The U.S. national-security establishment and its acolytes in the mainstream press are celebrating the U.S. military’s murder in Syria of Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim Hashimi Qurayshi. Mind you, they don’t call it murder. They call it a “targeted killing” of a “bad guy” or a “terrorist.” But murder it is because the U.S. military has no legitimate authority to kill anyone in the Middle East (or anywhere else), whether it be people it labels “bad guys,” “terrorists,” “communists,” “opponents,” “rivals,” “adversaries,” or “enemies.”
Let’s take a look at the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fifth Amendment. Yes, I know that the national-security establishment and its supporters in the federal judiciary hold that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to the military, the CIA, and the NSA. But a close reading of the amendment reveals that there is no exception carved out for the national-security branch of the government. By its express terms, the restrictions in the Fifth Amendment apply to everyone in the federal government, not just to some people within the federal government.
The Fifth Amendment states in part: “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”
Notice something important about that language: It doesn’t say “No American shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” It says “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” That means it encompasses citizens of other countries.
Notice something else important: It doesn’t say “No person within the United States shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” It says “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”
That’s what the Pentagon just did to Qurayshi. In a raid on a safe house in Syria, the Pentagon just deprived him of life without due process of law.
The Pentagon is pointing out that Qurayshi actually killed himself and his family with a bomb once the raid commenced. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the Pentagon isn’t responsible for killing him. The raid is the proximate cause of Qurayshi’s death as well as the deaths of other people who were with him, including women and children. That is, if the raid had not taken place, Qurayshi and those other people would still be alive.
In fact, the Pentagon is also responsible for the deaths of the women and children that were killed by Qurayshi’s suicide bomb. The Pentagon was well aware of the possibility that he could decide to blow himself up rather than be taken captive and carted away to Gitmo for torture and perpetual incarceration. That awareness did not stop them from conducting the raid anyway. The deaths of those women and children was a risk that the Pentagon felt was worth taking.
What is due process of law? It means notice and a trial. The Bill of Rights expressly prohibits the federal government from killing anyone without first giving him notice of criminal charges and a trial in federal district court. The notice comes in the form of a criminal indictment issued by a federal grand jury. At the trial, federal prosecutors are required to prove to a jury (or a judge) beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the offense for which they wish to kill him.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the Pentagon did not provide notice and a trial to Qurayshi before they raided that safe house and brought about his death and the deaths of more than a dozen other people. Perhaps the reason for that is that U.S. officials felt that they couldn’t prove that Qurayshi had committed a criminal offense against the United States.
National-security officials and their supporters implicitly claim that their “war on terrorism” trumps the Fifth Amendment. Really? Where does it say that in the Fifth Amendment? I certainly don’t see a “war on terrorism” exception in that amendment.
Indeed, what business do the Pentagon and the CIA have sitting in Syria and killing people? The last time I checked, Congress had not declared war on Syria. Moreover, the Syrian government has never invited the U.S. government to situate its troops and agents within the country. That makes the Pentagon and the CIA illegal interlopers in a foreign land, where they are killing whoever they want with impunity.
We also mustn’t forget that it is the Pentagon and the CIA that are responsible for the rise of ISIS in the first place, owing to their illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iraq.
What is a “war of aggression”? It is a type of war that was declared a war crime at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. That was the tribunal that put accused Nazi war criminals on trial. The tribunal, which included U.S. officials, convicted German officials of attacking other nations. That’s what they called waging a “war of aggression.”
That’s what U.S. officials did with Iraq. It is undisputed that Iraq never attacked the United States. When the U.S. government attacked this impoverished third-world country, it was waging a “war on aggression.” Moreover, the fact that the Pentagon and the CIA did not secure the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war before committing this Nuremberg-type crime only makes the situation more egregious.
After U.S. officials installed a puppet regime with their war of aggression on Iraq, ISIS formed with the aim of ousting that U.S.-installed puppet regime. In fact, many of the ISIS members had been officials in the Saddam Hussein regime that was violently ousted from power by the U.S. invasion and occupation of the country. (It’s worth noting that Saddam was a partner and ally of the Pentagon and the CIA during the 1980s, when he was killing Iranians in his own war of aggression against Iran.)
Thus, if the U.S. government had never waged an illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iraq, there never would have been an ISIS, which means that the man they just murdered — Abu Ibrahim Hashimi Qurayshi — would not have been the leader of ISIS, which means that he and his family would not be dead today.
Of course, Qurayshi will quickly be replaced, just like drug lords are quickly replaced after they are killed or captured by drug-war agents. ISIS will retaliate for Qurayshi’s killing, and the “war on terrorism” will continue, just as the drug war continues, which means ever-increasing budgets, power, and influence for the national-security establishment. The “war on terrorism” is a better racket than the “war on drugs” and perhaps even better than the old Cold War racket of the “war on communism.”
February 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CIA, Iraq, Syria, United States |
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THOUGH I ask this question as a layman, it hardly seems an unreasonable one. It is this:
What exactly is causing the increased risk of infection following vaccination, evidence of which was reported in the Daily Sceptic last week?
From the most recently published UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Report data for those who are triple-jabbed and from other NHS data published on the double jabbed, the Daily Sceptic have been able to establish the infection rates by vaccination status as well as the unadjusted vaccine effectiveness for infection for those having two or three doses. The conclusion they reached is that the infection rates continue to be considerably worse in the vaccinated, both double and triple jabbed, which translates into what they describe as ‘highly negative unadjusted vaccine effectiveness estimates’. (My italics)
Their report emphasises that these figures are of rates per 100,000 and therefore already take into account the different sizes of the cohorts, meaning that their finding is not because there are more vaccinated people than unvaccinated in the population, and that factor is taken fully into account. You can read the full analysis here.
It is not just this report – which confirms the daily anecdotal evidence I am in receipt of about people I know to be double or triple vaccinated going down with Covid, especially since the booster was rolled out so determinedly – there also are the reports of surging cases in some of the most vaccinated of countries, most notably Israel. Much as Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Guardian, amongst others, really want to believe that it is unvaccinated who are commandeering all the available ventilators, this is not the case as Will Jones has previously laid bare.
On Saturday Dr Jones reported on the recent dramatic statement of one Professor Yaakov Jerris, the director of a coronavirus ward in an Israeli hospital, who has said that between 70 and 80 per cent of the serious cases in his hospital are fully vaccinated and how the vaccine has ‘no significance regarding severe illness’.
All of which brings me to the question of a phenomenon called Antibody Dependent Enhancement which I first heard of when Mike Yeadon warned about it last April under questioning from James Delingpole.
The term refers to the possibility that the vaccine-induced antibodies in the body somehow augment (rather than mitigate against) the infection when you actually catch it, or if these original antibodies don’t make the infection worse, subsequent booster jabs may well.
Could this be the reason for the spate of covid infection and illness? Could it even be the reason for the shocking surge in post-vaccine illnesses that Neville Hodgkinson reported here last week.
If so, was this a risk that the gene therapy vaccine researchers and producers were aware of?
All of which makes the battle over the FDA’s release of all documents related to the licensing of Pfizer’s Comirnaty COVID vaccine of all the more moment and importance. Their desire to keep their files secret for 75 years raises the question of what it is that they do not want us to know.
February 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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More evidence is surfacing showing that hospitals today are still collecting federal funds as an incentive to diagnose patients with “COVID” via a PCR Test, even if the patient was brought to the hospital with gunshot wounds, or to have a child, or from a car accident.
Project Veritas released a video yesterday of a whistleblower, Jeanne Stagg, who was working as a Senior Administrative Nurse at United Healthcare in Louisiana.
She came forward to expose the fraudulent practices still going on in hospitals today where people who have no symptoms of COVID come into the hospital, such as from gunshot wounds, or to have a baby, or because they were in a car accident, and are then tested positive for COVID and coded as a “COVID patient” when they are admitted to the hospital.
This releases federal funding that financially benefits the hospitals, but can literally kill the patient because they get the wrong treatment.
And to demonstrate how this is happening, a man has just come forward to give his testimony in public about how he was in a car accident, where EMS ambulance services arrived on the scene and sedated him against his will, air lifted him to a hospital allegedly in Tucson, Arizona, and he woke up 8 hours later on a ventilator because he was diagnosed as a “COVID” patient.
He was all alone in his room when he woke up, so he took himself off of the ventilator, removed the IV and catheter, and demanded to be released from the hospital.
He considers himself lucky to be alive today.
This is on our Bitchute channel, and also on our Telegram channel.
February 5, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | Covid-19, United States |
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New Zealand – The Medsafe report Adverse events following immunisation with COVID-19 vaccines: Safety Report #39 – 31 December 2021 lists 46,000 adverse events reported since the start of the Pfizer vaccine rollout in New Zealand. Historically this is 30 times the rate of adverse effects reported for flu vaccines. More than 50 per cent of these adverse effects are reported by medical professionals and about 40 per cent by affected members of the public via the CARM (Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring) website. Prior experience published by Medsafe concludes that only 5 per cent of adverse events are reported to CARM. A total of 8.1million doses have been administered in NZ.
The ten most common adverse events
Some 44,000 of the 46,000 adverse events are dismissed by Medsafe as ‘non-serious’—a number which has been echoed by politicians across the NZ political spectrum and by our Ministry of Health as evidence that the Pfizer vaccine is safe. The ten most common adverse events (all rated as non-serious) are as follows (from Medsafe). The total number of events below is more than 44,000 because many people experienced multiple symptoms.
The Mayo Clinic in USA reported before the pandemic that the risk of developing myocarditis is rare and lists the following concerning symptoms of myocarditis:
Mayo Clinic—Myocarditis Symptoms
If you’re in the early stages of myocarditis, you might have mild symptoms such as chest pain, rapid or irregular heartbeats, or shortness of breath. Some people with early-stage myocarditis don’t have any symptoms. The signs and symptoms of myocarditis vary, depending on the cause of the disease. Common myocarditis signs and symptoms include:
• Chest pain
• Rapid or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmias)
• Shortness of breath, at rest or during activity
• Fluid buildup with swelling of the legs, ankles and feet
• Fatigue
• Other signs and symptoms of a viral infection such as a headache, body aches, joint pain, fever, child dizziness, a sore throat or diarrhea
Sometimes, myocarditis symptoms may be similar to a heart attack. If you are having unexplained chest pain and shortness of breath, seek emergency medical help.
Of the ten most common adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccination reported to CARM in NZ, you can see eight are listed as symptoms of myocarditis by the Mayo Clinic. Given that myocarditis is the most common known severe outcome of Covid-19, why have the eight common vaccine adverse effects also known to be symptoms of myocarditis been characterised as ‘non-serious’? Is this a glaring case of misdiagnosis? If so, why?
NZ GPs and medical personnel had a naive expectation of vaccine safety
The first point to note is that most NZ medical professionals had expectations of vaccine safety based both on years of experience with vaccination programmes and the extensive medical education they had received. They had no prior experience with drugs or vaccines which had not already completed years of testing and safety evaluation. It was for them therefore virtually unthinkablethat the Pfizer vaccine was unsafe. Moreover the Pfizer vaccine trial results had already characterised the common adverse effects as non-serious. For this reason the very common reports of chest discomfort and shortness of breathfollowing Covid-19 vaccination, which according to prior protocols should have led to intensive investigation and treatment, were dismissed as non-serious without investigation and in most cases without reporting to CARM. Perhaps their very common occurrence fostered an attitude of indifference and dismissal which many victims suffered in NZ when they reported such symptoms to their GP or to hospital staff.
Rates of Myocarditis symptoms are higher than realised
The prevalence of a wide range of known myocarditis symptoms is probably indicative of a very high rate of subclinical and mild myocarditis following Pfizer vaccination. The important point to note is that the recommended treatment for mild myocarditis is rest. Most people recover if it is treated early with sufficient prolonged rest. If left untreated, myocarditis can restrict the capacity of the heart to pump blood which can lead to serious cardiac events such as heart attack, stroke, and arrhythmia. It is wrong to undertake vigorous physical activity including sport while suffering from myocarditis. It is clear from this that insufficient precautionary instructions were given to vaccine recipients about the risks they faced and the steps that they needed to take to avoid these risks. This may have contributed to cardiac problems including among some recipients undertaking vigorous physical exercise.
The possible extent of these cardiac events is indicated by multiple reports to voluntary organisations. An important point to note here is that reporting to CARM is not mandatory, a very unfortunate yet unforgivably deliberate omission. Medsafe attempts in its Safety Report #39 (referenced above) to dismiss the significance of adverse events by comparing their rate to population norms. In the absence of mandatory reporting, especially considering that Medsafe knows adverse events are grossly under-reported, all such comparisons are statistically meaningless.
A public information campaign is essential
Belatedly Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director General of the Ministry of the Health, struck a note of alarm about myocarditis in his December 15 2021 letter to directors of district health boards, but this concern did not alter much the processes being applied. Individuals experiencing myocarditis following their first vaccination are still being denied exemptions. Those suffering strokes and heart attacks are in some if not most cases being denied Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) assistance. There is also a virtual data black-out on rates of cardiac events and hospitalisations and on ACC claims. Anecdotal and whistleblower reports here and overseas suggest these might be high but considering that data collection has been haphazard due to the ‘non-serious’ label, these might be hard to quantify unless the government makes an honest attempt to inform the public of risks and ask people to come forward who are already affected. This is particularly important as many stroke, cardiac and other serious adverse event sufferers have already been emphatically informed by their GP or other medical professionals that their symptoms must be unrelated to the Pfizer vaccination – an egregious form of victim-blaming lacking any scientific basis.
For more information: HatchardReport.com
February 4, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, New Zealand |
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The European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 38,983 fatalities, and 3,530,362 injuries following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots:
From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (1,672,872 ) are serious injuries.
“Seriousness provides information on the suspected undesirable effect; it can be classified as ‘serious’ if it corresponds to a medical occurrence that results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalisation, results in another medically important condition, or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.”
A Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. It is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results.
Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.*
Here is the summary data through January 29, 2022.
Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2,Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer: 17,578 deaths and 1,704,757 injuries to 29/01/2022
- 48,240 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 242 deaths
- 57,541 Cardiac disorders incl. 2,554 deaths
- 522 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 51 deaths
- 22,590 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 11 deaths
- 1,911 Endocrine disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 25,814 Eye disorders incl. 38 deaths
- 133,365 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 681 deaths
- 422,360 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 5,024 deaths
- 1,931 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 90 deaths
- 18,455 Immune system disorders incl. 95 deaths
- 76,443 Infections and infestations incl. 1,878 deaths
- 33,972 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 331 deaths
- 42,585 Investigations incl. 502 deaths
- 11,344 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 273 deaths
- 201,643 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 212 deaths
- 1,629 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 153 deaths
- 278,744 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,859 deaths
- 2,513 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 74 deaths
- 251 Product issues incl. 3 deaths
- 30,622 Psychiatric disorders incl. 207 deaths
- 6,150 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 266 deaths
- 68,129 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 72,531 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,884 deaths
- 78,059 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 146 deaths
- 3,871 Social circumstances incl. 22 deaths
- 21,010 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 204 deaths
- 42,532 Vascular disorders incl. 766 deaths
Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine mRNA-1273 (CX-024414) from Moderna: 11,008 deaths and 543,543 injuries to 29/01/2022
- 12,365 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 120 deaths
- 18,287 Cardiac disorders incl. 1,142 deaths
- 190 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 11 deaths
- 6,310 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 8 deaths
- 502 Endocrine disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 7,475 Eye disorders incl. 36 deaths
- 44,340 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 413 deaths
- 145,153 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 3,630 deaths
- 793 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 54 deaths
- 5,370 Immune system disorders incl. 22 deaths
- 23,070 Infections and infestations incl. 1042 deaths
- 10,286 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 208 deaths
- 12,129 Investigations incl. 393 deaths
- 4,847 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 263 deaths
- 66,358 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 223 deaths
- 682 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 85 deaths
- 91,230 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,029 deaths
- 907 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 10 deaths
- 98 Product issues incl. 4 deaths
- 9,441 Psychiatric disorders incl. 181 deaths
- 3,030 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 214 deaths
- 12,547 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 9 deaths
- 23,251 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,162 deaths
- 27,540 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 96 deaths
- 2,239 Social circumstances incl. 45 deaths
- 3,028 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 203 deaths
- 12,075 Vascular disorders incl. 399 deaths
Total reactions for the vaccine AZD1222/VAXZEVRIA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) from Oxford/ AstraZeneca: 7,977 deaths and 1,154,757 injuries to 29/01/2022
- 13,912 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 278 deaths
- 20,984 Cardiac disorders incl. 830 deaths
- 235 Congenital familial and genetic disorders incl. 8 deaths
- 13,406 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 7 deaths
- 692 Endocrine disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 20,086 Eye disorders incl. 32 deaths
- 107,453 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 434 deaths
- 304,993 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 1,855 deaths
- 1,039 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 69 deaths
- 5,409 Immune system disorders incl. 40 deaths
- 42,266 Infections and infestations incl. 620 deaths
- 13,630 Injury poisoning and procedural complications incl. 198 deaths
- 25,681 Investigations incl. 205 deaths
- 13,023 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 126 deaths
- 168,174 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 165 deaths
- 743 Neoplasms benign malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 40 deaths
- 234,117 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,178 deaths
- 635 Pregnancy puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 20 deaths
- 199 Product issues incl. 1 death
- 21,051 Psychiatric disorders incl. 69 deaths
- 4,338 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 78 deaths
- 16,849 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 3 deaths
- 41,401 Respiratory thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,082 deaths
- 52,064 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 65 deaths
- 1,617 Social circumstances incl. 9 deaths
- 1,973 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 30 deaths
- 28,787 Vascular disorders incl. 529 deaths
Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S) from Johnson & Johnson: 2,420 deaths and 127,305 injuries to 29/01/2022
- 1,229 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 51 deaths
- 2,552 Cardiac disorders incl. 204 deaths
- 40 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 1 death
- 1,319 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 3 deaths
- 105 Endocrine disorders incl. 1 death
- 1,656 Eye disorders incl. 10 deaths
- 9,588 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 88 deaths
- 34,487 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 685 deaths
- 153 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 13 deaths
- 544 Immune system disorders incl. 10 deaths
- 8,521 Infections and infestations incl. 207 deaths
- 1,147 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 25 deaths
- 6,086 Investigations incl. 131 deaths
- 756 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 60 deaths
- 17,116 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 55 deaths
- 86 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 8 deaths
- 23,413 Nervous system disorders incl. 245 deaths
- 55 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 1 death
- 30 Product issues
- 1,766 Psychiatric disorders incl. 22 deaths
- 535 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 31 deaths
- 2,941 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 4,468 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 304 deaths
- 3,760 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 10 deaths
- 409 Social circumstances incl. 4 deaths
- 867 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 74 deaths
- 3,676 Vascular disorders incl. 171 deaths
*These totals are estimates based on reports submitted to EudraVigilance. Totals may be much higher based on percentage of adverse reactions that are reported. Some of these reports may also be reported to the individual country’s adverse reaction databases, such as the U.S. VAERS database and the UK Yellow Card system. The fatalities are grouped by symptoms, and some fatalities may have resulted from multiple symptoms.
On January 29, 2021 a mass funeral protest for children who have died after receiving a Pfizer vaccine was held in Geneva, Switzerland.
Someone recorded the event and made a short video. This is on our Bitchute Channel, and also on our Telegram channel.
February 4, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Video, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, European Union, Human rights |
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday granted full approval of Moderna’s Spikevax COVID vaccine for people 18 and older.
Similar to the agency’s licensing last year of Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine, the approval raised a number of legal questions related to mandates and product availability.
Spikevax is a two-dose primary series, approved also for administration as part of a heterologous (“mix and match”) single booster dose for individuals who previously completed their original series of vaccinations with the Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccines.
According to the FDA, Spikevax “has the same formulation as the [Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)] Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine and … can be used interchangeably with the EUA Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine to provide the COVID-19 vaccination series.”
However, in its approval letter, the FDA said Spikevax is “legally distinct” from the Moderna EUA vaccine:
“The licensed vaccine has the same formulation as the EUA-authorized vaccine and the products can be used interchangeably to provide the vaccination series without presenting any safety or effectiveness concerns. The products are legally distinct with certain differences that do not impact safety or effectiveness.”
The FDA made the same distinction between the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine and the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine, which the agency fully licensed in August, 2021, a move that raised questions about liability and the legality of vaccine mandates.
After Monday’s announcement, media outlets were quick to reassure the public the two Moderna vaccines are the same and that this was just a marketing ploy, where Moderna simply “rebranded” what is otherwise the same vaccine.
No ‘fully licensed’ COVID actually available
While Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine is now fully licensed, the original Moderna vaccine will remain under EUA. Indeed, the FDA on Jan. 7 reissued the EUA.
The FDA has also made it clear the Spikevax vaccine will not be available to the American public, announcing:
“Although SPIKEVAX (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) and Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) are approved to prevent COVID-19 in certain individuals within the scope of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine authorization, there is not sufficient approved vaccine available for distribution to this population in its entirety at the time of reissuance of this EUA.”
These claims parallel the chain of events that followed the FDA’s full approval of the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine in August 2021.
At the time, Pfizer and the FDA claimed Comirnaty was not yet available, as there were sufficient stocks of the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine still available to be administered.
As of this writing, the FDA states, via its website, that Comirnaty products are “not orderable at this time.”
The FDA has not indicated when, or if, the Spikevax and Comirnaty vaccines will be available for distribution in the U.S.
Are EUA and fully licensed vaccines really interchangeable?
As reported by The Defender, there is a significant legal distinction between products authorized under EUA and those fully licensed by the FDA.
EUA products are experimental under U.S. law. Under the Nuremberg Code and federal regulations, no one can force a human being to participate in this experiment.
Specifically, under 21 U.S. Code Sec.360bbb-3(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III), “authorization for medical products for use in emergencies,” it is unlawful to deny someone a job or an education because they refuse to be an experimental subject. Instead, potential recipients have an absolute right to refuse EUA vaccines.
That’s an issue military members, unable to find any vaccination sites that offer the fully licensed Comirnaty vaccine, cited in various lawsuits challenging vaccine mandates.
Notably, on Nov. 12, 2021, a federal judge rejected an argument by the U.S. Department of Defense, in defending the military’s vaccine mandate, that the Pfizer Comirnaty and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are “interchangeable.”
U.S. law also requires the EUA designation be used only when “there is no adequate, approved and available alternative to the product for diagnosing, preventing or treating such disease or condition.”
This means that, in legal terms, all EUA products should be withdrawn once alternative products have received full approval.
Perhaps the most significant legal distinction, however, pertains to the legal protections afforded vaccine manufacturers, depending on how their product is classified.
Under the 2005 Public Readiness and Preparedness (PREP) Act, EUA-approved vaccines enjoy a significant liability shield. Specifically, vaccine manufacturers, distributors, providers, and government officials involved in the policymaking, approval, and distribution process are immune from any legal liability.
Under such regulations, the only way an injured party can sue is if he or she can prove willful misconduct, and if the U.S. government has also brought an enforcement action against the party for willful misconduct.
No such lawsuit has ever succeeded.
Conversely, fully licensed vaccines, such as Spikevax and Comirnaty, do not have a liability shield, and are instead subject to the same product liability laws as other products.
This means the Spikevax and Comirnaty vaccines could expose pharmaceutical companies to significant financial claims if individuals injured by the vaccines chose to sue the vaccine makers.
The rush to get COVID vaccines authorized for all ages — a ploy to avoid liability?
There’s another reason Pfizer and Moderna don’t want their fully licensed vaccines to be available yet — they’re waiting for the vaccines to be authorized, then licensed, for children as young as 6 months old.
Why? Because once a vaccine is fully licensed by the FDA, the only way its manufacturer can be shielded from legal liability is if the vaccine is added to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood vaccination schedule.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA), passed into law in 1986, provides a legal liability shield to drugmakers if they receive full authorization for all ages and the vaccine is added to the mandatory schedule.
Reporting on the FDA’s approval of Spikevax, investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel wrote:
“Are Pfizer and Moderna waiting for full authorization for children’s shots to distribute Comirnaty and Spikevax to the masses? There’s plenty of litigators who have suggested that this is exactly what is going on in Big Pharma world.”
By creating the public perception that the Pfizer and Moderna EUA vaccines are fully approved, businesses, schools and other institutions are emboldened to impose vaccine mandates that violate existing law and allow the vaccines to be administered without informed consent.
It has also been argued that by relabeling the product, any previous data regarding vaccine injuries and side effects identified in association with the EUA vaccine are not counted in the safety studies for the approved vaccine.
The FDA approval of the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine, its subsequent lack of availability and the continued administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine led Children’s Health Defense (CHD) to file a lawsuit against the FDA and its acting director, Dr. Janet Woodcock, for their allegedly deceptive and rushed approval of the Comirnaty vaccine, arguing that the approval represented a classic “bait and switch” tactic.
CHD further alleged in its lawsuit that the FDA violated federal law when it simultaneously licensed Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine and extended Pfizer’s EUA — as the agency has now done with Moderna and Spikevax — for a vaccine that has the “same formulation” and that “can be used interchangeably,” according to the FDA.
FDA admits no safety data for Spikevax use among pregnant women
Beyond the legal questions raised by the FDA’s approval this week of Spikevax, the approval also raises safety questions.
For instance, the FDA admitted Spikevax was insufficiently tested on pregnant women, stating that “[a]vailable data on SPIKEVAX administered to pregnant women are insufficient to inform vaccine-associated risks in pregnancy.”
Furthermore, Spikevax was approved without having been tested for its ability to provide protection against the Omicron variant, which is reported to account for 99.9% of current U.S. COVID cases — it was approved only for providing protection against mutations that are no longer circulating.
And yet, the FDA cited the Omicron variant as the reason behind its decision to pull its EUA for monoclonal antibody products. The FDA claims that these products have not been shown to provide protection against the Omicron variant.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
February 3, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA, Moderna, Pfizer, Spikevax, United States |
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The Costa Rica Ministry of Health in conjunction with the National Children’s Board (PANI) gave hospital officials the authorization to vaccinate all children in their care as long as there are no medical counter indications that would preclude it.
The issue arose after the parents of a child in a hospital in Heredia objected to their child being vaccinated after the child tested positive for Covid-19. Ultimately the child was vaccinated and discharged but only after a protest that became violent when a group organized online tried to remove the child from the hospital, resulting in the arrests of seven people.
In a statement from PANI they cited the the hosipital had the legal authority and the “fundamental right to health and life” of the child as paramount and part of the basis of the order.
While the first vaccination was administered it seems unlikely that the parents will follow up for any future Covid-19 vaccinations or that the Ministry of Health will intervene if the child is no longer under their care.
What is also unclear is if any other Costa Rica authorities will take any actions against the parents for failing to vaccinate their child in the future.
February 2, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, War Crimes | Costa Rica, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Experience of retired NHS employee with severe allergies suggests not
Recently published in the Conservative Woman was an extraordinary account by a woman with a history of severe allergies who nevertheless was refused an NHS vaccine exemption.
Having several years ago suffered life-threatening anaphylaxis to an antibiotic containing polyethylene glycol (a component of the Pfizer jab) and also prolonged vomiting after Hepatitis A vaccine (which contains polysorbate found in AstraZeneca), she now carries an adrenaline EpiPen. In January 2021, her GP agreed she should certainly not have any of the vaccines on offer.
But roll on a year and her efforts to get a vaccination exemption for travel met with a very different response. Far from signing the appropriate exemption form, her GP insisted on referring her to an immunologist who was eager to arrange for her to vaccinated under medical supervision in the local hospital. And when she not unreasonably declined the offer, her GP has told her she is not eligible for an exemption.
The MHRA information specifies ‘COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 should not be given if you are allergic to the active substance or any of the other ingredients of this medicine, listed in section 6.’
Similar advice is contained regarding AstraZeneca which states, ‘Do not have the vaccine if you are allergic to any of the active substances’
Moreover the government guidance on medical reasons for vaccination exemption includes, ‘a person with severe allergies to all currently available vaccines’
But despite listing such allergies as a contraindication, the vaccine information leaflet states under warnings and precautions, ‘Tell your doctor, pharmacist or nurse before vaccination:
If you have ever had a severe allergic reaction after any other vaccine injection or after you were given COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in the past. In other words, a past history of allergy is a contraindication to the first dose, but an allergic reaction to the first dose is only a reason to speak to your doctor but not a contraindication to a second dose?
This brings us full circle to informed consent and a timely reminder that all risks must be fully discussed as relevant to the individual and balanced against the risks of not proceeding and explaining any alternative treatments. For this lady, would the risk of catching and becoming seriously ill with omicron genuinely outweigh her risks for anaphylaxis? Would checking her vitamin D levels and providing supplements if needed, be a safer alternative?
Moreover, how is the NHS able to provide such a service, despite apparently under pressure of being overwhelmed, plus the reported huge backlog.
Above all, it begs the question, whatever happened to ‘First, do no harm’?
February 1, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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Israel has apparently reprimanded a soldier for firing rounds into Gaza. That’s all very well, but what about the countless other soldiers who have done the same for years, maiming and killing Palestinian civilians?
The soldier, who posted his bravado video to TikTok, reportedly got 10 days in military prison. According to an Israeli army statement, “The soldier’s behavior in the video does not conform with the norms expected of soldiers and commanders.”
His sentencing and the media reporting around the incident is pure theatre, given the reality of how the Israeli army routinely targets Palestinians working on land in Gaza’s east and northern regions. While this one particular soldier received a mild punishment, many others who attack unarmed civilians are not held accountable.
Since pulling the illegal settlers out of Gaza in 2005, Israel has implemented a kill zone – dubbed the “buffer zone” or “no go zone” – where, on a regular basis, its soldiers shoot at Palestinian civilians. Ostensibly, it comprises a band of land 300 metres from the fence encaging Palestinians in Gaza. In reality, Israeli soldiers fire upon civilians well over a kilometre away, or even further, as I have experienced myself.
As I reported some years ago, “According to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the 300 metres off-limits area extends in areas to at least 1.5 km. PCHR [the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights] has documented the Israeli army targeting of Palestinian civilians as far as 2 km from the border.”
Israeli soldiers in sniper position. © Eva Bartlett
Between 2008 and 2013, I regularly accompanied farmers and other civilians in border areas, and on many of the occasions that we came under fire, we were 500 metres or more from the fence. Among the disturbing incidents was an attack one morning in February 2009, when I came under prolonged Israeli gunfire while accompanying a group of farm labourers on land roughly 500 metres from the fence. By then, I was accustomed to the routine – I would walk with farmers on their land, the Israeli soldiers would arrive in jeeps, assume sniper position and begin firing at us.
On this occasion, the young men had finished their parsley harvest and were pushing a stalled pickup truck when the Israeli gunfire began. The incident was captured on video, as I was there to document such attacks, and as I wrote at the time, “The lightly-dressed, unarmed farmers were clearly visible to… the several Israeli army jeeps and the Hummer which had patrolled the border fence, stopping for long intervals to watch the farmers work, then moving on.” I noted that the soldiers had observed us for a good half hour before shooting, choosing to fire at precisely the time when the farmers were leaving.
Shooting just beyond where I stood in a fluorescent vest, an Israeli soldier hit 20-year-old Mohammad al-Buraim in his leg, and continued to fire at us for a further 15 minutes. Some weeks prior, an Israeli soldier shot his cousin Anwar in the neck, killing him and leaving his wife, young children, and extended family without a breadwinner. Anwar had been on land 600 metres from the fence, also doing farm labour work.
When someone gets injured in these areas, the injury is compounded by the fact that ambulances cannot reach them, as they are targeted by the Israeli army. So, locals need to somehow get the injured to a point where an ambulance can safely reach them. If this is not done quickly enough, the injured risks bleeding to death.
On another occasion, again with farm workers in Gaza’s southeast, I came under intense Israeli fire lasting over 40 minutes from soldiers roughly 500 metres away. Bullets flew within metres of our hands, heads, and bodies. This proved to be an especially interesting case, as a representative from the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv – who had been informed of the shooting by other volunteers – called me to express concern for my safety.
This dissipated as soon as she realized I was being fired on by an Israeli soldier, and not a Palestinian. Her superior, the then-attache in the Tel Aviv office, had the gall to state quite clearly that they were fine with Israel’s “security measures” – firing on an unarmed Canadian and unarmed Palestinians and internationals, who in no way posed any threat to the heavily armed Israeli soldiers – and that we should be aware of the risks.
In another example, in February 2009, also in the southeast on land 550 metres from the fence, I accompanied elderly farmers and their families who intended to harvest some of their meagre crops. Shortly after we had arrived on the land, Israeli soldiers started firing very close to us, less than a metre from where we stood.
As I wrote at the time, “We could almost taste Tuesday’s firing, and the distinct ping-whizz sound they make was somehow impossibly loud, so close the shots were. One of the older women was having trouble walking away, stumbling in her fear. As the shots dug in around her she fell to the ground in terror. Positioning ourselves between the elderly farmers and the Israeli snipers, we accompanied them off the field. A few hundred metres away, the Israeli snipers continued to shoot. Another elderly woman had dived in terror behind a rock and adamantly wouldn’t get up. “They’ll kill me, they’ll kill me,” she cried in fear…”
Thankfully we did make it away that day in one piece. But this was just one of many examples of the terror Palestinian farmers face on a daily basis. And it’s not just farmers – at around the same time, a 17-year-old girl standing around 800 metres from the fence, near the ruins of her home (destroyed in the war just a month previously), was shot in the kneecap by an Israeli sniper.
Children going to school in the eastern village of Khoza’a were, at the time, being fired upon by Israeli soldiers at the fence 1km away. Teens and young men gathering scrap metal from demolished homes routinely come under Israeli fire. One example was 15-year-old Said Abdel Aziz Hamdan, who went to an area in Gaza’s north with his 13-year-old brother, to try to earn money for their large family. After finishing his work, an Israeli soldier fired at him, hitting his leg, without warning.
“People go there every day to gather bits of metal and concrete. The Israelis see us and know we are just working, it’s normal,” he told me when I visited him in hospital.
Palestinians don’t only face Israeli sniper fire, but also flechette shelling – dart bombs – which Israel has indiscriminately used against civilians and medics. One victim was 17-year-old Saleh Ahmad al-Medani, whose shoulder and neck were punctured by the two-inch-long, razor-like, dart-shaped bits of metal packed by the thousands into a single shell. He was attacked while walking home after midnight in June 2009, in northwestern Gaza, over 1km from the wall.
As I wrote at the time, “Due to their design, flechettes dig deeply into their target, with their “tails” frequently breaking off, leaving multiple injuries and rendering them nearly impossible to extract without inflicting more injury in the surgical search. In most cases, doctors opt against surgery, leaving the darts inside the victim’s body.”
The routine and very dangerous Israeli policy of harassment, which risks maiming or killing targets, also means farmers frequently stay off their land, meaning plants don’t get watered, and crops don’t get harvested. These are not isolated and random instances. They are part of a policy that aims to cut off any means of self-sufficiency the Palestinians try to engage in. Other Israeli army tactics include burning Palestinian crops, destroying wells and cisterns, and demolishing homes, livestock farms, and trees throughout the border regions.
So, please, let’s not get carried away with the fact that Israel has thrown one soldier in prison for unacceptable behaviour. It is quite clear that Israel doesn’t hold its own soldiers accountable for their crimes, including killing children or firing white phosphorus on heavily populated civilian areas. Neither does the United Nations nor anybody else appear willing to make Israel take responsibility for its decades of crimes against Palestinians.
One headline about one soldier being reprimanded for posting his tough-guy video on TikTok should not fool anyone.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
January 30, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Secretly and quietly, the Biden administration has continued to use the killing machine crafted by President George W. Bush, expanded by President Barack Obama and employed from time to time by President Donald Trump. These presidents have used drones and other unmanned missiles and projectiles to target persons in foreign countries with which the United States is not at war.
They have done this notwithstanding the prohibition of taking life, liberty or property from any person — not just any American, but any person — in the Constitution each has sworn to uphold, and they have done so pursuant to secret rules that they themselves have established for these killings.
Last week, 11 senators and 39 members of the House of Representatives — Democrats all — to their credit sent a harshly worded letter to President Joseph R. Biden asking him to stop the killings. As of this writing, he has not publicly replied.
Here is the backstory.
The purpose of the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the Constitution — is to protect personal liberty by restraining the government.
The Fifth Amendment prohibits killing persons, restraining liberty and taking property without due process; that means a jury trial at which the government must prove fault. Until President Abraham Lincoln waged war on half the country, the operative clause in the Fifth Amendment was understood to prohibit all federal killing without a declaration of war or due process.
If the country is at war — lawfully and constitutionally declared by Congress — obviously the president can use the U.S. military to kill the military of the opposing country. And if an attack on the U.S. is imminent, the president can strike the first blow against the military of the entity whose attack is just about to occur.
There are no other constitutional circumstances under which a president may kill.
All this changed — culturally, not constitutionally — when President Harry Truman targeted Japanese civilians in Japan as the Japanese government was within days of surrendering in World War II. Truman was, of course, not the first American president to target civilians, as Lincoln criminally targeted American civilians during the War between the States.
Notwithstanding his unprosecuted war crimes, and with the government’s version of Pearl Harbor still fresh in many Americans’ minds, Truman was regarded as heroic for ordering the profoundly immoral, militarily useless, criminal mass killings against the hated Japanese using atomic bombs.
Fast-forward to the 9/11 era, and Bush had precedent to begin his own presidential killings of people the government wanted Americans to hate. While Congress did authorize him to use force against those who caused or aided the 9/11 attacks, we all know that his thirst for Middle Eastern blood knew no regard for the Constitution, evidence, proportionality, civilian lives, morality or human decency.
Julian Assange sits in a British dungeon awaiting decisions on his extradition to the U.S. because he courageously, lawfully and constitutionally published documents and videos demonstrating conclusively that Bush’s use of drones targeted and murdered Afghan and Iraqi civilians, and his administration covered it up.
Obama took this to another level when he targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son, both of whom were born in the U.S. Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, advised Obama that the killings were lawful, as al-Awlaki had encouraged folks in the Middle East to fight against American soldiers there. Holder likened killing al-Awlaki to a shooting at a bank robber who is being chased by police and shooting at them.
Holder forgot that al-Awlaki was not charged or indicted for any crime, was never accused of violence and was not even the subject of an arrest warrant when a drone evaporated him while sitting at an outdoor cafe in Yemen.
The exercise of power by the federal government is largely based on precedent and politics. Whenever a president wants to kill secretly, he need only find an example of a predecessor having killed secretly with impunity — without due process, without a declaration of war and without an imminent attack. And then he needs only to calculate what he thinks he can politically get away with.
Stated differently, Joe Biden — whose drones in 2021 targeted innocent civilians in Afghanistan, killing dozens — is using unlawful powers that his modern predecessors used and got away with to target and kill unsympathetic persons.
The nature of political power is to expand so that it fills a perceived need, unless there are mechanisms in place to restrain its expansion.
The founding generation believed that British monarchs had no limits on their power and that was a good enough reason for the 13 colonies to secede. They also believed that they had crafted founding documents — the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — for the new nation that imposed sufficient restraints on the federal government.
After all, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Its language is clear that only Congress writes laws and declares war, and presidents can kill only troops in wartime or civilians consistent with due process.
Moreover, every president takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as it was written, not as they may wish it to be.
Sadly, the Founders were wrong.
Today, the president writes laws and rules that let him restrain personal liberty and kill with impunity, and Congress and the American people let him get away with it. Formally, we still have a Constitution. Functionally, it has utterly failed to restrain the government.
Ultimately, we have ourselves to blame for these killings. Why do we repose the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who subvert it? If a future president uses Bush’s lust and Obama’s logic and Biden’s stealth to kill Americans in America, no one’s life, liberty or property will be secure.
Creators Syndicate, Inc. © 2022
January 30, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Human rights, Joe Biden, Obama, United States |
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New book shows how the American general’s contempt for ‘the racket’ was born during his service in the 20th century ‘small wars.’
Smedley Butler was one of the most decorated Marines in U.S. history, and by the end of his life he was also one of the most outspoken critics of the U.S. imperialism that he had spent most of his life enforcing. That contradiction between Butler the antiwar critic and Butler the builder of empire is at the heart of an important new book by Jonathan Katz, Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire. Katz’s book is an essential reminder of what the U.S. did during those decades and of the lasting effects that those interventions had on the countries where Butler went.
Butler took part in America’s so-called “small wars” in Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America in the early twentieth century. Like those wars, his military career has mostly been forgotten by the American public. That career was defined by aggressive military interventions on behalf of corporate interests, and by the end he was disgusted by it. As the author of War Is a Racket, Butler has been an inspiration to many antiwar and anti-imperialist Americans over the years, but he was also one of the military officers responsible for implementing destructive American colonialist designs at the expense of other nations. Twice awarded the Medal of Honor, he never believed he had done anything to deserve it, and the massacre that he took part in at Fort Rivière in Haiti haunted him.
In his later life, Butler came to see much of his career as a disreputable series of actions in the service of wealthy American interests, and he called himself a “racketeer for capitalism.” The racket he denounced was one that benefited a very few at the expense of the many. That core problem with our foreign policy that Butler identified almost ninety years ago is still very much with us. The U.S. still wages unnecessary wars based on flimsy pretexts against countries that cannot possibly threaten us, and today it also enables other wars with its weapons sales. The military budget grows every year despite the extraordinary physical security that the United States enjoys, and the hunt for new monsters to slay is unending. The racket is bigger and more destructive than ever.
Katz has produced a superb book in which he traces Butler’s steps from his first deployment to Cuba through his last mission in China. Through extensive use of Butler’s correspondence with his family, Katz is able to reconstruct to a remarkable degree what Butler thought about his various missions. Occasionally, there are flashes of anger at policies he was ordered to carry out that anticipate his later antiwar arguments. Appalled by the losses suffered during the invasion of Veracruz in 1914, he applauded his father’s belated vote in Congress against the mission. Katz writes, “The trauma fed Butler’s misgivings about the immorality and pointlessness of war.”
To read Butler’s story is to be reminded of our country’s long and ugly history of dominating many of our weaker neighbors. As Katz shows throughout the book, these countries are still living with the effects of those policies a century later. Katz traveled extensively to visit all the places where Butler served to learn more about his experiences and to document the legacy of the interventions in which Butler participated, and he bears witness to the lasting damage that U.S. policies have done. While most Americans know little or nothing about these interventions, many people in the affected countries still remember what U.S. forces did when they were there.
Butler is most loathed in Haiti, where he is viewed simply as “the Devil” and mechan (evil), because of his role in forcibly dissolving Haiti’s National Assembly to push through a new constitution, his reintroduction of a cruel system of forced labor, and the counterinsurgency campaign he waged against Haitian resistance to American rule. The Gendarmerie that Butler created became the national army and went on to interfere in and dominate Haitian politics for much of the rest of the century.
The outrages that the U.S. committed in its wars in the Philippines and Haiti, among other places, still affect how the U.S. is perceived today. The police and military institutions that the occupying U.S. authorities created in several countries became the apparatus of oppression used by later dictators, some of whom, like the Dominican Republic’s Trujillo, had been trained by the U.S. and became U.S. client rulers. During his brief time as the head of Philadelphia’s police force, Butler used the tactics he had employed against insurgents in other countries to fight “bandits” at home in an early example of the militarization of the police and the abuses that came with it.
The period of U.S. foreign policy between the start of the war with Spain and WWII is often wrongly described as “isolationist,” but no one can look at these decades of frequent, violent intervention in the affairs of other nations in the early twentieth century and still believe that. The U.S. took sides in Mexico’s civil war, it invaded other countries on the slightest pretext that a foreign rival might be gaining influence, and it militarily occupied some of them for years or decades. Like colonial empires the world over, the U.S. dominated weaker nations because it could and because its political leaders saw some economic advantage to be exploited.
While these interventions benefited private interests and were done on their behalf, they did nothing to make the United States more secure and were never really intended to. As Butler concluded in his later years, America’s colonial possessions in the Pacific only exposed the country to the dangers of a new, much larger war. “Sooner or later, if we hold onto them, America will be jerked into a damn war before we know what it’s all about,” Butler told a reporter in 1933. That was why he became an early supporter of independence for the Philippines as part of his broader antiwar advocacy. Butler did not live to see that prediction come true, but he was proven right eight years later.
Today there are still some neo-imperialists that look back on the “small wars” Butler fought as a model for how the U.S. should police the globe. Butler would be among the first to reject that idea out of hand. If his experience teaches us anything, it is that wars for empire cause tremendous harm to both the people being dominated and to the people sent to fight in those wars. Gangsters of Capitalism is an excellent account of Butler’s career, and it is also an outstanding history of the development of overseas American imperialism. The wars that Butler fought in anticipated and paved the way for the later militarization of U.S. foreign policy, and they serve as cautionary tales of the long-term harm that military intervention usually does to the nations that experience it. In order to find a way to stop the endless wars for good, we need to remember and learn from the brutal history of America’s empire-building.
January 30, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, Latin America, United States |
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