The Economic and Political Crisis in Moldova

January 24th, 2016 by Victor Josu

On January 24, 2016 in Moldova is expected another wave of protests against the oligarchic regime. In the video we depict the history and roots of the conflict as well as the current explosive situation in Moldova.

We appeal to all the major powers: the US, EU, Russia and the UN to pay close attention to the lawlessness spreading in the region. We call on to draw attention to the needs of millions of ordinary people, driven to despair by the feudal-oligarchic regime.

The small Eastern European country of Moldova is experiencing a profound economic and political crisis.

Mass protests began in recent days. The situation in Moldova has deteriorated over the past few years as the population grew more impoverished. The collapse began in 2009, following the “orange revolution” of April 9, when the parliament building in Kishinev was set on fire and the office of Moldova’s president, the leader of Moldova’s Communist Party Vladimir Voronin, was destroyed.

Even though the latter demonstrated loyalty to the US and to the EU bureaucracy by proclaiming Moldova’s desire to grow closer to the EU and established Moldova’s cooperation with NATO (in spite of its constitutional status as a neutral country).

Video produced by South Front

US and EU supported opposition’s protest actions as they were afraid that the formally Communist Voronin might change the country’s foreign policy direction. After the crisis caused by the inability to select the head of state, in the summer of 2009 power was assumed by an alliance of liberal democratic parties which declared themselves in favor of European integration.

Western politicians were quick to define the rule by the new “Alliance for European Integration” (Liberal-Democratic Party, Democratic Party, and Liberal Party) as a Moldovan “success story” within the Eastern Partnership project established between the EU and post-Soviet states. Since the only real aim of this project was to cut these countries’ ties to Russia, Moldova’s European overseers did not worry about monitoring the actual state of affairs in the country’s society.

Against the backdrop of the Kiev Maidan of 2013-2014 which ended with a coup d’etat and a prolonged political crisis in Ukraine and Saakashvili’s failure in Georgia, Washington and Brussels felt it important not only retain Moldova under its influence, but present it to Western societies as an example of successful implementation of “principles of liberal politics.” It ignored the absence of reforms and the catastrophic deterioration of the country’s economy accompanied by the establishment of government by oligarchy.

The most important thing was to formalize the “partnership” by signing the Association Agreement, which was done in mid-2014. After that, EU’s officials decided that the Moldovan game was over. Then the EU was afflicted by the Greek crisis and the waves of refugees, and Moldova was forgotten.

The situation in Moldova continued to deteriorate. There was an escalation of struggle between the two main oligarchic clans represented by the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova under Vladimir Filat and the Democratic Party of Moldova whose boss is oligarch Vladimir Plakhotnyuk,  who also controls the country’s prosecutor’s office and the judicial system. This competition largely took the form of financial embezzlement to the tune of about $1 billion dollars vanishing from Moldova’s banking system during 2014.

Today’s wave of protests in Kishinev was caused by the population displeasure at all the listed negative developments. The main demands put to those who are in favor of strengthening ties with Russia and the supporters of drawing closer to the EU include dissolving the illegitimate parliament and holding a special election. The protests were triggered by the parliament’s establishment, using a majority hurriedly put together by Plakhotnyuk, of a new Cabinet of Ministers without discussing its program, as the Constitution requires.

The protesters also demand investigating and holding responsible those who embezzled bank funds and dismissing Prosecutor General Korneliy Gurin who is Plakhotnyuk’s protégé. Another demand is the release of 8political prisoners, with the honorary Parliamentary Assembly of the Council o fEurope member Grigoriy Petrenko. The regime is trying to sentence them to various terms of imprisonment for their organizing a peaceful protest action in September 2015 against the unlawful actions by law enforcement.

Plakhotnyuk, who managed to get rid of his main competitor Filat and who now is the absolute ruler of Moldova, has the West’s full support. The US, through its ambassador to Kishinev James Pettit, and EU countries through their representatives, are against early elections due to concerns that they could lead to parties favoring the country’s neutrality gaining a majority in Parliament.

Moldova’s regime is currently preparing to use the army against protests in Kishinev.

In the EU’s south-east a new crisis zone is appearing, which is capable of descending into armed conflict.

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America and Turkey begin Ground Invasion of Syria. How Will Russia Respond?

January 24th, 2016 by Donbass International News Agency

Amidst a almost total western media blackout, Turkey and the US have initiated a military invasion in Syrian territory. On Wednesday evening, the Turkish army reportedly entered Syrian territory near Jarablus. US troops took control of Rmeilan airfield in Syria’s northern province of Hasakah. It’s unclear what are the real objectives for western military operations on Syrian soil According to the latest news, a major Turkish intervention is expected.

‘US troops have taken control of Rmeilan airfield in Syria’s northern province of Hasakah to support Kurdish fighters against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)”, a spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) told Al Jazeera on Tuesday. The airfield is close to Syria’s borders with Iraq and Turkey.

Syrian Local Coordination Committees say that the US has been preparing and expanding Rmeilan airport for a while now. When asked by Al Jazeera, a US CENTCOM media operations officer did not confirm or deny the reports.

According to information received by Sputnik on Wednesday, Turkey has been amassing military units along the Syrian border. The number of troops is estimated to be around 1,000. The troops have reportedly crossed into Aleppo province, according to Hawar News, along with military vehicles, heavy equipment, and mine detection gear. Turkey has denied reports of an invasion, but reports from the ground confirm the military incursion.

Russia Insider writes, that Turkey has seized the ISIS-controlled town of Jarabulus, but faced no resistance, according to reports:

“Eyewitnesses to the incursion reported that the Turkish forces have not encountered any resistance from ISIS fighters in the area. These reports once again raise the question of possible collaboration between Turkey and ISIS aimed at halting the advance of the Kurdish militias in north Syria.”

The Turkish operation is “officially” aimed at combating Daesh (ISIS) militants, who have fortified Jarablus. But sources tell Sputnik that Ankara may be more interested in preventing the YPG from gaining a foothold in a region of strategic importance. Various reports indicate that Ankara could soon (if it has not already) launch a ground operation in neighboring Syria, confirms Sputnik on Thursday.

STRATFOR: “WARZONE IS RAPIDLY BECOMING CROWDED”

“Turkey has already begun to ramp up its artillery strikes along its border with Syria to help its rebel allies and to destroy Islamic State targets. This could indicate an effort to soften enemy defenses ahead of a Turkish ground incursion once minesweeping operations have been completed,” Stratfor explained.

“Ankara’s ground operation – if launched – could deal a blow to Daesh. But many experts and politicians have pointed out that Turkey views dealing with the Kurds, not the terrorist group, as its key priority. The offensive than “would also strengthen the [Turkey-backed] rebels in northern Syria, in turn preventing the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from expanding their reach westward,” Stratfor noted.

Turkey’s ground offensive will likely add additional stress to the already strained relations between Ankara and Moscow. According to Stratfor:

“Still, that does not mean that Ankara, with Washington’s help, is not trying to reach an understanding with Moscow, at least in terms of setting up deconfliction procedures to avoid clashing with each other in the Syrian Warzone, which is rapidly becoming crowded.”

HOW WILL RUSSIA RESPOND?

RT reports that ISIS terrorists have increased their activities ahead of next week’s inter-Syrian talks, with insurgents in the Syrian province of Aleppo receiving reinforcements from Turkey, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. The much-anticipated talks between the Syrian government and different opposition groups are scheduled to take place in  Geneva on January 25.

“Unfortunately, in recent days, it’s especially noticeable that ahead of the planned start of the inter-Syrian negotiations in Geneva the activities of terrorist groups have intensified. Obviously, they’re trying to turn the tide in their favor on the battlefield,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing in Moscow.

Zakharova said that Russia is concerned over Ankara’s increased military incursions into Syria, adding that

“it cannot be ruled out that… fortifications [built by Turkey] along the Syrian-Turkish border may be used by militant groups as strongholds.”

“While all parties involved pin their hopes on the start of a meaningful and… inclusive dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition, external forces continue to help militants in Syria, including terrorist groups, providing them with arms and ammunition,” she stressed.

Notes:

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160120/1033456296/turkey-jarablus.html

https://www.rt.com/news/329675-aleppo-militants-reinforcements-turkey/

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/takes-control-rmeilan-airfield-syr…

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160121/1033489316/turkey-syria-isis-…

https://www.stratfor.com/sample/analysis/iraq-syria-battlespace-0

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/turkish-forces-moves-syria-how-wil…

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Pyongyang long sought normalized relations with America and other Western nations. Washington wanting adversarial relations maintained prevents it.

A previous article explained why North Korea wants nukes. It fears America for good reason. It knows it wages endless imperial wars, raping one country after another.

Truman’s naked aggression turned most of North Korea to rubble. Millions died, mostly civilians. Pyongyang wants protection against a possible repeat of what happened earlier.

North Korea chose nuclear weapons as its strategy, for defensive, not offensive purposes.

Washington claims Pyongyang poses a nuclear threat, a pretext for greater US regional militarization, the real threat all Asian nations face.

According to US Pacific Command spokesman Capt. Darryn James, Washington may further militarize Hawaii, Guam, and continental America from (nonexistent) Pyongyang ballistic missile threats.

Kauai’s Aegis Ashore site’s “proven test capability” can be converted to a combat complex, he said.

US Pacific Command head Admiral Harry Harris “is always exploring options to forward deploy and operationalize the latest advancements in ballistic missile defense technologies in the Pacific, where we face increasingly sophisticated threats to the homeland,” according to James.

Fact: America faced no external threats since WW II ended – only ones it invents as pretexts for endless wars of aggression, deployments of US combat troops equipped with weapons of mass destruction worldwide, and homeland police state repression.

China expressed concern about possible greater US regional militarization than already, a clear threat to its national security.

“All measures seeking to increase military capacities will only intensify antagonism and will not help to solve the problem,” Beijing’s Washington embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan stressed.

America’s west coast and Alaska are heavily militarized against potential threats even though none exist.

Russia is concerned about US-led NATO’s Eastern Europe buildup, increasingly close to its borders.

It’s deploying additional forces with state-of-the-art weapons in its southwestern areas – countering US-led NATO plans to expand its Black Sea region presence, along with aiding Ukraine increase its combat readiness.

Black Sea Fleet spokesman Captain Vyacheslav Trukhachov said over 15 new Russian warships were deployed in the Black Sea in 2015.

They include two missile carriers and two nuclear submarines, equipped with state-of-the-art Kalibr-NK cruise missile systems – able to strike targets with precision accuracy up to 3,000 km away, proved effective in Russia’s anti-terrorist Syrian campaign.

Russian Northern Caucasus and Rostov region forces have warplanes able to strike targets accurately throughout the Black and Caspian Sea regions.

Its Iskander-M ballistic missiles can penetrate existing missile defense systems. Its effective range is 500 km.

Russia’s sophisticated weapons can match or exceed America’s best – why Pentagon commanders call its capability “awesome,” a force to be reckoned with.

US Air Forces in Europe commander General Frank Forenc called its aerial qualitative and quantitative capability “alarming.”

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.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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Tony Blair Queried, Again, Over Nature of Burma Dealings

January 24th, 2016 by Saw Yan Naing

Former British prime minister Tony Blair was back in Burma earlier this month for at least his fifth visit since a quasi-civilian government assumed power under President Thein Sein.

Blair, who has staked out a lucrative niche in various advisory and entrepreneurial roles since leaving office, met with outgoing Union Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann and National League for Democracy chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw on Jan. 7.

However, as in previous years, the purpose of his visit was less than clear.

A UK-based rights group, Burma Campaign UK, has consistently called on Blair to reveal the precise nature of his dealings in Burma. The group reiterated this stance in an email to The Irrawaddy on Thursday.

“Tony Blair should be transparent about what who he is working for and why he keeps visiting Burma,” said Mark Farmaner, Burma Campaign UK director.

“In other countries Tony Blair has been known to combine work with his foundations with his business interests.”

Farmaner said the advocacy group had repeatedly written to Blair’s office to seek details of his dealings in Burma, without receiving adequate clarification.

Burma Campaign UK has previously stated that Blair was believed to be advising Thein Sein in some capacity.

Blair’s former chief of staff from 1997-2007, Jonathan Powell, also has interests in Burma through his charity Inter Mediate, which works in conflict resolution.

According to informed sources, Powell helped broker a trip to Columbia in December for a delegation comprised of representatives from the Burma Army, three ethnic Karen armed groups including the Karen National Union, and the government-affiliated Myanmar Peace Center, to study the country’s peace process.

Farmaner said he wouldn’t be surprised if Blair’s recent visit was linked to Powell’s work in Burma.

“Jonathan Powell and Tony Blair are old friends from their time when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, and they have both been involved in Burma in recent years,” he said.

“The problem is that their involvement seems to have been more in support of President Thein Sein’s government than being neutral or supporting civil society and the democracy movement.”

The Irrawaddy wrote to Inter Mediate for comment but was yet to receive a reply at time of publication.

Bertil Lintner, a veteran Swedish journalist and the author of several books on Burma, said there were numerous foreign organizations jockeying for involvement in Burma’s ongoing peace process.

“It is just a waste of time and money in the ‘peace-industrial complex,’” Lintner said. “There is lots of money to be made there.”

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Media, Migration and Militarization in Germany

January 24th, 2016 by Elena van den Berg

The Paris Attacks, the current flood of migration, and the incidents in Cologne on New Year’s Eve: it is hard to tell fact from fiction these days; the lines separating these incidents become increasingly blurred. What they have in common: they illustrate the supposed threat under which we all live.

The German media does not get tired of stressing and discussing the ungraspable foreign threat. However, beyond engaging in discussions deliberately inciting public fear of terror, and discussions that either condemn or romanticize the refugee, the crucial point is to see how these incidents create dynamics that will fundamentally change German society. The pattern at the basis of these dynamics: Strategies of threat-creation and othering enable a development toward an increased militarization, both in terms of foreign and domestic policy.

Let’s first look at the German reaction to the Paris terror attacks. It encompasses militarizing consequences on the foreign-policy level, and consequences heightening the threat-perception on the domestic level. In terms of German foreign policy, the Paris attacks and the way they were mediated have clearly served to publicly justify increased military engagement. Through the media, Secretary of Defense, Ursula Von der Leyen stressed the need to show solidarity to France, to help France defeat the threat of terrorism, and the need to take on responsibility in the foreign-policy realm in the form of military intervention. Consequently, it only took the government a little more than two weeks after the attacks to ratify a German military intervention in Syria.

However, helping out France in defeating the terrorist threat is only the purpose that can be sold most comfortably to the public. At the same time, there is another purpose that blurs the lines between the Paris attacks and the refugee crisis: Military intervention is focused simultaneously on the official quest to combat terror, and on enhancing the possibilities of “refugee repatriation.” According to the Spiegel International article, the strategy behind Germany’s military participation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali,and Syria seems less focused on a long term establishment of peace, stability, and order, and more focused on a short-term solution for the German refugee crisis.

The Spiegel article exemplifies this point by talking about Berlin’s primary goal in Afghanistan, which is to ensure “that at least part of the country remains safe enough that rejected asylum-seekers can reasonably be deported.” Germany is expanding its missions in Iraq and Mali, the article states, for the same reason. A mission to Libya, to secure the region and “slow the wave of refugees” is also considered. Consequently, there is a lot more to Germany’s foreign-policy militarization than the constantly mediated threat of international terror.

In terms of German domestic policy, the Paris attacks have served to further instill the fear of terror in the German population, and to militarize the German public sphere. Two personal first-hand experiences illustrate these dynamics. Nine days after the Paris Attacks, I went to a fairly small concert (maybe one- or two thousand people) in Leipzig. In order to get in, you had to take off your hat, scarf, gloves, open your jacket, and let security pat you down and look into your bag. I was very irritated by this measure since I could remember, from other such occasions, only having to let them take a look into your bag and show them the ticket. So while the security lady patted me down, I asked her: “Excuse me, is this normal now?” and she actually answered what I had expected but nevertheless hoped not to hear: “Yes, since Paris that is normal.” This was a small concert a little outside of Leipzig! To me, this is ridiculous. The point here seems to be to ensure that every individual is constantly reminded of the big, looming terrorist threat.

The same can be said about another domestic consequence: On December 20th I went home for Christmas by train. Upon entering Leipzig main station, I immediately noticed two police officers patrolling the station. The sight itself is neither new nor troubling. However, one of them carried a machine gun at the ready, which I had never before seen anywhere in Germany. When I related my observation to friends from Stuttgart and Munich, they told me it was the same in their cities. Quite clearly, this constitutes a militarization of the public sphere and, just like the concert-incident, serves to heighten the public awareness of the looming threat.

Now, turning attention to the incidents of New Year’s Eve in Cologne and the way they are mediated, it is possible to see that they serve as a strategic continuation to further enhance the dynamics of militarizing the public and the private sphere, and of instilling fear within German society. One of the first government resolutions in response to the Cologne incidents comprises the creation of four thousand additional police positions from 2016 to 2018, three thousands of which will be deployed to secure train stations and borders. Probably, as it seems to be the new normal now, they, too, will carry their machine guns constantly at the ready. There are demands, yet to be discussed, of the SPD party to increase the number to up to thirteen thousand positions in total. The fact that police academy experts such as Professor Rafeal Behr cite studies that clearly show that more police never simply equals more safety speaks to the primary quest of militarizing the public sphere.

The constantly mediated threat of the criminal migrant that was incited by the Cologne incidents also serves to create acceptance of increased public surveillance measures. Parts of the German government demand more surveillance, as discussed in the article above. This probably also entails a further normalization of incidents like the one related at the concert, incidents that slowly but steadily infringe the citizenry’s personal rights and heighten its awareness of constantly being under general suspicion. Moreover, the recent law on data retention plays into this dynamic. In the discussion of the consequences to be drawn from Cologne, there is repeated emphasis on the fact that the German intelligence service can access the collected data, and that it can, and should, make use of its possibility to hack computers and run online searches.

Apart from the official political consequences drawn by the government, the incidents of Cologne have resulted in a militarization of the private sphere as well. According to a statement by Daniela Lindemann, spokesperson of the police in Cologne, there is a clear increase of official requests to own a weapon (you need a special firearms certificate in order to own a weapon in Germany). As of January 15th, there have been three hundred requests, whereas there were only four hundred of them in all of 2015, she stated. Shockingly, an increasing number of the population in Cologne seems to deem it necessary to own a weapon, and consequently seems to deem the possibility of using it against another person in real life a normal measure of self-defense, which illustrates the shift toward a normalization of militarization.

Finally, the mediated process of othering the refugee is a pattern at the basis of German domestic militarizing dynamics, as it serves to create a concrete threat. It works along the lines of age-old discrimination patterns and perfectly complements the looming ungraspable threat of terrorism, in that it gives the threat a “dark face,” that is supposedly looming in front of everybody’s door, on the public spaces through which we navigate every day. Labeling all dark-skinned men existing in a status outside of mainstream white society as criminal, savage-like, rape-prone threats, especially to the white woman, does that ring a bell? In terms of historic US race relations it sure does. There is a part of the current discourse in Germany that works in exactly the same way, and therefore discriminates in the same way. The recent covers of the FOCUS magazine and the Süddeutsche Zeitung demonstrate the racist discourse on the sexualized, dark threat to the white woman most clearly. Since the discriminatory discourse implicitly stresses the urgent need to counter the threat, it crucially advances and legitimizes the agenda of domestic militarization.

There remains the question as to why these methods of militarization are created and pursued so thoroughly. What comes to mind first on the national level is of course Germany’s economic power in terms of arms exports. Although China has outrun Germany in 2015, Germany still ranks fourth on the world scale. Hence, German wealth, like that of many other countries, largely rests upon arms exports. However, Germany’s methods of militarization cannot be examined in isolation as they go hand in hand with the international dynamics of increased militarization that started after 9/11 and led up to the consequences of last year’s Paris attacks. Following the French example, the German government now wants to play its very own part in the geopolitical power plays. Therefore, public feelings and opinions are channeled in directions convenient for the overall cause, and the increasing militarization of German foreign and domestic policy generates both a slow and often unconscious intimidation from above, and a general obedience within society in regard to the international geopolitical power plays.

Elena van den Berg is currently enrolled in the American Studies Master’s program at Leipzig University. Her research interests include foreign policy, contemporary US literature, and notions of tourism in US culture.

 

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Guantanamo is one of numerous US global black sites operating extrajudicially – torture and other forms of abuse still ongoing, major media entirely silent.

Obama could have closed all US torture prisons by executive order on day one in office. He chose to keep them operating.

His pledge to close Guantanamo during his first year in office was deliberate deception. The evidence speaks for itself.

Washington operates solely by its own rules. International, constitutional and US statute laws don’t matter.

Former Guantanamo guard Joseph Hickman believes Guantanamo officials wanted prisoners causing “problems for the command” by leading hunger strikes or other forms of resistance silenced. More on him below.

Law Professor Mark Denbeaux published numerous “GTMO Reports,” including profiles of detainees held, allegations against them, and disturbing discrepancies in government accounts, explaining reasons for reported deaths.

His earlier “Death in Camp Delta” report covered three simultaneous deaths in maximum security Alpha Block. Yassar Talal Al Zahrani, Mani Shaman Turki Al Habardi Al Tabi, and Ali Abdullah Ahmed were found dead shortly after midnight on June 10, 2006.

The Pentagon said they were found hanging in their cells, claiming a short note found on each body indicated coordinated resistance against confinement.

Denbeaux’s report found “dramatic flaws in the government’s investigation. (It) raise(s) serious questions about the security of the Camp (and) derelictions of duty by officials of multiple defense and intelligence agencies,” he said.

Most likely they killed them, then whitewashed the investigation to suppress cold-blooded murder. Autopsy reports said the three men were hanging unobserved for at least two hours – despite constant round-the-clock surveillance by guards and video cameras recording everything.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) at Guantanamo require guards observe each detainee at least once every 10 minutes. Were they ordered to stay away from their cells the night of their deaths? Questions about what happened remain unanswered.

What was the time and precise means of death?

How did the three men braid nooses with torn sheets and/or clothing unobserved?

How did they make mannequins, making it look like they were asleep in bed?

Why did they stuff rags down their throats to choke?

How were they able to hang sheets to obstruct views into their cells?

How did they manage to bind their hands and feet?

How was a noose hung from the cell wall metal mesh or ceiling?

The Pentagon claimed they climbed on a sink, placed nooses around their necks, then released their weight and were strangled to death.

How did all three follow precisely the same procedure? Their cells were separated from each other. They had no direct contact. How could they have cooperatively planned anything?

How did they manage to do everything explained above unobserved for two or more hours? One victim was scheduled for release in 19 days. Why would he kill himself?

No prisoner cries were heard or unusual activity detected indicating possible suicide attempts.

Why was no serious investigation conducted? The three men in maximum security confinement died with no credible explanation why.

Were cold-blooded murders committed, whitewashed as suicides? Draw your own conclusions.

Hickman said he saw hunger strike leaders brought to a secret CIA “black site” at Guantanamo, accusing the agency of staging suicides to eliminate them.

The Defense Department claimed the three victims “killed themselves in an apparent suicide pact,” despite no credible evidence proving it.

Hickman noticed unusual activity on the night in question. “I witnessed a van. We used to call it paddy wagon. It was a detainee transport van,” he said.

It “came into the gate, backed up to Camp 1 and took a detainee out of Camp 1 Alpha Block and put him into the paddy wagon and drove” off.

The same procedure repeated two more times. “I got suspicious because there were no military commissions going on. They were taking detainees outside of Camp America,” Hickman explained.

“I was suspicious of why they were doing it and where they were going.” Vans headed for “a facility which we called Camp No” – a secret Guantanamo CIA black site.

“All three of those detainees (sent to the) CIA black site that night were (hunger strike) leaders. There were constant hunger strikes…causing a lot of problems for the command.”

At least one victim, Yassar Talal Al Zahrani, wrote his father before his death, saying camp authorities wanted to get rid of him.

After leaving Guantanamo, Hickman “went to the Justice Department once. (T)hey squashed the story because I was revealing the CIA black site and they did not want that information out,” he explained.

Human rights attorney Scott Horton’s Harper’s magazine report, titled “The Guantanamo ‘Suicides’ – A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle” discussed Hickman’s revelations in detail.

Nothing changed. His own book is due out in February, titled “Murder at Camp Delta” telling his firsthand account of things with hindsight.

The victims in question “did not commit suicide,” he said. Their deaths haunted him “until (he) came forward.”

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.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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Christian refugees from Syria claim they saw a former Islamic State member living in Frankfurt, and that this is not an isolated case. Police investigated but refused to file charges because the alleged terrorist has done nothing criminal in Germany.

On his last visit to the Saarland region of Germany, on the border with France, RT’s Peter Oliver met with a group of Assyrian Christians who had been held hostage by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

They recalled that while being held in IS captivity, the only thing they prayed for was to be shot instead of being beheaded.

The same community, now living in the city of Saarlouis, say the horrors of that experience have followed them all the way to Germany, after they found out that a man they say had ties to Islamic State is living among them.

A refugee, who only agreed to speak to RT on condition of anonymity, said he is positive the man living in his town is the same member

of IS he encountered in Syria.

“He stopped me many times at the checkpoint near our village; we were even able to find him on Facebook, I go to the web page and th

ere’s this guy again,” the refugee said.

When the man first saw the jihadist in Germany, his reaction was that of panic.

“I was very scared that this terrorist is in a democratic state like Germany just living here,” the refugee told RT, adding that he does not understand how those who kept whole families hostage now have Syrian refugee status in Germany.

Germany ‘prime target’ for Paris-style terrorist attacks – leaked govt report https://t.co/06bNKUxEtypic.twitter.com/1c6GWMMtU4

— RT (@RT_com) January 14, 2016

The Assyrian community now feels very insecure as “this was not the first case” a former IS member had been recognized, the man said. He added that some people are even considering leaving Germany, but do not know where to run to.

Community leaders say that once they were convinced the ‘refugee’ was in fact a former jihadist, they went straight to the police.

“The police have taken this very seriously, but we worry that the law cannot back this up with a strong case. They have to wait until this person does something criminal here,” Charlie Kanoun, the chairman of the Assyrian Culture Association, told RT.

“But those people were killers in Syria and fly the ISIS flag here even. Such people should have no place in Germany,” Kanoun said.

Police confirmed that an investigation is underway, but no charges relating to terrorism or any other crime have been brought.

As the investigation continues, and with the influx of refugees showing no signs of slowing, the question is being asked as to who exactly is coming to Europe.

“This is a very difficult point for our community here. Those victims of kidnapping were brought here for safety and security, and then these terrorists are here,” Kanoun said, adding that the German authorities “are being very gentle with them,” reiterating that his compatriots might have to flee again.

“This is tragic that we will again be forced to be refugees, this time in a Christian state that cannot protect us,” Kanoun said.

Last February, Islamic State kidnapped around 250 Assyrian Christians and demanded ransoms of $100,000 per person. Some have since been released but many remain in captivity.

“ISIS came to our village, they devastated our fields, burnt our churches, tore apart our lives. They kidnapped us, murdered us. We have an unbearable feeling of loss,” a former hostage told RT.

He recalled that while in captivity, he overheard a conversation between his captors, saying that “the West will belong to us and we will conquer it through Islamization.”

Muslims should have their culture in their countries – Czech president https://t.co/LK3J8eZ7Pmpic.twitter.com/mLKAiOmW6b

— RT (@RT_com) January 19, 2016

One of the IS militants holding Assyrian Christians captive was a German who had converted to radical Islam, the former hostage said.

The German security services are currently preparing findings on more than 790 German Islamists who have traveled to Syria, the National Police Bureau of Saarland reported.

Germany has seen increasing tensions over the migrant issue. Recently scuffles broke out between police and a group of protesters who were attempting to disrupt a right-wing rally near Berlin.

The Alternative for Germany Party was demonstrating in the city of Potsdam in support of women’s rights, following the mass sex attacks in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.

They were confronted by a counter-protest claiming the assaults are being used to incite hatred towards migrants.

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Hillary Clinton Seeks Neocon Shelter

January 24th, 2016 by Robert Parry

Stunned by falling poll numbers, Hillary Clinton is hoping that Democrats will rally to her neocon-oriented foreign policy and break with Bernie Sanders as insufficiently devoted to Israel. But will that hawkish strategy work this time, asks Robert Parry.

In seeking to put Sen. Bernie Sanders on the defensive over his foreign policy positions, ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is embracing a neoconservative stance on the Middle East and gambling that her more hawkish approach will win over Democratic voters.

Losing ground in Iowa and New Hampshire in recent polls, the Clinton campaign has counterattacked against Sanders, targeting his sometimes muddled comments on the Mideast crisis, but Clinton’s attack line suggests that Sanders isn’t adequately committed to the positions of Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his American neocon acolytes.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton’s strategy is to hit Sanders for seeking a gradual normalization of relations with Iran, while Clinton has opted for the neocon position of demonizing Iran and siding with Israel and its quiet alliance with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states that share Israel’s animosity toward Shiite-ruled Iran.

By attaching herself to this neocon approach of hyping every conceivable offense by Iran while largely excusing the human rights crimes of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni-run states, Clinton is betting that most Democratic voters share the neocon-dominated “group think” of Official Washington: “Iran-our-enemy, Israel/Saudi Arabia-our-friends.”

She made similar calculations when she voted for and supported President George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq; when she sided with the neocons in pushing President Barack Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan; and when she instigated “regime change” in Libya – all policies that had dubious and dangerous outcomes. But she seems to still believe that she will benefit politically if she continues siding with the neocons and their “liberal interventionist” side-kicks.

On Thursday, the Clinton campaign put Sanders’s suggestion of eventual diplomatic relations with Iran in the context of his lack of ardor toward defending Israel.

“Normal relations with Iran right now?” said Jake Sullivan, the campaign’s senior policy adviser. “President Obama doesn’t support that idea. And it’s not at all clear why it is that Senator Sanders is suggesting it. … Many of you know Iran has pledged the destruction of Israel.”

Actually, the Clinton campaign is mischaracterizing Sanders’s position as expressed in last Sunday’s debate. Sanders opposed immediate diplomatic relations with Tehran.

“Understanding that Iran’s behavior in so many ways is something that we disagree with; their support of terrorism, the anti-American rhetoric that we’re hearing from their leadership is something that is not acceptable,” Sanders said. “Can I tell you that we should open an embassy in Tehran tomorrow? No, I don’t think we should.”

Standing with the Establishment

But the Clinton campaign’s distortions aside, there is the question of whether or not the Democratic base has begun to reject Official Washington’s whatever-Israel-wants orthodoxy.

Hillary Clinton seems to be betting that rank-and-file Democrats remain enthralled to Israel and afraid to challenge the powerful neocon propaganda machine that controls the U.S. establishment’s foreign policy by dominating major op-ed pages, TV political chat shows and leading think tanks. The neocons also maintain close ties to the “liberal interventionists” who hold down key jobs in the Obama administration.

Clinton’s gamble assumes that progressives and foreign-policy “realists” have failed to develop their own infrastructure for examining and debunking many of the neocon/liberal-hawk propaganda themes and thus any politician who deviates too far from those “group thinks” risks getting marginalized.

In other words, Clinton is counting on the establishment structure holding through Election 2016 despite the populist anger that is evident from the surge of support for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders on the left and for billionaire nativist Donald Trump on the right.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Democratic presidential debate sponsored by CNN.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Democratic presidential debate sponsored by CNN.

In effect, this election is asking American voters if they want incremental changes to the current system – represented by establishment candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush – or if they want to shake the system up with insurgent candidates like Sanders and Trump.

Though most neocons are supporting Republican establishment candidates who have sworn allegiance to the Israeli/neocon cause, the likes of Sen. Marco Rubio, some prominent neocons have made clear that they would be happy with Hillary Clinton as president.

For instance, neocon superstar Robert Kagan told The New York Times in 2014 that he hoped that his neocon views – which he now prefers to call “liberal interventionist” – would prevail in a possible Hillary Clinton administration. After all, Secretary of State Clinton named Kagan to one of her State Department advisory boards and promoted his wife, neocon Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the provocative “regime change” in Ukraine in 2014.

According to the Times’ article, Clinton “remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes.”

Kagan is quoted as saying: “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. …  If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue … it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Though Clinton recently has sought to portray herself as an Obama loyalist – especially in South Carolina where she is counting on strong African-American support – she actually has adopted far more hawkish positions than the President, both when she was a senator and as Obama’s first secretary of state.

‘Team of Rivals’ Debacle

Arguably, Obama’s most fateful decision of his presidency occurred shortly after the 2008 election when he opted for the trendy idea of a “team of rivals” to run his foreign policy. He left Bush family loyalist Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, retained a neocon-dominated senior officer corps led by the likes of Gen. David Petraeus, and picked hawkish Sen. Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State. Thus, Obama never took control of his own foreign policy.

The troika of Clinton-Gates-Petraeus challenged Obama over his desire to wind down the Afghan War, bureaucratically mouse-trapping him into an ill-advised “surge” that accomplished little other than getting another 1,750 U.S. soldiers killed along with many more Afghans. Nearly three-quarters of the 2,380 U.S. soldiers who died in Afghanistan were killed on Obama’s watch.

Ironically, it was Gates who shed the most light on Clinton’s neocon-oriented positions in his memoir, Duty, written after he left the Pentagon in 2011. While generally flattering Clinton for her like-minded positions, Gates also portrays Clinton as a pedestrian foreign policy thinker who is easily duped and leans toward military solutions.

Former CIA Director (and later Defense Secretary) Robert Gates.

Former CIA Director (and later Defense Secretary) Robert Gates.

Indeed, for thoughtful and/or progressive Democrats, the prospect of a President Hillary Clinton could represent a step back from some of President Barack Obama’s more innovative foreign policy strategies, particularly his readiness to cooperate with the Russians and Iranians to defuse Middle East tensions and his willingness to face down the Israel Lobby when it is pushing for heightened confrontations and war.

Based on her public record and Gates’s insider account, Clinton could be expected to favor a neoconservative approach to the Mideast, one more in line with the dominant thinking of Official Washington and the belligerent dictates of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Standing with Israeli Bigots

As a U.S. senator and as Secretary of State, Clinton rarely challenged the conventional wisdom on the Mideast or resisted the use of military force to solve problems. She famously voted for the Iraq War in 2002 – falling for President George W. Bush’s bogus WMD case – and remained a war supporter until her position became politically untenable during Campaign 2008.

Representing New York, Clinton avoided criticizing Israeli actions. In summer 2006, as Israeli warplanes pounded southern Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 Lebanese, Sen. Clinton shared a stage with Israel’s bigoted Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman who had said, “While it may be true – and probably is – that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim.”

At a pro-Israel rally with Clinton in New York on July 17, 2006, Gillerman proudly defended Israel’s massive violence against targets in Lebanon. “Let us finish the job,” Gillerman told the crowd. “We will excise the cancer in Lebanon” and “cut off the fingers” of Hezbollah.

Responding to international concerns that Israel was using “disproportionate” force in bombing Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians, Gillerman said, “You’re damn right we are.” [NYT, July 18, 2006]

Sen. Clinton did not protest Gillerman’s remarks, since doing so would presumably have offended an important pro-Israel constituency, which she has continued to cultivate.

In November 2006, when President Bush nominated Gates to be Defense Secretary, Clinton gullibly misread the significance of the move. She interpreted it as a signal that the Iraq War was being wound down when it actually presaged the opposite, that an escalation or “surge” was coming.

From her seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Clinton failed to penetrate the smokescreen around Gates’s selection. The reality was that Bush had ousted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in part, because he had sided with Generals John Abizaid and George Casey who favored shrinking the U.S. military footprint in Iraq. Gates was privately onboard for replacing those generals and expanding the U.S. footprint.

On with the Surge

After getting blindsided by Gates over what became a “surge” of 30,000 additional U.S. troops, Sen. Clinton sided with Democrats who objected to the escalation, but Gates quotes her in his memoir as later telling President Obama that she did so only for political reasons.

Gates recalled a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009, to discuss whether to authorize a similar “surge” in Afghanistan, a position favored by both Defense Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Clinton, who supported an even higher number of troops than Gates did. But the Afghan “surge” faced skepticism from Vice President Joe Biden and other White House staffers.

Gates wrote that he and Clinton “were the only outsiders in the session, considerably outnumbered by White House insiders. … Obama said at the outset to Hillary and me, ‘It’s time to lay our cards on the table, Bob, what do you think?’ I repeated a number of the main points I had made in my memo to him [urging three brigades].

Hillary agreed with my overall proposal but urged the president to consider approving the fourth brigade combat team if the allies wouldn’t come up with the troops.

In Duty, Gates cited his collaboration with Clinton as crucial to his success in getting Obama to agree to the Afghan troop escalation and the expanded goal of counterinsurgency. Referring to Clinton, Gates wrote, “we would develop a very strong partnership, in part because it turned out we agreed on almost every important issue.”

President Barack Obama stands with Vice President Joe Biden in the Green Room of the White House prior to delivering a statement on the economy on Nov. 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama stands with Vice President Joe Biden in the Green Room of the White House prior to delivering a statement on the economy on Nov. 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The hawkish Gates-Clinton tandem helped counter the more dovish team including Vice President Biden, several members of the National Security Council staff and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, who tried to steer President Obama away from this deeper involvement.

Gates wrote, “I was confident that Hillary and I would be able to work closely together. Indeed, before too long, commentators were observing that in an administration where all power and decision making were gravitating to the White House, Clinton and I represented the only independent ‘power center,’ not least because, for very different reasons, we were both seen as ‘un-fireable.’”

Political Expediency

Gates also reported on what he regarded as a stunning admission by Clinton, writing: “The exchange that followed was remarkable. In strongly supporting the surge in Afghanistan, Hillary told the president that her opposition to the surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary [in 2008]. She went on to say, ‘The Iraq surge worked.’

“The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.” (Obama’s aides disputed Gates’s suggestion that the President indicated that his opposition to the Iraq “surge” was political, noting that he had always opposed the Iraq War. The Clinton team did not challenge Gates’s account.)

But the exchange, as recounted by Gates, indicates that Clinton not only let her political needs dictate her position on an important national security issue, but that she accepts as true the superficial conventional wisdom about the “successful surge” in Iraq.

While that is indeed Official Washington’s beloved interpretation – in part because influential neocons believe the “surge” rehabilitated their standing after the WMD fiasco and the disastrous Iraq War – the reality is that the Iraq “surge” never achieved its stated goal of buying time to reconcile the country’s sectarian divides, which remain bloody to this day and helped create the conditions for the emergence of the Islamic State, which began as “Al Qaeda in Iraq.”

The truth that Hillary Clinton apparently doesn’t recognize is that the “surge” was only “successful” in that it delayed the ultimate American defeat until President Bush and his neocon cohorts had vacated the White House and the blame for the failure could be shifted, at least partly, to President Obama.

Other than sparing “war president” Bush the humiliation of having to admit defeat, the dispatching of 30,000 additional U.S. troops in early 2007 did little more than get nearly 1,000 additional Americans killed – almost one-quarter of the war’s total U.S. deaths – along with what certainly was a much higher number of Iraqis.

For example, WikiLeaks’s “Collateral Murder.” video depicted one 2007 scene during the “surge” in which U.S. firepower mowed down a group of Iraqi men, including two Reuters news staffers, walking down a street in Baghdad. The attack helicopters then killed a Good Samaritan, when he stopped his van to take survivors to a hospital, and severely wounded two children in the van.

The Unsuccessful Surge

A more rigorous analysis of what happened in Iraq in 2007-08 – apparently beyond Hillary Clinton’s abilities or inclination – would trace the decline in Iraqi sectarian violence mostly to strategies that predated the “surge” and were implemented in 2006 by Generals Casey and Abizaid.

Among their initiatives, Casey and Abizaid deployed a highly classified operation to eliminate key Al Qaeda leaders, most notably the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006. Casey and Abizaid also exploited growing Sunni animosities toward Al Qaeda extremists by paying off Sunni militants to join the so-called “Awakening” in Anbar Province.

And, as the Sunni-Shiite sectarian killings reached horrendous levels in 2006, the U.S. military assisted in the de facto ethnic cleansing of mixed neighborhoods by helping Sunnis and Shiites move into separate enclaves, thus making the targeting of ethnic enemies more difficult. In other words, the flames of violence were likely to have abated whether Bush ordered the “surge” or not.

Radical Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr also helped by issuing a unilateral cease-fire, reportedly at the urging of his patrons in Iran who were interested in cooling down regional tensions and speeding up the U.S. withdrawal. By 2008, another factor in the declining violence was the growing awareness among Iraqis that the U.S. military’s occupation indeed was coming to an end. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insisted on – and got – a firm timetable for American withdrawal from Bush.

Embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. (Photo credit: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jessica J. Wilkes)

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. (Photo credit: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jessica J. Wilkes)

Even author Bob Woodward, who had published best-sellers that praised Bush’s early war judgments, concluded that the “surge” was only one factor and possibly not even a major one in the declining violence.

In his book, The War Within, Woodward wrote, “In Washington, conventional wisdom translated these events into a simple view: The surge had worked. But the full story was more complicated. At least three other factors were as important as, or even more important than, the surge.”

Woodward, whose book drew heavily from Pentagon insiders, listed the Sunni rejection of Al Qaeda extremists in Anbar province and the surprise decision of al-Sadr to order a cease-fire as two important factors. A third factor, which Woodward argued may have been the most significant, was the use of new highly classified U.S. intelligence tactics that allowed for rapid targeting and killing of insurgent leaders.

However, in Washington, where the neocons remained very influential, the myth grew that Bush’s “surge” had brought the violence under control. Gen. Petraeus, who took command of Iraq after Bush yanked Casey and Abizaid, was elevated into hero status as the military genius who achieved “victory at last” in Iraq (as Newsweek declared).

Buying Fallacies

Even the inconvenient truths that the United States was unceremoniously ushered out of Iraq in 2011 and that Iraq’s Shiite-Sunni divide widened into a chasm that has since spread divisions into Syria and even into Europe did not dent the cherished conventional wisdom about the “successful surge.”

Yet, it is one thing for neocon pundits to promote such fallacies; it is another thing for the alleged Democratic front-runner for President in 2016 to believe this nonsense. And to say that she only opposed the “surge” out of a political calculation could border on disqualifying.

But the pattern fits with Clinton’s previous decisions. She belatedly broke with the Iraq War during Campaign 2008 only when she realized that her hawkish stance was damaging her political chances against Obama, who had opposed the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Yet, as Secretary of State, Clinton sought to purge officials seen as insufficiently hawkish. After Obama hesitantly approved the Afghan “surge” – and reportedly immediately regretted his decision – Clinton took aim at Eikenberry, a retired general who had served in Afghanistan before being named ambassador.

Pressing for his removal, “Hillary had come to the meeting loaded for bear,” Gates wrote. “She gave a number of specific examples of Eikenberry’s insubordination to herself and her deputy. … She said, ‘He’s a huge problem.’ …

She went after the NSS [national security staff] and the White House staff, expressing anger at their direct dealings with Eikenberry and offering a number of examples of what she termed their arrogance, their efforts to control the civilian side of the war effort, their refusal to accommodate requests for meetings. …

As she talked, she became more forceful. ‘I’ve had it,’ she said, ‘You want it [control of the civilian side of the war], I’ll turn it all over to you and wash my hands of it. I’ll not be held accountable for something I cannot manage because of White House and NSS interference.’

However, when the protests failed to get Eikenberry and General Douglas Lute, a deputy national security adviser, fired, Gates concluded that they had the protection of President Obama and reflected his doubts about the Afghan War policy:

It had become clear that Eikenberry and Lute, whatever their shortcomings, were under an umbrella of protection at the White House. With Hillary and me so adamant that the two should leave, that protection could come only from the president.

The Libya Fiasco

In 2011, Secretary of State Clinton also was a hawk on military intervention in Libya to oust (and ultimately kill) Muammar Gaddafi. However, on Libya, Defense Secretary Gates sided with the doves, feeling that the U.S. military was already overextended in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and another intervention risked further alienating the Muslim world.

This time, Gates found himself lined up with Biden “urging caution,” while Clinton joined with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and NSC aides Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power in “urging aggressive U.S. action to prevent an anticipated massacre of the rebels as Qaddafi fought to remain in power,” Gates wrote. “In the final phase of the internal debate, Hillary threw her considerable clout behind Rice, Rhodes and Power.”

Ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly before he was murdered on Oct. 20, 2011.

Ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly before he was murdered on Oct. 20, 2011.

President Obama again ceded to Clinton’s advocacy for war and supported a Western bombing campaign that enabled the rebels, including Islamic extremists with ties to Al Qaeda, to seize control of Tripoli and hunt down Gaddafi, who was tortured and executed on Oct. 20, 2011.

Clinton expressed, delight when she received the news of Gaddafi’s murder. “We came. We saw. He died,” she chortled, paraphrasing Julius Caesar’s boast after a victory by Imperial Rome.

After Clinton’s “victory,” Libya became a major source for regional instability, including an assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. personnel, an incident that Clinton has called the worst moment in her four years as Secretary of State. The Islamic State also gained a foothold inside Libya, chopping off the heads of Coptic Christians.

Gates retired from the Pentagon on July 1, 2011; Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Nov. 9, 2012, amid a sex-and-secrets scandal; and Clinton stepped down at the State Department on Feb. 1, 2013, after Obama’s reelection.

In 2013, with Clinton gone, Obama charted a more innovative foreign policy course, collaborating with Russian President Vladimir Putin to achieve diplomatic breakthroughs on Syria and Iran, rather than seeking military solutions. In both cases, Obama had to face down hawkish sentiments in his own administration and in Congress, as well as Israeli and Saudi opposition.

But the neocon empire struck back in 2014, with Assistant Secretary Nuland orchestrating a “regime change” in Ukraine on Russia’s border and with the neocon-dominated opinion circles of Official Washington placing the blame for the Ukraine crisis on President Putin’s “aggression.”

Faced with this new “group think” – and still influenced by liberal interventionist advisers such as Susan Rice and Samantha Power – Obama joined the chorus of hate-talk against Putin, ratcheting up tensions with Russia and agreeing to escalate covert U.S. support for Syrian rebels seeking the long-held neocon goal of “regime change” in Syria.

However, Obama continued to collaborate behind the scenes with Russia to achieve an agreement to constrain Iran’s nuclear program — to the dismay of the neocons who wanted instead to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran on their way to seeking another “regime change.”

Bashing Iran

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was a hawk on the Iranian nuclear issue. In 2009-2010, when Iran first indicated a willingness to compromise, she led the opposition to any negotiated settlement and pushed for punishing sanctions.

To clear the route for sanctions, Clinton helped sink agreements tentatively negotiated with Iran to ship most of its low-enriched uranium out of the country. In 2009, Iran was refining uranium only to the level of about 3-4 percent, as needed for energy production. Its negotiators offered to swap much of that for nuclear isotopes for medical research.

But the Obama administration and the West rebuffed the Iranian gesture because it would have left Iran with enough enriched uranium to theoretically refine much higher – up to 90 percent – for potential use in a single bomb, though Iran insisted it had no such intention and U.S. intelligence agencies agreed.

Then, in spring 2010, Iran accepted another version of the uranium swap proposed by the leaders of Brazil and Turkey, with the apparent backing of President Obama. But that arrangement came under fierce attack by Secretary Clinton and was derided by leading U.S. news outlets, including editorial writers at the New York Times who mocked Brazil and Turkey as being “played by Tehran.”

The ridicule of Brazil and Turkey – as bumbling understudies on the world stage – continued even after Brazil released Obama’s private letter to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva encouraging Brazil and Turkey to work out the deal. Despite the letter’s release, Obama didn’t publicly defend the swap and instead joined in scuttling the deal, another moment when Clinton and administration hardliners got their way.

That set the world on the course for tightened economic sanctions on Iran and heightened tensions that brought the region close to another war. As Israel threatened to attack, Iran expanded its nuclear capabilities by increasing enrichment to 20 percent to fill its research needs, moving closer to the level necessary for building a bomb.

Clinton’s Course

Ironically, the nuclear deal reached in late 2013 – and solidified in 2015 – essentially accepts Iran’s low-enrichment of uranium for peaceful purposes, pretty much where matters stood in 2009-2010. But the Israel Lobby quickly set to work, again, trying to torpedo the new Iran agreements by getting Congress to approve new sanctions on Iran.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani celebrates the completion of an interim deal on Iran's nuclear program on Nov. 24, 2013, by kissing the head of the daughter of an assassinated Iranian nuclear engineer. (Iranian government photo)

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani celebrates the completion of an interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program on Nov. 24, 2013, by kissing the head of the daughter of an assassinated Iranian nuclear engineer. (Iranian government photo)

Clinton remained noncommittal for several weeks as momentum for the sanctions bill grew, but she finally declared her support for President Obama’s opposition to the new sanctions. In a Jan. 26, 2014 letter to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, she wrote:

Now that serious negotiations are finally under way, we should do everything we can to test whether they can advance a permanent solution. As President Obama said, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed, while keeping all options on the table. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that imposing new unilateral sanctions now ‘would undermine the prospects for a successful comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.’ I share that view.

One key question for a Clinton presidential candidacy has been whether she would build on the diplomatic foundation that Obama has laid regarding Iran and Russia— or dismantle it and return to a neocon foreign policy focused on “regime change” and catering to the views of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In her campaign’s latest comments, Hillary Clinton has made clear that she has little interest in deviating further from the Israeli-neocon prescribed hostility toward Iran by letting her campaign accuse Sanders of softness on Tehran.

So, with her once-solid polls numbers softening, she has decided to appeal to hawkish Democrats and the muscular support of the Israel Lobby to help her fend off the Sanders surge.

Clinton is rolling the dice in the belief that most Democrats won’t think through the fallacious “group thinks” of Official Washington – or will at least be scared and confused enough to steer away from Sanders. That way, Clinton believes she can still win the nomination.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon andbarnesandnoble.com).

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Litvinenko: The Russian Spy Who Worked for MI5 / MI6

January 24th, 2016 by Dr. Christof Lehmann

The Inquiry into the death of defected FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko concluded with a report, quoting his wife as saying that he either worked for the UK’s intelligence service MI5 or MI6. The report does not document but “implies” the direct involvement of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among other by quoting Putin as having said that those who murdered Litvinenko were not God, and that Litvinenko obviously wasn’t Lazarus. 

Alexander Litvinenko defected from Russia to the UK in 2000 after an intermediate release from prison. The former KGB, then FSB officer was arrested on 25 March 1999. He was charged and detained in the FSB Lefortovo prison in Moscow. The charges against Mr Litvinenko were of exceeding his authority by assaulting a suspect.

Alexander Litvinenko_UK_Russia_Grave_PDLitvinenko maintained that charges against him were false or trumped-up. He died in the UK in November 2006 after three weeks of illness. The cause of death was determined to have been polonium poisoning. It is noteworthy that the late Palestinian President Yassir Arafat also succumbed to polonium poisoning.

Litvinenko was one of the former KGB / FSB officers close to the Russian oligarchs who secured the re-election of President Boris Yeltsin and usurped de facto power over many of Russia’s governmental and business affairs.

Litvinenko was particularly close to the late oligarch Boris Berezovsky who also fled Russia after the election of Vladimir Putin to the presidency. Berezovsky made his first money selling cars and accumulated his first considerable “wealth” by defrauding thousands of investors in a Russian car production that never manifested. He was first introduced into the inner circle at the Kremlin during Yeltsin’s presidency, after a failed attempt on his life.

The inquiry report implies that the murder of Litvinenko may be linked to Russian legislation adopted in 2006. The first of the 2006 laws was Federal Law no.35-FZ of 2006 – On Counteraction of Terrorism. It was adopted by the State Duma on 26 February 2006, endorsed by the Federation Council on 1 March 2006 and signed into law by President Putin on 6 March 2006. The Terrorism Law runs to some 17 pages and reads as a code providing for anti-terrorism measures to be taken by Russian forces. The inquiry report states that :

One of the striking features of the Terrorism Law is that it makes provision for Russian forces to take action against terrorism beyond the borders of the Russian Federation. 5.5 The Terrorism Law contemplates anti-terrorism action being taken both by Russia’s armed forces, and also by the “federal security service – i.e. the FSB.”

The report resulting from the inquiry into Litivinenko’s death is widely criticized as being biased against Russia and Vladimir Putin. The Russian legislation is comparable to the US Presidential Order that allows the US President to sign daily “kill lists” and similar legislation in many other countries like for example Israel.

One of the most controversial accusations Litvinenko levied against Vladimir Putin was that Putin and the Russian Security Services were implicated in the bombing of apartment blocks. Bombings which were then blamed on Chechen separatists to justify the war against Chechnya and to secure Putin’s power base by distracting from domestic political issues, said Litvinenko.

The report claims that the poisoning of Litvinenko with polonium “may” indeed have been carried out on Putin’s order. The report highlights a quote according to which Putin has said that “Those who killed Litvinenko were not God, and that Mr. Litvinenko obviously was not Lazarus”. 

The inquiry report quotes Litvinenko’s wife Marina Litvinenko as saying that Alexander had been working for one of the UK’s intelligence services. She wasn’t sure whether it was the domestic intelligence service MI5, the foreign intelligence service MI6 or for both. Marina would, however, stress that he was not “an agent” but had been working for them  “as a contractor or consultant”.

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The Donald shoots from the hip and changes his tune every few minutes. True. He thinks about one thing, and that reminds him of something else, and then he goes off on that. However, as he keeps talking and talking and talking, he’s deciding that some of what he’s saying makes sense. He’s firming up his belief in his own sales-pitch. He’s doubling down and getting serious.

And one of the things he’s serious about is trade deals. Bad Globalist deals. Deals that steal more American jobs. He and Bernie Sanders wouldn’t admit it, but they both agree on this general point.

In fact, a new study out of Tufts University torpedoes glowing estimates of the latest such deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The study authors predict the consequences: another 450,000 jobs will be lost in the US by 2025. Oops. Another Globalist trade treaty sucks life out of the American economy. Which is precisely why Obama is obsessed with passing it.

(The study is titled “Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.” A quick breakdown of the study is ontechdirt.com, here; free access to the full paper is on tufts.edu, here)

Bilderberg and the Council on Foreign Relations and Rockefeller Globalists are counting on the TPP. It’s one of their precious babiesThey want to undermine the US economy.It’s part of their sink-America program, to pave the way for One United Planet under one management system. Not an American empire. A globalist empire.

And they don’t want some out-of-control US Presidential candidate, whose crowds and poll numbers keep swelling like a massive infection, to swipe and swipe and swipe at these trade treaties and dream up ways to bring more jobs back home. They definitely don’t want that—especially after their current marionette in the White House has done such fine work drowning the economic life of the US. The issuance of new credit cards and part-time work at fast-food joints pouring chocolate on French fries don’t equal renewed prosperity, in case you were fooled by official economic-indicator reports.

These elite Globalist don’t believe for a minute that Trump alone can turn back the clock on their ongoing destruction. But they do realize he can keep talking about it. And in doing so, he can force more people to wake up to the fact that they’re being screwed—and how they’re being screwed.

Globalism is all about allowing mega-corporations to take their factories and jobs out of the country overseas. It’s a cornerstone of every trade deal. Mega-corps can manufacture their products more cheaply in a hell hole with slave workers, and then export those products back here (and to other industrialized countries)—and pay no tariffs. How sweet (and destructive) it is.

Trump, like some swaggering cowboy, keeps shooting his six-guns at this program, even though he doesn’t apparently understand the bottom-line motivation behind it. Or who knows? Maybe he does and he’s staying silent about it.

How did this guy get in the door? Why can’t the media shut up about him? Why does every attack against him, valid or invalid, bring more supporters to his side? What happened to Globalist Jeb? Why is he curled up in fetal position in his bedroom eating Snickers and watching home movies of his family?

Hillary is on board with the Globalist program. She’s all about cold-blooded revenge against the greatest number of people possible. She eats attacks against her, and converts them into dark anti-matter.

But Trump? He’s Mr. Brassy Salesman who parlayed his con and his bankruptcies and his execrable TV show into a fortune. And then he somehow got a few actual ideas into his oversized head. How? Why? Can’t somebody put him on a no-fly list? Can’t he be declared a terrorist or at least a national security risk? Can’t the NSA cough up a few juicy tidbits about his personal life? Haven’t the FBI or the CIA already slipped a few slimeballs into his campaign? There are spies who spy on spies spying on other spies, and they can’t squeeze out one rank and repulsive fact that’ll sink Trump’s ship?

In his 2003 Memoirs, David Rockefeller wrote:

Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.

Are we going to let darling David, who’s what, 175 years old now, go to his grave hearing the absurd burlesque echoes of Donald Trump ringing in his ears?

What used to be called the Eastern Establishment—Globalist Ivy League domeheads gazing at the world through the wrong ends of telescopes from Park Avenue penthouses—are in a Trump quandary. They’re disturbed. They have incipient ass-rash and stress-shingles. The natural order of things is wobbling.

Shut this Momzer up!

The permanent underclass must expand.

Economic chaos must prevail, so a new order can be instituted.

Mega-corporations must rule the world (for a while).

The Globalist hope is this: Eventually, Trump will be discredited as a goofball; and therefore, for the foreseeable future, no one else with any clout will raise the issue of trade treaties or the destruction of economies. Trump and whatever he stood for will be remembered as a flash in the pan, a one-hit wonder.

Globalism, as it moves forward, will become a forgotten word.

And the band will play on.

Understand: there are two basic stripes of Globalist. The first is America-first. They want a single managed planet, but they want the US to be the top-boss in the crime empire. The second, as evidenced by the Rockefeller quote above, and by the core international membership of Bilderberg heavy hitters, want shared leadership. The balance is delicate, and the conflict is real. As it moves forward, the last thing both types of Globalists want is some yahoo stepping into the frame and disrupting the whole show.

Trump’s qualifications for the Presidency, such as they are, are entirely beside this point. Whether he was originally put front and center to serve as a losing foil for Hillary Clintonis also, now, beside the point. He’s acquired too much support. As far as the Globalists are concerned, he is a problem.

Perhaps the polls are all wrong and the Primary season will douse the glow on his candle, and by the time the July Republican convention rolls around he’ll be back in New York wheeling and dealing real estate. They hope. There’s a chance no candidate will have enough votes for a slam-dunk nomination in Cleveland, in which case the process will be “brokered,” as they say. Jeb could then exert his power and play his cards behind the scene. But that would cause a major uproar among Trump’s supporters as they cry foul and raise hell, igniting a new nightmare.

Hillary’s inner circle might still be in the process of building up Trump, because they continue to believe he’ll be an easy mark in the election—but it seems late in the game for such a reckless assessment, given how far Trump has come in the last few months.

If some hidden ally is trying to help Trump stay afloat, he might also have non-Globalist convictions. Who, besides China (already in Trump’s crosshairs), is the biggest outsider vis-à-vis free trade? Who is angrily opposing the upcoming Globalist TTIP trade deal, which would cement tighter relations between the European Union and the US and make him even more of an outsider? Who has already expressed admiration for Trump and received kind words from The Donald? Yes, this is mere speculation, but there is one man who fits that bill:

Vladimir Putin. And Putin certainly took notice, last year, when the-hawk-Hillary compared him to, let’s see, who was that again, oh yes, Hitler.

Real estate cowboy and KGB lieutenant colonel? Different galaxies, but they have at least one thing in common: they like believing they’re the toughest guy in the room. Do they both like war too much?

As for the Republican party bosses, they’re going crazy trying to derail Trump. Their main argument seems to be: he’s not a legitimate candidate. But behind that, their actual concern comes back to their own membership in the Globalist club. By allowing Trump to maintain center stage, they’re violating every club rule. And the men who own them aren’t happy. Not happy at all. So these party big shots are backing away from Trump as far as they can, swearing loudly: “See, he’s not our man! Honest, we hate him! He’s a fiend! We want to fire him!”

But so far, Trump still has a patent on that phrase: “You’re fired!”

National politics and international politics are rigged games from top to bottom. But once in a while, a wild one turns up. That person may have started out as just another piece of the fix, but then he breaks away from the pack and stakes out his own territory. When this happens, he’s usually squelched long before he can build up a head of steam. But not now, not in this case.

The horse is out of the barn. And he’s not sprinting for the horizon. He’s prancing and dancing in the pasture. He’s rearing up on his hind legs, he’s jumping, he’s kicking up his heels. He’s doing whatever he wants to. And that’s the key, because the rest of the horses have long since been trained to act like machines. People know the difference. If given the choice, they move to the wild one. He reminds them that they, too, have been socialized to become machines. And they want out.

Yes, there is an definite upside and a downside to this shock and surprise and unpredicted circumstance. But regardless, it’s a fact. It’s happening.

People might wish the wild one was a Caruso or a Nijinsky or an Olivier or a Lincoln or a Tom Paine or a Gandhi—instead of a fast-talking self-promoting New York real estate hustler, who suddenly flips a switch and wants to go to war.

But in a machine world, strange things happen.

When the mandated pattern for all social behavior is cracked and broken and smashed, strange creatures emerge on stage, under the lights. However distorted they may seem, the audience suddenly pays attention, sniffing something they barely remember, but desperately want.

Does the creature dancing across the footlights accurately reflect the audience’s desire? It doesn’t matter to the audience. Because the thing most wished for, and most precious, is an article called freedom.

Will some people misinterpret what it means? You bet they will. They’ll say it’s license. They’ll do all sorts of crazy things with it.

When governments and corporations and media agents keep reshaping the world into new versions of locked-down conformity and robot behaviorism, the breakout will never be smooth.

—The original crime is the individual surrendering his own uniqueness, his own mind, his own imagination, his own formidable power. That’s where it started, and that’s where it comes back to.

Shrugging off inner slavery, across a whole population, and regressing in fear back to the mean, and breaking out again, are more than most people can handle.

But for those who can grasp the core of it, a new dawn rises. And things will never be the same again.

And that leaves Trump or any politician far behind.

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALEDEXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrixclick here.)

(For the complete Trump archive, click here.)

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 “Amnesty International has determined that numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.” Amnesty International [1]

Do you see law and order? There is nothing but disorder, and instead of law there is only the illusion of security. It is an illusion because it is built on a long history of injustices: racism, criminality, and the enslavement and genocide of millions. Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to.”  -Mumia Abu Jamal [2]

 

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Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent more than half his life behind prison bars.

In 1982, he was charged and convicted on the charge of murder in the first degree over the shooting death of Philadelphia Police officer Daniel Faulkner.

At the time of his arrest Mumia Abu-Jamal was a supporter of the revolutionary MOVE organization, a former member of the Black Panther Party and a dissident radio journalist covering stories of police corruption and repression of people in the African-American community. He was president of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Association of Black Journalists. His uncompromising approach to reporting cost him work for mainstream news organizations, and taking on free-lance work, supplementing his income by driving a taxi cab. [3][4]

It is widely speculated that his fearless and uncompromising journalism and truth-telling was a little too inconvenient for certain entrenched interests, providing a motive to eliminate him.

There is overwhelming evidence of irregularities in the legal proceedings which convicted Mumia. Further, it appears that police and legal officials may have conspired to frame Mumia for the murder. [5][6][7]

The apparent injustice of Mumia’s incarceration and condemnation to death inspired legions of supporters around the world to rise up and lobby on his behalf. A partial victory was finally realized on December 7, 2011 when Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced he would no longer seek the death penalty for Abu-Jamal. His sentence was subsequently reduced to life with no possibility of parole. [8]

Currently, Mumia’s life is in jeopardy due to the effects of a Hepatitis-C infection believed to have been contracted from a blood transfusion he received after being shot during the ’81 encounter with Officer Faulkner. [9]

Mumia’s supporters, citing Mumia’s personal physician and esteemed medical authorities claim that the Philadelphia Department of Corrections (DOC) is deliberately withholding treatments for Hep-C from him and other prisoners suffering from the same malady. As of August of 2015, a lawsuit has been filed against the DOC demanding damages, injunctive relief and a declaration of unconstitutional denial of medical treatment in Mumia’s case. [10]

As these current events unfold, the Global Research News Hour attempts to shine a spotlight on Mumia’s situation with two guests.

Suzanne Ross is a clinical psychologist, a long-time anti-imperialist activist and representative of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. She breaks down the particulars of Mumia’s case from the time of his initial arrest and sentencing to the current fight for his life.

 Glen Ford is executive editor of Black Agenda Report, an on-line resource detailing news and analysis from the black left. Ford places Mumia’s case in the context of a history of repression of the African-American population going back to the days of slavery. Ford explains how this repression escalated into a full-blown counter-insurgency starting in the late sixties, which includes the elimination of prominent black leaders like Martin Luther King, and the mass incarceration of blacks.

Listeners wishing to involve themselves in the struggle to Free Mumia are encouraged to review the following on-line resources:

FreeMumia.com

Prisonradio.org

Here is an interview with Mumia from 1996:

 

Guest Suzanne Ross encourages Mumia’s supporters to contact Governor Tom Wolf at (717) 728-4109 to demand Mumia’s release, and the treatment that could save his life. 

The governor is not the worst. He actually signed a moratorium on the death penalty…in the face of the Fraternal Order of Police and the Republican Party and many other people being opposed to it, so he has some courage, some principles….continuing to focus on him, I think is strategic….to get those messages from around the world, I think is important.” – (Suzanne Ross from this week’s interview) 

Please be advised that in New York City, on Monday January 25, Suzanne Ross along with fellow supporter Pam Africa and attorney Bob Boyle will be presenting a ‘report back’ to the community on Mumia’s current situation and next steps. This event will start at 6:30pm local time at the historic Riverside Church (91 Claremont Avenue).

 

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

The  show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in every Monday at 3pm ET.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CFUV 101. 9 FM in Victoria. Airing Sundays from 7-8am PT.

CHLY 101.7 FM in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario – Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the  North Shore to the US Border. It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia Canada. – Tune in every Saturday at 6am.

 

Notes:

  1. USA: A Life in the Balance – The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Amnesty International, February, 2000, p.38; https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr51/001/2000/en/
  2. Mumia Abu Jamal, 1996, p.11, “Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience” from South End Press
  3. Johnson, Terry E; Hobbs, Michael A (December 10, 1981). “The Suspect – One Who Raised His Voice”. The Philadelphia Inquirer; https://web.archive.org/web/20070702232822/http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/botswana/509/inqarticles/12-10a.htm
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0GbNwKmHaE
  5. Ibid
  6. http://www.freemumia.com/who-is-mumia-abu-jamal/
  7. USA: A Life in the Balance – The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Amnesty International, February, 2000, pg. 20-23; https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr51/001/2000/en/
  8. Williams, Timothy (December 7, 2011). “Execution Case Dropped Against Abu-Jamal”, New York Times; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/us/execution-case-dropped-against-convicted-cop-killer.html?_r=0
  9. http://www.freemumia.com/2016/01/report-on-mumias-court-hearing/
  10. Ibid

US Unleashing Deadly Virus in Donbass, Ukraine?

January 23rd, 2016 by Stephen Lendman

Chemical, biological and radiological warfare is a longstanding US practice, used in direct and proxy wars, Syrians and Yemenis notably affected.

On January 22, the Donbass International News Agency (DINA) headlined “Deadly virus leaked from US laboratory – DPR Army and Intelligence,” saying:

“More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers have died and over 200 are hospitalized,” affected by a virus “immune to all medicines.”

Thousands of Ukrainian troops are stationed in areas bordering Donbass. Intermittent shelling continues, civilians largely threatened.

The lab in question is located in Shelkostantsiay, about 30 km from Kharkov near Donbass. “US military experts” operate there, said DINA.

Donbass Deputy Defense Minister/spokesman Eduard Basurin informed area residents of a potential epidemic.

“According to the medical personnel of the AFU units (Ukrainian troops), there were recorded mass diseases among the Ukrainian military personnel in the field,” he said.

Physicians recorded the unknown virus as a result of which the infected get (a) high fever which cannot be subdued by any medicines, and in two days there comes the fatal outcome.

Thus far from the virus there have died more than twenty servicemen, what is carefully shielded by the commandment of the AFU from the publicity.

Days earlier, DINA reported Ukrainian forces shelled Kominernovo, Zheleznaya Balka and Spartak.

Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) intelligence said Ukrainian forces and heavy weapons are deployed near the contact line – indicating a “readiness of the Ukrainian power agencies to aggravate the situation in Donbass,” DINA reported.

Kiev continues violating Minsk ceasefire terms – with full support and encouragement from Washington.

According to DPR intelligence, “(i)n eight localities of the ‘buffer zone’ seized by the AFU there were registered cleansings of the local population, defiant” of Minsk.

The cleansings are carried out by the representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) with reinforcement by units of the 36th separate naval infantry brigade, by reason of the huge information leak in these areas.

In particular, about concentration of the AFU’s forbidden arms and personnel in the so-called ‘grey’ zone, and preparation by the Ukrainian power structures of provocations against civilians.

Basurin said ISIS and other terrorist elements from Syria and Iraq now operate in Donbass. In mid-January, DPR’s Defense Ministry revealed foreign mercenaries in the self-declared republic.

They conduct “recurrent attacks on our positions,” it explained. Is Ukraine a new platform for ISIS expansion? Is Washington deploying their elements there?

Addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, John Kerry turned truth on its head, claiming a safer Middle East and world today.

Conditions are graver than ever. Endless US wars of aggression rage. Kiev refused to implement Minsk I and II ceasefire terms.

Washington wants war, not peace. It wants Donbass destabilized, its freedom fighters eliminated, its democratic rights denied.

Kerry telling WEF participants “it is possible in these next months to find those Minsk agreements implemented and to get to a place where sanctions (on Russia) can be appropriately…removed” runs counter to US policy since Obama replaced democrats with fascists in Ukraine, and Russia was falsely accused of invading its territory.

Illegal sanctions were imposed for fabricated reasons, European nations pressured to go along. Conflict resolution in Donbass remains elusive.

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.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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Video: The Fabricated Pretexts for War

January 23rd, 2016 by Prof. Tim Anderson

A brief selection of the fabricated pretexts for war, employed by the big power in recent decades.

This is far from a comprehensive list, just some examples to inform and remind.

Use of ‘Flames of War’ by Audiomachine is licensed.

.

Produced by Prof. Tim Anderson

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Selected Articles: Land Grabs, Secrecy Blackouts and Dirty Money.

January 23rd, 2016 by Global Research News

mh17European Court of Human Rights Refuses MH17 Victim’s Case against Ukraine Government, Imposes Secrecy Blackout on Evidence

By John Helmer, January 23 2016

The European Court of Human Rights is refusing to act on a year-old case from the daughter of a Dutch passenger killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down on July 14, 2014.

israel-palestineIsrael Razes EU-Built West Bank Humanitarian Buildings, Announces Land Grab

By Sputnik, January 23 2016

Amid heightened tensions between Israel and Western allies, Jerusalem on Thursday confirmed a major annexation of 154 hectares (380 acres) of territory north of the occupied West Bank.

US MilitaryAmerican Boots on the Ground. US Troops Take Over Syria Airbase. Kurdish YPG Gives US Sole Control Over Base

By Jason Ditz, January 23 2016

The Kurdish dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are reporting today that US troops have taken over control of the Rmeilan airfield in northeastern Syria’s Hasakeh Province, the first US military base inside Syria.

David Cameron addresses the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester Getty ImagesBritain’s “Creative Clout”: Arms Sales and “Advice on Killing” in Yemen

By Felicity Arbuthnot, January 23 2016

“Today, I want to speak about the once-in-a-generation chance we have, together, to improve the way we enhance the cause of human rights, freedom and dignity.” (David Cameron. Speech on the European Court of Human Rights, 25th January 2012.)

hillary clinton“Buying Hillary Clinton”: The Courting of Wall Street

By Binoy Kampmark, January 23 2016

“Anybody who thinks they can buy me doesn’t know me.” Hillary Clinton, The Hill, Jan 22, 2016

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The European Court of Human Rights is refusing to act on a year-old case from the daughter of a Dutch passenger killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down on July 14, 2014. Denise Kenke, daughter of Willem Grootscholten, accuses the Ukraine Government of failing its legal duty to prevent civilian aircraft from flying into the airspace Ukrainian officials knew to be dangerous. Her court papers say the claim is also founded on the conclusion of the Dutch Safety Board, reported last October, that the government in Kiev had been negligent in failing to act on “sufficient reason for closing the airspace above the eastern part of Ukraine”.

Although the 11-page application was filed on November 17, 2014, the Court has imposed a secrecy blackout on all details of the case, preventing website access. After Kenke’s lawyer, Elmar Giemulla of Berlin, a leading German aviation law specialist, filed additional argument, legal precedents, and evidence from the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), the Court refu nosed to acknowledge receipt or to reply. Tracey Turner-Tretz, spokesman for the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and its registrar, Roderick Liddell, a British national, said this week: “the application in question was granted confidentiality.”

DwB_1767

Giemulla for the Grootscholten family said he had not applied for confidentiality, and was not informed by the court that it had been imposed.

“I do not know anything about ‘grant of confidentiality’ . I do not even know whether the court has ever dealt with my complaint apart from internal administrative procedures.”

When Liddell and his spokesman Turner-Tretz were asked what communication the Court has been having on the Kenke case with Ukraine government representatives, and whether Kiev had requested confidentiality, they refused to reply. A US attorney with a US and Ukraine practice says

“it’s not possible for a US court to seal a case from public disclosure without argument in court by lawyers from both sides, and without a recorded ruling.”

From Berlin, Giemulla said this morning: “Someone, I don’t know who, has decided that this case is confidential — from the plaintiff!”

Malaysian Airlines assigned Grootscholten (below, left) seat 11D on MH17. He was on his way to his Indonesian fiancé Christine (right).

1767_1For more details of Grootscholten’s life and death, see this memorial video.

His daughter’s application was submitted by Giemulla in November 2014, well within the 6-month time limit required by the ECHR between the cause of the complaint and the filing. Additional papers were filed in January 2015, and the case was assigned case number 4412/15. On March 9, 2015, Giemulla wrote the court asking for confirmation of the proceeding. He received a reply “advis[ing] me not to bother the court by phone considering its high work load. That´s all.”

GiemullaIf the attempt is made to search the court website, there is no trace of the case. On September 4, 2015, Giemulla (right) submitted additional evidence from the newly released DSB report, together with 7 pages of legal argument. The ECHR refused to acknowledge receipt. Last week, Giemulla wrote the ECHR again. “With urgency may I ask to be informed [by the Registrar] about the state of the present proceeding and the other steps intended by the Court.”

Giemulla is well-known in Germany as a specialist on public liability for air crashes. He is also representing kin of German passengers killed in the Lufthansa pilot suicide crash of Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 in France in March 2015.

The case against the Ukrainian Government in Kiev does not depend, Giemulla has argued in the ECHR papers, on evidence or speculation about what weapon brought down MH17; who fired it; or what the cause of death for passengers and crew had been. This evidence, and the lack of it, were tested in an international court for the first time last month; that’s when a coroner’s court in the Australian state of Victoria held an inquest on the deaths of Australian passengers on MH17. For reports of that court proceeding, read this and this.

“The final report of the Dutch Safety Board from October, 2015, supports the view”, Giemulla testified to the ECHR in September, “that the government of the Ukraine bears the responsibility for the disaster because it has not closed the airspace above eastern Ukraine at the altitude of the flight plan in spite of knowledge of the circumstances.” In support, he has submitted the DSB report’s analysis of Ukrainian airspace management, military operations in the eastern region airspace, and Ukrainian government officials’ failure to protect civil aviation in the Dniepropetrovsk air traffic control area through which MH17’s flight path, L980, crossed.

1767_2

Source: DSB Report of October 13, 2015:
http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/onderzoek/2049/investigation-crash-mh17-17-july-2014

The DSB report noted that airspace below the MH17’s altitude had been restricted, but that its flight path L980 at 30,000 feet was open. The DSB concluded the Ukrainian military were responsible for deciding on airspace controls, and that “the Ukrainian authorities took insufficient notice of the possibility of of a civil aeroplane at cruising altitude being fired upon… No measures were taken to protect civil aeroplanes against these weapon systems… the sovereign state bears sole responsibility for the safety of the airspace” (DSB report, page 209). The DSB also noted, without definitive conclusion, that “considerations other than those related to safety could also have played a part in Ukraine’s decision not to completely close the airspace to civil aviation, such as possible financial consequences [loss of overflight fees]. A complete closure may also have given the impression that the state had lost control over a part of its airspace.”

Published estimates from Washington indicate that before the MH17 crash, the government in Kiev was collecting $200 million per annum in overflight and air transit fees.

Giemulla has put the government in Kiev directly on trial in an international court for the first time in the MH17 case. The coronial court proceeding in Australia, and thepostponed inquests in the UK, are investigations of cause of death, and only indirectly address responsibility in Kiev. Giemulla’s written submission to the ECHR is that Kiev is now liable to pay compensation for the death of passenger Grootscholten. “The Ukrainian government was… obliged to close the airspace concerned. Contrary to its legal obligation, it has not blocked the airspace at cruising altitude. This caused, inter alia, the death of the father [Grootscholten] of the complainant [Kenke].” The actions of the Ukrainian government in not closing the airspace had been “intentional actions”, the court papers argue. “The Ukrainian government has failed to meet its legal obligation to avert an existing danger to human life by obvious and available measures.”

In a separate submission, Giemulla has also told the ECHR the Ukrainian courts and their judges are too easily subject to political intervention to provide a remedy for MH17 claims. Giemulla told the court it was not appropriate or relevant to determine who fired the weapon or what caused the crash. “It cannot be judged from the outside which is the correct one of the versions [of cause of crash] and what actually happened. Regardless, it can be understood that in this critical situation the Ukrainian courts have been reluctant to deal with the investigation of the facts and [reluctant to] condemn their government…”

In legal support, Giemulla cited the ECHR’s own rulings on the corruption and bias of Ukrainian judges. “The ECtHR has in the case of Tymoshenko v. Ukraine of 30 July 2013 (Application No 49872/11, S. 41 and 45), and with reference to the earlier case Kaverzin v. Ukraine (Application No 2389/03) adopted an exception to the requirement for exhaustion of legal remedies in the domestic courts, in accordance with Article 35, on the ground that that the available [court] remedies were not capable of ensuring effective legal protection.”

This is a reference to Yulia Tymoshenko’s claim to the ECHR that her conviction and imprisonment by the Ukrainian courts in 2011 had been politically motivated. For more on that case, read this.

1767_3

Tymoshenko (above, left) as prime minister in Kiev had supervised the appointment of Ganna Yudkivska (right) to the list of ECHR judges, following political infighting in Kiev, and controversy at ECHR headquarters in Strasbourg, over manipulation of theappointment. Yudkivska has not only defended the new regime in Kiev on the court bench. She lectured at Harvard University last year on how the court is defending “democratization processes” in the Ukraine. For more on Yudkivska, read this.

ECHR documents indicate this Ukrainian judge has been involved in the MH17 case, and almost certainly that she has supported the Kiev government’s request for the blackout — the decision to issue what Registrar Liddell calls the “grant of confidentiality”.

Liddell said this week, through Turner-Tretz, that in March 2015 he had “informed the applicant [Kenke, Giemulla] by letter of the registration of the application. The letter specified in particular that the Court would deal with the case as soon as practicable on the basis of the information and documents submitted by her and that she would be informed of any decision taken by the Court. Generally speaking, it is difficult to say how long the processing of an application will take, as this may depend on a number of factors. The order of dealing with cases is governed by Rule 41 of the Rules of Court and further specified in its priority policy.”

The ECHR’s Rule 41 says: “In determining the order in which cases are to be dealt with, the Court shall have regard to the importance and urgency of the issues raised on the basis of criteria fixed by it. The Chamber, or its President, may, however, derogate from these criteria so as to give priority to a particular application.” The ECHR policy statement referred to says that “according to this Rule [41] the Court is to have regard to the importance and urgency of the issues raised in deciding the order in which cases are to be dealt with.”

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In a series of email exchanges this week, Turner-Tretz refused to disclose Liddell’s name as the ECHR registrar. This was despite the publication on the court blog that his appointment commenced last month.

Through his spokesman Turner-Tretz (above, right), Liddell (left) was asked: what notification has the Court Registrar made to the Defendant, the Government of Ukraine, and on what date? What response filing has been made in the case by the Government of Ukraine? On what application, on what date, and from what source was the application for confidentiality made? What Court official authorized on what date what you report as the “grant [of] confidentiality”?

Liddell refused to answer. Giemulla suspects the Ukrainian government has been informed of the case, and is likely to have been given the case papers. He says the ECHR has withheld these communications from him, if it has made them.

Liddell has sent an email to say “please note that the case was given confidential status under Rule 33 (public character of documents) of the Rules of Court. This decision was taken by the President of the Chamber to which the case has been allocated.”

Court rules of procedure reveal that in the Chamber section which is considering the MH17 case in secret, Ukrainian judge Yudkivska is a member. Court rules of procedure say: “Chamber: composed of 7 judges, chambers primarily rule on admissibility and merits for cases that raise issues that have not been ruled on repeatedly (a decision may be made by a majority). Each chamber includes the Section President and the ‘national judge’ (the judge with the nationality of the State against which the application is lodged).”

Yesterday Liddell’s spokesman Turner-Tretz was asked to name the president of the chamber to which Liddell now admits the MH17 case has been allocated. “In normal court jurisdictions,” Turner-Tretz was told, “a ruling to seal a case file cannot be made without an application by one of the parties and a hearing before representatives of all parties; the ruling to seal cannot lawfully be taken in secret by a judge keeping his or her name secret. You will be reported by name as speaking for Roderick Liddell, your new Registrar, as confirming that the Court has communicated in secret with the Defendant in this case, and is attempting to keep every detail of the case secret.”

Liddell replied: “the decision to grant confidentiality was taken by Judge Casadevall, President of the Third Section. Subsequently, following the recomposition of the Sections with effect from 1 November 2015, the case was reassigned to a new Section, the First Section, presided over by Mirjana Lazarova–Trajkovska, judge in respect of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” The implication is that Judge Josep Casadevall — an Andorran who has served on the ECHR bench since its establishment in 1998 — was taken off the MH17 case.

Lazarova-TrajkovskaLazarova-Trajkovska was appointed to the ECHR in 2008. Before that, she had been a Macedonian Interior Ministry lawyer, then the director of the state election commission during the controversial parliamentary campaign of 2002. Then, as well as earlier in her career, she has been aided by grants from the US Government. Following the outcome of the 2002 poll, she was briefly a judge of the Macedonian Constitutional Court until the government in Skopje moved her to the ECHR.

London lawyers who follow ECHR proceedings closely don’t doubt that in the MH17 case the Registrar and the judges have been made aware of the Ukrainian government’s reaction. The sources believe Kiev officials have sought Yudkivska’s ruling, along with that of the Macedonian judge, to reject the Kenke case as inadmissible; close down the application without argument in open court; and keep this process secret. Dutch sources add that the Ukrainian government is pressuring the ECHR to block all claims from eastern Ukraine, as well as from the MH17 shoot-down. French lawyers have been attempting to file dozens of claims on behalf of victims of the Ukrainian military operations in Donbass.

A UK human rights lawyer says the ECHR has become “notorious” for its onesidedness and political prejudice. “It’s now a Star Chamber”, he said, referring to the court run by British monarchs from the 15th century until the overthrow of King Charles I in 1641. The Star Chamber operated in secret, and its name has become synonymous with politically motivated prosecution.

According to ECHR documents, “a case may be inadmissible when it is incompatible with the requirements of ratione materiae, ratione temporis or ratione personae, or if the case cannot be proceeded with on formal grounds, such as non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, lapse of the six months from the last internal decision complained of, anonymity, substantial identity with a matter already submitted to the Court, or with another procedure of international investigation. If the rapporteur judge decides that the case can proceed, the case is referred to a Chamber of the Court which, unless it decides that the application is inadmissible, communicates the case to the government of the state against which the application is made, asking the government to present its observations on the case. The Chamber of Court then deliberates and judges the case on its admissibility and its merit.”

Giemulla’s submissions make it difficult for the ECHR judges to rule that the case should go to the Ukrainian courts. His papers have also met the deadline of time set by the court. Sources close to the MH17 case in Strasbourg believe Lazarova-Trajkovska and Yudkivska have been told by Kiev that they should dismiss the case because the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of prosecutors of The Netherlands, Australia, Ukraine, Belgium and Malaysia are conducting “another procedure of international investigation”.

According to the plaintiff’s court papers, the forensic investigation of the cause of the crash and the culprits is an entirely different case, and cannot be the ground for dismissing the Kenke application. Liddell is concealing the argument on these issues between the defendant and the judges.

Liddell replied: “the case was given confidential status under Rule 33 (public character of documents) of the Rules of Court.”

The text of this rule is much more limited than Liddell’s action has proved to be. “Public access,” Rule 33 declares, “to a document or to any part of it may be restricted in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties or of any person concerned so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the President of the Chamber in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice. Any request for confidentiality made under paragraph 1 of this Rule must include reasons and specify whether it is requested that all or part of the documents be inaccessible to the public.”

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Today, I want to speak about the once-in-a-generation chance we have, together, to improve the way we enhance the cause of human rights, freedom and dignity. (David Cameron. Speech on the European Court of Human Rights, 25th January 2012.)

Last June, speaking in his official residence, No 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech on business: “Britain has huge creative clout around the world …From Asia to America, they’re dancing to our music, watching our films and wearing our designers’ latest creations”, he trilled. He omitted to say “and dying under our bombs.”

In December, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein warned, regarding the Saudi led bombing of Yemen:

“I have observed with extreme concern the continuation of heavy shelling from the ground and the air in areas with high a concentration of civilians as well as the perpetuation of the destruction of civilian infrastructure – in particular hospitals and schools …”

Yemen’s Ministry of Education’s data shows more than 1,000 schools inoperable, 254 completely destroyed, 608 partially damaged and 421 being used as shelter by those displaced by the Saudi led, UK assisted onslaught. Some destroyed schools were attacked repeatedly thus they were not errors, or that obscene US dreamt up whitewash for atrocities: “collateral damage.” (1) The US also supplies “intelligence” for air strikes.

Three Medecines Sans Frontier medical facilities have also been destroyed and this month the Noor Center for the Blind was hit – twice. Abdullah Ahmed Banyan, a patient said:

“People with disabilities are being struck in their residence. Around 1.30 am, two missiles hit the live-in quarters of a home for the blind. Can you imagine they are striking the blind? What is this criminality? Why? Is it the blind that are fighting the war?” (2)

As in Afghanistan and Iraq, those other favourite targets of the US, UK and their allies, wedding parties, have again become victims. One gathering in two large tents bombed last September, killed thirty eight people, another wedding celebration attack reportedly killed one hundred and thirty. In the country’s capitol, Sanaa a wedding party hall was also destroyed – what is this criminal obsession about weddings? The Chamber of Commerce was also destroyed.

Definition of war crimes include: “intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected … “ and: “Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives.” (3)

None of which deters the UK from joining in. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has confirmed to Parliament that UK troops are helping the Saudi military identify targets. He said there had been “no evidence of deliberate breach of international humanitarian law.” (4) He clearly has not bothered to do the research.

There is worse. Apart from aiding and abetting potential war crimes, the British government is profiting in eye watering sums from the human misery, deaths and destruction with arms sales to Saudi Arabia increasing by 11,000 percent in one three month period alone.

In spite of the United Nations stating that civilians are being disproportionately killed in Yemen, in one just three month period last year arms sales rose to over one Billion £s, up from a mere nine million £s from the previous three months. (5)

The exact figure for British arms export licences from July to September 2015 was £1,066,216,510 in so-called “ML4” export licences, which relate to bombs, missiles, rockets, and components of those items.

Angus Robertson, Leader of the Scottish National Party in Parliament is outraged, accusing during Prime Minister’s Questions this week, that:

Thousands of civilians have been killed in Yemen, including a large number by the Saudi air force and they’ve done that using British-built planes, with pilots who are trained by British instructors, dropping British-made bombs, who are coordinated by the Saudis in the presence of British military advisors.

Isn’t it time for the Prime Minister to admit that Britain is effectively taking part in a war in Yemen that is costing thousands of civilians lives and he has not sought parliamentary approval to do this? (Independent, 20th January 2016. Emphasis added.)

Allan Hogarth for Amnesty International again confirmed that British advisors are: “ … actually located in the Saudi control room.”

David Cameron waffled inadequately with dismissive arrogance and supreme economy with the truth, that Britain was insuring that: “ … the norms of humanitarian law” were obeyed. Comments redundant.

Two days ago at Yemen’s Ras Isa port on the Red Sea, an oil storage facility was hit killing five people. The attack destroyed the part of the compound used to load tanker trucks with refined products for domestic distribution. So now a people, many of whom, the UN has warned are facing near starvation, will face further shortages to cook what little they have and to heat

So much for Cameron’s vow to: “improve the way we enhance the cause of human rights, freedom and dignity.”

Note

1. http://www.globalresearch.ca/yemen-britain-and-saudi-arabia-shoulder-to-shoulder-in-atrocity/5502219

2. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/yemen-home-blind-bombed-saudi-led-airstrikes-intensify-against-houthi-forces-1536178

3. http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/W/WarCrimes.aspx

4. http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/news/id_11658/Britains-foreign-secretary:-UK-helping-Saudi-led-Yemen-campaign.html

5. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/british-arms-companies-cash-in-on-humanitarian-catastrophe-and-ramp-up-bomb-sales-to-saudi-arabia-by-a6822491.html

 

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“Buying Hillary Clinton”: The Courting of Wall Street

January 23rd, 2016 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

“Anybody who thinks they can buy me doesn’t know me.” Hillary Clinton, The Hill, Jan 22, 2016

Hillary Clinton may still win the Democratic Primary race when the final votes limp through. But if she does, negativity and evasion will be her masters. Oh, and the motor of finance.

Clinton shares with her husband an insatiable appetite for speaking fees. Her words, and presence, are up for sale, and there are organisations and companies happy to throw money the way of Clinton Inc. This is a system of collusion that seemingly has no end, but at its core is an assumption of acceptance about the role of the corporatocracy. Provided a candidate’s views are appropriate for corporate America, the invitations will come through, and the speaking circuit kept busy.

As Bernie Sanders told those present in Carroll, Iowa on Tuesday, “Goldman Sachs also provides very, very generous speaking fees to some unnamed candidates. Very generous.” He conceded that some of his opponents “are very good speakers, very fine orators, smart people. But you gotta be really, really, really good to get $225,000 a speech.”[1] In truth, not even Solomon would have commanded such fees. The value of words, and the marketplace of value, are two distinct things.

Clinton’s reaction has been one of denial – not that she has been paid such fees, but that receiving such payment implies no compromise of her views. This is tantamount to seeking another definition for bribery or corruption. The way of attacking Sanders is typical, evading any direct points, and going for his voting record regarding Wall Street regulation.

The year she focuses on is 2000, a dark one regarding corporate regulation history. When a vote went to deregulate credit default swaps and derivatives, Sanders was there to cheer. Not that he was the only one – Wall Street exerts an extraordinary pull on the American political classes. Nonetheless, for Clinton, “He’s never owned up to it, he never explained it.”

What Clinton attempts to do, instead, is suggest that you can be in and out of corporate America’s corridors and boardrooms, still maintaining independence, one’s untarnished soul, if you like, while feeding from the same trough. Much like Neo in the Waichowski brothers’ Matrix trilogy, traversing the system is a matter of being within and without it. One can still remain powerful yet independent, a non-conformist feature of society.

Clinton’s strategy, then, is to advertise her worth, that of a sage whose honeyed words are as valuable as blue stock chips. She is the grandee of product placement, and her name can be hawked about. “What they [the groups she has spoken to] are interested in were my views on what was going on in the world. And whether you’re in health care, or you sell automobiles, or you’re in banking – there’s a lot of interest in getting advice and views about what you think is happening in the world.”

Her justification also goes to defending an electoral system that accepts the view that cash and candidates are unfortunate partners in seeking office. Barack Obama, she explained, accepted large contributions from the big end of town, and so should she. Doing so does not mean that one is against corporate regulation.

Clinton’s arguments are far from plausible. Under her husband’s presidency, Wall Street proved to be one of the greatest beneficiaries, feted golden boys and girls who would propel the US into richer post-Cold War waters. As the welfare state was slashed, its recipients mocked and further reduced to a sub-stratum of US society, the corporate sector was unchained, its initiative to speculate empowered. The machinery that ultimately crashed in 2008, leading to government bank bailouts, a socialising of capitalism’s greatest losses, can, to a large extent, be attributed to the Clinton administration.

It is hardly surprising, then, that Clinton sees Wall Street as indispensable, organic to any electoral, and governing structure. In her December debate with Sanders at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, moderator David Muir noted the 2007 Fortune magazine cover that proclaimed that, “Business Loves Hillary.”[2]

A hovering Sanders saw his chance to make a point. “The CEOs of large multinationals may like Hillary. They ain’t gonna like me and Wall Street is going to like me even less.”

The words she says do not matter – her sponsors already know what they are getting, and by having her on stage, hope for a sympathetic president who, at the very least, will not rock the boat of finance. Without big business as it is so deemed, America is nothing, much like Britain without its common law. And it is business that she is hoping, at all times, to court. She may not be buyable as a political commodity, but she is certainly rentable.

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

Notes

[1] http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/266693-clinton-wall-street-cant-buy-me

[2] http://time.com/4156191/democratic-debate-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-wall-street/

 

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West Creates Terrorism to “Look Superior”

January 23rd, 2016 by Andre Vltchek

Terrorism has many forms and many faces, but the most terrible of them is cold cruelty.

We are asked to believe that terrorists consist of dirty lunatics, running around with bombs, machine guns and explosive belts. That’s how we are told to imagine them.

Many of them are bearded; almost all are “foreign looking”, non-white, non-Western. In summary they are wife beaters, child rapists and Greek and Roman statue destroyers.

Actually, during the Cold War, there were some white looking “terrorists” – the left-wingers belonging to several revolutionary cells, in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. But only now we are learning that the terrorist acts attributed to them were actually committed by the Empire, by several European right-wing governments and intelligence services. You remember, the NATO countries were blowing up those trains inside the tunnels, or bombing entire train stations…

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It “had to be done”, in order to discredit the Left, just to make sure that people would not become so irresponsible as to vote for the Communists or true Socialists.

There were also several Latin American ‘terror’ groups – the revolutionary movements fighting for freedom and against oppression, mainly against Western colonialism. They had to be contained, liquidated, and if they held power, overthrown.

But terrorists became really popular in the West only after the Soviet Union and the Communist Block were destroyed through thousands of economic, military and propaganda means, and the West suddenly felt too exposed, so alone without anyone to fight. Somehow it felt that it needed to justify its monstrous oppressive acts in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

It needed a new “mighty”, really mighty, enemy to rationalize its astronomical military and intelligence budgets. It was not good enough to face a few hundred ‘freaks’ somewhere inside the Colombian jungle or in Northern Ireland or Corsica. There had to be something really huge, something matching that ‘evil’ Soviet “threat”.

Oh how missed that threat was, suddenly! Just a threat of course; not the danger of egalitarian and internationalist ideals…

And so the West linked terrorism with Islam, which is one of the greatest cultures on earth, with 1.6 billion followers. Islam is big and mighty enough, to scare the shit out of the middle class housewives in some Western suburb! And on top of that, it had to be contained anyway, as it was essentially too socialist and too peaceful.

At that time in history, all great secular and socialist leaders of Muslim countries, (like in Iran, Indonesia and Egypt), were overthrown by the West, their legacy spat on, or they were simply banned.

But that was not enough for the West!

In order to make Islam a worthy enemy, the Empire had to first radicalize and pervert countless Muslim movements and organizations, then create the new ones, consequently training, arming and financing them, so they could really look frightening enough.

There is of course one more important reason why “terrorism”, particularly Muslim “terrorism”, is so essential for the survival of Western doctrines, exceptionalism and global dictatorship: it justifies the West’s notion of absolute cultural and moral superiority.

This is how it works:

For centuries, the West has been behaving like a mad bloodthirsty monster. Despite the self-glorifying propaganda being spread by Western media outlets all over the world, it was becoming common knowledge that the Empire was raping, murdering and plundering in virtually all corners of the Globe. A few more decades and the world would see the West exclusively as a sinister and toxic disease. Such a scenario had to be prevented by all means!

And so the ideologues and propagandists of the Empire came up with a new and brilliant formula: Let’s create something that looks and behaves even worse than we do, and then we could trumpet that we are still actually the most reasonable and tolerant culture on earth!

And let’s make a real pirouette: let’s fight our own creation – let’s fight it in the name of freedom and democracy!”

This is how the new generation; the new breed of “terrorist” was born. And it lives! It is alive and well! It is multiplying like Capek’s Salamanders.

***

Western terrorism is not really discussed, although its most extreme and violent forms are battering the world relentlessly and have for a long time, with hundreds of millions of victims piling up everywhere.

Even the legionnaires and gladiators of the Empire, like the Mujaheddin, Al-Qaida, or ISIS, can never come close to the savagery that has been demonstrated time and again by their British, French, Belgian, German or US masters. Of course they are trying very hard to match their gurus and bread-givers, but they are just not capable of their violence and brutality.

It takes “Western culture” to butcher some 10 million people in just one single geographic area, in almost one go!

***

So what is real terrorism, and how could ISIS and others follow its lead? They say that ISIS is decapitating their victims. Bad enough. But who is their teacher?

For centuries, the empires of Europe were murdering, torturing, raping and mutilating people on all continents of the world. Those who were not doing so directly, were “investing” into colonialist expeditions, or sending its people to join genocidal battalions.

King Leopold II and his cohorts managed to exterminate around 10 million people of Western and Central Africa, in what is now known as the Congo. He was hunting people down like animals, forcing them to work on his rubber plantations. If he thought that they were not filling up his coffers fast enough, he did not hesitate to chop off their hands, or burn entire village populations inside their huts, alive.

10 million victims vanished. 10 million! And it did not take place in some distant past, in the “dark ages”, but in the 20th century, under the rule of so-called constitutional monarchy, and self-proclaimed democracy. How does it compare with the terrorism that is ruling over the territories occupied by ISIS? Let’s compare numbers and brutality level!

And the Democratic Republic of Congo has, since 1995, lost again close to 10 million people in a horrid orgy of terror, unleashed by the West’s proxies, Rwanda and Uganda (see the trailer to my film“Rwanda Gambit”).

Germans performed holocausts in South-Western Africa, in what is now Namibia. The Herero tribe was exterminated, or at least close to 90% of it was. People were first kicked out from their land and from their homes, and driven into the desert. If they survived, the German pre-Nazi expeditions followed, using bullets and other forms of mass killing. Medical experiments on humans were performed, to prove the superiority of the Germanic nation and the white race.

These were just innocent civilians; people whose only crime was that they were not white, and were sitting on land occupied and violated by the Europeans.

The Taliban never came close to this, or even ISIS!

To this day, the Namibian government is demanding the return of countless heads severed from its people: heads that were cut off and then sent to the University of Freiburg and several hospitals in Berlin, for medical experiments.

Just imagine, ISIS chopping thousands of European heads, in order to perform medical experiments aiming to demonstrate the superiority of the Arab race. It would be absolutely unthinkable!

Local people were terrorized in virtually all colonies grabbed by Europe, something that I have described in detail in my latest 840-page book “Exposing Lies of the Empire”.

What about the Brits and their famines, which they were using as population control and intimidation tactics in India! In Bengal at least 5 million died in 1943 alone, 5.5 million in 1876-78, 5 million in 1896-97, to name just a few terrorist acts committed by the British Empire against a defenseless population forced to live under its horrid and oppressive terrorist regime!

What I have mentioned above are just 3 short chapters from the long history of Western terrorism. An entire encyclopedia could be compiled on the topic.

But all this sits far from Western consciousness. European and North American masses prefer not to know anything about the past and the present. As far as they are concerned, they rule the world because they are free, bright and hard working. Not because for centuries their countries have plundered and murdered, and above all terrorized the world forcing it into submission.

The elites know everything, of course. And the more they know, the more they put that knowledge to work.

Terrorist trade and experience are passed on from Western masters to their new Muslim recruits.

The Mujahideen, Al-Qaida, ISIS – on closer examination, their tactics of intimidation and terrorization are not original at all. They are built on imperialist and colonialist practices of the West.

News about this, or even about the terror that has been inflicted on the Planet by the West, is meticulously censored. You would never see them on the programs broadcast by the BBC, or read about them in mainstream newspapers and magazines.

On the other hand, the violence and ruthlessness of the client terrorist organizations are constantly highlighted. They are covered in their tiniest detail, repeated, and “analyzed”.

Everybody is furious, horrified! The UN is “deeply concerned”, Western governments are “outraged”, and the Western public “has had enough – it does not want immigrants from those terrible countries that are breeding terrorism and violence”.

The West “simply has to get involved”. And here comes the War on Terror.

It is a war against the West’s own Frankenstein. It is a war that is never meant to be won. Because if it is won, god forbid, there would have to be peace, and peace means cutting defense budgets and also dealing with the real problems of our Planet.

Peace would mean the West looking at its own past. It would mean thinking about justice and rearranging the entire power structures of the Planet. And that can never be allowed.

And so the West is “playing” war games; it is “fighting” its own recruits (or pretending to fight them), while innocent people are dying.

No part of the world, except the West, would be able to invent and unleash something so vile and barbaric as ISIS or Al-Nusra!

Look closer at the strategy of these group-implants: it has no roots in Muslim culture whatsoever. But it is fully inspired by the Western philosophy of colonialist terrorism: “If you don’t fully embrace our dogmas and religion, then we will cut off your head, slash your throat, rape your entire family or burn your village or city to the ground. We will destroy your grand cultural heritage as we did in South America 500 years ago, and in so many other places.”

And so on and so on! It would really require great discipline not to see the connections!

***

In 2006 I was visiting my friend, a former President of Indonesia, and a great progressive Muslim leader, Abdurrahman Wahid, (known in Indonesia as “Gus Dur”). Our meeting was held at the headquarters of his massive Muslim body Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). At that time the NU was the biggest Muslim organization in the world.

We were discussing capitalism and how it was destroying and corrupting Indonesia. Gus Dur was a “closet socialist”, and that was one of the main reasons why the servile pro-Western Indonesian “elites” and the military deposed him out of the Presidency in 2001.

When we touched on the topic of “terrorism”, he suddenly declared in his typically soft, hardly audible voice: “I know who blew up the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. It was done by our own intelligence services, in order to justify the increase in their budget, as well as aid that they have been receiving from abroad.”

Of course, the Indonesian army, intelligence services and police consist of a special breed of humans. For several decades, since 1965, they have been brutally terrorizing their own population, when the pro-Western coup toppled the progressive President Sukarno and brought to power a fascist military clique, backed by the predominantly Christian business gang. This terror took between 2-3 million lives in Indonesia itself, as well as in East Timor and (until now) in occupied and thoroughly plundered Papua.

3 genocides in only 5 decades!

The Indonesian coup was one of the greatest terrorist acts in the history of mankind. The rivers were clogged with corpses and changed their color to red.

Why? So that capitalism would survive and Western mining companies could have their booty, at the expense of a completely ruined Indonesian nation. So the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) would not be able to win elections, democratically.

But in the West, those 1965 intensive massacres planned by the Empire were never described as “terrorism”. Blowing up a hotel or a pub always is however, especially if they are frequented by Western clientele.

Now Indonesia has its own groups of “terrorists”. They returned from Afghanistan where they fought on behalf of the West against the Soviet Union. They are returning from the Middle East now. The recent attacks in Jakarta could be just a foreplay, a well-planned beginning of something much bigger, maybe an opening of the new “front” of toy soldiers of the Empire in Southeast Asia.

For the West and its planners – the more chaos the better.

Had Abdurrahman Wahid been allowed to stay as the President of Indonesia, there would, most likely, have been no terrorism. His country would have undergone socialist reforms, instituted social justice, rehabilitated Communists and embraced secularism.

In socially balanced societies, terrorism does not thrive.

That would be unacceptable to the Empire. That would mean – back to Sukarno’s day! The most populous Muslim nation on earth cannot be allowed to go its own way, to aim for socialism, and to annihilate terrorist cells.

It has to be at the edge. It has to be ready to be used as a pawn. It has to be scared and scary! And so it is.

***

The games the West is playing are complex and elaborate. They are murky and nihilist. They are so destructive and brutal that even the sharpest analysts are often questioning their own eyes and judgments: “Could all this be really happening?”

The brief answer is: “Yes it can. Yes it is, for many long decades and centuries.”

Historically, terrorism is a native Western weapon. It was utilized freely by people like Lloyd George, a British PM, who refused to sign the agreement banning aerial bombardment of civilians, using unshakeable British logic: “We reserve the right to bomb those niggers.” Or Winston Churchill who was in favor of gassing the ‘lower grade’ of races, like Kurds and Arabs.

That is why, when some outsider, a country like Russia, gets involved, launching its genuine war against terrorist groups, the entire West is consumed by panic. Russia is spoiling their entire game! It is ruining a beautifully crafted neo-colonialist equilibrium.

Just look how lovely everything is: after killing hundreds of millions all over the Globe, the West is now standing as the self-proclaimed champion of human rights and freedom. It is still terrorizing the world, plundering it, fully controlling it – but it is being accepted as the supreme leader, a benevolent advisor, and the only trustworthy part of the world.

And almost nobody is laughing.

Because everyone is scared!

Its brutal legions in the Middle East and Africa are destabilizing entire countries, their origins are easily traceable, but almost no one is daring to do such tracing. Some of those who have tried – died.

The more frightening these invented, manufactured and implanted terrorist monsters, the more beautiful the West looks. It is all gimmicks. It has roots in advertisement, and in hundreds of years of propaganda apparatus.

The West then pretends to fight those deep forces of darkness. It uses powerful, “righteous” language, which has clear bases in Christian fundamentalist dogma.

An entire mythology is unleashed; it feels like Wagner’s “Ring”.

The terrorists represent evil, not the enormous expenditure from the coffers of the US State Department, the European Union and NATO. They are more evil than the Devil himself!

And the West, riding on the white horse, slightly pissed on wine but always in good humor, is portrayed as both a victim and the main adversary of those satanic terrorist groups.

It is one incredible show. It is one terrible farce. Look underneath the horseman’s mask: look at those exposed teeth; that deadly grin! Look at his red eyes, full of greed, lust and cruelty.

And let us never forget: colonialism and imperialism are two most deadly forms of terrorism. And these are still the two main weapons of that horseman who is choking the world!

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and Fighting Against Western Imperialism.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western TerrorismPoint of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

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On Jan.21, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) launched an advance towards the road that links the cities of Darayya and Moadamiya. Only yesterday, the Russian Air Force carried out 45 airstrikes to support the loyalists’ operation.

The SAA’s goal is to cut the route between the rebel strongholds in the Damascus suburbs. If this is done, it will allow the loyalists to defeat militant units in the area each after each.

According to the Syrian government’s reports, 150 militants have laid down arms and turned themselves in to the Syrian army in the Damascus province. The same reports argue that 42 wanted militants from Damascus, Damascus countryside, Tartous, Quneitra and Dara’a turned themselves in to the authorities on Jan.21.

In Sheikh Miskeen, Al-Nusra, Syrian al-Qaeda branch, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are becoming extremely dire as the SAA is continuing the military operation in the southern district of the city. The militants issued a plea for help on a video, stating that the “moderate opposition” is losing the city because of a lack of battle tanks against the advancing armored divisions of the SAA. The video confirmed that the Syrian government’s forces liberated about 80 percent of Sheikh Miskeen.

The SAA troops are continuing to pound the militant groups’ strongholds in different parts of the Aleppo province. The clashes were observed in the villages of al-Sbeihiyeh, al-Sheik Lutfi and in the al-Rashidin area in the Southern outskirts of the provincial capital. Also, the SAA conducted military operations in Bustan al-Basha neighborhood in Aleppo.

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The year 2016 might turn out to be a decisive one in the long-running contest between the Japanese state and Okinawa prefecture over the construction of a new base for the US Marine Corps at Henoko on Oura Bay, although it seems that this is far from being the first time on which I have written of a prospective year of crisis and change in what has become known as the “Okinawa problem,” only to find as the year wore on that the crisis steadily deepened without resolution. It is clear anyway that this will be a year of elections and court proceedings, and that it will also almost certainly be one of deepening confrontation between the popular Okinawan resistance on one side and the forces of the Abe state with their monopoly of violence and growing readiness to use it on the other. 1

It was the November 2014 victory (by 100,000 votes) of Onaga Takeshi in election for Governor of Okinawa on an explicit “everything in my power to prevent construction of the Henoko base” platform that brought the crisis to its present pitch. Once in office, Onaga appointed a “Third Party” (experts) committee to advise him on the legality of his predecessor’s sudden and unexpected decision (in December 2013) to allow the base. That Committee reported in July 2015 that it had found multiple legal flaws,2 and that, in particular, the landfill permit failed to meet the criteria for “appropriate and rational use of the national land” and so violated the Public Waters Reclamation. On October 13, 2015, Onaga therefore cancelled the reclamation license, and by doing so precipitated a series of court actions and a political contest that has continued ever since.

Elections

In the year ahead, three important elections are to be held: in January for mayor of Ginowan City, in June for the Okinawan Prefectural Assembly, and in July for the upper house (House of Councillors) in the national diet.

About one quarter of the area of Ginowan City is taken up by the US Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station. US forces occupied the site around 70 years ago, when the residents of the area had been rounded up into detention centres even before the formal Japanese surrender at the end of the war, and have continued to occupy it, in breach of international law even if with the consent, or encouragement, of the government of Japan, ever since then. When the city goes to the polls on January 24 to choose a new mayor, the question of what is to be done about Futenma is a major issue, but the will of the people matters less than the will of the two faraway governments, in Tokyo and in Washington. Nothing has changed in that respect over the four decades since Okinawa nominally reverted to Japanese rule, nor can it be expected to change in 2016.

The balance is said to be delicately poised between Sakima Atsushi, the incumbent mayor who is supported by the LDP and New Komeito (and by the Abe government) and Shimura Keiichiro, a relatively unknown former prefectural official who has declared himself one of the Onaga “All Okinawa” camp.

Sakima was first elected mayor in 2012, by the narrow margin of 900 out of 45,000 votes. Facing then a well-known opponent of any base substitution within Okinawa, Iha Yoichi, (Ginowan mayor for two terms, 2003-2010), Sakima too adopted a “no Futenma substitute within Okinawa” stance. That is to say, he refsed to endorse the Henoko project as a quid pro quo for closure of Futenma. However, in 2013, he was part of the collective Okinawan “tenko” or conversion under pressure, abandoning his campaign political pledge and shifting to support the Abe government’s position, i.e. favouring construction of a major new “Futenma Replacement” US facility at Henoko. Governor Nakaima, elected in 2010 on an “anti-substitute base” platform, also surrendered, dramatically, to such pressure late in 2013, as did the LDP prefectural party organization itself, and much of its membership. Okinawan conservative ranks thus split. Those that resisted the fierce pressure from the Abe government in Tokyo to fall into line with national policy evolved the “All Okinawa” political platform, of which Onaga Takeshi, Governor from December 2014, became the principal avatar.

Incumbent Ginowan Mayor, Sakima Atsushi, January 2016 Candidate for Mayor of Ginowan, Shimura Keiichiro, January 2016

Both the Abe government and Governor Onaga insist that this election will not be decided solely on the base issue, but both attach great importance to it. The Abe government even ordered an almost four-week suspension of works at the Henoko site,3 evidently anxious to avoid attention focussing on the base issue out of fear that its preferred candidate might lose if his past reversal or his pro-base position became focus of the election.

For Onaga the election is also obviously important. A victory in Ginowan would show the strength of continuing support for his “All Okinawa” cause (currently he has the backing of only two of the prefecture’s 14 town and city mayors) and perhaps create a momentum that might flow on to the nationally important Upper House elections to be held in the coming summer.

Sakima’s strategy for the 2016 election is to call for early return of Futenma but to avoid taking any public position on Henoko. His campaign is said to have been organized and calibrated in the Prime Minister’s office in Tokyo, where his success ranks high on the list of government priorities. It might be, nominally, a “local” election, but it weighed as much as a “national” one. Government emissaries (including prominent corporate sector representatives keen to promote the base project) avoided street meetings and concentrated on closed door gatherings with important sectoral groups, including the construction groups expected to profit most from Henoko construction.4

Sakima could boast that his city administration had won a substantial (four-fold) increase in central government subsidy, and promise on that basis benefits such as free medical care and subsidized school lunch for the city’s children, without making any point of the fact that the price paid for such largesse was submission to Tokyo’s wishes on base policy.5 His opponent, Shimura, based his position on support for Governor Onaga and “all Okinawa,” meaning that he stood for unconditional return of Futenma and opposed the shifting of its burden elsewhere in the prefecture (i.e. Henoko, in Nago City). In “normal” circumstances, the mayor standing for election to a second term would have a significant advantage, but the contest in Ginowan was unpredictable and the level of external interest exceptionally high. Some interpreted the rumours that circulated in the city (and beyond) of Ginowan being “rewarded” with a Disneyland project as part of a desperate Abe government effort to protect its candidate’s campaign.6

Prefectural Assembly elections are to be held in June 2016. For the political and judicial battle that lies ahead, the importance of Onaga’s retention of control over the Okinawan parliament, the Prefectural Assembly (where he now holds 27:21 majority support), is plain. Abe would dearly like to reverse that balance. Then in July there will be (national) Upper House elections, at which the Abe government’s Minister for Okinawa, Shimajiri Aiko, will be standing for re-election. She is a darling of the Abe government because of the role she played in 2013 in helping the national LDP win back control over the rebellious Okinawa branch. For her role in leading Okinawan LDP Diet members (and other figures such as Ginowan mayor Sakima) to abandon their public pledges of opposition to base construction, she won his deep gratitude and, as a devoted Abe follower and fierce critic of the Okinawan anti-base movement, rose meteorically within the government thereafter. Her status in the national government give her formidable patronage powers in relation to Okinawa that she will undoubtedly use to advance the Henoko cause, but her checkered political career has also won her many enemies.

Abe will do everything possible to win both the Ginowan mayorship and the Shimajiri seat in the House of Councillors, and it would be a nightmare for him to possibly lose both. As one figure connected to the government was quoted to say, “This is the most important election for determining the fate of the government.”7 It goes without saying that the kind of interventions Abe and his government make in Okinawan elections are anti-democratic and unconstitutional and would be unimaginable elsewhere in Japan

The Courts

In judicial terms, Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide made clear even before Onaga’s October 2015 cancelation order that site works would proceed irrespective of any order from the Governor. Contracts were let, materials moved, workers hired, a momentum generated. Then came Onaga’s order, followed the next day by the complaint lodged by Okinawa Defense Bureau (OBD) with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLITT), asking it to review, suspend, and nullify Onaga’s revocation under the Administrative Appeal Act.8 It amounted to one section of the Abe government (the ODB, part of the Ministry of Defense) appealing to another (MLITT), so the outcome could scarcely be in doubt. ODB maintained that there were no flaws with the land reclamation approval made in late 2013 and that Governor Onaga’s revocation disposition was illegal. Onaga presented a 950-page dossier in which he outlined the prefectural case, 9 but, following a cabinet meeting on October 27, MLITT minster Ishii Keiichi suspended the Onaga revocation order,10 on grounds that otherwise it would be “impossible to continue the relocation” and because in that event “the US-Japan alliance would be adversely affected.” 11 The government also authorized a resumption of site works, insisting there was no alternative to the Henoko project and that it amounted to a “burden reduction” for Okinawa even though plainly the new base was to be bigger, more multi-functional, more modern, and almost certainly permanent.

On October 20, 2015, a group of 12 Ginowan citizens (increased by late December to 89) launched a suit demanding cancelation of Governor Onaga’s order, complaining that the Third Party report the Governor had relied on was “biased” and “flawed” and that Onaga’s cancelation order, if implemented, would have the effect of leaving Ginowan citizens facing more-or-less permanent noise and other nuisance from Futenma.12 This pro-government, pro-Henoko construction judicial intervention was only the first of a series that continued through the following months.

When works resumed on October 29, 2015, they government referred to them as “main works” (hontai koji), evidently in order to have them seen as a fait accompli and even though the necessary boring survey was still incomplete. On November 17 the government launched a suit in the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court under the Administrative Appeals Law demanding the Governor retract his order and submit to its authority. Abe repeatedly spoke of Futenma return, but only on condition that there be an alternative, and with the understanding that such an alternative had to be in Okinawa, and in Okinawa it had to be at Henoko.

Governor Onaga, for his part, presented the totally different story, of the inequitable and increasing military base burden on Okinawa, built upon the initial illegal seizure of Okinawan land and in defiance of the clearly and often expressed wishes of the Okinawan people. It was a burden increase, not reduction. The struggle against it was a struggle for justice and democracy and for the protection of Oura Bay’s extraordinary natural biodiversity, worthy, as the prefecture saw it, of World Heritage ranking. Onaga summarily rejected the “advice” (of October 27) and then the “instruction” (November 6) from the MLITT minister to withdraw his cancellation order.13

Okinawan Governor Onaga announces his Decision, October 13, 2015. (Photo: Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images)

On November 2, 2015, he launched a prefectural complaint against the Abe government with the rarely consulted Council for Resolving Disputes between Central and Local Governments.”14 Despite the fact that it would be hard to imagine anything that could better qualify as dispute between those two wings of government, it took barely six weeks for the Council to decide, without calling upon any evidence (and declaring its “verdict” by means of a press conference) that the complaint was “beyond the scope of matters it could investigate.”15 Okinawa prefecture soon made clear that it intended to contest this decision by appeal to the Naha District Court.

On December 25, Onaga launched a prefectural suit in the Naha court to have the October ruling by the Minister set aside. State and prefectural authorities thus sued each other (or made formal complaint in the case of the Disputes Resolution Council) over the same matters, and for the most part in the same Naha court.16 Never before had the national government of Japan faced off in the courts against any self-governing region like this.

While the prefecture insists it is a breach of its constitutional entitlement to self-government for the state to impose the Henoko construction project on it by unilateral, forceful decision, the state, for its part, argues that base matters are its prerogative, having nothing to do with local self-government, and being a matter of treaty obligations are not subject to any constitutional barrier. Onaga also pointed to what he saw, on expert advice, as fatal flaws in the land reclamation approval process. He objected to the ODB’s use of the Administrative Appeal Act, for which purpose the state was pretending to be just like a “private person” (ichishijin) complaining under a law specifically designed to allow individual citizens complaining of unjustified or illegal acts by governmental agencies to seek redress, and noted that, while the state sought relief as an aggrieved citizen it deployed its full powers and prerogatives as state under the Local Self-Government Law to sweep aside prefectural self-government and to assume the right to proxy execution of an administrative act (gyosei daishikko). The state was in his view thus adopting a perverse and arbitrary reading of the law.

The state also pressed for a “speed” trial, with no need for witnesses, while the prefecture argued that the issues were of such significance that it called for greatest care and attention to witnesses, not least the Governor himself.17 And, somewhat ominously, the court asked the Governor what would be his attitude should the court’s decision go against him.18

Onaga Takeshi thus ended his first year in office as Governor embroiled in two suits against the government of Japan, one as plaintiff and one as defendant, and committed to enter (before the end of January 2016) upon a third quasi-judicial proceeding by way of appeal against the decision of the Disputes Resolution Council.

Whatever the outcome of the various proceedings now underway, at least in the two court actions the defeated party is bound to appeal, and it will be up to the Supreme Court to make a ruling. Overall, the national government appears to be engaged on a constitutional coup: stripping the Governor and prefectural government of powers vested in them by the constitution and the Local Government Act and seeking at all costs to justify the MLITT minister’s reinstatement or “proxy execution” of the land reclamation approval.19 It is hard to imagine that any ruling, including that from the Supreme Court, will really resolve matters. It will, however, have a profound impact in determining whether Japan merits the claim made repeatedly by Prime Minister Abe to be a country ruled by law. There were grounds for thinking that, instead, it would prove to be one ruled by “men,” i.e. the government of the day.20

Precedents

Judicial precedents are not encouraging for Okinawa. In December 1959, the Supreme Court held in the “Sunagawa case” that matters pertaining to the security treaty with the US are “highly political” and concern Japan’s very existence, so that the judiciary should not pass judgement on them. That ruling, on expansion of the existing US base at Tachikawa, in effect elevated the Security Treaty above the constitution and immunized it from any challenge at law, thus entrenching the US base presence. It would be surprising if the 2016 court, addressing the project to create a new base at Henoko, did not follow it.

Another precedent addresses more directly the Okinawa base issue. It is just 20 years since then Okinawan Governor Ota Masahide (Governor 1990-1998) was arraigned before the Supreme Court facing the demand by the Prime Minister that he exercise his duties of state under the Local Self-Government Law to sign the proxy lease agreements on privately owned land appropriated by the US military (which he had refused to do). Ota made an eloquent plea, but the court dismissed it, contemptuously, in a two-sentence judgement.21 For Ota, the Supreme Court ruling was the last word. He submitted and signed the proxy lease agreements.

In the case of civil suits too, by Okinawan citizens and civic groups against the government of Japan, the record points to similar judicial inclination to endorse the state, dismissing the Okinawan case against it. One long-running (2009-2014) suit brought by a citizen group to have the environmental impact study on Henoko reopened because of its being fundamentally unscientific was dismissed at both initial hearing and later on appeal court, the latter issuing a judgement so brief that it took just 30 seconds to read out.22 Other long-running suits have been pursued against the government over the intolerable levels of noise and nuisance emanating from the US bases. Between 2002 and 2015, courts have issued altogether seven judgements on this matter, repeatedly accepting evidence (in the words of the most recent judgement of Naha District Court in June 2015) that the 2200 plaintiffs of Ginowan City did indeed suffer “mental distress, poor sleep, and disruption to their daily lives” from “serous and widespread” violations that “could not be defended on any ground of public interest” and that they should therefore be paid 754 million yen (approximately $9 million) compensation. Courts have refused to order a stop to that nuisance. By so doing, they in effect concede that the US military is beyond and above the law, and that the government of Japan is complicit in enforcing its ongoing illegality and the accompanying suffering of its people. As Ryukyu shimpo commented, “how could a government that enforced continuing illegality upon the citizens of one of its regions be considered a law-ruled state?”23

The base issue continues to divide Okinawa as the Abe government strives to divide and conquer it, cultivating sufficient local interest groups to accomplish its purpose. Following the pro-Abe and pro-Sakima suit launched by the 21 Ginowan citizens in late October, a group of twenty citizens living in the vicinity of the Henoko base construction site launched a fresh suit before the Naha court on December 24, 2015, seeking a cancelation of the Abe government’s base construction plans on grounds of noise and other nuisance they could anticipate that the project to bring them. Their constitutional entitlement to a peaceful existence was no less, they insisted, than that of the people of Ginowan. They made their claim out of an urgent sense of justice and entitlement, although knowing full well that justice ranked below the interest of the state in serving the US military.24

Direct Action

As for how Governor Onaga would react if all Okinawan claims were simply dismissed, the Ota precedent is sobering and Onaga’s lifelong membership of the LDP makes one incline to think he would be even less inclined to resist a Supreme Court order than Ota. Yet prediction is not straightforward. Though unashamedly conservative, Onaga prioritizes his identity as Okinawan over ideology and “all Okinawa” is his core slogan. It may be only a straw in the wind but, in November 2015, Onaga’s wife, Mikiko, promised the protesters assembled at the Camp Schwab gate that if all other steps had been taken (bansaku tsukitara) and still the project had not been stopped, she and her husband would come to join them in direct action (Ryukyu shimpo, November 8, 2015). They would stop the construction at all costs, even, in other words, by civil disobedience. This, needless to say, highlights the unique and uniquely problematic nature of Okinawa within the Japanese state and the depth of the contradiction on which the relationship is built.

Coast Guard officers in daily confrontation with protesters outside Camp Schwab or on Oura Bay

Should the decision, or series of decisions, go against Okinawa, and should the Governor (and his wife) then join the direct action resistance at Henoko, the government could, if it so chose, then sweep them away from the gate of Camp Schwab, beating, arresting, and if necessary indicting them, and press ahead with construction. This is essentially what government has been doing for well over a year, though as yet on a small scale. It does so with impunity because its actions escape national media scrutiny and (on the whole) international attention. But if would be a different matter to subject the highly popular Governor in person to such measures, especially because it would mean ordering the prefectural police, who nominally are under the Governor’s command, to arrest him. Such evidence of open clash between wings of the government of Japan would weaken the US military ties that Abe is intent on strengthening, upset the Pentagon, and expose Japan to the world as an anti-democratic state that deployed violence against its own citizens.

Apart from the political and judicial contest, however, it may be that the really crucial area of confrontation is that between the forces of the Abe state and the people of Okinawa gathering every day at the gate of the Camp Schwab site to try to block construction works by direct, non-violent action. The daily gathering that Onaga Mikiko addressed in November 2015 has continued now for well over 500 days, since July 2014. The violence of riot police on land and Coastguard at sea takes its toll of the protesters, who number on a day-to-day basis between 50 and 500 or so, but their morale remains high. They believe they are currently forcing a stoppage of works on roughly one day a week, and plan to step that up to two, three, etc.

As I have noted elsewhere, the crisis today pits the “irresistible force” of the nation state against the “immovable object” of the Okinawan resistance and, in that sense, it has a certain tragic quality. Prime Minister Abe has staked so much on completing and handing over the new facility to the US Marine Corps that it is almost unimaginable that he could ever abandon it. Governor Onaga is in a similar, if opposite, position. Even if he were to submit to a court ruling, and withdraw his opposition (which, for reasons already given above, seems unlikely), far from resolving matters that would further infuriate the Okinawan people and heighten their resentment of their own government and of the base system. The supposed linchpin of the regional security system would then become its Achilles heel.

As writs were issued and injunctions sought late in 2015 and early 2016 to prevent (or to impose) base construction, Abe’s government appeared to be striving to evade any possible adverse judicial ruling by pushing the works with all possible speed beyond a point of no return. 25 The government that did not hesitate in July 2014 to change its interpretation of the constitution to suit its political agenda was in 2016 manipulating the law and intervening in unprecedented ways to try to determine the outcome of a city mayoral election, to impose its will on a recalcitrant prefecture. For the Okinawan resistance to prevail against such a desperate and unprincipled state, it will have to widen the current struggle and gain the support not just of “All-Okinawa” but of an “All-Japan” citizen alliance and an accompanying global movement.

Gavan McCormack is an honorary professor of Australian National University, editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal, and author of many texts on aspects of modern and contemporary East Asian History, including Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012 (co-authored with Satoko Oka Norimatsu). His work is widely published in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, as well as English. For some of his recent essays (other than those accessible at this site), see “Okinawa as sacrificial victim,” Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2015, pp. 6-7, and “Chauvinist nationalism in Japan’s schizophrenic state,” in Leo Panitch and Greg Albo, eds, The Politics of the Right, Socialist Register 2016, London, The Merlin Press, 2015, pp. 231-249.

 

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The year 2016 might turn out to be a decisive one in the long-running contest between the Japanese state and Okinawa prefecture over the construction of a new base for the US Marine Corps at Henoko on Oura Bay, although it seems that this is far from being the first time on which I have written of a prospective year of crisis and change in what has become known as the “Okinawa problem,” only to find as the year wore on that the crisis steadily deepened without resolution. It is clear anyway that this will be a year of elections and court proceedings, and that it will also almost certainly be one of deepening confrontation between the popular Okinawan resistance on one side and the forces of the Abe state with their monopoly of violence and growing readiness to use it on the other. 1

It was the November 2014 victory (by 100,000 votes) of Onaga Takeshi in election for Governor of Okinawa on an explicit “everything in my power to prevent construction of the Henoko base” platform that brought the crisis to its present pitch. Once in office, Onaga appointed a “Third Party” (experts) committee to advise him on the legality of his predecessor’s sudden and unexpected decision (in December 2013) to allow the base. That Committee reported in July 2015 that it had found multiple legal flaws,2 and that, in particular, the landfill permit failed to meet the criteria for “appropriate and rational use of the national land” and so violated the Public Waters Reclamation. On October 13, 2015, Onaga therefore cancelled the reclamation license, and by doing so precipitated a series of court actions and a political contest that has continued ever since.

Elections

In the year ahead, three important elections are to be held: in January for mayor of Ginowan City, in June for the Okinawan Prefectural Assembly, and in July for the upper house (House of Councillors) in the national diet.

About one quarter of the area of Ginowan City is taken up by the US Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station. US forces occupied the site around 70 years ago, when the residents of the area had been rounded up into detention centres even before the formal Japanese surrender at the end of the war, and have continued to occupy it, in breach of international law even if with the consent, or encouragement, of the government of Japan, ever since then. When the city goes to the polls on January 24 to choose a new mayor, the question of what is to be done about Futenma is a major issue, but the will of the people matters less than the will of the two faraway governments, in Tokyo and in Washington. Nothing has changed in that respect over the four decades since Okinawa nominally reverted to Japanese rule, nor can it be expected to change in 2016.

The balance is said to be delicately poised between Sakima Atsushi, the incumbent mayor who is supported by the LDP and New Komeito (and by the Abe government) and Shimura Keiichiro, a relatively unknown former prefectural official who has declared himself one of the Onaga “All Okinawa” camp.

Sakima was first elected mayor in 2012, by the narrow margin of 900 out of 45,000 votes. Facing then a well-known opponent of any base substitution within Okinawa, Iha Yoichi, (Ginowan mayor for two terms, 2003-2010), Sakima too adopted a “no Futenma substitute within Okinawa” stance. That is to say, he refsed to endorse the Henoko project as a quid pro quo for closure of Futenma. However, in 2013, he was part of the collective Okinawan “tenko” or conversion under pressure, abandoning his campaign political pledge and shifting to support the Abe government’s position, i.e. favouring construction of a major new “Futenma Replacement” US facility at Henoko. Governor Nakaima, elected in 2010 on an “anti-substitute base” platform, also surrendered, dramatically, to such pressure late in 2013, as did the LDP prefectural party organization itself, and much of its membership. Okinawan conservative ranks thus split. Those that resisted the fierce pressure from the Abe government in Tokyo to fall into line with national policy evolved the “All Okinawa” political platform, of which Onaga Takeshi, Governor from December 2014, became the principal avatar.

Incumbent Ginowan Mayor, Sakima Atsushi, January 2016 Candidate for Mayor of Ginowan, Shimura Keiichiro, January 2016

Both the Abe government and Governor Onaga insist that this election will not be decided solely on the base issue, but both attach great importance to it. The Abe government even ordered an almost four-week suspension of works at the Henoko site,3 evidently anxious to avoid attention focussing on the base issue out of fear that its preferred candidate might lose if his past reversal or his pro-base position became focus of the election.

For Onaga the election is also obviously important. A victory in Ginowan would show the strength of continuing support for his “All Okinawa” cause (currently he has the backing of only two of the prefecture’s 14 town and city mayors) and perhaps create a momentum that might flow on to the nationally important Upper House elections to be held in the coming summer.

Sakima’s strategy for the 2016 election is to call for early return of Futenma but to avoid taking any public position on Henoko. His campaign is said to have been organized and calibrated in the Prime Minister’s office in Tokyo, where his success ranks high on the list of government priorities. It might be, nominally, a “local” election, but it weighed as much as a “national” one. Government emissaries (including prominent corporate sector representatives keen to promote the base project) avoided street meetings and concentrated on closed door gatherings with important sectoral groups, including the construction groups expected to profit most from Henoko construction.4

Sakima could boast that his city administration had won a substantial (four-fold) increase in central government subsidy, and promise on that basis benefits such as free medical care and subsidized school lunch for the city’s children, without making any point of the fact that the price paid for such largesse was submission to Tokyo’s wishes on base policy.5 His opponent, Shimura, based his position on support for Governor Onaga and “all Okinawa,” meaning that he stood for unconditional return of Futenma and opposed the shifting of its burden elsewhere in the prefecture (i.e. Henoko, in Nago City). In “normal” circumstances, the mayor standing for election to a second term would have a significant advantage, but the contest in Ginowan was unpredictable and the level of external interest exceptionally high. Some interpreted the rumours that circulated in the city (and beyond) of Ginowan being “rewarded” with a Disneyland project as part of a desperate Abe government effort to protect its candidate’s campaign.6

Prefectural Assembly elections are to be held in June 2016. For the political and judicial battle that lies ahead, the importance of Onaga’s retention of control over the Okinawan parliament, the Prefectural Assembly (where he now holds 27:21 majority support), is plain. Abe would dearly like to reverse that balance. Then in July there will be (national) Upper House elections, at which the Abe government’s Minister for Okinawa, Shimajiri Aiko, will be standing for re-election. She is a darling of the Abe government because of the role she played in 2013 in helping the national LDP win back control over the rebellious Okinawa branch. For her role in leading Okinawan LDP Diet members (and other figures such as Ginowan mayor Sakima) to abandon their public pledges of opposition to base construction, she won his deep gratitude and, as a devoted Abe follower and fierce critic of the Okinawan anti-base movement, rose meteorically within the government thereafter. Her status in the national government give her formidable patronage powers in relation to Okinawa that she will undoubtedly use to advance the Henoko cause, but her checkered political career has also won her many enemies.

Abe will do everything possible to win both the Ginowan mayorship and the Shimajiri seat in the House of Councillors, and it would be a nightmare for him to possibly lose both. As one figure connected to the government was quoted to say, “This is the most important election for determining the fate of the government.”7 It goes without saying that the kind of interventions Abe and his government make in Okinawan elections are anti-democratic and unconstitutional and would be unimaginable elsewhere in Japan

The Courts

In judicial terms, Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide made clear even before Onaga’s October 2015 cancelation order that site works would proceed irrespective of any order from the Governor. Contracts were let, materials moved, workers hired, a momentum generated. Then came Onaga’s order, followed the next day by the complaint lodged by Okinawa Defense Bureau (OBD) with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLITT), asking it to review, suspend, and nullify Onaga’s revocation under the Administrative Appeal Act.8 It amounted to one section of the Abe government (the ODB, part of the Ministry of Defense) appealing to another (MLITT), so the outcome could scarcely be in doubt. ODB maintained that there were no flaws with the land reclamation approval made in late 2013 and that Governor Onaga’s revocation disposition was illegal. Onaga presented a 950-page dossier in which he outlined the prefectural case, 9 but, following a cabinet meeting on October 27, MLITT minster Ishii Keiichi suspended the Onaga revocation order,10 on grounds that otherwise it would be “impossible to continue the relocation” and because in that event “the US-Japan alliance would be adversely affected.” 11 The government also authorized a resumption of site works, insisting there was no alternative to the Henoko project and that it amounted to a “burden reduction” for Okinawa even though plainly the new base was to be bigger, more multi-functional, more modern, and almost certainly permanent.

On October 20, 2015, a group of 12 Ginowan citizens (increased by late December to 89) launched a suit demanding cancelation of Governor Onaga’s order, complaining that the Third Party report the Governor had relied on was “biased” and “flawed” and that Onaga’s cancelation order, if implemented, would have the effect of leaving Ginowan citizens facing more-or-less permanent noise and other nuisance from Futenma.12 This pro-government, pro-Henoko construction judicial intervention was only the first of a series that continued through the following months.

When works resumed on October 29, 2015, they government referred to them as “main works” (hontai koji), evidently in order to have them seen as a fait accompli and even though the necessary boring survey was still incomplete. On November 17 the government launched a suit in the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court under the Administrative Appeals Law demanding the Governor retract his order and submit to its authority. Abe repeatedly spoke of Futenma return, but only on condition that there be an alternative, and with the understanding that such an alternative had to be in Okinawa, and in Okinawa it had to be at Henoko.

Governor Onaga, for his part, presented the totally different story, of the inequitable and increasing military base burden on Okinawa, built upon the initial illegal seizure of Okinawan land and in defiance of the clearly and often expressed wishes of the Okinawan people. It was a burden increase, not reduction. The struggle against it was a struggle for justice and democracy and for the protection of Oura Bay’s extraordinary natural biodiversity, worthy, as the prefecture saw it, of World Heritage ranking. Onaga summarily rejected the “advice” (of October 27) and then the “instruction” (November 6) from the MLITT minister to withdraw his cancellation order.13

Okinawan Governor Onaga announces his Decision, October 13, 2015. (Photo: Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images)

On November 2, 2015, he launched a prefectural complaint against the Abe government with the rarely consulted Council for Resolving Disputes between Central and Local Governments.”14 Despite the fact that it would be hard to imagine anything that could better qualify as dispute between those two wings of government, it took barely six weeks for the Council to decide, without calling upon any evidence (and declaring its “verdict” by means of a press conference) that the complaint was “beyond the scope of matters it could investigate.”15 Okinawa prefecture soon made clear that it intended to contest this decision by appeal to the Naha District Court.

On December 25, Onaga launched a prefectural suit in the Naha court to have the October ruling by the Minister set aside. State and prefectural authorities thus sued each other (or made formal complaint in the case of the Disputes Resolution Council) over the same matters, and for the most part in the same Naha court.16 Never before had the national government of Japan faced off in the courts against any self-governing region like this.

While the prefecture insists it is a breach of its constitutional entitlement to self-government for the state to impose the Henoko construction project on it by unilateral, forceful decision, the state, for its part, argues that base matters are its prerogative, having nothing to do with local self-government, and being a matter of treaty obligations are not subject to any constitutional barrier. Onaga also pointed to what he saw, on expert advice, as fatal flaws in the land reclamation approval process. He objected to the ODB’s use of the Administrative Appeal Act, for which purpose the state was pretending to be just like a “private person” (ichishijin) complaining under a law specifically designed to allow individual citizens complaining of unjustified or illegal acts by governmental agencies to seek redress, and noted that, while the state sought relief as an aggrieved citizen it deployed its full powers and prerogatives as state under the Local Self-Government Law to sweep aside prefectural self-government and to assume the right to proxy execution of an administrative act (gyosei daishikko). The state was in his view thus adopting a perverse and arbitrary reading of the law.

The state also pressed for a “speed” trial, with no need for witnesses, while the prefecture argued that the issues were of such significance that it called for greatest care and attention to witnesses, not least the Governor himself.17 And, somewhat ominously, the court asked the Governor what would be his attitude should the court’s decision go against him.18

Onaga Takeshi thus ended his first year in office as Governor embroiled in two suits against the government of Japan, one as plaintiff and one as defendant, and committed to enter (before the end of January 2016) upon a third quasi-judicial proceeding by way of appeal against the decision of the Disputes Resolution Council.

Whatever the outcome of the various proceedings now underway, at least in the two court actions the defeated party is bound to appeal, and it will be up to the Supreme Court to make a ruling. Overall, the national government appears to be engaged on a constitutional coup: stripping the Governor and prefectural government of powers vested in them by the constitution and the Local Government Act and seeking at all costs to justify the MLITT minister’s reinstatement or “proxy execution” of the land reclamation approval.19 It is hard to imagine that any ruling, including that from the Supreme Court, will really resolve matters. It will, however, have a profound impact in determining whether Japan merits the claim made repeatedly by Prime Minister Abe to be a country ruled by law. There were grounds for thinking that, instead, it would prove to be one ruled by “men,” i.e. the government of the day.20

Precedents

Judicial precedents are not encouraging for Okinawa. In December 1959, the Supreme Court held in the “Sunagawa case” that matters pertaining to the security treaty with the US are “highly political” and concern Japan’s very existence, so that the judiciary should not pass judgement on them. That ruling, on expansion of the existing US base at Tachikawa, in effect elevated the Security Treaty above the constitution and immunized it from any challenge at law, thus entrenching the US base presence. It would be surprising if the 2016 court, addressing the project to create a new base at Henoko, did not follow it.

Another precedent addresses more directly the Okinawa base issue. It is just 20 years since then Okinawan Governor Ota Masahide (Governor 1990-1998) was arraigned before the Supreme Court facing the demand by the Prime Minister that he exercise his duties of state under the Local Self-Government Law to sign the proxy lease agreements on privately owned land appropriated by the US military (which he had refused to do). Ota made an eloquent plea, but the court dismissed it, contemptuously, in a two-sentence judgement.21 For Ota, the Supreme Court ruling was the last word. He submitted and signed the proxy lease agreements.

In the case of civil suits too, by Okinawan citizens and civic groups against the government of Japan, the record points to similar judicial inclination to endorse the state, dismissing the Okinawan case against it. One long-running (2009-2014) suit brought by a citizen group to have the environmental impact study on Henoko reopened because of its being fundamentally unscientific was dismissed at both initial hearing and later on appeal court, the latter issuing a judgement so brief that it took just 30 seconds to read out.22 Other long-running suits have been pursued against the government over the intolerable levels of noise and nuisance emanating from the US bases. Between 2002 and 2015, courts have issued altogether seven judgements on this matter, repeatedly accepting evidence (in the words of the most recent judgement of Naha District Court in June 2015) that the 2200 plaintiffs of Ginowan City did indeed suffer “mental distress, poor sleep, and disruption to their daily lives” from “serous and widespread” violations that “could not be defended on any ground of public interest” and that they should therefore be paid 754 million yen (approximately $9 million) compensation. Courts have refused to order a stop to that nuisance. By so doing, they in effect concede that the US military is beyond and above the law, and that the government of Japan is complicit in enforcing its ongoing illegality and the accompanying suffering of its people. As Ryukyu shimpo commented, “how could a government that enforced continuing illegality upon the citizens of one of its regions be considered a law-ruled state?”23

The base issue continues to divide Okinawa as the Abe government strives to divide and conquer it, cultivating sufficient local interest groups to accomplish its purpose. Following the pro-Abe and pro-Sakima suit launched by the 21 Ginowan citizens in late October, a group of twenty citizens living in the vicinity of the Henoko base construction site launched a fresh suit before the Naha court on December 24, 2015, seeking a cancelation of the Abe government’s base construction plans on grounds of noise and other nuisance they could anticipate that the project to bring them. Their constitutional entitlement to a peaceful existence was no less, they insisted, than that of the people of Ginowan. They made their claim out of an urgent sense of justice and entitlement, although knowing full well that justice ranked below the interest of the state in serving the US military.24

Direct Action

As for how Governor Onaga would react if all Okinawan claims were simply dismissed, the Ota precedent is sobering and Onaga’s lifelong membership of the LDP makes one incline to think he would be even less inclined to resist a Supreme Court order than Ota. Yet prediction is not straightforward. Though unashamedly conservative, Onaga prioritizes his identity as Okinawan over ideology and “all Okinawa” is his core slogan. It may be only a straw in the wind but, in November 2015, Onaga’s wife, Mikiko, promised the protesters assembled at the Camp Schwab gate that if all other steps had been taken (bansaku tsukitara) and still the project had not been stopped, she and her husband would come to join them in direct action (Ryukyu shimpo, November 8, 2015). They would stop the construction at all costs, even, in other words, by civil disobedience. This, needless to say, highlights the unique and uniquely problematic nature of Okinawa within the Japanese state and the depth of the contradiction on which the relationship is built.

Coast Guard officers in daily confrontation with protesters outside Camp Schwab or on Oura Bay

Should the decision, or series of decisions, go against Okinawa, and should the Governor (and his wife) then join the direct action resistance at Henoko, the government could, if it so chose, then sweep them away from the gate of Camp Schwab, beating, arresting, and if necessary indicting them, and press ahead with construction. This is essentially what government has been doing for well over a year, though as yet on a small scale. It does so with impunity because its actions escape national media scrutiny and (on the whole) international attention. But if would be a different matter to subject the highly popular Governor in person to such measures, especially because it would mean ordering the prefectural police, who nominally are under the Governor’s command, to arrest him. Such evidence of open clash between wings of the government of Japan would weaken the US military ties that Abe is intent on strengthening, upset the Pentagon, and expose Japan to the world as an anti-democratic state that deployed violence against its own citizens.

Apart from the political and judicial contest, however, it may be that the really crucial area of confrontation is that between the forces of the Abe state and the people of Okinawa gathering every day at the gate of the Camp Schwab site to try to block construction works by direct, non-violent action. The daily gathering that Onaga Mikiko addressed in November 2015 has continued now for well over 500 days, since July 2014. The violence of riot police on land and Coastguard at sea takes its toll of the protesters, who number on a day-to-day basis between 50 and 500 or so, but their morale remains high. They believe they are currently forcing a stoppage of works on roughly one day a week, and plan to step that up to two, three, etc.

As I have noted elsewhere, the crisis today pits the “irresistible force” of the nation state against the “immovable object” of the Okinawan resistance and, in that sense, it has a certain tragic quality. Prime Minister Abe has staked so much on completing and handing over the new facility to the US Marine Corps that it is almost unimaginable that he could ever abandon it. Governor Onaga is in a similar, if opposite, position. Even if he were to submit to a court ruling, and withdraw his opposition (which, for reasons already given above, seems unlikely), far from resolving matters that would further infuriate the Okinawan people and heighten their resentment of their own government and of the base system. The supposed linchpin of the regional security system would then become its Achilles heel.

As writs were issued and injunctions sought late in 2015 and early 2016 to prevent (or to impose) base construction, Abe’s government appeared to be striving to evade any possible adverse judicial ruling by pushing the works with all possible speed beyond a point of no return. 25 The government that did not hesitate in July 2014 to change its interpretation of the constitution to suit its political agenda was in 2016 manipulating the law and intervening in unprecedented ways to try to determine the outcome of a city mayoral election, to impose its will on a recalcitrant prefecture. For the Okinawan resistance to prevail against such a desperate and unprincipled state, it will have to widen the current struggle and gain the support not just of “All-Okinawa” but of an “All-Japan” citizen alliance and an accompanying global movement.

Gavan McCormack is an honorary professor of Australian National University, editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal, and author of many texts on aspects of modern and contemporary East Asian History, including Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012 (co-authored with Satoko Oka Norimatsu). His work is widely published in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, as well as English. For some of his recent essays (other than those accessible at this site), see “Okinawa as sacrificial victim,” Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2015, pp. 6-7, and “Chauvinist nationalism in Japan’s schizophrenic state,” in Leo Panitch and Greg Albo, eds, The Politics of the Right, Socialist Register 2016, London, The Merlin Press, 2015, pp. 231-249.

 

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James Corbett’s two documentaries are discussed, beginning with How Big Oil Conquered the World; the rise of the oiligarchy; the Yom Kippur War and subsequent 1973 oil shock; petro dollars and the monetary system; the creation of modern education, medicine, the green and gene revolution; control of the food supply, and the interrelationship of the global petrochemical industry with all of the above. 9/11 Trillions:

Follow the Money is analyzed as a crime and follows the money through the Silverstein heist, the secret heist of Marsh & McLennan, et al., put and call option insider trading on many corporations; and the Pentagon’s missing trillions.

Part I
Part II

This is Guns and Butter.

At this point, when you look at some of the oiligarchs themselves, I don’t think money is necessarily the driving factor behind this. I think that we have to start to understand that this is ultimately about control – control of society, control of the very genetic code of the planet itself – and that might sound outlandish until you start to piece all of these different pieces of the puzzle together. Control over education, control over medicine, control over plants and agriculture start to form a control grid, which really does look like a monopolization of every aspect of life as we know it.

I’m Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter, James Corbett. Today’s show: Oil and 9/11: Crossroads of Corruption and Criminality. James Corbett is the producer and host of The Corbett Report, an Internet-based, independent, listener-supported alternative news source that has attracted a large audience.

The Corbett Report is edited, web-mastered, written, produced and hosted by James Corbett. It includes a weekly podcast and several regular online video series. James Corbett has been living and working in Japan since 2004. He started The Corbett Report website in 2007 as an outlet for independent critical analysis of politics, society, history, and economics. Today we discuss in detail two hour-long video documentaries written and produced by James Corbett, “How Big Oil Conquered the World” and “9/11 Trillions: Follow the Money.”

* * * * *

Bonnie Faulkner: James Corbett, welcome.

James Corbett: Well, thank you so much for having me here. It’s a pleasure to talk with you.

Bonnie Faulkner: It’s nice to meet you finally, James. I’d like to talk to you today about your two video documentaries, “How Big Oil Conquered the World” and “9/11 Trillions: Follow the Money.”

Your recent documentary, “How Big Oil Conquered the World,” was also called “Rise of the Oiligarchy.” You produced it in four parts: The Birth of the Oiligarchy, Competition is a Sin, The World in Their Image, and Monopolizing Life.

You cover a breathtaking amount of complex historical events in the space of an hour and 15 minutes – and, of course, the documentary raises as many questions as it answers. Naturally, you start with the Rockefellers and move forward from there. What’s an oiligarchy, and why did you name it this?

James Corbett: I think oiligarchy is the best way to try to encapsulate what really developed with the creation of the oil industry as we know it. That, of course, dates back to the 19th century and parts of the early 20th century, but it didn’t take very long for the oil industry to become monopolized. It became not just the commodity that was handled by monopoly cartels perhaps best exemplified by the Standard Oil cartel, but it became the backbone for the economy and for really the entire production of world goods altogether, not only in terms of the energy that’s required to produce and ship goods around the world but even the goods themselves are often made out of petrochemicals and basically their derivative products.

So I thought it was important to try to understand that and the importance of that, that the modern oligarchy as it exists over the global economic system is in many ways an oiligarchy. It is founded and run by the same family cartels that managed to monopolize the oil industry in its early parts.
But I also wanted to make the point that it isn’t really just the oil industry itself that is the range of influence or activity of these oiligarchical interests, that over the course of the 20th century they started to branch out into a lot of very diverse fields and used the economic control that came with the monopolization of the oil industry for other ends.

Bonnie Faulkner: In Part 2, Competition Is a Sin, you cover a dizzying array of subjects from ethanol, prohibition, the destruction of mass transit, the rise of OPEC, the elimination of the gold standard, petrodollars, etc. With regard to the so-called oil embargo of 1973, you talk about the Yom Kippur War as being orchestrated to ultimately usher in higher oil prices. I remember the 1973 oil shock, and I also remember seeing the Shah of Iran on “60 Minutes,” I think it was, saying that oil tankers were leaving Iran as usual. There were also claims that these tankers were simply not being unloaded. The whole thing was fake, don’t you think?

James Corbett: Well, yes, and I think it’s important to understand where the fakeness of that event really stems from. In the documentary I present some of the documents that have since come to light of the 1973 meeting of the Bilderberg Group, a very elite organization that has largely remained under the media radar for many decades. It was founded in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who himself, of course, is reputed to be one of the major stakeholders in Shell Oil, Royal Dutch Shell.

In 1973 this Bilderberg meeting specifically was talking about the possibility of an oil crisis, a large increase in energy costs that they were talking about could be as much as a $10 to $12 increase in the price per barrel, which at that time was a 400% increase over regular prices.

Now, it’s interesting to note, when this meeting convened in May of 1973 there was no oil embargo at that time. There was not even really the hint of one because the Yom Kippur War had not even taken place at that point. This was all theoretical that they were supposedly discussing in these leaked documents. But lo and behold, in October of that year, of course, OPEC did decide to raise oil prices, first by 70% and then in December the Shah of Iran, as you mentioned, demanded a 400% oil price increase at the December meeting of OPEC, and that was granted. So by the end of the year, the Bilderberg meeting that in May, again, had been calling for a 400% price increase saw that 400% price increase materialize.

I think most interestingly, Saudi King Faisal’s personal emissary had been asked at one point by a journalist why the 400% increase was necessary and had been told by the Shah, “Tell your king if he wants the answer to this question he should go to Washington and ask Henry Kissinger” – which is extremely interesting in light of recently declassified documents from the Israeli archives that were declassified in 2013 and reported on by the LA Times and other outlets at that time, that Henry Kissinger had had a secret back-channel negotiation ongoing with Golda Meir in the run-up to the Yom Kippur War in which Meir and Kissinger by association had rejected numerous different peace offerings by Sadat, and basically the war had been if not necessarily the invasion order signed by Henry Kissinger, at any rate he had been complicit in the push towards that war, so that, of course, the war takes place and then the OPEC embargo takes place as a result of that.

So it does seem that we do have good, solid documentary evidence that this war was engineered, at the very least allowed to happen or pushed into a position where it would happen so that the OPEC oil price increase would happen. And again, we have the Saudi king’s personal emissary saying that Kissinger was really responsible for the Iranian demand for the oil price increase.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, yeah, James. It sounds like everybody was in on it, including OPEC.

James Corbett: 
Well, certain members of OPEC, anyway. And, of course, it did work out extremely well for certain members of the oil cartel in various parts of the world including Saudi Arabia who, as the other shoe to drop in this changeover that took place in that period of time, became a beneficiary of the American military umbrella as part of the petrodollar system that was also engineered with the help of, of course, Henry Kissinger who basically provided military protection as well as arms sales to Saudi Arabia in return for the Saudis agreeing to price all of their future oil sales in US dollars, thus creating a demand for US dollars in an environment where there was not necessarily anything really at all backing up the US dollar anymore since Kissinger had taken the dollar off of the gold standard in 1971. So if the Saudis and others who would obviously follow them in this move price their oil in US dollars that would create that ready-made demand.

And, of course, also the Saudis agreed to funnel that money back into the US through the Wall Street banks by buying up US treasuries, so it was a really masterful political and economic move that helped to not only consolidate the control of really the oiligarchs – because of course, this is oil interests that are now backing up the US dollar and thus the world monetary system as a whole – but also, of course, for the very few elite connected individuals and parties that get to take advantage of that new paradigm.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, yes, exactly, and all of these things – the going off the gold standard, the creation of the petrodollar, etc., etc. – this all served to preserve the dollar as the global reserve currency, right?

James Corbett: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Bonnie Faulkner: Yeah, because I remember from your documentary and, of course, it’s well known that around the time that Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard there was an economic crisis that caused that, right?

James Corbett: Well, there were a number of reasons for it and I think it was pretty inevitable. By the point that Nixon actually formally took the dollar off the gold standard in 1971 it was almost inevitable that that was going to happen. There were a number of reasons for it but really, throughout the 1960s the Bretton Woods system that had been put in place in the wake of World War II – Bretton Woods conference took place, of course, in New Hampshire in 1944 to form the basis of the post-World War II economy, and at that point it was agreed that basically the currencies of many different countries would be pegged to the US dollar, which itself would be redeemable for gold at the rate of $35 an ounce. But in order to maintain that peg there, of course, had to be a somewhat steady and predictable increase in the supply of US dollars at a reasonable rate. But as we can see, of course, with the Vietnam War, there was just increase in spending to a degree that was worrying a lot of people.

So you started to get countries like Germany and France starting to demand actual gold for their dollars and the US Federal Reserve was running out of gold reserves in order to actually backstop that, so in 1971 Nixon did end that system formally. And at that time, it really did create a system where you had this structure where all of these different currencies were more or less either pegged or working in concert with the US dollar as the world reserve currency but there was really nothing at all behind it at that point. So there had to be something to backstop that and ultimately it became the oil-petro-chemical industry that ended up backstopping it really at the barrel of the US military gun as encapsulated in that deal with Saudi Arabia.

Bonnie Faulkner: Right, and of course, as I mentioned before, leading up to this point in your documentary you go through a lot of the early history of oil monopolies, the elimination of ethanol as a fuel, actually prohibition adding to the popularity of oil, the destruction of mass transit – we all know about the electric cars, they were eliminated – etc., etc. Then in Part 3, “The World in Their Image,” you cover control of modern education, medicine, the monetary system and the food supply. You begin with modern education. What was the Rockefeller Plan for modern education and how did it differ from traditional education?

James Corbett: Well, traditional education in the United States – specifically, until the 1850s there were no compulsory schooling laws so education tended to be done locally and really, in what would be seen from today’s point of view in a disorganized way but in fact led to remarkable successes in terms of having an educated and literate population. In fact, the 1840 census found that literacy in the US was upwards of 92 to 100%, which shouldn’t be surprising because of course, if you go back to revolutionary times, “Common Sense” was a remarkably popular pamphlet that really did start to turn the tide of American public opinion towards the revolutionary bent that it took and saw through to the conclusion of the creation of the country. So I think it was well known that the American populace was extremely well educated before there was compulsory schooling.

But with the creation of the modern schooling system and really the Prussian education system, which was adopted largely in the late 19th century/early 20th century in America and elsewhere around the world, as John Taylor Gatto and other researchers have detailed, you started to have the possibility of the curriculum being standardized in a way that would create a predictable outcome for students. And that predictable outcome isn’t really difficult to understand what it was or why it would be desired by people in industries of various sorts. Basically, they wanted not independent thinkers who were capable of thinking and acting for themselves, but really, people who were educated enough to understand what was needed of them but basically to consign themselves to a life of labor in a factory, which, of course, was the predominant industrial system of the time.

And we don’t have to speculate about this. We have this on the record from, for example, Frederick Taylor Gates who was appointed by Rockefeller to lead the John B. Rockefeller-created General Education Board, which was Rockefeller’s first major act of philanthropy, endowed with $180 million in 1902, a staggering sum of money at that time. And in a tract written in the early-1900s Frederick Taylor Gates wrote, “In our dream we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds and unhampered by tradition, we work our own goodwill upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.”

Ultimately, of course, what are they trying to raise up then? It is docile workers for the factories of these industrial monopolists, and they were remarkably successful, I think, in that endeavor if you start to look at the educational outcomes of the rest of the century. But it’s not only Rockefeller but Rockefeller and the Carnegie Endowment worked together in the early part of the 20th century to shape the historical understanding first in American history, and then through a number of scholarships and the creation of various educational institutions and societies really started to shape the way that history and education was taught in the United States generally.

Another aspect of that was, of course, the Flexner Report, which was released in 1910, that was an overview of the American medical education system at that time that brought about a revolution in the American medical system, which was the next sort of phase or scope of what the oiligarchs were looking to try to transform.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, that’s right. Could you explain the petrochemical interests behind modern medicine? How does modern medicine differ from medicine in the past and what does it have to do with petrochemicals?

James Corbett: Well, there are different paradigms for understanding what medicine is or how it functions. In the late 19th century the battle lines – or if not battle lines, at least the demarcation lines – had been drawn between homeopathy, naturopathy, which looked at natural herbs and other ways of trying to stimulate one’s own immune response versus the allopathy, which of course is trying to cut and burn or try to get rid of diseases in various ways. And in the late 19th century there was an old phrase that, basically, “one way you’ll die of the cure, the other way you’ll die of the disease” – talking about the pretty poor results of medicine at that time. Basically, some of the grotesque types of surgeries that were done without anesthesia or other ways of relieving pain were excruciating and caused a lot of early deaths themselves. On the other hand, a lot of naturopaths and homeopaths didn’t really have ways of dealing with a lot of illnesses.

So there was this sort of uneasy tension, and there was really no regulation by the end of the late 19th century in terms of the medical industry. There was no formalized, standardized system for education let alone the American Medical Association was only just being birthed, so there was a very scattershot approach to medicine in the early days.

But that, of course, was overtaken by the creation of the American Medical Association, and the Flexner Report, which as I say, had a huge impact – it was a Carnegie-sponsored report by somebody who went on to work for the Rockefeller Institute looking at the American medical education system and how it was sloppy and how it should be standardized. And of course, one of the ways that it ultimately became standardized was to make it a rigorous seven-year training process, or more, in which doctors were trained in the use of medicines, which conveniently enough for the oiligarchs tended to be petrochemically derived medicines.

One, I think, particularly interesting example of that, which I point out in the documentary, is Nujol, which is short for new oil, which was the name of what was marketed as a laxative. It was literally just a crude oil byproduct that was marketed by a Standard Oil subsidiary – that also produced pesticides at the same location, the same factory, incidentally – that was marketed as a laxative that would cost something like 10 to 29 cents for a 6-ounce bottle. It cost Standard Oil less than half a cent to actually create that bottle but led to quite a lot of profit, obviously.

Those are the types of direct monetary interests that the petrochemical manufacturers had in the creation of our modern conception of medicine to the point where today medicine is synonymous with, of course, the idea of going to a doctor and getting a prescription for a medicine – usually, again, a petrochemically derived medicine – as a way of trying to cope with illness rather than of course looking at ways to improve one’s own immune system or to basically deal with the prevention side of medical care rather than the cure side.

Bonnie Faulkner: What are some of the corporations involved in modern medicine and how did they effect their control?

James Corbett: Well, some of the largest chemical companies in the world were, for example, BASF, which derives from a company that was founded in Germany in the early 20th century called IG Farben. It was a drug and chemical cartel that was founded by some of the largest chemical companies in Germany at that time, and it became one of the largest industrial manufacturers in the world, in fact, only behind Standard Oil of New Jersey and a few other companies to take the largest company spot.

After World War II IG Farben was disbanded because of its help in the rise of the Third Reich, but exactly like Standard Oil, which was broken up in the early part of the 20th century but in fact just became an even larger corporation, really, or series of corporations, when it was disbanded, IG Farben was likewise. So BASF of course remains one of the largest chemical companies in the world today, as are a couple of other offshoots that I think will be well known to the audience, Bayer and Sanofi, which are some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Again, this ties directly back to the oiligarchical influence that we’ve seen with IG Farben having been not only itself a petrochemical company but also one that had on its board Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who I mentioned before was part of the Royal Dutch Shell conglomerate. So again, this traces back to the same families that have been together with this petrochemical interest since the beginning, and to this day Bayer and Sanofi remain some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and extremely profitable companies for those involved with them.

Bonnie Faulkner: Let’s talk about food. What is the Green Revolution and does it differ from the Gene Revolution?

James Corbett: Well, yes, at least in a manner of speaking. The Green Revolution dates back to the 1940s and it dates back to, in most readings of history it dates back to Norman Borlaug who was a researcher who was investigating various forms of wheat and maize and other crops that were being cultivated in Mexico. His task was to try to find crops that would be more resistant to various problems that Mexican farmers would have.
Part of his research involved finding new strains, creating new strains of wheat and other crops that would be more responsive to the Mexican farmers and their plights. He was quite successful in that and through a variety of techniques he was able to breed new strains of wheat, for example, that were much more resilient and provided a lot greater crop yields. As a result of that and the application of his various techniques in various places around the world, we had what is called the green revolution – basically, an enormous increase in yields that took place throughout the 1950s and ‘60s and ‘70s that was enabled by this revolution through these modified strains but also through the introduction of modern industrial farming techniques.

Of course, as it turns out, Norman Borlaug was a researcher for the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation and associated interests in a number of petrochemical and associated companies started to fund, to the tune of billions of dollars, the cultivation of these crops in various Third World countries. Of course, also attendant with it the creation of the modern agribusiness cartels including the ABCD Seed cartel, Archer Daniel Midlands, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus – some of these companies really started to consolidate control over world food supplies at that time and continue to in the present day.

Of course, this was, again, directly beneficial to the oiligarchs themselves who, of course, as one of their petrochemical derivatives is petrochemically derived fertilizers. So you had fertilizer companies like DuPont and Hercules Powder and others that were able to directly benefit from this.
But then, of course, there was also the secondary or tertiary benefits of this that also occurred to the oiligarchs in the form of the modern industrial practices that were being spread around the world at the same time as this Green Revolution with fertilizers and tractors and irrigation – of course, all of these modern farm implements running on oil and oil-supplied energy from, of course, the oiligarchs themselves. A lot of this was financed through the US government, through US aid programs including President Johnson’s Food for Peace program. So basically, the agribusiness giants were making direct profits from this Green Revolution via the US government and ultimately the US taxpayers, in the service of this spreading of the Green Revolution around the globe.

The Green Revolution has been sold as this great success story but there are, of course, numerous downsides that have taken place as a result of it as well. Fist of all, it’s not at all clear that the enormous increases in yields that we saw in the middle of the 20th century were directly related to the Green Revolution itself. In fact, in India research has shown that the pace of the crop yield increases actually started to slow after the introduction of the Green Revolution because of disparate ways that this was being applied in different areas.

It also had real social costs in a lot of places. Basically, this tended to benefit people who were rich landowners already, at the expense of the farm-working peasants who were more and more being replaced, basically, by automation and had to move to urban slums and try to find ways of making money, usually by ending up in Third World condition, sweatshop-like condition factories producing goods for multinational conglomerates. So there were a lot of downsides to the Green Revolution but it’s usually talked about as some sort of great success.

The Green Revolution ultimately, of course, just parlayed into the Gene Revolution, which is what is the moniker for the modern what they call the biotech tech industry revolution of the food supply, which is now looking at various ways to scientifically engineer at the genetic level various strains of different crops that will be even more resistant and supposedly require less fertilizers and other chemical inputs – although, actually research shows that genetically modified crops actually require more fertilizers than did their non-genetically modified brethren.

It, again, is a revolution that may be more hype than it is actually delivering but at any rate, it is, of course, once again populated by the same petrochemical interests. You have all of the IG Farben offshoots with their own biotech branches. You have Bayer Crop Science, you have BASF Plant Science, you have Dow AgroScience, you have DuPont Biotechnology and a lot of other related firms with oiligarchical interests. But on top of that you have a dizzying array of different research institutes and societies that have been created directly through Rockefeller or Rockefeller associated monies in the past few decades to try to spread this Gene Revolution.

There’s the International Rice Research Institute, which of course is Rockefeller funded. You have the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, which is a Rockefeller / Monsanto / USAID conglomerate. You have the Consultative Group of International Agriculture Research, which was created by the World Bank in association with the Rockefeller and Ford foundations.

So a lot of these same monies are accruing to this Gene Revolution, which is really just a furtherance of the Green Revolution. And in many ways, represents a really worrying monopolization of the building blocks of life itself, when you start looking at the ways that the gene revolution relies on these genetically modified crops – which are patented and patentable and these companies are not afraid to use them. In fact, they already have in numerous locations used the philanthropic cover to introduce these genetically modified strains in the midst of severe droughts and other problems with harvests, and then actually gone and tried to sue farmers or entire countries, in fact, that were trying to use these genetically modified products, without paying the proper royalties. In fact, that’s exactly what happened in Argentina where Monsanto did exactly that and ended up trying to demand royalties from Argentina farmers for planting their crops.

This is, again, going on, and it represents not only billions upon billions upon billions of dollars for the companies involved in these biotech conglomerates but, of course, also, again, a worrying consolidation of control of the seed supply itself in the hands of a very few companies.
Bonnie Faulkner: Well, that’s right. In addition to that, of course, the very big questions about the health effects for people who eat these genetically modified foods. That’s a whole other subject as well. As you point out, funding of the Gene Revolution is provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other such organizations. What is the ultimately goal of all of this control?
James Corbett: Well, this is really, I think, the important thing for people to grasp. Once again, I don’t think that ultimately the monetary incentive is the only one at work here. I think that’s the easily understandable one and, of course, as I say, there are numerous corporations that are making billions upon billions of dollars through the spreading of this Green / Gene Revolution around the world. But I think at this point when you look at some of the oiligarchs themselves, I don’t think money is necessarily the driving factor behind this.

I think that we have to start to understand that this is ultimately about control – control of society, control of the very genetic code of the planet itself. That might sound outlandish until you start to piece all of these different pieces of the puzzle together – control over education, control over medicine, control over plants and agriculture start to form a control grid which really does look like a monopolization of almost every aspect of life as we know it. The question is, is there an ideology behind this, an ideology driving it?

The answer is a resounding yes and, in fact, that is exactly what I’m going to get into in the follow-up to this documentary, which I hope to have released in the next month or two – which will be looking at the ideology of control that is really driving the oiligarchs, and it has its roots in late 19th century development of the now discredited pseudoscience of eugenics that was largely funded and helped by, of course, the Rockefellers in the American context through American research centers like the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the American Eugenics Society and around the world, including, of course, in Germany through the Kaiser Wilhelm institute, and how that eugenics idea – which is basically the idea that there are certain people who are just genetically superior to others and thus have a sort of modern scientific divine right to rule is the modern scientific gloss on that. That, ultimately, was parlayed into a type of crypto-eugenics after World War II and the discrediting of eugenics as pseudoscience, which took on the form of overpopulation fear mongering and has really taken on the form of the guise of concern about climate. I think that’s going to be the next way in which this agenda of control is being foisted on the public.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, as you say in your Part 4, Conclusion: Monopolizing Life, the aim was much greater than a mere oil monopoly; it was the quest to monopolize all aspects of life and I think you’ve just laid that out pretty clearly. I’m very much looking forward to the second installment of these documentaries. I’ll have to hand it to you for putting these things together. This must entail an awful lot of work on your part.

James Corbett: It is an incredible amount of work. I guess I have the advantage that I’ve now been researching these subjects for the last 10 years and so I’ve accrued an awful lot of information. The real hardest part of it is trying to distill it down to an hour and 15 minutes and have it make sense. I think you’ll find in my podcast archives I’ve talked about a lot of these subjects before. Maybe not some of these details but these subjects broadly speaking I’ve talked about at great length in many, many different hours of many different podcasts. But trying to distill it down is the hardest part. So really, the writing of this transcript took about a month, a month and a half to put together, and of course there was about a month of video editing that my video editor did, an excellent job of putting this together. But really, it does represent the culmination of upwards of a decade of research.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, I’m not surprised to hear that and, of course, when I was watching your hour and 15-minute documentary, whoa! I had to keep stopping and thinking because it goes by very quickly. As I said before and you’ve reiterated, it covers a vast amount of subjects, very complex.

James, I’d like to now talk about another documentary that you made, on 9/11. In your documentary “9/11 Trillions: Follow the Money: An Investigation of the 9/11 Money Trail,” you begin with the question, “What was 9/11? A terrorist atrocity? An attack on America? The first salvo in a new war? A day that changed everything?” Well, that’s a very good question. What was 9/11, in your opinion?

James Corbett: I think first and foremost we have to understand 9/11 as a crime, and I don’t think this is just a matter of semantics. I think it’s extremely important the way that we approach 9/11, what it was, in order to determine how we should approach understanding it, trying to piece it together and understand what happened.

If we take it as an act of war, a terrorist atrocity, if we just immediately start to do that, we put it into a framework where we have already assumed the conclusion. We know who was behind it, we know what it was done for and we know how to respond. And that’s of course, exactly what took place and we saw the – well, we’re still living through all of the various ramifications of that including not only, of course, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan still ongoing to this day but, of course, ultimately the invasion of Iraq, which was largely predicated on the fear that was induced on 9/11 and we are still obviously, with ISIS, living through the ramifications of that.

So I think it’s extremely important to understand that 9/11 essentially was a crime. It was a crime perpetrated by … well, there have been the people identified by the 9/11 Commission as the 19 hijackers but more importantly, crimes do not take place, generally speaking – or certainly not crimes of this magnitude – just by a few individuals just deciding to get on a plane one day. There is a conspiracy behind them, necessarily. By definition, if they have conspired to bring this out there is a conspiracy, so I think we have to try to understand that.

And, of course, when we look at it is as a crime, one of the key investigative tools for any would-be investigator of any crime is ‘follow this money’. This is a dictum that is well known because it does tend to work. We can understand the connections, we can start to piece together how the crime was committed and why it was committed if we start to look at the various ways that it was funded and the ramifications of this, what kind of monetary effects did this have. I think when we put 9/11 in that context we have a vastly different story going on than what we’ve been presented with in the news media as the official story of 9/11.

Bonnie Faulkner: You begin your documentary on 9/11 with “The Heist.” You state that in 1998 the New York / New Jersey Port Authority decided to privatize the World Trade Center complex and that in April of 2001 an agreement was reached with a consortium of investors led by Silverstein Properties and that in July of 2001 a 99-year lease was signed with Larry Silverstein. How was this deal unusual?

James Corbett: Well, there were a few things that were unusual about it, one of which was that the Port Authority had only insured the WTC center for $1.5 billion. In fact, I believe earlier in 2001 the entire complex had been estimated at a value of $1.2 billion. And yet Silverstein insisted on insuring $3.55 billion, which is a doubling of the amount of insurance that the Port Authority had on it, which again, is somewhat unusual, and in fact, was such a large deal that it was very difficult to put together. Silverstein’s insurance broker ultimately had to split the coverage up amongst 25 different dealers.

It was a very complex negotiation that was still ongoing as September 11th unfolded. There were preliminary agreements in place but it had not all been finalized, which led to the years and years of court battles that we saw in the years afterwards with Silverstein being embroiled in all sorts of court actions against his insurers trying to claim not only, of course, the $3.55 billion that the World Trade Center had been insured for under that deal but in fact, $7.1 billion because as he immediately in the wake of 9/11 tried to claim, this was not one but two acts of terrorism and thus counted double for the insurance purposes. So that was fairly unusual.

Also, just the fact that this was a 99-year lease that specifically included provisions in the event of the destruction of the towers that would allow Silverstein Properties to rebuild in that area and to increase the amount of commercial space available in that area, which is interesting because, of course, prior to 9/11 the World Trade Center was not a prime real estate property. It was not fully leased. It was, in fact, aging buildings that had many problems with them including asbestos problems that were going to require a large amount of money to solve. In fact, other than the prestige associated, of course, with being the leaseholder of the World Trade Center, there were a lot of problems with the buildings themselves. Well, that seemed to have been taken care of, I suppose, just literally weeks after the ink was dry on that deal.

Bonnie Faulkner: Is it also true that Larry Silverstein took out insurance against a terrorist attack?

James Corbett: Terrorist events were part of the coverage. My understanding is that that was not in and of itself unusual. Of course, his trying to make the two plane strikes count for two different terror attacks was somewhat beyond the pale, but he ultimately did end up making over $4 billion in insurance coverage and he had only insured for $3.55 billion, so the courts ultimately handed him something of a victory in that regard. And ultimately he did profit from the attacks directly.

Bonnie Faulkner: You say that a much deeper, more complex and well-hidden heist was taking place behind closed doors on September 11th, 2001. What can you tell us about this deeper heist? First of all, what is Marsh & McLennan?

James Corbett: Marsh & McLennan bills itself as a diversified risk insurance and professional services firm, ultimately a type of insurance agent, that currently has over 57,000 employees and brings in revenues of over $13 billion every year. At the time of 9/11, they occupied floors 93 to 100 in the north tower of the World Trade Center and they had hundreds of employees working there.

This is important because Marsh had recently, just prior to the attacks, contracted with a firm called SilverStream Software to try to create an electronic connection between Marsh and some of its premier clients for paperless transactions. Nothing of this sort had been accomplished or even attempted before this point and so they were really trying to pioneer something with this. Some of their largest clients included Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust and Alex Brown and Morgan Stanley and other financial services firms that were contracting with Marsh, and so they were creating this special proprietary electronic paperless transactions software system. In fact, they ultimately ended up winning a type of insurance industry insider kind of award called the Accord Award, I believe in 2001, specifically for developing that system, shortly before the 9/11 attacks.

This software … the extent of it is not really publicly known but we do have one person who was working on that deal as a sales representative for SilverStream who has come out and talked about the deal itself. His name is Richard Grove. He now has his own podcast and runs his own website at TragedyAndHope.com. He was part of this deal as a sales representative who started to notice anomalies in the way that this contract was being billed, and basically to the tune of millions of dollars, money was being put into this deal that wasn’t making its way through the system properly. He was trying to sort this out with various people both at SilverStream and at Marsh and at Marsh’s clients.

This started to become a major issue, and ultimately on 9/11 itself there was a meeting that was taking place. We do have independent confirmation that this took place from Marsh’s Chief Information Officer, Ellen Clark, in a 2006 interview. There was a meeting that was taking place in Marsh’s offices in the World Trade Center on 9/11 that was specifically going to hear about these suspicious parts of this contract that was taking place.

Now, obviously in the north tower on 9/11 where this conference call was taking place, none of the employees involved in that conference call survived. Richard Grove, who was stuck in traffic on the way to the World Trade Center as he was supposed to make an appearance at that conference call ultimately didn’t make it there and survived to tell the tale.

Now, the interesting part of this comes in the wake of 9/11 when there was a German company called Convar Infosys that was hired to try to recover some of the information from the hard drives at the World Trade Center. There was quite a bit of coverage about this in December of 2001 including a Reuters article and Fox News, I believe, covered it, CNN, talking about the investigation that Convar was involved in and trying to recover this information from the damaged hard drives. As a representative of Convar at that time, Peter Hershel, talked about, they started to find a large number of anomalous and unexplained transactions in the immediate lead-up to and during the attacks themselves on 9/11. Peter Hershel, Convar’s Director, said “the suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start.”

This is interesting because we also have, from Michael Ruppert, who I believe you’ve talked to in the past, one of the former Deutsche Bank employees who was working in the World Trade Center at that time talked to him about how the computer systems in Deutsche Bank in the twin towers were being “taken over,” co-opted and run by something – they didn’t know where it was coming from. There was a massive data purge, a massive data download as the attacks were happening.

Of course, all of this swirls around the e-link clients that SilverStream Software was developing with Marsh for its key contractors. So all of this seems to indicate – and again, Convar did start to find hard data backing up the fact that there were anomalous transactions taking place in the World Trade Center at the time of 9/11 – but interestingly enough, that Convar investigation was ultimately quashed and the FBI will no longer talk about it. Convar itself will no longer talk about it. They will not even confirm that they ever did this work. Although they do talk about it in promotional materials, when asked by interviewers about the information, what they found, what kind of transactions they were looking at, how much, they will now not talk about it at all, simply saying that that investigation was over and they’re not allowed to talk about it anymore.

We do know that the FBI was one of the investigative agencies that was getting information from this but they have not released any reports on what was found in the Convar information. So we know that there were anomalous transactions taking place, we know that there was this unusual, unprecedented e-link that was being forged in the months prior to 9/11 between Marsh & McLennan and its various contractors, and we have testimony from a Deutsche Bank employee that there was something very anomalous happening during the attacks themselves, but we don’t really have ultimately any answer as to what this all was because, unfortunately, again, all of these investigations have been quashed and come to an end.

Bonnie Faulkner: Now, did Richard Grove work for SilverStream or for Marsh?

James Corbett: He was working for SilverStream Software specifically as a sales representative. He was selling the software that SilverStream was developing to Marsh so that Marsh could develop this e-link software.

Bonnie Faulkner: I see. And yes, you mentioned Michael Ruppert. Just as an aside, the first program that I ever produced on Guns and Butter was actually a little half-hour program live with Mike Ruppert one month after 9/11. It was going to be an economics show on the put options and, of course, it turned into a show on 9/11. So I’ve found the subject following me around ever since. What did you discover in your research about insider trading in the days leading up to and on September 11th?

James Corbett: Well, as you say, Michael Ruppert did do pioneering work on this issue and it’s one that’s somewhat understood by, I think, a lot of the public at this point but really only in a tiny, little way. A lot of people have heard about the put options that were put on various airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines, that were, of course, obviously adversely effected by 9/11, and that is a part of the story. It’s one that was well covered in the first couple of months after 9/11 even in mainstream locations. ABC News and others covered it, talking about some of these put options.
To put it into perspective, for example, you have put options on United Airlines that were put in the days prior to 9/11 that were relatively small, $180,000. But in the wake of 9/11 and, of course, the plunging of United Airlines stocks, that turns into $2.4 million, so millions of dollars of benefits, and that’s just one example of one of the trades that was made. I think the impression that a lot of people have is that, well, this was investigated and they found that there was really nothing behind it and it’s been overhyped.

Quite the contrary. In fact, there have been three different scientific studies that have taken place over the past 10 years that have demonstrated that there is a statistically identifiable increase in put option activity, unusual increase in option activity, in the S&P and Dow Jones in the lead-up to 9/11 that are suggestive of advance knowledge of the attacks.

And it isn’t just airlines. There were a number of put options on a number of companies that were directly impacted by 9/11 including Boeing, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Munich Re, the AXA Group, Marsh & McLennan was one of the major companies that were implicated in this options training.

But also, on the other side, not just put options but call options, i.e., basically bets that the stock was going to increase, were also put in an anomalous way on Raytheon stock, which at the time was $25. Of course, after the invasion of Afghanistan, which was heavily supplied by Raytheon Tomahawk missiles, that stock went up to $34, a 37% increase. So again, there were a lot of different trades made on a lot of different stocks in the immediate run-up to 9/11 – we’re talking days and weeks prior to 9/11 – that ultimately ended up paying millions and millions of dollars.
The official investigation of this by the FBI ultimately concluded that “we have not developed any evidence suggesting that those who had advance knowledge of the September 11th attacks traded on the basis of that information,” which seems to be, at first glance, a denial that there had been any advanced trading taking place.

But in fact, when you look at that, they say that there is no evidence that those who had advanced knowledge traded on the basis of that information, which of course begs the question, how did the FBI, how did the Department of the Treasury, how did the SEC determine who had advanced knowledge of the attacks, especially when there seems to be advanced knowledge in the very act of placing these bets themselves?

That question is begged even more when you look at some of the leads that were deliberately not followed up by the FBI. For example, a briefing document from the FBI in 2003 that was declassified in 2009 identified a couple of individuals who, for example, had purchased 56,000 shares of Stratesec stock in the days prior to 9/11, stock that did go up. They provide security systems to airports, which, of course, saw an increase in revenues in the wake of 9/11 and the increased security procedures that were implemented. Incidentally, they were also in charge of security at Dulles and the World Trade Center and United Airlines, so they were also implicated in the “failure” of 9/11. But their stock did go up, so this purchase of 56,000 shares in the days prior to 9/11 was of interest but the FBI decided not to even interview the people who had bought these stocks because the investigation found that they revealed “no ties to terrorism or other negative information.”

Kevin Ryan, who I believe you’ve also interviewed on this program, has talked about how ultimately it was Wirt Dexter Walker III, a distant relative of George W. Bush, President Bush, but also a business partner of Marvin Bush, the president’s brother. So these were a couple of the people who were identified in that FBI investigation and not even interviewed because they had no conceivable ties to terrorism, therefore they could not have been trading on advanced knowledge.

I think that goes to show that the FBI investigation was ultimately an open question itself. How did they know that these people had no advanced knowledge?

Bonnie Faulkner: James Corbett, thank you very much.

James Corbett:
 Thank you very much for having me on. It’s a pleasure.

* * * * *

I’ve been speaking with James Corbett. Today’s show has been Oil and 9/11: Crossroads of Corruption and Criminality. James Corbett is the producer and host of The Corbett Report, an Internet-based, independent, listener-supported alternative news source that has attracted a large audience. The Corbett Report is edited, web-mastered, written, produced and hosted by James Corbett. It includes a weekly podcast and several regular online video series. James Corbett has been living and working in Japan since 2004. He started The Corbett Report website in 2007 as an outlet for independent critical analysis of politics, society, history, and economics. He is also an editorial writer for The International Forecaster, the weekly e-newsletter created by the late Bob Chapman. Visit The Corbett Report website at corbettreport.com. Visit gunsandbutter.org to hear the remainder of this interview and read a transcript.

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.

Bonus Track

James Corbett: One of the most interesting parts of all of this story is that, in fact, we have a former CIA agent, and not just any CIA agent but Robert Baer who was actually the inspiration behind the character that George Clooney plays in the movie “Syriana.” He’s a talking head that’s often brought on CNN and other major networks to talk about the Middle East where he had been stationed for a long time in his CIA capacity. In 2008 he was recorded by a citizen journalist group talking about how he knew, “I know the guy that went into his broker in San Diego and said, ‘Cash me out; it’s going down tomorrow’,” in reference specifically to 9/11. When questioned about this he said, “Well, his brother worked at the White House” and left it at that. That’s on record. Again, you can go and watch the video of Robert Baer talking about this.

So we have this well-known former CIA agent talking about this direct advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks the day before 9/11, and that has not been reported on as far as I know by any major news network, has never been followed up whatsoever, but is a pretty glaring admission that there was something, unless we are to take the fact that perhaps Robert Baer was simply lying, or maybe it was a joke. Maybe that’s what he’ll say. But at any rate, no one has followed up on that.

And in putting that together with all of the data that we have from these scientific studies that show there was anomalous trading and the FBI investigation documents that have been released showing Wirt Dexter Walker III and others being involved in that trading, I think it’s highly significant and something that really does deserve people’s attention.

Ultimately, this question of advance knowledge trading on the 9/11 attacks is not over. It’s not done with. There’s still a lot of information that needs to be talked about but, perhaps conveniently, the SEC will never be able to release the records of their investigation into this because those records were destroyed as part of routine recordkeeping, something that was discovered by a researcher placing a FOIA, a Freedom of Information Act, request for that information, a few years ago. The response was that the SEC had no responsive documents because that had been destroyed. So we will never know what the SEC ultimately concluded from their investigation into this insider trading or where that information is.

Bonnie Faulkner: Now, as you point out in your documentary, the offices of Marsh & McLennan in the north tower were, I think, completely destroyed because they were in the exact impact section on the north tower. Isn’t that correct?

James Corbett: That is correct, yes.

Bonnie Faulkner: The Chief Risk Management Officer of Marsh & McLennan was none other than Paul Bremer. He wasn’t killed on 9/11. Where was he?

James Corbett: Paul Bremer was, in fact, not in his offices on 9/11. He was the former Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates. He went on to oversee the US occupation of Iraq as the U.S. Occupation Governor, but he was the Chief of Risk Management, on 9/11 specifically, for Marsh & McLennan, not in his offices but at NBC TV studios where he was brought on as a terrorism/counterterrorism expert to talk about the attacks. This was literally just hours after the planes had struck. There was still very little information that had been made publicly available and presumably little information at that point had been collected, but at that time the news anchor suggested that this was probably bin Laden and Paul Bremer agreed, ‘Bin Laden was involved in the first attack on the World Trade Center, which had as its intention doing exactly what happened here, which was to collapse both towers. He certainly has to be a prime suspect.’

So literally within hours of the plane strikes you had Paul Bremer, head of risk management at Marsh & McLennan who was not at his offices but at the TV studio recording this interview, talking about how bin Laden was the prime suspect. And, of course, as I say, he went on to become the Iraq Occupation Governor.

Bonnie Faulkner: The second half of your documentary, “9/11 Trillions: Follow the Money” is on the “Pentagon’s Missing Millions,” beginning with the $2.3 trillion that was first mentioned in Rumsfeld’s confirmation hearing, and then again on September 10th. What’s even more shocking is Rumsfeld’s mention of Roberta Wohlstetter’s book, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision at that same hearing, this being January 2001. What did you discover in your research about the Pentagon’s missing millions? Or trillions, I should say.

James Corbett: Indeed, missing trillions. It is difficult to even wrap your head around such a concept, especially a decade-and-a-half ago when trillions was still a large number. I suppose in our post-bailout world it doesn’t seem quite as large as it did at that time. But yes, this was a startling conclusion of a DOD Inspector General Report that in the early part of the 2000s, specifically the Inspector General Report for Fiscal Year 1999, had found $7.6 trillion of department level accounting entries through the Defense Finance and Accounting Service that were processed in that year, but of that $7.6 trillion of accounting entries, only $3.5 trillion could actually be accounted for. There was $2.3 trillion in transactions that were fudged essentially to make entries balance. They were run without proper documentation or even made up entirely, and the Inspector General’s office did not even have the time or staff to examine the other $1.8 trillion in transactions that were unaccounted for because they just simply didn’t have the resources to combat that, to look at that problem.

So that was the pretty startling conclusion of the DOD Inspector General’s Fiscal Year 1999 examination, and this, of course, came up in the confirmation hearings for Rumsfeld, as you say, where they talked about this at some length. At that time, of course, the incoming Bush administration was arguing for a $50 billion increase in the Department of Defense’s budget, which the senators in the confirmation hearing were taking a bit of umbrage at, the idea that they would spend another $50 billion on the Department of Defense when there’s at least $2.3 trillion in transactions that couldn’t be tracked and presumably were “unaccounted for,” we’ll say. “Missing” might not be quite the right way to put it, but certainly unaccounted for with the possibility of a lot of that money being simply missing.

At that time it became something of a political issue, certainly in the confirmation hearings and in some of the other Defense budgetary hearings that were taking place throughout 2001. Again, in July of 2001 Rumsfeld was talking about this before the House Appropriations Committee. It was certainly a large topic, and one would understand why – again, talking about trillions of dollars in unaccounted transactions, equivalent to the entire federal budget for that year, actually, a startling amount of funds that were unaccounted for.

Interestingly, on September 10th, 2001, the very day before 9/11, Rumsfeld made a speech in which he talked about how America was going to start a new war, a war on bureaucracy. Because of this unaccounted-for money that they couldn’t track through the system, well, they were going to have to start a war on bureaucracy in order to try to find out where this money was and what was happening to it – a war which, I suppose, melted away in the wake of 9/11 because, of course, in the wake of 9/11 there was no question whatsoever whether or not the U.S. Department of Defense’s budget should increase or not. It was increased greatly and, of course, we saw the Afghanistan invasion and the Iraq War take place as a result of that increase.

Interestingly, part of that September 10th speech, Rumsfeld actually posed the question, “Some might ask how in the world could the Secretary of Defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people. To them I reply, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it.” That was less than 24 hours before the Pentagon was being struck.

Bonnie Faulkner: What can you tell us about Pentagon controller Dov Zakheim and his connections?

James Corbett: Pentagon controller Dov Zakheim was the chief of something called the Systems Planning Corporation, and Systems Planning Corporation, SPC, was involved in defense contracting for Department of Defense, for DARPA. It was involved in the radar physics laboratory, remote control system for airborne vehicles. It had a lot of different contracts going on, but basically it was developing, among other things, ways to remotely control airplanes.

Zakheim, of course, ultimately ended up becoming the Comptroller overseeing the trillions of dollars of missing money from the Pentagon, which was interesting in and of itself – but also interesting perhaps for his connection to something called the Project for the New American Century, which I’m sure many of your listeners have heard about before. This was a group of neocons in the late 1990s during the Clinton administration who formed a group in 1997 specifically to try to put forward various policy initiatives.

One of those was called Rebuilding America’s Defenses, which was a 2000 document. It was released in September of 2000, calling for a vast transformation of the American military and among other things talking about introducing biological weapons as a possibility for future warfare and things of that nature, really quite amazing, startling things. But that document, of course, contained the famous line that “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor.” And, of course, immediately in the wake of 9/11 it was referred to as the New Pearl Harbor, which, of course, did bring to mind Rumsfeld’s praising of the book about Pearl Harbor by Roberta Wohlstetter in his January 2001 nomination hearings.

Of course, one of the authors of that document, one of the people involved in that Project for the New American Century that put out that Rebuilding America’s Defenses document was Dov Zakheim, who of course went on to become the Comptroller. Donald Rumsfeld, incidentally, was also a member of the Project for the New American Century.

Bonnie Faulkner: In your documentary it is stated that “by the year 2013 there was $8.5 trillion in unaccounted-for Pentagon funds.” I guess there is no oversight at all, even to this day.

James Corbett: No. The Pentagon has not been able to balance its budget in all of this time. It has not been able to provide accurate accounting of what’s going on. This is an ongoing problem. It should really, you would think, be one of the major scandals of the 21st century. One would think that considering the amount of money that we’re talking about here, $8.5 trillion unaccounted for – again, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all $8.5 trillion is missing per se; it’s just that they can’t tell how they spent it.

But there are some indications that we have of the scope of what we’re looking at here. For example, Stephen Miles in a report that was broadcast on RT was talking about one of the Inspector General reports that has been released since 2001 –incidentally, I should say that there was no fiscal year 2001 Inspector General Report released at all because there was an understaffing of the Inspector General office as a result of 9/11 and the hitting of the Pentagon’s offices, so that’s, I think, interesting in and of itself. But anyway, in the intervening years, the Inspectors General looked at a number of different things, including specifically at the money spent on the invasion of Iraq. Even in that tiny slice of money they were able to find that $50 billion of the invasion funding was completely wasted and about $6 billion completely lost. There is absolutely no way to account for it.

So again, this is an ongoing problem and you would think that this would be a major political scandal, but for some reason it doesn’t appear to be. The only people that I have ever seen ask Rumsfeld about this since really that time, since he left office, was a citizen journalist group, which I believe in 2011, perhaps in late 2010, asked him about this money. He stumbled his way through a response in which he said it was billion dollars instead of trillion – he said $2.3 billion, perhaps a slip of the lip – and tried to wave it off as, oh, well, we just couldn’t track it through our system. It’s because of old computers and things of that nature. So again, it’s quite remarkable how this has been basically swept under the rug of what you would think would be the major economic accounting scandal of the 21st century.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, James Corbett, I would like to congratulate you on two terrific documentaries, “How Big Oil Conquered the World” and “9/11 Trillions: Follow the Money.” How about telling us a little bit about The Corbett Report, how it’s produced?

James Corbett: I started this back in 2007. In 2004 I moved to Japan. I’m Canadian originally but I came to Japan to teach English and I was doing that for a few years. In 2006 or so I started to encounter some of the information that led me along the path towards creating The Corbett Report, including, of course, some of the interviews that you’ve done on your show. That information just started to accrue to the point where I could not take the discrepancy anymore between what I was seeing represented in the mainstream versus what I was finding in these various online sources through firsthand documentation and other things, like the Operation Northwoods documents and things that were just not being talked about in any of the media that I was seeing on a daily basis.

So I decided to start The Corbett Report. I started it in 2007. Initially it was just going to be a podcast but that quickly expanded into articles and interviews and videos, and now, at this point, for the last four-and-a-half years now it’s been a full-time endeavor for me and I’m supported through subscribers and people who donate to try to make this possible. I’m extremely humbled to be in this position, because I know not a lot of people are able to do full-time work on this, so I don’t take that lightly and I do try to put out the best work that I possibly can. As I say, some of these things, like my recent oil documentary is really in some sense the culmination of nearly a decade of research.

Bonnie Faulkner: Well, that’s easy enough to believe, and congratulations for making that full time. It’s full time for me, too, but I’m still struggling to try and make it viable. It sounds like you’re doing very well. James Corbett, thank you very much.

James Corbett: Thank you very much for having me on. It’s a pleasure.

Links and Resources:

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The Kurdish dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are reporting today that US troops have taken over control of the Rmeilan airfield in northeastern Syria’s Hasakeh Province, the first US military base inside Syria.

The SDF reported that the Kurdish YPG, their largest faction, previously controlled the base and handed sole control over it to the US, as a route for the US to bring them weapons and to launch warplanes from.

Rmeilan Airport is not a military airfield by design, and was primarily for crop-dusting and agriculture. It is unclear, then, the extent to which it’ll really be used by the US as a base for warplanes. The US generally launches such planes from Turkey, though Turkey has loudly objected to the US aiding the Kurds.

Some reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights suggest that work is underway to expand the runway, and that US attack helicopters have been seen going in and out of the base for weeks.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren confirmed that there is an operation “ongoing” in the area, but refused to discuss the matter, citing the “special nature” of the US ground troops who are deployed in Syria. Officials previously confirmed a handful of troops were sent to Syria, but never suggested they were going to establish their own bases.

The operation appears legally dicey, at best, as while the base was nominally under the control of the Kurdish YPG, who are closely allied to the US, the Obama Administration has refused all coordination with the Syrian government, and certainly doesn’t have Syrian permission to establish military bases on Syrian soil.

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Among an array of deplorable Republican and Democrat presidential aspirants, Clinton stands out as the most dangerous and sinister of the bunch – an unrequited war goddess, risking nuclear confrontation if elected.

Her record in office and since leaving government shows support for imperial lawlessness, indifference to human suffering, and addiction to self-aggrandizement, along with using her high office to accumulate great wealth.

Clinton Foundation donors have direct ties to foreign nations, including a Saudi royal family member, corrupt Ukrainian oligarch/former Kiev parliamentarian, and anti-Chavista Venezuelan media mogul.

After she became Obama’s Secretary of State, over a dozen foreign influence peddlers contributed around $68 million.

When she left government, she accepted foreign government donations – including from Argentina, Bosnia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, India, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka Ukraine, and the UAE.

As a presidential aspirant, potential conflict of interests are obvious. Federal law prohibits governments, corporations, individuals and groups from contributing to US political campaigns.

Funding Clinton’s foundation buys influence. So does paying her millions of dollars for speechmaking – $2,935,000 from Wall Street banks alone from 2013 – 2015.

Husband Bill profited hugely the same way, their combined yearend 2015 net worth an estimated $111 million.

Both are walking conflicts of interests. As a presidential aspirant, Hillary’s use of public office for self-enrichment warrants close scrutiny for possible serious wrongdoing.

An unclassified January 14 Inspector General of the Intelligence Community letter revealed “several dozen (Clinton) emails containing classified information, determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET and TOP SECRET/SAP (Special Access Program) levels.”

“According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources…sworn declarations (solely for high-level government official cleared for) need-to-know” information.

Until now, only two Clinton emails were labelled “top secret.” Now it’s known there were many more. She’s been heavily criticized for using her personal server for official government business.

Key is whether she committed a criminal offense. Whether an FBI investigation proves it remains to be seen.

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.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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Sunday January 24th 2016 marks the anniversary of the death of one of the most lionized leaders in the Western world: Sir Winston Churchill.

The current British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called Churchill “the greatest ever Prime Minister”, and Britons have recently voted him as the greatest Briton to have ever lived.

The story that British schoolbooks tell children about Churchill is of a British Bulldog, with unprecedented moral bravery and patriotism. He, who defeated the Nazis during World War II and spread civilisation to indigenous people from all corners of the globe. Historically, nothing could be further from the truth.

To the vast majority of the world, where the sun once never set on the British empire, Winston Churchill remains a great symbol of racist Western imperialist tyranny, who stood on the wrong side of history.

The myth of Churchill is Britain’s greatest propaganda tool because it rewrites Churchill’s true history in order to whitewash Britain’s past imperialist crimes against humanity. The Churchill myth also perpetuates Britain’s ongoing neo-colonial and neo-liberal policies, that still, to the is day, hurt the very people around the world that Churchill was alleged to have helped civilise.

The same man whose image is polished and placed on British mantelpieces as a symbol of all that is Great about Britain was an unapologetic racist and white supremacist. “I hate Indians, they are a beastly people with a beastly religion”, he once bellowed. As Churchill put it, Palestinians were simply “barbaric hordes who ate little but camel dung.”

In 1937, he told the Palestine Royal Commission:

“I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

It is unsurprising that when Barack Obama became President, he returned to Britain a bust of Churchill which he found on his desk in the Oval office. According to historian Johann Hari, Mr. Obama’s Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was imprisoned without trial for two years and was tortured on Churchill’s watch, for daring to resist Churchill’s empire.

Apart from being an unrepentant racist, Churchill was also a staunch proponent of the use of terrorism as a weapon of war.

During the Kurdish rebellion against the British dictatorship in 1920, Churchill remarked that he simply did not understand the “squeamishness” surrounding the use of gas by civilized Great Britain as a weapon of terror. “I am strongly in favour of using gas against uncivilised tribes, it would spread a lively terror,” he remarked.

In the same year, as Secretary of State for War, Churchill sent the infamous Black and Tans to Ireland to fight the IRA. The group became known for vicious terrorist attacks on civilians which Churchill condoned and encouraged.

While today Britons celebrate Churchill’s legacy, much of the world outside the West mourns the legacy of a man who insisted that it was the solemn duty of Great Britain to invade and loot foreign lands because in Churchill’s own words Britain’s “Aryan stock is bound to triumph”.

Churchill’s legacy in the Far East, Middle East, South Asia and Africa is certainly not one of an affable British Lionheart, intent on spreading civilization amongst the natives of the world. To people of these regions the imperialism, racism, and fascism of a man like Winston Churchill can be blamed for much of the world’s ongoing conflicts and instability.

As Churchill himself boasted, he “created Jordan with a stroke of a pen one Sunday afternoon,” thereby placing many Jordanians under the brutal thumb of a throneless Hashemite prince, Abdullah. Historian Michael R. Burch recalls how the huge zigzag in Jordan’s eastern border with Saudi Arabia has been called “Winston’s Hiccup” or “Churchill’s Sneeze” because Churchill carelessly drew the expansive boundary after a generous lunch.

Churchill also invented Iraq. After giving Jordan to Prince Abdullah, Churchill, the great believer in democracy that he was, gave Prince Abdullah’s brother Faisal an arbitrary patch of desert that became Iraq. Faisal and Abdullah were war buddies of Churchill’s friend T. E. Lawrence, the famous “Lawrence of Arabia”.

Much like the clumsy actions in Iraq of today’s great Empire, Churchill’s imperial foreign policy caused decades of instability in Iraq by arbitrarily locking together three warring ethnic groups that have been bleeding heavily ever since. In Iraq, Churchill bundled together the three Ottoman vilayets of Basra that was predominantly Shiite, Baghdad that was Sunni, and Mosul that was mainly Kurd.

Ask almost anyone outside of Iraq who is responsible for the unstable mess that Iraq is in today and they are likely to say one word, either “Bush” or “America”. However, if you asked anyone within Iraq who is mainly responsible for Iraq’s problems over the last half century and they are likely to simply say “Churchill”.

Winston Churchill convened the 1912 Conference in Cairo to determine the boundaries of the British Middle Eastern mandate and T.E. Lawrence was the most influential delegate. Churchill did not invite a single Arab to the conference, which is shocking but hardly surprising since in his memoirs Churchill said that he never consulted the Arabs about his plans for them.

The arbitrary lines drawn in Middle Eastern sand by Churchillian imperialism were never going to withstand the test of time. To this day, Churchill’s actions have denied Jordanians, Iraqis, Kurds and Palestinians anything resembling true democracy and national stability.

The intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict can also be traced directly back to Churchill’s door at number 10 Downing Street and his decision to hand over the “Promised Land” to both Arabs and Jews. Churchill gave practical effect to the Balfour declaration of 1917, which expressed Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish homeland, resulting in the biggest single error of British foreign policy in the Middle East.

Churchill’s legacy in Sub-Saharan Africa and Kenya in particular is also one of deep physical and physiological scars that endure to this day.

Of greater consequence to truth and history should be a man’s actions, not merely his words. Whilst Churchill has become one of the most extensively quoted men in the English speaking world, particularly on issues of democracy and freedom, true history speaks of a man whose actions revolved around, in Churchill’s own words, “a lot of jolly little wars against barbarous peoples”.

One such war was when Kikuyu Kenyans rebelled for their freedom only to have Churchill call them “brutish savage children” and force 150,000 of them into “Britain’s Gulag”.

Pulitzer-prize winning historian, Professor Caroline Elkins, highlights Churchill’s many crimes in Kenya in her book Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Professor Elkins explains how Churchill’s soldiers “whipped, shot, burned, and mutilated Mau Mau suspects”, all in the name of British “civilization”. It is said that President Obama’s grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama never truly recovered from the torture he endured from Churchill’s men.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved how in Bengal in 1943 Churchill engineered one of the worst famines in human history for profit.

Over three million civilians starved to death whilst Churchill refused to send food aid to India. Instead, Churchill trumpeted that “the famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.” Churchill intentionally hoarded grain to sell for profit on the open market after the Second World War instead of diverting it to starving inhabitants of a nation controlled by Britain. Churchill’s actions in India unquestionably constituted a crime against humanity.

Churchill was also one of the greatest advocates of Britain’s disastrous divide-and-rule foreign policy.

Churchill’s administration deliberately created and exacerbated sectarian fissures within India’s independence movement, between Indian Hindus and Muslims that have had devastating effects on the region ever since.

Prior to India’s independence from Britain, Churchill was eager to see bloodshed erupt in India, so as to prove that Britain was the benevolent “glue holding the nation together”. For Churchill, bloodshed also had the added strategic advantage that it would also lead to the partition of India and Pakistan. Churchill’s hope was this partition would result in Pakistan remaining within Britain’s sphere of influence. This, in turn, would enable the Great Game against the Soviet empire to continue, no matter the cost to innocent Indian and Pakistanis. The partition of India with Pakistan caused the death of about 2.5 million people and displaced some 12.5 million others.

According to writer, Ishaan Tharoor, Churchill’s own Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery,  compared his boss’s understanding of India’s problems to King George III’s apathy for the Americas. In his private diaries Amery vented that “on the subject of India, Churchill is not quite sane” and that he didn’t “see much difference between Churchill’s outlook and Hitler’s.”

Churchill shared far more ideologically in common with Hitler than most British historians care to admit. For instance, Churchill was a keen supporter of eugenics, something he shared in common with Germany’s Nazi leadership, who were estimated estimated to have killed 200,000 disabled people and forcibly sterilised twice that number. Churchill drafted a highly controversial piece of legislation, which mandated that the mentally ill be forcibly sterilized. In a memo to the Prime Minister in 1910, Winston Churchill cautioned, “the multiplication of the feeble-minded is a very terrible danger to the race”. He also helped organise the International Eugenics Conference of 1912, which was the largest meeting of proponents of eugenics in history.

Churchill had a long standing belief in racial hierarchies and eugenics. In Churchill’s view, white protestant Christians were at the very top of the pyramid, above white Catholics, while Jews and Indians were only slightly higher than Africans.

Historian, Mr. Hari, rightfully points out, “the fact that we now live in a world where a free and independent India is a superpower eclipsing Britain, and a grandson of the Kikuyu ‘savages’ is the most powerful man in the world, is a repudiation of Churchill at his ugliest – and a sweet, ironic victory for Churchill at his best.”

Amid today’s Churchillian parades and celebratory speeches, British media and schoolbooks may choose to only remember Churchill’s opposition to dictatorship in Europe, but the rest of the world cannot choose to forget Churchill’s imposition of dictatorship on darker skinned people outside of Europe. Far from being the Lionheart of Britain, who stood on the ramparts of civilisation, Winston Churchill, all too often, simply stood on the wrong side of history.

Churchill is indeed the Greatest Briton to have ever lived, because for decades, the myth of Churchill has served as Britain’s greatest propaganda tool to bolster national white pride and glorify British imperial culture.

Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University. Contact him on [email protected]

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Amid heightened tensions between Israel and Western allies, Jerusalem on Thursday confirmed a major annexation of 154 hectares (380 acres) of territory north of the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s announcement of it’s largest agricultural land seizure since 2014 has drawn harsh criticism from Palestinian and Western authorities. Palestine officials announced they would push for a UN resolution decrying Israeli settlement policies.

“Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.

The move follows diplomatic clashes this week between Washington and Jerusalem, as US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro angered Israeli state representatives by issuing a statement that the US was concerned and perplexed by Israel’s West Bank policy.

“We believe they’re fundamentally incompatible with a two-state solution and call into question, frankly, the Israeli government’s commitment to a two-state solution,” deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday.

In a move certain to bite the hand that feeds, Israeli forces destroyed six housing structures in the West Bank that were part of a project funded by a humanitarian arm of the EU. The structures were intended for Bedouins living in an area between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, locally known as E1. Israeli construction in the area would split the West Bank, cutting Palestinians off from East Jerusalem, the city they seek to make their capital.

Israeli officials have not responded to global condemnation of the demolitions and incipient annexation, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested last week that EU construction in the area, whether humanitarian or otherwise, was not legal.

“They’re building without authorization, against the accepted rules, and there’s a clear attempt to create political realities,” he remarked to media.

To justify the seizure of land, Israel has previously used an 1858 Ottoman law stipulating that land that lies uncultivated for a specific period of time can revert to government property.

Territories that Israel intends to appropriate are part of the land Palestinians claim for the recognition of their independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem; areas Israel seized in the 1967 Six-Day War.

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Binyamin Netanyahu had mistakenly thought that Israel’s increased trade with China would guarantee him a political advantage and support for a Greater Israel based on illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights plus his blockade of Gaza. However, this week’s pronouncement by the Chinese Premier of specific Chinese support for an independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital has not only thrown a bucket of iced water over the Likud leader but means his political career is now all but finished.

Now the Israeli electorate must choose a politician who is free of the narrow-minded constraints of colonial Zionism, with its ‘pricetag’ terrorism, and is prepared to drag Israel into the 21st Century and to co-operate in the long overdue establishment of a Palestinian state for five million indigenous Arabs over the whole of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

This will entail the repatriation of more than 500,000 illegal settlers and the dismantling of all settlements in the Occupied Territories in their entirety so as to revert to the 1967 borders as required by the United Nations and the international community.

This has been a long time in coming. But there is now nowhere for this Israeli-born, American-raised, anachronistic Zionist to go, except into a long-overdue retirement, together with his Likud Party.

And that can only be a move towards peace in this long and unnecessary conflict that has bedevilled the Middle East for nearly half a century.

Note

http://www.globalresearch.ca/china-backs-establishment-of-independent-state-of-palestine-with-jerusalem-as-its-capital/5502997

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Ten Facts Everyone Needs To Know About Israel

January 23rd, 2016 by Anthony Bellchambers

1. Out of the 14.2 million Jewish people in the world, (in 2016), only a minority of 43% reside in Israel.

2. Whilst 75% of Israelis are Jewish, 21% are indigenous Arabs with restricted civil rights.

3. Israel has the highest birth rate in the developed world, with an average of 3 children per woman.

4. The Netanyahu government now receives more than US$6 billion every year from the US congress/ AIPAC lobby i.e. equating to $1000 annually for every Jewish Israeli, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

5. Israel has induced over 500,000 of its citizens to illegally settle in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem in an attempt to frustrate the wishes of the UN for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state for five million indigenous Arabs.

6. Israel is the only undeclared nuclear weapon state in the world with a secret stockpile of up to 400 nuclear warheads. It is not a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to which Europe, America and even Iran, are all subject to by the IAEA inspectorate of the UN.

7. Angela Merkel has unilaterally supplied Israel with a deadly ‘second strike’ nuclear capability in the form of a German-built, Dolphin-class submarine fleet that is now more powerful than anything possessed by the defence forces of France, Britain or Germany, thereby leaving all of Europe dangerously vulnerable.

8. Netanyahu, in a direct challenge to the EU, has this week authorised yet another land grab in the Occupied Territories in breach of the provisions of the Trade Association Agreement with the EU thereby inviting the imposition of tariffs against Israeli exports to the European single market.

9. According to published statistics, Israel is the most dangerous place for any Jewish person to live compared to Britain, France, United States or Canada.

10. The father of the current Israeli Prime Minister, was personal secretary to Vladimir Zhabotinsky, the founder of Irgun, a Revisionist Zionist paramilitary organisation. Two of the operations for which the Irgun is best known are the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the DeirYassin massacre, carried out together with Lehi on 9 April 1948.

* All the above factual information is verifiable and available within the public domain

Notes

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-must-now-open-its-nuclear-program-to-iaea-inspection-or-face-sanctions/5502024

http://www.globalresearch.ca/netanyahu-to-seize-154-hectares-of-palestinian-land-in-violation-of-international-law-and-in-direct-challenge-to-eu/5502931

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I’ve always assumed that Putin’s KGB (now called the FSB) killed Alexander Litvinenko.

But today’s announcement by the British that Putin “probably” approved Litvinenko’s murder made me curious enough to take a look for myself.

Initially, Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium as he sipped tea in an upscale London hotel. The report makes it sound like only Russia had access to polonium, but it’s actually available online to anyone.

Antiwar notes:

If the Russians wanted to off Litvinenko, why would they poison him with a substance that left a radioactive trail traceable from Germany to Heathrow airport – and, in the process, contaminating scores of hotel rooms, offices, planes, restaurants, and homes?  Why not just put a bullet through his head? It makes no sense.

But then conspiracy theories don’t have to make sense: they just have to take certain assumptions all the way to their implausible conclusions. If one starts with the premise that Putin and the Russians are a Satanic force capable of anything, and incompetent to boot, then it’s all perfectly “logical” – in the Bizarro World, at any rate.

The idea that Litvinenko was a dangerous opponent of the Russian government who had to be killed because he posed a credible threat to the existence of the regime is laughable: practically no one inside Russia knew anything about him, and as for his crackpot “truther” theories about how Putin was behind every terrorist attack ever carried out within Russia’s borders – to assert that they had any credence outside of the Western media echo chamber is a joke.

***

The meat of the matter – the real “evidence” – is hidden behind a veil of secrecy. Lord Owen’s inquiry was for the most part conducted in secret closed  hearings, with testimony given by anonymous witnesses, and this is central to the “evidence” that is supposed to convict Kovtun, Lugovoy, and the Russian government. Lord Owen, explains it this way:

Put very shortly, the closed evidence consists of evidence that is relevant to the Inquiry, but which has been assessed as being too sensitive to put into the public domain. The assessment that the material is sufficiently sensitive to warrant being treated as closed evidence in these proceedings has been made not by me, but by the Home Secretary. She has given effect to this decision by issuing a number of Restriction Notices, which is a procedure specified in section 19 of the Inquiries Act 2005. The Restriction Notices themselves, although not, of course, the sensitive documents appended to them, are public documents. They have been published on the Inquiry website and are also to be found at Appendix 7 to this Report.

In other words, the “evidence” is not for us ordinary mortals to see. We just have to take His Lordship’s word for it that the Russian government embarked on an improbable assassination mission against a marginal figure that reads like something Ian Fleming might have written under a pseudonym.

So who killed Litvinenko ?

Well, Mario Scaramella met with Litvinenko during the meal when Litvinenko was poisoned. Scaramelladidn’t eat or drink a thing during the lunch, and then himself came down with a mild case of polonium poisoning.

La Republica (one of Italy’s largest newspapers)  wrote in 2006 (English translation) that Scaramella was a bad guy who may have worked with the CIA:

Mario Scaramella is suspected of arms trafficking. Earlier this year, the public prosecutor of Naples has written for this offense to the docket and, soon after, had to stop the investigation. [He was convicted in Italy for selling arms (original Italian).]

***

Sources found to be very credible by the prosecutor recalled that investigators suspected that Scaramella was actually in close relationship, if not actually working for, the CIA and that his ECPP could be a front company of the agency’s Langley.

Antiwar notes:

As I pointed out here:

Litvinenko was an employee of exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky – whose ill-gotten empire included a Russian syndicate of car-dealerships that had more than a nodding acquaintance with the Chechen Mafia – but was being slowly cut out of the money pipeline. Big-hearted Boris, who had initially put him on the payroll as anti-Putin propagandist, was evidently getting sick of him, and the out-of-work “dissident” was reportedly desperate for money. Litvinenko had several “ business meetings ” with Lugovoi in the months prior to his death, and, according to this report , he hatched a blackmail scheme targeting several well-known Russian tycoons and government officials.

Indeed, Litvinenko, in the months before his death, had targeted several well-known members of the Russian Mafia with his blackmail scheme. That they would take umbrage at this is hardly shocking.

Alternatively, Litvinenko may actually have accidentally poisoned himself.  Antiwar again:

Furthermore, there are indications that Litvinenko was engaged in the smuggling of nuclear materials. That he wound up being contaminated by the goods he was peddling on the black market seems far more credible than the cock-and-bull story about a vast Russian plot originating in the Kremlin,. Apparently Lord Owen has never heard of Occam’s Razor.

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They Tell Us Nothing But Lies. The West Supported Genocide in Rwanda

January 23rd, 2016 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

A British governmental inquiry has concluded that Russian President Putin “probably approved” the killing of Alexander Litvinenko by polonium poisoning.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44002.htm

As no evidence is provided for the surmise, we can conclude that this report on an unresolved event that happened a decade ago is part of the lies being used by the West to demonize Putin, just as the lies about MH-17 and “the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Litvinenko’s brother and father say that they “are sure that the Russian authorities are not involved. It’s all a set-up to put pressure on the Russian government.” Maksim Litvinenko dismisses the British report as a smear on Putin.

https://www.rt.com/news/329804-litvinenko-brother-britain-murder/

And that is what it is.

“Our” government not only lies to us about the economy and the wars, it also lies about literally everything. For example, do you remember the Rwanda genocide? The story we were told is the exact opposite of the truth. Today the perpetrator of the genocide, Paul Kagame, is the President of Rwanda.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/rwanda-the-enduring-lies-a-project-censored-interview-with-professor-ed-herman/5502707

Western governments and media have covered up his crimes and praise him as a great humanitarian who has healed Rwanda and is totally supported by the people. The truth is that Kagame has proved himself a worse totalitarian that Hitler, Stalin, and Poll Pot combined. He has turned Rwanda into a fear-ridden psychological prison. Anjan Sundaram, a journalist who ran a journalism training school in Rwanda, describes in detail Kagame’s destruction of all truth and all independent thought in Rwanda. In his just published book by Doubleday, Bad News: Last Journalists In A Dictatorship, Sundaram gives the gruesome details of how Rwandans, with the complicity of the West, have been brought more psychologically under control than Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984.

Kagame used murder, fear, and bribes and purges of his own supporters in order to eliminate all expression of independent thought in Rwanda. Indeed, in Rwanda the individual has disappeared. People have been merged into the state. Sundaram reports his conversation with a Rwandan who is being reconstructed along the lines of Winston Smith. This person tells Sundaram: “In this kind of country we don’t know where the state ends and where we begin. And if I don’t know where I begin I’m worth nothing. I don’t have any rights. We are not individuals, we are agents of the state.”

None of the totalitarianisms that the West ranted against during the 20th century ever got this far. There was resistance everywhere. Hitler’s own top generals plotted against him. In the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, there were dissidents, including highly placed members of the Communist Party. But in Rwanda even the concept of opposition has been erased.

Reading Bad News brings to mind parallels to the US. In Rwanda sentences result not from law but from “the word of authority. Simple words had attained such power.” This reminds us of simple words from the US president that result in indefinite detention and assassination of US citizens without trials and conviction. The subservience of Western journalism has been obtained by the state similar to the suppression of independent journalism in Rwanda. Bribes are used, both monetary and access. Fear of being fired and rendered unemployable as a journalist is used. Occasionally, perhaps even murder is used as in the unresolved case of the US journalist whose car suddenly accelerated and crashed at high speed. Other American journalists have been threatened with prison sentences.

The disturbing fact that is the Anglo-Zionist Empire has supported Kagame, a genocidist who “has killed more than five times as many people as Idi Amin,” is perhps an indication of what the Anglo-Zionist Empire has in mind for the rest of us.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/rwanda-the-enduring-lies-a-project-censored-interview-with-professor-ed-herman/5502707

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

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Perché è urgente liberare la Banca del Sud?

January 23rd, 2016 by Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

I presidenti del Sud America sono a un punto di svolta. Le economie dell’America Latina si sono contratte nel 2015 e, secondo varie stime, avranno crescita zero nel 2016. Nulla indica che i prezzi delle materie prime rimbalzino. Anche in questo caso il dilemma tra regolazione della spesa pubblica e prestiti degli istituti di credito surrogato del Tesoro degli Stati Uniti, si pone. Tuttavia Ariel Noyola ritiene che i leader della regione possano ancora scommettere sul rafforzamento delle fondamenta dell’architettura finanziaria sudamericana con l’attivazione della Banca del Sud, un progetto bloccato da oltre otto anni e che, data la gravità della situazione economica attuale, può impedire una seria debacle.

Di fronte alla recessione globale, è urgente che i presidenti del Sud America mettano tutte le loro energie nella costruzione di proprie istituzioni di credito e sull’utilizzo degli strumenti di cooperazione finanziaria volti a indebolire l’influenza del dollaro nella regione. Ogni volta che il governo degli Stati Uniti cerca d’imporre con ogni mezzo il predominio economico sulla regione, per i Paesi sudamericani è indispensabile avere autonomia politica dagli istituti di credito tradizionali.

Il modus operandi del Fondo monetario internazionale (FMI), Banca Mondiale e Banca Interamericana di Sviluppo (IDB) è già ben noto: l’uso del debito come meccanismo di pressione sui popoli sprofondati nell’insolvenza; imposizione di misure economiche draconiane (diminuzione della spesa sociale, tagli salariali, privatizzazione delle imprese statali strategiche, ecc.); assistenza finanziaria illimitata ai governi nati da un colpo di Stato e sostenuti dalla Casa Bianca (come in Cile a metà degli anni ’70); eccetera. Per queste e molte altre ragioni, è necessario rafforzare le fondamenta dell’architettura finanziaria sudamericana.

In primo luogo, è necessaria l’Unità monetaria sudamericana (UMS). L’UMS non è una “moneta comune”, come l’euro, ma un paniere di riferimento costituito da un insieme di valute (come i diritti speciali di prelievo del FMI). In breve, l’UMS è un riferimento dalla maggiore stabilità rispetto al dollaro, sia emettendo buoni che comparando i prezzi nella regione. In parallelo, va promosso il commercio fatturato in valuta locale.

Dal 2008 Argentina e Brasile hanno lanciato il sistema di pagamento in valuta locale (SML). E nell’ottobre 2015, Paraguay e Uruguay implementavano un meccanismo di pagamenti di questo tipo. Grazie a ciò, si è evitato di volgersi al dollaro, pagandone le transazioni, ridotte considerevolmente tra le imprese delle parti. Ora manca solo coinvolgervi Bolivia e Venezuela, favorendo così la “dedollarizzazione” dei Paesi del Mercato comune del Sud (MERCOSUR).

In secondo luogo, i Paesi del Sud America hanno bisogno di un potente fondo di stabilizzazione monetaria in grado di proteggerne la bilancia dei pagamenti dalle violente fluttuazioni del dollaro, ancor di più dopo che la Federal Reserve (Fed) statunitense ha alzato il tasso di interesse dei fondi federali (‘federal funds rateì’) nel dicembre scorso[1]. Dal 2002 al 2009 l’aumento dei prezzi delle materie prime (‘commodities’) ha favorito il massiccio accumularsi delle riserve internazionali, e tuttavia il Sud America ha continuato a finanziare i Paesi industrializzati.

Gran parte dei miliardi di dollari risparmiati dalla regione sudamericana negli ultimi anni è stata investita nei titoli del Tesoro degli Stati Uniti, piuttosto che incanalata nelle attività produttive attraverso un potente Fondo del Sud. Al momento l’unico fondo di stabilizzazione esistente nella regione è il Fondo di Riserva Latinamericano (FLAR), originariamente creato dalla Comunità andina nel 1978 sotto il nome do Fondo di riserva andino, composto attualmente da Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Perù, Uruguay e Venezuela.

Tuttavia, le risorse disponibili al FLAR sono insufficienti per contenere le fughe precipitose di capitale nei momenti critici: il capitale sottoscritto è di soli 3,609 miliardi di dollari, un importo pari a meno del 15% degli stock detenuti dalla Banca Centrale della Bolivia. Il mercato del credito globale è diventato troppo volatile. Solo nel 2015 più di 98 miliardi di dollari di investimenti nei Paesi emergenti sono fuggiti, secondo le stime dell’Institute of International Finance (IIF, nell’acronimo in inglese)[2].

Pertanto, è urgente lavorare su tale pericolosa vulnerabilità. I Paesi del Mercosur hanno bisogno di un fondo di stabilizzazione che, dato l’elevato grado d’integrazione finanziaria tra Brasile e resto del mondo, conti su almeno 100 miliardi di capitale sociale, il volume delle risorse con cui avviare l’Accordo della Riserva delle Contingenze dei BRICS (acronimo di Brasile, Russia, India, Cina e Sud Africa).

In terzo luogo, i Paesi del Sud America devono liberare la Banca del Sud dal pantano burocratico e finalmente emettere i primi prestiti[3]. I dettagli tecnici sono quasi pronti: il capitale iniziale sarà di 7 miliardi di dollari e il capitale sociale di 20 miliardi di dollari; la sede sarà in Venezuela; Argentina e Bolivia ospiteranno altri due rami. Tuttavia, il suo avvio è stato rinviato più volte, tanto che, ad oltre otto anni dalla firma del documento della fondazione a Buenos Aires, la Banca del Sud non può ancora aprire i battenti[4].

Vi sono forti interessi economici che impediscono la rottura dello status quo, sia dentro che fuori la regione. Anche se in un primo momento era previsto che la Banca del Sud riunisse tutti i Paesi dell’Unione delle Nazioni Sudamericane (UNASUR), ciò sembra impossibile; Suriname e Guyana non hanno alcun interesse, mentre Cile, Colombia e Perù si accaniscono a sostenere progetti d’integrazione promossi da Washington, l’Alleanza del Pacifico e l’accordo della Partnership Trans-Pacifica (TPP, nell’acronimo in inglese).

Di conseguenza, i membri della Banca del Sud si riducono ai Paesi MERCOSUR più l’Ecuador. Inoltre, la resistenza nel blocco proviene per lo più da Itamaraty, il Ministero degli Esteri del Brasile. In Sud America l’influenza sulla Banca di Sviluppo Nazionale (BNDES nell’acronimo portoghese) del Brasile è travolgente, tanto che in alcuni anni è riuscita a superare il credito fornito da FMI, Banca Mondiale e IDB.

La BNDES non ha alcun interesse a far avanzare l’integrazione latinoamericana, infatti la sua missione è garantire l’approvvigionamento di materie prime (‘commodities’) alle società brasiliane[5]. Le risorse della BNDES sono orientate sui megaprogetti che riproducono la dipendenza dall’esportazione primaria dei Paesi sudamericani come l’Iniziativa per l’integrazione delle infrastrutture regionali (IIRSA), una rete stradale di dimensioni continentali che avvantaggia solo una manciata di società[6].

Al contrario, il denaro della Banca del Sud non andrà non solo alle infrastrutture, ma anche a una vasta gamma di programmi d’investimento connessi a istruzione, sanità, alloggi, ecc. La Banca del Sud scarterà completamente i criteri del “Washington Consensus” che hanno portato tanta miseria nelle Americhe; concederà prestiti ad interesse molto basso, dato che l’obiettivo è promuovere lo sviluppo economico generale dei popoli.

Indubbiamente, la Banca del Sud è una grande speranza in tempi di crisi. Da un lato, sarà un potente meccanismo di sollievo economico per i Paesi del Sud America vittime di gravi contrazioni. D’altro canto, sarà di aiuto cruciale nel finanziare gli obiettivi più ambiziosi dell’integrazione sudamericana: progetti scientifici e tecnologici comuni, una rete di ferrovie e altre energie, ecc.

In conclusione, i governi sudamericani devono prendere misure concrete per porre fine al restauro conservativo in corso, altrimenti precipiteranno nella debacle. Chiaramente, il governo del Brasile ha la maggiore responsabilità sulla salvaguardia della sovranità continentale. Dai vertici di Itamaraty dipenderà in ultima analisi la fine della paralisi della Banca del Sud…

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

Traduzione: Alessandro Lattanzio (Sito Aurora).

Fonte: Russia Today.

 Ariel Noyola Rodríguez : Laurea in Economia e Commercio presso l’Università Nazionale Autonoma del Messico


[1] «Fed’s rate rise could heighten problems in emerging markets», James Quinn, The Telegraph, December 18, 2015.

[2] «Emerging market portfolio flows at weakest level since global financial crisis», Jonathan Wheatley, The Financial Times, January 4, 2016.

[3] «Banco del Sur, crisis global y turbulencia en Latinoamérica», por Ariel Noyola Rodríguez, Red Voltaire, 22 de septiembre de 2014.

[4] «The Bank of the South: Bolivarian finance», The Economist, December 13, 2007.

[5] «Brasil vs. Banco del Sur», por Oscar Ugarteche, Red Voltaire, 28 de agosto de 2007.

[6] «Interconexión sin integración: 15 años de IIRSA», Raúl Zibechi, Programa de las Américas, 23 de septiembre de 2015.

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Por que é urgente romper a paralisia do Banco do Sul?

January 23rd, 2016 by Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

Os governos da América do Sul se encontram em uma encruzilhada. As economias da região latino-americana se contraíram em 2015 e, segundo diversas estimativas, terão um crescimento nulo em 2016. Nada indica que os preços dos produtos primários vão subir. De novo surge o dilema entre realizar ajustes de gasto público e solicitar empréstimos às instituições de crédito submetidas ao Departamento do Tesouro dos Estados Unidos. Contudo, Ariel Noyola considera que os mandatários da região também poderiam apostar em fortalecer as bases da arquitetura financeira sul-americana mediante a inauguração do Banco do Sul, um projeto que ficou parado durante mais de oito anos e que, frente à gravidade da situação econômica atual, pode impedir o aprofundamento da crise.

Diante do aprofundamento da recessão mundial, é urgente que os mandatários da América do Sul coloquem todas as suas energias na construção de instituições de crédito próprias e no uso de instrumentos de cooperação financeira orientados a debilitar a influência do dólar na região. Toda vez que o governo dos Estados Unidos busca impor por todos os meios possíveis sua dominação econômica na região, se torna indispensável para os países sul-americanos conquistar a autonomia política frente às instituições tradicionais de crédito.

O modus operandi do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), do Banco Mundial e o Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID) já é bastante conhecido: a utilização da dívida como um mecanismo de pressão contra os povos afundados na insolvência; a imposição de medidas econômicas draconianas (diminuição dos gastos sociais, cortes nos salários, privatização das empresas estatais de carácter estratégico, etc.); a assistência financeira sem limites a governos surgidos de um golpe de Estado, mas apoiados pela Casa Branca (como ocorreu no Chile na década de 1970); etc. Por essas e muitas outras razões, é necessário fortalecer as bases da arquitetura financeira sul-americana.

Em primeiro lugar, é necessário uma Unidade Monetária sul-americana (UMS). A UMS não é uma “moeda comum” como o euro, mas uma cesta de referência formada por um conjunto de moedas (como os Direitos Especias de Saque do FMI). Definitivamente, a UMS é uma referência que goza de maior estabilidade que o dólar, tanto para a emissão de bônus como para a comparação de preços dentro da região. Paralelamente, deve-se estimular que os intercâmbios comerciais sejam feitos em moedas nacionais.

Desde 2008, a Argentina e o Brasil iniciaram o Sistema de Pagamentos em Moedas Locais (SML). E em outubro de 2015, Paraguai e Uruguai implementaram um mecanismo de pagamentos semelhante. Graças a isso, evita-se passar pelo dólar, e os custos de transação foram reduzidos consideravelmente entre as empresas de ambas as partes. Agora só falta incluir a Bolívia e a Venezuela para, desta maneira, incentivar a “desdolarização” entre todos os países que integram o Mercado Comum do Sul (MERCOSUR).

Em segundo lugar, os países da América do Sul necessitam de um poderoso fundo de estabilização monetário capaz de proteger suas balanças de pagamentos das violentas flutuações do dólar, ainda mais depois que o Sistema da Reserva Federal (FED) dos Estados Unidos elevou a taxa de juros dos fundos federais (‘federal funds rate’) em dezembro do ano passado[1]. Ao longo de 2002 e 2009, o auge dos preços das matérias primas (‘commodities’) favoreceu a acumulação maciça de reservas internacionais e, apesar disso, a América do Sul continuou financiando os países industrializados.

Uma boa parte dos bilhões de dólares que a região sul-americana economizou durante os últimos anos foi usada para investir em bônus do Tesouro dos Estados Unidos, em lugar de ser canalizada para atividades produtivas mediante um fundo do Sul de grande potência. Nestes momentos o único fundo de estabilização que existe na região é o fundo Latino-americano de Reservas (FLAR), lançado originalmente pela Comunidade Andina em 1978 sob o nome de fundo Andino de Reservas, e atualmente formado por Bolívia, Colômbia, Costa Rica, Equador, Paraguai, Peru, Uruguai e Venezuela.

Contudo, os recursos à disposição do FLAR são insuficientes para conter as fugas de capitais em conjunturas críticas: seu capital subscrito é de apenas 3,609 bilhões de dólares, uma quantia que representa menos de 15% das reservas do Banco Central da Bolívia. O mercado mundial de crédito se tornou demasiado volátil. Apenas em 2015, fugiram mais de 98 bilhões de dólares dos investimentos financeiros dos países emergentes, segundo as estimativas do Instituto de Finanças Internacionais (IIF, na sigla em inglês)[2].

Portanto, é urgente pôr mãos à obra ante esta perigosa vulnerabilidade. Os países do MERCOSUL necessitam de um fundo de estabilização próprio que, dado o alto grau de integração financeira do Brasil com o resto do mundo, conte com pelo menos 100 bilhões de dólares de capital, que é o volume de recursos com o qual o Acordo de Reservas de Contingência dos BRICS (sigla para Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China e África do sul) vai começar a operar.

E em terceiro lugar, os países sul-americanos devem tirar o Banco do Sul dos entraves burocráticos em que se encontra para que emita finalmente seus primeiros empréstimos[3]. Os detalhes técnicos estão praticamente prontos: o capital inicial será de 7 bilhões de dólares e o capital autorizado, de 20 bilhões de dólares; a sede principal ficará na Venezuela; Argentina e Bolívia terão outras duas sucursais. Contudo, o início das operações foi adiado outras vezes, tanto é que depois de mais de oito anos da assinatura de sua ata de fundação na cidade de Buenos Aires, o Banco do Sul ainda não consegue abrir suas portas[4].

Isso porque existem poderosos interesses econômicos que o impedem de romper com o statu quo, tanto dentro como fora da região. Ainda que em um primeiro momento se cogitou que o Banco do Sul iria agrupar todos os países da União das Nações Sul-americanas (UNASUR), isto parece impossível; Suriname e Guiana não têm interesse, enquanto Chile, Colômbia e Peru estão obcecados em apoiar os projetos de integração promovidos por Washington, tanto a Aliança do Pacífico como o Acordo de Associação Transpacífico (TPP, na sigla em inglês).

Consequentemente, os membros do Banco do Sul ficaram reduzidos aos países do MERCOSUL mais o Equador. Por outro lado, as resistências dentro do bloco vêm sobretudo do Itamaraty, o Ministério de Relações Exteriores do Brasil. Na América do Sul, a influência do Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES) do Brasil é óbvia, a tal ponto que em vários anos conseguiu superar o crédito proporcionado pelo FMI, Banco Mundial e BID.

O BNDES não tem interesse em avançar a integração latino-americana, na realidade sua missão é garantir o fornecimento de matérias primas (‘commodities’) às empresas brasileiras[5]. Os recursos do BNDES estão orientados a megaprojetos que reproduzem a dependência primário-exportadora dos países sul-americanos, como a Iniciativa para a Integração da Infraestrutura Regional (IIRSA), uma rede de rodovias de dimensões continentais que só vai beneficiar um punhado de empresas[6].

Em contraste, o dinheiro do Banco do Sul não será direcionado unicamente a obras de infraestrutura, mas  também a um amplo leque de programas de investimentos ligados a educação, saúde, moradia, etc. O Banco do Sul descartará completamente os critérios do “Consenso de Washington”, que trouxeram tanta pobreza à Nossa América; realizará empréstimos a juros muito baixos, pois seu objetivo é estimular o desenvolvimento econômico integral dos povos.

Sem dúvida, o Banco do Sul constitui uma grande esperança em tempos de crise. Por um lado, servirá como um poderoso mecanismo de alívio econômico para os países da América do Sul que são vítimas de severas recessões. Por outro lado, será um apoio decisivo para financiar as metas mais ambiciosas da integração sul-americana: projetos científicos e tecnológicos conjuntos, uma rede de ferrovias, rede energética, etc.

Concluindo, os governos sul-americanos precisam tomar medidas concretas que parem a restauração conservadora que está em curso, caso contrário precipitarão sua queda. É evidente que o governo dos Brasil tem a maior responsabilidade de salvaguardar a soberania continental. Dos altos funcionários do Itamaraty dependerá em última instância romper a paralisia do Banco do Sul…

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

 

Fonte: Russia Today.

Tradução: João Aroldo.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez: Economista formado pela Universidad Nacional Autónoma do México.


[1] «Fed’s rate rise could heighten problems in emerging markets», James Quinn, The Telegraph, December 18, 2015.

[2] «Emerging market portfolio flows at weakest level since global financial crisis», Jonathan Wheatley, The Financial Times, January 4, 2016.

[3] «Banco do Sul, crise global e turbulência na América Latina», Ariel Noyola Rodríguez, Tradução Ina Thomé Picoli, Rede Voltaire, 27 de Setembro de 2014.

[4] «The Bank of the South: Bolivarian finance», The Economist, December 13, 2007.

[5] «Brasil vs. Banco del Sur», por Oscar Ugarteche, Red Voltaire, 28 de agosto de 2007.

[6] «Interconexión sin integración: 15 años de IIRSA», Raúl Zibechi, Programa de las Américas, 23 de septiembre de 2015.

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rp_MH17-INVESTIGATION.JPGMH-17: Kerry Pressed for Evidence by Father of Sole American Citizen on Flight

By Robert Parry, January 22 2016

The father of Quinn Schansman, the only American citizen to die in the 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, has asked Secretary of State John Kerry to release the U.S. data that Kerry cited in claiming precise knowledge of where the suspected anti-aircraft missile was fired.

Turkey-Syria-Conflict (1)Turkish Invasion Threat Escalates Syrian Conflict

By Bill Van Auken, January 22 2016

The Syrian government has formally appealed to the United Nations over incursions into its territory by Turkish troops.

President Xi JinpingChina Backs Establishment of Independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem as Its Capital

By Press TV, January 22 2016

China has lent its support to the establishment of the State of Palestine with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

Impression of the making of the Annual Meeting 2011 of the World Economic Forum in DavosThe Davos World Economic Forum. Financial Manipulators and Politicians Mingle and Meet Behind Closed Doors

By Binoy Kampmark, January 22 2016

There are the usual cast of financial directors and CEOs at the 45th annual Davos meeting. Unilever’s Paul Polman, Santander’s Ana Botín, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, are among some of the names.

greece-troikaGreece Falls Prey to ECB Financial Diktats and Blackmail

By Eric Toussaint, January 22 2016

(…) the Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt considered in its report, made public in June 2015, that the debt repayments being demanded of Greece by the ECB should be considered illegitimate, illegal, odious and unsustainable.

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British Doctors Accuse Israel of “Medical Torture”

January 22nd, 2016 by Stephen Lendman

Seventy-one UK doctors along with 343 academics want the Israeli Medical Association and its members expelled from the World Medical Association.

They want joint projects with Israeli universities banned. They accused Israeli doctors of “medical torture” on Palestinian patients.

Thousands of Palestinians are imprisoned solely for political reasons. Vital medical care when needed is routinely denied or inadequately provided, pain meds substituting for treatment, causing needless suffering, at times resulting in death.

In 2000, former Israeli Abu Kabir forensic institute head Dr. Yehuda Hiss accused Israel of killing Palestinians to harvest their organs.

Interviewed on Israel’s Channel 2 at the time, he said “(w)e started to harvest corneas. (What) was done was (unethical). No permission was asked from…famil(ies)” of victims.

The 1990s-aired Channel 2 report said Abu Kabir forensic specialists harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from bodies of Israeli soldiers, its citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers – without obtaining legal authorization.

UC Berkeley Professor of Medical Anthropology/Organ Watch founder Nancy Scheper-Hughes earlier said “Israeli organ harvesting – sometimes with Israeli governmental funding and the participation of high Israeli officials, prominent Israeli physicians, and Israeli ministries – has been documented for many years. Among the victims have been Palestinians.”

“Israel is at the top” of the organ harvesting racket. “It has tentacles reaching out worldwide…a pyramid system at work that’s awesome.”

“They have brokers everywhere, bank accounts everywhere; they’ve got recruiters, they’ve got translators, they’ve got travel agents who set up the visas.”

“They pay “the poor and the hungry to slowly dismantle their bodies” or simply take what they want from fresh corpses.”

“Body parts are commodities, to be harvested and sold to the rich, even though organ sales are prohibited in most countries, but not (under) international law.”

The UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime calls organ extraction for profit human exploitation. In 2008, Israel banned the practice. It still persists.

Earlier, former Council of Europe Human Dignity and Equality director Marja Ruotanen said:

“We have legislation and definitions covering the trafficking in human beings for the purpose of organ removal, (yet) there is a legal vacuum for the traffic in organs, tissues and cells.”

Organs from perhaps thousands of Palestinian corpses were harvested, Abu Kabir forensic specialists are complicit with Israeli authorities in trafficking in human body parts.

Israeli physicians involved in medically illegal and unethical practices, along with state authorities permitting it, should be held fully accountable for their crimes.

Separately on Wednesday, the Palestinian Detainees Committee (PDC) said Israel abducted and detained 130 Palestinians in 2015 for legitimate social media comments.

Over two dozen face wrongful charges of “incitement and supporting terrorist groups.” Others are administratively detained uncharged and untried – indefinitely if Israel chooses.

PDC said:

“(s)uch arrests and violations are carried out while Israel continues to ignore racist Israeli social media posts, photos and statements by extremists who openly call for killing the Arabs, for executing them and for removing them out of their homeland.”

Anyone legitimately criticizing Israeli viciousness or expressing solidarity with Palestinian resistance for justice risks arrest, prosecution, imprisonment or assassination.

 

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.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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China has lent its support to the establishment of the State of Palestine with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made the remarks during an address at the Arab League’s headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Thursday.

He said such state should be established based on the 1967 borders and enjoy full sovereignty.

That year saw Israel occupying and then annexing the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds during the Six-Day War in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.

Xi’s remarks echoed the demands of Palestinians, who are seeking to create an independent state on the occupied territories as well as the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from “non-member observer entity” to “non-member observer state” despite strong opposition from Israel and the United States. The Palestinian flag was also raised for the first time at the UN headquarters in New York last September.

The Chinese head of state considered the issue of Palestine to be crucial to peace in the Middle East, and urged the international community to contribute to the resumption of Israel-Palestinian talks, which have been broken off due to Tel Aviv’s refusal to put a hold on its expansion of illegal settlements.

“We are in favor of putting in place a new mechanism to promote peace as to the Middle East question, and support efforts made by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation toward this end,” the Chinese president stated.

He also pledged RMB 50 million (USD 7.53 million) in aid to Palestinians

China has lent its support to the establishment of the State of Palestine with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made the remarks during an address at the Arab League’s headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Thursday.

He said such state should be established based on the 1967 borders and enjoy full sovereignty.

That year saw Israel occupying and then annexing the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds during the Six-Day War in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.

Xi’s remarks echoed the demands of Palestinians, who are seeking to create an independent state on the occupied territories as well as the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from “non-member observer entity” to “non-member observer state” despite strong opposition from Israel and the United States. The Palestinian flag was also raised for the first time at the UN headquarters in New York last September.

The Chinese head of state considered the issue of Palestine to be crucial to peace in the Middle East, and urged the international community to contribute to the resumption of Israel-Palestinian talks, which have been broken off due to Tel Aviv’s refusal to put a hold on its expansion of illegal settlements.

“We are in favor of putting in place a new mechanism to promote peace as to the Middle East question, and support efforts made by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation toward this end,” the Chinese president stated.

He also pledged RMB 50 million (USD 7.53 million) in aid to Palestinians.

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The leaders of South America are in a point of divergence. The economies of the Latin American region regressed in 2015 and, according to diverse estimations will not grow in 2016. Nothing indicates that commodity prices will rally. The dilemma between adjustments, public spending and seeking loans from credit institutions subject to the US Treasury Department remains.

Nevertheless Ariel Noyola believes that the leaders of the region can strengthen the bases of South American financial architecture through the operation of the Bank of the South, a project that has been stagnated for eight years, and that in the face of the current economic situation, could prevent the deepening of the debacle.

In the face of the deepening of the world recession, it is urgent that the South American leaders concentrate their energies in the construction of their own credit institutions and the use of instruments of financial cooperation directed at debilitating the influence of the dollar in the region. Every time that the US Government seeks to impose its economic domination in the region through all possible means, for the South American countries it has become necessary to obtain political autonomy in the face of traditional credit institutions.

The modus operandi of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is already well known: the utilization of the debt as a pressure mechanism against peoples sunk in insolvency; the imposition of draconian economic measures (lowering of social expenditures, wage cuts, privatization of strategic state enterprises, etc.); unlimited financial assistance to Governments formed by a coup d’état but supported by the White House (as happened in Chile in 1973); etc. For these and many other reasons it is necessary to strengthen the bases of the South American financial architecture.

In the first place, one needs a South American Monetary Unit (SMU). The SMU is not a “common currency” such as the euro, but a basket of reference made up of a collection of currencies (such as the Special Drawing Rights of the IMF). The SMU is a reference that enjoys greater stability than the dollar, both for the emission of bonds and the stability of prices in the region. In parallel, one must move to make commercial exchanges invoiced in national currencies.

From 2008 Argentina and Brazil established a System of Payments in National Currencies (SML). And in October of 2015, Paraguay and Uruguay implemented an analogous mechanism of payments. Thanks to this they have avoided using the dollar and the transaction costs have been reduced substantially between businesses on both sides. Now we have only to involve Bolivia and Venezuela in order to give incentive to the “de-dollarization” of all the countries that make up the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR).

In second place, the countries of South America stand in need of a powerful fund for monetary stabilization, able to protect their balance of payments from the violent fluctuations of the dollar, more than ever since the Federal Reserve System (FED) of the United States raised the federal funds rate in December of last year[1]. Over 2002 to 2009 the increase of prices of commodities favoured the massive accumulation of international reserves, but nevertheless, South America continued to finance the industrialized countries.

A good part of the thousands of millions of dollars that the region saved during these years was invested in US Treasury bonds, in place of being dedicated to productive activities through a powerful Southern Fund. At the present time the only stabilization fund that exists in the region is the Latin American Fund (FLAR) originally launched by the Andean Community in 1978 under the name of the Andean Reserve Fund and at the present time made up with Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Nevertheless, the resources at the disposition of FLAR are hardly sufficient to contain stampedes of capital in critical situations: their inscribed capital is hardly 3.609 billion US dollars, an amount that represents less than 15% of the reserves of the Central Bank of Bolivia. The world credit market has become overly volatile. In 2015 alone more than 98 billion US dollars of dollars of financial investment have fled from emerging countries, according to the estimates of the Institute of International Finance (IIF)[2].

Because of this, it is urgent to take charge of the work in the face of this dangerous vulnerability. The MERCOSUUR countries need a stabilization fund of their own, given the high degree of financial integration of Brazil with the rest of the world, they have at least 100 billion US dollars of capital inscribed, which is the volume of resources at which the Contingent Reserve Arrangement of BRICS (acronym of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

In the third place, the South American countries should rescue the Bank of the South from the bureaucratic maze in which it is found in order that it makes its first loans[3]. The technical details are practically ready: the initial capital will be 7 billion US dollars and the authorized capital of 20 billion US dollars; the principal seat will be in Venezuela; Argentina and Bolivia will host two other branches. Nevertheless, its actual functioning has been cut off several times, so much that more than eight years after the signing of the act of foundation in Buenos Aires, the Bank of the South has yet to open its doors[4].

There are powerful economic interests that prevent a breaking with the statu quo, both inside and outside of the region. Although at the time it was thought that the Bank of the South would bring together all the countries of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), this looks to be impossible: Surinam and Guyana are not interested, while Chile, Colombia and Peru are tied into backing the projects of integration promoted by Washington, both the Pacific Alliance and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

In consequence, the members of the Bank of the South have been reduced to the MERCOSUUR countries plus Ecuador. On the other hand, the resistances from within the block come above all from Itamaraty, the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Brazil. In South America the influence of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) is overwhelming, to the point that over several years it has been able to overcome the amounts of credit provided by the IMF, the World Bank and the IBD.

The BNDES has no interest in advancing Latin American integration. In reality their mission is to guarantee supplies of commodities to Brazilian enterprises[5]. The resources of BNDES are oriented to mega projects that reproduce the primary-exporting dependence of South American countries, such as the Initiative for the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA), a network of roads with continental dimensions that are of benefit only to a handful of corporations[6].

In contrast, the money of the Bank of the South will not be limited to works of infrastructure, but will also be oriented to a wide range of investment programs tied to education, health care, housing, etc. The Bank of the South will completely undo the criteria of the “Washington Consensus” that have brought so much misery to South America: it will provide loans at low interest rates, since its objective is to promote the integral economic development of peoples.

Undoubtedly, the Bank of the South constitutes a great hope in times of crisis. On the one hand it will serve as a strong mechanism of economic relief for the countries of South America that are victims of severe contractions. On the other, it will provide an important support to finance the more ambitious goals of South American integration: scientific and technological projects, a network of railways, of energy, etc.

In conclusion, the Latin American Governments need to take concrete measures to bring a halt to the conservative restoration that is now under way. On the contrary there is only a debacle. It is obvious that the Government of Brazil has a great responsibility to safeguard continental sovereignty. The high functionaries of Itamaraty will, in the last instance be responsible for breaking the Bank of the South paralysis.

Ariel N Rodriguez is an economist who graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Translation: Jordan Bishop.

Source: Russia Today.

Notes:

[1] «Fed’s rate rise could heighten problems in emerging markets», James Quinn, The Telegraph, December 18, 2015.

[2] «Emerging market portfolio flows at weakest level since global financial crisis», Jonathan Wheatley, The Financial Times, January 4, 2016.

[3] «Banco del Sur, crisis global y turbulencia en Latinoamérica», por Ariel Noyola Rodríguez, Red Voltaire, 22 de septiembre de 2014.

[4] «The Bank of the South: Bolivarian finance», The Economist, December 13, 2007.

[5] «Brasil vs. Banco del Sur», por Oscar Ugarteche, Red Voltaire, 28 de agosto de 2007.

[6] «Interconexión sin integración: 15 años de IIRSA», Raúl Zibechi, Programa de las Américas, 23 de septiembre de 2015.

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Global Economy: Could This be “The Big One”?

January 22nd, 2016 by Mike Whitney

Everyone take a deep breath. This isn’t 2007 again.  The banks aren’t loaded with $10 trillion in “toxic” mortgage-backed securities, the housing market hasn’t fallen off a cliff wiping out $8 trillion in home equity, and the world is not on the brink of another excruciating financial meltdown.  The reason the markets have been gyrating so furiously for the last couple weeks is because stocks are vastly overpriced, corporate earnings are shrinking, and the Fed is threatening to take away the punch bowl. And to top it all off, a sizable number of investors have more skin in the game than they can afford, so they had to dump shares pronto to rebalance their portfolios.

What does that mean?

It means that a lot of investors are in debt up to their eyeballs, so when the market tumbles they have to sell whatever they can to stay in the game. It’s called a “margin call” and on Wednesday we saw a real doozy. Investors dumped everything but the kitchen sink in a frenzied firesale that sent the Dow Jones bunge-jumping 565-points before clawing its way back to a 249-point loss. The reason we know it was a margin call as opposed to a panic selloff is because there was no noticeable rotation into US Treasuries. Typically, when investors think the world is coming to an end, they ditch their stocks and make the so called “flight to safety” into US debt. That didn’t happen this time. Benchmark 10-year Treasuries barely budged during the trading day,  although they did stay under 2 percent which suggests that bondholders think the US economy is going to remain in the toilet for the foreseeable future. But that’s another story altogether. The fact is, investors aren’t “rotating”, they’re “liquidating” because they’ve hawked everything but the family farm and they need to sell something fast to cover their bets. Now if they thought that stocks were going to rebound sometime soon, then they’d try to hang on a bit longer. But the fact that the Fed has stayed on the sidelines not uttering a peep of encouragement has everyone pretty nervous, which is why they’re getting out now while they still can.

Capisce?

Here’s how CNBC’s Rick Santelli summed it up on Wednesday afternoon:

“We basically have a global rolling margin call that’s been going on since the 3rd Quarter of last year. It’s gotten a bit more intense since the Fed announced it was ‘normalizing’ because, in essence, a quarter point (rate hike) doesn’t mean anything, but the mentality that we are about to turn the corner on the ‘Grand Experiment’ means a lot.” (Closing Bell Exchange, CNBC)

In other words,  investors are starting to believe the Fed will continue its rate-hike cycle which will put more downward pressure on stocks, so they’re calling it quits now.

Santelli makes a good point about “normalization” too, which means the Fed is going to attempt to lift rates to their normal range of 4 percent. No one expects that to happen mainly because the wailing and gnashing of teeth on Wall Street would be too much to bear. Besides, the Fed just spent the last seven years inflating stock prices with its zero rates and QE. It’s certainly not going to burst that bubble now by raising rates and sending equities into freefall.  Even so, many investors think the Fed could continue to jack-up rates incrementally to 1 percent or higher. And while that’s still below the current rate of inflation, the shifting perception of “easy money” to “tightening” makes a huge difference in investors expectations. And as every economist knows, expectations shape investment decisions. No one is going to load up on stocks if they think things are going to get worse. That’s the long-and-short of it.

So is the recent extreme volatility a precursor to “The Big One”?

Probably not, but that doesn’t mean that stocks won’t drift lower. They probably will, after all,  conditions have changed dramatically.  We had been in an environment where hefty profits, low rates and ample liquidity were more-or-less guaranteed. That’s not the case anymore.  Stocks are no longer priced for perfection, in fact, valuations are gradually dipping to a point where they reflect underlying fundamentals. Also, for whatever reason,  the Fed seems  eager to convince people that the hikes are going to persist. So here’s the question: If you take away the punch bowl at the same time that earnings are start to tank, what happens?

Stocks fall, that’s what.  The only question is “how far”? And since the S&P has more than tripled since it hit its lowest level in March 2009,  the bottom could be a long way off, which is why investors are taking more chips off the table.

It’s also worth noting that one of the main drivers of stock prices has been AWOL lately. We’re talking about stock buybacks, that is, when corporate bosses  repurchase their own company’s shares to reward shareholders while boosting their “windfall” executive compensation. Here’s the scoop from FT Alphaville:

“China is slowing, the oil price is getting hammered, the Fed hiked too soon: all reasons for the ignominious start to the year for the world’s stock markets.  Here’s another bit of meat for the pot, courtesy of Goldman Sachs chief US equity strategist David Kostin: share buybacks.

“One reason for the recent poor market performance is that corporate buybacks are precluded during the month before earnings are released. Any destabilizing macro news that occurs during the blackout window amplifies volatility because the largest source of demand for shares is absent.”

Share buybacks in the US are on pace for their biggest year since 2007, he adds, estimating $561bn for full-year 2015 (net of share issuance) and a decline to $400bn in full-year 2016.”

Share buybacks, the markets miss you“, FT Alphaville

By some estimates, buybacks represent 20 percent of all share purchases, so obviously the current drought has contributed to the recent equities-plunge. All the same, G-Sax Kostin expects a robust rebound in 2016 to $400 billion. As long as cash is priced below the rate of inflation, corporations will continue to borrow as much as they can to ramp their own stock prices and rake in more dough. Greed trumps prudent investment decision-making every time.

As for the trouble in China: While it’s true that China’s woes could have been the trigger for the current ructions on Wall Street, it’s certainly not the cause which is the Fed’s failed monetary policy. Besides, the whole China thing is vastly overdone. As Ed Lazear toldCNBC on Wednesday:

“A major recession in China that lasted ten years would cost would costs the US 2 % points in GDP. So you’re not going to get a market fall like we’re observing right now based on that.”

Economist Dean Baker basically agrees with Lazear and says:

“Even a sharp downturn in China would not send the U.S. economy plummeting, our total exports to China are only about 0.7 percent of GDP. China’s weakness will have a major impact on other trading partners, especially those heavily dependent on commodity exports. But even in a worst case scenario we are looking at a major drag on the U.S. economy, not the sort of falloff in demand that puts the economy into a recession.”

(“Wall Street Rocks!“, Dean Baker, Smirking Chimp)

As for the plunging oil prices, there’s not much there either. Yes, quite a few high-paying oil sector jobs have been lost, capital investment has completely dried up, and many of the domestic suppliers are probably going  to default on their debts sometime in the next six months or so. But are these defaults a significant risk to Wall Street in the same way that trillions of dollars in worthless Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) and CDOs were in 2007-2008?

Heck, no. Not even close. There’s going to be a fair amount of blood on the street by the time this all shakes out, but the financial system will muddle through without collapsing, that’s for sure. The real danger is that falling oil prices signal a buildup of deflationary pressures in the economy that isn’t being countered with additional fiscal stimulus. That’s the real problem because it means slower growth, fewer jobs, flatter wages, falling incomes, more strain on social services and a more generalized stagnant, crappy economy.   But as we’ve said before, Obama and the Republican-led Congress have done everything in their power to keep things just the way they are by slashing government spending to make sure the economy stays weak as possible, so inflation is suppressed, the Fed isn’t forced to raise rates, and the cheap money continues to flow to Wall Street. That’s the whole scam in a nutshell: Starve the workersbees while providing more welfare to the slobs at the big investment banks and brokerage houses.  It’s a system that policymakers have nearly perfected as a new Oxfam report shows. According to Oxfam: “the 62 richest billionaires now own as much wealth as the poorer half of the world’s population.” (Guardian)

Wealth like that, “ain’t no accident”, brother. It’s the policy.

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

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The father of Quinn Schansman, the only American citizen to die in the 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, has asked Secretary of State John Kerry to release the U.S. data that Kerry cited in claiming precise knowledge of where the suspected anti-aircraft missile was fired.

One of the mysteries of the MH-17 case has become why the United States – after asserting that it possessed information implicating ethnic Russian rebels and the Russian government – has failed to make the data public or apparently even share it with Dutch investigators who are leading the inquiry into how the plane was shot down and who was responsible.

Quinn Schansman, who had dual U.S.-Dutch citizenship, boarded MH-17 along with 297 other people for a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. The 19-year-old was planning to join his family for a vacation in Malaysia.

In a letter to Kerry dated Jan. 5, 2016, Thomas J. Schansman, Quinn’s father, noted Kerry’s remarks at a press conference on Aug. 12, 2014, when the Secretary of State said about the Buk anti-aircraft missile suspected of downing the plane:

“We saw the take-off. We saw the trajectory. We saw the hit. We saw this aeroplane disappear from the radar screens. So there is really no mystery about where it came from and where these weapons have come from.”

Quinn Schansman, a dual U.S.-Dutch citizen killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. (Photo from Facebook)

Image: Quinn Schansman, a dual U.S.-Dutch citizen killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. (Photo from Facebook)

Yet, where the missile launch occurred has remained a mystery in the MH-17 investigation. Last October, when the Dutch Safety Board issued its final report on the crash, it could only place the launch site within a 320-square-kilometer area in eastern Ukraine, covering territory then controlled by both Ukrainian and rebel forces. (The safety board did not seek to identify which side fired the fateful missile).

Meanwhile, Almaz-Antey, the Russian arms manufacturer of the Buk systems, conducted its own experiments to determine the likely firing location and placed it in a much smaller area near the village of Zaroshchenskoye, about 20 kilometers west of the Dutch Safety Board’s zone and in an area under Ukrainian government control.

In the days immediately after the shoot-down, Kerry and other senior U.S. officials pointed the finger of blame at ethnic Russian rebels who were resisting a military offensive by the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev. The Russian government was faulted for supposedly giving the rebels a powerful Buk anti-aircraft system capable of downing a civilian airliner flying at 33,000 feet.

But – in more than 18 months since the tragedy – the U.S. government has never made public its alleged evidence, while Russia has denied supplying the rebels a Buk system and the rebels have asserted that they did not possess functioning Buk missiles.

An Anguished Father

Thomas Schansman, who lives in The Netherlands, wrote to Kerry, noting that “celebrating Christmas and New Year without my son Quinn Schansman, was difficult for my family and myself” and then pressing the Secretary of State to release U.S. information about the case.

“It is my understanding, that neither the Dutch government nor the Dutch Safety Board [DSB] have officially received the radar information from the US that you referred to. It is not included in the [DSB] report and it is not in the public domain,”

Schansman wrote.

“On behalf of the bereaved parents and to assist in the pursuit of justice, I would like to request that the United States provides the DSB with the radar data you referred to at the press conference and all other available and relevant information (like satellite data and infrared satellite data) that is in your government’s possession.

“I would be most grateful if the United States either directly or through NATO would publicly hand over to the Dutch Safety Board radar and satellite data of the minutes before and after the crash. … This would enable the DSB to reopen the investigation and include a chapter with this information, which is essential for a successful criminal prosecution. I count on the support of the government of the United States to find and prosecute those responsible for my son and your citizen’s death.”

Kerry has yet to reply although a U.S. consular official, Pamela J. Hack, sent Schansman a letterdated Jan. 14, expressing condolences for his son’s death and saying “We expect that you will receive a separate response … from Washington.”

A Rush to Judgment

In the days after the shoot-down, Kerry took the lead in accusing the ethnic Russian rebels (and implicitly their supporters in Moscow) of shooting down MH-17. Just three days after the tragedy, Kerry made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to leave little doubt that the rebels and Russians were at fault.

After mentioning information gleaned from “social media,” Kerry said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”:

“But even more importantly, we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”

Two days later, on July 22, 2014, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a “Government Assessment,” also citing “social media” seeming to implicate the rebels. Then, this white paper listed military equipment allegedly supplied by Russia to the rebels. But the list did not include a Buk missile battery or other high-powered anti-aircraft missiles.

The DNI also had U.S. intelligence analysts brief a few select mainstream reporters, but the analysts conveyed much less conviction than their superiors may have wished, indicating that there was still great uncertainty about who was responsible.

The Los Angeles Times article said:

“U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 [the designation for a Russian-made anti-aircraft Buk missile] was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.”

The analysts’ uncertainty meshed somewhat with what I had been told by a source who had been briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts shortly after the shoot-down about what they had seen in high-resolution satellite photos, which they said showed what looked like Ukrainian military personnel manning the battery believed to have fired the missile.

The source who spoke to me several times after receiving additional briefings about advances in the investigation said that as the U.S. analysts gained more insights into the MH-17 shoot-down from technical and other sources, they came to believe the attack was carried out by a rogue element of the Ukrainian military with ties to a hard-line Ukrainian oligarch. [See, for instance, Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts” and “The Danger of an MH-17 Cold Case.”]

Creating a Pariah

But, officially, the U.S. government never retracted or refined its initial claims. It simply went silent, leaving in place the widespread belief that the ethnic Russian rebels were responsible for the atrocity and that the Russian government had been highly irresponsible in supplying a powerful Buk system to the rebels.

That Western conventional wisdom convinced the European Union to join the U.S. government in imposing economic sanctions on Russia and treating President Vladimir Putin as an international pariah.

As the U.S. government clammed up and hid the evidence that it claimed to possess, it became clear that U.S. intelligence agencies lacked evidence to support Kerry’s initial rush to judgment blaming the rebels and the Russians.

Despite intensive overhead surveillance of eastern Ukraine in summer 2014, U.S. and other Western intelligence services could find no proof that Russia had ever given a Buk system to the rebels or introduced one into the area. Satellite intelligence – reviewed both before and after the shoot-down – only detected Ukrainian miltary Buk missile systems in the conflict zone.

One could infer this finding from the fact that the DNI on July 22, 2014, did not allege that Buks were among the weapons systems that Russia had provided. If Russian-supplied Buks had been spotted – and the batteries of four 16-foot-long missiles hauled around by trucks are hard to miss – their presence surely would have been noted.

But one doesn’t need to infer this lack of evidence. It was spelled out in a little-noticed Dutch intelligence report from last October citing information from the Netherlands’ Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD). Dutch intelligence, which as part of NATO would have access to sensitive overhead surveillance and other relevant data, reported that the only anti-aircraft weapons in eastern Ukraine – capable of bringing down MH-17 at 33,000 feet – belonged to the Ukrainian government.

MIVD made that assessment in the context of explaining why commercial aircraft continued to fly over the eastern Ukrainian battle zone in summer 2014. MIVD said that based on “state secret” information, it was known that Ukraine possessed some older but “powerful anti-aircraft systems” and “a number of these systems were located in the eastern part of the country.”

But the intelligence agency added that the rebels lacked that capacity, having only short-range anti-aircraft missiles and a few inoperable Buk missiles that had been captured from a Ukrainian military base. “During the course of July, several reliable sources indicated that the systems that were at the military base were not operational,” MIVD said. “Therefore, they could not be used by the Separatists.”

Ukrainian Motives

In other words, it is fair to say – based on the affirmative comments from the Dutch MIVD and the omissions from the U.S. “Government Assessment” – that the Western powers had no evidence that the ethnic Russian rebels or their Russian allies had operational Buk missiles in eastern Ukraine, but the Ukrainian government did have several batteries of such missiles.

It also would have made sense that Ukraine would be moving additional anti-aircraft systems close to the border because of a feared Russian invasion as the Ukrainian military pressed its “anti-terrorism operation” against ethnic Russians fighters, who were resisting the U.S.-backed coup of Feb. 22, 2014, which had ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose political base was in the east.

According to the Dutch Safety Board report, a Ukrainian warplane had been shot down by a suspected air-to-air missile (presumably from a Russian fighter) on July 16, 2014, meaning that Ukrainian defenses were probably on high alert. The Russian military also claimed that Ukraine had activated a radar system that is used to guide Buk missiles.

I was told by the intelligence source that U.S. analysts looked seriously at the possibility that the intended target was President Putin’s official plane returning from a state visit to South America. His aircraft and MH-17 had similar red-white-and-blue markings, but Putin took a more northerly route and arrived safely in Moscow.

Other possible scenarios were that a poorly trained and undisciplined Ukrainian squad mistook MH-17 for a Russian plane that had penetrated Ukrainian airspace or that the attack was willful provocation designed to be blamed on the Russians.

Whoever the culprits and whatever their motive, one point that should not have remained in doubt was where the missile launch occurred. Kerry said repeatedly in the days after the tragedy that U.S. intelligence had detected the launch and knew where it came from.

So, why did the Dutch Safety Board have to scratch its head about the missile coming from somewhere in a 320-square-kilometer area, with the Russian manufacturer placing the launch site about 20 kilometers further west? With the firing location a key point in dispute, why would the U.S. government withhold from a NATO ally (and investigators into a major airline disaster) the launch point for the missile?

Presumably, if the Obama administration had solid evidence showing that the launch came from rebel territory, which was Kerry’s insinuation, U.S. officials would have been only too happy to provide the data. That data also could be the only precise radar evidence available. Ukraine claimed that its principal radar systems were down at the time of the attack, and the Russians — while they asserted that their radar screens showed another plane closing on MH-17 — did not save the raw data.

Thomas Schansman noted in his letter to Kerry:

“the DSB [Dutch Safety Board] stated that it did not receive the (raw) primary radar data from any State. …. The UN Security Council Resolution 2166 explicit[ly] requested Member States to provide any requested assistance and cooperate fully with the investigation. The (raw) primary radar data is crucial for determining cause, and for identifying and prosecuting those responsible for this heinous act.”

Conventional Wisdom

Despite the strange evidentiary gaps and the U.S. failure to present the proof that it claims to possess, the West’s “conventional wisdom” remains that either the ethnic Russian rebels or the Russians themselves shot down MH-17 and have sought to cover up their guilt. Some of this certainty comes from the simpleminded game of repeating that Buk missiles are “Russian-made,” which is true but irrelevant to the issue of who fired the missiles, since the Ukrainian military possesses Russian-made Buks.

Despite the lack of U.S. cooperation in the investigation – and the failure of Western intelligence to detect Russians or ethnic Russian rebels with a Buk battery in eastern Ukraine – the Dutch criminal prosecutors who are working closely with the Ukrainian government say they are taking seriously allegations by bloggers at a British Web site called Bellingcat who have identified Russian soldiers assigned to a Buk missile battery as prime suspects in the shoot-down.

So, the possibility remains that this Dutch-led investigation – in coordination with the Ukrainian government – will indict some Russian soldiers even as the U.S. government withholds its data that could resolve such key questions as where the fateful missile was fired.

An indictment of Russian soldiers would make for more useful anti-Putin propaganda and would be sure to produce another chorus of denunciations against Moscow from the mainstream Western media. But such a development might do little to resolve the mystery of who really shot down MH-17, killing Quinn Schansman and 297 other people aboard MH-17.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

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The headlines are increasing, and getting louder. UK arms sold to Saudi Arabia may breach international law in Yemen. David Cameron accused of silently taking Britain into a brutal war in Yemen by Saudi Arabia. Yemen: Britain and Saudi Arabia Shoulder to Shoulder in Atrocity.

And these are all coming from western media outlets. The UK involvement in the illegal Saudi bombing campaign has become evident, especially the extent in which it is involved.

IN this edition the debate, we’ll discuss why the UK is so adamant in supporting Saudi Arabia, which involves arms sales.

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Let the mouths move, the agenda churners busy themselves, and the chatterers pretend to move mountains even as they remain indifferent.  As if one needed to be reminded exactly what the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos is all about, we are ready for the usual assortment of characters among the 2,500 and more participants. 

There are the usual cast of financial directors and CEOs at the 45th annual Davos meeting. Unilever’s Paul Polman, Santander’s Ana Botín, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, are among some of the names. 

There are a smattering of the celluloid creatures who think that off screen activity resembles their onscreen prowess.  Leonardo DiCaprio, for one, is circulating among the groups, a Wolf of Wall Street come good.   There are food activists and screen chefs – even Jamie Oliver has decided in muck in with his calorie narrative.

The preferred choice of travel for these aggrandized luminaries is private jet.  Numbers come in at 1,700, about twice the usual number.  This has led to a scramble, and jet “jam” at Swiss airports.[1]

There is no getting away from it then.  The WEP is, according to the BBC, a “talking shop”.  The Beeb goes no to say that, “Arguably, though, it is the best of its kind in the world.”[2]  Conceptually, it was based on a business model that has become all too common: if the entrepreneurs are allowed to roam free in a valley in the Swiss mountains, germinated ideas will be exchanged.

Deals might be done, platforms sketched.  And these are done within a certain hierarchy of status, suggesting that this is hardly the free wheeling forum advertised.  As Jennifer Rankin describes it, “Getting an invitation is a sign you have made it – an elaborate system of badges reveals your place in the Davos hierarchy.”[3]

Such discussions also take place, rather overwhelmingly, between men; a mere 17 percent of participants are women.  The chat show also involves various groups that reflect the global hierarchy of influence: the largest numbers stem from Western Europe, followed by the United States. Africa and Latin America supply the least number of delegates.

Whether the points made at the meet are of quality is never critically engaged. It is simply assumed to be worthy if they make the cut.  The WEF’s creator, Professor Klaus Schwab, who still runs the event, calls it “a platform for collaborative thinking and searching for solutions, not for making decisions.”

Such gatherings have varied in their temper, though they never deviate from the overwhelmingly corporate nature of the enterprise.  At its initiation, it was European businessmen who gathered to chew over the significance of practices in the US corporate room.  In 1974, political leaders were added to the guest list. The content hardly improved, though it did provide an ominous sign about the link between technocrats and capital.  It is a link that has never been broken.

The Davos bridge to anything remotely relevant to communities and societies more broadly speaking is tenuous at best.  At has been deemed dated, passing into costly obsolescence.  “Classic plays have their fools,” claimed John Ralston Saul, “globalization had Davos.”

For all that, the Swiss retreat has managed to create a false aura of influence beyond its limited guest list.  “The only reason I’m here, and I shouldn’t be here” according to Oliver, is the “trust” he has with the public.  This is a point that is hard to sustain, though the once Naked Chef may well be genuine about it.  Being honest at Davos, however, tends to be a far more difficult proposition than, say, finding the Higgs Boson.

The tones at the current conference vary between the utopian and dystopian, though they always slant towards “working” suggestions on such topics as poverty and security.  But every platform worth its promotion on a global scale tends to find an opening at the WEF in the hope of ventilation rather than resolution.

Bubbling away on the discussion panels is the topic of refugees, a monster of a problem remains suspended. But the Davos-WEF approach is not going to be a place for recommendations.  Instead, we are treated to an echo-chamber of reassured narratives, the sort that ignore growing global inequality and the increasing toasting of the earth.  The latter is hardly changed by the pop-tart efforts of Al Gore and singer Pharrell Williams to get business leaders to move from their cold cuts.

This could be gathered in points made by Federica Mogherini, EU Foreign Policy chief, which tended to encapsulate a serious point with much piffle in a chat to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.  We are all in agreement, she suggested, on how to deal with refugees, we just have not been quick enough.

The problem with Davos is the problem of unreality and distance.  People go to Davos to talk to people who go to Davos and what people who go to Davos do.  There is no incentive to alter what is always being discussed as alterable, even though bun fights take place over what should be placed on the discussion list.

Whether it is Oliver’s insistence on calorie intake (the hidden sugars in children’s diet), or a weapon’s merchant suggestion that robots, rather than humans, can do battle against each other, the World Economic Forum is a site of stasis. It is as cold as its forum and Davos Man is all fed and watered, going nowhere in particular.

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

Notes:

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Job Cuts Mount as Global Economy Falters

January 22nd, 2016 by Gabriel Black

Major corporations around the world announced sharp cuts in their labor forces this past week. The job reductions come amidst growing signs of a general economic crisis, as commodity prices and share values plummet.

Leading the way in job cuts are energy companies, particularly in the oil and gas industries, which have been hit hard by the collapse in oil prices.

Schlumberger, the largest oil technology and drilling company, announced Thursday that it would eliminate 10,000 positions, roughly ten percent of the firm’s workforce. The company’s stock has been trading at near four-year lows this past week. In order to please investors, the company announced the mass layoffs alongside a $10 billion stock buyback program to boost its stock price.

Royal Dutch Shell reported that it would increase its planned 7,500 job cuts this year to 10,300. The downsizing is bound up with Shell’s acquisition of the BG group, a smaller British oil company. The cut totals ten percent of the workforce of the merged companies. Other energy company cuts include Southwestern Energy Corporation (1,100), Noble Corporation (100), and Potash (430).

While job cuts have been sharpest in the oil and gas sectors, the general downturn in primary resources has soured profit forecasts and spurred layoffs throughout the economy.

The German Manager Magazin reports that Volkswagen is considering slashing up to 10,000 jobs as part of a new cost-cutting drive. In addition to the impact of the general tumult in the world economy, Volkswagen is reeling from the exposure of its rigging of car emissions. Volkswagen intends to place the burden of the scandal squarely on the backs of the workers, in part by increasing productivity by ten percent this year.

On Tuesday, health industry giant Johnson & Johnson announced 3,000 job cuts at its medical device division. That is about five percent of the firm’s global workforce. The company hopes to save $1 billion annually from the cut, which will be imposed over the next two years.

Pearson, the world’s largest education publisher, announced Thursday that it would shed 4,000 jobs, roughly 10 percent of its workforce. Many of these job cuts will fall in the company’s operations in the United States. The firm’s shares declined substantially after it announced three months ago that it would not make a profit in 2015. The firm is the co-owner of Penguin Random House.

Barclays, the British investment bank, announced that it would cut 1,200 jobs and close offices around the world, particularly in Asia. Virgin Media, another British company, will cut 900 jobs, primarily in London and Birmingham.

These job cuts follow other mass job reductions in Europe, including 6,500 at General Electric’s European operations, 6,000 by the French nuclear group Areva, 5,800 at British Airways, and 1,000 at Tata Steel in Britain.

Job losses are mounting as well in China. While growth continues in some sectors, unemployment is increasing amongst workers in the steel industry and other sectors that have been sharply hit by the collapse of commodity prices. China International Capital Corporation estimated that 3 million workers would be laid off in the next few years in the coal, steel, electrolytic aluminum, cement and glass industries due to overcapacity. Professor Liu Erduo, a labor economist at Renmin University, predicts that the unemployment rate in China will rise from 5.1 to at least 6.1 percent this year.

The cascade of job cuts comes as prominent figures attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland predict a grim future for the world economy. William White, chairman of the review committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and former chief economist at the Bank for International Settlements, stated, “The situation is worse than it was in 2007.” White warned that this time around, the world’s central banks will not be in a position to bail out the financial markets. “Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up,” he said.

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The much lauded “peace deal” regarding Syria upon even a cursory examination reveals nothing more than the reiteration of Western demands versus a reassertion of Syrian defiance.

The West seeks a “political transition” in addition to fighting the self-proclaimed “Islamic State,” implying that indeed, just as it had sought since 2011 and even beforehand, the West still expects current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, and a client regime more to the West’s liking installed in his place.

And while the West, as part of the “peace deal” claims to seek the end of the Islamic State, it makes no mention of the states sponsoring its existence, which coincidentally includes the West itself.

Syria seeks the eradication of all armed groups, even those the West still attempts to claim are not linked to Al Qaeda. It has agreed to elections, confident the Syrian people will return President Assad to power again, just as they did in 2014. Knowing that President Assad would easily win any election held in the future, the West has been adamant about removing him from the process to even the odds in favor of candidates they back, thus undermining the very premise that the uprising had anything to do with “democracy” or heeding the will of the Syrian people in the first place.

The “peace deal,” despite optimistic headlines across the West about “unanimous agreement” among nations, is exposed as yet another attempt for the West to reassert its narrative regarding the Syrian conflict upon the global stage.

In reality, the “peace deal” is no deal at all. What is left is the same battle that has been waged since 2011, and it is upon the battlefield that Syria’s fate will be truly decided.

Peace Only After War 

The West, and the United States in particular, has attempted to take on a more conciliatory tone as of late. And despite actually not really saying so, US Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to impress upon the world that “regime change” was no longer in the cards. Of course, such statements are still followed by US expectations that President Assad will step down. But even as the US strikes this new tone, its regional partners, and more specifically, Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, have increased provocations against both Syria and Russia in attempts to widen a war that is now winding down in favor of Damascus.

Turkey attempted to trigger a wider conflict with Russia by ambushing a Russian warplane, evidently with both US approval and assistance. Israel has continued attempting to provoke Syria into war, by striking targets in and around Damascus itself. Saudi Arabia had recently hosted militant groups operating in Syria, to meet in Riyadh. Many of these groups are direct affiliates of Al Qaeda.

So even as the US claims for its part of the “peace deal” it seeks to fight terrorism in Syria, its oldest and stanchest ally in the region is hosting the leaders of various terrorist groups, colluding over how to continue the fight more effectively.

It is clear that the only “peace” that will be had will be when Syria and its allies militarily defeat the West’s proxies on the battlefield and check direct military intervention by the West with an increasing range of military deterrents either sold to the Syrian military, or brought in and operated by Russian forces already on the battlefield.

West’s Losing War Compels Disingenuous Political Bargaining

As Syrian troops backed by Russian airpower move ever closer to the Turkish border in the north, thus cutting the lifelines feeding terrorists operating inside of Syria, and as Syrian forces cut off the Syrian-Jordanian border, the end of the war draws nearer.

The West has reacted with a wide range of responses. It has attempted to escalate the conflict, and also negotiate an end to it, attempting to leverage what remaining influence it has over the battle via its dwindling proxy forces and the treat of direct military intervention. It has also attempted to begin the covert invasion and occupation of territory both in Syria and Iraq in a bid to fracture both nations irreparably before the inevitable end of the war.

“Peace talks” are aimed only at further buying time and attempting to leverage favorable outcomes before their remaining bargaining chips are swept from the field of battle. In other words, it is yet another distraction laid out to derail Syrian-Russian efforts to restore order to Syria and preserve Syria as a functioning nation-state.

Staying Focused

For Syria and its allies, remaining focused is the key to truly ending the conflict. The United States has already proven infinitely treacherous. It was under the cover of feigned rapprochement by the US with Syria that the 2011 conflict was prepared and launched. It was under the guise of feigned cooperation in Syria’s airspace with Russia that the US aided and abetted Turkey in the ambush and downing of one of Russia’s warplanes.

It stands to reason any “peace deal” not reached by physical force and political leverage being entirely in Syria and Russia’s favor, will likewise be betrayed. Syria and Russia must maintain the appearance of being “diplomatic,” but must also remain entirely realist about the enemy they are fighting, and the true motivations, intentions, and future ambitions that drove this conflict in the first place. Peace was never part of the West’s plan, and so peace cannot be part of Syria and its allies’ solution.

Fully defeating the West’s proxies on the battlefield, securing Syria’s borders, and creating a military deterrence to prevent direct Western military intervention – which includes further incursions into Syrian and Iraqi territory by Turkey, Israel, or any other Western proxy in the region, are the only conditions from which any “peace deal” can then be struck with the West.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazineNew Eastern Outlook”.

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Turkish Invasion Threat Escalates Syrian Conflict

January 22nd, 2016 by Bill Van Auken

The Syrian government has formally appealed to the United Nations over incursions into its territory by Turkish troops. The protest at the UN came amid reports that Turkish soldiers have crossed the border and entered the Syrian town of Jarablus on the western bank of the Euphrates River.

Turkish military action inside Syria threatens to escalate the internal conflict in that country and increase the threat of a confrontation between Turkey and Russia. Relations between Ankara and Moscow have remained tense since the November 24 Turkish shoot-down of a Russian warplane over Syrian territory.

Jarablus is under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but has come under increasing pressure from forces of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which have received backing from Washington in its so-called war on ISIS.

Turkey, a NATO ally of the US, is supposedly part of the anti-ISIS coalition. But there is extensive evidence that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has facilitated the flow of fighters, arms and money to the Islamist militia and tacitly sanctioned the smuggling into Turkey of oil produced by ISIS-controlled installations in Syria.

The primary Turkish interest in Syria has been to block the consolidation of an autonomous Kurdish region on Turkey’s southern border. The government in Ankara has declared that any attempt by the YPG to cross to the western bank of the Euphrates and link up the two Kurdish cantons of Kobane and Afrin would be a “red line” that would trigger Turkish military intervention.

ISIS fighters have reportedly offered no resistance to the Turkish incursion, underscoring the barely concealed collaboration between the Islamists and the Turkish state.

The Syrian Kurdish ARA News service reported that the Turkish army carried out an artillery attack on Tuesday against the YPG headquarters in the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad, wounding at least two Kurdish fighters and destroying three armored vehicles.

The city, which is north of the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa, was retaken by YPG units in fighting with the Salafist jihadi militia last June.

Turkey’s warmongering in Syria is bound up with its bloody campaign of repression against the Kurdish population within Turkey itself. Amnesty International on Wednesday condemned the Turkish government for carrying out “collective punishment” against its Kurdish population through “round-the-clock curfews and other arbitrary measures which have left residents without access to emergency health care, food, water and electricity for extended periods.”

The repression has escalated steadily since the collapse last July of a two-year “peace process” between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). More than 300 civilians have been killed in the Turkish campaign, including at least 61 children. Just in the period of December 11, 2015 to January 8, 2016, 162 civilians lost their lives.

US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Istanbul Thursday night for talks with Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu that will likely center on the twisted and multisided relationship between the Kurdish question, the campaign against ISIS and the Western-orchestrated war for regime-change in Syria.

Washington and Ankara both seek the toppling of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and both are hostile to Russian interests in the region. There are, however, major tactical differences between them.

While the US has voiced support for Erdoğan’s crackdown against the PKK and the Kurdish population inside Turkey, the Pentagon has dispatched “advisors” to aid the Kurdish fighters of the YPG on the Syrian side of the border, using them as ground troops to seize territory in the US-led bombing campaign against ISIS.

Erdoğan has allowed the US to use the Incirlik air base in Turkey to carry out airstrikes against ISIS positions in Syria, but his military has centered its own strikes on Kurdish forces there as well as in Iraq, where the government in Baghdad has denounced Turkish intervention as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

Biden is expected to press for Turkey to seal off a 60-mile unsecured stretch of its border with Syria that serves as the principal supply line for ISIS. The Turkish government, however, far prefers ISIS control of the border zone over control by the Kurdish YPG.

Any move to secure the border will inevitably be accompanied by a Turkish intervention to halt a Kurdish advance, either through direct Turkish military occupation or through control over the area by other Al Qaeda-linked militias such as the al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham or Jaish al-Islam, all of which have enjoyed Turkish support.

The mounting conflicts threaten to upend talks scheduled in Geneva next Monday for the ostensible purpose of achieving a negotiated end to the nearly five-year-old civil war that has claimed the lives of roughly a quarter of a million Syrians and turned millions more into refugees.

US Secretary of State John Kerry allowed on Thursday that the talks could be put off for “a day or two.” Asked by reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos whether there would be a delay, Kerry responded, “When you say a delay, it may be a day or two for invitations, but there is not going to be a fundamental delay.”

The “delay,” however, concerns precisely the issue of which parties are to receive invitations to attend. Washington and Moscow have agreed that both ISIS and the al-Nusra Front will not be included in any peace talks. However, the Obama administration is insisting that Salafist jihadi outfits such as Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam, which share Al Qaeda’s essential outlook and methods, should be included as “moderate rebels.” The Russian government has insisted that they be excluded as “terrorists.”

Moscow, in turn, has called for the Syrian Kurdish YPG to be included in the talks, while Turkey has declared that it sees both it and ISIS as equally “terrorist.”

According to a report on the Foreign Policy web site, the United Nation’s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, reported to the UN Security Council that Saudi Arabia was sabotaging his attempt to bring a broad range of Syrian opposition groups to the Geneva talks.

He said that the so-called High Negotiations Committee (HNC), cobbled together in Riyadh by the Saudi monarchy and dominated by Islamist militias, had rejected the participation of any other groups in the talks. He told the Security Council that the HNC and its “sponsors” insist on “the primacy and exclusivity of their role as ‘THE’ opposition delegation.”

These “sponsors” include not only the Saudi regime, but also Qatar, Turkey and the US itself. In a briefing Tuesday, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “As we said after Riyadh, the opposition will be represented at that meeting by delegates chosen from the High Negotiating Committee and only from the High Negotiating Committee.”

Washington’s aim remains to secure through a combination of negotiations and continuing support for Islamist sectarian militias in Syria what it has so far been unable to achieve: the toppling of Assad and the imposition of a more pliant puppet regime. In continuing to press for this end, it has unleashed a series of bitter regional and international conflicts that threaten to escalate into a far wider

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Greece Falls Prey to ECB Financial Diktats and Blackmail

January 22nd, 2016 by Eric Toussaint

There follows the summary of a talk given at the European Parliament in Brussels by Eric Toussaint on 14 January 2016 on the occasion of the international meeting organized by the left-wing European Parliamentary Group GUE/NGL (European United Left/Nordic Green Left). The theme was “The ECB, Europe’s unelected government” (For the full programme, see http://www.guengl.eu/news/article/the-ecb-europes-unelected-government).

Eric Toussaint gave his talk on a panel whose moderator was Dimitris Papadimoulis, a Syriza MEP. Others speakers on the panel were Marika Frangakis, who heads the economics department of Syriza’s political secretariat, and Pearse Doherty, spokesperson on financial matters for the Irish party, Sinn Fein. On other panels held during this day devoted to the ECB were Gabi Zimmer, Die Linke MEP and president of GUE/NGL, Fabio Di Masi, also a Die Linke MEP, Miguel Urban, an MEP from Podemos, and Harald Schumann who made an excellent documentary on the Troika

(see http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/051622-000/puissante-et-incontrolee-la-troika).

All the talks can be seen on video at http://www.guengl.eu/news/article/the-ecb-europes-unelected-government

1. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, while the memorandum to be imposed on Greece in May 2010 was being drawn up, threatened to cut access to the liquidities needed by Greek banks if Greece asked for reduction of the debt.

During his audition before the Truth Committee for Greek Public Debt, Panagiotis Roumeliotis who represented Greece at the IMF from March 2010 until December 2011 before becoming vice-president of the Piraeus Bank, declared

“Mr Trichet – then president of the ECB – was among those resisting debt restructuring by threatening to cut Greece’s liquidities. In fact, Mr Trichet was bluffing in order to save French and German banks!”. See http://cadtm.org/Audition-de-Panagiotis-Roumeliotis

In 2015, under the presidency of Mario Draghi, the ECB carried out the threat made by his predecessor, Jean- Claude Trichet.

2. In May 2010 the ECB helped create the Troika which imposed measures that violated the fundamental rights of Greek citizens. The Truth Committee for Greek Public Debt’s report includes a list of measures dictated by the Troika (within which the ECB played, and continues to play, a key role) which result in the violation of fundamental rights.

Loans granted to Greece within the framework of the memorandum are used to protect the interests of the major private French, German and Greek banks even though they were responsible for the speculative credit bubble which began to burst in 2009.

3. Within the framework of the SMP (Securities Market Programme), in 2010-2011-2012 the ECB bought Greek bonds at a significant discount.

For the period 2010-2012, the total amount of Greek bonds bought up by private banks came to 55 billion euros. At the beginning of 2016, the ECB still holds bonds worth about 20 billion euros bought over that period, which Greece is expected to pay back by 2018.

By buying up Greek bonds on the secondary market, the ECB helped French, German, Greek and other banks to get rid of them, thus dodging the 2012 “haircut”. Moreover, the ECB buying large quantities of bonds on the secondary market also had the effect of raising the prices of these financial instruments. This enabled French, German and Greek banks to cut their losses when they sold them off.

In 2012, the ECB refused to take part in any restructuring and in July/August 2015 it demanded the repayment of 6.7 billion euros’ worth at face value.

Between 2011 and 2015, it clocked up large amounts of interest from Greek bonds (see below).

The way that the ECB used the Troika to organize restructuring in 2012 is scandalous and bears clear signs of illegitimacy.

The major French and German banks have mainly been spared, having had forewarning of the coming haircut, unlike the Cypriot banks that had bought huge quantities of Greek bonds and which were directly affected by it. Far more seriously, Greek pension funds, small Greek savers and workers at Olympic Airways were the direct victims of the haircut. The Greek pension system has yet to recover. On the other hand, the bonds’ fall in value meant that vulture funds were spared.

The ECB bought up Greek debt while imposing drastic conditions. There were times when, judging that the Greek authorities were not cooperating enough in implementing the measures dictated by the Troika, the ECB suspended bond-buying as a means of blackmail.

The ECB made profits at the expense of the Greek people

Although Greece owes the ECB less money than Italy or Spain, the ECB gets more interest from Greece than either of those countries. In 2014, the Greek government paid 298 million euros of interest on loans from the ECB, which amounted to 40 % of the 728 million euros of revenue that the ECB earned from the five countries concerned by the SMP, even though Greek debt towards the ECB only comes to 12 % of the total it is owed.

 Debt owed to the ECB by countries concerned by the SMP (February 2015) 2

The ECB’s profits from Greek bonds will attain more than 7.7 billion euros by 2018 when Greece will have repaid the last non restructured bonds. The ECB has repeatedly blackmailed Greece with the suggestion that it might return its ill-gotten gains to that country. During the Tsipras government’s first six months in power, the ECB refused to return the ill-gotten gains it had made since 2012. After the Greek government’s capitulation on13 July 2015, some of those profits were paid back, but on the condition that the money be used to repay creditors. The profits that have been returned to Greece do not benefit the Greek population. |1|

This is an excerpt from an official document dating from July 2015:

“Total SMP and ANFA profits until July 2018 amount to EUR 7.7 bn. If agreed by Member States, the SMP profits of 2014 and 2015 (totalling EUR 3.3 bn), although insufficient, could be used in July to repay arrears to the IMF and other upcoming payments.

SMP profits of 2016, 2017 and 2018 could also be used for subsequent programme financing. Over the July 2015-July 2018 period, Greece is expected to receive EUR 2.7 bn in SMP profits (excluding the 2014 and 2015 profits used for urgent debt payments) and EUR 1.7 bn in ANFA profits from the other Member States and the BoG, reducing financing needs accordingly.”

See http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/assistance_eu_ms/documents/2015-07-10_greece_art__13_eligibility_assessment_esm_en.pdf page 10.

The ECB and the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) in charge of recapitalizing Greek Banks

Among the members of the General Council of the Financial Stability Fund |2| is Pierre Mariani, |3| who shares responsibility for the failure of the bank Dexia and the resulting financial disaster. This Belgian-French-Luxembourg bank has had to be bailed out on three separate occasions by the Belgian, French and Luxembourg authorities. The heavy losses posted by Dexia between 2008 and 2012 did not prevent Mr. Mariani from ensuring he was granted substantial increases in his emoluments. Even so the ECB saw no problem with appointing him to be one of the directors of the Financial Stability Fund in charge of recapitalizing the Greek banks.

Is it acceptable that someone who is largely responsible for the disaster of a major bank like Dexia be appointed to head the entity in charge of managing the recapitalization of the Greek banks? Dexia sold billions of euros’ worth of toxic loans to French public bodies and its failure had a highly damaging impact on public finances in Belgium, France and Luxembourg. Is it prudent to continue to trust Pierre Mariani? When Dexia was bailed out by the Belgian government, Pierre Mariani was forced to leave on account of his catastrophic management; and yet he walked away with a million-euro “golden parachute”. For the year 2012, Dexia paid him 1.7 million euros. |4| Now he shows his nose in Greece to participate in cleaning up the Greek banks.

Among the other members of the Fund’s General Council is Wouter Devriendt. This adviser to Belgium in banking matters has held important posts at two banks which had to be bailed out in 2008: Fortis, rescued by the Belgian government and re-sold to BNP Paribas, and ABN-Amro, nationalized by the Dutch government. Like Pierre Mariani, Wouter Devriendt is one of the people who are responsible for the banking crisis in Europe.

It would be a shame to conclude this assessment of the membership of the General Council of the HFSF without mentioning Steven Franck, who held high positions at the North American bank Morgan Stanley, then at BNP Paribas between 2006 and 2009 – during the period when that bank was actively contributing to the creation of a private-credit speculative bubble in Greece and becoming entangled in the subprime and structured-products market in the US. Note also that Steven Franck has also worked for the US President at the White House and served in US naval aviation.

We need to ask a question: is it acceptable that the interests of Greece and her citizens be entrusted to this sort of person? The make-up of the directorial body of the entity in charge of recapitalizing Greek banks is a perfect illustration of the nature of the ECB’s and the Troika’s actions in general – that is, defending and promoting the interests of big capital and the major powers.

The ECB continues to blackmail the Tsipras government for access to cash for Greece’s banks

The ECB has an obligation to supply cash to banks in the Euro Zone. After the “stress test” the banks were subjected to in 2014, the ECB and the oversight authorities declared Greek banks to be sufficiently robust. As a result the ECB was required to take action to supply cash to Greece’s banking system. But during the first six months of the Tsipras government, the ECB constantly engaged in discourse which destabilised that government and raised the worst kind of doubts about what would happen to deposits in Greek banks. This acted as a catalyst, causing significantly large withdrawals of deposits (approximately 40 billion euros were withdrawn from Greek banks between January and July 2015). The ECB kept the flow of emergency cash running, but implied that it might cut it off any minute. Which is exactly what it did in late June, 2015 when the Tsipras government called a referendum for 5 July 2015. As a result, from 28 June Greece’s banks were closed for a period of three weeks.

At the moment when the ECB limited emergency cash, it was estimated that Greek banks should have had access to an additional 28 billion in emergency cash. The ECB clearly failed to honour its obligations as provided for in the EU Treaties. Its blockage of Greece’s payment system constitutes a clear violation of the provisions of Article 127 of the TFUE (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).

Yannis Stournaras (currently governor of the Greek Central Bank and former finance minister under the Samaras government) has just stated that in 2015 he held regular meetings with the President and other personalities in order to influence the decisions to be made by the government and the Hellenic Parliament.

We should also stress that as part of its policy of destabilising the Tsipras government, the ECB refused to buy Greek securities in 2015. Yet since January 2015, under its quantitative easing programme, it has purchased securities from the other states in the Euro Zone amounting to some 60 billion euros per month. Now that the Greek government has submitted to a third Memorandum of Understanding, the ECB is considering buying Greek debt, provided that Greece follow the neoliberal diktats and once again savage pensions while continuing privatizations, etc.

The ECB and the referendum of 5 July 2015

On 28 June 2015, the ECB acted to close Greece’s banks.

On 29 June, Benoît Coeuré, a member of the ECB’s executive board, in an interview with the French daily Les Echos, declared that “an exit from the Euro Zone, which until now has been quite theoretical, unfortunately can no longer be excluded”, adding that this was a consequence of Athens’s decision to break off negotiations. He then said that if the Greeks voted “Yes” in the referendum, there would be no doubt that the Euro Zone authorities would find a solution for Greece. If the “No” vote carried the day, however, “it would be very difficult to re-establish dialogue”. |5|

On 3 July 2015, the Vice-President of the ECB, Vítor Constâncio, announced that he could not confirm that the ECB would release emergency cash (Emergency Liquidity Assistance – ELA) to Greece’s banks if Greeks voted “No” the following Sunday. “It will be a decision by the (ECB) Governing Council. We will have to wait and see how the Governing Council as a whole will analyse the situation”, he told a news conference following a speech he made to a financial conference. |6|

On 14 September 2015, in an interview with the Reuters press agency, Vítor Constâncio answered the question “What doubts were raised about the Euro?” in the following manner: “It raised doubts for the markets that countries like Greece could cope with the challenges of monetary union. There was never any doubt among the majority of member countries. We maintain that the euro is irreversible. Legally, no country can be expelled. The actual prospect of that happening was never for real.”

The situation of the Greek banks

The public authorities have become the main shareholders of the four major Greek banks since 2010, at the specific request of the ECB, but they don’t actually exercise their power since they hold only preferred stock, which does not give them voting rights as common shares do.

Banking concentration has increased. The four major banks have absorbed seven others since 2010. A very large share of the 45 billion euros injected into Greece’s banks has ended up in other countries and has been used by private bank shareholders to increase their economic power.

The Greek banks have not really been cleaned up; the Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) and the ECB have not encouraged the implementation of measures that might have restored a robust banking system –which, in my view, requires the banking sector to be socialized.

A key factor in the poor health of the Greek banks is the number of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs).

In December 2015, the ECB and the Eurogroup pushed through a financial operation on these NPLs, once again favouring the specific interests of the private sector. Investment funds will be able to buy a share of these NPLs and make profits off them. One consequence of this operation will be to reduce the share of capital held by the public authorities.

The Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt, which had been created by the Speaker of the Greek Parliament in April 2015 and was dissolved by the new Speaker in November 2015, is continuing its work, taking into account the new context created by the third Memorandum of Understanding. The commission will produce a public document on the situation of Greek banks in the form of a critical assessment of the way in which the banks have been recapitalized.

We will have the opportunity to present that document to the European Parliament on 1 March 2016.

In conclusion, for the reasons I have just described, the Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt considered in its report, made public in June 2015, that the debt repayments being demanded of Greece by the ECB should be considered illegitimate, illegal, odious and unsustainable.

See: http://cadtm.org/Preliminary-Report-of-the-Truth and http://cadtm.org/Illegitimacy-Illegality-Odiousness

Translated by Snake Arbusto, Vicki Briault Manus, Mike Krolikowski and Christine Pagnoulle, (CADTM)

Eric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokeperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. He is the co-author, with Damien Millet of Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He is the author of many essays including one on Jacques de Groote entitled Procès d’un homme exemplaire (The Trial of an Exemplary Man), Al Dante, Marseille, 2013, and wrote with Damien Millet, AAA. Audit Annulation Autre politique (Audit, Abolition, Alternative Politics), Le Seuil, Paris, 2012. See his Series “Banks versus the People: the Underside of a Rigged Game!” Next publication : Bankocracy Merlin Press, Londres, May 2015 (English version).

Since the 4th April 2015 he is coordinator of the Truth Commission on Public Debt.

Notes:

|1| This information comes from Chapter 3 of the Truth Committee for Greek Public Debt’s preliminary report, which can be consulted and downloaded free of charge at http://cadtm.org/Preliminary-Report-of-the-Truth

|2| A list of members of the General Council can be found on the Fund’s official site: http://www.hfsf.gr/en/generalcouncil.htm

|3| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Mariani (in French); see also http://topics.wsj.com/person/M/pierre-mariani/1017

|4| http://www.rtbf.be/info/economie/detail_pierre-mariani-a-touche-une-indemnite-de-1-7-million-d-euros-de-dexia?id=7963605 (in French) ; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexia#Salary_of_Pierre_Mariani

|5| http://www.lesechos.fr/monde/europe/021174193580-benoit-coeure-bce-la-sortie-de-la-grece-de-leuro-ne-peut-plus-etre-exclue-1132860.php (in French)

|6| Cited in Truth Committee on the Greek Public Debt, “llegitimacy, Illegality, Odiousness and Unsustainability of the August 2015 MoU and Loan Agreements”,
published 5 October 2015 http://cadtm.org/Illegitimacy-Illegality-Odiousness

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Teaching 9/11 to Conspiracy Theorists

January 22nd, 2016 by James F. Tracy

Professor James Tracy was fired by his university for his writings on the Sandy Hook School massacre, in which he questions the validity of the “official” version of events. Whatever one’s views regarding Professor Tracy’s analysis, this action by Florida Atlantic University constitutes a blatant violation of academic freedom. (GR Editor, M. Ch.)

This article was originally written in November 2015. Many have accused this author of teaching “conspiracy theories” to college students. Contrary to critics’  assertions, however, events such as the Sandy Hook School massacre or Boston Marathon bombing were never addressed in any courses taught at his former university.

Only in the last college class he taught over a twenty year career in academe (13 of which were spent at Florida Atlantic University) did he have a chance to carefully examine and discuss September 11, 9-11-towers2001, or, more specifically, the US government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory.-JFT

An enduring psychological effect of “the propaganda of the event” is a foremost element of all modern forms of war. Advances in hidden governance and concentrated media ownership have made the “war on terror” possible via increasingly fine-tuned trauma based mind control–in other words the enforcement of belief through overwhelming events subsequently placed in meaningful narrative context absent any contradictory information.

Such a phenomenon is readily apparent among the younger generations, particularly as they have come to rely on US government-sponsored conspiracy theories in order to make sense of momentous political events bearing upon their lives. Despite their irrational nature and profound shortcomings, such conspiracy theories are unquestioningly accepted as valid by an overwhelming majority of journalists and academics, who then repeat them as fact to their respective constituents.

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America’s long war on Iraq continues endlessly, ongoing for nearly five years in Syria – naked aggression by any standard.

Despite Obama promising no US boots on the ground, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said increased numbers are planned in addition to ones already deployed – on the phony pretext of combating ISIS.

Meeting with his French, British, Australian, German, Italian and Dutch counterparts in Paris, Carter focused on escalating conflict in Iraq and Syria, aiding the scourge Washington claims to oppose.

Obama again proved he’s a serial liar, Carter saying he approved seeking “additional opportunit(ies) to make a difference according to strategy…”

The Pentagon plans major combat operations in northern Syria and Iraq, Carter not explaining how many US combat troops will be involved.

Claiming the aim is to degrade and defeat ISIS is a complete hoax. Washington created and actively supports the terror group, using its fighters as imperial foot soldiers.

It flourishes because of outside support, ravaging Syria and Iraq, increasingly active in Libya and elsewhere.

Carter saying Washington leads a global coalition against it, using “airstrikes, special forces, cyber tools, intelligence, equipment, mobility and logistics, and training, advice and assistance” conceals active US support.

Saying the campaign includes “protecting the American homeland” belies reality. A February Brussels meeting involving 26 nations is planned.

Claiming it aims to “hasten” the defeat of ISIS conceals continued US support, an agenda of endless imperial wars.

Washington’s so-called “advise and assist mission” is cover for mission creep – escalated naked aggression, using increasing numbers of US combat troops in Iraq and Syria, thousands already there, unknown greater numbers coming

On the one hand, it’s to support ISIS. On the other, it involves countering Russia’s effective Syria campaign, waging real war on terrorism, polar opposite Washington’s phony one.

US airstrikes target infrastructure and government sites, not ISIS. Civilians are being killed, Washington indifferent to noncombatant casualties and human suffering.

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.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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In an article published in the New York Times last week entitled “At C.D.C., a Debate Behind Recommendations on Cellphone Risk”, author Danny Hakim discusses the controversy surrounding the potential health risks of using cell phones.

Hakim writes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines recommending “caution in cellphone use”, due to the potentially harmful effects of radiation emitted by the wireless devices on human health. Included in the guidelines was information about reducing exposure among children. Just a few weeks after the CDC’s publication, and amid rising concerns about cell phone safety, the CDC rescinded the advisory completely.

Today, the CDC website takes an ambiguous stance on the issue, stating:

Can using a cell phone cause cancer?

There is no scientific evidence that provides a definite answer to that question. Some organizations recommend caution in cell phone use. More research is needed before we know if using cell phones causes health effects. (1)

Screen shot of CDC website

Hakim notes several agencies and individuals that have drawn stronger conclusions on the potential risks of such radiation. Among them is the International Agency for Research of Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, which listed the radio frequencies emitted by cell phones as a “possible carcinogen” in 2011.(2) Hakim identifies several countries’ health authorities, including, Finland, the United Kingdom and Israel issuing public warnings about the potential hazards of non-ionizing radiation from cell phones.

As one of the foremost organizations tasked with ensuring the health and safety of Americans, it is troubling that the CDC has failed to warn us of the potential dangers of these devices. We find that even a cursory review of the scientific literature reveals a significant body of research that points to the harmful effects of cell phone radiation. Here is some of the most compelling evidence:

Health Issues in Children

  • According to research, radiation from cell phones is more easily absorbed by children than adults.

Wiart J, Hadjem A, Wong MF, Bloch I. 2008. Analysis of RF exposure in the head tissues of children and adults. Phys Med Biol 53(13): 3681-95.

Wiedemann PM, Schutz H, Clauberg M. 2008. Influence of information about specific absorption rate (SAR) upon customers’ purchase decisions and safety evaluation of mobile phones. Bioelectromagnetics 29(2): 133-44.

Wang J, Fujiwara O. 2003. Comparison and Evaluation of Electromagnetic Absorption Characteristics in Realistic Human Head Models of Adult and Children for 900-MHz Mobile Telephones IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 51(3): 966-70.

Gandhi OP, Lazzi G, Furse CM. 1996. Electromagnetic absorption in the human head and neck for mobile telephones at 835 and 1900 MHz. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 44(10): 1884-97

  • A Danish study surveying more than 13,000 children found an 80% increase the likelihood of behavioral problems among children who use cell phones and whose mothers used cell phones during pregnancy.

Divan HA, Kheifets L, Obel C, Olsen J. 2008. Prenatal and postnatal exposure to cell phone use and behavioral problems in children. Epidemiology 19(4): 523-9.

Cancer/Tumors

  • Research indicates that long-term cell phone users run a significantly elevated risk of developing glioma, a brain tumor that is often cancerous. The research discovers the tumors usually appearing on the side of the head favored during cell phone conversations.

Lahkola A, Auvinen A, Raitanen J, Schoemaker MJ, Christensen HC, Feychting M, et al. 2007. Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in 5 North European countries. Int J Cancer 120(8): 1769-75

Hours M, Bernard M, Montestrucq L, Arslan M, Bergeret A, Deltour I, et al. 2007. [Cell Phones and Risk of brain and acoustic nerve tumours: the French INTERPHONE case

-control study]. Rev Epidemiol Sante Publique 55(5): 321-32.

  • Long-term exposure to cell phone radiation is linked with a 60% higher risk of developing a condition known as acoustic neuroma, a benign brain tumor.

Hardell L, Carlberg M, Hansson Mild K. 2009. Epidemiological evidence for an association between use of wireless phones and tumor diseases. Pathophysiology: in press

Kundi M. 2009. The Controversy about a Possible Relationship between Mobile Phone Use and Cancer. Environ Health Perspec 117(3): 316-24

  • Heavy cell phone use increases the risk of benign salivary gland tumors by 60%.

Sadetzki S, Chetrit A, Jarus-Hakak A, Cardis E, Deutch Y, Duvdevani S, et al. 2008. Cellular phone use and risk of benign and malignant parotid gland tumors –a nationwide case-control study. Am J Epidemiol 167(4): 457-67

  • Radiation from cell phones produces reactive oxygen species, which may contribute to DNA damage resulting in inflammatory conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

Phillips JL, Singh NP, Lai H. 2009. Electromagnetic fields and DNA damage.Pathophysiology 16(2-3): 79-88.

Boutros T, Chevet E, Metrakos P. 2008. Mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase/MAP kinase phosphatase regulation: roles in cell growth, death, and cancer. Pharmacol Rev 60(3): 261-310.

  • Brain cancer risk tripled among individuals who used cell phones for more than 15 hours monthly.

Hardell, L., and M. Carlberg. “Re: Mobile Phone Use and Brain Tumours in the CERENAT Case-control Study.” Occupational and Environmental Medicine 72, no. 1 (2014): 79.

Infertility

The close proximity of cell phones carried in pant pockets to reproductive organs have led many to suspect a link between cellular radiation and infertility. Several studies point to the damaging effects of cell phone radiation on sperm:

  • Lower sperm quality among men who carried their cell phone in their pant pocket when compared to men who carried cell phones:

Kilgallon SJ, Simmons LW. 2005. Image content influences men’s semen quality. Biol Lett 1(3): 253-5.

  • Higher cell phone use linked with lower sperm quality.

Fejes I, Zavaczki Z, Szollosi J, Koloszar S, Daru J, Kovacs L, et al. 2005. Is there a relationship between cell phone use and semen quality? Arch Androl 51(5): 385-93.

  • Cell phone use associated with decreased sperm motility.

Davoudi M, Brossner C, Kuber W. 2002. The influence of electromagnetic waves on sperm motility. Journal für Urologie und Urogynäkologie 19: 19-22.

  • Men who used cell phones for more than four hours daily found to have lower sperm quality and 42% lower sperm count compared to those who didn’t use cell phones.

Agarwal A, Deepinder F, Sharma RK, Ranga G, Li J. 2008. Effect of cell phone usage on semen analysis in men attending infertility clinic: an observational study. Fertil Steril 89(1): 124-8.

Analysis of semen samples exposed to radiation from cell phones show sizeable decreases in sperm count, quality and higher levels of inflammatory markers.Agarwal A, Desai NR, Makker K, Varghese A, Mouradi R, Sabanegh E, et al. 2009. Effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic waves (RF-EMW) from cellular phones on human ejaculated semen: an in vitro pilot study. Fertil Steril 92(4): 1318-25.

  • Cell phone wave exposure appears to decrease the potential for fertilization in semen samples.

Falzone N, Huyser C, Becker P, Leszczynski D, Franken DR. 2011. The effect of pulsed 900-MHz GSM mobile phone radiation on the acrosome reaction, head morphometry and zona binding of human spermatozoa. Int J Androl 34(1): 20-6.

  • Cell phone use linked with erectile dysfunction.

Al–Ali, B. M., Patzak, J., Fischereder, K., Pummer, K., & Shamloul, R. (2013). Cell phone usage and erectile function. Central European Journal of Urology,66(1), 75–77. http://doi.org/10.5173/ceju.2013.01.art23

Brain/Neurological Health

  • Electromagnetic frequencies from cell phones alter brain tissue activity by increasing glucose metabolism.

Volkow ND, Tomasi D, Wang GJ, Vaska P, Fowler JS, Telang F, Alexoff D, Logan J, Wong C. 2011. Effects of cell phone radiofrequency signal exposure on brain glucose metabolism. Journal of the American Medical Association 305 (8), in press.

  • Yale University researchers show that mice exposed to cell phone radio frequencies in utero exhibited impaired memory and hyperactivity.

Aldad TS, Gan G, Gao XB, Taylor HS. 2012. Fetal radiofrequency radiation exposure from 800-1900 mhz-rated cellular telephones affects neurodevelopment and behavior in mice. Sci Rep 2: 312.

  • Thirty minutes of cellphone use causes spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations in the brain.

Bin Lv, Zhiye Chen, Tongning Wu, Qing Shao, Duo Yan, Lin Ma, Ke Lu, Yi Xie. Clin Neurophysiol. 2013 Sep 4. Epub 2013 Sep 4. PMID: 24012322

  • Cellphone use may interfere with brain sleep patterns.

Arne Lowden, Torbjörn Akerstedt, Michael Ingre, Clairy Wiholm, Lena Hillert, Niels Kuster, Jens P Nilsson, Bengt Arnetz. Bioelectromagnetics. 2010 Sep 20. Epub 2010 Sep 20. PMID: 20857453

  • Exposure to electromagnetic cell phone frequencies damages fetal brains in study on rats.

Ji Jing, Zhang Yuhua, Yang Xiao-Qian, Jiang Rongping, Guo Dong-Mei, Cui Xi. Electromagn Biol Med. 2012 Jan 23. Epub 2012 Jan 23. PMID: 22268709

***

Why has the CDC– an institution with more than enough resources to thoroughly investigate such issues– failed to take into account the preponderance of evidence suggesting a link between cell phone use and health problems? And how can we explain the CDC’s quick retraction of their guidelines urging the public to be cautious with cell phones 18 months ago? Surely they wouldn’t have created such guidelines unless there was a scientific basis. Right?

The CDC and FCC: Kowtowing to the Wireless Industry

An investigative report published by the watchdog group Environmental Health Trust (EHT) digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding the CDC’s retraction of their guidelines on cell phone radiation exposure. The report, based on 500 pages of internal CDC documents released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), illuminates key information left of out the New York Times article and points to a cover-up by the CDC. Among the most startling revelations detailed is that immediately after publishing the new guidelines in June 2014 the CDC hired Kenneth Foster as a consultant to assist in the creation of future materials related to “non ionizing radiation matters”. (3) Foster has an established record of conducting research funded by the private wireless industry and has authored a number of studies with results that contradict the notion that children are more susceptible to cell phone radiation than adults.(4)

One such study published by Foster was recently scrutinized by EHT Senior Medical Advisor Robert Morris, MD PhD, and his peers in the journal IEEE. In the paper, the authors highlight the dubious and unscientific methodology used by Foster and his colleague in drawing their conclusions about children absorbing cell phone waves, pointing out “what appears to be a deliberate distortion of the science and a boldfaced effort to downplay potential risks to children using mobile devices.” (5) In addition, the CDC’s internal communications reveal that the agency considered including in their guidelines information about the potential hazards of cell phone towers located near schools, but chose to omit that information.(6)

By all indications, CDC officials aren’t immune to the influence of the cell phone industry, even when the health of Americans is at stake. The role of special interests in shaping government policy on wireless devices seems to extend beyond the CDC. An exposé by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released in 2013 documented a disturbingly similar case of federal regulatory agencies buckling under pressure from private industry.

The controversy began after the FCC, presumably in response to research demonstrating the dangers of cell phone radio waves, updated their website in November of 2009 to recommend that people “buy a wireless device with lower SAR”, referring to cell phones which emit less radiation.(7) Upon Reviewing FCC documents secured through FOIA, the EWG team discovered that over the next nine months, three meetings were held between FCC staff and wireless companies such as Nokia, AT&T and Motorola as well as Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), which lobbies on behalf of cell phone giants including Verizon, Sprint, TMobile and Cricket. The topic of discussion at the meetings revolved around the issue of Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), a measurement of how much radiation the body absorbs from wireless devices. (8)

In September 2010, less than a year after the cautionary advice was first posted on the FCC website, the agency revised its language and adopted a dramatically different position on the issue. The revised text stated that:

  • Accordingly, some parties recommend taking measures to further reduce exposure to [radiofrequency] energy. The FCC does not endorse the need for these practices.
  • Some parties recommend that you consider the reported SAR value of wireless devices. However, comparing the SAR of different devices may be misleading. (9)

Once again it appears that our bureaucratic institutions prefer to submit to the whims of corporate lobbyists rather than protect citizens from scientifically-established health hazards. A closer examination of the FCC turns up further evidence of a revolving door between the organization and the telecommunications industry. A prime example of the conflicts of interest within the organization can be found in the current president and CEO of the aforementioned cell phone industry trade group CTIA, Meredith Attwell Baker. Baker served as a commissioner for the FCC from 2009-2011 and before that worked as the CTIA’s director of congressional affairs from 1998-2000. Remarkably, while acting as FCC commissioner in January 2011, Baker voted in favor of Comcast acquiring NBCUniversal, and left the agency just five months later to become Comcast-NBCUniversal’s senior vice president of government affairs.(10) Baker’s long history of hopping the fence between industry insider and government regulator raises serious questions about her loyalties.

Baker isn’t an isolated case. The current chairman heading the FCC, Tom Wheeler, previously worked as the president of the influential lobby group known as National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and served as the CEO of CTIA for more than a decade. And in a stunning role reversal, former FCC chairman Michael Powell is now President and CEO of NCTA.

A Global Push for Cell Phone Safety

As this alarming lack of US government oversight of wireless devices progresses, we witness governments around the world taking action to reduce wireless radiation exposure in their populations. Currently, the governments of France and Belgium mandate cell phone packages clearly display SAR values. National guidelines in Israel, Austria, and Australia advise reducing exposure to WiFi devices among children. The UK National Health Service recommends keeping phone calls short and keeping the phone away from the body, noting “children are thought to be at higher risk of health implications” (11)

Despite this global rise in awareness about the dangers inherent in our wireless technology, as of January 2016, the FCC website continues to reflect a seemingly dangerous ignorance on the subject, stating that:

Some health and safety interest groups have interpreted certain reports to suggest that wireless device use may be linked to cancer and other illnesses, posing potentially greater risks for children than adults. While these assertions have gained increased public attention, currently no scientific evidence establishes a causal link between wireless device use and cancer or other illnesses. Those evaluating the potential risks of using wireless devices agree that more and longer-term studies should explore whether there is a better basis for RF safety standards than is currently used. (12)

A growing body of independent science shows that the issue of cell phone safety may have massive consequences on the health of our nation, especially our children. If we are to enact measures to protect against this dangerous radiation we must demand full accountability from the CDC and FCC. It is time that Americans stand up to the anti-science corporate profiteers running the show and rein in this invisible danger in our midst.

Notes

  1. http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/cell_phones._faq.html
  2. http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf
  3. http://ehtrust.org/information-the-new-york-times-left-out-of-its-expose-on-cdcs-retraction-of-cell-phone-radiation-warnings/
  4. Ibid
  5. Ibid
  6. Ibid
  7. http://www.ewg.org/fcc-dropped-cell-phone-caution-opposed-industry
  8. Ibid
  9. Ibid
  10. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/washingtons-revolving-door-cellular-lobby-and-fcc-have-traded-leaders/
  11. http://ehtrust.org/cell-phones-radiation-3/international-policy-actions-on-wireless/
  12. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/wireless-devices-and-health-concerns

 

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US and UK weapons makers thrive on sales to Saudi Arabia, a rogue state sponsor of regional terrorism, waging naked aggression on Yemen, a US-orchestrated war.

Washington is Riyadh’s leading arms supplier. In 2010, the Obama administration approved up to $60 billion in multi-year sales, the largest US weapons deal ever.

Naval and missile defense upgrades may be worth tens of billions more. In 2011, Riyadh said it plans on around $90 billion worth of US arms purchases in coming years.

It’s the world’s largest arms buyer, accounting for an estimated one in seven dollars spent in 2015. In 2014, Riyadh and the UAE imported more weapons and munitions than all Western European countries combined.

According to its 2015 Global Defense Trade Report, IHS Jane’s 360 said Saudi Arabia overtook India in 2014 as America’s largest annual arms buyer, senior defense analyst Ben Moores, saying:

“Growth in Saudi Arabia has been dramatic and, based on previous orders, these numbers are not going to slow down.”

Year-over-year Saudi US arms purchases increased by 54% from 2013 to 2014 – a further estimated 52% last year.

The Middle East is by far the largest regional market for weapons – oil rich states buying huge amounts. Over $3 billion Washington gives Israel annually almost entirely goes for arms and related technology purchases.

Jane’s estimates $110 billion in regional sales over the next decade. How plummeting oil prices affects buying plans remains to be seen.

Endless wars rage without letup, the Middle East the world’s leading conflict zone. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and other Gulf States actively support terrorism.

Moores said global arms trade exceeded $64 billion in 2014, driven by “unparalleled demand from the emerging economies for military aircraft and an escalation of regional tensions in the Middle East and Asia Pacific.”

He foresees increasing purchases ahead, Britain cashing in hugely, selling over a billion pounds worth of arms and munitions to Riyadh in the July through September 2015 period – aiding its terror war on Yemen and regional destabilization efforts.

Amnesty International’s Allan Hogarth blasted Cameron’s government, saying “(t)hese figures are deeply worrying, showing that the UK continued to dispatch huge amounts of weaponry to Saudi Arabia despite overwhelming evidence that the Saudi war machine was laying waste to Yemeni homes, schools and hospitals.”

Thousands of Yemeni civilians are being massacred by “indiscriminate Saudi airstrikes” – Britain and America complicit in choosing targets, war crimes committed daily, an entire nation turned into “a living nightmare,” its people victims of genocide.

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.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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Donald Trump Made His First Big Score in Business the Old-Fashioned Way — Through His Father’s Connections

A young Donald Trump vowed to take over Manhattan — and quickly went to work to turn ambition into reality. An early masterstroke was the rehabilitation of the Commodore Hotel. It involved the kind of government aid the 2016 GOP frontrunner would have trouble defending to his political base.

Trump managed to secure massive tax breaks usually not doled out for the renovation of luxury hotels. The project was approved on the last day of the administration of Mayor Abe Beame, a childhood pal of Trump’s father.

Donald Trump and Roy Cohn Photo credit:  Trump The Movie

Donald Trump and Roy Cohn Photo credit: Trump The Movie

It was one of several deals in which The Donald seems to have benefited greatly from family connections. For example, his father was also friends with then-governor Hugh Carey.

In securing the Commodore deal, Trump also employed what he refers to as “truthful hyperbole,” which he labels an “innocent form of exaggeration” as well as a “very effective form of promotion.”

Trump’s unabashed use of what others might call fibs or lies will be familiar to anyone who has watched his rise to the top of the Republican field.

The following video is part of a documentary on Trump that was made a quarter century ago but never released.

The film has a gritty tabloid quality — and is, by definition, a period piece. While some “chapters” will be more explosive or longer than others,)what the documentary reveals about Trump’s character and manner of operating is more relevant than ever. We dare you to watch this and say that, like Trump, you already “knew it all.”

From now until the first votes are cast in Iowa, we will stream “chapters” of it here.

This is Part 3 of 12.

Part 1 is available here.

Part 2 is available here.

This is Part 3 of 12.


filmmakers’ site

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Video: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis?

January 22nd, 2016 by Elizabeth Woodworth

Take a trip into the heart of the momentous December, 2015 Paris climate summit (COP21) via this engaged, educational video produced by long time environmental activist Elizabeth Woodworth and professional Parisian producer Debora Blake.

Although 3,700 media people attended the conference, Elizabeth, upon returning to Canada, was amazed at how few people seemed to know about the cliff-hanger in Paris.

In Britain, the deal has been hailed as an “historic milestone,” a “watershed moment,” and a “turning point in human history,” Dr. Jeremy Leggett, founder of Solarcentury, the largest UK solar electric company, and Chairman of CarbonTracker, wrote:

“I witnessed an event that nothing else in human history comes close to in terms of scale and stakes,”and

“…we can realistically dream of the Paris Agreement as a trigger or rallying point for a renaissance in the state of humankind.”

The documentary begins with tours of the venue and its facilities. It then offers a fascinating look at how the draft climate agreement evolved through its precarious two-week course.

It relates how COP’s innovative president, Lauren Fabius, used the indigenous South African “indaba” to reach last-minute consensus.

COP21 was the largest meeting of nations in France since the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.  It was attended by delegates from 195 nations, and by 40,000 state and non-state people from around the world.  Its venue in Le Bourget, north of Paris, was a full square kilometre in size. This video will help you get a grip on its enormity and significance.

From the outset, delegates understood that COP21 would fail if even one of the 195 nations balked.  It took extraordinary skill and patience to guide these delegates to consensus.

Three days before its end, while the fate of the conference hung in the balance, former Vice President Al Gore delivered a moral appeal of rare stature to the assembly.

The finale of this cry for future life, nowhere to be found in the archived news reports, is featured in the video.

Meanwhile, parallel climate activist meetings held in northern Paris were issuing strong challenges to the conference.  Bill Mckibben of350.org, Naomi Klein, author of “This Changes Everything,” and renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen, insisted the deal would lead to a catastrophic 3-4°C above pre-industrial
temperatures.

Elizabeth, a Canadian writer and science librarian, had already spent most of the year voluntarily promoting a well-researched climate action book, Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015) by scholar Dr. David Griffin.  Her mission in going to COP21 was to show this book to world leaders, and there she was interviewed.

Hailed by CleanTechnica as “a great service to humanity,” Unprecedented offers a unique mobilization approach to global warming.

As a follow-through to COP, Unprecedented is ahead of the curve on what governments and citizens can together do to restrain carbon emissions.

Although global humanity has stepped up a rung on its evolutionary ladder in  uniting to address climate change, there is so much more work to be done.

This film will increase awareness and outreach to maintain the momentum of COP21’s historic achievement.

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Though pessimistic news still dominates and controls the headlines in both mainstream and alternative media worlds, a closer look at what’s going on right now might reveal glimpses of profound changes occurring just below the surface echo chambers. This presentation will focus on the most visible signs reflecting the current underlying transformative metamorphosis the earth is undergoing at what appears to be the most tumultuous, dangerous and exciting time in human history.

All high seas shipping around the entire globe has come to a screeching halt. The Baltic Dry Index, the foremost economic mechanism responsible for tracking international trade of industrial commodities like grain, iron ore, coal, cement and fertilizer, has been in a state of freefall. On Monday it plummeted to an all-time low of just 369 points. On Tuesday it fell even lower, another 1.63% to 363 points, taking a nosedive in the first three weeks of 2016’s first month alone to a whopping 24% drop. A latest check of Vessel Finder shows absolutely no cargo ships are in transit anywhere on the planet, clearly a historic first in modern history. Shipping companies are lamenting about the rising costs of transporting goods eating up their profits and thus keeping all cargo vessels worldwide sitting in their port docks. Brace yourself for depleted empty store shelves to start showing up in the coming weeks and months.

But another far more plausible explanation as to why global shipping has suddenly come to a standstill is because China for the first time as the emerging Asian powerhouse giant is now demanding all trade payment be transacted in Chinese Yuan. Over the last six months China has been steadily dumping its massive dollar reserves and ordered its banks to stop buying in US dollars. And now suddenly dozens of Chinese billionaire bankers and executives have mysteriously gone missing without a trace. With the faltering Chinese economy, the question becomes whether this phenomenon is payback for China’s economic woes or whether it’s part of a larger cover-up of corruption that could implicate high government officials.

Combine this latest development with last Friday’s bombshell announcement that this year Walmart will be closing 269 of its stores globally, the majority of which will be in America at 154 outlets, and the rippling of major shockwaves to come are already being felt early on in 2016. Walmart shares have plunged 30% in the last 12 months, reflecting the sobering reality that American consumers can no longer afford to indulge themselves buying up cheap junk from China they don’t need. If you believe the Walmart CEO, the massive closures are but a drop in the bucket, accounting for less than 1% of both the world’s largest retailer’s revenue as well as its global square footage.

Though that assurance may appease Walmart shareholders somewhat, it offers no consolation at all to the swelling class of Americans struggling desperately to feed their families and make ends meet. US malls that haven’t already become ghost towns are near empty nowadays. The everyday masses that used to be a once thriving robust middle class and backbone of this nation are starting to really feel the hurt of chronic impoverishment and destitution. Under Obama’s leadership, the number of Americans living in poverty has skyrocketed from 37 million to 47 million people. The wealthiest nation on earth is offering no more jobs beyond minimum wage. Near 40% of working age Americansare not participating in the labor force with a growing segment that’s long given up and stopped looking for work. The Federal Reserve’s folly to simply print more money to prosperity has finally caught up, and as a consequence America is now facing the realization that the Feds’ longtime shortcut to cheating death has only hollowed out its doomed house of cards economy to the point of self-implosion.

For over a year oil has simultaneously plunged to a low of $20 a barrel with low grade Canadian at $8, undercutting the high-powered fossil fuel industry’s global dominance it’s racketeered for well over a century. Again, China is insisting that its enormous export trade for oil import be transacted through its Yuan, not the US petrodollar. India as part of the formidable BRICS alliance is also replacing the petrodollar… same with Russia and Iran and a host of other nations. There is an ongoing worldwide exodus abandoning the US dollar once and for all as the standard international currency.

Financially and geopolitically the Western economy has run out of gas. The current oil surplus glut will likely run its course supplying the global market’s diminishing demand as cleaner renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are finally able to viably compete and begin replacing the biggest single source of earthly pollution. The hand-in-hand destruction between oil and the usury Ponzi schemed, debt-based system of central banksters bleeding the planet and masses dry is now on the verge of total collapse. Every honest appraiser not part of the army of paid propaganda shills still spewing inflated faked optimism would agree that the Western oligarch run economy is hemorrhaging in its death throes.

The Federal Reserve Board as America’s private central bank, its mother Bank of London and its big four – Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup – as criminal gamble-holics since their housing bubble debacle have now racked up an unfathomable 2 quadrillion dollars worth of a derivative debt bubble. But the criminal banksters have secretly prepared for this day of reckoning having already manipulated the passing of draconian laws that this time is bailing them out with so called “bail-ins,” outright stealing your money directly from your private bank accounts. Meanwhile, the Washington crime cabal is bankrupt, unable any longer to kick the proverbial can down the road. The long term consequence of the Federal Reserve pumping fiat money out of thin air has produced an insurmountable debt that’s pushing our nation off a fiscal cliff. The jig is up for US Empire hegemony that protects and enriches only the ruling elite’s continued global theft and destruction.

A week doesn’t go by when the West isn’t caught up in another humiliating defeat that ultimately uncovers its deceitful malaise consistently lined up on the wrong side of history. The latest embarrassment was the two US Navy gunboats armed with mounted .50 caliber machine guns and a crew of 10 that were detected by Iran to be violating its territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. It turns out the Navy boats were on a covert spy mission transporting a top level ISIS commander from Saudi Arabia replacing a recently killed terrorist leader in Syria, proving once again that the US is the world’s largest state sponsor of both terrorists and terrorism. Iran had to fire warning shot missiles at the intervening US aircraft carrier the USS Truman as Tehran authorities were in process of detaining the US crew. With the terrorist and US sailors safely in tow, the Obama regime quickly caved in, giving in to Iran’s demand for a prisoner swap arranging the release of seven Iranian prisoners for four Americans.

With the UN finally lifting the economic sanctions from Iran, Tehran immediately announced its deal to buy airbuses from Europe. These latest developments only demonstrate that Iran refuses to be intimidated by US Empire and much to the chagrin of the real axis of evil – the US-Israel-Saudi Arabia, like it or not Iran is emerging as a formidable regional power in the Middle East. The recent US hijinks also reflects the ongoing power shift moving squarely from a weakened West to an empowered East.

Accepting defeat in Syria with Putin helping Assad destroy the Islamic State terrorists, John Kerry with tail between his legs is no longer doggedly pursuing regime change but now desperately trying to negotiate a peace settlement before his demon child the terrorists are completely wiped out. Like rats jumping from a sinking ship, they will be running for cover to every corner of the globe, like the half-ass attempt at terrorism last week in Jakarta. With its foothold now established in Southeast Asia, this way the US created Islamic State terrorist ally can hype up the mythical fear and paranoia amongst the global masses that its cancerous spread is unstoppable. In reality, if you cut off the head that feeds the beast, as Putin has achieved by drastically reducing ISIS’ pirated oil revenue generated from the likes of Israel and Turkey’s Erdogan and son, both bigtime peddlers of terrorism, you can stop international terrorism. Of course that’s the last thing the US neocons and their crime cabal allies want, without their endless war on terror, the military industrial complex might go broke. Be prepared for more waves of unrelenting MSM propaganda demonizing Russia, China and Iran as the Western elite attempts a last ditch effort to plunge the planet into all-out World War III.

The balance of world power is currently in a state of unstable flux. More citizens of the world are becoming informed and motivated toward activism, or as the feds would describe “radicalized.” The wicked Western psychopaths sense they are losing their power and are desperately attempting to bring down the entire planet before it wakes up, causing as much death, destruction and mayhem as their waning power still commands. The globalist designed wars in the Middle East and North Africa have manufactured the migration crisis tearing Europe apart right now. The people of the United States and Europe stand to suffer the most as a new global system amidst all the turmoil is in process of birthing. Meanwhile during this interim crisis, expect some cataclysmic growing pains. But the New World Disorder as both shaped and promised by the likes of such evil men as Bush, Brezhenski, Kissinger and David Rockefeller is already here, it’s what we are now experiencing. The tyranny of a one world government that the ruling elite has been meticulously scheming for centuries may not materialize after all with the present behind-the-scenes restructuring rapidly unfolding. The defeat of TTP and TTIP will be the rallying cry delivering a crushing blow to their sinister agenda.

So instead of buying into the doom and gloom endgame giving us humans little hope or strength to alter or change any outcome, if anything, inadvertently contributing to a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, the promise of free energy discovered more than a century ago by Tesla may literally give power and wisdom back to the people. An era of cooperation and peace may eventually emerge after the transformative changeover is complete. Granted, many cynics might be singing the “same as the old boss” blues. But opportunity for an emerging focus on building life anew from the local ground level up to global and beyond would enrich the surviving human population to unlimited heights and accomplishment. A restored sense of vested interest and creative empowerment to achieve the impossible may yet await humanity on the other side of the dark clouds of chaos and destruction now forming – definitely worth sticking around for if humanly possible. It’s precisely what we citizens of the world do right now to fight for truth, peace and justice that will determine the fate and kind of world we leave our children and grandchildren.

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist. His blog site is athttp://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/. 

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Israel confirmed on Thursday it was planning to appropriate a further large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, near Jericho, in a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Europe and which has already drawn international condemnation.U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the move and said:

Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict.

Israel is now in danger of having its trade agreement with the EU suspended due to breach of the specific provisions on human rights. It now risks the consequent imposition of tariffs on all Israeli goods into Europe. The Netanyahu government has chosen to ignore EU warnings and must the bear the consequences which could be severe.

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Supreme religious body faces growing backlash as critics compare Israel’s religious freedoms to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan

More than one in 10 Israeli Jews cannot marry legally in their own country, Israeli legislators heard last week, as Israel’s religious authorities face a growing backlash against their wide-ranging powers.

Campaigners for religious freedom in Israel presented data showing that some 660,000 Israeli Jews were denied the right to marry. More than half – 364,000 – are immigrants from the former Soviet Union whose Jewishness is not officially recognised.

According to government figures, Israel’s Jewish population stands at about 6.3 million.

The Chief Rabbinate, the supreme religious authority in Israel for the Jewish population, has exclusive control over a range of personal status matters, including conversion, marriage and divorce.

It also restricts opening times for businesses and the operation of public transport on the Sabbath, the Jewish weekend, and its inspectors control food production through the issuing of kosher licences.

Uri Regev, a rabbi who heads Hiddush, an organisation promoting religious pluralism that presented the statistics to the parliament, said Israelis were fed up being “shackled” to the Chief Rabbinate.

“The rabbinate’s monopoly not only undermines Israelis’ religious freedoms but it increasingly makes the general public come to resent, even hate, Judaism,” he told Middle East Eye.

The rabbinate represents a strict stream of Judaism known as Orthodoxy. Other, more liberal trends within Judaism have no official standing.

But Regev said the rabbinate has become more extreme, with recent chief rabbis drawn from the fundamentalist ultra-Orthodox movement, or Haredim. They are distinctive for wearing black head-coverings and jackets based on dress codes from 18th century Europe.

‘Head in the sand’

Ofer Cornfeld, head of Havaya, an organisation that conducts civil marriages in Israel, said: “The Chief Rabbinate is stuck with a worldview from 200 years ago, when being a Jew was simply a religious identity.

“But the reality in Israel today is different. Many Jews here have a very strong secular identity,” he told MEE. “The rabbis think they can continue burying their heads in the sand, but they are wrong.”

According to a global map of marriage rights produced by Hiddush, Israel’s policies are in line with those of states like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and North Korea.

Problems facing those denied the right to marry have grown so acute in recent years that one in five marriages is reported to be conducted abroad, typically in Cyprus or Prague, said Cornfeld.

Israel recognises overseas marriages on the couple’s return.

Under a law passed in 2013, Jewish couples that hold a ceremony in Israel not approved by the rabbinate risk a two-year jail term, as do those officiating.

Aliza Lavie, a member of the parliament who organised last week’s meeting, said: “Israel is the only country in the world that puts people in jail for putting up a wedding canopy and conducting a marriage ceremony.”

Those who seek to convert – often as a prelude to marriage – face severe obstacles from the rabbinate too. Converts are required to adhere to a strictly Orthodox lifestyle, ensuring that only a few hundred qualify each year.

Even for those who marry in a civil wedding outside Israel, rabbinical courts retain exclusive powers in subsequent divorce proceedings, said Cornfeld.

Discouraging assimilation

The rabbinate’s powers originate in the Ottoman Empire’s millet system, which restricted control of personal status matters like marriage to the religious authorities of each confessional group. Israel gave the millet system legal standing at its creation in 1948. No parallel civil institutions were created.

With Israeli citizens each assigned a religious identity – usually as a Jew, Muslim, Christian or Druze – intermarriage has been made almost impossible unless one party can convert.

Scholars have argued that the confessional system helped the Ottomans enforce a policy of divide and rule throughout their empire.

In Israel the system appears to have been adopted in part to discourage “assimilation” – the fear that Jews might marry non-Jews, especially members who belong to the Palestinian minority, which constitute a fifth of the population.

Carolina Landsmann, a commentator with the daily Haaretz newspaper, has written: “While secular Jews were put in charge of guarding the state’s physical borders through military service, guarding the identity borders of the state were put in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox.”

The Chief Rabbinate, however, was more concerned that Israel’s Jewish character would be weakened by a liberal interpretation of who counts as a Jew, said Seth Farber, an Orthodox rabbi who heads Itim, an organisation that aids immigrants in their struggles with the rabbinate.

Jewish ‘untouchables’

The marriage crisis facing hundreds of thousands of Israelis is a legacy of the shockwaves produced by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.

These new arrivals were accepted under the terms of the Law of Return, legislation that allows anyone with a Jewish grandparent to claim Israeli citizenship and bring with them their immediate family.

But the Orthodox Rabbinate relies on traditional rabbinical teachings, known as halacha, that recognise as a Jew only someone who can prove they have a Jewish mother.

As a result, some 360,000 of these immigrants have been classified as “without religion,” making marriage in Israel impossible.

“This is a creating a social crisis,” said Cornfeld. “Israel defines its citizens’ religious and national identities without consulting them. They get no say in the matter.”

Also denied marriage rights in Israel are: 13,000 Jews whose conversions overseas are rejected by the Rabbinate; 80,000 male cohenim, descendants of a Jewish priestly caste who are not allowed to marry converts or divorcees; and 284,000 LGBT people.

There are a further 5,000 Israelis classified as equivalent to “untouchables”. Last year it emerged that the rabbinical courts kept a “blacklist” of women they would not allow to marry, or remarry following a divorce, based on an assessment of their sexual history.

The rabbis have additional control over other rights related to marriage, such as custody. In a high-profile case in 2014, a mother was denied contact with her children after she started a lesbian relationship. The rabbis ruled that contact would cause the children “irreversible psychological harm”.

In both cases the secular high court refused to intervene, apparently fearful of provoking a rift with Israel’s religious public.

Humiliating checks

According to Hiddush’s figures, an additional 400,000 Israelis may face restrictions on marriage, even though they are not banned outright.

Cornfeld said the rabbinate carried out intrusive checks on couple’s personal and family histories to prove their Jewishness. Those could include investigations into whether a maternal grandmother spoke Yiddish or was buried in a Jewish cemetery.

Couples might also be required to provide testimony from rabbis overseas confirming their Jewishness.

“For some couples who are Jewish [according to halacha] those checks can take months or years and many are not prepared to endure the delays and the humiliation,” said Cornfeld.

Faced with these obstacles, he added, many couples preferred either to marry abroad or to cohabit. “The new trend is towards cohabitation,” he said. “If you don’t want the Chief Rabbinate in your lives, it is the only way.”

Farber, of Itim, told MEE the religious authorities had stonewalled his efforts to make their procedures more transparent.

On six occasions over the past two years, he said, the rabbinate had failed to respond to his requests for a list of the overseas rabbis whose testimonies are accepted in determining whether an immigrant is Jewish.

Without such testimony, immigrants cannot marry or be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

This month, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the rabbinate to produce such a list within the next month. Judge Nava Ben-Or said she was “shocked” by the rabbinate’s behaviour. “I am ashamed that in a functioning state this information cannot be provided. It is an unprecedented scandal,” she said.

Daniel Bar, a spokesman for the Chief Rabbinate, told MEE the criticisms were unwarranted. “Marriage is a religious matter – that is the law in Israel. There is nothing more to say about it.”

Public opposition

Michal Reshef, a lawyer, married in an unrecognised ceremony organised by Havaya last month. She and her American husband, Benjamin, were denied a recognised wedding in Israel because he is not Jewish.

The couple’s marital status will only be recognised in the spring when they return from a second wedding in the US.

“It was important to me to have a wedding in Israel,” she told MEE. “It makes no sense that the centre of our lives is Israel, but we have to go to the US to marry. It shouldn’t be like that – there should be choice.”

Recent opinion polls show most Israeli Jews agree.

In a poll last May fourth-fifths of secular Israeli Jews said they would have rejected an Orthodox wedding given the chance, up from two-thirds of respondents two years earlier.

Another survey, last September, found that 64 percent of all Israelis wanted civil marriages made available.

Some 95 percent of secular Jews were dissatisfied with the Rabbinate, opposing its monopoly on marriage and divorce, its Shabbat restrictions, and its refusal to recognise conversions by Reform and Conservative rabbis.

Reform, a progressive movement, is the most popular stream of Judaism in the United States, but has no official recognition in Israel.

The number of religious Israelis rejecting Orthodoxy has grown sharply in recent years; with seven percent now declaring they belong to the Reform and Conservative movements.

Hands tied

Despite the public mood turning against the Chief Rabbinate, the Israeli parliament has struck down a series of civil union bills that would have allowed civil marriage – most recently last July.

Nonetheless, said Regev of Hiddush, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore public sentiment in Israel, as well as growing criticism from overseas Jewish communities, especially in the US.

Netanyahu was forced to apologise last year after his religious services minister, David Azoulay, questioned the Jewishness of hundreds of thousands of Reform Jews.

In November the prime minister pledged to strengthen both the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel.

Under the threat of intervention by the Supreme Court, the government also agreed two years ago to put a handful of Reform rabbis on the state payroll, though their salaries are paid by the culture ministry rather than religious services ministry.

Critics have doubted Netanyahu’s ability to make more substantial changes. They say the two ultra-Orthodox parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – that Netanyahu brought into the coalition after last year’s general election have tied his hands.

“The religious parties are the kingmakers in every coalition between the left and right, and that gives them the power to silence opposition on what matters to them most,” Tomer Persico, a researcher on religious affairs at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, told MEE.

Growing corruption

Persico said the secular population in Israel in particular has grown exasperated at the behaviour of the Chief Rabbinate, not only because of its abuse of its powers but also out of a sense that it perpetuated a system of corruption and nepotism.

“The rabbinate wants to keep its status, jurisdiction, budgets and powers,” he said.

Yizhar Hess, head of the Conservative movement in Israel, has estimated that the Chief Rabbinate receives more than $1bn a year from the state budget to administer its religious schools, courts and local rabbinical councils.

Last year a group of Orthodox rabbis, led by David Stav, set up an alternative conversion court. Although its conversions are not recognised, the fact that the move has come from within the Orthodox community is seen as a major challenge to the rabbinate’s historic monopoly.

In a sign of the high stakes involved, police have issued Stav with bodyguards after he received death threats.

Farber said the rabbinate was facing a “revolt” not only from seculars and progressive Jewish movements but also from within its own ranks.

Persico agreed. “The rabbinate is stubborn and unwilling to change. Ultimately, that will quicken its demise.”

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Tudo está inter-relacionado: guerra, terrorismo, estado policial, economia global, austeridade econômica, fraude financeira, governos corruptos, pobreza e desigualdade social, violência policial, Al Qaeda, ISIS, desinformação midiática, racismo, propaganda de guerra, armas de destruição em massa, menosprezo do direito internacional, criminalização da política, CIA, FBI, mudança climática, guerra nuclear, Fukushima, radiação nuclear, crimes contra a humanidade, aliança sino-russa, Síria, Ucrânia, OTAN, false flags, 11 de setembro, Verdade,…

Exige-se uma compreensão geral desta crise mundial: a última seção aborda brevemente a reversão do quadro de guerra, celebração de paz, instauração da justiça social e da verdadeira democracia.

Este artigo compendia citações relevantes (de meus textos) relacionadas a diferentes dimensões desta crise global. Citações de outros autores são indicadas em itálico.

Os links em cada parágrafo indicam a fonte original da citação. 

A globalização da guerra. A longa guerra estadunidense contra a humanidade 

1. Os EUA embarcaram em uma aventura militar, “uma longa guerra”, que ameaça o futuro da humanidade. As armas de destruição em massa da coalizão OTAN-EUA são apresentadas como instrumentos de paz.

2. Grandes operações militares e de inteligência estão sendo realizadas simultaneamente no Oriente Médio, na Europa Oriental, na África Subsaariana, na Ásia Central e no Extermo Oriente . A agenda militar estadunidense combina tanto ações nos principais teatros de operação como operações encobertas, destinadas a desestabilizar estados soberanos.

3. “[O] Plano de campanha de cinco anos [inclui]… sete países, começando com Iraque, depois Síria, Líbano, Líbia, Irã, Somália e Sudão.” General Wesley Clark em “Winning Modern Wars” (p. 130).

4. Em 2005, o ex-vice presidente Dick Cheney colocou, em termos precisos, que o Irã estaria “no topo da lista” dos ‘inimigos marginais’ da América, e que Israel, faria, por assim dizer, “o bombardeio para nós sem ser solicitada” , isto é, sem o envolvimento militar estadunidense e sem que os pressionássemos para que “o fizessem”.

'.O 11 de setembro e a Guerra Global contra o Terrorismo (GWOT) 

5. A “guerra contra o terrorismo” é uma guerra de domínio. A globalização é a marcha final para a “Nova Ordem Mundial”, dominada por Wall Street e pelo complexo militar-industrial dos EUA.

6. O 11 de setembro de 2001 oferece uma justificativa para uma guerra sem limites . A agenda de Washington consiste em estender as fronteiras do Império Americano para facilitar o controle corporativo estadunidense total, enquanto se instalam nos EUA as instituições do Estado de Segurança Interna.

7. A “verdade inaceitável” é que os governos ocidentais, incluindo EUA, Reino Unido, França, OTAN e Israel – enquanto realizam uma autoproclamada “Guerra Global contra o Terrorismo” – oferecem apoio secreto e sistemático às mesmas entidades terroristas que são alvo de suas “guerras humanitárias” e “operações de contra-terrorismo”.

Guerra e crise econômica 

8. Em todas as regiões do mundo, a recessão econômica está profundamente estabelecida, resultando em desempregos massivos, no colapso dos programas de estado social e no empobrecimento de milhões de pessoas.

9. A crise econômica vem acompanhada de um processo de militarização mundial , uma “guerra sem fronteiras” liderada pelos Estados Unidos e por seus aliados da OTAN. A conduta de “longa guerra” do Pentágono está intimamente relacionada com a reestruturação da economia global.

10. “As operações ‘negras’ do Pentágono , inclusive os orçamentos da inteligência neles implícitos, são praticamente iguais em magnitude aos orçamentos totais de defesa do Reino Unido, França ou Japão e são dez por cento do total” (Tom Burghardt).

11. Uma “guerra econômica” instantânea, a qual resulta em desemprego, pobreza e doenças é conduzida pelo livre mercado. As vidas das pessoas estão em queda livre e seu poder aquisitivo é destruído . Na verdade, os últimos vinte anos da economia de “livre mercado” global resultaram, por meio da pobreza e da destituição social, na destruição de vidas de milhares de pessoas.

12. Vastas quantidades de dinheiro são adquiridas através de manipulação de mercado . Frequentemente denominado como “desregulação”, o aparelho financeiro desenvolveu instrumentos sofisticados de manipulação instantânea e de fraude.

13. Com informação interna e conhecimento prévio, os principais actores financeiros, utilizando os instrumentos do comércio especulativo, têm a capacidade para trapacear e falsificar movimentos do mercado em seu benefício, precipitar o colapso de um competidor e arruinar economias de países em desenvolvimento.

14. O que está em jogo é um processo de “limpeza financeira”, no qual os “bancos grandes demais para quebrar” da Europa e norteamericanos (Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs e outros) deslocam e destroem instituições financeiras de baixo calibre, com vistas à tomada total do “cenário financeiro”.

15. A tendência subjacente aos níveis nacional e global está na direção da centralização e concentração do poder bancário, enquanto leva ao desmoronamento dramático da economia real.

Grécia: Medidas de austeridade 

16. Os credores utilizarão as obrigações da dívida multibilionária da Grécia como forma de impor reformas macroeconômicas mortais, as quais servirão para desestabilizar a economia nacional e, por sua vez, empobrecer a população. Estas reformas são denominadas pelo FMI como ‘política de condicionalidades’, a qual permitirá essencialmente que os credores ditem a política econômica e social.

17. Os credores estão muito interessados em adquirir riqueza real a partir da economia nacional, principalmente na aquisição das instituições bancárias nacionais, suas empresas estatais, sua terra agrícola, etc.

'.Desinformação, propaganda midiática e CIA 

18. A desinformação é sistematicamente “plantada” por operadores da CIA nas salas de redação de grandes jornais, revistas e canais de TV. Empresas externas de relações públicas são frequentemente utilizadas para criar “factóides”.

19. “Um grupo relativamente pequeno de correspondentes bem conectados oferece as manchetes, que conseguem a cobertura no grupo relativamente pequeno das fontes de notícias mainstream, onde os parâmetros do debate são estabelecidos e a “realidade oficial” é consagrada para divulgadores essenciais na cadeia de notícias” (Chaim Kupferberg sobre a cobertura midiática do 11 de setembro).

20. Para manter a agenda de guerra, estas “realidades fabricadas”, despejadas diariamente nos canais de notícias devem tornar-se verdades indeléveis, as quais formam parte de um amplo consenso midiático e político. Neste particular, a mídia corporativa – embora agindo de forma independente do aparelho de inteligência militar – é um instrumento da evolução deste sistema totalitário.

O “terrorismo islâmico” e a mentalidade humana 

21 Os conceitos ISIS-Al Qaeda , repetidos ad nauseam têm potencialmente impactos traumáticos na mente humana e na capacidade de pessoas normais na análise e compreensão do “mundo realmente externo” da guerra, da política e da crise econômica.

22. A Al Qaeda constitui uma abstração estilizada, falsa e quase folclórica do terrorismo, a qual permeia as consciências de milhões de pessoas em todo o mundo.

'.O projeto califado do estado islâmico (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh) 

23. Aqueles que organizaram a campanha de bombardeio são aqueles que estão por trás do Projeto Califado.

24. A milícia do Estado Islâmico, a qual é supostamente o alvo da campanha “contra-terrorista” de bombardeio da coalizão OTAN-EUA, é secretamente apoiada pelos EUA e seus aliados.

25. Os terroristas do Estado Islâmico são a infantaria da aliança ocidental. Enquanto os EUA declaram atacar o Estado Islâmico, na verdade o protege. A campanha aérea tem o objetivo de destruir a Síria e o Iraque, ao invés de “caçar os terroristas”.

26. Uma complexa rede de organizações terroristas afiliadas à Al Qaeda , supervisionada pelas agências de inteligência dos EUA e dos aliados, expandiu-se, e se estendeu para o Oriente Médio, África Setentrional, África Subsaariana, Ásia Central, China Ocidental, Sudeste da Ásia e Ásia Meridional.

27. O Estado Islâmico do Iraque e do Levante (ISIL) é uma criação da inteligência estadunidense .

A “agenda de contra-terrorismo” de Washington no Iraque e na Síria consiste em apoio a terroristas 

28. A incursão das brigadas do Estado Islâmico (IS) no Iraque iniciada em junho de 2014 integrou-se em uma operação de inteligência militar cuidadosamente planejada e apoiada secretamente pelos EUA, OTAN e Israel.

29. Sem o apoio Ocidental, segundo Vladimir Putin, os terroristas não teriam sido capazes de tomar regiões inteiras do país. ” O propalado Estado Islâmico [ISIS] tomou o controle de um vasto território. Como isto foi possível? ” (discurso de Vladimir Putin na Conferência de Valdai, outubro de 2015).

Forças especiais do Ocidente dão assistência a terroristas na Síria 

30. Forças especiais do ocidente e agentes secretos , incluindo o SAS britânico, paraquedistas franceses, CIA, MI6 e Mossad, integraram as fileiras rebeldes.

31 Suas atividades não se limitam a treino. Estão sistematicamente envolvidos na supervisão de operações terroristas no terreno, juntamente com as forças especiais turcas e do Qatar, bem como milhares de mercenários recrutados a partir de países árabes.

32. Os franceses envolveram-se ativamente na Síria desde o início da insurgência no terreno como contatos de suas contrapartes estadunidenses, britânicas e israelenses. Em fevereiro de 2012, 13 oficiais militares franceses foram detidos em Homs, apontando para a presença de tropas externas em solo sírio no interior de postos rebeldes.

Os aliados da América: apoio da Arábia Saudita, Catar e Turquia ao estado islâmico 

33. A Arábia Saudita, Turquia, Paquistão, Catar, Jordânia e outros países estão envolvidos no recrutamento, treino e financiamento de terroristas islâmicos.

34. Um grande grupo de mercenários do ISIS é de criminosos condenados, libertados de prisões sauditas sob a condição de se juntarem ao ISIL. Condenados sauditas que estavam no corredor da morte foram recrutados para atuarem nas brigadas terroristas (23 de janeiro de 2013).

35. A prática da decapitação de civis pelo ISIS operante na Síria provém da Arábia Saudita. A prática de decapitações do ISIL faz parte dos programas de treinamento de terroristas financiados pelos EUA e implementados na Arábia Saudita e no Catar.

Israel e o estado islâmico 

36. Netanyahu não nega que seu governo apoia os terroristas na Síria. O alto comando das forças de defesa de Israel reconheceram que “elementos da jihad global na Síria” têm o apoio de Israel.

37. O Estado de Israel colabora com as autoridades na operação contra-terrorista Charlie Hebdo e também apoia as duas principais entidades terroristas na Síria: o Estado Islâmico (ISIS) e a Frente Al Nusra .

A criminalização do Estado 

38. A “criminalização do Estado” ocorre quando criminosos de guerra legitimamente ocupam cargos de autoridade, os quais habilitam-nos a decidir “quem são os criminosos”, quando, na realidade, são eles próprios.

Guerras perpetradas por agressão violam o Direito Internacional e a Carta das Nações Unidas 

39. Estados Unidos, França e Inglaterra são os países agressores contra a Síria . Eles não podem, em hipótese alguma, invocar o direito de auto-defesa.

40. Por outro lado, a Síria é a vítima do ataque externo e tem o direito de auto-defesa, consoante o Artigo 51 da Carta das Nações Unidas, onde lê-se:  “Nada, na presente Carta, poderá impedir o direito inalienável à auto-defesa coletiva ou individual se um ataque armado é dirigido a um membro das Nações Unidas”. 

Tribunal de Nuremberg.Crimes de guerra 

41. A guerra em escala global conduzida pela coalizão OTAN-EUA é um empreendimento criminoso sob o disfarce de contra-terrorismo. Ela viola a Carta de Nuremberg, a constituição dos EUA e a Carta das Nações Unidas .

42. Segundo o ex procurador-geral de Nuremberg, Benjamin Ferencz, em relação à invasão do Iraque de 2003: “um caso prima facie que pode ser feito é que os Estados Unidos são culpados do crime supremo contra a humanidade – que consiste numa guerra ilegal de agressão contra uma nação soberana.” Ferencz referia-se ao “Crimes contra a Paz e de Guerra” ( Princípio VI de Nuremberg ).

43. O Princípio III de Nuremberg aplica-se diretamente ao presidente Obama e aos chefes de Estado, bem como aos chefes de governo da coalizão OTAN-EUA: “uma pessoa que cometeu um ato que constitui um crime sob o direito internacional na qualidade de Chefe de Estado ou responsável de governo não fica isento de responsabilidade sob o direito internacional”. 

O choque de civilizações: campanha mundial contra os árabes 

44. Uma dicotomia ‘bem’ versus ‘mal’ prevalece: um “Choque de Civilizações”. 

45. O ocidente tem uma “Missão”: “Devemos lutar contra o mal em todas as suas formas como meio de preservar o modo ocidental de vida.” Os perpetradores da guerra são apresentados como vítimas.

Cruzados.46. A “Guerra Global contra o Terrorismo” (GWOT) dirigida contra a Al Qaeda, lançada na sequência do 11 de setembro, está a evoluir rumo a uma completa “guerra religiosa”, uma “santa cruzada” contra o mundo muçulmano .

47. Uma “guerra religiosa” está a desdobrar-se, tendo em vista justificar uma cruzada militar global . Na consciência profunda de muitos americanos, esta “santa cruzada” contra muçulmanos justifica-se.

48. Enquanto o presidente Obama sustenta a liberdade religiosa, a ordem social inquisitorial dos EUA institucionalizou padrões de discriminação, preconceito e xenofobia contra os árabes.

49. O perfilamento étnico aplica-se a viagens, ao mercado de trabalho, ao acesso à educação e a serviços sociais, bem como, de forma geral, ao status social e sua mobilidade.

50. A onda de xenofobia direcionada contra muçulmanos que assolou a Europa Ocidental está vinculada à geopolítica. É parte de uma agenda militar. Consiste em demonizar o inimigo.

51. Países árabes possuem mais de 60 por cento do total das reservas petrolíferas. Por outro lado, os Estados Unidos mal têm 2 por cento. O Iraque possui cinco vezes mais petróleo que os Estados Unidos.

52. Uma vasta parte do petróleo mundial se encontra em terras árabes. O objetivo da guerra liderada pelos EUA é roubar aquelas reservas petrolíferas. E para alcançar este objetivo, estes países serão alvo de guerras, operações secretas, desestabilização econômica e mudanças de regime.

A coalizão OTAN-EUA ameaça a Rússia e a China 

53. A “Ameaça Comunista” da Guerra Fria foi substituída pela ameaça mundial do “Terrorismo Islâmico”.

54. Apesar de a Rússia e China se terem tornado economias capitalistas de “livre mercado”, um primeiro ataque nuclear preventivo é, contudo, considerado.

55. China e Rússia não são mais consideradas “ameaças ao capitalismo”. Muito pelo contrário. O que está em jogo é a rivalidade econômica e financeira entre as potências capitalistas.

56. A aliança sino-russa sob a Organização de Cooperação de Xangai (SCO) constitui um “bloco competidor capitalista” que mina a hegemonia econômica dos EUA.

57. Em maio de 2014, a Lei de Prevenção de Agressão Russa (RAPA) foi introduzida no senado americano (S 2277), exigindo a militarização da Europa Oriental e dos Países Bálticos, bem como o posicionamento de tropas estadunidenses e da OTAN na fronteira com a Rússia.

58. Na Ásia, os Estados Unidos contribuíram, sob o seu “Eixo para a Ásia”, para estimular seus aliados da Ásia-Pacífico, incluindo Japão, Austrália, Coréia do Sul, Filipinas e Vietnã a que ameaçassem e isolassem a China como parte de um processo de “cerco militar”, que ganhou força em fins da década de 1990.

Arma nuclear.Os perigos da guerra nuclear 

59. Na sequência da Guerra Fria, a compreensão dos perigos de uma guerra nuclear não está mais na ordem do dia. Documentos publicamente disponíveis confirmam que uma guerra nuclear preventiva ainda figura como tática possível para o Pentágono. As armas nucleares, comparadas às dos anos de 1950, são mais avançadas. O sistema de entrega é mais preciso.

60. Para além da China e da Russia, o Irã, a Síria e a Coréia do Norte são alvos de uma guerra nuclear preventiva. Não nos iludamos, o plano do Pentágono de explodir o planeta utilizando armas nucleares avançadas ainda vem à baila.

61. Com uma capacidade explosiva que varia entre um terço a seis vezes uma bomba de Hiroshima, mini ogivas nucleares são consideradas “inofensivas para civis”. A guerra nuclear preventiva é vista como um “empreendimento humanitário” . Os cientistas contratados do Pentágono apoiaram o uso de armas nucleares táticas: elas são “inofensivas aos civis porque a explosão se dá abaixo do solo.”

62. O Pentágono confirmou sua política de um ataque nuclear preventivo à Rússia em resposta ao suposto ataque russo contra a Ucrânia . Se esses ataques nucleares americanos fossem implementados, a humanidade seria precipitada numa Terceira Guerra Mundial, a qual potencialmente seria a “guerra final” no planeta Terra.

63. Deveríamos estar preocupados? As pessoas nos mais altos níveis de governo que decidem o uso de armas nucleares não tem a menor ideia das implicações de suas ações. A ideia de explodir o planeta utilizando armas nucleares é totalmente apoiada pela candidata à presidência Hillary Clinton, que acredita que as armas nucleares são instrumentos de pacificação. Sua campanha eleitoral é financiada por corporações que produzem armas de destruição em massa.

'.

Fidel Castro e os perigos da guerra nuclear 

O autor com Fidel Castro.64. “Os EUA perderiam a guerra convencional e a guerra nuclear não é alternativa para ninguém. Aliás, a guerra nuclear se tornaria inevitavelmente global”. 

65. “Penso que ninguém na terra deseja que a humanidade desapareça. Esta é a razão pela qual penso que o que deveria desaparecer não são apenas as armas nucleares, mas também todas as convencionais. Devemos garantir a paz a todos os povos, sem distinção. 

66. “Em uma guerra nuclear o dano colateral seria a vida humana . Tenhamos a coragem de anunciar que todas as armas nucleares ou convencionais, tudo o que for usado para fazer guerra, deve desaparecer!” 

67. “Trata-se de exigir que o mundo não padeça uma catástrofe nuclear para que se preserve a vida.” Fidel Castro Ruz, Havana, outubro de 2010. (Gravado por Michel Chossudovsky, Havana, outubro de 2010, direito de imagem, Fidel Castro, Michel Chossudovsky).

Fukushima: radiação nuclear global 

'.68. O desastre de Fukushima no Japão trouxe à tona os perigos de uma radiação nuclear mundial . A crise no Japão foi descrita como “uma guerra nuclear sem uma guerra”.

69. Nas palavras do famoso romancista Haruki Murakami : “Dessa vez ninguém nos jogou uma bomba… Preparamos o terreno, cometemos o crime com nossas próprias mãos, estamos destruindo nossas próprias terras, e estamos destruindo nossas próprias vidas”. 

70. A radiação nuclear – a qual ameaça a vida no planeta Terra – não é primeira página dos noticiários em face de questões mais insignificantes de interesse público, incluindo cenas ao nível local de crimes ou notícias de tablóides sobre celebridades de Hollywood.

71. O consenso político duvidoso no Japão, EUA e Europa Oriental é que a crise em Fukushima foi contida. A verdade é o oposto. A partir do que é sabido e documentado, o depósito sistemático de águas altamente radioativas no Oceano Pacífico constitui um disparador potencial de um processo de contaminação radioativa global.

72. Estas águas contêm plutônio 239 e sua libertação no Oceano tem tanto repercussões locais como globais. De acordo com a Dra. Helen Caldicott, se um micrograma de plutônio for inalado pode causar a morte .

Geoengenharia: alteração do clima para fins militares 

73. As técnicas de modificação ambiental (ENMOD) para uso militar constituem, no atual contexto de guerra global, a arma suprema de destruição em massa.

74. Tema raramente reconhecido no debate global de mudança climática, o tempo mundial agora pode ser modificado como parte de uma nova geração de armas eletromagnéticas sofisticadas. Os EUA e a Rússia desenvolveram habilidades de manuseio do clima para uso militar.

75. A manipulação do clima é a arma preventiva par excellence . Pode ser ativada contra países inimigos ou até “nações amistosas”, sem que o saibam. A guerra climática constitui uma forma secreta de guerra preventiva. A manipulação do clima pode ser utilizada para desestabilizar economias, ecossistemas, bem como agriculturas adversárias.

O ressurgimento do nazismo na Ucrânia 

76. A verdade proibida é que o ocidente engendrou na Ucrânia – por meio de uma meticulosa operação secreta – um regime proxy integrado por neonazis.

77. Fato desconhecido de muitos americanos, o governo americano está canalizando recursos financeiros, armas e treino para uma entidade neonazista – a qual é parte da Guarda Nacional da Ucrânia – o Batalhão Azov (Батальйон Аэов). O Canadá e a Inglaterra confirmaram que também apoiam a Guarda Nacional.

78. O Batalhão Azov – que ostenta “oficialmente” o emblema nazista – é descrito pelo regime Kiev como “um batalhão voluntário de defesa territorial”. Trata-se de um batalhão da Guarda Nacional sob a jurisdição do Ministério de Assuntos Internos, o equivalente ao Departamento de Segurança Interna americano.

79. O Batalhão Azov apoiado por seus parceiros ocidentais não está apenas envolvido em operações paramilitares na Ucrânia Oriental. Também está gerindo um projeto de treino militar em regime de campo de férias para crianças, como parte de seu programa de doutrinação nazista e de treino .

80. Com os nomeados políticos do Svoboda e do Right Sector encarregados da segurança nacional e das forças armadas, um verdadeiro movimento contestatário de base contra as reformas macroeconômicas mortais do FMI será provavelmente reprimido brutalmente pelos “camisas marrons” do Right Sector, bem como pela Guarda Nacional conduzida por Dmitri Yarosh, por conta da Wall Street e do Consenso de Washington.

O estado policial 

81. Em vez de tomarem providências em relação a uma catástrofe social iminente, os governantes do ocidente, que servem os interesses das elites econômicas, instalaram um estado policial “Big Brother” , com um mandato para confrontar e reprimir todas as formas de oposição e dissidência.

82. Agora, o Departamento de Defesa autoriza a disposição interna de tropas americanas para “a condução de operações fora do âmbito da guerra”, incluindo atividades de imposição da lei e a repressão de “distúrbios civis”.

83. A revogação da democracia é vista como meio de garantir “segurança interna” e sustentar liberdades civis .

84. Um departamento do FBI fundado em 2004 no governo Bush contribuiu para a integração da imposição da lei à espionagem interna . Seu mandato foi essencialmente político, voltado para a repressão de todas as formas de oposição política e social nos EUA.

85. De acordo com um Relatório do Conselho de Segurança Interna de 2004, é dito que estes “conspiradores” internos estão agindo em conluio com “terroristas externos”. O Relatório identificou “grupos internos radicais” e “funcionários descontentes”.

Os ataques terroristas de Paris, 13 de novembro de 2015 

86. Os ataques de 13 de novembro foram imediatamente seguidos pela decretação de um Estado de Emergência, o fechamento das fronteiras francesas, bem como a suspensão de liberdades civis como forma de – segundo o presidente François Hollande – salvaguardar os valores democráticos.

87. As mortes trágicas foram usadas pelo governo Hollande (com o apoio da mídia) para estimular o público a aceitar a implementação de medidas de estado policial, para o interesse da república francesa, especialmente no que toca a segurança nacional francesa contra um autoproclamado “estado islâmico” ilusório com base no norte da Síria, que na verdade é criação da inteligência norteamericana.

88. As medidas também incluem procedimentos que habilitam a polícia a realizar prisões arbitrárias e buscas em residências sem mandados, na área metropolitana da Paris, iniciando uma potencial campanha de ódio contra a população árabe na França.

89. Estas medidas drásticas do estado policial (incluindo a revogação do habeas corpus), empreendidas pelo presidente Hollande, foram tomadas sem um relatório de inquérito policial.

Mudar o quadro da guerra, construindo paz, democracia e justiça social 

90. A propaganda de guerra difundiu-se gradativamente. A guerra é justificada como operação de paz.

'.91. Quando a guerra se transforma em paz, o mundo vira de cabeça para baixo. A conceptualização já não é mais possível. Surge um sistema social inquisitório. O consenso é travar a guerra. As pessoas não conseguem mais pensar por si mesmas. Elas aceitam a autoridade e a visão da ordem social estabelecida.

92. No entanto, a guerra não é inevitável .

93. A guerra pode ser evitada por meio da ação social massiva .

94. A questão não é se a guerra vai ou não acontecer, mas quais os instrumentos à nossa disposição que nos permitirão contornar e, de uma vez por todas, desarmar esta agenda militar global. 

95. Criminosos de guerra ocupam cargos de autoridade. A cidadania é estimulada a apoiar governantes, os quais estão “comprometidos com sua segurança e bem estar”. Através da desinformação midiática, a guerra é justificada como mandato humanitário.

96. A legitimidade da guerra deve ser discutida. Apenas o sentimento anti-guerra não desarma uma agenda militar. Oficiais de alto escalão do governo Obama, membros das forças militares e do congresso americano têm autoridade delegada para apoiar uma guerra ilegal.

97. Um segmento significativo do movimento anti-guerra foi cooptado. Agimos contra a guerra, mas apoiamos a “guerra contra o terrorismo”. Podemos contar com um discurso político ambíguo.

98. Como, de forma eficiente, acabar com a agenda de guerra e do estado policial?

99. Principalmente negando a “guerra contra o terrorismo” e a guerra religiosa contra a “jihad islâmica”, a qual constitui a própria base da doutrina de segurança nacional americana.

100. Sem a “guerra contra o terrorismo”, os políticos do alto escalão não têm onde se escorar. Uma vez revelada plenamente a Grande Mentira, a legitimidade é derrubada tal como um castelo de cartas.

101. Qual a melhor forma de alcançar este objetivo? Desmascarar totalmente as mentiras subjacentes à “guerra contra terrorismo” e revelar o fato amplamente documentado do apoio de governos ocidentais aos terroristas, isto é, são patrocinadores estatais do terrorismo.

102. A propaganda midiática apoia a legitimidade da “guerra contra o terrorismo”. “Grupos malignos estão à espreita”, a jihad é apontada como ameaça ao mundo ocidental.

103. Os patrocinadores da guerra e de seus crimes devem ser apontados, incluindo empresas petrolíferas, empreiteiras de defesa, instituições financeiras e a mídia corporativa, os quais se tornaram parte da máquina da propaganda de guerra.

Mudança de regime no ocidente 

104. O que se exige é uma rede anti-guerra de base, um movimento de massas em níveis nacional e internacional , os quais desafiem a legitimidade dos principais atores militares e políticos, bem como seus patrocinadores, e que operariam de modo instrumental para remover aqueles que governam em nosso nome.

105. Esta não é uma tarefa fácil. O primeiro passo é quebrar o consenso e que seja feito por meio do que podemos descrever como contra-propaganda. É neste contexto que a Verdade se torna uma arma poderosa.

106. A construção deste tipo de rede levará tempo para se desenvolver. Inicialmente, tal rede deveria concentrar-se em desenvolver uma firme posição anti-guerra dentro das organizações civis (e.g. sindicatos, organizações comunitárias, organizações profissionais, federações estudantis, conselhos municipais, etc). Entretanto, em muitas destas organizações – as quais incluem ONGs, tais como a Anistia Internacional – a liderança foi cooptada; muitas destas organizações são generosamente financiadas por fundações corporativas. Consequentemente, desde 2003, o movimento anti-guerra em países do ocidente está praticamente inativo.

107. Desmascarar a mentira significa desmascarar o projeto criminoso de destruição global, no qual a busca pelo lucro é sua força capital.

108. Esta agenda militar guiada pelo lucro destroi os valores humanos e transforma as pessoas em zumbis inconscientes.

109. Vamos virar a mesa rompendo o consenso, especialmente rompendo o aparelho de propaganda.

110. Influenciar a opinião pública não é o suficiente; o que tem de ser empreendido é a quebra do processo de propaganda interna dentro do governo, do sistema judiciário, das agências de aplicação da lei, do corpo militar, da inteligência, etc. Em última instância, estas são as áreas privilegiadas onde as decisões são tomadas.

111. A doutrina das forças armadas americanas é a “guerra contra o terrorismo”. Está profundamente consolidada. Oferece uma “Causa Justa” para a guerra. É a força motriz das tropas. É utilizada para construir legitimidade aos bombardeios. O que precisa ser feito é quebrar o processo de tomada de decisão dentro da arena militar por meio de contra-propaganda.

112. William Shakespeare é certeiro ao descrever, no mundo contemporâneo, os arquitetos da Nova Ordem Mundial: “O inferno está vazio e todos os demônios estão aqui.” 

113. Nossa tarefa inegável é enviar os “demônios” de nosso tempo, os autoproclamados arquitetos da “democracia” e do “livre mercado”, para o lugar que merecem.

Michel Chossudovsky,
25/Dezembro/2015

O original encontra-se em www.globalresearch.ca/… .

Tradução de Sergio R. A. de Oliveira.

Este artigo encontra-se em http://resistir.info/.

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Commemorazione dell’Articolo 11

January 21st, 2016 by Manlio Dinucci

Un importante anniversario va ricordato nel quadro del 25° della prima guerra del Golfo: essa è la prima guerra a cui partecipa la Repubblica italiana, violando il principio, affermato dall’Articolo 11 della Costituzione, che «l’Italia ripudia la guerra come strumento di offesa alla libertà degli altri popoli e come mezzo di risoluzione delle controversie internazionali». Nel settembre 1990, su decisione del sesto governo Andreotti, l’Italia invia nella base di Al Dhafra negli Emirati Arabi Uniti una componente aerea di cacciabombardieri Tornado. Nella notte tra il 17 e il 18 gennaio 1991, 8 Tornado italiani decollano per bombardare obiettivi iracheni stabiliti dal comando Usa, in quella che l’Aeronautica ricorda ufficialmente come «la prima missione di guerra compiuta dall’Aeronautica italiana, 46 anni dopo la fine della Seconda guerra mondiale». A questa missione (durante la quale un Tornado viene abbattuto e i due piloti fatti prigionieri) seguono altre missioni di bombardamento sempre sotto comando Usa, per complessive 226 sortite, tutte «coronate da pieno successo». Si aggiungono 244 missioni italiane di velivoli da trasporto e 384 di velivoli da ricognizione, «operanti in Turchia nel quadro della Ace Mobile Force Nato» (a conferma che la Nato, pur senza intervenire ufficialmente, partecipa in realtà alla guerra con sue forze e basi). Questa «prima missione di guerra» è decisiva per il varo del «nuovo modello di difesa» subito dopo la guerra del Golfo, sulla scia del riorientamento strategico Usa/Nato. Nell’ottobre 1991 il Ministero della difesa pubblica il rapporto «Modello di Difesa / Lineamenti di sviluppo delle FF.AA. negli anni ’90». Il documento riconfigura la collocazione dell’Italia, definendola «elemento centrale dell’area geostrategica che si estende unitariamente dallo Stretto di Gibilterra fino al Mar Nero, collegandosi, attraverso Suez, col Mar Rosso, il Corno d’Africa e il Golfo Persico». Stabilisce quindi che «gli obiettivi permanenti della politica di sicurezza italiana si configurano nella tutela degli interessi nazionali, nell’accezione più vasta di tali termini, ovunque sia necessario», in particolare di quegli interessi che «incidono sul sistema economico e sullo sviluppo del sistema produttivo». Il «nuovo modello di difesa» passa quindi da un governo all’altro, senza che il parlamento lo discuta mai in quanto tale. Nel 1993 – mentre l’Italia partecipa all’operazione militare lanciata dagli Usa in Somalia, e al governo Amato subentra quello Ciampi – lo Stato maggiore della difesa dichiara che «occorre essere pronti a proiettarsi a lungo raggio» per difendere ovunque gli «interessi vitali». Nel 1995, durante il governo Dini, afferma che «la funzione delle forze armate trascende lo stretto ambito militare per assurgere a misura dello status del paese nel contesto internazionale». Nel 1996, durante il governo Prodi, si ribadisce che «la politica della difesa è strumento della politica estera». Nel 2005,  durante il governo Berlusconi, si precisa che le forze armate devono «salvaguardare gli interessi del paese nelle aree di interesse strategico», le quali comprendono, oltre alle aree Nato e Ue, i Balcani, l’Europa orientale, il Caucaso, l’Africa settentrionale, il Corno d’Africa, il Medio Oriente e il Golfo Persico. Attraverso questi e successivi passaggi, si demolisce un pilastro fondamentale della Repubblica italiana,  per mano dei governi di ogni tinta e con la complicità di un parlamento che, in stragrande maggioranza, acconsente o resta inerte. Mentre l’Italia, sempre sotto comando Usa direttamente o nel quadro Nato, passa di guerra in guerra.

Manlio Dinucci

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A Day with Vermeer: The Dutch Masters at the Royal Collection

January 21st, 2016 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Dutch masters. With such words, a particular town comes to mind: Delft. Delft, with its Johannes Vermeer-Pieter de Hooch associations. Not intellectually rigorous, we are told (as if all painting has to trigger your cerebral apparatus). Domestic, even tedious to the un-worked, lazy eye. This is the view when various reviewers take up their pen (or keyboard ) to get busy on the Delft masters. Peter Campbell, in writing for the London Review of Books in July 2001, was covering the Vermeer and the Deft School exhibition at London’s National Gallery.

He writes of Carel Fabritius in terms only slightly less flattering than Vermeer or Hooch. “Of the three masters Fabritius is the least Delft-like. His subject-matter is not domestic, predictable or repetitious – and that of most of the Delft painters, even the very good ones, is one or all of those things.”[1] He makes the claim that Hooch and Vermeer were “intellectually much less ambitious.”

This is not to say that Campbell avoids distinctions. Hooch has “provincial infelicities” in his drawing; Vermeer lacks them. The former prefer the “low lifes”; the latter, “religious and historical subjects.” Then there is Delft itself – quiet, not much going on relative to bustling Amsterdam.

Campbell may not mean much by that. He obviously finds such depictions tedious, though they betray a remarkable ignorance of one fundamental point: depictions of space and technique. The domestic setting is the footnote to a broader articulation of spatial awareness. The human subjects do matter – stunningly so – but only in so far as they afford a relational glance to the dimensions of their environment: the room in question, penetrated by the light of an engaging sun.

The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace currently affords the visitor a treat of 27 masterpieces in its Masters of the Everyday: Dutch Artists in the Age of Vermeer. It is a sampling of colour and geometrical dance, pictures of the tranquil ordinary, the tavern life, rustic living.Vermeer is a painter that makes one quizzical at first. This is the prelude to captivation. He is the classic expression of the phenomenon of the less that provides more. His name vanished from the art world for two centuries, only to be pushed back into limelight recognition by art critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger in 1866. Thoré-Bürger’s enthusiasm got the better of him: 66 pictures were said to be by the rediscovered Dutch master. A mere 35 have been conclusively attributed.

If you do nothing else in an exhibition, weary as you are, see a Vermeer. It all comes down to the genius of rendering luminosity and textural effect. Art critic Robert Hughes captured that essence with characteristic accuracy. The painter, he argued, build “up forms with continuous movements of the brush” using “tiny luminous highlights, pasty dots and spots bringing more dissolved areas of light into focus. These gave a startling effect of studied, textural distinctness.”

Vermeer’s A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman, ‘The Music Lesson’ (1662-5) draws in the space, allowing the subjects to be engaged in their sovereign state of privacy.[2] It supplies the viewer with church like solemnity (in contrast, some Dutch painting sees church interiors as rather busy affairs, with animals and children), with casting light and razor sharp perspective. Vermeer demonstrates through the blurred image on the mirror on the wall that he is very much present without being intrusive – part of the legs of an easel are exposed. The spectator, in a sense, has been exiled from the view, allowing the man and woman to pursue their association.Hooch similarly stresses the private domestic space. The gaze is eliminated – we cease to be participants with the characters under observation, becoming, in turn the invisible. Masterful use of space on canvass is evident inCardplayers in a Sunlit Room (1658). The participants, a woman and three men, are in the corner, literally, of a moment. They are absorbed, one drinking a glass of wine; another smoking; yet another gazing at the smoker, face upturned but shaded. The lady is the one with the cards.  The Royal collection of Dutch art also reeks of moral warnings, though this by no means suggests that all naughtiness is prohibited by threat of hellfire damnation. This is the human challenge: to be Epicurean in balance, modestly disposed, or a debauchee of life without a compass.Lechery, debauchery and violence tend to come with the human lot; but there is room for fun amidst the warnings of excess. There are the oysters and the wine – seduction, as depicted in A Gentleman pressing a Lady to Drink (1658-9) by Gerard ter Borch, a theme similarly emulated in even more lewd fashion in Willen van Mieris’ The Neglected Lute (1710).[3]

Drink-fuelled, entertaining, ceremonial folly can itself be a duty, to be laughed at precisely because it has, at its core, a serious reflection. Custom demands it. Jan Steen gives visitors a sense of such action in A Twelfth Knight’s Feast: ‘The King Drinks’ (1661).[4]At such celebrations, a person draws lots, and a Lord of Misrule accordingly selected. A monarch for a day, as it were – with the selected person in this scene suitably sozzled and readying for more. Other figures also occupy this rich space of life. To the left, a dog licks a pan with relish; to its right, a boy sports a golf club.

Such painting did not merely confine itself to home spaces. Jan Steen’s A Village Revel (1673) is a crowded, busy tribute to Pieter Brueghel the Elder.[5] The sun is setting, and the Dutch cast of characters appear in the fashion of “rude mechanicals” amidst mayhem, brawling, broken pottery, and an inn marked with “this house is for hire”. At the centre, a Spanish soldier, that figure of past occupation which the Dutch fought to be rid off, a figure to be reviled; a boat filled with monks to mock; a woman on a broom. A man sports a lantern in the fashion of Diogenes suggests the vain quest for an honest man.[6] Comic peasant types, faces drawn almost as brilliant caricatures, heavily personalised with rough expressions.

The Netherlands of money and fashion seems distant in the Delft school. This is genre painting in its purest sense, absorbed in enclosed spaces of living. It is also the Netherlands of domesticity and provincial restraint, only quietly influenced by capitalism and urban development. The roar of commerce gives way to sun lit communities of quiet card players, carousing drinkers, prospective lovers and peasants.

The exhibition “Dutch Masters at the Royal Collection” lasts till February 14, 2016.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n13/peter-campbell/at-the-national-gallery

[2] https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/405346/a-lady-at-the-virginals-with-a-gentleman-the-music-lesson

[3] https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/404805/a-gentleman-pressing-a-lady-to-drink

[4] https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/407489/a-twelfth-night-feast-the-king-drinks

[5] https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/405611/a-village-revel

[6] http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/hetairai/diogenes.html

 

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Read Part 1 here

Artificial mass migration as imperial policy has a long history. To illustrate this, we will cite a few historical examples. According to Bulgarian historian A, Eminov, civil wars in the Balkans in the 13th and 14th centuries led to significant population decline, which greatly facilitated colonisation of the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire. The deportation of nomads and organised transportation of Muslim refugees by the Ottoman Empire played a significant role in the colonisation of this region.

Though Turks comprise over 8 percent of the Bulgarian population today, Turkey’s neo-Ottomanism has sparked accusations from Bulgaria’s nationalist party Attack that Turkey has plans to re-colonise the country. Bulgaria has the highest number of mosques in Europe per capita.

Given the fact that Turkey is supporting the Islamic State in Syria, while harbouring neo-colonial plans for the Balkans, the decision by the Bulgarian government to erect a fence along the border with Turkey is the right one. Opposition politicians in Bulgaria have described the subservience of their government to the EU and NATO as treachery and tantamount to genocide against ethnic Bulgarians, whose population has been declining drastically since the fall of communism.

In the 19th century the British Empire organised the mass migration of Bengali Muslims to Burma to work plantations in the predominantly Buddhist Rakhine State. The purpose of the migration was to create an artificial ruling class that would depend on the protection of the British Empire. The result was more than a century of tension with the indigenous Buddhist inhabitants and the Muslim settlers, a tension that has led to the ethnic cleansing of today, whereby Takfiri fanatics, financed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are committing genocide against local Buddhist peasants with the full complicity of ‘human rights’ organizations and the mass media as part of a US/Israeli geostrategic initiative to kossovise the Rakhine State by separating it from Myanmar, thereby securing a foothold for Western neo-colonial interests in the highly strategic Bay of Bengal. The so-called ‘Rohingya crisis’ attests to a new phase in imperialist policy; namely, the ruthless weaponization of the refugee.

In the nineteenth century, Imperial Belgium imported hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsi workers to the Congo to staff their work colonies. This artificial migration policy of Belgian imperialism has played a major role in the context fueling the current ethnic cleansing and ongoing neo-colonial proxy wars being carried out by the US/Israeli and European powers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the US /Israeli Tutsi puppet regime of Paul Kagame is murdering and pillaging on behalf of Western corporations. The Wall Street Journal has ironically described Kagame’s Zionist puppet regime ‘The Israel of Africa’.

Here Hutu refugees fleeing Kagame’s genocidal regime have been systematically bombed and slaughtered by the Zionist backed Rwandan military. Refugees fleeing war have been used by the aggressors as a pretext to wage further war and conquest. The US and EU have been destabilizing Burundi since April 2015. Now, terrorists are attacking the country from refugee camps in Rwanda, with full backing by Western powers.

A population explosion in London in the 16th and 17th centuries provided much of the impetus behind the colonisation of America. Over two-thirds of the first settlers in North America were indentured servants, 75 percent of whom were young men under the age of 25. The youth were needed to expand the labour capacity of the Empire’s colonies. The settler culture, imbued with religious fanaticism and a complex of superiority, did not take long to decimate the native American population. One of the reasons for the population decline of the Powatan native peoples was their tolerance and kindness towards the settler culture.

Comparing the mass migration of people from the Global South to Europe today to the European colonisation of the United States might appear strained and inappropriate but there are important similarities, nonetheless. Like the 16th and 17th centuries, the world is experiencing a recrudescence of religious war, while population explosions and war in the developing world are driving mass migration. This time, however, as the world has already been divided through centuries of European colonisation, people of the Global South are now moving North. The potential for conflict between a declining native population and an assertive, Muslim-dominated settler culture is great, particularly when this serves the interests of Europe’s ruling elite who are in cahoots with the Wahhabi sheiks of the Middle East. Whilst the people of the Global South are fleeing the consequences of European imperialism, the indoctrination of Wahhabi Islam among Muslim immigrants constitutes a serious impediment to an awakening of class consciousness necessary for the unification with non-Muslim natives against their internationalist bourgeois oppressors.

In seventeenth century Ireland the British government settled lands in the northern province of Ulster with Protestant and Presbyterian settlers who lived in fear of the Catholic neighbours they had displaced. It was an imperial policy of divide and rule which lasted for centuries. In the nineteenth century, famine and mass emigration from Ireland to America were caused by the British state’s refusal to allow Irish peasants the right to eat the fruit of their labour. The mass migrations benefited the emerging ruling class of the United States who required cheap labour as well as the British government who wanted to reduce the population of Ireland. In other words, mass migration enabled the trans-Atlantic Anglo Saxon financial elite to turn the very social and economic problems they had created to their own advantage. The loss for Ireland was irreparable. Western Europe’s oldest literary vernacular language was reduced to minority status, while the loss in youthful resourcefulness worked in favour of the status quo, ensuring Ireland’s subjugation to the British imperial elite, both before and after formal independence.

A more recent example of migration used as a tool of imperialism is Eritrea. Since the country’s independence from Ethiopia in 1993, Eritrea has chartered a unique independent path to national liberation and socio-economic development. The results have been astounding, with economic growth rates surpassing most other developing countries. However, the socially-oriented policies of the Eritrean government have brought it into conflict with neo-colonial interests. As a consequence, sanctions were imposed by the United States in 2009 on the only country in the Horn of Africa that has never failed to feed, clothe and educate its children.

Meanwhile, millions flee hunger and poverty in the US client state of Ethiopia, which is currently occupying part of Eritrea since the US backed Ethiopian invasion of that country in 1998. US geostrategy against Eritrea involves smuggling Eritreans into Europe in a vast, logistical operation involving officials in the United Nations and ‘human rights’ NGOs such as Watch the Met.

This neo-colonial outfit is heavily involved in the smuggling of Middle Eastern and Central Asian refugees from Turkey.

Watch the Med is a cogent example of how petty bourgeois European prejudice against developing nations is harnessed by elites to further their globalisation agenda. The NGO, which claims to oppose the EU ‘militarization’ of the Mediterranean and fortress Europe’ slammed Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya for its alleged ‘abuse of migrants’ rights’, in spite of the fact that Gaddafi’s Libya was praised by the UN for its respect for human rights and was integrating thousands of sub-Saharen migrants in the Libyan Jamahirya, where they were able to work and benefit from free health care, education and accommodation.

A key figure in this criminal operation is a Nobel Prize candidate who goes by the name of “Father” Mussie Zerai, a phony Catholic priest who has been coordinating the smuggling of East Africans to Europe from war-torn Libya, earning him lots of cash, kudos and the epithet ‘Archangel of Refugees’.  Zerai collaborates closely with Watch the Med.

It is impossible to tell if Watch the Med is receiving funding from captains of globalisation such as George Soros, but these European do-gooders would certainly deserve decent salaries from the Jewish oligarch.

As part of the destabilisation of Eritrea, the EU is giving preferential treatment to refugees if they register as Eritreans. Eritrean researchers have shown that most of the migrants from East Africa are from Ethiopia and Somalia. Yet, they register upon arrival in the EU as Eritreans. The migrants are often lost at sea. Al Jazeera recently did an interview with a trafficker from Ethiopia who confirmed that thousands of citizens from that country are being smuggled into Europe. Yet Eurostat figures for 2013-14 show no Ethniopian citizens whatsoever while Eritreans are astonishingly high.

In a Market Watch article entitled “Here’s my plan to solve the asylum chaos”, George Soros slams Victor Orbans’ policies stating that they threaten to ‘divide and destroy the EU’. Soros strongly advocates the creation of ‘NGOs’ to facilitate the mass migration into Europe.

Orban has pointed out that those welcoming the refugees/migrants into Europe are playing into the hands of Soros and global financial oligarchs.

The Eritrean government has proof of the CIA’s role in smuggling desperate people from the Horn of Africa. They also have proof of Amnesty International’s attempt to foment political unrest and violence in the country.

The phony ‘Eritrean’ refugee crisis is being cynically used by the corporate media to slander Africa’s only free and truly democratic, post-colonial nation, hampering its development while filling the coffers of the heinous ‘human rights’ murder machine, all in the service of empire. This again attests to the weaponization of the refugee.  The current escalation of the refugee crisis in Europe should be analyzed in this context.

So what is the purpose of weaponizing refugees?

In the book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, Kelly M. Greenhill, US foreign policy consultant, argues that coercive engineered migration is a strategy which has been used by governments to gain concessions from other governments. In other words, governments often use refugees as weapons in order to exert pressure on other governments for political ends. Greenhill documents over 59 examples of refugees being used as weapons since the Second World War.

While there are undoubtedly many women and children and innocent victims of NATO/Zionist fomented war among the flux of people migrating to Europe who deserve all the help they can get, it is deeply reactionary and dishonest to ignore the obvious instrumentalisation of migration by imperialism. Rational and honest analysis of this complex phenomenon tends to prevail in developing countries such as Russia and Iran, whose press agencies have provided extensive evidence of this problem. However, spurious political correctness often stifles constructive debate in Western countries with some analysts such as this author being slandered on social media as ‘fascists’ and ‘racists’ by soi-disant ‘leftists’ for discussing these facts. George Soros and company would certainly agree with them.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin is a journalist and political analyst based in Paris. His work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. He is a regular contributor to Global Research, Russia Today International, Press TV, Sputnik Radio France, Sputnik English , Al Etijah TV, Sahar TV,and has also appeared on Al Jazeera and Al Mayadeen. He writes in English, Gaelic, and French. Read other articles by Gearóid, or visit Gearóid’s website.

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Argentina – a new dictator is born. Actually no, he has just been elected. – Or, was he? – It appears like the newly elected Mauricio Macri is the most fascist and dictatorial President since the Videla military era. Unlike Videla, Macri hasn’t murdered people (yet); not by traditional weapons, but may do so by economic strangulation – the weapon of choice of neoliberalism.

At a young age, Macri, now a multi-billionaire has had dealings with Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner for the US Presidency. That, of course, doesn’t make him a ‘bad guy’. But it does characterize him as someone who would rather turn favours to the rich than to the needy. That should rather be telling for the Argentinians, who elected him – or did they?

Since day one, Mauricio Macri has started repressive socio-economic measures – when he let the peso float on the day of his inauguration on 10 December 2015. It devalued by about 50%, then recovered somewhat. The bottom line is, though, the people at large will suffer purchasing power losses, so that dollar investments may flood the country – as he says and hopes – to privatize once more Argentina’s economy to foreign investors. It’s all so reminiscent of the Menem years. – And the Argentinians elected him – did they really?

At least 12,000 state employees in Buenos Aires were dismissed, starting the New Year with unemployment – no individual warnings; the contracts of another 62,000 government employees country-wide are being examined – and most likely terminated. Many of them may have voted for him — really?

Millions of people took to the streets throughout the plazas of the major cities in Argentina during the past weekend, demanding social justice, like freedom of expression and the right of work – and for most the respect for human rights – and defending democracy over the dictatorial rule of a right wing demagogue.
What justice? – Macri by decree decided that Supreme Court judges he appointed did not need the Senate’s approval, as the country’s Constitution prescribes. Within the first 72 hours of Macri’s ascent to power, he issued 29 Presidential Decrees, so as to impose his program without parliamentary approval. And that’s the way he will rule, at least the first 100 days; a neo-fascist dictator par excellence.

Macri’s latest upsetting controversy is – attempting to remove the Presidential painting of President Kirchner from the walls of the Casa Rosada, the Presidential Mansion.

And why are Argentinians so upset and even outraged? – After all Macri told them in advance what he would do when becoming President, things so outrageous, nobody probably believed him. Not unlike most Presidents who forget their campaign promises once elected – Macri actually carries them through – and he has just started. There is a long list of measures he intends to take – all of them against the well-being of the majority of the people, but in favour of Big Business, in favour of his northern allies in Washington, those who helped him to power.

The measures Macri ‘promised’ he would carry out include:

  • Negotiate with the Vulture Funds, as well as renegotiate Argentina’s debt with the IMF. This is reopening a bloody scar, as the Kirchner Governments had successfully negotiated and agreed with 97% of the creditors to debt payments on average of about 25 cents to the dollar. Payments are being made on schedule.

Among the 3% who didn’t agree were the Vulture Funds, managed by the vulture fund billionaire Paul Singer. Singer wants it all. Having bought Argentina’s debt on the cheap – very cheap – he followed Argentina’s last fifteen years of recovery and accumulation of reserves and ‘bought’ a New York judge to intervene in Argentina’s sovereign affairs, ordering the South American country to pay Mr. vulture Singer in full.

This aberration was overruled by last year’s UN General Assembly adopting overwhelmingly a new global framework for sovereign debt restructuring, in favour of nations’ rights to seek protection from minority creditors, such as the US Singer hedge funds, which refuse to go along with the majority in mutually agreed debt restructurings. Despite this ruling, Macri intends to renegotiate and possibly give away some of the people’s hard-earned reserves to greedy US Zionist-run vulture funds. – Bravo! – And Argentinians elected him – hard to believe; did they really?

  • Substantially increasing gas and electricity tariffs – already started.
  • Repeal the Memorandum of Agreement with Iran regarding the investigation and the Truth Commission in the case of AMIA; the car bomb attack on the Asosiacion Mutual Iraelita Argentina which caused the death of 85 people in July 1994. Judge Niesman, in charge of the investigation appeared dead in his apartment a few hours before he was to disclose his findings in an Argentine Court. According to Wikileaks the investigation was directed by Washington.
  • Closing down Public TV Stations 6, 7 and 8 which had the tendency to be critical of Government politics.
  • Removing the Attorney General, whose function according to the Constitution is sustained as long as it is carried out according to the norms of the law – which according to all records it is. Macri wants to replace her by one of his cronies.
  • Restructuring the Central Bank – replacing the current President, whom Macri reproaches of being a Kirchnerite – and replacing him with one of his buddies; and this despite the fact that the Charter of the Central Bank allows removal of its President only for serious professional or ethical infractions – none of which is the case with the current President of the Central Bank.
  • Increasing taxes for the lowest income earners ‘in the name of justice’.

These are just a few of the measures he announced – and people either didn’t listen, or didn’t believe him. Argentinians voted for Mauricio Macri – or did they? – With a slim margin of about 3% over his center-left opponent, Daniel Scioli; a slim margin but enough not to justify a recount. Why would the majority of people vote for a candidate who told them in so many words that he would undo what the previous Kirchner Governments have done for them?

Then there are the so-called progressive Argentinian economists who argue about an ardent class struggle between the entrepreneurs who have been short-changed during the Kirchner years and the average working citizen. What a baloney! – What class struggle – when 80% of the people benefitted from the Kirchners’ social programs and highly distributive GDP growth? – Would they vote as masochists for the neoliberal, neo-colonial multi-billionaire Mauricio Macri – who said he would undo many of these social gains?

This would indeed be strange. Just open your eyes and the crimes of Washington’s secret hand will be revealed; the ‘invisible’ hand which once again – and again – has carried out what Argentina journalist Estela Calloni calls an ‘election coup’, not unlike the one that took place almost simultaneously in Venezuela’s parliamentary elections.

Not to forget the ones in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, called ‘Color Revolutions’, of which the most notorious one, the fascist coup in Ukraine, has already left tens of thousands dead and denigrated millions into homelessness and hapless refugees – or in the Middle East and North Africa – the infamous ‘Arab Springs’ – not to forget, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen – all of them causing millions of deaths and social victims of wars of injustice, so-called ‘refugees’; many of the conflicts turning into endless wars against western-invented and western fabricated and spread ‘terror’.

Only time will tell what’s in store for Argentina and the rest of what we proudly called the ‘free’ Latin America – now gradually turning into what it was for most of the 20th Century – Washington’s Backyard.

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

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Selected Articles: Britain is Knee-Deep in Corruption.

January 21st, 2016 by Global Research News

Military Official: Saudi Ground Forces Push Their Way into Northern YemenYemen: Britain and Saudi Arabia Shoulder to Shoulder in Atrocity

By Felicity Arbuthnot, January 19 2016

Britain’s aiding and abetting of the brutal, head chopping, summarily executing, flogging regime of Saudi Arabia continues unabated.

uk_povertyThe Truth About Poverty In Britain Is Much Worse Than You Think

By Graham Vanbergen, January 21 2016

Forty years after Margaret Thatcher came to power the true extent of neoliberal market reforms are still unravelling and inequality, as we are now hearing almost daily, has inexhorably taken a grip and harming society much more widely as a direct result with evidence of rising poverty its consequence.

Goldman Sachs‘Goldman Pledges Substantial Six-figure Sum to British pro-EU Group’: Report

By Anthony Bellchambers, January 21 2016

GR Ed M.Ch.: A former Goldman official who is not even a British citizen currently runs the Bank of England. How convenient…

doctorIsraeli Medical Association Says British Doctors Trying to Boot Israel From World Medical Association

By The Algemeiner, January 21 2016

British doctors have submitted a request to the World Medical Association to have the Israel Medical Association expelled, Israeli news website nrg reported on Wednesday.

trumpBarring Donald Trump from Entering the UK. The “Ban Trump” Petition Targets “Hate Speech”

By Binoy Kampmark, January 20 2016

“While I think this man is crazy, while I think this man has no valid points to make, I will not be able to silence his voice.” Tom Tugendhat, The Independent, 19 January 2016

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Left Anticommunism: The Unkindest Cut

January 21st, 2016 by Michael Parenti

Despite a lifetime of “shaming” the system, Noam Chomsky [pictured left], America’s foremost “progressive” intellectual, remains an unrepentant left anticommunist.

“Part opportunism, part careerism, part willful denial (or ignorance) of true capitalist and imperial dynamics, and part attachment to the comforts of being within the respectable fold of “permissible” criticism, Left Anticommunism continues to take a huge toll on the American left. In this comprehensive and incisive essay, Michael Parenti explores the reasons why the Left anti-communist stance must be seen for what it is: a de facto collaboration with the forces defending the corporate status quo. [This selection is from Parenti’s book Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (City Lights, 1997). It is reproduced here by courtesy of the author. ]”— Patrice Greanville (Editor of Greanville Post)

*      *      *

In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

Genuflection to Orthodoxy

Many on the U.S. Left have exhibited a Soviet bashing and Red baiting that matches anything on the Right in its enmity and crudity. Listen to Noam Chomsky holding forth about “left intellectuals” who try to “rise to power on the backs of mass popular movements” and “then beat the people into submission. . . . You start off as basically a Leninist who is going to be part of the Red bureaucracy. You see later that power doesn’t lie that way, and you very quickly become an ideologist of the right. . . . We’re seeing it right now in the [former] Soviet Union. The same guys who were communist thugs two years back, are now running banks and [are] enthusiastic free marketeers and praising Americans” (Z Magazine, 10/95).

Chomsky’s imagery is heavily indebted to the same U.S. corporate political culture he so frequently criticizes on other issues. In his mind, the revolution was betrayed by a coterie of “communist thugs” who merely hunger for power rather than wanting the power to end hunger. In fact, the communists did not “very quickly” switch to the Right but struggled in the face of a momentous onslaught to keep Soviet socialism alive for more than seventy years. To be sure, in the Soviet Union’s waning days some, like Boris Yeltsin, crossed over to capitalist ranks, but others continued to resist free-market incursions at great cost to themselves, many meeting their deaths during Yeltsin’s violent repression of the Russian parliament in 1993.

Some leftists and others fall back on the old stereotype of power-hungry Reds who pursue power for power’s sake without regard for actual social goals. If true, one wonders why, in country after country, these Reds side with the poor and powerless often at great risk and sacrifice to themselves, rather than reaping the rewards that come with serving the well-placed.

For decades, many left-leaning writers and speakers in the United States have felt obliged to establish their credibility by indulging in anticommunist and anti-Soviet genuflection, seemingly unable to give a talk or write an article or book review on whatever political subject without injecting some anti-Red sideswipe. The intent was, and still is, to distance themselves from the Marxist-Leninist Left.

Adam Hochschild: Keeping his distance from the “Stalinist Left” and recommending same posture to fellow progressives.

Adam Hochschild, a liberal writer and publisher, warned those on the Left who might be lackadaisical about condemning existing communist societies that they “weaken their credibility” (Guardian, 5/23/84). In other words, to be credible opponents of the cold war, we first had to join in the Cold-War condemnations of communist societies. Ronald Radosh urged that the peace movement purge itself of communists so that it not be accused of being communist (Guardian, 3/16/83). If I understand Radosh: To save ourselves from anticommunist witchhunts, we should ourselves become witchhunters. Purging the Left of communists became a longstanding practice, having injurious effects on various progressive causes. For instance, in 1949 some twelve unions were ousted from the CIO because they had Reds in their leadership. The purge reduced CIO membership by some 1.7 million and seriously weakened its recruitment drives and political clout. In the late 1940s, to avoid being “smeared” as Reds, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a supposedly progressive group, became one of the most vocally anticommunist organizations.

The strategy did not work. ADA and others on the Left were still attacked for being communist or soft on communism by those on the Right. Then and now, many on the Left have failed to realize that those who fight for social change on behalf of the less privileged elements of society will be Red-baited by conservative elites whether they are communists or not. For ruling interests, it makes little difference whether their wealth and power is challenged by “communist subversives” or “loyal American liberals.” All are lumped together as more or less equally abhorrent.

Even when attacking the Right, the left critics cannot pass up an opportunity to flash their anticommunist credentials. So Mark Green writes in a criticism of President Ronald Reagan that “when presented with a situation that challenges his conservative catechism, like an unyielding Marxist-Leninist, [Reagan] will change not his mind but the facts.” While professing a dedication to fighting dogmatism “both of the Right and Left,” individuals who perform such de rigueur genuflections reinforce the anticommunist dogma. Red-baiting leftists contributed their share to the climate of hostility that has given U.S. leaders such a free hand in waging hot and cold wars against communist countries and which even today makes a progressive or even liberal agenda difficult to promote.

A prototypic Red-basher who pretended to be on the Left was George Orwell. In the middle of World War II, as the Soviet Union was fighting for its life against the Nazi invaders at Stalingrad, Orwell announced that a “willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty. It is the only thing that from a literary intellectual’s point of view is really dangerous” (Monthly Review, 5/83). Safely ensconced within a virulently anticommunist society, Orwell (with Orwellian doublethink) characterized the condemnation of communism as a lonely courageous act of defiance. Today, his ideological progeny are still at it, offering themselves as intrepid left critics of the Left, waging a valiant struggle against imaginary Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist hordes.

Sorely lacking within the U.S. Left is any rational evaluation of the Soviet Union, a nation that endured a protracted civil war and a multinational foreign invasion in the very first years of its existence, and that two decades later threw back and destroyed the Nazi beast at enormous cost to itself. In the three decades after the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviets made industrial advances equal to what capitalism took a century to accomplish–while feeding and schooling their children rather than working them fourteen hours a day as capitalist industrialists did and still do in many parts of the world. And the Soviet Union, along with Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic, and Cuba provided vital assistance to national liberation movements in countries around the world, including Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress in South Africa.

Left anticommunists remained studiously unimpressed by the dramatic gains won by masses of previously impoverished people under communism. Some were even scornful of such accomplishments. I recall how in Burlington Vermont, in 1971, the noted anticommunist anarchist, Murray Bookchin, derisively referred to my concern for “the poor little children who got fed under communism” (his words).

Slinging Labels

Those of us who refused to join in the Soviet bashing were branded by left anticommunists as “Soviet apologists” and “Stalinists,” even if we disliked Stalin and his autocratic system of rule and believed there were things seriously wrong with existing Soviet society. Our real sin was that unlike many on the Left we refused to uncritically swallow U.S. media propaganda about communist societies. Instead, we maintained that, aside from the well-publicized deficiencies and injustices, there were positive features about existing communist systems that were worth preserving, that improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people in meaningful and humanizing ways. This claim had a decidedly unsettling effect on left anticommunists who themselves could not utter a positive word about any communist society (except possibly Cuba) and could not lend a tolerant or even courteous ear to anyone who did.

Saturated by anticommunist orthodoxy, most U.S. leftists have practiced a left McCarthyism against people who did have something positive to say about existing communism, excluding them from participation in conferences, advisory boards, political endorsements, and left publications. Like conservatives, left anticommunists tolerated nothing less than a blanket condemnation of the Soviet Union as a Stalinist monstrosity and a Leninist moral aberration.

That many U.S. leftists have scant familiarity with Lenin’s writings and political work does not prevent them from slinging the “Leninist” label. Noam Chomsky, who is an inexhaustible fount of anticommunist caricatures, offers this comment about Leninism: “Western and also Third World intellectuals were attracted to the Bolshevik counterrevolution [sic] because Leninism is, after all, a doctrine that says that the radical intelligentsia have a right to take state power and to run their countries by force, and that is an idea which is rather appealing to intellectuals.” Here Chomsky fashions an image of power-hungry intellectuals to go along with his cartoon image of power-hungry Leninists, villains seeking not the revolutionary means to fight injustice but power for power’s sake. When it comes to Red-bashing, some of the best and brightest on the Left sound not much better than the worst on the Right.

At the time of the 1996 terror bombing in Oklahoma City, I heard a radio commentator announce: “Lenin said that the purpose of terror is to terrorize.” U.S. media commentators have repeatedly quoted Lenin in that misleading manner. In fact, his statement was disapproving of terrorism. He polemicized against isolated terrorist acts which do nothing but create terror among the populace, invite repression, and isolate the revolutionary movement from the masses. Far from being the totalitarian, tight-circled conspirator, Lenin urged the building of broad coalitions and mass organizations, encompassing people who were at different levels of political development. He advocated whatever diverse means were needed to advance the class struggle, including participation in parliamentary elections and existing trade unions. To be sure, the working class, like any mass group, needed organization and leadership to wage a successful revolutionary struggle, which was the role of a vanguard party, but that did not mean the proletarian revolution could be fought and won by putschists or terrorists.

Lenin constantly dealt with the problem of avoiding the two extremes of liberal bourgeois opportunism and ultra-left adventurism. Yet he himself is repeatedly identified as an ultra-left putschist by mainstream journalists and some on the Left. [Notably Chris Hedges, accused him often of “highjacking the revolution”, whatever that means.—Eds) Whether Lenin’s approach to revolution is desirable or even relevant today is a question that warrants critical examination. But a useful evaluation is not likely to come from people who misrepresent his theory and practice.

Left anticommunists find any association with communist organizations to be morally unacceptable because of the “crimes of communism.” Yet many of them are themselves associated with the Democratic Party in this country, either as voters or members, seemingly unconcerned about the morally unacceptable political crimes committed by leaders of that organization. Under one or another Democratic administration, 120,000 Japanese Americans were torn from their homes and livelihoods and thrown into detention camps; atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an enormous loss of innocent life; the FBI was given authority to infiltrate political groups; the Smith Act was used to imprison leaders of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and later on leaders of the Communist Party for their political beliefs; detention camps were established to round up political dissidents in the event of a “national emergency”; during the late 1940s and 1950s, eight thousand federal workers were purged from government because of their political associations and views, with thousands more in all walks of life witchhunted out of their careers; the Neutrality Act was used to impose an embargo on the Spanish Republic that worked in favor of Franco’s fascist legions; homicidal counterinsurgency programs were initiated in various Third World countries; and the Vietnam War was pursued and escalated. And for the better part of a century, the Congressional leadership of the Democratic Party protected racial segregation and stymied all anti-lynching and fair employment bills. Yet all these crimes, bringing ruination and death to many, have not moved the liberals, the social democrats, and the “democratic socialist” anticommunists to insist repeatedly that we issue blanket condemnations of either the Democratic Party or the political system that produced it, certainly not with the intolerant fervor that has been directed against existing communism. [And the Democrats are full responsible, as integral parts of the imperialist machinery, for all the crimes of the US empire in at least a century of continuous expansion, crimes detailed by many scholars, and compiled—inter alia—in books such as Rogue State (Bill Blum).—Ends]

Pure Socialism vs. Siege Socialism

The upheavals in Eastern Europe did not constitute a defeat for socialism because socialism never existed in those countries, according to some U.S. leftists. They say that the communist states offered nothing more than bureaucratic, one-party “state capitalism” or some such thing. Whether we call the former communist countries “socialist” is a matter of definition. Suffice it to say, they constituted something different from what existed in the profit-driven capitalist world–as the capitalists themselves were not slow to recognize.

First, in communist countries there was less economic inequality than under capitalism. The perks enjoyed by party and government elites were modest by corporate CEO standards in the West [even more so when compared with today’s grotesque compensation packages to the executive and financial elites.—Eds], as were their personal incomes and life styles. Soviet leaders like Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev lived not in lavishly appointed mansions like the White House, but in relatively large apartments in a housing project near the Kremlin set aside for government leaders. They had limousines at their disposal (like most other heads of state) and access to large dachas where they entertained visiting dignitaries. But they had none of the immense personal wealth that most U.S. leaders possess. {Nor could they transfer such “wealth” by inheritance or gift to friends and kin, as is often the case with Western magnates and enriched political leaders. Just vide Tony Blair.—Eds]

The “lavish life” enjoyed by East Germany’s party leaders, as widely publicized in the U.S. press, included a $725 yearly allowance in hard currency, and housing in an exclusive settlement on the outskirts of Berlin that sported a sauna, an indoor pool, and a fitness center shared by all the residents. They also could shop in stores that carried Western goods such as bananas, jeans, and Japanese electronics. The U.S. press never pointed out that ordinary East Germans had access to public pools and gyms and could buy jeans and electronics (though usually not of the imported variety). Nor was the “lavish” consumption enjoyed by East German leaders contrasted to the truly opulent life style enjoyed by the Western plutocracy.

Second, in communist countries, productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. Individuals could not hire other people and accumulate great personal wealth from their labor. Again, compared to Western standards, differences in earnings and savings among the populace were generally modest. The income spread between highest and lowest earners in the Soviet Union was about five to one. In the United States, the spread in yearly income between the top multibillionaires and the working poor is more like 10,000 to 1.

Third, priority was placed on human services. Though life under communism left a lot to be desired and the services themselves were rarely the best, communist countries did guarantee their citizens some minimal standard of economic survival and security, including guaranteed education, employment, housing, and medical assistance.

Fourth, communist countries did not pursue the capital penetration of other countries. Lacking a profit motive as their motor force and therefore having no need to constantly find new investment opportunities, they did not expropriate the lands, labor, markets, and natural resources of weaker nations, that is, they did not practice economic imperialism. The Soviet Union conducted trade and aid relations on terms that generally were favorable to the Eastern European nations and Mongolia, Cuba, and India.

All of the above were organizing principles for every communist system to one degree or another. None of the above apply to free market countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Thailand, South Korea, Chile, Indonesia, Zaire, Germany, or the United States.

But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic, cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.

The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundamentals as to leave little room for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they “feel betrayed” by this or that revolution.

The pure socialists see socialism as an ideal that was tarnished by communist venality, duplicity, and power cravings. The pure socialists oppose the Soviet model but offer little evidence to demonstrate that other paths could have been taken, that other models of socialism–not created from one’s imagination but developed through actual historical experience–could have taken hold and worked better. Was an open, pluralistic, democratic socialism actually possible at this historic juncture? The historical evidence would suggest it was not. As the political philosopher Carl Shames argued:

How do [the left critics] know that the fundamental problem was the “nature” of the ruling [revolutionary] parties rather than, say, the global concentration of capital that is destroying all independent economies and putting an end to national sovereignty everywhere? And to the extent that it was, where did this “nature” come from? Was this “nature” disembodied, disconnected from the fabric of the society itself, from the social relations impacting on it? . . . Thousands of examples could be found in which the centralization of power was a necessary choice in securing and protecting socialist relations. In my observation [of existing communist societies], the positive of “socialism” and the negative of “bureaucracy, authoritarianism and tyranny” interpenetrated in virtually every sphere of life. (Carl Shames, correspondence to me, 1/15/92.)

The pure socialists regularly blame the Left itself for every defeat it suffers. Their second-guessing is endless. So we hear that revolutionary struggles fail because their leaders wait too long or act too soon, are too timid or too impulsive, too stubborn or too easily swayed. We hear that revolutionary leaders are compromising or adventuristic, bureaucratic or opportunistic, rigidly organized or insufficiently organized, undemocratic or failing to provide strong leadership. But always the leaders fail because they do not put their trust in the “direct actions” of the workers, who apparently would withstand and overcome every adversity if only given the kind of leadership available from the left critic’s own groupuscule. Unfortunately, the critics seem unable to apply their own leadership genius to producing a successful revolutionary movement in their own country.

Tony Febbo questioned this blame-the-leadership syndrome of the pure socialists:

It occurs to me that when people as smart, different, dedicated and heroic as Lenin, Mao, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Ho Chi Minh and Robert Mugabe–and the millions of heroic people who followed and fought with them–all end up more or less in the same place, then something bigger is at work than who made what decision at what meeting. Or even what size houses they went home to after the meeting. . . .

These leaders weren’t in a vacuum. They were in a whirlwind. And the suction, the force, the power that was twirling them around has spun and left this globe mangled for more than 900 years. And to blame this or that theory or this or that leader is a simple-minded substitute for the kind of analysis that Marxists [should make]. (Guardian, 11/13/91)

To be sure, the pure socialists are not entirely without specific agendas for building the revolution. After the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, an ultra-left group in that country called for direct worker ownership of the factories. The armed workers would take control of production without benefit of managers, state planners, bureaucrats, or a formal military. While undeniably appealing, this worker syndicalism denies the necessities of state power. Under such an arrangement, the Nicaraguan revolution would not have lasted two months against the U.S.-sponsored counterrevolution that savaged the country. It would have been unable to mobilize enough resources to field an army, take security measures, or build and coordinate economic programs and human services on a national scale.

Decentralization vs. Survival

For a people’s revolution to survive, it must seize state power and use it to (a) break the stranglehold exercised by the owning class over the society’s institutions and resources, and (b) withstand the reactionary counterattack that is sure to come. The internal and external dangers a revolution faces necessitate a centralized state power that is not particularly to anyone’s liking, not in Soviet Russia in 1917, nor in Sandinista Nicaragua in 1980.

Engels offers an apposite account of an uprising in Spain in 1872-73 in which anarchists seized power in municipalities across the country. At first, the situation looked promising. The king had abdicated and the bourgeois government could muster but a few thousand ill-trained troops. Yet this ragtag force prevailed because it faced a thoroughly parochialized rebellion. “Each town proclaimed itself as a sovereign canton and set up a revolutionary committee (junta),” Engels writes. “[E]ach town acted on its own, declaring that the important thing was not cooperation with other towns but separation from them, thus precluding any possibility of a combined attack [against bourgeois forces].” It was “the fragmentation and isolation of the revolutionary forces which enabled the government troops to smash one revolt after the other.”

Decentralized parochial autonomy is the graveyard of insurgency–which may be one reason why there has never been a successful anarcho-syndicalist revolution. Ideally, it would be a fine thing to have only local, self-directed, worker participation, with minimal bureaucracy, police, and military. This probably would be the development of socialism, were socialism ever allowed to develop unhindered by counterrevolutionary subversion and attack. One might recall how, in 1918-20, fourteen capitalist nations, including the United States, invaded Soviet Russia in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the revolutionary Bolshevik government.

The years of foreign invasion and civil war did much to intensify the Bolsheviks’ siege psychology with its commitment to lockstep party unity and a repressive security apparatus. Thus, in May 1921, the same Lenin who had encouraged the practice of internal party democracy and struggled against Trotsky in order to give the trade unions a greater measure of autonomy, now called for an end to the Workers’ Opposition and other factional groups within the party. “The time has come,” he told an enthusiastically concurring Tenth Party Congress, “to put an end to opposition, to put a lid on it: we have had enough opposition.” Open disputes and conflicting tendencies within and without the party, the communists concluded, created an appearance of division and weakness that invited attack by formidable foes.

Only a month earlier, in April 1921, Lenin had called for more worker representation on the party’s Central Committee. In short, he had become not anti-worker but anti-opposition. Here was a social revolution–like every other–that was not allowed to develop its political and material life in an unhindered way.

By the late 1920s, the Soviets faced the choice of (a) moving in a still more centralized direction with a command economy and forced agrarian collectivization and full-speed industrialization under a commandist, autocratic party leadership, the road taken by Stalin, or (b) moving in a liberalized direction, allowing more political diversity, more autonomy for labor unions and other organizations, more open debate and criticism, greater autonomy among the various Soviet republics, a sector of privately owned small businesses, independent agricultural development by the peasantry, greater emphasis on consumer goods, and less effort given to the kind of capital accumulation needed to build a strong military-industrial base.

The latter course, I believe, would have produced a more comfortable, more humane and serviceable society. Siege socialism would have given way to worker-consumer socialism. The only problem is that the country would have risked being incapable of withstanding the Nazi onslaught. Instead, the Soviet Union embarked upon a rigorous, forced industrialization. This policy has often been mentioned as one of the wrongs perpetrated by Stalin upon his people. It consisted mostly of building, within a decade, an entirely new, huge industrial base east of the Urals in the middle of the barren steppes, the biggest steel complex in Europe, in anticipation of an invasion from the West. “Money was spent like water, men froze, hungered and suffered but the construction went on with a disregard for individuals and a mass heroism seldom paralleled in history.”

Stalin’s prophecy that the Soviet Union had only ten years to do what the British had done in a century proved correct. When the Nazis invaded in 1941, that same industrial base, safely ensconced thousands of miles from the front, produced the weapons of war that eventually turned the tide. The cost of this survival included 22 million Soviets who perished in the war and immeasurable devastation and suffering, the effects of which would distort Soviet society for decades afterward.

All this is not to say that everything Stalin did was of historical necessity. The exigencies of revolutionary survival did not “make inevitable” the heartless execution of hundreds of Old Bolshevik leaders, the personality cult of a supreme leader who claimed every revolutionary gain as his own achievement, the suppression of party political life through terror, the eventual silencing of debate regarding the pace of industrialization and collectivization, the ideological regulation of all intellectual and cultural life, and the mass deportations of “suspect” nationalities.

The transforming effects of counterrevolutionary attack have been felt in other countries. A Sandinista military officer I met in Vienna in 1986 noted that Nicaraguans were “not a warrior people” but they had to learn to fight because they faced a destructive, U.S.-sponsored mercenary war.  She bemoaned the fact that war and embargo forced her country to postpone much of its socio-economic agenda. As with Nicaragua, so with Mozambique, Angola and numerous other countries in which U.S.-financed mercenary forces destroyed farmlands, villages, health centers, and power stations, while killing or starving hundreds of thousands–the revolutionary baby was strangled in its crib or mercilessly bled beyond recognition. This reality ought to earn at least as much recognition as the suppression of dissidents in this or that revolutionary society.

Richard Lichtman, an otherwise capable theorist and activist, was among those on the Marxian left who applauded the downfall of the Eastern bloc nations and the USSR itself.

The overthrow of Eastern European and Soviet communist governments was cheered by many left intellectuals. Now democracy would have its day. The people would be free from the yoke of communism and the U.S. Left would be free from the albatross of existing communism, or as left theorist Richard Lichtman [pictured right] put it, “liberated from the incubus of the Soviet Union and the succubus of Communist China.”

In fact, the capitalist restoration in Eastern Europe seriously weakened the numerous Third World liberation struggles that had received aid from the Soviet Union and brought a whole new crop of right-wing governments into existence, ones that now worked hand-in-glove with U.S. global counterrevolutionaries around the globe.

In addition, the overthrow of communism gave the green light to the unbridled exploitative impulses of Western corporate interests. No longer needing to convince workers that they live better than their counterparts in Russia, no longer restrained by a competing system, the corporate class is rolling back the many gains that working people have won over the years. Now that the free market, in its meanest form, is emerging triumphant in the East, so will it prevail in the West. “Capitalism with a human face” is being replaced by “capitalism in your face.” As Richard Levins put it, “So in the new exuberant aggressiveness of world capitalism we see what communists and their allies had held at bay” (Monthly Review, 9/96).

Having never understood the role that existing communist powers played in tempering the worst impulses of Western capitalism, and having perceived communism as nothing but an unmitigated evil, the left anticommunists did not anticipate the losses that were to come. Some of them still don’t get it.

 

Michael Parenti is an award-winning, internationally known American political scientist, historian, and culture critic who has been writing on a wide range of both scholarly and popular subjects for over forty years. He has taught at several universities and colleges and has been a frequent guest lecturer before campus and community audiences. In addition, he has played an activist role in political struggles, most notably various anti-war movements. Included among the subjects he addresses are American politics, world affairs, news and entertainment media, ideology, historiography, ethnicity, and religion.

PARENTI is the author of twenty-three books, among which:

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