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Once Saudi Allies, Tribes in Eastern Yemen’s Al-Mahrah Are Now Battling Saudi Forces

By Ahmed Abdulkareem | MintPress News | February 28, 2020

AL-MAHRAH, YEMEN — Saudi Arabia’s continued efforts to occupy Yemen’s province of al-Mahrah, which lies on the country’s border with Oman, appear only to have emboldened al-Mahrah tribes, who have resorted to using military tactics to drive out Saudi forces from their province. The tribes are fueled by a collective social desire for sovereignty stemming from their long history as an independent region and a local culture that remains wary of foreign forces.

On Wednesday, Saudi troops in Nashton Port in al-Mahrah were subjected to an explosive device targeting a Saudi military convoy in Fujeet District killing multiple troops including members of a local Saudi-funded militia. The attack came after Saudi forces occupied al Shehn port last week.

Since 2017, when Saudi forces once again entered the isolated province, the deep-seated sense of local identity spurred a growing opposition movement. The opposition developed and took the form of festivals and protests near Saudi military sites which included speeches, the reading of poetry and the playing of patriotic music.

In the past year, Mahri tribes have increasingly confronted encroachments on local sovereignty. Several confrontations have led to violence – including the al-Anfaq incident in November 2018, clashes near the Omani border in March 2019, and a shoot out at al-Labib checkpoint in April.

Their military deployment in al-Mahrah has given the Saudis de facto military control over the governorate. Today, Saudi Arabia controls al-Mahrah’s airport and Saudi forces have assumed a role akin to a state security apparatus in the province as air reconnaissance and other operations are launched from a command center at the base, bypassing even its allies. In addition to border crossings and the main seaport, dozens of Saudi bases have been established in Hat District, Lusick in Hawf District, Jawdah in Huswain District, and Darfat in Sayhut District.

Moreover, the militarization of al-Mahrah by Saudi forces has affectedthe province’s social cohesion and identity. Maharis were already divided between opposing the presence of Saudi forces and supporting it. The Saudi have reinforced this division by recruiting from and distributing weapons to certain tribes, changing the social fabric of the area which is likely to lead to open internal conflict.

Despite the fact that local opposition has prevented the construction of several military outposts, Saudi forces have continued to pursue their strategic interests in southern Yemen, including the construction of an oil shipping port in al-Mahrah on the coast of the Arabian Sea. This has resulted in renewed calls for military resistance against the Saudi presence, with opposition leaders declaring their intention to establish local anti-Saudi forces.

Al-Mahrah is Yemen’s second-largest province. It is bordered by Oman to the east, Saudi Arabia to the north, and the Arabian Sea to the south. It’s Empty Quarter, a vast desert, covers much of southern al-Mahrah. The governorate also contains a mountainous region in the east that is seasonally covered with lush green foliage. The province is a largely peaceful area that has been mostly spared from Yemen’s five-year war.

Al-Mahrah’s tribes vow resistance

Attacks from Al-Mahrah’s tribes have flared up as recently as last week after Saudi forces began construction on a number of new security checkpoints and military camps in al Shehn District. Last Monday, Saudi forces attempted to storm the town of Shahn. Armed helicopters, ground vehicles, and both Saudi troops and local mercenaries were deployed in the assault which was ultimately repelled. Later, Saudi forces succeeded in occupying the area after resorting to a plan played by the ousted president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

Prior to Monday’s Saudi military incursion, local tribal fighters had withdrawn from Shehn after an agreement between Saudi forces and local tribes was reached following tribal mediation which stipulated that tribal fighters in the town would be replaced by forces loyal to the Saudi-led Coalition. The tribes say they were deceived into withdrawing ahead of the Saudi advance.

In the wake of recent events, Ali bin Salem al-Huraizy, al-Mahrah’s former deputy governor who plays a critical role as a figurehead in the popular opposition movement against Saudi Arabia, criticized ousted Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi saying, “I did not expect the treachers.. to authorize the Saudi occupation forces to crush al-Mahrah people… who were defending the independence and sovereignty of the country.” The deputy head of the Al-Mahra Peoples’ Sit-in Committee, Aboud Heboud Qumsit expressed similar disdain, saying: ”you [Hadi] sold yourself to Saudi [Arabia], please do not sell the Yemeni people and the whole country to Saudi Arabia.”

The Al-Mahra Peoples’ Sit-in Committee has said that Saudi actions constitute a flagrant violation of Yemeni sovereignty and national identity. The group said in a statement: “In this dangerous turning point of our honorable history, we call on all the tribes of the province, their sheiks and their dignitaries, and their citizens to unite alongside all the liberals of the province to prevent the Saudi occupation from imposing its domination over Al-Mahrah.”

Hadi recently issued a decree appointing Muhammad Ali Yasser, a parliamentarian loyal to the Saudi-led Coalition, to be the governor of Mahrah instead of sitting governor, Ba Kreit. The move is seen as an attempt to implement a new Saudi strategy, according to al-Mahrah residents.  Mahris have a unique history of running their own affairs. Saudi Arabia, however, has used “internationally recognized president Hadi ” to force the replacement of uncooperative officials in al-Mahrah and appoint pliant replacements, activists say.

Despite having a Saudi proxy as governor and thousands of Saudi troops and their proxy forces deployed around in and around al-Mahrah, the Saudi military presence in al-Mahrah appears to be increasingly challenged in the face of growing peaceful opposition and increasing military resistance.

Saudis levy punitive measures on al-Mahrah

Saudi forces have also imposed trade restrictions on al-Mahrah. Cargo entering Yemen through al-Mahrah has been confiscated by Saudi officials according to businessmen who spoke to MintPress. Local residents are concerned that the move is part of a broader effort to stifle al-Mahrah economically and push it towards starvation, just like the rest of Yemen.

Earlier this week Saudi forces arrested several Yemeni businessmen and truck drivers attempting to import goods into al-Mahrah. The drivers included Pakistani and Syrian nationals, and their trucks, which carried official authorization from their country of origin, were confiscated by Saudi officials according to local Yemen businessman.

After 2015, when the war began, most of Yemen’s official points of entry fell into coalition control. However, Shehn border crossing in al-Mahrah remains one of the only routes for traders to ship goods into Yemen. The customs revenues from the crossing have bolstered the governorate’s budget and allowed it to pay local civil servant salaries, unlike most other governorates in Yemen that have been left nearly penniless since the war began.

Al-Mahrah’s Shehn and Sarfait border crossings with Oman have been under the control of local tribes since 2015 when they took advantage of a security vacuum following the withdrawal of government security forces due to the Saudi-led coalition military campaign.

Saudi ambitions in Al-Mahrah date back decades

In 2015, when the Saudi-led coalition war on Yemen began, Riyadh revived its aspirations for the construction of an oil pipeline that would allow the kingdom to transport oil directly to the Arabian Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. The costs related to exporting Saudi oil would be reduced by allowing tankers to avoid the Bab al-Mandab and Hormuz straits, both vulnerable to political strife and regional enemies.

In fact, Saudi Arabia’s aspirations in Al-Mahrah date back to the end of the last century. In the 1990s, Saudi Arabia sought to build influence in al-Mahrah as part of its ambitions to build an oil pipeline through the district to the Arabian Sea. And for that, tribal sheiks were granted Saudi residency, travel documents, and financial benefits.

Moreover, in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia launched negotiations with former South Yemeni President Ali Nasser Mohammed to build the pipeline, but the negotiation failed after Ali Nasser refused, stating the pipeline would threaten the state’s sovereignty. In the 1990s, in the wake of Yemeni unification, the Saudis pressed the Yemeni government to permit the deployment of Saudi forces into a 4-kilometer buffer zone around the proposed pipeline route to maintain security. The Riyadh project was shelved after Sana’a rejected it once again.

In late 2017, Riyadh began deploying armed forces in al-Mahrah under the premise of combating smuggling across the Omani border. However, al-Mahrah residents see the presence of Saudi troops in the region as malign and colonial. According to people who have organized an open sit-in since 2018, smuggling is just a pretext for a Saudi takeover of the province.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE also claim that arms smuggling operations by Ansarullah (Houthis) are being carried out from Oman into Yemen via the al-Mahrah border crossing, though they have provided no evidence to back their claim, which Oman has repeatedly denied.

Moreover, in addition to an electrified fence along a portion of the border built by Oman in 2013, U.S. special operations forces have also deployed to al-Mahrah in 2018 to support the coalition’s alleged anti-smuggling operations according to diplomatic sources cited by the Sana’a Center.

In fact, despite their support for the Saudi-led coalition and being free from the presence of Houthi fighters, Yemen’s southern provinces, including not only al-Mahrah but also the strategic island of Socotra, have been fully controlled and managed by Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Some analysts believe that the Saudi Coalition’s continued military presence in al-Mahrah may also be intended to cordon off Oman, which enjoys long borders and solid relations with Yemen. Much to the dismay of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Oman also enjoys cordial relations with Saudi rival Iran, a relationship that the Coalition is eager to undermine.

As a result, Oman has supported popular protests demanding the removal of Saudi forces. Recently, Muscat arranged meetings in the Omani capital between the protest leaders, European and American officials, and representatives from international organizations. Oman allowed Western journalists to cross into al-Mahrah without visas or stamps.

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

The war scenario between Israel and Hezbollah

By Elijah J. Magnier – 24/02/2020

Notwithstanding the increase in power of the “Axis of the Resistance”, with its precision missiles and unrivalled accumulated warfare experience, the possibility of war is still on the table. The “Axis of the Resistance” is increasing its readiness based on the possibility that Israel may not tolerate the presence of such a serious threat on its northern borders and therefore act to remove it. However, in any future war, the “Axis of the Resistance” considers the consequences would be overwhelmingly devastating for both sides and on all levels if the rules of engagement are not respected. Notwithstanding Israel’s superior air firepower, its enemy Hezbollah has established its own tremendous firepower, and its experience in recent wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen is an important asset.

Sources within the “Axis of the Resistance” believe the next battle between Hezbollah and Israel, if ever it takes place, would be “controlled and not sporadic, with a focus on specific military objectives without damaging the infrastructure, on both sides”.

The sources consider Gaza as a precedent. In Gaza Palestinians and Israelis have fought many recent battles that lasted only a few days in which the objectives bombed were purely military. This is a new rule of engagement (ROE) regulating conflict between the belligerents. When Israel hits a non-military target, the Palestinian resistance responds by hitting a similar non-military target in Israel. The lesson extracted from the new ROE between Israel and the Palestinians is that every time exchanges of bombing go out of control, both sides understand they have to bring it back to an acceptable and equitable level, to limit damage and keep such mutual attacks from targeting civilians.

The “Axis of the Resistance” therefore considers that the probability is high that the next battle would be limited to military objectives and kept under control. If one side increases the bombing, the other will follow. Otherwise, both sides have the capability to cause total destruction and go on to uncontrolled bombing. In the case of an out-of-control war, allies on both sides would become involved, which renders this scenario less likely.

Hezbollah in Lebanon is said to have over 150,000 missiles and rockets. Israel might suppose that a limited attack could destroy tens of thousands of Hezbollah’s missiles. Is it worth it? “From Israel’s view, Israel may think it is worth triggering a battle and destroying thousands of missiles, thinking that Israel has the possibility to prevent Hezbollah from re-arming itself. But even in this case, Israel doesn’t need to destroy villages or cities or the Lebanese infrastructure, instead, it will limit itself to selective targets within its bank of objectives. However, we strongly doubt Israel could succeed in limiting Hezbollah’s supply of missiles and advanced weapons. Many of these missiles no longer need to be close to the borders with Israel, but can be deployed on the Lebanese-Syrian borders in safe silos”, said the sources.

However, Israel should also expect, according to the same sources, that Hezbollah will respond by bombing significant Israeli military targets within its bank of objectives. “There is no need to bomb airports, power stations, chemical industries, harbours or any highly significant target if Israel doesn’t bomb any of these in Lebanon. But if necessary Hezbollah is prepared to imitate Israel by hitting back without hesitation indiscriminately and against high-value targets, at the cost of raising the level of confrontation to its maximum level. Hezbollah and Israel have a common language in warfare. If the bombing is limited, no side interprets the others’ actions as a sign of weakness”, said the sources.

“Hezbollah doesn’t want war and is doing everything to avoid it. This is why it responded in Moawad, in the suburb of Beirut, when Israeli armed drones failed to reach their objectives. By responding, Hezbollah actually prevented a war on a large scale because it is not possible to allow Israel to get away with any act of war in Lebanon, violating the ROE” said the sources.

Last September, Hezbollah targeted an Israeli vehicle in Avivim with a laser-guided missile in daylight after forcing the Israeli Army to hide for a week and retreat all forces behind civilians lines, imposing a new ROE. The Israeli army cleared the 120 km borders with Lebanon (5 km deep) to avoid Hezbollah’s revenge retaliation for violating the 2006 cessation of hostility’s agreement. Israel refrained from responding and swallowed the humiliation due to its awareness of Hezbollah’s readiness to start a devastating war if necessary.

Israeli officials used to threaten Hezbollah and Lebanon to take the country “back to the stone age”. This is indeed within the reach of Israel’s military capability. However, it is also within Hezbollah’s reach to bring Israel back to the stone age, if required. Hezbollah’s precision missiles can hit any bridge, airport, gasoline deposit containers, power stations, Haifa harbour, oil and gas rig platforms, any infrastructure and military and non-military objectives if Israel attempts to target similar objectives in Lebanon first. Hezbollah’s new missile capability is not new to Israel, who is observing the latest technology Iran’s allies are enjoying and “testing,” mainly in Yemen. The recent bombing of Saudi Arabia oil facilities and the downing of a Saudi Tornado in Yemen revealed that Iran’s HOT missiles are capable of downing jets at medium height and any helicopter violating Lebanese airspace.

Hezbollah’s latest version of the Fateh precision missile, the supersonic anti-ship missiles and the anti-air missiles can prevent Israel from using its navy, stopping any civilian ship from docking in Haifa, thwarting the use of Israeli Helicopters and precision bombing attacks- as in Iran’s latest confrontation with the US at Ayn al-Assad base in Iraq.

Hezbollah’s missiles are unlikely to cause simple traumatic brain injuries – as per the Iranian missile at Ayn al Assad – when hitting targets in Israel in case of war. They can avoid missile interception systems. This increase of capability is a game-changer, and Hezbollah believes it is already decreasing the chances of war. Arming itself with precision missiles and armed drones and showing these capabilities to Israel is Hezbollah’s way to avert a war and protect the equation of deterrence.

In its 2020 security assessment, the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman) unwisely evaluated the assassination of the Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani as a “restraining factor”. Aman’s report, showing astonishing ignorance, stated that Soleimani was responsible for Hezbollah’s missile projects. This lack of understanding of the Hezbollah-Iran relationship and dynamic is quite surprising. Sayyed Ali Khamenei told Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah decades ago that he knows what he needs and what to do and doesn’t need to fall back on Iran. The IRGC and Hezbollah have set up a collaboration engine that won’t stop even if half of the IRGC leadership is killed. The possession of the feared Iranian precision missiles is no longer a secret: all Iran’s allies have these deployed, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Yesterday is unlike today: the power of destruction now belongs to all parties, no longer to Israel alone. War is no longer an option. US/Israeli aggression will be limited to an economic war, so long as the “Axis of the Resistance” continues updating its warfare capability to maintain deterrence parity.

This article is translated free to many languages by volunteers so readers can enjoy the content.

Copyright © https://ejmagnier.com  2020  @ejmalrai

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Syria’s War of Self-Defence Turning the tables on claims of war crimes

By David Macilwain | OffGuardian | February 28, 2020

Continuing in efforts to get the OPCW fraud exposed to the Western mainstream media’s sheltered and blinkered audience, I recently had an opportunity to have an opinion article published in the Sydney Morning Herald. This followed a formal complaint to ACMA, Australia’s media overseer, over the failure of state broadcasters to report on the OPCW story. The proviso for this article was that the OPCW “story” needed to be linked in some way to current events in Syria, given its controversial nature.

This, of course, I readily accepted, because the very “humanitarian crisis” in Idlib predicted two and more years earlier was now eventuating, or at least in the minds of anyone following the Western MSM news output.

Linking this with what happened in Douma in April 2018 was no problem, and in fact was more than that, because had the lies about the “humanitarian crisis in Eastern Ghouta” been properly exposed at the time, along with the fake chemical attack, the course of the war would have been entirely different.

Now two years later, as the true extent of the deception is exposed, along with those who organised it in Westminster and Washington, Tel Aviv and Ankara, I had hoped that credible newspapers like the non-Murdoch SMH would consider dipping a toe in the water. Then at least they would be already swimming with it if the water came up rather suddenly, and be ready with some explanation or excuse on how they had been wrong or didn’t know.

It didn’t even need to be “wrong about Assad” – in the first instance, and before the penny dropped on the ramifications of corruption at the OPCW. As James Harkin “admitted” – Jaish al Islam ruled Douma with an Iron Fist, so the White Helmets had to do what they said, and were desperate for foreign assistance. It was all just a big misunderstanding, and Trump’s fault for launching a missile attack on an impulse.

So I wrote an article proposal, looking at the way that the “humanitarian crisis” predicted in Aleppo in 2016 and in Ghouta in 2018 had not materialised, and had in fact been prevented by the Syrian government’s setting up of humanitarian corridors to allow people to escape – to the safety of areas protected by the Syrian Army and Russian police. It was I said, the failure of Western media to report on what had actually happened that allowed yet another humanitarian crisis to be played as a cause for intervention once again.

Naturally and unavoidably I criticised those media for relying on unbalanced and unsavoury sources, and for providing platforms for “propagandumentaries” like For Sama. The awarding and release of this film to coincide with the campaign to liberate Idlib deserves a whole article of its own, as more doctors with photogenic young children now appear in the last hospitals in Idlib.

Criticism of Waad al Khatib and her Oscar-winning partners in East Aleppo could have been a mistake, but the critical role of the White Helmets in staging the “Chlorine attack” in Douma made this part of the essential context for a discussion on the OPCW story – which was, of course, the real focus of the article.

In declining to publish my article following consultations with the opinion page editor, and despite my assurances on the credentials of Ian Henderson, I was offered the following explanation:

Thanks for the contribution but after talking to the opinion editor I think it doesn’t work for us as it is. There are enough questions over whether Henderson is telling the truth or not to make it hard to use him to absolve the Assad regime of war crimes during the war.

To say so lightly would offend not just the security establishment in the West but also the many Syrians who (even allowing for the exaggerations of western propaganda) have suffered at Assad’s hands.

Perhaps you mean that Syria is no worse than the rest, and as the government it has a right to use violence. But at the moment it seems to whitewash Assad.

In fact I’d already concluded my views “wouldn’t work” for the SMH, after just reading their correspondent’s “Explainer” on the Syrian war and events that led up to the current crisis in Idlib. It didn’t explain anything to me, except why it was that I would never get an article published in this mainstream paper!

Almost every sentence in my article contradicted the accepted Western narrative expressed by the Herald’s correspondent, as here:

Assad, largely thanks to Russian air power, has subdued the rebels in most parts of the country, partly by bombing several of his own largest cities into oblivion and deploying chemical weapons against his own citizens.”

And this is what most people believe, with emotive propaganda and photos turning belief into a conviction which evidence and reasoning is unable to dislodge. The SMH article above devoted as much space to a photo of a blond-haired child sitting in a bus as it did to the ‘explainer’, along with the title – “Sequel to a real-life horror show”.

Such propaganda has worked not just on the audience but on the editors of our media, as it has also done on most of the refugees living in Turkey. They fled because they were told the Syrian Army was coming after them, and they now believe they are in danger of retribution if they were to return. The idea that the Syrian Army and its partners are fighting and dying to kill the terrorists so that it will be safe for Syrians to come home is probably not one they can believe.

In deference to the editor of the Herald, I welcomed his willingness to consider my views and some of the evidence supplied in links. That he did is clear from his recognition that “using Henderson’s claims” should not be taken lightly as “it could absolve Assad of war crimes”. Which of course was my very point.

While OffGuardian remains something of a “Salon des Refuses” to republish opinion unacceptable to the mainstream, it is more useful to repaint this dispute over the OPCW’s toxic deception as a question of “whose war-crimes”. As far as we – on Syria’s side – are concerned, all the war-crimes committed in Syria are attributable to the aggressors who started and fuelled the war on Syria, including all those cases where civilians have been victims of Syrian or Russian airstrikes.

Both militaries have gone to great lengths to avoid hitting civilians where they can be identified, despite the incessant stream of claims to the contrary. An integral part of this effort has been to provide and protect humanitarian corridors for civilians to escape, and many or most of the trapped residents have bravely resisted the insurgents’ threats and propaganda to do so.

There is little verifiable evidence of civilian deaths from Syrian bombing however, as confirmed by the White Helmets’ evident need to fake such deaths for their rescue videos. At the centre of the Douma hoax chemical attack were the contorted bodies of 35 women and children, whose murder for a propaganda video is certainly a war-crime. At the same time the number of civilians killed by the terrorist groups in missile and bomb attacks aimed at residential neighbourhoods now numbers in the hundred-thousands.

The difficulty in persuading people – even reasonable and sympathetic people – of this evident truth on who is responsible for the worst war-crime of this century – the war of aggression on Syria – is illustrated by another group discussion in which I have been involved this week.

On one side are those who believe that President Bashar al Assad is basically a good person who has not, and would not intentionally kill “his own people”, and of course would never and never did use chemical weapons against them, (or even against terrorists for that matter). One of our group, still recovering from the pleasure of meeting Assad last year, dared to refer to him as “wonderful”.

Despite all the contributors to this discussion claiming opposition to all US foreign interventions and regime-change wars and NATO support for extremists and tyrants, some simply cannot stomach such admiration for a man “who has killed civilians”, and no amount of argument or evidence will counter their belief that he has.

It is as though the very first events in the so-called uprising – the false-flag shootings in Dera’a – made an indelible mark on those who believed them, and believed the false story of “Assad’s brutal crackdown on protestors”. And as long as they believe this, the responsibility for Syria’s dead can be shifted and shared, and one day their alleged culprits will be brought to “justice” – in Western courts.

Perhaps there is no answer to this dispute, where even those who are potentially most sympathetic to the Syrian cause cannot be persuaded of its most essential character – that the Syrian army and its allies have fought a war of self-defence since the start; a “just war” which even the most anti-war of activists should accept as legitimate. So rather than pursue this hopeless quest, we should turn on the offensive.

Instead of denying claims that Assad used chemical weapons in Douma, in Khan Shaikoun, and in Ghouta we must demand evidence and proof that he did so, because there is none. We could follow the style of Vassily Nebenzia, expressed so well at the start of this UN session (embedded above) on the OPCW fraud, as he mocks the “highly likely” standard of proof Syria’s enemies pretend is sufficient as a casus belli.

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 1 Comment

Turkey, Russia tiptoe toward ‘unnecessary war’

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | February 28, 2020

A military confrontation between Turkey and Syria has erupted in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib. Latest reports say that at least 34 Turkish soldiers were killed on Thursday in a Syrian air attack. A Turkish retaliation commenced last night itself.

The Syrian airstrike in Idlib took place in an area between the towns Baluon and Al-Bara, and was in response to Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish military recapturing the strategic town of Saraqeb earlier on Thursday.

Earlier in the week, through the past 3-day period, Syrian forces had seized about 60 towns and villages in the southern Idlib area and the adjoining province of Hama.

The backdrop is the warning by Turkey that by the end of February, Syria should vacate the territories in Idlib captured from the terrorist groups in recent months and retreat to the ceasefire line agreed between Turkey and Russia as per the Sochi agreements of 2018, failing which it will be pushed back by force.

The denial by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday that any meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish President was being scheduled over Idlib was a definitive signal that Moscow anticipated that a showdown with the Turkish military was imminent. Erdogan had claimed that a meeting with Putin was on cards on March 4.

Evidently, Moscow has taken note of Erdogan’s increasingly belligerent statements, especially his assertion that Turkish intervention in Idlib is in accordance with the Adana Agreement of 1998 between Ankara and Damascus on the mutual commitments regarding border security, which is of course an ingenious interpretation of the 21-year old accord that neither Russia nor Syria will accept.

The Russian line has perceptibly hardened, based on the assessment that ongoing Syrian military operations in Idlib must be taken to their logical conclusion, namely, the defeat of the al-Qaeda affiliates ensconced in the province, which is also what Damascus demands.

Turkey senses that the ongoing consultations with Russia are only providing time for Moscow and Damascus to advance their operations in Idlib.

The eruption on Thursday adds a new dimension to the military balance. Russia will back Syria. The air space over Idlib is under Russian control.

On the other hand, Turkey recently deployed anti-aircraft guns in Idlib that threaten Russian and Syrian jets supporting the ground operations.

Turkey feels emboldened by the assessment that the killing of General Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January has thrown the Iran-backed militia groups into disarray while Syrian government forces are overstretched.

Turkey also assumes that Russian forces will not get involved in the fighting on the ground. These Turkish assumptions are going to be put to severe test in the coming days and weeks.

However, the big question is about the extent to which the US is prepared to support Turkey militarily. Washington did not accede to a recent Turkish request for deploying the Patriot missile system in Turkey as a deterrent against Russia. Will there be a rethink on this? Ankara and Washington are in constant touch with each other.

The US state department is yet to react on the clashes in Idlib on Thursday. But unnamed US officials told the Turkish news agency Anadolu, “We stand by our NATO Ally Turkey and continue to call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia and Iranian-backed forces. As the President and the Secretary have said, we are looking at options on how we can best support Turkey in this crisis.”

Following the latest developments on Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke to NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg over the phone. Possibly, Turkey proposes seeking NATO support / intervention. Will Turkey invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which states that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all of its members?

The Turkish ruling party’s spokesman has said, “We call on NATO to [start] consultations. This is not [an attack] on Turkey only, it is an attack on the international community. A common reaction is needed. The attack was also against NATO.”

However, as things stand, the probability is low, since a NATO and / or US intervention, would mean military confrontation with Russia, which neither the Trump administration nor the western alliance would want. The Russian assessment also seems to be that the West will huff and puff for a while but will eventually calm down and desist from getting entangled with Erdogan’s Syrian project.

The point is, the western world also has its grievances against Erdogan and is wary of his mercurial nature. The Trump administration has far from forgiven Erdogan’s strategic defiance to buy the S-400 AMB system from Russia.

Having said that, Turkey can always leverage the Syrian refugee flow to compel an EU intervention, especially by Germany.

The crunch time comes if a direct Turkish-Russian military conflict ensues. Of course, in such an eventuality, NATO will be hard-pressed to ignore an important member country of the alliance being at war.

Erdogan believes that he’s holding a strong hand. Russia on the other hand cannot afford a retreat in Idlib, as that could well lead to a quagmire in Syria with assorted foreign powers using the al-Qaeda groups as proxies to challenge the Russian bases.

The complex alignments bring to mind the Crimean War (1853-1856) which was also a geopolitical struggle like the Syrian conflict.

The Crimean War had its genesis in Russia pressuring the Ottomans with a view to winning control of the Black Sea so that it could gain access to the Mediterranean Sea, which in turn threatened British commercial and strategic interests in the Middle East and India and prompted France to cement an alliance with Britain and to reassert its military power.   

The Crimean War was a classic example of an unnecessary conflict bearing out A.J.P. Taylor’s thesis of wars caused by blundering politicians and diplomats — where the causes are trivial but the consequences aren’t. The Jamestown Foundation, which is wired into the US intelligence and defence establishment, has a commentary titled Russia and Turkey Drift Toward War, here.

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Russian missile frigates passing through Turkish straits amid Idlib escalation

RT | February 28, 2020

A pair of advanced Russian missiles frigates is passing through the Turkey-controlled straits while en-route to the Mediterranean. It comes as dilomatic tensions between Moscow and Ankara over Syria’s Idlib are not letting down.

The ‘Admiral Grigorovich’ and its sister ship ‘Admiral Makarov’ are among the more modern assets of the Russian Navy, capable of firing the advanced Kalibr-NK cruise missiles. Part of the Russian Black Sea fleet, they are currently moving to join Russia’s naval forces in the Mediterranean as part of a scheduled rotation.

“The third frigate of the class, the ‘Admiral Essen’ has been on a mission in the Mediterranean Sea since December 2019,” a spokesman for the fleet said as cited by Interfax news agency.

Their passage through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, the straits controlled by Turkey, comes at a period of heightened tension between the Ankara and Moscow. Turkey blames Russia’s ally Syria for the deaths of its soldiers in the Syrian Idlib Governorate. The worst incident happened on Thursday, when 33 Turkish soldiers were killed by a Syrian airstrike, according to Ankara.

Moscow says Turkey failed to report the location of its troops in Idlib and allowed them to get mingled with terrorist forces, which led to the tragic outcome. Turkish officials insist that Russia was informed about the deployment, and deny the presence of militants in the area where the strike had happened.

Moscow, for its part, has maintained that Turkey still fails to separate so-called moderate opposition from terrorists in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

Turkey has the right to deny passage through its straits to any nation’s warships if it decides its security demands it. But no reports immediately indicated that the Russian frigates would be turned back.

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Erdoğan Unleashes New Migrant Crisis in Europe

By Paul Antonopoulos | February 28, 2020

At least 33 Turkish soldiers who were illegally operating in Syria’s Idlib province were killed and another 35 injured by a Syrian military attack on Thursday night. The attack came just days before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s end of month deadline for the Syrian Army to forfeit the large swathes of area it has liberated from Turkish-backed jihadists and to return to positions it held at the beginning of the year. The powerful assault suggests that the Syrian Army has no intentions to withdraw from any positions it holds on its own land and is willing to engage the Turkish military, even under threat of a full-scale war.

Although Russia has denied any involvement in the attack, hundreds of Turks congregated at the Russian consulate in the middle of the night chanting “Russian Killers, Putin Killer.” Despite this, Ankara has ignored the emotions of the people and thus far has only blamed the Syrian government for the “nefarious attack against heroic soldiers in Idlib who were there to ensure our national security,” as described by Turkish director of communications Fahrettin Altun in a statement.

Of course, this is a long stretch to claim that Turkey is in Idlib to ensure natural security as they are the main backers of terrorist organizations like ISIS and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra and Turkistan Islamic Party. Although they claim the Kurdish People’s Protection Units are a threat to Turkey’s national security, they have no presence in Idlib, meaning the notion that Turkey’s national security is under threat in Idlib has to be rejected and rather this is part of a project for a neo-Ottoman Empire.

Although Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the Syrian attack in the hope of invoking Article 5 and forcing NATO members into Erdoğan’s adventurism in Idlib, Article 6 explicitly excludes Article 5 being invoked in areas outside of NATO members territory. As Article 5 cannot be invoked, Stoltenberg made a weak condemnation against both Syria and Russia and said “defusing the tension, all sides should prevent this terrible situation and humanitarian conditions in the region from getting worse.”

Despite cold relations over the past few years, the U.S. has continued taking advantage of tense relations between Moscow and Ankara with a State Department representative saying “We stand by our NATO Ally Turkey and continue to call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia, and Iranian-backed forces.” This was followed up by U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, saying that Turkey should see “who is their reliable partner and who isn’t” and expressed her “hope that President Erdoğan will see that we are the ally of their past and their future and they need to drop the S-400.” Washington is taking every opportunity to firmly put Turkey back into the NATO sphere even if it is acting independent of NATO and after Ankara’s short-lived flirtation with multipolarity.

Even though Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, repeated his call for a ceasefire in Idlib following the attack, the Syrian Army are unlikely to halt their operation to clear the northwest province of Turkish-backed terrorist forces. Rather, as Erdoğan’s deadline approaches, the Turkish president is likely to weaponize the high casualty rate of Turkish soldiers in Idlib to justify a direct war with Syria and get the general population into an emotional frenzy, bypassing any calls for a ceasefire that will likely be rejected by Syria anyway.

Although NATO made a weak response to Turkey, the EU also responded weakly by offering condolences as Erdoğan opens his country’s borders for 72 hours, allowing tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to flood to the borders of Greece and Bulgaria, violating the 2016 EU-Turkey refugee deal. Effectively Erdoğan has once again weaponized refugees to blackmail the EU despite the latter having no involvement in Idlib. Spearheading this migrant flow into Europe in response to the Syrian attack on Turkish soldiers is the Turkish Intelligence Agency MIT who were directly transporting illegal immigrants with buses to the border regions. Erdoğan hopes that by flooding Europe with illegal immigrants it will force the EU to become more involved in Idlib against the Syrian government and Russia.

However, as many EU members are also NATO members, it is unlikely to work as frontline EU states like Greece and Bulgaria will only have more hostile relations with Turkey and are not wanting to get involved in Syria for the sake of Erdoğan’s dreams. Close ally of Erdoğan, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli, and Justice and Development (AK) Party Spokesman Omer Çelik, demanded overnight that NATO become involved. But as Turkey is going to flood two NATO members with illegal migrants and violates Greek airspace on a daily basis, it is unlikely to find widespread support.

Although Washington is taking every advantage of Turkey’s spat with Russia to mend relations, it is also unlikely that the U.S. will want to risk a potential conflict with Russia over Idlib and Erdoğan, and will probably limit its support to intelligence, weapons and diplomacy if Turkey is to go to war with Syria. But what is for certain, Turkey will not find massive support for any adventurism in Syria from NATO as it hopes to achieve and rather it will make many NATO members criticize Turkey’s one-sided and aggressive policy towards Syria.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Virtue Signaling To Destroy The Environment

Tony Heller | February 26, 2020

Wind farms are an environmental disaster – the exact opposite of how they are being marketed by politicians.

February 28, 2020 Posted by | Environmentalism, Video | 1 Comment

No More Air Travel is What Net Zero Means

By Harry Wilkinson – GWPF – 27/02/20

No-one can be surprised at the judges’ decision to block a third runway at Heathrow. Collectively, the country has failed to grasp the implications of deep decarbonisation.

Many people will regard the decision to block a third runway at Heathrow as an unwelcome intrusion of judges into our democratic system. They will be bemused that those judges cited the Paris Agreement to justify their decision, when one can hardly see China*, or indeed any other signatory to the Paris Agreement, blocking vital airport expansion because of that same treaty.

But to blame the judges is to miss the point. All they have done is to take the commitments of that accord and the Government’s pledge to achieve net zero emissions at face value. It is simply a matter of fact that such expansion cannot be reconciled with reducing our emissions, at least in the short term. This is what net zero means. It means to abandon the pursuit of growth, the pursuit of new opportunities, of new trading links, of progress and resign the country to a new era of eco austerity. Today brings that decision, and the government’s shameful failure to be upfront about its implications, into sharp focus.

When the Paris Agreement was signed it was heralded as an extraordinary moment in the fight against climate change. Green journalists parroted this view, useful as it was to the politicians and activists desperate to show that some progress had been made. Those familiar with the details could see that all it really did was to confirm countries’ existing plans. China, India, and other developing countries were allowed to continue increasing their emissions, and the EU reaffirmed its own emissions targets. America’s inclusion was more significant, but it wasn’t long until Trump announced his intention to withdraw.

The end result is to leave Britain uniquely vulnerable to the economic consequences of rapid decarbonisation policies. While the more cautious approach of Eastern European countries will act as brake for the EU, Britain is faced with a fundamental political choice as it leaves. It can choose to embrace the free market and technological progress, which will lead to the more efficient use of resources and indeed come to reduce the consumption of almost every natural resource. Or it can continue with an opportunity-destroying, insular and unilateral approach of state-mandated decarbonisation in one country. Time to choose.

*China, by the way, is planning to build 216 new airports by 2035.

February 27, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

GOVERNMENT WANTS TO BAN EVERYTHING! – #NewWorldNextWeek

Corbett • 02/27/2020

Welcome to New World Next Week — the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Watch this video on BitChute / Minds.com / YouTube or Download the mp4

Story #1: Posting Anti-Vaccine Propaganda on Social Media Could Become Criminal Offence

Zero Hedge Suspended On Twitter

Outrage as YouTube Reportedly Blocks History Teachers Uploading Hitler Archive Clips

UK Police Deny Responsibility for Poster Urging Parents to Report Kids for Using Linux

Story #2: UNESCO Claims Climate Denial To Be Criminalized And Prosecuted

Jerome Ravetz on The Corbett Report

Story #3: Foreign Interference In Elections Is Unacceptable. Congress Must Make It Illegal.

You can help support our independent and non-commercial work by visiting http://CorbettReport.com/Support & http://MediaMonarchy.com/Join. Thank You.

February 27, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Washington Post Admits OAS Bolivia Election Report It Defended During Coup Was ‘Deeply Flawed’

By Morgan Artyukhina | Sputnik | February 27, 2020

The Washington Post reported Thursday on a study concluding the Organization of American States’ claims of voter fraud in the October 2019 Bolivian election “appear deeply flawed.” However, the paper’s editorial board consistently pushed the narrative that Evo Morales was “undermin[ing] Bolivia’s democracy” during the crisis leading to his ouster.

‘Deeply Flawed’ Conclusions

“Bolivia dismissed its October elections as fraudulent. Our research found no reason to suspect fraud,” reads a Thursday headline in the Washington Post’s analysis section. Penned by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab researchers John Curiel and Jack R. Williams, the piece based on their study closely examines data from the October 20 Bolivian election and methods used by the Organization of American States (OAS) to determine the vote count had been fraudulent.

“There is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find – the trends in the preliminary count, the lack of any big jump in support for Morales after the halt, and the size of Morales’s margin all appear legitimate,” the duo concluded. “All in all, the OAS’s statistical analysis and conclusions would appear deeply flawed.”

MIT Graph showing Morales’ Movement for Socialism steadily gained ground as votes were tallied, explaining Evo Morales’ late victory

According to the researchers, the OAS’ conclusion relies on an undemonstrated assumption: that actual voting results are accurately reflected by unofficial counts and by reported voter preferences, and that deviation between these heavily points to voter fraud by the Bolivian government once official counting was resumed the day after election day. La Paz had previously promised to count four-fifths of preliminary votes on election night and count the rest the next day, but when Morales’ standing began to improve after the resumption of counting, the OAS cried foul.

“Our results were straightforward. There does not seem to be a statistically significant difference in the margin before and after the halt of the preliminary vote,” Curiel and Williams wrote. “Instead, it is highly likely that Morales surpassed the 10-percentage-point margin in the first round.”

MIT Graph showing correlation margin of voting precincts’ results before and after tallying was paused, demonstrating no new irregularities

The researchers ran 1,000 simulations to see if the difference between votes for Morales and his closest competitor, Carlos Masa, could be predicted. “In our simulations, we found that Morales could expect at least a 10.49 point lead over his closest competitor, above the necessary 10-percentage-point threshold necessary to win outright. Again, this suggests that any increase in Morales’s margin after the stop can be explained entirely by the votes already counted.”

MIT Graph showing Evo Morales’ margin of victory in 1,000 simulations of the October 20, 2019 Bolivian election

The study was reprinted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which noted in a disclosure that it “contracted with the authors to see if the numerical and statistical results of CEPR’s November 2019 study could be independently verified. Any analysis and interpretation of findings in this report express the sole views of the authors, researchers at MIT Election Data and Science Lab.”

“The OAS greatly misled the media and the public about what happened in Bolivia’s elections, and helped to foster a great deal of mistrust in the electoral process and the results,” economist and CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said in a Thursday statement about the MIT report. “The OAS needs to explain why it made these statements and why anyone should trust it when it comes to elections.”

Parallel Findings Prior to Coup Ignored

However, at the time of the crisis, Washington Post editors seemed uninterested in CEPR’s analysis, deferring instead to the OAS, whose faults CEPR had already seen through even before Morales was ousted.

The day after the OAS statement and two days after the election, Weisbrot called on the body to retract its “irresponsible” statement on the election.

“The OAS statement implies that there is something wrong with the vote count in Bolivia because later-reporting voting centers showed a different margin than earlier ones,” Weisbrot said. “But it provides absolutely no evidence – no statistics, numbers, or facts of any kind – to support this idea. And in fact, a preliminary analysis of the voting data at all of the more than 34,000 voting tables – which is all publicly available and can be downloaded by anyone – shows no evidence of irregularity.”

“This kind of change in voting results, due to later-reporting areas being politically or demographically different than earlier ones, is quite common in election returns – as anyone who has watched election returns come in on CNN in the United States knows,” Weisbrot continued. “That is why it is wrong to draw conclusions from a change in the voting pattern without any statistical analysis or even looking closely at the data.”

“As this narrative gets repeated in the media, it will take on a life of its own, and will be difficult to correct, even as more people look at the data, or produce statistical analysis,” he warned.

CEPR’s formal report was published on November 8, titled, “No Evidence That Bolivian Election Results Were Affected by Irregularities or Fraud, Statistical Analysis Shows.” Two days later, opposition forces, urged on by supportive western powers including the United States, forced Morales from office, and the opposition and began a violent and bloody purge against the Movement for Socialism–Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (MAS-IPSP), Morales’ indigenous-working class umbrella party.

Newspaper Beat Coup Drums During Crisis

As Weisbrot predicted, the media did perpetuate this narrative – and the Washington Post played a key role in building momentum for Morales’ ouster.

On October 14, six days before the election, the Post ran a story titled “How Evo Morales running again – and again – undermines Bolivia’s democracy,” which warned that “depending on how the election goes,” Morales’ next term “could place democracy itself at risk in the Andean country.”

“In a tight race, international scrutiny and a strong, unified response to any electoral irregularities could be what allows Bolivians to salvage their democracy from the brink,” the opinion piece warns.

​However, four days after the election, on October 24, the Washington Post’s editorial board made its official voice known, declaring that “There’s still time for Bolivia’s president to right the path to democracy.” The article justifies its position using the OAS La Paz observer statement from October 21 and a similar one by the US State Department, which was adamantly pro-coup.

Then on November 10, the coup came, and Morales was forced to resign and flee the country. After pro-opposition police forces and far-right militias acted to block MAS senators from attending a key Senate session on November 12, the highest-ranking opposition senator, Jeanine Añez, declared herself the country’s interim president. Añez moved quickly to prepare de facto martial law, and the army and police massacred dozens of Morales supporters who rallied against the seizure of power.

A backer of former President Evo Morales scuffles with police in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019. The opposition senator who has claimed Bolivia's presidency Jeanine Anez, faces the challenge of stabilizing the nation and organizing national elections within three months at a time of political disputes that pushed Morales to fly off to self-exile in Mexico after 14 years in power. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
© AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko A backer of former President Evo Morales scuffles with police in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019.

The opposition senator who has claimed Bolivia’s presidency, Jeanine Anez, faces the challenge of stabilizing the nation and organizing national elections within three months at a time of political disputes that pushed Morales to fly off to self-exile in Mexico after 14 years in power.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, built a bulwark of pro-coup support for its readers in the nation’s capital and around the world. On November 11, during the interregnum, the Post’s editorial board once again made its voice heard: “Bolivia is in danger of slipping into anarchy. It’s Evo Morales’s fault.”

“Mr. Morales, who had grown increasingly autocratic in nearly 14 years in office, insisted on running for a fourth term even after he lost a national referendum on whether he could seek it. The electoral tribunal, which he controls, then moved to falsify the results of the Oct. 20 vote so as to hand him a first-round victory,” the paper’s editors wrote, stating as fact what had previously been merely warned to be suspected. “The result was predictable: Angry Bolivians took to the streets all over the country. They had been demonstrating for weeks when, on Sunday, an audit released by the Organization of American States reported massive irregularities in the vote count and called for a fresh election.”

Two days later, the day after Añez seized power, the Post ran another story by the title “It’s not just a ‘coup’: Bolivia’s democracy is in meltdown.” Then on the 15th came the laconically titled piece, “The Bolivian ‘coup’ that wasn’t.” While the two stories quibble over what to call the opposition’s seizure of power, the underlying point is the same: Morales tried to steal the election and went against world opinion and domestic popular will by clinging to power.

With the publication of Curiel’s and Williams’ findings, the Post has helped to unring the bell it shook so hard during the election crisis. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the paper helped provide ideological cover for the ouster of yet another democratically elected leader in a Third World nation by uncritically accepting and repeating the US State Department’s positions and those of international bodies like the OAS that help forward its policies.

February 27, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Crickets! Finland’s Insect Food Boom Goes Bust

Grilled maggots for human consumption

Swedish ‘Sustainable Food’ Project Teaches Kids to Eat Insects, Garbage © CC BY-SA 3.0 / Guttorm Flatabø / Grilled maggots for human consumption
Sputnik – February 27, 2020

Despite the media’s preoccupation with insect food and massive campaigns touting crickets and larvae as a sustainable and climate-responsible alternative to meat, the excitement has waned in a matter of several years, the Finnish broadcaster Yle reported, concluding that Finns are “not yet ready to eat crickets”.

Finland’s cricket breeding business took off in September 2017, when the country’s Ministry of Agriculture allowed breeding and selling insects as food, a decision made possible by a revision of the EU’s food standards.

After that the number of insect breeding facilities spiked, as revenues in the billions of euros were predicted. In 2018, Europe’s largest cricket farm emerged in Loviisa, which began to produce hundreds of tonnes of insect powder.

However, in the following years, the buzz subsided, and insect breeders suffered major setbacks amid dwindling demand and stiff competition.

According Lauri Jyllilä of the Finsect company, which promotes insect food, there were over 70 companies in the insect food business at the peak of the enthusiasm. Now, there are about 50 left, with no new companies being founded.

The price of frozen crickets reached as much as 100 euros per kilogram, Jyllilä explained, which was way too expensive even for sympathetic and ecologically-minded consumers.

“The cost of freshly frozen crickets should be 10-15 euros per kilogram”, Jyllilä ventured.

Kurikka resident Panu Ollikkala, one of Finland’s first cricket breeding specialists, dropped out of the competition in the autumn of 2019.

“Demand was inadequate. The price has fallen so much that my business didn’t pay off”, a despondent Olikkala mused.

The Kouvola farm, touted as Europe’s largest, followed suit. Entrepreneur Vesa-Matti Rajamäki admitted that he no longer believed in the success of cricket production. Numerous unsuccessful insect breeders complained that the massive support of the traditional meat industry makes competition virtually impossible.

“A lot of beautiful words were said about the insect business. Many farms were opened, and bank loans were taken” cricket farm owners Kirsi and Jouko Siikoine said. They intend to close down their business in March 2020. “The onterest in eating insects and the insect processing sector has plummeted”, the couple explained.

In the city of Kurikka, which is now considered the centre of insect production, crickets are still being bred, but a downward trend is visible.

“This is a sort of cricket breeding bank, thanks to which you can quickly restore your production if you want”, Jyllilä explained.

The University of Turku, the Finnish Institute of Natural Resources, and the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency ran a project named “Insects in the food chain” and concluded that the main difficulty is getting the approval of bulk consumers. Even people who opt out of meat for the sake of the carbon footprint or perceived health benefits largely prefer vegetable sources of protein.

Crickets are often grounded into powder and added to bread, protein bars and chocolate. However, after large-scale promotion, many products gradually left the market.

The main selling point of the bug diet is the reduced environmental footprint. According to Finnish insect producers, a single kilogram of crickets only requires a single litre of water, as opposed to 2,500 litres for a kilogram of rice and a whopping 15,400 litres for a kilogram of beef. Insect food is also claimed to be rich in protein.

Many are still averse to eating insects for reasons of ideology and aesthetics. This opposition has resulted in a common web mantra: “I will not eat bugs and I will not live a pod”.

February 27, 2020 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

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