Global Research

The Russian General Staff reported that US-backed ‘opposition forces’ have violated the ceasefire regime 23 time since its implementation. The US-backed ‘moderate groups’ have shelled both residential areas and positions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). As result, 6 people were killed in Aleppo and 10 wounded.

Russian and Syrian officers in Syria fell under fire while giving a report from Aleppo during a conference video call between Moscow and Russia’s reconciliation center at the Khmeimin base in Syria. The incident took place at the Russia-led observation point at the Castello Highway. The incident clearly shows the real level of implementation of the nationwide ceasefire by the US-backed side.

On September 13, the Russian military has established an observation point at the Castello Highway and deployed operative groups in the Hama countryside. Additionally, the Russian military send artillery target intelligence assets to the city of Aleppo to register military barrages and ceasefire violations.

The Syrian Defense Ministry has issued a formal warning to the Turkish Armed Forces regarding breaches of Syrian airspace and a lack of communication with Damascus. Syria says that any Turkish aircraft that enters Syrian airspace without prior approval will become a target of the air defense forces.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has also informed that Syrian will not allow any humanitarian aid, especially provided by Ankara, to enter Aleppo without coordination with the Syrian government and the United Nations. This move aims to prevent military supplies to terrorists in Aleppo.

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Australian values and way of life are also at risk from insidious institutions such as the unelected swill that is the United Nations. Senator Roberts, One Nation Party, Sep 14, 2016.

It all begins with a promise. A promise, less for a better future than a reclaimed past.  Reclamation of the familiar, in fact, being the fundamental idea.  “As a servant to the people ofQueensland and Australia, I’m here to discuss with the chamber and the Australian people how we will rebuild our great nation.” These words from the inaugural speech of One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts set the trend in the Australian Senate Chamber.

He venerated fellow the party’s founder Senator Pauline Hanson as the source of his inspiration, as the great interrogator of Australian complacency since 1998, when she spoke of the “swamping” effects of Asian immigration and the benefits the indigenous population were supposedly receiving.  Roberts was certainly on secure ground observing that many of Hanson’s views were stealthily incorporated into Australia’s policies, be they on security or refugees.

That venerated leader seemed visibly uncomfortable at such praise, but proceeded to tweak the swamping theme in her own senate inaugural address, using Muslims as the great substitute.  “Now we are in danger of being swamped by Muslims, who bear a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own.”

Hanson and Roberts hail from a long line of populists suspicious of the “international institution,” which they regard as something of a meddling, threatening Frankenstein. But it is Roberts who couches matters with greater meaning, adding zest to armchair paranoia. (It is doubtful, for instance, whether Hanson has any serious understanding about what global institutions actually do.)

In truth, there is very little to be suspicious about such institutions as the UN, so bogged down in its own self-serving wishes, a bureaucratic clot incapable of actually pursuing the aspirations it has set.  Changing the world as an aim through non-binding commitments is far from actually doing so. A promise is rather difference from an aspiration.

That did not stop such critics of it as the late US Senator Jesse Helms, whose stranglehold of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee enabled him to issue bristling missives about the phantom power of that body.  “The UN aspires,” he insisted in the pages of The National Interest, “to impose its moral authority on the United States in the name of international justice.  The American people will not buy it.”[1]

Not all of Roberts’ comments are extracted from a cryogenic loony bin.  There is understandable cynicism of the international banking sector, which he regards as “one of the greatest threats to our way of life”.  His suggestion against this manipulative, self-enriching cabal?  The creation of a people’s bank that would “shield the manipulation of our economy by the tight-knit international banking sector.” Even the Right of politics can do a socialism of sorts.

In expressing what, at times, has to count for legitimate criticism, Roberts ruins the dish. He overeggs the pudding, over spices the casserole.  “The EU is a template for total socialist domination of Europe through unelected bodies, such as the IMF, forcing their frightening agenda on the people.” A few odd titbits are thrown in for good measure.  “It is also the UN’s template, and Australia must leave the UN.  We need an Aus-exit.”

This is terribly flattering for the United Nations, which tends to resemble a floundering animal in the face of the currents of history at the best of times.  Bodies such as the IMF have tended to have, arguably, greater weight in inflicting economic pain on client states in the guise of neoliberal reform. The UN, by way of contrast, remains a fairly innocuous beast prone to the odd calamitous blunder.

The United Nations, in other words, be they the blue helmets, the moral force for international law, are only as good as the states that fund it, and the personnel provided to its offices.  As an international institution, it has given every ground to assume that it will fail at various points, while doing background bookkeeping.

Be that as it may, Senator Roberts has given voice to an entire gamut of terrors and suspicions similarly found in the US and in Europe, largely because he sees them as immorally sinister impositions. All that comes from without is to be feared and repelled.  In that, he occupies the ground of the conspiracy theorist and fearful citizen, an individual who decided that there are facts not worth having, and others worth making up.

Not all in this strain of thinking can be dismissed as ridiculous, or even fanciful. Institutions, when they become ungainly and too large for their good, gnaw away at liberties. But Australia’s pretence to be an international citizen has been in doubt for many years (witness its attitude to the UN Refugee Convention, which it insists on ignoring).  The Senator’s call for an exit would simply affirm that.

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

Notes

[1] http://nationalinterest.org/article/american-sovereignty-and-the-un-283

 

Yesterday evening, European Union (EU) Council President Donald Tusk addressed a letter to EU heads of state, formally inviting them to Friday’s summit in Bratislava. Summarizing talks he has held with officials across the continent, and painting a picture of escalating political disarray, Tusk declared that the British exit from the EU has unleashed a historic crisis of the entire Union.

“It would be a fatal error to assume that the negative result in the UK referendum represents a specifically British issue,” Tusk wrote. He added, “People in Europe want to know if the political elites are capable of restoring control over events and processes which overwhelm, disorientate, and sometimes terrify them. Today many people, not only in the UK, think that being part of the European Union stands in the way of stability and security.”

In the letter’s only reference of the economic distress and social anger of the European population amid the deepest crisis of world capitalism since the 1930s, Tusk briefly wrote: “Our citizens also expect the European Union to better protect their economic and social interests.”

Tusk went on to admit that the crisis of the EU is so deep that it threatens the survival of democracy in Europe: “History has taught us that this can lead to a massive turn away from freedom and the other fundamental values that the European Union is founded upon.” Tusk warned that, 15 years after the September 11 attacks, the “war on terror” has strengthened neo-fascistic forces. “The promise of a ruthless crackdown on terrorism,” he wrote, “has become one of the main slogans of right-wing extremists.”

Tusk’s response to his own assessment of the situation underscores the historic bankruptcy of the EU’s defenders. Having acknowledged that the European bourgeoisie’s law-and-order, anti-immigrant policies strengthen neo-fascistic forces and threaten a collapse into authoritarian forms of rule, Tusk called for continuing precisely these policies—that is, strengthening military and police forces and escalating the crackdown on refugees.

“In this context, the effective control of our external borders comes first, and has both practical and symbolic dimensions,” he declared. Attacking defenders of refugees’ right to asylum, he denounced “politically correct statements that Europe cannot become a fortress” and endorsed calls for blocking refugees from fleeing Syria and Iraq to Europe via the Balkans.

Tusk tacitly aligned himself on the consensus in the European ruling class in favour of the NATO war drive against Russia and of economically devastating social austerity policies. He was silent on the tens of millions of unemployed workers in Europe, and on the danger of a military clash between NATO and Russia, either on Russia’s borders or in Syria, as NATO escalates interventions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

With Tusk’s letter, the EU machine is backing proposals of Berlin and Paris, previewed in German and French papers, to reverse the break-up of the EU by turning it into a military alliance capable of waging major wars abroad and large-scale police operations at home.

Similarly, European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs chairman Elmar Brok called yesterday for escalating EU military capabilities and intervening in Syria.

Complaining that the EU is “too weak” and has “no political power,” Brok said, “I hope that [EU Commission president] Jean-Claude Juncker’s speech tomorrow to the European Parliament, and above all the heads of state and government meeting this week in Bratislava finally put a stop to this, build a European security and defence policy, and build common structures, so we play a role, also when our interests and values are at stake, if we can aid people. … I know the Syrian opposition is waiting for the Europeans finally to appear and not present this terrible spectacle.”

Such desperate attempts to recast the EU as a military-police regime testify to a historic breakdown of capitalism. Twenty-five years after the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the USSR in 1991, and the Maastricht Treaty founded the EU in 1992, pledging to safeguard peace, prosperity, and democracy, the European bourgeoisie has utterly repudiated these promises. Beset by economic crises for which it has no solutions, the escalating consequences of its own aggressive wars and rising social anger in the working class, it is staking everything on repression and war.

What dominates in European international relations is the failure of the EU to contain or address historically rooted conflicts between the European powers. Before the foundation of the EU, London and Paris were terrified by the implications of the reunification of Germany. French President François Mitterrand famously demanded that German Vice Chancellor Hans-Dietrich Genscher agree to a closer monetary union or face a possible alliance of France, Britain, and Russia against Germany, as on the eve of World War I.

Such economic and geostrategic conflicts are erupting again, with Britain facing years of bitter negotiations on the conditions of its exit from the EU, and conflicts rising between Germany, France and the southern and eastern European states that remain in the EU.

Yesterday, as the German press warned against the formation of a hostile southern European bloc including the eurozone’s number two and three economies, France and Italy, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn flatly demanded the expulsion of Hungary from the EU. Asselborn warned that the reactionary, anti-immigrant policies of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán were a danger to human rights.

Speaking to Germany’s Die Welt, Asselborn said that in Hungary, “people who are fleeing war are treated almost worse than wild animals.” He attacked the fence built around Hungary’s southern borders to stop Middle East refugees, warning that it is “always getting longer, higher, and more dangerous. Hungary is not far from opening fire on refugees.”

Complaining that the EU claimed to “defend certain values outside its borders, but it is no longer capable of advancing them at home,” he said: “It would be helpful if the rules were changed so that suspending the membership of an EU member state no longer required unanimity [among the other EU member states].”

Asselborn’s comments exemplify the hypocritical propaganda of different EU powers, as they jockey for geo-strategic advantage. While attacking Hungary’s anti-immigrant policies, he failed to explain why, for instance, he did not call for France to also be expelled from the EU—though it is ruthlessly dismantling refugee camps in Calais, building fences to prevent refugees from travelling on to Britain, and sending police to assault and detain those who try.

Der Spiegel, for its part, warned of the implications of Brexit and of the September 9 Athens summit between France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta, in a piece titled “The New Strength of Club Med.” It pointed to calls from French President François Hollande for an “economic growth program,” and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for a €50 billion investment fund.

Berlin had, it concluded, “due to the Brexit lost a powerful ally, Britain,” strengthening calls from southern European countries for a loosening of EU austerity policies dictated from Berlin. “We represent more than half of the EU,” Renzi said, “and that gives us weight.”

In fact, Hollande, Renzi, and their host Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras all speak for deeply unpopular governments that have imposed austerity on the working class in an attempt to boost the profits of the banks, whose interests they represent. Amid the battle inside ruling circles for the division of these profits, however, their remarks drew a retort from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who said, “When the social-democratic party leaders meet, nothing terribly clever tends to come of it.”

A group of women from all over the world are about to embark on a dangerous journey on board the Women’s Boat to Gaza (WBG). Two vessels are leaving from Barcelona on 14 September with the goal of reaching the besieged Palestinian enclave by early October in a symbolic breaking of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade.

One of these women is Zohar Chamberlain Regev, an Israeli citizen who was born and raised in Kibbutz Kfar Hahoresh, near Nazareth. She has been living in Spain for the past 12 years and has been involved in the Spanish component of Freedom Flotilla work since 2012. She coordinates the Women’s Boat to Gaza Steering Committee and is a team leader onboard the Amal.

The flotilla’s mission is part of a campaign to break the ongoing Israeli-Egyptian siege imposed on the Gaza Strip. The two boats Amal (Hope) and Zaytouna (Olive) will stop at two ports before sailing off to Gaza carrying their full capacity of 30 people.

Launched on 8 March 2016 on International Women’s Day, the initiative wants to raise awareness of the role women play in Palestine’s resistance movement, the survival of the Palestinian people as a whole, and the impact of the Israeli occupation.

Women victims of war crimes

Israel has besieged Gaza by land, air and sea since 2007, following Hamas’s takeover from the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus. Around 1.8 million Palestinians are “locked in and denied free access to the world,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in July 2015.

The Hillary Clinton campaign has a talking point. “Will Power Through”. 

The Narrative is repeated in chorus. 

No analysis of the political consequences of Hillary’s pneumonia is put forth. None is required…

Absurdity of the mainstream media. Predetermined catch phrase repeated  ad nauseam  

“Campaign manager Robby Mook and spokespeople Brian Fallon and Kristina Schake all repeated the talking point ad nauseam in their cable appearances on Monday. The media picked it up as well, with reporters on CNN and MSNBC using the phrase to describe how Hillary Clinton bravely reacted to a pneumonia diagnosis on Friday.”

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research Editor, September 15, 2016

Washington Beacon Video

 

 

When US President Barack Obama attempted to leave Air Force One upon arriving at Hangzhou, China, just southwest of Shanghai, he found that no staircase or red carpet awaited him. Instead, he and his staff were forced to use an alternative exit from the aircraft, only to find additional restrictions placed upon them on the tarmac.

The New York Times in its article, “Bumpy Beginning for Obama in China, Starting on the Tarmac,” would note:

There was no staircase for Obama to exit the plane and descend on the red carpet. Obama used an alternative exit.

On the tarmac, a quarrel broke out between a presidential aide and a Chinese official who demanded the journalists traveling with Obama be prohibited from getting anywhere near him. It was a breach of the tradition observed whenever the American president arrives in a foreign place. 

When the White House official insisted the U.S. would set the rules for its own leader, her Chinese counterpart shot back. 

“This is our country! This is our airport!” the Chinese official yelled.

Rather than accept and adapt to the conditions set forth by their Chinese hosts, the President’s staff quarrelled with them, marking yet another ungraceful bout of American exceptionalism where even in another’s country, America’s will is expected to be fulfilled.

Reflecting on the event, President Obama made cryptic comments seemingly both attempting to downplay the event as a mere oversight, but alluding to the fact that it was more than a mere oversight by their Chinese hosts.

And in fact, it was no oversight. It was a clear message to America that the age of American exceptionalism, particularly in Asia, is over.

America’s Ungraceful Exit from Asia  

In and of itself, President Obama’s ungraceful exit from Air Force One may seem like an insignificant event. When added together with a general decline of American influence and regarding the respect it had once commanded across Asia, it is highly symbolic of a global hegemon being pushed from an entire corner of the globe.

It was just recently that the US concluded a lengthy and costly public relations campaign, dressed up as an “international tribunal” conducted at The Hague in the Netherlands that predictably concluded that China held no legitimate claims in the South China Sea.

The “ruling” was allegedly made in favour of the Philippines, despite the legal team being headed by an American, Paul S. Reichler of Foley Hoag. Despite what Washington believed would be a crushing rhetorical blow to Beijing, not only did Beijing dismiss the entire proceeding out of hand, the Philippines itself refused to capitalise on the transparently politically-motivated and provocative ruling.

US pressure on the Philippines, until recently considered a stalwart ally, even a subordinate functionary of Washington, eventually resulted in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte directly mocking America’s ambassador to the nation, denouncing him as an effeminate meddler.

The previous year, the US had been pressuring Thailand to allow Chinese terror suspects to travel onward to Turkey despite an extradition request from China. Thailand ignored US demands and returned the suspects to face justice in China.

In both cases terrorism struck shortly after, with a bomb striking in the centre of Bangkok killing 20 and maiming many more, and just recently a bomb exploding in the Philippine city of Davao, where President Duterte had previously served as mayor.

In Cambodia, the nation’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has openly accused the US of attempting to subvert political stability around the globe. This was in reference to opposition groups the US State Department is now using to pressure the Cambodian government after its decisive shift away from US interests toward Beijing.

In essence, while the US announced its “pivot” toward Asia, Asia itself appears to be pivoting away from the US. Thus, the incident on the tarmac in Hangzhou is a microcosm of what is taking place across Asia, an unwillingness of locals to further capitulate to American exceptionalism, and an ungraceful America unable to recognise or adapt to this shifting geopolitical reality.

In the end, America with its hegemonic hubris will ensure that it is fully pushed out of Asia, missing what is perhaps a final opportunity to readjust its relationship with the region away from adversarial domination toward something more equitable, proportional and constructive.

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

 

 

With the participation of several political and social organizations and over 200 self-convened people, a march named ‘From Memory to Power’ was held on September 11, 2016, on the anniversary of the military coup. It started at 11 am, at the General Cemetery (a symbol of memory) and ended at the Plaza de Armas square (a historical scenario of rebellion and struggle) in Santiago.

Unlike the traditional march convened by the Relatives of Disappeared Detainees organization, which started in the center of Santiago de Chile and marched to the General Cemetery, the “March From Memory to Power” demands not only the end of impunity but also the end of the “pacts of silence” and the government’s’ policy to release many officials and military men who are currently in jail due to crimes against humanity. Against crime and unspeakable torture, the March From Memory to Power also demanded justice for the violations of human and social rights committed since the 1973 Coup, which continue to these days, after 26 years of civilian governments.

That’s not all. The march, far from being capricious or competing with the traditional march, inverted the traditional course from the square to the cemetery because it wants to send a clear message: the dreams of emancipation upheld by those who fought and fell are alive in those who now resist. But…What are they resisting? They resist capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy. They are environmentalist militants, mapuche people, they are in solidarity with the liberation and self determination of the indigenous people. They are impoverished migrants. They fight for a structural transformation regarding the super-exploitation of work, against the empire sustained by national debts and financial and commercial speculation, against extractivist plundering and the destruction of biodiversity. They fight for a free, universal, quality education and for a curricula that fits the interests of the oppressed and not the interest of the reproduction of capital and private profit. They fight for public health with an adequate budget, and for a system of social security based on solidarity. They fight against the metropolitan centralism and for the creation of popular power as a complex goal, subjected to the particularities of class struggle. They fight for the right to decent housing and against the criminalization and repression of protests by the capitalist State and the Chilean Police. They fight against social alienation promoted by a handful of oppressors, and their method is the rich cultural production of the oppressed.

“[Salvador] Allende lives on”

The March From Memory to Power molds its project for society after the lessons learned from the best exponents of revolutionary socialism in Chile, in the continent and the world, and working towards what still needs to be created collectively and individually. It’s known that nothing is finished and that the human willpower, united and in action, is the variable that can change history and disrupt the power relations that sustain this exhausted political regime and anti-popular state. They don’t trust textbooks nor those who act under the rules of opportunism.

They trust and join the forces of the slow recomposition of social and popular movements on a territorial and sectorial scale. They don’t call themselves the “vanguard” nor intend to substitute the different forms in which the popular resistance is expressed. They know that they are not many in number, but they also know that the future is built from the simple to the complex, from less to more. They have a will to create power, together with the people: without the people nothing is possible. That march represents the people.

This year’s March From Memory to Power is the second one, and it was bigger than the one held last year. The Plaza de la Constitución, where the monument to Salvador Allende is located, was surrounded by the police, so they were only able to reach the Plaza de Armas, a few blocks away from La Moneda. But they have patience: the social and political forces of the oppressed are not built overnight and “there are no early revolutions, they grow from the grassroots”, like musician Alfredo Zitarrosa used to sing.

There’s one thing to cherish above all: the discipline and the sense of community that were present in the mobilization. This was not a group of unarticulated people, staring at each other. It was a common process. Diverse and compact, at the same time. With a shared horizon and many ways of protesting. It ended up with the combined intonation of “La Internacional”. It was a nostalgic act. It was sang because of the urgency of its emergency.

A breath of fresh air amidst the general confusion.

The new ceasefire agreement between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which went into effect at noon Monday, has a new central compromise absent from the earlier ceasefire agreement that the same two men negotiated last February. But it isn’t clear that it will produce markedly different results.

The new agreement incorporates a U.S.-Russian bargain: the Syrian air force is prohibited from operating except under very specific circumstances in return for U.S.-Russian military cooperation against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, ISIS or ISIL. That compromise could be a much stronger basis for an effective ceasefire, provided there is sufficient motivation to carry it out fully.

The question, however, is whether the Obama administration is willing to do what would certainly be necessary for the agreement to establish a longer-term ceasefire at the expense of Daesh and Al Qaeda.In return for ending the Syrian air force’s operations, generally regarded as indiscriminate, and lifting the siege on the rebel-controlled sectors of Aleppo, the United States is supposed to ensure the end of the close military collaboration between the armed groups it supports and Al Qaeda, and join with Russian forces in weakening Al Qaeda.

The new bargain is actually a variant of a provision in the Feb. 27 ceasefire agreement: in return for Russian and Syrian restraints on bombing operations, the United States would prevail on its clients to separate themselves from their erstwhile Al Qaeda allies.

But that never happened. Instead the U.S.-supported groups not only declared publicly that they would not honor a “partial ceasefire” that excluded areas controlled by Al Qaeda’s affiliate, then known as Nusra Front, but joined with Nusra Front and its close ally, Ahrar al Sham, in a major open violation of the ceasefire by seizing strategic terrain south of Aleppo in early April.

As the Kerry-Lavrov negotiations on a ceasefire continued, Kerry’s State Department hinted that the U.S. was linking its willingness to pressure its Syrian military clients to separate themselves from Al Qaeda’s forces in the northwest to an unspecified Russian concession on the ceasefire that was still being negotiated.

It is now clear that what Kerry was pushing for was what the Obama administration characterized as the “grounding” of the Syrian air force in the current agreement.

Al Qaeda’s Ties

Now that it has gotten that concession from the Russians, the crucial question is what the Obama administration intends to do about the ties between its own military clients and Al Qaeda in Aleppo and elsewhere in the northwest.

President Barack Obama delivers a statement on confronting the terrorist group ISIL in Syria, on the South Lawn of the White House prior to departure for New York, N.Y., Sept. 23, 2014. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

Thus far the primary evidence available for answering that question is two letters from U.S. envoy to the Syrian opposition Michael Ratney to opposition groups backed by the United States. The first letter, sent on Sept. 3, after most of the Kerry-Lavrov agreement had already been hammered out, appears to have been aimed primarily at reassuring those Syrian armed groups.

As translated by al-Monitor, it asserted, “Russia will prevent regime planes from flying, and this means there will not be bombing by the regime of areas controlled by the opposition, regardless of who is present in the area, including areas in which Jabhat Fateh al Sham [the new name adopted by Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front] has a presence alongside other opposition factions.”

Ratney confirmed that the U.S. would in return “offer Russia coordination from our side to weaken al Qaeda.” But he also assured U.S. clients that their interests would be protected under the new agreement.

“[W]e believe this ceasefire should be stronger,” he wrote, “because it should prevent Russia and the regime from bombing the opposition and civilians under the pretext that its striking Jabhat al Nusra.”

The Ratney letter makes no reference to any requirement for the armed opposition to move away from their Al Qaeda allies or even terminate their military relationships, and thus implied that they need not do so.

But in a follow-up letter, undated but apparently sent on Sept. 10, following the completion of the new Kerry-Lavrov agreement, Ratney wrote, “We urge the rebels to distance themselves and cut all ties with Fateh of Sham, formerly Nusra Front, or there will be severe consequences.”

The difference between the two messages is obviously dramatic. That suggests that one of the last concessions made by Kerry in the Sept. 9 meeting with Lavrov may have been that a message would be sent to U.S. military clients with precisely such language.

The totality of the two letters from Ratney underlines the reluctance of the United States to present an ultimatum to its Syrian clients, no matter how clearly they are implicated in Al Qaeda operations against the ceasefire. Last spring, the State Department never publicly commented on the participation by the U.S.-supported armed groups in the Nusra Front offensive in violation of the ceasefire agreement, effectively providing political cover for it.

The decision by U.S.-supported armed groups in March to defy the ceasefire was taken in the knowledge that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had agreed to resupply the Nusra Front-led commands in the northwest and had even provided shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to Nusra’s close ally Ahrar al Sham.

Turkey’s Dubious Role

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent shift in policy toward rapprochement with Russia and his talk of ending the war in Syria are fueled by determination to prevent Syrian Kurds from establishing a unified Kurdistan along the Turkish border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a press conference in Turkey on Dec. 1, 2014. (Russian government photo)

The Wilson Center’s Henry Barkey, a leading specialist on Turkey, told a meeting sponsored by the Middle East Institute last week that Erdogan’s Syria policy is “90 percent about the Kurds.”

But Erdogan does not appear ready to pull the rug out from under Turkey’s client groups in Syria. In fact, Turkey suddenly dialed back its rhetorical shift on Syria in July just when the newly renamed Jabhat Fateh al Sham revealed for the first time that it was about to launch its major offensive for Aleppo.

The domestic political context of U.S. Syrian policy remains strongly hostile to any joint U.S. operations with Russia that could affect U.S.-supported anti-Assad clients, even though it is now generally acknowledged that those forces are “marbled” with troops of Al Qaeda’s franchise, especially in Aleppo.

During the spring and summer, Reuters, The Washington Post and other media outlets reported a string of complaints from the Pentagon and the CIA about Obama’s plans to reach an agreement with Russia on Syria that would commit the United States to cooperate against Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise. These complaints argued that the Russians could not be trusted and that they intended to target U.S –supported groups in a proxy war.

The real reasons for these attacks on the negotiations with Russia, however, were more parochial. The Pentagon is determined to maintain the line that Russia is a dangerous threat and should be firmly opposed everywhere. The CIA’s clandestine service has long wanted a more aggressive program of military assistance for its Syrian clients, which would be a major CIA covert operation.

Thus, even though the new agreement calls for U.S. “coordination” with Russia of air strikes against Al Qaeda forces, the Obama administration can be expected to raise objections whenever it sees that a proposed operation would come too close to targets associated with its clients. Otherwise, more leaks from opponents of the agreement in the Pentagon and CIA – or even in the State Department – would surely follow.

Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

Eight years ago the world, and the western financial system changed forever, when the impossible became all too real when Wall Street woke up to news that what until a few days ago was one of the world’s largest investment banks had filed for bankruptcy, which would proceed to unleash the most unprecedented period of central bank micromanagement, and market manipulation in history.

Courtesy of Reuters Vikram Subhedar, this is what the front page of Reuters looked like on that day.

And here, appropriately enough, is a brief walk down memory lane courtesy of Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid:

How time flies. On this very day eight years ago Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in what still is the largest bankruptcy filing in US history. The reality is that we are still living in the very long shadow of the events that occurred around this time. This default certainly marked the point where central banks started to go into overdrive to prop up the financial system. The problem is that they haven’t been able to stop and have had to get more and more aggressive to keep the plates spinning.

We estimate that since the collapse of Lehman, Central Banks around the world have cut interest rates 672 times. A phenomenal statistic and that’s before we even get to unconventional measures.

As a bit of fun it’s interesting to have a look at where markets are now based on last night’s close versus this time 8 years ago. Starting first and foremost with the Treasury market, 10y yields are at 1.698% this morning which compares to 8 years ago when they were at 3.389%. At the current 0.758% yield, 2y yields are down from 1.706% while 30y yields (currently 2.450%) are down from 4.022%. At the other end of the risk spectrum, the S&P 500 at 2,126 now is up a whopping +102% in total return terms in the 8 years. In commodity markets Gold has risen from $787/oz to $1323/oz now, or +73% while WTI Oil has more than halved from $101/bbl to the current $44/bbl level. The standout though has to be what’s happened to Bunds in that time with the 10y yield falling from 4.185% to 0.020% now. This would look even more incredible had it not been for Bunds bouncing back into positive territory recently.

As the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approach, the United States has spent or taken on obligations to spend more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria and on the Department of Homeland Security.

That’s according to just-released data in the second of two reports this summer from the Costs of War Project based at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

This represents a $300 billion increase since 2015, according to the report, and the amount of the connected expenditures vastly outstrips the 2002 estimate by Lawrence Lindsey, George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser, that the cost of waging war in Iraq would not exceed $200 billion.

The total expenditure for the wars in the Middle East and the war on terror rises to $4.79 trillion when dedicated war spending for the coming fiscal year is added in, along with the nearly $32 billion requested for the Department of Homeland Security for 2017, according to the study. That number, however, does not include all future interest on debt associated with the wars.

“This is the most comprehensive analysis of the budgetary costs available, produced as part of the Costs of War Project, a large research team assessment of the wider, and also staggering, human and social impact of the wars,” said Catherine Lutz, co-director of the project and the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Family Professor of International Studies and professor of anthropology at Brown University.

Findings on the human costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan were published in a separate report released in early August. That study, like the new report with aggregate budget data, was written by Neta C. Crawford, professor of political science at Boston University and co-director of the Costs of War Project.

“One of the major lessons of the post-9/11 wars, which applies to all wars, is to beware of promises of quick military victories and inexpensive occupations — wars generally cost a lot of money from start to finish and ultimately to their long aftermath in the lives of veterans and their families,” Crawford said.

The study, “U.S. Budgetary Costs of Wars through 2016: $4.79 Trillion and Counting,” takes a wide-ranging approach to accounting for the costs of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the war on terror, according to Crawford and Lutz.

Crawford wrote that the accounting includes Congressional war appropriations for the State Department and Department of Defense, the Homeland Security budget related to terrorism, war-related additions to the Pentagon base budget, and spending in the Department of Veterans Affairs, including the costs of future obligations to veterans of these conflicts, and the costs of interest in borrowing to pay for the wars.

The latter expense is significant. In the report, Crawford wrote that, “Interest costs for overseas contingency operations spending alone are projected to add more than $1 trillion to the national debt by 2023. By 2053, interest costs will be at least $7.9 trillion unless the U.S. changes the way it pays for the wars.”

Unlike the way it has funded previous wars, Crawford wrote, Congress has not enacted a war tax or sold large numbers of war bonds “which would have made these ‘pay as you go’ wars. Hence DOD and State Department Overseas Contingency Operations spending are considered here as borrowed.” Crawford noted that she includes the costs of borrowing as a war expense in the report.

Crawford addressed the Congressional definition of some war funding as “emergency funding,” describing needs as unanticipated, sudden, urgent, unforeseen or temporary. She assessed that some costs of the wars do not fall into the category of emergency spending.

“These expenses have been institutionalized, for example, into the spending of the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense and Homeland Security,” she wrote, whereas other costs “can be anticipated and estimated because they are future obligations — namely the costs of veterans’ future medical care and disability payments.”

The Costs of War report also briefly addressed the macroeconomic impact of the wars, noting that the project’s analysts have posited that “the wars likely cost tens of thousands of jobs, affected the ability of the U.S. to invest in infrastructure and probably led to increased interest costs on borrowing, not to mention greater overall federal indebtedness.”

This finding contrasts with a statement made by Lindsey in 2002 that “the successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy,” and the overall findings in the report show that various estimates of the cost of the war made in the early 2000s, from $48 billion to $3 trillion, were too low.

Some key findings from the report:

• Homeland Security spending has increased by more than $500 billion for missions related to preventing and responding to potential terrorist attacks.
• Future obligations to provide medical care and support for wounded veterans will total approximately an additional $1 trillion in medical and disability payments and an additional administrative burden through 2053.
• About 2 million of the more than 2.75 million people who served deployments in the war zones have left the military and entered into the VA system.
• The cumulative total from Fiscal Year 2001 to Fiscal Year 2016 spent in the war zone in Iraq is $805 billion. An additional $2.2 billion has been requested for Fiscal Year 2017.
• Homeland Security spending for prevention and response to terrorism from Fiscal Year 2001 to Fiscal Year 2016 was $548 billion.

Fit to serve,” are the three little words that Dr. Lisa Bardack chose to sum up Hillary Clinton’s post-collapse, post-pneumonia, post-coughing fit medical test. Bardack concluded that “the remainder of her complete physical exam was normal and she is in excellent mental condition.” Of course, the big question is, will Hillary be healthy enough that Bardack does not need to walk arm in arm with her in public during Hillary’s next appearance, while checking to make sure her pulse is still there.

As Bloomberg reports, Clinton’s medical history included deep vein thrombosis in 1998 and 2009, an elbow fracture in 2009, and a blood clot and a concussion in 2012, Bardack said last year.

At that time, Clinton regularly took Armour Thyroid, antihistamines, Vitamin B12 and Coumadin, an anticoagulant. She’s still taking all the same medications, Bardack said, with more specificity about the antihistamine the candidate is taking. It is Clarinex.

Clinton last released information about her health in July 2015, when Bardack provided a letter that concluded the candidate “is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as President of the United States.”

And today, as CNN reports, Hillary Clinton’s campaign released additional medical information Wednesday after questions about her health intensified in the wake of her pneumonia diagnosis late last week.

She was diagnosed with mild, non-contagious bacterial pneumonia, her doctor said, a step the campaign took after the candidate had to take three days off the campaign trail after nearly collapsing at an event on Sunday.

Dr. Lisa Bardack, Clinton’s personal doctor and the chair of Internal Medicine at CareMount Medical in Mount Kisco, New York, said she evaluated Clinton multiple times in the last week — including Wednesday — and found that the Democratic nominee had a small right middle-lobe pneumonia.

According to Bardack, “The remainder of her complete physical exam was normal and she is in excellent mental condition.”

Bardack added that Clinton “is recovering well with antibiotics,” including Levaquin, which she was told to take for 10 days.

Remember when Hillary’s Cleveland coughing fit was blamed entirely on pollem? Well…

I evaluated Mrs. Clinton for a 24 – hour history of a low grade fever, congestion and fatigue.

On examination, she was noted to have a temperature of 99.4; her vital signs were otherwise normal as was her physical exam. She was advised to rest, put on a short course of antibiotics and continued on her allergy medications for an upper respiratory tract infection in the setting of her seasonal allergies.

Over the next several days as she traveled, her congestion worsened and she developed a cough. She was advised to see me when she returned from her travels for further testing.

And finally, we have a simple question – is it routine to get a CT scan of your brain for an ear infection?

This evaluation confirmed a sinus and ear infection, with increased fluid in her left ear. To help alleviate her symptoms, a myringotomy tube was placed in her left ear in January of 2016. After the tube was placed, Mrs. Clinton had significant improvement in her symptoms.

Further follow-up evaluation with a CT scan of her brain and sinuses was done in March of 2016. This scan showed no abnormalities of the brain and mild chronic sinusitis. Her symptoms resolved and she continued symptom-free for the next six months.

The release of Clinton’s medical information was a bit of political gamesmanship, coming just hours after Republican Donald Trump revealed some of his health history at a taping of the “Dr. Oz Show” Wednesday in New York.

Full Medical Statement below.

HRC Physician Letter

All of which explains why Hillary Clinton features in this month’s Women’s Health magazine…

One word… “irony”

oh and three more words…”God bless Photoshop”

As Washington and Moscow agreed Wednesday to extend a Syrian ceasefire agreement for another 48 hours, statements by top civilian and uniformed Pentagon officials have raised serious questions over whether the US military brass is prepared to abide by the deal.

Underlying these divisions are not just divergent tactical prescriptions for the pursuit of US imperialist interests in Syria, but the far graver questions surrounding the increasing military tensions between the US and Russia itself.

The truce agreement, which went into effect on Monday, was negotiated between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during protracted talks in Geneva at the end of last week. It calls for a seven-day ceasefire, to be renewed every 48-hours to the extent that there is a cessation of violence.

After that, US and Russian military forces would begin coordinating their operations in Syria, setting up a “joint implementation center” and sharing targeting information for strikes against both the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and the al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, which recently renamed itself as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, or Front for the Conquest of Syria.

The deal has rekindled the sharp tensions within the Obama administration over US imperialism’s proxy war for regime change in Syria. These divisions boiled to the surface previously over President Barack Obama’s failure to use greater military might to enforce his demand that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad relinquish power and, in particular, in September 2013, after the US backed down from its threat to carry out a “shock-and-awe” assault on Damascus over the trumped up charge that the Assad government had used chemical weapons against civilians. Instead, Washington accepted a Russian-brokered deal for Syria’s chemical disarmament.

More recently, some 50 career State Department employees issued an internal dissent memo in June, calling for the US to launch air strikes against the Syrian government, supposedly as a means of bringing an end to the bloodshed of the five-year-old war that Washington itself provoked in pursuit of regime change.

The present divisions are far more ominous, however, pitting active duty US military commanders against the policy of the administration, implicitly posing a challenge to the constitutional principle of civilian control of the military.

According to a report published Wednesday in the New York Times, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter first gave voice to the military’s opposition last week during a conference call in which Secretary of State Kerry was advocating acceptance of the agreement with Russia. Kerry “grew increasingly frustrated” as the debate dragged on for hours before Obama ultimately approved the deal, the Times reported.

Even after the administration decided on this policy, however, senior uniformed commanders have openly expressed reservations, if not outright opposition.

Asked in a press teleconference if the military would abide by the terms of the agreement and share information with the Russians after the completion of the seven-day ceasefire, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, the commander of the US Air Forces Central Command, which is directing the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, responded: “I think…it would be premature to say we’re going to jump right into it. And I’m not saying yes or no.” The military’s decision, he indicated, is “going to depend on what the plan ends up being.”

Harrigian said of the Russians, “I’m not going to say I trust them.”

This position was supported by Gen. Philip Breedlove, who stepped down as NATO’s supreme allied commander just last March. “I remain skeptical about anything to do with the Russians,” he told the Times in an interview. “There are a lot of concerns about putting out there where our folks are.”

By “our folks,” Breedlove was apparently referring to the collection of Islamist militias that Washington, together with its regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, have paid and armed. One of the major sticking points of the ceasefire agreement is that the US is supposed to get its proxy forces to separate themselves from the Syrian al-Qaeda forces with which they are allied and, in many cases, from which they are indistinguishable.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reported that in phone conversation with Kerry Wednesday, Foreign Minister Lavrov “stressed that Washington should fulfill its promise to separate ‘moderate opposition’ groups from the former Nusra Front and other groups that literally merged with it.” These proxy forces have expressed their opposition to any such separation and it is far from clear that they can survive without integration with the al-Qaeda militias, which constitute the backbone of the so-called “rebels.”

These statements were followed Wednesday by a speech delivered to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington by Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of the US Central Command expressing similar reservations about the Syrian ceasefire agreement.

“We have to see how this goes first of all … see what direction it goes … whether it actually pans out or not, I don’t know,” Votel said. He added: “There is a trust deficit with the Russians. It is not clear to us what their objectives are. They say one thing and then they don’t necessarily follow up on that.”

Similar sentiments were voiced the previous day in a speech to the Atlantic Council by Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Marcel Lettre, who mangled the English translation of the Russian proverb mouthed incessantly by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s negotiations with the Soviet Union on nuclear weapons treaties.

“Distrust but verify,” Lettre declared. “That can apply a little bit in this case.” He allowed that the “intelligence community and the Department of Defense are strongly on board with supporting the new agreement,” so long as “the steps play out as we think they should.”

Responding to this drumbeat of military opposition, Kerry delivered a meek defense of the deal he negotiated in an interview with National Public Radio Wednesday, insisting that Obama supports and is prepared to implement the agreement.

“Well, the president of the United States is ready and I think the military therefore will be ready,” he said. “Nobody’s asking people to abrogate our standards, but it is important for us to keep our part of the bargain.”

The US secretary of state “thinks” the Pentagon is prepared to abide by an agreement approved by the US president, while stressing that he is not asking the military brass to “abrogate their standards.” Kerry’s remarks express the real relations within the US state apparatus, the overriding influence of the vast military and intelligence apparatus and its ability to exercise what amounts to veto power over the country’s elected civilian officials.

If Kerry and the military are at loggerheads, it is bound up with the conflicting priorities in the prosecution of US imperialist policy on a global scale. The support of Kerry and others for the ceasefire is driven not by any humanitarian concern over bloodshed in Syria, but by their desire to use collaboration with Russia as a means of salvaging at least some of the proxy forces that they have backed, which are on the verge of a complete rout by Russian-backed government forces. They hope that they can employ a combination of diplomacy and military threats to pressure Moscow into acquiescing to some form of the regime change that Washington has pursued through its bloody intervention in Syria over the past five years.

For their part, the decisive layers within the US military command are focused increasingly on the preparation for direct military conflict with Russia. Concrete reservations have been raised about sharing targeting information against ISIS and the Nusra Front—aside from their being the main fighters for US-backed regime change—that it could provide Russia with intelligence on US military protocols that it could used to defend itself against air strikes on or within its own borders.

Under conditions in which the US is building up its forces from Eastern Europe and the former Baltic States to the Black Sea in an increasingly aggressive encirclement of Russia, this has become a major concern.

The anti-Russian hysteria that has been generated by the US corporate media—led by the New York Times—over an alleged Kremlin hand in the hacking of the Democratic Party and allegations that Donald Trump is “dupe” of Putin is entirely bound up with these war preparations.

The emergence of divisions between the military and the Obama administration over the Syria agreement with Moscow constitute an urgent warning that the danger of far bloodier wars and even a nuclear conflagration are steadily growing.

News broke this week that Monsanto accepted a $66 billion takeover bid from Bayer. The new company would control more than 25 per cent of the global supply of commercial seeds and pesticides. Bayer’s crop chemicals business is the world’s second largest after Syngenta, and Monsanto is the leading commercial seeds business.

Monsanto held a 26 per cent market share of all seeds sold in 2011. Bayer (mainly a pharmaceuticals company) sells 17 per cent of the world’s total agrochemicals and also has a comparatively small seeds sector. If competition authorities pass the deal, the combined company would be the globe’s largest seller of both seeds and agrochemicals.

The deal marks a trend towards consolidation in the industry with Dow and DuPont having agreed to merge and Swiss seed/pesticide giant Syngenta merging with ChemChina, a Chinese government concern.

The mergers would mean that three companies would dominate the commercial agricultural seeds and chemicals sector, down from six – Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Dow, Monsanto and DuPont. Prior to the mergers, these six firms controlled 60 per cent of commercial seed and more than 75 per cent of agrochemical markets.

Alarm bells are ringing with the European Commission putting its approval of the Dow-DuPont deal temporarily on hold, and the US Senate Judiciary Committee is about to hold hearings on the deal due to concerns about consolidation in the industry, which has resulted in increased seed and pesticide prices.

In response to the Monsanto-Bayer merger, US National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson issued the following statement:

“Consolidation of this magnitude cannot be the standard for agriculture, nor should we allow it to determine the landscape for our future. The merger between Bayer and Monsanto marks the fifth major deal in agriculture in the last year… For the last several days, our family farm and ranch members have been on Capitol Hill asking Members of Congress to conduct hearings to review the staggering amount of pending merger deals in agriculture today. We will continue to express concern that these megadeals are being made to benefit the corporate boardrooms at the expense of family farmers, ranchers, consumers and rural economies. We are pleased that next week the Senate Judiciary Committee will be reviewing the alarming trend of consolidation in agriculture that has led to less competition, stifled innovation, higher prices and job loss in rural America… all mergers, including this recent Bayer/Monsanto deal, [should] be put under the magnifying glass of the committee and the U.S. Department of Justice.”

For all the rhetoric that we often hear about ‘the market’ and large corporations offering choice to farmers and consumers, the evidence is restriction of choice and the squeezing out of competitors. Over the years, for instance, Monsanto has bought up dozens of competitors to become the largest supplier of genetically engineered seeds with seed prices having risen dramatically.

Consolidation and monopoly in any sector should be of concern to everyone. But the fact that the large agribusiness conglomerates specialise in a globalised, industrial-scale, chemical-intensive model of farming that is adversely affecting what we eat should have us very concerned. Do we want this system to be intensified even further just because their business models depend on it?

Farmers are increasingly reliant on patented corporate seeds, whether non-GM hybrid seeds or GM, and the chemical inputs designed to be used with them. Monsanto seed traits are now in 80 per cent of corn and more than 90 per cent of soybeans grown in the US. It comes as little surprise then that people in the US now consume a largely corn-based diet: a less diverse diet than in the past, which is high in calorific value, but low in health-promoting, nutrient dense food. This health-damaging ‘American obesity diet’ and the agricultural practices underpinning is now a global phenomenon.

By its very nature, the capitalist economic model that corporate agriculture is attached to demands expansion, market capture and profit growth. And, it must be accepted that it does bring certain benefits to those farmers who have remained in agriculture (if not for the 330 farmers who leave their land every week, according to data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service).

But in the US, ‘success’ in agriculture depends on over $51 billion of taxpayer handouts to over a 10-year period to keep the gravy train on track for a particular system of agriculture designed to maintain corporate agribusiness profit margins. And such ‘success’ fails to factor in all of the external social, health and environmental costs that mean this type of model is ultimately unsustainable. It is easy to spin failure as success when the parameters are narrowly defined.

Moreover, the exporting of the Green Revolution paradigm throughout the globe has been a boon to transnational seed and agrochemical manufacturers, which have benefited from undermining a healthy, sustainable indigenous agriculture and transforming it into a profitable enterprise for global capital.

And not just profitable for global capital – but its company managers too. For example, a few months ago, according to Reuters, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant could receive more than $70 million if Monsanto were to be taken over by Bayer. At the time, Monsanto said it was open to engaging in further negotiations with Bayer after turning down its $62 billion bid. The report shows how Grant’s exposure to shares and options meant he had an incentive to hold out for the highest possible sale price, which would not only be in the interests of shareholders but also increase the value of his holdings. Other senior figures within Monsanto would also walk away with massive financial gains.

These corporate managers belong to a global agribusiness sector whose major companies rank among the Fortune 500 corporations. These companies are high-rollers in a geo-politicised, globalised system of food production whereby huge company profits are directly linked to the worldwide eradication of the small farm – the bedrock of global food production,  bad food and poor health, inequitable, rigged trade, environmental devastation, mono-cropping and diminished food and diet diversity, the destruction of rural communities, ecocide, degraded soil, water scarcity and drought, destructive and inappropriate models of development and farmers who live a knife-edge existence and for whom debt has become a fact of life.

A handful of powerful and politically connected corporations are determining what is grown, how it is to be grown, what needs to be done to grow it, who grows it and what ends up on the plate. And despite PR platitudes about the GMO/chemical-intensive model just being part of a wider mix of farming practices designed to feed humanity, from India to Africaindigenous models of agriculture are being squeezed out (through false argument and deception) as corporate imperialism puts pay to notions of food sovereignty.

We should be highly concerned about a food system increasingly dominated by companies that have a history (seethis on Monsanto and this on Bayer) of releasing health-damaging, environmentally polluting products onto the market and engaging in bribery, cover-ups, monopolistic practices and what should be considered as crimes against humanity?

Despite the likes of Hugh Grant saying the Monsanto-Bayer merger will be good for farmers and “broader society”, most of all it will be good for shareholders and taxpayer-subsidised, state-assisted company profit. That’s the type of hegemonic rhetoric that’s been used down the ages to disguise the true nature of power and its beneficiaries.

It’s not so much the Monsanto-Bayer deal is a move in the wrong direction (which it is), but increasing consolidation is to be expected given the trend in many key sectors toward monopoly capitalism or just plain cartelism, whichever way you choose to look at it. It’s the system of industrialised, capital-intensive agriculture wedded to powerful players whose interests lie in perpetuating and extending their neoliberal economic model that is the real problem.

“We have justified the demise of family farms, decay of rural communities, pollution of the rural environment, and degradation of soil health as being necessary… The problems we are facing today are the consequence of too many people… pursuing their narrow self-interests without considering the consequence of their actions on the rest of society and the future of humanity.” Professor John Ikerd, ‘Healthy Soils, Healthy People

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference on Tuesday that the US-led international coalition is ‘relucant’ to strike Jabhat Al Nusra (Al Nusra Front/Jabhat Fatah al-Sham) targets in Syria. He added that the status of terrorist group will be discussed with Washington.

“I have no reason not to trust [US Secretary of State] John Kerry, but what we see on the ground [in Syria] is that the coalition is very reluctant to strike the positions of the Nusra Front,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov added that there is an evidence that many of powers in Syrian confllict have been increasingly viewing Jabhat Al Nusra ( a new brand – Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) as a “force which should be preserved to facilitate the change of the regime in Syria” and calling for it to be legalized.

“This is a topic for a very serious discussion with our American partners,” the Russian minister added.

Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Cutting the Cords of Empire: The Spectacle of US Elections

By William Hawes, September 14 2016

This article was originally published on Global Research in April 2011:

One of the most divisive arguments within the environmental movement is population growth, whether by increasing births, or via immigration.

But population figures conceal more than they reveal.  They seem to suggest that the cause of climate change is too many people, and that a growing population means growing greenhouse gas emissions.  Therefore, we should encourage people to have smaller families because it’s “a lot easier than retooling our economic system.” (1)   And further, that we must slow population growth where it’s greatest, e.g. the “Third” World, where population is “exploding.”

In Chapter Three of his “Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography,” David Harvey gets to the bottom of this argument by dissecting the three pillars on which it stands – subsistence, resources, and scarcity.

The argument first posits an absolute and unchanging subsistence level, the bare minimum people need to stay alive.  But this level has been defined differently over time, according to the society in which people were living.  The subsistence level in Europe’s Dark Ages was defined very differently from that in the European Union today.  And today’s subsistence level is defined very differently in Uganda than it is in the United States.

This argument further categorizes nature as a “supermarket” of resources available to be made useful to humans.  But this perception has also varied according to the level of historical, technological, and cultural development within particular societies.

The third absolute in this argument is scarcity, defined as intrinsic to nature.  But this, too, is rooted in views of particular societies and modes of production.  Societies seek particular goals/ends, and it’s these goals/ends and the means used to achieve them, as much as a lack of natural resources, that define, even manufacture, scarcity.

Much scarcity is, in fact, created by the activities humans choose to engage in, according to the way their societies have been organized.  The scarcity of available land in cities like New York and London is a result of human activity, not nature’s.  And if this scarcity were not manufactured, the rents in London and New York would not be so wildly lucrative.

In such a scenario, a “crisis of overpopulation” happens when the scarcity of available resources no longer meets the subsistence needs of most of the population.  In other words, there are too many people in the world to allow “us” to continue to live in the way in which we’ve organized our society, based on available natural resources that we could be using to continue to live the way we’ve been living – if only it weren’t for all those people making subsistence demands and potentially preventing us from living in the way to which we’ve become accustomed.  (Think “non-negotiable American way of life.”)

But there are things we could do to change this scenario and adapt, which has been the hallmark of our species across millions of years.  We could redefine our goals by changing the societal organization that creates scarcity.  We could change our view of nature as a resource supermarket with value only insofar as we can make use of it.  We could change the things to which we’ve become accustomed.  Or we could try to reduce the number of people with subsistence needs to be met.

All of these options would be explored in relation to each other if there were real concern with environmental issues.

But it’s easiest by far to focus on population, especially other people’s population, and further, their overpopulation in view of the “scarcity” of resources we’ve created as a result of the way we’ve organized our society and how we go about implementing its goals.

“Somebody, somewhere is redundant, and there is not enough to go round.  Am I redundant?  Of course not.  Are you redundant?  Of course not.  So who’s redundant?  Of course, it must be them.  And if there’s not enough to go round, then it is only right and proper that they, who contribute so little to society, ought to bear the brunt of the burden.”  “And if we hold that there are certain of us who, by virtue of our skills, abilities, and attainments, are capable of ‘conferring a signal benefit on mankind’ through our contributions to the common good and who, besides, are the purveyors of peace, freedom, culture, and civilization, then it would appear to be our bound duty to protect and preserve ourselves for the sake of all mankind.”(2)  (emphasis added)

The population growth argument starts and ends with one idea – Earth with lots of people is bad, and Earth with more people is worse.  The argument goes that one person’s carbon footprint is X, two people’s, 2X, three people’s, 3X, and so on.  In this way we arrive at the conclusion that the effect of population on the environment is proportional to the number of people.

The whole of a country’s emissions are represented as the sum of each person’s, or per capita, emissions.  This makes it look like total emissions are a function of the total amount of people in that country.  But unless you know before hand what the total emissions are, you cannot calculate per capita emissions.  Per capita emissions can only be determined when total emissions are already known, not the other way around.  Total emissions are not arrived at by adding up each individual’s contribution.

Per capita is simply total emissions divided by total population.  The total remains the same whether every individual creates an equal amount of emissions, or one person generates them all.  It’s impossible to tell how much of the total each individual is responsible for when only the total is known.  Per capita reveals nothing about individual contributions.

In the US, each individual’s per capita share includes a share of the emissions created by commercial air travel, the extraction of coal, oil and natural gas, factory farms, the military, and the manufacture and use of pharmaceuticals and oil-based fertilizers and pesticides.  If one-third of the population of the US moved to Canada overnight, the per capita share of the remaining population would shoot up in the US and fall in Canada without any change in individual consumption or total emissions having occurred overnight in either country.  But US citizens would still be held responsible for the rise in per capita emissions which was created primarily by industry.

So that per capita math magic, those numbers examined in a vacuum, tell us next to nothing, and need to be looked at in context.  Ian Angus did just that with his article, “Dissecting Those ‘Overpopulation’ Numbers.”  In “Part One: Population Where?” he worked with actual global population and emissions figures for 2006 – and shredded the “more people equal more pollution” argument with the facts.

The population growth argument ignores what the total fertility rates in the G-20 countries, which describe themselves as “the systematically significant industrial and emerging-market economies,” and the total fertility rates in the world’s nineteen countries with the lowest levels of CO2 emissions illustrate.

The total fertility rate is the average number of children each woman in a country will have in her lifetime.  The higher this number, the faster the population is growing.  A stable population, that is, one that’s neither growing nor declining, has a total fertility rate of about 2.3 children per woman.

In the G-20 countries, which generate 90% of the world’s Gross National Product, this rate is as low as 1.21.  The G-20 includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the US.  (The “twentieth” is the European Union.)

In the world’s nineteen countries with the lowest CO2 emissions, however, the total fertility rate is as high as 7.75.  All of these countries, with the exception of Afghanistan, are in Africa.  They include Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Let’s contrast total fertility rate with total CO2 emissions per country for 2006.  These range from a high in China of 6103.49 million tonnes* to a low of 273.71 million tonnes in Turkey.  The G-20 total was 22566.76 million tonnes.  (*These are British ‘long’ tons.)  The nineteen countries with the lowest rate of CO2 emissions range from a high of 6.01 million tonnes in Ethiopia to a low of 0.2 million tonnes in Burundi.  Their total was 29.3 million tonnes.  In other words, the countries with the lowest population growth rates are producing the bulk of C02 emissions, more than a whopping 770 times as much as the nineteen countries with the highest rates of population growth.

Angus has done the math.  Per capita, each American’s CO2 emissions were 132 times more than a person’s in Madagascar, 197 times more than a person’s in Mozambique, and 400 times more than someone who lived in Mali or Burkina Faso.    And these amounts don’t include the concentration of CO2 emission sources in G-20 countries like their militaries, extractive and agricultural industries, and commercial air travel.

Total emissions do not depend on population density.  The high-emitting G-20 includes densely-populated countries like Japan and India, but also the sparsely-populated countries of Canada and Russia.  This is equally true of the nineteen countries with the lowest emission rates.  Rwanda and Burundi are densely populated.  Chad and Niger are not.  So it’s obvious that low population density can co-exist with high emissions, and high population density with low emissions.

If emissions are dependent on population density, it would appear that high emissions cause low population growth (G-20), or that high population growth causes low emissions (the nineteen countries with the lowest rates of CO2 emissions).  These statements are equally absurd.  Both population growth and CO2 emissions depend on socioeconomic factors, not biological ones.

So there’s something not right about the “more people cause more emissions” argument, and something very wrong with promoting the idea that birth control for the “Third” World will slow climate change.  Focus on population growth distracts attention from issues like production and consumption, policies of technology and globalization, poverty and women’s status in world societies, and the boom and bust of our economic system’s cycle itself.  But the population control argument keeps reappearing as the solution to poverty, hunger, and now climate change.  The simple theory: more people equal more pollution.

In “Peoplequake,” Fred Pearce makes the point that the poorest three billion of us emit only 7% of CO2 worldwide, while the richest half billion of us create 50% of them.  (There are 6.9 billion of us.)  He says that a woman in rural Ethiopia with ten children does less damage, and uses fewer resources than one middle class family of four in the US, the UK or Germany.  And even if all ten of that Ethiopian woman’s children reach adulthood, which is highly unlikely, her entire extended family of over 100 people would still emit only about as much CO2 every year as one American.

So to suggest that the greatest threat to escalating climate change is too many children in Ethiopia, Somalia or Uganda is both disingenuous and dangerous.  The population “bomb” of the 20th century has been defused.  In fact, the rate of global population growth is slowing down.  According to the US Census Bureau International Data Base (December 2008), it peaked in the 60s and has fallen consistently ever since.  Yet the rate of greenhouse gas emissions is skyrocketing out of control. Some however, continue to claim this increase in emissions is a function of population growth, though the rise in energy and resource use has vastly outstripped population growth.

In September of 2009, the journal “Environment and Urbanization” showed that the places where population is growing the fastest are those where carbon emissions have been growing most slowly.  Between 1980 and 2005, 63% of the world’s population growth took place in countries with very low emissions. (3)

But by the end of the 60s, “reducing the population growth of poor countries had become an essential element of US foreign policy.  The main motive was not environmental: rather, population growth was seen as retarding economic growth and fomenting political instability, making countries more susceptible to Communist influence.” (4)

Detailed population growth statistics are easily available.  This allowed population control advocates to place them side-by-side with rising pollution statistics and draw a biological conclusion.  They divided the total pollution by the total population and came up with an individual, per capita, “carbon footprint” for every person on Earth.

So overconsumption and transnational corporate plunder were swept under the rug and the wombs of poor women became the reason for deforestation, water pollution, and desertification. This diverted the environmental movement and shifted blame to the “Third” World, allowing the countries of the “developed” world to avoid looking in the mirror at their own consumption and that of their governments, their militaries, and their transnational corporations, which were trashing the environment both at home and abroad.

The population growth argument is just old wine in a new bottle.  Those who advocate population control are pretending to address climate change so they can avoid focusing on replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.  They prefer to believe there’s a biological solution to problems created by the way society is structured.  Population growth has been made the scapegoat for the real social and economic causes of “poverty, hunger, famine, disease, war, racism, and unemployment.”  (5)

But population control has never had an acceptable environmental outcome.  Witness China.  “China’s one child policy has been hailed as an environmental measure… (but this)…ignores that China’s population control has hardly solved that country’s growing environmental problems.” (6)

Population control is a euphemism for eugenics.  It employs “us vs. them” in order to blame those least responsible for climate change by focusing on the quantity of human beings, rather than on the quality of their lives, when, in fact, it’s not so much the what of those population numbers, but the how of the way those numbers live that matters.  Those most responsible for the escalating threat of climate change are those who profit most from polluting and poisoning, and they’re desperately resisting change. (7)   That’s because they know that most greenhouse gases aren’t caused by individuals, but “by industrial and other processes over which individuals have no control.” (8)

Ian Angus and Simon Butler have pointed out that no reduction of Canada’s population (via fewer births or curtailed immigration) would have any effect on the oil industry’s extraction of oil from the Alberta Tar Sands.  Neither would such reductions in the US have any effect on the massive military spending of the Pentagon, the world’s number one oil consumer.

They further assert that there is no means of reducing population that will change either of those things.  In fact, reducing the population would have the effect of increasing the per capita emissions of the remaining population.  You just get a larger number (or individual carbon footprint) when you divide the reduced population into the same total emissions output.

The anti-immigrant wing of the population control argument says it’s better to keep poor people in poor countries so they consume less (and we can continue to consume more) than if they came “here” and adopted “our” lifestyle.  In 1974, Garett Hardin’s essay “Lifeboat Ethics” suggested throwing the poor majority overboard to allow the “elite” to survive.  He blamed immigration for “speeding up the destruction of the environment of the rich countries.”  This just diverts attention from the threat to the environment of overconsumption. For instance, US consumers, with only 5% of the world’s population, use 20% of the world’s resources.

Anti-immigrationists claim that immigrants will consume a lot more energy in the US than if they stayed in their home country, so they and their families are responsible for growing carbon  emissions.  So instead of conserving energy, switching to renewables, and adopting a sensible climate policy, we should just build bigger fences and continue to burn fossil fuels, which sustain not only that non-negotiable American lifestyle, but the escalating degradation of the environment. (9)

Both the immigration and population-growth wings of the populationist argument have only one “solution” – STOP!!!  Either stop immigration or stop population growth.   But climate change is a socioeconomic and political problem, not a biological problem.  And because of the way in which the globalized economic system is structured, it doesn’t matter how many people there are.  The environment will continue to be beaten down, and inequality will continue to be ratcheted up as a result of the way the dominant peoples on the planet have chosen to organize their societies and go about achieving their goals.

“Blaming climate change on human numbers is itself founded on denial – denial of the real causes of the problem and denial of our potential to forge positive solutions.”  “Instead of buying into the ‘more people=more emissions’ equation, we should put the blame for climate change squarely where it belongs: on fossil fuels and the vested interests that seek to perpetuate dependence on them.” (10)

These vested interests have the power to shift the true cost of their environmental and social degradation onto society as a whole, simply by ignoring their toxic waste.  It’s easier to just pour it into the air, into rivers, and discharge it along deserted rural roads by night.  Society pays the real costs of production, or “externalities,” by cleaning up the mess, or by enduring its effects and its costs on both the environment and health.  And if pushed, the vested interests just export their externalities en masse to the “Third” World. (11)

“Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to us.  Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for example, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together.  Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers.” (12)

The estimated damage to the environment in 2008 by the “externalities” of the 3,000 largest public companies in the world topped $2.2 trillion, more than the economies of all but seven countries in the world.  The heads of major corporations at the 2010 economic summit in Davos, Switzerland, were worried about the effect on their bottom lines if they have to stop damaging the environment, or if they are forced to pay for the pollution they create.  (13)  They were not, however, worried about environmental damage or the effects on human health of continuing to pollute with impunity.

“Keeping fossil fuels in the ground will mean defeating the world’s most powerful corporations and institutions.” (14 )  “Rather than rise to this challenge, populationists fear that it’s too difficult.” (15)   Population control has one big advantage:  it seems easier.

In 2009, Ross Gittins wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that “Since the rich countries are reluctant to countenance a decline in living standards, to put it mildly, and the poor countries most assuredly won’t abandon their quest for affluence, there’s one obvious variable that could be used to limit global economic activity’s deleterious impact on the ecosystem: population growth.”  “Limiting population growth in the developing world and allowing population to continue on its established path of decline in the developed world wouldn’t be easy, but it would be easier than trying to prevent rising living standards among those already living.”   (emphasis added)

He links “serious action on climate change with a ‘decline in living standards’ – as if a high quality of life depends on trashing the planet.” (16)

Katie McKay Bryson, who coordinates the US-based Population and Development Program asks “Why is it easier for those who use and waste the most to imagine fewer people than less stuff?”

Population control shifts the focus off changing the social status quo.  Rather than adapting to change, population control advocates prefer to make people the problem, particularly other people.  But people are the solution.  We exist on Earth today because people adapted to change.  People who are willing to change are the key to continued human existence on the planet.

Vi Ransel is a frequent contributor to online political newsletters.  She can be reached at [email protected].

NOTES:

(1)  Hayden. Thomas.  “Environmental books suggest save-the-Earth Climate may be entering a new phase,” Washington Post, 4/20/10.
(2)  Harvey, David.  “The Political Implications of Population – Resources Theory,” Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography,” Routledge, 2001.
(3)  Satterthwaite, David.  “The Implications of Population Growth and Urbanization for Climate Change,” Environment & Urbanization, Sept. 2009.
(4)  Hartmann, Betsey.  “The Greening of Hate,” Special Report: Southern Poverty Law Center,” 7/20/10.
(5)  Butler, Simon.  “Population Control: 10 Reasons Why It’s the Wrong Answer,”  Green Left Weekly, 5/30/09.
(6)  Butler, Simon.  Ibid.
(7)  Butler, Simon.  Ibid.
(8)  Angus, Ian, and Butler, Simon.  “Should Climate Activists Support Limits on Immigration?” Climate and Capitalism, 1/24/2010.
(9)  Hartmann.   Ibid.
(10)  Boyce, James K.  “Climate Change: Are People the Problem?” TripleCrisis.com, 7/6/10.
(11) Townsend, Terry.  “Individual Versus Social Solutions to Global Warming,” Links, 4/17/08.
(12)  Monbiot, George.  “The Population Myth,” Monbiot.com, 9/29/09.
(13)  Jowitt, Juliette.  “3,000 Companies Cause $2.2 Trillion in Environmental Damage – Every Year,” The Guardian, 2/18/10.
(14)  Boyce, James K.  Ibid.
(15)  Butler, Simon.  “Population Control – A Political Weapon for Conservatives,”  Green Left Weekly, 6/24/10.
(16)  Butler, Simon.  Ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Angus, Ian.  “Dissecting Those ‘Overpopulation’ Numbers. Part One – Population Where?” Climate and Capitalism, 4/28/10.
Angus, Ian.  “Dissecting Those ‘Overpopulation’ Numbers. Part Two – The Perils of Per Capita,” Climate and Capitalism, 7/2/10.
Angus, Ian.  “Dissecting Those ‘Overpopulation’ Numbers:  Appendix to Part Two:  Rate versus Ratio,” Climate and Capitalism, 7/27/10.
Angus, Ian.  “Do Consumers Cause Climate Change?” Climate and Capitalism, 2/20/10.
Angus, Ian, and Butler, Simon.  “Should Climate Activists Support Limits on Immigration?” Climate and Capitalism, 1/24/2010.
Berkowitz, Bill.  “Right Wing Front Organizations Use Progressive Sounding Names to Promote Anti-Immigration and Anti-Environmental Agendas,” The Smirking Chimp, 7/23/10.
Boyce, James K.  “Climate Change: Are People the Problem?” TripleCrisis.com, 7/6/10.
Butler, Simon.  “Population Control – A Political Weapon for Conservatives,”  Green Left Weekly, 6/24/10.
Butler, Simon.  “Population Control: 10 Reasons Why It’s the Wrong Answer,”  Green Left Weekly, 5/30/09.
Conner, Steve.  “We need a global debate on population,”  The Independent, 7/14/10.
Hartmann, Betsey.  “The Greening of Hate” Special Report: Southern Poverty Law Center, 7/20/10.
Harvey, David.  “The Political Implications of Population – Resources Theory,” “Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography,” Routledge, 2001.
Hayden, Thomas.  “Environmental books suggest save-the-Earth Climate may be entering a new phase,” Washington Post, 4/20/10.
Hildyard, Nicholas.  “Too Many for What? The Social Generation of Food ‘Scarcity’ and ‘Overpopulation’,” The Corner House, 11/1/96.
Jowitt, Juliette.  “3,000 Companies Cause $2.2 Trillion in Environmental Damage – Every Year,” The Guardian, 2/18/10.
Monbiot, George.  “The Population Myth,” Monbiot.com, 9/29/09.
Mutavallli, Jim.  “Birth Control or Border Patrol,” E Magazine.com, July/Aug 1998.
Pearce, Fred.  “Population Isn’t the Problem,” Grist, 7/13/10.
Ransel, Vi.  “Manufacturing Poor People”  Op Ed News, 6/20/09.
Ransel, Vi.  “The Population Bomb,” Shared Sacrifice, 4/09.
Satterthwaite, David.  “The Implications of Population Growth and Urbanization for Climate Change,” Environment & Urbanization, Sept. 2009.
Townsend, Terry.  “Individual Versus Social Solutions to Global Warming,” Links, 4/17/08.
Walker, Robert.  “Of Course Population Is Still a Problem,” Grist, 7/13/10

So much has been said about the Syrian conflict in numerous analyses, yet one of the least discussed topics concerns the strategy and the relationship of cooperation and conflict between the United States, Turkey, the Kurds and Daesh.

From the beginning of the Syrian conflict, Washington and Ankara have never hesitated to exploit Daesh’s advances. The occupation of Syrian towns near the Turkish border by Islamic extremists has been one of the preferred tactics endorsed by the United States and Turkey. Closing one eye, often both, concerning Daesh’s operations meant attacking the Syrian state indirectly and threatening its integrity whilst simultaneously allowing the creation of safe havens where terrorist groups could receive weapons and material support to spread their attacks on the legitimate government of Damascus over the rest of the country.

In the specific case of Turkey, there were also other assessments. ISIS / ISIL was supported vigorously by Ankara in the process of sweeping Kurdish territories, wreaking death and destruction on the community. Given the historical conflict between Turkey and the Kurds, it is easy to assume that advances by ISIS/ISIL meant a victory for Erdogan and a successful degradation of the Kurdish community in the Middle East.

Subtly and somewhat complacently, the United States reacted to this behavior of Ankara in two ways. It primarily imposed a media blackout on trade deals between Turkey and Daesh and it especially never attacked ISIS in Syria with the so-called international coalition.

What has altered the chessboard is the Russian military intervention in September of 2015. Moscow has been able to smash the wall of silence and collusion present in Syria involving terrorist organizations such as Daesh, Al Nusra Front, Jaysh al-Islam, Ansar al-Islam and countries like the United States, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. In addition to military action, the Russian Federation has been able to apply strong diplomatic pressure on Western countries and, through the RT news channel, has repeatedly exposed the support of terrorism at any cost by the opponents of the legitimate government in Damascus.

Since September 2015 the war of aggression against Syria has been hit hard by Moscow’s triad of military, diplomatic and media action. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) quickly recaptured many territories previously lost. The liberation of Palmyra, and the road already opened to Deir ez-Zor, the vast areas around the Russian military base in the province of Latakia cleared, the recent victory at Darayya and Aleppo – these finally showed a clear military solution to the crisis in Syria.

The consequences of the strategic re-conquests made by the SAA, combined with the inability of Washington to more explicitly intervene directly in the conflict with men and materiel, forced the US to change its initial tactics. Hidden support (deliberately never mentioned by TV and newspapers) of terrorist groups continues unabated, the same of which can be said for Washington’s allies in the region. But what has changed is the media narrative of the conflict.

The terrorist attacks in recent months in Europe and the United States have arrested the attention of the public; and with a careful direction, especially in the US, thanks to the presidential election, people have been led to believe that a military intervention in Syria and Iraq was necessary to deal with a threat to national security. The inability to intervene directly with boots on the ground pushed Washington to arm and support directly (with the Air Force and with special forces) the Kurds as a force to opposing ISIS / ISIL on the ground.

For their part, not having other options to regain territories previously lost, the Kurds agreed to be the chosen on-the-ground force supported by the international coalition. They preferred to ignore the original sin of Washington (complicity with Daesh) to seize the unique opportunity available to them. It was a choice that in the short term ensured the desired results, with the recapture of several areas and an expansion and enlargement of their territory by over 50%. For some weeks, the Kurds even dreamed of the reunification of areas under their control in Syria and Iraq while Washington was enjoying the (self-proclaimed) media plaudits for combating Daesh, all the while preventing the Syrian Arab Army from regaining territory from ISIS.

From Moscow’s point of view, this change of approach to Syria by the Obama administration is a direct result of Russia’s military, diplomatic and media intervention, and the subsequent reconquests made by the SAA and its allies. It is a limited success, but still a victory against an enemy of Damascus (Daesh). It is a complicated affair, as the conflict in Syria stands out at times, wherein a partial victory is always preferable to the possibility of a defeat.

The second phase of the Russian plan, much more ambitious and difficult to achieve, is a military cooperation with Washington and its allies against terrorist organizations in Syria. The continued refusal of this proposal has once again exposed the real intentions of the United States and regional partners, namely the removing of Assad and the partitioning Syria’s territory.

The massive support given to the Kurds by the Americans created the ideal environment for Ankara to justify an intervention in Syria. The threat of a unification of Kurdish territory on Turkey’s border was a red line the crossing of which Erdogan could not countenance. What we understand is that the use of the Kurds against Daesh by Washington was a temporary move to last some months, probably agreed to with Ankara, designed for domestic consumption to appease public concern over Daesh. With these enabling conditions, Ankara did not hesitate to use them to its advantage. By entering Syrian territory and conquering Jarabulus, Ankara has prevented the reunification of Kurdish territories, has pleased its American ally by providing a structured land force (although very limited for now), and is now trying to clean up its own media image thanks to its portrayal of fighting Daesh. Analysing the battlefield in recent weeks, ISIL/ISIS has often abandoned its territories near the Turkish border without even engaging with the Turkish Army. This behavior is consistent with the thesis that Daesh functions as the West’s cat’s paw for regime change in Syria.

The final American attempt to use the Kurdish card to achieve their strategic objectives against Damascus was the failed attempt to incite the Syrian Kurds against regular police forces in Aleppo. Unfortunately for US policy-makers, the attempt did not last long, thanks to Russian mediation that put an end to the fighting.

The situation continues to evolve in favor of Damascus in recent weeks. Aleppo is now surrounded and sealed off, signalling game over for the terrorist gangs in northern Syria. Washington, running out of options, promptly dumped its momentary Kurdish ally in favor of full military cooperation with Ankara. Erdogan, for his part, had meanwhile consolidated power thanks to the purge following the failed military coup, and juggled his options so that he could easily play the direct-military-intervention card in Syria with the advantage of multiple excuses.

Erdogan even reiterated a few days ago at the G20 held in China that he would be willing to help and collaborate with Washington to regain the city of Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold in Syria. The substance of this change does not alter the balance of the war but exacerbates the conflict and places it on a new level. All armed groups in Syria over the years have shown that they cannot prevail in the military confrontation with Damascus and its allies. The United States, supporting the Kurds, has forced Turkey to become the much-needed force in the battlefield, essential in occupying territories currently held by Daesh, and preventing Damascus from further conquering and unifying Syrian territory.

This is Washington’s Plan B in the making, an old idea of the dismemberment of Syria theorized by many Western think-tanks like the Brookings Institute and RAND Corporation. The chances of the plan being realizing remains unknown. Plan A failed miserably: Assad is still in power, and it is only a matter of time before the SAA and its allies finish liberating the rest of the country.

It remains to be seen how Daesh will react to the threat of losing their so-called capital, Raqqa, in favour of the same forces (Turkey and United States) that created and helped them rise from nothing. If ISIS/ISIL should decide to fight and not abandon the city, it would be a first for the international coalition and the Turkish army, finding themselves embroiled in the Syrian quagmire like never before. How would the people of Turkey and America react to their soldiers and special forces being killed, imprisoned or tortured? Would Erdogan and Obama still be able to justify the operation to the broader public?

The silence and proportional protests coming from Moscow in light of the Turkish incursion in Syria confirms these suspicions: territories reconquered from Ankara are not strategic; the Turkish force is numerically limited (hence the objectives), and the ‘race’ to Raqqa would probably cause more damage than gain for Erdogan and Obama. Moreover, the Arab Syrian Army has other strategic priorities to address and does not want to make the necessary countermeasures to arrive first at Raqqa.

Obama and Erdogan’s bluff is all summed up in the last lines. Erdogan and Obama, in the efforts to free Raqqa and penetrate further into Syrian territory, hope to oblige Syrian forces to alleviate pressure on terrorist groups elsewhere in the country, especially in Aleppo, diverting troops towards the city of Raqqa. What we have been seeing in recent days are empty statements of small conquests by Turkish troops in Syrian territory, aimed at pushing Damascus to fall into the trap prepared by Washington and Ankara.

The clock is ticking, and it is all in the favour of Moscow, Damascus and Tehran, who observe the situation with relative calm. Their planned strategy is providing most of the desired results, and now America and its allies have only the ability to react to events on the ground, not to determine or create them. Compared to a few years ago, this is a resounding change. If Erdogan and Obama still will want to start doing the dirty work in Raqqa against the same terrorist group they instigated against Damascus, then they are free to do so.

All options available for Washington and its partners-in-terror will have negative effects on the fateful goal to undermine Syria. Raqqa is a Syrian city, inhabited by Syrians, and even if Ankara liberated it, it is never going to be incorporated into an imaginary Turkish territory.

Strategic contortions, moral contradictions, media deception, and the recent military defeats of terrorist groups have transformed Syria into a recipe for disaster for Washington, Ankara, Doha and Riyadh, from which there is no way out or path to victory.

The ‘mainstream’ Western media is, almost by definition, the last place to consult for honest reporting of Western crimes. Consider the appalling case of Yemen which is consumed by war and an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

Since March 2015, a ‘coalition’ of Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, and supported by the US, Britain and France, has been dropping bombs on neighbouring Yemen. The scale of the bombing is indicated in a recent article by Felicity Arbuthnot – in one year, 330,000 homes, 648 mosques, 630 schools and institutes, and 250 health facilities were destroyed or damaged. The stated aim of Saudi Arabia’s devastating assault on Yemen is to reinstate the Yemeni president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and to hold back Houthi rebels who are allied with the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudis assert that the Houthis, who control Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, are ‘proxies’ for Iran: always a convenient propaganda claim to elicit Western backing and ‘justify’ intervention.

Philip Hammond, who was UK defence secretary when the Saudi bombing began in 2015, promised:

‘We’ll support the Saudis in every practical way short of engaging in combat.’

The British government has been true to its word; in this respect at least. Campaign Against Arms Trade says that UK sales to Saudi Arabia since the start of the attacks on Yemen include £2.2 billion of aircraft, helicopters and drones, £1.1 billion of missiles, bombs and grenades, and nearly half a million pounds of armoured vehicles and tanks. Just days ago, it was revealed that Britain is now the second biggest dealer of arms in the world. Is there any clearer sign of the corrupt nature of UK foreign policy?

Perhaps there is. Last month, Oxfam reported that in excess of 21 million people in Yemen, out of a total population of around 27 million, are in need of humanitarian aid, more than in any other country. Over 6,000 people have been killed, more than 3 million displaced and more than 14 million are suffering hunger and malnutrition.

Amnesty International reports that British-made cluster bombs have been used in deadly attacks on civilians. Children are among those who have been killed and maimed. The human rights organisation says that the UK should stop all arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Amnesty has also called for Saudi Arabia to be dropped from the United Nations Human Rights Council because of ‘gross and systematic violations of human rights’, both at home and abroad.

‘They Call It Natural Death. But It’s Not.’

In a two-part piece for BBC Newsnight last year, Gabriel Gatehouse commendably reported from Yemen on the plight of civilians there, including the Saudi targeting of civilian infrastructure. The BBC journalist also alluded to ‘the British dimension’ in which the Saudi ‘coalition’s efforts are supported by Britain and the United States’, with British-supplied weaponry being used by the Saudis. Although a welcome deviation from the norm, his criticism of UK foreign policy was muted and not subsequently maintained by BBC News, as far as we could see (with limited recent exceptions as we will discuss later).

Peter Oborne is a rare example of a Western journalist reporting from Yemen, also pointing unequivocally to British complicity in the country’s nightmare. Together with his colleague Nawal Al-Maghafi, Oborne notes in a recent article that:

‘We discovered indisputable evidence that the coalition, backed by the UK as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is targeting Yemeni civilians in blatant breach of the rules of war.’

At the same time, Saudi Arabia has imposed a brutal blockade on Yemen preventing vital commodities from getting into the country. One doctor at the Republic teaching hospital in Sanaa told Oborne:

‘We are unable to get medical supplies. Anaesthetics. Medicines for kidneys. There are babies dying in incubators because we can’t get supplies to treat them.’

The doctor estimated that 25 people were dying every day at the Republic hospital because of the blockade. He continued:

‘They call it natural death. But it’s not. If we had the medicines they wouldn’t be dead.

‘I consider them killed as if they were killed by an air strike, because if we had the medicines they would still be alive.’

This is shocking enough. But Oborne adds that there is:

‘powerful evidence that the Saudi-led coalition has deliberately targeted hospitals across the country. Four MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières] hospitals had been hit by Saudi air strikes prior to the organisation’s withdrawal from the country, even though MSF were careful to give the Saudi authorities their GPS positions.’

Oborne, who resigned as political commentator from the Telegraph last year, places Western complicity in Yemen’s nightmare at the front and centre of his reporting. He points out that Britain has continued to sell arms to Saudi Arabia and its partners, despite copious evidence of breaches of international humanitarian law presented by human rights organisations.

This is an echo of Britain’s shameful role in arming Indonesia while it crushed tiny independence-seeking East Timor, killing around 200,000 people – about one-third of its population. Noam Chomsky described it as a ‘slaughter’ of ‘near-genocidal’ levels. He noted that:

‘By 1998, Britain had become the leading supplier of arms to Indonesia…over the strong protests of Amnesty International, Indonesian dissidents, and Timorese victims. Arms sales are reported to make up at least a fifth of Britain’s exports to Indonesia (estimated at one billion pounds), led by British Aerospace’.

(Noam Chomsky, ‘Rogue States’, Pluto Books, 2000, p. 232)

In the present case of Yemen, the British Foreign Office has repeatedly denied that Saudi Arabia had broken humanitarian law, asserting until a couple of months ago that the FO’s own ‘assessment’ had cleared the Saudis of any wrong-doing. As Oborne notes, however, on July 21 this year, the last day of parliament before the long summer recess:

‘the British government was forced to admit that it had repeatedly misled parliament over the war in Yemen.’

It turns out that no such ‘assessment’ had taken place; a grudging and potentially damaging admission that ministers had clearly hoped to slip out quietly without proper scrutiny. Oborne describes it as ‘a dark moment of official embarrassment.’ You have to dig deep in the BBC News website to find scant mentionof this shameful episode.

Moreover, Britain has supported the UN Security Council resolution backing a Saudi blockade, and the UK has also provided the Saudis with intelligence and logistical support.

‘Perhaps most crucially of all, Britain and the United States have provided Saudi Arabia with diplomatic cover. Last year, Britain and the United States helped to block a Dutch initiative at the UN Human Rights Council for an independent investigation into violations of international humanitarian law.’

In a powerful accompanying filmed report on the destruction of Yemen’s capital Sanaa, Oborne concludes:

‘This city of old Sanaa is as extraordinary, as priceless, as unique as any of the masterpieces of Western civilisation – like Florence or Venice. Just imagine the outcry if bombs were falling on Florence or Venice. But because this is old Sanaa, in forgotten Yemen, nobody cares a damn.’

And least of all Britain’s new Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who callously waved away copious evidence of Saudi breaches of international humanitarian law. The Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour writes of Johnson’s assertion that the Saudis are not ‘in clear breach’ of humanitarian law:

‘His judgment is based largely on a Saudi-led inquiry into eight controversial incidents, including the bombing of hospitals.’

To his credit, Wintour notes that Johnson was ‘defending the credibility of a Saudi-led inquiry exonerating Saudi targeting’. Comment seems superfluous. He then adds Johnson’s own unwittingly self-damning statement:

‘They [the Saudis] have the best insight into their own procedures and will be able to conduct the most thorough and conclusive investigations. It will also allow the coalition forces to work out what went wrong and apply the lessons learned in the best possible way. This is the standard we set ourselves and our allies.’

Indeed, this is the same standard that the world saw with horror last year when the US investigated, and largely exonerated itself, over its dreadful bombing of an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

Boris Johnson is sweeping aside compelling evidence of serious breaches of international law in a cynical move to maintain lucrative UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and to protect close strategic ties with a brutal kingdom of state beheaders and torturers. All this belies his carefully-crafted media image as an amiably bumbling and largely harmless P.G. Wodehouse-like character. In reality, he is a dangerous, extreme right-wing politician with too much power. Sadly, even the often admirable Peter Oborne’s judgement went awry on his return from Yemen when he appealed to Johnson to ‘act boldly to reset Riyadh [i.e. Saudi Arabia] relations’:

‘Boris Johnson has the potential to be one of the great British foreign secretaries of the modern era.’

Sadly, this line by Oborne does not appear to be satire.

Meanwhile, on September 5, the foreign office minister, Tobias Ellwood, addressed the Commons after being requested to do so by the Speaker, John Bercow, because of previously misleading statements on Yemen given by ministers to parliament. Wintour claims in his Guardian report that Ellwood ‘apologised’ for these ‘inaccurate answers’. But the quoted wording is far from a proper apology. Indeed, the foreign minister obfuscated further in support of Saudi Arabia. Ellwood:

‘said it was not for the UK government to conclude whether individual bombing incidents by the Saudis represented breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL), but instead to “take an overall view of the approach and attitude by Saudi Arabia to international humanitarian law”.’

In effect, the UK would continue to rely on Saudi Arabia’s assessments on whether the latter had breached international humanitarian law. Worse, while Yemenis continued to die under US/UK-supported bombing, Ellwood went on to support the Saudis:

‘Defending the Saudi response to criticisms of its campaign, Ellwood said: “It was new territory for Saudi Arabia and a conservative nation was not used to such exposure.”‘

This was sophistry of the worst order. ‘New territory’ entails a murderous bombing campaign and a crippling blockade. And describing Saudi Arabia – a brutal and repressive regime which ranks amongst the world’s worst offenders of human rights – as merely ‘a conservative nation’, speaks volumes about the mental and ethical contortions required to defend British foreign policy.

But there is even more to say about the UK’s shameful complicity in Yemen’s destruction. And, from what we have seen so far, it has had zero coverage in the ‘mainstream’ media.

Media Silence Over UK Role In ‘Targeted Killing’

Last week, the online investigative journal The Intercept published an in-depth piece on revelations about spying based on top-secret documents provided to them by Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency whistle-blower. Titled ‘Inside Menwith Hill. The NSA’s British Base at the Heart of U.S. Targeted Killing’, the article was written by Ryan Gallagher, a UK-based journalist specialising in government surveillance, technology and civil liberties.

The RAF Menwith Hill base lies a few miles from Harrogate in North Yorkshire and is the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. As Gallagher notes: ‘it is a vital part of the NSA’s sprawling global surveillance network’. Consequently, its activities are shrouded in secrecy, despite the best efforts of human rights groups and a few British politicians demanding greater transparency. These efforts have been continually rebuffed by the UK government ‘citing a longstanding policy not to discuss matters related to national security.’

Now, however, the NSA files released by Snowden:

‘reveal for the first time how the NSA has used the British base to aid “a significant number of capture-kill operations” across the Middle East and North Africa, fueled by powerful eavesdropping technology that can harvest data from more than 300 million emails and phone calls a day.’

Over the past decade, advanced surveillance programmes at Menwith Hill have located ‘suspected terrorists accessing the internet in remote parts of the world’ and ‘provided support for conventional British and American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.’

But, adds Gallagher, ‘they have also aided covert missions in countries where the U.S. has not declared war’, including Yemen. These disclosures ‘raise new questions about the extent of British complicity in U.S. drone strikes and other so-called targeted killing missions, which may in some cases have violated international laws or constituted war crimes.’

Kat Craig, legal director of London-based human rights group Reprieve, told Gallagher that Snowden’s revelations are:

‘yet another example of the unacceptable level of secrecy that surrounds U.K. involvement in the U.S. “targeted killing” program. It is now imperative that the prime minister comes clean about U.K. involvement in targeted killing’.

Gallagher describes a number of surveillance programmes, including one called GHOSTWOLF used to monitor ‘terrorist’ activity in internet cafes in the Middle East. This information is being used to ‘capture or eliminate key nodes in terrorist networks’.

As Gallagher observes:

‘GHOSTWOLF ties Menwith Hill to lethal operations in Yemen, providing the first documentary evidence that directly implicates the U.K. in covert actions in the country.

‘Menwith Hill’s previously undisclosed role aiding the so-called targeted killing of terror suspects highlights the extent of the British government’s apparent complicity in controversial U.S. attacks — and raises questions about the legality of the secret operations carried out from the base.’

The British government has consistently asserted that operations at Menwith ‘have always been, and continue to be’ carried out with its ‘knowledge and consent.’ In the context of the commission of war crimes, this is a damning admission.

Gallagher expands:

‘For several years, British human rights campaigners and lawmakers have been pressuring the government to provide information about whether it has had any role aiding U.S. targeted killing operations, yet they have been met with silence. In particular, there has been an attempt to establish whether the U.K. has aided U.S. drone bombings outside of declared war zones — in countries including Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia — which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and are in some cases considered by United Nations officials to possibly constitute war crimes and violations of international law.’

These new, deeply damaging revelations by Snowden appear to have been completely blanked by the ‘mainstream’ media. Searches of the Lexis-Nexis newspaper database yield zero hits on Snowden’s Menwith revelations, and there appears to have been nothing published on the BBC News website. Indeed, this dearth of coverage by UK media, including BBC News, had been anticipated by US investigative reporter Glenn Greenwald, who previously worked with Snowden.

Not unusually, one has to go to media such as RT or PressTV to find any coverage; another reason why these outlets are so often bitterly denigrated as ‘propaganda’ operations by corporate journalists who haven’t done their job of holding Western power to account.

The Post-Brexit, $2 Trillion Saudi Carrot

On September 7, BBC Newsnight revealed how a draft report by MPs on the influential committee on arms export control was being watered down to remove the call for a suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia (clip available here). A statement in the draft report had said:

‘The weight of evidence of violations of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition is now so great, that it is very difficult to continue to support Saudi Arabia.’

But a number of ‘pro-defence’ MPs had then tabled more than 130 amendments, including a move to remove the call to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The Guardian noted cautiously that this attempt:

‘underlines the sensitivity of the issue of UK-Saudi relations at Westminster, the importance of the Gulf to the UK defence industry and the concern that Britain, for a variety of security reasons, is too ready to take Saudi assurances about how it is conducting a difficult civil war in Yemen.’

That is putting it all too mildly; a point to which we return below.

The following evening (September 8), Tory MP Crispin Blunt refused to respond when pressed by Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark about reportedly walking out of the committee meeting in order to stall a vote. It appears that Blunt had feared his amendments were about to be rejected, and by walking out of the meeting the quorum requirement would fail and no valid vote could take place.

But the sickness of government priorities at the intersection of foreign policy and economic imperatives was really highlighted when the Saudi foreign minister declared last week that it was ‘in Britain’s interest’ to continue supporting Saudi Arabia in its murderous assault on Yemen. Or, as the neocon Telegraph defence editor Con Coughlin put it:

‘to continue supporting the Saudis in the battle to prevent Yemen falling into the hands of Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.’

Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, then dangled a carrot in front of British ministers’ noses.

‘Apart from maintaining traditional links on military and intelligence cooperation, Mr Jubeir also said post-Brexit Britain could look forward to forging new trade links with the kingdom as Saudi Arabia embarks on its ambitious plan to restructure its economy under a plan called Saudi Vision 2030. “We are looking at more than $2 trillion worth of investment opportunities over the next decade, and this will take the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Britain to an entirely new level post-Brexit.”‘

Sometimes, you have to go to the extreme right-wing press to have the crude realpolitik spelled out so clearly.

Saudi pressure is considerable and difficult to resist. In June, it was reported that even the UN succumbed when it removed Saudi Arabia from a blacklist of countries responsible for child casualties in conflicts around the globe. Saudi Arabia had been placed on the list for killing and maiming children in Yemen bombing attacks. The country, along with other Arab and Muslim countries, had reportedly threatened to withdraw funding from vital UN humanitarian programmes. One anonymous diplomat spoke of ‘bullying, threats, pressure’, and summed it up as ‘real blackmail’.

The reports on Yemen cited in this media alert from the Guardian and BBC News show the permissible limits of occasional – very occasional – challenges to state power. What is routinely missing, and what would be prominent in coverage of British foreign policy in honest news media, has never been better highlighted than by historian Mark Curtis. For many years, he has extensively analysed formerly secret government records detailing internal discussions about state policies and priorities. In his book, ‘Web of Deceit’, which lays out ‘Britain’s real role in the world’, Curtis concludes that the primary function of the British state:

‘virtually its raison d’être for several centuries – is to aid British companies in getting their hands on other countries’ resources.’

(Mark Curtis, ‘Web of Deceit’, 2003, Vintage, p. 210)

To pursue such state policies means initiating war, military interventions, threats, bullying, and other aggressive actions, usually in support of the United States and/or Nato. This global imperialism is dressed up in propaganda garb as ‘countering terrorism’, ‘improving world security’, ‘working with our allies’ and similar pieties propagated by the ‘mainstream’ media. Curtis lays particular responsibility for such propaganda at the door of the ‘liberal’ media, notably the Guardian and BBC News:

‘The liberal intelligentsia in Britain is in my view guilty of helping to weave a collective web of deceit…. To read many mainstream commentators’ writings on Britain’s role in the world is to enter a surreal, Kafkaesque world where the reality is often the direct opposite of what is contended and where the startling assumptions are frighteningly supportive of state power.’

(Ibid., p. 4)

This ‘surreal, Kafkaesque world’ – in which Britain shares responsibility for appalling violence, while proclaiming its supposed desire for ‘peace’ and ‘security’ – will continue for as long as we do not have an honest media that seriously and consistently challenges brutal state power.

On November 10, 2011, a hundred or so residents of Andrews, Texas, gathered at a large hole in the ground to celebrate the grand opening of America’s newest nuclear waste dump.

Assembled amongst the locals were political and business luminaries from Dallas, Austin, and Washington D.C.. For the ribbon cutting, hedge trimmer-sized scissors were passed out to the various men in suits responsible for making Andrews County a repository for the nation’s radioactive trash. Among them were the senior managers of Waste Control Specialists (WCS), the company that owns the site, Harold Simmons, the conservative Dallas billionaire who owned that company; and Bob Zap, the mayor of Andrews at the time.

The inauguration of the low-level radioactive waste facility, Texas’ first, ended with a barbecue.

Most communities would not find the prospect of housing nuclear refuse cause for celebration. And yet, two years earlier, the town had narrowly voted to fund the construction of the disposal site with a $75-million bond.

Despite the enduring opposition from a handful of locals and the state Sierra club, most of Andrews’ 15,000 residents were eager to celebrate their accomplishment. And it was an accomplishment.

With the opening of the WCS facility, the town of Andrews had done what no other community in the United States has accomplished in two decades: it wrangled the necessary political support to open a new nuclear waste disposal site.

“We’re accustomed to a riskier type of industry here,” says Julia Wallace, the executive director of the Andrews Chamber of Commerce, which supported the radioactive disposal facility. In a community that has long depended on the roughnecking jobs of the oil-and-gas industry, nuclear waste did not seem like a decidedly dirtier business, she says. Plus, unlike the perpetually booming and busting petroleum market, radioactive trash—which must be stowed away for tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years—promises a consistent return on investment.

Andrews isn’t alone in making that investment. Across the high plains of west Texas and eastern New Mexico, communities have invited private companies to set up shop reprocessing, storing, and disposing of radioactive trash. If Detroit is the “Motor City” and the San Francisco Bay Area has “Silicon Valley,” this arid stretch of the southwest is reinventing itself as America’s “nuclear corridor.”

In doing so, they are also offering a solution—if a temporary and controversial one—to America’s longstanding failure to find a home for its nuclear waste.

A Brief History of How Not To Dispose of Nuclear Waste

Though the term “nuclear waste” conjures up images of undifferentiated, glow-in-the-dark goo, it refers to a wide variety of irradiated refuse. But, in broad strokes, civilian nuclear waste comes in two basic flavors: high-level and low-level.

High-level is largely made up of spent fuel rods, pulled hot and dangerous from cooling pools in nuclear power plants across the country. This is the stuff that generates the power at nuclear power plants and, once removed, it will remain radioactive, for all intents and purpose, forever. The federal government intends to one day bury these rods deep in the ground somewhere. More on that plan later.

Low-level waste, on the other hand, is pretty much everything else that’s too radioactive to pass along to your neighborhood garbage collector. This includes the metal filters, wires, gauges, tools, and residues from nuclear power plants; the gloves, booties, and goggles worn by plant technicians; the syringes, swabs, and medical equipment from PET scans and oncology wards; and the fluids, vials, and animal carcasses from laboratory experiments.

This hodgepodge low-level waste can be further divided into classes that roughly correspond to the threat they pose to public health. The radioactivity of Class A waste fades to safe levels within one hundred years. Class C garbage can remain dangerous for half a millennium.

But whatever the official category of radioactive trash, the United States has never been good at getting rid of the stuff.

In the earliest years of America’s nuclear energy program, the waste issue was handled with a combination of lax regulation, aggressive arms proliferation, and a misplaced confidence that scientific progress would soon deliver a solution.

In a win-win for atomic energy advocates and war hawks alike, high-level waste was reprocessed into bombs, with the remaining dregs shipped off to federal facilities in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Washington State.

But there was no such elegant solution for low-level waste. Throughout the 1950s, the Atomic Energy Commission’s disposal method of choice was to place the refuse into concrete barrels and then, like a Mafia hit job, weigh it down with cement and drop it into the sea.

By the 1960s, the AEC started to push for a land-based solution for low-level waste—not because it was safer, but because it cost less than the maritime option. Throughout that decade, six federally licensed landfills started operating across the country. By and large, these facilities were privately owned and run.

Such slipshod measures yielded predictable results. Leaks and contamination of nearby water sources led to the shuttering of three of the six sites. By 1978, only the Beatty, Nevada; Richland, Washington; and Barnwell, South Carolina facilities remained in operation. Of those three, Barnwell received the lion’s share—some 80% of all U.S. low-level radioactive waste.“The disposal was pretty slipshod,” says Barry Rabe, professor of environmental policy at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. “Not a whole lot more than digging trenches and ditches and dropping in waste.”

At around the same time, the federal government’s high-level waste reprocessing system hit a snag. When spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed, it isolates plutonium, the likes of which is used in nuclear warheads. In 1977, the Carter administration suspended all commercial reprocessing as an anti-proliferation measure.

This was a victory for anti-nuke advocates, but it compounded the waste disposal problem. Just as the remaining landfills were being forced to absorb larger and larger volumes of the low-level trash, federal regulators began asking nuclear power plants to store more and more of their high-level waste on site.

In short, stockpiles of nuclear waste were growing, and the country was running out of places to put it.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. In 1978, NASA drafted a report that contemplated disposing of waste in outer space. Of the five destinations considered, the sun’s orbit and the surface of the moon were considered “most attractive,” though in the end the ideas were considered impractically expensive and risky. (If you think SpaceX’s recent launchpad explosion was bad, imagine if it had been carrying irradiated scrap metal.)

Things came to a head in the spring of 1979 when a reactor at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania suffered a partial meltdown. Aside from dealing a major blow to the public’s trust in nuclear technology, the incident also irradiated a fair amount of station infrastructure, creating a huge amount of low-level waste all at once. When the governor of South Carolina learned that the bulk of it was headed for his state’s landfill in Barnwell, he ordered the trucks to turn around.

“We take a lot of [nuclear] waste down here, but we don’t want to take all of it for the whole country,” the governor’s health and environmental secretary told the press. South Carolina increased disposal fees by 600% and partially closed the facility.

The following year, Congress declared a “national crisis.”

A Civil War Over Nuclear Waste

One could hardly blame South Carolina.

A state’s reluctance to host a nuclear waste depository is more than your run-of-the-mill NIMBY-ism. One of the nation’s founding principles, reflected in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, is that the country is a free-trade area. Nevada cannot place tariffs on Colorado shoes to protect its own cobbler industry. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that what is true of shoes must be true of nuclear waste. As soon as a state opens up a radioactive waste landfill within its borders, it risks becoming a nuclear dumping ground for the entire country.

But in response to the country’s main radioactive waste site shutting its doors, Congress provided states with a workaround. Under a new law passed in the final days of 1980, states could place some restrictions on nuclear waste delivery as long as they joined regional waste management “compacts.”

Under the new system, if Illinois and Kentucky agreed upon a shared disposal site, they could form a compact, thus reserving the facility solely for nuclear waste generated between the two states. States outside of the compact system would be forced to deal with their own waste.

The compact system was seen as a way to facilitate mutually beneficial arrangements amongst the states. Instead, it just relocated the same old argument over where to locate landfills. As one hazardous waste treatment expert characterized the situation, “what we have is a Lebanon of hazardous waste in which everybody is fighting everybody else.”

In the late 1980s, New York found itself unable to join a compact (the state’s five nuclear power plants made it an unpopular partner) and unable to open any new waste dumps in-state (municipalities and counties didn’t want the trash either). Without any place to locate its radioactive waste, the State of New York would soon be forced under the new rules to assume legal ownership of the waste.

Instead, New York sued the federal government and seventeen other states joined. The resulting Supreme Court decision held that non-compact states could not be forced to take responsibility for their own waste. The ruling stripped the compact system of its teeth. States no longer had final responsibility over low-level waste. Instead, that responsibility fell to the generators of the waste (mostly nuclear power plants), who could either send it to one of the country’s few licensed landfills or store it onsite.

Three decades later, the compact system remains in place, but it is an incoherent mess.

That’s why the opening of the facility outside Andrews, Texas, in 2011 came as such a relief to many watchers of the nuclear industry.”A lot of consultant time has been spent and a lot of proposals have been made, but we’ve seen very little addition of new waste disposal capacity,” says Rabe. In the meantime, the total amount of low-level waste has only grown. In 1995, the country had approximately 32,000 tons of the stuff. Now, the figure is over 70,000 tons.

“Very few countries around the world have found ways to really resolve this and deal with it,” says Rabe. From the United Kingdom, to Germany, to Japan, Americans are not alone in rejecting nuclear waste disposals in their backyards. “I think the Andrews case will be really instructive and important.”

Radioactive Waste as Economic Development

Even in the rarefied world of radioactive disposal facilities, the Andrews site occupies an unusual niche.

Today, there are four low-level waste landfills operating around the country. Two, in South Carolina and in Washington, can only accept waste from their respective compacts. A third, in Utah, which began operating in the early 1990s, only accepts Class A refuse.

That makes the Andrews facility the only landfill that can receive all classes of low-level radioactive waste from any state in the continental United States.

As a result, for many producers of nuclear waste, Andrews is effectively the only game in town. This has been good news for the local economy, says Julia Wallace of the Andrews Chamber of Commerce. Since WCS began accepting low-level waste, new high-skilled jobs have come to town, donations to schools and other charities have increased, and civic participation in sleepy Andrews is on the rise.

The singular position of the WCS facility within the nuclear waste industry has also been good news for the company’s bottom line. (According to an article in the New York Timesfrom 2014, for the permanent use of a cubic foot of soil, WCS charges waste producers $10,000). This is also one of the reasons that the Utah-based EnergySolutions announced its intentions to buy WCS last November.

EnergySolutions is little known outside the obscure world of radioactive trash management, but it is in many ways the linchpin of U.S. low-level nuclear waste policy.

When the company formed in 2007, it brought the low-level radioactive waste sites in Clive, Utah, and Barnwell, South Carolina, under the same corporate roof. If the WCS acquisition is approved, this will give EnergySolutions ownership of three of the four low-level sites across the country. With the exception of the Northwest compact, which has access to the Richland, Washington site, all states will have little choice but to send their radioactive refuse to EnergySolutions-owned landfills.

Though EnergySolutions’ has been able to acquire a dominant position in the industry, it is not because they have edged out the competition by nefarious means. There are few radioactive landfills across the country for the simple reason that few communities want them in their backyard.

There are few communities, in other words, like Andrews, Texas.

From Disposal to Storage

In December of 2014, Waste Control Specialists, the company that owns the Andrews site, announced its plan to get into the big leagues of radioactive waste. Alongside its low-level waste disposal operation, they had filed an application to store spent nuclear fuel, waste that will remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years.

Unlike a disposal site, which serves as a permanent home for radioactive refuse, a storage facility functions as more of a hotel—a temporary fix until the federal government settles on a permanent disposal site. The government has been looking for one of those for a long time.

In the early 1980s, just as the compact system was getting up and running, Congress decided that the safest way to dispose of spent fuel would be to bury it deep in the ground. A few years later, they chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

In the intervening years, the Department of Energy spent roughly $15 billion dollars researching and preparing the site. But Yucca has since succumbed to what political scientists Doug Easterling and Howard Kunreuther have labeled “the doughnut effect”: though the community immediately adjacent to the mountain welcomed the economic benefits associated with such a massive infrastructure project, Nevadans further afield only saw Yucca for what it was: a nuclear waste dump.

“There have always been counties or towns willing to host projects like this,” explains Daniel Sherman, the author of Not Here, Not There, Not Anywhere, a book about the politics of radioactive waste disposal. “[But] it is rare that you have a willing host community and a supportive state government that has the political will to follow-through on implementation. Neighboring states can sometimes obstruct a project as well.”

Throughout the early 2000s, Senator Harry Reid and other anti-Yucca interests ran ads in the urban centers of Nevada and in the surrounding states warning of the dangers of Yucca-bound radioactive freight. In the lead up to the congressional elections of 2010, the Obama administration bowed to state-level resistance and took Yucca off the table.

There are few alternatives.

Until just two years ago, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, located east of Carlsbad, New Mexico, offered one possibility. A subterranean storehouse for radioactive waste generated by bombs, nuclear submarines, and defense-related activities, WIPP has also served as a testing ground for the viability of safe underground storage for the last 25 years.

That test failed in 2014 when one of the steel barrels containing low-level waste ruptured. (Evidently, kitty litter is often used to stabilize radioactive waste, but someone had mistakenly used the organic variety.) According to a Los Angeles Times estimate, the incident, which has shuttered the site for the time being, could cost as much as $2 billion.

It has also reduced the odds than any state will volunteer to host an alternative, underground repository anytime soon.

In the meantime, nuclear power plants have been left holding the radioactive bag.

Absent a long-term solution, these plants are storing their own spent fuel. This means that virtually every nuclear power plant in the country is currently serving as a de facto nuclear waste storage facility.

“If you look at a map of nuclear power plants, basically each of those is also a nuclear waste repository,” says Barry Rabe. “Most of them are in metropolitan areas.”

The national holding pattern on nuclear waste management has come at a steep cost. The federal government has paid nuclear plants some $5 billion in compensation for their “temporary” storage costs. The Department of Energy expects to pay at least $22 billion before a solution is found.

High-level nuclear waste storage locations as of 2006. Image source: U.S. Department of Energy

In lieu of a long-term solution, the Obama Administration has called for the development of additional “interim storage facilities.” Lobbyists from the nuclear power industry are now pushing Congress to give the Department of Energy authority to enter into contracts with private companies that operate these sites.

On the list of such companies is Waste Control Specialists of Andrews, Texas. But it is not alone.

Friendly Competition for the Most Dangerous Stuff on Earth

The WCS facility sits only a few hundred feet from the New Mexico border. From the town of Hobbs, New Mexico, the distance is about 20 miles as the crow flies. That makes Hobbs closer to the Andrews County landfill—and its projected spent fuel storage facility—than the town of Andrews itself.

And yet, according to Sam Cobb, the mayor of Hobbs, his voters “see no economic benefit” from the Texas facility. Instead, Hobbs, along with officials from Lea and nearby Eddy County, and the City of Carlsbad have been pushing for their own interim storage site. Located 35 miles northeast of Hobbs, the facility will be run by the nuclear waste cask producer Holtec International if it is approved.

“We’re not opposed to Waste Control Specialists putting in the contract,” says Cobb. “If the Department of Energy wants to select two sites, we certainly don’t have a problem with that—as long as one of them is ours.”

If Holtec wins the license, casks of highly radioactive waste will be transported to the site where they will be lowered by crane into ventilated subterranean silos. With each cask stored, Holtec will collect a rental fee from the Department of Energy and a cut of those fees will go to Hobbs and the surrounding towns and counties.

Eastern New Mexico is no stranger to nuclear waste. To the south of Hobbs, the British nuclear fuel company, Urenco, runs a uranium enrichment facility. To the west, International Isotopes Inc. is hoping to establish a factory for depleted uranium processing. On the drive from Hobbs to Carlsbad, you pass the turnoff to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

“We have a very informed and educated electorate about the nuclear fuel cycle,” he says.Taken together, this cluster of nuclear industry makes up what many refer to as “the nuclear corridor” or “nuclear alley.” Lea County has officially adopted the less suggestive term, “EnergyPlex.” In any case, the familiarity means that the local population is less skittish about the prospect of handling radioactive waste, says Cobb.

Plus, he argues, storing some of the most toxic material ever created by humanity in the arid, rural high plains makes more sense than storing it at various nuclear power plants across the country.

“Behind a chain link fence in some large metropolitan areas are these same casks that we’re talking about putting out here in the desert, 35 miles from the closest population center,” he says. “This environment out here is very good for something to sit.”

Whether Holtec, WCS, or another company is given permission to store radioactive waste out in this desert, this appears to be the foreseeable future of our nation’s nuclear waste management policy. Conditional on the uninterrupted approval of Texas and New Mexico, we will transport it to the high plains of the southwest and let it sit there until we come up with a better solution.

If the past is anything to go by, it’s likely to sit out there for a long time.

The truth about Syria and what is happening in Syria is all here, in the video below, outlined and documented during this press briefing by the US Peace Council (USPC).

We cannot be sure how long this video will be allowed to stay on Youtube, but we urge everyone to take 45:00 minutes of your time to see this video, share this video, and finally spread the word about the “vicious” war being waged on Syria.

Please share this post, and share this video, and share these excerpts, which may provide some life saving truth to an unjust, criminal war…and a western media narrative that continues to push lies and confusion to what is a clear and blatant international crime.

The Duran reported earlier today, as one of the few media organizations to expose this story…

A delegation from the US Peace Council (USPC) has recently returned to the US from a fact finding mission to Syria.

The members spent 6 days meeting with Syrian Government Officials including, President Assad, Union Leaders, Government Opposition Members as well as Civil & Business Leaders, NGO’s, Charities and Universities.

The delegation stated that each member paid their own way and that the Syrian Government allowed them to meet whomever they wanted.

They issued their report and held a press conference Press conference at the UN on 9th August 2016.

Madelyn Hoffman, Executive Director of New Jersey Peace Action, Member of the Syria Delegation at the 17:15:

“This is not a civil war in Syria. That’s probably the first thing we heard, and we heard it over and over again.

It is not President Assad against his own people. It is President Assad and the Syrian people, all together, in unity, against outside forces, outside mercenary forces, terror organisations, the names change everyday or every other day, to try to protect their identity, and maybe keep the connection between the country that funded it and that group, kind of a little bit more nebulous, but there are groups, mercenary forces, supported by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United States, and underneath it, Israel, the state of Israel.

And these outside mercenary forces are the ones that are terrorising the Syrian people, and are attempting to divide the Syrian people.”

US Peace Council (USPC):

• H.E. Bashar Ja’afari, Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic
• Alfred Marder, President of the US Peace Council
• Mary Compton, Member of the Executive Board of the US Peace Council
• Henry Lowendorf, Member of the Executive Board of the US Peace Council, Head of the Syria Delegation
• Joe Jamison, Member of the Executive Board of the US Peace Council, Member of the Syria Delegation
• Madelyn Hoffman, Executive Director of New Jersey Peace Action, Member of the Syria Delegation
• Donna Nassor, Professor and Lawyer also part of US Peace Council

Henry Lowendorf, Member of the Executive Board of the US Peace Council, at the 12:30 mark:

“We saw villages, that are basically Christian villages, that have been besieged by the terrorists, but have now been liberated. And the damage done to a shrine in the village called Maaloula, which is a village where they still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. And the attacks on the Christian population.”

“Their two things I want to mention, finally, that we feel are really important…

One is…That while the United States would like to divide the Syrians up, by religion or within a religion — by the different beliefs within that religion. There wasn’t a Syrian we talked to who would accept that.

We spoke to the Grand Mufti, and he said, ‘People ask me how many Muslims there are in Syria?’and his response is always 23 million. That’s is the population of Syria.

And when we talk to the bishop of one of the Orthodox Churches, he answered the same thing, the number of Christians is 23 million.

We will not allow ourselves to be divided up the way the United States has divided up the people of Iraq, or Libya, or Afghanistan, or so many other countries. We won’t allow that.

And that unity, I believe, has lead to the ability of the Syrians to withstand an invasion by the most powerful country in the world, and its most powerful allies in Europe, its most powerful allies in the Middle East, with what is a vicious attack on the Syrian people.

The second is the sanctions. I have to admit that I did not know (before I went) that the United States has imposed sanctions on Syria in a way that’s similar to the sanctions that the United States imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, in order to weaken that country and that government, that the United States admits killed 500,000 children in Iraq, during the 1990s sanctions.”

The Duran reported in a post entitled, “Why the Syrian conflict is not a civil war”…

Alfred Marder who, is the President of the USPC firstly acknowledged that the US peace and anti-war movement has been in a state of confusion about Syria and that this has caused division within the movement.

He explained that the domestic tactic used by the US government to sway US public opinion, is, to demonise the leader of whatever country the US is targeting.

“Whether it’s Noriega, Hussein, Gaddafi, or Assad, there’s a definite pattern here”

He said the story the US people have been told about President Assad and Syria have been purposefully false. Concerning the reporting he said

“This is not accidental. This is designed to confuse people’s opinions on these Leaders.”

Jamison was blunt in his assessment and likened this quote to the dangerous attitude of so many Americans who think they know about Syria and President Assad but “….what they think they know, just ain’t so!”

In his opinion the US motive is to destroy Syria as an independent secular Arab state and make it compliant to US interests and policies, like Iraq and Libya have become since the US invasions and bombings of these two countries.

Just like Libya before the NATO bombing, Syria has universal free healthcare and free education from childcare through to university.

Jamison pointed out that the US government supports Jabhat al-Nusra and other groups (whose names change often) who they claim to be ‘moderate rebels’ but who in truth are not moderate in any way and are affiliated either with Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

He mentioned the foreign backed mercenaries (ISIS) are fuelled by the Wahhabi doctrine which he described as

“a sick medieval and backward ideology driven by the Muslim Brotherhood with its genesis in Saudi Arabia.”

He affirmed his opinion by describing how so called ‘moderate’ Jabhat Al-Nusra mercenaries beheaded a 12 yr old boy during the time the delegation was in Syria. There is nothing ‘moderate’ about beheading a 12 year old boy.

The other major story they shared was the generally unreported sanctions that the US has imposed upon the Syrian people.

The US government claims the sanctions target the Syrian government. However they are actually aimed at wearing down the resolve of the Syrian people.

The US has imposed sanctions similar to the ones Iraq experienced before the invasion, which even the US admits killed half a million children.

Syrians cannot get baby formula, common medication, medication for chemotherapy, child immunisation etc.

These sanctions are so insidious that they affect medical clinics throughout Syria because they are unable to get parts for machines used in medical practice. Think: X-ray, CAT, MRI machines right down to dentists drills.

President Assad has claimed from the beginning that there was no uprising and that the country was being invaded by foreign backed mercenaries. Gaddafi said exactly the same thing when NATO started bombing Libya.

Coincidence? I think not.

The same scenario was acted out in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria: invaded and bombed into submission without any politician, general or complicit media representative tried or held to account. There is not even an acceptance of error or a conciliatory voice of remorse.

“The campaign to confuse the American people has been intense.”

In another indication of the terrible price paid by working people in the United States and all over the globe for the crimes of US imperialism, a new reportfrom Brown University estimates that Washington has squandered nearly $5 trillion since September 11, 2001 on the wars launched under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

The report coincides with the 15th anniversary of 9/11, with 10,000 US troops still in Afghanistan, 15 years after the US invasion of that country, and an estimated 6,000 in Iraq. Hundreds more special operations forces have been deployed to Syria, where the US is fighting for regime change in a de facto alliance with that country’s affiliates of Al Qaeda—which was supposedly the principal target of the last decade and a half of war.

While the financial costs of these wars are staggering, bordering on the unfathomable, the author of the report, Boston University professor Neta Crawford, correctly places them in their far broader, and more horrifying, context of the trail of blood and destruction that US military operations have left in their wake:

“…a full accounting of any war’s burdens cannot be placed in columns on a ledger. From the civilians harmed or displaced by violence, to the soldiers killed and wounded, to the children who play years later on roads and fields sown with improvised explosive devices and cluster bombs, no set of numbers can convey the human toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or how they have spilled into the neighboring states of Syria and Pakistan, and come home to the US and its allies in the form of wounded veterans and contractors.”

Some of these numbers are also quantifiable, and appalling, from the over one million Iraqi lives lost to the US invasion of 2003 to the more than 12 million refugees driven from just the four countries laid waste by US wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria. In addition, there are the nearly 7,000 US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with roughly an equal number of private contractors, as well as the 52,000 officially listed as wounded in combat and the untold hundreds of thousands more suffering from traumatic brain injuries, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and other mental health problems resulting from multiple deployments in dirty colonial-style wars.

Nonetheless, the report argues persuasively that it is also vital to make a serious and comprehensive evaluation of the real financial costs of these wars.

The overall cost of US imperialism’s wars includes the $1.7 trillion directly appropriated by Congress to wage them as so-called Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). This is above and beyond the Pentagon’s base budget, which totals some $6.8 trillion from FY2001-2016.

By defining these wars as OCOs, Congress, together with both the Bush and Obama administrations, has acted as if they are some kind of unforeseeable emergencies that could not be planned for within the government’s normal budgetary process, even as they dragged out for a decade and a half. As a result, they were freed from any kind of normal fiscal accountability, with no taxes or other revenues allotted to pay for them.

In addition to this direct war funding, the report includes the costs of veterans’ medical and disability care, allocations for Homeland Security, interest on Pentagon war appropriations and future costs for veterans’ care.

This last cost is estimated at amounting to at least $1 trillion between now and 2053. The basis for such an estimate is made clear by the presentation of some alarming statistics.

By the end of 2015, more than 1,600 soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan had undergone major limb amputations as a result of wounds suffered in combat. A total of 327,000 veterans of these wars had been diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury as of 2014 and by the same year fully 700,000 out of the 2.7 million people deployed to the war zones had been classified as 30 percent or more disabled.

The report points out that Veterans Affairs is the fastest growing department in the US government, with its staffing levels having nearly doubled since 2001 to 350,000 workers. Yet, according to another recent report, it “still lacks sufficient funding to fill thousands of vacancies for doctors and nurses and to finance badly needed repairs to its hospitals and clinics.”

In addition to these costs, the report estimates that, unless Congress changes the way that it is paying for the wars, even without their continuation, cumulative interest on war appropriations made just through FY2013 will amount to a staggering $7.9 trillion by 2053.

The report recalls that as the Bush administration was preparing to launch the war of aggression against Iraq, the administration’s chief economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey came under intense fire for estimating that the “upper bound” costs of the war reached between $100 and $200 billion. This estimate was roundly rejected by everyone from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to House Democrats, who put the figure at roughly $50 billion, which it is now clear underestimated the real cost by a factor of 100.

Reflected in these wars, both in the criminality with which they were initiated and fought, and in the way they were funded, are the financial parasitism and socially destructive forms of speculation that pervade the workings of American capitalism as a whole.

By keeping the wars’ costs “off the books” and relying on an “all-volunteer” military to fight them, the US ruling class also hoped to dampen the popular hostility to militarism.

The new report does not attempt to estimate the wars’ broader impact on the economy and the living standards of broad masses of American working people. Another report issued two years ago by Harvard University conservatively estimated that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars amounted to $75,000 for every American household.

The report points to previous studies indicating that the wars cost tens of thousands of jobs and significantly reduced investment in infrastructure. The vast amount of resources diverted into slaughter and destruction in the Middle East and Central Asia could have funded the $3.32 trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) says must be spent over the next decade to fix America’s crumbling ports, highways, bridges, trains, water and electric facilities and paid off the entire $1.26 trillion in student debt, with money left over.

Instead, the elected officials of both major capitalist parties have continuously insisted that there is no money for jobs, decent wages, education, health care and other basic necessities, while spending unlimited money on militarism and war, leaving the bill to be paid for through the intensification of austerity measures directed against the working class.

The human and fiscal toll wrought by the wars of the last 15 years are only a foretaste of the global catastrophe that is threatened as US imperialism prepares for far larger wars, with its military escalation focused ever more directly against the world’s second and third largest nuclear powers, Russia and China.

Over the course of the long Labor Day weekend, American bombs rained down on targets spanning nearly 4,000 miles across the Mideast and North Africa.

The strikes hit six countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — and targeted terrorist groups including the Islamic State (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria), al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (in Yemen), al Shabab (in Somalia), and the Taliban (also in Afghanistan). About 45 strikes took place in Iraq and Syria alone, plus another 20 or so in Libya and smaller totals in the remaining three nations.

These campaigns, as well as occasional drone strikes in Pakistan, will almost certainly continue past President Obama’s term in office. “This administration really wanted to end these wars,” said Paul Scharre of the Center for a New American Security. “Now, we’ve got U.S. combat operations on multiple fronts and we’re dropping bombs in six countries. That’s just the unfortunate reality of the terrorism threat today.”

Major Western news media’s coverage of the alleged dangers posed by the Zika virus and “preventative” measures mandated by overreaching federal agencies is a textbook example of censorship by omission, intentional oversight of facts, and deference to questionable “expert” authority to assuage valid public concern over aerial deployment of dangerous pesticides.

This summer South Florida public health authorities under the direction of the Centers For Disease Control asserted that a handful of Zika cases warrants a mass aerial spraying campaign to protect the public and unborn, all of whom may be susceptible to microcephaly—a prenatal neurological condition characterized by deformation of the head.

The CDC proposed using the pesticide Naled to counter the Zika-bearing mosquito population. Naled is known to be harmful to human health and is banned in the European Union. Its effects via dermal contact and inhalation can resemble symptoms of Zika infection, and the compound may prove to be a very real cause of microcephaly. Despite public protests in Miami area officials have once again blindly capitulated to the CDC’s directives, initiating a second spraying campaign on September 9. The basic deduction that Naled’s effects and the much-dreaded Zika symptoms could be very easily confused is carefully avoided by the CDC and corporate news media alike.

Such news outlets would not have to look very far to find substantial evidence of Naled’s dangers that warrant public concerns over the US government’s eagerness to employ the pesticide. For example, in July after the CDC informed Puerto Rico it had unilaterally made a decision to use Naled to curtail the spread of Zika the mayor of San Juan Puerto Rico sued the CDC in federal court to prevent its use in the region that broadly went against the sentiments of Puerto Rican citizens.

The lawsuit brought by San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz-Soto and the San Juan Municipality charges that the agency’s plan to spray the island with the purported anti-Zika pesticide Naled violates the federal Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Multiple studies have demonstrated,” the complaint reads,

that exposure to Naled can cause respiratory complications, nausea, headaches, skin irritation and damage to the nervous system in humans, and could potentially cause irreparable harm to the fish and wildlife that live in the island’s estuaries and ecosystems, which will directly affect the health, recreational, aesthetic, commercial and environmental interests of [San Juan].”

The lawsuit further explains how neither the CDC nor any other federal agency have carried out environmental impact studies for proposed actions “significantly affecting the quality of the human environment,” or that may pose a threat to the welfare of any endangered or threatened species.

Aside from one brief reference of the San Juan lawsuit by CNN and more detailed reportage in the Latin American TeleSUR network upon its filing in July almost no major news media have covered the important case.

Rather than closely consider the legal and scientific facts concerning Naled presented in the suit which tend to reinforce popular concerns in the US, major media have routinely emphasized footage of protests in the street and on social media opposing the pesticide program that tends to make such objections appear irrational when contrasted with expert sources, including those with ties to the same government interests that have vigorously advocated Naled’s use. Such framing techniques have been long recognized by media sociologists as a means to malign social activism in the public eye.

For example, a CBS News report highlights Dr. Aileen Marty, a  medical professor at Florida International University whose areas of expertise include infectious diseases, and who most recently worked on the Ebola media and public health phenomenon. Marty maintains that Naled’s use in South Florida is benign.

The “dose [sic] is so low and so fine a mist that it’s almost impossible—not totally impossible—but almost impossible for any human to have any significant effect in the way that they’re spraying and at the heights that it’s being sprayed.”

CBS correspondent David Begnaud fails to make clear that his expert source is a member of the State of Florida Medical Reserve Corps, where she the professor headed up the recent federally-coordinated “surveillance program” that has gone door-to-door throughout Miami neighborhoods collecting urine specimens to test for Zika. The academic’s FIU profile, states she is a graduate of the Navy War College and 25-year US Navy veteran who previously worked at the Uniformed Services Industry, the National Defense University, and “has also worked with and for elements of” the World Health Organization and an array of US lettered agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture, and the White House National Security Administration. Marty also has ties to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers For Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, “and other government agencies.

Along these lines CNN consulted P. Barry Ryan, a professor of environmental chemistry and public health at Emory University in Atlanta. While the video report initially highlights Ryan’s skepticism of the pesticide’s use in urban areas, it concludes on an affirmative note, that “Naled can carry risks, but not nearly as big as the risks posed by Zika.”

Major news outlets’ use of such sources to placate their viewerships while downplaying other important developments, not the least of which is the federal lawsuit brought by San Juan, suggests an intent to mislead and legitimize government measures regardless of how irrational and dangerous they may be. Such coverage makes it much easier for South Florida officials to capitulate to the CDC’s directives than stand up to the agency’s overreach, as Puerto Rico’s public servants have done. One must ask exactly to what degree CDC-commissioned public relations maneuvers would differ from the “journalistic” efforts discussed above.

Political leaders including former Florida Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio are vying for over $1 billion in federal funding that will purportedly be used to further thwart the “Zika threat.” If the CDC and local officials’ activities in South Florida are any indication of future actions, these will likely include more intensified aerial bombardment of subject populations and environments with pesticides that have been long-proven injurious to human health.

“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.” -Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

It’s almost time for our quadrennial political distraction, masquerading as the US presidential election. As opposed to previous elections, this one feels quite different. Even with Obama/Romney in 2012, important, basic economic issues were discussed, health care reform was questioned, and foreign policy was given its due.

However, this time, the spectacle of the personalities seems to dominate the conversation: Mrs. Clinton is somehow on a feminist crusade, an inspiration for women everywhere. Going unmentioned are her irredeemable backers, such as the genocidal Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright. As for Trump, his version of America is as naïve, narrow-minded, and delusional as a Leave It to Beaver episode, or a Captain America comic book. In the background, the monstrosity of global capitalism goes unquestioned, and the cries from victims of US institutional racism and structural violence go unheard.

Global warming, broad economic policy, and nuanced foreign policy are simply too much to ask of these candidates. Their stupidity knows no end; their corruption and depravity know no bounds, and many of both of their supporters, as well as media, political, and corporate backers and sycophants can be considered “deplorable”. Many supporters of the two-party system do not bother to think about the damage either potential president would do to people outside the US. Many backers of Trump and Clinton have little to no basic knowledge of world cultures and history.

What are the cords that connect us to these “leaders”, to our American Empire? They are the same ones that the Industrial Revolution, the basis of our civilization, has implanted in each of us since birth, as Alvin Toffler explains in The Third Wave. As our social world became modeled on the factory floors developed in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, a set of unspoken principles were ironed out, and transferred to the political, social, and economic realms. (1)  As we shall see, these principles spread unchecked, and have infiltrated political discourse and social hierarchies. Toffler identifies these implicit rules as:

1) Standardization: Industry, production, and factory life revolved around endless loops and inputs of metals, fabrics, coal, oil, and specialized parts for trains, cars, etc. The simplification and standard mechanical parts used were mirrored and reflected in the culture at large: eventually, markets, the media, radio and TV, and even great art and literature succumbed to commoditization and homogenization. We now have mass marketing, public relations, and “electioneering”, where our duopoly controls all branches of government.

2) Specialization: With the explosion in the fields of science and engineering, specialized techniques were taught to develop, invent, and maintain mechanical and electric equipment. Yet again, this philosophy infected the general society:  only bureaucrats are able to work in the halls of power, only industrial experts are able to administer federal agencies, creating the disgraceful revolving door phenomena in Washington.

3) Synchronization: As more people flocked into cities with gleaming promises of steady, factory jobs, time and punctuality became of prime importance. Punching timecards and meeting quotas were necessary: there was no room for leeway, as assembly lines demanded strict timelines. The time demands of labor leaked into white-collar work as well: in banking and finance, railroads, time zones, and office jobs, advanced scheduling became the norm. Eventually, synchronization of the political system gained traction, and the imperial system came to resemble a deathly machine, marching in time to bloody footsteps: military, immoral diplomacy and ideology, and industry worked together to lord over Latin America with the Monroe Doctrine, annihilate Native Americans using Manifest Destiny, even as today, the excuse of the “War on Terror” is used to exterminate entire populations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere.

4) Concentration: Think of the vast oil and coal stored underground for millions of years, only to be strip-mined, taken up by rigs, and transported by rail and tanker into vast refineries: concentration of energy. Further, every class of people became absorbed and intensified in the industrial system: workers into factories, children into schools, mentally ill into institutions, finance concentrated into New York, London, and Paris. Mega-mergers of corporations: today, it is the Apple, Google, Shell, and BP’s of the world who have coffers of blood money held tidily in banks throughout the world. Further, the concentration of technocrats who we supposedly need to run our societies: in the West, the military-industrialists, just as the Soviets were once told the nomenklatura was necessary.

5) Maximization: Firms were encouraged to grow as large as possible, and expand into as many fields as possible. Companies in Japan in the mid-twentieth century would actually have workers sing of the glory and greatness of their employer. Today, 62 people have the same wealth as half the world’s population. This is concentration and maximizing at its most obscene. Of course, you won’t hear Clinton, Trump, or anyone in Washington talking about this. Maximizing GDP, corporate profits, fossil fuel use, and flexing imperial muscle is what the Feds do best.

6) Centralization: Connected to the first five rules of empire stated above, centralizing power, wealth, and using knowledge for private gain is required to uphold the industrial state. Taxation, subsidies for industry, political debates via the sham Committee on Presidential Debates, the backroom shenanigans of the DNC and RNC, and cloak and dagger lobbying and bribery now dominate our system of government. Further, the Leviathan of state-sanctioned violence now lords over the world from the Pentagon and NATO, and the centralization of information runs through fiber-optic cables straight to the infernal, yet temperature-controlled offices of the CIA and NSA.

The elections have adopted all the patterns of the industrial, imperial state: we have standardized TV, scripted questions, airbrushed candidates, and childlike debates. We’ve seen specialized tactics of gerrymandering, vote-rigging, PR bullshit, and strategists whose careers accomplish nothing for the public good. We all know of the synchronization of Wall Street, defense and oil companies. The concentration of power in the hands of the few hardly needs mention: here’s the study by Princeton and Northwestern professors who conclude that the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy. We’ve witnessed the maximization of endless primaries, debates, press conferences, and town-hall meetings ad infinitum. The centralization of political ideology (triangulation in Clintonite terms, Machiavellian to a rational person) and the limitations of discourse that our candidates display are all too clear.

These are the iron chains holding us down, shackling us in Plato’s cave: our candidates are figureheads, shadows on the wall; they are puppets of the super-elite. The central position they carve out in the mainstream is really a pit, an abyss: one that we all find ourselves in, as we continue to vote for those who don’t fight for our interests.

The two best options for this election seem to be: voting for Jill Stein, or boycotting the election, as Joel Hirschhorn advocates. As for our obscene election cycles, I believe Zach de la Rocha summed it up best:

  A spectacle monopolized

The camera’s eyes on choice disguised

Was it cast for the mass who burn and toil?

Or for vultures who thirst for blood and oil?

William Hawes is a writer specializing in politics and environmental issues. His articles have appeared online at Global Research, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, The World Financial Review, Gods & Radicals, and Countercurrents. He is author of the e-book Planetary Vision: Essays on Freedom and Empire. You can reach him at [email protected]

Notes:

1.) Alvin Toffler. The Third Wave. Bantam, 1980. p. 46-60.

 

Is Israel on the verge of civil war, as a growing number of Israeli commentators suggest, with its Jewish population deeply riven over the future of the occupation?

On one side is a new peace movement, Decision at 50, stuffed with former political and security leaders. Ehud Barak, a previous prime minister who appears to be seeking a political comeback, may yet emerge as its figurehead.

The group has demanded the government hold a referendum next year – the half-centenary of Israel’s occupation, which began in 1967 – on whether it is time to leave the territories. Its own polling shows a narrow majority ready to concede a Palestinian state.

On the other is Benjamin Netanyahu, in power for seven years with the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. On Friday he posted a video on social media criticising those who want to end the occupation.

Observing that a Palestinian state would require removing hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers currently living – illegally – on Palestinian land, Netanyahu concluded: “There’s a phrase for that. It’s called ethnic cleansing.”

Not only did the comparison upend international law, but Netanyahu infuriated the Obama administration by implying that, in seeking to freeze settlement growth, the US had supported such ethnic cleansing. A spokeswoman called the comments “inappropriate and unhelpful” – Washington-speak for deceitful and inflammatory.

But the Israeli prime minister is not the only one hoodwinking his audience.

Whatever its proponents imply, the Decision at 50 referendum is about neither peace nor the Palestinians’ best interests. Its assumption is that yet again the Israeli public should determine unilaterally the Palestinians’ fate.

Although the exact wording is yet to be decided, the referendum’s backers appear concerned solely with the status of the West Bank.

An Israeli consensus believes Gaza has been free of occupation since the settlers were pulled out in 2005, despite the fact that Israel still surrounds most of the coastal strip with soldiers, patrols its air space with drones and denies access to the sea.

The same unyielding, deluded Israeli consensus has declared East Jerusalem, the expected capital of a Palestinian state, as instead part of Israel’s “eternal capital”.

But the problem runs deeper still. When the new campaign proudly cites new figures showing that 58 per cent support “two states for two nations”, it glosses over what most Israelis think such statehood would entail for the Palestinians.

A survey in June found 72 per cent do not believe the Palestinians live under occupation, while 62 per cent told pollsters last year they think Palestinians have no rights to a nation.

When Israelis talk in favour of a Palestinian state, it is chiefly to thwart a far bigger danger – a single state shared with the “enemy”. The Decision at 50 poll shows 87 per cent of Israeli Jews dread a binational conclusion to the conflict. Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet intelligence service and a leader of Decision at 50, echoed them, warning of an “approaching disaster”.

So what do Israelis think a Palestinian state should look like? Previous surveys have been clear. It would not include Jerusalem or control its borders. It would be territorially carved up to preserve the “settlement blocs”, which would be annexed to Israel. And most certainly it would be “demilitarised” – without an army or air force.

In other words, Palestinians would lack sovereignty. Such a state exists only in the imagination of the Israeli public. A Palestinian state on these terms would simply be an extension of the Gaza model to the West Bank.

Nonetheless, the idea of a civil war is gaining ground. Tamir Pardo, the recently departed head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad, warned last month that Israel was on the brink of tearing itself apart through “internal divisions”.

He rated this a bigger danger than any of the existential threats posited by Mr Netanyahu, such as Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb.

But the truth is that there is very little ideologically separating most Israeli Jews. All but a tiny minority wish to see the Palestinians continue as a subjugated people. For the great majority, a Palestinian state means nothing more than a makeover of the occupation, penning up the Palestinians in slightly more humane conditions.

After many years in power, the right is growing in confidence. It sees no price has been paid, either at home or abroad, for endlessly tightening the screws on the Palestinians.

Israeli moderates have had to confront the painful reality that their country is not quite the enlightened outpost in the Middle East they had imagined. They may raise their voices in protest now but, if the polls are right, most will eventually submit to the right’s realisation of its vision of a Greater Israel.

Those who cannot stomach such an outcome will have to stop equivocating and choose a side. They can leave, as some are already doing, or stay and fight – not for a bogus referendum that solves nothing, but to demand dignity and freedom for the Palestinian people.

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

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

 

Nuclear power may never recover its cachet as a clean energy source, irrespective of safety concerns, because of the ongoing saga of meltdown 3/11/11 at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Over time, the story only grows more horrific, painful, deceitful. It’s a story that will continue for generations to come.

Here’s why it holds pertinence: As a result of total 100% meltdown, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) cannot locate or remove the radioactive molten core or corium from the reactors. Nobody knows where it is. It is missing. If it is missing from within the reactor structures, has it burrowed into the ground? There are no ready answers.

And, the destroyed nuclear plants are way too radioactive for humans to get close enough for inspection. And, robotic cameras get zapped! Corium is highly radioactive material, begging the question: If it has burrowed thru the containment vessel, does it spread underground, contaminating farmland and water resources and if so, how far away? Nobody knows?

According to TEPCO, removing the melted cores from reactors 1,2 and 3 will take upwards of 20 years, or more, again who knows.

But still, Japan will hold Olympic events in Fukushima in 2020 whilst out-of-control radioactive masses of goo are nowhere to be found. TEPCO expects decades before the cleanup is complete, if ever. Fortunately, for Tokyo 2020 (the Olympic designation) radiation’s impact has a latency effect, i.e., it takes a few years to show up as cancer in the human body.

A week ago on September 7th, Former PM Junichiro Koizumi, one of Japan’s most revered former prime ministers, lambasted the current Abe administration, as well as recovery efforts by TEPCO. At a news conference he said PM Shinzō Abe lied to the Olympic committee in 2013 in order to host the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.

“That was a lie,” Mr Koizumi told reporters when asked about Mr Abe’s remark that Fukushima was “under control,” Abe Lied to IOC About Nuke Plant, ex-PM Says, The Straits Times, Sep 8, 2016. The former PM also went on to explain TEPCO, after 5 years of struggling, still has not been able to effectively control contaminated water at the plant.

According to The Straits Times article: “Speaking to the IOC in September 2013, before the Olympic vote, PM Abe acknowledged concerns but stressed there was no need to worry: “Let me assure you, the situation is under control.”

PM Abe’s irresponsible statement before the world community essentially puts a dagger into the heart of nuclear advocacy and former PM Koizumi deepens the insertion. After all, who can be truthfully trusted? Mr Koizumi was a supporter of nuclear power while in office from 2001-2006, but he has since turned into a vocal opponent.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo, Mr Koizumi said: “The nuclear power industry says safety is their top priority, but profit is in fact what comes first… Japan can grow if the country relies on more renewable energy,” (Ayako Mie, staff writer, Despite Dwindling Momentum, Koizumi Pursues Anti-Nuclear Goals, The Japan Times, Sept. 7, 2016).

Mr Koizumi makes a good point. There have been no blackouts in Japan sans nuclear power. The country functioned well without nuclear.

Further to the point of nuclear versus nonnuclear, Katsunobu Sakurai, mayor of Minamisoma, a city of 70,000 located 25 km north of Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, at a news conference in Tokyo, said: “As a citizen and as a resident of an area affected by the nuclear power plant disaster, I must express great anger at this act… it is necessary for all of Japan to change its way of thinking, and its way of life too – to move to become a society like Germany, which is no longer reliant on nuclear power,” (Sarai Flores, Minamisoma Mayor Sees Future for Fukushima ‘Nonnuclear’ City in Energy Independence, The Japan Times, March 9, 2016).

In March of 2015, Minamisoma declared as a Nonnuclear City, turning to solar and wind power in tandem with energy-saving measures.

Meanwhile, at the insistence of the Abe administration, seven nuclear reactors could restart by the end of FY2016 followed by a total of 19 units over the next 12 months (Source: Japanese Institute Sees 19 Reactor Restarts by March 2018, World Nuclear News, July 28, 2016).

Greenpeace/Japan Discovers Widespread Radioactivity

One of the issues surrounding the Fukushima incident and the upcoming Olympics is whom to trust. Already TEPCO has admitted to misleading the public about reports on the status of the nuclear meltdown, and PM Abe has been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, but even much worse, lying to a major international sports tribunal. His credibility is down the drain.

As such, maybe third party sources can be trusted to tell the truth. In that regard, Greenpeace/Japan, which does not have a vested interest in nuclear power, may be one of the only reliable sources, especially since it has boots on the ground, testing for radiation. Since 2011, Greenpeace has conducted over 25 extensive surveys for radiation throughout Fukushima Prefecture.

In which case, the Japanese people should take heed because PM Abe is pushing hard to reopen nuclear plants and pushing hard to repopulate Fukushima, of course, well ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics since there will be events held in Fukushima Prefecture. After all, how can one expect Olympians to populate Fukushima if Japan’s own citizens do not? But, as of now to a certain extent citizens are pushing back. Maybe they instinctively do not trust their own government’s assurances.

But, more chilling yet, after extensive boots-on-the-ground analyses, Greenpeace issued the following statement in March 2016: “Unfortunately, the crux of the nuclear contamination issue – from Kyshtym to Chernobyl to Fukushima- is this: When a major radiological disaster happens and impacts vast tracts of land, it cannot be ‘cleaned up’ or ‘fixed’.” (Source: Hanis Maketab, Environmental Impacts of Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Will Last ‘decades to centuries’ – Greenpeace, Asia Correspondent, March 4, 2016).

That is a blunt way of saying sayonara to habitation on radioactive contaminated land. That’s why Chernobyl is a permanently closed restricted zone for the past 30 years.

As far as “returning home” goes, if Greenpeace/Japan ran the show rather than PM Abe, it appears they would say ‘no’. Greenpeace does not believe it is safe. Greenpeace International issued a press release a little over one month ago with the headline: Radiation Along Fukushima Rivers up to 200 Times Higher Than Pacific Ocean Seabed – Greenpeace Press Release, July 21, 2016.

Here’s what they discovered: “The extremely high levels of radioactivity we found along the river systems highlights the enormity and longevity of both the environmental contamination and the public health risks resulting from the Fukushima disaster,” says Ai Kashiwagi, Energy Campaigner at Greenpeace Japan.

“These river samples were taken in areas where the Abe government is stating it is safe for people to live. But the results show there is no return to normal after this nuclear catastrophe,” claims Kashiwagi.

Riverbank sediment samples taken along the Niida River in Minami Soma, measured as high as 29,800 Bq/kg for radiocaesium (Cs-134 and 137). The Niida samples were taken where there are no restrictions on people living, as were other river samples. At the estuary of the Abukuma River in Miyagi prefecture, which lies more than 90km north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, levels measured in sediment samples were as high as 6,500 Bq/kg” (Greenpeace)

The prescribed safe limit of radioactive cesium for drinking water is 200 Bq/kg. A Becquerel (“Bq”) is a gauge of strength of radioactivity in materials such as Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 (Source: Safe Limits for Consuming Radiation-Contaminated Food, Bloomberg, March 20, 2011).

The lifting of evacuation orders in March 2017 for areas that remain highly contaminated is a looming human rights crisis and cannot be permitted to stand. The vast expanses of contaminated forests and freshwater systems will remain a perennial source of radioactivity for the foreseeable future, as these ecosystems cannot simply be decontaminated.  (Greenpeace).

Still, the Abe administration is to be commended for its herculean effort to try to clean up radioactivity throughout Fukushima Prefecture, but at the end of the day, it may be for naught. A massive cleanup effort is impossible in the hills, in the mountains, in the valleys, in the vast forests, along riverbeds and lakes, across extensive meadows in the wild where radiation levels remain deadly dangerous. Over time, it leaches back into decontaminated areas.

And as significantly, if not more so, what happens to the out-of-control radioactive blobs of corium? Nobody knows where those are, or what to do about it. It’s kinda like the mystery surrounding black holes in outer space, but nobody dares go there.

Fukushima is a story for the ages because radiation doesn’t quit. Still, the Olympics must go on, but where?

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Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at [email protected]

The naive hopes of Bernie Sanders’ supporters—to build a grass-roots political movement, change the Democratic Party from within and push Hillary Clinton to the left—have failed. Clinton, aware that the liberal class and the left are not going to mount genuine resistance, is running as Mitt Romney in drag. The corporate elites across the political spectrum, Republican and Democrat, have gleefully united to anoint her president. All that remains of Sanders’ “revolution” is a 501(c)(4) designed to raise money, including from wealthy, anonymous donors, to ensure that he will be a senator for life. Great historical events happen twice, as Karl Marx quipped, first as tragedy and then as farce. 

The multibillion-dollar extravaganza of our electoral Circus Maximus is part of the smokescreen that covers the ongoing devastation of globalization, deindustrialization, trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, endless war, climate change and the intrusion into every corner of our lives by the security and surveillance state. Our democracy is dead. Clinton and Donald Trump do not have the power or the interest to revive it. They kneel before the war machine, which consumes trillions of dollars to wage futile wars and bankroll a bloated military. To defy the fortress state is political suicide. Politicians are courtiers to Wall Street. The candidates mouth the clichés of justice, improvements in income equality and democratic choice, but it is a cynical game. Once it is over, the victors will go to Washington to work with the lobbyists and financial elites to carry out the real business of ruling.

While there is a difference in the temperament of the two major presidential candidates, that difference will play out only in how our poison will be delivered. Political personalities serve global corporate centers of power. They do not control them. Barack Obama illustrates this.

To neoliberals, everyone and everything are disposable. The failed states that have risen up across the Middle East, Africa, the Caucasus and Asia in the wake of the Cold War herald a neoliberal world driven by violence, corruption, greed and desperation. The drug traffickers, smugglers, pirates, kidnappers, jihadists, criminal gangs and militias that roam huge swaths of territory where central authority has vanished are the real faces of globalization. These nihilists define Islamic State just as they define the corporate state. Corruption may be more naked and cruder in Afghanistan or Iraq, but it has its parallel in the for-sale politicians and political parties that dominate the United States and Europe. The common good—the building of community and solidarity—has been replaced through decades of corporate indoctrination with the callous call to amass all you can for yourself and leave the stranger bleeding on the side of the road.

Is the Goldman Sachs commodity trader, who hoards futures of rice, wheat, corn, sugar and livestock to jack up prices on the global market, leaving poor people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America to starve, any less morally repugnant than the drug trafficker? Are F-16 pilots who incinerate families in Raqqa morally distinct from jihadists who burn a captured Jordanian pilot in a cage? Is torture in one of our black sites or offshore penal colonies any less barbaric than torture at the hands of Islamic State? Are the decapitations of children by military drones any more defensible than decapitations of Egyptian laborers on a beach in Libya by self-described holy warriors? Is Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, who raised the price of the lifesaving EpiPen by 400 percent or more and whose compensation since 2007 has risen by 600 percent to above $18 million a year, any less venal than a human trafficker who sends an overloaded boat and its occupants to their doom on the coast of Libya?

There is a new world order. It is based on naked exploitation. It—not democracy—is what we have exported across the globe. And it looks a lot like the anarchic state that Hobbes feared. The criminal gangs that deliver migrants to Europe make about $100 million a month for their work. They exploit and traffic human beings just as highly paid CEOs do.

The failed states of Iraq, Syria and Libya, a direct result of globalization, have their counterparts in Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, Memphis, Baltimore, Atlanta, Milwaukee and the south side of Chicago. They are our versions of Mogadishu, complete with lawlessness, senseless killings, armed gangs, widespread hunger, fear, a population retreating into the numbing embrace of opiates, crippling poverty, dysfunctional state institutions, the growth of private security companies that protect the elites, and indiscriminate police violence that creates reigns of terror aimed at the poor. The more the global corporate forces extract from us in the name of austerity and the maximization of profit, the more parts of the U.S. will descend into domestic versions of the failed states overseas. The same system exists here and abroad. And it has the same result here and abroad. It may appear first in Somalia, Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Libya, but it will soon come to characterize much of America. The proliferation of weapons will do to our society what it has done to every other failed state where there has been unchecked access to arsenals—hand power to those with a penchant for violence.

“Anyone who wants to rule men first tries to humiliate them, to trick them out of their rights and their capacity for resistance, until they are as powerless before him as animals,” Elias Canetti wrote in “Crowds and Power.” “He uses them like animals and, even if he does not tell them so, in himself he always knows quite clearly that they mean just as little to him; when he speaks to his intimates he will call them sheep or cattle. His ultimate aim is to incorporate them into himself and to suck the substance out of them. What remains of them afterwards does not matter to him. The worse he has treated them, the more he despises them. When they are no more use at all, he disposes of them as he does of his excrement, simply seeing to it that they do not poison the air of his house.”

History has amply demonstrated where this will end up. The continued exploitation by an unchecked elite, and the rising levels of poverty and insecurity, will unleash a legitimate rage among the desperate. They will see through the lies and propaganda of the elites. They will demand retribution. They will turn to those who express the hatred they feel for the powerful and the institutions, now shams, that were designed to give them a voice. They will seek not reform but destruction of a system that has betrayed them.

Failed states—czarist Russia, the Weimar Republic, the former Yugoslavia—vomit up political monstrosities. We will be no different.

A form of fascism has already taken hold in two nations on the edges of the European Union, Hungary and Poland. Far-right parties, reacting to the flood of more than a million migrants that descended on Europe last year, are gaining ground in France, Austria, Sweden, Germany and Greece. Nationalism, buttressed by a deification of the military, will be used to compensate for individual powerlessness and a loss of national identity. Dissent in the U.S. will become “anti-American,” a form of treason. Enemies at home will be vilified along with enemies abroad. And this will lead to even more warfare in the Middle East. The far-right political parties in Eastern Europe flirt rhetorically with military conflict with Russia. And because of its membership in NATO, the United States would be obligated to enter any hostilities.

Voting for Hillary Clinton will not halt this slide into the apocalypse. It will only accelerate it. Donald Trump may vanish from the political landscape, but someone even more venal, and probably more intelligent, will take his place. Our job is to dismantle the machinery that is pushing toward the cliff. And this means sustained and massive civil disobedience. As exemplified by the protests at theStanding Rock Sioux Reservation and by prisoners across the nation who carried out work stoppages last Friday, it means doing everything possible not to cooperate with the elements of authority. It means disrupting the mechanisms of power. It means overcoming fear. It means no longer believing the lies we are told.

In 1993 I wrote a book, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, in which I said at the outset I was not going to try to solve the mystery of JFK’s murder but to examine the politics of it.

I wish to argue here for similar research into the politics of 9/11. For the political consequences of 9/11 have been toxic, regardless of how the towers fell or who was responsible. The unusual process of their implementation deserves close study, a study which I believe will cast more light on 9/11 itself.

I hope in this paper to show that Dick Cheney responded to 9/11 by using devious means to install a small cabal of lawyers – most notoriously John Yoo – who proceeded conspiratorially in the next weeks to exclude their superiors, while secretly authorizing measures ranging from warrantless surveillance and detention to torture.

Some of these were measures which Cheney and Rumsfeld had previously been preparing for almost two decades, as central figures in the secret agency planning for so-called Continuity of Government (COG). It was revealed in the 1980s that these plans aimed at granting a president emergency powers, uncurbed by congressional restraints, to intervene abroad, and also to detain large numbers of those who might protest such actions.

On 9/11, the 9/11 Report confirms, COG was implemented. As we shall see, Cheney promptly ordered the three top figures in the Justice Department out of Washington to a designated COG site buried deep underground.

This allowed Cheney’s cabal to deal instead, starting that same afternoon, with John Yoo in the Justice Department command center. At that time John Yoo, a 34-year-old distinguished chiefly for his repeated defense of Cheney’s eccentric views on presidential authority, had only been in the government for two months.

As a consequence, since 9/11 we have seen warrantless surveillance, suspension of habeas corpus, and the militarization of homeland security, on an unprecedented scale that is not just illegal but an erasure of rights specified in the U.S. constitution.[1]

Furthermore, the secrecy and speed of the manner in which our rights were drastically subverted is itself an affront to the ideals of America as an open society: one in which major changes to our political fabric are only made through authorized channels, and after debate.

The Background: Continuity of Government Planning

The origin of many of these measures – both their content and their secret planning outside of channels – was the secret Continuity of Government (COG) planning that Rumsfeld and Cheney had been engaged in since 1982.

In the 1980s three secret COG provisions were roughly identified by Alfonso Chardy of the Miami News and Ross Gelbspan of the Boston Globe. According to Chardy in 1987, the plans envisaged suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law during a national crisis.”[2]

Gelbspan added that North was also working with FEMA officials on a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency.[3]

The detention planning was clearly aimed at protesters, many of them Hispanic, who objected to Reagan’s policies in Nicaragua and El Salvador. (Col. Oliver North, who coordinated the planning, was also at the center of a “three-year operation aimed at monitoring the activities of U.S.-based opponents of Reagan’s Central America policies.”)[4]

Between them, the two journalists thus pointed to the content of the surveillance, detention, and militarization measures which, after over a decade of further refinement, were finally implemented on 9/11.

They also indicated how secret, extra-constitutional, and unaccountable was the process of the COG planning. Chardy accurately referred to North’s network as “a virtual parallel government outside the traditional Cabinet departments and agencies almost from the day Reagan took office.”[5]

Four years later, in 1991, CNN revealed for the first time that North and FEMA were under a secret National Program Office (NPO) in charge of Continuity of Government (COG) planning, known in the Pentagon as “the Doomsday Project.” It called the NPO a “shadow government . . . about which you know nothing.”[6] And in 2004 two authors, James Mann and James Bamford, wrote that in the 1980s two central  figures guiding North in the Doomsday planning, which Mann called “extralegal and extraconstitutional,” had been Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.[7]

The new details from Bamford and Mann about this multi-billion program were invaluable. But unfortunately both men believed, because of a very misleading story in the New York Times, that under Clinton “officials decided to abandon the program as an outdated legacy of the cold war.”[8]

Both men were wrong: all that had been abandoned was the original and completely honorable purpose of COG planning under Truman and Eisenhower – to deal with the catastrophe of an atomic attack. Under Reagan the planning, from the outset, had shifted to dealing with any emergency.[9] Not only did the planning by Rumsfeld and Cheney continue under Clinton, it was augmented.[10]

How very true, then, was Mann’s observation that Cheney and Rumsfeld were, in a sense, a part of the permanent hidden national-security apparatus of the United States—inhabitants of a world in which Presidents come and go, but America keeps on fighting.[11]

This situation was particularly disturbing under Clinton, when Rumsfeld (and possibly Cheney) continued to plan for subordination of the constitution, even though at this time neither man was in the government.[12] Both men were now CEOs of large private corporations (as Rumsfeld had been since recruited in 1982 for the task).[13] And one of the planners told Andrew Cockburn that the Clinton administration had “no idea what was going on.”[14] (Such phenomena persuaded me to analyze 9/11 as a deep event, to be analyzed in the context of the American deep state.)[15]

Private corporation leaders had been brought into COG planning under Eisenhower, because recovery from a nuclear attack would have required a corporate as well as government response.[16] Ike could hardly have foreseen that under Reagan private people would begin to plan for the extralegal surveillance and detention of their fellow citizens, still less that these plans would finally be implemented by two of the central planners — Rumsfeld and Cheney — on September 11, 2001.

The Implementation of COG Measures on 9/11

As the 9/11 Report confirms (pp. 38, 226), on 9/11 COG plans were indeed implemented, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to COG’s Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David.[17]

These emergency measures were soon followed by two White House Declarations of Emergency: Executive Order 13223 of September 14, 2001 (“Ordering the Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty”), and Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001 (“with respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism”).[18]

There was much more to come.

Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Dick Cheney in effect took command of the national security operations of the federal government. Quickly and instinctively, he began to act in response to two longstanding beliefs: that the great dangers facing the United States justified almost any response, whether or not legal; and that the presidency needed vastly to enhance its authority, which had been unjustifiably and dangerously weakened in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate years.[19]

James Mann has argued that COG implementation was the “hidden backdrop” to Cheney’s actions on 9/11, when he  “urged President Bush to stay out of Washington,” and later removed himself to more than one “’undisclosed location’”.[20]

According to Jane Mayer, Cheney’s chief aide that day in revamping government was his long-time legal assistant David Addington (a veteran with Cheney of COG planning). All sources follow the Washington Post in asserting that Addington initially walked away when the order was given to vacate the White House, then was summoned back by Cheney.[21] Yet Mayer writes that “Within minutes of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Addington began to assert himself as the war on terror’s indispensable man.”[22]

How Cheney’s Lawyers Subordinated US Law

According to Barton Gellman in the Washington Post,

Before the day ended, Cheney’s lawyer [Addington] joined forces with Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel, linked by secure video from the Situation Room. Flanigan patched in John C. Yoo at the Justice Department’s fourth-floor command center. White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales joined later.

Thus formed the core legal team that Cheney oversaw, directly and indirectly, after the terrorist attacks.[23]

In addition, Flanigan was in touch by about 10:30 AM with the fifth member of the War Council, William Haynes, Pentagon general counsel.[24] This War Council “explicitly excluded the State Department’s general counsel and other military and Justice Department lawyers who had historically been included in reviewing legal structures for combating terrorism.”[25]

In the next months this five-man team, who called themselves “the War Council,” issued secret directives, sometimes without notifying their nominal superiors, that continued to implement COG plans and up-end established constitutional restraints on executive power.

One of the first instances was to authorize the use of military force domestically, something that Congress, when passing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) on September 14, had refused to do. Before passage, Republican Senate Minority leader Trent Lott delivered to his Democrat counterpart, Tom Daschle, a special request from White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez. This was that the proposed language defining the area for military action be expanded, by adding the words “in the United States.” Daschle refused to give the president the power to round up US citizens in this country, and the AUMF passed unamended.[26]

On the lawbooks, that is.

However, within a week, the Justice Department delivered a secret answer [submitted on September 21 by John Yoo] that would shock Daschle when he found out about it [three years later]. The memo argued that in times of national emergency, which had been declared since September 11,

“If the president decided the threat justified deploying the military inside the country, the federal government could legally “raid or attack dwellings where terrorists were thought to be, despite risks that third parties could be killed ….” …. In this and related memos, the Justice Department said that the executive branch could ignore both Fourth Amendment protections against illegitimate searches and, without court warrants, specific laws passed by Congress prohibiting wiretaps and other surreptitious surveillance.[27]

So what Cheney, Gonzalez, and Flanigan had failed to obtain from Congress, they got instead from their own small group.[28]

The War Council’s secret rulings were often kept hidden from other administration lawyers, as well as Congress. In October, for example, John Yoo, the young deputy at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, drafted a memo, quickly approved by Cheney and Addington, that ruled that the NSA could surveil whomever it wished without an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).[29]

This memo granted the NSA a power which Michael Hayden had requested and already exercised. Yet many other administration lawyers were not consulted, including  the top lawyer for Condoleezza Rice’s National Security Council, John Bellinger III. In fact, Bellinger was not told about the Terrorist Surveillance Program at all. This was strange, because unlike Addington, who had no line authority over national security matters, Bellinger was the ranking lawyer in the White House on intelligence affairs, with statutory purview over the subject…. Richard Shiffrin was also not informed about the domestic spying program, which was remarkable, because Shiffrin was the Pentagon lawyer in charge of supervising the legality of the NSA’s programs…. Ashcroft’s deputy attorney general, Larry Thompson, the second-ranking lawyer in the Department of Justice, was excluded… too…. This was phenomenal, given that he was John Yoo’s boss.[30]

This cabal-like behavior by Cheney and the War Council – the team that would subsequently produce the notorious torture memos — was repeated on other matters. In the decision to use military commissions to try the Guantanamo detainees, for example, those left out of the loop included Defense Secretary Powell, National Security Adviser Rice, Rice’s lawyer John Bellinger III, and Michael Chertoff, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Attorney General Ashcroft had only learned of the military commission plan two days earlier, when he discovered to his outrage that John Yoo, his subordinate, had vouched for a confidential legal memorandum cutting the Justice Department and U.S. Courts out of the picture.[31]

It would be wrong to think that all of the post-9/11 changes can be attributed to the legal team of the War Council. According to Professor Shirley Anne Warshaw, in this period

Cheney jumped into action in his bunker beneath the East Wing to ensure continuity in government. He immediately began to create his shadow government by ordering one hundred mid-level executive officials to move to specially designated underground bunkers and stay there twenty-four hours a day. They would not be rotated out, he informed them, for ninety days.[32]

The Washington Post revealed this “shadow government” under Cheney in March 2002, and described it as still on-going.[33]

What this parallel government did for three or more months is not known. But I have noted elsewhere a number of other new COG measures, such as permanent detention centers and the militarization of homeland security, that date back to this post-9/11 period.[34]

How Cheney and Addington Used COG to Empower Yoo

Given the speed and determination with which the War Council acted to rewrite U.S laws and procedures, one needs to look more closely at circumstances under which they sprang into action on the afternoon of 9/11. According to all mainstream accounts, the five members of the War Council were thrown together that day by accident. Addington spoke to Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel, because “Flanigan’s boss, Alberto Gonzalez, was stranded in Norfolk.”[35]

On 9/11 Findley (to quote the mainstream account by Barton Gellman), “found a young attorney named John C. Yoo.”[36] But this was not by accident. Yoo, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel with two months of government experience, was presiding at the Justice command center. This was because attorney general Ashcroft and those directly under him (his deputy Larry Thompson, and his assistant David Ayres) had been ordered by the PEOC under COG rules to go elsewhere. [37]

(The Ashcroft team were not Cheney’s only targets on 9/11. On that day Cheney also evacuated to Site R the second and third in line to succeed to the presidency, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate President Pro Tem Robert Byrd.[38] This was consistent with the COG priority of ensuring that the US Government was not decapitated. And in the weeks after 9/11, when Site R became so busy under Cheney that substantial upgrades to its equipment had to be ordered by Andrew Card in the White House, someone from the line of succession was always there. However, never once again was that person either Hastert or Byrd.[39] This suggests that Hastert and Byrd may have also been banished to Site R on 9/11, and excluded from Site R thereafter, for political reasons.)

Cheney had compelling ideological reasons on 9/11 to decapitate the Justice Department on that day and leave Yoo in command. Both men shared the eccentric legal belief, repudiated by most Bush administration lawyers, that a president in times of emergency had almost unrestricted powers. Back in 1980 Cheney had advised incoming presidential chief of staff James Baker that it was important to get rid of the War Powers Act and restore the president’s independent rights.[40] In his Iran-Contra Minority Report of 1987, Cheney declared his belief, drafted for him by Addington, that “the Chief Executive will on occasion feel duty bound to assert monarchical notions of prerogative that will permit him to exceed the laws.”[41] Yoo was one of the few academics to share that opinion: “For years, [Yoo] had written articles for law reviews… arguing that in a time of war, the executive had a sweeping claim to act independently from the other branches of government.”[42]

As in the COG planning of previous decades, the implementation of new measures under Cheney proceeded with what Barton Gellman called

near hermetic secrecy. Not only the conduct of policy but even the law itself, as Yoo and Addington and Flanigan rewrote it, was classified. The new legal framework was meant to be invisible, unreviewable – its very existence unknown by legislative or judicial actors who might fight back.[43]

Andrew Bacevich, reviewing The Dark Side for the Washington Post, characterized the behavior of the War Council as that of a small, secretive “conspiracy… made up chiefly of lawyers contemptuous of the Constitution and the rule of law.”[44] I agree that the War Council’s plots to evade existing laws constituted conspiratorial behavior; and would argue further that Cheney’s role in creating the War Council on 9/11, by exiling the three top Justice officials who might have thwarted them, was also conspiratorial.[45]

But the key to the emergence of the ideological War Council cabal may go back to Cheney’s position as chief of the Bush transition team which selected John Yoo to be Office of Legal Counsel deputy assistant attorney general. Cheney was also responsible for locating Findley as a deputy legal counsel in the White House (a considerable demotion from his position a decade earlier as assistant attorney general for the OLC). According to Bernard Weiner,

Cheney began meddling with the all-important White House Office of Legal Counsel …. Cheney made sure Bush’s lightweight consiglieri Alberto Gonzales didn’t get the OLC post; instead, Cheney eased in a trusted aide, Tim Flanigan. With Flanigan in the White House under the influence of Cheney and David Addington, …. there was no real countervailing power in the Administration’s legal departments to stop the reckless policies on torture, violation of habeas corpus, extraordinary rendition and so on.[46]

Other authors have raised questions about the absence from Washington, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, of such leaders as Defense Secretary Powell (in Peru), Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton (airborne en route to Europe), Attorney General Ashcroft (en route to Milwaukee), presidential counsel Alberto Gonzalez (in Norfolk, Va.), and others.[47]

I am not in this article suggesting that all these absences were pre-planned as part of a larger 9/11 conspiracy.[48] In contrast, the order from the PEOC after the attacks to exile Ashcroft, Thompson, and Ayres to a COG website – thus putting Yoo in a command position – falls into a quite different category. If as I believe Cheney made this order with Yoo in mind, it would indicate only that Cheney’s behavior was in response to a planned terrorist attack, not as part of that attack plan itself.[49]

But I believe we should see all the disparate plotting of 9/11 in the context of an older plot – to modify the U.S. constitution with procedures dating back to COG planning in the 1980s. This “emergency planning” has in fact created a real and on-going emergency, one under which we still live.

Today the extra-legal practices of warrantless detention and surveillance, inaugurated by Cheney and Yoo, are still used to crush protest, most dramatically in the case of the incipient Occupy movement. But this emergency does more than threaten to extinguish the culture of democratic protest which sixty years ago gained significant victories against racial segregation and the Vietnam War. It has radically impaired such fundamental American rights as habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment guarding against unreasonable searches and seizures.

It is time, I suggest, to end the “war on terror”. As a first step, we should launch a campaign to terminate the State of Emergency instituted by Bush three days after 9/11, and since renewed annually – most recently by Obama on August 30, 2016.[50]

The anti-war movement in the 1970s empowered

Senator Charles Mathias, [and] Senator Frank Church… to

establish a Senate special committee to study the implications of terminating the 1950 proclamation of national emergency [for Korea!] that was being used to prosecute the Vietnam war.[51]

Their initial success in this limited endeavor led, as some of us can remember, to the whole host of post-Watergate reforms that were explicitly and successfully targeted by Vice-President Dick Cheney – the same reforms that need to be restored and enhanced today.

3424 words, 5155 with notes.

The possibility of a merger between German pharmaceutical and chemical company Bayer AG and multinational seed and pesticide corporation Monsanto Co. has just increased with the recent rounds of discussions between the two companies.

Having been in discussion regarding Bayer’s potential purchase of Monsanto for some time, Bayer has now suggested that it is now willing to offer more than $65 billion dollars. This is a two percent increase from the previous offer made by Bayer. On the other side of the deal, Monsanto has agreed to open its books for Bayer to conduct thorough checks into the company’s business status.

Bayer’s previous offer was already considered the biggest all-cash takeover bid on record. Bayer has stated that it is prepared to offer 127.50 per share – $2.50 more per share than its previous offer. “Both sides are gradually nearing consensus,” said one person familiar with the discussions and quoted by Reuters.

If Bayer does indeed purchase Monsanto it will give the company the opportunity to become one of the top dogs in the “farm supplies industry” an already highly consolidated market.

Bayer would be combining its crop science aspect with Monsanto’s near-monopoly in seeds. Monsanto has stated that it is continuing the conversation with Bayer. As well as evaluating Bayer’s offer, it also stated that it was evaluating proposals from other prospective buyers although it declined to name these other parties.

While the deal has a high probability of going through, one must also wonder what will happen to Monsanto’s shares if Bayer declines to purchase the corporation.

Regardless, another interesting aspect of the potential merger is the possibility that the merger itself might violate the Clayton Act, a law that Congress passed years ago to prevent anti-competitive business practices. In fact, a legal opinion, written by two former officials from the Justice Departments Anti-Trust division argues that the merger would do just that.

As Sum of Us summarizes,

• The merger would eliminate direct competition between two of the largest players in the traited seed sector, with direct consequences for seed development, herbicide markets, and innovative and open research and development.
• A merger will mean the new Bayer-Monsanto conglomerate will control nearly 70% of the cotton acreage in the United States – unacceptably high by antitrust standards. It would also have unacceptable market concentration in wide swaths of commercial seed development and sales for other commonly used varieties, including traited canola, soybeans, and corn developed in North America.
• The new corporation would likely lead to higher input prices, with less choice and higher food prices for consumers, and fewer non-biotechnology options available to farmers and consumers.

Natural and Non-Toxic Products. Up to 50% Off – Every Day (Ad)

The opinion argues that the Bayer-Monsanto merger would violate a 2008 court order that forced Monsanto to divest itself of certain cotton-breeding and cotton seed assets which were then sold to Bayer. If the merger goes through, Monsanto would necessarily reacquire these assets and thus, violate the court order.

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

 

The nationwide ceasefire in Syria concluded by Russia and the United States began at 16:00 GMT on September 12. Chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said that the Russian Aerospace Forces will continue to strike terrorist targets despite the ceasefire and Moscow and Washington are going to set up a joint coordination center for further coordination.

The Syrian government supported the ceasefire and a silence were reported at the most of Syrian frontlines.

Note: We bring to the attention of our readers this article originally published in June 2013

In a very recent presentation at the Ford School, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger commented on the current Syrian situation, expressing his preference for a broken-up and balkanized Syria to emerge out of the current Assad-controlled unity (from 19 minutes and 30 seconds onward):

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“There are three possible outcomes. An Assad victory. A Sunni victory. Or an outcome in which the various nationalities agree to co-exist together but in more or less autonomous regions, so that they can’t oppress each other. That’s the outcome I would prefer to see. But that’s not the popular view.”

After being introduced by the chair as “the honorable Dr. Kissinger”, the 90-year old power-broker began an interesting history lesson. Kissinger detailed how the current state of Syria was designed by European powers, as is the case with the neighboring state of Iraq:

“First of all, Syria is not a historic state. It was created in its present shape in 1920, and it was given that shape in order to facilitate the control of the country by France, which happened to be after UN mandate. The neighboring country Iraq was also given an odd shape, that was to facilitate control by England. And the shape of both of the countries was designed to make it hard for either of them to dominate the region.”

As a result of Syria’s a-historical origins, Kissinger explained, the current Syria was conceived as a more or less artificial national unity consisting of different tribes and ethnic groups. As the recent “revolution” is further spiraling into chaos, Kissinger comments on the nature of the current situation:

“In the American press it’s described as a conflict between democracy and a dictator- and the dictator is killing his own people, and we’ve got to punish him. But that’s not what’s going on. It may have been started by a few democrats. But on the whole it’s an ethnic and sectarian conflict.”

“It is now a civil war between sectarian groups”, Kissinger went on to state. “And I have to say we have misunderstood it from the beginning. If you read our media they say: we’ve got to get rid of Assad. And if we get rid of Assad, then we form a coalition government. Inconceivable. I’m all in favour of getting rid of Assad, but the dispute between us and the Russians on that issue, was that the Russians say: you start with getting rid of not just Assad, that’s not the issue, but you break up the state administration and you’ll wind up like in Iraq- that there is nothing to hold it together. And then you’ll have an even worse civil war. This is how that mess has taken the present form.”

Kissinger has commented previously on the desirability of breaking up dissenting nations into smaller fragments, after which the emerging chaos may facilitate their introduction into a global order. This, in essence, is the rule of divide and conquer. These recent comments by Kissinger are in step with previous statements in which he promulgates the idea that social upheaval and mass civil unrest are to be used as a means of merging nations (including, by the way, the United States) into an “international system”.

“The United States has to be part of an international system that we create domestically”, Kissinger told The Harvard Crimson in 2012. When asked what the most important problems are facing American society today, Kissinger then answered:

“Internationally, the problem is that there are upheavals going on in every part of the world, but these upheavals don’t follow the same basic causes, and so the United States has to be part of an international system that we create domestically.”

The concept of seizing crises and upheavals, the causes of which may differ from nation to nation, in order to bring about an international order- is neatly following the elite’s golden rule, namely that a global order is best brought about by chaos. Furthermore, Kissinger provides us with a glimpse of the underlying intent he and his fellow-bilderbergers have in mind, stating in so many words that civil unrest- be it economically, politically or socially motivated- must be seized upon in order to merge nations into the desired “international system” .

In a December 2008 Prisonplanet.com article it was reported that Kissinger, in an interview with Bilderberg-darling Charlie Rose, “cited the chaos being wrought across the globe by the financial crisis and the spread of terrorism as an opportunity to bolster a new global order.”, Steve Watson wrote.

“I think that when the new administration assesses the position in which it finds itself it will see a huge crisis and terrible problems, but I can see that it could see a glimmer in which it could construct an international system out of it”, Kissinger told Rose some years ago.

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This talk of crises and upheavals as just another country-specific means to a centralized global end could specifically point to an underlying transnational plan- a sinister concept that follows the course of classic Hegelian dialectic, namely the problem (whether real or feigned) provokes the reaction which in turn allows the elite to provide the solution on a silver platter. It occurred to me that Kissinger’s words are ominously reminiscent of those written down by University of Chicago’s Alexander Wendt, who in 2003 in his treatise titled Why a World State is Inevitable: teleology and the logic of anarchy stated:

“Nationalist struggles for recognition are by no means over, and more new states- “more anarchy”- may yet be created. But while further fragmentation is in one sense a step back, it is also a precondition for moving forward, since it is only when difference is recognized that a larger identity can be stable. (…) Far from suppressing nationalism, a world state will only be possible if it embraces it.”

These words may shed some light on the words uttered by Kissinger and his fellow supranationalists, in essence revealing they are very much aware of the fact that the mere proposition of a world state will not make it so- may even backfire on them when proposed too directly- and that the same goal may be better achieved via the fragmentation and balcanization of nation-states, whether in the East or West, in order to then merge those fragments into a global construct, usually described as the new world order.

False Flag Terror “Has Succeeded Consistently Against Audiences Around The World, For Millennia, To Compel War”

By Washington’s Blog, September 13 2016

La B61-12, la nuova bomba nucleare Usa destinata a sostituire la B-61 schierata in Italia e altri paesi europei, è stata «ufficialmente autorizzata» dalla National Nuclear Security Administration (Nnsa), l’agenzia del Dipartimento dell’Energia addetta a «rafforzare la sicurezza nazionale attraverso l’applicazione militare della scienza nucleare».

Dopo quattro anni di progettazione e sperimentazione, la Nnsa ha dato luce verde alla fase di ingegnerizzazione che prepara la produzione in serie. I molti componenti della B61-12 vengono progettati e testati nei laboratori nazionali di Los Alamos e Albuquerque (Nuovo Messico), di Livermore (California), e prodotti (utilizzando in parte quelli della B-61) in una serie di impianti in Missouri, Texas, Carolina del sud, Tennessee. Si aggiunge a questi la sezione di coda per la guida di precisione, fornita dalla Boeing. Le B61-12, il cui costo è previsto in 8-12 miliardi di dollari per 400-500 bombe,  cominceranno ad essere fabbricate in serie nell’anno fiscale 2020, che inizia il 1° ottobre 2019. Da allora cominceranno ad essere sostituite alle B-61.

Secondo le stime della Federazione degli scienziati americani (Fas), gli Usa mantengono oggi 70 bombe nucleari B-61 in Italia (50 ad Aviano e 20 a Ghedi-Torre), 50 in Turchia, 20 rispettivamente in Germania, Belgio e Olanda, per un totale di 180. Nessuno sa però con esattezza quante effettivamente siano: ad Aviano ci sono 18 bunker in grado di stoccarne oltre 70. In questa base e a Ghedi sono già state effettuate modifiche, come mostrano foto satellitari pubblicate dalla Fas. Analoghi preparativi sono in corso nelle altre basi in Europa e Turchia.

La Nnsa conferma ufficialmente che la B61-12, definita «elemento fondamentale della triade nucleare Usa» (terrestre, navale e aerea), sostituirà le attuali B61-3, -4, -7 e -10. Conferma quindi quanto abbiamo già documentato. La B61-12 non è una semplice versione ammodernata della precedente, ma una nuova arma: ha una testata nucleare a quattro opzioni di potenza selezionabili, con una potenza media pari a quella di quattro bombe di Hiroshima;  un sistema di guida che permette di sganciarla a distanza dall’obiettivo; la capacità  di penetrare nel terreno per distruggere i bunker dei centri di comando in un attacco nucleare di sorpresa. Le nuove bombe, che gli Usa si preparano a installare in Italia e altri paesi europei nel quadro della escalation contro la Russia, sono armi che abbassano la soglia nucleare, ossia rendono più probabile il lancio di un attacco nucleare.

La 31st Fighter Wing, la squadriglia di cacciabombardieri Usa F-16 dislocata ad Aviano, è pronta all’attacco nucleare ventiquattr’ore su ventiquattro. Anche piloti italiani, dimostra la Fas, vengono addestrati all’attacco nucleare sotto comando Usa con i cacciabombardieri Tornado schierati a Ghedi.

In attesa che arrivino anche all’aeronautica italiana i caccia F-35 nei quali, annuncia la U.S. Air Force, «sarà integrata la B61-12». La prima squadriglia di F-35, di stanza nella base Hill nello Utah, è stata ufficialmente dichiarata «combat ready» (pronta al combattimento).

La U.S. Air Force dice di non prevedere quando la squadriglia di F-35 sarà «combat proven» (provata in combattimento), ma che è «probabile un suo schieramento oltremare agli inizi del 2017».

La ministra Pinotti spera che venga schierata in Italia, già «scelta»  dagli Usa per l’installazione del Muos che «avrebbero voluto altre nazioni». Con le B61-12, gli F-35 e il Muos sul proprio territorio, l’Italia sarà anche scelta, dal paese attaccato, quale bersaglio prioritario della rappresaglia nucleare.

Manlio Dinucci

Russia’s official news agency TASS has confirmed that Russian troops are taking positions along the Aleppo road – the main road leading into Aleppo from the north, which was captured by the Syrian army in July.

News is coming in of a statement from the Syrian Military Command, claiming that Syrian air defenses have brought down an Israeli warplane and drone illegally entering Syrian airspace in Quneitra.  Quneitra is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria. It is situated in a high valley in the long disputed Golan Heights.

This report from Syrian Arab News Agency:

“Quneitra, SANA – The General Command of the Army and the Armed Forces announced on Tuesday that the Israeli enemy’s air force attacked a Syrian military position in the countryside of the southern Quneitra province around 1:00 am on September 13, 2016.

The General Command said the Syrian air defense forces responded to the attack and shot down an Israeli warplane to the southwest of Quneitra and an Israeli drone to the west of Sa’sa’.

It noted that the Israeli attack came in support of the armed terrorist groups and in a desperate attempt to raise the deteriorating morale of their members due to the heavy losses they have suffered in Quneitra.”

This report from Press TV:

“The Syrian army says it has shot down an Israeli warplane and a drone inside Syria following an Israeli attack on Syrian army positions in the south, state media report.

Syria’s official SANA news cited the Syrian military as saying that the intruding aircraft had been detected and targeted by the country’s air defense system while they were striking Syrian military positions. The warplane, it said, was downed in western Quneitra and the drone in an area called Sa’sa’ and located on the Damascus Reef.

Soon after the report, the Israeli military denied that any of its aircraft had been shot down in Syria, claiming that two missiles were fired at them during the airstrike on Quneitra but missed.

Israeli fighter jets had attacked two Syrian army cannons in the Golan Heights, where Quneitra is located, early on Tuesday morning. It was the fifth such attack in just over a week.

Israel seized parts of the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.”

“Never believe anything until it has been officially denied” – Claude Cockburn.

Israel is denying that it’s aircraft was downed by Syrian air defenses, according to the Independent:

“Israel has denied the Syrian government’s claim to have shot down an Israeli fighter jet and drone at the start of a fragile seven-day truce in the country’s civil war.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) immediately refuted the report, saying a Syrian anti-aircraft battery had shot at its aircraft but missed their target.

“Early this morning, two missiles were launched from Syria after the IAF targeted Syrian artillery positions,” a spokesperson said. “IDF aircraft were not harmed.”

Is it a coincidence that this Israeli invasion of Syrian airspace come after a powerful statement from Syria’s President, Bashar Al-Assad, discussing reconciliation, while visiting recently liberated Daraya,  and promising that Syria will re-take all terrorist held areas? Particularly when one considers that it is effectively Al Nusra [Al Qaeda in Syria]that has occupied the illegally Israeli claimed areas of the Golan Heights.  The same Al Nusra that is being treated in Israeli hospitals and that has never fired a shot in Israel’s direction.  Report from SANA:

“In statements to the national media, the President said “Visiting Daraya today has plenty of meanings. They may be symbolic, but they are not addressed to the Syrian people as I and the Syrian people… have been in the same situation since the beginning of the crisis.”

He added that the Syrian people have been aware of the reality of the conspiracy and the existence of traitors and agents and the external factor and share the same feelings whenever an area is taken by the terrorists, or liberated by the army or when a reconciliation agreement is achieved.

The President affirmed that the message of his visit to Daraya is addressed to those who have worked against Syria and bet on its collapse, especially those countries that got directly involved in conspiring against Syria and supporting the terrorists and the Syrian traitors and agents who chose to be part of the foreign plot.

“We as state, by coming to this area, also send a message to those [sides] that the Syrian state is determined to retake every area from the terrorists and restore security and safety,” stressed the President, adding that the state is also resolved to reconstruct all that has been destroyed physically and on the human level.

“We come here today to replace the false freedom they tried to market at the beginning of the crisis, including about Daraya, with the real freedom; the freedom that starts with restoring security and safety, goes through reconstruction and ends with the independent national decision,” said President al-Assad.

He reiterated that the message is addressed especially from Daraya “since there are some who were annoyed that [Daraya] was brought back home and had issued official statements, and they are Western officials.”

He addressed those parties saying “You are sad and extremely distressed, whereas we are happy; firstly because Daraya is back, and secondly because you are sad and distressed,” adding that the when the conspirators reach a point where they are feeling distressed, “it means that things are going in the right direction.”

The President dismissed as “malicious” and “dangerous” the talk about “demographic changes” being attempted by the Syrian state in the areas taken from the terrorists or where reconciliations happen.

He went on saying that this talk targets not only Daraya but Syria as a whole as it aims at creating the impression that the Syrian society is dismembered where social groups are at odds with each other to show that the Syrian cities are divided along sectarian, racial or religious lines.

The President however affirmed that there is no need to worry about this issue as this game has been played so many times, and that it has now become difficult to market such a concept as “demographic change” because the Syrian people have high-level awareness and they have learned a lot throughout the crisis.

As for his message regarding the areas that are still under the gunmen’s control, President al-Assad called on the Syrians to walk towards reconciliation, stressing that experience, especially over the past three years, showed that the Syrian state has kept all its promises and has always been open for reconciliation and for stopping the bloodshed.

The doors of the homeland, he reiterated, will always be open to those who want to get back on the right track at any time and at all levels.

“However, those who are determined and insist on acting as tools in return for a handful of dollars, we simply say to them ‘the armed forces will continue their work unhesitant and undaunted and regardless of any internal or external conditions until restoring security and safety to all areas in Syria,” the President said.”

Israel has a history of denying its military losses or downplaying its defeats.  The fact that the Military Command in Syria has made a public statement concerning their air defence reaction against this Israeli incursion into its airspace, particularly over the long disputed Golan Heights, demonstrates that Syria has reached the end of its patience with Israeli aggression and lawlessness.

This is potentially a game-changer.  It is a response to US and Israeli hegemony in the region that cannot be ignored.

To be updated.

Clinton and Trump represent the same class interests diametrically opposed to the majority. 

It has been a decade-and-a-half since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Consequently, the corporate media was filled over the weekend with numerous documentaries, interviews with those on the scene at the time as well as tributes to the armed forces of the United States which have been strengthened enormously in the midst of what some describe as a “permanent war.”

Almost nothing was said over the multinational-controlled networks about the toll that the increased imperialist militarism has leveled against the working people in the U.S. and the world through the process of deployment to unjust and illegal wars of regime-change, the loss of millions of lives in the impacted states and the burgeoning humanitarian crises leaving 60-75 million displaced both domestically and internationally. Looking at the situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia and Yemen, to name some of the most egregious, any objective observer could by no means conclude that the so-called “war on terrorism” has been a success even in Pentagon and State Department terms.

Inside the U.S. itself, the social conditions have worsened immensely since 2001. There has been a further militarism of law-enforcement leading to thousands of killings by the police of civilians. Racism and national oppression have intensified with the expansion of low-wage labor, the rise in structural unemployment, the continuing deterioration of the public education system, the collapse of municipal and rural infrastructure and unacceptable environmental degradation.

These issues are barely mentioned in the general discussions surrounding the political race between the Democrats and Republicans. More emphasis is placed on issues that are secondary to addressing the real needs of people inside the U.S. and those around the world which Washington and Wall Street have kept imperiled through massive bombing operations, military occupations, intelligence subversion, economic sanctions and psychological demoralization.

Health Matters: Are Clinton and Trump Fit for Office?

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to have fainted while attending an official ceremony held to commemorate the September 11 attacks in New York City. With the media spectacle that the national presidential elections have become, it was inevitable that the Clinton campaign’s concealment of serious health problems would eventually be broken open.

Clinton’s physician later issues a statement saying the Democratic candidate had been diagnosed with pneumonia just two days before and was put on antibiotics. If this is true then it demonstrates a degree of irresponsibility on the part of the campaign since people with such a serious ailment should be confined to rest for a number of weeks. Yet it would have been quite damaging for Clinton not to attend such a public event in which the entire imperialist project has been based upon ideologically for the last fifteen years.

Despite the pledge by both Clinton and Trump to release their medical records in a few days, the real sick people in the U.S. and internationally are those who have been subjected to the policies of successive U.S. administrations which promote war and escalating capitalist exploitation. These people numbering in the billions are not ever taken into consideration by the ruling class and those politicians who serve their interests in Congress, the Judiciary and the White House.

A poignant example of this disregard for the peoples of the world was reflected in statements by Clinton saying that “no Americans were lost in the Libya war.” Of course the corporate media quickly quoted officials who recalled the attacks of four years ago (2012) in Benghazi where Ambassador and high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Christopher Stevens along with four other intelligence operatives died in an attack on two American compounds in the city in eastern Libya which served as the cradle of the U.S.-backed counter-revolution against the Jamahiriya system led by Col. Muammar Gaddafi. However, what of the tens of thousands of Libyans, Africans and foreign nationals who died as a direct result of the rebel ground war and Pentagon-NATO led aerial bombardment of the North African state over a period of seven months during 2011? The millions of Libyans who were displaced in the war losing their livelihood and homes are not even considered by the Clinton campaign.

Libya today has become a major source of instability throughout North and West Africa leading across the Mediterranean into Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, not a single gesture of regret or contrition has been uttered by former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Clinton.

Trump as well in a September 12 address in Baltimore continued his utterances related to rebuilding the Pentagon and empowering the Generals to destroy ISIS. The reality is that the wars of regime-change and neo-colonial dominance which characterizes Washington’s foreign policy is at the root cause of the founding and proliferation of ISIS.

The Pentagon and the intelligence agencies already captures at least one trillion dollars annually in working people’s tax dollars to maintain the policies of permanent war. These resources could be utilized to rebuild the infrastructure and services of the U.S. There needs to be guaranteed national health insurance, free education, cleaning of the waterways, and mandatory full-employment as well as a living wage for those who work and the disabled.

This of course cannot be done as long as the Pentagon budget is considered sacrosanct along with the well-being and profitability of the financial institutions. The banks have been bailed out to the tune of trillions since 2008 with no end in sight. Nonetheless, the people who were victimized by the financial crisis such as homeowners, renters, students, teachers, civil servants and industrial workers have yet to receive any meaningful compensation for the crimes of capital.

The Imperatives of Socialist Construction

This raises the question of what a just and equal society would look like in the U.S. It would have to be a society governed by a system that would place the interests of the working people and nationally oppressed as being paramount.  The militarism which is such a cornerstone of the exploitative structures would have to be eliminated in order for any true picture of world events to come into view.

The advent of socialism in the U.S. would make a monumental contribution to the struggle against exploitation and oppression internationally. Much of the suffering and hunger in the world today stems directly from the policies of Washington and its financial backers in New York and other imperialist capitals around the globe.

Socialism cannot be built without socialists. Therefore, those committed to fundamental change from the capitalist relations of production to a genuinely egalitarian society must be involved in the socialist movement. The workers and nationally oppressed must be organized into a revolutionary party which could focus on the actual source of the contemporary crisis of inequality and super-exploitation. Alliances are required among the proletariat with the farmers and youth. Policy decisions would be seriously formulated and debated among the people insuring maximum participation in the political system. Everyone seeking justice would have an incentive to take ownership in the process of transforming their present situation leading to a socialist future.

These matters require serious thought and action. Only the masses and their organizations operating outside the established ruling class and it surrogates can bring these necessities into reality. This is the major challenge facing not only the people of the U.S. but indeed those around the world.

Obama, referring to the military coup in Chile, stated in 2011 that we should not be “trapped by our history.”

On September 9, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Desert Hawks Brigade, the Syrian Marines and and Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) started a full-scale advance on Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (formerly Jabhat Al Nusra) and Jaish al-Fatah terrorists in the province of Latakia. The advance was massively supported by airstrikes of Russian and Syrian warplanes and followed reports that 1,000 cadets completed a 6 month training cycle for the Syrian Marines by Russian military advisers and had been deployed at the frontline in northern Latakia.

By September 12, the loyalists captured a group of villages in northeastern and northwestern parts of the province and finished the day with pushing the terrorist alliance from the strategic Al-Ra’i Mountains. The control of Al-Ra’i Mountains allows the pro-government forces to overlook the countryside of Idlib province and the strategic village of Kabani.

The pro-government forces have also stormed Kabbani and the nearby mountaintops of Jabal Hassan Al-Ra’i, Tal Haddadeh, and Jabal Tufahiyah. As result of this move, the Syrian army and its allies captured Jabal Hassan Al-Ra’i and Jabal Al-Tufahiyah. However, they were unable to push terrorists from Kabani. Further attempts to do this are expected in the nearest future.

Meanwhile, reports appeared that Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham have agreed to surrender the last terrorist-controlled district of Homs, Al-Wa’er, to the Syrian government. The agreement includes transporting 300 militants and their families to the northern countryside of the Homs province.

Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, one of the largest Syrian militant groups, rejected the proposed ceasefire deal that would end all hostilities between non-terrorist factions inside the country, Al-Arabiya News reported on Sunday. Ahrar Al-Sham’s spokesperson “Abu Yousif Al-Muhajar” stated on Sunday that this ceasefire is “unacceptable” because it allegedly strengthens the pro-government forces. If true, this will likely undermine the shaky stability needed to implement the proposed agreement on the ground.

Update to the situation covered in the below video report by Washington’s Blog:

Since the video was made, the House and Senate have unanimously passed an act that could make it possible for US 9/11 victims to sue Saudis for their complicity in perpetrating the 9/11 attack.

Bush and Obama censored for more than a decade the evidence of Saudi involvement while they invaded Iraq, killing at least hundreds of thousands of people.

Obama is now reasserting his intention to veto the act, but, as Jason Ditz reports, will still allow “9/11 victims to sue Iran, even though Iran had nothing to do with the attack”.

Ditz continues that this is in keeping with the standard US practice of “protecting its allies [and itself] from lawsuits while setting up suits against international rivals”.  (The US has been attempting to reconquer Iran since 1979 when the US’s Iranian proxy-dictator, whom Amnesty International called one of the world’s worst human rights violators, was overthrown.)

Most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and the US-backed Saudi dictatorship appears to have also provided financial and other forms of support for the crime.

Iran appears to have had no involvement, and has instead been a major victim of US violence for many decades, with, for example, Saddam Hussein’s US-backed war of aggression against Iran killing up to a million Iranians, including with illegal chemical weapons provided to Hussein by the US and Europe:

“U.S. exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical-warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment.”

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror

In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally, in writing, or through photographs or videos:

(1)  In 1697, native American conspirators admitted in court that Iroquois leaders convinced a Piscataway tribesman to murder an Englishwoman in Virginia  for the purpose of igniting a war between the English and the Piscataway – thus weakening both parties – and allowing the Iroquois to seize Piscataway lands.

(2) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found: “Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this, this and this.

(3) A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland.

(4) The minutes of the high command of the Italian government – subsequently approved by Mussolini himself – admitted that violence on the Greek-Albanian border was carried out by Italians and falsely blamed on the Greeks, as an excuse for Italy’s 1940 invasion of Greece.

(5) Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

(6) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 – while blaming the attack on Finland – as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War.

(7) The Russian Parliament, current Russian president Putin and former Soviet leader Gorbachev all admit that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940, and then falsely blamed it on the Nazis.

(8) The British government admits that – between 1946 and 1948 – it bombed 5 ships carrying Jews attempting to flee the Holocaust to seek safety in Palestine, set up a fake group called “Defenders of Arab Palestine”, and then had the psuedo-group falsely claim responsibility for the bombings (and see this, thisand this).

(9) Israel admits that in 1954, an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind “evidence” implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this).

The U.S. Army does not believe this is an isolated incident. For example, the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies said of Mossad (Israel’s intelligence service):

“Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”

(10) The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

(11) The Turkish Prime Minister admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in Greece – also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey – and blamed it on Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence.

(12) The British Prime Minister admitted to his defense secretary that he and American president Dwight Eisenhower approved a plan in 1957 to carry out attacks in Syria and blame it on the Syrian government as a way to effect regime change.

(13) The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s through the 1980s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism.

As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” … so that “a state of emergency could be declared, so people would willingly trade part of their freedom for the security” (and see this) (Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred). And watch this BBC special. They also allegedly carried out terror attacks in France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and other countries.

The CIA also stressed to the head of the Italian program that Italy needed to use the program to control internal uprisings.

False flag attacks carried out pursuant to this program include – by way of example only:

• The murder of the Turkish Prime Minister (1960)

• Bombings in Portugal (1966)

• The Piazza Fontana massacre in Italy (1969)

• Terror attacks in Turkey (1971)

• The Peteano bombing in Italy (1972)

• Shootings in Brescia, Italy and a bombing on an Italian train (1974)

• Shootings in Istanbul, Turkey (1977)

• The Atocha massacre in Madrid, Spain (1977)

• The abduction and murder of the Italian Prime Minister (1978) (and see this)

• The bombing of the Bologna railway station in Italy (1980)

• Shooting and killing 28 shoppers in Brabant county, Belgium (1985)

(14) In 1960, American Senator George Smathers suggested that the U.S. launch “a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and [overthrow Castro]”.

(15) Official State Department documents show that, in 1961, the head of the Joint Chiefs and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. The plans were not carried out, but they were all discussed as serious proposals.

(16) As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in 1962, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

(17) In 1963, the U.S. Department of Defense wrote a paper promoting attacks on nations within the Organization of American States – such as Trinidad-Tobago or Jamaica – and then falsely blaming them on Cuba.

(18) The U.S. Department of Defense also suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: “The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on Guantanamo.”

(19) A U.S. Congressional committee admitted that – as part of its “Cointelpro” campaign – the FBI had used many provocateurs in the 1950s through 1970s to carry out violent acts and falsely blame them on political activists.

(20) A top Turkish general admitted that Turkish forces burned down a mosque on Cyprus in the 1970s and blamed it on their enemy. He explained: “In Special War, certain acts of sabotage are staged and blamed on the enemy to increase public resistance. We did this on Cyprus; we even burnt down a mosque.” In response to the surprised correspondent’s incredulous look the general said, “I am giving an example”.

(21) A declassified 1973 CIA document reveals a program to train foreign police and troops on how to make booby traps, pretending that they were training them on how to investigate terrorist acts:

The Agency maintains liaison in varying degrees with foreign police/security organizations through its field stations ….

[CIA provides training sessions as follows:]a. Providing trainees with basic knowledge in the uses of commercial and military demolitions and incendiaries as they may be applied in terrorism and industrial sabotage operations.

b. Introducing the trainees to commercially available materials and home laboratory techniques, likely to he used in the manufacture of explosives and incendiaries by terrorists or saboteurs.

c. Familiarizing the trainees with the concept of target analysis and operational planning that a saboteur or terrorist must employ.

d. Introducing the trainees to booby trapping devices and techniques giving practical experience with both manufactured and improvised devices through actual fabrication.

***

The program provides the trainees with ample opportunity to develop basic familiarity and use proficiently through handling, preparing and applying the various explosive charges, incendiary agents, terrorist devices and sabotage techniques.

(22) The German government admitted (and see this) that, in 1978, the German secret service detonated a bomb in the outer wall of a prison and planted “escape tools” on a prisoner – a member of the Red Army Faction – which the secret service wished to frame the bombing on.

(23) A Mossad agent admits that, in 1984, Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Gaddaffi’s compound in Tripoli, Libya which broadcast fake terrorist transmissions recorded by Mossad, in order to frame Gaddaffi as a terrorist supporter. Ronald Reagan bombed Libya immediately thereafter.

(24) The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that, in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force) approached an explosives expert and asked him “to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident”, thus framing the ANC for the bombing.

(25) An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that, in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit Against Author).

(26) In 1993, a bomb in Northern Ireland killed 9 civilians. Official documents from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (i.e. the British government) show that the mastermind of the bombing was a British agent, and that the bombing was designed to inflame sectarian tensions. And see this and this.

(27) The United States Army’s 1994 publication Special Forces Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces – updated in 2004 – recommends employing terrorists and using false flag operations to destabilize leftist regimes in Latin America. False flag terrorist attacks were carried out in Latin America and other regions as part of the CIA’s “Dirty Wars“. And see this.

(28) Similarly, a CIA “psychological operations” manual prepared by a CIA contractor for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels noted the value of assassinating someone on your own side to create a “martyr” for the cause. The manual was authenticated by the U.S. government. The manual received so much publicity from Associated Press, Washington Post and other news coverage that – during the 1984 presidential debate – President Reagan was confronted with the following question on national television:

At this moment, we are confronted with the extraordinary story of a CIA guerrilla manual for the anti-Sandinista contras whom we are backing, which advocates not only assassinations of Sandinistas but the hiring of criminals to assassinate the guerrillas we are supporting in order to create martyrs.

(29) A Rwandan government inquiry admitted  that the 1994 shootdown and murder of the Rwandan president, who was from the Hutu tribe – a murder blamed by the Hutus on the rival Tutsi tribe, and which led to the massacre of more than 800,000 Tutsis by Hutus – was committed by Hutu soldiers and falsely blamed on the Tutis.

(30) An Indonesian government fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998, and determined that “elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked”.

(31) Senior Russian Senior military and intelligence officers admit that the KGB blew up Russian apartment buildings in 1999 and falsely blamed it on Chechens, in order to justify an invasion of Chechnya (and see this report and this discussion).

(32) As reported by the New York Times, BBC and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that in 2001, the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the “war on terror”. luring foreign migrants into the country, executing them in a staged gun battle, and then claiming they were a unit backed by Al Qaeda intent on attacking Western embassies”. Macedonian authorities had lured the immigrants into the country, and then – after killing them – posed the victims with planted evidence – “bags of uniforms and semiautomatic weapons at their side” – to show Western diplomats.

(33) At the July 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, black-clad thugs were videotaped getting out of police cars, and were seen by an Italian MP carrying “iron bars inside the police station”. Subsequently, senior police officials in Genoa subsequently admitted that police planted two Molotov cocktails and faked the stabbing of a police officer at the G8 Summit, in order to justify a violent crackdown against protesters.

(34) The U.S. falsely blamed Iraq for playing a role in the 9/11 attacks – as shown by a memo from the defense secretary – as one of the main justifications for launching the Iraq war.

Even after the 9/11 Commission admitted that there was no connection, Dick Cheney said that the evidence is “overwhelming” that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime, that Cheney “probably” had information unavailable to the Commission, and that the media was not ‘doing their homework’ in reporting such ties. Top U.S. government officials now admit that the Iraq war was really launched for oil … not 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.

Despite previous “lone wolf” claims, many U.S. government officials now say that 9/11 was state-sponsored terror; but Iraq was not the state which backed the hijackers. (Many U.S. officials have allegedthat 9/11 was a false flag operation by rogue elements of the U.S. government; but such a claim is beyond the scope of this discussion. The key point is that the U.S. falsely blamed it on Iraq, when it knew Iraq had nothing to do with it.).

(Additionally, the same judge who has shielded the Saudis for any liability for funding 9/11 has awarded a default judgment against Iran for $10.5 billion for carrying out 9/11 … even though no one seriously believes that Iran had any part in 9/11.)

(35) Although the FBI now admits that the 2001 anthrax attacks were carried out by one or more U.S. government scientists, a senior FBI official says that the FBI was actually told to blame the Anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda by White House officials (remember what the anthrax letters looked like). Government officials also confirm that the white House tried to link the anthrax to Iraq as a justification for regime change in that country. And see this.

(36) According to the Washington Post, Indonesian police admit that the Indonesian military killed American teachers in Papua in 2002 and blamed the murders on a Papuan separatist group in order to get that group listed as a terrorist organization.

(37) The well-respected former Indonesian president also admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings.

(38) Police outside of a 2003 European Union summit in Greece were filmed planting Molotov cocktails on a peaceful protester.

(39) Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”

(40) Similarly, in 2005, Professor John Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate School – a renowned US defense analyst credited with developing the concept of ‘netwar’ – called for western intelligence services to create new “pseudo gang” terrorist groups, as a way of undermining “real” terror networks. According to Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, Arquilla’s ‘pseudo-gang’ strategy was, Hersh reported, already being implemented by the Pentagon:

“Under Rumsfeld’s new approach, I was told, US military operatives would be permitted to pose abroad as corrupt foreign businessmen seeking to buy contraband items that could be used in nuclear-weapons systems. In some cases, according to the Pentagon advisers, local citizens could be recruited and asked to join up with guerrillas or terrorists…

The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls ‘action teams’ in the target countries overseas which can be used to find and eliminate terrorist organizations. ‘Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?’ the former high-level intelligence official asked me, referring to the military-led gangs that committed atrocities in the early nineteen-eighties. ‘We founded them and we financed them,’ he said. ‘The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren’t going to tell Congress about it.’ A former military officer, who has knowledge of the Pentagon’s commando capabilities, said, ‘We’re going to be riding with the bad boys.’”

(41) United Press International reported in June 2005:

U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

(42) In 2005, British soldiers dressed as Arabs were caught by Iraqi police after a shootout against the police. The soldiers apparently possessed explosives, and were accused of attempting to set off bombs. While none of the soldiers admitted that they were carrying out attacks, British soldiers and a column of British tanks stormed the jail they were held in, broke down a wall of the jail, and busted them out. The extreme measures used to free the soldiers – rather than have them face questions and potentially stand trial – could be considered an admission.

(43) Undercover Israeli soldiers admitted in 2005 to throwing stones at other Israeli soldiers so they could blame it on Palestinians, as an excuse to crack down on peaceful protests by the Palestinians.

(44) Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers (and see this).

(45) A 2008 US Army special operations field manual recommends that the U.S. military use surrogate non-state groups such as “paramilitary forces, individuals, businesses, foreign political organizations, resistant or insurgent organizations, expatriates, transnational terrorism adversaries, disillusioned transnational terrorism members, black marketers, and other social or political ‘undesirables.’” The manual specifically acknowledged that U.S. special operations can involve both counterterrorism and “Terrorism” (as well as “transnational criminal activities, including narco-trafficking, illicit arms-dealing, and illegal financial transactions.”)

(46) The former Italian Prime Minister, President, and head of Secret Services (Francesco Cossiga) advised the 2008 minister in charge of the police, on how to deal with protests from teachers and students:

He should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior … infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs inclined to do anything …. And after that, with the strength of the gained population consent, … beat them for blood and beat for blood also those teachers that incite them. Especially the teachers. Not the elderly, of course, but the girl teachers yes.

(47) At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence.

(48) Egyptian politicians admitted (and see this) that government employees looted priceless museum artifacts 2011 to try to discredit the protesters.

(49) In 2011, a Colombian colonel admitted that he and his soldiers had lured 57 innocent civilians and killed them – after dressing many of them in uniforms – as part of a scheme to claim that Columbia was eradicating left-wing terrorists. And see this.

(50) Rioters who discredited the peaceful protests against the swearing in of the Mexican president in 2012 admitted that they were paid 300 pesos each to destroy everything in their path. According to Wikipedia, photos also show the vandals waiting in groups behind police lines prior to the violence.

(51) A Colombian army colonel has admitted that his unit murdered 57 civilians, then dressed them in uniforms and claimed they were rebels killed in combat.

(52) On November 20, 2014, Mexican agent provocateurs were transported by army vehicles to participate in the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping protests, as was shown by videos and pictures distributed via social networks.

(53) The highly-respected writer for the Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the head of Saudi intelligence – Prince Bandar – recently admitted that the Saudi government controls “Chechen” terrorists.

(54) Two members of the Turkish parliament, high-level American sources and others admitted that the Turkish government – a NATO country – carried out the chemical weapons attacks in Syria and falsely blamed them on the Syrian government; and high-ranking Turkish government admitted on tape plans to carry out attacks and blame it on the Syrian government.

(55) The Ukrainian security chief admits that the sniper attacks which started the Ukrainian coup were carried out in order to frame others. Ukrainian officials admit that the Ukrainian snipers fired on both sides, to create maximum chaos.

(56) Burmese government officials admitted that Burma (renamed Myanmar) used false flag attacks against Muslim and Buddhist groups within the country to stir up hatred between the two groups, to prevent democracy from spreading.

(57) Israeli police were again filmed in 2015 dressing up as Arabs and throwing stones, then turning over Palestinian protesters to Israeli soldiers.

(58) Britain’s spy agency has admitted (and see this) that it carries out “digital false flag” attacks on targets, framing people by writing offensive or unlawful material … and blaming it on the target.

(59) U.S. soldiers have admitted that if they kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants

(60) Similarly, police frame innocent people for crimes they didn’t commit. The practice is so well-known that the New York Times noted in 1981:

In police jargon, a throwdown is a weapon planted on a victim.

Newsweek reported in 1999:

Perez, himself a former [Los Angeles Police Department] cop, was caught stealing eight pounds of cocaine from police evidence lockers. After pleading guilty in September, he bargained for a lighter sentence by telling an appalling story of attempted murder and a “throwdown”–police slang for a weapon planted by cops to make a shooting legally justifiable. Perez said he and his partner, Officer Nino Durden, shot an unarmed 18th Street Gang member named Javier Ovando, then planted a semiautomatic rifle on the unconscious suspect and claimed that Ovando had tried to shoot themduring a stakeout.

Wikipedia notes:

As part of his plea bargain, Pérez implicated scores of officers from the Rampart Division’s anti-gang unit, describing routinely beating gang members, planting evidence on suspects, falsifying reports and covering up unprovoked shootings.

(As a side note – and while not technically false flag attacks – police have been busted framing innocent people in many other ways, as well.)

(61) A former U.S. intelligence officer recently alleged:

Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services.

(62) The head and special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office said that most terror attacks are committed by the CIA and FBI as false flags. Similarly, the director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan – Lt. General William Odom said:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

(audio here).

(63) The Director of Analytics at the interagency Global Engagement Center housed at the U.S. Department of State, also an adjunct professor at George Mason University, where he teaches the graduate course National Security Challenges in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology, a former branch chief in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, and an intelligence advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security (J.D. Maddox) notes:

Provocation is one of the most basic, but confounding, aspects of warfare.  Despite its sometimes obvious use, it has succeeded consistently against audiences around the world, for millennia,  to  compel  war.  A  well-constructed  provocation  narrative  mutes  even  the  most vocal opposition.

***

The  culmination  of  a strategic  provocation  operation  invariably  reflects  a  narrative  of  victimhood:  we  are  the
victims of the enemy’s unforgivable atrocities.

***

In the case of strategic provocation the deaths of an aggressor’s own personnel are a core tactic of the provocation.

***

The persistent use of strategic provocation over centuries – and its apparent importance to war planners – begs the question of its likely use by the US and other states in the near term.

(64) Leaders throughout history have acknowledged the “benefits” of of false flags to justify their political agenda:

“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death”.
– Adolph Hitler

“Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

“The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened”.
– Josef Stalin

Postscript: The media plays along as well. For example, in 2012, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, was kidnapped in Syria. NBC News said that Engel and his reporting team had been abducted by forces affiliated with the Syrian government. He reported that they only escaped when some anti-Syrian government rebels killed some of the pro-government kidnappers.

However, NBC subsequently admitted that this was false. It turns out that they were really kidnapped by people associated with the U.S. backed rebels fighting the Syrian government … who wore the clothes of, faked the accent of, scrawled the slogans of, and otherwise falsely impersonated the mannerisms of people associated with the Syrian government. In reality, the group that kidnapped Engel and his crew were affiliated with the U.S.-supported Free Syrian Army, and NBC should have known that it was blaming the wrong party. See the New York Times and the Nation’s reporting.

Of course, sometimes atrocities or warmongering are falsely blamed on the enemy as a justification for war … when no such event ever occurred. This is sort of like false flag terror … without the terror.

For example:

• The NSA admits that it lied about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 … manipulating data to make it look like North Vietnamese boats fired on a U.S. ship so as to create a false justification for the Vietnam war

• One of the central lies used to justify the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait was the false statement by a young Kuwaiti girl that Iraqis murdered Kuwaiti babies in hospitals. Her statement was arranged by a Congressman who knew that she was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S. – who was desperately trying to lobby the U.S. to enter the war – but the Congressman hid that fact from the public and from Congress

• Another central lie used to justify the Gulf War was the statement that a quarter of a million Iraqi troops were massed on the border with Saudi Arabia (see also this article)

• Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind reported that the White House ordered the CIA to forge and backdate a document falsely linking Iraq with Muslim terrorists and 9/11 … and that the CIA complied with those instructions and in fact created the forgery, which was then used to justify war against Iraq. And see this and this

• Time magazine points out that the claim by President Bush that Iraq was attempting to buy “yellow cake” Uranium from Niger:

had been checked out — and debunked — by U.S. intelligence a year before the President repeated it.

• Everyone knew that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. More

• The entire torture program was geared towards obtaining false confessions linking Iraq and 9/11

• CIA agents and documents admit that the agency gave Iran plans for building nuclear weapons … so it could frame Iran for trying to build the bomb

• The “humanitarian” wars in Syria, Libya and Yugoslavia were all justified by exaggerated reports that the leaders of those countries were committing atrocities against their people. And see this

Bending the will to celebrate life and beauty in a city like Damascus is something that six years of war was not able to achieve; not even 600 years of war would do it.

It is no secret to anyone that the amount of damage done to archeological and cultural heritage of Syrian cities has exceeded anything recorded in human history so far. Yet, Damascus with all its greatness and will to remain strong and glorious, and despite its wounds, has decided to enter the race and document its amazing heritage in different fields of creativity.

 

Damascene artifacts are known worldwide for their high quality and their charming beauty; those artifacts have been passed from one generation to the next for centuries, from great grandparents to sons and grandchildren. Folktales, music, architecture, music, literature, design and many other domains have made Damascus over the ages a pilgrimage site for lovers of all forms of art and folklore.

The Creative Cities Network is currently formed by 116 Members from 54 countries covering seven creative fields: Crafts & Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Music and Media Arts. Damascus now is compiling its nomination file for becoming a member of UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network.

Please Support and share publications of this page (Damascus A Creative City) and help maintain the remains of our Syrian precious culture.

Also support the hashtag #DamscusCreativeCity  #دمشق_مدينة_مبدعة

Over the past 15 years many highly respected academics and experts have come forward to challenge the official narrative on the collapse of the WTC towers forwarded by the U.S. government. The official government position holds that the collapse of all three towers was due to intense heat inside of the buildings.

But a new forensic investigation into the collapse of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11, published in Europhysics News – a highly respected European physics magazine – claims that “the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that all three buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition.”

While many in the mainstream have attempted to label anyone questioning the official narrative as “tin foil hat” conspiracy theorist, many highly respected experts have come forward to lampoon the idea that the buildings collapsed due to the intense heat and fires following two terrorist-directed plane crashes.

“Given the far-reaching implications, it is morally imperative that this hypothesis be the subject of a truly scientific and impartial investigation by responsible authorities,” the four physicists conclude in the damning report.

The new study is the work of Steven Jones, former full professor of physics at Brigham Young University, Robert Korol, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, Anthony Szamboti, a mechanical design engineer with over 25 years of structural design experience in the aerospace and communications industries and Ted Walter, the director of strategy and development for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a nonprofit organization that today represents more than 2,500 architects and engineers.

The comprehensive study in Europhysics Magazine directly challenges the official narrative and lends to a growing body of evidence that seriously questions the veracity of the government narrative.

In 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology remarked that the case was exceptionally bizarre. There were no other known cases of total structural collapses in high-rise buildings caused by fires and so it is deeply unusual that it should have happened three times in the space of one day, noted NIST.

Official investigations have never been able to thoroughly and coherently explain how this might have happened and various teams tasked with examining the collapse have raised difficult questions about the veracity of the government’s story.

Perhaps most damning of all, the experts claimed that after a thorough forensic analysis of video footage of the building’s collapse, it revealed signs of a controlled implosion. Additionally, Jones has co-authored a number of papers documenting evidence of unreacted nano-thermitic material in the WTC dust.

The authors of the study note that the buildings fell with such speed and symmetry that they there was no other feasible explanation for the sudden collapse at free fall speeds – directly refuting studies that attempted to debunk the idea that the building fell without resistance. These respected experts’ new forensic analysis only adds to the growing movement of people calling for a new and impartial investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Revealing the scope and breadth of public disbelief in the official government narrative surrounding the events of 9/11, even presidential candidate Jill Stein has recently called for a new investigation.

Last week, Pope Francis and church officials encouraged everyone to consume less and think more about our impact on the environment.

It’s a timely warning because the next six months will be critical to our future.

Ahead of a series of major events later this year, The Foundation for Deep Ecology and the Population Media Center released a collection that illustrates the devastating effects of out-of-control growth and waste, and it’s breathtaking.

“This is an issue that people care about, and oftentimes it’s just not discussed by mainstream media,” Missie Thurston, director of marketing and communications at the Population Media Center, told Mic.

It’s difficult to always know the impacts of our daily choices, like the real effect of buying a bottled water or an extra TV or laptop. With 220,000 more people on the planet every day, and the average person generating over 4 pounds of waste a day — an almost 60% increase since 1960 — the impact of that growth and change in behavior is rarely seen like this.

 Source: Peter Essick/Foundation for Deep Ecology

 Electronic waste, from around the world, is shipped to Accra, Ghana, where locals break apart the electronics for minerals or burn them. 

Source: Pablo Lopez Luz/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Mexico City, Mexico, one of the most populous cities in the Western Hemisphere.

 Source: Digital Globe/Foundation for Deep Ecology

New Delhi, India, where many landfills are reaching a breaking point. The surrounding population of Delhi totals some 25 million people. 

Source: Mike Hedge/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Los Angeles, California, which is famous for sometimes having more cars than people.

Source: Mark Gamba/Corbis/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Kern River Oil Field, California, USA.

Source: Daniel Dancer/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Former old-growth forest leveled for reservoir development, Willamette National Forest, Oregon, per the Population Media Center.

Source: Jason Hawkes/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Coal power plant, United Kingdom.

Source: Cotton Coulson/Keenpress/Foundation for Deep Ecology

North East Land, Svalbard, Norway, where rising global temperatures are fundamentally changing the ecology.

Source: Digital Globe/Foundation for Deep Ecology

The world’s largest diamond mine, Russia.

Source: Daniel Beltra/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Amazon jungle burns to make room for grazing cattle, Brazil.

Source: Garth Lentz/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Tar sands and open pit mining in an area so vast, it can be seen from space. Alberta, Canada.

Source: Daniel Dancer/Foundation for Deep Ecology

 Tires discarded in Nevada.

Source: Garth Lentz/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Vancouver Island, Canada.

Source: Yann Arthus Bertrand/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Industrial agriculture in Almeria, Spain, stretches for miles.

Source: Garth Lentz/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Tar sands, Alberta, Canada.

Source: Lu Guang/Foundation for Deep Ecology

 A man turns away from the smell of the Yellow River in China.

Source: M.R. Hasasn/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Bangladesh, where much of the world’s clothing and goods are manufactured.

Source: Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman/Foundation for Deep Ecology

Black Friday, Boise, Idaho.

Source: Zak Noyle/Foundation for Deep Ecology

A remote bay in Java, Indonesia, where local residents, without infrastructure for waste disposal, discard waste directly into streams and rivers.

The rest of the year is going to be critical. In September, world leaders will try and agree on sustainable development goals that will take us through 2030. In December, in Paris, the United Nations will attempt to finally set binding limits on pollution. 2015 will dictate how we address our degrading planet over the next few decades.

The Population Media Center and partners hope these photos will help generate awareness and action. Because as the word spreads, so does the will to make sure we never have to see images like these again.

September eleventh, two thousand & one, was a very strange day. Of course we are told, enemies, hostile to Americans, people hating our Freedoms, attacked various locations near the heart and control centers of American power, New York City and Washington, DC.

We were told hijackers acting in synchronicity, boarded state of the art airliners in several cities, carrying passports and box cutters (like a “shank” used in prison), quickly overwhelmed the cockpits of the various airliners and soon were at the controls – piloting mankind’s most sophisticated flying machines toward a nefarious destiny. We later learn these pilots had trained to fly the world’s most sophisticated jet airliners by obtaining a few hours of training in single engine, high winged, Cessna airplanes.

At the same time, unfortunately, airspace drills were in progress around the East coast; drills ironically, simulating airliners being hijacked by Terrorists. These drills made it difficult for air traffic controllers to respond fast enough to the dangers of the commandeered flights — leaving the world’s most advanced and technologically guarded nation blind to the deliberate acts of destruction that were to follow. On that fateful and strange day, the FAA was unable to ask for “escort service” from the National Military Command Center and like the rest of the day that too was strange.

The story goes that airliners were flown into two populated skyscrapers in New York City as well as the Pentagon in Washington DC, and the last crashing straight into the ground at “Shank”sville, Pennsylvania.

According to an article in the Associated Press, the government referred to the excessive number of military drills in progress as a “bizarre coincidence.” According to many researchers there were more than 40 coinciding drills in action on that very strange day.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner : Isn t it a fact, Sir, that prior to September 11th, 2001, NORAD had already in the works, plans to simulate in an exercise, a simultaneous hijacking of two planes in the United States?

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley : Col. Scott, do you have any data on that? I m not aware of that, Sir. I was not present at the time.

Richard Ben-Veniste,Commissioner:  That was operation Amalgam Virgo.

Col. Alan Scott:  Yes, Sir. Specifically, operation Amalgam Virgo, which I was involved in before I retired.

Col. Stephen N. Wood  : By sheer coincidence we were scheduled to conduct Timely Alert II,’ a force protection exercise on Sept. 11 and because of that, some of the concrete barriers were already in place.

And Operation “Operation Northern Vigilance” in progress that day, conveniently, or should I say coincidently, sent jets patrolling the U.S. east coast to Alaska and Canada; how strange.

Operation “Vigilant Guardian,” a fourth drill in progress that strange morning, also simulated hijacked planes.

And lets not forget “Operation Vigilant Warrior,” in progress likely as “Vigilante Guardian’s” nemesis.

Regardless of the how Vigilant the military and NORAD may practice to become, they were conspicuously and coincidently very un-vigilant on that very strange day.

More strange, however, than the enormous numbers of drills in progress on that fateful day, was the coincidental collapse of the laws of physics and several laws of nature. Perhaps the Laws of Nature were too busy drilling a possible attack on the laws of physics and missed the opportunity to control the events of 9-11.

It was on that very strange day when three massive, modern, heavy and flying fast airliners purportedly slammed into two buildings, each constructed with over 650,000 tons of concrete and steel, each reinforced to sustain just such a collision and internally fortified with flame retardant steel coatings, and the third into the United States Pentagon Building, a concrete reinforced super fortress, and in each case not leaving a single trace of the airliners in view.

In the case of the of the Pentagon – it is the most surveilled building on the planet with likely more than 80 cameras filming the area during the attack, but only five frames of blurry videowere made available, years later, to study the attack.

In the case of the video shown of Flight 175 for example, it appears on this very strange day, the World Trade Center seem to have turned temporarily into butter. The plane fully loaded with fuel and passengers surrounded by thin aluminum wings and fuselage is seen clearly swallowed into the building on the videos produced for public consumption that day.

A massive standing tower of concrete and steel, with an acre of concrete on each floor, exhibiting enormous short term physical inertia (the planes having only three one-hundredths of one percent of the mass of each Tower) which, on any other day, would have caused a gigantic external explosion followed by a blast of aluminum fragments, fuel, cargo and people. The 767’s twin Titanium 9000 lb engines should have produced massive indentations in the concrete and steel reinforced buildings, perhaps entering the buildings, but even these massive chunks of heavy metal would have met the massive wall of the World Trade Center, like an automobile slamming into the front end of a Mac Truck; the truck remaining largely intact as the car is stopped in its tracks.

The photos and videos show airliners being swallowed whole by the World Trade Centers – leaving nothing behind but a silhouette, much like Wiley Coyote launched through a wall chasing the Road Runner; this can only be explained as a temporary lapse in the laws of physics and nature – again it was a very strange day.

At the Pentagon, the full throttled 757 flying in ground effect (making it very difficult to keep the airplane close to the ground – but these were highly trained Cessna pilots) just above the cars, knocking down lamp posts in the parking lot, again finds the laws of nature rescinded and is totally and utterly consumed by the building producing a gigantic, nearly circular, opening in the Pentagon wall into which the entire plane, wings and landing gear and enormous engines are swallowed. Luckily for the environment, not even the grass on the lawn outside the building was scraped or damaged, and nothing **at all** remained of the gigantic twin engine 127,000 lb. airliner; no engines, wings, passengers, luggage, miles of cable, debris, nothing!

According to the CNN crew who showed up within minutes of the alleged crash, “There is no evidence of a plane hitting anywhere near the Pentagon.”

Again, the Pentagon turns to butter and a 757 folds itself into the shape of a torpedo and vanishes into circular hole that Donald Rumsfeld accidentally referred to as the result of amissile hitting the Pentagon. Perhaps it was a Stargate and the 757 loaded with crew and passengers entered a worm hole – destined for a planet in Alpha Prime.

In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the site of the newly created, 9-11 Memorial (reinforcing the trauma of 9-11), the ground opened up and swallows yet another airplane – It turns out flight 93 had also located a “butter-gate” and disappeared without a trace into the ground – nothing remained. No Plane Found

On that Very Strange Day, steel melted at temperatures far below the natural melting point – reaffirming, the Laws of Physics and Nature were temporarily out service

The World Trade Centers — constructed with 650,000 tons of concrete and steel (top to very bottom); each floor rising skyward capable of sustaining the weight of all the other floors above and more as a safety factor of at least double was the standard engineering practice of the day – mysteriously collapse into its own footprint, reportedly the result of a pancake collapse resulting from collapsing caused by a weakness created by a kerosene fire and the steel support system melted, leaving the entire structure to fall at damn near free fall speeds.

It was a very strange day, because in order for a building, any building, to fall at close to free fall speeds, there must be almost nothing in the way of the fall, just air. In the case of the World Trade Centers, that would mean miles of steel reinforcing beams forming structural squares the length of the building would have to be removed. It would mean the concrete could not pile up on itself, slowing the fall and creating a compaction of very low compressible materials, which might also slow the fall, while creating a standing lump of steel and concrete. Surely this is only possible on certain days when nature is called away.

On that Strange Day … we are told kerosene melted the supporting steel beams and the building collapsed. But on a normal day, in a normal reality, kerosene burns at 800 F, and if has a lot of oxygen and the right air flow to move the burnt hydrocarbons away from the conflagration, it might reach temps of 1500 F under optimum conditions of oxygen; far below the 2600+ degrees F required to melt untreated steel – but wait, the WTC steel was treated with flame retardants and should have been resistant even at higher temps – not that day.

The “other” World Trade Center, building 7 fell at exactly free fall speed and strangely enough was never hit by an airliner or any other contrivance. It just fell to ground in a controlled demolition which was announced in advance on the BBC – predicted in advance . Prepping the building for a controlled demolition would have taken many days or weeks to be setup so it could be properly gutted by internal explosions before the then helpless outer shell could fall unimpeded. The non-critical thinking public was told Building 7 suffered collateral fire damage and kerosene fuel tank explosions which weakened the building enough to do its own controlled demolition – perhaps the greatest example of the suspension of the Laws of Nature of the entire day.

 

On this very strange day, the hijackers of the airliners who disappeared into the “butter-gate” were never listed as passengers on the plane’s passenger list — meaning they just walked on board. For the rest of us, we have to show our tickets and the tickets are confirmed by a passenger list. Even higher strangeness followed as some of the hijackers, after having flown these planes and themselves into buildings and the ground, turned up alive living in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and elsewhere.

And it stays strange all day, as we learn two of the airliners supposedly destroyed in 9-11 were shown by air traffic control data to be in the air . It’s easy to see that either the laws of Nature, especially the laws of Physics, were either repealed on this day OR the stories presented as explanations for the events of 9-11 are totally fabricated, egregious, hateful lies causing trauma and the loss of critical thinking skills for most American people. I’m going with the latter.

The events as told by the news media, and the official reports of 9-11 commission, include impossible and mocking explanations of how the World Trade Centers were destroyed and how the Pentagon was damaged and the story of the crash at Shanksville is just hatefully insulting.

Itis not enough though, our reality is fabricated and most everything Americans believe is not true.

We’ll know our disinformation program is a success when everything the American public believes is false. ..” CIA Director William Casey candidly remarked in early February 1981

It’s also necessary for the fabricators to mock and insult Americans while they do the injury and harm. The official account of the events of 9-11 is a farce, a silly fairy tale, except no one lived happily ever after.

The events of 9-11 required the pretension of airliners being used as missiles — slamming into buildings (buildings designed to withstand such an event) and ensuing fires causing the Titans of steel and concrete to melt to the ground. The sad mockery of the 9-11 events is: no airplanes were involved directly with the attacks and these secondary stories of passengers meeting their deaths, phone calls from the planes, silly slogans like “lets roll” are all mockingly false.

What really happened to the possible passengers on two of the flights (the other two were never actually scheduled to fly on that strange day) we are not yet aware — but we know for sure, no passenger airliners ever crashed into buildings and they are likely still flying to this day.

It’s possible, and necessary, for people to think for themselves. The fabricators of our pop culture and scripted and invented current events are using ancient magic to control the mind and steer the heart via emotional, trauma based, cyclic injections of fear and over the top mega-lies.

For America the nation, a bitter end has been planned and it’s in progress and quickly becoming visible. When people cannot think for themselves and have no options but to accept the invented reality spun from fear and the spurious authority of psychopaths in costume, there is no opportunity to live as a means to your own ends. Living in this “Truman Show” is the life of a prop, a pawn in someone else’s game – a servant at best, a slave, powerless and with increasing despair.

9-11 was a trial run, just like media hyped mass shootings, such as the Faked Sandy Hook Shooting and the B-Movie Faked Bombing in Boston and many, many others. In some cases people die, in others the entire event is faked – but most people never catch on. They are forced to live in fear and suffer and offer up their wealth and Liberties as an offering to the gods of State created Terrorism in hopes that maybe this will be last time.

 Funk and Wagonals 1946 definition.

When my union, the National Union of Journalists, has been campaigning about secret state surveillance it has often felt like we are boxing with shadows.
No member of the public is allowed to know the extent of the types of operations involved and no-one is able to access the policies that relate to whether or not journalists and trade unionists are being put under surveillance.

The government’s response has been to draft the Investigatory Powers Bill, a new legal framework that specifies some of the state’s power. The measures in the Bill include the ability to intercept and target electronic communications, including emails, social media and mobile phones; it also allows the state to collect general internet browsing records and to hack into computers.

The Bill can be summed up as a human rights nightmare, one that sends the wrong message to the rest of the world about how we operate.

It also means that as a society we are redefining the acceptable boundaries of what the state can do to its citizens without their knowledge or consent.
To give just one example — according to the Home Office, you might have bought your mobile phone and continue to pay the bill but the information it holds is not yours but your service provider’s.

The Bill allows the state to compel your service provider to give them all your electronic information and they can get their hands on it secretly, without you ever knowing.

The Investigatory Powers Bill resurrects some of the proposals contained within the “Snoopers’ Charter” that allow the security and intelligence services to grab large quantities of our personal information — regardless of whether or not the authorities suspect you have done something wrong.

In the last session of Parliament the NUJ created a new form of words that could be added into the draft legislation to ensure that journalists’ sources and whistleblowers would, at least, be protected.

If journalists are not protected from state interference or if they are seen as conduits for information for the authorities then this will put journalists in danger. This is a direct attack on our democracy.

Our proposals to amend the Bill have achieved unprecedented levels of support — politicians from every political party have backed our new legislative clause in the debates in the Lords and in the House of Commons.

We’ve also had support from the majority of privacy and human rights organisations in Britain, other trade unions and — almost uniquely — the media industry is united on this issue.

People should be able to come forward and speak in confidence to a journalist — to blow the whistle, for example, to prevent the abuse of children or the abuse of disabled people in care homes; or highlight the safety problems at a nuclear power station; or tell a journalist about abusive management practices in their workplace.

If people can’t come forward and speak in confidence to a journalist because they know the state is snooping on them, we will all suffer.
This ill-thought-out, rushed-through Bill should not be used to override the existing protections for journalists established in British law using the flimsiest excuse that technology has changed over time.

We have been arguing robustly that the state should not have these powers to bypass the existing protections.

Yet the government is determined to push through the changes before the end of this year.

Now we have a new parliamentary term we’ve little hope that we can fundamentally change the Bill.

Theresa May has become the Prime Minister and the previous home office minister John Hayes MP has been replaced by Ben Wallace MP — who still hasn’t replied to our correspondence.

The labour movement uniquely understands why this is so important. Trade unionists already know the state colluded with blacklisting, we know some of our members as well as political activists and justice campaigners have been wrongly put under surveillance, we know that unjustified state interference is a threat to us.

May’s mass surveillance Bill goes further and raises fundamental questions about whether the powers specified in the Bill could be used to monitor and disrupt legitimate political or industrial protests.

The Bill is even more of a chilling read when it is considered alongside the new Trade Union Act.

Despite all the challenges, we remain committed to the fight — we hope you will join in.

Michelle Stanistreet is general secretary of the National Union of Journalists.

Former president of the chamber of deputies and mastermind of President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, Eduardo Cunha, lost his seat in the lower house Monday night that had so far given him immunity against judicial proceedings over corruption charges.

Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of his removal with 450 votes for impeachment, nine abstentions and 10 votes against, when the approval required only 257 deputies, with a minimum of 420 attending the vote.

At the end of the vote, Cunha left the assembly surrounded with guards while opposition representatives chanted “Cunha Out!”

Cunha has been investigated for lying about hiding over US$5 million in laundered money in secret Swiss bank accounts. He denied having money offshore, but accounts tied to him were repeatedly confirmed by Swiss officials.

According to surveys issued Monday, on the day of the vote by local media, at least 298 deputies—out of a total of 513—declared they would vote in favor of his impeachment. Only four said they would vote to absolve him, 183 said they would abstain and 26 said they would not attend the session.

In May, he was suspended from his position as head of the lower house by the Brazilian Supreme Court over accusations of intimidating lawmakers and hampering investigations, one month after the lower chamber voted in favor of Rousseff’s impeachment. He faces an eight-year ban from elected office.

Cunha is notorious for using stalling tactics as the issue of his suspension stood before the council of ethics for months after having been initiated in October, making it the longest process in the history of the council.

Supporters of the Rousseff said Cunha initiated impeachment proceedings against Rousseff as payback after members of her party voted to look into corruption allegations against him.

Rousseff has said that despite the fact that Michel Temer is the acting president, Cunha is really the person in charge in Brasilia, the federal capital. Both Cunha and Temer are members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party.

Cunha was a key architect in painting the impeachment process as a campaign to root out government corruption, despite himself facing multimillion dollar bribery and fraud charges.

Hillary Clinton’s doctor now says the Democratic presidential candidate, 68, was officially diagnosed with pneumonia sometime on Friday, and has been campaigning with the serious respiratory illness for a week, leading to her “medical episode” at Sunday morning’s September 11th memorial event.

But what happens if the candidate’s health issues get more serious? Certainly, the Democrats always have the option of propping her up, Weekend at Bernie’s style, until after November 8th, but what if matters get progressively worse? Here’s a quick primer on where the Dems could end up:

When it comes to candidates (rather than office holders) the rules actually come from the political parties, not the Constitution. For Republicans, if a Presidential candidate dies or drops out, the RNC has to either convene a new convention or take an official poll of the RNC’s state representatives to select a replacement candidate. Most likely, the RNC would move the running mate up to the top of the bill, in order to preserve what fundraising has already been done for the ticket.

But for the Democrats, it’s not so clear. The Democratic National Committee reserves the right to replace a candidate who dies or drops out, and it doesn’t provide additional details in its by-laws. So presumably the Democrats would have to make up the process up as they go along. The DNC could entrust replacing Clinton to a central DNC brain trust or, more likely, replicate the RNC’s system, handing the vote over to the committee’s state delegates.

Tim Kaine

The DNC would likely want to retain the support of major donors who’ve already given to the Clinton-Kaine ticket, and would probably just bump Tim Kaine up from the Veep slot. Kaine would simply slide up the ticket, choose a new running mate, hope the ballots could be reprinted in time, and carry on just as Clinton had.

But, of course, this is 2016 and anything can happen.

The Open Slot

Donald Trump has proven to be a wild card candidate: he’s spent no money, compared to Clinton’s million-dollar ad buys, and raised virtually nothing compared to his Democratic opponents, and he’s still running neck and neck with Clinton nationwide. So the DNC would likely have to consider whether Kaine could retain Clinton’s razor-thin lead, or whether they’d need a more capable candidate.

The DNC might naturally lean towards Joe Biden who said he didn’t want to campaign, but has never said, openly, that he’d prefer not to be President. Biden is neither Clinton nor Trump, making him an easy favorite in the Presidential contest (though, it’s likely any number of cartoon characters, inanimate objects and D-list celebrities would also easily pull into the lead), and he’d have the backing of President Obama, who could unite the party with a call to action to unite behind his Vice President.

Also likely contenders:

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (both progressive candidates with a large swath of support within the Democratic party), New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Virginia’s Jim Webb, even second runner up Martin O’Malley.

Chelsea Clinton

There’s a longtstanding tradition in American politics of spouses stepping in after an unexpected death. Take Missouri’s Jean Carnahan, for instance, who stood in for her husband Mel after he died in a plane crash three weeks before the Missouri Senate election. After Mel won posthumously, she served in the Senate for two years. Future Senator Olympia Snowe first entered politics after the death of her husband, a Maine state representative, in a car wreck. Likewise, Mary Bono’s long political career began when her husband Sonny died in a skiing incident.

Bill Clinton is prohibited by the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution from running. If a Clinton were to step in for Hillary, it would likely be Chelsea, who at 36 is just old enough, in terms of the Constitution, to be president.

The Filing Deadlines

Most states’ campaign filing deadlines have already passed – and as some independent candidates, including conservative Evan McMullin are finding, states aren’t normally open to extending the period of time candidates have to file the paperwork necessary to put their names on the Presidential ballot.

For the Democratic replacement, though, as long as they have the party’s blessing, it’s likely officials could simply replace Clinton name any time up to a month before election day (ballots are usually printed and mailed about three weeks before). It’s also possible that Congress could postpone or move election day, but that would be an extreme step.

«Solo macerie, come se ci fosse stato un bombardamento», ha detto la presidente della Camera Boldrini visitando i luoghi terremotati. Parole su cui riflettere al di là dell’immagine. Di fronte alle scene strazianti dei bambini morti sotto le macerie del terremoto, come non pensare a tutti quei bambini (che la Tv non ci ha mai mostrato) morti sotto la macerie dei bombardamenti ai quali, dalla Jugoslavia alla Libia, ha partecipato anche l’Italia? «Sembra di essere in guerra», racconta uno dei tanti volontari.

In guerra, quella vera, l’Italia in effetti c’è già, bruciando risorse vitali che dovrebbero essere destinate a proteggere la popolazione del nostro paese dai terremoti, dalle frane e alluvioni che provocano sempre più vittime e distruzioni. Politici di aree diverse hanno proposto, in un impeto di generosità, di destinare alle zone terremotate il jackpot del Superenalotto, 130 milioni di euro. Nessuno ha proposto però di usare a tal fine il «jackpot» della spesa militare italiana ammontante, secondo i dati ufficiali della Nato, a circa 20 miliardi di euro nel 2016, 2,3 miliardi più del 2015: in media 55 milioni di euro al giorno, cifra in realtà più alta, includendo le spese extra budgtet della difesa addebitate ad altri ministeri. Stando comunque ai dati della Nato, l’Italia spende in un solo giorno per il militare più di quanto ha destinato il governo per l’emergenza terremoto (50 milioni di euro), cinque volte più di quanto è stato finora raccolto con gli sms solidali.

Mentre mancano i fondi per la ricostruzione e la messa in sicurezza degli edifici con reali sistemi antisismici, per un piano a lungo termine contro i terremoti e il dissesto idrogeologico.

Mentre i vigili del fuoco, di cui in queste occasioni si riconoscono formalmente i meriti, hanno organici, stipendi e mezzi del tutto inadeguati all’opera che svolgono, spesso a rischio della vita, non solo nelle emergenze quotidiane, ma nei sempre più frequenti disastri «naturali» (le cui catastrofiche conseguenze sono in gran parte dovute a responsabilità umane).

Non mancano invece i finanziamenti e i mezzi per le forze speciali italiane che operano nella nuova guerra in Libia. A Pisa, dove due anni fa è stato costituito il Comando delle forze speciali dell’esercito (Comfose), si sono intensificati da mesi i voli dei C-130J che partono per ignote destinazioni carichi di armi e rifornimenti. Tali operazioni sono segretamente autorizzate dal presidente Renzi scavalcando il parlamento. L’articolo 7 bis della legge n. 198/2015 sulla proroga delle missioni militari all’estero conferisce al presidente del consiglio facoltà di adottare «misure di intelligence di contrasto, in situazioni di crisi, con la cooperazione di forze speciali della Difesa con i conseguenti assetti di supporto della Difesa stessa», col solo obbligo di riferirne formalmente al «Comitato parlamentare per la sicurezza della Repubblica». In altre parole, il presidente del consiglio ha in mano forze speciali e servizi di intelligence da usare in operazioni segrete, con il supporto dell’intero apparato militare. Un potere personale anticostituzionale, potenzialmente pericoloso anche sul piano interno.

Mentre ostenta commozione al funerale delle vittime del terremoto, elargendo promesse sulla ricostruzione, il presidente del consiglio Renzi, nel quadro della strategia Usa/Nato, porta l’Italia in altre guerre e a una crescente spesa militare a scapito delle esigenze vitali del paese. Spesa a cui si aggiunge quella segreta per le operazioni militari segrete da lui ordinate. Mentre, sulla promessa ricostruzione delle zone terremotate, Renzi assicura la «massima trasparenza».

Manlio Dinucci

 

Welcome to Your Delusional Democracy

By Joel S. Hirschhorn, September 11 2016

A recent USA Today poll found 76% of voters want debates with four candidates including not just the two most hated candidates in history, the Republican and Democratic nominees and their vice presidential running mates, but Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka of the Greens, and Gary Johnson and Bill Weld of the Libertarians.

Any candidate on enough ballots to achieve 270 electoral college votes should be in the debates. The people have a right to see all candidates debating the issues who are on their ballots.

The deceptive debate commission, which is called a debate commission just to hide the truth: it is a corporation of the Democrats and Republicans whose purpose is to limit debates to their two parties, has no legitimacy. It has a major conflict of interest – why should the two establishment parties decide their opponents cannot debate? It is an obvious conflict of interest that the media should be calling out. The media should join the demand of the people – open debate are essential for democracy.

Today, half of US voters do not even consider themselves Democrats or Republicans, both parties are widely disliked and debates should not be limited to two minority parties, who present two hated candidates when there are four candidates on enough ballots to win a majority of the electoral college.

This week we are starting a series of protests in Washington, DC at the offices of the deceptive debate commission. On Wednesday during rush hour beginning at 4:30 people will be holding a disruptive protest at rush hour. We will me meeting at New Hampshire Ave and M St. NW at 4:30.  We are calling for people to “Occupy the Debates.” The anniversary of OWS is September 17^th and opening the debates would be a good use of that anniversary. The people need to challenge the DC political elites who keep the debate closed so only big business views are heard.

Please share this announcement widely and urge people to attend if they are near DC also urge them to share it widely so all activists near DC are aware of it.

We also urge people around the country to self-organize protests at media outlets to urge them to demand open debates and to stop the fraud of the deceptive debate commission. The debates will be shown on all network and cable news outlets.

And, we urge students and others near the venues of the debates to organize protests, write about the deceptive debate commission in local papers (including student papers), and pressure the president and board of trustees for open debates. Debates will be held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, Longwood University in Farmville, VA, Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and University of Nevada in Las Vegas, NV. Universities in particular should be open to a wide variety of views not just the views of two parties funded by Wall Street and big business interests.

Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton could demand open debates. Donald Trump supported open debates in 2000 and exclaimed how it was amazing that this commission could keep people out of debates. Now, he seems to have joined the DC political elites and is manipulating democracy. In 2008 Hillary Clinton pushed for debates because of the importance of the office of the presidency. She too, is a debate manipulator. These two hated candidates do not want the voters to know there are more options. Instead they prefer to close the debates and shut out the voices of those who challenge them.

The debates impact every issue we care about. Many issues will not be on the agenda for these debates, among them are preventing escalation of wars, relieving students and millennials of the burden of unfair tuition debt, ensuring healthcare for everyone in an improved Medicare for all program, breaking up the big banks, and transforming to a green economy with a major jobs programs. These issues among others will not be debated if we only hear from two Wall Street parties.

It is time for all of us to unite and demand inclusive debate as a step toward creating a real democracy and ending the manipulation of the elites.

Kevin Zeese is a Senior Advisor to the Stein-Baraka campaign and is a long term political activist who co-directs Popular Resistance.

Today, the Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks – a PhD in structural engineering (Leroy Hulsey) – publicly announced that fire did NOT bring down World Trade Center building 7 on 9/11.

He joins scores of other structural engineers, civil engineers, high-rise architects, and fire experts who say that the government’s story is false … Building 7 was NOT brought down by fire. Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 911/ Truth elaborates upon these findings and their implications.

And see this.

The preposterous ironies of President Obama’s unapologetic visit to Laos on September 6 have not yet generated the attention they deserve, but they provide an excellent measure of the self-righteousness of the monstrous continuity of American violence inflicted on the world from Viet Nam in the 1950s to Yemen more than sixty years later.

The baldest irony of Laos is that the U.S. spent nine years bombing Laos, at a cost of more than $100 million per week in current dollars (on the order of $45 billion in all), powerfully documented in Mother Jones in 2014. Having tried to bomb Laos back into the stone age and then walked away, now, decades later, as the bombs continue to blow up Laotian civilians, the U.S. president is promising $90 million (the equivalent of less than a week of bombing) over the next three years to help clean up the mess the U.S. made. This promise of more bomb-removal aid was one of the few lines in his speech to elicit applause from his 1,000-person audience, who were likely more aware of the brutal context than most Americans. As the U.S. president described the bombing of Laos, then a neutral country:

At the time, the U.S. government did not acknowledge America’s role. It was a secret war, and for years, the American people did not know. Even now, many Americans are not fully aware of this chapter in our history, and it’s important that we remember today.

There are minor ironies in that passage. The U.S. government did not acknowledge bombing Laos then, just as it does not acknowledge now that bombing Laos was a war crime of major magnitude. The president says it was a secret war, which isn’t really true, since the Laotians and the Vietnamese certainly knew, and any American who wanted to know could find out, but now the number of Americans in denial is probably larger. And in saying “it’s important that we remember today,” isn’t it ironic that the president says this in the capitol of a country that has never forgotten, but in the U.S. his voice is as silent about these war crimes as it has been about the war crimes of his predecessor, as well as his own, in the Middle East. That allows for some future president to go to Yemen, for example, and echo President Obama by promising to help clean up the deadly debris from years of U.S. cluster bombs and drone strikes on the poorest country in the region (like Laos in Southeast Asia). The U.S.-supported atrocities in Yemen are only a few years old now but, with no end in sight, could eventually compare to the devastation dropped on Laos. In the U.S. president’s words:

Over nine years — from 1964 to 1973 — the United States dropped more than two million tons of bombs here in Laos — more than we dropped on Germany and Japan combined during all of World War II. It made Laos, per person, the most heavily bombed country in history. As one Laotian said, the “bombs fell like rain.” Villages and entire valleys were obliterated. The ancient Plain of Jars was devastated. Countless civilians were killed.

In Laos, the U.S. made a whole country into collateral damage

Laos was doubly victimized by a war in which it had no part. The U.S. bombed Laos with unmerciful futility because Laos was unable to defend its eastern border with North Viet Nam, which used the mountainous region with impunity along the Ho Chi Minh Trail that was a supply route to guerrillas in the south. So when the U.S. president says with Orwellian sanctimoniousness that he acknowledges “the suffering and sacrifices on all sides of that conflict,” he’s speaking to people who were not on any side of the Vietnamese civil war or the U.S. criminal intervention in that civil war, thereby blaming the victims in Laos. Accepting responsibility for its own actions is not something the United States does. But the U.S. president has still another revision of history to offer:

And from the anguish of war, there came an unlikely bond between our two peoples. Today, the United States is home to many proud Laotian Americans.

A large proportion of those Laotian Americans are from the Hmong tribes that lived in the mountains along the Vietnamese border. U.S. Special Forces (Green Berets) recruited Hmong to help attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Once the U.S. lost the war and pulled out of Viet Nam, the Hmong were left to fend for themselves like so many local U.S. allies in other war zones (as in South Viet Nam, Afghanistan, or Iraq for example). Faced with the communist Pathet Lao takeover of Laos, thousands of Hmong fled, mostly to Thailand and beyond. Laos, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, remains a one-party state with close ties to China.

The U.S. is presently waging another criminal war mercilessly attacking civilians in Yemen, but this time the U.S. is on the side of the one-party state that is the lead aggressor, Saudi Arabia. Few if any American media have made the ironic connections between Laos and Yemen, but the Hong Kong based Asia Times nailed it despite running a half-wrong headline:

U.S. apologizes to Laos over cluster bombs,
then sells them to pound Yemen

The story that followed, by Johns Hopkins Fellow Christina Lin, does not mention the apology that never happened. She reports on President Obama’s speech in Laos this way:

Obama said, “Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal.” This gesture of trying to make amends for the damage U.S. caused in the past is laudable, especially since Obama is the first U.S. president to visit Laos. However, one wonders how sincere is this gesture, when U.S. turns around and sells the same cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia for a similar bombing campaign of another poor country—Yemen—that is maiming children and will likewise keep the population trapped in dire poverty and devastation for the next several decades.

The assertion, despite its relatively cautious academic prose, is as devastating and undeniable as the hypocrisy and war crimes it describes are palpable. But Lin, like others “concerned” about Yemen, keeps her rhetoric modest to the point of obscuring the truth. She describes the inhumanity of using cluster bombs without mentioning their criminality. She points out that the White House has approved another arms sale to Saudi Arabia for $1.15 billion to benefit U.S. arms makers. She does not say that without U.S. support, weapons, and ordnance the Saudi-led war on Yemen could not continue. She does manage to hint at outrage when she notes: “As a token gesture, Secretary Kerry announced a $189 million humanitarian aid for Yemen, a Band-Aid compared to the multi-billion dollar arms packages used to inflict harm on the very same people.” She does not connect this payment to the much smaller amount of conscience-salving money promised to the much smaller, but much more damaged Laos.

Reuters offers example of how to do journalism really, really badly

Whatever its shortcomings, this Asia Times piece is better than any of the non-coverage by most American mainstream media. For serious reporting on Yemen one has to go to this or other sources like Dissident Voice. International coverage is generally consistent with the official U.S.-Saudi line that usually alleges the necessity to resist Iranian influence, for which there is precious little evidence. At its worst in “respectable” media, Yemen coverage is like this Reuters filing that begins:

Egypt will host an international conference in March to coordinate humanitarian aid for Yemen, which has been devastated by a civil war, a minister in Yemen’s Saudi-backed government said on Tuesday.

It’s bad enough that Reuters leads with a press release by one of the combatants. That’s sloppy and dishonest, but common enough, and at least the source is named for the careful reader to identify. It’s unconscionable to omit the Saudi role in bombing Yemen on a daily basis, and it’s unacceptable to hide that role behind the assertion that Yemen “has been devastated by a civil war,” when most of the devastation comes from the U.S.-Saudi criminal war. In this case, Reuters is in the tank for war criminals, which it makes clear in its third deceitful paragraph, which claims: “The conflict pits the Iran-allied Houthis and supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is supported by an alliance of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia.” This neat bit of propagandizing ignores the essential U.S. support that makes the war on Yemen possible, and also omits the reality that half the country or more is currently controlled by the forces of al Qaida and the Islamic State that are fighting each other as well as everyone else. As for that humanitarian aid conference in Egypt six months from now, Reuters reports that Egypt has said nothing about it.

J. Michael Springmann is a former U.S. diplomat who served in Saudi Arabia in 1987-1989, until he was fired in a whistleblower incident. To hear him criticize the U.S. participation in “a war of aggression” against Yemen, one has go to an Iranian PressTV clip on YouTube (which the Yahoo search engine warns against). In that clip he accurately expresses skepticism about the U.S. “withdrawing” military forces from Saudi Arabia. The incident he described in August involved moving the U.S.-Saudi command and control center for the bombing campaign from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, which Springmann calls “political theatre.”

Opposition to U.S. war on Yemen is tepid, laced with “Moral Idiocy”

A recent piece in Consortium News discusses the century-old psychological term “moral idiocy” in the context of American war-making since 1949. Lawrence Davidson’s main point is that the rules of war, in particular the Geneva Conventions, are not widely observed and that there’s rarely any penalty for committing war crimes, a term he eschews. He blames this on moral idiocy, the inability of our leaders to understand moral behavior and act on that understanding. He does not use the word “sociopath.” And his list of moral idiots contains only Republicans like Nixon, Bush, Cheney, and Kissinger. But is Barack Obama with his drone strikes not a moral idiot? Is Hillary Clinton with her Qaddafi killing glee not a moral idiot? Is John Kerry not a moral idiot when he says, as he did in June 2016, “I think the Saudis have expressed in the last weeks their desire to make certain that they’re acting responsibly and not endangering others.” Davidson doesn’t mention Yemen or other current wars. He doesn’t even wonder why there is virtually no anti-war movement in America today. He doesn’t seem to understand that his anodyne detachment is part of the problem, not least when he concludes: “And, who are those who most often take advantage of this loophole? Ironically, it is the very people who lead our societies and those assigned to defend the culture and enforce the law. Lack of accountability makes for very poor public hygiene.”

That sounds a lot like Pontius Pilate washing his hands.

Another Consortium News writer, Jonathan Marshall, began a piece on September 2 with wan donnish wit and profound disinformation:

If there were an Olympics for waging bloody wars, Saudi Arabia and its Arab coalition allies would surely win a medal for their relentless bombing of Yemen over the past year and a half to crush rebels who seized power in 2014.

This framing is tantamount to a lie, given that the “Saudi war” could not be waged, could not have begun, without U.S. intelligence, U.S. targeting expertise, U.S. mid-air refueling, U.S. pilot rescue, U.S. cluster bombs and other ordnance, U.S. planes, U.S. maintenance crews, and U.S. participation in the naval blockade that has brought roughly half of Yemen’s population of 26 million to the brink of starvation. By Marshall’s moral idiocy reckoning, the Saudis get only the bronze medal; the U.S. deserves the gold.

Marshall is not someone who could not know better. He started writing about Yemen in April 2015, when he said of the war, correctly:

This naked aggression against a sovereign state has never been approved by the UN Security Council and stands in apparent violation of the United Nations charter. Congress has not approved this latest act of war either.

“Right now (the operation) does not have any foundation in international law,” complained Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, not that anyone in the United States cared what he had to say.

American disregard for international law is so complete that hardly anyone cared what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had to say about the war in Yemen, either.

Even then, Marshall played the Iran card, claiming that “the Houthis also enjoy support from the Tehran regime,” without offering any detail or supporting evidence that Iranian “support” amounts to much more than a cheering section. But Marshall was also clear-eyed then about White House justifications for its new war:

In a typical example of unconscious doublespeak, Secretary of State John Kerry told an interviewer that Washington was “not going to stand by while the region is destabilized,” as if bombing will somehow stabilize Yemen.

That was then. Now, after almost 18 months of unjustified carnage that has accomplished nothing honorable, Marshall is seeing it as the Saudis’ war and is criticizing Congress for its belated opposition with a strange kind of moral detachment: “… the Obama administration’s support for Saudi Arabia’s criminal policies is at last beginning to trouble many legislators on Capitol Hill.” This “support,” unlike anything Iran is doing, is lethal, criminal, and crucial – without U.S. participation, Yemen does not suffer daily crimes against humanity.

Marshall ends with some quoted mild outrage from congressmen and senators whose anti-war efforts consist of trying to block the current $1.15 billion sale of more weapons to the Saudis. This effort is pathetic, meaningless, and quixotic – unless a lot of Republicans decide to go along. Even success in blocking this sale will do nothing to help Yemen. All it could do is send the Saudis to other markets and deprive U.S. arms merchants of some undeserved profits. Yes, blocking the sale is good in and of itself, but in the context of continuing U.S. war crimes in Yemen, it’s a deceitful bad joke.

If Americans want to do something decent for Yemen, then Americans need to hold their own country accountable.

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

Today marks the 15th Anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and yet the American public remains in the dark about critical details of hundreds of billions of dollars of financial dealings by the Federal Reserve in the days, weeks and months that followed 9/11.

What has also been lost in the official 9/11 Commission Report, Congressional hearings and academic studies, is how Wall Street, on the day the planes slammed into the World Trade Towers, was on the cusp of being exposed by the New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, as the orchestrator of a fraud of unprecedented proportion against the investing public. That investigation was stalled for more than six months. It would have been politically incorrect to do perp walks outside Wall Street’s biggest investment banks as families mourned the loss of their loved ones; as U.S. savings bonds were renamed Patriot Bonds to rally patriotism around the country; and Congress paid homage to the heroes at the big banks, the stock exchanges and the Federal Reserve for getting the system back up and running in less than a week.

The loony policies of laissez-faire capitalism of Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, who worshiped at the feet of Ayn Rand, were also bailed out by the events of  9/11. Members of the Senate Banking Committee praised him on September 20, 2001 for his performance. Amazingly, at this hearing, just nine days after the attack, not one Senator asked Greenspan how much money the Fed had spent or to whom it went. The percolating collapse of Wall Street was held off for seven more years until 2008 when it finally became impossible to deny that Greenspan’s brand of financial deregulation and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act he had pushed for, had left Wall Street in ruins – without any assault from the skies.

Here’s where Wall Street and the U.S. economy stood on September 10, 2001, the day before an attack in lower Manhattan provided the excuse for the Federal Reserve to flood Wall Street with unquestioned amounts of cash: The Nasdaq stock market, filled with the stocks of rigged analyst research from the iconic firms on Wall Street (the target of Spitzer’s investigation), had imploded, losing 66 percent of its pumped up value and wiping out $4 trillion in wealth. While it wasn’t yet known at the time, being only officially acknowledged long after 9/11, the U.S. economy had contracted for two consecutive quarters and was looking at another negative quarter of growth.

Thus, it was quite advantageous for Alan Greenspan’s legacy as Chair of the Federal Reserve and what might have been an even worse economic slump that the Fed was given carte blanche to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street after 9/11 with the Federal government pumping billions more in fiscal stimulus.

According to a report from the New York Fed, an “unprecedented” amount of liquidity was pumped into the system. The Congressional Research Service quantifies the “unprecedented” amount as “$100 billion per day” over a three-day period beginning on 9/11. But the idea that the bailout lasted only a few days or weeks is misguided. The consolidated annual reports of the Federal Reserve Banks show that the Fed’s balance sheet grew from $609.9 billion at the end of 2000 to $654.9 billion at the end of 2001 to $730.9 billion at the end of 2002 and $771.5 billion as of December 31, 2003.

According to the 2001 Annual Report of the Chicago Fed, one unnamed bank was so grateful for the largess flowing from the Fed that it sent “a thousand packages of LifeSavers candy to each of the 45 Fed offices.”

A report prepared by Stacy Panigay Coleman for the Federal Reserve’s Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems indicated that the flood of money took various forms on and after 9/11:

A handful of the largest, again unnamed, Wall Street banks were dramatically overdrafting their accounts at the Fed, resulting in daylight overdrafts peaking at “$150 billion on September 14, their highest level ever and more than 60 percent higher than usual….” According to other annual reports at regional Fed banks, fees were waived by the Fed for these massive overdrafts.

Coleman reports that “discount window loans rose from around $200 million to about $45 billion on September 12.”

Read complete article on Wall Street on Parade

Update 2: It appears the next plan from the Clinton Campaignb is to remove all evidence that it ever happened…

 Update: The following clips show the moment of Hillary’s “medical episode” resulting from the “blistering” 79 degree heat in Manhattan.

An even better video, capturing the incident in its entirety from a different, more exposing angle, emerged moments ago, Here is the best video of the incident, yet:

And then this: 

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Meanwhile, Hillary emerges from Chelsea’s apartment to declare: “It’s a beautiful day in New York!”…which seems to slightly contradict to her official statement issued earlier that she “overheated.”

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And now, roughly 12 hours after experiencing her latest “medical episode, Hillary has announced plans to cancel her West Coast fundraising tour originally planned for Monday and Tuesday.

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For those who missed it, earlier today, Hillary Clinton collapsed and appeared to faint on her way to her campaign van on Sunday as she became “overheated” and had to leave early from a September 11 memorial ceremony in New York City. Clinton, 68, was taken to her daughter Chelsea’s home in Manhattan, and emerged a few hours later wearing sunglasses and telling reporters that she was “feeling great.”

Clinton went, as previously planned, to her home in Chappaqua, New York, 30 miles (50 km) north of New York City. Clinton left the memorial event after about 90 minutes while it was still underway, Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman, said. “During the ceremony, she felt overheated so departed to go to her daughter’s apartment, and is feeling much better,” Merrill said in a statement. As the event began on Sunday at the site of the World Trade Center that was attacked by two hijacked airliners 15 years ago, there was patchy sunlight, with temperatures at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.6 Celsius).

Video taken at the scene and posted on social media shows Clinton being held up by three people. She staggers and appears to trip on a curb as they help her into a vehicle. Clinton’s departure from the event was not witnessed by the reporters who travel with her campaign, which did not offer any information about why she left and her whereabouts for more than an hour.
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Earlier

While we have yet to receive any confirmation from a second source – so take this report with a big grain of salt – moments ago Fox News senior correspondent Rick Leventhal, citing an anonymous law enforcement official as a source, reported that Hillary Clinton who was present at the Sept 11 ceremony in downtown Manhattan, suffered a “medical episode” when she stumbled and nearly fell after her knees buckled, and was then ushered into a van, in the process losing a shoe, as she was rushed away from ground zero in an early departure.

As Fox News reports, the Democratic presidential nominee appeared to faint on her way into her van and had to be helped by her security, the source said. She was “clearly having some type of medical episode.” Clinton’s stumbled off the curb, her “knees buckled” and she lost a shoe as she was helped into a van during her “unexpected early departure,” a witness told Fox News. A separate law enforcement source told Fox News that Clinton left the event because she wasn’t feeling well

There has been no official statement from the Clinton campaign yet.

Thanks to ABC and NBC we do know that Clinton left the Sept 11 ceremony about 45 minutes ago when the “medical incident”is said to have happened, however the press has not been told where, while aides are not responding to questions about her whereabouts.