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By Jan Oberg, Ph.D.

While this is being written, tension builds up around the more comprehensive Ukraine conflict formation. If this blows up in real war – God forbid! – the main reason will be three serious lies disseminated by the NATO side.

Lies are used in so-called security politics when some militarist project doesn’t make any (common) sense to intelligent people, when the real motives have to be covered up and war is being prepared or when the sociological cancer called the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, and the elites who run it, try to squeeze out even larger military expenditures from their taxpayers.

You lie to manufacture an enemy that can justify what you will do and enrich yourself. With 40+ years of experience in security politics in general and NATO/US policies in particular, I know too much – sorry for the arrogance – and have become too cynical to believe that what goes on goes on for the sake of self-defence, security or peace.

Some quick examples of gross empirically revealed lying to the word – all the liars still at large:

• In the 1990s, Yugoslav President Milosevic was Europe’s new Hitler (Bill Clinton) and planned genocide on the Albanians in Kosovo.
• Saddam Hussein’s soldiers threw babies out of their incubators in Kuwait City.
• Afghanistan had to be destroyed because of 9/11.
• Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
• The US-led Global War On Terror – GWOT – has been about reducing terrorism.
• The US/NATO orchestrated regime-change attempt in Syria from 2011 to 2016 was exclusively about Dictator al-Assad’s sudden sadist “killing of his own.”
• Qaddafi was just about to murder all who lived in Benghazi.
• The conflict around Ukraine was started by Putin’s “aggression” on Crimea, nothing preceded it.
• Iran has always plotted and lied to acquire nuclear weapons.
• There are only bad things to say about Russia and China and…

You may continue on your own.

The Three Big Lies Pertaining to Ukraine:

1. The West’s leaders never promised Mikhail Gorbachev and his foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze not to expand NATO eastward. They also did not state that they would take serious Soviet/Russian security interests around its borders. And therefore, each of the former Warsaw Pact countries has a right to join NATO if they decide to freely.
2. The Ukraine conflict started by Putin’s out-of-the-blue aggression on Ukraine and then annexation of Crimea.
3. NATO always has an open door to new members. It never tries to invite or drag them in, doesn’t seek expansion. It just happens because East European countries since 1989-90 have wanted to join without any pressure from NATO’s side. That also applies to Ukraine.

Concerning the first lie, listen to or read US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, here on January 7, 2022.

Here he presents a series of accusations and empirical lies about Russian politics and behaviours, predictably omitting every mention of the simple fact that it takes two to have a conflict and defying Eric Clapton’s wise advice that ”before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.” His body language and submachine gun stumbling way of speaking reveal that he is perfectly aware that he is lying. Note in passing that the journalists present ask only “understanding” questions. The whole thing smacks the Soviet Union shortly before its collapse.

Why is it so evident that he lies?

TFF has reproduced two essential pieces from the National Security Archive at George Washington University with irrefutable documentation that Gorbachev indeed was given such assurances – “cascades” of them! as is stated in the article – by all the most influential Western leaders at the end of 1989 and into 1990:

“NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev heard” – and

“NATO Expansion: The Budapest Blow Up 1994”

Read them, and you will be shocked.

You’ll find that they have lots of notes and, in sum, no less than 48 original historical documents. For instance, here is just one of the 48 informing us about then NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner’s view and statement:

“Woerner had given a well-regarded speech in Brussels in May 1990 in which he argued: “The principal task of the next decade will be to build a new European security structure, to include the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. The Soviet Union will have an important role to play in the construction of such a system. If you consider the current predicament of the Soviet Union, which has practically no allies left, then you can understand its justified wish not to be forced out of Europe.“

Now in mid-1991, Woerner responds to the Russians by stating that he personally and the NATO Council are both against expansion – “13 out of 16 NATO members share this point of view” – and that he will speak against Poland’s and Romania’s membership in NATO to those countries’ leaders as he has already done with leaders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Woerner emphasizes that “We should not allow […] the isolation of the USSR from the European community.”

This is just one of the “cascades” of statements and assurances given to the Russians at the time. Over 30 years ago, 13 out of 16 members were against NATO expansion because they respected Russia’s crisis and legitimate security interests! Today – 2022 – NATO has 30 members!

Is the U.S. Secretary of State, his advisors and speechwriters unaware of the next-door National Security Archives? Are we really to believe that they have no clue about the conditions and dialogues at the end of the first Cold War? If so, they ought to resign or be fired for their unbelievable incompetence.

If not so – if they know the content of these historical documents – Mr Blinken, his advisors and speechwriters know that they lie.

The second lie is a lie by omission. Antony Blinken and almost all Western politicians, including the NATO S-G, and mainstream media simply omit that the West attempted a regime change in Kyiv in 2014 and that Putin’s reacted to it by annexing Crimea.

The Maidan riots took place in February 2014, the sniper fire on February 20. Russia formally annexed – or accepted self-determination – of Crimea on March 18. The complex Western-instigated and -financed turmoil was orchestrated by the EU, US and NATO leadership, as you can read in articles or books by people who know such as Gordon M Hahn and Richard Sakaw (“Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands”), Stephen Cohen, Henry Kissinger and many more here.

To put it crudely, the conflict issue was the Western attempt at getting Ukraine to side not with Russia but with Western institutions, the EU and, later, NATO. One problem would be Russian-speaking minorities, the opinion polls concerning NATO membership which were not in favour and, more strongly, that Russia would a) never accept Ukraine in NATO – but very well as a neutral state between – and neither that Russia’s extensive military base in Crimea, on lease for 30+ years ahead, should end up being located in a NATO country.

This entire regime-change policy under the Obama administration was one big insensitive and plain foolish idea also in the light of the old promises given to Gorbachev.

But of course, that cannot be admitted today, eight years later. To cover it up, the US/NATO must blame the present situation on Russia, on Russia only. Russia annexed Crimea for no good reason; nothing “we” did preceded that move or could explain it.

Like with the lie about promises never given to Gorbachev and this omission of Western regime change in Ukraine, one must ask: Are they really so desperate and so politically naive that they believe that we neither remember nor can put 2 + 2 together?

Now to the third lie. It’s stated repeatedly and in a larger context by NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg here:

NATO Secretary General, Press Conference at Foreign Ministers Meeting, 07 JAN 2022

NATO as an alliance has enormous resources to influence opinions in potential member states. Contrary to his open door talk, NATO’s Charter speaks only about inviting new members, not about holding a door open for anyone who might want to join.

It should be well-known by now – but isn’t – that in the late 1990s, Vladimir Putin asked to join NATO – but it didn’t happen, did it, Mr Stoltenberg? And why not? Because Putin – Russia – wanted to be invited as an equal partner and not sit and wait till Montenegro had become a member, to put it bluntly. NATO decided to close the door at Putin’s request.

This – fantastic – story is told by a former NATO Secretary-General, George Robertson; there is no reason to assume that is not credible or just a rumor. Or, for that matter, that Putin was not serious.

And what an exciting thought: Russia in NATO! Who would Mr Stoltenberg and Mr Blinken – and all the rest of the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC – then have to put all the blame on? How then legitimate NATO’s permanent armament and its 12 times higher military expenditures than Russia’s?

Mr Stoltenberg must know that he lies when saying NATO has an open door. It doesn’t for Russia. It doesn’t even have open ears for Russia’s legitimate security concerns. But it knows how it would never accept what it requires Russia to accept. Here is a quotation from January 14, 2022, documenting the double-standard, the exceptionalist self-understanding of the US:

“US will act ‘decisively’ if Russia deploys military to Cuba or Venezuela.” – The White House

United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called the idea “bluster in the public commentary” and noted that the deployment of Russian military infrastructure to Latin America was not a point of discussion at the recent Russia-US Strategic Stability Dialogue in Geneva.

“If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively,” he said, responding to a question from a journalist.

The US opposition to Russian troop placement in the Americas may raise some eyebrows in Moscow, which has repeatedly complained about US armed forces being located near Russia’s western frontier.” (Russia Today, January 14, 2022)

Finally, Mr Stoltenberg is very proud of NATO’s generous training and assistance to potential NATO members. Before they are admitted, they must go through all kinds of reforms and accept practical, military and political support. And what is the real purpose of all that training and generous help? Stoltenberg says it in the video:

“…It also makes the societies of Ukraine and Georgia stronger. So resilient, well-functioning societies are also less vulnerable from interference from Russia.”

In plain Realpolitik language: the goal is to disconnect countries from Russia’s influence, program them for NATO membership and then they decide in complete freedom to ask for admission.

Remember, NATO never drags in members. NATO set up its office in Kyiv in 1994. And here you’ll see how Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, standing at NATO’s H.Q. with Stoltenberg, consistently talking about NATO as Ukraine’s “allies,” expecting all kinds of guarantees and – in Foreign Policy of course – argues that Ukraine Needs a Clear Path to NATO Membership in the face of Russian aggression.

Accumulate expectations and add a series of lies when Reality emerges as a train coming against you in a dark tunnel. And you have the perfect recipe for war – Cold or Warm. Or both.

Prof. Jan Oberg, Ph.D. is director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

17 January 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Jeremy Kuzmarov

Townsend Oversaw Army Unit in Syria That Committed Myriad Atrocities and Helped Cover Up Crimes

As head of AFRICOM, the veteran of Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada and U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is sanctioning yet more dirty war operations and killings.

13 Jan 2022 – In early December, The New York Times reported on the existence of a clandestine army unit in Syria which, from 2014 to 2019, had launched tens of thousands of bombs and missiles and repeatedly killed civilians, including farmers trying to harvest, children in the street and villagers sheltering in buildings.

The secret unit—which officially did not exist—was called Talon Anvil, and it embraced a loose interpretation of the military’s rules of engagement, according to the Times.

From 2016 to 2017, the unit was overseen by four-star Army General Stephen Townsend who, as commander of the offensive against the Islamic State in Syria, authorized low-level commanders to order air strikes. Under pressure to obtain results, these commanders, according to Air Force intelligence officers, would push analysts to say they saw evidence, such as weapons that could legally justify a strike, even when none existed.

Larry Lewis, a former Pentagon and State Department adviser who was one of the authors of a 2018 Defense Department report on civilian harm, reported that Townsend was dismissive of reports from news media and human rights organizations describing the mounting human toll of U.S. Special Forces operations in Syria.

Rather than being hounded by anti-war protesters and fired, Townsend was promoted in July 2019 to become the head of the U.S. military’s Africa Command, or AFRICOM, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.

In that capacity, he is sponsoring yet more killing in U.S.-run dirty wars.

In April 2020, Townsend heralded the killing in a U.S. air strike of al-Shabaab leader Yusuf Jiis (aka Yusuf Nur Sheikh Hassan) 135 miles west of Mogadishu in Somalia.

According to Townsend, Jiis “was a key leader in the al-Shabaab organization [who] was violent, ruthless, and responsible for the loss of many innocent lives. His removal makes Somalia and neighboring countries safer.”

The “kingpin strategy,” however, in which top insurgent leaders are assassinated, has been shown time and time again to be a failure because these leaders are replaceable.

In the case of Jiis, he was al-Shabaab’s liaison to humanitarian agencies who was accused of leading a raid on aid agencies in 2009—although it was not clear that he had ever killed anybody.

AFRICOM had carried out hundreds of air strikes in a decades-long war against al-Shabaab, which was founded among disaffected youth after a joint U.S.-Ethiopian invasion overthrew the more moderate Islamic Courts Union (ICU).

In April 2020, Amnesty International condemned AFRICOM for failing to report on civilian casualties—stating that it did not “seem to care about the families it has completely torn apart.”

This is unlikely to change under Townsend’s direction, given his track record. In an op-ed in Foreign Policy, he claimed that the reports of civilian casualties coming out of Somalia were “vastly inflated,” Airwars, however, identified at least 29 separate incidents in which civilians were harmed by U.S. military action in Somalia and, in June 2020, estimated that between 68 and 140 Somali civilians had been killed—a figure that far exceeded AFRICOM’s official count of four by at least 17 times.

Enabling Terrorism

AFRICOM was established in 2007 with the underlying goal of enhancing U.S. access to Africa’s mineral wealth and containing Chinese encroachment on the continent.

Townsend himself admitted in testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that 26 African nations “hold reserves of minerals determined to be critical to the U.S. economy and national security.” He also emphasized the importance of AFRICOM in keeping vital shipping lanes—which he said are key to the movement of Africa’s vast natural resources including energy and strategic minerals—open to international trade.

Netfa Freeman, co-coordinator of the Black Alliance for Peace’s Africa Team, said that “the real purpose of AFRICOM is to enable terrorism while at the same time prosecuting the ‘war on terror’ in Africa. This contradictory action ensures that Africa is in a constant state of war and instability. In doing so AFRICOM nurtures and justifies its own reason for being while developing a dependence of African states on AFRICOM for their defense.”

Since his appointment in 2019, Townsend has crisscrossed Africa, forging greater liaison with African military commanders and political leaders, many of whom are authoritarian in nature or have been involved in human rights atrocities.

In 2021, for example, Townsend visited Morocco to oversee a war-games operation between AFRICOM and local troops. One of the defense officials with whom he met was Lieutenant General Belkhir El Farouk, who was appointed to head military operations in Western Sahara, which Morocco occupies and had recently launched military operations against.

Townsend also met with General Mohammed El Haddad, chief of staff of the Libyan army, to discuss counter-terrorism cooperation. Subsequently, Townsend visited Libya in an attempt to curry influence with Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibha in advance of elections scheduled for December (later postponed) in which Muammar Qaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, was the frontrunner. (The U.S. obviously does not want Qaddafi to win).

In September, Townsend met with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who had overseen ethnic violence after winning fraudulent elections.

Townsend then traveled to Niger, where the U.S. houses two major drone bases. The country’s president, Mohamed Bazoum was leading a major counter-insurgency operation, backed by the U.S. against Islamic militants. The U.S. troop presence was exposed when four American soldiers were killed after being ambushed in October 2017.

Besides Bazoum, Townsend met in Niamey with French Ambassador Alexandre Garcia and Burkina Faso Commander Laurent Michon to enhance U.S.-French counterterrorism cooperation—along the Syrian model.

Afterwards, Townsend traveled to Djibouti, home of a major U.S. military base where Special Forces operations on the continent were coordinated. He also met with Chadian President Idriss Déby, who later died on the front-lines of a dirty war supported by AFRICOM, and with Mozambican Defense Minister Cristóvão Chume and Chief of General Staff Admiral Joaquim Mangrasse.

The Biden administration had recently sent troops to Mozambique alongside Portuguese and Rwandan soldiers and South African mercenaries to help the corrupt government quell a Muslim insurgency that threatened a $30 billion liquefied natural gas project of ExxonMobil.

State security forces there receiving training by AFRICOM units were implicated in serious human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, abductions, torture, use of excessive force against unarmed civilians, intimidation, and extrajudicial executions.

When he visited a U.S. military base in Manda Bay, Kenya—a headquarters of the war in Somalia—Townsend survived an assassination attempt. AFRICOM troops based there adopted similar tactics to Talon Anvil against al-Shabaab—which made Townsend a target.

Secret paramilitary units for which Townsend had been covering up, like in Syria, were mounting “snatch and grab” and “kill and capture” raids which “disappeared” many innocent victims and frequently disregarded human rights.

Army Brat

Priding himself as a “soldier’s commander” with a love of history, General Townsend was born in Scheinfeld, Bavaria, West Germany, in 1959 to a German art student mother and an Afghan medical student father, the result of a love affair. He was adopted soon after birth by an American military family in Germany and grew up as an army brat. His adoptive father, James Townsend, was a staff sergeant in an armored unit.

Upon graduation from North Georgia College in 1982, General Townsend was commissioned as an Army infantry officer. In 1983, he served with Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada and continued with Operation Just Cause in Panama and Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti.

Subsequently, he served with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, leading a task force in Operation Anaconda, and commanded the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, leading it in the 2007 Battle of Baqubah in the Iraq War, where the capital of the Iraqi province of Diyala was retaken from Sunni/al-Qaeda forces at a cost of 124 insurgents killed.

A report on the battle in The Guardian described brutal battlefield conditions in Baqubah in which soldiers were faced with the dilemma of whether or not to shoot women and children who were being used by the insurgents as human shields. Photos show U.S. troops under Townsend’s command terrorizing local residents in the attempt to capture insurgents who had littered the city with IEDs and roadside bombs.

Empire As a Way of Life

From Grenada to Iraq, to Syria and now Africa, Stephen Townsend has gone around the globe for the last 38 years hunting down insurgents in the interests of the American empire.

In that time, he has helped advance a psychological operation facilitating public support for America’s “forever wars.”

Fashioning himself as a practitioner of counter-insurgency doctrine emphasizing the importance of building the legitimacy of the local government, Townsend claims that the U.S. was “never a colonizing power in Africa,” that AFRCOM’s motto is “African solutions, for African problems,” and that countries “drowning in poverty” frequently “ask for U.S. help.”

These words mask the imperial underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy.

Unfortunately, there is no broad demand for Townsend’s indictment as a war criminal. Townsend, rather, continues to enjoy status and respect in a society where empire is a way of life.

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).

17 January 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Thierry Meyssan

11 Jan 2022 – The events that have been unfolding for the past week in Kazakhstan are the fifth part of a plan by the RAND Corporation, the sixth of which will take place in Transnistria. The four previous episodes took place over the last two years in Ukraine, Syria, Belarus and Nagorno-Karabakh. The aim is to weaken Russia by forcing it to over-deploy.

US President Joe Biden responded to Russia’s proposal for a Treaty guaranteeing peace on the basis of strict compliance with the UN Charter and keeping one’s word [1] in a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on December 30, 2021. Unsurprisingly, he did not respond to the substance of the Russian request, merely mentioning a possible end to US operations in Ukraine.

At the same time, the US National Security Council has initiated several actions against Russia. It is not a question of overthrowing governments or launching new wars, but of forcing Moscow to intervene outside its borders in order to exhaust it. The Russian Federation already has a huge territory that it is unable to exploit with a population of only 150 million.

In May 2019, the Rand Corporation, the think-tank of the US military-industrial complex, listed six options in this regard [2]:

1. Arming Ukraine ;
2. Increase support for jihadists in Syria;
3. Promoting regime change in Belarus;
4. Exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus;
5. Reducing Russian influence in Central Asia;
6. Rivaling the Russian presence in Transnistria.

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland visited Moscow from October 11 to 13, 2021 to meet with the Russian government. The Russian government exceptionally lifted the ban on her travel to Russia for the occasion [3]. Indeed, Ms Nuland is not just another civil servant. She is a figure of the US deep state, participating in all administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, with the exception of the Jacksonian administration of President Donald Trump. It was she who, in 2001, called up the Allies to fight in Afghanistan despite the opposition of French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. It was she who saved Israel at the end of the 2006 war against Lebanon, organising a unilateral ceasefire so as to avoid the humiliation of a military defeat. And she was also the one that organised the colourful Maidan revolution in 2014 to overthrow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and replace him with Nazis, among others. The contempt in which it holds Europeans was then evident, causing unease in Brussels and sanctions from Moscow.

During the colourful revolution in Ukraine, Victoria Nuland came to distribute sandwiches and drinks to the neo-Nazis in Maidan Square. DR

Mrs Nuland belongs to an illustrious neo-conservative family. Her husband is none other than Robert Kagan, one of the founders of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which raised the funds for the accession of George W. Bush (the son) to the White House and wished for “a new Pearl Harbor”, which the attacks of September 11 brought about. His brother-in-law, Frederick Kagan, is a pillar of the American Enterprise Institute. He was the inspiration for the US policy of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. His sister-in-law, Kimberly Kagan, is president of the Institute for the Study of War. She has played a leading role in all the wars in the ’wider Middle East’, including the surge policy in Iraq.

Victoria Nuland explained her approach to dealing with Russia in a provocative article in Foreign Affairs in July 2020, ’Pinning down Putin’ [4]. The neo-conservative author was then working for former Democratic Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and outlined what the next president should do with Moscow. After presenting a Russia in ruins and a beleaguered Putin, she proposed negotiating a new START treaty, fighting Russian use of the internet, supporting Ukraine’s membership of the EU (and then Nato), and the armed opposition in Syria. She imagined US investment in Russia to modernise this poor country in exchange for its political alignment with the “Western democracies”. The Kremlin, which does not recognise any of her findings, received her just as it had accepted the Biden-Putin summit in Geneva after the US president had insulted his Russian counterpart on television.

Nothing has come out of these closed-door meetings. But it is highly likely that Ms Nuland threatened Russia once again, as she has been doing so continuously for the past twenty years. In any case, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that she was not ready to support the implementation of the Minsk agreement to resolve the Ukrainian crisis.

As soon as her trip to Moscow was over, Victoria Nuland went to Beirut to meet Najib Mikati’s new government, then to London to sound the alarm. There she announced that Moscow was massing troops on the Ukrainian border and preparing to invade the country.

Three weeks later, CIA Director William Burns rushed to Moscow to fix what Victoria Nuland had broken. He tried to be conciliatory and was received by President Putin himself.
However, Washington has just stopped blowing hot and cold. After (1) arming Ukraine, (2) supporting jihadists in Syria, (3) attempting regime change in Belarus [5], (4) exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus with the Azerbaijani attack on Armenia [6], Washington (5) is trying to reduce Moscow’s influence in Kazakstan and should soon (6) compete with Russia in Transnistria. In short, it is pursuing the Rand Corporation’s plan.

Kazakhstan

In Central Asian culture, the ruler is a kind of Kubilai Khan and his family are privileged. Kazakhstan has only been a nation for a few years. It owes this to President Nursultan Nazerbayev who managed to unite different tribes. His successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, democratised the country, but attitudes are still influenced by the Turko-Mongolian culture.

On January 2, 2022, protests against a 13% increase in gas prices turned into a riot. Coordinated groups attacked public buildings and often local businesses. Snipers fired from rooftops at both protesters and police. Military armouries were attacked. The loot was distributed among the groups of attackers. The phenomenon was repeated throughout the country. The Taldykorgan prison, where Islamists are held prisoner, was also attacked.

The operation is led by jihadists who fought in Syria and by former Afghan collaborators of the CIA. The groups they lead are made up of Kazakh Islamists.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev recognised the legitimacy of the demonstrations and cracked down on terrorist attacks. He declared a state of siege and arrested the chairman of the Security Council, Karim Masimov, a former banker who was twice prime minister and head of the presidential administration. He is currently charged with high treason. Tokayev then appointed his successor and convened the Security Council.

Reports from his administration put the number of insurgents at around 20,000, including both foreign jihadists and rioters and Kazakh Islamists. The country has had cordial relations with Israel for many years, long before the Kushner plan for normalisation. Although former President Nazerbayev had held anti-religious positions during the Soviet era, he later converted and made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Churches were allowed, subject to registration. An inter-religious summit, comparable to the one the Vatican organises in Assisi, takes place every year.

Kazakhstan distinguishes any kind of religion from political Islam, which is prohibited. However, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party) have developed throughout Central Asia with the help of the British MI6. It was to combat this separatism that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was created.

The Security Council has passed on to the Kremlin the information it already has on the plot against the country. It has asked for help from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to fight the jihadists. President Tokayev immediately ordered his security forces to shoot without warning and kill any jihadists they found [7].

The CSTO responded immediately by deploying 2,500 soldiers, Armenians, Belarusians, Russians and Tajiks, under the command of General Andrei Serdyukov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation Paratroopers. The People’s Republic of China has announced its readiness to help, if necessary.

Turkey supported President Tokayev, indicating that it was not involved in the Islamist plot. Afghanistan did the same, which is less surprising insofar as the Taliban are Deobandis and the Afghans involved in the jihadist attack are former CIA collaborators who have fled the country [8].

It was soon learned that the National Endowment for Democracy [9], of which Victoria Nuland is a former administrator, had given millions of dollars since Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House to “extend democracy” in Kazakhstan.

A few years ago, Dariga Nazarbayeva gave an award for his work as a journalist to Thierry Meyssan.

In the past, the former energy minister, the oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, created an (unrecognised) opposition party, the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (QDT), with President Nzerbayev’s son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev. Together they tried to overthrow him with the help of George Soros. Aliyev died in 2015 in prison in Austria while Ablyazov went into exile in the UK and then France. He was arrested several times in the European Union for murder in Russia, but was never extradited. He was granted political asylum in France and has been living in Paris for over a year. From the first day of the riot, he called for the overthrow of the regime, i.e. not only President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, but also former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, now officially retired but still very influential.

According to some unconfirmed sources, Mukhtar Ablyazov is linked to President Nazerbayev’s nephew, Samat Abish, a former deputy director of the secret services. He was reportedly arrested on January 7 for high treason. He is known to be a militant of political Islam like his father, who built a gigantic mosque in Almaty.

President Nursultan Nazerbayev has returned to the capital. If his health allows it, he could take things in hand, notably with the help of his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva.

The Dnieper Valley (Transnistria) is represented by a small red strip, wedged between Moldova in the west and Ukraine in the east. It has no outlet to the Black Sea and therefore could not join Crimea.

Transnistria

According to the RAND plan, after Kazakhstan, Transnistria’s turn will come.

The United States has mobilised the European Union to carry out an economic blockade of this unrecognised state, whose population broke away from Moldova in a referendum when the USSR was dissolved. Officials of the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), led by Stefano Sannino (the former OSCE representative in Serbia), have been supervising the Moldovan and Ukrainian customs (which are not EU members) to carry out the blockade of this country since January 1, 2022. Russia will be forced to develop the former Soviet space base and create an air bridge to feed the 500,000 inhabitants of this enclave.

The Dnieper Valley (Transnistria) is represented by a small red strip, wedged between Moldova in the west and Ukraine in the east. It has no outlet to the Black Sea and therefore could not join Crimea.

The citizens of the European Union have forgotten that in 1992 the United States tried in vain to militarily crush Transnistria (now the Dniester Moldavian Republic) using an army recruited from Romanian prisons [10]. The courage of this population, faithful to the Soviet model, and particularly of its women, scuppered the CIA’s project.

It should be noted in passing that although the population of Transnistria speaks Russian, three villages still speak French. They are inhabited by descendants of Napoleon’s grognards who married and settled there during the Russian campaign.

In conclusion, if Washington’s response to the Moscow Treaty proposal to secure peace was officially a halt to its eastward advance, it is unofficially that it still has the capacity to do harm.

_______________________________________

This article is a follow-up to:  “Russia wants to force the US to respect the UN Charter“, January 4, 2022.

Thierry Meyssan – Political consultant, president-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network).

17 January 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Vijay Prashad

14 Jan 2022 – On 11 Jan 2022, the United Nations (UN) Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths appealed to the international community to help raise $4.4 billion for Afghanistan in humanitarian aid, calling this effort, “the largest ever appeal for a single country for humanitarian assistance.” This amount is required “in the hope of shoring up collapsing basic services there,” said the UN. If this appeal is not met, Griffiths said, then “next year [2023] we’ll be asking for $10 billion.”

The figure of $10 billion is significant. A few days after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, the U.S. government announced the seizure of $9.5 billion in Afghan assets that were being held in the U.S. banking system. Under pressure from the United States government, the International Monetary Fund also denied Afghanistan access to $455 million of its share of special drawing rights, the international reserve asset that the IMF provides to its member countries to supplement their original reserves. These two figures—which constitute Afghanistan’s monetary reserves—amount to around $10 billion, the exact number Griffiths said that the country would need if the United Nations does not immediately get an emergency disbursement for providing humanitarian relief to Afghanistan.

A recent analysis by development economist Dr. William Byrd for the United States Institute of Peace, titled, “How to Mitigate Afghanistan’s Economic and Humanitarian Crises,” noted that the economic and humanitarian crises being faced by the country are a direct result of the cutoff of $8 billion in annual aid to Afghanistan and the freezing of $9.5 billion of the country’s “foreign exchange reserves” by the United States. The analysis further noted that the sanctions relief—given by the U.S. Treasury Department and the United Nations Security Council on December 22, 2021—to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan should also be extended to “private business and commercial transactions.” Byrd also mentioned the need to find ways to pay salaries of health workers, teachers and other essential service providers to prevent an economic collapse in Afghanistan and suggested using “a combination of Afghan revenues and aid funding” for this purpose.

Meanwhile, the idea of paying salaries directly to the teachers came up in an early December 2021 meeting between the UN’s special envoy for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons and Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai. None of these proposals, however, seem to have been taken seriously in Washington, D.C.

A Humanitarian Crisis

In July 2020, before the pandemic hit the country hard, and long before the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, the Ministry of Economy in Afghanistan had said that 90 percent of the people in the country lived below the international poverty line of $2 a day. Meanwhile, since the beginning of its war in Afghanistan in 2001, the United States government has spent $2.313 trillion on its war efforts, according to figures provided by Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University; but despite spending 20 years in the country’s war, the United States government spent only $145 billion on the reconstruction of the country’s institutions, according to its own estimates. In August, before the Taliban defeated the U.S. military forces, the United States government’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) published an important report that assessed the money spent by the U.S. on the country’s development. The authors of the report wrote that despite some modest gains, “progress has been elusive and the prospects for sustaining this progress are dubious.” The report pointed to the lack of development of a coherent strategy by the U.S. government, excessive reliance on foreign aid, and pervasive corruption inside the U.S. contracting process as some of the reasons that eventually led to a “troubled reconstruction effort” in Afghanistan. This resulted in an enormous waste of resources for the Afghans, who desperately needed these resources to rebuild their country, which had been destroyed by years of war.

On December 1, 2021, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released a vital report on the devastating situation in Afghanistan. In the last decade of the U.S. occupation, the annual per capita income in Afghanistan fell from $650 in 2012 to around $500 in 2020 and is expected to drop to $350 in 2022 if the population increases at the same pace as it has in the recent past. The country’s gross domestic product will contract by 20 percent in 2022, followed by a 30 percent drop in the following years. The following sentences from the UNDP report are worth quoting in full to understand the extent of humanitarian crisis being faced by the people in the country: “According to recent estimates, only 5 percent of the population has enough to eat, while the number of those facing acute hunger is now estimated to have… reached a record 23 million. Almost 14 million children are likely to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter, with 3.5 million children under the age of five expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, and 1 million children risk dying from hunger and low temperatures.”

Lifelines

This unraveling humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is the reason for the January 11 appeal to the international community by the UN. On December 18, 2021, the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held an emergency meeting—called for by Saudi Arabia—on Afghanistan in Islamabad, Pakistan. Outside the meeting room—which merely produced a statement—the various foreign ministers met with Afghanistan’s interim Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. While in Islamabad, Muttaqi met with the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West. A senior official with the U.S. delegation told Kamran Yousaf of the Express Tribune (Pakistan), “We have worked quietly to enable cash… [to come into] the country in larger and larger denominations.” A foreign minister at the OIC meeting told me that the OIC states are already working quietly to send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

Four days later, on December 22, the United States introduced a resolution (2615) in the UN Security Council that urged a “humanitarian exception” to the harsh sanctions against Afghanistan. During the meeting, which took place for approximately 40 minutes, nobody raised the matter that the U.S., which proposed the resolution, had decided to freeze the $10 billion that belonged to Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the passage of this resolution was widely celebrated since everyone understands the gravity of Afghanistan’s crisis. Meanwhile, Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the UN, raised problems relating to the far-reaching effects of such sanctions and urged the council to “guide the Taliban to consolidate interim structures, enabling them to maintain security and stability, and to promote reconstruction and recovery.”

A senior member of the Afghan central bank (Da Afghanistan Bank) told me that much-needed resources are expected to enter the country as part of humanitarian aid being provided by Afghanistan’s neighbors, particularly from China, Iran and Pakistan (aid from India will come through Iran). Aid has also come in from other neighboring countries, such as Uzbekistan, which sent 3,700 tons of food, fuel and winter clothes, and Turkmenistan, which sent fuel and food. In early January 2022, Muttaqi traveled to Tehran, Iran, to meet with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Iran’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi. While Iran has not recognized the Taliban government as the official government of Afghanistan, it has been in close contact with the government “to help the deprived people of Afghanistan to reduce their suffering.” Muttaqi has, meanwhile, emphasized that his government wants to engage the major powers over the future of Afghanistan.

On January 10, the day before the UN made its most recent appeal for coming to the aid of Afghanistan, a group of charity groups and NGOs—organized by the Zakat Foundation of America—held an Afghan Peace and Humanitarian Task Force meeting in Washington. The greatest concern is the humanitarian crisis being faced by the people of Afghanistan, notably the imminent question of starvation in the country, with the roads already closed off due to the harsh winter witnessed in the region.

In November 2021, Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai urged the United States to reopen its embassy in Kabul; a few weeks later, he said that the U.S. is responsible for the crisis in Afghanistan, and it “should play an active role” in repairing the damage it has done to the country. This sums up the present mood in Afghanistan: open to relations with the U.S., but only after it allows the Afghan people access to the nation’s own money in order to save Afghan lives.

_______________________________________________

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

17 January 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Patrik Paulov

15 Jan 2022 – Issa Touma, photographer from Aleppo, has portrayed the Syrian people before, during and after the war. But it was only when he moved to Sweden that he understood why the Western world’s image of Syria was so distorted. Despite great difficulties in Syria, he feels hopeful for the future.

I call several times at the agreed time. I write a message. After a while, I get an answer: please try again later.

There is a power outage. I had to start the generator to start the computer. We only have electricity for maybe two or three hours a day, says Issa Touma when we talk via Facetime.

He is in Aleppo in northern Syria. The Internet connection is unstable but, during most of the conversation, both audio and video work. In Aleppo, Issa Touma has been running Le Pont Gallery for 25 years. Although he periodically has worked in Europe, he always returned to his hometown and his gallery.

When the war in Syria started in the spring of 2011, life in Aleppo continued as usual. On August 19, 2012, the calm was over. Issa Touma, who in his professional role usually stands by and watches and listens to people, ended up in the center of events. With his camera, he documented what he saw from his window.

The short film 9 Days – From My Window in Aleppo has received several international awards, and has been highlighted by BBC News and shown at festivals around the world. It depicts what happened when the war came to Aleppo.

Issa Touma’s street was at the front line in the fighting between the Syrian army and the armed groups. The film shows that it took nine days before the young, secular men with weapons disappeared and the uprising was in the hands of combat-experienced religious extremists.

Some of the fighters were foreigners. The military leader on Issa Touma’s street were from Chechnya.

“When the war started, a lot of people in Syria, especially the secular ones in the cities, were shocked by the religious fanaticism in the uprising. For me, it did not come as a surprise,” says Issa Touma.

“Before the war, I had traveled around northern and eastern Syria. I had visited the villages and listened to people. The change came with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The influence of the fanatics grew rapidly in the years that followed.”

After the war came to Aleppo in 2012, four difficult years followed. Issa Touma’s home ended up on the eastern side of the divided city, which was controlled by extremist groups. For a time, the western, government-controlled part and its more than one million inhabitants were completely enclosed by the armed groups. There was an acute shortage of food, water, medicine and electricity.

Thousands of Aleppo residents fell victim to the shelling from the eastern side. But Western media rarely reported on what was happening in western Aleppo.

During these dark years, Issa Touma received scholarships that enabled him to save his digital archive and continue his work abroad. In March 2016, the Swedish city of Gävle, member of The International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), welcomed Issa Touma to stay there for two years.

“Something I asked myself during the first years of the war was how come the voices of the war fanatics were so loud in the West. I found the answer when I came to Sweden,” says Issa Touma.

”In Sweden, oppositional Syrians could tell anything and get it published. No one checked if the things they claimed were true. The task of these Syrians was to clean up the dirty pages of the war, so that the fanatics in Syria would get the support of European politicians.”

Issa Touma was frightened by the situation in Sweden. He saw cultural centers and human rights organizations controlled by Syrian extremists. He saw how some Syrians were elevated by media as Syrian experts, despite the fact that they barely had been in Syria during the war, and sometimes came from cities other than those they claimed.

These so-called experts were also among the cultural workers who received support from ICORN, Pen International and other similar organizations.

Issa Touma told me about a conference in Norway in 2017. At the conference, an acclaimed Syrian filmmaker said that allies of the Syrian government side conducted ethnic cleansing in Aleppo. The audience was told that Iranian Shia militias occupied the city and purged the Sunni Muslim majority.

“What was he saying, I asked myself. I had been in Aleppo recently before the conference and saw nothing of this. There are few Shia Muslim families in Aleppo, almost all living there are Sunni Muslims. But the audience in Norway believed his lies. Ten organizations had invited this filmmaker to speak.”

During the conference, the Syrian government was accused of killing an opposition activist, despite the fact that it was known that the terrorist group Jaysh al-Islam was guilty of the murder.

“I was so angry. I went to the ICORN director and said this is too much for me. I do not mind criticizing the Syrian government—but told him that ICORN should criticize what it does badly, rather than promoting the fantasies of war activists in Europe.”

9 Days – From My Window in Aleppo and Issa Touma’s other movies have been shown worldwide.

In Sweden, it was difficult to reach out to the public. During Issa Touma’s two-year stay in Sweden, his film was shown in Gävle only. Not a single film festival invited him. He believes that it is because of his refusal to accept the image that the conflict is between freedom-fighting rebels and a dictator.

“If that was really the case, then why did 80-90 percent of the inhabitants flee to the dictatorial side when the freedom fighters came? If it was freedom that they brought, then surely the people should have gone the other way?”

“People fled from eastern to western Aleppo because they were terrified of the Islamist fighters, not because they liked the government.”

Due to his statements, Issa Touma has been accused of being an agent of the Syrian government. He shakes his head at the absurd statement: “I am independent, and everyone knows my history with the government.”

That the ruling Ba’ath party did not always appreciate Issa Touma was obvious long before the war. His exhibitions and the annual international film festival attracted thousands of people. When the content was considered too controversial, the ruling party tried to stop the activities by turning off the electricity, and they forced him to keep the gallery closed.

In the autumn of 2016, the final battle for Aleppo took place. On December 22, 2016, the Syrian army retook the eastern part of the city, and the last hard-core jihadists and their families were bussed to Idlib west of Aleppo. During the Christmas celebrations the same year, thousands of Christians and Muslims took to the streets together.

The week after Christmas, Issa Touma entered the previously closed eastern part. He saw destruction and dead bodies. His house remained, albeit marked by bullet holes. Many of his neighbors’ homes had been demolished. He also saw how people tried to get their lives back to normal and do things they could not do before.

“A football pitch (soccer field) located on the outskirts of the Armenian Christian quarter in eastern Aleppo was quickly restored. The field is in the middle of war-damaged houses. It is a great place, always clean and tidy. It is not just Armenians who play there, all ethnic and religious groups come there.”

Five years after the liberation of Aleppo, a few hotbeds remain in Syria. One is the Idlib province under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda branch in Syria. Another hotbed is the border area with Turkey in the north. It is occupied by Turkish troops in cooperation with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army with a new name. The wreckage of ISIS is operating in the east at the border area with Iraq.

Issa Touma’s image of Syria at the end of December 2021 is simultaneously both gloomy and positive.

He told me that “most of those who fled Aleppo during the war have not returned. At least one million people now live in the city, but it was two million before the war. The roads in the city have been cleared. The street to my house was one of the first to be opened. It is step one to enable people to return.

The biggest problem is the economy. The Syrian pound has plunged against the U.S. dollar, and commodity prices have risen dramatically.”

“Life has become so difficult,” Issa Touma continued. “A pair of shoes costs as much as the monthly salary of a government employee. In many families, all adults and also young people 16-17 years old work. It is their only chance to survive. A lot of people want to leave Syria for economic reasons, but it is difficult to get out when the road to Europe via Turkey is closed.”

When I ask him what role the U.S. and EU sanctions play, Issa Touma answers that he honestly “does not know the answer.” Instead, he points to what he himself can see in everyday life, such as that “some use the crisis to enrich themselves.

There is no control over business and pricing. Control is needed.”

However, Issa Touma believes that “the war did not only bring death and destruction.”

“For the past year and a half, I have chosen to only work in Syria,” he said. “The Syrian people who are 40 years and older are dreaming of going back to the old times. The young people, the war generation, do not remember what Syria was like before the war. Here is the chance to build something new.”

The young people he has interviewed for his film project Freedom of Choice are open to change. According to Issa Touma, Islamism is in sharp decline. The liberation process is also directed at deeply rooted traditions such as the influence of the family and the clan.

“The real revolution is starting now. It can give Syria a better future.”

Patrik Paulov is a freelance writer based in Gothenburg, Sweden. He has published several articles about the war in Syria in Sweden’s largest newspapers, as well as in alternative and independent media.

17 January 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Dr Ram Puniyani

As we celebrate the birth anniversary (12th January) of the saffron robed monk who projected spirituality of Hinduism, the diversity and syncretic nature of India, it is very reassuring. His teachings are in total contrast to the present scenario, where many saffron robed are promoting hate and inciting violence in the name of same religion. Swami Vivekananda, the legend who conveyed the essence of Hindu religion as humanism and love; in his speech in Chicago will remain a landmark in times to come.

He could make impact as he courageously put forth the great values of Hinduism while undermining the inhuman practices prevalent in the name of the same religion. Sunil Khilnani (Incarnations, page 305) quotes a valuable saying of his, talking of Hindu religion Swamiji says “No religion on earth preaches dignity of humanity in such lofty strains as Hinduism, and no religion on Earth treads upon necks of the poor and low in such a fashion as Hinduism.” For him poverty and caste system were the curses which needed eradication. In tune with that he sees God in the poor, Daridranarayan, and eradication of poverty and restoring dignity to the untouchables becomes his central concern.

He did not see that religions are in conflict as he picked up values of meditation from Buddhism. For him knowledge was not restricted by boundaries and so for him Western science and rational philosophy were to be accepted and respected. He equally upheld the organizational energies of American social reformers. He was out to reconcile the best in human traditions irrespective of native or ‘Foreign’, and so Hinduism, rationalism and social radicalism were the ideals which he synthesized in his understanding and practice. While we are out to make temples and statues, he was against idol worship as was propounded by Brahmo Samaj.

Unlike many; for him Hinduism was not to be mixed with politics. He had moved the length and breadth of country and knew the deeper syncretism prevalent in our country. While Hinduism’s blend with politics was based on ‘Hate other’, Vivekananda’s Hinduism was seeped with love and unity of religions. While opposing the unwanted social practices prevailing in society in the name of religion, he called for rational thinking which may go against blind faith and dictates of priesthood.

While we are witnessing the phenomenon of love jihad to control the lives of women, he stood for freedom of women. And as we are currently made to look down on movements like farmers movement, he saw the contribution of struggles of people coming together for their interests, like workers movement in America contributing to betterment of workers conditions.

When one sees the prevailing atmosphere where a social common sense has been created against Islam, Muslims and spread of Islam in India, his understanding about diversity in India comes as a breath of fresh air. His understanding is for promoting amity in the society. Rather than looking at Muslims as aliens who attacked Hindu culture, he says, “Our mother land is the land where confluence of two great traditions-Hinduism and Islam-has taken place. Make Vedas the brain and Islam the body of this land. In my inner self I dream of such an integrated India.” (Dr. Dattaprasad Dabholkar, Shodh Vivekanadacha, endnote 41).

While we are witnessing the tragedy of violence and promotion of hate in the name of Religion, he saw God as one “May I be born again and again and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God that I believe in, the sum total of all souls- the miserable and poor of all races, of all species.” (Volume V/Epistles-First Series/LXXVIII/ Mary Hale, 9July 1897)

While currently lot of efforts are being made to hide the source of caste system under the carpet, he frankly wrote, “I have no doubt that according to the ancient view in this country, caste was hereditary, and it cannot be doubted that Shudras used to be oppressed…(Volume Vi Epistles-second series/Sir, 17August 1889)

For him the diverse religions are no obstacle, as he sees religions as the path for attaining liberty and cessation of misery. One should have freedom to choose one’s path and live in mutual respect with other religions. In the atmosphere of present dominating Islamophobia, globally and more at home the sage teaches us, “If ever any religion approached to this equality in an appreciable manner, it is Islam and Islam alone. ((Volume 6/Epistles-Second series/CXLII/ Sarfaraz Hussain, 10 June 1898)

Currently social energies are being diverted to intimidate religious minorities. Muslims are being targeted for having spread Islam through sword and Christians for converting through force, fraud and allurement. He clarifies the real cause of conversions in two of his letters, one to Pundit Shankarlal of Khetri (20th September 1892 and another to Haridas Vithaldas Desai in November 1894 (Volume 5/Epistles-First Series/II, Volume 8/Epistles-Fourth series Nov 1894, respectively). In these letters he points out, “Religious conversions have not taken place because of atrocities of Christians and Muslims, but because of atrocities of upper caste.”

In matters of choice of food also he was very rational to point out that “We leave everybody free to know, select and follow whatever suits and helps him…Each is welcome to his own peculiarities and has no right to criticize the conduct of other.” Volume 4/Writings: Prose/What we believe in, 3rd March 1894) While he had no issues with beef he pointed out that cow meat was consumed during the Vedic period. It was also the object of sacrifice in the Vedic rituals. While speaking to a large gathering in the USA said: “You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions, he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.” (cited in Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol 3 (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1997), p. 536.)

It is obvious that those who have iconized the legendary Swami are totally against his teachings. He is for eradication of poverty, for restoring dignity of poor and downtrodden, is opposed to caste and is for a Harmony amongst all the religions. Wish we can honestly follow his teachings rather than pursue aggressive politics of Hate in his name.

13 January 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

By Satya Sagar

I have a confession to make. That I have been converted many times. From one faith to another to yet another, endlessly. And I simply love it.

Sometimes I got converted through the power of a compelling idea, just by reading a wonderful book. Or watching a well-made movie or listening to a song (especially sung by Mohammad Rafi saheb).

Often I have become a true believer thanks to the charms of a wonderful personality. I obtained so much spiritual relief through them on Earth that I have indefinitely postponed my journey to Heaven.

And I must admit, quite shamelessly, I have been repeatedly converted by the lure of money too – especially when the currency on offer was the US dollar and in the right amount.

In turn I too have converted many I have been with – whether family, neighbours, classmates, complete strangers. I have been evangelical about many causes from planting trees to overthrowing capitalism. These days I am trying (unsuccessfully) to get my children to join the ‘Church of Stop Shopping’ – which sees malls and online retailers like Amazon as the agents of the Devil.

Which is why I am completely baffled by all the noise being made by some self-appointed champions of ‘Hinduism’, about conversion being a problem in India. Apart from enacting draconian laws in several states around the country their cowardly goons have vandalized Churches, beaten up pastors and threatened Christians with dire consequences – for just being Christians!

India’s Muslims have been brutalized even more over the last two decades, accused of converting non-Muslims through ‘jihad’ of different kinds – from romance to clearing civil service exams with flying colours. This again is truly puzzling – why target Christians or Muslims as indulging in conversions when the truth is that converting people from one faith to another has been a staple part of India’s history from ancient times.

In fact the biggest and most successful conversion movement in India historically has been that carried out by the proponents of Brahmanism (also called Sanatan Dharma), a very tightly guarded and specific set of rituals, beliefs, myths. After all, if Vedic culture, the inspiration for Brahmanism, originated 3500 years ago in what is now the region of Punjab, how did it reach all parts of the country if not through conversion? And how did a multitude of local, indigenous gods and deities in this country get incorporated into the imaginary, umbrella framework called ‘Hinduism’, if not through active proselytizing?

And surely all of this conversion over the centuries was not done through mere persuasion alone? Both force and bribery played crucial roles, given the alliance between the Brahmin, Kshatriya and Bania – in ‘convincing’ the population to change their prayers, rituals and even gods.

It is a process that continues to this day as the high priests of Brahmanism – mostly from cow belt India – dictate to all Hindus what they should eat or wear, who their daughters should marry, which deities to worship and how they should behave with non-Hindus. In the Adivasi areas of the country the situation is worse as they are forced to call themselves ‘Hindus’, thus denying their own religions and traditions that date back to many millennia.

For that matter, when the Buddha, 2500 years ago, preached his message of the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path to Nirvana wasn’t he also converting members of the public to his faith? To think of it, how come there are so many adherents of Jainism and Sikhism in India without some kind of conversion process taking place. Would Lord Mahavir or Guru Nanak be ‘guilty’ of carrying out religious conversion and what would that mean anyway?

In more recent history, in 1956, when Dr B.R.Ambedkar converted to Buddhism and inspired thousands of Dalits to emulate him, would he not have been charged under the current anti-conversion laws? Would Amit Shah or Yogi Adityanath have booked Babasaheb on charges of ‘religious conversion’?

So, let me come to the main point I am trying to make. The Muslims or Christians of India have done nothing that has not been done before by everyone else and conversion is an absolutely very Indian tradition – and everyone has the right to try and convert everyone else.

Conversion is essentially the process of people of different belief systems interacting and influencing each other in various ways to change their perceptions, habits and moral or cultural norms. Every television channel and advertiser is constantly trying to convert his/her audience to change their faith – to shift their object of worship from Coca Cola to Pepsi. This is so normal an activity that to even think of stopping it, leave alone making it a criminal offense, is the sign of a high degree of mental derangement.

What is really happening in India now is that a section of upper-caste Hindus are essentially telling everyone else in the country that only they have the right to convert everybody else and there should be no competitors at all ! And for them it is not just about religious conversion because these folks don’t like the conversion activity carried out by communists, atheists, democrats, secularists and supporters of the Indian Constitution either.

What they want – and are close to getting- are unchallenged powers to decide both the lives and afterlives of all Indian citizens. In practice what this means in the Indian context is the installation of a theocracy where the only ruling deities will be a bunch of Maharashtrian Brahmins, Gujarati Banias together with the Kshatriyas of Uttar Pradesh. This is a power grab of immense proportions that will leave the rest of India- and not just religious minorities- as second-class citizens.

The response that is called for from the truly devout of all faiths and beliefs (including atheists, who are among the most spiritual people I have ever met) is to fight for their right to preach, convert and also get converted. Let us convert and get converted should be our slogan – as our fundamental human right.

Failure to resist will mean not just our own surrender but that of our Gods too, to the tyrants in power today. And for the truly spiritual that is simply not an option at all.

So let us all go forth and convert – Hate into Love, Abuse into Prayer, Despair into Hope

Anger into Empathy, Division into Unity and Suffering into Solidarity.

Satya Sagar is a journalist and public health worker who can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

9 January 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Lawrence Wittner

Late January of this year will mark the first anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This momentous international agreement, the result of a lengthy struggle by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and by many non-nuclear nations, bans developing, testing, producing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, and threatening to use nuclear weapons. Adopted by an overwhelming vote of the official representatives of the world’s nations at a UN conference in July 2017, the treaty was subsequently signed by 86 nations. It received the required 50 national ratifications by late October 2020, and, on January 22, 2021, became international law.

Right from the start, the world’s nine nuclear powers—the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea—expressed their opposition to such a treaty. They pressed other nations to boycott the crucial 2017 UN conference and refused to attend it when it occurred. Indeed, three of them (the United States, Britain, and France) issued a statement declaring that they would never ratify the treaty. Not surprisingly, then, none of the nuclear powers has signed the agreement or indicated any sympathy for it.

Even so, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has acquired considerable momentum over the past year. During that time, an additional nine nations ratified it, thus becoming parties to the treaty. And dozens more, having signed it, are expected to ratify it in the near future. Furthermore, the governments of two NATO nations, Norway and Germany, have broken free from the U.S. government’s oppositional stance to the treaty and agreed to attend the first meeting of the countries that are parties to it.

In nations where public opinion on the treaty has been examined, the international agreement enjoys considerable support. YouGov opinion polls in five NATO countries in Europe show overwhelming backing and very little opposition, with the same true in Iceland, another NATO participant. Polling has also revealed large majorities in favor of the treaty in Japan, Canada, and Australia.

In the United States, where most of the mainstream communications media have not deigned to mention the treaty, it remains a well-kept secret. Even so, although a 2019 YouGov poll about it drew a large “Don’t Know” response, treaty support still outweighed opposition by 49 to 32 percent. Moreover, when the U.S. Conference of Mayors, representing 1,400 U.S. cities, met in August 2021, the gathering unanimously approved a resolution praising the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Meanwhile, a variety of institutions, recognizing that nuclear weapons are now illegal under international law, have begun to change their investment policies. In September 2021, Lansforsakringar, a Swedish insurance company with assets of over $46 billion, cited the treaty as a major reason to avoid investing in companies producing nuclear weapons. In December, the New York City Council adopted a resolution telling the city comptroller to remove investments from the city’s $250 billion pension fund from companies producing or maintaining these weapons of mass destruction. According to ICAN, 127 financial institutions stopped investing in nuclear weapons companies during 2021.

Despite this impressive display of respect for the landmark agreement, the nine nuclear powers have not only continued to oppose it, but have accelerated their nuclear arms race. Having cast off the constraints of most nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements of the past, they are all busy either developing or deploying new nuclear weapons systems or have announced their intention to do so.

In this process of nuclear “modernization,” as it is politely termed, they are building newly-designed nuclear weapons of increasing accuracy and efficiency. These include hypersonic missiles, which travel at five times the speed of sound and are better able than their predecessors to evade missile defenses. Reportedly, hypersonic missiles have already been developed by Russia and China. The United States is currently scrambling to build them, as well, with the usual corporate weapons contractors eager to oblige.

When it comes to “modernization” of its entire nuclear weapons complex, the U.S. government probably has the lead. During the Obama administration, it embarked on a massive project designed to refurbish U.S. nuclear production facilities, enhance existing nuclear weapons, and build new ones. This enormous nuclear venture accelerated during the Trump administration and continues today, with a total cost estimated to ultimately top $1.5 trillion.

Although there remain some gestures toward nuclear arms control—such as the agreement between U.S. president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin to extend the New Start Treaty—the nuclear powers are now giving a much higher priority to the nuclear arms race.

The current build-up of their nuclear arsenals is particularly dangerous at this time of rising conflict among them. The U.S. and Russian governments almost certainly don’t want a nuclear war over Ukraine, but they could easily slip into one. The same is true in the case of the heightening confrontation between the Chinese and U.S. governments over Taiwan and the islands in the South China Sea. And what will happen when nuclear-armed India and nuclear-armed Pakistan fight yet another war, or when nuclear-armed national leaders like Kim Jong-un and a possibly re-elected Donald Trump start trading insults again about their countries’ nuclear might?

At present, this standoff between the nuclear nations, enamored with winning their global power struggles, and the non-nuclear nations, aghast at the terrible danger of nuclear war, seems likely to persist, resulting in the continuation of the world’s long nuclear nightmare.

In this context, the most promising course of action for people interested in human survival might well lie in a popular mobilization to compel the nuclear nations to accept the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and, more broadly, to accept a restrained role in a cooperatively-governed world.

Dr. Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).

9 January 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

By Arthur Firstenberg

5 Jan 2022 – While the attention of a terrified world has been riveted on a virus, and while concern about radiation has been focused on 5G on the ground, the assault on the heavens has reached astronomical proportions. During the past two years, the number of satellites circling the earth has increased from 2,000 to 4,800, and a flood of new projects has brought the number of operating, approved, and proposed satellites to at least 441,449. And that number only includes low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites that will reside in the ionosphere.

The satellite projects include the ones listed below. The companies are based in the United States unless otherwise indicated.

17,270 satellites already approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission:

• Amazon (Kuiper) – 3,236 satellites
• Astro Digital – 30 satellites
• Black Sky Global – 36 satellites
• Boeing – 147 satellites
• Capella Space Corp. – 7 satellites
• Globalstar (operating since 2000) – 48 satellites
• Hawkeye 360 – 80 satellites
• ICEYE – 6 satellites (FINLAND)
• Iridium (operating since 1998) – 66 satellites
• Kepler Communications – 140 satellites (CANADA)
• Loft Orbital – 11 satellites
• OneWeb – 720 satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Planet Labs (operating) – 200 satellites
• R2 Space, LLC – 8 satellites
• Spire Global – 175 satellites
• SpaceX – 11,943 satellites
• Swarm – 150 satellites
• Telesat – 117 satellites (CANADA)
• Theia Holdings – 120 satellites
• Umbra Lab – 6 satellites
• Viasat – 24 satellites

​Applications for 65,912 satellites pending before the FCC:

• Amazon (Kuiper) – 4,538 additional satellites
• AST & Science – 243 satellites
• Astra Space – 13,620 satellites
• Boeing – 5,789 additional satellites
• Black Sky Global – 14 additional satellites
• Fleet Space Technologies – 40 satellites (AUSTRALIA)
• Hughes Network Systems – 1,440 satellites
• Inmarsat – 198 satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Kepler Communications – two additional constellations of 360 satellites and 212 satellites (CANADA)
• Lynk Global – 10 satellites (HONG KONG)
• Maxar Technologies – 12 satellites
• New Spectrum – 30 satellites (CANADA)
• OneWeb – 6,368 additional satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Orbital Sidekick – 6 satellites
• SN Space Systems – 1,190 satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• SpaceX – 30,000 additional satellites
• Telesat – 1,554 additional satellites (CANADA)
• Terra Bella – 24 satellites (15 already operating)
• Viasat – 264 additional satellites

Constellations totaling 14,872 satellites announced by governments:

• Guowang – 12,992 satellites (CHINA)
• Roscosmos – 264 satellites named Marathon (RUSSIA)
• Roscosmos – 640 satellites named Sfera (RUSSIA)
• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – 20 satellites (U.S. MILITARY)
• Space Development Agency – 500 satellites (U.S. MILITARY)
• UN:IO – 400 satellites (EUROPEAN COMMISSION)
• Yaogan – 76 satellites (already operating) (CHINESE MILITARY)

Other LEO constellations planned by U.S. and foreign companies, totaling more than 16,055 satellites:

• 4pi Lab – 16 satellites (CANADA)
• ADA Space – 192 satellites (CHINA)
• Aerospacelab – two constellations (unknown number of satellites) (BELGIUM)
• Aistech – 20 satellites (SPAIN)
• Albedo Space – 24 satellites
• Alpha Insights – unknown number (CANADA)
• Analytical Space – 36 satellites (under contract with S. SPACE FORCE)
• Apogee Networks – 18 satellites (NEW ZEALAND)
• Astrocast – 100 satellites (SWITZERLAND)
• Astrome – 198 satellites (INDIA)
• Aurora Insight – 12 satellites
• Avant Space – 30 satellites (RUSSIA) equipped with lasers to serve as a billboard in space to display advertisements
• Axelspace – 50 satellites (JAPAN)
• BeetleSat – 80 satellites (ISRAEL)
• Canon – 100 satellites (JAPAN)
• Capella Space Corp. – 29 additional satellites
• Carbon Mapper – 20 satellites
• Care Weather – 50 satellites
• Chang Guang – 138 satellites (CHINA)
• China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation – 80 satellites (CHINA)
• Climavision – 50 satellites
• Commsat – 72 satellites (8 already operating) (CHINA)
• ConstellR – 30 satellites (GERMANY)
• Curvalux – 240 satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Earth Observant – 30 satellites
• EarthDaily Analytics – 6 satellites (CANADA)
• Earth-i – 15 satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• EchoStar – 30 satellites (CANADA)
• Elecnor Deimos – unknown number (SPAIN)
• EOSAgriSat – 12 satellites
• Eutelsat – 25 satellites (FRANCE)
• ExactEarth (operating) – 68 satellites (CANADA)
• Fleet Space – 60 additional satellites (AUSTRALIA)
• Future Navigation – 120 satellites (CHINA)
• GalaxEye – 15 satellites (INDIA)
• Galaxy Space – 1,000 satellites (CHINA)
• Geely – unknown number (CHINA)
• GeoOptics – 50 satellites
• GHG Sat – 10 satellites (CANADA)
• GP Advanced Projects – 9 satellites (ITALY)
• Guodian Gauke – 38 satellites (CHINA)
• Hanwha Systems – 2,000 satellites (SOUTH KOREA)
• HEAD Aerospace – 48 satellites (CHINA)
• Hera Systems – 50 satellites
• Horizon Technologies – 13 satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Hydrosat – 16 satellites
• Hypersat – 6 satellites
• ICEYE – has already launched 14 satellites and plans 18, for 12 more satellites than have been approved by the FCC (FINLAND)
• Innova Space – 100 satellites (ARGENTINA)
• iQPS – 36 satellites (JAPAN)
• Kinéis – 25 satellites (FRANCE)
• KLEO – 300 satellites – (GERMANY)
• Kleos Space – 80 satellites (LUXEMBOURG)
• Lacuna Space – 240 satellites (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Launchspace – 124 satellites
• LunaSonde – unknown number (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Lynk Global – 4,990 additional satellites (HONG KONG)
• LyteLoop – 6 satellites
• MDA – unknown number
• Mission Space – unknown number (LATVIA)
• Modularity Space – 150 satellites
• Muon Space – unknown number
• Myriota – 50 satellites (AUSTRALIA)
• NanoAvionics – 72 satellites (LITHUANIA)
• Ningxia – 10 satellites (CHINA)
• NorthStar – 52 satellites (CANADA)
• OHB Italia – 20 satellites (ITALY)
• Omnispace – 200 satellites
• OQ Technology – 60 satellites (LUXEMBOURG)
• Orbital Micro Systems – 40 satellites
• OroraTech – 100 satellites (GERMANY)
• PION Labs – unknown number (BRAZIL)
• PIXXEL – 36 satellites (INDIA)
• PlanetIQ – 20 satellites
• PredaSAR – 48 satellites
• Prométhée – unknown number (FRANCE)
• QEYNet – unknown number (CANADA)
• QianSheng – 20 satellites (CHINA)
• Reaktor Space Lab – 36 satellites (FINLAND)
• Rocket Lab – “Mega-constellation” of unknown number (NEW ZEALAND)
• Rogue Space Systems – 40 satellites
• Rovial – unknown number (FRANCE)
• Saab – 100 satellites (SWEDEN)
• SaraniaSat – unknown number
• Sateliot – 100 satellites (SPAIN)
• Satellogic – 90 satellites (ARGENTINA)
• SatRevolution – 1500 satellites (POLAND)
• Scanworld – 10 satellites (BELGIUM)
• Scepter and ExxonMobil – 24 satellites
• SCOUT – unknown number
• Shanghai Lizheng – 90 satellites (CHINA)
• Skykraft – 210 satellites (AUSTRALIA)
• Space JLTZ – 200 satellites (MEXICO)
• Space Union – 32 satellites (LITHUANIA)
• SpaceBelt – 12 satellites
• SpaceFab – unknown number
• Spacety – 56 satellites (CHINA)
• Stara Space – 120 satellites
• Startical – 200 satellites (SPAIN)
• Sternula – 50 satellites (DENMARK)
• Synspective – 30 satellites (JAPAN)
• Telnet – 30 satellites (TUNISIA)
• io – 36 satellites
• Totum Labs – 24 satellites
• Trion Space – 288 satellites (LIECHTENSTEIN)
• Trustpoint – unknown number
• Umbra Lab – 18 additional satellites
• UnseenLabs – 50 satelites (FRANCE)
• Vyoma Space – unknown number (GERMANY)
• WiseSat Space – unknown number (SWITZERLAND)
• Xona – 300 satellites
• ZeroG Lab – 378 satellites (CHINA)
• Zhuhai Orbita – 34 satellites (CHINA)

Rwanda, which wants to catapult Africa into world leadership in space, filed an application with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on September 21, 2021 for 327,320 satellites. Its proposal includes 937 orbital planes, distributed in 27 orbital shells (layers of satellites at different altitudes), with 360 satellites in each plane.

• Rwanda Space Agency – 327,320 satellites (RWANDA)

TOTAL: 441,449 SATELLITES OPERATING, APPROVED AND PROPOSED (+18 constellations whose numbers are not yet known)

Most of the above list of satellites would orbit at altitudes between about 325 km (200 miles) and 1,100 km (680 miles), except that some of Rwanda’s proposed orbits go as low as 280 km (174 miles). The above list does not include applications for satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO), or for LEO constellations of fewer than 5 satellites, or constellations in medium earth orbit (MEO) such as:

• Intelsat (at 8600 km) – 216 satellites (LUXEMBOURG)
• Mangata Networks (at 6,400 km and 12,000 km) – 791 satellites
• O3b (at 8,062 km) – 112 satellites (LUXEMBOURG)

Brightening the Night Sky

Scientists have already begun to publish papers analyzing the effect all these satellites will have, not only on astronomy, but on the appearance of the night sky and the visibility of the stars to everyone on earth. An article published online on March 29, 2021 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society by scientists in Slovakia, Spain and the United States is titled “The proliferation of space objects is a rapidly increasing source of artificial night sky brightness.” The scattering of sunlight from all of the objects in space, wrote the authors, is causing a “new skyglow” during the beginning and end of each night that has already brightened the natural night sky by about 10 percent. The authors are concerned that “the additional contribution of the new satellite mega-constellations” would ruin the night sky to a much greater extent.

A group of Canadian astronomers have an article in the January 2022 issue of The Astronomical Journal. “Megaconstellations of thousands to tens of thousands of artificial satellites (satcons) are rapidly being developed and launched,” they write. “These satcons will have negative consequences for observational astronomy research, and are poised to drastically interfere with naked-eye stargazing worldwide.” They analyzed what the effect on astronomy will be if 65,000 new low-orbit satellites are launched. At 40 degrees latitude (mid-United States; Mediterranean; mid-China; Japan; Buenos Aires; New Zealand), say these authors, more than 1,000 of these satellites will be sunlit and visible in the sky in the summer even at midnight. At higher latitudes (northern U.S.; Canada; most of Europe; Russia), thousands of these satellites will be visible all night long.

Another paper, titled Report on Mega-Constellations to the Government of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency, was commissioned by the Canadian Astronomical Society and submitted to the Canadian government on March 31, 2021. It is a moving document. These astronomers write:

“In ancient times, humans everywhere in the world had access to completely dark skies. In stark contrast, today 80% of North Americans cannot see the Milky Way from where they live because of light pollution. The lack of darkness that many people now experience due to urban light pollution has been linked to many physical and mental health issues, both in humans and wildlife. But there are still pockets of darkness where urban-dwellers can escape the light pollution and experience skies nearly as dark as those seen by our ancestors. Unfortunately, light pollution from satellites will be a global phenomenon — there will be nowhere left on Earth to experience skies free from bright satellites in orbit.

“Anyone who has ever spent time in a truly dark place staring up at the stars understands the powerful feeling of connection and insignificance this act inspires. Our lives, our worries, even our entire planet seem so inconsequential on these scales — a feeling that has shaped literature, art, and culture around the globe. Seeing the night sky makes it immediately obvious that we are part of a vast and wondrous universe full of countless stars… Connecting to the sky is part of our humanity, and everyone in the world is in very real danger of losing that…

“With the naked eye, stargazing from a dark-sky location allows you to see about 4,500 stars… Once Starlink approaches 12,000 satellites in orbit, most people in Canada will see more satellites than stars in the sky.”

The World’s Largest Garbage Pit

And not only do thousands of whole satellites threaten the heavens, but a phenomenal amount of debris orbits the earth as a result of satellites colliding, or exploding, or otherwise being destroyed while in space. During the 64 years that humans have been launching rockets, the protective blankets of the ionosphere and magnetosphere have become the Earth’s largest garbage pit.

According to the European Space Agency there are, in orbit around the Earth today, 7,790 intact satellites, of which 4,800 are functioning. Since 1957, there have been more than 630 breakups, explosions, collisions, and other satellite-destroying events. This has resulted in the creation of more than 9,700 tons of space debris. There are, in orbit today:

• 30,430 debris objects presently being tracked
• 36,500 objects larger than 10 cm in size
• 1,000,000 objects from 1 cm to 10 cm in size
• 330,000,000 objects from 1 mm to 1 cm in size

Effects on Ozone, Earthquakes, and Thunderstorms

Ozone

In a 2020 paper titled “The environmental impact of emissions from space launches: A comprehensive review,” Jessica Dallas and her colleagues at the University of New South Wales wrote that “ozone depletion is one of the largest environmental concerns surrounding rocket launches from Earth.”

In 2021, there were 146 orbital rocket launches to put 1,800 satellites into space. At that rate, to maintain and continually replace 100,000 low-earth-orbit satellites, which have an average lifespan of five years, would require more than 1,600 rocket launches per year, or more than four every day, forever into the future.

2020 and 2021 witnessed two of the largest Antarctic ozone holes since measurements began in 1979. The 2020 hole was also the longest-lasting on record, and the 2021 hole was only a few days shorter; larger than the continent of Antarctica, it began in late July 2021 and ended on December 28, 2021. Everyone is still blaming chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were banned by the Montreal Protocol in 1978. Nobody is looking at rocket launches, of which there were more in 2020 and 2021 than in any previous year. In addition to the 146 orbital launches in 2021, there were 143 sub-orbital launches of rockets to over 80 kilometers in altitude, for a total of 289 high-altitude launches for the year, or almost one every day.

Earthquakes and Thunderstorms

In 2012, Anatoly Guglielmi and Oleg Zotov reviewed evidence that the global use of electricity has an effect on both seismic activity and thunderstorms. In particular, global electric power consumption spikes every hour on the hour, and so does the average number of earthquakes in the world. In 2020, a group of Italian scientists supplied additional information: solar activity also correlates with earthquakes, and it appears to do so by raising the voltage of the ionosphere. Since this must increase the current flow in the global electric circuit (see chapter 9 of my book, The Invisible Rainbow), it would increase the electric currents that flow through the earth’s crust at all times, which would increase the stress on earthquake faults and increase the frequency of earthquakes. The Italian paper’s title is “On the correlation between solar activity and large earthquakes worldwide.”

Whether 100,000 satellites, although emitting powerful radio waves, would raise the ionospheric voltage, is doubtful. However, the rocket exhaust from every launch emits tons of water vapor, which is more conductive than dry air. The stratosphere is dry and contains very little water, and any water humans put there remains there for years and accumulates. Multiple daily rocket launches, in perpetuity, will fill the stratosphere with water vapor, increase its conductivity, and increase the current flowing in the global electric circuit. The current flowing through the earth’s crust will increase, possibly increasing the frequency of earthquakes.

I also speculate that this would increase the frequency and power of thunderstorms worldwide. Were it not for thunderstorms, the ionospheric voltage, which averages 300,000 volts, would discharge in about 15 minutes. About 100 lightning strokes per second, somewhere on Earth, continuously recharge it. Increasing the current flow in the global electric circuit would discharge the ionosphere more quickly, and since it is thunderstorms that recharge the Earth’s battery, the frequency and violence of thunderstorms would have to increase.

Alteration of the Earth’s Electromagnetic Environment

What everyone is completely blind to is the effect of all the radiation from satellites on the ionosphere, and consequently on the life force of every living thing. The relationship of electricity to qi and prana has escaped the notice of modern humans. Atmospheric physicists and Chinese physicians have yet to share their knowledge with one another. And at this time, such a sharing is crucial to the survival of life on Earth.

“The pure Yang forms the heaven, and the turbid Yin forms the earth. The Qi of the earth ascends and turns into clouds, while the Qi of the heaven descends and turns into rain.” So the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine described the global electric circuit 2,400 years ago — the circuit that is generated by the ionosphere and that flows perpetually between the Yang (positive) heaven and the Yin (negative) earth. The circuit that connects us to earth and sky and that flows through our meridians giving us life and health. A circuit that must not be polluted with frequencies emitted by a hundred thousand satellites, some of whose beams will have an effective power of up to ten million watts. That is sheer insanity, and so far no one is paying attention. No one is even asking whether the satellites have anything to do with the profound and simultaneous decline, planetwide, in the number of insects and birds, and with the pandemic of sleep disorders and fatigue that so many are experiencing. Everyone is so focused on a virus, and on antennas on the ground, that no one is paying attention to the holocaust descending from space.

Download PDF File: 441,449-Low-Earth-Orbit-Satellites

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Arthur Firstenberg – Author, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life – Administrator, International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space – Caretaker, ECHOEarth.org (End Cellphones Here On Earth)

10 January 2022

Source: www.transcend.org