“Walmart Inc. will stop selling e-cigarettes in its U.S. locations as the country grapples with a string of vaping-related deaths,” Bloomberg reports.
CNN: “Walmart said Friday [September 20] it will stop selling e-cigarettes as the number of deaths tied to vaping grows.”
Associated Press: “Walmart said Friday that it will stop selling electronic cigarettes at its namesake stores and Sam’s Clubs following a string of mysterious illnesses and deaths related to vaping.”
Nearly every national headline on the story emphasizes “vaping-related” illnesses and deaths. Nearly every first paragraph associates Walmart’s decision with those illnesses and deaths.
“Burying the lede” is the journalistic malpractice of failing to mention the most important facts of a story in the first (“lead” or “lede”) paragraph. That’s what’s going on here.
One has to go to the second paragraph of most major media accounts, if not further, to learn Walmart’s real reason for its decision. Per AP: “The move is due to ‘growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity’ regarding vaping products, the company said in a statement.”
And one can read most of the stories in their entirety without coming across a couple of other important facts.
Fact #1: So far, wherever a specific “vaping” product has been linked to these “vaping-related” illnesses, that product has been a black market “street vape.” That is, a product you can’t buy at Walmart, or at your local convenience store, or on the web sites of any of the reputable — and government-regulated — makers of e-cigarettes.
Fact #2: While questions remain as to the long-term safety of the relatively new practice of “vaping,” so far every credible study on the practice says it’s safer than smoking tobacco cigarettes.
Walmart isn’t abandoning e-cigarette sales because vaping is unsafe.
Walmart is abandoning e-cigarette sales because it doesn’t want to be left with a bunch of expensive inventory it can’t sell as local, state, and federal governments issue new regulations on e-cigarette products, up to and including complete bans.
American regulators and politicians are hopping on the bandwagon of a baseless moral panic, created by so-called “public health” advocates and promoted by the mainstream media.
The regulations and bans those regulators and politicians are proposing will increase, not decrease, the illnesses and deaths associated with “street vapes.”
People who want to procure and use nicotine (or cannabis) aren’t going to request permission from regulators or politicians and take no for an answer. They’re just going to go get the stuff.
They’ll buy it at Walmart if they can. They’ll get it from a friend at a party or a stranger on a street corner if that’s their only option.
The regulators and politicians, urged on by promoters of moral panic in the mainstream media and “public health,” are trying to MAKE that their only option.
Mainstream media is burying the lede. The funeral home and cemetery industries should send thank you cards and increase their advertising buys. The longer this goes on, the more grave plots, caskets, headstones, and urns they’re going to sell.
They all do it: corporations, regimes, authorities. They all have the same reasons: efficiency, serviceability, profitability, all under the umbrella term of “security”. Call it surveillance, or call it monitoring the global citizenry; it all comes down to the same thing. You are being watched for your own good, and such instances should be regarded as a norm.
Given the weaknesses of international law and the general hiccuping that accompanies efforts to formulate a global right to privacy, few such restrictions, or problems, preoccupy those in surveillance. The entire business is burgeoning, a viral complex that does not risk any abatement.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has released an unnerving report confirming that fact, though irritatingly using an index in doing so. Its focus is Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. A definition of sorts is offered for AI, being “an integrated system that incorporates information acquisition objectives, logical reasoning principles, and self-correction capacities.”
When stated like that, the whole matter seems benign. Machine learning, for instance, “analyses a large amount of information in order to discern a pattern to explain the current data and predict future uses.”
There are several perturbing highlights supplied by the report’s author, Steven Feldstein. The relationship between military expenditure and states’ use of AI surveillance systems is noted, with “forty of the world’s top fifty military spending countries (based on cumulative military expenditures) also [using] AI surveillance technology.” Across 176 countries, data gathered since 2017 shows that AI surveillance technologies are not merely good domestic fare but a thriving export business.
The ideological bent of the regime in question is no bar to the use of such surveillance. Liberal democracies are noted as major users, with 51 percent of “advanced democracies” doing so. That number, interestingly enough, is less than “closed autocratic states” (37 percent); “electoral autocratic/competitive autocratic states” (41 percent) and “electoral democracies/illiberal democracies” (41 percent). The political taxonomist risks drowning in minutiae on this point, but the chilling reality stands out: all states are addicted to diets of AI surveillance technologies.
Feldstein makes the fairly truistic point that “autocratic and semi-autocratic” states so happen to abuse AI surveillance more “than governments in liberal democracies” but the comparisons tend to breakdown in the global race for technological superiority. Russia, China and Saudi Arabia are singled out as “exploiting AI technology for mass surveillance purposes” but all states seek the Holy Grail of mass, preferably warrantless surveillance. Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 did more than anything else to scupper the quaint notion that those who profess safeguards and freedoms are necessarily aware about the runaway trends of their security establishment.
The corporation-state nexus is indispensable to global surveillance, a symbiotic relationship that resists regulation and principle. This has the added effect of destroying any credible distinction between a state supposedly more compliant with human rights standards, and those that are not. The common thread, as ever, is the technology company. As Feldstein notes, in addition to China, “companies based in liberal democracies – for example, Germany, France, Israel, Japan, South Korea, the UK, the United States – are actively selling sophisticated equipment to unsavoury regimes.”
These trends are far from new. In 1995, Privacy International published a report with the unmistakable title Big Brother Incorporated, an overview of surveillance technology that has come to be aptly known as the Repression Trade. “Much of this technology is used to track the activities of dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, student leaders, minorities, trade union leaders, and political opponents.”
Corporations with no particular allegiance except to profit and shareholders, such as British computer firm ICL (International Computers Limited) were identified as key designers behind the South African automated Passbook system, Apartheid’s stand out signature. In the 1980s, the Israeli company Tadiran, well in keeping with a rich tradition of the Repression Trade, supplied the murderous Guatemalan policy with computerised death lists in their “pacification” efforts.
The current galloping power in the field of AI surveillance technology is China, underpinned by the clout-heavy Belt and Road Initiative rosily described by its fans as a Chinese Marshall Plan. Where there are market incentives, there are purchasing prospects for AI technology. “Technology linked to Chinese companies are found in at least sixty-three countries worldwide. Huawei alone is responsible for providing AI surveillance technology to at least fifty countries.” Chinese technology, it is speculated, may well boost surveillance capabilities within certain African markets, given the “aggressiveness of Chinese companies”.
Other powers also participate in what has become a field of aggressive competitors. Japan’s NEC is its own colossus, supplying technology to some 14 countries. IBM keeps up the pressure as a notable American player, doing so to 11 countries. That particular entity made something of a splash in May, with a report revealing sales of biometric surveillance systems to the United Arab Emirates security and spy agencies stirring discussion in May this year. Another recipient of IBM surveillance technology is the Philippines, a country more than keen to arm its police forces with the means to monitor, and more than occasionally murder, its citizens. (The Davao City death squads are a bloody case in point.)
Issues with the report were bound to arise. A humble admission is made that the sampling method may be questionable in terms of generating a full picture of the industry. “Given the opacity of government surveillance use, it is nearly impossible to pin down by specific year which AI platforms or systems are currently in use.” Nor does the index “distinguish between AI surveillance used for legitimate purposes and unlawful digital surveillance.” A murky field, indeed.
For all the grimness of Feldstein’s findings, he is also aware of the seductive element that various platforms have offered. Rampant, amoral AI surveillance might well be a hideous by-product of technology, but the field teems with promise in “deep learning; cloud computing and online data gathering”, “improved performance of complex algorithms; and market-driven incentives for new uses of AI technology.” This shows, in a sense, the Janus-faced nature in critiquing such an enterprise; such praise tends to come with the territory, given Feldstein’s own background as former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau of the US State Department.
Feldstein leaves room to issue a warning. “As these technologies become more embedded in governance and politics, the window for change will narrow.” The window, in many instances, has not so much narrowed as closed, as it did decades ago.
There are some dominant features of the contemporary India that needs to be narrated to understand the nature and direction of change that our country is making in a push to redefine nationalism and the bench marks of patriotism. A short summery is that these dominant features of contemporary India, screams loudly that the words like humanity, democracy, justice are shallow and hollow that can be sacrificed on the altar of nationalism.
Weak and Timid Opposition
Currently, the ruling BJP do not face any challenge from its political rivals and lords over the Parliamentary majority. The opposition Congress Party is rudderless mired in an internal leadership battle. Regional parties, such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Rashtrya Janata Dal party in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are decimated on the ground. The Trinamool Congress in West Bengal has suffered surprise defeats at the hands on BJP in last general election. So the weakened regional parties do not have the wherewithal to put a leash on the ruling party, the current lord and master of Hindustan.
The BJP government in a veiled threat to its opponents to entangle them in corruption cases has effectively blunted their voices. Seeing the plight of MA Chidambram, many opposition leaders are compelled to redeem themselves by taking strongly nationalist positions and avoiding any face off. Arvind Kejriwal and Myawati are toeing the government line on Kashmir for fear from democracy rather any conviction towards it.
The opposition does not have the self-confidence to take on the rising tide of nationalism stoked by the BJP leader Narendra Modi. Modi’s nationalism has thrown the entire opposition into a tizzy and has bankrupted their intellectual resolve to protect the constitution and the democratic values. The opposition is unable to mount any effective resistance to the ideology threats to core values of our constitution and democratic institutions.
The opposition political parties are unwilling to give a call to stop the Modi’s juggernaut that is harming our democracy and shaming the India’s plural values. If one can recall, on 8 May 1974, George Fernandez as a trade unionist gave a call for nationwide railway strike and then the whole country came to a grinding halt. Now, if we look at the hardship each Indian faced during the horrendous note ban decision in 2016, why no political party gave any such a call. Even the rigged election of 2019 that brought the BJP to a commanding majority in the Parliament was never resisted by the opposition parties and accepted as a fait accompli. So timidity and weakness are the hallmarks of the opposition parties, They lack credibility to lead the nation as a result injustices are being unleashed by the ruling party and this is one of the dominant feature of contemporary India.
Independence of Judiciary in jeopardy
It is glaringly being seen that the Supreme Court and other high courts and lower courts are not functioning independently. It appears that in their judiciary have virtually abdicated their responsibilities to defend core values of Indian constitution and are indifferent to protect the democratic values. For example, the Supreme Court has declined to give immediate judgment on abrogation of article 370 & 35 A and allowed it to play it out. It also turned blind eye towards the human rights abuse done by the government and the mass detentions in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. There is no justice to the rape victims and murder by lynch mob or cow vigilant by the judiciary. There is complete weakening of independent judicial system in the country and is yet another feature of contemporary India.
Malicious use of Public Institutions
Security agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation are being used by the government to target its political opponents. The unprecedented hurry that the enforcements sleuths had shown to get PA Chidambram by climbing the wall of his house in New Delhi, shames even Indira and Sajay Gandhi of their high handiness.
In addition, the current government has sought to exercise direct control over public universities and controlling their academic freedom. The way Jawaharlal Nehru University and other institutions are being haunted by the government is a glaring example of the government’s intensions. In the same chain of link is the diktat on the owners of media companies and editors who are critical of the government. They are coerced to publish pro government reports refrain from contents that may trigger antigovernment sentiments. The way the reportage on situation in Kashmir is being done by the media is a vivid account how the government has asked the media houses to sing ‘His Master’s Voice’ tune or face its music.
Muslims being targeted
Since Modi government came into power in 2014, there has been a spike in religious hate crimes against the Muslims in India. Added to the communal violence, the lynching of Muslims by the Hindu cow vigilante has added into the crime diary against Indian Muslims. The murder mob given clean chit by the courts has made a mockery of justice in the country. The fact is no one has yet being punished for the demolition of the Babari mosque in 1992 and Hindu criminals are going Scott free is vividly evident. The outlawing of practice of triple talaq a move towards the abolition of Muslim Personal Law is another example of the subjugation of the Muslims in India. The ruling government by converting Jammu and Kashmir into a union territory has yet again demonstrated to downgrade its only Muslim-majority state with the brute force of Parliamentary majority. In Assam, the government has a created National Register of Citizens where it has identified nearly two million residents as foreigners. In this register though there are both Hindus and Muslims are stripped of citizenship, it’s likely that under Modi government, Hindu’s citizenship may be restored but Muslims will be excluded and rendered stateless, forced into detention camps. All these narratives fit into the dominant pattern of deliberate marginalization of Indian Muslims under the current government.
Probability of war given a push
India has adopted a muscular Kashmir policy to solve the problem of sub nationalism seething since seventy years in the Kashmir valley. The current government has asserted its muscular policy by the abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A that gave special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The current government by doing so wants to send out the message that in India democracy is no more where the will of the people is sovereign. There is an explicit message in to Pakistan that India does not recognize its claim on Kashmir. India also has also shown defiance to the world community that it cares two hoots to bodies like United Nation and its other organs, and has challenged their supremacy in the world order. The new Indian position on Kashmir has closed all the doors of negotiations on the question of sovereignty and self-determination of Kashmir and have outcast the people of Kashmir, Pakistan or the rest of the world who want for a peaceful resolution of this vexed problem.
India’s new position on Kashmir, in such situation has brightened the possibility of war both with Pakistan and China at the same time. The current government is confident that it can defeat the enraged Pakistan in an act of war. The government of the day is also self-convinced that can call off the nuclear bluff of its adversary and have the wherewithal to face its opponent menacingly threatening with weapons of mass destruction. The current dispensation is also confident to run over Chinese territory of CPEC and could deter its nuclear warheads in case of war with the PLA.
Well if this is the mindset of the current dispensation of the country then what will be the fate of the nation if war is forced on the country due to misconceived muscular of the current government. The people of this country want to live in peace and harmony and not in conflict and fear that is being created by the government in power is another feature of contemporary India.
The BJP government in a push for nationalist conformity seen as an attempt to create a nation marching to the tune of nationalism has a horrendous impact with cascading effects. Beneath the symbolic shows of nationalism there is a fearful vision of India where democracy, justice, constitution are being compromised, where dissent is a crime, where opposition and media are being gagged, where normal institutional protections are fast vanishing. These are some of the dominant features of contemporary India. The irony is the a few people sees these prosecutions not as malicious abuses of state power but as part of the Prime Minister’s drive to create a new India. It looks inspired by Mein Kampf India is making tryst with destiny under Modi 2.0.
The Military-Industrial Complex runs U.S. foreign policies. What passes for international ‘news’ reporting in the United States media was supremely represented by the instance of those ’news’ media stenographically reporting the Government’s lies about ’Saddam’s WMD’, even after it was unarguably clear that those were just blatant lies from the President and his Administration. America’s media were merely passive megaphones for the regime’s lies. Instead of disproving the regime’s lies — as they could have done if they were journalistic, instead of propagandistic, media — they merely reported the lying government’s assertions. It was like 1984 “Big Brother”; and it still is, as today’s 2019 U.S.A. In between 2003 and now, the regime invaded Libya and Syria and Yemen, on the basis of lies that in some respects were even more blatant. The same groups of billionaires control the U.S. ‘news’ media today as controlled the media in 2003; and they continue, in their ‘news’-media, the same stenographic ‘reporting’ — propaganda by their Government, regarding which nations are the latest targets, for the masses to hate and fear, as being our nation’s ‘enemies’. These are the lands suitable for U.S. weapons and bombs to destroy. These ‘news’-media simply ‘justify’ what are, in fact, international war-crimes: U.S.-and-allied invasions, of nations that never had invaded the U.S.
It’s like this:
There’s always the Big Lie that the hate-target is only ‘the tyrant’, and not the nation. But it’s the targeted nation that gets strangulated by America and its allies imposing ‘sanctions’ that are really economic blockades (such as against Venezuela and Iran today, but formerly against Iraq before we invaded and destroyed it); and, then, if that doesn’t bring down the targeted Government, a coup is attempted; and, then (if no coup results), paying and arming ‘rebels’ (such as Al Qaeda in Syria) to overthrow the targeted nation’s Government; and, then, missiles and bombers are used, in order to destroy the infrastructure. It’s no better now than it was then, in 2003 in Iraq, and later in Libya, Syria, and so much else. There has been no change, except in the identities of the nations for Americans to hate and fear, and overthrow. And especially under Trump, refugees are being banned to immigrate from the countries the U.S. regime has destroyed. He’s “making America great again,” like his predecessor Obama had insisted that “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.” Every other nation — including Libya and Syria and Yemen — is consequently “dispensable,” in that view. America’s voters tolerate, or even respect and re-elect, such vile leaders as this. How, then, should the citizens of other countries feel about America? And yet, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama as President is overwhelmingly respected around the world, notwithstanding his having destroyed, or participated in destroying, Libya and Syria and Yemen, whereas as soon as the obviously uncouth Trump came into office and ever since then, Trump has been widely despised throughout the world — as all three U.S. Presidents during this Century thus far, reasonably ought to be. The public responds more to surfaces than to reality. Thus, though the reality of Obama was overall as horrendous as the reality of Trump, the reputations of those two Presidents could hardly be more different from one another. The deeper reality of the United States is Big Brother, which was born in the United States when FDR died in 1945, and it has grown larger ever since then — and especially since 2001. America’s voters are kept ignorant of the ongoing and bipartisan ugliness of its Government’s bipartisan imperialistic (or “neoconservative”) foreign policy. After all, the motivation behind it is to ‘protect human rights’ and ‘spread democracy’ in other countries (if you can believe the liars). How ‘nice’ is that (while the bombs are dropping and the target-country is being economically strangled)? And so, the U.S., as policeman to the world, has become an insult to the U.N. that FDR had been so proud to design and establish.
The U.S. regime’s hatreds are bipartisan because all of this hate comes actually from America’s billionaires (the masters of America’s top brands) who control America’s international corporations and who are America’s political mega-donors; and these billionaires are of two types, Republican and Democratic; and both types of American billionaires are neoconservatives — champions of U.S. imperialism — because extending the American empire is very profitable for America’s international corporations. That’s what it’s really all about.
Here’s one example:
On 25 July 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 419 to 3 to expand America’s economic blockades against “the Governments of Iran, the Russian Federation, and North Korea”, via “Sanctions”, which are a device that has become the U.S. regime’s typical first step toward an ultimate military invasion. They always produce suffering amongst the targeted nation’s population, and far less so against the targeted nation’s leaders. Yet sanctions and coups and invasions are done because of the U.S. Government’s ‘humanitarian’ concern for the attacked nation’s people, and in order to install ‘democracy’ there. How can a militaristic regime function if it’s not constantly lying, like that? It can’t. That’s why it continually lies.
Iran, Russia and North Korea are the enemies authorized in this virtual declaration of war against all three nations.
This bill, which passed the House by 419 to 3, became voted 98 to 2 in the U.S. Senate, and was then signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump, on 2 August 2017. It was a triple farce (and “farce” here is a euphemism for fraud). Here’s just a bit of the evidence for that:
THE CASE AGAINST IRAN
The U.S. regime constantly refers to Iran as “the foremost state sponsor of terrorism”, which it never has been even close to being, and which phrase describes the U.S. regime itself far more than it does Iran. But did Iran ever invade America? Of course not! However, Americans actually did become enemies of Iran when our Government overthrew Iran’s progressive and democratically elected Government, in July and August of 1953, and the U.S. regime at that time had the full cooperation of the UK regime, and of Iran’s own mullahs, in that coup d’etat, which installed the U.S. regime’s chosen brutal dictator, the Shah, to rule there. But did Iran ever even threaten America? No, not even threaten. The U.S. regime constantly threatens Iran, and Iran’s Government would need to be idiots to take lightly these threats by the U.S. regime — the same regime that had installed the brutal Shah in 1953. Yet the U.S. regime has the nerve to continue, and even to intensify, these threats, and even to blame Iran’s suffering economy on Iran’s own Government (which America’s billionaires want to replace), instead of on America’s Government (those billionaires’ own government) and on this regime’s allies, and on the strangulating economic sanctions which this U.S. team leads, and imposes, against Iran.
On 17 August 2019, the anonymous German intelligence analyst who blogs as “Moon of Alabama” (and whose geostrategic conclusions and predictions have turned out to exhibit virtually 100% accuracy) headlined“Long Range Attack On Saudi Oil Field Ends War On Yemen”, and reported:
Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines. This today was the decisive attack:
Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside Saudi Arabia’s sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a “limited fire” in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry. … The war on Yemen that MbS started in March 2015 long proved to be unwinnable. Now it is definitely lost.
As is so typical, an American propagandist at Bloomberg News, Eli Lake, argued that same day for a U.S. invasion of Iran. He wrote, “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an obvious and necessary point: Blame Iran. … The two sides in this regional conflict are not equivalent. Iran is a revisionist power, challenging the status quo throughout the Levant and the Gulf.” However, not only were the Sauds at war against Yemen and not fighting Iran, but the fact is that Saudi Arabia is even more of a revisionist power than Iran is, because the Sauds long financed the U.S. regime’s arming of the jihadists who were trying to overthrow Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. (Syria, too, is part of “the Levant.” The main difference between Saudi Arabia and Iran is that Iran doesn’t buy U.S. weapons — not that either is a “revisionist power.”)
It is clear that nothing will satisfy the U.S. regime short of conquering Iran as it did in 1953, and that the U.S. regime will blame Iran for anything it can until that day comes again.
THE CASE AGAINST RUSSIA
The U.S. regime overthrows governments routinely, and doesn’t just propagandize in those targeted countries so as to influence their elections; but when the Obama regime’s frame-up against Russia as having supposedly acted in collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, as having constituted a merely possible excuse for the failure of Obama’s chosen successor to win the U.S. Presidency, even the Special Prosecutor’s efforts to find evidence that might be able to convict Trump on such a charge after he leaves office, drew only blanks. There was no such evidence, of any such collusion, the Special Counsel Robert Mueller reluctantly admitted.
What is most striking about the data in this table is that Donald Trump actually slightly under-performed the model’s predictions in all three states. He did about one point worse than predicted in Michigan, about two points worse than predicted in Pennsylvania, and between two and three points worse than predicted in Wisconsin. There is no evidence here that Russian interference, to the extent that it occurred, did anything to help Trump in these three states.
In other words: the single predictive model that has a flawless record of predicting Presidential winners, and which was the only model that predicted Trump to beat Hillary in 2016, showed Trump winning the three toss-up states by slightly higher margins than he actually did win them. If there was any influence upon the electoral outcome that came from a factor (such as from Russian influence) that was not being considered in this model, then that factor ended up benefiting Hillary, not Trump. That’s the exact opposite of the Obama-engineered hypothesis, which falsely alleges that ‘Trump is Putin’s stooge’.
And, now, the Trump regime is trying to establish a convictable case against Trump’s predecessor, Obama, for having tried to frame Trump (and Russia) for Hillary’s loss in 2016. (There’s considerable evidence that Obama did try to frame Trump, and Russia’s Government, for that loss. And the U.S. Government — even under Trump — has been trying to keep this information secret, unless and until House Democrats become serious about ‘impeaching Trump’. If they won’t try to impeach him, then he won’t try to convict Obama for treason.) (What? Democrats want Mike Pence to become President? Not really: it’s all just a show, for stupid voters in their own Party — and they obviously think that there are plenty of those. Rooting for Pence to become President is apparently very popular amongst Democratic Party voters. Perhaps many Republican Party billionaires are even hoping that those Democratic idiots will get what they want. Is this democracy in action, or just a threatened counter-coup to punish the Democratic Party’s prior coup-attempt against the Republican President?)
THE CASE AGAINST NORTH KOREA
So, Iran didn’t ever invade America, nor did Russia. What about North Korea, then? Did North Korea ever invade America? No, neither did that alleged ‘enemy’ of America. But America did invade North Korea during the Korean War. Have you ever seen the 764-page “REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COMMISSION FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE FACTS CONCERNING BACTERIAL WARFARE IN KOREA AND CHINA”? It documents America’s biological warfare program against North Korea in 1952. You probably haven’t even heard about it, because the U.S. regime managed to keep it hidden from the public until just this year, and because America’s ‘news’-media continue to blacklist its existence so as to continue the ‘justification’ for the U.S. regime’s still-ongoing efforts to conquer North Korea. But look at it here, as soon as its 764 pages have finished loading into your computer. Now that the U.S. regime is increasing its threats against both North Korea and China, the Governments in those countries recently released this document to the public, and thereby are challenging the U.S. propaganda-media to allow the publics in the U.S. and its vassal nations to see it — to see real history about this matter, not just propaganda (such as the U.S. is the world’s champion of).
This massive historical document opens:
On the 22nd. Feb. 1952, Mr. Bak Hun-Yung, Foreign Minister of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and on the 8th. March, Mr. Chou En-Lai, Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, protested officially against the use of bacteriological warfare by the U.S.A. On the 25th. Feb., Dr. Kuo Mo-Jo, President of the Chinese People’s Committee for World Peace, addressed an appeal to the World Peace Council.
At the meeting of the Executive Committee of the World Peace Council held at Oslo on the 29th. March, Dr. Kuo Mo-Jo, with the assistance of the Chinese delegates who accompanied him, and in the presence of the Korean representative, Mr. Li Ki-len, placed the members of the Committee, and other national delegates, in possession of much information concerning the phenomena in question. Dr. Kuo declared that the governments of China and (North) Korea did not consider the International Red Cross Committee sufficiently free from political influence to be capable of instituting an unbiassed enquiry in the field. This objection was later extended to the World Health Organisation, as a specialised agency of the United Nations. However, the two governments were entirely desirous of inviting an international group of impartial and independent scientists to proceed to China and to investigate personally the facts on which the allegations were based. They might or might not be connected with organisations working for peace, but they would naturally be persons known for their devotion to humanitarian causes. The group would have the mission of verifying or invalidating the allegations. After thorough discussion, the Executive Committee adopted unanimously a resolution calling for the formation of such an International Scientific Commission.
Written largely by the most prestigious British scientist of his day, this report was effectively suppressed upon its release in 1952. Published now in text-searchable format, it includes hundreds of pages of evidence about the use of U.S. biological weapons during the Korean War, available for the first time to the general public.
Back in the early 1950s, the U.S. conducted a furious bombing campaign during the Korean War, dropping hundreds of thousands of tons of ordnance, much of it napalm, on North Korea. The bombardment, worse than any country had received up to that point, excepting the effects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wiped out nearly every city in North Korea, contributing to well over a million civilian deaths. Because of the relentless bombing, the people were reduced to living in tunnels. Even the normally bellicose Gen. MacArthur claimed to find the devastation wreaked by the U.S. to be sickening.[1]
The massive document itself authenticates numerous reports of the U.S. flying planes over North Korea and dropping containers of fleas, clams, and other creatures, that were tested and verified as being contaminated with plague and cholera. For example, on pages 24-26 are described several such incidents. Typical was one in which “the Commission had no option but to conclude that the American air force was employing in Korea methods very similar to, if not exactly identical with, those employed to spread plague by the Japanese during the second world war.” Furthermore, one expert “gave evidence to the effect that he had urged the Kuomintang government to make known to the world the facts concerning Japanese bacterial warfare, but without success, partly, he thought, as the result of American dissuasion.” In other words: the U.S. regime not only protected and hired ‘former’ Nazis to use against USSR, but it did the same with Japan to use against China and North Korea. This 1952 operation against North Korea was perpetrated by the regime under U.S. President Harry S. Truman — the former Vice President who had been forced onto FDR’s final ticket by that Party’s top donors in order to get a war started against the Soviet Union and thereby keep their enormous government contracts continuing after WW II. Right after FDR died, Truman got fooled by Churchill and Eisenhower into starting the Cold War against the Soviet Union; and this 1952 international war-crime against China and North Korea was part of that.
Congress is very partisanly split over domestic issues, because Republican and Democratic billionaires are split about them, but America’s billionaires are united in their support for U.S. imperialism; and, so, the members of Congress, and Presidential candidates, are, too. When do you see near 100% support in Congress for a domestic policy? Never even close to that. But for American aggressions, it’s virtual unanimity. The billionaires are solidly for aggression; and, so, their Government is, too. Virtually all politicians who are elected to national office are psychopaths. Otherwise, they’ll get nothing from the billionaires, and therefore won’t win public office.
Americans are supposed to trust such a government. Well, of course, the billionaires can trust it, because they bought it. And that’s the sickness, and slickness, of American foreign policy. It’s just a global scam, which destroys millions of people, and creates misery for hundreds of millions, all in the name of ‘defending America’, and of ‘protecting human rights’ and ‘defending democracy’, around the world.
The Liberal-National government introduced a bill last week that would hand the home affairs minister extraordinary powers to “cease” the citizenship of anyone accused of “repudiating” their “allegiance” to Australia. This is the latest in a series of attacks on the fundamental democratic right of citizenship.
The bill goes beyond a 2015 act that handed the government such a citizenship-stripping power for the first time. It is another indication of the repressive measures that the ruling class is preparing to deal with rising working-class discontent. Without citizenship, people can be deprived of other basic civil and political rights, such as residence, voting, healthcare and welfare.
Under the 2015 legislation, some ministerial decisions to revoke citizenships depend on recommendations by a hand-picked Citizenship Loss Board. According to the government, this “operation of law” model is now to be replaced by a “ministerial model” that allows the home affairs minister to unilaterally cancel citizenships. In other words, the government is dispensing with the pretence of a legal process.
For now, the powers are still confined to people who are deemed to be dual citizens, not sole citizens of Australia. But that affects more than six million people—about a quarter of the population. And the bill makes it easier for the government to claim that someone has, or can claim, another citizenship. The bill only requires the minister to be “satisfied” that a person is entitled to another citizenship.
The new legislation was tabled on the pretext of combating terrorism, like all the 75 other “anti-terrorism” measures implemented by federal governments since 2001. In reality, the bill would enable a single minister to revoke the citizenship of a person for conduct or convictions relating to a range of political offences, including “foreign interference,” sabotage, espionage and treason, not just terrorism.
The bill’s explanatory memorandum claims that such crimes are “inconsistent with allegiance to Australia.” Opponents of Australian military operations, as part of the US alliance, whether in the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific region, could fall under these clauses.
The Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Cessation) Bill 2019 provides for citizenships to be revoked by decree in two ways. One is based on a conviction and imprisonment for three years or more for one of these terrorism or political offences. This is down from the previous threshold of six years’ jail. That power would be backdated to cover all convictions from 2003.
The other form of revocation requires no criminal conviction whatsoever. The home affairs minister could simply declare that a person’s citizenship has ceased because they allegedly joined or supported terrorist-related activity or were a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation. This is far-reaching because the definition of terrorist acts can cover political protests, and the minister can issue regulations to proscribe political groups by arbitrarily branding them “terrorist.”
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said 12 people had already had their citizenship revoked since 2015. He referred to “around 80 Australians of counter-terrorism interest” believed to be in Syria and Iraq. He would not reveal how many more individuals could be affected by the expanded ministerial power.
The Grand Coalition is continuing the war mission of the Bundeswehr [Armed forces of Germany] in Syria and Iraq and will deploy its contingents in the region beyond its current mandate. This was decided by the federal cabinet last Wednesday.
The decision is supported by both government factions. Already last Monday, Social Democratic Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and new German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) had informed the parliamentary group leaders in the Bundestag about the plans in a joint letter.
A central point is the extension of the deployment of the Luftwaffe [German Air Force], which operates with fighter jets and tanker aircraft from the Jordanian military base in al-Azraq, for another five months until the end of March 2020. The training mission of the German Armed Forces in central Iraq and in the Kurdish autonomous region in the north of the country will be extended for a further year until 31 October 2020.
In their letter, Maas and Kramp-Karrenbauer justify the extension of the missions by invoking a continuing threat from the so-called Islamic State (IS). Even after the loss of its territorial areas in Syria and Iraq, the letter claimed the Islamist militia still had thousands of fighters and supporters at its disposal, thus posing a threat to the stability of Iraq, the region and the security of Germany and Europe.
That is the old propaganda. In reality, Germany and the other powers involved in the US-led mission are not concerned about the fight against the IS, which is itself a product of the US military intervention in Syria and Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands and destroyed large parts of the Middle East. It is about imperialist interests and the control of the resource-rich and geostrategically important region.
Comments in the bourgeois media and strategy papers of the foreign policy think tanks openly discuss this. “It’s about domination,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented two months ago. The conflict in the region “is not only about freedom of navigation and the smooth supply of the world economy with the lubricant of oil. The overarching objective is rather to control a region whose strategic importance in a world that continues to depend on oil should not be underestimated.”
The German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) argues in a recent paper, headlined “A ship will come”, for a European naval mission in the Persian Gulf led by Berlin. It states: “The unimpeded use of transport, supply and trading lines as well as the security of raw material and energy supply are among the foreign and security policy priorities of an export-dependent nation like the Federal Republic of Germany.”
In their letter, Maas and Kramp-Karrenbauer claim that the core of the missions in Syria and Iraq is “the German civilian commitment in the areas of humanitarian aid, stabilisation and the creation of the foundations for reconstruction”. In fact, it’s about war. “For the work of the civilian measures”, “the fight against the IS with military means remains necessary and the German military contribution indispensable”, the letters stresses.
The German government is stepping up its military intervention in the region at a time when US war preparations against Iran are escalating.
Berlin, London and Paris issued an endorsement of US pretexts for military aggression against Iran in an official statement yesterday. As Donald Trump prepared his denunciation of Iran as a bloodthirsty threat to peace at the UN General Assembly in New York, the governments of the three largest European imperialist powers baldly declared that the US war provocations against Iran are self-evident truths.
Referring to their “shared security interests, in particular upholding the global non-proliferation regime and preserving stability in the Middle East,” they fell into line with Washington’s narrative on the recent bombing of Saudi oil installations: “We condemn in the strongest terms the attack on oil facilities on Saudi territory, on September 14, 2019 in Abqaiq and Khurais, and reaffirm in this context our full solidarity with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its population.”
The three European powers presented no evidence whatsoever to support US allegations that the bombing was carried out by Iran and is an act of war deserving a military response. They simply continued, “It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.”
Noting the “risk of a major conflict,” Berlin, London and Paris turned the situation upside down, placing blame for the danger of war not on the aggressive actions of US imperialism—from its scrapping of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal to its threat this year to bomb Iran—but on Tehran. They demanded that Iran fully comply with the nuclear deal Trump scrapped last year and “refrain from choosing provocation and escalation.”
As Washington dispatches troops to Saudi Arabia and warships to the Persian Gulf to prepare war against Iran, the content of this statement is unambiguous. The leading European imperialist powers are abandoning their initial criticisms of Trump for scrapping the 2015 treaty. Endorsing the build-up to a new US-led war in the Middle East, based on political lies just like the US-led war in Iraq in 2003, they are signaling that they can this time support and possibly join in such a war.
Washington, for its part, hailed European support for its campaign against Iran. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted: “The U.S. thanks our close friends, UK, France, and Germany, for their clear articulation of Iran’s sole responsibility for the act of war against Saudi Arabia and its impact on the region and the world.” In a second Tweet, Pompeo continued praising the European statement, using the technique of the Big Lie: “This will strengthen diplomacy and the cause of peace. We urge every nation to join in this condemnation of Iran’s actions.”
The European endorsement of US war threats against Iran will not strengthen peace, but encourage the Trump administration to step up its threats and provocations, risking a catastrophic war.
Predictably, Trump used his speech at the UN General Assembly yesterday not only to denounce socialism but hysterically threaten Iran. “One of the greatest security threats facing peace-loving nations today is the repressive regime in Iran,” he declared, appealing for support against Iran: “All nations have a duty to act. No responsible government should subsidize Iran’s blood lust. As long as Iran’s menacing behavior continues, sanctions will not be lifted. They will be tightened.”
The US president’s arguments and the European powers’ statements supporting them are a pack of lies. For three decades, since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union and the US-led Gulf War in 1991, the imperialist powers have devastated the Middle East and Central Asia. Their wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen caused millions of casualties, ravaged entire societies, and surrounded Iran with a ring of US and European military bases. The main threat to peace comes from the intrigues of Washington and its allies.
British politics entered uncharted waters yesterday as the Supreme Court—the UK’s highest judicial body—declared illegal Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s authoritarian prorogation of parliament.
Far from resolving the crisis over Brexit, the ruling has set in motion what one political commentator described as a “constitutional earthquake.”
Of a piece with the assault on democratic rights and constitutional norms by ruling elites internationally, Conservative Party leader Johnson prorogued parliament for five weeks from September 10, in order to halt plans by a majority of MPs seeking to prevent Johnson from acting on his threat to leave the European Union (EU) by October 31, with or without a deal.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II welcomes newly elected leader of the Conservative party Boris Johnson during an audience at Buckingham Palace, London, Wednesday July 24, 2019, where she invited him to become Prime Minister and form a new government. (Victoria Jones/Pool via AP)
Yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court’s 11 justices overturned a High Court ruling that judged in favour of Johnson last week and endorsed a ruling of the Scottish Court of Session. It went much further than the Remain camp claimants and senior legal figures anticipated—with the justices ruling unanimously that Johnson’s proroguing of parliament was unlawful and that therefore both Houses were still in session.
The judgement read, “It is impossible for us to conclude, on the evidence which has been put before us, that there was any reason—let alone a good reason—to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament for five weeks. … This means that the Order in Council [the legal mechanism that the queen personally approves] to which it led was also unlawful, void and of no effect and should be quashed.”
The Supreme Court did not echo the Court of Sessions’ direct criticism of Johnson—which stated that his advice to the queen had been “motivated by the improper purpose of stymying parliament.” However, it said the decision was “unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.”
The court made clear that its intervention had been made necessary by the exceptional importance of Brexit for the ruling class. A “fundamental change” was “due to take place in the Constitution of the United Kingdom on 31st October [leaving the EU]. Parliament, and in particular the House of Commons as the elected representatives of the people, has a right to a voice in how that change comes about. The effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme.”
While confirming the widespread hostility to Johnson’s Brexit strategy in ruling circles, the Supreme Court ruling also reflected concern that Johnson’s naked flouting of parliament and the traditional mechanisms of bourgeois rule can have grave political implications in a country so deeply rent by class tensions.
The justices declared that “It is for Parliament, and in particular the Speaker and the Lord Speaker to decide what to do next…they can take immediate steps to enable each House to meet as soon as possible.”
They warned Johnson, “it is not clear to us that any step [for resuming Parliament] is needed from the Prime Minister, but if it is, the court is pleased that his counsel have told the court that he will take all necessary steps to comply with the terms of any declaration made by this court.”
John Bercow, the pro-Remain Speaker of the House of Commons, quickly announced that parliament would reconvene at 11:30 a.m. today.
Johnson has made clear that he has no intention of resigning. Instead, speaking from New York where he is attending the UN General Assembly, he said that while he would abide by the verdict, he “strongly disagreed” with it. But he refused to say that he would obey the last piece of legislation enacted in Parliament before the prorogation. The pro-Remain faction’s legislation stipulates that the prime minister cannot leave the EU at the end of October without a deal unless this is authorised by parliament. Moreover, it is expected that Johnson will seek a recess of parliament from Sunday to Wednesday so that the Conservative Party conference can go ahead, and that he might seek a five-day prorogation prior to a Queen’s Speech—to be held in October—laying down his government’s legislative programme.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday afternoon the beginning of a formal impeachment inquiry directed at Donald Trump. The investigations currently being conducted by six separate House committees will now be funneled through the Speaker’s office to determine whether articles of impeachment should be drawn up against the US president.
The action marks a significant escalation in the conflict within the US ruling elite between two right-wing factions: the Democrats, aligned with sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, and the Trump White House, which is turning to ever-more personalist and dictatorial forms of rule, based on fascistic appeals to the military, border patrol and the police.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., reads a statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The immediate occasion for the move towards impeachment is the revelation that Trump sought to browbeat the Ukrainian government into reopening an investigation into the activities of Hunter Biden, son of a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Like all the moves taken by the Democratic Party against Trump since he took office, the impetus for the latest action comes from the intelligence agencies. An intelligence officer “whistleblower,” as yet unidentified, filed a complaint against Trump August 12 over his phone call to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on July 25, as well as other unspecified actions.
The whistleblower complaint was accepted as “credible” and “urgent” by Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, a Trump appointee from the ranks of career federal prosecutors. Atkinson sought to inform Congress of the complaint, as required by law, but he was blocked by his boss, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who consulted with the Justice Department and the White House.
The fact of the complaint—but not its actual text—was leaked to the press and reported to Congress, touching off a series of media reports documenting Trump’s blatant effort to use American military aid as a lever to assist his own reelection campaign. Trump ordered $391 million in aid to Ukraine held up while he was pressuring Zelensky to reopen a corruption investigation against a gas oligarch in Ukraine who placed Hunter Biden on the board of his company while Joe Biden was US vice president.
Trump admitted Sunday that he had raised the Biden investigation in the call to Zelensky, which he pronounced “perfect.” He then declared Tuesday, under mounting political pressure, that he would release the transcript of the July 25 call today. In an indication of some weakening of Trump’s congressional support, the Republican-controlled Senate voted unanimously the same day to seek the full, unredacted text of the whistleblower complaint.
In her brief public statement on seeking the formal impeachment inquiry, Pelosi cited her own 25 years as a congressional defender of the American intelligence establishment, going back to her years on the House Intelligence Committee before she became Democratic Party leader in the House. She declared Trump guilty of “betrayal” of his oath of office and his constitutional responsibilities, and she demanded that Maguire hand over the whistleblower report by Thursday or be found in violation of the law.
As late as Sunday, Pelosi was stalling on an impeachment inquiry. She sent out a letter to every member of the House of Representatives warning that Trump’s continuing refusal to supply documents and produce witnesses demanded by Congress could lead to a “new stage” of the House investigations into his administration.
The tipping point was apparently reached on Monday evening when seven freshmen Democratic representatives, all of them veterans of the military-intelligence apparatus, issued a joint demand for impeachment in the form of an op-ed column published by the Washington Post.
The seven include six representatives from the group the World Socialist Web Site has labelled the “CIA Democrats.” Two of them are actual ex-CIA agents, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. Four are former military officers: Elaine Luria of Virginia, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Jason Crow of Colorado.
The statement from the seven identifies them as “veterans of the military and of the nation’s defense and intelligence agencies” concerned by “unprecedented allegations against President Trump.” The statement continues: “To uphold and defend our Constitution, Congress must determine whether the president was indeed willing to use his power and withhold security assistance funds to persuade a foreign country to assist him in an upcoming election. If these allegations are true, we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense.”
The seven were joined by former CIA Director John Brennan—the overseer of widespread torture and illegal spying under Bush and Obama—who cited their statement in a cable television interview Tuesday and joined them in calling for Trump’s impeachment.
The line-up of Pelosi, Brennan and the CIA Democrats gives a glimpse of the real forces at work in the conflict within the ruling elite and the dominant role played by the intelligence agencies in the US political process.
The Democrats choose to wage their battle with Trump over his alleged misuse of military aid to further his own political interests and his attempts to suppress critics within the intelligence apparatus, and not his ceaseless attacks on democratic rights and trampling on constitutional principles. If they approve articles of impeachment, these will not relate to the separation of immigrant children from their parents, the seizure of funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes to build Trump’s border wall, or his encouragement of white supremacists and fascists.
Britain’s largest package holiday operator Thomas Cook was placed in compulsory liquidation in the early hours of Monday morning after failing to secure funding to keep the firm going. The consequences have been immediate and massive.
The Financial Times described the collapse as spreading “chaos through the international travel industry.”
The overnight collapse has left hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers, and those who had purchased flights, stranded overseas. The UK government has been forced to implement an emergency repatriation operation, the largest in peacetime, to bring back the 150,000 UK-based individuals from 55 airports. The 800,000 future bookings with Thomas Cook have all been cancelled.
TV news reports have shown angry tourists all around the globe who were left in the dark till the very last minute, not knowing if they would have a flight home, and tearful members of staff who have lost their jobs.
The company’s demise will see the loss of all 21,000 jobs of those directly employed, with tens of thousands more in overseas resorts put at risk as many local businesses are unlikely to see the bills incurred by Thomas Cook being paid.
The knock-on effect of the company failure will be enormous, as it is very doubtful that “minor” creditors, such as 1,000 smaller foreign hotel companies in Europe said to be “largely dependent” on Thomas Cook, will get any money back. In Tunisia alone, the company owes hotels £53 million for stays in July and August—with staff employed on considerably lower wages compared to their European counterparts—facing the prospect of no pay cheque for months to come, or jobs going altogether if hotels close.
There are 150,000 UK-based tourists whose return flights with Thomas Cook have been cancelled and some 350,000 non-UK nationals stranded on its holiday packages abroad. Some 50,000 holidaymakers are stranded in Greece alone, with the head of Crete’s union of tour operators Michalis Vlatakis likening the collapse of Thomas Cook to a “7-magnitude earthquake,” saying the local tourism sector was now “waiting for the tsunami.” Some 140,000 German travelers are affected, and local subsidiaries have stopped selling holidays. The Turkish Hoteliers Federation warned that the impact could be devastating for those hotels contracting solely with Thomas Cook. In Spain, thousands of jobs are at stake in popular holiday destinations such as the Canary Islands and Balearics.
The fact that the Thomas Cook Group—which includes some 26 associated companies—has been placed into liquidation means that there will be no rescue—as the liquidators seek to sell off the company’s assets to meet its debts. As well as unpaid bills for those currently on holiday, and fuel and airport charges, the company was servicing £1.7 billion in unsustainable debt it took on through a series of mergers and acquisitions in previous years.
The UK government refused a last-minute appeal to provide just £150 million to enable the company, which had revenues of £9.5 billion in 2018 and assets of £2.1 billion, to continue operating. The funding asked for is far less than the cost of repatriation, with the UK operation alone estimated at £600 million in public funds, even before the human cost of such massive job losses is taken into account.
Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson opposed using state funds to enable the company to continue trading, saying this would create a “moral hazard” for other companies who might also seek funding. Such a “moral hazard” was never posed when it came to a Labour government, backed by the Tories, bailing out the banks to the tune of around a trillion pounds in public funds following the 2008 crisis.
The crisis at Thomas Cook was exacerbated when its lenders, including Royal Bank of Scotland—which was taken into public ownership at vast public expense after the 2008 crash—suddenly demanded the company increase its cash holdings to keep it going through the quieter winter period.
Thomas Cook employed 21,000 worldwide, with 9,000 jobs now gone in the UK, including 1,000 at its Peterborough headquarters. Nearly one third of the UK workforce were based at Manchester Airport—home to the Thomas Cook Airlines fleet of 34 aircraft. The company also owned Thomas Cook Airlines Balearics, Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia and Condor, based in Germany. In total, it operated a fleet of 105 aircraft this summer.
