Mailly becomes the Secretary General of the FO.

 

Tom McMahon: former vice head of Rahm Emanuel and currently head of NDI. He came to France to organise the primaries of the Socialist Party.

All this leaves a bitter taste. The US has corrupted most of the big political parties and trade unions all over the world. For sure, the “democracy” that they promote consists in discussing local questions in each country – hardly ever societal questions such as women’s rights or gay rights – and it is aligned with Washington on all international issues. The electoral campaigns have become shows where NED picks the cast by providing the necessary financial means to some and not to others. Even the notion of variation has lost meaning since NED promotes alternatively one camp or another provided it follows the same foreign and defense policy.

Tomicah Tillemann, adviser to Hillary Clinton for civil society and emerging democracies, supervises NED’s apparatus in the State Department.

Of course, all this is only an attempt at self-justification. The idea of establishing a democratic mark is not scientific. In some ways, it is totalitarian, for it assumes that there is only one form of democratic institutions. In other ways, it is infantile for it established a list of disparate criteria which it will measure with fictional coefficients to transform a social complexity into a single figure.

In December 2011, Egyptian authorities search the offices of the NDI and IRI in Cairo. The documents that were seized are most important to understand US interference since the “nest of spies” was removed from Teheran in 1979. Charged with spying, the NED leaders are tried. Here: Robert Becker (Director of NDI, Cairo) at the opening of the trial. The documents prove that NED is wholly responsible for and manipulated the pseudo revolution that took place in Tahrir Square. This resulted in more than 4,000 deaths to hoist the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

Fox News reports:

A couple hundred vehicles of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters were allowed to leave the northern Syrian city of Manbij as U.S.-backed forces seized the town in recent days because the militants had civilians with them, according to a U.S. military official.

The decision to allow the terrorists to flee to Turkey was handed down by the Pentagon. The explanation given was they didn’t want to hurt civilians who were actually hostages:

Col. Chris Garver, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, told Pentagon reporters that the decision to let the convoy leave the city was made by commanders of the Syrian Democratic Forces. He said there were civilians in each of the vehicles, and the military wanted to avoid casualties. He added that he doesn’t know how many of the civilians may have been in the cars voluntarily, but some were likely hostages.

Fox reports it is not clear if the “militants” departed under a pre-arranged agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Islamic State.

In May US special operations forces were photographed fighting alongside SDF mercenaries near the front lines north of Raqaa, the so-called capitol of the Islamic State in Syria.

CNN, at one time the home of the Army’s Fourth Psychological Operations Group, tried to make excuses:

Questions regarding the photos were also raised due to the fact that the U.S. special operations forces appear to be wearing the insignia of the YPG, the main Kurdish force inside Syria, the optics of which could present all sorts of difficulties in a multiethnic region riven with sectarian tensions.

The Pentagon backs the YPG, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, too, but never mind.

It’s all part of the war on terror, designed to last forever.

It’s all reminiscent of the Kunduz airlift.

In November, 2001, as the United States invaded Afghanistan and closed in on al-Qaeda, thousands of top commanders and members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, their Pakistani advisers including Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agents and army personnel, were airlifted from Kunduz.

It was said at the time the US missed an opportunity to kill some bad buys, never mind the airlift was conducted by the Pakistan Air Force and orchestrated by the Inter-Services Intelligence, which was at the time cooperating closely with the CIA.

Brain Altering Drugs: The Drug-Induced Suicide of Robin Williams Two Years Later

By Dr. Gary G. Kohls, August 24 2016

55 years ago (July 2, 1961) an American literary icon, Ernest Hemingway, committed suicide at his beloved vacation retreat in Ketchum, Idaho. He had just flown to Ketchum after being discharged from a psychiatric ward at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN where he had received a series of electroconvulsive “treatments” (ECT) for a life-long depression that had started after he had experienced the horrors of World War I. In the “War To End All Wars” he had been a non-combatant ambulance driver and stretcher-bearer.

Pentagon Threatens to Down Russian and Syrian Planes

By Stephen Lendman, August 23 2016

Syrian land and airspace are sovereign state territory. No foreign power may deny its military or other aircraft from operating anywhere within its borders – or Russian planes and ground personnel invited by its government. America and its rogue partners operate illegally in Syria. On the phony pretext of combating ISIS, they’re waging war on its government, terror-bombing selected targets, using terrorists called “moderate rebels” as imperial foot soldiers on the ground.

Washington Escalates Renewed Bombing Campaign in Libya: US Intervention in Africa has Triggered An International Crisis

By Abayomi Azikiwe, August 23 2016

Five years after the Pentagon and NATO destroyed the Libyan state under the leadership of Col. Muammar Gaddafi, the administration of President Barack Obama has once again launched a major offensive in its so-called “war on terrorism.” Department of Defense officials and the White House said that the aerial bombardments in the western coastal areas around Sirte, the home area of Gaddafi, would last for 30 days.

Aleppo Boy’s Photographer: Ally of US-Supported Terrorists. Elaborately staged Hoax?

By Stephen Lendman, August 23 2016

New information on the Aleppo Boy story at the very least gives it the appearance of being an elaborately staged hoax.AP News broke the story. Off-guardian.org reported “of the three journalists credited, one was in Beirut, one in Geneva, and one in Moscow” – none in Aleppo or anywhere in Syria.

Turkey Crosses into Syria: Unipolar Conspiracy or Multipolar Coordination?

By Andrew Korybko, August 24 2016

It’s very fashionable nowadays for people to criticize the Kremlin for incompetency, and its recent history of controversial decisions coupled with the suspected liberal fifth-and-six-column infiltration of key national institutions gives plenty of ground for this, but sometimes people jump the gun, such as when accusing Russia of being ‘duped’ by Turkey. It’s interesting that no such criticisms are publicly leveled against Iran despite Tehran bending over backwards to Ankara during and after the failed pro-US coup attempt against Erdogan, but double standards are the norm when people engage in diatribes, and it’s always been the case that Russia has caught much more flak than anyone else whenever multipolar commentators critique their own camp.

55 years ago (July 2, 1961) an American literary icon, Ernest Hemingway, committed suicide at his beloved vacation retreat in Ketchum, Idaho. He had just flown to Ketchum after being discharged from a psychiatric ward at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN where he had received a series of electroconvulsive “treatments” (ECT) for a life-long depression that had started after he had experienced the horrors of World War I. In the “War To End All Wars” he had been a non-combatant ambulance driver and stretcher-bearer.

One of Hemingway’s wartime duties was to retrieve the mutilated bodies of living and dead humans and the body parts of the dead ones from the Italian sector of the WWI battle zone. In more modern times his MOS (military occupational specialty) might have been called Grave’s Registration, a job that – in the Vietnam War – had one of the highest incidences of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that arose in that war’s aftermath.

Hemingway, just like many of the combat-induced PTSD victims of every war, was likely haunted for the rest of his life by the horrific images of the wounded and dead, so there was no question that he had what was later to be understood as combat-induced PTSD with depression, panic attacks, nightmares, auditory and/or visual hallucinations and insomnia.

Unfortunately for Papa, the psychiatrists at the Mayo Clinic were unaware of the reality of the PTSD phenomenon. They mistakenly thought that he had a mental illness (depression) of unknown etiology. (The diagnosis of PTSD wasn’t validated by the American Psychiatric Association as a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) diagnosis until 1980.)

Hemingway, a legendary chronic alcoholic who consumed large volumes of hard liquor daily, had also been wounded by shrapnel in WWI so he probably also had physical pain issues. Therefore, like many other soldier-victims of combat-induced PTSD he used alcohol to self-medicate his physical pain as well as his psychic pain, anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, failed marriages and the financial stresses related to the alimony payments to his ex-wives.

Following his Mayo Clinic misadventure, Hemingway rapidly came to understand that his latest ECT “treatments” had erased his memory and creativity, and, because those realities were essential for him to continue his writing career, thus feeling that he no longer had a reason for living and ended his life. There is no record of what psychiatric drugs he had been prescribed over the years, but ECT is typically only attempted after all drug options had failed.

The Parallel Paths of Artistic Geniuses Like Hemingway and Williams (and Michael Jackson and Prince)

53 years (July 1, 2014) after Hemingway’s self-inflicted death, another American icon, actor and comedian Robin Williams, entered the Hazelden psychiatric facility and addiction treatment center – also in my home state of Minnesota. He was treated with an cocktail of drugs for a month and, shortly after his discharge, committed suicide by hanging (August 11, 2014). The cocktail of newly prescribed brain-altering drugs surely was a major factor in his becoming increasingly depressed, losing appetite, losing weight and withdrawing from his loved ones.

His discharge medications, which included the antidepressant drug Remeron, the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel (probably prescribed off-label for his insomnia) and an unknown anti-Parkinsonian drug caused him to be somnolent, despondent, despairing and increasingly depressed.

Remeron, it should be emphasized, is well-known to cause suicidal thinking (and attempts) and carries the Food and Drug Administration’s “Black box” warning for suicidality. After he returned home, he was said to have slept in his darkened bedroom, up to 20 hours a day, in a probably drug-induced stupor.

Remeron, it is helpful to remind readers, was one of the two psych meds (the other was the anti-psychotic drug Haldol) that the infamous Andrea Yates was taking before she irrationally drowned her five children – including her 6 month-old baby Mary – in the family bathtub. The devoutly religious Texas mother was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment but – at re-trial – had her conviction changed to “not guilty by reason of insanity” (rather than “not guilty by reason of the intoxicating, insanity-inducing and homicidal effects of psychiatric medications!”). She is now spending the rest of her life in a psychiatric facility, no longer a threat to children.

Robin Williams was said to have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease while at Hazelden. The symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease are well known to be caused by antipsychotic drugs. Children who have been given anti-psychotic drugs (most commonly foster care children) are now coming down with Parkinson’s Disease, an illness totally unheard of prior to the formation of the subspecialty of Pediatric Psychiatry.

The Secrets of NIMH (and Hazelden)

30 years ago or so a cartoon movie was released about lab rats that were trying to escape extermination by the National Institute of Mental Health. The movie was titled “The Secret of NIMH”. I tried to watch it a few years ago and was disappointed to discover that it really didn’t expose any of the real secrets of NIMH, its American Psychiatric Association foundations or the psychopharmaceutical industry’s unholy alliance with NIMH. I understand that a remake of the film is planned. I hope some of the real secrets will be revealed in the new film.

Robin Williams left no suicide note, and so far Hazelden is mum on what happened behind closed doors during that fateful – and failed – month-long stay.

“What Brain-Altering Drugs was Williams or Michael Jackson or Prince On?”

Williams’ legendary cocaine and amphetamine use are certainly factors to consider as contributing causes for his suicide, for such drugs are notoriously toxic to mitochondria and brain cells. What is also deserving of consideration is the fact that when patients abruptly quit taking an antipsychotic drug, withdrawal symptoms can occur – even if the drug was first prescribed for non-psychotic issues like insomnia. Those withdrawal symptoms can include irrational thinking, loss of impulse control, psychoses, hallucinations, insomnia and mania, any of which can lead a physician to falsely diagnose schizophrenia or so-called bipolar disorder or any number of mental disorders “of unknown cause”.

Some of Williams’ closest friends are logically wondering about what was the effect of the newly prescribed drugs that may have motivated Williams to so illogically kill himself. Hollywood journalists swarmed all over the tragic event two years ago, but characteristically avoided even speculating about the possibility of psychiatric drug-induced suicide, the most logical explanation for the series of events, especially for any thinking person who knows anything about the connections between psychiatric prescription drugs and suidicality, homicidality, aggression, violence, dementia, and irrational thinking and actions (whether while taking the drugs or withdrawing from them).

Such informed people have already asked themselves the question: “I wonder what psych drugs Robin (or Hemingway or Michael Jackson or Prince) was taking?” Tragically, the media has been totally unhelpful in discussing that important question or in offering any answers to the question. Iatrogenic (doctor-caused or prescription drug-induced) causes of morbidity and mortality are apparently not to be discussed in polite company.

It is important to point out that a bottle of Seroquel with 8 pills missing was found in Williams’ bedroom and drug toxicity testing revealed Remeron in Williams’ bloodstream at autopsy. The coroner emphasized that the dose of the legally-prescribed drug was at “therapeutic levels”, which is, of course, totally unhelpful information, given the fact that the undesired effects of a drug have no correlation to dosage.

The Taboo Reality: Psych Drugs Can Cause Suicidality

There have been millions of words written about how much everybody was shocked by Williams’ suicide. There have been thousands of flowers placed at any number of temporary shrines “honoring” his legacy. There have been thousands of comments on the internet from amateur arm-chair psychologists spouting obsolete clichés about suicide, mental illness, drug abuse, alcoholism, cocaine addiction, and how wonderful psychoactive prescription drugs have been.

And there have been hundreds of dis-informational essays and website commentaries written by professional arm-chair psychiatrists who have financial or career conflicts of interest with Big Pharma, Big Psychiatry, Big Medicine and the rehab industries. Most of those commentaries distract readers from making the connections between suicidality and psych drugs. Some of the comments I have read have preemptively tried to discredit those who are publicly making those connections.

Whenever unexpected suicides or accidental drug overdose deaths occur among heavily drugged-up military veterans, active duty soldiers, Hollywood celebrities or other groups of individuals, I search the media – usually in vain – for information that identifies the drugs that are usually involved in such cases. But revealing the drug names, dosages, length of usage or who prescribed them seems to be a taboo subject. One has to read between the lines or wait until the information gets revealed at www.ssristories.org (a Big Pharma whistle-blowing website that should be mandatory reading for everybody who prescribes or consumes psychiatric drugs).

Patient confidentiality is usually the reason given for the cover-ups – and why important potentially teachable moments about these iatrogenic (drug-induced or vaccine-induced) tragedies are averted.

Big Pharma, the AMA, the APA, the AAP, the AAFP, the CDC, the FDA, the NIH, the NIMH, Wall Street and most of the patient or disease advocacy groups that sponsor the annual fund-raising and very futile “searches for the cure” all understand that the hidden epidemic of iatrogenic illnesses must be de-emphasized. And, simultaneously, the altruistic whistle-blowers among us will be black-listed, denigrated and labeled as nuisance conspiracy theorists.

The corporate entities mentioned above also know how useful it is if patients (rather than the system) are blamed for causing their own health problems. Typical examples include: “you eat too much”, “you don’t exercise enough”, “you smoke too much”, “you don’t eat right”, “your family history is bad”, “you don’t take your meds correctly”, “you don’t come in for your screening tests or routine exams often enough”, “you don’t get all the vaccinations like you are told to do”, etc).

Highly unlikely “genetic” causes are energetically promoted as preferable root causes of totally preventable iatrogenic illnesses (because inherited disorders are not preventable and are also untreatable). This reality ensures that researchers can annually demand billions of dollars for research while at the same time short-changing and discrediting simple, cheap, do-it-yourself prevention that doesn’t need a doctor.

The confidence of the American public in Big Pharma’s drug and vaccine promotions must not be disturbed. Wall Street’s rigged stock market does not permit the publication of any information that could destroy investor confidence in the pharmaceutical or vaccine corporation’s highly profitable products, even if the science behind the drugs and vaccines is bogus and the unaffordable products are dangerous.

The beauty of an unbiased public inquest, which I advocated for in this column two years ago, should have been done in the case of Robin Williams and all the school shooters, would be the subpoena power of a grand jury to open up the previously secretive medical records and force testimony from Williams’ treatment team. The public could finally hear information that could make comprehensible the mysterious death of yet another high profile suicide victim and start the process of actually positively America’s suicide and violence epidemics.

An inquest would likely reveal that Robin Williams did not have a “mental illness of unknown cause” or “bipolar disorder of unknown cause” or “depression of unknown cause” or “suicidality of unknown cause”. An inquest would obtain testimony from feared whistle-blower experts in the fields of medicine, psychiatry and psychopharmaceuticals such as Peter Breggin, MD, Joseph Glenmullen, MD, Grace Jackson, MD, David Healey, MD, Russell Blaylock, MD, Fred Baughmann, MD and other well-informed medical specialists who don’t own stock in Big Pharma corporations and who know very well how dangerous their drugs can be.

Robin Williams did not have a Mental Illness of Unknown Etiology

Just knowing a little about the life and times of Robin Williams and others on the long list of celebrity victims of psychiatric drugs (like Michael Jackson and Prince both of whom “died too soon”) would easily disprove most of the unscientific theories about their deaths that have widely published online.

Why did many of us psych drug sceptics and psychiatric survivors want an inquest in Robin Williams’ suicide? We wanted to know the names of the ingredients in the cocktail of drugs that had been tried on him (and the dosages and length of time they were taken). We wanted to know what side effects he had from the drugs and what his responses were. We wanted to know what was the reasoning behind the decision to prescribe unproven combinations of powerful drugs on someone whose brain was already compromised by the past use of known brain-damaging drugs.

And we wanted to know, for the sake of past and future victims of these neurotoxic substances, if the prescribing practitioners informed Williams about the dangers of those treatments, particularly the black box suicide warnings for Remeron.

Stress-induced and Drug-induced Mental Ill Health Doesn’t Mean One is Mentally Ill

Robin Williams gained fame and fortune as a comic actor, starting with what was to become his trade mark manic acting style (stimulant drug-induced mania?) on “Mork and Mindy”. As have many other famous persons that attained sudden fame and fortune, Williams spent his millions lavishly and – in retrospect – often foolishly. After his third marriage he found that he could no longer afford his Hollywood lifestyle.

But long before his two divorces and the serious financial difficulties caused him to decompensate and again fall off the sobriety wagon, Robin Williams had lived in the fast lane, working long exhausting days and weeks and partying long exhausting nights with the help of stimulant drugs like the dependency-inducing drug cocaine (that overcomes sleepiness and fatigue) and artificial sleep-inducing tranquilizers whose mechanism of action resembles long-acting alcohol. Sedative drugs artificially counter the drug-induced mania and drug-induced insomnia that predictably results from psycho-stimulants like cocaine, nicotine, caffeine, Ritalin, Strattera, Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Wellbutrin, Provigil, amphetamines, etc, etc).

Williams had acknowledged that he was addicted to both cocaine and alcohol when his famous comedian buddy John Belushi died of an accidental drug overdose shortly after they had snorted cocaine together (March 4, 1962). Shortly after Belushi’s overdose death, Williams quit both drugs cold turkey, and he remained sober and cocaine-free for the next 20 years. There is no public information about his use of addictive prescription drugs, but it is well-known that many Hollywood personalities like him have close relationships with both prescription-writing physicians and illicit drug pushers, many of whom make house calls.

However, Williams relapsed in 2006 and started abusing drugs and alcohol again, eventually being admitted to a Hazelden drug rehab facility in Oregon. After “taking the cure” he continued his exhausting career making movies, doing comedy tours and engaging in personal appearances in order to “pay the bills and support my family”.

After two expensive divorces, huge indebtedness and an impending bankruptcy, Williams was forced, in September of 2013, to sell both his $35,000,000 home and his even more expensive ranch in Napa Valley. He moved into a more modest, more affordable home in the San Francisco area, where he lived until his death.

But despite solving his near-bankruptcy situation (which would make any sane person temporarily depressed), Williams continued having a hard time paying the bills and making the alimony payments, so he was forced to go back to making movies (which he despised doing because of the rigorous schedule and being away from his family for extended periods of time). And he hated the fact that he was being financially forced to sign a contract to do a “Mrs. Doubtfire” sequel later in 2014.

For regular income, he took a job doing a TV comedy series called “The Crazy Ones”, but the pressures of working so hard got him drinking again, even using alcohol on the set, which he had never done before. He was making $165,000 per episode and was counting on continuing the series beyond the first season in order to have a steady income.

So when CBS cancelled the show in May 2014, humiliation, sadness, anxiety and insomnia naturally set in, and he decided to go for professional help at the Minnesota Hazelden addiction facility, spending the month of July 2014 as an patient there. The public deserves to know what really happened inside that facility.

We certainly deserve to know the full story. There are many painful lessons that can be learned. Those who think that we can’t handle the truth are wrong.

The psychiatric drug-taking public deserves to know what were the offending drugs that contributed to his pain, anguish, sadness, nervousness, insomnia, sleep deprivation, hopelessness and the seemingly irrational decision to kill himself.

And the family, friends and fans of Robin Williams certainly deserve to know the essential facts of the case which, if not accomplished, will otherwise just result in a blind continuation of America’s “mysterious” iatrogenic suicide, violence and dementia epidemics. Ignorance of the well-hidden truths will just allow the continuation of Big Pharma’s ill-gotten gains and the fact that it has been deceiving the medical profession for so long – and destroying the memory, creativity, brains and lives of millions of our patients simultaneously.

For more information on the above very serious issues, check out these websites: www.ssristories.com, www.madinamerica.com, http://rxisk.org/www.mindfreedom.org, www.breggin.com, www.cchrint.org, www.drugawareness.org, www.psychrights.org, www.quitpaxil.org, www.endofshock.com.

Appendix A

Drug-Induced Mental and/or Neurological Ill Health

It needs to be mentioned that all the so-called “atypical” antipsychotic drugs (like Seroquel, Risperdal, Abilify, Geodon, Zyprexa, Clozaril, Fanapt, Invega, Saphris, etc) can also cause diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia, liver cell necrosis, and the metabolic syndrome, as well as neurologic movement disorders that mimic (or actually cause) Parkinson’s and Lewy Body disorder (the latter diagnosis of which Williams’ autopsy findings  revealed). But it is important to point out that, contrary to what Robin Williams widow has recently proposed, Lewy Bodies in the brain DO NOT cause suicidality.

Rather, the brain lesions of neuro-degenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s (and probably also the equally microscopic Lewy Body lesions that can’t be diagnosed prior to autopsy) are commonly caused by neurotoxins such as petrochemical solvents (such as toluene, trichlorethylene and benzene), poisons (such as carbon monoxide and cyanide), insecticides (such as Rotenone), herbicides (such as Paraquat),  fungicides (such as Maneb), metals (such as copper, mercury, manganese and lead), and brain-altering psychiatric drugs that are known to cause drug-induced dementia. (See the seminal work of practicing psychiatrist Grace E. Jackson, titled “Drug-induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime” for much more.)

Both illicit and prescription psychoactive drugs can indeed cause the death of brain cells, at least partly because of those synthetic drug’s mitochondrial toxicity traits. The carcasses of the dead and dying cells can be identified as abnormal microscopic deposits of nerve tissue such as can be found in the brain biopsies of patients who died with Parkinson’s Disease, Dementia with Lewy Bodies or drug-induced dementia (which is commonly mis-diagnosed as “Alzheimer’s disease of unknown cause”).

Incidentally, drug-induced Parkinsonism can be caused by the neurotoxic effects of the following groups of commonly prescribed drugs: 1) “typical” antipsychotic drugs (such as Thorazine and Haldol), 2) “atypical” antipsychotics (such as Seroquel and Risperidal), 3) pro-motility gastrointestinal drugs (such as Reglan), 4) calcium channel blockers (such as Norvasc and Cardizem), and 5) antiepileptic drugs (such as Valproate).

Appendix B

Shouldn’t There be Penalties for Pushers of Legal Brain-altering Substances?

There are penalties for bartenders who serve underage drinkers who go on to have auto accidents while under the influence. There are penalties for street corner drug pushers who supply their junkies with dangerous illicit drugs, and there are penalties for the drug lords who are at the top of the drug supply chain.

But shouldn’t there also be penalties for legal drug pushers who are supplying medications to their addiction-prone clients without first obtaining from them fully informed consent concerning the dangers of the drugs? Shouldn’t there be penalties for legal drug pushers who are prescribing dangerous brain-altering psychiatric drugs in combinations that have never even been tested for safety, even in the animal labs?

The very profitable industries of Big Pharma, Big Psychiatry, Big Medicine and drug rehabilitation are all very interested in de-emphasizing all unwelcome truths about the lethality of their products and thus they successfully prevent them from being aired in the mainstream media.

Thus there is a rapid disappearance of interest in the celebrity suicides or lethal drug overdoses by the time the delayed coroner’s report reveals what drugs were in the victim’s blood and gastric contents. (Note that many coroners are not aware that many psych drugs are detectable in brain tissue long after the time that they have disappeared from the stomach and bloodstream; therefore many coroners don’t bother to test for drugs in brain tissue samples).

If blood tests are negative for drugs, it is often erroneously assumed by the uninformed public (and even many medical professionals) that drugs aren’t a factor in the aberrant behavior or death of vulnerable drug-taking humans. Drug withdrawal commonly causes patients to become irrational, violent or suicidal – realities that can occur at any time, even after the drug has long disappeared from the blood.

The lessons are numerous and the teachers are available, but they are censored-out of our corporate-dominated media system. Those important lessons are there for anybody to learn, but we must first overcome the powers-that-be that know they won’t profit from our enlightenment.

Spread the word. Robin Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Michael Jackson and Prince would want us to do that.

Dr Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic, non-drug, mental health care for the last decade of his family practice career. He is a past member of MindFreedom International, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He now writes a weekly column for the Reader Weekly, an alternative newsweekly published in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Many of Dr Kohls’ columns are archived at http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn, http://www.globalresearch.ca/authors?query=Gary+Kohls+articles&by=&p=&page_id= or at https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

Syria’s conflict has escalated into dangerous new territory as Turkish military forces cross the Turkish-Syrian border in an attempt to annex the Syrian city of Jarabulus. The operation includes not only Turkish military forces, but also throngs of Western-backed militants who will likely be handed control of the city before expanding operations deeper into Syria against Syrian government forces.

With the beginning of the operation, aimed allegedly at seizing the city from militants of the so-called Islamic State as well as preventing the city from falling into the hands of advancing US-backed Kurdish forces, Ankara’s move has made several things clear about the current geopolitical dimensions of the ongoing regional conflict.

It’s very fashionable nowadays for people to criticize the Kremlin for incompetency, and its recent history of controversial decisions coupled with the suspected liberal fifth-and-six-column infiltration of key national institutions gives plenty of ground for this, but sometimes people jump the gun, such as when accusing Russia of being ‘duped’ by Turkey. It’s interesting that no such criticisms are publicly leveled against Iran despite Tehran bending over backwards to Ankara during and after the failed pro-US coup attempt against Erdogan, but double standards are the norm when people engage in diatribes, and it’s always been the case that Russia has caught much more flak than anyone else whenever multipolar commentators critique their own camp.

Last week Director of the Office for International Military Cooperation of China’s Central Military Commission, Guan Youfei arrived in Damascus for talks with Syrian Defense Minister Fahad Jassim al-Freij and other officials of the Damascus government. Guan announced that Beijing and Damascus had come to an agreement that the Chinese military will provide humanitarian aid to Syria and discussed a possibility of involvement of Chinese military servicemen in training of the Syrian army personnel and other operations to ensure security in the Arab country.

Xinhua has not provided details about the agreed Chinese humanitarian aid mission in Syria. Furthermore, there are constant rumors that Chinese military advisers already operate in Syria, observing Damascus’ anti-terrorism efforts. However, there is no clear evidence that China has been involved into the conflict.

Guan also met in Syria with an unknown Russian general during his visit to Damascus. It’s important to note that Guan’s visit came just before crucial military developments in and around Syria like a deployment of Russian aircraft at the Hamedan Air Base in Iran and the escalation between the US-backed Kurdish forces and pro-government militias in eastern Syria.

The spate of Moscow’s military actions in the region could push Beijing to follow its partner to set the ground for gaining diplomatic and financial revenue before the Syrian conflict turned into its final stage. Almost all experts consider the ongoing battle for Aleppo as a turning point in this war. And if Damascus wins, the US-backed “moderates” such a Jabhat Fateh al-Sham & Co will have minor chances to play a significant role the Syrian future. The further rapprochement of Iran, China, Russia and now maybe Turkey over the Syrian conflict pushes the United States represented by the Obama administration to urgently develop its strategy in order to defend its claim to be the main powerbroker in the region. An indirect fueling of the conflict between Damascus and US-backed Kurdish forces in Hasakah and de-facto split of Kurdish-controlled areas from Syria with a significant presence of US military personnel there is one of Washington’s options in the current geopolitical situation. And the direct public warnings to Russia and Syria by a US commander of American troops in Iraq and Syria, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, that the US military contingent in occupied parts of eastern Syria will defend itself clearly showed the direction of Washington’s divide and corner strategy for the war-torn country.

An interesting fact is that some Chinese state-linked media and experts, which closely follow the Russian operations in Syria, describe Moscow’s strategy towards the Syrian conflict as too moderate. According to them, the partial withdrawn of the air grouping, various humanitarian ceasefire agreements across the country and attempts to solve the conflict through a political dialogue before the full military defeat of the militant factions that operate in the country were premature. In this case, Beijing may contribute to strengthening of further military efforts aimed to solve the terrorism problem in Syria.

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When a true photo is used for a Human Rights lie

Coincidentally, artillery and other attacks by Maidan Ukraine against the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics in Donbass intensified during the past two months, the very time frame in which the human rights defenders were preparing their report for publication.

The 65-page report by the two agencies is titled You Don’t Exist: Arbitrary Detentions, Enforced Disappearances, and Torture in Eastern Ukraine. It downplays the grim details as well as international dimension of Ukraine’s two-plus year of ‘anti-terrorist’ civil war. It argues that the victims of the war share equal responsibility for rights violations as the perpetrators. The introduction reads:

Both the Ukrainian government authorities and Russia-backed separatists [sic] in eastern Ukraine have held civilians in prolonged, arbitrary detention, without any contact with the outside world, including with their lawyers or families. In some cases, the detentions constituted enforced disappearances, meaning that the authorities in question refused to acknowledge the detention of the person or refused to provide any information on their whereabouts or fate. Most of those detained suffered torture or other forms of ill-treatment…

The key recommendation in the report’s introductory summary reads:

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call on the Ukrainian government and the de facto authorities in self-proclaimed DNR and LNR [Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic] to immediately put an end to enforced disappearances and arbitrary and incommunicado detentions, and to launch zero-tolerance policies with regard to the torture and ill-treatment of detainees. All parties to the conflict must ensure that all the forces under their control are aware of the consequences of abusing detainees under international law, and that allegations of torture and ill-treatment in detention are thoroughly investigated and those responsible are held to account.

The methodology of the report is by now old hat, the same one employed in reports on Ukraine by the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights going back two years. The OHCHR’s latest report on Ukraine was issued one week prior to the AI/HRW report and was reviewed here by this author.

Like the UN’s OHCHR, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch consider the rebel forces in eastern Ukraine to have the same obligations to follow international treaties on human rights as the government attacking them. Missing from this equation is the fact that the Ukrainian government is an existing signator to most international human rights conventions and yet it is waging an internal civil war against its citizenry. Whereas the rebels are shunned and unrecognized by the world, including by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and therefore unable to become signators themselves, as they would surely agree if conditions permitted. As a member government of the United Nations and signator to international conventions, does the Ukrainian government bear special responsibility and duty in this conflict? Or are its responsibilities lessened when it can claim, accurately or not, ‘Hey, the other side are human rights violators, too.’?

AI and HRW sidestep these uncomfortable questions. They use the same insulting and pejorative terminology as Kyiv to describe the rebel forces under attack. The terms “de facto authorities” and “Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine” are used interchangeably to describe the elected officials in Donetsk and Lugansk. Let us recall that these officials have heroically led their populations in defending themselves against a brutal military offensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and its allied, extreme-right paramilitary militias. According to understated figures by the United Nations, Ukraine’s offensive has caused the deaths of more than 10,000 people. It has seen tens of thousands injured and several million displaced from their homes or from their Donbass homeland altogether.

How are the leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk supposed to follow the niceties of AI/HRW’s recommended ‘humanitarian war’ when they are shunned and vilified on the world stage, even by the supposed human rights defenders? Does no one in rarefied offices in London and New York care about the Donetsk and Lugansk populations who are subjected to daily artillery shellings and other attacks with the active encouragement and financial assistance of Western governments (not to speak of the blind eyes of international human rights organizations)? AI and HRW have no answers to such questions.

You Don’t Exist consists of 18 case studies of prisoner treatment, nine from each side of the conflict, along with summary recommendations. There is no doubt about the gravity of accusations against the Ukrainian authorities. A litany of international reports have documented the human rights violations ongoing in Ukraine – detentions of critics and even mass killings, such as in Odessa in May 2014; harassment, detention and even killings of journalists and opposition politicians; torture in secret prisons; proscriptions of Russian-language media; destruction of monuments to Ukraine’s Soviet past and the raising of World War Two collaborators with Nazi Germany to the status of national heroes; and so on. As the AI/HRW report acknowledges ever so carefully and sketchily, the situation of illegal detention and torture in Ukraine is so bad that the UN’s investigative rapporteur on the subject made an unprecedented decision in May 2016 to cancel its country investigation.

On the rebel side? Let us assume that the established biases of AI and HRW did not prevent them from conducting impartial investigations and that the allegations of nine prisoner mistreatments in Donetsk and Lugansk are true. Let us also assume, a fair assumption, that rebel forces would accede to international conventions and related investigations on the treatment of prisoners if they were confident that such processes would not simply be used as propaganda tools against them, as is the case to date. How, then, to arrive at conditions of prisoner detention that would satisfy international conventions and human rights agencies? By vilifying those one is seeking to influence, and by turning a blind eye to a cruel war which is the source of human rights violations in the first place? Again, AI and HRW have no answer.

But in the meantime, our human rights agencies are effectively saying that the government of Ukraine is under no more and no less legal obligations than unrecognized, rebel forces. They trivialize Ukraine’s violations by making the government no more responsible than what are declared to be “de facto authorities” and “Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine”.

Deep biases in AI/HRW report discount them as objective observers

The deep bias and prejudice of the AI and HRW report in favour of Ukraine and its Western backers is evidenced in the three-page ‘Background’ chapter of the report, pages 8 to 10. Here we read the standard, Western government and media presentation of the Maidan coup (“ouster” of an elected president, according to the language of the report). There is the “Russian annexation” of Crimea, completely ignoring the long, complicated history of Crimea’s status in post-Soviet Ukraine and in Soviet Ukraine before that, and ignoring the referendum vote to secede from Ukraine on March 15, 2014. There is the whitewashing and trivializing of the violence of the new, Maidan regime in Kyiv against its opponents. The report places quotation marks around the term “self-defense units” when describing how the people of Donbass responded to the arrival of vengeful, extremist and neo-Nazi paramilitaries on their territory following the Maidan coup.

Incredibly, the Minsk-2 ceasefire agreement of February 12, 2015 is given one sentence of serious mention in the report. There is no mention of the agreement in the ‘Recommendations’ section of the report, notwithstanding the fact that the agreement is endorsed by the governments of Russia, Germany and France and also by the United Nations Security Council! (Kyiv did not sign Minsk-2; it assigned a former president to sign it in a ghost capacity). The report deals briefly with only one clause of Minsk-2, the one pertaining to prisoner exchanges by the two sides. (Like all the other clauses of Minsk-2, this one has not been adhered to by Kyiv). The full text of Minsk-2 is here.

Minsk-2 provides a comprehensive basis for resolution of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine (Donbass). But backers of the Ukrainian government, including the German and French governments, have never liked the agreement and have done anything to ensure its application. That’s because the agreement’s central recommendations address the heart of the conflict – that a decentralization of political power is required in Ukraine and political autonomy should be granted to regions that have a political and historic claim to such. Kyiv is adamantly opposed to decentralization and to autonomy. Western governments concur, as do, seemingly, Western human rights agencies.

Another particularly damning aspect of the AI and HRW report is the use of the same inflammatory language against the Donetsk and Lugansk rebel republics as that of the government of Ukraine. The Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics are termed “self-declared” – conveying that the duly constituted and elected governing authorities there have no moral or legal authority. The rebel forces are termed “separatists”. This is false – the struggle in Donbass has always been a struggle against the institutional violence of the Maidan state of Ukraine and in favour of political autonomy. But more scandalously, the language of “separatism” shows the high priests of human rights to be unaware that in today’s Ukraine, a label of “separatist” against an individual is a licence to beat, imprison or kill him or her, while tagging an entire, pro-autonomy movement as “separatist” is a recipe for waging civil war. Imagine two human rights organizations with decades of political experience behind them blissfully unaware of the incendiary and destructive power of language in times of civil conflict! This defies comprehension.

The New York Times‘ Andrew Kramer took his cue from the high priests and led his news item summarizing the AI/HRW report with,

“A report by two leading human rights groups released on Thursday accuses Ukraine’s Western-backed security services of practicing abuse and torture in a manner similar to that of the rebel groups they are fighting.”

Clearly, the people of Donbass who are suffering daily shellings and attacks by the Ukrainian army cannot count on the human rights heroes of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for relief. Nor can the people of Ukraine as a whole, for whom the consequences of this war are a domestic economic disaster, widespread human rights violations, and seeing their country played as a pawn in the reckless drive by NATO to provoke war with Russia, complete with nuclear threats.

Relief for Donbass and Ukraine will come from stepped up domestic and international antiwar solidarity and from support by sympathetic governments. Considering NATO’s roll of the nuclear dice in eastern Europe, the responsibilities of progressive and antiwar forces in the world should be self-evident.

Roger Annis is a retired aerospace worker in Vancouver BC. He writes regularly for Counterpunch. He is an editor of the website The New Cold War: Ukraine and Beyond. He can be reached at [email protected].

Similar to petulant children who do not get their own way, there is an increasingly choir of war hawks in the US who are pushing for a major escalation in the Syrian war. In response to the fading power of Washington in the world, and the success of the Syrian Army, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, in fighting terrorism in Syria, the war hawks in Washington are calling for blood.

The fact that the government of Bashar al-Assad is still standing after the West has spent the last five years trying to overthrow it is too much for many in the US to accept. Furthermore, with a growing number of major powers forming strategic relationships outside of Washington’s control, US imperialists are increasingly terrified of how the geopolitical landscape is shaping up.

Making Russia and Iran “Pay a Price” for Fighting Terrorists in Syria

The most recent bellicose comments coming from the US were made by the former Acting Director of the CIA and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member, Michael Morell. In an interview with Charlie Rose that aired on the 8th of August, Morell called for acts of aggression against a troika of powers – namely Syria, Iran and Russia:

Morell: “We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make the Russians pay a price.”

Rose: “We make them pay the price by killing Russians and killing Iranians?”

Morell: “Yes, covertly… Here’s the other thing I want to do: I want to go after those things that Assad sees as his personal power base; I want to scare Assad.”

The former CIA boss made his comments a week after a Russian helicopter – which was on a humanitarian aid mission – wasshot down over territory controlled by Jabhat Al-Nusra (now Jabhat Fatah al-Sham) in Syria, killing the five personnel onboard. This is at least the second Russian helicopter shot down in Syria this year, after two Russians were killed in July when their Mi-25 was downed.

Morell, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President, is not a lone voice in his belligerent comments however. There have been numerous politicians, strategists and generals, who have advocated aggressive actions against Russia, not only in Syria, but also in Ukraine.

In October of last year, US Senator John McCain said in an interview with Fox News that if he was President he might arm the Syrian rebels so they could shoot down Russian planes. Also in October, 2015, the former National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter and one of the top geostrategists in the US, Zbigniew Brzezinski, called for US retaliation against the Russian campaign in Syria, potentially using military force.

But the most belligerent rhetoric award in relation to ‘punishing’ Russia must go to the former US general, Robert Scales,  who called for the US to “start killing Russians” in Ukraine in a March, 2015 interview on Fox News:

The only way the US can have any effect in this region and turn the tide is to start killing Russians. Killing so many Russians that even Putin’s media can’t hide the fact that Russians are returning to the Motherland in body bags.

The Special Forces Invasion of Syria

On the same day as Morell’s interview was aired, photos appeared in the British media showing heavily armed UK special forcesoperating on the ground in Syria. This comes shortly after US special forces were pictured fighting alongside Kurdish forces in March of this year.

Realistically, the presence of Western special forces in Syria is nothing new. In August of last year, it was reported that BritishSAS soldiers were dressed as ISIS rebels conducting missions on the ground in Syria. In addition to the illegal air campaign conducted by the US-led coalition, the presence of Western special forces in Syria is yet another violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The news that Western special forces are operational in Syria should also be kept in context however. There is a major distinction between a few thousand special forces operating in Syria and a full-scale Western invasion of Syria with over 100,000 troops deployed.

In 2003, approximately 150,000 ground troops were deployed to Iraq in the initial phase of the invasion. There is still a danger that a coalition of powers may launch a larger war in Syria similar to the scale of the Iraq invasion in 2003 – a type of war thatTony (the war criminal) Blairrecently advocated.

With the West’s strategy in the Middle East in disarray, there is a growing amount of war hawks in the US who are pushing for a significant escalation in the Syrian war. Morell’s call for killing Russians and Iranians is nothing short of lunacy, with the US perhaps having a hand in the recent downing of a Russian helicopter that tragically killed five Russian personnel.

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of  The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Provoking Nuclear War by Media

By John Pilger, August 23 2016

The exoneration of a man accused of the worst of crimes, genocide, made no headlines. Neither the BBC nor CNN covered it. The Guardian allowed a brief commentary. Such a rare official admission was buried or suppressed, understandably. It would explain too much about how the rulers of the world rule. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has quietly cleared the late Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, of war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the massacre at Srebrenica.

Dangerous Crossroads: U.S. Invades Syria, And Warns Russia…

By Eric Zuesse, August 23 2016

Washington — which demands the overthrow of the internationally-recognized legal government of Syria — officially announced that America’s military forces in Syria will continue to occupy Syrian land, no matter what the Syrian government says, and will shoot down any Syrian planes that fly over U.S. forces.

Imperial Lawlessness

By Mark Taliano, August 23 2016

The dirty war on Syria will be settled on the battlefield.  International law is broken. Powerful nations continue to enjoy impunity for their crimes, and they have no reason to expect that they will be prosecuted. The credibly accused war criminals responsible for war crimes against countries that include Iraq, Libya, and now Syria, will not be prosecuted. International law is selective, and the powerful nations know this. They are repeat offenders, and their impunity emboldens them.

War-Waging in Jeopardy? The Desperation of the US Elite and the Return of Henry Kissinger

By Umberto Pascali, August 22 2016

The top Anglo-American elite appears very, very worried that the Neocons (Bush/Clinton) will fail again in stopping, or even slowing down, Russia. They are more and more weary of the impotent Rambo war-cries of the left and right Neocons who are hysterically perched around Hillary Clinton. The Anglo-American elite is trying to find a way out and, oblivious of showing their desperation, is trying to resurrect their loyal lackey Henry Kissinger. Instead of the ineffective threats of the Clintonites  (see Ashton Carter, John Allen, Leon Panetta, Michael Morell, etc. ), this elites try to go back to the soft spider poison strategy used by Kissinger in the 70s.

Crimea, Georgia and “The New Olympic Sport”: Russia Bashing. The Fantasy of Vladimir Putin as “Vlad the Terrible” Ratchets Up…

By Felicity Arbuthnot, August 22 2016

As the fantasy of Vladimir Putin as “Vlad the Terrible” ratchets up in the US-UK-NATO driven new Cold War, the Independent runs a piece headed: “What lies behind the new Russian threat to Ukraine”, the sub-heading is: “Vladimir Putin, his opponents repeatedly point out, has form on this. The war between Russia and Georgia took place in 2008 at the time of the Beijing Olympics”. Trying to find the “Russian threat to the Ukraine” is, as ever, a hard task.

Brewing Collapse of the Western Monetary System? German Government Warns of an Upcoming Catastrophe, Tags Russia as an “Enemy Nation”

By Peter Koenig, August 23 2016

Germany has just warned its citizens of an upcoming catastrophe and urged them to stockpile food, water and money for at least 10 days, to be autonomous and independent until the government has caught up putting the necessary public safety systems in place – in case of a ‘catastrophe’. There was no mention on the type of disaster awaiting them. A war, an economic and or monetary collapse, or both? – The warning was later downplayed as part of a ‘routine exercise’ in Germany’s new defense strategy.

Syrian land and airspace are sovereign state territory. No foreign power may deny its military or other aircraft from operating anywhere within its borders – or Russian planes and ground personnel invited by its government.

America and its rogue partners operate illegally in Syria. On the phony pretext of combating ISIS, they’re waging war on its government, terror-bombing selected targets, using terrorists called “moderate rebels” as imperial foot soldiers on the ground.

After a near confrontation between Syrian and US aircraft last week in territory where American special forces operate on the ground aiding terrorist fighters, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook outrageously said “(w)e would advise the Syrian regime to steer clear of those areas.”

In other words, don’t attack US-supported death squads killing Syrian civilian and military personnel.

“We are going to defend our people on the ground, and do what we need to defend them,” Cook stressed. Claiming an illegally imposed US de facto no-fly zone isn’t one, Cook added “the Syrian regime would be wise to avoid areas where coalition forces have been operating.”

He threatened Russia, saying “(i)f they threaten US forces, we always have the right to defend” them.”

Last Friday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said two Syrian Su-24 warplanes attacked Kurdish forces training with US Special Operations troops. They left the area before US aircraft intercepted them.

In response, a Syrian Army General Command statement said Kurdish forces were “attacking state institutions, stealing oil and cotton, obstructing exams, kidnapping unarmed civilians and spreading chaos and instability.”

Last Saturday, commander of US forces in Syria and Iraq General Stephen Townsend threatened Russia and Syria, saying “we will defend ourselves if we feel threatened.”

During a Monday Security Council session, Syrian UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari blasted nations claiming to be “friends of the Syrian people” while supporting terrorist elements massacring them.

He criticized UN General-Secretariat reports, willfully falsifying facts on the humanitarian situation. He denounced characterizing foreign-supported terrorists as “armed opposition” elements.

He stressed conflict won’t end until terrorism is defeated, its backers ceasing to support it. His government granted no permission for the US-led “international alliance” to operate in Syrian territory – in its airspace or on the ground.

He explained US warplanes destroyed a power plant supplying Aleppo with electricity. So-called “friends of the Syrian people” are its worst enemies.

Instead of combating terrorism, they support it. Millions of suffering Syrians attest to their barbarity.

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

Five years after the Pentagon and NATO destroyed the Libyan state under the leadership of Col. Muammar Gaddafi, the administration of President Barack Obama has once again launched a major offensive in its so-called “war on terrorism.”

Department of Defense officials and the White House said that the aerial bombardments in the western coastal areas around Sirte, the home area of Gaddafi, would last for 30 days.

Ostensibly the U.S. is carrying out this military operation in order to both degrade the Islamic State which had moved into Sirte last year but to also fortify the Government of National Accord (GNA), which represents another effort to consolidate political forces within Libya that are favorable to imperialism and its allies in the region.

The GNA is the brainchild of Martin Kobler, a German career diplomat, who on behalf of the United Nations drafted a scheme to impose a neo-colonial regime in Libya in order to facilitate the deployment of a 6,000-person military force led by the former imperialist power of Italy and encompassing troops from the United States, Britain and France. All of these Western states participated in the overthrow of the Jamahiriya system under Gaddafi in 2011.

Regional Divisions in the East to the West Remains

Nonetheless, the GNA effort has failed to bring in key elements who dominated previous imperialist machinations in the North African state. The rival regime driven out of the capital of Tripoli now held-up in Tobruk in the east of the oil-rich nation, has never accepted the GNA concept.

On August 22, the rival group in Tobruk voted to reject participation in the GNA. The political gesture further complicates the situation inside the country.

According to Reuters press agency,

“The vote was the first since January, when the parliament rejected an initial list of ministers put forward by the GNA’s leadership, or Presidential Council, which is meant to represent all sides of Libya’s fractured politics. The Council arrived in the capital in March seeking to overcome divisions that have surfaced since the overthrow and killing of veteran ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. In 2014, an armed alliance took control of institutions in Tripoli and the then newly elected, internationally recognized parliament relocated to the east.”

This same report continued noting

“Spokesman Abdallah Bilhaq said 101 deputies had attended Monday’s session, with 61 voting against the GNA, 39 abstaining, and just one voting in favor. The number of attendees was a little over half the chamber, but even the figure needed for a valid vote is the subject of dispute. A bloc of pro-GNA lawmakers that says it represents about 100 deputies accused the government’s opponents of hijacking the parliamentary process.”

A major outstanding issue in the dispute between the Tobruk-based faction and the GNA in the West of the country is the question of which military apparatus now in existence will constitute the national army. The leading eastern factions have endorsed the former General Khalifa Haftar, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset who spent nearly three decades in the U.S. after defecting from the Libyan government under Gaddafi. Haftar was flown from Virginia back to Libya during the 2011 counter-revolution to purportedly head the armed rebellion against the Jamahiriya.

Hafter and his forces have been fighting the Islamists along with other opponents in Benghazi and it surroundings in the East. The Tobruk regime, known as the House of Representatives, rightly point to the fact that the GNA is being propped-up by armed Islamist groups. The U.S. airstrike are supposed to secure a victory over the IS in Sirte but the conclusion of this battle has been elusive.

“We reject this government because it is waging a war against the institution of the military, and it wants to support the role of militias on the Libyan stage,” said Abubakr al-Ghazali who opposed the GNA in the aftermath of the House of Representatives vote. The opposition to the GNA has extended to outspoken criticism of the bombing operation from divergent factions based in the East. These attacks launched by the U.S. against the Islamic State in Sirte have become the latest rationale for continued Pentagon involvement.

Interestingly enough longtime foes Sadek Al-Ghariani and Khalifa Hafter both have condemned the initial air campaign in early August on the so-called Islamic State in Sirte. Characterizing the Pentagon attacks as “illegal” during a press conference on August 4, Ahmed Mismari, the spokesman for Hafter’s Libyan National Army’s, asserted that the U.S. bombing operations had been carried out for electoral purposes to assist former Secretary of State and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Haftar’s spokesman said it would be his forces that would “liberate” Sirte.

In an article published in early August by the Libya Herald it says “For his part, Dar Al-Ifta head Sadek Al-Ghariani, who leads the hardline Islamist alliance against both Hafter in the East and the Presidency Council in the West, likewise called it illegitimate, coming his closest to endorsing the so-called Islamic State. Asked on his Tanasah TV station why international intervention was acceptable in 2011 but not in the fight against IS, he said that non-Muslim military help against Qaddafi in 2011was legitimate because he was not a true Muslim and not following the Sunna (the Way) of the Prophet. However, raids now were illegal because what was happening in Libya was a conflict between local people who were all Muslims. This comes despite his previous backing for the Misratan-led Bunyan Marsous operation against IS and its welcoming of the American attacks.” (Aug. 4)

Whether Gaddafi and Jamahiriya system was Islamic or not seems to be an irrelevant question in light of imperialist bombings and military interventions. Under the Jamahiriya, Libya had secured a firm position as being the most prosperous state in Africa. The Gaddafi government played a progressive role in promoting the notions of a United States of Africa consisting of a single currency, a lifting of travel restrictions and a unitary military force.

Genuine Unity Must Be Based on National and Pan-African Interests

Such divisions within the Libyan society and body-politic can only further drain the capacity of the Libyan people to form a genuine government of national unity that would operate in line with the political objectives of African integration and self-reliance. The perils of U.S.-NATO military intervention has been rendered for all to see based upon the events since 2011.

Not only has Libya fell victim to the war of regime-change in 2011, other states such as Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Palestine, are undergoing similar crises. There have been 11 million people dislocated in and outside of Syria, and along with Libya, helps to fuel the outmigration from Africa across the Mediterranean and the Middle East to Europe. The migrant situation to Southern, Central and Eastern Europe from Africa, the Middle East and Asia has created a political impasse within the European Union (EU).

The Brexit vote in the United Kingdom (UK) on June 23 was in part a reflection of the unresolved issues stemming from the dislocation triggered through the wars waged by the Pentagon and NATO forces against the peoples of the oppressed nations. This EU fracturing is the result of the failure of an imperialist construct that grew directly out of the post-World War II domination of Western Europe by the U.S.

In the contemporary phase of capitalist development these large trading blocs and regional institutions dominated by imperialism cannot bring stability and prosperity to Europe let alone Africa and other regions throughout the world. Genuine unity must be centered upon the interests of the working class and oppressed who have the most to gain from cross-border alliances and mutual cooperation.

The Russian deployment to Shahid Nojeh base in Hamadan in Iran has ended shortly after it began.  The Russians have confirmed that all the Russian aircraft that were briefly stationed at the base have returned to Russia.

“Russians are interested to show they are a superpower that can influence security trends. On the other hand, they are willing to show they have been influential in the Syrian operation to be able to negotiate with the US and secure their share of Syria’s political future. Of course, there is a kind of show-off and discourteousness in this regard.”

These words have been interpreted to mean that the Iranians were incensed by Russian bragging at the use by their aircraft of the Shahid Nojeh air base in Iran, which they found somehow “discourteous”.

That is extremely unlikely and in fact it makes no sense.  The first media reports of Russian aircraft using the base did not come from Russia; they seem to have come from the Al-Masdar News agency in the Middle East.  There have been some suggestions that Al-Masdar is an Israeli project.  However it appears to be based in Lebanon and seems to take a pro-government line in the Syrian war.  That suggests it obtained its information about the deployment from sources in Syria or Iran.

The Russians did inform the US of the deployment before it took place, as they are required by agreements they made with the US last autumn to do.  It would in fact have been completely impossible to keep the deployment secret from the US given the sheer size of some of the aircraft involved (especially the TU22M3s) and the blanket US satellite surveillance of Iran which constantly takes place.  In fact it took no time for satellite photos of the deployment to be made public, as they were bound to be.

The simple fact is that the deployment was bound to become public knowledge within hours of it taking place and it is absurd to think that the Iranians could have thought otherwise or could have seriously imagined that the Russians wouldn’t comment on it or would try to downplay it.

In fact Brigadier-General Dehghan’s words look like they are being misreported.  They do not properly speaking read like a complaint about the Russians “showing off” about their deployment to the Shahid Nojeh base.  Rather they read more like a complaint about the Russians’ habit of negotiating with the US in order to “secure their share of Syria political future”.  The Iranians have made no secret about their unhappiness about the discussions the Russians continuously have with the US over Syria.  Brigadier-General Dehghan’s comments simply appear to be a restatement of this.

Why then has the deployment ended so quickly?  The short answer is we don’t know, just as (despite what the international media has been telling us) we don’t actually know that it was the Iranians who ended the deployment.

It could be that the decision to end the deployment was taken by the Russians.  Despite what some have said use of the Shahid Nojeh base is not crucial to the Russian air campaign in Syria.  TU22M3 bombers can reach anywhere in Syria with full loads flying from their bases in southern Russia.

The 4 SU34 fighter bombers that were briefly deployed to Shahid Nojeh base did benefit from the substantially shorter distance to their targets in Syria.  However they could have been deployed even more effectively if they had been sent to the Russian base in Syria at Khmeimim, which if shortening flight times really was so important would have been the obvious thing to do.

It is possible that the Russians became concerned that what was intended primarily as a political statement of support for Iran was drawing a stronger international reaction than they might have anticipated.  The US vigorously criticised the deployment, which cannot have come as a surprise to the Russians and which they must have anticipated.

However of more concern to the Russians may have been private criticism of the deployment coming from Israel and Saudi Arabia, two countries strongly hostile to Iran with which Russia is however anxious to maintain good relations.

The other possibility is that the decision to end the deployment was indeed taken by Iran.  As I discussed previously, the Russian deployment to Shahid Nojeh base was not uncontroversial in Iran, with some criticism of the deployment being made in the Iranian parliament the Majlis.

It could be that this swayed the Iranian authorities into reversing their decision to grant the Russians use of the base.  Or it could be that the Iranians are annoyed about private discussions between the US and the Russians that are underway, as Brigadier-General Dehghan’s words might suggest.

This episode does however underscore an important point: Russia and Iran are partners who are in the process of forging closer relations with each other, and they are working closely with each other in Syria.  However they are not allies and their relationship is not trouble-free.  On the contrary, as I have discussed previously, their relationship is historically complicated, and has been marked by long periods of outright hostility.  This makes frictions and disagreements inevitable and it looks like we have just witnessed one.

This spat is unlikely however to result in any significant or long term cooling of relations.  Despite Iranian resentment at Russia’s negotiating strategy in Syria the Iranians know perfectly well that without Russia’s help the Syrian government which Iran supports and in which it has invested so much would long since have fallen.

Indeed Iranian commentators and officials have actually said as much.  With Iran’s relations with the US and the West still very fraught, it still makes sense for Iran to forge closer relations with Russia and the Eurasian powers, and there is no sign of any second thoughts in Tehran about that.

The Russians for their part still seem to be committed to forging a close relationship with Iran, which is obviously in their interest, and they too know that they need the help of Iran if they are to achieve their objectives in Syria.

If only for these reasons both the Iranians and the Russians have been careful to leave open the possibility of future Russian deployments to Shahid Nojeh base, and the Russians have even been hinting that they are in private talks with the Iranians for the use of other Iranian facilities for their Syrian campaign as well.  It is not impossible that once this dispute (whatever its cause) has been smoothed over that we will be seeing Russian aircraft in Iran again.

Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia) has received thousands of membership applications, although formal registration is still pending approval by the Registrar of Societies (ROS), said former Malaysian Prime Minister and party chairman Mahathir Mohamad on Sunday (Aug 21).

The 91-year-old statesman was out and about again after recovering from a bad bout of cough.

The application to register Bersatu with the ROS was submitted on Aug 9 by former Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad (centre) speaking about new political party Bersatu, which he chairs. (Photo: Melissa Goh)

Bersatu membership will be open to ethnic Malays and the indigenous people of Malaysia, also known as Bumiputra or sons of the soil. Non-Bumiputra citizens can apply to be associate members, who will have no voting rights but can be appointed to the party’s top leadership.

At the press conference, pro-tem president Muhyiddin was already talking about seat allocations in the coming polls for the General Election (GE), even though it is not due until 2018.

Mr Muhyiddin said Bersatu will work with all opposition parties in order to unseat Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Barisan National (BN) ruling coalition in the next GE.

“We are working towards finding common ground, a winning formula that will defeat BN in the coming election,” said Mr Muhyiddin, who was sacked from Mr Najib’s cabinet in August 2015.

Many Bersatu leaders, including student activist Syed Saddiq and Dr Mahathir, have hinted their intention to take part in an anti-establishment rally called #TangkapMO1 (Arrest ‘Malaysian Official 1’, the person referenced in a US lawsuit seizing the assets of troubled state fund 1MDB). The rally is organised by a coalition of student unions and will take place in Kuala Lumpur on Aug 27.

“I will see, but I will be around in KL and not going anywhere,” said Dr Mahathir.

The police have reminded organisers about serving a 10-day notice under the laws governing public assemblies. Dataran Merdeka, the iconic independence square, has been declared off limits.

Meanwhile, “red shirt” protesters, led by pro-Malay rights activist Jamal Yunos, have warned of a counter-rally if the #TangkapMO1 rally goes ahead.

New information on the Aleppo Boy story at the very least gives it the appearance of being an elaborately staged hoax.

AP News broke the story. Off-guardian.org reported “of the three journalists credited, one was in Beirut, one in Geneva, and one in Moscow” – none in Aleppo or anywhere in Syria.

The obvious question is how is a breaking story possible without being anywhere near where it happened? What sources were used? What due diligence checking was done – red flags without answers! AP likely published the script and photo it was handed, functioning as an imperial press agent, mocking legitimate journalism.

In his photo gone viral, Omran Daqneesh looks remarkably calm, more soot-covered than bloodied, not at all like someone traumatized in shock and pain – alone enough to raise suspicions.

Years of Iraqi sanctions, imposed solely for political reasons, killed 5,000 children aged five or under monthly. Untold numbers of others suffered horrifically. The Media ignored them. No photos of their ordeal went viral.

US imperial wars from the rape of Yugoslavia through multiple Bush/Obama wars alone were responsible for millions of young children killed, injured or perishing from preventable diseases or starvation.What mainstream sources told their stories? Who showed their images? Who explained their suffering? Who laid blame where it belongs?

Images of Aleppo Boy Omran’s self-style photojournalist,Mahmoud Raslan, are seen posted on Facebook together with Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki “rebels” (aka US-backed terrorists) – responsible for beheading 12-year-old Abdullah Tayseer Issa near Aleppo weeks earlier.

Why haven’t photos and stories of this atrocity gone viral? Why hasn’t Raslan been exposed as an ally of US-supported terrorists? Why doesn’t this automatically raise red flags about the veracity of the Aleppo Boy story?

Instead, London’s Telegraph gave Raslan feature op-ed space to promote himself as Omran’s photographer.

The atrocity of US-led aggression on a nonbelligerent country went unmentioned – nor do any Western media report the real Syria story.

Instead Aleppo Boy propaganda stunts are used to enlist public support for greater mass slaughter, destruction and displacement than already.

Propaganda wars precede and accompany hot ones. They relate what aggressors want people to know, suppress their ugly crimes and intentions, while enlisting public support for what demands universal opposition.

Aleppo Boy Omran may turn out to be a lit fuse for a more explosive war in Syria than currently. The conflict is already a potential flashpoint for East/West confrontation – the unthinkable horror of possible global war.

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.

Matthew Wheeler of the International Crisis Group (sometimes referred to as ICG or simply, the Crisis Group), recently wrote an editorial in the New York Times titled, “Can Thailand Really Hide a Rebellion?” The editorial took a coercive tone, with its final paragraph appearing almost as a threat, stating:

It would be shortsighted and self-defeating of the generals running Thailand to insist on dismissing these latest attacks as a partisan vendetta unconnected to the conflict in the south. They should recognize the insurgency as a political problem requiring a political solution. That means restoring the rights of freedom of expression and assembly to Thai citizens, engaging in genuine dialogue with militants, and finding ways to devolve power to the region.

Wheeler’s editorial intentionally misleads readers with various distortions and critical omissions, mischaracterising Thailand’s ongoing political crisis almost as if to fan the flames of conflict, not douse them as is the alleged mission of the Crisis Group.

Wheeler’s recommendations to allow violent opposition groups back into the streets for another cycle of deadly clashes (which have nothing to do with the southern insurgency) while “devolving power” to armed insurgents in the deep south appear to be a recipe for encouraging a much larger crisis, not resolving Thailand’s existing problems.

Wheeler never provides evidence linking the bombings to the insurgency or provides any explanation as to why the insurgency, after decades of confining its activities to Thailand’s southern most provinces, would escalate its violence so dramatically. Wheeler also intentionally sidesteps any mention of evidence or facts that indeed indicate a “partisan vendetta.”

Instead, his narrative matches almost verbatim that promoted by the supporters of ousted former-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his political supporters.

Wheeler’s distortions include an intentional omission of the scale of violence Shinawatra and his followers have carried out in the past, as well as the political significance of the provinces targeted in the recent bombings in connection to Shinawatra’s conflict with the current ruling government, not the insurgency’s,

The provinces targeted represented political strongholds of anti-Shinawatra political leaders and activists, all of whom have no connection at all to the ongoing conflict in Thailand’s deep south.

Crisis Group is Covering up an Engineered Buddhist-Muslim Conflict

More alarming are Wheeler’s attempts to cite growing tensions in Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai between Buddhists and Muslims as evidence, he claims, of the real dimensions of Thailand’s conflict. Wheeler is attempting to claim Thailand is experiencing a potential nationwide religious divide, separate from Shinawatra’s struggle to seize back power.

However, he cites a 2015 protest with a decidedly bigoted tone targeting a Halal industrial estate that was slated to be built in the northern city. The protest was led by monks affiliated with Thaksin Shinawatra’s political movement, including monks whose temples Shinawatra’s family visits regularly, including Sri Boonruang Temple whose walls are adorned with images of Thaksin Shinawatra himself.

These temples and those who frequent them represent a divergent and politicised version of Buddhism, Buddhist in name only.

They are actively involved in directly supporting Thaksin Shinawatra and working along political peripheries to divide and destabilise Thai institutions and sociopolitical balance impeding Shinawatra’s return to power.

The anti-Muslim protests appear almost identical to anti-gay protests staged by overt supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, a group called Rak Chiang Mai 51. Out in Perth, a gay news service based in Australia, would report in its 2009 article, “Chiang Mai Pride Shut Down by Protests as Police Watch On,” that:

Organisers were forced to call off Chiang Mai’s planned second annual Gay Pride Parade on February 21 after harassment from the Rak Chiang Mai 51 political group.

Dressed in their trademark red shirts, members of Rak Chiang Mai 51 locked parade participants into the compound where they were gathering, throwing fruit and rocks and yelling abuse through megaphones.

In an interview with Rak Chiang Mai 51 leader Kanyapak Maneejak (also known as DJ Aom), when asked about the incident during a “City Life Chiang Mai” interview, she claimed:

Our third aim is to protect Lanna culture and we simply did not like the Gay Pride Parade. In the past there were no gays or ladyboys, but today they live together openly, they wear revealing clothes in the streets. We had to go out in force to protect our culture against this. The people who were spitting were not red shirts; they were infiltrators who wanted us to look bad. It was not just us who wanted to stop this parade, villagers and the entire province of Chiang Mai called up our station to ask us to intervene. We were afraid that this would become an annual event, and we all know that Chiang Mai is a place for human trafficking.

The bizarre defence of the groups violence and intolerance predicated on defending “Lanna culture”echo verbatim the rhetoric now being directed at Muslims by groups also centred in Chiang Mai.

Both Chiang Mai’s Muslim and gay communities have noted this sudden and unprecedented intolerance and violence has taken them by surprise, as it has many Thais across the country and those familiar with Thailand’s renowned culture of tolerance and inclusion.

The most extreme among politically motivated Buddhist sects have even taken to the streets in protests similar to those carried out by politicised sects in neighbouring Myanmar. In Myanmar, such protests are staged both in support of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy and as part of a violent campaign against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority.

So similar are these two political movements that the Western media has found itself once again playing a role intentionally deepening sociopolitical, ethnic and religious divides.

Reuters in a 2015 article titled, “Spurred by Myanmar radicals, Thai Buddhists push for state religion status,” would claim:

A campaign to enshrine Buddhism as Thailand’s state religion has been galvanized by a radical Buddhist movement in neighboring Myanmar that is accused of stoking religious tension, the leader of the Thai bid said.

Experts say the campaign could appeal to Thailand’s military junta, which is struggling for popularity 18 months after staging a coup, and tap into growing anti-Muslim sentiment in a country that prides itself on religious tolerance.

Reuters’ report is a distortion, however. It claims that the military-led interim government might find the idea of dividing Thailand along religious lines appealing, but it is the government itself that is attempting to promote an inclusive society and prevent sociopolitical, ethnic and religious divisions.

It is particularly interesting to note how not only Reuters, but also foreign-funded organisations posing as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in Thailand are attempting to blame the government and Thailand’s institutions for growing bigotry and calls for violence toward Muslims despite the fact that the worst offenders are centred around Shinawatra’s political strongholds in northern and northeastern Thailand, precisely where overt supporters of Shinawatra have already put their bigotry and violence on full display.

Current Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-Cha in centre. Note the motto of Thailand’s armed forces on the wall behind him, which reads “For Country, Religions, Monarchy, and People.” Religions is plural indicating a conscience effort to create an inclusive society for all.

The government for its part, has both condemned such bigotry, and has taken tangible action to combat it. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) would publish in its news feed a report titled, “Thailand’s Muslim-Friendly Destination Strategy Goes Well Beyond Just Tourism” (PDF), which aptly quantifies the current government’s position on the subject, stating (our emphasis):

When one of Southeast Asia’s largest Buddhist-majority countries launches a tourism outreach to attract Muslim visitors, it clearly has a much wider significance than just a travel industry development. Although the primary goal of the tourism authorities is to boost visitor arrivals, expenditure and average length of stay, the Thai government is also mindful of the broader goal to build inclusive societies, prevent religious and ethnic conflict, and contribute to the third and, arguably, the most important pillar of ASEAN integration, the Socio-Cultural Blueprint.

And similar comments, sentiments and initiatives can be found throughout the interim government’s activities since taking power in 2014. The Reuters report, like the Crisis Group’s NYT editorial penned by Matthew Wheeler, is merely an attempt to create and compound conflict, not inform people of its true characteristics, nor defuse it.

Anti-Islamic Violence in the North, Anti-Buddhist Violence in the South, Meeting in the Middle

A Thai-based Buddhist scholar when interviewed, helped make sense of the networks of politicised Buddhism attempting to divide Thailand religiously; stating:

The anti-Halal and anti-Muslim movements involve a faction of people connected to the [pro-Shinawatra] Reds… there is an anti-Islamic sentiment within their Buddhist-faction. One person who I know is involved with the anti-Islam group is a professor, Banjob Bannaruji — he is the face for them. He is very popular with Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University.

Violence carried out by extremist sects in Myanmar, a phenomenon political players focused on Thailand are attempting to replicate.

Banjob Bannaruji would also be mentioned in the above cited Reuters article as leading the campaign to push Buddhism as Thailand’s “state religion.” It should be noted that both in 2007 and again in 2014 his attempts to push this agenda have been rejected by charter drafters, the military and now two interim governments.

While extremist sects in northern Thailand, considered strongholds of Shinawatra’s political influence, are taking on a violent stance toward Islam, there is evidence that Shinawatra has also deployed agitators to Thailand’s deep south to stir up instability there.

A classified 2009 US diplomatic cable titled, “Southern Violence: Midday Bomb Attack in Narathiwat August 25 Meant to Send a Signal,” released by Wikileaks, reveals that the US Embassy maintained contacts with militants in the deep south, claiming (our emphasis):

Insurgents did confirm to a close embassy contact late August 25 that they had carried out the attack, intended as a signal for Buddhists to leave the deep south. With local elections scheduled for September 6 and a string of election-related acts of violence occurring in recent weeks, however, not all deep south violence is automatically insurgency related.

The cable would reveal that Sunai Phasuk, of foreign-funded Human Rights Watch, is their “contact” who regularly speaks with militants.

The US Embassy then admits that Shinawatra’s political forces are also likely operating in the south, using the conflict as cover:

The posting of the anti-Queen banners on her birthday, a national holiday, was both unusual and significant, but the fact that the banners were professionally printed on vinyl, written in perfect central Thai rather than the local Malay dialect, and touched on issues which don’t resonate in the south suggests those behind it were not local but national actors. Most in the know blame the red-shirts seeking to take advantage of inaction in the mosque attack case to undermine the Queen in particular and the monarchy in general.

The US Embassy cable would also admit (our emphasis):

Yala Vice-Governor Gritsada appeared surprised when we mentioned these banners to him on August 19, but he confirmed that the banners were written in perfect central Thai and mentioned issues that do not resonate down south, like the blue diamond. Gritsada said Pranai Suwannarat, the director of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC) had agreed these banners were the likely work of the UDD, not the insurgents. Sunai told us that the widespread presence of the banners indicates the strong organization and funding available to the UDD in Pattani province.

The UDD refers to Thaksin Shinawatra’s street front, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, also known as “red shirts” and include groups such as Rak Chiang Mai 51 mentioned above.

In essence, Shinawatra, his political supporters and his foreign proponents have created their own artificial conflict with which to consume Thailand’s institutions and sociopolitical balance, nationwide starting in the north and south, and meeting in the middle.

In the north, Shinawatra’s networks have mobilised politicised extremist sects to promote hatred and violence toward Muslims. And in the south, Shinawatra has operatives stirring up political instability, and likely even violence to target Buddhists while simultaneously implicating Muslims.

This is the reality of Thailand’s current conflict, a reality Matthew Wheeler of the International Crisis Group intentionally attempts to distort in an effort to protect this reality from the scrutiny and attention required to prevent it from spiralling further out of control. In essence, The Crisis Group is attempting to spur on and exploit, not prevent a crisis. But why?

What is the Crisis Group and Why is it Trying to Destabilise Thailand?

The Crisis Group claims on its website to be, “an independent organisation working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world.” 

If that were the case, one would expect to see the organisation backed by names synonymous with preventing wars and building a more peaceful world. Instead, the Crisis Group’s own website reveals financial support from organisations and corporations openly engaged in precisely the opposite.

Its various councils include such members as oil giants British Petroleum, Chevron and Shell and lobbying firm Edelman UK.

Edelman’s involvement in the Crisis Group is particularly significant since Thaksin Shinawatra employed Edelman as a lobbyist for several years. During Edelman’s lobbying for Shinawatra, Kenneth Adelman served concurrently as both Thaksin Shinawatra’s representative and as a director at the International Crisis Group.

The Crisis Group’s “government and foundation” supporters including USAID and the Open Society.  Again, a glaring conflict of interest exists here, with Open Society also funding a raft of organisations posing as NGOs and both foreign and local media working to undermine Thailand’s stability and bring Shinawatra and his supporters back into power.

The implications and actions of the Crisis Group then and now expose the organisation as self-serving merely behind the pretence of “preventing wars and building a more peaceful world.” Then and now, the Crisis Group’s various publications, reports and editorials like Wheeler’s appearing in the NYT have attempted to pressure the Thai government into taking actions that would compound and complicate its ongoing political crisis, not solve it.

In 2010 (PDF), the Crisis Group would urge the Thai government to capitulate to violent street demonstrations staged by Shinawatra which included the deployment of hundreds of heavily armed militants. Nearly 100 were killed in the violence and sections of both the capital Bangkok, and provincial halls across Shinawatra’s north and northeast strongholds were burned to the ground. The Crisis Group’s “recommendations” echoed precisely the demands of Shinawatra himself. Considering that both individual directors of the Crisis Group as well as corporate sponsors were quite literally lobbying for Shinawatra, this should come as no surprise.

What is surprising is that the Crisis Group is portrayed throughout the media as anything other than a lobbying front for special interests, helping to create and exploit crises, not end them.

The New Atlas is a media platform providing geopolitical analysis and op-eds. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment and its mainstream media operate with a pervasive set of hypocritical standards that justify war crimes — or what might be called a “normalization of deviance,” writes Nicolas J S Davies.

Sociologist Diane Vaughan coined the term “normalization of deviance” as she was investigating the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986. She used it to describe how the social culture at NASA fostered a disregard for rigorous, physics-based safety standards, effectively creating new, lower de facto standards that came to govern actual NASA operations and led to catastrophic and deadly failures.

Vaughan published her findings in her prize-winning book, The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA, which, in her words, “shows how mistake, mishap, and disaster are socially organized and systematically produced by social structures” and “shifts our attention from individual causal explanations to the structure of power and the power of structure and culture – factors that are difficult to identify and untangle yet have great impact on decision making in organizations.”

President George W. Bush announcing the start of his invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.

When the same pattern of organizational culture and behavior at NASA persisted until the loss of a second shuttle in 2003, Diane Vaughan was appointed to NASA’s accident investigation board, which belatedly embraced her conclusion that the “normalization of deviance” was a critical factor in these catastrophic failures.

The normalization of deviance has since been cited in a wide range of corporate crimes and institutional failures, from Volkswagen’s rigging of emissions tests to deadly medical mistakes in hospitals.  In fact, the normalization of deviance is an ever-present danger in most of the complex institutions that govern the world we live in today, not least in the bureaucracy that formulates and conducts U.S. foreign policy.

The normalization of deviance from the rules and standards that formally govern U.S. foreign policy has been quite radical.  And yet, as in other cases, this has gradually been accepted as a normal state of affairs, first within the corridors of power, then by the corporate media and eventually by much of the public at large.

Once deviance has been culturally normalized, as Vaughan found in the shuttle program at NASA, there is no longer any effective check on actions that deviate radically from formal or established standards – in the case of U.S. foreign policy, that would refer to the rules and customs of international law, the checks and balances of our constitutional political system and the experience and evolving practice of generations of statesmen and diplomats.

Normalizing the Abnormal

It is in the nature of complex institutions infected by the normalization of deviance that insiders are incentivized to downplay potential problems and to avoid precipitating a reassessment based on previously established standards.  Once rules have been breached, decision-makers face a cognitive and ethical conundrum whenever the same issue arises again: they can no longer admit that an action will violate responsible standards without admitting that they have already violated them in the past.

This is not just a matter of avoiding public embarrassment and political or criminal accountability, but a real instance of collective cognitive dissonance among people who have genuinely, although often self-servingly, embraced a deviant culture.  Diane Vaughan has compared the normalization of deviance to an elastic waistband that keeps on stretching.

At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.”

Within the high priesthood that now manages U.S. foreign policy, advancement and success are based on conformity with this elastic culture of normalized deviance.  Whistle-blowers are punished or even prosecuted, and people who question the prevailing deviant culture are routinely and efficiently marginalized, not promoted to decision-making positions.

For example, once U.S. officials had accepted the Orwellian “doublethink” that “targeted killings,” or “manhunts” as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called them, do not violate long-standing prohibitions against assassination, even a new administration could not walk that decision back without forcing a deviant culture to confront the wrong-headedness and illegality of its original decision.

Then, once the Obama administration had massively escalated the CIA’s drone program as an alternative to kidnapping and indefinite detention at Guantanamo, it became even harder to acknowledge that this is a policy of cold-blooded murder that provokes widespread anger and hostility and is counter-productive to legitimate counterterrorism goals – or to admit that it violates the U.N. Charter’s prohibition on the use of force, as U.N. special rapporteurs on extrajudicial killings have warned.

Underlying such decisions is the role of U.S. government lawyers who provide legal cover for them, but who are themselves shielded from accountability by U.S. non-recognition of international courts and the extraordinary deference of U.S. courts to the Executive Branch on matters of “national security.” These lawyers enjoy a privilege that is unique in their profession, issuing legal opinions that they will never have to defend before impartial courts to provide legal fig-leaves for war crimes.

The deviant U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy has branded the formal rules that are supposed to govern our country’s international behavior as “obsolete” and “quaint”, as a White House lawyer wrote in 2004.  And yet these are the very rules that past U.S. leaders deemed so vital that they enshrined them in constitutionally binding international treaties and U.S. law.

Let’s take a brief look at how the normalization of deviance undermines two of the most critical standards that formally define and legitimize U.S. foreign policy: the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions.

The United Nations Charter

In 1945, after two world wars killed 100 million people and left much of the world in ruins, the world’s governments were shocked into a moment of sanity in which they agreed to settle future international disputes peacefully.  The U.N. Charter therefore prohibits the threat or use of force in international relations.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a press conference.

As President Franklin Roosevelt told a joint session of Congress on his return from the Yalta conference, this new “permanent structure of peace … should spell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balance of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries – and have always failed.”

The U.N. Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force codifies the long-standing prohibition of aggression in English common law and customary international law, and reinforces the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy in the 1928 Kellogg Briand Pact. The judges at Nuremberg ruled that, even before the U.N. Charter came into effect, aggression was already the “supreme international crime.”

No U.S. leader has proposed abolishing or amending the U.N. Charter to permit aggression by the U.S. or any other country.  And yet the U.S. is currently conducting ground operations, air strikes or drone strikes in at least seven countries: Afghanistan; Pakistan; Iraq; Syria; Yemen; Somalia; and Libya. U.S. “special operations forces” conduct secret operations in a hundred more. U.S. leaders still openly threaten Iran, despite a diplomatic breakthrough that was supposed to peacefully settle bilateral differences.

President-in-waiting Hillary Clinton still believes in backing U.S. demands on other countries with illegal threats of force, even though every threat she has backed in the past has only served to create a pretext for war, from Yugoslavia to Iraq to Libya. But the U.N. Charter prohibits the threat as well as the use of force precisely because the one so regularly leads to the other.

The only justifications for the use of force permitted under the U.N. Charter are proportionate and necessary self-defense or an emergency request by the U.N. Security Council for military action “to restore peace and security.”  But no other country has attacked the United States, nor has the Security Council asked the U.S. to bomb or invade any of the countries where we are now at war.

The wars we have launched since 2001 have killed about 2 million people, of whom nearly all were completely innocent of involvement in the crimes of 9/11. Instead of “restoring peace and security,” U.S. wars have only plunged country after country into unending violence and chaos.

Like the specifications ignored by the engineers at NASA, the U.N. Charter is still in force, in black and white, for anyone in the world to read. But the normalization of deviance has replaced its nominally binding rules with looser, vaguer ones that the world’s governments and people have neither debated, negotiated nor agreed to.

In this case, the formal rules being ignored are the ones that were designed to provide a viable framework for the survival of human civilization in the face of the existential threat of modern weapons and warfare – surely the last rules on Earth that should have been quietly swept under a rug in the State Department basement.

The Geneva Conventions

Courts martial and investigations by officials and human rights groups have exposed “rules of engagement” issued to U.S. forces that flagrantly violate the Geneva Conventions and the protections they provide to wounded combatants, prisoners of war and civilians in war-torn countries:

Some of the original detainees jailed at the Guantanamo Bay prison, as put on display by the U.S. military.

–The Command’s Responsibility report by Human Rights First examined 98 deaths in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. It revealed a deviant culture in which senior officials abused their authority to block investigations and guarantee their own impunity for murders and torture deaths that U.S. law defines as capital crimes.

Although torture was authorized from the very top of the chain of command, the most senior officer charged with a crime was a Major and the harshest sentence handed down was a five-month prison sentence.

–U.S. rules of engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan have included: systematic, theater-wide use of torture; orders to “dead-check” or kill wounded enemy combatants; orders to “kill all military-age males” during certain operations; and “weapons-free” zones that mirror Vietnam-era “free-fire” zones.

A U.S. Marine corporal told a court martial that “Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency”, nullifying the critical distinction between combatants and civilians that is the very basis of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

When junior officers or enlisted troops have been charged with war crimes, they have been exonerated or given light sentences because courts have found that they were acting on orders from more senior officers. But the senior officers implicated in these crimes have been allowed to testify in secret or not to appear in court at all, and no senior officer has been convicted of a war crime.

–For the past year, U.S. forces bombing Iraq and Syria have operated under loosened rules of engagement that allow the in-theater commander General McFarland to approve bomb- and missile-strikes that are expected to kill up to 10 civilians each.

But Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network has documented that U.S. rules of engagement already permit routine targeting of civilians based only on cell-phone records or “guilt by proximity” to other people targeted for assassination. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has determined that only 4 percent of thousands of drone victims in Pakistan have been positively identified as Al Qaeda members, the nominal targets of the CIA’s drone campaign.

–Amnesty International’s 2014 report Left In The Dark documented a complete lack of accountability for the killing of civilians by U.S. forces in Afghanistan since President Obama’s escalation of the war in 2009 unleashed thousands more air strikes and special forces night raids.

Nobody was charged over the Ghazi Khan raid in Kunar province on Dec. 26, 2009, in which U.S. special forces summarily executed at least seven children, including four who were only 11 or 12 years old.

More recently, U.S. forces attacked a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, killing 42 doctors, staff and patients, but this flagrant violation of Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention did not lead to criminal charges either.

Although the U.S. government would not dare to formally renounce the Geneva Conventions, the normalization of deviance has effectively replaced them with elastic standards of behavior and accountability whose main purpose is to shield senior U.S. military officers and civilian officials from accountability for war crimes.

The Cold War and Its Aftermath

The normalization of deviance in U.S. foreign policy is a byproduct of the disproportionate economic, diplomatic and military power of the United States since 1945. No other country could have got away with such flagrant and systematic violations of international law.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, at his headquarters in the European theater of operations. He wears the five-star cluster of the newly-created rank of General of the Army. Feb. 1, 1945.

But in the early days of the Cold War, America’s World War II leaders rejected calls to exploit their new-found power and temporary monopoly on nuclear weapons to unleash an aggressive war against the U.S.S.R.

General Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech in St. Louis in 1947 in which he warned, “Those who measure security solely in terms of offensive capacity distort its meaning and mislead those who pay them heed. No modern nation has ever equaled the crushing offensive power attained by the German war machine in 1939. No modern nation was broken and smashed as was Germany six years later.”

But, as Eisenhower later warned, the Cold War soon gave rise to a “military-industrial complex”that may be the case par excellence of a highly complex tangle of institutions whose social culture is supremely prone to the normalization of deviance. Privately,Eisenhower lamented, “God help this country when someone sits in this chair who doesn’t know the military as well as I do.”

That describes everyone who has sat in that chair and tried to manage the U.S. military-industrial complex since 1961, involving critical decisions on war and peace and an ever-growing military budget. Advising the President on these matters are the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, several generals and admirals and the chairs of powerful Congressional committees. Nearly all these officials’ careers represent some version of the “revolving door” between the military and “intelligence” bureaucracy, the executive and legislative branches of government, and top jobs with military contractors and lobbying firms.

Each of the close advisers who have the President’s ear on these most critical issues is in turn advised by others who are just as deeply embedded in the military-industrial complex, from think-tanks funded by weapons manufacturers to Members of Congress with military bases or missile plants in their districts to journalists and commentators who market fear, war and militarism to the public.

With the rise of sanctions and financial warfare as a tool of U.S. power, Wall Street and the Treasury and Commerce Departments are also increasingly entangled in this web of military-industrial interests.

The incentives driving the creeping, gradual normalization of deviance throughout the ever-growing U.S. military-industrial complex have been powerful and mutually reinforcing for over 70 years, exactly as Eisenhower warned.

Richard Barnet explored the deviant culture of Vietnam-era U.S. war leaders in his 1972 book Roots Of War. But there are particular reasons why the normalization of deviance in U.S. foreign policy has become even more dangerous since the end of the Cold War.

In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. and U.K. installed allied governments in Western and Southern Europe, restored Western colonies in Asia and militarily occupied South Korea. The divisions of Korea and Vietnam into north and south were justified as temporary, but the governments in the south were U.S. creations imposed to prevent reunification under governments allied with the U.S.S.R. or China. U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam were then justified, legally and politically, as military assistance to allied governments fighting wars of self-defense.

The U.S. role in anti-democratic coups in Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, Brazil, Indonesia, Ghana, Chile and other countries was veiled behind thick layers of secrecy and propaganda. A veneer of legitimacy was still considered vital to U.S. policy, even as a culture of deviance was being normalized and institutionalized beneath the surface.

The Reagan Years

It was not until the 1980s that the U.S. ran seriously afoul of the post-1945 international legal framework it had helped to build. When the U.S. set out to destroy the revolutionary Sandinista government of Nicaragua by mining its harbors and dispatching a mercenary army to terrorize its people, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) convicted the U.S. of aggression and ordered it to pay war reparations.

President Reagan meets with Vice President George H.W. Bush on Feb. 9, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Presidential Library.)

The U.S. response revealed how far the normalization of deviance had already taken hold of its foreign policy. Instead of accepting and complying with the court’s ruling, the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the binding jurisdiction of the ICJ.

When Nicaragua asked the U.N. Security Council to enforce the payment of reparations ordered by the court, the U.S. abused its position as a Permanent Member of the Security Council to veto the resolution. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has vetoed twice as many Security Council resolutions as the other Permanent Members combined, and the U.N. General Assembly passed resolutions condemning the U.S. invasions of Grenada (by 108 to 9) and Panama (by 75 to 20), calling the latter “a flagrant violation of international law.”

President George H.W. Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher obtained U.N. authorization for the First Gulf War and resisted calls to launch a war of regime change against Iraq in violation of their U.N. mandate. Their forces massacred Iraqi forces fleeing Kuwait, and a U.N. report described how the “near apocalyptic” U.S.-led bombardment of Iraq reduced what “had been until January a rather highly urbanized and mechanized society” to “a pre-industrial age nation.”

But new voices began to ask why the U.S. should not exploit its unchallenged post-Cold War military superiority to use force with even less restraint. During the Bush-Clinton transition, Madeleine Albright confronted General Colin Powell over his “Powell doctrine” of limited war, protesting, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

Public hopes for a “peace dividend” were ultimately trumped by a “power dividend” sought by military-industrial interests. The neoconservatives of the Project for the New American Century led the push for war on Iraq, while “humanitarian interventionists”now use the “soft power” of propaganda to selectively identify and demonize targets for U.S.-led regime change and then justify war under the “responsibility to protect” or other pretexts. U.S. allies (NATO, Israel, the Arab monarchies et al) are exempt from such campaigns, safe within what Amnesty International has labeled an “accountability-free zone.”

Madeleine Albright and her colleagues branded Slobodan Milosevic a “new Hitler” for trying to hold Yugoslavia together, even as they ratcheted up their own genocidal sanctions against Iraq. Ten years after Milosevic died in prison at the Hague, he was posthumously exonerated by an international court.

In 1999, when U.K. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Secretary of State Albright the British government was having trouble “with its lawyers” over NATO plans to attack Yugoslavia without U.N. authorization, Albright told him he should “get new lawyers.”

By the time mass murder struck New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, the normalization of deviance was so firmly rooted in the corridors of power that voices of peace and reason were utterly marginalized.

Former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz told NPR eight days later, “It is never a legitimate response to punish people who are not responsible for the wrong done. …  We must make a distinction between punishing the guilty and punishing others.  If you simply retaliate en masse by bombing Afghanistan, let us say, or the Taliban, you will kill many people who don’t approve of what has happened.”

But from the day of the crime, the war machine was in motion, targeting Iraq as well as Afghanistan.

The normalization of deviance that promoted war and marginalized reason at that moment of national crisis was not limited to Dick Cheney and his torture-happy acolytes, and so the global war they unleashed in 2001 is still spinning out of control.

When President Obama was elected in 2008 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, few people understood how many of the people and interests shaping his policies were the same people and interests who had shaped President George W. Bush’s, nor how deeply they were all steeped in the same deviant culture that had unleashed war, systematic war crimes and intractable violence and chaos upon the world.

A Sociopathic Culture

Until the American public, our political representatives and our neighbors around the world can come to grips with the normalization of deviance that is corrupting the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, the existential threats of nuclear war and escalating conventional war will persist and spread.

President George W. Bush pauses for applause during his State of the Union Address on Jan. 28, 2003, when he made a fraudulent case for invading Iraq. Seated behind him are Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert. (White House photo)

This deviant culture is sociopathic in its disregard for the value of human life and for the survival of human life on Earth. The only thing “normal” about it is that it pervades the powerful, entangled institutions that control U.S. foreign policy, rendering them impervious to reason, public accountability or even catastrophic failure.

The normalization of deviance in U.S. foreign policy is driving a self-fulfilling reduction of our miraculous multicultural world to a “battlefield” or testing-ground for the latest U.S. weapons and geopolitical strategies. There is not yet any countervailing movement powerful or united enough to restore reason, humanity or the rule of law, domestically or internationally, although new political movements in many countries offer viable alternatives to the path we are on.

As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned when it advanced the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 3 minutes to midnight in 2015, we are living at one of the most dangerous times in human history. The normalization of deviance in U.S. foreign policy lies at the very heart of our predicament.

Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.  He also wrote the chapters on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.

One year ago this weekend (on 21 Aug) an RAF pilot sitting in a Ground Control Station at RAF Waddington pushed a button and Hellfire missiles flashed away from a British Reaper drone loitering a few miles from Raqqa in Northern Syria.  The missiles slammed into an SUV killing all three occupants.  What was said in the Ground Control Station at the time is not publicly known but, as a senior British military officer put it a few months later, a Rubicon had been crossed.

For the first time, as the then Prime Minister David Cameron went on tell hushed MPs in the House of Commons, British forces had launched a remote air strike against one of its own citizens and in a country in which the UK was not at war. The target of the strike, 21-year Cardiff man Reyaad Khan, was killed alongside his cousin from Aberdeen, Ruhul Amin and a Belgian man, known only as Abu Ayman al-Belgiki.

A year on from the Khan Killing as it has become known, it’s possible to put together something of a timeline of events leading up to the strike and what has happened subsequently.

Reyaad Khan – killed in British targeted drone strike on Aug 21 2015

Truth and Consequences

One year on from the August 2015 strike that targeted and killed Reyaad Khan, serious questions remain about the operation itself, the circumstances in which the UK Government would (as it has already indicated) undertake further such targeted killings and especially about the consequences of such a policy

Legal Basis

Initially the Prime Minster stated that the strike against Khan was undertaken because he posed “a direct threat to the UK” and it was not part of military operation against ISIS in Iraq. However the formal notification of the air strike to the UN t told a different story, arguing the strike was also part of military operations to support the Government of Iraq (despite fact that parliament had excluded strikes in Syria).

These variances matter as different legal frameworks apply to the use of lethal force inside and outside of a war-zone.  Outside an armed conflict, lethal force can only legally be used to prevent an imminent and direct threat when there is no other option. Given that we have two different explanations, the legal basis for the strike against Khan is unclear.  As the report of the Joint Human Rights Committee puts it:

When dealing with an issue of such grave importance, taking a life in order to protect lives, the Government should have been crystal clear about the legal basis for this action from the outset. They were not. Between the statements of the Prime Minister, the Permanent Representative to the UN and the Defence Secretary, they were confused and confusing.

The government has so far refused to release the legal advice it received about the basis for the strike from the Attorney General, or even a summary or gist of that advice.  As the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Drones noted “the advice has remained a closely guarded secret, not seen even by the Chief of Air Staff or Commander responsible for authorising the strike.”

As the UK government has already confirmed it would again use drones to launch strikes outside of an armed conflict if it deems it necessary, it should explain carefully and clearly what it believes are the legal basis for such strikes.

Eroding the meaning of ‘imminent’ threat

Given that such strikes are taking place outside of an armed conflict, the use of such force can only be legal if there is an imminent threat to human life.  However in relation to such strikes CIA Chief John Brennan argued in 2011 that a “more flexible understanding of ‘imminence’ may be appropriate.”  It now appears that the UK is adopting such flexibility in relation to its strikes.  During his evidence to the Joint Human Rights Committee, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon was questioned about imminence in the context of strikes outside of a war zone:

Jeremy Lefroy MP  Is your understanding that “imminence” means what it used to mean—that is, so proximate that it leaves no time for deliberation—or have circumstances changed so that an ongoing threat from a specific terrorist is considered imminent all the time?”

Michael Fallon MP: Circumstances have certainly changed from the definition that you have quoted. I would not want to rest on that. You look at these things on a case-by-case basis in the light of the assessment that you make in each particular case. I do not think it is possible to have a hard and fast rule about how you would define “imminent”.

It appears that the UK, following the US lead, is using an expanded understanding of ‘imminence’.  As The Times noted in its editorial the day after Cameron’s statement on the Khan killing, the event Khan was supposed to have plotted to attack – the VJ celebrations – “had passed off peacefully by the time he was actually killed.”

The problem with having no ‘hard and fast definition’ of imminence means there is a real danger that many acts could be interpreted as being the last moment before an attack could take place and trigger such targeted killing operations.  In addition, once someone is identified as a possible or potential threat they could be placed permanently on a kill list to be targeted when possible. A position that is very distant from how the legal community would interpret international law in this area and could lead toserious consequences for those involved in such strikes.

Oversight and accountability

Currently there is no real public oversight or accountability for the Khan strike.  Ministers argue that because of the sensitive nature of the operations, public accountability must take place through theIntelligence and Security Committee.  The ISC announced an inquiry into the strike, however it is not being allowed to look at military aspects of the strike but just the intelligence aspects (and apparently only selected parts).  The Chair of the ISC, Andrew Tyrie, told the Guardian in January after Cameron had appeared before the parliamentary Liaison Committee:

On the basis of today’s evidence, the intelligence and security committee will not be able to do a thorough job. The prime minister should reconsider his decision to prevent the ISC from looking at information on the military aspects of the drone strikes. Unless he permits this, the ISC will be incapable of providing reassurance to parliament and the public that the strikes were both necessary and proportionate.

If even the secretive Intelligence and Security Committee is denied access to investigate the killing, there is in all reality no democratic oversight or accountability over the UK’s killing of Reyaad Khan.

Some will argue that due to the nature of these operations we must give the government the benefit of the doubt and reject suspicions that they would manipulate or exaggerate intelligence.  The recent publication of the Chilcot Report should remind us however that we are right – perhaps even duty bound – to be suspicious  of actions by the state in this area.

While the appalling attacks by terrorist groups like ISIS much be strongly resisted, so too must the draconian responses that such attacks partly seek to generate.  The UK must not follow the US down the road of routinely undertaking the targeted killing of terrorist suspects.  The government’s response to the Joint Human Rights Committee’s report, expected next month, will be an important indication of how far down that road they intend to go.

This week marks the first anniversary of the 2015 Greek debt crisis, the third in that country’s recent history since 2010. Last Aug. 20-21, 2015, the ‘Troika’—i.e., the pan-European institutions of the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB), plus the IMF-imposed a third debt deal on Greece. Greece was given US$98 billion in loans from the Troika. A previous 2012 Troika imposed debt deal had added nearly US$200 billion to an initial 2010 debt deal of US$140 billion.

In our days of darkness, spreading ignorance, and absence of serious debate in public forums, we can take hope from the fact that some scholars still produce serious and informative books on the most critical issues of our time. If in the future policymakers again seek the guidance of truth, they will have the information at hand. One such book of truth is Jeremy R. Hammond’s just published Obstacle to Peace, a closely reasoned, heavily documented (68 pages of footnotes), fully indexed, readable book with a Foreword by Richard Falk, an Introduction by Gene Epstein, and an endorsement by Noam Chomsky.

The obstacle to peace is the United States government, which has consistently opposed the entire world’s decades long effort to stop the Zionist genocide of a land called Palestine.

Palestine is a stolen and oppressed land. Israel’s greatest leaders themselves acknowledge the fact. Tom Are quotes David Ben-Gurion:

If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural, we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We came from Israel, it’s true, but that was two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?  http://thomas-l-are.blogspot.com

What once was a country consists today of a few small isolated Palestinian ghettos in the West Bank surrounded by Israeli settlements and an open air prison known as Gaza. Periodically Israel launches military assaults on the civilian population of Gaza, destroying the lives of the people and the infrastructure of the prison camp.

Israel then prevents outside efforts from sending supplies to the suffering people in Gaza. “Freedom flotillas” crewed by Nobel Laurates, present and former members of US and European legislative bodies, and even members of the Israeli Knesset set sail with supplies for Gaza and are pirated and captured in international waters by the Israeli Navy, which, as a warning to others, kills some of the delegation in “self-defense.” The United States steadfastly defends Israel’s criminal behavior with its UN veto and other governments, though disapproving, are unwilling to confront Washington and force a change.

Washington’s 21st century wars in the Middle East were initiated by neoconservative regimes whose principal policymakers are tightly allied with Israel. The wars focused on Arab nations—Iraq, Libya, and Syria—that were supportive of the Palestinians and had foreign policies independent of Washington. Washington succeeded in destroying two of the countries and has not given up on destroying Syria despite the risk of confrontation with Russia.

The risks that Washington is imposing on Americans and Europeans in order to advance Israeli expansion in the Middle East are horrific. Zionists claim a “greater Israel” from the Nile to the Euphrates. Washington’s wars in the Middle East are designed to remove obstacles to “greater Israel.” For example, on past occasions Israel has attempted to seize southern Lebanon for the water resources, but were driven out by Hezbollah, a militia supplied by Syria and Iran. This is one reason Syria and Iran are on Washington’s target list.

To achieve its or Israel’s goals, Washington uses jihadists. Russia sees the jihadists as threats that could spread to the Muslim areas of the Russian Federation, and Russia acts to protect itself. China also has realized that its province bordering Kazakhstan is subject to jihadist destabilization and appears to be aligning with Russia, Iran, and Syria against Washington’s effort to overthrow the Syrian government and install in its place chaos as Washington has done in Iraq and Libya, thus removing another constraint on Israel’s expansion and the restraint of a secular Syrian government on jihadism.

To get all of this from Hammond, you might have to connect some dots. But what you will get is a massive amount of verbatim dialogue that documents beyond all doubt the conspiracy between Israel, Washington, and the US presstitutes to get rid of “the Palestinian problem” by getting rid of Palestinians.

What does emerge strongly from Hammond’s book is that justice is not a thriving characteristic of the Israeli government, US foreign policy, or the media. The United Nations has produced report after report documenting the extermination of a people, but is powerless to act because of Washington’s veto.

What has happened to Palestinians is a replay of what happened to the native inhabitants of North America and Australia. Palestinians have been dispossessed and murdered. For this crime, the United States shares responsibility with Israel.

Become informed while you still can. Propaganda is turning truth-tellers into “conspiracy theorists” and “domestic extremists.” We can’t take the continued presence of truth-tellers for granted.

When one appears support him or her. Order Hammond’s book here: http://www.obstacletopeace.com

You will never regret being informed.

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.