In late January, John Bolton became the latest – and unlikeliest – official to enjoy a moment of Resistance glory. A New York Times report about Bolton’s forthcoming memoir fueled round-the-clock expectations that the former national security adviser would substantiate the core allegation at the heart of President Trump’s then-ongoing Senate impeachment trial – that the president tried to coerce Ukraine into opening an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden in a quid pro quo for military aid. Compelling his testimony was cast as a matter of national urgency. Bolton was never given the chance as Senate Republicans voted to block witnesses and acquit Trump on both impeachment counts.
In the publicity blitz for his new memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” Bolton has tried to keep the initial narrative alive. Speaking to ABC News, he claimed that Trump, at a meeting in August 2019, said he “wanted a probe of Joe Biden in exchange for delivering the security assistance.” That conversation, Bolton added, “was the crispest indication of the linkage. … The specificity of the linkage, I think, was unmistakable.”
His memoir, however, fails to substantiate that allegation.
In fact, Bolton offers new evidence that undermines it.
What he told Martha Raddatz is not what he writes in his book. Instead of a sharp demand of a quid pro quo, Bolton writes, Trump “said he wasn’t in favor of sending [Ukraine] anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to [Hillary] Clinton and Biden had been turned over.”
Bolton does not explain what he means by “materials” – and no interviewer has asked him to so far. RealClearInvestigations’ request to Bolton for comment, sent through a representative, was not immediately answered.
No Word on Burisma
Regardless, those were not at the heart of Trump’s impeachment. Trump was not impeached for trying to coerce Ukraine into handing over “Russia-investigation materials” to the U.S., but for allegedly trying to force Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to open a wholly separate investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, the gas company where Hunter was given a lucrative board seat while his father was running U.S. policy in Ukraine.
Yet Burisma is not even mentioned in Bolton’s book – and Hunter only in passing. This includes an acknowledgement that Bolton does not even remember if the younger Biden was actually discussed. At a May 8 meeting where Trump and his legal adviser Rudy Giuliani discuss the latter’s “desire to meet with President-Elect Zelensky,” Bolton cannot recall if the purpose is “to discuss [Ukraine’s] investigation of either Hillary Clinton’s efforts to influence the 2016 campaign or something having to do with Hunter Biden and the 2020 election, or maybe both.”
Son gets job on energy company board after father backs violent coup
Bolton says his recollections are not precise because the Ukraine-related theories floating around the Trump administration “always seemed intermingled and confused, one reason I did not pay them much heed. Even after they became public, I could barely separate the strands of the multiple conspiracy theories at work.”
Bolton’s words are also ambiguous. The fact that Trump allegedly “said he wasn’t in favor of sending [Ukraine] anything” is not an explicit linkage to military aid. And as for the “Russian-investigation materials,” Bolton does not specify what Trump was referring to. It seems likely Trump may have been referencing his reported theory that the Democratic National Committee server was somehow hacked with Ukrainian involvement.
Trump may also have been seeking information on the Ukrainians who openly admitted to interfering in the 2016 campaign with the aim of thwarting his candidacy, most notably by leaking allegations of illegal payments to Paul Manafort. It is highly plausible that these were Trump’s priorities. In his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, which sparked the whistleblower complaint behind Ukrainegate, Trump’s top issue – and the object of the “favor” he requested – was not the Bidens, but securing Zelensky’s assistance with the Justice Department’s ongoing review of how the Russia investigation began in 2016.
Whatever the case, for Bolton to write that Trump drew a link between these issues and the security aid – and not a link to a demand that Ukraine open an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma – contradicts the impeachment case that many expected him to validate.
Bolton, perhaps inadvertently, also lends credence to the Trump administration’s public defense of its freeze on security assistance to Ukraine, which Democrats cast as the linchpin of a politically motivated quid pro quo. In his July 25 call with Zelensky and subsequent public statements, Trump has said that he wanted NATO allies to spend more on Ukrainian military funding. Bolton recounts that on Aug. 30 – just days after an article in Politico made the aid freeze public, including to the Ukrainian government – Trump repeated his complaints about the U.S. burden, and proposed that NATO provide Ukraine with the security assistance instead of Washington:
Trump said, “I don’t give a shit about NATO. I am ready to say, ‘If you don’t pay, we won’t defend them.’ I want the three hundred million dollars [he meant two hundred fifty million dollars, one piece of the assistance earmarked for Ukraine] to be paid through NATO.” … He then said to Pence, “Call [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg and have him have NATO pay. Say ‘The President is for you, but the money should come from NATO,’” which still didn’t make any sense.
If Trump is freezing the military aid for the sole purpose of coercing a Ukrainian investigation, it would be incongruous for him to propose an outcome that delivers the money without the investigation he is supposedly trying to compel.
As a part of their impeachment case, Democrats argued that Trump released the aid to Ukraine only after getting caught through publicity surrounding the whistleblower complaint. Yet Bolton writes that after Ukraine conducted a successful prisoner swap with Russia on Sept. 7, “Trump had seemingly indicated” that the swap “might be enough to get him to release the security assistance.” The money was released four days later, on Sept. 11.
Says He Wanted Nothing to do With Ukraine
Bolton confirms national security aide Fiona Hill’s testimony that he told her he did not want to be “part of whatever drug deal Sondland and [White House Chief of Staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up.” But he offers context that makes that line far less explosive than it was initially received. Bolton was not referring to leveraging any military aid, but to Sondland’s attempt to push for a hasty meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the White House, where the “Giuliani issues” could be discussed before Ukraine’s parliamentary elections in July.
Bolton says he nixed the idea of a meeting because Trump had recently told him that “he didn’t want to have anything to do with Ukrainians of any stripe,” due to Ukrainian meddling against him in the 2016 campaign. Sondland, in Bolton’s view, was “freelancing.” According to Bolton, Trump had also “resolved the visit issue just before leaving for the United Kingdom in June,” by saying he would meet with Zelensky “not until the fall, the right outcome in my view.”
It is easy to forget why Bolton was initially cast as a savior figure in January by those hoping to remove Trump by impeachment. When news of his memoir emerged, 10 days after the Senate trial began, Democrats had failed to prove their case. Not a single witness in the House impeachment hearings had provided direct evidence of a quid pro quo. The only witness who even spoke to Trump about the Ukraine aid was the then-European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland. He reiterated multiple times that “nobody told me directly that the aid was tied to anything,” and that such a linkage was only his “presumption” and “personal, you know, guess.”
Sondland’s testimony was even more damaging to the impeachment case because, according to the impeachment narrative, he was the Trump official who purportedly relayed the alleged quid pro quo to the Ukrainian side. But Sondland revealed that he had only told Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak, in “a very, very brief pull-aside conversation,” that “I didn’t know exactly why” the aid has been frozen, but that a demand to open investigations “could be a reason.”
For his part, Yermak has said he does not even remember discussing the frozen aid with Sondland. That highlighted another problem with the Democrats’ quid pro quo allegation: Not a single Ukrainian official substantiates it. In addition to Yermak, President Zelensky and Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko also said that they saw no tie between the frozen military funding and pressure to open investigations. Even Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, a staunch impeachment advocate, corroborates them: When they met in early September, Murphy recalled, Zelensky “did not make any connection between the aid that had been cut off and the requests that he was getting from Giuliani.”
The Ukrainians’ claims make sense in light of the fact that they only learned of the aid freeze, along with the rest of the world, with the Politico article published August 28. That would have meant that the supposed quid pro quo demand was made to them only after the issue became a matter of public controversy. That scenario was always implausible on its face. And now Bolton’s memoir has failed to change the picture. Bolton seems to grasp this fact. “I think the House Democrats built a cliff, they threw themselves off of it,” he told Raddatz of ABC News. “And halfway down, they looked up and saw me, and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you come along?”
In 2001, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease ravaged the British farming industry. Exports from the UK of live animals, meat and dairy products were banned by other nations, as was the movement of animals from the infected area, and the government ordered a mass slaughter of millions of animals. The losses to British farmers were nearly incalculable, with a great many farmers going bankrupt or otherwise put out of business, and some farmers committing suicide in anguish over their losses. Within six months, almost 4 million animals had been slaughtered and their carcasses burned. Oddly, in the face of this enormous disaster, the government refused to hold a public inquiry into the outbreak, announcing instead three small separate investigations, the results of which would not be made public.
The UK government initially blamed the disease outbreak on “animal activists“, but not everyone believed the official story. At the time, the Sunday Express reported that the outbreak had been attributed to some vials containing foot and mouth virus, which had gone mysteriously missing from the laboratories at Porton Down, which location is a top-secret government bioweapons research facility housing such agents as TB, anthrax, smallpox, Ebola and the foot-and-mouth viruses. The report stated that “Authorities tried to play down the report by suggesting that “animal rights activists” had stolen and released the samples from the maximum-security government laboratory, though the same authorities failed to explain how animal rights activists would believe they were promoting animal rights by releasing a biological agent that would result in the destruction of millions of animals, or how they were able to penetrate the multiple layers of defenses in the heavily-secured laboratory.
No ragtag collection of anybody from anywhere would ever have access to such a facility, much less know how to deal with it. Neither terrorists nor animal-rights activists are renowned Ph.Ds with high-level security clearances and access to the top-secret and impossibly-secured facilities that contain these pathogens. And even if they did obtain access, the chances of any of them knowing what to search for, what to take, and what to do with it – and exiting alive – are somewhat less than zero. Given all of this, what do we make of the UK government’s claims that “activists” entered such a P-4 facility, stole many vials of foot and mouth virus, then apparently walked out of the facility unchallenged and proceeded to inoculate cattle and other farm animals by the hundreds of thousands? The accomplishment of such a feat might require more animal activists than exist in England, possibly by orders of magnitude.
As well, one media report in 2001 stated that “An eminent scientist with thirty years experience of infectious diseases challenged [UK Prime Minister] Blair in a prominent Sunday newspaper to “come clean and tell the truth about the foot-and-mouth epidemic“. The scientist testified that the virus which devastated Britain’s livestock “was not active in any other part of the world and could only have come from a UK laboratory.” And indeed the UK government bio-warfare labs at both Pirbright and Porton Down have been confirmed by the UK Minister of Health as containing more than 5,000 different strains of this particular virus, and in the end it did indeed appear the virus had originated in the UK government’s bio-warfare labs at Porton Down.
Then, the Sunday Express reported that a routine audit of Porton Down’s bio-warfare labs revealed that a container of several vials of foot-and-mouth virus had gone missing two months before the first outbreak of the disease, stating that “There are very persistent rumors over missing phials from Porton Down linked to animal rights activists”. The government of course desperately denied such a possibility, stating that “… only the Institute of Animal Health Laboratory and the Merial Biological Laboratory at Pirbright are licensed to hold FMD virus”, and that tales of the virus being stolen from Porton Down were inaccurate and impossible. But then, a senior military source at Porton Down stated publicly that vials “appear to have gone missing from one of the labs [at Porton Down] following a routine audit last year.”
The government then admitted that such a thing did happen after all and, right on cue, the government blamed the usual “animal rights activists” for the theft and release of the deadly pathogen, the media dutifully reporting that “Ministry officials were informed immediately and an investigation was launched initially by Special Branch and then by MI5, who are interested in the activities of animal rights protesters.” Unfortunately, those animal activists and protestors were somehow never found.
This scenario was repeated in 2007 with another outbreak in the UK, the source of which was determined to have been another UK government bio-weapons lab, this time at Pirbright. At the time, the Guardian published an article stating that, according to the authorities, “A leaky drain allowed the disease to escape”. The Guardian reported that, according to government sources, there had been a “probable” new leak of foot and mouth disease virus from the Merial Animal Health facility at Pirbright, the virus believed to have escaped through a leaking valve, “allowing an unintended probable release of live FMD virus into the drainage system“. The government claimed in a written statement to have received Merial’s assurances that “the live virus had not been released to the environment”, though in fact it had been. A spokesman for Merial apparently told the Guardian that he was “surprised by the fuss”. Both the government Health Service and Merial shared the source of this outbreak, the “broken drainage system” which served both sets of laboratories, though apparently “investigators were strangely unable to determine which lab was actually responsible for the leakage and outbreak”.
What do we make of the claim that perhaps thousands of liters of foot and mouth virus escaped through “a leaky drain” at Pirbright? I have had some experience with things that leak from drains or similar, and in all cases the leaks simply pool on the ground, filling the depressions while waiting to evaporate. But then this is England and maybe things are different there, which would account for the leaked pathogens winding their way through English hill and dale, visiting and somehow infecting millions of animals, for hundreds of kilometers in all directions from the biolab. In my world, viruses are not renowned for their motive ability to travel a countryside, nor for the necessary tracking radar to hunt down thousands of animal herds, nor for the aggressive disposition that would lead them to attack and infect every animal they found. That would almost require an intelligence – and a vehicle.
In June of 2008, soon after the second major outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the UK media ran a series of articles stating that “Security at British laboratories working with some of the world’s deadliest pathogens (that included anthrax, hemorrhagic fever and smallpox viruses), was undermined by a lack of investment and poor maintenance“. The media articles were in response to a report produced by some government MPs which claimed that the labs were “so dilapidated” and “run down” it was “not acceptable” that scientists were asked to work there. These facilities, the MPs claimed, had “outlived their usefulness”, and were in such ruinous condition they were “quite likely to experience” yet another leakage of deadly pathogens such as those of the foot and mouth virus that necessitated the slaughter of millions of animals. The committee of MPs especially singled out the labs at Pirbright and the secretive bio-warfare lab installations at Porton Down which, the media reported, were “Britain’s frontline defense against infectious diseases”.
It needs to be noted here that neither Pirbright nor Porton Down, but especially Porton Down, are a ‘frontline defense’ against anything and are in fact bio-weapons labs with a well-deserved evil reputation and a long and malicious history. This may have been the CIA’s version of a joke, but when anthrax spores were mailed to some US government and media representatives in 2001, CIA officials publicly speculated that Porton Down may have been their origin. In the end, the origin was determined to be (quite possibly courtesy of the same CIA) the US military’s bio-weapons labs at Fort Detrick, so perhaps a small false flag. Porton Down and the CIA have been close friends for many decades.It was to Porton Down that the CIA outsourced many of its “terminal interrogations”, i.e. questioning people until they died from the questioning methods. It was here that CIA biochemist Frank Olson witnessed firsthand the results of his ‘biochemistry’, began to suffer unbearable pangs of conscience, then suddenly met his death in most unusual circumstances, the result of an apparent suicide – as they almost always are. It was eventually revealed that Olson had been ordered killed by CIA Director Allen Dulles, that his death was neither an accident nor a suicide, but a deliberate murder to prevent the man from disclosing to the media the secret crimes of the CIA and Porton Down. Then-US President Johnson apologised to the family and paid $750,000 in compensation. So let’s not pretend Porton Down provides defense against infectious diseases.
According to an “independent” report, the buildings housing the lab facilities that contained the foot and mouth viruses were apparently “visibly substandard”, were suffering from a “creeping degradation of standards”, and were “poorly managed and regulated”. As Dr. Iain Anderson, who led a similar inquiry into the larger similar outbreak in 2001, was quoted as saying, “This virus should never have got out. [No argument there] Everything was wrong around Pirbright; the regulatory system was poor, the risk management was poor“. He further stated, “… the facilities … fall well short of internationally recognised standards, and the governance and funding arrangements are muddled and ineffective”. As well, his report described the laboratories as “shabby and dilapidated”, thus leading to the deadly virus “probably leaking from faulty pipes”. One British MP was quoted as saying, “When you think about how important biosecurity is, [… this] is staggering”. No kidding. I would have to agree.
At the time of the release of these so-called independent reports, the media were uniformly frightening us with claims that “Many scientists believe” that “climate change and terrorism” would now “bring many new diseases” and cause many pathogens such as anthrax to be “deliberately released in public places”, though it wasn’t immediately clear how climate change might deliberately release anthrax in a public park. The only scientists who believe that are the same people planning the next release. Those reports were not meant as either an apology or explanation for past disease outbreaks, but to create fear because a fearful public is malleable and will easily surrender civil rights to a fascist government in exchange for protection – most often from that same government. It was also a political statement to justify to the public the planned expense of a new, and quite massive, bio-warfare pathogen facility in the UK, one that would of course be “necessary to combat whatever our enemies throw at us”. Or to produce whatever we might want to throw at ourselves.
Aside from the implausibility inherent in the official narratives of these disease outbreaks, there are three other curious items I would bring to your attention.
The UK Government appeared to have prepared precisely for the epidemic of 2001. From an article by Dr. Mae-Wan Hoin an Institute of Science in Society Report dated September 24, 2001, entitled “Foot & Mouth Outbreak, GM Vaccine and Bio-warfare”:
“Investigations by the ‘Evening Chronicle‘ uncovered that the United States, Canada and Mexico began preparing for ‘a simulated outbreak of foot and mouth disease’ last October. According to papers leaked from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the exercise – which took place between November 6 and 9 – was ‘for the purpose of emergency planning.’ The papers reportedly state: ‘This exercise is the first of its kind and provides all three countries with a unique opportunity to apply their emergency response plans in the event of a real disease outbreak.’ At the same time, the UK Government was reported to be preparing its own ‘contingency plans’ for a foot and mouth outbreak. The Evening Chronicle reported that officials from the Agriculture Ministry began telephoning timber merchants as early as December asking if they could supply wood for pyres, should foot and mouth strike.”
UK farms appeared to have been targeted in advance, each marked with yellow tapes, for a visitation from unannounced and unidentified “government animal inspectors”, those farms being unfortunate enough to earn an “inspection” apparently coinciding with those suffering an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, with all livestock being destroyed.
According to one report that appeared credible, and there were others, a local resident named Martin Grant, who lived in Hatherleigh, Devon, described events he observed while cycling through the countryside in the Spring and Summer of 2001. Grant claims to have seen yellow tapes tied to fences, hedges, and trees on the roadside at the entrances to farms in the area. He, and others, later noted that these same locations were those “inspected” by staff claiming to be government agricultural workers. Though Grant was not conducting a scientific survey, he later stated that these locations appeared to coincide not only with the so-called inspections but also with the specific appearances of foot and mouth disease. He said it all occurred “generally just about the same time … this seemed to coincide that anyone that got a tape got foot-and-mouth. As if somebody had deliberately done something.” He was asked if his impression was that the yellow tapes were, “In other words, to ear-mark the farm for possible infection?” His response was to say, “Yes. That was the impression that I got… yes.” He added further that at the time, fragments of the yellow tapes were still hanging on many of the fences.
Another report was from a family named Bratton who lived in the area in question. Mrs. Bratton reported that she “encountered two men in white overalls outside the cattle shed” while walking to the buildings on her farm. She had no idea who they were or why they were on her property and, upon inquiring, was told they were UK Ministry of Agriculture officials “who had every right to inspect agricultural premises”, and ordered her to go inside her house because she was not permitted to witness their “inspections”. Mrs. Bratton said she called the local police several times, was assured they would investigate and contact her. She claimed she received no response, and was later informed the police had no record of her prior calls. Shortly thereafter, all her farm’s livestock was discovered to be infected and were subsequently destroyed. I have not seen much of the documentation, but there were many apparently many similar reports of animal inspections from farms suffering the same fate.
Perhaps the most curious of all was the well-documented activity by staff from the office of the UK Minister of Agriculture inquiring about the supply of lumber (for burning infected livestock) and the requisitioning of it, prior to any apparent need. There were at least several published accounts of various government officials or their representatives inquiring about “combustible materials”, as well as stockpiling them, and of the issuing of contracts to trucking companies and machinery operators for ground excavation and for the hauling of dead livestock, several months prior to the disease outbreak in February of 2001.
One headline stated, “Timber merchants around Britain say that in early February they were approached by the ministry for wood supplies to burn animals with foot-and-mouth. Timber merchants say they were approached by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in early February, before the outbreak was confirmed, to supply wood for the pyres which are used to burn the diseased animals that have been killed.” UK Agriculture minister Nick Brown insisted this was part of a “regular contingency planning exercise”, and added, “There are a number of urban legends doing the rounds that the ministry knew about this disease before. That is not true.”
Mr. Brown was pointedly questioned about the contacts made by his office with suppliers – many months prior to the disease outbreak – “to establish the availability of timber, suitable for use in pyres for burning dead livestock.” The Minister’s reply was to say that “Information on all the timber stockists contacted by the Ministry over the last year is not held centrally and could be provided only at a disproportionate cost.” If that isn’t clear, the Minister effectively stated that his staff created no accessible records of their approaches to lumber dealers, purchases made and contracts signed, that any records that did exist were widely dispersed and couldn’t be collated. That might be true if 50,000 lumber dealers were approached by several thousand different staff members in a wholly uncoordinated fashion but, if the number of dealers were only in the tens, which is likely, the Minister’s statements beg some questions.
There is one final matter I would bring to your attention, one on which I have no commentary. There were many rumors, some articles, and several letters to the Editor at the time, dealing with what was called a “planned rationalisation” of UK animal farms, ‘rationalisation’ in this sense referring to the elimination of small farmers and the concentration of livestock production in the hands of Big Agra. This would have included, according to these people, increased and prohibitively costly new regulations which small operators would find onerous or impossible to implement, preparing the way for small agra to be “eventually absorbed by the multi-national food processing corporations“. Writers claimed this was one of the ambitions of then Prime Minister Blair. I do not know if this was the intent, but it certainly was the result. According to my information, many thousands of small farmers have disappeared from the UK, driven out by unrecoverable losses, poor compensation and new regulations. And Big Agra has apparently indeed proliferated in the aftermath.
I do not know the totality of truths for these outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, nor specifically how the virus was removed from the secure P-4 facilities and spread around the entire country. It certainly was not the result of either accidents or activists, and had to be done deliberately. I think we can be forgiven for suspicions that the deep state that controls so many Western governments is the most vicious criminal enterprise in the world today.
Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com.
Just when you thought the leaders of NATO could not push the limits of insanity any further, something like NATO 2030 is announced.
After helping blow up the Middle East and North Africa, dividing the Balkans into zones of war and tension, turning Ukraine upside down using armadas of neo Nazis, and encircling Russia with a ballistic missile shield, the leaders of this Cold War relic have decided that the best way to deal with instability of the world is… more NATO.
In a June 8th online event co-sponsored by the Atlantic Council, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the launch of a planning project to reform NATO called NATO 2030. Stoltenberg told his audience that in order to deal with Russia and China’s strategic partnership which is transforming the global balance of power, “we must resist the temptation of national solutions and we must live up to our values: freedom, democracy and the rule of law. To do this, we must stay strong militarily, be more united politically and take a broader approach globally.”
In the mind of Stoltenberg, this means expanding NATO’s membership into the Pacific with a high priority on the absorption of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea into NATO’s dysfunctional family. It also means extending NATO’s jurisdiction beyond a military alliance to include a wider political and environmental dimension (the war on climate change is apparently just as serious as the war on terrorism and should thus be incorporated into NATO’s operating system).
Analyzing China’s intentions through the most Hobbesian dark age lens on the market, Stoltenberg stated “they are investing heavily in modern military capabilities, including missiles that can reach all NATO allied countries. They are coming closer to us in cyberspace. We see them in the Arctic, in Africa… and they are working more and more together with Russia.”
In spite of NATO’s Cold War thinking, Russia and China have continuously presented olive branches to the west over the years- offering to cooperate on such matters as counter-terrorism, space exploration, asteroid defense, and global infrastructure projects in the Arctic and broader Belt and Road Initiative. In all instances, these offers have been met with a nearly unanimous cold shoulder by the western military industrial complex ruling NATO and the Atlantic alliance.
The Engine of War Heats Up
As Stoltenberg spoke these words, the 49th Baltic Operations running from June 1-16th were underway as the largest NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea featuring “30 ships and submarines, and 30 aircraft, conducting air defence, anti-submarine warfare, maritime interdiction and mine countermeasure operations.” In response Moscow reinforced its armored forces facing Europe.
Meanwhile in China’s backyard, three aircraft carriers all arrived in the Pacific (the USS Theodore Roosevelt, USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz) with a senate Armed Services Committee approval of $6 billion in funds for the Pacific Defense Initiative which Defense News stated will “send a strong signal to the Chinese Communist Party that America is deeply committed to defending our interests in the Indo-Pacific”. The committee also approved a U.S. Airforce operating location in the Indo-Pacific for F-35A jets in order to “prioritize the protection of the air bases that might be under attack from current or emerging cruise missiles and advanced hypersonic missiles, specifically from China.”
Another inflammatory precursor for confrontation came from a House Republican Study Committee report co-authored by Secretary of State Pompeo calling for sanctioning China’s leadership, listing Russia as a state sponsor of terror and authorizing the use of military force against anyone on a Foreign Terrorist Organization list. When one holds in mind that large sections of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard happen to be on this list, it is not hard to see how quickly nations doing business with Iran can be considered “state sponsors of terror”, justifying a use of military force from America.
With this level of explicit antagonism and duplicity, it is no wonder that China’s foreign ministry announced on June 10th that it would not participate in joint three-way arms talks between the USA and Russia. If America demonstrated a coherent intention to shift its foreign policy doctrine towards a genuine pro-cooperation perspective, then it is undoubtably the case that China would enthusiastically embrace such proposals. But until then, China is obviously unwilling to lose any part of its already small nuclear deterrent of 300 warheads (compared to Russia and the USA, who each own 6000).
The Resistance to the Warhawks
I have said it many times before, but there is currently not one but two opposing American military doctrines at war with each other and no assessment of American foreign policy is complete without a sensitivity to that fact.
On the one hand, there is the sociopathic doctrine which I outlined summarily above, but on the other hand, there exists a genuine intention to stop the “forever wars”, pull out of the Middle East, disengage with NATO and realign with a multipolar system of sovereign nation states.
This more positive America expressed itself in Trump’s June 7th counter-attack on former Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis who had fueled the American Maidan now unfolding by stating his belief that solutions can happen without the President. Trump had fired Mattis earlier over the Cold Warrior’s commitment to endless military enmeshment in Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq. In this Oval Office interview, the President called out the Military industrial complex which Mattis represents saying “The military-industrial complex is unbelievably powerful… You have no idea. Some legit, and some non-legit.”
Another aspect of Trump’s resistance to the neo-cons running the Pentagon and CIA is reflected in the June 11 joint U.S.-Iraq statement after the Strategic Dialogues summit of American and Iraqi delegates which committed to a continued reduction of troops in Iraq stating:
“Over the coming months, the U.S. would continue reducing forces from Iraq and discuss with the government of Iraq the status of remaining forces as both countries turn their focus towards developing a bilateral security relationship based on strong mutual interests”.
This statement coincides with Trump’s May 2020 call to accelerate U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan which has seen a fall from 12000 troops in February to under 9,000 as of this writing.
Most enraging to the NATO-philes of London, Brussels and Washington was Trump’s surprising call to pull 9,500 American troops out of Germany hours before Stoltenberg gave his loony NATO 2030 speech with Johann Wadephul (Deputy head of the CDU) saying “these plans demonstrate once again that the Trump administration neglects a central element of leadership: the involvement of alliance partners in the decision-making process”. In his next breath, Wadephul made his anti-Eurasian delusion transparent saying “Europe gains from the Alliance being unified. Only Russia and China gain from strife.”
Just a few months earlier, the President showed his disdain for the NATO bureaucracy by unilaterally pulling 3,000 American military personnel out of the Trident Juncture exercise held annually every March.
In Defense of President Trump
In spite of all of his problems, Trump’s resistance to the dark age/neocon faction which has been running a virtually independent military-industrial-intelligence complex since FDR’s death in 1945 demonstrates a high degree of courage unseen in American presidents for many decades.
Most importantly, this flawed President represents a type of America which is genuinely compatible with the pro-nation state paradigm now being led by Russia and China.
Trump’s recent attempt to reform the G7 into a G11 (incorporating Russia, India, South Korea and Australia) is a nice step in that direction but his exclusion of China has made it an unworkable idea.
To solve this problem, American University in Moscow President Edward Lozansky stated in his recent Washington Times column that adding China to the list making it a G12 would be a saving grace to the idea and one of the best flanking maneuvers possible during this moment of crisis. Lozansky’s concept is so important that I wish to end with a larger citation from his article:
“Both Russia and China got the message a long time ago that they need to stay together to withstand the efforts to destroy them in sequence… The G-7 indeed is an obsolete group and it definitely needs a fresh blood. Therefore, a G-12 meeting in New York in late September during the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly would be a perfect place and timing since Mr. Trump had already announced that he is willing to hold a G-5 summit with the leaders of Russia, China, Britain and France — the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — to discuss nuclear security issues. China so far is reluctant to join these talks, arguing that its smaller nuclear force is defensive and poses no threat. However, for the discussion in the G-12 format Mr. Putin might be able to convince his pal Xi to accept Mr. Trump’s invitation. This would be a huge achievement for the world’s peace and at the same time allow Mr. Trump to score lots of political points not only from his electoral base but from undecided and even from his opponents who want to save their families from nuclear holocaust.”
Unless world citizens who genuinely wish to avoid the danger of a nuclear holocaust learn how to embrace the idea of a G-12, and let the NATO/Cold War paradigm rot in the obsolete trash bin of history where it rightfully belongs, then I think it is safe to say that the future will not be something to look forward to.
For the next installment, we will take a look at the British Imperial origins of NATO and the American deep state in order to help shed greater light on the nature of the “two Americas” which I noted above, have been at war with each other since 1776.
In this interview, Dr. Andrew Kaufman joins Spiro for a second time. The first time Dr. Kaufman joined Spiro, they talked about topics that apparently, nobody is allowed to talk about, if you dare question the official story that is.
In the first interview the two discussed the coronavirus, they covered testing and they covered the vaccine. The video was quickly approaching 100k views but YouTube removed the video after only a couple days. This video will likely be taken down as well, because it does not conform to the establishment’s narrative.
Not only did YouTube remove the previous video, Reuters, which is a massive international news publication that news sites from all over the world obtain their talking points from, published a fact checking report attempting to debunk Dr. Kaufman’s claims that the new COVID-19 DNA vaccine would genetically modify humans. In this must see report, Dr Kaufman responds to the Reuters ‘fact checking’ report.
There appears to be a coronavirus vaccine on the horizon—but it’s a GMO and the FDA would need to approve testing https://geneticliteracyproject.org/20…
A listener writes in to lament that The Corbett Report is spreading false facts about Bill Gates in Who Is Bill Gates? . . . at least, according to the fact checkers. But are they right? Don’t miss today’s important edition of the Fact Check series where James teaches a master class in how to examine a “fact check” and how to tell whether a claim is supported by the evidence or not.
Imagine believing that you know what is in the best interests of others, and worse, ones you have never even met, and worse still, believing you have a right to improve their situation in the manner and timeline you see fit. The belief that one has the right to save the world is termed ‘communal narcissism’. Therein lies the first problem with progressive imperialism.
The American left in the realm of foreign policy suffers from a type of prosocial communal narcissism, based in their own self-appraisal that their best intentions will be realized in the best outcomes for others, as the narcissist has themself defined it.
But the American left is significantly more dangerous and grotesque compared to standard justifications of imperialism, because it frames the discourse in such a way that it is blind to its own chauvinism, and believes itself to speak for the world.
What in other countries is viewed as quite ugly – believing oneself so enlightened and righteous that they can force others into their own image – has become a quintessential aspect of American culture post 1960’s.
We arrive then at our problem; the leftist approach has relied on soft-power tactics which require a lot more imagination, and yet also hubris, to justify. It is based overtly in telling other countries how to manage themselves as being both philosophically and categorically its proclaimed mandate.
It is the most overt form of imperialism, couched in the language of the left’s understanding of human rights and universalism. It rests gently on the ears and upon the conscience if left unexamined, but in actual fact it is far more malignant. Perhaps because they are so over-used, and perhaps here because they appear to be benign, because American society accepts these as just. But the specter of Dunning-Kruger will always rear its ugly head, and the expected outcomes will almost never materialize.
And in typical gas-lighting fashion, the failure of the subject nation to live up to the vision of the narcissist will be blamed upon the subject.
Most dangerously, soft-power tactics situate themselves outside of the founding principles of national self-determination and sovereignty that the UN was established upon in the post-war years, and yet exploits the various corrupt alphabet soup of organizations and agencies that operate under the UN’s umbrella.
Soft-power tactics were born out of a cultural shift within the U.S.., the development of media and later new media, as a form of propaganda and manufactured consent. The role of television media reporting on Vietnam left an American public taken aback by raw images of the terrorism and horror that is war.
Gone forever was the myth of purity of arms. And so a new myth, the myth of soft-power towards regime change, had to be built.
While soft-power tactics may at first appear to be less harmful to the target, because ‘military’ is not used, the socio-economic outcome of such an approach is the very definition of collective punishment and civilian targets, targets which if zeroed in on by the military would qualify as war crimes and crimes against humanity by any reasonable measure.
Enter the Save the World Generation of 1968
The ‘save the world’ generation in America that emerged from the utopian leanings of 1968, in part also out of opposition to the Vietnam War, came to define the left-wing version of American foreign policy.
The popular opposition to the war in Vietnam signaled the need for a new era in American foreign policy development. Richard Falk – the preeminent American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University – wrote for Foreign Policy Magazine in an article titled ‘What We Should Learn from Vietnam’ published in 1970 or ‘71:
“Where there is no formidable radical challenge on the domestic scene, as in India or Japan, the American preference is clearly for moderate democracy, indeed the kind of political orientation that the United States imposed upon Japan during the military occupation after World War II. However, where an Asian society is beset by struggle between a rightist incumbent regime and a leftist insurgent challenger, then American policy throws its support, sometimes strongly, to the counterrevolutionary side.
As a result, there has been virtually no disposition to question the American decision to support the repressive and reactionary Saigon regime provided that support could have led to victory in Vietnam at a reasonable cost.”
In establishing this as a problem, Falk proposes what he terms a ‘Fourth Position’, one which would end America’s pre-occupation with supporting counter-revolutionary forces in Asia.
We can extrapolate from Falk’s thesis an historical parallel: It was forward looking Gauls inspired by their Roman neighbors who established the infrastructure of roads which Roman legionaries would later march in on under Cesar.
Likewise, allow modernizing and technology oriented communist regimes to flourish in Asia as these would ultimately create the interface with which the U.S. could pursue its interests in the region.
In Falk’s work we find the kernel of contemporary U.S. foreign policy and the leftoid soft-power approach, and indeed almost predicts the Nixon-Mao meeting a year or two later.
By now, everyone is familiar with Nye and Ferguson’s ideas on soft-power. By the 1990’s, left-overs from the Cold War’s Radio Free Europe were transformed into more covert projects towards soft-power, outside of the more obvious Radio Liberty and the Atlantic Council’s array of projects. USAID and the NED combined with private philanthropy of the likes of George Soros to establish a ‘legal, peaceful’ mechanism by exploiting international law and the UN’s bodies, known now as the NGO industrial complex.
But what will confound and confuse future historians of the American empire is the mindset of the mainstream left which supports foreign interventionism.
So this is how we have to understand it. If the 70’s was the ‘We’ generation, the 80’s was the ‘Me’ generation – and in came a toxic combination of noble intentions for others taken from the 60’s and 70’s, alongside a particular mission-individualism that gives a person a sense that they are exceptional.
The result was the self-improvement craze of the 80’s and 90’s. And just as self-improvement for individuals becomes a collective norm that others must also be pressured to accept or face ridicule and shunning for being ‘backwards’, the contemporary psychology of human rights (soft power) imperialism is understood.
In short, it opposed American exceptionalism but promoted an exceptionalism of the enlightened community, almost always a liberal of the left, a model that everyone else must also follow.
Something appropriated from Marxism and Christianity, the left has substituted the idea that the nation should rule or that the nation has legitimacy, with the idea that the party with the right values and ideas should rule.
And here is where our final point rests. Alongside the communal narcissism of human rights imperialism which we see in the left’s preference for soft power, we also find this: a belief that just as they as individuals are evolving towards an ever greater enlightenment, so too is America.
This is probably the most complex and dynamic aspect of the problem of the American left’s psychology in foreign policy.
If nations shouldn’t rule others, perhaps they shouldn’t rule themselves, for in each nation are ‘others’ – minorities, historically oppressed identity groups, and so on. America shouldn’t rule them either, the belief goes, but the enlightened ideas which conveniently are determined by an enlightened yoga-practicing vegan community who happen to be American, should indeed rule.
They think this: Assad may not be a threat to his neighbors, but the fact that Syria is a nation and is ruled by a man who exemplifies numerous hetero cis-gendered patriarchal norms, probably means that the U.S. (not acting as a nation but rather a ‘vehicle of values’) should use soft-power to support any method to remove him.
Other countries are viewed as static, unmoving, non-dynamic ‘regimes’. From the outside looking in, and being a poor cultural anthropologist, all societies appear monolithic and in contemporary parlance, that means ‘totalitarian’. Commonly held beliefs and customs among a foreign people are transformed into top-down mandated values that are imposed upon an unwilling population.
America has deep problems, the liberal soft power imperialist reckons, but the fact that America can overcome and indeed is overcoming them, means that other countries can overcome them too, if they emulate America.
This is perhaps the only way to get on board with something that otherwise would be a flagrant contradiction: America, land of deep problems, ought to be emulated.
It also means imposing American narratives on the rest of the world. If America had a particular problem of racism, land theft, and never ending foreign wars, then suddenly America is nevertheless ‘alright’ since it is in some dynamic process of changing this. Other countries, being governed by static and monolithic caricatures, must have their whole societies uprooted and their governments overthrown in order to overcome the same problems.
America therefore is the ‘expert’ at solving these problems for other countries, not because it has solved them, but because it has developed a model for resistance.
Never mind these are often not problems other countries have. To the hammer of American soft power, all the world is a human rights nail.
Now we see that the U.S. can intervene everywhere in the world so long as it can paint that foreign land as having American problems. Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya – ethnic conflict, patriarchy, rape culture and a popular uprising (which CNN will color left) means a justified soft power intervention.
There is a saying, ‘All’s well that ends well’. By establishing a conflict thesis of American history, America – in the view of the left – can rectify its past wrongs by righting the same wrongs around the world.
Never mind that these past wrongs aren’t, by their own measure, solved in America. These left Americans see themselves not as Americans acting in America’s interests, but as enlightened people with a right to fix other country’s problems, whether or not those problems really exist and regardless of whether those lowly and unevolved people actually want it. After they are uplifted and re-educated, they will look back and thank us.
This in a nutshell is the mindset of the imperial progressive. This is the sort of thinking that has no place in an international community based on mutual respect and sovereignty.
Supporters of the American empire proclaim the U.S. military invincible unless stabbed in the back by politicians. They say the US military won the war in Vietnam, but claim victory was lost after politicians cut off aid to South Vietnam. This is fake history. The Vietnam war was lost by 1963 after the CIA failed to establish a new nation that became known as South Vietnam. The arrival of American troops prevented a defeat, but only caused more death and destruction until they left.
Soon after the Americans departed, the fragile, corrupt puppet regime of South Vietnam collapsed. After this retreat, supporters of the American empire began to spread lies that South Vietnam collapsed in 1975 only because Democrats in Congress cut military aid. This deception begins with the half-truth that the 1968 Tet Offensive was a major defeat for the Vietnamese. This was true on the tactical level but it was a strategic disaster for the US military.
“MACV The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal 1968-1973; Graham A. Cosmas; US Army Center for Military History: https://history.army.mil/html/books/0…
How are you? Do I have to ask this question? I am sorry for I do not know how to start. Would you like me to ask another one?
Dear “israel”,
Do you really know what the word “loss” means? Do you really understand the meaning of sorrow and sadness? You know nothing of that and all that you know is the terror, blood, wars, massacres, and genocides that you commit against innocent people who did nothing to you except demand their rights as human beings. “Loss” is when you talk and laugh with one of your beloveds at your home in the morning, and you do not know if you will see them again in the evening. “Loss” is the voice you used to hear that no longer exists.
“Loss” is that day, October 26, 2018, when my brother, like hundreds of other Palestinians, went out in the Great March of Return to call for his right to return. He went out to tell the whole world our cause and that we are still here. He cried loudly that we as Palestinian refugees want to remind the international community of our demand for implementation Paragraph 11 of UN Resolution 194 calling for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes at the earliest possible date. He cried, but the Israeli soldier did not want to hear his voice, so he shot my brother dead. The Israeli bullet penetrated my brother’s body and murdered him.
When they brought his body home, they did not know how to show it to my mama. My mama, like thousands of Palestinian mothers, was ready to sacrifice her son for the sake of our homeland, yet, at least, she wished that she could have a last look at him while he was alive.
My brother’s body laid in front of my mama’s eyes; she could not move; she was looking at him and her heart was bleeding. Her tears were falling silently. Everyone surrounded her and tried to calm her by saying words such as, “Be patient. God has chosen him to reward with paradise!” However, I am sure mama’s mind was just with my brother. She could not hear anything. She was looking at him for the last time. After this moment, there will be no kisses, no hugs, so she had to live every second with him.
When they were about to take his body, with a broken heart mama cried, “Leave him. Leave him. Let me see him more. Let me kiss him more.” They left him for a minute; she did what she asked for. How can a minute separate staying and leaving, death and life? The last words mama said were, “Ma assalama, ya habibi– goodbye, my love.” Then she blacked out.
His name was Ayesh, which in Arabic means “he is alive.” But you “israel”, you murdered him at a very young age. He was just 23. He went. Without return, he went. He will never come back, yet he is still alive in our hearts, and in the message he left behind him.
Do you not remember my brother as you have slaughtered thousands of Palestinians in cold blood? My brother is not a number you count. This letter is not a message you hear.
“Loss” is that moment when my mother, in a very cold winter night, took the picture of my martyr brother off the wall, put it next to her and covered it with her comforter so that he would not feel cold. And with tears, repeated, “Ma assalama, ya habibi.”
Dear “israel,”
They say that Gaza is a prison. Do not believe them. In prison, there is a specific period that the prisoner spends and then he is free. Here in Gaza, which they claim is a prison, this does not happen. Here, we are trying to get out but we fail. We are trying to fly but before we start, you, “israel”, break our wings. Gaza is more than a prison.
Last year, two other youths from Gaza and I were selected to represent Palestine in the “Youth Forum in the Arab Region” which took place in Tunisia. I was eager to see what the world looks like outside, to know what the word “Abroad” means. I had so many plans for what I would do there, outside of Gaza. Yet, my dream was shattered; we could not travel because of you, “israel”. You did not give us permission to pass Erez, the crossing you created to isolate Gaza from the rest of Palestine.
You did not want the voice of Palestine to be there; her voice disturbs you, as you always try to wipe her map and flag. But still, do not be happy. If we cannot fly, it is enough that the birds fly in the sky of Palestine.
Dear “israel”:
Do you remember what happened in 1948? Wait! Am I still calling you “dear”? I apologize. I apologize to myself. I apologize to my mama, to my papa, to my beloved ones. I apologize to my “Falasteen – Palestine”, my dear “Falasteen“. I apologize for calling you “dear”. That word which implies love and respect, for you do not know love, dignity, or peace. You do not know any of these. You only know torture and massacres that do not respect human rights. Have you noticed that I have not capitalized any of your letters? It is because you say “israel” means “to wrestle with God.” But you do not wrestle with God in Palestine. There is no God in your army. I will use the upper-case I in “israel” when you decide to stand up for God, for justice, for human beings, and let us return to our homes.
– Haneen Shat is a young journalist from Gaza City. After graduating from Gaza University in English Literature, Haneen has begun a career in journalism, hoping one day to be able to travel outside of Gaza and share the Palestinian cause with the world. Haneen is on twitter: https://twitter.com/Haneen_Gaza1998.
Canada’s defeat in its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council is a major victory for Palestinian solidarity. It also puts Canada’s Israel lobby on the defensive.
Israeli politicians and commentators have begun to publicly bemoan the loss. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, told the Jerusalem Post, “we are disappointed that Canada didn’t make it, both because we have close ties with the country and because of the campaign that the Palestinians ran against Canada.” In another story in that paper headlined “With annexation looming, Canada’s UNSC upset is bad news for Israel, US” Deputy Managing Editor Tovah Lazaroff labels Canada’s loss “a sharp reminder of the type of diplomatic price tag Israel’s allies can suffer on the international stage.”
Inside Canada the Security Council defeat is a blow to the Israel lobby. While the Canadian media has generally minimized the impact Canada’s anti-Palestinian position had on the vote, the subject is being raised. In a Journal deQuébec column titled “Why did Canada suffer a humiliating defeat at the UN?” Norman Lester writes, “it is the support of the Trudeau Liberal government for Israel, like that of Harper before him, that is probably the main reason for Ottawa’s two successive setbacks. Ireland and Norway have more balanced policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than Canada.” He concludes the article by noting, “Canada has no chance of returning to the Security Council in the foreseeable future unless there is a radical change in its position regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
By acquiescing almost entirely to the ‘Israel no matter what’ outlook of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B’nai B’rith, the Trudeau government undercut its bid for a seat on the UN’s highest decision-making body. The Israel lobby’s point people in the Liberal caucus, Anthony Housefather and Michael Levitt, are no doubt hoping to avoid too much blowback for their role in this embarrassment. Housefather ought to be prodded on his contribution to the Trudeau government’s anti-Palestinian voting record at the UN since he repeatedly boasted that it was more pro-Israel than Stephen Harper’s.
Canada’s voting record at the UN was at the heart of the grassroots No Canada on the UN Security Council campaign. An open letter launching the campaign from the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute noted, “since coming to power the Trudeau government has voted against more than fifty UN resolutions upholding Palestinian rights backed by the overwhelming majority of member states.” A subsequent open letter was signed by over 100 civil society groups and dozens of prominent individuals urging countries to vote against Canada’s bid for a Security Council seat due to its anti-Palestinian positions. That letter organized by Just Peace Advocates stated, “the Canadian government for at least a decade and a half has consistently isolated itself against world opinion on Palestinian rights at the UN. … Continuing this pattern, Canada ‘sided with Israel by voting No’ on most UN votes on the Question of Palestine in December. Three of these were Canada’s votes on Palestinian Refugees, on UNRWA and on illegal settlements, each distinguishing Canada as in direct opposition to the ‘Yes’ votes of Ireland and Norway.”
Just Peace Advocates organized 1,300 individuals to email all UN ambassadors asking them to vote for Ireland and Norway instead of Canada for the Security Council. In a sign of the campaign’s impact, Canada’s permanent representative to the UN Marc André Blanchard responded with a letter to all UN ambassadors defending Canada’s policy on Palestinian rights.
Not only has Canada’s voting record on Palestinian rights undercut its standing within the General Assembly, the Canadian public doesn’t want the government pursuing anti-Palestinian positions. A recent Ekos poll found that 74% of Canadians wanted Ottawa to express opposition to Israel’s plan to formally annex a large swath of the West Bank with 42% of the public desiring some form of economic and/or diplomatic sanction against Israel if it moves forward with annexation. “The Trudeau government has not only isolated Canada from international opinion regarding Palestinian rights at the UN, but its positions contravene the wishes of most Canadians regarding the long-beleaguered Palestinians,” explained Karen Rodman of Just Peace Advocates.
While the impact of the loss shouldn’t be exaggerated, Justin Trudeau’s brand is linked to the idea that he is liked internationally. Additionally, the Liberals’ base supports the UN and the international body is closely connected with how they market their foreign policy.
Kowtowing to CIJA, B’nai B’rith and Israeli nationalists such as Housefather, Levitt, etc. on Palestinian rights at the UN helped scuttle Canada’s Security Council bid — that’s a fact Trudeau and the Liberals must face. More important, the international community’s rejection of a government enthralled to the Israel lobby weakens Israel diplomatically and is a victory for Palestine solidarity.
In my last article, I reviewed the case of Gough Whitlam’s firing at the hands of the Queen’s Governor General Sir John Kerr during a dark day in November 1975 which mis-shaped the next 45 years of Australian history. Today I would like to tackle another chapter of the story.
I used to believe as many do, in a story called “the American Empire”. Over the last decade of research, that belief has changed a bit. The more I looked at the top down levers of world influence shaping past and present events that altered history, the hand of British Intelligence just kept slapping me squarely in the face at nearly every turn.
Who controlled the dodgy Steele dossier that put Russiagate into motion and nearly overthrew President Trump? British Intelligence.
How about the financial empire running the world drug trade? Well HSBC is the proven leading agency of that game and the British Caymen islands is the known center of world offshore drug money laundering.
Who created Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel in the 20th century (as well as both nations’ intelligence agencies?) The British.
What was the nature of the Deep State that Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR, and JFK combatted within their own nations?
What the heck was the American Revolution all about in the first place?
I could go on, but I think you get my point.
The Disrupted Post-WWII Potential
Franklin Roosevelt described his deep understanding of British operations in America, telling his son in 1943:
“You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats over there aren’t in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of ’em: any number of ’em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!” I was told… six years ago, to clean out that State Department. It’s like the British Foreign Office….”
Where the British Empire certainly adapted to the unstoppable post-WWII demands for political independence among its colonies, it is vital to keep in mind that no empire willfully dissolves or “gives its slaves freedom” without a higher evil agenda in mind. Freedom is fought for and not given by empires which never had a reason to seek humility or enlightenment required for freedom to be granted.
In the case of the post-war world, the deliverance of political freedom among the “former British Empire” was never accompanied by an ounce of economic freedom to give that liberation any meaning. Although it took a few years to iron out America’s anti-colonial impulses over the deaths of such figures as JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK, eventually the rebellious republic was slowly converted into a dumb giant on behalf of the “British brains” controlling America’s Deep State from across the ocean.
The Case of Africa and the Crown Agents
Take the case of Africa as a quick example: Over 70% of the mineral control of African raw materials, mining, and refining are run by companies based in Britain or Commonwealth nations like Canada, South Africa or Australia managed by an international infrastructure of managers called “Crown Agents Ltd” (founded in 1833 as the administrative arm of the Empire and which still runs much of Africa’s health, and economic development policies to this day).
Crown Agents was originally set up as a non-profit with the mandate to manage British Empire holdings in Asia and Africa and its charter recognizes it as “an emanation of the Crown”. While it is “close to the monarchy” it is still outside governmental structures affording it to get its hands dirtier than other “official” branches of government (resulting in the occasional case of World Bank debarment as happened in 2011).
In 1996 Crown Agents was privatized as ‘Crown Agents for Overseas Government and Administration’ where it became active in Central and Eastern Europe with its greatest focus on Ukraine’s economic, energy and health management. The agency is partnered with the World Bank, UN and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and acts as a giant holding company with one shareholder called the Crown Agents Foundation based in Southwark London.
“101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) — most of them British — have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African countries. They collectively control over $1 trillion worth of Africa’s most valuable resources. The UK government has used its power and influence to ensure that British mining companies have access to Africa’s raw materials. This was the case during the colonial period and is still the case today.”
As we can see by this most summary overview of the modern imperial looting operations of Africa, the spirit of Cecil Rhodes is alive and well. This will take on an additional meaning as we look at another aspect of Rhodes’ powerful legacy in the 20th century.
The British Takeover of American Intelligence
Although many falsely believe that Britain was replaced with an American Empire after WWII, the sad truth on closer inspection is that British assets embedded in America’s early deep state (often Rhodes Scholars and Fabian Society assets tied to the Council on Foreign Relations/Chatham House of America) were behind a purge of leaders loyal to FDR’s vision for the post-colonial world. These purges resulted in the dismantling of the OSS months after FDR died, and the formation of the CIA in 1947 as a new weapon to carry out coups, assassinations and subversions of leaders within America and abroad seeking economic independence from the British Empire. This history was outlined brilliantly by Cynthia Chung in her paper Secret Wars, Forgotten Betrayals, Global Tyranny: Who is Really in Charge of the U.S. Military.
“Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, and for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire…”
Later on in his will Rhodes stated: “Let us form the same kind of society, a Church for the extension of the British Empire. A society which should have its members in every part of the British Empire working with one object and one idea we should have its members placed at our universities and our schools and should watch the English youth passing through their hands just one perhaps in every thousand would have the mind and feelings for such an object, he should be tried in every way, he should be tested whether he is endurant, possessed of eloquence, disregardful of the petty details of life, and if found to be such, then elected and bound by oath to serve for the rest of his life in his Country. He should then be supported if without means by the Society and sent to that part of the Empire where it was felt he was needed.”
Among the four Anglo-Saxon members of the Five Eyes that have the Queen as the official head of state (Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), all feature irrational forms of government structured entirely around Deep State principles organized within two opposing forms of social organizing: democratic and oligarchical… with the true seat of power being oligarchical.
Because this peculiar self-contradictory form of government is so little understood today, and because its structure has made Britain’s globally extended empire so successful, a few words should be devoted to it now.
A House Divided Against Itself…
In the case of Westminster-modelled Parliamentary systems, Senates represent the House of Lords, while Houses of Commons (for the Commoners) represent the elected parts of government. A prime minister selected by the governing party is assumed to be that nation’s leader, but unlike republican forms of government, instead of the “buck stopping there” (at least legally speaking), it is precisely there that the true sphere of power only begins to be felt.
Here parliamentary/quasi-democratic systems projected for public consumption find themselves enshrined within a much more shadowy and Byzantine world of Governor Generals (acting as the heads of state) who give Royal Assents to all acts and wielding the infinite prerogative powers of the Queen (aka: the “Fount of All Honors”). In the British Imperial system, hereditary power is seen as the source of all authority for all aspects of government, military, and economic- whereas in republican forms of government that authority is seen as deriving from the consent of the governed.
Where rights are “granted by the sovereign” within hereditary governments, republican forms of government recognize correctly that rights are fundamentally “inalienable” to humanity (in principle though not always in practice as the troubled history of America can attest).
By being essentially the legal “cause” of all authority among every branch of the British official and unofficial corridors of power, an obvious absurdity strikes which the empire would prefer plebs not think too seriously about: The queen and her heirs cannot themselves be UNDER any law, since they “cause” the law. This means that the queen, her heirs and anyone whom she delegates authority to literally have “licenses to kill”. The queen cannot be taken to court and she has no need of a passport or even a drivers’ license… since these items are issued by her crown’s authority alone. Within the logic of British legal systems, she cannot be held legally accountable for anything which the Crown has done to anyone or any nation of the world.
Although much effort goes into portraying the Crown’s prerogative powers as merely symbolic, they cover nearly every branch of governance and have occasionally been used… although those British spheres of influence where they most apply are usually so self-regulating that they require very little input from such external influence to keep them in line.
These powers were first revealed publicly in 2003 and in an article titled ‘Mystery Lifted on the Prerogative Powers’, the London Guardian noted that these powers include (but are not limited to):
“Domestic Affair, the appointment and dismissal of ministers, the summoning, prorogation and dissolution of Parliament, Royal assent to bills, the appointment and regulation of the civil service, the commissioning of officers in the armed forces, directing the disposition of the armed forces in the UK (and other Commonwealth nations), appointment of Queen’s Counsel, Issue and withdrawal of passports, Prerogative of mercy. (Used to apply in capital punishment cases. Still used, eg to remedy errors in sentence calculation), granting honours, creation of corporations by Charter, foreign Affairs, the making of treaties, declaration of war, deployment of armed forces overseas, recognition of foreign states, and accreditation and reception of diplomats.”
When a 2009 bill was introduced into parliament proposing that these powers be limited, a Privy Council-led Justice Ministry review concluded that such limitations would ‘”dangerously weaken” the state’s ability to respond to a crisis’ and the bill was promptly killed.
Acting on Provincial levels, we find Lieutenant Governors who (in Canada) happen to be members of the Freemasonic Knights of St John of Jerusalem (patronized by the Queen herself).
All figures operating with these authorities within this strange Byzantine world are themselves a part of, or beholden to figures sworn into the Queen’s Privy Council- putting their allegiance under the total authority of the Queen and her heirs, rather than the people or nation in which that subject serves and lives. If this is hard to believe, then take the time to listen to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s oath upon entering the Privy Council to get a visceral taste of this medieval policy in action (every cabinet member, Prime Minister and opposition leader must take this oath if they are to be granted intelligence briefings from her majesty’s intelligence services.)
Take note that not even once does the welfare of the people or the nation arise in this oath.
Standing Defiant Against Natural Law
Despite these un-natural power structures, history has shown that from time to time, good leaders have found themselves in executive positions of high office. As rare as they are, such anomalies occurred in the cases of Canada’s Prime Ministers Wilfrid Laurier (1896-1911) and John Diefenbaker (1957-1963), Quebec Premiers Paul Sauvé (1959), Daniel Johnson Senior (1967-68), and Australia’s Gough Whitlam (1972-1975). Yet when these anomalies arise and such figures trespass beyond their acceptable sphere of action into policy territories reserved only for the governing elite, then more often then not a Rhodes Scholar-run coup occurs [Laurier 1911 (2), Diefenbaker 1963], an untimely death strikes [Sauvé 1959 and Johnson 1968] or a sacking by the Queen’s Governor General happens [Whitlam 1975].
In all aforementioned cases, Democratic institutions that are premised around the concept that all citizens are made equal and free in the image of a creator are never long tolerated within the cage of a system of oligarchism premised upon the belief that only one person is sovereign and her/his word is absolute law for all slaves, and minions of the ruling bloodline.
As Gough Whitlam discovered in 1975, the real British Empire is a nasty beast, and probably one which should have gone extinct a couple of centuries ago. Unfortunately, until this moment, history has been tainted by more than a few disruptions of progressive leaders who sacrificed their comfort, careers, and often their lives to resist this stubborn parasite which would rather suck its host dry than admit that the system of organization upon which it is based is an abomination to natural law and morality.
A lengthy resolution by the European Union legislators denounced US President Donald Trump for wanting to use force against rioters and condemned the “appalling death of George Floyd” and arrests of journalists.
In an 11-page resolution adopted on Friday with 493 votes in favor to 104 opposed – and 67 abstentions – the EU Parliament affirmed that “Black Lives Matter” and listed 36 more conclusions. The preamble ran out of letters of the alphabet.
Condemning the “appalling death of George Floyd” – a Minneapolis, Minnesota man who died during a botched arrest in late May – the EU parliamentarians also denounced “all forms of racism, hate and violence” as well as “Afrophobic traditions, such as the black face practice.”
They called on the US to “take decisive steps to address the structural racism and inequalities in the country, as reflected in police brutality” and condemned the “police crackdowns on peaceful US protesters and journalists.”
The EU Parliament also “strongly regrets the US President’s threat to deploy the US Army” to deal with the rioters. However, they blamed the riots on “extremist and anti-democratic forces which purposely misuse the peaceful protests to aggravate the conflicts with the intention of spreading disorder and anarchy.”
While denouncing the arrest of CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew in Minneapolis as another example of racism, the EU Parliament praised freedom of the press as key to fighting racism.
Lest one thinks that means freedom of speech, however, the resolution noted that “racist and xenophobic speech is not covered by the freedom of expression” and denounced “all types of incidents of hate crime and hate speech, both offline and online.”
Leaving nothing to chance, “slogans that aim to undermine or detract from the Black Lives Matter movement and dilute its significance” were declared to be “white supremacism.”
Education, the parliamentarians said, is a “key tool to end structural discrimination and racism in our societies,” with the crucial role in “deconstructing prejudices and stereotypes, promoting tolerance, understanding and diversity.”
Neither the White House nor the State Department have yet commented on the apparent meddling into internal US affairs.
We’ve all come across online fact checkers that purport to warn us away from independent media sites under the guise of protecting us from fake news. But who is behind these fact check sites? How do they operate? And if these ham-fisted attempts at soft censorship aren’t the solution to online misinformation, what is? Join James for this week’s important edition of The Corbett Report podcast, where we explore the murky world of information gatekeeping and ask “Who will fact check the fact checkers?”
For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.
For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).
A new documentary, based on an interview with a self-confessed member of the Glennane Gang, gives some insights into allegations that British military intelligence was behind a shocking murder plot to cause the situation in Northern Ireland to “spiral out of control”.
In a documentary, Unquiet Graves: The Story of the Glennane Gang, John Weir, a former officer from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), alleges that British intelligence tried to persuade paramilitary group Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to attack a Catholic primary school at Belleeks in County Armagh.
Weir claimed that the UVF was urged to kill children and teachers in retaliation for the 1976 Kingsmill massacre, in which gunmen stopped a minibus carrying twelve workmen and shot them; only one person survived despite having been shot 18 times.
“The plan that was decided on was to shoot up a school in Belleeks”, he said, adding that the British intelligence plot was to make the situation in Northern Ireland “spiral out of control”. … continue
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