Turkey has perfected a new, deadly way to wage war, using militarized ‘drone swarms’
By Scott Ritter | RT | November 29, 2020
From Syria to Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh, this new method of military offense has been brutally effective. We are witnessing a revolution in the history of warfare, one that is causing panic, particularly in Europe.
In an analysis written for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Gustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow, argues that the extensive (and successful) use of military drones by Azerbaijan in its recent conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh holds “distinct lessons for how well Europe can defend itself.”
Gressel warns that Europe would be doing itself a disservice if it simply dismissed the Nagorno-Karabakh fighting as “a minor war between poor countries.” In this, Gressel is correct – the military defeat inflicted on Armenia by Azerbaijan was not a fluke, but rather a manifestation of the perfection of the art of drone warfare by Baku’s major ally in the fighting, Turkey. Gressel’s conclusion – that “most of the [European Union’s] armies… would do as miserably as the Armenian Army” when faced by such a threat – is spot on.
What happened to the Armenian Army in its short but brutal 44-day war with Azerbaijan goes beyond simply losing a war. It was more about the way Armenia lost and, more specifically, how it lost. What happened over the skies of Nagorno-Karabakh – where Azerbaijan employed a host of Turkish- and Israeli-made drones not only to surveil and target Armenian positions, but shape and dominate the battlefield throughout – can be likened to a revolution in military affairs. One akin to the arrival of tanks, mechanised armoured vehicles, and aircraft in the early 20th century, that eventually led to the demise of horse-mounted cavalry.
It’s not that the Armenian soldiers were not brave, or well-trained and equipped – they were. It was that they were fighting a kind of war which had been overtaken by technology, where no matter how resolute and courageous they were in the face of the enemy, the outcome was preordained – their inevitable death, and the destruction of their equipment; some 2,425 Armenian soldiers lost their lives in the fighting, and 185 T-72 tanks, 90 armored fighting vehicles, 182 artillery pieces, 73 multiple rocket launchers, and 26 surface-to-air missile systems were destroyed.
A new kind of warfare
What happened to Armenia was not an isolated moment in military history, but rather the culmination of a new kind of warfare, centered on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones). Azerbaijan’s major ally in the war against Armenia – Turkey – has been perfecting the art of drone warfare for years, with extensive experience in full-scale modern conflict gained in recent fighting in Syria (February-March 2020) and Libya (May-June 2020.)
Over the course of the past decade, Turkey has taken advantage of arms embargoes imposed by America and others which restricted Ankara’s access to the kind of front-line drones used by the US around the world, to instead build from scratch an indigenous drone-manufacturing base. While Turkey has developed several drones in various configurations, two have stood out in particular – the Anka-S and Bayraktar.
While the popular term for the kind of drone-centric combat carried out by Turkey is “drone swarm,” the reality is that modern drone warfare, when conducted on a large scale, is a deliberate, highly coordinated process which integrates electronic warfare, reconnaissance and surveillance, and weapons delivery. Turkey’s drone war over Syria was managed from the Turkish Second Army Command Tactical Command Center, located some 400km away from the fighting in the city of Malatya in Turkey’s Hatay Province.
It was here that the Turkish drone operators sat, and where they oversaw the operation of an integrated electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) warfare capability designed to jam Syrian and Russia air-defense radars and collect signals of military value (such as cell phone conversations) which were used to target specific locations.
For every $1 in losses suffered by Turkey, Syria lost approximately $5
The major systems used by Turkey in this role are the KORAL jamming system and a specially configured Anka-S drone operating as an airborne intelligence collection platform. The Anka-S also operated as an airborne command and control system, relaying targeting intelligence to orbiting Bayraktar UAVs, which would then acquire the target visually before firing highly precise onboard air-to-surface rockets, destroying the target. When conducted in isolation, an integrated drone strike such as those carried out by Turkey can be deadly effective; when conducted simultaneously with four or more systems in action, each of which is capable of targeting multiple locations, the results are devastating and, from the perspective of those on the receiving end, might be likened to a deadly “swarm.”
The fighting in Syria illustrated another important factor regarding drone warfare – the disparity of costs between the drone and the military assets it can destroy. Turkish Bayraktar and Anka-S UAV’s cost approximately $2.5 million each. Over the course of fighting in Syria’s Idlib province, Turkey lost between six and eight UAVs, for a total replacement cost of around $20 million.
In the first night of fighting in Syria, Turkey claims (and Russia does not dispute) that it destroyed large numbers of heavy equipment belonging to the Syrian Army, including 23 tanks and 23 artillery pieces. Overall, Turkish drones are credited with killing 34 Syrian tanks and 36 artillery systems, along with a significant amount of other combat equipment. If one uses the average cost of a Russian-made tank at around $1.2 million, and an artillery system at around $500,000, the total damage done by Turkey’s drones amounts to some $57.3 million (and this number does not include the other considerable material losses suffered by the Syrian military, which in total could easily match or exceed that number.) From a cost perspective alone, for every $1 in losses suffered by Turkey, the Syrians lost approximately $5.
Turkey was able to take the lessons learned from the fighting in Idlib province and apply them to a different theater of war, in Libya, in May 2020. There, Turkey had sided with the beleaguered forces of the Government of National Accord (GNA), which was mounting what amounted to a last stand around the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The GNA was facing off against the forces of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), based out of Benghazi, which had launched a major offensive designed to capture the capital, eliminate the GNA, and take control of all of Libya.
How to capture half a country
The LNA was supported by the several foreign powers, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia (via Wagner Group, a private military contractor.) Turkey’s intervention placed a heavy emphasis on the integrated drone warfare it had perfected in Syria. In Libya, the results were even more lop-sided, with the Turkish-backed GNA able to drive the LNA forces back, capturing nearly half of Libya in the process.
Both the LNA and Turkish-backed GNA made extensive use of combat drones, but only Turkey brought with it an integrated approach to drone warfare. Observers have grown accustomed to the concept of individual US drones operating freely over places such as Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan, delivering precision strikes against terrorist targets. However, as Iran demonstrated this past May, drones are vulnerable to modern air-defense systems, and US drone tactics would not work over contested airspace.
Likewise, the LNA, which made extensive use of Chinese-made combat drones flown by UAE pilots, enjoyed great success until Turkey intervened. Its electronic warfare and integrated air-defense capabilities then made LNA drone operations impossible to conduct, and the inability of the LNA to field an effective defense against the Turkish drone operations resulted in the tide of battle rapidly shifting on the ground. If anything, the cost differential between the Turkish-backed GNA and the LNA was greater than the $1-to-$5 advantage enjoyed by Turkey in Syria.
The big players – the US, Russia & China – are playing catch-up
By the time Turkey began cooperating with Azerbaijan against Armenia in September 2020, Turkish drone warfare had reached its zenith, and the outcome in Nagorno-Karabakh was all but assured. One of the main lessons drawn from the Turkish drone experiences in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh is that these conflicts were not fought against so-called “poor countries.”
Rather, the Turks were facing off against well-equipped and well-trained forces operating equipment which closely parallels that found in most small- and medium-sized European countries. Indeed, in all three conflicts, Turkey was facing off against some of the best anti-aircraft missile defenses produced by Russia. The reality is that most nations, if confronted by a Turkish “drone swarm,” would not fare well.
And the multiple deployment of drones is only going to expand. The US Army is currently working on what it calls the “Armed, Fully-Autonomous Drone Swarm,” or AFADS. When employed, AFADS will – autonomously, without human intervention – locate, identify, and attack targets using what is known as a “Cluster Unmanned Airborne System Smart Munition,” which will dispense a swarm of small drones that fan out over the battlefield to locate and destroy targets.
China has likewise tested a system that deploys up to 200 “suicide drones” designed to saturate a battlespace and destroy targets by flying into them. And this past September, the Russian military integrated “drone-swarm” capabilities for the first time in a large-scale military exercise.
The face of modern warfare has been forever altered, and those nations that are not prepared or equipped to fight in a battlefield where drone technology is fully incorporated in every aspect of the fight can expect outcomes similar to that of Armenia: severe losses of men and equipment, defeat, humiliation and the likely loss of their territory. This is the reality of modern warfare which, as Gustav Gressel notes, should make any nation not fully vested in drone technology “think – and worry.”
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
The Fallacy behind ‘Normalization’
By Lubna Tarabey – Al-Manar – November 28, 2020
“Normalization” is the process through which relationships can become normal or the process of bringing or returning something to a normal state or condition. Normalcy requires a balance of relationships, a regularization, an orderly state of affairs. Is that really the basis of the relationship between the so called “State of Israel” and the other countries of the Arab World that appear to be rushing to sign such ‘normalization’ agreements? Would such a state of affairs result in something that is even remotely balanced?
Let us take a look at this assumed balance and see if it is skewed in any direction – in whose direction. What does the “State of Israel” have? It has a nuclear ability- unlike the Arab countries, the strongest army, and the unconditional support of the United States of America and the Western world. What do any of the Arab states embarking on normalization have? Nothing of the above – not even the support of their people. Yes, they do have an oil-based wealth which can be robbed, used or abused, and that is what the Israelis are after. What resources does ‘Israel’ have that it promises to share with these Arab states? It promises to share nothing – promising peace. The idea in itself would be funny if it was not so pathetic. When were these Arab states now signing agreements ever in a state of war with ‘Israel’? When did any ever offer to send one soldier to fight alongside the Palestinians? The promised peace is pathetic as it is being offered as a gift among two parties that had never even been in war. Arab regimes are fools if they think they would benefit from the Zionists controlling the policies, both internal and external, in ‘Israel’. Which Arab state – those who actually were engaged in armed conflict – ever benefited from any agreement with the Zionists? Did Egypt benefit? Did Jordan benefit? The answer is categorically NO. None of these states benefited and none can hope to ever benefit from such agreements. That is against the policies of the Zionists state as the following clarifies.
The Zionists have a long history of using others. Ends justifies means. No other principle matters to them. Not justice, not equality, not fairness, not even peace. The principle of ‘end justifies means’ is the only principle they adhere to and to achieve their aims they gladly walk over other people. They even did that to Americans themselves – their number one ally. This is something that was seriously and meticulously documented by Alison Weir, the author of a must read book titled “Against Our Better Judgment: the hidden history of how the U.S was used to create Israel” (2014). Describing the scheming of the Zionist movement in the US, the author writes, “It has targeted virtually every sector of American society; worked to involve American in tragic, unnecessary and profoundly costly wars, dominated congress for decades; increasingly determined which candidates could become serious contenders for US presidency; and promoted bigotry towards an entire population, region and culture.”(Weir, 2014:2). The Zionist movement has constantly used any and whichever method to realize its end – using other people, benefiting from other nations economic powers, draining their resources and even stealing and appropriating other people’s history and culture. This is what they have done all over the world. This is what they have done in Palestine.
How can one even consider a normal relationship with an entity that is anything but normal. Its very existence represents an abnormality among nations. The only state in the world that has no history – a mere 60 years of existence – younger than my own father! Created in a land whose people have a history of more than 4000 years. This abnormal state was established at the cost of killing and displacing the natives of the land. The ‘engineers’ behind the establishment of this abnormality were quite aware that their claim to the land had no foundation. So, what was their brilliant solution? Let us steal the needed foundations! It was not enough to steal the land and houses of the Palestinians. Why not go the extra mile? Steal their history and, along the way, their culture. After all, no one can stop them. They enjoyed the support of the almighty western superpowers along with all the technological resources need to do so. The plan was deviously simple: Erase all traces of anything Palestinian and replace it with ‘Israeli’. Hence, the world wide famous Middle Eastern dish called the hummus became Israeli Hummus. The famous relics of the church of Bethlehem were stolen and documented as part of the Jewish heritage. The embroidery work of the Palestinians which for thousands of years stood as a signature of the clothing of the people of Palestine was also stolen and renamed ‘Israeli’. Even names of villages were changed in line with the Jewish pronunciations to establish a sense of continuity and belonging. For example Asqalan became Ashkelon …. The story goes on and on. Palestine was removed from the maps used all over the world and replaced with ‘Israel’. One theft after another. All carried out under the eyes of the so called ‘free world’ which mostly reacted by turning a blind eye, intentionally so, further supporting these atrocities.
Such practices cannot be allowed to continue. People of the Arab World must become active agents, calling out and exposing these practices. A documentation of Palestinian cultural heritage must be embarked upon. The youth of the Arab world must be reminded of how the ‘state of Israel’ was established. Whose houses were destroyed? Whose land was stolen? Whose culture was destroyed? Normalization of what! What a fallacy! There can be no normal relationships – the very basis of the concept is not applicable.
Lubna Tarabey is a Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Institute of Social Sciences, Lebanese University.
Alison Weir is an American research with a lot of publications on the Zionist movement and the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
MPs demand Iran restrict IAEA inspections after scientist assassination
Press TV | November 29, 2020
Iranian lawmakers have issued a statement demanding that the country respond to the recent assassination of a senior nuclear scientist near Tehran by restricting the United Nations’ regulatory mandate regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
Members of Majlis (Iran’s Parliament) offered the proposal in a statement that was read out at the legislature on Sunday.
“Such atrocity entails an immediate and regret-inducing response,” they said, stressing that the best means of retaliation is through “the revival of the country’s brilliant nuclear industry by ending its voluntary adherence to the Additional Protocol” and restricting the UN nuclear watchdog’s unprecedented inspection regime.
Iran undertook to adhere to the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as part of its 2015 nuclear agreement with world countries. Under the protocol, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, is allowed to carry out “more intrusive” inspections of the country’s nuclear work.
Iran’s nuclear activities and the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have frequently been the target of sabotage by the United States and the Israeli regime.
The US left the JCPOA in 2018, and its allies in the accord – the UK, France, and Germany – subsequently failed to secure Iran’s interests guaranteed by the deal, under Washington’s pressure.
Two of the most recent acts of sabotage — where the Islamic Republic strongly suspects Israel to have acted with US intelligence – include a July incident at the central Natanz nuclear site that caused material damage to the facility and the Friday assassination of nuclear expert Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Fakhrizadeh, the head the Defense Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, was targeted in a multi-pronged terrorist attack by a number of assailants in Absard city of Tehran Province’s Damavand County.
Qalibaf: Enemies should be made to regret this
Majlis Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf also urged a “strong response” to the assassination, saying the country’s enemies would not be made to regret their atrocity in any other way.
A response, he said, has to both avenge the assassination and deter the enemies from repeating such atrocities in the future.
The assassination showed that the adversaries have been frustrated by Iran’s rising power and therefore have resorted to eliminating its scientists, he noted.
The senior parliamentarian, however, expressed certainty that the nation would be able to weather the loss as it has in countless other cases since the 1979 victory of its Islamic Revolution and “pursue the path of its martyrs more strongly than before.”
Cause of Death: A Primer
By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | November 28, 2020
There has been massive media attention on Covid-19 deaths – and there have been a lot of them. The CDC as of noon on 26 November 2020 was reporting that there have been 259,005 total Covid-19 deaths in the United States.
Yet anyone who reads widely is aware that there have been reports of a motorcycle accident victim being reported as a Covid death. There are many who correctly report that all people dying from or with Covid and even suspected of dying from-or-with Covid-19 are all being counted as certified reportable must-make-the-headlines Covid-19 Deaths.
[Note: This is a long and rather detailed explanation of what leads to the situation in which we find ourselves regarding Covid-19 Deaths reporting. Those who want a better understanding of the issue should continue reading. Readers with no or little interest can just accept this brief synopsis: “It’s Complicated” and move on to other posts. ]
Various experts, journalists, bloggers, and pundits tells us that “Covid Deaths” are being over-counted, mis-counted and even under-counted. Other pundits and media-reported experts desperately try to reassure us that Covid Death counts are correct and real – and that we should all stay concerned and follow all government mandates – which vary from “reasonable” to “obviously based on magical thinking” (closing bars and restaurants at 10 PM because that’s when the Corona Virus Zombies attack) — all this despite various governments having different and contradictory mandates (or even an absence of mandates) and the various States in the United States following differing rules and policies on Covid Deaths reporting. Those reporting “facts” like “US Covid-19 Deaths overestimated by 17 times” (based on this CDC comorbitity data) are sadly mistaken and misinform the general public, just adding to the general confusion on the subject.
Doctors, Coroners and Medical Examiners will calmly explain that “Cause of Death” is complicated and not simple. And they are right. Most of us think that when a person dies, it is obvious what killed him/her. But that is just not the case. In fact, everyone dies of a combination of ”heart stoppage” [cardiac arrest] and “cessation of breathing” which eventually leads to “brain death”. But these are not usually listed as the Cause of Death on a death certificate.
Covid Deaths are being counted and reported based on advice from the CDC, who has based its advice on advice from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (.pdf). More on what that means later.
The Primer: What is meant by Cause of Death?
When a person dies in a hospital or other setting, there is some doctor, coroner or medical examiner that fills out a death certificate – officially certifying that John/Jane Doe has died and reports the date, time, place, Social Security number and other personal details along with the circumstances and sequence of events that led to that death.
Here’s a CDC-annotated image of the Cause of Death portion of a typical death certificate:
We are interested here only in Parts I and II.
“Part I
This section on the death certificate is for reporting the sequence of conditions that led directly to death. The immediate cause of death, which is the disease or condition that directly preceded death and is not necessarily the underlying cause of death (UCOD), should be reported on line a. The conditions that led to the immediate cause of death should be reported in a logical sequence in terms of time and etiology below it.
The UCOD, which is “(a) the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death or (b) the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury” (7), should be reported on the lowest line used in Part I.”
[ source: CDC here – .pdf ]
Let’s look at a CDC example:
This patient had Coronary Artery Disease for seven years — which led to Coronary artery thrombosis from which the patient suffered for 5 years — which led to Acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) after which he survived for 6 days until — his heart ruptured resulting in death within minutes. Conditions contributing to his/her death were diabetes, COPD, and smoking. Each of these “significant conditions contributing to death, but not resulting in the underlying cause” are themselves known to cause a wide range of other serious conditions. For instance, smoking is believed to cause COPD and heart disease. Diabetes can cause cardiovascular diseases “including coronary artery disease with chest pain (angina), heart attack, stroke and narrowing of arteries (atherosclerosis).” Notice that there is a dedicated section “35” asking “Did tobacco use contribute to death?” For this patient, the doctor chose “Yes” – thus the CDC will count this death as one of the 480,000 annual tobacco deaths.
Let’s look at another example (from the same document):
This person suffered from noninsulin dependent Diabetes mellitus, often called Type 2 Diabetes, for 15 years. As sometimes happens, this diabetes sufferer eventually went into a Hyperosmolar nonketotic coma in which she/he remained for 8 weeks before finally succumbing to Acute renal failure (kidney failure). The family of the patient would have told friends and neighbors that their loved one died of kidney failure. They may have mentioned this was probably the end-of-line result of his/her long-term diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes is known to cause the following conditions: Heart and blood vessel diseases, Nerve damage (neuropathy), Kidney damage (as in this patient), Eye damage, Slow healing, Hearing impairment, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
It is clear that this second patient died of acute kidney failure – “Acute kidney failure is most common in people who are already hospitalized, particularly in critically ill people who need intensive care” — and is not necessarily a direct result of diabetes – but assumed in this case as kidney damage can be caused by diabetes. The death certificate Part I sequence is reasonable and represents the doctor’s professional opinion.
“In certifying the cause of death, any disease, abnormality, injury, or poisoning, if believed to have adversely affected the decedent, should be reported. If the use of alcohol and/or other substance, a smoking history, or a recent pregnancy, injury, or surgery was believed to have contributed to death, then this condition should be reported. The conditions present at the time of death may be completely unrelated, arising independently of each other; or they may be causally related to each other, that is, one condition may lead to another which in turn leads to a third condition, and so forth. Death may also result from the combined effect of two or more conditions.”
Source CDC Medical Examiners’ and Coroners’ Handbook on Death Registration (.pdf)
So, you call the Cause of Death of these two patients. What was the Cause of Death of each? Did diabetes kill them both? The first patient via atherosclerosis which kicked off the sequence in Part I? The second from the diabetes induced coma or was the coma from simply caused by being in intensive care? Or was it the first patient’s life-long cigarette smoking causing the coronary artery disease? Or would you, as this doctor did, start the death sequence with his/her seven years of Atherosclerotic coronary artery disease? In each case, there are several sequences that would be reasonable and could have been correctly entered by the attending physician, a coroner, or later by a medical examiner.
The above are pretty common examples – long-term conditions which lead to the next condition that finally leads to death. We don’t see the personal information part of the Death Certificate so we don’t know the age of these patients. The age of the patient is often key to Cause of Death – but is not to be used as a cause itself.
“Common problems in death certification
The elderly decedent should have a clear and distinct etiological sequence for cause of death, if possible. Terms such as senescence, infirmity, old age, and advanced age have little value for public health or medical research. Age is recorded elsewhere on the certificate. When a number of conditions resulted in death, the physician should choose the single sequence that, in his or her opinion, best describes the process leading to death, and place any other pertinent conditions in Part II.” [ source: CDC my bolds – kh ]
And then this:
“For statistical and research purposes, it is important that the causes of death and, in particular, the underlying cause of death, be reported as specifically and as precisely as possible. Careful reporting results in statistics for both underlying and multiple causes of death (i.e., all conditions mentioned on a death certificate) reflecting the best medical opinion.
Every cause-of-death statement is coded and tabulated in the statistical offices according to the latest revision of the International Classification of Diseases. “
Source CDC Medical Examiners’ and Coroners’ Handbook on Death Registration (.pdf) – my bold — kh
There are over 69,000 ICD-10 diagnostic codes. Someone goes through every death certificate filed and translates the diseases and conditions the doctors, coroners and medical examiners enter in Parts I and II into ICD-10 codes (soon to be ICD-11 codes). There are so many codes that there are many online look-up tools and apps to help medical staff code up office visits and others to code up Cause of Death certificates. The first Death Certificate above might be coded: “ E08.01 Diabetes mellitus due to underlying condition with hyperosmolarity with coma” – which would cover Part I lines “c” and “b”. This diagnosis is billable. This app helpfully informs the staff if the ICD-10 code they select is “billable” – if not billable, we can safely suspect that office assistants coding office visits can search for a true but alternate diagnostic code that is billable. “All conditions mentioned on a death certificate” are translated to ICD-10 codes and eventually tabulated “for statistical and research purposes.” In our two sample Death Certificates, there are ten different diseases and conditions mentioned. Thus each of the ten condition codes eventually, at the CDC and WHO level, gets a little “tick-mark” – a plus one – added to the number of deaths involving that ICD-10 code.
Thus the huge number of deaths reported for which smoking is claimed to be the cause, as we see in this next quote from the CDC:
“Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death.Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths per year. If the pattern of smoking all over the globe doesn’t change, more than 8 million people a year will die from diseases related to tobacco use by 2030.
Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.”
[ source: CDC here ]
Most people simply accept those statements as fact, though they know of no one who put a cigarette in their mouth, lit up, and died as a direct result. Through many years of public health anti-smoking/anti-tobacco education we have been taught that smoking or otherwise using tobacco can lead to a long list of health problems, many of which cause or contribute to the eventual death of the smoker. In this case, a life-time of tobacco use is referred to, by public health officials, as a “cause” of death – though it probably would not be listed as a cause on a death certificate. Despite not being listed as a cause on the Death Certificate, the CDC and WHO unequivocally tells us that smoking is “the leading cause of preventable death”.
As in many complicated subjects, there are varying definitions in use for the same terms – in this case “cause of death”. There is the general everyday use – like “something that directly causes the death of a person, if it hadn’t happened, they wouldn’t have died”. So, a person gets lung cancer, probably or presumably because they had been a life-long smoker, and dies from the lung cancer. We know they died of lung cancer but accept that smoking led to that death. It is this definition that the WHO uses above. But it is not the official definition that is to be used on a Death Certificate as Cause of Death, which is in the quote far above, labelled Part I.
Those readers who watch any of the popular crime and police television series know that Cause of Death in trauma deaths is even more complicated — “homicide, accident or suicide?” — though those TV Medical Examiners are always portrayed as having almost paranormal insight – “blunt trauma to the head…but that’s not what killed him.”
One last quote from the handbook for medical examiners:
“Precision of knowledge required to complete death certificate items
The cause-of-death section in the medical examiner’s or coroner’s certification is always a medical opinion. This opinion is, of course, a synthesis of all information derived from both the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death …. It represents the best effort of the medical examiner or coroner to reduce to a few words his or her entire synthesis of the cause of death.”
[ emphasis in the original – kh ]
Bottom Line: Cause of Death determination and reporting is complicated and highly dependent on the training and opinion of the person making the report.
# # # # #
Reporting of Covid-19 Deaths
Here’s the pivot point on Covid-19 Deaths:
This is from the CDC’s weekly Covid report. See the Column 2 heading? It says “All Deaths Involving Covid-19 (U07.1)1”. The keyword is INVOLVING. To be perfectly clear, what is being reported by the CDC, as collected by the National Center for Health Statistics, are All (every one) Deaths (people dying) that Involved Covid-19. See the little footnote indicator “1”?
Footnote 1 says: “COVID-19 deaths are identified using a new ICD–10 code. When COVID-19 is reported as a cause of death – or when it is listed as a “probable” or “presumed” cause — the death is coded as U07.1. This can include cases with or without laboratory confirmation.”
Not just verified cases in which Covid-19 was the immediate cause of death. At least, to be even clearer, not necessarily what you, the average reader, would consider THE cause of death.
So, what exactly are they counting when the CDC and WHO report Covid-10 Deaths? The World Health Organization’s official guidelines are:
2. DEFINITION FOR DEATHS DUE TO COVID-19
A death due to COVID-19 is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to COVID disease (e.g. trauma). ….
A- RECORDING COVID-19 ON THE MEDICAL CERTIFICATE OF CAUSE OF DEATH
COVID-19 should be recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death for ALL decedents where the disease caused, or is assumed to have caused, or contributed to death.
[ my emphasis – kh source: WHO here .pdf ]
Note that the Death Certificate — Cause of Death Part II is “Other significant conditions contributing to…”. So, there is where Covid-19 (ICD code U07.1) would be written for any death in which Covid wasn’t “caused, or is assumed to have caused” but only contributed to the death. If the decedent was a “Covid case” then he/she becomes a “Covid Death” if they die. Read on . . .
For the general public, who want to know “How many people are being killed by the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?”, this definition does not supply the answer to their question. The vagueness and breadth of these definitions is exacerbated, in this “possibly-too-broad” sense, by the definitions being used to define “What is a Covid-19 case?” We see that the WHO definition of a Covid death includes “a probable or confirmedCOVID-19 case”.
So, how do WHO and the CDC define or advise doctors how to define/determine a Covid-19 case?
Clinical Criteria
At least two of the following symptoms: fever (measured or subjective), chills, rigors, myalgia, headache, sore throat, new olfactory and taste disorder(s)
OR
At least one of the following symptoms: cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing
OR
Severe respiratory illness with at least one of the following:
Clinical or radiographic evidence of pneumonia, OR
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
AND
No alternative more likely diagnosis
[ source: CDC here ]
So, by this definition, I could at this very moment be declared to be a Covid-19 case. I have muscle pain (myalgia) and a headache — two symptoms – — and yesterday, I had a cough — and, if I have reported to the ER and doctors are both rushed and spooked by the pandemic, there might be “no alternative more likely diagnosis”, in their minds at least. (Of course, I have these symptoms for reasons well known to me and my personal physician but this might not save me in the ER.) Especially if they also ask me a bunch of epidemiological questions:
“Epidemiologic Linkage
One or more of the following exposures in the 14 days before onset of symptoms:
Close contact** with a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19 disease;
OR
Close contact** with a person with:
clinically compatible illness
AND
linkage to a confirmed case of COVID-19 disease.
Travel to or residence in an area with sustained, ongoing community transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
Member of a risk cohort as defined by public health authorities during an outbreak.
**Close contact is defined as being within 6 feet for at least a period of 10 minutes to 30 minutes or more depending upon the exposure. In healthcare settings, this may be defined as exposures of greater than a few minutes or more. Data are insufficient to precisely define the duration of exposure that constitutes prolonged exposure and thus a close contact.”
[ source: see previous quote ]
So, if I were in the Emergency Room, the ER doctor might ask me these questions: Do you know anyone who isn’t feeling well? Have you been in close contact with them for more than 10 minutes? Have you attended any meeting with more than 10 people in the last 14 days? Have you been to church or a party? Have you visited a restaurant or a bar? Any YES epidemiologically qualifies me as a Covid case. More questions: Do you wear a face mask whenever you are out of your own home? in your car? in WalMart? at the park? while mountain biking? Any NO qualifies me as a Covid case epidemiologically.
You can see how easy it is to be classified as a Covid-19 case. And they haven’t even tested me yet. (Read the link to see why even testing wouldn’t save me.) They would report me as a Covid case even if I tested negative – I might not be positive “yet”.
And while I describe my pending Covid-19 Case classification jokingly, it is a very real scenario. And, heaven forbid, were I to die of almost anything (except obvious trauma) in the next 14 days, I would become another Covid-19 Death statistic.
As most of us know by now, advanced age is a key factor in the vast majority of Covid-19 deaths:
Eighty percent (80%) of Covid-19 deaths are of those 65 years of age of or older – and a full one-third of the deaths occur in those over 85 years. If you are an adult today, then you were born between 1925 and 2000. At your birth, you could expect to live (life expectancy at birth) between 58 to 72 years, depending on your birth year. Those who are dying at 85 or older had a life expectancy at birth of less than 61 years. [My life expectancy at birth was about 66 years – so I have beaten the odds and hope to continue to do so for many years more.]
If this does not seem significant to you, I’ll repeat the CDC quote on reporting cause of death for the elderly – those 65 year of age or older.
“Common problems in death certification: The elderly decedent should have a clear and distinct etiological sequence for cause of death, if possible. Terms such as senescence, infirmity, old age, and advanced age have little value for public health or medical research. Age is recorded elsewhere on the certificate. When a number of conditions resulted in death, the physician should choose the single sequence that, in his or her opinion, best describes the process leading to death, and place any other pertinent conditions in Part II.” [ source: CDC my bolds – kh ]
For the elderly, the aged, the older citizen, which comprise the majority (80%) of Covid-19 deaths, any illness or condition that leads to breathing problems is prone to being classified as a Covid case, and thus a Covid-19 death in “a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case”.
Bottom Lines:
- It is complicated.
- Make no mistake, there are lots of people dying deaths that involve confirmed, assumed, or suspected Covid-19.
- Somewhere between “Most” and “Almost All” of those deaths involved other conditions that were already killing the patients – sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly.
- The official health organizations have their own reasons for what they are counting and they are counting exactly what they say they are counting – but it is not what you or I would expect them to count. They are counting, as the CDC does, “All Deaths Involving Covid-19”.
- The Covid-19 Death statistics represent the counts of the WHO, the CDC and other National and State public health agencies. The general public often mistakenly thinks those counts mean deaths in which Covid-19 was the immediate cause of death – deaths in which the person was killed by Covid-19. That is not the case – it is far more complicated than that.
- The common citizen would have grave doubts about including each and every one of those dead people in the count of “Deaths Caused by Covid-19” if they were tasked with the job of reviewing all of the details of each death. Our citizen might make up our own sensible classifications: such as: ”Old Age complicated by Pneumonia initiated by a viral respiratory infection: maybe Covid-19 or influenza or the common cold”.
- Doctors (and here), Coroners and Medical Examiners are not immune to taking easy shortcuts. The official definitions for Covid-19 cases (in the essay) make it an easy choice for hurried doctors, and official guidance requires at least Covid-19’s mention on Death Certificates, under a vast array of normal circumstances during this pandemic. This is exacerbated by RT-PCR tests returning “positive” test results for very small amounts of viral RNA fragments in asymptomatic people.
# # # # #
Addendum:
There has erupted a flap concerning Genevieve Briand’s research at John Hopkins on U.S. Covid-19 Deaths: I supply these links on the controversy:
Covid-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data
pdf file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iO0K75EZAF8dkNDkDmM3L4zNNY0X-Xw5/view
William Briggs: https://wmbriggs.com/post/33680/
Twitter Thread on the Paper: https://mobile.twitter.com/jhunewsletter/status/1332100136152035330
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKJN61aflI
John Hopkins News-Letter retraction notice: https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19
Author’s Comment:
I have mentioned previously that I come from a medical family and studied the prerequisites for medical school in university, before changing majors for personal reasons. Our home was filled with the joys of new life and the sorrow of babies’ and children’s deaths. My generation fought and died by the thousands in the misguided military intervention in Viet Nam – some of these were my cousins and high school and college friends.
We are all sad when lives are cut short.
Covid-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is shortening the lives of thousands in the United States and around the world. One blessing is that it is mostly shortening the lives of those who have already had a life – as opposed to stealing the entire lives of our children and young people.
Public health organizations have valid reasons for counting “All Deaths Involving Covid-19” using their own internal definitions, which are suitable for epidemiological studies and research when combined with all the other information being collected to produce that statistic. That statistic, created with their surveillance and epidemiological definitions, is not suitable for release to the general public without a long and complicated explanation – releasing just the number, and labeling it as Covid-19 Deaths is a form of misinformation.
The media, politicians, health agencies and governments have utterly failed to effectively communicate the reality of Covid deaths, failed to illuminate the caveats and complexities of Cause of Death reporting and instead of have repeatedly just reported this “Big Number” in a usage that is seems to be intentionally misleading.
UN Dubs Self ‘Trusted’ Pandemic News Source, Teams Up With World Economic Forum To Encourage ‘New Social Norms’
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 11/28/2020
The United Nations has ‘launched a counter-attack’ against coronavirus misinformation – by teaming up with the World Economic Forum to battle coronavirus misinformation and other ‘potentially dubious content.’
“When COVID-19 emerged, it was clear from the outset this was not just a public health emergency, but a communications crisis as well,” says Melissa Flemming, the UN’s head of global communications.
During the #COVID19 pandemic, the wrong information can be deadly.
Join me in taking the #PledgetoPause before sharing and help stop the spread of misinformation online. https://t.co/Rj0dg5OiZb pic.twitter.com/xeX8hoisXv
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 20, 2020
“We’re trying to create this new social norm called ‘pause – take care before you share’ – she continued, adding “We’re equipping people, through this new social norm, with a bit of ‘information scepticism’.”
The new initiative also seeks to rope social media influencers into spreading ‘real news’ about the pandemic – which we assume means nothing to do with hydroxychloroquine, incredibly low fatality rates for most people below retirement age, or anyone even slightly opposed to business-killing lockdowns.
One also has to wonder how the UN and WEF would cover egregious flip-flops from global health authorities on everything from transmissibility to mask use.
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
Regardless, the UN’s campaign is steadfast in their self-determined authority as arbiters of all things COVID.
“So far, we’ve recruited 110,000 information volunteers, and we equip these information volunteers with the kind of knowledge about how misinformation spreads and ask them to serve as kind of ‘digital first-responders‘ in those spaces where misinformation travels,” said Flemming.
Gangsters Without A Code
Eric Striker – National Justice – November 28, 2020
A respected physics professor who taught at Imam Hussein University of Tehran was ambushed by gangsters sent by Washington and Israel.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is now the sixth Iranian scientist murdered by Jewish state actors. Fakhrizadeh was put on a hit list in 2018 when during a powerpoint presentation Benjamin Netanyahu accused him of being a leading expert in Iran’s nuclear program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly stated that there is about as much evidence for an Iranian nuclear weapons program as there was for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction or Basher Assad’s gas attack. This has not stopped Jews around the world, including Netanyahu himself, from insisting otherwise.
Trump, in his usual candid form, revealed the real agenda behind the assassination by retweeting a loose-lipped Jewish journalist named Yossi Melman. According to the bragging Melman, Fakhrizadeh’s shooting is meant to be “a major psychological and professional blow for Iran.” In other words, the goal is to inflict fear; to send a message. The textbook definition of terrorism.
Men like Fakhrizadeh have been a vital resource as the country endures its “maximum sanctions” campaign. Fakhirzadeh’s research center has been busy dealing with the crippling blockade by developing effective homegrown treatments for COVID, while his defense work focused on upgrading legal anti-aircraft weapons through his knowledge of laser systems.
To call Trump, his Jews and the Israelis “gangsters” is a disservice to real mobsters. Unlike Steve Mnuchin, Al Capone had an honor code that prohibited torturing little kids with cancer to death.
But under the US Treasury Department’s “maximum sanctions” program, international medical companies risk American reprisals if they sell to Iran. The end result is a manufactured humanitarian crisis where children in need of cancer treatments are dying “in droves.”
The goal of this cruelty is, to reiterate Melman, to deal a psychological blow. The Iranians don’t have nuclear weapons, their crime is effectively resisting Israeli aggression in their region.
The Iranians are reacting to these provocations with incredible patience. State officials have remarked that they know Trump is trying to bait them into a war, possibly to win Jewish support for a second term, avoid prosecution once out of office or permanently destroy diplomatic channels between Iran and the US. The Persians are hoping, that a Biden administration, which will also be full of Zionists, will be more fair to them. Perhaps the bridges Trump burns will only provide a convenient cover for incoming Democrats to continue the siege indefinitely.
It doesn’t end there. Jared Kushner and Trump have done the equivalent of going back in time and giving Genghis Khan modern fighter jets by selling $100 billion dollars in high tech weapons for the Saudi barbarians to utilize against neighbors in Yemen.
Even with US support and an overwhelming technological advantage, the willful Houthis have fought the Saudis to a stalemate. In response, the US-Saudi alliance is engineering a man-made famine against the civilians in Yemen that is already being compared to the starvation in 1980s Africa.
When the US Senate passed bipartisan legislation to end American support for this atrocity, Trump used his microscopic amount of political capital to veto it. The Trump-obsessed Jewish media did not seem as upset about this abuse of executive authority as they are about his meaningless tweets. In fact, Trump’s most fanatical media critics “hailed” the president’s all-in support for Saudi brutality because of the terms he set: you only get our support if you restore ties to Israel.
The murder of Fakhrizadeh should be seen as a national embarrassment for our country. As the “liberal order” begins to sink, the Zionists are relying ever more on dirty tricks.
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From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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