VIPS Urge Trump to Avoid War in Venezuela
Consortium News | April 4, 2019
VIPS warn that Trump’s policies regarding Venezuela appear to be on a slippery slope that could take us toward war in Venezuela and military confrontation with Russia.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Avoiding War with Russia over Venezuela
Mr. President:
Your Administration’s policies regarding Venezuela appear to be on a slippery slope that could take us toward war in Venezuela and military confrontation with Russia. As former intelligence officers and other national security practitioners with many decades of experience, we urge you not to let yourself be egged on into taking potentially catastrophic military action in response to civil unrest in Venezuela or Russian activities in the Western Hemisphere. With the recent arrival of two transport aircraft and enduring political support for the government of Venezuela, the Russians are far from crossing any “red line” emanating from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine.
Unfulfilled Objectives in Venezuela
Inside Venezuela, U.S. actions have failed to do more than plunge the country into deeper crisis, cause greater human suffering, and increase the prospects of violence on a national scale. President Maduro’s mishandling of the economy and authoritarian reactions to provocations are impossible to defend, but they result in part from the fact that he has been under siege since he was first elected in 2013 and has faced sanctions aimed ultimately at removing him from office. In our view, the advice you’ve received from your top advisors – Florida Senator Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Special Representative Elliott Abrams, and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo – was and apparently continues to be wrong.
- Recognition of Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as “interim president” did not prompt the military to rise up against President Maduro. Neither did attacking the officer corps as merely corrupt opportunists and drug-traffickers enriched through loyalty to former President Chávez and Maduro, nor did repeatedly threatening them with harsher sanctions. Those actions reflected a fundamental misunderstanding about the Venezuelan military, which has never been free of corruption and political compromise but has also never been so totally isolated from the Venezuelan people that it hasn’t felt their suffering. U.S. policies incorrectly assumed that the officers – while probably fed up with Maduro’s shortcomings – would support Guaidó despite his faction’s commitment to dismantle Chavismo, which most officers believe brought historically necessary changes to the country, including enfranchisement of the poor.
Similarly, your Administration’s repeated hints at military intervention have been counterproductive to your regime-change objectives. Your policy and intelligence advisors were correct in interpreting the disparate polling data showing popular support for Guaidó as actually being support for the U.S. to extricate the country from its crisis – the National Assembly President was a political unknown until the United States and others recognized his claim to the Presidency – but your team showed a lack of understanding of Venezuelan nationalism. Venezuelans do not welcome the destruction that would be caused by U.S. military attack; they recall the death toll of Operation Just Cause, when the United States killed more than 3,000 Panamanians (by its own count) to remove one corrupt authoritarian, Manuel Noriega. Threats of invasion have pushed people to circle around Maduro, however reluctantly, not reject him.
- Your Administration’s strategy of punishing the Venezuelan people, including apparently knocking out their electricity, seems based on the false assumption that humanitarian crisis will prompt a coup to remove Maduro. In fact, the U.S. sanctions have allowed Maduro to shift blame from his own failings to U.S. malice – and it has left Guaidó, whom your advisors portray as the moral equivalent of our Founders, looking like a sell-out to Yankee imperialists at the cost of the Venezuelan people’s health and welfare and magnified civil disorder.
Lost Opportunity for Diplomacy
Senator Rubio, Mr. Bolton, Mr. Abrams, and Mr. Pompeo have also squandered a formidable moment to build on common values with allies in Latin America and Europe. Even though most Latin Americans find your aides’ public assertion that the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well to be insulting, the right-leaning Presidents of most of South and Central America rallied with you to support Guaidó’s self-proclamation. But Guaidó’s lack of leadership – he appears totally scripted by U.S. Government agencies – his inflexibility on negotiations, his open call for U.S. military intervention, and your own Administration’s dangling threat of war are rapidly alienating all but the most subservient to U.S. policy dictates. Negotiation proposals, such as those being developed by the International Contact Group, are gaining momentum.
Internationalizing the Conflict
National Security Advisor Bolton and others have sought to internationalize the Venezuela issue since before Guaidó’s proclamation. Bolton’s reference to a “Troika of Tyranny” in November – which he called “a triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua” and “sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere” – was a veiled Cold War-era swipe at Russia and China. Mr. Bolton, Senator Rubio, and other advisors have made clear on numerous occasions that the overthrow of President Maduro would be just the first stage in efforts to eliminate the current governments of the “Troika” and “Communist influence” in the Western Hemisphere.
- They have repeatedly asserted that Cuban advisors have been crucial to the Maduro government’s survival without providing evidence. Indeed, the reportedly “hundreds” of Venezuelan military defectors, including many managed by U.S. agencies, have not provided even credible hearsay evidence that Cubans are doing more than providing routine assistance. In addition, the threats coming out of Washington have preempted any willingness that Cuba might have had to contribute to a regional solution to the Venezuelan crisis as it has in similar situations, such as Colombia’s recent peace process, the Angola peace process in 1989-90, and the Central American negotiations in the early 1990s.
Provocative Rhetoric about Russia
Most dangerous, however, are aggressive statements about Russia’s engagement with Venezuela. Russian oil companies, particular Rosneft, have long been in Venezuela – bailing out the Venezuelan petroleum company (PDVSA) as its mismanagement and falling oil prices have caused production and revenues to plummet. Most long-term observers believe Rosneft’s decisions, including throwing good money after bad, have been motivated by business calculations, without a particularly ideological objective.
- Your advisors’ rhetoric imposing an East-West spin on the issue presented President Putin and his advisors an opportunity to try to poke the United States in the eye – especially as Administration efforts to remove Maduro foundered and diplomatic support for Guaidó cracked. Maduro and Putin have not enjoyed particularly close personal relations in the past, and their shared strategic interests are few, but U.S. rhetoric and threats have given them common cause in tweaking us. A meeting in Rome between your special envoy, Elliot Abrams, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov achieved nothing amid further U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and continued threats that “all options” were on the table.
Publicly available information is insufficient for us to know exactly what was aboard the two Russian aircraft that landed at Maiquetía last week – two months after your Administration publicly proclaimed its intention to remove Maduro – but precedent suggests Moscow had two main objectives.
- One, and probably primary, is to embarrass your Administration by defying your rhetoric, just to rub your nose in Moscow’s sovereign right to have the relations, including military liaison, with whomever it pleases. In this sense, Russian behavior resembles its intervention, at Bashar al-Assad’s request, in Syria. And it is not a far cry from Moscow’s reaction to the Western-supported coup in Kiev.
- Another objective, if press speculation about the Russian advisors and equipment aboard the aircraft is correct, would be to shore up Venezuela’s ability to warn of and respond to a U.S. military strike. Your Administration has publicly asserted that the Russians are helping repair S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, which have a purely defensive purpose. There is no evidence, not even circumstantial, that Russia has any offensive objectives in this relationship.
The U.S. reaction has suggested a much greater chance of military confrontation. Mr. Bolton “strongly caution[ed] actors external to the Western Hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations.” Without defining what activities he would object to, Mr. Bolton said, “We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and security in the region.” Your Special Representative said the “Russian presence” is “extremely pernicious.” Your Secretary of State said, “Russia’s got to leave Venezuela.” You said, “Russia has to get out” and reiterated that “all options are open” – including presumably forcing the Russians out militarily. And we note that Russia has not closed its embassy in Caracas as your Administration has.
Avoiding the Slippery Slope
As intelligence officers and security experts, we have given many years to protecting our nation from a host of threats, including from the Soviet Union. We also believe, however, that picking fights. including ousting governments, blocking negotiated settlements, and threatening other countries’ sovereign decision to pursue activities that do not threaten our national security – is rarely the wise way to go.
We repeat that we are not defending Maduro and his record, while at the same time pointing out that many of his troubles have been exacerbated by U.S. policies and efforts to oust him. We believe that due process and practical, realistic policies better protect our national interests than threats and confrontational rhetoric. It strains credulity to believe that your advisors picked this fight with President Maduro without realizing that Venezuela would seek help fixing its defensive capabilities.
Moreover and very seriously, rhetoric challenging Russia could all too easily lead to a much more consequential confrontation.
- Invoking the 1823 Monroe Doctrine is unhelpful. For Russia to provide assistance for purely defensive purposes to a country in which we seek to create regime change and threaten military attack would not be widely seen as violating the Monroe Doctrine or crossing a “red line.”
- We realize that some in the media are trying to egg you on into taking forceful action, perhaps even of a military nature, to punish Russia in any case. We urge you not to fall into this trap. This is not 19th century Latin America, and it is a far cry from the Cuba missile crisis of 1962.
- The best way to prevent dangerous miscalculation would be for you to speak directly with President Putin. Washington’s energies would be better spent clearing up differences, adjusting failed policies, and promoting a peaceful resolution in Venezuela.
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Fulton Armstrong, former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America & former National Security Council Director for Inter-American Affairs (ret.)
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer & former Division Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel,,former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official, (ret.)
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Clement J. Laniewski, LTC, U.S. Army (ret.)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, former Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East & CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Peter Van Buren,U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Sarah Wilton, Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington’s justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.
What Monroe Doctrine?
By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 04.04.2019
Because there is a presidential election coming up next year, the Donald Trump Administration appears to be looking for a country that it can attack and destroy in order to prove its toughness and willingness to go all the way in support of alleged American interests. It is a version of the old neocon doctrine attributed to Michael Ledeen, the belief that every once in a while, it is necessary to pick out some crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to demonstrate that the United States means business.
“Meaning business” is a tactic whereby the adversary surrenders immediately in fear of the possible consequences, but there are a couple of problems with that thinking. The first is that an opponent who can resist will sometimes balk and create a continuing problem for the United States, which has a demonstrated inability to start and end wars in any coherent fashion.
This tendency to get caught in a quagmire in a situation that might have been resolved through diplomacy has been exacerbated by the current White House’s negotiating style, which is to both demand and expect submission on all points even before discussions begin. That was clearly the perception with North Korea, where National Security Advisor John Bolton insisted that Pyongyang had agreed to American demands over its nuclear program even though it hadn’t and would have been foolish to do so for fear of being treated down the road like Libya, which denuclearized but then was attacked and destroyed seven years later. The Bolton mis-perception, which was apparently bought into by Trump, led to a complete unraveling of what might actually have been accomplished if the negotiations had been serious and open to reasonable compromise right from the beginning.
Trump’s written demand that Kim Jong Un immediately hand over his nuclear weapons and all bomb making material was a non-starter based on White House misunderstandings rooted in its disdain for compromise. The summit meeting with Trump, held in Hanoi at the end of February, was abruptly canceled by Kim and Pyongyang subsequently accused Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of making “gangster-like” demands.
The second problem is that there are only a few actual casus belli situations under international law that permit a country to attack another preemptively, and they are usually limited to actual imminent threats. The current situation with Venezuela is similar to that with North Korea in that Washington is operating on the presumption that it has a right to intervene and bring about regime change, using military force if necessary, because of its presumed leadership role in global security, not because Caracas or even Pyongyang necessarily is threatening anyone. That presumption that American “exceptionalism” provides authorization to intervene in other countries using economic weapons backed up by a military option that is “on the table” is a viewpoint that is not accepted by the rest of the world.
In the case of Venezuela, where Trump has dangerously demanded that Russia withdraw the hundred or so advisors that it sent to help stabilize the country, the supposition that the United States has exclusive extra-territorial rights is largely based on nineteenth and early twentieth century unilaterally declared “doctrines.” The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 de facto established the United States as the hegemon-presumptive for the entire Western Hemisphere, stretching from the Arctic Circle in the north to Patagonia in the south.
John Bolton has been the leader in promoting the Monroe Doctrine as justification for Washington’s interference in Venezuela’s politics, apparently only dimly aware that the Doctrine, which opposed any attempts by European powers to establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere, was only in effect for twenty-two years when the United States itself annexed Texas and then went to war with Mexico in the following year. The Mexican war led to the annexation of territory that subsequently became the states of California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado. In the same year, the United States threatened war with Britain over the Oregon Territory, eventually accepting a border settlement running along the 49th parallel.
Meanwhile the march westward across the plains continued, forcing the Indian tribes back into ever smaller spaces of open land. The US government in the nineteenth century recognized some Indian tribes as “nations” but it apparently did not believe that they enjoyed any explicit “Monroe Doctrine” rights to continue to exist outside reservations when confronted by the “manifest destiny” proponents who were hell bent on creating a United States that would run from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
The Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 amended the Monroe Doctrine, making it clear that the United States believed it had a right to interfere in any country in the western Hemisphere to maintain good order, which inevitably led to exploitation of Latin American nations by US business conglomerates that could count on a little help from US Marines if their trade agreements were threatened. In 1898, Washington became explicitly imperialist when it defeated Spain and acquired effective control over Cuba, a number of Caribbean Islands and the Philippines. This led to a series of more than thirty interventions by the US military in the Caribbean and Central America between 1898 and 1934. Other states in the region that were not directly controlled by Washington were frequently managed through arrangements with local autocrats, who were often themselves generals.
Make no mistake, citing the Monroe Doctrine is little more than a plausible excuse to get rid of the Venezuelan government, which is legitimate, like it or not. The recent electrical blackouts in the country are only the visible signs of an aggressive campaign to destroy the Venezuelan economy. The United States is engaging in economic warfare against Caracas, just as it is doing against Tehran, and it is past time that it should be challenged by the international community over its behavior. Guns may not be firing but covert cyberwarfare is total warfare nevertheless, intended to starve people and increase their suffering in order to bring about economic collapse and take down a government to change it into something more amenable to American interests.
Turkey Says US Failed to Report True Content of Pompeo Talk
Al-Manar | April 4, 2019
Turkey on Thursday accused the US State Department of making false claims after a meeting between top US and Turkish diplomats to discuss tense ties between the NATO allies.
Washington and Ankara are at odds over issues including US support for a Syrian Kurdish militia and Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile system over US objections.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks on Wednesday during the Turkish official’s visit to Washington as part of 70th anniversary celebrations of the NATO alliance.
The US State Department said Pompeo had warned Ankara of “devastating consequences” if Turkey launches an offensive in Syria and urged the “swift resolution” of legal cases involving US citizens and US mission employees under investigation in Turkey.
Pompeo also pressed Cavusoglu about Turkey’s plans to buy the S-400 missile defense system from Russia, which Washington has warned could put Ankara at risk of US sanctions, the State Department said in a statement.
But Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said on Thursday that the readout “not only fails to reflect the content of the meeting, but also contains matters that were not even raised during said meeting”.
It was not clear what “matters” Aksoy was referring to in his statement and foreign ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
Aksoy said similar problems had arisen after previous talks, and urged statements to be prepared with “greater care”.
NASA attacks India’s ‘terrible’ space weapon test, but US is creator of much more space debris
RT | April 2, 2019
NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said India’s recent anti-satellite missile test was a “terrible thing” because it has created dangerous space debris – despite the US being one of the major orbital litterers.
Creating debris in orbit is a “terrible, terrible thing,” Bridenstine said at a live-streamed town hall meeting. India’s test in late March of an anti-satellite weapon created 400 of such floating items, of which 60 are large enough for NASA to track, and 24 are flying above the highest points of the International Space Station’s orbit.
“That kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight,” Bridenstine chided, saying India’s just-dumped space junk has increased the risk to the ISS by 44 percent.
But the latest 60 trackable bits represent a tiny number compared to the total of 21,000 pieces larger than 10cm that NASA is already watching. A third of those were created in previous anti-satellite weapons tests by Russia, China and the US itself.
“It is indeed hypocritical for the US to complain since the Pentagon has created more space debris than any other nation on the planet,” says Bruce K. Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
Despite Bridenstine’s condemnation and the Pentagon’s earlier call to “not make a mess” in space, there won’t be any real consequences for India, Gagnon believes, because the US needs a space-warfare-capable India to corner China.
In fact, the US appears to actually be “encouraging India to militarize and weaponize space to help Washington encircle China – knowing that India and China have long had tensions,” he said.
The debris created by the Indian test will have a much less lasting impact on orbital safety than the ones the other space powers have left behind, says Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
“The debris from the Indian test, because it is in low orbit, will burn and fall back onto the Earth in the coming months, if not weeks. But the debris from the US and Chinese actions will persist for many years,” Chellaney told RT.
He also dismissed the notion that India’s arrival on the space weapons scene will spark a new arms race – because one is already underway and India is simply striving to keep up.
On the other hand, George W.S. Abbey, a former director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Fellow in Space Policy at the Baker Institute of Rice University, has backed the NASA chief’s security concerns, saying it’s important to keep space “as clean as possible and not create more debris no matter what your country is, particularly when you have a manned spacecraft in orbit around the Earth.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his country conducted its anti-satellite weapons test on March 28, shooting down its own low-orbit satellite with a ground-launched missile. At the time, US Air Force Space Command said the debris were no danger to the ISS.
India has become the fourth country to successfully test an anti-satellite weapon, after China, Russia and the US.
Reality check: CNN’s claim that Trump has been unwilling to confront Putin is total bulls**t
By Bryan MacDonald | RT | April 2, 2019
Fareed Zakaria is a veteran Putin conspiracy theorist. And you can assume he feels this obsession has helped further his career, especially at CNN.
Back in 2017, he made a pseudo-documentary on Russia’s president, titled “The most powerful man in the world,” which was widely pilloried. Indeed, the Kremlin labeled it “hysterical” and “odious,” and dismissed it as “often complete fiction.”
Russia expert Dominic Basulto summed it up as “what slick propaganda for the masses looks like in the digital era.” Further pointing out how Zakaria failed to disclose his own “Russian collusion” as a host at the 2016 St Petersburg Economic Forum. An appearance which didn’t go very well for the CNN anchor.
Over the past couple of years, Zakaria has been one of the loudest voices pushing the “Trump/Russia” hoax. But, instead of accepting reality after Robert Mueller’s report kiboshed the yarn, he doubled down. And his latest video is unhinged.
Dubbed ‘Fareed’s take,’ the segment’s blurb states “the real puzzle remains: Why has Trump been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue? And will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?” And note the use of the word “appeasement,” intended to ‘Chamberlain’ Trump.
Anyway, let’s not beat around the bush, the clip is complete bulls**t. President Trump has confronted Putin on many issues and their relationship has been hyper-adversarial. In the real world, of course, not the fantasy-land of American network TV.
The ways in which Trump has frustrated his Russian counterpart are myriad:
- He has withdrawn from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing Russian non-compliance – a charge the Kremlin rejects.
- Trump has accepted Montenegro into NATO and will probably add North Macedonia before his term is up. Both countries are in the Balkans, a traditional Russian sphere of influence.
- Under Trump, the US armed Ukraine with lethal weapons in 2017, a step his predecessor Barack Obama was reluctant to take.
- The US president expelled dozens of Russian diplomats last year in response to the alleged poisoning of a Russian spy, who defected to Britain. He also closed Russia’s consulate in Seattle (he’d already shuttered the San Francisco equivalent a year earlier).
- In the spring of 2018, Trump ordered airstrikes against Syria, Russia’s Middle Eastern ally, which Putin condemned “in the most serious way.”
- The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is a major piece of infrastructure for both Germany and Russia, and both countries have invested considerable energy in its completion. But Trump accuses Berlin of “paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia” adding how Germany is “totally controlled by Russia.” US media reported last month that Trump told German Chancellor Merkel: “Angela, you got to stop buying gas from Putin.”
- Russia has backed the government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, which the Americans hope to remove. Just last week, Trump ‘ordered’ Russia to “get out” of Venezuela, despite the fact that they have been there under a treaty with Caracas.
So, there we go again, yet another CNN Russia-related falsehood debunked. If this carries on much longer, the once-respected channel might as well rebrand as “Conspiracy Network News.”
Deadly Dust: US Spreading Radiation and No One Wants to Raise the Issue – Author
Sputnik – April 3, 2019
In a new book named “Deadly Dust – Made in the USA: Uranium Weapons Contaminating the World” German author Frieder Wagner gives a detailed account of how the US has contaminated vast territories using depleted uranium (DU) ammunition and the cover-up strategy of the military, industry and governments, as well as those in the media and politics.
Sputnik: Mr Wagner, in your book “Deadly Dust — Made in the USA: Uranium Weapons Contaminating the World” you talk about the use of uranium ammunition. What is especially dangerous about these weapons?
Frieder Wagner: Weapons containing uranium are produced from nuclear industry’s waste (byproducts of uranium enrichment). If, for example, you want to produce a ton of natural uranium fuel rods for nuclear power plants, you get about eight tons of depleted uranium. It is a source of alpha radiation — radioactive and, moreover, very poisonous. It needs to be stored somewhere, and it is not very cheap.
Sputnik: How can it be used in weapons?
Frieder Wagner: About 30-40 years ago, military scientists made a discovery: uranium is almost twice as dense as lead. If you turn depleted uranium into a projectile and give it proper acceleration, then within a fraction of a second it will pierce through tank armor, concrete or cement.This, of course, was an important discovery. Furthermore, when a shell hits an armored tank the impact produces dust caused by the detonation and the subsequent release of heat energy causes it to ignite and it explodes at a temperature of 3000 to 5000 degrees — incinerating the tank’s interior and destroying it.
Sputnik: But what happens afterwards is also a problem — after the use of DU ammunition, isn’t it?
Frieder Wagner: Yes! After its use depleted uranium, which, as I have already said, is a source of alpha radiation (that is, a radioactive and very toxic substance), burns down to nano-particles that are a hundred times smaller than a red blood cell.
This way, I would say, a sort of metallic gas forms that people can inhale, and which is released in the atmosphere and can be carried anywhere by wind. People who inhale it are at risk for developing cancer.These nano-particles can also penetrate the body of a pregnant woman, overcoming the barrier between a child and a mother, and affect the health of an unborn baby, can infiltrate the brain and by travelling through the bloodstream end up in any human or animal organ. Everything that goes around the planet, sooner or later settles and, of course, contaminates, in particular, drinking water and everything else.
Sputnik: In what wars have DU weapons been used so far?
Frieder Wagner: It was actively used during the first Gulf war in 1991 against Iraq. The military has admitted that about 320 tons were used. Then in the second war in Iraq in 2003 over 2,000 tons were used. In between, it was used during the war in Kosovo, in Yugoslavia (1999), and in Bosnia in 1995, and after 2001 in Afghanistan, where it still used today.
Sputnik: Your book title says Made in the USA, were these weapons only used by the United States?
Frieder Wagner: They were being developed in several countries at the same time. In Germany, they were also working on these weapons, as, of course, in Russia. However, it was used and on such a large scale, only by the US. They were reckless and they did not pay attention to any possible side effects — just as it was back when the first atomic bombs were used. That’s why I called the book: “Deadly Dust — Made in the USA”.
Sputnik: How did you manage to prove the use of this ammunition in the course of your research?
Frieder Wagner: For example, the Serbs gave us maps where they showed the locations where depleted uranium was used. When we were in Iraq, we talked to the locals. We traveled to places where large tank battles took place and took soil samples there, as well as dust samples from tanks. Looking at the tank, you can see whether it was hit by an ordinary projectile or a uranium munition.
Uranium munition leaves dust that burns everything around the hole made by the projectile. So you can determine the use of uranium ammunition. In all soil samples, we found depleted uranium. Unfortunately, uranium-236 was also found in most of the soil and dust samples — it is even more intense and poisonous. Its radiation is even stronger and does not occur in nature. It can only be produced artificially during reprocessing of fuel rods. This means that we were able to prove that the military, the United States and its coalition allies used uranium munitions made from spent uranium fuel rods.
Sputnik: Your book is based on the films The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children of Basra (Der Arzt und die verstrahlten Kinder von Basra, 2004) and Deadly Dust (Todesstaub, 2007). What did you see in Basra during your work on the documentary?
Frieder Wagner: It was horrific and still sometimes haunts me in my dreams. These were children with deformities, which we saw in orphanages in Basra and Baghdad. Some of them had such deformities that they had almost nothing human anymore.
There were children without a head or a nose, either with one eye or without eyes at all, with internal organs in a kind of “sack” outside their body. These ‘creatures’ can live only for a few hours, experiencing terrible pain, and then die.
Sputnik: The film “Deadly Dust” is linked to the book, but it is no longer distributed. WDR channel after this film did not make any more orders? Why is that?
Frieder Wagner: My exposes which I sent to WDR, as well as to the ZDF channels were rejected. Then I contacted an editor at WDR, for which I always made good films and with which I always had good relations with, because these films had doubled or trippled their ratings, and asked him: “What’s going on here?”” And after some hesitation he said: “Yes, Frieder Wagner, someone must tell you this. WDR considers you a ‘difficult’ person. And most importantly, the topics you suggest are especially hard. Right now I’ve got nothing more to tell you.” And that’s when I understood everything. It was in 2005.
I can also tell you the story of how, for example, a female editor at ZDF offered the TV channel a story on the use of these weapons during the war in Yugoslavia and also in Croatia. She wanted to talk about it with me prior so I could share my experiences. But when her boss found out that she wanted to talk to Frieder Wagner, he refused to pay for her trip — without any further explanation.
Sputnik: The so-called “deadly dust” is, as you have already described it, is spread by the wind. So should the use of uranium ammunition, in fact, be considered a war crime and banned?
Frieder Wagner: This is definitely a war crime. The dust from southern Iraq is carried to the north by the constant storms, the so-called desert storms — for example, to Erbil, where it meets the mountains and can’t travel further as the mountains make it difficult for it to go past towards Turkey. So this huge mass of dust settles in Erbil.We, for example, took samples of beef from around Erbil, and this is what we found out: depleted uranium used in ammunition has a characteristic atomic “fingerprint”. In northern Iraq we found the same “uranium fingerprint” as in the south. This means that the uranium dust that had originally settled in the south of Iraq is now also in the north, and children are now getting sick there and are born with deformities. It is now spreading all over the world.
Sputnik: Have the victims of uranium munition use in Kosovo or, for example, in Iraq, tried to go to court?
Frieder Wagner: So far no such attempts have been made in Kosovo or Iraq. Now in Kosovo, a whole group of lawyers are working on a lawsuit against NATO, because after the war they unleashed, people were injured, fell ill and died. The morbidity rate has increased by 20 to 30 percent, and there are more effected each year. So there will be an attempt to file a lawsuit.
Out of the approximately two thousand Italian soldiers stationed in Iraq and Kosovo, 109 have later developed cancer and died — this is proven information. 16 families, out of the 109 dead, filed lawsuits and won their cases. The courts ordered the Italian state or the country’s Ministry of Defence to pay them compensation. Since each cancer was of a different type, the payout amounts differed. But they ranged between 200,000 and 1,4 million euros.
Sputnik: How are things in Germany? Have there been lawsuits filed by the soldiers of the Bundeswehr?
Frieder Wagner: The German Ministry of Defense constantly denies any connection to this. Our soldiers are stationed in Afghanistan and Kosovo. About 100,000 soldiers served in Afghanistan, and we found out that about 30% of those who returned got sick, although at first, of course, they do not notice this. If they subsequently marry and have children, then there’s a great risk that their children will have disabilities.These children will have the same toxic substances in their DNA as their parents. And this will be passed on for several generations — from children to grandchildren and to great-grandchildren.
Sputnik: But none of these people ever filed a lawsuit?
Frieder Wagner: In Germany there were no such precedents. About 600 servicemen went to court in the United States who could not appeal on their own behalf, but they filed lawsuits on behalf of their children who were born with developmental disabilities. And we’re not talking about a mere 90 or even 900 million pay out, but about billions of dollars now. The United States, of course, will try to delay the adoption of a ruling as much as it is possible and hope for a “biological” resolution of the situation — that is, that the plaintiffs will simply die.
Joe Biden’s past strong-arming in Ukraine is coming back to haunt him
RT | April 2, 2019
It isn’t just unwanted kissing threatening Joe Biden’s bid for presidency, his past strong-arming of Ukraine to fire a prosecutor probing a company his son sits on the board of is also rearing its head again, the Hill reports.
The former vice president boasted at a January 2018 Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) meeting that he had threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk into firing prosecutor Viktor Shokin in March 2016. Biden said he gave them a six-hour deadline to fire him or he would pull $1 billion in US loan guarantees. “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired,” he said.
While Biden’s boast implied the US threatened the Ukrainian government in a single day, Ukrainian officials say the pressure was applied over months, starting in 2015.
The Hill reports that Ukrainian officials revealed that Shokin had been conducting a wide-ranging corruption probe into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings at the time. Biden’s son Hunter, a lawyer, former hedge fund president and Washington lobbyist, was a member of the board and, it has since been revealed, appeared to receive a series of payments from the gas company.
Shokin confirmed to the Hill that he had plans to conduct “interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden,” before he was fired.
The investigation into Burisma largely stopped when Shorkin was fired, but in 2018, after Biden had made his comments at the CFR, the current general prosecutor, Yury Lutsenko, started to look into the Burisma case again. He discovered members of the board and Rosemont Seneca Partners had obtained funds for “consulting services,” he told the Hill.
Lutsenko said some of the evidence he has could interest US authorities.
Burisma paid over $3 million to an account linked to Hunter Biden’s investment firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, between April 2014 and October 2015, financial records filed in an unrelated Manhattan federal court file revealed.
Rosemont Seneca Partners usually received two transfers of $83,333 a month (amounting to $166,000) from Burisma, and on the same days, the account then paid Hunter one or more payments ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.
The Ukrainian probe into Burisma had identified Hunter and his business partner Devon Archer, who had also been appointed to Burisma’s board, as potential recipients of the money Burisma sent to Rosemont Seneca.
When Hunter was appointed to the board in 2014, some raised concerns of a conflict of interest, in light of Biden’s previous comments urging Ukraine to not be as dependent on Russia for gas. Burisma is a private company headed by former Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch banker Alan Apter. Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski sits on the board.
The US Idea the Russians Need Turkey to Figure Out How to Shoot Down a F-35 Is Beyond Silly
By Andrei Martyanov | Reminiscence of the Future | April 1, 2019
US halts deliveries of F-35 “equipment” to Turkey over S-400 contract. This is how F-35 soap saga is justified:
The United States and other NATO allies that own F-35s fear the radar on the Russian S-400 missile system will learn how to spot and track the jet, making it less able to evade Russian weapons in the future.
In an attempt to persuade Turkey to drop its plans to buy the S-400, the United States offered the pricier American-made Patriot anti-missile system in a discounted deal that expired at the end of March.
Turkey has shown interest in the Patriot system, but not at the expense of abandoning the S-400.
There is one problem, actually two, with this “justification”. I’ll start with a lesser one.
1. Patriot is not a peer to S-400. Nothing personal, but US air defense systems are not “quite there” despite massive propaganda campaigns extolling their combat virtues. Turkey knows this. Turks have a good idea about how its own Air Force was grounded after shooting down Russian Su-24 in November 2015, and who and what actually provided targeting to Syrian air defenses on April 13, 2018 against Trump’s “very smart missiles”. Plus, in general, Russian record in this field speaks for itself.
2. The most laughable in all that, however, is the fact that people still use this beaten to death argument about Turkey magically learning about how to shoot down allegedly super-pooper-duper invisible F-35 and then, of course, giving desperate Russians this information.
Well, I have some news for those people who still reside in this bubble–to shoot down F-35 one has to have two different bands radar, good sensor-fusion algorithms and decent signal processing protocols and voila’. S-300 PMU2 Favorit can do this, certainly S-400, and its inevitably coming iterations for which there is literally a line of customers, can.
In general, this whole BS about “stealth” should end at some point of time–it was a good propaganda while it lasted. Reality is, with modern processing power and radar design F-35 is not survivable against modern cutting edge air-defense and air-forces.
I can totally understand the irritation Washington feels about this whole situation, after all Turkey is a key NATO member with an actual army, and seeing a NATO member going for such a weapon systems from Washington’s prime time arch enemy–this is a no-no. But then comes this question: so, the United States will stop (will it?) F-35 and associated technology deliveries to Turkey, then what?
Do we really want to open this can of worms? Turks are not idiots, by far–they can calculate and while Erdogan might still do rapid 180 degrees maneuver, he also can not fail to consider the fact that instead of F-35 Turkey may get her hands on, say, some decent version of Su-35. Possible? Possible! How probable? I don’t know. But Obama should have thought twice when unleashing, or pretending that he didn’t know, a coup against Erdogan in 2016. Or, for that matter, a bloody overthrow of government in Ukraine in 2014. But current American elites have no concept of own actions having consequences.
Meanwhile India also signed $5 billion contact for S-400, also against the background of Washington’s pressure not to buy things from those pesky Russians. But behind all those maneuvers one fact remains unchanged and I was writing about this for years–Russian weapons systems are created to kill and do that very effectively. Unlike American military-industrial complex Russian military-industrial complex is not jobs program or corporate welfare system, it never was. Allow me to quote myself:
For a nation with such a military history as Russia’s the issue of military technology is an issue of survival. As such, weapons in Russia are sacralized because behind them are generations of Russians who shed blood to make those weapons what they are.
They have become a part of the culture to such a degree that commercial considerations take a very distant second place to a main purpose of these weapons—to actually defend the nation.
This is absolutely not the case in the United States, with some exception for its Navy, with Americans having no knowledge or recollection of what real war is and what instruments forfighting and winning it are needed. Those things cannot be paid for in money, they are paid for in blood.
I guess this should help explain why Russia is so successful on the international market with her weapons. They are simply good, in fact, the best and people know that.
US spies helped UAE hack phones of Al Jazeera chairman, BBC host & other journalists – report
RT | April 2, 2019
Former US intelligence hackers helped the United Arab Emirates spy on Al Jazeera’s chairman, a BBC host, and other media figures as part of a secret Emirati intelligence program called Project Raven during the blockade on Qatar.
At least 9 former National Security Agency (NSA) and US military operatives worked within Project Raven, which was exposed in January after spying on US journalists and a British activist, along with dissidents and opponents of the UAE royal family.
The targeting of Arab media figures began during the 2017 diplomatic dispute with Qatar, which saw the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and others turn against the small Gulf nation after accusing it of supporting terrorism. The countries imposed an air, sea and land blockade on Qatar and demanded it shut down Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatari government.
It was then that Project Raven hacked into the iPhones of at least 10 journalists and media executives to see if they had ties to the Qatar government or the Muslim Brotherhood in order to uncover something that would show Qatar royal family influence over Al Jazeera and other media outlets, a Reuters investigation has revealed.
They used a program called Karma, which gives access to a target’s phone by simply inputting their email and phone number. There is no need for the target to click a link or download anything to gain access. They then passed the data gathered on to UAE intelligence.
Among those targeted were BBC Arabic host Giselle Khoury, Al Jazeera host Faisal al-Qassem, and Al Jazeera chairman Hamad bin Thamer bin Mohammed Al Thani.
Abdullah Al-Athba, editor of Qatar newspaper Al-Arab, Al Araby TV director Abdulrahman Elshayyal and Al-Araby Al-Jadeed founder Amzi Bishara were also targeted, along with journalists from London-based Al-Araby TV and Al-Hiwa media outlets.
The revelation that former US government employees are working with a Gulf monarchy to spy on the media raises questions about US oversight over its former employees, who are sharing the hacking capabilities they learned while working for the US government to assist a foreign government to spy on media and dissidents.
Project Raven was set up in 2009 with the assistance of former George W Bush White House officials and US intelligence contractors, it was originally meant to track terrorism but soon evolved into spying on opponents.
US, Israel punish Turkey’s Erdogan
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | April 2, 2019
“Turkey is a global “swing state.” It has a large and growing economy, a strategic location, a democratic government, and mixed views about prevailing international arrangements. Like the other three global swing states — Brazil, India, and Indonesia — Turkey’s choices will influence whether today’s international order evolves and endures or fragments and fails.”
The above passage is reproduced from a policy brief titled Turkey: A Global Swing State by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the American think tank. Indeed, from the US perspective, several fault lines in regional politics are affected by Turkish policies. At least half a dozen major templates can be readily identified: Syrian conflict, Kurdish autonomy, Palestinian problem and Israel’s security, US sanctions against Russia and Iran, Turkey’s entente with Russia, Qatar, Iran, etc., NATO presence in the Black Sea and Mediterranean and the alliance’s base in Incirlik and so on.
It is no big secret that the US and its European allies and Israel view Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s regional policies with growing disquiet. Erdogan’s independent foreign policies weaken western regional strategies and his support for Hamas (and his visceral dislike of Netanyahu) isolates Israel in the region.
On the other hand, the US’ containment strategies against Russia and Iran are undermined by Erdogan’s policies. The Turkish-Russian-Iranian troika created new facts on the ground in Syria and rendered untenable the US military presence in Syria. Turkey frontally challenges the US’ alliance with Syrian Kurds. The deepening Turkish-Russian partnership challenges the cohesion of NATO. The so-called Middle Eastern Entente between Turkey, Qatar and Iran creates much-needed strategic depth for Tehran.
Suffice to say, Erdogan has become a thorn in the flesh for the US and Israel. All this goes to explain the unusually high level of western interest in Turkey’s local elections, which concluded on Sunday. The big question is how far the election results affect Erdogan’s hold on power. Put differently, do the election results show any signs of this charismatic politician losing his grip?
The turnout of voters has been appreciably high — 84.67%. Overall, AK Party (Erdogan’s party) and its ultra-nationalist ally MHP (under the banner People’s Alliance) polled 51.62% votes as against the secular ‘Kemalist’ and liberal opposition (known as National Alliance) which secured 37.56% votes.
The AKP is leading the race securing 16 metropolitan municipalities (out of 30) and taken control of 24 cities, with the main opposition winning in 10 municipalities. But the opposition has wrested control of Ankara and may have scraped through in Istanbul, the country’s main centre of business and industry.
On the whole, there has been no significant shift in the established pattern of social and political polarisation — the southern (Mediterranean) and western (Aegean) provinces supporting the opposition parties with liberal, ‘westernist’, secular outlook, while the Islamist AK Party retains its vast power base in the deeply conservative Anatolian heartland.
Simply put, the AK Party emerges as the winner for the 15th consecutive election under Erdogan’s stewardship. Erdogan said in an address to the nation, “There will be no elections for four and a half years. What will we do? We will focus on national and international issues, and hopefully raise our country above the level of our contemporaries.” Erdogan prioritised the strengthening of the economy, development and job creation.
A pall of gloom would have descended on the western capitals as the realisation sinks in that Erdogan will be around as Turkey’s helmsman for the foreseeable future. Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections are due only in 2023.
It is a sign of the times that Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned Erdogan on Monday to congratulate him. Erdogan is due to travel to Russia next week to co-chair with Putin the eighth meeting of the High-Level Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council scheduled for April 8 in Moscow.
Erdogan’s meeting with Putin will be crucial as both sides are conscious that stormy days lie ahead in Turkish-American relations. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is due to travel to the US even as Washington is ratcheting up pressure on Ankara to pull out of the S-400 missile deal with Russia and to comply with the US sanctions on Iran.
Things may come to a head between the two NATO allies in the coming weeks since Russia is due to deliver to Turkey in July the first batch of the missile system. Turkey is buying four batteries of the S-400 air defence system for $2.5 billion.
On Thursday, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the US senate to block the transfer of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkey unless Ankara scrapped the S-400 deal. The US is also reportedly considering removing Ankara from the joint production program on F-35s. But the Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu reiterated on Friday that Ankara will go ahead with the missile deal with Russia. He scotched the rumours that Ankara might resell the missiles to a third country.
More importantly, last Tuesday, the US introduced sanctions on 25 individuals and firms on grounds of violation of sanctions on Iran, including firms and persons based in Turkey. On Wednesday, Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence in the US Treasury, called on Turkey to strictly observe the sanctions against Iran.
Without doubt, the Israeli lobby in Washington is pulling all stops to punish Erdogan. His support for Iran and Hamas infuriate Israel. Erdogan said last week that Turkey will never accept Israel’s illegal occupation of Golan Heights and intends to raise the issue in the UN. The US media which is heavily under Jewish influence has been harshly critical of Erdogan. Sunday’s election results are being displayed as ‘setback’ for Erdogan. Given the Jewish influence on Wall Street, the game plan would be to create difficulties for the Turkish economy so that mass discontent rises to threaten Erdogan’s popularity.
At such a sensitive juncture when an escalation of tension in ties between Ankara and Washington looks possible in the days ahead and Turkey is hard-pressed to strike a balance between the US and Moscow, the results of the local elections on Sunday would relieve the pressure on Erdogan. But the loss of control of Ankara and Istanbul creates new headaches.
The head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli, ally and coalition partner of Erdogan, said on Monday that “external forces seeking to implement shady machinations over Turkey have failed” in the local elections. Bahceli said that the “economic hitmen, currency gangs, terrorist groups and intentions” lost hope thanks to the will of the nation and “got the answer they deserved.”
However, looking ahead, Bahceli added, “Elections are now past and Turkey has replenished its hope. It is of crucial importance to focus on worsening social and economic issues along with international challenges.”
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From the Archives
The Forgotten Terrorist Pretext of the Vietnam War
By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | February 16, 2023
Since 9/11, terrorism has become the ultimate entitlement program for America’s political elite. Whether it is illegally spying on Americans or blowing Somali dissidents to pieces, invoking terrorism provides all the cover needed for Washington policymakers. But the disastrous results of granting politicians a blank check to fight terrorism should have been undeniable almost 60 years ago.
Back in the 1960s, terrorism was what the communists did. Anti-terrorist moral fervor and ideological blinders propelled the U.S. into its biggest foreign policy blunder since World War II. … continue
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