Global Research

The UK proves that power and profits come before the lives of even its own allies’ soldiers and police.

 The GT200 is an otherwise useless plastic box that does nothing with equally useless “sensor cards” that serve no discernible function.

Despite this fact, UK-based Global Technical and an array of salesmen ranging from experts in the British military serving as equipment export support teams, to British ambassadors, to even the British government’s Department of Trade and Industry (now renamed the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) peddled the useless item as a “bomb detector,” putting lives at risk in the nations they were peddled in, and even costing the lives of hundreds including dead police and soldiers in both Iraq and Thailand.

In Thailand, amid the wake of the scandal, US and British backed media services have attempted to capitalize on the political fallout, laying the blame squarely on the Thai government, never mentioning the central role of the British government in promoting the useless and ultimately deadly device.

Image: Faced with mounting violence in Thailand’s deep south, the government in Bangkok placed its trust in its British allies. It is clear that this trust was not only misplaced, but shamefully used and abused by London in a multi-million dollar scam involving the British military, government, and diplomatic corps.

Critics of the Royal Thai Army and the current government have seized upon the scandal to opportunistically and dishonestly undermine both, with some even going as far as blaming the soldiers who risked their lives in the restive southern provinces of Thailand while employing the fraudulent British-made GT200.

The BBC and Guardian Expose the UK Government’s Role 

While the BBC’s Jonathan Head in Thailand politically wields the GT200 scandal against the Thai government and its military exclusively, the BBC itself has exposed the breadth and depth of the UK government’s involvement.

Image: A lot of effort was put into creating the illusion of credibility where no technical merit existed. This not only included slick as well as unscrupulous marketing tactics, but also included the recruitment of British ambassadors and even equipment export support teams drawn from the British military, despite the fact that the British military itself refused to use the fraudulent device.  

The BBC’s 2011 article, “UK government promoted useless ‘bomb detectors’,” would report (emphasis added):

The government has admitted that the Army and UK civil servants helped market so-called “bomb detectors”, which did not work, around the world.

Export of the “magic wand” detectors to Iraq and Afghanistan was banned on 27 January 2010 because of the threat they posed to British and allied troops.

The move followed a BBC Newsnight investigation showing they could not detect explosives – or anything else.

Now Newsnight has learned that they are still being sold around the globe.

The BBC’s report would continue by explaining (emphasis added):

…a Royal Engineers sales team went around the world demonstrating the GT200, another of the “magic wand” detectors which has been banned for export to Iraq and Afghanistan, at arms fairs around the world even though the British Army did not consider them suitable for its own use.

The government’s Department of Trade and Industry, which has since been superseded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, helped two of the manufacturers sell their products in Mexico and the Philippines.

The BBC’s article concludes by stating:

…there will be questions about why the ban on exports to Iraq and Afghanistan has not been extended to protect the citizens of other countries.

However, it is clear that this question has an easy answer. The lives of foreigners to the British government, military, and industry are subordinate if not entirely meaningless to profits and power.

Images; Giles Paxman, Britain’s former ambassador to Mexico. Before the GT200 scandal, and even after it, accusing ambassadors from the US, UK, or Europe of immense criminal impropriety would be met with accusations of being “conspiracy theorists.” In reality, it appears that immense criminality is endemic across Western diplomatic circles with their ties to industry and organized crime so close the two are virtually indistinguishable from one another. 

It is an ethos that defines the last several centuries of British – and in general – Western history.The BBC would publish another report on the GT200 titled, “The story of the fake bomb detectors,” in which they detailed the coercive methods used to peddle the useless devices upon unsuspecting nations (emphasis added):Sales demonstrations would be rigged to succeed, she says. Anyone sceptical of the devices would be publicly humiliated. And users were instructed not to open the equipment – to avoid damaging the “sensitive technology” inside. 

Some of the devices came with “detector cards” which were programmed, the fraudsters claimed, to detect everything from explosives, to human beings and dollar bills through concrete, water and from great distances.

Considering how humiliation is used by the Western media to portray anyone questioning the West’s various narratives as “paranoid” or as “conspiracy theorists,” one can only imagine the abuse one would be subjected to had they accused British ambassadors and British military sales support teams of selling what is essentially and empty plastic case with a disconnected radio antenna on it as a “bomb detector.”Yet that is exactly what the British government did.GT200 Couldn’t Have Been Sold Without London’s Complicity The UK Independent would also cover the story in an article titled, “How UK soldiers and ambassador were enlisted to help sell fake bomb detectors,” reporting that (emphasis added):Giles Paxman, then Britain’s ambassador to Mexico, wrote to senior officials in the embattled state government to introduce the wares of Kent entrepreneur Gary Bolton, who was selling the GT200, a handheld detector supposedly capable of identifying drugs or explosives at up to 700 metres. Unbeknown to the ambassador, it used nothing more than a car aerial attached to a hollow plastic grip and did not work.

Ambassador Paxman would, according to the Guardian, emphasize “the excellence of the UK’s security industry.” He would arrange meetings with officials across the country with the maker of the GT200, and is precisely why an otherwise unknown criminal was able to peddle his fake devices globally to the UK’s various allies.

Image: Thousands of brave police and soldiers like those pictured above, had their lives knowingly placed in danger by the British government who mobilized its various departments, the military, and even its diplomats to promote and sell the GT200 “bomb detector” that quite literally did nothing. 

The Independent would reveal that the device cost a mere 2 GBP to make, but was sold for as much as 15,000 GBP each.The Independent would also reveal (emphasis added):Bolton’s ability to enlist a British ambassador to back his fraud reveals how British diplomats and officials around the world are routinely available for hire, and how the government does not normally check whether products they are promoting actually work. 

Eight years before Paxman got involved, a Home Office scientist had concluded an early version of Bolton’s device was “a useless lump of plastic“ and warned: “Not only does it not work in theory, it doesn’t work in practice either.” About 1,000 copies of the warning were sent to the Foreign Office, police forces, the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Engineers and the prison service, the Guardian understands.

In other words, the British government was well aware that the device did not work, did not use it domestically or with its military forces abroad because they knew it did not work, but proceeded to sell it to allied nations anyway.The British government used its influence and reputation to pressure allied nations into buying them, knowingly putting the lives of soldiers and police in jeopardy, as well as implicating suspects falsely of criminal involvement in cases the devices were used to investigate.The Independent would also note that the GT200’s creator “had been quick to recognise the value of British government involvement in the sales pitch for his adapted novelty golf ball finder as he pitched to authorities in Thailand, Bahrain and across Africa.”Thailand Swindled by its Ally, Then Betrayed Again  The Thai government is likely embarrassed by being swindled by the UK. They likely believed – as well as were likely told by the British government itself – that the involvement of British ambassadors and equipment export support teams drawn from the British military were a sound substitute for the rigorous testing the GT200 should have undergone before purchases were made.

Because of the high-level nature of the meetings arranged by British diplomats to facilitate the fraud, the British government knows that investigations into Britain’s role would also require implicating those Thai officials who were present at these meetings. Because of this, the British are confident they can get away with their crime with only minor repercussions.What the Thai government has hopefully gained from this scandal is the realization that those claiming to be its closest allies should be those least trusted.

The privileges Thailand has erroneously granted nations like the UK and US should be gradually rolled back until entirely revoked. The necessity to uproot the influence and interests of both the British and their counterparts on Wall Street and in Washington from the Kingdom of Thailand is increasingly evident.The UK’s actions maliciously cost Thai police and soldiers their lives and in the fallout of the scandal, the British and Americans through their grip on international media, are dishonoring their memories by portraying the victims as being “incompetent” and “corrupt.”

The GT200 scandal reaffirms just how little the West thinks of people beyond their borders and how far they will go and how many they will trample to further accumulate power and wealth. And the GT200 scandal is just one of many angles from which the West attacks, undermines, and pilfers the wealth, dignity, stability, and futures of nations like Thailand. If this is the sort of help the British government will afford a single criminal and his fake bomb detectors – imagine the support they would render for Fortune 500 corporations.For Thailand and the Thai people, perhaps this latest demonstration of the contempt the West has for the East will provide an impetus for the East to finally stop paying into the ideas, wealth, and influence of the West.

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions,” the American novelist Thomas Pynchon once wrote, “they don’t have to worry about answers.”

When it comes to the US and UK’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent occupation, the British establishment have conveniently and repeatedly asked the wrong questions.

Quoting a senior, unnamed source, last month the Times newspaper reported that Tony Blair, former foreign secretary Jack Straw and the former head of MI6 Richard Dearlove “will face serious ‘damage to their reputations’ from the Chilcot report into the Iraq War, which has delivered an ‘absolutely brutal’ verdict on the mismanagement of the occupation”. According to the Times “the section [of the inquiry’s report] on the occupation will be longer than that on the build-up to” the invasion, and the Times reporter blogged that the section on the occupation “is where some of the most damning verdicts are drawn”.

As they have done with every previous public utterance he has made in recent years, the Guardian happily provided Blair with a platform in June to pre-empt the inquiry’s findings – and shift the focus to the occupation and away from the most damaging and dangerous areas for the former prime minister. According to the Guardian, Blair will “argue the ultimate cause of the long-term bloodshed in Iraq was the scale of external intervention in the country by Iran and al-Qaeda”. (Come on, stop laughing, this is serious). He will also “accept that the planning for the aftermath of the war was inadequate” and admit “the West did not foresee the degree to which complex tribal, religious and sectarian tensions would be uncorked” by overthrowing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Let’s be clear: the US-UK military occupation of Iraq – full of massive amounts of deadly violence dished out by the US and UK armed forces, torture and destructive divide-and-rule tactics – was a catastrophe for the people of Iraq. And it was hugely unpopular, with a secret Ministry of Defence 2005 poll of Iraqis finding that 82 percent “strongly opposed” the presence of coalition troops, with 45 percent saying attacks against US and UK forces were justified.

However, it is a complete red herring to suggest better planning is the crux of the issue. “The problem wasn’t the way that this was implemented, the problem was that we were there at all,” argued Rory Stewart, who served as the coalition’s provisional authority deputy governorate co-ordinator in Maysan province In Iraq, in 2013:

“All these people who think ‘If only we had done this, if only if we hadn’t de-Ba’athified, if only we hadn’t abolished the army’ misunderstand the fundamental tragedy of that encounter between the international community and Iraqis… it wasn’t the detailed, tactical decisions that were made, it was the overall fact of our presence. The problem was so deep that if we hadn’t made those mistakes we would have made other mistakes. It was a wrecked intervention from the beginning, from the very moment we arrived on the ground.”

Moreover, the assumption behind the establishment’s fretting over post-war planning is that if the occupation had gone smoothly, then everything would have been OK. In reality, it would not have changed the fact that the US and UK aggressively invaded an oil-rich nation in contravention of international law, based on a pack of deceptions. It was a “crime of aggression” – as explained by the chief legal adviser at the Foreign Office at the time – whether the occupation was successful or not. Bluntly, if I plan and execute a robbery, whether it goes “smoothly” with minimal violence and resistance or is a complete mess is immaterial – it’s still a crime.

The limited, self-serving debate surrounding post-war planning in Iraq echoes the liberal media’s belief that, to quote Cambridge Professor David Runciman, the US and UK invaded Iraq “to spread the merits of democracy”. Yes, it all went wrong, but our intentions were good. This kind of thinking can lead to spectacularly convoluted and offensive conclusions, as the BBC’s John Humphrys proved in October 2012 when he asked about the British occupation of Iraq: “If a country has sent its young men to another country to die, to restore – create democracy, you’d expect, well you’d expect a bit of gratitude, wouldn’t you?”

British historian Mark Curtis has coined a term for this blinkered power-friendly framing: “Britain’s basic benevolence.” Criticism of foreign policies is possible, notes Curtis, “but within narrow limits which show ‘exceptions’ to, or ‘mistakes’ in, promoting the rule of basic benevolence”.

The West’s support for democracy in the Middle East is also evidence-free. “It is presented as though the invasion of Iraq was motivated largely or entirely by an altruistic desire to share democracy,” notes Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House.

“This is asserted despite the long history of Anglo-American great-power involvement in the Middle East, which has, for the most part, not involved an effort to democratise the region,” she explains. “Rather, the general trend has been to either support authoritarian rulers who were already in place, or to participate in the active consolidation of authoritarian rule, including strong military and intelligence cooperation, as long as these rulers have been seen as supporting Western interests more than popularly elected governments would.”

Back to Chilcot. Blair’s government and its supporters successfully deceived – or at least bamboozled – large sections of the press and key sections of the establishment in 2002-3, in what Curtis calls “a government propaganda campaign of perhaps unprecedented heights in the post-war world”.

By steering the debate onto questions surrounding the occupation of Iraq, Blair and co, assisted by a pliant press and Chilcot, are once again shifting the narrative to their advantage. We cannot allow them to triumph over us again. Therefore, it is imperative that everyone interested in uncovering the truth and seeking justice for Iraqis keep the focus on the key issue – the deceptions, lies and legal questions surrounding the run-up to the initial invasion.

As the judgement of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg – a key influence on the development of international law – declared, “To initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Ian Sinclair is a freelance writer based in London and the author of The March that Shook Blair: An Oral History of 15 February 2003. He tweets @IanJSinclair

This statement tacitly endorses the US proposal (50 State Department Officials) to wage war on Syria government forces. The unspoken agenda is to “Protect” the US-NATO-Israel foot-soldiers, aka ISIS, Al Nusra, et al   (M.Ch. GR Editor)

 

Israeli intelligence Chief, Major General Herzi Halevy, said that the last three months have been the most difficult for ISIS since its inception.

In a speech delivered at “Herzliya” conference yesterday , Halevy explicitly said “Israel” does not want the situation in Syria to end with the defeat of ISIS “,  the Israeli NRG site reported.

“Withdrawal of the super powers from the region and letting Israel alone in front of Hezbollah and Iran that possess good abilities Will make “Israel” in a hard position” . Therefore, we’ve to do all we can so as not finding ourselves in such situation”, the Israeli chief intelligence added.

Ask yourself this: Why has immigration been made the pole around which, this entire referendum ‘debate’, has revolved?

Why has the closet Nazi Nigel Farage of UKIP been given so much airtime?

Could it be the masses, hammering at the doors of Fortress Europe after we, that is the US-EU-NATO axis of pure barbarism, destroyed their countries, have something to do with it?

Thus, as so many times before, the Empire utilises its well tried and tested tactic of evoking the ‘other’ to inject fear into our hearts.

Yet it was only a decade ago that a Labour government made sure that tens of thousands of Polish workers would be admitted to the UK without a murmur from UKIP and the rest of the assorted rabble on the Right. And it’s pretty obvious that they were admitted in order to drive down wages and conditions of work. This is what EU economic policy is all about, otherwise known as austerity; a drive to ‘flatten’ wages and conditions downward right across across the EU. We see it currently at work in France, with yet another ‘socialist’ invoking austerity and in reality, it’s actually first and foremost EU policy that Hollande is invoking.

It seems that we, as a people, never learn the lessons of the past, for how many times has race, colour, ethnicity or religion, been used as a weapon to divide and rule us?

Fifty years ago it was Enoch Powell (also a Tory) and his ‘rivers of blood’ emanating from his Midlands constituency, Wolverhampton as the ‘dark hordes swarmed’ over white, working class England.

And why does Farage gets so much exposure? Because he his one of the ruling elite’s weapon of disinformation and deceit. He speaks with a Tory voice but he’s not actually of the Tory Party, hence he can say in public all the things the Tories (and no doubt a goodly sprinkling of Labour) could never say in public themselves. Farage is the ruling elite’s stalking horse of the day. We’ve been in this situation so many times before that it’s getting really tedious. Economic crisis? Find a scapegoat. Political crisis? Find a scapegoat. Find an enemy, wage war…

Thus what started as essentially an internal Tory Party feud between the old guard and an even older guard, morphed into the Tory Party’s worst nightmare, actually having to live up to one of their promises. And horror of horrors the Brexiters actually won, (even if it is pretty much a fifty-fifty result, 51% to 48% but a much higher turnout of 72% than the last general election at 61%. And what’s the betting that it was that working class vote that doesn’t normally vote in the General election, that made the difference?)

Thus in spite of pulling out all the stops, including the brazen and quite outrageous use of ‘our’ public broadcaster, the BBC, to put the frighteners on the public should we dare tell the elite to, well as I put it in an earlier piece, FUCK OFF, we did tell them! I even read a comment somewhere that if we dared leave the EU the Russians would invade us. But all to no avail, the North/South economic/social divide made sure of that.

So what’s next? Well, it’s a long, long way and mucho bucks (some estimates I read years ago, put it at trillions of pounds to actually, that is to say, the actual cost of extricating ourselves from all the laws that originate with the EU and creating new ones, or putting old ones back?) before the UK actually does really exit, if indeed it ever does.

On the left, such as it is, I think it’s pretty clear that Corbyn has  revealed the folly of his divided self, heading up a Labour Party that aside from a few exceptions, was solidly pro-EU and solidly anti-Corbyn. They will use his ‘lacklustre’ support for remaining as a reason as to why the Remainers lost and of course, why he should resign.

But what of others on the left who supported exit, aside from the two I have already quoted from (here and here), both of whom dealt with why but not what they saw after, should we exit? Takis Fotopoulos, is a Greek expat lefty, best known for his ‘Inclusive Democracy’ project who tells us firstly, why we should exit:

On the other side, there are the victims of globalization in Britain and throughout the world: i.e. the millions of workers all over Europe who have lost their jobs since globalization began taking effect about 30 years ago, from the miners – after being defeated in the 80s following a long and heroic struggle – to the steelworkers who are about to suffer the miners’ fate, as soon as the referendum is out of the way.That is, on the other side are all those who are the victims of the opening and liberalization of markets for capital, labour and commodities. As even the Financial Times admitted a few days ago, “we are close to the point where globalization and membership of the Eurozone in particular have damaged not only certain groups in society but entire nations”.[2] In other words, we are talking about all those in Britain (and beyond!) who are forced to work for survival wages and zero contract hours, not to mention the victims of a continuously deteriorating social welfare system (health, education and so on). This system is under the constant threat of further funding cuts while, at the same time, having to cover the needs of more and more people because of the so-called “four freedoms” of the EU, introduced by the Maastricht Treaty and those that followed it (i.e. freedom in the movement of capital, commodities and of course labour). – ‘Brexit, Neoliberalism and the Eurozone: What Is at Stake in the British Referendum‘ By Takis Fotopoulos, 29 April 2016.

Okay, but how exactly, does exiting the EU change this equation? We all live in a neoliberal world, and exiting the EU is not going to change that. In the UK, the people Fotopoulos is referring to, who are at the sharp end of neoliberal policies, are a minority (even if a sizeable one) and it’s a minority that doesn’t vote (except, it appears, in the Referendum) and hence has no representation. Electing Corbyn as head of the Labour Party didn’t change that, even if he does have a mandate from them, a mandate that he has trampled on by supporting (however reluctantly) the Remain camp. I would go so far as to say that those who voted for Corbyn have been cruelly misled, but then that’s the history of Reformism.

Surely, the point here is that all the things Fotopoulos refers to above, zero hours contracts, cuts in the social wage and so forth (let alone our butchering of the planet and its peoples which doesn’t mention) have been in the works for thirty years now and we have been unable to resist any of it! At best we fight rearguard actions to hold on to the little that’s left of the postwar gains we made.

What’s missing from Fotopoulos’s argument is any reference to Imperialism. The UK, like it’s major European allies, is an imperialist state. The great majority of its people support (or acquiesce to) the policies of an Imperialist Great Britain, even if we are a poodle imperialism to the ravenous wolf, the US.

Fotopoulos ends his piece by telling us what we need:

What we therefore need in Britain, in Europe and in the world as a whole, is to start building Popular Fronts for National and Social Liberation (PFNSL), in every country which is integrated into the New World Order. Such fronts would fight for the recovery of national and economic sovereignty and the self-reliance of each country, in their struggle for the creation of a new democratic world order based on the values of solidarity and mutual aid, rather than the principle of competitiveness which has led to the present record level of inequality in the distribution of wealth and income throughout the world, as well as to an ecological disaster. Such a process of recovery would necessarily involve the creation of an alternative pole of sovereign self-reliant nations, and Brexit is a precondition for this. (ibid)

Fotopoulos talks as if it’s the left that is behind the success of Brexit but it’s not. Yes, I think we all know what we need, what we don’t know is how to achieve it. Popular Fronts? Popular fronts presuppose the uniting of various strands under one, common umbrella, and strands that actually exist and have force. I don’t see anything like this in the UK. All I see is a divided and ineffectual left that can’t even agree to describe the EU as an imperialist project and in fact, for the most part it’s been campaigning to Remain! Is this the stuff of Popular Fronts?

‘What’s happening today to pollinators is no different than what happened 50 years ago with the collapse of the bald eagle due to the use of DDT’

Advocating for a ban on toxic pesticides that have led to massive bee die-offs nationwide, a truck filled with millions of the dead pollinators has trundled across the country to reach its final destination on Wednesday afternoon: the front steps of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, D.C.

If we stop keeping bees, who’s going to pollinate your fruits and vegetables? This can’t go on.
—Roger Williams,
Central Maryland Beekeepers Association

The truck’s arrival at EPA headquarters heralds a rally in which environmental groups, beekeepers, organic food advocates and others will “deliver over 4 million signatures urging an immediate ban on bee-killing pesticides” to the agency, writes the conservation group Friends of the Earth.

“Bees pollinate most of the world’s most common crops, including summer favorites like peaches and watermelon,” said Environment America in a press statement. “But over 40 percent of U.S. honeybee hives die each year, costing the farming and beekeeping industry more than $2 billion annually.”

As Scott Nash, CEO of Mom’s Organic, said in a statement,

“What’s happening today to pollinators is no different than what happened 50 years ago with the collapse of the osprey, bald eagle, and other bird and aquatic animal populations due to the use of DDT. If we allow the chemical agribusiness industry to continue these short-sighted practices, food costs will increase as food supplies diminish.”

“In the five years since I started keeping bees, I’ve seen many hives killed by pesticides,” added James Cook, a Minnesota-based beekeeper who has been driving the truck across the country since last Monday. “If some fundamental things don’t change, it’s going to be really hard for beekeepers to adapt to the environment around us.”

As the crisis stretches on, studies continue to show that the so-called neonicotinoid class of pesticides, or neonics, are a major contributing factor to bee population decline, as Common Dreams has reported. (Pesticide giants have lobbied heavily against any regulations of their multi-billion dollar industry.)

And despite “a process to assess four types of neonics and their impacts on pollinators” the EPA launched a year ago, and an agency study that in January confirmed the link between one variety of neonics and widespread bee deaths, further agency assessments of what critics describe as bee-toxic pesticides—and in turn, action—are still outstanding.

Yet the bees—and their keepers—don’t have any time to lose.

“We have so many losses it’s worse than break-even. It is getting harder and harder to keep bees and make a living,” said Roger Williams, president of the Central Maryland Beekeepers Association. “And if we stop keeping bees, who’s going to pollinate your fruits and vegetables? This can’t go on.”

Rally participants documented the event on Twitter under the hashtag #keepthehivesalive.

 

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair currently back in Britain, cast a dark shadow over those campaigning to stay in the European Union in the 23^rd June referendum. Inflicting himself on the Britain Stronger in Europe group, he spoke at every opportunity – reminding even the most passionate Europhile of the last time he assured: “I know I’m right” – Iraq.

If the “Remainers” had an ounce of sense Blair should have been ditched in a nano-second. He is not “Toxic Tony” for nothing.

However, since the long awaited Chilcot Inquiry in to the Iraq invasion is to be published just thirteen days after the referendum (6^th July) it is worth revisiting more of the mistruths of which he is capable.

On 18^th March 2003, Blair stood in Parliament and listed the times Saddam Hussein’s government had said they had no weapons of mass destruction (1) dismissing them all, including the 11,800 pages or 12,200 pages of accounting of that which they did not possess and delivered by the Iraqi delegation at the UN to the UN UNSCOM offices on 8^th December 2002.

Lest it be forgotten, the reason for the uncertainty of the length of the volume is that the US delegation simply appropriated it and returned less than 4,000 pages so heavily redacted as to be indecipherable – and without the hefty index at the back listing the Western arms companies who had, prior to the first Gulf war, sold them weapons.

Blair told Parliament loftily:

“ … the 8th December declaration is false. That in itself is a material breach. Iraq has made some concessions to co-operation but no-one disputes it is not fully cooperating. Iraq continues to deny it has any WMD, though no serious intelligence service anywhere in the world believes them … We … will back it with action if Saddam fails to disarm voluntarily.”

Iraq of course, was telling the truth. Blair had appointed himself  Judge, jury and executioner.

And here is a real whopper: “I have never put our justification for action as regime change.”

And another: “Iraq is a wealthy country that in 1978, the year before Saddam seized power, was richer than Portugal or Malaysia.

“Today it is impoverished, 60% of its population dependent on food aid.

“Thousands of children die needlessly every year from lack of food and medicine.”

What he omitted was stated in a piece I wrote back in 1998 (2) addressing the ever repeated propaganda. The conditions were caused directly by the US-UK driven embargo, overseen by Blair’s envoy to the UN, Carne Ross, who headed the Sanctions Committee after the August 1991 imposed embargo:

“In 1989 the World Health Organization recorded Iraq as having 92-per-cent access to clean water, 93-per-cent access to high quality health care and with high educational and nutritional standards.

“By 1995 the World Food Program noted that: ‘time is running out for the children of Iraq’. Figures – verified by UNICEF – record that 1,211,285 children died of embargo-related causes between August 1990 and August 1997. A silent holocaust in the name of the UN. These numbers are similar to those lost in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia. It is three times the population of Kuwait in small lives.”

‘ “After 24 years in the field, starting with Biafra, I didn’t think anything could shock me,” wrote Dieter Hannusch of the World Food Program in l995. “But this was comparable to the worst scenarios I had ever seen.” ‘

The day after Blair’s address to Parliament, Operation Iraqi Liberation began, to which he had committed the country in his visit to George W. Bush’s Texas ranch in April 2002, without telling Parliament.

Moreover, in 2009 The Mail on Sunday disclosed (3) that: “Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote (a) letter to Mr. Blair in July 2002 – a full eight months before the war – telling him that deposing Saddam Hussein was a blatant breach of international law.

“It was intended to make Mr. Blair call off the invasion, but he ignored it. Instead, a panicking Mr. Blair issued instructions to gag Lord Goldsmith, banned him from attending Cabinet meetings and ordered a cover-up to stop the public finding out.

“He even concealed the bombshell information from his own Cabinet, fearing it would spark an anti-war revolt. The only people he told were a handful of cronies who were sworn to secrecy.

“Lord Goldsmith was so furious at his treatment he threatened to resign – and lost three stone as Mr Blair and his cronies bullied him into backing down.”

The then Prime Minister did not alone ignore the Attorney General’s legal advice. In November 2002 “six wise men” gave Blair “bloody warnings” as to the outcome of an attack on Iraq. (4) They were: “ … all academics, expert on Iraq, the Middle East and international affairs. They had been called to the Cabinet Room to outline the worst that could happen if Britain and the United States launched an invasion.

“This was a meeting that could have changed the course of history and, with better planning for the aftermath, saved countless lives – if only the Prime Minister and his advisers had listened and acted on the bloody warnings on that day in November 2002.”

Dr. Toby Dodge, then of London’s Queen Mary University foresaw with extraordinary clarity the near certain outcome, warning: ‘… that Iraqis would fight for their country against the invaders rather than just celebrate the fall of their leader. A long and nasty civil war could follow. “My aim that day was to tell them as much as I could, so that there would be no excuses and nobody saying, ‘I didn’t know.’ ”

Others who shared their extensive expertise were Professor George Joffe of Cambridge University, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London and a Blair adviser, Professor Charles Tripp of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies, Steven Simon, Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Professor Michael Clarke, then of Kings College, London. Before the gathering they were warned: “Don’t tell him not to do it. He has already made up his mind”, Dr. Dodge told The Independent.

Blair and his Cabinet had: “… no plan for what would happen after the invasion. The approach was, ‘The Americans are heading this up. They will have a detailed plan. We need to follow them’ ”, said Professor Joffe. However in reality, a year’s planning by the State Department for the invasion’s aftermath: “was junked. They were making up policy on the hoof.”

Professor Joffe also explained the complexities of Iraq’s power structures with Tony Blair seemingly disinterested in the potential cultural, societal and political minefields, responding with kindergarten simplicity (re Saddam Hussein) “ But the man is evil isn’t he?”

A chameleon-like absorption of George W. Bush, his political circle and his Generals’ simplistic “good guys”, “bad guys” rhetoric.

Steven Simon had little faith in bringing democracy to Iraq at the barrels of guns and deliveries of 30,000-pound bunker busters: “If everything had been done differently, there might have been some small shot at avoiding disaster. But only a small shot.”

Incredibly, according to Professor Joffe: “The people who were put in charge in Iraq had very little knowledge or experience of the Middle East.”

Professor Clarke commented that Blair’s attempt to justify the invasion was mistaken: “We knew there was no nuclear stuff in Iraq.” Moreover, he believed: ‘Blair did not actually decide to go to war on the basis of intelligence, but made it look as if he had with his two “dodgy” dossiers. “He presented the case to the public as if they had incontrovertible evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. That was rubbish. They were ridiculous documents, both those documents.” ‘ (Emphasis added.)

Late last year, Blair made what was described as a “qualified apology” for “mistakes” made in Iraq – among them: “our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime”. In the light of the above, blatantly untrue.

Blair’s dodging and weaving over the years since 2003 – in spite of his millions, numerous properties, jet (seemingly leased) and a yacht, accrued from advising some of the world’s most despotic leaders – seems to have worn him down a bit, though.

In an extraordinary television outburst (5) attacking Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn who said of Blair on BBC’s Newsnight last August:

“If he has committed a war crime, yes (he should stand trial.)  Everybody who has committed a war crime should.” Blair responded: “I’m accused of being a war criminal for removing Saddam Hussein  … and yet Jeremy is seen as a progressive icon as we stand by and watch the people of Syria barrel-bombed, beaten and starved into submission and do nothing.”

No mention of the US’ illegal “coalition” which includes the UK which has made 4,024 strikes to 1^st June this year, according to the US Department of Defence. Strikes remarkably inept at affecting the countless foreign terrorist groups, but which have caused devastation to the Syrian people whose plight was caused by US plotting (6.)

46,615 bombs and missiles have been dropped Syria and Iraq in the seeming non-fight against ISIS and other criminal groups. (airwars.org)

Apart from his ongoing economy with the truth, Tony Blair also seems to be well past his sell by date. In Northern Ireland, probably the only place on earth which has a tenuous reason to give him some credit for the “peace process”, where he went to speak on the referendum at Ulster University, he was less than welcome.

Derry anti-war campaigner Frankie McMenamin said the former Labour leader was “not welcome” in Derry, telling the Derry Journal:

“I was involved in protests about the Iraqi War which Tony Blair was responsible for, Tony Blair is hated throughout the world and he has blood on his hands over Iraq.

“I will be voting for the U.K. to remain on June 23rd but I think someone like Mr. Blair (urging the stay in vote) will put a lot of other people off.

“Tony Blair is not welcome in our city and the people who organized this visit obviously knew this” – the meeting had not been publicly advertised and the address was to a specially selected audience. The co-speaker was Blair’s former Chancellor, Gordon Brown, near equally unpopular, who wrote the cheques for years of UK bombings before the invasion and then for the invasion’s destruction. Had the meeting been publicly advertised, assured Mr McMenamin, protesters would have been out in force.

On 17^th June, Blair was a signatory to an open letter, signed by two former deputy Prime Ministers and a number of MPs and public figures urging voters to stay in the European Union. It included the words:

“ … public life, whether in politics or elsewhere, should be about something else – something better.

“It should be driven by a desire to bring people together when it would be easier to tear them apart. A wish to build bridges rather than erect walls.” To promote that which is “Peaceful, tolerant, compassionate.”

As he added his signature, did he reflect on Iraq’s destroyed bridges – literally and metaphorically, on a nation of walls erected by US and UK troops over one of the most open landscapes anywhere to be found and on the accompanying destruction of peace, tolerance and compassion at the hands of US and UK policies aided by his ignorant determination and

“ridiculous documents.”

Philippe Sands QC, Professor of international law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, has said (7) ‘he believes, unequivocally, that the 2003 invasion was illegal under international law. “In the UK, beyond those associated with the government’s effort, I cannot think of a single international lawyer who thinks the war was lawful. Not a single name comes to mind. That’s got to be telling.” ‘

It can only be hoped the Chilcot Inquiry’s findings deliver Charles Anthony Lynton Blair and his cohorts in a tragedy which will be his and George W. Bush’s place in history. A sharp and chilly return to reality.

Notes:  

1.     http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/mar/18/foreignpolicy.iraq1

2.     https://newint.org/features/1998/01/05/iraq/

3.     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231746/Secret-letter-reveal-new-Blair-war-lies.html

4.     http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iraq-invasion-2003-the-bloody-warnings-six-wise-men-gave-to-tony-blair-as-he-prepared-to-launch-10000839.html

5.     http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-jeremy-corbyn-syria-war-criminal-chilcot-inquiry-a7070761.html

6.     http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-and-conspiracy-theories-it-is-a-conspiracy/29596

7.     http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/02/iraq-war-invasion-blair-regime

 

Any country that openly or covertly supports illegal regime change in Syria, necessarily supports ISIS  — they have shared goals.

Canada, like the U.S., has been very open about its support for illegal regime change.  Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan , for example, publicly stated that Assad “does need to go”.

As with all illegal wars of aggression, Canada’s position is based on well-documented false pretexts, and it categorically rejects international law as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which states that the war on Syria demands a “Syrian-led, Syria-owned political transition to end the conflict.”

ISIS, of course, and all the Western-supported mercenary terrorists invading Syria also want “Assad to go”.

The evidence of the West’s diabolical support of ISIS et al. mercenaries is increasingly transparent.

Apartheid Israel, Canada’s close ally, is now publicly unravelling the ISIS psychological operation (psy op) – where we pretend to be fighting ISIS even as we support ISIS.

Israel’s military intelligence chief, Major General Herzi Halevy recently stated that Israel prefers ISIS over the Syrian government, and he declared unambiguously that Israel does not want to see ISIS defeated.

Furthermore, writer Jason Ditz reports that

Israeli officials have regularly expressed comfort with the idea of ISIS conquering the whole of Syria, saying they find it preferable to the Iran-allied government surviving the war. At the same time, they were never so overtly supportive of ISIS and its survival.

Clearly, should the West’s objectives be realized, Wahhabi terrorist gangs such as ISIS will fill the vacuum left by the illegal “regime change” war.

Israel, like Canada and its allies, including the Persian Gulf Dictatorships/Monarchies, prefers the total destruction of democratic, pluralist, secular, civilized Syria in favour of gangs of Wahhabi-inspired terrorists.

There have never been “moderate” terrorists in Syria.  The “moderate” opposition in Syria attends parliament and does not seek the violent overthrow of its elected government.  The real “moderates” abhor the genocidal violence of the western-supported terrorists.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/disturbing-reality-in-syria-moderate-and-not-moderate-terrorists-whats-the-difference/5529241

Stephen Lendman explains,

All armed opposition groups in Syria engaged in combat against government forces along with slaughtering defenseless civilians are terrorists.

Washington and its rogue allies support them – imported death squads unable to exist without foreign backing.

No so-called ‘moderate rebels’ exist. Speaking last October at the International Valdai Discussion Club’s annual meeting, Putin forthrightly said ‘(w)hy play with words dividing terrorists into moderate and not moderate. What’s the difference?’

We no longer need to draw on historical memory either – a weak spot with Western MSM consumers.

We can almost be forgiven for forgetting that the West destroyed Libya using al Qaeda proxies, and that Libya is now an ISIS stronghold.

We can almost be forgiven for forgetting that the West continues to destroy Iraq, using proxies, or that it did the same thing in Afghanistan, and Bosnia, or the fact that the West supports an illegal neo-Nazi infested regime in the Ukraine.

But in the here and now, ignorance or forgetfulness is not an excuse.

In an interview with neo-con Wolf Blitzer, on the CNN propaganda channel, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard re-iterated what we should all know: The war on Syria is illegal and counter-productive, and a (proposed) “No-Fly Zone” would escalate the war and worsen the current humanitarian and refugee crises.

(embed Blitzer interview here)

She also amplified the fact that Western imperialism has (intentionally) strengthened rather than weakened terrorist groups in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

In an interview with The Nation, she explained that 

Escalating the war to overthrow Assad will make things even worse. It will cause more suffering and chaos and strengthen ISIS and Al Qaeda to the point where they may be able to take over all of Syria,” and the result, she says, would be disastrous,  “including a genocide against religious minorities, secularists, atheists, and anyone who refuses to accept the extremist Wahhabi theology. The refugee crisis will increase exponentially, and it could lead to a direct confrontation with Russia.

The West’s refusal to seek peace and its choice to instead perpetrate an overseas holocaust is consistent with the Israeli intelligence chief’s lament that ISIS is being weakened in Syria.

Evidence demonstrates time and again that the West and its allies actively seek to destroy other sovereign nations by supporting terrorist groups like al Qaeda/al Nursra Front, ISIS, and other terrorists groups.

It’s increasingly a “no-brainer” on many levels:  During the U.S. bombing campaign, ostensibly against ISIS, for example, ISIS territory actually increased dramatically.

Once a country is destroyed and/or balkanized, it is less able to oppose any number of Washington’s toxic agendas, including pipeline plans.

Whenever Canada or its allies talk about peace, and combating terrorism, or whenever they vilify President Assad and the Syrian government, we can be assured that they are lying, or that they are politically ignorant, or that they are blindly following illegitimate diktats from above.

The notion that our governments actually represent “the people”, is increasingly absurd.

Since the beginning of the Democratic primary campaign, Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been complaining about national establishment media skewing their coverage in favor of Hillary Clinton, noting the connections between ownership of those major media outlets to Clinton campaign donations. Now, one writer for a national news site has not only acknowledged Sanders as a viable candidate, but has gone as far as to call for Hillary Clinton to concede the Democratic nomination to Bernie Sanders. 

In a HuffPost Politics opinion piece, H. A. Goodman calls for Clinton to drop out of the race, citing the criminal investigation by the FBI into Clinton’s email server as well as national polls showing that despite being behind in pledged delegates, Sanders has taken the lead in national polls for not only the Democratic party nomination, but fares far better against Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in a national campaign.

“With Bernie Sanders now slightly ahead of Clinton nationally in the latest Bloomberg poll, it’s time to reevaluate the meaning of pragmatism. Hillary Clinton might be ahead of Bernie Sanders in delegates, but Vermont’s Senator has a monopoly on political momentum. Sadly, his opponent has a monopoly on controversy, and will face FBI interviews in the near future.”

Goodman also cited a Los Angeles Times article about how formal interviews are being arranged with Clinton’s closest advisers as well as Clinton herself, indicating the investigation is reaching its final stages. By final stages, they mean that a possible indictment for criminal charges may drop any time, and they want to make sure that readers understand that this is a criminal investigation, which Goodman repeated multiple times throughout the opinion piece.

“The Christian Science Monitor clearly states the nature of the FBI’s investigation, stating ‘The FBI is indeed conducting a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information on the private email server Clinton used for State Department communications.’ Yes, Hillary supporters, ‘The FBI is indeed conducting a criminal investigation.’”

 

 

Other publications making it clear that this investigation is not just about possible misconduct but about criminal charges, include The Washington Post. And, it isn’t just media outlets jumping on the bandwagon to let the public know the gravity of the charges pending against Clinton and that this is not just another far-fetched scandal courtesy of the Republican Party, like so many attacks on the Clintons in the past.

Former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal back in January, claiming the charges were justified. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the retired chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told CNN‘s Jake Tapper that it was time for Clinton to drop out of the race back in February, long before the current surge in support for Sanders.

“If it were me, I would have been out the door and probably in jail… This over-classification excuse is not an excuse. If it’s classified, it’s classified.”

Goodman didn’t mince words on what many Sanders’ supporters have claimed was the DNC’s decision to anoint Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party nominee long before the primaries even began, regardless of who ran against her or what skeletons might lurk in her proverbial closet. He also cited her extreme negative favorability rating and how she fares far worse head-to-head with Trump in polls than her rival Sanders.

“It’s time for Democrats to deal with reality, not just allegiance to a political icon, and rally around the only candidate not linked to an FBI investigation, and other controversies. With recent victories and future wins ahead, Bernie Sanders has all the political momentum heading towards Election Day. Most importantly, Bernie Sanders is the only leading candidate with positive favorability ratings in 2016… Democrats can’t run a winning presidential campaign with the slogan, ‘We’ll save you from Trump with a person who’s less despised.’”

Real Clear Politics polls show Bernie Sanders consistently maintains a double digit lead over Donald Trump, while Hillary Clinton hovers around single digits — and has even dropped to below Trump’s ratings back in February — yet publications like Rolling Stone continue to claim Clinton as the stronger candidate against Trump when all polls indicate the exact opposite. All of this is taking place before the GOP goes on the attack against Clinton should she win the nomination for the general election.

It’s fair to say neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz will say “enough about your d*** emails.” Or that they will give Clinton a pass on the many other reasons Hillary needs to step aside.

Goodman also recorded a video on YouTube, spelling out why Clinton will likely be indicted and how the email scandal in itself disqualifies her from being president, citing the fact that there are 22 emails that still can’t be shown to the American public, which indicates that they are indeed classified, despite arguments from Clinton to the contrary. Goodman says Clinton’s claims that the emails weren’t classified while they were on her private server are false, and that whole issue is irrelevant “spin” that doesn’t change the fact that the email issue alone makes Clinton unfit to be the Democratic party nominee or president.

“So you either have overt criminal activity, or someone who’s just not smart enough to keep state secrets safe. Either way, you’re not fit to be president.”

The HuffPost Politics article says that the subsequent cover-up has been as damaging, if not more so, than the scandal itself, much like Watergate derailed Richard Nixon. Goodman asks when the Democratic Party establishment will finally “admit this fiasco is horrible for a general election?” and notes that if “federal prosecutors are interviewing your candidate for president, even Donald Trump has a good chance at the White House.”

Just in case you didn’t draw the conclusion that Clinton’s email scandal will be her downfall and it’s time for her to drop out, this sums up the political point that only Goodman seems willing to make among the establishment media.

 

 

“Bernie is by far the superior candidate, and already matches up better against GOP rivals; without the myriad of issues faced by Clinton. For the country, and especially the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton should concede the nomination to Bernie Sanders.”

And Goodman did mention this is a criminal investigation. Just in case you didn’t catch it the seven times it’s pointed out in the article.

Secretary of State Kerry met with dissident State Department “diplomats” to hear their call for U.S. airstrikes on Syrian government troops, but the plan is both dangerous and illegal, writes Marjorie Cohn.

In an internal “dissent channel cable,” 51 State Department officers called for “targeted military strikes” against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a proposal that President Barack Obama has thus far resisted. However, were he to accept the cable’s advice, he would risk a dangerous – possibly catastrophic – confrontation with Russia. And, such a use of military force in Syria would violate U.S. and international law.

While the cable decries “the Russian and Iranian governments’ cynical and destabilizing deployment of significant military power to bolster the Assad regime,” the cable calls for the United States to protect and empower “the moderate Syrian opposition,” seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.

However, Assad’s government is the only legitimate government in Syria and, as the sovereign, has the legal right to seek international support as it has from Russia and Iran. There is no such legal right for the United States and other countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to arm Syrian rebels to attack Assad’s government.

The dissent cable advocates what it calls “the judicious use of stand-off and air weapons,” which, the signatories write, “would undergird and drive a more focused and hardnosed US-led diplomatic process.”

Inside Syria, both the United States and Russia are battling the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) as ISIS and other jihadist groups seek to overthrow the Assad government. But while the U.S. is supporting rebel forces (including some fighting ISIS and some fighting Assad), Russia is backing Assad (and waging a broader fight against “terrorists,” including Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front). Reuters reports the U.S. has about 300 special operations forces in Syria for its “counter-terrorism mission against Islamic State militants but is not targeting the Assad government.”

The policy outlined in the dissent cable would change that balance, by having the U.S. military bomb Syrian soldiers who have been at the forefront of the fight against both ISIS and Nusra. But that policy shift “would lead to a war with Russia, would kill greater numbers of civilians, would sunder the Geneva peace process, and would result in greater gains for the radical Sunni ‘rebels’ who are the principal opponents of the Assad regime,” analyst James Carden wrote atConsortiumnews.com.

Journalist Robert Parry added that the authors of the cable came from the State Department’s “den of armchair warriors possessed of imperial delusions,” looking toward a Hillary Clinton administration which will likely pursue “no-fly-zones” and “safe zones” leading to more slaughter in Syria and risking a confrontation with Russia.

As we should have learned from the “no-fly zone” that preceded the Libyan “regime change” that the U.S. government engineered in 2011, a similar strategy in Syria would create a vacuum in which ISIS and Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front would flourish.

Violating U.S. and International Law

The strategy set forth in the cable would also violate both U.S. and international law.

Under the War Powers Resolution (WPR), the President can introduce U.S. troops into hostilities, or into situations “where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances,” only (1) after a Congressional declaration of war, (2) with “specific statutory authorization,” or (3) in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”

None of three conditions that would allow the president to use military force in Syria is present at this time. First, Congress has not declared war. Second, neither the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which George W. Bush used to invade Afghanistan, nor the 2002 AUMF, which Bush used to invade Iraq would provide a legal basis for an attack on Syria at the present time. Third, there has been no attack on the United States or U.S. armed forces. Thus, an armed attack on Syria would violate the WPR.

Even if a military attack on Syria did not run afoul of the WPR, it would violate the United Nations Charter, a treaty the U.S. has ratified, making it part of U.S. law under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. Article 2(4) of the Charter says that states “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

The Charter only allows a military attack on another country in the case of self-defense or when the Security Council authorizes it; neither has occurred in this case. Assad’s government has not attacked the United States, and the Council has not approved military strikes on Syria.

Indeed, Security Council Resolution 2254, to which the cable refers, nowhere authorizes the use of military force, and ends with the words, “[The Security Council] decides to remain actively seized of the matter.” This means that the Council has not delegated the power to attack Syria to any entity other than itself.

If the U.S. were to mount an armed attack on Syria, the Charter would give Assad a valid self-defense claim, and Russia could legally assist Assad in collective self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter. Moreover, forcible “regime change” would violate Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has also ratified.

Although it’s true that the “dissent” cable eschews the use of U.S. “ground forces,” its recommendation that the U.S. should bomb Assad’s government would involve U.S. military personnel who would fly the bombers or fire off the missiles. And, such an operation would invariably necessitate at least a limited number of U.S. support troops on the ground.

Opposition to Violent ‘Regime Change’

Many commentators have warned of dangers from a U.S. military attack on Syria, risks that are either ignored or breezily dismissed by the “dissent” cable.

Jean Aziz cautions in Al-Monitor, “the recommendation of military strikes against the Syrian government – no matter how well intentioned – is, in the end, escalatory, and would likely result in more war, killing, refugees, less humanitarian aid reaching civilians, the empowerment of jihadis and so on.”

The United States is already empowering jihadis, “going out of its way to protect the interests of al-Qaeda’s closest and most powerful ally in Syria, Ahrar al-Sham,” Gareth Porter wrote in Truthout. Porter reported that Ahrar al-Sham, which works closely with the Nusra Front, “is believed to be the largest military force seeking to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, with at least 15,000 troops.”

So, in seeking Assad’s ouster, the U.S. has terrorist bedfellows. So much for the “global war on terror.”

As CIA Director John Brennan recently told the Senate Intelligence Committee, “Our efforts have not reduced [Islamic State’s] terrorism capability and global reach,” adding, “The branch in Libya is probably the most developed and the most dangerous.”

No wonder President Obama told Fox News “the worst mistake” of his presidency was not planning for the aftermath of U.S. regime change in Libya, although he stubbornly maintains that ousting President Muammar Gaddafi was “the right thing to do.”

The Center for Citizen Initiatives, a group of U.S. citizens currently on a delegation to Russia in order to increase understanding and reduce international tension and conflict, issued a statement in strong opposition to the “dissent” cable. Retired Col. Ann Wright, anti-war activist Kathy Kelly and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern are part of the group.

“It is not the right of the USA or any other foreign country to determine who should lead the Syrian government,” the statement says. “That decision should be made by the Syrian people.”

The statement urges the State Department “to seek non-military solutions in conformity with the UN Charter and international law.” It also urges the Obama administration to “stop funding and supplying weapons to armed ‘rebels’ in violation of international law and end the policy of forced ‘regime change’.” Finally, the statement calls for “an urgent nation-wide public debate on the U.S. policy of ‘regime change’.”

This is sage advice in light of the disasters created by the U.S. government’s forcible regime change in Iraq and Libya, which destabilized those countries, facilitating the rise of ISIS and other terrorist groups. There is no reason to believe the situation in Syria would be any different.

Instead of saber-rattling against Assad, Russia and Iran, the Obama administration should include them all in pursuing diplomacy toward a political, non-military settlement to the Syrian crisis.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. A member of the national advisory board of Veterans for Peace, Cohn’s latest book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. Visit her website athttp://marjoriecohn.com/ and follow her on Twitter at @marjoriecohn.

This is long overdue.

The University of Alaska is sponsoring a study that will examine whether of not WTC Building 7 was brought down by a controlled demolition on September 11, 2001.

For those who may not be aware, standing some 47 stories high, Building 7 was the thirdskyscraper that collapsed later in the afternoon on 9/11, dropping at free-fall speed in less than 7 seconds- and yet, it was not struck by any plane and was located over 100 metres away from WTC 1 and 2.

The official version of events is that fire spread to Building 7, from the main towers, devastating the structure, and causing it also to fall in on itself, but many have questioned how exactly every single support column in the building could have failed simultaneously without the use of pre-planned explosives.

Dr J Leroy Hulsey, chair of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, has partnered with Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth to begin a rigorous academic study into what really caused it to collapse.

Dr Hulsey said:

Over the next year, with a team of PhD students, I will be rebuilding World Trade Center building 7, using the same drawings that were used to build it originally we will reconstruct it digitally.

NIST says the building fell down due to office fires. Our investigation will evaluate the probability that this was the cause of the collapse.

Ted Walter, Director of Strategy and Development for A&E 9/11 Truth added:

We hope to gain significant traction in the engineering community by providing an authoritative refutation of NIST’s report, by showing that there is no way that fires could have brought down building 7.

On the day of 9/11 the BBC reported that Building 7 had collapsed 20 minutes before it actually had, which only raises suspicions that somebody knew it was about to come down. See that monumental screw up, which happened live on TV, here:

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Watch the collapse of Building 7 here:

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Do you believe explosives brought down Building 7?

On Oct. 20, 2011, Muammar Qaddafi was grotesquely murdered on camera. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said, “I want him dead,” and after his death she made her famously imperial boast, “We came, we saw, he died,” refiguring Julius Caesar’s message to the Roman Senate after one of his conquests in the same Mediterranean region.

Less than a month later, in a Nov. 16, 2011, “Tripoli Situation Report” in Hillary Clinton’s e-mail archive, “country managers of the three U.S. firms comprising the Waha Group (Marathon, Conoco Phillips and Amerada Hess) said meetings with its Libyan joint venture partner and the National Oil Company [NOC] this week were ‘extremely positive’ and that they were encouraged by an apparent sea change in the NOC’s attitude toward its U.S. partners.”

One would have had to be extraordinarily naive to believe that the U.S. and NATO attacked Libya to “stop genocide and mass atrocities,” as Secretary of State Clinton, NSC advisor Samantha Power and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice claimed at the time. Or to believe Ambassador Rice, who traveled to Libya after the conquest and then traveled on to Rwanda, where she pronounced: “This time, the Security Council acted. And acted in time. Having failed in Rwanda and Darfur, it did not fail again in Libya. Within less than two days, American firepower played a decisive role in stopping Qaddafi’s forces and saving Benghazi.” That should be enough to make anyone wonder what really happened in Rwanda and Darfur.

Most anyone paying serious attention knew that there was a lot of blood for oil involved in the NATO war on Libya, but now we have confirmation in the Wikileaks searchable database of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mails, which were made available in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

This particular e-mail also illustrates Secretary Clinton’s interest in:

1) An official from the Central Bank of Libya’s tour of Washington, London and New York to negotiate removal of restrictions on its assets,

2) U.N. control of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and cobalt in Libya,

3) Money to be made in “the country’s reconstruction,”

3) U.S. ally Qatar’s role in the 2011 creation of Libya Al-Ahrar TV, a channel broadcast by satellite from its headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and

4) U.S. educated and exiled Mahmoud Shammam, Al-Ahrar TV’s co-founder, who had by then become Libya’s new minister of communications.

On Oct. 25, 2011, Mahmoud Shammam had told Telegraph.co.uk.video that Qaddafi had been buried in a secret location that was not a Moslem cemetery.

I highlighted key text, spelled out acronyms, and corrected a few typos in this Nov. 16, 2011, e-mail to Secretary Clinton for easy reading:

UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05783460

Date: 02/29/2016

RELEASE IN PART 1.4(B),B1,1.4(D)

Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:25 PM

To: H

Subject: Fw: Tripoli Situation Report — November 16, 2011

Classified by DAS, A/GIS, DoS on 02/29/2016 — Class: CONFIDENTIAL — Reason: 1.4(B), 1.4(D) —

Fyi Declassify on: 11/16/2026

From: Abbaszadeh, Nima

Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 03:16 PM B1

To: Wells, Alice G; Sullivan, Jacob Cc: S_SpecialAssistants 1.4(B)

Subject: Tripoli Situation Report — November 16, 2011 1.4(D)

(SBU) [Sensitive But Unclassified]

(SBU) Waha Group returns: In a November 16 meeting with Ambassador, country managers of the three U.S. firms comprising the Waha Group (Marathon, ConocoPhillips and AmeradaHess) said meetings with its Libyan joint venture partner and the National Oil Company [NOC] this week were “extremely positive” and that they were encouraged by an apparent sea change in the NOC’s attitude toward its U.S. partners. The Waha Group, the only majors that have not yet resumed production in Libya, will visit its 7 fields for the first time in the coming weeks and will be producing 50,000-70,000 bpd before ramping up to 100,000 bpd by year’s end. The consortium will have to invest in some replacement parts and logistical equipment before it returns to last year’s production levels of 350,000 bpd. Initial production will come from its Samah and Dahrah, deemed the safest of its oil fields, while larger fields closer to Sine still face security issues.

(SBU) Waha continued: The TNC [Transitional National Government] likely will announce the formation of a Ministry of Petroleum in this interim period that will assume the regulatory role previously exercised by the NOC, they said. The favored candidate to lead the Ministry is Abdulrahman Benyeza, a respected and knowledgeable technocrat educated at the University of Texas. The TNC and NOC will be focused on production restoration for the next 18-24 months and it is unlikely they will risk the loss of time and money in reviewing contracts during this period. They welcomed a shift in attitude toward “partnership,” and noted with optimism that the country’s reconstruction will provide an economic driver largely absent from the Qadhafi-era kleptocracy.

(SBU)CBLassets: SamiRais, the Central Bank of Libya lead on frozen assets, said he is planning a tour of Washington, London and New York to appeal to the US, UK and UN to delist the CBL and lift remaining restrictions on its assets. Rais said the TNC will need funds to carry out any weapons-buyback programs and resolve the domestic liquidity crunch.

(SBU) IAEA: According to UNSMIL [United Nations Support Mission in Libya], IAEA is planning to visit Libya in early December. Based on Libya’s full compliance with its HEU [Highly Enriched Uranium] obligations in December 2009, the IAEA is satisfied that all of the GOL’s former nuclear weapons facilities are under appropriate safeguards but is concerned about the medical and commercial uses of cobalt and uranium.

(SBU) Libya Al-Ahrar TV: In a meeting with PAO, Libya Al-Ahrar [TV] Executive Manager Seraj Beshti dismissed rumors about Qatar’s purported “60 days’ notice” and eventual expulsion order for the network to leave Doha. Beshti noted that some financial issues have arisen with the Qatari government; salaries are delayed and at some point the Qataris did ask the network to reduce its staff footprint. However, Beshti affirmed that Doha has never interfered with the channel programming or news editorials. Beshti said that within the network’s offices there is debate about the proper role and longevity of Minister of Communications Mahmoud Shammam’s tenure at the station. Although Shammam founded the network, there is growing discomfort with him retaining a management position– albeit an absentee position– while retaining a government post in Tripoli. Following November 14 protests by the Warshafana tribe regarding comments made by Shammam, the network issued a formal apology but further stoked debate and dissent within the network’s offices regarding Shammam’s role.

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Black Agenda Report, Black Star News,Counterpunch and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News, KPFA Flashpoints and for her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at[email protected]. In March 2014 she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for promoting peace in the Great Lakes Region of Africa through her reporting.

French construction material giant Lafarge paid ‘taxes’ to ISIS in order to continue its business operations in Syria throughout the still on-going conflict.

The company had a plant located in Jalabiya, northern Syria – an area under the control of ISIS – which was opened in 2010 just before the outbreak of war

Lafarge paid ISIS a ‘tax’ that meant their vehicles were allowed to pass through ISIS controlled areas and checkpoints unhindered.

Lafarge is the world leader in building materials and one of the biggest players in cement, aggregates and concrete businesses.

ISIS eventually seized the site in Syria in 2014, but until then Lafarge was absolutely guilty of providing material support to terrorists.

Kurds secured the area in February 2015 and it is now a base for Western coalition special forces.

Corporations are regularly allowed to break and bend laws, and HSBC was a favoured bank of terrorists and faced absolutely no repercussions, but openly funding terrorism is perhaps new territory for corporate crime.

Do you expect criminal charges to be brought against Lafarge?

 

The ongoing war in Syria may see some escalation soon. A report that 51 State Dept. employees (out of 13,000 foreign service officers) signed a memo urging President Obama to change his focus in Syria from fighting ISIS to fighting the secular Assad government has caused quite a stir.

The fact that such a small number of individuals could make this a noteworthy story shows that propaganda continues to reign supreme. It makes no sense that U.S. can weaken ISIS by attacking the main opponent of ISIS (i.e., Assad).

We’re constantly smothered in rhetoric about how America “must stop ISIS.” Yet, ISIS has been on the ropes, and in trouble. The group has been on the run, and what does the U.S. want to do? They want to hurry up and bomb Assad, which they’ve been trying to do for five years now.

There’s agitation in the Congress right now to give the authority to Obama to do something that he ‘seems’ to be reluctant to do. If we would have had an aggressive neocon as a president, Congress wouldn’t have mattered. He would have went ahead with the bombings by now.

I think we’re really playing with fire here. Is it really worth the risk to stir up a war with Russia? It makes no difference to Americans whether or not Assad remain in power in Syria. It has nothing to do with our freedoms or economy. Yet the rhetoric keeps building nonetheless.

An American in Orlando lost his mind and shot 50 people dead, and the response is to go across the world and attack Assad in Syria? Such illogic reminds me of the U.S. attacking Iraq after 9/11. It made no sense then (or now) and it accomplished nothing but the creation of chaos (and ironically) ISIS itself!

Are we witnessing opportunism once again?

If we want to be safer and enjoy more liberties, we much change our foreign policy. We have to mind our own business, have a strong national defense, and practice non-intervention abroad with other nations. That idea is much better than the nonsense coming from the State Department and the government at large.

Brexit: What Is It About? What is at Stake?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, June 22 2016

The ISIS terrorist group has regained control of the al-Zakia Junction and al-Zayn Hills in the southeastern part of Raqqa province after the Syrian Arab Army withdrew to Ithriyah. Pro-government sources argue that this was a tactical move and no heavy clashes have been observed, recently.

Ground sources provide different reasons of the recent setbacks, but the most important of them are:

• surprise vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attacks;

• a lack of the air support from the Russian air grouping located in Syria.

While the effectiveness of countering VBIED attacks lays in in the sphere of tactical measures implemented on the ground, the location of the Russian airbase in Latakia complicates significantly close air support because a big flying time to the target doesn’t allow to hit evading targets that move fast in the desert. Information of forward air controllers becomes outdated very fast. This is why the main striking force of the Russian military grouping in Syria – warplanes – is focused on stationary targets in different regions of Syria.

The SAA grouping at the border of Raqqa province is receiving reinforcements in order to counter-attack ISIS units in the area. Recently, a convoy of the Desert Hawks Brigade has arrived to the east Hama countryside in order to participate in the SAA’s advance on the Tabaqa military airport.

Meanwhile, Russian warplanes and helicopters raided the areas of T3-Airbase and Arak near Palmyra that had been seized by ISIS militants. Now, SAA units are deployed at the al-Talilah crossroad, east to the ancient city, preparing for fresh offensive operations.

Norway might deploy its troops and speical operation forces in Syria, the government said on June 22, following the authorization of the move by the country’s parliament. Norway is going to send some 60 troops to Jordan this summer. They will train and support “Syrian opposition “fighting the ISIS terrorist group. Most likely, this Syrian opposition is the so-called New Syrian Army.

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In the midst of what undoubtedly will be the nastiest and most expensive presidential campaign in American history, it is important to remember that the question is not so much whether a candidate is a good or bad person, but rather what should and will be the policies, objectives, and consequences of her or his administration? What do the People of the United States really want and expect their government to do on their behalf? Who should make political policy, the People, or the politicians they elect to represent them?

Founded as a republic in which representatives are elected to administer the government for the People, the United States has become increasingly more democratic as the vote has been extended from a few wealthy property owners to include most adult citizens. President Abraham Lincoln not only established that the United States could not be dissolved, but he also expanded the definition of its government from being for the People, to being of and by the People. Thus, it is the People themselves who have the inherent power to define their own government, rather than being forced to accept the kind of government offered by competing political candidates. In a democracy, it is supposed to be the people (demos) who have the power (kratia), rather than the politicians (poltikos).

The Democrats and Republicans are currently nominating the two candidates with the highest unfavorable ratings in the history of presidential elections. Before hiring their next president, shouldn’t American voters be telling the candidates what the task involves, rather than listening to the candidates lie about what they will do if they get the job?

Political Party Platforms

Currently, political policy, on the national level, is set forth in the platforms adopted by the major political parties at their presidential nominating conventions every four years.  During the primaries, the competing candidates tout their proposals about what their party’s platform should contain. Once they obtain enough delegates to receive the nomination, the successful presidential candidates take control of their political parties and the committees that draft the platforms. Conceptually, the American People vote for these competing party platforms, and the presidential candidates are supposedly pledged to follow these policies, if elected.

In truth—given the present merchandising approach to political campaigns—the party platforms are carefully designed as bait to sell the party’s political package to the voters. Once in office, however, successful candidates are free to switch from their advertised promises, which they usually do to the detriment of those who bought their product.

Hillary Clinton’s website lists 31 key programs she will fight for as president—from curing Alzheimer’s disease to teaching new workforce skills. Mislabeled as policy, these programs include improving access to affordable health care, preserving Social Security and Medicare, and reducing the cost of college. Although Bernie Sanders may push the Democratic platform committee toward adopting more progressive positions, the ultimate result of a Hillary Clinton presidency will be a continuation of the pro-corporate philosophy of the “New Democrats”, such as her husband and President Barack Obama. This centralist orientation is largely indistinguishable from mainstream Republican policies in the critical areas of the economy, environment, and militarization.

Donald Trump’s website offers a mishmash of proposals—also referred to as policies—including tax reform by reducing taxes, immigration reform by forcing Mexico to build a border wall, health care reform by repealing the Affordable Care Act, and compelling China to live up to its trade obligations by being a tough negotiator. Given his erratic nature, these proposals offer little or no guidance as to what a President Trump might actually do when confronted with real world problems, instead of the programming requirements of reality television.

Even with the best of intentions, these propositions—in the absence of well-considered policy guidelines—provide little direction in the event of changes of circumstance, such as another major terrorist attack, or increasing crime, riots, and racial violence resulting from economic failures. Most pertinent is the inability of political parties to adopt policies that actually benefit the People whenever beneficial policies conflict with the dictates of the wealthy elite and corporations who control the politicians in both major parties?

In many respects, the current political policy-making process treats American voters like children. Just as parents quickly learn to ask their young children whether they want green beans or carrots—rather than telling them to eat their vegetables—the electoral choices offered to voters by the major parties are different tastes of the same artificially-flavored political Kool-Aid.

Policy and Programs

The concept of policy is widely misunderstood. Policy is a philosophical guideline or a path to a goal or objective. It differs from laws, rules, regulations, and procedures, which are more mandatory. Although often used interchangeably—especially in politics—there is also a difference between policy, and the programs that implement policies.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last big-picture political policy maker. His “New Deal” included a wide variety of government programs and lasted for decades, as the United States enjoyed its greatest period of political stability and economic progress. The platforms of subsequent presidents—Eisenhower’s “Peace and Prosperity,” Kennedy’s “New Frontier,” Johnson’s “Great Society,” Nixon’s “Bring Us Together,” Reagan’s “Make America Great Again,” Bush senior’s “Kinder, Gentler Nation,” Bill Clinton’s “Putting People First,” Bush junior’s “Compassionate Conservatism,” and Barrack Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In”—have been marketing slogans primarily designed to peddle a variety of special-interest programs, rather than broad-scale statements of public policy. These political catchphrases are in the same category as Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and Hillary Clinton’s “Stronger Together.”

While one could say that the New Deal was also a slogan, it was much more than a label for the presidential orders and government programs adopted pursuant to it. In response to the devastation of the Great Depression, the New Deal was a vision—expressed as a policy—which proposed a new contract between the People and their government. More than words, the New Deal actually provided relief for the destitute, recovery of the economy, and reform of the financial system.

Urging the United States to become an “Arsenal of Democracy” to help the Allies defend themselves against fascism and to unify the spirit of the American People, President Roosevelt looked forward to a world founded on the Four Freedoms of speech and expression, of worship, from want, and from fear. In January 1941—when Roosevelt identified these freedoms—the world was engaged in a great war against fascism which threatened every person on Earth. Today, fascism is once again rearing its evil head, and it is being fed by the fear tactics of reactionary politicians and the militarization of the government. Fascism is threatening an American society made vulnerable by social, environmental, and economic problems far beyond the comprehension of those who lived 75 years ago. At a time when the People desperately want peace and prosperity, they are being told by their presidential candidates that war and austerity are inevitable.

The Essentials of Good Government

Irrespective of culture or national origin, from the most ancient tribal-based settlements to the unimaginable societies of the future, there have been and will continue to be certain essential organizational functions required to preserve the integrity of the group. As basic public policy, good government must:

• Provide every child with equal access to nutrition, health care, and education;

• Provide economic security to ensure the ability of all parents to care for their families;

• Provide and enforce laws to guarantee equal opportunity and individual rights for everyone;

• Provide physical security to defend the society and its people; and

• Provide coordination of large-scale efforts to serve the public good.

The People Can Make Their Own Policy

If the American People are capable of earning their own living, raising their children, paying taxes, and being emotionally and physically maimed and dying in the defense of their Nation, aren’t they smart enough to have a more direct say in the policies that govern their future and the destiny of their children? Have the money interests become so entrenched in both major political parties that the politicians no longer address the needs of the People? Are the People once again being taxed without representation? What, if anything, can be done? The United States Voters’ Rights Amendment (USVRA) may provide an answer to these questions.

The USVRA is a comprehensive Voters’ Bill of Rights intended to transform the United States government into one that cares for and nurtures the many who elect it, rather than benefiting the few who bribe its representatives. Primarily, the USVRA guarantees—for the very first time—the right of all Americans to cast effective votes in all elections. In doing so, it:

• defines equal rights for women;

• maximizes voter participation and prohibits the suppression of voting;

• eliminates corporate personhood and controls political contributions;

• ensures public funding of elections and limits the lengths of campaigns;

• provides paid voting holidays and hand-countable paper ballots;

• improves political education and public information;

• eliminates the Electoral College; and it

• curtails lobbying and prohibits conflicts of interest.

Assuming the ratification of the USVRA—and the effectiveness of its provisions to ensure the quality of everyone’s vote and to improve the performance and dedication of their representatives—let us examine the policy-making provisions of the USVRA to see just how the People would go about making their own policy to guide their elected representatives.

Policy Formulation Under the USVRA

In order to finally actualize America’s representative form of democracy—and to transform its government—the USVRA provides the mechanism for the formulation of policy questions, and it prescribes the method by which the People vote on the issues.

While there is no way that the American People could—or should—presently trust their representatives to faithfully identify and formulate the most pressing political issues facing their Nation for the next four years, ratification of the USVRA presupposes that it’s adoption will only result from a mass, nonpartisan political movement. Thus, the future members of Congress will be far more disposed to pay attention to the needs and aspirations of an energized electorate than the present office holders. Even so, Section 10 of the USVRA directs Congress to solicit public comment “regarding the political issues that most concern the People” during the calendar year preceding a presidential election.

Prior to midnight on December 31st, Congress is mandated to adopt a joint resolution identifying the 12 most critical policy issues to be addressed by the next president and Congress. Recognizing that Congress might be reluctant to act as required, the USVRA punishes a failure to act by disqualifying “all sitting members of Congress to be eligible for reelection.” Is there any doubt that the members of Congress will act to save their jobs? Isn’t it far more likely that the questions they formulate will be more relevant to the American People than those currently being debated in the election of 2016?

Section 11 requires that federal elections be “held on a national voters’ holiday, with full pay for all citizens who cast ballots.” Moreover, all federal elections “shall be conducted on uniform, hand-countable paper ballots and, for the presidential election, ballots shall include the twelve most critical policy questions articulated by Congress, each to be answered yes or no by the voters.”

Once the questions have been published, there will be a valid standard by which all political candidates in the United States can be evaluated in determining their qualifications to hold public office. While the present art of politics teaches candidates to never take a position on any question in order to avoid losing votes, the USVRA would not only force candidates to take concrete positions, but to defend them as well. Moreover, enactment of the USVRA will help avoid the intentional creation of volatile issues intended to excite fear voting.

At the same time—motivated by the USVRA and cognizant of the power of their vote—the People would be far more likely to think about the important questions facing the future of their Nation and to arrive at responsible answers.

Questions for a National Policy Referendum

Rather than responding to billions of dollars in negative advertising about the inadequacies of opposition candidates, a barrage of slick promotional propaganda concealing such deficiencies, and misleading party platforms, voters in the 2016 election should have the right to decide real issues. They should be asked if international trade pacts should be approved; if the cap on Social Security withholding taxes should be eliminated; if a supplemental national retirement system should be enacted; if solar energy should be collected in outer space to energize the national highways in lieu of a reliance on polluting petroleum products; and if the crumbling national infrastructure should be repaired and upgraded.

Those most affected by domestic policies should decide if everyone has a right to national health care; if paid maternity leave is to be provided by employers; if women have the freedom of choice in matters of childbearing; and if everyone has the right to marry whomsoever they chose.

Working people and small business owners are certainly qualified to decide if a national minimum wage should be guaranteed; if public education should be privatized; if the right to education should be extended through college; if all existing student loans should be forgiven; and if military spending should be reduced.

Concerned for the safety and security of their families, everyone should have the freedom to offer their opinion about ending the war on drugs; prohibiting private, for-profit prisons; and if the Second Amendment allows for the reasonable regulation of firearms.

Irrespective of one’s own political position on any and all of these questions, isn’t it far better for each individual’s personal happiness—and for the future of the Nation—if everyone is encouraged to understand and to advocate their differing point of view, and to vote their conscience?

Wisdom of the Crowd

Unlike public opinion polls—in which respondents often provide snap answers influenced by the last political advertisement they were exposed to—the answers to a national policy referendum would be much more deliberative. Moreover, unlike statutory ballot initiatives—which often produce unforeseen and regrettable outcomes—answers to a USVRA referendum would create policy to guide the making of a law, rather than the law itself. For example, the People might vote overwhelmingly for universal health care, and then leave it up to Congress to work out the details.

It is estimated that more than 225 million Americans should be eligible to vote in the 2016 presidential election. With voter suppression taking place in many states, unfavorable candidates, and the possibility that millions of Sanders supporters and mainstream Republicans will boycott the election, the turnout could be less than 30 percent. The result might be a president chosen by fewer than 15 percent of the eligible voters. If, however, the People had the right and opportunity to make their own policy and to vote for those candidates who offer the best solutions to achieve their goals, voter participation could exceed all expectations, and the United States would evolve into a true democratic republic.

Would the policies resulting from a national policy referendum be responsible? The answer is an unqualified yes, and the reason is that the People—collectively—are much smarter that the most brilliant political candidates, or their panels of experts. The “wisdom of the crowd” can be easily proven. If one were to carefully count a large number of marbles and place them in a glass jar and then ask a group of 100, or even 1,000 people, to estimate how many are present, the responses will vary widely as participants make their best guess. On average, however, the crowd working together will almost perfectly identify how many marbles are in the jar. In the same way, 225 million voters would be much more likely to formulate wholesome policies—than the politicians who sell their positions of trust to the highest bidder.

Warning to Politicians

Given the opportunity, the American People are not only capable of charting their own future, but they are also smart, wise, and brave enough to seize the chance to do so. There is no alternative—the People of the United States of America will either take control of their own government, or their experiment in self government will ultimately fail.

The consent of the People to be governed should no longer be taken for granted.

William John Cox is a retired public interest lawyer. He filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 alleging that the government no longer cared for the voters who elected it, and he asked that a national policy referendum be ordered as a remedy. He is the author of “Transforming America: A Voters’ Bill of Rights” and can be contacted through his website, WilliamJohnCox.com.

Until recently the progressive mind has been resolutely closed and stubbornly frozen in place against all things Trump.

But cracks are appearing in the ice.  With increasing frequency over the last few months some of the most thoughtful left and progressive figures have begun to speak favorably of aspects of Trump’s foreign policy. Let us hear from these heretics, among them William Greider, Glen Ford, John Pilger, Jean Bricmont, Stephen F. Cohen andWilliam Blum.  Their words are not to be construed as “endorsements,” but rather an acknowledgement of Trump’s anti-interventionist views, the impact those views are having and the alternative he poses to Hillary Clinton in the current electoral contest.

First let’s consider the estimable William Greider, a regular contributor to The Nation and author of Secrets of the Temple.  He titled a recent article for the Nation, “Donald Trump Could be The Military Industrial Complex’s Worst Nightmare: The Republican Front Runner is Against Nation Building.  Imagine That.”

Greider’s article is brief, and I recommend reading every precious word of it.  Here is but one quote: “Trump has, in his usual unvarnished manner, kicked open the door to an important and fundamental foreign-policy debate.” And here is a passage from Trump’s interview with the Washington Post:

I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they’d be blown up,’ Trump told the editors.  ‘And we’d build another one and it would get blown up. And we would rebuild it three times. And yet we can’t build a school in Brooklyn.… at what point do you say hey, we have to take care of ourselves. So, you know, I know the outer world exists and I’ll be very cognizant of that but at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially in the inner cities.

Trump talks about building infrastructure for the inner cities, especially better schools for African American children, rather than bombing people of color halfway around the world! That is hardly racism.  And it is not how the mainstream media wants us to think of The Donald.

*****

Next, Glen Ford, the eloquent radical Left executive editor of Black Agenda Report, a superb and widely read outlet, penned an article in March, 2016, with the following title: “Trump Way to the Left of Clinton on Foreign Policy – In Fact, He’s Damn Near Anti-Empire.” Ford’s piece is well worth reading in its entirety; here are just a few quotes:

Trump has rejected the whole gamut of U.S. imperial war rationales, from FDR straight through to the present.

If Trump’s tens of millions of white, so-called ‘Middle American’ followers stick by him, it will utterly shatter the prevailing assumption that the American public favors maintenance of U.S. empire by military means.

Trump shows no interest in ‘spreading democracy,’ like George W. Bush, or assuming a responsibility to ‘protect’ other peoples from their own governments, like Barack Obama and his political twin, Hillary Clinton.

It is sad beyond measure that the near-extinction of independent Black politics has placed African Americans in the most untenable position imaginable at this critical moment: in the Hillary Clinton camp.

*****

Next let’s turn to John Pilger, the Left wing Australian journalist and documentary film maker who has been writing about Western foreign policy with unimpeachable accuracy and wisdom since the Vietnam War era.   Here are some of his comments on Trump:

…Donald Trump is being presented (by the mass media) as a lunatic, a fascist.  He is certainly odious; but he is also a media hate figure.  That alone should arouse our skepticism.

Trump’s views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama.

In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as ‘a world substantially made over in [America’s] own image’.  The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans. Or else. …

Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn’t want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted ‘exceptionalism’ is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.

The money quote is: “The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton.”  When Pilger submitted his article to the “progressive” magazine Truthout, this sentence was deleted, censored as he reported, along with a few of the surrounding sentences.  Such censorship had not been imposed on Pilger by Truthout ever before. Truthout’s commitment to free speech apparently has limits in the case of The Donald versus Hillary, rather severe ones.  So one must read even the progressive press with some skepticism when it comes to Trump.

*****

Trump has also been noticed by the Left in Europe, notably by the sharp minded Jean Bricmont, physicist and author of Humanitarian Imperialism who writes here:

(Trump) is the first major political figure to call for ‘America First’ meaning non-interventionism.  He not only denounces the trillions of dollars spent in wars, deplores the dead and wounded American soldiers, but also speaks of the Iraqi victims of a war launched by a Republican President. He does so to a Republican public and manages to win its support. He denounces the empire of US military bases, claiming to prefer to build schools here in the United States. He wants good relations with Russia. He observes that the militarist policies pursued for decades have caused the United States to be hated throughout the world. He calls Sarkozy a criminal who should be judged for his role in Libya. Another advantage of Trump: he is detested by the neoconservatives, who are the main architects of the present disaster.

*****

And then there is Stephen F. Cohen, contributing editor for The Nation and Professor Emeritus of Russian History at Princeton and NYU.  Cohen makes the point that Trump, alone among the presidential candidates, has raised five urgent and fundamental questions, which all other candidates in the major parties have either scorned or more frequently ignored. The five questions all call into question the interventionist warlike stance of the US for the past 20 plus years. Cohen enumerates the questions here, thus:

Should the United States always be the world’s leader and policeman?

What is NATO’s proper mission today, 25 years after the end of the Soviet Union and when international terrorism is the main threat to the West?

Why does Washington repeatedly pursue a policy of regime change, in Iraq, Libya, possibly in Ukraine, and now in Damascus, even though it always ends in “disaster”?

Why is the United States treating Putin’s Russia as an enemy and not as a security partner?

And should US nuclear weapons doctrine include a no-first use pledge, which it does not?

Cohen comments in detail on these questions here. Whatever one may think of the answers Trump has provided to the five questions, there is no doubt that he alone among the presidential candidates has raised them – and that in itself is an important contribution.

*****

At this point I mention my own piece, which appeared late last year.  Entitled “Who is the Arch Racist: The Donald or Hillary?”  Like Cohen’s pieces it finds merit with the Trump foreign policy in the context of posing a question.

*****

Finally, let us turn to Bill Blum, who wrote an article entitled, “American Exceptionalism and the Election Made in Hell (Or Why I’d Vote for Trump Over Hillary).”  Again there is little doubt about the stance of Blum, who is author ofKilling Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, a scholarly compendium, which Noam Chomsky calls “Far and away the best book on the topic.”

Blum begins his piece:

If the American presidential election winds up with Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, and my passport is confiscated, and I’m somehow FORCED to choose one or the other, or I’m PAID to do so, paid well … I would vote for Trump.

My main concern is foreign policy. American foreign policy is the greatest threat to world peace, prosperity, and the environment. And when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is an unholy disaster. From Iraq and Syria to Libya and Honduras the world is a much worse place because of her; so much so that I’d call her a war criminal who should be prosecuted.

And he concludes:

He (Trump) calls Iraq ‘a complete disaster’, condemning not only George W. Bush but the neocons who surrounded him. ‘They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.’ He even questions the idea that ‘Bush kept us safe’, and adds that ‘Whether you like Saddam or not, he used to kill terrorists’.”

Yes, he’s personally obnoxious. I’d have a very hard time being his friend. Who cares?

*****

I conclude with Blum’s words because they are most pertinent to our present situation.  The world is living through a perilous time when the likes of the neocons and Hillary Clinton could lead us into a nuclear Armageddon with their belligerence toward Russia and their militaristic confrontation with China.

The reality is that we are faced with a choice between Clinton and Trump, a choice which informs much of the above commentary.  Survival is at stake and we must consider survival first if our judgments are to be sane.

John V. Walsh can be reached at [email protected]. Read other articles by John V..

In part, the rapacious ugliness of ISIS is a reflection of the policies which formed it.

We flinch at recognizing in ISIS atrocities the embodiment of the cruelty in NATO’s policies,…the callousness of Madeleine Albright evaluating the lives of Iraqi children, the swagger and glee of Hilary Clinton at Gaddafi‘s murder, the effects on millions of insisting on regime change in someone else’s country and the Euro-American refusal to accept Syria’s democratically elected president. Assad was demonized by the press and allegations of war crimes, as Saddam Hussein was, and Milosevic, and Gaddafi. In a competition of atrocities one longs for the common voice of reason, for the Chorus of Greek Tragedy, for the poetry of daily life.

The United Nations “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic” has released a new report, “’They came to destroy’: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis,”(1) to deal specifically with the horrific treatment of Yazidi peoples by ISIS. Much of its evidence concerns Sinjar of northern Iraq, but many of ISIS captives are kept in Syria. The Commission’s report substantiates evidence of a genocide in progress against the Yazidi people in Iraq and Syria, limiting the scope of its inquiry to one minority.

Jews and Christians are often able to pay ISIS the “jizya” tax for their religious affiliation and so may escape conversion, death or slavery.(2) This option is denied Yazidis who face the outright murder of their men, the enslavement of their women, and the acting out of threats to rid the world of Yazidi people.

However ISIS is more tolerant than French Catholics of the 16th Century in the sudden slaughter of all Protestants. The religious difference doesn’t have to invoke genocide. Martyrdom is avoidable. Yazidis can be spared if they convert. With respect to martyrdom, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, a history of Protestant martyrs, is generally discouraged by the intellectual management of Western societies, for its fanaticism. This aspect of religious choice isn’t discussed in the report.

Much of the Commission’s report deals with the institution of slavery, sexual slavery and rape, as applied to Yazidi women sold by ISIS to its soldiers. Gang rape is used as punishment. The enslavement of women or of a people is barbaric and ultimately genocidal. North Americans and Europeans are buffered from connecting genocide to slavery due to the conveniences of slavery to our national histories, and due to the lives of the very poor under capitalism, and of prisoners. In the Commission report slavery has strong emotional value as propaganda. The total deprivation of human rights, the dehumanization of women by this slavery, is traumatic information. While young girls are taken from slave mothers at the age of nine and then sold as slaves, young boys are taken at seven, indoctrinated and trained to fight for ISIS. The report doesn’t find ISIS using young boys as sex slaves (“bacha bazi”), a practice among U.S. allied and installed police, army officers and warlords of Afghanistan.(3)

While a case for genocide is made, it noticeably shies off identifying specific perpetrators.

It doesn’t recognize that the attempted destruction of the group of Yazidis, is a microcosm for the destruction of the Syrian people as a     national group. From January 7, 2013:

“On Dec. 25, the UN announced it would cut food supplies to 1.5 million Syrians due to overburdening demands. Half the hospitals of a once advanced health care system, are destroyed. The U.S. has deployed patriot missiles and troops to Turkey. According to the BBC U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron says, “My message to Assad is go…He has the most phenomenal amount of blood on his hands.” Following French recognition of Syrian “rebel” forces, on Dec. 12th U.S. President Obama recognized the opposition coalition as “the legitimate representative of the Syrian people” (Globe and Mail).

The U.N. estimates 60,000 dead so far. The UN World Food Programme may have to feed 755 thousand refugees displaced in Syria and surrounding countries. A continuing genocide warning for Syrians as a national group, and particularly for targeted minorities: Adama Dieng, U.N. Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, has shown specific concern for Alawites, Armenians, Christians, Palestinians, Kurds, Turkmen, among other minority groups. Webster Griffin Tarpley has warned of an unimaginably horrible genocide all across Syria targeting Shiites, Alawites, Christians, Melkites, Maronites, Syriacs, Orthodox among all prone to victimization, if the NATO backed “rebel” forces take over the country…”(4)

Ignored, as in the destruction of Libya, is NATO’s insistence that the country’s democratically elected leader be replaced. This is primarily responsible for the disintegration of Syrian society, the huge number of displaced people and refugees, the ‘civil war’ itself. According to the Commission, outside of blaming ISIS generally and its fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic codes, the inception of ISIS isn’t discussed. Why did it come into being ? To whose advantage and profit ?

Funding and arms sources are not considered.

While making a case for genocide, the specifics of prosecution are missing leaving the Commision of Inquiry’s report to function primarily as a persuasion.

The Commission ignores a “tactical” complication in its selecting ISIS to accuse of obviously genocidal policies. If the Security Council agrees with the Commission proposal that genocide is committed against the Yazidi people, Council members are bound by the Convention on Genocide to intervene. If countries choose to intervene in Syria without a Security Council mandate there’s a risk of (nuclear) war. It is more likely that the Security Council would refer the issue to the International Criminal Court. A resolution to do this was vetoed by Russia and China in 2014. So now the Commission encourages legal actions in individual nations as possibly the only practical current way to apply the Convention on Genocide to the actions of ISIS against the Yazidis.(5)

The ‘complication’ is that if major powers want to “intervene” or invade a sovereign state, they can covertly promote a genocide which will require intervention. There’s a suspicion of this in Burundi, and some likelihood in Syria. TheWashington Post has provided evidence that the U.S. has funded the Government opposition in Syria since 2005.(6) It is suspected that ISIS has been covertly managed by the U.S.. (7) Many enemy combatants in the ‘civil war’ against Syria’s president Assad were recruited from Libya after NATO’s war on Gaddafi.(8) NATO leaders have recognized the government’s opposition as the ‘legitimate’ government of Syria which is much like a declaration of war, with no excuse to actually invade Syria except in response to the crime of genocide.

Some have found previous Commission of Inquiry’s reports slanted, partisan, favouring NATO. The Commission chairman (Brazil) has taught at Brown, Columbia, Notre Dame, and received a Guggenheim fellowship, American honours familiar to those who have earned them. Another of the three original Commission members is an American. A third was Turkish currently replaced with representatives from Thailand and Switzerland.

Mother Fadia Laham, Head of the International Team for Reconciliation in Syria, among others, has withdrawn cooperation with the Commission which is faulted for selective information gathering. Following the American lead, the Commission was led to blame the Assad government for war crimes at Al-Houla and subsequently had to modify its claims, but after these had served U.S. intentions.(9) The effectiveness of the Commission of Inquiry is limited since the Syrian government doesn’t allow the Commission access to its country which is why so much of the report relies on the treatment of the Yazidi people in northern Iraq.

The report asks the International community to “Recognize ISIS’s commission of the crime of genocide against the Yazidis of Sinjar”(10). In areas beyond the Syrian army’s control, a case against ISIS could be made for the genocide of most minority groups within Syria. One can fault the Human Rights Council for selective application of the genocide convention, or for trying to minimize the scope of an inter-related genocide, but the basic arguments of this Commission report are recognizing a genocide. Genocide of a small group amid the national group is manageable to recognize. The genocide of entire nations of essentially Muslim peoples is unimaginable and yet provably real.

There is then a genocide warning in Syria and Iraq for the Yazidi peoples, and for each of the minorities out of favour with fundamentalist Islam or supporting the government of Syria. There is a genocide warning in both countries for the people as a national group.

To place the Commission of Inquiry’s report in context, ask why a similar Commission has not applied the Convention on Genocide in such a straightforward manner to the situation of the people in Gaza, or Palestinians as a whole.

In Canada, in response to the “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic”, on what is basically a genocide of the Yazidis of Iraq, under a government created by the countries which have bombed and invaded it, the Canadian Minister of Defence, Stephane Dion, has announced ISIS is committing genocide against Yazidi’s. The Liberal Party waited to recognize this until the allegation was made by the Commission of Inquiry’s report. Dion assures Parliament that Canada will encourage the UN Security Council to take action.(11) The Liberals previously rejected a Conservative Party bill eager to declare the genocide in Parliament once the U.S. Secretary of Defense, John Kerry, determined that the Yazidis among others were victims of a genocide. While the U.S. military in conflict in Syria professes increasing care to avoid damage to civilians, a recent letter signed by 51 State Department officials(12) encourages the U.S. to thoroughly bomb Syria’s government forces which are the primary adversary of ISIS in Syria.

Efforts to displace President Assad are another attempt to destroy an essentially Muslim national group. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Syria. The societies remain de-stabilized. International support for Assad and the country’s stability would be the most immediate way to stop the genocide against the Yazidis, Christians, and Syria’s other religious minorities. Among the Commission on Inquiry’s recommendations, are that the Security Council turn the issue over to the ICC and that the Security Council consider the use of its powers under Article VII, but most practically it asks the government of Syria(13) to embed the Genocide Convention in its national legislation and rescue, protect and care for the Yazidi community.

In part, the rapacious ugliness of ISIS is a reflection of the policies which formed it.

Notes:

1 http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/A_HRC_32_CRP.2_en.pdf 
2. #154, “’They came to destroy’: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis,” June 15, 2016. A/HRC/32/CRP.2 Human Rights Council.
3. Anuj Chopra. “Taliban use ‘honey trap’ boys to kill Afghan police,” June 16, 2016, Yahoo! news.
4. J.B.Gerald. “2013 Suppressed News”, January 7, 2013, nightslantern.ca.
5. #200. A/HRC/32/CRP.2 .loc.cit.
6. Craig Whitlock. “U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show,” April 17, 2011, Washington Post(apprec. Cartalucci).
7. 14-L-0552/DIA/ 287-291, Aug. 12, 2012, Defense Intelligence Agency. “Newly-Declassified U.S. Government Documents: The West Supported the Creation of ISIS,” May 24, 2015, Washingtons Blog.
8. Tony Cartalucci. ” The Architecture of Insurgency,” 2012. War on Syria [access:< https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzf5hXPESLSdbTd0V2dIY3hvVGM/view?pref=2 >].
9. “US ready to act on Syria outside UN?” May 31, 2013, RT.
10. #212(a). A/HRC/32/CRP.2.loc.cit.
11. “Stéphane Dion declares ISIS killings of Yazidi people a genocide”, June 16, 2016, CBC News.
12. Jason Ditz. “State Dept Officials Demand US Attack Assad Instead of ISIS in Syria,” June 16, 2016, antiwar.com.
13. #208. A/HRC/32/CRP.2. loc.cit. 

The US labour market has begun to stumble.

In the past month of May, non-agricultural labour added 38 thousand new jobs while the Wall Street investors hoped for an increase of 160 thousand, Janet Yellen, the President of the Federal Reserve System, had no alternative but to leave the reference interest rate intact after the June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. The risk of a new recession in the United States is more of a threat than ever, although the Western media insist on promoting the idea that the principal dangers are the deceleration of the Chinese economy and the possible abandonment of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

After the most recent meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), realized in mid June, the President of the Federal Reserve (FED), Janet Yellen, announced that the reference interest rate would remain intact, that is, in the range between 0.25 and 0.50%[1]. With this, everything indicates that the FED will not raise the cost of interbank credit until a day before the proximate month of September.

With this, the propaganda of the Barack Obama government to convince us of the “full recovery” of the North American economy has lapsed into disbelief. It has been over six months since the FED raised the federal funds rate and to the moment there are no signs of an anticipated new increase.

In repeated occasions the FED has adjusted downwards it projections of economic growth: while in March it estimated an expansion rate for this year between 2.1 and 2.3%, recently this was reduced to a range between 1.9 and 2%[2]. The economy is in free fall. In December of 2015 the prognostic of growth of the FED for 2016 oscillated between 2.3 and 2.5%[3].

Without doubt the growing weakness of the strongest economy of the Group of Seven (G-7) has obliged monetary authorities to act with caution, since any false move will increase the risks of accentuating recessive tendencies, with high possibilities of deflation (a fall in prices)[4].

In the first quarter of the year the rate of expansion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the US economy hardly reached 0.80%. The recovery of the labour market continued too fragile even though it was presumed to be the main achievement of the policies implemented by the FED. We recall that last December, when the FED raised by 25 points base the reference interest rate, the official unemployment rate was at 5%, a figure that according to some members of the FOMC, amounted to a situation of “full employment”.

Nevertheless, we know today that the central bank headed by Janet Yellen was mistaken. The recent data leave no place for suspicions: the winds of a new recession are threatening[5]. In the month of May non-agricultural employment added only 38 thousand jobs, the lowest increase since 2010. In addition, the data from March and April were revised downwards, employers contracted 59 thousand fewer persons than those originally reported[6].

Because of this no member of the FOMC emerged to celebrate that the unemployment rate would fall to 4.7% while, in parallel, the rate of labour participation fell to 62.6%: thousands of persons abandoned the search for work when faced with the lack of opportunities[7]. The official rate of unemployment masked massive unemployment, if one counted both the persons occupied in part time work as well as those who have recently abandoned the labour market, the figures are completely changed. There are alternative measures, the methodology U-6 if one considers these two areas, puts the unemployment rate at 9.7%, that is, over twice the official unemployment rate[8].

It must be pointed out that the lack of dynamism of the US economy is fundamentally the consequence of the extreme weakness of business investment, the product of a rate of capital profitability that is too low, or at least insufficient to establish new productive plants, capable of generating massive employment and with it, unleash a large process of recovery. It happens that US businessmen not only resist investing but also to raise wages, a situation that has failed to support a substantive increase in inflation: the index of consumer prices CPI, increased hardly 1.1% in annual terms over the past month.

The image of a buoyant economy appears increasingly further away since the Conference Board of the United States, the institution charged with supervising competition on a world scale, revealed that the US economy will this year undergo the first contraction of its level of productivity over the past three decades[9]. Faced with the lack of innovation, US productivity will fall by 0.2%. “Over the last year it appears that we were entering a crisis of productiveness, now we are in the midst of this”, according to Bart van Ark, chief economist of the prestigious centre of research.

In spite of everything, the traditional mass media insist in promoting the idea that the alert signs for the FED are localized outside of the United States. In a first moment they told us that the economic deceleration of China represented own odd the principal dangers for the world, more recently, they have advised us that the strong financial turbulence will come in the event that the United Kingdom decides to abandon the European Union (the so-called “Brexit”).

Very few have dared to investigate the high danger that the United States represents for the global economy: according to the estimations of the Deutsche Bank, the principal investment bank of the European continent, the probability that the American Union falls into recession during the next twelve months is already at 55%[10]. Everything indicates that sooner or later, the dramatic economic reality will end imposing itself in the face of the twisted information.

 Ariel Noyola Rodríguez is an economist graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Translation: Jordan Bishop.

Source: Russia Today (Russia).

Notes:

Update:

Prime Minister Cameron has announced his resignation effective in October, a new Conservative Prime minister is to appointed following the Conservative Party conference.

Among the contenders for the Conservative Party leadership are former London Mayor Boris Johnson and Justice Secretary Michael Gove, both of whom were firm supporters of the Brexit campaign. Home Secretary Theresa May is also a potential contender.

The implementation of Brexit is in part dependent upon the new leadership of the Conservative Party. There are divisions in both Conservative and opposition parties with regard to Brexit.

At this stage, there is, however, no assurance that the Brexit proposal will be ratified by Parliament. (read Lendman’s analysis below)

Moreover, Cameron’s decision to resign in October contributes to delaying the process.

Michel Chossudovsky. GR Editor, June 24, 2016

*       *      *

All the fuss and bother about Brexit largely ignores its non-binding status – parliament, not voters deciding if Britain stays or leaves the EU, the latter extremely unlikely.

Writing in the Financial Times, British lawyer David Allen Green explained Brexit voting is “advisory,” not “mandatory.” Parliament has final say.

MPs can legally disregard the public’s will either way, they alone empowered to decide the path Britain chooses.

What happens ahead is “a matter of politics not law. It will come down to what is politically expedient and practicable,” said Green.

Various options exist, including supporting Thursday’s outcome, ignoring it, or “re-negotiating another deal and put(ting) that to another referendum” – repeating the process “until voters eventually vote the ‘right’ way,” what’s best for monied interests, not them.

Invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is another matter entirely, legally binding, unlike Thursday’s vote. It states as follows:

“1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.

That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.

A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.”

Green highlighted key points. Member states can choose how to vote on withdrawal – by referendum, parliament or other means.

The withdrawal process begins with formal notification. Once “given, the member state and the EU are stuck with it.”

Member states wishing to withdraw have up to two years maximum to complete the process “unless this period is extended by unanimous agreement.”

Once withdrawal intentions are announced and initiated, there’s no going back. At the same time, what’s “created by international agreement can be undone” the same way.

Brussels could “come up with some muddling fudge which holds off the two year deadline,” or a new treaty amendment could be adopted.

Politics alone will drive what happens ahead, not the will of the people. Britain is no more democratic than America – nor are any other EU countries.

Special interests decide things. Whatever they want they get. However voting turns out, government policy “is to remain in the EU,” said Green.

Leaving would require Prime Minister David Cameron invoking Article 50, unlikely given his vocal opposition to Brexit.

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

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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

When one thinks of lines of people waiting patiently to obtain “hard currency”, one may think Russia, as was the case in December 2014 when the currency was plunging…

“long queues stretched outside foreign exchange bureaux in the City of London on Thursday as people cashed in their pounds ahead of the EU referendum.”

 … or Greece in the summer of 2015…

… one would certainly not expect it in the city considered by many as the capital of capitalism: London.

And yet, as the FT shows in what may be the first of many such stunning images, “long queues stretched outside foreign exchange bureaux in the City of London on Thursday as people cashed in their pounds ahead of the EU referendum.”

Behold: London, circa right now.

Line in front of a Longon foreign exchange bureau.

More from the FT:

In scenes reminiscent of the queues that formed outside branches of Northern Rock and led to its collapse in 2007, City workers queued impatiently around the block outside forex bureaux on Wednesday afternoon. Summaya, a 31-year-old employee of a retail bank who declined to give her surname, lined up outside the Foreign Exchange Services shop on Cannon Street. She said she was going to change “several thousand pounds” into US dollars and euros because she was convinced the public mood was shifting in favour of Brexit. 

“I’m protecting my money. I will stick it under the mattress until Friday,” she said, adding that Tuesday night’s televised debate had swung opinion among her friends and colleagues in favour of Brexit. “People are changing their views.”

Odd: one would not get that impression based on the several moneyed bettors who were skewing the bookies lines. Luckily, sentiment on the ground is avaiable and much more actionable than manipulated indirect data. In any case, this is what is really taking place in the UK as of this moment:

The Post Office said Tuesday’s sales of foreign currency were nearly four times higher than the same date last year, while sales in branches were nearly 49 per cent higher. Currency sales on Tuesday were up 74 per cent year on year, said the Post Office.

Thomas Cook said: “There’s been a surge in customers buying euros in the last six weeks and euro sales have been consistently strong, building day by day.” 

Several economists predict a Leave outcome would trigger a dramatic fall in the pound when markets open on Friday, while a vote to Remain should see the pound rally. But several analysts said this week’s sharp sterling recovery probably limited the scope of the currency’s rise.

Daniel Priori, an Italian who has been working as a cashier at the International Currency Exchange kiosk at Waterloo station for a year, said he and his two colleagues had dealt with many more customers than usual. 

Asked why, he replied: “Because they are scared about tomorrow.” He said the majority of transactions were people changing sterling into euros.

To be sure, not everyone is terrified of the inevitable collapse in sterling in case of Brexit (which is what the Scaremongering campaign is all about). Some just want some vacation money…

[S]everal of those queueing were exchanging their holiday money. Standing in a queue outside Thomas Exchange on Cannon Street, 44-year-old Chris Nobbs, who works in insurance, said: “I go to Alicante in Spain in a couple of weeks, so I’m just taking my euros out today instead of next week. I do not take more than what I need on holiday, but who knows, maybe this will earn me some extra cups of coffee.”

In the queue outside City Forex, on Leadenhall Street, City worker Ed was planning to change “a few hundred quid” before travelling to Greece on holiday next week. “I don’t have a strong sense of the [referendum] result, but just want to hedge against the downside. I’ll change half now and half later,” he said.

… But it’s safe to say that the vast majority of those lining up have far more existential concerns. Whether or not these are validated will be revealed as soon as the FX markets open for trading after the Brexit vote is released.

On June 23, British voters will accept or reject a proposal that Britain leave the European Union. The latest polls show the vote in favor of the British exit, or “Brexit,” narrowly ahead.

The FBI have finally released the written transcripts from shooter Omar Mateen’s supposed 911 call – and now apparently unredacted.

Meanwhile, another story of survival at Pulse nightclub is called into question.

While the Brexit debate has become a matter of colliding blocs of speculators and crystal ball gazers, a glaring aspect has come to the fore.  Virtually nothing has been said about the role played by human rights, Britain’s role in building it up and inspiration in the European Convention of Human Rights, or the issue about citizenship.

In that sense, Brexit mirrors broader European failures: the excision of the human experience from broader managerial and corporate arguments.  In its stead is a reflection about what the price of camembert cheese might be in a post-Brexit regime, or wine for that matter.  This is middle class snobbery run wild, a fear borne from comfort rather than crisis.

The crude economic arguments speak, in many ways, to European problems, rather than strengths. The broader human issues are neglected before those of the purse and assets, bank balances and trade.  This has made the Remain Campaign vulnerable in its sterility.

To emphasise this very point, currency transfer sites are limiting if not suspending operations.  Transferwise, to make its point, is suspending its service during the course of the Brexit vote.

Not to matter, argues the Leave campaign front man and former London Mayor, Boris Johnson.  Britain, he argues, would be able to “prosper mightily” outside the zone.  He gives no examples how, and avoids the bolstering effect Europe has had for Britain’s economy.  But even more seriously, he avoids the humane aspect of the European regime, and the modifying effects of the convention on British jurisprudence.

His critics, taken aback by his surging success, can only resort to personal invective. Arguments on the human side and the European legacy have been left behind by pomposity.  “The Leave campaign,” argued former conservative leader William Hague, “is really the Donald Trump campaign with better hair.”

Evidence is less important to Johnson than faith. “Our campaign,” he assures voters, “is about belief.  It is about trusting the instincts of the British people, trusting in our democracy, trusting in the institutions that have evolved over a long time.  Our campaign is about accountability.”[1]

In of itself, the argument about accountability and self-reliance is a statement that resounds across Europe.  Never mind that much of it is, as expressed by the Leave campaign, a simple argument to simply do what one damn well pleases, be it paying lower wages or reducing better work conditions in the name of profit.

There are countries (France, the Netherlands) where the EU fares even worse by reputation than it does in Britain, and there, the issue of “accountability” and “self-reliance” also feature. But Johnson’s statements resemble those of autarchic ambition.

The crudest arguments of all have come from parts of the Leave Campaign, haloed by a less than holy crown of terrifying promises should Britain actually retain its current arrangements.  To not leave now, while things are moderately bad, will lead to something infinitely worse.

Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party has been so vehement in this campaign he has become a caricature.  With characteristic indifference to the facts, Farage was happy to be photographed before a poster titled in bold capital letters “Breaking Point”.  Few would argue that the “EU has failed us all”; more would disagree with the idea of using a stream of Syrian refugees to demonstrate the point.

Maps have been produced by the thousands promising a surge of immigrants from countries wishing to be admitted to the EU.  In a spike of xenophobia, and selective thinking, Britain has become the exemplar of fractured Europe.

The good of Europe has been lost in favour of parochialism without oversight.  The issue is not that there is a project worth shaping and saving, but one worth abandoning. “People feel at the moment,” asserts Johnson, “that nothing ever changes in politics.  That is party because so much is governed centrally from Brussels.”

Those of the left who should have been guarding the sacred flame of Europe’s benefits have been conspicuously absent in that regard.  The champagne set have stolen the argument over the working individual who can actually thank the EU for working standards and security.

The absurd premise of pure British indigenousness and exceptionalism demands a good deal of scoffing rebuke. But when it comes out of the mouth of Johnson, it sounds different, striking an idealistically mellow note. He offers a vision without substance, while the Remain campaign have offered what they think is substance without vision.  As Britons go to the polls, the difference will be those undecided ones whose minds will be made up as the mark is made on the ballot paper.

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

Note

Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the “globalization of poverty”: countries are transformed in open territories. 

State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy,  all of which ultimately leads to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire populations (refugee crisis).

This “second stage” goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of  a process of outright destruction of human life.

In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.

Guns and Butter:

Global Financial Warfare: Neoliberalism and the New World Order,

Bonnie Faulkner interviews Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Global financial war as outlined in professor Chossudovsky’s article, Wall Street Behind Brazil Coup d Etat;

The role played by the IMF and World Bank in the economies of debtor nations,

The Real Plan in Brazil, the imposition of the Washington Consensus;

Loss of national sovereignty, neoliberal institution funding of grassroots movements;

The main corporate actors of the New World Order;

The function of propaganda and the process of global impoverishment and destruction of nation states.

First published in May 2015

Democrats who had been programmed to blindly vote for Hillary Clinton are picking their jaws up off the floor after learning the truth about Hillary’s ties to Monsanto. The ties run so deep that she’s now being dubbed the “Bride of Frankenfood.” (Tweet this story)

Shockingly, Hillary Clinton’s ties to Monsanto are new information to her liberal support base. It drives home the important point that nearly everyone supporting Hillary Clinton has no idea who she really is, as evidenced by this stunning new video from Mark Dice and Luke Rudkowski.

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ties to agribusiness giant Monsanto, and her advocacy for the industry’s genetically modified crops, have environmentalists in Iowa calling her ‘Bride of Frankenfood'” reports the Washington Times. “A large faction of women voiced strong support for Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy until the GMO issue came up, prompting them to switch allegiances to Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, a liberal stalwart challenging her for the Democratic nomination.”

Oh my, how little they really know about the real Hillary Clinton… keep reading to find out more…

Monsanto and Bill Gates are top donors to the Clinton Family Foundation

A quick look at this table of Clinton Family Foundation donors reveals both the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Monsanto as two of the heavy-hitting donors to the Clinton Family Foundation.

Bill Gates, of course, pushes vaccines on the world, while Monsanto pushes GMOs. It’s a toxic one-two punch for global depopulation.

Hillary Clinton’s donors also include the drug maker Pfizer, ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and many more. It’s a who’s who compilation of the most evil corporations and institutions on planet Earth, and they’ve all given huge money — tens of millions of dollars — to Hillary Clinton.

All the corporations are, of course, buying influence with the Clintons. This obvious fact was wildly attacked by extreme leftist Democratic party operatives like George Stephanopoulos, who turned out to have hidden his own $75,000 in donations to the same Clinton Foundation. He claims he thought he was donating to halt “deforestation.” Hillaryious!

Hillary Clinton hires former Monsanto lobbyist to run her campaign

If you’re still not convinced that Hillary Clinton has strong ties to Monsanto, ask yourself why she just hired a prominent Monsanto lobbyist to run her campaign.

As True Activist reports:

Hillary Clinton recently announced that she will be appointing long-time Monsanto lobbyist Jerry Crawford as adviser to her “Ready for Hillary” super PAC… Over the years, Crawford has been instrumental in fighting against small farmers in court and protecting Monsanto’s seed monopoly.

Crawford is an “equal opportunity payola operative” who hands out political bribes to members of both parties. “Crawford has mostly worked with Democratic politicians in the past, but has also put his support behind Republican candidates as well. Anyone who was willing to support Monsanto’s goals would receive support from Crawford,” says TrueActivist.com.

Hillary Clinton’s law firm used to have Monsanto as a client

Back in the 1990s, during the era when Vince Foster was murdered for what he knew about the Clintons, Hillary Clinton was a partner at the Rose Law Firm. This law firm counted Monsanto as its client:

“Her history of backing GMO dates back to her early days in Arkansas as a lawyer with the Rose Law Firm, which represented Monsanto and other agribusiness leaders,” reports the Washington Times.

Almost none of today’s activist voters are even old enough to remember the Rose Law Firm, the Clintons’ Whitewater scandal, or even the fact that Hillary Clinton ran the media attacks on all the women who tried to go public with claims of being sexually violated by Bill Clinton. (Yes, Hillary ran the “blame the victim” campaign to protect Bill!)

Yet in an age where progressives demand full transparency on all the issues that matter to them most — immigration, gay marriage, gun control and so on — Hillary finds herself squarely on the wrong side of the GMO issue. She’s a puppet for Monsanto and all its toxic practices that destroy life and destroy the environment.

Hillary Clinton pushes toxic pesticides, herbicides and other agricultural chemicals

At every opportunity, Hillary Clinton pushes toxic chemicals, pesticides and herbicides that contaminate the food supply, promote human diseases like Alzheimer’s and even threaten destruction of the environment. Hillary Clinton, Bride of Frankenfood, is also a “chemical holocaust” pusher who works hard to make sure every woman and child in America eats food laced with cancer-causing glyphosate.

“In the GMO debate, Mrs. Clinton has consistently sided with the chemical companies,” says the Washington Times. “A new scientific study bolstered environmentalists’ concerns by finding the herbicide Roundup could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson’s, infertility and cancers. The study published last month in the scientific journal Entropy also reported evidence that residue of glyphosate, a chief ingredient in the weed killer, has been found in food.”

That food, of course, enriches Monsanto and the other biotech firms, many of which kick back huge donations to Hillary Clinton as long as she keeps pushing poison.

A vote for Hillary, it turns out, is a vote for Monsanto.

Hillary Clinton hands nuclear fuel resource deal to Russia

It’s not just GMOs, either, that haunt the real history of Hillary Clinton. As The Atlantic reported this year, Hillary Clinton was also instrumental in handing the Russian government a near-monopoly over nuclear weapons uranium supplies.

All the while, money was flowing into the Clinton foundation from uranium interests:

In total, people affiliated with Uranium One or its predecessor gave more than $8 million to the Clinton Foundation between 2008 and 2010. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a speech in Moscow, paid for by a bank boosting Uranium One stock.

Why does this matter to the Clinton voter support base? Because progressives are rightly anti-nuclear power and anti-nuke weapons. Yet their gender champion Hillary Clinton is out there promoting the proliferation of nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons, all while raking in millions of dollars for her own foundation in exchange for selling her influence to the highest bidder. Suddenly a Clinton presidency doesn’t sound so “progressive,” does it?

Hillary Clinton parrots Monsanto’s talking points as speaker for the Biotechnology Industry Organization

Just to make sure no one is confused about where Hillary Clinton really stands on the issue of GMOs and biotech, she openly parrots Monsanto’s quack science talking points in public.

In 2014, she spoke at the Biotechnology Industry Organization and practiced running Monsanto’s talking points, saying:

I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record … And to continue to try to make the case for those who are skeptical that they may not know what they’re eating already. The question of genetically modified food or hybrids has gone on for many many years. And there is again a big gap between what the facts are and what perceptions are…

During the speech, Clinton basically says that all anti-GMO people are anti-science idiots who don’t know “the facts.” Those “facts,” of course, are all contrived by Monsanto itself and its deep network of financial influence over scientists, universities and even the lamestream media. Hillary Clinton basically concludes that since you don’t know you’ve already been eating GMOs, then it’s safe to keep doing so.

See the video here:

Will anybody stand up and challenge the Bride of Frankenfood?

If you’ve ever wondered why there’s almost no willingness among 100+ million Democrats to challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination, it’s because Democrats are terrified of Hillary.

For decades, the Clintons were able to control the official narrative and construct a false image of who they really are and what they really believe. But now, thanks to the Independent Media which is now dominating in viewership and is trusted far more than the mainstream media, the Clintons can’t roll out their usual revisionist history and expect it to work.

The simple truth — to the great horror of progressives everywhere — is that Hillary Clinton has long sold out to chemical agriculture and biotech.  And she wants your vote because she’s gonna dethrone the one percent? Seriously? Pathetic. Hillary Clinton is FUNDED by the one percent!

If you think Hillary Clinton opposes the one percent, you must also believe ExxonMobil opposes drilling for oil.

What you can expect from a Clinton / Monsanto presidency

There are so many ties between Clinton and Monsanto that the evil biotech corporation is practically Hillary’s running mate.

Clinton / Monsanto for President, 2016!

And if Clinton becomes president, you can expect the full Monsanto agenda to be aggressively pushed as national policy:

• A nationwide federal ban on GMO labeling.

• Immediate USDA approval of all experimental GMO crops.

• Extreme, politically motivated attacks against all anti-GMO activists, scientists and journalists.

• Huge increases in taxpayer-funded subsidies for farmers who grow GMO crops.

• Aggressive corporate imperialism push to overturn bans on glyphosate and GMOs by other nations.

• Possibly even attempts by the FDA to outlaw non-GMO Project Verified labels in the same way they attacked hormone-free labels for cow’s milk.

Make no mistake: A vote for Hillary is a vote for Monsanto

This article was first published by Global Research in March 2016.

Dr. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England is Goldman Sachs’ Trojan Horse. The lucrative manipulation of financial markets including currency markets is a multibillion undertaking. With inside information on Central Bank monetary policy in both Frankfurt and London, Brexit is a “Silver Platter” for the institutional speculators. 

In the event of a vote in favour of Brexit, The Governor of the Bank of England Dr. Mark Carney reassured the British public: “we will do everything in our power to discharge our responsibility to achieve monetary stability and financial stability…”

Carney intimated that “financial instability” and “poor economic outcomes” are associated with the Brexit process: a rather unsubtle message to investors, brokers as well as speculators. He also warned MPs that Brexit could lead to an exodus of banks and financial institutions from the City of London.

“[There is no] blanket assurance that there would not be issues in the short term with respect to financial stability and that potential reduction in financial stability could be associated – and normally would be associated – with poor economic outcomes, as we have seen in the past”.

Carney was fully aware that an “authoritative statement” pertaining to “financial stability” would have an immediate impact on financial markets. On whose behalf was he acting when he made those statements?

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has accused Mark Carney, of “speculative statements”:

“It is speculative and beneath the dignity of the Bank of England. To be making speculative pro-EU comments.”

The Goldman Sachs Report

In February, Goldman Sachs warned that in the case of Brexit, the pound sterling “could lose 20 per cent of its value”  Mark Carney’s statements at the House of Commons not only point in the same direction, they also provide legitimacy and “credibility” to Goldman’s assessment.

As an institutional speculator, Goldman’s intent is to influence expectations regarding financial markets (backed by authoritative statements from the Bank of England).

Coinciding with Carney’s recent statements, Goldman Sachs released a report on the detrimental economic and financial impacts of Brexit:

“However, given the substantial unpredictability regarding the UK’s post-Brexit trading and regulatory arrangements, quite how damaging Brexit would be in the long term is subject to a great deal of uncertainty. Arguably of more immediate concern is the effect that the uncertainty itself would have on UK growth.

The EU Treaty sets out a two-year timeframe for departure. During this period, the UK government would have to negotiate the terms upon which it could continue to trade with EU countries…

Some of these trade negotiations and many of the regulatory/legal decisions would be relatively straightforward. But many would not. …

During this period, UK-based businesses would face considerable uncertainty: exporting companies would not know the terms on which they would be able to supply export markets abroad once Brexit is complete; importing companies would not know the terms on which they would be able to import; and all companies would be confronted with increased regulatory/legal uncertainty. (Excerpts of report)

Carney dismissed the claims of Goldman in early February. But now he supports them.

Where do Mark Carney’s statements originate, from the Bank of England or from Goldman Sachs, his former employer?

Goldman is known to be the World’s foremost “institutional speculator”. Foreknowledge of statements and decisions by central banks are often used by financial institutions in speculative operations. Inside knowledge and connections are part of this process, they are the “bread and butter” of the “institutional speculator”.

The important question which the British media has not addressed: what is the relationship between Mark Carney and Goldman Sachs.

The Goldman Trojan Horse

Is there a Trojan Horse within the Bank of England with Goldman Sachs sitting on the inside?

While Carney was appointed by Her Majesty, unofficially, he still has “links” to Goldman Sachs.

Is he in conflict of interest?

Next time there’s a financial meltdown, your money could be rescuing Goldman Sachs.

Yes, thanks to a new deal struck by Mark Carney, the former Goldman man now running the Bank of England, the US investment bank could end up enjoying the next round of British taxpayer bailout money. (The Independent, 20 August 2015)

Moreover, several key senior positions within the Bank of England are held by former Goldman officials. Mark Carney was appointed in 2013. The following year (2014), Dr. Ben Broadbent, a Senior Economist for Goldman Sachs was appointed Deputy Governor in charge of Monetary Policy.

Bankers from Goldman are strewn across key policy-making arenas across the world like no other financial institution.

As well as the Governor of the Bank of England, his deputy Ben Broadbent is ex Goldman, as were two previous Monetary Policy Committee members, David Walton and Sushil Wadhwani.

Across the Channel, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi is a Goldman man, while in the US, Goldmanites make up a quarter of the Federal Reserve system’s regional presidents. (Ibid).

This article was first published by GR in January 2016.

A former Goldman official who is not even a British citizen currently runs the Bank of England. How convenient… Goldman Sachs has inside information from within the Bank of England which it can use to speculate in the money markets in anticipation of the Brexit Vote.

A “six sum figure”! You mean the same as the annual bonus for just one single employed trader sitting in front of a screen? Shouldn’t that figure have seven or eight digits not six, to cut any ice?

Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are making large donations to the campaign to keep Britain inside the European Union, sources said, highlighting the concern among some of the world’s biggest banks over the impact of a British exit.

Goldman Sachs has agreed to donate a “substantial six-figure sum” according to one source, while JPMorgan was preparing to make a similar donation, another source familiar with the matter said.

Another U.S. bank, Morgan Stanley, is also likely to make donation but has yet to decide a sum to contribute, a source said. The bank declined to comment. Reuters, January 21, 2016

In the face of growing Euroscepticism among the British electorate and political pressure from within his own party, Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to hold a referendum on Britain’s EU membership by the end of 2017.

Or is the report just a banking in-joke to raise a smile during a winter week of plunging global markets, index turmoil, thousands of refugees on the move and a $28 oil price? Might raise a wry smile in the City of London but that’s merchant bankers for you – always ready to crack a joke, and always profitable, whatever the economic or political weather.

However, the obvious implication of this reported derisory offer must be that the bank actually prefers Britain out, not in. And, of course what Goldman wants, Goldman always gets. Which must be a bit worrying for Mr Cameron and the British government who thought they were running the country.

The British people should be clear about just what they will be voting on at the EU referendum this Thursday.

What does it actually mean to stay in the EU?

What does it mean to exit?

“Global financial markets are churning and growing more volatile in expectation of a possible ‘Brexit’—a United Kingdom referendum to vote on leaving the European Union scheduled for June 23, 2016. Brexit has literally become the big financial blockbuster event of summer 2016! But it may very well prove a ‘non-event’—even if the vote on the 23rd is to leave the European Union (EU). 

Syrian Arab Army and Hezbollah units have entered the al-Bahariyah village in Eastern Ghouta, engaging in heavy clashes with militants that had controlled the town. Following series of clashes, the SAA and its allies liberated the village and the nearby Al-Bahariyah Hill and continued advances in the Jisreen Farms.

In the province of Raqqa, ISIS militants have taken control of Khirbat Zaydān and Bir Abu al `Allaj, moving close to the Zakia crossroads. 23 SAA soldiers have been killed and 49 injured during the ISIS counter-attack. Heavy clashes are ongoing.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have seized the village of Arima. Now, the SDF is deployed in about 19km from the Al Bab city in Aleppo province. Meanwhile, the SDF is still not able to reach the center of Manbij.

Sources in the Al Nusra Front terrorist group (Al Qaeda in Syria) says that Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki will turn over a Russia-made T-90 main battle tank to Al Nusra after a sharia ruling. The Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki militant group is the so-called “CIA vetted” group that receives TOW missiles and other equipment from the US. However, this does not prevent it from cooperation with Al Qaeda in Syria. We remember Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki captured a sophisticated Russian-made T-90S main battle tank on June 9 in battles around the Mallah Farms in Northern Aleppo.

Almost since the start of the Syrian war, the Syrian military has suffered a lack of trained personnel. The general staff has tried to compensate this with massive usage of artillery, battle tanks and other kinds of military equipment. However, massive usage of anti-tank weapons by militant groups, opposing to the Syrian government, has leaded to a high loss rate of the SAA’s military equipment.

According to local sources, about a half of these losses is light damaged military equipment abandoned at the battlefield that could be easily evacuated and restored. Even massive delivers of modern weapon systems, including TOS-1 heavy multiple launch thermobaric rocket systems and T90 battle tanks, cannot help if the personnel, often volunteers without a combat experience, cannot use them properly. Additionally, this is one of the reasons why some T-90 and TOS-1 were spotted in Hezbollah and IRGC units operating in Syria instead of the SAA.

The NATO Founding Act was agreed to between the US and Russia in 1997 in order to provide to Russia’s leader Boris Yeltsin some modicum of assurance that America wouldn’t invade his country. When his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev had ended the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, the representatives of US President GHW Bush told him that NATO wouldn’t move «one inch to the east» (toward Russia), but as soon as Gorbachev committed himself to end the Cold War, Bush told his agents, regarding what they had all promised to Gorbachev (Bush’s promise which had been conveyed through them), «To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn’t». 

In other words: Bush’s prior instructions to them were merely his lies to Gorbachev, his lies to say that the US wouldn’t try to conquer Russia (move its forces eastward to Russia’s borders); but, now, since Gorbachev was committed and had already agreed that East Germany was to be reunited with and an extension of West Germany (and the process for doing that had begun), Bush pulled that rug of lies out from under the end of the Cold War – it didn’t really end (though Gorbachev had been deceived to think it had) – and then began the long process after that time, to surround Russia by NATO troops and missiles and then (as Obama with even greater intensity has been aiming to do) ultimately to swallow it up, like it swallowed Ukraine in February 2014, right on Russia’s doorstep.

Yeltsin was mortified that Bush’s successor Bill Clinton was in the process of trashing that promise which Bush’s agents had given to Gorbachev, and that Clinton was allowing into NATO the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (three countries that formally joined NATO two years later, in 1999); so, this NATO Founding Act was the only ‘assurance’ Russia had, to indicate that the US government wasn’t going to place the Russian government into an intolerable position of nuclear war: Russia’s being surrounded by NATO nuclear missiles on and near Russia’s borders. What the NATO Founding Act said was that, for the «foreseeable» future, NATO would engage in no «additional permanent stationing of substantial ground combat forces», a very vague commitment, which didn’t even specify where the commitment would apply – how near to Russia’s borders, etc. – but it’s all that the West would sign to under Bill Clinton, except for another vague commitment: «to strengthen stability by further developing measures to prevent any potentially threatening build-up of conventional forces in agreed regions of Europe, to include Central and Eastern Europe». In any event, it’s all dead now: the US and its NATO partners have boldly violated even those vague terms. America has virtually torn up the document.

On 14 June 2016, the US threw into history’s trash bin the NATO Founding Act, and did it unilaterally, leaving Russia totally out in the cold. This also ends all the nice language in the NATO Founding Act – e.g.: «NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries. They share the goal of overcoming the vestiges of earlier confrontation and competition and of strengthening mutual trust and cooperation».

On 25 February 2016, the US General Philip Breedlove, who was the Supreme Commander of NATO and the one person who possessed the power to order a NATO invasion of Russia, had told the US Congress, that: «Russia has chosen to be an adversary and poses a long-term existential threat to the United States and to our European allies and partners». It wasn’t quite a declaration of war against Russia (only the US President could do that), but close.

Leading up to that, the White House had announced on 2 February 2016, a quadrupling of US funding for its European Reassurance Initiative (ERI), which funds NATO’s Operation Atlantic Resolve, which is rushing tens of thousands of troops and advanced American weaponry to and near Russia’s borders. President Obama said that in order to address «Russia’s aggression against Ukraine almost two years ago,… today my Administration announced a four-fold increase in ERI funding for Fiscal Year 2017. An ERI funding level of $3.4 billion will enable the United States to strengthen our robust military posture in Europe and improve our ability to uphold our Article 5 commitments to NATO members». 

He was asserting that in order to supposedly defend Ukraine against «Russia’s aggression» (though Ukraine isn’t a NATO member and so isn’t subject to the the NATO Treaty’s Article V military protection clause), the United States was quadrupling its forces elsewhere on Russia’s borders, so that if Russia invaded a NATO member country on Russia’s borders (which post-Soviet Russia has never done and which would be insane for Russia to do), a blitz US invasion of Russia would be the response, in accord with NATO’s Article V. But since Russia would never do a thing like that, what was Obama’s real motive? Perhaps it was and is to invade Russia regardless. But what could be the pretext for doing that?

On 15 June 2016, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, as if Ukraine already were a NATO member: «We stand firm in our support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Allies do not, and will not recognise the illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea. And we will continue to call on Russia to stop its destabilisation of Ukraine. Russia needs to stop supporting the militants, and withdraw its forces and military equipment from Ukrainian territory».

He was saying that the residents of Crimea shouldn’t have any say in the matter of whether Crimea should be restored to Russia (of which it had been a part until the Soviet dictator transferred it from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 – Stoltenberg was saying that that dictator’s action must never be reversed, no matter if more than 90% of Crimeans want it to be reversed; he was saying that the current Ukrainian government owns them, and they have no say over who rules them).

Obviously, if Ukraine’s application for membership in NATO turns out to be accepted, then at that time, NATO (in other words, the US) will reiterate its demand for Russia to reverse its having accepted the overwhelming desire of the Crimean people to have their Russian nationality restored to them, and if Russia fails to comply with NATO’s (i.e., with the American government’s) demand, then there will be a nuclear war, in order to force the issue.

The US government, or at least its present personnel, are apparently willing to go to nuclear war in order to force the people of Crimea to be ruled by the Ukrainian coup-regime that the US had installed in Ukraine in February 2014 and which was wanting to kill them if it could not conquer them.

Of course, one cannot predict whether the people who control the US government will go all the way in that matter, but right now, this is a nuclear showdown in the making, and apparently the only people who are seriously worried about it are Russians. Now, why would that be? Why would Westerners be so nonchalant about such a matter? Why would they not be furious against the governments that are reigning over them and threatening nuclear war in order to coerce Crimeans to be Ukrainians? Could it be that Westerners don’t realize how dangerous this situation is? Could it be that the Western ‘news’ media haven’t been reporting the situation honestly to them? Could it be that democracy is actually gone from the Western countries? Could it be?

Can socialists take a principled position in relation to the UK’s European Union membership referendum on 23 June, or should we wish ‘a plague on both your houses’? Christina Delistathi puts the case to ‘leave’, Charlie Hore for a ‘remain’ vote, and Rob Owen for a ‘radical abstention’.

Left Exit – Not Just a Vote

The referendum to stay in or leave the EU is ripping the Tories apart, but has also opened up an intense debate on the Left with many people arguing to vote to stay. They fear that the leave vote is mobilising racists, that the end of free movement will make it harder for migrant workers from poorer EU countries to move freely through Europe, and that an exit will signal an assault on our rights currently protected by EU legislation.

Yet both the ‘leave’ and ‘stay’ sides involve racist and nationalist arguments. UKIP’s role in the leave campaign is obvious, but the ‘stay’ side includes Cameron and Theresa May with her despicable plan to cherry pick ‘deserving’ refugees. Unless the radical Left articulates a clear anti-capitalist campaign with demands that unite migrants and non-migrants, there is a real danger that anti-racists will be tied behind Cameron’s chauvinist rhetoric or Corbyn’s calls for a reformed EU – a strategy which was tried by Syriza in Greece and failed so spectacularly.

Many also argue that the free movement of labour among EU states, which has allowed people to build a better life in another country, fosters internationalism. The free movement of labour shouldn’t blind us to the fact that it applies only, and unevenly, to EU citizens. Whichever way the vote goes, the EU remains a fortress of ever-tightening border controls against refugees and migrants fleeing war and poverty. Fortress Europe is responsible for the thousands who drown in the Mediterranean or face razor fences and walls. Internationalism is not strengthened by accepting the right of free movement only for one group of workers. We need to remind ourselves that the only way to beat xenophobia is to defend the rights of all, migrant and non-migrants alike, and to consider the working class, our class, in unity across all borders.

EU Promotes Privatisation

The EU is not a defender of our rights. It’s a bosses’ institution and protects the bosses’ rights. The most recent action to defend the NHS came from junior doctors, whereas the push toward NHS privatisation is aided by EU trade rules that insist companies across Europe can tender for all contracts. The only reliable defence of our rights comes from our struggles. It took just two days of talks before EU leaders accepted Cameron’s demands to limit child benefits and tax credits for migrant workers, plunging them deeper into poverty and opening the door for more benefit cuts for us all.

To suggest then that the EU is what makes things better for working class people, is to accept to sacrifice the rights of one section of the working class – those without an EU passport – in the hope of keeping the rights of the rest. It does not prevent the ruling class from singling out vulnerable groups of migrant workers, undermining our class unity. Migrant and non-migrant workers have repeatedly fought together to secure social rights, welfare benefits and pensions. Think of the cleaners of the living wage campaign, who have fought and won. The only way to safeguard our rights is to ensure that they are available to all.

What Kind of Campaign?

A Left ‘out of the EU’ campaign has to do more than expose the EU as a capitalist and racist institution. The starting point of our campaign should be to use the referendum to strengthen our class, so it cannot end with a vote.

Many argue that a left exit position would have too small a voice to impact on the debate, suggesting that socialist ideas are irrelevant. Yet Corbyn’s victory, which came from campaigning against austerity and for a fairer society, has shown that an audience for a left alternative exists. Last summer, tens of thousands demonstrated in London in solidarity with refugees and many have organised regular trips to Calais. There is a sizable audience for our arguments and this makes it all the more urgent to organise such a campaign. We must give voice to anti-racists and steer the debate to the left. Recently, a number of trade unionists and activists launched a Left exit campaign. This is a very positive step.

We need to confront both faces of racism: islamophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Our campaign must fight for the rights of the largely Muslim Syrian refugees and also have specific demands that safeguard the rights of migrants already here, such as equal access to benefits, welfare, health and education, and working rights. We must prepare a campaign in the unions to fight against austerity and protect everyone’s rights. We must also take on the argument that tighter border controls and fewer migrants will make life better for working class people.

Fears that an exit from the EU may trigger an assault on migrants’ rights are well founded. That’s why it’s important to go on the offensive now. We must combine our ‘no’ vote with a campaign that goes beyond the 23rd June, articulates an alternative to austerity, organises with migrant workers and defends everyone’s rights. We shouldn’t fear having a small voice in this moment – we should rather fear the long term consequences of failing to articulate the interests of the whole of our class from all corners of the globe.

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Campaign to Remain

There’s no dispute that the EU is a bosses’ union: racist, neoliberal and pro-austerity. The attacks on Greece, and the ‘Fortress Europe’ walls set up against refugees show the real nature of the institution. But when attacks on refugees and the right to migrate are increasing, does it help to reinforce borders across Europe? Won’t we just be swapping Fortress Europe for Fortress Britain?

There’s no ready-made answer, and we have to think through what the referendum will mean in practice for British politics, and for the working class. And for me that means voting to remain, for three main reasons:

→ Whose referendum? Not ours

British Prime Minister David Cameron conceded the referendum as a sop to the racist right of the Tory party; it’s never been a demand of the left. And it’s happening now because of a defeat for the left – Cameron winning the election last May. UKIP have been central to articulating the demand, but it’s more importantly about the rifts in the Tory party.

Given its origins, inevitably immigration and arguments about numbers have dominated the campaign so far. Cameron’s negotiations with the EU centred on restricting migrant workers’ rights, and the criticism from the Tory right is that he wasn’t harsh enough. However bad Cameron’s attacks, the Tories pushing to leave want to go further.

This is quite different from Scotland – the left and the working class could shape the Scottish referendum because the impetus for independence came from an anti-Tory groundswell. The opposite is true of the EU referendum.

→ Why the left is divided

The EU hasn’t been a focus of the left’s campaigning for decades, largely because successive British governments have been more right-wing and neoliberal than the EU, so it is hardly surprising that many activists don’t see it as the main enemy. But there have also been more fundamental shifts that we should pay attention to.

In the labour movement there has been a sea-change in attitudes, with many who once opposed the EU, now seeing it as a shield against the Tories. That is in part a reaction to decades of defeats, but it is also true that the EU has produced real reforms that the Tories opposed, in particular over workers’ rights and the environment. When Eurosceptics talk about a ‘bonfire of regulations’, those gains are what they have in mind.

There have also been deeper shifts in social attitudes – over issues such as racism, sexism and homophobia – and views on Europe are part of that. Those changes were fought for, and are still contested, as current attacks on refugees and migrants show. But we have not lost all the ground gained, however fierce the right’s attacks. The anti-racist reaction that so many young people have against UKIP and the Eurosceptic right is a healthy one, and we should back it.

→ The changing working class

There are close on three million EU citizens here, with equal rights to housing, work, and health care. It is migration that has mainly fuelled the right’s demand for the referendum, meaning that in Britain the issue of the EU is about migration in a way that isn’t true in other European countries.

Leaving the EU would threaten those rights. Exactly how that would play out isn’t really the issue – the point of leaving the EU, for most of those pushing it, is to make migrants’ lives more precarious. And we only have to look at the USA to see how a society can be dependent on migrant workers, and yet deny them basic rights.

The way forward

Of course there are principled socialists who are arguing for an internationalist exit from the EU. But they are a minority of a minority. The balance of forces is overwhelming with the right, with too many on the left making concessions to the idea that the free movement of labour harms British workers.

Our arguments on the referendum need to centre on defending migrants and refugees, and the right to migrate. And we need to make common cause with those arguing for an exit who also put those at the centre of their politics, and see divisions on the vote as a secondary issue. We will have far more in common with each other than we will with most of those campaigning for either outcome. ‘In or out, workers have to fight’ was a useful slogan in the early 1970s, and it seems to have become apt again.

How you vote should be the end of an argument, not the beginning. But it seems to me that a position grounded in anti-racism and defending workers’ rights leads to one logical conclusion: the road to defending and extending the right to migrate cannot go through restricting existing migration rights, which would be the practical outcome of a vote to leave the EU.

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A Plague on Both Houses

2008 exposed the EU’s shaky foundations. Its structures were placed under tremendous pressure by financial tremors emanating from the USA. The attempt to manage the resulting crisis laid bare the debt relationships that underpin the common market and exposed the brutally undemocratic heart of the EU.

Despite its hegemonic role, German capitalism has shown itself both unable and unwilling to resolve the problems underpinning the crisis when the interests of the eurozone conflict with its own immediate interests – particularly ensuring repayments on loans from debtor nations within the EU. The most extreme example was the crushing austerity measures demanded of Greece in exchange for further loans, despite warnings from the other major eurozone economies that it would leave no path to recovery for the Greek economy; an economy previously absorbing billions of dollars’ worth of German exports a year.

British capitalism has consciously placed itself on the fringes of Europe and EU membership has had little bearing on left-wing or working class politics domestically. The referendum has been driven and continues to be shaped by a crisis on the right of British politics. A crisis where both sides are equally committed to deepening austerity and have collectively driven an agenda several steps to the right of anything emanating from Brussels. Their division, notionally over questions of “sovereignty,” is over whether Britain is best placed as a neoliberal outlier within the EU (with greater access to Eurozone markets). Or if the city and British firms could better exploit global markets if freed from the “protectionist” instincts and red tape of Europe. Socialists have no side in this split but it doesn’t mean we can’t exploit divisions to our advantage.

Opportunities for the Left?

We have largely ignored the question of Europe for decades as successive governments, Thatcher, Blair then Cameron have driven forward agendas to the right of mainstream European politics. Slashing of services, growing insecurity and austerity have all been driven by Westminster. For most working class people the only impact of EU membership (bar cheaper holidays) has been an increase in European economic migration and “red tape” regulations on workplace rights. In most communities the only people arguing enthusiastically in opposition to the EU have been closet racists and right-wing Tories.

In an attempt to generate support both camps have pitched narratives unfavourable to the left. The remain camp has focused on economic viability and scare mongering around the financial uncertainty of exit. While the Brexit camp has built upon a dog whistle campaign hostile to the idea of mass migration from Eastern Europe and the idea of “Britishness.” A significant section of the wider left takes opposition to the racism of this postcolonial idea of Britishness as a starting point and combines it with illusions that the EU can be reformed to represent a more progressive anti-nationalist “Europeanism.” This reflects the sense amongst working class communities that a large Brexit would be a vote against the increasingly multicultural life of our cities.

In this context revolutionaries have to put out propaganda exposing and explaining the neoliberal nature of the EU in a dialogue with those voting to remain and attempt to organise the anti-racist sentiment into active solidarity with migrants. Emphasis on the latter is essential if we are to counteract the most likely consequence of the referendum – an increase in anti-migrant legislation and the confidence of those most hostile to multiculturalism.

Don’t Lend our Votes to the Right

Unless a recurrence of the Greek crisis upsets the dynamic of the referendum “left exit” arguments will prove unable to shape the debate beyond the far left and certain unions. If we can’t shape the wider debate then votes to remain are lent in support of Cameron and votes to leave are adding to the numbers in support of a more openly racist, nationalistic conservativism.

The only good outcome on 23 June is a low turnout that demonstrates neither section of the right has gained traction over the question of Europe. The radical left should patiently explain our anti-capitalist critique of the EU and fight where we can win – in solidarity with junior doctors, building the solidarity and combativity of our side

The people of Palestine – both Gaza and the West Bank, arbitrarily split by Israeli separation policies which are illegal in international law – suffer daily abuse, deprivation and oppression. The United Nations, as well as major aid agencies such as Oxfam, provide testimony that Gaza has not been able to recover from the last Israeli assault of 2014. 75,000 people cannot return to their ruined homes and 80% of the population relies on international humanitarian aid just to survive.

Women are in the front line – literally. They are the ones trying to keep their homes and families together among their ruined houses. They are the ones trying to guide and protect their traumatized children living in a war zone. They are the ones suffering, but they are also the ones leading.

Take for example Palestinian journalist Ameera Harouda, who runs towards the sounds of bombs because “I want to be there first because these stories should be told”.

Recognizing the vital role of women in Gaza, the Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign is participating in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition campaign to send an All-Women’s boat to support women in Gaza and to challenge the illegal Israeli blockade. Committed women in public life around the world have volunteered to sail with the Women’s Boat to Gaza.

U.S. playwright Naomi Wallace describes her participation: “The collective venture of the Women’s Boat to Gaza is an act of defiance against the criminal incarceration of and frequent acts of war against an entire population, the majority of whom are children. It is also an intervention to highlight decades of astonishingly creative resistance by Palestinian women against Israel’s illegal occupation.” She adds: “Why will I be on the boat?  I am a playwright.  It’s both my duty and inspiration to engage with and expose systems that diminish us, like occupation, racism and brutality.”

Irish Nobel Prize Laureate Mairead Maquire says “I am sailing on the Women’s Boat to Gaza because I love my Palestinian brothers and sisters and l want to stand with them in all our struggle for Palestinian freedom and rights.” Also on board will be Members of Parliament, other eminent women and activists from over a dozen countries.

These women need our financial support to sail for Gaza. They are donating their time, courage and energy, but need financial donations to buy and equip the boats and provide the other support this campaign needs. http://canadaboatgaza.org/donate/

You, too, can get on board this vitally important initiative and show your commitment to Palestinian women of Gaza and those who would support them by donating to this campaign and helping to spread the word to your friends, family colleagues and other contacts.

Each one of the women sailing on the boats carries with her the support you provide.

Get on board this campaign and help the women of Gaza and the women’s boat to Gaza.

Canadian Boat to Gaza Team

“…only 1 in 10,000 HPV-infected women develop cervical cancer”  (Health Impact News)

“I predict that Gardasil will become the greatest medical scandal of all times because at some point in time, the evidence will add up to prove that this vaccine, technical and scientific feat that it may be, has absolutely no effect on cervical cancer and that all the very many adverse effects which destroy lives and even kill, serve no other purpose than to generate profit for the manufacturers…There is far too much financial interest for these medicines to be withdrawn. (Dr. Bernard Dalbergue a former pharmaceutical industry physician with Gardasil manufacturer Merck, in an interview published in the April 2014 issue of the French magazine Principes de Santé)

No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable…for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death.  (President Ronald Reagan, as he signed The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986, absolving drug companies from all medico-legal liability when children die or are disabled from vaccine injuries)

“The 271 vaccines in development span a wide array of diseases, and employ exciting new scientific strategies and technologies. These potential vaccines – all in human clinical trials or under review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – include 137 for infectious diseases, 99 for cancer, 15 for allergies and 10 for neurological disorders. (PhRMA, The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America [Big Pharma’s trade association and lobbying group]) 

*     *     *

Recently there was published in the Duluth News Tribune, a commentary article applauding the safety and efficacy of the HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccines (Merck’s quadrivalent Gardasil, Glaxo’s bivalent Cervarix and the newest one from Merck, Gardasil 9, which the company hopes will make obsolete the first two).

The article, written by a board-certified pediatrician, failed to fulfill a physician’s ethical and medical-legal duty to fully inform her readers about the negative aspects of the vaccines as well as the positive ones. All vaccines have potentially serious adverse effects, only partly because many of them contain substantial amounts of the neurotoxic, fetotoxic and teratogenic aluminum (especially when it is injected into muscle tissue).

Aluminum is included in many vaccines where it acts as an adjuvant, which makes it highly likely to cause brain problems in immunologically immature infants (and fetuses) because it adversely affects the blood-brain-barrier and is a mitochondrial toxin. Vaccine adjuvants are added to many vaccines to enhance the immune response to whatever antigen is given.

Tragically, such responses can actually cause hyperimmune responses, and can easily create chronic, sometimes incurable autoimmune and other chronic disorders, such as pre-diabetes, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver (= NASH = nonalcoholic steatohepatitis), autism spectrum disorders, asthma, food allergies, a variety of organ-specific autoimmune disorders (such as thyroiditis, vasculitis and autoimmune rheumatic diseases like SLE [lupus], rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and sarcoidosis), chronic fatigue syndrome, metabolic syndrome (= obesity, type 2 diabetes/insulin resistance, hypertension, and dyslipidemia), Gulf War Syndrome, POTS, and others. (See Global Research.)

One can assume that the co-authors hadn’t read the package insert of the newest Gardasil vaccine or the alternative medical literature (that hasn’t been bought by Big Pharma), because there aren’t many physicians who can say that they ever thoroughly read what the Physician’s Desk Reference says about any drug or vaccine before they prescribe it. It is a sad but true reality that most busy, fatigued and often double-booked physicians just don’t have the luxury of time (or energy) to do independent research or reading, especially when some pharmaceutical corporation, drug rep, WebMD, or other questionable source of information has done some for him or her.

Sadly, much of the information coming from Big Pharma (essentially sales pitches and propaganda that they like to call “physician or patient education”), physician-targeted websites, or any of the many professional trade associations (like the AMA, AAP, APA, AAFP, etc) are heartily – and often blindly – pro-drug, pro-vaccine and anti-nutritional therapy.

Because of my deep interest in the subject of iatrogenic diseases (these are disorders caused by prescription drugs, vaccines, medical devices or surgical procedures administered or prescribed by a physician), I have been acutely aware of the many very serious adverse effects that are too-commonly over-looked by busy physicians. And I read the adverse reaction section of the Gardasil package insert. I urge all vaccine-prescribing physicians and prospective Gardasil recipients to do the same.

Having retired from active practice, but still interested in medicine, I have the time and energy, when I am interested, to actually read the PDR and the abbreviated, woefully incomplete medical journal advertising (which no longer includes diagrams of molecular structures [Big Pharma apparently wants to keep us physicians ignorant of the chemistry of their potentially lethal drugs). The information within the PDR is sobering, even infuriating, especially when I consider all the times that I cavalierly prescribed dangerous drugs without being fully informed myself about their dangers.

Thankfully, I practiced medicine during an era when Big Pharma, Big Insurance and the profit motives of Wall Street investors and Big Medicine weren’t in charge of medical education and the way medicine was practiced. Back then physicians recoiled at the thought of giving more than one vaccine inoculation at a single sitting or prescribing more than one drug at a time!

My conscience is clear when it came to vaccines, even though I, just like most of my colleagues, had no idea what dangerous ingredients were in them and how risky was giving multiple shots to tiny infants at one sitting. But no patient of mine ever became autistic from any neurotoxic mercury- or aluminum-containing vaccine that I ordered, because there weren’t very many vaccines to give. No patient of mine ever developed an autoimmune disorder because there was no Big Pharma-promoted over-vaccination agenda back then.

And no young healthy adolescent female patient of mine every developed chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic headaches or chronic vascular instability from aluminum-containing human papilloma virus inoculations. There was no such thing back then, for the medical profession very efficiently and very cheaply prevented cervical cancer by simply doing periodic Pap smears.

Because of the above information, somebody with some expertise in the area has the duty to again warn Duluth-area readers of the Duluth News-Tribune about last week’s unashamedly pro-HPV-vaccine DNT commentary article.

Gardasil ain’t what it is advertised to be, and patients have the right to know what those unwelcome realities are. Following are some excerpts that people need to know, especially if they are contemplating receiving the series of three Gardasil shots.

For background information, please consider clicking on some of the following links where you can find some of the articles that I have written on vaccine dangers:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/aluminum-deceptions-and-academic-misconduct/;

https://www.transcend.org/tms/2016/03/duty-to-warn-big-pharmas-nefarious-control-of-health-care-and-the-vaccine-injury-compensation-program/;

http://www.medicalveritas.org/MedicalVeritas/Current_Childhood_Vaccine_Programs.html;

https://www.transcend.org/tms/2016/02/duty-to-warn-why-we-need-to-be-more-cautious-about-americas-over-vaccination-program/.

The problem is world-wide, with Japan recently withdrawing its mandate for Gardasil vaccinations and most first world nations re-considering their vaccine agendas. The United States can afford to be more cavalier, because of the fact that vaccine manufacturers and prescribing physicians are immune from medicolegal liability when vaccine injuries or deaths occur. The following articles and excerpts should be instructive.

The FDA needs to be removed from the responsibility of ’assuring the safety, efficacy and security’ of vaccines. It is quite obvious they are not up to the task. They are most certainly not acting in the best interests of the public.

Medical consumers – do not consent to the administration of Gardasil 9 unless you and your medical provider have read and discussed the entire package insert together. The choice is yours, make it an informed one.

For the full text of Dr. Kohl’s article, see DuluthReader.com 

Dr Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic, non-drug, mental health care for the last decade of his family practice career. He now writes a weekly column for the Reader Weekly, an alternative newsweekly published in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Many of Dr Kohls’ columns are archived at http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn and at http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls.

 

Moments ago the newswires lit up with news that the Clinton Foundation“was among the organizations breached by suspected Russian hackers in a dragnet of the U.S. political apparatus ahead of the Nov. election, Bloomberg reports according to three people familiar with the matter.“

.

• CLINTON FOUNDATION SAID TO BE BREACHED BY RUSSIAN HACKERS

As Bloomberg adds, attacks on the foundation’s network as well as those of the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign compound concerns about her digital security even as the FBI continues to investigate her use of a personal e-mail server while she was secretary of state. The spokesman for the foundation, Brian Cookstra, said he wasn’t aware of any breach; compromise of the foundation’s computers was first identified by govt investigators as recently as last week.

That’s the official version, and one which accurately focuses on the porous security at both the DNC and Clinton Foundation servers.

What really happened is that earlier today, the infamous hacker Guccifer2 – who as we reported previously, revealed himself as the individual who penetrated the DNC server (which was also blamed on Russian hackers) and revealed to the world the DNC’s “attack files” on Donald Trump, among others, including the Clinton mega donors – released another data dump which he titled as the “Dossier on Hillary Clinton from DNC.”

#Guccifer2 Dossier on #HillaryClintonhttps://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/21/hillary-clinton …

— GUCCIFER 2.0 (@GUCCIFER_2) 10:03 AM – 21 Jun 2016

In the post he says the following:

This’s time to keep my word and here’re the docs I promised you.

It’s not a report in one file, it’s a big folder of docs devoted to Hillary Clinton that I found on the DNC server.

The DNC collected all info about the attacks on Hillary Clinton and prepared the ways of her defense, memos, etc., including the most sensitive issues like email hacks.

As an example here’re some files:

2016er Attacks – HRC Defense Master Doc [updated]

04.29.15 CGEP

2016 Democrats Positions Cheat Sheet 7-7-15

20150426 MEMO- Clinton Cash Unravels

Attacks on Clinton Family Members

Clinton Foundation Donors $25K+

Clinton Foundation Vulnerabilities Master Doc FINAL

Clintons PFD 2015

HRC Defense – Emails

HRC Travel – Private Jets FINAL

MEMO — Clinton Cash Claims (2)

Most notable among these files is the file called “Clinton Foundation Vulnerabilities Master Doc FINAL” which, as the title implies, is an extensive 42-page summary of how the Clinton Foundation views its biggest vulnerabilities based on mentions, references and attacks from the press.

Here are some of the section titles:

• THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RECEIVED DONATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS TIED TO SAUDI ARABIA WHILE CLINTON SERVED AS SECRETARY OF STATE
• AN EMBATTLED BUSINESSMAN WITH “TIES TO BAHRAIN’S STATE-OWNED ALUMINUM COMPANY” GAVE BETWEEN $1 MILLION AND $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION
• A VENEZUELAN MEDIA MOGUL WHO WAS ACTIVE IN VENEZUELAN POLITICS DONATED TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION DURING CLINTON’S TENURE AS SECRETARY OF STATE
• GERMAN INVESTOR WHO HAS LOBBIED CHANCELLOR MERKEL’S ADMINISTRATION GAVE BETWEEN $1 MILLION AND $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION, SOME OF WHICH WAS DURING MRS. CLINTON’S TENURE AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT
• THE CEO OF AN AMSTERDAM BASED ENERGY COMPANY DONATED AT LEAST $1 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION AND LATER ANNOUNCED AT THE 2009 CGI MEETING A $5 BILLION PROJECT TO DEVELOP ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY POWER GENERATION IN INDIA AND CHINA
• INDIAN POLITICIAN AMAR SINGH, WHO HAD DONATED AT LEAST $1 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION, MET WITH HILLARY CLINTON IN SEPTEMBER 2008 TO DISCUSS AN INDIA-U.S. CIVIL NUCLEAR AGREEMENT
• THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RECEIVED ADDITIONAL DONATIONS FROM INDIAN BUSINESS INTERESTS PRIOR TO HER BECOMING SECRETARY OF STATE
• BILLIONAIRE STEEL EXECUTIVE AND MEMBER OF THE FOREIGN INVESTMENT COUNCIL IN KAZAKHSTAN LAKSHMI MITTAL GAVE $1 MILLION TO $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION BEFORE CLINTON BECAME SECRETARY OF STATE
• SOON AFTER SECRETARY CLINTON LEFT THE STATE DEPARTMENT, THE CLINTON
  FOUNDATION “RECEIVED A LARGE DONATION FROM A CONGLOMERATE RUN BY A
  MEMBER OF CHINA’S NATIONAL PEOPLE’S CONGRESS”
• …AND THE CLINTON FOUNDATION DEFENDED ITS PARTNERSHIPS WITH BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC CORPORATE INTERESTS
• POWERFUL AND CONTROVERSIAL CORPORATE INTERESTS BASED IN THE U.S. ALSO DONATED TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION
• AMONG THE CLINTON FOUNDATION DONORS REVEALED IN 2009 WERE SEVERAL FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS WHO HAD GIVEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
• WHEN HILLARY CLINTON BECAME SECRETARY OF STATE IN 2009, BILL CLINTON AGREED TO STOP ACCEPTING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION FROM MOST FOREIGN COUNTRIES
• IN THE PAST, SOME OBSERVERS HAD LINKED FOREIGN GOVERNMENT DONATIONS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION AND SECRETARY CLINTON’S WORK AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT
• THE CLINTON FOUNDATION CAME UNDER INTENSE SCRUTINY IN FEBRUARY 2015 WHEN IT WAS REVEALED THAT THE FOUNDATION HAD ACCEPTED DONATIONS FROM FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS AFTER SECRETARY CLINTON LEFT THE STATE DEPARTMENT
• THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TIED FOREIGN GOVERNMENT DONORS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION’S ENDOWMENT FUNDRAISING UNDER SECRETARY CLINTON
• CLINTON FOUNDATION ANNOUNCED THAT SHOULD HILLARY CLINTON DECIDE TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT, THE FOUNDATION WOULD FOLLOW APPROPRIATE PROCEDURES FOR ACCEPTING DONATIONS FROM FOREIGN DONATIONS, JUST LIKE IT HAD HAD UNDER SECRETARY CLINTON…
• REPORTS THAT STATE DEPARTMENT LAWYERS DID NOT EXHAUSTIVELY VET BILL CLINTON’S PAID SPEECHES DURING SECRETARY CLINTON’S TENURE RAISED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ROLE CLINTON FOUNDATION DONATIONS MAY HAVE PLAYED IN ORGANIZING THOSE SPEECHES
• SOME CONSERVATIVES USED THE FOREIGN DONATIONS CONTROVERSY TO IMPLY THAT THE CLINTON FOUNDATION IS NOT A CHARITY AND QUESTION THE FOUNDATION’S CHARITABLE WORK
• THE CLINTON FOUNDATION HAS ACCEPTED DONATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS, SOME OF WHOM HAD TIES TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS, DURING HER TENURE AS SECRETARY OF STATE
• THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RECEIVED MONEY FROM A FOUNDATION FORMED BY FORMER UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER VICTOR PINCHUK
• WALL STREET JOURNAL COLUMNIST MARY O’GRADY CITED A CONTRACT BETWEEN TWO CLINTON DONORS FOR HAITI AID AS EVIDENCE OF A CONFLICT OF INTEREST FOR THE CLINTONS

There is much more in the full document presented below (link).

* * *

One important thing to note: according to an interview that Motherboard conducted with Guccifer2 on Tuesday, the hacker makes it clear he is not Russian. He is, in fact, from Romania, just like the Original Guccifer.

“I’m a hacker, manager, philosopher, women lover,” Guccifer 2.0 told Motherboard on Tuesday in a Twitter chat. “I also like Gucci! I bring the light to people. I’m a freedom fighter! So u can choose what u like!”

The hacker, who claimed to have chosen the name in reference to the notorious hacker who leaked the George W. Bush paintings and claims to have hacked Hillary Clinton’s email server, denied working for the Russian government, as several experts believe.

“I don’t like Russians and their foreign policy. I hate being attributed to Russia,” he said, adding that he was from Romania, just like the first Guccifer.

When asked to explain how he hacked into the DNC in Romanian, “he seemed to stall us, and said he didn’t want to “waste” his time doing that. The few short sentences he sent in Romanian were filled with mistakes, according to several Romanian native speakers.”

The hacker said he left Russian metadata in the leaked documents as his personal ”watermark.” He also said he got kicked out of the network on June 12, when the DNC “rebooted their system.”

A senior DNC official said in an emailed statement that “our experts are confident in their assessment that the Russian government hackers were the actors responsible for the breach detected in April, and we believe that the subsequent release and the claims around it may be a part of a disinformation campaign by the Russians.”

Guccifer 2.0 also said the DNC isn’t the only victim of his hacks, but declined to name any others because “my safety depends on it.”

It appears the Clinton Foundation was one of the other hacks.

Finally, when asked why he targeted the DNC, “Guccifer 2.0 said he simply did it to follow the lead of Marcel Lazar, the original Guccifer, and that he doesn’t “care at all” about Donald Trump. The hacker declined to say whether he knew him personally, “cause I care for Marcel.” “I think we must fight for freedom of minds,” he wrote. “Fight for the world without Illuminati.”

Good luck.

* * *

So while we are going through the full data dump (found here), here is the leaked document revealing the “Clinton Foundation’s Vulnerabilities.”

 

Neither major party offers a program to reverse the present course of militarism and income inequality 

These are difficult times in the United States and the world requiring a greater degree of preciseness in our analysis and discipline in the style of work that we pursue.

We have the advantage of 36 years of organizational experience where during the course of this period there have been many changes domestically and internationally. Nonetheless, today we are facing similar problems that plagued the founders of the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR) in 1980.

First of all I want to discuss the recent massacre at the Pulse Club in Orlando, Florida in the early morning hours of June 12. This was a monumental crime against humanity with the killing of 50 people and the wounding of 53 others.

The crime appeared to be motivated by hate and fear. Some have declared that the alleged perpetrator Omar Mateen was mentally deranged. Others say he had pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS) and was outraged by LGBTQ community that frequented the establishment where the shooting took place.

Almost half of the people killed in the attack were of Puerto Rican descent. This compounds the tragedy even further considering that Puerto Rico is a colony of a special type of the U.S. For those who have been following the news about the economic crisis in Puerto Rico, the crisis there bears striking resemblance to what we have been subjected to in Detroit.

Puerto Rico is said to be indebted to the banks and bondholders to the tune of $70 billion. The economic situation on the islands has engendered higher rates of joblessness, austerity and outmigration. More Puerto Ricans now live in the U.S. than reside on the islands. Retired Judge Steven Rhodes who oversaw the massive theft in pensions, healthcare programs, public lands, the regionalization of an entire water system prompting the present calamity in Flint, along with the denial of the fundamental rights of a majority African American city to self-determination and home rule, is now a consultant for the Puerto Rican Commonwealth.

Therefore, we can imagine vividly the type of outcome the Puerto Rican nation will encounter with this type of advice and manipulation from the U.S. government and corporate community. This is the same Rhodes that is now the “transition manager” of the Detroit Public Schools which is slated for dissolution and restructuring once again by the right-wing dominated state government in Lansing.

The Quest for Peace Domestically and Worldwide

One young friend of mine on Facebook who used to live in Detroit said that their reaction to the massacre in Orlando was one of numbness. They said that there are just too many of these incidents in the U.S. Perhaps many people are becoming anesthetized to inter-personal violence and horror. These shooting are by no means a rarity in the U.S. with mass shooting taking place on average daily.

In an article published by PBS in early January it says, “According to the Tracker’s data, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which at least four people are killed or wounded, there were 372 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2015, killing 475 and wounding 1,870.”

No one could effectively argue that the U.S. is not a country with a violent history. The British colonies and the U.S. government were founded on the forced removal and genocide against the indigenous Native American peoples. African people were brought to the Western Hemisphere for the purpose of enslavement suffering for nearly 250 years in bondage. It would take a civil war between the Confederate states and the Union to end slavery in 1865 ushering in yet another century of legalized segregation and institutional racism.

We also must acknowledge the violent wars of the 19^th century against the Native people who resisted settler intervention and destruction. A war against Mexico from 1846-1848 resulted in the capturing of at least one-third of its territory now designated as the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, California and Nevada.

In 2016, the descendants of these people are labelled as “illegal immigrants” and “minorities”, rationalizing repressive and exploitative policies. Under the present administration of President Barack Obama there have been more deportations than any period in U.S. history.

Corporate media sources often focus on injuries and deaths due to inter-personal violence while far less attention is focused on the direct role of the oppressive state. There have been several high-profile cases over the last four years which have prompted mass demonstrations and rebellions including the vigilante killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida in 2012; the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014; the police choking of Eric Garner in 2014; we must remember Tamir Rice who was playing with a toy gun in a public park in Cleveland and was gunned down by the police; to only mention a few.

In regard to U.S. foreign policy, I have said repeatedly that a nation’s domestic program is reflected in its relations with other areas of the world. This has been starkly illustrated over the last quarter century of “permanent war” and occupation of vast regions of the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

On June 9, when the corporate media was filled with reports announcing that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had “clinched” the Democratic Party nomination for president, President Obama issued an executive order expanding the U.S. role in the war against Afghanistan. This is the same Afghanistan war that has been declared over on numerous occasions yet American troops and resources remain there amid the ongoing fighting.

The Washington Post reported

“The Obama administration has granted American forces in Afghanistan new authorities to assist Afghan troops, a U.S. official said on Thursday. The move signals a return to broader military might against the Taliban and pulls the United States back deeper into the country’s ongoing war. The new measures include authorizing U.S. troops, stationed in Afghanistan on a dual training and counterterrorism mission, to begin accompanying conventional local forces on the battlefield in a way that now occurs only with elite Afghan forces. That, in turn, could mean greater use of U.S. air power to support those American and Afghan forces as they do battle.”

This is also true of Iraq where at least 3,500 Pentagon troops have been deployed over the last year to ostensibly assist in the fight against the Islamic State. In Syria, the U.S. along with at least a dozen other countries is bombing the territory under the guise of combatting terrorism.

In Yemen, the White House is supporting a war against the people though the proxy states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emarites (UAE), among others to purportedly curtail Iranian influence in the least developed country in the Middle East. The Palestinians, pushed to the background of U.S. foreign policy, remain under occupation and siege in the West Bank and Gaza.

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) destroyed Libya five years ago leaving the continent’s once most prosperous state in ruins and poverty becoming a source of instability for the entire region. Libya is a major source of human trafficking where hundreds of thousands today are seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe exacerbating divisions within the European Union (EU) leaving millions of migrants and their descendants subjected to xenophobia and racism.

In Latin America the government of Brazil was overthrown recently without any response from the U.S. making its role quite suspect in the fifth largest state in the world. Venezuela is under threat after being destabilizing by forces funded and coordinated by Washington.

Cuba is still occupied at Guantanamo Bay by the Pentagon naval base and a concentration camp housing so-called “terrorists” who have never been put on trial. Travel bans and the economic embargo against Havana remains despite the supposed efforts to “normalize” relations with the Caribbean island-nation just 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

Another important policy decision from the federal legislature went almost unnoticed as well and that was the recent passage of a defense bill by Congress ignoring a possible veto threat by Obama.

The Associated Press reported on June 14 that

“Defying a White House veto threat, the Senate voted decisively Tuesday to approve a defense policy bill that authorizes $602 billion in military spending, bars shuttering the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and denies the Pentagon’s bid to start a new round of military base closings. The GOP-led Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed 85 to 13, with all but seven members of the Democratic caucus backing the legislation. Six Republicans voted against the bill. The legislation mandates for the first time in history that young women sign up for a potential military draft. The requirement has angered social conservatives, who fear the move is another step toward the blurring of gender lines akin to allowing transgender people to use public lavatories and locker rooms.”

The Ongoing Problems of Racism and National Oppression 

Recognition of the violent history of the U.S. takes us into the second segment of tonight’s presentation that is the failure to eradicate racism and national oppression from U.S. society some 151 years since the conclusion of the civil war. Evidence of this reality is all around us as we speak.

We need to look no further than the ongoing 2016 national elections where racism has been allowed to characterize the Republican Party nominations process. House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said just last week that presumptive nominee Donald Trump’s comments about a Mexican American jurist were racist. However, Ryan went on to say in the next breath that he would support Trump anyway. This is quite revealing along with the reticence of the Democratic Party leadership to thoroughly and unequivocally condemn not only the racism of the Republican Party but within its own ranks.

Bill Clinton, when confronted by African American activists in Philadelphia in April responded by saying that critics of his signing of the ominous crime bill during the mid-1990s were defending drug dealers and murderers. Terms such as “super-predators” came out of the mouths of the Clintons during their tenure in office.

Over the last three-and-a-half decades when MCHR was founded, the prison population in the U.S. has increased by at least 500 percent. African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately impacted by police violence and mass incarceration. These policies have been continuous through successive Republican and Democratic administrations.

Moreover, there are other forms of racism which take on a different character that are equally if not more so debilitating and deadly. In the realm of socio-economic equality the U.S. has not made substantial progress within the last 40 years.

A recent annual report issued by the National Urban League entitled “The State of Black America, Locked Out: Jobs, Education, Justice,” documents the continuing disparities between African Americans and whites. This lack of progress over four decades was not altered as a result of two terms of an Obama presidency.

In regard to the NUL study I wrote in early June that

“This report provides much hard data which necessitates a critical look at the lack of progress made during two terms of the Obama administration. African Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008 and 2012 securing his two terms in office. Unemployment rates in the area in which he emerged politically from, the state and federal senates representing Illinois, exposes the futility of an electoral agenda absent of substantive demands based on the concrete conditions facing the working class and poor.”

Illinois has the highest rate of unemployment for African Americans than any other state in the Union. The Chicago area, where many African Americans and Latinos live, is a center for mass poverty and violence. Just last weekend in the Windy City there were 42 different shootings during the course of three days resulting in 7 deaths, one of which was a five-year-old.

In the same articled cited above, I also noted that

“These statistics pose a challenge for mass organizations to continue to put forward a political program for real jobs, decent housing, quality education and economic parity. It would be safe to say that irrespective of who is elected to the White House and Congress for 2017, the oppression and exploitation will not wither away.”

Social Justice and the Economic Crisis

One issue that the Senator Bernie Sanders campaign raised to millions across the U.S. was the growing income gap. Leading up to the 2008-2009 bail out of the banks, insurance companies and automobile firms, this phenomenon took on grotesque characteristics. This has continued into the present period.

Earlier this year it was announced that General Motors reaped $8.7 billion in profits during 2015. GM was founded in Flint, Michigan over 100 years ago. Yet Flint is suffering from contaminated water, a deteriorating infrastructure and mass unemployment.

At a demonstration in the spring calling for the rebuilding of Flint, it was quite striking to look at the space previously known as “Buick City” which was abandoned and razed by the city. Much of the contamination in the Flint River is directly due to the industrial abandonment of this majority African American municipality.

Despite all of this there has been no commitment on the part of GM, the State of Michigan, the U.S. government or others with immense resources to provide the assistance and redevelopment aid needed to reconstruct Flint. This is true not only of Flint but also Detroit, Highland Park, Inkster, Benton Harbor and other cities across Michigan.

These are issues that should be at the forefront of any program of a political party that garners the support of working people and the oppressed. An absence of these demands represents an abdication of the obligations we share as human being seeking to liberate ourselves and humanity from exploitation and repression.

Conclusion

These are just some of the specific questions that we need to grapple with in the next few weeks and months. The Republican National Convention in Cleveland and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia will be the scene of demonstrations against the policies of both political parties which quite frankly represent the same class interests.

Even though both parties have different constituencies, the leadership clearly does not represent the social and economic interests of the majority of people in the U.S. whether they are Black, Brown, Red, Arab, Asian, Gay, Straight, disabled or able-bodies, etc. What are we getting for our taxes and votes?

Are we to determine our own destiny through a democratic process or are we to be engulfed into other more violent and disruptive tactics in response to injustice and inequality? We are still human beings and will respond to oppression and exploitation as a liberation force.

These are the challenges we are up against in 2016. Let us move forward to address them in an urgent and creative manner leading us towards the world we want to see and live in.

Note: This address was delivered at the annual meeting of the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR) on June 16, 2016. The event took place at the Our Lady of Fatima church in Oak Park, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Azikiwe’s talk was followed by responses from Kezia Curtis, a MCHR board member and Wayne Curtis, a community activist on the eastside of Detroit. The meeting was facilitated by Atty. Carey McGehee, Chair of the MCHR Board of Directors. 

 

If you read the presstitute media, Brexit—the referendum tomorrow on the UK’s exit from the EU— is about racism.  According to the story line, angry rightwing racists of violent inclinations want to leave the EU to avoid having to accept more dark-skinned immigrants into England. 

Despite the constant propaganda against exit, polls indicated that more favored leaving the EU than remaining until a member of Parliament, Ms. Jo Cox, was killed by a man that a witness said shouted “Brexit.”  Cox was an opponent of leaving the EU.

The UK government and presstitute media used Cox’s murder to drive home the propaganda that violent racists  were behind Brexit. However, other witnesses gave a different report.  The Guardian, which led with the propaganda line, did report later in its account that “Other witnesses said the attack was launched after the MP became involved in an altercation involving two men near where she held her weekly surgery.”  Of course, we will never know, because Cox’s murder is too valuable of a weapon against Brexit.

There is no doubt that many in the UK are disturbed at the transformation of their country.  One doesn’t have to be a racist to feel that one’s country is being stolen from them by people of alien cultures.  The British have a long history of fighting off invaders, and many believe they are experiencing an invasion, although not an armed one.  An armed one, of course, would not have the government’s and media’s support.

When British people hear pundits pronounce that immigrants contribute more to the UK than they absorb in social payments, what they hear is inconsistent with their experience.  Moreover, many British are tired of having to avoid entire sections of their cities, including London.

It is a propaganda choice to call these concerns racism rather than cultural defense, and the UK political establishment has made that propaganda choice.  Little wonder so many British citizens no longer believe that the British Establishment represents Britain.

But let’s give the propagandists the benefit of the doubt and for sake of argument assume that Brexit is about racism.  What is the opposition to Brexit really about?  Most certainly it is not about helping the refugees from Washington’s wars that the UK government has enabled.  If the British establishment cared so much for the Muslims seeking refuge from America’s invasions, bombs, and drones, the British establishment would not have supported Washington’s attacks on these people.

Opposition to Brexit is based on two powerful interests of Washington.

One is the interests of the New York banks and Wall Street to eliminate the UK as a financial center competitor.  This blatant fact has escaped the notice of the City and the Bank of England.

The British have forgotten that they only have one foot in the EU, because the UK was permitted to keep its own currency.  The UK does not use the euro and, thus, retains the power to finance the British government.  Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, etc., do not have this capability.  They are dependent on private banks for financing.

In order to trick the UK into joining the EU, the British were given special privileges.  However, these privileges cannot last forever.  The EU process is one of political integration.  As I reported years ago, Jean-Claude Trichet, at that time the president of the European Central Bank, said that to complete the political integration of Europe, the fiscal policies of member states would be centralized.  It is impossible to centralize fiscal policies if the UK is an independent financial center with its own central bank and currency.

Wall Street understands that the defeat of Brexit means a shortened lifespan for London as a financial center, as it is impossible to be a financial center unless a country has its own currency and central bank.  As it is impossible for the UK to be a member of the EU and not operate under the European Central Bank, once the Brexit referendum is defeated, the process of gradually forcing the UK into the euro will begin.

The other powerful interest is the interest of Washington to prevent one country’s exit from leading to the exit of other countries.  As CIA documents found in the US National Archives make clear, the EU was a CIA initiative, the purpose of which is to make it easy for Washington to exercise political control over Europe. It is much easier for Washington to control the EU than 28 separate countries.  Moreover, if the EU unravels, so likely would NATO, which is the necessary cover for Washington’s aggression.

The EU serves Washington and the One Percent.  It serves no one else.  The EU is a murderer of sovereignty and peoples.  The intent is for the British, French, Germans, Italians, Greeks, Spanish, and all the rest to disappear as peoples.  Brexit is the last chance to defeat this hidden agenda, and apparently the British will vote tomorrow without having a clue as to what is at stake and what the vote is about.

The decision by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to ban the Russian track and field team from competing in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is as much about politics as it is about doping and fair play.  Indeed, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) upheld the ruling with caveats that might allow some of the athletes to compete, the public relations damage has already been done.  Russia has been cast as a serial violator of doping rules, and must be a country that is dishonest and cheats routinely; those sneaky Russians just can’t be trusted.  Or so the propaganda subtext implies.

But a closer look at the manner in which the Olympics has been politicized reveals that it is, in fact, the US and its allies, not Russia, who have done the most to use this quadrennial competition of the world’s best athletes for political gain.  And in so doing, it is Washington that bears responsibility for tainting the Olympics.

While the allegations of Russian doping may or may not be true, and the country’s attempts at addressing the issue may or may not ineffectual, the fact remains that it is politics and geopolitics, not banned substances, that now befouls the games.  A quick survey of recent history shows just how serious this politicization has become.

The Olympics as a Weapon

This is not the first time (nor is it likely the last time) that the Olympics have been politicized.  And, considering the recent deep freeze in US-Russia relations thanks to Ukraine, Syria, Edward Snowden, and other key issues, one cannot help but reach the conclusion that the US has used its considerable influence behind the scenes to jab a thumb in the eye of Mr. Putin and the Russian Government.  Moreover, even if this were entirely the actions of the relevant international athletic bodies with no interference from Washington, could anyone seriously blame Moscow for concluding that the ban is politically motivated?

Consider for a moment the recent history of the Olympics, Russia, and the US. In 2014, the western media was replete with columns and television news stories calling for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.  Literally dozens of op-eds were written with titles like Send Athletes to the Sochi Olympics, but Boycott the Games,ostensibly in an attempt to put pressure on the Kremlin in the wake of the passage of controversial legislation regarding LGBT rights in Russia.  In fact, the generally aggressive position of the West came through clearly in decisions by leaders such as Barack Obama and David Cameron not to attend the games, despite the invitations.

It should be remembered that the Sochi Olympics, which took place in February 2014, proceeded against the backdrop of intense upheaval in Ukraine, right on Russia’s border, not far from Sochi.  In fact, the coup that forced former President Yanukovich, widely seen as a key ally of the Kremlin, took place roughly 48 hours prior to the closing ceremonies in Sochi.  The general feeling in Moscow, and among many political observers internationally, was that the US-backed coup in Kiev was timed to coincide with the Olympics in the hopes that the Russian Government would fear responding too harshly given the precarious question of public opinion globally.

At the time, many had likened the series of events around Sochi 2014 to the start of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 which coincided with the launching of attacks by Georgia’s government under then President Mikhail Saakashvili against the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  Indeed, almost at the very moment that the Russian President Putin was sitting in a stadium in Beijing along with other world leaders, a key US-NATO ally and partner initiated a war of aggression.  However, as one might recall, the western corporate media, with its dutiful adherence to the war party line, endlessly droned about Russian aggression against Georgia.

But within a few months, independent investigations showed that in fact Moscow’s assertion that Saakashvili launched an unprovoked attack on Russian peacekeepers and unarmed civilians had been accurate.  Could it be mere coincidence that at the very moment that the Russian leader was in Beijing a war on Russia’s border and against Russians was launched?  Whether coincidence or not, it was not interpreted that way by Putin and his advisers.  And, of course, they had good reason to be suspect of the timing and motives behind the attack.

Undoubtedly, Russian leaders had in their minds the not too distant memory of the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.  Ostensibly a move designed to punish the Soviet Union for its intervention in Afghanistan, the US Government under then President Carter made the decision to boycott the Moscow Olympics, and attempted to get other countries to do the same.  In hindsight however, the move is remembered as a disastrous blunder by an administration seen as inept in terms of foreign policy while being dominated by Cold War ideologues such as Zbigniew Brzezinski.

In an article aptly titled Jimmy Carter’s Disastrous Olympic Boycott, which purposefully was published on February 9, 2014 (two days after the start of the Sochi Olympics), Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, associate professor in the strategy and policy department at the U.S. Naval War College, wrote that:

[Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew] Brzezinski also saw an opportunity for Carter to assert himself on matters of foreign policy. But what could the United States hope to do?… the West German ambassador to NATO suggested an Olympic boycott. The White House was intrigued. In a meeting of the National Security Council, Lloyd Cutler, the White House counsel, argued that the United States should boycott the Olympics only if it were combined with other strong action. Vice President Walter Mondale was enthusiastic…As for the president, according to White House notes of the meeting, Carter said the idea sent “cold chills” down his spine…Almost instantly, the press supported a boycott.

Two points brought out by the above excerpt bear closer scrutiny.  First is the fact that Brzezinski – a calculating strategic planner at the uppermost echelons of the political establishment, whose hatred of all things Russia is internationally renowned – saw the Olympics as a means of further undermining Russian/Soviet standing internationally at precisely the moment that the US proxy mujahideen were battling Soviet military in Afghanistan.  In effect, Brzezinski saw an Olympic boycott as war by other means.  The fact that the national security team, led by Brzezinski, was the driving force behind the decision to boycott the Moscow Olympics reinforces the perception that the boycott was less about defending Afghanistan than it was about scoring political points against the Soviet Union.

Secondly, one should pay close attention to the final sentence of the excerpt which really bears repeating: “Almost instantly, the press supported a boycott.”  In other words, the corporate media – significantly freer and more diverse in opinion in 1980 than it is in 2016 – was critical in selling the American public on the idea of a boycott.  Perhaps another way of saying it would be that the media acted as the public relations mouthpiece of the US Government, in much the same way it does now. And without that compliant media making the case for such action, it is unlikely that Americans would feel anything other than anger at being cheated out of an opportunity to watch their country’s best athletes compete against the top competition in the world.

But the politicization of sports vis-à-vis US-Russia relations is not restricted solely to the Olympics.  In fact, as recently as last year the US, UK, and other allies led an effort to discredit Russia’s hosting of the World Cup, the most watched sporting event in the world, with claims of corruption and bribery.  Never mind the fact that it was Mi6 operatives engaged in spying against Russia who created the dossier used to implicate Putin & Co. in the illegal “buying” of the World Cup.  Indeed, this scandal was the death knell for former FIFA boss Sepp Blatter who, because of seemingly friendly ties with Russia, was quickly shown the door after 17 years.

Naturally the media has stepped in with calls to strip Russia of the 2018 World Cup on every possible pretext. Witness the following headlines: FIFA should for once do the right thing and strip Russia of World Cup andCould the Litvinenko Murder Verdict See Russia Stripped of the 2018 World Cup? and The growing calls to strip Putin and Russia of the 2018 World Cup.  What was that phrase in the Politico article? “Almost instantly, the press supported a boycott.”  Again, we see today the media playing the role of US policy cheerleader, providing the necessary marketing for a clearly anti-Russian foreign policy move shrouded under the pretext of sports and fairness.

It’s the Propaganda, Stupid

But what’s the point of all this? Who cares if some Russian athletes can’t compete in Rio?  A valid question, to be sure.  To think of these moves by the US and its allies as purely designed to embarrass Russia is to completely misread the intent behind them.  Certainly, bad publicity for Putin is part of the rationale, but it is not the real goal.  Instead, the targets are the citizens of western countries whose ideas, opinions, and attitudes towards Russia will be shaped as much by sports and popular culture as by anything else.

And so, the real objective is to portray Russians as crooked cheaters whose dishonesty and insidious intentions are overshadowed only by their mindless loyalty to their country.   It is to make Americans and Brits and Europeans – already Russophobic in their outlook thanks to decades of Cold War propaganda and the current onslaught of “Putin did it!” politics – view Russian athletes as little more than a bunch of steroid-injecting Ivan Dragos whose deceit is merely a reflection of the treacherous double-dealing of their political leadership.

In short, the move to ban the Russian track and field team is part of a broader project to discredit Russia in the eyes of the public at large.  The issue is not so much about whether there is doping in Russia’s track and field program – doping is widespread in many countries, including the US – but rather about how to undermining and weakening Russia in the court of public opinion on the eve of the Olympics.  Furthermore, the negative attitudes promoted by the media will justify further aggressive policies in Ukraine, Syria, and beyond. And that is precisely the point.

Walter Lipmann, the renowned writer, commentator, and theoretician of public opinion and propaganda defined the term “stereotype” in the modern psychological sense as a “distorted picture or image in a person’s mind, not based on personal experience, but derived culturally.”  And it is just such a distorted picture which the US and its partners are cultivating against Russia, using the Olympics as the pretext.

Moreover, that the distortion is “derived culturally” rather than from personal experience demonstrates that it is the propagandists of the corporate media whose job it is to manufacture and perpetuate such distortions for political reasons who are the arbiters of truth. George Orwell would be proud.

The Italian-American analyst Umberto Pascali explains the presence of Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi at the Saint-Petersburg Economic Forum and the extension of EU sanctions against Russia:

Germany is beginning to work against its own self-interests.

While this process of economic suicide was very clear in Germany, in Italy it is not the same. The level of unemployment is such that every week thousands of companies collapse. There is no possible view of the future unless the sanctions against Russia will be eliminated. Some time ago, the prime minister of Bavaria, formally an ally of Angela Merkel, didn’t care and simply went to talk to Putin.

The longer the sanctions last, the more difficult it will be to put an end to them.

And this is a very important concept: sanctions cannot be automatic. I hope that sanctions will be eliminated formally, legally, de-jure. These sanctions are not just against Russia. The US is forcing Europe to comply and is killing Europe. So, I think there is now a movement of rebellion against this position on sanctions.

We do not want a policy of war and, in fact, we will de-facto restart economic relations cooperation with Russia. If France, Germany, and Italy do what the prime minister of Bavaria did, what Renzi is doing now, and create this push, then we are not going to have a war with Russia no matter what happens with the US elections. It would be very difficult not only to go to war with Russia, but even to go to war with Syria. Europeans didn’t have any problems with Syria before.

Glyphosate herbicide disrupts the development of the uterus of female rats when they are exposed for 7 days after birth, a new study (abstract below) by Argentine researchers shows.

The glyphosate herbicide caused cell proliferation and structural changes in the rats’ uterus. This was in spite of the fact that no signs of chronic or acute toxicity or differences in weight gain were seen in treated pups.

Glyphosate herbicide also disrupted the expression of proteins involved in uterine development.

The authors conclude that exposure to glyphosate herbicide may affect female fertility and/or promote the development of uterine cancer.

They also state that their study is the first to show endocrine-disrupting effects of a glyphosate-based herbicide on the uterus of newborn and prepubertal rats, supporting the possibility that glyphosate-based herbicides might be endocrine disruptors.

Miscarriages in GM soy-growing regions

Doctors and scientists have noted high rates of miscarriage – sometimes called “spontaneous abortion” – in women living in regions of Argentina where GM Roundup Ready soy is grown and sprayed with glyphosate herbicides. The new study may shed light on this phenomenon.

Dose found toxic in new study is claimed safe by US regulators

The dose of herbicide found to disrupt uterine development in the rats was 2 mg per kg of bodyweight per day, based on the US “reference dose” of pure glyphosate that regulators deem safe to consume every day of our lives for a lifetime.

Clearly, this study questions that assumption of safety.

But there is a complication – namely that the exposure route chosen by the researchers was injection under the skin rather than oral administration.

Oral administration is one of the exposure routes favoured by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for toxicology tests conducted on pesticides for regulatory purposes. Exposure routes are supposed to reflect human exposure routes as closely as possible. Studies that use injection are generally dismissed by regulators as “not relevant” to human risk assessment.

However, the authors point out in their study that given the very early stage of development of the rat pups tested – they would still have been feeding from the mothers – injection was the only exposure route that would ensure incorporation of the whole substance into the rats’ bodies. This makes good scientific sense, but almost guarantees that regulators will try to ignore the study.

Oral exposure not the same as injection

Scientists whom we consulted agreed with the authors’ justification for using injection, given the timing of administration. But they added that the distribution of the glyphosate herbicide in the rats’ bodies may be quite different following injection compared to the oral route – and that the toxic effects observed might therefore also be different.

One scientist advised that as only around 30% of glyphosate is taken up in the body through the usual oral route of exposure, the researchers should have injected lower amounts than the US reference dose to reflect this. Indeed, a dose-response experimental design, with additional lower doses, would have been preferable, though this would also have been more expensive. We hope this important study can be followed up along these lines.

For their part, regulators should require studies to be carried out on glyphosate herbicides at realistic doses – but also demand a phase-out of their use until and unless their safety can be established.

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Annex

Neonatal exposure to a glyphosate based herbicide alters the development of the rat uterus

Schimpf, Marlise Guerrero, Milesi, Maria M., Ingaramo, Paola I., Luque, Enrique H., Varayoud, Jorgelina

Toxicology (2016)

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2016.06.004

Glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) are extensively used to control weeds on both cropland and non-cropland areas. No reports are available regarding the effects of GBHs exposure on uterine development. We evaluated if neonatal exposure to a GBH affects uterine morphology, proliferation and expression of proteins that regulate uterine organogenetic differentiation in rats. Female Wistar pups received saline solution (control, C) or a commercial formulation of glyphosate (GBH, 2 mg/kg) by sc injection every 48 h from postnatal day (PND) 1 to PND7. Rats were sacrificed on PND8 (neonatal period) and PND21 (prepubertal period) to evaluate acute and short-term effects, respectively. The uterine morphology was evaluated in hematoxylin and eosin stained sections.

The epithelial and stromal immunophenotypes were established by assessing the expression of luminal epithelial protein (cytokeratin 8; CK8), basal epithelial proteins (p63 and pan cytokeratin CK1, 5, 10 and 14); and vimentin by immunohistochemistry (IHC). To investigate changes on proteins that regulate uterine organogenetic differentiation we evaluated the expression of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), progesterone receptor (PR), Hoxa10 and Wnt7a by IHC. The GBH-exposed uteri showed morphological changes, characterized by an increase in the incidence of luminal epithelial hyperplasia (LEH) and an increase in the stromal and myometrial thickness.

The epithelial cells showed a positive immunostaining for CK8, while the stromal cells for vimentin. GBH treatment increased cell proliferation in the luminal and stromal compartment on PND8, without changes on PND21. GBH treatment also altered the expression of proteins involved in uterine organogenetic differentiation. PR and Hoxa10 were deregulated both immediately and two weeks after the exposure. ERα was induced in the stromal compartment on PND8, and was downregulated in the luminal epithelial cells of gyphosate-exposed animals on PND21. GBH treatment also increased the expression of Wnt7a in the stromal and glandular epithelial cells on PND21. Neonatal exposure to GBH disrupts the postnatal uterine development at the neonatal and prepubertal period. All these changes may alter the functional differentiation of the uterus, affecting the female fertility and/or promoting the development of neoplasias.

Foto extraída de  artículo  de prensa sobre la inauguración de la Asamblea General de la OEA en República Dominicana en junio del 2016

Durante la sesión de  inauguración de la Asamblea General de la Organización de Estados Americanos realizada el pasado Lunes 13 de junio del 2016, en Santo Domingo, el Presidente Danilo Medina de República Dominicana sorprendió a algunos en su discurso de bienvenida (ver  texto  del discurso en boletín de la Presidencia de República Dominicana). Leemos en efecto que el Presidente señaló, entro otras cosas, que: “En nombre del pueblo dominicano y en el mío propio, les propongo a todos ustedes que durante este período ordinario de sesiones, se apruebe una resolución de desagravio a la República Dominicana por el rol desempeñado por la OEA durante la Revolución de Abril de 1965” /…/ “Tengo el convencimiento de que este es el mejor momento y el más apropiado lugar para llevar a cabo este acto de justicia, verdad y reconciliación”.
La OEA y las intervenciones en Estados Miembros

Como se recordará, la OEA ha jugado un papel bastante cuestionable en el pasado ante intervenciones en uno de sus Estados Miembros. En este  análisis  de la profesora Sonia Alda Mejías (IUGM), se lee que “la organización no se manifestó ante la intervención norteamericana en Guatemala, en 1954, ni respecto a la invasión de Playa Girón en 1961 y sin embargo respaldó el bloqueo económico y las sanciones diplomáticas a Cuba (de acuerdo al art. 6 del TIAR) y aprobó en 1965 la constitución de las Fuerzas Interamericanas de Paz en República Dominicana de acuerdo a las directrices norteamericanas“. Sobre estas últimas, y el envío de 42.000 efectivos militares norteamericanos a República Dominicana, referimos al lector a este   estudio  en inglés (en particular páginas 41 y subsiguientes) realizado por dos oficiales norteamericanos, Major Jack K. Ringler (USMC) y Henry I. Shaw (Jr): en las conclusiones, ambos autores indican, entre varias lecciones futuras operaciones militares norteamericanas (página 54) que:

“The second lesson is the fact that this was not primarily a military combat action in the traditional sense, but a political-military operation, with certain restrictions being placed upon the military commanders, putting them at a tactical disadvantage. U.S forces had the clearly identifiable mission during the initial days of the crisis of protecting and evacuating U S and foreign nationals. This was to change later as political considerations created by U.S. and OAS policies clouded their mission. Military commanders, both on the scene and those in high positions in Washington, had to be prepared to exercise judgment in both military and political fields. It became apparent that military commanders, in addition to being competent in their own military fields, have to be prepared to take on the trappings of a diplomat“.

 

En el mes de abril del 2015, con occasion de la puesta a disposición al publico por parte del National Security Archive (NSA) de conversaciones telefónicas del Presidente de Estados Unidos de aquella época, se leyó que: “President Lyndon Johnson regretted sending U.S. troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965, telling aides less than a month later, “I don’t want to be an intervenor,” according to new transcripts of White House tapes published today (along with the tapes themselves) for the first time by the National Security Archive at George Washington University” (ver  nota  de NSA del 28/04/2015 con diversas grabaciones de gran interés para las autoridades de República Dominicana).
Una inédita solicitud

Es probablemente la primera vez en la historia que un Jefe de Estado exigió públicamente a la OEA en un discurso de bienvenida reconocer sus errores por avalar intervenciones pasadas  en abierta violación al principio de no intervención en asuntos internos proclamado por… la misma Carta de la OEA de 1948. Tratándose, en este caso, del Estado que hospedó a la reunión anual de tres días de los demás Estados Miembros de la OEA, la solicitud difícilmente pudo ser eludida por estos últimos. Cabe recordar que en agosto del 2015, el actual Secretario General de la OEA, se había manifestado en ese sentido (ver  nota  de prensa). En esta otra  nota  de prensa se lee que para el máximo representante de la OEA:

“Es imprescindible que la OEA cumpla con los postulados fundamentales y asumir posiciones históricas y postular para que hechos del pasado no ocurran nunca más y asumir la verdad, no para reparar el pasado sino como legado de las generaciones venideras. Es por eso que como secretario general deploro los actos de la organización que validaron en 1965 la invasión en la República Dominicana y la intervención en este país“.

La solicitud del Presidente Danilo Medina esta vez se dirigía a los 34 delegados de los Estados Miembros de la OEA, entre los cuales se contabilizaban 27 Ministros (ver  listado detallado  de los jefes de delegaciones presentes en Santo Domingo esta semana).
La propuesta oficial de República Dominicana a la Asamblea General de la OEA

El 14 de junio, una propuesta de resolución fue circulada por la delegación de la Republica Dominicana a los demás delegados presentes en la cita anual de la OEA. Se trataba de un texto muy breve que se leía como sigue:

“RECONOCIENDO que en el proceso histórico de la segunda mitad del siglo XX la República Dominicana fue objeto de acciones llevadas a cabo durante la Revolución de Abril de 1965, y específicamente aquellas que en ese marco ejecutó la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), que produjeron perturbación y luto y una indignación todavía presente en la población;

ADMITIENDO la responsabilidad histórica de haber dado su respaldo a procedimientos y acciones bélicas en pugna con los principios de No Intervención y de Respesto a la Soberanía establecidos estutariamente en la Carta de la OEA;

RESUELVE

Expresar al pueblo dominicano su pesar por haber respaldado, en 1965, la invasión de su territorio y el atropello de su soberanía, solicitar su comprensión, pedir disculpas por el error histórico cometido y a la vez condolerse por las víctimas ocasionadas, asumiendo el compromiso de trabajar en procura de que acciones semejantes no se repitan en el futuro”.

La versión en inglés de la misma propuesta dominicana de resolución se leía de la siguiente manera:

RECOGNIZING that in the historical process of the second half of the 20th century, the Dominican Republic was the object of actions carried out during the Revolution of April 1965, and specifically of those carried out by the Organization of American States (OAS) in that context, which produced disruptions and mourning and an indignation that is still felt among the population;

ADMITTING its historical responsibility in backing belligerent procedures and actions in contravention of the statutory principles of nonintervention and respect for sovereignty enshrined in the Charter of the OAS,

RESOLVES:

To express to the people of the Dominican Republic its regret at having backed, in 1965, the invasion of its territory and the violation of its sovereignty; to request their understanding; to apologize for the historical error committed; and, at the same time, to express its condolences toward the victims and to assume the commitment of working to ensure that similar actions are not repeated in the future”.

Por parte de la Presidencia de República Dominicana, se indicó en un  comunicado de prensa  sobre esta propuesta que: “La declaración propuesta por la delegación dominicana y de la que se aspira cuente con el firme apoyo de las delegaciones de los 34 países miembros del organismo multilateral, es cónsona con el pedido que hiciera el presidente de la República Dominicana, Danilo Medina, durante el acto inaugural de la reunión plenaria de la OEA en el Teatro Nacional, en presencia del secretario general del organismo, Luis Almagro“.
La respuesta oficial de la Asamblea General de la OEA a República Dominicana.

Pese a las aspiraciones presidenciales, el texto adoptado sufrió sustantivas modificaciones con relación al inicialmente propuesto por sus autores. El 15 de junio, es decir 24 horas después de circular su texto la diplomacia dominicana, la Asamblea General de la OEA aprobó una resolución (ver texto completo al final de esta misma nota en ambos idiomas) en la que hace referencias a los “acontecimientos” de 1965, sin mayor precisión. En su parte resolutiva se indica que la Asamblea General:

“DECLARA:

1. Lamentar la pérdida de vidas humanas y expresar al pueblo dominicano las condolencias de la Organización.

2. Desagraviar al pueblo dominicano por las acciones de abril de 1965 que interrumpieron el proceso de restablecimiento del orden constitucional en la República Dominicana.

3. Reafirmar los principios del derecho internacional, de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas y de la Carta de la OEA.”

Nótese la inversión realizada entre considerandos  / parte resolutiva con respecto a la propuesta inicial de República Dominicana. De igual manera, es de señalar la ausencia de toda referencia a la “invasión” o a la “intervención”, así como al aval dado a esta por la misma OEA en 1965. Como previsible, el texto adoptado por la OEA dista mucho de las palabras pronunciadas por parte del Presidente dominicano en su alocución inaugural (cuyos extractos a continuación reproducimos) y de la propuesta inicial de sus diplomáticos.

 

 

Conclusión

A diferencia de lo que dejaron entender algunos titulares recientemente leídos ( como por ejemplo, entre muchos otros, “La OEA emite declaración de desagravio por la invasión de abril de 1965”  – ver nota de Diariolibre – o bien  “OEA aprueba desagravio por invasión de EE.UU. en R. Dominicana” – ver nota de TelesurTV- ), el texto de la resolución adoptada por la Asamblea General de la OEA es bastante omiso. Llama la atención el hecho que analistas, editorialistas y medios de prensa no se hayan interesado mayormente por compararlo  al texto inicial presentado por la diplomacia dominicana. La resolución no reconoce responsabilidad alguna de la OEA por avalar la “intervención” o “invasión” de 1965, términos convenientemente eliminados y sustituidos por “acontecimientos”.

Esta resolución de la OEA puede evidenciar la dificultad para República Dominicana de contar con apoyos certeros a su solicitud, que hubieran podido ser de gran ayuda para lograr un texto mucho más cercano a su iniciativa original. Es también posible que la presentación tardía de su propuesta de resolución haya influido en ello. Este ejercicio diplomático también pone en evidencia el extremo cuido con el que algunas delegaciones en la OEA pusieron a trabajar a sus diplomáticos en aras de lograr revisar una y otra vez el contenido original del texto de República Dominicana. Ello con el objetivo de omitir algunos términos, responder de forma muy diplomática a la solicitud dominicana (sin reconocer responsabilidad alguna de la OEA) y garantizar una adopción por consenso entre las 34 delegaciones presentes durante la Asamblea General. Desde el punto de vista diplomático, la habilidad de la maniobra merece ser señalada; desde el punto de vista mediático, el detalle pasó desapercibido o casi, confirmando la habilidad antes referida.

¿Cuáles fueron las delegaciones más incomodadas por el texto inicial propuesto por República Dominicana (pero no menos influyentes a la hora de revisarlo con los demás 34 delegados)? ¿Cuáles fueron las que segundaron sin mayor objeción  la eliminación de ciertos términos, y las que lo aceptaron con alguna reserva?  No se dejó registro alguno de estas negociaciones, y sería muy oportuno que la diplomacia dominicana los recuperara.

En efecto, es posible que asistamos a un ejercicio muy similar: esta vez con 33 delegaciones oficiales que se harán presentes en el marco de la próxima cumbre de la CELAC (Comunidad  de Estados de América Latina y del Caribe) a realizarse en el 2017 en República Dominicana.

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Documento 1

Extractos del discurso (ver  texto completo ) del Presidente de República Dominicana:

“Para que esta organización pueda jugar este papel tan vital en nuestro futuro, es necesario también que volvamos la vista con actitud reflexiva y autocrítica hacia el pasado de la propia OEA. Por eso, en nombre del pueblo dominicano y en el mío propio, les propongo a todos ustedes que durante este período ordinario de sesiones, se apruebe una resolución de desagravio a la República Dominicana por el rol desempeñado por la OEA durante la Revolución de Abril de 1965.

Como ustedes recordarán, mi país sufrió una invasión que en aquel momento fue legitimada por uno de los mecanismos de la OEA. Esta invasión abortó el proceso democrático que se había iniciado con la elección como Presidente de nuestro admirado lider, el profesor Juan Bosch, impidiendo así el retorno al orden constitucional, legítimamente establecido en el 1963.

Volver a caminar por esta senda constitucional nos costaría a los dominicanos mucho tiempo, mucho esfuerzo y muchos sufrimientos. Esta nefasta violación de la soberanía legítima de los dominicanos, producida en 1965 causó muerte, dolor e indignación en nuestro pueblo. Es una herida aún abierta para muchos y que solo podrá sanar mediante el reconocimiento de lo sucedido por parte de la OEA y la petición de perdón que merece nuestra ciudadanía.

Nuestra Patria y nuestra democracia merecen este acto de dignidad, respeto y es mi obligación, como Jefe de Estado, solicitar a esta asamblea saldar la deuda histórica con el pueblo dominicano

Conocemos bien el contexto histórico en el que se dio la invasión. Eran los años de enfrentamiento entre bloques. Eran los años en los que las relaciones entre EEUU y Cuba eran prácticamente de guerra. Eran los años en los que el conflicto interno de Colombia apenas comenzaba.

Esa es una triste página de la historia que hoy, todos juntos, estamos cerca de pasar porque con diálogo, con paciencia y con la verdad por delante estamos cerrando viejas heridas de nuestro continente.

Eso es, precisamente, lo que queremos los dominicanos. Curar, cerrar ciertas heridas, dar paz al doloroso recuerdo de nuestros mayores, abrir nuevos caminos de esperanza a las nuevas generaciones. Tengo el convencimiento de que este es el mejor momento, el más apropiado lugar para llevar a cabo este acto de justicia, verdad y reconciliación.

Estamos seguros que la Organización de Estados Americanos esta en las mejores condiciones para asumir esa responsabilidad”.

Nicolás Boeglin

 

Documento 2
TEXTO DE DECLARACIÓN SOBRE REPÚBLICA DOMINICANA

(Acordado por la Comisión General el 15 de junio de 2016 y se eleva para la consideración de la Plenaria)

RECONOCIENDO que los acontecimientos de abril de 1965, que produjeron perturbación y luto, además de indignación, son todavía una fuente de desasosiego para el pueblo dominicano; y

REAFIRMANDO los principios de no intervención y del respeto a la soberanía consagrados en la Carta de la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA).

DECLARA:

1. Lamentar la pérdida de vidas humanas y expresar al pueblo dominicano las condolencias de la Organización.

2. Desagraviar al pueblo dominicano por las acciones de abril de 1965 que interrumpieron el proceso de restablecimeinto del orden constitucional en la República Dominicana.

3. Reafirmar los principios del derecho internacional, de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas y de la Carta de la OEA.

Versión en inglés

TEXT OF DECLARATION ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

(Agreed by the General Committee on 15, 2016 and submitted to the Plenary)

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

RECOGNIZING that the events of April 1965, which caused disruption and grief, as well as indignation, remain a source of consternation for the Dominican people;

REAFFIRMING the principles of non-intervention and respect for sovereignty enshrined in the Charter of the OAS,

DECLARES THAT IT:

1. Laments the loss of human lives and to express the Organization’s condolences to the Dominican people.

2. Expresses regret to the Dominican people for the actions of April 1965, which disrupted the process of restoration of the constitutional order in the Dominican Republic.

3. Reaffirms the principles of international law, the Charter of the United Nations, and the OAS Charter.

 

 

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

The Corporate Funding of Islamophobia, A Multimillion Dollar Operation in Support of Donald Trump

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, June 21 2016

Recently, 51 State Department employees signed a memo urging the president to change his focus in Syria from fighting ISIS to fighting the secular Assad government. They argued that targeting Assad would weaken Assad’s enemy, ISIS. The logic is not immediately apparent.

They also dismissed any danger that a US attack on Russia’s ally in Syria might annoy the Russians, who spent more than six months bombing ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria. Although these 51 represent a very small faction within the Department, the neocon war propaganda immediately latched on to it.

It made front page news in the New York Times. This is likely a preview of a Hillary presidency. More on this important development in today’s Liberty Report:

Who are the White Helmets? This is a question that everyone should be asking themselves.

A hideous murder of a rising star in UK politics, Jo Cox MP, has just sent shock waves across the world. Within hours of her untimely death, a special fund was established in her name to raise money for 3 causes. One of those causes is the Syrian White Helmets.

Are we seeing a cynical and obscene exploitation of Jo Cox’s murder to revive the flagging credibility of a US State Department and UK Foreign Office asset on the ground in Syria, created and sustained as first responders for the US and NATO Al Nusra/Al Qaeda forces?

FOLLOW THE MONEY: The White Helmets are just one component of the new NGO Complex.

If this is the case, and I fear it is, the depravity of our government, the US government, the state led media and associated Syria Campaign support groups have reached a new level of perversion of Humanity. The White Helmets have been demonstrated to be a primarily US and NATO funded organisation embedded in Al Nusra and ISIS held areas exclusively.

This is an alleged “non-governmental” organisation, the definition of an NGO, that thus far has received funding from at least three major NATO governments, including $23 million from the US Government and $29 million (£19.7 million) from the UK Government, $4.5 million (€4 million) from the Dutch Government. In addition, it receives material assistance and training funded and run by a variety of other EU Nations.

A request has been put into the EU Secretary General to provide all correspondence relating to the funding and training of the White Helmets. By law this information must be made transparent and available to the public.

There has been a concerted campaign by a range of investigative journalists to expose the true roots of these Syria Civil Defence operatives, known as the White Helmets.  The most damning statement, however, did not come from us, but from their funders and backers in the US State Department who attempted to explain the US deportation of the prominent White Helmet leader, Raed Saleh, from Dulles airport on the 18th April 2016.

“It was unclear whether Mr. Saleh’s name might have shown up on a database, fed by a variety of intelligence and security agencies and intended to guard against the prospect of terrorism suspects slipping into the country.” ~ New York Times

Mark Toner, State Department spokesperson:

“And any individual – again, I’m broadening my language here for specific reasons, but any individual in any group suspected of ties or relations with extremist groups or that we had believed to be a security threat to the United States, we would act accordingly. But that does not, by extension, mean we condemn or would cut off ties to the group for which that individual works for.”

 

So we come back to the initial question.  Why is the tragic death of a passionate and ambitious politician being exploited? Why are all political parties in the UK endorsing the Jo Cox fund to provide financial assistance for an organisation the UK Government is already funding and training?

Why are the public once more being used as political pawns to further our government’s imperialist objectives inside Syria and their covert, illegal, proxy intervention of a sovereign nation via both terrorist forces and phony humanitarian first responders?

Phillip Hammond, UK Foreign Secretary meeting White Helmets in southern Turkey

The White Helmets are perhaps being demonstrated to be the most crucial component of the US and NATO shadow state building inside Syria.  Led by the US and UK this group is essential to the propaganda stream that facilitates the continued media and political campaign against the elected Syrian government and permits the US and NATO to justify their regime of crippling economic and humanitarian sanctions against the Syrian people.

If this latest mechanised ‘NGO’ blueprint is successful then we could see it being re-deployed as key to future neo-colonialist projects. The White Helmets are a direct intra-venus line into the terrorist enclaves within Syria, acting as a conduit for information, equipment and medical support to maintain the US NATO forces.

Is this the future of warfare, is this the “swarming” outlined in a 2000 report produced by the RAND Corporation and entitled: Swarming and the Future of Conflict.

“The emergence of a military doctrine based on swarming pods and clusters requires that defense policymakers develop new approaches to connectivity and control and achieve a new balance between the two. Far more than traditional approachesto battle, swarming clearly depends upon robust information flows. Securing these flows, therefore, can be seen as a necessary condition for successful swarming.”

Is this why we are seeing what is, in effect, crowd funding for  proxy war? Do we really want to look back and be “judged by history” for enabling conflict and state terrorism, violating international law and invading sovereign nations.  Are we prepared to accept the consequences of such actions, consequences that should be taken by our governments alone but are now being diffused outwards to the general public.  Is this an attempt by our government to disassociate themselves from their criminal actions?

To condense our research on the Syria White Helmets, we have collated all relevant articles and interviews below.  We condemn wholeheartedly any senseless murder but we recommend that there is serious public and political re-evauluation of the morality of funding a US NATO organisation established to further “regime change” objectives in Syria.

Mass murder is being committed across Syria and the region by US and NATO proxy terrorist militants. Funding the White Helmets will serve to prolong the suffering and bloodshed of the Syrian people.

UK Column: White Helmets, Humanitarians or Executioners?

“Vanessa Beeley speaks to Mike Robinson of UK Column about recent executions of Syrian Arab Army soldiers celebrated by White Helmet operatives.” Watch:

Mint Press: Dissecting the “Humanitarian” Propaganda Driving US Intervention in Syria, Again.

“Speaking to Mnar Muhawesh on ‘Behind the Headline,’ investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley pulls back the curtain on the anti-Assad ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘moderate rebels,’ revealing a carefully calibrated propaganda campaign to drive US intervention in the war-torn country.”

Watch:

Hands Off Syria: The Syria White Helmets Exposed as US UK Agents Embedded with Al Nusra and ISIS

Video made by Hands Off Syria in Sydney Australia based upon the research of Vanessa Beeley on the White Helmets. Watch:

Mint Press: US Propaganda War in Syria: Report Ties White Helmets to US Intervention

“White Helmets primary function is propaganda” reported an independent journalist, who tied the group to George Soros and the controversial advocacy group Avaaz.”

Change.org Petition: Do NOT give 2016 Nobel Peace Prize to Syria White Helmets

This petition has currently garnered 1370 signatures. The White Helmets have received over $ 40 million in funding from the US Government [USAID] and the UK Foreign Office despite their claims of being “fiercely independent and accepts no money from governments, corporations or anyone directly involved in the Syrian conflict.”

Sputnik: Soros Sponsored NGO in Syria Aims at Ousting Assad not Saving Civilians

“One of the largest humanitarian organizations operating in war-torn Syria – the White Helmets – has been accused of being an anti-government propaganda arm that encourages direct foreign intervention.”

21st Century Wire: Syria’s White Helmets, War by Way of Deception Part 1

This piece examines the role of the Syria Civil Defence aka,’The White Helmets’ currently operating in Syria and take a closer look at their financial sources and mainstream media partners in order to better determine if they are indeed “neutral” as media moguls proclaim these “humanitarians” to be.

21st Century Wire: Part II. Syria’s White Helmets, “Moderate” Executioners

The NGO hydra has no more powerful or influential serpentine head in Syria than the Syria Civil Defence aka The White Helmets who, according to their leader and creator, James Le Mesurier, hold greater sway than even ISIS or Al Nusra confabs over the Syrian communities. This article explores the White Helmet involvement in terrorist executions of civilians particularly in Aleppo.

21st Century Wire: Humanitarian Propaganda War Against Syria – Led by Avaaz and the White Helmets

“The White Helmets in their haste to point the finger of blame at Moscow, managed to tweet about Russia’s air strikes several hours before the Russian Parliament actually authorized the use of the Air Force in Syria.” ~ Sott.net

UK Column: Syria White Helmets

“Mike Robinson speaks to Vanessa Beeley about the so-called NGO, the White Helmets. Are they really the humanitarian first responder organisation they claim to be?” Watch:

Eva Bartlett: Human Rights Front Groups Warring on Syria

This page will continue to expand as more so-called “Human Rights” groups are outed for propagating anti-Syria war rhetoric and false allegations against the Syrian government and Syrian Arab Army.  As it is, the list of players is quite extensive.  Below, I’ll list the known HR front people and groups (many, if not most, with links to the US State Department and criminals like George Soros).

Ron Paul Institute: Syria the Propaganda Ring

We have demonstrated that the White Helmets are an integral part of the propaganda vanguard that ensures obscurantism of fact and propagation of Human Rights fiction that elicits the well-intentioned and self righteous response from a very cleverly duped public. A priority for these NGOs is to keep pushing the No Fly Zone scenario which has already been seen to have disastrous implications for innocent civilians in Libya, for example.

White Helmets: One of the many suspect Hollywood style promo rescue videos

Please note that the child that is rescued is very clean considering she has allegedly been buried under the rubble of “regime” bombing raids..we do not in any way wish to detract from the heroic work of the true first responders on the ground in Syria, the real Syria Civil Defence and the Red Crescent who are never mentioned in the western media but we do wish to draw your attention to the propaganda methods being employed to amplify US and NATO narratives that are insisting upon “regime change.”

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there – as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog The Wall Will Fall.

We discuss in detail with Dr. Michael Hudson, the concept of debt deflation; housing, student loan and automobile debt; the oil market; the stock market; negative interest rates; currencies; and the shrinking of the real economy.

Most people think of the economy as producing goods and services and paying labor to buy what it produces. But a growing part of the economy in every country has been the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which comprises the rent and interest paid to the economy’s balance sheet of assets by debtors and rent payers. More and more money is being extracted from of the production and consumption economy to pay the FIRE sector. That’s what causes debt deflation and shrinks markets. If you pay the banks, you have less to spend on goods and services.

I’m Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter, Dr. Michael Hudson. Today’s show: The Slow Crash.

Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, a Wall Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, as well as at Peking University. His 1972 book, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, is a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank. His latest book is Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy. Due out soon, J Is for Junk Economics. Today we discuss in detail the concept of debt deflation; housing, student loan and automobile debt; the oil market; the stock market; negative interest rates; currencies; and the shrinking real economy.

* * * * *
Bonnie Faulkner: Michael Hudson, welcome.

Michael Hudson: It’s good to be here again, Bonnie.

Bonnie Faulkner: You have indicated that as a result of United States and European debt deflation, there is an economic slowdown. First of all, how would you define deflation?

Michael Hudson: There are two definitions of deflation. Most people think of it simply as prices going down. But debt deflation is what happens when people have to spend more and more of their income to carry the debts that they’ve run up – to pay their mortgage debt, to pay the credit card debt, to pay student loans.

Today, people are having to spend so much of their money, to acquire a house and to get an education that they don’t have enough to spend on goods and services, except by running into yet more debt on their credit cards and other borrowings.

The result is that markets are slowing down. Deflation means a slowdown of income growth. Markets shrink, new capital investment and employment also taper off, so wages decline. That is what’s happening as deliberate policy in Europe and the United States. Falling or stagnant prices are simply the result of having less income to spend.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, thank you for that, because that is confusing, because I think a lot of people consider deflation simply a decrease in price. Does that have anything to do with it?

Michael Hudson: The price decline is a result of having to pay debts. That drains income from the circular flow between production and consumption – that is, between what people are paid when they go to work, and the things that they buy. Deflation is a leakage from this circular flow, to pay banks and the real estate, called the FIRE sector – finance, insurance and real estate. These transfer payments leave less and less of the paycheck to be spent on goods and services, so markets shrink. Some prices for some products go down when people can’t afford to buy them anymore. There are more sales, there’s shrinkage, but especially incomes go down. Real incomes in the United States have been drifting down for 30 years because there is slower and slower market demand.

That’s why Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are getting so many votes. When Hillary Clinton said she’s going to do just what Obama does and we’re going to continue to recover, most people know that we’re not recovering at all. We’re shrinking.

Bonnie Faulkner: So then, deflation has more to do with disposable income than it does with prices.

Michael Hudson: That’s correct, and that’s what is rarely pointed out. People tend to think that paying a debt is like going out and buying a car, buying more food or buying more clothes. But it really isn’t. When you pay a debt to the bank, the banks use this money to lend out to somebody else or to yourself. The interest charges to carry this debt go up and up as debt grows. As you have to pay more interest and amortization on what you owe, you’re left with less and less money to buy goods and services – unless you borrow even more and go further into debt.

So basically, unless you’re willing to write down debts and save the economy, you’re going to have deflation and a steady drain in purchasing power – that is, shrinking markets.

Bonnie Faulkner: So then the relationship between debt and deflation: Increasing debt creates more deflation. Would you say that’s the case?

Michael Hudson: Yes. In the 1930s, Irving Fisher wrote an article “The Debt Deflation theory of the Great Depression,” that established the obvious mathematical fact that paying debt service to banks leaves less income to buy goods and services.

Bonnie Faulkner: Oftentimes people wonder, what’s wrong with deflation? We’re always hearing about worries about inflation, but what is the danger in deflation, as you’ve defined it?

Michael Hudson: Markets shrink and unemployment goes up. Wages go down and living standards decline. When we say “people worry” about inflation, it’s mainly bondholders that worry. The labor force benefitted from the inflation of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. What was rising most rapidly were wages. Bond prices fell steadily during these decades. Stocks simply moved sideways.

Inflation usually helps the economy at large, but not the 1% if wages rise. So the 1% says that it is terrible. They advocate austerity and permanent deflation. And the media say that anything that doesn’t help the 1% is bad.

But don’t believe it. When they say inflation is bad, deflation is good, what they mean is, more money for us 1% is good; we’re all for asset price inflation, we’re all for housing prices going up, and we’re all for our stock and bonds prices going up. We’re just against you workers getting more income.

Bonnie Faulkner: Right, because inflation puts more money, I guess, in circulation and we get more as a worker, for instance-

Michael Hudson: Well, if the economy is growing, people want to employ more workers. If you hire more labor, wages go up. So the 1% always wants to keep unemployment high – it used to be called the reserve army of the unemployed. If you can keep unemployment high, then you prevent wages from rising. That’s what’s happened since the 1970s here. Real wages have not risen, but the price of the things that the 1% owns has risen – stocks, bonds, trophy art and things like that.

Bonnie Faulkner: So if I were to ask you what is wrong with deflation generally, would the answer ten be that it shrinks the economy?

Michael Hudson: That’s exactly it – lower wages, lower living standards, and more money siphoned off to creditors at the top of the pyramid. When there’s deflation, it means that although most markets are shrinking and people have less to spend, the 1% that hold the 99% in debt are getting all the growth in wealth and income. Deflation means that income is being transferred to the 1%, that is, to the creditors and property owners.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, Michael, it sounds like in your definition of debt deflation that you are describing exactly what’s going on here in the United States and also in Europe.

Michael Hudson: Yep, that’s exactly what’s happening. It’s what I describe in Killing the Host.

Bonnie Faulkner: All sectors of the economy are certainly not deflating, that is if we’re going to talk about prices narrowly. What about the housing market? Are we looking at a housing bubble?

Michael Hudson: Certainly not a bubble yet. You still have 25% of American homes in negative equity – that is, when the mortgages are higher than the market value of the housing. So for many people, the mortgages they took out before 2008 are so high that they would be better off walking away from their houses. That is called “jingle mail,” returning the keys to the bank and saying, “You can have the house. I can buy the house next door that’s just like this for 20% less, so I’m going to save money and switch.” That’s what someone like Donald Trump or a real estate investor would do. But the banks are trying to convince the mortgage debtors, the homeowners, not to act in their own self-interest.

Bonnie Faulkner: Yes. I live in Northern California, in the Bay area, so I guess this is an exception to what’s going on overall across the country.

Michael Hudson: That’s a rich area, and houses in expensive areas are going up, but not as fast as they used to. Luxury housing in gated communities is going up. But for blue-collar-income neighborhoods and even middle-class neighborhoods, there has not been much of a recovery. It’s good news for burglar-alarm manufacturers, because crime is going up.

Bonnie Faulkner: It looks like the Bank of America is going back into the subprime loan market, albeit in league with U.S. Government. What do you make of Bank of America’s new Affordable Loan Program, which offers 3%-down mortgages with no mortgage insurance, and partners with Freddie Mac in something called the Self-Help Ventures Fund?

Michael Hudson: This reflects the degree to which the banks have been able to capture the Federal Housing Authority and Freddie Mac as well as the Federal Reserve. They are all trying to re-inflate the re bubble. The myth is that if housing prices go up, Americans will be richer. What banks – and behind them, the Federal Reserve – really want is for new buyers to be able to borrow enough money to buy the houses from mortgage defaulters, and thus save the banks from suffering from more mortgage defaults.

Actually, high housing prices don’t help the economy. They raise the cost of living. Everybody would be better off if they could buy housing for only, let’s say, a carrying charge of one-quarter of their income. That used to be the case 50 years ago. Buyers had to save up and make a higher down payment, giving them more equity – perhaps 25 or 30 percent. But today, banks are creating enough credit to bid up housing prices again.

The aim of promoting low down payments is to push prices back up so that fewer houses are going to be in negative equity and fewer people are going to walk away from the mortgages. That will save the banks from taking a loss on their junk mortgage loans.

Bonnie Faulkner: The FHA is offering subprime loans, as well. Isn’t that right?

Michael Hudson: For 3.5% downpayment. This was unheard of when I first went to work on Wall Street in 1961. I was working for the Savings Banks Trust Company – the central bank for New York State savings banks, which were the main mortgage lenders. At that time the rule of thumb was that home buyers needed a 30% down payment (equity), so that when the banks made a loan, the property would have to go down by 30% to make the bank in trouble. That was the homeowner’s equity that was at risk. It provided security for the banks.

Now, suppose that a homeowner puts down only 3% of their own money or 3.5% for the FHA. That means if prices go down by only 3%, the house will be in negative equity and it would pay the homeowner just to walk away and say, “The house now is worth less than the mortgage I owe. I think I’m just going to move out and buy a cheaper house.” So it’s very risky when you have only a 3% or 3.5% equity for the loan. The bank really isn’t left with much cushion as collateral.

Now, the banks argue, “Wait a minute. We’re making these loans to people with good credit ratings, and they have enough money to pay, even if the house’s price goes down.” But the banks are taking a risk that the homeowner is going to be naïve enough not to walk away and leave the bank holding a bad debt, so it’s very risky. It’s a degree of risk that no bank would have taken prior to Alan Greenspan’s tenure at the Fed.

Bonnie Faulkner: Why would the United States government be encouraging these risky loans?

Michael Hudson: Because the government is dominated mainly by the financial, insurance and real estate lobby, the FIRE sector. It’s called regulatory capture. The real estate interests and banks are in a kind of symbiosis. They’re the largest-growing part of the economy. This is the sector that backs the political campaigns of senators, presidents and congressmen, and they use this leverage to make sure that their people dominate the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the federal housing agencies.

Bonnie Faulkner: Just for clarification, why would the banks be pushing these risky loans if there’s a high degree of default?

Michael Hudson: When you say “bank,” a bank is a building, a set of computers and chairs and things. The bankers are the people running these banks. They’re the chief officers, and they push the loans because they don’t care if they go bad. For one thing, they may package these bad loans and sell them off to gullible institutional investors. If bankers can push the loans and make more profits for the bank, they get paid higher bonuses. They often also get stock options. If the bank goes under, they get to keep all of these salaries and options – and the government will bail out the bank. These guys will take their money and run, which is pretty much what they’re doing now. I think we’re in the take-the-money-and-run stage of the economy. So the banks may go under, but the bankers, who make the policy, clean up.

Bonnie Faulkner: Thank you for that distinction. What about automobile loans? You’ve referred to them as “junk loans.” How do you mean?

Michael Hudson: There’s been a large increase in loans to people to buy autos to get to work. Just like they’ve lowered lending standards on making home mortgages, they’ve lowered standards on auto loans. So default rates are going up, and so are repossessions of autos. It’s become a common sight in many neighborhoods. So banks are losing on defaults on auto loans, just as defaults are happening more and more on student loans, and are still going on in the mortgage market.

Bonnie Faulkner: You mentioned the student loan debt. How big is it?

Michael Hudson: It’s about $1.3 trillion by now. The government has guaranteed this student loan debt, so banks are eager to make loans to students. Often they’ll get the parents to countersign. The banks make money whether the students pay or not because the government has promised to pay the banks if the loans go bad. And defaults lead to lucrative penalty fees for the banks, which the government also guarantees.

The fact that you have government-guaranteed student loans has created a whole new sector in the American economy that didn’t really exist before – private for-profit universities that sell junk degrees that don’t help the students. They promise the students, “We’ll help you get a better job. We’ll arrange a loan so that you don’t have to pay a penny for this education.” Their pet bank gets them the government-guaranteed loan, and the student may get the junk degree, but doesn’t get a job, so they don’t pay the loan. The government pays the bank anyway, at a pretty high interest rate, 7% or 8%, plus all the penalties that banks charge. This makes student loans a way to organize a government giveaway to the banks and to the junk universities they subsidize.

Bonnie Faulkner: Is it true that one cannot declare bankruptcy on student debt?

Michael Hudson: That’s right. Someone in Congress said, “We want to make sure the government can collect and the taxpayer doesn’t lose on this. So these loans are not subject to being written down by a bankruptcy proceeding.” Normally, if someone goes bankrupt, you wipe out the debt and get a fresh start. But that’s not permitted with student loans. So the effect is to impoverish many graduates with very high debts.

Just like a house is worth whatever a bank’s going to lend against it, an education is worth whatever the bank is going to lend the student to pay the university. So the availability of government-guaranteed student loans has vastly inflated the cost of education, just like it’s inflated the cost of housing.

But in housing you have jingle mail and you can walk away and leave the bank holding the bag. In the case of student loans, the debt follows you through life, and the banks or government will turn it over to collection agencies that are not very nice people and can do all sorts of harassing things to you. It’s becoming a nightmare.

Bonnie Faulkner: I also have read that with regard to student loans they can attach your salary. They can even attach your Social Security check.

Michael Hudson: Even the Social Security – mainly for parents who have countersigned for loans for their children. Their Social Security can be sequestered and attached by collection agencies. Most of the defaults are on junk education, the private for-profit diploma mills.

Education is something that should not be organized on a for-profit basis, because in that case its purpose is not really to provide an education. It’s not to teach students how to get better work, but how to provide banks with a free giveaway opportunity from the government, by making junk loans that are defaulted on. The effect may be to wreck the futures of the graduates that fall for the false promises that are being made.

Bonnie Faulkner: The default rate on these student loans is pretty high, isn’t it?

Michael Hudson: High and rising.

Bonnie Faulkner: Then there’s also, I noticed, something called a workout where they adjust your payment length and other factors to keep you from defaulting.

Michael Hudson: They try to prevent defaults because if banks show higher default rates, this gets the regulators to say, “You’re going to need higher capital reserves against these default rates.” So the banks say, “We’ll stretch out the loan. We’ll give you more years to pay. We’ll slow it down.” But the workout just increases the overall ultimate amount of debt service that has to be paid. It’s a short-term solution.

That’s the problem with the financial sector. Banks and the financial sector live in the short run, not the long run. In principle the government is supposed to make regulations that help the economy over time. But once it’s taken over by the financial sector, the government lives in the short run too.

Bonnie Faulkner: There’s a technology boom in the San Francisco Bay area. Do you think this tech boom could be in a bubble?

Michael Hudson: It’s only a bubble if the prices of technology firms are going up in the stock market. Right now, the stock market is funded on credit, just as the housing market and the student loan market. One of the reasons the Federal Reserve is keeping the interest rates low with Quantitative Easing and low interest rates is to keep sending the flow of credit into the stock market.

The other dynamic keeping the stock market up – both for technology stocks and others – is that companies are using a lot of their income for stock buybacks and to pay out higher dividends, not make new investment,. So to the extent that companies use financial engineering rather than industrial engineering to increase the price of their stock you’re going to have a bubble. But it’s not considered a bubble, because the government is behind it, and it hasn’t burst yet. A bubble is only called that after it bursts, after the insiders get out, leaving the pension funds and small investors, Canadians and other naïve investors holding the bag.

Bonnie Faulkner: In terms of keeping the stock market up, I thought that the Fed had ended QE.

Michael Hudson: QE is still going on. It means a zero interest-rate policy. The aim is to hold interest rates low at 1/10 of a percent. The Federal Reserve continues to make sure that interest rates are low, so we still have near-zero interest rates. And now they’re even talking about negative interest rates to help spur Wall Street gains.

Bonnie Faulkner: That was going to be my next question: What is your opinion of these negative interest rates? There’s a lot of talk of if you have a bank account you have to pay the bank rather than vice versa.

Michael Hudson: The idea is, number one, that banks won’t have to pay interest on your account. They’ll actually pay you less and less, while they’re making 29% on many of their credit-card loans, and while they’re making a killing on student loans. They can pay you less while they make more, increasing their profit margins.

So that’s part of the problem, but the underlying strategy of the Fed is to tell people, “Do you want your money to lose value in the bank, or do you want to put it in the stock market?” They’re trying to push money into the stock market, into hedge funds, to temporarily bid up prices. Then, all of a sudden, the Fed can raise interest rates, let the stock market prices collapse and the people will lose even more in the stock market than they would have by the negative interest rates in the bank. So it’s a pro-Wall Street financial engineering gimmick.

Bonnie Faulkner: That’s very interesting – the effect that a negative interest rate would have on stock market prices. I hadn’t thought of that.

Michael Hudson: They’re trying to convince people, “Do you want your savings deposits to go down or do you want to get a dividend return and buy stocks?” If a lot of money goes into the stock market, it’ll push up prices, making money for stock speculators. Then the insiders can decide that it’s time to sell out, and the market will plunge.

Stocks always go down much faster than they go up. That’s why it’s called a crash. People who put their money into the stocks will find, all of a sudden, that stock prices are no longer being supported by the debt leveraging that’s been holding them up.

Bonnie Faulkner: I understand that former Harvard University president Larry Summers has proposed the banning of large denomination currency, i.e., $100 bills. Similar proposals are being made regarding the euro. What do you make of this?

Michael Hudson: I think something like three-quarters of American currency is held abroad, by drug dealers, by tax evaders, Russians and Chinese. Other people think that they want to protect themselves against their own currency going down. When you have 75% of the currency and even more of the high-denomination $100 bills held abroad, you wonder whether these are people we really want to pay. If you get rid of the $100 bills, its foreign holders will be the main losers.

During the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, whole planeloads of shrink-wrapped $100 bills were used to buy off foreign officials and soldiers that are now ISIS. They bought off the Sunni army, they bought off the corrupt gangs, and essentially ISIS has been fueled by these shrink-wrapped billions of $100 bills that the US used to pay them to fight, people who wanted to control their own currency, or groups that want to be independent, such as Syria or Russia. So this basically is an attempt to hurt drug dealers and people who America doesn’t like.

Bonnie Faulkner: I was thinking that banning these larger denomination bills would take a lot of currency out of circulation. It seems to me that it would hurt the-

Michael Hudson: This is not really currency that circulates. It’s like the old joke about expensive vintage wine. Wine prices will go up and once in a while somebody will buy a 50-year-old bottle of wine and say, “Wait a minute. This has gone bad.” The answer is, “Well, that wine isn’t for drinking; that’s for trading.” These $100 bills aren’t meant to circulate. They’re not to spend on goods and services. They’re a store of value. They’re a form of saving.

Bonnie Faulkner: You know, Michael, when I’m in line at, say, Costco here in California – it’s a big, major retail store – I see people at the checkout counter pull out rolls of $100 bills to pay their food bill with. It seems to me that $100 bills … Well, now that prices of food basically are so high people actually use these bills.

Michael Hudson: That’s correct, but the people who use these bills, that’s only about 10 or 15% of all the $100 bills that are in circulation. The vast majority of $100 bills are abroad, not in the United States. So yes, of course there’s a use here but nowhere near as much as there’s a use for $100 bills abroad.

By contrast, in China the largest denomination bill they have is 100 yen, and that’s maybe $7. So here you have a whole economy working with only a $7 note as the largest denomination. The euro wants to get rid of the 500-euro bill just as the United States years ago got rid of the $1,000 bill because only the criminals used $1,000 bills.

Bonnie Faulkner: Don’t you also think, though, that getting rid of $100 bills is going to hurt the little guy, maybe the guy that’s working for cash under the table, maybe they’re skirting taxes. Wouldn’t banning $100 bills also hurt the people that are on the edge to begin with?

Michael Hudson: It’s not that hard to have two fifties instead of a hundred. It really isn’t that hard to use smaller denominations. That’s why I mentioned China.

Bonnie Faulkner: The price of oil is very low by historical standards. There are even reports of a gasoline glut in addition to an oil glut. Is the low oil price due to speculation or oversupply?

Michael Hudson: High prices can be the result of speculation, and maybe plunging prices can be attributed to the end of speculation, but low prices over time aren’t caused by speculation. That’s oversupply, mainly by Saudi Arabia flooding the market with low-priced oil to discourage rival oil producers, whether it’s Russian oil or American fracking.

Bonnie Faulkner: What does the price of oil have to do with debt deflation? Is there a relationship there?

Michael Hudson: No, it’s different. Debt deflation is when there’s less money that people have to spend out of their paychecks on goods and services, because they’re paying the FIRE sector. Oil going down is a function of the supply and demand of oil in the market. It’s a separate phenomenon.

Bonnie Faulkner: So the oil glut is real, that there’s too much oil?

Michael Hudson: Yes, it’s real.

Bonnie Faulkner: I see. Okay. And then, of course, perhaps the lower oil prices – and you mentioned Saudi Arabia flooding the market with oil – that this could also constitute, do you think, a financial war against Russia and Venezuela? I guess you’ve implied that.

Michael Hudson: That’s why the United States wasn’t unhappy to see this. So yes, it’s a kind of war. Recently, there have been a lot of talks between Russia and Saudi Arabia to try to resolve this.

Bonnie Faulkner: What about fracking and tar sands and new technology in general? What effect does new technology have on the oil price?

Michael Hudson: It increased fracking and therefore it increased the supply of oil and gas, so it’s contributed to part of the oversupply. But because it was very high-priced oil and gas, it has not really been responsible for the flooding of the market. It’s below the cost of fracking production.

In other words, oil now, as a result of the Saudi production, is priced so low that there are not going to be new fracking investments made. A lot of companies that have gone into fracking are heavily debt-leveraged, and are beginning to default on their loans. The next wave of defaults that banks are talking about is probably going to be in the fracking industry. When the costs of production are so much more than they can end up getting for the oil, they just stop producing and stop paying their loans.

Bonnie Faulkner: With the price of oil lower than the cost of production, is this a dangerous situation for the economy in general or not?

Michael Hudson: Not for the economy in general, no. Only for the frackers. I think the less fracking there is, the better it is for the economy and society. You have a choice. Either you can have more oil, or more clean water. Fracking is not good for the water supply. So nothing could be better for the economy than to get rid of fracking. What’s bad for the frackers usually is good for the rest of the world.

Bonnie Faulkner: I had asked you about re-inflating commodity prices, and you said that it’s hard to inflate commodity prices without massive hoarding. How do you mean?

Michael Hudson: In the case of the oil spike a few years ago, there have been a number of studies that have showed that almost all of the demand for oil that suddenly pushed prices up was speculative demand. People began to speculate not only in stocks and bonds and real estate, but also in commodities. The market went up for old tankers, which were used simply to store oil in. A lot of the oil was simply being stored for trading, not used.

The same thing happened in the metals market. Speculators were buying metals simply to store away, thinking that maybe they can push the price up. I remember 50 years ago when the price of silver went up from about $3 an ounce to almost $50 an ounce. At that time, only the small buyers and the Canadians were buying silver, and then it was all left to collapse back to about $3 an ounce. So you have speculative binges in these.

I don’t think that governments should permit speculation in raw materials, because they’re what the economy basically needs. The effect of metals speculation was to push up the prices that China had to pay to countries like Australia. This squeezed China. Once the speculative demand ended, all of a sudden the added production facilities that had been brought into production by the high prices went out of production again, and there was a glut.

Bonnie Faulkner: The price of gold is going back up. To what do you attribute the reversal in gold prices?

Michael Hudson: There are so many currency exchange rate problems that people are buying gold as a safe haven. Right now, gold looks like a safe haven if international exchange rates break down. The United States is pushing as policy division of the world into rival currency camps – the dollar area on the one hand, and the Russia-Chinese-Shanghai Cooperation Organization group on the other, especially now that the IMF has changed its rules. People think that if there are rival currency groupings and national currencies are going bust, we might as well use gold as a safe haven.

Bonnie Faulkner: We did an entire program on the change in IMF rules. That was very important. In terms of these rival currency camps, I guess you see the international financial system breaking down. What do you think the timeline is going to be on this? It’s already starting, right?

Michael Hudson: Probably later this afternoon. [Laughing.] I mean, it’s ongoing. Look at Ukraine. Its currency, the hernia (as the hryvnia is affectionately known) is plunging. The euro is really in a problem. Greece is problematic as to whether it can pay the IMF, which is threatening not to be part of the troika with the European Central Bank and the European Union making more loans to enable Greece to pay the bondholders and the banks. Britain is having a referendum as to whether to withdraw from the European Union, and it looks more and more like it may do so. So the world’s politics are in turmoil, not to mention the Mideast, where the US has mounted attacks from Libya to Iraq to Syria, and ISIS is attacking governments in today’s pipeline rivalry.

Bonnie Faulkner: Do you think the United States is conducting a financial war against Europe?

Michael Hudson: That’s a byproduct. The financial war is aimed first of all at China and secondly at Russia. Europe is the collateral damage in this, because the natural geopolitical arrangement is for Europe to be part of Eurasia, especially for Germany to develop trade and investment relationships with Russia. But US opposition to Russia and China has entailed sanctions against Russia, and Russia in turn has made counter-sanctions against Europe. So Europe is essentially sacrificing its opportunities for trade and investment in order to remain part of NATO. It is also agreeing to bomb Syria and the Near East, creating a wave of refugees that it doesn’t know what to do with.

It’s amazing that Europe says, “What are we going to do with these refugees?” It’s as if it doesn’t realize that being part of NATO and bombing these countries forces them to choose to live by fleeing, or to stay and get bombed. Europe is creating the flight of refugees that’s tearing it apart politically, and leading rightwing nationalist parties to gain power to withdraw from the Eurozone.

So Europe is acting in a very self-destructive manner, but is doing so because it’s trying to be loyal to the United States. Most of the European leaders look at themselves as having to follow the United States, because if the US opposes them, there will be a regime change.

Bonnie Faulkner: It seems as if the United States is willing to sacrifice Germany and the rest of Europe to conduct this war against Russia and China.

Michael Hudson: When you say the United States, we’re talking about really the neocons and a particular group within the U.S. Government. The neocons are led by the old Bush-Cheney people, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, who is to the right of Cheney. Hillary says that we should go back into Libya, that we should fight even more, and that Putin is Hitler. That means that when she comes to power you can be pretty sure that there’ll be a confrontation. If there is, a number of former generals in America have been warning that the chances of atomic war have never been higher. If Hillary gets in, Russia’s going to go on an immediate nuclear alert and there’s a good chance of war. But Hillary is not the United States, although the United States may end up electing her, in which case, in my mind, there’ll be a disaster.

Bonnie Faulkner: Yes, it’s very terrifying, the prospect of her becoming president. She’s very scary. You say that the real economy is suffering debt deflation, and by the real economy you mean goods and services and real production not the asset markets of the 1%. So then, would you say that there are two different economies?

Michael Hudson: That’s the essence of the book that I’m writing. That was what I was describing in The Bubble and Beyond, and later in Killing the Host. Most people think of the economy as producing goods and services and paying labor to buy what it produces. But a growing part of the economy in every country has been the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which comprises the rent and interest paid to the economy’s balance sheet of assets by debtors and rent payers. More and more money is being extracted from the production and consumption economy to pay the FIRE sector. That’s what causes debt deflation and shrinks markets. If you pay the banks, you have less to spend on goods and services.

Bonnie Faulkner: You have said that one could even say that China’s slowdown is a reflection of lower exports to the US and Europe as their economies shrink. In what ways would you say that our economy is shrinking? How would you describe it?

Michael Hudson: Well, employment, wage levels and overall wage payments for starters. And then, the shrinking proportion of net income available for spending after paying debts and real estate costs. If you look at payments to labor as a proportion of national income or gross domestic product, you find profits going way up, investment and savings going up. All the growth in the last 10 years of the economy, the rise in national income, has gone to the 1%, not to the 99%.

So when I say the economy is shrinking, it’s the economy of the 99%, the people who have to work for a living and depend on earning money for what they can spend. The 1% makes its money basically by lending out their money to the 99%, on charging interest and speculating. So the stock market’s doubled, the bond market’s gone way up, and the 1% are earning more money than ever before, but the 99% are not. They’re having to pay the 1%.

So there are two economies, not only of the 1% and the 99%, but a division between the economy of consumption and production – consumer spending and tangible capital investment on the one hand – and payments to finance, insurance and real estate on the other. That includes healthcare, insurance, and also FICA wage withholding to produce more of a budget surplus enabling the government to cut taxes on the higher income brackets.

They’re also cutting back pensions. One of the big problems in America’s economic polarization and shrinkage is that pensions can’t be paid. So there are going to be defaults on pensions here, just like Europeans are insisting on rolling back pensions. You can look at Greece and Argentina as the future of America.

Bonnie Faulkner: Do you think that there is another 2008 crash in the making, and if so, will this one look a lot different or will it be very similar?

Michael Hudson: Yes. It’d have to be very similar. The problems of 2008 were never cured. The Federal Reserve’s solution to the crisis was to lend the economy enough money to borrow its way out of debt. It thought that if it could subsidize banks lending homeowners enough money to buy houses from people who are defaulting, then the bank balance sheets would end up okay.

But the volume of debt was never written down. Mathematically, debts grow exponentially at compound interest. Banks recycle the interest into new loans, so debts grow exponentially, faster than the economy can afford to pay.

You’re having this in Europe, causing instability with Greece, Spain, and Portugal, even Italy now. And you’re having it here. You’re also having shrinking markets in Argentina, which has just voted in a rightwing government and cut back spending. So you’re having government spending on the economy being cut almost everywhere. That means that the only source of spending for growth has to come from borrowing from the banking system.

Bonnie Faulkner: So then if there is another 2008 crash in the making, you think it will look similar to what happened then?

Michael Hudson: Yes, that’s how it happens. It’ll be yet more real estate going down, more bankruptcies, and more government giveaways.

Bonnie Faulkner: I remember at that time, in 2008, the money market froze up. I remember this. It was really alarming.

Michael Hudson: This is why there’s been so much money going into treasury securities. Right now you can buy treasury securities and after you pay the management fees, whether it’s to Vanguard or someone else, you get a fraction of 1%, maybe a fraction of 0.1% in interest. People are putting their money into treasuries because they worry that the risk of putting their money into the bond market, the stock market or even the money markets is very high.

So Vanguard, for instance, which is one of the largest money management companies and best for the people – if you have a retirement account, Vanguard is no longer accepting treasury bond accounts into the overall money market because so much money is going in wanting to play it safe, that there aren’t enough treasury bonds to absorb all of this flight to safety.

Bonnie Faulkner: Wow. So then would you say it’s only a question of time before we hit another financial panic?

Michael Hudson: Yes.

Bonnie Faulkner: What do you make of this Panama offshore banking haven that has hit the news?

Michael Hudson: I haven’t followed it that closely, because I’ve been working on completing by the end of the summer the new book that I’m coming out with, J is for Junk Economics. So I really haven’t followed it. Apparently the Atlantic Council and the US Government have wanted to expose certain politicians who are not on its favorite list. So it’s part of a political stunt.

I notice that in the news they keep talking about Vladimir Putin, although he hasn’t been tied at all directly to this. There’s so much propaganda in the way that the popular press has been treating this that it’s hard for me to make head or tail of it.

Bonnie Faulkner: That’s right. The propaganda in the mainstream news is actually quite important, because in order to try and figure out anything, you have to try and decide what’s real and what isn’t. And so much of it isn’t real.

Michael Hudson: I guess the main thing that came out of the Panama Papers was that Ukrainian President Poroshenko had promised to divest of his chocolate company and instead, he simply moved it into an offshore account. And on the very day that he was increasing the attacks on the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine, the export sector, he was signing documents to conceal his own money offshore. So the exposé of the Panama money laundering has hit some of the dictators that America is protecting and promoting.

Bonnie Faulkner: Would you like to describe your new book, Michael?

Michael Hudson: It’s basically a set of definitions on junk economics and showing that what people usually receive in the mainstream is what George Orwell would call Doublethink. It’s euphemism. When people are running up more and more debt for housing, they call that “real wealth.” It exposes what’s wrong in mainstream economics and why most of the economics that justifies austerity programs and economic shrinkage in the textbooks is not scientific. Junk economics denies the role of debt and denies the fact that the economic system we have now is dysfunctional.

Bonnie Faulkner: Is there anything that you would like to say that you think is most important for people to understand about the present economy?

Michael Hudson: Just that the economy is being run primarily by the banks for their own interest. The bank’s product is debt, because the banks want to make sure that they can get paid for the debt. But ultimately the only party that can pay the debt is the government, because it runs the printing presses. So the debts ultimately either are paid by the government, or they’re paid by a huge transfer of property from debtors to creditors – or, the debts are written off. Throughout history, the only way of restoring stability is to write down the debts. That is treated now as if it’s something that can’t be done. But it’s the only thing that’s going to revive the economy.

Bonnie Faulkner: Michael Hudson, thank you very much.

Michael Hudson: It’s good to be here, Bonnie.

* * * * *

I’ve been speaking with Dr. Michael Hudson. Today’s show has been: The Slow Crash. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His 1972 book, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, is a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank. He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt and The Myth of Aid among many others. His latest book is Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy. Due out soon, J Is for Junk Economics. Dr. Hudson acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide, including Iceland, Latvia and China, on finance and tax law. Visit his website at Michael-Hudson.com.

Guns and Butter is produced by Bonnie Faulkner, Yarrow Mahko and Tony Rango. Visit us at gunsandbutter.org to listen to past programs, comment on shows, or join our email list to receive our newsletter that includes recent shows and updates. Email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter at gandbradio.

This transcript is a project of globalresearch.ca and gunsandbutter.org.

Ex-NATO Commander Breedlove was so bellicose toward Russia that the Germans objected to his dangerous provocations, but he is now strutting his stuff in hopes of landing a job in a Clinton-45 administration, says Gilbert Doctorow.

At this conclusive stage of the presidential campaign cycle, Foreign Affairs magazine is doing what it traditionally does, showcasing on its pages candidates for appointive office in the cabinet of the next president whom the magazine’s editorial board would like to see installed.

Thus, the current, July-August issue carries an article by Philip M. Breedlove, until recently Commander of the U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. His piece, entitled “NATO’s Next Act” might more honestly be called “Why I Have Earned My Next Job as Secretary of Defense in the Administration of Hillary Clinton.”

Image: Former NATO Commander Philip M. Breedlove.

During his service in Europe, General Breedlove was never bashful about being a politicking military officer who was keen to pick a fight with Russia. He met with the press often, making newsworthy pronouncements about Russia’s malevolent intentions and illegal actions that were unsupported by facts. Our European allies objected to Breedlove, stating openly that some of his allegations regarding Russian operations in Ukraine contradicted what their own intelligence services were reporting.

Indeed, on March 6, 2015, the Spiegel Online carried a story under a headline that says it all: “Breedlove’s Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine.” At the time, it was believed that Breedlove was trying to sabotage the recently instituted cease-fire in Donbas and overturn the Minsk-2 Accords in favor of resumed fighting in which the U.S. would provide Kiev with lethal weapons. By this scenario, a full-blown proxy war with Russia would follow.

The purpose of the new essay in Foreign Affairs is, as I say, to spread the word on what Breedlove achieved in his three years on duty in Europe by turning NATO around and giving it a new/old calling. When he arrived, NATO was busy extricating itself from its failed campaigns out of region, in Afghanistan and Iraq, where it had faced unfamiliar challenges for which it was ill-equipped, fighting insurgencies and irregular troops.

On his watch, a new threat was seen emerging in Eastern Europe. In Breedlove’s words, this took the form of a revitalized and aggressive Russia, seeking to reclaim its great power status and sphere of influence in post-Soviet space.

With its takeover of Crimea in March 2014 and involvement in the Donbas on behalf of Russian-speaking forces rebelling against the new Maidan government in Kiev, Russia demonstrated both defiance of the American-controlled New World Order and breathtaking military prowess. It thereby became a threat worthy of NATO’s finest traditions as defender of “law and order” on the European home front.

Still more recent Russian action in Syria awakened Breedlove to the fact that Russia’s ambitions are global. In this context he now declares Russia, with its nuclear arsenal, to be an “existential threat” to the United States which must be met by superior force. After all, Breedlove tells us, force is all that the Kremlin understands.

After going through this pre-history, Breedlove explains exactly what we are doing now to strengthen NATO in Poland, the Baltic States and Romania/the Black Sea so as to be prepared to resist Russian aggression and deter its existential threat.

Upside-Down Narrative

Most everything is wrong with what Breedlove tells us in his article. It is a perfect illustration of the consequences of the monopoly control of our media and both Houses of Congress by the ideologists of the Neoconservative and Liberal Interventionist School. We see a stunning lack of rigor in argumentation in Breedlove’s article coming from absence of debate and his talking only to yes-men.

Image: Peter Sellers playing Dr. Strangelove as he struggles to control his right arm from making a Nazi salute.

Perhaps the biggest mistakes are conceptual: urging military means to resolve what are fundamentally political issues over the proper place of Russia in the European and global security architecture. Whereas for Clausewitz war was “a continuation of politics by other means,” for Breedlove politics – in this case, diplomacy – do not exist, only war.

In this respect, Breedlove is merely perpetuating the stone deafness of American politicians dating back to Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal in 2010 to negotiate an international convention bringing Russia in from the cold. The earnest offer of Russia’s most Westernizing head of state in a hundred years was left without response.

Breedlove’s entire recounting of what NATO is doing to stop a Russian threat to the Baltics and to Poland — through additional NATO boots on the ground and pre-positioned American heavy equipment fails — to mention, let alone explain what possible reason there might be for a Russian attack.

I contend that no realistic assessment of Russian national interest could justify their taking over the territories in question. The net result of any occupation could only be heavily negative due to hostile local populations even without considering its geopolitical consequences or retaliatory military and other action by the West.

Presumably the logic behind the assumption of Russian aggressive designs is illogic: the assumption of an insane Russian leadership. Such a line of thinking would be the direct fruit of the demonization of Vladimir Putin and of Russia more generally that the U.S. media has disseminated gleefully, with encouragement from the Obama administration.

Breedlove’s would-be boss in the Oval Office, Hillary Clinton, has likened the Russian ruler to Hitler. That obviates the need to examine rational calculations of your adversary.

Then there is Breedlove’s totally wrong-headed conceptualization of what constitutes the world order that he says is under threat. In his understanding, the United State is, by definition, the sole supplier of public good to the world and everything that it initiates is selfless and right.

This self-righteousness begins with history, with the sequencing of who did what to whom, who honored and who violated international obligations, who is the aggressor and who is the victim.  But this all comes down to one question: when did history start.

In Breedlove’s reading of history, the narrative that counts and is relevant to where we are today all started with the Russian “invasion” of Crimea. The controversial overthrow of the legitimately elected President of Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, the day after France and Germany brokered an agreement between the government and opposition (for reduced presidential powers and early elections) does not exist in Breedlove’s version of history. Nor, of course, does any other prior Western intervention in the intra-Ukrainian power struggle going back to the start of the Maidan demonstrations in December 2013.

This leaves us with the whole series of Russian reactions that he gives us without any reference to the missing actions by the U.S.-led West. There are other holes in Breedlove’s logic through which you could drive a tank, if I may use metaphors from his domain of expertise.

Reassessing Russian Might

It is in a way refreshing to see Breedlove recognize (within limits) the newfound capabilities of the Russian military, which just several years ago were mocked by Western commentators, even by the occupant of the Oval Office.

Image: A scene from “Dr. Strangelove,” in which the bomber pilot (played by actor Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb to its target in the Soviet Union.

Breedlove does underestimate the skills and equipment of the Russian air force and insists on the underlying military superiority of the U.S. and its NATO allies in the European theater. But, on balance, he asserts that today Russia poses an existential military threat to the United States. It would be nice if he finished the thought and explained exactly how and why (since Russia is not the only country with nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them but like those other countries – China, for instance – has no rational reason to do so unless directly threatened).

In any case, what is the appropriate response to an existential threat? Do you recommend the continued rapid build-up of NATO forces precisely at Russia’s Baltic and Black Sea borders to counter a perceived (though nonexistent) localized threat or do you address the existential threat by seeking to minimize tensions?

To date, and into the next five years, all of the U.S. and NATO measures which Breedlove describes and for which he takes credit have only unnerved the Russians and caused them to respond with equally provocative and dangerous counter-measures of a localized nature without in any way compromising their nuclear capability to wipe the United States off the map in any hot war.

Does this baiting the Russians near their borders make any sense? This was precisely the point that German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank Walter Steinmeier has just called out in an interview published in Bild am Sonntag in which he speaks against any further saber-rattling by NATO in Poland or the Baltic States.

The seeming parallels between stepping up to the line today, and stepping up to the line in Berlin during the Cold War are illusory. The present line is not in a distant buffer zone which Joseph Stalin had created precisely for this purpose, to remove conflict from Russia’s borders.

It is so threatening to Russia’s survival that the Kremlin is now moving vast military resources from Central Russia into the Leningrad Oblast, within a very few miles of the new NATO presence just across the border in the Baltics. The time for either side to react to local military incidents has been shortened immensely compared to the past. This is a formula for Doomsday which Breedlove willfully ignores.

The $3.4 billion expenditure, which President Obama has allocated to bring forward depots of American heavy equipment and key personnel to Poland, Romania and the Baltic States, recognizes the logistical disadvantage of NATO forces under the remote defense perimeter that extends to Russia’s western and southern frontiers. But it cannot resolve this intractable disadvantage.

Territorial Disadvantage

It has been argued that a major factor that worked against Russian forces in World War I was logistical – the length of time it took Russia to move its men and equipment from the centers of population of the country hundreds if not thousands of kilometers away to its western borders where the fight against Germany was going on.

Image: NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Today, the U.S. and NATO have placed themselves in exactly the same disadvantage by seeking to fight Russia in a conventional war right where the Russians are concentrating the bulk of their strength and where NATO can at best only position “trip wire” forces having symbolic, not actual military defensive value.

The best that NATO can propose, it would seem, is to snatch the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad  (the clear mission of the Anakonda-16 games now going on in Poland) in case the Russians occupied the Baltic States (within the 60 hours or so that a recent Rand Institute study suggests is feasible).

However, as President Putin has stated clearly, such encroachment on Russian soil will unleash a nuclear response from Russia that will include missile attacks on the mainland USA, i.e. not limited to the European theater.

Finally, let’s consider another absurdity in General Breedlove’s letter setting out his candidacy for a cabinet position. He repeats, parrot-like, the position of the Obama administration and of putative Democratic candidate for President Hillary Clinton that we can selectively cooperate with Russia on issues of common interest like counter-terrorism, Pacific fishing rights (!) and the like even as we remain engaged in a life-or-death scramble for position on the ground in Europe.

In fact, the U.S. effort to totally isolate Russia by cutting off many, perhaps most of its bilateral programs of cooperation with the country have worked precisely to defeat cooperation, none more grievously so than in the area of fighting terrorism.

Meanwhile, what amounts to American encouragement of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria by pressing for the overthrow of the Russian-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad continues to this day under the guise of protecting the “moderate opposition” that happens to be embedded among the jihadist ‘’bad guys.’’

The fairy tales coming from Washington should not fool anyone, but Breedlove passes them along to his readers in the smug expectation that they will accept whatever he utters.

By lending its valuable “real estate” to the campaign for a high-level appointment by one of the most outspoken Cold Warriors within the U.S. military, the editorial board of Foreign Affairs magazine has shown yet again that it is incapable of guarding its own neutrality or balance.

Gilbert Doctorow is the European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd. His most recent book, Does Russia Have a Future? was published in August 2015. © Gilbert Doctorow, 2016

The UK is not the only country with increasing doubts about the EU.

A Pew Research Center study on Euroskepticism Beyond Brexit shows a huge dip in EU favorability across the board.

France has an even lower overall favorable rating of the EU than the UK. The favorable score is 38% in France, 44% in the UK.

The British are not the only ones with doubts about the European Union. The EU’s image and stature have been on a roller coaster ride in recent years throughout Europe. In a number of nations the portion of the public with a favorable view of the Brussels-based institution fell markedly from 2012 to 2013 as the European economy cratered. It subsequently rebounded in 2014 and 2015. But the EU is again experiencing a sharp dip in public support in a number of its largest member states.

EU favorability is down in five of the six nations surveyed in both 2015 and 2016. There has been a double-digit drop in France (down 17 percentage points) and Spain (16 points), and single-digit declines in Germany (8 points), the United Kingdom (7 points) and Italy (6 points).

Young people – those ages 18 to 34 – are more favorable toward the European Union than people 50 and older in six of the 10 nations surveyed. The generation gap is most pronounced in France – 25 percentage points – with 56% of young people but only 31% of older people having a positive opinion of the EU. There are similar generation gaps of 19 points in the UK, 16 points in the Netherlands, 14 points in Poland and Germany, and 13 points in Greece.

Ever Closer Union – Not

Despite having an unfavorable rating of 61%, nearly as many French want more power given to the EU than taken away.

That said, there is not a single country in  support of giving the EU more power.

Migration Crisis

Every nation strongly disagrees with the Eu handling of migration.

Fed Up With the EU

Clearly the UK is not the EU’s only problem. People are fed up.

Frustration shows not only in EU polls, but in the rise of parties on the left in some countries and on the right in others.

Voters everywhere stew over the economy. We have not yet reached a flash point, but it’s coming.

 

Inciting hate towards Muslims has become a multimillion-dollar endeavor, supported by neocon corporate foundations, according to The Guardian quoting a recent report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the University of California at Berkeley’ Center for Race and Gender (CRG).

Of significance, several of the groups involved are working hand in glove with the Trump election campaign. 

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and University of California Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender (CRG), some 74 foundations, think tanks, research centers, etc “contribute in some way to Islamophobia in the US, the primary purpose of which “is to promote prejudice against, or hatred of, Islam and Muslims”.

Since the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, the constant struggle and chaos had engulfed the country. Corruption, violence, strong external influence and insecurity are some of the factors which are common in Somali’s day-to-day politics. From all of this, radicalised and extremist groups have emerged and started to take hold of the society, especially in the south of the country.

Al Shabaab was originally formed from the Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya group, which emerged in the post regime change in the nineties. Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya (AIAI) was focused on implementing strong Sharia law, seizing strategic locations in the country and bringing order and control in previously lawless areas. Though this may seem like a solid plan, establishing some kind of order in a chaotic region, even through Sharia, is better than total lawlessness; the Ethiopian government had other plans.

Neighbouring state, Ethiopia, which is predominantly Christian, saw the rise of Islamism, Wahhabism and Salafism as a serious threat in Somalia. Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya as well as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) were destroyed by the Ethiopian military operations in 2004 and 2006, leaving only the most hardcore elements of these organisations still standing, thus the Al Shabaab, or “the youth”, emerged. The rise of Al Shabaab from the shadows was rather quick, the group rapidly grew from a core of just 33 to a force of more than 5,000 troops in less than four years. Their motivation and main objective at that time was to drive the Ethiopian forces out of the country; of course, that had to be done by a strong insurgency, which Al Shabaab was eager to lead.

Though the Ethiopians managed to quell ICU and the AIAI, Al Shabaab, which rose from it ashes, was much more radical and determined in its ideas of implementing Sharia law and some form of an Islamic caliphate/state. Ethiopia’s military actions hardened Somalis’ religious views and made a fertile ground for spreading extreme religious ideologies, which made recruitment and funding for Al Shabaab much easier. After the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces in 2009, a split occurred in Al Shaabab: two conflicting factions were trying to impose their own views and doctrine on the group. One was led by Sheikh Aweys, a spiritual leader with fundamentally domestic aims, and Sheikh Moktar Ali Zubeyr also known as Godane (educated in Pakistan), who had a more ambitious and extremist agenda, which ultimately prevailed and took control over the group. At that moment, the Al Shabaab agenda changed from nationalistic to a more global and ideological rhetoric, which ended with pledging allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and promoting Al Qaeda’s jihad across the horn of Africa. Although Al Shabaab’s impact during the past couple of years has decreased, mainly because of new battlefields in Syria and Libya, the group still poses a major threat in the region with the probability of expanding its influence further into the Sahel and also in Yemen.

Despite their grievous loss of their leader, Godane in 2014, his successor, Abu Ubaidah, is eager to follow in his footsteps. This can be seen in their constant raids and harassment in Mogadishu targeting primarily non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and United Nations (UN) facilities, extending their reach in Kenya, attracting young fighters and establishing some kind of limited government in some parts of the country which are under Al Shabaab’s control.

Before we go any deeper into understanding the structure of Al Shabaab, we first need to determine the doctrine and the ideology behind this radical group. Most of the time, the group is described as a Sunni extremist organisation supplemented with Salafism and Wahhabism. Besides this, Al Shabaab has a strict policy against takfir (bad Muslims), who usually get excommunicated or worse (punishments such as stoning and decapitation are common). The practice of Salafism and Wahhabism is not only used as some kind of ideology, but also as an instrument for attracting funds and finance (there had been rumours that some Gulf states are eager when it comes to funding organisations with this type of doctrine).

One of their most important goals is the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state in the Horn of Africa; it should include not only Somalia but Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti as well. Various analysts cite that these radical pan-Islamic ideas come from AIAI, which was a predecessor of Al Shabaab which gave training and needed-knowledge for the future leaders of “the youth”. The concept of AIAI, and later ICU, is important in understanding the complex structure of Al Shabaab. Though it is radical and fundamental, it is not monolithic; tribal divides and internal fissures are rather common, especially when more leaders try to take control over the group, differences in their origin and training as well as indoctrination usually leads to conflict between them. Ahmed Abdi Godane, who triumphed over these internal conflicts in 2011 and 2013, suggests that core group doctrine and affiliation have been settled. Before Godane’s victory, the core leadership of Al Shabaab was heterogeneous with strong nationalist and politically pragmatic characters like Hassan Dahir Aweys and Mukhtar Roobow.

After the “cleansing” of the leadership, Godane saw a clear future which apparently lies with a strong affiliation with Al Qaeda. After the official pledge to Al Qaeda in 2012, these two organisations began close cooperation with each other in further indoctrination and training of the new recruits. Al Qaeda also played a major role in widening Al Shabaab’s vision in terms of globalised jihad rhetoric and propaganda. Implementation of strong Sharia law has become regular; punishments like stoning, decapitation and amputation are common for criminals and also apostates.

Structure, more precisely, the military organisation of Al Shabaab, consists out of five formations/brigades:

• Abu Dalha Al-Sudaani: Lower and Middle Juba
• Sa’ad Bin Mu’aad: Gedo
• Saalah Nabhaan: Bay and Bakool
• Ali Bin Abu Daalib: Banaadir, Lower Shabelle, Middle Shabelle
• Khaalid Bin Wliid: Hiiraan, Mudug, Galgaduud
• Liwaa’ul Qudus: Eastern Sanaag and Bari regions “Sharqistan”

Besides these formations, an important structure inside Al Shabaab is the “Amniyaad”. The Amniyaad is something resembling a secret police; at first they were in charge of providing intelligence (especially for internal purposes), but Godane managed to strengthen their position and gave them much wider authority. Al Shabaab’s internal coherency relies heavily on the work of Amniyaad, especially in Mogadishu and the surrounding areas. Some of the common tactics used by this “secret police” are targeted killings/assassinations, bombing and planting of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Amniyaad is also responsible for devising new tactics in order to improve Al Shabaab’s asymmetrical warfare. Last but not least is the media section, Al-Kataib: production of video materials for global and domestic audiences is used for spreading terror as well as for recruitment purposes.

Image: Map by crisisgroup.org

Tactics and strategies which are implemented by Al Shabaab are heavily based on local knowledge and experience from veterans and fighters who participated in former radical organisations in the nineties. This comes as no surprise – many members of Al Shabaab were active during the nineties and especially during the Ethiopian intervention. Also, their expertise in those battles was welcomed by Al Shabaab’s leadership in order to train new recruits and improve general combat.

A main aspect of the tactics and strategies used by this radical organisation is the asymmetrical warfare, which was executed with wide knowledge and precision. The group was cautious when it came to large-scale battles against larger and better-equipped adversaries, usually they would withdrew their forces in order to reorganise and strike at the right moment. This tactic was further improved by Godane, who decentralised much of the authority within the group making it more flexible and agile. Commanders or regional “governors” have been appointed, including field commanders who have improved intelligence gathering (Amniyaad), counter-intelligence work, better command of the troops etc. This decentralisation allowed Al Shabaab to easily shift into guerilla warfare style in 2013 and 2014 when the Somali government managed to extend its control over major towns, especially in the south of the country.

The jihadists, with their vast knowledge of the region, fled to the countryside and continued their fight. Though they have been driven from some populated areas, there is a growing sense of fear because of the sporadic raids and the retribution, which the terrorists pledged to carry out. Unlike its adversaries, Al Shabaab is quite mobile, which gives it the edge when it comes to fighting in urban areas. Constant raids and pressure, which they keep up thanks to their networks, allows Amniyaad a lot of freedom when conducting assassinations or even suicide attacks. The flow of foreign fighters into the group, especially those from Iraq and Afghanistan, has broadened the knowledge of military and guerilla tactics with a couple of major aspects:

• Extensive use of IEDs and suicide bombers which was not a common sight in Somalia in the past.
• Combat units consist out of nine members, unlike the regular Somali army, which practices with 11 member units, or the Ethiopian army with six member units.
• Heavy emphasis on infantry.
• High mobility of troops due to a limited number of members and a wide area which needs to be covered.
• Distinctive deployment of troops. Al Shabaab usually masses its troops on the borders of the areas which it controls, while there are not many of them in urban areas or city centers. Despite this, the strong psychological effects of fear and retaliation keep citizens in line, who are unable to revolt or oppose their aggressors.

Still two main weapons of Al Shabaab’s arsenal are IEDs and suicide bombers: a common tool for various Salafist/Wahhabist terrorist organisations. Al Shabaab also implements brutal tactics when initiating skirmishes. Although it usually targets government/military or international institutions, the group is always trying to fight in heavily populated areas. Interestingly enough, despite this bloody strategy, there isn’t an outrage from the domestic population against this terrorist organisation.

Recruitment and training of Al Shabaab members usually takes place in Somalia and Kenya, but foreign continents like Europe and North America (the US especially) are not the exception. The organisation started as a populist militarist group, focusing on younger parts of the population (staying true to its name, Al Shabaab/”the youth”) for mobilisation with constant struggle with the authority of the domestic and foreign factors. With its recruitment programme, Al Shabaab quickly realized that in order to amass new recruits, the idea of waging jihad should be constantly pushed on a daily basis. A regular flow of new recruits needed a population and land from which they could gather them.

These factors pushed Al Shabaab to become embedded into the Somali society, as some former members testified (which are often children or teenagers), the organisation gives a mobile phone and a monthly payment of 50 dollars, which for young people in Somalia, seems quite a lot. There are three basic principles on which Al Shabaab recruits its members:

• The use of da’wa [literally means “issuing a summons” or “making an invitation”] gives a strong impact on the youth mainly because they usually lack any deeper religious knowledge. This is often done by various propaganda techniques including videos, books and preaching the importance of jihad.
• Economic motivation also plays a major role. As I mentioned, earlier 50 dollars can mean a lot to a young man in the Somali society. Violence, which is a daily phenomenon in Somalia, makes people used to it and organisations like Al Shabaab largely profit from it. Payment for killing a man can sustain someone’s family for a period of time.
• The final part is de-socialisation and re-socialisation of the new recruits. This process can be highly rewarding for the terrorist organisation, since it usually promotes further unification of the new members.

Forced conscription is not an exception. In areas where Al Shabaab dominates, forced recruitment can often take place, though the exact line between forceful and “normal” recruitment is not always clear. Those who are forcefully made to join the group are often isolated from the outside world, they are later mixed with other recruits who have willingly joined the group (this is usually done in training courses). This constant shuffle of recruits finally blends them together and in the end, they are born again as fully-fledged jihadists. This has proven to be rather efficient with some political minorities since the feeling of belonging to some stronger organisation can be overwhelming.

Part of the recruitment is also exercised in schools or in religious institutions where Sheiks can usually navigate younger people to the way of Sharia and eventually, to Al Shabaab. The finance factor, which plays a major role in the recruitment phase is not only reserved for the fighters, suicide bombers or assassins; Al Shabaab employs workers for various duties inside the group. One of those positions is the clerical duty. Most of the training is done in Somalia due to the lack of government and military control. Al Shabaab is able to manage highly specialised training camps without much domestic interference. There are a couple of training camps which are specialised for hand-to-hand combat in Ras Kiamboni, suicide bombing camps in Elberde and Mogadishu and a hostage training camp in Eel Arfid.

There have also been reports on Al Qaeda operatives who have instructor duties, some of them are from Pakistan/Afghanistan and some come from the Arabian peninsula. The training courses usually last for six months, after which the new recruits become full members of the organisation. The trainees are also able to choose which branch of Al Shabaab they want to join; possibilities include combat units, bomb makers or the security apparatus of the Amniyat.

Many of the terrorist or insurgent groups have two main principles of funding which include “lootable” and “unlootable” resources. Those resources may include diamonds, narcotics, gas and similar riches which one territory may possess. Since Al Shabaab lacks this method of funding, the organisation was forced to create an innovative method of gathering financial resources. This new method can be defined as financial control and surveillance of cash flows. This control extends to both domestic and external funding and is directly controlled by the group so it does not rely on third parties.

The UN report from 2011 suggests that Al Shabaab was able to collect around 100 million dollars from fees at airports and seaports, taxes on various goods and checkpoints, jihad contributions and extortions justified by religious obligations. In order to maintain its “taxation” and healthy financial flows, good governance and discipline are essential. In this manner, Al Shabaab has made a wide range of administrative bodies that are far more efficient than the Somali government. These bodies include Maktabatu Maaliya (Ministry of Finance), which has domestic and international responsibilities.

On the local level when it comes to gathering taxes, the Amniyat plays a crucial role, while Maktabatu Maaliya is responsible for the macro-economy and development (example: controlling the charcoal exports). These “institutions” give a sense of government and order. For people who live in a state of perpetual chaos these administrative bodies, which were developed by the Al Shabaab, are seen as a more or less good thing; it also helps the organisation maintain its population and recruitment without the use of brutal force. Besides the domestic flow of funds which is reliable and easy to control, there is also an external source of funding. External sources include the Somali diaspora and “deep-pocket” individuals who sympathize with the rhetoric or have other interests in mind when donating financial resources to this group.

According to some estimates, 14% of the Somali population lives abroad. These people have certain moral obligations but also relatives who need help back at home. The much-needed help which is delivered from the Somali diaspora sometimes comes to Al Shabaab as well. In the past, especially when the ICU was active, the foreign aid coming from the Somalis living abroad was relatively easy to acquire. Luckily today this type of “foreign aid” is dramatically reduced, mostly due to international actions against those who fund Al Shabaab and domestic prosecutions. The group also has so-called “deep-pocketed” donors. These donors come from all over the world and when Al Shabaab pledged its allegiance to Al Qaeda, it became much more attractive for these donors.

Motivations for donating large amounts of money to terrorist organisations are various and they include: performing a proxy jihad by donating large sums of money to radical organisations, sponsoring those kinds of organisations since the donors themselves cannot be physically present, fight for that organisation or achieve honour for waging a proxy jihad. A 2013 US Treasury Designation Order on Umayr Al-Nuaymi (Qatar businessman) suggests that he allegedly funded Al Shabaab with more than 250,000 dollars. Though Al Shabaab promotes global jihad, it still has donors which support the nationalistic doctrine of the past. Aligning themselves with Al Qaeda (which is strictly orientated to global jihad), there is a probability that some of the donors, domestic and international, who  support the nationalistic doctrine, will cut the funds because of this shift in Al Shabaab’s goals and doctrine. This was even pointed out by the former leader of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden.

As an organisation, Al Shabaab demonstrated impressive talent for planning, strategy and military tactics, which must not be underestimated. Their social roots in Somalia still remain deep. According to some reports from 2014, the group is still controlling much of the southern part of the country. With the rise of Islamic State and chaos which engulfed much of North Africa and the Middle East, Al Shabaab is positioning itself accordingly, promoting Sharia rule, allaying with Al Qaeda and promoting the idea of an Islamic caliphate. Though the pan-Islamic idea is powerful, with Al Shabaab’s rhetoric they retain a strong grip over domestic affairs; this can be seen in their ways of funding via taxes.

Despite their rigorous ways of exercising Sharia law in a state such as Somalia, Al Shabaab does not necessarily represent the biggest threat or the biggest problem, hence the absence of any serious uprising from the local population against this organisation. There are also practical benefits provided by the Al Shabaab group, like religious education and some sort of basic institutions and administration. Yet these steps seem insignificant. Looking from abroad, for the locals they can mean a lot. Rooting themselves deep into the sociological sphere and bolstering their relations with the domestic population, it will not be an easy task to remove this radical organisation.

In geopolitical terms, Al Shabaab does not represent a major threat. Unlike the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, it lacks the logistic and foreign support in order to accomplish and spread terror on a global scale. On the other hand, they do represent a major threat in the region; something similar can be observed with Boko Haram. Though they are positioned in the south of the country, Somalia is the Horn of Africa. Somalia has access to the Gulf of Aden, and the proximity to Yemen and the Red Sea can serve not only the interests of Al Shabaab, but also those of foreign organisations which are present in Yemen and maintain contact with Al Shabaab. Al Shabaab’s regional influence can also be dangerous because of the instability of the Sahel region. If Al Shabaab manages to use the conflicts in the Middle East and Libya, it can spread further into Sahel. They already have the pattern of Islamic State, which uses different regions and countries in order to avoid total eradication. Thus, dealing with Al Shabaab must be done cautiously.

Ethiopian direct military engagement in the past destroyed two radical organisations but also delivered the third one, which is much stronger than its predecessors. Learning from their previous experience is one of the trademarks of Al Shabaab. Directly engaging this organisation may cause unwanted casualties and destruction, which will only strengthen the position of Al Shabaab in the Somali society (we must not forget that Al Shabaab also maintains nationalistic ideas besides global jihad). Thus, the approach must be done through soft power, political reconciliation, mediation support, political and religious education, military support and assistance. Only when the foreign powers realize the reality of Somalis’ struggle, can there be hope for a total eradication of radical organisations in that country.

Ma Igor Pejic  graduated in Political Science from the Foreign Affairs Department at the Faculty of Political Science. He is currently completing an MA in Terrorism, Security and Organised Crime at the University of Belgrade, Serbia.

Notes:

1. http://www.counterextremism.com/sites/default/files/threat_pdf/al-shabab-threat-report.pdf
2. http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/horn-of-africa/somalia/b099-somalia-al-shabaab-it-will-be-a-long-war.pdf
3. https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/140221_Bryden_ReinventionOfAlShabaab_Web.pdf
4. https://rusi.org/sites/default/files/201412_whr_2-14_keatinge_web_0.pdf
5. http://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/sites/sciencespo.fr.ceri/files/art_RM2.pdf
6. http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2014_726.pdf
7. https://somalianews.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/bryden-decline-and-fall-of-al-shabaab-22v2015.pdf
8. http://www.trackingterrorism.org/sites/default/files/chatter/TheAnatomyOfAlShabaab_0.pdf

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is calling for Europe, and especially NATO members, to work with Moscow and stop carrying out military exercises close to the Russian border.