Global Research

Matthew barreled through the Caribbean Sea between Haiti and Cuba and slammed into Haiti as a Category 4 Hurricane during the night of Monday to Tuesday, October 3-4, 2016. The hurricane made its first landfall on the westernmost tip of Haiti, near the town of Tiburon, in the southern peninsula, battering the area with the storm’s fiercest winds, waves, and rains.

All of Haiti, however, suffered hurricane-force winds and floods that destroyed crops and swept away much of the livestock.

Furthermore, violent surges of seawater crashed into most of Haiti’s cities, which line the coasts. Even the Dominican Republic, on the eastern side of Hispaniola, well away from the hurricane’s center was so strongly affected by floods and winds that it lost four people.

On Tuesday morning, Haiti’s Pwoteksyon Sivil reported five deaths from the Hurricane, together with the circumstances of each death; later the same day, the number rose to 23.

To those who had been getting their news directly from Haiti, these low, albeit tragic, casualty rates were not surprising, even for the vulnerable cities of Port-au-Prince and Leogane, which had not been rebuilt after the earthquake and hosted about 55,000 homeless people.

For more than 48 hours before the hurricane, Haiti’s presidential candidates for the now-postponed elections of Sunday, October 9, had tried to outdo each other at informing the public of the dangers of the hurricane and directing people to places of safety. The country’s interim President, Jocelerme Privert, made a televised address in which he admonished the population to move away from the coasts. “My fellow citizens, do not be stubborn, do not say ‘God is good and will take care of you.’ You must evacuate the endangered areas.” He further called on Haitians to help each other. Even prisoners were moved to safety this time. Haitians should take a bow for the lives that were saved by their conduct.

None of this news appeared in the Western press, because it does not deal in facts but in poetic truth, which in this case requires the supposed poorest-of-the-poor to perish by the hundreds, if not by the thousands, if they are not helped by foreign humanitarians.

Once the United States military and journalists began to assess the hurricane’s damage by some counting system of their own invention, the number of Haitian casualties skyrocketed, and there were no longer any reports of how the dead met their fates. Indeed, the number of the Haitian dead from Hurricane Matthew has doubled approximately every 12 hours since Tuesday morning and is now estimated to be 800. At this rate, all of Haiti’s population should be dead in about a week.

All joking aside, these casualty counts should be examined carefully and with great skepticism. For one, there no longer appears to be a distinction between the missing and the dead.

For example, the children from a collapsed orphanage are presumed to have died, but no evidence of their deaths has been offered. Such disappearances of children during disasters are often due to human trafficking, and the irresponsible reporters who eagerly repeat these numbers should consider that they might be serving as the unwitting accomplices of criminals. The new numbers of the dead are blamed on the recently discovered damage to Haiti’s southwestern peninsula (Grand Anse, South and Nippes departments), which had been cut off from the rest of the country due to the collapse of a bridge on Route National No. 2 in the city of Petit Goave.

After surveying all the country, the Pwoteksyon Sivil revised its counts for Haiti’s various departments (states) on Thursday, October 6, to a disastrous 108 deaths: 38 deaths in Grand Anse; 26 in the South; 34 in the West; 1 in the Northwest; 3 in the Artibonite; 3 in Nippes; and 3 in the Southwest. These new counts by Haitians, where the number of deaths in the Grand Anse and South departments are similar to those of the West department, imply casualty rates per capita more than 10 times higher for Grand Anse and more than 5 times higher for the South than for the West.

This rings truer than the inflated numbers from the English-language media. One would not expect the Grand Anse and the South alone to have hundreds of casualties simply because they were hit hardest by the storm. First, these areas have not suffered any earthquake damage. Secondly, they lacked a significant population of internally displaced people. Finally, the Grand Anse and South departments, in Haiti’s southwest, have only 5 and 8 percent, respectively, of Haiti’s population, compared to the West department, which includes the capital city of Port-au-Prince with more than 40 percent of the population.

The numbers of deaths were revised on October 8 to look more horrific, but they are no longer credible with regard to the casualty rates per capita for Grand Anse and the South, compared to the West. It is in the interest of the occupying powers to pressure Haiti to exaggerate the human and material costs of the hurricane. Already, the interim government has been forced to delay sin die the non-fraudulent presidential and legislative elections, which Haitians had themselves financed and for which they had fought so long and hard. There is also the expectedgold rush. After the earthquake of 2010, for example, more than 90 percent of the aid funds were laundered through Haiti and into the pockets of politically connected businessmen from the so-called donor countries.

From what one can gather of the reports from the Miami Herald, Reuters, New York Times, The Guardian, and especially the BBC News, they appear to be on a campaign to rehabilitate the non-governmental organizations (NGO) that have been discredited by their conduct after Haiti’s earthquake of 2010. The fear that these NGOs might return has been described by journalistKim Ives.

The United Nations occupying force, which has twice introduced cholera in Haiti, is predicting yet more cholera. The UN is scheduled to leave the country in six months. Nevertheless it is casting itself as an expert on the eradication of cholera epidemics, promoting useless cholera vaccines through articles sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in newspapers like The Guardian, and plotting to stay. At this juncture, it is absolutely critical for the Haitian government to take charge of all emergency water distribution and make sure the water is safe to drink.

After all, if you control the water that people drink, you control cholera, and there is far too much money to be made in a massive cholera epidemic.

The Red Cross, which has never showed much for the nearly $500 million in donations it collected within a year of the earthquake, is again promising relief to Haitians. This charity claimed that it spent about 5 percent of its earthquake funds on 700 homes, which turned out to be only a scandalous 6 houses on closer inspection. To account for the rest of the money, it has made vague claims of building more than 100,000 shelters, signing agreements to spend about one half of its funds, giving away tens of millions of dollars worth of food, and helping more than 4.5 million Haitians, nearly one half of the entire population, get back on their feet. How? By giving them golden slippers?

Evidently it does not trouble some news agencies that none of the Red Cross’ claims is demonstrable. A BBC report on Friday, October 7, which trumpeted that 800 Haitians had died from Hurricane Matthew, turned out to be a carrier for a thinly wrapped call for donations to the Red Cross. “The Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal for $6.9m (£5.6m) ‘to provide medical, shelter, water and sanitation assistance to 50,000 people,’” the article announced. The Miami Herald, for its part, reported 300 deaths and informed its readers: “Obama, in his remarks on Haiti Friday, also asked Americans to help by contributing to the Red Cross and other philanthropic organizations.” Even after keeping its manager and CEO in six-figure salaries for years, the Red Cross should still have more than enough in its interest-bearing accounts to assist the victims of Hurricane Matthew. Give it nothing.

On October 4, Haiti’s Interim Prime Minister, Enex Jean Charles called for all aid to the country from any donor or partner, national or international, to be channeled through the Permanent National Office for Risk and Disaster Relief (Secrétariat Permanent National de Gestion des Risques et des Désastres, SNGRD). It is almost certain that the next elected government will make a similar call. Hang on to your wallets. Give nothing to any organization until it makes clear that it will abide by the wishes of Haitians.

The Western press, which so relishes the sight of dead and disconsolate Haitians, has so far thankfully offered us nothing of this, except for aerial images of the physical devastation of southwest Haiti and one highly republished photograph of two men carrying a coffin. Where are all the dead Haitians? Were they mostly hit by falling trees and flying roof tiles, overwhelmed by mudslides, drowned in their homes, or swept to sea on giant waves or along streets that had turned into rapids? To my knowledge, Cuba is the only country that reports the circumstances of the deaths of all its hurricane casualties, together with their names, gender, and age. It is no doubt this systematic collection of correct information about hurricane deaths that has made Cuba the safest place to be during such storms. Accurate hurricane statistics also help to identify irregularities and protect the vulnerable from criminal elements. But more than anything, the naming of the dead, the refusal to let people die as nameless as livestock, is a necessary show of respect.

Dady Chery is the author of We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation.

In a sign that the Syrian conflict risks escalating into war between the world’s major nuclear-armed powers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned yesterday against NATO air and missile strikes on its forces and allies in Syria, stating that Russia would respond militarily.

Lavrov referred to media reports that the United States plans to bomb Syrian or Russian forces inside Syria. “This is a very dangerous game,” he said, “given that Russia, being in Syria at the invitation of the legitimate government of this country and having two bases there, has air defense systems there to protect its assets.”

Moscow also sent nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles to the Russian Baltic city of Kaliningrad late Friday. From Kaliningrad, the missiles can strike targets, including NATO bases, across Poland and the Baltic republics. Russian Defense Ministry officials said the missiles were loaded onto a freighter in the Baltic Sea “right under a US reconnaissance satellite” to monitor its response and make clear to the US military that the missiles were en route to Kaliningrad.

Leaks to US papers including the Washington Post last week revealed that US officials are discussing launching an attack on Syrian government forces behind the backs of the American people. While a handful of press reports have emerged on the leaks themselves, a deafening silence prevails in American and European media on the danger and the consequences of such an escalation.

On Wednesday, the Post ’s Josh Rogin wrote,

“[O]fficials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the [Syrian] regime … Options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships, an administration official who is part of the discussions told me. One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a UN Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said.”

In a 2013 speech to Wall Street bankers leaked by WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton said imposing such a “no-fly zone” would entail mass civilian casualties: “To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defenses, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk—you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.”

After last month’s US bombing in Deir ez-Zor killed at least 62 Syrian soldiers and wounded 100, it must be assumed that US raids would aim to cause massive Syrian military casualties as well.

Even before Lavrov made his remarks, Russian military officials responded to leaks like the Post report by warning US officials that they risked provoking a major war. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman General Igor Konashenkov said his forces would presume US strikes were hostile, and locate and destroy US fighters, including stealth aircraft, over Syria.

“Any missile or air strikes on the territory controlled by the Syrian government will create a clear threat to Russian servicemen,” Konashenkov said. “Russian air defense system crews are unlikely to have time to determine in a ‘straight line’ the exact flight paths of missiles and then who the warheads belong to. And all the illusions of amateurs about the existence of ‘invisible’ jets will face a disappointing reality.”

Addressing “leaks” such as the Post report, he added, “Of particular concern is information that the initiators of such provocations are representatives of the CIA and the Pentagon, who … today are lobbying for ‘kinetic’ scenarios in Syria.”

Konashenkov warned Washington that it should make a “thorough calculation of the possible consequences of such plans.”

This remark is chilling. While Konashenkov did not say it, the significance of Moscow’s remarks is clear: implementing US plans signifies a military clash with Russia, and the possible consequences of such a clash include escalation into a full-blown nuclear war that would kill billions of people. The diplomatic arrangements that for a time stabilized relations between NATO and Russia in the period after the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the USSR in 1991 have collapsed.

As Moscow apparently concludes that it has no other option but to prepare for war if Washington and its NATO allies decide to launch it, working people around the world are emerging as the sole social constituency for opposition to a catastrophic war.

The driving force in the war crisis is the aggressive policy of the NATO imperialist powers, led by the US. Russia’s emergence as an obstacle to unrestrained US-NATO wars in the Middle East, opposing a planned NATO war in Syria in 2013, is totally unacceptable to Washington.

Now, as NATO’s Al Qaeda-linked Islamist proxies in Syria face defeat around Aleppo, factions of the American state are openly calling for launching a war to save them. Last month, US General Joseph Dunford indicated his support for imposing a “no-fly zone” over Syria to the US Senate, adding that this “would require us to go to war with Syria and Russia.”

Last week, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley mentioned Russia and China as enemies, and directly addressed them, declaring, “I want to be clear to those who wish to do us harm … the United States military—despite all of our challenges, despite our [operational] tempo, despite everything we have been doing—we will stop you and we will beat you harder than you have ever been beaten before. Make no mistake about that.”

While the NATO powers bear central responsibility for the crisis in Syria, the response of Russia’s post-Soviet capitalist oligarchy is also reckless and reactionary. Incapable of and hostile to appealing to international opposition to war in the working class, it aimed to use its military strength to deter US-NATO escalation in Syria and to negotiate a deal with the imperialist powers.

This policy has utterly failed. Instead, the Kremlin’s oscillations between begging Washington for a deal and escalating military action inside Syria have drawn it into a deepening confrontation with NATO that now threatens to unleash a major military conflict.

Russia’s missile deployment to Kaliningrad is a signal to Washington and its European allies that Moscow not only believes that war is a very real possibility, but anticipates that such a war would rapidly spread from Syria to Europe. NATO has deployed tens of thousands of troops near Russia’s borders in Eastern Europe since backing a fascist-led putsch that toppled a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine in 2014.

Lavrov said this posed an intolerable threat to Russian national security. “We have witnessed a fundamental change of circumstances [in] the aggressive Russophobia that now lies at the heart of US policy toward Russia,” he said. “It’s not rhetorical Russophobia, but aggressive steps which really concern our national interests and endanger our security. NATO enlargement, [deployments of] NATO military infrastructure next to our borders … and the deployment of a missile defense system—these are all a display of unfriendly, hostile actions.”

Moscow was outraged in particular by US State Department spokesman John Kirby’s threat that if Russia did not obey US orders to retreat from Syria, Islamist groups could “expand their operations, which could include attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities. Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags and will continue to lose resources, perhaps even aircraft.” In this context, Kirby’s subsequent observation that Washington can influence “some” opposition militias in Syria had the character of a threat.

As CIA weapons reach armories of the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra front in Aleppo, it is clear that if Moscow simply let the Syrian regime fall to the Islamist opposition, Russia could soon find itself targeted for the type of Islamist operations NATO is currently aiming at Syria. This has apparently persuaded Moscow, at least for now, to risk an all-out confrontation with the US in a desperate attempt to deter NATO military action against Syria and Russia.

The Associated Press (AP) through a procedure it calls “AP FACT CHECK,” claimed after a recent US presidential debate that presidential candidate Donald Trump was untruthful about Syrian President Bashar Al Assad fighting the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS).

Below is the screenshot of an October 9 report

Followed by an earlier April 2016 report:

 

AP’s article, “AP FACT CHECK: Trump wrong that Assad fights IS,” claims:

Not true. Syria’s President Bashar Assad considers the Islamic State group to be among numerous “terrorist” groups that threaten his government, but his military is not fighting them. It is focused on combatting Syrian opposition groups, some of which are supported by the United States. The fight against the Islamic State militants is being waged by a U.S.-led coalition, with help from Turkey, by training, advising and equipping Syrian Arab and Kurdish fighters.

However, despite AP’s claims, AP’s own reporting directly contradicts its “AP FACT CHECK,” as pointed out by Syrian activist and geopolitical commentator Mimi Al Laham in a recent Tweet.

In their April 2016 article, “After Palmyra, Syrian troops take another IS-controlled town,” AP would report that:

A week after taking back the historic town of Palmyra, Syrian troops and their allies on Sunday captured another town controlled by the Islamic State group in central Syria, state media reported.

The push into the town of Qaryatain took place under the cover of Russian airstrikes and dealt another setback to the IS extremists in Syria. An activist group that monitors the Syrian civil war said that government forces are in control of most of the town after IS fighters withdrew to its eastern outskirts.

The advance came a week after Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra from IS and is strategically significant for the government side. The capture of Qaryatain deprives IS of a main base in central Syria and could be used by government forces in the future to launch attacks on IS-held areas near the Iraqi border.

Not only does AP directly contradict its own reporting on Syrian forces over the past year with its recent and clearly disingenuous “AP FACT CHECK,” it also contradicts claims that Russia is also uninterested in fighting ISIS – admitting clearly that Syrian government gains against the terrorist organization took place under the cover of Russian airpower.

Also, AP would even report that Russian ground forces were present at Palmyra, directly on the front with ISIS.

AP’s May 2016 article, “Russia builds military camp near ancient site in Palmyra,” would admit:

Russia has built a military encampment inside a zone that holds the UNESCO world heritage site in the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, where Islamic State militants were driven out recently by pro-government forces.

The Russian military described the camp Tuesday as “temporary,” saying its few housing units were being used by explosives experts who are removing mines left behind by the militants, and that the Syrian government had given approval to build the camp.

It is uncertain why AP has resorted to such blatant, clumsy lies, especially under a series of articles it is boldly calling “AP FACT CHECK.” However, it is clear – based on AP’s own reporting – that they are in fact lying intentionally and in direct contradiction to their own reporting.

It is also interesting how AP boldly titles its recent series as “AP FACT CHECK” yet provides no citations or evidence for its “fact checking.”

AP has perpetuated intentional lies dressed up as news reporting for years, if not from its inception, deceiving global audiences regarding everything from “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, to the characterization of political conflicts ranging from the so-called “Arab Spring” to political instability in Southeast Asia.

Caught in a blatant lie contradicting its own reporting should put the world on notice that AP is not a legitimate news service, nor should it be trusted as a journalistic source until those responsible for “AP FACT CHECK” are exposed, condemned, and expelled from AP, and AP provides a proper explanation as to how such blatant lies could cross its pages in the first place.

For the Syrian and Russian soldiers and airmen who bravely died fighting ISIS in combat AP itself reported on, no greater disservice could be done than to deny such combat even took place. AP’s recent “AP FACT CHECK” was meant to portray recent political debates in a certain light, but instead, it has only managed to cast AP itself as illegitimate, deceitful, and untrustworthy.

We have put together a short compendium of relevant quotes and links to selected Global Research articles (August-October 2016).

What is likely to happen at the Second Presidential debate tonight Sunday October 9 at 9pm is also examined. 

Who do you vote for? 

The bipartisan system is in crisis. Corruption permeates the US political landscape. The presidential election campaign is rigged.  

Media propaganda prevails. 

There is no choice?  There is no democracy in America.

What will Happen Tonight at the Second Trump-Clinton Debate:

According to Larry Chin:

The Clintons will break all rules and laws to seize White House power. This is amply proven by the manner in which they rigged and stole the first presidential debate.  

The operation appears to have been planned in advance of the September 26, 2016 event, involving the Clintons and their operatives, the debate organizers, the broadcast media (NBC and “moderator” Lester Holt), the managers of the venue, and the security detail at the facility.

The second debate scheduled for October 9, 2016 promises nothing better for Trump. The last debate saw Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt ganging up on Trump. This next time, it will be three against one.

One of the “moderators” is CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was a CIA intern, who likely still functions as an intelligence asset.

CNN is so heavily skewed to the Clintons, and dominated by former Clintonites, that it is referred to derisively as the “Clinton News Network”. Cooper has pushed the lie that Lester Holt was deferential to Trump, when in fact Holt constantly interrupted Trump and bashed him every time Hillary asked him to. Cooper’s statements  suggest that he will attack Trump even more aggressively than Holt.

The other “moderator” will be ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who was White House correspondent in the George W. Bush administration. Raddatz is further proof that the corporate media is a revolving door through which Washington insiders slither and slime back and forth.

As long as the Clinton operatives continue to be allowed to get away with fraud and criminal shenanigans—-be it rigged podiums, rigged stage props, hidden teleprompters, hidden transceivers, cheat notes, and collusion with “moderators”—and as long as the corporate media continues to conspire with the Clintons without consequences, then Donald Trump will be toast again.

That is what the Clintons are counting on.

“Podiumgate”: How the Clintons Rigged the First Presidential Debate By Larry Chin, October 04, 2016

The Leak of Trump’s Controversial 2005 Video. What will be its impact. 

According to Prof. Michel Chossudovsky:

The release of this 2005 video by the Washington Post containing lewd and sexist statements by the Republican Party’s presidential candidate Donald Trump is likely to play a decisive role. 

It is a victory for the Hillary Clinton campaign. 

We must however beg the question. 

What motivated this carefully timed release, prior to the second presidential candidates’ debate? 

Donald Trump’s lewd and sexist behavior or his foreign policy stance regarding US-Russia relations? Or both?

See: Video: The Release of Lewd and Sexist Comments vs. US Foreign Policy: Donald Trump As a Presidential Candidate is Dead? By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 08, 2016

In the words of Prof. Binoy Kampmark:

The loathsome two are moving into full view, mustering weapons and taking aim at each other in a US election campaign that continues to be filled with colourful missives.  

The FBI’s Fake “Investigation” of Hillary Clinton’s Emails By Eric Zuesse, September 18, 2016

According to Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

We know from their words and deeds and material success that the Clintons are agents for Wall Street, the Big Banks, the military/security complex, Israel, agribusiness, and the extractive industries. 

Trump vs. Hillary: “If Hillary gets into the Oval Office, I Predict Nuclear War before her First term is Over”By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, September 26, 2016

According to Patrick Martin

The most important issue in the US presidential election is the one neither of the two main capitalist candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, is talking about: the increasing likelihood that the next US president will order direct military action against Russia, China or North Korea, all countries that possess nuclear weapons. 

The Threat of World War III: The Great Unmentionable in the 2016 Campaign By Patrick Martin, September 19, 2016

Stephen Lendman writes in a September 8 article:

Fabricated Claims About Russian “Covert Plot” to Disrupt US Elections By Stephen Lendman, September 08, 2016

Judicial Watch on the Email scandal (August 20, 2016):

We are pleased that this federal court ordered Hillary Clinton to provide written answers under oath to some key questions about her email scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “We will move quickly to get these answers. The decision is a reminder that Hillary Clinton is not above the law.  

Federal Court Orders Hillary Clinton to Answer Questions under Oath in Email Scandal By Judicial Watch, August 20, 2016

According to Glen Ford:

 Donald Trump has backtracked — sort of — on his assertion that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are “the founders” of ISIS, or the “most valuable players” on the Islamic State team. “Obviously, I’m being sarcastic,” said the self-styled “America-Firster” – quickly adding, “but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you.” 

Trump cannot articulate or fully grasp the horrific truth of his original statement because that would require a much more fundamental indictment of U.S. imperial policy in the Muslim world since the last days of 1979, when Zbigniew Brzezinski convinced President Jimmy Carter to set the jihadist dogs loose in Afghanistan. 

Yes, Obama and Clinton Created ISIS – Too Bad Trump Can’t Explain How It Happened By Glen Ford, August 19, 2016

Jack A. Smith begs the following question in an August 2016 Global Research article:

Donald vs. Hillary: A Still Uncertain Election. Both Candidates Remain Unpopular with the Majority of AmericansBy Jack A. Smith, August 16, 2016

Once again, Haiti is devastated by a natural disaster, this time by Hurricane Matthew.

Before the hurricane plowed into the southeast U.S. coast, where it caused major flooding and widespread power outages, “Matthew” had struck Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, killing 877 people and displacing tens of thousands.

No doubt, there’ll be a drumbeat asking you to donate to Haiti’s hurricane relief, if it hasn’t already begun.

Don’t!

Below are the reasons why.

“In 2010, a massive 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people, leveling 100,000 homes, and leaving 1.5 million people destitute.”

As Dinesh D’Souza recounts for National Review, July 18, 2016,”countries around the world, as well as private and philanthropic groups such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, provided some $10.5 billion in aid, with $3.9 billion of it coming from the United States. But very little of this aid money actually got to poor people in Haiti.”

Bill Clinton & George W. Bush inspected the devastation of the Haiti earthquake, March 22, 2010.

According to the National Review:

“Bill Clinton was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti. Following the earthquake, Bill Clinton had with media fanfare established the Haiti Reconstruction Fund. Meanwhile, his wife Hillary was the U. S. secretary of state, in charge of U.S. aid allocated to Haiti. Together the Clintons were the two most powerful people who controlled the flow of funds to Haiti from around the world.”

Read more about what the Clintons did with the billions of dollars meant for Haiti’s earthquake relief, here.

In 2015, Vice.com sent an investigative reporter to Haiti, who was shocked to find Haiti still devastated 5 years after the earthquake, with many people homeless or living in self-made shacks, without running water or plumbing, despite the $10 billion in relief aid pledged around the world.

Transcript of the video (selected excerpts):

7:21 mark: “What’s odd is that the Haitians who received little to no foreign aid actually seem to be doing than those in the designated relief areas.

8:06 mark: “But there was one permanent structure that was built here for the earthquake survivors. For some reason the International Olympics Committee [IOC} thought that these people could use an $18 million state-of-the-art soccer field and recreation center [instead of plumbing and running water], adding insult to injury in a community lacking in even the most basic amenities.”

8:32 mark: “But this [the IOC soccer field] wasn’t the only strange reconstruction project we saw foreign aid invested in. Seven hours north of the earthquake, over $300 million of foreign aid was spent in the district of Caracol, [a town that wasn’t affected by the earthquake]…. But even though the town wasn’t affected, it didn’t stop our government aid from being invested in another soccer field [that actually cost $2.9 million to built, not the $300 million spent by the contractor. The State Department’s records say the cost of constructing the Caracol soccer field was even lower — $2.3 million.] And when we looked at the cost of many other projects, we noticed the same contractor kept coming up [– Chemonics, the largest USAID recipient across the world, including in Afghanistan….] There’s been a number of audits that have shown lack of progress, the lack of oversight. Here, this is a contract of Chemonics with USAID. All the cost information throughout the contract, that’s all redacted, and we just have [blank] pink sheet after pink sheet…25 pink sheets [in total].”

11:21 mark: “USAID’s real investment here [in Caracol] is the more than $260 million spent for the Caracol industrial park — the largest U.S. development project in the aftermath of the earthquake…. [T]here’s paved streets, there’s sidewalks, there’s electricity and there’s drinkable running water which is actually unheard of in Haiti. Unfortunately, it only provides roughly only 10% of the jobs it promised. Its main tenant is a South Korean garment manufacturing company which enjoys cheap labor, tax exemptions and duty-free access to the U.S. market. Worst of all, none of the employees we met were earthquake survivors, and the plan for the park was drawn up before the [earthquake] disaster even happened.“

13:17 mark: “While many attempts to reform the system have been made, to date, nothing has changed, and the result is the faileddisaster capitalism we see in Haiti, where aid has become an industry of pro-profit companies. In fact, only a month after the earthquake, our own U.S. ambassador was quoted in a leaked document claiming ‘The gold rush is on.’ And now these same companies are using lobbying groups to ensure reforms never come. It’s often said that waste, inefficiency, corruption, these are problems that are unique to the developing world, that are unique to Haiti. The reality is that these are actually fundamental aspects of the U.S. foreign aid complex. Instead of relying on potentially corrupt money, we simply give it to U.S. companies and allow them to take 25% off the top. It’s a different form of corruption, and without realizing that, we’ll continue to make the same mistakes going forward.”

The standard advice for donating to charities is “Keep it local,” i.e., donate only to local charities where you can keep a better eye on how your donations are spent.

How low the icon has fallen. Angela Davis diminished herself and denounced her own history when she endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and in 2012, claiming the corporate imperial Democrat was part of the “black radical tradition.” Davis now signals she’s in Clinton’s corner, and smears independent voters as “narcissists.” Who will “Free Angela” from her shameful servitude to the Democratic Party?

One purpose of the show staged by Washington’s political establishment every four years, called “election campaign”, is to demonstrate to the world that the American people democratically decide on the future course of their country.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The decision being made on Tuesday November 8, will only supply the answers to the following three questions:

• Who will be Wall Street’s CEP (chief executive politician) occupying the Oval Office until 2020 in the service of major banks, hedge funds and other financial organizations?
• Who will be in charge of diverting the American people’s attention away from their real problems by engaging in all sorts of sham battles? And last but not least:
• Who will be responsible for ideologically preparing Americans for further wars through targeted manipulation?

The political differences between the candidates only reflect the different points of view presently prevalent in the financial industry. In dealing with Russia and China, for example, Hillary Clinton plans to continue a policy of confrontation and preparation for war, while Donald Trump has obviously decided to follow the course laid out by Zbigniew Brzezinski (right) in his April 2016 paper ‘A New Realignment’.

In it, Brzezinski insists that the US should definitely hold on to its status as the world’s leading power, but acknowledges the fact that it has lost part of its economic strength and can only maintain its role as the world’s hegemon by avoiding a major military conflict with Russia or China.

This strategy by no means signals a turn towards a more peaceful policy. Quite the opposite, a realignment with Russia and China would allow the US to concentrate all their military power on another conflict, which currently has a high priority for Wall Street: The war in Syria.

Contrary to what is being reported in the mainstream media, the US government is not undertaking any measures to end this war. Actually, Washington is doing everything in its power to deepen and widen the conflict, not only because of Syria’s strategically important position (which ignited the conflict), but also for another reason that has become of vital interest to the US financial industry during the past two years.

A Huge Problem for Wall Street: The Oil Price

For several years now the US has attempted to become a global market leader in the oil business and gain independence from oil and gas imports by furthering its shale industry. In the beginning stages, the method of fracking was hardly competitive with classical techniques of oil extraction. However, as technical progress made this mode of production more and more profitable, several hundred large investors developed interest in the business and provided loans of hundreds of billions of dollars to the shale industry.

By now it is clear that most of this investment was based on a massive miscalculation. The oil price has fallen by more than 50 % over the past two years. Although production costs in fracking have been significantly reduced, the price, which has been floating around $ 45.00 for months now, is not nearly enough to generate the profits needed for the shale industry’s survival.

Between January 2015 and July 2016, 90 oil and gas producers have already gone bankrupt and left behind more than $ 66 billion in debt. Since these loans were most certainly reinsured through credit default swaps, they must have left considerable holes in the balance sheets of major US banks.

When the rest of the loans come due at the end of this fall, creditors will be facing enormous problems, as the world economy remains stagnant with no improvement in sight. Above that, the present price of oil is itself the product of massive manipulation: Producers have hired fleets of tankers that are filled to breaking point and storages are almost bursting at the seams. Contrary to media reports there is no chance that production will be significantly cut in the near future, due to the fierce competition between the producing states, some of whom are themselves on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Financial Industry is already preparing for War

By the end of the year the US financial system could thus be threatened by a crisis approximately the size of the Dotcom bubble. However, sixteen years later and eight years after being artificially propped up after the fall of Lehman Brothers, the financial system is more instable than ever. The Fed has pumped trillions of dollars into the system and its interest rate is close to zero. Risk exposure in the derivative markets is at record levels, and excessive speculation has led to huge bubbles in the bond, stock and real estate markets. In an environment like this the problems of the shale industry could very well become the spark threatening to blow up the financial system.

Thus Wall Street finds itself in a position in which an increase of the price of oil is more urgent than ever. However, being unable to jack it up by furthering demand, reducing production or stepping up manipulation, there is only one option left and that is the escalation of the war in Syria and the destruction of a large number of oil wells in the Middle East.

There are indications that a decision has already been made behind the scenes. For one thing, the oil price is above all determined by future contracts. That price being higher than the market would actually suggest, points to big investors expecting a rise in demand. If one takes a look at US shale junk bonds, one will see that there has not only been a rise in demand, but almost a run on these bonds over the summer. For example, PDC Energy whose creditworthiness is four levels beneath ‘creditworthy’, were offered $ 1,5 billion for bonds worth $ 400 million. Also, premiums on credit default swaps for junk bonds have fallen by 30 % since February. Strategists at the Bank of America Meryll Lynch called the summer of 2016 “one of the best as far as high-yield foreign-funded loans were concerned.”

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump know what the financial industry expects from the next President of the United States. That’s why there are three issues in the ongoing election campaign that the two of them entirely agree upon: The ‘war on terror’, the ‘struggle against radical Islamists’ and the ’destruction of Isis’. All three slogans are nothing but a pretext for putting a fuse to the oil keg, which is the Middle East.

Neither Trump nor Clinton will ever mention the fact that America’s allegedly biggest enemy recruits big parts of its membership from organizations like Al Qaida, Al Nusra and the Free Syrian Army that, for some time, have been supported and supplied with money and weapons by the US.

None of the two will ever mention that no radicalization of Muslims would have occurred had the US and their allies not destroyed whole countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria and brutally terrorized their population. And neither Trump nor Clinton will ever mention that the coming escalation of the war and the human catastrophe it brings with it will be caused for one single purpose only: To once more satisfy the insatiable greed of Wall Street.

Instead, both candidates will use the last three weeks of their campaign to unanimously spread the lie that the United States’ security depends on the ‘War against Terror’ and thus demonstrate to the world that both of them are exactly what their predecessors in the Oval Office were: humble and willing servants of Wall Street.

Ernst Wolff is a freelance journalist and the author of the book ‘Pillaging the World. The History and Politics of the IMF’, published by Tectum-Verlag, Germany.

For the Southeast Asian state of Thailand, overcoming corruption could be one of several essential steps required to fully tap the human and natural resources this already influential ASEAN state has benefited from for centuries. However, to tackle corruption, the nation must first define what it is, and what it hopes to achieve by confronting and overcoming it.

Currently, the focus unfortunately appears to be on addressing Thailand’s score upon the so-called Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) put out by alleged nongovernmental organisation (NGO), Transparency International.

Transparency International Leverages CPI as a Geopolitical Weapon 

Despite describing itself as an NGO, Transparency International’s funding is dominated by the governments of the United States and the European Union.

More specifically, as listed on Transparency International’s own website, its funding comes specifically from the US State Department, the European Commission, the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and controversial Open Society, chaired by convicted financial criminal George Soros.

Such funding presents an alarming conflict of interest, considering that these are the same interests who, in Thailand and across the rest of ASEAN, have worked actively to overthrow governments and undermine local institutions, seeking to overwrite them with organisations and institutions promoted by and serving foreign interests via NED and Open Society specifically.

Thus, Thailand’s score on the CPI is more a result of politically-motivated interference in Thailand’s internal affairs than it is an honest appraisal of the nation’s corruption. Thailand’s low score and pressure placed upon it by the West to improve this score results not from genuine concern regarding corruption, but instead from the fact that the current government successfully ousted a regime sponsored by and working for Western special interests.

Attempting to “improve” Thailand’s score on a politically-motivated and thus illegitimate index is, to say the least, an exercise in futility.

Despite this glaring reality, there are some in the government who believe improving the nation’s standings on this index should still be a priority. They do so not because a better score will actually address corruption in Thailand in any meaningful manner, thus giving Thais greater confidence and trust in government institutions, but to instead impress foreign investors who a nation like Thailand should not be depending on to begin with.

It is an approach doomed to fail because it is an approach that fundamentally misdiagnoses the problem and thus prescribes the wrong solution.

Alternative Paths

In reality, corruption in Thailand cannot be defined or addressed by Transparency International’s politically-motivated, thus meaningless metrics. Instead, corruption in Thailand, if understood as unprofessionalism and impropriety among government institutions, hindering both the efficient administration of the nation as well as the government’s interaction with the people and local businesses, must be confronted by local interests for local interests.

The Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACT) (website in Thai only), comprised of business leaders, local media and activists, seeks to confront corruption in Thailand not to improve the nation’s standings on a meaningless foreign-devised scale, but to improve the efficiency of government institutions to better facilitate their administration of the country, to make doing business easier and fairer as well as to improve faith and confidence across Thai society in the government institutions they depend on for the smooth functioning of society.

As ACT incrementally achieves these goals, it helps improve and strengthen Thailand, even if such efforts are not reflected on meaningless indexes like the CPI.

Their activities include exposing corruption using their ties to the media, holding events to raise public awareness regarding both their rights and how they are being violated by corruption and by working with the government to pass legislation to rein in corruption on various levels of society.

In the end, ACT is attempting to solve corruption for Thailand, with their “index score” determined by the improved efficiency of government institutions and the public’s trust in them.

ACT has so far proven itself impartial, calling out the previous government of Yingluck Shinawatra for its blatant and systemic corruption, as well as condemning impropriety and nepotism amid the current government. Unlike Transparency International and its CPI which only seeks to leverage “corruption perceptions” as a political weapon, ACT is fighting corruption for the sake of fighting corruption, because its membership is comprised of those directly affected by it, regardless of who heads the national government.

The current government should work (and is working) closely with groups like ACT to expose and rein in corruption toward very specific goals such as improving the efficiency of government institutions in the administration of their responsibilities and improving public trust in these institutions. Rather than citing the meaningless CPI devised by the politically-motivated Transparency International, Thailand should develop its own metrics for measuring both the level of corruption and gauge success in confronting it.

Thailand, and other developing nations, must also devise a means of communicating their progress in confronting corruption to the world in order to sidestep the “weaponisation” of indexes like Transparency International’s CPI.

By confronting corruption, nations strengthen themselves not only within by improving the efficiency with which resources are utilised toward the progress of their respective nations, they also strengthen themselves against foreign interests that would seek to exploit “corruption perceptions” and use it to seek leverage over them. In this sense, fighting corruption is not only good for business, it is essential for national security.

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

Very few public intellectuals pull no punches in their analyses of world affairs.  James Petras is one of them.  Possessed of a brilliant and capacious mind that grasps global events in a comprehensive and interconnected way, he also writes with a moral urgency befitting our dangerous historical moment.  He reminds me of C. Wright Mills, another brilliant sociologist whose warnings went unheeded more than fifty years ago.

The End of the Republic and the Delusion of Empire is his 68th book, and one of his most important.  It should be read by anyone concerned with the looming disaster that will eventuate from the upcoming U.S. presidential election, no matter who wins.  While not explicitly stating it, it is clear that Petras expects Hillary Clinton to win, and he finds her far more dangerous than Donald Trump.

To order James Petras’ book from Clarity Press, click image right

If Trump were to be elected by some fluke, he thinks he would “face a massive investment and lending revolt from capitalists and bankers who would be very willing to drive the fragile economy into a major recession, threatening a kind of domestic economic sabotage.”  If Clinton wins, as she surely will, he foresees a much worse outcome: “there is a strong chance the election of Hillary Clinton will drive the world into catastrophic nuclear war.”

Petras, therefore, declares a pox on both their houses.

The book is divided into four parts.  The first deals with the U.S. presidential primaries and election.  It was written before Trump and Clinton secured their parties’ nominations, but Petras assumes they will be the nominees.  Part two, the longest is devoted to what he calls “The Delusions of Empire,” and is a multi-faceted dissection of the American empire and its push toward war with Russia.  Part three is an analysis of the rise and fall of popular insurgencies throughout the world, as they confront bankers, warlords, and their political proxies in the U.S.  The final section concerns the issue of “who rules America and who sets the military agenda in the most contentious regions of the Middle East.”

While all are well done, I think one, two, and four are the strongest and most immediately pertinent.  None are written in a pedantically academic style, though all are informed by an impressive breadth of knowledge.  The book in its entirety is written in a passionate and committed style, while being rooted in facts.

As for the 2016 presidential elections, Petras rightly says that more than half the U.S. electorate views Clinton and Trump “with horror and disdain.”  He argues that Trump, while painted as a fascist by the main stream media (MSM), “lacks the program, organization, and practice that define a fascist politician.”  Nevertheless, he is the “lobotomized” candidate serving as “backdoor backing of political psychopath Hillary Clinton.”

He chronicles Clinton’s record of savage war-making – she “has launched or promoted more simultaneous wars than any Secretary of State in US history.”  He shows how the Democratic Party, while posing as the party of regular people, is actually pro-Wall Street and pro-imperialist.  He skewers the Democratic Party’s “house radicals” – Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders – as phony actors, who have betrayed the American people through deceit and hypocrisy in the name of progressivism.

Prof. James Petras (left)

 “The key to understanding why millions of Americans, fed up by 30 years of declining living standards, deepening inequalities and perpetual wars, do not form an alternative party is that they have been repeatedly conned and corralled in the Democratic Party by the house radicals,” all of whom he considers to be charlatans.

While I think it is true that Americans have been conned, I think he is ignoring the American people’s desire to be deceived – their bad-faith.  It takes two to tango.

Hillary Clinton is the great object of Petras’s scorn.  He labels her “pro-Israel, pro-war, pro-Wall Street, the candidate of Plutocratic Zionism …. the marriage of plutocracy and right-wing Zionism,” who is supported by “a vast army of Israel-First ideologues.”  For this, and for naming these ideologues, Petras has been falsely accused of being anti-Semitic.  But his critics do not engage him on the factual and logical accusations of his argument; rather, he is dismissed with a broad brush that equates his ant-Zionist critique with anti-Jewish bias.

When writing about the delusions of empire, Petras examines the issue from multiple angles, deftly flipping from one to another like a prestidigitatorial teenager swiveling a Rubik’s Cubes’ various colors to solve the puzzle.

Look here: this is the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) rogues’ gallery from Michael Camdussus to Christine Lagarde.  See how the IMF fits – “they were selected because they reflect the values, interests, and behavior of the global financial elite.”

Flip to the Anglo-American long-term, large-scale, structural regression.  “For the past three decades, the US and Great Britain have led the global drive to undermine labor’s advances.  First, the economic structure sustaining labor organizations were dismantled and fragmented.  Then organized labor was decimated, co-opted and corporatized.”

Look at this blue cube: It is Barack Obama’s shameful race to establish his imperial legacy, pursuing “wars of unremitting destruction …. partnerships with terrorists and death squads as it seeks short-term imperial victories, which end in dismal failure.  The imperial legacy of this ‘historic’ president is a mirage of pillage, squalor and destruction.”

Ah the red cubes!  Look closely, Petras says, at the bloody “war cycle started in late 2001 with the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.”  Let us count the victims: Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine.  See how they fit together with the push for war with Russia.

Here are the white cubes, posing as the good guys.  The Harvard boys, “mandarins for the Warlords,” led by Harvard professor Joseph Nye, advising the empire builders.  There the Council on Foreign Relations, with their ignorant advice on how to defeat China, as if the Chinese are stupid Orientals incapable of strategic intelligence.

And see what happens when you align the yellow cubes: Voila, you clearly see the yellow press lined up: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Financial Times (he mistakenly omits The Washington Post), lying and having “systematically engaged in political warfare, acting as virtual propaganda arms of the US and EU imperialist governments in their attempts to maintain and/or impose vassal state status on countries and economies, which are to be regulated according to the needs of Western financial institutions.”

In these nine brief chapters, Petras solves the puzzle, aligns the perpetrators, and deftly reveals a depressing picture of the mad logic of empire. Squared-off, color-coded, and symmetrical, it reveals the handiwork of lunatics, as Chesterton once described: “A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason.”

His third part, wherein he analyzes Latin American revolts and betrayals, and the Islamist State (IS), while complementary and accurate, is far too brief and superficial.

But his concluding section, “Zionism in America,” while also brief, is a hard-hitting final round.  Petras ends by arguing that the “US Zionist Power Configuration which leads President Obama and 430 US members of Congress (to quote Ariel Sharon) …’by the nose!’” is unduly instrumental in controlling U.S. foreign and domestic policies.  He maintains that while this is so, “few progressive websites or even the micro-Marxist journals confront these issues, more out of moral cowardice (self-censorship) than ignorance.  Instead they bleat general clichés and radical rhetoric about US imperialism and the rise of the right without identifying the precise social and political identity of the forces that move national policy.  In a word, the Zionist Power Configuration gets more than a free ride.”

What Petras terms a Zionist elite, many others call “neoconservatives.”  These neoconservatives are widely accepted by leftist – and even liberal – analysts to be a powerful force driving U.S. policies.  Petras claims that the neoconservatives are composed of a large number of Israel-first Zionists.  He names names – e.g. Wolfowitz, Abrams, Pritzker, Nuland-Kagan, Chertoff et al. – and shows their linkages.  It is time his claims were openly discussed in left-wing publications.  Name calling will resolve nothing; nor will avoidance of his argument.  That is intellectual and moral dishonesty.

Petras is a very brilliant and prolific thinker who deserves intellectual debate.  With The End of the Republic and the Delusion of Empire he again throws down the gauntlet and challenges conventional thinking.  He ends by asking, “Don’t the deaths and maiming of millions of Iraqis, Palestinians, Syrians and Libyans, and the tens of millions of desperate refugees, resulting from their foreign policies, warrant a pause in their continued hold on power and prestige, if not outright condemnation for crimes against humanity?”

As we slide cataleptically toward global war, a book like this can help snap us out of this hypnotic trance that dooms us to disaster.  It should be widely read and engaged

To order James Petras’ Book click here 

The Oxford Martin School is based at Oxford University in the UK. In what seems to be a laudable aim, the school has set up the ‘Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations’ (OMC), which has brought together 19 international leaders from government, business and civil society to address the growing short-term preoccupations of modern politics and business and identify ways of overcoming today’s gridlock in key international negotiations.

These prominent figures include Lord Chris Patten, Arianna Huffington and Lionel Barber from the British media. The OMC’s website says that a diverse group of highly respected global leaders has called for a radical shake-up in politics and business to deliver progress on climate change, reduce economic inequality, improve corporate practices and address the chronic burden of disease. There is also talk of working for a sustainable future and promoting inclusiveness.

Toxic agrochemicals, disease and the environment

Rosemary Mason is a prominent figure who campaigns against the use of toxic agrochemicals and has just written an 18-page, 9,200-word open letter to Achim Steiner, Director Oxford Martin School. Steiner is the former United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Director General. Much of what follows is a summary of some the letter’s key points. Readers can consult the original document for all of Mason’s supporting evidence, including links to papers, documents and reports: open-letter-to-the-director-of-the-oxford-martin-school.

Click above Screen shot access full document in pdf

If there is one area of business and politics that requires a “radical shake up,” it is food, agriculture and the agrochemicals sector. Mason opines that humans and the environment are silently being poisoned by thousands of untested and unmonitored chemicals, which are highly profitable for big corporations that have a vested interest in keeping their toxic products on the commercial market.

With the OMC’s desire to ensure a healthy and sustainable future in mind, Mason expresses concern about the agrochemicals industry’s impacts on pollinators (bees), biodiversity and human health and reminds Steiner about the introduction to the UNEP report on ‘Global Bee Colony Disorders and Other Threats to Insect Pollinators’, which he launched in March 2011.

It says: “Current evidence demonstrates that a sixth major extinction of biodiversity event is underway. The earth is losing between 1 and 10% of its biodiversity per decade, mostly due to habitat loss, pest invasion, pollution, over-harvesting and disease. Certain natural ecosystem services are vital for human society.”

The report mentions both chemical spray drift from agricultural spraying and systemic neonicotinoid insecticides, and Mason is particularly concerned about neonicotinoids, which several papers show act on mammalian nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Given the quantity neonicotinoids that are being applied to seeds or sprayed on crops, Mason is left in no doubt that humans are being adversely affected.

In 2011, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a conference on pollinators. Three crucial admissions were made that had not been made before, either by industry or by the EPA: neonicotinoid pesticides are harmful to bees; tests and protocols that had allowed registration of these pesticides were not adapted to assess potential hazard and risk from this type of pesticide; and despite knowing all this, the protection agencies have allowed the pesticides industry to keep the neonicotinoids on the market.

Systemic neonicotinoid insecticides are still on the market, apart from those on flowering crops attractive to bees that were banned by EFSA in 2013. And new ones are being authorised by the European Commission. Mason notes that the quantities used after the ban stayed at the same level and the quantities exported by German companies even increased significantly.

While some parties say a ban would harm agriculture, Mason notes that Italy’s partial ban on systemic neonicotinoid insecticides in 2008 has been successful. After seven years, crop yield is within the expected range. It is also worth noting the results of the two-year Pan-European epidemiological study on honeybee colony losses. This was a landmark study that revealed the UK was suffering one of the worst rates of honeybee colony deaths in Europe. In the winter of 2012-13, 29% of honeybee colonies in the UK died, with only Belgium suffering a higher rate of losses (34%) of the 17 countries surveyed. By contrast, only 5% of colonies in Italy were lost.

Mason indicates that Bayer and Syngenta have concealed unpublished field trials with the US EPA. She also notes that field trials on neonicotinoid insecticides showed Syngenta’s thiamethoxam and Bayer’s clothianidin caused serious harm to honeybees at high levels. Yet in August 2016, Syngenta had told Greenpeace that: “none of the studies Syngenta has undertaken or commissioned for use by regulatory agencies have shown damages to the health of bee colonies.”

In response, Prof Dave Goulson, a UK bumblebee researcher at the University of Sussex, said: “That clearly contradicts their own study”. Goulson & Nicholls have just published a paper: ‘The canary in the coalmine; bee declines as an indicator of environmental health’. Goulson states, “We argue that bee declines are indicators of pervasive and ongoing environmental damage that is likely to impact broadly on biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides.”

According to Mason, Industry pays about 60% of UK Chemicals Regulation Directorate budget. She argues that the loyalty of the staff must lie with the industry that pays them and asks is the directorate a safety agency or a corporate service agency? She implies it is the latter.

What is also of great concern is that the UK Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA) survey of pesticides 1988 to 2014 confirms that pesticide residues on British food are increasing annually. Moreover, there is strong evidence of increased bee population extinction rates in response to neonicotinoid seed treatment use on oilseed rape and that, overall, biodiversity has crashed.

In what is a long and well-researched letter, Mason goes on to make many more points. For those who have read any of Mason’s previous papers and correspondence with officials, they will be familiar her overall theme of powerful corporations using their financial clout and political leverage to co-opt officials, undermine regulatory integrity and distort science to serve their interests at the expense of public health and the environment.

Why is Mason writing to the OMC and Steiner?

The OMC says it wants to facilitate a radical shake-up in politics and business to deliver progress on various pressing issues affecting humanity. To ensure maximum impact, it could start by focusing on the links between politics and business and the capture of international bodies, national governments and regulatory agencies by big business, which Mason has outlined (see previous link) as have various others (for example see this, which contains relevant links to illustrate the point). These corporations are driven by one thing alone: the compulsion to make profits and the obligation to deliver on shareholder dividends. The public interest is not their concern – that is left to public institutions – which big business has compromised. And Mason implies that the OMC may be no different in terms of certain commissioners’ conflicts of interest and their ideological commitment to corporate power.

Any institution committed to radically shaking up politics and business should be both willing and able to call to account powerful private interests and not be compromised by ideology or conflicts of interest. However, Rosemary Mason argues that both ideology and conflicts of interest severely undermine the OMC and its stated aims. For example, in the 2013 report of the OMC ‘Now for the Long Term’, compiled by Pascal Lamy, former Director General of the World Trade Organisation, 63% chronic diseases were mostly attributed to lifestyle choices and there was no mention of pesticides.

Mason argues it is highly convenient to associate chronic disease with ‘lifestyle choices’. This neatly draws attention away from structural determinants of poor health that are embedded in society as a result of the political power and everyday products and practices of powerful industries, not least the agrochemicals sector.

In a previous document, Mason has indicated how ‘lifestyle choice’ and alcohol consumption have become convenient scapegoats; she provides evidence to indicate that agrochemicals, not alcohol, are largely responsible for various cancers. In effect, the pesticides industry is being let off the hook by the lifestyle choice/alcohol narrative which emphasises individual responsibility not corporate culpability.

In her open letter to Achim Steiner, Mason pulls no punches when going through a list of OMC commissioners to illustrate individual commissioner’s conflicts of interest and allegiances.

Commissioners with allegiances to global corporations and corporate power

The Chairman of the Oxford Martin Commission is Pascal Lamy, Former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In a case brought by the US, Canada, and Argentina in 2006, the WTO ruled that the European moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops was illegal. The relevance of GM crops to this discussion should be made clear: the GM issue is closely aligned with Mason’s concerns about the indiscriminate use of toxic agrochemicals (not least glyphosate – Monsanto’s Roundup and its Roundup Ready GM seeds). Moreover, the GM model of agriculture is fraudulent (having been corrupted by corporate interests) and is being driven by governments that collude with powerful corporations, which in turn have a stake in denigrating and displacing more sustainable, appropriate and effective models of farming.

Sir John Beddington is Professor of Natural Resources Management for the OMC. He was made Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Government in 2007. In 2012, he declared his faith in GM technology. “And among those scientific wonders, the use of genetically modified crops has a particularly rich potential”. Beddington added. “Just look at the problems that the world faces: water shortages and salination of existing water supplies, for example. GM crops should be able to deal with that.”

Beddington would do well to look elsewhere for solutions to water shortages and salinization. More sustainable solutions already exist. Indeed, GM belongs to a corporate-driven ‘Green Revolution’ model of agriculture that has seriously adversely impacted food security as well as the environment, farmers’ livelihoods,  and traditional farming practices that were highly productive and ecologically friendly.

Lionel Barber is editor of The Financial Times, a very business-orientated UK paper. According to Colin Macilwain, “the British press – led by the BBC, which treats the Confederation of British Industry with the deference the Vatican gets in Rome – is overwhelmingly conservative and pro-business in its outlook. It is quite unperturbed by the fact that the UK Science Media Centre’s sponsors include AstraZeneca, BP, Coca-Cola, L’Oreal, Monsanto, Syngenta (as well as Nature Publishing Group) but not a single environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) or trade union.”

Another member of the OMC is Julia Marton-Lefèvre. She has just left her post as Director-General of IUCN. She serves as environmental advisor for Dow Chemical Company and The Coca-Cola Company, two companies with dubious track records.

Then there is Lord Chris Patten, Chancellor, University of Oxford and former Chairman of the BBC Trust. Mason notes that the BBC is a strong supporter of the agrochemical industry and GM crops. Many people have complained that BBC coverage is completely unbalanced but each time the BBC Complaints Unit dismisses their claims.

A BBC Panorama programme on GM Crops was also widely condemned. Mason notes that ‘GM Food – Cultivating Fear’ was selective and prejudicial and resembled little more than the most clichéd corporate press release.

While the OMC states that GM is not a magic bullet (p. 27) and should be discussed along with other options, Mason is correct to flag up what seem to be some clear allegiances in favour of this technology.

OMC: the solution or the problem?

In its document ‘Now for the Long Term‘, the OMC talks a lot about ‘growth’ and sustainable development. However, the question is: how can figures with deep connections to corporations, which have a vested interest in maintaining a financially lucrative status quo, bring about the much-needed radical changes that are required to deal with, for instance, climate change, rising inequality or an unsustainable and damaging model of chemical-intensive agriculture?

They cannot. In fact, Mason argues that the OMC resembles ‘an all the year round’ Bilderberg Group from the higher echelons of big business. Ultimately, corporate imperialism is the problem and not the solution. The institutions of international capitalism – from the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO to the compliant bureaucracies of national states or supranational unions – facilitate private capital’s ability to appropriate wealth and institute everyday forms of structural violence (unemployment, bad housing, poverty, disease, toxic chemicals, environmental destruction, etc) that have become ‘accepted’ as necessary and taken for granted within mainstream media and political narratives.

Therefore, if we are to have genuinely effective solutions for the world’s most pressing problems, there must be a deep commitment to reigning in corporate power; not extending it by handing over policy-making to ‘free’ market ideologues or corporate missionaries. Solutions involve challenging a dominant narrative that is not prepared to question or is incapable of questioning a corrupt neoliberal capitalism and which privileges private interests and the private ownership of key industries and resources ahead of public need.

As for addressing the agrochemicals issue that Mason discusses, if we are to have a radical shake-up, this should be based on the recommendations of numerous high-profile reports. It should entail making a fundamental shift towards a more democratic, less chemical-intensive model of food production. This would be rooted in investing in ecologically sustainable practices, supporting the bedrock of global food production – small farms (and thus rural communities and jobs) – and encouraging climate-resilient and climate-friendly practices: in other words an agriculture rooted in human need and not corporate greed.

The leader and co-head of the Syrian – Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Salih Muslim, said Turkey is blocking the anti ISIS operation in Mosul, Iraq. The PYD leader’s statement on Friday coincided with the northern Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party’s call to arrange a post-ISIS settlement between the federal government of Iraq and the semi-autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq.

PYD co-head Salih Muslim stressed that Turkey first blocked the liberation of Raqqa by invading Jarablus in Syria and that Turkey now is blocking the liberation of Mosul in Iraq by deploying Turkish troops into the Bashiqa district near the city of Mosul.

Earlier this month the Turkish parliament, unilaterally and without authorization from the Iraqi or Syrian government, prolonged the authorization of the deployment of Turkish forces to Syria and Iraq for another year.

Salih Muslim accused Turkey of cooperating with ISIS, saying that “The main goal of the Turkish move in Syria and Iraq is to support Daesh” (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL, or Islamic State).

Forces of the armed wings of the PYD, the YPG and the all female YPJ, reportedly won’t head for Raqqa until the road to the besieged enclave of Efrin in northwestern Syria is open. The PYD maintains that neither Turkey, Islamist militants nor the Syrian government is currently interested in YPG / YPJ forces fighting ISIS in Efrin.

The PYD co-leaders statement comes against a complex backdrop involving various Kurdish parties and militants in the greater region as well as their respective allies. The PYD is being supported by the United States. The PYD is, however, also an ally of the Russian and Iranian – backed Turkish Kurdistan Worker’s Party – PKK, which is outlawed in Turkey, the USA and the EU.

Neither the PYD nor the PKK are closely allied to the northern Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which is backed by the USA, nor of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDP-I) which is a close ally of the Iraqi KDP. PYD leader Salih Muslim’s statement about Turkey’s obstructions of the liberation of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa coincided with demands by the KDP to reach a post-ISIS agreement between the federal government of Iraq and the Kurdish northern Iraq before the launch of the liberation of Mosul.

KDP leader and northern Iraqi Kurdish “president” Masoud Barzani, in August, said that Kurdish independence was the only remaining option. Clashes between the KDP-I and the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Iran have also increased significantly over the past months. The situation in Mosul, for its part, potentially pits not only Turkish troops and ISIS against each other, it also pits the KPP’s Peshmerga fighters against federal Iraqi troops and, maybe more importantly, Iranian-backed Iraqi militia.

“Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the (Assad) regime … One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment.” – Washington Post

Call it stealth warfare, call it poking the bear, call it whatever you’d like. The fact is, the Syrian war has entered a new and more dangerous phase increasing the chances of a catastrophic confrontation between the US and Russia. This new chapter of the conflict is the brainchild of Pentagon warlord, Ash Carter, whose attack on a Syrian outpost at Deir Ezzor killed 62 Syrian regulars putting a swift end to the fragile ceasefire agreement. Carter and his generals opposed the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal because it would have required “military and intelligence cooperation with the Russians”. In other words, the US would have had to get the greenlight from Moscow for its bombing targets which would have undermined its ability to assist its jihadist fighters on the ground. That was a real deal-breaker for the Pentagon. But bombing Deir Ezzor fixed all that. It got the Pentagon out of the jam it was in, it torpedoed the ceasefire, and it allowed Carter to launch his own private shooting match without presidential authorization.

Mission accomplished. So what sort of escalation does Carter have in mind, after all, most analysts assume that a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia will lead to a nuclear war. Is he really willing to take that risk? Heck no, but not everyone agrees that more violence will lead to a nuclear exchange. Carter, for example, seems to think that he can raise the stakes considerably without any real danger, which is why he intends to conduct a low-intensity, stealth war on mainly Syrian assets that will force Putin to increase Russia’s military commitment. The larger Russia’s military commitment, the greater probability of a quagmire, which is the primary objective of Plan C, aka–Plan Carter. Take a look at this clip from an article in Tuesday’s Washington Post which helps to explain what’s going on:

“U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime will be back on the table Wednesday at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the way forward in Syria… Inside the national security agencies, meetings have been going on for weeks to consider new options to recommend to the president to address the ongoing crisis in Aleppo,…A meeting of the National Security Council, which could include the president, could come as early as this weekend. Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the regime… The options under consideration… include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships… One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said.” (Obama administration considering strikes on Assad, again, Washington Post)

Don’t you think the Washington Post should have mentioned that Carter’s sordid-little enterprise is already underway? Consider the bombing of Deir Ezzor, for example. Doesn’t that meet the Post’s standard of “U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime”? Sure, it does. And what about the two Syrian bridges US warplanes took out over the Euphrates last week? (making it more difficult to attack ISIS strongholds in the eastern quadrant of the country) Don’t they count?Of course, they do. And let’s not forget the fact that Carter’s jihadist buddies on the ground launched a mortar attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus on Tuesday. That’s another part of this low-intensity war that’s already underway. So all this rubbish about Obama mulling over these “new options” for “military strikes” is complete hogwash. Plan Carter is already in full swing, the train already left the station. The only thing missing is presidential authorization which probably isn’t necessary since Il Duce Carter decided that it was his turn to run the country. Now check out this clip from a Memo to the President from a group of ex-U.S. intelligence agents who compelled to warn Obama about (among other things) “asserting White House civilian control over the Pentagon.” Here’s an excerpt:

“In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov deal. We can assume that what Lavrov told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26: “My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia… apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.” Lavrov’s words are not mere rhetoric … Policy differences between the White House and the Pentagon are rarely as openly expressed as they are now over policy on Syria.” (Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia, Consortium News)

How shocking is that? When was the last time you read a memo from retired Intel agents warning the president that the Pentagon was usurping his Constitutional authority? That sounds pretty serious, don’t you think? Bottom line: The Pentagon is basically prosecuting their own little war in Syria and then chatting up the policy with Obama when they damn-well feel like it. Here’s more from the Washington Post:

“The CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff … expressed support for such “kinetic” options, the official said … That marked an increase of support for striking Assad compared with the last time such options were considered.” (Washington Post)

Of course they want to bomb Assad. They’re losing! Everyone wants to bomb someone when they’re losing. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It’s a very bad idea. Just like supporting Sunni extremists is a bad idea. Just like giving shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) to fanatical crackpots is a bad idea. How crazy is that? And how long before one of these religious nutcases use their new toys to take down an Israeli or American jetliner? Not very long, I’d wager. The idea of doubling-down on homicidal maniacs (By providing them with more lethal weapons) is really one of the dumbest ideas of all time, and yet, the Pentagon and CIA seem to think that it’s tip-top military strategy. Here’s one last blurb from the WA Post article:

“Kerry’s deputy, Antony Blinken, testified last week that the U.S. leverage in Russia comes from the notion that Russia will eventually become weary of the cost of its military intervention in Syria. “The leverage is the consequences for Russia of being stuck in a quagmire that is going to have a number of profoundly negative effects,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.” (Washington Post)

See? There it is in black and white. “Quagmire”. The new “Plan C” strategy is designed to create a quagmire for Putin by gradually ratcheting up the violence forcing him to prolong his stay and deepen his commitment. It’s a clever trap and it could work, too. The only hitch is that Putin and his allies appear to be making steady headway on the battlefield. That’s going to make a lot harder for Syria’s enemies to continue the provocations and incitements without triggering massive retaliation. But maybe Carter hasn’t thought about that yet. NOTE: Russia issues warning to Pentagon; Hostile aircraft that threatens Syrian troops will be shot down This is from a Thursday report on Sputnik International:

“The Russian Minister of Defense said “that “Russian S-300, S-400 air defense systems deployed in Syria’s Hmeymim and Tartus have combat ranges that may surprise any unidentified airborne targets. Operators of Russian air defense systems won’t have time to identify the origin of airstrikes, and the response will be immediate. Any illusions about “invisible” jets will inevitably be crushed by disappointing reality.” No More Deir ez-Zors “I point out to all the ‘hotheads’ that following the September 17 coalition airstrike on the Syrian Army in Deir ez-Zor we took all necessary measures to exclude any similar ‘accidents’ happening to Russian forces in Syria,” Konashenkov said. (Sputnik)

Mike Whitney  lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

The tensions between Russia and the USA have reached an unprecedented level. I fully agree with the participants of this CrossTalk show – the situation is even worse and more dangerous than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides are now going to the so-called “Plan B” which, simply put, stand for, at best, no negotiations and, at worst, a war between Russia and the USA.

The key thing to understand in the Russian stance in this, an other, recent conflicts with the USA is that Russia is still much weaker than the USA and that she therefore does not want war. That does not, however, mean that she is not actively preparing for war. In fact, she very much and actively does. All this means is that should a conflict occur, Russia you try, as best can be, to keep it as limited as possible.

In theory, these are, very roughly, the possible levels of confrontation:

1. A military standoff à la Berlin in 1961. One could argue that this is what is already taking place right now, albeit in a more long-distance and less visible way.
2. A single military incident, such as what happened recently when Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 and Russia chose not to retaliate.
3. A series of localized clashes similar to what is currently happening between India and Pakistan.
4. A conflict limited to the Syrian theater of war (say like the war between the UK and Argentina over the Malvinas Islands).
5. A regional or global military confrontation between the USA and Russia.
6. A full scale thermonuclear war between the USA and Russia

During my years as a student of military strategy I have participated in many exercises on escalation and de-escalation and I can attest that while it is very easy to come up with escalatory scenarios, I have yet to see a credible scenario for de-escalation. What is possible, however, is the so-called “horizontal escalation” or “asymmetrical escalation” in which one side choses not to up the ante or directly escalate, but instead choses a different target for retaliation, not necessarily a more valuable one, just a different one on the same level of conceptual importance (in the USA Joshua M. Epstein and Spencer D. Bakich did most of the groundbreaking work on this topic).

The main reason why we can expect the Kremlin to try to find asymmetrical options to respond to a US attack is that in the Syrian context Russia is hopelessly outgunned by the US/NATO, at least in quantitative terms. The logical solutions for the Russians is to use their qualitative advantage or to seek “horizontal targets” as possible retaliatory options. This week, something very interesting and highly uncharacteristic happened: Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, openly mentioned one such option. Here is what he said:

“As for Kirby’s threats about possible Russian aircraft losses and the sending of Russian servicemen back to Russia in body bags, I would say that we know exactly where and how many “unofficial specialists” operate in Syria and in the Aleppo province and we know that they are involved in the operational planning and that they supervise the operations of the militants. Of course, one can continue to insist that they are unsuccessfully involved in trying to separate the al-Nusra terrorists from the “opposition” forces. But if somebody tries to implement these threats, it is by no means certain that these militants will have to time to get the hell out of there.”

Nice, no? Konashenkov appears to be threatening the “militants” but he is sure to mention that there are plenty of “unofficial specialists” amongst these militants and that Russia knows exactly where they are and how many of them there are. Of course, officially, Obama has declared that there are a few hundred such US special advisors in Syria. A well-informed Russian source suggests that there are up to 5’000 foreign ‘advisors’ to the Takfiris including about 4’000 Americans. I suppose that the truth is somewhere between these two figures.

So the Russian threat is simple: you attack us and we will attack US forces in Syria. Of course, Russia will vehemently deny targeting US servicemen and insist that the strike was only against terrorists, but both sides understand what is happening here. Interestingly, just last week the Iranian Fars news agency reported that such a Russian attack had already happened:

30 Israeli, Foreign Intelligence Officers Killed in Russia’s Caliber Missile Attack in Aleppo: “The Russian warships fired three Caliber missiles at the foreign officers’ coordination operations room in Dar Ezza region in the Western part of Aleppo near Sam’an mountain, killing 30 Israeli and western officers,” the Arabic-language service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency quoted battlefield source in Aleppo as saying on Wednesday. The operations room was located in the Western part of Aleppo province in the middle of sky-high Sam’an mountain and old caves. The region is deep into a chain of mountains. Several US, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari and British officers were also killed along with the Israeli officers. The foreign officers who were killed in the Aleppo operations room were directing the terrorists’ attacks in Aleppo and Idlib.”

Whether this really happened or whether the Russians are leaking such stories to indicate that this could happen, the fact remains that US forces in Syria could become an obvious target for Russian retaliation, whether by cruise missile, gravity bombs or direct action operation by Russian special forces. The US also has several covert military installations in Syria, including at least one airfield with V-22 Osprey multi-mission tiltrotor aircraft.

Another interesting recent development has been the Fox News report that Russians are deploying S-300V (aka “SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft system”) in Syria. Check out this excellent article for a detailed discussion of the capabilities of this missile system. I will summarize it by saying that the S-300V can engage ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, very low RCS (“stealth”) aircraft and AWACS aircraft. This is an Army/Army Corps -level air defense system, well capable of defending most of the Syrian airspace, but also reach well into Turkey, Cyprus, the eastern Mediterranean and Lebanon.

The powerful radars of this system could not only detect and engage US aircraft (including “stealth”) at a long distance, but they could also provide a tremendous help for the few Russian air superiority fighters by giving them a clear pictures of the skies and enemy aircraft by using encrypted datalinks. Finally, US air doctrine is extremely dependent on the use of AWACS aircraft to guide and support US fighters. The S-300V will forces US/NATO AWACS to operate at a most uncomfortable distance. Between the longer-range radars of the Russian Sukhois, the radars on the Russian cruisers off the Syrian coast, and the S-300 and S-300V radars on the ground, the Russians will have a much better situational awareness than their US counterparts.

It appears that the Russians are trying hard to compensate for their numerical inferiority by deploying high-end systems for which the US has no real equivalent or good counter-measures.

There are basically two options of deterrence: denial, when you prevent your enemy from hitting his targets and retaliation, when you make the costs of an enemy attack unacceptably high for him. The Russians appear to be pursuing both tracks at the same time. We can thus summarize the Russian approach as such

1. Delay a confrontation as much as possible (buy time).
2. Try to keep any confrontation at the lowest possible escalatory level.
3. If possible, reply with asymmetrical/horizontal escalations.
4. Rather then “prevail” against the US/NATO – make the costs of attack too high.
5. Try to put pressure on US “allies” in order to create tensions inside the Empire.
6. Try to paralyze the USA on a political level by making the political costs of an attack too high-end.
7. Try to gradually create the conditions on the ground (Aleppo) to make a US attack futile

To those raised on Hollywood movies and who still watch TV, this kind of strategy will elicit only frustration and condemnation. There are millions of armchair strategists who are sure that they could do a much better job than Putin to counter the US Empire. These folks have now been telling us for *years* that Putin “sold out” the Syrians (and the Novorussians) and that the Russians ought to do X, Y and Z to defeat the AngloZionist Empire. The good news is that none of these armchair strategists sit in the Kremlin and that the Russians have stuck to their strategy over the past years, one day at a time, even when criticized by those who want quick and “easy” solutions. But the main good news is that the Russian strategy is working. Not only is the Nazi-occupied Ukraine quite literally falling apart, but the US has basically run out of options in Syria (see this excellent analysis by my friend Alexander Mercouris in the Duran).

The only remaining logical steps left for the USA in Syria is to accept Russia’s terms or leave. The problem is that I am not at all convinced that the Neocons, who run the White House, Congress and the US corporate media, are “rational” at all. This is why the Russians employed so many delaying tactics and why they have acted with such utmost caution: they are dealing with professional incompetent ideologues who simply do not play by the unwritten but clear rules of civilized international relations. This is what makes the current crisis so much worse than even the Cuban Missile Crisis: one superpower has clearly gone insane.

Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII over Aleppo?

Maybe, maybe not. But what if we rephrase that question and ask

Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII to maintain their status as the “world’s indispensable nation”, the “leader of the free world”, the “city on the hill” and all the rest of this imperialistic nonsense?

Here I would submit that yes, they potentially are.

After all, the Neocons are correct when they sense that if Russia gets away with openly defying and defeating the USA in Syria, nobody will take the AngloZionists very seriously any more.

How do you think the Neocons think when they see the President of the Philippines publicly calling Obama a “son of a whore” and then tells the EU to go and “f*ck itself”?

Of course, the Neocons can still find some solace in the abject subservience of the European political elites, but still – they know that he writing is on the wall and that their Empire is rapidly crumbling, not only in Syria, the Ukraine or Asia, but even inside the USA. The biggest danger here is that the Neocons might try to rally the nation around the flag, either by staging yet another false flag or by triggering a real international crisis.

At this point in time all we can do is wait and hope that there is enough resistance inside the US government to prevent a US attack on Syria before the next Administration comes in. And while I am no supporter of Trump, I would agree that Hillary and her evil cabal of russophobic Neocons is so bad that Trump does give me some hope, at least in comparison to Hillary.

So if Trump wins, then Russia’s strategy will be basically justified. Once Trump is on the White House, there is at least the possibility of a comprehensive redefinition of US-Russian relations which would, of course, begin with a de-escalation in Syria: while Obama/Hillary categorically refuse to get rid of Daesh (by that I mean al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, and all their various denominations), Trump appears to be determined to seriously fight them, even if that means that Assad stays in power. There is most definitely a basis for dialog here. If Hillary comes in, then the Russians will have to make an absolutely crucial call: how important is Syria in the context of their goal to re-sovereignize Russia and to bring down the AngloZionist Empire? Another way of formulating the same question is “would Russia prefer a confrontation with the Empire in Syria or in the Ukraine?”.

One way to gauge the mood in Russia is to look at the language of a recent law proposed by President Putin and adopted by the Duma which dealt with the issue of the Russia-US Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA) which, yet again, saw the US yet again fail to deliver on their obligations and which Russia has now suspended. What is interesting, is the language chosen by the Russians to list the conditions under which they would resume their participation in this agreement and, basically, agree to resume any kind of arms negotiations:

1. A reduction of military infrastructure and the number of the US troops stationed on the territory of NATO member states that joined the alliance after September 1, 2000, to the levels at which they were when the original agreement first entered into force.
2. The abandonment of the hostile policy of the US towards Russia, which should be carried out with the abolition of the Magnitsky Act of 2012 and the conditions of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, which were directed against Russia.
3. The abolition of all sanctions imposed by the US on certain subjects of the Russian Federation, Russian individuals and legal entities.
4. The compensation for all the damages suffered by Russia as a result of the imposition of sanctions.
5. The US is also required to submit a clear plan for irreversible plutonium disposition covered by the PMDA.

Now the Russians are not delusional. They know full well that the USA will never accept such terms. So what is this really all about? It is a diplomatic but unambiguous way to tell the USA the exact same thing which Philippine President Duterte (and Victoria Nuland) told the EU.

The Americans better start paying attention.

Just as this article was ready to go to print, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia. This is what the Official website of the Nobel Prize reports:

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220 000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people.”

The announcement was made on Friday 7 October, 11:00 a.m., well after the rejection of the gratuitous plebiscite by less than 0.5% of less than 40% of eligible voters, and after President Santos had already decided and declared to extend the ceasefire to 31 October 2016 until which date a renegotiated arrangement had to be found with the FARC ‘rebels’ – a virtually impossible task. –

This is so reminiscent of another Peace prize award, namely the one to President Obama in 2009, in the hope that he would  bring Peace to the world. At that time the US of A was involved in two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, almost 8 years later Obama boasts of being involved in seven wars around the globe. Bravo! For the Nobel Committee.

Does this award mean that indeed Mr. Santos may disregard the highly questionable referendum result in the name of Peace, as was suggested by the Nobel Committee, or will he go back to war on a new page and under new premises, =i.e. with a largely disarmed FARC in the name of continuous fear, conflict and killing in his country?

We will soon see where his alliances are, with the People of Colombia – or with his North American Masters of Chaos and Destruction.

Colombia apparently voted against Peace with a margin of less than 0.5%, to be exact 0.43%, with a voter participation of only 40%. Can you imagine! This looks, first, like a boycott, as many people didn’t believe in the process and didn’t believe that the results would be adhered to; and, second, it smells of fraud. For example, with most of the ballots counted, the Choco region which suffered heavily from the war, voted with 80% yes. An overwhelming ‘yes’ also came from the Caribbean areas.

Who was counting? All pre-plebiscite opinion polls indicated an overwhelming ‘yes’ for Peace.

Exit polls indicated a comfortable win for Peace.

Why is nobody asking for a recount? Or maybe they do, but we don’t hear about it.

Why could that be? – Maybe because Peace was never on the Colombian cum US Governments agenda. It was just a manipulation of the public mind; planting an illusion, as any hope for Peace these days, any Peace, anywhere in the world, is an illusion. But an illusion deviates people’s attention from reality. That was certainly achieved.

The 4-year Peace process, initiated by President Santos (image left) started on 19 November 2012 and ended on 24 August, 2016. It was facilitated and formally sponsored by Norway and Cuba. Talks were held in Havana and co-sponsored by Venezuela and Chile. The deal was signed in Havana with big fanfare on 26 September 2016.

For many, Santos’ initiative to have the Peace Treaty ratified by a referendum, came as a surprise. In any case, the outcome of the plebiscite is not legally binding. Under the circumstances and with such a small margin, even if it was not manipulated, any healthy and peace loving government would dismiss the narrow outcome and adhere to and promote the implementation of the Peace Agreement.

During 52 years the 7,000 to 10,000 strong leftist FARC militia fought in defense of the rural poor against an elite of the rich, mostly urban dweller and latifundios, against government forces with support of the US military stationed in Colombia. The official death toll of 200,000 to 300,000 may in reality be at least double that number, not mentioning the millions of uprooted people who had to flee and lost their homes and land. Reaching a Peace deal would be a welcome and well-deserved achievement. Indeed, the signature event was celebrated throughout Latin America and the world (FARC-EP stands for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo / Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – The People’s Army).

Instead of following the overwhelming people’s desire for Peace – I repeat, after 52 years! of bloody war – President Santos announced last Tuesday to extend the ceasefire until 31 October 2016, saying he hoped that renegotiations with FARC would lead to ‘arrangements’ to find a solution to this conflict. Wasn’t the solution already found when the Peace Agreement was signed on 26 September?

Immediately after the plebiscite’s ‘rejection’ light (very light), Santos met with his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, who campaigned against the Agreement. That in itself is strange.

Two Presidents from the same party, friends, and on the payroll of the same masters, the CIA, were leading two different campaigns. While Juan Manuel Santos, the current President, was waving the Peace flag, Uribe drove a fear-mongering campaign especially focusing on the general amnesty concession that FARC got out of the deal.

Before Uribe became President in 2002, he formed the ‘Colombia First’ movement. His growing so-called independent party grew even stronger with political elitists and plutocrats to bring him to a second term in 2006. This new coalition of right-wing parties, called the ‘Urbistas’, eventually was the platform on which Juan Manuel Santos was elected in 2010. The current government has amassed a right-wing alliance of conservatives and liberals that at one point controlled 94% of Congress. In the meantime, Alvaro Uribe formed another right-wing Centro-Democratic party. Under two different flags but the same ideology – and less obvious – they control now Congress as a political “Cartel”, as Harvard academic James Robinson, puts it, to prevent any other political force to rise and challenge the exclusive power of the Right – which, needless to say, works in close collaboration with Washington’s interests.

It is therefore all the stranger that the two presidential buddies work for different outcomes of the plebiscite. It looks more like a maneuver to deviate and confuse public opinion. Can you imagine, that the US of A, with seven military bases – and more to come – will want Peace?

Colombia is THE strategic corner of Latin America, hub of multibillion dollar drug trade, adjacent to two non-compliant nation states Venezuela and Ecuador, from where they plan to reconquer the sub-continent, their ‘Backyard’, as Obama put it so undiplomatically insulting, yet adroitly, as it reflects the mindset of Washington and its citizenry.

In the fall of 2009, US and Colombian officials signed an agreement, granting the US armed forces access to seven Colombian military bases for ten years. These are two quotes from a US Air Force document about the bases:

“Opportunity for Full Spectrum Operations throughout South America, against threats not only from drug trade, but also from ‘anti-US governments’ in the region.”

“The agreement operates from the same (failed) mindset that has given rise to the School of the Americas (SOA / WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases is to ensure US control of the region through military means.”

Why would they want Peace now, when chaos and war helps to divide and conquer? But then why carry the Peace process all the way to signature, just to be undone by a phony referendum? – It’s part of propaganda, brainwashing and numbing peoples’ minds. The four years of ‘negotiations’ which made the world believe that Peace was a seriously option, offered the government also a state of semi-ceasefire, a time during which they could regroup, strategize and especially disarm the FARC rebels, defenders of the poor rural workers and of democracy. The FARC in good fate participated in this gambit. The masters of deception once more succeeded with the help of Washington, the Pentagon and the CIA.

What is amazing though, is that Latin America, the world, including the four sponsors and co-sponsors, are rather silent about the outcome of the referendum that came out of the blue. It must be the sense of ‘democracy’ that lays behind the referendum. It deserves support, no matter how narrow the margin and how obvious the manipulation of results. How naïve! – The referendum was not needed, since during the four years of ‘negotiations’ the crucial points of discussion and eventually of agreement, were vetted sufficiently with Congress to not pose a problem for ratification; and this especially since the result of the plebiscite has by Colombia’s Constitution no legal binding. The FARC now largely disarmed, will give the government a clear advantage, hoping to eradicate a weakened movement of rebellion for justice.

Remember, this is a lesson practiced many times by the empire (and passed on to its vassals), not last in Iraq, when first the country was weakened with the so called Gulf War, 1990-1991, and the ensuing ten years of murderous sanctions imposed by the US and its ‘coalition of the willing’ (and spineless), including the most horrendous bombing campaigns under Clinton – of which the mainstream media reported next to nothing – disabling much of the Iraqi armed forces. Hence, the 2003 totally illegal Bush-Blair Shock and Awe campaign could inflict maximum damage and chaos on one of the most progressive Middle Eastern countries. The NO PEACE dictum in Colombia follows a similar pattern.

Peter Koenig is an economist, and water resources and environmental specialist. He has worked for over 30 years with the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Swiss Development Cooperation, in Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, East and South East Asia and Latin America. Peter is also a geopolitical analyst for Global Research, Information Clearing House, RT, PressTV, Sputnik, TeleSUR and The 4th Media, China. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

In political terms, most people might tend to associate the word ’occupation’ with a (foreign) military presence that controls a region or country. Any such occupation may not necessarily imply troops visibly patrolling the streets. It can be much subtler. Take Britain, for instance. The Guardian journalist Seumas Milne says that the US’s six military bases, dozens of secretive facilities and 10,000 military personnel in Britain effectively tie the country’s foreign policy into the agenda of the US empire and its endless wars.

The vast majority of Brits do not regard this as an ‘occupation’. They might feel they are being ‘protected’ by the US with which Britain has a ‘special relationship’. Such is the Stockholm syndrome.

The population is spun a yarn that the US, Britain and the wider NATO project are in any case forces for good in an unpredictable and dangerous world (despite the actual reality which suggests the complete opposite). With the US having a strong military presence in so many other countries across the world, that’s certainly a lot of very ‘special relationships’.

But occupation can take many forms. It does not necessarily imply a military presence or military domination. For example, in India right now, there is a drive to get genetically modified (GM) mustard sanctioned for commercial cultivation; this would be the first GM food crop to be grown in the country. Unfortunately, this push for GM is based on a flawed premise and an agenda steeped in fraud and unremitting regulatory delinquency, and any green light to go ahead would open the floodgates for more unnecessary and damaging GM food crops.

The arguments being put forward to justify the entry of GM food crops is that they would enhance productivity, make a positive contribution to farmers’ livelihoods and be better for the environment. All such claims have been shown to be bogus (with the opposite being true in each case) or at the very least are highly questionable.

GM mustard in India is ultimately a Bayer construct, and, given the proposed takeover/merger with St Louis-based Monsanto, US interests would benefit from its commercialisation. The Monsanto-Bayer marriage would not only be convenient for the US in Europe (providing it with a much improved strategic foothold there, given that Bayer is Swiss based), but it would also (through Bayer’s GM mustard) provide it with the opportunity to further penetrate Indian agriculture.

Monsanto already has a firm strategic presence in India. It has to an extent become the modern-day East India company. The Bayer merger can only serve to further the purposes of those in the US who have always regarded GM biotechnology in more geopolitical terms as a means for securing greater control of global agriculture (via patented GM seeds and proprietary inputs) in much the same way the ‘Green Revolution’ did.

In broad terms, US geopolitical strategy has seen the exporting of a strident neoliberalism across the globe underpinned by a devastating militarism. For example, aside from Monsanto’s well-documented links to the US military, its seeds conveniently followed hot on the heels into Ukraine on the back of a US-instigated coup and into Iraq after Washington’s invasion. The reality behind the globalisation agenda (that transnational agribusiness drives and exploits) is an imposed form of capitalism that results in destruction and war for those who attempt to remain independent or structural violence (poverty, inequality, ‘austerity’, etc) via privatisation and deregulation for millions in countries that acquiesce.

Part of this structural violence involves the toxic inputs of transnational agribusiness and the imposition of an unsustainable model of Green Revolution farming. The result is huge profits for the agritech/agribusiness cartel and a public burdened with massive environmental, social and health costs. As if that isn’t bad enough, it must be remembered that the Green Revolution (of which GM represents phase two) is ultimately based on the pilfering of peasants’ seeds that were developed over generations.

Once a country loses control of its seeds and thus its food and agriculture to outside forces, it becomes more deeply integrated into a globalised system of dependency (in some instances, ensuring they become complete basket cases dependent on the US), a process that could be accelerated by trade deals like the TTIP (Europe), TPA (Asia) and KIA (India), which would allow Washington to extend and further cement its political and economic influence over entire regions.

India’s apparent willingness to hand over its seeds and thus its food sovereignty to foreign interests is steeped in its acceptance of the West’s neoliberalism. Whether this entails complying with ‘enabling the business of agriculture’, an unremitting faith in ‘foreign direct investment’ (displacing its existing model of production with a destructive model that would benefit foreign corporations) or complying with the criteria for ‘ease of doing business‘, it is ironically being carried out under the auspices of a ruling BJP whose nationalistic rhetoric helped it gain power.

Report after report has indicated that small farmers using low-input, ecologically-friendly methods are key to feeding populations in countries like India. And a series of high-level reports (listed here) in India have advised against adopting the GM route.

Given the hold that the World Bank has on India, the revolving door between the WB/IMF and India’s institutions and the influence of foreign interests and corporations within the agriculture sector, it all begs the question: are sections of the Indian political elite suffering a severe bout of Stockholm syndrome?

Fifteen years after NATO’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the 9/11 and Al Qaeda lies that were used to justify the war have disappeared.

Now the truth about oil and gas, mineral wealth, opium and naked imperial ambition are all that remain.

The ambitions of Empire.

One Step Closer to military confrontation.

This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.

October 7th marks the 15 anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan

Fifteen years of massacres, fifteen years of drone strikes and civilian massacres…

We were told that the invasion of Afghanistan was in response to the 9/11 attacks. A carefully constructed lie.

GRTV Video Produced by James Corbett

Originally posted by Global Research in August 2015

Was the US deterrence military doctrine aimed against the Soviet Union during the Cold War era really “defensive” and who actually started the nuclear arms race paranoia?

Just weeks after the Second World War was over and Nazi Germany defeated Soviet Russia’s allies, the United States and Great Britain hastened to develop military plans aimed at dismantling the USSR and wiping out its cities with a massive nuclear strike.

Interestingly enough, then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had ordered the British Armed Forces’ Joint Planning Staff to develop a strategy targeting the USSR months before the end of the Second World War. The first edition of the plan was prepared on May 22, 1945. In accordance with the plan the invasion of Russia-held Europe by the Allied forces was scheduled on July 1, 1945.

Winston Churchill’s Operation Unthinkable

The plan, dubbed Operation Unthinkable, stated that its primary goal was “to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire. Even though ‘the will’ of these two countries may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland, that does not necessarily limit the military commitment.”

The British Armed Forces’ Joint Planning Staff underscored that the Allied Forces would win in the event of 1) the occupation of such metropolitan areas of Russia so that the war making capacity of the country would be reduced to a point to which further resistance would become impossible”; 2) “such a decisive defeat of the Russian forces in the field as to render it impossible for the USSR to continue the war.”

British generals warned Churchill that the “total war” would be hazardous to the Allied armed forces.

However, after the United States “tested” its nuclear arsenal in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Churchill and right-wing American policy makers started to persuade the White House to bomb the USSR. A nuclear strike against Soviet Russia, exhausted by the war with Germany, would have led to the defeat of the Kremlin at the same time allowing the Allied Forces to avoid US and British military casualties, Churchill insisted. Needless to say, the former British Prime Minister did not care about the death of tens of thousands of Russian peaceful civilians which were already hit severely by the four-year war nightmare.

“He [Churchill] pointed out that if an atomic bomb could be dropped on the Kremlin, wiping it out, it would be a very easy problem to handle the balance of Russia, which would be without direction,” an unclassified note from the FBI archive read.

Following in Churchill’s Footsteps: Operation Dropshot

Unthinkable as it may seem, Churchill’s plan literally won the hearts and minds of US policy makers and military officials. Between 1945 and the USSR’s first detonation of a nuclear device in 1949, the Pentagon developed at least nine nuclear war plans targeting Soviet Russia, according to US researchers Dr. Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod. In their book “To Win a Nuclear War: the Pentagon’s Secret War Plans,” based on declassified top secret documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the researchers exposed the US military’s strategies to initiate a nuclear war with Russia.

The names given to these plans graphically portray their offensive purpose: Bushwhacker, Broiler, Sizzle, Shakedown, Offtackle, Dropshot, Trojan, Pincher, and Frolic. The US military knew the offensive nature of the job President Truman had ordered them to prepare for and had named their war plans accordingly,” remarked American scholar J.W. Smith (“The World’s Wasted Wealth 2”).

These “first-strike” plans developed by the Pentagon were aimed at destroying the USSR without any damage to the United States.

The 1949 Dropshot plan envisaged that the US would attack Soviet Russia and drop at least 300 nuclear bombs and 20,000 tons of conventional bombs on 200 targets in 100 urban areas, including Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In addition, the planners offered to kick off a major land campaign against the USSR to win a “complete victory” over the Soviet Union together with the European allies. According to the plan Washington would start the war on January 1, 1957.

For a long period of time the only obstacle in the way of the US’ massive nuclear offensive was that the Pentagon did not possess enough atomic bombs (by 1948 Washington boasted an arsenal of 50 atomic bombs) as well as planes to carry them in. For instance, in 1948 the US Air Force had only thirty-two B-29 bombers modified to deliver nuclear bombs.

In September 1948 US president Truman approved a National Security Council paper (NSC 30) on “Policy on Atomic Warfare,” which stated that the United States must be ready to “utilize promptly and effectively all appropriate means available, including atomic weapons, in the interest of national security and must therefore plan accordingly.

At this time, the US generals desperately needed information about the location of Soviet military and industrial sites. So far, the US launched thousands of photographing overflights to the Soviet territory triggering concerns about a potential Western invasion of the USSR among the Kremlin officials. While the Soviets hastened to beef up their defensive capabilities, the military and political decision makers of the West used their rival’s military buildup as justification for building more weapons.

Meanwhile, in order to back its offensive plans Washington dispatched its B-29 bombers to Europe during the first Berlin crisis in 1948. In 1949 the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed, six years before the USSR and its Eastern European allies responded defensively by establishing the Warsaw Pact — the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance.

 

Soviet Nuclear Bomb Test Undermined US Plan

Just before the USSR tested its first atomic bomb, the US’ nuclear arsenal had reached 250 bombs and the Pentagon came to the conclusion that a victory over the Soviet Union was now “possible.” Alas, the detonation of the first nuclear bomb by the Soviet Union dealt a heavy blow to US militarists’ plans.

“The Soviet atomic bomb test on August 29, 1949 shook Americans who had believed that their atomic monopoly would last much longer, but did not immediately alter the pattern of war planning. The key issue remained just what level of damage would force a Soviet surrender,” Professor Donald Angus MacKenzie of the University of Edinburgh remarked in his essay “Nuclear War Planning and Strategies of Nuclear Coercion.”

Although Washington’s war planners knew that it would take years before the Soviet Union would obtain a significant atomic arsenal, the point was that the Soviet bomb could not be ignored.

The Scottish researcher highlighted that the US was mainly focused not on “deterrence” but on “offensive” preemptive strike. “There was unanimity in ‘insider circles’ that the United States ought to plan to win a nuclear war. The logic that to do so implied to strike first was inescapable,” he emphasized, adding that “first strike plans” were even represented in the official nuclear policy of the US.

Remarkably, the official doctrine, first announced by then US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1954, assumed America’s possible nuclear retaliation to “any” aggression from the USSR.

US’ Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)

Eventually, in 1960 the US’ nuclear war plans were formalized in the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP).

At first, the SIOP envisaged a massive simultaneous nuclear strike against the USSR’s nuclear forces, military targets, cities, as well as against China and Eastern Europe. It was planned that the US’ strategic forces would use almost 3,500 atomic warheads to bomb their targets. According to US generals’ estimates, the attack could have resulted in the death of about 285 to 425 million people. Some of the USSR’s European allies were meant to be completely “wiped out.”

“We’re just going to have to wipe it [Albania] out,” US General Thomas Power remarked at the 1960 SIOP planning conference, as quoted by MacKenzie.

However, the Kennedy administration introduced significant changes to the plan, insisting that the US military should avoid targeting Soviet cities and had to focus on the rival’s nuclear forces alone. In 1962 the SIOP was modified but still it was acknowledged that the nuclear strike could lead to the death of millions of peaceful civilians.

“Donald Trump exposed after the disclosure of a 2005 recording of Mr. Trump speaking in vulgar language about pushing himself on women, sex and groping. 

In a three-minute recording, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Mr. Trump recounts to the television personality Billy Bush of the program “Access Hollywood,” how he once pursued a married woman and moved on her…”

The release of this 2005 video by the Washington Post containing lewd and sexist statements by the Republican Party’s presidential candidate Donald Trump is likely to play a decisive role.

It is a victory for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

We must however beg the question.

What motivated this carefully timed release, prior to the second presidential candidates’ debate?

Donald Trump’s lewd and sexist behavior or his foreign policy stance regarding US-Russia relations? Or both?

2005 Leaked Video

Trump had already been rejected by the Republican establishment prior to the release of the video for his stance against war with Russia.  In fact many leaders of the Republican party have endorsed Hillary Clinton, including George H.W. (“Poppy”) Bush.

Was the Trump campaign attempting to derail the Neoconservative Republican platform? According to the Washington Post:

The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week [July] to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.

Throughout the campaign, Trump has been dismissive of calls for supporting the Ukraine government as it fights an ongoing Russian-led intervention. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, worked as a lobbyist for the Russian-backed former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for more than a decade.

Still, Republican delegates at last week’s national security committee platform meeting in Cleveland were surprised when the Trump campaign orchestrated a set of events to make sure that the GOP would not pledge to give Ukraine the weapons it has been asking for from the United States.  (WP, June 18, 2016)

The Washington Post has been a key instrument of the propaganda campaign against Donald Trump, a presidential candidate who has failed to endorse the bipartisan tenets of US foreign policy.

It is worth noting that the release of the video was followed by statements by a number of Republican personalities including former Utah Governor  Jon Huntsman Jr., who happens to be chairman of the Washington-based foreign policy think-tank The Atlantic Council.

The Atlantic Council chaired by Jon Huntsman –integrated by a stable of key Neocon advisers including Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, (Chairman Emeritus),  Madeleine Albright, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Larry Summers, Marillyn A. Hewson (Chairman, President and CEO, Lockheed Martin), et al–  plays a key role in the formulation of both US foreign policy and the Pentagon’s military agenda.

In fact, Jon Huntsman Jr. –a firm supporter of Hillary Clinton– tacitly expressed reservations regarding Donald Trump’s candidacy prior to the Video release. He also called upon Trump’s running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence, “to take his place at the top of the ticket”. (Politico, October 7, 2016)

 

source: screenshot from Atlantic Council’s website

 screenshot of Trump sexist-lewd video 

 Video: Donald Trump Apologizes. “See You at the Debate on Sunday”

 

As the U.S. hurtles toward nuclear war with Russia over Syria and Crimea, Jon Huntsman, the head of NATO’s lobbying organization the Atlantic Council, urged on October 7th that Donald Trump — who has many times stated clearly that improving relations with Russia so as to avoid nuclear war would be his top priority as President — should withdraw from the U.S. Presidential contest and leave it to his Vice Presidential pick, Mike Pence, who (like Hillary Clinton) favors war against Russia.

The U.S. had slapped sanctions against Russia when Russia on 16 March 2014 protected the residents of Crimea so that they could safely hold a referendum on whether to become again a part of Russia, of which Crimea had been a part until the Soviet dictator Khrushchev arbitrarily transferred them to Ukraine in 1954. The issue of Crimea had arisen because U.S. President Barack Obama had just overthrown in a violent February 2014 State-Department-&-CIA coup in Ukraine, the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted; and, during that coup, a contingent of Crimeans who had come to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, to hold up signs there opposing the “Maidan” demonstrations that had been organized by the U.S. Embassy in Kiev as cover for the U.S.-hired snipers carrying out the U.S. coup, became attacked, and they fled back toward Crimea, but many of them were killed en-route by the U.S.-hired mercenaries; and this “Korsun Pogrom” terrorized the entire population of Crimea, which had been strongly opposed to the coup even before this massacre of Crimeans. The coup terrorized Crimeans; the massacre of Crimeans increased their terror.

The coup itself started by no later than 1 March 2013 being organized inside the U.S. Embassy, and the allegation that the coup started only after Yanukovych turned down the EU’s offer, in November 2013, has no basis in reality; instead, the U.S. planners had already arranged it months earlier, and planned for the offer to be turned down. The offer was designed so as to be unacceptable.

Governor Pence stated clearly his view of U.S.-Russian relations back on 27 April 2014 — barely a month after the Crimean referendum, in which 96% had voted to be restored to Russia. (U.S.-sponsored Gallup polling in Crimea both before and after the referendum showed comparably high percentages, thus confirming the authenticity of the referendum-result.) Pence told Fox News Sunday then:

“When I was there [in Germany to speak about Indiana’s trade w. Germany], I thought it was important to speak about what I believe would be the right response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. I’m pleased to hear there is more sanctions maybe coming tomorrow. But the truth of the matter is I think we need less talk and more deeds. And by passing and moving rapidly to pass the Transatlantic Trade partnership and frankly by deploying a robust missile shield throughout Europe including in Poland and the Czech Republic that was off lined in 2009 by this administration, I think would send a very strong message to Putin and to Russia that NATO countries and the United States are going to respond by growing stronger economically and strategically. And I believe that — I believe that’s going to have a lot more influence in the long haul than more sanctions and more talk. However meritorious those are, at the end of the day, I think I’ve always believed in Ronald Reagan’s adage, ‘Peace through Strength.’ Let’s grow stronger on a transatlantic basis in our economies. Let’s allow Poland and the Czech Republic to have that missile shield that they were entitled to by joining NATO. I think that’s the right strategic response to Russian aggression.”

His reference there to “the missile shield” was to the Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense System or Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) system, which is designed so as to be able to annihilate Russian retaliatory missiles on take-off, in the event that NATO blitz-attacks Russia, so that a NATO-initiated nuclear war would be (so it is hoped by NATO) only one-sided: only Russia would be nuked. The theory behind it is that the previous nuclear balance of “Mutually Assured Destruction” or M.A.D., will become replaced by a new reality of “nuclear primacy” — winnable nuclear war: conquest of Russia. Mike Pence and Hillary Clinton accept the theory; Donald Trump does not. Barack Obama also accepts the theory, but the Aegis Ashore system hasn’t yet been installed sufficiently to attain ‘nuclear primacy’ even if such a thing is attainable; and so the expectations of experts are that the next U.S. President will be the one to make any final decision on it.

Regarding Pence’s support for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, and for the trans-Pacific equivalent the TPP, that’s part of the same operation, to isolate both Russia and China in international commerce, because Obama excludes both of those nations from both treaties.

When Pence accepted Trump’s invitation to become his Vice Presidential running-mate, any deals that were made between them — and/or between their respective financial backers — are confidential, and thus are topics only of speculation publicly. However, Jon Huntsman, who was himself a Republican Presidential candidate in 2012, and who had been Obama’s Ambassador to China, would not be publicly endorsing either Pence or Clinton for President now if the top level at NATO — which is the U.S. White House — did not want the voters’ choice to come down to Clinton-v.-Pence, instead of to Clinton-v.-Trump.

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

Last week the U.S. corporation Monsanto, which holds a leading position in the global market of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), reached a licensing agreement with the Broad Institute, Cambridge, USA, on the commercial use of the innovative genome-editing technology CRISPR/Cas9 for agriculture applications. This news has led some experts to believe that Monsanto will now completely switch from producing ‘traditional’ GMOs to ‘genetically edited’ organisms, which are supposedly ‘safer and practically identical’ to their natural alternatives.

Let’s have a closer look at this technology which makes GMO supporters feel so enthusiastic and has been positioned by them as the universal panacea solving all of mankind’s problems. We will also delve deeper into some of the darker aspects of CRISPR/Cas9; the points that biotechnology lobbyists prefer not to discuss.

Do You Trust Monsanto to ‘Play God’ with CRISPR?

In a press release dated 22 September 2016 Monsanto stated that technology CRISPR/Cas9 would be used as complementary to the methods of genetic modification that are already being used.  Firstly, there is of course no mention of stopping the use of traditional GMOs, as this is not the plan. Secondly, the licensing agreement that Monsanto signed with the Broad Institute is certainly not the first one they have made for CRISPR technology. Earlier this year the company  entered into similar licensing agreements to use gene-editing technologies developed by other research organizations, namely, the Nomad Bioscience GmbH, Germany, and TargetGene Biotechnologies Ltd. , Israel.

It is obvious that Monsanto is not suddenly changing its strategy to concentrate on CRISPR. Instead, we are now being shown that Monsanto is consistently following a huge new target.

Regarding Monsanto’s latest CRISPR deal, the Broad Institute does clarify that there are several important restrictions in the agreement with Monsanto including;

RESTRICTION 1: prohibits Monsanto to use CRISPR/Cas9 for creating sterile seeds (also known as suicide seeds or terminator seeds). By preventing plants from producing fertile seeds, Monsanto forces farmers to purchase seed from the company each year.

RESTRICTION 2: forbids using CRISPR/Cas9 for launching so called ‘gene drive’ mechanisms.  It is known that natural genetic changes need quite some time to spread within a species range. The reason is that mutation, located only in one chromosome in a pair, is inherited only by a half of the offspring. However, ‘gene drive’, created with CRISPR/Cas9 technology, allows to vastly speed up the spread of changes, making this process practically uncontrollable.

Despite these restrictions do we really want to give Monsanto such new power to ‘Play God’ with a technology that has not been correctly safety tested over the long-term? Based on their record so far it does not seem like they are the correct company to do so!

CRISPR: Making Bacteria Immune to Viruses

So what is CRISPR? It is a rudimentary immune system of bacteria that gives them resistance to viruses. The acronym CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. Lest we get lost in scientific terminology I will try to explain how it works in laymen’s terms:

The CRISPR mechanism consists of two key components – gene scalpel (Cas9 protein), which can cut certain fragments of DNA, and gene guide (guiding RNAs), which leads the scalpel exactly to those fragments of DNA, which must be cut.

When a known virus penetrates a bacteria cell, the guiding RNA identifies it by its DNA fragment and sends the Cas9 protein to delete it. If a virus is unknown, bacterium starts to cut different fragments of DNA from the unknown genome adding them to its own «database». This is how bacteria build up their adaptive immune system. Such a system allows them to recognize more and more viruses and to resist various infections.  The most in-demand viral DNA fragments stay in bacterium’s DNA and are inherited by their ‘descendants’.

Now it is easy to imagine how the gene-editing technology works. If we ‘load’ a synthetic version of RNA with pre-set parameters into the gene guide, the gene scalpel (Cas 9) can be aimed to any desired fragment of DNA. Thus, the scientists face a revolutionary perspective of editing (changing, deleting, replacing) genes of any living organism, including human genes.

How Close Are we to Gattaca?

Do you remember the film ‘Gattaca’, with Uma Thurman playing one of the lead roles? The futuristic storyline concentrates on people learning to manually ‘edit’ the genetic parameters of their yet-to-be-born children. They ended up in a society built on genetic segregation and in inequality and suppression, the likes of which the world had never seen before.

After the invention of CRISPR/Cas9 we can say that, generally speaking, the age of ‘Gattaca’ has already begun.  Today, many laboratories all over the world are actively experimenting with the new opportunities provided by gene-editing.

In an article dedicated to CRISPR/Cas9 technology (The New Yorker, November 2015) Feng Zhang, a U.S. scientist from the Broad Institute, was given an apt name – ‘the gene hacker’.

In February 2016 the UK government allowed the editing of the DNA of human embryos for scientific purposes using CRISPR/Cas 9. As a base of the UK decision ‘experimental samples’ will be destroyed after 14 days, so there is supposedly no direct threat of the appearance of ‘gene-edited humans’ yet. Sadly however we all know too well where this process may end…

GENE DRIVE: A Weapon of Mass Destruction?

The ‘gene-drive’ mechanism accompanied with the relevant progress in CRISPR/Cas9 technology can be used as a genetic weapon of mass destruction, both by governments and by terrorist organizations.

The science fiction story in which the uncontrollable spread of genetic mutations leads to catastrophe on a planet (The Legacy, dilogy written by Sergey Tarmashev) looks more and more like a scary reality, if we take into consideration all of the negative consequences of a global ‘gene drive’. To add one more example: the plot of a new season of ‘X-Files’ is based on a human genocide scenario with the use of CRISPR/Cas9.

You might be thinking: ‘You are exaggerating and using too much fiction’? Unfortunately not.

The Director of U.S. National Intelligence James R. Clapper in his speech for Senate Armed Services Committee on 9 February 2016 stated that a scientific breakthrough in genome editing has led him to consider this technology as a weapon of mass destruction. In his words; “given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual – use technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications”. This is why the gene drive technology and editing of the human germline have become of particular concern for American and European biologists.

Despite the concerns of Clapper, where the U.S. government sees a threat, it is there that they usually look for new opportunities. So, it is not surprising that the scientific research in the field of gene editing is funded, inter alia from the budget of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  In other words, genes, along with the five ‘domains of warfare’ – Land, Sea, Air, Space, Information, become another domain in which the wars of the future will be carried out. Or maybe, wars in this domain have already been unleashed?

CRISPR for Russia?

By all means, Russian science should pursue research into genetic engineering and bioinformatics. We need this to assess processes correctly in the world around us and to create mechanisms protecting the genetic safety of Russia’s population. At the same time there is no need to hurry with the commercialization of CRISPR/Cas9. Until we reach a point when all possible collateral risks have been comprehensively studied, the circulation of genetically edited organisms and especially gene-drive modified organisms in Russia should be prohibited, in the same way GMOs have been.

Elena Sharoykina is a Russian journalist and environmental activist. She is director of the National Association for Genetic Safety (Moscow), coordinator for the international “FACTOR GMO” study, director of the Russian TV-Channel “Tzargrad“.

Her articles and comments on GM-technologies, global biotech companies and their connections with the military-industrial complex, as well as on other ecology-related issues, regularly appear in Russian and international press.

Using the Russian and Syrian air power, the Syrian Arab Army and its allies took the opportunity to make further advances in Aleppo city. The loyalist seized over a half of the Bustan al-Pasha neighborhood, including the Sport Complex, the Science school, the Housing institution and other buildings in the areas located on the way to Hellok.

The army and Hezbollah also took full control of the Suleiman al-Halabi Neighborhood and set fire control of al-Sakhoor roundabout. The government forces also expanded in northern Aleppo and secured fire control over the quarries southwest of al-Bureij.

Most of the damage done by terrorist factions in Aleppo appears to be against the civilian populace, with 8 civilians killed and 55 wounded after rebels recently shelled the al-Jamiliyah neighborhood.

Jund al-Aqsa promised to cease their participation in the Hama campaign against the government forces if Ahrar al-Sham continued ‘aggressions’ against them. Amongst the reported claims leveled by Jund al-Aqsa is that Ahrar al-Sham is in collusion with the Islamic State.

The Syrian army and the National Defense Forces (NDF) successfully advanced in the Western Ghouta region, cutting off the road between the militant-controlled villages of Der Khabiyah and Moqaylabiya. The Der Khabiyah-Moqaylabiya road is one of few roads remaining under the control of militant groups in the region. Now, when the pro-government forces control it, Der Khabiyah and Moqaylabiya has become vulnerable for attacks by the army and the NDF.

On October 6, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad repeated a guarantee of safe passage to the rebels holed up in Aleppo. However, this offer from the legitimate government of Syria was overshadowed by a highly publicized statement from United Nations Syrian Envoy Staffan de Mistura in which he volunteered to personally accompany some Jabhat al Nusra fighters from the city as a human shield. The unprecedented offer was bluntly rejected by Jabhat al Nusra, which reaffirmed its collective desire to continue attempts to break the siege instead of making peace.

Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Major General Igor Konashenkov promised that no U.S. aircraft would be immune from the threat the S-300 and S-400 air defense batteries pose in case of military strikes on the government-controlled areas. Konashenkov pointed to the airstrikes against Syrian government forces in Der ez-Zor as one of the primary motivating factors in importing the potent weapon systems.

Last month, German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer, the first Western journalist to be given access to Daesh (ISIS) controlled territory, conducted an explosive interview with a Nusra Front commander in Syria. Soon afterward, he was accused of ‘fabricating’ the interview. Speaking to Sputnik Deutschland, Todenhofer responded to his critics. 

Late last month, an unnamed militant believed to be a senior Nusra Front commander told Todenhoffer in an interview that his group had received advanced weapons, including BGM TOW anti-tank missiles, from the United States.

The sensational (and damning) interview soon spread around the world, and soon German media engaged in damage control began claiming that the interview was a fake. The detractors’ main allegation focused on the territory where the interview was conducted; skeptics even suggested that the terrorist militant was actually a Syrian government plant.

Speaking to Sputnik Deutschland about the now famous interview, Todenhofer explained that he never had any illusions that his journalistic effort, and its shocking revelations about the extent of Western support for Islamist terrorists, would cause a strong reaction, “both from terrorists and from those who support mainstream Western policy in the Middle East.”

Secondly, Todenhofer noted,

“they want to distract from the fact that my interview – and not just this one but my earlier statements as well, destroy the mainstream worldview. This worldview suggests that in Syria, there is supposedly only one side fighting – namely the Syrian government and the Russians. If that were true, the war would have ended a long time ago. The truth is that there are two sides fighting a brutal war against one another.”

Commenting on the details of his interview with the Nusra Front commander, the journalist recalled that at first, it wasn’t even clear whether the jihadist would agree to filming.

“At first, there was a great deal of stress, because we were surrounded by gunmen in masks, and our driver feared that we had been trapped. But the conversation went smoothly. This commander is not a politician – not a Salafist, not a fanatic; he’s just a mercenary, who managed to serve in the ranks of at least two rebel groups – a field commander with perhaps about 200 people under his command. And since he is not a politician, he spoke openly about the things he knows.”

Incidentally, for the sceptics out there, the journalist emphasized the commander did not actually say that his group received weapons ‘directly from the Americans.’

“He said ‘we directly received American weapons’. He did not say whether this was from a country or organization serving as an intermediary, but there is no doubt [that this is going on]. Everyone knows that the US and other countries supply weapons to the rebels; they say that they supply them to the ‘moderate opposition’, but we all know that some of these weapons are then passed to radical rebels and terrorists.”

“For example, they say that Jebhat al-Nusra militants always go unshaven, while some of the ones I show have shaven faces.” The reality is not so cartoonishly simple: “Some shave, some have a beard.”

“Then, [critics] say that Nusra fighters do not wear gold rings, even if they come from another organization. This is simply nonsense. In Syria, thousands of people wear gold jewelry – it’s perfectly normal. This is a very weak argument that comes from those who take absolutely no account of life in Syria, and is a view that could be held only by those who have never been to wartorn Syria.”

“To all these people I can suggest only one thing: of course someone can do the interview better than I did, but let those who want to do it meet with al-Qaeda in East Aleppo in neutral territory and do it better. These are the same people who so fiercely criticized me when I spent ten days among the Daesh militants. Again – take the trip yourself, do it better, and then you can have a say.”

Having been accused of being biased in favor of Russia and the Syrian government, Todenhofer emphasized that he remains convinced that there is “no such thing as a decent war,” since civilians always end up being the main victims.

Still, the journalist added, one can only go so far in one’s lack of objectivity. “In the western part of Aleppo, where government forces are based, several hundred people have been killed since the end of the truce – in 14 days. No one speaks about this. This means that the rebels have also been shooting, and this is a very simple proof that the two sides fight with equal ferocity.”

But the mainstream media, according to Todenhofer, absolutely lacks any objectivity on the issue. “…The one-sided and simply dead-wrong coverage of the conflict itself is part of the scandal. If in this situation someone like myself goes to Syria, asks questions and get answers such as ‘Yes, of course we get weapons from the Americans, in whatever way,’ a lot of noise is generated around this; because the West does not want its image of the world – of ‘good bombs’ and ‘bad bombs’, to be disturbed.”

“I am against this war, because I do not believe in a decent war. But I must say — and this is very important for me, that the support that the rebels receive from the West is a violation of international law. It is akin to leading a war of aggression – it’s a war crime. No one has a right to supply weapons to some insurgents operating on the territory of a sovereign state. It is prohibited – it is a crime. And when the people I blame for supplying weapons not only to rebels, but also to terrorists – even indirectly – when these people shout – that too is perfectly normal. It’s what I intended.”

“I want to touch on a sore point; I want to start a debate on this issue. I want people to think,” Todenhofer emphasized.

“What if there were rebels in Germany, and some foreign state supported them with arms? We would say that such a thing is out of the question! In Syria the situation is more complicated, because the government has also committed crimes. Both sides commit crimes; decent wars do not happen, and so we need to put an end to this war, instead of saying ‘the supply of arms from our side is good, while what the other side does is bad.’ This whole war is shit!”

On Friday 9 September, dozens of Palestinians demonstrated next to the Gaza Strip’s border fence near the Al-Bureij refugee camp, protesting Israel’s ongoing occupation and its various crimes.

Here is how Reuters reported what happened next: “An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed during a rock-throwing protest near the Gaza-Israel border on Friday and a Palestinian health official said Israeli soldiers shot him, but the Israeli army said troops were not responsible.”

At the time, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson said that Abdel-Rahman Al-Dabbagh (who was actually just 15-years-old) was killed “by an Israeli bullet to the head.” The Israeli military, however, claimed that forces only used “tear gas” to disperse “dozens of rioters.”

The army statement added: “Following a preliminary review, the Israel Defence Forces did not conduct the reported shooting.”

So who killed Abdel-Rahman Al-Dabbagh? And how was he killed? Almost four weeks have now passed since the teenager’s death. Thanks to the work of Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights workers, a clearer – and highly disturbing – picture has now emerged of how he was killed.

The following account is based on information published by Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), B’Tselem, Al-Haq and Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).

The demonstration that particular Friday began in the early afternoon, and continued for some hours. None of those participating (some 60-100 protesters) were armed. The protest took place east of Al-Bureij camp, where Abdel-Rahman was a resident.

During the afternoon, Palestinian youth threw stones and a few unexploded tear gas canisters fired by Israeli forces on previous occasions. Protesters, Abdel-Rahman included, also cut the barbed wire that lies ten metres from the border fence and ran back and forth as Israeli soldiers repelled them.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers positioned by military jeeps or on dirt mounds attacked the protesters with tear gas canisters, stun grenades, flare bombs and live ammunition.

Shortly before he was hit, just after 7pm, Abdel-Rahman asked one of his friends to take a picture of him. He was around 15-20 metres from the fence. The boy was making a “V” sign when one of the soldiers came forward, knelt down and fired a flare cartridge directly at him.

The flare bomb ignited on impact and Abdel-Rahman fell down, his head on fire. Israeli soldiers initially prevented his friends from approaching, including by firing warning shots.

A screenshot from video footage shows Abdel-Rahman, 15, lying on the ground with flames and smoke rising from his head. (Photo: DCIP)

Abdel-Rahman was struck in the forehead above his left eye with an illumination flare cartridge. “There was blood on his hands and chest, and coming out from above his left eye. There was a big, black hole above his eye”, described an eyewitness.

After the flare had burned out, Abdel-Rahman was carried to an ambulance, but paramedics could not resuscitate him. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital.

The impact of the flare grenade, fired directly at his head from a short distance, fractured his skull leading to haemorrhaging in the brain in addition to external burns. An x-ray image showed the flare punctured and lodged in Abdel-Rahman’s skull above his left eyebrow.

The flare in question was a 40mm M583A1 White Star Parachute Illumination Cartridge, which is fired from an under-barrel grenade launcher rifle attachment. It is produced by US-based munitions company Chemring Ordnance, a subsidiary of the UK-based Chemring Group.

The flare bomb that the soldier fired at al-Dabbagh (Photo: Khaled al-‘Azayzeh, B’Tselem)

The flare, which weighs 0.22kg, is intended to illuminate an area of 200 meters in diameter or to mark a military target on the ground and burns for around 40 seconds. It is categorically not designed to be used in “crowd control” situations.

Israeli forces have repeatedly used brutal violence against unarmed protesters in the Gaza Strip in the last year; a week after the killing of Abdel-Rahman, soldiers shot a 17-year-old Palestinian in the leg with live ammunition during protests in the same area – he may never walk again.

More than 20 Palestinians have been killed in such Gaza border protests since 1 October 2015, and there are no Israeli military investigations into any of these deaths. According to DCIP official Ayed Eqtaish, Israeli forces “routinely misuse ‘less-lethal’ weapons and projectiles to directly target Palestinian children, killing and injuring them with impunity.”

The shocking killing of Abdel-Rahman highlights both the lack of Western media coverage when it comes to the Palestinian victims of Israeli forces’ violence, and the parallel absence of accountability for grave violations of international law and human rights by the Israeli army and its political leaders.

No coverage and no accountability means that the killing and maiming of Palestinians – including children – will only continue.

There is a curious coincidence of a remark Secretary of State Kerry made to Syrian opposition activists and a new paint scheme applied to some U.S. military jets.

October 1 2016: Kerry in leaked audio: ‘I lost the argument’ for use of force in Syria

Washington (CNN) Secretary of State John Kerry’s frustration with the failure of American diplomacy was on display as he defended US efforts to help end the five-year civil war in Syria during a meeting last week with a group of Syrian civilians, according to an audio recording obtained by CNN.
…
Kerry’s comments came at a meeting that took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on the sidelines the UN General Assembly, where Kerry was going from session to session in a frenzied effort to resuscitate a ceasefire that seemed poised to collapse.

A complete audio recording of the meeting between Kerry, some of his staff, and some Syrians is available on youtube.

Of interest is a short segment about alleged Russian bombing beginning at 11:18. The female Arab-English interpreter translates remarks by a Syrian, believed to be the Syrian front-man of the White Helmets scam Raed Saleh, about the difficulties of supervising ceasefires.

Interpreter (translating from a male Arabic speaker): We don’t believe that Russia can be the guarantor of the actions of the regime. We see Russia is a partner of the regime in bombing Syrians, Syrian civilians, market places, even our own team, the Syrian Civil Defense team. We documented since the start of the Russian intervention in Syria from day one until February of this year more than 17 of our Syrian Civil Defense personal have been killed by Russian airstrikes.

Kerry: Do you have any videos of the airplanes of these strikes?

(crosstalk interpreter and male Arab voice)

Kerry: Can we get that (unintelligible) videos the agents have been asking for?

(crosstalk interpreter and male Arab voice)

Kerry staff member: So can I just say – we get a lot of videos of the victims of these attacks, they are terrible, but they don’t help us. We need videos of the actual aircrafts and ammunition. And there is a lot of them on the internet but we don’t know whether they are real or not. Verified videos of the actual aircraft is the most useful thing. …

These men can be helped, though someone in the U.S. military – or not.

A Canadian journalist based in Eastern/Central Europe, Christian Borys tweeted yesterday:

Christian Borys @ItsBorysThe U.S is painting their F/A-18’s to match the paint schemes of Russian jets in #Syria. Standard training, but interesting nonetheless. pic.twitter.com/FVN6tMj2Ji

1:45 PM – 6 Oct 2016

This is the attached pic:

The first three pics are of an U.S. F/A-18 fighter and attack aircraft in Russian coloring. (The wingtips are raised for storage as this is a carrier enabled plane. The windows of the raised cockpit hood are covered with white sun protection sheets.) On the bottom right is a picture of a Russia SU-34 in the usual Russian color scheme as it is also used by the Russian contingent in Syria.

It would be extremely difficult to distinguish these like-colored planes from each other in a shaky fly-by and “bombing” video.

The U.S. regularly uses planes in “enemy” color schemes as “aggressor force” during training and maneuvers. It helps U.S. pilots to get used to “enemy” targets during air-to-air combat training. So this can all be, like Christian Borys assumes, “standard training”.

But there is also Kerry’s talk with the Syrian opposition and his explicit request for videos of “Russian” jets bombing in Syria.

This may be an innocent coincidence: Secretary Kerry is asking the scam artists of the White Helmets for video of Russian jets “bombing civilians” in Syria and, just by chance, the U.S. military is painting one of its jets to look like a “Russian” Su-34 strike fighter like those deployed in Syria.

But many incidents in Syria, the Ghouta gas attack, the recent aid convoy attack, get attributed to Russia or the Syrian government without any proof (or even despite contrary evidence). The media always eat these falsehoods up based simply on some official’s say-so, some unverified pictures or video and without asking any further questions. A “Russian attack” on some large civilian target like a refugee camp, documented on video!, would be a very easy sell. The propagandized “uproar” over such an attack could be easily used to launch a wider war. The attack on the Gleiwitz Radio tower, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and “Saddam’s WMDs” come to mind. Kerry is not shy of such lying. Today he invented a new hospital attack, said it was a war crime and that Russia and Syria should be investigated. No such attack happened.

The Russian parliament ratified an agreement with Syria about the indefinite stationing of Russian forces in Syria. Yesterday the Russian Ministry of Defense warned that Russian soldiers are embedded with Syrian units on the ground and that they would be defended against any attempt of air attacks by the Russian air-defense in Syria. U.S. media called such matter of course statement bellicose talk.

There is plenty of lose talk in U.S. media about attacking Syrian and Russian forces in Syria. The U.S. recently bombed a Syrian unit in a well known position it had held for many month. 82 Syrian soldier died and many more were wounded. The strike furthered the advance of ISIS on the besieged Deir Ezzor. That was no ‘mistake’ as the U.S. claimed.

Russia will defend its forces in Syria and it will defend Syria’s sovereignty. It is not alone. A Chinese navy frigate just arrived in the Syrian port Tartus. Should that trip-wire get touched 1.3 billion Chinese would join the Russians, Iranians and Syrians in waging war against the U.S. “regime change” attempt in Syria. Washington is warned. No cheap paint scheme trickery will be accepted as reason to hold back. Russia WILL hit back should the need arise.

Any attack on Russian or Syrian forces would be illegal. Kerry himself, in the above linked talk, says that the U.S. has absolutely no legal grounds for any such attack. It would be illegitimate and a crime. But the U.S. is not known for staying strictly within the framework of international law. Russia is well advised to warn of the eventual consequences of any breach. There is nothing “bellicose” about that.

Created by Western governments and popularized by a top PR firm, the White Helmets are saving civilians while lobbying for airstrikes.

It is rare for a short Netflix documentary to garner as much publicity or acclaim as The White Helmets has. Promoted as “the story of real-life heroes and impossible hope,” the film is named for the civil defense organization whose members have gained international acclaim for saving lives in rebel-held territory in the hellish war zones of eastern Aleppo and Idlib. The film’s tagline, “To save one life is to save all of humanity,” that is remarkably similar to that of Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust epic, Schindler’s List: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

The Netflix feature comes on the heels of a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for the White Helmets, an “alternative Nobel” award known as the Right Livelihood Award and endorsements from an assortment of celebrities. “The move [by the celebrities] draws attention to both the horror of the conflict and the growing willingness of well-known Americans to adopt it as a cause célèbre,” wrote Liam Stack of the New York Times.

Footage of the White Helmets saving civilians trapped in the rubble of buildings bombed by the Syrian government and its Russian ally has become ubiquitous in coverage of the crisis. An international symbol of courage under fire, the group has become a leading resource for journalists and human rights groups seeking information inside the war theater, from casualty figures to details on the kind of bombs that are falling.

The bravado displayed by the White Helmets under Syrian government and Russian bombardment has captivated some of the most influential observers of the Syrian conflict. Among the group’s biggest boosters is Sophie McNeill, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent who was among the first reporters to publish the now-famous photo of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh being extracted from the rubble of an Eastern Aleppo apartment building.

On her Twitter account, McNeill urged readers to donate money to the White Helmets and expressed her hope that the group wins the Nobel Prize. (McNeill did not respond to questions sent to her publicly listed email.) Laura Rosenberger, a foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton, also took to Twitter to promote the group, posting a Wall Street Journal article hailing the civil defense group as “white knights for desperate Syrians.” Hillary Clinton quickly retweeted Rosenberger, registering her own tacit endorsement of the White Helmets. On September 22, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that he was “honored to meet [the White Helmets] leader and Aleppo activists,” hailing the organization as “brave 1st responders on the scene.”

The White Helmets are touted for saving tens of thousands of lives, though estimates on exactly how many varies dramatically depending on the source. The recently released White Helmets’ Netflix documentary claims they’ve saved “over 55,000” people, while Georgetown Security Studies Review had the number at 15,500 in May 2015. The State Department claimed this April that 40,000 had been rescued by White Helmets, but AJ+, a subsidiary of Al Jazeera, asserted around the same time that “more than 24,000” have been saved.” In a separate report published four months later, AJ+ quoted the figure at 60,000—which is the figure the White Helmets themselves claim. Whatever the number, there is little dispute that the White Helmets’ rank-and-file are saving lives in what seems to be an increasingly desperate situation in eastern Aleppo.

Yet the group is anything but impartial. The White Helmets’ leadership is driven by a pro-interventionist agenda conceived by the Western governments and public relations groups that back them. Anyone who visits the group’s website—which is operated by an opposition-funded PR company known as the Syria Campaign—will be immediately directed to a request to sign a petition for a no-fly zone to “stop the bombs” in Syria. These sorts of communiques highlight the dual role the White Helmets play as a civil defense organization saving lives while lobbying for a U.S. military campaign that will almost inevitably result in the collapse of Syria’s government.

According to a 2012 Pentagon estimate, a no-fly zone would require at least “70,000 American servicemen” to enforce, along with the widespread destruction of Syrian government infrastructure and military installations. Also sometimes called “safe zones” or “buffer zones,” from Yugoslavia to Iraq to Libya, no-fly zones have served almost without exception as the preamble to regime change. With no clear plan in place for the day after the government falls, or any conclusive evidence that its ouster is what most Syrians want, the Western governments, professional activists and public relations specialists who created the White Helmets are intensifying their push for regime change.

The White Helmets were founded in collaboration with USAID’s Office of Transitional Initiatives—the wing that has promoted regime change around the world—and have been provided with $23 million in funding from the department. USAID supplies the White Helmets through Chemonics, a for-profit contractor based in Washington DC that has become notorious for wasteful aid imbroglios from Haiti to Afghanistan. While members of the White Helmets have been implicated in atrocities carried out by jihadist rebel groups, the names of many of the firms that supposedly monitor and evaluate their work have been kept secret by USAID on unspecified security grounds.

Away from the battlefield, the White Helmets have proven one of the most effective tools in the Syria Campaign’s public relations arsenal. Apart from the group’s own calls for a no-fly zone, the White Helmets have been at the center of the Syria Campaign’s ongoing attack on the United Nations, which it accuses of illicit collusion with Assad. This month, the White Helmets joined 74 other groups operating in rebel-held territory announced their refusal this month to cooperate with the U.N. as long as it recognizes the Syrian government. In a separate move, the Syria Campaign launched a petition to demand that the United States National Security Council share confidential radar information with White Helmets teams operating on the ground, apparently including in areas controlled by extremist rebel factions.

In May 2015, White Helmets spokesperson Raed Saleh met privately with U.N. and EU officials to push for a no-fly zone. A month later, Saleh’s colleague Farouq Habib testified before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs in support of a no-fly zone, claiming to possess first-hand knowledge of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government. With the Obama administration having drawn its “red line” at the deployment of chemical weapons, allegations like these are potential trigger points for full-scale U.S. military intervention.

The White Helmets’ Netflix documentary studiously avoids any discussion of the group’s interventionist, hyper-partisan agenda and omits any mention of its actual origins among Western governments, leaving the impression that the White Helmets are an organically developed band of politically impartial volunteers reflecting the Syrian consensus.

Critical questions about the White Helmets’ role in an interventionist public relations apparatus have been raised by only a few marginal websites that generally support the Syrian government — and those who raise them have been subjected to scorn and castigation. Thus the issue has been kept off the table, along with the public debate over the consequences of a regime change policy that the Obama administration still supports.

The White Helmets in Washington

This September 27, while White Helmets members dug survivors and bodies from the ruins of buildings in the rebel-held warzone of eastern Aleppo, two of the group’s public representatives appeared in Washington for a series of events and high-level meetings. The first event open to the public was held at the Atlantic Council, an influential think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, and took place under the banner of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, which is named for and funded by the family of the assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister who amassed his fortune through business ties to the Saudi royal family. (Rafik’s son, Saad, blames the Syrian government for killing his father and creating ISIS and has effectively called for its removal.)

Presiding over The White Helmets reception was Frederick Hof, the director of the Hariri center, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton on Syrian “transition” and a longtime State Department envoy in the Middle East. Hof has said his focus on Syria at the State Department was motivated by the prospect of “beating Hezbollah and its Iranian master,” a goal he found “inspiring.” As he introduced The White Helmets, Hof accused Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad of committing war crimes with impunity and demanded that his government pay a “heavy price.”

While conceding that a no-fly zone was not a feasible option because it would subject the U.S. Air Force to Syria’s anti-aircraft systems, Hof told me he preferred cruise missile strikes against Syrian military installations and arming the rebels with Manpad shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles. When I asked if he feared such sophisticated weapons falling into the hands of Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham or Ahrar Al-Sham, the jihadist groups that boast the most manpower and battlefield prowess, Hof accused me of ignorance about the Defense Department’s foolproof vetting mechanisms.

After a screening of the trailer for The White Helmets, Hof introduced the civil defense group as a heroic and absolutely “impartial” party to the conflict. He then welcomed Saleh, the White Helmets spokesman, to the stage. “Our demand is not for support to continue the work of the White Helmets, rather our demand is to stop the killing itself so that we don’t have to continue this awful job,” Saleh said.

Seated beside Saleh and providing live translation was Kenan Rahmani, a legal and strategy adviser to the Syria Campaign. As I reported in Part 1 of this series, the Syria Campaign is a private company founded by a New York- and London-based public relations firm called Purpose in order to generate public pressure for the removal of Syria’s government. It led the push for the White Helmets’ Nobel Prize nomination, orchestrated the group’s endorsements from Hollywood celebrities and has fundraised for its Netflix documentary vehicle.

Rahmani, for his part, was a policy adviser to the Coalition for a Democratic Syria, a umbrella organization of exile groups with close ties to the Syrian rebels and neoconservative organizations in Washington, before he took his current job at the Syria Campaign. When I asked Saleh how the White Helmets’ demand for a no-fly zone fit with its claim to uphold impartiality, Rahmani interjected to defend his company’s work.

“Of course we are an impartial, non-political organization,” he said. “The Syria Campaign doesn’t take political sides but our position is a no-fly zone would stop the suffering, would stop the destruction.” Saleh of the White Helmets followed up with his own call for a no fly zone, telling me that if I understood the scale of destruction in Syria, I would agree with his demand.

Moments after the panel discussion ended, Rahmani approached me to complain about my line of questioning. “These people [the White Helmets] are saving lives,” he began. But before he could complete his sentence, Rahmani was whisked away by Anna Nolan, the Purpose firm’s director of strategy who oversaw the Syria Campaign’s foundation. From that point on, Rahmani refused to speak to me.

Seated in the front row throughout the event was Ayman Asfari, one of the main funders of the Syria Campaign and a top exile supporter of the Syrian opposition. The billionaire CEO of the petroleum services company Petrofac, Asfari contributed $180,000 of the Syria Campaign’s $800,000 budget this year. (Most of the company’s donors are anonymous.)

I approached Asfari on his way out to ask how long he planned to continue directing his fortune toward promoting regime change. “There is a political process, which is a transition. We just want to bring back the transition,” he said before disappearing into an elevator. In a few hours, Asfari would host a screening of The White Helmets at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The White Helmets’ founding fathers

Supporters of heightened U.S. military intervention in Syria routinely accuse President Barack Obama of not doing enough to support the forces fighting the Syrian government. James Traub, a leading liberal voice of interventionism, has repeatedly claimed over the past five years that the U.S. is “doing nothing” in Syria and paying a terrible price for it. But together with the $1 billion the CIA has spent on arming and training the rebels, a close look at the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. Agency for International Development has spent in Syria on projects including the White Helmets tells a different story.

Back in July 2012, a year after the Syrian conflict began, USAID began to lay the groundwork for its Syrian Regional Option. With American analysts excitedly proclaiming the imminent downfall of Bashar Al-Assad and his government, USAID rushed to “provide support to emerging civil authorities to build the foundation for a peaceful and democratic Syria,” according to a USAlD executive report from that year.

The grants were authorized by USAID’s Office of Transitional Initiatives (OTI), spearheading efforts to encourage what proponents like to call “democracy promotion” in countries like Cuba and Venezuela, but which amount to failed attempts at regime change. In Cuba, USAID’s OTI caused an embarrassing diplomatic incident in 2014 when it was exposed for funding a program aimed at spawning instability and undermining the government through a Twitter-like social network called Zunzuneo.

Following a series of pilot programs carried out by a for-profit, Washington DC-based contractor called Development Alternatives International (DAI) at a cost of $290,756 to U.S. taxpayers, the OTI began setting up local councils in rebel-held territory in Syria. The idea was to establish a parallel governing structure in insurgent-held areas that could one day supplant the current government in Damascus. According to its 2012 USAID executive summary on the Syria Regional Option (PDF), “foreign extremist entities” already held sway across the country.

In March 2013, a former British infantry officer named James Le Mesurier turned up on the Turkish border of Syria. Le Mesurier was a veteran of NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo who moved into the lucrative private mercenary industry after his army days ended. But running security for the UAE’s oil and gas fields left him feeling unfulfilled with his career as a hired gun. He wanted to be a part of something more meaningful. So he became a lead participant in USAID’s Syria Regional Option.

Le Mesurier’s job was to organize a unique band of people who rush into freshly bombed buildings to extract survivors—while filming themselves—in rebel-held areas facing routine bombing by Syrian army aircraft. In 2014, he established Mayday Rescue, a non-profit based in Turkey that grew out of the Dubai-based “research, conflict transformation, and consultancy” firm known as Analysis, Research, and Knowledge, or ARK. That group, which employed Le Mesurier while overseeing the White Helmets’ training, has been sustained through grants from Western governments and the British Ministry of Defense. Mayday Rescue, for its part, received around $300,000 in initial funding from the U.S. Department of State to assist in training the first responders. Though they were known as Syrian Civil Defense, graduates of Le Mesurier’s course became popularly identified by the signature headgear they wore in the field: White Helmets.

Since being founded under the watch of Mayday Rescue, the White Helmets have received grants worth millions of dollars from the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Japan and USAID. To date, USAID has donated $23 million to the White Helmets, a substantial sum for a civil defense project in a war zone.

Mark Ward, director of the Syria Transition Assistance and Response Team at the State Department, highlighted the political dimension of the White Helmets’ funding in an interview with Men’s Journal: “[Funding the White Helmets is] one of the most important things we can do to increase the effectiveness and legitimacy of civil authorities in liberated areas of Syria.”

In the Netflix documentary The White Helmets, Mayday Rescue is never identified as the administrator of the group, nor does Le Mesurier ever appear on screen. USAID and Chemonics, the for-profit contractor that supplies the group, are also curiously omitted from the film.

An unmonitored money dump?

USAID relies on Chemonics to deliver resources to the White Helmets. The company’s contract with the group is part of the $339.6 million committed by USAID for “supporting activities that pursue a peaceful transition to a democratic and stable Syria.” This whopping sum of money supplements the reported $1 billion the CIA spent in the past year supplying and training the rebel forces attempting to overthrow the Syrian government, fueling a grinding civil war that necessitates the presence of thousands of first responders.

Based in downtown Washington DC, Chemonics has developed a checkered history across the world. In Haiti, the company squandered millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and delivered next to nothing for average Haitians while racking up a $2.5 million bonus for its CEO. Jake Johnston, a research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, produced a series of reports exposing Chemonics’ disastrous performance in Haiti.

“After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Chemonics was the recipient of the largest single contract from the U.S. government. But despite the immediate and grave humanitarian needs, funding for Chemonics came from the Office of Transition Initiatives, the ‘political arm’ of USAID,” Johnston told me. “Rather than basing funding decisions on the needs on the ground, OTI provides funding based primarily on U.S. national interests and to help steer political transitions across the globe.”

Johnston pointed to a lack of independent monitoring procedures as one of USAID’s most substantial failures. “Unfortunately, it becomes extremely difficult to track where money spent by OTI and Chemonics actually ends up,” he said. “Programs are designed to be broad, flexible and fast, distributing millions of dollars to subcontractors with very little public oversight or accountability.”

In reports by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and USAID Inspector General, Chemonics was slammed for its incompetent performance and poor evaluation procedures, and was accused of wasting tens of millions of dollars in Afghanistan.

For many languishing in rebel-held territory in Syria, however, USAID and its contractors are among the only sources of sustenance. As Brett Eng and Jose Ciro Martinez wrote in Foreign Policy, USAID’s involvement in Syria “has created another unhealthy form of dependence in opposition-controlled areas like Daraa. Instead of the Assad regime, it is the United States, Jordan, and the for-profit development organization Chemonics that civilians in Daraa are beholden to.”

Eng and Martinez also warned that USAID might be inadvertently propping up some of the more unsavory rebel factions, writing, “without a well-defined, inclusive opposition group, it is unclear to whom civilian loyalties are being redirected.”

Frankie Sturm, a public information officer at the State Department, told me that Chemonics “has put in place third-party monitors to verify that assistance reaches intended beneficiaries and for intended purposes.”

When I asked Chemonics for the names of these monitors, it directed my questions back to USAID, which refused to provide an answer on security grounds. USAID spokesperson Sam Ostrander told me his agency “works with another firm, completely separate from Chemonics” to monitor the assistance to the White Helmets, but didn’t name the company or disclose how much public funding it received.

In 2014, USAID produced the only evaluation report to date on its Syria-related “transition initiatives.” It was not exactly a portrait of success. “The extent to which OTI’s efforts were successfully building inclusive and accountable governance structures was still unclear,” the report concluded, also noting that “the ongoing conflict resulted in challenges that have led to delays in development and implementation of these activities.”

With such thin monitoring mechanisms in place to track how USAID money is spent in Syria, the risk of misappropriation is considerable.

‘Emergency burial’

Far from the gaze of most Western media consumers, videos and photographs have surfaced on news sites and social media accounts sympathetic to the Syrian government showing White Helmet members boasting about discarding the body parts of Syrian troops in dumpsters, posing triumphantly on the corpses of Syrian soldiers, joining fighters accosting an alleged political opponent, waving the flag of Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra alongside jihadist fighters, and carrying weapons.

While it would seem unfair to tar an entire group with the actions of a few scofflaws, more than a few of the images depict events that are disturbingly real. One particularly jarring video (18+) filmed in Northern Aleppo shows two members of the White Helmets participating in an execution, waiting just off camera while a member of Al-Nusra shoots a man dressed in street clothes in the head after reading out a death sentence. The video of the two White Helmets members immediately packing up the man’s body prompted a statement by the organization condemning the killing and claiming its members were simply fulfilling their task to perform “the emergency burial of the dead.”

In May 2015, a White Helmet member named Muawiya Hassan Agha provided an extensive eyewitness account to the Violations Documentation Center in Syria on the alleged deployment of chemical weapons by Syrian government warplanes in Idlib. (The report described him as a “media activist.”) A year later, Agha was exposed by pro-government social media activists for filming a grotesque video depicting extremist Syrian rebels torturing two captured soldiers they later executed. EA Worldview editor-in-chief Scott Lucas reported that Agha was expelled from the White Helmets days later.

Asked about the allegations of involvement by White Helmet members in human rights violations, the State Department’s Sturm replied, “Syria Civil Defense are emergency response workers who risk their lives to save others—men, women and children trapped by the ravages of war. USAID has no credible information to believe the organization is engaged in anything other than this core mission.”

Chemonics refused to offer a comment on its monitoring and evaluation of the White Helmets or other clients in Syria.

Syria Campaign hones the message

In 2014, the year after USAID disbursed its seed money for the White Helmets, an outfit called the Syria Campaign suddenly materialized to mobilize even greater support for Western intervention through online “clicktivism.” Among the group’s primary functions has been marketing the White Helmets to Western media consumers as non-political heroes saving lives in a sea of sectarian villains.

“We went to meet [the White Helmets] at a training in southern Turkey, they were focused on the training and we were like, we’d like to elevate you guys and get the inspiring work you do out to the world,” James Sadri, campaign director at the Syria Campaign, told me.

Back in November 2014, Tim Dixon, the managing director of Purpose Europe, a former adviser to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and an original Syria Campaign board member, issued a report detailing how his firm’s “White Helmets campaign uses compelling storytelling to mobilize public support.” Dixon wrote: “Purpose believed their story had the power to inspire empathy and action in the wider public, and launched the White Helmets campaign in August as part of an ongoing effort to build support for the protection of civilians.”

Crediting the Syria Campaign’s promotion of the White Helmets with “significant breakthroughs on public engagement, media narratives, and funding,” Dixon boasted of “elite meetings in New York and DC” as well as coverage in outlets from the BBC to the New York Times. Among the most effective storytelling vehicles, according to Dixon, was the “Miracle Baby” video portraying the dramatic rescue of baby Mahmoud from beneath the rubble of a bombed-out home by a White Helmets team.

The episode featured prominently in the documentary The White Helmets and even included a cameo appearance by Mahmoud himself, now a toddler. The Netflix film appears to be at least partly the handiwork of the Syria Campaign.

This July, staffers of the PR company appeared in the studios of Channel 4 in London at a gathering of wealthy donors known as the Funding Network. “The Syria Campaign made a fantastic pitch for funding for their outreach work surrounding The White Helmets,” the Funding Network reported. The group noted, however, that “for reasons of confidentiality, we are unable to post the Syria Campaign’s pitch for the time being.”

Laila Kiki, the Syria Campaign’s media lead, told me, “We didn’t raise any funds specifically for outreach around the Netflix documentary, but our team is supportive of the release.”

On September 30, as the attacks on the rebel-held areas of Aleppo reached a level of unprecedented ferocity, the Syria Campaign sent out an email and social media blast in the name of “Heroes of Syria” like the White Helmets. The message urged supporters into the streets for a “weekend of action” to clamor for a no-fly zone—or what the PR company euphemistically described as, “all aircraft dropping bombs on civilians grounded.”

“In solidarity please cover your face in dust and share it with your friends on social,” the Syria Campaign advised. “If you can do this with a friend or family member, even better.”

As the Syrian army move to liberate more areas of Aleppo from foreign-backed terrorists, the Western countries and their allies are considering other options including moving the war to the southern parts of the country.

Sources that will be provided here, document the historical narrative now occurring toward all-out war between the US and Russia, up till the present, as that history will be introduced in the following two paragraphs (the first paragraph for background, and the second for a summary of the documentation that will then constitute the main body of the present report):

FOR BACKGROUND:

The US government (Barack Obama) was being led by the Saudi royal family, who own Saudi Arabia, in selecting members for the so-called ‘peace negotiations’ with Russia on the Syrian conflict, and those ‘negotiations’ broke up because the US refused to stop backing Al Qaeda in Syria. As I reported and documented on 6 May 2016:

«These talks broke down on April 18th because Al Nusra was facing imminent defeat in the key city of Aleppo, and because such a defeat was unacceptable to Mohammed Alloush, the Saudi agent, and head of the Saudi-Wahhabist group, the Army of Islam. He was selected by King Saud to lead the rebel side at Syria’s peace negotiations».

FOR SUMMARY OF THE FOLLOWING REPORT:

Al Qaeda in Syria (which used to call itself «Al Nusrah») has been leading the US proxy army of jihadists trying to replace Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, but now that Russia and the US have broken off negotiations after the US bombed the Syrian army in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor on September 18th, Russia and the United States are gearing up for war against each other in Syria.

Both Russia and Syria have now quit trying to work any longer with the United States to defeat Al Qaeda in Syria — they’ve had enough of America’s protecting Al Qaeda in Syria; they are laying down the gauntlet to the US regime, and are saying that the US regime can henceforth choose either to leave Syria (which it has invaded by its illegal entry into Syria), or else to go to war against both Syria and Russia there, because Syria and Russia will no longer continue to be deterred by US pretenses about its support of alleged ‘moderate rebels’, no longer deterred from Syria’s and Russia’s joint goal of destroying all jihadists in Syria, including Al Qaeda there — America’s actually key proxy-force on the ground trying to replace Assad.

* * *

Now will be presented the documented recent developments producing this historic break towards World War III. We start with America’s bombing of the Syrian Army, and continue up through to October 7th:

On 18 September 2016, Reuters headlined, «US-led forces strike Syrian troops, prompting emergency U.N. meeting», and reported that, «The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit. The United States relayed its ‘regret’».

Russia’s Sputnik News then bannered on the 18th, «Russian FM: Lethal US Strike on Syrian Army ‘Borders on Connivance With Daesh’», and reported that, «The Russian Foreign Ministry released a sternly worded statement following a tense 24-hours of diplomacy after an allegedly ‘unintentional’ US airstrike killed 80 Syrian Army forces ‘paving the way’ for a Daesh offensive». («Daesh» is a synonym for ISIS.)

Russia’s RIA News agency headlined on the 18th, «Assad Advisor Explains How the USAF [US Air Force] Might Coordinate with IG [another synonym for ISIS]», and reported that, «As soon as Washington struck [Assad’s forces], terrorists launched a ground attack [on Assad’s forces]. [It] hit exactly on the territory that was occupied by the Syrian army».

Later on the 18th, Russian Television headlined «‘Unbelievable’ that US strike on Syrian army was mistake – fmr MI5 agent», and reported that a former intelligence officer for Britain’s MI5, Annie Machon, said: «I find it slightly unbelievable that the Americans could hit this target thinking this was ISIS… So it seems just strange that the Americans are just saying it was a bit of a mistake». She asserted that, in the unlikely event the US really believed that it was supporting «so-called moderate groups» (as she put it) in Syria, «Americans are dealing with fire,» because the so-called ‘moderate rebels’ often defect to jihadist groups and bring along with them the weapons that the US had provided.

This US assistance to Al Qaeda in Syria — Al Nusrah — has been reported for years, by many independent sources, such as in Seymour Hersh’s two separate reports about Obama’s lies regarding Al Nusrah’s being the actual source of the 21 August 2013 sarin gas attack that Obama was blaming on Assad’s government. In fact, on 16 August 2016, the US government even admitted that in Syria «We’re not focused on the former al-Nusra Front. We’re focused on Daesh [ISIS], and that’s what we’re fighting». Evenwhile the US was working with Russia and Syria to kill ISIS in Syria, the US refused to cooperate in attacking Al Qaeda there.

Here was the report, also on September 18th, from Ziad Fadel, a Syrian-born US lawyer (in Michigan) who has many sources in Syria, and who writes for his own popular news-site about this war, the «Syrian Perspective» site, based upon his constant contacts with those Syrians:

«DAYR EL-ZOR:

To be specific, at the Al-Tharda Mountain which is still occupied by the Syrian Army – no thanks to the exceptional talent of the Americans for bungling or outright treachery, yesterday, the United States Air Force, flying out of Habbaaniyya AB in Iraq, with 2 F-16s and 2 A-10 Thunderbolts, crossed the Syrian border without permission and entered Syrian airspace without so much as a hint to the government in Damascus, which might have asked the Americans: WHAT IS YOUR TARGET GOING TO BE? And if the Americans responded with something like: ‘Those ISIS terrorists on Al-Tharda Mountain’, the Syrian government might have said: ‘Oh, no. Don’t do that. Our army is on that mountain.’ And the whole mess could have been averted. 62 Syrian soldiers would still be alive……. We will not forget».

He further reported that,

«an enraged Syrian Army with the help of the PDC and Shu’aytaat Tribal militias, acting under the tenacious and ferocious aerial support of both the SAAF [Syrian Arab Air Force] and RuAf [Russian Air Force], quickly restored army control over all Al-Tharda Mountain inflicting at least 100 casualties on the terrorist filth, destroying 10 vehicles, 6 of which were pickups with 23mm cannons. The air forces are continuing assaults today all around the area of Al-Tharda, Panorama and Al-’urfi».

On September 20th, the Wall Street Journal headlined, «US Believes Russia Bombed Syrian Aid Convoy». But the next day, Britain’s Guardian reported that, «US is not revealing what evidence it has to support claim Moscow was responsible». (Russia denied that it had anything to do with that bombing. Whether the US did it is still not known.)

On September 26th, SANA, the Syrian government’s news agency, bannered, «Al-Moallem: The US wanted to lie and change facts regarding what the Syrian government is doing, but it failed», and reported that: «Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem stressed that the United States, France, and Britain called for a UN Security Council session on Syria this Sunday [September 23rd] in an attempt to support terrorist organizations in Syria… He stressed that the aggression of the US-led coalition on a Syrian Arab Army position in Tharda Mountain in Deir Ezzor was deliberated and in coordination with ISIS, as ISIS rushed to take control of the area only one hour after the aggression».

Also on the 26th, Reuters bannered «Gulf may arm rebels now Syria truce is dead: US officials» and reported the likely sharp escalation of support by the oil kingdoms, for the anti-Assad forces, and asserted «the possibility that Gulf states might arm Syrian rebels with shoulder-fired missiles to defend themselves against Syrian and Russian warplanes, US officials said». This report indicated that the US and its allies were now planning to (either by their own forces or by their proxies who are actually led by Al Qaeda there) shoot down Russian and Syrian planes in Syrian air space. Reuters was reporting efforts by the Sauds and their friends, to pressure a reluctant Obama into joining with them in an all-out war against both Russia and Syria, in Syria.

On September 28th, The New York Times bannered, «Russia’s Brutal Bombing of Aleppo May Be Calculated, and It May Be Working» and reported that:

The effects of Russia’s bombing campaign in the Syrian city of Aleppo — destroying hospitals and schools, choking off basic supplies, and killing aid workers and hundreds of civilians over just days — raise a question: What could possibly motivate such brutality?

Observers attribute Russia’s bombing to recklessness, cruelty or Moscow’s desperate thrashing in what the White House has called a «quagmire».

But many analysts take a different view: Russia and its Syrian government allies, they say, could be massacring Aleppo’s civilians as part of a calculated strategy, aimed beyond this one city.

The strategy, more about politics than advancing the battle lines, appears to be designed to pressure rebels to ally themselves with extremists, eroding the rebels’ legitimacy; give Russia veto power over any high-level diplomacy; and exhaust Syrian civilians who might otherwise support the opposition.

This report didn’t mention another possible explanation for what Russia was doing there: the goal might simply be to exterminate the jihadists who had been imported into Syria by the US and its allied Arabic royal families, during five years of such ‘civil war’, in the few areas of Syria where even the vast majority of the local Syrian residents prefer Shariah law and thus favor the overthrow of the highly secular, ideologically non-religious, Assad government. (Those areas of Syria are identifiable by this Western-sponsored poll that had been taken of the Syrian population during July 2015, where, for example, on page 4, Assad’s support is the lowest in Raqua, Idlip, Daraa, Der’-Zor, Sewedaa, and Hasakeh; and, on page 7, Nusra’s support is by far the highest in Aleppo, but also relatively high in Rural Damascus, Hasakeh, Der’-Zor, Homs, and Daraa.)

This technique of defeating jihadists — exterminating them and their supporters — was the way that Putin had solved the Saudi-led insurgency by jihadists in Russia’s own Chechnya region (who had been backed by both the CIA and the Sauds): exterminating everyone in the fanatical neighborhoods. It also served as a model in Tatarstan, preventing jihadism there.

Just as the United States participated in the firebombing of Dresden, and carried out the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and slaughtered many non-combatants in the process, Russia destroys entire jihadist-supporting neighborhoods, not only the jihadist mercenaries who have taken over control there (and who have either killed or driven out any residents who oppose them). The reason that The New York Times doesn’t mention such an explanation is that it doesn’t fit what the White House is saying about the matter; it fits instead with what ‘the enemies’ (Assad and Putin) are saying they’re doing. In fact, the NYT report went so far as to actually sub-headline «Blurring Rebels and Jihadists» and assert that, «Aleppo is a metaphor for the larger war.

The northern Syrian city is one of the few remaining strongholds for non-jihadist rebel groups». Even the Western-sponsored poll in July 2015 showed that to be the exact opposite of the reality. Although the NYT said this, the United States government iteslf had already asserted the opposite: on 20 April 2016, the Pentagon’s official spokesperson on the Syrian war, Steve Warren, said «It’s primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo». So, the regime sometimes has problems keeping its narrative together (sometimes its press-mouthpieces such as the NYT go even beyond the government’s own lies), but they needn’t really worry much when they slip up like that and state the truth, because, after all, The New York Times reaches far more Americans than does a flunky at an official press conference, and everybody who is involved in the cons knows what the intended story-line is supposed to be (i.e.: Russian government bad; US government good), so such elementary slip-ups are rare, and inconsequential. (But the Pentagon spokesperson, Steven Warren, might miss his next promotion for that error, honesty.)

In other words: the US is allied with Al Qaeda in Syria.

On September 28th, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby was asked in a press conference, «What makes you think that the Secretary’s [John Kerry’s] threat to begin to take steps to suspend cooperation if the Russians don’t act to stop the violence immediately is likely to get the Russians to actually stop the violence?» Like any professional ‘news’ ‘reporter’ for the regime, this questioner posed his question with the underlying assumption «Russian government bad» «American government good». Mr. Kirby, likewise very professional as a propagandist, replied, «you’d have to ask Foreign Minister Lavrov» (in the ‘enemy’ camp). Then, the ‘journalist’ prodded Kirby further, and Kirby said, «we thought that that could help us advance the fight against a group like al-Nusrah in particular».

He was presenting the US as if it had been against, instead of for, Al Qaeda in Syria. (Actually, Obama is committed to, and highly dependent upon, Al Qaeda in Syria in order to overthrow Assad.) A ‘journalist’ asked: «Can you foresee any options that the US Government could take, short of full-scale warfare and invasion, that would actually stop the Russian/Syrian onslaught on Aleppo?» Then that was refined to «What are the consequences for Russia?» And, finally, after much to-and-fro, and with obvious great reluctance, Kirby handed to the assembled dogmeat-hungry ‘journalists’:

The consequences are that the civil war will continue in Syria, that extremists and extremists groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria to expand their operations, which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, and Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags, and they will continue to lose resources – even, perhaps, more aircraft.

The US State Department is now officially threatening Russia with war — not only on the proxy-battlefields of Syria, but «perhaps even Russian cities». Was that historic announcement headlined as such in the American ‘news’ media? In such a country, one can’t blame the public for sleepwalking into global annihilation, if that’s where we go.

On October 1st, German Economic News headlined «Großmächte treiben in Syrien auf einen globalen Krieg zu» or «Great Powers Driving in Syria on to a Global war,» and reported that:

The battle for Aleppo can evolve into a direct war between the US and Russia. The situation is extremely dangerous.

The international and Islamist mercenaries are, according to the Syrian army leadership, preparing a counteroffensive against the Syrian army in Aleppo. As al-Masdar news reports, thousands of mercenaries are assembling in the south and west of the city to expel from Aleppo the Syrian army. 

On October 3rd, Zero Hedge headlined, «US Suspends Diplomatic Relations With Russia On Syria», and quoted Kirby saying «This is not a decision that was taken lightly» but «Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments, including its obligations under international humanitarian law».

On October 5th, the «Moon of Alabama» blogger bannered, «Is Fighting Al-Qaeda In Aleppo Good Or Bad? — US Unable To Decide», and he expressed (and documented) the view that the only reason why Kerry and the rest of the Obama Administration had pretended to negotiate with Russia regarding Syria was in order to buy time to enable enough US weapons to be delivered to Al Nusra and its allies in Syria so as to be able to conquer the nation.

Also on October 5th, Morning Consult headlined «Congress Must Vote on Bombing Assad Regime, Lee Tells Obama», and reported that, «If the Obama administration wants to bomb the Assad regime, it must first get a declaration of war from Congress, Sen. Mike Lee said… ‘Should President Obama move ahead without authorization, then Congress must be called back into session to fulfill its obligation to debate and determine whether our nation should once again go to war’». Of course, if America does «once again go to war,» it will be war this time against Russia, and it will be unprecedented, in many ways, perhaps even final (which would be extremely «unprecedented»).

Also on October 5th, Britain’s Daily Mail bannered «Russia claims nuclear war could be imminent as it evacuates 40 MILLION people in drill and warns that ‘schizophrenics from America’ could attack», and reported that:

Russia is evacuating more than 40 million people in drills to prepare for nuclear war after Putin’s Ministry of Defence warned of ‘schizophrenics from America sharpening atomic weapons for Moscow’. 

Citizens have been told a war with the West could be imminent and Kremlin officials have said underground shelters have been built to house 12million people. 

The massive evacuation drill started yesterday and will last three days.

On October 6th, Russian Television bannered «‘S-300, S-400 air defenses in place’: Russian MoD warns US-led coalition not to strike Syrian army», and reported that Russia’s Defense Ministry said that «any missile or air strikes on the territory controlled by the Syrian government will create a clear threat to Russian servicemen», as a consequence of which the American invading forces would be shot down.

Also on October 6th, Al Masdar News headlined «Point of No Return as Islamist Rebels Lose More Ground in Aleppo City», and reported that «Islamist rebels of the [Nusra-allied and trained] Fatah Halab coalition have little prospect of breaking the [Syrian Arab Army — Syrian government] SAA imposed siege of eastern Aleppo».

Also on October 6th, Ireland’s RTE bannered «UN Security Council to Meet on Syria — Diplomats», and reported:

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting tomorrow on Syria after a UN envoy warned that eastern Aleppo may be totally destroyed in the next few months by the Russian and Syrian air campaign.

Russia requested the meeting to hear from UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, who will brief the council via video conference from Geneva at 1400 GMT, diplomats said.

Mr De Mistura earlier took aim at Russia, suggesting that Moscow was indiscriminately bombing a city with hundreds of thousands of civilians to flush out just a few hundred jihadists.

«We are talking about 900 people, basically, who are becoming the main reason for which there is 275,000 people actually being attacked», he said.

Would this, he asked, be the excuse for «the destruction of the city?»

«In maximum two months, two-and-a-half months, the city of eastern Aleppo may be totally destroyed,» he told reporters.

The envoy urged fighters from the former Al-Nusra Front – which renamed itself Fateh al-Sham Front after breaking with Al-Qaeda – to leave Aleppo under a deal to halt the regime’s attacks on the city.

«If you decide to leave with dignity … I am personally ready to physically accompany you», Mr de Mistura said.

Security Council members were discussing a French-drafted UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Aleppo.

On Friday, October 7th, Reuters headlined «Assad offers rebels amnesty if they surrender Aleppo», and reported that, «Rebels holed up in Aleppo can leave with their families if they lay down their arms, President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday, vowing to press on with the assault on Syria’s largest city and recapture full control of the country». He was willing to allow the estimated 900 Nusra-allied fighters, «inside Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern sector» to escape, in order for Aleppo’s jihadist-controlled area to avoid being totally destroyed by bombing. «However, rebels said they had no plan to evacuate Aleppo, the last major urban area they control, and denounced the amnesty offer as a deception».

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

CNBC reports: “The British pound took a dive on Friday, tanking as much as 6 percent, as traders scrambled to assess the cause of the heavy selling. The currency fell to $1.1819 in early Asian hours, hitting its lowest level since 1985—a year when it hit $1.0520 amid an acrimonious mining industry strike. The currency later recovered [5%] to hover at the $1.24 handle by the afternoon session of Asian trade.

Friday’s fall was the most aggressive since results of the Brexit vote emerged on June 24, according to spread-betting firm IG. – Market speculation was rife that the decline was the result of a wrongly entered trade. Because there was no news so far to justify the pound’s wild swing, it could be the result of a ‘fat finger’ [mistake], said Elias Haddad, senior currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.”

Video: Press TV Interview of Economist Peter Koenig

John Gorman, head of non-yen rates trading at Nomura Securities, said via email that there were two theories floating around. “First, it was a fat finger or a trade entered mistakenly. The second possibility, which sounds more reasonable, is that there is a large barrier option that traded and that caused the selloff in light liquidity.”

Kathy Lien, managing director of foreign exchange strategy at BK Asset Management, echoed that view. “It’s a low liquidity sell-off. Typically, when we see this, the reversal is violent but with fundamental support, the pound could find a new range between 1.22 and 1.25 per dollar,” she said in e-mailed comments.

But because other currencies did not see corresponding moves, it may not be a liquidity issue, flagged ‎UBS’ chief Asia-Pacific investment officer Kelvin Tay. Indeed, other currencies were stable on Friday, with the euro down 0.30 percent to $1.1117 while the was 0.15 percent stronger at $103.90.

Not everyone believed the fat-finger theory either. “Usually, fat finger errors don’t have the continuity that we’re seeing right now. There’s a chance that it might been an error but I don’t think we haven’t seen the last of the lows,” Ashraf Laidi, CEO of Intermarket Strategy, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box”.
—
Friday’s moves cap a volatile week for the currency, bringing its week-to-date losses to over 4 percent, according to Reuters data. On Thursday, it traded around $1.2720 after hitting what was also a 31-year low of $1.2686 on Wednesday. The selling began to accelerate following British

Prime Minister Theresa May’s announcement on Sunday that Article 50, a piece of legislation that launches the exit process, could start by the first quarter of 2017.

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS TV INTERVIEW

PressTV Question: How do you see this sudden fall of the British Pound? Is it a ‘mistake’ as some say, or does it have to do with BREXIT and with Prime Minister Teresa May’s announcement that the exit process could start by the first quarter of 2017?

Peter Koenig:  First, we have to realize that the western economy is one where the currency, i.e. the monetary system makes the economy, not the other way around as it should be – where the economy makes the monetary system.

We are living in an economy where money has since the banking deregulation in the 1990s absolutely no backing, not gold, not the economic output of a country – nothing but thin air, as money is made by a mouse click on a computer by a private bank. In the US 97% of all money is made by private banks as debt. In Europe it’s not much different.

This system is perfect for speculation. You invent an event – and use that event in the media to justify a fall in the stock market, or in this case a currency.

In the case of the British Pound, it was not even necessary to invent an event – there is BREXIT, and BREXIT will last for a long time, perhaps even more than the statutory limit of 2 years, as everything is negotiable, especially between the UK and the EU.

So, in the case of the drop of the Pound by 6% – of which it recovered at least 5% in less than an hour – has in my opinion nothing to do with the wild guesses of media pundits, of so-called ‘fat fingers’ (mistakes) or ‘liquidity sales’, as someone else puts it.

It is pure and simple speculation. Speculation by banks that use the pretext of BREXIT – and it’s not the last time – to make a quick profit, probably in the hundreds of millions, if not billions – in 15 minutes – why not? The system allows it, so it’s all legal.

I could even imagine – don’t really know, but could imagine – that the Bank of England is behind this massive quick-drop, to make a quick profit – or in other words to recover some of the billions the Bank of England has already and will be putting into the ‘system’ to stabilize the English Pound. – Why not, after all, in the Western monetary system, money is made of thin air, but to maintain a certain balance you recover some of what others have already taken out as speculative profit.

PressTV: How will BREXIT and these currency fluctuations affect Britain’s and the world’s economy?

PK: Yes, another aspect that must be pointed out in this connection, is the fact that BREXIT is made to believe it is bad for the British economy – therefore the speculations in this direction, i.e. letting the currency drop from time to time by all those who control the monetary system, the same people who by default are against BREXIT and who want to put pressure on the UK Government to either reverse BREXIT or make the process as slow and as light as possible.

The western dollar based system needs the EU to survive. If BREXIT is presented with problems, it may discourage others from exiting the monetary union and the EU – I hear that Italy is perhaps the next candidate for EUREXIT.

Depending on who wins the French elections, for example Marine Le Pen, extreme right, or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, extreme left – both want to exit the EU, the EURO and NATO.  – Imagine what may happen to the western monetary system and its economy that is based on this fake system, if France and Italy -and who knows, perhaps even Germany, decide for EUREXIT? – It will not be good.

Therefore, there are plenty of reasons for these wide monetary speculations, mostly carried out by banks, probably even central banks, and maybe even the BIS itself – the Bank for International Settlement, the Central Bank of all central banks.

And let me add – the British economy in the long run will be better off without the EU; this is a clear prediction by serious economists, even within Britain, therefore – much of the negative hype that comes from the mainstream media is nothing but fear-mongering.

Again, be prepared to see more of these sudden drops and recoveries – all for quick profit taking. And mind you this, as time goes on, could happen with any other strong country’s currency, the EURO for example as long as it exists; and I am not excluding that such attempts on speculation may even be made against the Chinese Yuan, as has happened already, although China is much better prepared for western speculations. Also their currency is not made of thin air, but is not only backed by gold, but by their economy.

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.

With North Korea’s recent nuclear weapon test, it appears the East Asian state is transitioning from possessing a demonstration capability toward hosting a functional nuclear arsenal. While analysts believe North Korea has yet to miniaturise its nuclear weapons to fit in rocket-launched warheads, the frequency and size of the nation’s nuclear tests indicate expanding capabilities in both research and development as well as in fabrication and deployment.

BBC’s article, “North Korea’s nuclear programme: How advanced is it?,” would claim:

North Korea has conducted several tests with nuclear bombs.

However, in order to launch a nuclear attack on its neighbours, it needs to be able to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on to a missile.

North Korea claims it has successfully “miniaturised” nuclear warheads – but this has never been independently verified, and some experts have cast doubt on the claims.

And despite Western commentators and their counterparts in South Korea and Japan’s claims that North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme is a proactive, provocative policy, closer scrutiny reveals that Pyongyang’s defence policy may be instead predicated on legitimate fears reflecting and reacting to American and South Korean foreign policy.

An Axe Poised Above Pyongyang 

The International Business Times in an article titled, “As nuclear threat escalates, South Korea has concrete plans to eliminate Kim Jong-un,” would report:

South Korean troops are reportedly on standby to “eliminate” North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, should they feel threatened by their nuclear weapons.

According to CNN International, South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-koo revealed the information in parliament on 21 September. When asked whether a special forces unit had already been put together to eliminate the North Korean dictator, Han confirmed that such a plan was already in place.

Such an announcement, while at first may appear to be South Korea reacting to what it believes is a legitimate threat, is instead a clearly provocative move meant specifically to escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula, not assuage them.

Such an operation, to maximise chances for success, would be kept secret, not announced to the world. Additionally, “eradicating” a leader believed by many to serve mainly as a figurehead, with a large network of military and industry leaders surrounding him handing various aspects of North Korean foreign and domestic policy, would accomplish little in negating any actual military threat the nation posed to its southern neighbour.

Instead, a much larger and more involved plan would need to be put in place and prepared vigorously for, one that would entail hundreds of thousands of South Korean and American troops and possibly even other forces brought in under the guise of a UN peacekeeping force to overwhelm and subdue North Korea.

And such a plan does indeed exist.

A 2009 paper published by influential US-based think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, titled, “Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea,” would enumerate a deeply involved plan for US and South Korean forces to fill any void that may develop in the event that North Korea’s government collapses.

While the report itself does not mention US activities underway to induce such a collapse, such activities are indeed ongoing, as they are elsewhere around the world, as are their effects are on display where they have already unfolded, namely Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.

The plan itself involves subduing any and all resistance from North Korea’s military and population with an occupying force nearly a half-million strong, as well as the complete seizure of North Korea’s economy and its subsequent integration into South Korea’s “market economy.”

With such plans in place, with US and South Korean forces clearly practising for them annually and with the US intentionally and persistently attempting to undermine political stability within North Korea itself, what other sort of geopolitical posture should the world expect to see pursued by Pyongyang’s leadership besides paranoia and a perpetual war footing?

It is clear that covert and overt threats made by the West and its political proxies in Seoul either directly or through policy either put on paper or into practice indirectly, drives North Korea’s reciprocal belligerence.

The United States and its East Asian proxies have a clear material and military advantage over North Korea and could afford more than Pyongyang to make concessions and to redirect energy and resources away from threatening the North Koreans, toward genuine rapprochement.

However, while genuine rapprochement would be in the entire Korean Peninsula’s best interests, as well as in China and Japan’s, it would negate any further need for the United States’ presence on the Peninsula. Thus, as long as Seoul depends on or allows the US to provide regional security, it will entail such security that will ensure America’s perpetual presence and influence over the region. With America’s dual purpose being to both control the Koreas as well as encircle neighbouring China, there is virtually no reason ever for the United States to foster genuine peace and coexistence on the Peninsula.

The removal, therefore, of American forces from both Korea and Japan would be the first and most crucial step toward real reconciliation and progress in the region, reconciliation and progress that Asia requires but would acquire at the cost of America’s regional hegemonic ambitions.

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

Interview conducted with Denmark’s TV-2

Highlights, Complete Transcript of Interview Below

President al-Assad

“Do you know the unicorn, the animal that’s like a horse, has a long horn? It’s a myth. And the moderate opposition is a myth. That’s why you cannot separate something that doesn’t exist from something that exists. All of them have the same grassroots, the same grassroots that used to be called “free Syrian army” four years ago, five years ago, then it became al-Nusra, then it became ISIS. So, the same grassroots move from group to another group. That’s why they cannot separate it. And they don’t want.. if this is reality, not a myth, they don’t want, but they cannot, because it doesn’t exist…

…they [the U.S. administration] insisted that there is a moderate opposition, and the Russian told them “ok, if there is a moderate opposition, please separate those moderates from the extremists,” and it didn’t work, because they don’t exist…

…If there is opposition, what is the definition of opposition? Could you accept an opposition in your country that belongs to other countries? Or should it be a Danish opposition that belongs to Danish people. They cannot tell which opposition to support in any other country. This is an intervention in internal matters. This is against the sovereignty, against the international law. They don’t have the right to support anyone in Syria against anyone. It’s not their business. We are a sovereign country; we are independent. We have the right to tackle our problems….

…They have to. There’s no other option. We won’t accept that terrorists will take control of any part of Syria, not only Aleppo. This is our mission, and this is our goal, and this is our next step…

…it’s my mission according to the constitution. It’s the mission of the army according to the constitution; it’s the mission of the state’s institutions according to the constitution. It’s not an option, it’s not a personal opinion, and it’s not my plan. My mission is to defend the civilians. My mission is to fight terrorists. My mission is to take control of every part of my country…”

FULL VIDEO-INTERVIEW

TRANSCRIPT 

(Damascus, 6 October 2016) ~ In an interview given to Denmark’s TV 2 channel, President al-Assad said that “moderate opposition” is a myth, and that reaching a political solution requires fighting terrorism, asserting that it’s not acceptable that terrorists will take control of any part of Syria.

President Bashar al-Assad affirmed that the United States doesn’t have the will to reach any agreement about Syria, and that Syria knew in advance that the US agreement with Russia will not succeed because the main part of that agreement is to attack al-Nusra which is an American card in Syria.

Following is the full text of the interview

Question 1: So, Mr. President, let us begin with the current situation in Aleppo. The last few weeks, terrifying pictures have come out from Aleppo. I mean, we see the residents of the rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo in a very dire situation. They seem exhausted, they seem terrified, the situation is very violent. What is the strategy behind launching such fierce attack from the Syrian and Russian armies at the moment?

President Assad: Actually, we didn’t launch an attack, because the Syrian Army has continued its drive toward liberating every part of Syria including Aleppo or eastern Aleppo from the terrorists, but there was a ceasefire for one week in order to give the treaty, or the agreement, let’s say, between the Russians and the Americans a way to be implemented, and it didn’t work. When that week ended, we continued our drive as army to liberate eastern Aleppo from the terrorists. But actually, when you want to talk about the dire situation in eastern Aleppo, it’s not because of the government; it’s because of the terrorists. They’ve been in that area for years now, but we only heard about that “dire situation” in the media recently, in the Western media, because the situation of the terrorists is very bad. This is the only reason. While if you want to talk about the situation there, we never prevented any medical supply or food supply or any other thing from entering east Aleppo. There’s no embargo, if that’s what you mean, there’s no embargo, and our role as a government is to encircle the terrorists in order to liberate every part of the city.

Question 2: But what I also mean, we see pictures of children being killed, children at hospitals, we see pictures of demolished hospitals. Who’s targeting those hospitals?

President Assad: Let me tell you something about those pictures of children; of course, in every war, there are victims, there are innocent victims, and that’s why every war is a bad war, but if you look at those pictures that they’ve been promoted as pictures in the Western media, they only singled out a few pictures of children that suit their political agenda, just to accuse the Syrian government, while – you’ve been here now for two days – and they’ve been daily shelling from the eastern part of Aleppo toward the rest of the city, and there was wholesale killing and destruction of the other part of the city and tens of victims and tens of wounded people from Aleppo that the Western corporations didn’t talk about them. The Western officials didn’t issue a single statement regarding those children and women and elderly and innocents in general. So, this is part of the propaganda and demonization of the government in Syria. That doesn’t mean when you have war, again, that you don’t have victims, but the Syrian government has opened the door for the militants in the eastern part of Aleppo to leave safely with guarantees, and for the people of that area to go back to their houses.

Question 3: But residents in the area, eyewitnesses, international aid organizations, all saying that the hospitals have been targeted, and when I look at the pictures, I see hospitals, I see the beds inside the hospitals, and to me it really looks like it is demolished, it has been targeted, so who’s targeting the hospitals?

President Assad: I don’t have the answer to which hospital are you talking about, because we don’t have any facts about it, we only have allegations, so answering allegations shouldn’t be only through-

Question 4: But pictures are facts.

President Assad: Pictures cannot tell you the story, even videos, everything could be manipulated these days. I wouldn’t say that there are no such attacks on any building, but as a government, we don’t have a policy to destroy hospitals or schools or any such facility for a simple reason: first of all, morally, the second reason is that if we do so, we are offering the militants the incubator, the social incubator that they’ve been looking for, it’s going to be a gift, something we wouldn’t do because it’s against our interests. It’s like shooting ourselves in the foot. If there’s such an attack from the army, it could be by mistake, but we don’t have any information that thing has happened. All what we have is allegations and only in the Western media, not from Syria.

Question 5: So, if the Syrian Army didn’t attack hospitals, or maybe they did by mistake, you say, are you sure it’s not the Russian air force who are targeting hospitals?

President Assad: The question that you should ask when you have a crime: who is the beneficiary of that crime? What would they get, I mean for the Russians or the Syrians, if they attack a school or if they attack hospital? What would they get if they attack a hospital? Nothing, they wouldn’t get anything. I mean, even if you want to talk about the terrorists, most of their hospitals for the militants would be in the basement in ordinary buildings. So, attacking a hospital intentionally by the army is based on shaky logic, let’s say.

Question 6: Do you then agree that whoever attacks hospitals, they are guilty of war crimes?

President Assad: Of course, by international law, it is. I mean, hospitals have immunity. Any other facility for any inhabited area – inhabited by civilians, not by militants – has immunity, and any government shouldn’t do it, of course, I agree with you.

Question 7: Mr. President, you have kids yourself, and I’m sure you’re also watching television, you also watch these pictures of children at the hospitals, children being buried in the rubble. How does it affect you when you look at these pictures of Syrian children?

President Assad: Of course, I have children, I have the same feelings of any father and mother who would care a lot about their children, and how would they feel if they lose a member of their family. And by the way, we lost members of our families during the conflict because of the terrorist attacks. But when you look at those killed children, you think why? Why the terrorists did so? Why did Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Turkey commit those crimes? And I wonder why would the Western countries, mainly the USA and its allies in Europe, have supported those terrorists who’ve been committing crimes in Syria? That’s the first thing I thought about. Of course, as President, the second thing that I would think about is how can I protect the Syrian people and the Syrian children, and how can I protect the innocent from having the same fate in any coming day.

Question 8: So, you are blaming the rebels in the eastern part of Aleppo of being behind the attacks on the children of Aleppo?

President Assad: You can take your camera to Aleppo, to the other part of Aleppo which is under the control of the government, which is – I mean, when you see the fact, it’s more credible than what I’m going to say – but you can see how many civilians have been killed during the last two months in Aleppo. Hundreds of civilians have been killed by the rebels. The question is why didn’t we hear about them in the Western media? That’s my question. Again, I wouldn’t say that you don’t having civilians going as victims, but when it’s shelled by mortars by the rebels intentionally, we have to talk about this crime as well.

Question 9: At the moment, there’s a seven-year-old girl, her name is Bana al-Abed, from Aleppo. She’s Tweeting about her life in the eastern part of Aleppo. She’s talking about the massive bombardment. She’s very scared, every time she wakes up and realizes, fortunately, she’s still alive. Do you trust her as an eyewitness?

President Assad: You cannot build your political position or stand, let’s say, according to a video promoted by the terrorists or their supporters. It’s a game now, a game of propaganda, it’s a game of media. You can see anything, and you can be sympathetic with every picture and every video you see. But our mission as a government is to deal with the reality. You have terrorists in Syria, they are supported by foreign powers and foreign countries, and we have to defend our country. In some areas, the terrorists use the civilians as a human shield, but we have to do our job to liberate them, we cannot say “we won’t do anything because the terrorists are holding those hostages.” It’s our mission. Again, we are going to the same point; you always have mistakes that are committed by anyone, but this is not policy, and you always have innocent victims of that war.

Question 10: What kind of mistakes did the Syrian Army do?

President Assad: Any individual mistakes.

Question 11: Have you any examples of mistakes?

President Assad: I mean, you have institutions, I mean anyone could be punished if he commits a mistake, that would happen in any war, in every army, this is common sense.

Question 12: You have encouraged the civilians in the eastern part of Aleppo, and also actually the rebels, to leave the place. You wanted to create a humanitarian corridor. Can you guarantee the safety of those civilians and the rebels if they leave the rebel-held part of the city?

President Assad: Exactly, that’s what we announced a few days ago, and we announced it two months ago, because we wanted the civilians to leave away from the terrorists. Yeah.

Question 13: And how are you going to protect them?

President Assad: They are allowed to leave. It happened many times, in many different areas in Syria. We allowed the terrorists to leave that area in order to protect the civilians. We don’t need any more blood-letting and blood-shedding. This is one of the ways or the methods we’ve been using in order to protect the civilians. Of course, if they don’t obey, we tell the civilians that we’re going to attack that area, so they can move away from it. But the best way is to allow the terrorists to leave, and the civilians will be safe, then you can if you want to follow or chase the terrorists, you can chase them somewhere else where there’s no civilians.

Question 14: Do you understand if people around the world who are watching these terrifying pictures coming out of the eastern part of Aleppo, if they maybe think that you are denying facts? That you also have some kind of responsibility for the victims, for the bombing of the hospitals, for the bombing of the civilian infrastructure? Do you understand that some people, they may think you are denying facts?

President Assad: Look, if we’ve been faced by lies since the beginning of the war on Syria, accepting those lies as reality doesn’t make me credible. I wouldn’t be credible if I say “oh, yeah, you’re right.” That’s why I said there’s a difference between accepting that this is a policy, or accepting that they always have mistakes. I didn’t deny any mistake to be committed by any individual. I said there’s always mistakes. There are always mistakes committed in any war. So, I’m very realistic. But to say that this is our aim as a government, we give the order to destroy hospitals or schools or to kill civilians, this is against our interests. I mean, if you want to put the morals aside, we wouldn’t do it because this is against us, so how can those people, that would say that we are only denying facts, convince anyone that we are working against our interests?

This is first. Second, if we are killing people, Syrian people, and destroying hospitals and committing all these atrocities, and we’ve been faced by all the great powers and the petrodollars in the world, how can I be President after nearly six years of the beginning of the war? I’m not Superman, if I don’t have support, I wouldn’t be here, and because I have the support, and because we defend the Syrian people, we have the support as President or as a government. This is how to refute all these claims. I mean, at the end, the reality is telling.

Question 15: So, there’s a fierce battle going on in Aleppo right now. What will be the Syrian army and the Russian army’s next move to retake the eastern rebel-held part of Aleppo?

President Assad: To continue the fight with the rebels till they leave Aleppo. They have to. There’s no other option. We won’t accept that terrorists will take control of any part of Syria, not only Aleppo. This is our mission, and this is our goal, and this is our next step.

Question 16: So, this intense way of warfare that we see right will continue, that’s what you’re saying?

President Assad: No, if you have any other option like the reconciliations in other areas, that’s the best option, not the war, and that’s why we announced – we gave many amnesties to hundreds, and maybe thousands, not hundreds, thousands of militants, in order to save blood, and it worked. That’s why we said we give them guarantee, whether they want to have reconciliation and to have the amnesty, or to leave with their armaments outside the city of Aleppo completely, to leave the city safe, and for the people to go back to their normal life.

Question 17: The United States, they stopped all bilateral talks with Russia about any kind of peace agreement, and the Russians they said that they actually regret this. Do you regret it as well?

President Assad: We regret it, but we knew in advance that it wouldn’t work, because the agreement, it’s not only about the talks between the two great powers, it’s not about what they’re going to sign or agree upon; it’s about the will, and we already knew, we had already known that the Americans didn’t have the will to reach any agreement, because the main part of that agreement is to attack al-Nusra which is, according to the American list and to the United Nations list, is a terrorist group, but in the Syrian conflict, it’s an American card. Without al-Nusra, the Americans cannot have any real, let’s say, concrete and effective card in the Syrian arena. That’s why we regret it, but we already knew that it wouldn’t happen.

Question 18: But isn’t it very difficult for the United States to separate the so-called “moderate rebels” and some of the more radical ones? This is very difficult, when you are attacking the moderate rebels all the time.

President Assad: You are right, do you know why you are right? Do you know the unicorn, the animal that’s like a horse, has a long horn? It’s a myth. And the moderate opposition is a myth. That’s why you cannot separate something that doesn’t exist from something that exists. All of them have the same grassroots, the same grassroots that used to be called “free Syrian army” four years ago, five years ago, then it became al-Nusra, then it became ISIS. So, the same grassroots move from group to another group. That’s why they cannot separate it. And they don’t want.. if this is reality, not a myth, they don’t want, but they cannot, because it doesn’t exist.

Question 19: But why did you ask them to do it if it’s not possible?

President Assad: Because they insisted that there is a moderate opposition, and the Russian told them “ok, if there is a moderate opposition, please separate those moderates from the extremists,” and it didn’t work, because they don’t exist, that’s why.

Question 20: What do you think will be the consequences of the US suspension of the bilateral talks? I mean, until now, the Syrian and Russian armies, they have avoided direct clashes with the US army. Do you think that there’s an increased risk of direct attacks between you and your allies and the US army?

President Assad: Many people are talking about the escalation, if the agreement didn’t work or if it’s not implemented. But actually that escalation has been happening for a while now. I mean, before that agreement, let’s say, failed, the Americans attacked our forces in Deir Ezzor, and everybody knows that only one group existed in Deir Ezzor, which is ISIS, and ISIS came and took the place of the Syrian Army and they threaten the city, which is called Deir Ezzor, because of the American attacks. So, talking about escalation, it’s already happening. Talking about direct confrontation, since World War II, that never happened, I mean, it was very close to happening during the Cuban missile crisis, in 1962 I think. Now the situation is different, because in the United States you don’t have superior statecraft. When you don’t have superior statecraft, you should expect anything, and you should always expect the worse. I’m sure that Russia is doing its best not to reach that point, but do the Americans – or, let’s say, the “hawks” part or the group within the administration – do their best to avoid that confrontation, or the opposite, do their best to have this confrontation with Russia? That’s what worries us.

Question 21: And talking about the incident in Deir Ezzor on September 17. It was British, Australian, US, and Danish fighter jets who allegedly attacked the Syrian Army. Denmark, like the other countries, they said it was a mistake. Do you accept that explanation?

President Assad: We accept the explanation, but that doesn’t mean we accept that error, doesn’t mean we justify it. To say a mistake, maybe you have the wrong information, especially as you are fulfilling an American mission; I’m sure not the Danish, not the British, decided which target they should attack. I’m sure the Americans said “this is our target, and this is where ISIS is.” Of course, they deceive the others, and tell them “we’re going to attack ISIS.” Maybe that’s the truth. But is it acceptable for the Danish people that your army is fulfilling military missions of other countries without verifying the target and knowing where is it heading? Do you take a bus without knowing where the bus is going to? You don’t. So, it’s not acceptable. Maybe it’s a mistake, that’s true, but the mistake is not acceptable.

Question 22: So do you think that, indirectly, Denmark, they were helping ISIS?

President Assad: In reality, they helped ISIS because of this attack, because they killed tens of Syrian soldiers who are defending the city of Deir Ezzor from being under the control of ISIS, and now ISIS took the place, took the hills that overlook the city, so they could be able someday to take control of Deir Ezzor because of that attack.

Question 23: And you think that the US, they did that on purpose, and Denmark, they helped them without knowing?

President Assad: I don’t know about Denmark; I don’t know if it’s without knowing. Maybe. The only reason that makes me believe so is because the Europeans implement and fulfill what the Americans want in every field without asking and without discussing, to be frank, so it could be one of the reasons. But for the Americans, a hundred percent, they did it intentionally, because ISIS gathered their militants in the same place before the attack, and when the attack started, it took about one hour, and in the next hour ISIS attacked and took control of those hills. How could ISIS knew about this raid before it happened? Of course, this is not the only indication for us that the United States is supporting ISIS, the attack on Palmyra, when they occupied and took control of Palmyra under the supervision of the Americans, the smuggling of oil, the extraction of oil from oil fields in Syria in the desert in the middle of the day. This is a strong indication that the United States has been supporting ISIS in order to use ISIS.

Question 24: Until now, the Danish government they have followed US policy towards Syria. They even said that they were willing to engage in a military operation against the Syrian Army. What do you think about the Danish policy towards Syria?

President Assad: First of all, the intervention in Syria, as part of the international coalition which is actually an American coalition, this is against the international law, this is against the sovereignty of Syria because this is not in coordination with the Syrian government, while the Russian came to Syria after taking the permission of the Syrians; actually after having an invitation from the Syrian government to support us in our fight against the terror. So this is against the sovereignty, this is against the international law and this is against any moralized policy anywhere in the world. It’s illegal.

The other aspect of that policy is the embargo. As part of the European Union, they made embargo on the Syrian population; tens of millions of Syrians, they are not allowed to reach the basic needs of their life. For example, you cannot buy now pumps for the water, they cannot buy medical equipment to diagnose somebody who has a cancer who would die because he cannot afford these materials. The embargo prevents the Syrian companies, airlines companies, from having spare parts for their airplanes in order to prevent those airplanes from crashing in the air and killing the passengers. This is the policy of the European Union, and Denmark is part of that policy.

Question 25: But what else should they do? I mean, they are very much against what’s going on in Syria right now. They have been supporting the opposition. Maybe they don’t want to be involved in a direct war with the Syrian Army. So what else to do?

President Assad: For the government?

Journalist: Yes.

President Assad: The question is would you as a Danish citizen accept me as a foreigner to support opposition in your country with money and to tell them “go and kill, and that’s how you achieve your political goals?” If there is opposition, what is the definition of opposition? Could you accept an opposition in your country that belongs to other countries? Or should it be a Danish opposition that belongs to Danish people. They cannot tell which opposition to support in any other country. This is an intervention in internal matters. This is against the sovereignty, against the international law. They don’t have the right to support anyone in Syria against anyone. It’s not their business. We are a sovereign country; we are independent. We have the right to tackle our problems. So, they’re not in a position to support anyone, whether right or wrong.

Question 26: Do you see Denmark as an enemy of Syria?

President Assad: No, they are not. They are not an enemy. There is a big difference between the Danish people, like most of the European people, they were friends to Syria, but it’s about the policy of the government. It’s about whole Europe now being absent from the political map at least since 2003 after the invasion of Iraq, just because they had to follow the Americans, and they don’t dare to take their independent, let’s say, path in politics. We differentiate precisely between the government and the people of Denmark, and the same for other countries.

Question 27: If it could speed up the negotiations for a peaceful future in Syria, if you left office and may be another one from the Syrian administration took over, why wouldn’t you do that?

President Assad: To leave, you mean?

Journalist: Yes.

President Assad: That depends on the Syrian people. It’s not my decision. And if you don’t have the support of the Syrian people, you have to leave right away, because without their support, you cannot achieve anything, you cannot produce anything, you are going to fail. So that’s simply the reason, especially during the war you have to lead the ship to the shore; you don’t run away because there is a war, unless the Syrian people want you to leave. If I’m the problem, again, or the other point, let’s say, or the other side of the story, if I’m the reason of the war, I would leave. But it’s not about me; I am just used as a nominal reason. It’s much bigger than that; it’s about Syria, it’s about the government, it’s about the independence, it is about the war on the regional level, it is about the war between the great powers. Syria is just the headline and the President is the main headline.

Question 28: So you don’t think that you are one of the reasons for the war?

President Assad: No, I am not a reason for the war, because if I am a reason, the war should have started in 2000, since I became President, not 2011 when the money started pouring from Qatar and when the United States took the decision that they want topple governments and presidents because they do not suit them.

Question 29: But don’t you think you are the reason that the war escalated?

President Assad: Because of me?

Journalist: Yes.

President Assad: So, the terrorists according to what you are saying, terrorists are not responsible, they are very peaceful people. The money of Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Turkey are something legal and natural, let’s say, and the agenda of the United States fulfilled the needs of the Syrian people, which is not realistic.

Question 30: Mr. President, you have said many times that you will continue the fight until you have recaptured the whole country, is that still your approach to this process?

President Assad: No, it’s not my approach; it’s my mission according to the constitution. It’s the mission of the army according to the constitution; it’s the mission of the state’s institutions according to the constitution. It’s not an option, it’s not a personal opinion, and it’s not my plan. My mission is to defend the civilians. My mission is to fight terrorists. My mission is to take control of every part of my country. You don’t take part of your country as a state. You don’t say “it is enough for me have half of the country” or so.

Question 31: So you think that you are defending the civilians?

President Assad: Definitely.

Question 32: I mean more than hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed; some people say 250 thousands; some people say 300 thousands. Do you think that you are defending the civilians in Syria?

President Assad: The majority of those that you are talking about, the victims, are supporters of the government, not the opposite. Another part which is unbiased, in the middle, it doesn’t belong to the government or to the other. So the majority are supporters. So, of course, I am defending the civilians. Again, otherwise if I’m not, If I’m killing the civilians, as the propaganda would promote for four years, I wouldn’t be here as President. I cannot withstand for nearly six years.

Question 33: Last question, Mr. President: Do you believe in a diplomatic political solution, or do you, deep inside your heart, know that this is going to be a military solution, and that is really what you want?

President Assad: Neither, neither, because when you have a problem you have a solution, you don’t have a kind of solution, but the problem itself will tell you how many aspects of that problems you have. For example, if I believe in political solution but you have terrorism, you cannot have a political solution because you have chaos. If you have chaos, this is the antithesis to anything natural, including the political process. So, you need first to fight terrorists in order to reach political solution. So, in reality, you have to follow both paths; the military and the diplomatic or the political, because they are related to each other. So, it’s not about my belief; it’s not what I believe; it’s what the requirement of this conflict to be solved. So you don’t define it. The whole circumstances define it. For example, regarding the terrorists, it’s not only about military solution; it’s about the adjacent countries and the Western countries stop supporting the terrorists. If they stop supporting them, the military aspect of that solution will be marginalized; it won’t be important because they will be weak. You will give a chance to more political initiatives in that regard. If they support them more, actually what is going to happen is the opposite; the political solution or path will be marginalized. So, it’s not about what I believe in. I wish we can solve everything politically, I wish, that’s what I think is suitable, but it’s not about what I wish, it’s about the facts on the ground.

Journalist: Thank you very much, Mr. President.

President Assad: Thank you for coming.

“Millions of people need its sanctuary and protection.  History will frown on those who do not build.” — Editorial, The Guardian, Aug 15, 2011

There was very little in the manner of elaborateness on this occasion.  There were no hysterics, though there was some surprise from pundits behind the selection of Portugal’s António Guterres as Ban Ki-moon’s successor for Secretary-General of the United Nations.  Where, went this line of alarm, was the woman? After all, seven out of 13 candidates were vying for the position.

The position itself has become more of a bauble of over the years, while the organisation has slid into the background, seemingly broken.  The United Nations remains a beast held captive, for the most part, by the Permanent Five, powers vested with the killing strength of a veto.  Wars continue to rage with merciless execution, exercised through proxy theatres and actors, while the organisation takes the next battering on its chin.

As for contenders, it seemed that the punters got it wrong again, this, in a season when they have been mistaken about so much in terms of elections.  The talking heads chewed off each other’s ears suggesting that the next Secretary-General would be a competent female, or from Eastern Europe, or both.

Even Ban decided to weigh in, claiming it was “high time now” for a female Secretary-General.  The straw polls yielded rather different results, the first placing the head of Unesco, Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, third, before subsequently dropping to fifth.

When the announcement came, The Campaign to Elect a Woman UN Secretary-General expressed “outrage” at the decision.  “There were seven outstanding female candidates and in the end it appears they were never seriously considered.”[1]  That’s diplomacy for you.

Guterres seemed beat his fellow contenders with some imaginary stick of competence, convincing the Security Council to unanimously back him.  “What we are looking for,” claimed British ambassador Matthew Rycroft, “is a strong secretary general… who will take the United Nations to the next level in terms of leadership, and who will provide a convening power and a moral authority at a time when the world is divided on issues, above all like Syria.”[2]

Much wishful thinking there, and thoughts more dissimulating than not.  An active, strong Secretary-General is exactly the sort of chap these powers do not want.  Damning praise is code for not rocking the boat.  By all means, venture a criticism here and there, but generally keep matters afloat and civil as a servant to the countries at the UN.

During Ban’s tenure, powers, often of the brutish variety, have been given a decent white wash, in some cases gruesomely so.  Burma, Sri Lanka and China, at various stages, have benefited from Ban’s efforts to, as Human Rights Watch claims, “portray oppressive governments in a positive light.”  He may well have put it down to the daily seediness of diplomacy.

The point is always to be wary of anything stemming from a permanent Security Council member.  US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power insists on someone who can “mobilize coalitions” and avail himself of “creaky” yet necessary “tools” to cure the international dysfunction that that risen, even if her role in aggravating that state of affairs is undeniable.  Within the ramshackle organisation, aggressive, spoiling powers cause mischief and sow ills without discrimination.

The backers of the Secretary-General sometimes misjudge their man, finding that the office is occupied by overly active, if not ambitious figures.  For one, a decision was made in 1945 to limit the office-holder’s powers to bring to the attention of the Security Council violations of international law.  In other words, the SG was meant to avoid doing something seemingly essential to the office: guarding the Charter with its lofty aspirations.

The Security Council seemed to buck that trend in August 2001, adopting Resolution 1366 which recognised “the essential role of the Secretary-General in the prevention of armed conflict and the importance of efforts to enhance his role in accordance with Article 99 of the Charter of the United Nations.”[3]

Kofi Annan also went well outside his remit, devising the millennium goals while embracing that fraught philosophy known as the Responsibility to Protect.  Previously, such figures as Dag Hammarskjöld proved steely in his resolve, so much so there remains more than a hint he was done away by way of a plane crash on his way to cease-fire negotiations in the Congo.

It was Hammarskjöld, deemed by some a virtual prime minister of the organisation, who came up with the notion that the UN Secretariat should be working on the edge of progress, ever engaged in preventive diplomacy.  The current office holder has often, by way of contrast, seemed on the edge of an abyss, indifferent to conflagration and calamity.

For all the bad press over the years, the UN can, at stages, do better than the imperial powers that claim to have mastered the art of governance.  UN peacekeeping missions cost a fraction than those of standard forces of brutal, even clumsy occupation.  Preventive diplomacy can yield less destructive results.  Whether such scope afforded the new SG, who intends to bring “swift decisions which the troubled world we live in demands” is hard to envisage in a post-Ban world.

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

Notes

[1] https://twitter.com/She4SG
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37568433
[3] https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N01/524/48/PDF/N0152448.pdf?OpenElement

No one has a crystal ball that allows them to foresee precisely what’s going to happen as the new Tory government of Manitoba really gets down to business in the months ahead. But there are some things we can be pretty sure about.

The Tories will claim that it’s vital to curb provincial government spending to reduce Manitoba’s deficit and move toward balancing the budget. In reality, there’s no deficit crisis. Not only was the share of provincial revenue spent on servicing the debt in the 2015-16 fiscal year low, it was lower than it had been three years prior. The Tory “cure” – austerity – for the non-existent crisis might not even lower the deficit.

But a balanced budget isn’t the real objective (if the Tories had inherited one, they’d simply be talking about ‘reinventing government’ or some other justification for their program). Although some Tory MLAs may be so naive as to believe that lowering the deficit is the government’s true goal, and that doing this will somehow lead companies in Manitoba to hire more people and pay them more, they’re wrong on both counts.

Pushing Markets Further

One of the things that this government’s strategic thinkers really want to do is weaken public services. Deficit reduction is a means to that end. The Tories embrace this goal because they are ardently committed to neoliberal ideology. This vision aims to make people more dependent on markets (in other words, private firms) to meet their needs. It favours the delivery of healthcare, social services and education by for-profit firms. So we should expect not just spending cuts but also moves to create new opportunities for companies to make money, through privatization, contracting-out, deregulation (coming soon: Uber?), public-private partnerships (P3s), social impact bonds, and schemes that claim to offer people more ‘choice’.

It’s worth emphasizing that the Tory goal isn’t getting rid of government, as some critics will say. One of the key goals of neoliberalism “is to redefine the shape and functions of the state, not to destroy it,” as the astute analyst Philip Mirowski has pointed out. The Tories want to use government powers to push markets deeper into society. This includes reorganizing what’s left of the public sector so it operates more like the private sector. They’re also keen on pumping up one part of the state: the already-inflated violent system of policing and prisons.

One of the other things the Tories are eager to do is weaken unions and workers’ rights, since these are barriers to higher corporate profits (just like environmental and other regulations on what companies can do, which they also want to take down). The fact that the public sector is highly unionized is another reason why the Tories so like the idea of restructuring it in neoliberal ways. Changing the Labour Relations Act to make it harder for workers to unionize may be just the start of an assault on unions. Watch out for changes to the Employment Standards Act too. The Tories can’t even pretend that these moves have anything to do with lowering the deficit – higher profits is what they’re all about.

Potential for Protest, and More

The weakness of grassroots union activism and community organizing to demand change in Manitoba mean that few people have experience acting collectively to defend their interests (unlike in Quebec, for example). The discrediting of the NDP after its decisive election loss means that many people think there’s no alternative to what the Tories propose.

For these reasons it may well be difficult to mobilize much protest until the Tories introduce big cuts or really aggressive legislation. But as the response to the Newfoundland Liberal government’s attacks this year makes clear, such attacks can quickly spark opposition on a scale that most foes of austerity would have thought impossible.

Yet even if the Tories proceed cautiously their attacks will harm many people. This will create possibilities for protest and, going beyond that, real resistance that tries to stop attacks. Even small-scale short-lived mobilizations can contain seeds that may flower into ongoing organizing efforts in workplaces, on campuses, in neighbourhoods or among specific communities of people. The Tories are less popular among indigenous people than in the non-indigenous population, so indigenous mobilization may develop more quickly.

With this in mind, people who recognize what the Tories have in mind for Manitoba should set ourselves the goal of building active opposition to their attacks. Just waiting for the next election will mean not even trying to repel Tory attacks. Just waiting will also demoralize people hurt by the Tories, making them less likely to bother to vote in the next election.

Starting from where we’re at, we should aim to build protests that escalate to higher levels of resistance, including strike action. What’s needed is a mass social movement that can force the government from office, much as happened in Quebec in 2012. That’s a long shot, but it is what we should aspire to.

Right now, planning public protests against Tory attacks is a first step. Another is equipping more people with a clear understanding of neoliberalism and with organizing skills. •

David Camfield teaches Labour Studies and Sociology at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of the chapter on Manitoba in a forthcoming book on fiscal policy and public services in Canada’s provinces. This article first published on the Solidarity Winnipeg website.

Eight years after the eruption of the global financial crisis, the conditions are being created for another meltdown of even bigger proportions, amid rising geo-political and economic tensions between the major capitalist powers.

This is the implication of three reports issued by the International Monetary Fund in preparation for its annual meeting, which begins in Washington today. The World Economic Outlook reported lower growth in all the advanced economies, underscoring the lack of a genuine recovery in the global economy, while two financial reports pointed to mounting instability resulting from the injection by central banks of trillions of dollars into the world financial system.

Taken together, the reports point to the underlying economic contradictions that are fuelling a series of crises. These include slowing world trade and rising protectionist measures, the row between the US and the European Union over tax payments by Apple, the move by the US Justice Department to impose a $14 billion penalty on Deutsche Bank, the breakdown in talks on the US-sponsored Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and accusations from politicians in Berlin that the US is waging “economic warfare.”

The increasing instability of the financial system was highlighted in the IMF’s twice-yearly Fiscal Monitor report issued on Wednesday. It found that debt in the nonfinancial sector of the world economy had doubled in nominal terms since the turn of the century, reaching $152 trillion last year and continuing to rise.

Current debt levels are 225 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), rising from 200 percent in 2002. The IMF said that while there was no consensus on how much debt was too much, current debt levels, of which two-thirds is privately held, were at a record high.

There was a need for deleveraging, but the current low-growth environment was making “the adjustment very difficult, setting the stage for a vicious feedback loop in which lower growth hampers deleveraging and the debt overhang exacerbates the slowdown.”

The report said the debt overhang problem, characterised as a situation in which the borrower’s debt service liability exceeds its future repayment capacity, “resides squarely within advanced economies’ private sector.”

While the IMF did not make the point, its analysis exposes the claim that too much government spending is the cause of mounting financial problems. According to the Fiscal Monitor report, the easing of restrictions on credit meant that nonfinancial private-sector debt in the major economies increased by 35 percent of GDP in the years leading up to the global financial crisis.

Significantly, there was a rapid rise in household debt in this period. The report did not point to the reasons, but two major factors undoubtedly were the low level of wage increases, forcing increased borrowing, and the surge in house prices in a number of countries, itself a product of credit expansion. The IMF noted that in some countries—Australia, Canada and Singapore—private-sector debt had continued to accumulate at a fast pace.

The report found that public debt, which makes up one-third of the total, had risen from 70 percent of global GDP to 85 percent. But almost half of this increase was a result of low nominal growth. In other words, far from the rise in government debt being the result of “profligate” spending on health, pensions and social services—the mantra of those demanding austerity—its expansion is rooted in the ongoing stagnation following the 2008 financial crisis.

A second financial report, Global Financial Stability, drew out the growing risks to the financial system. It said that while short-term risks had abated since the previous report in April, “the medium-term risks are building.” The continued slowdown in global growth had prompted financial markets to expect a continued period of low inflation, low interest rates and “an even longer delay in normalizing monetary policy.”

It warned, however, that some monetary policies, such as negative interest rates, were “reaching the limits of their effectiveness, and the medium-term side effects of low rates are rising for banks and other financial institutions.”

Pension funds and insurance companies, which are dependent for their financing on investment in long-term government bonds, were particularly adversely affected, with their solvency “threatened by a prolonged period of low interest rates.”

Financial institutions as a whole in the advanced economies faced a “number of cyclical and structural challenges and need to adapt to the new era of low growth and low interest rates.” If these challenges were left unaddressed, it “could undermine financial soundness.”

These problems go to the very heart of the capitalist financial system—the banks. The report stated that weak profitability could “erode banks’ buffers and undermine their ability to support growth.” Even if there were a cyclical recovery in the economy, this would not resolve the problems of low profitability. “Over 25 percent of banks in advanced economies (about $11.7 trillion in assets) would remain weak and face significant structural challenges,” with the problems concentrated in the European and Japanese banking sector.

“In the euro area,” the report stated, “excessive nonperforming loans and structural drags on profitability require urgent and comprehensive action.” Reducing nonperforming loans and addressing deficiencies in capital were a priority.

The mounting financial problems, while concentrated in the advanced economies, are not confined to them. The report found that in emerging market economies, around 11 percent of corporate debt, over $400 billion, was held by firms with “weak repayment capacity.”

High debt levels and excess capacity made it difficult for these companies to “grow out of the problem” which left them “sensitive to downside external or domestic developments,” and if interest rates started to rise and earnings fell, “such a scenario would exhaust bank capital buffers in some emerging markets.”

Another area of concern was China, where “continued rapid credit growth… and expanding shadow banking products pose mounting risks to financial stability.” The rapidly growing financial system “is becoming increasingly leveraged and interconnected, and a variety of innovative vehicles and products are adding to the complexity.” Corporate debt at risk remained high and “underlying risks from non-loan credit exposures add to these challenges.”

The three reports point to the deepening contradictions of the global capitalist system. The IMF has insisted that in the absence of any cyclical rise of the economy, monetary policy alone cannot bring about a recovery, and government infrastructure and other spending is necessary to provide a boost.

But such spending would increase debt and would depend on interest rates remaining low. Ultra-low interest rates, however, are increasingly undermining the stability of banks and other financial institutions, creating the conditions for another financial crisis, which will further inflame the already high level of geo-political and economic conflict.

The psychopaths in Washington and in the pentagon is preparing for a nuclear confrontation with Russia with recent tests of two fake 700-pound nuclear bombs in the Nevada desert. Defense One, a U.S. Military website for the defense industry published an article by Marcus Weisgerber titled ‘The US Air Force Just Dropped Two Fake Nukes’ on October 6th and stated “A pair of U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers dropped two 700-pound faux nuclear bombs in the middle of the Nevada desert within the past few days. Now the Pentagon wants to tell you about it.”

The Pentagon not only wants the public to know about these tests but also to warn Russia that it is testing its old version of the B61 nuclear bombs to pinpoint the accuracy and reliability in case of a real world war III scenario were to take place.

A press release by the National Nuclear Security Administration(NNSA) on the same day stated the following:

“In collaboration with the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, NNSA conducted successful surveillance flight tests using joint test assemblies (JTA) of the B61-7 and B61-11 earlier this month. Analysis and flight recorder data from the tests indicate that both were successful.

JTAs are mock weapons containing sensors and instrumentation that allow scientists and engineers from national laboratories to assess their performance. The assemblies contain no nuclear materials and are not capable of nuclear yield. These assemblies also include a flight recorder that stores bomb performance data for each test.

The primary objective of flight testing is to obtain reliability, accuracy, and performance data under operationally representative conditions. Such testing is part of the qualification process of current alterations and life extension programs for weapon systems. NNSA scientists and engineers use data from these tests in computer simulations developed by Sandia National Laboratories to evaluate the weapon systems’ reliability and to verify that they are functioning as designed”.

Weisgerber asked “But why now? Perhaps it has to do with tensions with Russia, which are higher than they have been in decades, and which have sparked fears of a new nuclear arms race.”

Russia is also preparing for a worst case scenario as it announced a drill for its citizens in case Washington decides to launch a nuclear weapon into Russian territory. Washington has been threatening Russia over the civil war in Syria. Washington, Turkey.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have been the main supporters of al-Nusra and other terrorist groups since the start of the civil war in 2011 which has failed since Russia got involved in the conflict. The plan to remove Assad has failed and now Washington is escalating it war rhetoric against Russia. Another possible explanation for the nuclear weapons tests and they may have to do with more funding for the Military-Industrial Complex. Weisber said “But it may also have to do with the Pentagon’s quest to replace its decades-old nuclear arsenal with new bombs and delivery vehicles, an endeavor whose price tag tops several hundred billion dollars.” War is big business. War is profitable on many levels especially for arms manufacturers.

However, a war against Iran,China and Russia is on the table because they are the last remaining obstacles to Washington’s global dominance. Washington is contemplating a possible nuclear war against their adversaries because their cadres of psychopaths are willing to unleash a nuclear disaster for the entire planet to achieve their stated goals. Can Russia bring peace and avoid World War III when the next regime to assume the White House comes to power this January?

If Hillary Clinton wins (or steals) the election, that question is not hard to answer especially with the neoconservative war hawks and special interest groups who support her. Clinton is a Democratic warmonger in her own right as the recent U.S. intervention in Libya proves what she is capable of. With a Trump presidency it is still vague on what type of foreign policy he would follow.  However, U.S. Vice-Presidential candidate Mike Pence made it clear what he believes should be done in a recent U.S. televised debate regarding U.S-Russia tensions in Syria:

“The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens and over 100,000 children in Aleppo. Hillary Clinton’s top priority when she became secretary of state was the Russian reset, the Russians reset. After the Russian reset, the Russians invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea.

And the small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all the United States of America — the greatest nation on Earth — just withdraws from talks about a cease-fire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria while he marshals the forces and begins — look, we have got to begin to lean into this with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership.

It begins by rebuilding our military. And the Russians and the Chinese have been making enormous investments in the military. We have the smallest Navy since 1916. We have the lowest number of troops since the end of the Second World War. We’ve got to work with Congress, and Donald Trump will, to rebuild our military and project American strength in the world.

But about Aleppo and about Syria, I truly do believe that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas, work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen.

And secondly, I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue, I should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo.

There’s a broad range of other things that we ought to do, as well. We ought to deploy a missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pulled back on out of not wanting to offend the Russians back in 2009”.

Pence’s statement is hawkish which proves that whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump (who is also surrounding himself with neoconservatives such as former CIA director James Woolsey as his senior adviser and Joseph Schmitz who was a Defense Department inspector general under President George W. Bush), 2017 is sure to be a politically intense year for the World. Will it be peace or war? Washington’s reckless drive to World War III needs to be stopped in its tracks; let’s hope Russia and its allies can deter such a scenario.

The situation in Syria is dangerously veering out of control, with the US threatening strikes against the Syrian Arab Army while Russia has suggested that it would shoot down any incoming threat to its servicemen. The alternative media is ablaze with speculative talk about the onset of World War III, and a distinct feeling of unease has suddenly spread across the world. All objective observers realize that Russia and the US have drastically raised the stakes in Syria, with each side escalating their diplomatic rhetoric and military posturing to the point where it indeed appears as though the world is on the brink of total war between the two strongest nuclear powers. The problem with this convincing analysis, however, is that it doesn’t take into account whether either of the two sides is bluffing, and it doesn’t draw a distinction between illusion and intent.

Instead, it takes every move and word at face value and discounts the obviousness of both parties waging a psychological war against the nerves and resolve of their decision-making counterparts. Everything that is playing out right now is part of one big show in which both sides are signaling to the other that there are certain red lines that they won’t accept the other crossing, though it’s unclear at this moment whether either Great Power will follow through on their implied threats if the other oversteps their bounds. This is why it’s very likely that one of the sides is bluffing, though as games of ‘chicken’ such as this one sometimes end up, it’s very possible that one or the other actor will test the limits in seeing how far they can go, thus either calling their rival’s bluff or triggering a new series of conflict escalations. There’s no comfortable way to get around this fact, so it’s best to be as blunt as possible in the following analysis.

Red Lines

Russia and the US have both articulated what in practice amounts to their own red lines for Syria. Moscow declared that “any missile or air strikes on the territory controlled by the Syrian government will create a clear threat to Russian servicemen”, reminding the US that “Russian air defense system crews are unlikely to have time to determine in a ‘straight line’ the exact flight paths of missiles and then who the warheads belong to. And all the illusions of amateurs about the existence of ‘invisible’ jets will face a disappointing reality.” This was popularly interpreted as Russia essentially saying that it will use its S300 and S400 systems to shoot down any jets or cruise missiles that the Pentagon uses to bomb the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), acting on the justification that this sort of immediate response is necessary in order to safeguard the lives of Russian servicemen who might be embedded with the SAA in whatever the targeted location might be.

The US was less direct and relied on CIA and Pentagon “leaks” to reveal its position, which pretty much came down to a desire to bomb the SAA in order to save face for the Russian military and SAA’s astounding anti-terrorist successes around Aleppo since the collapse of the cessation of hostilities agreement in mid-September. To remind the reader, the whole reason why this deal fell through was because Pentagon chief Ashton Carter sabotaged Obama and Kerry’s commitment to it and essentially carried out a “deep state” coup in usurping control of the world’s largest military apparatus from the elected Command-in-Chief. To review, Russia’s red line is any US attack against the SAA, while the US’ is the successful liberation of Aleppo. Syria’s second-largest city could be freed from the terrorists without the US having to launch missiles against the liberators in response, while Russia should rightly defend its servicemen from American attacks if their lives are in danger, so it’s obvious that the escalation prerogative rests solely in the hands of the US, specifically Secretary of War Carter and his “deep state” (permanent military-intelligence-diplomatic bureaucracy) backers.

Assumptions, Assumptions, Assumptions

Everything that was written above is factual and not at all any form of hyperbole, but facts have a curious way of morphing into an indistinguishable form of fiction the longer that the media talks about them and rouses their respective audiences’ emotions. That’s plainly happening right now when it comes to the skyrocketing Russian-US tensions over Syria, though not without good reason, of course. This is a veritably the most important and urgently pressing issue in the world right now due to the enormity of what’s at stake, so it makes sense for all sides to discuss this at depth. Whether intentionally or not, however, the media frenzy from both mainstream and alternative commentators has led to a situation where a plethora of assumptions are seamlessly being inserted into the discussion and discoloring the factual purity of what’s really going on.

Take for instance the unquestioned assumption on behalf of the American media and “deep state” decision makers that the US must “do something” to prevent or forestall what they term as the “fall of Aleppo”, otherwise they’ll be forced to “do something more” to “punish” Russia and Syria for making this happen. The circular groupthink at play here is very dangerous and could foreseeably amount to unprecedentedly deadly consequences if it gets out of control, and there’s no certainty that it won’t because nobody honestly knows who the power behind the Pentagon is at this point. Obama is “officially” the Command-in-Chief but he was neutralized after Secretary of War Carter overrode his ‘ceasefire’ deal and unilaterally sabotaged it by bombing the SAA in Deir ez Zor, and while it might appear that this means that Carter is the one in charge, he’s just a representative of the hardline neoconservative “deep state” faction which used him to seize control of America’s military.

From the reverse angle, the Russian side is also full of assumptions too, though of a qualitatively different nature. Moscow’s official statements on the matter make it clear that it would act on the condition that it believes that the lives of Russian servicemen are in danger. The particularity of this language is important because legally speaking in terms of the legislation approved by the Russian Duma and President Putin’s public statements on the matter, the Russian anti-terrorist operation in Syria is aimed solely at eliminating terrorists, not necessarily protecting the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic nor the safety of the SAA. The latter two objectives are understandably assumed to form part and parcel of Russia’s mission there seeing as how they’re operationally inseparable from the stated goal of fighting terrorism and sustaining the gains that have thus far been achieved, but when dealing with high-stakes rhetoric at the Great Power level and in the context of a speculated nuclear escalation ladder, technicalities such as these are very important and mustn’t be ignored. Media commentators might pay them no attention, but it’s a sure bet that the Pentagon’s strategists are obsessing over these fine details and gaming out how far they can go in getting away with their vaunted ‘face-saving’ strike on Syria.

Strategic Calculations

Russia and the US know that a conventional engagement between their militaries would instantly throw the world into its worst-ever crisis, immediately spiking the prospects that an apocalyptic nuclear exchange could soon follow if the security dilemma between them is perceived as being insurmountable by that point in time. This is very dangerous and shouldn’t be taken lightly at all, which makes it all the more crazier that the US might seriously be entertaining whether or not it feels “lucky” enough to try and call what it believes to be Russia’s bluff. The way that the Pentagon is analyzing the situation right now is that Russia could halt the threatened escalation that the US is blackmailing it with so long as it stops assisting the SAA with anti-terrorist bombing assistance around Aleppo. The liberation of Aleppo would irreversibly move the War on Syria to its final stage, putting the Syrian people and their democratically elected and legitimate government on the path to victory in dealing the US its worst-ever and most publicly embarrassing defeat in history. This is the reason why the US is so frenziedly invoking the unmistakable specter of nuclear war, since Syria and Russia have never been closer to liberating Aleppo than they are now, and ironically only because the Pentagon sabotaged the ‘ceasefire’ and inadvertently unshackled Damascus and Moscow from its restrictive military conditions.

The US could bow out of the war and let history rightly run its course, but the zealous neoconservative ideologues that have captured control of the American Armed Forces seem intent on staging one last grand stand before the US’ epic retreat from the conflict. This is why they carried out the “deep state” coup in going against Figurehead Obama and bombing the SAA in Deir ez Zor, all with the now-debunked expectation that this would somehow intimidate Russia and Syria and thus compel them into game-changing concessions. To the rational observer, such a scheme was doomed to fail from the get-go, but one must understand that the personalities behind this plot see the world in a completely different light than most people do, largely because of the self-deluding groupthink that pervades their faction. The point isn’t to argue about just how absurd this gambit is, but to demonstrate to the reader how the plotters conceive of the world and provide insight into predicting their next possible course of action in the War on Syria.

Calling The Bluff

There’s no way that Russia will ever give in to the US’ blackmail and halt or curtail its anti-terrorist operation around Aleppo just because the Pentagon is threatening a missile strike against the SAA. Moscow and Damascus would of course prefer the peaceful route to solving the conflict that the US thrust upon the Arab Republic, and there’s still the very vague chance that a French-backed UN ‘ceasefire’ might end up being something attractive for Russia and Syria to pursue, but for now both sides are passionately intent on liberating Aleppo as soon as possible and are holding back at nothing to achieve this monumental objective. Therefore, the neoconservative “deep state” coup faction represented by Secretary of War Carter might actually take the previously unthinkable step of launching attacks against the SAA in order to offset this eventuality or “punish” the Syrians for routing the terrorists. Carter and his ideological clan are trying to figure out whether Russia’s carefully worded announcement that it will shoot down any incoming warplanes or cruise missiles that pose a plausible threat to its servicemen is a bluff, or whether they could exploit the technical nature of the statement and the Russian military presence in Syria in order to “bend the rules” and see what they can get away with.

From the Pentagon’s perspective, it’s unclear to the zealous ideologues if President Putin has the political will to order his military to shoot down any US warplane or cruise missile aiming for the SAA or if it’s possible to notify Moscow in advance of Washington’s intent to symbolically send a couple of ‘face-saving’ salvos to destroy a few SAA runways far away from the locations where Russian servicemen are stationed. Carter and his cronies might be calculating that President Putin won’t raise the stakes in attempting to shoot down whatever assets the US depends on in carrying out this possible strike, wagering that he’ll “let them get away with it” especially if it’s “only” cruise missiles that are used in this operation. The US doesn’t know whether the technical nature of the Ministry of Defense’s statement is an indication that there’s leeway that the Russians are considering, or if it was just purposefully ambiguous in order to preserve Moscow’s strategic flexibility in the event that Washington does indeed take military action. Should the Pentagon take this unprecedented step, it probably wouldn’t risk the lives of its own pilots in doing so, especially since it’s a lot easier for the S300/S400 to shoot down a plane than a cruise missile, and also because the destruction of a cruise missile doesn’t necessitate the same ‘face-saving’ ‘counter-escalation’ that Washington would be pressured to commence as the shooting down of a warplane pilot, especially right before the heated Presidential Election.

Balancing The Unthinkable With The “Doable”

The US has the largest cruise missile stockpile in the world, so if it theoretically wanted to take “decisive action”, it could easily overwhelm the S300/S400 systems through an incessant barrage of attacks against the SAA, but that would definitely push Russia towards pushing the crisis up to and possibly even beyond the nuclear level, which even the most insane neoconservative doesn’t want (at least not until the US’ “missile defense” infrastructure is fully up and running, which will still take decades). Barring this unthinkable scenario, the Pentagon – if it ops to undertake such a course of action – would likely “moderate” its aggression and rely “only” on a few symbolic cruise missiles instead, taking care to notify Russia right beforehand of what its intended targets will be. The situation is very tricky because Russia and the US had probably exchanged intelligence about their on-the-ground forces in the run-up to the ‘ceasefire’s’ planned implementation, so in theory, the US could have previous information about the on-the-ground location of Russian servicemen that Moscow might have earlier volunteered (which explains why the Deir ez Zor location was bombed and not somewhere near Aleppo, for example).

The key distinction, however, is that this information would be outdated, and there’s no guarantee that Russia didn’t move some of its servicemen to SAA-administered military facilities that the US previously thought were only manned by the Syrians. Washington simply doesn’t know if the place that it would be targeting has Russians on the ground there or not, so it would be a ‘leap of faith’ that would represent one of the most irresponsible decisions that the US – or any other country, for that matter – had ever taken in history. Going along with the scenario, if the US lobs cruise missiles at a secluded but symbolic SAA facility and notifies Russia right after the projectiles are already airborne and en route to their destination, then the Russian military – if it doesn’t already have a mandate to shoot down all incoming hostile objects – would be pressured to make a split-second determination over whether or not this attack threatens its servicemen. If Russians are on the ground at the location, then the military will shoot down the incoming assault vehicle, but if they aren’t, then the S300/S400 commanding officer will either have instructions from Putin for how to deal with this or would be tasked with making his own decision given the circumstances.

Concluding Thoughts

Russia knows that the defensive act of shooting down an incoming American cruise missile aggressively targeting the SAA or perhaps even its own servicemen would be exploited by the US as a “provocation” in triggering a predetermined escalation ladder, so the weight of the world will be on its shoulders in deciding how to respond to such an egregious act. The Pentagon might even want to purposely “call Russia’s bluff”, as they see it, in response to Russia doing this to the US as regards the liberation of Aleppo. The author personally believes that Russia should secure all of Syria’s airspace and the safety of every SAA serviceman and servicewoman from each and every incoming attack that the US might launch against them, whether by warplanes, cruise missiles, or whatever other vehicles they may use, but it must be countenanced by all observers that there is a faction of the Russian elite which might be arguing that it’s better to “take the loss” than to “unnecessarily trigger” (as they see it) World War III, especially if they think that the apocalypse might be started if they shoot down a few cruise missiles that Carter and his ilk symbolically launch against an SAA airfield in the middle of the desert, for example.

Again, the author firmly believes that it is Russia’s moral responsibility to safeguard the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic from all outside conventional threats and that this is an absolute necessity in order to sustain the impressive anti-terrorist successes that have thus far been achieved one year after the beginning of the Russian mission in the country, but it can’t be ruled out that actual decision makers inside the Kremlin and within (or in close vicinity to) President Putin’s inner circle think differently about this. Therefore, given the technicality expressly mentioned in Russia’s official statement about how it would respond to any threat against its servicemen in Syria, it’s horrifyingly possible that the “deep state” coup elements that have taken control of the Pentagon and the US’ operations in Syria might want to “test the waters” and see how far they can go in “embarrassing” Russia and “punishing” it and Syria, which could see them deciding to send a few cruise missiles according to the scenario hitherto described in this article in order to see if it can “call Moscow’s bluff”. It would be one of the worst instances of bad judgement in the history of the world if Carter takes this step and is proven wrong by the Russians, since Moscow might not stop at shooting down the cruise missiles over Syria but could even send a couple of its own in equal measure against the air and/or naval assets that launched them in the first place.

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

Air Strikes against Syria: Who are the War Criminals? Who is Supporting Al Qaeda? Russia or America?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 07 2016

Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said Thursday that the Russian Defense Ministry believes the leaks to the media about possible US strikes on the Syrian army could be a preface to real action.

“A number of Western media outlets have published “leaks” about the talks held in the White House administration about the possibility to hold missile and airstrikes on the positions of the Syrian army,” the general told journalists. “As history has shown, such “leaks” often prove to be a preface to real action.“

Konashenkov also reminded to “all the ‘hotheads’ that following the September 17 coalition airstrike on the Syrian Army in Deir Ezzor we took all necessary measures to exclude any similar ‘accidents’ happening to Russian forces in Syria.” The statement referred to the recent deployment of an additional battery of S-300 air-defense system and the overal air-defense capabilities of the Russian military grouping in Syria.

“Russian S-300, S-400 air defense systems deployed in Syria’s Hmeymim and Tartus have combat ranges that may surprise any unidentified airborne targets. Operators of Russian air defense systems won’t have time to identify the origin of airstrikes, and the response will be immediate. Any illusions about “invisible” jets will inevitably be crushed by disappointing reality.”Konashenkov added that military strike on the government-controlled territories, would pose clear threat to Russian military personnel because Russian officers are working on the ground, providing humanitarian help and holding talks with representatives of local communities and militia units across the country.

Two journalists from Al Jazeera who were on board Zaytouna-Oliva have been released and have safely reached London and Moscow. The other 11 women of the Women’s Boat to Gaza are still in detention, but we anticipate that they will be ‘deported’ soon, as they were moved yesterday from Givon Prison to a detention facility at Ben-Gurion airport.

Wendy Goldsmith, a member of the land team working to secure the release of the women stated that, “the deportation is happening much quicker than in previous flotillas. While we had a great legal team assisting the women, we suspect that the reason for the quick release was because of all the negative media attention Israel has been receiving for its illegal interception, including the demand of rock band Pink Floyd.” According to early reports from the women released, the Zaytouna-Oliva was surrounded by two warships along with four to five smaller naval boats. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) demanded that the Zaytouna-Oliva stop its course towards Gaza. When the warning was refused, at least seven IOF members, both male and female, boarded our yacht and commandeered it in international waters.

In the course of their capture, the women insisted that Israel’s attack was illegal and that they were being taken against their will to Israel. The Women’s Boat to Gaza campaign asserts that while the captivity of the women on board Zaytouna-Oliva may soon be over, the captivity of 1.9 million Palestinian people in Gaza remains. Whilst the term “peaceful” has been used in some media to describe the attack and capture of our boat, this is inaccurate. Peace is more than merely the absence of physical violence. Oppression, occupation, denial of human rights and taking a boat of unarmed, non-violent women against their will are not peaceful activities. Indeed, as Zaytouna-Oliva approached Palestine, the IOF launched multiple air raids across the Gaza Strip.

The Women’s Boat to Gaza and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition will continue to sail until Palestine is free.

From amongst themselves, the People of the United States have empowered some of their members to enforce their laws and to police their society, but things have gone terribly awry. The police are killing those they are sworn to protect and they themselves are becoming the target of public anger over racial inequality and discrimination. Video images of recent police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota were followed by the mass murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, apparently in response to these shootings

The killing of an unarmed mentally-disturbed man last week by El Cajon, California police officers—and resulting civil disturbances—once again raises the question of the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers. The question involves complicated issues of law and policy, but the decision to shoot must often be made in a nanosecond. With the widespread availability of video cameras, instant playback, and social media, however, the justification for the use of deadly force is being increasingly scrutinized, and the quality of law enforcement policy, training, and discretion is frequently found wanting.

The reasonableness of a police shooting decision is determined by what was known to the officer at the moment of the shooting, and whether that decision complied with policy and law. The decision to pull the trigger is made by an individual officer, but the responsibility for its consequences is shared by the policing agency. Based on experience, professional standards, statutory and constitutional law, and public expectations, police policy and training seeks to minimize the risk of harm to the public while ensuring the right of self defense. There are no easy answers, but it is essential that police administrators learn from these encounters and formulate more effective policy and training to guide their officers and to hold them accountable.

Background. My 45-year career in the justice system began in 1962 when I became a police officer in El Cajon. The new chief of police (who was later elected sheriff of San Diego County) was intent on improving the level of professionalism in the department. Proud to be a part of the “New Breed,” I achieved top honors in the San Diego Police Academy and quickly became president of the Police Officer’s Association and later president of the San Diego County organization representing all of its law enforcement officers. Although El Cajon was a quiet suburb, police work was not without its risk. One of my supervisors, Sergeant Fred Wilson— the only El Cajon police officer ever killed in the line of duty—later died of head injuries he sustained breaking up a fight.

Transferring to the Los Angeles Police Department in 1968, I again achieved top honors in the Police Academy and was assigned to South Central LA upon graduation, where policing was more dangerous. My partner and I were once dispatched to a “man with a gun” call from only a block away, and as we turned the corner, we saw the man directly in front of us in the street. He was holding a woman by her hair in one hand and a gun in the other. He shot her in the abdomen, looked up, saw us, and began to run between the houses. I drew my revolver and chased after him. He jumped up on a wall and threw his weapon to the other side, but drew another handgun from his waistband as he came back down. Crouched in a firing stance, I yelled at him to drop the second gun and he did. We arrested him, and his girlfriend was transported to the hospital. Later, my tactics were criticized for not having shot the man. In cop terms, it would have been a “good,” or justifiable, shooting, but in my mind he was just trying to get rid of his guns, and I had no cause to shoot him.

I was fortunate that day, but two of my friends were not so lucky. Jerry Maddox, with whom I had carpooled to the Police Academy, was shot to death in 1969 by a gang member in East LA, and Jack Coler was one of the FBI agents ambushed and murdered at Wounded Knee in 1975.

Drafting Policy. Upon completion of my probation, I was transferred to LA police headquarters where I spent two years researching and writing the department Policy Manual. Subsequently, while attending night law school, I was also assigned to work on the Police Task Force of the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. My job was to write about the role of the police in America and law enforcement policy making. As the author of the LAPD shooting policy, I later testified at the Police Commission hearing into the shooting of Eulia May Love in 1979. When the city attempted to turn off her gas for nonpayment, the recent widow had the payment in her purse as she waved a knife to keep the gas man at bay. Two officers responded and shot her eight times.

The drafting of shooting policy began with the law of justifiable homicide. A police officer can legally kill in three circumstances: self defense, defense of others, and to prevent the escape of a fleeing felon. Although there have been some minor revisions, the Los Angeles Police Department shooting policy remains the same as originally written. The policy does not limit the right of an officer to shoot in self defense. It does, however, require that “Justification for the use of deadly force must be limited to what reasonably appear to be the facts known or perceived by an officer at the time he decides to shoot.” Moreover, policy states that a “reverence for the value of human life shall guide officers in considering the use of deadly force,” and it imposes a duty on officers to minimize “the risk of death.” The shooting of fleeing felons is limited to those who have caused “serious bodily injury or the use of deadly force where there is a substantial risk” that the felon will “cause death or serious bodily injury to others. . . .”

In a section titled “Minimum Use of Force,” LAPD officers are told they “should use only the reasonable amount of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.”

These Los Angeles Police Department use-of-force policies generally follow California law, and it may be helpful to consider the known facts of the recent El Cajon police shooting in light of these basic principles. Unlike the Los Angeles Police Department Manual—which is generally available in public libraries—the policies of the El Cajon Police Department are not published. It appears, however, that El Cajon’s policies may be based on those of Los Angeles. The ECPD website states that “The Department serves the people of El Cajon by performing in a professional manner; and it is to the people of this community that the Department is ultimately responsible.” Except for the city’s name, this mission statement is identical with the definition  of the LAPD motto, “To Protect and To Serve” I originally wrote in the Policy Manual.

El Cajon Shooting Facts. On September 27, 2016, the sister of Alfred Olango, a 30-year-old refugee from Uganda, called the El Cajon Police Department seeking help with her brother—who was having an emotional breakdown over the death of his best friend. Two other calls to the department reported that a shirtless man was walking in traffic and acting erratically at the same location. Although located less than two miles from police headquarters, it took officers more than an hour to respond.

Richard Gonsalves, a 21-year veteran officer—who had been recently demoted from sergeant for sexually harassing a female officer—was the first to arrive on the scene in the parking lot of a small strip mall. A surveillance camera shows that he immediately drew his weapon and closely confronted Olango, who continued to pace back and forth with his right hand in his pocket. According to the officer, Olango did not obey repeated orders to remove his hand from his pocket. A second officer arrived and drew his taser weapon instead of his firearm. As Olango’s sister approached the scene, Olango suddenly withdrew his hand holding an electronic smoking device from his pocket and extended it towards Officer Gonsalves. He was immediately shot four times by Gonsalves and tased by the other officer. The entire encounter lasted less than one minute.

Tactics. Although the El Cajon Police Department has released the surveillance video and another contemporaneous video made with a bystander’s cellphone, the calls to the police and the radio dispatch have not been released. It is essential to know exactly what Olango’s sister and other callers told the police dispatcher and what the responding officers were told. One standard question asked of most complainants is whether a person is armed. Although a vape pipe might appear to be a small gun, it matters whether the police were originally informed that the person was waving a gun or smoking a vape pipe. There is also a great difference if the responding officers were told that they were dealing with a mental case—or a serious crime such as an armed robbery. Inasmuch as it took more than an hour for the officers to arrive, and the matter was dispatched as a “5150” call regarding a mentally disturbed individual, there is no evidence that a crime of violence was under consideration.

Depending on the information available to Officer Gonsalves, it is questionable whether he should have drawn his gun in the first place. The LAPD shooting policy tells officers they cannot “draw or exhibit a firearm unless the circumstances surrounding the incident create a reasonable belief that it may be necessary to use the firearm” in conformance with written policy. Nor are officers allowed to use deadly force “to protect themselves from assaults which are not likely to have serious results.”

Officers are trained to demonstrate “command presence” and to quickly take control of situations. Officers must deliver firm and unambiguous directions—which may in some cases require a loud voice and even profanity. If, however, Officer Gonsalves believed he was dealing with a mental case, he should have been trained as a professional to de-escalate and defuse the situation by speaking in a calm voice and by asking questions, rather than shouting commands. Asking Olango what he had in his pocket, or if he would show his empty hand, is different than a loud order to remove his hand (along with the pocket contents).

It is reasonable to believe that Officer Gonsalves thought he saw a gun in Olango’s hand when Olango followed directions and removed his hand and the vape pipe from his pocket. Since the officer already had his gun pointed at Olango, he may have fired instinctively. We will never know, however, what Olango was thinking. It is not unreasonable to believe he was simply showing the officer what he had in his pocket and handing it over. Or, more unlikely, he may have been pretending it was a gun and was trying to commit “suicide by cop.”

The video shows that Gonsalves approached Olango to within a few feet and shifted his position several times to maintain close contact as Olango moved about. To de-escalate, rather than inflame, situations involving mentally disturbed people, professional officers are trained to maintain a distance or to speak from behind their police vehicle for self protection—as they defuse confrontations and consider alternatives. The videos show that Olango’s sister had approached to within a few feet behind Officer Gonsalves when he fired four bullets into her brother. Had the officer maintained some distance and emotional reserve, she might have helped resolve the situation. Instead, she plaintively cried, “I called for help. I didn’t call you to kill him.”

Lessons Learned. Following major police actions, professional administrators engage in an “after action” process. Lessons learned from the analysis are then used to enhance the training of officers to avoid making the same mistakes in the future, and to formulate more effective policies to guide their actions. If the El Cajon Police Department already has similar policies to Los Angeles about when to draw a firearm or to minimize the risk of death or serious injury, and if the officer had received de-escalation training, then the officer should be accountable for his failure to follow policy and training. If found to be unjustified, the killing might also warrant criminal prosecution. If, however, police administrators have failed to promulgate appropriate policies and to provide professional training, they themselves should be accountable.

El Cajon has changed from the white, middle-class bedroom community it was when I patrolled there in the early 60s. The population has doubled, and it has become a gritty, multi-ethnic, working-class community. It is likely the police culture has changed as well, as the department has had six other police shootings in the last five years, including the killing of two women. The present culture may also be indicated by the demotion of Officer Gonsalves—instead of firing him—for sexually harassing a subordinate. Independent of policy and law, police officers among themselves categorize shootings as good or bad in terms of the risk to their own safety and their demonstrated heroism. This was not a “good” shooting of an armed robbery suspect or murderer. To the contrary, it appears to have been an entirely avoidable killing of a mentally disturbed person, whom the officers were sworn to protect.

More complete answers to the complicated questions of why police killings are taking place and what can be done to prevent them requires a deeper consideration of contributing causes than is available in this brief paper. These matters include: poverty; a punitive society; the war on drugs; federalization and militarization of the police; regulation of guns; and the professionalization of law enforcement.

Learning from police shootings, such as what occurred in El Cajon, can lead to enlightened solutions and a commitment by the People and their Police to achieve a peaceful outcome. A thoughtful response may be more difficult to arrive at, accept, and implement than the simplistic commentaries being tossed out during the 24-hour news cycle, but it is essential if peace is to prevail in the Nation’s communities.

William John Cox is a retired police officer, prosecutor, and public interest lawyer who writes about public policy and political matters. He was the author of the Los Angeles Police Department Policy Manual and the Role of the Police in America for the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. His most recent book is Transforming America: A Voters’ Bill of Rights.

Tuesday night’s debate between the vice presidential candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties was a display of mudslinging, lies, canned rhetoric and phony promises on a par with the first debate between the presidential candidates the previous week, with one telling exception.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, the Democrat, and Indiana Governor Mike Pence, the Republican, interrupted and contradicted each other incessantly, alternating insults directed against the other ticket with denunciations of their opponents for running “insult-driven” campaigns.

But when it came to the question of the intensifying military confrontation in Syria between US-backed Islamic rebels on the one side and the Russian-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad on the other, there was bipartisan agreement, with the two supposedly bitter antagonists seeming to finish each other’s sentences.

The debate moderator, Elaine Quijano of CBS News, allowed the two candidates to maul each other and insult the intelligence of their viewing audience for more than an hour, making little attempt to steer the direction of the discussion. On Syria, however, she loaded the question in favor of US military intervention, isolating the conditions in Aleppo, currently the focus of US war propaganda, from the five years of bloody civil war instigated by Washington.

According to the debate transcript, Quijano said: “Two hundred fifty thousand people, 100,000 of them children, are under siege in Aleppo, Syria. Bunker buster bombs, cluster munitions, and incendiary weapons are being dropped on them by the Russian and Syrian militaries. Does the US have a responsibility to protect civilians and prevent mass casualties on this scale?”

Each candidate responded with a ritualistic bashing of the presidential candidate of the opposite party—Pence denouncing the “feckless” policy of the Obama-Clinton administration, Kaine vilifying Donald Trump for his admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But after Quijano pressed them to be specific, they gave identical answers about what to do in Syria.

Pence declared: “The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens and over 100,000 children in Aleppo… I truly do believe that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas. Work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen.”

Kaine said: “Hillary and I also agree that the establishment of humanitarian zones in northern Syria with the provision of international human aid, consistent with the UN Security Council resolution that was passed in February 2014, would be a very, very good idea… And I said about Aleppo, we do agree the notion is we have to create a humanitarian zone in northern Syria. It’s very important.”

Quijano pressed for an explanation of precisely where the safe zones would be established and how they would be kept “safe,” to the point that Pence fended off further questioning by declaring that Kaine had already given the correct answer.

None of the three made reference to the comments last week of General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told a congressional hearing that establishing such safe zones, also called “no-fly” zones, would mean a US war with both Syria and Russia.

Kaine and Pence were both deliberately concealing from the American people the full consequences of the actions they were both advocating—the fact that stepped-up US military intervention in Syria immediately risks a military confrontation between the world’s two main nuclear powers, Russia and the United States.

The moderator’s questioning was equally specific and persistent on the question of North Korea. How should the US government respond if it learned that North Korea had loaded a nuclear warhead onto a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, she demanded to know.

Again, both candidates accepted the premise of the question and agreed that a military response might be required, although each suggested that the US government should first put pressure on China to intervene before authorizing a preemptive military strike on Pyongyang.

Pence served on the House Armed Services Committee during his congressional career, before he returned to Indiana and ran for governor in 2012. Kaine sits on both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of a handful of senators entrusted with both roles.

Both candidates are tried and tested defenders of American imperialism, each regarded as a safe pair of hands by the US military-intelligence apparatus, like Hillary Clinton, but in contrast to Trump, who is viewed as unreliable on the central strategic question of Washington’s developing confrontation with Russia and China.

Most intelligent Americans – Republicans as well as Democrats – now accept that they were duped into the Iraq War with disastrous consequences, but there is more uncertainty about the war on Libya in 2011 as well as the ongoing proxy war on Syria and the New Cold War showdown with Russia over Ukraine.

Today, many Democrats don’t want to admit that they have been manipulated into supporting new imperial adventures against Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Russia by the Obama administration as it pulls some of the same propaganda strings that George W. Bush’s administration did in 2002-2003.

Yet, as happened with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, we have seen a similar hysteria about the evil doings of the newly demonized foreign leaders with the predictable Hitler allusions and vague explanations about how some terrible misdeeds halfway around the world threaten U.S. interests.

Though people mostly remember the false WMD claims about Iraq, much of the case for the invasion was based on protecting “human rights,” spreading “democracy,” and eliminating a supporter of Palestinians who were violently resisting Israeli rule.

The justification for aggression against Iraq was not only to save Americans from the supposed risk of Iraq somehow unleashing poison gas on U.S. cities but to free the Iraqis from a brutal dictator, the argument which explained why Bush’s neocon advisers predicted that Iraqis would shower American troops with rose petals and candies.

Those same “humanitarian” arguments were out in force to justify the U.S.-European “regime change” in Libya eight years later. As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted – even this year – Muammar Gaddafi was a “genocidal” dictator bent on slaughtering the people of eastern Libya (though Gaddafi insisted that he was only interested in killing the “terrorists”).

After a frenzied media reaction to Gaddafi’s supposedly genocidal plans, Western nations argued that the world had a “responsibility to protect” Libyan civilians, a concept known as “R2P.” In haste, the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution to protect civilians by imposing a “no-fly zone” over eastern Libya.

But the subsequent invasion involved U.S.-coordinated air strikes on Gaddafi’s forces and European Special Forces on the ground working with anti-Gaddafi rebels. Before long, the “no-fly zone” had expanded into a full-scale “regime change” operation, ending in the slaughter of many young Libyan soldiers and the sodomy-with-a-knife-then-murder of Gaddafi.

As Western leaders celebrated — Secretary Clinton exulted  “We came, we saw, he died” — Libyans began the hard work of trying to restructure their political system amid roaming bands of heavily armed jihadist rebels. Soon, it became clear that restoring order would not be easy and that Gaddafi was right about the presence of terrorists in Benghazi (when some overran the U.S. consulate killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.)

Libya, which once had an envious standard of living based on its oil riches, slid into the status of failed state, now with three governments competing for control and with jihadist militias, including some associated with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, disrupting the nation. The result has been a far worse humanitarian crisis than existed before the West invaded.

Lessons from Libya

So, there should be lessons learned from Libya, just as there should have been lessons learned from Iraq. But the U.S. political/media establishment has refused to perform a serious autopsy of these monumental failures (U.S. inquiries only looked narrowly at the WMD falsehoods about Iraq and the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi for Libya). So, it has fallen to the British to take a broader view.

The British inquiries have had their own limitations, but the Chilcot report on Iraq catalogued many of the flawed decisions that led Prime Minister Tony Blair to sign up for President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” — and a recent parliamentary report revealed how Prime Minister David Cameron fell into a similar pattern regarding Libya and President Obama.

Of course, it’s always easier to detect the manipulations and deceptions in hindsight. In real time, the career pressures on politicians, bureaucrats and journalists can overwhelm any normal sense of skepticism. As the propaganda and disinformation swirl around them, all the “smart” people agree that “something must be done” and that usually means bombing someone.

We are seeing the same pattern play out today with the “group think” in support of a major U.S. military intervention in Syria (supposedly to impose the sweet-sounding goal of a “no-fly zone,” the same rhetorical gateway used to start the “regime change” wars in Iraq and Libya).

We are experiencing the same demonization of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin that we witnessed before those other two wars on Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. Every possible allegation is made against them, often based on dubious and deceitful “evidence,” but it goes unchallenged because to question the propaganda opens a person to charges of being an “apologist” or a “stooge.”

Past Is Prologue

But looking back on how the disasters in Iraq and Libya unfolded is not just about the past; it’s about the present and future.

In that sense, the findings by the U.K. parliament’s foreign affairs committee regarding Libya deserved more attention than they received because they demonstrated that the Iraq case was not a one-off anomaly but rather part of a new way to rationalize imperial wars.

And the findings showed that these tactics are bipartisan, used by all four major parties in the U.S. and U.K.: Bush was a Republican; Blair was Labour; Obama a Democrat; and Cameron a Conservative. Though the nuances may differ slightly, the outcomes have been the same.

The U.K. report also stripped away many of the humanitarian arguments used to sell the Libyan war and revealed the crass self-interest beneath. For instance, the French, who helped spearhead the Libyan conflict, publicly lamented the suffering of civilians but privately were eager to grab a bigger oil stake in Libya and to block Gaddafi’s plans to supplant the French currency in ex-French colonies of Africa.

The report cited an April 2, 2011 email to Secretary of State Clinton from her unofficial adviser Sidney Blumenthal explaining what French intelligence officers were saying privately about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s real motives for pushing for the military intervention in Libya:

“a. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production, b. Increase French influence in North Africa, c. Improve his internal political situation in France, d. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world, e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.”

Regarding France’s “humanitarian” public rationale, the U.K. report quoted then-French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé as warning the U.N. about the imminence of Gaddafi engaging in a mass slaughter of civilians: “We have very little time left — perhaps only a matter of hours.”

But the report added, “Subsequent analysis suggested that the immediate threat to civilians was being publicly overstated and that [Gaddafi’s] reconquest of cities had not resulted in mass civilian casualties.”

The report also found that “Intelligence on the extent to which extremist militant Islamist elements were involved in the anti-Gaddafi rebellion was inadequate,” including the participation of Abdelhakim Belhadj and other members of Al Qaeda’s affiliate, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. A senior defense official said the jihadist danger was played down during the conflict but “with the benefit of hindsight, that was wishful thinking at best.”

The report stated: “The possibility that militant extremist groups would attempt to benefit from the rebellion should not have been the preserve of hindsight. Libyan connections with transnational militant extremist groups were known before 2011, because many Libyans had participated in the Iraq insurgency and in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda.”

(This year, Belhadj and his jihadist militia were enlisted by U.S. officials to protect the U.S.-U.N.-backed “Government of National Accord,” which has failed to win over the support of rival factions, in part, because more secular Libyan leaders distrust Belhadj and resent outsiders deciding who should run Libya.)

Hyperbolic Claims

The U.K. committee criticized the West’s hyperbolic claims about Gaddafi’s intent to slaughter civilians in eastern Libya when his actions were making clear that wasn’t happening.

The report said:  “Muammar Gaddafi’s actions in February and March 2011 demonstrated an appreciation of the delicate tribal and regional nature of Libya that was absent in UK policymaking. In particular, his forces did not take violent retribution against civilians in towns and cities on the road to Benghazi. [North Africa analyst] Alison Pargeter told us that any such reprisals would have ‘alienated a lot of the tribes in the east of Libya’ on which the Gaddafi regime relied. …

“Despite his rhetoric, the proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence. The Gaddafi regime had retaken towns from the rebels without attacking civilians in early February 2011. …

“During fighting in Misrata, the hospital recorded 257 people killed and 949 people wounded in February and March 2011. Those casualties included 22 women and eight children. Libyan doctors told United Nations investigators that Tripoli’s morgues contained more than 200 corpses following fighting in late February 2011, of whom two were female. The disparity between male and female casualties suggested that Gaddafi regime forces targeted male combatants in a civil war and did not indiscriminately attack civilians.”

The report added: “On 17 March 2011, Muammar Gaddafi announced to the rebels in Benghazi, ‘Throw away your weapons, exactly like your brothers in Ajdabiya and other places did. They laid down their arms and they are safe. We never pursued them at all.’ Subsequent investigation revealed that when Gaddafi regime forces retook Ajdabiya in February 2011, they did not attack civilians. Muammar Gaddafi also attempted to appease protesters in Benghazi with an offer of development aid before finally deploying troops.”

In another reprise from the Iraq War run-up, the U.K. inquiry determined that Libyan exiles played key roles in exaggerating the dangers from Gaddafi, much like the Iraqi National Congress did in fabricating supposed “evidence” of Saddam Hussein’s WMD. The report said:

“We were told that émigrés opposed to Muammar Gaddafi exploited unrest in Libya by overstating the threat to civilians and encouraging Western powers to intervene. In the course of his 40-year dictatorship Muammar Gaddafi had acquired many enemies in the Middle East and North Africa, who were similarly prepared to exaggerate the threat to civilians.”

Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite channel, which currently is hyping horror stories in Syria, was doing the same in Libya, the U.K. committee learned.

“Alison Pargeter told us that the issue of mercenaries was amplified [with her saying]: ‘I also think the Arab media played a very important role here. Al-Jazeera in particular, but also al-Arabiya, were reporting that Gaddafi was using air strikes against people in Benghazi and, I think, were really hamming everything up, and it turned out not to be true.’”

Allegations Debunked

The report continued: “An Amnesty International investigation in June 2011 could not corroborate allegations of mass human rights violations by Gaddafi regime troops. However, it uncovered evidence that rebels in Benghazi made false claims and manufactured evidence.

“The investigation concluded that much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge. …

“In short, the scale of the threat to civilians was presented with unjustified certainty. US intelligence officials reportedly described the intervention as ‘an intelligence-light decision’. We have seen no evidence that the UK Government carried out a proper analysis of the nature of the rebellion in Libya. …

“It could not verify the actual threat to civilians posed by the Gaddafi regime; it selectively took elements of Muammar Gaddafi’s rhetoric at face value; and it failed to identify the militant Islamist extremist element in the rebellion. UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.”

If any of this sounds familiar – echoing the pre-coup reporting from Ukraine in 2013-2014 or the current coverage in Syria – it should. In all those cases, Western diplomats and journalists put white hats on one side and black hats on the other, presenting a simplistic, imbalanced account of the complicated religious, ethnic and political aspects of these crises.

The U.K. report also exposed how the original goal of protecting civilians merged seamlessly into a “regime change” war. The report said:

“The combination of coalition airpower with the supply of arms, intelligence and personnel to the rebels guaranteed the military defeat of the Gaddafi regime. On 20 March 2011, for example, Muammar Gaddafi’s forces retreated some 40 miles from Benghazi following attacks by French aircraft. If the primary object of the coalition intervention was the urgent need to protect civilians in Benghazi, then this objective was achieved in less than 24 hours.

“The basis for intervention: did it change? We questioned why NATO conducted air operations across Libya between April and October 2011 when it had secured the protection of civilians in Benghazi in March 2011. … We asked [former chief of defense staff] Lord Richards whether the object of British policy in Libya was civilian protection or regime change. He told us that ‘one thing morphed almost ineluctably into the other’ as the campaign developed its own momentum. … The UK’s intervention in Libya was reactive and did not comprise action in pursuit of a strategic objective. This meant that a limited intervention to protect civilians drifted into a policy of regime change by military means.”

Less destructive options were also ignored, the report found: “Saif Gaddafi is the second son of Muammar Gaddafi. He was a member of his father’s inner circle and exercised influence in Libya. … Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who knew the Gaddafi regime better than most Western politicians, confirmed that Saif Gaddafi was ‘the best, if not the only prospect’ of effecting political change in Libya.” But that opportunity was rebuffed as was the possibility of arranging Gaddafi’s surrender of power and exile, the report said, adding:

“It was therefore important to keep the lines of communication open. However, we saw no evidence that the then Prime Minister David Cameron attempted to exploit Mr Blair’s contacts. Mr Blair explained that both Mr Cameron and former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were aware that he was communicating with Muammar Gaddafi. We asked Mr Blair to describe Mr Cameron’s reaction to his conversations with Muammar Gaddafi. He told us that Mr Cameron ‘was merely listening’.

“Political options were available if the UK Government had adhered to the spirit of [U.N.] Resolution 1973, implemented its original campaign plan [to protect civilians] and influenced its coalition allies to pause military action when Benghazi was secured in March 2011. Political engagement might have delivered civilian protection, regime change and reform at lesser cost to the UK and to Libya.”

Spreading Disorder

There was also the consequence of the Libyan conflict, spreading disorder around the region because Libyan military stockpiles were plundered. The report said: “Libya purchased some £30 billion [or about $38 billion] of weapons and ammunition between 1969 and 2010. Many of those munitions were not issued to the Libyan Army and were instead stored in warehouses. After the collapse of the Gaddafi regime, some weapons and ammunition remained in Libya, where they fell into the hands of the militias. Other Libyan weapons and ammunition were trafficked across North and West Africa and the Middle East.

“The United Nations Panel of Experts appointed to examine the impact of Resolution 1973 identified the presence of ex-Libyan weapons in Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Gaza, Mali, Niger, Tunisia and Syria. The panel concluded that ‘arms originating from Libya have significantly reinforced the military capacity of terrorist groups operating in Algeria, Egypt, Mali and Tunisia.’ …

“The international community’s inability to secure weapons abandoned by the Gaddafi regime fuelled instability in Libya and enabled and increased terrorism across North and West Africa and the Middle East. The UK Government correctly identified the need to secure weapons immediately after the 2011 Libyan civil war, but it and its international partners took insufficient action to achieve that objective. However, it is probable that none of the states that intervened in Libya would have been prepared to commit the necessary military and political resources to secure stocks of weapons and ammunition. That consideration should have informed their calculation to intervene.”

Despite these findings, the Obama administration and its allies are considering an escalation of their military intervention in Syria, which already has involved arming and training jihadists who include Al Qaeda militants as well as supposedly “moderate” fighters, who have aligned themselves with Al Qaeda and handed over sophisticated American weaponry.

The U.S. military has spearheaded a bombing campaign against Al Qaeda’s spinoff, the Islamic State, inside Syria. But the Obama administration sometimes has put its desire to oust Assad ahead of its supposed priority of fighting the Islamic State, such as when U.S. air power pulled back from bombing Islamic State militants in 2015 as they were overrunning Syrian army positions at the historic city of Palmyra.

Now, with Syria and its Russian ally resorting to intense bombing to root Al Qaeda and its allies, including some of those U.S.-armed “moderates,” from their strongholds in eastern Aleppo, there is a full-throated demand from the West, including virtually all major media outlets, to impose a “no-fly zone,” like the one that preceded the “regime change” in Libya.

While such interventions may “feel good” – and perhaps there’s a hunger to see Assad murdered like Gaddafi – there is little or no careful analysis about what is likely to follow.

The most likely outcome from a Syrian “regime change” is a victory by Al Qaeda and/or its erstwhile friends in the Islamic State. How that would make the lives of Syrians better is hard to fathom. More likely, the victorious jihadists would inflict a mass bloodletting on Christians, Alawites, Shiites, secular Sunnis and other “heretics,” with millions more fleeing as refugees.

Among the Western elites – in politics and media – no lessons apparently have been learned from the disaster in Iraq, nor from the new British report on the Libyan fiasco.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

The White Helmets – here are a few facts that you need to know.  Share this to your family and friends who subsist on Western corporate media:

* The White Helmets, also called Syria Civil Defence, are not who they claim to be. The group is not Syrian; it was created with USA/UK funding under the supervision of a British military contractor in 2013 in Turkey.

* The name “Syria Civil Defence” was stolen from the legitimate Syrian organization of the same name. The authentic Syria Civil Defence was founded in 1953 and is a founding member of the International Civil Defense Organization (1958).

* The name “White Helmets” was inappropriately taken from the legitimate Argentinian relief organization Cascos Blancos / White Helmets. In 2014, Cascos Blancos / White Helmets was honored at the United Nations for 20 years of international humanitarian assistance.

* The NATO White Helmets are primarily a media campaign to support the ‘regime change’ goals of the USA and allies. After being founded by security contractor James LeMesurier, the group was “branded” as the White Helmets in 2014 by a marketing company called “The Syria Campaign” managed out of New York by non-Syrians such as Anna Nolan. “The Syria Campaign” was itself “incubated” by another marketing company named “Purpose”.

* The White Helmets claim to be “neutral, impartial and humanitarian” and to “serve all the people of Syria” is untrue. In reality, they only work in areas controlled by the violent opposition, primarily terrorists associated with Nusra/AlQaeda (recently renamed Jabhat Fath al Sham).

* The White Helmets claim to be unarmed is untrue. There are photos which show their members carrying arms and celebrating Nusra/AlQaeda military victories.

* The White Helmets claim to be apolitical and non-aligned is untrue. In reality they actively promote and lobby for US/NATO intervention in violation of the norms of authentic humanitarian work.

* The Right Livelihood description that “Syria Civil Defence” saved over 60,000 people and “support in the provision of medical services to nearly 7 million people” is untrue. In reality the zones controlled by terrorists in Syria have few civilians remaining. That is why we see “cat” video/media stunts featuring the White Helmets.

* The NATO White Helmets actually undermine and detract from the work of authentic organizations such as the REAL Syria Civil Defense and Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

* The recent Neflix movie about the White Helmets is not a documentary; it is a self promotional advertisement. The directors never set foot in Syria. The Syrian video, real or staged, was provided by the White Helmets themselves. From the beginning scenes showing a White Helmet actor telling his little boy not to give mommy a hard time until the end, the video is contrived and manipulative. The video was produced by a commercial marketing company Violet Films/Ultra Violet Consulting which advertises its services as “social media management”, “crowd building” and “campaign implementation”.

America is coming to the rescue of Al Qaeda under a humanitarian mandate. The unspoken agenda is to undermine the Liberation of Aleppo. 

The pretext and justification for these actions are based on America’s “responsibility to protect” (R2P) the “moderates” in Aleppo from Syrian and Russian attacks and bombing raids.

On October 3, the US State Department announced the suspension of bilateral relations with Russia pertaining to Syria (see document below), in response to which, France’s foreign Minister Jean Marc Ayrault was called upon to intermediate at the diplomatic level. 

Pointing his finger at Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Jean Marc Ayrault casually accused Moscow of crimes against humanity, “La France est indignée”  (France is  indignant).  

In turn, the Western media (including segments of the “Left” alternative media) went into overdrive, accusing Russia of killing innocent civilians, demonizing president Putin;, and more significantly ignoring the devastating impacts of  Obama’s (2014-2016) fake “counterterrorism campaign” implying extensive and routine bombings of both Syria and Iraq over a period of more than two years. 

Initiated in Summer 2014, Operation Inherent Resolve’s real objective is to “protect the terrorists”. 

Strategic Meeting at the White House

On October 5, a strategic meeting of the so-called Principals Committee  (tantamount to a War Cabinet) met behind closed doors at the White House. In attendance: senior officials (Secretary level) from the Pentagon, CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Department and top national security advisors of the White House.

On the agenda: a proposal earlier voiced by the US state Department to directly attack Syrian government forces and military facilities, inevitably implying the possibility of direct military confrontation with Russia as well as a process of escalation.

While Russian airstrikes are carefully targeted against the terrorists, Moscow is accused of committing extensive war crimes as well as supporting the terrorist organizations sponsored by the Western military alliance.

The media has built upon the humanitarian crisis triggered by Russian intervention against the [terrorist] “freedom fighters”.

What the media has  failed to investigate since the outset are US war crimes against the People of Syria and Iraq, which are amply confirmed by official US Department of Defense data.

The Figures Speak for Themselves 

1. The US-led coalition is protecting the terrorists

2. U.S. and Coalition Airstrikes (Pentagon data)

3. The Cost of Obama’s Air Campaign: 9.3 billion dollars

4. The US-led coalition is providing the terrorists with large amounts of weapons 

1. The Airstrikes are intended to Protect the Terrorists

What we have witnessed is an ongoing drawn out campaign over the last two years of relentless  air raids and bombings, and the terrorist enemy is apparently still intact.

Let us examine the data regarding air strikes by the US and its coalition partners, all of which were allegedly directed against the ISIS-Daesh terrorists who crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in their Toyota pickup trucks in June 2014.

What would have been required from a military standpoint to wipe out the ISIS Daesh convoy with no effective anti-aircraft capabilities?

If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June. 

The answer is pretty obvious, yet not a single mainstream media has acknowledged it.

The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map right). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, F16) it would have been  –from a military standpoint–  ”a piece of cake”, a rapid and expedient surgical operation, which would have decimated the Islamic State convoys in a matter of hours.

2. U.S. and Coalition Airstrikes

•  The total number of US and coalition sorties against Syria and Iraq is of the order of 111,000. This translates into an average of 147 sorties a day (over a period of 755 days).
• More than 8,300 strike sorties have been carried out against Syria according to US Department of Defense sources.
• The non-strike sorties have been used for the purposes of reconnaissance, logistics and coordination with terrorist commandos on the ground. 
• 31,900 targets in Syria and Iraq have been hit by US war planes (see table below) including public buildings, residential areas, economic infrastructure (all of which was waged under a fake campaign against ISIS- Daesh).

Its all for a good cause. None of these strikes were directed at the Syrian people, according to official statements.

And these humanitarian statements have never been challenged by the Western media.

The initiative was part of the “Global War on Terrorism”. It was in violation of  international law.

Source US Department of Defense, copyright US DoD

3. The Cost of Obama’s Air Campaign: 9.3 billion dollars

755 days, 12.3 million dollars a day since August 2014

These are the costs of destroying an entire country, killing tens of thousands of Syrians, triggering a refugee crisis. These costs are ultimately financed by tax dollars.

These 12.3 million dollars a day are the cost of destroying Syria and Iraq and killing their people.

In the table above the “official” breakdown is provided, the figures refer to US strikes against Syria and Iraq.

31,900 targets as part of a war on terrorism. Ironically, the number of terrorists has increased dramatically as a result of the “counter-terrorism” campaign, not to mention the NATO sponsored international campaign of recruitment of terrorists.

4. Weapons for the Terrorists

In turn, the US and its allies have since the outset of the conflict send in tens of thousands of tons of light weapons into Syria through illicit arms trafficking channels.

These shipments of weapons are not conducted through internationally approved weapons transfers. While they are the result of  a Pentagon (or US government) procurement, they are not recorded as “official” military aid. They use private traders and shipping companies within the realm of a thriving illicit trade in light weapons. 

Based on the examination of a single December 2015 Pentagon sponsored shipment of more than 990 tons, one can reasonably conclude that the amounts of light weapons in the hands of  ”opposition” rebels inside Syria is substantial and exceedingly large.  

For further details see  U.S. “Military Aid” to Al Qaeda, ISIS-Daesh: Pentagon Uses Illicit Arms Trafficking to Channel Enormous Shipments of Light Weapons into Syria, by Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 02, 2016

The above data on air strikes, the smuggling of weapons confirm extensive US sponsored crimes against humanity 

There is currently a barrage of propaganda in the “western” media in support of “rebels” in east-Aleppo. It is all about “hospitals” and “children” but the aim is to stop a Syrian army assault on the “rebel” held quarters of the city. U.S. officials are again talking about “intervention”, meaning open war, to prevent the Syrian army and its allies from storming the “rebel” held eastern parts. It would not work but that is not the only reason why it is a strange idea.

“It is primarily al-Qaeda that holds Aleppo,” said (vid) the spokesperson of the U.S. led ‘Operation Inherent Resolve’, Colonel Warren. That was back in April and al-Qaeda (aka Jabat al-Nusra) has since strengthen its capacities in the city. The French Syria expert Fabrice Balanche tells Le Monde Le Figaro (translate from French):

[Al-Qaeda’s] grip on Aleppo’s east has only increased since the spring of 2016, when it sent 700 reinforcement fighters while moderate brigades fighters began to leave the area before the final exit was closed. The provisional opening of a breach of the siege of Aleppo in August 2016 (Battle of Ramousseh) has further increased its prestige and influence on the rebels.

The UN Special Envoy for Syria DeMistura told (vid, 27:43) the UN Security Council:

We have seen information from other sources that tell us more than half of the fighters present in eastern Aleppo are al-Nusra. We have also seen reports alleging the intentional placement of firing positions close to social infrastructure, inside and aside civilian quarters.

So why does the U.S. want to stop the Syrian government forces in their attempt to free the parts of the city which are undoubtedly held by al-Qaeda?

The U.S. voted “Yes” on several UN Security Council resolutions that demand to fight al-Qaeda and “to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Syria.”

Following the UNSC demand, Syria and its allies have surrounded the al-Qaeda held parts of east-Aleppo. They currently bomb targets of opportunity, take starting positions all around it and prepare to eventually storm and capture it. Measures have been taken to allow civilians to escape from the area.

This whole operation is primarily in defense of west-Aleppo where 1.5 million civilians live under the protection of the government. Daily artillery strikes from al-Qaeda held east-Aleppo have killed and wounded many people in the government help parts.

But some U.S. officials believe that defeating al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo will be useful for al-Qaeda:

A U.S. official says Jabhat al-Nusra has been the “main beneficiary” (other than the Assad regime) of Russia’s onslaught. “Until Moscow stops bombing hospitals and aid workers, Nusra will continue to exploit the situation . . . and portray itself as the defender of the Syrian people,” the official explained.

“Hospitals and aid workers,” are often unfortunate collateral damage in urban fighting. That will not surprise the U.S. military, especially after its bombing of several hospitals in Afghanistan and after it recently practically destroyed Kobani in Syria and Fallujah in Iraq to eradicate the Islamic State from those cities.

The claim that fighting al-Qaeda in Aleppo strengthens al-Qaeda seems dubious to me. But even if that is the case what is the alternative to fighting it in the city areas it holds?

U.S. Secretary of State Kerry is urging a new ceasefire with a pause in fighting and aerial bombing of at least seven days. State Department spokesperson Toner explained that yesterday. But he also admitted (vid @14:50) that al-Qaeda and other militant groups use such ceasefire periods to regroup and to resupply:

… we can talk about that some rebel groups or opposition groups may have used the pause to resupply…

It is even more than that. Al-Qaeda wins in every ceasefire (even if those generally do not apply to it) in many other ways. A new study, specifically about al-Qaeda and ceasefire, details that and concludes:

While the establishment of the truces was supposed to help to weaken the most radical factions of the insurgency, Jabhat al-Nusra emerged indisputably strengthened …

Another ceasefire would help al-Qaeda to resupply and regroup and to regain strength in east-Aleppo and elsewhere.

Despite that and despite agreeing to the UNSC resolution the U.S. does not want the Syrian government and its allies to fight al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo because it believes that would strengthen al-Qaeda. It wants a new ceasefire. But any ceasefire or truce strengthens al-Qaeda.

Somehow the U.S. position does not compute.

It gets even more confusing:

“..,” one senior administration official said. “The CIA and the Joint Staff have said that the fall of Aleppo would undermine America’s counterterrorism goals in Syria.”Fighting al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo and “eradicating” it from the area it holds, as the UNSC demands, would undermine U.S. counterterrorism goals? That is strange. The alternative in east-Aleppo is to keep al-Qaeda well and alive and to let it hold the area it currently holds. Would that further U.S. counterterrorism goals? How?

What then are the actually goals?

I recently returned from a fascinating two week speaking tour in China. The occasion was the international premier of my newest book, One Belt, One Road–China and the New Eurasian Century. In the course of my visit I was invited by China’s Northwest University in Xi’an to give a lecture and seminar on the present global political and economic situation in the context of China’s New Economic Silk Road as the One Belt, One Road project is often called. What I’ve seen in my many visits to China, and have studied about the entirety of this enormously impressive international infrastructure project convinces me that a Eurasian Century at this point is unstoppable.

The idiotic wars of the Washington war-hawks and their military industry–in Syria, in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq and now the South China Sea provocations against China–are not going to stop what is now clearly the most impressive and economically altering project in more than a century.

The term “American Century” was triumphantly proclaimed in a famous editorial in Life magazine in 1941 in the early phase of World War II, before the United States had even entered the war, to describe the system publisher Henry Luce saw dominating the postwar world after the fall of the rival British Empire.

The American Century has lasted a mere seven decades if we date from the end of the war. Its record has been one of dismal failure on balance. The industrial base of the United States, the predominant leading industrial nation and leading scientific innovator, today is a hollowed, rotted shell with once-booming cities like Detroit or Philadelphia or Los Angeles now burned-out ghettos of unemployed and homeless.

The Federal Debt of the United States, owing to the endless wars its Presidents engage in, as well as the fruitless bailouts of Wall Street banks and Government Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae, is well over 103% of GDP at an astonishing $19.5 trillion, or more than $163,000 per taxpaying American and Washington is adding to the debt this year at near $600 billion. Countries like China and Russia are moving away from subsidizing that debt at a record pace.

America’s economic basic infrastructure–bridges, sewer and water treatment plants, electric grid, railways, highways–have been neglected for more than four decades for a variety of reasons. The American Society of Civil Engineers recently estimated that gross domestic product will be reduced by $4 trillion between 2016 and 2025 because of lost business sales, rising costs and reduced incomes if the country continues to underinvest in its infrastructure. That is on top of the fact that they estimate the country at present urgently requires new infrastructure investment of $3.3 trillion by the coming decade just to renew.

Yet US states and cities are not able to finance such an investment in the future in the present debt situation, nor is the debt-choked Federal Government, so long as a cartel of corrupt brain-dead Wall Street banks and financial funds hold America to ransom. This is the sunset for the American Century, a poorly disguised imperial experiment in hubris and arrogance by a gaggle of boring old patriarchs like David Rockefeller and his friends on Wall Street and in the military industry. It is the starkest contrast to what is going on to the east, across all Eurasia today.

Flowing the Thought to Transform

The Eurasian Century is the name I give to the economic emergence of the countries contiguous from China across Central Asia, Russia, Belarus, Iran and potentially Turkey. They are being integrally linked through the largest public infrastructure projects in modern history, in fact the most ambitious ever, largely concentrated on the 2013 initiative by Chinese President Xi Jinping called the One Belt, One Road initiative or OBOR. The project and its implications for Europe and the rest of the world economy have been so far greeted in the west with a stone silence that defies explanation.

It’s been now three years that have transpired since then-new Chinese President Xi Jinping made one of his first foreign visits to Kazakhstan where he discussed the idea of building a vast, modern network of high-speed train lines crossing the vast Eurasian land space from the Pacific coast of China and Russia through Central Asia into Iran, into the states of the Eurasian Economic Union, principally Russia and potentially on to the select states of the European Union. That initial proposal was unveiled in detail last year by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s economic planning organization, and the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Commerce.

It’s a useful point to look now more closely at what has transpired to date. It reveals most impressive developments, more because the development process is creative and organic. The great project is no simple blueprint made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and then simply imposed, top down, across the so-far 60 countries of Eurasia and South East Asia.

An international conference was recently held in Xi’an, origin of the ancient version of One Belt, One Road, namely the Silk Road. The purpose of the international gathering was to review what has so far taken place. It’s fascinating, notably, in the care that’s being taken by China to do it in a different way, as indications so far are, different from the way American Robber Barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, E.H. Harriman, Jay Gould or Russell Sage built rail monopolies and deluded and defrauded investors with railroad monopolies more than a century ago.

The seminar, titled the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): Shared Memory and Common Development, on September 26th, brought together over 400 participants from more than 30 countries including government officials, universities, corporations, think tanks and media.

A key role is being played by Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies to identify progress and problems of the OBOR project. Their report in Xi’an presented principles underlying the OBOR international project: It adheres to the principles of the UN Charter; it is completely open for new participant nations to cooperate; it will follow market rules and seek mutual benefit of participating countries.

Those are noble words. What’s more interesting is the flow process underway to realize such words and to build the mammoth game-changing infrastructure.

Notably, China’s Xi Jinping decided to encourage input from sources other than the state central planning agency or the Communist Party for the complex OBOR. He encouraged creation of private and independent think-tanks to become a source of new creative ideas and approaches. Today there is a Chinese Think Tank Cooperation Alliance group coordinating efforts around OBOR headed by the dean of the Renmin University. In turn they partner with think tanks along the OBOR route including think tanks in Iran, Turkey, India, Nepal, Kazakhstan and other countries.

There will be two main routes of the OBOR. On land there are several routes or corridors in work. The Initiative will focus on jointly building what is being called a new Eurasian Land Bridge from China via Kazakhstan on to Rotterdam. Other OBOR land rail corridors include developing China-Mongolia-Russia, China-Central Asia-West Asia, China-Pakistan, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar, and China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridors.v This is huge.

It will build on international transport routes, relying on core cities along the OBOR route and using key economic industrial parks as “cooperation platforms.” At sea, the Initiative will focus on jointly building smooth, secure and efficient transport routes connecting major sea ports along the “Belt and Road” including modern upgraded super port construction that will link present China ports at Haikou and Fujian with Kuala Lumpur’s port in Malaysia at the Malacca Strait passage, Calcutta in India, Nairobi in Kenya and via the Suez Canal to Athens and beyond. Crucial is that land and sea parts of OBOR are seen as one whole circulatory system or flow of trade.

The OBOR Initiative will link key Eurasian ports with interior rail and pipeline infrastructure in a way not before seen

To date China has signed memoranda of understanding with 56 countries and regional organizations regarding OBOR. Since his initial proposal in 2013, President Xi Jinping has personally visited 37 countries to discuss implementation of OBOR. China Railway Group and China Communications Construction Company have signed contracts for key routes and ports in 26 countries. Power plants, electricity transmission facilities and oil and gas pipelines, covering 19 countries along the “Belt and Road” in some 40 energy projects have begun. China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile are speeding up cross-border transmission projects in countries along the “Belt and Road” to expand international telecommunication infrastructure.

Already, taking the full sea and land routes of OBOR, some $3 trillion of China trade since June 2013 has flowed over the route, more than a quarter of China’s total trade volume. To date China has also invested more than $51 billion in the countries along the present OBOR route. The new land rail routes will greatly reduce transportation costs across Eurasia, enable formerly isolated regions to connect efficiently to sea and land markets and ignite tremendous new economic growth across Eurasia.

The effects of the OBOR are already beginning to appear. Earlier this year an Iranian container ship arrived at Qinzhou Port in China with 978 containers from several countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road opening the first shipping route linking the Middle East and the Beibu Gulf or Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnamese. In February 2016 a container train with Chinese goods took only 14 days to complete the 5,900 mile (9,500km) journey from China’s eastern Zhejiang province through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. That was 30 days shorter than the sea voyage from Shanghai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, according to the head of the Iranian railway company. China and Iran, now formally part of the OBOR, have targeted bilateral trade, none in US dollars by the way, to exceed $600 billion in the coming decade.

China is presently in negotiations with 28 countries China is in talks with 28 countries including Russia, on high-speed rail projects, China’s train maker, China CNR reports.

It includes a major joint China-Russia $15 billion high-speed Kazan to Moscow line. The 770 kilometers of track between Moscow and Russia’s Tatarstan capital, Kazan, will cut time for the journey from 12 hours now to just 3.5 hours. China has agreed to invest $6 billion in the project which would become a part of a $100 billion high-speed railway between Moscow and Beijing.

Notably, for the new high-speed track being laid, China is developing a new generation of trains capable of reaching speeds of 400 kilometers per hour. And the new trains will solve the costly rail gauge switching problem between China rails and Russian. Trains in Russia run on a 1520mm track, compared to the narrower 1435mm track used in Europe and China. Jia Limin, the head of China’s high-speed rail innovation program told China Daily that, “The train… will have wheels that can be adjusted to fit various gauges on other countries’ tracks, compared with trains now that need to have their wheels changed before entering foreign systems.” Given its strategy of building thousands of kilometers of high-speed railways and developing its domestic Chinese rail sock manufacture as well as other rail technology, China today is the world’s leading producer of rail technology.

Financing the moving

Impressive is that China has secured capital commitment for the OBOR from various sources including the China Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of China, the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS New Development Bank and other sources including its Silk Road Fund to finance the huge undertaking. The Silk Road Fund has posted $40 billion to fund the OBOR projects. So far close to a quarter trillion US dollars of ready money and another half trillion in supranational institutional working capital is reasonably within reach.

The Western doomsday reports of China’s economy going down the tubes are simply either self-serving propaganda of hedge funds or speculators or fed by lack of understanding of the profound transformation in the entire structure of not only China’s but all Eurasia’s economy through the One Belt One Road initiative. China is undergoing a major transformation from a cheap-labor screwdriver assembly nation to a high-value-added high-tech manufacturer.

Geopolitical transformation

The One Belt, One Road initiative of Xi Jinping and the Eurasian partners, especially Russia, also has strategic dimensions of major import. The construction of new infrastructure corridors spanning across the Eurasian landmass in the form of highways, railways, industrial parks, and oil and gas pipelines, OBOR is connecting for the first time in the modern era landlocked regions of hinterland China and Russia and Central Asia republics with the sea ports. Linking key Eurasian industrial hubs to ports with efficient transportation will revolutionize connectivity of hinterland industrial products and raw materials of every kind. The Russian and Eurasian lands, including China, contain perhaps the richest untapped concentration of every raw material known.

The One Belt, One Road also includes oil and gas pipeline transportation corridors. In January 2015 the Myanmar-China Pipeline project, 2400 km long, was completed, linking Myanmar’s deep-water port of Kyaukphyu on Maday Island in the Bay of Bengal with Kunming in Yunnan province in southeast China near Myanmar’s border. It’s a joint project of the China Development Bank and Myanmar Foreign Investment Bank. The new pipeline allows China to import up to 400,000 barrels a day of Middle East oil over a route 1100 km shorter than the previous Malacca Strait sea route, reducing time to reach the large industrial hub city of Kunming by 30%, major economic gains, and avoiding the strategic chokepoint of the Malacca Strait where the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet dominates.

Previously, 80% of Chinese oil and gas imports crossed the Malacca straits and were subject to US controls. Were the present escalating tensions between Washington and China over the South China Sea or other issues to escalate, China would be brought to her knees much like Japan prior to declaring war in 1941, when the USA embargoed her oil. A second pipeline brings natural gas from Qatar and Myanmar gas fields to China.

The OBOR includes oil and gas pipelines that reduce time and distance to imports of Middle East oil and gas

China will pay $53 billion to Myanmar in pipeline royalties over 30 years. They will also invest $25 million in schooling and other social development projects along the pipeline and 10% of the gas will stay in Burma.

Mackinder Outflanked?

The totality of the strategy behind Xi Jinping’s Eurasian One belt, One Road rail, sea and pipeline initiative, which is moving quietly and impressively forward, is transforming the world geopolitical map. In 1904 a British geographer, Sir Halford Mackinder, a fervid champion of the British Empire, unveiled a brilliant concept in a speech to the London Royal Geographical Society titled the Geographical Pivot of History. That essay has shaped both British and American global strategy of hegemony and domination to the present. It was complemented by US Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 work, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, which advocated “sea power,” stating that nations with domination of the seas, as the British Empire or later the USA, would dominate the world.

The One Belt, One Road, by linking all the contiguous land areas of Eurasia to the related network of strategic new or enlarged deep-water ports of OBOR’s Maritime Silk Road, has rendered US geopolitical strategy a devastating blow at a time the hegemony of America is failing as never in its short history. The Eurasian Century today is inevitable and unstoppable. Built on different principles of cooperation rather than domination, it just might offer a model for the bankrupt United States and the soon-bankrupt European Union, to build up true prosperity not based on looting and debt slavery.

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

Notes

1 Taiwan has three nuclear power sites in operation. A fourth nuclear power plant was completed in 2015, but it was mothballed as soon as the construction was finished due to social pressure for a ‘nuclear-free homeland’.
2 For our earlier articles on Taiwan and renewables, see Mathews, Hu and Wu (2012), and Wu and Mathews (2014).
3 A source of electricity is considered dispatchable if it can be turned on or off in order to meet changing demand.
4 In our article three years ago we endorsed concentrated solar power (CSP) systems, involving arrays of lenses and mirrors, but this option did not prove to be a strong contender in Taiwan where industrial strategy is focused on the already well-established and promising solar PV sector. For an overview of recent developments by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, see Pat Gao, ‘A sustainable vision’, July 1 2016, Taiwan Today.
5 In 2015, the production value of solar PV cells in TW reached NT$170 billion. The goal for NT $200 billion for PV and other renewables is set for 2016.
6 Some optimistic solar companies such as TSEC investigated the available lands across Taiwan and proposed the goal for 40 GW grounded solar power plants (with 30 years depreciation) by 2030 (Taiwan’s solar PV Forum, 2016).
7 The data were released by TSEC at Taiwan’s Solar PV Forum held by the Academia Sinica, Taipei, on the 22^nd February 2016.
8 There are 371 landfill sites across Taiwan; 67 sites are under operation and 250 sites are in ecological restoration
9 See ‘Taipei to turn former landfill into solar plant’, Taipei Times, July 31 2016.
10 According to the database investigated by the British marine consultancy, 4C Offshore Company, for the global wind farms, Taiwan Strait secures 16 best sites out of the 18 world’s best wind farm sites.
11 See the report on the website of Climate Bonds Initiative.
12 See the Bloomberg story ‘Chailease Plans Solar-Backed Bonds on Taiwan Clean Power Push’, August 24 2016.
13 See ‘DPP states hope to phase out nuclear power by 2025’, The China Post, Jan 24 2015.
14 See Taipei Times.
15 See the description at the IEEE webpage.
16 This phrase was used by Mathews and Tan in the article published in 2014 in Nature.

A group of ex-U.S. intelligence officials is warning President Obama to defuse growing tensions with Russia over Syria by reining in the demonization of President Putin and asserting White House civilian control over the Pentagon.

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: PREVENTING STILL WORSE IN SYRIA

We write to alert you, as we did President George W. Bush, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, that the consequences of limiting your circle of advisers to a small, relatively inexperienced coterie with a dubious record for wisdom can prove disastrous.* Our concern this time regards Syria.

We are hoping that your President’s Daily Brief tomorrow will give appropriate attention to Saturday’s warning by Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova: “If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region.”

Speaking on Russian TV, she warned of those whose “logic is ‘why do we need diplomacy’ … when there is power … and methods of resolving a problem by power. We already know this logic; there is nothing new about it. It usually ends with one thing – full-scale war.”

We are also hoping that this is not the first you have heard of this – no doubt officially approved – statement. If on Sundays you rely on the “mainstream” press, you may well have missed it. In the Washington Post, an abridged report of Zakharova’s remarks (nothing about “full-scale war”) was buried in the last paragraph of an 11-paragraph article titled “Hospital in Aleppo is hit again by bombs.” Sunday’s New York Times totally ignored the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s statements.

In our view, it would be a huge mistake to allow your national security advisers to follow the example of the Post and Times in minimizing the importance of Zakharova’s remarks.

Events over the past several weeks have led Russian officials to distrust Secretary of State John Kerry. Indeed, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who parses his words carefully, has publicly expressed that distrust. Some Russian officials suspect that Kerry has been playing a double game; others believe that, however much he may strive for progress through diplomacy, he cannot deliver on his commitments because the Pentagon undercuts him every time. We believe that this lack of trust is a challenge that must be overcome and that, at this point, only you can accomplish this.

It should not be attributed to paranoia on the Russians’ part that they suspect the Sept. 17 U.S. and Australian air attacks on Syrian army troops that killed 62 and wounded 100 was no “mistake,” but rather a deliberate attempt to scuttle the partial cease-fire Kerry and Lavrov had agreed on – with your approval and that of President Putin – that took effect just five days earlier.

In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov deal. We can assume that what Lavrov has told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26:

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

Lavrov’s words are not mere rhetoric. He also criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia, “after the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama stipulated that they would share intelligence. … It is difficult to work with such partners. …”

Policy differences between the White House and the Pentagon are rarely as openly expressed as they are now over policy on Syria. We suggest you get hold of a new book to be released this week titled The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War by master historian H. W. Brands. It includes testimony, earlier redacted, that sheds light on why President Truman dismissed WWII hero Gen. Douglas MacArthur from command of U.N. forces in Korea in April 1951. One early reviewer notes that “Brands’s narrative makes us wonder about challenges of military versus civilian leadership we still face today.” You may find this new book more relevant at this point in time than the Team of Rivals.

The door to further negotiations remains ajar. In recent days, officials of the Russian foreign and defense ministries, as well as President Putin’s spokesman, have carefully avoided shutting that door, and we find it a good sign that Secretary Kerry has been on the phone with Foreign Minister Lavrov. And the Russians have also emphasized Moscow’s continued willingness to honor previous agreements on Syria.

In the Kremlin’s view, Russia has far more skin in the game than the U.S. does. Thousands of Russian dissident terrorists have found their way to Syria, where they obtain weapons, funding, and practical experience in waging violent insurgency. There is understandable worry on Moscow’s part over the threat they will pose when they come back home. In addition, President Putin can be assumed to be under the same kind of pressure you face from the military to order it to try to clean out the mess in Syria “once and for all,” regardless how dim the prospects for a military solution are for either side in Syria.

We are aware that many in Congress and the “mainstream” media are now calling on you to up the ante and respond – overtly or covertly or both – with more violence in Syria. Shades of the “Washington Playbook,” about which you spoke derisively in interviews with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg earlier this year. We take some encouragement in your acknowledgment to Goldberg that the “playbook” can be “a trap that can lead to bad decisions” – not to mention doing “stupid stuff.”

Goldberg wrote that you felt the Pentagon had “jammed” you on the troop surge for Afghanistan seven years ago and that the same thing almost happened three years ago on Syria, before President Putin persuaded Syria to surrender its chemical weapons for destruction. It seems that the kind of approach that worked then should be tried now, as well – particularly if you are starting to feel jammed once again.

Incidentally, it would be helpful toward that end if you had one of your staffers tell the “mainstream” media to tone down it puerile, nasty – and for the most part unjustified and certainly unhelpful – personal vilification of President Putin.

Renewing direct dialogue with President Putin might well offer the best chance to ensure an end, finally, to unwanted “jamming.” We believe John Kerry is correct in emphasizing how frightfully complicated the disarray in Syria is amid the various vying interests and factions. At the same time, he has already done much of the necessary spadework and has found Lavrov for the most part, a helpful partner.

Still, in view of lingering Russian – and not only Russian – skepticism regarding the strength of your support for your secretary of state, we believe that discussions at the highest level would be the best way to prevent hotheads on either side from risking the kind of armed confrontation that nobody should want.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that you invite President Putin to meet with you in a mutually convenient place, in order to try to sort things out and prevent still worse for the people of Syria.

In the wake of the carnage of World War II, Winston Churchill made an observation that is equally applicable to our 21st Century: “To jaw, jaw, jaw, is better than to war, war, war.”

* In a Memorandum to President Bush criticizing Colin Powell’s address to the UN earlier on February 5, 2003, VIPS ended with these words: “After watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Fred Costello, Former Russian Linguist, USAF

Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

Larry C. Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)

John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)

Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)

Todd Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)

Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA, (ret.)

Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer

Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat

Dear Global Research Readers,

The US has been waging war with its allies in Syria and Iraq for a while now. Yemen has also become a battle field, where war for democracy is being waged by… monarchies. Mahdi Nazemroaya highlights the irony of the situation:

“The House of Saud and a military coalition that consists mostly of anachronistic monarchies are claiming to bomb Yemen as a means of saving the Yemenite people and their transition to democracy. The irony should not be lost on observers that recognize that the Saudi-led coalition — consisting of the Kingdom of Morocco, UAE, Kuwait, Kingdom of Bahrain, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia itself — is comprised of an unhealthy mixture of backward family dictatorships and corrupt governments that essentially are the antithesis of democracy.” (The War on Yemen: Where Oil and Geopolitics Mix)

Will there now be war with Russia?

Whenever Russia, China or North Korea conduct military exercises, the mainstream media presents them as a threat to peace. What we are never told, however, is that the U.S. and its NATO allies are holding this kind of exercise almost on a daily basis around the globe, but mostly on Russia’s doorstep. You can see for yourself the extent to which NATO is preparing for war against Russia through selections of articles compiled by Rick Rozoff like US-NATO “Defensive” Military Initiatives and War Games Threaten Russia and Preparing for War with Russia? NATO War Games “Joint Warrior” in Scotland: 13,000 Troops, 54 Warships, 70 Planes, Submarines.

In this context, it is worth recalling the adoption by the U.S. Congress of an important legislation back in December 2014.

The adoption of a major piece of legislation by the US House of Representatives on December 4th (H. Res. 758)  would provide (pending a vote in the Senate) a de facto green light to the US president and commander in chief to initiate –without congressional approval– a process of military confrontation with Russia.

Global security is at stake. This historic vote –which potentially could affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people Worldwide– has received virtually no media coverage. A total media blackout prevails.  (Michel Chossudovsky, America is on a “Hot War Footing”: House Legislation Paves the Way for War with Russia?)

Global Research works to give readers critical coverage of such issues and much more.

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The elites believe they are privileged because they are convinced they are the smartest, most creative, most talented and hardest working. They cap this grotesque narcissism with a facade of goodness and virtue. They turn their elitism into a morality play. — Thomas Frank (paraphrased by Chris Hedges)

The powerful establishment interests vested in the continuation of the status quo and, therefore, the election of Hillary Clinton, have created a campaign narrative that tends to stereotype and stigmatize the white working class as racist, sexist and xenophobic. This was most colorfully expressed recently by Clinton herself when in an unguarded moment before her wealthy donors in Manhattan she stated that half of all Trump supporters consisted of a “basket of deplorables.” Those backing Trump, she continued, were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.”

Implicit in this narrative is that support for Donald Trump is driven largely by innate, primordial prejudices and personal characters; and that economics or class issues have nothing or very little to do with his ascendance. Accordingly, the narrative maintains that to the extent that economic conditions of the white working Americans have steadily deteriorated in recent years they have no one to blame but themselves: their laziness, their lack of drive, their moral failures, their sense of entitlement, and the like.

Commenting on this narrative, Conner Kilpatrick of the Jacobin magazine writes, “Somehow liberal pundits have gotten it into their heads that white workers . . .  are just an aggrieved, pissed off, outnumbered minority” [1].

The narrative is propagated by both Republican and Democratic elites and operatives. For example, Anthony DiMaggio, a purported liberal political scientist supporter of Hillary Clinton at Lehigh University writes, “Hillary Clinton caught a lot of flak for referring to half of Trump Supporters as ‘the deplorables.’ She was being far too generous. Public opinion surveys over the last year or so suggest that the white supremacist contingent of Trump voters is even larger.” DiMaggio further writes, “The ascendance of Donald Trump tells us much about the quality of American character – particularly about our enduring and toxic legacy of hate, ignorance, bigotry, and white-supremacy” [2].

Likewise, Jonathan Chait, another liberal intellectual, writes:

“Then there are the voters, whose behavior provided the largest surprise. . . . As low as my estimation of the intelligence of the Republican electorate may be, I did not think enough of them would be dumb enough to buy his [Trump’s] act. And, yes, I do believe that to watch Donald Trump and see a qualified and plausible president, you probably have some kind of mental shortcoming. . . . His appeal operates not at a low intellectual level but at a sub-intellectual level” [3].

Conservative elitists are even more indignant of Trump supporters. Writing in the avowedly conservative National Review magazine, Kevin Williamson writes:

“It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn’t…  Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence — and the incomprehensible malice — of poor white America. …  The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. . . . The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul” [4].

Williamson’s colleague and conservative co-thinker David French (also writing in the National Review) similarly explains how some poor white people he had known were utterly lazy, irresponsible and obnoxious:

“If they couldn’t find a job in a few days—or perhaps even as little as a few hours—they’d stop looking. If they got angry at teachers or coaches, they’d drop out of school. If they fought with their wife, they had sex with a neighbor. And always — always — there was a sense of entitlement” [5].

These kinds of statements, disparaging and dismissing the white working class, are the name of the game for the establishment elites and courtiers. The problem with this line of argument is that it is not just vulgar and elitist, it is also untrue. The considerable support that the white wage-earning voters in States such as West Virginia and Indiana gave the self-described socialist Bernie Sanders showed that they do, indeed, vote for a progressive populist agenda (more on this later). Their substantial support for Sanders revealed that many Trump voters do not necessaritly subscribe to his bigoted and demagogic agenda, but that they are so disgusted with the status quo that they nonetheless vote for him, largely as an act of revenge or protest. They seem to be instinctively cognizant of the fact that “Trump is the Symptom, Clinton is the Disease,” as Roger Harris put it.

Are Trump’s Supporters Driven by Racism and Xenophobia? 

In a real sense, the juxtaposition between economic and non-economic factors in the rise of Trump is a false dichotomy: both evidence and logic point to the fact that high levels of unemployment and economic hardship are breeding grounds for the escalation of racism and xenophobia.

It was no accident that the classic European fascism rose in conjunction with the harrowing economic conditions of the Great Depression. Nor is it altogether fortuitous that fascistic manifestations have become rampant in many core capitalist countries that are grappling with the ongoing financial turbulence that was set off by the 2008 financial implosion in the U.S., and has since spread to many other countries.

This is not to say that racist or xenophobic sentiments are always or altogether precipitated by economic factors. It is rather to point out that to the extent that there exist such prejudices they tend to remain largely latent during periods of high employment and economic prosperity. Many Trump supporters have economic difficulties that they misguidedly view through the prism of racism and xenophobia. Certainly, xenophobic rhetoric has played an important role in the rise of Donald Trump but, as Daniel Denvir of the Salon magazine put it, “it is the admixture of economic populism, however phony, that makes him so potent” [6].

The claim that Trump owes his electoral victory mainly to non-economic factors such as racism and xenophobia lust much of its credibility when Bernie Sanders won handily against Hillary Clinton in States such as Indiana and West Virginia. According to this claim, as a self-described socialist who advocated a multiracial, multicultural, inclusive and relatively equitable society, Sanders was not supposed to win in places like West Virginia, the whitest (93.7 percent) of all states. But there he was, winning big against Clinton among men, women, young, and old.

The outcome of such primaries, indicating that large numbers of white working Americans voted for Sanders was quite discomforting to the powerful interests vested in the status quo. Not surprisingly, the Clinton campaign (and the elitist courtiers of the establishment in general) became childishly creative: claiming that somehow West Virginia’s vote for a Jewish socialist Brooklyn native was prompted by racism!

“Instead of acknowledging the size and importance of this part of the electorate, Democratic Party elites have simply constructed a new narrative to suit their interests—a narrative that was on display after West Virginia. Following Sanders’s win, a significant chunk of the punditocracy came to the conclusion, mostly by abusing the hell out of exit polls, that a vote for the Jewish socialist was actually a vote for white supremacy. . . . After decades of being told white workers would never support socialism because they’re racist, we’re now told that they support the socialist candidate because they are racist. Yes, this is where liberals are in the year 2016” [7].

To downplay the role of the white working voters in Trump’s campaign, some proponents of the status quo have gone as far as arguing that Trump supporters are not actually working class because the median household income of his supporters is above the national median household income [8].

This is a highly misleading argument. Since black, Latino and other non-white workers/households are more marginalized economically, and still make significantly less than white people, the median income of Trump voters would, accordingly, show a higher figure than the median national income. Furthermore, better-off-than average does not necessarily translate into economic security. A snapshot or static picture of median income does not tell us much; more importantly, it is the trend or change in people’s economic conditions over time that matters most.

Median household income and wealth have drastically fallen in recent years. Wages have been stagnant, and in many cases fallen in real terms. At the same time, healthcare, childcare, higher education, housing, and retirement costs have escalated. A recent Pew Research Center survey shows that in 1971 about 61 percent of American households were categorized as middle class. Today, that number is barely 50% [9]. As a number of observers have pointed out, Trump support is highly correlated to areas where the death rates of middle-aged white people, fueled by opioid overdoses, are spiking [10].

Why Are the Establishment Elites so Eager to Reject Economic/Class Explanations? 

The establishment elites and corporate media pundits tend to stigmatize the white working Americans in order to sanitize the brutal neoliberal policies of austerity economics of the past four decades. The plan and the hope is that in so doing they can exonerate the policy-makers of the establishment—both Republican and Democratic—of the responsibility for the unsavory state of affairs that has given rise to Donald Trump. When racism and bigotry can be blamed capitalism is exonerated.

U.S. economic policy of the past 40 years or so has consisted of a steady escalation of neoliberal austerity economics while its foreign policy has consisted of a steady escalation of war and militarism. Neither Bill Clinton deviated from Ronald Reagan’s policies of supply-side economics at home and military aggressions abroad, nor has Barak Obama deviated from those of George W. Bush.

Indeed, masterfully masquerading as liberals, Bill Clinton and Barak Obama have proven to be much more effective engineers of demolishing the New Deal Economics, of substituting corporate welfare for public welfare, and of deregulating and strengthening the parasitic financial sector than their Republican counterparts. Likewise, using harebrained pretexts such as “humanitarian intervention” and/or “responsibility to protect,” Clinton and Obama have proven to be more successful architects of “regime change” in more countries than Reagan and Bush ever were.

This explains why the liberal elites of the Democratic Party (like their conservative counterparts in the Republican Party) are promoting the obfuscationist narrative that sidesteps the decades-long policies of neoliberalism and militarism, or the fundamental injustices of capitalism, and instead blame the rise of Donald Trump on “moral failures” or “personal characters” of the white working Americans. As Daniel Denvir points out, “If there is no economic context, and Trump’s supporters are just mired in primordial racism, then they are forever lost in the morass of right-wing politics . . . [and] progressives can forget about the angry white guys” [11].

Concluding Remarks 

Capitalism has always employed the age-old tactic of divide-and-rule to pit various strata of the working class against each other in order to keep them docile. This tactic has especially been used more effectively in the United States because as a country of immigrants it has always benefitted from the flow of successive waves of migrant workers who, due to the vulnerability of their circumstances, could easily be exploited more compared to the workers who had arrived before them.

Not only has U.S. capitalism handsomely benefitted from this perennial competition between successive generations of migrant workers, between the old and new migrants, but also elite politicians have often taken advantage of this competition for their own nefarious political and economic purposes. “Slave owners did this by getting laws passed that required white indentured servants and black slaves to be treated differently. Richard Nixon did it by employing the cynical ‘Southern strategy.’ Now Trump is following in this long tradition by pitting struggling white people against immigrants and Muslims” [12].

Hillary Clinton has employed a different tack in pitting the working people against each other: while Trump is guilty of peddling racism and xenophobia, she is guilty of touting moralities, identity politics and wedge issues. Feigning an artificial moral high ground, she (and other elites of the establishment) argues that the worsening of the economic conditions of the white working Americans is mainly the result of their own personal and/or moral failures: laziness, racism, sexism and xenophobia.

While often misplaced or misdirected, the white working Americans’ economic grievances are real. Hillary Clinton and the powerful by-partisan supporters of her campaign tend to dismiss this reality because acknowledging it would be tantamount to acknowledging their own guilt: the fact that their economic policies of the past four decades have been disastrous for working Americans.

Blaming white American workers (as Clinton does) or migrant workers (as Trump does) for the sins of neoliberal austerity economic policies of the past forty years or so represent a blatant effort on the part of the two presidential candidates to scapegoat the working class in order to sanitize the capitalist class. Despicable as these attempts at deflection and deception are, however, one cannot really blame Clinton or Trump for pursuing such self-serving policies of diversion and obfuscation in the service of their class, the reach and powerful.

The real blame goes, instead, to the bureaucratic labor/union leaders who have betrayed the working class by supporting the capitalist class, largely through their support for Hillary Clinton and, more generally, the Democratic Party. The combined number of voters for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is much higher the number of voters for Hillary Clinton—perhaps 50% higher. This is an obvious indication that a clear majority of the American electorate are ready for radical changes; they prefer anti-establishmentarian candidates to the establishment candidate, even when one of the alternative candidates is a self-described socialist and the other is an avowed bigot.

This is also an indication that were the bureaucratic labor leaders really committed to the interests of the working class, and entered the election contests with their own candidates at both local and Federal levels, independent of the two corporate parties, such independent labor/grassroots candidates could win unimaginable victories in the interest of the overwhelming majority of the people, the so-called 99%.

Political lessons for the working class and other dispossessed masses are unmistakable: To challenge and (ultimately) change the status quo, the labor and other grassroots need to decisively break with the two-party system and the bureaucratic labor leaders. What is needed to reverse the weakening of labor and the declining living standards of the overwhelming majority of the people is a new type of labor organization, a new labor movement and new labor politics.

The new labor/grassroots politics would aim at exposing the lies and deceptions of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Champions of the new politics would explain that both migrant workers and white workers, which essentially means migrant workers of today and yesterday, are victims, first and foremost, of the woes and vagaries of the capitalist system—of neoliberalism and militarism.

They would further explain that the workers and other grassroots need to extricate themselves from the divisive setups of the fraudulent two-part system and, instead, forge an alliance that would safeguard their interests against the ills and injustices of neoliberal economics, and chart a political course that would, ultimately, supplant the crisis-prone and unjust capitalist system with a more humane civilization. Fighting against the ills of capitalism is crucial to labor and other social layers suffering from them. But it makes little sense to fight symptoms without challenging the system that produces them.

References 

[1] Burying the White Working Class.
[2] White Supremacist America: Trump and the “Return” of Right-Wing Hate Culture.
[3] Here’s the Real Reason Everybody Thought Trump Would Lose.
[4] Chaos in the Family, Chaos in the State: The White Working Class’s Dysfunction.
[5] Working-Class Whites Have Moral Responsibilities.
[6] An entire class of Americans misunderstood and rejected: Dismissing white workers is profoundly reactionary.
[7] Conner Kilpatrick, Burying the White Working Class.
[8] Nate Silver, The Mythology Of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support.
[9] America’s Shrinking Middle Class.
[10] Daniel Denvir, An entire class of Americans misunderstood and rejected: Dismissing white workers is profoundly reactionary.
[11] Class dismissed: Is the Trump campaign driven by racism or economics? The only possible answer is both.
[12] Holly Otterbein, A Visit to Trump Country. 

Ismael Hossein-zadeh is Professor Emeritus of Economics (Drake University). He is the author of Beyond Mainstream Explanations of the Financial Crisis (Routledge 2014), The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave–Macmillan 2007), and the Soviet Non-capitalist Development: The Case of Nasser’s Egypt (Praeger Publishers 1989). He is also a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion.

Russian and Syrian warplanes have delivered massive air strikes on the joint terrorist forces in the province of Hama. Positions and manpower of the US-backed Ahrar al-Sham militant group, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Al-Nusra Front) and Jund al-Aqsa (recently designated by the US as a terrorist group) near Kafr Zita, Tal Abyad and Al-Sathiyat were hit. Local sources say that air raids resulted in destruction of high number of military equipment and ammunition belonging to the terrorist forces.

The air raids also helped the government forces to repel the terrorists’ advance on Al-Sathiyat. Various sources report that the pro-government forces lost from 8 to 15 fighters in these clashes.

US military strikes against the Syrian government is at the top of the agenda today at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the coalition in Syria, The Washington Post daily reported. The US officials are going to push forward so-called “limited military strikes” in order to, according to the official version, prevent violations of the cease-fire by the Assad government and disrupt his ability to continue committing war crimes against civilians in Aleppo and, for sure, to push it back to the negotiating table.

The options under consideration reportedly include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships. The report says the idea is supported by the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One proposed way to do so without a UN Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment.

This approach also explains the coalition’s actions against the Syrian army outside Deir Ezzor in September when over 60 pro-government fighters were killed and over 100 injured in air strikes lately called an accident by US officials. Now, there are little doubts that it was likely an intended move to damage the government forces fighting with ISIS in the area.

The same threat forces Moscow to deploy an additional battery of the air defense system S-300 to the Russian Navy’s logistic facility in Tartus. The information was confirmed by Defense Ministry spokesman. Igor Konashenkov said the system will provide protection for the facility and Russian ships off Syria’s shores. Nonetheless, it’s clear that it will also strengthen the Russian air defense shield over the government-controlled areas of Syria.

Not since the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq has Official Washington’s political/punditry class clamored more single-mindedly – and openly – for the U.S. government to commit a gross violation of international law, now urging a major military assault on the government of Syria while also escalating tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.

And, like the frenzied war fever of 2002-2003, today’s lawless consensus is operating on a mix of selective, dubious and false information – while excluding from the public debate voices that might dare challenge the prevailing “group think.” It’s as if nothing was learned from the previous disaster in Iraq.

For Americans who may find those two points hard to believe, they should remember that the United States and Saudi Arabia went in 50/50 with billions of dollars to finance the jihadist mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, viewing these religious fanatics as a useful “tip of the spear” to kill Soviet troops who were defending the leftist secular regime then governing in Kabul.Most notably, there are two key facts about Syria that Americans are not being told: one, U.S. regional “allies” have been funding and arming radical jihadist groups, including Al Qaeda terrorists, there almost since the conflict began in 2011 and, two, the claim about “moderate” Syrian rebels is a fraud; the “moderates” have served essentially as a P.R. cut-out for the U.S. and its “allies” to supply Al Qaeda and its allies with sophisticated weapons while pretending not to.

That exercise in U.S.-Saudi realpolitik gave birth to the modern jihadist movement, bringing together a network of foreign jihadists, led by Saudi Arabia’s Osama bin Laden (which morphed into Al Qaeda), with Afghan/Pakistani extremists who evolved into the Taliban.

Though U.S. officials eventually came to fear this Frankenstein monster that they had helped create, Saudi intelligence continued to work with Al Qaeda and its affiliates, using them as a kind of international paramilitary force to punish Saudi enemies, particularly Shiite-dominated governments, from Iran to Syria to now Iraq.

The Saudis also began collaborating with Israel, which shared Riyadh’s view that Iran and the “Shiite crescent” represented a strategic threat. Between Saudi money and Israeli political clout, the two countries could fend off occasional fits of U.S. anger, even to the point of getting the U.S. government to hide a 29-page chapter about Saudi financing for the 9/11 hijackers from the congressional 9/11 report for a dozen years.

For the past five years, the principal target of this powerful coalition has been Syria, with President Obama occasionally joining in – as he did in authorizing “covert” CIA and Pentagon programs to arm “moderate” rebels – and occasionally bowing out – as he did in resisting pressure to bomb the Syrian military after a mysterious sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013.

In summer 2014, when Al Qaeda’s spin-off, the Islamic State, began beheading Western hostages, Obama authorized bombing inside Syria but only against the Islamic State, which also had overrun large sections of Iraq and threatened the Shiite-dominated regime in Baghdad. (Obama’s bombing inside Syria was not authorized by the Syrian government so it was illegal under international law but Syria didn’t press the point as long as the U.S. coalition was attacking forces regarded as terrorists.)

New U.S. Hysteria

This more complex reality is completely missing in the new round of political/press hysteria in the United States. The neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks only talk about stopping the “barbarism” of the Syrian government and its Russian allies as they try to finally wipe out Al Qaeda’s jihadists and their “moderate” allies holed up in eastern Aleppo.

This new “group think” has prevented Americans from looking at the Syrian situation with more nuance and objectivity. Indeed, if you mix in some of the other facts, the on-the-ground reality could be seen as the U.S. and its “allies” stoking the fire in Syria for five years and, now, as the Syrian military and Russian air power take drastic measures to finally get the blaze under some control, the U.S. government may bomb the firefighters and destroy their equipment.Many of these calls for a U.S. military intervention against the Syrian government (and the Russians) are coming from the same advocates for war who created the misguided consensus for invading Iraq in 2002-2003, voices such as Sen. John McCain, Washington Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt, and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. And, much like the Iraq example, these esteemed opinion-leaders pile up their propaganda arguments in a one-sided fashion designed to silence the few voices that dare raise doubts.

Beyond the illegality of that action, how the U.S. military intervention is supposed to fix things in Syria is never discussed. By strengthening Al Qaeda and its “moderate” front men, the prospects for a longer and bloodier conflict are increased, not decreased.

The long-held neocon dream of a Syrian “regime change” – even if it could be accomplished – would only open the gates of Damascus to a victory by Al Qaeda and/or its spinoff, the Islamic State. How that would make life better for the Syrian people is another never addressed question. There is simply the pretense that somehow, magically, the “moderate” rebels would prevail, though they are only an auxiliary to Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise.

The “group think” also doesn’t permit in the inconvenient truth that the recent collapse of the U.S.-Russia limited cease-fire was driven by the fact that the “moderate” rebels are so intertwined with Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front – which recently underwent a cosmetic name change to the Levant (or Syria) Conquest Front – that the rebels can’t or won’t separate themselves.

The New York Times, The Washington Post and other mainstream news outlets have sought to bury this reality because it doesn’t fit the preferred narrative of the U.S. fulfilling its commitments under the partial cease-fire agreement and blaming its collapse entirely on the Russians and their dastardly behavior.

One outlier in this propaganda barrage, ironically, has been Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, which published a serious article on this key topic on Sept. 29. It said, “Some of Syria’s largest rebel factions are doubling down on their alliance with an al Qaeda-linked group, despite a U.S. warning to split from the extremists or risk being targeted in airstrikes.

“The rebel gambit is complicating American counterterrorism efforts in the country at a time the U.S. is contemplating cooperation with Russia to fight extremist groups. It comes after a U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire collapsed last week and the Syrian regime and its Russian allies immediately unleashed a devastating offensive against rebel-held parts of Aleppo city that brought harsh international condemnation. …

“The two powers have been considering jointly targeting Islamic State and the Syria Conquest Front — formerly known as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front — a group that is deeply intermingled with armed opposition groups of all stripes across Syria’s battlefields. The U.S. has also threatened to attack any rebels providing front-line support to the group. …

“Some rebel groups already aligned with Syria Conquest Front responded by renewing their alliance. But others, such as Nour al-Din al-Zinki, a former Central Intelligence Agency-backed group and one of the largest factions in Aleppo, said in recent days that they were joining a broader alliance that is dominated by the Front. A second, smaller rebel group also joined that alliance, which is known as Jaish al-Fateh and includes another major Islamist rebel force, Ahrar al-Sham. …

“In a call with Mr. Kerry on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Syrian rebels ‘refused to follow the U.S.-Russian agreement…but instead merged with [Nusra Front].’”

Misleading the American People

So, isn’t that point relevant to understanding what is occurring in eastern Aleppo, an area essentially under the control of Al Qaeda terrorists? As horrible as war is, there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy when politicians and pundits, who cheered the U.S. Marines’ destruction of Fallujah during the Iraq occupation and who support driving the Islamic State out of the Iraqi city of Mosul, wax indignantly in outrage when the Syrian military seeks to remove Al Qaeda terrorists from one of its own cities.

For instance, Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, who repeatedly wrote as flat fact that Iraq was hiding WMDs, is still today the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, urging a new U.S. war on Syria. The Times’ Friedman, who was infamously wrong about the Iraq War and pretty much everything else, is still considered a premier American columnist who is courted to make high-profile public appearances.There is also the issue of why writers who helped mislead the American people and the world into the catastrophe of the Iraq War were never held accountable and are now in position to whip up more war fever over Syria, Ukraine and Russia. Far from being held accountable, the propagandists who justified the criminal invasion of Iraq have been rewarded with plum assignments and golden careers.

Now, Friedman wants to escalate tensions with nuclear-armed Russia, apparently with the sloppily thought-through mission of imposing another “regime change,” this time in Moscow. As unnerving as a nuclear showdown with Russia should be, Friedman starts his Wednesday column by fabricating a news item about a leak that supposedly revealed that Putin “owns $30 billion in property, hotels and factories across Russia and Europe, all disguised by front organizations and accounting charades.”

After going on for several paragraphs with his fake “news,” Friedman admits that “I made it up.” Ha-ha, so clever! Then, however, he cites what he claims is real news about Russia, including the dubious prosecutorial “report” blaming the Russians for the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shoot-down on July 17, 2014. That “report” – actually a series of videos – had serious evidentiary gaps, logical problems and obvious bias, since it was driven largely by Ukraine’s notorious SBU intelligence service which the United Nations has accused of covering up torture.

But to Friedman, the allegations blaming Russia for the shoot-down were unassailable. He writes, “a Dutch-led investigation adduced irrefutable video evidence that Putin’s government not only trucked in the missile system used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines plane flying over Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 civilians onboard, but also returned it to Russia the same night and then engaged in an elaborate cover-up.”

It might be noted that some of that “irrefutable video evidence” came in the form of computer-generated images of an alleged Russian Buk missile battery traveling down darkened Ukrainian roads, very persuasive scenes, much like Secretary of State Colin Powell showing computer-generated images of Iraq’s “mobile chemical weapons labs” in 2003, labs that didn’t exist.

It also might be remembered that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was also accused of mounting “an elaborate cover-up” of his WMD stockpiles, that also didn’t exist. The point being that slick presentations, which rely mostly on assertions and allude to untested evidence, aren’t always accurate. Skepticism is not only a sign of journalistic professionalism but is necessary to avoid horrible misjudgments, especially on questions of war and peace.

Blaming Russia for Everything

But Friedman just plunges ahead, also asserting that on Sept. 19, Russia bombed a U.N. relief convoy heading for Aleppo. In this case, Friedman cites U.S. intelligence officials who say that “almost certainly” Russia did it, although I had been told that some CIA analysts feared the attack was launched by Al Qaeda’s chief Syrian ally, Ahrar al-Sham, using a U.S.-made TOW missile. The United Nations also withdrew its initial assertion that the attack was an airstrike (although Friedman leaves that fact out, too).

The problem with propagandists like Friedman is that they ignore the illegal actions of the United States, including mounting military attacks on countries without United Nations’ authority or without the justification of self-defense, in other words, outside the realm of international law. It’s also illegal to supply weapons to terrorists, as has been occurring in Syria both directly by Saudi Arabia and other U.S. “allies” and indirectly by U.S. covert operations giving arms to “moderates” who then turn them over to Al Qaeda.This is not to say that the Russians are innocent in these terrible incidents. Further evidence might convincingly prove that they are guilty – and, if they are, accountability should be assessed as appropriate. Horrible errors happen in war, such as the U.S. airstrike that killed some 62 Syrian soldiers in eastern Syria on Sept. 17 as they were fighting off an attack by Islamic State militants.

While putting on blinders regarding U.S. violations of international law and their human consequences, such as the Syrian refugee flow, the sanctimonious Friedman bizarrely blames Putin for this human suffering, too.

Friedman cites a scholar named Robert Litwak in claiming that “Putin’s departure from standard great-power competition — encouraging a flood of refugees and attacking the legitimacy of our political system — ‘is leading to shifts in global politics that could have revolutionary consequences, even if Putin is not motivated by revolutionary ideology.’”

Friedman’s solution to this highly questionable if not imaginary problem is to increase the pain on Putin and Russia, saying “it’s now clear that we have underestimated the pressure needed to produce effective engagement, and we’re going to have to step it up. This is not just about the politics of Syria and Ukraine anymore. It’s now also about America, Europe, basic civilized norms and the integrity of our democratic institutions.”

While it’s always tempting to dismiss Friedman as a nitwit, the sad reality is that he is an influential nitwit who helps shape “elite” American public opinion. He is now contributing to a new “group think” that is even more dangerous than the one he helped construct in 2002-2003 regarding the Iraq War.

Today, this new “group think,” which — like the Iraq one — is based on a false or selective reading of the facts, could lead to a nuclear war that could end life on the planet.

[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Do We Really Want Nuclear War with Russia?” and “Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia.”]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

What must the world think watching the US presidential campaign? Over time US political campaigns have become more unreal and less related to voters’ concerns, but the current one is so unreal as to be absurd.

The offshoring of American jobs by global corporations and the deregulation of the US financial system have resulted in American economic failure. One might think that this would be an issue in a presidential campaign.

The neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony is driving the US and its vassals into conflict with Russia and China. The risks of nuclear war are higher than at any previous time in history. One might think that this also would be an issue in a presidential campaign.

Instead, the issues are Trump’s legal use of tax laws and his non-hostile attitude toward President Putin of Russia.

One might think that the issue would be Hillary’s extremely hostile attitude toward Putin (“the new Hitler”), which promises conflict with a major nuclear power.

As for benefitting from tax laws, Pat Buchanan pointed out that Hillary used to her benefit a loss almost as large as Trump’s and during the Arkansas years Hillary even took a tax deduction for itemized pieces of used clothing donated to a charity, including $2 for one of Bill’s used underpants.

The vice presidential “debate” revealed that the Democratic Party’s candidate is so ignorant that he thinks Putin, who is democratically elected and has enormous public support, is a dictator.

Here is what we know about the two presidential candidates. Hillary has a long list of scandals from Whitewater and Vince Foster to Benghazi and violation of national security protocols. She is bought-and-paid-for by the oligarchs on Wall Street, in the mega-banks, and in the military-security complex as well as by foreign interests. The proof is the Clinton’s $120 million personal fortune and the $1,600 million in their foundation. Goldman Sachs did not pay Hillary $675,000 for three 20-minute speeches for the wisdom they contained.

What we know about Trump is that the oligarchic establishment cannot stand him and has ordered the Ministry of Propaganda, a.k.a., the US media, to destroy him.

Clearly, Hillary is the candidate of the One Percent, and Trump is the candidate for the rest of us.

Unfortunately, about half of the 99 percent is too dumb to know this.

Moreover, if Trump were to end up in the White House, it doesn’t mean he could prevail over the oligarchy.

The oligarchy is entrenched in Washington with control over economic and foreign policy positions, think tanks and other lobbyists, and the media.

The people control nothing.

What does the world think when they see Donald Trump damned because he doesn’t want war with Russia or the American economy moved offshore?

Where in American politics do Washington’s European, British, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese vassals see leadership worthy of their sacrifice of sovereignty and independent foreign policy? Where do they even see a modicum of intelligence?

Why does the world look to the most stupid, vile, arrogant, corrupt and murderous government on the planet for leadership?

War is the only destination to which Washington can lead.

Top Washington Officials, the Clinton Campaign, and main stream media (including The Washington Post and New York Times) have thrown their full support behind Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, in an effort to not have the last terrorist strong hold of East Aleppo be liberated by the internationally recognized Syrian government.

The WaPo is talking about Russian war crimes. Talk about a parallel universe. Russia, the country that has been invited legally under international law, is being accused of war crimes because it is fighting to liberate Aleppo from Al Qaeda and ISIS control…while the uninvited (in Syria illegally) United States, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey fight to keep Al Qaeda alive.

Unfortunately this is the America, that for al intensive purposes, has crossed the rubicon, fallen off the wagon, and has entered into an evil alliance with jihadists terrorists…the very same terrorists who attacked the US in 2001.

If only, everyday Americans could know that their government are now interlocked, brothers in arms, with Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, in an effort to wipe out a secular and stable middle east government, and hand over the keys of the country to Wahhabi, Saudi sponsored, butchers.

The reality of what America has become is hard to stomach. News coming in that top Washington officials are discussing striking positions of the Syrian military without a UN Security Council resolution is the real war crime.

The war hawks are working out a plan to bomb air force runways in Syria, with missiles fired from US and US-coalition planes and ships.

One administration official who is to take part in the discussions told the war ready Washington Post…

“One proposed way to get around the White House’s objection to striking the Assad regime without a UN Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment.”

The CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represented in the Deputies Committee meeting by Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva, are now pressing for more “kinetic” options.

“There’s an increased mood in support of kinetic actions against the regime. The CIA and the Joint Staff have said that the fall of Aleppo would undermine America’s counterterrorism goals in Syria.”

“Kinetic” options is US double speak for illegal war.

The “fall of Aleppo”…how about the liberation of Aleppo.

Is Aleppo not a city belonging to Syria, and does Syria’s internationally recognized government not have the right to remove Al Qaeda terrorists from inhabiting the city?

The “fall of Aleppo” double speak for the fall of Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria. The “fall” of the Saudi and Qatari pipeline dream. The “fall” of America’s evil and destructive regime change operation.

It is now up to Obama. We can only hope the “hope and change” president still has some good left in him. The WaPo reports (much to the paper’s disappointment) that…

–“there’s still great skepticism, however, that the White House will approve military action. Other administration officials told The Post this week that Obama is no more willing to commit U.S. military force inside Syria than he was previously and that each of the military options being discussed have negative risks or consequences.

The National Security Council’s senior coordinator for the Middle East, Rob Malley, and the president’s special envoy to the coalition for the fight against the Islamic State, Brett McGurk, are also said to be against any military escalation against the Assad regime, officials said. There’s no consensus on what options should be sent to the president’s desk. Other options include increased weapons for some Syrian rebel groups and an increase in the quality of such weapons, to allow rebels to defend Aleppo’s civilians.”

Not happy with the prospect that sanity and logic will prevail in Syria, the Washington Post is still pushing for conflict, as the US drums of war beat ever louder.

The WaPo continues to demonise the legitimate government of Assad, and the invited military campaign of Russia…in an all out media blitz to prop up Al Qaeda, and keep Aleppo under the occupation of jihadist terrorists.

U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime will be back on the table Wednesday at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the way forward in Syria. But there’s little prospect President Obama will ultimately approve them.

Inside the national security agencies, meetings have been going on for weeks to consider new options to recommend to the president to address the ongoing crisis in Aleppo, where Syrian and Russian aircraft continue to perpetrate the deadliest bombing campaign the city has seen since the five-year-old civil war began. A meeting of the Principals Committee, which includes Cabinet-level officials, is scheduled for Wednesday. A meeting of the National Security Council, which could include the president, could come as early as this weekend.

Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the regime as a means of forcing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to pay a cost for his violations of the cease-fire, disrupt his ability to continue committing war crimes against civilians in Aleppo, and raise the pressure on the regime to come back to the negotiating table in a serious way.

The options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships, an administration official who is part of the discussions told me. One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said.

If Obama does not approve greater support for the Syrian rebels or increased coalition pressure on the Assad regime, the only option left is to wait out the siege of Aleppo and reengage the Russians if and when Aleppo falls, albeit in a weaker position.

Former State Department Syria official Frederic Hof wrote Monday that any policy going forward that hinges on the assumption that Russia is looking for a near-term diplomatic solution in Syria is destined for failure.

“Whatever excuses the administration offers for leaving Syrians defenseless against mass murder, the continued search for common ground with Vladimir Putin should not be one of them,” he wrote. “If nothing else, John Kerry’s exhaustive diplomatic due diligence should retire that illusion permanently.”

Kerry’s deputy, Antony Blinken, testified last week that the U.S. leverage in Russia comes from the notion that Russia will eventually become weary of the cost of its military intervention in Syria. “The leverage is the consequences for Russia of being stuck in a quagmire that is going to have a number of profoundly negative effects,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The argument against more U.S. military intervention in Syria, including strikes against the regime, is based on risks that should be taken seriously but that are ultimately hypothetical. The effects of continuing the current policy are not hypothetical. They include more of what we are seeing now: Russia and the Assad regime committing war crimes against civilians with impunity and destroying Syria’s largest city.

There won’t be a direct US military intervention against Assad under Obama. Obama turned back from plunging the US into what was clearly going to be an unpopular adventure after the false flag Ghouta chemical attack in 2013. He certainly isn’t going to roll the dice at the height of election season and with the Democratic candidate just barely edging out the Republican Trump.

Moreover, we’ve now learned that this time around even Secretary of State John Kerry — who was one of the main proponents of bombing in 2013 — is against it. The Washington Post:

This time around, Kerry has not favored using U.S. military force against the Assad regime, two administration officials said. He now prefers continued diplomacy with Russia, even in the face of what he says is Moscow’s willingness to “turn a blind eye” to, if not participate directly, in war crimes in Aleppo.

But just so you don’t think this means there are now fewer utter morons running around DC; since renewed brainstorming on Syria begun in the Obama administration last week the Joint Chiefs of Staff have joined the CIA in backing the US entering the Syrian civil war on the side of the Islamist rebels:

The CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represented in the Deputies Committee meeting by Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva, expressed support for such “kinetic” options, the official said. That marked an increase of support for striking Assad compared with the last time such options were considered.

Even these clowns understand this would be blatantly illegal, but not to worry, they have a solution for it:

The options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships, an administration official who is part of the discussions told me.

One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said.

This proposal — raining down cruise missiles without taking responsibility for them — happens to be the exact same hare-brained scheme Kerry was banding about in 2013, and even he has since grown out of it.

Funny how the US on the one hand is talking up its bombs as a fitting instruments of its virtuous foreign policy but on the other hand would actually be reluctant to carry out this virtuous bombing out in the open. If the campaign is a virtuous one why the apparent shame?

And just so you know, the reason why Assad has to be bombed is counter-terrorism:

“There’s an increased mood in support of kinetic actions against the regime,” one senior administration official said.

“The CIA and the Joint Staff have said that the fall of Aleppo would undermine America’s counterterrorism goals in Syria.”

That’s right. Should the jihadis allied and intermingled with al-Qaeda be driven from Syria’s Aleppo city this will set back “America’s counterterrorism goals in Syria”. For America’s “counter-terrorism” goals in Syria to keep a strong foundation terrorist sympathizers have to remain in control of half of Syria’s largest city. Somebody has read their Orwell well.

On September 30, the World Socialist Web Site warned: “It is evident… that the question of whether an escalation of the US intervention in Syria can wait until after the US election of November 8 has become the subject of heated debate within the US ruling establishment.”

It has taken barely a week for this assessment to find decisive confirmation. It has been fully established that the Obama administration is holding precisely such a debate.

On Wednesday, the so-called Principals Committee, consisting of the secretaries of defense and state, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA director, as well as top presidential security aides, convened at the White House to consider proposals to attack Syrian government forces with cruise missiles as well as other acts of military aggression.

Both the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are reportedly in favor of such an escalation, which carries with it the real prospect of a direct armed confrontation between the US and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

Reflecting the growing support within sections of the US establishment for a far wider war, key sections of the media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, have weighed in on the side of those within the military and intelligence apparatus advocating a new eruption of American militarism.

Among the most explicit examples is an opinion column by John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, published in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal. McCain indicts the Syrian government and its ally, Russia, for having “slaughtered countless civilians” through “relentless, indiscriminate bombing.” This is being written by an individual who was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the “shock and awe” war in Iraq that cost over 1 million Iraqi lives.

The Republican senator writes: “The US and its coalition partners must issue an ultimatum to [Syrian President] Assad–stop flying or lose your aircraft–and be prepared to follow through. If Russia continues its indiscriminate bombing, we should make clear that we will take steps to hold its aircraft at greater risk.”

McCain also calls for the creation of “safe zones” for Syrian civilians protected by the US military and “more robust military assistance” to the so-called “rebels.” He acknowledges that this strategy “will undoubtedly entail greater costs,” but provides no specific indication as to the nature of these costs or who will pay them. McCain does not even hint at the catastrophic global implications of a military confrontation between Washington and Moscow.

Similarly, in an editorial Wednesday, the Washington Post asserts that Washington’s policy has failed in Syria because the US has “refused to use military pressure against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.” The newspaper complains that the Obama administration’s failure to carry out a more direct military intervention in Syria has resulted in “the shrinking of US influence, to Russia’s gain,” and approvingly cites CIA and Pentagon proposals for cruise missile attacks and the provision of more sophisticated weaponry to the “rebels.”

Finally, the New York Times published a front-page lead article Wednesday warning that Russia was using the period between now and the January 2017 inauguration of the next US president as a “window of opportunity” to “move aggressively” in providing military support for the Syrian government. The article favorably reports proposals for US air strikes and goes on to cite unnamed US officials as arguing that Washington could turn Syria into a “quagmire” for Russia, “particularly if the Arab states that support the rebels supply them with antiaircraft weapons and Islamic terrorists decide to retaliate by attacking Russian cities.”

This passage echoes an earlier warning from the top US State Department spokesman that the response of Islamist forces to Russia’s military actions in Syria could “include attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities.”

The implications are unmistakable. Washington exerts overwhelming operational influence over the Islamist militias that have constituted the principal fighting force in the five-year-old, CIA-orchestrated war for regime change in Syria. Just as it directed them to attack the government in Damascus, it could order them to do the same in Moscow.

The article is supplemented by an opinion piece by Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, who writes in his signature bully boy style, “Isn’t it time we give Putin a dose of his own medicine?”

While acknowledging that a military confrontation with Russia poses the direct threat of nuclear war, he declares, “But we also cannot just keep turning the other cheek” in regard to “Putin’s behavior in Syria and Ukraine.” He denounces Russia for “mercilessly bombing civilians in Aleppo” and twice charges Russian President Vladimir Putin with violating “basic civilized norms.”

Even from a columnist who has established the gold standard for cynicism and deceit, Friedman’s invocation of “basic civilized norms” leaves one somewhat slack-jawed.

There is not a single war of aggression launched by US imperialism for which he has failed to serve as a fanatical cheerleader. The same man who today laments the Russian bombing of east Aleppo in 1999 wrote in response to the US bombing of Serbia: “It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted… [W]e will set your country back by pulverizing you.”

Less than four years later he played the same role in relation to Iraq, declaring before the 2003 invasion that he had no problem with “a war for oil,” and writing afterwards that the US had attacked Iraq “for one simple reason: because we could…”

Such are the civilized norms observed by the man from the Times .

Underlying the frenzied support for military escalation in Syria is the fact that the various terrorist organizations Washington has used as its proxy forces–including those directly affiliated to Al Qaeda–are on the verge of a complete debacle in Aleppo, threatening a strategic defeat in the five-and-a-half-year war to bring down Assad, an ally of Russia and Iran, and install a US puppet government in Damascus.

Such an outcome would represent a serious reversal for the policy pursued by US imperialism for the last quarter century, in the wake of the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union. Washington saw this development as opening an unobstructed path to its pursuit of global hegemony. It adopted the policy of exploiting its military supremacy as a means of offsetting the decline in its global economic position.

The element of hysteria in response to Moscow’s actions in Syria stems from the fact that both Russia and China are beginning to frustrate this policy.

The media’s lurid claims of Russian aggression notwithstanding, there is no question that in Syria, as in Ukraine and the South China Sea, it is US imperialism that is the aggressor, provoking defensive reactions from both Russia and China. That, however, does not impart any progressive content to the policies being pursued by the Russian government. If Putin could get a deal with Washington that preserved the interests of both his government and those of US imperialism, he would sign it in a minute.

Unable to do so, and in the face of growing economic crisis and signs of social unrest at home, Putin has resorted to the promotion of Russian nationalism and an increasing reliance on the residual military power he inherited from the Soviet Union.

In the past few days, the Russian government has ordered the deployment of additional surface-to-air missile batteries to Syria and suspended an agreement with Washington for the destruction of weapons-grade plutonium. At the same time, pro-government Russian newspapers have warned of the threat a third world war and the government has launched a major civil defense exercise in preparation for just such an eventuality.

A policy of national defense by a regime that represents the interests of Russia’s capitalist oligarchy can only fuel the drive to world war. The masses of Russian working people confront the ultimate consequence of the Stalinist liquidation of the USSR in the form of a growing threat of nuclear holocaust.

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The only force that can prevent a new world war is the international working class, organized independently and mobilized in a struggle against capitalism, the source of war. This requires the building of an international socialist leadership, and there is no time to lose.

We urge all of our readers to attend the November 5 emergency conference in Detroit, “Socialism vs. Capitalism & War,” as a critical step in this fight. Visit the conference web site and register today!

The US has attempted to direct attention away from the fact supposed “moderate rebels” it has been supporting are now openly aligned to designated foreign terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda, Jubhat Al Nusra, and the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) by focusing instead on the alleged “humanitarian crisis” unfolding amid final operations to restore security to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

Syria Already Controls the Vast Majority of Aleppo

The operation however, headed by Syrian forces and supported by its allies including Russia, aims to bring the last remaining districts of  the city under government control. Already, the vast majority of Aleppo’s remaining 2 million residents live in government controlled territory, with less than a quarter of a million trapped in terrorist held sections of the city.

The Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, during a recent interview reiterated the fact that not only do 1.75 million of Aleppo’s 2 million residents live in government controlled sections of the city, but militant groups held up in districts awaiting liberation are not even entirely made up of Syrians – but rather foreigners who have entered the country.

This entirely undermines the West’s narrative that Syria is undergoing a “civil war” rather than a foreign orchestrated invasion by proxy, and that security operations to secure Aleppo’s remaining districts represents somehow, an unprecedented “humanitarian disaster.”

And as the US-Russian brokered ceasefire collapses, Russia has cited the United States’ inability and unwillingness to clearly delineate between what Washington alleges are “moderate rebels” and designated terrorist organizations the US itself admits are operating alongside militants they are backing.

Reuters in an article titled, “Russia urges U.S. to deliver on promise to separate Syria’s moderates from ‘terrorists’,” would admit:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday to make good on U.S. pledges to separate Washington-oriented units of Syrian opposition from “terrorist groups”, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

In response, Washington has incoherently and dishonestly blamed Russia for what it calls the driving of moderates into the arms of terrorist organizations.

A BBC article titled, “Syria conflict: US says Russia driving rebels into extremists’ camp,” would claim that:

Russia’s increasing military action in Syria is forcing moderates within the opposition into the hands of extremists, the US has said.

However, in reality, a long-standing truth entirely negates America’s current rhetoric – so thoroughly that this reality lays the blame for the last five years of regional catastrophe entirely at Washington’s feet.

Washington’s War on Syria Began in 2007 Led by Policymakers, Not 2011 by “Protesters”

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in a now prophetic 2007 article titled, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?,” laid out years before the Syrian conflict began not only who and how the war would be triggered and then subsequently waged, but the very sort of humanitarian and sectarian catastrophe that would unfold, and how those the US claimed were “villains” would play a pivotal role in protecting religious and ethnic minorities across the region as it burned in foreign-fueled conflict.

The article began by stating explicitly (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

This statement is underpinned by a further 9 pages of interviews with American, Lebanese, and Saudi intelligence sources, as well as revelations that monetary and political support was already being funneled at the time into Syria to lay the groundwork for the coming conflict.

The US Can’t Separate “Moderates” from Terrorists, Because There Are No Moderates 

The 2007 report clearly explains why the US cannot “separate” its alleged “moderate rebels” from Al Qaeda and its various affiliates – precisely because there were never any “moderate rebels” to begin with. In fact, it is clear now that the notion of “moderate rebels” was merely cover for the West’s intentional support provided to terrorists since  before the conflict even began.

Thus, it’s not that Syria and Russia are suddenly “driving rebels into the extremists’ camp,” it is instead that America’s attempts to cover up the fact that it has armed and supported extremists since as early as 2007 are no longer tenable.

Hersh’s article would also admit (emphasis added):

Nasr went on, “The Saudis have considerable financial means, and have deep relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis”—Sunni extremists who view Shiites as apostates. “The last time Iran was a threat, the Saudis were able to mobilize the worst kinds of Islamic radicals. Once you get them out of the box, you can’t put them back.”

He would continue by stating (emphasis added):

This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”

Yet despite this realization, even back in 2007, the US continued in earnest, with the conspiracy transcending the Bush administration and being carried forward under US President Barack Obama’s administration.

Predicting the coming sectarian conflict that would unfold in the region, Hersh’s article would note:

Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites.

Indeed, it was stated then, and evident now that Syria’s government, its military, and their allies constitute the only force capable of protecting the region’s many minorities from a US-Saudi backed horde of sectarian extremists.

Thus, even as the US feigns urgent concern for what it attempts to portray as an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, it is itself guilty of intentionally engineering the entire conflict in the first place – knowing precisely the nature and degree of barbarity that would unfold and the extent to which it would reach. By attempting to shield its terrorist proxies remaining in Aleppo and throughout the rest of Syria, it is attempting to prolong, not end the humanitarian crisis, and tip Syria further toward what would be a catastrophic collapse making Libya’s recent US-induced division and destruction pale in comparison.

US spokespeople, before their various podiums and amid their various press conferences, are struggling to explain what the United States is doing in Syria and toward what end besides repeating the devastating destruction that it has unleashed in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They struggle not because the “truth” is difficult to convey to the public, but because the truth is difficult to deny any further.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.