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By Jan Oberg and TFF Associates

From NATO’s Website:

Download as PDF: AbolishNATOCatalogue

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Executive Summary

This catalogue contains 30 arguments for the abolition of NATO. Each argument is based on rational peace research analysis, in contrast to the fact-resistant propaganda that NATO and mainstream politics and media promote about the ’defensive’ peace alliance.

The Catalogue is based on the democratic assumption that diverse perceptions and concepts can exist – for instance, about what peace is – and that this hugely influential Western organisation is not sacrosanct and shall, therefore, not be exempt from critical analysis.

While set up in 1949, NATO passed its ”best before” date long ago. The alliance of 30 members and 40 partners has not been able to create the peace that is its overarching goal according to its founding treaty. Indeed, NATO violates that treaty on a daily basis.

Instead, with its expansion over the last 30 years, it has contributed to making the world a less peaceful place. The Ukraine tragedy – for which both NATO and Russia are responsible – speaks volumes about that sorry state of affairs in Europe but also beyond it.

Europe is now in the Second Cold War thanks to all major parties’ adherence to the primacy of weapons in deterrence mode instead of common security thinking and intelligent conflict-resolution as a road to peace. One by one, all the opportunities for a new European peace structure that arose when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved have been squandered.

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Most people focus on the violence – the war – in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, Russia is responsible for that and for violating international law. But what we should focus much more on is the underlying conflict. Violence always manifests itself and grows out of conflicts, conflicts that have been ignored, mismanaged, escalated, or provoked. NATO and its three-decades-long expansion, its presence in Ukraine since 1991 and its insistence – no matter the warning and the objective risks – to get Ukraine into NATO is the underlying conflict. NATO must take responsibility for that.

Because, as the Catalogue also argues, there were alternatives. But they were deliberately ignored.

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Focus on conflict analysis and conflict understanding – and not on the violence – is the key to peace: What is the issue or problem that stands between the parties – not who is evil or guilty and should be punished?

The focus on violence and who is to blame is psychologically understandable – but for true, professional peace-makers, it is a waste of time and usually contributes to justifying more violence.

When the violence has died down, and a sustainable solution is found, legal processes may deal with guilt and crimes, but so may also new arrangements, truth commissions, forgiveness and reconciliation. These methods are all within our human capacity but – tragically – almost never found in security politics. NATO promotes none of them.

The fact is that we know more about the causes of violence and war than about the causes of peace. But that must not serve as an excuse for continuing the wrong conflict- and violence-promoting policies.

That said, there is enough research on the causes of violence reduction and peace for us to say that they are not what NATO promotes.

Its fundamental principles of deterrence, (forward) defence and its reliance on first-use of nuclear weapons will never lead to real peace, but they have brought us closer to war, including nuclear war.

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NATO’s intellectual foundation concerning security and peace appears in inverse proportion to its military and political power.

Much of this report can be seen as a critical discussion of the alliance’s way of thinking – of its security Groupthink. It questions, even debunks, NATO’s conceptual and theoretical underpinnings and shows how out of date, contradictory and peace-preventing they are.

NATO defends them on its homepage in its conspicuously self-righteous propaganda piece called ”Setting the Record Straight” from July 2022. Part of it is fake, part of it convenient omissions – a cover-up for issues about NATO policies that ought now to be pushed up to the top of the international discourse about humanity’s future.

In addition, NATO employs a cover-up disinformation trick typical of our times. Instead of meeting criticism with an open mind and in a sound democratic spirit, it says that ”Since Russia began its aggressive actions against Ukraine, Russian officials have accused NATO of a series of threats and hostile actions.” Not so! Many of the points have been raised for years by intellectuals, diplomats, alternative media and civil society organisations, including TFF.

But tie them to Russia and – hocus pocus – critiques of the alliance are all implicitly transformed into Putin Verstehers, Putin lovers or “pro-Russian.”

That in itself indicates NATO’s intellectual level. A few billion people around the world do not subscribe to NATO’s so-called peace goal or the way it seeks to go about it. The present author, a professional peace and conflict researcher with 40+ years of experience in theory and on-the-ground work, is one of them.

It is perfectly possible to be critical of NATO’s activities without being categorised as guilty by fake association with its adversaries.

If not, NATO seems to have become a sort of secularised religion in a time when things are otherwise falling apart. Sacrosanct – for which reason all criticism equals ungodliness. This Catalogue discusses that interpretation too, and NATO Believers may see that as ’ungodly.’

Instead of conducting serious research and using scenario techniques to decide its policies, NATO merely makes postulates – about others, about its policies and how others ought to interpret it – favourably. NATO doesn’t seek to convince by rational analyses and arguments. NATO issues strategies, planning papers and summit minutes that are filled with postulates and serve as NATO scriptures.

Western mainstream media reports it all. Not a critical thought to be seen anywhere. They are members of the congregation.

For people who are not already NATO Believers, members of that congregation, NATO’s threat postulates appear to serve only one purpose, namely to support the imperial full-spectrum global dominance of the US and some alliance members and partners and legitimise NATO’s further armament, i.e. the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex (MIMAC).

The overall goal for NATO has not been the security and peace of Ukraine, Russia and NATO Europe. It’s been to prevent Russia from being Ukraine’s partner and feel secure and to possess Ukraine fully. No compromise, no creative thinking about Ukraine as a cooperative project, no respect for public opinion in Ukraine. No idea about common security for all.

If you are not a NATO Believer, you’ll find ample evidence that Russia’s legitimate concerns have been ignored for about 30 years.

Promises indeed given to Russia in 1989-90 have been broken, even after Gorbachev and the Soviet Union had accepted that East and West Germany not only would be unified but also became a full member of NATO with no discussion of the nuclear weapons in Europe. It all happened on US and NATO’s premises while giving money to Russia – then on its knees – to force it to accept the fait accompli.

Furthermore – and what few know about – NATO has turned down all Soviet/Russian requests to become a member.

NATO’s argument that it respects all countries’ fundamental right to choose its own path, also when it comes to security arrangements, is simply fake. NATO woos prospective members in many ways, from an early moment (Ukraine since 1991), discussions about alternatives to NATO membership are non-existent.

At no point between 1991 and the end of 2021 was there any majority for NATO membership among the Ukrainian people, only among an elite, President Poroshenko’s in particular. When NATO decided in 2008 to make Ukraine a member, half of the Ukrainians were opposed to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, while fewer than one-fourth of Ukrainian people supported the Euro-Atlantic integration. So, whose right to freely choose? They – like all other new NATO members – were never granted a referendum.

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The table of content that follows offers the 30 arguments categorised in seven themes – see the headlines A to G.

By way of ending this summary, let’s point out that NATO’s resource consumption – 12 times larger than Russia’s and increasing further – is out of place in a world struggling with saving humanity in record time before it is too late. The 2% of GDP goal for NATO’s future-secured militarism is intellectual bonkers.

NATO postulates who and what threatens it. It doesn’t explore opportunities for compromise or cooperation and does explain or argue. It exaggerates these threats to achieve even more superiority in what are fundamentally a-symmetric conflicts.

NATO is called ’defensive’ everywhere. It reveals that nobody knows the difference between offensiveness and defensiveness, a basic distinction in security discourses. It is pure public relations propagated by media people who are better at taking orders than reading books.

One thing is that NATO cannot and will not respect the new Nuclear Ban Treaty. Another is that its argument is that as long as nuclear weapons exist, it will remain a nuclear alliance. Think through the logic of that once more!

It’s easy to criticise. However, a doctor should move through diagnosis and prognosis and get to treatment – and not just criticise the patient for the disease. So Arguments 23-25 illustrate what could have been done instead to deal with Ukraine so that both Ukraine, Russia and NATO could have lived much more happily – and peacefully – than they do now.

NATO did have alternatives and could have done things differently. If securing peace had been the goal.

The final theme about NATO’s future draws up the gathering dark clouds, the alliance’s past and future cracks, and how ill-prepared it is for the world order change that takes place in the eyes of everybody else but the NATO Believers. It also argues that the Western knee-jerk, emotionalist and hateful and disproportionate reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will prove extremely counterproductive for these countries themselves and for NATO as well as accelerate the relative decline of the West.

Submitted by TFF Director, Prof. Jan Oberg, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF in Lund, Sweden is independent of government and corporate funding and thus conducts truly free research.

8 July 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Shoaib Daniyal

By Drago Bosnic

For nearly half a century, Scandinavia’s neutrality (with the obvious exception of Norway) was an important segment of keeping various buffer zones between the Soviet Union and NATO. And interestingly, despite the fact that the USSR was much more powerful than Russia nowadays, while also being virtually unopposed in the Baltic Sea, for some reason, neither Sweden nor Finland felt the need to become part of NATO.

What’s more, if there ever was a danger of a mythical Soviet invasion of either country, it was gone in 1991. Up to that point, Moscow’s access to the Baltic Sea stretched from Finland to Denmark (nearly, that is). Nowadays, Saint Petersburg and Kaliningrad are Russia’s only access points.

Thus, if the Kremlin hadn’t invaded Sweden and Finland during the (First) Cold War, it surely wouldn’t be doing it now. However, as rabid Russophobia is an extremely damaging degenerative disease, it clouds people’s judgment, leading them to make all sorts of rash and inexplicable decisions. On the other hand, it’s impossible to explain NATO expansionism in Scandinavia without seeing it as part of a wider offensive build-up that aims to surround Russia with hostile states and other entities (including terrorist ones). In one of the latest such moves, Helsinki just gave the United States the legal permission to station troops in the country. The vote in the Finnish Parliament was unanimous.

Thus, starting from July 1, Washington DC has access to at least 15 Finnish military bases, with the possibility of deploying heavy weapons. It wasn’t specified what sort of arms and equipment that refers to, but it’s not that difficult to imagine.

The US is already trying to surround both Russia and China with the previously banned medium and intermediate-range missiles, which is precisely why it’s setting up new military bases all across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The latest agreement with Finland, aptly termed the “Defense” Cooperation Agreement (DCA), “will allow the United States to bring defense equipment, supplies, materials, and soldiers to Finland”, according to local sources.

Worse yet, the DCA gives America legal grounds to create military exclusion zones, areas that will be accessible to US personnel only. What this really means is that Finland effectively relinquished its sovereignty so it could become a legitimate target for Russian missiles.

Congratulations, Helsinki! You just exposed 5.5 million Finns to virtually immediate thermonuclear annihilation in case of (an increasingly possible) military conflict between NATO and Russia. Considering the fact that the US has similar “exclusive access” facilities all over the world and that the Pentagon usually uses them for illegal programs and experiments, including with deadly biological materials, Russia will respond.

In fact, the Kremlin certainly anticipated such moves, which is why it started deploying new missile brigades in northwestern Russia, including those armed with ballistic and hypersonic weapons. Moscow’s second-to-none missiles such as those used by the “Iskander-M” platform or the MiG-31K strike fighters with 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” systems (carrying the 9-S-7760 air-launched hypersonic missiles) put the entire Scandinavia in range. In addition, the sheer speed of these unrivaled weapons gives the Kremlin the ability of a virtually instantaneous retaliation in case anyone gets any ideas. Unfortunately, none of this seems to have deterred the (obviously suicidal) ruling elite in Helsinki.

The Finnish Parliament’s rather senseless decision to antagonize its much larger nuclear-armed neighbor cannot possibly be justified by any excuses of “defense” or any similar reasoning. The simple fact that Finland is allowing the presence of American offensive capabilities on the border with Russia will be enough for the latter to deploy weapons that the former simply has no means of defending against. As the DCA creates a legal framework for a permanent American military presence in Finland, this also means that the Kremlin will surely respond in kind, making Helsinki far less safe than was the case before it joined NATO, thus defeating the very purpose of its membership in this racketeering cartel.

However, according to Finnish sources, there might even be some opposition to this in the country, as MP Anna Kontula submitted a proposal calling on other MPs to reject the DCA, although her motion received no backing. Therefore, the Finnish Parliament “did not vote on the agreement, but approved it unanimously”, local sources report. This alone puts the legality of the agreement in serious question, although we’re extremely unlikely to see any major opposition to it. Last month, Helsinki’s Constitutional Law Committee concluded that the “[DCA] would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority in Parliament, as it affects several aspects of the Finnish constitution” (i.e. it’s unconstitutional).

In other words, Finland is going out of its way to please the US and NATO, just like it did with Nazi Germany (their geopolitical predecessor) over 80 years ago. This was in the making for quite some time, even predating the special military operation (SMO), as Helsinki wanted to acquire the troubled F-35 fighter jets back in 2021. Having such aircraft in one’s arsenal also means that a country is relinquishing its sovereignty. Namely, the US has control over the F-35’s systems, as the jet keeps sending data back to Lockheed Martin and the US military, meaning that even if the then “neutral” Finland didn’t join NATO, the Pentagon would effectively control a crucial branch of the country’s armed forces, forcing Russia to respond either way.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

4 July 2024

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Hiren Gohain

Those familiar with W.B. Yeats’s poems know what the ‘rough beast’ could have meant in the nineteen thirties in Europe.The cycle keeping pace with progress of extreme capitalism has reached a similar point in its trajectory in the world today.It might turn out to be deadlier,more toxic.

The first showdown in the Indian Parliament is marked by the same features.The President’s speech rolling out the ruling party’s account of things was predictably challenged vehemently by the opposition, with Rahul Gandhi leading the attack.And rather sickeningly, deflected by the treasury benches led by PM Modi with the familiar rhetorical retort.In sum it was both an ad hominem argument and a rabble-rousing signal to crowds to mobilize and go on the rampage by turning Rahul’s strong plea for a temperate form of faith into a wholesale attack on Hindu faith,Hindu identity and Hindu culture.As if on cue the crowds of militant bigots led by some so-called saints have turned on the Congress,attacked its offices in some regions and called for a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. By some odd coincidence more than 120 devotees of one Hindu holy man have been crushed to death in the stampede to rush for his blessings.A high court Judge in Uttar Pradesh has warned that if conversion of SC Hindus and poor tribals is allowed to continue the country’s chief religion will be soon replaced by an alien one.

Sounding of such an alarum is likely to or perhaps calculated to create a sense of panic and prompt people to disturb social peace and harmony.Enough to attract some or other of the clauses of the brand new Nyay Samhita.

Already,contrary to expectations from the RSS Supremo’s admonition,all over the country one observes militants emerging to make the usual extreme claims and demands that upset the sober citizens. Clear signal that the battle is far from over.Civil society organizations,decent retired judges,patriotic retired bureaucrats,students and journalists,lawyers committed to democracy must prepare for resumption of doughty resistance.Opposition must cement its unity and militant mass organizations of workers and farmers will have to revive their flagging spirits.

It is a good thing that fascists have so soon unsheathed their swords,for otherwise the people would have slipped into complacency and slumber.

These are signs of things to come.The question is,will proceedings in Parliament serve any purpose?

The opposition seeks to play by the book and expects the treasury benches to respond in the same way.They might pretend to do so,but there is little evidence that there will be any seriousness in such response. The PM himself led the offensive by heaping ridicule and scorn on the leader of the opposition, repeated the old and worn-out allegations of irresponsibility and corruption and went on defiantly to conflate Rahul’s plea for a detoxed version of Hinduism with  vicious attack on Hinduism itself.

The Speaker appears to be acting on cue and takes no notice of the various valid accusations against such travesty.So we may expect in future more of such tiresome charades making a mockery of debate and surely a time might come,as in times past,when the opposition will seem to be crying in the wilderness and the common people cease to feel any interest in such proceedings.

Certain tactics could unsettle the ruling party into running for cover.For example springing upon the dour government the surprise of major scams and lapses not reported in the press,or targeting important functionaries of government with exposure of grave misconduct yet unknown,or serious lapses in the functioning of the government machinery. Likewise undue favours to cronies and irregularities in conduct of business of the state.

These could be co-ordinated with proper reporting in the press or whatever section of it is not yet on the leash.And so on.Though given the numbers into which such improprieties run these days such tactics are fated to have a diminishing return.

Further,there can be telling refutations of the government’s claims of achievements and assertions of efficiency with striking facts and figures.

But the indisputable fact is that the ruling party sets less store by Parliament than the democratic opposition.The former would just like to treat it as no more than as a rubber stamp.If the Parliament becomes a warehouse of used things or a ghostly echo-chamber it would just serve it fine.

So it is much the most important thing to get people involved,keep them informed hourly of the way matters are shaping and if necessary occasionally take to the streets to protest against traduction of Parliament.The issues aired in Parliament must rage and roar in the streets.Sometimes with united workers of parties participating and on occasions with people at large joining in.

Price rise,unemployment and various sneaking injustices still continue to torment the masses.So there will be no lack of support if the opposition goes about it with clarity and determination.

I have a wee bit of a suspicion that fascists everywhere are preparing for street tactics and street fights.Their storm troopers are out on the streets.Their desperate rhetoric seems to give the game away.So it might be necessary to start steering things already in the right direction in  order to forestall such a possibility.

Hiren Gohain is a political commentator

3 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Edward Curtin

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
– Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking-Glass

Once you understand that profound poem, you are ready to fathom the great debate between our dumb and dumber candidates for the Highchair in the Oval Office.

In light of Julian Assange’s release from an English prison and President Biden’s dementia-riddled debate performance against dumb-mouthed Donald Trump – Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom Alice, when through the looking-glass, said looked exactly like a couple of schoolboys – I have been thinking about a famous proverb – “acta, non verba” (action, not words).  Like most platitudes and effective propaganda, it contains both truths and contradictions and can therefore be spun in multiple ways depending on one’s intent.

Killing people is an action that needs no words to accompany it.  It can be done silently.  Even when it is the killing of millions of people, it can be carried out without fanfare or direct responsibility.  Without a whisper, with plausible deniability, as if it were not happening.  As if you were not responsible.  The playwright Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize Address, wrote truthfully about U. S. war crimes:

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self-love. It’s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.’

Trust, of course, is a sick joke when it comes from the mouths of U.S. presidents, just as the two bloodthirsty debaters want the American people to trust them and agree with their support for the US/Israel genocide of Palestinians, as does Robert Kennedy, Jr., another aspirant for the position of Killer-in-Chief.

“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Tweedledum, “but it isn’t so nohow.”

“Contrariwise,” said Tweedledee. “if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”

And the boys continue to battle over Tweedledum’s “nice new rattle” that he accused Tweedledee of spoiling.

The spectacle of presidential politics and people’s addiction to it is a depressing commentary on people’s gullibility.  To think that the candidates are not puppets manipulated by the same hidden powerful elite forces is a form of illiteracy that fails to grasp the nature of the fairy tale told through the looking-glass. The real rattle is not a toy, but the sound of the rattling of the marionettes’ chains.  In the 2020 presidential election, more than 155 million Americans voted for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900.  More so than the population at large, these voters are dumb and getting dumber by the day.  They think they live in a democracy where to get into the Highchair candidates will spend 10 billion dollars or so.

“Ditto,” said Tweedledum.

“Ditto, ditto!” cried Tweedledee.

Like the voters in 2020, those this year will echo the boys in illusionary expectations of political change – “Ditto, ditto, ditto – as they look in the mirror of their cell phones and hope to take selfies with the candidates to mirror the narcissistic mendacious marionettes of their illusions.

Julian Assange killed no one, but he suffered greatly at the hands of the U.S. military-industrial-security state and its evil accomplices because he used words and images to reveal their atrocities.  In other words, his words were his courageous actions to counteract the murderous actions of the U.S. government.  He gave voice to the previously unspeakable, a void in confronting systematic evil that seems beyond imagining or words to convey.  Assange’s words were his deeds and therefore reversed the proverb or turned it on its head or upside down.  He showed that the words of denial from the U.S. government were lies, language used to obscure thought about its war crimes.  That is why they tortured him for so many years.

Despite such treatment, he never bowed to their violence, remaining steadfastly true to his conscience.  A true individual.  He was betrayed by the corporate mainstream media such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and others who published what Julian published, then trashed him and ignored him, and finally hypocritically supported him to save their own asses after he suffered for fourteen years.  It is a very typical tale of elite betrayal.

Those who serve and wish to serve as American presidents are so lacking in Assange’s moral conscience that one should never expect truth from them, neither in words nor actions.  Assange stands head and shoulders above these craven creeps.  Here, as recounted by Marjorie Cohn, are some of their atrocities that journalist  Assange, a free man, published for all the world to read and see.

The relationship between words and actions is very complex.  Even Shakespeare compounds the complexity by having  a character say that words are not deeds.  But they are.

Neither Biden nor Trump ever personally killed a Syrian or Palestinian, but they gave orders to do so.  They made sure as young men that they would never serve in the military and kill with their own hands, having received between them nearly ten deferments.  What’s the term for such Commanders-in-Chief?   Pusillanimous armchair warriors?  Jackals with polished faces who know ten thousand ways to order others to kill and torture while keeping their hands clean but their souls sordid?

Obama had his Tuesday kill list that included American citizens whom he chose for death; Trump gave the orders to “terminate” Iranian General Qasem Soleimani; we can only imagine what orders Biden (or his handlers) has given, while Ukraine, Russia, and Gaza have suffered terribly from them.  Now Tweedledum, desperate to retain his rattle, pushes the world closed to nuclear war.

But notice the expensive suits these boys wear, the crisp white shirts and pocket handkerchiefs, the elegant watches and shiny shoes.  But they are killers whose orders to kill are whispered, action words, passed down the line.  With a smile, a grin, a shrug, or completely indifferently, as if they were ordering a bagel with cream cheese to go.

Yet true it is, as the forgotten but great American poet Keneth Rexroth wrote in his 1955 poem Thou Shall Not Kill: “You killed him!  You killed him./ In your God damned Brooks Brothers  suit,/ You son of a bitch.”

Like many writers, I am politically powerless.  My words are my only weapon.  Are they actions?  I believe they are.  They are deeds.  I move my pen across the paper and try to write something meaningful.  Sometimes I succeed in this action; at others, I fail.  Who can say?  I surely can’t.  As my father used to always remind me, “Quien sabe?” (Who knows?)

There are those who claim that wordsmiths are all full of shit.  Why don’t they just shut up and do something, is what they say.  They fail to grasp the paradoxical relationship between action and words.  For writers who write to defend humanity from the predations of the ruthless ruling classes, their words are not orders to kill.  Just the opposite.

Our words are reminders that killing is wrong, that waging wars are wrong, that genocide is wrong, that assassinating people is wrong – simple truths that almost everyone knows but forgets when they get caught up in the antics of the Tweedledums and Tweedledees who come and go with the breezes as the system that creates them rolls merrily along.

So if words, contrary to the famous proverb – action, not words – are a form of action, we are caught in a paradox of our own making.  This is not uncommon.  For there are silent and wordy acts as well as words as actions, some noisy, others sotto voce.  There are violent deeds and violent words; and there are peaceful words meant to encourage peaceful deeds.

Tweedledum Biden and Tweedledee Trump are prime examples of how far my country (I write that with a lump in my throat), the United States of America, has descended into illiteracy, evil, and delusion.

The philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once wrote that the “Greeks were superficial out of profundity.”  Too many Americans have become superficial out of stupidity by believing the words and deeds of con men battling over a rattle.

“No Way! We landed on the moon!”

– Jim Carrey, playing Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber

Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years.

4 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jay Janson

Every year, Americans are supposed to celebrate July 4th as the founding of a U.S.A. both free and enslaved. The fourth of July is a federal holiday.

On July 4, 1776, the population of the United States, then the Thirteen Colonies, was estimated to be about 2.5 million people. This population included both free individuals and enslaved people.

Out of this population, approximately 500,000 individuals were enslaved African Americans. The remaining population, roughly 2 million people, consisted of free individuals, which included various groups such as European settlers, Indigenous peoples, and a smaller number of free African Americans.

Of course, millions of Americans do not celebrate the birth of a racist slave owning U.S.A., homicidal at home and genocidal abroad.

This writer, your dedicated peoples historian activist, also strongly advises his readers not to celebrate the July 4th holiday birth of a U.S.A. founded by owners of African slaves. Patience! A better deal will eventually come our way with the rise of China and the Global South.

Many Reasons Not to Celebrate that Fourth of July Birthday 

1. That U.S.A. born on the 4th day of July in 1776, today in 2024, has been co-murdering Israel’s captive Palestinians by the thousands as American 2,000 Lbs bombs, missiles and artillery shells rain down on a defenceless Israeli illegal militarily occupied Arab population in Gaza. (Israeli pilots, U.S. warplanes).

2.USA’s AFRICAN genocide 1776-1864: New England banks financed deadly but lucrative slave trade, forced labor in the North, before massive forced labor in South; a million died during seizure and transport from Africa and another million died in forced labor. (For the first time in recorded history of slavery, inhumanity toward slaves as practiced in the USA and Colonial Powers, eventually became based on having inculcating society with fear-fostered ignorance and a preposterous insistence of racial superiority, sanding on its head white feelings of inferiority in the face of the far more accomplished civilisations and cultures pale-skinned Europeans had conquered in Africa, India and China.

3.NATIVE AMERICANS 1776-onward: Genocidal theft of habitats of a thousand Native American nations instigated by banks speculating in land; forced captive marches, broken treaties, wars, deaths from malnutrition certainly reached more than one million deaths already long ago.

Northeast

• Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee): A powerful alliance of six tribes – Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora.
• Algonquin: A group that includes many tribes such as the Abenaki, Penobscot, and Wampanoag.
• Pequot: Known for their role in early colonial history.
• Narragansett: Another significant tribe in the Northeast.

Southeast

• Cherokee: One of the “Five Civilized Tribes” known for their complex social structures and adaptation of some European-American customs.
• Choctaw: Another of the “Five Civilized Tribes.”
• Chickasaw: Also part of the “Five Civilized Tribes.”
• Creek (Muscogee): Known for their large confederation.
• Seminole: Famous for their resistance in the Seminole Wars.

Great Plains

• Sioux (Lakota, Dakota, Nakota): A large group consisting of different bands, including the Oglala, Hunkpapa, and Brulé.
• Cheyenne: Known for their warrior culture and resistance against westward expansion.
• Comanche: Renowned horsemen who dominated the Southern Plains.
• Apache: Known for their fierce resistance to colonization, including the Chiricahua and Mescalero bands.

Southwest

• Navajo (Diné): One of the largest Native American nations today.
• Hopi: Known for their pueblo dwellings and kachina doll tradition.
• Pueblo: A group that includes tribes such as the Zuni and Taos, known for their adobe structures.
• Zuni: Known for their unique language and religious traditions.

Northwest Coast

• Tlingit: Known for their totem poles and rich oral history.
• Haida: Famous for their art and longhouses.
• Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl): Known for their potlatch ceremonies.
• Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka): Renowned for their whaling practices.

California

• Chumash: Known for their sophisticated maritime culture.
• Pomo: Renowned for their intricate basketry.
• Miwok: An important tribe in Northern California.

Arctic and Subarctic

• Inuit: Known for their adaptation to the harsh Arctic environment.
• Athabaskan: A large group that includes tribes like the Gwich’in and Koyukon.

Great Basin

• Shoshone: Known for their extensive range across the Great Basin and beyond.
• Paiute: Divided into Northern and Southern groups, known for their basketry and adaptation to desert life.

Plateau

• Nez Perce: Known for their resistance under Chief Joseph.
• Spokane: An important tribe in the Plateau region.

These nations represent just a fraction of the rich and diverse tapestry of Native American cultures across North America. Each nation has its own unique history, culture, and traditions.

4.MEXICANS. In 1836 US rapes away half of Mexico through merciless war. Mexicans are made aware that Americans will keep killing Mexicans until USA demands are met. California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado (parts of the state), small parts of Kansas, Wyoming and Oklahoma stolen.

5-PHILIPPINES 1898-1902: Invasion and massacres during Filipino war for independence – upwards of a million lives savagely taken. The overseas investment community propagated the racist concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ make genocide tolerable.

6.-CHINA 1900 murderous sacking of Beijing, orgy of killing and stripping away all the cultural treasures for sale that the American and British troops could load into a few boxcars of a train.

7.-in EUROPE and in European colonies world wide many millions die as US banks through the Federal Reserve financing and entry of US Armed Forces enable WW I to go on an extra year and a half; 1934-36 Senate Nye Committee investigates allegations that the U.S. entered WW I to make big profits. Senator Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America’s involvement in World War I; investigation of these “merchants of death” documents the huge profits that arms factories made during the war; found bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad; arms industry had been price fixing; held excessive war investor influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during the war.

8.-SOVIET RUSSIA 1917-20: Two US Armies invade along with armies of thirteen other capitalist nations to foster, aid, support and participate in civil war; seven to nine million new Soviet citizens die, three million just from typhoid.

9.WORLD! Corporate America armed Hitler’s Nazi Germany for World War to save Colonial Imperialism. 3% of humanity died violently.

All the monstrous beyond description inhuman Nazi German crimes, the crimes that have been attributed to Stalin and those committed by the US and Britain in fire bombing civilians in German and Japanese cities, happened during the world war that was made possible by the enthusiastic rearming of an insanely dangerous (Nazi )Germany.  This was done to protect and continue invested capital rule over most of humanity by the unjustly wealthy in the Western colonial empires then threatened by the economic calamity of the Great Depression that had been created by their own financial malfeasance. The true source of the Second World War was American industrial might empowering a rabid Adolf Hitler and his Nazi thugs in what had been a disarmed Germany. Hitler’s strident call for Germany to expand into the Soviet Union was silently or tacitly approved as was much of Hitler’s rabid condemnation of Jews by American investing and joint venturing in Nazi Germany,

When we recall films and photos of skies filled with warplanes, of seas filled with warships and of thousands of tanks engaged in deadly conflict on land bringing death, destruction and misery to hundreds of innocent millions, we best remember that a lot of upper class people in business suits were elatedly counting their enormous blood-soaked profits from investments in the manufacture of weapons, munitions, uniforms, and coffins.

The rearming of Germany made possible Hitler’s invasions of twenty-two countries and brought world war to Asia, for Japan would not have dared to attack and declare war on the United States of America without it being able to count on an alliance with an awesomely powerful rearmed Nazi Germany, plus Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Albania, which all declared war on the USA immediately after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. As already mentioned, the Second World War and the Holocaust, which made the rich speculators of Wall Street owned America the sole world superpower, is estimated to have taken the lives of 70 to 85 million men, women and children. Within this total were the 28 million citizens of the Soviet Union, which had been the obvious target in the rearming of Germany of a consensus among the wealthiest American and European capitalists. A further plus for Wall Street was the outcome that left half the cities of Wall Street’s designated archenemy, socialist model USSR, lying in ruins.

The beyond imagination great multi-nation genocide that included the Holocaust must be laid at the feet of wealthy profit scheming speculative investors in war headquartered mostly in lower Manhattan, New York City.

War investors can cheer ‘Hooray’ on July 4, 1776-2024 and continue forth in Permanent War and for now,  these powerful war investors are able to deride China’s Peace Initiative. 

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist,  musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India, in Germany & Sweden Einartysken,and in the US by Greanville Post, Dissident Voice; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents; Minority Perspective, UK,and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, https://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/which contains a history of US crimes in 19 nations from 1945 thru 2012.

4 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Vijay Prashad

The story should not be real. It was the morning of January 29, 2004. The Israeli military had already bombed substantial parts of the affluent Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, including—in October 2023—the totality of the Gaza City campus of the Islamic University of Gaza. Following a warning from the Israeli military, seven members of a family got into a Kia Picanto to flee southward. But the Israeli bombing had levelled a nearby high-rise, so the car had to go north before it could go south.

Not far down the road, the car came under fire from Israeli military vehicles, including Merkava tanks. According to a remarkable investigation by UK-based research agency Forensic Architecture, 355 bullets were fired into the car.

One of those in the car, a six-year-old child named Hind Rajab, called emergency workers. “They are dead,” she says of her family members. “The tank is next to me. It’s almost night. I am scared. Come get me, please.” The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) sent an ambulance to rescue her.

Two weeks later, on February 10, Hind Rajab’s dead body was found near the bodies of her family, along with those of the paramedics (Ahmed al-Madhoun and Yusuf al-Zeino) sent to save her. “The tank is next to me,” says the young girl on a tape saved by the PRCS, but both the U.S. State Department and the Israeli military say that no tanks operated in the area at that time. It is the word of a murdered child against the world’s most dangerous and disingenuous governments.

The murder of Hind Rajab and her family shocked the world (Hind Rajab’s father was killed in a separate attack in late June). When the students at Columbia University occupied their administration building, they named it Hind Rajab Hall; the singer Macklemore released a song in May called “Hind’s Hall.”

Everyday Violence

June 14: One child was killed by Israeli airstrikes in Zeitoun (Gaza City).

June 22: Two children were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Shujaiya (Gaza City).

June 25: Two children were killed by Israeli fire on al-Wahda Street, near Al-Shifa Hospital (Gaza City).

June 25: Three children were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the Maghazi refugee camp.

Each of these stories is about precious children, most of whom have not even reached the age of 10. Some of these children lived through the barbarous Israeli bombardment of 2014 when over 3,000 children had been killed. Sitting in the homes of families in Gaza City and Khan Younis in the aftermath of that war, I heard story after story about children killed and children maimed (Maha, paralyzed; Ahmed, blinded—my notebook a mess of loss and sorrow). As the bombs continued to fall in 2014, Pernille Ironside, then-chief of the Gaza office of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that 373,000 children needed “immediate psycho-social first aid.” There were simply not enough counselors to help the children, most of whom are now hardened because of the ugliness of occupation and war.

The violence that they experience has become a daily affair. But this kind of violence can never be mundane. “I am scared,” said Hind Rajab. I remember meeting a little boy who was playing with a football on the streets of al-Mughraqa. His father, who was showing me around, told me that the boy was not able to sleep, but would stay awake at night and cry. That was in 2014. That boy must now be in his early twenties. He might not be alive.

One or Two Legs

An Al Jazeera interactive website has the names of the children killed since October 2023, one killed every fifteen minutes; as I scrolled down the names, I felt ill, and then found this at the very end: “These are the names of only half of the children killed.” In early May, UNICEF director Catherine Russell said, “Nearly all of Gaza’s children have been exposed to the traumatic experiences of war, the consequences of which will last a lifetime.” In her statement, where she reported that 14,000 children have been killed, she said that “an estimated 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated.” These numbers are estimates and are likely to be undercounts.

A new report from Save the Children suggests that over 20,000 children are missing in Gaza. They are either under the rubble, detained by the Israeli military, or buried in mass graves. During a detailed briefing on June 25, the Commissioner-General of the UN Palestine Agency (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini said something staggering: “And you take into consideration that basically, we have every 10 days children losing one leg or two legs on average. This gives you an idea of the scope of the type of childhood a child can have in Gaza.”

The story should not be real. It was the morning of December 19, 2023. Israeli tanks rumbled through the neighborhood of Rimal in Gaza City. Seventeen-year-old Ahed Bseiso was on the top floor of a six-floor building trying to call her father in Belgium to tell him that she was still alive. She heard a loud noise, fell, and called out for her sister Mona and her mother. Her family rushed up, carried her down, and laid her on the kitchen table where her mother had been making bread. Ahed’s uncle Hani Bseiso, an orthopedic doctor, looked at her leg and realized that he would have to either amputate it or she would die. He grabbed whatever supplies he could find and conducted the amputation without anesthesia. Ahed recited verses from the Quran to calm herself. Hani wept as he did the operation, which the family filmed and later posed on YouTube, which was reposted in many places.

These are the stories of Gaza.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter.

4 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

Israel never learns from its mistakes.

What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to implement in Gaza is but a poor copy of previous strategies that were used in the past by other Israeli leaders. If these strategies had succeeded, Israel would not be in this position in the first place.

The main reason behind Netanyahu’s lack of clarity about his real objectives in Gaza is that neither he nor his generals can determine the outcomes of their futile war on the Strip, a war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

And, no matter how hard he tries, Netanyahu will not be able to reproduce the past.

Following the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in June 1967, Israeli politicians and generals saw eye to eye on many things. The government wanted to translate its astounding military victory against Arab armies into a permanent occupation. The army wanted to use the newly acquired territories to create ‘buffer zones’, ‘security corridors’ and the like, to strangulate the Palestinians even further.

Both, government and military, found the establishment of new colonies to be the perfect answer to their shared vision. Indeed, today’s illegal settlements were originally planned as part of two massive security corridors projected by then-Labor Minister, Yigal Allon.

The Allon Plan was predicated on several elements. Among other ideas and designs, it called for the building of a security corridor along the Jordan River, and another along the so-called Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The new demarcations were meant to expand the Israeli borders – which were never defined, to begin with – thus providing Israel with greater strategic depth. The plan was the original annexation scheme, which has been resurrected by Netanyahu in 2019, and is being advanced by current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Netanyahu is also sorting through previous governments’ archives with the hope of finding a solution to his disastrous war in Gaza. Here, too, the Allon Plan is relevant.

In 1971, then Israeli General Ariel Sharon attempted to implement Allon’s idea regarding complete control over Gaza, but with his own unique touch. He invented what became known as Sharon’s ‘five fingers’.

The ‘fingers’ were a reference to military zones and colonies, which were meant to divide the Gaza Strip into sections, and to separate the southern city of Rafah from the Sinai region.

To do so, thousands of Palestinian homes were destroyed throughout Gaza, particularly in the north. As for the south, thousands of Palestinian families, mostly Bedouin tribes, were ethnically cleansed to the Sinai desert.

Sharon’s plan, an extension of Allon’s plan, was never fully implemented, though many aspects of it were carried out, at the expense of the Palestinians, whose resistance continued for many years. It is that resistance, expressed through the collective defiance of the population of the Strip, which forced Sharon, then a prime minister, to abandon Gaza altogether. He called his 2005 military redeployment, and subsequent siege on Gaza, the ‘disengagement plan’.

The relatively new plan, which Netanyahu rejected back then, and is trying to revive now, seemed to be the rational answer to Israel’s unsuccessful occupation of Gaza. After 38 years of military occupation, the experienced Israeli general, known to Palestinians as the ‘bulldozer’, realized that Gaza simply cannot be subdued, let alone governed.

Instead of learning from Sharon’s experience, Netanyahu is trying to repeat the original mistake.

Though Netanyahu has revealed little details about his future plans in Gaza, he has spoken often of retaining ‘security control’ over the Strip and the West Bank, as well. Israel will “maintain operational freedom of action in the entire Gaza Strip”, he said last February.

Since then, his army began constructing what seemed to be a long-term military presence in central Gaza, known as the Netzarim Corridor – a large ‘finger’ of military routes and encampments that splits Gaza into two halves.

Netzarim, named after a previous settlement south-west of Gaza City evacuated in 2005, also gives Israel control over the area’s two main highways, Salah al-Din Road and the coastal Rashid Road.

The Philadelphi Corridor, located between Rafah and the Egyptian border was occupied by Israel on May 7. It is meant to be another ‘finger’. Additional ‘buffer zones’ already exist in all of Gaza’s border regions, with the aim of fully suffocating Gaza and giving Israel total control over aid.

Netanyahu’s plan is doomed to fail, however.

The historical circumstances of the ’67 Israeli occupation of Gaza are entirely different from what is taking place now. The former emerged as an outcome of a major Arab defeat, while the latter is an outcome of Israel’s military and intelligence failure.

Moreover, the regional circumstances are working in Palestine’s favor, and the global knowledge of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza makes a permanent war nearly impossible.

Another important point to keep in mind is that the current generation of Gazans is empowered and fearless. Its ongoing resistance is only a reflection of a popular reawakening throughout Palestine.

Finally, the Israeli unity that followed the ’67 war is nowhere to be found, as Israel today is divided along many fault lines.

It behooves Netanyahu to revisit his foolish decision to maintain a permanent presence in Gaza, as defeating Gaza proved to be an impossible task even for far superior military men of his country.

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

4 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Richard Heinberg

Why there is no viable techno-fix to climate change, and why trees, soil, and biodiversity are our real lifelines.

Climate change is a huge, complicated problem. Therefore, many people have an understandable tendency to mentally simplify it by focusing on just one cause (carbon emissions) and just one solution (alternative energy). Sustainability scholar Jan Konietzko has called this “carbon tunnel vision.” Oversimplifying the problem this way leads to techno-fixes that actually fix nothing. Despite trillions of dollars already spent on low-carbon technologies, carbon emissions are still increasing, and the climate is being destabilized faster than ever.

Understanding climate change requires us to embrace complexity: not only are greenhouse gases trapping heat, but we are undermining natural systems that cool the planet’s surface and sequester atmospheric carbon—systems of ice, soil, forest, and ocean. Grasping this complexity leads to new ways of thinking about climate change and viable responses to it.

Almost everything we’re doing to cause climate change involves technology—from cars to cement kilns to chainsaws. We humans love technology: it yields profits, jobs, comfort, and convenience (for some, anyway; it also tends to worsen overall economic inequality). So, predictably, we’re looking to alternative technologies to solve what is arguably the biggest dilemma humanity has ever created for itself. But what if that’s the wrong approach? What if more technology will actually worsen the problem in the long run?

In this article, we will see why there is no viable techno-fix to climate change, and why trees, soil, and biodiversity are our real lifelines.

Machines Won’t Save Us

Before discussing natural solutions, let’s explore whether technology has a role to play. What machines are touted as our main climate solutions, and what are their strengths and drawbacks? There are four broad categories.

The first climate-tech category consists of low-carbon energy generating machines, including solar panels, wind turbines, and nuclear power plants. These energy sources produce electrical power with minimal carbon emissions. However, they are not problem-free or risk-free. Wind and solar power are intermittent, requiring energy storage (e.g., batteries) and a major grid overhaul. Building these energy sources at sufficient scale to replace our current energy usage from fossil fuels would require enormous amounts of materials, some of them rare, and mining those materials destroys habitat and pollutes the environment. Recycling could eventually minimize materials requirements, but recycling has limits. Nuclear power likewise suffers from the dilemma of scale (to make a significant difference, we’d need to build an enormous number of nuclear plants, and quickly), but adds problems associated with fuel scarcity, waste containment and disposal, and the risks of accidents and nuclear weapons proliferation.

The second tech category includes energy-using technologies for running the modern industrial world—machines for manufacturing, heating, mining, farming, shipping, and transportation. In many cases, low-emissions versions of these machines are not yet marketed, and many may not work as cheaply as current technologies (cement making and aviation are two industries that will be hard to decarbonize). And again, there is the dilemma of scale, and the requirement for more materials. We have built our current industrial infrastructure over a period of decades; replacing huge portions of it quickly in order to minimize climate change will require an unprecedented burst of resource extraction and energy usage.

A third category of technologies for fighting climate change consists of machines for capturing carbon from the atmosphere so it can be safely stored for long periods. “Direct air capture” (or DAC) technologies have been developed, and are starting to be installed. However, a recent meta-study concluded that these machines suffer from problems of scale, cost, materials requirements, and high energy usage. The study’s authors say that policy makers’ prioritization of mechanical carbon capture has so far yielded a “track record of failure.”

If none of our other mechanical methods for tackling climate change work, there is one last resort: technologies for cooling the planet via solar radiation management. This “solar geoengineering” solution would entail dispersing large quantities of tiny reflective particles in Earth’s atmosphere (this is known as stratospheric aerosol injection), or building a space parasol to shade the planet. Critics point out that these technologies might have unintended consequences as bad as, or worse than the problem they are trying to solve.

It’s hard to argue against implementing at least some of these technologies at a modest scale. Humanity has become systemically dependent on energy from coal, oil, and gas to meet basic needs—including housing, food, and health care. Eliminating fossil fuels quickly and entirely, without having deployed alternative sources of energy, would result in immiseration for millions or billions of people. A similar argument could be made regarding low-carbon manufacturing, agricultural, and transport machines: we need alternative ways to make things, produce food, and get around. But our need for such machines does not erase their inherent environmental costs, including resource depletion, pollution, and habitat loss.

A review of available techno-fixes leads to two unavoidable conclusions. First, our problem is not just carbon emissions per se; it’s also how we humans inhabit our planet (too many of us using too much stuff too fast). And second, we need non-technological ways of addressing the climate crisis.

Cooling Nature’s Way

Throughout hundreds of millions of years, nature has developed cooling cycles that keep the planet’s surface temperature within certain bounds (though Earth’s climate does oscillate significantly). Chief among these is the water cycle, which operates on both a large and a small scale. On the large scale, ocean currents move enormous amounts of water around the planet, shifting more water onto land via precipitation than evaporates from it. On the small scale, water falls as rain or other forms of precipitation, is absorbed by soil, is drawn up into plants, and transpires or evaporates back into the atmosphere. This dual water cycle has a net cooling effect.

We industrial humans have been destabilizing the planetary water cycle. Industrial agriculture degrades soil, so that it holds less water. Expanding cities cover soil and channel rainwater via storm drains out to sea, rather than keeping water on the land. Pavement and buildings create the well-known urban “heat island” effect, which can raise temperatures by many degrees compared to natural landscapes. Industrial agriculture, urbanization, and destructive forestry practices reduce overall vegetation, and therefore also reduce evapotranspiration. Result: even if we weren’t loading the atmosphere with excess carbon dioxide, we’d still be warming the planet. Combine a diminished water cycle with land heating from urban sprawl, a couple of hundred billion square meters of pavement, and degraded soil; then add those ingredients to the main dish of overabundant emissions, and you have a recipe for hell on Earth.

The obvious solution: restore nature’s cooling cycles. Re-vegetate the planet, thereby increasing evapotranspiration. Restore soils so they hold more water. And get rid of pavement wherever possible.

There are depaving advocates in nearly every community. Unfortunately, their voices are drowned out by powerful road-building and construction interests, and by motorists who want to drive in comfort anywhere and everywhere. Permeable pavement options exist; but most municipalities, when faced with complaints from motorists about crumbling roads, opt simply to cover old streets with a fresh coat of black asphalt (made from oil) that heats the environment, prevents water from reaching the soil underneath, and gives off toxic fumes. If humanity is serious about halting climate change, then it should put the depavers in charge.

Re-vegetating the planet is a huge project that can only be undertaken in bite-sized chunks at the local scale. The biggest contributors to the small water cycle are intact forests; therefore, our first order of business should be to protect existing old-growth forests (you can plant a tree in a few minutes, but an old-growth forest requires centuries to mature). At the same time, we can plant millions more trees—but they must be the right kinds of trees in the right places. We must anticipate climate change and assist forests to migrate to suitable climate zones.

Soil can be restored by covering it with leaf litter, mulch, and vegetation, by keeping living roots in it as long as possible (mainly by planting more perennial crops and fewer annuals), and by adding compost and biochar to aerate soil and boost biological activity. First, however, we have to stop doing all the things we’re currently doing that harm soils—including annual tillage and application of herbicides and pesticides. Permaculture practitioners and organic farmers have been fighting this battle for decades, and they’ve developed many effective techniques for maximizing food production while building healthy soil.

Climate change reduces biodiversity by making environments inhospitable to some of the species that inhabit them. Moreover, everything we’re doing to cause climate change (industrial agriculture, urbanization, cattle ranching, and road building) is also directly contributing to biodiversity loss. But restoring biodiversity can mitigate climate change. For example, restoring soils requires making them more biologically diverse (in terms of fungi, bacteria, nematodes, and worms). And restored soils support other organisms (more vegetation and hence more wildlife, all the way up to buffalo and elephants) that also help maintain nature’s cooling cycles. In effect, virtually all nature conservation efforts are also climate change mitigation efforts.

Energy and Materials from Nature

If solar, wind, and nuclear electricity generators won’t solve the climate problem, and fossil fuels have to be quickly phased out, where will we get our energy? That’s a tough question, and addressing it requires, first and foremost, a discussion of demand.

The scale of energy usage in industrialized countries today is simply unsustainable. Regardless which energy sources we choose (including fanciful ones such as fusion power), using this much energy results in environmental harms such as resource depletion and toxic pollution. If we want our species to be around for the long haul, we must reduce energy demand. The best ways to do that are to encourage a smaller population and to establish economies that aim for increased human happiness rather than growth of resource extraction, manufacturing, and transport.

As energy demand recedes, humanity will have better supply options. Before we started using fossil fuels in enormous quantities, we got much of our energy from burning wood. We can’t do that now, at a time when we use far more energy and also need to increase the planet’s tree cover. Instead, we can use energy from sunlight, wind, and flowing water, not just in high-tech ways—via photovoltaics, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams—but in low-tech ways that entail less usage of mined materials. Low-Tech Magazine explores these options, including human-powered air compressors, sailing ships, practical household bike generators, and low-tech solar panels, among many others.

If we need to conserve energy, the same is true of materials (which require energy for mining, smelting, and manufacturing). Currently many of the materials we use are toxic plastics made from fossil fuels.

Can we get all of the materials we need from nature, without depleting and polluting? In an absolute sense, the answer is probably no, unless we eventually return to hunting and gathering as a way of life. But we can dramatically reduce depletion and toxicity, first by applying the familiar ecologists’ mantra of “reduce, reuse, and recycle,” and then by substituting plant-based materials for plastics and metals wherever possible.

By partially combusting plant wastes, it is possible to produce versatile materials for buildings, roads, and manufactured goods. Thousands of small, regional pyrolysis plants, using a range of feedstocks, most now considered waste, could make both biochar (to increase soil fertility) and “parolysates” (carbon-based materials that could be incorporated into products). In many instances added carbon would improve the performance of materials, making this shift in manufacturing methods profitable.

Helping Nature Capture Carbon

Suppose we do all these things. Still, we’ve already emitted an enormous surplus of carbon into the atmosphere—about 1,000 billion tons of it. As a result, even with nature’s cooling cycles restored, there will continue to be a dangerous warming effect. To minimize that, we will have to remove and sequester a lot of atmospheric carbon, and fast. As we’ve seen, DAC machines aren’t working. What will?

Nature already removes and sequesters about half the carbon emitted by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels. You can see that effect in graphs of the annual atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration: during summer months in the northern hemisphere, when plants are flourishing on Earth’s largest land masses, the atmospheric CO2 concentration declines significantly. Then, in the winter, it rebounds and rises even further due to continually increasing emissions. Oceans absorb far more CO2 than land. We need to assist nature in absorbing a lot more than it already is (while, of course, reducing emissions dramatically and fast, rather than continuing to increase them)

Globally, soils contain about 1,500 billion metric tons of carbon; they’re the the second largest active store of carbon after the oceans (40,000 billion tons). Currently, humanity is forcing soils to give up their carbon to the atmosphere through annual tillage, erosion, and salinization. However, by adopting different practices, we could restore soils and thereby significantly increase their carbon content. The practices that would help most go by the names regenerative agriculture and carbon farming. Estimating how much carbon soil could capture if we adopted these practices at scale is difficult, but some experts suggest the quantity could exceed 20 billion tons by 2050 (of course, that assumes dramatic, coordinated efforts supported by governments and farmers).

The widespread use of biochar and parolysate materials could also capture significant amounts of carbon. In their book Burn: Igniting a New Carbon Drawdown Economy to End the Climate Crisis, authors Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper suggest that the amount of carbon that could theoretically be sequestered in buildings, roads, and consumer products is in the range of hundreds of billions of tons.

Trees and other types of vegetation already store a great deal of carbon, but current agricultural and forestry practices are reducing that amount annually. By some estimates, forests alone could capture and store over 200 billion tons of atmospheric carbon if we started adding trees in an ecologically sensitive way, rather than subtracting trees on a net basis.

The sheer scale of the ocean and its existing carbon content means that the theoretical potential for ocean-based carbon capture exceeds that of other options. However, tapping that potential at scale (for example, by microalgal cultivation or ocean alkalinity enhancement) would require massive technological interventions. Some researchers suggest that encouraging the growth of kelp, a straightforward intervention, could capture and store up to 200 million tons of carbon per year. Wetlands such as marshes and swamps cover only 3 per cent of the world’s land, but contain twice as much carbon as all forests; if restored, they could capture and store a significant amount of carbon (though estimates vary widely). Overfishing, shipping, fertilizer runoff, destruction of coastal wetlands, and plastics pollution are currently devastating ocean ecosystems, causing them to lose much of their carbon capturing capacity. Mining the ocean floor for minerals to build large-scale renewable energy systems would only worsen an already grim situation. It seems that, in the case of the ocean, the most important thing we could do is just to stop the ongoing damage.

If we did these things, could we eliminate all the excess carbon in the atmosphere and thereby stop climate change? Halting global warming altogether is likely not possible, because there is already more heating on the way due to the momentum of feedbacks that have already been set in motion—including the melting of glaciers and sea ice. Further, actually doing all of these things rapidly (say, in the next two or three decades) would require an unprecedented level of international coordination and effort. Nevertheless, the numbers add up: it is possible to draw down excess atmospheric carbon on a scale commensurate with the problem using nature-restoring methods rather than machines. Which is hopeful, because doing it with machines simply isn’t working.

Change Everything

Unlike technology, nature constantly repairs itself. It tends to clean up pollution, rather than spreading toxins. It creates resources rather than depleting them. But to meet all human needs and solve problems using nature’s way, we will have to think entirely differently. It’s not just a matter of gradually setting aside harmful, overly complex technologies, but of shifting subtle societal incentives and disincentives that cause us to turn first to machines, even when unintended consequences are easy to spot.

A more nature-based society will feature fewer people living closer to the land, with a throughput of energy and materials far smaller than is the case in industrialized nations today. We will be less urbanized, more rural. We will rely less on money, and more on community-based cooperation.

This is how Indigenous people have lived for millennia, and so it should be no surprise that some of the most successful nature-based climate mitigation efforts are being led by Indigenous communities.

Fortunately, it is possible for individuals and households to make a difference by promoting biodiversity in their homes, gardens and communities, and to reduce energy and materials usage through their daily choices of what to purchase (or not purchase), what to eat, and how (and how much) to travel.

Unfortunately, circumstances require us to make a decisive shift in how we think and live at a time when as we also face an enormous threat. Since more warming is now inevitable, it is almost certain that the remainder of this century will see mass migrations and political instability. These social challenges will make it harder for nations and communities to mount large-scale, coherent efforts to restore ecosystems.

Nevertheless, whatever we do to try slowing or halting climate change will be most effective if it is aimed at helping nature do more of what it already does. Restoring nature isn’t just our best climate solution, it’s our only solution.

Thanks to Bio4Climate and Christopher Haines for inspiration and help with this article.

Please join us on July 2 for an online Deep Dive panel discussion on climate change, featuring Timothy Lenton, Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter, and Isabel Cavelier Adarve, former climate negotiator and winner of the prestigious Climate Breakthrough Award.

Richard Heinberg is a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and the author of fourteen books, including his most recent: “Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival” (2021).

1 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Latheef Farook

Betrayal of Palestinians by neighbouring  Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian  tyrants together with  United Arab Emirates , facilitates the ongoing  Israeli genocide in Gaza   to evict  Palestinians and grab  their land to create Greater Israel to  destabilize the entire Middle East for generations to come.

The barbarity unleashed on unarmed ,helpless ,voiceless and peaceful Palestinians   by Israel   has brought out worldwide   people of   all walks of life ,including universities,  in massive protests   demanding  US and Europe stop the  slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

Since  October 8  Israel deprived Palestinians of water, food, medicine, electricity to starve  them to death . Shocked at the ongoing barbarity  compassionate Irish parliamentarian Thomas Gould, who became emotional over the death of children in Gaza said : I hope Benjamin Netanyahu burns in hell”.

United Nations Secretary General and many others warned of a catastrophic disaster due to starvation, destroying hospitals ,schools, universities and  mosques . Zionist murderous thugs even attacked  Al Aqsa mosques premises.  The miserable plight of Palestinians were round the clock highlighted  by independent media worldwide.

However there were no such demonstrations or support in the neighbouring   Saudi Arabia , Egypt and Jordan where dictators brutally suppressed any support to Palestinians to please their US-European and Israeli masters to ensure their power.

Instead  Saudi    regime , busy   westernising the society  with dance, music and fashion shows,  liquor shops  ,imprisoning religious scholars and removing Palestine from school text books    stepped up crackdown on  criticism of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in  Gaza.

Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular cannot expect much from Saudi
Arabia where the ruling autocratic  House of Saud was established by British Imperial power and Zionists in the aftermath of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during World  War 1 to serve their interests.

Thus the autocratic Saudi regime has two faces. One to hoodwink the Muslims as guardian of Islam and the other to serve US-European Israeli masters. So far Saudi regimes has destroyed more than 90 percent of places of Islamic heritage-something worst of enemies of Islam failed to do.

South African government filed a case against Israel in the International Court of Justice and later at the International Criminal Court accusing Israel of genocide  of Palestinians in Gaza . The ICC decided to issue arrest warrant of  Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and other war criminals.

What did Saudi and other  Arab dictators do?”  Tightened their oppressive laws to prevent  any demonstration  against Israel . They had to do this to remain in power as once told by former US President Donald Trump that Saudi regime cannot survive for two weeks without the support of US which supplies the most destructive weapons, money and political support to Israel to  continue its   slaughter of Palestinians  and the destruction of Gaza    and the  occupied west  bank.

These  tyrants do not allow democracy and  people  were   suppressed and brutalized with the blessings of US and Europe. For example   it was Saudi Arabia , together  with   UAE and Kuwait,  spent eleven billion dollars to topple  elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy and install military man Abdul Fattah  El Sisi in power  to serve US Israeli interests.

In the process they crushed the rising democracy and threw Egypt, ancient country with more than 7000 year old history and a highly educated and skilled population into darkness.

Had popularly elected Egyptian president Mohamed Morsy remained in power, democracy would have flourished in Egypt and US and Israel would not have dared to commit the heinous crimes in Gaza.

US-European stooge Abdel Fatah  Al Sisi  obediently facilitates  their evil agenda on Gaza. In return for this treachery European Commission President Ursula von der ,known as butcher of Gaza,  rewarded Sisi with a 30 billion dollar loan .EU companies started signing investment deals potentially worth more than 40 billion euros  .

Jordan is no different .Jordan was created after World War 1 by British Imperial power to install Sheriff Hussein who was instigated by British imperial power to revolt against Ottoman Empire, promising him to  create Arab Caliphate while plotting with France to partition Middle East . The Sykes–Picot Agreement ,a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France,  divided Middle East to  suit British and French   agenda. This situations remains in  force to date.

Sheriff Hussein’s son King Hussein , a playboy   known as plucky little king , installed in power at the age of 16 ,  was a great asset to the west and Israel. He massacred around 30,000 Palestinians in Amman in September 1970 due to the blunder of late Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat.

His son present ruler King Abdulla who recently blocked Iranian missiles and  protected  Israel,  closed down Islamic Brotherhood   TV in Amman to please their western masters.  He was received with great warmth by    genocide  President Joe Biden at the White House with all honor.

Pro Hindutva and pro Zionists UAE  abandoned Palestinians and  destroyed Africa’s largest Muslim country Sudan where millions were displaced    facing starvation.

An article by Jean  Shaoul  in the website WSWS citing former US ambassador Ryan Crocker said nearly every Arab state has long viewed the Palestinians with “fear and loathing”

The Arab regimes have not lifted a finger to oppose Israel’s genocidal war and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Instead, they have colluded every step of the way with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s gang of fascists, settlers and religious bigots committed to Jewish Supremacy “from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea”, even as they wring their hands and call for a ceasefire.

Netanyahu and his paymaster in Washington have counted on them doing so because their entire record in relation to the Palestinians has been one of shameless betrayal.   Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have all been in constant communication with Israel and senior Biden administration officials under the guise of mediating an agreement on the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Retired US diplomat Ryan Crocker let the cat out of the bag,  when he  stated unequivocally why, despite publicly supporting Palestinian rights, none of the Arab regimes are willing to accept Palestinian refugees—because they have long viewed the Palestinians with “fear and loathing.”

Columnist Feras Abu-Helal pinted out Arabs  all over Middle East and Muslims worldwide remain disgusted with their regimes  denying even the basic rights to the people .Hamas attacks on occupied Israeli territories and the Israeli genocide in Gaza exposed the dictators betrayal of their own people.

Senior journalist Latheef Farook is based in Colombo, Sri Lanka

1 July 2024

Source: countercurrents.org