A ballistic missile — the types of missiles at which an ABM or anti-ballistic missile is directed — is not just any type of missile, but instead is a missile with a certain type of trajectory, which goes above the Earth’s atmosphere and then comes down largely using the force of gravity instead of continuously under propulsion and strict control. Putin is saying that Russia’s new missiles, which are designed so as not to be adhering to the flight-paths that ballistic missiles do, can’t be hit by anti-ballistic missiles.
She then asked him whether these weapons will be used only if Russia comes under a nuclear attack, or against any attack; he answered it would be either a nuclear attack “or a conventional attack on the Russian Federation, given that it jeopardizes the state’s existence.” He implied that if an ally of Russia gets attacked, Russia will respond only with non-nuclear forces.
Then, he volunteered to say, in response to a question about what the issues would be that Russia would want formal negotiations with the U.S., that,
“today, when we are acquiring weapons that can easily breach all anti-ballistic missile systems, we no longer consider the reduction of ballistic missiles and warheads to be important.”
She asked whether the new weapons he was referring to could be “part of the discussion,“ and he said they “should, of course, be included in the grand total.”
This interview continued with non-nuclear matters, such as the accusations that he had interfered in America’s 2016 Presidential contest, or tried to. His answers were very direct, but viewers who support the ongoing Russiagate investigations will probably not believe his answers.
As regards the weapons-issues, there is posted online a brilliant technical description of the types of engineering issues that the Russians have been developing for decades, in which they’ve led the world and in which their lead has been widening, and which were behind what Putin was speaking about in his March 1st speech. Though that technical description was a reader-comment, instead of an article, it was article-length, and makes the issues clear; and the article that it was commenting upon was itself brilliant: and it links to an earlier brilliant article by Andrei Martyanov; so, all three of those together enable a pretty clear understanding of what’s involved in Russia’s biggest strategic-weapons breakthroughs.
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“If it isn’t already clear, UNICEF is participating in war propaganda against Syria, reporting and endorsing one very exaggerated and not substantiated side of the story, disappearing another very real side.”
The Syrian crisis is once again making headlines. In particular, humanitarian agencies like UNICEF, AVAAZ, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are blaming Syrian and Russian airstrikes for civilian deaths in East Ghoutta while completely ignoring the carnage meted out by rebel factions in the area.
While such respected agencies, as well as supposedly independent media outlets like Democracy Nowmay fall short of actually endorsing war, the distorted coverage and one-sided humanitarian narratives they relay play into the hands of the military interventionists.
This week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour returns its gaze to Syria and attempts to provide a fuller picture of what’s happening on the ground and why.
First up is Eva Bartlett. She has visited Syria frequently over the last several years, interviewing numerous people in all parts of Syria. She can attest to the important stories that are being deliberately weeded out of the corporate press. In her conversation with the Global Research News Hour (transcribed below) she details missing reporting about terrorist activities in the country. She also corrects the record on the meme of her being on Russia’s payroll, while disclosing areas where the objectivity of UN and other humanitarian agencies are compromised.
We next hear from Damascus-based journalist Tom Duggan. He speaks about the shelling of schools, hospitals and other non-military targets by militants in East Ghouta and the suffering that has resulted. He also elaborates on the way Western sanctions against Syria have contributed to the humanitarian disaster in the city.
Finally, Patrick Henningsen returns to the program. The geopolitical analyst has been to Syria in the last year. He addresses the actual reasons for U.S. interest in the overthrow and undermining of President Assad. He also gets into Washington’s ‘Plan B’ for Syria and interprets Turkish operations in Afrin, Israeli involvement near Damascus, and Kurdish activity within the north of Syria within that context.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine. She is a recipient of the International Journalism Award for International Reporting, Mexican Press Club, 2017. She blogs atingaza.wordpress.com
Tom Duggan is a British journalist who has been based in Damascus since 2013. He uploads his on the ground reports on his facebook page and his youtube channel.
Patrick Henningsen is a writer, global affairs analyst and the founder of 21stcenturywire.com. He appears as a regular guest commentator on RT News International and is host of the SUNDAY WIREweekly radio show broadcast. His work has appeared in a number of international publications including The Guardian, UK Column, Consortium News and also on channels like Al Jazeera English, ITN, Edge Media (SKY 200 UK) and US syndicated radio show Coast to Coast AM.
Global Research: The portrait of Syria we see in the mainstream, and even a lot of alternative media, is very much at odds with the realities we’ve seen presented on this program over the last couple of years. The conflict continues to be presented as a civil war in which the Assad regime is brutalizing the population and using chemical weapons against them while somehow managing to prevail in internationally monitored elections.
To help understand the success with which western anti-Assad powers has waged this campaign against Syria, the Global Research News Hour got hold of Eva Bartlett. Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine.
She’s a recipient of the international journalism reward for international reporting from the Mexican Press Club in 2017. Bartlett maintains that the major press have based their assertions about the Syrian conflict on unreliable and partisan sources.
Eva Bartlett: There was a series of activists, including American Bilul Abdul Kareem, who pretends to be a neutral and independent journalist and is solely embedded in terrorist-held areas including Al Qaeda, who has met the Saudi terrorist Abdullah Muhaysini., and who basically praises their tactics including suicide bombings; so media has presented people like himself, and others in Aleppo that were in terrorist-held areas like the child Bana al-Abed .
The media was presenting them as neutral, independent voices depicting what was happening on the ground in Aleppo, and as I’ve made a point of mentioning it many, many times already in interviews and writings, the media did not mention the 1.5 million people in greater Aleppo, nor the over 4000 doctors in greater Aleppo, nor the fact that hospitals in greater Aleppo were being attacked by..and um.. people were being killed and injured in these attacks by terrorist factions in Aleppo’s east.
So, even in the lead-up in 2016, Aleppo was one of the most propagandized cities in Syria.
Global Research: A recurring theme presented by the press and human rights organizations was the spectre of the Syrian government withdrawing food and medical aid from the suffering citizens in east Aleppo and the town of Madaya. Bartlett, to return to Madaya last summer, claims that it was the rebel factions in control and not the Syrian government, that was responsible for depriving the citizens of these supplies.
Eva Bartlett: When I went there in June in 2017, civilians there told me, just like in East Aleppo, and just like I’m positive we’re going to be hearing of Eastern Ghouta when it’s finally liberated, there was food that entered, the Syrian government allowed food, it sent food in, and it also allowed aid agencies to send food in. But we didn’t have – “we” this is the civilians, this is them, me paraphrasing them, did not have access to the food because the terrorist factions, the militants, they took food, and if they sold it to us, they sold it at prices we could not afford.
And when I went to Madaya, I saw above a bomb factory the terrorists were using to manufacture mortars and missiles to fire on the Syrian army and on any civilians below them, because this was in a hillside town, um, above that factory was a storage room which, one, at least one storage room, where they had kept the food and aid supplies that came in to Madaya.
And there was media, there was Russian media, Murad Gazdiev with RT, and of course Syrian journalists who our media completely dismisses, who went to Madaya in 2016 and who saw and took photos and video of food aid entering Madaya and who spoke with civilians who were protesting the presence of these terrorists stealing their food, but western media completely dismissed them and ran with this narrative that the Syrian government was starving Madaya.
And they said the same thing occurred in Aleppo, and when journalists finally went there…Syrians, independent journalists, Russian media, unfortunately the only western media that I’m aware of that actually deigned to tell the truth was surprisingly Reuters, and they have a clip interviewing civilians saying the terrorists stole our food. And they show storage of food boxes.
Just yesterday, I believe it was, Ruptlywhich is affiliated with RT, reported on food aid going into Al Ghouta and even ICRC, the Red Cross spokesman said food aid has been sent in, but in April 2016, when all the media and reporters were relying on Medecins sans frontieres (Doctors without borders)MSF, said that the Syrians or the Russians had deliberately targeted and destroyed and reduced to rubble a hospital named Al Quds in the Sukari district of west Aleppo, and this was used to again vilify the Syrians and the Russians and to call for Intervention or a no-fly zone.
That hospital was not destroyed. I saw it with my own eyes, and before I saw it, months before I saw it in June 2017, a Syrian doctor I know saw it, and a French man named Pierre LaCourt saw it and documented it. So, there’s no way that it was destroyed and rebuilt. It was never destroyed but in that instance MSFrelied on whatever nefarious Al Qaeda or whatever linked source thatfed MSF this information, and I suspect the WHO has relied on this information as well.
And the United Nations is, in my opinion, deliberately participating in war propaganda. Because I recently wrote an article after I came across this statement issued on February 20th, and it was issued by UNICEF’s Regional Director of Middle East and North Africa, and the statement was one of outrage, and it was called the war on Syria, on children in Syria: reports of mass casualties amongst children in Eastern Ghouta and Damascus.
So that statement was essentially just blank lines and some words… no words could do justice to the children killed. Now, it did mention Damascus at the end, but obviously the implication was Eastern Ghouta because that statement then recycled in all the different Western media corporate outlets that were citing claims of 400,000 civilians trapped in Ghouta being espoused by the Syrian government.
None of these outlets first of all can cite, can provide sources for the number. Where did they get this 400000? It could be the case, or it could be inflated, as was the case in East Aleppo where even the United Nations said 250 to 300 thousand civilians trapped in East Aleppo, and it was half that number — if not less than half that number when we finally had access to East Aleppo.
So that’s question 1: where do you get this definitive statement of 400,000 civilians but moreover why corporate media, and this is a completely rhetorical question because I know, why are you not mentioning the presence of Ahrar al-Sham, Faylaq al-Rahman, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist factions in Eastern Ghouta?
And why are you not mentioning that some civilians have actually been able to flee, escaped at their own peril, being attacked with these terrorist factions bombing humanitarian quarters…as two children recently escaped from Eastern Ghouta…
Global Research: you should be able to have… easily access to those who make it to Damascus, you know?
Eva Bartlett: Well, the Syrians and the Russians, they have opened just like they did in Aleppo, they’ve opened humanitarian quarters and it’s the terrorist factions within who are not allowing civilians to leave. And since you asked for my own personal example: before Aleppo was liberated I met a father and a man and a woman who had numerous children who had tried a couple of times to escape their area of Aleppo, and they had been prevented by the terrorist factions and finally they and forty others one night while there was clashes between the terrorists and the Syrian Army, they were able to escape.
And then, later on, there’s a lot more documentation of people trying to flee and being prevented by these terrorist factions, and that is what’s happening in Ghouta. Also in Aleppo, in November when I was in Aleppo on one of the humanitarian quarters the Castello Road, it was shelled twice while I was standing there on the road and five more times after security had told me and the others that were there to leave. So this is… and it wasn’t the first time it happened. The week before, it was heavy shelling on various humanitarian quarters.
The media is portraying the Syrian government is showing no will whatsoever to guarantee the safety of civilians, and that’s completely not true. The Syrian government and Russians and all the Allies are working to ensure the most peaceful solution possible.
Global Research: And there’s one particular anecdote in particular I’d like you to bring up. There was a child who became somewhat iconic: Omran Daqneesh. You had a chance to talk to his father.
Eva Bartlett: Well, so, the official narrative coming out of corporate media was that Omran Daqneesh was the face of suffering, Syrian suffering, he was the poster child of suffering, and terrorist groups even used him for their cause, for their propaganda cause, and the story was that he was injured, perhaps gravely injured, and sat in this ambulance bleeding and looking terrified, and that he was injured in the Russian or Syrian airstrike.
But Mr.Daqneesh said there were no planes flying, there was no air strike, his son was not gravely injured, he was mildly injured, and he was himself was mildly injured.
There was some sort of explosion. It’s believed that it was one of the terrorist factions that fired some sort of explosives in their area, and that while he was rounding up members of the family in the dark to put them all together in one place, his boy Omran was snatched by someone and eventually ended up put in the ambulance by white helmets and photographed.
And so, if we’re to believe that these white helmets–so-called Syrian Civil Defense known more aptly as Al qaeda’s Rescuers–if we’re to believe that they had the well-being of Omran Daqneesh in mind, why did they sit him in an ambulance and not give him any medical care while they photographed him.
And, by the way, the man whose photo of Omran Daqneesh went viral, that man’s name was Mahmoud Raslan, and he has ties to, seems to be friends with Nour al-Din al-Zenki, who in summer of 2016 beheaded a Palestinian child, Abdullah Issa. And when Mahmoud Raslan was interviewed by western corporate media, he said he cried for children like Omran. And it’s supremely hypocritical because he took a grinning selfie with the child beheaders of Nour al-Din al-Zenki.
So in any case Omran Daqneesh’s father said his son had been exploited by the media, and he said they traded in our blood. And you know, I’m not, I won’t be surprised when similar stories come out of Ghouta when we find out the truth about certain stories were hearing about Ghouta.
Global Research: I think the public is generally primed to distrust certain narratives coming from the President Trump, or President Bush, or Obama, or even Prime Minister Trudeau. And, of course, they might be suspicious of the CNN, Washington Post, or Norwegian journalists from certain corporate outlets, but they’re not as inclined to be critical of Amnesty International, or the United Nations, or Democracy Now, so I’m wondering what you could possibly say, especially as somebody who’s been criticized for being conflicted, you know working for the Russians and such, what could you say to listeners that would shake their confidence in those entities? How are they compromised in terms of their ability to give us the straight goods on Syria?
Eva Bartlett: I would highly recommend that listeners look up the writings and interviews of Professor Francis Boyle, professor of international law. I myself interviewed him a month or two ago, and he himself was on the board, I might get this wrong, of MCUSA I believe it was, and in the lead-up to the first Iraq war, he was warning them not to publish this report based on what we now know is the fake incubator baby story issued by the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador who made up this ridiculous story of incubated babies being taken out of their incubators.
Professor Boyle said to Amnesty, I’m paraphrasing, that the report was seriously flawed, that he did not believe its accuracy, and that it would lead to the loss of lives and it would fuel the Western desire to go to war. And it did.
And Amnesty refused to listen to him, and I’ve read other accounts of Amnesty essentially shilling for war. When you look at the makeup of Amnesty, at one point, I don’t know if she’s still affiliated with Amnesty, but Suzanne Nossel, I might be wrong about this, but I think she was affiliated with the US state department.
I do have on my blog a page, it needs updating, but it was devoted to the different humanitarian actors or fake human rights groups that essentially shill for war. And Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a number of others like of Avaaz which is an online campaign that often does petitions, and often, their petitions have to do with calling for no fly zones in places like Syria. These are effectively serving as a human face for intervention in the country that’s being warred upon. I mean, I can send you that link, that might be the most, the easiest thing.
But it is, for example, the leader, the head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Ross, has knowingly put out photos and videos of other places and purported they were Aleppo. And he took one video from Eastern Gaza, from a district called Shujaiya, and he said this is Aleppo under Assad’s bombs. And, for somebody who is the head of Human Rights Watch to put out a video with that statement… that is not… if that is just simple negligence, then that shows how much credit we should give any reports coming from that body, but I think it’s more than negligence. I’m positive that it was intentional. He’s done that since.
What I wanted to say though, with regards to the UN, this statement of outrage that I mentioned, it did not, I looked for other statements of outrage perhaps pertaining to the terrorist shelling of Damascus, which is happening on a daily basis, and you have tens of people being killed over the last many weeks, and they’re targeting, like, just yesterday or the day before, they targeted a hospital and injured a number of people.
They’re targeting civilians in densely inhabited areas, like in the old city of Damascus, and I have yet to come across any sort of outrage by the United Nations on this on this deliberate targeting of the civilians, nor have they issued any sort of statement of outrage that I have found about Turkey’s bombing, illegal bombing, of Syria and the area of Afrin in the Northwest, nor have they issued any sort of outrage that I could find of the illegal U.S.-led Coalition bombing of civilians, infrastructure, and killing of thousands of civilians in Syria and the massive destruction of the areas of Syrian infrastructure.
So, the last point I just want to make about the UN is that they are serial censors of Syrian voices, particularly Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari. He routinely has his mic cut or is not allowed to speak, unless he really forces them to allow him to speak, or he is assigned translators who, for example, some weeks ago when he mentioned 1,000 shells on Damascus, the translator in question translated that to 20 shells, and that’s a significant difference.
Global Research: The heads of the UNICEF … there is a former head, Anthony Lake, who had, who is a former National Security adviser in the Clinton Administration. That speaks to conflicts that’s not coming through, I mean, people are accusing you of being a Russian agent or Assad apologist, but, here you have some real conflicts that there’s no full disclosure about. Do you have a comment that you’d like to introduce in that regard?
Eva Bartlett: I do. First of all I just want to address the whole Russian agent notion. So, if listeners go to rt.com/op-ed/authors, you’ll find me. I’m an author in their opinion section, so it’s not a blog as certain outlets like channel 4 news or Snopes have insisted. It’s simply an opinion section to which there are, last time I checked, 30 contributors. My contribution, my last one, was on Palestine, on Palestinian political prisoners, and it was in December. So it’s not like I’m a regular contributor, or even if I were, there’s nothing wrong with that.
But I also contribute to Mint Press News, which has no affiliation with Russia whatsoever, and, as I made a point in a recent panel in Derry, Northern Ireland, I said RT does not censor me. I’m allowed to write what I see, what I feel, what I think, and if I tried to do this for CBC, or if the Guardian deigned to publish me, which I would not write for at this point in my life, but if I tried to, I guarantee they would change my wording, they would slash my articles, they would not represent the full of what I wanted to say. So, I’m actually very honored to write for RT, but that I also contribute to Mint Press, to SOTT.Net, and a variety of other sites that pay a pittance, to be honest, and I also contribute periodically to Global Research.
But, more importantly, back to UNICEF. So, when I was writing this article that was published in Mint Press over the UN’s fake outrage and not even mentioning the illegal Saudi war in Yemen, no outrage for Yemenis, I was curious, I came across an article, I forget the name of the author, but it’s on Telusur, the website Telusur, and it outlines how Anthony Lake, as you mentioned, was National Security advisor to President Clinton, and at one point was elected to be director of the CIA.
According to this particular article on Telusur, it said Lake played a significant role in mass starvation in Somalia 2010-12 by under-budgeting food aid, budgeting 10 cents a day per person to feed a million internally displaced persons, and that Lake publicly admitted he knew about, and did nothing to prevent, the genocide in Rwanda, something he “regretted.”
So that’s a scary admission, if the head of UNICEF, the body that’s supposed to have the welfare, the well-being, of civilians in conflict zones in mind, and he knowingly under-budgeted their food aid knowing, just like the Israelis do, knowing that this will not be enough for the recipients to exist on. That’s very telling about that particular branch of the UN.
But then, you have when I was writing about Madaya in 2016, I looked at another body of United Nations, the OCHA, the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and when the Madaya media buzz was going on, OCHA was almost exclusively tweeting about terrorist-occupied areas of Zabadani and Madaya, and they weren’t mentioning the terrorists.
They were just putting forth the same rhetoric about the Syrian government starving people in Madaya, and as I pointed out in an article I wrote it that time, they mentioned only passingly the two villages of Foua and Kafraya, which are to this day besieged and to this day being bombed and starved, and they merit no outrage whatsoever for OCHA or for the UN, and OCHA can barely bring themselves to tweet about Foua and Kafraya.
Even though these two villages have been under siege, full siege, from March 2015 and partial siege years prior by terrorist factions, and fully surrounded and being sniped and bombed on a daily basis, the UN did not, and we know why, why the UN did not find these villages worthy of merit, of mentioning, it’s because it doesn’t fit this neatly packaged humanitarian intervention agenda propaganda.
So where, anywhere that terrorists are occupying, the UN, sorry, the United Nations, these human rights groups, the corporate media, Democracy Now, they will conveniently omit the presence of the terrorists, they will conveniently omit the fact that the terrorist factions in these areas are firing upon civilians in the areas outside of the besieged area, they will omit the fact that terrorists are hoarding the food and medical aid that come in, and any effort the Syrian government and Russian allies are making towards providing a peaceful resolution in these areas.
Global Research: You just heard a conversation with the award-winning Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett. Her articles on Syria and Palestine can be found on the site ingaza.wordpress.com.
Transcript- Tom Duggan Interview,March 7, 2018
Global Research: Tom Duggan is a British journalist who has resided in Damascus since 2013. Mr. Duggan has been intensely critical of the one-sided Western coverage of the Syrian conflict. What follows in an excerpt of a conversation the Global Research News Hour had with him on Wednesday March 7th. He relates the carnage enacted on Damascus hospitals and schools from the East Ghoutta-based rebels. He spoke of the attacks on humanitarian corridors by the rebels, and of the damage from the sanctions imposed on the country. We apologize in advance for the poor quality of the recording.
Tom Duggan: East Ghoutta over a period of the last 7 years has shelled Damascus repeatedly, to a cost of 1500 children killed so far, over the last 7 year(s). Thirty two thousand people are maimed, loss of limbs. And around about 25,000 killed (inaudible) approximately. So, the Syrian government turned its attention, offered the East Ghoutta people amnesty to surrender or take them to Idlib, and they immediately started shelling Damascus. In the first day, the first month there was over a thousand shells rather in Damascus. Yesterday there was 270 plus shells blasting Damascus. And I spent yesterday watching doctors put a young girl’s – a 17-year old girl’s brains back inside her skull, and she died late in the last hour. And that’s the reality.
GR: I understand there had been a ceasefire, at least between 9 and 2 in the afternoon?
TD: Ceasefire on between the UN that was brokered by the Russians and the Syrian army with the terrorists, and that ceasefire lasts from nine o’clock in the morning to two o’clock in the afternoon. What happened yesterday is that terrorists shelled Damascus at eleven o’clock. They attacked the schools in Damascus (inaudible). And then they attacked Jeremana.
GR: They talk about people in cages…the militants are putting people in cages and using them as armed – as human shields. Can you comment on that?
TD: They did that two year(s) ago in Jobar. The same group that’s in East Ghoutta is from Jobar. They put Allawine, Christian, and other ethnic groups that (inaudible) in cages and put them on the rooftops and on the streets, so that the Syrian government wouldn’t fire on them.
I watched a child die yesterday! I was standing there watching them put her brains back in her head! And it’s not a pleasant site. I watched a policeman come in with a hole in his leg! I’ve seen women who didn’t know her daughter had died. And she was given (inaudible) All she wanted to know is if her daughter was okay and they couldn’t tell her anything because she had a big hole in her back.
They target schools! They target hospitals! When I was in Aleppo, we discovered the headquarters of every terrorist group was in a school! They surround themselves with human shields which are children!
It’s not ethical! Nobody wants to report what happened in Damascus. Nobody wants to report what happened in Aleppo. It’s all one-sided! I’m sitting here. I can tell you now I’ve seen people blown up in front of me! And nobody reported it. I’ve seen a car bomb go off, 19 soldiers were killed. That wasn’t reported. I’ve seen children in the streets lose their legs, and it’s not reported!
GR: Could you comment on how the sanctions have added to the crisis that you’re facing now?
TD: Sanctions are killing kids. I lost a child called Jules not long ago. He had what you’d call water on the brain, which is hydrocephalus. Not (inaudible) sexual disease but hydrocephalus, which is water on the brain. They couldn’t get the equipment in for the operation to be performed in Syria. He had to have a stint which the tube that runs up the (inaudible) into his brains to drain it off. The stint didn’t work. The child died within 17 days. We had him scheduled for a hospital in Malaysia to do the operation… aged four, and he came down with chicken pox because his immune system was so low, and he died. And there was nothing we could do about it. Absolutely nothing.
They, in Aleppo, they machine-gunned all the extra equipment before they left. They left all the medical equipment out in the streets, all the medicines in the sun. They devastated on the the medicines and bandages, in other words urinated on them so they couldn’t be used. You can’t get spare parts in for scanners, you can’t get spare parts in for X-Ray machines so they’re cannibalizing all the equipment that’s broken to keep the equipment running.
GR: I was just wondering because we’re running near the end of our time. Do you have any urgent messages that you wish to convey to our listeners before we close?
TD: Yeah! Yeah. Stop supporting sanctions, do your best you can to stop sanctions so we can get medical supplies and medical equipment. Stop listening to the mainstream media and start reading the facts. Start understanding who the White Helmets are. Start understanding that Al-Nusra is previous to Al-Qaeda. And Al Qaeda kills people in Bali, Australia. Killed people in Paris. Killed people in London. And also they killed people in New York. The Twin Towers was an Al-Qaeda attack. So how can the West support an organization that is attacking them, attacking Syria, and helping them to attack Syria, when Syria has never attacked the U.S., never attacked the U.K., never attacked Paris. That’s my message. You’re supporting the wrong people!
GR: Tom Duggan is a British journalist based in Damascus, His reports can be seen on the ‘Tom Duggan’ facebook page and Youtube channel.
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From Cambodia to Thailand American and European media companies have launched a campaign of disinformation aimed at reversing Washington’s waning influence in the region vis-à-vis not only Beijing, but the growing strength of nations the US and Europe once saw as mere geopolitical pawns.
Cambodia Expels US-Run Opposition Party and Media
In Cambodia, articles depicting the government as having trampled free speech and democracy are in direct response to Phnom Penh’s decision to disband the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) headed by Kem Sokha who now resides in jail. The media storm also follows the Cambodian government’s decision to shut down US government funded propaganda networks posing as local, independent news organisations.
This includes Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, both funded and directed out of Washington D.C., not anything resembling independent, local political interests in Cambodia itself.
A good example of this disinformation campaign comes from Voice of America Khmer itself in an article titled, “U.S. Cutting Aid to Cambodia for Recent Democratic Setbacks.” The article claims:
In its annual World Report, the rights group said the government, controlled by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party for more than three decades, disbanded the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, and arrested its leader on questionable treason charges. The dissolution came after a ruling the CNRP was involved in an attempt to overthrow Hun Sen’s regime.
However, what VOA calls “questionable treason charges” are never explored further in the article. The charges stem from CNRP leader Kem Sokha himself being caught on video openly admitting to conspiring with the US government to seize power in Cambodia.
The USA, which has assisted me, has asked me to take the model from Yugoslavia, Serbia, where they were able to change the dictator Milosevic.
I don’t just do what I feel, I have experts, university professors in Washington DC, Montreal, Canada hired by the Americans in order to advise me on the strategy to change the leaders.
While Kem Sokha’s defenders have claimed his remarks merely meant changing the government through “democratic means” it should be noted that by virtue of admitting one has foreign assistance negates anything democratic about one’s means. Democracy is built upon self-determination while Kem Sokha’s agenda was clearly being devised and determined in Washington D.C.
It should also be noted that the US intervention Kem Sokha referred to in Serbia was admittedly undemocratic in means as well.
American assistance to Otpor and the 18 parties that ultimately ousted Milosevic is still a highly sensitive subject. But Paul B. McCarthy, an official with the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy, is ready to divulge some details.
The article continues, stating:
”…from August 1999 the dollars started to flow to Otpor pretty significantly.” Of the almost $3 million spent by his group in Serbia since September 1998, he says, ”Otpor was certainly the largest recipient.” The money went into Otpor accounts outside Serbia. At the same time, McCarthy held a series of meetings with the movement’s leaders in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, and in Szeged and Budapest in Hungary. Homen, at 28 one of Otpor’s senior members, was one of McCarthy’s interlocutors. ”We had a lot of financial help from Western nongovernmental organizations,” Homen says. ”And also some Western governmental organizations.”
In today’s current climate of “Russian meddling” hysteria, should similar evidence surface that an entire opposition party was funded, organised and meeting with Russian government representatives in the manner Serbia’s or indeed, Cambodia’s opposition did with Americans, we can only imagine the repercussions.
Yet in the world of US and European “fake news,” the public is led to believe Cambodia’s government is being unreasonable in disbanding a political party openly admitting to treason and dismantling a foreign propaganda network funded directly by the US government.
“Fake News” Rewrites Thai History
Reading a recent Agence France-Presse (AFP) article regarding Cambodia’s neighbour to the west, Thailand, the public would be led to believe despotism is spreading fast across the region.
Thailand has been under army rule since a 2014 putsch toppled an elected government and installed the country’s most autocratic regime in a generation. The generals have banned all political activity and repeatedly postponed a promised return to democracy.
Just like in US and European disinformation regarding Cambodia, what is omitted is just as important as what the article attempts to claim. The current military-led government in Thailand ousted Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of convicted criminal and fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra.
Her brother was ousted in a military coup in 2006 after a raft of corruption scandals, abuse of power and a mounting record of human rights abuses. In 2003 alone and over just 90 days, Thaksin Shinawatra would launch a “war on drugs” that would leave some 2,800 dead gunned down in extrajudicial street executions. This alone would make Thaksin Shinawatra the worst human rights abuser in contemporary Thai history.
Human Rights Watch (now also fully engaged in propaganda against the current Thai government) would report in its 2008 statement, “Thailand’s ‘war on drugs’,” that:
In February 2003, the Thai government, under then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, launched a ‘war on drugs’, purportedly aimed at the suppression of drug trafficking and the prevention of drug use. In fact, a major outcome of this policy was arbitrary killings. In the first three months of the campaign there were some 2800 extrajudicial killings. In 2007, an official investigation found that more than half of those killed had no connection whatsoever to drugs. Apart from the thousands who lost their lives, thousands more were forced into coercive “treatment” for drug addiction.
Other US and European media organisations would report on his many other abuses, including his muzzling of Thai critics and even the assassination and disappearance of his critics.
Prime Minister Thaksin has an agenda all his own. Although he is the founder of a telecommunications empire and keen to project Thailand as a fast-modernizing part of the global economy, Thaksin has little tolerance of the criticism aired in a free press. His concentrated political power and the considerable resources of his family’s commercial empire have been combined to muzzle critics in both the broadcast and print media.
At one point, the New York Times quotes a British writer who compared Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thailand to Moscow before the Berlin Wall fell.
AFP, if honest, would at best be able to compare the current government to Shinawatra’s previoulsy admitted autocratic streak. Yet AFP in its recent article never mentions Shinawatra’s abuses at all.
AFP’s supposed “most autocratic regime in a generation” in stark contrast to Shinawatra’s regime, has killed no one. Its political bans are aimed solely at Thaksin Shinawatra’s supporters, who with significant US funding as in Cambodia, are attempting to once again take to the streets and lobby for Shinawatra’s illegal return to power.
Those arrested by Thailand’s current government are solely associated with Thaksin Shinawatra and his still potent political machinery. These facts too are never mentioned by AFP and other US and European media organisations in their portrayal of Thailand as “autocratic.”
Western Media’s Biggest Opponent is Itself
What’s most appalling in regards to AFP’s recent dishonesty is that those contradicting its propaganda are not representatives of the current Thai government nor “Russian trolls,” but headlines and information published in past years by AFP’s own peers across the Western media, with many of these peers now also engaged in disinformation aimed against Thailand side-by-side AFP.
For AFP and other US and European media organisations, their continued perception by the public as reputable news organisations stems solely from the public’s ignorance regarding current events and their collective short memory regarding past events. When editors at AFP can publish entire articles their own reports from years ago contradict completely, they illustrate not journalistic integrity, but contempt for the intelligence of their readership and contempt for journalism itself.
How effective the lies regarding Cambodia and Thailand spread by US and European media organisations is debatable. While the US government in particular has invested heavily in indoctrinating local youth, propping up political parties and opposition groups and assailing Southeast Asian leadership who defy US special interests, a look at Southeast Asia’s declining economic relationships with the US versus growing ties with the rest of Asia and Eurasia seem to indicate the growing din of propaganda is at least partially related to America’s loss of actual influence in the region.
Even local business leaders taking over family fortunes and deeply indoctrinated by Western “values” face a reality in which doing business with the US and Europe will put them at a disadvantage among those who have recognised and adapted to the West’s continued decline. Propaganda alone can be a useful tool to augment the designs of powerful special interests, but propaganda cannot fulfil those designs alone.
It can even be argued that Kem Sokha wouldn’t be in jail right now and the Shinawatra siblings wouldn’t be hiding abroad were Western propaganda sufficiently backed by actual power, or possessed significant power in its own right. The storm clouds of Western “fake news” are gathering over Southeast Asia, but it is a storm of sound and fury signifying nothing?
Posted in AsiaComments Off on Fake News Storm Clouds Gather Over Southeast Asia
What is “Western civilization”? Why might it end soon? What can be done to prevent that?
These are the questions that face both the U.S. and Russia in the current standoff. The stakes could not be higher. Relationships between the two nations are the most important geopolitical issue, and the most volatile, facing the world today.
But first, some history, including concepts that may be controversial.
Speaking globally, the West is that part of the world settled by people of European descent. Racially, the original peoples of the West stem from those classified as Indo-European, though people of that race and language family also long ago penetrated into Asia, including Northern India and Persia.
Over the centuries, Western civilization has incorporated people of other races whose lands the Europeans conquered, such as the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the peoples of Siberia and parts of central Asia taken over by the Russians.
Some nations of the West transported people as slaves from Africa. All Western nations today also include people who have freely migrated from other parts of the world, such as India, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia. Many of these immigrants have come from countries the Western nations colonized. There have also been vast migrations from Europe to the Americas, including a large Jewish influx from Eastern Europe and Russia.
Regarding the question of whether the Indo-European conquest of lands occupied by other races was just and fair, we would have to say that it was not. But it is a fait accompli. All parties must now make the best of it.
Certainly the fact of conquest imposes obligations that are still far from being adequately recognized, as in the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rain forest and its indigenous cultures. Indigenous peoples everywhere have been badly mistreated and often subjected to genocide, including in the Western outposts of Australia and New Zealand.
But in spite of the endless variations in local and regional demographics, it yet remains possible to speak of Western civilization as a cultural and geopolitical entity, just as we can speak of an Islamic civilization stretching from Morocco to Indonesia, and a civilization of the East that includes India, Japan, China, and other Asian nations. The predominant religions of the East are Hinduism and its offspring Buddhism. In China, Buddhism melded with a compatible substrate of Confucianism and Taoism.
Western Culture
What defines a civilization is not only race but also its shared culture. The principal factor that identifies Western civilization as a unit is the historic prevalence of the Christian religion. Without Christianity, the concept of Western civilization would be meaningless.
But the West is divided among numerous nation-states that speak diverse languages. Its population includes many who see themselves as atheists, agnostics, or “spiritual but not religious.” Nevertheless, the West is culturally defined by the historic presence stated in the creeds of both Catholic and Protestant sects of “one holy catholic and apostolic church” (all words lower-case).
In this sense, the actual founders of Western culture are four men who personified the Judeo-Christian faith as expressed in the Old and New Testaments; namely, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and St. Paul. Yes, they were Hebrews/Jews.
In Biblical parlance, the peoples of the West who adopted Christian teachings were the “Gentiles,” starting with the Greeks and Romans.Western civilization is largely what the Gentiles forged after their conversion to a common faith.
Of course there are many who reside in Western nations who would dispute these generalizations. But what is described here is true enough and gives us something concrete to work with. History cannot be understood otherwise, including what is happening in the world today.
No matter what observers believe or disbelieve, the West still lives under laws based on the Ten Commandments and, at its best, ideals rooted in the Sermon on the Mount. From this perspective, the destiny of Western civilization can be analyzed in terms of the tension between the influence of its spiritual mentors and the characteristics of its much older tribal make-up.
Struggles for Dominance
The peoples of the West have been fighting each other since they can first be sighted in prehistory.The earliest Indo-European cultures tended to be local or regional, structured tribally, including those of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavs, and the Greeks and Romans. Tribal warfare within, between, and among these groupings was a constant. They all appealed to their tribal gods for victory.
But around 2,000 years ago, attempts began to be made to consolidate the West under centralized systems of governance, the first being the Roman Empire. Once Christianity took root, the culture of the West became that of the Roman Catholic Church, which by the High Middle Ages exercised its presence throughout much of Europe.
By the 15th and 16th centuries, today’s nation states had taken shape and had begun to compete for dominance both on the European continent and in the acquisition of colonies, filling a vacuum left by the decline in the power and prestige of the Papacy that resulted in the splitting of the West through the Protestant Reformation. The Wars of Religion that ensued were ghastly in their carnage.
Russia and parts of Eastern Europe had already split from Catholicism through religious schism, creating the culture of Orthodoxy. Also, for a millennium, Europe fought on its borders against Islam for survival. But with the Reformation thrown in the mix, the glue that held the West together dissipated, leading the most powerful nations—Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Russia, the German principalities, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden—to fight each other in wars of great savagery.
The areas of Italy and Germany remained disorganized until their unification in the 19th century. Those nations then took part in the prevailing struggles for supremacy and were joined by the U.S., the growing colossus across the Atlantic Ocean that had achieved unification through the American Civil War.
The political relations among the nations of the West since around 1500 can be fairly described as an almost continuous state of intra-civilizational civil war—with ostensibly Christian nations slaughtering each other’s populations in the millions.World Wars I and II were a phase of an old pattern.
But due to the rise of science and technology, these wars were unprecedented in their carnage and cruelty. During the modern history of the West, there were never any “good wars.” Rather it was “tribalism on steroids.”
Today’s Insanity
Today it seems incredible that given the exponential growth in the power of science to create weapons of mass destruction sufficient to destroy all life on earth many times over, we stand on the brink of yet another phase in the unending saga of war among Western powers, lining up with the U.S. and Western Europe on one side and Russia on the other. We might even see in this division the residue of the Great Schism of a thousand years ago.
Both sides, of course, are marshaling allies from other parts of the world, with China and Central Asia tending to align with Russia, and the U.S. exerting tenuous control at present over Western Europe, Latin America, and nations on the Asian fringe, such as Japan and South Korea, along with Australian and New Zealand.
It does not take a great deal of insight to realize, when we approach the situation from this macro-historical perspective, that the present-day standoff between the U.S. and Russia is insane. Instigating the insanity are American financial, political, and military leaders. Cheering them on have been the truly dangerous partisans of the U.S. mainstream media.
A war between the U.S. and Russia would have to involve use of nuclear weapons, unless Russia totally surrenders to U.S. hegemony in advance. But Russia is not going to do this.
The U.S. believed that Russia had in fact capitulated through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the aftermath in the 1990s. But the rebirth of Russian autonomy in the two decades since then has proven these assumptions totally wrong.
In the hiatus between the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of a new Russia, the U.S. launched its massive series of wars against the Islamic nations in a continuing attempt to curb and control any movement toward economic and political independence in that part of the world. Russia, straddling as it does both Europe and Asia, had been ambiguous about these wars, finally taking a stand against them by supporting the government of Syria in the assault on that nation by U.S. proxies.
Meanwhile, at home, U.S. society and its domestic economy have been falling apart under the astronomical expense of endless warfare along with financial legerdemain and moral corruption. The credibility of the U.S. government has been fatally compromised by the rise of the “Deep State,” the control of government by secretive cadres of militarists and assassins, and the lies told about the false flag of 9/11.
Meanwhile, the military’s leading generals have become powerful warlords who control vast resources, extend their tentacles throughout civilian society, and trumpet provocative political pronouncements and threats that should be the sole purview of political leaders. Most of the latter are puppets who humiliate themselves by throwing ever-increasing amounts of dollars at the feet of their uniformed darlings.
Sometimes trillions of these dollars just disappear down Pentagon black holes. The tendency to fawn over the military is likely to increase, as many of the Democratic Party candidates for contested seats in the 2018 House elections are likely to be former military-intelligence operatives.
The West is staggering today under the burden of its inability to bring centuries of internecine warfare to a halt through some kind of humane and rational settlement of differences. The main beneficiary of this chaos has been China, which appears to be solving many of the problems that have baffled the West and is poised to assume global leadership by peaceful growth of its economy and the success of its social system under its oriental—some say Confucianist—brand of communism.
Thus the West is facing another tragedy that likely will be its last. There is no way out by continuing to pursue the dark byways of economic exploitation and war with which the West has been obsessed for centuries.
This obsession has been channeled through the demonic force of nationalism, abetted by hubris, greed, fear, and hatred. All movements throughout history founded upon the elevation of one nation above the rest have opened the floodgates to hell.
Every aggressor has seen itself as “exceptional.” Nationalism, always rooted in racial myths, is just a latter-day phase of the most barbaric tribalism of the ancient past—sadism and human sacrifice in the thinnest of disguises.
The best example of this throwback tribalism was Nazi Germany. In the U.S. today, we are seeing “Nazification” at work on many levels, not just through the erection of a military/police state, but also including genocidal policies against the poor, the elderly, and racial minorities.
The Anglo-American Empire
Another factor is how the U.S. has inherited the centuries-old policy of Britain to oppose by force of arms the arising of any great power on the European continent that might threaten its hegemony. In the 18th century and continuing through the wars against Napoleon, the enemy was France. After the rise of Germany and continuing through the two World Wars of the 20th century, Britain demonized and sought to crush the German nation.
Contrary to the usual misconceptions, World War I was instigated by Britain to undermine a burgeoning trade rival. World War II followed as a matter of course after Germany was forced to shoulder the entire burden of guilt for starting the previous conflagration.
After World War II, the Soviet Union was branded as the next continental enemy, beginning with the Cold War and resuming today. Of course Britain had defeated France on its own through an anti-Napoleon coalition. To defeat Germany, Britain had to rely on the U.S. To take on the Soviet Union—now Russia—the U.S. gladly assumed the lead, its elites greedily anticipating the wealth and power that would ensue.
Today the U.S. stands at the head of what we all know is essentially an Anglo-American empire, with its oligarchy living high on the hog for the last few generations. But it’s an unnatural empire that carves out a piece of the West dominated by English-speakers and claims it’s the whole. But to insist now on the supremacy of this arrangement for all time is suicidal for Western civilization. The empire must be given up.
Seeking a Solution
The solution is not for the U.S. to continue to escalate conflict with Russia, while Britain, with its retrograde“Brexit,”from the European Union, eggs us on, as does the Anglo-American client state of Israel. Of course after its intended conquest of Russia, which can never happen,the empire wants to move on to an ultimate showdown with China for global control.
But such control is an illusion. East is East and West is West, and so they shall remain. Survival of humanity on earth depends on a harmonious equilibrium between the two, with the Islamic world balanced in between.
It is time for those of us in the West to search deeply within our own souls to find the solution. Meanwhile, the cybernetic revolution has introduced an entirely new factor into the equation with instantaneous worldwide communication, combined with the ease of international travel.
Not to mention the unfathomable destructiveness of today’s weaponry and the systems available to deliver these weapons to the homes of all civilian populations on earth. This is what our misuse of the gifts to mankind from scientific knowledge has brought us—an opportunity to do even more evil on a gigantic scale.
The Time Has Come for Epochal Change
Today the nations of the West must unite in peace, with the U.S. and Russia aiming to achieve a meeting of minds across the negotiating table. But they can only do so through realization of their common spiritual heritage, not by force. Force has failed. I repeat: force has failed.
Unfortunately, conservative elements within the Western nations, including those within the dominant Christian churches, are pulling in the opposite direction, away from negotiation, unity, and peace. Fear, arrogance, and hatred are retrenching, as the demons of destruction await their next turn on the stage.These demons couldn’t care less if humanity destroys itself.
The one nation that seems to be acting otherwise is in fact Russia. If a return to earlier attempts at rapprochement is to take place, the initiative must doubtless come from Russia, as it did with Gorbachev in the 1980s.
Russian President Vladimir Putin may be doing just that today by responding firmly but open-mindedly to U.S. hostility, including the “Russiagate” farce that the U.S. Deep State is engineering. Despite daily provocations, Putin continues to refer to the West as “partners.”
But the U.S. must now respond in kind. We have already shown the ability to cooperate with Russia on a small but highly symbolic scale through joint work on the International Space Station.
As of this writing, a glimmer of hope has emerged through a letter from U.S. senators Markey, Merkley, Feinstein, and Sanders to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for a strategic dialogue made urgent by President Putin’s recent announcement of a new generation of conventional and nuclear weapons.
The senators write that despite “policy rifts” and “significant” disagreements, “… the United States should urgently engage with Russia to avoid miscalculation and reduce the likelihood of conflict.”
Certainly the Trump administration should respond positively to this request. But going further, President Donald Trump should act boldly by sending a bipartisan commission to Moscow to talk with the Russian government about immediate action across a much broader front to defuse the present crisis by working together toward a peaceful future for Spaceship Earth.
A Dream: A Council Convened to Save Western Civilization
International councils can be keys to solving problems and starting afresh. An example was the councils leading to the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years War in 1648 and created the patterns and arrangements under which modern Europe emerged.
It is suggested that the main topic of discussion of the meeting between U.S. and Russian counterparts mentioned above be the convening of a major Council to take place at a central location, such as Paris, in the year 2021. This Council should encompass all the nations of the West, from those of the Americas, to the nations of the European Union, to Russia.
Such a Council should consist of three main sections: 1) political/military; 2) economic;and 3) religious/cultural.
Political/military: Discussion should start with an agreement by the member nations of NATO to dissolve that entirely unnecessary relic of a sad history. Also called for would be a goodwill gesture by the U.S. to cut its military expenditures by at least half within five years. Discussion of political issues would then follow.
Economic: The focus should be on sustainable economic development, equity for all levels of society, and protection of the natural environment.Global warming should be addressed. A basic income guarantee for all citizens of the West should be instituted, as should a common international circulating currency of gold and silver monetary units.This currency could be issued by a new network of national public banks under a charter that would supplement or replace the post-World War II Bretton Woods agreements.
Religious/cultural: All religious denominations of the West should be invited. As a good faith gesture, the Roman Catholic Church should alter the main practice that historically has divided it from the rest of Christendom and announce that from now on its clergy will be allowed to marry.
The goal of the Council would be to take steps toward uniting those elements of Western civilization that today are obsessed with destroying each other. A major objective would be to find ways to include in the benefits of civilization the lower income levels that are threatened with genocide by economies that mainly augment the already bloated incomes of national oligarchies.
Conclusion
I know that many readers are pointing at the foregoing proposals and asking, “Who are you kidding?” But I am quite serious. Unless matters are addressed at this level, nothing can be expected but more catastrophe.
A start can and should be made. Deep within the spiritual history of the West, the memories, ideas,and energy are present for deep transformation to take place. These memories, ideas, and energy will eventually break through in their dazzling light, perhaps sooner than we think. The signs are all around.
It is the task of those who care to work in peace to prepare the ground. And part of the work is to keep the present travail of the West under the microscope of constructive criticism.
Posted in USA, EuropeComments Off on Western Civilization: The Final Crossroads
The regulatory system for GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in India is in tatters. So said the Coalition for a GMFree India (CGMFI) in 2017 after media reports about the illegal cultivation of GM soybean in the country.
In India, five high-level reports have already advised against the adoption of GM crops:
1. The ‘Jairam Ramesh Report’, imposing an indefinite moratorium on Bt Brinjal [Feb 2010];
2. The ‘Sopory Committee Report’ [August 2012];
3. The ‘Parliamentary Standing Committee’ [PSC] Report on GM crops [August 2012];
4. The ‘Technical Expert Committee [TEC] Final Report’ [June-July 2013]; and
5. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment and Forests [August 2017].
Given the issues surrounding GM crops (including the now well-documented failure of Bt cotton in the country), little wonder these reports advise against their adoption. Little wonder too given that the story of GM ‘regulation’ in India has been a case of blatant violations of biosafety norms, hasty approvals, a lack of monitoring abilities, general apathy towards the hazards of contamination and a lack of institutional oversight.
Despite these reports, the drive to get GM mustard commercialised (which would be India’s first officially-approved GM food crop) has been relentless. The push for approval is currently being challenged in the Supreme Court, even though, despite serious concerns, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) deemed it necessary to give it the nod.
This crop is also herbicide-tolerant (HT), which is wholly inappropriate for a country like India with its small biodiverse farms that could be affected by its application.
GM crops illegally growing
Despite the ban on GM cops, in 2005, biologist Pushpa Bhargava noted that unapproved varieties of several GM crops were being sold to farmers. In 2008, Arun Shrivasatava wrote that illegal GM okra had been planted in India and poor farmers had been offered lucrative deals to plant ‘special seed’ of all sorts of vegetables.
In 2013, a group of scientists and NGOs protested in Kolkata and elsewhere against the introduction of transgenic brinjal in Bangladesh – a centre for origin and diversity of the vegetable – as it would give rise to contamination of the crop in India. As predicted, in 2014, the West Bengal government said it had received information regarding “infiltration” of commercial seeds of GM Bt brinjal from Bangladesh.
In 2017, the illegal cultivation of a GM HT soybean was reported in Gujarat. Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), a national farmers organisation, claimed that Gujarat farmers had been cultivating HT crop illegally – there is no clearance from the government for any GM food crop.
All of this is prompting calls for probes into the workings of the GEAC and other official bodies.
CGMFI spokesperson Kavitha Kuruganti says that the regulators have been caught sleeping. It wouldn’t be the first time: India’s first GM crop cultivation – Bt cotton – was discovered in 2001 growing on thousands of hectares in Gujarat, spread surreptitiously and illegally by the biotech industry. Kuruganti said the GEAC was caught off-guard when news about large scale illegal cultivation of Bt cotton emerged, even as field trials that were to decide whether India would opt for this GM crops were still underway.
In March 2002, the GEAC ended up approving Bt cotton for commercial cultivation in India. To this day, no liability was fixed for the illegal spread.
The tactic of contaminate first then legalise has benefited industry players before. In 2006, for instance, the US Department of Agriculture granted marketing approval of GM Liberty Link 601 (Bayer CropScience) rice variety following its illegal contamination of the food supply and rice exports. The USDA effectively sanctioned an ‘approval-by-contamination’ policy.
Illegal GM imports
Now, in 2018, Kuruganti says that a complaint lodged with the GEAC and a Right to Information (RTI) application seeking information regarding the illegal GM soybean cultivation in the country has stirred the apex regulatory body to bring the issue to the notice of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), months after the issue became public.
In reply to the RTI application, the GEAC responded by saying it had received no complaint about such illegal cultivation. Kurauganti says this is a blatant lie: the BKS had collected illegally cultivated soybean samples for lab testing and the report was sent to the GEAC along with a letter of complaint. GM HT soybean has not been granted permission for field trials, let alone large-scale cultivation.
It is also understood that apart from the BKS, the Government of Gujarat also alerted the GEAC to the illegal cultivation.
Kuruganti says:
“The fact that the GEAC is writing now to the DGFT to take action (on preventing the illegal GM imports), makes it clear that it lacks any real intent to take serious action about the violations of its own regulations. It also indicates that it is putting up a show of having “done” something, before an upcoming Supreme Court hearing on PILs related to GMOs.”
Her assertion is supported by Rohit Parakh of India for Safe Food:
“Commerce Ministry’s own data on imports of live seeds clearly indicates that India continues to import genetically modified seeds including GM canola, GM sugar beet, GM papaya, GM squash and GM corn seeds (apart from soybean) from countries such as the USA… with no approval from the GEAC as is the requirement.”
Kuruganti concludes that the regulatory system is a shambles and is not preventing GMOs from being illegally imported into the country or planted. Moreover, the ruling BJP has reneged on its election promise not to allow GM without proper protocols.
Offshoring Indian agriculture
It is not a good situation. We have bogus arguments about GM mustard being forwarded by developers at Delhi University and the government. We also have USAID pushing for GM in Punjab and twisting a problematic situation to further Monsanto’s interests by trying to get GM soybean planted in the state. And we have regulators (deliberately) asleep at the wheel.
The fact that India is importing so many agricultural commodities in the first place doesn’t help. Relying on imports and transnational agribusiness with its proprietary (GM) seeds and inputs is not a recipe for food security. In the 1960s, Africa was not just self-sufficient in food but was actually a net food exporter. Today, courtesy of World Bank, IMF and WTO interventions, the continent imports 25% of its food, with almost every country being a net food importer.
Is this want India wants? Based on its rising import bill, self-reliance and food security seems to be an anathema to policy makers. In response to the government’s decision to abolish import duty on wheat in 2017, Ajmer Singh Lakhowala, head of the Punjab unit of Bharatiya Kisan Union, said sarcastically:
“The import of cheap wheat will bring the prices down. It appears the government wants the farmers to quit farming.”
As I have previously outlined, at the behest of the World Bank and courtesy of compliant politicians in India, it certainly seems to be the case.
Self-sufficiency is not to the liking of the US and the World Bank. Washington has for many decades regarded its leverage over global agriculture as a tool to secure its geostrategic goals.
Whether it involves the import of subsidised edible oils, wheat, pulses or soybean – alongside the ongoing neglect of indigenous agriculture and farmers by successive administrations – livelihoods are being destroyed, food quality is being undermined and Indian agriculture is slowly being offshored.
Posted in Health, IndiaComments Off on Offshoring Indian Agriculture: Is India Becoming a GMO Trash Can?
It’s been three months since the media outcry over the open market slave trading in Libya and yet, the problem persists.
And the root cause of how these slave markets were created, thanks to U.S. foreign policy, has been ignored.
Do you want to end the slave trade in Libya?
We’ll tell you the biggest step toward making that happen… in a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.
The video shocked the world. CNN posted the images: men who appeared to be sold at auction in Libya for $400. The grainy undercover video appears to show smugglers selling off a dozen men outside of the capital city Tripoli.
So how did we get here? Most media will tell you that Libya is the main transit point for refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe by sea.
“In each of the last three years, 150,000 people have made the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya. For four years in a row, 3,000 refugees have died while attempting the journey, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the U.N.’s migration agency.”
What’s more, according to a September report by the United Nations Human Rights Agency, there are estimates that “400,000 to almost one million people” are now bottled up Libya. “Detention centers are overrun and there are mounting reports of robbery, rape, and murder among migrants.”
Read just about any mainstream report on what is happening in Libya, and what you will not hear is who is responsible for the utter failure of Libya.
The policies that have created some of the most horrific conditions in the world fall squarely on the shoulders of former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Keep in mind, in 2003, under the Bush administration, the long time leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, had entered into an agreement where Gaddafi would give up any weapons of mass destruction and the U.S. would leave Gaddafi and Libya alone.
But under Obama and Clinton, the U.S. broke that agreement. In 2012 the U.S. insisted that there was an “Arab Spring” uprising taking place in Libya. There was not. As I reported at the time, the fighters attempting to overthrow Gaddafi were al Qaeda fighters.
Under Obama and Clinton, on March 21st of that year, a no fly zone was imposed over Libya. And then, seven months later, with the U.S. tracking a Gaddafi convoy, the Libyan leader was caught and killed in the streets.
Was Muammar Gaddafi a dictator? Yes. No question.
But was Libya under Gaddafi a relatively peaceful place? Yes.
Gaddafi actually promoted a Pan-Africanism, spoke out against anti-black Arab racism and was pushing for unified African currency.
Bragging about her so-called accomplishments after the fact, Hillary Clinton famously said…
“We came, we saw, he died.”
The problem is, so many others are dying now as a result.
In an interview after the leaving the White House, former President Obama called the overthrow of Gaddafi his greatest single mistake in office. While that is difficult to argue, what is truly stunning about that statement? The policy to overthrow Gaddafi was attempted again for the next four years by the Obama administration as they attempted to overthrow the Assad regime, even as Libya continued to slip deeper into chaos.
And that’s what you need to know. Because Obama is no longer president, Clinton is no longer secretary of state and Gaddafi is no longer alive.
The answer to how Libyans should fix what is happening in Libya is beyond me. But the answer as to what the U.S. should do about Libya is not.
If we want to prevent these chaotic failed states around the world, the U.S. must stop intervening and thereby creating them through the toppling of governments in the Middle East and Africa.
Posted in USA, LibyaComments Off on Video: Obama/Clinton to Blame for Slave Trade in Libya?
The Jerusalem Post reported that Juniper Cobra, a joint air defense exercise with U.S. and IDF forces which was announced by the U.S. Department of Defense last month involving simulated missile attacks directed against Israel from multiple fronts has begun. The report ‘U.S. and IDF Troops, In Major Joint Drill, Simulating Battle on 3 Fronts’ clarifies who and what is involved in the joint-exercise:
Some 2,000 IDF Aerial Defense troops will be participating alongside 2,500 US troops, including some 1,400 Marines and 1,100 sailors, in the largest joint exercise with US Army’s European Command (EUCOM). The Americans have also deployed the USS Iwo Jima and USS Mount Whitney as well as their Patriot missile defense system, Aegis ballistic missile defense system, communication systems, 25 aircraft, and three hovercraft.
Over the course of the two-week long exercise troops will practice possible challenging and complex scenarios adapted to Israel’s operational reality such as missile threats in various sectors simultaneously as well as the threat posed by precise missiles that Iran is trying to produce for Hezbollah. Simulations during the exercise will include the use of the Arrow missile defense system, the Iron Dome, the Patriot system and for the first time the David Sling system, which was declared operational in April 2017
Hezbollah and the Gaza Strip will be major targets for both the U.S. and Israeli forces as the report mentions the threat of “high-trajectory missiles”:
“Juniper Cobra 2018 is another step in improving the readiness of the IDF and the IAF in particular to enhance their operational capabilities in facing the threat posed by high-trajectory missiles,” Haimovitch said.
While “the exercise demonstrates the close and strategic cooperation between the IDF and the US Armed Forces,” Haimovitch continued, Israel has the capabilities to protect the country from threats posed by her enemies. Nevertheless “you want to have all the capabilities and the Americans bring additional strengths”
What makes Juniper Cobra (which began in 2001) different this year in comparison with previous exercises is that it is the largest joint US-Israeli air defense exercise to date. One of the scenarios Israel is concerned about is how the Palestinians will react to the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem followed by Guatemala (a U.S. puppet state). Although the report did mention Hezbollah, nothing was said about Syria. However, the main Juniper Cobra drill will continue until March 15th with “additional joint exercises between Israeli and American troops will continue after the completion of the drill through the end of March” the report said.
US Air Force Third Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Richard Clark, who also the commander for the deploying Joint Task Force-Israel said that the
U.S. and Israel have a “strong and enduring military- to-military partnership” and that “The Juniper Cobra exercises continue to strengthen this relationship, providing us with the opportunity to bolster interoperability and develop seamless integration with our Israeli partners.”
Clark continued:
“As far as decision-making, it is a partnership,” he continued, stressing nonetheless that “at the end of the day it is about the protection of Israel – and if there is a question in regards to how we will operate, the last vote will probably go to Zvika [Haimovitch]”
The report also mentions that U.S. troops will be on the ground to defend Israel once they are given the orders:
Washington and Israel have signed an agreement which would see the US come to assist Israel with missile defense in times of war and according to according to Haimovitch “I am sure once the order comes we will find here US troops on the ground to be part of our deployment and team to defend the state of Israel”
What is interesting is what Clark said in regards to U.S. troops going to war for the ‘Jewish State’:
And those US troops who would be deployed to Israel, are prepared to die for the Jewish State, Clark said. “We are ready to commit to the defense of Israel and anytime we get involved in a kinetic fight there is always the risk that there will be casualties. But we accept that as every conflict we train for and enter, there is always that possibility,” he said
A major war on Hezbollah, the Palestinians and Syria involving both U.S. and Israeli troops will be under Trump and Netanyahu’s watch. Syria will be the main battlefront, the pivotal point in history that will determine if the US-Israeli led coalition (if victorious) will lead the world to the next war with Iran and its allies.
Posted in Middle East, USA, ZIO-NAZIComments Off on The “Juniper Cobra” Air Defense Exercise: American and Nazi Forces Prepare for War against Syria, Hezbollah and Palestine
Extremist Nazi Jewish settlers on Friday evening attacked a school bus carrying children in Wad Qana touristic area west of Salfit city in the northern West Bank.
Local sources said that the attacking Nazi Jewish settlers threw the bus with stones resulting in the injury of the driver and breaking the glass of one of the bus’s windows.
The sources pointed out that the kindergarten kids were returning back from a journey to Wad Qana site when the Nazi Jewish settlers savagely attacked their bus leading to intimidation and panic among the little boys and girls.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Jews may be behind alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
In an interview broadcast late Friday, Putin was asked by NBC’s Megyn Kelly whether he condoned the electoral interference by 13 Russians named in an indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“Maybe they are not even Russians but Ukrainians, Tatars or Jews, but with Russian citizenship, which should also be checked; maybe they have dual citizenship of a green card; maybe the U.S. paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know either,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a session of the Federal Security Service (FSB) board in Moscow, Russia March 5, 2018. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolskyi/Kremlin via REUTERSREUTERS
He said he was indifferent to the indictment.
“It’s all the same to me. To me it absolutely makes no difference because they do not represent the government,” Putin answered, according to the Russian-language interview transcript posted Saturday by the Kremlin.
Speaking to Israeli daily Haaretz, lawmaker Ksenia Svetlova called on the Israeli government to condemn the comments.
“Maybe the Jews meddled in the U.S. elections. Maybe the Jews rule the world, maybe the Jews slaughtered Jews in Poland – all of these claims have one root cause – a hatred of Jews,” Svetlova said.
Ronald Klein, a chief of staff of vice presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, called for Jewish supporters of Donald Trump to pressurise the White House for a reaction to the remark.
“Every Jewish supporter of Donald Trump should be pressing the WH to see if the President agrees with his friend Putin on this statement. And every Jewish person resisting Trump just got another reason to fight even harder,” he tweeted Saturday.
In the interview, Putin went on to say that Russia had neither the tools nor the will to meddle in elections.
“First, we have principles whereby we do not allow others to interfere in our domestic affairs and do not get into the affairs of others….Secondly, we don’t have this quantity of tools,” he said.
In a June 2017 interview with the network, Putin had compared accusations that Russia interfered in the election to anti-Semitism.
“It’s like anti-Semitism,” he said, comparing Russia’s critics to people who would say things like “the Jews are to blame.”
Posted in RussiaComments Off on PUTIN SAYS THAT JEWS ‘WITH RUSSIAN CITIZENSHIP’ MAY BE BEHIND U.S. ELECTION MEDDLING
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