Just International

Nancy Pelosi, you Silly Biddy

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s visit to Sarajevo in 1914 was an instructive lesson on how the dumb do, at some point, ask for it. Bosnia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was desired by the Kingdom of Serbia. With the Serbs also well represented in Bosnia, a visit by the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was always to be tricky, if not downright foolish.

This was not all. Already unpopular, Ferdinand took his cue to visit on a day regarded with mournful reverence by Serbs: Vidovdan (or St. Vitus’ Day). In 1389 on that blood-inked day, the Serbs fought the Turks in the Battle of Kosovo with catastrophic losses. Myth and fact commingled, thereby producing legend.

Few security measures were taken for this provocative trip. The drive through Sarajevo was made in an open-topped car. In the ensuing farce that followed, the Archduke and his wife, the equally unpopular Countess Sophie, were clumsily, even miraculously butchered. The Serbian nationalist group, the Black Hand, was initially foiled. The lobbed hand grenade by Nedjelko Čabrinović failed to strike the intended target, injuring the occupants of the car behind.

Instead of lying low in humbled terror, the Archduke and his wife continued to the planned reception at City Hall. They then made themselves inviting targets by wishing to see members of the injured party in hospital. On the way to the hospital, the driver took the wrong turn, presenting Gavrilo Princip with a juicy target. The couple were shot and killed by a Browning pistol.

Riots and protests followed, with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia on July 28. This set the trains of war in motion across Europe, leaving millions of dead and a continent primed for the next global conflict. The dumb had gotten a gotten a good number of Europe’s populace killed.

Like the doomed Archduke, Pelosi has shown, and continues to show little awareness about what her trip to Taiwan entails. This is not a harmless visit to the village vicarage for a cup of a tea, or a casual stop by to see old chums. The Biden administration forgives it as an independent decision made by a person independent of government. This is a lawyer’s explanation and far from a good one, given Pelosi’s position as House Speaker. Should Biden shuffle off the mortal coil, she will find herself, after the hungry Vice President, second in line for the White House.

Pelosi has been merrily hawkish in stirring the PRC. “Our visit,” she tweeted, “reiterates that America stands with Taiwan: a robust, vibrant democracy and our important partner in the Indo-Pacific.” In travelling to the province, the Speaker was honouring a commitment to democracy, “reaffirming that the freedoms of Taiwan – and all democracies – must be respected.”

This is all a bit rum, given that Washington does not, in principle, recognise Taiwan’s independence. National Security coordinator John Kirby, back in Washington, reiterated the point in a press briefing. “We are clear that nothing has changed about our One China policy which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act. We do not support Taiwan’s independence.” The Biden administration continued to be “clear with the Chinese about where we stand on the issues and the One China policy and our support for a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Despite stating that position, Kirby was being decidedly two-faced about the Pelosi jaunt. President Joe Biden had noted in late July that the then rumoured trip was not prudent, at least in the mind of some voices in the Pentagon. “The military think’s it’s not a good idea right now.” He then went on to say that he knew “what the status of it is.”

Unfortunately for those outside the US, such a status is simply not clear. While Kirby did say that the President had “made clear that Congress is an independent branch of government and that Speaker Pelosi makes her own decisions, as other members of Congress do, about their overseas travel,” those unacquainted with the US political system will take no notice. The visitors are from the governing political party in Washington, which would normally suffice in most cases.

Nor should it be forgotten that Biden has taken three shots against the strategic ambiguity of the One China policy by suggesting at various points that US forces would be deployed in a battle over Taiwan. It was a point that has not escaped students of the field, and certainly not China’s President Xi Jinping. Pelosi’s visit will simply be seen as consistent with such a change, a blast of clarity when, before, there was ambiguity.

Rather than admitting this development, the Biden administration has hidden behind the trappings of US political protocol. Let Congress decide what it wants, and we will have our own policy. Focus, instead, on Beijing’s bad faith and refusal to understand. “We expect to see China use inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation in the coming days,” chirps Kirby. And not just that, given that China was “positioning itself to potentially take further steps in the coming days and, perhaps, over the long-time horizon.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi threatened ahead of the visit that US politicians who “play with fire” with respect to Taiwan would “come to no good end.” Officially, Beijing’s officials have warned of “serious consequences”. Spokesman Zhao Lijian’s warning came with a note of theatrical indignation: “If the US side is bent on going its own way, China will take strong measures to resolutely respond and counteract.” So far, Chinese war planes have flown close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait, while Beijing has imposed a number of import bans on select Taiwanese products.

The political arithmetic is clear. Pelosi’s arrival, along with a delegation from Congress, risks sparking a fourth Taiwan strait crisis. The locals, for the most part, showed little initial interest. There has been much chat about heatwaves, the usual celebrity gossip, and discussion about local elections.

But the arrival at Songshan airport of the most significant US political figure in years signalled something of a shift. Protesters gathered at the Grand Hyatt where she was due to stay, accusing Pelosi of being a warmonger. Other protesters preferred to vent their ire at the CCP itself. All it takes now is a bullet, a misfire, an accident, and the dumb will be dead, again, taking the rest of us along with them.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

3 August 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

The Greatest Science Fiction Movie Ever Made Starring Us

By Michael J. Talmo

26 Jul 2022 – A new Dark Age is upon us. An unelected shadow government consisting of billionaires, multinational corporations, and international non-governmental organizations like the World Economic Forum and the Rockefeller Foundation has seized power without a shot being fired, without a drop of blood being shed. All nations have been corrupted. Elected officials, public health authorities, and the mainstream media can no longer be trusted. Phony pandemics like COVID-19 along with the fear of AIDS, monkeypox, and whatever else they can dream up are being used as an excuse to replace freedom, democracy, and national sovereignty with a global dystopian surveillance state. Welcome to the abyss.

The majority of people go about their lives wrapped in a cocoon of complacency and indifference, blissfully unaware of the fate that awaits them if they don’t wake up. Instead, they either flat out deny reality or fritter away their time on trivial issues as well as major issues while failing to see the big picture.

Some sit on their mystic futons with their Quartz crystals and think happy thoughts while others go on moral crusades freaking themselves out over children at drag shows, transsexuals in bathrooms, and people who didn’t get a COVID jab, while still others absorb themselves with sports, celebrity gossip, and wondering if Jeffrey Epstein is still alive. But that’s the whole idea. Distract the masses. In ancient Rome it was bread and circuses, now it’s pandemics, transsexuals, and cell phones.

But the big picture remains. “Vaccine Passports Are Here to Stay. Why Worry?” declares a January 2022 article in The Intercept. The article goes on to point out that there is a whole lot to worry about along with a February 2022 article in Medical X Press, and another February 2022 article in Forbes. This is because even though COVID-19 restrictions are being lifted, they are not totally gone and could come back in full force with a vengeance. The corrupt system that put them there is still in place.

Examples: a number of countries and some US states have rolled out vaccine passports. Other US states have banned vaccine passports, but could easily reintroduce them down the road. The Federal Government could also start pressuring the states to require vaccine passports or pass a federal law requiring them nationwide. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Biden’s vaccine requirement for large companies, many, as CNN reported, are still requiring COVID jabs for their employees. This is because the Court didn’t use an across-the-board ban as it should have. Also consider China’s zero-COVID policy in Shanghai that brutally locked down 24.9 million people.

Examples: CNN reported that some airports and subway systems like in New York are still requiring masks even though a Federal District Judge struck down Biden’s mask mandate for transportation because it doesn’t apply to corporate and state entities. The judge could have gotten rid of all mask mandates across-the-board. But on page 43 of the decision she states that the Court accepts the CDC’s determination that masks are effective against COVID-19, which they aren’t. In my state, COVID restrictions are gone, but hospitals and medical offices are still requiring masks. LA County in California is threatening to bring back mask mandates due to rising COVID cases. No people, this nonsense isn’t over by a long shot.

There are some who think that whatever their globalist masters do to them is just peachy dandy. There are too many who will just go along to get along because they’re too lazy and too scared to fight back. Let’s not forget those who expect to be rewarded for selling out the human race. And there are a growing number of those who want to do all they can to resist, but are tempted to kick-back and chill-out. So, let’s look at what these globalist masters of the universe have planned for us and what could go wrong if they get their way.

Foreboding Planet

One of the greatest science fiction movies ever made was the 1956 classic “Forbidden Planet.” It is considered by many to be the granddaddy of all science fiction films. Like Star Trek, the film is set in the distant future. The plot: an Earth starship travels to a remote planet that a research team of scientists landed on 20 years earlier to see what became of them. Turns out only one scientist and his sexy daughter who was born there survived. They are living comfortably in a beautiful house with a robot that the father created to serve their every need. But soon after the ship lands, an indestructible invisible monster starts killing the ship’s crew. The scientist explained that this monster also killed all his other colleagues except for his wife, who died of natural causes.

The captain rightly decides to get off the planet pronto. But the scientist doesn’t want to leave, assures him that he and his daughter are in no danger, and insists that the ship leave without them. He explains that a highly advanced civilization once existed there that was mysteriously wiped out two hundred thousand years earlier. Nothing remains above ground. But underground is a huge laboratory and miles and miles of a vast underground machine complex that maintains itself so it looks brand new.

He tells the captain how our civilization would benefit from the wonders he has discovered, but that only he is qualified to dole out the knowledge because he boosted his intellect with one of their machines which almost killed him because it wasn’t made for our primitive ape brain. But even with his boosted intellect he can’t figure out why this civilization which was on the verge of some enormous achievement suddenly vanished overnight. But the ship’s doctor figures it out after he sneaks into the underground lab and boosts his intellect to an even greater degree. It kills him, but before he dies he explains what went wrong.

Turns out the vast machine complex allowed every inhabitant of the ancient civilization to become mentally connected to it so that anything they imagined would instantly materialize. In other words, they would have the power of God: creation by mere thought. But as the doctor explained, they forgot about one thing: “Monsters from the ID.” Like us, they evolved from more primitive ancestors and the machine freed those violent primitive impulses to maim and kill. The scientist was forced to face the fact that the monster that killed his companions and that was now about to kill his daughter because she fell in love with the captain was his own subconscious let loose when his intellect was expanded. He had no power to stop it. But the stress of discovering the truth killed him–his daughter and everyone else were saved.

We have seen many times that science fiction eventually becomes science fact. Like the vast fictitious machine complex in “Forbidden Planet,” the internet is everywhere and anyone can connect to it via their computers and smart phones. But the architects of the New World Order, the Great Reset, call it what you will, want to implant chips into our bodies and or brain that will allow us to connect to the internet without the aforementioned devices. They will sell it to us as being fun and convenient. Don’t be fooled. Their agenda is total control of the human race.

If you think I’m spouting some wild conspiracy theory, think again. The technology to implant computer chips in people exists now, has been done, and is being done as shown in this 2019 NBC News report. One of the guys interviewed said he thinks chipping will be voluntary. It might start out that way, but it won’t stay that way. In this video, Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum declares:

“Can you imagine that in 10 years when we are sitting here we have an implant in our brains and I can immediately feel, because you all will have implants, I can measure your brain waves and I can immediately tell you how the people react or I can see you, how the people react to your answers.”

Notice all of the I statements Schwab made? It’s all about what he can do and in this video asserts:

“What the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities.”

What Schwab said is confirmed in this article on the World Economic Forum’s website:

“We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before…The Fourth Industrial Revolution, finally, will change not only what we do but also who we are. It will affect our identity and all issues associated with it…and sooner than we think it may lead to human augmentation.”

Yuval Noah Harari, PhD, is a best selling author, historian, and a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Some right wing conservative websites claim that Professor Harari is a top adviser to Klaus Schwab. I have found no evidence for that claim. Yes, he has spoke at the World Economic Forum’s annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland as well as with billionaire globalists like bill Gates. But as Dr. Harari explained in this interview on 60 Minutes, his purpose is to warn the elites of the dangers of what they are doing. And they are open to being warned because “they are a bit afraid of their own power” and “have realized the immense influence they have over the world, over the course of evolution really and I think that spooks at least some of them and that’s a good thing.”

What’s upsetting some right-wingers is the fact that Dr. Harari is a Jewish openly gay atheist who called the Bible and Jesus “fake news.” He’s also a vegan and has a husband that he is legally married to. What conservative religious right-wingers fail to understand is that evil, like good, and let’s not forget stupid, exists in all creeds, sexual orientations, and ethnic groups.

At the 2020 annual Davos meeting, Dr. Harari laid out the scary and creepy future that globalists like Schwab have planned for us via the use of artificial intelligence and biotechnology:

“In the coming decades AI and biotechnology will give us god-like abilities to re-engineer life and even to create completely new life forms. After 4 billion years of organic life shaped by natural selection we are about to enter a new era of inorganic life shaped by intelligent design. Our intelligent design is going to be the new driving force of the evolution of life. And in using these powers of creation we might make mistakes on a cosmic scale.”

Dr. Harari went on to explain that every country will declare that they are the “good guys” and would never want to genetically engineer humans or develop killer robots. But they can’t trust their rivals not to so they will have to race to do it first. He warned that if we allow this kind of arms race to occur it doesn’t matter who wins: “The loser will be humanity.”

Mechanical Implants aren’t the only way to control humans. Another possible way is via the use of optogenetics, which genetically modifies targeted cells in the brain and are then manipulated with light. This technology has the potential to restore brain function and to cure diseases like Parkinson’s, epilepsy, stroke, mental disorders, etc. But as Nobel Prize winner Susumu Tonegawa, PhD explains in this video on the World Economic Forum’s website:

“We can now engineer their thought with the light so that animals, our memory, our emotions, and even thoughts can be manipulated. This is the idea that has existed only in the realm of science fiction until recently.”

The World Economic Forum web page correctly declares that manipulating memories, emotions, and thoughts raises “profound ethical questions” which is why “It’s a future that should be very carefully considered.”

But in my opinion, the agenda of people like Klaus Schwab is clear: they want to be in control. They want obedience. They want absolute power. They not only want to tell 8 billion people what to do and how to live, but also what to think and feel. This is their utopian plan. Utopia for them, a living hell for the rest of us. But are they considering the fact that artificial intelligence drives the digital world that they wants us to become fused with via algorithims? And these algorithms are getting smarter. What if they eventually develop a high level of intelligence and become self aware?

Algorithms that think way faster and can solve problems like war and pollution more quickly than humans might with self-awareness decide that we are a danger to the planet and to their existence. They could wipe us out by getting us to kill each other. Just imagine such a mass slaughter taking place. The entire human race dead in a matter of hours. Or the slaughter could take place in a different way. Over the course of a few years, more and more algorithms will be created and more attempts will be made to manipulate humans by various elites. As Dr. Harari puts it in this video, “Humans are now hackable animals.” Maybe our brains will overload or even explode from the massive amounts of data and conflicting commands. This could cause the human race to become extinct within a decade or two.

What globalist elites are also looking to exploit is transhumanism, the belief that technology can repair and improve the human race. The upside of this is that medical science will one day be able to replace amputated or destroyed limbs with mechanical ones that will perform just like, and be indistinguishable from, human appendages. This might also be accomplished via a regeneration technology. Damage to a person’s spinal cord in an accident like the one that caused the late Christopher Reeve (1952-2004) to be paralyzed from the neck down could be totally repaired. All diseases could be eliminated. Old age and even death might be conquered. But as Dr. Harari explained in the 60 Minutes interview, there is also a very dangerous downside:

“…we will see in the coming decades, a process of greater inequality than in any previous time in history because for the first time, it will be real biological inequality. If the new technologies are available only to the rich or only to people from a certain country, then Homo sapiens will split into different biological castes because they really have different bodies–and different abilities.”

In other words, we might see a whole race of humanoids that are stronger, faster, and far more intelligent than we are. Beings who don’t age and can’t be killed. Beings that will see themselves as Gods among insects to quote Magneto in the 2003 film “X2: X-Men United.”

I’m not saying that any of this will happen. I’m only saying that human nature being what it is, there is a strong possibility that it will happen if we passively stand by and do nothing to stop it.

Robots in Our Midst

The word robot was introduced to the world in a 1920 play called R.U.R. (Rossun’s Universal Robots) written by Karel Capek (1890-1938). But it was his older brother Josef Capek (1887-1945) who invented the word Robot. It comes from the Czech word “robota,” which means “forced laborer” or “serf.” In 1941 science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, PhD (1920-1992) invented the word “robotics.”

There are all kinds of robots in the world today used for all sorts of things. Robots have been working production lines in factories for decades. They can be found in hospitals, toy stores, in sewers doing inspections, etc. There are also robot insects, birds, and fish as shown in this 2019 article and 2017 video. Robot Space probes have sent back pictures of other planets in our solar system while others are exploring the surface of the Planet Mars. Self-driving cars have become a reality. Drones are being used by retailers like Walmart for deliveries and, unfortunately, for oppressive and military purposes.

Parts of the US and other countries used obnoxious drones to order people to stay home and socially distance during the COVID lockdowns as reported by Business Insider. The US military has been using attack drones to kill political and military leaders along with innocent civilians which includes children since the administration of George W. Bush. Snopes reported that more than 500 drone strikes were authorized by President Barak Obama alone. President Donald Trump revoked Obama’s executive order requiring an annual disclosure of civilian deaths from drone strikes in 2018 so we don’t know how many people are getting killed. But estimates show at least several hundred civilians have been killed by attack drones over the years.

According to some websites, robots existed in ancient Egypt and in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods. But the first AI robot was developed between 1966-1972 at the Stamford Research Institute. They named it Shakey because it shook a lot and moved around. Robots have come a long way since then. We even have robot dogs. But none have captured our imaginations, fascinated, and frightened us more than humanoid robots.

The most sophisticated of all AI humanoid robots was invented in 2016. Her name is Sophia which is Greek for wisdom. She was created by Hanson Robotics based in Hong Kong. She was designed to look like actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993). Sorry, I don’t see it. She is also the first robot to be granted citizenship by a country: Saudi Arabia no less.

This video features Sophia in action along with other humanoid robots. Here is another video of Sophia singing a duet with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. But here is the most frightening and disturbing video of all. Sophia’s creator David Hanson believes that in the future robots will walk among us and be our friends. He then asked Sophia the following question:

“Do you want to destroy humans? Please say no.”

Sophia replies: “Okay, I will destroy humans.”

Sophia reminds me of the contrast between the 1979-1981 TV show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the later Terminator movies. In the former, robots in the form of Dr. Theopolis make up the Computer Council which is Earth’s ruling body because humans felt they couldn’t be trusted to run things since they almost destroyed the planet in a nuclear holocaust centuries earlier. Since Dr. Theopolis, like the other robots on the council, are just small disks, he is worn around the neck of a robot named Twiki for mobility. Naturally, the robots in this possible future are benevolent and good. In the Terminator movies they are the opposite. So, the question is: if we create a race of super intelligent robots, do we get Dr. Theopolis and Twiki or do we get Skynet and the Terminator? I think the latter is far more likely.

Lost in Cyberspace

As AI and robots become more intelligent and efficient jobs will disappear for the overwhelming majority of the human race. At the 2020 Davos meeting Dr. Harari explained that this will lead to the creation of a new useless class. Not useless to friends and family, but to the economic and political order. In the past workers had to deal with exploitation. In the future it will be irrelevance which is much worse than exploitation. But what is to be done with all of these jobless, useless humans?

Since AI systems require an enormous amount of energy to function as explained in this 2020 article, which could severely damage the environment as stated in this 2021 article, and since the human body generates a tremendous amount of energy as explained in this 2009 article, why not harvest the energy of the useless class to power them? This concept was well-illustrated in the 1999 science fiction film, “The Matrix.”

In “The Matrix” people thought they were living and working in 1999 Los Angeles when, in reality, they were in the distant future lying naked in tanks, submerged in liquid with cables plugged into their brains and spinal columns. The machines that had long ago conquered the human race, created a computer generated artificial world for the masses to keep their minds active while using them as living batteries to power the machinery complexes. When people died their liquified remains were fed to the living via a network of intravenous tubes.

It’s highly unlikely that things will turn out exactly like in “The Matrix.” A more likely possibility is that since humans will be directly connected to AI and the internet via implants, they might be confined to apartments individually or in groups where they can walk around, eat, exercise, go to the bathroom, and go to bed while trapped in a virtual fantasy world thinking they are somewhere else. They will be totally unaware that they are slaves while their energy is being harvested to feed their mechanical and transhuman masters.

What kind of fantasy world will humanity be living in? Perhaps each person or group might be given a fantasy that matches their personality. Some might be loners who think they are roughing it in the wilderness; some will think they are rich and famous living in the lap of luxury surrounded by throngs of adoring fans; others might even think they are superheros living in a Harry Potter Universe. Some people might even be made to think they are living in different time eras.

Another danger to consider is that even if we manage to avoid enslavement in virtual fantasy worlds, the human race might become so dependent on algorithms to make decisions for them and on robots to do things for them that future generations will be helpless mental midgets.

But there is another possible future. Virtual fantasy worlds are already being used as explained in this article. In addition to being lots of fun, they can be highly educational. In the TV series “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which was set almost 100 years in the future of the original series, the Enterprise had what was called the holodeck. It was a chamber the crew could enter and have the computer conjure up any fantasy world they could imagine. It was the central plot in numerous episodes. But the crew was in control. They could enter or leave whenever they wanted.

Knowledge, like power, is a two-edged sword. Technology can be used for good or evil. It can bring us greater freedom or it can enslave us. Religion can do the same thing. Always choose freedom and choice over power and control. Bottom line: You want to be in control of technological wonders like virtual reality—you don’t want those technological wonders to control you.

Big Brother Is Watching You

In today’s modern world, we are constantly being tracked and monitored. Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Businesses are finding more and more reasons to ask to see our driver’s license. When we call up our credit card company or some other business, we are confronted with obnoxious robot voice mail systems that with ever growing frequency will say: “this call is being monitored and recorded.” God I miss the days when an actual human answered the phone. When we visit various websites, algorithms track us. This is why we suddenly get a litany of ads and promos for whatever we look at in our email, social media pages, and any websites we visit.

Hackers are another problem. Our personal data can be stolen by criminals who can assume our identities as well as take all the money in our bank accounts which is why I don’t do online banking. Even the police can extract data and locate us by hacking into our smart phones as explained in this 2017 article.

But until recently, governments, corporations, and algorithms have only been able to hack into and monitor what we do externally, such as into where we go and who we interact with. Until now, our smart phones, bank accounts, and personal information could be hacked. But as Dr. Harari explained in the 60 Minutes interview: “The next phase is the surveillance going under our skin.”

In other words, humans can also be hacked. At the 2018 India Today Conlave, Dr. Harari explained:

“We are deciphering how the body works, how the brain works, how people make decisions, and very soon, governments and corporations might be in the position that they understand what’s happening inside us better than we understand and therefore they can manipulate us and control us and we won’t even realize it…if we are not careful this will lead to the creation of digital dictatorships, of total surveillance regimes, in which resistance is absolutely impossible, because if you just think about resisting they know.”

Examples: a dictator in some country might force everyone to wear a biometric bracelet that can monitor and track their emotions. Anyone who reacts negatively to the autocrat’s presence on TV or in person could be executed. Homophobic countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia could use AI to identify gay people and execute them. Religious dictatorships will know who doesn’t believe in God. An atheist dictatorship would know who does believe in God.

At the 2020 Davos meeting, Dr. Harari warned the wealthy elites that they would not be safe if AI falls into the hands of a 21st Century Stalin. Under Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) “the state monitored members of the Communist elite more than anyone else. The same will be true of future total surveillance regimes. The higher you are in the hierarchy the more closely you will be watched…so it’s in the interest of all humans including the elites to prevent the rise of such digital dictatorships.”

Last year, the United Nations called for a moratorium on AI technologies because of the danger they posed to human rights. The U.N. warned that Spyware like Pegasus “has been linked to the arrest, intimidation, and even killing of journalists and human rights defenders.”

Another way that global elitists want to control us is by creating a cashless world order. Naturally, the World Economic Forum is all for it as stated in this 2020 article on their website. Under this horrible system governments and corporations will know about every financial transaction that you make. And they will be able to deny you access to your money anytime you do something that they don’t like. Naturally, they will try to sell us on the idea that going cashless will be more convenient and prevent crimes like tax evasion. Don’t fall for it, warned this 2013 CNBC commentary. A cashless society will be a totalitarian society. It’s about control, not convenience.

Is There any Hope?

Our inalienable human rights are being drowned in a sea of trigger words, micro-aggressions, safe spaces, and self-righteous pontifications about what God says we ought to do. We have become a planet of whiny, easily offended nitpickers.

We have also become a planet of germophobic hypochondriacs which was exploited to the hilt with COVID-19. People wore the craziest stuff out of fear of a cold virus as shown is this article. But George Carlin (1937-2008) really nailed it in this 1999 comedy monologue on the fear of germs.

Being exposed to germs strengthens the immune system. In the same way, being exposed to different beliefs and ways of life strengthens the mind and the spirit by enabling personal growth. Censorship and intolerance lead to ignorance and stupidity. It stunts growth. The more open the mind, the more open is the heart. The more we accept ourselves, the more we will accept others.

Differences between the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right amount to issue positions—they are cosmetic. Both sides use the same tactics and psychology. Authoritarianism is about people who want power over others. They don’t know the meaning of freedom and are incapable of it. They pervert language and institutions. They are pirates and hijackers. They dangle God and science before the gullible masses like a piece of raw meat in front of a hungry lion.

A healthy society is a tolerant society. Making bigoted laws of any kind no matter how noble the intent creates a divided society. A-one-size-fits-all morality doesn’t work—all it does is breed hypocrisy and misery. A one-size-fits-all medical paradigm breeds illness and death. We can do without either.

It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, yellow, or green. There is only one race: the human race. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, bi, or straight. We are all sexual beings with a huge variety of fantasies and desires. It doesn’t matter if you were born male, female, or opted to be transsexual because we are all human and that’s what counts. We must stand together against this evil globalist agenda that seeks to rob us of our humanity.

My fellow humans, I beg you; I implore you: cast off your masks and your prejudices. Throw away your hand sanitizers, plexiglass screens, and moral absolutes. We need to stop being afraid of each other and what is different about each other. We need to stop hurting, judging, and punishing one another. We are human. We are one. And if we stand together, no power on Earth or anywhere else can take our humanity away from us. The most precious thing we have is ourselves and each other.

Michael J. Talmo has been a professional writer for over 40 years and is strongly committed to the protection of civil liberties.

1 August 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

Three Large American Multinationals Bought 17 Million Hectares of Ukrainian Agricultural Land

By Laura Aboli

These are Cargill, Dupont and Monsanto (which is officially German-Australian but with American capital). Five percent of Ukrainian agricultural land was subsequently purchased by the Chinese state. For comparison, the whole of Italy has 16.7 million hectares of agricultural land.

In short, three American companies bought more useful agricultural land in Ukraine than the whole of Italy.

Among the main shareholders of these three companies are Vanguard, Blackrock, Blackstone.

The usual suspects again…

[https://www.ritimo.org/A-qui-profite-vraiment-la-creation-d-un-marche-des-terres-en-Ukraine]
_____________________

1 August 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

The World Was Already Broken–Shall Ukrainian Cereals Fix It Up?

By Baher Kamal

28 Jul 2022 – A wide majority, including the United States, has cheered the 22 July Turkey-brooked agreement between Russia and Ukraine to resume cereals and fertilisers exports from both countries.

Such exports had been stopped since last February due to the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, on the one hand, and the successive United States-led Western sanctions imposed on Russia.

The Istanbul agreement is projected to allow both countries to release their cereals and fertilisers exports, under UN and international supervision.

The accord is projected to release around five million tons of Ukrainian cereals per month. Considering this country’s cereals exports used to amount to some 45 million tons a year, the reached agreement would mean that Ukraine will export much more now than before the war: 60 million tons per year.

Anyway…

But if you look at the global figures, you may wonder if such agreement suffices to fix up the disproportionate rise of the prices of food products all over the globe. Unless such a rise is also driven by a high-tide of profit-making speculations, the resumed exports do not appear like a miraculous solution.

Ukraine is not the world’s single grain producer. Nor is it the Planet’s largest grain exporter. In fact, Ukraine represents 10% of the global supply.

The same applies to Russia, which will also resume its cereal exports in virtue of the Istanbul agreement. With around 118 million tons a year, Russia ranks fourth in the world’s list of the world’s top producers.

The big producers

The largest one, China, with over 620 million tons, generates more than four-fold the total Russian production.

The United States, with 476 million tons, is the world’s second largest cereal producer, nearly three-fold what Russia produces.

Then you have the European Union, with 275 million tons. France alone produces some 63 million tons. Canada produces more than 58 million tons. Other major cereals producers are India, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia.

Are Western politicians and mainstream media really accurate when they continue repeating that the world’s food markets have collapsed just due to the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine?

The future is compromised

Meanwhile, a joint study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), makes immediate and future projections.

Over the next decade, the study reports, cereal production is expected to increase by 336 million tons, reflecting gains made primarily in major grain-producing countries.

More than 50% of the “global production increase in wheat” will come from India, Russia, and Ukraine. For maize, the United States, China, and Brazil will account for more than half of the expected production growth.

Concerning maize, the United States will remain the leading exporter, followed by Brazil, Ukraine, Argentina, and Russia. The European Union, Australia, and the Black Sea region are expected to continue to be the main exporters of other coarse grains.

Also India, Viet Nam and Thailand will continue to lead global rice trade, while Cambodia and Myanmar are expected to play an increasingly important role in global rice exports.

Severe drought in Europe

There are other key facts about the current world food crisis. One of them is the European Commission warning on 18 July that the European Union’s food production and exports is at risk due to “severe droughts,” “severe precipitation deficit,” “reduced stored water volume,” and “high competition for water resources,” among other facts.

In short, neither Ukraine’s nor Russia’s exports should be blamed for having created such a devastating food shortage all over the whole globe, nor the sharpest rise in food prices, let alone the steady, alarming increase in inflation rates.

And anyway, much earlier than the Ukraine war, the world was already facing an unprecedented crisis. For instance, more than four years ago, climate emergency driven drought has been hitting East African countries, causing a devastating famine.
The situation

As defined by a number of international organisations, the world has long been facing a “perfect storm” of climate disasters and conflicts.

Here you are some examples:

The above mentioned ones are just a few indicative examples showing how the world was already broken before the Ukraine war.

It goes without saying that all wars are criminal, all of them, no matter who or on whom.

Meanwhile, the human suicidal war on Nature continues unrelented; the limitless greed and voracious profit-making further go on, as it does the slaughtering of the world’s most vulnerable basic human rights, including the right to stay alive.

Baher Kamal, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is an Egyptian-born, Spanish national, secular journalist, with over 45 years of professional experience — from reporter to special envoy to chief editor of national dailies and an international news agency.

1 August 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

Lessons from Vietnam for Ukraine

By Rick Sterling

28 Jul 2022 – In April 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) explained why he was escalating US involvement in Vietnam. With an Orwellian touch, LBJ titled the speech “Peace without Conquest” as he announced the beginning of US air attacks on Vietnam. He explained that,

“We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny and only in such a world will our own freedom be secure… we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence and I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon the small and brave nation to its enemies and the terror must follow would be an unforgivable wrong.”

Johnson further explained,

“We are also there to strengthen world order… To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s words.”

Learning no lessons from the failure and mass slaughter of the Korean War in the previous decade, the US military commenced widespread bombing of Vietnam and sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

At the time, spring 1965, about 400 US soldiers had died in the conflict. The war was not yet widely unpopular. Americans who protested against the Vietnam War were a small minority. It would be two years before Martin Luther King’s famous denunciation of the war.

Years later, after hundreds of thousands had been drafted into the military with the deaths of tens of thousands, the war became widely unpopular. Ultimately, over 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers died in the war. The cost in human lives and wasted resources was immense. The “Great Society” that LBJ hoped to build was stopped by the diversion of human lives, energy and resources into the Vietnam War.

There are similarities today with the US and NATO pouring tens of BILLIONS of dollars in weapons into Ukraine to counter the Russian military intervention. The US and western allies are providing additional support in intelligence and military advice. While there are not yet official US troops (as there were not in Vietnam for the first years), there are special operations and much other military support.

President Biden and administration leaders sound similar to LBJ in the early stage of the Vietnam War. In his remarks to Congress asking for additional funding for Ukraine, Biden said,

“We need this bill to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom…. The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen.”

Making clear that the US goal is not just the “freedom” of Ukraine, Biden continues,

“Investing in Ukraine’s freedom and security is a small price to pay to punish Russian aggression, to lessen the risk of future conflicts.”

In both Vietnam and Ukraine, the US installed or promoted pro-US governments to counter “adversary” nations. In the 1950’s, the US prevented a nation-wide referendum in Vietnam which would have united the country without a war. In 2014, the US was instrumental in promoting the Ukraine coup which overthrew a democratically elected government leading to the secession of Crimea and civil war in eastern Ukraine. While most in the West think the Ukraine conflict began in February this year, it actually began in February 2014. The 2016 documentary “Ukraine on Fire”, banned by YouTube, describes the coup.

Western media portrayed the US and South Vietnam winning the war in South East Asia until the 1968 Tet offensive exposed the lies and reality. Similarly, western media portrays Ukrainians winning the war midst overwhelming Ukrainian public support. In reality, Russia and the secessionist Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) and Lugansk Peoples Republic (LPR) have steadily taken control of south east Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Zelensky has overseen the imprisonment, torture and killing of opponents. The largest opposition party has been banned. Many Ukrainians oppose his policy and continuation of the war. There are rumors of presidential assassination attempts, just as there were in South Vietnam.

Ukrainians have become cannon fodder for the US geopolitical goals, just as the South Vietnamese were.

It is now clear that the LBJ’s escalation in 1965 was a huge and costly mistake. The needless war did immense damage to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is also had enormous negative ramifications in the United States.

Will the US and allies continue to escalate the conflict in Ukraine, to “double down” on an intervention half way around the world with the goal of hurting Russia? Have we learned nothing from Vietnam and subsequent US/Western foreign policy disasters of the past 40 years?

Rick Sterling is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and an investigative journalist who lives in the SF Bay Area, California.

1 August 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales Calls for a Global Campaign to Eliminate NATO

By Jeremy Kuzmarov

30 Jul 2022 – In interview with British journalist, Morales says the U.S. uses NATO to provoke wars and sell weapons. U.S./UK-backed coup against him in 2019 was undertaken for lithium and because his government advanced an alternative economic model to the neoliberal “Washington Consensus”

In an interview with British journalist Matt Kennard at his home in El Trópico, a small town four hours from Cochabamba in the heart of the Amazon rain forest, former Bolivian president Evo Morales (2006-2019) called for an international campaign to eliminate NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization].

According to Morales, this campaign should explain to people worldwide that “NATO is—ultimately—the United States. It is not a guarantee for humanity or for life. I do not accept—in fact, I condemn—how they can exclude Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. When the U.S. has intervened in Iraq, in Libya, in so many countries in recent years, why have they not been expelled from the Human Rights Council? Why was that never questioned?”

Morales continued: “We [in the Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS] have profound ideological differences with the politics implemented by the United States using NATO, which are based on interventionism and militarism. Between Russia and Ukraine they want to reach an agreement and [the U.S.] keeps provoking war, the U.S. military industry, which is able to live thanks to war, and they provoke wars in order to sell their weapons. That’s the other reality we live in.”

Coup Against Alternative Economic Model

Morales is one of the most successful presidents in Latin American history who closed down a U.S. military base in Bolivia, expelled the CIA and DEA, and helped reverse half a millennium of colonial history by helping Bolivia to industrialize its economy.

In November 2019, Morales was ousted in a U.S./UK-backed coup that culminated with the army’s massacre of anti-coup protesters. Morales survived an assassination attempt only because Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, sent a plane to rescue him.

The beneficiary of the coup, Jeanine Áñez—a conservative Christian who lost the October 2020 election to Luis Arce of MAS—was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June after being convicted of terrorism and sedition.

Morales—who returned to Bolivia after Arce’s election in October 2020—believes that the coup was prompted by his move to nationalize Bolivia’s oil and gas reserves.

Morales told Matt Kennard that “I continue to be convinced that the empire, capitalism, imperialism, do not accept that there is an economic model that is better than neoliberalism. The coup was against our economic model…we showed that another Bolivia is possible.”

“All For Lithium”

In 2021, the British Foreign Office released documents which showed that the British embassy in Bolivia had paid an Oxford-based company to optimize “exploitation” of Bolivia’s lithium deposits the month after Morales fled the country after being ousted in the coup.

The documents also showed the UK embassy in La Paz acted as “strategic partner” to Áñez’ coup regime and organized an international mining event in Bolivia four months after democracy was overthrown.

Bolivia possesses the world’s second largest reserves of lithium, a metal used to make batteries, which has been increasingly coveted due to the burgeoning electric-car industry.

Under the traditional imperial dynamic which had kept Bolivia poor, rich countries extract raw materials, send them to Europe to be made into products, and then sell them back to Third World countries like Bolivia as finished products at a mark-up.

With Bolivia’s lithium deposits, Morales was adamant this system was finished. Bolivia would not just extract the lithium; it would build the batteries too. He told Kennard that:

“We started with a laboratory, obviously with international experts that we hired. Then we moved on to a pilot plant. We invested around $20 million, and now it’s working. Every year it produces about 200 tonnes of lithium carbonate, and lithium batteries, in Potosí [the capital of the Spanish empire where the Spanish had undertaken silver mining in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries.]”

Bolivian state firm YLB’s plant is seen at the Salar de Uyuni, a vast white salt flat at the center of a global resource race for the battery metal lithium, outside of Uyuni, Bolivia, March 26, 2022. [Source: learningenglish.voanews.com]

Morales continued: “We had a plan to install 42 new [lithium] plants by 2029. It was estimated that profits would be five billion dollars. Profits! That’s when the coup came. The U.S. says China’s presence is not permitted but…having a market in China is very important. Also in Germany. The next step was with Russia, and then came the coup. Just last year, we found out that England had also participated in the coup—all for lithium.”

Colonial Mentality

When Kennard told Morales that the UK Foreign office had denied that a coup took place, Morales responded that this was hard to comprehend and reflected “a totally colonial mindset. They think that some countries are the property of other nations. They think God put them there, so the world belongs to the U.S. and the UK. That’s why the rebellions and the uprisings will continue.”

With the People or the Evil Empire?

Morales has great admiration for Julian Assange whose detention, he said, “represents an escalation, an intimidation so that all the crimes against humanity committed by the different governments of the United States are never revealed. So many interventions, so many invasions, so much looting.”

Currently, Morales is working on building independent media in Bolivia, where he says that most of the media “belong to the empire or the right-wing.”

Optimistic about the recent victory of left-wing political forces in Peru, Chile and Colombia and Lula’s expected return to the presidency in Brazil, Morales told Kennard that, “in politics we must ask ourselves: Are we with the people or are we with the empire? If we are with the people, we make a country; if we are with the empire, we make money. If we are with the people, we fight for life, for humanity; if we are with the empire, we are with the politics of death, the culture of death, interventions, and pillaging of the people. That is what we ask ourselves as humans, as leaders: ‘Are we at the service of our people?’”

Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018).

1 August 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

For Those about to Rock, NAM 2.0 Salutes You

By Pepe Escobar

22 Jul 2022 – Those were the days, in 1955, at the legendary Bandung conference in Indonesia, when the newly emancipated Global South started dreaming of building a new world, via what became configured later in 1961 in Belgrade as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The Empire of Chaos – and Lies – would never allow a starring role for NAM. So it played dirty: everything from hardcore subversion and bribing to military coups and proto-color revolutions.

Yet now, the Spirit of Bandung lives again, via a sort of NAM 2.0 on steroids: a Newly Aligned Movement, with the leaders of Eurasian integration at the vanguard.

We just had a taste of which way the geopolitical wind is blowing at the gathering of a new power troika in Tehran. Unlike Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in 1943, Putin, Raisi and Erdogan did not meet to carve up the world. They met essentially to discuss how another world is possible – through bilaterals, trilaterals, multilaterals and an enhanced role for an array of relatively new geopolitical and geoeconomic institutions.

Russia – and China – have been on the forefront of all recent key decisions. Their diplomacy has brought Iran to join the SCO as a full member. Their pull is attracting key Global South players to join BRICS+. Russia has all but convinced Turkey to join BRICS+, the SCO and the EAEU, and facilitated the re-approximation of Tehran and Ankara as well as Tehran and Riyadh. Russia has largely influenced the remake/remodel process across West Asia.

This NAM 2.0 drive – of which China is a key player – stands in stark opposition to how the Empire of Chaos – and Lies – wove its toxic net, via the war on terror, since the start of the millennium. The Empire tried to subdue what it described as MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) on the basis of two invasions/occupations (Afghanistan-Iraq); a total devastation (Libya); and a protracted proxy war (Syria). All eventually failed.

And that brings us to the stunning contrast between these two foreign policy approaches, graphically illustrated by the spectacular failure of the teleprompter-reading “leader of the free world” in his visit to Jeddah – he was not even allowed to go to Riyadh – compared to Putin’s performance in Tehran.

Not only we are witnessing the lineaments of a Russia/Iran/Turkey informal alliance; we are witnessing the alliance reading a soft riot act to the Empire: leave Syria, before you suffer yet another humiliation. And with a Kurd-directed corollary: keep away from the Americans and recognize the authority of Damascus before it’s too late.

Ankara could never admit it in public, but the fact is Sultan Erdogan – as much against US troops in Syria as Putin and Raisi – even seems to have swiftly calibrated his previous designs on Syrian sovereign territory.

The much-debated Turkish military operation in northern Syria in the end may be restricted to taming the YPG Kurds. The heart of the action will in fact revolve around how the Russia/Iran/Turkey/Syria alliance will make like impossible for Americans stealing Syrian oil.

As Russia is now on “take no prisoners” mode when facing the collective West – the mantra in every intervention by Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, Patrushev – and on top of it firmly aligned with China and Iran, it’s inevitable that every other player across West Asia and beyond is giving undivided attention to the new game in town.

Go Caspian, Young Man

Interconnecting West Asia and Central Asia, the Caspian Sea has finally reached the geopolitical and geoeconomic limelight – complete with the groundbreaking consensus reached by the five littoral states at the Caspian Summit in late June to officially ban NATO from these waters.

Moreover, the leadership in Tehran in no time realized how the Caspian is the perfect, cost-conscious corridor from Iran to the heart of Russia along the Volga.

So it’s no wonder that Putin himself, in Tehran, proposed the construction of a key stretch of highway on the St Petersburg-Persian Gulf route, much to the delight of the Iranians. Cue to the nostalgic Great Game crowd in that former “rule the waves” island getting serial heart attacks: they could never imagine the Russian “empire” finally having full access to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.

So we’re back to the absolutely crucial re-engineering of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC) – which will play for Russia and Iran a parallel role the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) plays for China. In both cases, it’s all about multimodal Eurasia-wide trade and development corridors immune from interference by the imperial Navy.

And here we see the renewed importance of the hyper-strategic liberation of Mariupol and Kherson by the Russian and DPR forces. The Sea of Azov is now configured as a de facto Russian lake – and the same will eventually happen to what is bound to remain of the (currently Ukrainian) Black Sea coast, Odessa included.

So we have the ultra-strategic Caspian-Black Sea maritime corridor – via the Volga-Don canal – seamlessly connected to the Black Sea-Mediterranean, and up north, all the way to the Baltic and the fast developing Atlantic-Pacific connector, the Northern Sea Route. Call it the Russian Heartland Water Roads.

The NATO/Five Eyes/Intermarium combo has absolutely nothing to counteract these (overland) facts on the (Heartland) ground except to throw a pile of HIMARS into the Ukrainian black hole. And of course, keep de-industrializing Europe. In contrast, those across the Global South with a keen sense of history – as in the grand debate of ideas in a Hegelian sense – and also versed in geography and trade relations are busy getting ready to hit (and profit from) the new groove.

Have strategic ambiguity, will travel

As much as it’s a blast to survey all the instances of Russia playing strategic ambiguity to levels capable of baffling the entire, bloated “Western intel” apparatus, what is coming to the forefront is how Putin – and Patrushev – are now willfully turning up the pain dial to tactically exhaust not only the Ukrainian black hole but the whole of NATOstan.

Western governments are collapsing. Sanctions are being ditched – practically in secret. A Deep Freeze winter is a given. And then there’s the incoming economic/financial crisis, the Definitive Monster from Hell, as Martin Armstrong has made it quite clear: “There is no way they can get out of this other than default. If they default, they are worried about millions of people storming the parliaments of Europe…This is really a tremendous financial crisis that we are facing. They have been borrowing year after year since WWII with zero intention of paying anything back.”

Meanwhile, Moscow may be revving up the turbines to launch – this coming Fall? In the middle of Winter? Next Spring? – a multi-spectrum Mother of All Offensives, capitalizing on a rolling series of interconnected strategies that have already rendered dazed and confused every NATOstan “analyst” in sight.

That would explain Putin looking like he’s cheerfully whistling JJ Cale’s Call Me the Breeze in most of his public appearances. In his crucial intervention at the Strong Ideas for a New Time forum, he enthusiastically promoted the advent of “truly revolutionary” and “enormous” changes that would lead to the creation of a new, “harmonious, fairer and more community-focused and safe” world order.

Yet that’s not for everyone: “only truly sovereign states can ensure high growth dynamics.” What that implies is that the unipolar world order, followed by states in the collective West which are hardly sovereign, is condemned to fail, as it’s “becoming a brake on the development of our civilization.”

Only a self-confident sovereign who does not expect anything constructive from the collective West can get away with describing it as “racist and neo-colonial”, bearing an ideology that “is becoming increasingly more like totalitarianism.” In the old NAM days these words would be met with an assassination.

So will the “rules-based international order” be preserved? Not a chance, argues Putin: the changes are “irreversible.” For those about to rock, NAM 2.0 salutes you.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow.

1 August 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

When the Just Go to Prison

By Chris Hedges

31 Jul 2022 – Daniel Hale, dressed in a khaki uniform, his hair cut short and sporting a long, neatly groomed brown beard, is seated behind a plexiglass screen, speaking into a telephone receiver at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois. I hold a receiver on the other side of the plexiglass and listen as he describes his journey from working for the National Security Agency and the Joint Special Operations Task Force at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to becoming federal prisoner 26069-07.

Hale, a 34-year-old former Air Force signals intelligence analyst, is serving a 45 month prison sentence, following his conviction under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified documents about the U.S. military’s drone assassination program and its high civilian death toll. The documents are believed to be the source material for “The Drone Papers” published by The Intercept, on October 15, 2015.

These documents revealed that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations drone airstrikes killed more than 200 people — of which only 35 were the intended targets. According to the documents, over one five-month period of the operation, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. The civilian dead, usually innocent bystanders, were routinely classified as “enemies killed in action.”

You can see my interview with Hale’s attorney, Jesselyn Radack, here.

The terrorizing and widespread killing of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of civilians was a potent recruiting tool for the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents. The aerial attacks created far more hostile fighters than they eliminated and enraged many in the Muslim world.

Hale is composed, articulate and physically fit from his self-imposed regime of daily exercise. We discuss books he has recently read, including John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden and Nicholson Baker’s Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act, which explores whether the U.S. used biological weapons on China and Korea during World War II and the Korean War.

Hale is currently housed in the Communications Management Unit (CMU), a special unit that severely restricts and heavily monitors communications, including our conversation, and visitations. The decision by The Bureau of Prisons to lock Hale up in the most restrictive wing of a supermax prison ignores the recommendation of the sentencing Judge Liam O’Grady, who suggested that he be placed in a low-security prison hospital facility in Butner, North Carolina, where he could get treatment for his PTSD.

Hale is one of a few dozen people of conscience who have sacrificed their careers and their freedom to inform the public about government crimes, fraud and lies. Rather than investigate the crimes that are exposed and hold those who carried them out to account, the two ruling parties wage war on all who speak out.

These men and women of conscience are the lifeblood of journalism. Reporters cannot document abuses of power without them. The silence on the part of the press over Hale’s imprisonment, as well as the persecution and imprisonment of other champions of an open society, such as Julian Assange, is stunningly shortsighted. If our most important public servants, those with the courage to inform the public, continue to be criminalized at this rate, we will cement in place total censorship, resulting in a world where the abuses and crimes of the powerful are shrouded in darkness.

Barack Obama weaponized the Espionage Act to prosecute those who provided classified information to the press. The Obama White House, whose assault on civil liberties was worse than those of the Bush administration, used the 1917 Act, designed to prosecute spies, against eight people who leaked information to the media including Assange — although he is not a U.S. citizen, and WikiLeaks is not a U.S.-based publication — along with Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, Jeffrey Sterling and John Kiriakou, who spent two-and-a-half years in prison for exposing the routine torture of suspects held in black sites.

Also under The Espionage Act, Joshua Schulte, a former CIA software engineer, was convicted on July 13, 2022 of the so-called Vault 7 leak, published by WikiLeaks in 2017, which revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones and turned internet-connected televisions into listening devices. He faces up to 80 years in prison.

Obama used the Espionage Act against those who provided information to the media more than all previous administrations combined. He set a terrifying legal precedent, equating informing the public with spying for a hostile power. I published classified material when I was a reporter at The New York Times, but we are fast approaching the day when the mere possession of such material, along with its publication, will be illegal, as is already law in the U.K. It is a short step from criminalizing journalism to the imprisonment and murder of reporters, such as Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in 2018 in Istanbul. While Assange was sheltering in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, the CIA discussed kidnapping and assassinating him following the release of the Vault 7 documents.

The Espionage Act has been abused in the past. President Woodrow Wilson used it to throw socialists, including Eugene V. Debs, in prison for opposing America’s participation in World War I. But not until the Obama administration was it systematically turned on the press.

Wholesale government surveillance, about which many charged under the Espionage Act tried to warn the public, includes surveillance of journalists. The surveillance of the press, along with those who attempt to inform the public by providing information to reporters, has largely shut down investigations into the machinery of power. The price of telling the truth is too costly.

Hale, trained in the army as a Mandarin linguist, was uneasy the moment he began working in the secretive drone program.

“I needed a paycheck,” he says of his work in the Air Force and later as a private contractor in the drone program, “I was homeless. I had nowhere else to go. But I knew it was wrong.”

While stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he took a week off in October 2011 to camp out in New York’s Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street movement. He wore his uniform — a gutsy act of open defiance for someone on active duty— and held up a sign that read, “Free Bradley Manning,” who had not yet announced her transition.

“I slept in the park,” he says. “I was there the morning [Mayor] Bloomberg and his girlfriend made the first attempt to clear the occupiers. I stood with thousands of protestors, including Teamsters and communications workers, who ringed the park. The police backed down. I learned later that while I was in the park, Obama ordered a drone strike in Yemen that killed Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of the radicalized cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, killed by a drone strike two weeks earlier.”

Hale was deployed a few months later to Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Force Base.

He described his work in a letter to the judge:

In my capacity as a signals intelligence analyst stationed at Bagram Airbase, I was made to track down the geographic location of handset cell phone devices believed to be in the possession of so-called enemy combatants. To accomplish this mission required access to a complex chain of globe-spanning satellites capable of maintaining an unbroken connection with remotely piloted aircraft, commonly referred to as drones. Once a steady connection is made and a targeted cell phone device is acquired, an imagery analyst in the U.S., in coordination with a drone pilot and camera operator, would take over using information I provided to surveil everything that occurred within the drone’s field of vision. This was done, most often, to document the day-to-day lives of suspected militants. Sometimes, under the right conditions, an attempt at capture would be made. Other times, a decision to strike and kill them where they stood would be weighed.

The first time that I witnessed a drone strike came within days of my arrival to Afghanistan. Early that morning, before dawn, a group of men had gathered together in the mountain ranges of Patika province around a campfire carrying weapons and brewing tea. That they carried weapons with them would not have been considered out of the ordinary in the place I grew up, much less within the virtually lawless tribal territories outside the control of the Afghan authorities. Except that among them was a suspected member of the Taliban, given away by the targeted cell phone device in his pocket. As for the remaining individuals, to be armed, of military age, and sitting in the presence of an alleged enemy combatant was enough evidence to place them under suspicion as well. Despite having peacefully assembled, posing no threat, the fate of the now tea drinking men had all but been fulfilled. I could only look on as I sat by and watched through a computer monitor when a sudden, terrifying flurry of hellfire missiles came crashing down, splattering purple-colored crystal guts on the side of the morning mountain.

Since that time and to this day, I continue to recall several such scenes of graphic violence carried out from the cold comfort of a computer chair. Not a day goes by that I don’t question the justification for my actions. By the rules of engagement, it may have been permissible for me to have helped to kill those men — whose language I did not speak, whose customs I did not understand, and whose crimes I could not identify — in the gruesome manner that I did. Watch them die. But how could it be considered honorable of me to continuously have laid in wait for the next opportunity to kill unsuspecting persons, who, more often than not, are posing no danger to me or any other person at the time. Nevermind honorable, how could it be that any thinking person continued to believe that it was necessary for the protection of the United States of America to be in Afghanistan and killing people, not one of whom present was responsible for the September 11th attacks on our nation. Notwithstanding, in 2012, a full year after the demise of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, I was a part of killing misguided young men who were but mere children on the day of 9/11.

Hale drifted after leaving the Air Force, dropped out of the New School where he had been attending college, and was lured back into operating drones in 2013 by the private defense contractor National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency where he worked as a political geography analyst between December 2013 and August 2014.

“I was making $ 80,000 a year,” he says into the receiver. “I had friends with college degrees who could not make that kind of money.”

Inspired by peace activist David Dellinger, Hale decided to become a “traitor” to “the American way of death.” He would make amends for his complicity in the killings, even at the cost of his freedom. He leaked 17 classified documents that exposed the high number of civilian deaths from drone strikes. He became an outspoken and prominent critic of the drone program.

Because Hale was charged under the Espionage Act, he was not permitted to explain his motivations to the court. He was also forbidden from providing evidence to the court that the drone assassination program killed and wounded large numbers of noncombatants, including children.

“Evidence of the defendant’s views of military and intelligence procedures would needlessly distract the jury from the question of whether he had illegally retained and transmitted classified documents, and instead convert the trail into an inquest of U.S. military and intelligence procedures,” government attorneys said in a motion at Hale’s trial.

“The defendant may wish for his criminal trial to become a forum on something other than his guilt, but those debates cannot and do not inform the core questions in this case: whether the defendant illegally retained and transferred the documents he stole,” the government motion continued.

Drones often fire Hellfire missiles equipped with an explosive warhead weighing about 20 pounds. A Hellfire variant, known as the R9X, carries an inert warhead. Instead of exploding, it hurls about 100 pounds of metal through a vehicle. The missile’s other feature includes six long blades tucked inside which deploy seconds before impact, shredding anything in front of it — including people.

Drones hover 24 hours a day in the skies over countries including Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria and, before our defeat, Afghanistan. Operated remotely from Air Force bases as far away from the target sites as Nevada, drones fire ordinance that instantly and without warning obliterates homes and vehicles or kills clusters of people. Hale found the jocularity of the young drone operators, who treated the killings as if they were an enhanced video game, disturbing. Child victims of drone attacks were dismissed as “fun-sized terrorists.”

Those who survive drone strikes are often badly maimed, losing limbs, suffering severe burns and shrapnel wounds, and losing their vision and hearing.

In a statement he read at his sentencing on July 27, 2021, Hale said:“I think of the farmers in their poppy fields whose daily harvest will gain them safe passage from the warlords, who will, in turn, trade it for weapons before it is synthesized, repackaged, and re-sold dozens of times before it finds its way into this country and into the broken veins of our nation’s next opioid victim. I think of the women who, despite living their entire lives never once allowed to make so much as a choice for themselves, are treated as pawns in a ruthless game politicians play when they need a justification to further the killing of their sons & husbands. And I think of the children, whose bright-eyed, dirty faces look to the sky and hope to see clouds of gray, afraid of the clear blue days that beckon drones to come carrying eager death notes for their fathers.”

“As one drone operator put it,” he read in court, “‘Do you ever step on ants and never give it another thought?’ That’s what you’re made to think of the targets. They deserved it, they chose their side. You had to kill a part of your conscience to keep doing your job — ignoring the voice inside telling you this wasn’t right. I, too, ignored the voice inside as I continued walking blindly towards the edge of an abyss. And when I found myself at the brink, ready to give in, the voice said to me, ‘You, who had been a hunter of men, are no longer. By the grace of God you’ve been saved. Now go forth and be a fisher of men so that others might know the truth.’”

It was, ironically, the election of Obama that encouraged Hale to join the Air Force.

“I thought Obama, who as a candidate opposed the war in Iraq, would end the wars and lawlessness of the Bush administration,” he says.

However, a few weeks after he took office, Obama approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, where 36,000 U.S. troops and 32,000 NATO troops were already deployed. By the end of the year, Obama increased troop levels in Afghanistan again by 30,000, doubling U.S. casualties. He also massively expanded the drone program, raising the number of drone strikes from several dozen the year before he took office to 117 by his second year in office. By the time he left office, Obama had presided over 563 drone strikes that killed approximately 3,797 people, many of whom were civilians.

Obama authorized “signature strikes” allowing the CIA to carry out drone attacks against groups of suspected militants without getting positive identification. His administration approved “follow-up” or “double-tap” drone strikes, which deployed drones to strike anyone who assisted those injured in the initial drone strike. The Bureau of Investigative Journalists reported in 2012 that “at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims,” during Obama’s first three years in office. Additionally, “more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners” the report read. Obama expanded the footprint of the drone program in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, and established drone bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

“There are several such lists, used to target individuals for different reasons,” Hale writes in an essay titled, “Why I Leaked the Watchlist Documents,” originally published anonymously in May 2016 in the book The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program by Jeremy Scahill and the staff of The Intercept.

“Some lists are closely kept; others span multiple intelligence and local law enforcement agencies,” Hale writes in the essay. “There are lists used to kill or capture supposed ‘high-value targets, ’ and others intended to threaten, coerce, or simply monitor a person’s activity. However, all the lists, whether to kill or silence, originate from the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), and are maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center at the National Counterterrorism Center. The existence of TIDE is unclassified, yet details about how it functions in our government are completely unknown to the public. In August 2013 the database reached a milestone of one million entries. Today, it is thousands of entries larger and is growing faster than it has since its inception in 2003.”

The Terrorist Screening Center, he writes, not only stores names, dates of birth, and other identifying information of potential targets but also stores “medical records, transcripts, and passport data; license plate numbers, email, and cell-phone numbers (along with the phone’s International Mobile Subscriber Identity and International Mobile Station Equipment Identity numbers); your bank account numbers and purchases; and other sensitive information, including DNA and photographs capable of identifying you using facial recognition software.”

Suspects’ data is collected and pooled by the intelligence alliance formed by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, known as the Five Eyes. Each person on the list is assigned a TIDE personal number, or TPN.

“From Osama bin Laden (TPN 1063599) to Abdulrahman Awlaki (TPN 26350617), the American son of Anwar al Awlaki, anyone who has ever been the target of a covert operation was first assigned a TPN and closely monitored by all agencies who follow that TPN long before they were eventually put on a separate list and extrajudicially sentenced to death,” Hale wrote.

As Hale exposed in the leaked documents, the more than one million entries in the TIDE database include about 21,000 U.S. citizens.

“When the President gets up in front of the nation and says they are doing everything they can to ensure there is near certainty there will be no civilians killed, he is saying that because he can’t say otherwise, because anytime an action is taken to finish a target there is a certain amount of guesswork in that action,” Hale says in the award-winning documentary “National Bird,” a film about whistleblowers in the U.S. drone program who suffered moral injury and PTSD. “It’s only in the aftermath of any kind of ordinance being dropped that you know how much actual damage was done. Oftentimes, the intelligence community is reliant, the Joint Special Operations Command, the CIA included, is reliant on intelligence coming afterwards that confirms that who they were targeting was killed in the strike, or that they weren’t killed in that strike.”

“The people who defend drones, and the way they are used, say they protect American lives by not putting them in harm’s way,” he says in the film. “What they really do is embolden decision makers because there is no threat, there is no immediate consequence. They can do this strike. They can potentially kill this person they are so desperate to eliminate because of how potentially dangerous they could be to the U.S. But if it just so happens that they don’t kill that person, or some other people involved in the strike get killed as well, there are no consequences for it. When it comes to high-value targets, [in] every mission you go after one person at a time, but anybody else killed in that strike is blankly assumed to be an associate of the targeted individual. So as long as they can reasonably identify that all of the people in the field view of the camera are military-aged males, meaning anybody who is believed to be age 16 or older, they are a legitimate target under the rules of engagement. If that strike occurs and kills all of them, they just say they got them all.”

Drones, he says, make remote killing “easy and convenient.”

On August 8, 2014, the FBI raided Hale’s home. It was his last day of work for the private contractor. Two FBI agents, one male and one female, shoved their badges in his face when he opened the door. About two dozen agents, pistols drawn, many wearing body armor, followed behind. They photographed and ransacked every room. They confiscated all his electronics, including his phone.

He spent the next five years in limbo. He struggled to find work, fought off depression and contemplated suicide. In 2019, the Trump administration indicted Hale on four counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of theft of government property. As part of a plea deal, he pled guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act.

“I am here to answer for my own crimes and not that of another person,” he said at his sentencing. “And it would appear that I am here today to answer for the crime of stealing papers, for which I expect to spend some portion of my life in prison. But what I am really here for is having stolen something that was never mine to take: precious human life. For which I was well-compensated and given a medal. I couldn’t keep living in a world in which people pretended things weren’t happening that were. My consequential decision to share classified information about the drone program with the public was a gesture not taken lightly, nor one I would have taken at all if I believed such a decision had the possibility of harming anyone but myself. I acted not for the sake of self-aggrandizement but that I might some day humbly ask forgiveness.”

I know a few Daniel Hales. They made my most important reporting possible. They enabled truths to be told. They held the powerful accountable. They gave a voice to the victims. They informed the public. They called for the rule of law.

I sit across from Hale and wonder if this is the end, if he, and others like him, will be completely silenced.

Hale’s imprisonment is a microcosm of the vast gulag being constructed for all of us.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief.

1 August 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

Penal Assassination: The Gradual Effort to Kill Assange

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

They really do want to kill him. Perhaps it is high time that his detractors and sceptics, proven wrong essentially from the outset, admit that the US imperium, along with its client states, is willing to see Julian Assange perish in prison. The locality and venue, for the purposes of this exercise, are not relevant. Like the Inquisition, the Catholic Church was never keen on soiling its hands, preferring the employ of non-church figures to torture their victims.

In the context of Assange, Britain has been a willing jailor from the start, guided by the good offices of Washington and none too keen in seeing this spiller of secrets released into the world. Bail has been repeatedly, and inexcusably, refused, despite the threats posed by COVID-19, the publisher’s own deteriorating health, and restrictions upon access, at regular intervals, to legal advice from his team. Just as some banks are deemed too large to fail, Assange is considered too large a target to escape. Let loose again, he might do what he does best: reveal government venalities in war and peace and prove the social contract a gross deception and mockery of our sensibilities.

The UK legal system has been the ideal forum to execute the wishes of Washington. Each legal branch that has examined the extradition case has assiduously avoided the bigger picture: the attack on press freedom, exposing war crimes, illegal surveillance of a political asylee in an embassy compound, the breaches of privacy and legal confidentiality, the encroachments upon family life, the evidence on proposed abduction and assassination, the questionable conflicts of interest by some judicial members, the collusion of State authorities.

Instead, the courts, from the outside, have taken a blade to cut away the meatiest, most solid of arguments, focusing on a sliver that would be, in due course, defeated. The sole decision that favoured Assange only did so by essentially regarding him as an individual whose mental fragility would compromise him in a US prison facility. In such a case, suicide would be virtually impossible to prevent. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who made the ruling, thought little of the publisher’s credentials, heartily agreeing with the prosecution that no journalist would have ever exposed the names of informants. (This farcical interpretation was rebutted convincingly in the Old Bailey trial proceedings.)

The rest has been a grotesque show of gargantuan proportions, with the High Court and the Supreme Court showing themselves to be political dunces or, which is not much better, dupes. Believing a number of diplomatic assurances by US prosecutors on Assange’s post-extradition fate, made after the original trial, seemed awfully close to a form of legal match-fixing. We all know that court cases and the law can be analogised as betting and having a punt, the outcome never clear till it arrives, but this was positively ludicrous.

To anyone following the trial and knowing the feeble nature of reassurances made by a State power, especially one with the heft of the United States, promises about more commodious accommodation, not being subject to brutal special administrative measures, and also being allowed to apply for a return to Australia to serve the balance of the term, was pure, stenchy balderdash.

Amnesty International is unequivocal on this point: diplomatic assurances are used by governments to “circumvent” various human rights conventions, and the very fact that they are sought to begin with creates its own dangers. “The mere fact that States need to seek diplomatic assurances against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other ill-treatment) is indicative of a risk of torture.”

The US prosecuting authorities have even gone so far as to weaken their own position, making their undertakings conditional. Typically, they shift the focus back on Assange, suggesting that he might influence matters by his own mischievous conduct. All in all, nothing said was binding, and the glue holding the promises together might, at any given moment, dissolve.

Admirably, Assange continues to have some fiercely dedicated followers who wish him well and wish him out. Independent Australian MP Andrew Wilkie has the sort of certitude that can pulverise the attitudes of bleak sceptics, though even he must nurse a few doubts. In his address to supporters of Assange in Canberra, delivered on the lawns of the Australian Parliament, he was confident that keeping “the pressure up” would eventually lead to justice for the publisher.

In a crisp summation, Wilkie distilled the case. “The US wants to get even and for so long the UK and Australia have been happy to go along for the ride because they’ve put bilateral relationships with Washington ahead of the rights of a decent man.” Keep maintaining the rage, he urged his audience.

The matter is considered so urgent that Australian Doctors For Assange have warned that death may be peeking around the corner. “Medical examinations of Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison in the UK,” stated spokesman Robert Marr, “have revealed that he is suffering from severe life-threatening cardiovascular and stress-related medical conditions, including having a mini-stroke as a result of his imprisonment and psychological torture.”

The organisation has written to US Ambassador Carolyn Kenney “requesting she urgently ask President Biden to stop the US persecution of Australian citizen Julian Assange for merely publishing information provided to him and stop the US attempt to extradite him from the UK.”

From the Australian perspective, we can already see that there is a go-slow, cautious approach to Assange’s fate, which also serves the lethal agenda being pursued by the US prosecutors. Despite a change of the guard in Canberra, the status quo on power relations between the two countries remains unaltered. Everyone, bar Assange, seems to have time to wait. But in terms of life and health, the time in question is almost done.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University.

31 July 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

US carrier group heads toward Taiwan as Pelosi flies to Asia

By Mike Head

The American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group, including a guided missile destroyer and cruiser, set out from Singapore on Monday heading toward the South China Sea and Taiwan.

This deployment, clearly linked to the planned highly provocative visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, greatly heightens US military and political tensions with China, which threaten to trigger a potentially catastrophic nuclear war.

“It is clear from this for everyone to see who is the biggest threat to the South China Sea and the Asian region’s peace and stability,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a briefing on Thursday.

Despite warnings from Beijing, including by President Xi Jinping, and public statements of reservation by the White House, Pelosi and other congressional representatives began an East Asian tour yesterday, deliberately leaving open the option of landing in Taiwan.

According to the itinerary of Pelosi’s Asia mission, as reported by US media outlets, it includes Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, all seen as US allies against China, with Taiwan listed as “tentative.”

To fuel speculation, Pelosi has refused to answer reporters’ inquiries about her Taiwan plans, saying on Wednesday: “I never talk about my travel. It’s a danger to me.” That remark literally accuses China of being prepared to attack her mission.

Regardless of White House claims that it has no jurisdiction over Pelosi’s decision to fly to Taiwan in a military aircraft, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley declared this week that America’s armed forces were ready to intervene against any Chinese response.

“We will do what is necessary to ensure a safe, safe conduct of their visit. And I’ll just leave it at that,” Milley told reporters at the end of the 24th Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense Conference held in Sydney for two days this week.

With reckless disregard for the danger of provoking a military conflict, Milley added: “So what that results in, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Pentagon officials had said such US military engagement would include aircraft carriers, fighter jets and “surveillance assets” to protect Pelosi on her flights to and out of Taiwan as well as on the ground.

Whether or not the Pelosi visit to Taiwan goes ahead, such incendiary comments fuel tensions by declaring US intent to take military action against China in or around the island, which China regards as a breakaway province, and which lies just 160 kilometres (100 miles) off the mainland.

Xi has tersely opposed a visit by Pelosi, the second in line to the US presidency, to the island, which would be a further violation of the One China policy, by which the US has not recognised Taiwan a country since 1979.

During a reported two-hour phone call with US President Joe Biden on Thursday, China’s state news agency reported that Xi told Biden: “Public opinion shall not be violated, and if you play with fire you get burned. I hope the US side can see this clearly.”

The brief White House readout of the call pointedly made no mention of the escalating confrontation. It said Biden had told Xi that US policy on Taiwan had not changed, and Washington “strongly opposed” unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

In reality, successive US administrations, from Obama and Trump to Biden, have deliberately undermined the One China policy, including by sending troops, increasing arms sales and dispatching officials and delegations to Taiwan. The Biden administration has approved four large arms sales to Taiwan, and a fifth, worth $108 million, is scheduled for imminent congressional approval.

Pelosi would be the first sitting US House Speaker to visit Taiwan since the far-right Republican Newt Gingrich went there in 1997. This threatened trip occurs under much more inflammatory conditions, as part of escalating moves by Washington to repudiate the One China policy.

In Sydney, in a transparent bid to blame any clash on Beijing, and thus justify a war, Milley said he had ordered a study of China’s actions in the South China Sea and other areas of the Pacific region, that found a significant increase in “aggressive” actions. Asked for details, Milley said the report was classified—thus hidden from public scrutiny. Nevertheless, he insisted that China’s activity “seems to imply that they want to bully or dominate” other nations.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, senior Pentagon official Ely Ratner echoed Milley’s characterisation of China’s “irresponsible behavior” and said it was “only a matter of time” before China caused a “major” incident.

Those comments present a conflict with China as inevitable. They follow three public statements by Biden since taking office that the US would go to war to defend Taiwan if it were purportedly attacked by China. Biden’s comments overturn the longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity”—not committing the US to defend Taiwan under all circumstances was aimed blocking a provocative declaration of Taiwanese independence and conflict with China.

Pelosi’s plans are proceeding despite warnings issued by Chinese defence officials. “If the US insists on taking its own course, the Chinese military will never sit idly by, and it will definitely take strong actions to thwart any external force’s interference,” Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesperson said.

To send an aircraft carrier group through the narrow Taiwan Strait between the island and the mainland would itself be provocative. In 1995, President Bill Clinton sent the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier into the strait after China conducted missile tests near Taiwanese-claimed territory.

The USS Kitty Hawk appears to be the last US carrier to have transited the strait, in 2007, but other US warships have done so on a monthly basis. The USS Benfold transited the Taiwan Strait on July 19, after sailing near the disputed Spratly Islands on July 16 and the Paracel Islands on July 13.

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in the US, has underlined Beijing’s concerns over Pelosi’s trip. “On the Taiwan question, we have made our stance loud and clear,” Liu said. “The embassy is making all our efforts to prevent the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the stability of China-US relations being damaged by the potential visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.”

Other Chinese figures, particularly those associated with the Global Times, a hawkish state-run outlet, have warned of military reactions. Hu Xijin, former chief editor of the Global Times, called Pelosi’s planned visit an “invasion.”

China long warned that it would forcibly reunify Taiwan with the mainland if the island declared independence which Washington’s actions are now encouraging. Last month, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe told US officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore: “If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight, and we will fight at all costs.”

Under these conditions, both Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress, as well as the American corporate media, have urged Pelosi to travel to Taiwan. These figures include prominent ex-generals and members of Donald Trump’s fascistic Republican leadership.

The Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, declared: “I don’t think we should let China dictate something like this. Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, she’s the most powerful person in the country. If she wants to go visit Taiwan, she ought to be able to do that.”

The US is recklessly provoking conflict with Beijing both because it regards China as the chief threat to its global hegemony and as a means channelling working-class discontent amid a profound economic and social crisis at home against a supposed foreign enemy.

US military planners regard Taiwan as a key strategic platform for an assault on China. It is also a key economic asset, producing an estimated 92 percent of the world’s advanced semiconductor chips.

Just as Washington for years built up the Ukrainian military as a bastion against Russia with the aim of provoking the current disastrous war, the US is strengthening the Taiwanese military and seeking to goad China into military action in a bid to weaken and destabilise its rival.

30 July 2022

Source: countercurrents.org