We in America are neck-deep in a domestic political war to the finish. During the notable “kitchen debate” in Moscow in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev asserted that Richard Nixon’s grandchildren would live under communism, while Nixon argued that Khrushchev’s grandchildren would live in freedom. Both were correct, if not as either intended.
Americans generally applauded the implosion of the USSR and the collapse of communist regimes across Europe. Russia and some others today may not be ideal democracies, but they are a far sight better than 60-odd years ago – and in Russia’s case, more vibrant and more challenging as well.
Ironically, while external pressure and internal failings were bringing Lenin’s dream to ruins there, America and most of the West were rotting from within – victims of their own success in the Cold War and their misguided faith in the robustness of their own systems of government. The past year has brought that into stark relief.
The Democrats and their allies understand this clearly. They hold the upper hand in the Federal government, the media, academe and the streets. They did their best to make the country ungovernable during the Trump years. They needlessly locked down cities and states during the pandemic scare, all but ruining a robust economy. They sat back and watched their Antifa and BLM thugs riot, loot, burn, commit mayhem and even murder in hundreds of cities for months in 2020 in the walk-up to the election.
Then Democrats openly engaged in widespread election fraud to capture that election, aided and abetted by a compliant media and a refusal of the courts to hold them accountable. Now Democrats hold the White House and the Congress, and have begun their purge of Republican “threats” plus the implementation of a legislative agenda to codify their practices and position. They will make a shambles of governing here as their ilk have done everywhere else, but they have no intention of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on their march to power.
Most Republicans and almost all independents do not really understand this situation. They fail to understand that the Democrats today are not the Democrats of the days of Harry Truman and John Kennedy. If they did understand, they might have armed themselves and risen when Trump foolishly allowed Antifa-BLM rioters to rip the country apart for months on end, virtually unimpeded and often applauded by mostly Democrat mayors and governors, and most of the media.
But they did not. They are deluded by a toxic combination of disbelief and denial – disbelief that it can really be so bad, and denial that the Democrats and their even more radical allies really mean what they say. They foolishly appear to believe that this is simply an unusually brutal phase in our political life – worse than the 1960s but better than the eve of the Civil War – and that they can make some real gains in the 2022 mid-term elections, and regain power in 2024.
They are wrong. “Politics as usual” in America is dead. If the Democrats get their way, there may be some competitive elections in 2022 but not enough to matter, and before 2024 it will be a done deal – the U.S. for all intents and purposes will be a one-party state with, perhaps, some tame Republicans allowed to hold a few seats in Congress for the sake of appearances. It has happened before elsewhere. It can – and most likely will – happen in America now. Here there be monsters, indeed – and we bred them ourselves.
A decade of war on Syria and its long-suffering people isn’t enough for US hardliners.
Perhaps they intend forever war they’re losing but won’t end.
Former French diplomat Michele Rimbaud slammed a decade of US-led war on Syria, using terrorists as proxy fighters, along with waging economic war on its people — aiming to suffocate them into submission.
Like Afghan and Yemeni civilians, Syrians suffered more greatly than what their counterparts endured in two world wars — with no end of their ordeal in prospect.
“Should we wait 30 years in order to discover the outcome of the war in Syria, whether it is a military or economic war,” Rimbaud asked?
“When time comes for settling accounts and justice, it will be appropriate to remind the governments that have participated until today in this aggression of the seriousness of their criminal project, and we in the first place will condemn the three Western member states at the Security Council (the US, UK and France) who demand the implementation of the international law and claim to be its guardians, while they are the first to violate it.”
“The political or military officials, the intellectuals and media outlets who decided, organized, supported, or justified the crime of the international aggression against Syria and other countries must know that they will remain responsible for this crime regardless of what they did or didn’t do, and they must be held accountable.”
Where has the UN been for the last decade on Syria, for the last two decades on endless US war in Afghanistan and Yemen, for aggression against Libya in 2011 — for wars by other means against nations free from its control?
The world body consistently fails to denounce US wars of aggression, time and again blaming victimized nations for high crimes committed against them.
With rare exceptions, UN secretaries general serve US-led Western interests, supporting aggression by failing to denounce it, disgracing the office they hold, breaching UN Charter principles.
Since installed as UN secretary general by Washington in January 2017, Antonio Guterres was silent about US-led aggression in Syria and elsewhere — supporting the imperial state instead of denouncing its criminality and demanding accountability.
In mid-March, the UN noted the “grim 10-year anniversary of” war in Syria.
Its special envoy Geir Pedersen said the following without laying blame where it belongs, as follows:
“I want to commemorate Syrian victims and remember Syrian suffering and resilience in the face of unimaginable violence and indignities that (they) have faced over ten long years, including unspeakable horrors of chemical weapons.”
“Syrians had been injured, maimed and killed in every way imaginable – their corpses even desecrated.”
They’ve been “denied humanitarian assistance, sometimes under sieges in which perpetrators deliberately starved the population.”
They’ve “faced human rights violations on an enormous and systematic scale.”
“Those responsible for actions that may amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes enjoy near-total impunity, which not only undermines a peace agreement but perpetuates the living nightmare that has been life in Syria.”
The US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners bear full responsibility for the highest of high crimes against Syria and its people.
Yet in his above remarks and more of the same, Pedersen was silent about US-led aggression.
What Obama/Biden launched in March 2011, Trump continued, Biden/Harris going the same way — with no resolution in prospect because US dark forces reject it.
On Wednesday, Russia reported that US-supported jihadists launched 25 terrorist attacks in the past 24 hours, much the same going on daily against Syrian forces seeking to liberate the country and civilians caught in harm’s way.
When CW incidents occur, Damascus is always blamed for what it had nothing to do with — high crimes committed by US-supported jihadists.
While most Syrian territory was liberated by its armed forces — greatly aided by Russian airpower — US-supported terrorists control most of Idlib province.
They’re active elsewhere in the country — heavily armed with US, Western, and Israeli weapons.
Pentagon forces illegally occupy northern and southern parts of Syria with no intention of leaving.
Turkish forces illegally occupy northern Syrian territory. Allied with jihadist fighters, they’re at war with Damascus like the US, NATO and Israel.
The Pentagon and CIA continue to deploy ISIS jihadists to parts of Syria where they attack government forces and civilians.
Russian airpower is key — the difference between US dark forces gaining control over Syria or handing them an embarrassing defeat.
On Wednesday, Southfront reported the following:
In response to Russian airstrikes on Turkish-supported jihadists and sites they control in northern Syria, Ankara “summoned Russian ambassador Alexei Yerkhov to express its concerns…”
Ignoring its repeated breaches of the deescalation agreement reached with Moscow, Turkey falsely accused Russia of violations.
“At the same time, Ankara has no concerns regarding funding and supporting Al-Qaeda-styled groups in the region to promote its own interests,” Southfront reported.
The Erdogan regime is also concerned about Russian airstrikes disrupting its smuggling of stolen Syrian oil and gas.
Separately on Tuesday, rockets struck an illegal US base near a Conico oil field in Deir Ezzor, Syria.
Reportedly, US forces guarding and facilitating the theft of Syrian oil suffered casualties.
Southfront reported on what it called impunity in Syria being punished, saying:
“Turkish-backed militants in Greater Idlib, and in northeastern Syria in general are being given no quarter” by Russian airstrikes.”
The headquarters of Turkish-backed al-Sham Corps terrorists was struck.
So was Saramada in northern Syria near Turkey’s border. A factory operated by Hayat Tahir al-Sham terrorists was targeted.
So were other terrorist targets, elements backed by Turkey’s Erdogan in defiance of the deescalation zone agreement with Moscow.
Southfront called the latest Russian operation “one of the most severe since the ceasefire agreement was implemented.”
“It is likely an attempt to deter the Turkish-backed factions, as well as HTS from carrying out any more expansive operations.”
Despite Syrian army advances and the latest Russian aerial operations, Erdogan is highly unlikely to cease his cross-border aggression.
The same goes for Biden regime hardliners. US aggression continues with no signs of cessation.
We’ve all heard of flash mobs, but can they be used for more than just organizing pillow fights in Times Square? Join James for this week’s edition of #SolutionsWatch as he explores how freedom fighters are using flash mobs to carve out a space for normal human interaction in these increasingly insane times.
We all want to continue to dance again
Experience our thoughts interconnect with our bodies
Spend our lives attached to a grid of agreements/rules
OH NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO
We all want to continue to dance again
Experience our thoughts interconnect with our bodies
(Not) spend our lives attached to a grid of agreements/rules
We are all birds of a passage
Never docile and never obedient
We do not pledge allegiance
At dawn, no matter the circumstance
We come to break the silence
And when in the evenings on TV
Monsieur the “good king” has spoken
To announce our sentence
We do not show irreverence/disrespect
We always maintain dignity
REFRAIN
REFRAIN
Car, metro, work, consumption
Self-written certificates and instructions
These imposed absurdities
And woe to him who thinks
And woe to she who dances
Each and every authoritarian measure
Each and every new security measure
Sends our confidence flying
They display so much insistence
To confine our conscience
REFRAIN
Let’s not let ourselves be influenced
By all these unreasonable people
Selling fear mongering to the extreme
Causing distress to the point of indecency
Let’s ensure we keep our distance from them
For our good mental health,
And social and environmental well-being
Our smiles, our intelligence
Let’s maintain our resistance
Against the instrument of their insanity!
As legacy media again bleat the unsubstantiated “Syria is bombing hospitals” chorus of its war propaganda songbook, let’s pause to review the relatively unknown (but verifiable) reality of terrorists bombing hospitals in Syria.
Following recent allegations of a hospital being targeted Al Atarib, western Aleppo, the US State Department repeated the claim, in spite of any clear evidence to back it up.
Instead, reports rely on highly questionable sources like the White Helmets, the USAID-funded Syrian American Medical Society and the usual unnamed “witnesses” and (clearly impartial!) “rebel sources,” as per a Reuters’ report on the recent claims.
In fact, Reuters even acknowledges being unable to verify the authenticity of videos purporting to show “a ward damaged and civil defence rescuers carrying bloodstained patients outside.”
Let’s recall that Idlib is occupied by Al-Qaeda in Syria – a fact emphasized (as I wrote) by the US’ own former special envoy, Brett McGurk, who deemed the northwestern Syrian province the “largest Al-Qaeda safe-haven since 9/11.”
The presence of Al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups makes it impossible for independent, neutral bodies to assess what is going on.
Facts matter, they say. But really, not so much when it comes to war propaganda.
In Sarmada, Idlib countryside, one of the targets was a Tahrir al-Sham (Al-Qaeda in Syria) fuel market, the smuggled fuel tankers obliterated.
A White Helmets video supposedly filmed in Al-Atarib alleges a hospital was bombed there. It indeed shows what looks like a medical facility covered in dust, and a lot of bulky men of fighting age. Glaringly absent are women or normal looking civilians.
Given the White Helmets’ penchant for working only in areas controlled by terrorist factions, working with them and even numbering among them, dabbling in organ trade, and having lied many times in the past, the video proves nothing.
There is, on the other hand, a precedent for “hospitals” or medical centres being weaponized by terrorists. And not just once or twice, but repeatedly in terrorist-occupied areas throughout Syria.
The Eye and Childrens’ Hospitals, a large complex in eastern Aleppo, was militarized and occupied by terrorists including the Tawhid Brigade, Al-Qaeda and even IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS). Prisoners were held, and tortured, in nightmarish prisons and solitary confinement cells deep below.
As journalist Vanessa Beeley noted, in eastern Ghouta, medical centres, “provided treatment almost exclusively to extremist armed factions.” They were also built underground, “linked by a vast maze of tunnels that snaked below most of the districts controlled by the armed groups, providing cover for the fighters during SAA [Syrian Arab Army] military campaigns.” (An aside, see one of these massive tunnels in Douma, at the location of the underground “hospital.”)
In Idlib, a “hospital” that the New York Times claimed Russian warplanes bombed in May 2019 was a cave used as a terrorist headquarters. Another fortified cave in Khan Sheikhoun was well-stocked with weapons, medical supplies and gas masks, and a prison with solitary confinement cells.
In areas liberated from terrorists, the Syrian Army routinely finds such caves, with tunnels connecting terrorist bases so they can avoid moving above ground.
In the past, Russia has provided satellite imagery when the question of a building allegedly being bombed arose. Until we have conclusive evidence either way, it is a question of he said, she said, although common sense (and the history of such lies) points to more media fabrications.
Hospitals bombed, media yawns
Since the media and pundits clearly care so much about Syrian hospitals being bombed, and even destroyed, it’s worth reviewing some of the major hospitals damaged or destroyed by terrorist factions.
However, unsurprisingly, not a lot of information is available. The following is a partial list, with me filling in details from attacked hospitals that I have gone to.
The September 2012 Free Syrian Army (FSA) bombing of and complete destruction of Al-Watani Hospital in Qusayr, Homs province.
The September 2012 FSA bombing and complete destruction of two hospitals in Aleppo.
The December 2013 FSA & Al-Qaeda bombing and complete destruction of Aleppo’s Al-Kindi hospital, one of the largest and best cancer hospitals in the Middle East.
The April 2015 FSA bombing and siege of the National Hospital in Jisr al-Shughour, Idlib.
The May 2016 IS horrific multiple suicide bombings in Jableh (and also in Tartous the same day), including inside Jableh’s National Hospital.
The May 2016 attack outside Aleppo’s Dabeet maternity hospital, a missile hit a car parked outside, which then exploded, killing three women at the hospital and injuring many more.
I went to Aleppo in July 2016 and spoke with the director, who confirmed his hospital was gutted in the blast, and noted that a week later terrorists’ mortars hit the roof of the hospital, destroying the roof and injuring construction workers.
In May 2018, before Daraa was fully liberated, I went to areas which were under fire from terrorists (including the day I went), and took a perilous high speed ride in the taxi I had hired in Damascus to the state hospital, down a road exposed to terrorist sniping from less than 100 metres away.
The hospital was battered and partially destroyed from terrorists’ mortars, and mostly empty of patients. The director showed me destroyed wards (dialysis and laboratory), and off-limits areas due to high risk of sniping (gynecology, operations, blood bank, nursing school, children’s hospital).
When I returned to Daraa in September, after the region was liberated, the hospital was full of patients, since it was finally possible to access without risk.
Behind the hospital, roughly 50 metres away, I saw a building which I was told had been occupied by terrorists. Hence the extreme risk of being sniped while inside the hospital.
I never saw any Western outlet speak of this hospital, although it serviced civilians and was quite visibly partially destroyed.
In November 2016, I met Dr. Ibrahim Hadid, former Director of Kindi Hospital, who said that he wanted medical colleagues and institutions to exert some of the concern they have for “hospitals” allegedly bombed in terrorist areas.
They, and Western corporate media, have done the opposite, of course.
Another chemical song and dance routine?
Meanwhile, Russia is warning of a possible new staged chemical provocation by Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib.
The Russian Center for Reconciliation says, “militants are plotting to stage a fake chemical attack near the settlement of Qitian,” to again accuse the Syrian government of using chemicals on the people.
As anyone following the war on Syria knows, although the West desperately wants to prove Syria committed one or more chemical attacks, it has failed, to the point where even OPCW experts spoke out, contradicting the claims.
As I wrote last week, in spite of incessantly lying about Syria for ten years, Western (and Gulf) media, pundits and politicians steam ahead with more lies – recycled accusations and war propaganda.
So, it is likely the “hospitals bombed” theme will surge anew, and then the “chemical attacks” theme. And then maybe we’ll have another new Bana al-Abed to ask Biden to bomb Syria or “holocaust” Idlib…
The irony is of course, as I feel the need to make clear nearly every time I write, those script-readers claiming that Syria (and Russia) are bombing hospitals, or using chemicals, or whatever lie is next recycled, don’t actually care about the lives of Syrians.
If they did, they would stop whitewashing terrorism in Syria, aid the country and its allies in liberating Idlib and the Aleppo countryside, stop pillaging its oil, leave Syria, and lift the sanctions.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
In a Washington Post opinion piece, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spelled out their objectives in visiting Japan, South Korea, and India. “The United States is now making a big push to revitalize our ties with friends and partners,” they wrote. The nature of those relationships, as perceived by Washington, is the subordination of Asian nations as junior partners in an anti-China coalition. “Our alliances are what our military calls ‘force multipliers,’ Blinken and Austin explain. “Our combined power makes us stronger when we must push back against China’s aggression and threats.” [1]
That approach found a receptive audience in meetings with Japanese officials, who recognize it as offering a path to remilitarization. Results in South Korea were more ambiguous. By a substantial margin, China is South Korea’s primary trading partner, and relations between the two nations are generally solid. South Korea has no rational reason to join Washington’s fanatical anti-China campaign, no matter how much pressure the United States applies. A difference of opinion between Washington’s envoys and South Korean officials can be inferred by comparing the joint U.S.-Japan statement with South Korea’s, as only the latter lacked China-bashing verbiage.
Blinken and Austin appear to have been more successful in reminding South Korean officials that no independent action should be taken to improve inter-Korean relations and in making it understood that Washington calls the shots. The two sides agreed to establish a “working-level diplomatic dialogue” process to align policy regarding North Korea and other matters. [2]In their joint statement, Korean and American officials affirmed that their two nations “are closely coordinating on all issues related to the Korean Peninsula” and that “these issues should be addressed through a fully-coordinated strategy toward North Korea.” [3]
Not that Blinken and Austin found their position on North Korea a hard sell. Although peace and improved inter-Korean relations matter deeply to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, he attaches more importance to the military alliance with the United States. In an article published at the end of 2019, Moon argued, “No matter how desperately peace is desired, Korea cannot afford to race ahead on its own. It has counterparts and must move within the international order.” Support from the “international community” is needed, Moon claims, while using the standard term signifying the several thousand people at the top rungs of power in the United States and excluding the nearly eight billion people in the rest of the world’s population. [4] Moon’s statement is consistent with other comments he has made, such as in his New Year’s address, where he stated, “If we can draw support from the international community in the process,” then the door to peace will “open wide.” [5] No role there for South Korea, other than as supplicant.
Joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises were well underway during Bliken’s and Austin’s time in Seoul. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, war games were conducted via computer simulation. Concurrently, the U.S. deployed F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to participate in joint exercises with the Japanese military. [6] According to a South Korean military official, “The deployment is significant as an alert to North Korea as well as deterrence to China, given F-22s’ operational radius and performance.” [7]
None of this went unnoticed in Pyongyang. Kim Yo Jong, Vice Department Director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, dismissed South Korean claims that the military exercises are defensive. While no details of the drilled scenarios have been publicly released, past war games customarily practiced the bombing and invasion of North Korea as well as sending commando teams into the north to assassinate government officials. There is no reason to suppose that the latest exercises pose a unique exception. Kim called the “launching of a war game against” her nation “a serious challenge” and pointed out that the “essence and nature of the drills” never changes, regardless of what form they take. [8]
It was not the first time that Pyongyang has expressed frustration over the discrepancy between Moon’s rhetoric on inter-Korean relations and his actions. Similar complaints were raised last June. By hitching its wagon to the U.S. military, the Moon administration is seriously straining ties with the north. “War drill and hostility can never go with dialogue and cooperation,” Kim stated. If South Korean authorities “persist in hostile acts” that deny dialogue and “destroy the foundation of trust through ceaseless war games,” then Pyongyang may abrogate some of the inter-Korean agreements it had signed. [9]
Some aspects of the Panmunjom Declaration, signed on April 27, 2018 by Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un, are already a dead letter. Certainly, the affirmation of “the principle of determining the destiny of the Korean nation on their own accord” has never been put into practice, as the Moon administration is unwilling to act without U.S. permission. Nor have any “practical steps” been adopted to connect and modernize rail and road connections or steps been taken to “actively implement” inter-Korean economic agreements signed in 2004. [10] After all, Washington would not approve.
“Pyongyang is pressing Seoul not to talk nonsense in the upcoming meeting with Blinken and Austin,” observed Kim Il-gi, a senior researcher at South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy. “And the message goes to the U.S., as well.” [11] A message, one cannot help noting, that inevitably fell on deaf ears.
The United States, too, is hoping for a change in South Korea’s approach, albeit in a decidedly different direction than that sought by North Korea. A recent report by the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security is typical of the recommendations being churned out by Washington think tanks. “The Republic of Korea and the United States should broaden their military alliance into a national security alliance in order to more effectively deal with the challenges and opportunities of this new era,” it states. Predictably, the Center lists China as the top challenge and argues that the U.S.-South Korea alliance “must be prepared to continue to deter and dissuade” China from “considering any further aggression.” South Korea ought to “prioritize security cooperation” with Southeast Asian nations “on behalf of the alliance,” the Center argues. Furthermore, “as NATO goes global in its approach in response to the challenges posed by China…NATO’s partnership with the Republic of Korea will increase in importance.” [12]
The Scowcroft Center recognizes that reliance on Chinese trade presents a roadblock in persuading South Korea to join Washington’s anti-China campaign. What South Koreans may happen to want is not a question the Center ever troubles itself with, other than to bemoan that it is necessary to “avoid forcing the Republic of Korea to make explicit, public choices in disputes between the United States and China.”
But less overtly, South Korea can be slowly moved into that position. The Center expects South Korea to join U.S. “efforts to reform international rules and institutions,” a euphemism for American plans to cut China off from much of its international trade. Several measures are recommended that South Korea “should” adopt to align its economy with U.S. regional goals. In addition, to chip away at Chinese-Korean trade, “The Republic of Korea should join the US efforts to diversify its supply chains” and avoid “over-reliance on a single country.” [13] The essential task for South Korea, the Center insists, is that “much more must be done to reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains and protect key industries from” what it laughably calls “predatory Chinese practices.” Washington expects nations it regards as subordinates, such as South Korea, to act as pawns in maintaining American hegemony against challengers such as China.
Despite North Korea’s concerns, it appears that a resumption of full-scale military exercises on the Korean Peninsula may be on the horizon. Currently, the United States holds operational control (OPCON) over South Korean military forces in wartime. The Moon administration hopes to regain OPCON before the expiration of its term in office. Still, the key condition for doing so is completing full-scale live-action military drills to evaluate the concept. [14] According to a South Korean military source, Seoul wants to test Full Operational Capability (FOC) with a full-scale exercise in the second half of this year. [15] A successful assessment would leave only one official step, Full Mission Capability (FMC), to be completed before OPCON transfer could proceed.
Transfer of OPCON is long overdue, but predicating progress toward that decision on a resumption of live-action drills can be counted on to place a further strain on inter-Korean relations, which no doubt Washington regards as a bonus. Indeed, roiling inter-Korean waters may be the only result produced by full-scale military exercises. Robert Abrams, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) commander, maintains that it is not enough for Seoul to pass the three official assessment stages; it would have to meet an additional 26 requirements. [16] It is a formula perfectly calculated to compel South Korea to resume live military drills while imposing endless conditions that will continually postpone OPCON transfer so that it may never take place.
Currently, relations between South Korea and Japan are at a low point over the unresolved issue of Imperial Japan’s “comfort women” system of sexual slavery, as well as Japanese trade restrictions on South Korea. The rift in relations is problematic for Washington, as it wishes to assign both nations the key role among junior partners in confronting China. As a U.S. State Department fact sheet explains, in “working to strengthen America’s relationships with our allies…[n]o relationship is more important than that between Japan and the Republic of Korea.” [17] Moon promised Blinken he would continue to reach out and try to resolve disputes with Japan. [18] However, previous conciliatory messages sent from South Korea to Japan since the Yoshihide Suga administration’s inauguration have gone unanswered. [19]
The Biden administration is currently undertaking a review to determine details of its North Korea policy, and it has attempted to contact North Korean officials through various channels. The content of the messages is not publicly known, but the Biden administration has indicated in general an intention to add other demands along with that of denuclearization. Piling on demands is not a promising approach for initiating dialogue.
North Korea chose not to respond to the Biden administration’s attempts at contact. In a statement issued during Blinken’s and Austin’s stay in Seoul, North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son Hui explained that no communication or dialogue “of any kind can be possible unless the U.S. rolls back its hostile policy.” She took due note of the Biden administration’s harsh rhetoric and military activities aimed against North Korea. What North Korea is asking for is a change of tone, one that would be conducive for establishing dialogue “on an equal basis.” [20]
A more diplomatic attitude would seem not to be a tall order, but it is constitutionally foreign to the Washington establishment’s nature. It can be anticipated that President Moon may urge Biden to soften the administration’s public comments to encourage a resumption of dialogue. Whether anyone in Washington will be listening is another matter. When U.S. policymakers talk about South Korea and the United States needing to closely coordinate North Korea policy, what they have in mind is a one-way process in which the U.S. decides, and South Korea follows. On China, Seoul can expect to be subjected to mounting pressure to reduce trade, thereby providing Washington with more leverage in attempting to bully it into joining the belligerent U.S.-led anti-China alliance. The one certainty is that respect for South Korean sovereignty is not in the cards.
Notes.
[1] Antony J. Blinken and Lloyd J. Austin III, “America’s Partnerships Are ‘Force Multipliers’ in the World,” Washington Post, March 14, 2021.
[2] “S. Korea, U.S. to Launch New Working-level Policy Dialogue Aimed at Cementing Alliance,” Yonhap, March 18, 2021.
[3] “Full Text of Joint Statement of 2021 S. Korea-U.S. foreign and Defense Ministerial Meeting,” Yonhap, March 18, 2021.
[18] Lee4 Chi-dong, “Moon Vows Efforts to Improve Japan Ties in Talks with Biden Aides,” Yonhap, March 18, 2021.
[19] Sarah Kim, “U.S. Working as Middleman to Help Korea-Japan Relations,” JoongAng Ilbo, March 15, 2021.
[20] “Statement of First Vice Foreign Minister of DPRK,” KCNA, March 18, 2021.
Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org
The former British diplomat argued that the contempt of court charges against him undermine the right to free speech, are unduly broad in their scope, and are a form of politically motivated retaliation, following his outspoken criticism of the prosecution of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.
The High Court in Edinburgh has confirmed the conviction of former British diplomat-turned-whistleblower Craig Murray on one of the contempt of court charges filed against him by the Crown. The charge related to Murray’s alleged “jigsaw” identification of the identities of protected witnesses in the trial of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.
“The court has concluded that, having regard to the context in which the articles appeared, including the terms of the article of 18th January and the tweet referring thereto on the 19th of January, that the articles of 11th, 18th, 19th March, 3rd April and the tweet of 2nd April, must be considered to constitute contempt of court relating to material capable of identifying four different complainers. We therefore make a finding of contempt of court. The reasons will be issued in full, in due course. Those reasons have been shared in draft with Mr Scott and the Advocate Depute”, Lady Leeona J Dorrian said.
The hearing only lasted a few minutes and adjourned until 7 May, 10AM, so that the parties may file their respective submissions in relation to sentencing. Murray faces up to two years in prison and an unlimited fine.
John Scott QC, speaking for Murray, prepared the court for the kind of evidence that would be submitted in mitigation, for the purposes of what’s known as a Criminal Justice Social Work Report.
“[A]s a precautionary measure, despite not having seen, of course, the opinion of the court or being aware of the court’s conclusions, the Respondent [Murray] took down his blog page yesterday”, he told Lady Dorrian.
Scott noted that, “there has been a change in the Respondent’s family circumstances recently, in that his partner gave birth on the 18th of February to his son, Oscar”, adding that Murray, “is also keen to communicate his anxiety and stress over these proceedings, especially the uncertainty of outcome, and also the possibility of very serious penalty, which clearly still exists.”
Murray’s contempt of court trial was heard by a three judge panel at the High Court, but it was led by Lady Leeona J Dorrian, the second most senior Scottish judge who also presided over Salmond’s trial. Salmond faced a raft of sex assault allegations but was acquitted by a jury of all of the charges against him, and there is extensive evidence that his prosecution was in fact politically motivated, a position which Murray himself has taken.
All of the charges against Murray related to his writings via his own blog and social media (as well as replies and comments made by others to those posts) before and during Salmond’s trial. It was Murray’s reporting in connection to the Salmond case.
Murray was charged with three offences:
Publication of material that creates a “substantial risk” of prejudicing the jury in violation of the Contempt of Court Act 1981;
Reporting on the exclusion of two jurors in violation of a court order “preventing publication of the details of the issues raised by the Advocate Depute on 23 March 2020” as they related to the jurors’ removal; and
“Jigsaw identification” of alleged victims who testified against Salmond.
The allegation of jigsaw identification argued that Murray’s articles, individually or in conjunction with other articles and material that can be obtained via Google and social media, could indirectly result in a member of the public determining the identity of alleged victims in the Salmond case.
The Government argued in favour of a wide interpretation of jigsaw identification, meaning that a journalist might violate the law if a person with intimate knowledge of the case could piece together the identity of a protected witness. Murray’s lawyers argued that such an interpretation would be unfair and would violate the Article 10 rights of journalists and the public. Consideration should also be given that in complex cases, it “might [also] be possible for good faith errors to be made there”, Scott told the court during the trial. He added that if the court decides on a wider interpretation, court orders protecting the identity of participants in court cases would need to be written with greater specificity.
The court did not make a guilty finding with respect to the charges alleging prejudicing the jury and violating the court order on reporting on juror removal.
The Crown argued that two articles published by Murray, ten and six months before Alex Salmond’s trial even began, created a “substantial risk” of prejudicing the jury. The defence, for its part, noted that the prosecution could have brought the articles to the attention of the presiding judge in order to get her to issue an order that they be taken down, a position which the Advocate Depute admitted his office had considered and ultimately rejected. Murray was not found guilty on this charge.
The government also suggested that Murray was responsible for “improper moderation” of comments made underneath those two articles on his website. A position that was objected to by the defence as creating too much of a burden and legal obligation on their client for remarks made by others. There was no reference to this argument in Lady Dorrian’s brief statement, and as such, it appears that this charge was rejected.
During Murray’s trial, the prosecution accepted that the former diplomat did not actually violate the express wording of the court order regarding the exclusion of two jurors, because Murray merely offered his own theory as to why the jurors were excluded. But they nonetheless argued that his post on the matter violated the spirit of the order – an interpretation that the defence argued was too broad. This charge was also, ultimately, unsuccessful.
Murray temporarily suspended his blog on 24 March, in the expectation that he would be found guilty on at least one of the charges due to a hearing being scheduled for the judgment, rather than the verdict simply being handed down in written form. The notice on his website read:
“In view of our understanding that the High Court has found some articles on this blog to be in contempt of court, and in view of the fact that the Crown Office had sought to censor such a large range of articles, this blog has no choice but to go dark from 15.00 today until some time after tomorrow’s court hearing, when it will be specified to us precisely how much of the truth we have to expunge before we can bring the blog back up”.
“This is a dark day for the entire team here. We will be looking to appeal this to the Supreme Court and if required (though we very much doubt it will be) to the European Court of Human Rights”.
In Ireland, on the 25th of March 2021, a vote on the examination procedure for the Digital Green Certificate Regulation will take place. It aims to allow the newly jabbed persons of Europe to travel freely within the E.U, while limiting the movement of those who are unvaccinated.
Highly respected Irish barrister Tracey O’Mahoney has conducted an analysis of the proposal to reveal extremely worrying possibilities (or impossibilities) that lay in wait for those who will say no to the jab. In her YouTube presentation, she implores her audience to contact the Members of the European Parliament to demand that they refrain from giving the nod to this Orwellian law. I implore you to do the same.
A vote for this ugly apartheid system, which is currently in place in Israel and is proven to have already created a wave of discrimination and bias, is a vote for the Davos cult and a blow to the sovereignty of Irish people and of individualism. It is a vote against liberal democracy and a further step towards tyranny and oppression.
This is being addressed presently in Israel, with a law firm taking it towards the International Criminal Court, citing violations of the Nuremberg Code.
It is paramount that all Members of the European Parliament and all politicians in this country and all across Europe are reminded that a piece of paper does not trump the personal autonomy and the inalienable rights of the human being. No certificate anywhere in the world can deny these inherent rights and any attempt to do so is, by its very nature, anti-human.
Whereas the legislation text aims to take the focus off the real issue, which is the restriction of movement, it is obvious that the passing of this law will result in the greatest threat to liberty in the nation since the days of the colonial occupation. For this reason, it is a blatant and severe abuse of civil rights and an act of war on those who are unwilling or unable to be vaccinated. The idea that this same regulation should be fast-tracked, with little or no discussion, makes it even more egregious and is completely unacceptable. Any politician who votes for this will be historically remembered as one who voted for a law that is only comparable, in the restrictions it places on the select citizens, to the Nuremberg Laws of the 1930s.
There is no excuse for the passing of this law as it is not in any way proven to be for the benefit or the good health of society – as it is known and acknowledged, even by the WHO and Big Pharma, that the COVID-19 vaccinations do not, under any circumstances, prevent the transmission of the SARS-COV-2 virus. For this reason, it is merely designed as a law to further restrict the freedom of movement of the individual and thus increases the power of a government that is already, in its behaviour and actions, tyrannical and authoritarian. It is a blatant attempt at oppression and vilification of the unvaccinated. It is a Fascistic and human-rights destroying aberration and serves to benefit nobody besides those who gain financially from human capital.
In a time when government agents in Ireland are threatening church leaders with fines and imprisonment and academics are being pressured and bullied out of their positions in universities due to holding alternative opinions, adding coercion and medical experimentation to the already long list of human rights abuses is not going to be tolerated by those people in this country who value their freedom.
Allowing those who have made the decision to be vaccinated with an injection that is still in phase three trials to partake in activities such as travel, while prohibiting those who have not, is an intentional attempt at creating a divided society and is deeply malevolent. To use this method against the very people of the nation who pay the salaries of those in power, coercing them to be vaccinated with a product that has already damaged and disabled thousands of individuals, is mendacious and reprehensible. To restrict the movement of those who have not bowed down to pharmaceutical companies, all with track records of dishonesty, physical injury and death, is dishonourable and indicates an absence of integrity, to say the least.
To even consider implementing such a pointless exercise of oppression on the Irish people in a week, when the Central Statistics Office have revealed that in the first 9 months of 2020, there was a decrease in the number of deaths in Ireland compared with the previous seven years, begs the questions, what is the true purpose of this debacle and what is the agenda? Many of us have surmised, including me, as I have covered in my book, The COVID-19 Illusion; A Cacophony of Lies.
How long will it be before it is impermissible to shop at your local store without a vaccination certificate? How long until the unvaccinated are prohibited from entering restaurants and bars? How long before the so-called refuseniks are cast out of society and considered unworthy of entering sports arenas, concert venues and theatres. How long before your social services are discontinued because you are not vaccinated? How long before the jab is required in order for you to gain employment? How long before unvaccinated students are refused admission to university?
Not long at all if we let the unelected dictators impose their will on the masses, with the silence of compromised political representatives becoming deafening. The tiptoe towards totalitarianism has become a sprint. The avenue to apartheid is lined with wreaths as the slow suffocation of freedom leaves us limp like lifeless corpses, existing only to acquiesce to the demands of Davos.
These attempts of force by the European institutions and the Irish government are unacceptable. It is in the best interest of the nation that the Digital Green Certificates be avoided, along with any other tool that can be used to stifle liberties. It is highly recommended that this legislation is not passed. It is not conducive to a free and democratic society and should not be even considered.
The proposed New Normal, if this is what it is indicative of, should be rejected and discarded immediately.
The British Board of Film Classification has stepped into the trans debate by highlighting five films for families to watch and discuss. But it’s not the job of an official censor to promote films that advocate certain ideologies.
Who would have imagined that, one day, that dreaded puritanical institution, the official censor, would assume the role of an educator?
Recently, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the body tasked with censoring and classifying the films released in the UK, announced that it has decided to get involved in educating parents on how to deal with one of the most controversial issues they face.
It has compiled a list of five movies that “explore transgender experiences” which it believes are fit for family discussions. It hopes that as a result of this initiative, it can prompt discussion on this sensitive topic between parents and their children. Although on its website the BBFC presents the initiative as an educational one, its real aim, however, is not so much to educate as to advocate.
In this instance, the objective is to get families to educate themselves about “trans rights and trans people’s journeys”. It uses the term “educate” in the sense that advocacy campaigners use it, which means encouraging families to accept and embrace the gender ideology promoted by the trans activists also involved in this initiative.
The BBFC’s partner All About Trans, a project backed by charity On Road Media, aims to “change how the media understands and portrays transgender people”. It clearly also wants to influence parents and children so their outlook falls into line with its views.
In principle, there is nothing objectionable about groups of private individuals organising and launching an advocacy campaign. In a free and democratic society, advocating for different points of view is an important feature of public life.
But matters are very different when supposedly neutral official institutions take it on themselves to serve as conduits for the agenda and ideology of campaigning groups. There is a problem when the official authority of the BBFC is used to promote the views of one section of the community, particularly on a sensitive and contentious subject such as trans culture.
It is generally accepted that, as far as education is concerned, institutions that are meant to impartially serve the public affirm and promote the values of their community. Yet, in this instance, the BBFC sees its role not as one of affirming long-standing cultural values, but of attempting to socialise parents and children to embrace an outlook not yet integral to their community’s life. Historically, this type of re-education has been referred to as social engineering. In any case, it is worth asking who has decided the institution of censorship should serve as a family educator.
The BBFC is a statutory body for classifying films and video content. It has clearly gone beyond its brief, and even more disturbingly, it has brazenly breached its impartiality. At the moment, there is a fierce debate about how to address the question of gender identity in schools. This discussion, which involves teachers, parents, government officials and trans activists, is far from over. Through its intervention, what the BBFC has done is to imply that the debate has concluded, and that people should be educated in accordance with its version of the issues at stake.
In effect, the BBFC has adopted a mode of operation that can best be described as positive censorship. Unlike normal negative censorship, which suppresses heresy and subversion, positive censorship closes down debate through educating people to embrace values they do not hold.
When the BBFC and groups advocating the cultural politics of identity demand people ‘educate themselves’, they don’t mean visit a library to read a book or go to a cinema and watch one of the films on its list. What they mean is to learn to accept their ideology of gender.
There was a time when censors were censors. They were in the business of policing literature and art, suppressing speech and other forms of communication. They justified their censorious behaviour on the ground that a particular text was blasphemous, heretical, subversive or obscene. Sadly, the BBFC has decided it is not simply in the business of suppressing what it believes are heretical thoughts, but also that it should dictate the kinds of films that will enlighten parents and their children.
Old-school censors were bad enough, but the BBFC’s ‘enlightened’ positive censorship is far worse, as it presumes to alter the way we think.
While the outrageously conflicted investigative commission put together by the World Health Organization has dismissed the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 being a lab-leaked virus, deciding to pursue the imported frozen food theory instead,1,2,3 the lab-origin story refuses to die, and for good reason.
There’s just too much evidence pointing in that direction. Evidence of U.S. involvement is also mounting, although it hasn’t received quite as much coverage. Two individuals who have been heavily implicated are:
• Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) who rose to national prominence as the leader of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
• Peter Daszak, Ph.D., president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on pandemic prevention that has worked closely with bat coronavirus researcher Shi Zhengli and others at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
Daszak was chosen to be on two separate commissions charged with investigating the origin of SARS-CoV-2, one by the WHO4 and one by The Lancet.5 His inclusion has been widely criticized, as he played a central role in the plot to obscure the lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 from the very beginning by crafting a scientific statement condemning such inquiries as “conspiracy theory.”6,7
In the video above, begining at 5:45, Chris Martenson, Ph.D., reviews Newsweek’s reporting8,9 on NIAID-funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the WIV. Newsweek wrote a series of articles on this in late April 2020.
They had some reason to make their hopeful assumptions as the U.S. State Department press releases announced that the meetings would “highlight cooperation that promotes peace, security and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”
The Chinese certainly hoped that the sanctions imposed under Trump’s watch might be rolled back by the new administration and that the new team might respect China’s sovereign right to pursue its economic interests without being seen as an opponent to the decaying western empire. They have understandably gotten quite tired of dealing with the constant unipolar intimidation as has been so common since Obama’s Asia Pivot was first announced in 2012. In response to the pressure of a dying empire attempting to insecurely impose its will on a growing nation which will soon find itself as the economic leader of the world, China has responded consistently with class and restraint calling for cooperation and dialogue.
At various times over recent years, China has offered the USA and other western nations desperately in need of real economic development, opportunities to cooperate on the Belt and Road Initiative, space research and other sectors of win-win cooperation citing these domains as being inclusive of all and beneficial to all participants. The fact that the Chinese have made these offers isn’t surprising. The USA is economically bankrupt, sitting upon a derivatives-fueled hyperinflationary bubble ripe to blow, devoid of any significant manufacturing capacities it once enjoyed and militarily over-extended beyond belief. So it isn’t as if cooperating on the BRI isn’t in the interests of the USA… as a sovereign nation.
But the USA isn’t really a sovereign nation state these days. It’s something else.
This sad fact slapped the Chinese delegation across the face moment U.S. representatives Anthony Blinken and Andrew Sullivan opened their mouths during the keynote remarks and spewed nothing but belligerent poison at their Asian counterparts. Blinken began his condescending chastisements of China’s disruptive influence to “international rules-based order”, condemned China for its alleged cyber-attacks and the apparently vicious treatment of Uyghurs, Hong Kong, Tibetans and Taiwan. Sullivan followed suit promoting the importance of the anti-Chinese “Quad” (often dubbed the “NATO of the Pacific) and virtue signalled “American ingenuity” and leadership.
Using the best newspeak available to an American diplomat these days, Blinken condemned the “might makes right” outlook which has caused so much injustice over the years and which apparently guides China thinking, saying: “The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winners take all, and that would be a far more violent and unstable world for all of us.”
Of course, one might be confused by this claim since China has only one foreign military base in Djibouti, has started no new wars in generations and has lifted nearly a billion people out of poverty, but that’s only because you don’t receive quality CIA briefings like Blinken and Sullivan.
Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi’s responses provided a sobering sledgehammer of reality as both statesmen took the opportunity to spend 42 minutes laying out in stark terms the scale of hypocritical poison in extolling democracy abroad while not being able to win the support of its own population citing BLM. Jiechi also contrasted the USA’s obsessive use of regime changes and wars across the world in defense of the Washington-run “rules based order” with China’s track record in ending extreme poverty winning the support of its citizens and building great infrastructure projects abroad.
Calling out the disingenuous intention behind the U.S. delegation’s organization of the talks, Jiechi stated:
“isn’t this the intention of the United States – judging from what, or the way that you have made your opening remarks – that it wants to speak to China in a condescending way from a position of strength? So was this carefully all planned and was it carefully orchestrated with all the preparations in place? Is that the way that you had hoped to conduct this dialogue? Well, I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols.”
Jiechi continued:
“So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people. If the United States wants to deal properly with the Chinese side, then let’s follow the necessary protocols and do things the right way.”
In the ensuing days of meetings, it should not come as a surprise that very little in the way of serious conflict resolution occurred. In fact, the only solid points of agreement which the U.S. side would permit involved two joint protocols that fall perfectly into alignment with the Malthusian closed system objectives of the Great Reset agenda attempting to reign in a post-nation state world order in the wake of the oncoming economic meltdown. These included 1) a joint program to coordinate more closely on fighting global warming via green finance and green energy grids and 2) coordinating on COVID-19 vaccination programs.
Nothing which China is doing that relates to actual scientific and technological growth, long term conditionality-free banking or poverty extermination was permitted by the U.S.-side for reasons which should be obvious to the informed reader by now.
While Blinken did announce in the post-conference press release that space cooperation between the two powers was discussed, it is a fact as true as gravity that the imperial technocrats running the Biden White House are so ideologically opposed to the sort of open-system programs which space cooperation creates that Blinken’s remarks are sure to remain dead words.
What is clear coming out of the Alaska meeting is that the Biden Administration is committed to accelerating the worst elements of the “hard imperial” practices of military encirclement of China while building up the QUAD military alliance on the one hand while also advancing the “soft imperial” practices of pulling China into unbreakable de-carbonization treaties and medical health regimes controlled by supranational technocrats on behalf of the Anglo-American oligarchy.
A report declassified lastWednesday by the Department of Homeland Security is raising serious concerns about the possibly illegal involvement by the intelligence community in U.S. domestic political affairs.
Entitled “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,” the March 1 Report from the Director of National Intelligence states that it was prepared “in consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security—and was drafted by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with contributions from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).”
Its primary point is this: “The IC [intelligence community] assesses that domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.” While asserting that “the most lethal” of these threats is posed by “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and militia violent extremists (MVEs),” it makes clear that its target encompasses a wide range of groups from the left (Antifa, animal rights and environmental activists, pro-choice extremists and anarchists: “those who oppose capitalism and all forms of globalization”) to the right (sovereign citizen movements, anti-abortion activists and those deemed motivated by racial or ethnic hatreds).
The U.S. security state apparatus regards the agenda of “domestic violent extremists” as “derived from anti-government or anti-authority sentiment,” which includes “opposition to perceived economic, racial or social hierarchies.” In sum, to the Department of Homeland Security, an “extremist” is anyone who opposes the current prevailing ruling class and system for distributing power. Anyone they believe is prepared to use violence, intimidation or coercion in pursuit of these causes then becomes a “domestic violent extremist,” subject to a vast array of surveillance, monitoring and other forms of legal restrictions:
Department of Homeland Security report, Mar.1, 2021
It goes without saying that violence of any kind — including that which is politically motivated — is a serious crime under U.S. law, and it is the proper role of the U.S. Government to investigate and prevent it. But there are real and important legal and institutional limits on the authority of the intelligence community to involve itself in domestic law enforcement, or other forms of domestic political activity, that seem threatened here, if not outright violated.
In particular, the Report’s acknowledgement that it was compiled by institutions including “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with contributions from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)” has alarmed numerous members of the House Intelligence Committee. On Thursday, all ten minority members of that Committee wrote a previously unreported letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines “to raise serious concerns about the production of this document by the Intelligence Community (IC) and to seek clarification of the facts related to its production.”
Among the issues raised was that the DHS Report was not subject to the standard rigors of an intelligence community finding, yet continually makes sweeping claims that it prefixes with the authoritative phrase “the IC assesses.” The Committee members found this “to be misleading,” adding: we “urge you to clarify which elements in the IC concurred with this judgement and the intelligence basis, if any, for that concurrence.” In other words, Haines claims that these dubious assertions about various threats faced by Americans are the findings of the intelligence community when that is not true: just like the originally false claim widely spread by the media that “all seventeen intelligence agencies” endorsed the 2016 election findings about Russian interference when, in fact, it was only a few which had done so. Haines’ claims have support only from a few agencies as well.
But the more substantive danger is the role played by the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the domestic politics of the U.S., all in the name of fighting “domestic terrorism” (similar dangers were previously created by the Bush and Obama administrations in the name of fighting “international terrorism”). As the committee members’ letter details:
The Intelligence Committee members, citing the fact that the intelligence community is “subject to longstanding prohibitions against domestic activities,” then demanded answers to a series of questions based on this substantive concern:
Involvement of the intelligence community in the domestic activities of U.S. citizens is one of the most dangerous breaches of civil liberties and democratic order the U.S. Government can perpetrate. It was after World War II when the CIA, the NSA and other security state agencies that wield immense and unlimited powers in the dark were created in the name of fighting the Cold War. Legal and institutional prohibitions on wielding that massive machinery against the American public were central to the always-dubious claim that this security behemoth that operates completely in the dark was compatible with democracy. As the ACLU noted, “in its 1947 charter, the CIA was prohibited from spying against Americans, in part because President Truman was afraid that the agency would engage in political abuse.”
Since then, Truman’s fear has been realized over and over. Some of the worst post-WW2 civil liberties abuses have been the result of breaches by the CIA and other agencies of this prohibition. As the ACLU documents, the CIA in the 1960s was caught infiltrating and manipulating numerous domestic political activist groups. Under the auspices of the War on Terror, entire new bureaucracies (such as the Department of Homeland Security) and new legal regimes (such as the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act) were designed to erode these long-standing limitations by dramatically increasing surveillance powers aimed at U.S. citizens. And by design, the infiltration of these security state agencies in U.S. domestic politics has dramatically escalated.
As the first War on Terror was escalating, The Washington Post — under the headline “CIA Is Expanding Domestic Operations” — reported in October, 2002, that “The Central Intelligence Agency is expanding its domestic presence, placing agents with nearly all of the FBI’s 56 terrorism task forces in U.S. cities.” The Post added that in the name of that War on Terror:
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III recently described the new arrangement as his answer to MI5, Britain’s internal security service. Unlike the CIA, MI5 is empowered to collect intelligence within Britain and to act to disrupt domestic threats to British national security. “It goes some distance to accomplishing what the MI5 does,” Mueller told a House-Senate intelligence panel last week in describing the new CIA role in the FBI task forces.
In the years following, two NSA whistleblowers — William Binney and Edward Snowden — both cited their horror over the turning of the surveillance machinery against American citizens as the reason for their decision to denounce their agency. One of the aspects that most disturbed me about the Russiagate conspiracy theory from the start was that it was created and disseminated by the CIA and related agencies with the intent, first, to alter the outcome of the 2016 election, and then to undermine the elected president with whom they were at war. Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) went on The Rachel Maddow Show to warn — or more accurately: threaten — Trump that the CIA would destroy his presidency if he continued to criticize or otherwise oppose them:
It is encouraging to see Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee starting to express serious concerns over the dangers of intelligence community involvement in domestic politics. That is underscored by their approving citation to the mild mid-1970s reforms of the intelligence community ushered in by the Senate’s Church Committee, once primarily a liberal cause. Indeed, many of the same House Republicans who wrote this important letter to the DNI have in the past supported laws that allow greater involvement of the CIA, NSA and other agencies in activities on U.S. soil — including the Patriot Act.
The head of the Church Committee, Sen. Frank Church (D-ID), made clear in his iconic quote on Meet the Press in 1975 that those reforms were primarily motivated by fears that the U.S. Government would one day turn its vast intelligence powers onto the American people, rendering core civil liberties an illusion:
In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. (…) We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left: such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.
(That quote from Sen. Church was the first one that appeared in my 2014 book on the NSA reporting I did with Edward Snowden, and the title of that book, No Place to Hide, was a nod toward Church’s chilling warning, now come true).
As I have been repeatedly noting over the last two months, the Biden administration, along with leading Democrats such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), have been stating explicitly that one of their top priorities is the adoption of new laws designed to import the Bush/Cheney/Obama War on Terror onto U.S. soil for domestic purposes. As recently as February 14, The Washington Post — under the headline: “The agency founded because of 9/11 is shifting to face the threat of domestic terrorism” —noted that Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is now demanding that homeland security resources be re-directed toward domestic extremists, and “lawmakers of both parties spoke favorably of new legislation to specifically address domestic terrorism.”
Nobody from the Biden administration or Congressional members demanding enactment of Schiff’s proposed new “domestic terrorism” law can identify any activities that are not now criminal that they believe ought to be. Unless it is to permit intelligence agencies to start policing constitutionally protected speech and associational activities among U.S. citizens, why are any new laws needed? Unless it is to empower them to escalate their already-aggressive use of War on Terror tactics against U.S. citizens, what do they want security state agencies to be able to do on U.S. soil that they cannot now do?
But just as the fear of international terrorism was constantly inflated to place such questions off limits when it came to the War on Terror, and just as critics of the excesses of the first War on Terror were constantly accused of downplaying the threat of Islamic extremism if not harboring outright sympathy for it, the same tactics are being used now. Anyone raising civil liberties concerns about what is being done in the name of combating “domestic extremism” is vilified as ignoring and even supporting such domestic extremism.
No matter: there are few dangers more acute than the weaponization of these security state instruments against U.S. citizens for political ends. The DNI should provide full, complete and truthful answers to the important questions posed by these Intelligence Committee members, and should do so promptly. The evidence of growing incursions by the intelligence community in U.S. domestic politics is already strong and ample, and further incursions would be both dangerous and illegal.
The gunman in Boulder who killed 10 people at a supermarket would routinely threaten his classmates with threats of filing fake hate crime charges after violently attacking them, eyewitnesses told the media.
As we highlighted yesterday, Ahmad Al-Issa would typically be described as an “anti-racist activist,” with his Facebook page having featured criticism of Donald Trump, advocacy for refugees and Muslim immigrants.
Despite the gunman’s family telling the Daily Beast that the reason for his rampage was as a result of him being the victim of “bullying” in high school, Al-Issa’s classmates say the opposite is true.
A Fox 31 report reveals that Al-Issa once punched a classmate and continued to hit him as he lay on the ground.
Al-Issa tried to justify the attack by claiming the victim “had made fun of him and called him racial names weeks earlier,” although no other classmates could corroborate this.
The shooter’s wrestling team classmate Dayton Marvel also told the Denver Post that in Al Issa’s senior year, “during the wrestle-offs to see who makes varsity, he actually lost his match and quit the team and yelled out in the wrestling room that he was like going to kill everybody.”
“Nobody believed him. We were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it,” said Marvel.
“He would talk about him being Muslim and how if anybody tried anything, he would file a hate crime and say they were making it up,” he added.
Given this history and the fact that Al-Issa was an avid reader of mainstream media, questions now must be asked about his real motivation given that all the gunman’s victims were white and whether he was radicalized by anti-white racism that has been institutionalized by the press.
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