Global Research

SELECTED ARTICLES:

Unemployment, Collapsing Infrastructure, An Incompetent Social-political-economic System: America’s is “On the Road to the Third World”

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, October 30 2015

In [a] nationally televised conference, I declared that the consequence of jobs offshoring would be that the US would be a Third World country in 20 years.

The Defeat of the FTAA. The Emergence of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP)

By Arnold August, October 30 2015

As usual, those who want to continue making money off of sick individuals will find a way to omit crucial details and dance through loopholes, trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the tampon industry is no different; although they’re adamant that tampons are safe, women have died from their use and continue to destroy their bodies with them, as history and published studies repeatedly prove. Nevertheless, both industries do whatever it takes to keep the $718 million market alive.

In fact, the FDA went so far as to recently update their web site, addressing “allegations about tampons [that] are being spread over the Internet.” They maintain that tampons are not contaminated by asbestos or dioxin during the manufacturing process and that it is simply not true that the rayon fibers can cause toxic shock syndrome (TSS). “The available scientific evidence does not support these rumors,” their web site says.

Really?

The health hazards of making products look pretty

Not surprisingly, the FDA web site makes no mention of a vital statement left out of memos found in 1992 in which the FDA addressed the life-threatening chemical dioxin by stating, “It appear[s] that the most significant risks may occur in tampon products.” Ah, it’s what you don’t say that can also cover up the truth, right?

Dioxin, by the way, is part of the process that makes products “whiter than white”; in this case, it’s used on the wood pulp that becomes rayon fibers in tampons. During the process, chlorine gas bleaches the wood pulp, creating dioxin, which is part of a class of chemicals that are linked to horrific health problems such as cancer, endometriosis, birth defects and TSS.

Instead, the FDA web site mentions that when tested, such chemicals are below the detectable limit, which apparently means women should cast their worries aside. Besides, new and improved tampons have been on the market that don’t use “elemental chlorine gas to purify the wood pulp.”

Does this mean that women everywhere can feel secure by the FDA’s efforts to address tampon rumors?

Not so fast.

Chemicals from tampons can linger in your body for up to three decades

There’s something else that’s not on the FDA web site: an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study found that dioxin bioaccumulates; it has the ability to stay in the body upwards of 30 years after exposure. Furthermore, it’s been found that repeated contact increases a woman’s health dangers. Now, consider that the average woman uses about 16,800 tampons in her lifetime. Yikes.

Then there’s another fact that is conveniently not mentioned on the FDA site: Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) cases surged in the 1980s, coinciding with the advent of Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) super absorbent synthetic tampon, Rely. After 813 menstrual-related TSS cases that included 38 deaths, the FDA eventually urged P&G to issue a product recall for Rely. They did, and they also exited the market, only to re-enter the tampon production business later when they bought the makers of Tampax, Tambrands, in the late 90s.

What about the tampons that sound wonderful because of their use of cotton? They’re not as good for you as their clever marketing and packaging suggest.

Don’t fall for natural-sounding tampon options and marketing hype

You’ve certainly heard of Monsanto’s cancer-causing glyphosate. More than one billion tons of pesticides and herbicides are sprayed on cotton crops annually in the United States, elements of which could make their way to tampons.

The industry knows that sometimes playing on fears can sell products. A roommate finding out you have your period? How embarrassing! Noticing a different odor during your period? Terrible!

Through the decades, the tampon industry has lured women with perfumed tampons, pocket-sized ones in a selection of colors to conceal that it’s actually a tampon, and various messaging to help resolve the awkwardness of experiencing a natural part of life.

Choose safer alternatives

Fortunately, many health-minded women are becoming more aware of tampon dangers while simultaneously embracing their bodies, menstrual blood and all.

For example, many turn to menstrual pads, which offer the benefit of resting on underwear without the risks that come from inserting chemicals and objects directly in the vagina. Then there is new-to-market THINX, which are “period-proof underwear” that, despite reactions over some of their ads being too risque, are generating attention for their effectiveness.

Yet the madness continues.

The tampon industry continues to do its best to get women to feel shame about having their periods or suggests the annoyance of wearing pads, while the FDA is addressing rumors by omitting facts throughout history. The bottom line is that it’s best to forego using tampons and instead turn to other alternatives that won’t destroy your health.

Sources for this article include:
FDA.gov
FNewsMagazine.com
UMB.edu
OrganicConsumers.org
SheThinx.com
NYDailyNews.com

On January 6, 2004, Senator Charles Schumer and I challenged the erroneous idea that jobs offshoring was free trade in a New York Times op-ed.  Our article so astounded economists that within a few days Schumer and I were summoned to a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, DC, to explain our heresy. In the nationally televised conference, I declared that the consequence of jobs offshoring would be that the US would be a Third World country in 20 years. 

That was 11 years ago, and the US is on course to descend to Third World status before the remaining nine years of my prediction have expired.

The evidence is everywhere.  In September the US Bureau of the Census released its report on US household income by quintile. Every quintile, as well as the top 5%, has experienced a decline in real household income since their peaks.  The bottom quintile (lower 20 percent) has had a 17.1% decline in real income from the 1999 peak (from $14,092 to $11,676).  The 4th quintile has had a 10.8% fall in real income since 2000 (from $34,863 to $31,087). The middle quintile has had a 6.9% decline in real income since 2000 (from $58,058 to $54,041). The 2nd quintile has had a 2.8% fall in real income since 2007 (from $90,331 to $87,834). The top quintile has had a decline in real income since 2006 of 1.7% (from $197,466 to $194,053).  The top 5% has experienced a 4.8% reduction in real income since 2006 (from $349,215 to $332,347).  Only the top One Percent or less (mainly the 0.1%) has experienced growth in income and wealth.

The Census Bureau uses official measures of inflation to arrive at real income. These measures are understated. If more accurate measures of inflation are used (such as those available from shadowstats.com), the declines in real household income are larger and have been declining for a longer period. Some measures show real median annual household income below levels of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Note that these declines have occurred during an alleged six-year economic recovery from 2009 to the current time, and during a period when the labor force was shrinking due to a sustained decline in the labor force participation rate. On April 3, 2015 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 93,175,000 Americans of working age are not in the work force, a historical record.  Normally, an economic recovery is marked by a rise in the labor force participation rate.  John Williams reports that when discouraged workers are included among the measure of the unemployed, the US unemployment rate is currently 23%, not the 5.2% reported figure. 

In a recently released report, the Social Security Administration provides annual income data on an individual basis.  Are you ready for this?

In 2014 38% of all American workers made less than $20,000;  51% made less than $30,000; 63% made less than $40,000;  and 72% made less than $50,000.

The scarcity of jobs and the low pay are direct consequences of jobs offshoring.  Under pressure from “shareholder advocates” (Wall Street) and large retailers, US manufacturing companies moved their manufacturing abroad to countries where the rock bottom price of labor results in a rise in corporate profits, executive “performance bonuses,” and stock prices.

The departure of well-paid US manufacturing jobs was soon followed by the departure of software engineering, IT, and other professional service jobs.

Incompetent economic studies by careless economists, such as Michael Porter at Harvard and Matthew Slaughter at Dartmouth, concluded that the gift of vast numbers of US high productivity, high value-added jobs to foreign countries was a great benefit to the US economy.

In articles and books I challenged this absurd conclusion, and all of the economic evidence proves that I am correct.  The promised better jobs that the “New Economy” would create to replace the jobs gifted to foreigners have never appeared.  Instead, the economy creates lowly-paid part-time jobs, such as waitresses, bartenders, retail clerks, and ambulatory health care services, while full-time jobs with benefits continue to shrink as a percentage of total jobs.

These part-time jobs do not provide enough income to form a household.  Consequently, as a Federal Reserve study reports, “Nationally, nearly half of 25-year-olds lived with their parents in 2012-2013, up from just over 25% in 1999.”

When half of 25-year olds cannot form households, the market for houses and home furnishings collapses.

Finance is the only sector of the US economy that is growing.  The financial industry’s share of GDP has risen from less than 4% in 1960 to about 8% today.  As Michael Hudson has shown, finance is not a productive activity.  It is a looting activity (Killing The Host).

Moreover, extraordinary financial concentration and reckless risk and debt leverage have made the financial sector a grave threat to the economy.

The absence of growth in real consumer income means that there is no growth in aggregate demand to drive the economy.

Consumer indebtedness limits the ability of consumers to expand their spending with credit.  These spending limits on consumers mean that new investment has limited appeal to businesses.  The economy simply cannot go anywhere, except down as businesses continue to lower their costs by substituting part-time jobs for full-time jobs and by substituting foreign for domestic workers.  Government at every level is over-indebted, and quantitative easing has over-supplied the US currency.

This is not the end of the story.  When manufacturing jobs depart, research, development, design, and innovation follow.  An economy that doesn’t make things does not innovate.  The entire economy is lost, not merely the supply chains.

The economic and social infrastructure is collapsing, including the family itself, the rule of law, and the accountability of government.

When college graduates can’t find employment because their jobs have been offshored or given to foreigners on work visas, the demand for college education declines.  To become indebted only to find employment that cannot service student loans becomes a bad economic decision.

We already have the situation where college and university administrations spend 75% of the university’s budget on themselves, hiring adjuncts to teach the classes for a few thousand dollars.  The demand for full time faculty with a career before them has collapsed.  When the consequences of putting short-term corporate profits before jobs for Americans fully hit, the demand for university education will collapse and with it American science and technology.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst thing that ever happened to the United States. The two main consequences of the Soviet collapse have been devastating.  One consequence was the rise of the neoconservative hubris of US world hegemony, which has resulted in 14 years of wars that have cost $6 trillion.  The other consequence was a change of mind in socialist India and communist China, large countries that responded to “the end of history” by opening their vast under-utilized labor forces to Western capital, which resulted in the American economic decline that this article describes, leaving a struggling economy to bear the enormous war debt.

It is a reasonable conclusion that a social-political-economic system so incompetently run already is a Third World country.

References: 

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Income-Distribution.php   

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income.html     

https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2014 

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/americans-not-labor-force-exceed-93-million-first-time-627-labor-force  

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/october/millennials-living-home-student-debt-housing-labor?&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SM&utm_term=communities&utm_content=oteblog&utm_campaign=5124 

Plans to deploy some 4,000 NATO combat troops in countries bordering Russia were reported Thursday amid escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow over conflicting US and Russian military interventions in Syria.

The deployment would represent a qualitative escalation of the US-led alliance’s encirclement and military buildup against Russia, heightening the threat of both war in Europe and a military clash between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

Adding to the provocative character of the proposed deployment, the troops, drawn from various NATO countries, would be placed under formal NATO command, an arrangement that is put in place in the event of a NATO war against a common enemy. Such a command structure is virtually unprecedented in peacetime.

One proposal under discussion within the alliance would place troops in battalion strength—from 800 to 1,000—in Poland and the former Soviet Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. A less extensive plan would restrict the deployment to a single battalion for the region.

German Mountain Infantry training on October 26, 2015 during Operation Trident Juncture 15. Photo Credit – NATO

Washington is pushing for the more extensive deployment, according to theWall Street Journal, while “German officials in particular have expressed reservations, telling the allies in private discussions that they don’t want to treat Moscow as a permanent enemy or lock it out of Europe…”

According to the Journal, others in the US-led alliance, presumably including Washington itself, are arguing that

“a small buildup could have the unintended consequence of making a conflict with Russia more likely if mishaps or miscalculations by Mr. Putin accidentally trigger a wider clash. To avoid that, advocates say NATO should increase other deterrence efforts, such as demonstrating its ability to move even bigger numbers of troops quickly with exercises like one currently under way in Spain and Portugal.”

The plans for permanent troop deployments on Russia’s borders have emerged in the midst of Operation Trident Juncture, the largest NATO military exercise since 2002, involving 36,000 troops, more than 140 warplanes, more than 60 ships and seven submarines.

With the launching of the second phase of the exercise last week, NATO’s Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow, who is the US ambassador to the alliance, made clear that the war games were directed at intimidating Russia.

“We are very concerned about the Russian military build-up,” said Vershbow, who was US ambassador to Russia under the George W. Bush administration. He told reporters, “The increasing concentration of forces in Kaliningrad, the Black Sea and, now, in the eastern Mediterranean does pose some additional challenges.”

“In the east, Russia has illegally annexed Crimea, continues to support the separatists in eastern Ukraine; and now appears to have entered the war in Syria firmly on the side of Assad,” he added.

The exercise, which continues until November 6, is centered on demonstrating that NATO can quickly move decisive military force beyond its borders to attack its enemies. The war games are built around a scenario of NATO defending the fictional nation of “Lakuta” against an attack by a regional adversary, “Kamon.”

“Rising political instability, ethnic tension, and persisting socio-economic challenges are climaxed by a blatant invasion of one state’s territory by another,” the official NATO scenario for the exercise reads.

It is evident that the exercise is meant to reproduce a possible evolution of conditions in the former Soviet Baltic republics, all of which are ruled by right-wing, fanatically anti-Russian governments that have imposed brutal austerity measures against the working class, discriminate against large ethnic Russian populations and glorify their citizens who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II.

In September of last year, President Barack Obama traveled to Estonia and offered an unqualified commitment under Article 5 of the NATO charter to use American troops to defend the Baltic States against the supposed threat from Russia. Calling this commitment “unwavering” and “eternal,” he stressed that he was prepared to deliver “American boots on the ground.”

Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO, has sent its military to participate in the NATO war games. The escalating confrontation between the US and Russia was triggered by the February 2014 coup that ousted the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych after it rejected a proposed European Union association agreement and sought a Russian loan bailout instead. The coup was orchestrated by Washington and Berlin and spearheaded by fascist militias. The overthrow of the government was followed by a bloody civil war, with the new US-backed regime in Kiev attempting to militarily suppress ethnic Russian rebels in the east of the country.

The latest proposals for troop deployments on Russia’s borders follow earlier decisions by NATO to establish a 40,000-strong “rapid reaction force” as well as small headquarters, known as NATO Force Integration Units, in Hungary, Slovakia, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. These commands, consisting of about 80 personnel each, are designed to prepare for rapid deployment of NATO troops against Russia. In addition, plans were elaborated to pre-position arms and supplies including tanks and other heavy weaponry in striking distance of Russia.

In response to the reports of the new proposals for escalation of NATO’s military buildup, Moscow’s ambassador to the US-led alliance, Alexander Grushko, charged that they, as well as previous measures, were in violation of agreements reached in the 1990s in which NATO pledged not to station a substantial number of combat troops on Russia’s borders.

“From the political point of view these military activities are aimed at creating a new ‘Iron Curtain’ in Europe,” Grushko said. He added, “Our security will be safeguarded in any case, and we have a variety of choices to effectively do it.”

The seemingly deliberate intensification of tensions in Eastern Europe coincides with convening in Vienna of another session of talks on the Syrian crisis. Russia has carried out hundreds of airstrikes and provided other military assistance in an attempt to prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, even as Washington, which like Moscow claims to be fighting “terrorism,” continues to support Islamist militias seeking Assad’s overthrow.

The response of President Vladimir Putin’s government to the US-led imperialist offensive is both reactionary and politically bankrupt. Based on Russian nationalism and the defense of the interests of the capitalist oligarchy that enriched itself from the looting of state property with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Putin’s policy oscillates between the flexing of military power and seeking an accommodation with imperialism.

On Thursday, the US Navy acknowledged having sent four armed fighter jets to confront two Russian Tu-142 Bear aircraft that were flying near the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which was engaged in naval exercises near the Korean peninsula. The Russian planes were reportedly flying at 500 feet and within one mile of the US warship. Attempts by a US escort ship to hail the Russian aircraft received no response.

The potential for a military confrontation between the US and Russia, whether in Eastern Europe, Syria or elsewhere, grows daily. The dangers of a conflict spiraling into a nuclear war are becoming greater today than they were at the height of the Cold War.

Ryan awakened Thursday morning one step away from succeeding John Boehner as House speaker – ousted by a palace coup. He wasn’t conservative enough for hardline Republicans.

As expected, House members elected Ryan as his successor, receiving 236 votes, a comfortable margin of victory – winning in the Republican dominated body after Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy withdrew his candidacy and Ryan bested Rep. Daniel Webster (unrelated to the 19th century statesman/politician by the same name) decisively – by a 200 – 43 margin among Republican members alone.

The position is second in line to the presidency if its incumbent dies, is incapacitated, resigns or gets removed by impeachment.

Ryan’s ascendency lurches Washington further to the right. His neocon credentials are scary. He wants more spending for wars and militarism, less for social programs. More on the latter below.

He rants about ‘keeping America strong,” supports its heavy intervention hand anywhere it wishes, serving US interests at the expense of all others.

In 2012, he was Mitt Romney’s running mate. His “Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal” at the time prioritized gutting vital social programs millions of Americans rely on.

He wants Medicare and Social Security privatized en route to ending them altogether – Medicaid, food stamps, and other social programs gutted.

He supports Americans having anything they want as long as they pay for it, mindless of unaffordability issues for half of US households, living in poverty or bordering it.

Social Security and Medicare are bedrock social programs – funded by worker/employer payroll tax deductions, federal insurance programs, not entitlements, contractually obligating Washington to pay benefits to eligible recipients.

Ryan and likeminded Republican and Democrat neocons infesting Congress want these vital programs ended – to assure unrestricted military spending as well as sustained handouts to Wall Street and other corporate favorites.

In 2011, he proposed eliminating Medicare altogether. It passed the House but not the Senate. He wants America’s wealth handed exclusively to monied interests already with too much – ordinary people left on their own out of luck, accelerating the thirdworldization process, a deplorable race to the bottom.

His ideal society is no fit place to live in, his “Path to Prosperity” returning America to 19th century harshness if implemented.

He believes everything government does, business does better, so let it operate unrestrained by regulatory controls. He represents America’s 1% at the expense of its great majority.

He’s one of them, his estimated net worth at between $4.5 and $7.4 million. He supports socialism for the rich, law of the jungle for ordinary folks.

As House speaker, he has enormous power, especially with strong neocon support. Expect him to take full advantage at the expense of millions of disadvantaged households deserving better, no matter who succeeds Obama in 2017.

America is a fascist police state, a belligerent nation waging endless wars of aggression. Every Republican and Democrat presidential aspirant supports an ideologically over-the-top agenda – risking global war for power and profit. Don’t let their rhetoric on the stump fool you.

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.

Some 2,000 fighters of the Azov, Dnipro and Lviv volunteer battalions, deployed near the disengagement line between Kiev forces and DPR military, have gotten out of control of the Ukrainian military command, Eduard Basurin, spokesman for the Defense Ministry of DPR, said at a briefing Wednesday. A grouping of the militants belonging to these battalions has been revealed between the inhabited localities of Novgorodskoye and Troitskoye. 50 items of hardware, including tanks, infantry combat vehicles, armored personnel carriers and field artillery, have been concentrated in the same area in violation of the Minsk Agreements.

Ukraine has refused to streamline the process of crossing the disengagement line with DPR and LPR, a source close to the peace negotiating process in Minsk said. For example, there are huge lines at the disengagement line in the DPR because Ukraine and the LPR just have no crossing points for motor transport. This issue was raised in the humanitarian issues subgroup but the Kiev side has been evading the question what they have done to solve the problem.

Australia’s maritime border control allegedly paid people smugglers to turn back refugee boats headed for New Zealand. The claims made by Amnesty International also accuse Canberra of essentially colluding with a people-smuggling operation. Australian officials paid six crew members a total of US $32,000 to make sure they did not continue on to New Zealand. Instead, the crew returned to Indonesia, with 65 asylum seekers. The incident took place in May 2015.

The al-Shabaab militant group has taken 12 hostages after a military transport plane crashed in Somalia. According to the local authorities, the hostages were US citizens. The aircraft was coming from Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, carrying supplies for peacekeeping forces in Somalia. The news agency reported that Pentagon had denied the reports of US citizens aboard the aircraft. The US officials are likely sure that “moderate rebels” don’t take hostages.

A road map for the accession of India and Pakistan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has been worked out and submitted for the current member-states’ consideration, the organization’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) said on Thursday. The SCO is a political, economic and military alliance composed of six member states, including Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is expected that the mechanism for the road map’s implementation will be discussed at the meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government in December in China.

 The Economist had published an article titled, “And the law won: The rise and fall of China’s civil-rights lawyers says much about the Communist Party’s approach to the rule of law.”

 The Economist had published an article titled, “And the law won: The rise and fall of China’s civil-rights lawyers says much about the Communist Party’s approach to the rule of law.”

“The Obama administration is caught between history.  They want to lift the embargo, but they cannot ignore the law of the land.” – Augusto Maxwell, The Miami Herald, Oct 27, 2015

Whatever might be said about the efforts last December, and then those in July, to normalise relations between the US and Cuba, the United Nations General Assembly vote served to illustrate the cold reality.  By 191 votes to 2, members voted to condemn the US blockade that has been in effect since the island did the insufferable and unthinkable in Washington’s eyes in going Communist.

Since the 1960s, the blockade has been a reminder that the bully in the hemisphere refuses to grow up, attempting to inflict damage on its smaller, upstart neighbour.  (The life time of the embargo is said to have cost $121 billion.)  Even after the Soviet Union went its way into fragments, and the fraud that was the Cold War dissipated, small Cuba still posed a symbolic threat. It reminds the Washington, and Florida establishment, about counter-revolution.  As long as it lasts, it is also an alternative.

Ever since 1992, the UN General Assembly has favoured condemning the US embargo on Cuba.  Each year, the naysayers seem to have diminished in number.  Last year, the US and Israel kept usual company, while three countries noted their abstentions.

This year, rumours abounded that the US delegation might put in an abstention as a pointer to pressure Congress, a domestic gambit that is becoming a habit in American politics. Four unnamed administration officials put the feelers out in September to members of the Associated Press. They certainly got a desired result.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), got particularly hot under the collar.  “To support a resolution in the UN aimed at criticising US law would not only appease the (Castro) regime, but would ignore sanctions passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton.”[1]

Cuba wanted to press home what it considered progress on the front of rapprochement between Washington and Havana.  Travel restrictions have been eased.  Embassies have been reopened.  Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez told the General Assembly that “lifting the blockade” would “give some meaning” to the recent moves.

It was not to be, and the result may well have been less an issue of Cuba’s behaviour than that of domestic calculation.  After all, the Obama administration and Congress have been running what essentially amount to key parallel foreign policies, be they on Iran or the issue of climate change.  The public blame, however, had to be placed on Havana’s unnecessary impetuousness, the western hemisphere’s grand historical upstart.

“We find it unfortunate,” claimed US senior area advisor for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Ronald Godard, “that despite our demonstrated bilateral progress the Cuban government has chosen to introduce a resolution that is nearly identical to those tabled in years past.”

Godard was insistent that the Cuban gesture was not meaningful in this regard.  “If Cuba thinks this exercise will help move things forward in the direction both governments have indicated they wish, it is mistaken.”

The domestic reactions ranged from the usual anti-UN pounding, to the go steady approach which has been the Obama administration’s line. The anti-Castro brigade proved characteristically noisy in condemning alleged UN complicity.  This was simple, old bluster, the hegemon’s credentials unmasked.  For South Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the United Nations “once again” showed “support” for the “brutal Castro dictatorship while ignoring the plight of the people of Cuba.”[2]

In many ways, the calmly, calmly approach is more sinister.  President Barack Obama has said for some time that the US Congress will eventually lift the embargo, a point that has ruffled the feathers of the hawks.  At an annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly last month, the president expressed the view that “our Congress will inevitably lift an embargo that should not be in place anymore.”

Such an attitude admits to a gradual incorporation of Cuba into the US sphere of influence, a slow but certain breaking down of its institutions.  This should not be surprising to those keeping watch over the global trade network that Washington is driving via such tools as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The aim of such policy is an undermining of public institutions across participant countries in favour of corporate will, accounts and vitality.  Cuba will prove to be no exception, and its medical and education schemes may eventually be battered into corporatized, marketised submission.  Cuban authorities, beware.

In the meantime, aspects of the embargo continue to manifest in damaging forms, usually through fines against third-country banks and financial institutions conducting US dollar transactions with Cuba.  Institutions such as Credit Agricole and Sprint have fallen foul of the practice, having their services fined or delayed.[3]

Importantly, the continued pattern of voting from the US also suggests that the bully will admit to normalisation, but on his own terms. The fact that 191 states might disagree with the continued belligerence an embargo entails is beside the point. The bully still insists it has the cards, and will dictate the program accordingly.

This form of commercial incorporation and invasion takes patience, and the Obamacrats are eager to bide their time. GOP sniping and griping from the Florida wing is almost beside the point.  Eventually, the dollars will come, the investments will yield fruit. Democracy will have nothing to do with it.  The question will then be whether the Castro legacy survives the impositions of a US imperial one.

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

While Canada slashes budgets for research, education and public broadcasting, there is one part of our economy that enjoys remarkable support from the Canadian taxpayer: the energy sector.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that energy subsidies in Canada top an incredible $34 billion each year in direct support to producers and uncollected tax on externalized costs.

These figures are found in the appendix of a major report released last year estimating global energy subsidies at almost $2 trillion. The report estimated that eliminating the subsidies would reduce global carbon emissions by 13 per cent. The stunning statistics specific to this country remain almost completely unreported in Canadian media.

Contacted by The Tyee, researchers from the IMF helpfully provided a detailed breakdown of Canadian subsidies provided to petroleum, natural gas and coal consumption. The lion’s share of the $34 billion are uncollected taxes on the externalized costs of burning transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel — about $19.4 billion in 2011. These externalized costs include impacts like traffic accidents, carbon emissions, air pollution and road congestion.

The report also referenced figures sourced from the OECD showing an additional $840 million in producer support to oil companies through a constellation of provincial and federal incentives to encourage fossil fuel extraction. This brought total petroleum subsidies in Canada in 2011 to $20.23 billion — more than 20 times the annual budget of Environment Canada.

In comparison to other countries, Canada provides more subsidies to petroleum as a proportion of government revenue than any developed nation on Earth besides the United States and Luxembourg.

Natural gas consumption also enjoys billions in subsidies in Canada. The IMF estimates that un-priced carbon emissions from burning natural gas added up to $7.3 billion per year. There’s another $440 million in producer support and $360 million in other un-taxed externalities, all of which tops $8.1 billion. This tax giveaway on natural gas alone is 44 per cent more than Canada provides in international aid every year.

What about coal? Canada consumes over 30 million tonnes per year. While we currently export over half our domestic production, the IMF study only considered externalized costs within our own country. They found that the coal industry receives $4.5 billion in annual subsides — almost all of this is un-priced carbon and sulfur dioxide emissions. This generous largesse towards the dirtiest of fuels is about four times what the CBC receives in public support every year.

Or we could spend that on…

What could Canada do with an extra $34 billion a year? Both Vancouver and Toronto are struggling with how to fund long overdue upgrades to public transportation. Subway construction comes in at about $250 million per kilometre, meaning we could build about 140 kilometres of badly-needed urban subway lines every year. Light rail transport (LRT) is about one-quarter of the cost of subways, meaning for the same money we could build about 560 kilometres of at-grade transit infrastructure.

This foregone revenue in less than two years could fully fund the Big Move transit plan for southern Ontario, providing affordable access for 80 per cent of people living from Hamilton to Oshawa. Toronto’s transit system has languished for decades. This sorely needed infrastructure would save the average household thousands in wasted time sitting in traffic, and Canada’s economy billions in reduced congestion costs.

The proposed Vancouver subway line to the University of British Columbia could be built using less than two months of the subsidies provided every day to the energy sector. Forty kilometres of rapid transit in Surrey could be had for about the same amount.

What about green energy infrastructure? Adding solar and wind capacity provides some of the best job-generation per dollar of any option available — more than seven times the employment from an equivalent investment in oil and gas extraction. Extrapolating the findings from a 2012 report on green jobs, $34 billion could create 500,000 person years of employment and install more than 150,000 megawatts of clean generating capacity. Canada currently ranks 12th in the G20 on green energy investment and has been steadily falling behind our competitors.

Canada’s infrastructure deficit of crumbling roads and outdated water and sewage treatment is pegged at $171 billion. This backlog could be wiped out in five years with the revenue we are subsidizing to the energy sector.

Of course, not all things of value can be measured by bricks and mortar. Thirty-four billion dollars each year could provide $10-a-day childcare for 5.5 million children ages 0 to 5. Canada’s child care costs are currently the highest in the OECD.

No free lunch in energy costs

For all the complaining Canadians do about fuel prices, it’s ironic to note the IMF essentially says we are undervaluing the true cost of gasoline by about $0.30 per litre. Compared to other nations, Canada enjoys some of the cheapest gas in the developed world. Fuel in Italy and Germany is almost double our price at the pump. Ever think it’s odd that bottled water at the gas station costs more than the fuel you just put in your tank?

Consider for a moment all the costs of finding and extracting crude oil, shipping it across the globe, refining it into gasoline and trucking it to your neighbourhood. Not to mention the billions spent by some countries projecting military power into volatile oil-producing parts of the world and the very human price of those interventions. Additional un-priced costs after petroleum is burned, such as climate change, traffic congestion, road accidents and air pollution make gasoline perhaps the most subsidized substance on Earth.

Every decision based on artificially low energy prices can have years of unintended consequences. If gas is cheap, people will choose to buy cars rather than take transit, clogging both our roads and emergency rooms. Transportation accidents alone cost Canada $3.7 billion each year. Every vehicle bought based on low fuel prices will produce years of carbon emissions, and every owner over the life of that vehicle will have an interest in voting for cheaper gas.

The opposite, of course, is also true. Less than half of Vancouverites in their early twenties today have chosen to get a driver’s license, down from 60 per cent 10 years ago. Better public transit and more expensive car ownership seem to be the main factors driving this remarkable demographic shift.

The IMF can hardly be accused of being a left-leaning, alarmist organization. Through this valuable research, they make the case that there is no free lunch in energy costs, and we exclude these externalized costs at our peril.

A country can be judged on what it chooses to tax and what it chooses to subsidize. And by that yardstick, this nation currently seems to care more about cheap energy than almost anything else.

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was a proposed US-backed agreement to eliminate or reduce the trade barriers among all countries in the Americas. It was an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico and the US. It was supposed to extend to all countries in the Americas – except for Cuba – from Canada to Chile and Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. However, critics saw this as a move that, as was the case with NAFTA, would only serve to benefit the rich and powerful.

I regard Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution as the architects of the new Latin America and Caribbean. This new development is the antithesis of the US-controlled FTAA.

To appreciate the momentous changes occurring in Latin America and the Caribbean, some background information is in order.

On December 14, 1994, Hugo Chávez arrived for the first time in Havana, having recently been granted clemency from prison in Venezuela, thus freeing him for the rest of his sentence for leading a failed civic/military coup. The Cuban stop was the last in a tour of Latin America. Chávez was looking to drum up international support for the burgeoning Bolivarian movement he was now leading. As he disembarked from his commercial airline flight, he was amazed to find Cuban President Fidel Castro waiting for him outside the aircraft. This would be the first of many encounters between the two revolutionaries. According to Cuban historian Eusebio Leal, Castro saw Chávez’s potential to become a political, international and revolutionary leader at the highest levels.

Four years after the meeting with Castro, Chávez was elected for the first time as President of Venezuela, in December 1998, and sworn in on February 2, 1999.

The FTAA began with the Summit of the Americas in Miami, Florida, on December 11, 1994. However, the FTAA only came to public attention during the Quebec City Summit of the Americas, during the weekend starting Friday, April 20, 2001, a few years after the Bolivarian Revolution had won political power. In Quebec City, the FTAA meeting was targeted by massive anti-corporate and anti-globalization protests. A vocal critic of the FTAA was Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who has described it as an “annexation plan” and a “tool of imperialism” for the exploitation of Latin America. Among the 31 participating nations present, Venezuela, represented by Chávez, was the only one that opposed it.

On December 14, 2004, three years after the Quebec City meeting, the Cuba–Venezuela Agreement was established to mark the 10th anniversary of the historic first encounter between the Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. The signed agreement was named the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

It was later known as ALBA-TCP, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), based on the Spanish Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, Tratado de Comercio de los Pueblos. The term “Bolivarian” refers to the ideology of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century South American independence leader born in Caracas who wanted South America to unite as a single “Great Nation.” “Our America” stems from José Martí’s concept of referring to a Latin America and Caribbean owned and governed by its people rather than outside interests.

This Cuba–Venezuela Agreement, signed by Presidents Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, was aimed mainly at the exchange of petroleum and medical and educational resources between the two nations. Venezuela began to deliver about 96,000 barrels of oil per day from its state-owned oil company, PDVSA, to Cuba at very favourable prices. In exchange, Cuba sent 20,000 state-employed medical staff and thousands of teachers to Venezuela’s poorest states as well as to Caracas. The agreement also made it possible for Venezuelans to travel to Cuba for specialized medical care, free of charge.

This is what Chávez foresaw when he took a stand in Quebec City against FTAA – to build the opposite, that is, ALBA-TCP, an alliance not based on selfish interests, but on mutual cooperation and solidarity that did not include the US and Canada. Founded initially by Cuba and Venezuela on December 14, 2004, it associated with other governments that wished to consolidate regional economic integration based on a shared vision of social welfare, mutual economic aid and development, and to strengthen cooperation through mutual respect and solidarity.

ALBA grew from two to 11 members. The 11 member-countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Grenada, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela.

It should be noted that on December 15, 2009, the de facto president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, issued an executive decree through which he decided that Honduras should leave ALBA. Honduras was a member of ALBA under the leadership of President Mel Zelaya. This was one of the reasons that the US organized a coup against Zelaya and his constitutionally elected government in 2009.

ALBA-TCP is an integration platform for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It emphasizes solidarity, complementary relationships, justice and cooperation, which have the historical and fundamental purpose of linking the capacities and strengths of the collaborating countries. The goal is to produce the structural transformations and relations necessary for achieving the integral development that is required for the continued existence of Latin America and the Caribbean as sovereign nations that are based on social justice. Additionally, ALBA-TCP is a political, economic and social alliance that defends the independence, self-determination and identity of the peoples comprising it.

For the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, integration is an indispensable condition to development amid the increasingly large formations of regional blocs that occupy predominant positions in the world economy. The cardinal principle that governs ALBA-TCP is the widest solidarity between the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, as upheld by Bolívar, Martí, Sucre, O’Higgins and so many other national heroes. This solidarity excludes selfish nationalism or restrictive national policies that reject the objective of constructing a large homeland in Latin America and the Caribbean, bringing to reality the dreams of the heroes of the emancipating struggles.

ALBA does not harbour commercial criteria or selfish interests related to business profits or national benefit to the detriment of other peoples. It seeks to rely on a wide Latin American vision that recognizes the fact that it is impossible for the countries to develop and be really independent in isolation. And one that aspires to seeing, as Bolívar stated, “the biggest nation of the world emerge in America, not less for its extension and wealth, but for its freedom and glory,” and what Martí would conceive as “Our America,” to separate it from the other America, which is expansionist and thus driven by imperial appetites. ALBA-TCP also has had as a goal to develop and widen regional integration even further, while the US-backed FTAA has been fizzling out.

What happened to the FTAA?

The last Summit was held at Mar del Plata, Argentina, in November 2005, but no agreement on FTAA was reached. Of the 34 countries present at the negotiations, 26 pledged to meet again in 2006 to resume negotiations, but no such meeting took place. The failure of the Mar del Plata Summit to establish a comprehensive FTAA agenda signalled the end of the US-backed FTAA. At the same time a very wide people’s mobilization from all over the continent rejected the FTAA in the very headquarters where this Summit took place, in the soccer stadium of Mar del Plata. The Summit thus occurred in the face of thousands of people who had demonstrated throughout the city. Chávez delivered a historic speech where he declared: “To hell with the FTAA!”

Let us briefly look at some of ALBA’s accomplishments regarding wider integration and programs. I provide only three examples even though there are many more.

1. Petrocaribe

Petrocaribe was established in 2005 and based on earlier agreements between ALBA founders Cuba and Venezuela. It looks to sell oil under a concessionary financial agreement to 14 member nations located in the Caribbean. This initiative provides the Caribbean nations with important hydrocarbon resources, which many do not possess in their territories.

2. teleSUR

Launched in 2005, teleSUR is a media conglomerate that provides news and current affairs broadcasts throughout the ALBA bloc. The program is founded on an Internet-based television channel and is a cooperative effort between the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. Note that Argentina and Uruguay are not ALBA members. While not yet a TV broadcast, teleSUR in English has recently been created as a website. I consider teleSUR to be the most important alternative to the media war carried out by the US conglomerates. I encourage you to follow and support this media initiative at www.telesurtv.net and www.telesurtv.net/english.

3. CELAC

ALBA countries were instrumental in the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, based on the Spanish Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños). CELAC is a regional bloc of Latin American and Caribbean states conceived on February 23, 2010, at the Rio Group–Caribbean Community Unity Summit, and created on December 3, 2011, in Caracas, Venezuela, with the signature of the Declaration of Caracas. It consists of 33 sovereign countries representing roughly 600 million people. Due to the focus of the organization on Latin American and Caribbean countries, other countries and territories in the Americas, namely Canada and the US, were not included. CELAC is an example of a decade-long push for deeper integration within Latin America and the Caribbean. CELAC is being created to deepen Latin American and Caribbean integration and to reduce the previously domineering influence of the US on the internal affairs and economics of Latin America. It is also seen as an alternative to the Organization of American States (OAS), the regional body organized largely by Washington in 1948. CELAC is developing its ties with other countries such as China and Russia, thus contributing significantly to the transformation of a unipolar world led by the US toward a multipolar world. The Bolivarian Revolution and Hugo Chávez have their imprint on this major international development.

In addition to the three points just mentioned, what have been the practical implications of ALBA?

The derailment of FTAA is representative of two broader trends, which ALBA has strengthened: helping to secure a post-neoliberal Latin America and lessening the grip of US imperialism in favour of independence and self-determination.

The economic model that ALBA is institutionalizing differs from orthodox neoliberalism in significant ways. For example, the state is being brought “back in” as an economic actor in order to restrict untrammelled market forces.

Whereas the neoliberal economic framework was often treated as “one-size-fits-all,” ALBA acknowledges the diversity of its members and emphasizes that a differentiated approach must be taken. Neither the universal removal of protective barriers, tariffs and subsidies, nor the compulsory adherence to ALBA programs, is a condition for ALBA membership.

ALBA has provided support for peoples and governments who have demanded the removal of US military bases and the cessation of US military-policing operations. Such is the case with the removal of US troops from the Manta military base in Ecuador and the expulsion of US-backed anti-drug enforcement personnel in Bolivia.

ALBA has fostered an expansion in trade between its members, which allows for greater self-sufficiency and lessens the long-standing dependency of these countries on the US market. This intra-ALBA trade has also been complemented by a diversification of the external trading partners of the ALBA countries.

Through the creation of the Bank of ALBA and a new regional currency – the SUCRE – ALBA is providing an alternative to the traditional reliance that Latin America has had upon the pro-status quo international financial institutions that many deem to be under the effective control of the US and Europe.

In terms of education, Mission Robinson, a literacy program based primarily on the positive experiences of Cuba, has been extremely successful. It is estimated to have reached over 3.8 million people, and has played a large role in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua achieving literacy rates that classify them, according to UNESCO standards, as illiteracy-free countries.

In my view, one of the key features of ALBA is solidarity and opposition to US interference.

Let us take the example of Venezuela. The ALBA-TCP issued a Special Communiqué after meeting in Caracas on September 14, 2015 entitled “In Defense of Venezuela’s Sovereignty and Independence.” I quote it here in full:

“The countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) express their firmest defense of the principles of independence, self-determination of peoples, sovereignty and sovereign equality of States that enable harmonious relations among the countries in the international community.

The ALBA-TCP countries cannot accept interference in the internal affairs of a state by another state. Thus, they express their concern regarding opinions on the judicial decisions taken in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, by the appropriate authority and within the framework of its sovereign jurisdiction, to punish terrorist acts and effectively protect the human rights of victims.

Some countries have spoken out about this fact revealing the double standard that violates the international legal order and favors political conditions to overthrow constitutional governments in an attempt to plunder strategic natural resources. These high-sounding statements attempt to hide serious violations of human rights in their own territories and prevent the deepening of the democratic processes that the ALBA countries have been developing in exercise of their right to self-determination.

The ALBA-TCP countries warn against the smear campaign, slanders and aggressions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and commit to remain alert vis-à-vis the threats to its peace, independence and sovereignty.

Caracas, September 14, 2015.”

This shows the importance of supporting Venezuela today. The goal of US imperialism is to smash the Bolivarian Revolution now led by the constitutionally elected President Nicolás Maduro in order to bring down other progressive governments, especially those that are members of ALBA. While focusing primarily on Venezuela and President Maduro, the US has also been very active recently in attempting to destabilize the constitutionally elected governments in Ecuador and Bolivia, led respectively by Rafael Correa and Evo Morales.

To stand in support of Venezuela and the ALBA countries today is to be on the side of sovereignty, self-determination and social justice, not only of the ALBA members, but also of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as the most promising region in the world for the future of mankind.

Thank you very much.

* Remarks by Arnold August at the First Gathering of Solidarity of Our America, Organized by the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Canada, Ottawa, September 26, 2015

Arnold August, a Canadian journalist and lecturer, is the author of Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections and, more recently, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion. Cuba’s neighbours under consideration are the US, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Arnold can be followed on Twitter @Arnold_August.

Its latest Big Lie headlined “How 4 Federal Lawyers Paved the Way to Kill Osama bin Laden” – failing to explain how killing a dead man is impossible. Resurrection wasn’t one of his skills, or anyone else’s.

It claimed “four administration lawyers developed rationales intend(ing) to overcome any legal obstacles” to killing, not capturing, him.

The New York Times ignored its own July 11, 2002 account, headlined “The Death of bin Ladenism,” saying:

Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December (2001 of natural causes) and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama’s gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama’s ghost alive or because they have no means of communication.

Prophetically, The Times said “bin Laden’s ghost may linger on – perhaps because Washington and Islamabad will find it useful…But the truth is that Osama bin Laden is dead.”

Ignoring its own earlier reporting is longstanding Times practice. Serving imperial interests take precedence. Its May 1, 2011 report contradicted its July 2002 one, headlining “Bin Laden Is Dead, Obama Says.”

An accurate headline would have debunked his phony claim. No one dies twice. Dead men don’t return for a second time around.

Instead of truth and full disclosure, The Times reported the myth about bin Ladin “killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan…”

Its source: Obama, a notorious serial liar, Times earlier reporting on bin Laden’s death proving his Big Lie.

Instead, it called bin Laden’s “demise…a defining moment in the American-led fight against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit of those who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.”

It perpetuated a second myth: that ill and dying bin Laden from a cave in Afghanistan, or Pakistan hospital where he was being treated, somehow managed to outwit the entire US intelligence establishment on that fateful day – ignoring what really happened, history’s greatest ever false flag, the mother of all Big Lies concealing it.

David Ray Griffin’s book, titled “Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive” is the seminal work about him, presenting “objective evidence and testimonies.”

It explained CIA monitored messages between him and his associates abruptly ceased after December 13, 2001. On December 26, 2001, a leading Pakistani newspaper reported his death, citing a prominent Taliban official attending his funeral – witnessing his dead body before it was laid to rest.

He was terminally ill with kidney disease and other ailments. On September 10, 2001 (one day before 9/11), CBS News anchor Dan Rather reported his admittance to a Rawalpindi, Pakistan hospital. He had nothing to do with 9/11.

In a late September 2001 interview with Pakistan’s Ummat newspaper, he categorically denied involvement in what happened on that fateful day. Fabricated claims otherwise persist – Big Lies suppressing hard truths.

Evidence Griffin presented showed “people in a position to know” said bin Laden died in December 2001 of natural causes – including then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani ISI intelligence, then US-installed Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and former FBI assistant counterterrorism head Dale Watson.

Griffin explained claims about “bin Laden’s continued existence (weren’t) backed up by evidence.” Perpetuating the myth about him remaining alive until US special forces allegedly killed him in May 2011 remains one of the many Big Lies of our time – The Times featuring it in its October 28 article, ignoring its own earlier confirmed report about his death.

It repeated a story gotten from unnamed US sources, claiming administration lawyers “worked in intense secrecy,” even keeping then Attorney General Eric Holder out of the loop.

Saying “(t)hey did their own research, wrote memos on highly secure laptops and traded drafts hand-delivered by (so-called) trusted couriers.” An unnamed US officials claimed “clear and ample authority for the use of lethal force under US and international law.”

No such authority exists to assassinate anyone extrajudicially for any reason. Doing so is murder. Bin Laden’s ghost was kept alive to pursue America’s war on terror.

So-called Enemy Number One was used to stoke fear to justify the unjustifiable – naked aggression against one country after another, continuing today, nearly 14 years after bin Laden’s real death. Obama did not kill him!!

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.

Sir John Chilcot has told Prime Minister David Cameron that the long-delayed, highly controversial report into the legality of the Iraq War will certainly be published in June or July 2016.

Why is John Kerry so eager to convene an emergency summit on Syria now when the war has been dragging on for four and a half years?

Is he worried that Russia’s air campaign is wiping out too many US-backed jihadis and sabotaging Washington’s plan to topple Syrian President Bashar al Assad?

You bet, he is. No one who’s been following events in Syria for the last three weeks should have any doubt about what’s really going on.  Russia has been methodically wiping out Washington’s mercenaries on the ground while recapturing large swathes of land that had been lost to the terrorists.  That, in turn, has strengthened Assad’s position in Damascus and left the administration’s policy in tatters.  And that’s why Kerry wants another meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pronto even though the two diplomats met less than a week ago.   The Secretary of State is hoping to cobble together some kind of makeshift deal that will stop the killing and salvage what’s left of Uncle Sam’s threadbare Syrian project.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Iran had been invited to the confab which will be held in Vienna on Thursday.  The announcement is bound to be ferociously criticized on Capital Hill, but it just shows to what extent Russia is currently setting the agenda. It was Lavrov who insisted that Iran be invited, and it was Kerry who reluctantly capitulated. Moscow is now in the drivers seat.

And don’t be surprised if the summit produces some pretty shocking results too, like a dramatic 180 on Washington’s “Assad must go” demand.   As Putin has pointed out many times before, Assad’s not going anywhere. He’s going to be a part of Syria’s “transitional governing body”  when the Obama team finally agrees to the Geneva Communique which is the political track that will eventually end the fighting, restore security, and allow millions of refugees to return to their homes.

The reason the administration is going to agree to allow Assad to stay, is because if they don’t, the Russian Airforce is going to continue to blow US-backed mercenaries to smithereens. So, you see, Obama really has no choice in the matter. Putin has put a gun to his head and made him an offer he can’t refuse.

That doesn’t mean the war is going to be a cakewalk for Russia or its allies. It won’t be. In fact, there have already been some major setbacks, like the fact that ISIS just seized a critical section the Aleppo-Khanasser highway, cutting off  the government’s supply-lines to Aleppo. This is a serious problem, but it is not a problem that can’t be overcome nor is it a problem that will effect the outcome of the war. It’s just one of the obstacles that has to be dealt with and surpassed.  Taking a broader view, the outlook is much more encouraging for the Russian-led coalition which continues to cut off supply-lines,  blow up ammo dumps and fuel depots, and rapidly eviscerate the ability of the enemy to wage war.  So, while the war is certainly not a walk in the park, there’s no doubt about who’s going to win.

And that might explain why the US decided to bomb Aleppo’s main power plant last week plunging the entire city into darkness; because Obama wants to “rubblize” everything on his way out.  Keep in mind, that the local water treatment plants require electrical power, so by blowing up the plant, Obama has condemned tens of thousands of civilians to cholera and other water-born diseases. Apparently, our hospital-nuking president isn’t bothered by such trivial matters as killing women and children. Now check this out from the Daily Star:

U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq and Syria carried out a large-scale attack on Syria’s Omar oil field as part of its mission to target ISIS’s ability to generate money, a coalition spokesman said Thursday.

Operations officer Maj. Michael Filanowski told journalists in Baghdad that airstrikes late Wednesday struck ISIS-controlled oil refineries, command and control centers and transportation nodes in the Omar oil field near the town of Deir el-Zour. Coalition spokesman Col. Steven Warren said the attack hit 26 targets, making it one of the largest set of strikes since launching the air campaign last year.

The refinery generates between $1.7 and $5.1 million per month for ISIS.

“It was very specific targets that would result in long-term incapacitation of their ability to sell oil, to get it out of the ground and transport it,” Filanowski said.

ISIS seized a number of oil refineries and other infrastructure in Iraq and Syria as it sought to generate revenue to build a self-sufficient state.  (“US-led forces strike ISIS-controlled oil field in Syria“, Daily Star)

Isn’t it amazing how– after a year of  combing the dessert looking for ISIS  targets– the USAF finally figures out where the goddamn oil refineries are? No wonder the western media chose to ignore this story. One can only conclude that Obama never had any intention of cutting off ISIS’s main funding stream (oil sales). What he really wanted was for the terrorist group to flourish provided it helped Washington achieve its strategic goals. Putin even pointed this out in a recent interview. He said:

The mercenaries occupy the oil fields in Iraq and Syria. They start extracting the oil-and this oil is purchased by somebody. Where are the sanctions on the parties purchasing this oil?

Do you believe the US does not know who is buying it?

Is it not their allies that are buying the oil from ISIS?

Do you not think that US has the power to influence their allies? Or is the point that they don’t  wish to influence them?

Putin was never taken in by the whole ISIS oil charade. He knew it was a farce from the get-go, ever since Financial Times published their thoroughly laughable article on the topic which claimed that ISIS had its own group of “headhunters” offering “competitive salaries” to engineers with the “requisite experience”  and encouraged  “prospective employees to apply to its human resources department.”

The ISIS “human resources department”??  Have you ever read anything more ridiculous in your life?  (Read the whole story here.)

In an interview with NPR,  FT fantasist Erika Solomon (who wrote the article) explained why the US could not bomb the oil fields or refineries. Here’s what she said:

What ISIS has done is managed to corner control of the extraction process, which is smart because they can’t get bombed there. It would cause a natural disaster. So they extract the oil, and then they immediately sell it to local traders – any average person who can buy a truck that they can fill with a tank of oil.

Well, that sure didn’t stop Maj. Michael Filanowski, now did it? He seems to have blown up those ISIS refineries without batting an eye, which just proves that Solomon’s “natural disaster” fairytale is pure bunkum.

But if it was all baloney, then why did the USAF decide to hit the targets now? What changed?

Here’s a clue from an article that popped up on RT just one day before the attacks:

“Russia’s airplanes cut off routes used by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) to deliver supplies to Syria from Iraq by bombing a bridge over the Euphrates River, the Russian General Staff said

The bridge over the Euphrates River near [the Syrian city of] Deir ez-Zor was a key point of the logistics chain [of IS]. Today Russian pilots carried out a surgical strike against the object,” the deputy chief of the General Staff of Russia, Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov, said on Thursday during a news briefing, adding that the terrorist group’s armament and ammunition delivery route had been cut off.
(“Russian Air Force cuts off ISIS supply lines by bombing bridge over Euphrates“, RT)

There it is: The Russians blow up a critical bridge over the Euphrates making oil transport impossible, and  the next thing you know, BAM, the US goes into scorched earth-mode leveling everything in sight.  Coincidence?

Not  bloody likely.  The whole incident suggests the mighty CIA is rolling up its pet project in Syria and headed for the exits.  (It’s worth noting that ISIS has never been a self sustaining corporate franchise netting over a million bucks a day on oil receipts as western propaganda would have one believe. That’s all part of the public relations coverup used to conceal the fact that the Gulf allies and probably CIA black ops are funding these homicidal maniacs.)

In any event, the Russian intervention is forcing Washington to rethink its Syria policy. While Kerry is bending over backwards to end the fighting,  Obama is busy tweaking the policy in a way that appeases his critics on the right without provoking a confrontation with Moscow. It’s a real tight-wire act, but the White House PR team thinks they can pull it off. Check this out from NBC News:

“Defense Secretary Ash Carter today revealed that the U.S. will openly begin “direct action on the ground” against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria.

In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee on Tuesday, Carter said “we won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL…or conducting such mission directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground.” (“Sec. Carter: U.S. to Begin ‘Direct Action on the Ground’ in Iraq, Syria“, NBC News)

This sounds a lot worse than it is. The truth is, Obama has no stomach for the type of escalation the hawks (like Hillary Clinton and John McCain ) are demanding. There aren’t going to be any “safe zones” or “no-fly zones” or any other provocations which would risk a bloody conflagration with Moscow. What Obama is looking for is the best face-saving strategy available that will allow him to retreat without incurring the wrath of the  Washington warmongers. It’s a tall order, but Sec-Def Ash Carter has come up with a plan that might just do-the-trick.  This is from The Hill:

Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday described new ways the U.S. military plans to increase pressure on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, after months of criticism that the administration is not doing enough to defeat the terrorist group.

“The changes we’re pursuing can be described by what I call the ‘three R’s’ — Raqqa, Ramadi and Raids,” Carter testified the Senate Armed Services Committee.

First, Carter said the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS plans to support moderate Syrian forces to go after Raqqa — the terrorist group’s stronghold and administration capital.

The secretary also said he hopes to pursue a new way of equipping the Syrian Arab Coalition, which consists of about a dozen groups.

“While the old approach was to train and equip completely new forces outside of Syria before sending them into the fight, the new approach is to work with vetted leaders of groups that are already fighting ISIL, and provide equipment and some training to them and support their operations with airpower,” he said.

He also said the coalition expects to intensify its air campaign with additional U.S. and coalition aircraft, and to target ISIS with a higher and heavier rate of strikes.

“This will include more strikes against ISIL high-value targets as our intelligence improves, and also its oil enterprise, which is a critical pillar of ISIL’s financial infrastructure,” Carter said, using a different acronym for ISIS.” (“Pentagon chief unveils new plan for ISIS fight“, The Hill)

See anything new here? It’s a big nothingburger, right?

They’re going to kill more “high-value targets”?

Big whoop. That’s always been the gameplan, hasn’t it?  Of course, it has.

What this shows is that Obama is just running out the clock hoping he can keep this mess on the back-burner until he’s out of office and working out the terms of his first big book deal.  The last thing he wants is to get embroiled in a spitting match with the Kremlin his final year in office.

Unfortunately, the problem Obama is going to encounter is that Putin can’t simply turn off the war machine with the flip of a switch. It took Moscow a long time to decide to intervene in Syria, just like it took a long time to marshal the forces that would be deployed, build the coalition and draft the battleplan.  The Russians don’t take war lightly, so now that they’ve put the ball into motion they’re not going to stop until the job is done and the bulk of the terrorists have been exterminated.  That means there’s not going to be a ceasefire in the immediate future. Putin needs to demonstrate that once Moscow commits its forces, it will persevere until it achieves victory. That victory could come in the form of “liberating Aleppo” and a subsequent sealing off of the Turkish-Syria border or he might have some other goal in mind. But it’s a matter of credibility as much as anything. If Putin pulls back, hesitates or shows even the slightest lack of resolve, Washington will see it as a sign of weakness and try to exploit it. So Putin has no choice but to see this thing through to the bitter end.  At the very least, he needs to prove to Washington that when Russia gets involved, Russia wins.

That’s a message Washington needs to hear.

According to American experts citing certain Syrian humanitarian groups, the Islamic State in recent days has achieved several significant successes in the South Aleppo province and has infiltrated and established control over several districts of the strategically important town of al Safira.

As a result of the offensive the ISIS was able to capture about 10 checkpoints on the strategically important highway from Hama via Salmiya, Inshriach and Hanser to Aleppo. This forced government forces to suspend its offensive on other fronts, especially in Aleppo, and to redeploy its forces to unblock the strategic highway to resume the logistical support for the Syrian army. Although ISIS successes are being exaggerated by the so-called “humanitarian analysts”, it is a fact that there is heavy fighting in the South Aleppo province.

In addition, about 1,500 Hezbollah fighters and about 2,000 Iranians from the IRGC are fighting right now near Aleppo. According to the information received, the government forces and the allies had unblocked the highway Hama-Aleppo and recapture al Safira.

However, the question arises as to why and how the Islamic State had got the ability to concentrate sizable fresh and well-armed forces in Aleppo province. The answer can be obtained from a brief analysis of the US actions in Syria and Iraq over the past 10 days.

It is already clear that the US commanders are sabotaging the advance of the Kurds in Raqqa.

The intensity of the pro-US coalition air force combat missions has been reduced substantially (by an order of magnitude).

Until now the U.S. regional command has not deployed its FAC ( forward air controller) teams and commandos into Kurds forward combat forces and with the Iraqi army. The number of the US military advisers is bitterly inadequate and, for all intents and purposes, their mission largely consists of containing Kurdish forces activity and playing political games.

Last week, information appeared about the growing number of cases of US-supplied weapons and ammunition being seized by the ISIS.

These factors combined with the complete lack of the Kurdish and Iraqi forces initiative in Anbar province allows the Islamic State to maneuver freely, transferring reinforcements from Iraq to Syria.

Today, Syria is the main strategically important front. ISIS’ existence directly depends on it. If smuggled oil exports through Syria to Turkey stop, ISIS will lose the foundation of combat potential, in both human and material terms.

According to independent military experts, the current United States course aims at containing Syrian government forces successes at any price. Pentagon believes that the failure of the Syrian army can trigger the transfer to Syria Russian land forces and the beginning of a protracted and costly ground operation.

When was the last time a politician came across like the lone voice of principle railing against the dangers of an imperial presidency? That’s what it looked in Spring 2011 when Ron Paul, the Texas libertarian running for the Republican presidential nomination, wrote candidly about the War Powers Resolution, the Patriot Act and mission creep after 9/11. The column was called “Enabling a Future American Dictator.” At times he sounded a lot like Bernie Sanders.

In the column Paul noted that the 60-day deadline for getting congressional approval of the current military action in Libya under the 1973 War Powers Resolution had passed without notice. Predictably, he chided President Obama for not seeking a congressional OK and wondered whether he ever would. Forget Paul’s party for a moment. Wasn’t he on to something?

The Constitution, specifically Article 1 Section 8, clearly states that the power to declare war rests with the legislative branch. The original idea was to prevent the president from exerting the powers of a king. But presidents have been manipulating and ignoring such constitutional limitations for more than a century. Given the expansive nature of the federal government, Paul warned that “it would be incredibly naïve to think a dictator could not or would not wrest power in this country” at some point in the future. A bit of negative extrapolation there, but still, many people across the political spectrum do worry that it could indeed happen here.

It’s the kind of argument you expect to hear from Sanders. Actually, the two lawmakers did sometimes join forces when Bernie was a Congressman. Later, the godfather of the Tea Party movement and the junior Senator from the People’s Republic of Vermont teamed up to propose military budget cuts and push for a more thorough audit of the Federal Reserve.

Were these just isolated moments of Left and Right collaboration? Or could a movement that attracts both progressives and libertarians actually develop?

Paul also pointed to the Defense Authorization bill. It “explicitly extends the president’s war powers to just about anybody,” he claimed. The problem — Section 1034, which asserted that the US is at war with the “associated forces” of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Bringing in civil liberties, Paul asked how hard it would be “for someone in the government to target a political enemy and connect them to al Qaeda, however tenuously, and have them declared an associated force?” It’s an argument that Left-leaning activists should find relevant.

His forecast was that even if we assume the people in charge at the moment are completely trustworthy – a major assumption – the future is far from certain. “Today’s best intentions create loopholes and opportunities for tomorrow’s tyrants,” Paul warned. Given the current crop of potential national leaders, it’s hard to disagree.

While a Texas Republican may not be the best messenger for a new alliance, Paul did have a following, based largely on his strict libertarianism and 2008 presidential run. Then the financial crisis seemed to spark something new: the potential for a convergence between progressives, liberals and traditional libertarians. In January 2011 Ralph Nader called the prospect of such an alliance the nation’s “most exciting new political dynamic.” Another element was generational change. Sparked by the excesses of elites and the wealthy few, a resistance movement fueled by youthful energy – an American Spring? – began to show the potential to catch fire and break down political boundaries. Among the issues that framed its agenda were intervention and military spending, individual freedom, and financial reform.

One of the unifying themes is the desire to limit, and whenever possible reverse the influence of centralized wealth and power. Sanders, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, has frequently expressed this perspective, forging alliances that cross party lines to challenge corporate secrecy and the powers of international financial institutions.

Much of Sanders’ early legislative success came through forging deals with ideological opposites. An amendment to bar spending in support of defense contractor mergers, for example, was pushed through with the aid of Chris Smith, a prominent opponent of abortion. John Kasich (now Ohio governor and GOP candidate), whose views on welfare, the minimum wage and foreign policy as a congressman could hardly be more divergent from Sanders’, helped him phase out risk insurance for foreign investments. And a “left-right coalition” he helped to create derailed the “fast track” legislation on international agreements pushed by Bill Clinton.

The impact of the strategy was clearly felt in May 2010 when Sanders’ campaign to bring transparency to the Federal Reserve resulted in a 96-0 Senate vote on his amendment to audit the Fed and conduct a General Accounting Office audit of possible conflicts of interest in loans to unknown banks.

Here is Sanders’ overall view in a nutshell: International financial groups protect the interests of speculators and banks at the expense of the poor and working people – not to mention the environment – behind a veil of secrecy. Meanwhile, governments have been reduced to the status of figureheads under international management, both major political parties kowtow to big money flaks, and media myopia fuels public ignorance. Many libertarians, even a good number of Tea Party people, agree.

But how do you mobilize and unite people across traditional cultural and political lines? A key may be found in sovereignty and nullification campaigns. Diverse as these efforts are, most rest on the proposition that the states and sovereign individuals created the national government. Therefore, they have the right to at least challenge the constitutionality of federal laws, and potentially even decline to enforce them. Though this may sound more conservative than not, liberals and leftists do also adopt such a stance at times.

The unifying idea goes something like this: In the face of oppression (however you define it) withdrawal of consent can make all the difference. When people refuse their cooperation, withhold their help, and maintain their position, they deny their opponent the support that oppressive, hierarchical systems need. Gene Sharp, author of Social Power and Political Freedom, once observed, “If they do this in sufficient numbers for long enough, that government or hierarchical system will no longer have power.”

Centuries back, the tactic was used when American colonists nullified laws imposed by the British. Since then states have used it to limit federal actions, from the Fugitive Slave Act to unpopular tariffs. Before 1800, support for nullification emerged in reaction to the Sedition Act, which prompted the Kentucky Resolve of 1798, written by Thomas Jefferson, and the almost identical Virginia Resolve penned by James Madison. In Section One of his version, Jefferson wrote:

Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self Government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force . . . .

That the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common Judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well as of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

In plain English, this means that federal authority isn’t unlimited, and if it goes too far government actions need not be obeyed. In essence, Jefferson suggested that the federal government isn’t the “final judge” of its own powers, and therefore various states have a right to decide how to handle any federal overreach. Madison’s Virginia version declared that in the case of a deliberate and dangerous abuse of power, states not only had a right to object, they were “duty bound” to stop the “progress of the evil” and maintain their “authorities, rights and liberties.”

After Jefferson enacted a trade embargo as president in response to British maritime theft and the kidnapping of sailors, state legislatures nullified the law using his own words and arguments. On February 5, 1809, the Massachusetts legislature declared that the embargo was “not legally binding on the citizens of the state” and denounced it as “unjust, oppressive, and unconstitutional.” Eventually, every New England state, as well as Delaware, voted to nullify the embargo act.

Moral for Jefferson: Be careful what you resolve.

Two centuries later, in August 2010, the Missouri legislature used similar logic to reject the health care mandate in the Democrat’s health care reform, followed by a flood of legal challenges from state officials. In recent years, several states have also either passed or proposed legislation or constitutional amendments designed to nullify federal laws in the areas ranging from firearms to medical marijuana.

The Tea Party movement, set in motion in 2009 by widespread disapproval of the federal government’s bailout of financial institutions, initially swelled into a tidal wave of anti-big-government sentiment that helped the Republican Party regain control of the US House in 2010. Supporters said the movement marked a return to core values. Critics called it reactionary and possibly racist.

It is certainly funded in part by wealthy interests who see its angry members as tools to advance their own deregulation, limited government agenda. And yet, the Tea Party phenomenon is also a loose and relatively diverse association that includes fiscal conservatives, Christian fundamentalists, secular libertarians and more. A March 2010 poll estimated 37 percent support for its basic economic agenda, although that may have been its high water mark. The main take away is that it encompasses a variety of impulses, from orthodox libertarianism and neo-isolationism to populist anger directed at elites, deficit spending and perceived threats to US interests.

Some have written off the recent anti-federal government rebellion as a Republican ploy. But there have certainly been Left-wing crusades against federal abuse of power in the past, and liberal nullification campaigns to decriminalize marijuana and bring National Guard units home from wars overseas.

Will most Tea Party people join forces with progressives? Not likely. The main obstacle is several generations of cultural war, passionate and sometimes violent disagreement over racism, abortion, immigration, entitlements and climate change, among other things. In fact, progressives and Tea Party people can sometimes perceive different “realities.” Since 2008 many on one side have decided that Obama is a socialist, maybe even a Muslim Manchurian Candidate. On the other side, many say he is at best a sell out, and in some ways has doubled down on the mistakes and abuses of the previous administration. One group says climate change is a hoax or at least exaggerated, and the government should institute literacy tests for voting. The other sees ecological (or economic) catastrophe around the corner, thinks guns should be carefully controlled, and sometimes even argues that states ought to seize public resources as “trustees” of the commons.

At the same time, however, there’s enough common ground to attract people from across the conventional divide. Don’t both libertarians and progressives believe that the size and reach of the US military should be limited? Don’t both think that civil liberties are being eroded by executive orders and legislative overreach? Beyond that, they also agree, perhaps more than either has yet acknowledged, about the greed and dysfunction of big institutions, and the need for more transparency and oversight. In this regard, Sanders has pointed the way. At times libertarian voices are even bolder than progressive counterparts, especially those who say that the War on Drugs should end and most if not all drugs should be legalized. But Sanders is gradually embracing this campaign.

If that’s not convincing, ask yourself what could happen without some attempt to create a progressive-libertarian connection. Most libertarians, Tea Party members and others dissatisfied with the status quo will be actively wooed by conservative demagogues. Many will be sidetracked into grievance and resentment. Where else will they have to go? Still, it remains to be seen whether the issues on which there isn’t much common ground – and these should not be underestimated – will make it impossible to create or sustain some solidarity.

On the other hand, if a multi-issue alliance could bring people together across the usual ideological barriers around galvanizing issues, how about these: end corporate welfare, bring the troops home, new economic priorities, roll back repressive legislation, and full financial transparency.

Such a list is probably incomplete, and for some, may not go far enough. Fair enough. But it does potentially bridge some of the divisions that keep many people fighting among themselves while realigning conventional politics. In the long run, a Progressive-Libertarian movement probably wouldn’t last. But before it faded – if people overcame some traditional divisions, if the debate really changed and some new thinking took hold – wouldn’t the moment be exciting?

Greg Guma is the author of The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution. This is adapted from his original radio broadcast on The Howie Rose Show, Friday, June 3, 2011, on WOMM (105.9-FM/LP – The Radiator) in Burlington.

In it, Oliver Stone and his collaborators focus on the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration.

The Film presents how many American lives were lost as well as the torture incidents that American soldiers were involved in.

As for the conspiracies involved, it also presents the personal motive of Bush was more of a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein rather than catching the terrorists who were guilty of the September 11 attacks in New York.

Added to that, it also tries to portray how the Bush administration attempted to manipulate the terror warnings to the Americans to fulfill their political motives.

The readers of my weekly Duty to Warn columns know that I often write about some of the concerns that I have regarding the once honorable medical profession that I called my own for 40 years.

Actually, my major concerns haven’t been solely about physicians, but about the for-profit systems that have arisen since I was a medical student. Most of the med school friends that I knew seemed to be serious about their desire to do good in the world. I sincerely believed that most of us took seriously the Hippocratic Oath (“first do no harm”) that we all swore to adhere to when we got our medical degrees.

I was naively grateful to Eli Lilly and Company when the company gave us reflex hammers, stethoscopes and a doctor’s bag during our second-year clinical rotations. I still have them and, although the rubbery parts are getting pretty brittle now, the chrome plating is still shiny.

The reputation of Lilly since the 1960s, however, has been increasingly grimy on the ethical inside but somehow still somewhat shiny when it comes to corporate profits.

Ever since 1989, there have been thousands of lawsuits (originating in every state of the union) that have been brought against Lilly just from its block buster (so-called “antidepressant” drug Prozac. Prozac received FDA approval for marketing in 1987 and it didn’t take long for surprised psychiatrists all over the world to start seeing dramatic increases in suicide attempts and suicidal thinking among the patients that they had naively recommended taking the new drug. One set of Prozac class action suits settled for $1.5 billion.

To mention another example of Lilly’s dangerous drugs, in 2007 Lilly settled a class action lawsuit with 18,000 drug-injured patients because it had misrepresented the serious (and sometimes lethal) adverse effects of its next block buster drug, the major tranquilizer (aka “antipsychotic” drug) Zyprexa. The suit cost them a half a billion dollars, which is actually chump change for Big Pharma corporations like Lilly. More Zyprexa civil and criminal lawsuits are yet to come over the obesity, diabetes and heart problems that are caused by the drug. Lilly never took either drug off the market.

I could go on for a long time, but it needs to be mentioned that currently there are hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits against Lilly because, in their product labeling, they mis-represented the incidence of what has come to be known as the Cymbalta Withdrawal Syndrome. Lilly claimed a 1% incidence of withdrawal symptoms whereas other studies found significant withdrawal symptoms in 40% – 50% of long-term Cymbalta users.

Beware of Salespersons Who Come to Your Clinic Bearing Gifts

I could go on and on with other data detailing Big Pharma’s malfeasance. Those three Lilly drugs mentioned were easy targets because a number of my patients had been harmed or hooked on them. But Lilly is not – sadly – atypical when it comes to lawsuits and legal damages. The large numbers mask the immensity of the suffering that isn’t outlined. I saw the damages first hand, but none of my patients ever found a lawyer who was willing to take their cases.

For most of my career, I am proud to say that I have been suspicious of drug reps that came bearing gifts. I did listen to them and also ate an occasional lobster and steak dinner while enduring a short lecture from some drug company-affiliated academic physician who had been paid thousands of dollars (on an all-expenses paid tour) just to give a brief talk about a specific disorder or drug. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was the real message.

These same drug reps would often show up at my clinic, “generously” bringing free pens, pizzas and post-it notes. Before they left, they would stock the drug sample room with colorful pills in little boxes that were to be given out free to my unaware (and often naively grateful) patients, thus saving them a little money at the start of their “treatment”, but with the high likelihood of their becoming dependent on the new, very expensive and potentially addictive drug, which would eventually cost her or her insurance company a ton of money.

Little did I realize how cunning were the intentions of the pseudo-magnanimous Eli Lilly and Company (and all the other Big Pharma companies) that were obviously, in retrospect, trying to buy my loyalty so early in my career.

Because I spent the last decade of my career providing holistic, non-drug, mental health care to patients (who sometimes identified themselves as “psychiatric survivors”), I became increasingly aware of the dark side of the psycho-pharmaceutical industry.

In taking careful, time-consuming histories from my patients (who knew they were being sickened by their drugs), I learned that most of what had been previously diagnosed as a permanent “chronic mental illness” (of unknown cause but still “needing life-long medication”) was in fact just a temporary affliction that needed good counseling and a brain-healthy diet and not brain-altering, potentially addicting medications.

I also learned that much of what had been wrongly diagnosed as a new mental illness diagnosis, a “worsening” or “relapse” after psychotropic drugs had been prematurely prescribed or whose dosing had suddenly changed were in fact adverse effects of the unnecessary drugs that had been prescribed in a trial-and-error fashion, in too large a dose, for too long a duration, in unapproved, untested combinations or causing a dangerous drug-withdrawal syndrome.

Rather than suffering from mental illnesses “of unknown cause: virtually every one of my patients were actually suffering from identifiable emotional stresses “of known cause” (and therefore preventable and more easily treatable).

My patients were actually undiagnosed victims of psychological trauma in childhood or adolescence, domestic abuse or the military, so I did a lot of teaching about the reality of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how easy it is for health caregivers to make erroneous diagnoses of “mental illnesses of unknown etiology” if not enough time is taken in the initial interview. I also taught my patients and their concerned families about the physiology of the brain, the mechanisms of action of the various drugs and the molecular structures of the drugs that were sickening them.

But the most time-consuming and difficult part of my practice was the process of helping them slowly taper down and hopefully eventually get off of their offending brain-altering medications. Success at drug withdrawal is difficult to predict because psychiatric drug-afflicted patients may have been on their medications for years or decades, in bewildering numbers of cocktail combinations (none FDA-approved or even tested for safety in the rat labs), and at various, potentially brain-damaging dosages. And most of my patients had become dependent/addicted to the offending drugs, so adverse withdrawal effects were often confusing but very common.

My purpose here is not to try to outline the multitude of ways that patients can be helped to get off of their psych drugs, because each case was entirely different from one another and therefore each case had to be individualized. Any attempt to generalize getting through drug withdrawal syndromes is impossible, because there are so many variables that have to be evaluated.

Among the many variables that need to be considered are age, gender, intrauterine (maternal) drug, alcohol or vaccine exposures, breast-feeding (or not), infant or childhood vaccine-induced neurological damage, history of family-rearing traumas that would include neglect or sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual traumas, physical health, prior and current drug use (illicit and prescription), past or current nutritional deficiencies, past or present toxic food ingestion, exposure to environmental toxins (pollutants in air, water, soil or food), history of head trauma, history of adolescent vaccine-induced brain damage, etc.

Therefore it is impossible to describe how any given psychotropic drug-wounded, possibly addicted and/or mis-diagnosed psychiatric patient can be helped to reverse the damage, but I do feel it is my duty to warn as many people as I can so that they can become aware that there are alternatives to psychotropic drugs or electroshock.

In summary, the major themes that I have dealt with in some of my columns have included: 1) the known dangers of the synthetic drugs that are commonly prescribed for often temporary (not permanent) emotional problems; 2) the serious, often life-threatening withdrawal syndromes that can result when these drugs are stopped or tapered down (thus indicating that the drugs were addictive); 3) information about brain nutrient therapy for brain-malnourished folks who may actually be neurologically-impaired and not simply mentally-impaired; 4) safer, non-toxic, non-drug alternative approaches to mental ill health; 5) information about the reality of combat and non-combat-induced psychological traumas (PTSD) as causative factors in mental ill health; and 6) the large variety of aspects of PTSD that have been mis-diagnosed as “mental illnesses of unknown origin”.

My experience dealing with psychiatric survivors is rather unique. My writings were informed by my clinical experience at a mental institution full of drugged-up patients and as an independent holistic health care practitioner with over a thousand patients who had mental ill health issues.

I’m also just one of a number of black-listed whistle-blowers world-wide who have been “crying in the wilderness”, with no money from Big Pharma sugar daddies who so arrange the mainstream media appearances of a host of well-paid, pro-drug, academic psychiatrists. There are no industry lobbyists or corporations that are interested in helping us whistle-blowers to refute – with good science to back up the message – the propaganda coming from the mega-corporations that are in the drug game primarily for their next quarter’s profit report and shareholder value, not to mention the reputation of their highly paid lobbyists, their ad agencies, their spokespersons and their spin doctors.

American corporations have no legally enforceable obligation to work for the benefit of the patients who will be taking sub-lethal doses of their potentially very toxic products every day for the rest of their lives. And American vaccine makers are legally immune from prosecution for injury or death from their potentially neurotoxic vaccines; and brain damage from Big Pharma’s psych drugs are hard to prove in court, especially with the power of the company’s million dollar legal teams.

“The further a society (or an industry?) drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

As mentioned above, I took the Hippocratic Oath the day I received my medical degree, as did the honorable psychiatrist/authors Peter Breggin, Loren Mosher, Joseph Glenmullen, David Healy, Grace Jackson and any number of other courageous and altruistic whistle-blowing physicians who have regarded it as their sacred duty to warn unsuspecting others about the hidden dangers of synthetic prescription drugs that are contaminating the brains and bodies of hundreds of millions of unsuspecting humans. Courageous psychiatrists like those mentioned above also took their oath seriously, even though they were all risking the wrath of their employers and many of the members of their own profession. Each of these psychiatrists had their careers threatened for rocking the boat. It seemed that none of their good deeds went unpunished.

George Orwell understood the whistleblower’s dilemma well when he said: “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” And that is where the concept of cognitive dissonance comes in, being willfully blind or ignorant when being confronted by new truths.

Considering the authors mentioned above and Orwell’s profound truth, I have been in good company.

DISCLAIMER: Readers who are interested in reducing their psych drug use should consult their prescribing physician and not suddenly stop them. Stopping drugs suddenly can be more dangerous than starting them. They should consult a physician knowledgeable in neuroscience, brain nutrition and with experience in helping people safely discontinue psychiatric medications.

For elaboration of some of the statements above, please search my video interviews on YouTube at: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=YouTube+Gary+Kohls or read some of my pertinent past columns at the Duluth Reader website at: (http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn).

Israel’s war on Palestine is a clear example of extrajudicial brutality, trampling on fundamental human rights, attacking defenseless people unaccountably, getting away with mass murder and other atrocities. 

Under international law, hospitals are safe zones, protected spaces, off limits for military and police attacks and invasions.

The 19th century Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick (incorporated into the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols) mandates caring for them along with medical personnel and chaplains, without any distinction as to nationality.

Israel systematically breaches all international laws with impunity, operating like America, observing its own rules alone, no matter how lawless.

Hospitals are fair game for assaults and invasions. One or more US warplanes bombing the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Kunduz, Afghanistan medical facility weeks earlier, turning much of it to rubble, killing and injuring medical staff and patients is Exhibit A.

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers and undercover agents storm Palestinian hospitals often – endangering staff, terrorizing and arresting patients, seizing records for names of others to abduct.

Human rights workers denounce the practice. So does Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Jawad Awwad, explaining “(i)nternational law prohibits attacking hospitals and abducting patients. It also calls for enabling medical crews to act freely and safely, to perform their humanitarian mission.”

Jerusalem’s Al-Makassed Islamic Charitable Hospital is a frequent target, the latest incursion coming on Wednesday after a Tuesday assault.

Each time, heavily armed soldiers surrounded the hospital, blocking anyone from entering or exiting, then storming the facility – where they don’t belong for any reason.

Hospital head Dr. Rafiq al-Husseini said staff were ordered to hand over patients’ records, including reasons for admittance. Israel wants information on inpatients and other released. Frequent arrests follow, including abducting the sick and wounded from hospital beds, a gross international law violation.

Husseini said “(w)e have no legal responsibility to inform the occupation army and the police about anything we do in this charitable hospital. Our medical teams are here to help the patients, the wounded, and any person who needs our services.”

“The Israeli military has invaded our hospital two days in a row. Yesterday they even interrogated one of our doctors at a police station in Jabal al-Mokabber in Jerusalem. Today they invaded the hospital again and confiscated a computer that runs our surveillance system.”

The facility is a frequent Israeli military target, Husseini explained. Repeated violations constitute a grave breach of international law, he stressed. His call for international community help won’t be answered.

He expects continued incursions, along with threats and intimidation of medical staff and patients. Names of emergency care unit doctors and nurses were collected. Expect grueling interrogations to follow.

An earlier October incident involved Israeli undercover agents invading the Nablus area Specialized Arab Hospital. Medical director Samir al-Khayyat said they were disguised as Palestinians accompanying a patient.

They kidnapped Karam al-Masri from his bed at gunpoint. They disabled most, but not all security cameras. Video footage of their assault was posted online, showing about a dozen agents intruding through various hospital areas, some holding handguns.

Masri was being treated for workplace related injuries. Israel issued a gag order, concealing information about him, preventing any leaking out from being revealed.

Atrocities committed by its security forces continue daily. Palestinian deaths, injuries and arrests keep mounting. Unaccountable brutality is longstanding Israeli practice.

On Wednesday alone, over 70 Palestinians were kidnapped, including university students and children. Since October 1, eight Israelis died so far – only two from stabbing attacks, destroying the myth about knife-wielding Arab assailants, the same phony excuse Israeli authorities give every time as justification for murdering at least 65 Palestinians in cold blood over the past four weeks, more than two daily on average.

Occasional video evidence destroys their claims, revealing willful security force assassinations of unarmed youths, children and women.

The struggle for Palestinian liberation continues, courageous youths in the vanguard, risking death for freedom.

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.

The Russian Defense Ministry has urged NATO and Saudi Arabia to explain accusations that Russian airstrikes had allegedly targeted hospitals in Syria, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Tuesday.

Deputy Def Minister Anatoly #Antonov‘s statement for Media after meeting with mil.attaches https://t.co/7ySjYZMmC5 pic.twitter.com/eKHZlFZ5lk

— Минобороны России (@mod_russia) October 27, 2015

According to him, information attacks on the Russian Aerospace Forces’ actions in Syria have intensified in a number of Western media outlets.

“We are being accused not only of launching airstrikes on ‘moderate opposition’, but also on civilian targets like hospitals, as well as mosques and schools. As a result, civilians are allegedly killed, according to Western media reports,” Antonov added.

#Antonov: We’re accused of performing strikes at objects like hospitals, mosques and schools. As by Western media civilians are being killed

— Минобороны России (@mod_russia) October 27, 2015

He expressed regret that “some officials and politicians of a number of foreign states make similar statements [on civilian deaths in Russian airstrikes in Syria].”

China and Russia are still behind the U.S. militarily.  But they are both showing surprising breakthroughs that – sometime down the road in the future – could threaten U.S. hegemony.

The Washington Times reported last month:

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Wednesday warned Russia and China are quickly closing the military technology gap with the U.S. as inconsistent military budgets and slower innovation threaten America’s lead in the military world.

***

“It’s evident that nations like Russia and China have been pursuing military modernization programs to close the technology gap with the United States,” he continued. “They’re developing platforms designed to thwart our traditional advantages of power projection and freedom of movement. They’re developing and fielding new and advanced aircraft and ballistic, cruise, anti-ship and anti-air missiles that are longer-range and more accurate.”

The SecDef issued this warning before Russia stunned the U.S. with its long-range missile and electronic communications-jamming capacities.

How could this be happening, when U.S. military spending dwarfs that from the rest of the world?

There are six reasons …

1. Corruption and Pork.   America spends a large percentage of it’s defense spending on unnecessary military programs that:

• The generals say aren’t helpful and don’t even want

• Redundant personnel, programs and systems which don’t increase our war-fighting capacity

• Equipment which is built and then immediately mothballed before it is ever used

• Money is being thrown away on ridiculous things like a Homeland Security seminar called  “Did Jesus Die for Klingons Too?” and mansions and personal chefs for generals

Indeed – as many lottery winners and star athletes will tell you – it’s easy to piss away even huge sums of money over a couple of years’ time without discipline.

And plain old corruption is wasting huge sums and dramatically weakening our national security.

How much are we talking about?

Well, here’s some indication: $8.5 trillion dollars in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 … has never been accounted for.

2. Fighting the Wrong Wars. A closely-related issue is that the war-fighting assets are being squandered, spread thin and distracted by fighting wars which decrease our national security.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the most expensive in U.S. history, costing between between $4 trillion and $6 trillion dollars.

And we spent additional boatloads of money carrying out regime change in Libya, Syria and elsewhere.

But these wars have only caused ISIS and the Taliban to flourish.

Indeed, the majority of our defense spending is – literally – making us less secure because we’re spending money to fight the wrong wars:

• We’re overthrowing the moderates who help insure stability

• We’re arming and supporting brutal dictators … which is one of the main reasons that terrorists want to attack the U.S.

• We’ve fought a series of wars for petrochemicals, instead of security

• We expend huge sums of money on mass surveillance … but top security experts agree that mass surveillance makes us MORE vulnerable to terrorists (we’re targeting the wrong guys)

3. Never-Ending War Destroys the Economy. We’re in the longest continuous period of war in U.S. history.  The Afghanistan War has  been going on for 14 years … as long as the Civil War (4 years,), WW1 (4 years) and WW2 (6 years) COMBINED.

Wars which drag on are horrible for our economy.  A weak economy – in turn – makes it more difficult to sustain a leadership role in defense in the long-run.

And Americans are sick and tired of war.  If our national security was actually threatened, it might be hard for the government to rouse our commitment and motivation.

4. More Bang for the Buck. China has the world’s largest economy when measured by “purchasing power parity” … meaning how much Chinese can buy in their their local currency in their local economy. And see this.

Therefore, China can buy locally-produced military parts and services more cheaply than the U.S. can.

As Bloomberg noted last year:

The lowest-paid U.S. soldiers earn about $18,000 a year. In comparison, in 2009, an equivalent Chinese soldier was paid about a ninth as much. In other words, in 2009, you could hire about nine Chinese soldiers for the cost of one U.S. soldier.

Even that figure doesn’t account for health care and veterans’ benefits. These are much higher in the U.S. than in China, though precise figures are hard to obtain. This is due to higher U.S. prices for health care, to higher prices in general, and because the U.S. is more generous than China in terms of what it pays its soldiers. Salaries and benefits, combined, account for a significant percentage of military expenditure.

But labor costs aren’t the only thing that is cheaper in China. Notice that China’s gross domestic product at market exchange rates is only two-thirds of its GDP at purchasing power parity. This means that, as a developing country, China simply pays lower prices for a lot of things. Some military inputs — oil, for example, or copper — will be bought on world markets, and PPP won’t matter. For others, like complicated machinery, costs are pretty similar. But other things — food or domestically manufactured products — will be much cheaper for the U.S.’s developing rivals than for the U.S.

Those who follow global security issues have known about this issue for a long time. But somehow, this fact hasn’t penetrated the consciousness of pundits or made its way into pretty, tweet-able graphs.

5. Theft. The U.S. Naval Institute, Fiscal Times and others document that the Chinese have greatly accelerated their weapons development timeline by spying on the West and shamelessly copying our military inventions and designs.

If the NSA and other spying agencies had used their resources to stop foreign governments from stealing our crown jewels – instead of using them to gain petty advantages for a handful of knuckleheads – we’d be a lot better off today.

6. Geography.  Russia is almost twice the size of the U.S.  Russia and China together are so massive – forming such a giant swath of land-based territory, so much closer to the Middle East than America is – that it gives their militaries an advantage.

Bloomberg points out:

The U.S., situated in the peaceful, relatively unpopulated Western Hemisphere, is very far away from the location of any foreseeable conflict. China isn’t going to invade Colorado (sorry, “Red Dawn” fans!), but it might invade Taiwan or India. Simply getting our forces to the other side of the world would require enormous up-front expenditures.

The National Interest notes:

“Defeating China in these scenarios [Taiwan and South China Sea] could nonetheless be difficult and costly for the United States’ primarily as a result of the geographic advantages that China enjoys, as well as specific systems capabilities.”

***

A recent RAND report, “The US China Military Scorecard,” … argues that China is catching up to the U.S., is becoming more assertive and confident, and has geography on its side.

And Russia’s proximity to Ukraine, the Baltics and other neighboring countries gives it a huge advantage.

Postscript: Sadly, because we’ve squandered our resources, war games show that the U.S. is no longer invincible.

Sitting in Committee room G in the Houses of Parliament on 23^rd October from 6 to 7 .30 pm was a sobering affair. While hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues and chaired by Lord Alderdice, the event’s speaker was Professor Padraig O’Malley who had recently published The Two State Delusion which the New York Times described as both “impressive and frustrating”. It is indeed impressive in its observations.

Clear that Israel’s occupation is brutal, O’Malley recounted that according to various sources “Israel has cut down more than 800,000 Palestinian olive trees since 1967”, which, O’Malley observes, is “the equivalent of razing all of the 24,000 trees in New York City’s Central Park 33 times.”

Israel has cut down many succeeding generations of Palestinians in limited but full bloom of their occupied lives and others with their tiny feet already preoccupied with death and suffering.

The topic for discussion was the possibility of a two state solution, though probably not a possibility; or, an Israeli controlled one state solution though probably not a possibility either. The so-called; peace process between two ‘warring’ neighbours (one side with many stones, the other with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the 21^st century its weapons routinely tested on the Palestinian population) namely Israel-Palestine, has been in ill health since 1948 and is now in a deep coma.

The underwhelming analysis of the speaker was that the “tit-for tat” invidious deeds perpetrated by both sides lately were unhelpful and the mental health of both populations, particularly Israel was deteriorating. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on the rise, the historical anxiety of the Israeli population not for us to comprehend.

The West Bank is ailing, Gaza completely reliant on the UN and NGOs for aid has effectively no income and the life line of tunnels now flooded by the unenlightened Egyptian regime means this open air prison is in a desperate state. Pledges of monies from various donors have not materialised and it would take a generation to rebuild Gaza even if the pledges were expedited.

Hamas democratically elected would never be recognised by Israel and now that Isis has allegedly infiltrated the Gaza Strip another invasion of Gaza by Israel’s IDF is on the cards which would reduce Gaza to rubble: rubble on top of rubble then. One was reminded of the great Roman historian Tacitus’ statement when describing the Roman Empire “Brigands of the world, they create desolation and call it peace.” The desolation of the Gaza Strip is almost total, the deteriorating mental health of both citizens in Gaza and the West Bank negatively shaped by the Israeli occupation because of their morphology of violence.

As evidenced by the World Health organization (WHO) Report of 22 March to 1 April 2015: “scientific literature is unequivocal on the negative effects of adversity (e.g. trauma, loss, severe life stressors) on mental health and mental disorder (Dohrenwend, B.P. 1998; Kessler et al. 2010). The facets of the occupation … involve a sense of unpredictability and uncontrollability in daily life that have been shown to have a detrimental impact on mental health (Gallagher et al. 2014). Palestinians report experience of chronic humiliation during the occupation (Giacaman et al. 2007), with humiliation being shown to be associated with health (Giacaman et al. 2007) and mental health complaints (Kendleret al. 2003).” Professor O’Malley reiterated this point of the intolerable and continuing humiliation as a matter of policy by Israel was clearly associated with mental health issues of many Palestinians, along with I would add with co-morbid physical complaints.

A considerable Hamas presence in the West Bank would not be tolerated by Israel we were told because if missiles were to find a snug bunker there, the Israeli defence system “Iron Dome” would be ineffective in intercepting missiles launched from such short range. I was fast developing PTSD symptoms listening to this stuff. Facts on the ground (meaning illegal settlement building) were, though I repeat illegal in occupied Palestine, to stay and the corpus-separatum that is Jerusalem would remain Israel’s capital even though the international community has its embassies and diplomatic corps in Tel Aviv the only internationally recognised capital of Israel. Hamas does have a small presence in the West Bank and seeks, according to credible sources, to aid West Bank inhabitants with medical supplies and other scarce resources.

Leadership on both sides has been reduced to (a requisite for national tempers and international consumption and condemnation) name calling, and politicking, on one beleaguered side, by the autocratic Abbas whose presidential mandate long expired and on the illegal occupying side the land-grabbing Netanyahu. The difference between the two is, one has subjugated and expanded the Jewish state at the cost of incalculable human suffering and loss, the other has been complicit in overseeing the dwindling territory of historical Palestine, human rights abuses and the complete loss of faith in the Palestinian Authority (PA) by the people and particularly the young of the West Bank.

The name professor O’Malley cited as a possible future Palestinian leader is the influential Marwan Barghouti.  Marwan Hasib Ibrahim Barghouti the prominent Palestinian political figure, recognised by many as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela was controversially convicted and imprisoned for murder by an Israeli court having been regarded as the leader behind the first and second intifada after becoming disillusioned with the now mythological peace process. He was arrested by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in 2002 in Ramallah. In truth  Barghouti would find himself between a rock and a hard place if he were ever allowed to leave prison, when according to the NYT he told Al-Monitor that “if the two-state solution fails, the substitute will not be a bi-national one-state ­solution, but a persistent conflict that extends based on an existential crisis – one that does not know any middle ground.”

Indeed O’Malley postulated that with the Israeli created “facts on the ground” it would probably take a regional war drawing the super powers in to direct confrontation that would, could, bring both sides to their senses and create conditions for a lasting peace. Lord Alderdice sadly suggested the geo-political conflict had begun in 2014. This can only worsen an already precarious existence for Palestinians. We were all aware that for the failed states, such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, the implosion was underway and a sea of human suffering was arriving on the shores of Europe if they were able to make such a journey fraught with numerous dangers.

So Let me be clear here, at least are facts from history not Israeli manipulated facts-on the ground. The 1948 Nakba saw the Israeli illegal land-grab where over 400 villages were overrun or disembowelled and 85% of the Palestinian population an estimated 750,000 became refugees as the establishment of an “Israeli homeland” later to become the declared Jewish (apartheid) State was procured by violence that continues to this day.

Jerusalem which according to the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine “was [and remains] a corpus separatum (separated body)” would because of its holy sites come under  UN General Assembly Resolution 181 providing in part that “Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem … shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948″. This failed due to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Resolution 194 was to establish a “Conciliation Commission” to be inclusive of Resolution 181. This failed.  Further elaborations were to come but an Israeli fait accompli was to seal Palestinians’ fate when Ben-Gurion’s “Jewish Jerusalem” was to be seen as inseparable from the now State of Israel and corpus separatum untenable along with Resolution 181.  Israel had shown its clenched fist and was not to extend with any sincerity a hand of peace to the Palestinians then or now.

Because of the above and international community connivance and negligence, Palestinians have endured decades of persecution and an illegal occupation that has seen (to bring us up to date) during the right wing tenure of Netanyahu Benjamin an increase of illegal settlements numbering in the region of 100,000. The religiously fanatical, mostly armed occupants, routinely harass or murder their unsettled, upturned, Caterpillar bulldozed Palestinian neighbours and are encouraged to-do so by the right wing religiously fanatical Israelis.

One state or two who knows? But we of conscience must continue in our protestations over the brutal treatment of Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948.

We must in observing the truth recognise that we also stand in protective governance of our own senses and the moral, ethical, lawful actions that inform the world of the presence of justice, if only in our hearts and minds so by this virtue and in humility speak for those muted by horrific violence and persecution. A violent history as that of Israel cannot be consigned as past, as these unjust antecedents fester and metastasize into a nexus newly formed brigands. Willing to be obviated of criminality and expiated from sin whilst perpetrating some of the worst crimes against a defenceless people is not to be tolerated.

I finish with a quote by Howard Zinn from A peoples History of the United States 1492-present: “I don’t want to invent victories for peoples movement. But to think history-writing must aim simply to recapitulate the failures that dominate the past is to make historians collaborators in an endless cycle of defeat.”

Clive Hambidge is Human Development Director at Facilitate Global. Clive can be contacted by email: [email protected]

“All of the available evidence points to Australian officials having committed a transnational crime by, in effect, directing a people-smuggling operation, paying a boat crew and then instructing them on exactly what to do and where to land in Indonesia.” – Anna Shea, refugee researcher at Amnesty International, Oct 28, 2015

Rwanda has never, since its independence from Belgium, experienced peaceful transfer of power from one “elected” president to another. Each president that grabs power declares himself the only Rwandan capable of ruling. Each regime comes in power because they want to remove the dictator from power and hand the mantle of state power to ” the people.” Change from one regime to another has always been bloody in Rwanda.

In 1994 General Paul Kagame defeated General Habyarimana after a bloody four year civil war. General Habyarimana had made himself ” the father of the nation” and an irreplaceable president of Rwanda. General Kagame and his RPF/A waged the 1990-1994 war because General Habyarimana had closed all the possible venues for peaceful transfer of power. General Kagame and his RPF/A sounded determined to hand power over to ” the people” after the war. Over a million Rwandans perished during the war.

General Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) party: More of the same

After the war and massacres that brought Gen Kagame and his RPF/A into power, Gen Kagame’s diagnosis of Rwanda’s problem was ” bad political leadership and clinging on to power. To address this problem, Gen Kagame and his RPF/A wrote the 2003 Rwanda Constitution. Article 101 of the 2003 Constitution provides, inter alia , ” no person shall be president for more than two terms”. Each term is 7 years under the 2003 Constitution of Rwanda.

Gen Kagame’s second and last term under the 2003 constitution of Rwanda is due to expire in 2017. General Kagame claims that no Rwandan is capable of leading the country and ” the people” need him to consolidate his “achievements”.

Constitutional amendment to keep General Kagame in office:

In a bid to legitimize his broad scheme to cling to power, Paul Kagame deployed his brutal security apparatus, at all levels of his administration, to compel ” the people” to petition Parliament to change the law regarding term limits. Millions of Rwandans, including those who cannot read and/or write, “wrote” to Parliament ” begging” for a constitutional amendment. The General then instituted a ” constitutional review commission” which ” consulted” the people before Parliament passed the constitutional review proposal on October 28th, 2015.

The new law of the jungle:

Parliament approved various amendments including Article 167 which provides that: Considering the citizen petitions preceeding [preceding] the coming into force of this revised Constitution that were informed by the nation-building achievements and creation of a sustainable development foundation, the President of the Republic completing the term of office referred to in Paragraph One of this Article may be re-elected for a seven (7) years term of office. The President of the Republic who has completed the term of office of seven (7) years referred to in [ …] this Article may be re-elected as provided for by Article 101 of this Constitution.

Article 168: Senators Senators in office at the time of commencement. Article 167 comes under a Section termed ” Transitional Provisions”.

Article 101 provides that ” The President of the Republic is elected for a term of office of five (5) years. He/she may be re-elected only once.”

A most unusual law:

Article 167 read together with Article 101 has many implications.

First, the “amendment ” has created an exception for the current president and military commander of Rwanda. Article 101 will be shelved until after seven years – the exceptional term created for him after 2017 – when Kagame will start running for a five year term, renewable only once, giving Kagame a chance to rule for 17 years after 2017. This is confirmation that “some animals are more equal than others ” in this Animal Farm, thereby rendering the constitutional principle of equality before the law null and void.

Second, the law does not mention whether or not, if Kagame died or otherwise becomes incapacitated after 2017 but before 2024, Article 101 would come into force immediately. In any case, a constitutional provision ( the proposed Article 101) that shall not come into force until after 7 years is a most unusual law.

Third, the amendment creates ” transitional provisions” in a constitution without a provisional government. “Transitional provisions” without a transitional government prove that what Kagame’s junta has completed is a constitutional coup, not an “amendment to the constitution,” as they call it.

Charles Kambanda is a Rwandan American attorney, a former law professor at the National University of Rwanda, and an apostate member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, now living in exile in New York City. 

A major new study coordinated by World Health Organization’s cancer division – the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – finds that even low-level radiation increases the risk of cancer, if exposure occurs over time.

The IARC announced last week:

New results from a study coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer agency of the World Health Organization, show that protracted exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation increases the risk of death from solid cancers. The results, published today in The BMJ [the prestigious British Medical Journal], are based on the most powerful study to date and provide direct evidence about cancer risks after protracted exposures to low-dose ionizing radiation.

“The present study demonstrates a significant association between increasing radiation dose and risk of all solid cancers,” says IARC researcher Dr Ausrele Kesminiene, a study co-author. “No matter whether people are exposed to protracted low doses or to high and acute doses, the observed association between dose and solid cancer risk is similar per unit of radiation dose.”

***

A collaboration among international partners, evaluated the exposures of more than 300 000 nuclear workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the USA over a period of time between 1943 and 2005.

The scientists involved in the study come from government agencies such as the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Public Health England Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, as well as universities including the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Drexel University.

The study confirms – once again – what we’ve been saying for years.

For example, a major 2012 scientific study proves that low-level radiation can cause huge health problems. Science Daily reports:

Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded in the Cambridge Philosophical Society’s journal Biological Reviews. Reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years, researchers from the University of South Carolina and the University of Paris-Sud found that variation in low-level, natural background radiation was found to have small, but highly statistically significant, negative effects on DNA as well as several measures of health.

The review is a meta-analysis of studies of locations around the globe …. “Pooling across multiple studies, in multiple areas, and in a rigorous statistical manner provides a tool to really get at these questions about low-level radiation.”

Mousseau and co-author Anders Møller of the University of Paris-Sud combed the scientific literature, examining more than 5,000 papers involving natural background radiation that were narrowed to 46 for quantitative comparison. The selected studies all examined both a control group and a more highly irradiated population and quantified the size of the radiation levels for each. Each paper also reported test statistics that allowed direct comparison between the studies.

The organisms studied included plants and animals, but had a large preponderance of human subjects. Each study examined one or more possible effects of radiation, such as DNA damage measured in the lab, prevalence of a disease such as Down’s Syndrome, or the sex ratio produced in offspring. For each effect, a statistical algorithm was used to generate a single value, the effect size, which could be compared across all the studies.

The scientists reported significant negative effects in a range of categories, including immunology, physiology, mutation and disease occurrence. The frequency of negative effects was beyond that of random chance.

***

“When you do the meta-analysis, you do see significant negative effects.”

“It also provides evidence that there is no threshold below which there are no effects of radiation,” he added. “A theory that has been batted around a lot over the last couple of decades is the idea that is there a threshold of exposure below which there are no negative consequences. These data provide fairly strong evidence that there is no threshold — radiation effects are measurable as far down as you can go, given the statistical power you have at hand.”

Mousseau hopes their results, which are consistent with the “linear-no-threshold” model for radiation effects, will better inform the debate about exposure risks. “With the levels of contamination that we have seen as a result of nuclear power plants, especially in the past, and even as a result of Chernobyl and Fukushima and related accidents, there’s an attempt in the industry to downplay the doses that the populations are getting, because maybe it’s only one or two times beyond what is thought to be the natural background level,” he said. “But they’re assuming the natural background levels are fine.”

“And the truth is, if we see effects at these low levels, then we have to be thinking differently about how we develop regulations for exposures, and especially intentional exposures to populations, like the emissions from nuclear power plants, medical procedures, and even some x-ray machines at airports.”

And see this.

Physicians for Social Responsibility notes:

According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual’s risk for the development of cancer.

“There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water.”

“Consuming food containing radionuclides is particularly dangerous. If an individual ingests or inhales a radioactive particle, it continues to irradiate the body as long as it remains radioactive and stays in the body,”said Alan H. Lockwood, MD, a member of the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

***

Radiation can be concentrated many times in the food chain and any consumption adds to the cumulative risk of cancer and other diseases.

John LaForge writes:

The National Council on Radiation Protection says, “… every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremen­tal increase in the risk of cancer.” The Environmental Protection Agency says, “… any exposure to radiation poses some risk, i.e. there is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk.” The Department of Energy says about “low levels of radiation” that “… the major effect is a very slight increase in cancer risk.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, “any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer … any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.” The National Academy of Sciences, in its “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII,” says, “… it is unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers ….”

Japan Times reports:

Protracted exposure to low-level radiation is associated with a significant increase in the risk of leukemia, according to a long-term study published Thursday in a U.S. research journal.

The study released in the monthly Environmental Health Perspectives was based on a 20-year survey of around 110,000 workers who engaged in cleanup work related to the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986.

Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco, the U.S. National Cancer Institute and the National Research Center for Radiation Medicine in Ukraine were among those who participated in the research.

Indeed, the overwhelming consensus among radiation experts is that repeated exposure to low doses of radiation can cause cancer, genetic mutations, heart disease, stroke and other serious illness (and see this.) If a government agency says anything else, it’s likely for political reasons.

The top U.S. government radiation experts – like Karl Morgan, John Goffman and Arthur Tamplin – and scientific luminaries such as Ernest Sternglass and Alice Stewart, concluded that low level radiation can cause serious health effects.

A military briefing written by the U.S. Army for commanders in Iraq states:

Hazards from low level radiation are long-term, not acute effects… Every exposure increases risk of cancer.

(Military briefings for commanders often contain less propaganda than literature aimed at civilians, as the commanders have to know the basic facts to be able to assess risk to their soldiers.)

The briefing states that doses are cumulative, citing the following military studies and reports:

• ACE Directive 80-63, ACE Policy for Defensive Measures against Low Level Radiological Hazards during Military Operations, 2 AUG 96

• AR 11-9, The Army Radiation Program, 28 MAY 99

• FM 4-02.283, Treatment of Nuclear and Radiological Casualties, 20 DEC 01

• JP 3-11, Joint Doctrine for Operations in NBC Environments, 11 JUL 00

• NATO STANAG 2473, Command Guidance on Low Level Radiation Exposure in Military Operations, 3 MAY 00

• USACHPPM TG 244, The NBC Battle Book, AUG 02

Many studies have shown that repeated exposures to low levels of ionizing radiation from CT scans and x-rays can cause cancer. See this, this, this. this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

Research from the University of Iowa concluded:

Cumulative radon exposure is a significant risk factor for lung cancer in women.

And see these studies on the health effects cumulative doses of radioactive cesium.

The European Committee on Radiation Risk notes:

Cumulative impacts of chronic irradiation in low doses are … important for the comprehension, assessment and prognosis of the late effects of irradiation on human beings ….

And see this.

The New York Times’ Matthew Wald reported in 2012:

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists[’] May-June issue carries seven articles and an editorial on the subject of low-dose radiation, a problem that has thus far defied scientific consensus but has assumed renewed importance since the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan in March 2011.

***

This month a guest editor, Jan Beyea [who received a PhD in nuclear physics from Columbia and has served on a number of committees at the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science] and worked on epidemiological studies at Three Mile Island, takes a hard look at the power industry.

The bulletin’s Web site is generally subscription-only, but this issue can be read at no charge.

Dr. Beyea challenges a concept adopted by American safety regulators about small doses of radiation. The prevailing theory is that the relationship between dose and effect is linear – that is, that if a big dose is bad for you, half that dose is half that bad, and a quarter of that dose is one-quarter as bad, and a millionth of that dose is one-millionth as bad, with no level being harmless.

The idea is known as the “linear no-threshold hypothesis,’’ and while most scientists say there is no way to measure its validity at the lower end, applying it constitutes a conservative approach to public safety.

Some radiation professionals disagree, arguing that there is no reason to protect against supposed effects that cannot be measured. But Dr. Beyea contends that small doses could actually be disproportionately worse.

Radiation experts have formed a consensus that if a given dose of radiation delivered over a short period poses a given hazard, that hazard will be smaller if the dose is spread out. To use an imprecise analogy, if swallowing an entire bottle of aspirin at one sitting could kill you, consuming it over a few days might merely make you sick.

In radiation studies, this is called a dose rate effectiveness factor. Generally, a spread-out dose is judged to be half as harmful as a dose given all at once.

***

Dr. Beyea, however, proposes that doses spread out over time might be more dangerous than doses given all at once. [Background] He suggests two reasons: first, some effects may result from genetic damage that manifests itself only after several generations of cells have been exposed, and, second, a “bystander effect,” in which a cell absorbs radiation and seems unhurt but communicates damage to a neighboring cell, which can lead to cancer.

One problem in the radiation field is that little of the data on hand addresses the problem of protracted exposure. Most of the health data used to estimate the health effects of radiation exposure comes from survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of 1945. That was mostly a one-time exposure.

Scientists who say that this data leads to the underestimation of radiation risks cite another problem: it does not include some people who died from radiation exposure immediately after the bombings. The notion here is that the people studied in ensuing decades to learn about the dose effect may have been stronger and healthier, which could have played a role in their survival.

Still, the idea that the bomb survivor data is biased, or that stretched-out doses are more dangerous than instant ones, is a minority position among radiation scientists.

Dr. Beyea writes:

Three recent epidemiologic studies suggest that the risk from protracted exposure is no lower, and in fact may be higher, than from single exposures.

***

Conventional wisdom was upset in 2005, when an international study, which focused on a large population of exposed nuclear workers, presented results that shocked the radiation protection community—and foreshadowed a sequence of research results over the following years.

***

It all started when epidemiologist Elaine Cardis and 46 colleagues surveyed some 400,000 nuclear workers from 15 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia—workers who had experienced chronic exposures, with doses measured on radiation badges (Cardis et al., 2005).

***

This study revealed a higher incidence for protracted exposure than found in the atomic-bomb data, representing a dramatic contradiction to expectations based on expert opinion.

***

A second major occupational study appeared a few years later, delivering another blow to the theory that protracted doses were not so bad. This 2009 report looked at 175,000 radiation workers in the United Kingdom ….

After the UK update was published, scientists combined results from 12 post-2002 occupational studies, including the two mentioned above, concluding that protracted radiation was 20 percent more effective in increasing cancer rates than acute exposures (Jacob et al., 2009). The study’s authors saw this result as a challenge to the cancer-risk values currently assumed for occupational radiation exposures. That is, they wrote that the radiation risk values used for workers should be increased over the atomic-bomb-derived values, not lowered by a factor of two or more.

***

In 2007, one study—the first of its size—looked at low-dose radiation risk in a large, chronically exposed civilian population; among the epidemiological community, this data set is known as the “Techa River cohort.” From 1949 to 1956 in the Soviet Union, while the Mayak weapons complex dumped some 76 million cubic meters of radioactive waste water into the river, approximately 30,000 of the off-site population—from some 40 villages along the river—were exposed to chronic releases of radiation; residual contamination on riverbanks still produced doses for years after 1956.

***

Here was a study of citizens exposed to radiation much like that which would be experienced following a reactor accident. About 17,000 members of the cohort have been studied in an international effort (Krestinina et al., 2007), largely funded by the US Energy Department; and to many in the department, this study was meant to definitively prove that protracted exposures were low in risk. The results were unexpected. The slope of the LNT fit turned out to be higher than predicted by the atomic-bomb data, providing additional evidence that protracted exposure does not reduce risk.

***

In a 2012 study on atomic-bomb survivor mortality data (Ozasa et al., 2012), low-dose analysis revealed unexpectedly strong evidence for the applicability of the supralinear theory. From 1950 to 2003, more than 80,000 people studied revealed high risks per unit dose in the low-dose range, from 0.01 to 0.1 Sv.

A major 2012 study of atomic bomb data by the official joint U.S.-Japanese government study of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors found that low dose radiation causes cancer and genetic damage:

Dr. Peter Karamoskos notes:

The most comprehensive study of nuclear workers by the IARC, involving 600,000 workers exposed to an average cumulative dose of 19mSv, showed a cancer risk consistent with that of the A-bomb survivors.

Children are much more vulnerable to radiation than adults. American physician Brian Moench writes:

The idea that a threshold exists or there is a safe level of radiation for human exposure began unraveling in the 1950s when research showed one pelvic x-ray in a pregnant woman could double the rate of childhood leukemia in an exposed baby. Furthermore, the risk was ten times higher if it occurred in the first three months of pregnancy than near the end. This became the stepping-stone to the understanding that the timing of exposure was even more critical than the dose. The earlier in embryonic development it occurred, the greater the risk.

A new medical concept has emerged, increasingly supported by the latest research, called “fetal origins of disease,” that centers on the evidence that a multitude of chronic diseases, including cancer, often have their origins in the first few weeks after conception by environmental insults disturbing normal embryonic development. It is now established medical advice that pregnant women should avoid any exposure to x-rays, medicines or chemicals when not absolutely necessary, no matter how small the dose, especially in the first three months.

“Epigenetics” is a term integral to fetal origins of disease, referring to chemical attachments to genes that turn them on or off inappropriately and have impacts functionally similar to broken genetic bonds. Epigenetic changes can be caused by unimaginably small doses – parts per trillion – be it chemicals, air pollution, cigarette smoke or radiation. Furthermore, these epigenetic changes can occur within minutes after exposure and may be passed on to subsequent generations.

The Endocrine Society, 14,000 researchers and medical specialists in more than 100 countries, warned that “even infinitesimally low levels of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, indeed, any level of exposure at all, may cause endocrine or reproductive abnormalities, particularly if exposure occurs during a critical developmental window. Surprisingly, low doses may even exert more potent effects than higher doses.” If hormone-mimicking chemicals at any level are not safe for a fetus, then the concept is likely to be equally true of the even more intensely toxic radioactive elements drifting over from Japan, some of which may also act as endocrine disruptors.

Many epidemiologic studies show that extremely low doses of radiation increase the incidence of childhood cancers, low birth-weight babies, premature births, infant mortality, birth defects and even diminished intelligence. Just two abdominal x-rays delivered to a male can slightly increase the chance of his future children developing leukemia. By damaging proteins anywhere in a living cell, radiation can accelerate the aging process and diminish the function of any organ. Cells can repair themselves, but the rapidly growing cells in a fetus may divide before repair can occur, negating the body’s defense mechanism and replicating the damage.

Comforting statements about the safety of low radiation are not even accurate for adults. Small increases in risk per individual have immense consequences in the aggregate. When low risk is accepted for billions of people, there will still be millions of victims. New research on risks of x-rays illustrate the point.

Radiation from CT coronary scans is considered low, but, statistically, it causes cancer in one of every 270 40-year-old women who receive the scan. Twenty year olds will have double that rate. Annually, 29,000 cancers are caused by the 70 million CT scans done in the US. Common, low-dose dental x-rays more than double the rate of thyroid cancer. Those exposed to repeated dental x-rays have an even higher risk of thyroid cancer.

It’s not just humans: scientists have found that animals receiving low doses of radiation from Chernobyl are sick as well.

Most “Background Radiation” Didn’t Exist Before Nuclear Weapons Testing and Nuclear Reactors

Uninformed commenters (and some industry flacks) claim that we get a higher exposure from background radiation (when we fly, for example) or x-rays then we get from nuclear accidents.

In fact, there was exactly zero background radioactive cesium or iodine before above-ground nuclear testing and nuclear accidents started.

Wikipedia provides some details on the distribution of cesium-137 due to human activities:

Small amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster.

***

Caesium-137 is unique in that it is totally anthropogenic. Unlike most other radioisotopes, caesium-137 is not produced from its non-radioactive isotope, but from uranium. It did not occur in nature before nuclear weapons testing began. By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, it is possible to determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the advent of atomic bomb explosions. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported “Jefferson bottles”.

The EPA notes:

Cesium-133 is the only naturally occurring isotope and is non-radioactive; all other isotopes, including cesium-137, are produced by human activity.

Similarly, iodine-131 is not a naturally occurring isotope. As the Encyclopedia Britannica notes:

The only naturally occurring isotope of iodine is stable iodine-127. An exceptionally useful radioactive isotope is iodine-131…

(Fukushima has spewed much more radioactive cesium and iodine than Chernobyl. The amount of radioactive cesium released by Fukushima was some 20-30 times higher than initially admitted. Japanese experts say that Fukushima is currently releasing up to 93 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium into the ocean each day. And the cesium levels hitting the west coast of North America will keep increasing for several years … rising to some 80% as much Fukushima radiation as Japan by 2016.  Fukushima is spewing more and more radiation into the environment, and the amount of radioactive fuel at Fukushima dwarfs Chernobyl.)

As such, the concept of “background radiation” is largely a misnomer. Most of the radiation we encounter today – especially the most dangerous types – did not even exist in nature before we built nuclear weapons and reactors.

Nuclear Apologists Are Going Bananas

Nuclear apologists pretend that people are exposed to more radiation from bananas than from Fukushima.

But unlike low-levels of radioactive potassium found in bananas – which our bodies have adapted to over many years – cesium-137 and iodine 131 are brand new, extremely dangerous substances.

The EPA explains:

The human body is born with potassium-40 [the type of radiation found in bananas] in its tissues and it is the most common radionuclide in human tissues and in food. We evolved in the presence of potassium-40 and our bodies have well–developed repair mechanisms to respond to its effects. The concentration of potassium-40 in the human body is constant and not affected by concentrations in the environment.

Wikipedia notes:

The amount of potassium (and therefore of ⁴⁰K) in the human body is fairly constant because of homeostatsis, so that any excess absorbed from food is quickly compensated by the elimination of an equal amount.

It follows that the additional radiation exposure due to eating a banana lasts only for a few hours after ingestion, namely the time it takes for the normal potassium contents of the body to be restored by the kidneys.

BoingBoing reports:

A lot of things you might not suspect of being radioactive are, including Brazil nuts, and your own body. And this fact is sometimes used to downplay the impact of exposure to radiation via medical treatments or accidental intake.

***

I contacted Geoff Meggitt—a retired health physicist, and former editor of the Journal of Radiological Protection—to find out more.

Meggitt worked for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and its later commercial offshoots for 25 years. He says there’s an enormous variation in the risks associated with swallowing the same amount of different radioactive materials—and even some difference between the same dose, of the same material, but in different chemical forms.

It all depends on two factors:

1) The physical characteristics of the radioactivity—i.e, What’s its half-life? Is the radiation emitted alpha, beta or gamma?

2) The way the the radioactivity travels around and is taken up by the body—i.e., How much is absorbed by the blood stream? What tissues does this specific isotope tend to accumulate in?

The Potassium-40 in bananas is a particularly poor model isotope to use, Meggitt says, because the potassium content of our bodies seems to be under homeostatic control. When you eat a banana, your body’s level of Potassium-40 doesn’t increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.

And that’s the difference between a useful educational tool and propaganda. (And I say this as somebody who is emphatically not against nuclear energy.) Bananas aren’t really going to give anyone “a more realistic assessment of actual risk”, they’re just going to further distort the picture.

Mixing Apples (External) and Oranges (Internal)

Moreover, radioactive particles which end up inside of our lungs or gastrointestinal track, as opposed to radiation which comes to us from outside of our skin are much more dangerous than general exposures to radiation.

The National Research Council’s Committee to Assess the Scientific Information for the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program explains:

Radioactivity generates radiation by emitting particles. Radioactive materials outside the the body are called external emitters, and radioactive materials located within the body are called internal emitters.

Internal emitters are much more dangerous than external emitters. Specifically, one is only exposed to radiation as long as he or she is near the external emitter.

For example, when you get an x-ray, an external emitter is turned on for an instant, and then switched back off.

But internal emitters steadily and continuously emit radiation for as long as the particle remains radioactive, or until the person dies – whichever occurs first. As such, they are much more dangerous.

As the head of a Tokyo-area medical clinic – Dr. Junro Fuse, Internist and head of Kosugi Medical Clinic – said:

Risk from internal exposure is 200-600 times greater than risk from external exposure.

See this, this, this and this.

By way of analogy, external emitters are like dodgeballs being thrown at you. If you get hit, it might hurt. But it’s unlikely you’ll get hit again in the same spot.

Internal emitters – on the other hand – are like a black belt martial artist moving in really close and hammering you again and again and again in the exact same spot. That can do real damage.

There are few natural high-dose internal emitters. Bananas, brazil nuts and some other foods contain radioactive potassium-40, but in extremely low doses. But – as explained above – our bodies have adapted to handle this type of radiation.

True, some parts of the country are at higher risk of exposure to naturally-occurring radium than others.

But the cesium which was scattered all over the place by above-ground nuclear tests and the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents has a much longer half life, and can easily contaminate food and water supplies. As the New York Times notes:

Over the long term, the big threat to human health is cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years.

At that rate of disintegration, John Emsley wrote in “Nature’s Building Blocks” (Oxford, 2001), “it takes over 200 years to reduce it to 1 percent of its former level.”

It is cesium-137 that still contaminates much of the land in Ukraine around the Chernobyl reactor.

***

Cesium-137 mixes easily with water and is chemically similar to potassium. It thus mimics how potassium gets metabolized in the body and can enter through many foods, including milk.

As the EPA notes in a discussion entitled ” What can I do to protect myself and my family from cesium-137?”:

Cesium-137 that is dispersed in the environment, like that from atmospheric testing, is impossible to avoid.

Radioactive iodine can also become a potent internal emitter. As the Times notes:

Iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days and is quite dangerous to human health. If absorbed through contaminated food, especially milk and milk products, it will accumulate in the thyroid and cause cancer.

The bottom line is that there is some naturally-occurring background radiation, which can – at times – pose a health hazard (especially in parts of the country with high levels of radioactive radon or radium).

But cesium-137 and radioactive iodine – the two main radioactive substances being spewed by the leaking Japanese nuclear plants – are not naturally-occurring substances, and can become powerful internal emitters which can cause tremendous damage to the health of people who are unfortunate enough to breathe in even a particle of the substances, or ingest them in food or water.

Unlike low-levels of radioactive potassium found in bananas – which our bodies have adapted to over many years – cesium-137 and iodine 131 are brand new, extremely dangerous substances.

And unlike naturally-occurring internal emitters like radon and radium – whose distribution is largely concentrated in certain areas of the country – radioactive cesium and iodine, as well as strontium and other dangerous radionuclides, are being distributed globally through weapons testing and nuclear accidents.

Cumulative and Synergistic Damage

As noted above, a military briefing written by the U.S. Army for commanders in Iraq points out:

Hazards from low level radiation are long-term, not acute effects… Every exposure increases risk of cancer.

In other words, doses are cumulative: the more times someone is exposed, the greater the potential damage.

In addition, exposure to different radioactive particles may increase the damage. Specifically, the International Commission on Radiological Protection notes:

It has been shown that in some cases a synergistic effect results when several organs of the body are irradiated simultaneously.

(“Synergistic” means that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.)

Because different radionuclides accumulate in different parts of the body – e.g. cesium in the muscles, kidneys, heart and liver, iodine in the thyroid, and strontium in the bones – the exposure to many types of radiation may be more dangerous than exposure just to one or two types.

As such, adding new radioactive compounds like cesium and iodine into the environment may cause synergistic damage to our health.

At the State Department’s daily briefing today, Spokesman John Kirby conceded that the Syrian government led by President Assad may have a role to play in a “political transition” of the country.

The apparent shift was in response to a reporter who pointed out that Assad is not opposed by the entire population of Syria:

…the Assad regime definitely represents a certain constituency in Syria. The minorities, Christians, even a portion of the Sunnis look at the Syrian regime as their representative, in particular at Bashar al-Assad. Why should Bashar al-Assad be complex nixed out of the process, considering that he controls the larger portion on the ground, proudly asserting themselves as the major power in that conflict on the ground? Why should Assad be nixed out of the process?

State Spokesman Kirby replied:

Nobody said that there wouldn’t be a role for Assad or for the institution of his – institutions of his government in the transition.

It appears to be a slight step back from the previous position that no talks could be held on Syria’s future until Assad is out of power. However, this “shift” is more cosmetic than substantive, as Kirby reiterated that, “nothing’s changed about our position on Bashar al-Assad.”

In fact, a “role in the political transition” is just another way of saying “Assad must go.” It means that even as the facts have changed considerably on the ground, the initial US position — a position that led to US support of jihadist mercenaries to overthrow the Syrian government — has not changed.

Kirby was asked again by a reporter, “[Assad] can’t have a long-term leadership role in Syria?”

He repeated: “That is correct.”

Kirby was then reminded by a reporter that the US government is not the sole decider on what happens to Syria:

But you’re not a mediator in this process. You’re one of the countries that has views.

A point that Kirby conceded, but added:

…many of our European allies have taken very much the same position that we have taken. So it’s not like everybody involved has got widely different views here, but there are some different opinions and perspectives on what a successful transition means and what that looks like.

We’re all on the same page, in other words. But are we?

What is a “political transition”? Is it an election where all sides are allowed to compete freely for the vote of the people? Neither the State Department nor the Washington press corps seem able to stomach that possibility.

One reporter asked Kirby:

…what if there is – through some hideous circumstances, you have completely transparent elections and so on, and Assad is elected? What happens then?

Kirby refused to even entertain that possibility:

That’s a great hypothetical that I’m not going to engage in.

Kirby reiterated the US view that the future of Syria should be decided by a country 6,000 miles away. A view that somehow the United States knows what is better for the Syrian people than the Syrians themselves:

This is about coming together to try to reach a consensus view on what an effective political transition can look like in Syria. … The Syrian people deserve a country that they can call home and they can be safe and secure and stable and have a prosperous future. It needs to be unified; it needs to be whole; it needs to be pluralistic.

Kirby’s language toward accepting negotiation with Iran was similarly truculent: Iran can only be “constructive” if it drops its support for the Syrian government and accepts the Saudi-US-Turk regime change project in Syria.

The US is in denial about Syria. Its hope is that Russia and Iran will, after expending considerable financial and political capital to radically change the realities on the ground in Syria, come around to Washington’s view that Assad must go and a new government made up of the opposition must be installed. Perhaps a caretaker government that can organize “elections” like we have seen in post-coup Ukraine, where the parties out of favor in Washington are simply outlawed and not allowed to compete. Stranger things have happened, but it would be a blunder on par with Russia’s vote in favor of a UN Security Council resolution authorizing no-fly zones over Libya. Russian president Putin made the point that Syria’s political future should be decided by Syrians alone. It is a position based on the concept of state sovereignty that the US so closely guards in itself but discounts in others.

Once again, the United States and Israel voted against the motion to end economic sanctions. The United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of lifting the blockade against Cuba Tuesday, with only the U.S. and Israel voting against.

The initiative has been backed by the majority of members for the last 23 years.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented a report that concludes that the economic sanctions, which have caused some US$833.8 billion in damage to the Caribbean island, should be lifted.

Moments before the vote took place, the U.S. representative to the U.N. declared that his country would vote against lifting the sanctions, saying that it was unfortunate that Cuba had presented a motion that was “almost identical” to the one the year before.

His speech followed that of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who demanded that the U.S. end the “flagrant, massive and systematic violation of human rights of all Cubans” by terminating the half-century financial and economic blockade.

Rodriguez pointed out the company Electra refused to supply Cuban hospitals with cancer drugs.

“The embargo is a flagrant, massive and systematic violation of human rights of all Cubans,” he said. “It is contrary to international law … It has been descirbed as an act of genocide.”

“We hope that U.S. moves forward form a cruel and unjust policy anchored in the past and adopts a policy based on the feelings of its own citizens,” he added.

Iran’s U.N. representative of the Non-Aligned Movement spoke first in support of lifting the blockade. He listed the ways the sanctions had harmed the people of Cuba and the development of the country.

“It affects all crucial sectors of society, such as public health … banking and tourism. It denies cuba aid,” he told the assembly. “The embargo is also the main obstacle to broader access to the internet and the exchange of ideas.”

“The continuation of the emabargo is unjustifiable, and counters Cuba’s effort to achieve sustaibable debvelopment,” he added.

Echoing the theme, Ecuador’s NAM representative at the U.N. called on the United States to cease voting against the movement, “contrary to the will of the international community.”

The G77: The US has caused damages equal to 191 billion dollars against Cuba. We (G77) will support the resolution. https://t.co/X311QdJUvr

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) October 27, 2015

U.N. Representatives from the Caribbean Community and Common Market and the South American regional bloc Mercosur both congratulated the United States and Cuba for re-establishing relations, but also called on the United States to lift the blockade against Cuba.

“The time has come to put an end to this unilateral embargo,” said the Paraguayan representative, speaking on behalf of Mercosur.

For the last three years, 188 of the 193 members have voted in favor of Cuba, with the United States and Israel being persistent exceptions. The decision must be unanimous in order for the measure to be passed.

The resolution is named the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” It expresses concern over the interntional legality of the U.S. economic and financial siege of the Caribbean island.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in July that the blockade had failed. Since then, he has often hinted that it would soon be lifted. But despite beginning a path to normalize bilateral dealings, including lifting some travel and trade bans bans to the island, the sanctions continue, as a change of policy would have to be passed by Congress.

Cuban President Raul Castro has reiterated that in order for full relations to be re-established, the United States must meet four conditions: to leave Guantanamo detention camp; end the blockade; end the “wet-foot-dry-foot” law encouraging Cubans to pursue residency in the U.S.; and end anti-government radio and television transmissions into the island.

Lifting of the half-century blockade would represent a historic moment for Cubans, 77 percent of whom were born under the harsh economic conditions.

China’s plans for 400 nuclear reactors threaten global catastrophe, writes Oliver Tickell. In the normal way of things we could expect major accidents every few years, but with 300 reactors along China’s seismically active coast, a major tsunami would be a Fukushima on steroids – wiping out much of China and contaminating the whole planet.

“China shows the way to build nuclear reactors fast and cheap.” That was the bullish headline in a Forbes magazine article last week.

It went on to praise the scale of the planned nuclear investment in China’s new Five-Year Plan that runs from 2016 to 2020. Under the plan the government is to invest over US$100 billion to build seven new reactors a year until 2030.

“By 2050”, James Conca wrote for Forbes, “nuclear power should exceed 350 GW in that country, include about 400 new nuclear reactors, and have resulted in over a trillion dollars in nuclear investment.”

Now Conca is pretty enthusiastic about this. But the reality is a potential nuclear nightmare in the making. Experience to date shows that we should, on average, expect a major nuclear accident to take place for every 3,000 to 4,000 years of reactor operation. And with over 400 reactors running at once, it doesn’t take long to clock up those 3,000 years.

In fact, you could reasonably expect a major Chernobyl or Fukushima level accident every seven to ten years – in China alone, if it pursues nuclear build on that scale.

Just how safe is China anyway

Now if China had a fantastic record of safety in its construction and other industries, maybe the odds shoold be made a bit longer. Swiss-style reactors might come in at only one big foulup every 10,000 years, for example.

But that’s not China. This August past we had the massive fire and multiple explosions at the Port of Tianjin, that killed almost 200 people and devastated several square kilometres of the industrial zone.

It later transpired that over 7,000 tonnes of hazardous chemicals were stored there, among them sodium cyanide, calcium carbide and ammonium and potassium nitrate, many of them kept in breach of regulations. The owners had links to the highest echelons of the Chinese state – something that may have ensured very light touch regulation.

China has also experienced some recent high speed train crashes, the worst in July 2011. Two bullet trains collided head-on on a viaductin Wenzhou, Zhejiang province owing to faulty signalling, killing 40 people. The accident was blamed by the Chinese government itself on “design flaws and sloppy management”, according to the BBC.

China also has a notoriously poor safety record in a range of industries from construction to coal mining.

If anything we should expect China’s nuclear industry to be rather less safe that the western average, especially given the cacophony of new reactor designs and variations thereof under construction simultaneously at multiple sites with absolutely no history of operation – safe or otherwise.

Another factor is the secrecy that surrounds nuclear contruction and operation in China. These matters simply are not reported on other than in glowing terms in the official press. And secrecy is all too often a cover for poor practice and cut corners.

So in fact there’s a good case for thinking that Chinese reactors might pop, not one in every 3,000 to 4,000 years of operation, but rather more often. Every 2,000 years perhaps? At that rate we could expect a couple of major nuclear catastrophes every decade.

Cheap? Some scepticism is in order

Where Forbes celebrates the wonderfully low cost of Chinese nuclear power we must also be a little sceptical. for example, “Six Chinese-designed 1000 MW reactors at Yangjiang will be a huge nuclear power base for China General Nuclear, and will cost only US$11.5 billion for over 6000 MWe, a third of the cost in western countries.”

Or at Changjang Unit 1, on Hainan Island,

“The total cost of this first pair of Chinese-designed 600 MW units is only about US$3.15 billion.” While at Fangchenggang, “Six reactors are planned at this site at a total cost of about US$12 billion … It seems as though 5 years and about $2 billion per reactor has become routine for China.”

How do we know what these reactors really cost? The fact is, we don’t. With China’s nuclear corporations under the control of various organs of state including the Communist Party and the Peoples Liberation Army, official statistics and accounts can simply not be relied upon.

Nuclear construction in China must be cheaper than in the US and Europe due to lower labour costs. But if it really is that much cheaper it can only be at a huge safety penalty.

Take the construction problems and delays at the two current EPR sites in Europe at Flamanville, France, and Olkiluoto, Finland, both now running about three times over original cost estimates. Many of the delays have been caused by safety failures. Over, for example, the flawed metallurgy of the Flamanville reactor vessel and concerns over the reliability of key valves in the cooling system.

Now of course, if you simple ignore such problems and press ahead with construction to meet the targets set down a five-year plan, construction is a whole lot quicker and cheaper. But the chances of reactors popping in years to come is also considerably greater.

Tsunami risk – not if but when

It’s also instructive to look at the map of nuclear reactors scheduled for completion in the next decade provided by Forbes. The great bulk of them – 77 reactors in all – are built along China’s east and south coasts, for two reasons: that’s where the demand is, and that’s where the cooling water is readily available, from the sea.

But of course that’s just the ones due to be completed in the next decade. If the full plan for 400 reactors by 2050 is fulfilled, probably some 300 of them would be sea-facing.

There are, of course, nuclear hazards to inland reactors from flooding on the Yellow and Yangtse rivers and tributaries. But a much greater danger arises from the sea. China’s south and east coasts face out to seismically active waters. And as the Japanese discovered at Fukushima, nuclear power, earthquakes and tsunamis make a dangerous combination.

Interest in the danger of tsunamis on China’s south and east coast was stimulated by the two Hengchun Earthquakes off  Taiwan in December 2006, which damaged buildings and disrupted communications by severing undersea cables.

One recent study put the risk of a powerful tsunami greater than 2m in height striking Hong Kong or Macau at about 10% over the coming century, mainly due to seismic activity in the Manila Trench. But head further north and east and the chances go up significantly to 13.34% at Shantou in Guangdong province.

And it may be more than that, the authors note: “This probability estimate may increase with a recent rise in the earthquake activities, which started with the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, because the Taiwan region has a earthquake cycle time of around 80-100 years.”

What is certain is that the tsunami hazard is real and substantial. Literature of historical seismic records of this region is “abundant”, the authors write. The northern Manila Trench near Taiwan is “is likely to have avery large earthquake in the future. In addition the regionis a volcanic belt. If volcano and earthquake occur in concert, a much larger tsunami disaster would develop.

“Although the southern part of the Manila Trench is far away from the coast of China, the local historical records of this region have many tsunami earthquakes up to the magnitude of around 8.0. Since the oceanic portion of the South China Sea is mostly deep, tsunamic waves generated in the Manila Trench region can reach the coast of China with little loss in energy.

“The wave energy can then be released in the shallow water region, and can impose a tremendous tsunami hazard to the coastal regions.”

The world’s first truly global nuclear catastrophe

I have done no study of the tsunami vulnerability of all the 300 nuclear reactors that could end up being built along China’s east and south coasts. But at least one – the CANDU reactor shown in the photo (above right) at Qinshan, where seven reactors are currently operational, looks vulnerable in the extreme.

And the consequences of a really big earthquake and tsunami hitting China’s coastal array of 300 nuclear reactors would be catastrophic. Many dozens of reactors could be struck down, each doing their own ‘Fukushima’.

This would not just bring massive radioactive contamination to China’s most developed, prosperous, productive and populated regions, but spread around the world in air and sea currents to make the world’s first truly global nuclear catastrophe.

The only good news in all this is that nuclear construction in China is not proceeding anything like as fast as Forbes magazine claims. Most of the more modern ‘Generation III’ reactors are well behind in their completion times, echoing the European experience with the failed EPR design.

We can only hope that construction difficulties persist and abound – and that China’s rulers realise that investments in solar, wind and other renewables are a quicker, surer, safer way to bring power to the masses – and one that poses no existential threat to their country, and the world.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

China’s plans for 400 nuclear reactors threaten global catastrophe, writes Oliver Tickell. In the normal way of things we could expect major accidents every few years, but with 300 reactors along China’s seismically active coast, a major tsunami would be a Fukushima on steroids – wiping out much of China and contaminating the whole planet.

“China shows the way to build nuclear reactors fast and cheap.” That was the bullish headline in a Forbes magazine article last week.

It went on to praise the scale of the planned nuclear investment in China’s new Five-Year Plan that runs from 2016 to 2020. Under the plan the government is to invest over US$100 billion to build seven new reactors a year until 2030.

“By 2050”, James Conca wrote for Forbes, “nuclear power should exceed 350 GW in that country, include about 400 new nuclear reactors, and have resulted in over a trillion dollars in nuclear investment.”

Now Conca is pretty enthusiastic about this. But the reality is a potential nuclear nightmare in the making. Experience to date shows that we should, on average, expect a major nuclear accident to take place for every 3,000 to 4,000 years of reactor operation. And with over 400 reactors running at once, it doesn’t take long to clock up those 3,000 years.

In fact, you could reasonably expect a major Chernobyl or Fukushima level accident every seven to ten years – in China alone, if it pursues nuclear build on that scale.

Just how safe is China anyway

Now if China had a fantastic record of safety in its construction and other industries, maybe the odds shoold be made a bit longer. Swiss-style reactors might come in at only one big foulup every 10,000 years, for example.

But that’s not China. This August past we had the massive fire and multiple explosions at the Port of Tianjin, that killed almost 200 people and devastated several square kilometres of the industrial zone.

It later transpired that over 7,000 tonnes of hazardous chemicals were stored there, among them sodium cyanide, calcium carbide and ammonium and potassium nitrate, many of them kept in breach of regulations. The owners had links to the highest echelons of the Chinese state – something that may have ensured very light touch regulation.

China has also experienced some recent high speed train crashes, the worst in July 2011. Two bullet trains collided head-on on a viaductin Wenzhou, Zhejiang province owing to faulty signalling, killing 40 people. The accident was blamed by the Chinese government itself on “design flaws and sloppy management”, according to the BBC.

China also has a notoriously poor safety record in a range of industries from construction to coal mining.

If anything we should expect China’s nuclear industry to be rather less safe that the western average, especially given the cacophony of new reactor designs and variations thereof under construction simultaneously at multiple sites with absolutely no history of operation – safe or otherwise.

Another factor is the secrecy that surrounds nuclear contruction and operation in China. These matters simply are not reported on other than in glowing terms in the official press. And secrecy is all too often a cover for poor practice and cut corners.

So in fact there’s a good case for thinking that Chinese reactors might pop, not one in every 3,000 to 4,000 years of operation, but rather more often. Every 2,000 years perhaps? At that rate we could expect a couple of major nuclear catastrophes every decade.

Cheap? Some scepticism is in order

Where Forbes celebrates the wonderfully low cost of Chinese nuclear power we must also be a little sceptical. for example, “Six Chinese-designed 1000 MW reactors at Yangjiang will be a huge nuclear power base for China General Nuclear, and will cost only US$11.5 billion for over 6000 MWe, a third of the cost in western countries.”

Or at Changjang Unit 1, on Hainan Island,

“The total cost of this first pair of Chinese-designed 600 MW units is only about US$3.15 billion.” While at Fangchenggang, “Six reactors are planned at this site at a total cost of about US$12 billion … It seems as though 5 years and about $2 billion per reactor has become routine for China.”

How do we know what these reactors really cost? The fact is, we don’t. With China’s nuclear corporations under the control of various organs of state including the Communist Party and the Peoples Liberation Army, official statistics and accounts can simply not be relied upon.

Nuclear construction in China must be cheaper than in the US and Europe due to lower labour costs. But if it really is that much cheaper it can only be at a huge safety penalty.

Take the construction problems and delays at the two current EPR sites in Europe at Flamanville, France, and Olkiluoto, Finland, both now running about three times over original cost estimates. Many of the delays have been caused by safety failures. Over, for example, the flawed metallurgy of the Flamanville reactor vessel and concerns over the reliability of key valves in the cooling system.

Now of course, if you simple ignore such problems and press ahead with construction to meet the targets set down a five-year plan, construction is a whole lot quicker and cheaper. But the chances of reactors popping in years to come is also considerably greater.

Tsunami risk – not if but when

It’s also instructive to look at the map of nuclear reactors scheduled for completion in the next decade provided by Forbes. The great bulk of them – 77 reactors in all – are built along China’s east and south coasts, for two reasons: that’s where the demand is, and that’s where the cooling water is readily available, from the sea.

But of course that’s just the ones due to be completed in the next decade. If the full plan for 400 reactors by 2050 is fulfilled, probably some 300 of them would be sea-facing.

There are, of course, nuclear hazards to inland reactors from flooding on the Yellow and Yangtse rivers and tributaries. But a much greater danger arises from the sea. China’s south and east coasts face out to seismically active waters. And as the Japanese discovered at Fukushima, nuclear power, earthquakes and tsunamis make a dangerous combination.

Interest in the danger of tsunamis on China’s south and east coast was stimulated by the two Hengchun Earthquakes off  Taiwan in December 2006, which damaged buildings and disrupted communications by severing undersea cables.

One recent study put the risk of a powerful tsunami greater than 2m in height striking Hong Kong or Macau at about 10% over the coming century, mainly due to seismic activity in the Manila Trench. But head further north and east and the chances go up significantly to 13.34% at Shantou in Guangdong province.

And it may be more than that, the authors note: “This probability estimate may increase with a recent rise in the earthquake activities, which started with the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, because the Taiwan region has a earthquake cycle time of around 80-100 years.”

What is certain is that the tsunami hazard is real and substantial. Literature of historical seismic records of this region is “abundant”, the authors write. The northern Manila Trench near Taiwan is “is likely to have avery large earthquake in the future. In addition the regionis a volcanic belt. If volcano and earthquake occur in concert, a much larger tsunami disaster would develop.

“Although the southern part of the Manila Trench is far away from the coast of China, the local historical records of this region have many tsunami earthquakes up to the magnitude of around 8.0. Since the oceanic portion of the South China Sea is mostly deep, tsunamic waves generated in the Manila Trench region can reach the coast of China with little loss in energy.

“The wave energy can then be released in the shallow water region, and can impose a tremendous tsunami hazard to the coastal regions.”

The world’s first truly global nuclear catastrophe

I have done no study of the tsunami vulnerability of all the 300 nuclear reactors that could end up being built along China’s east and south coasts. But at least one – the CANDU reactor shown in the photo (above right) at Qinshan, where seven reactors are currently operational, looks vulnerable in the extreme.

And the consequences of a really big earthquake and tsunami hitting China’s coastal array of 300 nuclear reactors would be catastrophic. Many dozens of reactors could be struck down, each doing their own ‘Fukushima’.

This would not just bring massive radioactive contamination to China’s most developed, prosperous, productive and populated regions, but spread around the world in air and sea currents to make the world’s first truly global nuclear catastrophe.

The only good news in all this is that nuclear construction in China is not proceeding anything like as fast as Forbes magazine claims. Most of the more modern ‘Generation III’ reactors are well behind in their completion times, echoing the European experience with the failed EPR design.

We can only hope that construction difficulties persist and abound – and that China’s rulers realise that investments in solar, wind and other renewables are a quicker, surer, safer way to bring power to the masses – and one that poses no existential threat to their country, and the world.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

In a blatant attempt to silence opposition media in the run-up to Sunday’s general election, Turkish police stormed the headquarters of the Koza-Ipek corporation and took its broadcasts off the air, allowing them to resume only after the media company was under government control.

Early yesterday morning, police fired water cannon and tear gas at employees and supporters of the media firm and smashed their way into the building, interrupting the broadcasts of Kanaltürk TV, Bugün TV, and other Koza-Ipek outlets. Employees barricaded themselves inside the building and continued broadcasting for some 10 hours as police tried to shut them down.

“Dear viewers, do not be surprised if you see police in our studio in the coming minutes,” said a Bugün TV anchor as he described the police attack on the station. Ultimately, however, police cut the TV cables. Kanaltürk then broadcast the text, “Our broadcast has been shut down.”

At least two reporters were hospitalized after the police assault, including one with internal injuries and another with a broken leg.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is fighting for its survival in Sunday’s elections, made no secret that it was seeking to intimidate and silence opposition media.

Speaking to the pro-government A Haber channel, AKP legislator Aydin Ünal declared:

“After November 1, we will hold them accountable. The Sözcünewspaper insults us every day. There is a lot of pressure on Turkey. If we say something, the world accuses us of interfering with the press, so we’re not in a comfortable position now, but after November 1, we will settle up with all of them.”

The police storming of Koza-Ipek comes as the Turkish elections descend into violence. For the first time since 2002, the AKP failed to assemble a governing coalition after the June elections, forcing new elections just as the AKP’s shaky “peace process” with the Kurdish minority disintegrated into a civil war, driven by Washington’s proxy war in neighboring Syria.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (HDP) is on the verge of obtaining over 10 percent of the vote and entering parliament. This has made it a target of repeated attacks. A June 5 bombing hit an HDP rally in Diyarbakır, killing four; a mob attack in September destroyed the HDP headquarters in Ankara as police stood by; and a bomb attack hit an HDP-led rally in Ankara on October 9, claiming 128 lives.

While Turkish officials have blamed the attacks on Islamic State (IS) terrorists fighting Kurdish militias across the border in Syria, growing numbers of Turks accuse the AKP of working in league with IS to crush the HDP so as to hold onto power.

Koza-Ipek became a key AKP target after emerging as the main outlet in the election campaign for opposition parties such as the HDP, the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Turkish police raided it in September after the Bugün newspaper ran a front-page story on AKP assistance to Islamic State (IS) militias in Syria.

With the AKP’s chances of obtaining a parliamentary majority on Sunday appearing ever slimmer, the government moved to shut down Koza-Ipek outright. On October 26, the Ankara prosecutor accused Koza-Ipek of being “involved in the activities of the Fethullahist terror organization,” referring to the Hizmet network of US-based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gülen. The courts named pro-AKP “trustees” to oversee the media firm’s activities. The police handed over control of Koza-Ipek to the trustees yesterday after storming the building.

Turkish opposition politicians joined US and European officials in criticizing the police raid. HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtas said, “This is ‘AKP Turkey.’ It is not an acceptable practice. At first it seems like oppression of a media outlet, but, in fact, it targets the entire society.”

Several CHP legislators visited Koza-Ipek headquarters in support, with Baris Yarkadas declaring: “Today is a shameful day. Everyone who made this decision and those who implemented it will have to answer for their crimes.”

US State Department spokesman John Kirby called on Turkey to “uphold universal democratic values… including due process, freedom of expression and assembly, and, of course, access to media and information.”

The European Union (EU), through spokeswoman Catherine Ray, called for “the rule of law and media freedom” in Turkey.

The criticisms by the US and the EU of their AKP ally reek of hypocrisy. The major factor in the AKP’s attempt to erect a presidential dictatorship around Erdogan is the intense international crisis caused by its own disastrous policies of war and austerity.

Economically, Turkish capitalism is reeling from the collapse of its main export markets in Europe under the weight of EU austerity measures.

And despite the bloodthirstiness of its policies, the AKP has proven incapable of adapting to the twists and turns of Washington’s incoherent Syria policy. The AKP played a key role in arming Islamist militias against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but it was taken aback when the US turned against IS in the summer of 2013, after IS attacked the US puppet regime in Iraq.

This sudden shift provoked a deep crisis in Turkey. The AKP launched a large-scale purge in the media and political establishment, ostensibly aimed at the Gülen movement, which it accused of trying to carry out a US-backed overthrow of Erdogan.

The AKP became terrified when Washington began relying on Kurdish militias to fight IS in Iraq, fearing that Kurdish forces might place territorial demands on majority-Kurdish areas of Turkey.

In July, Ankara seemed to obtain a green light from Washington for war on the Kurds in the form of a plan for Turkey to invade northern Syria to prevent the Kurds from seizing the area. At this point, a bombing in the Turkish city of Suruç targeting people preparing to fight with Kurdish forces in Iraq claimed 28 lives and wounded over 100. Ankara blamed the bombing on IS, but large sections of the Turkish population blamed it on the Erdogan government.

Washington seems to have walked away from the plan for a Turkish invasion of Syria, however, after this threat of escalation prompted a Russian military intervention in Syria. This month, the US has announced plans to again rely on arming the Kurds as shock troops in the US war for regime-change against Assad.

With Syria engulfed in civil war and millions of refugees fleeing to Turkey and Europe, Turkey itself is descending into civil war. There is growing concern in the European bourgeoisie that such a conflict could spread uncontrollably, including into Europe, and force even larger numbers of refugees to flee the Middle East.

“Pushing Turkey towards a Turk-Kurdish civil war, as [Erdogan] is doing, means pushing the country towards catastrophe,” political scientist Michel Naufal told L’Orient Le Jour, adding: “If he resumes the process of peace and reconciliation with Kurdish society, the internal situation can, probably, be stabilized.”

Bay-Ram Balchi of France’s International Research Center told RTL television, “I do not want to start crisis-mongering, but it would really be better for us if Turkey did not transform into a second Syria. Then we in Europe would have both Syrian and Turkish migrants.”

Israel’s descent into self-imposed ghettoisation is political, cultural and academic and not, of course, religious for the bulk of Israelis are secular and the majority of religious Jewry are not Israeli: have no wish to be so and do not support Netanyahu’s right wing, extremist agenda.

Netanyahu’s Likud Zionism is a political dogma inherited from his father who for many years was the right-­hand of a former Russian by the name of Vladimir Zhabotinsky, the founder of the Betar Movement and commander of the miltant Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL) underground organisation of the 1940s that bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 mainly British personnel, in an effort to end Britain’s Mandate over Palestine. Today’s Likud Party is, of course, the direct descendent of that Irgun Movement.

Likud’s brand of Zionism is anathema not only to most Jews in the Diaspora but also to the majority of Israelis. Netanyahu himself is a minority politician who polled only one third of the vote in the last election but who now heads an unstable coalition. It is this coalition that is determined to turn the Israeli state into an indigenous­-Arab­-free, Zionist fortress isolated from political and democratic reality.

The consensus, however, is that this current, right­ wing administration will eventually be replaced by a moderate, centrist one willing and anxious to collaborate with the international democratic community to establish a free, independent, Palestinian state and an end to illegal settlements and land­-grabs. That time cannot come soon enough but in the interim the world will have to withstand the ghetto mentality of Israel’s current political incumbent and his influence over the US congress who continue to supply him with the bombs and killing machines that enables him to stay in power.

[email protected]      London    October 2015

The Russian Air Force struck terrorists’ positions in Daraa province for the first time in the past month. Russia’s fighter jets hit the terrorists’ positions in the strategic hilltops of Tal al-Harra and Tal Antar near Deir al-Adas. Then the SAA carried out attacks on the strategic hilltop of Tal al-Alaqiya and managed to fully destroy the terrorists’ positions in the sector. Also, the Russian airstrikes targeted the ISIS and al-Nusra positions in the Golan Heights in Quneitra province.

Russian fighter jets destroyed a number of the positions of the terrorist groups in the Aleppo province. The airstrikes hit positions of al-Nusra and ISIS in the vicinity of Khanasser-Ithriyah road in the Southern parts of the city of Aleppo.

Earlier SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence reported that the ISIS militants seized territory which is vital to the Syrian government’s logistical lines. So far, ISIS has taken control of approximately 10 Syrian checkpoints along the supply line running from Hama through Salamiyeh, Ithriyah and Khanaser to Aleppo. The Syrian forces have temporarily halted part of their offensive operations in Aleppo province as they scramble to secure the threatened corridor.

On Tuesday morning, ISIS launched a large-scale offensive at the Syrian government stronghold, Al-Safira. According to reports, ISIS began their assault at the northern district of the town where they captured several building blocks. The clashes have been continuing. Militants moved their forces from Tal ‘Arn and Al-‘Aziziyah for this advance.

If ISIS captures Al-Safira, they will cut supplies off from the large number of Syrian troops in Aleppo province and take control of the large army bases surrounding the city.

On Tuesday, the SAA and the Lebanese Hezbollah took control of the city of Jisr al-Shughour and its surrounding mountainous areas in the province of Idlib. Jisr al-Shughour has a strategic importance because it links Syria’s coastal towns as well as the Idlib and Aleppo provinces. It has a population of over 150,000 people.

Iraqi security sources stated that the US-led coalition’s airstrikes killed 22 army and volunteer servicemen on Tuesday. The coalition warplanes targeted the Iraqi forces’ positions after they advanced the al-Jama and al-Davajen bridges near the city of Ramadi.

Separate roadside bombings in an area of the capital Baghdad left two people dead on Tuesday. Two Iraqi servicemen were also killed when a bomb inside a truck went off at a gathering of security forces near the city of Samarra.

The Iraqi Parliament may begin discussions to request Russia’s help in providing military aid in the fight against ISIS at the end of this week, Mowaffak Rubaie, lawmaker from the Shiite coalition said on Tuesday. Last week, Russian parliamentary speaker Valentina Matvienko said that Moscow would consider Baghdad’s request to provide military assistance in the fight against terrorism should it be made.

Over the past eighteen months two of the world’s largest automakers have been found responsible for deadly conspiracies. But, recent revelations can’t compete with the industry’s previous scandals.

Last month Volkswagen was caught rigging millions of its cars emissions testing systems to meet regulatory standards. The German company programmed its turbocharged direct injection diesel engines to activate emissions controls during laboratory testing while in real-world driving the vehicles produced up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide (NOx). Hundreds, probably thousands, of people will be afflicted with asthma, lung disease and other ailments as a result.

The Volkswagen scandal follows on the heels of General Motors’ efforts to hide ignition and airbag defects in millions of its vehicles. The faulty ignition switches cause the vehicle to lose power and its airbag to fail during accidents. GM accepts that at least 124 people died as a result of a glitch company officials knew about for years.

In a much bigger scandal, a half century ago information surfaced implicating auto companies in a conspiracy to keep the population in a toxic haze. The “smog conspiracy” was revealed in 1968 when the US Department of Justice filed an anti-trust case against the Big Three. They were accused of colluding to withhold the installation of catalytic converters and other technologies to reduce pollution. “Beginning at least as early as 1953, and continuing thereafter,” alleged the Department of Justice, “the defendants and co-conspirators have been engaged in a combination and conspiracy in unreasonable restraint of the aforesaid interstate trade and commerce in motor vehicle air pollution control equipment.”

In the early 1950s smog became increasingly common. Los Angeles (the car capital of the world) became the centre of the pollution debate. In a bid to quell mounting criticism of car generated air pollution, GM, Ford, Chrysler and the Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA) agreed in 1953 to collectively research pollution-reducing technologies. The automotive manufacturers claimed their alliance was driven by a concern for public health. It was not. As time passed evidence emerged that the Big Three had in fact united to block the installment of anti-pollution devices. Their agreement stipulated they would wait for unanimous agreement to move forward on smog-busting technologies. In Taken for a Ride, Jack Doyle writes that “the automobile manufacturers, through AMA, conspired not to compete in research, development, manufacture and installation of [pollution] control devices and collectively did all in their power to delay such research, development, manufacturing and installation.” The public had been hoodwinked.

But the biggest automotive scandal was much worse than the smog alliance. It was a conspiracy that changed the face of urban landscapes across North America. In 1922, Alfred P. Sloan, head of General Motors, created a working group charged with undermining and replacing the electric trolley. The group’s first act was to launch a bus line that arrived a minute before the streetcar and followed the same route. The trolley line soon shutdown. At the time, there were hundreds of trolley lines in Los Angeles so it was not particularly noteworthy when one shut down. But it was a harbinger of things to come.

In the early 1920s the streetcar industry was booming. There were 1,200 tramway and inter urban train companies with 29,000 miles of track. In the best years they topped 15 billion riders. Over a thousand miles of trolley track criss-crossed the Los Angeles area alone, carrying most people to work. The streetcar dominated the transit scene, but the competition was gaining strength. The number of cars on the road reached 20 million in the1920s. While pressure from the automobile mounted, the trolley remained the major form of urban transportation.

During this crucial period in transit history, GM was intent on eliminating the competition. As one of the biggest companies in the world, GM offered municipal politicians free Cadillacs to vote the company’s way and insisted that railway companies shipping their cars aid their campaign. They also pressured banks in small communities to starve local trolley companies of finance and then made credit available to streetcar companies that replaced their tracks with GM buses. In 1932, GM established United Cities Motor Transportation (UCMT) to buy electric streetcar companies in urban areas and convert them into bus operations. After purchasing streetcar systems, UCMT ripped up their tracks and tore down the overhead wires. Once the conversion was complete, UCMT resold the new bus systems, on condition they were not reconverted to streetcars. New owners signed contracts with UMCT, stipulating that “new equipment using any fuel or means of propulsion other than gas” could not be used. The contracts also required that GM be the source of all new buses.

In the relative obscurity of Galesburg Illinois, UCMT made its first urban takeover in 1933.23 Moving swiftly, it had already dismantled trolley systems in three urban centres before being censured by the American Transit Association. After its 1935 censure, GM dissolved UCMT. It was not long, however, before its anti-trolley activities were revived and redoubled.

GM and its co-conspirators developed a network of front organizations. In 1936, GM joined with Greyhound to form National City Lines; in 1938 they collaborated with Standard Oil of California to create Pacific City Lines; in 1939 Phillips Petroleum and Mack Truck joined National City Lines. American City Lines was created in 1943 to focus on the biggest cities.

GM’s conversion strategy ran into a major obstacle in many big cities. In the larger urban areas trolley lines were often owned by electricity companies that made money from selling the energy to power the rails. The electrical companies benefited from a tax provision allowing them to absorb trolley deficits through lower taxes paid by the parent company. Frustrated by this trolley-electricity ownership arrangement, in the early 1930s GM produced a number of dossiers for Congress highlighting the loss in tax revenues that resulted. GM’s strategy was successful.

The 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act made it extremely difficult for energy companies to own trolley lines. Companies that had previously refused GM’s advances began to sell. Eighteen months later, GM scooped up 90 miles of tramway in Manhattan. After successfully converting New York’s trolley system, GM and its cronies moved on to Tulsa, Philadelphia, Montgomery, Cedar Rapids, El Paso, Baltimore, Chicago and LA. When all was said and done a hundred electric transit systems in 45 cities were ripped up, converted and resold.

By the mid-50s nearly 90 percent of the US electric streetcar structure was gone.

GM’s apologists deny any conspiracy took place. Some even claim GM invigorated public transit. Yet, the facts are overwhelming. As Edwin Black points out in Internal Combustion, GM and company were condemned by the Department of Justice, Senate and courts (from the lowest district venue to the Supreme Court) for anti-trust practices that were part of this nationwide conspiracy. In a section of the 1947 indictment labeled “THE CONSPIRACY,” prosecutors and the grand jury jointly declared: “Beginning on or about January 1, 1937, the exact date being to the Grand Jury unknown, and continuing to and including the date of the return of this Indictment, the defendants, together with other persons to the Grand Jury unknown, have knowingly and continuously engaged in a wrongful and unlawful combination and conspiracy to acquire or otherwise secure control of or acquire a substantial financial interest in a substantial part of the companies which provide local transportation service in the various cities, towns and counties of several states of the United States, and to eliminate and exclude all competition in the sale of motorbuses, petroleum products, tires and tubes to the local transportation companies owned or controlled by or in which National City Lines … had a substantial financial interest.”

The verdict was guilty. Yet the punishment for conspiring to destroy a mode of mass transit amounted to a fine of five thousand dollars. Not much of a disincentive for a company worth billions of dollars. And just after its 1947 conviction, National City Lines revived its anti-trolley activities.

The only legitimate dispute is the extent to which GM’s motivation was to promote private auto use or simply to increase the number of gasoline-powered buses, which GM sold. Some believe GM pushed buses to spur future personal automobile sales. Others think differently. “The conspiracy against mass transit,” argues Edwin Black, “was first and foremost a conspiracy to convert cities from electric [streetcars] to petroleum [bus] systems.”

Honest observers know longstanding Israeli occupation harshness is the root cause of current violence – instigated by Israel, responded to courageously by Palestinians, largely youths and children, putting their lives on the line for freedom, deserving universal support in their struggle against pure evil.

Not according to Times Jerusalem correspondent Jodi Rudoren, discussing what she calls “dueling narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

One honest one alone exists. Times correspondents, columnists, contributors and editors don’t explain it – one-sidedly supporting outrageous Israeli claims, Big Lies, calling Palestinians knife-wielding terrorists, ignoring their longstanding persecution at the hands of a ruthless occupier.

Rudoren’s attempt to portray ongoing violence in terms of two sides with opposing views fell flat – willfully suppressing hard truths, substituting disgraceful misinformation, giving credence to Israeli Big Lies.

Nowhere in her article, or any she writes, is an explanation of decades of oppressive occupation, Palestinians denied fundamental human and civil rights guaranteed under international law, Washington’s full support for Israeli high crimes, both nations partnering in each other’s viciousness.

She doesn’t discuss longstanding Israeli military raids into Palestinian communities, mostly pre-dawn, homes broken into violently, ransacked, families terrorized, children traumatized, arrests made for political reasons only.

Nor Palestinian land stolen, their homes bulldozed for wanting to live free or no reason at all – to facilitate exclusive Jewish development, no Arabs allowed, not on Occupied Palestinian land Israel wants or in its own Jews-only communities.

Mass arrests, detentions, and grueling interrogations amounting to torture and other forms of abuse aren’t discussed – nor an entire population collectively punished for not being Jews.

Israel is a belligerent, racist, apartheid state worse than South Africa – doing to Arabs what Hitler did to Jews. Nothing on Times pages explains it, instead one-sided support for Israeli high crimes, calling them self-defense.

Children and youths armed with stones, their bare hands and immense courage, threatening one of the world’s most powerful military forces? The self-styled newspaper of record is a lying machine – on the wrong side of virtually every issue that matters, supporting might over right.

Israel’s war on Palestinians rages – Tuesday into Wednesday another five Palestinians murdered in cold blood, the toll now at least 66, certain to rise from seriously wounded victims likely to die, plus more fatalities from continued daily carnage.

The story Times and other media ignore is raging Israeli state terror against an entire Palestinian population – including dozens murdered, hundreds kidnapped, either disappeared or imprisoned, thousands injured, and millions terrified about what’s next.

On October 28, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) representative Hanne Sorine Sorensen commented on how “life will never be the same for children wounded during” Israel’s 2014 summer aggression on Gaza.

They’ll never again live normal lives – crippled, wheelchair-bound, copying with shattered bodies, traumatized by Israeli ruthlessness.

The same scenario is now playing out throughout Occupied Palestine – short of tanks, artillery and F-16s so far involved, maybe coming, Israel holding nothing back to brutalize an entire population, unrestrained in its ruthlessness.

Palestinians are dying daily, many others seriously wounded. A handful of Israelis died – for Western officials and media scoundrels the only ones that matter.

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.

The Yemen war planned as a blitzkrieg by the Arab coalition has turned into a dragged-out war drawing resources from the coalition and directly Saudi Arabia. Mostly, the intervention has been induced by Saudi Arabias concerns over the strengthening of Iran in the region and will to control a major regional logistical point, the port of Aden.

The coalition Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan has created 150,000-strong ground military grouping used for intervention in Yemen. The coalitions air grouping includes over 100 war planes and helicopters.

The interesting fact is Egypt has been actively participates in the Yemeni military campaign on the Saudi Arabias side. On the other hand, Egypt has a neutral position over the Syrian conflict. It clearly shows how tenuous and inconstant Middle East alliances.

The Saudi-led coalition uses modern military equipment and has an advantage in the man power. But the practice shows that it isnt enough. Numerous air raids which target civilians and socially significant facilities dont conduct a support of the Yemeni citizens. Arab media state over 25 000 people mostly civilians have been killed in this conflict.

So, the coalition is involving more and more resources in this intervention. On October 16, a battalion of Sudanese troops arrived in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden. Sudan forces are armed by Chinese armaments and equipment; small arms: rifles Type-51, Type-95, CQ, precision rifles M99, machine guns QJZ-89, automatic grenade launchers QLZ-87 and other military systems as antitank guided missiles Hongjian-8, battle tanks Type-96, MLRS WS-2. Also, Sudan military could use aviation Chengdu J-7, Nanchang Q-5 and Hongdu JL-8. According to reports, Sudan military could send one more battalion to Yemen in the nearest future.

Despite this, its hard to estimate the real military balance of pro-Houthi and anti-Houthi forces. There are lots of ground reports about the coalitions losses on the ground. The coalition forces dont have battle experience.

Houthi forces use skilfully the ground relief, local facilities and a concealment practice to inflict damage to ground and air forces of the Arab coalition. Experts believe that the coalition forces wont be able to act successfully in mountainous area and fight local guerilla. Furthermore, Saudi Arabias expectations that Iran wont support Houthis in Yemen have been a mistake.

At the moment, Saudi Arabia and its allies arent ready to participate in the negotiations aimed on a real way to solve the conflict. So, there are 2 main possibilities: First is ground and air forces of the Arab coalition will cut Houthis from the external support, gain enough battle experience and inflict defeat to the Houthi forces. But its unlikely. Its much more possible that the coalition forces wont be able to defeat decisively Hothis. It will conduct jitters among coalition members. Separately, almost all of them have own disagreed interests in Yemen.

Nonetheless, many major world powers are interested in a normal work of the Adens port because of its logistical importance and a stable situation on the main oil trade maritime routes. So, we could expect that the global players will be more and more involved in the conflict. The local conflicts in the Middle East has been turning to a big regional conflict.

“The Ivy League bourgeoisie who sit at the helm of the non-profit industrial complex will one day be known simply as charismatic architects of death. Funded by the ruling class oligarchy, the role they serve for their funders is not unlike that of corporate media. Yet, it appears that global society is paralyzed in a collective hypnosis – rejecting universal social interests, thus rejecting reason, to instead fall in line with the position of the powerful minority that has seized control, a minority that systematically favours corporate interests.” ~ Cory Morningstar

In his recent speech Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Nasrallah, alluded to a multi-phase “soft war” which relies upon the mass media complex to disseminate propaganda and bias, propelling the Middle East into, primarily, a sectarian crisis before descending even further into regionalism and finally a devastating individualism.

Cory Morningstar’s body of work does more than any other to expose the bare bones of the non-profit propaganda industry that governs both our reactions – and inactions, through a network of multi-layered and multi-faceted media manipulation campaigns, of which the end result is mass thought control. She explains:

“The 21^st century NGO is becoming, more and more, a key tool serving the imperialist quest of absolute global dominance and exploitation. Global society has been, and continues to be, manipulated to believe that NGOs are representative of “civil society” (a concept promoted by corporations in the first place). This misplaced trust has allowed the “humanitarian industrial complex” to ascend to the highest position: the missionaries of deity – the deity of the empire.”

In a paper entitled, Foreign Aid and Regime Change: A Role for Donor Intent, written just prior to NATO intervention in Libya, Prof. Sarah Blodgett Bormeo describes the “democratization” process for target nations. Unwittingly or wittingly, Bormeo perfectly outlines the role played by NGOs in this process. Bormeo even goes so far as to pinpoint the lack of impartiality rife among NGOs large and small, the majority of whom, receive their funding directly from western government and major corporation sources – all of whom have a vested interest in the outcome of their NGO’s activities and ‘intervention’ in a particular location. Bormeo emphasises the importance of “picking winners” in this scenario, as opposed to respecting and supporting the will of the people in any sovereign nation.

“Thus, it is possible that aid donors, in an effort to avoid further entrenching an “authoritarian” [my edit: this status is decided by donor] regime and perhaps increase the likelihood of democratization, channel funds through NGOs and civil society organizations in authoritarian states.”

In this short video below, we are introduced to the US military’s symbiotic relationship with NGOs in countries [in this instance, Iraq] where the policy is to Induce Pacification & Advance Western Ideologies. NGOs are cynically used to “soften” cultures and render entire communities dependent upon foreign aid in order to facilitate “Democratization”.

In this role, and dependent upon their donor support, NGOs cease to be the neutral, unbiased ‘humanitarian’ organisations they publically purport to be, and instead become actual covert tools for foreign intervention and regime change.  By default, they are assimilated into the Western modus vivendi of “waging war by way of deception” and their purpose is to alter public perception of a conflict via a multitude of media and “marketing” channels.

Following this formula, let’s examine, once more, the role of the Syria Civil Defence aka,’The White Helmets’ currently operating in Syria and take a closer look at their financial sources and mainstream media partners in order to better determine if they are indeed “neutral” as media moguls proclaim these “humanitarians” to be.

White Helmets: Follow the Money

The White Helmets were established in March 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey, and is headed by James Le Mesurier, a British “security” specialist and ‘ex’ British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record in some of the most dubious NATO intervention theatres including Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Le Mesurier is a product of Britain’s elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and has also been placed in a series of high-profile pasts at the United Nations, European Union, and U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The origins of The White Helmet’s initial $300k seed funding is a little hazy, reports are contradictory but subsequent information leads us to conclude that the UK, US and the ‘Syrian Opposition’ [or Syrian National Council, parallel government backed an funded by the US, UK and allies] are connected. Logistical support has been provided and given by Turkish elite natural disaster response team, AKUT.

A further $13 million was poured into the White Helmet coffers during 2013 and this is where it gets interesting. Early reports suggest that these “donations” came from the US, UK and SNC with the previously explored connections to George Soros in the US.

However, subsequent investigations reveal that USAID has been a major shareholder in the White Helmet organisation.

The website for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) claims that “our work supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting: economic growth, agriculture and trade; global health; and, democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance.”

In a USAID report update in July 2015 it is clearly stated that they have supplied over $ 16m in assistance to the White Helmets.

The USAID track record as a primary US Government/CIA regime change facilitator is extensively documented.  From South America to the Ukraine and in the Middle East, USAID serve a malevolent and ultimately destructive role in the dismantling of sovereign nations and their reduction to Western hegemony vassal states, as always, all in the name of freedom and democracy.

“The United States does not lack institutions that continue to conspire, and that’s why I am using this gathering to announce that we have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia”  ~ Bolivian President Evo Morales

“USAID and NED are in the business of “Democracy Promotion” which uses public money (from U.S. taxpayers) for secretive operations with the intention to support pro-U.S. governments with the help of political and social movements abroad. The goal is regime change.” ~ Timothy Alexander Guzman

With recent developments in Syria and as a consequence of  the Syrian Government requested Russian intervention, we have seen a scramble to justify the shambolic US foreign policy and its clandestine terror operations in Syria.  We have previously established the White Helmet connections to this US regime change operation and their undisputed exclusive integration into the Al Nusra and Free Syrian Army [Muslim Brotherhood] and even ISIS networks and strongholds.

After RT and Sott.net among others, exposed the gaping holes in White Helmet propaganda whereby the group recycled older photographs on Twitter in an effort to blame Russia for ‘civilian deaths’ – even before the alleged Russian bombing had occurred. Since then, the propaganda “war” has only ramped up.  The Russian involvement in Syria, did not only betray the US military deception, it also brought some heavyweight media giants of its own into the fray who set about de-constructing the Western media and NGO indoctrination that had, for so long, been largely unchallenged.

At this point the London Telegraph went into damage limitation mode.  It published an article expounding the White Helmet humanitarian role in Syria but with admissions of UK Government “majority” funding and that the White Helmets are embedded with ISIS (“in at least one ISIL held area”), claims previously vehemently denied but rendered indisputable after discovery of the photo showing an ISIS mercenary posing directly in front of a White Helmets depot located deep in ISIS held territory south of Yarmouk.

“The Foreign Office is currently the largest single source of funding. It is an irony that if Britain does effectively become an ally of Assad, and starts raids against Isil in Syria, it will be bombing from the air and paying for the bodies to be dug out on the ground. The White Helmets are also operating in at least one Isil-held area.”

Interestingly, the Telegraph stated clearly that the UK Foreign Office is the “largest single source of funding” for the White Helmets which may be perceived as an attempt to draw fire away from the USAID funding which still outstrips official figures released by the British Gov’t who “gifted” £ 3.5 million in equipment to “civil defence teams” in Syria [Report March 2015]. However, the British Government also committed to an additional £ 10m to “increase coordination between the Syrian Interim Government and civil defence teams” to be funded by: UK Government’s Conflict, Security and Stability Fund (CSSF).

If an organisation is funded by foreign governments who are directly involved in trying over-throw Syria’s government, how can they be rightly called an ‘independent relief organisation’?

It should be noted here also that although cries of ‘regime change!’ from both Washington and London have been muted since Russia entered the Syria conflict, both Washington and London have been supporting their own parallel, hand-picked ‘interim government’ for Syria since at least 2012.

So, with millions in hard cash and equipment being invested into the White Helmets by US & UK donors who have a very clear regime change objective in Syria, it becomes increasingly difficult to perceive their role as anything other than donor-biased propaganda merchants and a ‘humanitarian’ extension of a clandestine terror operation allied to the NATO proxy armies in the region.

White Helmet Leadership 

James Le Mesurier has been portrayed as a Humanitarian maverick hero, miraculously in the right place (Istanbul) at the right time, just as the need arose for the formation of a Syria Civil Defence team, perhaps coincidentally, only a few months prior to the now infamous and universally (except for a few diehard propagandists) discredited Ghouta ‘chemical weapon’ attack in August 2013, an event which has already been proven beyond a doubt to be a false flag attack, as well as subsequent accusations levied at the Syrian Government which narrowly failed to precipitate the NATO desired ‘No Fly Zone’.

However, when we delve deeper into the life and times of Le Mesurier we see that it was no happy accident that he was in Istanbul at this juncture.  As Sandhurst Military Academy’s top student and recipient of the Queen’s Medal, his chequered career took him from OHR [Office of High Representative] in Bosnia to intelligence co-ordinator in NATO’s newly won prize, Kosovo.

We’re told that Le Mesurier left the British Army in 2000 and joined the UN serving as deputy head of the Advisory Unit on ‘Security and Justice’, and Special Representative of the Secretary General’s security policy body within the UN mission in Kosovo. His career then took him to Jerusalem where he worked on implementing the Ramallah Agreement, then to Baghdad as a special advisor to Iraqi Minister of Interior, and to the UAE to train their gas field protection force, and later to Lebanon during the 2006 war. In 2005 he was made Vice President for Special Projects at private mercenary firm Olive Group, and in January 2008 he was appointed as Principal for Good Harbour International, both based in Dubai.

Le Mesurier is also the founder of Mayday Rescue, a “non profit” organisation providing SAR [search & rescue] training to civilians enduring conflict.  According to Mesurier’s own biography on the website, Mayday Rescue was founded in 2014, after he had established Syria Civil Defence/White Helmets.

Mosab Obeidat, previous Assistant Chief of Mission with the Qatar Red Crescent, one of whose officials, Khaled Diab was accused of supplying $ 2.2 m to secure arms for the terrorist groups in Syria. Details of this transaction and its exposure can be found in this Al Akhbar article from June 2013.  http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/16160

At least three other members of the team were a part of the Syrian “revolution” including Farouq al Habib, one of the 3 most prominent White Helmet leaders who was also a leader of the Homs uprising against the Syrian government and according to his testimony, was tortured by the Syrian “regime” security forces in 2012 for smuggling a journalist into Syria to “cover” the “peaceful protests”. Habib was a founder member of the “Homs Revolutionary Counci” (note that the CIA have been linked to nearly all ‘Revolutionary Councils’ in Syria) before fleeing to Turkey in 2013 (A more in-depth analysis of his anti-Syrian government testimony will be presented in Part II of this article).

Le Mesurier is heavily involved in several organisations not mentioned in this article, but for the purposes of demonstrating that the White Helmets should not be considered impartial or neutral as they claim, we will focus on those that best substantiate that argument.

Both Olive Group and Good Harbour International are experts in private “security”.  Taken from Sourcewatch on Olive Group:

“Olive Security was founded in 2001 by Harry Legge Burke.  Olive lends their quick success to strong relations in the government and military industry. Harry Legge-Burke is an ex-Welsh Guard, and a former aid to chief of defence staff Sir [Charles Guthrie]. He can claim Prince William as a skiing partner and his sister was a nanny to the royal children.

Iraq:  Olive were on the ground since the invasion began in 2003, and were able to deploy 38 former SAS employees within two days of the invasion’s completion in 2004

Jonathan Allum, Olive’s former director and co-owner, is also the son of Tony Allum, who is the chairman of the engineering company Halcrow and also the head of the UK government’s Iraq Industry Working Group. It was in the latter position that Tony Allum went to Washington to meet with Bechtel leaders, where he suggested, among other UK companies, Halcrow and Olive as companies worth considering for subcontracted work, all stemming from Bechtel’s $680 million contract with USAID. They were considered and contracts followed, though both Legge-Burke and Allum deny one had anything to do with the other.”

In May 2015, Olive Group merged with Constellis Holdings, in whose portfolio we can also find Academi, previously the notorious Blackwater Group (Nisour Square massacre, Iraq 2007).  Taken from The Atlantic July 2012:  Post 9/11, Bush enabled the CIA to subcontract assassinations allegedly targeting Al Qaeda operatives.  Blackwater was awarded this contract.

“Running operations through Blackwater gave the CIA the power to have people abducted, or killed, with no one in the government being exactly responsible.”

The CIA can no longer hide its Blackwater/Academi connections, especially after this week’s Wikileaks data dump of CIA director John Brennan’s emails, whose contact list included now spy chief Robert Richer at his Blackwater contact address.

The outsourcing of intelligence operations was in full-swing. What Bush initiated, Obama ran with, awarding Blackwater/Academi a $ 250m contract in 2010 to offer “unspecified” services to the CIA, thus maintaining the apparatus for “unaccountable” covert assassinations.

It is true that James Le Mesurier only joined Olive Group in 2005 and left them in 2008, but his involvement with them and their subsequent merger with Constellis and by default, Blackwater/Academi, gives a degree of valuable insight into the elite intelligence and Pentagon circles that Le Mesurier moved in prior to working for Good Harbour International and creating Syria Civil Defence (not forgetting the USAID funding & influence that underpins both Olive and SCD/White Helmets).

In 2008, Le Mesurier joined Good Harbour International, another private “security” expert organisation, whose CEO is none other than former terror advisor to the Bush administration, the Terror Czar himself, Richard A. Clarke.

The jury is still out on whether Clarke was indeed the “whistleblower” he fashioned himself as, post 9/11, or a merely a high-level gatekeeper who aided in preventing a full and detailed investigation into Bush and Rumsfeld’s roles in 9/11.

Patrick Henningsen, a political analyst and writer for 21^st Century Wire believes the latter is more likely:

“On first glance, one might buy into the mainstream media’s characterization of him, but it’s more likely that Richard Clarke is not a whistleblower at all. While appearing to oppose the Bush administration from a safe enough distance, I believe his role was inserted into the mix in the period of  2004-2005 in order to VALIDATE the bin Laden mythology and help to portray al Qaeda as an organic,  independently run terror organization.  He also claimed that Bush and Rumsfeld committed war crimes, but this means nothing because everyone knows that no US official will ever face ‘war crimes’ charges in any court of law anywhere on the planet. It’s effectively a straw man narrative that distracts from the real scandal in the US which is that the entire premise of the war on terror is completely contrived.  Clarke’s ‘whistleblower’ status gives him brilliant cover from too much public scrutiny. I remain skeptical of his whole public narrative. He was, is, and always will be an insider.”

What is perhaps even more telling, is Clarke’s reported close ties with Israeli-US operative Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group, another supposedly independent, albeit ‘private’ intelligence firm located in Bethesda, Maryland, a stone’s throw away from CIA headquarters. SITE are said to be responsible for the media release of the harrowing ISIS execution videos, al Qaeda videos, and their credibility has been extensively questioned.

Katz’s long term working relationship with Clarke began before 9/11 when she and her research associate Steve Emerson were commissioned by Clarke to identify ‘Islamic radicals’ inside the Unites States. Over time, Katz’s relationship with Clarke blossomed into a much more extensive one that included regular briefings at both the Clinton and Bush White Houses.

“One of SITE’s founders, Rita Katz, is a government insider with close connections to former terrorism czar Richard Clarke and his staff in the White House, as well as investigators in the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security, according to SourceWatch. Her father was executed in Iraq as an Israel spy, a fact that suggests a connection to Israeli intelligence.”
~ Mark Taliano

Wheels Within Wheels

This background on Le Mesurier should at least make us question the media portrayal of an affable, debonair and philanthropic leader of a civilian humanitarian mission.  His military & intelligence roots, the fact that despite working for OHR in Bosnia, no visible record of his employment can be found there, his private security-centric career path, his appearance in Istanbul at just the right moment to partner USAID, the UK government & Syrian opposition in creating just the sort of “democratization” enabling NGO as described in our introduction, MUST at least cause us to doubt the transparency and neutrality of the White Helmets in Syria.

In addition, the White Helmet leadership consisting of known Syrian opposition protagonists such as Raed Saleh and Farouq al Habib must make us more cynical about the claims of impartiality and lack of bias and for those who will defend the “peaceful” revolution narrative upheld by Habib and Saleh, please take the time to read Professor Tim Anderson’s in depth analysis of events in Syria pre NATO intervention.

“I have seen from the beginning armed protesters in those demonstrations … they were the first to fire on the police. Very often the violence of the security forces comes in response to the brutal violence of the armed insurgents” – Jesuit priest Father Frans Van der Lugt, January 2012, Homs Syria 

“The claim that armed opposition to the government has begun only recently is a complete lie. The killings of soldiers, police and civilians, often in the most brutal circumstances, have been going on virtually since the beginning.” – Professor Jeremy Salt, October 2011, Ankara Turkey

Our presentation of the White Helmets as regime change propagandists & terrorist allies in this article will be further explored and verified in Part II.

“Existing soft power initiatives and agencies, particularly those engaged in development and strategic communications, must be reinvigorated through increased funding, human resources and prioritization. Concurrently, the U.S. government must establish goals, objectives and metrics for soft power initiatives. Furthermore, the U.S. government can better maximize the effectiveness of soft power instruments and efforts through increased partnerships with NGOs. By providing humanitarian and development assistance in areas typically inaccessible to government agencies, NGOs are often able to access potential extremist areas before the government can establish or strengthen diplomatic, developmental or military presence, including intelligence.” — Joseph S. Nye, former US assistant secretary of defence, June 2004

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there – as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog The Wall Will Fall.

“War Is Beautiful” is the ironic title of a beautiful new book of photographs.

The subtitle is “The New York TimesPictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict.” There’s an asterisk after those words, and it leads to these: “(In which the author explains why he no longer reads The New York Times).” The author never explains why he read the New York Times to begin with.

The author of this remarkable book, David Shields, has selected color war photographs published on the front page of the New York Times over the last 14 years. He’s organized them by themes, included epigrams with each section, and added a short introduction, plus an afterword by Dave Hickey.

Some of us have long opposed subscribing to or advertising in the New York Times, as even peace groups do. We read occasional articles without paying for them or accepting their worldview. We know that the impact of theTimes lies primarily in how it influences television “news” reports.

But what about Times readers? The biggest impact that the paper has on them may not be in the words it chooses and omits, but rather in the images that the words frame. The photographs that Shields has selected and published in a large format, one on each page, are powerful and fantastic, straight out of a thrilling and mythical epic. One could no doubt insert them into the new Star Wars movie without too many people noticing.

The photos are also serene: a sunset on a beach lined with palm trees — actually the Euphrates river; a soldier’s face just visible amid a field of poppies.

We see soldiers policing a swimming pool — perhaps a sight that will someday arrive in the Homeland, as other sights first seen in images from foreign wars already have. We see collective military exercises and training, as at a desert summer camp, full of camaraderie in crises. There’s adventure, sports, and games. A soldier looks pleased by his trick as he holds a dummy head with a helmet on the end of a stick in front of a window to get it shot at.

War seems both a fun summer camp and a serious, solemn, and honorable tradition, as we see photos of elderly veterans, militaristic children, and U.S. flags back Home. Part of the seriousness is the caring and philanthropic work exhibited by photos of soldiers comforting the children they may have just orphaned. We see sacred U.S. troops protecting the people whose land they have been bombing and throwing into turmoil. We see our heroes’ love for their visiting Commander, George W. Bush.

Sometimes war can be awkward or difficult. There’s a bit of regrettable suffering. Occasionally it is tragically intense. But for the most part a rather boring and undignified death about which no one really cares comes to foreigners (outside the United States there are foreigners everywhere) who are left in the gutter as people walk away.

The war itself, centrally, is a technological wonder bravely brought out of the goodness of our superior hearts to a backward region in which the locals have allowed their very homes to turn to rubble. An empty settlement is illustrated by a photo of a chair in a street. There are water bottles upright on the ground. It looks as though a board meeting just ended.

Still, for all war’s drawbacks, people are mostly happy. They give birth and get married. Troops return home from camp after a good job done. Handsome Marines innocently mingle with civilians. Spouses embrace their camouflaged demigods returned from the struggle. A little American boy, held by his smiling mother, grins gleefully at the grave of his Daddy who died (happily, one must imagine) in Afghanistan.

At least in this selection of powerful images, we do not see people born with gruesome birth defects caused by the poisons of U.S. weapons. We do not see people married at weddings struck by U.S. missiles. We do not see U.S. corpses lying in the gutter. We do not see nonviolent protests of the U.S. occupations. We do not see the torture and death camps. We do not see the trauma of those who live under the bombs. We do not see the terror when the doors are kicked in, the way we would if soldiers — like police — were asked to wear body cameras. We do not see the “MADE IN THE USA” label on the weapons on both sides of a war. We do not see the opportunities for peace that have been studiously avoided. We do not see the U.S. troops participating in their number one cause of death: suicide.

A few of those things may show up now and then in the New York Times, more likely on a page other than the front one. Some of those things you may not want to see with your breakfast cereal. But there can be no question that Shields has captured a portrait of a day in the life of a war propagandist, and that the photographers, editors, and designers involved have done as much to cause the past 14 years of mass dying, suffering, and horror in the Middle East as has any single New York Times reporter or text editor.

Margaret Chan, general director of the World Health Organization (WHO), described Cuba’s public healthcare system as an example to be followed, emphasizing its sustainability and ability to respond to emergency situations, during an assembly meeting of the Interparliamentary Union, yesterday, October 20.

Chan highlighted Cuba’s spirit of solidarity, especially the country’s contribution to training healthcare professionals from Third World countries, and the important role played by Cuban professionals in combating Ebola in West Africa. 

Courtesy of Cuban medical brigade in Nepal

Leading the Cuban delegation to the event was National Assembly deputy Yolanda Ferrer, who commented that it was gratifying to hear the praise expressed by Chan, adding that Cuba’s health care system has been capable of offering its best to those in need around the world, while maintaining and consolidating the population’s health, despite the impact of the U.S. blockade.

The official Israeli story about Israa Abed – the Nazareth woman who was shot six times on Oct 9 by Israeli security forces as she stood motionless in a bus station – has changed so many times, it’s difficult to know what to believe any more. By a small miracle she survived the shooting.

I raised many questions about this incident, based on two videos taken by bystanders, in a post on the day she was shot. That post, including the videos, is available here.

Israa is one of Israel’s 1.6 million Palestinian citizens. She lives in Israel, not the occupied territories.

Let’s be clear: the main reason the police have repeatedly revised their account of the events of Oct 9 is because the visual evidence has conclusively refuted their claims. They have been forced to back-pedal.

Without the video, Israa would have been charged with, and probably convicted of, terrorism offences. In line with threats from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she would also have risked being stripped of her citizenship.

Originally the police said they “neutralised” Israa after she pulled out a knife and stabbed a security guard at the bus station in the city of Afula. When it was clear no one had been injured, the story changed: she had tried without success to stab the guard.

Then it was reported that the police had shot Israa not because of an attempted attack but because she behaved in a threatening manner towards other people at the bus station.

Now, in the latest version, the police say she did not intend to stab anyone. In the video footage, reports the Haaretz newspaper, she can be seen “standing next to a young ultra-Orthodox man without trying to hurt him”.

Instead, the police say she was depressed and / or mentally unstable and pulled out a knife because she wanted to “induce” the security forces to shoot her.

Pause for a second as you digest that argument. According to the police, Israa went to the bus station with the intention of pulling out a knife but not harming anyone, knowing that doing so would be enough to get her shot and maybe killed. And why would she think that? Because she looks Arab (she wears a headscarf), and, like most Palestinian citizens, understands that in any confrontation with the security services that is reason enough for the police to shoot without justifiable cause.

Even more disconcertingly, the Israeli police seem to agree that Israa’s assumptions were warranted.

Further, the claim that Israa wanted to be shot is pretty convenient for the four security staff who, even according to the official account, fired their weapons at a woman who posed absolutely no threat to anyone at the bus station.

Might they be disciplined, or, more properly, punished, for shooting a woman six times for no reason at all? Apparently not. They have been investigated and it has been decided that “there is no reason to take disciplinary measures against them, given the extenuating circumstances of the incident”. One might well ask: what were those “extenuating circumstances”?

Finally, the police are still claiming that Israa pulled out a knife. Given their series of bogus claims till now, there is no reason to assume even this part of their story to be true.

As I noted in my previous post, a video taken seconds after Israa was shot, when she is lying on the ground, appears to show a pair of sunglasses next to her. A man in jeans and T-shirt goes over to her, ignored by police, and kicks away the sunglasses. Who is that man and why is he interfering with evidence? No one seems to be asking these questions, so we are unlikely to get any answers.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.682928

On October 27, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that the Pentagon is contemplating “direct action on the ground” in both Iraq and Syria, “in an effort to combat the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group.” (Sputnik, October 27, 2015).

The not so hidden agenda, however,  is not “to combat” but rather “to protect and come to the rescue” of the Islamic State terrorist group. 

What’s new? Are we witnessing a process of military escalation?

The US and its allies already have boots on ground inside Syria. It’s not official, it’s a so-called “covert operation” which everybody knows about.

The Pentagon together with NATO, Turkey and Israel, et al, have routinely dispatched their military advisers, special forces and intelligence operatives to the Syrian war theater. These foreign forces have operated within rebel ranks from the outset of the war on Syria in March 2011.

While neither Washington nor the mainstream media have “officially” acknowledged their presence inside Syria, it should be understood that these Western special forces have performed routine command functions within the various terrorist groups in liaison with the US-NATO led coalition. In other words, they are largely responsible for coordinating countless ISIS and Al Nusrah terrorist operations against civilians inside Syria on behalf of the US led coalition. Needless to say, they are also supported by the US led air campaign, which theoretically is targeting (rather than “protecting”) the terrorists.

“Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) The Terrorists

In response to Russia’s bombing raids against ISIS, Washington is now contemplating to announce “officially” (what they have been doing for the last four years) their resolve to have boots on the ground in an extended military operation. Needless to say, this operation, if it were to be carried out without the UN Security Council stamp of approval would constitute a violation of international law (Nuremberg).

The US administration is considering the possibility of deploying a small number of ground forces in Syria embedded among Kurdish troops or the “moderate” opposition, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing US officials.

The US military has also proposed sending a group of combat advisers to the front lines with the Iraqi army, and possibly also with Syrian rebels. This proposal is, nevertheless, qualified by the newspaper as a less likely scenario.

Moreover, the White House is to examine the option of deploying a small squadron of Apache attack helicopters to Iraq to step up the fight against the Islamic State, the newspaper said. The measure will entail deploying several hundred US servicemen to Iraq, according to the daily. Washington heads a coalition that has been conducting airstrikes on ISIL positions in Syria and Iraq since 2014.On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said the Pentagon had not ruled out conducting attacks on the ground against ISIL terrorists. (Sputnik, October 28, 2015)

A No Fly Zone

Another important development pertains to the statement by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter that while “a no fly zone” is not contemplated in the immediate future by the Pentagon, it nonetheless remains an option: “President Barack Obama has not taken the option of a Syrian no-fly zone ‘off the table'”.

Meanwhile, Qatar has announced that it is contemplating sending ground troops to Syria. This statement announced by Doha was in all likelihood formulated  in Washington. According Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khalid al-Attiyah, Qatar could intervene military in response to Russia’s intervention in support of the government of Bashar Al Assad. (CNN Arabic (October 21):

 “Anything that protects the Syrian people and Syria from partition, we will not spare any effort to carry it out with our Saudi and Turkish brothers, no matter what this is,”

From the outset, Qatar has acted as a US proxy. Together with Saudi Arabia it has contributed to the recruitment, training and financing of Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists inside Syria including ISIS and Al Nusrah.

We are at a dangerous crossroads

International diplomacy has collapsed. US foreign policy makers are ignorant and corrupt, unaware of the implications of their actions.

The US led air raids are being implemented simultaneously with those of Russia.

Stalemate at the UN. The UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon (appointed by Washington ) supports the US led war under a humanitarian banner.

These various actions and threats by the US led coalition –not to mention the chatter pertaining to a “World War III option” in the corridors of the US Congress– point to a scenario of military escalation, which could potentially lead to direct military confrontation between the US led coalition and the Russian Federation. 

As perspectivas econômicas do Japão põem em evidência que as políticas monetárias «não convencionais» implementadas por alguns bancos centrais dos países industrializados são um absoluto fracasso. A economia japonesa não só não registra crescimento econômico sustentado como voltou a registrar queda, segundo dados oficiais. O plano de recuperação lançado pelo primeiro-ministro Shinzo Abe está morto: tal como aconteceu em meados dos Anos 90, o Japão se afunda no estancamento econômico e na deflação, enquanto a dívida pública não para de crescer.

Os últimos três meses nos revelam que o panorama do sistema mundial é cada vez mais preocupante. Tanto pelas tensões geopolíticas na Síria, como pelas tendências econômicas à recessão. Pela quarta vez consecutiva neste ano, o Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) diminuiu as previsões de crescimento: a economia global se expandirá 3,1% em 2015, a taxa mais baixa desde 2009.

O processo de recuperação econômica nos Estados Unidos é lento, e enquanto isso, a União Econômica e Monetária Europeia, junto com o Reino Unido, conservam o risco de consolidar a deflação (queda dos preços). Os países da América Latina e do continente asiático, por sua parte, tampouco estão a salvo da turbulência econômica mundial.

Depois da contração do crédito internacional, nos primeiros meses de 2009, a maior parte das economias emergentes evitaram se submergir numa crise profunda. Os países latino-americanos caíram em desaceleração, mas não em depressão.

O mesmo sucedeu com os países da região da Ásia-Pacífico. A China continuou comprando uma grande quantidade de matérias-primas (‘commodities’) – recursos com os quais os países primário-exportadores da periferia capitalista puderam resistir mais ao colapso. Agora, a situação é bem diferente, a recessão avança na América do Sul e a desaceleração ganha força no continente asiático.

O G-7 (integrado por Alemanha, Canadá, Estados Unidos, França, Itália, Japão e Reino Unido) se encontra preso numa crise estrutural. Os Estados Unidos, a Zona Euro, o Japão e o Reino Unido lançaram uma enorme quantidade de estímulos monetários e fiscais, para evitar o aprofundamento do caos. Porém, tais medidas, mais que dinamizar o grosso das atividades produtivas e promover a criação de emprego massivo, precipitaram a acumulação de dívida pública e o auge da especulação. A crise não foi resolvida, somente teve seus traços mais destrutivos contidos durante alguns meses.

No Japão, já se presenciam os primeiros sintomas do retorno da deflação (queda de preços). Quando o primeiro-ministro, Shinzo Abe, começou seu mandato, em dezembro de 2012, se comprometeu a tirar o país do atoleiro. Com graves penúrias desde 1980, devido a uma crise imobiliária, a economia japonesa se afundou no começo dos Anos 90, com um estancamento que sempre a manteve ameaçada pela queda dos preços.

O governo de Abe apostou todo o seu capital político num plano de recuperação chamado «Abenomics», sustentado pelas denominadas «três flechas»: as reformas estruturais, os estímulos fiscais (20,2 bilhões de ienes) e o programa de flexibilização quantitativa – um aumento da base monetária, num montante anual que equivale a 16% do produto interno bruto: 80 bilhões de ienes.

O objetivo consistia em incrementar a produtividade e a competitividade empresarial do país na economia global. Se liberalizou o mercado de trabalho, eliminando as barreiras da exploração capitalista. Para se juntar ao Tratado Transpacífico (TPP, por sua sigla em inglês), impulsionado pelos Estados Unidos, Abe pretende promover a abertura dos setores da agricultura e da saúde, entre outros, ainda que a resistência social interna seja forte nos dois casos.

Também diminuíram os impostos às corporações para promover o investimento produtivo, e se incrementou o imposto ao valor agregado, de 6 a 8%, para não gerar um rombo fiscal. Finalmente, foi lançado um programa de injeção de liquidez para favorecer a subida do nível dos preços. Entretanto, o plano «Abenomics» ainda não consegue fazer a economia decolar.

A economia japonesa caiu 1,2% entre abril e junho (em termos anuais). E há sinais que mostram que a recessão não cederá nos últimos dois trimestres do ano. Apesar da agressividade das políticas do Banco do Japão, a taxa interanual de inflação (excluindo alimentos e energia) continua sem crescer. Em agosto, diminuiu 0,1%. É a primeira vez que registra números negativos, desde abril de 2013.

A desvalorização do iene em mais de 30% com relação ao dólar ainda não mostra que o plano não foi capaz de dinamizar o comércio exterior o suficiente. A produção industrial (máquinas, automóveis e aparelhos eletrônicos) caiu e o nível de consumo das famílias não basta para elevar a demanda interna. A dívida pública já quase supera os 250% como proporção do produto interno bruto. A degradação da solvência é tanta que a agência Standard & Poors não teve alternativa e, em meados de setembro, diminuiu a qualificação da dívida soberana do país asiático de A para AA-.

O diretor do Banco do Japão, Haruhiko Kuroda, afirmou que a queda da atividade econômica se trata de uma situação que logo será superada, pois é transitória: tanto a queda dos preços do petróleo como a drástica desaceleração da China obstaculizam a capacidade do plano «Abenomics» de superar o estancamento e a deflação.

Sem dúvidas, entre os países do capitalismo industrializado, o Japão é um dos que vive um dos maiores dramas econômicos das últimas duas décadas. No começo de outubro, o banco central do país reiterou que não descarta a possibilidade de ampliar seu programa de estímulos monetários, no caso de que a situação se torne mais crítica. Contudo, é evidente que de nada servirá aumentar as doses um remédio que além de não curar, prolonga os males.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

Fonte: Contralínea (México).

Tradução: Victor Farinelli (Carta Maior).

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez : Economista formado pela Universidade Nacional Autônoma do México.

Las perspectivas económicas de Japón ponen en evidencia que las políticas monetarias «no convencionales» implementadas por algunos bancos centrales de los países industrializados son un absoluto fracaso. La economía nipona no sólo no registra crecimiento económico sostenido, sino que regresó a la caída de precios según datos oficiales. El plan de recuperación lanzado por el primer ministro Shinzo Abe está muerto: tal como ocurrió desde mediados de la década de 1990, Japón se hunde en el estancamiento económico y la deflación, mientras que la deuda pública no para de crecer.

Los pasados 3 meses nos revelan que el panorama del sistema mundial es cada vez más preocupante. Tanto por las tensiones geopolíticas en Siria, como por las tendencias económicas que rozan la recesión. Por cuarta vez consecutiva en lo que va del año, el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) disminuyó sus estimaciones de crecimiento: la economía global se expandirá 3.1% en 2015, la tasa más baja desde 2009.

Es que el proceso de recuperación económica en Estados Unidos es muy débil, mientras que la Unión Económica y Monetaria Europea y el Reino Unido conservan el riesgo de consolidar la deflación (caída de los precios). Los países de América Latina y el Continente Asiático, por su parte, tampoco están a salvo de la turbulencia económica mundial.

Luego de la contracción del crédito (‘credit crunch’) internacional en los primeros meses de 2009, la mayor parte de las economías emergentes evitaron sumergirse en una crisis profunda. Los países latinoamericanos cayeron en desaceleración pero no en depresión.

Lo mismo sucedió con los países de la región de Asia-Pacífico: China continuó con la compra de una gran cantidad de materias primas (‘commodities’), con lo cual los países primario-exportadores de la periferia capitalista resistieron más ante el colapso si se los compara con las naciones industrializadas. Ahora la situación es muy distinta, la recesión avanza en América del Sur y la desaceleración cobra fuerza en el Continente Asiático.

El Grupo de los 7 (G-7, integrado por Alemania, Canadá, Estados Unidos, Francia, Italia, Japón y Reino Unido) se encuentra atrapado en una crisis estructural. Estados Unidos, la Zona Euro, Japón y el Reino Unido lanzaron una enorme cantidad de estímulos monetarios y fiscales para evitar la profundización de la debacle.

Sin embargo, esas políticas, más que dinamizar el grueso de la actividad productiva y promover la creación de empleo masivo, precipitaron la acumulación de deuda pública y el auge bursátil. La crisis no se resolvió, solamente se contuvieron sus rasgos más destructivos unos meses.

En Japón ya se presencian los primeros síntomas del regreso a la deflación (caída de precios). Cuando el primer ministro, Shinzo Abe, comenzó su mandato en diciembre de 2012, se comprometió a sacar a su país del atolladero. Con graves penurias desde 1980, por una crisis de los bienes raíces, la economía nipona se hundió a principios de la década de 1990 en el estancamiento, y siempre se mantuvo amenazada por la caída de precios.

El gobierno de Abe apostó todo su capital político en un plan de recuperación (conocido con el nombre de «Abenomics») sustentado en las denominadas «tres flechas»: las reformas estructurales, los estímulos fiscales (20.2 billones de yenes) y el programa de flexibilización cuantitativa (aumento de la base monetaria en un monto anual que equivale a 16% del producto interno bruto, 80 billones de yenes).

A grandes rasgos, el objetivo consistía en incrementar la productividad y la competitividad empresarial de Japón en la economía global. Se liberalizó el mercado laboral para eliminar las barreras de la explotación capitalista. Para sumarse en el Acuerdo de Asociación Transpacífico (TPP, por su sigla en inglés) que impulsa Estados Unidos, Abe pretende llevar adelante la apertura de los sectores de la agricultura y la salud, entre otros, aunque la resistencia interna no se lo permite todavía.

También se disminuyeron los impuestos a las corporaciones para promover la inversión productiva y se incrementó el impuesto al valor agregado de 6 a 8% para no generar un hoyo fiscal. Por último, se puso en marcha un programa de inyección de liquidez para favorecer la subida del nivel de precios. Sin embargo, el plan «Abenomics» aún no consigue el despegue de la economía.

La economía nipona cayó -1.2% entre abril y junio (en términos anuales). Y hay señales que apuntan a que la recesión no cederá en los últimos 2 trimestres del año. A pesar de la agresividad de las políticas del Banco de Japón, la tasa interanual de inflación (si se excluyen los alimentos y la energía) sigue sin crecer. En agosto disminuyó -0.1 por ciento. Es la primera vez que registra números negativos desde abril de 2013.

La depreciación del yen en más de 30% ante el dólar todavía no termina de dinamizar lo suficiente el comercio exterior. La producción industrial (maquinaria, automóviles y aparatos electrónicos) se desploma y el nivel de consumo de las familias no basta para elevar la demanda interna. La deuda pública ya casi supera 250% como proporción del producto interno bruto; la degradación de la solvencia es tal que la agencia Standard & Poors no tuvo alternativa y a mediados de septiembre disminuyó la calificación de la deuda soberana del país asiático de A+ a AA-.

El gobernador del Banco de Japón, Haruhiko Kuroda, sostuvo que la caída de la actividad económica se trata de una situación que muy pronto será superada, pues es transitoria: tanto el desplome de las cotizaciones del petróleo, como la drástica desaceleración de China obstaculizan que el plan «Abenomics» logre superar el estancamiento y la deflación.

Sin lugar a dudas, entre los países del capitalismo industrializado, Japón vive uno de los mayores dramas económicos desde hace más de 2 décadas. A principios de octubre, el banco central reiteró que no cancela la posibilidad de ampliar su programa de estímulos monetarios en caso de que la situación se vuelva más crítica. No obstante, es evidente que de nada servirá proveer dosis más altas de una medicina que en lugar de curar, prolonga los males.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

Fuente: Contralínea (México).

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez : Economista egresado de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

This article was first published by Who What Why

An extremely important story has come and gone in a flash, almost unnoticed, like so many important stories. It revealed that President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had agreed to invade Iraq long before the first bombs fell on the oil-rich Middle Eastern country.

The story is important because it adds to our understanding of the essentially criminal disinformation put out to convince Americans, Britons and the world that war was unavoidable.

We’d all been told that Bush and Blair only acted after exhaustive efforts to determine whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) — and that in any case their focus was on addressing that threat through all possible diplomatic options. In fact, as a leaked White House memo now shows, the UK was committed to backing the US-led invasion almost a year before the war started in March 2003.

The juiciest material in the memo was, of course, redacted, but even what remains is very telling: “On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary. He is convinced on two points: the threat is real; and success against Saddam will yield more regional success.”

 Protesters wearing George W. Bush and Tony Blair disguises. Photo credit:  Tintazul / Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

What kind of “regional success” might these two Western leaders be after?

And what would determining that the threat Saddam posed was “real” have to do with “more regional success”?

Well, that success had nothing to do with eliminating WMDs (which turned out to be non-existent). It had everything to do with securing a wealth of natural resources.

As WhoWhatWhy previously reported, former NATO commander General Wesley Clark has revealed that the Pentagon had a plan dating back even before the attacks of September 11, 2001, to invade seven different countries in the region. According to Clark, it was “all about oil.” (Vice President Dick Cheney, chairing a secret energy task force, tried mightily to pin blame for 9/11 on Iraq — and though there was no truth to that claim, ended up persuading a fair chunk of the American public otherwise.)

THE SELF-DEALING THAT EXPLAINS IRAQ

Putting one and one together, now we know why Blair and Bush were so united in their desire to remove Saddam Hussein at any cost. The Iraq invasion was part of a larger scheme to re-draw the map of the Middle East and guarantee Western control of that region’s vast petroleum reserves for another generation and more. And little-known social and personal connections further bound the two men together — connections that ended up benefiting the business interests of a longtime mutual friend.

MAKE WAR, BECOME POPULAR

There were other benefits for the two men. As we reported earlier, Bush confided to a colleague in 1999 that if he became president, one of his main objectives would be to invade Iraq. He said a president needed a war in order to rally the American people, and get the high poll ratings necessary to drive a domestic agenda.

Tony Blair seems to have had the same idea. As former Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said,

“Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a frontman for American foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or the British Cabinet…. And in return for what? For George Bush pretending Blair was a player on the world stage to impress voters in the UK when the Americans didn’t even believe it themselves.”

This text was first published by Who What Why

For Part I, click here.

As you watch, perhaps with alarm, while thousands of refugees from Muslim countries make their way through Europe in a seemingly endless parade, you may be wondering if some of them will end up living near you, and how this might affect your life.

If you step back and look at the bigger picture, you will see the situation in reverse: how much the dominating presence of those from the western world has affected the daily lives of people living in Muslim countries.

What the colonial powers have done in Muslim countries is well known. Less well known are the machinations of Allen Dulles and the CIA in one of these colonial powers, France.

Without the knowledge or consent of President John F. Kennedy, Allen Dulles orchestrated the efforts of retired French generals, rightwing French, Nazi sympathizers, and at least one White Russian, to overthrow Charles de Gaulle, who wanted to give Algeria its independence. Dulles et al feared an independent Algeria would go Communist, giving the Soviets a base in Africa.

And there was another reason to hang onto Algeria: its natural resources. According to the US Energy Information Administration, it is “the leading natural gas producer in Africa, the second-largest natural gas supplier to Europe outside of the region, and is among the top three oil producers in Africa.”

We note with great interest that the plot to bring down Charles De Gaulle — the kind of people involved, the role of Allen Dulles, the motive behind it — all bear an eerie similarity to the circumstances surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But that is another story.

As we have said earlier, Dulles’s job, simply put, was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy. And in this fascinating series of excerpts from David Talbot’s new biography on Dulles, we see how his reach extended deeply into the government of France.

WhoWhatWhy Introduction by Milicent Cranor

This is the second of a three-part series of excerpts from Chapter 15 (“Contempt”) ofThe Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of the American Secret Government. HarperCollins Publishers, 2015. Go here and here to see Parts 1 and 3. Previously, we presented excerpts from Chapter 20, and to see them, go here, here, andhere.

KENNEDY GETS A BAD SURPRISE

On January 26, Dulles sent a report to the new president on the French situation that seemed to be preparing Kennedy for de Gaulle’s imminent elimination, without giving any hint of the CIA’s own involvement in the plot. “A pre-revolutionary atmosphere reigns in France,” Dulles informed JFK.

“The Army and the Air Force are staunchly opposed to de Gaulle,” the spymaster continued, exaggerating the extent of the military opposition, as if to present the demise of the French president as a fait accompli. “At least 80 percent of the officers are violently against him. They haven’t forgotten that in 1958, he had given his word of honor that he would never abandon Algeria. He is now reneging on his promise, and they hate him for that. De Gaulle surely won’t last if he tries to let go of Algeria. Everything will probably be over for him by the end of the year — he will be either deposed or assassinated.”

Dulles clearly knew much more, but he wasn’t sharing it with Kennedy.

President De Gaulle stands between President Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy
on the steps of the Élysée Palace in Paris, 1961.
Photo credit: U. S. Department of State image in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

When the coup against de Gaulle began three months later, Kennedy was still in the dark. It was a tumultuous time for the young administration. As he continued to wrestle with fallout from the Bay of Pigs crisis, JFK was suddenly besieged with howls of outrage from a major ally, accusing his own security services of seditious activity.

Kennedy then underlined how deeply estranged he was from his own security machinery by taking the extraordinary step of asking Alphand for the French government’s help to track down the US officials behind the coup, promising to fully punish them.

It was a stinging embarrassment for the new American president, who was scheduled to fly to Paris for a state visit the following month. To add to the insult, the coup had been triggered by de Gaulle’s efforts to bring French colonial rule in Algeria to an end — a goal that JFK himself had ardently championed.

The CIA’s support for the coup was one more defiant display of contempt — a back of the hand aimed not only at de Gaulle but at Kennedy.

JFK took pains to assure Paris that he strongly supported de Gaulle’s presidency, phoning Hervé Alphand, the French ambassador in Washington, to directly communicate these assurances. But, according to Alphand, Kennedy’s disavowal of official US involvement in the coup came with a disturbing addendum — the American president could not vouch for his own intelligence agency. Kennedy told Alphand that “the CIA is such a vast and poorly controlled machine that the most unlikely maneuvers might be true.”

JFK TO FRENCH: HELP FIND AMERICANS INVOLVED IN PLOT

This admission of presidential impotence, which Alphand reported to Paris, was a startling moment in US foreign relations, though it remains largely unknown today. Kennedy then underlined how deeply estranged he was from his own security machinery by taking the extraordinary step of asking Alphand for the French government’s help to track down the US officials behind the coup, promising to fully punish them.

“[Kennedy] would be quite ready to take all necessary measures in the interest of good Franco-American relations, whatever the rank or functions of [the] incriminated people,” Alphand cabled French foreign minister Maurice Couve de Murville.

In the wake of the crises in Cuba and France provoked by his own security officials, Kennedy began to display a new boldness. JFK’s assertiveness surprised CIA officials, who had apparently counted on Kennedy to be sidelined during the French coup.

To solidify his support for de Gaulle, Kennedy ordered US Ambassador James Gavin to offer the French leader “any help” he might need — clearly indicating that US troops would even fire on rebel forces from Algeria if they tried to land at American military bases in France. De Gaulle proudly declined the offer as “well-intentioned, but inappropriate” — perhaps horrified at the prospect of American GIs killing French soldiers on his nation’s soil. But Kennedy did arrange for US base commanders to take steps to camouflage landing sites, in case rebel planes attempted to use them.

In the wake of the crises in Cuba and France provoked by his own security officials, Kennedy began to display a new boldness. JFK’s assertiveness surprised CIA officials, who had apparently counted on Kennedy to be sidelined during the French coup.

Agency officials assured coup leaders that the president would be too “absorbed in the Cuban affair” to act decisively against the plot. But JFK did react quickly to the French crisis, putting on high alert Ambassador Gavin, a decorated paratrooper commander in World War II who could be counted on to keep NATO forces in line. The president also dispatched his French speaking press spokesman, Pierre Salinger, to Paris to communicate directly with Élysée Palace officials.

As Paris officials knew, the new American president already had something of a prickly relationship with de Gaulle, but he had strong feelings for France — and they made sure to absolve JFK of personal responsibility for the coup in their leaks to the press. French press accounts referred to the CIA as a “reactionary state within a state” that operated outside of Kennedy’s control.

After JFK’s death, Alphand spoke fondly of the bonds between Kennedy and France. “He thought that harmonious relations between the US and France were a fundamental element of world equilibrium. He knew France as a boy. He came to France for his holidays — the south of France — and he knew France also through his wife. Jacqueline made many, many trips to Paris. I know that Jacqueline helped him very much to understand France. She loves France — she has French blood — she speaks our language very well and she asked him to read the memoirs of General de Gaulle.”

Four rebellious French Generals who tried to overthrow President Charles de Gaulle in order to keep the French departments of Algeria as part of France. Picture was taken in 1961 in Algiers (French Algeria). From left to right French Generals André Zeller, Edmond Jouhaud, Raoul Salan and Maurice Challe. Photo credit: Wikimedia

Kennedy’s strong show of support for de Gaulle undoubtedly helped fortify French resolve against the rebellious generals. In the midst of the crisis, the American president issued a public message to de Gaulle, telling him, “In this grave hour for France, I want you to know of my continuing friendship and support as well as that of the American people.”

“FASCISM WILL NOT PASS!”

But it was de Gaulle himself, and the French people, who turned the tide against the coup. By Sunday, the second day of the coup, a dark foreboding had settled over Paris. “I am surprised that you are still alive,” the president of France’s National Assembly bluntly told de Gaulle that morning. “If I were Challe, I would have already swooped down on Paris; the army here will move out of the way rather than shoot…. If I were in the position Challe put himself in, as soon as I burst in, I would have you executed with a bullet in the back, here in the stairwell, and say you were trying to flee.” De Gaulle himself realized that if Challe did airlift his troops from Algiers to France, “there was not much to stop them.”

But at eight o’clock that evening, a defiant de Gaulle went on the air, as nearly all of France gathered around the TV, and rallied his nation with the most inspiring address of his long public career. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. But he had put on his soldier’s uniform for the occasion, and his voice was full of passion.

De Gaulle began by denouncing the rebellious generals. The nation had been betrayed “by men whose duty, honor and raison d’être it was to serve and to obey.” Now it was the duty of every French citizen to protect the nation from these military traitors. “In the name of France,” de Gaulle shouted, thumping the table in front of him, “I order that all means — I repeat all means — be employed to block the road everywhere to those men!”

De Gaulle’s final words were a battle cry. “Françaises, Français! Aidez moi!” And all over France, millions of people did rush to the aid of their nation. The following day, a general strike was organized to protest the putsch. Led primarily by the left, including labor unions and the Communist Party, the mass protest won broad political support.

Over ten million people joined the nationwide demonstrations, with hundreds of thousands marching in the streets of Paris, carrying banners proclaiming “Peace in Algeria” and shouting, “Fascism will not pass!” Even police officers associations expressed “complete solidarity” with the protests, as did the Roman Catholic Confederation, which denounced the “criminal acts” of the coup leaders, warning that they “threaten to plunge the country into civil war.”

Hundreds of people rushed to the nation’s airfields and prepared to block the runways with their vehicles if Challe’s planes tried to land. Others gathered outside government ministries in Paris to guard them against attack. André Malraux, the great novelist turned minister of culture, threaded his way through one such crowd, handing out helmets and uniforms. Meanwhile, at the huge Renault factory on the outskirts of Paris, workers took control of the sprawling complex and formed militias, demanding weapons from the government so that they could fend off rebel assaults.

“In many ways, France, and particularly Paris, relived its great revolutionary past Sunday night and Monday — the past of the revolutionary barricades, of vigilance committees and of workers’ councils,” reported The New York Times.

De Gaulle’s ringing address to the nation and the massive public response had a sobering effect on the French military. Challe’s support quickly began melting away, even — humiliatingly — within the ranks of his own military branch, the air force. Pilots flew their planes out of Algeria, and others feigned mechanical troubles, depriving Challe’s troops of the air transport they needed to descend on Paris.

Meanwhile, de Gaulle moved quickly to arrest military officers in France who were involved in the coup. Police swooped down on the Paris apartment of an army captain who was plotting pro-putsch street riots, and de Gaulle’s minister of the interior seized the general in charge of the rebel forces that were gathered in the forests outside Paris. Deprived of their leader, the insurrectionary units sheepishly began to disperse.

By Tuesday night, Challe knew that the coup had failed. The next day, he surrendered and was flown to Paris. Challe emerged from the plane “carrying his own suitcase, looking crumpled and insignificant in civilian clothes,” according to Time. “He stumbled at the foot of the landing steps, [falling] heavily on his hands and knees.” It was an ignominious homecoming for the man who had fully believed that, with US support, he was to replace the great de Gaulle.

Challe expected to face a firing squad, but de Gaulle’s military tribunal proved surprisingly merciful, sentencing the fifty-five-year-old general to fifteen years in prison.

Next: Part 3.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently reposted a tweet from a follower blaming his trailing numbers in a new Iowa poll on genetically modified corn that “creates issues in the brain.” The GMO issue looms large for the candidates currently in the running.

“@mygreenhippo #BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa. Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump #GOP“

—  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2015

Trump made his thoughts on GM foods clear with this tweet, but what do the other candidates think? Hillary Clinton is in favor of genetically modified foods, though Hilary recently spoke out about the biotech industry causing inflated drug prices. Clinton has been called a ‘shill’ for biotech, even:

“How is Hillary personally involved in supporting big agriculture? The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which gathers leaders to solve the world’s problems, promotes Monsanto, the maker of RoundUp® and RoundUp Ready® seeds. Hugh Grant, Monsanto’s Chairman and CEO spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in September, 2014. Ms. Clinton’s top campaign advisor, Jerry Crawford, was a lobbyist for Monsanto for years and is now the political pro for her Super PAC, “Ready for Hillary.” Clinton spoke in favor of the government’s Feed the Future (FtF) program, a USAID funded, corporate-partnered program that brings RoundUp Ready® technology to the most vulnerable populations of the world. Monsanto and Dow Chemical support Hillary and Bill’s ‘Clinton Foundation’ with generous donations.”

Clinton has also been known to try to ‘pretty up’ public perception of GM foods, saying that the term ‘Frankenfood’ is a misnomer, and that they should be called drought-resistant crops, instead.

Furthermore, as Secretary of State Clinton, according to CNN, has supported the DARK Act or TPP 45 times, even though she has recently come out in opposition of it.

You can see the words come straight from Hillary’s mouth, here.

Then there’s Bernie Sanders who may be running against the grain on a lot of issues, including GMOs but there’s one issue on which Sanders sees eye-to-eye with Hillary Clinton, and Republican contenders: vaccinations. Erstwhile he comes down hard on the TPP, and says that Americans have a right to know what is in their food. Sanders has remarked:

“An overwhelming majority of Americans favor GMO labeling but virtually all of the major biotech and food corporations in the country oppose it . . .(Vermont’s labeling law is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2016.) The people of Vermont and the people of America have a right to know what’s in the food that they eat.”

Conversely, Jeb Bush has made it clear that he’s a huge fan of GMO’s. At a recent conference, Bush said he supported country-of-origin labeling for produce like the avocados and cilantro that go into his homemade guacamole, but said he said that he did not support the right to know if our food is genetically modified.

“I think that’s a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” Bush said, while calling GMOs one of the “greatest high technology innovative sectors of our economy.”

“We should not be trying to make it harder for that kind of innovation to exist, we should celebrate it…” he continued.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee also seems to play it safe politically by saying that science is consistently showing that GMOs are safe. He thinks that a “Country of Origin” label makes more sense than a GMO label.

While these aren’t all the 2016 presidential candidates, the front runners have definitely weighed in on the issue. Who do you trust to govern food safety in 2016? After Obama’s empty promise to label GMO foods, maybe the answer is none of them.

A peer-reviewed study published last year in the British Journal of Nutrition, a leading international journal of nutritional science, showed that organic crops and crop-based foods are between 18 to 69 percent higher in a number of key antioxidants such as polyphenolics than conventionally-grown crops. Numerous studies have linked antioxidants to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers. The research team concluded that a switch to eating organic fruit, vegetable and cereals – and food made from them – would provide additional antioxidants equivalent to eating between one and two extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

Moreover, significantly lower levels of a range of toxic heavy metals were found in organic crops. For instance, cadmium is one of only three metal contaminants, along with lead and mercury, for which the European Commission has set maximum permitted contamination levels in food. It was found to be almost 50 percent lower in organic crops. Nitrogen concentrations were also found to be significantly lower in organic crops. Concentrations of total nitrogen were 10 percent, nitrate 30 percent and nitrite 87 percent lower in organic compared to conventional crops. The study also found that pesticide residues were four times more likely to be found in conventional crops than organic ones.

The research was the biggest of its kind ever undertaken. The international team of experts led by Newcastle University in the UK analysed 343 studies into the compositional differences between organic and conventional crops.

The findings contradict those of a 2009 UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned study which found there were no substantial differences or significant nutritional benefits from organic food. The FSA commissioned study based its conclusions on only 46 publications covering crops, meat and dairy, while the Newcastle University-led meta-analysis is based on data from 343 peer-reviewed publications on composition difference between organic and conventional crops.

There has been for a long time serious concerns about the health impacts of eating food that has been contaminated with petro-chemical pesticides and fertilisers. Over the past 60 years, agriculture has changed more than it did during the previous 12,000. And much of that change has come about due to the so-called ‘green revolution’, which has entailed soaking crops with petrochemicals. Coinciding with these changes has been the onset and proliferation of numerous diseases and allergies.

The global agritech/agribusiness sector is in effect poisoning our food and the environment with its pesticides, herbicides, GMOs and various other chemical inputs. Journalist Arthur Nelson has written that as many as 31 pesticides could have been banned in the EU because of potential health risks, if a blocked EU paper on hormone-mimicking chemicals had been acted upon.

Christina Sarich recently reported that there are currently 34,000 pesticides registered for use in the US. She states that drinking water it is often contaminated by pesticides and more babies are being born with preventable birth defects due to pesticide exposure. Chemicals are so prevalently used that they show up in breast milk of mothers.

Illnesses are on the rise too, including asthma, autism and learning disabilities, birth defects and reproductive dysfunction, diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and several types of cancer. Sarich says that their connection to pesticide exposure becomes more evident with every new study conducted.

Important pollinating insects have been decimated by chemical herbicides and pesticides, which are also stripping the soil of nutrients. As a result, for example, there has been a 41.1 to 100 percent decrease in vitamin A in 6 foods: apple, banana, broccoli, onion, potato and tomato. Both onion and potato saw a 100 percent loss of vitamin A between 1951 and 1999.

In Punjab, India, pesticides have turned the state into a ‘cancer epicentre‘, and Indian soils are being depleted as a result of the application of ‘green revolution’ ideology and chemical inputs. India is losing 5,334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion because of the indiscreet and excessive use of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is become deficient in nutrients and fertility.

We can carry on down the route of chemical-intensive, poisonous agriculture, with our health and the environment continuing to be sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit. Or we can shift to organic farming and investment in and reaffirmation of indigenous models of agriculture as advocated by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology (IAASTD) report.

In this respect, botanist Stuart Newton’s states:

“The answers to Indian agricultural productivity is not that of embracing the international, monopolistic, corporate-conglomerate promotion of chemically-dependent GM crops… India has to restore and nurture her depleted, abused soils and not harm them any further, with dubious chemical overload, which are endangering human and animal health.” (p24).

Newton provides insight into the importance of soils and their mineral compositions and links their depletion to the ‘green revolution’. In turn, these depleted soils cannot help but lead to mass malnourishment. This is quite revealing given that proponents of the ‘green revolution’ claim it helped reduced malnutrition. Newton favours a system of agroecology, a sound understanding of soil and the eradication of poisonous chemical inputs.

Over the past few years, there have been numerous high level reports from the UN and development agencies putting forward similar arguments and proposals in favour of small farmers and agroecology, but this has not been translated into real action on the ground where peasant farmers increasingly face marginalisation and oppression.

According to Vandana Shiva, for instance, the plundering of Indian agriculture by foreign corporations is resulting in a forced removal of farmers from the land and the destruction of traditional communities on a scale of which has not been witnessed anywhere before throughout history. On a global level, not least because peasant/smallholder farming is more productive than industrial farming and because it feeds most of the world, this is undermining the world’s ability for feeding itself. It is also leaving to denutrification: not only in terms of specific items containing less nutrients than before, as described above, but because people are being forced to rely on a narrower range of foodstuffs and crops as monocropping replaces a biodiverse system of agriculture.

The increasingly globalised industrial food system is failing to feed the world but is also responsible for some of the planet’s most pressing political, social and environmental crises – not least hunger and poverty. This system – not forgetting the capitalism that underpins it – and the corporations and institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO) that fuel it must be confronted, as must the wholly inappropriate and unsustainable urban-centric model of ‘development’ being forced through at the behest of these corporations in places like India.

Organic farmer and activist Bhaskar Save describes how this urban-centric model has served to uproot indigenous agriculture in India with devastating effect:

“The actual reason for pushing the ‘Green Revolution’ was the much narrower goal of increasing marketable surplus of a few relatively less perishable cereals to fuel the urban-industrial expansion favoured by the government. The new, parasitical way of farming… benefited only the industrialists, traders and the powers-that-be. The farmers’ costs rose massively and margins dipped. Combined with the eroding natural fertility of their land, they were left with little in their hands, if not mounting debts and dead soils… Self-reliant farming – with minimal or zero external inputs – was the way we actually farmed, very successfully, in the past. Barring periods of war and excessive colonial oppression, our farmers were largely self-sufficient, and even produced surpluses, though generally smaller quantities of many more items. These, particularly perishables, were tougher to supply urban markets. And so the nation’s farmers were steered to grow chemically cultivated monocultures of a few cash-crops like wheat, rice, or sugar, rather than their traditional polycultures that needed no purchased inputs.”

Even if proponents of the ‘green revolution’ choose to live in a fool’s paradise by ignoring the ecologically and environmentally unsustainable nature of the system they promote and merely mouth platitudes about organic being less productive, they might like to look at the results Bhaskar Save achieved on his farm. They might also like to consider this analysis which questions the apparent successes claimed by advocates of the ‘green revolution’. And they should certainly consider this report based on a 30-year study which concluded that organic yields match conventional yields and outperform conventional in years of drought. That report also showed that organic agriculture builds rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.

But why let science get in the way of propaganda? These proponents have already paved the way for extending the the corporate control of agriculture and the ‘green revolution’ with their GMOs and further chemical inputs – all underpinned of course by endless deceptions and neoliberal ideology wrapped up as fake concern for the poor.

A peer-reviewed study published last year in the British Journal of Nutrition, a leading international journal of nutritional science, showed that organic crops and crop-based foods are between 18 to 69 percent higher in a number of key antioxidants such as polyphenolics than conventionally-grown crops. Numerous studies have linked antioxidants to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers. The research team concluded that a switch to eating organic fruit, vegetable and cereals – and food made from them – would provide additional antioxidants equivalent to eating between one and two extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

Moreover, significantly lower levels of a range of toxic heavy metals were found in organic crops. For instance, cadmium is one of only three metal contaminants, along with lead and mercury, for which the European Commission has set maximum permitted contamination levels in food. It was found to be almost 50 percent lower in organic crops. Nitrogen concentrations were also found to be significantly lower in organic crops. Concentrations of total nitrogen were 10 percent, nitrate 30 percent and nitrite 87 percent lower in organic compared to conventional crops. The study also found that pesticide residues were four times more likely to be found in conventional crops than organic ones.

The research was the biggest of its kind ever undertaken. The international team of experts led by Newcastle University in the UK analysed 343 studies into the compositional differences between organic and conventional crops.

The findings contradict those of a 2009 UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned study which found there were no substantial differences or significant nutritional benefits from organic food. The FSA commissioned study based its conclusions on only 46 publications covering crops, meat and dairy, while the Newcastle University-led meta-analysis is based on data from 343 peer-reviewed publications on composition difference between organic and conventional crops.

There has been for a long time serious concerns about the health impacts of eating food that has been contaminated with petro-chemical pesticides and fertilisers. Over the past 60 years, agriculture has changed more than it did during the previous 12,000. And much of that change has come about due to the so-called ‘green revolution’, which has entailed soaking crops with petrochemicals. Coinciding with these changes has been the onset and proliferation of numerous diseases and allergies.

The global agritech/agribusiness sector is in effect poisoning our food and the environment with its pesticides, herbicides, GMOs and various other chemical inputs. Journalist Arthur Nelson has written that as many as 31 pesticides could have been banned in the EU because of potential health risks, if a blocked EU paper on hormone-mimicking chemicals had been acted upon.

Christina Sarich recently reported that there are currently 34,000 pesticides registered for use in the US. She states that drinking water it is often contaminated by pesticides and more babies are being born with preventable birth defects due to pesticide exposure. Chemicals are so prevalently used that they show up in breast milk of mothers.

Illnesses are on the rise too, including asthma, autism and learning disabilities, birth defects and reproductive dysfunction, diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and several types of cancer. Sarich says that their connection to pesticide exposure becomes more evident with every new study conducted.

Important pollinating insects have been decimated by chemical herbicides and pesticides, which are also stripping the soil of nutrients. As a result, for example, there has been a 41.1 to 100 percent decrease in vitamin A in 6 foods: apple, banana, broccoli, onion, potato and tomato. Both onion and potato saw a 100 percent loss of vitamin A between 1951 and 1999.

In Punjab, India, pesticides have turned the state into a ‘cancer epicentre‘, and Indian soils are being depleted as a result of the application of ‘green revolution’ ideology and chemical inputs. India is losing 5,334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion because of the indiscreet and excessive use of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is become deficient in nutrients and fertility.

We can carry on down the route of chemical-intensive, poisonous agriculture, with our health and the environment continuing to be sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit. Or we can shift to organic farming and investment in and reaffirmation of indigenous models of agriculture as advocated by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology (IAASTD) report.

In this respect, botanist Stuart Newton’s states:

“The answers to Indian agricultural productivity is not that of embracing the international, monopolistic, corporate-conglomerate promotion of chemically-dependent GM crops… India has to restore and nurture her depleted, abused soils and not harm them any further, with dubious chemical overload, which are endangering human and animal health.” (p24).

Newton provides insight into the importance of soils and their mineral compositions and links their depletion to the ‘green revolution’. In turn, these depleted soils cannot help but lead to mass malnourishment. This is quite revealing given that proponents of the ‘green revolution’ claim it helped reduced malnutrition. Newton favours a system of agroecology, a sound understanding of soil and the eradication of poisonous chemical inputs.

Over the past few years, there have been numerous high level reports from the UN and development agencies putting forward similar arguments and proposals in favour of small farmers and agroecology, but this has not been translated into real action on the ground where peasant farmers increasingly face marginalisation and oppression.

According to Vandana Shiva, for instance, the plundering of Indian agriculture by foreign corporations is resulting in a forced removal of farmers from the land and the destruction of traditional communities on a scale of which has not been witnessed anywhere before throughout history. On a global level, not least because peasant/smallholder farming is more productive than industrial farming and because it feeds most of the world, this is undermining the world’s ability for feeding itself. It is also leaving to denutrification: not only in terms of specific items containing less nutrients than before, as described above, but because people are being forced to rely on a narrower range of foodstuffs and crops as monocropping replaces a biodiverse system of agriculture.

The increasingly globalised industrial food system is failing to feed the world but is also responsible for some of the planet’s most pressing political, social and environmental crises – not least hunger and poverty. This system – not forgetting the capitalism that underpins it – and the corporations and institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO) that fuel it must be confronted, as must the wholly inappropriate and unsustainable urban-centric model of ‘development’ being forced through at the behest of these corporations in places like India.

Organic farmer and activist Bhaskar Save describes how this urban-centric model has served to uproot indigenous agriculture in India with devastating effect:

“The actual reason for pushing the ‘Green Revolution’ was the much narrower goal of increasing marketable surplus of a few relatively less perishable cereals to fuel the urban-industrial expansion favoured by the government. The new, parasitical way of farming… benefited only the industrialists, traders and the powers-that-be. The farmers’ costs rose massively and margins dipped. Combined with the eroding natural fertility of their land, they were left with little in their hands, if not mounting debts and dead soils… Self-reliant farming – with minimal or zero external inputs – was the way we actually farmed, very successfully, in the past. Barring periods of war and excessive colonial oppression, our farmers were largely self-sufficient, and even produced surpluses, though generally smaller quantities of many more items. These, particularly perishables, were tougher to supply urban markets. And so the nation’s farmers were steered to grow chemically cultivated monocultures of a few cash-crops like wheat, rice, or sugar, rather than their traditional polycultures that needed no purchased inputs.”

Even if proponents of the ‘green revolution’ choose to live in a fool’s paradise by ignoring the ecologically and environmentally unsustainable nature of the system they promote and merely mouth platitudes about organic being less productive, they might like to look at the results Bhaskar Save achieved on his farm. They might also like to consider this analysis which questions the apparent successes claimed by advocates of the ‘green revolution’. And they should certainly consider this report based on a 30-year study which concluded that organic yields match conventional yields and outperform conventional in years of drought. That report also showed that organic agriculture builds rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.

But why let science get in the way of propaganda? These proponents have already paved the way for extending the the corporate control of agriculture and the ‘green revolution’ with their GMOs and further chemical inputs – all underpinned of course by endless deceptions and neoliberal ideology wrapped up as fake concern for the poor.

It bears repeating and stressing what other articles explained. Washington uses ISIS and other takfiri terrorists as US foot soldiers in Syria, Iraq and wherever else they’re deployed.

In over a year of US bombing both countries, zero ISIS targets were struck – infrastructure and other government sites only. Claims otherwise are Big Lies about Obama’s wars in both countries.

Last year, he promised no “American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. We will not get dragged into another ground war” – another of his many Big Lies.

Last week, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said he has “no intention to authorize long-term, large-scale ground combat operations like our nation has conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Middle East analyst Phyllis Bennis told RT International: “I think the question of US boots on the ground has been true for over a year now. We’ve had at least 35,000 troops in Iraq that went back last year (2014).”

US “troops (are actively) engaged in combat…So, the notion that there are ‘no boots’ is simply not the case. We also know that besides 35,000 US troops on the ground in Iraq there are an unknown numbers of other Special Forces and CIA forces on the ground.”

“Maybe they wear sneakers rather than boots. But there is no question that US forces have been fighting directly in Iraq for more than a year now.”

Their involvement makes things worse on the ground, not better – why they’re deployed in the first place, to keep the regional pot boiling, assure endless war, instability and chaos, support, not combat ISIS, and now an attempt to counter Russia’s successful air campaign.

Make no mistake about what’s ongoing and intended. Washington supports its ISIS and other terrorist proxy foot soldiers, wanting them protected from Russia’s commitment to contain, neutralize and eliminate them.

Most important for Moscow is keeping them from spreading elsewhere, especially to Russia and Central Asia, what Washington very much intends.

An undeclared US/Russia war rages, each nation supporting opposite sides in Syria and Iraq – America backing pure evil to advance its imperium, Moscow the best hope to restore regional peace and stability.

On October 27, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told Senate Armed Forces Committee members Washington intends “direct (regional) action on the ground” – code language for escalating what’s been ongoing for over a year.

“We won’t hold back…whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground,” said Carter. “We expect to intensify our air campaign…with a higher and heavier rate of strikes…We’ve already begun to ramp up these deliberate strikes.”

What’s coming remains to be seen. Carter provided no details. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “(w)e need to figure out…what (he) meant.”

Sergey Lavrov said Washington has no “understanding (about) who poses a terrorist threat in Syria” and Iraq. “One cannot say that there are (so-called) ‘good’ terrorists which are not to be touched.”

Russia offers help to all Syrian opposition groups fighting terrorism. It’s hard “find(ing) representatives of such opposition groups,” Lavrov explained.

All elements fighting Assad are terrorists. No “good” ones exist. The only way to restore regional peace and stability is eliminating them – Russia’s commitment opposed by Washington.

Russian upper house Federation Council Committee on International Affairs chairman Konstantin Kosachev calls US operations in Syria (and by implication Iraq for doing the opposite of what’s claimed) illegal – in contrast to Russian forces operating “within the framework of international law.”

“We have no intention of joining any other coalition for the simple reason that they are outside the framework of the international law,” Kosachev stressed.

He blasted misinformation about Russian airstrikes targeting civilians – part of the ongoing information war, he explained. No evidence supports baseless accusations.

Russia’s Defense Ministry demanded NATO provide proof, supporting US and other member countries’ allegations. Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov summoned “military attaches of the United States, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, NATO bloc and requested them to provide a formal justification of the essence of these statements or make a rebuttal, especially concerning the outrageous accusations in a number of English-language media about alleged airstrikes on hospitals.”

Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov dismissed what he called baseless “stove-piping reports.”

“We have been closely monitoring and analyzing such hoaxes,” he explained. “Only when we are 100% sure of the target, (are) aircraft…sent to deliver strikes on IS infrastructure using the corresponding precision-guided munitions.”

No hospitals or other civilian targets are struck. Russia has photographic proof of all targets destroyed.

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. 

In our previous media alert, ‘Sick Sophistry’, we examined media coverage of the deliberate US bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan on October 3. In particular, we exposed the BBC’s Pentagon-friendly reporting of the hospital as having been ‘mistakenly’ bombed.

On October 24, MSF announced that 30 people had now tragically died, up from the initial toll of 22. The humanitarian organisation, also known as Doctors Without Borders, continued to call for an independent international investigation into what it has called a ‘war crime’. Associated Press has just reported new evidence ‘that U.S. forces destroyed what they knew was a functioning hospital’.

The report comments:

‘The Army Green Berets who requested the Oct. 3 airstrike on the Doctors without Borders trauma center in Afghanistan were aware it was a functioning hospital but believed it was under Taliban control, The Associated Press has learned.’

Damningly, AP adds:

‘A day before an American AC-130 gunship attacked the hospital, a senior officer in the Green Beret unit wrote in a report that U.S. forces had discussed the hospital with the country director of the medical charity group, presumably in Kabul, according to two people who have seen the document.’

Meanwhile, there has still been no leading article in any UK newspaper backing MSF’s call for an independent inquiry.

In response to our alert, we were contacted by a former RAF pilot with twenty years’ military experience in several countries, including Afghanistan. He had discovered our alert by following a link in a comment posted underneath a recent Guardian piece mentioning the attack.

The former pilot gave us his name but, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous. He told us that he has experience of flying fast jets and multi-engine aircraft, and that he served operationally in the Balkans, Kosovo, Afghanistan and elsewhere. As far as we can tell, he appears to be genuine. He wrote to us in a series of emails (October 21-24):

‘First time I have ever come across your organisation and I am very impressed by your work.’

He then wrote:

‘It has been my firm opinion from the very beginning that Kunduz hospital was indeed deliberately targeted. I slightly digress from the Lindorff article in that the C-130 Gunship is a pinpoint platform with a choice of munitions. The fact that the hospital was targeted on five separate occasions with unerring accuracy simply underlines how deliberate this attack was. The Gunship itself is a revered weapon on the battlefield, manned by elite crews who are very highly trained. I was involved in the Afghan campaign almost from the beginning when things were pretty hairy. The aircraft of choice for UK Special Forces on the ground was the Gunship and they lobbied for a UK version. It is expensive and due to the side-mounted howitzer limited to one role and so their requests were denied. The Gunship gives unsurpassed support to troops on the ground because of its multi-hour endurance and loiter capability and the accuracy of its smaller calibre cannon and capability of its enormous 105mm howitzer.’

He continued:

‘I do not accept that the target could have been mistakenly targeted. The crew and command centre would have been fully aware they were attacking a hospital. I followed one of your links suggesting that the C130 crew challenged their orders to target the hospital. This is the very least that I’d have expected to happen. I have extensive operational experience flying in Afghanistan. I am struggling to comprehend in what circumstance I would blindly follow an order to attack a fully manned civilian hospital. If the description provided by MSF’s director-general is accurate I can say without hesitancy that I would have refused such an order for it is an obvious war crime. During the Kosovo war it was fairly routine for RAF Harrier pilots to return home with bombs still loaded because they had been unable to confirm visual acquisition of targets. RAF pilots are probably more inclined to think for themselves than American crews who are extremely tightly controlled. American military personnel give up many rights when they join up, but I am still disappointed that this crew did not appear to do more to challenge their orders. Back in the UK, we lost crown immunity many years ago and it is essential to challenge every questionable act carried out on the battlefield (our emphasis).

‘Given that we agree that the hospital was deliberately targeted it would be useful to try and understand why. It is my opinion that whilst possible, it is unlikely that this was a mistake, intentional or otherwise, by Afghan commanders on the ground. I saw an unconfirmed report stating that US Special Forces were on the ground in Kunduz so it is unlikely that Afghans alone would have called in the attack. So the alternative is that the crew were given their mission from US Central Command or it was called in on the ground by their own people. This is why I doubt we’ll see an independent inquiry. Very senior military officers would be on the hook for what happened in Kunduz because they would have authorised the sustained attack. It is still possible that the Kunduz hospital is seen as an operational “success”; the world of special operations is opaque. It is also a vague possibility that this was an act of gross incompetence, but that would still constitute a war crime. In any case, I simply do not believe it to be incompetence because of the sustained nature of the attack.’

He also commented on media coverage:

‘The response in the mainstream media mainly consisted of repeating what came off the wires. Unfortunately, the US military changed their version several times which weakened their case immediately. My own experience of BBC journalists is positive but when it comes to describing a major news event there is an immediate suspicion of editorial control from on high. I think it is extremely valuable that you target both individual journalists and the reporting of such events in general. I absolutely commend this approach, which is why I am happy to support you in your endeavours.’

You may be shocked that even the deliberate bombing of a hospital may be regarded as an operational ‘success’. There is no doubt that, were the full truth to emerge, the attack on the MSF hospital would be even more deeply embarrassing and damaging to Western interests than it already is. After all, ‘we’ do not commit war crimes; only ‘our’ enemies do that.

Long-time readers may recall that, in 2007, a serving British army officer in Iraq responded to an exchange we’d had with Mark Urban, the diplomatic editor of BBC Newsnight. The officer strongly rejected Urban’s contention that the central US aim was that of ‘forcing a democracy into the heart of the Middle East’ (Newsnight, BBC2, April 12, 2005), commenting:

‘There is a widespread, and well-sourced, belief based on both experience and evidence, in both the British military and academia, that the US is not “just in Iraq to keep the peace, regardless of what the troops on the ground believe. It is in Iraq to establish a client state amenable to the requirements of US realpolitik in a key, oil-rich region. To doubt this is to be ignorant of the motives that have guided US foreign policy in the post-war period and a mountain of evidence since 2003.” (quote from Media Lens).’

The officer gave rare voice to widespread scepticism within the military:

‘That the invasion was “illegal, immoral and unwinnable”, and the “greatest foreign policy blunder since Suez”… is the overwhelming feeling of many of my peers, and they speak of loathsome six-month tours, during which they led patrols with dread and fear, reluctantly providing target practice for insurgents, senselessly haemorrhaging casualties, and squandering soldiers’ lives, as part of Bush’s vain attempt to delay the inevitable Anglo-US rout until after the next US election.

‘Given a free choice most of us would never have invaded Iraq, and certainly would have withdrawn long ago.’

In response, Urban discussed the officer’s email on the BBC’s Newsnight programme; a rare concession to media activism.

Recall that the former RAF officer who emailed us after our Kunduz media alert made this particularly welcome point:

‘it is essential to challenge every questionable act carried out on the battlefield’.

It certainly is essential. And this is true, not just for military personnel with destructive high-tech weaponry at their fingertips; but also for journalists whose reporting has the power to facilitate or obstruct crimes against humanity.

Today Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to outline a new US military strategy for the Middle East. The Secretary admitted the failure of the US “train and equip” program for rebels in Syria, but instead of taking the appropriate lessons from that failure and get out of the “regime change” business, he announced the opposite. The US would not only escalate its “train and equip” program by removing the requirement that fighters be vetted for extremist ideology, but according to the Secretary the US military would for the first time become directly and overtly involved in combat in Syria and Iraq.

As Secretary Carter put it, the US would begin “supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL (ISIS), or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground.”

“Direct action on the ground” means US boots on the ground, even though President Obama supposedly ruled out that possibility when he launched air strikes against Iraq and Syria last year. Did anyone think he would keep his word?

President Obama claims his current authority to conduct war in Iraq and Syria comes from the 2001 authorization for the use of force against those who attacked the US on 9/11, or from the 2002 authorization for the use of force against Saddam Hussein. Neither of these claims makes any sense. The 2002 authorization said nothing about ISIS because at the time there was no ISIS, and likewise the 2001 authorization pertained to an al-Qaeda that did not exist in Iraq or Syria at the time.

Additionally, the president’s year-long bombing campaign against Syrian territory is a violation of that country’s sovereignty and is illegal according to international law.

Congress is not even consulted these days when the president decides to start another war or to send US ground troops into an air war that is not going as planned. There might be notice given after the fact, as in Secretary Carter’s testimony today, but the president has (correctly) concluded that Congress has allowed itself to become completely irrelevant when it comes to such grave matters as war and peace.

I cannot condemn in strong enough terms this ill-advised US military escalation in the Middle East. Whoever concluded that it is a good idea to send US troops into an area already being bombed by Russian military forces should really be relieved of duty.

The fact is, the neocons who run US foreign policy are so determined to pull off their regime change in Syria that they will risk the lives of untold US soldiers and even risk a major war in the region — or even beyond – to escalate a failed policy. Russian strikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda must be resisted, they claim, because they are seen as helping the Assad government remain in power, and the US administration is determined that “Assad must go.”

This is not our war. US interventionism has already done enough damage in Iraq and Syria, not to mention Libya. It is time to come home. It is time for the American people to rise up and demand that the Obama Administration bring our military home from this increasingly dangerous no-win confrontation. We must speak out now, before it is too late!

Yesterday’s US deployment of the destroyer USS Lassen and surveillance aircraft into the 12-nautical mile zone surrounding the Chinese-controlled Subi and Mischief reefs in the South China Sea has qualitatively escalated tensions across Asia.

The aim of the US action is to humiliate the Chinese regime and present it with only two options: either make a forceful response or bow down to Washington’s flagrant trampling on its long-standing sovereignty claims. The pretext for the military provocation is the claim that the US is asserting its “right of freedom of navigation” in international, not Chinese, waters. This assertion has no more credibility than the claims that Iraq was attacked because of “weapons of mass destruction” or that the US waged war on Libya to defend “human rights.”

Beijing has responded diplomatically and militarily. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told a press conference yesterday that the USS Lassen “illegally entered” Chinese waters. He stated: “The Chinese side will firmly respond to any deliberate provocation by any country… and take all necessary measures as needed.” Beijing, he declared, urged the US to “honour its commitment of not taking sides on disputes over territorial sovereignty so as to avoid any further damage to China-US relations and regional peace and stability.”

Last night, the US ambassador to China, Max Baucus, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to receive a formal expression of “strong discontent” from the Chinese government over Washington’s provocation.

The editorial of today’s Chinese state-controlled Global Times asserted:

“Beijing should deal with Washington tactfully and prepare for the worst. This can convince the White House that China, despite its unwillingness, is not frightened to fight a war with the US in the region, and is determined to safeguard its national interests and dignity.”

Beijing, the Global Times declared, should “track the US warships … launch electronic interventions, and even send out warships, lock them by fire-control radar and fly over the US vessels.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper, the People’s Daily, reported today that the Chinese military ordered two destroyers, the Lanzhou and Taizhou, “to warn the trespassing US warship.” A US official reported that the Chinese vessels “shadowed” the Lassen yesterday but kept a “safe distance.”

The reckless calculation in Washington is that such statements from the Chinese regime are nothing more than rhetoric to try to appease domestic nationalist outrage over the US actions.

The Obama administration and the Pentagon indicated that the Lassen’s deployment is only the start of repeated intrusions into Chinese-claimed areas, with the intention of compelling China to bow to US military dominance over the South China Sea. An unnamed Defense Department official told journalists: “I would expect that this becomes a regular operation.”

Retired Chinese Rear Admiral Yang Yi, a researcher at the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University, responded by telling the Washington Post that if incursions did become “a regular thing, military conflict in the region is inevitable and the US would be the one who started it.”

The Australian and Japanese navies, at Washington’s request, may participate in future and larger-scale intrusions. While only the Lassen was used in yesterday’s provocation, dozens of US and Japanese warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, as well as two Australian frigates, are within striking range of the South China Sea.

The Australian government immediately declared its backing for the US action. Defence Minister Marise Payne stated that while Australia was not part of yesterday’s operation, it “strongly supports” the “rights” of freedom of navigation and overflight and “continues to cooperate with the United States and regional partners on maritime security.” Press reports indicated that Payne and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop were thoroughly briefed on the planned South China Sea provocation when they were in Washington for ministerial talks earlier this month.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that Japan was “exchanging information” with Washington and “closely monitoring the issue before we decide how to proceed.” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has stated previously that it is prepared to conduct “freedom of navigation” military operations, either alongside or independently of the US.

Kaoru Imori, from Japan’s Meiji Gakuin University, told the Chinese Xinhua news agency yesterday: “The advantage now for the US is that, in essence at least, it has a second de-facto military in the form of Japan—a country with a healthy military budget and cutting-edge means to both produce and export military hardware.”

Japan and Australia are the key partners of the US “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia. Both countries provide crucial bases for the American military and have integrated their armed forces into the US “AirSea Battle” plan. AirSea Battle is a detailed and now well-rehearsed outline of how the US and its allies will launch air and sea attacks on mainland Chinese military facilities in the event of war. The plan also involves imposing a naval blockade to prevent Chinese shipping passing between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, thus starving China of essential imports of energy and raw materials.

The timing of the US operations in the South China Sea underscores the fact that the “pivot” is motivated by the determination of American imperialism, backed at this point by its regional allies, to maintain its post-World War II dominance in Asia. The growth of China’s global economic and geopolitical influence over the past 15 years is viewed in US ruling circles as an unacceptable potential challenge. The ultimate objective of the US confrontation with Beijing is to return China to the status of a semi-colony, economically under the sway of American banks and corporations and politically subordinated to Washington’s dictates.

The deployment of the Lassen was ordered just days after Chinese President Xi Jingping’s tour of Britain and just days ahead of highly touted visits to China by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. Following the sweeping trade and investment agreements struck between Britain and China, the People’s Daily editorialised yesterday—before the US provocation—that the “major European countries are vying for its attention” and that closer economic and political relations with Europe could “offset the restraints imposed by the US-Japan alliance on China.”

Now Merkel, along with the head of Volkswagen and dozens of other German corporate executives, will arrive in Beijing today under conditions in which a military clash could take place between China and the US, Berlin’s ally in the NATO alliance. France’s Hollande is due to visit on November 2.

Over the next two weeks, US President Barack Obama will attend the Asia Pacific Economic Summit in the Philippines, the US-ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Summit and the East Asia Summit in Malaysia. US demands that Asian states fall in behind its actions in the South China Sea will figure prominently at these events, either officially or in backroom talks. Beijing will utilise the two regional summits it attends to apply counter-pressure.

China will expect to be supported by Russia, which has forged closer ties with Beijing as Moscow has come under its own threats and military provocations from the US and NATO in Eastern Europe. Andrei Klimov, a leading Russian parliamentarian close to President Vladimir Putin, told TASS news agency yesterday: “US sabre rattling near the borders of China—a permanent member of the UN Security Council—is likely to draw questions from another UN SC member, Russia. Nobody should feel free to make voyages there without an invitation.” The US, Klimov said, is “playing with fire.”

A fraught process of diplomatic and military brinksmanship is now in motion that could lead to an open clash between nuclear-armed powers and draw countries across the entire Asian region and internationally into a catastrophic war.

How can a people who have struggled long years under oppression throw off their oppressors and establish a free society? The problems are immense, but their solution lies in the education and enlightenment of the people and the emergence of a spirit that will serve as a foundation for independence and self-government. – Thomas Jefferson

After utilizing the geopolitics lens to dissect how globalists have been fulfilling their New World Order tyranny through a pervasive divide and conquer strategy applied globally, this second instalment examines how they’re regularly using that same proven formula domestically to divide Americans socio-culturally in any number of fragmented ways. Ample evidence shows how the elite has used its oligarch-controlled mainstream media to spread lies and propaganda in order to shape public opinion through nonstop false flag incidents and nonstop feed of false narrative disinformation. For a very long time this divide and conquer MO on the domestic front has been among the feds’ favorite tools of manipulation in their mighty arsenal to effectively polarize Americans into turning against themselves.

 The robber baron bankster himself J.P. Morgan commented after the Great Depression:

When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of [crony] capitalism to govern the world.  By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us.

Three quarters of a century later when the 2008 housing bubble crisis exploded 5 million homes were lost by hapless Americans fraudulently tricked by devious criminal banksters (that not more than one ever served any jail time over), the mega-rich crime boss’ prophetic words take on even greater significance.

 As a purposely orchestrated tag team, the US militarized police state and mainstream media take hoodwinking turns straight out of the Hegelian dialectic playbook when the DC crime cabal 1) creates a crisis, 2) imposes its “solution” that 3) then tightens its tyrannical noose. Among the most obvious examples of how the elite is attempting to divide America is harnessing both the power of police state brutality (trained in antiterrorism by Israeli apartheid oppressors) and power of its media to prey selectively upon Americans to shape public opinion and intentionally stir up racial tensions.

Mainstream media typically looks the other way not even covering black on white crime yet when it’s reversed, MSM invariably enflames the racial divide by endlessly exploiting a number of high profile murder cases when white males kill black males. Then when black protestors clash with largely white police forces, Obama regularly sends his favorite race card advisor Al Sharpton onto the scene to bombastically stir the melting pot to a turbulent boil.

After another innocent black life is lost, angry African Americans are more than justified taking to their city streets to exercise their First Amendment right to protest. But then as in Ferguson and Baltimore, enter globalist mercenary agitators shipped in to further stir up yet more civil unrest, deliberately delivering only more license to kill for the police terrorizing black communities across the nation. The media’s biased policy of sensationalizing white murder of blacks is designed to fan the flames of racial hatred of race-baited African Americans, eliciting their violent reaction.

 Meanwhile, the press regularly reinforces the notion of white guilt. Immediately following the Charleston shootings earlier this year, Salon was tweeting “White America must answer for the Charleston church massacre.” It’s reached absurd extremes – AmeriCorps volunteers are encouraged to wear white guilt bracelets to cope with their white privilege and colleges across the country are offering courses in White Guilt 101. Wikipedia defines white guilt as “individual or collective guilt felt by some white people for harm resulting from racist treatment of ethnic minorities by whites both historically and currently.” And for decades now mainstream media’s carried the white guilt torch.

 That said, racism still looms large in polarized America today. Blacks continue to be daily victims of racial profiling, suspected of committing a crime in stores or getting pulled over while simply driving down any street USA based solely on their skin color. Black church burnings have reached an epidemic level with a half dozen in the St. Louis area alone this month torched to the ground. And the gross inequality of the racist American judicial system that arrests, convicts, punishes with longer sentences and executes far more African Americans than any other ethnic group adds more concrete evidence that racism is still raging and dividing Americans.

With US citizens of color making up the majority of the US prison population despite comprising just 12% of the nation’s total population, 2.2 million Americans are currently incarcerated, accounting for over 25% of the world’s total prison population. As the world’s worst human rights violator for locking up its own citizens, the US dwarfs all other nations on earth including the most populous nation China despite representing only 5% of the world population. With one in three black men going to prison, African American males are six times more likely than whites and 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic males to end up behind bars. From these startling facts alone one might arguably conclude that the feds have launched an all-out war against darker-skinned Americans who happened to be poor.

Just coming to light this year are the hidden black hole prisons springing up around the land of the not so free where police in places like Chicago are suddenly picking up targeted citizens who then disappear without rights for an undefined length of time. Families and attorneys never even learn of their whereabouts. These selected detainees are treated much like Guantanamo prisoners interrogated and often tortured.

Journalist Will Potter recently disclosed another Pandora’s Box inside the US prison system writing about secret black holes existing within two federal prisons called Communications Management Units (CMU’s). He visited the one inside Marion Federal Prison in Illinois, the other is located in Terre Haute, Indiana. High profile political prisoners are being victimized under the worst kind of inhumane conditions. Most of these inmates are Muslims although the feds are also sending environmental activists convicted of terrorist crimes to them as well. Potter maintains that those incarcerated at CMU’s are transferred there because of their race, religion and political beliefs. This is totalitarian America’s gulag answer for political activists deemed enemies of the state.

In recent years America’s militarized police state appears to have declared open season on unarmed black Americans, cold-bloodedly gunning them down in alarming numbers, overtly sending the message that black lives don’t matter. Of course regardless of skin color, US cops suited and armed for combat are known to kill anybody who happens to wander into their combat zone at the wrong time. But an inordinate percentage of their K-I-A’s are African American. Law enforcement has conveniently not kept close track for obvious reasons. But by all accounts, trigger happy police are far more apt to pull the trigger on blacks than on either whites or Hispanics.

In response to this growing epidemic that some would say borders on inner city purging, the antiracist activist group Black Lives Matter sprang up across America in efforts to curb the spreading violence. When protests in Canada and America were joined in solidarity by demonstrations in the UK over increasing state sponsored police terrorism, the feds and media tag team immediately began attempting to criminalize Black Lives Matter, calling it a hate group responsible for the murder of white police officers and placing it under intensive surveillance by the US intelligence community.

In spite of another New York City police officer killed in the line of duty this week, records show that for every NYPD officer killed, New York’s “finest” are murdering four unarmed New Yorkers over a fifteen year stretch from 1999 to 2014 with 10 of those years not one officer being killed. Regardless of how media distorts and twists reality to turn Black Lives Matter into an easy scapegoat, the national average of unarmed American citizens being gunned down by militant police to police deaths far exceeds the NYC ratio of four to one.

 Acclaimed Canadian professor-author-philosopher John McMurtry stated in a recent interview:

I have travelled alone with only backpack possession through the world, and have found no state in which police forces are more habituated to violent bullying, more likely to draw a gun, more discriminatory against the dispossessed, and more arbitrarily vicious in normal behavior. The US now leads the globe in an underlying civil war of the rich against the poor.

  Of course America has a longstanding pattern of racial targeting. This latest oppression harkens back to J. Edgar’s FBI harassment, infiltration and murder of Black Panther Party members back in the sixties and early seventies. Both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were also placed under constant surveillance right up till their assassinations which have both been linked to federal law enforcement. In addition to targeting high profile African American activists, FBI’s COINTELPRO (1956-1971) singled out a number of other groups deemed potential enemies of the state as well. Members of the American Indian Movement and anti-Vietnam War protesters like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) were both infiltrated and targeted for continual harassment as well.

 Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, FDR’s executive order rounded up 120,000 innocent US citizens who happened to be Japanese, shamefully placing them in prison camps for the remainder of the war. And before those atrocities came centuries of genocide against Native Americans and enslavement against Africans and their descendants.

 Thus, the US government has a long checkered past history of racism, persecution, torture, imprisonment and mass murder of US citizens perceived by the tyrannical state as either threats or expendables to be exploited and/or willfully destroyed. From the very start this divide and conquer and exterminate strategy by the ruling elite has been operationalized throughout American history.

 The Justice Department’s refusal to hold militant white police officers accountable for the murder of so many defenseless black Americans only demonstrates the criminally racist policies coming out of the first African American president’s administration. Sadly, when both white cops and legally protected “stand-your-ground” white civilians (as in the Trayvon Martin case) get away with murder, their lack of accountability has only increased the number of blacks being murdered. Right after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the Martin case, The Daily Mail’s headline reported “white people who kill black people in ‘Stand Your Ground’ states are 354% more likely to be cleared of murder.”

Since the embattled civil rights of the fifties and sixties were fought and attained by courageous African Americans (joined by a few white supporters), overall during the ensuing decades the people themselves in white and black America have come together making some significant strides toward overcoming the formidable racial barriers that historically divide this nation. In most places in the US today you commonly see white and black couples together, and in fact a thorough mixing of all the races is visible in the world’s biggest melting pot nation. Pew Research Center studying marriages that were formed in 2010 found that 15% were interracial, twice the rate in 1980. The most obvious indication of racial intermarriage is the tangible result produced – America’s younger population is clearly becoming tanner in complexion and it’s definitely neither from tanning salons nor sun worship.

 Yet if you listen to the media talking heads like predatory sharks feeding off the unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore by hyping up this violent cycle of oppression, often enough even defending police state aggression, you’d think that we’re on the verge of race wars in America. The authorities’ decision in both cases to unleash more oppressive police state retaliation against protestors clearly reflects a widespread, highly coordinated, top down federal policy confirming America’s growing tyranny specifically intended to escalate yet more civil and racial unrest, protest, rioting and violence. Between Washington and its MSM propaganda department, a divisive agenda to instigate race wars in America seems a fair and logical conclusion.

 Among the countless false flags in recent years, no more is one so obvious in revealing the feds’ sinister agenda to trigger race wars than the alleged Charleston South Carolina shooting at the AME Church in June. Obama’s $29 mil hush money payoff rushed through within a couple days after the incident to victims’ families and their flattened, unemotional, highly suspect responses during on camera interviews immediately after losing their loved ones; the Sunday sermon at the very crime scene where just a couple days earlier nine African Americans were allegedly shot dead; the tampered photo where a white supremacist patch worn by the suspect was photoshopped as a thinly disguised “badge of honor” afterthought; the unveiling that the suspect had lots of recent African American friends on Facebook and others from his past who unanimously corroborated he never showed signs of racism; Hillary’s Charleston visit just in time for the feds’ live action civil unrest training timed perfectly with the shooting followed by her and Barack’s “gun control” mantra played out like a B for badly scripted movie. This list of unbelievable anomalies points to another federalized false flag makeover calculated to foment racial divide in America.

 Of course the incident’s timing put into high gear the Confederacy rebel flag controversy feeding off raw emotions further designed to create black and white division. June’s dog wagging, in-our-face false flag was also timed perfectly on the very same day so as to take heat off US Congress being bribed with over a million globalist dollars to vote giving dictator Obama his TPP fast track. All too obvious was it an overt ploy to racially divide the nation while sneaking through one giant step closer towards the globalist agenda for one world government.

  An overtly oppressive pattern was also observed in 2011 during the feds’ nationalized police state offensive to use law enforcement to brutally extinguish the Occupy movement in the US. As is typical, the massively militant nationwide assault was preceded by mainstream media’s incessant attack portraying the protestors as criminal rapists, dirty, unkempt slackers, troublemaking anarchists, and ridiculed clueless lost souls dirtying up the public landscape and parks where they had no business occupying. MSM had a field day swaying and turning the American public against the movement prior to the Gestapos moving in to “clean up” the mess they left on municipal property. Once again, the one-two punch of media and police state acting in synchronized fascist tyranny.

 The bottom line reality that lay just beneath all that negatively spun, surface propaganda is that no fascist dictatorship will permit a growing population of dissidence directly confronting the oppressors and their one-sided, highly rigged, corrosively corrupt, grossly unjust and broken debtor slave system responsible for so much theft, death and destruction in the world. In actuality the Occupy movement was a grassroots uprising that was beginning to take hold and spread internationally aimed directly at the ruling elite and the globalists never felt so threatened. So they unleashed their MSM and fascist foot soldiers armed with internationally outlawed tear gas and bully clubs to violently quell the uprising before it gained any more global momentum. The oppression used in America was matched worldwide with the same iron fisted crackdown in Hong Kong and elsewhere around the world. The globalists won another battle in their war against humanity.

 By its very nature, no totalitarian police state tolerates either dissidence or truth and resorts to violent crackdown criminalizing those vowing to exercise free speech. The dangerous game in twenty-first century America under Obama’s Homeland Insecurity is to label any group or individual it chooses as terrorists and with blatant disregard of our constitutional liberties, locks us up and/or assassinates us. Thanks to such draconian unconstitutional laws as the Patriot Act and 2012’s NDAA, just like in prewar Nazi Germany, US citizens can be taken away in the middle of the night by US military raiding our homes without warrant, arrest us without charge, and detain us without trial, legal representation or due process for an indefinite period of time.

  The feds’ response in America repeatedly confirms that our government no longer complies with US rule of law explicitly guaranteed by our Constitution. The treasonous Obama regime has proven over and over again that it refuses to uphold our sacred First Amendment rights of free speech, peaceful assembly and protest. Subsequently since 9/11, domestic US human rights violations have soared dramatically in recent years, revealing a sinister federal agenda to intentionally induce rising levels of civil unrest, chaos, violence and widespread crises in order to then justify its thinly veiled excuse to ultimately declare martialized Obama law. And through our supreme dictator’s unprecedented number of notoriously unconstitutional executive orders, possibly the next false flag may be the one that fulfills his militarized tyrannical wet dream in the land of the enslaved. For decades the federal government has been methodically planning and willfully inciting increasing levels of civil unrest, chaos and citizen revolt amidst long planned false flag crises ultimately leading us to martial law and potentially to America’s second civil war.

 At the same time and certainly not by accident, the feds also made the calculated decision a couple decades ago to systematically militarize law enforcement with overkill weaponry and armed combat mechanization, reflecting an agenda to destroy the US by bringing their years of counterinsurgency wars from abroad home to the streets of America. And even if the massive unprecedented Jade Helm military exercise conducted in nine states for three months over the summer didn’t result in martial law as many in the alternative media feared, Jade Helm proved both a psyops and beta test for prolonged military occupation on US soil that does bring America one giant steppingstone closer to martial law. When every non-military, non-law enforcement federal agency – the National Weather Service, US Postal Service, Social Security Administration, Fish and Wildlife Department, USDA and the IRS – are all buying up billions of rounds of hollow point bullets, it can only mean one thing. It confirms Americans’ worst nightmare, that their own government has a demonic agenda to kill its fellow Americans, widening the deep chasm growing between the authoritarian security state and its fearing-for-their-lives citizens. And as time passes, the cold hard reality appears only to be mounting.

 Through this polarizing, extremely sobering process, a diabolical plan to willfully turn US citizens against each other has been co-designed to create a dangerously toxic culture of growing distrust, fear and paranoia while simultaneously increasing authoritarian tyranny and control. The feds’ wars of terror brought demonstrably home to roost has splintered Americans into two disparate, conflicting camps. As a result, a fear-driven, obedient, brainwashed, dumbed down and docile citizenry of sheeple that simply do what their told, following the governing authority’s methodical conditioning, brainwashing and programmed social engineering accompanied by pressured demands toward hyper-vigilance bordering on paranoia, believing that increasing numbers of their fellow Americans are subversively lurking nearby as their homegrown terrorist enemy. They listen to MSM marginalize and demonize the patriots as tin foil conspiracy nuts, entrenched in their denial that their own government could possibly be their own worst enemy. Of course this camp is held in line by the globalists’ army of henchmen, the government enforcers, be they politicians, military, law enforcement and the millions from the military industrial complex.

 As darkness descends on the end days of Amerika as a once great nation, scare tactics are being relentlessly propagated to purposely drive a wedge between the American people. A concerted federal effort’s been made to enlist US citizens to join Homeland Security and Obama’s so called civilian national security force of neo-Nazis (just like in prewar Germany) working hand-in-hand with law enforcement and dozens of DHS-funded state and municipal fusion centers acting as informants turning in their fellow neighbors for any suspected “unlawful” activities.

 Meanwhile, all military veterans (particularly those fresh off terror war battlefields) along with a growing camp of Americans justifiably concerned and upset over their oppressive, overreaching government invading their privacy and running roughshod over their cherished lost constitutional rights and civil liberties, all political activists and dissenters, all gun owners determined to exercise their Second Amendment rights, all fundamentalist Christians, all anti-abortion advocates, all Tea Party members, all tax activists, all home-schoolers, illegal aliens, or anyone else perceived to look or act different or strange like they don’t belong, all these groups are insidiously being lumped together as the emerging domestic terrorist enemy, designated as enemy belligerents, enemy sympathizers, and enemies of the state. Increasingly ominous is the fact that such a large segment of the American population’s every move is being electronically tracked and monitored on growing watch lists in the feds’ crosshairs as the next targeted enemy for harassment, persecution, impending imprisonment and potential elimination.

  Despite more Americans every day recognizing that their federal government is neither out to protect them nor represent their interests but only to subjugate, control, enslave, imprison and potentially murder them, the globalists/feds’ divide and conquer brainwashing agenda feebly counteracts by aggressively ramping up its greasily-oiled, ticking time-bomb fakery machine. This year more than ever the frequency of mass shootings in America is off the charts, seemingly taking place every other week, complete with some of the same crisis actors showing up in incident after incident with just too many enormous sized holes in the official narrative to avoid exposure as yet another flimsily disguised, staged false flag event.

 Following on the heels of the Charleston false flag, the shooting of US military personnel at the Chattanooga sites by another Islamic extremist adds more salt to the familiar wounds afflicting Moslems worldwide, not unlike January’s Hebdo false flag attack in Paris. The globalists’ and feds’ agenda is all too obvious, create racial and religious conflict and divide designed to lead to more hate crimes while with each passing incident increasing pressures are brought to bear calling louder and louder for tighter gun control. Meanwhile 23 are dead from another US bomb wiping out an Afghan hospital. The only gun control needed for humanity’s sake is Empire’s gun control.

  The media’s also busily hyping danger at every turn like there’s no tomorrow. Recently an FBI sting operation was reported by a number of mainstream media outlets purporting the FBI successfully uncovered an ISIS plot to purchase nukes. It turns out that it was just another fear mongering lie being hyped up by MSM. The elite knows that a population living in daily fear, confusion and ignorance is far more easily controlled than one that is educated and informed about the sinister plots and plans that their totalitarian police state government has in store for them.

  That’s another reason why if the Trans-Pacific Partnership is passed, internet censorship will threaten to cut off the flow of all accurate information and news to the public. This is exactly what the globalists want and intend, complete and absolute control so that only lies and disinformation are disseminated to the spoon-fed misinformed masses. Where all this tyranny and oppression is leading us is fairly obvious. Martial law will mean no more internet access to the truth, criminalization of gun ownership as Obama’s agenda to ratify the already passed UN treaty banning small arms, giving teeth behind the feds’ enforced gun confiscation. The screws are tightening with each passing week’s unfolding events.

The present migration crisis in Europe parallels the building crisis that’s been brewing here in the United States from an unprotected border with Mexico for nearly seven years under Obama’s watch. US Immigration has been a favorite globalist wedge issue dividing the nation racially and ethnically. Illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America have historically been used as scapegoats. Latin American migrant workers do the hard labor in the Agra-industry illegally exploiting them that few Americans would be willing to do themselves. But Obama’s amnesty policy has increased tensions amongst a fragmented American population. Again, be aware that it’s by globalist design that their puppet Obama has allowed an open border policy while bombing nations in the Middle East and North Africa that’s driven the mass migration to a head in the West. The globalists are behind the policies that intentionally create the crises specifically designed to divide and turn citizens in North America and Europe against illegal immigrants.

Ever since the Vietnam War and Nixon declaring his war on drugs, the US foreign policy towards Latin American nations as well as other nations at war like Afghanistan has actively engaged in covert criminal partnership with corrupt national governments and controlling powerful drug cartels. Starting with Reagan’s Iran Contra scandal, George Bush senior, both his sons, Bill Clinton and Obama have all played active roles employing CIA drug pushers in the ever-thriving multibillion dollar international drug smuggling industry whereby the federal government continues bilking enormous profits trafficking dangerous drugs into the US, literally destroying millions of American lives and further devastating US inner city populations that’s skyrocketed incarceration rates (over half a million) especially amongst African Americans. The war on drugs has given rise to the privatized prison industrial complex in America that’s mushroomed into an enormous slave labor industry reaping obscenely high $5 billion profits for corrupt human rights violators operating with little oversight all at taxpayer and inmate slave expense. The politics of America’s drug war in large part also created a welfare state that further divides Americans across both racial and class lines.

 America’s addiction to both legal drugs through Big Pharma and alcohol as well as illegal drugs have destroyed millions of American families as casualties of the globalist drug war and yet more victims of the divide and conquer. Meanwhile through the years, their criminal central banking cabal has busily laundered dirty money linked to funding CIA-Black Operations actively pursuing the Empire of Chaos’ global destabilization agenda.

  Another wedge vehicle being driven home to divide us are recent laws cropping up across the nation that appear to be anti-family. Apparently thought police at both the national and state levels of government are pushing a militant LGBT agenda to absurd, divisive heights, in effect driving a wedge between both gay and straight populations. The public education agenda is derisively teaching openly gay lifestyle choices in schools to children from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. There are laws in California that allow a student 12 or older to be taken off campus without parental permission to reeducation centers where they are “reeducated,” instilled with politically correct brainwashing of proper LGBT orientation and attitude.

  Sounds very much like Hillary’s “fun camps” to reeducate adults who aren’t quite lapping up her official politically correct adult programming agenda. It’s one thing to uphold antidiscrimination laws protecting Americans of all persuasions and lifestyles which are obviously important, but it’s another to aggressively indoctrinate and brainwash youth [or adults] about individual sexual preference and alternative lifestyle choices especially at such young impressionable ages. This appears to be yet another nationalized ploy to dictate another divisive wedge between people rather than inclusively bring them together. It also is a longtime subversively globalist agenda to weaken the family bond and family structure.

The traditional nuclear family unit containing a father, mother and child(ren), now a minority in America, has also come under national assault, forced to taking a disfavored backseat to the statist propaganda and oppressive policies. Parents’ rights to teach their children their own individual values, their sense of morality and spiritual/religious convictions have increasingly been undermined and usurped by rigid statist PC dogma. As a licensed therapist for many years in Los Angeles, I can personally attest to the notorious abuses of overzealous authoritarian child protection services overstepping its rightful bounds by destroying families, unjustifiably yanking kids out of their family homes, inflicting children in their care and custody with lifelong trauma and abuse, misplacing children in unsafe home environments (be they with biological family, foster care, group home or residential care). A thoroughly overburdened, broken system that’s been set up to protect children is too often only abusing and re-victimizing them as part of a national assault on the American family.

 The father of American education John Dewey was a New World Order advocate from way back. His pro-communist ideology promoting the idea of collectivism and “progressive” views on education that have permeated US public education over this past century have never been more fully embedded than they are today. In April 1972 Harvard med school professor Chester Pierce from the education and psychiatry faculty made the following statement strongly reflecting Dewey’s NWO bias in a keynote address at the Association for Childhood Education International:

Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our founding fathers, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being. It’s up to you, teachers, to make all of these sick children well by creating the international child of the future.

 Spoken like a truly indoctrinated internationalist, what Pierce had in mind for his global child of the future is a brainwashed youth devoid of any religion, any sense of national patriotism and loyalty toward his parents. Indeed all rank and file NWO ghouls have long viewed love of the Constitution and US national sovereignty, love of family and love of God as their three biggest barriers keeping them from their totalitarian panacea. Too many educational professionals maintain a negative, condescending attitude toward parents believing that their conditioning of their child is either unhealthy or grossly inadequate and it is the responsibility and indeed the right of the educational system to properly instill the correct values, moral code and appropriate beliefs so that the child optimizes his chance of becoming a healthy, productive, functioning adult, i.e., a good little statist citizen robot who does exactly what he or she is told, no questions asked.

Collectivism is inherently taught as the standard education model in today’s Common Core, the mandated national program in America’s public education system. It preaches the priority of group goals and group mind over the individual. One’s worth is measured more by what he or she brings into the group than any individual accomplishment. It’s another example of programmed dogma de-emphasizing the importance and value of both individuality as well as individual families. The current educational system stifles creativity but instead simply prepares young people to fit in as mere cogs in the larger wheel, conforming, compliant robots incapable of discriminative, critical thinking that questions or challenges the spoon-fed dogma of the day. No wonder American student test scores in a myriad of subjects are now falling near bottom of the international barrel compared to peers from other countries – all part of the dumbing down process that’s sadly become the American way of life.

The same mind control programming through mass media effects are perpetuated to confuse, conflict and pit women against men and men against women. In the media there’s a common depiction of the weak, emasculated white male who becomes the empowered woman’s idiot patsy. This negative stereotype of men being projected all over the airwaves is designed to blur and confuse boundaries and roles while increasing the battle of the sexes raging with rising rates of domestic violence and sexual assault in America, especially within military ranks and college campuses. Look at the violent, damaging messages over the last quarter century saturating popular modern music in the form of much of the hip hop and rap, often referring to women as “bitches” and “hoes,” mere sexual object-trophies to be used and abused. Conversely, healthy gender role models are relatively rare in both families as well as the mass media.

Then there’s the overplayed stereotype of the irascibly senile grandparent sending a reinforcing message that makes it easier in our youth-worshipping culture to discard aging grandpa or grandma into the trash bin of nursing homes to die rather than treat the elderly with respect, compassion and care within an extended family setting. Recently passed euthanasia laws in states across the country make it easier to pull the plug on life, especially when the aging are deemed burdensome, feeble, useless eaters already suffering frequently from chronic pain anyway. As the economy and family structure come under increasing levels of stress, elderly and fiduciary abuse has been on the rise. Current annual estimates are that 2.5 to 3 million elderly or up to 10% are being abused in the US. But these numbers fail to take into account the many cases that go unreported.

As globalists engage in social engineering programming of the masses through powerful nonstop 24/7 media effects, their diabolical design manifests through subtle and not so subtle messages geared to insidiously separate, divide, conflict, dumb down and otherwise cause lasting rifts, walls and wedges between a highly fractured America that out of ignorance allows globalists to further manipulate, divide and conquer us on the way to their NWO promise land.

Speaking of dumbed down, George W. Bush’s black and white thinking uttered in his simpleton mantra “you’re either with us or against us” has never been more evident. His vowed intolerance warning Americans against “wild conspiracy theories” that quickly morphed into the truth movement is yet another illustration of divide and conquer, dismissing any and all critics of gov.corps’ official false narrative as deranged, tin foiled hat wearing, paranoid fringe elements never to be taken seriously. The well-paid shills, the PR propagandists, think tank scientists and so called experts endlessly paraded before MSM cameras peddling their doublespeak talking point lies are more sleight of hand distraction to keep the public forever in the dark, cluelessly ignorant, dumbed down, confused, fearful and globally misinformed.

The ruling elite has consolidated its power into six-owned mega-media corporations controlling over 90% of all news and information outflow to the global masses. Likewise, the globalist-owned big three newspapers, the Washington Post, the New York Times and LA Times of course serve the same deceptive function. By engaging in mind control through vacuous forms of endless entertainment, preoccupying, addicting, programming, brainwashing, titillating, numbing, desensitizing, and distracting the masses with false lies, propaganda, superficial filler fluff, big sports and celebrity worship ad nauseam that purposely alter the hardwiring of the human brain, the truth of the elite’s sinister agenda largely remains hidden from public awareness and consciousness. This too is the modern techno-application of the divide and conquer recipe for gaining and maintaining absolute control since mass media effects carry an enormous sway and impact over huge segments of the captivated world population audience, effectively dividing and conquering them from ever generating a united, well organized, powerful grassroots movement to openly challenge and actively oppose the systematic unfoldment of NWO tyranny and authoritarian control. Ultimately this sleight of hand of the dumbing down, disempowering process keeps the sheeple from ever fully realizing the evil destruction being willfully perpetrated against them.

Another one of their divide and conquer ploys working against us for a very long time is America’s highly corrupt, two party political system. The illusion of Democrats being substantively different from Republicans is entrenched in US politics. Yet the uninterrupted evildoing from the Bush to the Obama regime was seamlessly carried out from one Republican administration to a Democratic one. That’s because they both represent the same puppet masters who own them. These days especially elected representatives from the two parties clearly do not operate in the interests of their voting constituents but instead succumb to the big money special interests of the globalists pouring billions into their bribed coffers to effectively own them too.

Politicians spew rhetoric on issues that elicit strong emotional reactions such as religion, gay marriage and abortion. Yet these hot button topics are at best secondary, diversionary sideshow sleights of hand, keeping us away from the real issues that hide the pervasive theft and unfairness of the status quo crony capitalism corruption or how our lives are so dominated by an elitist handful of psychopathic despots. Any thoughts or political debate that veer away from this elite corporatist ideology is taboo and subject to blackout censorship. As long as so many blind Americans continue blaming the opposing political party or those inflammatory secondary issues as the main cause of America’s problems, the globalists have the dumbed down idiots right where they want them, just as J.P. Morgan boasted so long ago. It’s the classic divide and conquering that’s allowed globalists to use distraction to conceal their willful destruction of the planet with complete impunity.

The same deceptive ploy is involved with labeling people based on the so called political left or political right, liberal-conservative, progressive-reactionary, hawk-dove, libertarian, anarchist, socialist, communist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, American, Russian, they’re all designed as well-worn tools for the elite to pigeonhole and marginalize us on the way to divide and conquer. The globalists possess a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and distraction at their disposal, all geared to erect dividing walls for the purpose of inciting conflict wedges so the globalist masters can consolidate stricter control over us. Their hidden agenda is powerfully pervasive and unless we can consciously step outside the conventional lens by which we so automatically filter, judge and separate ourselves into factionalized, warring camps, we are all doomed to be the perpetually weakened victims of their absolute criminal totalitarian control.

Throughout his lifetime Thomas Jefferson was suspicious of potential abuse and tyranny that could come from a federal government inadequately kept in check by the very checks and balances system he so meticulously crafted:

     Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental acts of the day. But a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers [administrations]; too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Before they slip us all into their shackles, it’s time to come together as one formidable unified force to take action, arming ourselves with the truth and then spreading the power of that truth as far as it’ll take us. In the end evil will not defeat truth, honesty and justice.

Virtually everything globalists and their governing ponds do is focused on one aspect or another of the divide and conquer formula to their NWO endgame. The focus of this examination has been on their goal of dividing us into weaker parts fighting amongst ourselves lending itself heavily to their powerful advantage. However, lest we forget that the elite is armed with unlimited weapons in their mighty arsenal expressly used to conquer and destroy us. And they’ve a plethora of methods at their disposal making us sick and die through both their hard and soft kill means.

Toxic levels of industrial fluoride dumped into our water supply and laced in our toothpaste, mercury and other poisonous metals and impurities specially concocted for vaccine delivery, raining down of heavy metals with their daily dose of geo-engineered chemtrails, killer Fukushima radiation levels bombarding us by air and water contaminating our entire food chain… then all our lives we’ve been inhaling heavily polluted air and ingesting GMO/chemically processed/Monsanto soaked/nutrient starved dead food poisoning, living under chronic stress that’s killing us as we work longer hours on less wages making it near impossible to make ends meet with a 95% devalued dollar after a century of being robbed blind and preyed upon by the parasitic Federal Reserve globalists. If the elite’s slow death attack isn’t eugenically getting the job done for them, in an instant they can exercise their final solution option a mere nuke push button away. One way or the other, they’ve rigged the deck so not one of us gets out of here alive.

But until we don’t, prior to our being conked and conquered to death, along with the truth we still do have a few options of our own to fight back with. Truth and knowledge represent the very power that they’re most afraid of. When they are hit with the truth, they are knocked back, cowering the way a vampire reacts to daylight or worse, a stake being driven through its heart.

With the light of truth let us drive our power of truth straight through their heartless hearts. As an empowered, informed and courageously committed solidarity of world citizenry acting together as one, we can go a long ways toward liberating ourselves from their yoke of oppression. Right now we still outnumber them 7 billion to their ponerologically impaired handful. They are incapable of caring or loving others. We real humans do have a decided advantage in that department. So armed with the power of both truth and love guided from above that they can never take away from us, while we still have the numbers overwhelmingly in our favor, it’s time to fight back through civil disobedience accompanied by wise selection of where our hard-earned dollars go. Together undivided and unconquered, we still can prevail. After all, good in the end always conquers evil.

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has been continuing to fight to lift the two year long siege imposed by ISIS militants at the Kuweires Military Airport. However, they have encountered several obstacles along the way that have made their march to the airbase very difficult. The superior air power and weapons aren’t enough to break the ISIS resistance inside the several villages surrounding the base.

The core of the clashes for the airport has moved to the town of Sheikh Ahmad as the SAA supported by the Russian Air Force pushed the terrorist group’s defenses at its southern district. ISIS had concentrated a major part of its forces there to safeguard the buffer-zone and help drive back the SAA servicemen that were attempting to bypass the ISIS defence line.

If the SAA captures Sheikh Ahmad, it will be less than 2km away from the Kuweires Military Airport’s frontlines located north of the Aleppo-Raqqa Highway.

Meanwhile, ISIS attempted to advance their positions inside the Hama Governorate after a successful series of attacks that put them in position to cut off the SAA’s main supply route to provincial capital of the Aleppo Governorate.

ISIS militants attacked several checkpoints belonging to the Syrian forces along the road to the town of Sheikh Hilal in an attempt to broaden their control over the Salamiyah-Raqqa road that runs through the town of Ithriyah. ISIS is aiming to block the supply road the SAA uses to reach the Khanasser-Aleppo highway. ISIS actively used suicide attacks using BMP armored vehicles in this advance. The SAA repealed the first wave of the terrorist attacks but the fighting has been continuing there.

According to reports, 1100 Iraqi paramilitary fighters have arrived to the Aleppo province under direct orders from Major General Qassem Suleimani – the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite “Quds Force”. These fighters are members of the Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-‘Abbas group. It’s the Iraqi paramilitary force which primarily operates in the southern Damascus. The reports argue that the Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-‘Abbas fighters arrived to the town of Khanasser, which is located near the highway recently attacked by ISIS.

Iraq’s army and al-Hashid al-Shaabi popular forces captured several strategic ISIS bases in the areas of East Haseebah, al-Sajariyyah, Theela and Al Sufiyyah, East of the city of Ramadi in the Anbar province on Monday. According to Iraqi reports, dozens ISIS militants were killed and scores of the armed vehicles were destroyed.

Earlier the same reports said al-Hashid al-Shaab, discovered US-made military hardware and ammunition, including missiles, in terrorists’ command center in Salahuddin province.

Iraq’s Kurdish fighters attacked a prison run by the ISIS militants in the northern province of Kirkuk, freeing as many as 70 prisoners. The facility is located about seven kilometers (four miles) north of the town of Hawija, which is to the west of the provincial capital, Kirkuk.

Separately, some 1,000 fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have arrived in the town, located in Nineveh Province. This comes as the Iraqi army and the country’s Kurdish Peshmerga forces are reportedly preparing to launch a massive attack on ISIS positions in Sinjar.

(Please read Part I prior to this article)

The first part of the series addressed the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) and the strategic geography resulting thereof, while this concluding section forecasts the three progressively intensifying post-election scenarios for where the polarized tension is headed. Because of its length, it’s divided into parts A and B, with the first one focusing on the post-election internal situation prior to the resumption of civil war, and the latter addressing what could foreseeably occur when hostilities break out once more.

Cold Peace Before A Hot War

Backdrop:

The elections have ended and Suu Kyi is content enough with its results that she doesn’t stir any anti-government destabilization. Intense polarization still remains over the NCA, and her camp (the National League for Democracy and affiliated pro-federalization rebel groups) is at loggerheads with the government, with the national reconciliation process largely coming to a standstill as both sides try to hedge against and outmaneuver the other via a complex series of political and ethnic alliances inside the newfound “democracy”. What’s really happening is that each bloc is consolidating its position in anticipation of what increasingly looks to be a renewed outbreak of civil war sometime in the future. As the country holds its breath, the India-Thailand Highway quickly fulfills its role in making Myanmar the integral connector country between India and ASEAN (and profits handsomely because of it), while China’s anticipated Indian Ocean corridor never sees the light of day and the security of its underperforming oil and gas pipelines de-facto becomes dependent on the (expensive) ‘goodwill’ of Suu Kyi and her friendly pro-federalization forces.

Suu Kyi/Rebels:

Beijing’s Buddy

Suu Kyi and her rebel friends dig in their positions both politically and physically, confident that the electoral results they just received give them a strong enough mandate to hold out against any forthcoming government pressure. They don’t anticipate the government going on any military offensives anytime soon, but they’re taking no chances and are arming themselves to the teeth just in case it gets any tempting ideas amidst the NCA and federalization deadlock. Always the skilled political opportunist, Suu Kyi does her utmost to position herself as Beijing’s most prized strategic asset in Myanmar. After all, she paid a landmark visit to the Chinese capital earlier in the year where she was wined and dined by the country’s top officials, including President Xi, in what was a telltale sign that Myanmar’s largest neighbor has given her its political blessing.

Corridor Blackmail

The reason behind China’s moves is simple to understand – Suu Kyi holds enough influence over the peripheral pro-federalization rebel groups in Shan State and the nationalist Buddhist monks in Rakhine State so as to literally be the deciding factor over whether China’s expensive oil and gas pipeline investments remain safeguarded or sabotaged. China may not like playing risky opposition politics with any of its ‘partners’, let alone one as strategically important and geographically close as Myanmar, but it almost has no pragmatic choice other than to engage with and de-facto ally itself with Suu Kyi. If China didn’t have influence over the border rebel groups before, then it surely does now, either directly in pursuit of a long-term effort to cut Suu Kyi out of the equation or indirectly through “The Lady” herself.

Playing With Fire

Also, it’s important to mention that the upping of China’s bilateral relations with Arakan National Party leader Aye Maung immediately before the election has ‘paid off’ in this scenario, since his hard-core anti-Muslim party cadres ‘keep the peace’ between the nationalist Buddhists and any potentially insurgent Rohingya’s, but they paradoxically increase the chances that a robust uprising will inevitably transpire the moment that the central government’s grip has loosened. The reason that China has taken the controversial path of supporting such a sub-state ethnic nationalist strongman such as Maung could be because it wants to diversify the ‘security dependence’ of its pipeline terminals away from Suu Kyi and her proxies, while still being fearful enough of anything labeled “Muslim” so as ‘justify’ its reliance on a crackdown-prone stand-in and thus ignore the potential destabilization blowback that’s obviously brewing.

“The China Whisperer”

Finally, because of the influence that she wields over Beijing’s pipelines, Suu Kyi could be said to have emerged as the “China Whisperer”, in that she has positioned herself as the main actor in Myanmar capable of talking to the Chinese and actually having them listen. This is actually quite dangerous, however, because she might leverage her influence in order to get China to back her federalist plans and support her allied ethnic proxies in Kachin and Shan States. In fact, if she plays her cards just right and is successful in becoming the ultimate wedge between Beijing and Naypyidaw, then she might even be able to convince China to arm her and her allies, especially if she tantalizingly frames the country’s polarized situation as a proxy competition between China (which supports Suu Kyi) and India (which supports the government).

Government:

Losing Ground With A Tough Sell

The government is expected to push forward with the NCA and firmly ensure that it is not amended in any way so as to support a federalized system. This is going to make it a very tough sell to many in the public who harbor pro-Suu Kyi, and thus, pro-federalization, sympathies. In fact, as Suu Kyi and her rebel ethnic allies use their government-provided parliamentary perches to proselytize their federalization ‘gospel’, more and more citizens will openly come to side with them and their federalized approach to solving the country’s civil war. This is expected to weaken the government’s support among the population, and can be said to represent a ‘pre-revolution’ of ‘ideological engineering’ prior to the coming hostilities. As the government loses ever more ground with the governed and becomes shockingly aware of this shift in support, it may predictably try to play up the economic benefit that its ‘pro-democratic opening-up’ has brought to the country, although as the population becomes accustomed to their rapidly increased standard of living, it’s expected that they’ll take such ruling party benefits for granted and not be persuaded to reconsider their political pivot.

From ASEAN Road To Indian Inroads

Partly as a natural consequence of increased trade relations with India, but also because of the need to counter-balance Suu Kyi and her ilk’s de-facto patronage from China, Naypyidaw will likely move closer to India, which for its part will be more than pleased to have ‘poached’ what used to be one of China’s closest allies just a few years ago. This new strategic partnership is expected to transform the Southeast Asian state by turning it into a bridgehead for Indian influence further into ASEAN, owing mostly of course to the India-Thailand Highway that will enhance New Delhi’s economic clout in the region. Myanmar will receive the given residual economic benefits for its transit state status, and could very well become a pivotal node between both points due to its concrete potential to cheaply and massively produce a variety of goods.

Depending upon the level of complex economic interdependency that results between the two (which in any case is expected to be quite large due to how advantageous the relationship will be for each), India might even feel compelled to deepen its political and military ties with Myanmar as well. If this happens, then it could see India, not China as had been the case for the past two decades, becoming the state’s greatest foreign patron, both on the international political arena and in terms of weapons shipments and technical cooperation. If developments move in this direction concurrently with China’s deepening partnership with Suu Kyi and her pro-federalization allies (more out of blackmailed pipeline necessity than any objective reason, as one should recall), then the two Asian giants could enter into a proxy collision course when the two internal sides finally resume the civil war.

Meltdown In Myanmar

Backdrop:

As was inevitably expected, the two blocs in Myanmar, the unionists and the federalists, the central government and Suu Kyi & allies, militarily clash, and the on-edge and ultra-tense country immediately descends back into all-out civil war. It doesn’t matter what the spark was or who’s responsible for having set off, as both sides had become distraught enough with the other’s recalcitrance in the NCA and federalization debate that they had reached the conclusion long ago that armed force would ultimately be the only way to resolve the impasse. While the central government, as explained in Part II, could technically prosper simply by holding onto its formal and allied rebel territories due to the India-Thailand Highway that runs across this corridor, it may have become ‘trigger happy’ and anxious if it felt it was losing the support of the majority Burmese population to Suu Kyi and her federalization platform and that another Color Revolution attempt was imminent.

Such a destabilizing asymmetrical reversal behind the government’s ‘own lines’, despite the misleading veneer of stability brought about by an Indian-assisted economic boom, could push it into making the riskiest calculation in its history, which would be to renew the civil war, but this time with the full intent of going as deep into the rebel’s territory as possible and cleaning them out once and for all. On the opposition’s side, they may have been fretting for a while that their covertly supplied Chinese arms might not be enough, nor of proper quality, to match or deter the Indian ones being delivered to Naypyidaw, thus leading them to commence a ‘first strike’ out of perceived tactical and military necessity. The problem becomes even more pronounced if either of the two external patrons (India for Naypyidaw, China for Suu Kyi and the rebels) ‘advises’ their respective side to preemptively engage in hostilities, or if they’re tricked by their proxy into supporting it in doing so in spite of not fully understanding the enormously complex and destabilizing situation that they’re getting themselves into.

Suu Kyi/Rebels:

In any forthcoming conflict, the federalization bloc’s most important strategic weapon is the potential to launch Color Revolution unrest in Yangon, Mandalay, and/or other large cities throughout the Burmese heartland. Succeeding in this manner would decimate the government’s backbone of support and greatly facilitate its collapse and subsequent replacement by Suu Kyi and the federative rebels. If that can’t be achieved quickly enough or happens to be quickly squashed by the military in its early stages, then they’ll likely resort to more conventional means to weaken the establishment, namely through formal armed struggle. It’s impossible for the rebels to ever capture Naypyidaw (which is more like the world’s largest military base as opposed to a ‘civilian-run’ capital), but if carried out properly, then a feigned ‘suicide attempt’ against it could create just enough of a diversion to deflect the military’s attention away from more tactically important targets for regime change such as Mandalay (located in the north and somewhat near the rebels’ existing area of activity), be it through their outright militant capture or Color Revolution seizure.

Complementary with the tactic of opening up other more ‘diversionary’ fronts, the rebels could leverage the support that Suu Kyi has among the country’s hyper-nationalist Buddhists such as the “Burmese Bin Laden” to provoke a massive anti-Muslim pogrom in Rakhine State that would surely tie up the military’s attention. It may not care so much about the Muslims themselves or even China’s pipelines, but what scares Naypyidaw the most is that the globally publicized killings of the vulnerable minority group that has garnered worldwide sympathy to could be used as an excuse for a multilateral international intervention into its affairs, and thus shift the balance decisively against it in this latest stage of civil warfare. Pertaining to this train of thought, the rebels might employ the last resort (or perhaps, their strategic first resort, depending on how it’s viewed at the time) of trans-border Naga terrorism against India in order to lure it into the mix. Although this might seem counterproductive considering that India is expected to side with the central government, it could achieve the major goal of prompting a sudden increase of Chinese technical support to their side, perhaps even culminating in a formal intervention to protect Beijing’s economic assets and act on the security dilemma that it believes it has with India in the country (especially if the Indians formally intervene there first, whether under an anti-terrorist justification or whatever other argument).

Government:

From a military standpoint, the government’s main objectives are to secure the cities from Color Revolution mayhem and rebel seizure (especially in the case of Mandalay), stabilize Rakhine State, and move ‘in for the kill’ against Kachin State. The first two imperatives are understandable when one considers the abovementioned rebel strategy, but thus far, the analysis hasn’t spoken too much about the Kachins and their leadership role in Myanmar’s civil war. For the most part, the country’s northernmost province operates as a pseudo-independent state despite the military’s scattered presence there since a 1994 offensive, and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and its militant Army wing are Myanmar’s second-largest rebel faction with an estimated 10,000 troops and another 10,000 reservists.

As written about in Part I, the KIO hosts the National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang (NSCN-K) and the Arakan Army, as well as a handful of Shan State rebel factions, so it’s essentially become the nucleus of the country’s rebel activity. If the KIO were to be crushed, then it would shatter the cohesiveness and support that all of the country’s other non-NCA rebel groups (save for theUnited Wa State Army, the country’s strongest rebel group, which firmly controls a small amount of critical territory along the Chinese border) receive from their training safe havens in the province. However, this is much easier said than done, as not only has the KIO proven itself to be a formidable fighting force, but the densely forested and hilly geography makes it exceptionally difficult for ‘outsiders’ to control. If it can succeed in going against the odds and wiping the rebels out of their primary nest inside the country, then the military can have a much higher chance at successfully wiping out the rebels once and for all, while still tolerating the powerful United Wa State Army’s existence in their secluded and very small corner of the country.

Finally, a few words must be said about forecasted fighting in Chin and Kayin States, the home of the Chin and Karen rebel organizations (all significant ones of which signed the NCA and are now aligned with the government). For the most part, none of the rebel groups signing on to the NCA are expected to actively engage in fighting on the government’s behalf and would likely remain neutral during any resumption of civil warfare, but the Chin and Karen groups are the only exceptions. Both would defend their territories against any outside rebels, and the latter could potentially even intervene in Mon State to the south (which hosts the anti-NCA New Mon State Party) if the federal rebels attempt any kind of destabilization there.

This isn’t because of any ‘loyalty’ they have to the government, but rather out of concrete economic self-interest, since both have a critical stake in keeping the Indian and Thai borders open and safe so as to reap the benefits from the India-Thailand Highway, and the Karen are also concerned about retaining benefits from the East-West portion of the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Corridor that runs through its territory (and also, incidentally, through Mon State). If somehow the Chin and Karen rebels were to join the anti-government federalists in any forthcoming resumption of civil war, however, it could potentially represent one of the greatest strategic pivots of the entire conflict and quickly lead to the government’s collapse.

The Graveyard Of Great Powers

Backdrop:

The civil war is raging throughout every part of the country by this point, and India and China, mainland Asia’s two largest economies and the world’s most populous states, are becoming ever concerned about the security of their major strategic investments in Myanmar, the India-Thailand Highway and the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines, correspondingly. They’re also backing two opposing sides, with New Delhi throwing its lot behind Naypyidaw while Beijing sides with the rebels (whether openly or not) and Suu Kyi (if she’s even still alive by this point, that is). The peak danger is that either state wouldn’t’ even be planning for an intervention per say, but that they’d find themselves unwittingly drawn in by the magnetic pull of centripetal events and their own strategic insecurities stemming from their security dilemma with one another. The movement of one Asian Great Power into the battlefield (or even rumors thereof) is enough to prompt the other to go in as well, and with both indirectly, and possibly even directly, clashing in the pivotal Indian Ocean state, it could turn out that the mangled remnants of the then-former Union of Myanmar become the graveyard of their 21^st-century multipolar ambitions.

Rumors And Sabotage:

There is perhaps no easier way to formally draw India or China into the Myanmar internecine conflict than for either of them to believe (possibly false and manipulated) rumors about the other going in first. If India catches wind of reports stating that China has a certain amount of on-the-ground special forces operating in eastern Myanmar (Kachin and/or Shan States) and assisting the rebels with their anti-government offensive against Mandalay or the diversion (perhaps a genuine push if aided by Beijing) to take Naypyidaw, then they might quickly react by dispatching their own contingent to the country to help prop up the government. Likewise, the same goes for China, and if it believes some (potentially unsubstantiated) reports that India is operating inside the country’s northwestern regions against Naga terrorists, for example, it might feel compelled to intervene and prop up its own allied rebels nearby, especially if it has reason to fear that India could target them next or as part of its comprehensive anti-Naga offensive. Succinctly put, the fog of war, coupled with the gigantic security dilemma between India and China, could prove to be the deadly mix that draws them deeper into Myanmar at the point of the state’s self-destruction. Similarly, any planned sabotage by the rebels against India and/or China’s infrastructure projects would obviously be justifiable enough grounds for either of them to intervene in the conflict if they so choose, which, it needs to be said, might have been the rebels’ strategic goal all along for a multitude of reasons.

Cross-Border Incidents:

Aside from the above reasons for either Asian Great Power to directly get involved in Myanmar, a much more pressing one for each of them could be the incidence of cross-border raids against their territory. For example, recall the author’s suggestion in Part I to keep the NSCN-K in the back of one’s mind, as now is the precise moment when that factor of near-uncontrollable destabilization becomes most relevant. The resumption of all-out civil war in Myanmar could lead to an environment where the Naga terrorist group and its United Liberation Front of West South East Asia successionists-in-arms feel that it’s an opportune moment to once more strike against India, perhaps betting that New Delhi won’t risk the gamble of getting sucked into the Myanmar quagmire by responding. Quite possibly, however, they might miscalculate, especially given that India has genuine security interests that would be advanced by moving in to completely take out the terrorist group without any political considerations for Naypyidaw getting in the way this time. In the same spirit, if Kokang or other believed-to-be pro-Chinese rebels either went rogue in attacking China (unlikely) or in provoking the Myanmar military into accidental cross-border shelling like has happened before (much more likely), it could definitely preempt a forceful response by China, especially if Beijing is already contemplating a concentrated push to assist its proxies. Remember – any cross-border action by India or China, be it in response to a provocation or out of their own initiative, will result in an immediate and most likely symmetrical response from the other, and in such a tense international atmosphere between the two by this time, even simple rumors of such action could be enough to make one or the other ‘jump the gun’ and lunge into Myanmar.

The Rohingya Rescue (And Counter-Response):

The final external intervention scenario deals with the consequences of large-scale violence against the Rohingyas in Rakhine State. The Muslims are expected to be cautiously allied with the government because of its responsibility in keeping the opposition Buddhist national mobs at bay, but during a complete breakdown of law and order, the state obviously wouldn’t’ be able to keep its commitment to the globally recognized minority group. Therefore, the situation arises where India, which has more Muslims than Pakistan despite being a Hindu-majority state, might either feel obligated to stage a ‘humanitarian intervention’, or at least cloth its actions with such rhetoric, especially if the international (Western) community presses it to act on their behalf. Automatically, this would elicit an instantaneous response from China, which justifiably would be concerned that its Indian rival is trying to seize control of its strategic oil and gas terminals along the coast. At this point, it’s difficult to predict exactly how Beijing would react, but it could either intervene directly in the east and/or ‘play the Pakistan card’ to divert India’s strategic focus back to its traditional western direction. Nonetheless, the two sides are guaranteed to enter into a formal and very tense Cold War if the Indian military moves anywhere near China’s Indian Ocean resource terminals, no matter what (humanitarian) justifications it gives for doing so.

Concluding Thoughts

The Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) that was just signed, precisely because of the fact that its signatories do not encompass the breadth of the country, provides the most clear-cut indication of the battle lines that would be drawn if civil war were to resume in the near future. Such a negative scenario could realistically occur amidst a post-electoral fallout between the government and Suu Kyi & her rebel allies, or some period afterward as the government and opposition become militantly frustrated with a NCA standstill and frozen federalization talks, respectively. The resultant outbreak of violence is expected to engulf the entire country, as both sides fight an existential struggle for their survival, which would see the government moving to squash the rebel once and for all, while the rebels try to finally overthrow the government that they’ve been fighting against for the past 70 years (both through militant and potential asymmetrical Color Revolution means).

In the heated fray that’s sure to follow, India and China seem primed to intervene, both out of their own economic self-interests in safeguarding their major strategic infrastructure projects through the country. It’s not that they’re eager to do so, but that they feel pressured to because of the extraordinarily intense security dilemma running between them. In the event that one of them takes the initiative in making a move in that direction (whether in response to a cross-border incident or infrastructure sabotage provocation), it’s a sure bet that the other will follow. Two rival Great Powers operating in the same battlespace wouldn’t be unprecedented, however, since it’s already happening with the US and Russia in Syria, but it if occurs between India and China, then this would shatter BRICS and the SCO and spell the beginning of an ultra-tense Cold War standoff between the world’s most populous states. This grand strategic result is the reason why it’s possible that an outside third-party such as the US might find a way to leverage the influence that it has with its on-the-ground proxies during the conflict in order to create the conditions necessary to bring this about, as an Indian-Chinese proxy war over Myanmar and the resultant Cold War that comes from it could be perhaps the greatest blow that multipolarity suffers this century.

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentaror currently working for the Sputnik agency, exclusively for ORIENTAL REVIEW.