Just International

The Strategy of Tension Towards Russia and the Push to Nuclear War

By Colin Todhunter

The United States has devised on ongoing strategy of tension towards Russia. It has initiated economic sanctions against Moscow, concocted a narrative about ‘Russian aggression’ for public consumption and has by various means attempted to undermine and weaken the energy-dependent Russian eeconomy. It has moreover instigated a coup on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine and is escalating tensions by placing troops in Europe.

The reality is that the US, not Russia, has around 800 military bases in over 100 countries and military personnel in almost 150 countries. US spending on its military dwarfs what the rest of the world spends together. For example, it outspends China by a ratio of 6:1.

But what does the corporate media in the West say about this? That the US is a ‘force for good’ and constitutes the ‘world’s policeman’ – not a calculating empire underpinned by militarism.

By the 1980s, Washington’s wars, death squads and covert operations were responsible for six million deaths in the ‘developing’ world. Other estimates suggests a figure closer to 20 million deaths in 37 nations since 1945.

Breaking previous agreements made with Russia/the USSR, over the past two decades the US and NATO have moved into Eastern Europe and continue to encircle Russia and install missile systems aimed at it. It has surrounded Iran with military bases. It is also ‘intervening’ in countries across Africa to weaken Chinese trade and investment links and influence. It intends to eventually militarily ‘pivot’ towards Asia to encircle China.

William Blum has presented a long list of Washington’s crimes across the planet since 1945 in terms of its numerous bombings of countries, assassinations of elected leaders and destabilisations. No other country comes close to matching the scale of such global criminality. Under the smokescreen of exporting ‘freedom and democracy’, the US has deemed it necessary to ignore international laws and carry out atrocities to further its interests across the globe.

The ultimate goal for the current century is to prevent any rival emerging to challenge Washington’s global hegemony. Washington’s long-term game plan for Russia has been to destroy is as a functioning state or to permanently weaken it so it submits to US hegemony. Getting a compliant leader installed would be ideal for the US; Putin is anything but.

Unfortunately, many members of the Western public believe the narrative about Putin as an aggressor. The lies being fed to the them are built on gullible, easily manipulated public opinion fanned by emotive outbursts from politicians and the media.

These politicians express fake concern for the lives of people in far-off lands, including outrage about alleged atrocities by people like Gaddafi or Assad. Meanwhile, these same politicians, under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention’, are responsible for millions of deaths due to their illegal wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

A few years ago, former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst spoke about the merits of the coup in Ukraine and the installation of an illegitimate government and the rise of fascist groups there. He called the violent removal of Ukraine’s democratically elected government as enhancing democracy. Herbst displayed all the arrogance associated with the ideology of US ‘exceptionalism’.

As if to underline this, in a recent interview for NBC, Vladimir Putin laid bare this warped mentality by stating:

“Please listen to me and take to your viewers and listeners what I am about to say. We are holding discussions with our American friends and partners, people who represent the government by the way, and when they claim that some Russians interfered in the US elections, we tell them (we did so fairly recently at a very high level): ‘But you are constantly interfering in our political life’. Would you believe it, they are not even denying it.”

He continued:

“Do you know what they told us last time? They said, ‘Yes, we do interfere, but we are entitled to do so, because we are spreading democracy, and you are not, and so you cannot do it.’ Do you think this is a civilised and modern approach to international affairs?”

We can see the smoking ruins, the ongoing violence, the mass displacement and the deaths that have resulted in Libya and across the Middle East as a result of exporting US ‘democracy’.

What Putin is really guilty of is calling for a multi-polar world, not one dominated by the US. It’s a goal that most of humanity is guilty of. It is a world the US will not tolerate.

In the wake of the recent use of a deadly nerve agent in the UK, PM Theresa May is accusing Russia of carrying out the attack. However, Russia has demanded evidence. Quite reasonable one would assume, but it has not been forthcoming. May believes that by saying and repeating there is unequivocal evidence to implicate Moscow will be enough to disguise the fact she cannot offer any. Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has written some revealing articles which undermine May’s accusation about Russian involvement.

While May offers moral outrage for public consumption about this attack, supposedly by a foreign power on two individuals on British territory, nothing is said in or by the media about her own disregard for the sovereign integrity of other nations, British involvement in destabilising Syria and the death the West has brought to countries in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, US and the West’s foreign policy is being driven on the basis of fake morality and duplicity.

The US wanted Afghanistan to hand over Bin Laden and refused to give the Afghan government evidence for him to be extradited (as international law requires), on the assumption he was guilty of the 9/11 attack in New York. The Afghan government asked for evidence and received none. The US illegally attacked and now has a foothold in mineral-rich, strategically important Afghanistan.

Saddam Hussein was accused of having weapons of mass destruction. He had none. Iraq was illegally attacked and invaded regardless on the basis of a ‘pack of lies’. Now Western oil interests have what they coveted all along.

Gaddafi was accused of slaughtering civilians as a pretext for his removal. Terror groups were used as NATO’s proxy army and France and Britain supplied air support. Libya lies in ruins and Gadhafi’s plans for unifying Africa and asserting African self-autonomy have met a similar fate.

In Syria, despite the official reasons for Western intervention, including support for a ‘democratic revolution’, what we have seen is imperialist intent backed by a ‘dirty war‘ to remove a sovereign government that would not comply with US interests.

And Russia is condemned for using deadly nerve agent on British soil. While the Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn is smeared for demanding clear evidence that the Russian state was behind the attack, May and Trump think blanket condemnation without evidence will suffice.

Whether it is Bush and Blair or the current crop of political leaders, fake morality and deception is used time and again to further Washington’s global hegemony. With millions of dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya as a result of US-led imperialism, Russia is constantly demonised simply because it will not acquiesce to Washington and serve as a vassal state.

Regardless of actual facts, the psychological operations about ‘Russian aggression’ directed at the public is unrelenting. All in support of the US, a country that has flagrantly abused international law to carry out illegal wars, torture, drone assassinations and mass murder as and when it deems necessary.

Before finishing, we should not overlook the way US militarism is being driven by a moribund neoliberal capitalism. According to William Robinson, professor of sociology at the University of California, the US and other states that have adopted the neoliberal agenda have turned to four mechanisms in the face of economic stagnation and massive inequalities: the raiding and sacking of public budgets; the expansion of credit to consumers and to governments to sustain spending and consumption; frenzied financial speculation; and militarism.

Robinson concludes that the “creative destruction” of the wars we see have served to throw fresh firewood on the smoldering embers of a stagnant global economy.

Be in no doubt that the ongoing death and destruction in the Middle East has been a boon to the arms industry and demonisation of Russia is a mouthwatering prospect this sector, which is pushing for a new cold war and financially lucrative weapons race.

In the meantime, Theresa May and pro-Washington establishment politicians and media will continue to try to tell the public about ‘Russian aggression’. May and other political leaders are doing the bidding of the interests they ultimately represent. These politicians must act in a manner that mirrors the scant regard for human life exhibited by the elite they serve. Whether it involves the role of the British in the 1943 Bengal famine, which killed up to four million, or the US dropping of atom bombs on Japan a couple of years later, it’s a defining trait of empire.

When Washington’s strategy of tension with a nuclear armed Russia stretches to breaking point, it won’t be millions who lie dead and wasted this time around; it will be the entire planet.

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer

17 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/17/the-strategy-of-tension-towards-russia-and-the-push-to-nuclear-war/

In Pursuit of Peace and Justice: 100 Peace & Justice Leaders and Models (List #3)

By Anthony J. Marsella and Kathleen Malley-Morrison

(See Lists #1 and #2 here)

Continuing the Legacy . . .

9 Mar 2018 – With a continuing commitment to the work and consequences of Reverend Martin Luther King’s enduring efforts to promote peace and justice through non-violence, we submit a third list of living peace and justice leaders and models for recognition and distribution.

We are eternally grateful for Reverend King’s efforts to free people and nations from the brutal oppressions imposed by governments, nations, societies, organizations, and individuals. Regardless of the source, those who willfully support and sustain the evils of racism, prejudice, violence, and war, will yield to peace and justice leaders because of an inherent moral sense, even if denied in some.

Reverend King’s commitment to freedom from oppression and abuse compel us to continue his efforts far beyond the words, song, and promises of his day. His abuse from corrupt government offices and officials likely resulted in his assassination. Reverend King’s awareness of his persecution and perhaps assassination at the hands of his enemies did not prevent him from continuing his efforts; he knew even in his death, his truths would endure.

List 3

Like other prior published Lists, the individuals cited on this List come represent a variety of demographic markers including gender, ethnicity, race, age, nation, religion, and life- style persuasion.  By accessing the URL accompanying the person’s name, you can read of their peace and justice activism and advocacy.

We have reviewed each person’s contributions and were privileged to consider their listing.  It is axiomatic some individuals will be criticized by others for their presence because of masked activities. Clearly, in a world of fake news, misrepresentations, and hacking, errors may be made. Forgive us if this is the case. We are earnest in our effort to bring recognition to those whose efforts required courage and commitment.

Our choice of the number 100 is arbitrary, for there are thousands of individuals who deserve citation. Most are not listed; we will continue to create list for future efforts. Do not be dismayed! Patience! We believed it essential to develop lists of living peace and justice activists and advocates to encourage and foster peace and justice work.

In the omnipresent face of abuses and oppression, in the face of persecution from government and private sources demonstrated via the betrayal and misuse of the secret FISA Court’s politicization and weaponization,  we  recall and honor iconic peace and justice leaders of the past, including Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Samuel Gompers, Caesar Chavez, Larry Itliong, Rachel Corrie, Philip Berrigan & Daniel Berrigan, Glenn Paige, Hedy Epstein, Malcolm X, and scores of others.

Peace and justice advocates and activists, across time, are testimony to the enduring human spirit to resist oppression to claim liberty, and to endure, even when the costs are life. Individuals recognized on List 1, List 2, and now List 3 are part of the tradition of resistance to oppression, and the promotion of peace and justice.

There can be no greater honor! Regardless of religious persuasion, the beautiful words from the Sermon on the Mount resonate across time and place: Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Matthew 5.9KJV).

Spirit of Our Times

There is a new spirit of encounter (e.g., Black Lives Matter); a new spirit of protest evidenced by DC gatherings for women and minority groups; a new spirit of communication among media free of government or wealth controls; there is a new spirit of protest against war and militarism, and the spending of a nation’s wealth on weaponry and endless war; there is a new spirit of concern for life and land, especially regarding anthropogenic climate changes; there is a new spirit of determination to expose the abuses of privilege and position by select government official who have politicized and weaponized laws for personal use (e.g., FISA).

These emerging changes signal and sustain “Hope!”  “Hope” is the life blood of progressive change. “Hope” can be suppressed and oppressed, but it cannot be defeated.  “Hope” endures because it is the essence of life.  Regardless of life forms and species, “Hope” is the evolutionary impulse pursuing survival and becoming.

We consider our efforts a beginning, and we will continue to publish new lists. This is so because the struggle for peace and justice is endless, and each day new people are rising to the call. This is as it should be, and must be, until such time as the forces of oppression fall before the forces of good; evil will continue, but human virtue, endowed in human conscience, will triumph!

Goals of Peace and Justice

Almost two decades ago, David Reiff (1999), in his classic paper, “The precarious triumph of human rights” (New York Times Magazine, August 8, pp. 36-4) articulated his view of “new moral order” characteristics; his thoughts were prescient:

  • Civil society;
  • Humanitarianism;
  • Human rights versus state sovereignty;
  • Emergence of human rights activists, development workers, aid experts committed to needs of an interdependent world;
  • Small is beautiful;
  • Democracy building;
  • Growth of NGOs;
  • Considering individual as well as state rights;
  • Plans for a permanent international criminal court.

To these, we would add the following:

  • Decentralization;
  • Grass-Roots participation;
  • Non-violence
  • Communication/networking;
  • Determination to question and to hold accountable those with wealth, power, position and person.

Before sharing our third list, we wish to include two charts offering graphic displays of essential material for appreciating living leaders.

CHART 1: PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PEACE AND JUSTICE LEADERS AND MODELS

CHART 2: ROLES AND STATUSES OF LIVING PEACE & JUSTICE LEADERS AND MODELS

THIRD LIST OF 100 PEACE ADVOCATES/ACTIVISTS:

1. Aalbers: Dan Aalbers

2. Abu-Jamal: Mumia Abu-Jamal

3. Agro: Ed Agro

4. Ahn: Christine Ahn

5. Arvold: Nancy Arvold

6. Avery:  John Scales Avery

7. Belafonte: Harry Belafonte

8. Belo: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo

9. Bemak:  Fred Bemak

10. Bennis: Phyllis Bennis

11. Bharti: Kriti Bharti

12. Bica: Camillo Mac Bica

13. Botari:  Mary Botari

14. Buchelt: Paul Buchheit

15. Carr: Stuart Carr

16. Ciafalo:  Nuria Ciafalo

17. Clements: Kevin Clements

18. Cook: Jonathan Cook

19. Cooper: Mary Pelton Cooper

20. Corseri: Gary Corseri

21. Ćudić: Edvin Kanka Ćudić

22. Daoudi: Mohammed Dajani Daoudi Daoudi

23. DeRivera: Joseph DeRivera

24. Eidelson: Judy Eidelson

25. Evans: Jodie Evans

26. Fabri: Mary Fabri

27. Faiz:  Faiz Ahmed Faiz

28. Feeley: Tom  Feely

29. Garris: Eric Garris

30. Gbowee: Leymah Gbowee

31. Gerstein: Lawrence H. Gerstein

32. Gibbons: Judith Gibbons

33. Giraldi: Philip Giraldi

34. Glover: Danny Glover

35. Goose: Stephen Goose

36. Gordon: Rebecca Gordon

37. Grassie: William Grassie

38. Gundle: Sarah Gundle

39. Halper: Jeff Halper

40. Hall: Harold Hall

41. Hand: Judith Hand

42. Harjo: Suzan Shown Harjo

43. Hartsough: David Hartsough

44. Hess: John Hess

45. Hill: Anita Hill

46. Hudson: Kate Hudson

47. Huerta: Dolores Huerta

48. Hunter: Daniel Hunter

49. Ivey: Allen Ivey

50. Jacevich: Mirsad “Miki” Jacevich

51. Jackson: Michael R. Jackson

52. Jianping: Cheng Jianping

53. Judge: Anthony Judge

54. Kaneza: Carine Kaneza

55. Karlin: Mark Karlin

56. Karman: Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman

57. Kavi: Ashok Row Kavi

58. Kehler: Randy Kehler

59. Kielburger:  Craig Kielburger

60. Khan: Imran Khan

61. Koenisberg: Richard A. Koenigsberg

62. Kokesh: Adam Kokesh

63. Kovalev: Sergei Kovalev

64. Kovic: Ron Kovic

65. Landis: Dan Landis

66. Levi: Lennart Levi

67. Lewis: John Lewis

68. Macy: Joanna Macy

69. Matache: Margareta Matache

70. Mbaezue: Chukwuemeka Emmanuel Mbaezue

71. McCourt: Jon McCourt

72. Muzaffar: Chandra Muzaffar

73. Navalny: Alexei Navalny

74. Olson: Brad Olson

75. Omalu: Bennet Omalu

76. Osorio: Jonathan Osorio

77. Paxton: Tom Paxton

78. Pineda-Marcon: Nella Pineda-Marcon

79. Qazi: Moin Qazi

80. Quan: Guo Quan

81. Raman: V. Raman

82. Rich: Frank Rich

83. Rodriguez:Jaime Rodriguez

84. Roth: Judy Roth

85. Rudmin: Floyd Rudmin

86. Salem: Walid Salem

87. Scahill: Jeremy Scahill

88. Shahshahani: Azadeh N. Shahshahani

89. Sloan: Todd Sloan

90. Smith: Zadie Smith

91. Snyder: Susi Snyder

92. Solnit: Rebecca  Solnit

93. Vredeveld: Angie Vredeveld

94. Watkins: Mary Watkins

95. Weiwei: Ai Weiwei

96. Welch: Bryant Welch

97. Wong: Paul T. Wong

98. Yoshinaga: Aiko Yoshinaga

99. Zarni: Maung Zarni

100.Zuniga: Bertha Zuniga

Join us in celebrating the individuals making our world a better place for all, individuals advancing the human and natural order. List 4 is in preparation.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

Kathleen Malley-Morrison, Ed.D., Director of the Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP).

12 March 2018

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/03/in-pursuit-of-peace-and-justice-100-peace-justice-leaders-and-models-list-3/

Palestine BDS activists saddened by death of ally, Stephen Hawking

By BDS SOUTH AFRICA

The human rights and Palestine solidarity organisation, BDS South Africa, joins fellow Palestinian solidarity activists from across the globe in expressing our condolences on the passing of world-renowned physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking. In particular our condolences to his friends and family.

We remember Hawking not only for the brilliance of his scientific mind and achievements but also as an impassioned campaigner who lent his voice to various causes for justice – including the Palestinian struggle against Israeli Apartheid.

– In January 2009, during Israel’s invasion of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, in which more 1000 Palestinians were killed, Hawking said: “A people under occupation will continue to resist in any way it can…the situation [in Palestine] is like that in South Africa before 1990, that cannot continue.” Click here for video.

– In 2013, Hawking withdrew from an Israeli conference stating that, based on advice from Palestinian academics, he had decided to respect the BDS academic boycott of Israel. Click here.

– In 2016, through a public video message, Hawking congratulated Hanan al-Hroub, a Palestinian woman who won the Global Teacher Prize. “From one teacher to another, you are inspiration to people everywhere.” he said. Click here for video.

– Last year in 2017 Hawking used his Facebook page to support scientists in Palestine, calling for his followers to donate funds to a Palestinian Advanced Physics School. Click here.

Stephen Hawking, may we continue where you left, in creating a better more peaceful and just world. As we continue to pledge our solidarity with the Palestinians and all other oppressed peoples, we will carry with us your wise words: “Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do. It matters that you don’t give up.” We will not give up, for the sake of the Palestinians, for your sake, and for the sake of a better world.

From South Africa, Hamba Kahle, dearest comrade Hawking!

ISSUED BY KWARA KEKANA ON BEHALF OF BDS SOUTH AFRICA

14 March 2018

Source: http://www.bdssouthafrica.com/post/palestine-bds-activists-saddened-death-ally-professor-stephen-hawking/

Why Is NATO Air Forces Moving From Turkey To Jordan

By Andre Vltchek

Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek

People in the Middle East are joking,cynically:

“From Incirlik, Turkey to Al-Azraq, Jordan with love.”

That is, if they pay any attention to the movement of NATO troops in this part of the world.

They should.

At least one substantial part of an incredibly deadly and aggressive force has beengradually relocated, from an ‘uncertain’ and according to the West suddenly ‘unreliable’ country(Turkey), to theimpoverished but obedient Kingdom of Jordan.

It is now clear that NATO is not sure, metaphorically speaking, which direction is Turkey going to flyin, and where it may eventually land. It is panicking and searching, ‘just in case’, foran exit strategy; almost for an escapeplan from the most important regional power.

Is the West really losing Turkey? Nobody knows. Most likely, nobody in Ankara is sure, either, including Mr. Erdogan.

But what if… What if Erdogan moves closer to Russia, even to China? What if Turkey’s relationship with Iran improves? What if Ankara has finally gotten tired of being humiliated, for years and decades, by the European Union? And what if it does not want to follow Washington’s diktat, anymore?

These ‘nightmarish’ scenarios are most likely turning many apparatchiks in Brussels, Washington and London, into insomniacs.

NATO does not want to leave anything to chance.If not Turkey, then where? Where should all those nukes, fighter jets, bombers and ‘Western military advisors’ go?

Incerlik, a giant air base located right on the outskirts of the Turkish city of Adana used to just be the perfect place. Incerlik has been, for many years,the most important andlethal air force base in the Middle East, from which the West has been intimidating and directly attacking various targets in the region, and where, as many Turkish experts believe, numerous extremist jihadi cadres operating in Syria and elsewhere, have been receiving their training.

Anything the West wants to bomb, be it in Syria, Iraq, or potentially Iran, Lebanon, Yemen or even Afghanistan, Incerlik is there, with perfect infrastructure and a ‘fantastic’ geographical location.For NATO, a dream-come-true place, really! But only until recently; until Mr. Erdogan’s era, until the 2016 failed coup, and the consequent,incomprehensible, but real ‘Turkish rebellion’.

Suddenly, Turkey is ‘not trusted anymore’; at least not in the Western capitals.

That is perhapsvery good for Turkey and its future, but definitely not for NATO.

So where to move Incerlik, really?

The Kingdom of Jordan seems to be the best candidate. Conveniently, it is greatly impoverished, and it has been historically submissive to its Western handlers. It is essentially dependent on foreign, mainly Western, aid and would do just about anything to please the rulers in Washington, London or Berlin.

Most importantly for the West, Amman is sufficiently oppressive, lacking any substantial opposition. If dissent gets too vocal, its members get kidnapped and tortured.

Therefore, it is natural that both Europeans and North Americans feel safe and at home here. In 2017, the German Wermacht moved its soldiers, pilots and Tornados, more than 200 people and dozens of airplanes in total, to Al-Azraq base, which is located only some 30 kilometers from the border with Saudi Arabia, and a similar distance from Syria. Iraq is just 200 kilometers away.

It is obvious that Angela Merkel and Recep Erdogan feel a certain (some would say ‘great’) distaste for each other.It is also a well-known fact that NATO countries like to work closely with oppressive, market-oriented and obedient countries.

But Jordan?

Even the official German television network, Deutsche Welle (DW), displayed clear cynicism towards the move, although it expressed, simultaneously, true understanding of the situation:

“King Abdullah II is a leader very much to the West’s liking. In contrast to the princes in the Arabian Peninsula, he is usually dressed in a dark suit. He received a military education in Britain and studied in Oxford and Washington. Under his leadership, Jordan has reliably positioned itself in line with Western politics in all major Middle East conflicts.

And this won’t change, according to Udo Steinbach, who was in charge of the Hamburg-based German Orient Institute for many years.

“He was a man of the West, he is a man of the West, and he has no alternative whatsoever to being a man of the West,” Steinbach said. “Jordan is a poor country, and without Western aid, it wouldn’t be able to survive at all.””

NATO has been already using Muwaffaq Salti airbase near Al-Azraq, for years, mainly toillegally bombnumerous targets located on the Syrian soil.

In Brussels, Al-Azraq is truly a ‘household name’, as it has been used by both NATO and the EU air forces, concretely by the Belgians (2014-2015), and now both Dutch and Germans. The US air forces were operating from here already for several years.

The base is situated in yet another gloomy part of the Middle East; economically depressed, with countless small businesses and factoriesthat have been closing down and now rusting and rotting, and with the almost totally drained-out Azraq Wetlands Reserve – an oasis once renowned as a ‘migratory birds’ sanctuary’.

The oasis used to extend almost all the way to the border with Saudi Arabia. Now most of the territory of the ‘reserve’ is dry. Not many birds would fly here, anyway, as they’d be confronted with the deafening roar of airplane engines and the engine-testing facilities, not unlike those that I witnessed in Okinawa.

The people who come to this corner of Jordan are mostly ‘adventurous’ Western tourists, ready to ‘explore’ the nearby castle which was once used as a base by the glorified sinister British intelligence agent,Thomas Edward Lawrence, otherwise known as “Lawrence of Arabia”. They also come to visit ‘wildlife reserves’ and several smaller archeological sites.

Ms. Alia, who works at the artisan center of Al-Azraq Lodge, confessed:

“Sometimes we are very scared here… It is because our place is sitting right next to perimeter of the air force base, while it is also serving as a hotel for foreign tourists. There are many reasons why someone could consider attacking this place…”

But is this really a ‘tourist’ inn, I ask, after observing numerous hangars and military planes from the parking lot, at the back of the structure. She hesitates for a few moments, but then replies:

“Originally this used to be an eco-lodge, but now the bookings are mainly from the base. Both Americans and Germans are staying here; while couple of years ago it was Belgians. Officers sometimes live here for one entire month – you know: training, meetings… They work inside the base, but sleep at our place.”

There is a “US Aid” sign screwed into the wall near the entrance to the inn. And there are countless black and white historical photos of the area, decorating the walls, as well as a figurine of a soldier wearing an old British colonial uniform.

Azraq town is dusty and half-empty. It is surrounded by the brutally dry desert. There are countless ruins of houses and services lining up along the main road. Some people live in misery, in torn up tents.

I stopped near a cluster of humble dwellings. An old woman wearing a black dress waved a cane at me, threateningly.

An old-looking man approached the car. He extended his hand towards me. It was wrinkled and hard. I shook it. I had no idea how old he was; most likely not too old, but he looked tired and dejected.

“Is this base,” I waved my hand, abstractly, towards the walls: “Is it helping the town, at least a little bit?”

The man stared at me for several seconds. Then he mumbled:

“Helping? Yes, perhaps… Perhaps not… I don’t really know.”

My driver and interpreter, who used to be a salesman only several years ago, before hitting hard times, commented, as we were slowly departing from Al-Azraq:

“It is very bad here! The situation is tragic. West Amman and this – as if two different universes would exist on a territory of one single country. Such a contrast! Well, you can see it yourself.”

I asked him, whether Jordanian people would mind having this deadly air force base expanding into their area, in their country? After all, the only purpose of it is to brutalize fellow Arab nations, while killing countless innocent human beings.

He shrugged his shoulders:

“They don’t care. Most of the people here don’t think about such things. They want to be able to eat, to get by. Government convinced them, that collaborating with the West could improve their standard of living. It’s all they think about. Our leaders, in the Gulf and here, are corrupt, and people are humiliated; they don’t see any bright future here, or any way out from the present situation…”

Around 70 kilometers towards the capital, Amman, we slow down, as we are passing several checkpoints and a concrete fence, which looks similar to those built by the West in Afghanistan. The driver wants me to know:

“Look, this is where they have been training the so-called Syrian opposition, for years.”

Back in Amman, I met several friends, mainly foreigners, who have been working here.

“There are already numerous Western air force bases operating in Jordan,” one of them said. “This topic is not discussed here, openly. Right or wrong, it does not matter. Nobody cares. The spine of this part of the world has been already broken.”

Al-Azraq is not only a large air force base. It is also a place synonymous with one of the major refugee camps in the Middle East. It is a new camp, built in the middle of the desert, designed to accommodate mainly Syrian people fleeing the war.

In 2016 and 2017 I worked here, or more precisely, I tried to work, before being chased away by aggressive local security forces.

Refugee crises,the Western military bases, foreign aid and tourism, these are the main sources of income for the Kingdom of Jordan.

In a sinister, surreal way, everything here comes around in a big circle, ‘makes perverse sense’: ‘Entire countries are being flattened from the military bases, which Jordan is willing to host on its territory; of course, for a hefty fee. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees would continue to flood to this ‘island of stability in the Middle East’, bringing further tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid into the coffers of Amman.’ No industry, production, or hard work is really needed.

Could this arrangement be defined as ‘immoral’? ‘And does it really matter?’ I was told on several occasions, during this as well as during my previous visits to the Kingdom of Jordan, that ‘nobody cares’. Almost all ideology, together with the spirit of solidarity and internationalism, has already been destroyed by the Western-sponsored education and media indoctrination programs and campaigns, camouflaged as ‘help’ and ‘aid’.

I say ‘almost’, because now, a flicker of hope is once again emerging. Not everything is lost, yet. A neighboring country – Syria – is still standing. It has fought and lost hundreds of thousands of its people, but it has almost managed to defeat the brutal Western intervention. This could be the most important moment in modern Arab history.

The people of the Middle East are watching. The people of Jordan are watching. Turkish people are watching. Apparently, the imperialists can be defeated. Apparently, collaboration is not the only way how to survive.

The huge NATO air force base is slowly moving from Turkey to Jordan.

The West has already lost Syria. It may be also losing Turkey.Who knows: one day even Jordan might wake up. Some say: the ‘Domino effect has begun.’

[Originally published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist.

14 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/14/why-is-nato-air-forces-moving-from-turkey-to-jordan/

Our Latest Oil Predicament

By Gail Tverberg

It is impossible to tell the whole oil story, but perhaps I can offer a few insights regarding where we are today.

[1] We already seem to be back to the falling oil prices and refilling storage tanks scenario.

US crude oil stocks hit their low point on January 19, 2018 and have started to rise again. The amount of crude oil fill has averaged about 365,000 barrels per day since then. At the same time, prices of both Brent and WTI oil have fallen from their high points.

Many people believe that the oil problem, when it hits, will be running out of oil. People with such a belief interpret a glut of oil to mean that we are still very far from any limit.

[2] An alternative story to running out of oil is that the economy is a self-organized system, operating under the laws of physics. With this story, too little demand for oil is as likely an outcome as a shortage of oil.

Oil and energy products are used to create everything, even jobs. If all humans have is energy from the sun, plus the energy that all animals have, then humans would be much more like chimpanzees. All humans would be able to do is gather plant food and catch a few easy-to-catch animals (earthworms and crickets, for example). They certainly could not extract oil or find uses for it.

It takes a self-organized economy to support the extraction and sale of energy products. We need a complex web that includes:

  • Equipment to extract the oil
  • Training for engineers and other workers
  • Devices that use oil, such as vehicles, farm equipment, road paving equipment
  • A financial system to enable transactions to purchase oil
  • Buyers with jobs that pay well enough that they can afford to buy goods made with oil

The things that go wrong can with this economy can be on the buyers’ end of the economy. Buyers can have jobs, but these jobs may not pay well enough for the buyers to afford the output of the economy. A falling share of the population may be able to afford cars, for example.

[3] It is possible that a recent rapid increase in oil supply is contributing to the current mismatch between supply and demand.

Data of the US Energy Information Administration indicates that US oil supply has recently begun to surge. It is not just crude oil production that is higher. Natural gas liquid production is higher as well. As a result, Total Liquids production is reported to have been more than 16 million barrels per day in November 2017.

Oil production of the rest of the world has been relatively flat, as planned.

Total world production, combining the amounts on Figures 2 and 3, set a new record of 99.1 million barrels of oil per day for November 2017, based on EIA data. This level is above the November 2016 level, which was the previous record at 98.9 million barrels per day.

At this high level of production, it is not surprising that the economy cannot absorb the full amount of extra supply.

There are also a number of issues that affect buyers’ demand for oil.

[4] The percentage of US residents who can afford to buy a new automobile or light truck seems to be falling over time.

If we look at the number of autos and trucks sold in the US, per 1000 population, we see a pattern of falling humps, as a smaller and smaller share of the population can afford a new car or light truck, each year. The big drops occur during the gray recessionary periods marked on the chart.

The first peak came in 1978, at 67.3 units. The second, slightly lower peak came in 1986, at 66.7. The third peak came in 2000 at 61.5 units. The fourth peak came in 2015, at 51.6 units. Early 2018 amounts suggest that the trend in units sold per 1000 population will continue its downward trend.

Part of what is happening is that vehicles are becoming longer-lasting, so that there is not as much need to buy new cars frequently. But having a short-lived, cheap car has an advantage, if it makes cars available to a larger percentage of the total population. With a vehicle, a person has a much better ability to participate in the US workforce. US Labor Force Participation Rates peaked in about the year 2000, which is about the time of the third peak in affordability.

[5] There was a steep rise in the cost of auto ownership in the 1995- 2008 period. This has since fallen back, but the cost is still high relative to the wages of many workers.

One estimate of the cost of auto ownership is the reimbursement rate that the US government allows businesses to pay workers who use their own cars for company business.

These costs peaked about 2008 and were reflected in high reimbursement rates for 2009 as well. More recently, buyers of cars have been helped by longer term loans and ultra-low interest rates. If interest rates rise at all, the share of people buying or leasing new vehicles can be expected to fall further from the level shown on Figure 4.

[6] Building homes also requires oil. There has been a sharp drop in US home building, both on an absolute basis, and on a per capita basis, since 2008.

Building homes is part of oil demand. It takes oil to transport all of the materials used (lumber, siding, wiring, pipes, appliances) to the place where the house will be built. Furthermore, many of the materials used in building a home are produced using petroleum products.

The number of homes built depends on the number of new households that can afford a separate place to live. The low level of building makes it look as if the economy is still seeing a pattern of young adults living with their parents much longer than in the past. If buildings are to be replaced every 75 years, my calculation suggests that about 6 housing units per 1000 residents need to be built each year. About 2.5 units per thousand are needed, just to keep up with rising population, if upgrading and remodeling can be done almost indefinitely.

The fact that there is little home building reduces the number of jobs available in the building industry. The lack of jobs in this industry helps hold down the demand for oil, because these workers would use their wages to buy goods for themselves, such as food and vehicles. Food is grown and transported using vehicles powered by oil.

The lack of home building also contributes to the nation’s homelessness problem. If there were plenty of inexpensive apartments, there would be fewer homeless people.

[7] There is no longer an oil price at which both oil exporters and oil importers are satisfied. Oil prices today are too low for oil exporters.

I started writing about oil producers complaining that oil prices were too low in early 2014. At that time, oil companies were looking back at prices of over $100 per barrel in 2013. They were saying that $100+ prices were too low to provide adequate funds for reinvestment in new fields. Now prices are in the $65 range, which is even farther below the desired level.

Oil exporters are especially unhappy about today’s low prices, because they need high prices in order to collect needed tax revenue. This is why OPEC members and Russia have been holding back production. The plan is to deplete the glut of oil in storage, and thus get prices up.

It is not at all clear, however, that consumers in oil importing countries can really withstand higher prices. The fact that Brent oil prices could only stay above $70 per barrel for one week on Figure 2 (in the red circle), suggests that consumers in major oil importing countries cannot really withstand oil prices at this high level. I have observed previously that a sustainable price, without adding a huge amount of debt each year, is only about $20 per barrel.

[8] If we analyze vehicle purchases by country, we can see that low oil prices since 2014 seem to be helping major oil importers but are hurting Tier 2 countries that are commodity-dependent.

In this chart, the grouping of Advanced Economies includes:

  • USA
  • Europe
  • Japan
  • Canada
  • Australia

For this grouping, growth in auto sales is again rising, but has not regained its prior level. This is somewhat similar to the indications in Figure 4, for the US only, looking at cars and light trucks. The main difference is in the last two years. Changes in currency relativities may be helping recent vehicle sales for the other countries in the grouping.

On this chart, the Tier 2 grouping includes:

  • Brazil
  • Russia
  • South Africa
  • South Korea
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico

This group includes several oil and other resource dependent countries. South Korea is perhaps more like the industrial countries in the first grouping. This grouping shows a downturn in the purchasing of vehicles in the last three years, when commodity prices have been depressed. If oil prices were higher, this group would probably be buying more vehicles.

Figure 8 shows that China’s auto sales have been growing rapidly. In fact, China has surpassed the Tier 2 average in per capita sales. In the past year, China’s growth in auto sales has flattened. But with China’s huge population, the absolute number of vehicles sold is still very high: 29.1 million vehicles, compared to 17.6 million for the United States, and compared to 20.9 million for Europe.

India and the Rest of the World account for surprisingly few vehicles sold. On Figure 8, their lines overlap at the bottom of the chart.

[9] The push toward raising interest rates and selling QE securities will tend to reduce oil prices and add to the oil glut.

I wrote about some of the issues involved in Raising Interest Rates Is Like Starting a Fission Chain Reaction. When interest rates are higher, economies are pushed in the direction of recession. All kinds of discretionary spending are reduced. Use of oil will almost certainly be reduced. This could lower oil prices significantly, as it did in 2008 (Figure 1).

[10] To a significant extent, China has been helping hold up world oil consumption, with its rapidly growing economy. It is hitting headwinds now, however.

The International Monetary Fund recently showed an exhibit indicating how China’s debt is growing very rapidly, but its growth in output is slowing. The combination could very easily lead to a credit crisis.

Now, the rest of the world depends on China for many imported goods. If China should have problems, it would indirectly affect oil demand elsewhere as well.

Even China’s recent ban on importing certain types of materials for recycling can be expected to have an adverse impact on oil demand. Very often, if a container is sent from China to the US or to Europe, there will be no exported goods to send back to China, except for material for recycling. If China refuses to take recycling, containers will need to be returned empty.

Recycling generally needs to be subsidized. Part of what this subsidy is used for is to pay the cost of shipping material to be recycled to China. If China does not take the recycling, this payment for shipping materials in the otherwise-empty containers will not be made. The shipping company will need to charge exporters more for the one-way trip, if the shipping company is to be profitable. This higher cost, by itself, is a deterrent to trade. In many ways, the higher shipping cost is like a tariff.

[11] Conclusion.

My expectation is that the general direction of oil prices is likely downward, especially if interest rates rise. A major financial disruption of any kind would have a similar effect. Gluts of oil can be expected with lower prices.

Many groups, including the IEA, have been warning about oil shortages because of inadequate investment in new production. Oil shortages, and energy shortages in general, have a multitude of adverse impacts on economies. One of them is loss of jobs, because jobs require the use of energy, for example, to deliver goods in a truck. If many more people are unemployed, there is less demand for oil.

Thus, it is not at all clear that a shortage of oil leads to high prices; it may very well lead to lower prices. Many people are confused about this issue, because the world demand gives a misleading impression of the mechanism involved. Lack of demand comes from part of the population not being able to afford cars and homes. It also comes from cutbacks in government spending and from failing businesses. In an interconnected system, even failing banks tend to reduce oil demand.

Another adverse impact of oil and energy shortages tends to be fighting and wars. The fact that the US seems to be raising its energy production, in apparent disregard for countries that have been trying to cut back, is likely to make some oil exporting countries quite angry. It could sow the seeds for another war.

Economists do not seem to understand that GDP growth rates don’t tell very much about the well-being of individual citizens in an economy. A major issue is wage disparity. If there are many very low wage people, there is likely to be downward pressure on the sale of automobiles, and on the purchase of petroleum products. Economists are likely to think everything is fine, up until a major crisis occurs.

Gail E. Tverberg graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1968 with a B.S. in Mathematics. She received a M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1970.

14 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/14/our-latest-oil-predicament/

China Becomes World’s Fifth Largest Arms Exporter

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

China has become the world’s fifth-largest arms exporter, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

China replaces Britain in the top five arms-dealing countries between 2008 and 2012, a group dominated by the United States and Russia, which accounted for 30 percent and 26 percent of weapons exports, SIPRI said Monday March 13.

Germany and France ranked third and fourth on the arms exporter list.

“China is establishing itself as a significant arms supplier to a growing number of important recipient states,” Paul Holtom, director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program, said in a statement.

Commenting on the SIPRI report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was a responsible arms exporter which strictly adhered to international law.

“On arms exports, China sticks to three principles. First, that it is conducive to the recipient country’s justifiable self-defense needs. Second, it does not damage regional and global peace, security and stability. Third, it does not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

Chinese attack helicopters, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and air defenses were on public show for the first time at the Zhuhai air show in southern China in November 2017.

The SIPRI report showed China delivered major arms to 48 countries in the past five years, with Pakistan topping the list, followed by Bangladesh and Algeria.

“Pakistan – which accounted for 55 percent of Chinese arms exports – is likely to remain the largest recipient of Chinese arms in the coming years due to large outstanding and planned orders for combat aircraft, submarines and frigates,” SIPRI said.

Myanmar received 8 percent of China’s weapons exports. Bangladesh received 7 percent of the arms while Algeria, Venezuela and Morocco have bought Chinese-made frigates, aircraft or armored vehicles in the past several years.

After decades of steep increases in military spending and cash injections into domestic contractors, experts say some Chinese-made equipment is now comparable to Russian or Western counterparts.

Chinese military drones in UAE

Defense analysts believe that the Chinese drone, the Wing Loong II, is now being used by the United Arab Emirates military while the UAE remains barred from buying weaponized drones from the United States, the Associated Press reports.

That purchase, as well as Abu Dhabi hosting the drone exhibition and conference last month in the Emirati capital, shows the power these weapons now hold across the Middle East, the AP said.

Top UAE officials, including Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, were on hand for the drone conference, held last month.

Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi, which hosts some of the 5,000 American troops in the UAE, is also home to some of the US military’s unmanned aircraft that flew missions over Iraq and Syria.

Chief among those aircraft is the Predator, built by San Diego-based defense contractor General Atomics. The UAE previously bought some US$200 million worth of surveillance-only Predator drones from General Atomics.

The Obama administration opposed selling the UAE armed versions of the Predator under the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreement that aims to limit the spread of missile technology.

But that apparently did not stop the UAE from buying weaponized drones. Satellite photographs taken of a mysterious Emirati airbase in the country’s deep south – a desert area known as the in the Empty Quarter – appear to show three Wing Loong IIs there, according to a January article by IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.

U.S. remains the largest arms exporter

In 2013–17 the USA accounted for 34 per cent of total arms exports, according to SIPRI. Its arms exports increased by 25 per cent between 2008–12 and 2013–17. US arms exports in 2013–17 were 58 per cent higher than those of Russia—the second largest arms exporter in that period.

It may be pointed out that SIPRI presents data for 5-year periods.

The USA supplied major arms to 98 states in 2013–17. Exports to states in the Middle East accounted for 49 per cent of total US arms exports in that period.

Arms exports by Russia decreased by 7.1 per cent between 2008–12 and 2013–17. France increased its arms exports by 27 per cent between the two periods and was the third largest arms exporter in 2013–17. Arms exports by Germany—the fourth largest exporter in 2013–17—fell by 14 per cent between 2008–12 and 2013–17. However, German arms exports to the Middle East increased by 109 per cent.

Despite its continuing tensions with India and ongoing internal conflicts, Pakistan’s arms imports decreased by 36 per cent between 2008–12 and 2013–17. Pakistan accounted for 2.8 per cent of global arms imports in 2013–17. Its arms imports from the USA dropped by 76 per cent in 2013–17 compared with 2008–12.

‘The tensions between India, on the one side, and Pakistan and China, on the other, are fuelling India’s growing demand for major weapons, which it remains unable to produce itself,’ said Siemon Wezeman, Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘China, by contrast, is becoming increasingly capable of producing its own weapons and continues to strengthen its relations with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar through arms supplies.’

European states remain the main arms exporters to the Middle East region and supplied over 98 per cent of weapons imported by Saudi Arabia.’

In 2013–17 Saudi Arabia was the world’s second largest arms importer, with arms imports increasing by 225 per cent compared with 2008–12. Arms imports by Egypt—the third largest importer in 2013–17—grew by 215 per cent between 2008–12 and 2013–17. The United Arab Emirates was the fourth largest importer in 2013–17, while Qatar (the 20th largest arms importer) increased its arms imports and signed several major deals in that period.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net).

14 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/14/china-becomes-worlds-fifth-largest-arms-exporter/

Sinhala Communalists On The Streets Against Sri Lankan Muslims!

By Dhammika Silva

Since long time Sinhalese Extremists such as Bodhu Bala Sena, Sinhala Ravaya and Sinhala Lay(lion blood) have been very tactfully propagating racism and violence against Sri Lankan Muslims. In that long process recently few clashes between two groups occurred on 22nd February based on a minor traffic accident between a lorry and a three wheeler in Teldeniya near kandy. Due to that accident one Sinhala person called A. G. Kumarasinghe, a lorry driver died in hospital after his fight with four Muslim youth. After a couple of days of that accident and soon after his funeral, organised by unidentified outfits, thousands of people got into the streets against Muslims, rampaging violently causing huge damages in a very well pre-planned manner to Muslims’ properties such as shops, residences and Mosques on 4th and 5th of March in Teldeniya, Dhigana Moragahamula and nearby suburbs.

Following this yet another incident occurred in Ampara on 26th February, this incident was based on an incident which involving an ordinary hotel run by a Muslim. A Sinhalese person had gone to this hotel in the late hours just before that hotel was shutting, and asked for some meals including beef curry which was not available. Anyhow that hotel owner managed to offer him those meals in which that Sinhalese person had found something other than beef which the customer suspected to be a chemical to make men impotent. The said customer went on to accuse the hotel owner that he had deliberately mixed the said “impotency trigger” chemical to make Sinhalese people childless and to reduce Sinhalese population growth rate. Later he has called his supporters who were Sinhalese extremists and they all together have started to attack and set fire that hotel,and some other shops belonging to Muslims, they rampaged vehicles and finally a Mosque close to the Police station there.

These incidents are not isolated it has a history. Likewise, a clash occurred in Gintota of Galle District on 17th November 2017. That incident too was based on another minor motor bike accident whichwas amicably resolved immediately by both parties. But these organised Sinhalese Extremists within few days created a violent situation in that area and assaulted Muslims, set fire, robbed several shops, burnt around 60 houses of Muslims and few Mosques there too.

Sinhalese Extremists purposely and in a well planned tactful manner spread over the violence, terror and hatred among Sinhalese community against Muslims through mass media and social media for a long time, forces such as Bodhu Bala Sena are increasingly using Fascistic methods like their counter parts such RSS and other Hindu extremist outfits in the neighbouring India, to terrorise religious and other minorities.

They propagate despicable rumours among the Sinhalese people that Muslim hotels mix up chemicals in food items sold in their hotels to make Sinhalese men impotent and further they also spread a rumour claiming that the Muslims mix up such so called chemicals as jellies into the women under the dresses to make Sinhalese women unable to have the fortune of having babies. This very unscientific, false, narrow minded, well planned propaganda supported by communal political groups has made common poor Sinhalese very violent, communal and the seed of hatred against Muslims has been sown.

It’s very clear that there are several political forces which have lost power in past years and some Sinhalese businesses community behind all these agendas and evil projects.

These communal minded extreme Sinhalese are supported and funded by small section of the Buddhist cults and some business owners. In the previous government of Mahinda Rajapakshe regime these same groups were well fed and brought up and during that era several established international standard business enterprises in garments industry such as Fashion Bug and NOLIMIT owned by Muslims were set fire and destroyed by these same groups supported by then Mahinda Rajapakshe regime.

In June 2014 too, the Bodhu Bala Sena, with the full knowledge of the former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakshe, created a tense situation, spread violence and set fire to a large number of business places, vehicles and residences in Dargatown in south.

In August 2017, in the so called Good Governance rule of Present President Maithripala Sirisena and Premier Ranil Wickramasinghe, the poor Myanmar Rohingya refugees were brutaly beaten by the same Sinhalese extremists in the presence of the Sri Lankan Police. These 30 refugees including 17 women and children who were under the purview of the UNHCR were assaulted like this under operation of the Sinhalese Extremists – Sihala Ravaya cult.

Present government has failed to take action against these murderous incidents, all these communal clashes occurring in Ampara and Kandy and the attacks that happened to Rohingya refugees must be investigated and fair trials should take place to bring justice to the victims.

Similarly this government has failed to inquire and punish those who have perpetuated several violent activities resulting in killing of three Muslim youth in Beruwala, Dharga Town, and the attacks in Panadura and Gangodawila where Muslims properties were destroyed in the period of the last Government of Mahinda Rajapakshe needs a thorough investigation.

For all these uncivilized, brutal, unjustifiable violence on Muslims that were usually supported by only a small section of Sinhalese Extremist Buddhists and communal minded political leaders and owners some Sinhalese businesses.

These types of violence and violations on Sri Lankan Muslims seem to be continuing without an end in near future. We therefore hereby call upon all including the working class and progressive people to form a broader alliance to defeat these anti-Muslim and anti-social and communal elements. It is very clear that this weak government can never face and defeat these anti social activities aroused with the rise of Mahinda Rajapakshe after the local government election. There is a crucial question as to why this government could not take action to control these Sinhalese Buddhist extremists while they showed all the ethusiasm in brutally beating up and suppress the poor farmers agitation of Thambuththegama near Anuradhapura who were fighting to just for asking drinking water last week. It is important to note the saying of the famous American black liberation fighter Malcolm X said “There is No Capitalism without Racism”.

Therefore we the United Socialist Party hereby call upon the oppressed Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslim people to rise up against this system of capitalists which divides us on the basis of Race, Language and Ethnicity to perpetuate their brutal rule. Let’s unite to change this exploitative capitalist system and establish a Revolutionary Left alternative to defeat these anti-Tamil and anti-Muslim forces and stop the activities of Sinhalese extremists

Dhammika Silva is General Secretary. United Socialist Party, Sri Lanka

10 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/10/sinhala-communalists-on-the-streets-against-sri-lankan-muslims/

Why The West Cannot Stomach Russians

By Andre Vltchek

When it comes to Russia or the Soviet Union, reports and historical accounts do get blurry; in the West they do, and consequently in all of its ‘client states’.

Fairytales getintermingled with reality, while fabrications are masterfully injected into sub consciousness of billions of people worldwide. Russia is an enormous country, in fact the largest country on Earth in terms of territory. It is scarcely inhabited. It is deep, and as a classic once wrote: “It is impossible to understand Russia with one’s brain. One could only believe in it.”

The Western mind generally doesn’t like things unknown, spiritual and complex. Since the ‘old days’, especially since the crusades and monstrous colonialist expeditions to all corners of the world, the Westerners were told fables about their own “noble deeds”performed in the plundered lands. Everything had to be clear and simple:“Virtuous Europeans were civilizing savages and spreading Christianity, therefore, in fact, saving those dark poorprimitive souls.”

Of course, tens of millions were dying in the process, while further tens of millions were shackled and brought to the “New Worlds” as slaves. Gold, silver, and other loot, as well as slave labor had been (and still are) paying for all those European palaces, railroads, universities and theatres, but that did not matter, as the bloodshed was most of the timesomething abstract and far away from thoseover-sensitive eyes of the Western public.

Westerners like simplicity, particularly when it comes to moral definitions of “good and evil”. It matters nothing if the truth getssystematically ‘massaged’, or even if the reality is fully fabricated.What matters is that there is no deep guilt and no soul-searching. Western rulers and their opinion makers know their people – their ‘subjects’ – perfectly well, and most of the time, they give them what they are asking for. The rulers and the reigned are generally living in symbiosis. They keep bitching about each other, but mostly they have similar goals: to live well, to live extremely well, as long as the others are forced to pay for it; with their riches, with their labor and often with their blood.

Culturally, most of the citizens of Europe and North America hate to pay the bill for their highlife; they even detest to admit that their life is extremely ‘high’. They like to feel like victims. They like to feel that they are ‘used’. They like to imagine that they are sacrificing themselves for the rest of the world.

And above all, they hate real victims: those they have been murdering, raping, plundering and insulting, for decades and centuries.

Recent ‘refugee crises’ showed the spite Europeans feel for their prey. People who made them rich and who lost everything in the process are humiliated, despised and insulted. Be they Afghans or Africans, the Middle Easterners or South Asians. Or Russians, although Russians are falling to its own, unique category.

*

Many Russians look white. Most of them eat with knife and fork, they drink alcohol, excel at Western classical music, poetry, literature, science and philosophy.

To Western eyes they look ‘normal’, but actually, they are not.

Russians always want ‘something else’; they refuse to play by Western rules.

They are stubbornly demanding to remain different, and to be left alone.

When confronted, when attacked, they fight.

They rarely strike first, almost never invade.

But when threatened, when assaulted, they fight with tremendous determination and force, and they never lose. Villages and cities get converted into invader’s graves. Millions die while defending their Motherland, but the country survives. And it happens again and again and again, as the Western hordes have been, for centuries, assaulting and burning Russian lands, never learning the lesson and never giving up on their sinister dream of conquering and controlling that proud and determinedcolossus.

In the West, they don’t like those who defend themselves, who fight against them, and especially those who win.

*

It gets much worse than that.

Russia has this terrible habit… not only it defends itself and its people, but it also fights for the others, protecting colonized and pillaged nations, as well as those that are unjustly assaulted.

It saved the world from Nazism. It did it at a horrific price of 25 million men, women and children, but it did it; courageously, proudly and altruistically. The West never forgave theSoviet Union for this epic victory either, because all that is unselfish and self-sacrificing, is always in direct conflict with its own principles, and therefore ‘extremely dangerous’.

The Russian people had risen; had fought and won in the 1917 Revolution; an event which terrified the West more than anything else in history, as it had attempted to create a fully egalitarian, classless and racially color-blind society. It also gave birth to Internationalism, an occurrence that I recently described in my book The Great October Socialist Revolution: Impact on the World and the Birth of Internationalism.

Soviet Internationalism, right after the victory in WWII, helped greatly, directly and indirectly, dozens of countries on all continents, to stand up and to confront the European colonialism and the North American imperialism. The West and especially Europe never forgave the Soviet people in general and Russians in particular, for helping to liberate its slaves.

That is when the greatest wave of propaganda in human history really began to roll. From London to New York, from Paris to Toronto, an elaborate web of anti-Soviet and covertly anti-Russian hysteria was unleashed with monstrously destructive force. Tens of thousands of ‘journalists’, intelligence officers, psychologists, historians, as well as academics, were employed. Nothing Soviet, nothing Russian (except those glorified and often ‘manufactured’ Russian dissidents) was spared.

The excesses of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the pre-WWII era were systematically fabricated, exaggerated, and then engraved into the Western history textbooks and mass media narrative. In those tales, there was nothing about the vicious invasions and attacks coming from the West, aimed at destroying young Bolshevik state. Naturally, there was no space for mentioning the British, French, U.S., Czech, Polish, Japanese, German and other’s monstrous cruelties.

Soviet and Russian views were hardly ever allowed to penetrate the monolithic and one-sided Western propaganda narrative.

Like obedient sheep, the Western public accepted the disinformation it was fed with. Eventually, many people living in the Western colonies and ‘client states’, did the same.A great number of colonized people were taught how to blame themselves for their misery.

The most absurd but somehow logical occurrence then took place: many men, women and even children living in the USSR, succumbed to Western propaganda. Instead of trying to reform their imperfect but still greatly progressive country, they gave up, became cynical, aggressively ‘disillusioned’, corrupt and naively but staunchly pro-Western.

*

It was the first and most likely the last time in the history, Russia got defeated by the West. It happened through deceit, through shameless lies, through Western propaganda.

What followed could be easily described as genocide.

The Soviet Union was first lulled into Afghanistan, thenit was mortally injured by the war there, by an arms race with the United States, and by the final stage of propaganda that was literally flowing like lava from various hostile Western state-sponsored radio stations. Of course, local ‘dissidents’ also played an important role.

Under Gorbachev, a ‘useful idiot’ of the West, things got extremely bizarre. I don’t believe that he was paid to ruin his own country, but he did almost everything to run it into the ground; precisely what Washington wanted him to do. Then, in front of the entire world, a mighty and proud Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics suddenly shook in agony, then uttered a loud cry, and collapsed; died painfully but swiftly.

A new turbo-capitalist, bandit, pro-oligarch and confusedly pro-Western Russia was born. Russia which was governed by an alcoholic Boris Yeltsin; a man loved and supported by Washington, London and other Western centers of power.

It was a totally unnatural, sick Russia – cynical and compassionless, built with someone else’s ideas – Russia of Radio Liberty and Voice of America, of the BBC, of black marketers, of oligarchs and multi-national corporations.

Is the West now daring to say that Russians are ‘interfering’ in something in Washington? Are they out of their minds?

Washington and other Western capitals did not only ‘interfere’, they openly broke the Soviet Union into pieces and then they began kicking Russia which was at that point half-alive. Is it all forgotten, or is Western public again fully ‘unaware’ of what took place during those dark days?

The West kept spitting at the impoverished and injured country, refused to honor international agreements and treaties. It offered no help. Multi-nationals were unleashed, and began ‘privatizing’ Russian state companies, basically stealing what was built by the sweat and blood of Soviet workers, during long decades.

Interference? Let me repeat: it was direct intervention, invasion, a grab of resources, shameless theft! I want to read and write about it, but we don’t hear much about it, anymore, do we?

Now we are told that Russia is paranoid, that its President is paranoid! With straight face, the West is lying; pretending that it has not been trying to murder Russia.

Those years… Those pro-Western years when Russia became a semi-client state of the West, or call it a semi-colony! There was no mercy, no compassion coming from abroad. Many of those idiots – kitchen intellectuals from Moscow and provinces – suddenly woke up but it was too late. Many of them had suddenly nothing to eat. They got what they were told to ask for: their Western ‘freedom and democracy’, and Western-style capitalism or in summary: total collapse.

I remember well how it was ‘then’. I began returning to Russia, horrified, working in Moscow, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Leningrad. Academics from Akadem Gorodok outside Novosibirsk were selling their libraries in the bitter cold, in dark metro underpasses of Novosibirsk… Runs on the banks… Old retired people dying from hunger and cold behind massive doors of concrete blocks… unpaid salaries and starving miners, teachers…

Russia under the deadly embrace of the West, for the first and hopefully last time! Russia whose life expectancy suddenly dropped to African Sub-Saharan levels. Russia humiliated, wild, in terrible pain.

*

But that nightmare did not last long.

And what happened – those short but horrible years under both Gorbachev and Yeltsin, but above all under the Western diktat – will never be forgotten, not forgiven.

Russians know perfectly well what they do not want, anymore!

Russia stood up again. Huge, indignant and determined to live its own life, its own way. Froman impoverished, humiliated and robbed nation, subservient to the West, the country evolved and within a few years, the free and independent Russia once again joined ranks of the most developed and powerful countries on Earth.

And as before Gorbachev, Russia is once again able to help those nations which are under unjust and vicious attacks of the Western empire.

A man who is leading this renaissance, President Vladimir Putin, is tough, but Russia is under great threat and so is the world – this is no time for weaklings.

President Putin is not perfect (who is, really?), but he is a true patriot, and I dare say, an internationalist.

Now the West, once again, hates both Russia and its leader. No wonder; undefeated, strong and free Russia is the worst imaginable foe of Washington and its lieutenants.

That’s how the West feels, not Russia. Despite all that was done to it, despite tens of millions of lost and ruined lives, Russia has always been ready to compromise, even to forgive, if not forget.

*

There is something deeply pathological in the psyche of the West. It cannot accept anything less than full and unconditional submission. It has to control, to be in charge, and on top of everything; it hasto feel exceptional. Even when it murders and ruins the entire Planet, it insists onfeeling superior to the rest of the world.

This faith in exceptionalism is the true Western religion, much more than even Christianity, which for decades has not really played any important role there. Exceptionalism is fanatical, it is fundamentalist and unquestionable.

It also insists that its narrative is the only one available anywhere in the World. That the West is seen as a moral leader, as a beacon of progress, as the only competent judge and guru.

Lies are piling on top of lies. As in all religions, the more absurd the pseudo-realityis, the more brutal and extreme are the methods used to uphold it. The more laughable the fabricationsare, the more powerful the techniques used to suppress the truth are.

Today, hundreds of thousands of ‘academics’, teachers, journalists, artists, psychologists and other highly paid professionals, in all parts of the world, are employed by the Empire, for two goals only – to glorify the Western narrative and to discredit all that is standing in its way; daring to challenge it.

Russia is the most hated adversary of the West, with China, Russia’s close ally being near second.

The propaganda war unleashed by the West is so insane, so intense, that even some of the European and North American citizens are beginning to question tales coming from Washington, London and elsewhere.

Wherever one turns, there is a tremendous medley of lies, of semi-lies, half-truths; a complex and unnavigable swamp of conspiracy theories. Russia is being attacked for interfering in U.S. domestic affairs, for defending Syria, for standing by defenseless and intimidated nations, for having its own powerful media, for doping its athletes, forstill being Communist, for not being socialist anymore;in brief: for everything imaginable and unimaginable.

Criticism of the country is so thorough and ludicrous, that one begins to ask very legitimate questions: “what about the past? What about the Western narrative regarding the Soviet past, particularly the post-Revolutionary period, and the period between two world wars?”

The more I analyze this present-day Western anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda, the more determined I am to study and write about the Western narrative regarding Soviet history. I’m definitely planning to investigate these matters in the future, together with my friends – Russian and Ukrainian historians.

*

In the eyes of the West, Russians are ‘traitors’.

Instead of joining the looters, they have been standing by the ‘wretched of the world’, in the past, as well as now.They refused to sell their Motherland, and to enslave their own people. Their government is doing all it can to make Russia self-sufficient, fully independent, prosperous, proud and free.

Remember that ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and many other terms, mean totally different things in distinctive parts of the world. What is happening in the West could never be described as ‘freedom’ in Russia or in China, and vice versa.

Frustrated, collapsing, atomized and egotistic societies of Europe and North America do not inspire even their own people, anymore. They are escaping by millions annually, to Asia, Latin America, and even to Africa. Escaping from emptiness, meaninglessness and emotional cold. But it is not Russia’s or China’s business to tell them how to live or not to live!

In the meantime, great cultures like Russia and China do not need, and do not wantto be told by the Westerners, what freedom is, and what democracy is.

They do not attack the West, and expect the same in return.

It is truly embarrassing that the countries responsible for hundreds of genocides, for hundreds of millions of murdered people on all continents, still dare to lecture others.

Many victims are too scared to speak.

Russia is not.

It is composed, gracious, but fully determined to defend itself if necessary; itself as well as many other human beings living on this beautiful but deeply scarred Planet.

Russian culture is enormous: from poetry and literature, to music, ballet, philosophy… Russian hearts are soft, they easily melt when approached with love and kindness. But when millions of lives of innocent people are threatened, both the hearts and muscles of Russians quickly turn to stone and steel. During such moments, when only victory could save the world, Russian fists are hard, and the same is true aboutthe Russian armor.

There is no match to Russian courage in the sadistic but cowardly West.

Irreversibly, both hope and future are moving towards the east.

And that is why Russia is desperately hated by the West.

*
[originally published by New Oriented Outlook]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist.

9 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/09/why-the-west-cannot-stomachy-russians/

Zionist Subversion, Mainstream Media Censorship

By Dr Gideon Polya

While numerous anti-racist  Jewish intellectuals are resolutely  critical  of the  ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Western Mainstream Media variously  censor  or white-wash  the nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, and grossly human rights-abusing conduct of Apartheid Israel.  A part  explanation for this huge moral discrepancy is that the American 60% of the world’s 30 biggest media companies have a disproportionately high  Jewish Board membership. Jews and females represent 2% and 51%, respectively,  of the US population but average 33% and 19%, respectively, of Board members of the top 18 US media companies.

In 2012, the American Jewish population was estimated at between 5.5-8 million, depending on the definition of the term, this constituting between 1.7% to 2.6% or about 2% of the total US population [1].  Of the 113th Congress (2013-2015, 100 Senators  and 435 Representatives) there were 12 Jewish Americans in the Senate (12.0%; 11 Democrats, 1 Independent) and 22 in the House of Representatives (5.1%; 1 Republican, 21 Democrats) or 6.4% overall [2, 3]. This 3-fold higher disproportional Jewish representation in Congress contrasts with a disproportionally 2-fold less representation on a population basis of both African Americans and Hispanic Americans in the US Congress [4-7]. This disproportional  representation is ultimately reflected in US Government policy that, rhetoric aside, continues to be anti-Black in practice (e.g. massive Segregation and voting exclusion) and anti-Hispanic (endless interventionist  threats to Latin America, the Wall, and massive persecution of Latin American immigrants and their children,  the so-called Dreamers).

In stark contrast, the US Congress is almost 100% behind the pro-Zionist  policies of the traitorous Israel Lobby that is exemplified by organizations such as the  pro-Zionist B’Nai Brith, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) (that was created when  the American Zionist Council (AZC) was forced to register as an agent of a foreign power and evaded  the intent of the law by dissolving and renaming itself as AIPAC) [8, 9]. The power of AIPAC has been expertly analysed in the book  “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John Mearsheimer (Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago), and Stephen Walt (Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) [9]. The rot set in during the 1960s after John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy failed in their attempts to get the traitorous Zionists listed as agents of a foreign power [8] and with Apartheid Israeli acquisition of nuclear weapons [10, 11].

A Zionist-subverted America has become a  neoliberal Kleptocracy, Plutocracy, Murdochracy, Lobbyocracy , Corporatocracy and Dollarocracy in which Big Money  purchases people, politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality, more  political power and hence more private profit. No matter how many appalling school massacres, the lobbying power of the National Rifle Association (NRA) means that gun control cannot get through Congress. No matter repeated Gaza Massacres and the other awful realities of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, the US Congress is beholden to the traitorous and genocidally racist Zionist Lobby. Indeed 1.7 million Americans die preventably each year but in an appalling fiscal perversion the US has committed $7 trillion to Zionist-promoted, anti-Arab anti-Semitic   wars in the ongoing 21st century US War on Muslims,  and killing millions of Muslims abroad rather than keeping millions of Americans alive at  home [12-16 ]. Thus 28 million Americans  have died preventably since 2001 [ 12, 14], and 32 million Muslims have died from violence (5 million) or from imposed deprivation (27 million) in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 and may well have involved Apartheid Israel  [15, 16]. It is estimated that the long-term accrual cost to Americans of support for Apartheid Israel totals $40 trillion [14].

No matter the appalling magnitude of the statistics, a Zionist-subverted and Zionist-perverted Congress remains almost totally committed to a nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel. This support for Apartheid Israel also comes from Black Congress members, notwithstanding anti-Apartheid hero and Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela having famously stated “The UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians” [17].  Thus  Bruce A. Dixon (managing director of the Black Agenda Report) (2014): “ Israel’s vicious apartheid regime celebrated Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration with the massacre of 1400 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, and the destruction of a great part of the enclave’s infrastructure, down to chicken farms and water systems. The new Congress called it righteous self-defense, with 390 yeas, 5 nays and 22 “present”.  The CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] was 2 of those nays, Gwen Moore (WI) and Maxine Waters (CA), and 7 of the “presents”, Edwards (MD), Ellison (MN), Johnson (GA), Lee (TX), Payne (NJ), Kilpatrick (MI), and Watson (CA). This month, as the civilian death toll in the latest Israeli criminal orgy of collective punishment mounted toward 1,000 [latest: 2,200] , the US House passed a nearly identical resolution, calling this massacre legitimate “self-defense” as well. This time the House vote, including that of the Congressional Black Caucus was unanimous.  Not a single member of the CBC, despite their much heralded brand of standing for civil rights and against apartheid here and around the world, bothered to publicly question the racist ethnocracy that is the Israeli state” [18].

Of course it is not just Zionist  Lobby organizations but individual wealthy pro-Zionists who have contributed to the appalling American and global  moral disaster involved in supporting horrendous Israeli Apartheid and the ongoing Palestinian  Genocide . that has involved 2.0 million Palestinian deaths from violence (0.1 million) or from imposed deprivation (1.9 million) in the last 100 years, 8 million Palestinian refugees, the ethnic cleansing of 90% of the land of Palestine, and  highly abusive,  violent and indefinite confinement of presently 5 million Occupied Palestinians in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2 million) or in West Bank ghettoes (3 million). The horrendous dimensions of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide invite comparisons with the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million Jews killed by violence or imposed deprivation). Of about 14 million Palestinians (half of them children, half of them female), 7 million are forbidden to even step foot in their own country, 5 million are held hostage with zero human rights under Israeli  guns in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2.0 million) or in ever-dwindling West Bank Bantustan ghettoes  (3.0 million),  and 1.8 million live as Third Class citizens as Israeli Palestinians under Nazi-style Apartheid Israeli race laws [19-24]. Of  Apartheid Israel’s now 50% Indigenous Palestinian subjects, 74% cannot vote for the government ruling them  i.e.  egregious Apartheid that is a crime by UN convention [25] .

Jewish and non-Jewish pro-Zionists are well represented in the top One Percent that has accumulated 50% of the wealth of the world.  48% of U.S.  billionaires are Jewish [26] and there are 10 Jews in Forbes top 50 billionaires [27]. According  to the Times of Israel (2013), the World’s 165 Jewish billionaires are worth a combined $812 billion [28]. As evidenced by a large body of anti-racist Jews, many Jews are not Zionists. Anti-Semitism comes in 2 equally repugnant forms,  anti-Jewish anti-Semitism against presently 17 million largely culturally Semitic Jews as compared to anti-Arab anti-Semitism against 300 million ethnically and culturally Arab Semites and, in the form of Islamophobia,  against 1,600 million mostly culturally Semitic Muslims. The Zionists are guilty of both forms of anti-Semitism, namely (1) anti-Arab anti-Semitism  through  the ongoing Palestinian Genocide (2 million Palestinians killed by violence, 0.1 million, or imposed deprivation, 1.9 million, since the British invasion of Palestine in WW1)  and through backing the US War on Muslims (32 million Muslim deaths from violence, 5 million, or imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries variously invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity) and (2) anti-Jewish anti-Semitism (by falsely conflating all Jews with these appalling crimes). Racist deeds are far worse than racist words but words lead to deeds.  Respect for human rights tends to be inversely related to wealth as exemplified by rich neoliberals  versus  poor socialist activists. However,  as set out below, the pro-Zionism of wealthy Jews is also evidenced by their silence over the crimes of Apartheid Israel.

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. As set out in various detailed compendia [29-32], notably “Jews Against Racist Zionism” [31] and “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism” [32], numerous anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish humanitarians vigorously protest the genocidal crimes of Apartheid Israel, but the billionaires, whether Jewish or non-Jewish,  are not be seen in these lists of decent humanity. The obscenely rich, look-the-other-way, multi-millionaire and  billionaire One Percenters  with vast resources to advance human rights are pro-Zionist by omission – silence is complicity. Accordingly, one reasonably supposes that Jewish One Percenters involved in the Mainstream media are  pro-Zionist by omission. However the Zionist domination of all but pro-peace Jewish organizations  strongly suggests that Jewish One Percenters involved in the Mainstream media, notably Board members,  are likely to be fervently pro-Zionist.  Indeed various analyses have been made of the disproportionate Jewish presence on Boards of major  American and UK media [34-38].

Since the 1960s America became more and more subject to Zionist subversion  to the extent that in 2001  Ariel Sharon (then Israeli Prime Minister) declared at a cabinet meeting:  “Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it” [39, 40]. This overt and covert Zionist power complements massive CIA subversion of Mainstream media in America and around the world [41-46]. Thus Professor James F. Tracy (formerly  Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University,  2002 – 2016): “Since the end of World War Two the Central Intelligence Agency has been a major force in US and foreign news media, exerting considerable influence over what the public sees, hears and reads on a regular basis” [41]  . Carl Bernstein (famed Washington Post journalist and  Pullitzer Prize winner for his Watergate revelations) has detailed CIA-media connections [42, 43].  A declassified 1991 document from the CIA states that a CIA task force “now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation. This  has helped us turn some ‘intelligence failure’ stories into ‘intelligence success” stories,’ and has contributed to the accuracy of countless others. In many instances, we have persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods” [44].  Arjun Walia has analysed massive CIA subversion of media and academia (2017): “National security” is now an umbrella term used to justify concealing information, but who makes these decisions? …. Not only are countless documents classified every single year in North America, but false information and “fake news” are routinely dispersed, mainly by mainstream media outlets — a reality that is clearly conveyed in this document and has been expressed by multiple mainstream media journalists themselves. And as with the NSA surveillance program that was exposed by Edward Snowden, it’s a global problem… What we seem to have here is an attempt to manipulate public perception of global events through mainstream media and news publications. But what’s perhaps most interesting is the fact that a lot of people are now waking up and seeing through many of these lies and manipulation tactic” [45]. Of course the classic work in this area detailing massive US Government abuse of media is “Manufacturing Consent. The political economy of mass media” by Professors Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky [46].

In short, there is massive Zionist-, intelligence- and Government-directed   Mainstream media censorship,  lying, and “fake news through lying by omission” [46-60]. Zionist perversion of US media is well documented [8, 9, 55-59]. The Zionist Lobby’s chief agent is AIPAC that according to J.J. Goldberg  “is] the Jewish community’s main foreign-policy lobbying organization … The clout that Jewish Americans exercise in American politics is far incommensurate with their population” [56]. Palestinian Professor Rima Najjar: “AIPAC lobbies for the security of the Zionist Jewish state. The undeniable obverse of that is the continued oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people” [59].

While Jews are 2% of the US population, females are about 51%. Informed by a 2016 analysis by Lara O’Reilly in the Business Insider [33], below in descending order of revenue is the list of the world’s top 30 media companies with details of their media revenue in US dollars  and other key details, together with – for 18 US companies and 1 UK company – the estimated %  Jewish Board members (and hence likely fervently pro-Zionist Board members) and % women on the Board (for comparison) :

1. Alphabet ($59.62 billion revenue; American; Alphabet is the new holding company that owns fervently pro-Zionist Google that “minimizes”  Leftist sites critical of Apartheid Israel [47-49]; 46% of Alphabet  Directors are Jewish or have Jewish spouses but only 23% of Board members are women; Alphabet chairman John Hennessy is anti-BDS and hence pro-Zionist; in addition to minimizing the humane Left, Google provides software to identify targets for  illegal US drone strikes [61])

2. The Walt Disney Company ($22.45 billion; American; Disney owns US national TV network ABC,  owns a 50% stake in digital media company Fusion and has a 33% stake in video streaming platform Hulu; fervently pro-Zionist media mogul Rupert Murdoch recently sold  21st Century Fox and a controlling interest in Sky to Disney for $66 billion; 18% Jewish Board but Board member Fred Langhammer, a former chairman and CEO of pro-Israel Estee Lauder Companies, has invested in Apartheid Israel; 36% of the Board are  women).

3. Comcast ($19.7 billion; American; 15 national cable networks in the US including   USA Network, Syfy, CNBC,  and nine international TV channels,  NBC,  Spanish-language network Telemundo and runs video streaming service Hulu; 30% Jewish Board members but only 10% female Board members).

4. 21st Century Fox ($18.67 billion; American with major Australian links; owns Fox Broadcasting,  Fox Sports television companies, STAR India;  and has a 39% stake in UK Sky; formerly owned by Murdoch who recently sold  21st Century Fox and a controlling interest in Sky to Disney; 8% of the Board are female but possibly none (0%) of the Board are obviously Jewish, although Rupert Murdoch’s maternal grandmother was Jewish [62] and fervently pro-Zionist Rupert Murdoch and his sons Lachlan and James are together on the board, this underscoring Rupert Murdoch’s controversial  tweet : “Why is Jewish-owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?” [63]).

5. Facebook ($11.49 billion; American; 50% of Board members are Jewish, including 2 Jewish Israelis,  presumed pro-Zionists from Facebook’s pro-Zionist censorship activities; 18% female Board; Facebook stands accused of pro-Zionist censorship, having suspended Palestinian Professor Rima Najjar for rightly accusing the fervently pro-Zionist US Hillel organization of being racist [64]. Gazans have protested against Facebook for removing Palestinian accounts [65]).

6. Bertelsmann ($10.04 billion; German; owns TV and radio group RTL, book publishing companies Random House and Penguin, magazine publishing company Gruner + Jahr, music company BMG, marketing company Arvato, The Bertelsmann Education Group, and Bertelsmann Investments; post-1945 de-Nazification under Allied Occupation necessarily meant a pro-American Mainstream media culture; 0% Jewish and 20% female Board).

7. Viacom ($9.61 billion;  250 TV channels worldwide, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and Channel 5 in the UK; a trust for media mogul Sumner Redstone owns 80% of movie theatre company National Amusements, which owns 80% of the voting rights in both Viacom and CBS; 45% Jewish Board and 45% female Board).

8. CBS ($9.57 billion; American; CBS Television Network broadcasts to more than 200 affiliated stations;  50% stake in The CW Network; joint venture with AMC Networks to run international channels like Horror Channel and CBS Drama in the UK, Ireland, the Middle East, and Africa; owns 117 US radio stations; 57% Jewish Board and 21% female Board).

9. Baidu ($7.895 billion; Chinese; Chinese language search giant with maps, social networking, security, entertainment, e-commerce, and mobile services).

10. News Corp ($6.89 billion; fervently pro-Zionist Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp owns The Wall Street Journal,  The New York Post,  The Times and the Sun in the UK, News America Marketing, Barron’s magazine, and publisher HarperCollins; in 2005 eminent Palestinian American Professor Rashid Khalidi’s participation in a New York City teacher training program was ended by the city’s Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who is presently the only Jewish member of the  News Corp Board which is thus 9% Jewish, noting that fervently pro-Zionist Rupert Murdoch had a Jewish grandmother and he and his sons Lachlan and James are together on the board; the Board is 9% Jewish,  at least 45% fervently pro-Zionist and 27% female ).

11. Advance Publications ($6.42 billion; owns the Condé Nast Publications magazines including Glamour, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ, several US newspapers, notably The Plain Dealer and The Times-Picayune, and a 31% stake in Discovery Communications; at least 80% Jewish Board; 0% female Board).

12. iHeartMedia ($6.12 billion; formerly  known as Clear Channel Communications;  owns 861 radio stations in the US, reaching 110 million listeners each week, and has 107,000 display advertising structures in North America and 540,000 across Asia, Australia, and Europe; 11% Jewish Board and 22% female Board).

13. Discovery Communications ($6.14 billion; owns 14 US TV networks ,  including the Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet, distributes 48 international brands reaching over  2.6 billion subscribers in more than 220 countries worldwide; 27% Jewish Board but 9% female Board).

14. Grupo Globo ($4.83 billion;  Brazilian; Brazilian company that  owns the newspaper O Globo, 12 magazines, 4 radio networks, and TV network TV Globo that had exclusive rights in the 2014 FIFA World Cup).

15. Yahoo ($4.62 billion; American; search advertising and display advertising;  default search option in web browser Firefox; there are to be board changes after Yahoo recently sold its web properties to Verizon in a deal valued at about $4.8 billion; 25% Jewish Board and 25% female Board).

16. Time Warner ($4.57 billion; American; sold  Time Inc. publishing division in 2014; runs Turner Broadcasting System, HBO, and Warner Bros. Entertainment; 22% Jewish Board and 22% female Board).

17. Microsoft ($4.58 billion; advertising revenue via MSN, search engine Bing, Skype, and Xbox Live gaming and media platform; 18% Jewish Board and 18% female Board; Bing Searches reveal humane items hidden by the Zionist-subverted Google Robot).

18. Asahi Shimbun ($4.12 billion; Japanese; Japan’s number 2  newspaper; has a 25% stake in TV Asahi and owns 25 magazine titles  including AERA, Sesame, and Autocar Japan; Japanese media must be seen in the light of the US reorganization of Japan after 1945; Professor Yoshio Sugimoto commenting on press censorship via the “reporters’ clubs” in Japan (1997): “ Japan ‘s mass media tend to be docile because of the way in which information-gathering units are based on government and business-establishments. Government ministries, prefectural and municipal governments, police headquarters, and business and union organizations all provide reporters of major print and electronic media with office space called kisha kurabu (reporters’ clubs). These clubrooms are normally equipped with telephones and other communications machines, service personnel, and other facilities. Media organizations use them free of charge. In almost all cases, club membership is restricted to the reporters of major news organizations and is not open to journalists from minor presses or to foreign journalists.  …By constantly feeding information to reporters in this environment, representatives of the institutions which provide club facilities can obliquely control the way in which it is reported to the public. Reporters cannot risk being excluded from their club because they would  then lose access to this regular flow of information” [53, 66].

19.  China Central Television (CCTV) ($4.08 billion; Chinese; the Chinese state broadcaster; broadcasts 21 free-to-air channels, 19 pay-TV channels, and 10 international channels in the English, French, Spanish, Russian, Korean, and Arabic languages).

20. Hearst ($4.0 billion; American; has  15 daily newspapers, 21 consumer magazines, and 30 TV stations in the US; owns around 300 newspaper and magazine titles internationally; the founder, William Randolph Hearst I notoriously  whipped up public hysteria via his “Morning Journal” newspaper  after the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, this leading to the Spanish-American War and US seizure of Spanish territories from the Philippines to Puerto Rico [67, 68] – this was one of many American false flag atrocities leading to war and occupation [67, 68 ], with the Zionist-subverted US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity  being a notable and horrendous example – the subsequent  and ongoing Zionist-promoted US War on Muslims has been associated with 32 million Muslims deaths from violence, 5 million, or deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance [15, 16];  other excuses for US  imperialist wars include the sinking of the arms-laden Lusitania (US entry into WW1), Pearl Harbor (permitted to occur notwithstanding  and US and UK pre-knowledge; US entry into WW2), Korean invasion of their own country (Korean War), the fictional Gulf of Tonkin Incident (US Indo-China War), alleged threat to US students (US invasion of Granada) and  General Noriega’s longstanding CIA-linked drug involvements (US invasion of Panama) [67, 68]; 50% Jewish Board but only 6% female Board).

21. JCDecaux ($3.74 billion; French; largest outdoor advertising company in the world; owns Continental Outdoor Media, Eye Catcher Media, and CEMUSA).

22. Axel Springer ($3.39 billion; German; owns newspapers, magazines, TV channels, radio stations, and websites in 35 countries, notably Business Insider and the newspapers B.Z., Bild, and Die Welt in Germany; see comment for #6 above)

23. Mediaset ($3.39 billion; Italian; largest Italian commercial broadcaster in Italy and has majority ownership  of Spanish TV network MEC; founded by former PM Silvio Berlusconi with major continuing family connection).

24. ITV ($3.33 billion; British; largest UK commercial television network;  more than 15 channels; stakes in digital TV services Freesat,  YouView and ITN; 100% pro-Zionist Board  by commission and omission, possibly 20% Jewish Board, 40% female Board. The ITV Chair, Sir Peter Bazalgette, was member of the UK Commission on the Holocaust and is the chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation supervising the controversial UK Holocaust Memorial involving 23 huge  bronze fin structures, with the spaces between each symbolising the 22 countries where Jewish communities were destroyed during the Jewish Holocaust [69]. The WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed through violence or deprivation) was part of a much greater but “forgotten” WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slavs, Jews and Roma (Gypsies) killed),and was contemporaneous  with the “forgotten” WW2 Polish Holocaust (6 million Poles killed, half of them Jewish), the “forgotten” WW2 Russian Holocaust (20 million Russians killed) [67], the “forgotten” WW2 Indian Holocaust and Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by Churchill with Australian complicity in Bengal and neighbouring provinces) [70-72] , and the WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35 million Chinese killed under Japanese occupation 1937-1945) [73]. The UK was complicit in the WW2 Jewish Holocaust through the strategically inept ands disastrous  bombing of German cities and infrastructure [74]  leading to massive food shortages in Nazi Europe towards the end of the war that severely impacted concentration camp inmates [74],  and through exclusion of Jewish refugees from large parts of the British Empire [76], a policy supported by the Zionists who wanted Jewish refugees to only go to Palestine. Pro-Zionist Mainstream media ignore these horrendous realities that are within living memory,  as well as the horrendous realities of the ongoing, Zionist-backed US War on Muslims in a process of continuing   genocide ignoring  and holocaust ignoring that is far, far worse than repugnant genocide denial  and holocaust denial because at least the latter admit the possibilities  refutation and public discussion [77]).

25. Fuji Media Holdings ($3.23 billion; Japanese; is one of Japan’s biggest media owners, runs Fuji Television Network and Nippon Broadcasting System; see comment on item #18).

26. Hubert Burda Media ($3.05 billion; German; owns 93 magazines in Germany  and 320 titles internationally; publishes German editions of Playboy, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar, and Burda Style; see comment on item #6).

27. Gannett ($2.95 billion; owns 93 daily newspapers in the US, including USA Today, and 400 other publications; property investment in the UK  via  Newsquest; 18% Jewish Board; 27% female Board; former chairperson Marjorie Magner is Jewish).

28. ProSiebenSat.1 ($2.91 billion; German; owns 15 TV stations across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, reaching around 42 million households; see comment on item #6).

29. Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings ($2.88 billion; Japanese; owns  The Yomiuri Shimbun that has a circulation of more than 9 million, and the English language daily The Japan News,  and has a  stake in the Nippon TV network, publishing group Chukoron-Shinsha, and the Yomiuri Giants baseball team; see comment on item #18).

30. Time Inc. ($2.87 billion; until 2014 was  the magazine division of Time Warner; owns Sports Illustrated, Time Magazine, and InStyle; 33% Jewish Board and 22% female Board; Sir Howard Stringer is a fervent pro-Zionist who is on the Time Inc Board, was the honorary chairman of the pro-Zionist American Jewish Committee, and is also a non-executive director of the UK BBC, an organization with an appalling record of  pro-Zionist censorship [78, 79]).

Final comments.

While Jews represent about 2% of the US population, the proportion of Jews on the Boards of the top 18 US companies in the top 30 world media companies ranges from 0%  to 57% with an average of 33%. In contrast, while females  represent about 51% of the US population, the proportion of women on the Boards of the top 18 US companies in the top 30 world media companies ranges from 0%  to 45% with an average of 19%. This huge discrepancy explains in part why US media are overwhelmingly pro-Zionist by commission and omission   and ignore the appalling crimes of Apartheid Israel against the Palestinians of whom  50% of women are women and girls. Gandhi stated that “Poverty is the worst form of violence” and the per capita GDP is a mere  $2,800 for Occupied Palestinians as compared to $39,000 for their genocidally racist occupier, Apartheid Israel [80]. About  5,100 Occupied Palestinians die avoidably annually from violence (500) or from imposed deprivation (4,600)  in a process of active and passive mass murder of Indigenous Palestinians in gross violation of the Geneva Convention  and thence of the  UN Genocide Convention  [81, 82]. Palestinian women and girls, like their vastly more prosperous Anglosphere sisters, may well cry “Me too!”

Like poverty, lying by Zionist-subverted Mainstream media is also deadly. Zionist-subverted, One Percenter-owned US Mainstream media not only hide the deadly realities of life for Occupied Palestinians but also  hide the appalling realities  that 1.7 million Americans die preventably each year, that 28 million Americans have died thus since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity, and that successive Zionist-subverted US Administrations have presided over a fiscal perversion involving committing trillions of dollars  to killing millions of Muslim abroad rather than keeping Americans alive at home.

What can decent informed Americans and indeed all decent, informed people do?  The horrible reality is that  Zionism is egregious, genocidal racism and that racist Zionists and all their supporters should be sidelined from public life, as have been other racists such as the neo-Nazis, Nazis, Apartheiders and the Ku Klux Klan. Decent people around the world will urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions  (BDS) against not only Apartheid Israel but also against all people, politicians, parties, companies, collectives, corporations and countries complicit in these appalling crimes. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Wake up America!

References.

[1]. “American Jews”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews .

[2]. “Jewish Members of Congress”, Jewish Virtual  Library: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewcong113.html .

[3]. “113th United States Congress”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/113th_United_States_Congress .

[4]. Congressional Black Caucus”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Black_Caucus#Senate_members .

[5]. “Congressional Hispanic Conference”,  Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Hispanic_Conference .

[6]. “Congressional  Hispanic Caucus”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Hispanic_Caucus .

[7]. Gideon Polya, “Truth & Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) Can Overcome Huge Inequities Suffered By African Americans Under American Apartheid”,  Countercurrents, 29 September, 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya290914.htm

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Dual Israeli citizenship & Zionist perversion of America, Australia, India & Humanity”, Countercurrents, 30 July 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/07/30/dual-israeli-citizenship-zionist-perversion-of-america-australia-india-humanity/ .

[9]. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

[10]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty & reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .

[11]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel buries serial war criminal, genocidal racist and nuclear terrorist Shimon Peres”, Countercurrents, 1 October 2016: https://countercurrents.org/2016/10/01/apartheid-israel-buries-serial-war-criminal-genocidal-racist-and-nuclear-terrorist-shimon-peres/ .

[12]. Gideon Polya, “West Ignores 11 Million Muslim War Deaths & 23 Million Preventable American Deaths Since US Government’s False-flag 9-11 Atrocity”, Countercurrents, 9 September, 2015: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya090915.htm .

[13]. Gideon Polya, “Fundamentalist America Has Trashed Secular Governance, Modernity, Democracy, Women’s Rights And Children’s Rights In The Muslim World”, Countercurrents, 21 May, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210515.htm .

[14]. Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, Millions Of Untimely American Deaths And $40 Trillion Cost Of Israel To Americans”,  Countercurrents, 27 August, 2013: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .

[15]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[16]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[17]. Gideon Polya, “ Honor anti-Apartheid hero Nelson Mandela’s words: “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians” , Countercurrents , 8 December,2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya081213.htm .

[18]. Bruce A. Dixon , “US Congressional Black Caucus endorses Israeli Apartheid and current war crimes in Gaza ”, Global Research, 30 July 2014: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-congressional-black-caucus-endorses-israeli-apartheid-and-current-war-crimes-in-gaza/5394754  .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide & Australia’s Aboriginal  Genocide compared”, Countercurrents, 20 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/20/apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-australias-aboriginal-genocide-compared/  .

[20]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East conflict – from oil to climate genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “End 50 Years Of Genocidal Occupation & Human Rights Abuse By US-Backed Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents,  9 June  2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/06/09/end-50-years-of-genocidal-occupation-human-rights-abuse-by-us-backed-apartheid-israel/ .

[22]. Gideon Polya, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Palestinians. Apartheid Israel violates ALL Palestinian Human Rights”, Palestine Genocide Essays, 24 January 2009: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-palestinians .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “Palestinian Me Too: 140 alphabetically-listed Zionist crimes expose Western complicity & hypocrisy”, Countercurrents, 7 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/07/palestinian-140-alphabetically-listed-zionist-crimes-expose-appalling-western-complicity-hypocrisy/  .

[24]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[25]. John Dugard, “International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the crime of Apartheid”, Audiovisual Library of International Law: http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/cspca/cspca.html .

[26]. Michael Epstein,  “48% of U.S.  billionaires are Jewish”, Topix, 19 August 2017: http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TCEL6H6L79C279EVA/48-percent-of-u-s-billionaires-are-jewish .

[27]. Gabe Friedman, “10 Jews in Forbes top 50 billionaires”, Times of Israel, 3 March 2015: https://www.timesofisrael.com/10-jews-in-forbes-top-50-billionaires/ .

[28]. “World’s 165 Jewish billionaires worth a combined $812 billion”, Times of Israel, 19 April 2013: https://www.timesofisrael.com/worlds-jewish-billionaires-worth-combined-812-billion/ .

[29]. “Boycott Apartheid  Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/.

[30]. “Gaza Concentration Camp”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration  .

[31]. “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ .

[32]. “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .

[33]. Lara O’Reilly, “The 30 biggest media companies in the world” , Business Insider, 31 May 2016: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-30-biggest-media-owners-in-the-world-2016-5/?r=AU&IR=T .

[34]. Jason Bayz, “Demographics of the American media elite”, 2 July 2015: https://jasonbayz.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/demographics-of-the-american-media-elite/ .

[35]. Richard C. Rhodes, “The Jewish Juggernaut”, 25 August 2006: http://www.theakurians.com/Info/The%20Jewish%20Juggernaut.htm .

[36].  “List of Jewish American business people”, Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_American_businesspeople .

[37]. George Kanaris re Jewish media figures, Google+: https://plus.google.com/+GeorgeKanaris/posts/janSi5MzEUP .

[38]. “Jewish and Zionist influence at the BBC”, Semitic Controversies: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/jewish-and-zionist-influence-at-bbc.html .

[39]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist quotes reveal genocidal racism”, MWC News, 12 January 2018: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/69955-zionist-quotes-reveal-genocidal-racism.html .

[40]. “Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide”, Palestinian Genocide : https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes .

[41]. James Tracy, “The CIA and the media: 50 facts the world needs to know”, Global Research, 30 January 2018: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-the-media-50-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/5471956 .

[42]. Carl Bernstein, “The CIA and the media”, Rolling Stone, 20 October 1977: http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm .

[43]. “Operation Mockingbird”, Wikipedia: http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm .

[44]. CIA memo, 20 December 1991: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005524009.pdf .

[45]. Arjun Walia, “Declassified CIA documents show agency’s control over mainstream media & academia”, Collective Evolution, 11 May 2017: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/05/11/declassified-cia-documents-shows-agencies-control-over-mainstream-media-academia/ .

[46]. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, “Manufacturing Consent. The political economy of mass media”, Pantheon 1988, 2002.

[47]. Gideon Polya, “Google censorship & Zionist constraint on effective free speech threaten the Planet”, Countercurrents, 9 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/09/google-censorship-zionist-constraint-on-effective-free-speech-threaten-planet/ .

[48]. WSWS, “Google’s new search protocol is restricting access to 13 leading socialist, progressive and anti-war sites”, WSWS, 2 August 2017: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/02/pers-a02.html .

[49]. “Who controls America? Who controls Google?”, The Zog: https://thezog.wordpress.com/who-controls-google/  .

[50]. Gideon Polya, “Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission”, MWC News, 1 April 2017: http://www.mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/64626-mainstream-media.html .

[51]. Gideon Polya, “Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission”, Global Research, 1 April 2017: http://www.globalresearch.ca/mainstream-media-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/5582944 .

[52]. “Lying by omission is worse than lying by commission because at least the latter permits refutation and public debate”, Mainstream media lying: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/lying-by-omission .

[53]. “Mainstream media censorship”; https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home .

[54]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .

[55]. Kenneth E. Bauzon, “Media bias and the Israel Lobby in the United States”, Countercurrents, 10 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/10/media-bias-and-the-israel-lobby-in-the-united-states/ .

[56]. J.J. Goldberg, “Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment”,

[57]. Paul Findley, “They Dare to Speak Out”, 1985.  (against the pervasive influence of AIPAC) on my shelf. It looked down on me more as a cautionary tale than as an inspiration.

[58]. John Lyons, “Balcony Over Jerusalem”.

[59]. Rima Najjar, “How do I hate thee AIPAC? Let me count the ways”, Countercurrents, 8 March 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/08/how-do-i-hate-thee-aipac-let-me-count-the-ways/ .

[60]. Gideon Polya, “Australian ABC and UK BBC fake news through lying by omission”, Countercurrents, 2 May 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/05/02/australian-abc-and-uk-bbc-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/ .

[61]. Andre Damon, “Google admits collaboration with illegal US drone murder program”, Countercurrents, 8 March 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/08/google-admits-collaboration-with-illegal-us-drone-murder-program/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+countercurrents%2FeoKx+%28Countercurrents%29 .

[62]. “Is Australian billionaire broadcaster Rupert Murdoch Jewish or Gentile?”, Yahoo Answers:  https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071025102913AAjilr3 .

[63]. Michael Wolff, “Rupert Murdoch and the Jews”, The Guardian, 20 November 2012: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/19/rupert-murdoch-jews-twitter .

[64]. Rima Najjar, “Hillel and Facebook censorship: conflating Zionism with Judaism”, Countercurrents, 26 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/26/hillel-facebook-censorship-conflating-zionism-judaism/ .

[65]. “Gazans protest against Facebook for removing Palestinian accounts for terror support”, Algemeiner, 8 March 2018: https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/03/08/gazans-protest-against-facebook-for-removing-palestinian-accounts-for-terror-support/ .

[66]. Yoshio Sugimoto “An Introduction to Japanese Society”,  Cambridge University Press, 1997; pages 211-215.

[67]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, this including an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality_05.html .

[68]. Gideon Polya, “Exposure Of  Neocon American And Zionist Imperialist 9-11 Deception”, Countercurrents, 8 September, 2012: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya080912.htm .

[69]. Soo Kim, “First pictures of the UK’s first Holocaust  memorial planned for London”, The Telegraph, 27 October 2017: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/articles/britain-first-holocaust-memorial-to-open-in-london/ .

[70]. Gideon Polya, “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”,  Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: https://countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .

[71]. “Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Bengal Famine) writings of Gideon Polya”, Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/bengali-holocaust

[72].   Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008 that  is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  .

[73]. “Backgrounder: China ’s WWII contributions in figures”, New China, 3 September 2015: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-09/03/c_134582291.htm .

[74]. C.P. Snow, “Science and Government”.

[75].  Lizzie Collingham, “The Taste of War”, Penguin, 2011.

[76]. Martin Gilbert, “Jewish History Atlas”, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1969.

[77]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-Zionist Western Genocide Denial”, MWC News, 14 April, 2009: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya140409.htm .

[78]. “Jewish and Zionist influence at the BBC”, Semitic Controversies: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/jewish-and-zionist-influence-at-bbc.html .

[79]. “Censorship by the BBC”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbythebbc/ .

[80]. “List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita .

[81]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide & Australia’s Aboriginal  Genocide compared”, Countercurrents, 20 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/20/apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-australias-aboriginal-genocide-compared/ .

[82]. Gideon Polya, “Palestinian Me Too: 140 alphabetically-listed Zionist crimes expose Western complicity & hypocrisy”, Countercurrents, 7 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/07/palestinian-140-alphabetically-listed-zionist-crimes-expose-appalling-western-complicity-hypocrisy/  .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003).

9 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/09/zionist-subversion-mainstream-media-censorship-disproportionate-jewish-board-membership-of-us-media-companies/

Wasting Food In A Hungry World

By Moin Qazi

India produces enough food to meet the needs of its entire population yet, it is unable to feed millions of them, especially women and children. India ranks 100th among 119 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017, where it has consistently ranked poorly. Despite the fact that every twelfth Indian has to sleep on an empty stomach, the country wastes food worth a whopping Rs 58,000 crores in a year, about seven percent of its total food production. It is lost   during harvest, or on the journey from farm to markets, that is production, processing, retailing and consumption Lack of cooling facilities is the major reason for crops perishing after harvest.

As you trudge through the mire of any government-run food auction yard, or mandi, piles of supposedly fresh produce lies everywhere, rotting in the sun and competing with mangy dogs and scampering mice for your attention

One of the major ways of enhancing food security in India is by simply controlling wastage. It is the most obvious place to start. India is the second-largest producer of vegetables and fruits but about 25-30 percent of it is wasted due to inadequate logistical support, lack of refrigerated storage, supply chain bottlenecks, poor transport and underdeveloped marketing channels. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) puts this figure at around 40 percent, worth around $8.3 billion.

Twenty-one million metric tonnes of wheat, which is almost equal to Australia’s annual production, rots each year due to improper storage. According to the Associated Chambers of Commerce, the country experiences a post-harvest loss of Rs 2 lakh crores annually due to a lack of food processing units and storage facilities. Without making urgent improvements to its ‘cold chain’ infrastructure, India’s food problems will remain highly critical.

The World Bank recently stated that nearly 60 percent of the country’s food subsidies do not reach the poor; they are syphoned off by the middlemen. It is high time that the government made some fundamental changes. Reforming the faltering public distribution system or plugging the loopholes in it is overdue.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) was set up in 1964 to offer impetus to price support systems, encourage nationwide distribution and maintain sufficient buffer of staples like wheat and rice but its performance has been woefully inadequate, in comparison to the needs of the country. Around one percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) gets shaved off annually in the form of food waste. The FCI has neither a warehouse capacity nor the manpower to manage this humongous stockpile of foodgrains.

Every year, the government purchases millions of tonnes of grain from the farmers to ensure that they get a good price for their produce, for numerous food subsidy programmes and to maintain an emergency buffer. The cruel truth, however, is that most of the produce is left out in the open, vulnerable to rain and attacks by rodents or stored in makeshift spaces, covered by tarpaulin sheets, thus increasing the chances of spoilage. Several countries are now using metal grain silos to guard against fungus attacks on the grain stock.

It is estimated that one million tonnes of onions vanish on their way from farms to markets, as do 2.2 million tonnes of tomatoes. Tomatoes get squished if they are packed into jute sacks. Overall, five million eggs crack or go bad due to lack of cold storage. Just three states of India—Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana—grow most of India’s grains and the food has to be transported to far-flung areas.

A study undertaken by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (2013) highlights that the underlying cause of post-harvest loss in the country is due to the lack of infrastructure for short-term storage, particularly at the farm level, as well as the lack of intermediate processing in the production catchments. If there are no proper roads linking fields to markets, farmers cannot easily sell their surplus produce, which may then spoil before it can be eaten. Improving road and rail capacity enables farmers to reach buyers and likewise, fertilisers and other agricultural inputs to reach farmers.

The Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, has uncovered that only 10 percent of the perishable produce has access to cold storage facilities in India. These are mostly used for potatoes to meet India’s robust demand for chips. This, along with inappropriate supply chain management, has resulted in India becoming a significant contributor to food wastage both at pre and post-harvest levels. The study estimates that India needs storage facilities for another 370 million metric tonnes of perishable produce.

Added to the wastage of food, there is a depletion of precious resources involved in its production. According to the United Nations, India is estimated to use more than 230 cubic kilometres of fresh water annually, for producing food items that will be ultimately wasted. To put this into context, this amount of water is enough to provide drinking water to 100 million people every year. Besides this, nearly 300 million barrels of oil used in the process are also ultimately wasted.

Meeting the food needs of a growing population in India (1.7 billion by 2050) while reducing food loss and waste poses a serious challenge. Wasting a kilogram of wheat and rice would mean wasting 1,500 and 3,500 litres of water, respectively, that is consumed in their production.

Despite being the world’s largest banana producer, it only holds 0.3 percent share of the global banana market. Production is fragmented compared to the large-scale commercial farms of its competitors, with small-hold farmers having little business or technical support. Less than 4 percent of India’s fresh produce is transported by cold-chains, compared to more than 90 percent in the UK. Better cold storage, improved infrastructure and education about food handling could help transform this situation.

The cost of delivering energy to remote, rural regions for running storage facilities is quite steep and this means that even when storage facilities are built, they may not be able to function. A lack of education on post-harvest practices often results in poor quality control and food being damaged during handling.

The government needs to tighten its public distribution system, which mainly supplies subsidised grain to the poor and modernise other areas, such as computerisation of outlets and satellite control over the movement of transport vehicles.

In recent years, numerous initiatives and interventions have been undertaken by the Indian government, and local and international actors to target food loss and wastage across the agricultural value chain. For instance, the Indian government is seeking to streamline and modernise agricultural value chains, through reformation of the PDS to reduce the waste and loss associated with the distribution and storage of foodgrains. The government is also extending support for the setting up of cold chain projects whereby 138 cold chain projects have been installed.

Studies have also indicated that on-farm interventions can also contribute towards reducing food losses and waste. For instance, a pilot study sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has revealed food loss reductions of around 60 percent during field trials, testing low-cost storage techniques and handling practices. Another study, undertaken in Punjab, which focused on the harvesting of ‘Kinnow’ (a citrus fruit), demonstrated how on-farm food losses decreased from ten percent to only two percent when a combination of harvesting techniques was used.

India has developed some modern supply chains linked to food processing companies, such as Nestlé, Pepsi, Unilever and Del Monte but these handle only a fraction of the country’s perishable food produce.

India needs to mobilise large-scale investments in cold storage methods, refrigerated transport and other modern logistics to modernise its food supply chain. More than investment, a strong will by the political class and an imaginative thinking on the part of the policy-makers is needed.

Moin Qazi is the author of the bestselling book, Village Diary of a Heretic Banker.

9 March 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/09/wasting-food-in-a-hungry-world/