Nothing sends chills down the spine of Israel more than the mere mention of the name ‘Hezbollah’. Nothing, no superpower nor hurtling supernova petrifies Israel more than the existence of Hezbollah’s muscle and missile at its doorstep. Israel does not fear Egypt; it does not fear Jordan or Syria or even faraway Iran, but, it is indeed absolutely and positively petrified of little Lebanon with its uncontested resistance army: the Hezbollah. And this deep-seated pathological fear has found much gory and exuberant expression since the Israeli military was soundly defeated by Hezbollah back in 2006. Every single Israeli military project right across the Middle East since 2006 has been about defeating Hezbollah and stopping the spread of its popular resistor-culture. And evidently, every Israeli attempt to achieve this for the past decade and a half has flatly failed.
Unable to best Hezbollah’s spectacular performance on the battlefield, unable to also access any consequential Intel on Hezbollah’s brains and brawn, and moreover, unable to ignite a sectarian civil war in Lebanon after numerous attempts over the years, a humiliated Israel resorted to engineering, through American hands and influence, the unleashing of an army of terrorist Takfiris on Syria: Damascus being the main artery of support from Tehran to Hezbollah in Lebanon. One could say that Syria was attacked by an army of head-choppers because Hezbophobic Israel could not directly retaliate against a victorious Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israeli master plan here was to cut off Hezbollah from Syria, thereby from its Iranian sponsor, and to flood both Levantean nations with Takfiri terrorists, thus specifically busying Hezbollah’s hands while the Israeli military “attacked it from the back”. Yet, alas for the Israelis, this diabolical plan to defeat or weaken the Hezbollah has only produced the opposite results for Tel Aviv. Syria, though severely damaged, still stands and remains a main artery of Iranian support to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah itself has increased its wholesale military and geopolitical powers even further. Now Hezbollah possesses an even larger stockpile of sophisticated missiles pointing at Tel Aviv and at everywhere else of vital value in Israel proper. Presently, there is not a single inch of Israel that’s not in Hezbollah’s cross-hairs. The Israeli military’s top brass know only too well that Hezbollah will most certainly use these missiles on Israel if provoked, or, indeed when a wider regional war is ignited. And this is precisely what is causing an incurable insomnia to both Israel’s military architects, as well as to all its Judeo-centric allies in the West: all flaccidly scrambling to find ways to assist a geopolitically cornered Israel.
But, dear reader, there is also another issue that Israel equally fears and loses much sleep over. A fear that has rattled Israel’s shadowy bones since the Palestinian Nakba back in 1948. An old, old fear. A terrorizing fear that Tel Aviv has somewhat succeeded at camouflaging and suppressing from the public eye and ear with the help of its propaganda arm in Western media.
This primordial Israeli fear, this mortifying bugaboo is known as the Palestinian ‘Right of Return’.
If Israel were to describe its perpetual nightmare, it would be one where Palestinian refugees are at the three land borders of the Holy land and pouring back into their ancestral territory in their millions.
This is your standard Israeli tableau of horror.
This is the very scenario that Israel fears the most. This, and of course, Hezbollah’s missiles raining on Tel Aviv and Haifa and Eilat and Dimona and every single illegal Israeli settlement and post.
Realistically, it is impossible to imagine Palestinian refugees returning to their homelands without Resistance missiles first clearing the path for them. And this, dear reader, this very combination of missiles raining and refugees returning is THE absolute and ultimate Israeli tableau of horror.
Presently finding itself in an intractable geopolitical pit of despair, and with all its plans against its Resistor enemies having thus failed since 2006, all that Israel can now achieve is easy land-grabs and annexations inside of occupied Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in the Jordan Valley: all areas already under Israeli control. Considered criminal and illegal by International Law, these imminent annexation maneuvers are justified by Tel Aviv as part and parcel of the dictates and content of the Deal of the Century: a unilateral Israeli-centric deal that not a single Palestinian the world over has accepted – not one! In fact, it appears to be the case that the rejection of the Deal of the Century is the only issue that all Palestinians agree on. This is because fundamentally, the Deal demands the total cancellation of the Right of Return of Palestinian war refugees back to their ancestral villages and lands. No Palestinian would ever accept this condition.
Moreover, the Palestinians see an existential threat that’s writ in invisible ink between the lines of the Deal. They see Tel Aviv’s nefarious second stage of the Deal: they see the illegal mass transfer of all Palestinians out of Historic Palestine, including the eviction of the Palestinian ’48-ers who hold Israeli passports, should the Palestinians break out into a Third Intifada and physically rebel against the Deal when it’s actually being implemented on the ground. Presently, the visible parts of the Deal of the Century are being promoted by Israel and her global media agents and politicians. The invisible part of the Deal will undoubtedly follow because the Israelis already know that the Deal will be rejected by the Palestinians and they have already prepared for this rebellion: mass and total ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Historic Palestine. The big move. The breathtaking move. The wettest dream for the terrorist invader Jews currently occupying Historic Palestine. The ruling Ashkenazim Jews of Europe have long been dreaming of this – nay they have orchestrated numerous wars including WWI, WWII, the Bolshevik Revolution and numerous wars against the Arabs just to realize this blood-splattered Jewish dream. Engineered the mass murder of some 170 million non-Jews just to enable them entrance into Historic Palestine, which they achieved in 1948. And since then, Israel’s Jews have been on the final leg of their grand mission of taking over the whole of Historic Palestine: using inhumane and incessant brutality, periodical mass murder and expulsion of the native Palestinians. In effect, a full-on genocide committed sneakily and incrementally for some 72 years now.
In other words, the Deal of the Century is but a massive land-grab facilitator and the prelude to Israel’s ‘Final Solution’ to their Palestinian problem: atrocious mass murders and absolute ethnic cleansing right across the board.
We all already know that Palestinians are not waiting on Abbas to rescue them from the lethal Deal, despite him recently cancelling Oslo as well as all security cooperation with the Jewish state. Palestinians are not waiting on any specific Arab state either, or on the international community to rescue them and their rich heritage and history. But Palestinians presently are indeed en mass looking to the Axis of Resistance for salvage and liberation.
So what can the Axis of Resistance do for them? How will it react to the Deal? What does it have planned to counter the implementation of the Deal that Netanyahu has promised to begin applying on July 1st, 2020?
The answer to this must be the closest held secret in the universe. But, let us, however, look at their options – and they do have several options, bar one: surrender. There will be no surrender to the Deal of the Century.
Obviously, non-surrender implies war. And so it is. The only question remaining therefore is ‘when’. Who controls the timing of an imminent war? Here, consider if you may, that the side that’s positively ready for war and sacrifice is not concerned with who fires the first bullet and at what hour of day, but how to go to war and win it with least casualties to their side. With this firmly in mind, let us then look at the options available to the Axis of Resistance and their assured response to Israel’s imminent annexation plans.
Option one: Upon Israel’s implementation of the first stage of annexation, the Resistance could conceivably go into immediate war with the state of Israel and its allies. A war where Israel will have to simultaneously defend itself on multiple fronts. Defend itself within against Palestinians in Gaza AND the West Bank: both sectors now fully armed by Iran and trained by Hezbollah. And defend itself without against its closest neighbors of Syria and Lebanon – and very plausibly against an incensed-by-Israel Jordan and Egypt too – as well as with Israel’s faraway regional enemies of Iran, Iraq and Yemen (including hundreds of thousands of trained volunteer fighters from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Malaysia). This means a regional war which the USA, UK and France (possibly other NATO nations too) will all jump into, either directly or indirectly, thus dragging Russia and China, either directly or indirectly, into a massive Mideastern power-grab confrontation: the eastern rising giants of China and Russia here geostrategically compelled and obliged to assist their mega assets-hosting nations of Syria and Iran. This option is a turbulent and bloody one that would lead to untold human and material losses, as well as needing much time and conferencing to negotiate a post-war disentanglement between a multitude of nations, all gridlocked in a foreign territory. Yet, despite the hectic burdens of this option, the Axis of Resistance’s sacrifices will still lead to victory for the Resistance as they have all the needed weapons to completely destroy a tiny Israel in a handful of days, and this despite the destructive hits they may suffer from Tel Aviv and its powerful allies. It’s a brutal ‘sooner than later’ liberation of Palestine and the eviction of Israeli and Western colonialists projects in the region. In this regard, we could say that the price for ‘instant liberation’ is the highest.
Option two: Wait for the Israelis to commit their usual and predictable atrocities against the rebelling Palestinian civilians – wait for massive global outrage then enter into warfare while riding the moral high ground and the coattails of massive global support for justice for the Palestinians. This option probably has the best optics: a war to save six million long-suffering Palestinian civilians from a rabidly racist, sadistic and genocidal occupier. A righteous war that aims to bring justice and freedom to the archetypal victim. The global masses will resonate with such an emotive narrative, and Western nations under the spell of Zionism would be hindered here from giving full or prolonged support to Israel on account of public opinion at home being massively against it. This option is costly on both civilian and armed Resistor, but not as costly as the first one.
Option three: Knowing that Israel is a coward who tiptoes hunchbacked in the shadows; knowing too that Israel would not dare implement ALL its annexation plans at once and overnight, but instead, it will implement them incrementally and with unsteady hands: knowing all this, the Axis of Resistance may very well decide to hold back on any immediate explosive reaction to the annexation; let time pass and remain coiled and ready: hold back and just wait for the US Empire to weaken even further before entering into a direct liberation war with Israel. The equation here being a weakened US equals a severely, nay fatally handicapped Israel. And let us all be very clear here that it is the United States’ military protection of Israel that puts oxygen into Israel’s lungs. Without America’s military support to Israel, the Resistance could easily take on the Israeli army and defeat it and liberate the whole of Palestine today: right this very second, in fact. This is not bravado, but sourced information. It is only American military power and this alone that stands in the way of liberating Palestine. Simply, Israel is currently incapable of defending itself against the Axis of Resistance, despite its stockpile of illegal nukes and its hi-tech American defensive weaponry, gifted to Tel Aviv through the corrupt fleecing of the American taxpayer by DC politicians. This option will cost less lives than the two above.
Option four: Post-annexation, allow for Jewish Apartheid to massively flourish for several years, thus allowing for Israeli society itself to further disintegrate its democracy internally and become an abhorrent and much hated racist, rogue nation in the eyes of the globe, with barely any support for it possible even by its traditional European allies. This method is known as ‘forcing the snake to eat its own tail’, thus eventually, through a self-defeating Apartheid system, swallowing up its own deflated shekel and body politik: eventually strangling itself with its own masticating mouth; leading thus to its political disintegration a-la the South African model in the 1980’s – a model that saw the natives overnight reclaiming their rightful territories without having to resort to mass bloodshed and all out war with the tyrannical ruling colonialists. This option will cost less lives for Resistance fighters but needs much civilian sacrifice, as indeed, the punitive Jewish occupiers will in the meantime unleash horrendous levels of violence against the increasingly restless native civilians.
Option five: Now, this here is an interesting option, an option that Hassan Nasrallah spoke of only last week. In a two and a half hour interview he gave to Al-Nour Radio, Nasrallah parsed various war issues and suggested for the first time ever the plausibility that Israelis, upon realizing in the near future that their American Empire protector is too weakened internally and externally and therefore unable to war any further on their behalf, and Tel Aviv also already knowing that an existential war with the Axis of Resistance would lead to a mass death of Jews and the utter destruction of Tel Aviv: these two sobering realizations will force it into radical withdrawal from the holy land altogether. In other words, facing sure material devastation and mass loss of Jewish life in the coming war, Israeli state architects would have no other smart option but to pack up suitcases and simply leave the holy land in peace before a lethal war is imposed on them by the Resistance. Indeed, the Axis of Resistance would most certainly take full advantage of America’s incapacitation and inability to protect Tel Aviv and activate thus their Liberation War. Just up and leave sans war is what Nasrallah is suggesting here. An astonishing yet plausible scenario. A scenario that is suddenly made more plausible by the rapid and palpable decline of American hegemony around the world, as well as the current disintegration of America’s society that we’ve all recently witnessed on the streets of half the existing American states: violent protests that the belligerent American security apparatus will find impossible to contain and control 100% and indefinitely, regardless of who is president. Protests that will keep waxing and waning till either the corrupt bi-partisan Status Quo itself surrenders and a new and more humane and equitable one takes its place, or, all out civil war breaks out in the United States of America: thus bringing with it proof positive that the American Empire has indeed fallen and its Republic now drowns in blood and chaos. That aside, the devastating affects of COVID-19 on the American military cannot be understated here either. Many of its bases are under COVID-19 restraints and presently, the US Navy has 26 of its navy warships under Covid-19 quarantine, thus leaving only two war-ready ships in the Middle East. And this, dear reader, is the major reason why the US did not, in fact could not challenge the Iranian vessels transporting fuel to Venezuela, despite an aggressive naval blockade against Caracas. This ‘suitcase’ option that Nasrallah spoke of is, of course, the most desired by the Axis of Resistance as it will be the least costly to its civilians and fighters. Of course, the death of an Empire does not occur overnight and this option requires extreme vigilance and exceptional patience on behalf of the Axis of Resistance. Two attributes that fortunately the Axis of Resistance is well-practiced in. And by the gauge of recent headlines on America’s speedy decline internally and externally, it would seem to be the case that the Empire’s fall will not occur in faraway decades, but in the near to medium future, meaning: inside of half a decade.
Dear reader, any of the above options will work to liberate Palestine and the region from all foreign control and abuse. There is not even the slightest glimmer of doubt about this in the minds of the Resistance strategists whatsoever. It is the cost of various options and paths to liberation that the leaders of the Resistance currently pontificate upon, not their military readiness or capability. This is the current status of the Axis of Resistance. And the option that will eventually be chosen will be dependent on the challenges that the US and Israel will throw at it in the meantime. Not forgetting here of course that the Masada-ists in Israel may very well panic in the meantime and reflexively and foolishly play a wild card out of dire, pathological fright: out of profound morbid fear of Resistance missiles clearing the way for the Right of Return. Their desperate fear and terror may very well drive them to miscalculate and choose a fight-to-death ‘today instead of tomorrow’, knowing that tomorrow Israel will be weaker than today. This would be the worst option for Israel as this will guarantee massive loss of life for them.
Whichever way the future wind blows in the Levant, all options and wild cards will lead to the liberation of Palestine. This we can be certain of: the death of Israel. Death at the heels of the fall of the American Empire.
The world will be forever changed with the coming momentous victory for the Axis of Resistance. And the countdown to victory begins… with Israel’s intended annexation on the 1st July, 2020.
This story has all the requirements to qualify for a conspiracy theory, and may not make sense to you without some background for context.
Prior to the US entering WWI, an enormous years-long anti-German propaganda campaign was unleashed by the Creel Commission, headed by Walter Lippman and Edward Bernays, the latter being a nephew of Sigmund Freud. (1) (2) Public literature attacked everything German in America, including schools and churches. In many schools the German language was forbidden to be taught to “pure Americans”, and administrators were urged to fire “all disloyal teachers”, meaning any Germans. The names of countless towns and cities were changed to eliminate their German origin: Berlin, Iowa became Lincoln, Iowa. German foods and food names were purged from restaurants; sauerkraut became ‘liberty cabbage’; dachshunds became ‘liberty dogs’ and German Shepherds became ‘Alsatians’.
All American orchestras were ordered to eliminate from their performances any music by classic German composers like Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. Public libraries removed and (most often) burned all books by German authors, philosophers and historians. In some states, the use of the German language was prohibited in public and on the telephone. German professors were fired from their universities, German-language or German-owned local newspapers were denied advertising revenue, constantly harassed, and often forced out of business. The patriotic Boy Scouts of America contributed to the effort by regularly burning bundles of German newspapers that were on sale, and Germans were regularly insulted and spat upon by other citizens. Germans were forced to gather in public meetings and denounce Germany and its leaders, forced to purchase war bonds and publicly declare their allegiance to the US flag.
As the rhetoric reached dangerous levels, the anti-German hysteria and violence increased proportionately. Many Germans were forcibly removed from their homes, often torn from their beds during the night, taken out into the street and stripped naked, beaten and whipped, then forced to kneel and kiss the American flag. Many were tarred and feathered, then forced to leave their cities or towns. Some were lynched from trees. Priests and pastors were dragged out of their churches and beaten for giving sermons in German.
Newspaper editors were screaming that all Germans were spies poisoning American water supplies or infecting hospital medical shipments, and that most “ought to be taken out at sunrise and shot for treason”. Congressmen recommended hanging or otherwise executing all Germans in America, State Governors urging the use of firing squads to eliminate “the disloyal element” from the entire state. The US Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels stated that Americans would “put the fear of God into the hearts” of these people. Most Americans are aware that during the national hysteria of the Second World War the US government forced more than 100,000 US-born Japanese into concentration camps, but history has deleted the fact that many more Germans were interned in concentration camps in the US prior to and during the First War, and in all cases had all their assets seized.
With all of this and much more, America was a hotbed of hatred for the entire German population. After the Second World War, Germany was widely accused of using propaganda against the Jews, while our history books have airbrushed out the massive and unspeakably evil storm of hate propaganda in America against Germans prior to and during WWII. There were thousands of posters and articles containing lurid descriptions of fake atrocities, newspaper articles, cartoons and so much more, but the historical record of this years-long tapestry of lies and hate has been quite well buried. It is possible to find copies on the internet of many wartime posters, but this collection has been well sanitised with virtually all of the genuinely evil and dirty productions apparently lost to history. The narrative today in the history books casually dismisses all of this as “an innovative use of graphic arts to stir patriotism”, but it was hatred rather than patriotism that was being stirred.
The propaganda incited an intense hatred for everything German, to ease US entry into the First World War. It was not different during the Second World War, and the propaganda/hate campaign was not limited to the US. In 1940, the UK government initiated what it called an “anger campaign” with the stated cause of “instilling personal hatred against the German people and Germany”, the authorities pleased that the original 6% of the British population that ‘hated Germany’ increased to over 50% by the end of the campaign. The radio waves were full of descriptions of the “cruelty and blackness of the German soul”. There were articles in the British newspapers advocating the “systematic extermination of the entire German nation” to be carried out after the war ended. Thus, after victory over Germany, every person of German extraction was to be executed and the nation of Germany itself to disappear forever. (3)
It wasn’t only the US and UK where this hatred of Germans was being propagated. Germans in every nation were vehemently portrayed as evil incarnate, this nature stemming simply from the fact of their being of German origin. In countries all around the world, the media spread the same message of hatred against Germany and the Germans. In Brazil, anti-German demonstrations and riots consumed the country, with German businesses being destroyed and Germans being assaulted and killed. In almost every nation, the German-language press and use of the German language completely disappeared during the war from fear of reprisal, as did all German schools and most businesses. None re-opened.
Throughout the world, as in the US, false wartime propaganda was used as during both World Wars to incite entire populations into an irrational hatred of everything German, even to the extent of powerful media recommendations that the entire German race be exterminated after the war. The American public in particular was as full of hatred for things German during the Second World War as they were during the First World War; on both occasions to the extent there was a significant movement to exterminate all those of German descent in the US.
It was in this context that Eisenhower so famously said, “God, how I hate Germans”, and it was in this context that 12 million Germans died in American concentration camps in Germany AFTER the war. As James Bacque discovered, the Americans killed between 8 million and 12 million Germans in American concentration camps in Germany. Perhaps two million were executed, and the rest died by starvation, it being a capital offense to even attempt to bring food to the prisoners. (4) (5) (6)
The US was a hotbed of hatred for everything German during the Second World War as well as during the first. Germany and Germans had been so reviled in the US for decades that most Americans possessed an instinctive fear and hatred of them. Those memories so fervently instilled by the propaganda machine, did not dissipate quickly but lingered for many years, so much so that even after the war it was actually dangerous for an American to say anything positive or complimentary toward either Germany or German people. Anyone expressing even tolerance or sympathy for Germans was very liable to find himself in prison. The above forms the context for what follows. We can now fast-forward to the end of World War II and the American concentration camps in Germany.
Concentration Camps in America
It was in this context that the US military established around 700 concentration camps for Germans in the US, prisons which housed nearly 500,000 German so-called “Prisoners Of War” who were forcibly shipped from the concentration camps in Germany to the US during the later stages and also after the war ended. The official reasons given for this enterprise were varied and conflicting. The original government claim stated an insufficiency of food in Germany so the US military shipped these prisoners to America to better feed them. A later claim was of insufficient space remaining in Germany for more American concentration camps, so these civilians were relocated to the US. Another was that the prisoners filled the country’s need for extra farm labor. (7) (8)
This topic has understandably received little attention from the US media, and the pages in the history book are mostly blank. My first impression on reading the few articles that exist was, given the more or less uniform commentary and context, that an official template had been followed, though I have been unable to locate it. Wikipedia claims that “Newspaper coverage of the camps and public knowledge [of them] were intentionally limited until the end of the war, in part to comply with the Geneva Convention.” Maybe, but I am aware of no stipulation in any convention, Geneva or otherwise, prohibiting public knowledge of concentration camps. Let’s begin by taking a brief look at the lives of these German prisoners while encamped in the USA.
Several of the published articles present what is purported to be quotations from letters written by German prisoners to their families, letters apparently mailed to Germany. From the September 2009 issue of the Atlantic magazine, (from a letter purportedly mailed to Germany in 1944): “All in all, our life here is very orderly. We sleep in beds which have white covers and we eat with knives and forks. Up till now, we were treated excellently.” Another quoted in the Atlantic : “I am really in a golden cage.” And another: “When I was taken prisoner, I visualized a life of horror but it is quite different.”
The Atlantic article tells us: “The POWs were overwhelmed by the excellent conditions in the camps and the abundance of food and other articles”, further claiming the existence of “countless letters” from Americans resenting the fact that “there are German prisoners here and they live better than we do.” Texas A&M history professor Arnold Krammer tells us “German POWs were treated very well. … they were given wine and beer with every meal.” Wikipedia tells us, “Many prisoners found that their living conditions as prisoners were better than as civilians in Germany”, and that some prisoners were sent to a camp, where “each had his own bungalow with garden.” Also according to Wikipedia, they received wine with all their meals, had special meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and in fact received too much food: “Unable to eat all their food, prisoners at first burned leftover food fearing that their rations would be reduced.” (9)
Loren Horton confirms that the German prisoners “got more rationed items – like cigarettes – than the civilians in the area could get”, and that many Americans believed “the prisoners had more luxuries than the average citizen”. Wikipedia claims further that “Groups of prisoners pooled their daily beer coupons to take turns drinking several at a time. They also received two packs of cigarettes a day and frequently meat”, noting as have others that meat and cigarettes were strongly rationed at the time, and unavailable to most American civilians. Wikipedia further tells us that for these German prisoners, “their good treatment began with the substantial meals served aboard (the ships carrying them to the US)”, and that upon arriving in America they were amazed to travel in unusual comfort on “sleek, comfortable passenger trains” that carried them to their prison camps.
Someone named John Ray Skates wrote an article claiming “The high ranking generals had special housing [while] lower ranking officers had to content themselves with small apartments”, some officers having not only a private home but furnished also with a car and driver. He also tells us that at least some officers often went to movie theaters because they were “the only air-conditioned place in town”. Skates tells us further that these prison camps “had most of the facilities and services that could be found in a small town – dentists, doctors, libraries, movies, educational facilities”. And not only educational facilities. Horton tells us “the prisoners formed their own orchestras”, and that “a massive nativity scene was constructed at Christmas time” by the prisoners who “paid for the materials from their 80 cents per day credits. They had more than $8,000!” They even had sports teams, and printed their own newspapers. Wikipedia tells us that “nobody could become bored” as a prisoner since these German prisoners “held frequent theatrical and musical performances attended by hundreds and even thousands” of people, including the entire local citizenry and all their American guards, and that movies were shown four times each week. (10)
According to the Smithsonian magazine, the prisoners to a man claimed such excellent treatment that their only complaint was the lack of sufficient girl friends. (11) But then the men in many camps held “social receptions” with local American girls, this “unauthorized fraternization between American women and German prisoners” being so common as to often be a problem. Apparently this wasn’t all bad because in this way many German soldiers met their future wives. Part of the problem appears to have been the natural attractiveness of German men, at least to American women. The Atlantic magazine article claimed these men were often described as “magnificent physical specimens, physically supreme, muscular types”, and “fine specimens of physical manhood.”
As well, “typical Americans” described these German prisoners as “just the best bunch of boys you ever saw”, “uniformly neat, excessively polite, splendidly disciplined, these young men are – frankly – hard to dislike.” The Atlantic also tells us that “grateful Americans” (no idea why they were grateful) “often showed their appreciation by inviting the German prisoners to restaurants and even their homes for dinner.” These warm feelings apparently prevailed to such an extent the Inspector General wrote that Americans were too “apt to become overly friendly and solicitous of the prisoner’s welfare.” All articles claim the prisoners were more or less free to come and go as they pleased and, while a few tried to escape, this was never a concern, the prison camps having little to no security so as to permit the Germans to leave the camp for their day jobs.
A Ronald H. Bailey informs us that the Germans adjusted wonderfully to prison life, where the “guards marveled at the changes” in the men, keeping their compounds so neat, and where “The prisoners appeared in high spirits. They spent hours creating large and well-tended flower beds.” Wikipedia tells us that the Germans were “pleased to be captured” by the Americans, and stated Krammer as reporting that “I’ve yet to meet a German prisoner who doesn’t tell me that it was the time of their lives”. Krammer claims the Germans left the US “with positive feelings about the country”, the men stating, “We all were positively impressed by the USA … We all had been won over to friendly relations with the USA.”
It seems that the wonderful treatment by the Americans “inadvertently defanged” any Nazi sentiment and created half a million “Little Ambassadors” for America. This was true in part because the Germans realised that the “rabid, anti-American propaganda” they had received, “didn’t fit what they saw in America”. But, and much more importantly, “all German POWs learned by example what democracy looked like on a daily, personal basis.” Krammer tells us further that due to these and other factors, “thousands returned to Germany fluent in English and “having a new love and respect for the United States”, having formed “decades long friendships with the enemy”.” Skates tells us that over the years since the war, many German prisoners have returned to the US for the purpose of seeing the camps they lived in as young men, and were uniformly “sad” to learn the camps had all been torn down after the war. He tells us these men are now “very old” but they still return to the US “to remember their experience” as prisoners. (12)
We even apparently have documented evidence of all this. In 2001 and 2002, a research team from a group named TRACES claims to have filmed over 75 hours of interviews with former German prisoners or their family members, and have apparently seen copies of cheques issued by the US Military and payable to German prisoners returning home, and Krammer has apparently written several books on the matter. Not only that, but the US government held a kind of memorial celebration in 2004, to “salute the hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war taken to camps in the United States during World War II.”
That’s a good story, but there are a few chinks in the armor.
None of the official statements establish a reason for incarcerating German civilians in the US for years after the end of the war. To suggest that Germany had no space for more prisons is ridiculous nonsense since the US military simply established them in fenced open fields without shelter or protection of any kind. The claim about the shortage of food is true, but that was because the Americans refused to permit food imports to postwar Germany, the stated aim being to starve Germany to death, and Eisenhower ordered the immediate execution of anyone attempting to smuggle food to the prisoners. If Eisenhower was deliberately starving millions to death in Germany, and it is beyond dispute that he was, why would he want to bring them to the US so as “to better feed them”?
What reason could the US government have, to incur the expense of transporting half a million Germans across the Atlantic, then feeding and housing them for years? Why not simply let them die with the others? General Eisenhower, the same man who had made no secret in telling the country, “God, how I hate Germans”, and who had organised and supervised the extermination of more than 12 million of them, had now moved from the battlefields into the White House and built 700 “Golden cages” for these same people, with rations, privileges, and girlfriends that apparently far exceeded those available to ordinary Americans. In what way does this story make sense?
The official narrative is that the last shipment of German prisoners left the US on July 22, 1946, that the men were returned to Germany, but I have been unable to locate any confirmation of these prisoners actually having left the US. Certainly it is possible that official and public records exist which I have not discovered, but the export of half a million prisoners in a short space of time from only two or three possible locations on the US Eastern seaboard is more than nothing in terms of public events since it would have required at least 100 to 150 ships, yet I have been unable to locate any media or other public evidence of this. The only real facts I could uncover were brief stories about camps being emptied in the middle of the night, the locals being told the prisoners had been ‘transferred’, and to not ask questions.
Recognising the difficulty in proving that something didn’t happen, I turned my attention to a search for evidence that the Germans did indeed arrive in Germany as the US narrative claims, but I could find not a shred of evidence that such a transfer occurred. Neither Germany nor the Red Cross (who would have been involved in all such transfers) appear to have any record of any transfer of personnel from the US after the war. And as James Bacque pointed out, the German ports had all been bombed to rubble and would have been unable to accept such transfers. As well, in my conversations with Bacque, he claimed an examination of all military records and troop movements and had seen no transfers of Germans from the US to anywhere.
The Atlantic magazine contradicted the official version and claimed they were instead turned over to the UK and France for what would have been years of punishing forced labor almost certainly ending in death, claiming that for the prisoners, this was a “modern slave trade on the grandest scale” (not a nice way to treat “the best bunch of boys you ever saw”). But from the detailed research by James Bacque and other sources of information, there appears no record of prisoners arriving from the US anywhere in either the UK or Europe after the war. Further, of all my media, historical, university, and other contacts in Germany, only one person was even aware of the existence of German concentration camps in the USA. I was unable to find anyone with any knowledge of half a million Germans arriving from the US after the war, and absolutely no record or evidence of such a transfer.
Epilogue
The US military, led by General Eisenhower, established enormous concentration camps throughout Germany, some containing more than one million soldiers and civilians each, and executed or starved to death around 12 million, most deaths occurring long after the war had ended. Eisenhower had forbidden food to be delivered to the camps, issuing orders to shoot and kill anyone attempting to smuggle food to the prisoners. Coincidentally, the US military transported to the US some 500,000 German soldiers (from these same camps) to be interned in concentration camps where they would join large numbers of German-Americans and their families who were imprisoned and had their assets confiscated, also for the sin of being German. All this done under the command of Eisenhower who, as noted above, had now transferred to the White House.
But now something strange happens. These same Germans living under the same watchful eye of Eisenhower and still in the atmosphere of seemingly limitless hatred for Germans, were now suddenly living “in a golden cage”, in private bungalows, with cars and drivers, “social receptions” with local American girls, all the beer they could drink and movies at least four days a week. Instead of being worked and starved to death, they had so much food they would burn it for fear of having their rations reduced. And rather than being treated poorly, they had “more luxuries than the average American citizen”, especially for items that were heavily rationed. These wonderful “physical specimens” were cavorting with American girls and meeting their future wives, beloved by all Americans while discovering the blessings of democracy. They had their own orchestras and put on performances attended by “thousands of people”, this while all German music, composers and authors were banned by the US government in all other parts of the country. And they printed their own newspapers in German while German books and newspapers were also banned in the entire US.
Every part of the official narrative begs to be disbelieved. I do not have all the facts, but a hatred stoked continuously among the American population from at least 1914, and shared by the President and military, would not be expected to lend itself to keeping Germans in a golden cage. Roughly 500,000 Germans were indeed shipped to the US but I can find no record of them having left and there is no record of them arriving anywhere else. German Americans had their assets confiscated and were imprisoned in these same camps with their families and none permitted to leave, yet our German physical specimens were apparently free to come and go as they pleased, often to have dinner at the homes of loving Americans, and accumulating substantial assets in the interim.
I would point out that the “one small group” of prisoners who accumulated “$8,000” in cash would have to be fictitious since the median annual income for Americans at the time was only about $1,400. Moreover, the German-Americans interned in these camps were not being paid while their assets were being confiscated, and those in the concentration camps in Germany certainly weren’t being paid, so why were these men given daily prisoner stipends? As well, why would the Atlantic contradict the official narrative of a return to Germany, claiming instead they were sent to France to be worked to death as slaves and, if that were the case, how could they return to the US to be filled with joy at seeing their former prisons?
As documented by several sources, in 1943, the US military initiated a “formal reeducation program” for German prisoners, led by university professors, psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as those who would later form the CIA. Wikipedia tells us “the program was kept secret because it probably violated the Geneva Convention’s ban on exposing prisoners to propaganda”, but the prisoners may have been exposed to more than propaganda. You will need to study the CIA’s Project MK-ULTRA to have a proper appreciation of this. It would seem reasonable to conclude these re-educated Germans did not consider their time in America to be “the best time of their lives”, and also likely that these “fine specimens of physical manhood” were introduced to more than the wonders of democracy.
I can only speculate at this point but without substantial – and credible – official documentation, as well as media coverage, of the shipment of nearly 500,000 men from an American port, I am reluctant to accept claims that these men actually left the US. And with the lack of any evidence from official military records and the International Red Cross, it is pointless to assume they arrived anywhere else.
There are two other items which appear a necessary part of this puzzle. First, the events described above coincide perfectly in time with the US military’s explosive interest in human experimentation. Readers may be aware of Shiro Ishii and his Unit 731 in Harbin, China, where his group performed the most hideous human experiments imaginable, including live vivisections. (13) (14) Few seem to know that the reason there were no war crimes trials for the Japanese is that General Douglas MacArthur made a deal with Ishii that they would all be immune from prosecution if all documents and records on human experimentation were turned over to the US and Ishii and his entire troop of thousands would be relocated to America. This is what transpired, with the Japanese given new identities and housed on US military bases, Ishii himself being a professor and a supervisor of biological research at the University of Maryland until his death decades later. Second, these activities coincide perfectly with the creation of the CIA’s horrendous MK-ULTRA program which was nothing if not “human experimentation” of the worst kind imaginable. (15) There isn’t room to dwell further on these two aspects here.
When we add together the killing of about 12 million Germans in American concentration camps after the war, then Shiro Ishii and his Unit 731 troop, the US military’s sudden and vast interest in human experimentation, and the CIA MK-ULTRA project, and add in the intense hatred of Germans throughout America, stoked almost continuously for more than 30 years, with prominent politicians calling for the execution of all Germans in the US, this is the atmosphere and environment into which the 500,000 German prisoners were forcibly transferred to the US, and it is their “Golden cages” which were so often mysteriously emptied during a night. There is also the question of the German-Americans interned in the same camps. Their internment is documented, and the natural assumption has been made that they were all released at some point, but I have seen no evidence to substantiate this assumption and, given the existing sentiment that all those of German extract in the country should be executed, we may be forgiven for wondering about their well-being.
I find myself coming away from this story with an unshakable feeling that this is a very black chapter in American history which has been fearfully buried and whose interment is being protected by powerful people and fabricated mythology. To date, I cannot conclusively prove or disprove the thesis that the 500,000 German prisoners incarcerated in the US were used as subjects in the vast array of human experiments being performed at that time. However, from everything I know, negating all the circumstantial evidence would be a daunting task. And, at the risk of sounding foolishly trite, if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it makes noises like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
Discussions about why the United States lost the Vietnam war focus on actions taken after American ground troops arrived in 1965. They could never succeed because the war had already been lost. Ho Chi Mihn was the most popular man in all of Vietnam and his soldiers were respected fighters for independence. They had defeated the French and later the Army of South Vietnam created by the American CIA. American soldiers fought for a nation that didn’t exist.
“CIA and the Wars in Southeast Asia 1947-1975”; Signals Intelligence; has interesting information recently declassified. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-fo…
By the time US military ground troops arrived in Vietnam, “They all hated us!” as this Marine Corps veteran explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tixOy…
This is not medical advice. This is a petition to federal and state governments to urgently publish recommendations for vitamin C intake as a prevention measure against COVID-19.
Introduction
Can vitamin C prevent or alleviate symptoms of acute respiratory tract infections, including COVID-19? (Gorton & Jarvis, 1999) reported 85% decrease of cold and flu symptoms in the test group taking vitamin C, compared with the control group, not taking vitamin C. The test group took vitamin C prophylactically and over the course of disease at 3,000 mg per day (1,000 mg x 3), and an increased dose of 6,000 mg (1,000 mg x 6, hourly) on the first day of symptoms onset. This specific regimen is important: taking a moderate amount of vitamin C prophylactically and during illness, and a larger dose on the first day of symptoms onset.
There is a caveat. The dosage in this study is 1.5-2 times higher than what doctors feel comfortable recommending to the public, as far as I see. Nevertheless, the research reviewed below supports the conclusion that 1.5-2 times lower doses help against broad class of ARTI, including colds and flu, although expectably less. COVID-19 is an acute respiratory tract infection (ARTI). The reasonable assumption is that what helps against multiple prior viral ARTI would help against COVID-19.
Vitamin C Role in the Immune System
Vitamin C does not prevent infection, but it helps the immune system combat it. It has been shown to alleviate symptoms, sometimes to the point where symptoms are not detectable. Thus, a person can feel as if s/he never got sick, since no symptoms ever presented, and may count this as having prevented the illness.
Vitamin C, at its normal level 70 μmol/L, is a necessary part of the immune system. Excess vitamin C intake (over 200 mg/day) is normally excreted in urine. But when a body experiences physiological stress, it consumes the vitamin C present in the blood and thus, needs an increased intake (Hemilä, Vitamin C and Infections, 2017). All existing studies agree on this point. Observations have shown that in such conditions even many grams of vitamin C per day are neither excreted nor accumulate in blood.
(Hemilä & Chalker, 2019) listed several studies, showing that vitamin C levels drop in patients hospitalized with acute respiratory infections to less than 10-35% of the normal level. (Carr, 2017) found that all ICU patients in one hospital had less than on third of the normal vitamin C level.
The rationale behind discovered Vitamin C supplementation
When a person gets a viral respiratory infection, the body starts fighting it using the vitamin C present in the blood. That decreases vitamin C levels in the blood, impairing the immune system, even before the symptoms appear. But if it regularly receives extra vitamin C, it stops excreting it, but consumes in fighting the infection. In the most successful regimens (Ran, 2018), symptoms are used as a signal that the body requires even more vitamin C in order to maintain normal vitamin C blood levels while consuming more of it in fighting the infection. That justifies increased intake of it on the first symptomatic day and until the body overcomes the virus. This time might be shorter than the period for which symptoms exist. The first symptomatic day might have a special significance, possibly because it is when the body has not produced enough antibodies specific to the virus.
Safety
The human body has natural safety valves for vitamin C. First, excess of it is removed in urine. Second, it typically causes diarrhea before getting close to potentially dangerous levels.
Vitamin C has low toxicity and is not believed to cause serious adverse effects at high intakes. The most common complaints are diarrhea, nausea, abdominal cramps, and other gastrointestinal disturbances due to the osmotic effect of unabsorbed vitamin C in the gastrointestinal tract.
Possible Vitamin C Regimen
This is a possible Vitamin C regimen against COVID-19, for adults.
Some doctors recommend taking the higher dose only on the first day of symptoms onset. The dose is for an average 70 kg person. Those weighing much more or less should adjust proportionately. Older and non-healthy persons (i.e., the most at-risk group) should consult their physicians
Possible contra-indications: some kidney diseases, chemotherapy and radiation treatments, cholesterol lowering drugs, diabetes in postmenopausal women (National Institute of Health, 2020). For other people, diarrhea is a sign to decrease or stop taking vitamin C.
It is not expected to completely protect against the Wuhan coronavirus or to approach the effectiveness of HCQ + Zn prophylaxis.
I remind that this is not medical advice, but a starting point for CDC/NIH/FDA and state governments to develop the medical advice. Follow your doctor’s recommendations.
Vitamin C Controversies and Misconceptions
Some confusion surrounds the use of vitamin C because different amounts are used for different purposes and produce different results. The officially recommended minimum intake of vitamin C 75-90 mg per day is just that – the minimum, established long ago to prevent scurvy. Many people exceed this amount simply by eating ordinary food; a medium orange contains 70 mg of vitamin C.
Studies with vitamin C supplementation of less than 1 g/day have shown little or no effect on respiratory infections. This was a cause of the confusion among medical professions. At such amounts, “control” group’s vitamin C intake was not controlled and might have exceeded the amounts taken by the intervention group. Also, low level vitamin C supplementation might provide benefits too low to detect. That might have caused confusion among medical professionals. Further, most studies gave vitamin C either prophylactically or during illness, but not both (Hemilä, Vitamin C and Infections, 2017).
On the high end, mega-doses of vitamin C (like tens of grams per day), delivered intravenously in hospital settings, is successfully used in treatment of many serious diseases and conditions, including late stages of severe cases of COVID-19. They are used for patients with sepsis (Kashiouris, 2020) and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Such doses and associated treatments are beyond the scope of this article.
Thus, this review is only concerned with vitamin C doses of 1 – 3 g/day prophylactically, and 3 – 6 g/day during ARTI. Such doses have been shown helpful in easing ARTI, and safe for almost all people.
Studies Review
Peer Reviewed Papers
(Hemilä, 2017) is a meta-analysis of multiple studies. It concludes that vitamin C is helpful against many infections, especially the common cold. The study suggests a linear dose – effect function up to 6-8 g/day.
(Hemilä & Chalker, 2019) is another meta-analysis. In 12 trials, totaling 1766 patients , vitamin C, given during the time of treatment, reduced ICU stays by an average of 7.8%. The vitamin C doses were relatively small, 1-3 g/day. (In four studies, higher doses were used, but those studies were either excluded from the meta-analysis (Dingchao 1994) or given very low weight in the calculations (Tanako 2000, Fowler 2014, Zabet 2016)). In this study vitamin C was given too little too late.
(Marik & Hooper, 2017) explains that vitamin C acts like a “stress hormone”. Most vertebrates synthesize their vitamin C and increase its production during physiological stress. Humans, as well as primates and guinea pigs, are exceptions to this rule. Therefore, we need to obtain vitamin C from food or supplements, and we may need to increase our intake in times of physiological stress.
(Colunga Biancatelli, Berill, & Marik, 2019) explains concepts behind vitamin C antiviral benefits. Unfortunately, they cite a 2013 review by Hemilä et al., which did not find benefits of vitamin C supplementation, as explained above. The more recent meta-analysis (Hemilä, Vitamin C and Infections, 2017) has firmly established evidence of such benefits.
(Ran, 2018) is a review, showing benefits of taking daily vitamin C supplements before and increasing the dosage when common cold occurs. It proposes a regimen of taking 1 g/day prophylactically while healthy and 3-4 g/day while having a cold.
Beneficial effects of vitamin C supplementation have been reported for
Elderly people with acute respiratory infections
Recurrent acute respiratory distress syndrome
Reducing the severity and duration of the common cold
Reducing the length of hospital stay and symptoms in elderly patients with pneumonia
Reducing the duration of mechanical ventilation in people in ICU
Preventing the common cold in people who are vitamin C deficient
Preventing the incidence of pneumonia in people who are vitamin C deficient.
Studies have shown that excretion of vitamin C is decreased during infections, such as the common cold, suggesting that more is utilized during times of need.
If you choose to supplement with vitamin C as a preventive, you might want to start with 2 grams a day administered orally
To use vitamin C supplementation as a treatment for colds or flus (remember we still have the flu going around), the best results have been obtained by administering 6-8 g (6,000-8,000 mg) immediately upon appearance of the first symptoms, then continuing that dose daily until the symptoms subside.
8 g/day is likely to cause diarrhea.
Remarks
The effect of prophylactic doses of vitamin C in COVID-19 infection have not been quantified. But even if the effect were small (and there is no reason to think that it is small), when the infection spreads exponentially, it decreases the exponential coefficient. It is a possibly large impact, at a miniscule cost, with almost no risk. Further, vitamin C seems to help the immune system to decrease the viral load even if it does not alleviate the symptoms.
Taking vitamin C is not the only helpful prophylactic measure receiving less attention than it deserves. Another research piece shows similar benefits of cod liver oil, used in this country for hundreds of years, or its equivalent – a diet rich in wild caught salmon or mackerel.
Physiological stress is not the same as psychological stress. I do not know whether lockdowns and forced social isolation cause physiological stress.
While it is not the role of the federal government to recommend diets and vitamin supplements, Google and Facebook delete and hide information about potentially effective COVID-19 prophylactics and treatment, if it does not come from WHO or a government. Thus, to allow such information to reach the public, the federal government should either rein in Google and Facebook, or itself make the recommendations.
I prefer the name Wuhan coronavirus the COVID-19 pathogen. This is where the virus was detected first. The name SARS-CoV-2 is associated with SARS of 2003, which had a much higher mortality ratio. This association is misleading and causes unnecessary panic.
To avoid the appearance of bias, I excluded from this review most known enthusiasts of the vitamin C. I also did not rely upon the peer-reviewed Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, although it is a recognized medical journal, and included in multiple indexes.
It is impossible not to mention Linus Pauling in this article. I do not know whether he was right or wrong about vitamin C. It might be that some of his ideas were correct, but explanation and/or clinical recommendations were not.
A medical group of Eastern Virginia Medical School, headed by Dr. Paul Marik, has developed and published its own COVID-19 prophylactic regimen, including vitamin C, Zinc, and Quercetin. It is occasionally mentioned in comments on this site.
Gorton, H., & Jarvis, K. (1999). The effectiveness of vitamin C in preventing and relieving the symptoms of virus-induced respiratory infections. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/S0161-4754(99)70005-9
Hemilä, H., & Chalker, E. (2019). Vitamin C Can Shorten the Length of Stay in the ICU: A Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/4/708
Ran, L. (2018). Extra Dose of Vitamin C Based on a Daily Supplementation Shortens the Common Cold: A Meta-Analysis of 9 Randomized Controlled Trials. BioMed Research International. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/1837634
The Republic of Georgia is a small undeveloped Asian nation that was once part of the Soviet Union. It plays no role in the American economy or security yet was conquered by the American empire in 2003 when the CIA covertly organized a coup to establish a puppet government. Billions of dollars in American military aid, hundreds of military trainers, and thousands of American troops arrived. Russia protested this invasion, but objections were used to proclaim a return of the Cold war and the need for large increases in military spending.
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“The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili”; F. William Engdahl; Geopolitics-Geoeconomics; Aug 12, 2008; http://www.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopoli…
“Panama Papers Show How Former Georgian Defence Minister Kezerashvili Became an Oligarch”; The Financial; April 12, 2016; https://www.finchannel.com/world/geor…
One of the most tiresome clichés uttered by the western nations, including Australia, is their alleged commitment to the “rules based international order”. By this they generally mean a set of rules of supposed international authority, to which all developed nations are expected to adhere.
Those who allegedly failed to do so are labelled as rogue states, or deviant states, and in some way a threat to good government and a peaceful world. The myth has always had trouble confronting the reality. Australia has been one of the most assiduous articulators of the myth. As recently as this week it was accusing China of breaching the said rules by China asserting its authority over Hong Kong.
When one reads the mainstream media of all the events in Hong Kong what is immediately striking is that Hong Kong’s history seems to go back no further than the 1990s when the United Kingdom and China signed an agreement whereby the United Kingdom would release its rule of Hong Kong.
Conveniently overlooked in these accounts is the slightest hint of real history. Hong Kong had been part of China for more than 2000 years until the 1860s. We will leave to one side what sort of history the United Kingdom could boast of that goes back two thousand years.
The United Kingdom acquired Hong Kong by conquest during the first of the two opium wars, another feature of British colonial history that the mainstream media glides over as though it did not exist. The British invaded Afghanistan three times during the 19th century. They were not bringing the dubious benefits of British civilisation to the Afghanis. They wanted to control the opium production source, then as now, producing the bulk of the world’s heroin production.
China unsurprisingly did not appreciate Hong Kong being used as the entry point for Afghan heroin under British control. They fought back, but lost. Hence the ceding of Hong Kong to British rule. The heroin was therefore able to be imported freely by the British to the extent that by 1900 one in seven adult Chinese males was a heroin addict.
The 1949 revolution changed the government of China but it was several decades before they began to assert their wish that Hong Kong be returned to the mainland. By 1998, when the handover agreement was finally signed, China was still not strong enough to refuse to accept what was a manifestly unequal bargain.
There is no other historical precedent that I am aware of that land colonised by an imperial power and eventually returned to its rightful owner is done so conditionally.
The Chinese are now accused by the British, the Americans, and the Australian governments of not complying with the terms of the handover. That allegation is made by people who have never bothered to read the terms of the agreement.
Even more critically, those same governments are alleging that the people of Hong Kong are being deprived of their “democratic rights” to self-government. This was an argument that was never heard during the entire century plus of British rule.
Among the various benefits that the Hong Kong people have enjoyed since liberation from British rule is that they now have the right to vote. That the people of Hong Kong had no democratic means of determining how and by whom they were governed during British rule, not even having the right to vote, is another inconvenient fact glided over by the present erstwhile defenders of so-called Hong Kong democracy.
It is a fundamental principle of international law that countries are entitled to govern their own affairs. It is also a fundamental principle that the British, and particularly the Americans since 1945, have simply ignored the principle when it suited them.
Where was the West’s “respect for international law” when the United States and its allies (including Australia) sanctioned, bombed, invaded, occupied and otherwise destroyed to a greater or lesser extent at least 70 countries over the past 70 years? The death toll from those illegal activities has been variously estimated at between 50 and 70 million people.
Current illustrations of that point, all of them involving the willing compliance and assistance of Australia, include Afghanistan (invaded 2001 and still there); Iraq, invaded 2003 and still there despite the clearly expressed view of the Iraqi parliament that all uninvited foreign troops should leave; and Syria, invaded in 2015 after years of supporting terrorist proxies in that country by their invaders. The United States currently occupies Syria’s oil region, stealing its oil and keeping the proceeds of sale. Not a word of dissent from its Australian ally who clearly has a flexible definition of what the “rules based international order” actually means.
In the case of China, Australian adherence to the United States line goes far beyond the current situation in Hong Kong. Australia was being the loyal United States proxy when it alleged that China was the source of the coronavirus currently causing economic havoc around the world.
On instructions from Washington, Australia proposed a motion for international consideration that the origins of the virus should be investigated in China. Had the proposal beeg neutrally worded, for example suggesting an investigation of all countries that might have been the source, the proposal might not have been ignored as it was.
All countries obviously include the United States, where a growing body of evidence suggests it is the real source of the pandemic. That, however, would not suit the current suicidal Australian campaign to attack China on various fronts on behalf of its American masters.
Why Australia would want to attack such a vitally important nation, whose importance to the Australian economy extends far beyond being a market for Australian goods, defies rational explanation. The Chinese, unsurprisingly, and in my view completely justifiably, have begun to take measures in response, the result of which will be extraordinary pain to the Australian economy.
The current pandemic should be seen as an opportunity for Australia to discard its colonial status and actually take decisions that enhance rather than hinder Australia’s vital interests. The history of the past 70 years however, suggests that is a vain hope.
James O’Neill is a Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst. He can be contacted at joneill@qldbar.asn.au.
The American empire wanted to oust Muammar Gaddafi for decades. He remained in power as he carefully balanced interests in Libya’s complex tribal society and kept the military under control. Gaddafi was popular since he invested Libya’s oil wealth improving the lives of Libyans rather than in Western banks. Before its 2011 destruction, Libyans were the wealthiest in all of Africa. President Obama chose to destroy Libya despite meeting with Gaddafi after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the strongest advocate for this war crime. When later asked about Gaddafi’s death, she laughed and exclaimed: “We came, we saw, he died.”
“Goldman Sachs Lost 98% of Libya’s $1.3B Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment”; Agustino Fontevecchia; Forbes ; May 31, 2011; https://www.forbes.com/sites/afonteve…
At this time of writing, it is too early to declare the danger over, but at least three out of five Iranian tankers have made it safely to Venezuela (confirmation from TeleSur and PressTV). Furthermore, while we should never say “never”, it appears exceedingly unlikely that the US would let three tankers pass only to then try to impede the arrival of the other two. So it ain’t over until its over, but as of right now things look way better than last week.
Besides, this is mostly a symbolic issue. While these 5 tankers will make a difference, it won’t be a huge one, especially considering the devastating consequences which the US sanctions, sabotage and subversion have inflicted on Venezuela.
Still, symbols are important, if only because they create a precedent. In fact, I would argue that the latest climbdown by Trump is no different than all his other climbdowns: Trump has had a very consistent record of threatening fire and brimstone before quietly deflating and walking away. And since he did that many times now, we have to wonder whether this strategy is effective or not?
One could argue that this strategy could be described by saying that you put the maximum pressure on the other side in the hope that the bluff will entice the adversary to fold. This could be a semi-credible argument were it not for a very simple but crucial problem: so far the other guys have never folded. In other words, Trump’s bluff has been called over and over again, and each time Trump had to quietly deflate.
Some will say that this only proves that Trump is truly a peace-loving President who, unlike his predecessors, does not want to go to war. But then, what about the cruise missile strikes on Syria? What about the murder of Soleimani?
Truth be told, the kindest thing we can say about this strategy (assuming that it is a strategy to begin with, not the evidence of a total lack of one) is that it is tantamount to yelling “fire!” in a crowded movie theater: the fact that Trump did not set any movie theater ablaze hardly justifies his yelling “fire” in such a dangerous environment. The perfect example of this kind of irresponsible behavior is the murder of General Soleimani which truly brought the US and Iran a millimeter away from a real, full-scale war.
Furthermore, while I salute Trump’s climbing down following the Iranian strikes, I also believe that in doing so he hurt the international image of the US. Why? Think about this: this is the first time ever (if I am not mistaken) that the US was the object of a major military strike coming from another state-actor and did not retaliate. In the past and until this Spring, the US always held the view that if anybody dares to mess with it this would result in very serious consequences. Thus the US upheld a world order in which some where a lot more equal than others. Specifically, “others” had to meekly accept US strikes and shut up whereas Uncle Shmuel could strike left and right and expect no retaliation.
By “accepting” the Iranian counter-strike, Trump did essentially place an “equal” sign between Iran and the US. He probably never understood that, but in the region this was understood by all.
Just as Hezbollah destroyed the myth of Israeli impunity, Iran destroyed the myth of US impunity.
Still, I will always prefer the politician who does not start a war (for whatever reason) to one who would. I also have no doubt whatsoever that Hillary would have started one, or even several, wars. But the fact that Hillary would have been even worse than Trump is hardly a reason to start fawning about Trump’s brilliant “5D chess” genius or peace-loving policies…
Trump reminds of a guy pointing a gun a people in the street only to later say “but it was a toy gun, I never meant to really shoot anybody.” This is definitely better than shooting people with a real gun, but this is hardly a sign of maturity or intelligence.
The other problem with this “strategy” (let’s assume for argument’s sake that this is a strategy of some kind): each time the “indispensable nation” and “sole hyperpower” has to climb down, it increasingly looks like a paper tiger. Not looking like such a paper tiger is probably the main reason behind Michael Ledeen’s famous words“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” In a strictly evil and imperialistic sense, Ledeen’s strategy makes a lot more sense than what Trump has been doing.
As Marx famously said, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” The outcome of what some now call the “Battle of Macuto Bay” is a perfect example of this: if the Bay of Pigs was the “root case” then the disaster in Grenada was the tragedy and the Battle of Macuto Bay the real farce.
Humor can be a devastating weapon and anybody who has studied the late Soviet Union (in the late Brezhnev years and after) knows how the Russian people ridiculed the Soviet leaders with literally thousands of jokes.
A real imperialist would much rather be hated than ridiculed, and while Trump himself probably does not realize that he is the laughingstock of the planet, his aides and deep state bosses most definitely do and that is very, very dangerous.
Why?
Because the pressure to, once again, “pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall” increases with each climbdown (see my article “Each “Click” Brings Us One Step Closer to the “Bang!” for a fuller discussion of this).
Besides, finding an even smaller and weaker country than Venezuela will be hard (maybe the Island of Saba? or Grenada again? who knows?). And potentially very dangerous.
The other problem is predictability. Any international system requires that its most powerful actors be predictable. In contrast, when a major international actors acts in what appears to be unpredictable, irrational or irresponsible manner, this puts the entire stability of the system at risk.
This, by the way, is also why it is so disastrous that the US has withdrawn from so many international organizations or treaties: the participation in international organizations and treaties indicate that the US is willing to play by the same rules as everybody else. The fact that the US is ditching so many of its former international obligations only shows that the US has gone rogue and is from now on totally unpredictable.
Finally, there are also lessons for Moscow here, the main one being that when confronted with a determined adversary, the Empire tries to bluff, but eventually folds. True, Moscow has to be much more careful than Tehran simply because the consequences of a US-Russian war would be dramatically worse than even a major conflict in the Middle-East. Yet it is also true that over the past years the Russian armed forces did have the time to prepare for such a conflict and that now Russia is ready for pretty much anything the US could try to throw at her, at least in purely military terms.
In contrast to the military posture of Russia, the political environment in Russia has changed for the worse: there is now a potentially very dangerous “hardline” opposition to Putin which I have christened the “6th column”, as opposed to the liberal and pro-western 5th column. What these two “columns” have in common is that they both will categorically oppose pretty much anything and everything Putin does. The 6th column, in particular, has a seething hatred for Putin which is even more rabid than what the liberal 5th column usually express. Check out this excellent video by Ruslan Ostashko, who prefers the term “emo-Marxists” and who very accurately describes these folks. Whether we think of them as 6th-columnists or emo-Marxists does not matter, what matters is that these folks are eager to act like a soundboard for any and all anti-Putin rumors and fakes. While Putin certainly has his flaws, and while the economic policies of the Medvedev, and now Mishustin, government are a far cry from what most Russians would want, it is also true that these two “columns” are objectively doing the bidding of the Empire, which could present a real problem if the current pandemic-induced economic crisis in Russia is not tackled more effectively by the government.
I have always said that Iran, while being much weaker than Russia, has consistently shown much more courage in its dealings with the Empire than Russia. Furthermore, Iran’s policies are primarily dictated by moral and spiritual considerations (as in the case of Iran’s principled stance on occupied Palestine) while Russian policies are much more “pragmatic” (which is really a euphemism for self-serving). But then, Iran is an Islamic Republic whereas Russia still has to develop some kind of unifying and original worldview.
Conclusion:
For all his innumerable negative character traits and other flaws, it remains true that Trump has not launched a major war (so far). Yes, he has brought the world to the brink several times, but so far he has not plunged the world into a major conflict. How much of the credit for this truly should go personally to him is very debatable (maybe cooler heads in the military prevailed, I think of folks like General Mattis who, reportedly, was the one who stopped the US from seriously attacking Syria and settled for a symbolic strike). Some Russian analysts (Andrei Sidorov) even believe that the US is in no condition to fight any war, no matter how small. Furthermore, most (all?) Russian analysts also believe that the US is fully committed to a full-spectrum information and economic war to try to economically strangle both Russia and China. I think that it would be fair to say that nobody in Russia believes that the relationship with Trump’s US can, or will, improve. The tone in China is also changing, especially since the US has now launched a major anti-China strategic PSYOP. In other words, the US is merrily continuing down its current road which leads it to a simultaneous confrontation with not one, or even two, countries, but with a list of countries which seems to grow every day. So while it is true that in this case Trump appears to have canceled two wars, we should not assume that he won’t soon start one, if only to deflect the blame for his total mismanagement of the COVID19 crisis. Should that happen, we can only hope that all the “resistance countries” and movement will provide as much support as possible to whomever the Empire attacks next.
One of our recent videos reviewed the predictions from a high-powered US military report on climate change published nearly 20 years ago. Laughable hardly describes it. But here they come again, this time according to a Thomson Reuters Foundation story in the person of one Kate Guy, a senior research fellow at the U.S.-based Center for Climate and Security. According to the story, “Recent research she did with military officials on climate scenarios over different time horizons found ‘near-term impacts are much more severe than we thought they would be’ – something already seen in worsening wildfires, storms and other disasters.” Things that haven’t yet happened are far worse than expected, as seen in other things that exist in slogans but not reality. Welcome to the new era of military planning.
“From collapsing supply chains to power grabs by populist leaders, the coronavirus pandemic has revealed how a crisis can swiftly ramp up wider security risks – a clear warning as climate change looms large, security experts warned”. Funny we’ve lived with climate change for over a century and it looked nothing like the pandemic, but now one self-described expert you never heard of before told an online event you weren’t at that climate risks are “the next big thing – the longer-term, more intense form of this (coronavirus) crisis”. We had no idea global warming would soon require a lockdown and vaccinations. But then, we’re not experts.
In this case the one person whose say-so is that of an expert says she draws her conclusion from the fact that little research has been done on the subject. Which is OK, we suppose, given that with climate change the customary procedure is verdict first, trial afterwards. (Hence Facebook restricted PragerU for saying polar bears were not vanishing without worrying about whether, oh, you know, polar bears were vanishing) It saves time, and time is apparently a luxury we don’t possess.
The story also warns of a crisis in the Amazon as the water dries up and the trees die off. And as usual it’s a downward spiral as climate change causes security threats like organized crime and organized crime causes climate change. But on the plus side, “In the United States, framing climate change as a security issue has helped draw interest from conservative lawmakers”. So there’s an opportunity to twist the issue so we can use psychology to bypass rational discussion. And who wouldn’t jump at that opportunity?
Prevalence and correlates of vitamin D deficiency in US adults About 42% of the US population is vitamin D deficient. However, this rate rises to 82% in black people and 70% in Hispanics
A member of the Scottish parliament (MSP) has sparked outrage by suggesting that the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians when Israel was founded in their land in 1948 was “self-inflicted”.
The remark by Richard Lyle, of the Scottish National Party (SNP), was made in a proposed amendment to a parliamentary motion marking the 72nd anniversary of the Nakba (Catastrophe).
More than half of the indigenous Palestinian population was expelled by Zionist militias and the nascent Israeli army between 1947 and 1949 in a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing known as “Plan Dalet”. Historians explain that this was intended to gerrymander a Jewish majority in Palestine through violent means. The Nakba is marked annually by Palestinians and their supporters around the world.
Lyle, who is the deputy convener of the cross-party group called “Building Bridges With Israel” (BBI) and has visited the Zionist state at the invitation of the Israeli embassy in London, made an amendment to a Nakba Day parliamentary motion submitted by fellow SNP member Sandra White MSP.
The motion recognised the “mass eviction of over 750,000 people from historic Palestine land, which included the destruction of over 500 towns and villages” which “led to generations of pain for the Palestinian people, who continue to live under a state of occupation.”
However, Lyle’s amendment peddled an Israeli propaganda trope blaming the victims. The Nakba, he added, was “sadly a self-inflicted tragedy, which must, after all these years, be finally resolved by peaceful means and discussions between the parties involved.”
This triggered a backlash. Some SNP members have condemned the move, calling the motion an “insult to every Palestinian worldwide” and describing it as a “disgusting piece of revisionist history.”
“It is disgraceful to suggest that the Nakba and subsequent occupation which has led to the killing of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children is somehow self-inflicted,” insisted Nadia El-Nakla, the convenor of SNP Friends of Palestine, whose family members were and are victims of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of their land. El-Nakla added that Lyle’s comments are “abhorrent… racist and hate filled.” She called for the amendment to be withdrawn and for Lyle to apologise.
The amended motion has apparently garnered the support of just one other MSP, Conservative Adam Tomkins.
Lyle is a controversial figure in Scotland on the issue Palestine and Israel. In 2018 he was part of a BBI delegation to the occupation state. According to the Times, the trip was valued at £2,200 ($2,716) per person and was paid for by the Israeli Embassy in London. The visit was criticised sharply, especially as it coincided with Israel passing the so-called Nation State Bill. Critics, including traditional supporters of the Zionist state, have denounced the legislation as “racist”.
The MSP may face disciplinary action by his own party for his comments. SNP affiliate groups are said to be reporting Lyle to the party’s national secretary.
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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![Richard Lyle during First Minister's Questions in the Scottish Parliament, on February 7, 2019 in Edinburgh, Scotland. [Ken Jack/Getty Images]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/GettyImages-1094968024-scaled-e1590509175132.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
