Which is more believable as motivation to send soldiers to other countries, altruism or self-interest?
Canadian forces don’t train their African counterparts out of a commitment to professionalism or democracy but to extend this country’s influence.
Recently the Ottawa Citizen reported that Canadian special forces will continue to participate in “U.S.-led training exercises despite links to instructing troops who have been involved in two separate military uprisings in Mali. Malian soldiers forced the resignation of the country’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after they launched a coup on Aug. 18. Coup leader Col. Assimi Goita, as well as many of the soldiers who took part in the uprising, had received training at the U.S.-led annual Flintlock military exercises which involves western special forces providing counter-terrorism training to African units. A former army officer has now taken over as president in Mali and Goita has declared himself vice president.”
The Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR) has participated in Exercise Flintlock since 2011. Sponsored by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and directed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Flintlock takes place in a different nation of the Sahel region of northern Africa each year. “Although Flintlock is considered an exercise, it is really an extension of ongoing training, engagement, and operations that help prepare our close Africa partners in the fight against extremism and the enemies that threaten peace, stability, and regional security,” said the commander of the US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahel, Colonel Kenneth Sipperly, during Flintlock 2014.
In addition to Flintlock, Canadian forces have trained thousands of African military personnel in recent years in a variety of forums and countries across the continent. Hundreds of African soldiers have also come to train in Canada through the Military Training Assistance Program (MTAP).
Canadian officials generally tell the media the aim of training other militaries is to help fight terror or the illicit drug trade but a closer look at military doctrine suggests broader strategic and geopolitical motivations. An important objective is to strengthen foreign militaries’ capacity to operate in tandem with Canadian and/or NATO forces. According to Canada’s MTAP, its “language training improves communication between NATO and other armed forces” and its “professional development and staff training enhances other countries compatibility with the CF.” At a broader level MTAP states its training “serves to achieve influence in areas of strategic interest to Canada. … Canadian diplomatic and military representatives find it considerably easier to gain access and exert influence in countries with a core group of Canadian-trained professional military leaders.”
When Canada initiated post-independence military training missions in Africa a memo to cabinet ministers described the political value of training foreign military officers. It stated: “Military leaders in many developing countries, if they do not actually form the government, frequently wield much more power and influence domestically than is the case in the majority of western democratic nations … [It] would seem in Canada’s general interest on broad foreign policy grounds to keep open the possibility of exercising a constructive influence on the men who often will form the political elite in developing countries, by continuing to provide training places for officers in our military institutions where they receive not only technical military training but are also exposed to Canadian values and attitudes.”
As part of Canada’s post British rule aid efforts, Canadian troops trained armed forces in various African countries in the 1960s. In Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania, Canada endeavoured “to fill in the vacuum left by the withdrawal of British officers and training facilities,” notes Professor Robert Matthews. Military historian Sean Maloney further explains: “These teams consisted of regular army officers who, at the ‘operational level,’ trained military personnel of these new Commonwealth countries to increase their professionalism. The strategic function, particularly of the 83-man team in Tanzania, was to maintain a Western presence to counter Soviet and Chinese bloc political and military influence.”
In 1966 Ghana’s Canadian-trained army overthrew Kwame Nkrumah, a leading pan-Africanist president. After Nkrumah’s removal the Canadian High Commissioner boasted about the effectiveness of Canada’s Junior Staff Officers training program. Writing to the undersecretary of external affairs, C.E. McGaughey noted, “all the chief participants of the coup were graduates of this course.” (Canadian major Bob Edwards, who was a training advisor to the commander of a Ghanaian infantry brigade, discovered preparations for the coup the day before its execution, but said nothing.)
After Ghana won its independence the CF organized and oversaw a Junior Staff Officers course and took up a number of top positions in the Ghanaian Ministry of Defence. In the words of Canada’s military attaché to Ghana, Colonel Desmond Deane-Freeman, the Canadians in these positions imparted “our way of thinking”. Celebrating the influence of “our way of thinking”, High Commissioner McGaughey wrote the undersecretary of external affairs in 1965 that “since independence, it [Ghana’s military] has changed in outlook, perhaps less than any other institution. It is still equipped with Western arms and although essentially non-political, is Western oriented.”
When today’s internal documents are made available, they will likely show that Canadian military training initiatives continue to influence the continent’s politics in ways that run counter to most Africans’ interests.
In the United States, many legislators and public health officials are busy trying to make vaccines de facto compulsory—either by removing parental/personal choice given by existing vaccine exemptions or by imposing undue quarantines and fines on those who do not comply with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) vaccine edicts. Officials in California are seeking to override medical opinion about fitness for vaccination, while those in New York are mandating the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine for 6-12-month-old infants for whom its safety and effectiveness “have not been established.”
American children would be better served if these officials—before imposing questionable and draconian measures—studied child health outcomes in Japan. With a population of 127 million, Japan has the healthiest children and the very highest “healthy life expectancy” in the world—and the least vaccinated children of any developed country. The U.S., in contrast, has the developed world’s most aggressive vaccination schedule in number and timing, starting at pregnancy, at birth and in the first two years of life. Does this make U.S. children healthier? The clear answer is no. The U.S. has the very highest infant mortality rate of all industrialized countries, with more American children dying at birth and in their first year than in any other comparable nation—and more than half of those who survive develop at least one chronic illness. Analysis of real-world infant mortality and health results shows that U.S. vaccine policy does not add up to a win for American children.
Japan and the U.S.; Two Different Vaccine Policies
In 1994, Japan transitioned away from mandated vaccination in public health centers to voluntary vaccination in doctors’ offices, guided by “the concept that it is better that vaccinations are performed by children’s family doctors who are familiar with their health conditions.” The country created two categories of non-compulsory vaccines: “routine” vaccines that the government covers and “strongly recommends” but does not mandate, and additional “voluntary” vaccines, generally paid for out-of-pocket. Unlike in the U.S., Japan has no vaccine requirements for children entering preschool or elementary school.
Japan also banned the MMR vaccine in the same time frame, due to thousands of serious injuries over a four-year period—producing an injury rate of one in 900 children that was “over 2,000 times higher than the expected rate.” It initially offered separate measles and rubella vaccines following its abandonment of the MMR vaccine; Japan now recommends a combined measles-rubella (MR) vaccine for routine use but still shuns the MMR. The mumps vaccine is in the “voluntary” category.
Here are key differences between the Japanese and U.S. vaccine programs:
Japan has no vaccine mandates, instead recommending vaccines that (as discussed above) are either “routine” (covered by insurance) or “voluntary” (self-pay).
Japan does not vaccinate newborns with the hepatitis B (HepB) vaccine, unless the mother is hepatitis B positive.
Japan does not vaccinate pregnant mothers with the tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine.
Japan does not give flu shots to pregnant mothers or to six-month-old infants.
Japan does not give the MMR vaccine, instead recommending an MR vaccine.
Japan does not require the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
In contrast, the U.S. vaccine schedule (see Table 1) prescribes routine vaccination during pregnancy, calls for the first HepB vaccine dose within 24 hours of birth—even though 99.9% of pregnant women, upon testing, are hepatitis B negative, and follows up with 20 to 22 vaccine doses in the first year alone. No other developed country administers as many vaccine doses in the first two years of life.
The HepB vaccine injects a newborn with a 250-microgram load of aluminum, a neurotoxic and immune-toxic adjuvant used to provoke an immune response. There are no studies to back up the safety of exposing infants to such high levels of the injected metal. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) upper limit for aluminum in intravenous (IV) fluids for newborns is far lower at five micrograms per kilogram per day (mcg/kg/day)—and even at these levels, researchers have documented the potential for impaired neurologic development. For an average newborn weighing 7.5 pounds, the HepB vaccine has over 15 times more aluminum than the FDA’s upper limit for IV solutions.
Unlike Japan, the U.S. administers flu and Tdap vaccines to pregnant women (during any trimester) and babies receive flu shots at six months of age, continuing every single year thereafter. Manufacturers have never tested the safety of flu shots administered during pregnancy, and the FDA has never formally licensed any vaccines “specifically for use during pregnancy to protect the infant.”
U.S. vaccine proponents claim the U.S. vaccine schedule is similar to schedules in other developed countries, but this claim is inaccurate upon scrutiny. Most other countries do not recommend vaccination during pregnancy, and very few vaccinate on the first day of life. This is important because the number, type and timing of exposure to vaccines can greatly influence their adverse impact on developing fetuses and newborns, who are particularly vulnerable to toxic exposures and early immune activation. Studies show that activation of pregnant women’s immune systems can cause developmental problems in their offspring. Why are pregnant women in the U.S. advised to protect their developing fetuses by avoiding alcohol and mercury-containing tuna fish, but actively prompted to receive immune-activating Tdap and flu vaccines, which still contain mercury (in multi-dose vials) and other untested substances?
Japan initially recommended the HPV vaccine but stopped doing so in 2013 after serious health problems prompted numerous lawsuits. Japanese researchers have since confirmed a temporal relationship between HPV vaccination and recipients’ development of symptoms. U.S. regulators have ignored these and similar reports and not only continue to aggressively promote and even mandate the formerly optional HPV vaccine beginning in preadolescence but are now pushing it in adulthood. The Merck-manufactured HPV vaccine received fast-tracked approval from the FDA despite half of all clinical trial subjects reporting serious medical conditions within seven months.
Best and Worst: Two Different Infant Mortality Results
The CDC views infant mortality as one of the most important indicators of a society’s overall health. The agency should take note of Japan’s rate, which, at 2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, is the second lowest in the world, second only to the Principality of Monaco. In comparison, almost three times as many American infants die (5.8 per 1,000 live births), despite massive per capita spending on health care for children (see Table 2). U.S. infant mortality ranks behind 55 other countries and is worse than the rate in Latvia, Slovakia or Cuba.
To reiterate, the U.S. has the most aggressive vaccine schedule of developed countries (administering the most vaccines the earliest). If vaccines save lives, why are American children “dying at a faster rate, and… dying younger” compared to children in 19 other wealthy countries—translating into a “57 percent greater risk of death before reaching adulthood”? Japanese children, who receive the fewest vaccines—with no government mandates for vaccination—grow up to enjoy “long and vigorous” lives. International infant mortality and health statistics and their correlation to vaccination protocols show results that government and health officials are ignoring at our children’s great peril.
Among the 20 countries with the world’s best infant mortality outcomes, only three countries (Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore) automatically administer the HepB vaccine to all newborns—governed by the rationale that hepatitis B infection is highly endemic in these countries. Most of the other 17 top-ranking countries—including Japan—give the HepB vaccine at birth only if the mother is hepatitis B positive (Table 1). The U.S., with its disgraceful #56 infant mortality ranking, gives the HepB vaccine to all four million babies born annually despite a low incidence of hepatitis B.
Is the U.S. Sacrificing Children’s Health for Profits?
Merck, the MMR vaccine’s manufacturer, is in court over MMR-related fraud. Whistleblowers allege the pharmaceutical giant rigged its efficacy data for the vaccine’s mumps component to ensure its continued market monopoly. The whistleblower evidence has given rise to two separate court cases. In addition, a CDC whistleblower has alleged the MMR vaccine increases autism risks in some children. Others have reported that the potential risk of permanent injury from the MMR vaccine dwarfs the risks of getting measles.
Why do the FDA and CDC continue to endorse the problematic MMR vaccine despite Merck’s implication in fraud over the vaccine’s safety and efficacy? Why do U.S. legislators and government officials not demand a better alternative, as Japan did over two decades ago? Why are U.S. cities and states forcing Merck’s MMR vaccine on American children? Is the U.S. government protecting children, or Merck? Why are U.S. officials ignoring Japan’s exemplary model, which proves that the most measured vaccination program in the industrialized world and “first-class sanitation and levels of nutrition” can produce optimal child health outcomes that are leading the world?
A central tenet of a free and democratic society is the freedom to make informed decisions about medical interventions that carry serious potential risks. This includes the right to be apprised of benefits and risks—and the ability to say no. The Nuremberg Code of ethics established the necessity of informed consent without “any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.” Forcing the MMR vaccine, or any other vaccine, on those who are uninformed or who do not consent represents nothing less than medical tyranny.
Is there any life left in the cholesterol hypothesis (a.k.a. the lipid hypothesis)? Is there anything left for serious scientists to cling to or is time for its mouldering corpse to end up on the trash heap of medical history, alongside lobotomy, bloodletting and the theory of the four humors? I was asked this question by a reader of this blog recently, and as it happens, a systematic review was recently published in Evidence Based Medicine (my favorite medical journal, mainly because it is edited by the brilliant Dr. Carl Heneghan) that definitively answers this question, so I thought it would be interesting to go through what the evidence says together.
As many readers will be aware, the cholesterol hypothesis is the idea that cardiovascular disease is caused by high levels of cholesterol in the blood stream. The hypothesis harks back to the early part of the twentieth century, when a Russian researcher named Nikolai Anitschkow fed a cholesterol rich diet to rabbits and found that they developed atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries, the process which in the long run leads to cardiovascular disease). Of course, rabbits and humans are very different species, with very different dietary preferences. Rabbits, being herbivores, normally have very little cholesterol in their diets, while humans, being omnivores, generally consume quite a bit of cholesterol. Regardless, the data was suggestive, and led to the hypothesis being formulated.
In the 1940’s and 1950’s an American researcher named Ancel Keys carried out a number of studies which supposedly showed a correlation between cholesterol intake and heart disease in humans. The most famous of these was the “Seven Countries Study”, which was an observational study carried out in, as the name implies, seven different countries, and which found that people in countries with a high intake of saturated fat had high blood levels of cholesterol, and were much more likely to develop heart disease than people in countries with a low intake of saturated fat. This lead to the hypothesis that saturated fat intake leads to high blood cholesterol levels which leads to atherosclerosis which leads to cardiovascular disease and premature death.
As we’ve discussed before, observational studies cannot draw any conclusions about causation, they can only show correlation. And there is also a question why these seven specific countries were chosen (the reader will be aware that there are in fact closer to two hundred countries) – they certainly weren’t chosen at random. If the populations in a study aren’t chosen at random, that creates a significant risk of cherry picking of data (and makes it impossible for the researchers carrying out a study to refute that accusation).
In spite of these limitations, the cholesterol hypothesis became heavily hyped, leading to official dietary recommendations around the world, which are still very much unchanged, that recommend low intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol, and of foods rich in these substances, such as red meat.
The hypothesis also resulted in pharmaceutical companies investing huge sums in research to find a drug that would lower cholesterol levels in the blood. A number of drugs were discovered, but unfortunately, although they could lower cholesterol levels, none of them seemed to have any effect on mortality. People were dying at the same rate even with these drugs, sometimes even at higher rates. That was the first hit against the cholesterol hypothesis.
Then came statins, and everything changed. Statins are molecules that in nature are produced by certain types of fungi. Among other biological functions that aren’t completely understood, they inhibit an enzyme called HMG-CoA-reductase. This enzyme is central to the body’s ability to produce cholesterol. When it is blocked, cells are unable to produce their own cholesterol and have to find it from elsewhere. This causes them to express receptors on their surfaces that allow them to suck up cholesterol from the blood stream. This effect is most noticeable in the liver, since the liver is the body’s main cholesterol factory, and is the organ primarily responsible for recycling the molecules that transport cholesterol in the blood stream (cholesterol is a vital part of cell membranes so all cells in the body have the capacity to produce their own cholesterol). Since cholesterol is hoovered up from the blood stream, the cholesterol level in the blood drops. Yay!
The reason I say everything changed with statins is that they actually seemed to work. For the first time a drug had been discovered that lowered cholesterol and that also seemed to decrease mortality. Ancel Keys seemed to have been vindicated. Anyone suggesting that the cholesterol hypothesis was dead in the water was derided as a nut.
Now, as time has gone by, the cholesterol hypothesis has actually grown more complex, which is why doctors don’t really talk about cholesterol so much any more. Instead they talk about LDL, which stands for Low Density Lipoprotein. LDL is a transport molecule that is used to transport cholesterol in the blood stream (cholesterol is a lipid and as such is not soluble in blood, so it needs to be transported in a special transport molecule). This is important, because in the updated version of the hypothesis, it’s not the cholesterol itself that’s bad, it’s the LDL. Basically, the idea is that LDL that’s moving around in the body can become oxidized. Oxidized LDL can get stuck in artery walls, and start an inflammatory process that leads to atherosclerosis. So what statins actually do is cause the liver to hoover up LDL molecules from the blood stream, which prevents them from becoming oxidized in the tissues and causing atherosclerosis.
Now, unfortunately for the pharmaceutical companies, there are patent laws, which mean that after a couple of decades, their drugs go off-patent and they are no longer able to make big profits. Which is why they have developed newer types of cholesterol lowering drugs. There is ezetimibe, which works by inhibiting the uptake of cholesterol from the intestine. Most recently there are the PCSK9-inhibitors, which increase the liver’s uptake of LDL by preventing it from recycling the LDL-receptors on its surface, which results in more receptors on the surface and therefore a higher uptake of LDL from the blood stream.
Since there has been such widespread agreement that the cholesterol hypothesis is true, and that drugs that lower LDL also lower heart disease, cardiologists’ organizations around the world have set targets for LDL levels in the blood stream. For example, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiologists have set a target LDL reduction of 50% for people at high risk of cardiovascular disease, and 30% for people at moderate risk. Basically, people at high or moderate risk should be started on one cholesterol lowering drug, and if this drug doesn’t have a big enough effect on their LDL levels, then a second drug should be added. If enough effect still isn’t seen, then a third drug can be added, and so on until the target is reached.
Clearly, if the cholesterol hypothesis is true, then the amount of benefit seen from lowering LDL should stand in direct proportion to the amount by which LDL is lowered, right? Anything else would be illogical.
This brings us nicely to the recent systematic review in Evidence Based Medicine. The review looked at all randomized controlled trials involving either a statin, ezetimibe, or a PCSK-9 inhibitor, in which data was provided on both the level of LDL-reduction and mortality, and in which the treatment period was at least one year. The authors declared no conflicts of interest and received no outside funding in order to carry out the review.
In total, 35 trials were included in the review, with the smallest trial containing 249 participants, and the largest trial containing 27,564 participants. The total number of participants across all the trials was over 230,000. 29 of the 35 trials had over 1,000 participants. Basically, these were for the most part large, high quality studies. That should certainly be enough data to tell us definitively whether the cholesterol hypothesis is dead or alive.
The trials were sorted based on whether they were treating people with moderate risk of cardiovascular disease or people with high risk, and then further grouped based on whether the participants on average met the official American LDL targets (at least a 30% reduction in LDL for people with moderate risk, and at least a 50% reduction for people with high risk).
Here’s what they found:
Of the 13 trials that successfully met the LDL targets, only one was able to find a beneficial effect on mortality. Of the 22 trials that did not meet the LDL targets, four reported a mortality benefit. So, overall, only 5 out of 35 trials were able to find a mortality benefit, and four of those that did find a benefit did not lower LDL to the target level.
Furthermore, some trials that saw significant LDL reductions (over 50%) were not able to show any effect on mortality, while other trials in which LDL only dropped by 11-15% did see a significant effect on mortality. Basically, less LDL-lowering actually seemed to be better in terms of mortality than more LDL-lowering.
So, what can we conclude?
Firstly, yes, the cholesterol hypothesis is dead, dead, dead. There is no correlation between effect on LDL and effect on mortality. Anyone who still chooses to cling to the cholesterol hypothesis in spite of this is consciously refusing to see what a vast amount of high quality scientific evidence is putting right in front of their eyes.
Secondly, as an interesting aside, only 5 out of 35 trials found a mortality benefit, which means that 30 out of 35 did not find any benefit. And yet somehow statins are one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. Personally, if I look at an entire evidence base consisting of 35 trials, with a total of 230,000 patients, and 30 of those trials, with 195,000 people, fail to find a mortality benefit, then that’s going to make me think the treatment doesn’t work. At least not if the point of the treatment is to make people live longer.
So what are the practical implications for you as a patient? As I mentioned in an earlier article, there is no point getting your cholesterol levels tested, because they tell you nothing about your risk of cardiovascular disease. If you are already on a cholesterol lowering drug, and intend to continue for whatever reason, there is no point doing annual check-ups of your cholesterol levels, because there is no correlation between how much the drug lowers those levels and your risk of future cardiovascular events. And there is certainly no point in trying to reach a “target” LDL level.
According to the Christian website St Basil’s the olive tree “is a symbol of peace, prosperity, health, wellness, abundance and food.” And Israel Olive Bond concurs, observing that it “has been an important component of Jewish and Israeli culture throughout history” being “mentioned frequently in the Bible in the context of blessings, fruitfulness, and health” and “eventually became linked to the concept of putting down roots in the land.”
Which is no doubt why Israelis continue destroying Palestinian olive trees.
According to independent monitors some 4,000 Palestinian olive trees were destroyed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the period January-July 2020 and in August an Israeli military officer, Colonel Eitan Abrahams, was reported as saying that the destruction was justified “for the safety of settlers,” because the trees protect Palestinian gunmen or stone-throwers.
The Western media rarely mention anything like this about Israel/Palestine, because it is now generally accepted in America and Europe that any report or comment that might place Israel in a poor light is to be avoided. The influence wielded by pro-Israel organisations and lobbyists in the essentially pro-Israel UK Parliament and the equally supportive U.S. Congress is such that there can be no time allotted to impartial discussion or democratic debate on such matters as destruction of olive trees by illegal Israeli colonisers on Palestinian land.
It is notable that the current British Minister for Home Affairs, Priti Patel, was sacked by former prime minister Theresa May because she told lies about a visit she made to Israel and was promptly appointed to her position of great responsibility by May’s successor, Boris Johnson, he who declares himself to be “a passionate defender of Israel.” Across the Atlantic, the amounts of Israel Lobby money given to U.S. politicians are staggering, and as the independent Clingendael Institute notes, “in August 2019, President Donald Trump declared himself ‘history’s most pro-Israel U.S. president’ while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Trump as ‘the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House’.” Leaping on the Zionist bandwagon, presidential contender Joe Biden announced that “As President, Joe Biden will continue to ensure that the Jewish State, the Jewish people, and Jewish values have the unbreakable support of the United States.”
It cannot be expected that Britain or America will ever withdraw the olive branches of generous backing that they extend to Israel, or that they would ever condemn destruction of Palestinian olive trees or seizure of Palestinian lands; but German and France are not unconditionally supportive of Israeli dominion and in July issued a statement saying that “any annexation of Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 would be a violation of international law and imperil the foundations of the peace process. We would not recognize any changes to the 1967 borders that are not agreed by both parties in the conflict.” They won’t have the slightest effect on Israel’s continuing illegal occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory, but at least there is someone out there who cares a bit about Palestinians.
But nobody cares about Israel’s nuclear weapons.
The badge of Israel’s military forces displays the Star of David and a sword, and it is strikingly ironic that the sword is wrapped in an olive branch. No doubt, while Israeli soldiers bulldoze and otherwise hack down acres of Palestinian olive trees, consigning thousands of Palestinians to poverty, they rejoice that their mission of destruction is truly peaceful. And they probably think their country’s nuclear arsenal should also be wrapped in olive branches.
In March 2006 it was revealed that the United Kingdom “secretly supplied Israel with plutonium during the 1960s despite a warning from military intelligence that it could help the Israelis to develop a nuclear bomb… The documents also show how Britain made hundreds of shipments to Israel of material which could have helped in its nuclear weapons programme, including compounds of uranium, lithium, beryllium and tritium, as well as heavy water.” (Britain acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968.) As is normal, the matter was not followed up officially — at least on the surface.
But down below, in the gutters, it appears there was much activity and in August 2016 the UK’s Independent newspaper reported that “more than 400 documents, including government files relating to the UK’s involvement in Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal, have gone missing.”
The lost material was stored in the National Archives in Kew, near London. From first-hand experience I state flatly that this establishment is staffed by dedicated and most efficient professionals who do not “lose” such things as “more than 60 Foreign office files, over 40 Home office documents, and six from the records of former prime ministers” dealing with Britain’s “military and nuclear collaboration with Israel.”
In 2016 the BBC submitted a Freedom of Information Request for these publicly available documents about British government policy and was informed that they had all disappeared. Among the missing material “is a Foreign Office file from 1979 entitled ‘Military and nuclear collaboration with Israel: Israeli nuclear armament’.”
The papers were important historical records, and it is astonishing that there has been no investigation into what could be revealed as a criminal conspiracy to destroy official chronicles. But the attitude of successive UK governments concerning Israel’s nuclear weapons has been remarkably consistent, in that unrelenting support for all Israeli activities has been displayed, no matter the political persuasion of the governing party. And in the four years since the material disappeared there has been no attempt to pursue the matter.
Britain’s stance regarding Israel’s nuclear weapons was brought up in 2014 when the government was asked in the House of Lords “whether they will make representations to the government of Israel to declare (1) any stocks of nuclear weapons they possess, and (2) any facilities they fund to research and produce such weapons.” In spite of the fact that the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 2014 Yearbook recorded that Israel had 80 nuclear warheads, the government’s answer was that “Israel has not declared a nuclear weapons programme. We have regular discussions with the Government of Israel on a range of nuclear-related issues. The Government of Israel is in no doubt as to our views…” In one respect the answer was clearly indicative of policy, in that Israel is certainly in no doubt about the views of Britain (and France and the U.S. and very many others) concerning its illegal nuclear weapons: it is most unlikely that any international action will be taken to limit Israel’s nuclear arsenal (now numbering at least 90 warheads according to SIPRI) or in any way interfere with its nuclear posture.
The certain things are that Israel will carry on destroying Palestinian houses and olive trees while the countries of the Western world keep extending olive branches to its nuclear bombs.
“No one cares about the prisoners.” Over the past few years, I have heard this phrase — or some variation of it — uttered many times by freed Palestinian prisoners and their families. Whenever I conduct an interview regarding this crucial and highly sensitive topic, I am told, repeatedly, that ‘no one cares.’
But is this really the case? Are Palestinian prisoners so abandoned to the extent that their freedom, life and death are of no consequence?
The subject, and the claim, resurfaces every time a Palestinian prisoner launches a hunger strike or undergoes extreme hardship and torture, which is leaked outside Israeli prisons through lawyers or human rights organizations. This year, five Palestinian prisoners died in prison as a result of alleged medical negligence, or worse, torture.
Even international humanitarian aid workers, like Mohammed el-Halabi, are not immune to degrading treatment. Arrested in August 2016, el-Halabi is yet to be charged for any wrongdoing. News of his plight, which originally received some media attention — due to his work with a US-based organization – is now merely confined to Facebook posts by his father, Khalil.
As of October 1, el-Halabi has been paraded before 151 military trials, yet unaware what the charges are. The cherished Palestinian man, who has played a major role in providing cancer medicine to dying children in Gaza, now holds the record of the longest military trial ever carried out by the Israeli occupation.
Desperate for some attention, and fed up with cliches about their ‘centrality in the Palestinian struggle’, many prisoners, whether individually or collectively, launch hunger strikes under the slogan: ‘freedom or death’. Those who are held under the draconian and illegal ‘administrative detention’ policy, demand their freedom, while ‘security prisoners’, who are held in degrading conditions, merely ask for family visitations or food that is suitable for human consumption.
Health complications resulting from hunger strikes often linger long after the physical ordeal is over. I have interviewed families of Palestinians who were freed from Israeli prisons, only to die in a matter of months, or live a life of endless pain and constant ailments for years following their release.
According to some estimates, over 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails since the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in June 1967.
Maher al-Akhras is currently writing the latest chapter in this tragic narrative. At the time of writing this article, he has just concluded 77 days of uninterrupted hunger strike. No medical opinion is necessary to tell us that al-Akhras could die any moment. A recent video released of al-Akhras on his Israeli hospital bed conveyed a glimpse of the man’s unbearable suffering.
With a barely audible voice, the gaunt, exhausted-looking man said that he is left with only two options: either his immediate freedom or death within the confines of Israel’s “phony justice system.”
On October 7, his wife, Taghrid, launched her own hunger strike to protest the fact that “no one cares about” her husband.
Once again, the lack of concern for the plight of prisoners, even dying ones, imposes itself on the Palestinian political discourse. So, why is this the case?
The idea that Palestinian prisoners are all alone in the fight for freedom began in the early 1990s. It was during this period that the various Oslo Accords were signed, dividing the Occupied Territories into zones governed by some strange Kafkaesque military system, one that did not end the Israeli occupation, but, rather, cemented it.
Largely dropped from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations agenda at the time, but permanently, eventually, were several pressing issues fundamental to Palestinian rights and freedom. One of these issues was Israel’s brutal system of incarceration and imprisonment without trial.
Certainly, some Palestinian prisoners were released in small batches occasionally, as ‘gestures of goodwill’; but the system, itself, which gave Israel the right to arrest, detain and sentence Palestinians, remained intact.
To date, the freedom of Palestinian prisoners — nearly 5,000 of them are still held in Israel, with new prisoners added daily — is not part of the Palestinian leadership political agenda, itself subsumed by self-interests, factional fights and other trivial matters.
Being removed from the realm of politics, the plight of prisoners has, over the years, been reduced to a mere humanitarian subject — as if these men and women are no longer political agents and a direct expression of Palestinian resistance, on the one hand, and Israel’s military occupation and violence, on the other.
There are ample references to Palestinian prisoners in everyday language. Not a single press release drafted by the Palestinian Authority, its main Fatah faction or any other Palestinian group fails to renew the pledge to free the prisoners, while constantly glorifying their sacrifices. Unsurprisingly, empty language never produces concrete results.
There are two exceptions to the above maxim. The first is prisoner exchanges, like the one that took place in October 2011, resulting in the freedom of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. And, second, the prisoners’ own hunger strikes, which are incremental in their achievements, but have, lately, become the main channel of resistance.
Sadly, even solidarity with hunger strikers is often factional, as each Palestinian political group often places disproportionate focus on their own striking prisoners and, largely ignores others. Not only has the issue of prisoners become depoliticized, it has also fallen victim to Palestine’s unfortunate disunity.
While it is untrue that ‘no one cares about Palestinian prisoners’, thousands of Palestinian families are justified to hold this opinion. For the freedom of prisoners to take center stage within the larger Palestinian struggle for freedom, the issue must be placed at the top of Palestine’s political agenda, by Palestinians themselves and by Palestinian solidarity networks everywhere.
Maher al-Akhras, and thousands like him, should not risk their lives to obtain basic human rights, which should, in theory, be guaranteed under international law. Equally important, Palestinian prisoners should not be left alone, paying a price for daring to stand up for justice, fairness and for their people’s freedom.
Dr. Suzanne Humphries speaks on her background and about how she started to question the safety on vaccines. She also gives information about how authorities work to persuade people to vaccinate.
The first full part of four contains information about tetanus.
Dr Humphrie speaks on the disease, how it works, how to deal with it and the history of tetanus.
Part one also contains information on measles and what vaccines are made of.
Ironically, while three US presidents have been accused of impeaching the Constitution for relatively minor offenses, including Bill Clinton for perjury and Donald Trump for using political influence to discredit opponents, no US president has ever been charged, let alone convicted, of waging devastating wars of aggression.
Unless impeachment proceedings are initiated against war criminals, including George Bush and Dick Cheney for invading Afghanistan and Iraq and Barack Obama and Joe Biden for waging proxy wars in Libya and Syria, the impeachment provisions in the US Constitution would serve as nothing more than a convenient tool for settling political scores.
The fact is not only the domestic law enforcement and judicial systems of the Western powers but also international institutions, such as International Criminal Court, have been used as tools of perception management for solely prosecuting alleged “war criminals” of former Yugoslavia and impoverished African nations and real war criminals have never been prosecuted for the crimes of destroying entire nations with their militarism and interventionism.
Before being elected as Obama’s vice president in 2008, as a longtime senator from Delaware and subsequently as the member and then the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, alongside inveterate hawk Senator Joe Lieberman, was one of the principal architects of the Bosnia War in the Clinton administration in the nineties.
Reflecting on first black American president Barack Obama’s memorable 2008 presidential campaign, with little-known senator from Delaware, Joe Biden, as his running-mate, Glenn Kessler wrote for the Washington Post [1] in October 2008:
“The moment when Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. looked Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the eye and called him a ‘damned war criminal’ has become the stuff of campaign legend.
“The Democratic vice presidential nominee brings up the 1993 confrontation on the campaign trial to whoops of delight from supporters. Senator Barack Obama mentioned it when he announced he had chosen Biden as his running mate.
“During vice presidential debate with his counterpart on the Republican ticket, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Biden twice gave himself credit for shifting US policy on Bosnia. The senator from Delaware declared that he ‘was the catalyst to change the circumstance in Bosnia led by President Clinton.’ At another point he noted: ‘My recommendations on Bosnia — I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives.’”
Instead of “saving tens of thousands of lives,” the devastating Yugoslav Wars in the nineties in the aftermath of the break-up of the former Soviet Union and then the former Yugoslavia claimed over 130,000 fatalities, created a humanitarian crisis and unleashed a flood of millions of refugees for which nobody is to blame but the Clinton administration’s militarist policy of subjugating and forcibly integrating East European states into the Western capitalist bloc.
Regarding Washington’s modus operandi of waging proxy wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, since the times of the Soviet-Afghan jihad during the eighties, it has been the fail-safe game plan of master strategists at NATO to raise money [2] from the oil-rich emirates of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait; then buy billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the arms markets [3] in the Eastern Europe; and then provide those weapons and guerilla warfare training to the disaffected population of the victim country by using the intelligence agencies of the latter’s regional adversaries. Whether it’s Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Libya or Syria, the same playbook was executed to the letter.
Raising funds for proxy wars from the Gulf Arab States allows the Western executives the freedom to evade congressional scrutiny; the benefit of buying weapons from unregulated arms markets of the Eastern Europe is that such weapons cannot be traced back to the Western capitals; and using jihadist proxies to achieve strategic objectives has the advantage of taking the plea of “plausible deniability” if the strategy backfires, which it often does. Remember that al-Qaeda and Taliban were the by-products of the Soviet-Afghan jihad, and the Islamic State and its global network of terrorists were the blowback of the proxy war in Syria.
Nevertheless, smugly oblivious to the death and destruction caused by Washington’s global domination agenda, national security shill Glenn Kessler further noted in the aforementioned Washington Post article:
“Biden focused on deficiencies in US policy toward Bosnia, he called for NATO expansion before it became fashionable and most recently prodded the Bush administration to back a $1 billion package to rebuild Georgia after the Russian invasion.
“As the incident with Milosevic shows, Biden is hardly shy about emphasizing his own role in world affairs. Biden’s book portrays him frequently confronting Clinton and bucking him up on Bosnia when the president had doubts about his own policy. But the hard legislative work was left to others. Biden did take an early stab at prodding action, writing an amendment in 1992 — opposed by George H.W. Bush’s administration — that authorized spending $50 million to arm the Bosnian Muslims.
“In April 1993, Biden spent a week traveling in the Balkans, meeting with key officials, including a three-hour session with Milosevic. The trip was detailed in 15 pages of the senator’s autobiography.
“By all accounts, the meeting was tense. Milosevic spent a lot of time poring over maps and expressing concerns with peace proposals crafted by a group of international mediators. Milosevic denied he had much influence over the Bosnian Serbs, but then immediately summoned Radovan Karadzic, their leader, with a curt phone call.
“According to Biden’s book, Milosevic asked the senator what he thought of him. ‘I think you’re a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one,’ Biden said he shot back. Milosevic, he said, did not react.
“Upon his return to the United States, Biden issued a 36-page report on the trip, laying out eight policy proposals, including airstrikes on Serb artillery and lifting the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims.
“Biden continued to make fiery statements on Bosnia, demanding action. Richard C. Holbrooke recalled that when he was nominated as assistant secretary of state for Europe in late 1994, Biden ‘in no uncertain terms made it clear to me that the policy on Bosnia had to change and he would make sure it did. He believed in action, and history proved him right.’
“’When you look back, Senator Biden got Bosnia right earlier than anyone. He understood that a combination of force and diplomacy would revive American leadership and avoid a disaster in Europe,’ said James P. Rubin, a Biden aide at the time who later became spokesman for Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.”
It’s pertinent to mention that though touted as a “collective defense pact,” the trans-Atlantic military alliance NATO and its corollary economic alliance European Union were conceived during the Cold War to offset political and economic influence of the former Soviet Union which was geographically adjacent to Europe.
Historically, the NATO military alliance at least ostensibly was conceived as a defensive alliance in 1949 during the Cold War in order to offset conventional warfare superiority of the former Soviet Union. The US forged collective defense pact with the Western European nations after the Soviet Union reached the threshold to build its first atomic bomb in 1949 and achieved nuclear parity with the US.
But the trans-Atlantic military alliance has outlived its purpose following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now being used as an aggressive and expansionist military alliance meant to browbeat and coerce the Central and Eastern European states to join NATO and its corollary economic alliance, the European Union, or risk international isolation.
It was not a coincidence that the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991 and the Maastricht Treaty that consolidated the European Community and laid the groundwork for the European Union was signed in February 1992.
The basic purpose of the EU has been nothing more than to entice the former communist states of the Eastern and Central Europe into the folds of the Western capitalist bloc by offering financial incentives and inducements, particularly in the form of foreign direct investment and grants and loans to the tune of billions of dollars, and by abolishing internal border checks in the common European market, allowing free movement of workers from Eastern European nations seeking employment in prosperous Western European economies.
Naively giving credit to former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden for his supposed “humanitarian interventionism” and for creating a catastrophe in the Balkans in the nineties, Paul Richter and Noam N. Levey, writing for the LA Times [4] in August 2008, observed:
“Biden has frequently favored humanitarian interventions abroad and was an early and influential advocate for the US military action in the Balkans in the 1990s.
“Biden considers his most important foreign policy accomplishment to be his leadership on the Balkans in the mid-1990s. He pushed a reluctant Clinton administration first to arm Serbian Muslims and then to use U.S. air power to suppress conflict in Serbia and Kosovo.
“In his book, ‘Promises to Keep,’ Biden calls this one of his two ‘proudest moments in public life,’ along with the Violence Against Women Act that he championed.
“In 1998, he worked with McCain on a resolution to push the Clinton administration to use all available force to confront Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, a move designed to force the president to use ground troops if necessary against Serb forces in the former Yugoslavia, which was beset by fighting and ethnic cleansing.
“In addition, Biden, who claims close relationships with many foreign leaders, has demonstrated a readiness to cooperate with Senate Republicans in search of compromise — a trait that meshes with Obama’s pledge to reduce the level of partisan conflict and stalemate in Washington.
“He has called his new adversary, presumed Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 elections, Senator John McCain of Arizona, a ‘personal and close friend.’”
Birds of a feather flock together. Not only did Joe Biden collaborate with Joe Lieberman in the Clinton administration to create a humanitarian crisis in the Balkans in the nineties but he also shared the hawkish ideology of late Senator John McCain.
Though a decorated Vietnam War veteran who died battling cancer in 2018, McCain was a highly polarizing figure as a senator and was regarded by many Leftists as an inveterate neocon hawk, who vociferously exhorted Western military interventions not only in the Balkans in the nineties but also in Libya and Syria in 2011.
McCain was a vocal supporter of the 2011 military intervention in Libya. In April 2011, he visited the anti-Gaddafi forces and National Transitional Council in eastern Libyan city Benghazi, the highest-ranking American to do so, and said that the rebel forces were “my heroes.”
Regarding Syria’s proxy war that began in 2011, McCain repeatedly argued for the US intervening militarily in the conflict on the side of the anti-government forces. He staged a visit to rebel forces inside Syria in May 2013, the first senator to do so, and called for arming the Free Syrian Army with heavy weapons and for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria.
Following reports that two of the terrorists he posed for pictures with had been responsible for the kidnapping of eleven Lebanese Shia pilgrims the year before, McCain disputed one of the identifications and said he had not met directly with the other.
In the aftermath of a false-flag chemical weapons attack in Ghouta in 2013, McCain vehemently argued for strong American military action against the government of Bashar al-Assad, and in September 2013, cast a Foreign Relations Committee vote in favor of then-President Obama’s request to Congress that it authorize a military response, though the crisis was amicably resolved after seasoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov staged a diplomatic coup by persuading Damascus to ship its alleged chemical weapons stockpiles out of Syria under Russian supervision.
***
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
[1] Biden Played Second Fiddle to Joe Lieberman in Bosnia Legislation:
Calling the US a “hacking empire” of the world, the Chinese Foreign Ministry urged Washington to stop “malicious” cyber activities following reports that American hackers subverted a network in China to launch attacks on Russia and Belarus.
“China is gravely concerned about cyberattacks against other countries that originate from the US and use China as a springboard,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a press briefing on Monday.
Zhao was commenting on recent Chinese media reports that hackers, mainly from the US but also from NATO allies Germany and the Netherlands, recently hijacked a Chinese computer network for cyberattacks, 87% of which targeted Russia.
“Against the background of the Ukraine situation, such a move may produce the negative effect of misleading the international community and spreading disinformation,” Zhao said, pointing out that “a former US senior official called publicly for launching cyberattacks on Russia not long ago.”
This appeared to be a reference to Hillary Clinton, former US secretary of state and presidential candidate, who made the calls in an MSNBC interview at the end of February. … continue
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Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs, Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). Read other articles by Ramzy, or visit Ramzy’s website.
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