[dropcap]P[/dropcap]utin’s approval rating is high, but it has declined over the past year.The decline is mainly related to domestic policy.Apparently, the public perceives recent Kremlin economic policy as a continuation of the disastrous policies that Washington imposed on Russia in the 1990s when Russia was loaded up with foreign debt while state assets were privatized and plundered by oligarchs sponsored by the West who “cashed out” by selling the assets to foreigners.
The approval rating of Putin and the government droppedin response to the recent increases in the retirement age and value added tax. The former raised concerns about pension security and reminded Russians of the collapse of Soviet pensions.The latter reduced consumer disposable income and lowered consumer demand and the economic growth rate.These policies represent austerity imposed on the domestic population instead of on foreign creditors and reflect the neoliberal view that austerity leads to prosperity.
Deeply unpopular austerity measures advised and implemented by the internal neoliberal cliques—Russia's Fifth Column—all behind the cloak of US imposed sanctions, serve to stir up divisions and dissaffection toward Putin and the government. Eventually, if the nation is to be saved, it must abandon capitalism altogether and embrace socialism once and for all.—Editor
Russia is experiencing capital outflows due to the Russian private sector’s repayment of loans to Western creditors. Russia has experienced over $25 billion a year of capital outflows since the early 1990s, accumulating to over a trillion dollars. This money could have been invested in Russia itself to raise the productivity and living standards of its citizens. The outflow puts the ruble under pressure, and the interest payments draw money out of the country away from Russian uses.If it were not for these outflows, the value of the ruble and Russian wages would be higher.
The US sanctions give Russians every reason not to repay their foreign loans; yet Russians continue to enable their own exploitation by foreigners, as neoliberal economists have told them that there is no alternative.
Russia’s economic problems are due to the looting of the country during the Yeltsin years, to the imposition of neoliberal economics by the Americans, and to financialization as a result of the privatizations. [It's all capitalism doing what capitalism does, stupid!]
Russia’s stock market became the darling of the West in the mid-1990s as underpriced mining, oil and infrastructure were sold for a fraction of their value to foreigners, thus transferring Russian income streams abroad instead of leaving the income to be invested in Russia. In effect, Russians were told that the way for their country to get rich was to let kleptocrats, oligarchs, and their U.S. and British stock brokers make hundreds of billions of dollars by privatizing Russia’s public domain.
Washington took advantage of the gullible and trusting Yeltsin government to do as much political and economic damage as possible to Russia. The country was torn apart.Historic parts of Russia such as Ukraine were split off into separate countries.Washington even insisted that Crimea, long a part of Russia and the country’s warm water port, be retained by Ukraine when the Soviet Union was dismembered.
People’s savings (called the “overhang”) were wiped out with hyperinflation. Privatization was not accompanied by new investment. The economy was not industrialized, but financialized. The proceeds from privatization were deposited by the Russian government in private banks where the money was used to privatize more Russian assets. The banking system thus served to finance the transfer of ownership, not to fund new investment, and the proceeds were transferred abroad. Russia was turned into a financial colony in which proconsuls created wealth at the top.
Today privatization continues in the de facto privatization of public assets, such as charging fees for use of federal highways.As the Russian economic profession has been brainwashed by the Americans, the country is devoid of economic leadership.
We have pointed out on more than one occasion that it is nonsensical for Russia to indebt itself by borrowing abroad in order to finance investments. The Russians were sold a bill of goods that the central bank cannot issue rubles unless the rubles are backed by dollars.This advice served to prevent Russia from using its own central bank to fund public infrastructure and private investment projects by issuing rubles.In other words, Russia might as well not have a central bank.
"Money that flows into productive projects that raise output is not inflationary..."
Apparently, Russian economists do not understand that Russia does not spend borrowed foreign currencies inside Russia.If Russia takes a foreign loan, the borrowed money goes into central bank reserves. The central bank then issues the ruble equivalent to be spent on the project, and the cost of the project goes up by the pointless interest paid to the foreign lender.
As far as we can tell, the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is so brainwashed by neoliberal economics that their minds are closed to correct policies.The failure of Russian economic leadership imposes far more costs on the Russian economy than do Washington’s sanctions.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]ntellectual leadership is weak with many in the intellectual class favoring integration with the West rather than with the East. To be part of the West has been an important goal since Peter the First and Catherine the Great, and the Russian Atlanticist Integrationists cannot let go of the ancient goal.This goal no longer makes sense. Not only does it imply Russian vassalage, but also Europe is no longer the center of power.The East is rising, and China is the center and will be until the Chinese destroy themselves by copying the Western neoliberal policy of financializing the economy.
Although Putin is a leader and has a sense of Russian purpose, many officials use their office not in service to Russia but in service to their own wealth, much of which is held abroad.Corruption and embezzlement seem to be the purpose of many office holders.Scandals abound among members of government and reflect badly on Putin and Medvedev.
The Russian government’s popularity was at a peak when the government showed it had the intelligence and will to reincorporate Crimea into Russia.However, the Russian government, hoping to reassure Washington and Europe, refused the requests of the Luhansk and Donetsk republics to be reincorporated into Russia.Russian nationalists, the majority of the population, saw this as kowtowing to the West.Moreover, the Russian government’s decisionhas resulted in Ukraine’s ongoing military assault on the breakaway republics and to the arming of Ukraine by the West.Instead of acting decisively, the Russian government enabled the continuation of conflict that can be exploited by Washington.The Russian people understand this even if the government does not.
By failing to show firmness, the Russian government encourages the crony system of oligarchs who want a government that they can use for their narrow interests. Their interests include participating in the system of Western plunder known as “globalism.” These client elites of the West oppose a powerful Russian state that could assert itself on the world stage and offer an alternative policy to the West’s policy of plunder.The influence of this narrow interest group on government policy indicates that the Russian government is compromised.
Putin is trying to break free of the West’s grip by directing Russia’s economic orientation to the East.His effort is helped by the American sanctions.But Russia remains sufficiently mired in the Western system to be vulnerable to sanctions and is only slowly extracting itself.
Various aspects of Russia’s difficulties and transformation into a power with a foot in both West and East are discussed by commentators.What goes unacknowledged is that Russian economic policy is constrained—indeed, crippled—by the neoliberal brainwashing given to Russian economists by the Americans in the 1990s.Consequently, Russia is enfeebled by an economic policy that encourages privatization and foreign ownership, and by financialization of economic rents, that is, of income streams that do not result from productive investment but from such factors as location and rise in value due to public infrastructure development, such as a road built across a property. In a financialized economy credit is used to transfer property ownership instead of to finance new plant and equipment and construction of infrastructure.
The Russian government and central bank have been blinded to the fact that Russian infrastructure projects and private investment are not dependent on borrowing dollars abroad or by acquiring dollars by selling Russian assets to foreigners. Such projects can be financed by ruble creation by the Russian central bank.Money that flows into productive projects that raise output is not inflationary.Generally speaking, such projects lower costs.
For Russia to succeed, Russia needs an economic re-education and a government that finds its footing in Russian nationalism and discourages Western provocations with firmer responses.
It is our view that the Western world, indeed all of life, has an interest in a Russia too strong to be attacked or provoked as a strong Russia is the only way to curtail the Western aggression that is leading to nuclear war.
Most of the world sees this as “US gangsterism.”But no one does anything about it.
John Wight asks:“Does anybody really think that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams care one bit about the welfare of the Venezuelan people? These are thugs in tailored suits whose views are far closer to Al Capone than to Thomas Jefferson.”https://www.rt.com/news/452274-venezuela-us-intervention-gangsterism/
President Maduro’s failure to arrest Juan Guaido, the puppet chosen by Washington to be the Empire’s front man in Venezuela, might spell the end of Venezuelan democracy.The Venezuelan military will wonder why they are at risk when all Maduro has to do is to arrest Guaido, try the traitor, and execute him.
Chavez’s lack of decisive action against the elite enemies of Venezuelan democracy is now being repeated by Maduro.This sends the signal of a lack of confidence, and it is this lack of confidence that has given birth to the American coup.
Maduro even made the mistake of allowing American and British media to be on the scene of the orchestrated “humanitarian aid” border crossing to make propaganda films against him.
Bolivia will be next.
PCR with feline children.
About the Author
Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Roberts’ How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format. His latest book is The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
[dropcap]G[/dropcap]allup issued on February 28th its “2019 Rating World Leaders” report, subtitled “The US vs. Germany, China and Russia,” and said that “The world still frowned on US leadership more than the leadership of any other country asked about in 2018.” All four of the countries’ leaderships received approval-ratings from people worldwide in only the 30-39% range, and this low score for the US leadership (which was approved by merely 31% of people sampled worldwide during 2018) represented an enormous decline for the United States, which during the Obama years had received scores ranging from 41% to 49% approval. However, a Gallup report which had been issued only three days earlier, on February 25th, indicated that the American people are blissfully ignorant of any of this reality, and instead believe that the global approval-rating of the United States itself is high and is rising, not, as it actually is, low and declining.
In fact, on January 18th of just a year back, 2018, Gallup had headlined “World's Approval of US Leadership Drops to New Low”, and this plunge in the global rating of America’s leadership could reasonably cause a person to expect a decline in the American public’s view of America’s national image in foreign countries, but it’s not showing up, at all. The exact contrary is being displayed in the recent data. On February 25th of 2019, Gallup bannered, “Americans' Perceptions of US World Image Best Since 2003”, and reported that “58% say US rates very or somewhat favorably in world's eyes.” This disparity between reality and the public’s view of reality, is clear in the data despite all of these polls’ having altogether ignored almost all of the Islamic-majority nations, where there has long been a very negative view prevailing both of the United States and of US leadership. (The US regime prefers its pollsters to sample mainly favorable countries regarding its public image around the world, and so that is what is done.)
The last time that Gallup surveyed America’s global public image (and this isn’t the world’s approval of US leadership, but approval of the US itself, such as was measured and reported by Gallup’s report issued on 25 February 2019) was in "1991 Feb 28-Mar 2”, and the global public image of the United States was overwhelmingly favorable at that time — 95% favorable versus only 3% unfavorable — by far the highest of any country rated at that time, though today a few countries are nearly as high as that: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, UK (“Great Britain”), Japan, and Norway, all show nearly as high in Gallup’s global polling now, as America did then. Gallup's surveys never mentioned any other of the Scandinavian countries than Norway, nor mentioned Switzerland nor Netherlands, so those countries (which might even lead the ratings if they had been included) might likewise have been close to what America’s sky-high global approval-rating had been, at the time of the Cold War’s supposed end, in 1991. (Secretly, the US Government actually continued the Cold War even though Russia was unaware of the fact, and this one-sided and secret, purely aggressive, continuation was and is kept secret from both the American and global publics.)
When Pew introduced their 2018 report concerning this matter, of America's global image, on 2 October 2018 at the CSIS or Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the first question raised after the presentation was about America’s overall public image, and the presenter, with apparent reluctance, summed it up by acknowledging, at 29:05, “The US is definitely seen in a much more negative light than it was a few years ago. … People [worldwide] are much less likely to express a favorable opinion of the US … By and large on the questions we asked at least, we see much more negative views around the globe.”
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne would reasonably expect this fact to be showing up in the American public’s view of how foreigners see America, but it’s not showing up, at all; and, in fact, the exact opposite is being displayed in the data. Obviously, then, the major news-media that over 95% of the US public receive their ‘news’ from have been hiding from the public the realities which are causing this steep plunge in America’s (the American nation’s) global approval-ratings. Whereas the approval-rating of the US went down, the American public thinks it has instead gone up, and only the country’s major ‘news’-media can be to blame for that extreme US fantasy-world, which is being displayed in the data. It’s the very same fantasy-world — and for the very same reasons — which overwhelming majorities of the American people believed in 2002 and 2003, when the US regime imposed the fraud that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction (“WMD”) and that he supported Al Qaeda. All of the US mainstream, and virtually all of its minor, news-media were stenographically pumping these (even the most blatant) lies to the public, and therefore they’re co-responsible along with the US dictators for America’s having destroyed Iraq. That couldn’t have happened without the propaganda-operation’s compliance. And America has the same national press now as it did then, though some of the corporate names have changed since 2002. The ownership and control of America’s major news-media are obviously being very wrongly determined, and America cannot even possibly become again a functioning even partial democracy unless and until that situation — the system for determining the control of the corporations that constitute the US ‘news’-reporting oligopoly — is fundamentally and permanently (perhaps even Constitutionally) amended. America’s stenographic press merely uncritically reports the Government’s bipartisan lies (not the Democratic or the Republican Party’s lies, which can and do become exposed, but instead the lies that both Parties spout — the bipartisan lies which reflect the US regime. These are lies such as that WMD existed in Iraq in 2002, and that Russia and not the US is the world’s aggressor-nation seeking global conquest, and that America protects peace around the world, instead of its being the world’s top perpetrator of coups and of military invasions, by far the world’s biggest aggressor). America cannot become a functioning, actual, democracy, at all, unless and until the ownership and control of its major news-media has become ripped away from the present controllers and also becomes legally fully accountable in honest courts for any propaganda (regime-pumped lies) that it issues. Neither domestic policy nor international policy can be democratic in such a nation. America’s major ‘news’-media are obviously not trustworthy. Consequently, America isn’t a democracy. (Consequently, this news-report, which is exposing America’s major ‘news’-media as being instead national propaganda-media, is going to be rejected — not published — by all of them, though it’s being submitted to all of them, as well as to most other US international-news reporting sites.)
The full written 2018 report from Pew is online as “America’s International Image Continues to Suffer.” It opens by saying: “A year after global opinion of the United States dropped precipitously, favorable views of the US remain at historic lows in many countries polled. In addition, more say bilateral relations with the US have worsened, rather than improved, over the past year.”
[19:56] 70% say no to “US takes into account the interests of other countries.” 28% say yes to that.
[21:53] “Fewer Now Say US Takes into Account Their Interests.” The change (which is since the end of Obama’s Presidency) is -31% in Germany, -23 South Africa, -22 Brazil, -19 Mexico, -17 France, -16 Kenya, -16 Italy, -13 Indonesia, -13 UK, -13 Canada, -12 South Korea, -11 Philippines, -10 Japan, and -8 Spain. In Russia, 15% said yes to that question at the end of Obama’s Presidency, and that figure then soared to 41% in 2017, but it declined to only 26% in 2018. Perhaps now it’s again around 15%, as more and more Russians come to recognize that the US regime is set upon conquering Russia — recognize that anti-communism (prior to 1991, when the Soviet Union ended) was only an excuse for building America’s global control, an empire controlling the entire world, and that America, after the death of FDR and increasingly since then, is fascist, no authentic democracy at all. This fascism certainly explains Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2011-2018, Yemen 2015-now, Ukraine 2014 (a US coup in February 2014 that the regime instead calls a Russian ‘invasion’, which occurred thereafter in response and was no invasion at all, but defensive for Russia, against a fascist regime on its doorstep), and Venezuela 2017-now.
[22:51] “US Perceived to Be Less Involved in Tackling Global Issues.” Percentages saying “less” involved, as opposed to “more” involved, were found in every EU country that was surveyed, except that it’s equal (= percentages), 22% saying US is both “less” and “more” involved, in Poland — but nowhere else that Pew was polling in Europe. Basically, Trump’s rejections of the Paris Climate Agreement and of the nuclear agreement with Iran, and his outlawing refugees from Syria and some other nations the US bombed, and his determination to wall-off the US from Mexico, have cemented the global public’s view of America as being a hostile country. But nonetheless, Gallup was able to headline on February 25th, “Americans' Perceptions of US World Image Best Since 2003”.
Gallup’s findings regarding not the world’s favorability toward the US but the American public’s estimation of how favorably the world views the US, were reported there, and opened:
Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe the US rates "very" or "somewhat favorably" in the world's eyes. Though the current figure is up just slightly from the 55% recorded last year, it represents the highest figure Gallup has found since 2003.
The increase in the overall figure is the result of an increase in the percentage of political independents saying the US is rated favorably abroad, up eight percentage points, from 50% to 58%. Meanwhile, the views of Americans identifying as Republican or Democratic haven't changed.
So: America’s non-aligned or “independent” voters are even more deceived about this matter — especially about the stark decline in the public’s approval of America — than America’s partisan voters are.
This Gallup report furthermore says:
At the same time, Americans are fairly upbeat about the country's global image, the percentage satisfied with the position of the US in the world today is also at a relatively high ebb.
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hereas in 2019 Gallup finds that 58% of Americans think the world views America favorably, versus 41% unfavorably, and in 2018 these figures were almost as high, 55% favorably and 45% unfavorably, the figures in the very first month of Trump’s being in the White House were the reverse, 42% favorably versus 57% unfavorably; and, back in 2016 they were 54% favorably versus 45% unfavorably — almost but not quite as high as today. In fact, the current 58% favorably versus only 41% unfavorably is the rosiest view that Americans have displayed in these Gallup polls regarding how they think foreigners view the US, extending all the way back to Gallup’s polling on 14-16 April of 2003 — 61% at that time thinking the world viewed the US favorably, versus 37% unfavorably, and this was just a month after the US had invaded and destroyed Iraq.
So: Ever since America’s Government destroyed Iraq on 20 March 2003, Americans haven’t had a rosier view of foreigners’ opinions of the United States.
Such a deceived nation’s public is, obviously, a reflection of that nation’s ruling regime, both its Government and its stenographic mainstream ‘news’-media, which won’t publish reports such as the present one, because such reports, as this one, would be exposing the deceived public that results from America’s fraudulent and highly controlled (by America’s 585 billionaires) mainstream press. This reality of the press-problem in America is not what they call ‘fake news’ media, but it’s instead the mainstream media themselves that present to their public actually false ‘news’, real lies (that are the official government lies, bipartisan lies), to such a huge extent as to achieve this enormous disparity between the reality and the public’s warped view of that ‘reality’, regarding America’s international image. What’s important here is not this particular news-item itself, nearly so much as it is what that news-item means — what it indicates. What it indicates is enormous.
This news-report is therefore being offered free of charge to all US media to publish, so as to help rectify the rabidly false impression that exists. Obviously, any news-media that aren’t publishing this report are trying to hide this reality — they evidently, and quite clearly, want to continue this particular deception of the public. But the sites that publish this are honest — as any reader here can easily verify by clicking onto this article’s links.
What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?
Inside the Shadowy PR Firm That’s Lobbying for Regime Change in Syria
“Posing as a non-political solidarity organization, the Syria Campaign leverages local partners and media contacts to push the U.S. into toppling another Middle Eastern government…”
NOTE: This article was first published in October of 2016 on Alternet. Republished here due to lasting relevance.
By Max Blumenthal } Crosspost with Russia Insider As professional assassins of truth, the very nature of public relations is rooted in mendacity, to massage the public images of the powerful for hefty fees.
weekend of action” to “stop the bombs” raining down from Syrian government and Russian warplanes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Thousands joined the protests, holding signs that read “Topple Assad” and declaring, “Enough With Assad.” Few participants likely knew that the actions were organized under the auspices of an opposition-funded public relations company called the Syria Campaign.
By partnering with local groups like the Syrian civil defense workers popularly known as the White Helmets, and through a vast network of connections in media and centers of political influence, The Syria Campaign has played a crucial role in disseminating images and stories of the horrors visited this month on eastern Aleppo. The group is able to operate within the halls of power in Washington and has the power to mobilize thousands of demonstrators into the streets. Despite its outsized role in shaping how the West sees Syria’s civil war, which is now in its sixth year and entering one of its grisliest phases, this outfit remains virtually unknown to the general public.
The Syria Campaign presents itself as an impartial, non-political voice for ordinary Syrian citizens that is dedicated to civilian protection. “We see ourselves as a solidarity organization,” The Syria Campaign strategy director James Sadri told me. “We’re not being paid by anybody to pursue a particular line. We feel like we’ve done a really good job about finding out who the frontline activists, doctors, humanitarians are and trying to get their word out to the international community.”
Yet behind the lofty rhetoric about solidarity and the images of heroic rescuers rushing in to save lives is an agenda that aligns closely with the forces from Riyadh to Washington clamoring for regime change. Indeed, The Syria Campaign has been pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria that would require at least “70,000 American servicemen” to enforce, according to a Pentagon assessment, along with the destruction of government infrastructure and military installations. There is no record of a no-fly zone being imposed without regime change following —which seems to be exactly what The Syria Campaign and its partners want.
“For us to control all the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia. That’s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make,” said Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee this month.
While the military brass in Washington seems reluctant to apply the full force of its airpower to enforce a NFZ, The Syria Campaign is capitalizing on the outrage inspired by the bombardment of rebel-held eastern Aleppo this year to intensify the drumbeat for greater U.S. military involvement.
The Syria Campaign has been careful to cloak interventionism in the liberal-friendly language of human rights, casting Western military action as “the best way to support Syrian refugees,” and packaging a no-fly zone — along with so-called safe zones and no bombing zones, which would also require Western military enforcement — as a “way to protect civilians and defeat ISIS.”
Among The Syria Campaign’s most prominent vehicles for promoting military intervention is a self-proclaimed “unarmed and impartial” civil defense group known as the White Helmets. Footage of the White Helmets saving civilians trapped in the rubble of buildings bombed by the Syrian government and its Russian ally has become ubiquitous in coverage of the crisis. Having claimed to have saved tens of thousands of lives, the group has become a leading resource for journalists and human rights groups seeking information inside the war theater, from casualty figures to details on the kind of bombs that are falling.
But like The Syria Campaign, the White Helmets are anything but impartial. Indeed, the group was founded in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Office of Transitional Initiatives, an explicitly political wing of the agency that has funded efforts at political subversion in Cuba and Venezuela. USAID is the White Helmets’ principal funder, committing at least $23 million to the group since 2013. This money was part of $339.6 million budgeted by USAID for “supporting activities that pursue a peaceful transition to a democratic and stable Syria” — or establishing a parallel governing structure that could fill the power vacuum once Bashar Al-Assad was removed.
Thanks to an aggressive public relations push by The Syria Campaign, the White Helmets have been nominated for the Nobel Prize, and have already been awarded the “alternative Nobel” known as the Right Livelihood Award. (Previous winners include Amy Goodman, Edward Snowden and Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu.) At the same time, the White Helmets are pushing for a NFZ in public appearances and on a website created by The Syria Campaign.
The Syria Campaign has garnered endorsements for the White Helmets from a host of Hollywood celebrities including Ben Affleck, Alicia Keyes and Justin Timberlake. And with fundraising and “outreach” performed by The Syria Campaign, the White Helmets have become the stars of a slickly produced Netflix documentary vehicle that has received hype from media outlets across the West.
But making the White Helmets into an international sensation is just one of a series of successes The Syria Campaign has achieved in its drive to oust Syria’s government.
Targeting the UN in Damascus
When an aid convoy organized by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs came under attack on its way to the rebel-held countryside of West Aleppo in Syria this September 18, the White Helmets pinned blame squarely on the Syrian and Russian governments. In fact, a White Helmets member was among the first civilians to appear on camera at the scene of the attack, declaring in English that “the regime helicopters targeted this place with four barrel [bombs].” The White Helmets also produced one of the major pieces of evidence Western journalists have relied on to implicate Russia and the Syrian government in the attack: a photographsupposedly depicting the tail fragment of a Russian-made OFAB 250-270 fragmentation bomb. (This account remains unconfirmed by both the UN and SARC, and no evidence of barrel bombs has been produced).
Ironically, the White Helmets figured prominently in The Syria Campaign’s push to undermine the UN’s humanitarian work inside Syria. For months, The Syria Campaign has painted the UN as a stooge of Bashar Al-Assad for coordinating its aid deliveries with the Syrian government, as it has done with governments in conflict zones around the world. The Guardian’s Kareem Shaheen praised a 50-page report by The Syria Campaign attacking the UN’s work in Syria as “damning.” A subsequent Guardian’ article cited the report as part of the inspiration for its own “exclusive” investigation slamming the UN’s coordination with the Syrian government.
At a website created by The Syria Campaign to host the report, visitors are greeted by a UN logo drenched in blood.
The Syria Campaign has even taken credit for forcing former UN Resident Coordinator Yacoub El-Hillo out of his job in Damascus, a false claim it was later forced to retract. Among the opposition groups that promoted The Syria Campaign’s anti-UN report was Ahrar Al-Sham, a jihadist rebel faction that has allied with Al Qaeda in a mission to establish an exclusively Islamic state across Syria.
A Westerner who operates a politically neutral humanitarian NGO in Damascus offered me a withering assessment of The Syria Campaign’s attacks on the UN. Speaking on condition of anonymity because NGO workers like them are generally forbidden from speaking to the media, and often face repercussions if they do, the source accused The Syria Campaign of “dividing and polarizing the humanitarian community” along political lines while forcing humanitarian entities to “make decisions based on potential media repercussions instead of focusing on actual needs on the ground.”
The NGO executive went on to accuse The Syria Campaign and its partners in the opposition of “progressively identifying the humanitarian workers operating from Damascus with one party to the conflict,” limiting their ability to negotiate access to rebel-held territory. “As a humanitarian worker myself,” they explained, “I know that this puts me and my teams in great danger since it legitimizes warring factions treating you as an extension of one party in the conflict.
“The thousands of Syrians that signed up with the UN or humanitarian organizations are civilians,” they continued. “They not only joined to get a salary but in hopes of doing something good for other Syrians. This campaign [by The Syria Campaign] is humiliating all of them, labelling them as supporters of one side and making them lose hope in becoming agents of positive change in their own society.”
This September, days before the aid convoy attack prompted the UN to suspend much of its work inside Syria, The Syria Campaign spurred 73 aid organizations operating in rebel-held territory, including the White Helmets, to suspend their cooperation with the UN aid program. As the Guardian noted in its coverage, “The decision to withdraw from the Whole of Syria programme, in which organisations share information to help the delivery of aid, means in practice the UN will lose sight of what is happening throughout the north of Syria and in opposition-held areas of the country, where the NGOs do most of their work.”
Despite The Syria Campaign’s influence on the international media stage, details on the outfit’s inner workings are difficult to come by. The Syria Campaign is registered in England as a private company called the Voices Project at an address shared by 91 other companies. Aside from Asfari, most of The Syria Campaign’s donors are anonymous.
Looming over this opaque operation are questions about its connections to Avaaz, a global public relations outfit that played an instrumental role in generating support for a no-fly zone in Libya, and The Syria Campaign’s founding by Purpose, another PR firm spun out of Avaaz. James Sadri bristled when I asked about the issue, dismissing it as a “crank conspiracy” ginned up by Russian state media and hardcore Assadist elements.
However, a careful look at the origins and operation of The Syria Campaign raises doubts about the outfit’s image as an authentic voice for Syrian civilians, and should invite serious questions about the agenda of its partner organizations as well.
A creation of international PR firms
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]est known for its work on liberal social issues with well-funded progressive clients like the ACLU and the police reform group, Campaign Zero, the New York- and London-based public relations firm Purpose promises to deliver creatively executed campaigns that produce either a “behavior change,” “perception change,” “policy change” or “infrastructure change.” As the Syrian conflict entered its third year, this company was ready to effect a regime change.
On Feb. 3, 2014, Anna Nolan, the senior strategist at Purpose, posted a job listing. According to Nolan’s listing, her firm was seeking “two interns to join the team at Purpose to help launch a new movement for Syria.”
At around the same time, another Purpose staffer named Ali Weiner posted a job listing seeking a paid intern for the PR firm’s new Syrian Voices project. “Together with Syrians in the diaspora and NGO partners,” Weiner wrote,“Purpose is building a movement that will amplify the voices of moderate, non-violent Syrians and mobilize people in the Middle East and around the world to call for specific changes in the political and humanitarian situation in the region.” She explained that the staffer would report “to a Strategist based primarily in London, but will work closely with the Purpose teams in both London and New York.”
On June 16, 2014, Purpose founder Jeremy Heimans drafted articles of association for The Syria Campaign’s parent company. Called the Voices Project,Heimans registered the company at 3 Bull Lane, St. Ives Cambridgeshire, England. It was one of 91 private limited companies listed at the address. Sadri would not explain why The Syria Campaign had chosen this location or why it was registered as a private company.
Along with Heimans, Purpose Europe director Tim Dixon was appointed to The Syria Campaign’s board of directors. So was John Jackson, a Purpose strategist who previously co-directed the Burma Campaign U.K. that lobbied the EU for sanctions against that country’s ruling regime. (Jackson claimed credit for The Syria Campaign’s successful push to remove Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad’s re-election campaign ads from Facebook.) Anna Nolan became The Syria Campaign’s project director, even as she remained listed as the strategy director at Purpose.
“Purpose is not involved in what we do,” The Syria Campaign’s Sadri told me. When pressed about the presence of several Purpose strategists on The Syria Campaign’s board of directors and staff, Sadri insisted, “We’re not part of Purpose. There’s no financial relationship and we’re independent.”
Sadri dismissed allegations about The Syria Campaign’s origins in Avaaz. “We have no connection to Avaaz,” he stated, blaming conspiratorial “Russia Today stuff” for linking the two public relations groups.
However, Purpose’s original job listing for its Syrian Voices project boasted that “Purpose grew out of some of the most impactful new models for social change” including “the now 30 million strong action network avaaz.org.” In fact, The Syria Campaign’s founder, Purpose co-founder Jeremy Heimans, was also one of the original founders of Avaaz. As he told Forbes, “I co-founded Avaaz and [the Australian activist group] Get Up, which inspired the creation of Purpose.”
New and improved no-fly zone
The Syria Campaign’s defensiveness about ties to Avaaz is understandable.
Back in 2011, Avaaz introduced a public campaign for a no-fly zone in Libya and delivered a petition with 1,202,940 signatures to the UN supporting Western intervention. John Hilary, the executive director of War On Want, the U.K.’s leading anti-poverty and anti-war charity, warned at the time, “Little do most of these generally well-meaning activists know, they are strengthening the hands of those western governments desperate to reassert their interests in north Africa… Clearly a no-fly zone makes foreign intervention sound rather humanitarian—putting the emphasis on stopping bombing, even though it could well lead to an escalation of violence.”
John Hilary’s dire warning was fulfilled after the NATO-enforced no-fly zone prompted the ouster of former President Moamar Qaddafi. Months later, Qaddafi was sexually assaulted and beaten to death in the road by a mob of fanatics. The Islamic State and an assortment of militias filled the void left in the Jamahiriya government’s wake. The political catastrophe should have been serious enough to call future interventions of this nature into question. Yet Libya’s legacy failed to deter Avaaz from introducing a new campaign for another no-fly zone; this time in Syria.
“To some a no-fly zone could conjure up images of George W. Bush’s foreign policy and illegal Western interventions. This is a different thing,” Avaaz insisted in a communique defending its support for a new no-fly zone in Syria. Sadri portrayed The Syria Campaign’s support for a no-fly zone as the product of a “deep listening process” involving the polling of Syrian civilians in rebel-held territories and refugees outside the country. He claimed his outfit was a “solidarity organization,” not a public relations firm, and was adamant that if and when a no-fly zone is imposed over Syrian skies, it would be different than those seen in past conflicts.
“There also seems to be a critique of a no-fly zone which is slapping on templates from other conflicts and saying this is what will happen in Syria,” Sadri commented. He added, “I’m just trying to encourage us away from a simplistic debate. There’s a kneejerk reaction to Syria to say, ’It’s Iraq or it’s Libya,’ but it’s not. It’s an entirely different conflict.”
Funding a “credible transition”
For the petroleum mogul who provided the funding that launched the Syria Project, the means of military intervention justified an end in which he could return to the country of his birth and participate in its economic life on his own terms.
Though The Syria Campaign claims to “refuse funding from any party to the conflict in Syria,” it was founded and is sustained with generous financial assistance from one of the most influential exile figures of the opposition, Ayman Asfari, the U.K.-based CEO of the British oil and gas supply company Petrofac Limited. Asfari is worth $1.2 billion and owns about one-fifth of the shares of his company, which boasts 18,000 employees and close to $7 billion in annual revenues.
Through his Asfari Foundation, he has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to The Syria Campaign and has secured a seat for his wife, Sawsan, on its board of directors. He has also been a top financial and political supporter of the Syrian National Coalition, the largest government-in-exile group set up after the Syrian revolt began. The group is dead-set on removing Assad and replacing him with one of its own. Asfari’s support for opposition forces was so pronounced the Syrian government filed a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of supporting “terrorism.”
In London, Asfari has been a major donor to former British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party. This May, Cameron keynoted a fundraiser for the Hands Up for Syria Appeal, a charity heavily supported by Asfari that sponsors education for Syrian children living in refugee camps. The Prime Minister might have seemed like an unusual choice for the event given his staunch resistance to accepting unaccompanied Syrian children who have fled to Europe. However, Asfari has generally supported Cameron’s exclusionary policy.
Grilled about his position during an episode of BBC’s Hardtalk, Asfari explained, “I do not want the country to be emptied. I still have a dream that those guys [refugees] will be able to go back to their homes and they will be able to play a constructive role in putting Syria back together.”
In Washington, Asfari is regarded as an important liaison to the Syrian opposition. He has visited the White House eight times since 2014, meeting with officials like Philip Gordon, the former Middle East coordinator who was an early advocate for arming the insurgency in Syria. Since leaving the administration, however, Gordon has expressed regret over having embraced a policy of regime change. In a lengthy September 2015 editorial for Politico, Gordon slammed the Obama administration’s pursuit of regime change, writing, “There is now virtually no chance that an opposition military ‘victory’ will lead to stable or peaceful governance in Syria in the foreseeable future and near certainty that pursuing one will only lead to many more years of vicious civil war.”
Asfari publicly chastised Gordon days later on Hardtalk. “I have written to [Gordon] an email after I saw that article in Politico and I told him I respectfully disagree,” Asfari remarked. “I think the idea that we are going to have a transition in Syria with Assad in it for an indefinite period is fanciful. Because at the end of the day, what the people want is a credible transition.”
For Asfari, a “credible” post-war transition would require much more than refugee repatriation and the integration of opposition forces into the army: “Will you get the Syrian diaspora, including people like myself, to go back and invest in the country?” he asked on Hardtalk. “…If we do not achieve any of these objectives, what’s the point of having a free Syria?”
The Independent has described Asfari as one among of a pantheon of “super rich” exiles poised to rebuild a post-Assad Syria — and to reap handsome contracts in the process. To reach his goal of returning to Syria in triumph after the downfall of Assad’s government, Asfari not only provided the seed money for The Syria Campaign, he has helped sustain the group with hefty donations.
Just this year, the Asfari Foundation donated $180,000 to the outfit, according to The Syria Campaign’s media lead Laila Kiki. Asfari is not The Syria Campaign’s only donor, however. According to Kiki, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund also contributed $120,000 to the outfit’s $800,000 budget this year. “The rest of the funds come from donors who wish to remain anonymous,” she explained.
Shaping the message
Among The Syria Campaign’s main priorities, for which it has apparently budgeted a substantial amount of resources, is moving Western media in a more interventionist direction.
When The Syria Campaign placed an ad on its website seeking a senior press officer upon its launch in 2014, it emphasized its need for “someone who can land pieces in the U.S., U.K. and European [media] markets in the same week.” The company’s ideal candidate would be able to “maintain strong relationships with print, broadcast, online journalists, editors in order to encourage them to see TSC as a leading voice on Syria.” Prioritizing PR experience over political familiarity, The Syria Campaign reassured applicants, “You don’t need to be an expert on Syria or speak Arabic.” After all, the person would be working in close coordination with an unnamed “Syrian communications officer who will support on story gathering and relationships inside Syria.”
Sadri acknowledged that The Syria Campaign has been involved in shopping editorials to major publications. “There have been op-eds in the past that we’ve helped get published, written by people on the ground. There’s a lot of op-eds going out from people inside Syria,” he told me. But he would not say which ones, who the authors were, or if his company played any role in their authorship.
One recent incident highlighted The Syria Campaign’s skillful handling of press relationships from Aleppo to media markets across the West. It was August 17, and a Syrian or Russian warplane had just hit an apartment building in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Sophie McNeill, a Middle East correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, received a photo from the Syrian American Medical Society, which maintains a WhatsApp group networking doctors inside rebel territory with international media.
The photo showed a five-year-old boy, Omran Daqneesh, who had been extracted from the building by members of the White Helmets and hoisted into an ambulance, where he was filmed by members of the Aleppo Media Center. The chilling image depicts a dazed little boy, seated upright and staring at nothing, his pudgy cheeks caked in ash and blood. “Video then emerged of Omran as he sat blinking in the back of that ambulance,” McNeill wrote without explaining who provided her with the video. She immediately posted the footage on Twitter.
“Watch this video from Aleppo tonight. And watch it again. And remind yourself that with #Syria #wecantsaywedidntknow,” McNeill declared. Her post was retweeted over 17,000 times and the hashtag she originated, which implied international inaction against the Syrian government made such horrors possible, became a viral sensation as well. (McNeill did not respond to questions sent to her publicly listed email.)
Hours later, the image of Omran appeared on the front page of dozens of international newspapers, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to the Times of London. CNN’s Kate Bolduan, who had suggested during Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip in 2014 that civilian casualties were, in fact, human shields, broke down in tears during an extended segment detailing the rescue of Omran.
Abu Sulaiman Al-Muhajir, the Australian citizen serving as a top leader and spokesman for Al Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot, Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham, took a special interest in the boy. “I cannot get conditioned to seeing injured/murdered children,” Al-Muhajir wrote on Facebook. “Their innocent faces should serve as a reminder of our responsibility.”
Seizing on the opportunity, The Syria Campaign gathered quotes from the photographer who captured the iconic image, Mahmoud Raslan, and furnished them to an array of media organizations. While many outlets published Raslan’s statements, Public Radio International was among the few that noted The Syria Campaign’s role in serving them up, referring to the outfit as “a pro-opposition advocacy group with a network of contacts in Syria.”
On August 20, McNeill took to Facebook with a call to action: “Were you horrified by the footage of little Omran?” she asked her readers. “Can’t stop thinking about him? Well don’t just retweet, be outraged for 24 hours and move on. Hear what two great humanitarians for Syria, Zaher Sahloul & James Sadri, want you to do now.”
Sadri happened to be the director of The Syria Campaign and Sahloul was the Syrian American Medical Society director who partnered with The Syria Campaign. In the article McNeill wrote about Omran’s photo, which was linked in her Facebook post, both Sahloul and Sadri urged Westerners to join their call for a no-fly zone— a policy McNeill tacitly endorsed. (Sahloul was recently promoted by the neoconservative columnist Eli Lake for accusing Obama of having “allowed a genocide in Syria.” This September, Sahloul joined up with the Jewish United Federation of Chicago, a leading opponent of Palestine solidarity organizing, to promote his efforts.)
As the outrage inspired by the image of Omran spread, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof (a friend and publisher of Syria Campaign board member Lina Sergie Attar) called for “fir[ing] missiles from outside Syria to crater [Syrian] military runways to make them unusable.” Meanwhile, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough waved around the photo of Omran and indignantly declared, “The world will look back. Save your hand-wringing…you can still do something right now. But nothing’s been done.”
As breathless editorials and cable news tirades denounced the Obama administration’s supposed “inaction,” public pressure for a larger-scale Western military campaign was approaching an unprecedented level.
Damage control for opposition extremists
The day after Omran made headlines, the left-wing British news site the Canary publicized another photograph that exposed a grim reality behind the iconic image.
Culled from the Facebook page of Mahmoud Raslan, the activist from the American-operated Aleppo Media Center who took the initial video of Omran, it showed Raslan posing for a triumphant selfie with a group of rebel fighters. The armed men hailed from the Nour Al-Din Al-Zenki faction. At least two of the commanders who appeared in the photo with Raslan had recently beheaded a boy they captured, referring to him in video footage as “child” while they taunted and abused him. The boy has been reported to be a 12-year-old named Abdullah Issa and may have been a member of the Liwa Al-Quds pro-government Palestinian militia.
This was not the only time Raslan had appeared with Al-Zenki fighters or expressed his sympathy. On August 2, he posted a selfie to Facebook depicting himself surrounded by mostly adolescent Al-Zenki fighters dressed in battle fatigues. “With the suicide fighters, from the land of battles and butchery, from Aleppo of the martyrs, we bring you tidings of impending joy, with God’s permission,” Raslan wrote. He sported a headband matching those worn by the “suicide fighters.”
Despite its unsavory tendencies and extremist ideological leanings, Al-Zenki was until 2015 a recipient of extensive American funding, with at least 1000 of its fighters on the CIA payroll. Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who has said his research on the Syrian opposition was “100% funded by Western govts,” has branded Al-Zenki as “moderate opposition fighters.”
This August, after the video of Al-Zenki members beheading the adolescent boy appeared online, Sam Heller, a fellow for the Washington-based Century Foundation, argued for restoring the rebel group’s CIA funding. Describing Al-Zenki as “a natural, if unpalatable, partner,” Heller contended that “if Washington insists on keeping its hands perfectly clean, there’s probably no Syrian faction—in the opposition, or on any side of the war—that merits support.”
This September 24, Al-Zenki formally joined forces with the jihadist Army of Conquest led by Al Qaeda-established jihadist group, Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham. For its part, The Syria Campaign coordinated the release of a statement with Raslan explaining away his obvious affinity with Al-Zenki. Sophie McNeill, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reporter who was among the first to publish the famous Omran photo, dutifully published Raslan’s statement on Twitter, acknowledging The Syria Campaign as its source.
Curiously describing the beheading victim as a 19-year-old and not the “child” his beheaders claimed he was, Raslan pleaded ignorance about the Al-Zenki fighters’ backgrounds: “It was a busy day with lots of different people and groups on the streets. As a war photographer I take lots of photos with civilians and fighters.”
Mahmoud Raslan may not have been the most effective local partner, but The Syria Campaign could still count on the White Helmets.
In Part II: How the U.S.-funded White Helmets rescue civilians from Syrian and Russian bombs while lobbying for the U.S. military to step up its own bombing campaign.
While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.
Parting shot—a word from the editors The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.—Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
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Syria’s Victory – The Failed Attack by War Criminals Trump, May and Macron
HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.
Criminal fireworks by the empire over Damascus. According to latest reports, four Syrian civilians were killed – first degree murder by Trump, Macron and May – for which they deserve a Nuremberg type military tribunal with the same rules applied to WWII war criminals.
Dateline: April 14, 2018 - Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the UN—affiliated chemical weapons watch dog – was to arrive in Damascus to investigate the alleged poison gas attacks in Douma – with horrifying false claims of casualties, mostly women and children – Trump, May and Macron launched an atrocious attack with 103 missiles on three or four Syrian sites which these criminals claim, the Syrian army was manufacturing chemical weapons, including Sarin and other poison gas, which then, at the order of President Assad, they used to kill their own people. As attested and regularly supervised by OPCW, Syria is free of chemical weapons since 2013.
The question begs: Why before the OPCW could verify the claim of a nerve gas attack? – The answer is simple, because there was no nerve gas attack. In fact, there was no attack at all. It was all fake and staged. The OPCW would have found out – and killed any false justification to assault Syria. That’s why.
Besides, as proven by Russian soldiers who were immediately after the alleged attack on site, there was no attack, there were no signs of an attack – a fact corroborated by many people questioned in the street, none of them witnessed any attack, chemical or otherwise.
That President Assad murders his own people, is, of course, a ridiculous claim, making absolutely no sense. Having reconquered Ghouta and Douma from the terrorists, i.e. from the US, UK and French proxies – and winning the foreign imposed war, why would anyone poison his own compatriots, mostly women and children. Besides, as proven by Russian soldiers who were immediately after the alleged attack on site, there was no attack, there were no signs of an attack – a fact corroborated by many people questioned in the street, none of them witnessed any attack, chemical or otherwise.
This fake event was fabricated and staged by the White Helmets, a group of Al-Qaeda trained propaganda associates to the US / NATO and their European and Middle Eastern vassals. They have done this before, passing as heroes, when in reality they are in full collusion with the different terrorist groups, trained funded and armed by the Pentagon, NATO, CIA and all those who have made it their objective to turn Syria into another chaos – and to prompt a regime change.
Zakharova: "[The attack] was an act of cowardice, hitting a country destroyed by war...that has been trying to survive terrorist aggression for many years." She speaks the sentiments of all decent humanity.
According to a Russian Defense Ministry, reporting on RT, most missiles (71 out of 103) were intercepted by the Syrian army’s anti-missile defense system, without interference by Russia. No Russian air bases, i.e. Tartus and Khmeimim, were targeted. Nevertheless, Moscow was enraged about this preposterous and absolutely criminal and illegal assault. Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, decried the missile strikes as an act of cowardice, hitting a country destroyed by war "that has been trying to survive terrorist aggression for many years."
Unfortunately, according to latest reports, four Syrian civilians were killed – first degree murder by Trump, Macron and May – for which they deserve a Nuremberg type military tribunal with the same rules applied to WWII war criminals.
Trump and his siblings in crime, May and Macron, have miserably lost, and by their aggression on a mutilated country, they have strengthened the Syrian people and their allegiance to their President. Of course, none of this you are going to read in the mainstream presstitute media. (The New York Times led the parade of media sociopathy with front page praise for the attacks, and editorials suggesting further aggressions.—Ed) Trump prides himself of a successful attack twittering as happily and brainlessly as usual, “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”
“Mission Accomplished” is so reminiscent of another horrendous war crime, when George W. Bush, ridiculously disguised as a fighter pilot, declared in 2003 after the US (plus allies) assault on Iraq claimed victory on an aircraft carrier. As the world knows, Iraq today, 15 years later, is a broken nation, a chaos no end, up to two million died, other millions of refugees, a country devastated, with infrastructure just restored sufficiently to allow the operation of US oil giants steeling Iraqi’s riches.
The same story in Libya. Qaddafi had to die, because he intended to liberate Africa from the western yoke of fiscal and monetary oppression, by introducing the Libyan Gold Dinar as a new African monetary and reserve standard. As of this day the former Anglo and French colonies’ monetary systems are hamstrung by the British and French Central Banks.
For example, take the “former” French colonies in West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo) and in Central Africa (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon). Their currency is the franc CFA (acronym in French for ‘Financial Community of Africa’), and although each block of West and East has its own central bank, 85% of their reserves are blocked by the Banque de France, can only be used by the respective country by special permission and often with interest to be paid to the Banque de France (the French Central Bank). Imagine! – Their colonial status today is worse than during the 400 years they were called ‘colonies’. Today, they are disguised as ‘independent’, as no media would talk about the heavy military and financial boot they are under.
Qaddafi wanted to free them. So, he had to go. That’s why then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was the initiator of the NATO campaign and eventual slaughter of the Libyan leader, Muamar Qaddafi. Today Sarkozy, ironically, is under legal proceedings for allegations of illegally accepting more than US$ 60 million from Gaddafi to finance Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign.
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ack to Syria. What’s next? One thing is for sure, Syria is on the list of seven countries that have to fall (as were Iraq and Libya), as eloquently attested by Wesley Clark in an interview with “Democracy Now” radio in 2007 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw ). That means the Washington will not relent until achieving their target, unless the empire is defeated before. So, Russia better be on guard. No longer any trust on what Washington says. It is highly likely that they will strike again. When and how is uncertain. But letting go they won’t. That’s their trade mark.
That’s written in the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century), their strategic plan to reach full spectrum dominance, world hegemony – as ‘thought out’ by Zionist-led Washington “think tanks”, those that make US foreign policy. Unless, the people of France and /or the UK succeed in deposing their criminal ‘leaders’ (sic-sic). There is currently a move to that extent being planned by the French Parliament, but will it succeed to unseat the former Rothschild wonder-child?
Syria is a proud and strong country. Her people will stand up again and again. Their solidarity is increasingly cemented and they stand behind their President. And there is Russia, Iran and Hezbollah – an unbeatable alliance. Syria will not give up, nor cave in. The criminal West better be aware of it.
About the Author
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.—Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
BECOME A JAPAN EXPERT IN ONE HOUR WITH JOSEPH ESSERTIER, ON CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND
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BECOME A JAPAN EXPERT IN ONE HOUR WITH JOSEPH ESSERTIER, ON CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 180402
Dateline: April 3, 2018
Pictured above, Joseph Essertier in Japan, on the left and Jeff J. Brown on the right, in China.
Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), as well as being syndicated on iTunes and Stitcher Radio (links below).
Join me as I host Mr. Joseph Essertier, an American who has lived and breathed Japan for most of his adult life. Growing up in Southern California, he got his degree in Japanese literature at UCLA and has since advanced to his doctoral candidacy, while living and working in Japan for over 20 years. Since 2000, he has been an associate professor at the Nagoya Institute of Technology.
Joseph has written for the Asia-Pacific Journal, New Directions, Counterpunch, ZNet and World Beyond War, the last group for which he is the Japan Coordinator.
With someone this knowledgeable and experienced about Japan, you too will become an expert on this fascinating and historically important country, after just one hour listening to me ask Joseph questions. As promised, please find below all the books and websites we talked about.
The Articles, Books, and Links Mentioned by Joseph Essertier during the Interview and a Few Others that are Directly Related
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
George Orwell, 1984
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
(This is the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, the best source of analysis of Japanese war history, the “comfort women” issue, the suffering of people colonized by the Empire of Japan, etc.)
Note: When finished reading, listening to and/or watching this column and podcast, sharing is caring about humanity’s future and getting the non-mainstream truth out to a wider audience. Please tell your family, friends and colleagues about China Rising Radio Sinoland (www.chinarising.puntopress.com – https://twitter.com/44_Days– https://www.facebook.com/44DaysPublishing – http://apps.monk.ee/tyrion), post and follow it on all your social media. Sign up for the email alerts on this blog page, so you don’t miss a beat. China is your key to understanding how the world works and where you are headed into the 21st century. So, read “The China Trilogy”. You will be so glad you did! (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/)
The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes. In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities. Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, much of it on a family farm, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whetted his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He lives in China with his wife. Jeff is a dual national French-American, being a member of the Communist Party of France (PCF) and the International Workers of the World (IWW).
The Russian Peace Threat examines Russophobia, American Exceptionalism and other urgent topics
