Global Research

The former British Foreign Secretary, in an opinion piece published in London, today, agrees with newly elected Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, that a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, is ‘entirely commendable’.

The obvious problem being that this could ‘only be achieved by Israel giving up its nuclear weapons’ as a quid pro quo to Iran agreeing to scrap its nuclear program.

Bearing in mind that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is un­declared and un­inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations (IAEA) ­ and is now estimated to exceed 400 nuclear warheads ­ the proposal by Jeremy Corbyn, as endorsed by the former Conservative Foreign Secretary, must make sense. Nothing can be more important than global peace and an end to the threat of a regional nuclear war in the Middle East that would inevitably escalate to threaten tens of millions of lives throughout Europe.

The solution is for the EU to endorse the proposition of a NWFZ in the Middle East ­ to include both Israel and Iran. It is plain, common sense and to reject such an initiative would be to endanger our children, their families and their children in the years to come.

The time for specific political action to ensure the dismantling of Israel’s secret nuclear stockpile, at the same time as the closure of Iran’s nuclear program, is now.

interview given by Andrew Korybko to the Iranian FARS News agency on the origins of the Syrian war, refugee crisis in the EU and the US interest in making radicals infiltrate Europe.

What are the reasons for such humanitarian crisis in ME countries including Syria/ Libya? Who / what countries / what reasons or policies are behind reasons for such crisis?

The triggers for this crisis can be clearly traced to the “Arab Spring” theater-wide Color Revolutions and the US’ Wars on Libya and Syria (one overt, the other covert). These offensives have also seen the participation of the UK, France, Turkey, and the Gulf Monarchies, and there are a couple motivations behind why they wanted to initiate their regime change operations.

The US, for its part, envisioned seeing a transnational Muslim Brotherhood elite come to power from Algeria to Syria, functioning as a sort of Arab version of the Cold War international communist party. By this it’s meant that the group would have secret cells all over the region, be dedicated to gaining power, and be financed by a substantial international patron (the US, Qatar, and Turkey in this case) that would use it as a proxy controlling force.

As regards the Gulf Monarchies (including Qatar), they wanted to get rid of President Assad and the Friendship Pipeline he agreed to with Iran and Iraq in order to sell their own gas directly to the EU, while Turkey was expressing its new aggressive ideology of Neo-Ottomanism. France and the UK, for their part, simply wanted to reassert their former colonial spheres of influence. The overall lesson that can be learned is that attempts by external powers to militantly tinker with the inner workings of sovereign states will inevitably lead to a humanitarian disaster, even in places where it was initially least expected (the refugee blowback in Europe, for example).

What are the main reasons that make people off Syria or any other war torn country which suffer the disastrous life to take the risk to Europe? 

People leave their country when their homes are being destroyed and they don’t feel safe anymore, but it certainly helps if there is an anchor community and/or family member(s) abroad that can help assist with their lodging when they do eventually flee. However, it must be stressed that the vast majority of Syrian refugees are internal ones, meaning that they left one part of their country for another region but haven’t gone abroad. This is very important because it shows the patriotism of most of the Syrian population, which still want to live in their homeland despite the obvious danger to their lives. For example, Latakia has absorbed many internal refugees, and it’s done a pretty good job at making sure that they live in dignity and with self-respect.

As for why the millions of others have left, it’s hard to generalize, but part of the reason is the material attractiveness abroad (such as the dream of earning Euros), which in some way, is being used to lure Syrians out of their state in order to demographically weaken it. The advance construction of refugee facilities in Turkey prior to the War on Syria is a case in point, and according to Ghassan and Intibah Kadi writing for The Saker, Ankara has finally decided to allow the refugees to leave the encampments that they were forcibly detained in, thus manufacturing the latest migrant wave for reasons that have yet to be fully explained. Perhaps, as they suggest, it’s to increase Turkey’s leverage vis-à-vis the EU when it comes to ascension talks, but whatever it is, it’s clear that the refugees are being politicized, and in some cases, weaponized. Let’s also not forget that these individuals have to pay tremendous amounts of money to human smugglers in order to sail to Greece, so the assumption that they’re the most desperate of the desperate simply isn’t true for the most part. And, considering that they were stuck in Turkey’s ‘refugee camps’ for the past couple of years, it’s questionable how they received the money, or, one is tempted to think, could they have brought so much money with them four and a half years ago that they still had some left for when the time to leave finally arrived?

It’s also curious that many of these individuals are of moderately young age and are well-fit, meaning that, as the Kadis also wrote, they could be defending their homeland had they not fled. Many of those that left were anti-government individuals in the first place, so that may have played a role in why they made their decision to go abroad, perhaps right before the Syrian Arab Army regained control of their neighborhood out of fear that they could get in trouble for their terrorist sympathies. It could also explain where they received the money to make their overseas journey, since it’s common knowledge that anti-Syrian terrorists are active in these Turkish-based camps.

Responding to a question I had in an interview with Macedonian journalist Slobodan Tomic last month, I also observed how odd it was that many of the refugees are men entering Europe without their families, thereby postulating that some of them could obviously have nefarious intentions. That isn’t to say that most of them have these thoughts or are guilty of any wrong, but that it shouldn’t be blindly discounted by general humanitarian rhetoric and good intentions on behalf of the recipient states.

What covert policies has the EU taken that lead to the recent prohibition of accepting refugees? Is the EU now united to accept refuges?

I don’t think the EU is united at all, let alone in accepting refugees. Hungary, for example, is building a border wall on the Serbian border to stop them from entering its territory, while Austria and Germany have the opposite approach and are actively welcoming refugees into their countries. The issue is very divisive no matter which country is being talked about, since you have the various governments’ guilt for creating the crisis, yet you have the innocent citizenry inside the EU states that of course have their own legitimate concerns about this. It’s really hard to rectify these differences, hence why the topic is generating such an uproar and internal political division. People don’t want to see strangers suffering in the streets, but at the same time, they’re hesitant about allowing culturally dissimilar individuals into their communities. There’s no panacea for this problem, and no matter how it’s approached, it’s bound to upset many people who think it’s not going far enough (either in accepting or rejecting the refugees).

In a true sense, it’s turned into a Catch-22 for the EU, one which only plays favorably to the US, which is of course interested in ginning up as much internal division as possible for its political ends. This allows it to retain a close degree of control over EU elites like Merkel, whose power is dependent on the ‘democratic’ whims of an easily manipulated majority. With all that is known about the NSA, it’s quite conceivable to infer that the information gleaned from millions of EU citizens has been fed into the mouth of Big Data programs, from which megatrend analyses are spewed out for the US’ political benefit.

The main advantage here is that the US understands the political undercurrents of the EU masses more than their respective national governments do, which is a strategic vulnerability that has been, is, and will be exploited into the foreseeable future. Its relevance to the refugee crisis is that it gives the US the upper hand in steering ‘people’s movements’ for or against this politically mobilizing topic, all with the end intent of exerting pressure on uncompliant national elites by scaring them with the illusive specter of Color Revolution destabilization (similar in general form, but with lesser intensity and no such regime change ends).

Should the political measures follow humanity or mere national interests?

In order to address this question, one needs to look at the two identities that the EU has – that of a supranational political organization and as a social/humanitarian project. It’s undoubtedly a complex combination of the two, but the importance lies in which of them is predominant at the moment. If the EU identifies itself more as a supranational political organization, then it and its members will let their national interests dictate their response to the refugee crisis; likewise, if it sees itself more as a social/humanitarian project, then it’ll follow the liberal logic of allowing each and every refugee to come into the bloc or their country. Another issue is that there is no consensus within the EU itself over which of the two identities is most en vogue, hence why national interests are obviously guiding Hungary’s border fence-building decision, whereas liberalism (including the economic kind) is behind Austria and Germany’s decision to welcomingly invite refugees into their countries (which also satisfies an eventual cheap labor demand amidst their rapidly greying populations, it must be noted).

Corpses of suffocated refugees found in a container in Austria.

How do you think can EU help refugees?

It’s really hard to say, since the refugees have been transformed by the US into a political hot potato, one which has the potential to be strategically and demographically weaponized for use against the EU’s interests. If they would have just remained a humanitarian concern, perhaps it would be easier to propose measures that the EU could theoretically take, such as allowing some of them to enter into the country and eventually be assimilated. Ever since Turkey ‘opened up the floodgates’, so to speak, and allowed many of the Syrian refugees in its country to leave for Europe, one must keep in mind how much this has overwhelmed the host authorities, and how it obviously has certain consequences on their ability to properly process the incoming masses.

Not only that, but such an unprecedented influx of individuals into some of the smaller European transit states such as Macedonia and Serbia has the potential to stir domestic unrest, and this is also not without concern in the destination states as well, as has been seen by protests in Germany, for example. Under such conditions, it’s not realistic to propose a “come one, come all” type of approach, no matter how morally right that might sound at the moment. If some of the EU members want to take in a certain number of refugees, so be it, that’s their sovereign choice, but given the numbers that are flowing in, it’s impossible to accommodate all of them adequately, but it’s just as equally impossible to send them back to Turkey or Syria. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a real Catch-22 dilemma for the EU.

Will such entering of masses to Europe rise the risk to security levels by fear of entering extremists who covertly blend with the innocent refugees?

Absolutely, there’s not a single doubt about it. As I mentioned in a late-July interview with Marija Kotovska, a Macedonian journalist based in Athens:

Hungary stated that at least 90,000 people have illegally entered the country so far this year, and that they expect a total of 300,000 by year’s end. Most of them likely came from the southern route, meaning that they passed through Macedonia at some time or another. Taking into account an extremely conservative estimate that 1% of them could be terrorists, then that calculates to nearly 1,000 terrorists so far (and up to 3,000 by the end of the year) coming into Macedonia for an unspecified amount of time.

This calculation holds true for any country that the refugees enter into, since even if 1% of them are terrorists like I very conservatively estimated, then the continent is in for a major destabilization in the coming future.

Furthermore, there’s a reverse dynamic that could be taken into play by some of the more NATO-active states such as France. It’s no secret that they and the US want to train as many Syrians as possible for regime change redeployment back into the country, and hundreds of thousands of young, anti-government Syrians marching into Europe makes for an excellent recruiting market from their perspective. Some of these ‘recruits’ might even be promised a future life in Europe (with social benefits included) if they agree to be trained and return back to fight for a certain amount of time. What this in effect does is transform the refugee crisis into a circular problem, whereas it perpetuates the flow of people outside of the state (thereby depriving Syria of much-needed manpower in fighting its anti-terrorist war) and simultaneously gives the West more recruits to indefinitely prolong the crisis and provoke a greater exodus.

Terrorism begets more terrorism, but it’s just that for the West, these are ‘good terrorists’ until the moment they begin operating in Europe, North America, the Arabian Peninsula, or Turkey. At that point, they’re ‘bad terrorists’ and the blame is manipulatively and falsely shifted to President Assad, who these actors ridiculously claim is behind the rise of terrorism in the country. There couldn’t be a more false statement made about Syria than that, since President Assad is the vanguard leader of the world’s anti-terrorist struggle, but nonetheless, it just goes to show how politicized the refugee and terrorist issues have become that the US and its allies are exploiting them for self-interested and geopolitical gains.

When one plays with terrorists, they’re bound to get hurt sooner or later, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen with ISIL, the Fake Syrian Army (FSA), and others using the refugee crisis as a plausible cover to infiltrate into the heart of Europe. As is always the case, any forthcoming explosion of terrorism would only be in the US’ interests as it seeks to divide Europe and concurrently justify its military occupation of the continent.

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The mantra of global agribusiness companies is that they care about farmers. They also really care about humanity and want to help to feed a growing world population, preferably by using genetically modified (GM) crops. They say that they want to assist poor farmers by helping them to grow enough to earn a decent income. It seems like a win-win situation for everyone.

To listen to the PR, however, you could be forgiven for believing that these companies are driven by altruistic tendencies and humanitarian goals rather than by massive profit margins and delivering on shareholder dividends.

To promote itself and its products, the US multinational company Union Carbide came out with a series of brochures in the nineteen fifties and sixties with powerful images depicting a large ‘hand of god’ in the sky, which hovered over a series of landscapes and scenarios in need of ‘fixing’ by the brave new world of science and the type of agricultural technology to be found in a pesticide canister. One such image is of a giant hand pouring chemicals from a lab flask upon Indian soil, with a pesticide manufacturing factory in the distance and Mumbai’s Gateway of India opposite.

It was a scene where science met tradition, where the helping hand of god, in this case Union Carbide, assisted the ignorant, backward Indian farmer who is shown toiling in the fields. The people at Union Carbide didn’t do subtlety back then.

We can now look back and see where Union Carbide’s helping hand got the people of Bhopal and the deaths caused by that pesticide factory depicted in the image. And we can also see the utter contempt its top people in the US displayed by dodging justice and failing the victims of Bhopal. There’s humanitarianism for you: playing god with people’s lives and denying responsibility.

The supposed humanitarian motives of global agribusiness are often little more than a sham. If these companies, their supporters and media shills and PR mouthpieces really want to feed the world and assist poor farmers in low income countries, as they say they do, they would do better by addressing the political, economic and structural issues laid out here which fuel poverty and hunger. And that includes the role of agribusiness itself in determining unfair world trade rules and trade agreements, such as the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which help grant it access to agriculture across the globe and recast it for its own ends. (In fact, US agribusiness and the transformation of food-sufficient countries into food-deficit ones has long been bound up with the projection of Washington’s global power – see this.)

They would also do better by acting on the recommendations of various reports that conclude agro-ecological approaches are more suitable for these countries and that GM and chemical-dependent practices are not required and are inappropriate (see this, this and this).

Many of the people these companies supply their inputs to and make a profit from are smallholder farmers who live on a financial knife edge in low income countries Monsanto has appropriated around $900 million from India’s farmers over the last decade or so – illegally according to this . By way of contrast, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant brought in $13.4 million in 2014 alone, according to Bloomberg.

Writing in India’s Statesman newspaper recently, Bharat Dogra illustrates the knife-edge existence of the people that rich agribusiness profits from by discussing the case of Babu Lal and his wife Mirdi Bai who have been traditionally cultivating wheat, maize, and bajra (millet) on their farmland in Rajasthan. Their crops provided food for several months a year to the 10-member family as well as fodder for farm and dairy animals which are integral to the mixed farming system employed.

Dogra notes that company (unspecified – but Monsanto and its subsidiaries dominate the GM cotton industry in India) agents approached the family with the promise of a lump-sum payment to plant and produce Bt (GM) cotton seeds in two of their fields. Babu Lal purchased pesticides to help grow the seeds in the hope of receiving the payment, which never materialised because the company agent said the seeds produced had “failed” in tests.

The family faced economic ruin, not least because the food harvest was much lower than normal as the best fields and most labour and resources had been devoted to Bt cotton. There was hardly any fodder too. It all resulted in Babu Lal borrowing from private moneylenders at a high interest rate to meet the needs of food and fodder.

Things were to get much worse though as the company’s agent allegedly started harassing Babu Lal for a payment of about 10,000 rupees in lieu of the fertilisers and pesticides provided to him. Several other tribal farmers in the area also fell into this trap, and reports say that the soil of fields in which Bt cotton was grown has been badly damaged.

The promise of a lump-sum cash payment can be very enticing to poor farmers, and when companies use influential villagers to get new farmers to agree to plant GM cotton, tribal farmers are reluctant to decline the offer. When production is declared as having failed, solely at the company’s discretion it seems, a family becomes indebted.

According to Dogra’s piece, there is growing evidence that the trend in tribal areas to experiment with Bt cotton has disrupted food security and has introduced various health hazards and ecological threats due to the use of poisonous chemical inputs.

What seed companies are doing is experimenting with farmers’ livelihoods and lives. ‘Success’, regardless of the impact on the farmer, is measured in terms of company profits. However, failure for the farmer is a matter of life and death. Look no further than the spike in suicides across the cotton belt since 1997. Even ‘success’ for the farmer may not amount to much when the costs of the seeds and associated chemical inputs are factored into any possible increase in yield or income.

Despite constant denials by Monsanto and its supporters in the media that Bt cotton in India has nothing or little to do with farmer suicides in India, a new study directly links the crisis of suicides among Indian farmers to Bt cotton adoption in rain-fed areas, where most of India’s cotton is grown. As outlined in the case of Babu Lal above, many fall into a cycle of debt from the purchase of expensive, commercialised GM seeds and chemical inputs that then often fail to yield enough to sustain farmers’ livelihoods.

Dogra’s story is about one family’s plight, but it is a microcosm of all that is wrong with modern agriculture and that could be retold a million times over in India and across the world: the imposition of cash monocrops and the subsequent undermining of local food security (leading to food-deficit regions and to a reliance on imports); the introduction of costly and hazardous (to health and environment) chemical inputs and company seeds; crop failure (or, in many cases, the inability to secure decent prices on a commercial market dominated by commodity speculators in the US or rigged in favour of Western countries); and spiralling debt.

The situation for India’s farmers is dire across the board. Consider that 670 million people in India’s the rural areas live on less than 33 rupees a day (around 50 US cents) a day. And consider that than 32 million quit agriculture between 2007 and 2012. Where did they go? Into the cities to look for work. Work that does not exist.

Between 2005 and 2015, only 15 million jobs were created nationally. To keep up with a growing workforce, around 12 million new jobs are required each year. Therefore, if you are going to place the likes of Babu Lal and millions like him at the mercy of the ‘helping hand’ of giant agribusiness companies or the whims of the market, you may well be consigning him and millions like him to the dustbin of history given the lack of options for making a living out there.

In fact, that is exactly what the Indian government is doing by leaving farmers like him to deal with agribusiness and the vagaries of the market and having to compete with heavily subsidised Western agriculture/agribusiness, whose handmaidens at the WTO demand India reduces import restrictions. Little wonder then that 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1997.

While the West tries to impose its neoliberal agenda of cutting subsidies to agriculture and dismantling price support mechanisms and the public distribution system that if effectively run would allow Indian farmers to receive a decent stable income, farmers are unsurprisingly leaving the sector in droves as agriculture becomes economically non-viable. Forcing farmers to leave the land is a deliberate strategy. Just like it is a deliberate strategy to give massive handouts to industry and corporate concerns who are not delivering on jobs. It’s all about priorities. And farmers are not a priority. They are being driven from farming, while all the advantages are being given to a failing corporate-industrial sector.

With 300,000 having killed themselves in the last 18 years and many more heavily indebted or existing on a pittance, what we are witnessing is the destruction of the Indian farmer. Structural violence doesn’t require guns or knives – economic policies and political choices will do just fine.

This type of violence involves the uprooting of indigenous agriculture and replacing it with a chemical-intensive Western model based of agriculture, whereby those farmers left on the land are to be recipients of the inputs and knowledge of agribusiness companies. This began with the ‘green revolution’ and is continuing apace today courtesy of GM cotton seeds and possibly GM food given that open field trials of GM food crops now taking place (GM is a fraudulent enterprise and is surrounded by various myths that are deconstructedhere).

It begs the question: are traditional skills and knowledge gained over thousands of years to be cast aside in favour of a model that stresses agribusiness inputs and the ‘knowledge’ required to make them work? Very often, these inputs (or products) result in a continuous process of crisis management (under the banner of ‘research and development’) and short-termism: new products – that are ultimately destined to fail – to replace the older products that have already failed. This scenario is only good for one thing – the profit sheets of the agribusiness cartel as it pushes its never-ending stream of ‘innovations’ onto the hapless farmer.

For example, going back a couple of years, a report in Business Standard (BS) stated that Bt cotton yields in India had dropped to a five-year low. India approved Bt cotton in 2002 and within a few years yields increased dramatically. However, most of the rise in productivity seemingly had nothing to do with Bt cotton itself.

What’s more, since Bt has taken over, yields have been steadily worsening. According to BS, bollworms are developing resistance. Contrary to what farmers were originally told, the Monsanto spokesperson quoted by BS says that such resistance is to be expected. However, when Bt cotton arrived in India, farmers were told that they wouldn’t have to spray any more. All that farmers had to do was plant the seeds and water them regularly. They were told that, as GM seeds are insect resistant, there was no need to use huge amounts of pesticides.

But, according to Monsanto’s spokesperson, the bollworm problem is all the Indian farmers’ fault because ‘limited refuge planting’ is one of the factors that may have contributed to pink bollworm resistance. Using the ‘wrong’ biotech seed is another. The answer from the biotech sector to combat falling yields is continuous R&D to develop new technologies and new strains of GM seeds to try to stay ahead of insect resistance or falling yields.

Agribusiness corporations are engaged in managing and thus profiting from the crises they themselves have conspired to produce with their destruction of traditional agriculture and local economies and their chemical inputs and genetic engineering. By its very nature – by tampering with nature – US agribusiness is designed to stumble from one crisis to the next. And it will do so by hiding behind the banners of ‘innovation’ or ‘research and development’. But, it’s all good business. And that’s all that really matters. There’s always money to be made from blaming the victims for the mess created and from a continuous state of crisis management.

Ultimately, this is what capitalism is all about: planned obsolescence – planned obsolescence of its products, in order that profits can be made from a stream of new ‘wonder’ products and, as far as India is concerned, planned obsolescence of its farmers as agribusiness sets out to uproot tradition and shape farming in its own corporate image. And part of the great con-trick is that it attempts to pass off its endless crises and failures as brilliant successes.

If anything highlights how this traditional knowledge and practices are being cast aside, it is the recent case of Bt cotton and whitefly. In the cotton belt of Punjab and Haryana, the tiny whitefly has caused extensive damage. They sprayed this way and that way with pesticides. The agritech companies blamed farmers for not spraying correctly. The companies blamed each other for selling the wrong chemicals to farmers. It’s a repeat of the bollworm blame game. In any case, the pesticide use failed to kill the whitefly that ravaged cotton crops.

Writing on his blog, food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma says that the only time whitefly did not destroy crops was when pesticides were not used. Instead, farmers used ‘insect equilibrium’ and their knowledge of which insects kill crop-predator pests. Knowledge built over centuries of trial and error and which did not come courtesy of a white-coated figure in a lab. Knowledge that is in danger of being wiped out as farmers are being turned into consumers of agritech products.

Sharma notes in that the areas where extensive pesticide use failed to defeat the whitefly, they “stand like an oasis in a heavily polluted chemical desert.” In the areas that were not ravaged, pesticides have not been used for several years. Benign insects are used to control harmful pests. They allowed the natural predators of whitefly to proliferate, which in turn killed the whitefly. Sharma says he has met women who can identify 110 non-vegetarian insects and also as many as 60 vegetarian insects (a few years back, he also reported how insect equilibrium was managing a mealy bug problem too).

For agribusiness, though, it is more profitable to hijack agriculture and recast it in its own ‘hand of god’ image. It can then serve up its industrial poisons and GMOs to farmers courtesy of politicians who handed agriculture to it on a plate.

Fast forward 50 years from that Union Carbide image and global agribusiness is today a bit more subtle in its approach. But the underlying messages and attitudes remain: that backward, ignorant farmers are in need of a giant ‘helping hand’, these companies know best and debt, economic distress and farmer suicides are not of its making or concern.

Global agribusiness is playing fast and loose with poor people’s lives and is profiting handsomely.

Turkey has eagerly opened her gates to two million refugees to house them in refugee camps which were funded with up to 6 billion US dollars – not for reasons of altruism, but to use them jointly with the US, NATO and the EU as a geopolitical weapon. – The German konjunktion.info network.

This is a plausible scenario. Turkey practiced since many years a suspicious ‘open door’ policy towards refugees, amassing hundreds of thousands in fully financed and well organized refugee camps. During a recent visit to Bodrum, Turkey (Turkish transit city to Kos, Greece), I was told, to better control the flow of refugees, i.e. the exit from Turkey, Erdogan’s Government has eliminated most refugee camps along the Turkish border, shifting them to huge camps near Istanbul.

These camps are part of a long-term strategy to justify the creation of ‘safe heavens’ in northern Syria which eventually would serve the invasion of NATO and their terrorist proxies – ISIS-Daesh. Once in the country they would be able to move towards Damascus to carry out the long-planned ‘regime change’ – toppling the Government of democratically elected Bashar Al-Assad. On 3 June 2014 he was elected with almost 90% of the votes which was considered as “free, fair and transparent” by international observers, although Washington and its EU vassals dismissed them as illegitimate. Bashar Al-Assad’s popularity is still today above 75%.

Source: ActivistPost.com

This diabolical plan was developed by the neocon Brookings Institute already in 2012. Memo # 21 of the Brookings Middle Eastern Saban Center bears the title Assessing Options for Regime Change. A more recent report entitled Deconstructing Syria: Towards a regionalized strategy for a confederal country – describes how “moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via the presence of special forces [meaning ISIS-Daesh – author’s observation] as well. The approach would benefit from Syria’s open desert terrain which could allow creation of buffer zones that could be monitored for possible signs of enemy attack through a combination of technologies, patrols, and other methods that outside special forces could help Syrian local fighters set up.”

As a parallel or backup plan, the unholy alliance between Washington, NATO and Turkey agreed to open Turkey’s flood gates for refugees, actually promoting the exodus to gain free reign in the safe heavens and to build up a mass of refugees – most of whom want to flee to Germany – which in the right moment could be let go and cause the right pressure or destabilization effects in Europe. Well, this is just happening.

Within the space of a week or so, Germany has taken some drastic and controversial actions. The first of them looks like a 180 degree U-turn vis-à-vis its refugee policy, specially towards Syrian refugees, by opening its borders to 800,000 or more refugees, mostly Syrians, until the end 0f 2015. This sudden welcome to refugees surprised many Germans who were demonstrating for a more humane refugee policy.

Almost simultaneously Germany re-introduced border controls – stepping over one of the key Schengen agreements of ‘open borders’, fearing infiltration of disproportionate numbers of non-Syrians and of ISIS or other jihadist cells or groupings. Such destabilizing US trained and funded groups are known to be already lodged in Europe, if necessary to be ready to manipulate elections or organize mass demonstrations, à la Arab Spring and more recently Ukraine. One of Washington’s most notorious organizations to sponsor such destabilizing groupings is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the State Department. NED is responsible for destabilizing or attempting to destabilize, dozens of countries around the globe, including Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran – and many more.

We easily forget or often can’t believe the limitless evilness of the Washington neoliberal empire which functions with absolute impunity of lawlessness and without scruples to reach world hegemony. Even that will not be enough, since it feeds on constant wars and conflicts – a must to sustain its economy that depends on the war industry. We forget or can’t believe it, because the mainstream media which it also controls – ‘it’ being the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon financial and media tail that moves the US war dog – brainwash us daily with lies and distorted news, impressing us of the empire’s goodness, denigrating all those who are seeking a peaceful and harmonic living-together of sovereign nations.

For example, today, 16 September, the NY Times reports “The recent deployment of Russian weapons and equipment to Syria has brought to a head a conflict that has dominated the Obama administration since Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency, the choice between engaging with Russia [meeting with Putin] and trying to isolate it.”- Do you see one word on how the Obama Administration together with its Middle-Eastern proxies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, to just name the most important ones, have financed and armed ISIS-Daesh, destroying homes, towns, cultures and livelihoods, as well as killing thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Yemenis – causing the survivors to flee their countries? – Nope. Zilch.

The article goes on claiming that many [of the US-Zionist elite – author’s remark] “worry that agreeing to meet would only play into Mr. Putin’s hands and reward an international bully.” – When the only world bully spreading endless terror throughout the globe is Obama and his minions in the Americas (only a few), Europe (all of it) and Asia (a few but growing).

That’s not all. The NYT offers more wisdom. “The move by Russia to bolster the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who has resisted Mr. Obama’s demand to step down for years, underscored the conflicting approaches to fighting the Islamic State terrorist organization.” – Who in havens is Obama to request a democratically elected leader of a sovereign country to step down? – Does it ever occur to the readers of the NYT and the like to question such statements of absolute illegality? – Does it ever occur to western audiences that this type of hegemonic arrogance could be turned on its head? – Wouldn’t Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, whose country has suffered Washington directed bloody atrocities for years, have the same right to ask for the western hegemonic royal, Obama, to step down? – How would such an equal presumption come across?

On 15 September, the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) Security Council held a summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, with the main focus of seeking an effective response to the biggest current military and political challenges, including an upsurge in activity by terrorist and extremist groups and destabilization of the situation on the CSTO countries’ borders. CSTO members include Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

In his speech before the CSTO Council Mr. Putin said –

“The state of affairs there [in the region including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria] is very serious. The so-called Islamic State controls significant stretches of territory in Iraq and Syria. Terrorists are already publicly stating that they have targets set on Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Their plans include expanding activities to Europe, Russia, Central and Southeast Asia.

We are concerned by this; especially since militants undergoing ideological indoctrinations and military training by ISIS come from many nations around the world – including, unfortunately, European nations, the Russian Federation, and many former Soviet republics. And, of course, we are concerned by their possible return to our territories.

Basic common sense and a sense of responsibility for global and regional security require the international community to join forces against this threat. We need to set aside geopolitical ambitions, leave behind so-called double standards and the policy of direct or indirect use of individual terrorist groups to achieve one’s own opportunistic goals, including changes in undesirable governments and regimes.

As you know, Russia has proposed rapidly forming a broad coalition to counteract the extremists. It must unite everyone who is prepared to make, or is already making, an input into fighting terrorism, just as Iraq and Syria’s armed forces are doing today. We support the Syrian government – I want to say this – in countering terrorist aggression. We provide and will continue to provide the necessary military technology assistance and urge other nations to join in.”

Coming back to Germany’s bold and controversial actions: As reported by Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) on 12 September 2015,

“In a surprise move Germany left the anti-Putin-alliance formed by the USA: Germany is now officially welcoming Moscow’s readiness to act in Syria and is starting an initiative together with the Russians and the French to bring an end to the war. This is to stop the constant stream of refugees. Germany has ordered thousands of soldiers into readiness.”

http://www.sott.net/article/301791-Germany-moves-away-from-the-US-anti-Putin-alliance-and-joins-forces-with-Russia-in-coalition-to-defeat-ISIS

Heeding Vladimir Putin’s call for joint action against the Islamic State and its affiliate terror organizations, and facing a new Washington-NATO-Turkey created weapon of destabilization – the “refugee missile” – it may not be coincidence that Germany once again over-steps her Constitution, prepared to launching war from its territory, to fight alongside Russia – NOT alongside Washington – the western created ISIL-Daesh terrorism. Germany may have finally understood the deadly two-faced hypocrisy of the White House: funding and supporting the monster with one hand – and fighting it with the other; using the ‘safe heavens’ for cursory attacks on ISIS but in reality to advance towards Damascus. Such two-sided strategies are of course not new. The self-proclaimed master of the universe has been doing this for at least 100 years, including in both world wars.

If French President Hollande, who has already declared he would send his war jets to fight the Islamic State terror is joining Germany on the side of Russia – and if other Europeans might follow – it could mean an instrumental shift in geopolitics which is further illustrated by the Saudis rapprochement to Russia, as well as by the so-called ‘nuclear deal’ with Iran. This landmark decision by the P5+1 states (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany) is widely considered by the world at large as a new Middle East opening, no matter Netanyahu’s protests and the US Congress’ possible objections. The deal is already having its impact. Despite US ‘sanctions’ still in place, new diplomatic and business prospectors are flocking to Iran from all over the world.

Germany is still host to the largest US air force base in Europe, Ramstein, from where most of the United States global drone programs are coordinated and executed. Tens of thousands of people are being killed from a US base in Germany – whose Constitution forbids war-type aggressions from its territory. A huge anti-Ramstein demonstration is being planned for the end September. Germans awareness is raised to the point where the neocon Zionist Washington hegemon’s killing machine is no longer tolerated.

Germany alongside Russia might indeed defend and help preserve the Assad government, together with Iran the two stabilizing factors in the Middle East. It might also signal for Europe a gradual move away from hostility and economic isolation against Russia. The shift may be marked by Europe’s distancing itself from the US-western dominated sinking ship where the fiat money system of dollars and euros is doomed. Instead it might open the doors for new relations with the East – towards the new Silk Road offered in March 2014 by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Madame Merkel. Once the threshold of this new open door has been crossed, a myriad of new economic and monetary opportunity might break the dollar-euro strangleholds. 

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik News, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance

While the U.S. taxpayer was involuntarily shoveling over $2 trillion in bailout funds and loans into Citigroup from 2008 to 2010, the bank was committing at least one admitted felony on its foreign currency trading desk. And if ongoing testimony in a London court is to be believed, the U.S. Justice Department could have brought charges against individuals instead of settling its case for one single felony charge against the banking unit only.

Citigroup’s banking unit, Citicorp, along with three other global banks (JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and RBS) admitted to a felony charge of rigging the foreign currency market brought by the U.S. Justice Department on May 20. Approximately $5 trillion in foreign currency trades are made globally each day, with billions of dollars to be made through advance knowledge of where prices will be fixed.

Last Wednesday, the same day that the U.S. Justice Department unveiled a new plan to go after individuals in banking fraud cases instead of just settling with banks for large sums of money and a promise to behave, Perry Stimpson was telling a London court how foreign currency rigging was endemic at Citigroup and the culture of cheating was passed down by his bosses, one of whom pressured him to participate in a chat room and share information with other banks. Stimpson was also doing something in the courtroom that the U.S. Justice Department has failed to do – he was naming names inside the bank.

Front Cover of the New York Post, November 25, 2008

Stimpson is a former foreign currency trader at Citigroup who was fired during the global investigations into a cartel of banks rigging foreign currency trading to boost their profits. He is suing Citigroup in an employment claim for unfair dismissal. At least three other Citigroup currency traders are expected to bring similar claims in court. Citigroup has paid a total of $2.29 billion to resolve the allegations with U.S. and U.K. regulators.

According to the felony charge brought by the U.S. Justice Department – which Citigroup admitted to — Citigroup’s illegal behavior in the foreign currency rigging matter spanned a period from December 2007 through January 2013 – that would include the period after 2008 when Citigroup was alive only because of the largest bank bailout by the taxpayer in U.S. history. Cumulatively, Citigroup received $45 billion in TARP funds, over $300 billion in asset guarantees, and more than $2.5 trillion in below-market rate loans from the Federal Reserve. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO-11-696), in just one bailout program alone, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), Citigroup cumulatively borrowed over $1.75 trillion from March 16, 2008 to February 1, 2010. The U.S. Treasury sold its last bailout era holdings in Citigroup in December 2010. To put it simply, Citigroup was using public funds while it committed its foreign currency felony – to which it admitted guilt in May of this year.

Read Complete Article

Novi Sad, Serbia. Like water, the refugee flow is finding a way to detect any imaginable breach across the borders of Europe. One is Romania, though it is plagued by poor road connections and a Hungarian promise to reinforce its part of the border with razor wire.

Another has opened up via Croatia, which has brought into play concerns about uncleared minefields from the 1991-5 war. A spike in the number of arrivals was registered from 3am on Thursday, and after six hours, a total of 5,650 migrants had made their way through. Croatia’s Prime Minister Zoran Milanović has claimed that free passage will be allowed through the state’s territory. To a large extent, however, the gesture is not one of humanity but facility. “They do not want to come to Croatia or Hungary either and that is why I do not understand where is the problem of letting them pass through that country.”

Not that other countries, even affluent ones of final destination, are necessarily that open to the suggestion. Europe’s squabbling and variation on the issue refugee transit and resettlement is proving eviscerating. Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, typified that front with a statement made before the Commons: “Claiming asylum must not be viewed as an easy means of resettlement in Europe.” As if to confirm the point, the Cameron government is deploying a warship to the Mediterranean in an effort to strike the smuggling of people into Europe.

What this week reads like is a train wreck in refugee politics across a continent. Railways and borders are being closed. Communication networks are being shut off. Selective controls have been imposed across several countries. There have been casual rejections of claims for asylum, with skimpy on-the-spot efforts to process requests. Special court sessions have been conveyed under new laws in Hungary to prosecute those breaching the newly imposed fence lines.

The most forceful action thus far has come on the Hungarian-Serbian border, precipitated by a total closure of the Horgoš border crossing. The threats made for several weeks had become a reality. A shock filtered through the columns, and it did not take much for the tear gas, pepper spray and water canon to be deployed.

Several people received medical attention from the Serbian ambulance service, while news crews swarmed over stories that a “refugee woman” was giving birth even as the riot was in full swing.The Serbian government has registered its fury (or “harshest possible protest”) with what it considered an extra-territorial incursion on the one hand, and an undue limitation on mobility. The Hungarian response has been to demand that more action be taken by Serbian personnel to protect police. Budapest is insistent that the border crossing will be closed for 30 days.

Ugliness is everywhere. Laws are in fitful retreat. The UN Refugee Agency has made the obvious point that such measures being witnessed at the Hungarian-Serb border are “contrary to international law and European jurisprudence.” Such bottling leads to one obvious consequence: even more dangerous routes will be found.

The result will naturally be a Mediterranean filled with more corpses, and rather happy people traffickers. As an official from Frontex, the EU’s border control agency explained with irrefutable logic, “Normally when one route gets blocked or more difficult, migrants’ first choice is to return to an old established route” (Financial Times, Sep 16).

Sensing that it might be losing the public relations battle, the Orbán government has had to resort to the tried and true technique of winning support: demonising the desperate. “He who makes a beast of himself,” explained Dr. Samuel Johnson, “gets rid of the pain of being a man.” Spokesman Zoltan Kovács took the chance to explain that the border incidents provided “a sign that the migrants are not peaceful.”[1]

The Hungarian precedent is certainly catching on, and what has been termed a “domino effect” of sealing borders has begun to take its ominous shape.[2] Austria is constricting its own routes with Hungary. Slovakia and the Czech Republic have also imposed controls. The “welcome refugees” campaign of some states is looking more insincere by the day.

In this latest, and ugly chapter, the only bright, humane spot came from one of Germany’s largest wholesale suppliers of fencing material, including wiring. The Hungarian government had placed an order for razor wire with Mutanox in August. It tends to be lighter than barbed wire, and sports small cutting blades that cut flesh with greater ease than barbs.

The company, however, has refused the supply Budapest claiming that razor wire was a protective measure against criminal acts. The spectacle of fleeing adults and children was distinctly something else. A Chinese firm, less concerned by such purposes and images, has managed to step in. The business of moving, and deterring refugees, is proving to be a big one.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/908539be-5c4a-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz3lzVXBDa3

[2] https://www.rt.com/news/315589-razor-wire-hungary-germany/

Obama’s so-called war to degrade and destroy it is a complete fabrication. Defeating it is simple. Stop recruiting, arming, funding, training and directing its elements.

Stop using terrorists as US proxy foot soldiers. Wage peace, not war. Isolated on its own, it’ll wither over time and disappear, or be too impotent to rampage like now.

Washington bears full responsibility for human floods fleeing war ravaged areas for safe havens anywhere. Bashar al-Assad told RT International the crisis is “not about that Europe didn’t accept them or embrace them as refugees. It’s about not dealing with the cause. If you are worried about them, stop supporting terrorists.”

If we ask any Syrian today about what they want, the first thing they would say: ‘We want security and safety for every person and every family.” The international community should unite around what the Syrian people want.

Ongoing conflict can only be resolved “through dialogue and the political process (as well as) unit(y) in the struggle against terrorism.”

With an approval rating of 89%, Vladimir Putin is likely the world’s most popular leader – for supporting nation-state sovereignty, multi-world polarity and opposing America’s ruthless imperial agenda, waging endless wars on humanity.

He’s vilified in the West for forthrightly supporting world peace and stability, as well as wanting all conflicts resolved diplomatically and proposing workable solutions if adopted.

At the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, he urged the international community to set aside geopolitical differences and unite against a common enemy.

“Extremists from many countries of the world, including, unfortunately, European countries, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) undertake ideological and military training in the ranks of Islamic State,” he explained. “(C)ertainly we are worried that they could possibly return” and make trouble.

Russia, as you know, has proposed to form a wide coalition to fight extremists without any delay. It should unite everyone who is ready and is already contributing to tackling terrorism.

If Russia had not been supporting Syria, the situation in the country would have been worse than in Libya and the refugee flow would have been even bigger.

Moscow didn’t ravage and destroy Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Donbass, and other countries – or occupy any. It doesn’t use terrorist mercenaries as proxy foot soldiers – or wage endless wars on humanity.

It’s not responsible for exponentially growing human floods of desperate people fleeing war-torn areas for safe havens anywhere out of harm’s way.

It accepted over a million Ukrainian refugees fleeing Obama’s war on Donbass, treating them humanely, regularly supplying Donetsk and Lugansk with badly needed humanitarian aid – doing the same thing for Syrians.

Russia is Europe’s leading peace and stability proponent. Wherever America shows up, genocide, mass destruction and human misery follow.

Peace is anathema. So are democratic freedoms. America’s agenda intends a ruler/serf world unfit to live in – greed and rapaciousness triumphing over equity and justice for all.

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 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

The Dutch Government has decided to launch a missile attack on Moscow in October. By suppressing all evidence obtained from the bodies of victims of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17, officials of the Dutch Safety Board and associated Dutch military officers, police and prosecutors are preparing to release a report on the crash with a gaping hole in its veracity.

At the same time, and apparently unknown in The Netherlands, an Australian coroners’ report on the identification and forensic testing of the bodies carried out in The Netherlands reveals post-mortem evidence to show that in their public statements the Dutch government officials have been lying about metal evidence they claim to have found. This evidence has not only been buried with the passengers’ remains. It has been buried by the Dutch Government and by coroners in the UK and Australia, who are now legally required to investigate independently what caused the deaths of citizens in their jurisdiction. All are withholding the CT scans, X-rays, autopsy and other post-mortem results, including metallurgical assays, the documentation of which accompanied the coffins of the aircraft’s victims from The Netherlands to their homelands.

Erwin Muller (below, left), co-chairman of the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), the official aviation accident body, and Fred Westerbeke (right), a Dutch police officer heading the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), a forensics unit of the Dutch prosecution authority, have announced that on July 1 a draft “final” report on the destruction of MH17 was issued to the states participating in the investigation.

There are 7 of these states, according to the DSB: The Netherlands, Malaysia, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia The JIT is a more restricted group comprising Dutch, Ukrainian, Australian, and Belgian security and intelligence officers. The Malaysians asked to join the JIT three months after its inception. The Dutch officials also claim they have been considering comments from officials of the other governments, and have scheduled October 13 for public release of the DSB document.

What the DSB report means now hinges — government officials, pathologists and lawyers say — on four lookalike words with fundamentally different meanings. The “first” is onderdelen (parts) which DSB officials have been using to refer to a Buk ground-to-air rocket. The second term is “metallfragmente” and “metalen deeltjes”, which Westerbeke and his spokesman have been using interchangeably to mean metal from outside the MH17, and also from the fuselage itself. The third key word is “missile”, which Australian coronial investigators say refers, not to a Buk or any other type of explosive ordnance, but to “flying objects which strike the body”. The fourth term is “raket”, which Dutch investigators, including those engaged in the official identification of the MH17 victims, say applies to air-to-ground rockets like Buk, as well as to air-to-air, infrared and other rockets fired by aircraft.

For the Dutch to make the case that MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made and Russian-deployed Buk ground-to-air missile, the metal in the corpses and body parts is the only certain evidence which has been recovered from the crash site; analysed painstakingly in the record of the Dutch investigations; and repatriated in certified dossiers Dutch and other sources say accompanied the coffins when they were flown home. This documentation is now held in files in The Netherlands and in the coronial agencies of all the countries to which remains and coffins have gone.

Over the past week Dutch, British, and Australian officials all refuse to confirm they are holding this evidence. Nor will they answer questions about when, or if, they plan to commence inquests at which this evidence must be presented publicly.

Dirk Huyer, the chief coroner in Ontario, home province of Andrei Anghel, the lone Canadian passenger to lose his life on MH17, says Canada is not going to investigate. “It is very uncommon for the death investigation system to become involved in a death that occurred outside of the province… Our authority for investigation is limited to Ontario—we do not have any authority to direct investigation outside of our provincial jurisdiction.” Accordingly, his office has not been involved in the MH17 investigation, “and therefore there will be no inquest.”

If the inquest evidence does not substantiate the difference in meaning of the ambiguous terms issued publicly so far – and if the inquests themselves are postponed indefinitely so the evidence is kept secret, then one conclusion is certain – there is no evidence that a Buk missile explosion struck MH17 and caused the death of those on board.

A Dutch pathologist, Professor George Maat (right) who had participated directly in the identification of the bodies at Hilversum military base, was fired in April by the Dutch government for presenting medical students studying identification techniques with illustrations of the records he made. Last month Maat wrote to contradict claims circulating on Ukrainian websites that an X-ray showing metal fragments originated from either an MH17 victim, or from the Dutch investigation. The fabrication can be examined here. Maat presented no X-rays at his controversial lecture, and has aired no claim that missile shrapnel was identified in victim bodies.

An Australian coronial investigation, reported at a professional meeting of international coroners and pathologists in Melbourne, Australia, last November, has reported the only authenticated details of the process which the Dutch undertook after the crash. The two authors of the report are David Ranson (below, left) and Iain West (centre); the first is an associate professor of forensic pathology and deputy director of theVictorian Institute of Forensic Medicine; the second is the deputy state coroner at theCoroners Court of Victoria. This is the official agency in charge of receiving all 27 Australian victims of the MH17 crash. The Victoria state coroner, Judge Ian Gray (right), is also in charge of conducting investigations and inquests on 18 victims who were residents of Victoria, and who have been returned for burial to families in the state.

Reporting “the features of the remains”, Ranson and West say that “fire damage” was pervasive: “all patterns [including]…complete incineration, partial incineration, unburned”. The injuries they identify include those which destroyed the body “variably” and “completely”. There were, they report, “massive internal injuries with little external signs” and “no haemorrhage round fractures”. According to sources involved in the MH17 investigation, this means there was no blood pressure, and the victims were dead before they hit the ground.

Most importantly, the Australian experts report: “missile injuries [were] rare but present.” An Australian expert source who is familiar with the evidence covered by the Ranson-West report but who spoke on background, warns: “Don’t confuse the meaning of the word missile. It means flying objects which strike the body.” It is not known whether Ranson and West were shown X-rays or CT scans of the Australian victims. Their full report can be read here.

When MH17 was downed over eastern Ukrainian territory on July 17, 2014, a total of 298 people were on board. To date, remains of 296 have been recovered and officially identified, according to Dutch reports. The nationalities of the victims, reported from airline releases, are Dutch, 193; Malaysian, 43; Australian, 27; Indonesian, 12; British, 10; German, 4; Belgian, 4; Philippino, 3; New Zealanders, 1; and Canadians, 1. The identities of the 2 unrecovered individuals have not been released.

The Australian report spells out the problems of gathering and authenticating evidence in Ukraine, where there was “no forensic control”; where the international air crash guidelines issued by Interpol weren’t followed; and where there was “inappropriate interim storage and body preservation.” When the bodies reached the Dutch military barracks, where investigation took place, there was, according to Ranson and West, “CT scanning of contents of coffin.” They describe the triage procedure followed: “If suspicious foreign objects [identified on the scans], Proceed to Limited Forensic Autopsy. If no suspicious foreign objects – Proceed to DVI [Disaster Victim Identification] examination area.”

This reveals that CT scans were done of all remains, and thus a CT scan has been recorded for every victim whose body has been recovered and repatriated or transferred to the next of kin. There is no reference to X-rays at this stage of the Dutch procedure; they may have been taken during the “limited forensic autopsy”. One reason for suspecting that X-rays appearing in Ukrainian media are fakes is that the Dutch procedures used CT scans instead.

Ranson and West explain the steps followed for the main nationalities and the kinds of testing and evidence collected for identification.

The Australian report does not reveal what evidence was gathered in the “limited forensic autopsy”. But Ranson and West reveal that “suspicious foreign objects” detected in the CT scans as “missile injuries” were “rare”. Just how rare has been admitted, inadvertently, by the Dutch prosecutor Westerbeke.

What is certain, medical pathologists say, is that the Dutch autopsied remains in order to remove what the Australians are calling “suspicious foreign objects” when they were spotted. The timing of the repatriation process also indicates that Westerbeke had taken control of these “objects” and had tested them, assaying the metals and comparing the results with munitions specifications, by the time in October when the last repatriations to Australia took place. There can be no doubt, says a Dutch source, that “by then Westerbeke knew exactly what metal or metals he was dealing with.”

When the Dutch DVI process was completed, and to ensure that remains were reliably identified before repatriation, the Australian report says there were “documents and identification label checks.” For each individual, these materials included “CT scan and photography.”

Australian sources report these materials were then attached to each coffin for repatriation. All the Australian coffins were flown to Melbourne, transported to the Victorian coroner’s morgue, and re-certified. Those victims whose residence and next of kin were in other states were flown on to those destinations.

Australian sources say the Australian forensic and coronial court process is “alive and ongoing, but not yet started.” The sources say also “there have been meetings with the Australian Federal Police” (AFP), and this process is also continuing. Included in this police and government intelligence investigation are the Australian pathologists who worked on the DVI line in Holland, as well as other experts. The AFP has already collected a dossier of evidence, covered by a summary brief, which is circulating for discussion at meetings the AFP has called with the experts. This process and the brief are secret; some of the experts and investigators involved in the ante-mortem and identification process have been excluded. According to one expert, “there is enormous variation among the victims. Lots of possibilities [on cause of death] are being canvassed.”

Victorian coroner Gray was asked to say whether he has decided that the inquests he will hold will be restricted to identification of the victims, or will be extended to cause of death and forensic issues. Inside sources believe Gray will be guided by the AFP report. Gray was asked to say whether he will “be taking and considering evidence of victim injuries, including X-rays, CT scans, and reports of the Dutch authorities (LTFO, JIT, DSB) which accompanied the remains on repatriation? Will [he] be taking testimony from the Australian Federal Police (AFP)?”

His spokesman, Nola Los, replied: “Judge Gray will need to approve the release of any information relating to details regarding the Victorian victims of MH17. Unfortunately he will not be available to do so until next week.”

Los and Gray confirm the Australian count of 27 victims in all; 18 Victorians. Their cases are “open”, Los says, “that an inquest date is being considered for later this year.”

In the UK, where press reporting of the alleged Buk missile attack is widespread – as it is in Australia and Canada — there is a similar blackout in the coronial system. Altogether, 10 British nationals or residents have been identified on board the aircraft. However, because some were dual nationals or resident in other countries, the UK media have reported just 4 burials in the UK. Others may have been buried in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The government in London has announced that “special arrangements were made by the Chief Coroner [Judge Peter Thornton QC], following the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 disaster in Ukraine in July 2014. Coroners have a duty to investigate violent or unnatural deaths which occur overseas where the body is returned to England and Wales. In this case, with the consent of all families concerned, all repatriated bodies were received first in one central coroner area where one senior coroner co-ordinated all arrangements with the assistance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the police. The coroner’s co-ordinated investigations will be subject to the outcome of the extensive Dutch inquiries.”

The coroner in charge is Catherine Mason (right), who heads the coroners court in Leicester. A lawyer and nurse by training, she previously served in junior coroner posts in other regions, and has been chief coroner in Leicester for 6 years. A check of her court records for the MH17 victims’ names reveals that on September 22, 2014, the inquest into Richard Mayne’s death was opened, then immediately adjourned without a new date. A month later, on October 27, the inquest into the death of John Alder was also suspended. The legal authority cited for Mason’s action was Schedule 1 Paragraph 5 of the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009. This provides carte blanche: “a senior coroner may suspend an investigation under this Part of this Act into a person’s death in any case if it appears to the coroner that it would be appropriate to do so.”

Last week Mason was asked how many MH17 victim inquests she is conducting and their individual names. What circumstances, she was asked, “have you deemed to be appropriate for suspension in these cases? Have you delegated authority for evidence gathering and forensic testing in these cases to another body, British or foreign? To whom has this delegation been made, and on what authority?” Finally, Mason was asked what post-mortem or autopsy evidence of the victims’ remains she is holdng. Mason refuses to answer. A source at her court says Mason is deferring “while inquiries are conducted abroad.” The source implies the British Government has decided to rely on the Dutch for evidence.

In The Netherlands, the aviation accident body, the DSB, published its preliminary report in September 2014. For details of what evidence it identified and what conclusions it drew, read this. The day after the DSB release, the principal Russian official responsible for Russian participation in the Dutch investigation, Oleg Storchevoy (below), Deputy Head of the Federal Air Transport Agency (RosAviation), said the DSB had missed crucial evidence.

The investigation should further study the data from the radars and post mortems of the victims. All these steps are widely regarded as a must in civil aviation and no preliminary conclusions are usually made before completing all of them. Regrettably, significant time has been wasted, and some of the data will be unavailable – I now refer to the remains of the victim’s bodies and the plane’s debris which are not secured enough and located in the zone of an armed conflict. Nevertheless, this work must be done to ensure a speedy and unbiased investigation into the cause of the crash.

Storchevoy was telling the DSB what it was already admitting in the preliminary report. On page 4, the report claimed it would include the “result of the pathological investigations” in “further work…to substantiate the factual information.” At page 32 the DSB repeated the promise that for “Further Investigations” it would analyse “results of pathological investigation”.

On September 25, RosAviation released the text of the letter Storchevoy had sent to DSB itemizing the evidence the DSB investigation should cover for its final report. Here is the 24-point release. Point 3 is a priority for evidence: “Pathological examination of the dead passengers and crew members, including the presence of submunitions and other foreign bodies and substances.”

At DSB Chairman Muller was asked to confirm he had read Storchevoy’s letter, and to say what reply he had sent. He refuses to say. He was then asked: “When the remains were released to relatives and repatriated, what death certificate was issued by the Dutch authorities? What was given as cause of death? Were X-rays taken of all victims’ remains? What other pathology tests were conducted on remains and tissue samples? What official documents accompanied the remains on repatriation, and did these include X-rays and other pathological investigation results?”

Muller’s spokesman Sara Vernooij (right) replied, saying “as long as the investigation is ongoing we can’t give any information or details. The Dutch Safety Board will publish the final report on 13 October, before that we won’t issue any information concerning investigation material or sources.” But that cannot be true, she and Muller were told, since in recent days the DSB has issued news releases disclosing “information or details” on the purported discovery and investigation of Bukmissile parts; and on the manner and consciousness of victims ahead of their deaths.

Vernooij then conceded these were “information or details”, but she now claims: “I can’t give any more details than we already gave.” As for the questions to Muller about what evidence had been collected before repatriation, and what went on the Dutch death certificates, Vernooij said: “The repatriation and the identification is done by the forensic team of LTFO, spokesperson is Mr. Fransman ([email protected] ).”

The Landelijk Team Forensische Opsporing (National Forensic Investigations Team, LTFO) in the Netherlands is a police and military organ of the Dutch Government, headed by Arie De Bruin (right). In investigating the MH17 victims’ remains, the Dutch were joined by a German officer of the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the Federal Criminal Police, and the equivalent AFP officer from Australia.

According to a Malaysian government release, the MH17 victim identification operation was “assisted by Executive Officers of (a) logistic and accommodation, (b) Ante-mortem (AM) Process, (c) post-mortem (PM) Process, (d) Reconciliation process and (e) Release Process . The other countries involved in the MH17 operation were Malaysia, Belgium, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and Indonesia. The team leaders of the 6 countries were officially appointed as executive officers in the DVI MH17 Organisation. A team of international forensic experts led by Dutchman Gert Wibbelink of the Dutch National Forensic Investigations Team, or LTFO, was handed control of the investigation in Kharkiv. The LTFO has eight staff members in Ukraine, including Mr. Wibbelink. “We have been collecting DNA samples, hair, fingerprints, information about scars or tattoos or moles,” from the victims’ first-degree relatives, Jos van Roo, the LTFO team leader in the Netherlands, said in an interview.”

For LTFO, spokesman Jean Fransman (right) was asked on Friday whether the LTFO procedures for the MH17 victims included an autopsy to determine cause of death and find shrapnel, bullet or other metal fragments; and to attach CT scan, X-ray and other pathological test results to the repatriated remains. Fransman claimed: “I’m not the spokesperson for the LTFO. But I will forward your questions to my colleagues.” The first point was false; the second, a deadend. When informed that he had been identified as LTFO spokesman by the DSB and on the signature line of his own email, and that he was making a record of misinformation and evasion by LTFO, Fransman stopped responding.

Fransman, like his boss de Bruin, did not know that the questions they refuse to answer have already been published by the Australians. This is the only public disclosure by LTFO of what it has been doing.

The remaining Dutch official to be asked the questions the Australians answered last year is Westerbeke of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT). The Dutch, Ukrainian, Australian and Belgian governments have announced that the JIT is bound by its founding agreement on August 7, 2014, to keep confidential the evidence it has been finding. Westerbeke’s record is one of leaking to the Dutch and German media, and to the BBC, details DSB claims to be withholding until next month. Westerbeke has made a record too of leaking one detail, and then contradicting it later.

According to this graphic, published by Westerbeke’s men, one of the key forms of evidence in his criminal investigation is “metal particles from victims’ bodies”.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Source: https://www.politie.nl/binaries/content/assets/politie/documenten-algemeen/mh17/mh17_web_engels.pdf

On September 12, 2014, Westerbeke told a Dutch paper, De Volkskrant, that metal fragments had been found in victims’ bodies. According to this report, Westerbeke (and a police spokesman, Patricia Zorko) counted 500 samples that had been taken; this appears to be a count of what the Australians are calling the “limited forensic autopsy”. Explaining why the Australians have reported “missile injuries rare but present”, Westerbeke told the local newspaper there were 25 “metalen deeltjes” – that’s to say, “metal particles”, just as Westerbeke had put into his chart. If 25 of 500 samples had tested positive for metal, that was a rate of 5%.

Another way of estimating the rarity of the metal found can be gauged from a report written by Ranson for Coroner Gray in Melbourne, and then circulated to the families of victims. This indicates that more than 700 body parts were identified at Hilversum. If 25 tested positive for metal, then that’s a rate of just 3.6%. That appears to be a very small incidence in a jet aircraft struck from outside the fuselage. This number is also less than half the metal particles in the purported X-ray published by the Ukrainians. Westerbeke’s 25 count eliminates the Ukrainian picture as a fabrication.

The Ranson-West report confirms that for timing, these pieces of evidence had been collected early in the triage process at Hilversum barracks, possibly weeks before Westerbeke leaked the details. The DSB failed to mention them in its September report. Westerbeke himself omitted to say what testing he had already done on the “metal particles” to identify the metal.

A BBC version of what Westerbeke said on September 12, 2014, adds detail: “At a news conference in Rotterdam on Friday, Fred Westerbeke…said that the investigation was particularly interested in the origin of 25 pieces of iron [sic], drawn from 500 samples. ‘The most likely scenario was that the plane was shot down from the ground,’ he said. ‘If we can establish that this iron is coming from such a missile, that is important information of course,’ he said. ‘At this moment we don’t know that, but that is what we are investigating.’”

Two other reporters listening to Westerbeke detected ambiguity in what he was actually claiming about the metal evidence. A DutchNews website claimed to have heard Westerbeke say the metal was found “between the wreckage [on the ground] and in some of the bodies, which could come from a missile.” A Reuters reporterclaimed the metal particles had been found in passenger luggage, as well as in bodies. The location of both Westerbeke omitted to say, concealing thereby whether they were concentrated in a pattern of shrapnel, and whether the metal samples were identical in all 25 cases.

A month later Westerbeke tried again, this time for German consumption. On October 27, 2014, Der Spiegel quoted Westerbeke as conceding the “Metallfragmente” could be “shrapnel from a Buk missile, possibly also parts of the aircraft itself.” Between Westerbeke’s two press leaks, the reporters had failed to notice that Westerbeke had taken 45 days not to confirm the nature of the metal he was holding. But he was conceding the original leak was losing its initial meaning. If the metal had been tested and compared against the aluminium, titanum and other alloys in the aircraft wings, walls and floor, then Westerbeke must have known whether “iron” was ruled in, or out.

Nine months then elapsed before Westerbeke started leaking again. Here he is in aninterview obligingly scripted in advance by the BCC, and broadcast on July 17. This time Westerbeke omitted to say anything at all about “metal”—and the BBC forgot to ask. Notwithstanding, there was no hesitation in London to headline the story: “MH17 investigator: Missile strike most credible scenario”.

Last week Westerbeke was asked to explain where all the missile metal had flown. Specifically, the Dutch policeman was asked questions to which the Australian coronial investigators had already revealed the answers. “Were X-rays taken of all victims’ remains? What other pathology tests were conducted on remains and tissue samples? What official documents accompanied the remains on repatriation, and did these include X-rays and other pathological investigation results? What release to any party of the investigation, including next of kin, has there been of these data, the so-called metal particle data?”

Westerebeke refuses to answer. This is the black hole the Dutch have created in their own investigation, but they are unable to fill it with “iron”, and they cannot explain how the alleged detonation of a Buk warhead could release so little recovered shrapnel; possibly none at all.

The laundry list for the attackers on Jeremy Corbyn grows by the day, traversing the inane and the insipid. There come, not in any necessarily important order, from views about not picking women for his inner cabinet (note, several refused to even want to be in the cabinet to begin with) to his stance on combating terrorism and not retaining Trident.

Then latest storm in a tea cup issue was whether he, well, sang at the national service for the Battle of Britain. This was always going to be touchy, as it was an occasion commemorating the 75^th anniversary of the battle in which Britain repelled the Luftwaffe with weapons and Churchillian rhetoric.

Politicians are watched closely on such occasions, if only to see if they stumble up on protocol. Smile at the right moments; curtsy at others. When it came to Corbyn, horror of horrors, he decided not to burst into full song when the anthem was sung.

The situation reached a certain absurdity when the Guardianreported that, “One onlooker at the service said they had watched Corbyn for several minutes as the national anthem was being sung and did not see his lips move.” Either the entire audience was daft, or this onlooker was the only one not on the patriotic sauce.

The tut tuts were positively deafening from Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames, whose claim to fame is being Winston Churchill’s grandson. To not sing the anthem was simply “very rude and very disrespectful”.

Soames, the child of public occasion, stunted by convention, could only assume that Corbyn was himself being the infant of the occasion. “It was an extremely disrespectful thing and I think he needs to make his mind up whether he is a grown-up or not.” Presumably, pacifist republicans tend to be in the swaddling clothes of principles and morality.

Naturally, the school teacher in Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell suggested that he could teach Corbyn the words, showing a true sense of proportion. The newly elected Labour leader should “understand that the British people are overwhelmingly supportive of our monarch and our constitution”. By all means, old fellow, behave in such an inappropriate manner in private, but for matters of state, well, duty called for a different face. “It is his duty, and the duty of any leader of any party that seeks to be prime minister, to accept that we are the nation that we are.” At times jingoist, very monarchist and fundamentally antediluvian, naturally.

The conservative Spectator even went so far as to take issue with the official Labour statement released on behalf of Corbyn. “As he said in the words issued this morning, the heroism of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain is something to which we all owe an enormous debt of gratitude. He stood in respectful silence during the anthem.” To which Isabel Hardman would conjecture “what the difference between respectful silence and stony silence is.”[1]

That said, even Hardman had to accept that Corbyn, despite knowing that such a stance might infuriate onlookers felt it “more important to stick to his republican pacifist principles” many of which are shared by numerous Labour admirers.

Corbyn did have his defenders, and not necessarily from familiar quarters. “The fact he was there properly dressed, wearing a tie, good on him,” remarked a member of the Defence Select Committee, Conservative MP James Gray. “He is a pacifist and not a royalist but he has gone along and stood in the front row.”

At state functions, fluff and convention matter, not substance. Never mind that Corbyn was sincerely remembering the role of his parents in the war. “My mum served as an air raid warden and my dad in the Home Guard.” And never mind that he was wearing the Air Raid Precautions medal from his mother. No, his damn lips did not move. Not doing so was not merely pissing on the parade but shitting on it.

Corbyn has made some concessions, such as accepting the post of privy councillor from Her Majesty, whom he has expressed a desire at certain points to abolish. Protocol watchers will certainly be keeping an eye on the next round of Corbyn’s republican defiance. Will he, for instance, kiss Elizabeth II’s hand come the time he formally accepts the post?

The Spectator suggests Corbyn make a borrowing from the late Tony Benn, who, when faced with the dilemma, placed his thumb across the back of the Queen’s hand as he took it, thereby kissing his hand instead of that of the Royal Personage. “And we all stood there,” recalled Benn in his political diaries, “holding our little red boxes, I mean it really was ridiculous.”

Corbyn is simply not playing by the rules, battling those who believe we are wandering, as Matthew Arnold might have put it, between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. In doing so, he may be annihilated, or storm the barricades with success. There is no harm in trying, and if a British politician can, as the fiendish Michael Gove fears, bring people onto the streets, and not sing the national anthem on commemorative occasions, then hurrah for that.

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

Note

[1] https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/09/labour-defends-jeremy-corbyns-respectful-silence-during-the-national-anthem/

During a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday the British military presented David Cameron with a plan to establish a no-fly zone in Syria, according to Sun Nation.

On Monday Defense Secretary Michael Fallon called a private meeting of backbench MPs and informed them he was “open to the idea” of a no-fly zone.

“We will need to have a full plan,” Fallon told the politicians.

The plan, which is touted as a way to stop the massive refugee crisis now plaguing Europe, was one of several drawn up by Britain’s military and intelligence officials at the behest Cameron.

“The PM has made it clear that he wants to do more in Syria as the root cause of the ISIS threat as well as the refugee crisis. A no fly zone is back on the table as one option,” a senior Whitehall source told Sun Nation.

In addition to a no-fly zone, the British government is looking at stepped-up Royal Air Force airstrikes and drone attacks targeting ISIS positions in Raqqa.

A previous effort in 2013 to impose a no-fly zone over Syria was taken off the drawing board after the government lost a Commons vote on missile strikes.

No-fly Zone Increases Probability of Confrontation with Russia

Any effort to impose a no-fly zone will increase the probability of a confrontation with Russia.

The Russians are using the main international airport in Damascus to airlift tons of supplies, soldiers, and armaments including several of its most advanced battle tanks to defend the Syrian government. In addition, the Russians are establishing a base in Latakia near the ancestral home of Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. military officials insist the Latakia base will be used to stage airstrikes against proxy fighters attempting to overthrow the government of al-Assad.

“There were military supplies, they are ongoing, and they will continue,” the Russian foreign minister,Sergey Lavrov, was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies on Sunday. “They are inevitably accompanied by Russian specialists, who help to adjust the equipment, to train Syrian personnel how to use this weaponry.”

In order to avoid confrontation with the Russians, the British may use naval ships at sea armed with cruise missiles to enforce the no-fly zone.

No one bats 1000, but according to Ignacio Chapela, a microbiologist from UC Berkeley in California, the biotech industry has utterly failed. He says they’ve only come up with 2 genetically modified traits in 40 years despite fouling our air, water, and soil, while genetically engineering our food to withstand copious amounts of toxic chemicals.

Chapela says that no one talks about just how badly biotech is progressing, despite billions spent on research and the forever-promise of new organisms that repel pests, or to supposedly stop malaria from spreading, or some other biotech-specific trait that they have yet to master.

Chapela points out that GMO scientists have become like priests, with a ‘central dogma’ that specific traits are determined by certain genes. If that were true, we could have put wings on pigs to make them fly. He explains:

“The whole foundation of genetics turns out to be wrong. Eye color is not determined by a single gene. DNA is not a master molecule. We have the benefit of 40 years (of GMOs failing) and should liberate ourselves from the central dogma. How many (GMO) traits have they developed? Two after 40 years.”

Chapela, and others like Bruce Lipton, a PhD biologist, don’t believe that DNA is a ‘master molecule’ that determines a person or plant’s traits. He and those who share his rare viewpoint understand that environment plays a bigger role.

“What I become wasn’t in my grandparents’ DNA, it came from the environment. If that single story is true, the whole edifice of genetic engineering is mud on the ground,” said Chapela at a National Heirloom Seed Expo.

Chapela also points out that genetic engineering is based on an obsolete paradigm and is largely being pushed by a political agenda. He said instead of promoting this dogma, scientists should be challenging the erroneously-erected paradigm, instead of selling out to it.

“The knowledge that a farmer has is as important as the soil, and seeds can’t be seen in isolation,” Chapela said.

Chapela is essentially championing the emerging field of epigenetics, which sees the world around an epigenome as having a direct influence on the DNA. There are numerous papers that show that a gene’s DNA sequence is affected by its environment, and by changing this environment (i.e., removing pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc. from the soil) we can also change multiple generations of an organism’s health, improving it considerably and eradicating disease.

As a paper by Danielle Simmons, PhD, explains:

“Epigenetics is involved in many normal cellular processes. Consider the fact that our cells all have the same DNA, but our bodies contain many different types of cells: neurons, liver cells, pancreatic cells, inflammatory cells, and others. How can this be? In short, cells, tissues, and organs differ because they have certain sets of genes that are “turned on” or expressed, as well as other sets that are “turned off” or inhibited.

Epigenetic silencing is one way to turn genes off, and it can contribute to differential expression. Silencing might also explain, in part, why genetic twins are not phenotypically identical. In addition, epigenetics is important for X-chromosome inactivation in female mammals, which is necessary so that females do not have twice the number of X-chromosome gene products as males (Egger et al., 2004). Thus, the significance of turning genes off via epigenetic changes is readily apparent.”

It is a well-known fact that the biotech industry still cannot pinpoint which genes are turned ‘on’ or ‘off’ in the genetic experiments, and the rogue genes that sometimes occur are pathogenic.

As Lipton aptly states, it is not only the industrial agricultural model which is misinformed, but also the field of medicine:

“Our health is not controlled by genetics. Conventional medicine is operating from an archaic view that we’re controlled by genes. This misunderstands the nature of how biology works.”

Chapela is a Mexican-born scientist who was on the front lines in 2000, when the heart of the world’s corn basket was being threatened by cross-pollination with GM maize. He brought Mexican corn samples to Berkeley for testing more than a decade ago. Rigorous testing found that biotech has infiltrated one of the most pristine corn-growing regions in the world. Since that time, indigenous Mexicans have fought to protect 59 different types of corn from biotech’s hand.

Chapela’s involvement in the emergence of Mexico’s GM corn attests to his time in the trenches fighting biotech. He knows what this industry can do to erase organisms that have developed over thousands of years – only to be wiped out in a single growing season once they have been exposed to genetically modified varieties. Is it any wonder that he would question the ‘dogma’ that the industry continually promotes?

But is it safe for Chapela to ask the questions that few others will? In a documentary, he joins another silenced scientist, Arpad Pustazi, with a warning: “One question means one career.”

Chapela continued:

“You ask one question, you get the answer and you might or might not be able to publish it; but that is the end of your career.”

I, for one, am glad he is asking, and I will do my best to keep asking these questions of the biotech industry and Big Ag, too. Won’t you?

Everywhere the U.S. “pivots” to in the world, it spreads dehumanizing propaganda. President Obama has methodically demonized Russia, stoked fears of the “peril” from China, and fanned the flames of Islamophobia. The corporate media are eager accomplices in the imperial politics of mass death. “If a nation and its people are disparaged and dehumanized enough its enemies can attack in any number of ways without fear of debate or popular opposition.”While the United States has repeated and very publicly stated its intention to bring down the Assad government in Syria, the Russian Federation has declared its intention to protect it. Russia uses air space over Iran and Iraq as a route to send equipment and advisers [3] to Syria.

Some of the propaganda is directly orchestrated by the president himself. Jon Stewart was a media favorite while his Daily Show aired for sixteen years. He was thought to be a liberal or progressive but like most people who answer to those labels he is just a water carrier for the Democratic Party [7]. He did not disclose that he met with the president on two occasions in the White House. After one of those meetings in February 2014 Stewart began telling a series of jokes at Vladimir Putin’s expense. His opinions are influential and the comedy was in fact a very serious business. That is why Obama called upon Stewart to help with the dirty work.

It is exceedingly dangerous for Americans to remain so ignorant of world affairs but their lack of knowledge is a direct result of media complicity with the state. One day we’re told that Russia has too much ice, the next that it has no right to help Syria, or that Putin’s spokesman is wearing an expensive watch. Every report is intended to belittle or demonize and make it easier for the United States government to do what it wants without risking resistance. Any nation strong enough to counter American imperialism must be vanquished and that is much easier if it is feared and or hated.

Perhaps we shouldn’t bother having a news media any longer at all. If they are going to simply parrot White House statements there is no reason for them to exist. Let’s cut out the middle man and just accept what we are told.

A better alternative is to speak up against the mendacity and to be in solidarity with people fighting it all over the world. Our friends are often in other countries and our enemies are at the top of the heap here at home. We would do well to remember that when the next manufactured outrage about Russia hits the front page headlines.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. [8]Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

The year 2015 hasn’t been kind to Monsanto. In March, the World Health Organization declared that the company’s flagship product, its herbicide glyphosate or Roundup, is a probable human carcinogen. Increasingly, national health ministries are taking a hard second look at glyphosate’s health and environmental dangers and efforts are underway to ban the herbicide.[1] To protect its citizens, last year the Netherlands, Bermuda and Sri Lanka have either banned or imposed strict limits on Roundup. Last June, France banned its use in gardens. Brazil, Germany and Argentina are considering legislative bans. And this month, California’s environmental protection agency launched plans to label Roundup as a carcinogen.[2]

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world today. Over 130 countries currently permit extensive use of the chemical. The US is the largest consumer, using approximately 20% of the world’s Roundup.[3] The latest reliable figures from the US Geological Survey record 280 million pounds of Roundup were used in 2012, nearly a pound for every American.[4] In 2013, gross profit of $371 million on crop chemicals including Roundup climbed 73% due to a 37% increase in sales. That same year Monsanto’s net income rose 22% to $1.48 billion.[5]

Over the years a large body of independent research has accumulated and now collectively provides a sound scientific rationale to confirm that glyphosate is far more toxic and poses more serious health risks to animals and humans than Monsanto and the US government admit. Among the many diseases and health conditions non-industry studies identified Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and autism since Roundup has been shown to instigate aluminum accumulation in the brain. The herbicide has been responsible for reproductive problems such as infertility, miscarriages, and neural tube and birth defects. It is a causal agent for a variety of cancers: brain, breast, prostate, lung and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Other disorders include chronic kidney and liver diseases, diabetes, heart disease, hypothyroidism, and leaky gut syndrome. In addition to lung cancer, glyphosate may be responsible for today’s growing epidemics of chronic respiratory illnesses among farm workers and their families.[6] However, these findings derive from outside the Big Agriculture industry. Private industries routinely defend themselves by positing their own research to refute independent reports. Consequently, for several decades it has been a he-said-she-said stalemate. Monsanto is content with this. It can conduct business as usual, Roundup sales increase, and the debates and media wars continue without government interference. Then who is protecting the public?

Government officials and health regulators more often than not simply ignore these studies even if published in peer-reviewed journals. The bulk are independently funded. Most have been performed in foreign nations and therefore American bias dismisses them outright. Furthermore, Monsanto and other large chemical agricultural companies are quick to counter and discredit adverse scientific findings. The company has the financial means to retain large international PR firms, such as Burson-Marsteller and Fleishman Hillard, consultation firms and think tanks, as well as large armies of hired trolls and academic spokepersons to mobilize damage control upon notice and protect the integrity of Monsanto’s products and public image. It funds and orchestrates self-serving research at universities and research laboratories to increase an arsenal of junk science. And of course it has Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates as its celebrity cheerleaders.

The EPA continues to align itself with Monsanto’s safety claims and limits glyphosate’s risks to kidney, reproductive and carcinogenic damage; and the warning only applies for very long-term exposure to high levels of the toxin. Anything under that is considered harmless. The EPA continues to approve small amounts of glyphosate as safe in drinking water to children. Its safety level is 0.7 ug/L. This was determined back in 1994, and after 20 years of further research into glyphosate’s biomolecular activities and health risks, the level has remained the same.[7,8] A review of existing data sponsored by Moms Across America found that out of 21 drinking water samples analyzed, 13 had glyphosate levels between 0.08 and 0.3 ug/L, well below the EPA’s limit, but significantly above the European Union’s limit of 0.1 ug/L.[9]

While the company manages to successfully dodge scientific research outside its purview, the tables would certainly turn if it could be proven in a court of law that Monsanto has known for decades that glyphosate is one of the most toxic substances ever launched on the public, which adversely affects almost every tissue and cell in a mammal’s body.

Imagine for a minute that evidence emerged to implicate Monsanto on a massive cover-up and manipulation of scientific data from hundreds of research trials. If it were Monsanto’s data indicting itself about glyphosate’s toxicity, and if it can be shown the company falsified, masked or fudged its data to win regulatory approval, it may likely be the largest corporate scandal in history. The question could Monsanto be charged with crimes of omission and more deservingly crimes against humanity?

This scenario may not be fantasy or the wishful thinking of GMO’s opponents. The case has a precedent and has been played out in the courts before. In November 1998, the US government won a judgment against the four largest US tobacco companies: Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard. The case came to trial after a former vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson, Jeffrey Wigand, turned whistleblower and revealed that his company concealed the tobacco’s health risks and was making concerted efforts to addict people to smoking. High ranking executives were found to have approved the inclusion of known addictive and carcinogenic chemicals, such as coumarin, in its cigarettes to increase smoking, sales and profits.

Before the trial there had never been a lawsuit lost by a tobacco company because no one could prove with absolute medical certainty that smoking had ever caused lung cancer or emphysema. During Congressional hearings, all seven CEOs representing the four tobacco giants lied under oath stating they had no knowledge about an association between nicotine and brain addiction. Their rationale was that they believed their research data and marketing strategies were protected under propriety secrecy claims and therefore they could avoid conviction. Although FDA scientists possessed all the necessary information that could condemn Big Tobacco’s false claims, the industry relied upon proprietary rules in order to hide behind legal protection. The FDA was silenced and powerless to make the industry’s information public. Consequently it is estimated that millions of people died from a risk that could have been prevented or at least reduced substantially. Instead, the FDA honored the tobacco industry above all human life.

The guilty verdict, which resulted in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement against the tobacco companies, enforced a minimum $206 billion settlement over a 25 year period. While the majority of payments were to settle 46 states’ Medicaid lawsuits to recover smoking related health costs, the settlement unfortunately exempted the industry from private tort claims. Many critics of the Agreement state that the settlement was too merciful. No tobacco executive went to prison and evidence indicates the industry emerged stronger and consolidated the companies into an ever more powerful cartel.[10]

What busted the tobacco companies was not the scientific evidence piling up outside the industry. Rather it was its crimes of omission about cigarettes’ health risks within the industry. The industry’s own research prosecuted itself. And this is demanded today in order to bring down Monsanto’s chemical regime and to protect populations and children throughout the world.

Perhaps we might want to consider the atmosphere Monsanto faced after it first developed glyphosate in 1973 and prepare for EPA approval for the remainder of the decade.

During the latter half of the 1970s, Monsanto’s leading products were under federal inquiry and public assault regarding safety. Dioxin had been banned. Safety concerns arose over its sweetener saccharin, and cyclamate was removed from the market. The company’s attempts to get it’s new artificial sweetener aspartame confronted obstacles during FDA scientific review. Independent research had shown that aspartame caused brain tumors in mammals. And its best selling herbicide at the time, Lasso, was showing signs of carcinogenicity. Today Lasso is a restricted-use pesticide due to its oncogenicity. With sales falling and future growth under threat, Monsanto faced a desperate need to launch a new and novel flagship product. Monsanto found itself banking its future on its new herbicide glyphosate. As we recently discovered, enormous amounts of research, analysis and hundreds of trials were conducted to learn as much as possible about the compound’s bioactivity in mammals and its potential health risks. All of this research data, studies and reports were subsequently sealed as trade secrets upon submission to the EPA. For over thirty years it has sat in the EPA vaults.

Monsanto has yet to be caught and charged for falsifying scientific data on glyphosate. However on earlier occasions two laboratories Monsanto outsourced research to were caught and indicted. In 1978, the EPA busted Industrial Biotest Laboratories for rigging laboratory results; the company’s executives were found guilty for submitting fabricated data supporting glyphosate positively to the government. In 1991, another firm, Craven Labs, was found guilty on similar charges with 20 felony counts.[11]

To this day, Monsanto continues to assert that Roundup is environmentally friendly. We are told it biodegrades rapidly and therefore poses no long-term risks after repeated usage. We are told that the herbicide is ideal for weed control. Throughout the US, it is liberally sprayed on our public parks, school playgrounds, sporting fields, and throughout our lawns and gardens. We are told it doesn’t bio-accumulate in the body’s cells and tissues and is excreted rapidly. We are also told that glyphosate toxicity is dose specific. Only exceedingly high levels of the pesticide pose any serious health risks.[12]

How factual are these claims or are they mere propaganda to obscure scientific truths far more deceptive and sinister? To answer that we would have to know for certain whether or not Monsanto conducted long-term studies on glyphosate that revealed devastating toxic effects on mammal health. We would need evidence that their own data clearly negates their scientific declarations, and that the company intentionally, and with forethought, either distorted or concealed data from federal regulatory officials and the public.

There is now an enormous cache of evidence on both scientific and legal grounds that Monsanto in fact conducted numerous studies in the 1970s and 1980s on glyphosate’s toxicity and health risks and intentionally sealed this research from independent and public review and scrutiny. As with Big Tobacco’s proprietary claims that prevented the FDA from publicly warning Americans about the dangers of smoking, the EPA has sat on Monsanto’s own deleterious data for decades.

Anthony Samsel is an independent research scientist working internationally in the interest of public health and the environment. He is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and a former scientist and consultant at Arthur D. Little, one of the world’s leading management consulting firms. Now retired, Samsel has devoted much of his independent research on Roundup’s toxicological characteristics and bioactivity. Unable to gain access to research reports and data Monsanto submitted to the EPA through FOIAs, he turned to his senator’s office, who assisted in the procurement of studies and reports he sought. Months later he received a hoard of scientific documents, over 15,000 pages worth, covering Monsanto’s complete glyphosate research.

With his co-investigator Dr. Stephanie Seneff at MIT the two have been reviewing Monsanto’s data. Their conclusion is Monsanto’s claims about glyphosate’s safety are patently false. The company has known for almost four decades that glyphosate is responsible for a large variety of cancers and organ failures. Clearly it was for this reason that Monsanto demanded the data and reports to be sealed and hidden from public scrutiny as proprietary trade secrets.

During an exclusive interview on the Progressive Radio Network on September 4, Samsel stated that Monsanto used an industry trick to dismiss evidence about glyphosate’s risks in its own research. “Monsanto misrepresented the data,” says Samsel, “and deliberately covered up data to bring the product [glyphosate] to market.”[13]

In order to minimize and cancel out its adverse findings, Samsel explained that Monsanto had relied upon earlier historical animal control data, toxicological research with lab animals afflicted with cancer and organ failures, and completely unrelated to glyphosate. In some cases the control animals displayed kidney, liver and pancreatic diseases. Many of Monsanto’s own studies required the inclusion of extraneous studies in order to cancel out damaging results. This is not an uncommon industry habit, particularly in toxicological science. It enables corporations to mask undesirable outcomes and make claims that observable illnesses and disease are spontaneous occurrences without known causal factors. Frequently, Monsanto would have to rely on three external control studies to negate the adverse effects of a single one of its own. Samsel found other incidences in Monsanto’s data where 5, 7 and in one case 11 unrelated studies were necessary to diminish the severity of its own findings. In effect, glyphosate received licensure based upon a platform of junk tobacco science. By ignoring cause and effect relationships behind the onset of multiple cancers and other life-threatening diseases throughout many of its research trials, Monsanto engaged in a radical scientific denialism that has since raked in tens of billions of dollars.

But the cache of Monsanto documents, after Samsel’s and Seneff’s review, reveals much more that we should be worried about.

In addition, Monsanto’s studies included doses from low to high range. Samsel observed that low glyphosate doses were equally if not more toxic than higher doses. The company later discontinued low dose trials, relying only on higher levels because it is customarily assumed to have greater toxicological risks. Samsel’s observation has recently been confirmed by a study published in the August issue of the Environmental Health Journal by scientists at Kings College London and the University of Caen in France. The two year study found that glyphosate administered at an ultra low dose of 0.1 ppb (the EU’s safety limit) in drinking water altered over 4000 gene clusters in the livers and kidneys of rats. These alterations, the study reports, “were consistent with fibrosis, necrosis, phospholipidosis, mitochondria membrane dysfunction and ischemia.”[14] Consequently low doses of Roundup are far more toxic than US EPA limits.

During its years investigating glyphosate’s bioactivity, Monsanto conducted hundreds of trials on mice, rats, beagle dogs, rabbits and other life. Among the many cancers and diseases Monsanto’s own research found associated with glyphosate are:

Adenoma cancer in the pituitary gland
Glioma tumors in the brain
Reticular cell sarcomas in the heart
Malignant tumors in the lungs
Salivary mandibular reticular cell carcinoma
Metastatic sarcomas of the lymph gland
Prostate carcinoma
Cancer of the bladder
Thyroid carcinoma
Adrenal reticulum cell sarcomas
Cortical adenomas
Basal cell squamous skin tumors

In female mammals there were cancers of the lung, liver, thymus, stomach, bladder adrenal glands, ovaries, colon, uterus, parathyroid and mammary glands.

Samsel and Seneff also noticed that Monsanto had conducted many long-term studies, as much as two years, on mice and rats. When Gilles-Eric Seralini and his French team reproduced and extended the length of Monsanto’s 3-month GMO maize rat-fed study for the life of the animals, they observed profuse cancer and tumor development started after the 4th month of the study. Monsanto continues to stand by its 3-month study as sufficient proof of GM maize’s safety. Yet the thoroughness and variety of Monsanto’s research operations should give strong reason to suspect that Monsanto has likewise conducted long term studies and knows all too well the deleterious effects of its pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified crops.

One of Monsanto’s claims is that glyphosate doesn’t bio-accumulate in tissues, rapidly bio-degrades and is excreted from the body readily. Contrary to this claim, Monsanto carried out meticulous studies to determine levels of accumulation and the organs, tissues and cells glyphosate reaches. Glyphosate was radio labeled with carbon 14 and given in 10 mg doses to seven groups of animals, male and female. After only 24 hours, the toxic chemical was found in the lungs and all body fluids: lymph, blood, urine and cerebral spinal fluid. Glyphosate also accumulated in the bone by 30 ppm and in the bone marrow by 4 ppm. Monsanto’s studies were comprehensive. It found an accumulation of the chemical in red cells, thyroid, uterus, colon, testes and ovaries, shoulder muscle, nasal mucosa, heart, lung, small intestine, abdominal muscle and the eyes.

Samsel and Seneff noted that the bioaccumuilation in the pancreas was not reported. Why would such meticulous efforts be made to measure radio labeled carbon 14 laced glyphosate levels in all the other organs, tissues and bodily fluids and then ignore the pancreas? The scientists believe this was deliberate.

Samsel notes that glyphosate does a “particular number on the lungs.” According to a 2014 report by the National Cancer Institute, lung cancer rates have been declining. The decline is largely due to the national decrease in smoking. However, other lung cancers such as adenocarcinomas are on the rise. The NCI is unable to account for this anomaly.[15] Yet the Institute is not considering that Americans are increasingly being exposed to glyphosate in their food, water and environment?

During the PRN interview, Dr. Seneff stated that the pancreas may be driving glyphosate to gather in the lungs. The pancreas is responsible for the release of the enzyme trypsin. which in turn infiltrates the lungs. A study published by Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Santa Maria in the medical journal Ciencia Rural measured glyphosate’s reactivity with digestive enzymes including trypsin. Trypsin activity was found to increase in parallel to higher glyphosate concentrations.[16] Seneff suggests that this may be contributing to the increase of glyphosate in the lungs that is contributing to the dramatic rise in COPD and asthma conditions, as well as lung cancers.

The occurrence of cataracts is rising rapidly, particularly in Mid-Western states such as ND, SD, NB, IA, KS, and MO. According to Prevent Blindness America’s statistics, 17% of adults over 40 years have cataract problems. The NIH projects the rate will reach nearly 40% by 2030.[17] Monsanto’s study showing glyphosate activity in the eye may be contributing to this epidemic. Dr. Seneff stated that the eye’s exposure to sunlight reacts with glyphosate residue thereby potentially making the chemical more toxic. Farmers often apply glyphosate on crops when it is warm, moist and when there is plenty of sunlight in order for the chemical to activate more effectively. These are similar conditions to our eyes during the day.

Monsanto’s research was not limited solely to the Roundup compound. It also performed extensive research on glyphosate’s individual metabolites, the intermediate molecules that result after Roundup’s breakdown through metabolic reactions. Many of these metabolites are every bit as toxic as glyphosate. All the glyphosate metabolites in solutions fed to rats were measured before and after feeding. One of Samsel’s more disturbing discoveries was that levels of the metabolite N-Nitrosoglyphosate (NNG) were found in higher concentrations in the rats’ feces and urine excretions than the original amount in the feeding solutions. NNG is a known carcinogen and endocrine disruptor. Samsel postulates that our own body’s natural nitrous acid reacts immediately with glyphosate, without requiring a catalyst, to produce NNG. Both the EPA and the World Health Organization acknowledge that NNG is present in glyphosate during the manufacturing process. The agencies therefore have established safety limits for NNG. However, for any endocrine disruptor, there is no realistic safety limit because such chemical disruptors destroy cells on a molecule to molecule basis.

Nitrous acid naturally occurs in the colon, urinary tract and skin tissue. According to the CDC, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the US, and affects more men than women. The Skin Cancer Foundation estimates that “each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and colon.”[18,19] Basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas are the two most common forms, both which have been identified by Monsanto with glyphosate exposure, particularly in males. When glyphosate reacts in the skin along with nitrous acid the metabolites NNG contributes to skin melanomas. Other chemicals are added to Monsanto’s Roundup to increase its effectiveness such as the surfactant POEA (polyethoxylated tallow amine), which also increases its toxicity.

We don’t pay enough attention to these other ingredients, Samsel states, because the EPA permits Monsanto to add anything it wants to enhance Roundup’s potency while identifying these substances innocuously as “inert.” When Monsanto convinces the public that glyphosate breaks down quickly, we are not told that the compound’s metabolic byproducts are equally toxic.

Therefore Anthony Samsel’s unprecedented discovery and review of Monsanto’s actual scientific and toxicological data of Roundup has provided us with information that warrants a thoughtful pause. Samsel and Seneff cover the subject in more detail in a new peer-reviewed paper titled “Glyphosate Pathways to Modern Diseases IV: Cancer and Related Pathologies.” The paper has been approved for publication in October.

During recent years dozens of states are submitting bills to label GMO foods. These food crops are heavily laced with glyphosate residue. Not only GM crops, but even non-GM produce are sprayed with Roundup. According to the Organic Consumers Association, non-organic and non-GM foods such as wheat, barley, oats, flax, peas, lentils, beans and sugar cane are also being sold to farmers “as a dessicant, to dry out all their crops so they could harvest them faster.”[20] Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Grocery Manufacturers of America and other agro-chemical companies are aggressively combating labeling efforts. The Big Ag lobby is today pushing for a national bill to prevent GMO labeling that would supersede individual state’s rights. We can only wonder what the voting outcome in California, Colorado, Washington and Oregon may have been had Monsanto’s own research been made available to the media and public. Is it therefore not time for full Congressional hearings to learn the truth once for all and make the disclosure of Monsanto’s Roundup research public for all?

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Seeds of Death about GMOs and Poverty Inc. More at the Progressive Radio Network

Notes:

[1] Daniel Cressey. “Widely Used Herbicide Linked to Cancer” Nature. March 25, 2015

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-cancer/

[2] RT (Russian TV). “California EPA mulls labeling Monsanto’s Roundup as being ‘known to cause cancer” September 6, 2015https://www.rt.com/usa/314544-california-epa-glyphosate-carcinogenic/

[3] Alexis Baden-Mayer, “Monsanto’s Roundup. Enough to Make You Sick” Organic Consumers Association. January 21, 2015

https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/monsanto%E2%80%99s-roundup-enough-make-you-sick

[4] Mary Ellen Kustin. “Glyphosate Is Spreading Like a Cancer Across the U.S.” Environmental Working Group. April 7, 2015

http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2015/04/glyphosate-spreading-cancer-across-us

[5] Jack Kaskey, “Monsanto Raises Forecast as Profits Tops Estimates on Corn” Bloomberg Business, April 3, 2013.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-03/monsanto-raises-forecast-as-profit-tops-estimates-on-corn-seed

[6] Alexis Baden-Mayer, op.cit.

[7] Environmental Protection Agency “Glyphosate Fact Sheet”http://www.epa.gov/safewater/pdfs/factsheets/soc/tech/glyphosa.pdf

[8] Environmental Protection Agency. “Basic Information about Glyphosate in Drinking Water”

http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/glyphosate.cfm

[9]Zen Honeycutt, Henry Rowlands, Lori Grace. “Glyphosate Testing Full Report: Findings in American Mothers’ Breast Milk, Urine and Water,” Moms Across America. April 7, 2015 http://www.momsacrossamerica.com/glyphosate_testing_results

[10] “Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement,” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement

[11] “Monsanto Timeline of Crime 1901-2014” Children of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance. February 16, 2015.http://covvha.net/monsanto-1901-2014-timeline/

[12] EPA, “Glyphosate Fact Sheet” op cit.

[13] Interview with Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. Gary Null Show, Progressive Radio Network. Broadcast on September 4, 2015. http://prn.fm/the-gary-null-show-09-04-15/

[14] Mesnage R, Arno M, Costanzo M, Seralini G-E, Antoniou M., “Transcriptome profile analysis reflects rat liver and kidney damage following chronic ultra-low dose Roundup exposure” Environmental Health 2015, 14:70 doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0056-1

[15] “Lung Cancer Fact Sheet.” American Lung Association. http://www.lung.org/lung-disease/lung-cancer/resources/facts-figures/lung-cancer-fact-sheet.html

[16] Salbero I, Pretto A, Machado da Silva V, Loro V, Lazzari R, Baldisserotto B. “Glyposate on digestive enzymes activity in piava (Leporinus obtusidens). Cencia Rural Vol. 44 no. 9. September 2014.

[17] “Vision Problems in the US,” Prevent Blindness America. http://www.visionproblemsus.org/cataract/cataract-map.html

[18] Skin Cancer Foundation. “Skin Cancer Facts.” http://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/skin-cancer-facts

[19] “Skin Cancer Statistics,” Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/skin/statistics/

[20] Alexis Baden-Mayer, op cit.

Confirming Frederick Douglass’s adage, “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” prisoners held in solitary confinement for many years in California have won an unprecedented victory. After three hunger strikes, in which tens of thousands of California inmates participated, and a federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a landmark settlement was reached. It effectively consigns indefinite solitary confinement in California to the dustbins of shameful history.

More than 500 prisoners had been held in isolation in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay prison for over 10 years, and 78 of them had been there for more than 20 years. They spend 22 ½ to 24 hours every day in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell, and are denied telephone calls, physical contact with visitors, and vocational, recreational, and educational programs.

Now California prisoners will no longer be sent to the SHU solely based on allegations of gang affiliation, but rather based on infraction of specific serious rules violations. Prisoners will only be put in solitary confinement if they commit a serious offense such as assault or murder in prison, and only after a due process hearing. And they will be put into solitary for a definite term – no more indeterminate solitary confinement. An estimated 95 percent of California prisoners in solitary confinement based solely on gang affiliation (about 2,000 people) will be released into the general prison population.

The settlement also limits the amount of time a prisoner can spend in the SHU, and provides a two-year step-down program for transfer from SHU to general population. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 prisoners will be released from SHU within one year of this settlement.

“California’s agreement to abandon indeterminate SHU confinement based on gang affiliation demonstrates the power of unity and collective action,” the plaintiffs said in a joint statement. “This victory was achieved by efforts of people in prison, their families and loved ones, lawyers, and outside supporters.”

The plaintiffs in Ashker v. Governor of California argued that California’s use of prolonged solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and denies the prisoners the right to due process.

The federal district court judge found that prolonged solitary confinement had deprived the plaintiffs of “normal human contact, environmental and sensory stimulation, mental and physical and health, physical exercise, sleep, nutrition, and meaningful activity” which could constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Although no U.S. court has yet ruled that solitary confinement violates the Eighth Amendment, Justice Anthony Kennedy indicated in a concurring opinion in June that he would likely entertain such an argument in the future. Commenting on the case of a man who had been isolated for 25 years in California, Kennedy told the U.S. Congress in March that solitary confinement “literally drives men mad.”

Indeed, after visiting Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in 1842, Charles Dickens noted, “The system here, is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it … to be cruel and wrong … I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body.” Dickens felt that isolation of prisoners was a thing that “no man had the right to inflict upon his fellow creature.”

Juan Mendez, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, concluded that solitary confinement for more than 15 days constitutes torture. He wrote that prolonged solitary confinement violates the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The United States has ratified both of these treaties, making them part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Ireland refused to extradite a man to the United States to face terrorism-related charges earlier this year. The High Court of Ireland worried that he might be held in indefinite isolation in a Colorado “supermax” prison, which would violate the Irish Constitution.

Between 80,000 and 100,000 people are held in some type of isolation in U.S. prisons on any given day, generally in supermax prisons, in 44 states and the federal system. Yet there is no evidence that solitary confinement makes prisons safer, the Government Accountability Office determined in 2013.

Solitary confinement exacerbates mental illness. In Madrid v. Gomez, a U.S. federal court judge wrote that for those with diagnosed mental illness, “placing them in [solitary confinement] is the mental equivalent of putting an asthmatic in a place with little air to breathe.”

Professor Craig Haney described the deprivation of basic human needs of social interaction and environmental stimulation as a “painfully long form of social death.”

The European Court of Human Rights has determined that “complete sensory isolation coupled with complete social isolation can no doubt destroy the personality,” in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Likewise, the Inter American Court of Human Rights has stated that prolonged solitary confinement may violation the American Convention on Human Rights.

Suicide rates in California, New York, and Texas are significantly higher among those held in solitary confinement than in the general prison population. And juveniles are 19 times more likely to take their own lives in isolation than in the general population. Connecticut, Maine, Oklahoma, New York, and West Virginia have banned or put restrictions on solitary confinement of juveniles.

President Barack Obama has asked his attorney general to “start a review of the overuse of solitary confinement across American prisons.” Obama said, “The social science shows that an environment like that is often more likely to make inmates more alienated, more hostile, potentially more violent.”

The purpose of the penal system is social rehabilitation, according to the ICCPR. In contravention of that mandate, the California legislature has specified that the purpose of sentencing is punishment. Solitary confinement implicitly denies any chance of social rehabilitation. The ICCPR requires that prison guards respect the inherent dignity of every inmate. Prolonged solitary confinement, like other forms of torture, destroys a person’s dignity.

Mendez proposed a worldwide ban on nearly all uses of solitary confinement, which has increased throughout the globe, especially in the context of the “war on terror” and “threats to national security.” He particularly criticized the routine use of isolation in U.S. supermax prisons.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy quoted Dostoyevsky: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” So one must wonder why the United States refuses to ratify the U.N. Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, which requires international inspection of prisons.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She is editor and contributor to “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.” See www.marjoriecohn.com.

The 1995 Schengen Agreement established open borders between 26 of the 28 EU countries. A Schengen visa issued in one nation is valid in all, permitting free movement throughout the area. A single external border alone exists.

Things are changing. Refugee floods caused by US-led imperial wars aren’t wanted. Record numbers risk life and limb to reach European destinations out of desperation – enduring enormous hardships en route, then mistreated like hostile invaders when they arrive.

German willingness to accept huge numbers appears fading. On Sunday, it closed its border with Austria, suspending train traffic, the way most refugees entered the country this summer.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said only EU citizens and others with valid visas are permitted to enter Germany until further notice. Schengen is suspended – dead for all practical purposes as long as US endless wars continue displacing floods of victimized people.

German police are patrolling Austrian border crossings. Der Spiegel said soldiers may guard road and rail borders. Closing Polish and Czech Republic access may follow.

Germany is in Europe’s heartland, sharing borders with nine European countries: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Poland, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

If free movement is halted from all or most of them, Schengen is effectively dead, perhaps never to be revived, at least no time soon.

Merkel wants a refugee quota system established, requiring other EU countries to share the burden based on size and economic ability to handle it. So far, no agreement was reached. Britain’s Cameron categorically rejects it. He’s not alone.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said Germany is “reaching the limits of its capabilities.” An EU response is needed. “By the time thousands of people are walking on the Autobahn, it’s too late.”

Other European countries are increasingly unwilling to accept growing numbers of desperate people seeking safe haven. Some openly express or suggest anti-Muslim sentiment. As NATO members, they bear full responsibility for either partnering in US wars or failing to forthrightly condemn them.

As long as they continue, so will endless human floods. The obvious solution not taken is stopping them, devoting military budgets to rebuilding ravaged countries, helping desperate people in war theaters and displaced refugees rebuild their shattered lives.

Instead, countries aim to stop the flood. Hungary blocked its border with Serbia. It introduced legislation making illegal border crossings punishable by imprisonment.

On Sunday, Austria closed its border with Hungary. Chancellor Werner Faymann said “(w)e have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely…Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measure towards normality, in conformity with law and dignity.”

Slovakia closed its borders with Hungary and Austria. Police were deployed to keep unwanted refugees out. The Netherlands may follow. Spot checks are being conducted along its border with Germany.

As human floods continue, expect to see other European countries blocking or greatly restricting their entry.

It should share the greatest burden – not when enormous resources go for causing it. Perhaps it’ll ally with EU nations planning military action to seize and destroy vessels operating from ravaged Libya – because of US-led NATO aggression.

In June, the European Union Naval Force Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR Med) was launched “to undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and dispose of vessels and enabling assets used or suspected of being used by migrant smugglers or traffickers.”

Escalating efforts are planned. Declaring war on human traffickers is a pretext for stopping an unwanted human flood.

So far this year, over 400,000 refugees and asylum seekers reached Europe by sea. Numbers leaving war theaters continue growing exponentially – increasingly unwanted when they reach European destinations.

Imperial arrogance is entirely responsible for what’s happening, Washington and rogue partners contemptuous of human life and welfare.

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 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

U.S. and Cuban delegations met in Havana in early September to “focus on setting priorities for the next steps in the normalization process,” according to the Miami Herald. They set up a “steering committee in the rapprochement process” expected to hold regular meetings. The process was laid out last month after the American flag was raised at the newly-opened U.S. embassy in Havana. Secretary of State John Kerry noted on the occasion that “the road of mutual isolation that the United States and Cuba have been travelling is not the right one, and that the time has come for us to move in a more promising direction.” The Obama administration has since announced loosening of restrictions that would permit American citizens to travel to Cuba on both commercial flights and cruise ships.

Superficially, it would seem that U.S. policy has moved away from a half-century of economic warfare, terrorism, subversion, and interference in the internal affairs of the nation American politicians have long considered a “natural appendage” of the United States, which would fall into the U.S. orbit like an apple from a tree, as John Quincy Adams once said.

If U.S. policy makers had indeed abandoned this attitude and actually moved in a more promising direction, it would mean they finally decided to engage their counterpart as Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez stated his government was willing to with the United States itself: “through a dialogue based on mutual respect and sovereign equality, to a civilized coexistence, even despite the differences that exist between both governments, which makes it possible to solve bilateral problems and promote cooperation and development of mutually beneficial relations, just as both peoples desire and deserve.”

But despite extending formal diplomatic courtesies and speaking in a more conciliatory tone, the Obama administration has demonstrated behind the scenes that it does not intend to demonstrate mutual respect or recognize sovereign equality.

As the delegations met on Friday, Obama quietly renewed Cuba’s status as an “enemy” under the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917. Under this Act, utilized against Cuba by every President since John F. Kennedy in 1962, the government issues the Cuban Assets Control Regulations to set the terms of the embargo (more accurately described by Cuba and the United Nations as a blockade).

By extending this enemy designation, the Obama administration is reserving the right to dictate the terms of the embargo, rather than allowing Congress to do so under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. While Obama has shown himself more willing than Congress to relax some punitive and illegal aspects of the embargo than the current Congress, by continuing to define Cuba as an enemy he is both sending an hostile signal to Cuba and employing a transparent legal fiction.

An “enemy” in the TWEA is specified as a government with which the U.S. is at war, as declared by Congress. Congress has never declared war on Cuba. They have not declared war on any country since Japan in 1941.

While it may be true that renewing the TWEA against Cuba may be more beneficial to Cuba by granting the executive branch greater flexibility, the fraudulent nature of the continued imposition of legal sanctions against Cuba should be emphasized. Though Obama has said U.S. policy against Cuba “has been rooted in the best of intentions,” it has in reality been rooted in vindictiveness and shrouded in legal distortions that continue to this day.

At the same time, the flood of U.S. taxpayer dollars earmarked with the express purpose of regime change in Havana continues unabated. The fiscal year 2016 budget contains $30 million for this purpose.

One use of these funds is for a US propaganda agency to hire mercenaries to denigrate Cuban civil and political personalities. As Tracey Eaton notes in his blog Along the Malecón: “The U.S. government wants to hire entertainers who would produce ‘uniquely funny, ironic, satirical and entertaining’ comedy shows targeting Cuban officials, politicians and others on the island. The Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio & TV Martí, is looking for a team that would produce 10 30-minute comedy sketch shows.”

The infamous Radio Martí has been broadcasting John Birch Society type propaganda from Miami into Cuba since the 1980s. The U.S. has continued to fund the station, despite its being declared illegal by the Cuban government. One wonders how the U.S. government itself would react if the Russian or Chinese government financed a program lambasting Obama, Kerry, and other Americans for political gain while disguising it as organically developed entertainment? It is not likely they would view a strategic attack created and financed abroad, rather than being a homegrown political expression of dissent, as protected free speech.

USAID, after being exposed for its subversive Cuban Twitter program “ZunZuneo“, which sought to sow discontent and stir unrest among the Cuban population, and its effort to co-opt Cuban hip hop artists, announced last week that it is seeking three program managers to be awarded six-figure salaries.

Eaton writes that the job description calls for “experience in the areas of democracy promotion, human rights, civil society development” and that candidates must obtain a “secret” security clearance. It is not hard to imagine that these highly compensated program managers would likely be implementing similar covert programs to destabilize Cuban society and attempt to turn its citizens away from the Revolution.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – an arm of US foreign policy that overtly carries out programs that previously were undertaken covertly by the CIA – is also hiring a Program Officer to work on NED’s “Cuba grants program” and “developing the Endowment’s strategy for Cuba.” Unlike the USAID positions, which are indicated to be in Washington, this position would require “regular field visits.”

Cuban blogger and former State Security Agent Percy Francisco Alvarado Godoy writes that the position is for “someone in charge of mounting all types of subversion against the Cuban government on behalf of the NED… completely illegal, meddlesome, and violative of our sovereignty and, therefore, will not admit any of his activity in our territory.”

It is clear that the U.S. continues to act towards Cuba with utter disregard for mutual respect and sovereign equality despite the formalities uncritically accepted by mainstream media as true normalization. By looking beyond the face value of the words of American officials, one can’t help but recognize that relations are anything but normal. Until the U.S. government recognizes that normal cannot include sanctioning, illegally occupying, and spending tens of millions of dollars on subversion and interference in another country’s internal affairs, “normalization” remains nothing more than a vacuous abstraction.

Matt Peppe writes about politics, U.S. foreign policy and Latin America on his blog. You can follow him on twitter. 

Following Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour’s new leader, the news in Israel was bleak. “New Labor Leader in Britain: Anti-Zionist” read the headline of Yisrael Hayom, the most widely read newspaper in Israel, which is owned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s longtime supporter, casino king Sheldon Adelson. The subtitle explained: “Bad Surprise: The newly elected head of opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, who in the past called for a dialogue with ‘friends’ from Hamas and Hezbollah, is known as a radical lefty, an admirer of Karl Marx.”

The article goes on to claim that Corbyn has donated money to Holocaust deniers and notes with alarm that, as head of the opposition, he has the right to receive sensitive security and diplomatic updates.

One might have expected a different line from Ynet, Israel’s most visited online news source, which was adamantly against Netanyahu’s re-election in March 2015. But Ynet did not exude enthusiasm for Corbyn either, rather it characterised him as “A fierce opponent of Israel.” Repeating practically all of the accusations made in Yisrael Hayom, it also criticised Corbyn for portraying Osama Bin Laden’s assassination as a “tragedy”. The new Labour leader was blamed for claiming that it would have been more just if the US had arrested Bin Laden and brought him to trial.

Newly elected Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn attending a pro-refugee march in London, England on September 12, 2015. (AA) – See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/israel-arms-over-corbyn-threat-244769470#sthash.WkEYHuX0.dpuf

NRG, another prominent news website, used the ultimate weapon in its headline: “Newly elected Labor Leader donated to Holocaust Denier.” NRG explained that Corbyn had donated money to the pro-Palestinian NGO Deir Yassin Remembered, which is run by Holocaust denier Paul Eizen. It added that seven out of 10 Jews in Britain were worried about Corbyn’s election, and that the Labour Party itself was also troubled.

Another article explained to the Israeli audience the damage Corbyn’s victory would have on Britain’s Labour Party, announcing that it was as if Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka – a Palestinian nationalist from the Joint Arab List – had become the head of the Israeli Labor Party. The fact that Zahalka has never been part of Labour and that Corbyn has been a member of the British party for 40 years seemed to be irrelevant.

Assuming an ostensibly universalist – as opposed to Zionist – perspective, Anshel Pfeffer from Israel’s liberal Haaretz offered the most scathing analysis, describing Corbyn’s victory as “Another Step in Britain’s Departure From the World Stage”.

The fact that over a quarter of a million Labour members and voters affiliated with the party have just elected a leader who blames the West for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, who fervently supports repressive klepotcracies like Chavista Venezuela and has supported terrorist groups around the world – from Northern Ireland to Iraq – in the name of anti-imperialism, could either mean that they agree with him on this, or more likely, the majority of them simply don’t care. They voted Corbyn for his anti-austerity policies, his willingness to espouse a clear socialist alternative, including the nationalisation of public transport and energy companies, and the fact that, unlike the other leadership candidates, he refuses to compromise his beliefs for something as trivial as being elected prime minister and implementing at least some of his policies.

Pfeffer went on to describe Corbyn as a “full-paid member of every fashionable cause of the radical-left, including his unquestioning support for Holocaust deniers and blood libellers – as long as they’re ‘pro-Palestinian’”.

What is fascinating in this piece, however, is not only the portrayal of Corbyn, but the way Israel’s most left-wing mainstream news outlet describes the United Kingdom’s demos with utter disdain. In Pfeffer’s view, Corbyn’s voters are ignorant or uninterested in their country’s foreign policy. Corbyn, he exclaims, “wouldn’t have been elected Labour leader with the largest personal mandate in the party’s history, if it were not for the fact that these issues simply didn’t matter to the vast majority of his supporters”.

The disturbing logic informing Pfeffer’s analysis is that in order to be a player on the world stage one has to support either a mainstream or a right-wing agenda. A leader cannot have a complex political agenda, challenge imperialism, support anti-colonial movements, or espouse an international socialist agenda if he or she wants to have influence in the global arena. He also unwittingly reveals that the most hated enemy of liberal Zionism is actually the international left, not the right. And yet, ironically, the attempt to render the political vocabulary of the left as both illegitimate and ridiculous suggests that it still constitutes a viable threat.

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel’s Occupation and co-author of The Human Right to Dominate. 

Recently I worked in another Maine city and was astonished at the number of patients I encountered who were using heroin.  I had never seen anything like it, during a lifetime practicing medicine. In New Hampshire, it was said, deaths from heroin now exceed deaths from car accidents.  Nationwide, CDC noted, “Between 2002 and 2013, the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled, and more than 8,200 people died in 2013.”  Massachusetts (population under 7 million) had 1,000 deaths related to (all) opioids in 2014, “the highest ever recorded.“

I’ve heard stories on NPR about insufficient state funding of heroin treatment facilities. I’ve heard about plans to make Narcan injections available to iv drug users, for overdoses. Another popular angle I’ve seen repeated multiple times (and one currently pushed by the US Drug Enforcement Agency) claims prescription narcotics became harder to get, so users switched to heroin, instead.

However, the DOJ-DEA 2014 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary notes that cocaine availability “remains stable at historically low levels throughout most domestic markets along the East Coast.”  So users are switching to heroin, but not switching to cocaine from prescription narcotics. Hmmm. Might this be because we have no large military-CIA presence currently in cocaine-trafficking areas, as we did during the 1980s Contra war in Nicaragua, when cocaine use was at high levels? (Coca leaves are only grown in Latin America.) According to a 2010 UN document, “Based on seizure figures, it appears that cocaine markets grew most dramatically during the 1980s, when the amounts seized increased by more than 40% per year”.  (See this 1987 Senate hearing and this for evidence of CIA and State Dept. connivance with cocaine trafficking by the Contras.)

You can frame stories about the current heroin problem in many ways.  But the real heroin story isn’t being discussed–which is that since the US military entered Afghanistan in 2001, its opium production doubled, per the UN Afghanistan Opium Survey, 2014 , p.34.  The area under opium cultivation in Afghanistan tripled. And the resulting heroin appears to more easily make its way deep into our rural, as well as urban communities. The graph below is from the 2014 UN Opium Survey:

The world supply of opium increased 5-fold between 1980 and 2010, according to the UN.“Afghanistan account[s] for around 90% of global illicit opium production in recent years. By itself, Afghanistan provides 85% of the estimated global heroin and morphine supply, a near monopoly.”(see pp 37-38).

The narcotics trade poisons the Afghan financial sector and undermines the Afghan state’s legitimacy by stoking corruption, sustaining criminal networks, and providing significant financial support to the Taliban and other insurgent groups,” John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in an October 2014 letter to the heads of the Departments of Defense, State and Justice, which have all played major roles in the failed drug intervention effort. “Despite spending over $7 billion to combat opium poppy cultivation and to develop the Afghan government’s counter-narcotics capacity, opium poppy cultivation levels in Afghanistan hit an all-time high in 2013.

Despite the (now) US $8.4 billion spent to defeat this trade, it just keeps growing.  The costs of US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan total “$110 billion, after adjusting for inflation, [which] exceeds the value of the entire Marshall Plan effort to rebuild Western Europe after World War II” according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, speaking in May 2015.

The Special Inspector General noted elsewhere that, “US reconstruction projects, particularly those devoted to “improved irrigation, roads, and agricultural assistance” were probably leading to the explosion in opium cultivation.“

Only 1.2% of the acreage used for Afghan opium production (est. 224,000 hectares) was eradicated in 2014, according to the UN. Also according to the UN, Burma is the world’s second largest producer of opium, currently growing only about 10% as much as Afghanistan. But Mexico has been increasing production.

According to the UN World Drug Report, in the 1990’s Afghanistan supplied opium that was converted into half the world’s heroin production.  By 2010, it supplied 90% of the total.

But the DEA, White House and other official US sources claim that US heroin derives almost entirely (96%) from Latin American opium (based on seizures of shipments); the DEA in 2014 claimed that Latin America was the source for the vast majority of US heroin, with southwest Asia (i.e., Afghanistan) accounting for only 4% of US heroin in 2012.

This is highly unlikely.  In 2008, the UN estimated that the US and Canada accounted for 13% of global heroin use.  With about 95% of global heroin derived from Afghanistan, Burma, Thailand and Laos, Latin America (mainly Mexico with a small amount from Colombia) does not produce enough to supply the majority of US heroin, let alone 96%. In fact, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy undercuts this claim when it says Mexico had 10,500 hectares under poppy cultivation in 2012, while Afghanistan alone had 154,000 hectares in 2012 and 224,000 hectares in 2014, per UN estimates.

This DEA claim, based on heroin interdiction, suggests a different explanation.  Perhaps heroin shipments from Afghanistan are at lower risk of being seized than heroin coming from Latin America. Might some be entering through government channels, when so much materiel and so many personnel (soldiers, aid workers, diplomats and contractors) fly directly between the US and Afghanistan?

Putting aside the issue of the provenance of the US heroin supply for the moment, surely we can look at heroin as we would any other global commodity.

Congruent with the US occupation of Afghanistan, Afghanistan expanded its opium production, and the global supply of heroin increased dramatically. The price dropped as a result. New buyers entered the market. And the US now has several hundred thousand new addicts.  Russia and Europe have even more. The resulting social problems are hugely tragic and hugely costly for millions of families, and for our societies as a whole.

If we start being honest about why there is a major heroin epidemic, maybe we can get serious about solving the problem with meaningful eradication and interdiction. Aerial spraying of crops with herbicides or similar methods has been prohibited in Afghanistan, but it works. In 2014, Britain’s former Ambassador to Afghanistan (2010-2012) called for legalization and regulation of illicit drugs as one means of attacking the problem.

Looking beyond the Mexican border for heroin, and inspecting all flights from southwest Asia, including military and CIA flights, could have a large impact on supply as well.

Serious measures are needed.  Total world production of opiates always gets consumed: historically, the market for opiates has been extremely elastic.  Land under poppy cultivation (in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle and Mexico) continues to increase. Without meaningful efforts to reduce opium production and entry of narcotics into the US, the epidemic of heroin addiction may become a considerably bigger problem than it is today.

UPDATE:  From the Sept 7 Wall Street Journal, we learn that a US “friendly fire” airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Sept 6 “hit a 30 member elite counternarcotics police unit as they were on a mission…”

At least 11 died in “one of the deadliest friendly fire incidents in the country in recent years.” Here is the Reuters story. The US denied the strike in Helmand province, but admitted to airstrikes in the adjacent province of Kandahar. According to the Guardian, “The US is the only member of the NATO coalition known to have carried out bombing raids in Afghanistan this year.” The AP/WaPo on 9/8/15 reported that, “Brigadier General Shoffner [Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications in Afghanistan] said ‘based on information we received [on 9/8], we feel it is prudent to investigate the airstrike our forces conducted in Kandahar.’”

The airstrike killed approximately as many people as died in counternarcotics efforts in all Afghanistan throughout 2014.

I will have more to say about the subject of heroin in a later post.

Meryl Nass, M.D.  is  a board-certified internist and a biological warfare epidemiologist and expert in anthrax. Nass publishes Anthrax Vaccine.

Palestinian lawyer Mohammed Allan, who went on hunger strike for 65 days to protest his indefinite detention in Israeli custody, was subsequently moved into medical care and had his detention suspended in August over fears that he might die in prison, potentially provoking massive Palestinian unrest. This raises serious questions about both the legality of Israel’s administrative detention and the degree to which Israel is violating human rights. The most troubling aspect of Israel’s preventive detention policy, however, is how dangerously Israel’s moral standing is sliding, not only because of the unjust treatment of Palestinian detainees, but the extent to which the country is undermining the moral imperative that gave it birth from the ashes of World War II.

A review of Israel’s detention policy reveals how outrageous and convoluted the legal system behind this policy is. Israel maintains a perpetual state of emergency as a political tool to provide the legal rationale, however twisted, for the policy of continuing administrative detention.

Israel has stitched together a complex system of various emergency measures borrowed from the British mandate era, Jordanian rule over the territories, and its own military and civilian laws, while making no effort for nearly seven decades to unify these legal procedures.

Successive Israeli governments maintained this hodgepodge administrative detention system to give it the flexibility to resort to one set of rules or another to enforce detention under the guise of legality, when in fact the whole complex of emergency ‘laws’ are nothing but a sham governing tool.

National security considerations are used, or rather abused, to justify the indefinite detention of hundreds of Palestinians without being charged with any crime; they are denied legal defense and left languishing in jails with little prospect of being released.

Irrespective of any efforts made to deradicalize Palestinian detainees, by keeping prisoners in indeterminate detention, the prison itself becomes an incubator of extremism. Hopelessness sets in, further nurturing their resentment of the state, which naturally has a ripple effect on their families and the communities to which they belong.

Moreover, regardless of how reformed and repentant a Palestinian prisoner may become, the majority of those who are eventually released return to violent resistance as they find themselves still living under occupation with no prospect of ever changing their dismal lot.

At the beginning of September, Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (who once advocated the mass killing of Palestinians) introduced a counter-terrorism bill that would, among other things, codify administrative detention, which would make matters even worse for the Palestinians and further debase the state’s moral onus.

 The bill would do away with all prior emergency measures and further increase the state’s ability to withhold evidence from the suspect and their legal representative under the pretext that providing such information would jeopardize national security.

Moreover, this bill contradicts the very notion of law as such, which does not operate through brute force and terror but recognizes the equal worth and dignity of every individual who stands before the law. What the bill will do is make it much easier for the state to legally detain Palestinian suspects indefinitely without putting them on trial, adding yet another layer of moral decadence to the already bankrupt legal system.

That said, anyone who is familiar with Israel’s state of being from the day of its inception to the present cannot deny the fact that the country has legitimate national security concerns. But when national security becomes a political tool, Israel opens up itself to intense criticism and condemnation.

Whereas every country is obligated, regardless of the nature of its governing authority, to safeguard human rights, Israel has a double burden to adhere to such norms of moral conduct not only because it claims to be a democracy, but especially because of the unique circumstances under which it was created.

In fact, the entire international community holds Israel to a double standard, expecting it to bend over backwards in its treatment of other humans precisely because of what the Jews have endured over many centuries of persecution, expulsion, detention, and death.

Whereas these unfathomable historic experiences are justifiably ingrained in the mind and soul of every Jew and give rise to Israel’s deep concerns about its national security, many hard-core Israelis believe that because of these horrifying historical experiences, they have the license to treat others the way the Jews were treated.

This sense of trying to correct a historical wrong became a sort of national mantra, disregarding the fact that ill-treatment of the Palestinians by successive Israeli governments has alarmingly degraded the country’s moral principles and exasperated rather than mitigated its national security dread.

By what measure then, one might ask, could subjugating Palestinians, expropriating their land, building settlements, demolishing Palestinian homes, uprooting olive trees, engaging in systematic night raids, unduly restricting their movement, and indefinitely detaining Palestinian suspects (often without charging them with any crime) possibly enhance Israel’s national security?

The irony here is that while Israel seeks to contain Palestinian extremism, which is necessary to safeguard its national security, by its own very actions against the Palestinians Israel is undermining its legitimate national security concerns and fostering even more extremism.

Paradoxically, just about every security official and many ordinary Israelis are quick to point at any violent incident perpetrated by a Palestinian as proof that the Palestinians are and will always be a security risk. They conveniently ignore the harsh reality of fifty years of occupation and its poisonous effect on every Palestinian.

Any Israeli government can indefinitely detain tens of thousands of Palestinians and adopt any counter-terrorism bill, but it will still never be able to contain the Palestinians’ vehement resistance as long as the occupation persists.

Israel’s legitimate national security concerns do not rest on building more settlements, expropriating more Palestinian land, or erecting walls and fences, and certainly not by indefinite incarceration of Palestinians, however violent they may be.

On the contrary, these measures, not to speak of the ministers in the current government who openly call for the annexation of much of the West Bank, only exasperate Israel’s national security and endanger its future as a democracy and a safe country for those Jews who choose to make it their home.

Israel’s national security ultimately rests on the moral imperative on which the state was created, and an amicable solution to the conflict with the Palestinians remains central to Israel’s moral resonance as a democracy with a Jewish national identity.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

[email protected]

Web: www.alonben-meir.com

At a recent naval conference a Chinese Vice Admiral did not mince words.

Speaking at this year’s First Sea Lord/RUSI International Sea Power Conference in London, Chinese Vice Admiral Yuan Yubai, commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) North Sea Fleet, did not shy away from controversy. He emphatically stated that the South China Sea belongs to China.

“The South China Sea, as the name indicates, is a sea area that belongs to China. And the sea from the Han dynasty a long time ago where the Chinese people have been working and producing from the sea,” he said through an interpreter, according to Defense News.

Yubai was sitting on a panel with the U.S. Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Rear Adm. Jeff Harley and the President of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s Command and Staff College, Vice Admiral Umio Otsuka, discussing the role of naval power in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/CIA

Yubai’s statement came in response to Otsuka criticizing the land reclamation activities of “certain state actors”  in the region. “Land reclamation conducted by some countries has been a problem in the South China Sea (and) we have to admit that the rule of law is at risk in this region. The JMSDF will secure the credibility of a deterrence capability and seek a multilateral framework in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.

Otsuka also expressed his worries that commercial fishing fleets are used as maritime militias defending territory claimed by Beijing. “This may provoke, sooner or later, a debate how the conflict between military and maritime militia, if any, should be handled,” he stated. The Japanese admiral warned that China’s activities could turn the area from “an ocean of peace” to an “ocean of war.” However, Yubai cautioned:

I’m firmly convinced that the problems around the South China Sea, so far, can be successfully solved with the joint efforts and consultation of the hosting countries around the South China Sea.

He added:

 China has conducted consultation with countries in the South China Sea… the principle we adopt is peaceful utilization and joint development (of the sea). The real situation is that safety of navigation can now be assured.

He also mentioned that China and the United States are working on a code of conduct for aircraft encounters, which will reduce the likelihood of conflict, according to Yubai.

Meanwhile, according to satellite photographs taken on behalf of a D.C.-based think tank, China is set to begin construction of a third airstrip on the on Mischief Reef, an artificial islands Beijing has created in the Spratly archipelago.

[There are] three ways to be influential in American politics: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets. Haim Saban, Pro-Israel billionaire and major political contributor, and adviser to Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, (2009)

[There] is a memo [at the Pentagon] that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria,  Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran. General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (1997-2000), (interview of March 2, 2007)

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them. Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and satirist

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.), (in a Dec. 20, 2007 interview with the Boston Globe)

Our objective is clear, and that is: degrade and destroy ISIL [ISIS] so that it’s no longer a threat, not just to Iraq but also to the region and to the United States. Pres. Barack H. Obama, (at a news conference on Sept. 3, 2014)

The chaotic situation in Syria, a country of 22 million, source of some 220,000 Syrian deaths and of between 6 to 8 million refugees fleeing to Europe, is most confusing.

On the one hand, the Obama administration has been openly violating international law in actively supporting and arming a rebellious insurrection and a civil war against the established Assad government. On the other hand, the same administration seems to consider the Sunni-dominated and foreign-supported terrorist Islamic State organization (ISIS) opposed to Assad as illegitimate, and declares to want to “degrade and destroy” it through bombings.

If a foreign government wanted to destroy a country and turn it into ruins, that is probably what it should do, considering that the same Obama administration has for years supported protests and fanned the rebellion in Syria, as part of the color revolutions the CIA has sponsored in many countries, and it has facilitated the rise of Islamic extremism directly and indirectly in the hope that it would succeed in toppling the secular Syrian regime. From the start, this has been a most ambivalent, a most irresponsible, a most inconsistent, a most incoherent, a most misguided, a most indecent, a most insane, a most destructive and a most immoral policy, because it has destabilized both Iraq and Syria, because it has resulted in millions of victims and because it has contributed in a big way to creating the psychopathic monster that is the ISIS.

Indeed, the ongoing provoked chaos in Syria seems to be a repetition of what the Obama-cum-Hillary Clinton administration did in neighboring Libya when that country was destabilized and destroyed from top to bottom through outside intervention, and reduced to a state of anarchy. It also followed the illegal military incursion by the Bush-Cheney administration in Iraq in order to engineer illegally a regime change in that country, at the same time that it left it completely destroyed and dysfunctional. All these interventions have resulted in unmitigated disasters.

Destroying countries in violation of international law and with no empathy for the human suffering of millions of people seems to have been the official policy of the US government over the last twenty years, whoever happened to sit in the White House at any given time, be he a Republican or a Democrat.

There is a pattern here that even the most ignorant and the most dishonest or obtuse brains cannot help but notice. We all know that this has been the well-publicized plan of the pro-Israel neocon clique that has been advising successive US governments ever since the George H. Bush administration of 1989-1993. Their overall objective was to reshape and transform (i.e. destabilize and destroy) the entire Middle East by provoking the downfall and breakup of Israel’s neighboring Arab countries (Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc.), and by using American military power and NATO to do it.

And now, the Obama administration is working hard to deliberately and immorally destroy the country of Syria to please the Israeli government and other allies such as the totalitarian Wahhabist regime of Saudi Arabia and the increasinglly Islamist regime in Turkey. Just as there was no al-Qaeda organization in Iraq before the Bush-Cheney administration invaded the country in 2003, there was no Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria before the US and its allies supported the insurrection against the Assad regime, beginning in 2011.

Surrounded by his neocon advisers, who are presumably recommended to their posts by deep pocket political campaign contributors, President Barack H. Obama gives the sad spectacle of a politician who has morphed into a repeat of George W. Bush, using lies and false pretenses to justify an incoherent and destabilizing US policy in the Middle East. One day he says that his government’s policy is to contain and destroy the murderous ISIS Califate; the next day he gives a tacit or explicit go ahead to the demagogue President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to attack with F-16 fighter jets the only credible force on the ground fighting ISIS, besides the armed forces of the Iraqi and Syrian governments, the Kurdish militias.

And when the Russian government brings some assistance to the embattled Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad—still the legitimate government of that country, ravaged by outside intervention by the way—President Barrack H. Obama not only denounces such assistance, but he warns Russia not to do it, curiously asserting that Russia’s efforts to back the Syrian government against ISIS are “doomed to failure”! What strategy and what failure? One would like to know.

Indeed, if President Obama were really serious in wanting to eradicate the medieval terrorist cancer that is ISIS, as he claims he does, one would think that he would logically welcome any assistance to reach that objective, whether it comes from Russia or from Iran, or anybody else. But no, Mr. Obama rather says that such assistance is not at all welcomed, at the same time that the killers of ISIS consolidate their control over a large part of Syria and of Iraq, and continue decapitating and persecuting Christian Assyrians, Shiites and other ethnic groups. The result is the creation of millions of refugees that only Europe seems ready, albeit reluctantly, to accept, after they have been expelled from Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan, and while the other richest Arab nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, close their doors to them.

This does not make any sense. When is Mr. Obama sincere? When he says that his NATO ‘coalition’ attacks in Syria are aimed at eradicating ISIS, or when he says that he has no legal authority for provoking a neocon-inspired regime change in Syria?

If Pres. Obama does not want to fight al Qaeda—the group behind the 9/11 attacks, and its close ally the Islamic State (ISIS)—he should at the very least let those who want to fight them do it. Nowadays, he seems much more anxious to train and arm small groups of so called “moderate” Islamist Syrian rebels, (who have not a chance in hell to take control of the Syrian government), than to really fight the terrorists of al-Qaeda and of the Islamist State (ISIS), who are the ones who would take over Syria if the Assad government were to fall. On the contrary, for months now Mr. Obama has done his best to prevent the Kurds, the Iranians and the Russians, along with the al-Assad government, from fighting the Islamist terrorists. Why? Could somebody ask him why? And, for what purpose?

US-led airstrikes in Iraq and in Syria against the Islamist terrorists have been judged ineffective from the start, and ISIS has demonstrated it by pursuing its expansion, presumably because such very selective bombings were never a priority and were rather a covert and dishonest show to fool people about the real objective of the US-NATO bombings.

That objective appears not as a priority to destroy ISIS or push it back, but rather to illegally provoke a regime change in Syria. This is done by backing different sets of Islamist rebels over time. This is a dangerous game. And all this is for mainly crass economic motives, i.e. to facilitate the construction of pipelines from the Middle East toward Europe, Turkey and Israel.

This Machiavellian policy is not only destabilizing and destroying the entire Middle East, it is now about to destabilize and destroy Europe itself with millions of migrants and refugees fleeing the mess that has resulted ever since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the US and its allies’ support for the Syrian insurrection since 2011. European countries have already suspended the Schengen Agreement regarding freedom of movement within the European Union (EU), and other similar policy decisions of European disintegration by member states are to be expected in the coming months if the avalanche of migrants and refugees continues unabated from the Middle East and northern Africa.

Ever since the neocons have dominated US foreign policy, American-led interventions in the world have been a source of great instability and of devastating destruction. They have resulted in creating disaster upon disaster, with hundreds of thousands people dead and many millions displaced and impoverished, and forced into exile.

So far, at least three countries have been completely destroyed, i.e. Iraq, Libya and Syria, and the carnage goes on in Afghanistan and in Yemen, with the US supporting Saudi Arabia’s bombing of the latter country. American politicians and the US government cannot close their eyes and wash their hands of this chaotic mess because they started it, and because of that, they have a special responsibility to correct it and contribute to bringing back peace and order in that part of the world.

If the secular al-Assad government is ever toppled and is replaced by one led by fanatical Islamists, and if revenge killings and massacres of the Syrian Christians, Alawites, and Druze ensue—a possible result of the confused imperialistic US-NATO foreign policy—Barack H. Obama and other American and European politicians will have to place a large part of the blame on themselves. This is not a trivial matter.

Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is an international economist and author, whose last two books are:

The Code for Global Ethics, Prometheus Books, 2010; and

The New American Empire, Infinity Publishing, 2004.

To read Dr. Tremblay’s blog, please visit: http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.htm

The author can be reached at: [email protected].

This Timeline reveals important statements and reports from mainstream media sources regarding 9/11 and the “Global War on Terrorism”.  They are revealing in many regards, but they are not always accurate and in some cases they are misleading.

What is significant is that the authors provide an important and carefully researched archive which broadly refutes the official story, while shedding light on the insidious relationship between Al Qaeda and the CIA. (GR Editor, M. Ch.)

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See an excellent two-page summary of the best of this 9/11 facts timeline

To verify 9/11 timeline facts below, click on links to articles on major media websites

9/11 was one of the most pivotal events in world history. Its impact will be felt for years to come. You owe it to yourself to go beyond the simplified official story. This is an extremely complicated story with numerous players and motives. The 9/11 facts below don’t all make sense or fit neatly together. It’s a story full of espionage, deceit, and lies. But if forces out there are tricking us, they can only succeed if we, the general public, remain ignorant and passive.

We limit our sources on this 9/11 timeline to the major media. It’s not that one can only trust the major media. Much of the best reporting today comes from alternative media. Yet many are initially very skeptical. Some of these 9/11 facts are very hard to believe. Yet remember that each entry is reported by respected mainstream media sources and can easily be verified by clicking on the links provided to the original source. After seeing the importance of what’s being hidden, you will very likely want to join in working together to build a brighter future.

Note: You can also skip directly to the 9/11 facts listed on the day of 9/11.

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1962: America’s top military leaders draft plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in US cities to trick the public into supporting a war against Cuba in the early 1960s. Approved in writing by the Pentagon Joint Chiefs, Operation Northwoods even proposes blowing up a US ship and hijacking planes as a false pretext for war. [ABC News, 5/1/01,Pentagon Documents]

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Prior to 9/11

1980s: Osama bin Laden runs a front organization for the mujaheddin–Islamic freedom fighters rebelling against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The CIA secretly backs the mujaheddin. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Bhutto, understanding the ferocity of Islamic extremism, tells then President George H. W. Bush, “You are creating a Frankenstein.” [MSNBC, 8/24/98, Newsweek, 10/1/01, more]

1994: Two attacks take place which involve hijacking planes to crash them into buildings, including one by an Islamic militant group. In a third attack, a lone pilot crashes a plane at the White House. Yet after Sept. 11, over and over aviation and security officials say they are shocked that terrorists could have hijacked airliners and crashed them into landmark buildings. [New York Times, 10/3/01]

1996: The Saudi Arabian government is financially supporting Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and other extremist groups. After 9/11, the Bush Administration does nothing to confront the Saudi leadership over its support of terror organizations and its refusal to help in the investigation.[New Yorker, 10/22/01, more]

Osama bin Laden with President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinzki

1996-1999: The CIA officer in charge of operations against Al Qaeda from Washington writes, “I speak with firsthand experience (and for several score of CIA officers) when I state categorically that during this time senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence that provided multiple chances to eliminate Osama bin Laden.”[Los Angeles Times, 12/5/04]

1996-2001: Federal authorities have known for years that suspected terrorists with ties to bin Laden were receiving flight training at schools in the US and abroad. One convicted terrorist confessed that his planned role in a terror attack was to crash a plane into CIA headquarters. [Washington Post, 9/23/01]

1996-Sept 11, 2001: Taliban envoys repeatedly discuss turning bin Laden over, but the US wants to be handed bin Laden directly, and the Taliban want to turn him over to some third country. About 20 more meetings on giving up bin Laden take place up till 9/11, all fruitless. [Washington Post, 10/29/01]

1997: Former National Security Advisor Brzezinski publishes a book portraying Eurasia as the key to world power, and Central Asia with its vast oil reserves as the key to domination of Eurasia. He states that for the US to maintain its global primacy, it must prevent any adversary from controlling that region. He notes that because of popular resistance to US military expansionism, his ambitious strategy can’t be implemented “except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” [The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives]

1998: An Oklahoma City FBI agent sends a memo warning that “large numbers of Middle Eastern males” are getting flight training and could be planning terrorist attacks. [CBS, 5/30/02] A separate CIA intelligence report asserts that Arab terrorists are planning to fly a bomb-laden aircraft into the WTC (World Trade Center). [New York Times, 9/19/02, Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02, more]

Aug 1998: Within minutes of each other, truck bombs blow up the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing more than 220. For some of the time that bin Laden’s men were plotting to blow up the two embassies, US intelligence was tapping their phones. [Newsweek, 10/1/01]

Dec 1998: A Time magazine cover story entitled “The Hunt for Osama,” reports that bin Laden may be planning his boldest move yet – a strike on Washington or possibly New York City. [Time, 12/21/98]

Late 1998-Early 2000: On at least three occasions, spies in Afghanistan report bin Laden’s location. Each time, the president approves an attack. Each time, the CIA Director says the information is not reliable enough and the attack cannot go forward. [New York Times, 12/30/01, more]

Sept 1999: A US intelligence report states bin Laden and Al-Qaeda terrorists could crash an aircraft into the Pentagon. The Bush administration claims not to have heard of this report until May 2002, though it was widely shared within the government. [CNN, 5/18/02, AP, 5/18/02, Guardian, 5/19/02]

Nov 1999: The head of Australia’s security services admits the Echelon global surveillance system exists. The US still denies it exists. BBC describes Echelon’s power as “astounding.” Every international telephone call, fax, e-mail, or radio transmission can be listened to by powerful computers capable of voice recognition. They home in on key words, or patterns of messages. [BBC, 11/3/99]Jan 2000: George Bush Sr. meets with the bin Laden family on behalf of the Carlyle Group. He also met with them in 1998. Bush’s chief of staff could not remember that this meeting took place until shown a thank you note confirming the meeting. [Wall Street Journal, 9/27/01, Guardian, 10/31/01]

Summer 2000: A secret military operation named Able Danger identifies four future 9/11 hijackers, including lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, as a potential threat and members of Al Qaeda. Yet none of this is mentioned later in the 9/11 Commissions’ final report. When questioned, the 9/11 commission’s chief spokesman initially says that staff members briefed about Able Danger did not remember hearing anything about Atta. Days later, however, after provided detailed information, he says the uniformed officer who briefed two staff members had indeed mentioned Atta. [New York Times, 8/11/05, more]

Sept 2000: The think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) writes the blueprint for a global “Pax Americana.” Written for the Bush team before the 2000 election, Rebuilding America’s Defenses is a plan for maintaining global US preeminence and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests. The plan shows Bush intends to take control of the Persian Gulf whether or not Saddam Hussein is in power. It advocates the transformation of the US military. But, “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbour”. [BBC, 2/14/07, Sunday Herald, 9/7/02, read report,more]

2000 – 2001: The military conducts exercises simulating what the White House later says is unimaginable: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties. One imagined target is the WTC. [USA Today, 4/19/04] Another is the Pentagon. [Military District of Washington (Army), 11/3/00]

Jan 2001: A flight school alerts the FAA. Hijacker Hani Hanjour lacks English and flying skills needed for his commercial pilot’s license. An FAA official then sits next to him in class. The official offers a translator to help him pass, but the flight school says this is against the rules. [AP, 5/10/02] Yet despite poor flying skills, official reports later state Hanjour executes a 330 to 360 degree turn of AA Flight 77 over Washington on 9/11 in under four minutes and manages a precision hit on the Pentagon. [NY Times, 10/16/01, NTSB, 2/19/02]

Jan 2001: After the elections, US intelligence agencies are told to “back off” investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals. There have always been constraints on investigating Saudis. [BBC, 11/6/01, more]

Spring 2001: Military and government documents are released that seek to legitimize the use of US military force in the pursuit of oil. One article advocates presidential subterfuge in the promotion of conflict and “explicitly urge[s] painting over the US’s actual reasons for warfare as a necessity for mobilizing public support for a conflict.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02, more]

May 2001: US security chiefs reject Sudan’s offer to turn over voluminous files about bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Sudan has made this offer repeatedly since 1995. [Guardian, 9/30/01, more]

May 2001: Secretary of State Powell gives $43 million in aid to the Taliban government. [Los Angeles Times, 5/22/01, CNN 5/17/01] This follows $113 million given in 2000. [State Dept. Fact Sheet, 12/11/01]

May 2001: The US introduces “Visa Express” program allowing any Saudi Arabian to obtain visas through their travel agent instead of appearing at a consulate in person. [US News and World Report, 12/12/01] Five hijackers use Visa Express to enter the US. [Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/20/02]

May-Aug 2001: A number of the 9/11 hijackers make at least six trips to Las Vegas. These “fundamentalist” Muslims drink alcohol, frequent strip clubs, and smoke hashish. Some even have strippers perform lap dances for them. [San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/01, Newsweek, 10/15/01]

June 13, 2001: Egyptian President Mubarak through his intelligence services warns the US that bin Laden’s Islamic terrorist network is threatening to kill Bush and other G8 leaders at their July economic summit meeting in Italy. The terrorists plan to use a plane stuffed with explosives. [NY Times, 9/26/01]

June 28, 2001: CIA Director George J. Tenet has been “nearly frantic” with concern. A written intelligence summary for national security adviser Condoleezza Rice says: “It is highly likely that a significant al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks.” Rice will later claim that everyone was taken by complete surprise by the 9/11 attack. By late summer, one senior political appointee says, Tenet had repeated this threat “so often that people got tired of hearing it.” [Washington Post, 5/17/02]

July 4-14, 2001: Bin Laden reportedly receives kidney treatment from Canadian-trained Dr. Callaway at the American Hospital in Dubai. Telephoned several times, the doctor declines to answer questions. During his stay, bin Laden allegedly is visited by one or two CIA officers. [Guardian, 11/1/01, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/31/01, Times of London, 11/1/01, UPI, 11/1/01, more]

July 10, 2001: A Phoenix FBI agent sends a memorandum warning about Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons. He suspects bin Laden’s followers and recommends a national program to check visas of suspicious flight-school students. The memo is sent to two FBI counter-terrorism offices, but no action is taken. [New York Times, 5/21/02] Vice President Cheney says in May 2002 that he opposes releasing this memo to congressional leaders or to the media and public. [CNN, 5/20/02]

July 24, 2001: Larry Silverstein’s $3.2 billion 99-year lease of the WTC is finalized. Silverstein hopes to win $7 billion in insurance from the destruction of the WTC towers. [NY Times, 02/16/03, Newsday, 09/25/02]

July 26, 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stops flying commercial airlines due to a threat assessment. [CBS, 7/26/01] He later walks out of his office rather than answer questions about this. [AP, 5/16/02, more]

Late July 2001: The US and UN ignore warnings from the Taliban foreign minister that bin Laden is planning an imminent huge attack on US soil. The FBI and CIA also fail to take seriously warnings that Islamic fundamentalists have enrolled in flight schools across the US.[Independent, 9/7/02, more]

Summer 2001: Intelligence officials know that al Qaeda both hopes to use planes as weapons and seeks to strike a violent blow within the US, despite government claims following 9/11 that the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks came “like bolts from the blue.” [Wall Street Journal, 09/19/02, CNN, 9/12/02]

Summer 2001: Russian President Putin later says publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US of suicide pilots training for attacks on US targets. [Fox, 5/17/02]

Late summer 2001: Jordanian intelligence agents go to Washington to warn that a major attack is planned inside the US and that aircraft will be used. Christian Science Monitor calls the story “confidently authenticated” even though Jordan later backs away from it. [CS Monitor, 5/23/02]

Aug 5-11, 2001: Israel warns US of an imminent Al Qaeda attack. [Fox News, 5/17/02]

Aug 6, 2001: President Bush is warned by US intelligence that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. The White House waits eight months after 9/11 to reveal this fact. [New York Times, 5/16/02] Titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” the intelligence briefing specifically mentions the World Trade Center. Yet Bush later states the briefing “said nothing about an attack on America.” [CNN, 4/12/04,Washington Post, 4/12/04, White House, 4/11/04, CNN, 4/10/04,Intelligence Briefing, 8/6/01, more]

Aug 22, 2001: Top counter-terrorism expert John O’Neill quits the FBI due to repeated obstruction of his al-Qaeda investigations and a power play against him. He was the government’s “most committed tracker of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.” The next day he starts a new job as head of security at the WTC. He is killed weeks later in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attack. [New Yorker, 1/14/02]

Aug 24, 2001: Frustrated with lack of response from FBI headquarters about detained suspect Moussaoui, the Minnesota FBI begins working with the CIA. The CIA sends alerts calling him a “suspect 747 airline suicide hijacker.” Three days later an FBI Minnesota supervisor says he is trying to make sure that Moussaoui does not “take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.” [Senate Intelligence Committee, 10/17/02] FBI headquarters chastises Minnesota FBI for notifying the CIA. [Time, 5/21/02] FBI Director Mueller will later say “there was nothing the agency could have done to anticipate and prevent the [9/11] attacks.” [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02, more]

Sept 10, 2001: A particularly urgent warning may have been received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel a trip. “Why that same information was not available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft may become a hot topic on the Hill.” [Newsweek, 9/13/01] “A group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.” [Newsweek, 9/24/01, more]

Sept 10, 2001: Former president Bush is with a brother of Osama bin Laden at a Carlyle business conference. The conference is interrupted the next day by the attacks. [Washington Post, 3/16/03]

Sept 10, 2001: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld announces that by some estimates the Department of Defense “cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.” CBS later calculates that 25% of the yearly defense budget is unaccounted for. A defense analyst says, “The books are cooked routinely year after year.” [DOD, 9/10/01, CBS, 1/29/02] This announcement was buried by the next day’s news of 9/11.

September 11, 2001

Sept 11, 2001: Warren Buffett, the second richest man on Earth [BBC, 6/22/01], schedules a charity event inside Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. A small group of business leaders attend, including at least one who would otherwise have died in the WTC. [SF Business Times, 2/1/02,Forbes 10/15/01] Bush flies to this same base that day, where there is an underground command center. [CNN, 9/12/01, CBS, 9/11/02]

Sept 11, 2001: Recovery experts extract data from 32 WTC computer drives revealing a surge in financial transactions. Illegal transfers of over $100 million may have been made through some WTC computer systems immediately before and during the disaster. [Reuters, 12/18/01, CNN, 12/20/01, more]

Sept 11, 2001: In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, a US intelligence agency (the National Reconnaissance Office or NRO) was all set for an exercise at 9 AM on September 11th in which an aircraft would crash into one of its buildings near Washington, DC. [AP, 8/22/02] Four wargames were also in progress at the time of the attacks. [C-SPAN Congressional Testimony, 3/11/05, more]

Sept 11, 2001: The entire continental United States is defended by only seven air bases and 14 military jets. [CNN, 9/9/03, Newsday, 9/23/01]

Timeline for the Day of the Attacks

Department of Defense (6/1/01) and FAA (7/12/01) procedure: In the event of a hijacking, the FAA hijack coordinator on duty at Washington headquarters requests the military to provide escort aircraft. Normally, NORAD escort aircraft take the required action. The FAA notifies the National Military Command Center by the most expeditious means. [DOD/, 6/1/01, FAA, 7/12/01, FAA 7/12/01]

If NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) hears of any difficulties in the skies, they begin the work to scramble jet fighters [take off and intercept aircraft that are off course]. Between Sep 2000 and June 2001 fighters were scrambled 67 times. [AP, 8/12/02] When the Lear jet of golfer Payne Stewart didn’t respond in 1999, F-16 interceptors were quickly dispatched. According to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to Payne’s stricken Lear about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact with his plane. [Dallas Morning News, 10/26/99, more]

8:20 AM (est.): Air traffic controllers suspect Flight 11 has been hijacked. [NY Times, 9/15/01, more]

8:40 AM: NORAD is notified of hijacking. [NY Times, 10/16/01, 8:38 AM Washington Post, 9/15/01]

8:46 AM: Flight 11 crashes into the WTC (World Trade Center) north tower. [approximately 26 minutes after controllers lost contact][New York Times, 9/12/01]

8:46 AM: President Bush later states, “I was sitting outside the classroom and I saw an airplane hit the tower. The TV was on.” [CNN, 12/4/01] “When we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building.” [White House, 1/5/02] There was no live coverage of the first crash on TV and President Bush was in a classroom reading with children at the time of the second crash. How could he possibly have seen an airplane hit the tower?

8:52 AM: Two F-15s take off from Otis Air Force Base. [Washington Post, 9/15/01] They go after Flight 175. Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, states “the pilots flew like a scalded ape, topping 500 mph but were unable to catch up to the airliner. We had a nine-minute window, and in excess of 100 miles to intercept 175,” he said. ”There was just literally no way.” [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] F-15’s fly at up to 2.5 times the speed of sound [1875 mph or 30+ miles a minute or 270+ miles in nine minutes] and are designed for low-altitude, high-speed, precision attacks. [BBC]

8:56 AM: By this time, it is evident that Flight 77 is lost. The FAA, already in contact with the Pentagon about the two hijackings out of Boston, reportedly doesn’t notify NORAD of this until 9:24, 28 minutes later. [see 9:10 AM for comparison, New York Times, 10/16/01]

9:03 AM: Flight 175 crashes into the south WTC tower. [23 minutes after NORAD notified, 43 minutes after air traffic control lost contact with pilots][New York Times, 9/12/01, CNN, 9/12/01]

9:10 AM: Major General Paul Weaver states Flight 77 came back on the (radar) scope at 9:10 in West Virginia. [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] Another report states the military was notified of Flight 77 several minutes after 9:03. [Washington Post, 9/15/01]

9:24 AM [? – see above]: The FAA, who 28 minutes earlier had discovered Flight 77 off course and heading east over West Virginia, reportedly notifies NORAD. A Pentagon spokesman says, “The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way.” [Newsday, 9/23/01, New York Times, 10/16/01] Yet since the first crash, military officials in a Pentagon command center were urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what to do. [New York Times, 9/15/01]

9:28 AM: Air traffic control learns that Flight 93 has been hijacked. [MSNBC, 7/30/02]

9:38 AM: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. [42 minutes or more after contact was lost, one hour after NORAD notification of first hijacking][New York Times, 10/16/01, 9:43 CNN, 9/12/01]

9:59 AM: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses. [New York Times, 9/12/01]

10:10 AM: Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania. [42 minutes after contact was lost, 90 minutes after NORAD notification of first hijacking. What happened to sophisticated military radar systems and jet fighter scramble procedures?][CNN, 9/12/02]

10:28 AM: The World Trade Center north tower collapses. [CNN, 9/12/01, NY Times, 9/12/01]

5:20 PM: WTC building 7 collapses. [CNN, 9/12/01] Though the media claims fires brought the building down, the building’s owner Larry Silverstein later recounts the story of the collapse of this 47-story skyscraper in a PBS documentary America Rebuilds, “I remember getting a call from the fire department commander. … I said … maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it. And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse.” Over 2,000 architects and engineers later claim that contrary to the U.S. government’s official story, it must have been controlled demolition. [PBS Documentary, 2nd PBS Documentary,more]

Sept 11, 2001: Did the Air Force send up planes after the hijacked aircraft? The Air Force won’t say. It says they keep about 20 F-15 and F-16 fighters on duty with Air National Guards along the nation’s coastline, ready to inspect unknown aircraft entering U.S. airspace. “We can scramble and be airborne in a matter of minutes,” said an Air Force spokesperson. Some airline pilots are wondering whether the FAA did enough to try to prevent the crashes. [Wall Street Journal, 09/14/01]

Sept 11, 2001: Six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners make a tape recording describing the events, but the tape is later destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it. [Washington Post, 5/6/04, New York Times, 5/6/04]

Sept 11, 2001: Hours after the attacks, a “shadow government” is formed. Key congressional leaders say they didn’t know President Bush had established this government-in-waiting. Some Congressmen state the administration should have conferred about its plans. [CBS, 3/2/02,Washington Post, 3/2/02, more]

Sept 11, 2001: A National Public Radio correspondent states: “I spoke with Congressman Ike Skelton who said that just recently the director of the CIA warned that there could be an attack – an imminent attack – on the United States of this nature. So this is not entirely unexpected.” [NPR, 9/11/01]

In the Wake of 9/11

Sept 12, 2001: Senator Orrin Hatch says the US was monitoring bin Laden supporters and overheard them discussing the attack. [AP, 9/12/01] Why has the media not explored the fact that the US could monitor private communications of al-Qaeda on 9/11?

Sept 13-19, 2001: Members of bin Laden’s family are driven or flown under FBI supervision to a secret assembly point in Texas and then to Washington, where they leave the country on a private plane when most flights were still grounded. Top White House officials personally approve these evacuations. [New York Times, 9/4/03, Boston Globe, 9/20/01, New York Times, 9/30/01, more]

Sept 14, 2001: The two black boxes for Flight 77 are found. [PBS, 9/14/01] FBI Director Robert Mueller later says Flight 77’s data recorder provides altitude, speed, headings and other information, but the voice recorder contains “nothing useful.” [CBS, 2/23/02] Yet they refuse to release the recordings.

Sept 15-16, 2001: U.S. military sources give the FBI information that several of the 9/11 hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta (image left), may have received training at U.S. military installations. Three hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. Atta graduated from the US International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The media drops the story after the Air Force issues a statement saying that while the names are similar, “we are probably not talking about the same people.” [Newsweek, 9/15/01,Washington Post, 9/16/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/15/01, more] Yet the military provides no detailed information to refute the claims in these articles.

Sept 19, 2001: The FBI claims that there may have been six hijacking teams on the morning of 9/11. [New York Times, 9/19/01] Authorities have identified teams that total as many as 50 infiltrators who supported or carried out the strikes. About 40 of the men have been accounted for. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/01] Yet only one person, Moussaoui, is later charged.

Sept 20-23, 2001: “Five of the alleged hijackers have emerged, alive, innocent and astonished to see their names and photographs appearing on satellite television. … The hijackers were using stolen identities, and investigators are studying the possibility that the entire suicide squad consisted of impostors.” [quote from London Times, 9/20/01, see alsoBBC]. Yet these same individuals are later officially established as the 9/11 hijackers in the 2004 9/11 Commission Report. For more on this,click here.

Oct 2, 2001: The Patriot Act is introduced in Congress. The next day, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) accuses the Bush administration of reneging on an agreement on this anti-terrorist bill. [Washington Post, 10/4/01] Anthrax letters are sent to Leahy and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) on October 9. [CNN, 11/18/01]

Oct 10-11, 2001: After consulting with the FBI and CDC, Iowa State University in Ames destroys anthrax spores collected over seven decades. On Oct 25, the White House homeland security director confirms publicly the anthrax letters sent to Leahy and others contained the Ames strain. [New York Times, 11/9/01]

Nov 12, 2001–Mar 25, 2002:

13 renowned microbiologists mysteriously die over the span of less than five months. All but one are killed or murdered under unusual circumstances. Some are world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others are the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others are experts in the theory of bioterrorism. [Globe and Mail, 5/4/02]

Nov 12: Benito Que, 52, an expert in infectious diseases–killed in carjacking, later deemed possible stroke. [Globe and Mail, 5/4/02]

Nov. 16: Don Wiley, 57, one of the world’s leading researchers of deadly viruses–body found in Mississippi River. [CNN, 12/22/01]

Nov 21: Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, an expert in adapting germs and viruses for military use–stroke. [New York Times, 11/23/01]

Dec 10: Dr. Robert Schwartz, 57, a leading researcher on DNA sequencing analysis–slain at home. [Washington Post, 12/12/01]

Dec 14: Nguyen Van Set, 44, his research organization had just come to fame for discovering a virus which can be modified to affect smallpox–dies in an airlock in his lab. [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/12/01]

Jan 2002: Ivan Glebov (bandit attack) and Alexi Brushlinski (killed in Moscow), both world-renowned members of the Russian Academy of Science. [Pravda, 2/9/02]

Feb 9: Victor Korshunov, 56, head of the microbiology sub-faculty at the Russian State Medical University–killed by cranial injury. [Pravda, 2/9/02]

Feb 11: Ian Langford, 40, one of Europe’s leading experts on environmental risk–murdered in home. [London Times, 2/13/02]

Feb 28 (2): Tanya Holzmayer, 46, helped create drugs that interfere with replication of the virus that causes AIDS, and Guyang Huang, 38, a brilliant scholar highly regarded in genetics–murder/suicide. [San Jose Mercury News, 2/28/02]

Mar 24: David Wynn-Williams, 55, an astrobiologist with NASA Ames Research Center–killed while jogging. [London Times, 3/27/02]

Mar 25: Steven Mostow, 63, an expert on the threat of bioterrorism–private plane crash. [KUSA TV/NBC, 3/26/02]

December 1, 2001 – August 2006

Hamid Karzai

Dec 2001: The US engineers the rise to power of a former Unocal Oil employee, Hamid Karzai, as the interim president of Afghanistan. Looking at the map of the big US bases in Afghanistan, one is struck that they are identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline. [Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02, more]

Dec 25, 2001: Leading structural engineers and fire-safety experts believe the investigation into the collapse of the WTC is “inadequate.” They note that the current team of 20 or so investigators has inadequate financial and staff support, has been prevented from interviewing witnesses and from examining the disaster site. They couldn’t even get detailed blueprints of the World Trade Center. The decision to rapidly recycle the steel beams from the WTC means definitive answers may never be known. [New York Times, 12/25/01]

Jan 1, 2002: Zalamy Khalilzad is appointed by Bush as special envoy to Afghanistan. [BBC, 1/1/02, Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02] Khalilzad once lobbied for the Taliban and worked for an American oil company that sought concessions for pipelines in Afghanistan. [Independent, 1/10/02]

Jan 4, 2002: An editorial in the respected trade magazine Fire Engineering states that there is good reason to believe that the “official investigation,” blessed by FEMA, into the WTC collapse is a “half-baked farce” that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests are clearly not full disclosure. “Respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating theory has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers.” [Fire Engineering, 1/02]

Jan 24, 2002: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle claims that on this day Cheney calls him and urges that no 9/11 inquiry be made. He is repeatedly pressured thereafter. [CNN, 1/29/02, Newsweek, 2/4/02, more]

Feb 6, 2002: CIA Director Tenet tells a Senate hearing that there was no 9/11 intelligence failure. When asked about the CIA on 9/11, he states that the 9/11 plot was “in the heads of three or four people.” He rejects any suggestion that the CIA failed to do its job. [USA Today, 2/7/02]

Feb 21, 2002: A ban on poppy growing by the Taliban in July 2000 along with severe droughts reduced Afghanistan’s opium yield by 91% in 2001. Yet the UN expects its 2002 opium crop to be equivalent to the bumper one of three years ago. Afghanistan is the source of 75% of the world’s heroin. [Guardian, 2/21/02] Why is the US unable to control opium production which had almost stopped?

Troops in Afghanistan’s Opium Fields

Mar 2, 2002: The 9/11 collapse of the 47-story WTC building 7 was the first time a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise in the US has ever collapsed in a fire. [New York Times, 3/2/02] Building 7 was where the SEC was storing files related to numerous Wall Street investigations. The files for approximately 3,000 to 4,000 cases were destroyed. [National Law Journal, 9/17/01] Lost files include documents that could show the relationship between Citigroup and the WorldCom bankruptcy. [The Street, 8/9/02, more]

Mar 13, 2002: Bush says of bin Laden: “I truly am not that concerned about him.” [White House, 3/13/02] Military chief Myers states: “the goal has never been to get bin Laden.” [CNN/DOD, 4/6/02]

Apr 19, 2002: FBI Director Mueller: “We have not uncovered a single piece of paper that mentioned any aspect of the 9/11 plot. The hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind.” [FBI, 4/19/02, Los Angeles Times, 4/30/02] Yet investigators have amassed a ”substantial” amount of e-mail traffic among the hijackers. [USA Today, 10/1/01] The laptop computer of Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, was confiscated weeks before 9/11, yet FBI headquarters systematically dismissed and undermined requests by Minneapolis FBI agents to search the computer. [Time, 5/21/02, CNN, 5/27/02]

May 15, 2002: For the first time, the White House admits that Bush was warned about bin Laden hijacking aircraft and wanting to attack the US in Aug 2001. It is unclear why they waited eight months to reveal this. The Press Secretary states that while Bush had been warned of possible hijackings, “the president did not receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers.” Yet the August presidential memo left little doubt that the hijacked airliners were intended for use as missiles and that US targets were intended. [New York Times, 5/16/02,Washington Post, 5/16/02, Guardian, 5/19/02]

May 17, 2002: Dan Rather says that he and other journalists haven’t been properly investigating since 9/11. He graphically describes the pressures to conform after the attacks. [Guardian, 5/17/02, more]

May 21, 2002: A memo is released in which Minnesota FBI agent Coleen Rowley writes to FBI Director Mueller, “I have deep concerns that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring.” [Time, 5/21/02] CNN calls the memo a “colossal indictment of our chief law-enforcement agency.” [CNN, 5/27/02] Time magazine later names Rowley one of three “Persons of the Year” for 2002. [Time, 12/22/02]

May 23, 2002: President Bush says he is opposed to establishing a special, independent commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before 9/11. [CBS, 5/23/02]

May 30, 2002: FBI Agent Robert Wright formally accuses the FBI of deliberately curtailing investigations that might have prevented 9/11. He is under threat of retribution if he talks to members of Congress about what he knows. [Fox News/Reuters, 5/30/02, more] He also accuses the agency of shutting down his 1998 criminal probe into alleged terrorist-training camps in Chicago and Kansas City. Wright has written a book, but the agency won’t let him publish it or even give it to anyone. [LA Weekly, 8/2/02]

July 23, 2002: The New York City government decides that many of the audio and written records of the Fire Department’s actions on 9/11 should never be released. The New York Times had filed a lawsuit seeking numerous records concerning the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, including firsthand accounts by scores of firefighters and chiefs. [New York Times, 7/23/02]

Sept 11, 2002: On the first anniversary of 9/11, New York Times writes, “One year later, the public knows less about the circumstances of 2,801 deaths at the foot of Manhattan in broad daylight than people in 1912 knew within weeks about the Titanic.” The former police commissioner of Philadelphia says: “You can hardly point to a cataclysmic event in our history when a blue-ribbon panel did not set out to establish the facts and suggest reforms. That has not happened here.” [New York Times, 9/11/02]

Oct 5, 2002: Congressional investigators say the FBI’s efforts to block their inquiry makes them skeptical of FBI assertions. They also say the Justice Department has joined the FBI in fighting congressional requests for information, while the CIA has been antagonistic. [New York Times, 10/5/02]

Oct 16, 2002: The CIA, FBI, and NSA all testify that no individual at their agencies has been punished or fired for any of the missteps surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks. [Washington Post, 10/18/02]

Oct 21, 2002: No more than six of the 19 hijackers were interviewed by US officials before being granted visas. This contradicts the State Department’s claim that 12 had been interviewed. Of 15 hijackers, none filled in the visa documents properly. All 15 of them should have been denied entry to the country. “The system was rigged in their favor from the get-go.” [Washington Post, 10/22/02, ABC News, 10/23/02] In December 2002, two top Republican senators report that if State Department personnel had merely followed the law in Saudi Arabia, 9/11 would not have happened. [AP, 12/18/02, more]

Oct 27, 2002: A report from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s Defense Science Board recommends the creation of a super-intelligence body (P2OG) which would launch secret operations to “stimulate reactions” among terrorists and states owning weapons of mass destruction. It would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing them to quick-response attacks by US forces. [Los Angeles Times, 10/27/02, more]

Oct 29, 2002: Of over 800 people rounded up since 9/11, only 10 have been linked to the hijackings and probably will turn out to be innocent. [Newsweek, 10/29/02] Though many were held for months, the vast majority were never charged with anything other than overstaying a visa. [New York Times, 7/11/02]

Nov 27, 2002: Bush names Henry Kissinger to lead an independent investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [New York Times, 11/28/02] He is a highly controversial figure. Documents released by the CIA strengthen suspicions that Kissinger was actively involved in a covert plan to assassinate thousands of political opponents in six Latin American countries. He is also famous for his obsession with secrecy. [BBC, 4/26/02] “Indeed, it is tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed.” [New York Times, 11/29/02]

Dec 13, 2002: Kissinger resigns as chairman of the new 9/11 investigation citing controversy over potential conflicts of interest with his business clients. [CNN, 12/13/02, BBC, 12/14/02]

Dec 16, 2002: Bush replaces Kissinger with Thomas Kean as chairman. Kean promises a thorough investigation. [AP, 12/17/02] He will devote one day a week to the commission. [Washington Post, 12/17/02]

Jan 13, 2003: The worldwide turmoil caused by US government policies goes not exactly unreported, but entirely de-emphasized. Guardian writers are inundated by e-mails from Americans asking why their own papers never print what is in UK papers. If there is a Watergate scandal lurking in this administration, it is unlikely to be [Washington Post‘s Bob] Woodward or his colleagues who will tell us about it. If it emerges, it will probably come out on the web. “That is a devastating indictment of the state of American newspapers.” [Guardian, 1/13/03]

March 26, 2003: Though the investigation into the space shuttle Columbia tragedy cost $50 million and the Ken Starr investigation of Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky ran $64 million, the White House balks at increasing funding beyond $3 million for the 9/11 Commission’s investigation into the worst terror attack ever. The latest effort to curtail funding has angered victims of the attacks. “The White House decision was another in a long line of efforts to water down or shrink the panel’s role.” [Time, 3/26/03,MSNBC, 9/20/06]

July 22, 2004: The 9/11 Commission Report is published. It fails to mention that a year before the 9/11 attacks, a secret Pentagon project named Able Danger had identified four 9/11 hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta. The Commission spokesperson initially states members were not informed of this, but later acknowledges they were. [New York Times, 8/11/05, more] The report also completely fails to investigate the collapse of WTC 7.

Nov 19, 2004: The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality. Afghanistan has surpassed Colombia as the world’s biggest gross producer of illicit narcotics, heroin being the “main engine of economic growth” and the “strongest bond” among tribes that previously fought constantly. What we have here now is a narco-economy where 40 to 50 percent of the GDP is from illicit drugs. [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19/04] How does a country controlled by the US become the largest producer of illegal drugs? For a possible answer, click here.

Nov 17, 2005: Former FBI Director Louis Freeh: “The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it ‘was not historically significant.’ This astounding conclusion—in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger … raises serious challenges to the commission’s credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself.” [Wall Street Journal, 11/17/05, more]

2004 – 2005: A growing number of top government officials and public leaders express disbelief in the official story of 9/11. Some even believe 9/11 may have been an inside job. 100 prominent leaders and forty 9/11 family members sign a statement calling for an unbiased inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the attacks to occur. [Various Publications]

August 9, 2006: A shocking new book by the 9/11 Commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton says we still don’t know the whole truth about 9/11. The book outlines repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and the FAA. Untrue–the military’s original timeline of United Flight 93. Equally untrue, the government’s timeline for American Flight 77 and details about fighter jets scrambled to intercept it. CNN News anchor Lou Dobbs: “The fact that the government would permit deception … and perpetuate the lie suggests that we need a full investigation of what is going on.” [CNN, 8/9/06 , MSNBC/AP, 8/4/06, more]

2006-2014:

Over 50 senior government officials from the military, intelligence, Cabinet and Congress, and over 100 highly respected professors, including engineers, physicists, architects, philosophers and theologians publicly criticize The 9/11 Commission Report as flawed, and call for a new, independent investigation. Over 2,000 architects and engineers have created a website calling for a new investigation. Some even claim rogue elements of government were involved in the attacks. [Officials, Professors, Architects and Engineers]

Read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing major media articles on 9/11
Join in powerfully building a better world for all by spreading the word

For a 25-page summary of 9/11 facts timeline, seewww.WantToKnow.info/9-11timeline25pg

For a 60-page summary of 9/11 facts timeline, seewww.WantToKnow.info/9-11timeline60pg
(Our team has verified this entire 10-page 9/11fact timeline, but not the longer summaries)
For a powerful, engaging video revealing lots more:www.WantToKnow.info/911video
For other reliable 9/11 resources and what you can do: 9/11 information center

Supporters of genetically modified or engineered foods want you to believe that the concept is no big deal and that humans have been cross-breeding and “modifying” food for centuries.

In reality, however, GMO seeds and foods created in a lab are far different than the traditional hybrid crop. In fact, the latter has only been in existence for a few decades.

If it weren’t for the intense lobbying of St. Louis-based biotech giant Monsanto, GMOs would likely never have been introduced at all in the United States.

AltHealthWorks reports that in 1986, four executives from Monsanto visited the White House to see then-Vice President George H. W. Bush with the objective of gaining a valuable ally in the most powerful government in the world.

Although President Ronald Reagan still had two years left in his second term, it was already widely believed at that time that Bush the Elder would run for the presidency in 1988.

Betting on a deregulation president

Reagan’s administration was known for many accomplishments: improving the economy, strengthening the military, and dealing decisively with a Soviet Union whose power and influence was waning. However, Reagan was also a deregulator; if there was red tape he could cut in Washington in order to benefit business, industry and the economy in general, he would gladly do it.

Enter Monsanto, a company that wanted to get in on the deregulation bandwagon of the era.

AltHealthWorks reported:

One year later, Bush took the bait and paid a visit to the company’s headquarters for a media event that included personal time with company scientists and reps.

Monsanto’s reps wanted Bush to help them get their dangerously untested GMOs to market, and pleaded with him…to help make it happen.

What Bush said in response gave rise to a culture of blissful ignorance and irresponsibility that allowed Monsanto’s controversial “frankencrops” to spread virtually unopposed ever since.

The company had tens of millions of dollars at stake and a number of regulatory hurdles to overcome as the Department of Agriculture painstakingly went through its regulatory approval process.

In 1987, Monsanto found itself in a difficult position. The company desperately wanted to begin testing their GMO crops in a live environment – a farm in Illinois – but they needed USDA approval in order to move forward.

Initially, Monsanto executives were ready to introduce GMOs slowly. However, the company grew increasingly frustrated by the approval process and instead opted to pursue a more aggressive policy of “eliminating what White House hardliners called ‘bureaucratic hurdles’ like health and environmental safety testing, which were Monsanto’s key problems,” according to narrator and director Marie-Monique Robin in the film, The World According to Monsanto.

In a clip that appears in the film, Bush is seen meeting with Monsanto scientists and reps as cameras from the media flash and reporters scratch notes. One scientist proceeds to explain the basics of how GMO foods are created.

The seven words that changed it all

“…We take DNA, cut it apart, mix different pieces together and then rejoin them, splice them back together,” he says. “This tube contains DNA that was made from a bacterium…”

That leads Bush to respond with a question: “This will lead you have a stronger plant or a plant that will lead you to…?”

“In this case it resists the herbicide,” the Monsanto rep says. Another rep adds, “We have a fabulous herbicide.”

They were talking about Roundup, the glyphosate-containing product whose main ingredient was recently declared a likely human carcinogen by the World Health Organization.

This is followed by seven words that will eventually change the game in favor of Monsanto. The clip shows Bush laughing and saying of Monsanto’s pleas to hasten the regulatory process, “Call me…we’re in the dereg business.” Then he adds, “Maybe we can help.”

With that, the rise of the GMO industry in the U.S. began, and as many have demonstrated, it is growing at the expense of the U.S. consumer.

Towards the end of the clip, Bush’s vice president, Dan Quayle, makes an announcement that describes the real reason that GMOs were fast-tracked in the U.S. even though other countries are banning them.

See the film clip and view Bush’s seven infamous words here.

Sources include:

AltHealthWorks.com

YouTube.com

NaturalNews.com

Black Lives Matter falsely linked with 9-11 anniversary 14 years later

Intelligence agencies and law-enforcement departments made announcements last week saying that the Black Lives Matter movement was under surveillance for possible “terrorist” activity coinciding with the 14th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.

An article published by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on September 14 pointed out that “Conservative American politicians and television pundits have increased their attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement. In the aftermath of the killing of police officers, the movement’s name has been mentioned as a contributing factor.”

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News said he was going to put Black Lives Matter out of business because they were a hate group. The news segment featured a clip of a demonstration in Minnesota where participants chanted slogans that O’Reilly interrupted to his viewing audience as a call to shoot police officers.

However, the Black Lives Matter movement is not a centralized organization. There is an “official website” but many groups and demonstrations utilize the name which has a variety of meaning to different people. Many white activists have also joined Black Lives Matter demonstrations whereas some actions such as a recent national conference in Cleveland were restricted to African Americans.

This attempted criminalization of the youth-directed efforts aimed at seeking justice for victims of police and other forms of racist violence against African Americans is a legitimate and rational response to state terror which appears to be intensifying. The history of the African American people and other oppressed nations in North America and around world confirms the strategies aimed at national liberation by forging tactics which uphold the right to civil disobedience, mass rebellion and self-determination.

Since the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida at the hands of a vigilante George Zimmerman in 2012, the anti-racist movement has grown considerably. A burgeoning sensitivity and intolerance to police violence against African-Americans has swept cities and towns throughout the United States.

When Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013, demonstrations sprang up from New York City to the Bay Area in California. The Black Lives Matter movement began as a hashtag and slogan during this period gaining more credence with the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014.

The response of the people of Ferguson to the killing of Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson was swift and multi-dimensional. A rebellion erupted soon afterwards along with daily and nightly mass demonstrations demanding the arrest and prosecution of Wilson among other issues.

In solidarity with Ferguson, more protests were organized around the U.S. and Canada supported by solidarity actions in Britain. The events in Ferguson and the mass activity taking place nationally further exposed the U.S. as still being a racist state.

Despite the election of an African American president, the structures of racial capitalism served as the major impediment to the realization of justice. Even though the Department of Justice launched an investigation into the killing of Brown and the activities of the local police departments and courts in St. Louis County, prompting a scathing attack on the actions of these entities, no civil rights charges were filed against either Wilson or the key players in law-enforcement, municipal governance and the judicial system.

Linking So-Called “Islamic Extremism” and BLM

There is no connection between the burgeoning struggle against racism and police brutality and the targeted groups said to be responsible for the events of September 11, 2001. This would hold true of other such activities domestically and internationally that are conveniently labeled as “Islamic Extremist”.

These false allegations are taking place while elements within the corporate media are accusing the BLM of fueling unrest and prompting the killing of police officers in several regions of the country. These assertions are being rejected by anti-racist and progressive organizations nationwide.

Even the New York Times, which is a corporate publication, recently wrote an editorial defending BLM from such egregious accusations. These spurious claims are designed nonetheless as a means of creating an atmosphere where anti-racist activities can be criminalized and attacked politically.

The New York Times editorial read in part saying “They are not asserting that black lives are more precious than white lives. They are underlining an indisputable fact – that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered, and have been discounted and devalued.”

A History of Political Repression to Suppress Burgeoning Movements

The development of the U.S. as a political system and state was born in violence against the indigenous Native Americans who were forcefully removed from the land in North America and the enslavement of Africans brought from their continent to work in the sugar, tobacco and cotton fields of the slave masters. Africans were subjected to “legalized” bondage and exploitation between 1619 and 1865.

Even after the Civil War and the ostensible abolition of slavery, the failure of Reconstruction portended much for the future status of African people. Lynching, Jim Crow, forced penal labor, disenfranchisement and social segregation became the order of the U.S. system well into the 1960s.

It would take mass demonstrations, court challenges and urban rebellions to overturn U.S. apartheid which is once again raising its head across the country through the escalation of killings by law-enforcement and the failure of the legal system to hold police officers and racist vigilantes accountable. During the 1960s various African American organizations arose which advocated the taking up of arms to defend the community against the racist violence of the state and economic system.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during its latter years and the outgrowth of the Black Panther Party sent shockwaves through the ruling class. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover spent millions of dollars disrupting and neutralizing African American liberation organizations and fighters.

A similar scenario is developing today however under somewhat different circumstances. During the counter-intelligence operations (cointelpro) against the African American movement from the 1950s through the 1970s, there was a broader mass movement among the youth, workers and farmers which encompassed elements within the education, religious, industrial, agricultural and prison sectors of the population.

Other nationally oppressed groups inspired by the African American struggle developed their own organizations such as the Young Lords (Puerto Rico), Brown Berets (Chicano), the American Indian Movement (Native People), the LGBTQ communities, women, environmental, people with disabilities, students, seniors, etc.  These organizations would form alliances to fight for common objectives such as the struggle for self-determination and full equality.

In 1968, the Peace and Freedom Party formed an alliance with the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense running Eldridge Cleaver, then Minister of Information of the BPP, for president. The following year in July 1969, a National Conference for a United Front Against Fascism was convened in Oakland, California where a coalition against repression was further advanced.

1970 witnessed the May Day actions at Yale University in New Haven where the president of the elite university shutdown the campus saying it was impossible for Black revolutionaries to receive a fair trial in the U.S. BPP leaders Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins were on trial for murder and faced the possibility of being sentenced to the electric chair.

Later in 1970, the Panthers initiated the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention (RPCC) designed to build a broad front of progressive and anti-capitalist forces to transform the racist system.

However, the role of the intelligence forces, local law-enforcement and the corporate press created the conditions for the targeting of the movement for criminalization and disruption. Scores of activist were killed, railroaded into prison, driven into exile and underground.

Such a fate could await the new upsurge in antiracist activism if people do not get organized and build strategic and tactical alliances. The U.S. and world capitalist system is more unstable and fragile than it ever was during the immediate decades of the post-World War II period and therefore a mass movement seeking fundamental change could shake the system at its foundations.

These recent emergent movements such as Immigrant Rights, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter are a reflection of the failure of the world system to provide a stable future for the majority of people within the U.S. and internationally. This decayed system will do whatever it can to retain its capacity to exploit, oppress and repress the majority of people in this country and around the globe.

The Kurdish town of Cizre, a settlement with a population of approximately 150 thousand souls in Southeastern Turkey, is now under siege by the Turkish armed forces and the so-called “special operation force” of the police for a second time, after a previous one-week long siege was lifted for an interlude of two days. Around-the-clock curfew is accompanied by power cuts and the interruption of all means of communication including mobile telephones and the Internet. The evidence that came out when the first round of siege was lifted attests to a terrible human drama.

Over 30 civilians are dead, ranging from a 35-day old infant to a 75-year old man. Before the siege was lifted, government sources claimed that security forces had killed more than a dozen fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish guerrilla army, denying any civilian deaths. How the baby and the old man could have contributed to the fight of the PKK remains a mystery unexplored by government spokespeople after the facts have come to light.

The plight of Cizre is just the latest and most dramatic episode in a war that the Turkish state has been waging against its own citizens in the Kurdish regions of the country since late July. Basing itself on the excuse of the Suruç massacre on 20th July, in which 32 young Turkish leftists holding a press conference to express their solidarity with the people of Kobane, a city that is part of the Kurdish entity of Rojava within the frontiers of Syria, were killed by a suicide attack, in all probability the making of ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Turkish government of the AKP, the party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, started a war… not against ISIL, but against the PKK and the Kurdish people! It is true that the AKP government has made a concession to the U.S. by finally allowing it to use the Incirlik air base in Turkey to attack ISIL and, somewhat later, has also agreed to participate itself in those air raids. This was, however, simply a manoeuvre to consolidate its flank while embarking on a wholesale attack on the Kurdish movement, avoiding tension with the U.S. while engaging in a difficult military enterprise.

Erdogan’s selfie.

Turkey’s War against the PKK, and the Kurdish People

Turkey’s war is not only against the PKK, but the Kurdish people as a whole. It has taken at least three different forms. The first is the military conflict proper between the Turkish armed forces and the PKK. This has so far taken the form of bombardments by the Turkish air force of PKK camps in Northern Iraq, on the territory of the Kurdish Regional Government led by Barzani, a close American and Turkish ally. The PKK has reciprocated by killing Turkish soldiers and police officers by the day. However, the two most spectacular instances of such raids came within forty-eight hours in early September, when the PKK blew up 16 soldiers in the southeast of the country and subsequently 13 police officers in the northeast. The very long geographical distance between the locations of the two incidents, as well as the heavy losses suffered by the Turkish forces, were meant to show the country that the PKK is a formidable force.

The second form the war has taken is the effort on the part of the state to pacify the flashpoints in the cities and towns of Turkish Kurdistan. Since early 2013, a process of negotiations between the government and the PKK, called the “solution process” was going on. However, not all in the Kurdish movement are happy with this process. Abdullah Ocalan, the historic leader of the PKK, held in captivity since 1999, is the architect of the process. Yet there are other actors on the scene. The official ones are the PKK based in Northern Iraq and the HDP, the People’s Democratic Party, an avatar of the parliamentary Kurdish movement that has now joined forces with a host of Turkish socialist parties and movements. Among these three, Ocalan is the most flexible while the PKK projects a more intransigent image. However, there is a fourth actor on the scene, called the YDG-H, which is usually presented as the youth wing of the PKK, but really has lately acted as a quasi-independent force. It stands to the extreme left of the movement and despite swearing unswerving allegiance to Ocalan, is patently critical vis-a-vis the “solution process”. It is they who organise whole neighbourhoods in many Kurdish cities and towns and make these neighbourhoods inaccessible to Turkish security forces by digging ditches and trenches and defending these with arms in hand when needed. The population at large may not agree with their methods, but sides with them against governmental forces during periods of conflagration when push comes to shove.

Hence the attacks on a series of Kurdish towns as part of the ongoing war, towns such as Silopi, Varto, Yuksekova, Silvan, and now, most dramatically, Cizre, the most prominent stronghold of the YDG-H. (These and all other settlements in Turkish Kurdistan have original Kurdish names that were replaced forcibly by Turkish names in republican times, but citing these, important as that may be in the local context, would not mean much to an English-speaking audience.) In contradistinction to the first form that the war has taken, a conflict between two armed forces, this one is a war waged against the civilian population. Since almost the entire population stands with the youth, what seems to be an assault on a militia force is necessarily transformed into a war on the whole people. The author of these lines only weeks ago visited, for purposes of solidarity, Silvan, a town near Diyarbakir, immediately in the aftermath of a similar assault staged by security forces and witnessed with his own eyes the ravage wrought on the whole town as a result.

The third form is the potential threat of veritable civil war involving civilians from both sides. This threat is contained in the continuous harping on the nationalistic, even chauvinistic, emotions that exist within major sections of the Turkish population of the country, not only on the part of forces close to Erdogan and the AKP, but equally by what is known in the West as the “Grey Wolves” of the Nationalist Action Party, the more traditional fascist movement of Turkey, the third biggest party of the Turkish bourgeoisie (the second force being the Republican People’s Party, the party of Kemalist origin that now poses as social democratic). It was the “Grey Wolves” that descended on the streets on the night of 8th September in reaction to the two spectacular PKK attacks referred to above. More than 140 HDP locales were attacked, many set ablaze, ordinary Kurds were hunted on the streets of the cities and towns of the Turkish-dominated western parts of the country, intercity buses stopped and stoned, and Kurdish seasonal workers attacked collectively, their houses and cars burnt down, and they themselves driven away en masse. Now, although the Kurds are a minority in the cities of the west, they are quite a sizeable minority in many of these and, moreover, they are extremely politicised communities with considerable martial skills. If they did not respond in kind, this was out of self-restraint. This means that in future the situation may get out of hand and the war may degenerate into an ethnic civil war that may take extremely bloody forms.

The Dynamics behind the War

In order to stop this war, one needs to identify the dynamics that lies behind its eruption. Unfortunately, the Kurdish movement, long under the influence of the liberal intelligentsia, keeps repeating that what is needed is a return to the status quo ante, i.e. to the “solution process” at the stage where it was left off. This ignores the fact that there are very definite forces at play that have led to this war and these should be countered and defeated before peace or at least a cease-fire can be re-established. These forces are of different kinds, some deriving from the political conjuncture while others are more structural in nature.

The overbearing reason, eclipsing all others in importance, is that which derives from the political interests of Tayyip Erdogan. In an earlier article (“The strategic defeat of Recep Tayyip Erdogan”) published on this web site after the elections of 7th June in Turkey, we pointed out that the pitiful results obtained by Erdogan’s party, the AKP, which lost 10 percentage points of the popular vote, as well as its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002, is simply a registration of the earlier strategic defeat of this politician at the hands of the masses, first in the popular revolt that was triggered by the Gezi Park incident in June 2013 and subsequently during the serhildan (intifada) in October 2014 staged by the Kurdish people in reaction to his callous attitude to the plight of Kobane when it was attacked by ISIL. The election results were a double catastrophe for Erdogan. On the one hand, he needs a two- thirds majority in parliament if he is to amend the constitution so as to convert the Turkish political system into a presidential one, giving him the powers to control the whole political process, powers that he now lacks under the current parliamentary setup in which the office of the president of the republic he now occupies is rather ceremonial in nature. On the other hand, the fact that the AKP has not even been able to hold on to its parliamentary majority may possibly open up the floodgates of investigation into the very serious and well-documented cases of corruption in which not only his ministers but he himself was involved. Most commentators dwell on his ambition regarding the acquisition of the mantle of executive president. We think that it is much more an urgent need of avoiding the opening up of the corruption files by a parliament in which the AKP now finds itself a minority. If the other parties could get their act together and open those files, Erdogan may find himself facing the precipice, with the outcome being his conviction (the legal details need not detain us here).

Since it was the success of the HDP of overcoming the extremely high electoral threshold of 10 per cent that directly led to the failure of the AKP to obtain a parliamentary majority, Erdogan and his cohort have placed their hopes in raising Turkish chauvinism and presenting the HDP not as a messenger of peace, but as a force that supports the “terrorism” of the PKK, thereby causing the party to fall below the critical 10 per cent threshold in early elections, to be held on 1st November. Hence, the war is, first and foremost, a war of survival for Erdogan. There have been imperialist wars in history and anti-colonialist ones. This is the first egoist war ever!

This is what we wrote immediately after the elections on this web site:

The erroneous policy of the left provided a breathing space for Erdogan that gave him the possibility of climbing to the presidency. Now the AKP cannot form a government on its own, but Erdogan will still be holding the reins of power. He will use every inch of the space he has thus conquered to cling on to power and may even resort to war against the Kurds or in the Middle East at large for that purpose. In politics every mistake has a price.

It need not even to be pointed that the prediction contained in that paragraph has unfortunately come true. As for the mistake we were talking about there, this referred to the fact of not having tried to bring down Erdogan when it was possible to do so. Here, the major blame lies with the Kurdish movement. Had they moved in tandem with the popular revolt triggered by Gezi in 2013, Erdogan would almost certainly have fallen from power, so strong is the capacity of the Kurdish movement to organise the masses especially in Diyarbakir. It is sad to note that the suffering of the Kurdish people at the hands of atrocious attacks by Turkish security forces is, at least partially, a product of the errors of the Kurdish movement.

There are, of course, more long-standing and structural factors that push Turkey to wage war on the Kurdish movement. One has already been touched upon. The radical wing of the Kurdish movement, embodied most visibly in the youth movement, is against the “solution process” unless Ocalan has been previously released from prison. (A striking slogan that the youth displayed during a mammoth demonstration in 2013 read: “A peace with the serok(Ocalan’s title in the movement) captive is muddle-headed”.) The youth have many supporters, albeit less fiery than they themselves, and almost the whole population tends toward that kind of intransigent position when things get rough, as they frequently do. The serhildan of October 2014 scared the ruling circles immensely and posed on the agenda the liquidation of these pockets of (armed) urban resistance, which, as opposed to the rural guerrilla, would pose an immediate threat in case a new serhildan erupted. So the present war may also be considered as an attempt on the part of the Turkish state to do away with these pockets of resistance.

The other major factor that leads to friction between the state and the PKK is, by the sheer objective fact of its existence, Rojava, the autonomous Kurdish entity south of the Turkish-Syrian border. Kurdish autonomy or, a fortiori, independence in other parts of Kurdistan, i.e. in Iraq, Iran or Syria, has always loomed as a threat to the Turkish ruling classes, if only because it could act as an example to Turkey’s Kurds. Within the first 15 years of the 21st century, first Iraqi Kurdistan, then Syrian Kurdistan have attained autonomy. At first deeply disturbed by the creation of Iraqi Kurdistan under Barzani as an autonomous region, Turkey finally came to terms with it and is now becoming the dominant power both economically and politically over the Kurdish Regional Government. The Turkish bourgeoisie is filled with expectations of benefits to flow from the oil of the Kirkouk region. Rojava, though, is a different matter. Barzani is a staunch ally, even a protégé, of the U.S. and lately of Turkey itself. Rojava has been set up under a leadership organically linked to the PKK! The AKP government has always made it clear that Turkey will not come to terms with a PKK-dominated political entity to its south. So Rojava has been, all throughout its three-year period of existence, a thorn on the side of the “solution process”.

Whither Turkey, Whither the Kurdish Question?

The last point about Rojava suggests that the future of the Kurdish question of Turkey and, indeed, of Turkey itself is intimately tied up with prospects for Syria. As most readers will be aware, Erdogan and his AKP are major actors in the ordeal that Syria has been going through since 2011. Erdogan, alongside Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has fanned the flames of hatred and war in Syria between the Sunni and the Alevi (the Alevi being a minority denomination in Islam, closer to the Shia than the Sunni.) This is part of a larger design, whereby Erdogan strives to assume the leadership of the Sunni masses of the Middle East and return to Turkey the glory of its Ottoman past. That is one reason why the AKP government supported ISIL until very recently and continues to support other Islamist groups fighting against the Assad regime.

The situation born of the deal between the U.S. and Turkey in late July, whereby Turkey opened the Incirlik base to U.S. air raids on ISIL in return for American license for its attacks on the PKK, bears a dialectical contradiction that may in time suck Turkey into a ground war in Syria. In its fight against ISIL, the U.S. relies, among others, on the armed forces of Rojava as ground troops. Turkey’s efforts, on the other hand, aim to keep these same forces of Rojava out of certain regions south of the Turkish-Syrian border, regions where Turkey wishes to establish so-called “secure zones”. However, the U.S. needs the forces of Rojava to fight ISIL on the ground. It seems the only way Turkey can talk the U.S. out of collaborating with Rojava militarily is to send ground troops itself to establish what it would consider secure zones.

This prospect deriving from the contradictions of the military alliance between the U.S. and Turkey is complemented by the infernal logic of Erdogan’s quest for survival: should the AKP fail to obtain a majority in parliament in the near future, Erdogan needs to suspend the normal functioning of the system, which would best be done by resorting to an extension of the war to Syria or even the Middle East at large. It is only the first half of our prediction that has materialised for the moment (“Erdogan” we were saying in the passage quoted above, “may even resort to war against the Kurds or in the Middle East at large for that purpose”). It would not be surprising to see the second half come true as well.

There are, of course, certain counteracting tendencies that may come to play their part. One is the possibility that one of the major actors, Ocalan, silent so far since the elections and the eruption of the war, speaks out to create a kind of thaw. The coming Eid al-Adha, the great religious festival of the Islamic world, may be an opportune moment for him to open a new chapter in the “solution process”. It should not be forgotten that despite the ferocity of the war, neither the AKP, nor Erdogan, nor yet the Kurdish side has totally thrown out the possibility of a new beginning. Erdogan himself has explicitly said that the “solution process” is in the deep freezer (and not dead, as the unfolding war may lead one to think). It is obvious that as soon as he finds himself on safer ground, he may willingly go back to the status quo ante. This would be the reactionary exit from the present impasse. Erdogan is a malediction for Turkey and the Middle East and the longer he remains at the helm of this country, the more trouble will be brewing for the peoples of the region.

The progressive exit would of course require the defeat of Erdogan, hopefully leading to his ouster from office and conviction for his crimes. The conditions for this are gathering. Already the succession of mass struggles in Turkey in the recent period, the Gezi popular revolt (2013), the Kobani serhildan (2014), and the metalworkers’ strike (2015), following upon each other’s heels within the space of a mere two years, demonstrates that this is a society full of social groups ready to vent their anger. On top of this, Erdogan has lost credibility, as we have been emphasizing since 2013, in the eyes of his erstwhile allies, the U.S. and the European Union, as well as the liberals of Turkey, the Gulen fraternity, and many sections of the capitalist class. Now he is losing more and more the support of large sections of his party. Former president of the republic Abdullah Gul, another founding leader of the AKP, is waiting in the wings to take over the party at the right moment. The party convention that is gathering these days will not yet bring to the surface the deep fractures that run through the AKP, but contradictions are maturing there as well.

If the positive outcome holds, it will of course make a great difference whether it is the bourgeois opposition headed by Gul and the two bourgeois parties, social democratic and fascist, or even the army, that removes Erdogan or whether it is the masses that do the job, headed hopefully by the working class, which now seems back in action after a long slumber. It is our hope and aim to make this latter solution prevail. •

Sungur Savran is based in Istanbul and is one of the editors of the newspaper Gercek (Truth) and the theoretical journal Devrimci Marksizm (Revolutionary Marxism), both published in Turkish, and of the web site RedMed.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) outlines the agreement between Iran and the countries of 5+1.  The 5+1 is dominated by the United States and its European allies (Britain, France, and Germany), which are Iran’s main adversaries.  As JCPOA is being reviewed for approval or rejection by the United States House and Senate, we the undersigned state and demand the following:  

Considering that sanctions were aimed to break the resistance of the Iranian people and bring regime change in Iran, the nuclear agreement that suspends and eventually lifts certain sanctions on Iran signals the defeat of sanction policy.  This in itself is an achievement for Iran, even with the sanctions lifted conditionally.  Such an achievement has been made possible thanks to the heroic resistance of the Iranian people.

In addition, there is another aspect in the agreement that should not be overlooked.  This aspect is contradictory to Iran’s gain; it concerns Iran’s formal acceptance through the agreement to give up certain legitimate rights to acquire and develop nuclear technology.  This means that there is a fundamental difference in the nature of concessions given and taken by the contending parties.  Iran is supposed to officially forgo certain legitimate rights; its adversaries make unreliable promises to recognize partially and conditionally the other rights of Iran that have been long denied by the same adversaries.  In other words, it is all about Iran’s rights, which were denied earlier. These same adversaries promise to recognize some of Iran’s rights now while the rejection of Iran’s other rights are being legitimized through the nuclear deal.

The rights that Iran shall forgo include its accepting restrictions on almost every aspect of the country’s nuclear technology program for long periods of 10 to 25 years and more.  Such restrictions which have been imposed on Iran through threats of war and coercive diplomacy would not only reduce the current capability of Iran to nationally enrich its own uranium supplies but would also prevent Iran from developing peaceful industrial nuclear technology. According to the rules and regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there is no legal basis for the restrictions that have been imposed on Iran through the JCPOA, and therefore they are totally illegitimate.

The agreement also entitles the inspectors of the IAEA – an organization highly influenced by the United States – to collect “information” that will essentially involve spying activities under the guise of extensive inspections.  This will not only take place in Iran’s nuclear sites but also in any site in the country, including the military bases that the US government and its allies may consider as places of “suspicious” activities.  Considering the previous experience of the IAEA inspections in Iraq which were used as a preparatory step to launch a war on Iraq and also considering the earlier dubious activities of such inspections in Iran itself prior to the killing a number of Iranian nuclear scientists, the right of excessive inspections granted to the IAEA through the nuclear deal is highly risky for Iran and would even endanger Iran’s sovereignty.

As warned by many activists of the resistance movement, both in Iran and abroad, the United States government intends to utilize the nuclear agreement as another tool to destabilize and suppress the Iranian Revolution. Such a drive is already manifested in the text of the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2231.  The resolution, which was passed right after the nuclear agreement, while adopting the same agreement, bans Iran from using and developing certain kind of conventional missiles.  Iran, as a country that is constantly threatened with military attack by the United States, an aggressive country which has previously killed thousands of innocent people by using the atomic bombs and which currently possesses hundreds of nuclear missiles, is being told that it has to limit its rights to self-defense. The US dares to dictate which weapons could and which could not be used by the country that it is targeting!

Although it is the legitimate right of Iran, as a sovereign nation, to reach agreements on issues of its interests with any country, including those governed by its adversaries, we, the undersigned who are committed to fight for peace and justice cannot keep silent about pressures by the US and its allies against Iran to force the government and people of that peaceful nation to forgo its legitimate rights.  That is why we say:

No to Illegitimate Restrictions on Iran!

We demand:

Lift All Sanctions on Iran Now, Unconditionally!

Initial Signers 

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, former President of the United Nations General Assembly, former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua,

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General and internationally renowned human rights lawyer,

Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary-General and former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq,

Hans von Sponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary General and former UN humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq,

Mike Gravel, former US Senator (Democrat),

Giulietto Chiesa, former Member of the European Parliament for Italy and journalist,

Michel Chossudovsky, economist, author, professor, and recipient of the Human Rights Prize of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity,

James Petras, sociologist, author, professor, and recipient of the Career of Distinguished Service Award from the American Sociological Association,

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate,

Sara Flounders, Co-Director of the International Action Center -IAC,

Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist and founder of Camp Casey,

Ismael Hossein-zadeh, economist, author, and professor,

Art Olivier, former mayor of Bellflower, California,

Matthew P. Hoh, former US Foreign Service Officer and US Department of State Senior Civilian Representative to Afghanistan,

Farid Esack, author, professor and former Gender Equality Commissionaire of South Africa,

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, sociologist, author, and geopolitical analyst,

Stephen Lendman, author and Progressive Radio Network host,

Paul Larudee, founder of the Free Gaza Movement and the Free Palestine Movement,

Denis Rancourt, physicists, former professor of physics, and author,

Nchamah Miller, political scientist and philosopher,

Ellie Omani, Co-Founder American Iranian Friendship Committee

Amir Tafreshi, Director of House of Latin America (HOLA),

Philip Giraldi, former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of CIA, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,

Abdolhamid Shahrabi, Co-founder and Coordinator of SI – Solidarity Iran,

David Swanson, anti-war activist and author,

Michel Collon, author, journalist, and historian,

Eric Walberg, economist, journalist, and author,

Manuel Ochsenreiter, author and journalist,

Pepe Escobar, Asia Times columnist,

Silvia Cattori, journalist,

Joe Lombardo, Co-Coordinator of United National Antiwar Movement,

This article was first published on October 9, 2001, two days after the onslaught of the US-NATO war on Afghanistan (October 7, 2001).

“Now the Taliban will pay a price” vowed President George W. Bush, as American and British fighter planes unleashed missile attacks against major cities in Afghanistan. The US Administration claims that Osama bin Laden is behind the tragic events of the 11th of September.

A major war supposedly “against international terrorism” has been launched, yet the evidence amply confirms that agencies of the US government have since the Cold War harbored the “Islamic Militant Network” as part of Washington’s foreign policy agenda. In a bitter irony, the US Air Force is targeting the training camps in Afghanistan established in the 1980s by the CIA.

The main justification for waging this war on Afghanistan has been totally fabricated. The American people have been deliberately and consciously misled by their government into supporting a major military adventure which affects our collective future.

Confronted with mounting evidence, the US Administration can no longer deny its links to Osama. While the CIA admits that Osama bin Laden was an “intelligence asset” during the Cold War, the relationship is said to “go way back”. Most news reports consider that these Osama-CIA links belong to the “bygone era” of the Soviet-Afghan war. They are invariably viewed as “irrelevant” to an understanding of present events. Lost in the barrage of recent history, the role of the CIA in supporting and developing international terrorist organisations during the Cold war and its aftermath is casually ignored or downplayed by the Western media.

Yes, We did support Him, but “He Went Against Us”

A blatant example of media distortion is the so-called “blowback” thesis: “intelligence assets” are said to “have gone against their sponsors”; “what we’ve created blows back in our face.”1 In a twisted logic, the US government and the CIA are portrayed as the ill-fated victims:

The sophisticated methods taught to the Mujahideen, and the thousands of tons of arms supplied to them by the US – and Britain – are now tormenting the West in the phenomenon known as `blowback’, whereby a policy strategy rebounds on its own devisers. 2

The US media, nonetheless, concedes that “the Taliban’s coming to power [in 1995] is partly the outcome of the U.S. support of the Mujahideen, the radical Islamic group, in the 1980s in the war against the Soviet Union”.3 But it also readily dismisses its own factual statements and concludes in chorus, that the CIA had been tricked by a deceitful Osama. It’s like “a son going against his father”.

The “blowback” thesis is a fabrication. The evidence amply confirms that the CIA never severed its ties to the “Islamic Militant Network”. Since the end of the Cold War, these covert intelligence links have not only been maintained, they have in become increasingly sophisticated.

New undercover initiatives financed by the Golden Crescent drug trade were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus (controlled by the CIA) essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.” 4

Replicating the Iran Contragate Pattern

Remember Ollie North and the Nicaraguan Contras under the Reagan Administration when weapons financed by the drug trade were channeled to “freedom fighters” in Washington’s covert war against the Sandinista government. The same pattern was used in the Balkans to arm and equip the Mujahideen fighting in the ranks of the Bosnian Muslim army against the Armed Forces of the Yugoslav Federation.

Throughout the 1990s, the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was used by the CIA as a go-between — to channel weapons and Mujahideen mercenaries to the Bosnian Muslim Army in the civil war in Yugoslavia. According to a report of the London based International Media Corporation:

Reliable sources report that the United States is now [1994] actively participating in the arming and training of the Muslim forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina in direct contravention of the United Nations accords. US agencies have been providing weapons made in … China (PRC), North Korea (DPRK) and Iran. The sources indicated that … Iran, with the knowledge and agreement of the US Government, supplied the Bosnian forces with a large number of multiple rocket launchers and a large quantity of ammunition. These included 107mm and 122mm rockets from the PRC, and VBR-230 multiple rocket launchers … made in Iran. … It was [also] reported that 400 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) arrived in Bosnia with a large supply of arms and ammunition. It was alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had full knowledge of the operation and that the CIA believed that some of the 400 had been detached for future terrorist operations in Western Europe.

During September and October [1994], there has been a stream of “Afghan” Mujahedin … covertly landed in Ploce, Croatia (South-West of Mostar) from where they have traveled with false papers … before deploying with the Bosnian Muslim forces in the Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka areas. These forces have recently [late 1994] experienced a significant degree of military success. They have, according to sources in Sarajevo, been aided by the UNPROFOR Bangladesh battalion, which took over from a French battalion early in September [1994].

The Mujahedin landing at Ploce are reported to have been accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment, … The sources said that the mission of the US troops was to establish a command, control, communications and intelligence network to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives — in concert with Mujahideen and Bosnian Croat forces — in Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka. Some offensives have recently been conducted from within the UN-established safe-havens in the Zenica and Banja Luka regions.

(…)

The US Administration has not restricted its involvement to the clandestine contravention of the UN arms embargo on the region … It [also] committed three high-ranking delegations over the past two years [prior to 1994] in failed attempts to bring the Yugoslav Government into line with US policy. Yugoslavia is the only state in the region to have failed to acquiesce to US pressure.5

“From the Horse’s Mouth”

Ironically, the US Administration’s undercover military-intelligence operations in Bosnia have been fully documented by the Republican Party. A lengthy Congressional report by the Republican Party Committee (RPC) published in 1997, largely confirms the International Media Corporation report quoted above. The RPC Congressional report accuses the Clinton administration of having “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world:

Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia – is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.

(…)

Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations. For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented. The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials… the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization … has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. … TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [Washington Post, 9/22/96] 6

Complicity of the Clinton Administration

In other words, the Republican Party Committee report confirms unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic fundamentalist organisations including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

The Republicans wanted at the time to undermine the Clinton Administration. However, at a time when the entire country had its eyes riveted on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Republicans no doubt chose not to trigger an untimely “Iran-Bosniagate” affair, which might have unduly diverted public attention away from the Lewinsky scandal. The Republicans wanted to impeach Bill Clinton “for having lied to the American People” regarding his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the more substantive “foreign policy lies” regarding drug running and covert operations in the Balkans, Democrats and Republicans agreed in unison, no doubt pressured by the Pentagon and the CIA not to “spill the beans”.

From Bosnia to Kosovo

The “Bosnian pattern” described in the 1997 Congressional RPC report was replicated in Kosovo. With the complicity of NATO and the US State Department. Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort.

Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with “former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain’s 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies”.7

The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a training programme for the KLA, said a senior British military source. `MI6 then sub-contracted the operation to two British security companies, who in turn approached a number of former members of the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons and equipment needed by the KLA.’ While these covert operations were continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly from the unit’s D Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing campaign in March. 8

While British SAS Special Forces in bases in Northern Albania were training the KLA, military instructors from Turkey and Afghanistan financed by the “Islamic jihad” were collaborating in training the KLA in guerilla and diversion tactics.9:

Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later proved to be extreme fundamentalists. 10

Congressional Testimonies on KLA-Osama links

According to Frank Ciluffo of the Globalized Organised Crime Program, in a testimony presented to the House of Representatives Judicial Committee:

What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the “Balkan Route” that links the “Golden Crescent” of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe. 11

According to Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence division also in a testimony to the House Judicial Committee:

The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden” . Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict. 12

Madeleine Albright Covets the KLA

These KLA links to international terrorism and organised crime documented by the US Congress were totally ignored by the Clinton Administration. In fact, in the months preceding the bombing of Yugoslavia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was busy building a “political legitimacy” for the KLA. The paramilitary army had –from one day to the next– been elevated to the status of a bona fide “democratic” force in Kosovo. In turn, Madeleine Albright has forced the pace of international diplomacy: the KLA had been spearheaded into playing a central role in the failed “peace negotiations” at Rambouiillet in early 1999.

Albright and KLA leader Hashim Thaci

The Senate and the House tacitly endorse State Terrorism

While the various Congressional reports confirmed that the US government had been working hand in glove with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, this did not prevent the Clinton and later the Bush Administration from arming and equipping the KLA. The Congressional documents also confirm that members of the Senate and the House knew the relationship of the Administration to international terrorism. To quote the statement of Rep. John Kasich of the House Armed Services Committee: “We connected ourselves [in 1998-99] with the KLA, which was the staging point for bin Laden…” 13

In the wake of the tragic events of September 11, Republicans and Democrats in unison have given their full support to the President to “wage war on Osama”.

In 1999, Senator Jo Lieberman had stated authoritatively that “Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” In the hours following the October 7 missile attacks on Afghanistan, the same Jo Lieberman called for punitive air strikes against Iraq: “We’re in a war against terrorism… We can’t stop with bin Laden and the Taliban.” Yet Senator Jo Lieberman, as member of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate had access to all the Congressional documents pertaining to “KLA-Osama” links. In making this statement, he was fully aware that that agencies of the US government as well as NATO were supporting international terrorism.

The War in Macedonia

In the wake of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, the terrorist activities of the KLA were extended into Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Meanwhile, the KLA –renamed the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC)– was elevated to United Nations status, implying the granting of “legitimate” sources of funding through United Nations as well as through bilateral channels, including direct US military aid.

And barely two months after the official inauguration of the KPC under UN auspices (September 1999), KPC-KLA commanders – using UN resources and equipment – were already preparing the assaults into Macedonia, as a logical follow-up to their terrorist activities in Kosovo. According to the Skopje daily Dnevnik, the KPC had established a “sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia:

Sources, who insist on anonymity, claim that the headquarters of the Kosovo protection brigades [i.e. linked to the UN sponsored KPC] have [March 2000] already been formed in Tetovo, Gostivar and Skopje. They are being prepared in Debar and Struga [on the border with Albania] as well, and their members have defined codes. 14

According to the BBC, “Western special forces were still training the guerrillas” meaning that they were assisting the KLA in opening up “a sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia. 15

“The Islamic Militant Network” and NATO join hands in Macedonia

Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting in Macedonia (October 2001) in the ranks of self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), are Mujahideen from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Also within the KLA’s proxy force in Macedonia are senior US military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as well as “soldiers of fortune” from Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army. 16

Extensively documented by the Macedonian press and statements of the Macedonian authorities, the US government and the “Islamic Militant Network” are working hand in glove in supporting and financing the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia. The NLA is a proxy of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In turn the KLA and the UN sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) are identical institutions with the same commanders and military personnel. KPC Commanders on UN salaries are fighting in the NLA together with the Mujahideen.

In a bitter twist, while supported and financed by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, the KLA-NLA is also supported by NATO and the United Nations mission to Kosovo (UNMIK). In fact, the “Islamic Militant Network” –also using Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) as the CIA’s go-between– still constitutes an integral part of Washington’s covert military-intelligence operations in Macedonia and Southern Serbia.

The KLA-NLA terrorists are funded from US military aid, the United Nations peace-keeping budget as well as by several Islamic organisations including Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Drug money is also being used to finance the terrorists with the complicity of the US government. The recruitment of Mujahideen to fight in the ranks of the NLA in Macedonia is implemented through various Islamic groups.

US military advisers mingle with Mujahideen within the same paramilitary force, Western mercenaries from NATO countries fight alongside Mujahideen recruited in the Middle East and Central Asia. And the US media calls this a “blowback” where so-called “intelligence assets” have gone against their sponsors!

But this did not happen during the Cold war! It is happening right now in Macedonia. And it is confirmed by numerous press reports, eyewitness accounts, photographic evidence as well as official statements by the Macedonian Prime Minister, who has accused the Western military alliance of supporting the terrorists. Moreover, the official Macedonian New Agency (MIA) has pointed to the complicity between Washington’s envoy Ambassador James Pardew and the NLA terrorists. 17 In other words, the so-called “intelligence assets” are still serving the interests of their US sponsors.

Pardew’s background is revealing in this regard. He started his Balkans career in 1993 as a senior intelligence officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for channeling US aid to the Bosnian Muslim Army. Coronel Pardew had been put in charge of arranging the “air-drops” of supplies to Bosnian forces. At the time, these “air drops” were tagged as “civilian aid”. It later transpired –confirmed by the RPC Congressional report– that the US had violated the arms embargo. And James Pardew played an important role as part of the team of intelligence officials working closely with the Chairman of the National Security Council Anthony Lake.

Pardew was later involved in the Dayton negotiations (1995) on behalf of the US Defence Department. In 1999, prior to the bombing of Yugoslavia, he was appointed “Special Representative for Military Stabilisation and Kosovo Implementation” by President Clinton. One of his tasks was to channel support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which at the time was also being supported by Osama bin Laden. Pardew was in this regard instrumental in replicating the “Bosnian pattern” in Kosovo and subsequently in Macedonia…

Justification for Waging War

The Bush Administration has stated that it has proof that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. In the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair: “I have seen absolutely powerful and incontrovertible evidence of his [Osama] link to the events of the 11th of September.” 18 What Tony Blair fails to mention is that agencies of the US government including the CIA continue to “harbor” Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

A major war supposedly “against international terrorism” has been launched by a government which is harboring international terrorism as part of its foreign policy agenda. In other words, the main justification for waging war has been totally fabricated. The American people have been deliberately and consciously misled by their government into supporting a major military adventure which affects our collective future.

This decision to mislead the American people was taken barely a few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Without supporting evidence, Osama had already been tagged as the “prime suspect.” Two days later on Thursday the 13th of September –while the FBI investigations had barely commenced– President Bush pledged to “lead the world to victory”. The Administration confirmed its intention to embark on “a sustained military campaign rather than a single dramatic action” directed against Osama bin Laden. 19 In addition to Afghanistan, a number of countries in the Middle East were mentioned as possible targets including Iraq, Iran, Libya and the Sudan. And several prominent US political figures and media pundits have demanded that the air strikes be extended to other countries “which harbour international terrorism.” According to intelligence sources, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda has operations in some 50 to 60 countries providing ample pretext to intervene in several “rogue states” in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Moreover, the entire US Legislature –with only one honest and courageous dissenting voice in the House of Representatives– has tacitly endorsed the Administration’s decision to go war. Members of the House and the Senate have access through the various committees to official confidential reports and intelligence documents which prove beyond doubt that agencies of the US government have ties to international terrorism. They cannot say “we did not know”. In fact, most of this evidence is in the public domain.

Under the historical resolution of the US Congress adopted by both the House and the Senate on the 14th of September:

The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Whereas there is no evidence that agencies of the US government “aided the terrorist attacks” on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, there is ample and detailed evidence that agencies of the US government as well as NATO, have since the end of the Cold War continued to “harbor such organizations”.

Patriotism cannot be based on a falsehood, particularly when it constitutes a pretext for waging war and killing innocent civilians.

Ironically, the text of the Congressional resolution also constitutes a “blowback” against the US sponsors of international terrorism. The resolution does not exclude the conduct of an “Osamagate” inquiry, as well as appropriate actions against agencies and/or individuals of the US government, who may have collaborated with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. And the evidence indelibly points directly to the Bush Administration.

Notes

1. United Press International (UPI), 15 September 2001.
2. The Guardian, London, 15 September 2001.
3. UPI, op cit,
4. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, Centre for Research on Globalisation, 12 September 2001, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html.
5. International Media Corporation Defense and Strategy Policy, US Commits Forces, Weapons to Bosnia, London, 31 October 1994.
6. Congressional Press Release, Republican Party Committee (RPC), US Congress, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, 16 January 1997, available on the website of the Centre of Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html. The original document is on the website of the US Senate Republican Party Committee (Senator Larry Craig), at http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm)
7. The Scotsman, Glasgow, 29 August 1999.
8. Ibid.
9. Truth in Media, Kosovo in Crisis, Phoenix, Arizona, 2 April 1999
10. Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998.
11. US Congress, Testimony of Frank J. Cilluffo , Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime, Program director to the House Judiciary Committee, 13 December 2000.
12. US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000.
13. US Congress, Transcripts of the House Armed Services Committee, 5 October 1999,
14. Macedonian Information Centre Newsletter, Skopje, 21 March 2000, published by BBC Summary of World Broadcast, 24 March 2000.
15. BBC, 29 January 2001, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1142000/1142478.stm)
16. Scotland on Sunday, Glasgow, 15 June 2001 at http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/text_only.cfm?id=SS01025960, see also UPI, 9 July 2001. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Washington behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia, Centre for Research on Globalisation, August 2001, at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO108B.html.)
17. Macedonian Information Agency (MIA), 26 September 2001, available at the Centre for Research on Globalisation at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MNA110A.html
18. Quoted in The Daily Telegraph, London, 1 October 2001.
19. Statement by official following the speech by President George Bush on 14 September 2001 quoted in the International Herald Tribune, Paris, 14 September 2001.

Israeli desecration of Islam’s third holiest site continued for a second day. Soldiers and police attacked Al Aqsa Mosque worshippers, terrorizing them – on the phony pretext of conducting a security operation, to let Zionist zealots enter where they don’t belong.

A longstanding agreement with the Islamic trust in charge of Al-Aqsa permits Jewish prayer only at the neighboring Western Wall, the Second Temple’s last remnant.

Israeli authorities systematically breach all agreements it makes. Heavily protected extremist settlers are escorted into Al-Aqsa’s compound regularly, ignoring Palestinian and overall Arab street anger.

Clashes, injuries and arrests follow every time. Al-Aqsa director Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani accused Israel of “impos(ing) sovereignty over it by the power of (brute) force.”

It decides who enters or leaves Islam’s third holiest site. Anyone challenging its authority is brutalized, including Islamic Endowment personnel in charge of administering and maintaining the compound.

Two days of clashes left scores of Palestinians injured, including 11 journalists covering the incident, nearly two dozen requiring hospitalization.

A Palestinian Journalists Syndicate statement denounced Israeli brutality, saying soldiers and police stormed Al-Aqsa, deliberately assaulting Palestinian worshipers and journalists.

Netanyahu issued a duplicitous statement, saying Israel will “maintain (Al-Aqsa compound) status quo and order. It is our responsibility and our power to act against rioters to allow freedom of worship at this holy place” – excluding Muslims when extremist Jews wish to enter where they don’t belong.

Zionist zealots want a new Jewish temple replacing Al-Aqsa. A Knesset measure proposed dividing the compound into Jewish and Islamic sectors. Muslims worldwide denounce both schemes.

Palestinians justifiably resist Israeli ruthlessness. Outrage is palpable. Children and youths throw stones – a symbolic act of resistance.

On Monday, Netanyahu said he’ll hold an emergency Tuesday evening meeting to discuss “the war on stone throwing and fire bombs in Jerusalem and its vicinity” – ignoring why Palestinian rage erupts, responding to longstanding Israeli state terror.

He “intends to fight the phenomenon with all means, including harsher penalties and enforcement,” his office said.

Israel calls legitimate Palestinian resistance and self-defense “terrorism,” including symbolic stone-throwing. Knesset legislation already mandates up to 10-year sentences for defendants not accused of intending to cause harm – otherwise, up to 20 years imprisonment.

Up to five years for anyone ‘interfer(ing) with the policeman’s performance of his duties or to prevent him from performing them.” How much stiffening of these draconian measures Netanyahu and his racist ministers have in mind remains to be seen.

On Monday, an Israeli driver died in a Jerusalem car crash. Two passengers were injured. Netanyahu is using the incident to enforce greater harshness than already on longtime persecuted Palestinians – citing a police report suggesting stone-throwing caused him to swerve, with no verifiable evidence proving it.

On average, Israel experiences near daily car accident fatalities. Blaming Palestinians for Sunday’s incident gives Netanyahu a convenient excuse to further brutalize millions of defenseless people.

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 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

The bankruptcy of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers seven years ago today signalled a breakdown of the global capitalist economy and financial system that continues to deepen.

Within hours of Lehman’s demise, it became clear this was not simply the failure of an individual bank, but the expression of a crisis engulfing the entire US and global financial system. At that point, US financial authorities stepped in to bail out American International Group (AIG), a transnational insurance giant that threatened to go under and take the entire American and world financial system with it.

This was the start of a process that has since seen central banks around the world continually increase the supply of ultra-cheap money—the US Federal Reserve alone has pumped out more than $4 trillion—to finance the speculation and parasitism of the banks and finance houses. These measures have done nothing to alleviate the crisis. On the contrary, they have created the conditions for another disaster.

This is evidenced by the recent violent fluctuations on financial and currency markets, including the fall of the Chinese stock market and collapse of some emerging market currencies in South East Asia to their lowest point since the Asian crisis of 1997–98.

Issuing the latest quarterly review of the Bank for International Settlements at the weekend, the bank’s chief economist, Claudio Borio, noted that “debt levels are too high, productivity growth too weak and financial risks too threatening.” Referring to the most recent market turbulence, he warned: “We are not seeing isolated tremors, but the release of pressure that has gradually accumulated over years along major fault lines.”

Not only have none of the underlying contradictions that led to the crisis of 2008 been overcome, the very measures adopted over the past seven years have intensified them.

Parasitism—the accumulation of wealth through financial market speculation completely unrelated to productive activity, and, indeed, inimical to it—has grown to unprecedented heights, while the real economy has stagnated.

Economic output in Europe, one of the central components of the global economy, has still not returned to the levels it attained in 2007. And, as the International Monetary Fund and other major economic bodies have pointed out, investment levels in the major capitalist countries—the key driver of the real economy—are at least 25 percent below pre-crisis levels, with no prospect of revival.

At the same time, Chinese economic growth is falling while so-called emerging markets, once held out as a new basis for global capitalist expansion, are experiencing lower growth or outright contraction amid fears of a major financial crisis if interest rates in the US begin to rise.

One day after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the World Socialist Web Sitespelled out its implications in an analysis that has in the intervening period been fully confirmed:

“A sea change is unfolding in the US and world economy that portends a catastrophe of dimensions not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s … These events are signposts in the historic failure of American and world capitalism. For the working class, they mean a rapid growth of unemployment, poverty, homelessness and social misery.”

In the immediate aftermath of the collapse, the leaders of the major capitalist powers pledged cooperation and collaboration as they tackled the crisis. Those commitments have long gone by the board, replaced by intensifying conflicts over control of markets, competitive currency devaluations and divergent policy measures.

As in the Depression of the 1930s, the capitalist breakdown has fuelled the drive to war in every part of the world. American imperialism, under the Obama administration, has intensified the drive to bring the vast Eurasian landmass and its economic resources under its control, launching a series of provocations against Russia in the West and making preparations for war against China in the East under the so-called “pivot to Asia.”

German imperialism has initiated a campaign to reassert its position as a global power, while the Japanese government of Prime Minister Abe is moving to do away with restrictions on military activity imposed under the post-war constitution.

In every country, the term “austerity” has become a by-word for deepening attacks on the working class amid rising inequality and social misery. As the wealth of the upper layers increases, wages decline and health care, education and other basic social services are targeted for endless cuts.

The bogus “war on terror” has become the justification for the shredding of fundamental democratic rights and the development of ever more authoritarian forms of rule. This is one of the clearest indications that the ruling classes themselves know they have no solution to the economic breakdown and are preparing to meet the social struggles it must produce with mass repression.

The past seven years of economic breakdown, coupled with the threat of world war, growing repression and poverty, and the creation of the largest number of refugees since World War II, testify to the historic bankruptcy of the capitalist system. That understanding must form the basis for the development of a political struggle of the international working class against war and in defence of social and democratic rights against the financial elites and their governments.

At an ongoing Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Vladimir Putin affirmed Russia’s support for Syria “against terrorist aggression. We assist it and will keep rendering necessary military-technical assistance,” he said.

He urged the international community to cooperate with Moscow and Syria in combating terrorism, adding:

(W)ithout participation of the Syrian army…against the Islamic State, terrorists cannot be expelled from the country and the region as a whole. The…Syrian people cannot be protected against destruction, enslavement and barbarity.

Putin urged cooperative international community efforts with Assad’s government, Kurdish militias, and moderate internal opposition elements against a common terrorist enemy.

“Elementary common sense and responsibility for global and regional security require concerted efforts of the international community against this threat,” he stressed.

Syria’s ambassador to Russia was clear and unequivocal, saying “(a)ny talk about the presence of Russian troops in Syria is a lie propagated by Western countries and the United States.”

We think that a new conspiracy is being plotted against our country to penetrate into our territory under the pretext of Russian troops’ presence.

Weapons are being supplied under the agreements that were signed between our countries rather long ago. As for Russia’s position, it is based on international law, on our sovereignty and territorial integrity.

We have been cooperating with Russia in various spheres, including the defense sector, for 30-40 years. Yes, we do receive weapons and military hardware.

Since the very beginning of the current developments in 2011 and up till now, we have to face terrorist groups that are relying on the help and support from outside.” (Washington and its anti-Syrian allies) call actions taken by terrorist groups, including murders, destruction, executions, seizure of property, ousting civilian population as manifestations of freedom and democracy building.

But as a matter of fact, they only sought to achieve a vile political goal -to bend Syria to the United States and those countries that support it.

US-led Western countries “are fighting not against but by means of the Islamic State,” actively supporting its terrorism.

Ending Obama’s war on Syria depends on observing earlier agreed on “Moscow principles,” including respecting Syrian sovereignty, its territorial integrity, the right of its people alone to choose who’ll lead them with no outside interference, and a unified struggle against imported terrorism.

Instead, Washington insists Assad must go, State Department spokesman Admiral John Kirby repeating the demand Monday, saying he “cannot be part of the solution against ISIL” – blaming him for US-imported terrorists devastating the country with US air support, adding:

(T)here’s not going to be any solution against ISIL that would involved assisting, aiding, cooperating with, communicating with Bashar al-Assad. It’s not going to happen.

Previous articles explained Washington uses imported Islamic State and other takfiri terrorists as proxy foot soldiers against Assad – aiming for regime change to install a US-controlled stooge government, pursuing the same objective globally, waging endless wars on humanity for unchallenged dominance.

Washington floods the Middle East with heavy weapons for naked aggression. Moscow justifiably helps arm Syria for self-defense against foreign invaders. There’s nothing civil about ongoing conflict.

Irresponsible Russia bashing remains intense. Accusations about sending troops to aid Assad are malicious Big Lies. No evidence exists to prove what The New York Times recklessly calls “an escalating buildup that could give Moscow its most significant military foothold in the Middle East in decades.”

Its source: unnamed “American officials,” no fact-checking to verify their claims, accepting willful lies as facts, saying Moscow may use a Syrian airfield “as a staging area for airstrikes in support of Syrian government forces.”

Russia openly admits supplying Syria with contractually agreed on weapons and military supplies. Sergey Lavrov explained “(t)hey are inevitably accompanied by Russian specialists, who help adjust the equipment and train Syrian personnel” on how to use what’s provided.

All countries supplying weapons and technology do the same thing. Washington and supportive media want Syria rendered increasingly defenseless and isolated.

Neocon Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl headlined “Putin shifts fronts in Syria and Ukraine,” repeating the long ago discredited Big Lie about “Russian forces in eastern Ukraine ke(eping) up a daily drumbeat of attacks on the Ukrainian army.”

Now Putin is “shifting fronts” to Syria, he blustered. On the one hand, claiming “9,000 (nonexistent) regular troops (and) more than 30,000 (undefined) irregulars” in Ukraine.

On the other, ludicrously saying “Putin’s use of force…induce(d) the West to accept his Ukraine demands – and he is trying to repeat his triumph in a second theater.”

A litany or more Big Lies followed. Cold, hard truths are polar opposite Diehl’s duplicitous invective, typical of WaPo editorial reporting.

Wall Street Journal editors operate the same way. On September 13, they headlined “Putin’s Syria Play,” irresponsibly accusing him of intervening militarily to aid Assad.

Saying he won’t defeat ISIS but might save him, “giving Moscow a new sphere of influence in the Middle East.”

Journal editors urge establishing no-fly and “no-drive” zones on the ground – illegal without Security Council authorization not forthcoming.

Mostly, they want a hawkish Republican succeeding Obama in 2017 – to wage greater war on Syria and elsewhere than already, especially confronting Russia and China more aggressively.

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 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

The BBC is seeking to establish a Russian version of its World Service. It claims it must do so to counter the well-funded “propaganda” of Russia’s RT. The UK Independent’s article, “BBC to face down Vladimir Putin with plan for new World Service Russian TV channel,” claims:

The BBC is proposing to set up a new World Service satellite news channel for Russian speakers, in a direct challenge to Russia Today, the Kremlin-funded television service found guilty of impartiality breaches. 

The World Service would expand services in Russia, North Korea, the Middle East and other territories where state-sponsored broadcasters are denying audiences an impartial and independent source of news.

The problem for the BBC is, however, that it already has a larger budget than RT, plus a half-century head-start. The problem is not about a lack of funding, it is about a lack of credibility, something all the money on Wall Street and London cannot buy.

Credibility is the New Currency 

There is an old adage that goes something like this: “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” For the media houses of Wall Street and London their “good reputation” wasn’t even really built up upon good deeds. Their reputation was built up upon endemic ignorance throughout the general public, fancy suits, and million-dollar studios. Reputation was built upon marketing, something Wall Street and London understand very well.

Marketing a cheap, faulty product is very similar to marketing lies. A cheap, faulty product is sold, profits are made and all before the customer realizes they have been cheated. Within a monopoly, even when the customer realizes they have been cheated, they have little choice but to be victimized by these hustlers again and again. While the Western media sells obvious lies to the public over and over again, for the decades following the advent of TV and radio, they held a monopoly over information giving their audiences few alternatives.

For the longest time those in the West enjoyed a monopoly. Compared to the clunky state propaganda of the Soviet Union, China or any given nation the West sought to undermine, the slick presentations of the Western media were unparalleled. Their ability to make state and corporate-run propaganda look “independent” was perhaps the most important illusion they created. The amount of investment and time needed to build and perfect the marketing of lies through a media industrial complex was something only the West could have done.

But times are changing. Technology, ever the great equalizer between those that have and those that have not, has granted even the smallest players (even single individuals) in the media the ability to reach millions of readers, viewers, or listeners. And as the playing field levels out, money and slick marketing is no longer as much of an advantage as it once was. The real and only meaningful advantage now is credibility.

Do your reports stand up to the test of time? Does something you claim today turn out to be the truth tomorrow? Do your reports contain actual information instead of spin dressed up as such? Do your reports smack of obvious bias, so much so that people seeking the truth don’t even bother reading them?

In the modern world of media, where everyone now has fancy suits and well-equipped studios, the quality and veracity of one’s content serves as the only distinguishing factor separating one outlet from another. People need accurate information to make sound decisions about their future. Deciding something based on a lie or obvious propaganda, can be disastrous, even deadly. If the BBC truly wanted to compete with RT, it should invest in its credibility, not simply expanding the reach of its discredited lies.

Winning the Information War 

For now, the truth suits Russia. In Ukraine, there really are Neo-Nazis running the government and marching in the streets, just as RT has said all along. The BBC is perhaps one of the few networks still refusing to admit as much, even as mobs flying fascist flags clash with the police in Kiev where injuries and even deaths are now taking place. When something is transpiring in front of the eyes of the world, and yet the BBC still refuses to accurately report on it, people turn elsewhere to understand what they are seeing. RT, for now, names names and sends readers, viewers and listeners to where they can get more, and more importantly, relevant information.

That could always change for RT. But the BBC along with the rest of the Western media should serve as an example and a warning to RT, and other national broadcasters working to break the West’s monopoly over the flow of information. However tempting it might be in the short-term to bend the truth, in the long term credibility is far more valuable than gold, harder to find, and harder to protect. Wall Street and London have all the “gold” in the world, yet with it, they find it impossible to acquire the credibility they need to get people to listen to their side of the story.

And ironically, credibility doesn’t really require any money at all to acquire. While having studios, channels, and well promoted websites helps increase exposure (something money can buy) any credibility associated with that exposure is acquired simply through the merit of the writers and reporters involved. The human quality of those involved in the information war is directly proportional to the amount of credibility any given network acquires. RT and others across the South and East should keep this lesson above all others close to heart.

They are winning the information war, and this is precisely why. The Independent fails to mention that despite what they claim are large sums of money by Russia invested into RT, that the BBC alone is still funded more. Taking into account that the BBC is just one of several massive media networks maintained by the West, all of whom coordinate their narratives, Western spending on media dwarfs that of Russia many times over.

The annual budget of RT is estimated to be approximately 300 million USD.  Compare that with the BBC’s World Service who alone is funded some 370 million USD while the US State Department’s Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) who manages Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and many others, receives annually 752 million USD. CNN alone consumes some 750 million USD annually. Then there are local “independent” media operations around the world funded directly by the US State Department through Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute.

The planet is essentially swimming in the lies of the US and UK. Clearly money and exposure is not their problem. Credibility is. The problem the US and UK face is that their joint enterprise upon planet Earth is predicated upon lying, deceiving and exploiting humanity. Telling the truth is not an option for them unless the basic premise they labor under was somehow changed. And because of that simple fact, their winning of the information war is not a possibility so long as their opponents use credibility rather than chronic deceit as their daily currency.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The politics of Jeremy Corbyn, elected by a landslide Saturday to lead Britain’s Labour Party after its defeat at the polls last May, are part of the global revolt against corporate tyranny. He had spent his long career as a pariah within his country’s political establishment. But because he held fast to the socialist ideals that defined the old Labour Party, he has risen untarnished out of the ash heap of neoliberalism. His integrity, as well as his fearlessness, offers a lesson to America’s self-identified left, which is long on rhetoric, preoccupied with accommodating the power elites—especially those in the Democratic Party—and very short on courage. 

I will not support a politician who sells out the Palestinians and panders to the Israel lobby any more than I will support a politician who refuses to confront the bloated military and arms industry or white supremacy and racial injustice. The Palestinian issue is not a tangential issue. It is an integral part of Americans’ efforts to dismantle our war machine, the neoliberal policies that see austerity and violence as the primary language for speaking to the rest of the world, and the corroding influence of money in the U.S. political system. Stand up to the masters of war and the Israel lobby and you will probably stand up to every other corporate and neoliberal force that is cannibalizing the United States. This is what leadership is about. It is about having a vision. And it is about fighting for that vision.

Corbyn, who supports negotiations with Hamas and Hezbollah and once invited members from those organizations to visit Parliament, has called for Israel’s leaders to be put on trial for war crimes against the Palestinians. He has expressed support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel and the call for an arms embargo against that nation. He would scrap Britain’s Prevention of Terrorism Act, which, like the Patriot Act in the United States, has been used to target and harass Muslims. He wants the United Kingdom to withdraw from NATO. He cannot conceive of any situation, he has said, that would necessitate sending British troops abroad. He was a vocal opponent of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and a founder of the Stop the War Coalition. He denounced the United States for what he called its “assassination” of Osama bin Laden, saying the al-Qaida leader should have been captured and put on trial, and he assailed the British government for using militarized drones to kill two British jihadists in Syria in August. He advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament and has urged the elimination of Trident, his country’s nuclear weapons system. He opposes any British military intervention in Syria and wants to put pressure on “our supposed allies in the region”—read Saudi Arabia—that support Islamic State. He has called for talks with the leaders of warring factions in Iraq and Afghanistan to end the conflicts.

Jeremy Corbyn waves in London after he was elected the leader of the Labour Party on Saturday. (Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP)

“There is no solution to the killing and abuse of human rights [in the Middle East] that involves yet more Western military action,” Corbyn has written. “Ultimately there has to be a political solution in the region which bombing by NATO forces cannot bring about. The drama of the killings and advances by ISIS in the past few weeks is yet another result of the Bush-Blair war on terror since 2001. The victims of these wars are the refugees and those driven from their homes and the thousands of unknown civilians who have died and will continue to die in the region. The ‘winners’ are inevitably the arms manufacturers and those who gain from the natural resources of the region.”

Corbyn says he will back significantly increasing taxes on the wealthy and ending the unfair tax breaks of corporations. He is for imposing safeguards to protect those on welfare and instituting a “maximum wage” for corporate executives in order to fight “grotesque levels of inequality.” He would install widespread rent control to stop what he calls “social cleansing” caused by gentrification. He has called on the Bank of England to carry out what he terms a “People’s Quantitative Easing,” demanding it invest billions in housing, energy and other infrastructure projects. He supports the creation of a sanctuary in the Antarctic to prevent mining and oil drilling there. He opposes fracking. He calls for government investment to build renewable energy based on solar and wind, and “global regulation” to prevent the export of carbon products. And he would end the steps to privatize parts of his country’s universal health care system, known as the National Health Service.

As Labour veered to the right and became dominated by corporate money and neoliberalism under Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown—a process also carried out by the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—Corbyn became a rebel in his own party. Between 1997 and 2010, as a member of Parliament, where he has held a seat since 1983, he voted against bills or challenged positions championed by the “new” Labour Party leadership more than 500 times. Blair, who detests Corbyn, warned that if Labour backs Corbyn in the next election for prime minister (which is set for 2020 but can be held any time a no-confidence vote occurs in Parliament), it will face “annihilation” at the polls. Corbyn responded by suggesting that Blair should be prosecuted as a war criminal for his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Corbyn, in the course of his roughly 40 years on the fringes of the British political establishment, has called for the abolition of the British monarchy and has described Karl Marx as “a fascinating figure who observed a great deal and from whom we can learn a great deal.” He wants to nationalize energy companies and renationalize the post office and the rail service. “Without exception, the majority electricity, gas, water and railway infrastructures of Britain were built through public investment since the end of WWII and were all privatised at knock-down prices for the benefit of greedy asset-strippers by the Thatcher and [John] Major-led Tory governments,” he wrote in a column for the Morning Star newspaper.

He has raised the possibility of the U.K. leaving the European Union, citing the EU’s draconian assault on the Greek people in the name of austerity. “Look at it another way,” Corbyn said. “If we allow unaccountable forces to destroy an economy like Greece, when all that bailout money isn’t going to the Greek people, it’s going to various banks all across Europe, then I think we need to think very, very carefully about what role they [the EU] are playing and what role we are playing in that.”

Corbyn has proposed a National Education Service that would, with increased taxes on corporations, provide free universal education starting with day care and going up through vocational schools, adult education programs and universities. He would abolish the British equivalent of charter schools and end the tax-exempt status of the elite private schools. He would bring back state funding for the arts. He issued a statement in August titled “The arts are for everyone not the few; there is creativity in all of us.” It is worth reading.

The arts community in the United States, like that in Britain, is in deep distress. Actors, dancers, musicians, sculptors, singers, painters, writers, poets and even journalists often cannot make a living. They have few spaces where they can perform or publish new work. And established theaters, desperate to make money to survive, produce tawdry spectacles or plays that are empty pieces of entertainment rather than art. The war on the arts has been one of the major contributions to the dumbing down of America. It shuts us off from our intellectual and artistic patrimony, contributing to our historical and cultural amnesia. The parallel removal of the arts from school curriculums, now dominated by vocational skills and standardized testing, has cemented into place a system in which Americans have been taught what to think, not how to think. Self-expression and creativity, disciplines that make possible self-awareness, transcendence and the capacity for reverence, are anathemas to the corporate state. The imposed dogma of neoliberalism must be unquestioned.

“Under the guise of a politically motivated austerity programme, this government has savaged arts funding with projects increasingly required to justify their artistic and social contributions in the narrow, ruthlessly instrumentalist approach of the Thatcher governments,” Corbyn wrote in the August statement. “During the 1980s, [then-Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher sought to disempower the arts community, attempting to silence the provocative in favour of the populist. The current climate of Treasury value measurement methodologies (taken from practises used in the property market and elsewhere) to try to find mechanisms appropriate to calculating the value of visiting art galleries or the opera are a dangerous retreat into a callous commercialisation of every sphere of our lives. The result has been a devastating £82 million in cuts to the arts council budget over the last 5 years and the closure of the great majority of currently funded arts organisations, especially outside London.”

He went on:

Beyond the obvious economic and social benefits of the arts is the significant contribution to our communities, education, and democratic process they make. Studies have demonstrated the beneficial impact of drama studied at schools on the capacity of teenagers to communicate, learn, and to tolerate each other as well as on the likelihood that they will vote. The greater involvement of young people in the political process is something to be encouraged and celebrated. Further, the contribution and critique of our society and democracy which theatre has the capacity to offer must be protected. To quote David Lan, ‘dissent is necessary to democracy, and democratic governments should have an interest in preserving sites in which that dissent can be expressed.’

Corbyn says he would also reverse the government cuts that gutted the BBC. He understands that the destruction of public broadcasting, which is designed to give a platform to voices and artists not beholden to corporate money, means the rise of a corporate-dominated system of propaganda, one that now controls most of the U.S. airwaves.

“I firmly believe in the principle of public service broadcast and am fearful of following the path tread in the United States, where PBS has been hollowed out, unable to deliver the breadth of content to compete with the private broadcasters, and where Fox News has as a result been effectively allowed to dominate and set the news agenda,” he wrote. “I want to see the Labour Party at the heart of campaigns to protect the BBC and its license fee. When we [Labour] return to power we must fully fund public service broadcasting in all its forms, recognising the crucial role the BBC has played in establishing and supporting world class domestic arts, drama, and entertainment.”

Corbyn became a vegetarian at the age of 20 after working on a pig farm and witnessing the abuse, torture and slaughter of the animals. He champions animal rights. He does not own a car, bicycles almost everywhere and is notoriously frugal, usually filing the lowest expense of any member of Parliament. His favorite novelist is the late Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, who wrote “Things Fall Apart,” an exploration of the destructive force of colonialism. Corbyn speaks fluent Spanish and comes from a left-wing family. (His parents met at a rally in support of the Republicans fighting Franco’s fascists during theSpanish Civil War.)

He is acutely aware of the problem of male violence against women. He would halt the government’s closure of domestic violence centers for women, fight discrimination against women in the workplace and bolster laws against sexual harassment and sexual assault. He says his Cabinet would be 50 percent women.

Corbyn’s ascent to the head of the Labour Party has already triggered a backlash against him by the forces of the neoliberal political order. These forces are determined to prevent him from becoming prime minister. The entrenched elites within his own party—a number of whom have already resigned from party leadership positions in protest of Corbyn’s election—will seek to do to him what the Democratic establishment did in 1972 to George McGovern after he won the party’s nomination. The rhetoric of fear has already begun. Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday tweeted: “The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security.” This battle will be ugly.

Corbyn, like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, is part of the new popular resistance that is rising up from the ruins of neoliberalism and globalization to fight the international banking system and American imperialism. We have yet to mount this battle effectively in the United States. But we, especially because we live in the heart of empire, have a special responsibility to defy the machine, held in place by the Democratic Party establishment, the war industry, Wall Street and groups such as the Israel lobby. We too must work to build a socialist nation. We may not win, but this fight is the only hope left to save ourselves from the predatory forces bent on the destruction of democracy and the ecosystem on which we depend for life. If the forces that oppose us triumph, we will have no future left.

Jeremy Corbyn, quo vadis?

Last week a new leader of the British Labour Party was chosen. Already the chimes can be heard from the belfries of thousands of Labour parishes, with coronation eulogies published in the journals of political dissent. The abdication of the Miliband dynasty would seem to herald the end of New Labour’s reign of terror begun when Thatcher acolyte, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair kissed hands in 1997.

One commentator has already ventured the fantasy of the “special relationship” led after 2016 by one Rt Hon J Corbyn and President Sanders.[1] Members of the Labour front bench, so-called shadow ministers as long as David Cameron’s royalists run the Treasury, have declared their refusal to serve under Jeremy Corbyn, now the elected leader of the party and MP for North Islington (a borough in Greater London).[2]

Jeremy Corbyn is the first member of the CND to lead the party since Michael Foot.[3] He has been a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, with which Tony Benn was also affiliated. Socialist Campaign Group broke from the Tribune group, which had been treated as the “extreme” Left of the party in the days of Harold Wilson’s government. He is widely identified as part of the traditional Left. His participation and membership in a wide range of organisations and movements goes back to his start as a union organiser in the 1970s.

Corbyn’s political consistency has been remarkable. Since the beginning of socialist and labour politics in Britain—as elsewhere—there has always been what outsiders would call a tendency to factionalism. The inherent authoritarianism of the Conservative Party (and its equivalents generally assures that differences of opinion are kept within the walls of the clubs their members frequent. Expulsions among the Establishment are usually for breach of decorum.[4] On the British Left, most expulsions have been based on the failure adequately to support imperialism or until 1989 any inclination to support communism—as defined by the ruling class. This led to divisions in the Labour Party (and the German Social Democratic Party) a century ago in the run up to the Great War.

Labour was again divided by the British elite’s policy toward Hitler and Stalin. After the defeat of the fascist Axis powers in 1945, the benchmark for Labour became unwavering loyalty to Washington.

A bankrupt British Empire had already mortgaged most of its defendable imperial interests (a euphemism for territories and markets under imperial control) to the US regime when Clement Atlee led the Labour Party to election victory in 1945 and again narrowly in 1950. While the US ruling class was planning the Cold War and jumpstarting its campaign to pre-empt the British and French in Asia, Atlee’s government soon came under pressure to submit to US domination.

This culminated in Atlee’s lightning visit to Washington to assure the US regime that Britain would mobilise the imperial reserve forces to support the US invasion of Korea.[5] The resulting arms build-up led to Aneurin Bevan’s resignation from the government.[6] As part of the US covert operations in post-war Britain, secret funding was provided to the group led by Hugh Gaitskell that soon became the dominant revisionist faction of the Labour Party.[7] Gaitskell loyalist Anthony Crosland’s The Future of Socialism became a bestseller and would form the bible of Labour’s ideological subordination to the US for decades.[8]

The “modernising” faction that followed Gaitskell brought Labour back to the “gradualist” form of socialism advocated by the Fabian Society and the position advocated by the German social democrats on the side of Eduard Bernstein.[9] The Fabian Society derived its name from that of Fabius Maximus, also known as Cunctator or “the delayer”. The legend is that he defended Rome against Hannibal by fighting a war of attrition, avoiding full force combat. Did the Fabians honour Fabius for defending Rome—so that it could become an empire? Did his tactics of meeting superior force with limited engagements impress them? Fabians and mainstream German Social Democrats both supported their respective country’s imperial politics, not least of which was the patriotic funding of the war machines. Fabianism substituted the means for the ends—precisely the error of which they accused full-blooded socialists, then and now.

Labour’s virtually unqualified commitment to the Atlantic Alliance was justified by the supposed changes in the social and political environment after the defeat of Axis fascism. Building upon the anti-Stalinism in the Labour Party that emerged after the defeat of the Spanish Republic and the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the anti-communist wing of the Labour Party was able to progressively isolate British socialists from the remainder of the international socialist movement. This condition was aggravated by Britain’s economic weakness (and indebtedness to US banks) after World War II. Bevan warned against the political consequences for Britain of following the US regime’s rearmament but the degree of British dependence on US benevolence was so great that only US protection would permit Britain to rebuild and avoid a return to massive pre-war levels of unemployment. The long process of relying upon the empire to supply Britain had led to enormous trade deficits and balance of payments problems that would culminate in the 1970s sterling crises and IMF intervention.

As long as the Soviet Union existed however, even the US regime grasped the necessity of accepting at least tamed socialism in Britain and Germany. The US regime could intervene more or less openly in Germany—as an occupying force—and was able to keep the Social Democrats out of government until 1969. In Britain another tactic was pursued since Labour was already in power when the war ended. When Labour lost in 1951, the Conservatives regained power under Churchill’s last government and remained until Labour recovered No. 10 in 1964. By that time virtually all of Britain’s empire had been dissolved.

Harold Wilson, who was originally aligned with the Bevan faction and had resigned from Atlee’s ministry at the same time, emerged from Oxford nonetheless in the technocratic model which had come to dominate Labour politics—as well as social democratic policy elsewhere. There was very little talk of nationalisation (Clause IV of the Labour Manifesto) or fundamental changes in the social and economic structure of the country.[10] Instead Wilson’s government worked within what could be called the Keynesian consensus that even the US regime had adopted as a means of funding its military-industrial expansion. Although Washington (and Britain’s SIS) treated Wilson as suspect, the Labour government successfully resisted agitation for nuclear disarmament or withdrawal from NATO. Wilson resisted demands that Britain contribute troops to the US war against Vietnam. However the capacity of Washington to influence politics in the Commonwealth was by no means dampened.[11]

Serious problems for the Wilson government had already begun with the 1973 “oil shock”. Putatively triggered by oil shortages and steep OPEC price hikes in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, the result of US Middle East policy was to create massive balance of payments problems throughout both its vassal states in Europe and the newly independent countries throughout the so-called Third World. This combined with the US regime’s unilateral abrogation of the Bretton Woods “gold” agreement was the first salvo in the global debt crisis that engulfed Britain too.[12] The collusion of the Seven Sisters forced the price of oil—denominated in US dollars—to record highs.[13] This had the (un)intended consequence of placing the US-dominated IMF and World Bank in the middle of global economic restructuring. It meant the end of most national development schemes in the former colonies and forced Britain to begin the process of de-socialising its economy that would culminate with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1980.

Harold Wilson was succeeded by James Callaghan in 1976. Callaghan, who had been Wilson’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary, had to preside over the escalating destabilisation of the British economy. The manipulation of the oil market fuelled inflation while speculative attacks on sterling kept the government opposed to wage increases.[14] Descriptions of the “Winter of Discontent”, a repetition of the industrial action by organised labour that had helped bring down the Heath government in 1974, nearly all place the blame on the inability and unwillingness of the British labour force to adjust to “market forces”. However, the prevailing Keynesian economic policies of the time were all based on funding social infrastructure and wages in nationalised industries by debt sold to the private capital markets. The enforcement of IMF rules following the Yom Kippur War meant that even the modest proposals by Callaghan’s Energy and Industry Secretary Tony Benn for a more self-reliant economic policy were rejected.[15] Neither import controls nor restrictions on capital flows would have been accepted by the IMF from which the British government was trying to obtain a GBP 1 billion loan. While in the Third World this pressure was called “structural adjustment”, Washington relied upon Callaghan’s government to provide normal market rationale, while the strike waves were used to exhaust organised labour and antagonise Britain’s middle classes. This all prepared the way for Margaret Thatcher and outright war against British unions, nationalised industries and social services.

1980 brought the death knell to post-war social Keynesianism—which had always been military Keynesianism too. Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. Ronald Reagan was elected US president. Francois Mitterrand became French President in 1981 and in 1982 Helmut Kohl replaced Helmut Schmidt. In all the key Western states, governments were empowered to dismantle the employment-based policies that had preserved relatively high working class incomes and through increased access to education and social services had reduced the inequalities endemic to capitalism. Despite the apparent strengthening of the oil producers’ cartel OPEC, the actual impact of developments in the oil market had been to crush most of the Third World development programmes and the post-war commodity treaties that for the first time promised to give former colonies a stable and fair income for their exports.[16] The “oil crisis” became the soft power to defeat de-colonisation and labour movements throughout the world. It also should have highlighted the fundamental defect or deception of “modernised” socialism as propounded by the Labour Party.

But it didn’t. Instead the political warfare waged against the working classes, esp. non-whites, and emerging nations produced a generation of political leaders whose ideological roots lay in the corporate culture created and refined by the US regime. World War II turned the US not only into the richest imperial power but the primary educational and cultural venue, especially for exiled artists, academics, and other intellectuals. The war against the Soviet Union had made Russia an inhospitable place for all but the most committed socialists. Hence even European socialism was beholden to the US regime for its survival. The luxury of complete isolation from actual combat and the regime’s willingness to pamper exiles helped create cadres, who despite their reservations about US racism and its unhampered capitalism, returned home with new found faith, belief that the US was the beacon of progress. That also meant that European political movements came to be seen as obsolete, esp. given the apparent advantages of life in the US over that of a decimated Soviet Union ruled by Stalin.

The modernising or “gradualist” school of socialism had abandoned Marx. According to the post-war revisionists since capitalism had not collapsed, Marx must have been wrong. Since the Soviet Union had not been able to establish a classless society, Marxism-Leninism must be wrong. Since living conditions under capitalism had definitely improved for the working class in Europe and the US, socialism as a fundamental change in society was clearly unnecessary. Finally since even labour could elect representatives and form governments under capitalism, the theory of class struggle must be defective if not entirely false.

The establishment of what became known as the “welfare state” suggested that it was possible to resolve the contradictions between Capital and Labour that Marx had described. The US had created a state based on the ideology of individual liberty that appeared to be complementary to the true objectives of socialism. All of this too made traditional Left politics and Labour manifestos not only obsolete but embarrassing. When the 1973 oil shock threatened to bankrupt the “welfare state”, it was impossible for anyone to suggest that this had anything to do with capitalism.

A major reason for this conviction lay in the technocratic approach taken by the political leadership that introduced the post-war welfare state. Having reduced socialism to a branch of applied mathematics, Labour as well as other social democratic ideologues accepted two premises detrimental to the entire socialist project. The first was that economics is essentially a “natural science” governed by rational laws that merely have to be understood and applied. Already this conviction reveals a false understanding of Marx since Marx was arguing precisely against this idea, as is clear from the full title of his magnum opus: Capital “A Critique of Political Economy”. Marx objected strenuously to the assertion of classical “economic laws”. Capital is a refutation of those so-called laws that survive in what has come to be called the “neo-classical synthesis”.[17] The second premise is methodological individualism. Methodological individualism is basically a derivative of what has also been called “negative Romanticism”. Probably the best-known promoter of this ideology was Isaiah Berlin with his tract Two Concepts of Liberty (1958). Berlin, a privileged anti-Soviet aristocratic academic with an Oxford sinecure, preached endlessly that individual liberty was best seen as “negative”—the freedom not to do things. This was nothing more or less than a polemic against any kind of polity based upon empowerment. In the US the high priest of negative liberty was an obscure German scholar funded by the Rockefellers at their University of Chicago named Leo Strauss.[18] Strauss would only achieve notoriety with the public ascendancy of so-called neo-conservatives in the United States. However, the importance of Strauss and Berlin in the propagation of modern corporate psychological warfare doctrine cannot be overestimated.

By accepting economics as “natural science” even socialists became converted to a positivist theology antithetical not only to class struggle but also to an accurate critique of capitalism. By accepting the dogma of individualism, attacks on labour became endemic. The failure of the British economy was ascribed to inefficient labour not to capital structures and the power exercised by finance, i.e. international banking. The obvious limits to growth and consumption were defined as inevitable scientific processes. Labour was seen as a selfish obstacle to government or private sector adjustments. The obvious contradiction between a more productive labour force and increased unemployment was rationalised as worker or union inflexibility. The Labour Party had already begun the assault on unions before Margaret Thatcher reached No. 10. The corruption in union bureaucracies was certainly no greater than the licensed criminality of the City. However union corruption was equated with “collectivism” while City crimes were entrepreneurial.

Perhaps the extent of the problem can best be seen in the success of both Conservative and Labour governments at exploiting the legacy of British imperialism. In April 1982 Margaret Thatcher sent a fleet to the South Atlantic to wage war against Argentina and keep the Union Jack in the Falkland Islands. In March 2003, Tony Blair sent some 45,000 British troops to its former protectorate to help the US conquer Iraq. It took several years for the tears at the Cenotaph to dry and a weak consensus to emerge that Mr Blair’s deployment of British forces to Iraq make him a war criminal. Special relationships between Washington and London are maintained on both sides of the House. New Labour is simply the third generation of that incestuous combination between members of the Anglo-American elite and their pocket politicians. Years of sharing foreign policy—ultimately the policy of the City and Wall Street—have produced and maintain British subordination in domestic policy. While now there are more Labour voices willing to condemn the 2003 war, the campaign to protect opium production in Afghanistan receives less attention.

What does this mean for the new leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party? Mr Corbyn has been remarkably consistent in his opposition to Thatcherism—with or without a Labour-face—and to the central tenets of British post-war imperialism, e.g. the atomic arsenal and unprovoked aggression in terms of the UN Charter. He has won a leadership election with some 60% in a country that preserves multiple obstacles to democratic voting. There is certainly a noticeable euphoria after he won the contest against all odds. These are not aspects to be trivialised in an era where grassroots enthusiasm has been crushed by a combination of anti-democratic and narcotic forces.

However I am reminded of 1981. I sat with friends in Paris who were ecstatic. I had predicted that Giscard d’Estaing would defeat the PSF candidate Francoise Mitterrand—and I was wrong. It was not my lack of enthusiasm for socialism but my sense of sobriety in appraising electoral processes. Accustomed to the deep conservatism and corruption of the US electoral system, I was sure that the French would not be allowed to elect a socialist. Mitterrand was elected and everyone I knew thought a new day had dawned in France. One of the first measures the new government announced was abolition of the death penalty—long overdue and welcome. However, by the time of the first cohabitation in 1986, I had begun to wonder if the Socialists had really won the election.

One of the factors that contributed to the victory of New Labour—aside from the exhaustion of the Conservative Party in its last laps under John Major—was the importation of US public relations – electoral campaigning style. The same focus groups that placed Bill Clinton with saxophone in the White House—and were developed to sell every other product under the sun—were introduced to Tony Blair’s campaign. The British general election took another step toward Americanisation—the election of a prime minister with a brand instead of a party with a programme. This trend continues because it is the main marketing and propaganda strategy for Anglo-American corporations—who ultimately make what becomes government policy.

Jeremy Corbyn will have to face this monster, not only in the House of Commons but also in the mass media and the Internet. He will have to face the decades of Anglo-American political and economic incest, not that only manifested in the past century’s wedding of US plutocracy with British aristocracy. He will have to face the overarching military control over Europe exercised through the NATO command structure. Not least of which he will have to contend with the power of Finance Capital, entrenched in multi-national corporations and their “independent” agents, the central banks and multilateral banks—IMF, BIS, World Bank et al.

To do this it will be necessary to sandblast the layers of deception that make “markets” seem natural and rational while presenting human needs as irrational and even irrelevant. To do this will undoubtedly create conflict with Britain’s liege-lord, the US.

As the post-war era has proven, the British ruling class has no loyalty to ordinary Britons that it is not willing to sacrifice to international profitability. The irrational and ultimately unnatural political economy imposed by Britain’s rulers—against which the Germans Marx and Engels first systematically preached—is the religious fanaticism and terrorism that a revived Labour Party needs to oppose.

A PressTV questionou Michel Chossudovsky, do Centro de Estudos sobre a Globalização, para falar acerca da decisão da Rússia em abastecer Damasco com provisões militares e apoio humanitário.

Abaixo encontra-se a transcrição dessa entrevista.

A versão vídeo encontra-se aqui

PressTV – A Rússia fez um apelo ao mundo para que se unisse e auxiliasse o governo sírio no combate contra os terroristas do EIIL, apelo este que parece ter caído em orelhas moucas pelo menos em Washington. Em vez disso, temos o presidente dos EUA a afirmar que a estratégia de Moscovo na Síria está destinada a falhar. Colocam-se aqui duas questões: primeiro, a que estratégia russa tanto se opõe o Ocidente? E segundo: porque se preocupa tanto o Ocidente com aquilo que apoda ser uma escalada da presença russa na Síria?

Chossudovsky: Antes de mais há que distinguir:

– Por um lado entre os actos de agressão por parte dos EUA contra um Estado soberano ao abrigo de um “mandato humanitário” ou “de ir atrás” do EIIL, quando na realidade sabemos – e encontra-se amplamente documentado – que o EIIL é apoiado e financiado pelos Estados Unidos e pelos seus aliados;

– Por outro lado, aquilo que podemos descrever como sendo uma cooperação militar bilateral entre dois Estados soberanos, nomeadamente a Síria e a Federação da Rússia. Isso é algo que já vem a decorrer há muitos anos entre os dois países.

A Rússia tem uma base naval no Mediterrâneo e providenciou à Síria o seu sistema de defesa aérea, o S-300, e tem colaborado noutras áreas focando principalmente treinamento, sistemas de armas e por aí fora. Não creio que isso implique seja de que modo for o destacamento de tropas no terreno. Isso não irá acontecer. E não constitui qualquer novidade; tal faz parte da longa relação já existente entre estes dois governos.

No que diz respeito a Obama, trata-se de uma afirmação um tanto ou quando diabólica. Desde Setembro do ano passado – e celebramos agora o primeiro aniversário dos “bombardeamentos humanitários dos EUA contra o Iraque e a Síria” – que houve 53.000 incursões aéreas (de acordo com os dados oficiais) das quais só 6.700 foram “incursões de ataque”.

Eu suspeitaria que a maior parte dessas 53.000 incursões na realidade tiveram o objectivo de entregar armas e mantimentos ao EIIL (EIIS), a infantaria da aliança militar ocidental que combate as forças do governo sírio.

PressTV – Quão suspeito lhe parece o aumento do número de países que, subitamente, se demonstram ansiosos para se unirem aos raides aéreos dos EUA em solo sírio?

Chossudovsky: Já sabemos que os Estados Unidos sempre fizeram uso da estratégia da cooptação no que toca aos seus alegados aliados e, em alguns casos, aos seus Estados fiduciários para que desempenhem o trabalho sujo nos teatros de guerra e contam agora com o apoio da Arábia Saudita, Qatar; contam também com os seus aliados europeus e com o Canadá.

Creio que os líderes desses países, as ditas democracias ocidentais, têm que levantar esta questão: quem é que estamos a apoiar?

Estão a apoiar os terroristas, é claro e óbvio. As incursões de ataques aéreos dirigidas contra a Síria não têm por alvo o EIIL.

O EIIL é um instrumento do governo dos EUA, é uma entidade associada à al-Qaeda.

Costumavam utilizar o nome de al-Qaeda no Iraque e há muito que são uma tradição dos serviços secretos dos Estados Unidos. Os serviços secretos dos EUA apoiam os “jihadistas” e as organizações associadas à al-Qaeda. Muitos dos [membros do] EILL são na realidade ex-membros do Grupo de Combate Islâmico da Líbia (GCIL), mercenários que se juntaram agora ao EIIL e – como bem recordamos – esses mercenários também foram apoiados pelos Estados Unidos e pela OTAN.

Tradução : http://www.geopol.com.pt

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Veteran Intelligence Professionals Challenge CIA’s “Rebuttal” on Torture

Former CIA leaders responsible for allowing torture to become part of the 21st Century legacy of the CIA are trying to rehabilitate their tarnished reputations with the release of a new book, Rebuttal: The CIA Responds to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Study of Its Detention and Interrogation Program. They are pushing the lie that the only allegations against them are from a partisan report issued by Democrats from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

We recall the answer of General John Kimmons, the former Deputy Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was asked if good intelligence could be obtained from abusive practices. He replied: “I am absolutely convinced the answer to your first question is no. No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that.”

But the allegation that the CIA leaders were negligent and guilty was not the work of an isolated group of partisan Democrat Senators. The Senate Intelligence report on torture enjoyed bipartisan support. Senator John McCain, for example, whose own encounter with torture in North Vietnamese prisons scarred him physically and emotionally, embraced and endorsed the work of Senator Feinstein. It was only a small group of intransigent Republicans, led by Saxby Chambliss, who obstructed the work of the Senate Intel Committee.

Indeed, some of us witnessed firsthand during the administration of President George W. Bush that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence were virtually paralyzed from conducting any meaningful oversight of the CIA and the U.S. Intelligence Community by the Republican members of these committees. Instead, they pursued the clear objective of protecting the Bush administration from any criticism for engaging in torture during the “War on Terror.”

It is curious that our former colleagues stridently denounce the work of the Senate Intelligence Committee but are mute with respect to an equally damning report from the CIA’s own inspector general, John Helgerson, in 2004.

Helgerson’s report, “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001-October 2003),” was published on May 7, 2004, and classified Top Secret. That report alone is damning of the CIA leadership and it is important to remind all about the specifics of those conclusions. According to the CIA’s own inspector general:

–The Agency’s detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned in the United States and around the world. . . . The effectiveness of particular interrogation techniques in eliciting information that might not otherwise have been obtained cannot be so easily measured however.

–In addition, some Agency officials are aware of interrogation activities that were outside or beyond the scope of the written DOJ opinion. Officers are concerned that future public revelation of the CTC Program is inevitable and will seriously damage Agency officers’ personal reputations, as well as the reputation and effectiveness of the Agency itself.

–By distinction the Agency-especially in the early months of the Program-failed to provide adequate staffing, guidance, and support to those involved with the detention and interrogation of detainees . . .

–The Agency failed to issue in a timely manner comprehensive written guidelines for detention and interrogation activities. . . .Such written guidance as does exist . . . is inadequate.

–During the interrogation of two detainees, the waterboard was used in a manner inconsistent with the written DOJ legal opinion of 1 August 2002.

–Agency officers report that reliance on analytical assessments that were unsupported by credible intelligence may have resulted in the application of EITs without justification.

The CIA’s Inspector General makes it very clear that there was a failure by the CIA leaders, who include Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin, Counter Terrorism Center Chief Cofer Black, Counter Terrorism Center Chief Jose Rodriguez and the Director Directorate of Operations James L. Pavitt. Lack of proper guidance and oversight created fertile soil for subsequent abuses and these men were guilty of failing to properly do their jobs.

We do not have to rely solely on the report of the CIA’s Inspector General. In addition, the Report by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Detainee Treatment reached the same conclusions about the origins, evils, harm to U.S. policy and intelligence collection of “enhanced interrogation,” a euphemism for “torture” first used by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Indeed, all independent analyses of the enhanced interrogation program have concluded it constituted torture, was ineffective, and contrary to all American laws, ideals, and intelligence practices. [Background here, here and here.]  We also have the testimony and record of Ali Soufan, an Arabic-speaking FBI Agent, who was involved with several interrogations before torture was used and who achieved substantive results without violating international law.

The sworn testimony of FBI Agent Ali Soufan, who is the only U.S. Government employee to testify under oath on these matters, completely contradicts the authors of Rebuttal:

In the middle of my interrogation of the high-ranking terrorist Abu Zubaydah at a black-site prison 12 years ago, my intelligence work wasn’t just cut short for so-called enhanced interrogation techniques to begin. After I left the black site, those who took over left, too – for 47 days. For personal time and to ‘confer with headquarters’.

For nearly the entire summer of 2002, Abu Zubaydah was kept in isolation. That was valuable lost time, and that doesn’t square with claims about the ‘ticking bomb scenarios’ that were the basis for America’s enhanced interrogation program, or with the commitment to getting life-saving, actionable intelligence from valuable detainees. The techniques were justified by those who said Zubaydah ‘stopped all cooperation’ around the time my fellow FBI agent and I left. If Zubaydah was in isolation the whole time, that’s not really a surprise.

One of the hardest things we struggled to make sense of, back then, was why U.S. officials were authorizing harsh techniques when our interrogations were working and their harsh techniques weren’t. The answer, as the long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee Report now makes clear, is that the architects of the program were taking credit for our success, from the unmasking of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of 9/11 to the uncovering of the ‘dirty bomber’ Jose Padilla. The claims made by government officials for years about the efficacy of ‘enhanced interrogation’, in secret memos and in public, are false. ‘Enhanced interrogation’ doesn’t work.

The former CIA officers who have collaborated on this latest attempt to whitewash the historical record that they embraced and facilitated torture by Americans, are counting on the laziness of the press and the American public. As long as no one takes time to actually read the extensively footnoted and documented report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, then it is easy to buy into the fantasy that the CIA officers are simply victims of a political vendetta.

These officers are also counting on a segment of the American people – repeatedly identified in polling results – that continues to believe torture works. Such people have no proof that it works (because there is none that it works consistently and effectively), they simply believe it instinctively or because of people such as this book’s authors’ arguments to that effect.

That is why it is so important that the truth be told and this book and its arguments be debunked. Americans must learn the realities of torture – that it rarely if ever works, that it dehumanizes the torturer as well as the tortured, that it increases the numbers and hostility of our opponents while providing no benefit, and that it seriously diminishes America’s reputation in the world and thus its power.  Torture is wrong and the men who wrote this book are wrong.

The book, Rebuttal, is a new incarnation of the lie extolling the efficacy of torture. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a time of perceived crisis and palpable fear, the leaders of the CIA decided to ignore international and domestic law. They chose to discard the moral foundations of our Republic and, using the same justifications that authoritarian regimes have employed for attacking enemies, and embarked willingly on a course of action that embraced practices that in earlier times the United States had condemned and punished as a violation of U.S. laws and fundamental human rights.

As former intelligence officers, we are compelled by conscience to denounce the actions and words of our former colleagues. In their minds they have found a way to rationalize and justify torture. We say there is no excuse; there is no justification. The heart of good intelligence work — whether collection or analysis — is based in the pursuit of truth, not the fabrication of a lie.

It is to this end that we reiterate that no threat, no matter how grave, should serve to justify inhuman behavior and immoral conduct or torture conducted by Americans.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Fulton Armstrong, National Intelligence Officer for Latin America (ret.)

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Tony Camerino, former Air Force and Air Force Reserves, a senior interrogator in Iraq and author ofHow to Break a Terrorist under pseudonym Matthew Alexander

Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA

Daniel Ellsberg, former State Department and Defense Department Official (VIPS Associate)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

Larry C Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)

Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF Intelligence Agency (Retired), ex Master SERE Instructor

John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer

Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.)

Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

James Marcinkowski, Attorney, former CIA Operations Officer

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)

Todd Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Scott Ritter, former Maj., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq

Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)

Ali Soufan, former FBI Special Agent

Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary

Valerie Plame Wilson, CIA Operations Officer (ret.)

Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat

Western news reports begin to highlight genocidal war. 

A coalition of Washington-backed armies led by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has escalated their bombing raids on civilian areas in Yemen.

Neighborhoods, hospitals, mosques, factories, ports and other locations were hit during the last week. Dozens of people were killed in the airstrikes which are becoming more vicious in the aftermath of the deaths of over 50 troops operating on the ground from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Since the beginning of the Saudi-GCC air war against Yemen at least 4,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands injured. Four million Yemeni people have been forced to leave their homes while humanitarian assistance is almost impossible in light of the lack of security as well as the destruction of transport facilities and ports.

A leading news story in the New York Times on Sunday September 13 exposed a war that has been largely hidden from the public view in the United States. Also the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on September 11 featured a detailed report on the bombing of a bottled water factory which the U.S.-backed forces claimed was a munitions production facility.

Taking a camera crew to the destroyed plant located in an arid region of the country, Gabriel Gatehouse, a journalist for the BBC, reported that there was no indication that any capability for the manufacture of bombs existed at the location. British warplanes and bombs are being utilized in the air strikes along with those supplied by the U.S. defense industry.

This report brought to hundreds of millions in Europe and internationally the scale of the war being directed against the people of Yemen under the guise of fighting the Ansurallah Movement (Houthis), who the West claims is being supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Ansurallah are a Shiite-led movement which has allied itself with the supporters of the former government of Abduallah Ali Saleh, who left office amid massive protest during the early months of 2011.

The New York Times article written by Kareem Fahim begins with a glimpse of the proprietor of the water bottling plant saying he was “Standing among the strewn bottles, smoldering boxes and pulverized machines a few days after the airstrike here, the owner, Ibrahim al-Razoom, searched in vain for any possible reason that warplanes from a Saudi-led military coalition would have attacked the place. Nothing in the ruins suggested the factory was used for making bombs, as a coalition spokesman had claimed. And it was far from any military facility that would explain the strike as a tragic mistake: For miles around, there was nothing but desert scrub. ’It never occurred to me that this would be hit,’ Mr. Razoom said.”

This same article went on to observe that the war “Rather than turning more Yemenis against the Houthis, though, the strikes are crystallizing anger in parts of the country against Saudi Arabia and its partners, including the United States. The Obama administration has provided military intelligence and logistical assistance to the coalition, and American weapons have been widely used in the air campaign. Human Rights Watch has found American-manufactured cluster munitions in the fields of Yemeni farmers. Near the site of airstrikes that killed 11 people in a mosque, researchers with Amnesty International saw an unexploded, 1,000-pound American bomb. The United States is finalizing a deal to provide more weapons to Saudi Arabia, including missiles for its F-15 fighter jets.”

Ansurallah fighters took control of the capital of the country of Saana a year ago and had extended its influence as far south as the port city of Aden. A relentless bombing operation since March 26 utilizing U.S. fighter jets, bombs, intelligence coordination and refueling technology has destroyed large swaths of Yemeni territory.

The intervention of ground forces from Saudi Arabia and the UAE and possibly other allied states has driven the Ansurallah out of Aden and other southern cities. Clashes in the central region of the country have caused a spike in casualties along with the bombing of residential areas in Saana, destroying areas surrounding the university campus as well as historic sites in the Old City.

Conservative British MP Threatens the BBC Over Yemen Report

Although the BBC is a state-owned media outlet its views often reflect those of the British ruling class and their allies in the imperialist countries. Typically the network’s coverage of developments in the Middle East, Africa and Asia provide a rationale for the rapacious policies of the U.S. in fostering militarism and consequent dislocation and social chaos.

With such a critical report airing over a television program which is seen across the world, it could awaken many within the industrialized states and the oppressed nations as to the actual character of the war in Yemen. Therefore it was not surprising that a leading member of parliament launched a frontal attack over the BBC decrying the report coming out of Yemen related to the bombing of the water bottling facility.

Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski, who chairs the all-party parliamentary committee on Saudi Arabia was a featured guest over the BBC where he said “I fundamentally dispute your coverage of the entire situation in Yemen. You and Newsnight are trying to peddle a completely false prospectus to the British people of the situation on the ground,” he stressed.

Kawczynski went on to say of the network that “You have an agenda against the Gulf States coalition and you want to peddle a myth that only one side is responsible for atrocities. The BBC and Newsnight are acting in a completely disgraceful way.”

Such a statement made over the World Service can only be perceived as a threat against the network. Investigations and firings have taken place related to reporting on previous wars particularly the decision to intervene alongside the U.S. in Iraq during March 2003.

Such a tone by a Conservative Party official illustrates that the dominant group within the British government are not prepared to debate its foreign policy in Yemen and other states within the region. Defending the Gulf monarchies in a proxy war waged by the Pentagon and White House against the poorest country in the Middle East speaks volumes about the political character of the West’s posture towards the situation inside Yemen.

Inside the U.S. there is almost no information in the corporate media about the war against Yemen despite the central role being played by the Obama administration. The issue has not been raised at all during the course of the debates and statements made in association with the 2016 presidential campaign by either political party.

These issues must be raised by the antiwar and social justice movements in the U.S. and Western Europe. Imperialist foreign policy towards the Middle East has proven to be an unmitigated disaster with death and destruction reigning from the streets of Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya to the Mediterranean Sea, right into Southern and Eastern Europe.

Resources utilized to conduct these wars of regime-change and genocide against peoples internationally not only drain resources from the workers and oppressed in the imperialist states but also heightens the necessity of repressive measures inside these industrialized countries as the world has seen in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York and other cities where mass demonstrations against national oppression, racism and political repression have been met with police violence and mass incarceration.

At the same time, the ousted former President Hadi has stated that he is willing to declare a ceasefire if the Ansurallah (Houthis) withdraw from territory they have taken over the last year including the capital of Saana. On Friday the old city of Sanaa was bombed extensively killing women, children and seniors. Historic buildings were destroyed using warplanes and ordinances made and supplied by the Pentagon and NATO countries.

Divided continent imperils the future of millions from oppressed nations

Hungarian officials have again threatened migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia with imprisonment if they continue to cross their borders or refuse to abide by repressive treatment.

Budapest says that it completed a fence across its border with Serbia to halt the flow of migrants into the country. Hungarian officials also indicated that they would prevent migrants from entering on the trains.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that Budapest was shipping thousands of migrants and refugees to the border with Austria making it appear that they will no longer register them. Hungary spokesman for the UNHCR Regional Representation for Central Europe, Erno Simon, said, “Our information is that special trains are taking migrants from Roszke (train) station directly without stopping until the Austrian border.” (Telegraph, UK, September 14)

Migrants have been horded into makeshift detention areas where they face overcrowding and constant harassment and brutality from the police. These scenes illustrated the horrendous conditions under which tens of thousands are living in search of refuge in Southern, Eastern and Northern Europe over the last few weeks.

A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) article noted that “Footage has emerged of migrants being thrown bags of food at a Hungarian camp near the border with Serbia. An Austrian woman who shot the video said the migrants were being treated like animals”. (September 11)

The New York based Human Rights Watch’s emergency director said people were being held like “cattle in pens”. Officials in Hungary responded by saying they are investigating the recorded incidents at the camp in Roszke.

“The detainees at Roszke are held in filthy, overcrowded conditions, hungry and lacking medical care,” noted Peter Bouckaert, HRW Emergencies Director. Bouckaert cited video footage and extensive interviews conducted with people who had journeyed through the camp or were still living there.

Nonetheless, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban lauded the police for responding with restraint against what he called “rebellious migrants” and threatened to take more repressive measures. His country has been one of the most outspoken in opposition to allowing migrants passage through EU countries which was ostensibly guaranteed in a treaty signed several years ago by member-states.

Orban told journalists “Considering that we are facing a rebellion by illegal migrants, police have done their job in a remarkable way, without using force.” The prime minister said this after conferring with Manfred Weber, who is the chairman of the European People’s Party in the EU Parliament. (star.com, September 11)

He went on to say “They seized railway stations, rejected giving fingerprints, failed to cooperate and are unwilling to go to places where they would get food, water, accommodation and medical care …. They rebelled against Hungary’s legal order. From the 15th, Hungarian authorities cannot be forgiving of illegal border crossing.”

These developments were taking place while the European Union (EU) interior ministers were holding an emergency meeting in Brussels, Belgium in an effort to determine a coordinated policy of processing and integrating the migrants. In response to the influx of hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, various governments have imposed travel restriction including Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands.

Even the German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that it would put checks on its border with Austria. This tightening of the borders came following weeks of pronouncements from Germany which appeared to be welcoming migrants.

On September 13 officials in the city of Berlin said that if the flow of migrants was not stopped there would be no place for people to live and they would be sleeping in the streets.

Temporary housing for migrants is planned at a large transportation facility built during the Third Reich in the 1930s where the Telegraph said “Berlin’s famous Nazi-era Tempelhof airport is to become a refugee shelter. The airport, which has been disused since 2008, will house up to 1,200 refugees in two former hangars, the Berlin state government has announced.”

However, on September 14 German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said “The focus will initially lie on the border with Austria. The goal of this measure is to restrict the present inflow of migrants into Germany and return again to an orderly process upon entry.” (CNN)

The German government said it was stopping train transport to and from Austria for thirteen hours on September 13, according to a tweet sent out by the Austrian Federal Railways. Halting train traffic between the two countries extended from 5 p.m. Sunday (September 13) until 6 a.m. Monday.

Spokespersons for the Austrian police reported that 7,000 people had crossed the border from Hungary on September 14. On the day before some 14,000 entered the country.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said military personnel were sent to the entry and gathering points to assist with humanitarian relief. The Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner said “If Germany carries out border controls Austria must put strengthened border controls in place.” (BBC, September 14)

EU and the U.S. Fail to Address Real Causes of the Crisis

Meanwhile, the political and security crisis in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Turkey and other states are creating the conditions for further dislocation. Rather than deal with the root causes of the crisis, the EU states along with their allies in the United States proceeded by debating over how many refugees to take into their countries.

Some EU leaders have rejected the concept of quotas as proposed by Germany and France creating logistical challenges in the transport of migrants to states which claim officially to be more favorable towards resettlement.

The administration of President Barack Obama issued a statement on September 11 saying that the U.S. would allow 10,000 Syrians to enter the country. Nonetheless, this is only a small fragment of those being forced to leave Syria and other states on two continents due to the foreign policies of Washington and Wall Street.

British Prime Minister David Cameron visited a refugee camp in Lebanon on September 13 saying that his government would open its borders to 20,000 displaced persons. Successive governments in London have supported U.S. military interventions in various states including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, among others.

Unrest among migrants in Hungary is an indication that the EU is not prepared for the integration of hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of new residents. Hungary has said that they want to keep people out to preserve their European “Christian heritage.”

Meanwhile, wars initiated by Washington aimed at reshaping the political landscape of large regions of Africa, the Middle East and Asia are continuing. Bombing operations by the Pentagon in Iraq and Syria are displacing hundreds of thousands of people every month.

Other wars that are funded, coordinated and given diplomatic cover by the U.S. in Yemen, Libya, Egypt and other geo-political areas are worsening the plight of tens of millions. UN and other humanitarian agencies are incapable of meeting the needs of refugees and migrants under conditions of armed factional struggles and the total breakdown of state structures involving transportation, food distribution, fuel supplies, medical services and education.

The current situation involving the massive deaths in the Mediterranean of those seeking refuge in Europe and the social restrictions and racist repression they will be subjected to in the EU member-states warrants a response from the anti-war and social justice movements in both Western Europe and North America. With economic crisis still prevalent in several European countries the harsh situations of the migrants can provide a basis for an alliance between the workers and oppressed already in Europe and those who are streaming in as a direct result of the imperialist policies of the U.S. and NATO.

From Washington to the western media, everyone has been talking about reports of potential Russian ‘intervention’ in Syria. On the one hand, the proliferation of this meme is a case study in the western propaganda system, as one report is then repeated ad nauseam from thousands of sources, then built upon by subsequent reports, thereby manufacturing the irrefutable truth from the perspective of media pundits and western mouthpieces. On the other hand, the new reports also raise some interesting questions about the motives of both the US and Russia, as well as the other interested parties to the conflict in Syria.

In examining this new chapter of the ongoing war in Syria, two critical and interrelated points seem to rise above all others in importance: Why is the western media hyping this narrative of Russian intervention? And why is direct Russian involvement, limited though it may be, seen as such a threat by the US?

Dissecting the Propaganda

An Israeli publication reported that Russian air power would be increasing in Syria with “Russian jets in Syrian skies,” as the headline read. While all the information came from unnamed “western diplomatic sources,” and was accompanied by little more than assertions of fact without any tangible evidence, the media outcry began almost immediately, with literally hundreds of news outlets reporting the same information. Within 24 hours however, a Russian military source denied the allegations, saying,“There has been no redeployment of Russian combat aircraft to the Syrian Arab Republic…The Russian Air Force is at its permanent bases and carrying out normal troop training and combat duty.”

Almost as if on cue, the next day The Daily Beast published a story claiming that there were Russian boots on the ground in Syria, as well as large shipments of military materiel en route to Syria, including trucks and BTR infantry fighting vehicles. The article cited Turkish navy photos showing a Russian ship purportedly carrying the cargo, quite openly it must be said (more on this later).

Naturally, the conversation in Washington instantly became about Russian intervention and the danger of Russia “destabilizing” the situation in Syria, an assertion that would be laughable if it weren’t so deeply cynical and hypocritical considering four and a half years of US-NATO-GCC-Israel intervention in Syria.

Official denials of escalation from Moscow did nothing to calm tensions on the issue as US Secretary of State Kerry calledRussian Foreign Minister Lavrov to voice concerns that Russian involvement could escalate the conflict. After the call, the State Department released a statement explaining that the US had:

...concerns about reports suggesting an imminent enhanced Russian buildup [in Syria]. The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria… The two agreed that discussions on the Syrian conflict would continue in New York later this month.

A careful reading of this short, but important, statement should raise one obvious question: what does the State Department mean by “reports”? Specifically, the initial Israeli report was allegedly based on intelligence from key Western (presumably US) sources that would obviously have access to classified information. Were that true, then surely the State Department would be alarmed by the intelligence, and not the reports.

In other words, the US military and government, with its vast surveillance and intelligence apparatus, knows perfectly well if a true Russian military buildup in Syria is really happening. Instead, the State Department focuses on the media reports, indicating that, rather than responding to intelligence, it is responding to a media story, one which is based entirely on information the US itself supplied.

So, the dramatic reaction to the reports is essentially a reaction to a story they themselves planted. Translation: Washington is hyping the story in order to further its political position, and to weaken Russia’s, by framing the debate as one of ‘Russian interventionism.’

And, in true western corporate propaganda fashion, the reports have been built upon since then. There are now allegations that Russia is building “a huge 1,000 personnel compound,” and even a report from the decidedly dubious DebkaFile – an outlet notoriously close to Israeli intelligence which has published as much disinformation as credible information – alleging that the Russians have deployed a submarine loaded with 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and 200 nuclear warheads to Syria. All of this is an attempt to further bolster the narrative that Russia is the aggressor, attempting to escalate the conflict in Syria for its own purposes.

Returning to the information on the trucks being supplied through the Bosphorous, as reported in international press, there is a painfully obvious question that must be asked; namely why Moscow would choose to initiate a covert military buildup but would transport the equipment openly, in plain sight of any naval intelligence or satellite imagery. Obviously, it is because Russia is not doing this covertly, but is merely continuing to supply the Syrian government as it has done since 2011.

And that is precisely the point that Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made in a recent interview. She noted that, “We have always supplied equipment to them for their struggle against terrorists…We are supporting them, we were supporting them and we will be supporting them.” In other words, there is nothing secret about what Russia is providing to the Syrian government under its existing contracts.

This is also in keeping with comments from Russian President Putin who confirmed what all serious analysts following the conflict in Syria already knew, that Russian advisers have been providing training and logistical support to the Syrian military. Of course, based on the hype in western media, one could be forgiven for thinking that Russia’s military had moved in and taken command of the war effort in Syria. In reality, Russia’s participation from a logistical and advisory perspective has been rather limited.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Moscow is stepping up its aid and engagement in Syria, but it obviously has not fundamentally changed its policy. As one source confirmed to Reuters this week, “The Russians are no longer just advisors…The Russians have decided to join the war against terrorism.” Indeed, another of the sources noted that, “[The Russians] have started in small numbers, but the bigger force did not yet take part … Russians [are] taking part in Syria but they did not yet join the fight against terrorism strongly.”

These statements are particularly interesting if set against the media narrative being portrayed in the West, as well as the language employed by the State Department and White House which was quoted as saying “We would welcome constructive Russian contributions to the counter-ISIL effort, but we’ve been clear that it would be unconscionable for any party, including the Russians, to provide any support to the Assad regime.”

Analysts with knowledge of the situation seem convinced that Russian participation is geared towards helping the Syrian government in the fight against terror groups such as ISIS/ISIL and Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front, and that the increased presence is clear evidence of Moscow’s commitment to anti-terrorism. This presents a complex quandary for Washington which pays lip service to counter-terrorism while simultaneously describing as “unconscionable” any effective counter-terrorism aid in the war.

What is perhaps most interesting about the media coverage and comments from US officials about Russian moves being “destabilizing,” is the fact that since 2011 the western media has published literally thousands upon thousands of articles documenting openly the role of US military and intelligence, and its counterparts in NATO (including Turkey), Israel, and the Gulf monarchies, in arming and training fighters to wage war against the Syrian government (see here, here, here, here, here, andhere for just a tiny sample). Somehow these actions are not considered “meddling” or “destabilizing” to the conflict in Syria, while Russia’s alleged involvement is cause for international outcry.

The Real Agenda

The obvious conclusion is that Russia’s aid to Syria has been critical in stymieing Washington’s regime change agenda, thereby necessitating an active propaganda assault to demonize Moscow’s moves both in regard to supplying and aiding Damascus, and its calls to form a coalition against the Islamic State and international terrorism. In effect, the media is working to caricature Russia as an aggressor in Syria in order to deflect attention from the fact that US efforts in Syria have failed, and that the US has no intention of effectively fighting the terrorism it continues to promote.

The US-NATO-GCC-Israel axis seeks to continue the war on Syria using any means necessary, including continued support for terrorist factions such as the so called “Army of Conquest,” al Qaeda linked groups like al Nusra Front, and ISIS/ISIL. The ultimate goal is the collapse of the Syrian state and the breaking of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance, which would mean the final and permanent ejection of Russian influence from the region.

Russia fully understands this strategic imperative for Washington, just as it knows that terrorism is the principal weapon being employed in the ongoing war. As such, Moscow has moved to bolster the Syrian government (Russia knows that the Syrian Arab Army is the most effective counter-terrorism fighting force) in order to provide it with the necessary aid to continue to destroy terrorist groups. Moreover, any additional Russian support in terms of advisers, increased shipments of materiel, and/or limited numbers of combat troops, provide Damascus with the physical resources necessary to wage the war.

At the largest level however, Moscow is moving to call Washington’s bluff regarding the fight against the Islamic State, and terrorism generally. Putin knows that the US does not want to destroy ISIS/ISIL, but rather to manage its development in an attempt to steer it toward US strategic objectives.

This strategy was outlined in the declassified 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document obtained by Judicial Watch, which revealed that the US has knowingly promoted the spread of the Islamic State since at least 2012 in order to use it as a weapon against the Assad government. The document noted that, “…there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria…and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”

So, by proposing an international coalition to defeat ISIS/ISIL, Putin is essentially forcing the US either to admit that it is not serious about destroying the terrorist network, or that it will only do so under its own aegis, thereby exposing Washington’s motives as entirely self-serving, and rooted in the US hegemonic agenda for the region.

But Washington will not simply allow Putin to outmaneuver it in terms of public relations. Instead, it reverts to the tried and true, and still remarkably effective, meme of Russian aggression. By portraying Russia as the villain bent on arming the “brutal dictator,” the US hopes to transform the discourse on Syria, moving from its own ghastly record of arming terrorists and seeking the destruction of the state, to Russia “meddling” in the conflict.

Keen political observers shouldn’t be fooled by this sort of sleight of hand propaganda. But don’t tell the corporate media. They’re busy working overtime, parroting US-NATO talking points, rather than asking questions and seeking answers.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City, he is the founder of StopImperialism.org and OP-ed columnist for RT, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

(image) Professor James Tracy

Remarkable Coincidences in Developing Story, Recent News Article on Delta’s Active Shooter Exercises Deleted From Web

On Monday, September 14 Delta State University Professor Ethan Schmidt was allegedly shot by an unknown assailant who is presently on the loose. The story is being vigorously promoted by major news media vis-á-vis university and Mississippi state officials, and federal agencies including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Yet Delta State is also noted in the region for “active shooter exercises”–the most recent of which were held in late August of this year (see below news report). “We’ve had and hosted several active shooter trainings on campus,” notes Delta State Campus Police Chief Lynn Buford in a story appearing in the Bolivar Commercial that has since been deleted from its website.

Delta State’s police department works with the local sheriff’s office on such drills. When a drill scenario begins to play out campus police receive word of an alleged “active shooter” on campus. “Then we send out a text message that goes to Facebook and Twitter and email,” Buford explains. “Depending on the situation we’ll decide to either lockdown or evacuate.”

The campus community is kept apprised of such situations via “Okra Alert,” which uses social media to inform on the given incident. “It’s a text message system which includes text and email,” according to Buford. “We can also link it to our Facebook and Twitter pages.” About 4,100 people are Okra subscribers.

The story below on Delta State’s recent active shooter exercises has been deleted from the Bolivar Commercial’s website. It was located on the Internet Archive and saved via a screen capture.

There are also other curious facets to this developing story presented to the public via “social media postings.”

“Before Schmidt was identified as the victim,” Yahoo! News reports, “friends of the slain professor posted heartbreaking messages on his Facebook page inquiring about this wellbeing.” The story goes on to quote from Facebook:

“Watching CNN about events on your campus,” one wrote. “Please let us know when you can!”

“Yes, please let us know if you are ok,” wrote another. “Thoughts and prayers to you all at DSU.”

Further, Yahoo! News staff even claim to have known Professor Schmidt. This is indeed a remarkable coincidence! “Schmidt attended Emporia State University in Kansas with Yahoo News editor Everett Starling, and the two had remained friends,” notes Yahoo!

Starling said Schmidt as very involved at Emporia State, including serving as student body president.

“He’s somebody that I never knew to ever have a quibble with anyone,” Starling said. “He’s one of the best people you will ever know.”

Starling adding: “I’m stunned. He’s a great guy.”

Another unusual coincidence: Delta is scheduled to celebrate its 90th anniversary on September 15th–an occasion that will surely be used by corporate news media to exploit the event.

Here is Delta State’s official Testing of Emergency Procedure Policy concerning such readiness exercises.

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Quando as crianças chegavam aos acampamentos de verão numa região arborizada em torno da cidade de Kíev, recebiam uma camiseta amarela em que estavam impressas duas silhuetas de crianças armadas com fuzil, com o emblema do Batalhão Azov decalcado sobre o das SS do Reich, e tendo ao fundo o “Sol Negro” do misticismo nazista.

As crianças (incluindo as de 6 anos) e os adolescentes que frequentavam o acampamento em grupos de 30 a 40 – informa o jornal Kíev Post – “não brincaram de soldados, mas receberam um real treinamento militar por instrutores do Batalhão Azov”. Ou seja, pelos neonazistas que têm cometido atrocidades contra os civis ded nacionalidade russa na Ucrânia oriental.

Este e outros batalhões neonazistas fazem parte da Guarda Nacional ucraniana, que tem parceria com a Guarda Nacional da Califórnia e é treinada por instrutores estadunidenses e britânicos para conduzir “a operação antiterrorista” em Donbass. O acampamento de verão constitui a primeira etapa do recrutamento de soldados crianças, escreve Michel Chossudovsky em um artigo documentado ilustrado com fotos[1] (ver www.globalresearch.ca/ ). Além de atirar, ensina-se o ódio às crianças: “nós mataremos todos os russos”, jura um deles.

A foto de uma criança ucraniana cuja vida foi incendiada pelo “Sol Negro” nazista não é menos terrível que a da criança síria morta no Mediterrâneo.

Esta imagem, que segundo a fábula atualmente em curso, teria tocado o coração dos maiores representantes dos mesmos governos responsáveis por guerras e dos consecutivos terremotos sociais provocados nas últimas décadas pela estratégia dos Estados Unidos e da Otan. Guerras e embargos ao Iraque, à Iugoslávia, ao Afeganistão, à Palestina, à Líbia, à Síria e à Ucrânia provocaram a morte de milhões de crianças (meio milhão assassinadas por dez anos de embargo contra o Iraque). Suas fotos não foram divulgadas pelos grandes meios de comunicação.

E se acrescentam às pequenas vítimas as crianças educadas a odiar e a matar por movimentos como o Isis e os batalhões neonazistas ucranianos, para cuja formação contribuíram de maneira determinante os Estados Unidos e as potências europeias para desmontar por dentro Estados inteiros. Conta-se que o governo britânico decidiu acolher 15 mil refugiados porque ficou emocionado pela foto do pequeno menino sírio morto. Ao mesmo tempo, esse mesmo governo anunciou que pretende obter sinal verde do parlamento para realizar uma ação militar “contra o regime mau de Assad e contra o Isis”. E o ministro (italiano) das relações exteriores Gentiloni anunciou que, em face do drama dos refugiados, vai começar a segunda fase da missão EuNavForMed “contra os traficantes de seres humanos”, cujo objetivo final na realidade é a ocupação militar das zonas costeiras líbias estrategicamente e economicamente mais importantes.

O êxodo dos refugiados para a Europa provocado pelas guerras está, assim, sendo utilizado para fins estratégicos: por Washington para pôr sob pressão os países europeus reforçando a influência estadunidense na Europa utilizada como primeira linha de combate contra a Rússia e base de lançamento das operações militares dos Estados Unidos e da Otan no Oriente Médio e no Norte da África; pelas maiores capitais europeias para preparar a opinião pública para outras guerras vendidas como “operações humanitárias de paz”. Sem a consciência política das causas reais e das soluções possíveis desse êxodo, pode-se instrumentalizar até mesmo o apoio humanitário que numerosos cidadãos europeus dão aos refugiados e igualmente pode-se utilizar os próprios refugiados como massa de manobra e face dos países de onde provêm.

E outras crianças morrerão, quase todas sem foto.

Manlio Dinucci

1 – http://www.globalresearch.ca/military-training-for-young-children-at-ukraines-neo-nazi-summer-camp-recruitment-of-ukraines-child-soldiers-financed-by-us-nonlethal-military-aid/5472801

Fonte: Il Manifesto, 7 de Setembro de 2015.

Traduzido do francês pelo Blog da Resistência.

Quando i bam­bini sono arri­vati al campo estivo, in una zona boscosa presso Kiev, hanno rice­vuto una bella T-shirt gialla su cui sono stam­pate due sagome di bam­bini armati di fucile, con l’emblema del bat­ta­glione Azov rical­cato da quello delle SS Das Reich, e sullo sfondo il «Sole Nero» del misti­ci­smo nazista.

I bam­bini (anche di 6 anni) e ragazzi che hanno fre­quen­tato il campo a gruppi di 30–40 – riporta il quo­ti­diano Kiev Post – «non hanno gio­cato ai sol­dati, ma hanno rice­vuto un reale adde­stra­mento mili­tare da istrut­tori del bat­ta­glione Azov». Ossia dai neo­na­zi­sti che hanno com­piuto atro­cità con­tro i civili di nazio­na­lità russa nell’Ucraina orientale.

Que­sto e altri bat­ta­glioni neo­na­zi­sti fanno parte della Guar­dia nazio­nale ucraina, legata da una part­ner­ship con la Guar­dia nazio­nale della Cali­for­nia e adde­strata da istrut­tori sta­tu­ni­tensi e bri­tan­nici per con­durre l’«operazione anti-terrorismo» nel Don­bass. Il campo estivo costi­tui­sce il primo sta­dio del reclu­ta­mento di bam­bini sol­dato, scrive Michel Chos­su­do­v­sky in un docu­men­tato arti­colo cor­re­dato da foto (v. www.globalresearch.ca/). Oltre che a spa­rare, ai bam­bini inse­gnano a odiare: «Ucci­de­remo tutti i russi», giura uno di loro.

La foto di un bam­bino ucraino la cui vita è bru­ciata dal «Sole Nero» nazi­sta non è meno tre­menda di quella del bam­bino siriano la cui vita si è spenta nel Medi­ter­ra­neo. Imma­gine, quest’ultima, che secondo la favola cor­rente avrebbe toc­cato il cuore dei mas­simi espo­nenti di quei governi respon­sa­bili delle guerre e dei con­se­guenti ter­re­moti sociali pro­vo­cati negli ultimi decenni dalla stra­te­gia Usa/Nato.

Guerre ed embar­ghi – dall’Iraq alla Jugo­sla­via, dall’Afghanistan alla Pale­stina, dalla Libia alla Siria e all’Ucraina – hanno pro­vo­cato la morte di milioni di bam­bini (mezzo milione solo quelli uccisi dai dieci anni di embargo con­tro l’Iraq). Le loro foto non sono state però dif­fuse dai grandi media. E alle pic­cole vit­time si aggiun­gono i bam­bini edu­cati a odiare e ucci­dere da movi­menti, come l’Isis e i bat­ta­glioni neo­na­zi­sti ucraini, alla cui for­ma­zione hanno con­tri­buito in modo deter­mi­nante gli Usa e le potenze euro­pee per scar­di­nare dall’interno interi Stati.

Si narra che il governo bri­tan­nico abbia deciso di acco­gliere 15mila pro­fu­ghi siriani per­ché com­mosso dalla foto del pic­colo siriano morto. Con­tem­po­ra­nea­mente, però, lo stesso governo ha annun­ciato di voler otte­nere il via libera dal par­la­mento per una azione mili­tare «con­tro il mal­va­gio regime di Assad e l’Isis». E il mini­stro degli esteri Gen­ti­loni ha annun­ciato che, di fronte al dramma dei pro­fu­ghi, sta per ini­ziare la seconda fase della mis­sione EuNa­v­For­Med  «con­tro i traf­fi­canti di essere umani», il cui obiet­tivo finale è in realtà l’occupazione mili­tare delle aree costiere libi­che stra­te­gi­ca­mete ed eco­no­mi­ca­mente più importanti.

L’esodo dei pro­fu­ghi verso l’Europa, pro­vo­cato dalle guerre, viene così usato a fini stra­te­gici: da Washing­ton per met­tere sotto pres­sione i paesi euro­pei raf­for­zando l’influenza sta­tu­ni­tense in Europa, usata come prima linea con­tro la Rus­sia e base di lan­cio delle ope­ra­zioni mili­tari Usa/Nato in Medio­riente e Nor­da­frica; dalle mag­giori capi­tali euro­pee per pre­pa­rare l’opinione pub­blica ad altre guerre spac­ciate per «mis­sioni uma­ni­ta­rie di pace».

Senza la con­sa­pe­vo­lezza poli­tica delle cause reali e pos­si­bili solu­zioni di tale esodo, può essere stru­men­ta­liz­zato anche il soste­gno uma­ni­ta­rio che molti cit­ta­dini euro­pei danno ai pro­fu­ghi, e pos­sono essere usati gli stessi pro­fu­ghi quale massa di mano­vra nei con­fronti dei paesi di pro­ve­nienza. E altri bam­bini mori­ranno, quasi tutti senza foto.

Manlio Dinucci

British Prime Minister David Cameron called Corbyn a threat to national security. More on what he said below.

For the first time in decades, British politics got interesting. Whether Corbyn’s astonishing rise from longtime backbencher to near-overnight Labour party leadership makes a difference remains to be seen.

One man with perhaps a handful of party supporters trying to change an entrenched system run by powerful monied interests is a daunting task and then some.

Blairites, Thatcherites and the British media oppose him. Labour party supporters are tagged with the pejorative “Corbynista.” “Corbynism” is called isolationist and anti-British.

A hostile London Observer editorial denigrated him, claiming undefined “evidence to suggest voters will resoundingly reject Corbynism in its current form if he makes it to the next election.”

Observer editors claim “lacklustre campaigns of the other candidates” paved his way to victory. Blairism represented by Liz Kendall was resoundingly rejected – getting an embarrassing low 5% support.

Corbyn’s leadership represents “the greatest challenge the Labour party has ever faced,” claimed Observer editors. They’re right saying he’s yet to prove he can change anything – given entrenched monied interests running things unchallenged in all Western societies and most others at the expense of everyone else.

If Corbyn can shake things up a little, perhaps there’s eventual hope for driving a stake through the heart of Thatcherism and Blairism – for sure no time soon.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is an unindicted war criminal – complicit with Obama’s imperial agenda, threatening world peace.

Corbyn wants humanity saved from the scourge of endless wars. Who’s the real threat to British and global security? For sure not a peace and stability advocate, provided his actions as Labour party leader don’t stray from his high-minded rhetoric.

The whole civilized world hopes he’s the real thing. War-mongering criminals running Western countries and Israel deplore him. So far, no congratulatory phone call from Obama – or likeminded rogue leaders.

During his London visit last week, Netanyahu snubbed him – deploring his forthright support for Palestinian rights, including vocal opposition last summer to Israeli naked aggression on Gaza.

Cameron’s twitter comment was duplicitous and then some, saying “(t)he Labour party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security.”

Judge for yourself. Corbyn chairs Britain’s Stop the War Coalition. He’s for nuclear disarmament and against US-led NATO’s killing machine.

He wants force-fed austerity ended, harming ordinary Brits to enrich wealthy ones more than ever, as well as reversing welfare cuts to help people most in need.

He urges quantitative easing for ordinary people. Money injected responsibly into economies create growth and jobs. When consumers have money, they spend it. A virtuous circle of prosperity is possible. Western policies benefit monied interests exclusively.

Corbyn supports investing in vital infrastructure projects, public transportation and renewable energy – to end reliance on fossil fuels.

In an August Ecologist article, he said “(o)ur collective aspirations must lie with a greener vision of Britain. And we must reach out to those voters who care deeply about the environment if we are to build the electoral alliance we need.”

“Break up our energy cartels.” “(N)o TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) with the US.” Yes to “clean air to breathe.”

We are fighting for the same thing: for society to be run in our collective interest (as well as) protecting our planet.

Corbyn opposes fracking and other environmentally destructive practices. Whether he means what he says has yet to be tested.

Despite over three decades in parliament, he was always a powerless backbencher, never holding a ministerial position, let alone Labour leadership like now.

Britain’s Defense Secretary Michael Fallon repeated Cameron’s offensive remark calling Corbyn “a serious risk to our nation’s security, our economy’s security and your family’s security.”

“Whether it’s weakening our defences, raising taxes on jobs and earnings, racking up more debt and welfare or driving up the cost of living by printing money, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party will hurt working people,” Fallon blustered.

He ignored Britain’s participation in endless US wars as well as enormous harm to millions of ordinary people under Tory and previous post-Thatcher Labour governments, absurdly saying Conservatives will continue delivering “stability, security and opportunity.”

Brits lacked it since the 1970s. No matter how sincere, Corbyn alone can’t change things. A sustained groundswell of mass support is the only chance, a slim one at best.

Years, maybe decades, are needed to undo the enormous damage done. Most world governments follow the same destructive path as America and Britain.

If Corbyn’s sincere about working for real change, hopefully a strong grassroots majority of Brits will support him – the only chance for anything positive ahead.

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 at1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

SELECTED ARTICLES

The West’s “Information War” against Syria: Refugees, Russia, And The Balkans

By Andrew Korybko, September 14, 2015

Russia has taken the lead in supporting Syria this summer, actively initiating efforts to bring a diplomatic resolution to the country’s crisis and assemble an inclusive anti-ISIL coalition.

Clinton’s Charity Ties With Oligarchs Behind Ukrainian Coup Revealed

By Ekaterina Blinova, September 14, 2015

The Clinton Foundation contributed to the February coup in Ukraine, having longstanding ties to Ukrainian oligarchs who pushed the country to European integration.

Social Engineering 101, How to Make a Refugee Crisis: Destruction of All Prevailing Political Orders in the Middle East

By Tony Cartalucci, September 13, 2015

Starting in 2007, the US was already in the process of engineering the overthrow and destruction of all prevailing political orders across the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

Israel Keeps Making, Not Taking, More Refugees

By Ben White, September 14, 2015

Israel won’t accept Syrian refugees because it was only by turning the majority of the Palestinians into refugees that a ‘Jewish state’ was created .

Jeremy Corbyn is Not Wrong about Trident ­ in the Face of Israel’s Undeclared Nuclear Arsenal

By Anthony Bellchambers, September 13, 2015

Israel has an undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated by American scientists to contain up to 400 warheads. It is not in the EU nor subject to EU law, nor in NATO but it seeks to influence the foreign policy of the United States congress by means of a powerful lobby in Washington.

Australia: The Fall of Tony Abbott

By Binoy Kampmark, September 14, 2015

“This will be a thoroughly Liberal government. It will be a thoroughly Liberal government committed to freedom, the individual and the market.” -Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Prime Minister, Sep 14, 2015.

One drowned toddler has shifted global politics. The picture demanded action in response to the largest migration crisis since World War II, itself caused by the longest series of wars since WWII. These wars have dragged on and new ones started– Libya and Syria — under the Nobel Prize winning U.S. President.  

Obama could end the refugee crisis by brokering peace in Syria, but instead he’s pushing hard and fast for war. Few U.S. media outlets are reporting about the critical war resolution that the Obama Administration is trying to push through Congress.

The BBC reports:

President Barack Obama has called on Congress to authorize US military action in Syria. The move has provoked sharp, multifaceted debate in the US Capitol as a resolution moves through the legislative process.

What’s in the Senate resolution demanded by Obama?

The Guardian reports:

…Barack Obama for the first time portrayed his plans for US military action [in Syria] as part of a broader strategy to topple [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, as the White House’s campaign to win over skeptics in Congress gained momentum.

The resolution would allow a “a 90 day window” for U.S. military attack in Syria, where both ISIS and the Syrian government would be targeted; with regime change in Syria being the ultimate objective.

The U.S. public has virtually no knowledge of these new developments. A field of candidates campaigning for President haven’t mentioned the subject. The U.S. media’s silence on the issue is deafening.

War produces war refugees. The once-modern societies of Iraq, Libya and Syria were obliterated while the western world watched, seemingly emotionless. But the drowned toddler, named Aylan, unearthed these buried emotions.

The public demanded that “something must be done” about the refugee crisis. And now this feeling is being exploited by the Obama Administration, funneling the energy back into the war canal that birthed the problem.

The war march is happening fast, and in silence.  U.S. ally Australia already announced it would begin bombing in Syria, while the U.K media has also re-started the debate to join in.

While not mentioning Obama’s new Syrian war resolution, the U.S. media is re-playing the 2013 Syria war debates, when public pressure overcame Obama’s commitment to bomb the Syrian government. History is now dangerously repeating itself.  We’re back on the war track, with bombing targets imagined with each new press release.

For example, Roger Cohen of the New York Times is just one of several pundits making the absurd argument that Obama’s “lack of action” in Syria has helped lead to the catastrophe.  Cohen’s argument has been uttered in various forms in countless U.S. media outlets, pushing the public to accept an expanded U.S. war in Syria:

American interventionism can have terrible consequences, as the Iraq war has demonstrated. But American non-interventionism can be equally devastating, as Syria illustrates. Not doing something is no less of a decision than doing it.

Cohen doesn’t mention Obama’s war resolution. But his well-timed war propaganda hides behind the old arguments of ‘humanitarian intervention’, a term meant to put a smiley face on the carnage of war. Obama used ‘humanitarian intervention’ arguments to justify the destruction of Libya, whose war refugees continue to drown en masse in the Mediterranean.

The many hack journalists of Cohen’s ilk are repeating — in unison– the big lie that Obama’s “inaction” in Syria produced the war and refugee catastrophe. The exact opposite is the case. These pundits know very well that Obama has intervened heavily in Syria from the beginning, and remains the driving force of the war-driven refugee crisis.

Cohen’s own paper, the New York Times, reported in March 2013 that the Obama Administration was overseeing a weapons ‘pipeline’ to Syria, funneling tons of weapons via U.S. allies to help attack the Syrian government where Obama desired –and still desires — regime change.

This story should have laid the foundation for our understanding of the Syrian conflict, since it changed the course of the war and pushed jihadist groups into positions of power, while leaving others powerless.  But this narrative was ignored. The story was dropped even while the dynamic continued, intensifying the bloodbath that spilled into neighboring countries.

Who received Obama’s trafficked guns? The New York Times reported in October 2012 — before Obama’s role in the weapons pipeline was discovered– that the regional “flow” of weapons was going to jihadist groups in Syria.

And a recent U.S. Department of Defense report shows that the Obama Administration was fully aware that weapons were being shipped to Syrian groups such as al-Qaeda linked rebels and those that later joined ISIS.

As a result, these groups are the the only real players among the rebels attacking the Syrian government today. And these are the groups that will take power if the Syrian government falls, as Obama intends to achieve.

We also know that Obama’s weapon ‘pipeline’ was assisted by a flow of billions of dollars and foreign fighters from the U.S. allies that surround Syria, most notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. This ‘perfect storm’ of Syrian destruction just didn’t happen by coincidence, as the puzzled media would have you believe. Close U.S. allies don’t intervene in regional politics without having U.S. permission and support.

In 2013 the Telegraph reported the existence of a U.S. ‘rebel’ training camp in Jordan to arm and train fighters attacking the Syrian government. This story was all but ignored in the U.S. media. These training camps have since been expanded to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, while the U.S. media buried the story.

The bloody fingerprints of the U.S. government are all over this conflict, while the U.S. media has the audacity to claim that “inaction” was Obama’s cardinal sin. These same journalists never asked hard questions about Obama’s weapons pipeline, or his rebel training camps, or the actions of his close allies directly fueling the bloodshed. Obama was invited to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s shows where he received celebrity treatment. Real discussion on Syria was always “off the table”.

Baby Aylan’s death was an opportunity for peace, but Obama is intent to stay on his war track. We are at a critical moment. Russia has once again proposed renewed peace talks in Syria.

Similar deals have been offered by Russia and Syria for several years. But Obama’s peace-killing response has remained “Assad must go”. Obama continues to demand regime change: in practice this mean the war continues, and his new war resolution would expand it.

Meanwhile, Russia has made moves to bolster the Syrian government against ISIS and al-Qaeda linked rebels. In response, the Obama Administration issued a serious “warning’ to Russia” and pressured neighboring governments, like Bulgaria, to block Russia’s transportation of weapons to aid the Syrian government.

By attempting to block Russians weapons to the Syrian government Obama is empowering the groups attacking the government– al-Qaeda and ISIS.  If Obama follows through with his new war resolution and topples the Syrian President, these groups are the ones who will fill the power vacuum.

Thus, millions more refugees will sweep into neighboring countries and Europe, if they survive the onslaught.

To this day Obama has pushed zero peace initiatives in Syria. Diplomacy has been off the table. Regime change remains the official position of the Obama Administration, which his new resolution finally makes official. The war on ISIS was always a distraction to pursue regime change in Syria, and most media pundits took the bait.

The world demands peace in Syria. Obama must accept Russia’s peace offering, and sit down with Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian government to hammer out a peace initiative, while demanding that U.S. allies in the region “stand down” and pursue a policy of strangling the flow of guns, money, and fighters that bolster ISIS.

The U.S. must also open its borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees that are the direct victims of U.S. foreign policy.  Immediately agreeing to take 500,000 refugees would be a good start.

Drastic action is needed immediately to address the destruction of Syria, it’s true. But not the action demanded by the war-hungry U.S. President  Real humanitarian intervention cannot include missiles and tanks. The world demands peace.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action. He can be reached at [email protected] 

On September 4th, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin restated, as he has many times before, that he seeks a U.S.- Russian alliance to overcome the global Islamic jihad movement, in Syria, Iraq, and everywhere.

Then, on Tuesday September 8th, Yahoo News bannered, “Austria joins growing voices that say Assad must be part of Syrian solution,” and reported that Austria’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said: “In my opinion the priority is the fight against terror. This will not be possible without powers such as Russia and Iran.” German Economic News noted then that, “Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo had already called on Monday for negotiations with Assad to end the war.”

However, the U.S. government is strongly opposed to accepting Putin’s offer of an alliance to overcome Islamic jihad.

Putin’s foreign-policy objectives are consistent; and his latest turn fits with all that has preceded, which has been his single-minded focus, ever since he first became Russia’s leader in 2000: to defeat the global threat of Islamic jihad, which has been the chief military concern for Russia itself, ever since the First Chechen War, during 1994-96, radicalized the predominantly Sunni (Saudi-based) Muslim Chechen Republic, to separate themselves from the predominantly Orthodox Catholic Russia. By the time of Putin’s contest for the Presidency in 2000, Putin’s hard line against religious separatism became a leading factor in his electoral victory.

On 11 February 2004, this is how the pro-Western Moscow Times, which wikipedia refers to as “the first Western daily to be published in Russia,” described “Putin and the Chechen War: Together Forever”:

In the summer of 1999, the ruling elite was at a loss. Boris Yeltsin was clearly not up to running the country, but no suitable successor could be found. The obvious candidates — Sergei Stepashin, Nikolai Bordyuzha and Sergei Kiriyenko — weren’t presidential material. But then Chechen separatists staged a raid into neighboring Dagestan. Putin directed the operation that drove the fighters from Dagestan, and after two apartment buildings were blown up in Moscow [which some accounts say was secretly planned by Putin himself], Putin launched an “anti-terrorist operation” in Chechnya. Suddenly Putin was the No. 1 politician in the country. …

The Chechen fighters were operating on the assumption that the Kremlin would not tolerate substantial losses on the eve of the election. This is why Chechen detachments flouted military logic and remained in Grozny after it was surrounded, continuing to offer fierce resistance.

Putin’s campaign managers also assumed that heavy Russian losses would hurt his chances at the polls. As the fighting in Grozny took its toll, they feared that by election day in June 2000 Putin’s support would have evaporated. This concern probably explains Yeltsin’s decision to step down early, bringing the election forward by several months.

As we now know, those fears were groundless. Heavy Russian losses had no impact on Putin’s poll numbers. The four years of Putin’s first term, during which the war raged on unabated, have made clear that Russian voters are prepared to endure endless lies from their leaders about the latest “phase” of the “operation” in Chechnya, as well as a staggering number of Russian dead.

[Alexander Golts] doubt that any Russian politician today would have the nerve to remind Putin of the promises he made back in 2000. He vowed “to crush the terrorist scum’.

However, Simon Shuster, who likewise is anti-Putin, had this to say about Chechnya, in the cover story of TIME, eleven years later, on 22 June 2015:

Chechnya has undergone a striking transformation. Its cities have been rebuilt with money from Moscow. All traces of its separatist rebellion have been suppressed. And most importantly, a new generation has been raised to respect—at times even to worship—the Russian leader and his local proxies. With no clear memories of the wars for independence, the young people of Chechnya are now the best guarantee that Russia’s hold over the region will persist.

Putin might not have “crushed the terrorist scum,” but he has held it at bay for long enough a time to reestablish relative peace in Chechnya, along with a previously unparallelled degree of prosperity.

The International Crisis Group, a pro-Western and anti-Russian NGO, and an affiliate of NATO’s Atlantic Council, vigorously criticizes the authoritarianism and cult of personality that Putin has imposed in Chechnya, even while reluctantly acknowledging that:

The number of Chechens in the insurgency has been steadily decreasing. With their centuries-long record of being ready to die for their independence, Chechens do not seem very susceptible to the suicidal ideology of a global jihad. Many who are have joined the conflict in Syria, which has significantly drained the human resources of the North Caucasus insurgency overall, but especially in Chechnya. A Chechen interior ministry source estimated in 2013 that 200-500 Chechens were fighting in Syria.

The Islamic jihadists are more comfortable in, and more accepted by the residents of, the anti-Assad, pro-Sunni, areas of Syria, doing war against Shiia Muslims, and against the Russian-supported secular Shiia President Assad, than they are back home in their native land (Chechnya in Russia). Even Putin’s enemies acknowledge Putin’s successes against the Saudi-based Sunni international Islamic jihad movement. Putin has become an experienced specialist in the war against Islamic terrorism.

Whereas the United States simply spreads Islamic jihad, even while bombing jihadists and creating more martyrs for “the cause” of jihad, Russia has found ways instead to push back effectively against the Saudi-originated movement of Islamic jihad, and to develop, during decades, a peaceful regional diversity, which can encompass even areas where (as in Chechnya) Islamic or sharia law is imposed, and do this even within a predominantly Christian-majority nation (such as Russia, but this also describes the United States).

The U.S. never had to deal with the challenge that Russia has, of containing within itself a majority-Muslim state, and especially not containing a state whose majority are Sunni Muslim, the variant of Islam that (unlike Shiia Islam) produces jihadists, people with suicide-belts etc., who seek to impose a global Caliphate, a worldwide regime that imposes strict Islamic law.

The ICG report on Chechnya criticizes today’s Chechnya, by saying that, “Much of the population lives off pensions and welfare payments,” and that corruption and clan-rule are the norm, but all that’s really new in this is actually the peace, and the pensions: corruption and clan-rule have been the rule in Chechnya for centuries, at the very least.

Simon Shuster’s video at TIME, about today’s Chechnya, opens:

The kids growing up in Chechnya these days are a lot luckier than their parents and their grandparents. At least the youngest ones have only known their homeland to be a peaceful and even quite beautiful place, full of enormous mosques, and skyscrapers, and shopping districts, and fast-food joints.

Shuster then refers to the civil war, but he says, “Today, Chechnya is a very different place,” and he acknowledges that the adults there, who remember the wars, are much happier now, that the jihadists are gone, or dead.

Al Jazeera television, which is controlled by gas-rich Qatar’s anti-Russian Sunni royal family, the Thanis, has criticized Putin for his placing in control of Chechnya the anti-jihadist Chechen Muslim, Ramzan Kadyrov. Thanis are also the chief financial backers for the Muslim Brotherhood, and, along with the Saud family (the main financial backers of Al Qaeda), are also among the main financial backers of the Syrian warriors who are fighting to replace the secular Shiite leader, Assad, by a sectarian Sunni Islamic regime in Syria.

The anti-Russian American newspaper, New York Times, headlined on 1 July 2004,“Qatar Court Convicts 2 Russians in Top Chechen’s Death,” and reported:

The trial has provided an international stage for both sides to air their grievances about Russia’s war in Chechnya and debate the question of whether the fight against terrorism justified such extreme measures. Among those in the courtroom on Wednesday was Akhmed Zakayev, a leader of Chechnya’s separatist movement, who has successfully challenged efforts by Russia to extradite him. Mr. Zakayev said in a telephone interview that the killing of Mr. Yandarbiyev showed that Russia under Mr. Putin had reverted to the darkest tactics of its Soviet past, when K.G.B. agents tracked down enemies of the state overseas. 

In U.S.-allied nations generally, anti-Russian jihadists have, to a large extent, been sympathetically received, and favorably reported (as in that cited NYT article).

So: Regardless of Putin’s success at dealing with Islamic jihadists, his invitation to the United States to work together to defeat the Sunni, and mainly Saudi and Thani-funded, international movement for Islamic jihad for a global Caliphate, will probably continue to meet only America’s cold shoulder. The United States opposes Islamic jihad, but it opposes Russia more.

Or, at least, the U.S. Government does. Obama primarily seeks to defeat Russia, not to ally with it — not even against Islamic jihad.

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

Barely has the dust settled, and the knives are out for the new leader of the British Labour Party. This is complicated by the fact that Jeremy Corbyn is effectively waging two battles: one within his own party, riddled with technocratic scepticism; and those from without, who see a form of capitalised calamity in the wings.

Papers are running updates about the attempts by Corbyn to appoint a shadow cabinet. Each statement from the next evacuee from the boat is given full coverage, suggesting a catastrophic outbreak of influenza. (At this writing, Chuka Umunna is noted inThe Telegraph as being “the highest-profile figure to quit the shadow cabinet” showing form in having quit the race for the leadership to begin with.)

Labour does have a good deal of bleeding to do, notably on the old Blairite issues that changed the party into a Thatcherite coven of pro-marketeers and evangelical war mongers. It is going to prove traumatic, as any ideological reconditioning tends to be.

There is the old ego set, lingering notions centred on national security, which have to be confronted. The nuclear deterrent Trident remains the enormous, erroneous phallus of the security establishment, an illusion of power from what is essentially an unquestioned extension of US power.

Tom Watson, the deputy leader, still clings to the Trident phallus with unquestioning conviction. It is becoming a sticking point between him and Corbyn – will it be renewed? Many of the union leaders think it should, and Watson is pressing Corbyn on the subject of getting reassurance. But Corbyn never had much time for the beast, and has made it part of his manifesto of change, suggesting that Trident be replaced by jobs that retain the skills of the workers.

Then come the meaty issues of continued membership of the European Union and NATO. Watson insists that the British role in the EU is unquestioned, though his reasons for doing so have little to do with the spirit of federalism so much as trade. Umunna’s own decision to quit the front bench was largely put down to Corbyn’s refusal to be “unambiguous” about continued British membership.

Umunna’s statement on the subject, after proclaiming an interest in building “a more equal, democratic, free and fair society” was to sink his boot into the very idea that a democratic outcome in a referendum on the EU should necessarily be abided by. “It is my view that we should support the UK remaining a member of the EU, notwithstanding the outcome of any renegotiation by the prime minister”.

This has been the continued theme of the evacuees: we all share a vision about the equal and democratic society, and acknowledge the mandate of Corbyn’s leadership win. That said, we will oppose him at every main juncture, at every point upon which that mandate was secured. And avoid, at all relevant points, discussing the anti-austerity, social welfare reforms that are on the table.

There have also been very blatant attempts at blackmail. Labour’s biggest private donor, John Mills, has made a public stance on the issue of funding MPs keen to sabotage Corbyn’s leadership while withdrawing all direct funding to the party proper. The fresh breeze is set to be stifled.

From without, the Prime Minister has not wasted any time. The Trade Union Bill on the table has one vital object: limiting the means the unions have for calling strikes. A four-month limit on ballots for industrial action is being proposed as part of the reforms. Such measures have been red rags to the bulls within the union movement.

The conservatives have, to that end, served to highlight the support for Corbyn from the unions as the very reason he should be opposed. Britain’s national security will be at stake before an army of left wing fanatics. The marketing team, not wanting to waste any time, released an attack video with the title “Labour: a threat to our national security.”

Leaving decency at the front door, the strategists deploy what theIndependent described as “sinister, unsettling music” featuring “clips of Mr Corbyn filtered in black and white – interspersed with clips of ISIS fighters.”[1] The list of Corbyn goodies include his anti-Trident stance and a remark describing the execution without trial of Osama Bin Laden as a “tragedy”. (The video naturally hints at sympathy for Bin Laden rather than the tragic circumstances of resorting to extrajudicial killing.)

The establishment press is similarly on board the theory of chaos that Corbyn is said to entail. It is also chortling at the party tensions, noting that such disagreements are “a sign that the new leadership may be unable to agree on key policy positions in the weeks ahead.”[2]

For all of that, these are early days. Corbyn as leader may bend a little on some of these stances in time. Debates are bound to be had within the party. But he risks undermining himself without inflicting a well targeted purge of the Blairite technocrats. Thus far, they are doing a good job of it themselves. The looming question remains how far Corbyn, with his seemingly vast broom, can go.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-launch-attack-advert-against-jeremy-corbyn-set-to-sinister-music-10499678.html

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11862413/Union-bosses-threaten-to-use-Jeremy-Corbyns-victory-to-cripple-UK.html

It seems clear now that the West wants to defeat Russia in Syria at all costs. This latest protracted confrontation in the Middle East can be understood as a proxy war of the US and NATO against Putin’s resurgent Russia. But Syria is just one zone of engagement in a much wider war against Russia that has been taking place since Putin started to stand up to the West. The same confrontation also occurs in Ukraine and formerly in Georgia, where Russia successfully halted, albeit temporarily, the Western advance. This amounts to a new Cold War or an undeclared war where East and West are once more in global confrontation.

To date the policy to unseat Assad has failed miserably despite the West’s imposition of punishing economic sanctions, its bombing of the country and the sponsoring, financing and training of what are little more than terrorist mercenaries. It is virtually impossible to distinguish the moderate rebels from the Islamist fanatics of ISIS (Islamic State).

In reality the root of the current refugee crisis in Syria lies in the strategy of “regime change” adopted by the West over many years. After its failure to effect regime change in Syria, the West now appears intent on ruthlessly exploiting the misery of the Syrian people that the West itself has contributed towards creating in the first place, using the human desperation as the latest leverage to weaken and inflict a final defeat on a country that has been outside its control for decades.

From this perspective the generous German ‘offer’ to take in 500 thousand Syrian refugees a year can be interpreted as a cynical strategic ploy to persuade the Syrian population to break their attachment to Russia’s last remaining ally in the Middle East; thus bribing a desperate people weakened by years of conflict. Such an enticement to escape from increasingly intolerable conditions will effectively decant Syria of the most able-bodied members of its population, who will be vital to help rebuild its economy in the future.

This new tactic seems to be working where sanctions and sponsoring terrorism have failed. Many of the refugees now fleeing the conflict are apparently former members of the Syrian armed forces who have simply become exhausted and had enough of the relentless fighting; this reduction in military personnel is seriously depleting Assad’s ability to resist ISIS.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry has threatened Russia for its alleged military ‘build up’ in Syria and NATO has inevitably echoed Kerry’s concerns. These accusations of an increased Russian military presence in the country conveniently ignores the longstanding cooperation between Moscow and Damascus and flagrantly dismisses the significant role that Russia is playing in assisting Syria to combat the advance of ISIS, which is supposedly the main rationale for the current US-led military operations in Syria.

Perhaps we must conclude that the West is not very serious about defeating ISIS or at least that it sees removing Assad as the top priority irrespective of the consequences. Washington does not even have a plausible puppet government-in-waiting to take the reins of power should Assad be toppled; the political vacuum is much more likely to be filled by ISIS.

Surely the West’s policy advisers understand this is the all too likely outcome.

Tightening the noose on Russia and Syria, EU states Bulgaria and SYRIZA-led Greece are now denying Russia the use of vital airspace to supply Syria, which is clearly a further calculation designed to weaken Damascus – although Iran has offered Russia an alternative flight route.

Furthermore, it needs to be stressed that, as has been widely reported, the so-called “moderate rebels” so assiduously promoted by the US are actually linked to Al-Qaeda, which makes for an unholy alliance if ever there was one. The end result of the conflict in Syria could be that ISIS will come to rule and it could even eventually head a pro-Western state. This outcome is not really so farfetched if one considers the repressive nature of some of the West’s other long-term allies in the region and around the world. Washington and the European powers have never really had a problem in dealing with dictators despite all their high-minded talk of human rights in this and in other contexts. Human rights discourse is simply another weapon in a strategic power game.

Another front in the war against Russia is Ukraine, which has been transformed into one of the most anti-Russian regimes in Europe and sees the extension of NATO right up to Russia’s border. NATO has been broadening its presence in Ukraine for some time but is making this new military relationship more formal with an official visit to Kiev by its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg who was to take part in the Ukrainian Security Council. At the same time, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry indicated that the opening of the very first NATO office in Ukraine is planned. Furthermore, Mikhail Saakashvili, the virulently Russophobe former president of Georgia, who is already the governor of Odessa, is now even being touted to become a future Prime Minister of Ukraine; which can only be interpreted in Moscow as a gross provocation.

Elsewhere, NATO member Turkey seeks to smash the Kurds who are not only officially branded as terrorists by the EU and US, but are seen as suspiciously socialist and subversive of the existing neoliberal order.

Turkey has been allowed to launch bombing raids on PKK camps in Northern Iraq, which the UN Secretary General has defended on the basis of the country’s right to self-defence. It needs recalling that Turkey was supposed to be joining the US-led campaign against ISIS but instead it preferred to use the occasion in an opportunistic manner to attack the PKK which it sees as its main enemy, while it has been accused of aiding ISIS advances, particularly in the case of the Kurdish border city of Kobane which had come under sustained attack from ISIS.

Ironically, it speaks volumes that the US is remaining largely silent and uncritical in face of the mounting death toll arising from Erdogan’s decision to abandon his rapprochement with the Kurds in favour of what increasingly looks like escalating into an all-out civil war. The West seems none too bothered about this outcome. We hear only muted complaints, for instance, when independent journalists are picked up and deported by Turkey.

In marked contrast to the criminalisation of the Kurdish movement in Turkey, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, which has always been tenaciously pro-Western, was fulsomely praised in Parliament by PM David Cameron on 7 September during the debate on Britain’s policy shift on taking in Syrian refugees in the wake of the outcry at the death of the Kurdish boy washed up on the shores of Bodrum, in Turkey. This praise for the KRG is meant to teach the PKK and its affiliates in Syria a hard lesson: they are being warned, ‘embrace our ideology and you will prosper, defy us and Turkish aggression will be mercilessly unleashed and we won’t help you’. The social confrontation now raging across Turkey has seen violent attacks on Kurdish organisations such as the burning of offices of the HDP, which led one commentator from Turkish Daily News to describe it as an impending Turkish ‘Kristallnacht’.

The conflict now raging in Turkey was initiated by President Erdogan after his failure to achieve a much sought absolute majority for his AKP in the country’s June election. Frustrated by the election outcome, he has since sought to find a means to reverse the setback setting his sights on the HDP whose surprise 14 percent in the poll denied Erdogan the victory which he virtually believed was in his grasp as a destiny. Hence, his increasingly erratic, manic and messianic approach to politics. This has laid the basis for an unnecessary conflict that might easily have been averted given the potential to build on all the efforts that had been put into the peace process with the Kurds. Sadly, a magnanimous and more imaginative politician who was truly concerned for the entire nation’s welfare rather than narrow party interest might have achieved a historic breakthrough. Tragically wise counsel from Turkey’s allies seems not to have been made available or at least what had been attempted has proved to be ineffective in deterring Erdogan from his destructive trajectory.

There are fears that a deal had been struck between US President Obama and Erdogan to allow Turkey to sort out its Kurdish problem by force in exchange for permitting the US use of Incirlik airbase to bomb Syria.

If the assumption that this is what was agreed is correct, the responsibility for the renewed conflict would lie not with Ankara alone. Not only will this be another ‘great betrayal’ of the Kurds by the Western powers, it will amount to a huge miscalculation in that the Kurdish social movement cannot simply be eradicated by employing force, however brutal that might be. This bloody course of action will simply contribute towards the further destabilisation of an extremely unstable region. The social conflicts inside Turkey will not easily be healed, but, in fact, they may well last for generations, significantly weakening the country in the meantime.

Incidentally, it might also be mentioned that some of the Gulf States, who are ‎generally backing the “opposition” to Assad financially and diplomatically, are also seeking to gain an economic foothold into Ukraine by buying up tracks of fertile agricultural land, of which the country is plentiful, to obtain vital food resources to satisfy the needs of their own growing populations.

In addition, Qatar has recently played host to a conference of the so-called Iraqi opposition – with US support- one aim of which was to unite former Baathists and pro-ISIS groups in Iraq in a bid to change the government in Baghdad. This is yet one more zone of engagement in the wider confrontation.

The US has also found it impossible to renege on the Iran nuclear deal, but lobbied by its traditional allies in the region, Washington still seeks to contain any possible expansion of Tehran’s influence.

UK leaders demonstrate a similar negative attitude to Iran reflected in their reluctance to condone its involvement in any deal to resolve the conflict in Syria. Thus, replying in the Parliamentary debate to a call by Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn for an international conference on the Syrian crisis that would include Iran and Russia, Cameron was quick to remind MPs that Iran remains disqualified because of its alleged continued support for “terrorist” organisations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This casual and routine repudiation of any proposals for peace talks to resolve the conflict only works to prolong the misery of the Syrian people whom the likes of Berlin and Brussels are currently proclaiming to offer a place of refuge. There is a certain contradiction here and the hypocrisy is quite nauseating.

Syria, Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. These are seemingly separate conflicts with different causes and their own self-contained solutions, but underlying them there is a grand plan which is to exert control over a strategically vital region and by so doing gain possession of its rich resources. These conflicts are related zones of engagement within this overarching conflict. It amounts to an undeclared world war.

The roots of the current Syrian refugee crisis lie in the adoption of regime change as a key plank of US and NATO foreign policy. The suffering inflicted on the people of Syria by Assad is actually as nothing compared to the collateral damage that has been inflicted in the campaign to topple him and achieve strategic advantage against Moscow

“This will be a thoroughly Liberal government. It will be a thoroughly Liberal government committed to freedom, the individual and the market.”

-Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Prime Minister, Sep 14, 2015.

You could hear the knives sharpening several continents away.  Malcolm Turnbull, former communications minister, and now Australian Prime Minister, engineered a successful ambush of Tony Abbott as the evening newsfeeds started getting busy.  When the vote came in, Turnbull had garnered 54 votes to Abbott’s 44.

The question was one of timing. The Coalition had been registering losses in poll after poll.  The Abbott style hardly improved after a spill was forced on the party.  Despite claiming that he would be ushering in a spring clean, he continued bypassing ministers and MPs.  Decisions on the environment and national security were made with a tyrant’s impulse.  Extraordinary policy suggestions were aired (a unilateral deployment of Australian forces to Iraq against Islamic State forces being one).  Even more conservative members of his party had to urge restraint.

What stood out in the Turnbull message was the care he took in emphasising the economic aspect of the assassination. It was economic management, the supposed preserve of conservative governments, that Abbott was failing in.  “We need to have in this country and we will have now, an economic vision, a leadership that explains the great challenges and opportunities that we face.”  Opportunities that might have been taken were not.  Leadership was lacking.

This then enabled Turnbull to strike out at his opposite number, the Australian Labor Party’s Bill Shorten. How dare he be questioning about a China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, or any other, for that matter?  In that sense, Turnbull is doing the old patch-up about free trade treaties that tend to lag in the free department.  Australia, inexplicably, tends to be the dogmatist on the diplomatic bloc on the issue of free trade. Never mind that the returns, typified by the Australian-US free trade pact, are poorer for it.

So much in politics rests and falls on the issue of communication.  In Turnbull, spit and polish will be employed to cover what essentially will be policies similar to Abbott.  Turnbull never truly gave up his advocacy credentials – indeed, as he explained to the press, advocacy, not slogans, was what was needed.  Despite such an observation, this has all the makings of a political facelift, a cosmetic reordering. “Good house,” claimed Catherine Deveny, “in a bad street.”[1]

And Turnbull was not averse to doing a bit of sloganeering himself, notably on the subject of organisational culture.  “There are few things more important in any organisation than its culture.  The culture of our leadership is going to be one that is thoroughly consultative, a traditional, thoroughly traditional cabinet government that ensures that we make decisions in a collaborative manner.”[2]

In other respects, the moderates, who tended to be the mummies of the Liberal set, will be relieved.  Some MPs will have a sense that their seats might be retained come the next election.  A Turnbull-led offensive from the centre always looked better for the polls than an Abbott kamikaze deployment from the margins.  Shorten, and the ALP’s focus-group driven strategists, will be disappointed.

Spare a thought for Abbott.  While he knows the nature of the Westminster system, with its inbuilt ability to exclude genuine democratic will regarding leaders, such outcomes do little to promote that model of politics with any confidence.  Given the polarising nature of Abbott’s reign, commentary on that subject is bound to be minimal.

Australia’s governing political parties continue to embrace the revolving door of leadership. This, more than anything, suggests how the spin doctor, rather than the citizen, holds sway in the corridors of Canberra. It is the reason why we have seen a profusion of prime ministers who are elected, not by citizens, but by party members and, by default, party pollsters.

Wordsmiths and critics will be similarly stunned by this turn of events. Abbott’s insularity had certain clownish proportions that always made good social media and press copy. His behaviour on behalf of Australia has been hysterically preposterous at stages, though one always had to admire his ideological steel in the face of vacuous opponents in search of an ideology.

At times, such conviction verged on the fanatical, impervious to correction.  Even as he was going into the party room for the vote, he remained convinced about victory.  But the issue of whether his light is out in this political match is another thing.  The pugilist may just be back, if only for a Waterloo.

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

In the movie The Truman Show, the main character is locked into a world of image: he is the unknowing star of a “simulated/constructed reality” television show, whose life is tightly controlled by those seeking to project the TV images they want beamed to the world, showing the day-to-day events in Truman’s life. In the world of social media today, we are voluntarily becoming just like Truman: involved in a world of controlled images, and concerned with truth very late in the game, if at all.

This image-oriented way of viewing the world has significant consequences. For example, last year the Pew Research Center reported nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single book in the past year. The number of non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978, when 13 percent responded that they had read more than 50 books in a year. Today, Pew finds that just 28 percent hit the 11 mark. Last year, the NEA found that 52 percent of 18-24 year-olds had not read a book outside of work or school. (The Atlantic, January, 2014).

There are two uses of media technology today that reinforce this trend, and both have to do with the actual production of images. The first use is the oft-discussed practice of government and media in crafting images of propaganda for public consumption. In this practice, both the word and the visual image are geared to get the public at large to believe in something and to react to that created—and often false, incomplete, or misleading—image.

The other use of media technology is less discussed, and that is the use of technology by individuals to create an image of reality, including an image of oneself, that is intended only for the sensory consumption of others, but is actually only an expression of our desired public—and often false, incomplete, or misleading—image how we would like people to see us. So whether the use of technology is by government or by individuals on social media, crafting and consuming primarily images instead of attempting to understand the reality behind the images seems to be the fate of Western culture, and the challenge to those attempting to change society for the better.

To be specific, by “images,” I mean the use of visualizations, sounds, words, and/or actions, done either in personal encounters or via modern technology, that are intended to produce a pre-ordained visceral effect in or to some other person or persons. The heavy reliance on image-creation, whether by government, media, or individuals, makes people quite vulnerable to manipulation, if they don’t ask questions, and if truth becomes just a function of the image-created.

On the level of institutional image-creation, this can be easily seen by each attempt the U.S. makes to paint an image of “the latest enemy” as “a threat to national security” or “a terrorist threat.” Thus, from the Taliban to Saddam Hussein to Isis and beyond, the image portrayed is not confirmed by the facts. Isis is not a threat to U.S. domestic security, only to U.S. Mideast interests. Such images can even become downright humorous when one actually takes time to analyze the image-creation attempted, such as when Benjamin Netanyahu went before the United Nations and presented a speech centered on a cartoonish drawing of an old-fashioned fuse bomb, whose fuse was lit and which would explode when the Palestinians were granted their human and political rights.

On the individual level, the sense of self that is created by the image is ironically entirely self-defeating because in the process of projecting a desired image of our self, our self then becomes who the other sees us to be; the sense we get of ourselves from the other who participates in our own technologically-created fantasy. This is postmodern ideology come home to roost: rejecting a sense of self that comes from introspection, from within, through self-reflective, self-conscious understanding, integrity, and digging for the truth, and embracing instead an externally-determined self as a function of one’s social and public persona. This is often summarized by the number of “Facebook Friends” one has. When we live for and in a world of images, both the world and our self are then false and hollow. Both are directly opposite the self-expression of an authentic self: a self that is based on an already present and abiding internal knowledge of one’s worth, dignity, integrity, and self-confidence.

So-called “smart phones” and corporate and government media propaganda are thus all contributing factors to “the age of the image:” they are propaganda mechanisms used to craft images, and lost is the recognition that truth and reality lag behind images, since they take longer to assimilate. This is because the rational mind—that dynamic of our cognition which seeks truths and sorts facts from fiction—requires reflection time in order to assimilate its contents. Using images requires no reflection and little time: knowledge is visceral; facts are in the present; reflection is “yesterday.”

The social consequences of practicing and living in an image-based hyper-reality are stark.

First, no holds are barred for the goal of producing the desired image. Truth is relative and slave to the image; knowledge is opinion; and no one counts as a distinctly human end in themselves. Rather, everyone is susceptible to being reduced to a means, a role-player in and of a world of images. In other words, if I’m concerned only or primarily with how you see me, I’m not concerned with you as a person. The ethical implication is this: I can’t have compassion for an image; I can only have compassion for a flesh-and-blood human being. In hyper-reality, there is no such depth. This happens on a personal and governmental level.

The clearest example of this on the governmental level is the way drone controllers in the U.S. operate the drones that fly half a world away in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As most people now know, the drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan are controlled from the state of Nevada. What most commentators do not comment on is how the image that the drone pilots watch controls their very mental processes. The images they see are not of humans, but of what they term “sightings.” The actions based on perceiving these images in this distinct way is entirely different. If one sees a human being, one is reluctant to kill them when they do not know what that human is doing. However, responding to the image as simply a “sighting,” the entire point of action in response to the “sighting” then becomes only to “target” the “sighting.” In fact, drone operators can’t even make out faces; only little pixels that look like video game targets. Thus, using images alone changes the way we take in the world, such that the military personnel who fire the drone missiles don’t even see a human. The image of “sightings” becomes the image of “targets,” and the “proper” action then becomes “click-and-kill.”

Even in media reporting of conflicts, it is the sensational image that makes the story, not the details of the story itself. The traditional media motto, “if it bleeds, it leads,” has become “if it titillates the vision, it doesn’t matter the precision.”

The second social consequence of living in a world of images is that our view of reality changes: nothing is substantively real; everything is a technological art, an electronic reality. In such a “cell phone society,” the authentic self, and its understanding of being completely immersed in the spatiotemporal world, the physical and temporal now, is substantially diminished. The real self includes the ability to examine the inner experience of being human, and discussing that with others, in person, all of which results in meaning, which requires self-reflection and thought about self and world and society, not just visceral impressions. Absorption in creating or responding to crafted personal and/or multi-media images directs us to sheer immediacy: one cannot be concerned with the truth when the idea of what is true goes no further than the image, be it given or created.

Third, there are issues concerning what a technologically-created image does (or doesn’t) do to the mind/brain. We have the clear potential to be rational thinkers. But when people reduce themselves to the production, combining, and manipulation of images and call it “thinking” or “understanding,” they remain at the lowest levels of human cognition, with very little authentic self-consciousness. More specifically, thinking is reduced to mental processing by and through images rather than through facts and concepts and their relation. The latter is more rational and fine-tuned than the former, and has for many centuries been held to be an integral part of human nature. Regular empirical studies are published that demonstrate the lethal combination of a high amount of technology use and reduced cognitive functioning (see, for one good example, the study published in mid-2014 by The Atlantic).

The implications of this change to the mind/brain are significant. One is that thinking through what counts as evidence to a given claim is gone in an image-based world; it just takes too long to do that, when the image says everything for someone who believes in it. The point here is not that images don’t or shouldn’t count as evidence. Rather, the point is that while use of images can be a good in itself (e.g. police abuse of African Americans in the U.S., etc.), when they are used as the first, foremost, and/or definitive assumption as to what counts as evidence in forensics and specifically in thinking about and discussing social issues, it reduces the ability of people to compile factual evidence and draw conclusions in a specifically rational-logical way. The image does the thinking for me. This is what the philosopher Jacques Ellul refers to when he coins the phrase “the triumph of the image.”

If this is all true, why don’t we or can’t we just put our cell phones down for a day and/or shut off the TV? The answer is that we are already fully immersed in an age in which we live our lives through and in the images created by and for us: we are psychological junkies for new and mesmerizing—and most of all, superficial—images, by which we experience our thrills, agonies, consolations, and even relaxation. Most of all, the images tell us our “reality,” and thus what to believe and how to “think,” so that we no longer have to do it for ourselves. Such is the age of the image, that we are so addicted to living in it, and creating our images for others, that shutting it all off would put us in a whole different world, and thus a whole different mindset, in which “reality” and “truth” would strike us right between the eyes: our comfort and the phony world of the image we have created and live in would be shattered, gone, and in its place would come discomfort, the unease of being alive in the world, the difficult process of thinking about events, of actively assimilating facts, issues, and evidence, and of forming and understanding our “self” before broadcasting a simple image to the world. Most of all, truth, or a concern for truth, would replace image. We would be more prone to look at the hard truths of climate change and global inequities; of the harshness of war, and the dysfunction of a society that values money, possessions, and ego over authentic human connections. We would have to face the fact that a “Facebook friend” is not a real friend, who shares our “real space.” We would have to experience our sorrows and find our joys in the consort with others, and in nature, and they would all engage us at a deeper, more human level than merely having images of persons, events, and issues, because they would require our full presence, not our half-presence/distracted presence, as technological images do. The latter take no effort, no concentration; the former do.

In The Truman Show, Truman chooses to leave the world of the image for a most uncertain and definitely less easy life. But he realizes that at least he would then be able to create the life he chose to live, with all its complexities, ambiguities, and uncertainties, instead of living in the predictable, tightly controlled and manipulated world of the image he was used to and eventually came to know as an image.

In real life, we face the same issue as Truman did, but most people who are immersed in the image-based tech world of social media don’t see it. This issue is this: will we continue to craft and live in the artificially-induced, unreal, untrue, and phony world of the image that government, media elites, and tech-friends all encourage for us, or will we regain that human authenticity that is thoughtful, reasonable, reasoning, and oriented toward truth and reality? The former road is the world of the automaton, the world of the faux human. The latter road is the human road. It’s a tougher road because it is real, and requires our focus, but it is also the most distinctly humanly-fulfilling world. Fascists rule by image; democracy requires face-to-face dialogue with others about what is true, right, and just. We are at a crossroads in our democracy: be Trumans or be Jeffersons? The choice is ours, individually and collectively.

Dr. Robert Abele holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Marquette University and M.A. degrees in Theology and Divinity. He is a professor of philosophy at Diablo Valley College, in California in the San Francisco Bay area. He is the author of four books, including A User’s Guide to the USA PATRIOT Act, and The Anatomy of a Deception: A Logical and Ethical Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq, along with numerous articles. His new book, Rationality and Justice, is forthcoming (2016).

Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s freshly-resigned Communications Minister, has toppled Tony Abbott in Liberal leadership ballot and is now the country’s prime minister-designate.

Jeremy Corbyn has won the British Labour Party’s leadership election by a landslide. Corbyn comes from the left of the party, a party that over the past 30 years has shifted further to the right whereby it has become regarded as ‘Tory-light’ – a slightly watered down version of the Conservative Party. Labour has signed up to ‘austerity’, neoliberalism, US-led wars of imperialism and has ditched any commitment to public ownership of key sectors of the economy.

Tony Blair helped create ‘New Labour’, which fully embraced privatisation, deregulation and anti-trade union legislation: a toothless Labour Party that offered no real opposition to neoliberalism.

It would be naïve to think that Corbyn can reset British politics. Not all within the party support him, and the corporate media and British Establishment will set out to smear and ridicule him at every turn. Politics is often about compromise and, despite his admirable principles, we could see Corbyn ending up disappointing many of his supporters.

However, having set out this proviso, Jeremy Corbyn appears to have struck a nerve with large sections of the electorate. He stands on an anti-war and anti-austerity platform, is committed to investing in the public sector, wants to get rid of Britain’s nuclear weapons and says he wants to renationalise profiteering public sector utilities. He wants a fairer and more equal Britain. In reality. All this could amount to is a milder, gentler form of capitalism.

The right-wing establishment paints this as harebrained leftist radicalism. That such a relatively benign political platform would provoke this type of reaction shows how far to the right British politics have become. Neoliberal extremism has come to be regarded as being the centre ground of politics, certainly within the ranks of senior politicians and commentators belonging to the corporate media.

What Corbyn seeks is in many ways no different to many Labour leaders from previous generations. And what he seems to be advocating is not a type of full-blooded socialism that seeks to replace capitalism and take into public ownership the commanding heights of the economy. His aims are in some respects quite moderate.

After three decades of spiralling inequality, the financialisation of the economy, the destruction of manufacturing industry, the endless signing up to US-led wars and an overall attack on ordinary people’s standard of living, Corbyn has much to do even if some kind of shift away from the extremism of neoliberalism is to be achieved.

Since Thatcherism, all three main parties in Britain have been pro-big business and  aligned with the neoliberal economic agenda set by the financial cartel based in the City of London and on Wall Street and by the major transnational corporations.

During the last general election that took place earlier this year, the likes of Chatham House, Centre for Policy Studies, Foreign Policy Centre, Reform, Institute of Economic Affairs and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (most of which the British public have never heard of) had already helped determine the pro-corporate and generally pro-Washington policies that the parties would sell to the public. Pressure tactics at the top level of politics, massively funded lobbying groups and the revolving door between private corporations and the machinery of state also helped shape the policy agenda.

As if to underline this, in 2012 Labour MP Austin Mitchell described the UK’s big four accountancy firms as being “more powerful than government.” He said the companies’ financial success allows them privileged access to government policy makers. Of course, similar sentiments concerning ‘privileged access’ could also be forwarded about many other sectors, not least the arms industry and global agritech companies which have been working hand in glove with government to force GMOs into the UK despite most people who hold a view on the matter not wanting them.

The impact and power of think tanks, lobbying and cronyism meant that during the 2015 general election campaign the major parties merely provided the illusion of choice and democracy to a public sold to them by a toothless and supine corporate media. The upshot is that the main parties have to date all accepted economic neoliberalism and all that it has entailed: weak or non-existent trade unions, an ideological assault on the public sector, the offshoring of manufacturing, deregulation, privatisation and an economy dominated by financial services.

In Britain, long gone are most of the relatively well-paid manufacturing jobs that helped build and sustain the economy. The country has witnessed the imposition of a low taxation regime, underinvestment in the public sector, low-paid and insecure ‘service sector’ jobs (no-contract work, macjobs, call centre jobs – much of which soon went abroad), a real estate bubble, credit card debt and student debt, which all helped to keep the economy afloat and maintain demand during the so-called boom years under Tony Blair. Levels of public debt spiralled, personal debt became unsustainable and the deregulated financial sector demanded the public must write down its own gambling debts.

The economy is now based on (held to ransom by) a banking and finance-sector cartel that specialises in rigging markets, debt creation, money laundering  and salting away profits in various City of London satellite tax havens and beyond. The banking industry applies huge pressure on governments and has significant influence over policies to ensure things remain this way.

Absent from mainstream political discourse has been any talk about bringing the railway and energy and water facilities back into public ownership. Instead, privatisation is accepted as a given as massive profits continue to be raked in as the public forks out for private-sector subsidies and the increasingly costly ‘services’ provided. There is no talk of nationalising the major banks or even properly regulating or taxing them (and other large multinationals) to gain access to funds that could build decent infrastructure for the public benefit.

Nothing is ever mentioned about why or how the top one percent in the UK increased their wealth substantially in 2008 alone when the economic crisis hit. Little is said about why levels of inequality have sky rocketed over the past three decades.

When manufacturing industry was decimated (along with the union movement) and offshored, people were told that finance was to be the backbone of the ‘new’ economy. And to be sure it has become the backbone, a weak one based on bubbles, derivatives trading, speculation and all manner of dodgy transactions and practices. Margaret Thatcher in the eighties handed the economy to bankers and transnational corporations and they have never looked back. It was similar in the US.

Now Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with Washington’s militaristic agenda as the US desperately seeks to maintain global hegemony – not by rejecting the financialisation of its economy, rebuilding a manufacturing base with decent jobs and thus boosting consumer demand or ensuring the state takes responsibility for developing infrastructure to improve people’s quality of life – but by attacking Russia and China which are doing some of those very things and as a result are rising to challenge the US as the dominant global economic power.

The 2015 general election campaign not for a minute concerned itself with the tax-evading corporate dole-scrounging super rich, the neoliberal agenda they have forced on people and their pushing for policies that would guarantee further plunder, most notably the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

As an individual, Jeremy Corbyn has at least succeeded in opening up a debate about some of the issues outlined above, something that has for too long been absent within mainstream politics. Given the nature of those issues, however, and the deeply entrenched power of pro-Washington think tanks, global capital and the British Establishment, which despises anything or anyone with even a moderate leftist agenda, it would be very easy to get carried away with Corbyn’s victory and inflate what he could realistically be expected to achieve.

It could take a decade to have a tangible impact on rolling back the corrupt policies and their outcomes that took three decades to bring about. And, even then, this assumes we would be operating on a level playing field – left-leaning politicians in Britain have always faced hostility from the Establishment, not least the intelligence agencies.

Jeremy Corbyn seems to be a credible alternative to the current crop of mainstream politicians, not just because of what he says but because of the reactions he elicits from this bunch of discredited pro-austerity, pro-war, pro City of London/Wall Street, union-bashing, welfare cutting handmaidens to the rich that have ruined the economy and have helped to devastate countries across the globe with their penchant for militarism. If they are attacking Corbyn, he must be doing something right.

But these are the types of people who have been running Britain for 35 years. They tell the public that their policies are correct even when they have a devastating impact on ordinary people. And how do they sell this to the public? By used the tired mantra that ‘there is no alternative’. There is no alternative to illegal wars, selling jobs to the lowest bidder abroad, bowing to global capital, being held ransom to by rigged markets and accepting the corporate hijack of politics, ultimately through the TTIP. ‘There is no alternative’ – the last refuge of the looters, liars and war mongers who will try to make us believe that people like Corbyn will lead Britain towards disaster simply because he actually does offer at least some realistic alternative policies.

The people who run Britain are pushing ordinary folk into a race to the bottom. Reduced welfare, weak or no unions, poor wages, low-level jobs, increasing automation – they call this having a ‘flexible workforce’. What they really mean is that in order to stop jobs going to India or elsewhere, workers in Britain should be blackmailed to compete with for example Indian workers, many of whom earn little, work long hours often in poor conditions, have few benefits or rights and are as ‘flexible’ as they come. This is the free movement of capital or ‘globalisation’ they cherish so much and this is the type of ‘prosperity’ the neoliberal apologists offer ordinary people under the guise of ‘austerity’. Doublespeak reigns supreme.

Michael Gove, the justice secretary, and PM David Cameron have both issued warnings that Jeremy Corbyn poses a risk to national security and the economy. Along with Gove and Cameron, the defence secretary Michael Fallon epitomises the pro-neoliberal propaganda that people in the UK have become tired of. In response to Corbyn’s victory, he said:

Labour are now a serious risk to our nation’s security, our economy’s security and your family’s security. Whether it’s weakening our defences, raising taxes on jobs and earnings, racking up more debt and welfare or driving up the cost of living by printing money – Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party will hurt working people.

Here’s something for Gove, Cameron and Fallon to consider. When your policies have already jeopardized national security by inflicting terror on other countries; when you have already sold the economy to the lowest bidder and have attacked welfare, unions and livelihoods; when you have allowed massive levels of tax evasion/avoidance; when you and your neoliberal policies have allowed national and personal debt to spiral; when you have driven up the cost of living by handing over public assets to profiteering cartels; when you have flittered away taxpayers money to banks; when you allowed the richest 1,000 people in the UK to increase their wealth by 50% in 2009 alone while you impose ‘austerity’ on everyone else – then what else can you offer but to roll out a good old dose of fear mongering about Corbyn simply because you have no actual argument?

Corbyn does not wish to sign up to more US wars that have led to well over a million deaths. People like Fallon talk about protecting Britain and boosting national security by standing shoulder to shoulder with Washington’s bogus ‘war on terror’ and the destruction of sovereign states like Iraq, Syria and Libya. They do of course sell this to the public in terms of humanitarianism, rooting out terror or securing the safety of the nation. Fallon’s propaganda only works as long as folk remain ignorant and apathetic. It is plain for anyone to see the reasons for British militarism if they would only take the time to look up the Project for a New American Century or the ‘Wolfowitz Doctrine’ on the web. The blinkers soon become removed as the hoax of fighting terror or bombing people into oblivion is laid bare.

Fallon, Cameron et al are playing a dangerous game by hanging onto Washington’s coat tails. For instance, they will continue to try to fool the public about ‘Russian aggression’ because they have signed up to Washington’s plan to undermine and destroy Russia. They will never mention that the US instigated a coup on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine. No, in the twisted world of doublespeak that comes easy to unprincipled politicians like Cameron, Fallon and others, we must focus on non-existent Russian aggression. A multi-polar world has no place in the US’s its agenda of unilateralism.

Fallon says Corbyn is a danger. What bigger danger can there be when the likes of Fallon is pushing the world towards major nuclear conflict by standing shoulder to shoulder with US foreign policy aimed at Russia in Syria and Ukraine?

The pro-Washington brigade of senior politicians in Britain are following the US into a dead end. The US economy is bankrupt. There is only jobless growth, if there is any growth at all. Stock market bubbles – like real estate bubbles, like creating money out of thin air, like rentier capitalism that produces nothing but only extracts royalties or interest, like treasury bond imperialism which has allowed the US to live beyond its means at the expense of other nations – is ultimately a dead end for US ‘capitalism’. It is unproductive and parasitic.

Demand is flat and will remain flat because consumers are in debt and their wages are stagnant or falling. The biggest contributor to US GDP is the military-industrial complex – the arms companies, the military, the surveillance agencies, the logistics corporations, etc. The US can keep on printing dollars and extracting dollars from other nations via offering its treasury bonds.

But the dollar is in decline. Less countries need it for trade and the less that it is required, the less it has a value, the less the US can continue to function as a viable economic entity. Its only response is a military one to prevent countries like Russia and China from moving off the dollar and encouraging others to do so, especially in the energy field where the petro-dollar system has been the backbone of US supremacy (the backdrop to the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere are partly about pipelines, control of oil and gas andretaining the dollar as the vehicle of energy trade).

Britain hangs onto Washington’s desperate attempt to enforce dollar supremacy. In the absence of vibrant, productive economies, militarism is all that remains in order to attack other countries and prevent them from rising (currency wars, sanctions or other means appear not to have had the desired outcome, as least as far as Russia is concerned). Imperialist wars, the anti-Russia/China propaganda we witness and the ‘refugee crisis’ are all connectedand can ultimately be traced back to the failing economies of the US and Britain whose rich have bankrupted them for personal gain. And Corbyn recognises this.

To avoid more war abroad and more austerity at home, Britain must reinvigorate its own economy and become a productive entity again. The British left fought against the financialisation of the economy in the eighties under Thatcherism. Coming from the left of the Labour Party, it might be easy to argue that Corbyn represents a leftover from a bygone era. With the breaking of much of the union movement in the eighties and Blair having helped to destroy Labour as a credible (potential) leftist party, he might be regarded as too little too late.

But at 66, Corbyn has tapped into deeply held sentiments that exist across all age groups: that something is fundamentally wrong in Britain and needs addressing. The fact he is appealing to young people suggests Corbyn might not be the final setting of the sun from a bygone era but hopefully the beginning of a dawn.

Durante la ceremonia de izado de la bandera celebrada en La Habana el 14 de agosto de 2015, el secretario de Estado de Estados Unidos, John Kerry, expuso: “estamos convencidos de que el pueblo de Cuba sería servido mejor con una democracia genuina.” Esta promoción de la democracia para Cuba por parte de Estados Unidos se refiere, entre otros aspectos, explícita e implícitamente a la libertad de prensa. Con todo, el señor Kerry no centró sus comentarios sobre el tema de la democracia, sino que principalmente se expresó en torno a la política de su administración respecto de las relaciones EEUU-Cuba, en honor al gobierno de Cuba, al restablecimiento de las relaciones diplomáticas y a la reapertura de las embajadas, así como medio de avance posible para el acercamiento de dos pueblos que ya no son enemigos ni rivales, sino vecinos.

Pero veamos cómo la prensa estadounidense trató las palabras del secretario de Estado Kerry, así como su participación en otras actividades oficiales que tuvieron lugar en La Habana el mismo día. Tomemos el caso la cadena noticiosa estadounidense CNN en inglés. Para cubrir este suceso, la CNN envió a La Habana a uno de sus animadores vedet más importantes, Jake Tapper. ¿Y qué giro le dio él al discurso del secretario de Estado Kerry? El célebre animador declaró: “Pero no es instantáneo, no se improvisan de la noche a la mañana la democracia y la libertad de prensa.” El mismo día, pero en otro momento, luego reportó, “Este es un país que carece de libertad de prensa y de libertad de reunión y de una y otra cosa”, y aún más tarde añadió en otro spot televisivo:

 “Una sola bandera estadounidense no puede resolver todos los problemas ni soltar al pueblo de aquí de la garra de los hermanos Castro… y como bien dijera el Presidente Eisenhower– [al cual] cito – ‘Nuestras condolencias van dirigidas al pueblo de Cuba que hoy sufre bajo el yugo de un dictador.’ [a lo cual Tapper añade:] El dictador y su yugo ahora están siendo representados [por] su hermano Raúl.”

Por cuenta propia, Tapper se lanzó a buscar, entre otros, a disidentes cubanos para entrevistarlos. Aprovechó toda palabra pronunciada por estos respecto de su oposición al restablecimiento incondicional de las relaciones diplomáticas entre los dos países y resumió el alegato según el cual “sus detractores expresaron que esto solo concederá legitimidad a un dictador, hoy [14 de agosto], que no tiene interés alguno en un cambio verdadero”. Tapper fue más lejos al pasar el videoclip de un debate presidencial de julio de 2007 en el cual, según Tapper, el senador Barack Obama “justificaba los motivos por los cuales intervenía respecto de regímenes delincuentes (rogue regimes) como el de Cuba”. No obstante, según las transcripciones de la CNN, de julio de 2007, la cuestión giraba en torno a si se era partidario o no de que los candidatos presidenciales “participaran en encuentros separados sin formular condiciones previas, en Washington o en cualquier otro sitio, durante el primer año de su administración con los jefes de Estado de Irán, Siria, Venezuela, Cuba y Corea del Norte con el propósito de colmatar las brechas que dividen a nuestros países”. El término “regímenes delincuentes” no se emplea ni en la pregunta ni en la respuesta del señor Obama.

En suma, si bien la CNN transmitió integralmente la ceremonia de honores a la bandera y las palabras del señor Kerry, cuyo rasgo principal fue el de promover las relaciones diplomáticas de dos países vecinos, la CNN editó su propia versión. La red de difusión de la información por cable se precipitó sobre las observaciones del secretario de Estado Kerry acerca de sus conceptos de democracia para Cuba y una de sus correlaciones, la libertad de prensa, y, a lo largo del día y prácticamente en cada programa difundido tarde por la noche, bombardeó a los espectadores con los fragmentos sonoros “libertad de prensa”, “dictadura” y “régimen delincuente”.

Algo que también es significativo y que sirve de corolario al tratamiento de las observaciones del señor Kerry es lo que la CNN suprimió. Además de la ceremonia de honor a la bandera hubo otra actividad importante. El señor Kerry fue recibido por su homólogo, Bruno Rodríguez Padilla, ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba en la sede de la cancillería cubana. Esta reunión celebrada a puerta cerrada fue seguida por una conferencia de prensa conjunta en el Hotel Nacional donde, tras expresar sus impresiones los señores John Kerry y Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, tuvo lugar un periodo de preguntas y respuestas. Prácticamente toda la actividad fue censurada por la CNN. Es lamentable, porque el público estadounidense y el de habla inglesa a quien la CNN informa en otras partes del globo se perdió la oportunidad de escuchar lo que el lado cubano expresó respecto de la “democracia para Cuba”.

Durante el periodo de preguntas y respuestas, Andrea Rodríguez, periodista de la Associated Press, se dirigió al canciller Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla: “El secretario Kerry hoy mencionó el tema de que esperaba para Cuba una democracia genuina. Quisiera que me comentara usted qué opina al respecto”. La respuesta del ministro de Relaciones Exteriores nunca llegó a los oídos del público de Estados Unidos por el intermediario de la CNN. He aquí su respuesta:

“Yo siento que debemos trabajar activamente para construir confianza mutua, para desarrollar contactos en las áreas donde tenemos visiones cercanas o que pueden ser aproximadas, y al mismo tiempo conversar, discutir de manera respetuosa, sobre nuestras diferencias respectivas. En algunas áreas es cierto que las diferencias son profundas; sin embargo, puedo decir que algunos de estos temas son de intenso debate internacional. Por ejemplo, algunos modelos políticos electorales de países industrializados que parecía que podían ser un modelo único, han entrado en una gravísima crisis, incluso en Europa.

Los Estados tienen la necesidad de desarrollar sus vínculos en apego al derecho internacional con pueblos que han decidido, en ejercicio de su autodeterminación, su destino nacional, de acuerdo con su propia cultura, con su nivel de desarrollo.

Yo me siento muy cómodo con la democracia cubana que a su vez tiene cosas perfectibles, tal como trabajamos hoy activamente a partir de los procesos relacionados con la actualización de nuestro modelo económico y social socialista.

Puedo decir que es un tema en el que estamos dispuestos a conversar sobre bases absolutamente recíprocas y de igualdad so­berana, en el que nosotros también tenemos mucho que decir, preocupaciones que compartir; intentos de incrementar la cooperación internacional para resolver problemas relacionados con el ámbito de los derechos políticos y las libertades civiles que, en nuestra opinión, tienen que ser aseguradas de la misma manera que el derecho a la alimentación, el derecho a la igualdad de género, el derecho a la vida, el derecho a la educación y la salud.”

Los lectores sacarán sus propias conclusiones de los motivos por los cuales la CNN suprimió tales observaciones. Una de las maneras de verlo es que el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba, tal como era de esperarse, expresó algunos puntos de vista que ponen en entredicho las palabras huecas la CNN. En lo concerniente a la cuestión de la democracia, el canciller cubano señaló una inquietud que muchas personas comparten en Estados Unidos y en otras partes de Occidente. Este malestar tiene que ver con la calidad de la democracia y del proceso electoral en estos países adelantados sobre el plan industrial. Esta puntualización inquieta a la CNN pues le arranca palabras a su narrativa respecto de la democracia. Si bien esta interpretación es desmerecedora para Cuba y sirve para dejar indemne a Estados Unidos o mismo para enaltecerle como modelo, a su vez denota cómo este último se posiciona respecto de su pensamiento único sobre la democracia.

Las observaciones del canciller cubano en defensa de la democracia cubana fueron calificadas con una salvedad importante: esta debe ser mejorada. Esta lógica de combinar decisiones soberanas con el reconocimiento de mejoras dentro de las tradiciones y valores cubanos también desafía el crédito de las palabras de los grandes medios de difusión de la información estadounidenses, tales como la CNN. Finalmente, el canciller cubano lanzó la bola de regreso a la cancha estadounidense en forma muy diplomática al indicar que Cuba otorga una gran importancia a los derechos políticos y las libertades civiles, de todos los países, tales como el derecho a la alimentación, el derecho a la igualdad de género, el derecho a la vida, el derecho a la educación y la salud. Los logros de Cuba en estos ámbitos son bien conocidos y reconocidos internacionalmente, mientras que la carencia de estos en Estados Unidos es cada vez más palpable dentro y fuera del país.

¿Cómo trató la prensa cubana el acontecimiento del 14 de agosto? ¿Practicó censuras, cortes y publicó informaciones falsas? No. Todo lo contrario, el día completo fue difundido en directo en la televisión y la radio cubanas. Esto arrancó con la llegada al aeropuerto de La Habana del señor Kerry y con una biografía informativa del secretario de Estado libre de toda declaración despectiva o salvedades. Igualmente, la ceremonia llevada a cabo en la embajada de Estados Unidos se transmitió por completo, así como todas las observaciones del secretario Kerry. Todo el contenido disponible a la prensa antes mencionado también fue televisado en Cuba. Al día siguiente, la prensa oficial cubana publicaba completas las transcripciones en español de la ceremonia en honor a la bandera y las versiones taquigráficas disponibles de la conferencia de prensa.

Esta aversión a la censura es parte de la tradición cubana cuando se trata de normalizar las relaciones con Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo, en 2002, el ex presidente Jimmy Carter fue a Cuba para visitar al presidente Fidel Castro. En dicha ocasión, se difundió en la radio y televisión cubanas el discurso integral del señor Carter, aun cuando contenía concepciones respecto de la democracia deseada para Cuba similares a las que pronunció el señor Kerry en agosto de 2015. En su informe de la visita, el ex presidente Carter escribió:

“Esa noche pronuncié un discurso en la Universidad de La Habana y luego respondí a las preguntas que, tal como había sido previsto, pasarían en directo sobre las ondas de la radio y televisión locales. Más tarde se retransmitieron y la transcripción integral del discurso fue publicada en los diarios cubanos. Posteriormente, no se podía encontrar en las calles o en los mercados a nadie que no lo hubiese escuchado”.

Los enfoques de la prensa cubana y los de la CNN que cubrían el suceso del 14 de agosto, particularmente opuestos indican que la CNN no dispone de elementos que permitan criticar a Cuba en relación con la libertad de prensa. De hecho, fue Cuba la que dio una lección a la CNN al no prestarse a censuras, cortes e informaciones falsas. Es interesante constatar cómo se invierten los papeles que desempeñan Cuba y Estados Unidos.

En Estados Unidos, “libertad de prensa” y “democracia” se presentan como razonamientos abstractos. Forman parte de los términos de moda que incitan a la gente en Estados Unidos y el extranjero a arrodillarse y rendir homenaje al país como modelo. La Primera Enmienda a la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, adoptada en 1791, prevé que “El Congreso no hará ley alguna por la que adopte una religión como oficial del Estado o se prohíba practicarla libremente, o que coarte la libertad de palabra o de imprenta, o el derecho del pueblo para reunirse pacíficamente y para pedir al gobierno la reparación de agravios”. La enmienda da la impresión de que no hay restricciones al abstraer la prensa del contexto socioeconómico en el cual se desenvuelve. De manera que, supuestamente, cualquier persona puede decir y escribir lo que desee.

En Cuba, por otra parte, según la lógica estadounidense hay restricciones. El Artículo 53o de la Constitución de Cuba establece que “Se reconoce a los ciudadanos libertad de palabra y prensa conforme a los fines de la sociedad socialista.” El marco del pensamiento único de Estados Unidos, según el cual en Cuba no hay verdadera libertad de prensa, debido a algunas restricciones, implica que en Estados Unidos supuestamente no hay condiciones.

¿Existe una forma pura de libertad de prensa en Estados Unidos? Tomemos el caso del reportaje de la CNN del 14 de agosto de 2015 como ejemplo pertinente. ¿Qué giro le dieron a su crónica y reportaje el animador Jake Tapper y los otros presentadores de la CNN? Posiblemente nadie les instruyó sobre la orientación que debían seguir; sin embargo, no era necesario ya que saben que para poder progresar en sus carreras, ellos deben promover algunos conceptos al tiempo que obviar o distorsionar otros. Todas estas contorsiones se retransmiten para hacer que sus reportajes coincidan con las nociones preconcebidas y los intereses de los círculos dominantes. Noam Chomsky esclareció el papel que desempeñan los medios de comunicación estadounidenses como parte del establecimiento político en su obra clásica Los guardianes de la libertad: propaganda, desinformación y consenso en los medios de comunicación de masas (Manufacturing Consent). Él y su coautor postulan que “la principal función de los medios de comunicación es la de estar al servicio de una determinada élite económica, aplicar su propaganda y suministrar la información filtrada por parte de la élite la cual los controla y financia”. Asimismo Chomsky puso al descubierto la complejidad de los mecanismos de este fenómeno al indicar que la restricción que el orden establecido ejerce sobre los medios de comunicación “normalmente no se logra a través de una injerencia bárbara, sino que recae en la selección de un personal con mente moldeable, así como en la colaboración de editores y periodistas profesionales que interiorizan las prioridades y definiciones del interés periodístico al coincidir con las políticas de la institución”.¹ Aunque es sabido que la injerencia brutal también se practica.

Si tomamos en cuenta la percepción de Chomsky sobre los medios de comunicación estadounidenses en relación con la CNN y con Jake Tapper, podemos otorgar el beneficio de la duda a la cadena de difusión de la información controlada por cable de que no hubo “injerencia bárbara” en el sesgo que se le dio a la cobertura del restablecimiento de las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Cuba. No obstante, según el postulado de Chomsky, Tapper fue seleccionado por la CNN en función de su carrera como persona dotada de “mente moldeable”. El 14 de agosto de 2015, él “interiorizó” o reprodujo el ángulo deseado por la CNN. En otras palabras, al encarnar la añeja opinión estadounidense sobre Cuba sostenida por determinadas élites, Tapper sabía perfectamente bien lo que estaba haciendo. Esto es algo que forma parte del desarrollo de una carrera con las recompensas pecuniarias que naturalmente acompañan el ascenso al éxito.

Tapper es un elemento prometedor para la CNN, por consiguiente se le eligió para ir a moderar el debate presidencial del partido Republicano el 16 de septiembre de 2015. Las cadenas rivales Fox News y CNN están llevando una lucha importante para captar más anuncios publicitarios con mayores precios e incrementar su clasificación de popularidad en los límites de los escenarios del debate presidencial republicano. La CNN está contando con la contribución de Tapper para lograr sus metas. El panorama de la “libertad de prensa” controlada por el poder de sociedades privadas en Estados Unidos es mucho más contrastado cuando se le compara al enfoque de Cuba. El Artículo 53º de la Constitución estipula que “los medios de difusión masiva son de propiedad estatal o social y no pueden ser objeto, en ningún caso, de propiedad privada”. Esta no es una restricción sino más bien un factor liberador, especialmente si uno compara al enfoque cubano, el enfoque de la prensa estadounidense controlada por el poder de las empresas.

No empero, según lo antes expuesto, Cuba, por su parte, posee una restricción explícita sobre la libertad de prensa: la prensa debe coincidir con los objetivos de la sociedad socialista. Ningún intento hipócrita trata de ocultarlo. Los objetivos de la sociedad socialista cubana y sus principios respecto de las relaciones Cuba-EEUU requieren que se haga todo lo posible para que la diplomacia aporte una contribución esencial a los cambios que se susciten en el modelo socialista cubano. Este esfuerzo diplomático cubano comprende la cobertura integral de la visita del secretario de Estado Kerry, independientemente de sus declaraciones. Para Cuba, tratar a sus invitados con tal deferencia, al igual que Fidel Castro lo hiciera con el presidente Carter, es una cuestión de principios.

Es de preguntarse si el reportaje realizado por la CNN de las actividades que tuvieron lugar en La Habana el 14 de agosto contradice la política oficial de Estados Unidos hacia Cuba. ¿Representa esta cobertura una sección de la élite dirigente que no está a favor del deshielo de las relaciones entre los dos vecinos y que se opone a otra facción del statu quo estadounidense inclinada esta por la opción normalizadora? La situación es compleja. Debemos guardar en mente cuando salió simultáneamente el asombroso anuncio de los presidentes Obama y Castro sobre la nueva política estadounidense el 17 de diciembre de 2014. En ese momento tanto la Casa Blanca como el Departamento de Estado aclararon un punto muy importante y siguen haciéndolo. Si bien el nuevo enfoque de Estados Unidos representa una modificación en la táctica, su objetivo primero no ha cambiado. Los funcionarios estadounidenses continúan promoviendo la versión de la democracia de Estados Unidos destinada a Cuba. Para lograr el objetivo final, redactado en un lenguaje más diplomático y por consiguiente menos burdo que el de la CNN, es menester continuar la propaganda de que Cuba no es democrática, de que en Cuba no hay libertad de prensa, etcétera. Pero todavía no sabemos por qué la CNN no contribuyó a la evolución de los esfuerzos diplomáticos desplegados por ambos países, algo que la prensa cubana hizo para su pueblo, y obvió informar profesionalmente al público estadounidense. El reportaje inculto de la CNN sirve como un recordatorio más de esta nueva situación dotada de perspectivas muy positivas para cubanos y estadounidenses por igual, al igual que del peligro que corre Cuba. Los cubanos están muy conscientes de esto. Su prensa y blogs periodísticos sirven de foro a un debate maduro y animado sobre el significado del nuevo encuadre de Estados Unidos. Este debate resulta de los intentos de los dirigentes y periodistas cubanos para mejorar la prensa cubana como parte de los cambios de gran envergadura que están aconteciendo en Cuba.

 Arnold August

Global Research, 13 de Septiembre de 2015

Arnold August, periodista y conferencista canadiense es el autor de Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections y, más recientemente, Cuba y sus vecinos: Democracia en movimiento, disponible en Cuba. Los vecinos de Cuba son los Estados Unidos, Venezuela, Bolivia y Ecuador. Siga a Arnold en Twitter@Arnold_August.

Notas bibliográficas

1. Edward S. Herman y Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002), XI.

In recent months we have seen one ‘peace activist’ organization after another framing global conflicts in US war-propaganda terms.

There is no criterion of peace, no evidence base, no life ground or compass governing judgement.

The official enemy is assumed as first premise, and slogans substitute for understanding. Avaaz, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights, for example, have all called for a version of ‘humanitarian bombing’ to ‘save lives’ in Syria. The war criminal attacks on Iraq and Libya under the same pretexts are erased from view.

In this way, blame-the-enemy justifications for mass murder run free with no grounding principle to tell peace from war, or of truth from propaganda. Even the legendary Science for Peace held a conference in March this year organized as if it was the US National Endowment on Democracy in Ukraine  Yet oppositions are skeptical of  any ‘moral compass’ because it is a concept typically invoked by the very people demanding wars. So we remain adrift in a world heading for cumulative catastrophe without any principled life-value bearings.

Again and again the same pattern unfolds with another designated enemy to justify another US-led aerial bombing of another poor society with resources for the US-led corporate-money maw  – already far advanced in Ukraine without press decoding. Accusing the enemy to justify war-criminal aggression is now normalized so pervasively that progressive organizations succumb too without any principled life-value compass. Organized amnesia allows it. Indoctrinated thinking governs it. Stupefied group-egoism motivates it.  Today the new propagandists of war are dressed in peace costumes as they assume the official narratives of war as their own.

Systemic Ignorance as the Medium of Mind Control  

But how could members of organizations which have stood for good causes go along with the big lies of a global war mechanism bringing eco-genocides to the deprived and profits to the few?  Systemic ignorance is the medium of mind control. In a world of totalizing diversions from our common life ground, one orchestrated war after another is reverse-projected onto a designated enemy to attack instead. A billion-dollar-a-day US-led weapons industry advances private corporatization across borders as prime time conflict entertainment and global panacea at once.  Wherever people do not mind being complicit in their own comfort zone, a growing global war against life organization itself advances in one despoiling invasion after another.

We know the symptoms in those who go along. Refusal to see, denial, diversion, and favors of the system collaborate to mask the deep war.  Once set into motion by the US-led war machine driving even barbaric ISIS, the recourse must be public exposure all the way down. People do not really prefer mass dispossession and death to life. Yet the comfort zone of collaboration has entered into the centers of the peace movement itself. I never fully realized how far until I met it inside an organization I have belonged to for 30 years. Science for Peace has long been  the most eminently led organization for peace in Canada, featuring such leading minds as C.B. MacPherson, John Polanyi, Ursula Franklin, Anatol Rapoport, Nancy Olivieri, and the list could go on across disciplines and fields of critical  inquiry.

How could such an organization become led into a propagandist framework of war in the name of “science” and “peace”? The story is a kind of allegory of our age. It shows how a dominant culture of denial, personal diversions, and forgetting can fatuate even an organization in scientific cause against war, propaganda and crimes against humanity. As so often elsewhere, it shows how a central administration can reverse constitutional goals by rubber-stamped steps of executive privilege which exactly fit to the surrounding public ignorance and indoctrination.

Just as our universities themselves have been hijacked by a collaborator class to serve business ideology and profits, so too can its public-affairs leadership and concepts of war and peace be hijacked the same way. Our deepest values of how to live as human can collapse into manipulating slogans and complicity unless we know what science, war and peace stand for in principle against push-button assumptions of surrounding propaganda fields.

The Background War of Higher Education:

Corporate Money and Propaganda vs. Standing for Life Value and Truth

The reframing of ‘science for peace’ into US-style blame-the-enemy propaganda occurred after the lead article of the  October 2014 Science for Peace Bulletin was published – “Corporate Globalization and Society Destruction: Joining the Dots of War and Peace in Ukraine” for (Vol. 34: No. 2).  Then even more then than now, Western media were reporting the causes of the civil war in Ukraine on the bases of sweeping falsehoods and accuse-Putin hysteria. Canadians were kept as ignorant as Americans with Harper and the corporate press out front and even the NDP foreign-affairs critic Paul Dewar repeating the official lies.

Yet not one counter fact or argument was communicated to the Bulletin lead article exposing the causal pattern and repressed facts. But then without notice and covertly, a major conference was unilaterally planned that silenced all the evidence against the official story. Acting president Metta Spencer, the long-time editor-proprietor of Peace Magazine, orchestrated a conference that erased the US-led war crimes in Ukraine and shifted all attention to the official enemy, Vladmir Putin. Many Science of Peace members went along not scrupling to notice that what had been erased that included the documented US orchestration of a war-criminal coup d’etat and the massive one-way bombing of civilians and life infrastructures in Eastern Ukraine and over a million refugees from the covered-up ethnic cleansing (now two million).

Put into the context of University of Toronto’s much more powerful Munk School for Global Affairs, this white-wash of the US-led Kiev overthrow of an elected government and continual mass murder of civilians in the Donbass region fitted very well. Global affairs has been taken over by pro-US/anti-Putin/Israel personnel and organization backed by big corporate money and providing media events. Why not Science for Peace too?

The Munk School was opposed by several active Science for Peace members, Professors of Chemistry and Physics John Valleau and Paul Hamel. They did their best to make the instant corporate propaganda arm accountable to academic disciplines and procedures. But kiss-money academic administrators with little serious research commitment imitate their richer corporate masters. At U of T, they kept negotiations secret until the academic coup was finalized to avoid any academic accountability. Then the announced $35 million received from notorious gold-baron Peter Munk was leveraged to get almost twice as much from Ontario and Canadian taxpayers with no independent academic appraisal, standards or accountability required. If all this could be engineered by a transnationally rapacious global mines owner whose operations kill and terrorize indigenous people in Tanzania and Papua against UN Convention – a man who effusively praised the mass-murderer Pinochet before receiving his doctorate from U of T – Science for Peace is hardly safe next door.

The Monk Institute is also accused of being an academic front for a pro-Israel lobby while being richly funded by a Saudi war merchant, Adnan Khashoggi, as well as by the Harper regime dependent on Israel lobby support. Harper gave $9 million of Canadian citizens money for transnational digital channels to conduct cyber uprising in Iran. When the academic surroundings have become so corrupted, Science for Peace hoping to keep an office on King’s Circle is perhaps only a gulp away. In such executive circles, critically informed scholarship and exposure of ongoing US-led international war crimes is not welcome, and Metta Spencer has already taken steps to silence it.

Fortunately, others in Science for Peace prefer factual truth and critical integrity in an organization worth saving. They can agree across differences and without past associations on the principles at stake of science, peace and war. And so they have against the corruption of these goals by blame-the enemy propaganda towards war in Ukraine and elsewhere. Yet the core modus operandi of the wider corporate state and media and collaborating organizations is not well understood: control of perception by total exclusion of internationally criminal facts and their US-led causation.  Behind slogans of ‘freedom’ and ‘peace’ any life reality that does not fit the ruling narrative is erased by being screened out of view.  To know the evidence or cause of things is effectively out of bounds.

Yet silencing the facts is not just a matter of memory-holing serial crimes against humanity and starting wars. The rationalizing justifications must reverse life reality itself to impose the master goal across domains – ever more money-sequence predation of human and planetary life supports with no limit or regulation by life standards. The system’s demands of profit and sale multiply exponentially and ever faster than world population. The destruction of societies’ very collective life capital bases is thus normalized in peace as well as war.

What Few See or Connect:

The Global War on Life Support Systems

No-one can reasonably deny the globally systemic rape and destruction of human and natural life and life support systems. But the private transnational money-sequence invasion is not spoken, and the common cause is off limits to expose. Yet we must name the deep war against life  to resist it. The air, soil and water are cumulatively poisoned, degraded and run down. The climates and oceans are polluted and destabilized to ever greater extremes. Species are made endangered and extinct at a spasm rate across continents. Waste cycles and volumes increase to endanger life systems at all levels. Public sectors and services are one-way defunded and abandoned as tax evasion by the rich increases. The global food system produces more and more disabling and contaminated junk without nutritional value. Non-contagious diseases multiply to the world’s biggest killer with only symptom cures. The vocational future of the next generations is driven to collapse across nations.

Behind all the degenerate trends is one system driver of all the others – the privatized, deregulated and self-maximizing global financial system which has ceased productive investment in life capital and goods to multiply itself. And what this borderless money-sequence system requires to go on invading and destroying societies is a global enforcement mechanism to override any barriers in its path posed by nations, peoples and their life conditions. This system cannot be imposed without force. The ruling function of the US-NATO military empire is to provide this enforcement – as, for example, in Libya which had the greatest water-security system in the world, universal healthcare, free higher education, a $50,000 grant for married couples, and a plan for public banking based on gold dinars and oil revenues. It was therefore destroyed by NATO bombing under the usual false pretexts with no corporate state or media ever reporting the facts or their causal mechanism.

This is why at the macro level lethal military production increases to more than the cost to prevent global social and ecological ruin to enforce the very system driving the life destruction at every level. In fact, a world war against human and natural life substance and supports is being waged by the life-blind macro mechanism. It is not driven by “humanity” as so often alleged, but by the opposite, a system disease. Yet conception of peace a feel-good state of self has substituted for recognition of the deadly disorder and its mechanically empowered war on the living world. The system’s eco-genocidal mechanism still remains taboo to investigate or name. Instead a mindless blame-the-enemy framing is reverted to as a first premise of discourse. This is the general mind-lock that results in, for example, the unscrupulous framing of the life-and-death crisis in Ukraine as a matter of ‘pro-Putin’ and ‘anti-Putin’ perspectives. In fact, this was the self-declared starting point of inquiry organized by the acting president of Science for Peace itself over many months from 2014 to 2015 without a stop, review or examination.

The life-blind propagandist structure at work was not questioned even after the production of a NATO-like propaganda conference – and so recognized by immediate NATO-journal publication. In this context “Is NATO as war criminal?” is unspeakable. Even as the US doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance” continued to expand into society-destroying wars now into central Europe, still the blame-the-enemy reversal of reality laundered out all US-NATO causal agency and mass-murderous force – all within the leading body of ‘Science for Peace’ itself. Most complicitly, the entire track record of millions of dead and suffering bodies of ruling US geo-strategic plan remain abstracted out as a ruling convention.

A striking concrete example tracked by Michel Chossudovsky and Global Research has been the complete black-out of the neo-Nazi core of Kiev’s military and security apparatus, even when the Harper regime is funding the training of the neo-Nazi National Guard perpetrating (with its fellow death-squad Azov battalion under its control) countless atrocities in Donbass with stylized swastikas on their official uniforms

The Science for Peace case is instructive of the more general malaise. When the memory-hole operation was completed at the early Spring conference after months of orchestration, no recognition of the cover-up was allowed within executive meeting even when tracked in formal reporting documents. At micro and macro levels of responsibility, the big lie and black-out of mass murder ruled on. At both levels, erasure operates at ground and second-order levels at once. Switching of issues is the method throughout. This is the way of the great sickness of the era which repels science and peace by its nature. The ultimately regulating pattern of transnational propaganda, war and life destruction remains executively assumed as normal.

The Ruling Laws of the System

“Let us again review the documented pattern of facts”, I have written to the Science for Peace membership in response to its collapse of mission. “Any disconfirming evidence is welcome, but none has been provided.  The memory-hole operations will prevail on macro and micro levels until the circles of erasure and omission are overcome.”

The regulating pattern of facts, what all science seeks to identify, long precedes the Ukraine crisis. The unseen general law is this:

Whenever any nation has an independent government with fossil fuel, financial, agricultural or strategic resources not yet subjugated to transnational corporate control, there is a US-led campaign to destroy it.

Where is there exception? There is none evident. Global Research provides continuous factual confirmation. Yet the master tactic of the system and its collaborators is to erase from view all such crimes of war that verified evidence points to, and to do so all the way down to people’s memories and bodies of the crimes. No-one can deny this underlying law at work by scientific disconfirmation. Apparent exceptions merely put the blame on others or lower ranks. This institutional disorder is built into the corporate globalization system.

With media-hypnosis and the many on board, the designated Enemy is ready made for moral wrath instead. Leaders and followers exude contempt and hate on cue – rather like a farce. But real life is blown apart, mutilated, deprived , malnourished in millions continually. Only wilful blindness can deny it, and deny it does in accordance with the italicized law. The complementary second law is: to divert all attention to the official enemy instead as the pretext for more war criminal aggressions.

Again, try to think of exception. Think of the Middle East – Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Syria. All have been successively warred upon over decades dating from the overthrow of the social-democratic president Mossadegh of Iran in 1953 to Syria’s still mildly independent social state being destroyed to the roots today. Over 20 years in between, Iraq’s region-leading social state with universal health-care, free higher education, public water and electricity, local agricultural and food subsidies has been subjected to genocidal destruction and permanent civil war. In paradigmatic US war-criminal aggression which remains taboo to name in circles of collaboration, Iraq was attacked on contrived pretexts and the state was destroyed to control its fabulous resource riches “floating on a sea of oil’ (Paul Wolfowitz’s admission).

Always an Enemy is blamed to justify the eco-genocidal attacks. Once it was “communism”,. “despot” is a favorite, even someone elected by continual majorities by electorally undeniable majorities (eg. Venezuela’s Chavez, or Russia’s Putin). But always the real enemy is anyone or group not submitting to the ruling law and a society standing for its common life interest against the takeover. Try to think of any clear stop to this long history of false propaganda leading to crimes against peace that defines US foreign policy. Orchestrated destabilization, violent coup d’etat, civil war construction, and one-way bombing have been the common threads in East Ukraine.

In all cases, vast new profit opportunities,  resources, lands, price climbs, markets, agribusiness and – most of all – looting of public resources and finances by private foreign financiers and extractive corporations are opened up by the war. Once sovereign powers to regulate collective life capital bases are then stripped away, not only in the victim societies but at home.

The civil war method of long-term destruction of formerly independent societies to more freely exploit their resources has continued to the present day in a strategic arc of devastating US-fomented civil wars from Pakistan to Iraq to Muslim Africa to Europe itself in Ukraine after the Chechnya civil war in Russia was ended.  Civil wars render peoples helpless against foreign money control, and the pattern only deepens. Yet just keep blaming the enemy as the central issue as first premise, as in organization of the Ukraine conference by Metta Spencer of Peace Magazine and now Science for Peace, and the eco-genocidal pattern continues thus concealed.

Even as US-led terror-led death squads and bombing were in semi-truce in Ukraine, the US was supporting Saudi Arabia in projecting “terrorist” and sectarian “Shiite” labels on the popular uprising of the poor in Yemen against a corrupt US-Saudi puppet government. In more long-term historical trajectory, the pattern only deepens in criminal lawlessness abroad. Civil war has been US-supported and funded in Venezuela in the new century ever since its “socialism for the twenty-first century” was launched, briefly succeeding in violent coup d’etat until the people rose in the streets against it and loyal guards defeated the putschists who had already been diplomatically recognised by the US just as its proxy coup regime was in Ukraine later.

Today a main vector of destabilization of both Russia and Venezuela has been orchestrated oil-price halving aimed at it ruining their economies. Yet always “democratic” and “pluralist” pretexts lead continual attacks on independent societies. The Enemy is whatever seriously opposes the ruling law of expropriation. One object alone is achieved. Peoples and resources of the region are predated by transnational corporations. Without sovereign social defences or unity of collective life purpose, they fall apart. This is where they are planned to go – a myriad of controllable principates for US geo-strategic manipulation. As long as all evils can be blamed on an ever-shifting US Enemy, the life-devouring system marches on.

Knowing the Real War and the Real Enemy

US citizens themselves are bled dry.  Their common life bases and interests are stripped out by military and financial claws in dollar-trillions every year while public purses and resources too are plundered by the same causal mechanism. Yet the undeclared war against life and life support systems is blocked out a-priori. The master diversion across conflict situations is to blame an alien enemy that distracts from the actually invading system.

It is not only the designated enemy constructed by US propaganda. In civil society, it is endless spectacle games whose outcomes are irrelevant to the fatal disorder, but distract mass energies from standing up to it. In general, the survival resolve of peoples to overcome what attacks their lives is re-routed onto fabricated oppositions – in sport and political spectacles especially. The enemy is the other color. One way or another, the real enemy and terror is blocked out of view.

While there are myriad masks of and distractions from the actual invader, the real enemy can be defined very exactly.  It is what always attacks or demands more from collective life capital not under its control for external private gain. In the world-historical reality we live in, the ruling formula is: it always invades the evolved collective life capital bases of societies to multiply transnational corporate money sequences instead. This is the underlying ultimate law of the ruling disorder and its unseen deep war against social and ecological life bases to privatize for profit. It is only stopped by collective life-capital rule and regulation (as explained in depth in my Cancer Stage of Capitalism/From Crisis to Cure).

Twenty-five years after the dismantling of Yugoslavia into atavistic nationalisms steeped in the Nazi past by US-led destabilization (with Germany supporting the Croatia fascist party in nation ruin), the same has happened in Ukraine. The claimed US “war against aggression” is a reverse projection. It is targeted on what stands in the way of more corporate system expansion. Its violence and war crimes are then reverse-blamed on those who resist. “What about ISIS?”, it may be asked. ISIS has through all its mutations been funded, trained and armed by the US and allies, starting with the aim to control Shia Iraq and overthrow Syria’s social state. If its external funding were stopped, this Saddam-descended Sunni military formation would not last a week. It is US-bombed in some places to protect allies, and not bombed where it is advancing in destruction of Syrian society – for example, in ancient Palmyra near Damascus this Spring. None of this now documented fact is allowed into the ‘free’ media and corp-think tanks.

In the ‘war’ and ‘peace’ of this system, moral meaning is reversed at the same time as science. Socially organized development is everywhere reversed or destroyed for privately profitable transnational feeding on the collective financial, agricultural, natural and strategic resources of societies. This is called “development” and “peace”, while blocks to it are called “aggression”.

Western civilisation has, alas, gone radically bacwards since the international covenants of collective peace and welfare formed after 1945. All trade and financial agreements after 1988 have erased their every trace in a covert war against life security across domains.  It is called “the global free market”, but there is no such thing. Rather there is the opposite – unaccountable corporate-right treaty laws for the control of global supply and demand by the dominant transnational corporations. They in turn invade by finance and machines all that lives to convert it to lifeless commodities and profit.

In fact, an eco-genocidal program rules instead of international law. For example, when Palestine seeks the protection of codified international law, it is openly threatened and its taxes seized by Israel with US support. When Palestine joins UNESCO by invitation, the US defunds UNESCO. When it appeals to the International Criminal Court to judge the continuous war crimes and crimes against humanity oppressing it, Israel threatens it with more oppression and with tacit US support continues to extendits criminal occupation of Palestinian land.

Palestine is not an exception as assumed. It is a symbol of the system lawlessly destroying the lives and life conditions of non-corporate people across the world.  Yet who names the game? Normalized terror, life destruction and impunity rule. Even if more than three-quarters of wealthy societies’ populations are themselves without a secure livelihood, the deep war rules on at mounting extremes of cumulative ruin.

Knowing the systems laws of war and peace versus those of the life capital of all is the lost moral and scientific compass of the age and the species.

The Global Market God at War

Canada, long recognized as a life-grounded nation of peace at home and abroad, now systematically steers in the opposite direction. Under US “free trade” and NATO “partnership for peace”, CEO Harper’s dictatorial rule strips Canada of its life infrastructures, tax revenues and public information resources in the name of “future prosperity”. Yet always in fact he follows the deep-war code  – to  serve only private market powers to multiply and rule for profit with no limit. This is the underlying program driving all life-destructive trends today.

The God of this fanatic world religion is the global corporate market. It pursues a furious all-fronts war to convert everything to itself while pervading main-street, living rooms and academies with its indoctrination. The market God is omniscient, all-powerful and beneficent by definition. Just read the primary theorems of welfare economics and “the invisible hand” which remain the basis of the reigning pseudo-science styled ‘Economics’. Market magic rules through continuous commodity and system miracles eating the world alive. .

Always this God’s deeper meaning of freedom is spreading deregulated pillage across borders wherever more private money can be extracted from peoples, natural resources and public purses. It puts the hordes of Attila to shame in territory conquered and lives destroyed. Yet it ceases to have any historical life function once its circuits of production and distribution mutate to more private money demand to fewer as the ruling law of reproduction and growth: not more means of life for more people with less waste as true economic growth.

Yet this ultimate distinction itself of moral and scientific reason is completely unknown to the reigning theory and practice. Opposites are assumed as the same, with even fashionable philosophers joining in the absurdities of system worship as first premises of social thought.

Canada’s leadership may once have been capable of the distinction, but can no longer conceive it. It has become a militant servant of the Global Money God for total world rule.  Within its borders, it turns over all public resources and finances to maximally profit the money rich and free corporate extractors like Big Oil. Externally, it has been aerial bombing Arab lands from Libya to Syria and attacking Putin while training and equipping neo-Nazi Kiev in Ukraine – all funded by public money. The unseen war on life organization remains so silenced and suppressed from view that joining the dots of the real enemy across domains is too much to bear.

The Truth is What Sells, and the Enemy Sells the War

The underlying war on life and life support systems was explained in the October 2014 Science for Peace Bulletin in connection to Ukraine. But in line with the times, it all was erased by president-led conference in March 2015 – including the massive US-led criminal violations of international law and the violent overthrow of elected government and ethnic mass murders by neo-Nazi gangs and death squads still suppressed from view today.

This is how the global deep war can invade even a long research-leading anti-war organization with few noticing the hijack. Just keep erasing the facts, dressing up in peace and human rights while ignoring them, and focus on the US enemy as villain. What works on the world stage is thus enacted within the peace movement itself.

One master framework of lies rules beneath definition. Diverting to the Enemy is the decisive step for elimination of facts and causes inconsistent with the official story. A familiar hate-object of the audience is instead adopted as first premise. The corporate mass media and politicians do this as stock in trade because it runs deep into the group psyche. Once diverted to the hate-object of the group, people block out the disproving facts to remain acceptable themselves. This is the underlying thought-switch upon which system mass-murder and oppression depends. Not even academics may stand up to the accusation of “pro-Russia”, “9-11 conspiracy theorist”, “communist”, or whoever the designated foe may be.

This is why evidence, public statistics, knowledge of anything outside the official narrative is no longer safe in corporate states. Public knowledge is the enemy of the entire game. That which sees, documents, shares, certifies, distributes, or organizes to prove and act for the public good is blocked or sabotaged in omnibus ways. This is the secret behind, for example, the Harper agenda of information erasure – from defunding and de-listing progressive NGO’s, to gags on government ministries and scientists, to allowing only his personal photographer’s pictures into the mass media. The method of silencing facts by blocking them from view is not confined to Harper-rule, but expands by normalization into where we may least expect it.

The explicit US geostrategic plan and execution of “full spectrum dominance across the world” is thus reversed by blame-the-enemy diversion to the opposite – “the US protecting neighbouring states from Russia/China/Cuba’s aggression”. An ultimate issue thus emerges from contemporary world affairs to local choice space: whether, for example, an organization like Science for Peace collaborates with and abets this ruling order of propaganda and power, or stands for scientific standards of evidence and conclusion against proven falsehood and enemy blame justifying war preparations.

The standard approach of complicit organizations is to abolish any choice between real peace and military aggression by equating them in blame-the-enemy fabrications. No-one thinks to compare the US with military bases in over 150 foreign countries and Russia with none beyond adjacent borders. In accordance with the strategy of collaboration, one merely keeps blocking out the evidence with no reply as if it did not exist. If ignoring the evidence does not work, then one can simply lie and say it has already been fully answered, or say when caught out, no-one knows what the evidence is. All this has been done at the Science for Peace presidential level.

Saying it is so makes it so if enough people go along with it. The overall method is dominant in the wider world of starting wars while claiming to work for peace. Orwellian propaganda now totalizes through the academy itself by the purse-control level of central administrations which multiply themselves and their funding, privileges and salaries to the top while dispossessing teaching-research bases.  Wall Street lies and take go bureaucratic top across public sectors.

Reconnecting to the ruinous trends at the macro level and their enforcement by the world’s reigning military and financial embargo system, we might ask two direct questions.  Who connects the degenerate trends, as opposed to ignoring whatever does not fit the US-led public tale? Who looks for the common cause, as opposed to multiplying disconnected perspectives as democratic and free?  

At the most general level of global corporate press and information systems (including introductory textbooks in economics and sociology, over 90% so controlled in Canada), not one of these fatally degenerate trends is connected to any other or to any common cause producing them. This is testable by looking for any exception. Least of all is the depredatory system of vast military expenditures and operations behind the latest enemy they are used against examined as the real cause of the hostilities and uncontrolled global degradation. Never linked to this system costing over one billion dollars a day of US public money are the transnational corporate expansions into every area that the weapons, covert operations and nuclear threats enforce by their terror – always blamed on the resisting enemy instead.

Thus in Ukraine next to Russia, for example, private Wall Street and German banks are already in with the IMF as loan enforcer; big agribusiness including Monsanto is already operating to control the greatest farmlands of Europe and a breadbasket of the world; big US oil is already into licenses for the new gas-fracking zones being created now that a pro-Russia government – which prohibits fracking – has been overthrown by the violent US-led coup; and of course the world’s leading manufacturers of war armaments are already receiving orders for them via post-coup Ukraine and US war-party promises with Harper-Canada in tow. Meanwhile, US-led NATO military forces surround Russia with advanced attack forces on all possible sides including the Baltic and Black Seas “to stop Russia’s aggression”– reversing blame for all.

If you are part of the ruling propaganda and power apparatus, every one of these facts will be ignored. If you are an active agency of this system, then only the official enemy’s alleged motives for expansion will be proclaimed. At the basest, it will be assumed as the very framework of understanding the conflict (as occurred with the Metta Spencer-led conference on Ukraine.) Thus even though the civil war was undoubtedly orchestrated by the US with mass-murderous fascists as means, it was all blocked out a-priori before public inquiry started.

Thus responsibility for the US-constructed Ukraine civil war – not to mention Syria before and after – is reversed onto Russia. Thus even Science for Peace went ahead with this propagandist framework of Putin/Russia invading Ukraine although already demonstrated to be a big lie produced by reverse-blame first premise. Thus a renowned ‘peace activist’ is actively complicit in imposing a propaganda frame towards war, ethnic cleansing, dispossession of millions and mass murder as “science for peace” and “advocacy of universal standards of human rights”.

Without principled understanding of logic and life value – the only moral calculus that works – the most monstrous lies can run free. In the larger system of lies in which collaborators are embedded, the truth is what sells. In the Science for Peace case, endless activities of lectures, member round-ups, connections to like activities, pot-luck dinners, corporate-media chairs for conferences, and so on are all governed by an underlying value equation: the truth = what sells = democracy.  This is the morality of the global corporate religion. The substance, care and life concern for natural and social, ecological and historical life support systems in cumulative collapse by a global disorder cannot compute to it. It is all blocked out by a blame-the-enemy propagandist frame a-priori which none can question without being accused or insinuated as in league with the enemy.

The test of the big-lie system is simple. Try to find one case of an international conflict reported by the corporate press or state when this propagandist frame is not already presupposed before the reporting starts with the designated enemy assumed as evil through every step – as “despotic”, “the aggressor”, “dividing and weakening”, “exploiting minorities”, in “perpetual machinations of expansion”, “seizing at the point of a gun”. All these are stock phrases for endless accusations of the latest designated enemy with no sound evidence required. Orwell’s “two minutes hate” is reborn. The sad fact is that slander and lies have no consequences but reward if they sell the official story. The Enemy as hate object then steers the process of selection to fit the ruling narrative upon which continued favor and funding depend, and war criminal attacks then follow as justified by the charges even if no claimed fact is proved and all are false.

From then on, symbolic shows of ‘peace’ without political meaning fill in. The underlying religion of war is not suspected, and with understanding disconnected from the known greatest war machine in history, it invades where it pleases if the enemy evil is sold. Any deeper understanding of war and peace is ruled out as somehow suspect. Denial of the mass-homicidal effects is not the direct denial found in big-oil funding of deniers of climate destabilization. It is not quite Harper-rule defunding of all public and non-governmental research exposing system-wide facts. It is more subtle. It operates as in the following paradigm example of a peace conference on one of the great crises of our time.  The war God has many faces.

Beyond Amnesia: Paradigm Tracking of the Propaganda Framework of Aggression

What follows is a shortened version of a formal communication to the membership of Science for Peace in response to the spring conference on Ukraine. It is a kind of allegory of our time. It shows how the peace movement itself can be hijacked by the unexamined assumptions of the ruling corporate-market religion indoctrinated into the bones of collaborators conceived as ‘peace activists’.  What better cover could there be?  Not even the agent may be aware of it.

While Science for Peace leadership has trended with the commercial world to personal    opinions on issues over principled substance, fact and law, our mission by definition is understanding by scientific standards”, I wrote. “We must therefore commit in first principle to knowing facts versus ignoring facts, reasoning versus diversion to individuals and imputed perspectives, and seeking the underlying causal structures and principles of phenomena rather than competing perceptions as an end-in-itself.

A non-scientific commercial format has, however, prevailed through organisation of the conference on Ukraine and in comments of support of it since. Only more glaring repetitions of the propagandist framework have followed.  The story line of “war between Ukraine and Russia” was indeed still proclaimed by acting president Metta Spencer. in her solo press release after the conference – although the profoundly false claim in law and in fact had been demonstrated to her in published form. International law has been ignored from the start and throughout – the most revealing omission of all. Unaccountability to scientific or legal understanding of the driving forces of the civil war, their causal pattern, or the war crimes under law against millions of victims on the ground is in this way built in as first premise.

“This propagandist framework has long been endemic in dominant media and blame-the enemy political culture. Yet understanding of Science for Peace is only principled if it lives up to standards of science and reason in seeking the civil peace it advocates. This is what the organisation means – to be distinguished from ‘peace’ as conformity to imperial norms, or a criterionless neutrality standing for no life cause, or the peace of a genocidal outcome.

“The founders and strength of Science for Peace over decades has been to see through pervasive armed violence and threats against civilians dressed in myths of the designated Enemy to justify the destruction of one society after another. This is the ultimate issue at stake. Yet the Ukraine conference excluded these life-and-death issues from every discussion in exemplification of the ruling frame of mind that abets war crimes by blinkering them out.

No item of the agenda allowed the war-crime issue in. Armaments and nuclear weapons spending, build-ups, threats and wars already in motion have been what Science for Peace has long sought to empirically track, connect and understand in principle at the leading edge of research. But all these too were blocked out of view. Instead reduction to the official foreign enemy and demonization of its leader became the basis of the organization from then to now in the name of ‘Science for Peace’.

In such manner, home-side imperial and national slogans without definition, the dominant global market business of war, and heinous crimes under law causing over a million people fleeing in East Ukraine before September 2014 under US-supported neo-Nazi command were over months all simply erased. So too were NATO’s non-stop accusations without evidence to justify the heavy-arms NATO build-ups, war exercises, and aerial bombing preparations in every country on Russia’s East European borders in one-way threatening of world war.

International law, the only instituted common ground or regulator across the hostile and warring parties, was kept out of any topic, speaker knowledge, or conference discussion.  The Canadian government’s unprecedentedly fact-ignorant war mongering on Ukraine was abolished from consideration. All was totally ignored even when explicitly brought to the acting president’s attention with evidence.

Sound familiar? As in corporate media and state proclamations, the taboo zone is any line of inquiry or analysis that exposes the official story line, its concealments of central facts, and the mass murders and destruction of civilian homes, schools and infrastructures. As in Bosnia, so in Donbass. More criminally, the known US-installed coup government of Kiev was heavily subsidized and armed to wage its one-way bombing, starvation and clearance of Donbass citizens from their lands, homes, culture and codified laws.

Can the truce hold when US-assisted Kiev views it as a period to prepare for war? The life-and-death facts are not allowed into the ruling format. More disquietingly, they have been blocked out by every step of the organisation of the Ukraine conference. Seek to find exception. The method is more effective than a gag order because the silencing pattern is itself silent. The method has ample precedent within the acting president’s Peace Magazine, as reported by Science for Peace member, Edwin Daniel – but with no attention by the executive in allowing this conference to build over months. As Professor Daniel observed beforehand – as usual with no response –Peace Magazine will ‘publish claims that are untrue’ and refuse to correct them when pointed out.’

As we know, this is the very opposite of science and reason. Yet ‘when I have tried to point these out,’ Daniel continues, ‘I have been consistently ignored. I will mention just one recent example, the question of who was responsible for firing sarin containing rockets in Syria. The western media and governments immediately blamed the Assad regime, but later evidence showed that to be false. After Metta published the media claim and I sent her the refuting evidence, nothing happened. So I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Peace Magazine, explaining the nature of the refuting evidence. It never appeared. When I questioned Metta about it, she denied receiving the letter, which I then resent. It has never appeared.’(Edwin Daniel to sfpboard@listserv, March 14). [i]

The propagandist slanting the acting president has imposed not only assumes the official enemy designated by the US as evil without any evidence given. It  ignores all the evidence proving that the criminal facts alleged by the US are false (here led by the much-documented investigation of Seymour Hersh). In this case, it was the official enemy of Syria’s Assad. In the case of the conference on Ukraine, the issue was immediately mutated to the designated enemy, Russia and Vladmir Putin. All lock-stepped in accord with US-led demonization which became hysterical when US-NATO expansion to Russia was stopped after the US-orchestrated bloody coup in Ukraine. Science for Peace was enlisted into this propagandist framework without notice or Board response, a coup of its own kind.

The acting president claimed that she had been acting on the instructions of the resigned president Jim Turk [former executive director of CAUT] to arrange – in her words – “a conference on Ukraine and Russia”. Yet Turk has advised in his only letter on the topic that he in fact said that the conference was to be on “Ukraine”. Already we know from this shift to Russia as the target that the acting president had planned the conference around the very blame-the-enemy tactic governing the US against all the evidence given to her.

This propagandist structure has been the only constant at work. It was sustained for months through the conference and afterwards, even as ever more evidence became public that refuted it. Most alarmingly to a long-time researcher into the deep structure of war propaganda, this false allegation covered up all contrary facts in every step of operation. It was unilaterally planned as the organising idea of the conference so that Russia led by Putin (whom Metta Spencer hates, in her words, as ‘an immoral thug and the most successful thief in the history of the world’) is held responsible for a US-constructed criminal war by Science for Peace format. Most significantly, there is no reply or even denial of this war-propaganda framing to the present day. As with the ruling propaganda apparatus, so the creature of it assumes the right to big lies and impunity for them.

The pattern continued after the conference with still deeper distortion and reversal of facts. Prefacing her March 4 press report on the conference with the even more provocative lead asserting “the war between Ukraine and Russia”, Spencer abolished the historical facts that the civil war was prepared and orchestrated by the US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland (as reported in the Bulletin and widely elsewhere, and nowhere denied by even the US State Department); and that the coup government under US direction moved quickly to one-way war-criminal aerial bombing of civilians in Eastern Ukraine and economic strangulation of the population (still going on in June after truce but all blamed on Russia). Far from ending with the conference, the ruling propagandist framework continued to govern afterwards in spite of all written exposure and protest, and became so extreme as to not take into account what even the stacked panelists and interviewees said to contradict it.

Even though numerous attempts were made by others to balance the program, to take into account excluded major facts, to achieve some modicum of scientific integrity, all evidence-based patterns of the documented causal sequence of the civil war and its major atrocities continued to be ignored and erased under executive direction. In accordance with the master propaganda machine, the ‘Science for Peace conference on Ukraine’ was immediately published by NATO’s publication, The Atlantic Council (March 5) with the title lead “Culpability – -”. This article described the conference as advising us that “Russia’s actions are best viewed as opportunistic and reactionary, rather than as part of a grand strategy to dismember Ukraine and destabilize the region” – both sides blaming Russia as the villain, and excluding all evidence to the contrary.

As many others prominent in the peace movement, Metta Spencer prides herself for having helped to convince Gorbachev towards the USSR’s peaceful collapse. This helps to explain why she and others here are so enraged at Putin and Russia who have reclaimed independence and now keep pro-US advocates out of the country.

The Ad Adversarium Fallacy: Behind the Wars Masked as Peace Seeking

Beneath the political bullying and repression, the very bases of reason and science are silently attacked at the roots beneath notice. I have written a lot in refereed journals and texts about the propagandist framing of issues – demonstrating that the underlying logical form is deranged, but not yet flagged in principle by received logic or science.

Whatever the issue or parties involved, reason is always diverted to the accepted enemy of the audience as a diversion from the facts of the dispute or issue. At the general level, this is known in the logic of natural language as an ‘ignoratio elenchi’ or informally ‘red herring’. Yet the specific fallacy involved of diverting to a culturally accepted enemy – away from the causes, facts and inner logic of the issue – is so common across tribes and times that it is still pervasively exploited in ruling propaganda fields into today. This is the ad adversarium fallacy which is the track-switch of the rest.

It silences all reason and inquiry that does not begin by isolating the official enemy as the issue. Who can I find that is “pro-Putin”? – the main question the acting president of Science for Peace posed on the Ukraine conference – is already a complete diversion away from the causation and horrors of the orchestrated war onto the official enemy as the issue. The very same structure of war propaganda frames virtually all of official society’s representations in war and peace. The frame of discourse always constructs an enemy to blame to divert from the war crimes being perpetrated by the US.

At the same time, there is no connective analysis towards underlying common cause. This is known as a fallacy of common cause in primary logic and science. But it is so built into the reigning ideology it goes unnamed. Although these fallacies are more lethal tin the end than the Black Death, they select towards ignorance and catastrophe almost wherever we look.

The common life interest that underlies all peace is also undefined in the fields of official meaning. The common life-ground disappears from the reigning discourses. Private money gains and losses alone preoccupy the value system. Human life need versus market demand is an unknown distinction. Diversions to spectacle, self opinions and the designated enemy are a ritual of ignorance across domains. Selling the story and keeping connective explanation out everywhere displace understanding.

This is the global dumbing down on which the life-blind system depends. Sometimes it reverses the very history of its host. I first came to know Science for Peace as host when its co-founding president and physicist Eric Fawcett invited me to give an evening lecture to Science for Peace on “Terrorism” in the midst of the Reagan era. From then on, I was led to believe that Science for Peace was a rigorously logical and factually grounded organisation at the most advanced level of public affairs understanding including some of the world’s greatest critical thinkers on war and peace. Yet out of this long founding tradition, a conference based in a propagandist frame led by official-enemy assumptions and omitting all contrary basic facts was bully-instituted at the executive level as if run by Victoria Nuland.

When I explained why the Ukraine conference framework was propagandist in principle to organizing president, saying “I can feel Eric Fawcett turn over in his grave”, the propagandist framework I defined was not denied or ever responded to. The issue was silenced by every means available. This is the crucial operation of the global propaganda machine in micro and macro form. As on the wider stage of the politics of power and war, an unseen syntax of mind repression rules (with Harper as Canada’s national enforcer):

1. issues of fact and truth are erased from view,
2.  focus is directed on the unsubstantiated Enemy standing the way of US
3.  nasty insinuations or droning are launched at critics
4.  lies build on lies as virtue and truth.

War is Peace and Ignorance is Strength: The Case of Ukraine

The Ukraine conference and aftermath unfolded as the directing propagandist frame had structured it. It crossed political parties, corporate media, collaborating activist organizations, and the occupied minds of citizens.

The central issues were all screened out – the US financing and directing of the destabilization of Ukraine over years into Nazi-led coup d’etat complete with swastikas and murderous overthrow of the governing federalist party elected by the vast majority of people; the NATO push since before 2000 into Ukraine against promises made to Gorbachev, and continuous NATO war-fever claims of Russia invasions; the known division of Ukraine into two in NATO-defense ministers map in 2000,  and hundreds of US-led tanks and border build-ups to “stop Russia invasion” without any evidence of it; and crippling embargoes on Russia on the basis of false claims of the violation of international law in Crimea’s vote for re-integration.

In the familiar pattern of the ‘free press’, all such deciding facts were ruled out by the blame-the-enemy structure of assumption. Executive operations of silencing were sustained without a blink. All war and aggression was inverted into Putin “invading the sacred territory of Ukraine”. The official big lie was propagated as first premise by the country’s once leading anti-war and peace organization. In short, whatever did not fit into the propagandist frame of Putin as the plotting villain of expansion and the US and NATO as heroic in collective defense was excluded by the framing. As elsewhere, re-framing the peace movement as war propaganda was the inner meaning. Those still standing for Science for Peace appealed to the executive to set matters straight, but all continued to be ignored by manifold means.

As in the larger world of US-led propaganda, the only executive response was to screen it all the evidence out as if it did not exist. A chair was appointed by the executive for the board of directors meeting who declared he would not read any of the evidence. Official silencing was procedurally prescribed before anything could be discussed at the responsible levels, with political constitutionalist Peter Russell applauding.

Again the unaccountable macro system of lies and war ruled. The meeting happened so debased of any bearings that Science for Peace’s most fully qualified scientist with both medical and chemistry/neuroscience doctorates, Jim Deutsch, took notes of how the procedures ruled out any knowledge of the issues. Ignorance is strength.

The executive-appointed chair of the meeting prescribed administrative privilege as follows: “I will not read messages” and “I do not think that we should be debating a conference that has already taken place”. In this way, exposure of what is silenced is silenced as well. As in the wider kingdom of lies and erasure of facts and no executive accountability to constitutional objectives, it all continues until publicly named beyond the reach of the corruption.

Re-Grounding in Life Reason against the Corporate Occupation

Propaganda framing for aggression masked as peace does not work easily when qualified voices publicly document the steps. Ignoring and ignorance have a limit. So in her long Easter/Passover message to members, the acting president wedged in her sole public response to the demonstrated dishonesty of her conference’s organizing assumption – Putin’s war on Ukraine. Here as well, outright lies, bluff, and intimidation are the omnibus method so well known at higher executive levels. The US war system masquerading as peacemaker has many faces.

Here the first step was another false claim as an executive order – namely, that “we should only cite evidence that we have personally witnessed. Do not quote another person’s criticisms”. This entails the silencing of any proved report in writing of falsehoods by eyewitnesses and experts to which no counter-evidence exists. Such an edict would put an end to most scholarly work and independent reporting. Again we can see the underlying pattern of repressing whatever evidence does not fit the propaganda story while asserting moral high-ground at the same time.

The second step here is also well known in the higher circles of aggression dressed in peace. The acting president declared she “has been attacked unfairly for the conference that I produced on Ukraine and Russia. I have answered every accusation fully”. I replied to this in open Bulletin publication as well:  “One is obliged to observe that the big lie, absolute denial and false victimhood are very well worn in the wider world of power and war. Is there any good reason for not concluding these devices at work here as well?” There has been no rebuttal or even disavowal of the big lies since they were named. As in the operations of the US-NATO system, high-handed executive dismissal of its lies rules on always pretending the status of being wronged.

Such operations work because of the conditioned perceptual readiness of those who do not think through them. They can be counted on as effective lies so long as they are not publicly outed. Ultimately mendacity and complicity with mass murder can only stand if there is no thinking through of what “peace” or “science” is, and is not.  As we have seen, organization and discourse in conformity to a ruling framework of propaganda is a meta program seldom laid bare. The systems understanding which any science for peace requires, and the high standards of reason and analysis it demands, have been ditched without the majority knowing it. It has happened to our universities of higher learning themselves. Understanding of war and peace at the most advanced level has become subjugated and corrupted with no life-value compass whatever, only public relations cover-ups.

Many questions arise which the rest of this analysis answers. How do we lay bare this cognitive and affective pathology that is normal in the corps-world of power, propaganda and war? How do we recover what is true and what is peace in principle? How do we sustain the very constitutional objectives of society’s evolved research and learning institutions against corporate money-sequence occupiers and producers of amnesiac events?  How do we counteract unseen rich funding for dissemination of blame-the-enemy narratives that infiltrate even organizations originally formed to expose them?

‘Science’ and ‘Peace’ Are Defined by What They Are Not

We begin by defining what science and peace are not to know what each is. This is an ancient principle of logic found in the universal Latin formula, determinatio est negatio. The truth is known by the negation of other false possibilities..

By this time, we know what science and peace are absolutely not. They are not governed by ultimate assumption of the official enemy as evil, or by erasure of US-led war crimes, or by organizing against basic evidence that does not fit the official story. Neither science nor peace can turn a blind eye to ever recurring US-led wars, civil wars and preparations for wars. No true peace activism can internalize propaganda that suppresses these facts to blame the enemy as the reason for bombing people thousands of miles from US borders.

These principles are not left or right so much as deep centre. They are not anti-US any more than anti-Russian. So we can substitute Russia or China for the US below to discover what is not science or peace at the most general level. The differences are revealing. Russia and China deploy aggressor operations against their own citizens. But they never do it thousands of miles away with long-distance killing machinery calling it “saving human lives” and “freedom”.

The ruling meta program of peace propaganda for war-criminal aggression is not conscious any more than a mental illness is. It is instituted into the dominant political field of meaning as ‘normal’, and it silences what exposes it by its locked-in nature. Amnesty International, Avaaz, Science for Peace and supposedly peaceful states and citizens may all be dupes in the Grand Game. Yet they are also pro-active agents of the deep war against life and life reason by collaboration with its murderous lies. This propagandist syntax towards war versus its real peace alternative form the repressed choice space none name. Yet they decide for or against every causal sequence towards the wars of our era.  Here as always, scientific reason and logic always seek disconfirming instances to test general claims, and so everyone is invited to find any such counter-evidence here.  

Principles of Science and Peace against War Propaganda

All of us have a foundational choice of whether we think though or not, and whether we stand for reason and peace or ignorance and war. The US permanent war against designated enemies does not fool anyone unless they allow it. It only succeeds at bottom so far as people have no principled understanding of war and peace.

But how can we tell them apart when even anti-nuclear and activist media like Peace Magazine do not name or track any US-caused civil war in sovereign countries – from Ukraine to Venezuela, Libya to Syria, Russia-Chechnya to the once unified Yugoslavia. The very concepts of peace and war, aggression and terror, despotic and democratic have been collapsed into mindless trigger slogans with no generic life bearings.

Consider since 2000 Iraq and the 9-11 Wars, the US-orchestrated war crimes in Ukraine as stopping aggression, the non-stop destabilization of Venezuela and overthrow of democracy for death squad dictatorship in Honduras and Haiti before and after that – where not that has a civil war? In every case it seems, the war and horror are orchestrated by the US covert and propaganda state, but always projected onto the Enemy shifting with the territory marked for takeover.

US ‘full spectrum dominance’ is admitted in public proclamation, but erased from the mind in understanding the world’s continuous wars behind which this objective is invariably evident.

The following principles go underneath the mass-murderous lies and reverse projections. They lay bare the choice between peace and war, between reason and propaganda which is always before us. They are self-evident once seen, but not yet defined to provide the life-value compass and ground. Together they provide an impartial and foolproof framework to out the war-party in any guise and (in italics below) what peace and truth always stand for instead. They define the missing lines of the ultimate war on the level of the mind itself:

1. ultimate assumption of the official enemy as evil
   Any designation of Enemy is examined for justifications relevant to military war under international law
2.  in erasure of US-led war crimes as an issue to consider;
   Historical record of war crimes and crimes against humanity by US (or other state as relevant to crisis) is taken into account, especially as the pattern is repeated.
3. ignoring and overriding scientific standards and evidence wherever they conflict with or falsify the official story;
   Recognising that exclusion from account of any relevant basic fact is indicator of distortion/falsehood/lie in proportion to the flagrancy of omission (especially re. 1 and 2)
4. eliminating critical questions by organizational blocks and insinuating smears,
   Recognize that any failure of (1) through (3) is likely to be carried on however much it violates the evidence and truth, and so re-apply the same standards at a second-order level of evaluation and action in refusal to submit to lies towards war.
5. within a wider context of justifying US-led wars and preparations for wars
   Always keeping in mind the documented historical record of crimes against peace and war crimes under law as relevant to the present that repeats them, truthfully opposing rather than omitting or rationalizing them
6. by internalized operations of US-led propaganda,
   Understanding that we live within pervasive communication fields of intense pressures to internalize global selling of lies for self-maximizing returns, especially in US foreign affairs where the declared objective is ‘full-spectrum dominance’ while pretending ‘peace
7. whose master operation is reverse projection onto the designated Enemy
   Being able to spot the ‘blame-the-enemy’ operation – the ultimate ideological source of armaments build-ups and wars – by rigorous examination of edited-out issues and facts
8. of what the dominant force is doing at far higher levels.
   Reverse projection is the most maliciously deceitful but successful form of war propaganda and aggression – blaming the designated Enemy for what the invading armed aggressor is itself doing as the reason for attacking the weaker society to death.

Professor John McMurtry is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. whose work is published and translated from Latin America to Japan. He is the author and editor of the three-volume Philosophy and World Problems published by UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), and his most recent book is The Cancer Stage of Capitalism/ from Crisis to Cure.

Embora a esmagadora maioria dos americanos não estejam cientes disso, o governo dos EUA está a canalizar apoio financeiro, armas e treino para uma entidade neo-nazi – inserida na Guarda Nacional da Ucrânia – o Batalhão Azov (Батальйон Азов). O Canadá e a Grã-Bretanha já confirmaram que estão também a apoiar a Guarda Nacional.

O Batalhão Azov – que exibe “oficialmente” um emblema das SS nazis (em baixo, à esquerda) – é apresentado pelo regime de Kiev como sendo “um batalhão de defesa territorial constituído por voluntários”. Trata-se de um batalhão da Guarda Nacional sob a jurisdição do Ministério da Administração Interna, o equivalente à Segurança Interna na América.

Sedeado oficialmente em Berdyank, banhada pelo Mar de Azov, o Batalhão Azov foi constituído pelo regime para combater a insurgência da oposição na região de Donbass (no Leste e no Sul da Ucrânia).

Treinar crianças para combater os russos

O Batalhão Azov, apoiado por parcerias ocidentais, não se encontra envolvido só em operações paramilitares no Leste da Ucrânia. De acordo com vários relatos, inclusive do Kyiv Post (comunicação social de massas na Ucrânia), gere também um Campo de Verão com treino militar para crianças, parte integrante do seu programa mais amplo de treino e doutrinação.

De acordo com a RT:

“O campo foi criado para mostrar às crianças que existem mais coisas na vida para além da escola e dos telemóveis e ‘para lhes mostrarmos o nosso amor’, revelou Oleksii ao canal ucraniano ICTV, comandante de pelotão do Batalhão Azov e instrutor do campo. “É preciso ser forte; é preciso ser corajoso para defender a integridade territorial da nossa pátria”, acrescentou. (Relato da RT)

As fontes da comunicação social ocidental (citadas pelo Kyiv Post) confirmam que participam no Campo de Verão Azov, localizado no distrito de Vodytsya nos arredores de Kiev, crianças a partir dos seis anos (confirme-se nas imagens abaixo).

O texto da faixa indica: Iдея B Нації, сила В тобі. Traduzido livremente: A Ideia da Nação, O Poder Dentro de Ti.

As imagens anteriores confirmam que muitas das crianças não são ainda adolescentes.

O Kyiv Post – que aponta o dedo à comunicação social ocidental pela sua cobertura tendenciosa – mesmo assim reconhece a natureza diabólica deste projecto de treinamento militar:

“(…) este campo em particular é gerido pelo Batalhão Azov e foi fundado pelo legislador Andriy Biletsky, o seu anterior comandante. Localizado na área do bosque do distrito Pushcha Vodytsya de Kiev, neste campo os miúdos não estão a brincar aos soldados – estão a receber treinamento militar a sério por parte de soldados que têm combatido na linha da frente na guerra que a Rússia leva a cabo contra a Ucrânia.

Apodado de Azovets, o campo tem sido alvo de cobertura noticiosa negativa por parte da comunicação social russa, de portais pró-russos e até do tabloide britânico The Daily Mail.

‘Campo de Verão neo-nazi: membros do Batalhão Azov ensinam crianças ucranianas a disparar AKs (FOTOS)’, prega a manchete da RT controlada pelo Kremlin na sua reportagem acerca do campo.

‘Fotografias chocantes do interior do campo militar neo-nazi revelam que recrutas com idades tão tenras como SEIS anos estão a aprender a disparar armas-de-fogo (apesar de estar em vigor um cessar-de-fogo)’, afirmava a manchete do artigo sensacionalista e inexacto do Daily Mail” (Kyiv Post, 29 de Agosto de 2015).

Embora o regime de Kiev negue que o Azov é uma organização neo-nazi, os logótipos tanto do Batalhão Azov como do Campo de Verão Azovets (que figura nas t-shirts do Campo de Verão) envergam o símbolo rúnico Wolfsangel das SS nazis com a imagem desbotada do “Sol Negro nazi” ao fundo.

O logótipo do Wolfsangel das t-shirts com o símbolo de uma das divisões das SS

© vk.com/tabir.azovec

Recrutamento das crianças soldado

O programa de treino do Campo de Verão constitui a primeira fase do recrutamento de crianças soldado em violação da lei internacional.

De modo invariável, o recrutamento de crianças soldado implica um programa de treino que familiarize os infantes com a utilização de armas automáticas ligeiras.

Os instrutores militares fazem parte dos paramilitares do Batalhão Azov destacados para o Campo (note-se a insígnia das SS nazis no uniforme abaixo):

O artigo do Kyiv Post descreve detalhadamente a natureza do “Campo de Verão neo-nazi”. Os relatos confirmam que uma entidade sob a jurisdição da Guarda Nacional ucraniana (financiada pelo Ministério da Administração Interna da Ucrânia) está a treinar e a doutrinar crianças pequenas na arte da guerra:

“O campo de Verão Azovets aceita filhos dos membros do Batalhão Azov, bem como crianças do distrito de Obolon nos arredores de Kiev e mais além. Abriu a 22 de Junho, leva a cabo programas semanais de actividades para grupos de 30 até 40 crianças. Oficialmente, é para crianças entre os nove e os 18, mas estão lá crianças a partir dos sete anos. Algumas delas têm lá estado durante semanas consecutivas.

O que torna o campo tão polémico é este ser gerido por combatentes do Azov, alguns dos quais têm sido apodados de apoiantes da extrema-direita e neo-nazis. Os críticos afirmam que o símbolo do batalhão é um Wolfsangel invertido que tem uma associação, oblíqua mas desconfortável, com o nazismo.

Em entrevistas levadas a cabo com a comunicação social ucraniana, Biletsky afirma que o simbolismo tem sido mal interpretado. A Letra “N” e a letra “I” compõem a insígnia do Azov, sigla que afirma significar “Ideia Nacional”.

Biletsky fundou na Ucrânia um grupo neo-nazi que dava pelo nome de Assembleia Social-Nacional e é certo que existem neo-nazis entre os integrantes do batalhão, alguns deles com tatuagens nazis. Alguma comunicação social tem relatado que cerca de 20% dos combatentes do Azov são neo-nazis, embora os oficiais de imprensa do batalhão penem sempre por enfatizar que o Azov, sendo uma formação militar, não compartilha da ideologia do seu fundador Biletsky, ou qualquer outra ideologia que não seja um patriotismo ardente.

Quando o Kyiv Post visitou o campo Azovets a 19 de Agosto, as crianças estavam atarefadas com uma série de actividades, incluindo desmontar e montar espingardas de assalto AK-47, tiro ao alvo (com armas de pressão de ar), cursos de combate de assalto e praticar poses de combate e de patrulha. Participam também em vários desportos e jogos, do rapel à escalada, e praticam actividades mais tradicionais do escutismo e do artesanato tais como atar nós.

‘Só estou aqui há três dias, mas já compreendi que não é um campo onde venhamos jogar jogos. Estamos a receber treino militar’, revelou ao Kyiv Post um dos miúdos do campo.

Na floresta nas proximidades do campo, um grupo de miúdos recebia algumas indicações de segurança dum instrutor do Azov.

‘Sabem o que ia acontecer caso mantivessem os dedos no gatilho? Se isto fosse uma arma verdadeira podiam matar os vossos camaradas. Portanto, não o façam!’ vocifera o instrutor.

‘Sim senhor!’, respondem os miúdos.

Depois, as crianças praticam uma evacuação médica de soldados feridos no campo de batalha.

A atmosfera militarista do campo, incluindo a disciplina rígida, impressionou claramente algumas das crianças.

‘Cortei o cabelo bem curto ontem’, diz-nos um rapaz. ‘Só porque quis. Agora estou mais parecido com um soldado’.

Dois rapazes mais velhos que, como muitas das crianças presentes no campo, assumiram nomes de guerra (Socorrista e Médico) em imitação dos soldados ucranianos verdadeiros, afirmam querer agora juntar-se ao Batalhão Azov.

‘Quero defender a minha pátria. Há camaradas que apoiam a minha ideia. Julgo que se for preciso, vou combater’, diz ao Kyiv Post o Médico de 17 anos.

As crianças do campo estão organizadas em quatro grupos, dependendo da sua idade, cada grupo é vistoriado por um instrutor e um auxiliar. Os dias no campo começam às 07:00 e acabam às 23:00 em ponto. As crianças dormem em tendas.

O acesso ao portal do Azov e aos portais que o apoiam foi vedado ao público em Setembro do ano passado quando o batalhão foi integrado na Guarda Nacional da Ucrânia, mas o campo tem uma página na rede social russa Vkontakte (https://vk.com/tabir.azovec) onde é promovido e onde as pessoas podem voluntariar-se ou contactar o campo para enviarem para lá os seus filhos.

‘A missão do Campo: Formar o ucraniano de uma nova era – um patriota que esteja pronto a participar activamente na construção e na defesa da Ucrânia’, pode ler-se na descrição da página. (…)

As canções militares patrióticas que as crianças cantam todos os dias como parte do programa do campo parecem ser das actividades mais populares. Avançada a noite, sentados em redor de uma fogueira, cantam as suas favoritas – canções patrióticas que datam das lutas prévias pela independência da Ucrânia dos primórdios até meados do século XX.

O Kyiv Post ouviu as letras de uma das canções. Fala acerca dos soldados ucranianos derrotarem os seus inimigos.

Hoje esse inimigo é a Rússia. Um rapaz sentado num tronco sussurra: ‘quero que esta guerra acabe e que matemos os russos todos’. (Kyiv Post, 29 de Agosto, 2015)

(Para ler o relato completo pela jornalista do Kyiv Post, Faina Nakonechnaya, carregue aqui)

Apoio militar dos EUA

Esta empreitada diabólica, que incita crianças inocentes ao ódio contra russos étnicos bem como à oposição do regime de Kiev é amplamente apoiada pelo apoio militar dos EUA que é enviado à Guarda Nacional ucraniana por via do Ministério da Administração Interna. O MAI coordena as “operações anti-terrorismo” (OAT) em Donbass.

Embora o Congresso dos EUA tenha adoptado emendas na sua “Lei de 2015 de Apropriações do Departamento de Defesa” para evitar o treinamento dos neo-nazis do Batalhão Azov, na verdade o dinheiro ainda lhes chega.

Mais, para lá do apoio militar canalizado sob a jurisdição do Pentágono, a Guarda Nacional da Califórnia estabeleceu uma parceria com a Guarda Nacional da Ucrânia, o que inclui o Batalhão Azov:

“A missão do Programa de Parceria Estatal Califórnia-Ucrânia (PPE) [sob os auspícios da Guarna Nacional da Califórnia] tem por objectivo promover a democracia, as economias de livre mercado e a reforma militar, estabelecendo laços institucionais a longo prazo (…) a parceria Califórnia-Ucrânia apoia directamente os objectivos do embaixador dos EUA na Ucrânia e do Comandante do Comando Europeu dos EUA (…) (Gabinete de Cooperação da Defesa (GCD), Chefe: LTC Tracy D. Rueschhoff)”

Abaixo encontra mais algumas imagens selectas dos “defensores da liberdade” do Batalhão Azov.

São estas as pessoas que estão a treinar as crianças ucranianas para manusear Ak-47s no Campo de Verão neo-nazi. Tudo por uma boa causa: “o florescimento da democracia” nas palavras do New York Times.

The magnitude of Corbyn’s victory today represents an irreversible seismic shift in British politics, writes Oliver Tickell. Finally the Tories face serious, principled opposition that will reveal them as the far-right ideologues they truly are. The reverberations will echo far, wide, long and deep, including to the US where the socialist Bernie Sanders is well on his way to winning the Democratic nomination.

Jeremy Corbyn’s win today marks a revolutionary, seismic change in British politics. But it is also so much more than that.

It’s not just the fact that he won, but that he won so decisively in the first round, with almost 60% of the vote, victorious in each of the three Labour Party ‘chapters’ – party members, affiliated supporters, and £3 registered supporters.

With so clear and strong a mandate from the Party, trades unions and cooperatives, and wider society including supposedly ‘disengaged’ young people, even his strongest detractors among Labour MPs have little choice but to go along with the euphoric tide that swept him to the leadership – no matter how little they share in that euphoria themselves.

And it is testament to Corbyn’s political integrity that his first act as Labour Leader and Leader of the Opposition was to take to the streets in today’s ‘Solidarity with Refugees’ march in London, which begins at Park Lane and ends, symbolically, at Downing Street.

Corbyn’s campaign and its resounding success have destroyed the New Labour project for good. Tony Blair and his entire legacy are reduced to rubble in an democratic earthquake of overwhelming power.

Blair himself is looking more likely than ever to end up in a court of law charged with the ultimate war crime – that of unprovoked military aggression against another nation. Others that colluded in the lies that took Britain to war in Iraq must also be fearing for the future.

But it’s the Tories who will really be quaking at the knees

But the deeper angst is on the Government side. David Cameron has good reason to fear the coming of Corbyn. His Bullingdon Club arrogance and Oxford Union debating skills will cut little ice against Corbyn, who will provide the serious, penetrating, analytical, humane opposition we so desperately need.

Any attempt by Cameron to stick with the old ‘yah boo’ style of Prime Minister’s Questions will look trivial, inept, condescending and utterly inappropriate.

For many years now he and his party have faced a Labour opposition that essentially shares their world view, so the debate has been focused on small but symbolic issues of detail. Both parties have colluded, for example, in

• economic ‘austerity’ – the imposition of deep public sector spending cuts that overwhelmingly impact on the poor, while flooding banks with cheap money to maintain booms in asset values for the exclusive benefit of the rich;
• the dismantling and privatization of the National Health Service and other essential public services;
• the idea that unaccountable corporations acting in pursuit of profit are preferable to public service, cooperative, state and community provision;
• the broad neoliberal agenda of supporting the power of international capital against people and the environment, as manifest in ‘free trade’, ‘investor protection’ and other provisions of TTIP, CETA and so on;
• nuclear power – no matter how high the cost;
• maintaining a ‘two track’ approach on climate change – giving diplomatic support to strong international agreements, while supporting fossil fuel industries with friendly policies and tax breaks;
• the desire to maintain nuclear weapons, at enormous expense, whose exclusive purpose is the mass murder of millions of people;
• membership of NATO, the world’s most powerful and aggressive military alliance;
• Britain’s role as a lackey to US power, unfailingly lending military and diplomatic support to both covert and overt US aggression whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere;
• unquestioning support for key military allies of the US, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia, no matter how egregious their crimes and disregard for international law including the Geneva Conventions.

The remarkable thing about Corbyn is that he is not merely luke-warm on some of these issues in the manner of his predecessor Ed Miliband, but that he rejects the entire package outright.

That 90% of ‘common ground’ that once existed between the two parties has now entirely evaporated. From now on Labour’s opposition will be real, serious, profound and principled.

This political earthquake still has a long way to run …

Corbyn’s opposition role will of course have huge environmental implications. Uniquely among the candidates for the Labour leadership, he advanced a powerful ‘green’ manifesto which set out a series of important policies on everything from fracking and nuclear power (against) to community energy and renewables (for) and conserving the integrity of our ecosystems on land and in sea.

And now he and his shadow ministers will be vigorously advancing those policies which promise – in line with opinion polls of renewable energy and other issues – to beoverwhelmingly popular.

He will also be vociferous in his opposition to the viciously anti-environmental policies of the Conservative government – for which they have so far escaped serious political consequences. No longer will Cameron, Rudd and others be allowed to get away with talking green while attacking the environment by every means available to them.

That opposition will, moreover, be reflected in the media. Often in the most unflattering terms of course – what else would you expect in the Mail, Express, Sun, Times, Star andTelegraph? But bit by bit, the truth will shine through.

Perhaps the biggest change will be reflected in the BBC, which is constitutionally required to maintain political ‘balance’ between government and opposition and which, moreover, is itself under attack from a Government determined to ‘cut it down to size’ by limiting its services and reducing its funding base.

We can therefore expect the entire ‘centre ground’ of British political thought to shift markedly to the left – in the process exposing the current government as the exteme right-wing ideologues they are.

A green and socialist alliance across the Atlantic?

But the repercussions will also be international. Corbyn’s success both reflects and will in turn inspire left wing, anti-austerity parties and movements like Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece.

And it will echo across the Atlantic where the polls show the avowedly socialist andenvironmentally committed Bernie Sanders looking ever more likely to defeat the neoconservative Hillary Clinton and become the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

The story of Clinton’s decline from well above 50% to below 40% has been almost precisely mirrored by Sanders’s rise, from below 10% to above 30% today – and in my book he’s the clear favourite for the nomination for all the same reasons that Corbyn won today.

If Sanders goes so far as to win the Presidency in November 2016 – an entirely credible proposition given the weakness of the Republican candidates and the likelihood of a Donald Trump split-off right-wing candidature – that raises the prospect of what would until today have looked impossible: a trans-Atlantic green and socialist alliance of Jeremy Corbyn and President Sanders.

And of course that would hugely boost Corbyn’s chances of winning the 2020 UK general election. Forget Obama’s increasingly hollow promise of “Yes we can!” – the cry will be“Yes we bloody well will!”

Not a moment too soon.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Russia has taken the lead in supporting Syria this summer, actively initiating efforts to bring a diplomatic resolution to the country’s crisis and assemble an inclusive anti-ISIL coalition. The rapid pace at which it’s working is due in large part to the looming specter of a joint American-Turkish invasion force which hangs ominously over the Mideast.

Disturbed at the success that Russia has had so far in reaching out to the US’ traditional Mideast allies, as well as that staying power of the Syrian Arab Army in holding firm against the latest onslaughts against it, the US commanded its media proxies to initiate an intense information war against Syria, hoping to both break the back of its resistance and complicate Russian efforts to assist it. This hybrid information war manipulates the three disparate but interconnected factors of the refugee crisis, Russian efforts to assist Syria, and the Balkan overflight zones in order to advance American foreign policy and concoct a package of media myths to deepen the destabilization of Syria.

Politicizing A Humanitarian Crisis

The refugee crisis was created in 2011 by the West’s regime change campaigns in Libya and Syria, but it wasn’t until this year that it really caught the attention of the Western mainstream media. Millions of Syrians had already been displaced by the tumult, with the lion’s share of them choosing to remain within the country, but a sizeable minority (also numbering in the millions, and tainted with an anti-government composition) opted to leave their homeland for abroad. Once there, many of these expatriates endeavored to eventually travel to the EU in order to receive its generous social benefits and have an opportunity to work for euros.

The trigger for the latest wave, according to Ghassan and Intibah Kadi, was Turkey’s decision to allow the Syrian refugees it was hosting to finally leave their camps and head out to Europe. This massive migration and the no-questions-asked policy of granting Syrian refugees asylum led many non-Syrians to fake their nationality and make the trip as well, further worsening the crisis and adding to its overwhelming numbers. The US has received certain strategic benefits by encouraging this process and guiding it along a premeditated geopolitical path, but no explicit politicization of the situation occurred until the viral photo of Aylan Kurdi began surfacing on the internet at the end of August.

The media vultures have since picked child’s corpse clean in order to feed their political narratives, which revolve largely around ludicrously blaming President Assad for the tragedy and using the public outcry over it to ‘justify’ the UK and France ’s “anti-ISIL” bombing operations in Syria (the latter of which will likely be announced soon). Furthermore, the anti-government affiliation of many of the refugees flooding into Europe makes for excellent “rebel” recruitment, especially since the US just announced that it will be “revamping” its regime change program in Syria. On top of all of this, the very fact that certain EU states are so accommodating of the refugees creates a strong pull factor that seeks to dismantle Syria demographically by provoking even more emigration among its most youthful and productive segment of the population (which, it must be reminded, could also help protect the country amidst this terrifying war being waged against it).

Inventing An Intervention

Seeing Through The Illusion:

The next major element of the information war against Syria was obscure Israeli information outlet Ynet’s article about a supposed Russian ground intervention being prepared against ISIL. The Twitter posting of Russian military aircraft by the terrorist Al Nusra Front added to the frenzy, which is absolutely ridiculous for two reasons: (1) Israeli – supported terrorists are never a reliable source of information; and (2) Russia has been openly providing military equipment to Syria for years and has never made any pretense to hide such a fact. Despite the obvious falseness of Ynet and Al Nusra’s ‘reporting’, the Western mainstream media went into a frenzy , and the sensationalism quickly skyrocketed to the Secretary of State’s attention when Kerry went out of his way to call Lavrov about it.

Addressing The Audiences:

This episode of information warfare wasn’t engineered just to waste time and create a week-long media distraction, since there are more important things that it was aiming for. The fake-intervention-turned-‘real’ by the Western mainstream media was simultaneously directed at the Saudi, Russian, and Syrian audiences. Speaking on the first, the US is apprehensive about thedeveloping relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia, specifically in the context of diplomatically bringing a close to the War on Syria, and it sought to throw a wrench in these efforts by crafting the false story that Russia unilaterally upped the ante and abandoned the secret negotiation framework. Thus, the fake report was also intended to distort the idea behind Russia’s anti-ISIL coalition, which isn’t to invite a Russian frontline component into the war, but to gather all existing military forces under a coordinated anti-terrorist umbrella .

Russians:

Pertaining to the Russian audience, the US wanted to stoke divisions within the country’s political society that have developed since Moscow first pledged its full support to Damascus in its anti-terrorist struggle. There are some in Russia who disagree with this approach and think that it’s an unwarranted overextension of the national interest, and the purpose behind this ruse was to strengthen their opposition precisely at the point when Russia is doubling down on its commitment to Syria. While an emboldened “hyper-patriotic” opposition (of the same vein, and likely related to, some of those who agitate for a conventional intervention in Eastern Ukraine) would likely have no effect whatsoever on Russia’s relations with Syria, the point is to continue stirring up this new type of anti-government sentiment and testing its receptiveness among the Russian population. Another objective is also to monitor how the fake news spread among the Russian media and how quickly and in what manner the government chose to respond to it. As relates to Russia, the general goal was to attempt a test run of various factors that could provide the US with data that would aid it in perfecting more effective strategies against the country in the future, but as for the immediate impact, it was of course visibly negligible.

Syrians:

Finally, the main target of this hoax was Syria, and the ruse was designed specifically to crash the population’s hopes and make them resentful against the government. There are some in the country who feel that Russia could be doing more to assist the Syrian Arab Army, and to them, the news of a direct Russian intervention was welcome and in accordance with their wishes and expectations. Therefore, when it turned out to be a false rumor, it’s conceivable that they would have felt let down and perhaps even upset at Russia for not actually having done this, which could have the manipulated effect of damaging the integrity of the Russian-Syrian strategic partnership among the hearts and minds of the population. In a similar vein, artificially constructed anti-government sentiment could also be spread among the seditious elements of society that would want to spin such an intervention as a ‘Russian occupation’ or the arrival of ‘Russian death squads’.

Along the same token, according to the words of Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi, “All of this [was] to insinuate the Syrian state is weak and that the Syrian military has weakened to the point of resorting to the aid of friends in a direct manner.” It goes without saying that individuals who believe such a train of thought are also more likely to flee and perpetuate the demographic drain being inflicted on the country, which is itself a severe form of asymmetrical warfare. All in all, since it’s probable that the US and its allies predicted that the rumor would be dispelled in the eyes of its target audiences before too long, they were likely aiming for a panicked, knee-jerk reaction among the refugee-inclined segments of the population and those receptive to the anti-government rhetoric that would paint the phantom Russian intervention as a ‘death squad invasion’. Just like the case with Russia, this rumor alternatively achieved the goal of testing the reaction of the Syrian public and authorities in reacting to the false news, albeit with the intent of putting the finishing touches on a strategy that will likely be rolled out a lot sooner against Damascus than the one against Moscow.

Bringing In The Balkans

Greece:

The last part of the West’s latest information warfare package related to Syria dealt with bringing the Balkans into this specific frame of New Cold War tension between the US and Russia. It emerged that the US had asked Greece to deny Russia the right to use its airspace for humanitarian aid shipments to Syria’s internal refugees, but somewhat unexpectedly, the caretaker Greek government refused to obey Washington. This is illustrative of two important facts: (1) the US felt confident enough of its ability to exploit Greece’s political confusion to push it towards an anti-Russian pivot; and (2) the Greek authorities, despite their temporary nature, understand the strategic national interest in retaining positive relations with Russia in order to build the Balkan Stream pipeline, up to the point that they would dangerously refuse the US’ orders. The geopolitical theme that defines this dictate-refusal interaction is the intense struggle between Balkan Stream and Eastring , with the US always ready to disrupt the former in order to advance the latter, while Greece is valiantly proving its ability to withstand Washington’s pressure and reaffirm its pipeline pledge to Russia.

Bulgaria:

Bulgaria is the polar opposite of Greece on this matter, since it decided (likely on its own andwithout being asked ) to ban Russian humanitarian aircraft from flying over its territory en route to Syria. It likely did so in order to spite Russia for calling its American-advised bluff and replacing South Stream with Turkish Stream, since Bulgaria is still fuming about how this act utterly destroyed any prospects it ever had of crawling out of its economic backwater status and becoming a semi-normal European economy. While it did backtrack a bit and said it would allow the flights in question to continue on the condition that their contents are inspected beforehand, Moscow dismissed Sofia’s humiliating ‘offer’ and insisted that it had other air routes available , with Iran stepping up to present a viable alternative.

The Black Sea state thus revealed a lot about the nature of its contemporary political elite through its obtrusive actions, confirming its leaders’ designation as America’s premier Slavic stooges in the Balkans. Furthermore, elaborating on the timing and the volunteering nature of Bulgaria’s decision, it’s likely that it behaved this way in order to curry additional favor with its American patron after Washington’s commands were courageously rejected by Athens. Bulgaria wanted to ‘thank’ the US for sending heavy equipment and Marines to the country professedly to ‘protect against Russian aggression’, but in reality, such a deployment serves only to facilitate Bulgarian aggression against neighboring Macedonia, which many in the country refuse to acknowledge as a separate ethnos, language, and state. Per the US’ strategic benefit, it allows NATO to have one of its ‘ rapid reaction ’ headquarters strategically abutting the Turkish, Greek, and Macedonian segments of Balkan Stream.

Geopolitical Significance:

Flying over the Balkans en route to Syria fulfilled a strategic purpose for Russia that more than compensated for the extra length required when compared to its Iranian-Iraqi replacement. It would of course be easiest if Russia could fly its aircraft above Turkish airspace and directly to Syria, but this route is obviously inoperable judging by Russia’s previous employment of the Balkans detour, and it’s probably because Ankara rejects any sort of Russian-originated aid going to the country. Be that as it may, the Balkans are many times more preferable than their eastern replacement primarily because they keep Russian planes out of the US-led “anti-ISIL” coalition’s area of operations.

This may not have been so important one year ago when it wasn’t in effect, but with American and other planes nowadays sporadically operating above the country when they so choose and not coordinating their “anti-terrorist” efforts whatsoever with Damascus, the threat remains that some sort of in-air ‘mix-up’ could occur that takes down one of the Russian planes and creates an international crisis. Such a scenario would be amplified if the Russian pilots were captured by ISIL and beheaded, as this would be sure to generate considerable backlash among the Russian public. Considering the risks thus involved, Russia’s insistence to continue providing Syria with humanitarian aid amid these arguably more difficult circumstances testifies to the solidarity of the Russian-Syrian strategic partnership and Moscow’s dedication to aiding Damascus in its anti-terrorist struggle.

Concluding Thoughts

Concurrent with Russia’s reinvigorated efforts to diplomatically resolve the War on Syria, the US has taken to launching a three-pronged hybrid information war against Syria in order to worsen its domestic situation. The refugee crisis has been politicized and transformed into a novel asymmetrical weapon of regime change against the country, creating a quandary which is impossible for Syria to resolve on its own and which places it in an ever-constant strategic vulnerability. The US and Israel’s hoax about a Russian ground intervention against ISIL was a second wave of soft destabilization designed to obstruct the assembling of Russia’s anti-ISIL coalition and also undermine faith in the Syrian Arab Army. The most recent ploy related to Syria saw the US trying to unsuccessfully pressure Greece to deny overflight rights to Russian humanitarian aircraft transiting to Syria, but out of nowhere, Bulgaria’s voluntary agreement to this scheme (motivated out of a dual desire to please its patron and thank it for the heavy equipment, Marines, and ‘rapid response’ base its received) has created an unnecessary inconvenience.

Washington’s heightened information warfare against Syria at this particular time can be read as a strong statement of how successful it feels Russia has lately been in attempting to resolve the country’s problems, as this level of soft destabilization is unprecedented since the crisis first erupted. The US never before tried using the refugee flows out of the country as a means to encourage its British and French allies to militarily involve themselves in the country, nor has it ever invented a Russian military intervention there (although it notably did so in Eastern Ukraine). Moreover, the US is clearly concerned about the humanitarian aid that Russia is giving to Syria (believing it to be a cover for covert military aid above what has been publicly declared), as it’s taken the dramatic step of asking one of the overflight states, Greece, to halt its cooperation with Moscow in order to inhibit it. All of these measures are demonstrable of the US’ fear that Russia’s physical and diplomatic assistance to Syria has finally moved it to the tipping point of reversing the terrorists’ dynamic and enacting a pivotal change in bringing the four-and-a-half-year war to a pro-government conclusion.

Israel won’t accept Syrian refugees because it was only by turning the majority of the Palestinians into refugees that a ‘Jewish state’ was created 

Long before Syrian refugees found their way to Europe, the war-torn country’s neighbours have been hosting a staggering number of displaced persons – with one notable exception.

Syria has five neighbours: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel (with the latter occupying the Golan Heights since 1967). According to recent figures, Turkey currently hosts 1.8 million Syrian refugees, Lebanon a further 1.17 million, Jordan around 630,000, and Iraq some 250,000.

A picture taken from the Israeli side of the border shows Syrian residents approaching the Syria-Israel boundary fence in the Israeli annexed Golan Heights near the southern Syrian village of Ar Rafide on May 7, 2013. (AFP)

Israel, however, with a GDP per capita almost double that of Turkey and five times as much as Jordan, has not accepted a single one.

This is unlikely to change any time soon. On 6 September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of accepting any Syrian refugees, stating: “Israel is a very small state. It has no geographic depth or demographic depth.”

The day before, former finance minister and Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid expressed similar sentiments, arguing that Israel “cannot afford to get into the matter of the refugee crisis” since to do so, he added instructively, could “open a back door to discussing the right of return for Palestinians”.

Senior Palestinian officials, meanwhile, are urging Israel to permit Palestinian refugees from Syria to come to the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

An estimated 3,000 Palestinians have been killed in Syria since the start of the uprising. Around 80,000 of the 560,000 UNRWA-registered Palestinian refugees in Syria are no longer in the country. Yarmouk camp, once home to some 200,000, now has 5-8,000 civilians remaining. In the devastated camp, many still rely on food parcels, and over-stretched doctors are treating cases of typhoid.

On Monday, the PLO’s Hanan Ashrawi reiterated a call made by Mahmoud Abbas for “the international community, in particular the United Nations, to support our efforts to bring the Palestinian refugees to Palestine”.

Netanyahu’s comments at Sunday’s cabinet meeting were sparked by an intervention on Saturday by Zionist Camp head and Labor chair Isaac Herzog. Speaking on Channel 10 television, Israel’s opposition leader said it was “incumbent on Israel to take in refugees from the war”.

“Jews cannot be apathetic when hundreds of thousands of refugees are searching for safe haven,” Herzog added. Except, of course, if they are Palestinian refugees.

Herzog has been very direct about his desire to “keep a Jewish state with a Jewish majority.” Speaking at a conference in June, he stated: “I don’t want a Palestinian prime minister in Israel. I don’t want them to change my flag and my national anthem.”

Tzipi Livni, his Zionist Camp partner, sings a similar tune, defending the creation of a Palestinian “state” (read Bantustan) in order to “preserve the Jewishness of Israel’s Jewish and democratic state model” and “avoid the statistical demographic issue of Palestinians outnumbering Israelis”.

Many were recently appalled by Hungarian PM Victor Orban’s well-publicised remarks that the Syrian refugees “represent a radically different culture” and, purely because they are mainly Muslims, constitute a threat to “European Christianity”.

Few are aware, however, just how routine such rhetoric is in Israel, amongst cabinet ministers, lawmakers, academics, commentators and others. One Israeli journalist, explaining why “Israel can’t take in refugees,” put it like this:

The demographic threat is real, and the need to preserve the Jewish nation state’s character as a democracy doesn’t allow for large minorities. The current numbers of Muslims pose a complicated challenge even without additions.

For Israel’s Palestinian citizens, this discourse is par for the course, from newspapers discussing a “demographic intifada” to political leaders, like Netanyahu in 2010, declaring that a Negev “without a Jewish majority” would pose “a palpable threat”.

Israel’s settler-colonial anxiety goes largely unquestioned in the West. While The New York Times was scathing about Orban’s rhetoric, the paper uncritically noted the perception of “most Israeli Jews” that the Palestinian refugees’ return would be a “demographic death warrant”.

It is not just Palestinians. In 2012, after African refugees had entered Israel via the country’s border with Egypt, Netanyahu warned that “illegal infiltrators” could threaten the country’s existence “as a Jewish and democratic state”. Tel Aviv saw anti-African mob violence.

Even if, as some acknowledged, the new arrivals meant no harm, their continued migration had “the potential of destroying the State of Israel.” Israel, it was frankly explained, is “a country living in constant worry over its demographic balance, and determined to maintain its Jewish character”.

A “steel and barbed-wire fence on the Egyptian border” has since reduced the number of Africans entering Israel “from several thousand a year … to almost zero”. Meanwhile the 50,000 refugees who remain, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, are targeted for removal.

Lapid’s comments point us in the right direction: Israel is unable to accept (non-Jewish) refugees because it was only through turning the majority of the indigenous Palestinian population into refugees that a “Jewish state” was established – and it is maintained by their continued exclusion.

Earlier this week, Netanyahu told European Council President Donald Tusk that Israel is the region’s “only vanguard of liberty,” adding: “We are the guardians of civilisation here in the heart of the Middle East against this new barbarism.”

This colonial ideology of exceptionalism, exemplified by the oft-repeated “only democracy in the Middle East” cliche, finds an uncomfortable echo in Israel’s refusal to accept Syrian refugees, even as its neighbours host them in their millions.

On Sunday, Netanyahu announced the start of construction of a 29-kilometre stretch of fence along Israel’s border with Jordan, just the latest barrier for a state of external and internal borders, segregated spaces and settlements.

Just as the Syrian refugees are the result of an international political failure, so too the Palestinian refugees’ exclusion from their homeland, an absence created and enforced by the barrel of a gun and a bureaucracy of apartheid, is the result of the failure to confront Israeli ethnocracy.

Ben White is the author of ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’ and ‘Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy’. He is a writer for Middle East Monitor, and his articles have been published by Al Jazeera, al-Araby, Huffington Post, The Electronic Intifada, The Guardian’s Comment is free, and more.