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By Countercurrents Collective

The military governments of three African states, which all deposed their Western-backed leaders in recent years, have agreed to assist each other, individually or collectively, in case of any external aggression or internal threat to their sovereignty.

Media reports said:

Mali’s interim president, Assimi Goita, said on Saturday night that he signed the so-called Liptako-Gourma Charter with the leaders of Burkina Faso and Niger “with the aim of establishing a collective defense and mutual assistance framework.”

“Any attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one or more contracted parties will be considered an aggression against the other parties,” according to the text of the charter, cited by Reuters.

The charter establishes an Alliance of Sahel States, which comprises three countries which had previously been members of the Paris-supported G5 Sahel pact with Chad and Mauritania, that has fallen apart following a series of military coups.

The Defense Minister of Mali, Abdoulaye Diop, explained that this new “alliance will be a combination of military and economic efforts between the three countries” with a priority on the fight against terrorism, particularly in the Liptako-Gourma region where the borders of the three neighbors meet.

Mali and Burkina Faso previously stated that any attack on Niger would be a “declaration of war” against them as well, after several of Niger’s neighbors from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened to send troops to restore deposed President Mohamed Bazoum.

Paris was forced to withdraw troops from Mali following tensions with the military government in 2020. Earlier this year, it also pulled out of Burkina Faso after the country’s military rulers ordered them to leave.

Niger’s coup leaders also canceled military agreements that allowed French forces to fight jihadists in the Sahel region, giving the former colonial power only a month to pull out its 1,500 troops. France, however, ignored the ultimatum and demands for its ambassador to leave, as it refused to recognize the authority of the new leadership.

France Planning Aggression Against Niger, Claims Niamey

Another media report said:

France is planning to intervene in Niger, as it continues to deploy troops to several countries in the region, the West African state’s military government has claimed. Relations between Niger and former colonial power France have deteriorated since a coup in July.

“France continues to deploy its forces in several ECOWAS countries as part of preparations for an aggression against Niger, which it is planning in collaboration with this community organization,” Colonel Amadou Abdramane, spokesman for the government in Niamey, said in a statement broadcast on national television on Saturday, as quoted by AFP.

ECOWAS has threatened to intervene in the country to restore its ousted president Mohamed Bazoum to office. Top French officials have also stated several times that Paris would support military action by the bloc.

However, according to Niger’s military-appointed Prime Minister, Ali Lamine Zeine, military action by ECOWAS is not supported by all member states. He also told the media on Monday that the new government in Niamey was hoping to reach an agreement with the bloc in the “coming days.”

Nigerien military leaders have previously denounced the presence of French troops in the country as “illegal” and demanded their prompt withdrawal.

While speaking during the G20 summit in New Delhi, French President Emmanuel Macron said that since his country doesn’t recognize the Nigerien military government, any redeployment of its forces might be done only “at the request of President Bazoum.”

Paris already had to withdraw troops from Burkina Faso earlier this year. France also pulled its forces out of Mali following tensions with the military government after a coup in 2020.

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17 September 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Bharat Dogra

One of the most important tasks before our troubled world relates to protective steps to reduce the harmful impacts of adverse weather and disasters arising from climate change. As is well understood and adequately documented, climate change leads to much increased possibility of adverse weather events and disasters which can be significantly more threatening than what the world has experienced so far.

In many parts of world governments and communities are taking significant protective steps to reduce the high risks related to this. These noble efforts deserve appreciation and encouragement. Unfortunately the richest countries have lagged far behind in their help for this and if they make up for this, then these steps will progress even more.

However there is an even bigger obstacle for these efforts as well as the efforts for reducing GHG emssions. This relates to wars, war preparations, arms race and and military industrial complex (I would be using the words ‘the war industry’ for all of this). As long as these most destructive factors remain, humanity can never unite to achieve climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as related aims of environmental protection needed to avoid existential threats. Quite apart from the fact that the war industry is itself the worst polluter and destroyer, the war industry is responsible for disrupting badly the protective capacities of various countries one after the other.

The most obvious example of this is the complete failure of all protective and preventive aspects in the recent Libyan floods, resulting in the loss of thousands of human lives which could have been saved if the protective aspects were in a state of readiness, as these should be in times of climate change. The most important reason for this crippling of protective aspects was the creation of a failed state, a divided state, by the very violent regime change brought out by the USA, the UK, France and allies with the help of thousands of bombing raids in 2011.

Similarly protective capacities have been destroyed to a large extent in several other counties including Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia as well as others, to mention only the more obvious manifestations of destruction. At a time when these countries should be preparing much better for protection in times of climate change, their protective capacities have been destroyed in a big way by bombs and the most horrible weapons.

What about Ukraine? Like the countries named above, this country too is highly vulnerable to climate change. Geographically, culturally and historically, the most obvious path ahead for this country is to live in peace and friendship with its bigger neighbor Russia, while also retaining friendship of other countries. Most of the people in both countries know, realize and accept this. But a few very narrow-minded, very powerful persons in a most powerful distant country took a decision for their narrow objectives that Ukraine and Russia will not be allowed to live in peace. This led to proxy war, coup and invasion. In the process several hundred thousand people in Ukraine have died or are seriously injured, and the country’s capacity to take the essential protective steps in times of climate change has been badly disrupted too.

Destruction and protection, destructive and protective tendencies cannot co-exist. A very clear choice should be made in favor of protective forces. This is all the more true in times of climate change.

All the noble people with very good intentions who are struggling on the climate front should realize this. However the reality is that in many big climate conferences not a word has been uttered against how Libya was destroyed, how Iraq was destroyed, how the war industry has become the biggest single obstacle in the path of the essential protective measures being taken in good time.

The floods in Libya have shown that where deaths could have been avoided, actually thousands have died because the most essential dam safety systems, the warning and evacuation systems had been destroyed by the war industry. This should be a wake-up call. This should not happen again.

Clearly there is an urgent need for linking up climate and environmental actions with peace and disarmament actions. The existential crisis has been created as much as by the weapons of mass destruction as by climate change and related environmental problems. Hence there is clearly a strong need for the coming together of the movements of environment protection with justice and peace with justice. If the movements of justice, environment protection and peace are isolated from each other, they cannot become a big force and they cannot also bring any comprehensive change. However together and united they can be a force strong enough to bring comprehensive change.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now.

16 September 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

The humiliation of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers in the occupied city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) on July 10 was not the first such episode. Sadly, it will not be the last.

Indeed, the stripping of five women in front of their children, parading them naked around their family home and then stealing their jewelry by an Israeli military unit, was not a random act. It deserves deep reflection.

Palestinians rightly understood the event – investigated at length by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, in a report published on September 5 – as an intentional Israeli policy.

Several attacks carried out by Palestinians in Jericho and Jerusalem have already been linked to the call for revenge made by Palestinian groups, including women collectives.

We are expecting the Resistance “not to stand idly by in the face of this heinous (crime),” a spokesperson for a women’s group in Gaza said on September 5.

The B’Tselem investigation was damning. “Dozens of masked soldiers, with dogs” raided the ‘Ajlouni family in southern Hebron, B’Tselem said. They “handcuffed three family members”, including a minor, “separated men from women and children, and began an extensive search of them and their home”.

The humiliating episode was yet to follow, as “masked female soldiers” threatened a mother with a dog and forced her to strip completely naked in front of her children.

The degrading treatment was repeated against four other women, as they were forced to move, naked, from room to room. Other soldiers, meanwhile, were busy stealing the family’s jewelry, according to the report.

Corporate Western media ignored the investigation, although it enthusiastically reported on the retaliatory attacks on Israeli occupation soldiers by Palestinian youth in Jericho and Jerusalem, providing little or no context to what they perceived to be ‘Palestinian terrorism’.

But the Hebron women and the ‘Ajlouni family are the actual victims of terrorism – Israeli terrorism.

Though the Hebron incident is a repeat of numerous violations of Palestinian rights and dignity spanning many years, there is still much we can learn from it.

Humiliating Palestinians is an actual Israeli policy and cannot be attributed to ‘a few bad apples’ in an otherwise “most moral army in the world”.

This assertion can easily be demonstrated by a quick comparison of the behavior of Zionist militias during the Nakba (1947-48) to later episodes, and, eventually, to the recent events in Hebron.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s ‘Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ provides illuminating, although difficult-to-read passages on the rape of Palestinian women during those horrific years.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported last year that sensitive references were purposely removed from unclassified Israeli military documents concerning the events that led to the Nakba.

It quoted Aharon Zizling – the country’s first minister of agriculture – as saying that although he “can forgive instances of rape (in the Palestinian city of Ramleh) … I will not forgive other acts.”

Such callousness was entirely consistent with the violent behavior and attitude exhibited by the militias – later to form the Israeli army – and their leaders, including David Ben Gurion, who later became the first prime minister of Israel. In the document, Israel’s founding father called for the “wiping out” of Palestinian villages. This, too, was removed from the documents.

Most Israelis are unaware of this sordid past, simply because the subject is banned in school. The so-called ‘Independence Day Law’ – also known as the Nakba Law of 2009 – “outlaws any mention of the Nakba or reference to the establishment of the State of Israel as a day of mourning”, according to the legal group, Adalah.

Though Israel has succeeded in deceiving its own people regarding their collective past, the historical processes that produced such violence remain in place. This means that Israel continues to reproduce that same violence in different forms, even though every generation is largely unaware of how their behavior is a continuation of the same legacy of previous generations.

It also means that soldiers who humiliated the Palestinian women in Hebron are likely unaware of the mass violence that accompanied the Nakba; they might not even be aware of the term ‘Nakba’ itself.

Their behavior, however, is indicative of the culture of violence in Israel, the rooted racism and this persistent desire to humiliate Palestinians.

This was equally true during the First Intifada, the uprising in 1987-93. Back then, sexual violence went hand in hand with Israeli violence against the Palestinian population.

The sexual abuse of Palestinian women during the Intifada, especially in Israeli prisons, was commonplace. The Israeli military used this tactic to exact confessions or to discourage female activists and their families from pursuing the path of resistance.

All of this falls into the realm of the ‘politics of humiliation‘, a centralized political strategy that is used to establish control and dominance over occupied nations.

The Israelis have excelled in this field. We know this because of the numerous reports by Palestinians themselves, and also because of the testimonies of Israelis. This was amply demonstrated in the reports provided by the Breaking the Silence group – Israeli soldiers who either left or refused to join the Israeli military.

Many of these ‘refuseniks’, who spoke out publicly, have cited the dehumanization and degradation of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli soldiers as one of the reasons why they walked out.

All of this illustrates that such events are neither marginal nor isolated, supposedly carried out by mentally fatigued soldiers who violated army roles. The exact opposite is true.

In fact, the sexual degradation of Palestinian women is just one addition to the protracted and ongoing politics of humiliation in Occupied Palestine.

When Palestinians resist, they do so to reclaim their land, along with their basic freedom and human rights; and also to redeem their collective honor, trampled daily by the Israeli army.

Indeed, resistance in Palestine is not a mere ‘strategy’ to recover a stolen homeland. It is, in the words of Frantz Fanon, “a sense of freedom” from “despair and inaction”, and a collective act of restoration of “self-respect”.

This explains why Palestinians continue to resist, even if their resistance is often derided as ineffectual and futile and why they will continue to resist for many years to come.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

14 September 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Apoorvanand

A Muslim friend from a town in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh recently called, seeking counsel.

His young daughter had told him the previous day that her friends refused to play with her any more – after they were warned by other children to stay away from her because of her religion.

This is an experience most Muslims have gone through while growing up in India. They are familiar with anti-Muslim slurs and cuss words used against them. But something new is happening which is radically different from earlier times.

While the Indian media and politicians have long harped on the supposed dangers of radicalisation among Muslim youth, or of the threat of far-left propaganda, we are now witnessing the turbocharged expression of a reality the country has never confronted: the radicalisation of Hindu youth.

It is an everyday radicalisation of young men and women who appear very normal, until they decide to target Indian Muslims and Christians.

They are part of public, over-ground groups like the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyaarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); and the Bajrang Dal, the militant youth wing of the RSS. All of them are affiliates of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which gives them political clout and a veneer of respectability.

Members of the ABVP and the Bajrang Dal have been involved in numerous cases of physical violence against students and teachers, especially Muslims and Christians. Yet earlier this year, when the Congress party – the principal national opposition – declared that it would consider banning the Bajrang Dal if it came to power in the southern state of Karnataka, no less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised slogans in defence of the militant outfit.

Recently, a video surfaced in India and went viral in which a young Hindu girl is seen singing “Desh ke gaddaron ko Goli maro …” (shoot the traitors of the country). She is surrounded by elders who are clapping and encouraging her.

This slogan was made popular by a minister in the Modi government who was targeting Muslim women and men for protesting against the controversial new citizenship law passed in 2020 that discriminates against Muslim asylum seekers. The slogan has since been used in rallies and videos to target Muslims.

This video encapsulates a reality that Hindus do not want to talk about. Another video of a school teacher asking her students to slap their Muslim classmate who had not done his homework made national news. Students came up one by one and hit the Muslim boy, as the teacher commented against his religion.

We don’t know what impact this has had on the student who was struck and on his classmates, exposed to bigotry by their teacher at a young age. But we do know that there is an impact, more broadly, on the atmosphere that dominates today’s India.

The principal of a prestigious school in New Delhi told me that some students raised the slogan “Jai Shri Ram” in their class. This slogan is used by the RSS to proclaim Hindu dominance. Their parents were called and counselled.

Some students from another class went out to a park on Valentine’s Day and tried to bully couples sitting there. The celebration of Valentine’s Day is resented by Hindu supremacist groups. They threaten, harass, and beat up couples celebrating the day. It was disturbing for the teachers of this progressive, liberal school to find their students turning into volunteers of this radical ideology.

Talking to teachers and principals, one realises that the radicalisation of young Hindus, while an ongoing process, has acquired dangerous proportions in recent years, fuelled by hate-mongering TV channels, internet platforms and WhatsApp groups that have been relentlessly spreading anti-Muslim propaganda. Sadly, in many cases, what these children hear at home and in their families reinforces the bigotry they are fed by their television and phone screens.

Worried teachers struggle to deal with this phenomenon. For they too are vulnerable.

A fact-finding report released by a recently formed group in Maharashtra called Women Protest For Peace found multiple instances where external groups were intervening in the state’s educational institutions to incite students “to deliberately target teachers on religious grounds”.

Sadly, none of this is a surprise. In the last decade, it has become common to see adolescents, even children, brandishing swords and other weapons, raising hateful slogans targeting Muslims, and even vandalising mosques and Islamic shrines. Teenagers are seen in rallies organised by the Bajrang Dal.

These young Hindus see that violence against Muslims and Christians is often celebrated or at least tolerated, sometimes approvingly, in their families and society. They observe that people who provoke and lead violence gain social and political respectability and get elected to state legislatures and parliament. They see that far from suffering consequences for hate speech and hate crimes, anti-Muslim and anti-Christian acts help those who carry them out.

A major source of this hatred towards Muslims and Christians is the chain of educational institutions run by organisations affiliated with the RSS. Studies have been done examining the curriculum and activities of these institutions, and they reveal that they inculcate ‘nationalism’ in young minds, which is synonymous with anti-Muslim and anti-Christian hatred.

Children are told that India has been the land of Hindus, which was infiltrated by Muslims and Christians. That Hindus have been the best in all aspects; that it was Muslim rule that degraded them and turned them into slaves; that the only way to reclaim the country’s past glory is by teaching Muslims and Christians a lesson.

Tangible tasks are presented to Hindu youth as what they need to do to defend their faith. They are told that they must save cows from the cruelty of Muslims and Christians, establish Hindu dominance over Muslim neighbourhoods, and ‘save’ girls from ‘love jihad’ – a conspiracy theory that claims Muslim men are out to trap Hindu women in relationships with the aim of converting them to Islam.

Scores of vigilante groups have mushroomed all over India, indulging in violence against Muslims under the pretext of protecting cows and Hindu women.

Unfortunately, the radicalisation of Hindu youth often goes unnoticed as it is approved by their families, whom they see indulging in a range of aggressions against Muslims: It could be something as bizarre as protesting against their Muslim neighbours praying in their own houses.

Once hatred is normalised, violence follows naturally.

Yet while the BJP might benefit politically, the long-term consequences of this project will be borne by India’s Hindus, too. With homes and schools as the cradles of this radicalisation, a generation of Hindu children is being turned into unknowing criminals.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi. He writes literary and cultural criticism.

15 September 2023

Source: aljazeera.com

By Laura El Alam

Many of us take clean, accessible water completely for granted. When we are thirsty, we simply turn on the tap. If our clothes are dirty, we fill the washing machine without a moment’s thought. Some of us heedlessly spray our hoses on thirsty lawns and dusty cars, or even fill swimming pools with thousands of gallons of clean water.

For those of us who grew up in places where water seems abundant, cheap, and clean, it is difficult to imagine that millions of people in the world do not have access to safe water. It is also mind-boggling to consider the scientific data that shows what the future looks like if climate change continues its dangerous path. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, “by 2025 over half of the world’s population will reside in water-stressed areas. These numbers will increase significantly if climate change and population growth follow or exceed predicted trajectories.1

The Water Princess by Susan Verde is a picture book that will help us and our children see water from a new perspective and appreciate this incomparable gift from Allah. If we currently take water for granted or have trouble imagining a life without it, this book will be an eye-opener.

The story centers on the main character, Gie Gie, who wakes before dawn every single day to fetch water with her mother. The two walk for many miles in the heat with heavy pots balanced on their heads. Finally, they reach the well, but do they fill their buckets with fresh, clean water? No, they collect “dusty-earth-colored liquid,” and as thirsty as they are from their long trek, they cannot drink until they have heaved the pots home and boiled the water to make it safe.

The Water Princess is based on the real-life experience of model and international advocate Georgie Badiel, who grew up in Burkina Faso. As a child, Badiel fetched water with her grandmother, just as Gie Gie does. Now, as an adult, Badiel works to bring clean water to people in Burkina Faso and beyond through the Georgie Badiel Foundation.

The book’s illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds convey the breathtaking vastness of the African sky, the heat and barrenness of the land where Gie Gie lives, and the difficulties of her life in a remote village with no modern amenities. At the same time, thanks to Reynold’s nuanced drawings, we can clearly see the love and affection between Gie Gie and her parents, the brief moment of joy when she gets to play with other children at the well, and the way she and her mother have the courage to sing and dance as they make the arduous daily trip.

At the end of the book, there are two pages dedicated to explaining the global water crisis. Readers learn that nearly one billion people around the world – one out of every six– don’t have access to clean water. In addition, illnesses from contaminated water – plus the time it takes to collect water every day – prevent many children from attending school. Clearly, clean water affects every aspect of life. Children without it not only suffer from thirst and illness but might be trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty because they do not have time to get an education or learn a trade.

Reading The Water Princess with our children is a wonderful way to discuss how we need to appreciate all of our blessings from Allah, particularly water. It helps us stand in another person’s shoes and see the world from a new perspective. It shows our children simultaneously how Gie Gie is a child just like them – with family and friends and ambitions – but also unlike them in the sense that she must walk several miles each day, merely for a sip of water.

The Water Princess will help our families be more grateful for what we have. After reading about Gie Gie, we can also make duaa for our brothers and sisters who live in dry lands without access to clean water. Perhaps the book will even motivate us to give charity toward building wells in parts of the world that need them.

End Notes

1 A Map of the Future of Water

Laura El Alam is a freelance writer and editor and the author of the book Made From the Same Dough, as well as over 100 published articles.

20 September 2023

Source: soundvision.com

By Michel Chossudovsky

“The term “environmental modification techniques” refers to any technique for changing – through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space. (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva: 18 May 1977)

“US military scientists … are working on weather systems as a potential weapon. The methods include the enhancing of storms and the diverting of vapor rivers in the Earth’s atmosphere to produce targeted droughts or floods.” (The late Rosalie Bertell)

Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) constitute a buoyant $5.3 Billion dollar business (2022) which is slated to increase to $12.9 Billon dollars by 2027. This profit-driven military-industrial market is dominated by six “Defense Contractors” including Raytheon, Northrup Grunman, BAE Systems (plc), Boeing, Lockheed Martin and L3Harris Technologies.

Raytheon and BAE Systems are also involved in ENMOD technologies on behalf of the U.S. Air Force. (Michel Chossudovsky, December 7, 2007 August 2023)

I  initiated my research on Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) in 2001 focussing on the HAARP System of Antennas, in Gokona, Alaska.

The HAARP facility was fully operational starting in the mid-1990s with advanced capabilities.

While HAARP was closed down in 2014, ENMOD techniques have in the course of the last ten years become increasingly sophisticated as well as precise. Much of the documentation has become classified.

In the United States, Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) are the object of research by several agencies linked to the Pentagon, including DARPA, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Office of Naval Research among others.

Of relevance to the assessment of recent climatic disasters, this article first published by The Ecologist, (December 7, 2007) provides an overview as well as a history. It also confirms the role of private military contractors in the development of HAARP including BAE Systems Inc and Raytheon.

-Michel Chossudovsky, September 13, 2023

Rarely acknowledged in the debate on global climate change, the world’s weather can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons. Both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the climate for military use.

Environmental modification techniques have been applied by the US military for more than half a century. US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’. During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The US military has developed advanced capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The technology, which is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), is an appendage of the Strategic Defense Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. [HAARP facility was closed down in 2014. Since then more advanced facilities have been developed]. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world.

Weather-modification, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report ‘offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary’, capabilities, it says, extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes:

‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.’ *(Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025)

In 1977, an international Convention was ratified by the UN General Assembly which banned ‘military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.’ It defined ‘environmental modification techniques’ as ‘any technique for changing –through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.’

While the substance of the 1977 Convention was reasserted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, debate on weather modification for military use has become a scientific taboo.

Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter and environmentalists are focused on greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. Neither is the possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military and intelligence agenda, while tacitly acknowledged, part of the broader debate on climate change under UN auspices.

The HAARP Programme

Established in 1992, HAARP, based in Gokona, Alaska, is an array of high-powered antennas that transmit, through high-frequency radio waves, massive amounts of energy into the ionosphere (the upper layer of the atmosphere). Their construction was funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Operated jointly by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating ‘controlled local modifications of the ionosphere’. According to its official website, www.haarp.alaska.edu , HAARP will be used ‘to induce a small, localized change in ionospheric temperature so physical reactions can be studied by other instruments located either at or close to the HAARP site’.

But Rosalie Bertell, president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, says HAARP operates as:

“a gigantic heater that can cause major disruptions in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the planet”.

Physicist Dr Bernard Eastlund called it ‘the largest ionospheric heater ever built’.

HAARP is presented by the US Air Force as a research programme, but military documents confirm its main objective is to ‘induce ionospheric modifications’ with a view to altering weather patterns and disrupting communications and radar.

According to a report by the Russian State Duma:

‘The US plans to carry out large-scale experiments under the HAARP programme [and] create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity networks and in oil and gas pipelines, and have a negative impact on the mental health of entire regions.’

An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable:

“The covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications and electric power systems as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions.”

Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or ‘friendly nations’ without their knowledge, used to destabilise economies, ecosystems and agriculture. It can also trigger havoc in financial and commodity markets. The disruption in agriculture creates a greater dependency on food aid and imported grain staples from the US and other Western countries.

HAARP was developed as part of an Anglo-American partnership between Raytheon Corporation, which owns the HAARP patents, the US Air Force and British Aerospace Systems (BAES).

The HAARP project is one among several collaborative ventures in advanced weapons systems between the two defence giants. The HAARP project was initiated in 1992 by Advanced Power Technologies, Inc. (APTI), a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO). APTI (including the HAARP patents) was sold by ARCO to E-Systems Inc, in 1994. E-Systems, on contract to the CIA and US Department of Defense, outfitted the ‘Doomsday Plan’, which ‘allows the President to manage a nuclear war’. Subsequently acquired by Raytheon Corporation, it is among the largest intelligence contractors in the World. BAES was involved in the development of the advanced stage of the HAARP antenna array under a 2004 contract with the Office of Naval Research.

The installation of 132 high frequency transmitters was entrusted by BAES to its US subsidiary, BAE Systems Inc. The project, according to a July report [2007] in Defense News, was undertaken by BAES’s Electronic Warfare division. In September [2007] it received DARPA’s top award for technical achievement for the design, construction and activation of the HAARP array of antennas.

The HAARP system is fully operational and in many regards dwarfs existing conventional and strategic weapons systems. While there is no firm evidence of its use for military purposes, Air Force documents suggest HAARP is an integral part of the militarisation of space. One would expect the antennas already to have been subjected to routine testing.

Under the UNFCCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a mandate ‘to assess scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of climate change’. This mandate includes environmental warfare. ‘Geo-engineering’ is acknowledged, but the underlying military applications are neither the object of policy analysis or scientific research in the thousands of pages of IPCC reports and supporting documents, based on the expertise and input of some 2,500 scientists, policymakers and environmentalists. ‘Climatic warfare’ potentially threatens the future of humanity, but has casually been excluded from the reports for which the IPCC received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Click here to view CBC 1996 News documentary: HAARP – US military weather weapon.

[Michel Chossudovsky, The Ecologist, December 7, 2007]

Thanks for reading Michel Chossudovsky! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

14 September 2023

Source: substack.com

By Mercedes Ruehl

The US and Vietnam have agreed billions of dollars in business deals and partnerships led by companies including Boeing, Microsoft and Nvidia, after the former foes upgraded their ties in a historic shift in response to China’s growing influence.

US president Joe Biden hailed the move to strengthen co-operation in areas including cloud computing, semiconductors and artificial intelligence while in Hanoi on a two-day trip to mark the formal upgrading of the countries’ relationship.

“We’re deepening our co-operation on critical and emerging technologies, particularly around building a more resilient semiconductor supply chain,” said Biden in a joint press conference late on Sunday with Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the ruling Communist party of Vietnam.

“We’re expanding our economic partnership, spurring even greater trade and investment between our nations.”

Senior executives from Google, Intel, Amkor, Marvell, GlobalFoundries and Boeing joined a Vietnam-US Innovation and Investment Summit on Monday led by Biden, US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Vietnam’s prime minister Pham Minh Chinh and investment minister Nguyen Chi Dung.

The business roundtable was also attended by executives from Vietnamese companies including VinFast, the electric vehicle maker whose valuation overtook those of Ford and General Motors after its Nasdaq listing last month.

The agreements unveiled on Monday are expected to initiate a wave of investment deals between Vietnam and the US after the countries’ leaders signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” on Sunday.

The shift raised Washington two levels to the top status in Hanoi’s bilateral ties hierarchy, which was previously reserved for China, Russia, India and South Korea.

Vietnam had long refrained from upgrading ties with the US, its former wartime adversary, to avoid upsetting China.

In addition to significant security implications — the US views developing countries in Asia as crucial to countering China’s power in the Indo-Pacific region — the upgraded ties bring significant economic opportunities, both sides said.

Since Vietnam, which was Asia’s fastest-growing economy last year, has transitioned from centralised economic control to a more open model, the US has become its largest export market.

Leading technology groups including Apple, Google and Dell have already expanded their presence in the country in recent years as they seek to diversify supply chains away from China amid deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington.

Among the agreements announced on Monday was a $7.8bn deal for Vietnam Airlines to buy 50 737 Max jets from plane maker Boeing, AI projects in the country involving Nvidia and Microsoft, and the construction of semiconductor design centres by California-based groups Synopsys and Marvell in Ho Chi Minh City.

The agreement also includes a new US-Vietnam chip partnership to “support resilient semiconductor supply chains for US industry, consumers and workers”. Washington is particularly concerned about Beijing’s development of advanced chips, and has sought to muster allies in support of its export controls on semiconductors and chipmaking equipment.

A previously announced $1.6bn Amkor factory near Hanoi that will assemble, package and test chips is due to start operations in October, said the White House in a statement.

In another major deal, AMI AC Renewables, a Vietnamese company, and US industrial group Honeywell will launch a pilot project to develop Vietnam’s first battery energy storage system in Khánh Hòa province.

New York-based Nobu Hospitality, known for its eponymous Japanese restaurant, will also establish its first presence in Vietnam in partnership with Viet Capital Real Estate.

11 September 2023

Source: tradebriefs.com

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” — Abraham Lincoln

Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. It is there to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.

Unfortunately, although the Bill of Rights was adopted as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, in America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

In the 22 years since the USA Patriot Act—a massive 342-page wish list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA—was rammed through Congress in the wake of the so-called 9/11 terror attacks, it has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well.

The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience are now considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.

The Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens—no doubt a reflexive impulse shared by small-town police and federal agents alike.

This, according to Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., was a fantasy that “had been brewing in the law enforcement world for a long time.” And 9/11 provided the government with the perfect excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and collecting mountains of information on even the most law-abiding citizen.

Federal agents and police officers are now authorized to conduct covert black bag “sneak-and-peak” searches of homes and offices while you are away and confiscate your personal property without first notifying you of their intent or their presence.

The law also granted the FBI the right to come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allowed the government access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you; and allowed the government to secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Internet sites you’ve visited (at least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act).

In the name of fighting terrorism, government officials are now permitted to monitor religious and political institutions with no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government has subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation; monitor conversations between attorneys and clients; search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without showing probable cause; and jail Americans indefinitely without a trial, among other things.

The federal government also made liberal use of its new powers, especially through the use (and abuse) of the nefarious national security letters, which allow the FBI to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies at the mere say-so of the government agent in charge of a local FBI office and without prior court approval.

In fact, since 9/11, we’ve been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized (under the USA Patriot Act, banks are required to analyze your transactions for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people), and our activities watched.

We’re also being subjected to invasive patdowns and whole-body scans of our persons and seizures of our electronic devices in the nation’s airports. We can’t even purchase certain cold medicines at the pharmacy anymore without it being reported to the government and our names being placed on a watch list.

In this way, “we the people” continue to be terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.

The bogeyman’s names and faces have changed over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, a viral pandemic, and more to come), but the end result remains the same: in the so-called name of national security, the Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.

A recitation of the Bill of Rights—set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and the like (all sanctioned by Congress, the White House, and the courts)—would understandably sound more like a eulogy to freedoms lost than an affirmation of rights we truly possess.

What we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Sadly, most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights.

Here is what it means to live under the Constitution, with the nation still suffering blowback from the permanent state of emergency brought about by 9/11 and COVID-19.

The First Amendment is supposed to protect the freedom to speak your mind, assemble and protest nonviolently without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans should not be silenced by the government. To the founders, all of America was a free speech zone.

Despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Increasingly, Americans are being persecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights and speaking out against government corruption. Activists are being arrested and charged for daring to film police officers engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legislation to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive corporate practices. Religious ministries are being fined for attempting to feed and house the homeless. Protesters are being tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and forced into “free speech zones.” And under the guise of “government speech,” the courts have reasoned that the government can discriminate freely against any First Amendment activity that takes place within a so-called government forum.

The Second Amendment was intended to guarantee “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Essentially, this amendment was intended to give the citizenry the means to resist tyrannical government. Yet while gun ownership has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as an individual citizen right, Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against red flag gun laws, militarized police, SWAT team raids, and government agencies armed to the teeth with military weapons better suited to the battlefield.

The Third Amendment reinforces the principle that civilian-elected officials are superior to the military by prohibiting the military from entering any citizen’s home without “the consent of the owner.” With the police increasingly training like the military, acting like the military, and posing as military forces—complete with heavily armed SWAT teams, military weapons, assault vehicles, etc.—it is clear that we now have what the founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits government agents from conducting surveillance on you or touching you or encroaching on your private property unless they have evidence that you’re up to something criminal. In other words, the Fourth Amendment ensures privacy and bodily integrity. Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment has suffered the greatest damage in recent years and has been all but eviscerated by an unwarranted expansion of governmental police powers that include strip searches and even anal and vaginal searches of citizens, surveillance (corporate and otherwise), and intrusions justified in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as the outsourcing of otherwise illegal activities to private contractors.

The Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment work in tandem. These amendments supposedly ensure that you are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty or your property without the right to an attorney and a fair trial before a civilian judge. However, in the new suspect society in which we live, where surveillance is the norm, these fundamental principles have been upended. Certainly, if the government can arbitrarily freeze, seize or lay claim to your property (money, land or possessions) under government asset forfeiture schemes, you have no true rights.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees citizens the right to a jury trial. Yet when the populace has no idea of what’s in the Constitution—civic education has virtually disappeared from most school curriculums—that inevitably translates to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the law from their own preconceived notions and fears. However, as a growing number of citizens are coming to realize, the power of the jury to nullify the government’s actions—and thereby help balance the scales of justice—is not to be underestimated. Jury nullification reminds the government that “we the people” retain the power to ultimately determine what laws are just.

The Eighth Amendment is similar to the Sixth in that it is supposed to protect the rights of the accused and forbid the use of cruel and unusual punishment. However, the Supreme Court’s determination that what constitutes “cruel and unusual” should be dependent on the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” leaves us with little protection in the face of a society lacking in morals altogether.

The Ninth Amendment provides that other rights not enumerated in the Constitution are nonetheless retained by the people. Popular sovereignty—the belief that the power to govern flows upward from the people rather than downward from the rulers—is clearly evident in this amendment. However, it has since been turned on its head by a centralized federal government that sees itself as supreme and which continues to pass more and more laws that restrict our freedoms under the pretext that it has an “important government interest” in doing so.

As for the Tenth Amendment’s reminder that the people and the states retain every authority that is not otherwise mentioned in the Constitution, that assurance of a system of government in which power is divided among local, state and national entities has long since been rendered moot by the centralized Washington, DC, power elite—the president, Congress and the courts.

Thus, if there is any sense to be made from this recitation of freedoms lost, it is simply this: our individual freedoms have been eviscerated so that the government’s powers could be expanded.

It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution, which was adopted 236 years ago on Sept. 17, 1787, opens with these three powerful words: “We the people.” As the Preamble proclaims:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.

In other words, it’s our job to make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.

We are supposed to be the masters and they—the government and its agents—are the servants.

We the American people—the citizenry—are supposed to be the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America’s welfare, defense, liberty, laws and prosperity.

Still, it’s hard to be a good citizen if you don’t know anything about your rights or how the government is supposed to operate.

As the National Review rightly asks, “How can Americans possibly make intelligent and informed political choices if they don’t understand the fundamental structure of their government? American citizens have the right to self-government, but it seems that we increasingly lack the capacity for it.”

Americans are constitutionally illiterate.

Most citizens have little, if any, knowledge about their basic rights. And our educational system does a poor job of teaching the basic freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Teachers and school administrators do not fare much better. A study conducted by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis found that one educator in five was unable to name any of the freedoms in the First Amendment.

Government leaders and politicians are also ill-informed. Although they take an oath to uphold, support and defend the Constitution against “enemies foreign and domestic,” their lack of education about our fundamental rights often causes them to be enemies of the Bill of Rights.

So what’s the solution?

Thomas Jefferson recognized that a citizenry educated on “their rights, interests, and duties”  is the only real assurance that freedom will survive.

From the President on down, anyone taking public office should have a working knowledge of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and should be held accountable for upholding their precepts. One way to ensure this would be to require government leaders to take a course on the Constitution and pass a thorough examination thereof before being allowed to take office.

Some critics are advocating that students pass the United States citizenship exam in order to graduate from high school. Others recommend that it must be a prerequisite for attending college. I’d go so far as to argue that students should have to pass the citizenship exam before graduating from grade school.

Here’s an idea to get educated and take a stand for freedom: anyone who signs up to become a member of The Rutherford Institute gets a wallet-sized Bill of Rights card and a Know Your Rights card. Use this card to teach your children the freedoms found in the Bill of Rights.

A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to do more than grouse and complain.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, “we the people” have the power to make and break the government.

The powers-that-be want us to remain divided over politics, hostile to those with whom we disagree politically, and intolerant of anyone or anything whose solutions to what ails this country differ from our own. They also want us to believe that our job as citizens begins and ends on Election Day.

Yet there are 330 million of us in this country. Imagine what we could accomplish if we actually worked together, presented a united front, and spoke with one voice.

Tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

*

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute.

12 September 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Harley Schlanger

n its January 21, 2017 online issue, the {Spectator} magazine of London ran an article by the BBC’s Washington correspondent, Paul Wood, titled “Will Donald Trump Be Assassinated, Ousted in a Coup or Just Impeached?”  The date is significant, as it appeared the day after Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States!  It was followed, less than one month later, by a post by Adam Shatz, a contributing editor to the {London Review of Books}, on the Review’s blog page, which asserted that “There is no inherent harm in fantasising” about such an end to the Trump presidency.

These comments were preceded by what has now been proven to have been a barrage of utterly fabricated charges claiming that Trump won the presidential campaign due to an intervention by Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Though most of the U.S. press attributed these allegations, collectively known as “Russiagate”, to the campaign of his opponent, Hillary Clinton — which was guilty of circulating these charges — the origin came from networks at the top of British intelligence, from GCHQ (the equivalent to the U.S. National Security Agency) and MI6.  At the center of the lies was a dossier compiled by “ex”-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, a close ally of former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove.

According to an article in the {Guardian} on April 13, 2017, written by a mouthpiece for British Intelligence, Luke Harding, the GCHQ first passed on reports of “suspicious interaction” between “figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents” in December 2015, shortly after Trump announced his candidacy.  This led to a meeting between GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan and Obama’s CIA Director John Breenan in the spring of 2016, when Hannigan passed on the falsified “evidence” to him.

Thus, was Russiagate hatched.  And despite massive documentation that this was a colossal “dirty trick”, political and media figures in the U.S. continue to insist that Trump was inserted into the White House by Putin.  And they continue to cover-up the leading role played by British intelligence and media.

CHATHAM HOUSE REVIVES “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME”

This background is essential to understanding the intent of an op-ed in the {Financial Times} on August 30, 2023 titled  “U.S. Allies Need to Wake Up to the Trump Question.”  It was written purportedly as a wake-up call of the threat posed to “European interests”  by Bronwen Maddox, the Director and CEO of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) — Chatham House — and reflects the level of panic of operatives of the City of London/British intelligence, as their world is being turned upside down.

The threat identified by Maddox refers to polls which show that Donald Trump is the front-runner by far for the Republican Party nomination for president in 2024, with many showing he would beat incumbent Joe Biden.  Maddox writes that this support “should prompt a foreign policy rethink for the U.K. and its allies…British foreign policy, like that in much of Europe and many democracies beyond, is based on the presumption that the U.S. in some sense always remains the same. Its presidents, its policies, its wars of choice come and go. But America upholds the principle of international institutions even if it rails against some of them or funds them sporadically.  It continues to pick up the giant’s share of the tab for NATO, above all.  Those assumptions are confounded if Donald Trump is elected again.”

She continues: “Dealing with Trump in the White House again would present problems on a different scale [than ordinary frictions — HS].  In a second term … [h]e would have an utterly different conception of America’s role in the world and the nature of its democracy at home, of the rule of law at home and abroad.  And so would the U.S. voters who elected him.”

This last sentence shows what the imperial elites of London truly fear, that a different conception of America’s role, i.e., no more business as usual, is a threat to the continued dominance of the Unipolar Order, on which the financial and corporate oligarchs of the City of London and Wall Street depend.  It implies an end of U.S. support for the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and opposition to the Anglo-American policy of launching regime change coups against nations rebelling against their continued subjugation to the Unipolar Order.

With NATO’s war and sanctions policy failing to isolate and bring down Russia, a shift in U.S. policy would likely secure the collapse of the present “Rules-Based Order” of domination by a “Sole Superpower.”  Add to this the growing solidarity among leading nations of the Global South, typified by statements coming from the just-concluded BRICS summit in South Africa, demanding an end to the neo-colonialism enforced by U.S./NATO military power, and one can see why London officials view this as an existential threat.

THE “AMERICAN REFLEX”

Lyndon LaRouche once referred to the prospect of an anti-colonial policy for the U.S. as an “American reflex”, which has served as a rallying point for Presidents in the past, to change U.S. foreign policy from supporting the interests of the Anglo-American oligarchy.  This was especially true during World War II, in disputes arising between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on the post-war order, with FDR saying the U.S. will no longer send Americans to war to defend British imperial interests.  LaRouche described this as a battle between “the republican commitment to the general welfare and the anglophile commitment to the evil of oligarchical interest.”

It lies in the assertion, of great American presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln and FDR, of American interests in defense of the “modern sovereign form of anti-oligarchic nation-state”, reflecting the principles of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution (quotes from Lyndon LaRouche, “Shrunken Heads in America Today”, published in the {Executive Intelligence Review}, April 20, 2001).

While Trump appears to many European elites as a problem, for being unpredictable, uncontrollable, even a patsy for Putin, during his four years as president, he fell short of his campaign pledge to change U.S. policy by “draining the swamp,” i.e. shutting down the permanent bureaucracy some call the Deep State.  This shadow government coordinates closely with the British establishment, as can be seen in the role of British intelligence collaborating with officials of the Obama administration behind the scenes in shaping Russiagate.

But with the BRICS summit showing the nations of the Global South will no longer tolerate foreign, neocolonial intervention in elections and economic, financial and trade policies, will the American reflex emerge again?  If African nations are adopting the anti-colonial posture of the American revolution, can the U.S. population be far behind?

That is why Maddox wrote what she did, as an alert that the American reflex is surfacing as a real threat to the current world order, and must be smothered.  The RIIA was set up in 1920, after World War I, as the leading foreign policy/intel operation of His Majesty’s government, and continues in that role today.  A major part of its function is to direct, and coordinate policy with the U.S. oligarchs, working through its sister organization, the Council on Foreign Relations, which was set up in 1921.  The spread of anti-colonial sentiment from the Global South to the Global North threatens the existence of the Unipolar Order.  This threat is what is behind Maddox’s warning.

TUCKER CARLSON’S TIMELY QUESTION

It is also why a podcast interview with Trump conducted by America’s favorite politically-incorrect news commentator, Tucker Carlson, on August 23, has generated so much controversy.  The podcast on X (formerly Twitter) was seen by tens of millions of viewers.  Carlson asked Trump directly, “Are you worried that they’re going to try and kill you?”

By “they”, he was referring to those behind-the-scenes operatives responsible for Russiagate, two impeachments, and the ongoing legal proceedings against him.  Trump replied, “They’re savage animals; they’re people that are sick.”

Some commentators insist that such questions are unacceptable, in bad taste, and may even incite such actions.  But given the past history of assassinations of American Presidents who used their office to advance the “American reflex” — particularly the cases of Lincoln, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy — the threat is real.  In referring to these cases, as well as the threat to himself, Lyndon LaRouche spoke of the importance of “factitious advantage” — i.e., identifying the potential assassin before the trigger is pulled.

An International Assassination Bureau does exist.  It was the subject of a Schiller Institute seminar on January 14, 2023, “Stop NATO’s World War III and Dismantle the ‘International Assassination Bureau’“.  Speakers detailed the leading role played by City of London and British imperial operatives in assassinating figures who led revolts against the colonial system, including American presidents.

The Bronwen Maddox comments about Trump, and her openly-expressed fear of the “American reflex”, should be seen in this context.  By identifying the intent of her remarks, it is possible that complacent Americans and Europeans can be shaken from their stupor, and join the campaign of the Schiller Institute to bring their nations into the fight to establish a new security and development architecture, against the “Rules-Based Order”, which does not represent the interests of either Americans nor Europeans.

13 September 2023

Harley Schlanger
laroucheorganization.com

By Shamsul Islam

The biggest ‘Hindu’ organization in the world, RSS also functions as an exclusive Gurukul where Hindutva cadres are trained to specialize in the ruthless use of lies, spread of hatred and indulge in sectarian violence. It is the hallmark of RSS functioning. The most prominent ideologue of the RSS, Guru MS Golwalkar who also was the 2^nd Supremo of the organization set the ball rolling for which he is also known as “Guru of Hate”. The violence against Indian Muslims in the name of cow is rightly attributed to him as while deliberating on the history of cow-slaughter he told the RSS cadre that “It began with the coming of foreign invaders to our country. In order to reduce the population to slavery, they thought that the best method to be adapted was to stamp out every vestige of self-respect in Hindus…In that line cow slaughter also began”. [MS Golwalkar, Spotlight, Bangalore, Sahitya Sindhu (RSS publication house), 1974, p. 98]

There could not be a more blatant lie than this one as Vedic scriptures are full of references of large scale cow-slaughter while throwing grand feast for Brahmanical gods and sages. Swami Vivekananda regarded as a philosopher of Hindutva by the RSS, while addressing a meeting at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, USA (February 2, 1900) declared:   “You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.” [Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3, Advaita Ashram, Calcutta, 1997, p. 536.]

While addressing a gathering of Brahmins at Madura (now in Tamil Nadu), he stated: “There was a time in this very India when, without eating beef, no Brahmin could remain a Brahmin; you read in the Vedas how, when a Sannyasin, a king, or a great man came into a house, the best bullock was killed…” [Ibid., p. 174.]

The latest addition in this criminal trait of RSS functioning was witnessed at the University of Delhi on September 3, 2023. Krishna Gopal, Sah Sarkaryawah (general secretary), Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh addressed a gathering on women’s empowerment under the aegis of Naari Shakti Sangam. While referring to the disempowerment of women [he meant Hindu women] in Indian history, he stated that prior to the 12th Century, women were reasonably free to a great extent but with the ushering of the middle ages [medieval period]. It was a very difficult time… the entire country is struggling with subjugation. Temples were broken, universities destroyed and women were in danger. Lakhs of women were kidnapped and sold in international markets. (Ahmed Shah) Abdali, (Mohammed) Ghouri and (Mahmood of) Ghazni had all taken women from here and sold them…. It was an era of great humiliation. So, to protect our women, our own society put multiple restrictions on them.” [https://indianexpress.com/article/india/social-evils-subjugated-women-islamic-invasions-rss-ideologue-8922764/ ]

He continued to enlighten the women gathering that “To ensure that our girl children were safe, child marriages started. Our country had no ‘satipratha’. There may have been a couple of examples… but (after the advent of Islamic invaders), a large number of women started committing ‘jauhar’, ‘sati’…there was no restriction on widow remarriage either”. [Ibid]

It is interesting to note that no female ideologue of the RSS came to deliver main address in this women’s conference. Apart from holding ‘Islamic invaders’ for evils like Sati, child marriages and opposition to widow remarriage, he warned Hindu women present at the University of Delhi conclave not to ape the Western culture stating “kitchen was as important as becoming a scientist”. Of course, no such advisory issued to Hindu men by any of RSS ideologue.

Krishna Gopal shamelessly hid the reality that hundreds of years after ‘Muslim’ rule, the organizations associated and affiliated with RSS have been preaching, Sati, opposing widow remarriage and human rights for Hindu women. The Epic Mahabharata which is regarded as actual history records incidents of sati; when Pandu, a patriarch died his wife Madri mounted her husbands pyre and performed sati. Likewise, when Vasudeva (father of Shri Krishna) died his 4 wives immolated themselves with him.

Geeta Press, recently awarded Gandhi Peace Award by RSS-BJP Government led by PM Modi has published in millions books like, Nari Shiksha (Education of Women) by Hanuman Prasad Poddar, Grahsth Mein Kaise Rahen [How to Lead a Household Life] by Swami Ramsukhdas, Striyon ke Liye Kartawya Shiksha (Education of Duties for Women) and Nari Dharm (Religion of Woman) by Jai Dayal Goindka and a special issue of magazine Kalyan on women. Many of these are available in English and other Indian languages.

The authors extensively quote from ancient texts like Shiva Purana and Manusmriti. They borrow heavily from these and other ‘holy’ texts, upholding a subservient woman/wife as the ideal Hindu woman. For instance in the book titled How to Lead a Household Life which is in question-answer format, when a question is posed, ‘What should the wife do if her husband beats her and troubles her?” Swami Ramsukhdas offers the following sagely advice to the battered wife and her parents:

“The wife should think that she is paying her debt of her previous life and thus her sins are being destroyed and she is becoming pure. When her parents come to know this, they can take her to their own house because they have not given their daughter to face this sort of bad behaviour.”

And if her parents do not take her back to their house, learned Swamiji‘s pious advice is:

“Under such circumstances…she should reap the fruit of her past actions. She should patiently bear the beatings of her husband with patience. By bearing them she will be free from her sins and it is possible that her husband may start loving her.”

And there is another piece of heavenly advice for a rape victim and her husband.

“As far as possible, it is better for woman (rape victim) to keep mum. If her husband also comes to know of it, he too should keep mum. It is profitable for both of them to keep quiet.”

Can a woman remarry? The answer is very straight forward,

“When once a girl is given away in marriage as charity by her parents, she does not remain virgin any more. So how can she be offered as charity to anyone else? It is beastliness to remarry her.”

But can a man remarry? No problem,

“A man can have a second wife for an issue in order to be free from the debt which he owes to manes (pitr-rin) according to the ordinances of the scriptures, if there is no issue from the first wife.”

But this is not the only reason for which a man is allowed re- marriage. A man,

“whose desire for pleasure has not been wiped out, can get remarried because if he does not get remarried, he will indulge in adultery and go to prostitutes and will incur a badly sin. Therefore, in order to escape the sin and maintain the decorum he should get remarried according to the ordinance of scriptures.”

Of course, no widow is allowed to remarry. However, she may be allowed to choose to be some male’s concubine.

“If she cannot maintain her character, instead of indulging in adultery here and there, she should accept her affinity for a person and live under his protection.”

Is it proper for woman to demand equal rights? The sagely answer is quite unambiguous:

“No, it is not proper. In fact, a woman has not the right of equality with man…in fact it is ignorance or folly which impels a woman to have desire for the right of equality with man. A wise person is he/she who is satisfied with less rights and more duties.”

This literature about Hindu women openly preaches and glorifies the ghastly practice of Sati. To the question:

“Is ‘Sati Partha‘ (viz., the tradition of the wife being cremated with the dead body of the husband on the funeral pyre) proper or improper?”

The sagely answer declaring that Sati is ‘Back-bone of Hindu Religion adds:

“A wife’s cremation with the dead body of her husband on the funeral pyre is not a tradition. She, in whose mind truth and enthusiasm come, burns even without fire and she does not suffer any pain while she burns. This is not a tradition that she should do so, but this is her truth, righteousness and faith in scriptural decorum…It means that it is not a tradition. It is her own religious enthusiasm. On this topic Prabhudatta Brahmachariji has written a book whose title is Cremation of a Wife with her Husband’s Dead Body is the Backbone of Hindu Religion, it should be studied.

Swamis in this series of literature while demanding the restoration of practice of Sati go on to tell us that

“There is absolutely no doubt that a woman who happily follows her dead husband to the cremation ground receives on every step benefits of Ashawmedh Yagya [Ashvamedha means horse in Sanskrit and Ashawmedh Yagya was a sacrifice of a horse in the Vedic tradition used by the ancient Indian kings to prove their imperial sovereignty]…It is a Sati woman who snatches her husband from the hands of yamdoots (angels of death) and takes him to swarglok (Paradise). After seeing this pativrata lady the yamdoots themselves run away.”

It is not only Nari Shiksha which starts with a chapter captioned Sati Mahatmmey or ‘greatness of Sati‘ but Gita Press also published a special issue of its Hindi journal Kalyan in which stories of 250 women who committed Sati were glorified and Hindu women decreed to emulate these worshippable Sati Matas.

If such Sanatan Dharm religious decrees dehumanizing Hindu women are being preached by Hindutva flag-bearers in an Independent India; will Hindutva zealots like Krishna Gopal also argue that the ‘Muslim’ rule still continues? The reality is that RSS represents a perverted male chauvinistic ideology; ‘Muslim’ rule or no rule could not have made any difference. One example from RSS organizational set-up would be sufficient to show how deeply it believes in the infirmities of Hindu women. The male RSS organization is known as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Union) but its women appendage is known as Rashtriya Sevika Samiti (National Committee of Maids). Male members are volunteers and women members as maids/servants. Mind it that RSS has no ‘Muslim’ past or present.

Some of the prominent Gita Press titles denigrating Hindu women:

1. Goendka, Jaidayal, Nari Dharm, Gita Press, Gorakhpur. First published in 1938 and till 2000 it had 54 editions with 11, 20, 250 copies printed.
2. Goendka, Jaidayal, Strion Ke Liye Qartavey Shiksha, Gita Press, Gorakhpur. First published in 1954 and till 2018 it had 75 editions with 13, 71,000 copies printed.
3. Nari Ank, Kalyan, Gita Press, Gorakhpur, 1948.
4. Poddar, Hanumanprasad (ed.), Bhakt Nari, Gita Press, Gorakhpur, 2002. First published in 1931 and till 2002 it had 39 editions with 4, 62,000 copies printed.
5. Poddar, Hanumanprasad, Dampateya Jiwan Ka Adarsh, Gita Press, Gorakhpur, first published in 1991 and till 2002 it had 17 editions with 1, 81,000 copies printed.
6. Poddar, Hanumanprasad, Nari Shiksha, Gita Press, Gorakhpur. First published in 1953 and till 2018 it had 72 editions with 11,75,000.

Ramsukhdass, Swami, Grahast Maen Kese Rahen, Gita Press, Gorakhpur. First published in 1990. Till 2018 it had 76 editions with 18, 00,000 copies printed.

7. Ramsukhdass, Swami, How to Lead a Household Life, Gita Press, Gorakhpu. First published in 1990. Till 2017 had 19th editions with 1,04,500 copies printed.

Shamsul Islam is a retired professor of Delhi University

7 September 2023

Source: countercurrents.org