This page includes materials on US relations with the world, with a special focus on Northeast Asia and, inevitably, the Middle East. And so Britain is brought into it. And sometimes I stray further afield, when something catches my eye. Prior to 2005 it was called 'US and the world'

• ‘I never understood wind’: Trump goes on bizarre tirade against wind turbines
  President’s nonsensical rambling remarks about ‘windmills’ in segment from weekend speech raised eyebrows Richard Luscombe in Miami @richlusc Mon 23 Dec 2019 18.27 GMT First published on Mon 23 Dec 2019 16.24 GMT He says he knows more about Isis than his generals, and claims to understand politicians “better than anybody”. Now there is another subject in which Donald Trump’s expert knowledge surpasses that of everybody else: wind turbines, though he calls them windmills. “I’ve studied it better than anybody I know,” the president asserted in a bizarre segment from a weekend speech to young conservatives in West Palm Beach, Florida, close to his winter retreat at Mar-a-Lago where he is spending the holidays. “I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. They’re noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen in your life.” [Trump] [Wind] [Bizarre]
• When You Follow the Gun Trail, You Can End Up in Expected Places
  by Robert Fisk December 12, 2019 I’ve always wanted to find out where the guns came from. Who were the ‘willing accomplices’ to the wars I witnessed? In 1996, I traced to its Boeing makers in the deep south of the US a missile fired by the Israelis at a Lebanese ambulance. It killed two women and four children. I even went to Georgia and met the developers of the rocket that killed them. And in Syria, deep in the basement of a bombed Nusra-al-Qaeda headquarters in Aleppo, I found hundreds of mortars – along with their shipment documents and factory instructions. They were to be used against the Assad regime. But who had supplied them? They had been made in Novi Travnik in Bosnia, a town I knew well because I had covered the Bosnian war. One of the shipment papers carried the dispatcher’s name: Ifet Krnjic. I felt – I absolutely believed — I could find this man. A hunch? No. I set off to Novi Tavnik with the conviction that this man was there and would talk to me. And we found him, mowing his lawn on a Sunday afternoon in a neighbouring village. [Syria] [Jihadists] [Arms] [Saudi Arabia] [Outsourcing]
• Why the Afghanistan Papers Are an Eerie Reminder of Vietnam
  by Vijay Prashad December 11, 2019 Noam Chomsky recently celebrated his 91st birthday. As an homage to Noam, I spent the day with one of his lesser-known books—The Backroom Boys (1973). The book is made up of two spectacular essays, the first a close reading of the Pentagon Papers. To read this book alongside the trove of documents released by the U.S. government as part of its own internal study on the ongoing U.S. war on Afghanistan is telling. Both the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam and the recent Washington Post disclosures on Afghanistan show that the U.S. government lied to its citizenry about a war that could never be won. If you substitute the word “Afghanistan” for the word “Vietnam,” you could read Noam’s essays from 1973 and imagine that they were written today. Body Counts There was one quote in the Afghanistan papers that stopped me. It was almost as if I had read this before in the Pentagon Papers. In 2015, an unnamed National Security Council official said, “It was impossible to create good metrics. We tried using troop numbers trained, violence levels, control of territory and none of it painted an accurate picture.” With regard to Vietnam, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) constantly inflated “body counts”—the number of dead Vietnamese—as a metric of impending victory. This is clear in both the Pentagon Papers and in the papers at the Johnson Library (Austin, Texas). One soldier who worked in MACV would often go along with the generals to observe the battlefield. His words, collected by Toshio Whelchel, are worth reading: “once we flew over an area after a B-52 raid and the devastation was incredible. There were all these plastic bags out there with our guys supposedly counting bodies of enemy killed. But they were merely picking up body fragments—anything to put in the bag—and counting each one as a single kill.” These numbers pleased Washington; they were what was sold to the public as a metric to gauge how well the war was going. [Imperialism] [Casualties] [Disinformation]
• White Helmets Founder Was Allegedly Assassinated, Turkish Report
  By Nauman Sadiq Global Research, December 11, 2019 Speculation is rife in the local Turkish media that the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, might have been running away from someone before he fell or was pushed to his death in a case that was initially ruled as a suicide. Reputed Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported [1] on Tuesday: “The biggest question is why Le Mesurier committed suicide from a height of 7 meters and after walking for 10 meters on a lean-to roof. A possible answer is he was running away from someone who broke into his house and tried to leap on the roof of a building across the street.” James Le Mesurier was found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. He was alleged to have committed suicide by jumping off the second floor of the building, though the latest findings cast aspersions over the suicide theory, as the circumstances of the inexplicable death indicate likely homicide. The report further states: “Security camera footage from the last hours of Le Mesurier as he was shopping, the first photos from the scene and contradicting statements of his wife Emma Winberg may change the course of the investigation. “Winberg said she looked for her husband inside the house and saw his lifeless body when she looked out of the window. Police are investigating now how she was able to wake up about half an hour after she took a sleeping pill and why she stacked a large amount of money inside the house into bags immediately after Le Mesurier’s body was found.” Despite his “humanitarian credentials,” the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was a shady character, alleged to be a covert British MI6 operative by Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova days before his death. [White Helmets] [James Le Mesurier] [Assassination]
• These guys finished a record Cannonball Run from New York to L.A., averaging 103 mph. Here’s how.
  Cannonball Run record breakers disguised their car to evade police For their record-breaking drive cross-country while averaging 103 mph on Nov. 10, Arne Toman and his team disguised their Mercedes sports car to evade police. (Photo: JR Photon/VINwiki) By Alex Horton Dec. 7, 2019 at 4:45 a.m. GMT+13 Arne Toman’s stealth car was bursting with lawman-evading tech. But the Redondo Beach police officer first noticed something suspicious about the license plate on the Mercedes engineered to look like something else entirely. The officer told the driver to keep his hands on the steering wheel, Toman later recounted, and asked why his plate holder was askew. Like all the rest, that officer wasn’t quite fast enough. By the time they reached a Denny’s parking lot, the three occupants had already become the unofficial, definitely lawbreaking record holders of the fastest Cannonball Run — taking less than 28 hours and averaging 103 mph from coast to coast. They were finally driving at the speed limit when they were pulled over, Toman said. The license plate holder slightly obscured the state name. After taking a look, the officer let them go, he said. For 2,825.3 miles, the trio dodged highway patrol officers, avoided roadside deer and roared through 13 states in 27 hours and 25 minutes. They crushed the previous record by nearly an hour and a half. And they didn’t get pulled over once — except for after the run, on their way to celebrate with a late-night meal. “Every cop I know saw the story of the record and said ‘Aw man, that’s so awesome,’ ” Doug Tabbutt told The Washington Post on Friday. On Nov. 10, Toman, Tabbutt and Berkeley Chadwick started their souped-up, silver Mercedes just before 1 a.m., at the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan. Their destination: the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach, which is the customary finish for the illicit Cannonball Run challenge. The record run, first reported by Road and Track, was a combination of skill, preparation, experience and luck, Tabbutt and Toman explained. They chose a day in November ahead of Thanksgiving so the highways were relatively clear. It didn’t rain. There wasn’t construction to bottleneck traffic. And Tabbutt’s hundreds of hours of planning ensured the route was optimized. “This is something done with military precision,” said Tabbutt, a lifelong racer who sells collector and exotic cars in Cleveland. With 11 runs between them, both drivers acknowledged they broke traffic laws in every state, and some of the gear they used was lawful in some but illegal in others. But they stressed their use of caution and restraint while clocking triple-digit speeds. They typically drove their fastest — with a top speed of 193 mph, [Bizarre] [Legality] [Privilege][Eulogy] [US] [Double standards]
• NATO Leaders Appear to Gossip About Trump in Unguarded Chat
  VOA News December 05, 2019 08:17 While NATO leaders are professing unity as they gather for a summit near London, several seem to have been caught in an unguarded exchange on camera apparently gossiping about U.S. President Donald Trump's behavior. In footage recorded during a reception in London at Buckingham Palace Tuesday evening, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was seen standing in a huddle with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Britain's Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II. After Johnson asked Macron, "is that why you were late?" Trudeau could be heard saying "he was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top." That appeared to be a reference to Trump's long and unscheduled question-and-answer session with journalists earlier Tuesday. Trudeau also said: "You just watched his team's jaws drop to the floor." Trump wasn't mentioned by name during the exchange. NATO leaders during the annual NATO heads of government summit at the Grove Hotel in Watford, England on Dec. 4, 2019. /AP Footage of the palace reception was recorded by a pool camera. The clip was posted online by Canadian broadcaster CBC and has been viewed more than 5 million times. [Trump] [NATO] [Mockery]

• Evidence Talks: US Government Propelled Coup in Bolivia
  By W.T. Whitney Jr. Global Research, November 25, 2019 A coup on November 10 removed the socialist government of Bolivian President Evo Morales. The U.S. government made preparations and orchestrated the final stages of the coup. It was in charge. In power for almost 14 years, Morales and Vice President Álvaro García Linera had won elections taking place on October 20. The two leaders would each have been serving a fourth term in office. Evidence of the U.S. crime appears below. It’s about money, U.S. influence within the Bolivian military, and U.S. control of the Organization of American States (OAS): 1. For many years the Santa Cruz Civic Committee and its proto-fascist Youth Union received funding from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy. According to analyst Eva Golinger some years ago, the USAID provided $84 million to Bolivian opposition groups. U.S. Embassy officials conspired with and paid the “civic committees” of Bolivia’s four eastern departments. Representing the European- descended elite of Bolivia’s wealthiest region, these groups promoted racist assaults. They concocted a separatist movement and tried to assassinate Morales. In response, the Bolivian government expelled the U.S. ambassador, Drug Enforcement Agency, and the U. S. Agency for International Development. 2. Bolivian armed forces commander in chief Williams Kaliman Romero on November 10 “suggested” that Morales resign. That was the coup de grace. Within three days, Kaliman himself resigned and moved to the United States. Sullkata M. Quilla of the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis explains that Kaliman and other military chiefs each had received $1 million and that top police officers received $500,000 apiece. U.S. Chargee d’affaires Bruce Williamson allegedly arranged for monetary transactions that took place in Argentina’s Jujuy Province under the auspices of Governor Geraldo Morales. The story first appeared on the website www.Tvmundus.com.ar. [Bolivia] [Coup] [Morales]
• Trump shift on Israeli settlements fulfills wish list of evangelical base
  Maria Caspani, Matt Spetalnick NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. decision effectively backing Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank, long a cherished item on conservative Christians’ wish list, is expected to strengthen evangelicals’ support for Donald Trump as he seeks re-election in 2020, according to a leader of the president’s evangelical advisory group. FILE PHOTO: Labourers work in a construction site in the Israeli settlement of Ramat Givat Zeev in the occupied-West Bank November 19, 2019. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo While Palestinians and Arab governments condemned the Trump administration’s declaration on Monday that Jewish settlements in occupied territory are not “inconsistent with international law,” the reversal of four decades of U.S. policy drew praise from evangelicals, an important part of his base. Trump had already tightened his bond with his pro-Israel constituency by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, moving the U.S. embassy to the holy city in 2018 and then endorsing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967. [Trump] [Israel] [Evangelicals] [Domestic] [US_Election20]
• The US-Sponsored Coup that Ousted Evo Morales. Bolivia’s Partnership with China in Lithium Production
  By Dr. Chandra Muzaffar Global Research, November 18, 2019 Any human being who values justice and freedom would condemn the coup that ousted the Bolivian president Evo Morales on the 10th of November 2019. Morales obtained 47.08 % of the vote to secure a fourth term as president in the election held on the 20th of October. Since his vote was more than 10% of what his closest rival had harnessed, there was no need for a second round of voting according to the Bolivian Constitution. However his opponents did not want to accept the result. Neither did the Organisation of American States (OAS) nor the United States of America (USA) nor the European Union (EU). They alleged “electoral fraud” without providing any tangible evidence. It should be emphasised that international observers from a number of countries testified to the legitimacy of the polls. To protest Morales’s re-election, his adversaries organised strikes and boycotts. They disrupted public order and even resorted to violence. The police allowed this to happen because like the military it was also opposed to the president. Indeed, the military and the police played a critical role in undermining Morales. It was partly because of the failure of the military and police to protect the Constitution and the rule of law that chaos escalated accompanied by the intensification of violence. Morales did not want the situation to deteriorate further and decided to resign as president. A number of other top leaders also chose to quit. Mexico offered Morales political asylum. An opposition politician with the full backing of the military, Jeanine Anez, declared herself interim president of Bolivia. Anez had garnered only 1.7% of the votes cast in the October elections. It would be naïve to believe that the ouster of Morales and the installation of a new president was the result of the dynamics of internal politics alone. The US had a huge role in the entire episode. Some members of the US elite not only colluded with elements in the Bolivian military but also helped to engineer the convulsions that forced Morales out of office. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an appendage of the US establishment with a reputation for orchestrating ‘regime change’ in a number of countries all over the world was allegedly heavily involved in Bolivian political and civil society activities long before the October elections. Why is the US elite so determined to control and direct Bolivia? It is partly because Bolivia since Evo Morales came to power in 2006 has sought to be a truly independent and sovereign nation. As the first president from an indigenous community (the indigenous constitute 63% of the population) Morales is deeply committed to protecting Bolivia’s wealth and resources and ensuring that they are utilised for the well-being of the people. It is widely recognised that he has succeeded to a great extent to reduce poverty, improve the standard of health of the people, especially the rural folk, and expand educational opportunities for the disadvantaged. Morales has also tried to curb the power of mega corporations in the economy. [Bolivia] [Coup] [Lithium] [China confrontation]
• Occupied Palestine: From BDS To ODS
  By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance November 17, 2019 | , Newsletter We spent the last week in Occupied Palestinian Territory, commonly referred to as Israel, where we traveled around the country to visit communities in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Bethlehem, the West Bank, the Nagab, and more. We call Israel Occupied Palestine because it is not just the West Bank and Gaza that are occupied, but all of historic Palestine, the entire Palestinian nation. Palestinian people do not have equal rights and their communities are constantly encroached upon by settlers pushing them into small, crowded areas. The mistreatment of Palestinians happens right before the eyes of the Israeli Jews. If they do not see it, it is either because they do not want to see it or because they are encouraged not to see it. Just as Jim Crow racism was evident to all in the southern states of the US, apartheid in Palestine is obvious. This visit deepened our support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement because we saw modern apartheid, Jim Crow-segregation laws, ongoing land theft, and ethnic cleansing. For example, we were in Jerusalem when a squadron of fighter jets flew over our heads to bomb the open-air prison of Gaza killing more than 30 people. The Israeli people, media and politicians applauded that, displaying a sickness that runs deep in this colonized land founded on theft, terrorism, and violence. To end the colonization, there is great hope of developing a movement for the creation of One Democratic State (ODS). This is being organized by a large group of Palestinians and Jews as the formation of two separate states is impossible. ODS envisions a universally equal and democratic nation where minority communities are protected and every person can vote. ODS is the first step to the decolonization and healing of Palestine. [Israel] [Palestine] [One State]
• Bolivia Does Not Exist
  November 14, 2019 The tactics used to fight against decolonization are what we call a “hybrid war,” writes Vijay Prashad. As the generals do the dirty work, the aims of international capital are eventually met. By Vijay Prashad Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research On Nov. 10, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales Ayma was removed from office. Technically Morales resigned, but the conditions for his resignation had been set by the Bolivian oligarchy (egged on for 13 years by the United States government, as Noam Chomsky and I indicated in this statement the day before the coup). Having won re-election for the fourth time, Morales faced an open insurrection from his opponent — former president Carlos Mesa — who lost the election conclusively. A team from the openly hostile Organization of American States (OAS) arrived and provided legitimacy for the coup with a report on the elections that was long on accusations and short on facts. Using this OAS report — fully backed by the United States — as justification, the police mutinied, and then the army (which had remained neutral) told Morales he had to resign. There was no choice. A coup is a curious thing. Those who make the coup never admit that they have made the coup. They claim that they are restoring democracy or that they are taking extraordinary means to establish the conditions — eventually — for democracy. This is precisely why the definition of the events are so fraught. But all coups are not the same. There are at least two types of military coups — the General’s Coup and the Colonel’s Coup. [Bolivia] [Coup]
• Economic Sanctions Are Testing the Resilience of Iran’s Islamic System
  Shireen Hunter November 19, 2019 The popular demonstrations in nearly all Iranian cities that followed the increase in the price of gasoline are only one symptom of the growing challenges facing Iran’s Islamic system. From a purely economic rationale, the price increase is justified as a means to regulate the fuel consumption, which, because of its cheap price, is comparatively high. However, in view of Iran’s current economic conditions characterized by mounting inflation and economic stagnation, this price increase acted as a last straw on people’s willingness to accept the government’s decision with equanimity.
  The increase in the price of gasoline is only one manifestation of Iran’s economic and financial woes resulting from the economic sanctions. The main culprit has been the loss of Iran’s oil income. According to OPEC’s latest monthly report in November 2019, Iran’s oil exports have fallen by 1.65 million barrels per day since the imposition of U.S. sanctions. Moreover, because of banking restrictions, Iran faces difficulty in repatriating the foreign exchange earned by its non-oil exports. [Iran confrontation] [Sanctions effect] [Destabilisation\]
• Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and millionaire – with foreign support
  Bolivian coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho is a far-right multi-millionaire who arose from fascist movements in the Santa Cruz region, where the US has encouraged separatism. He has courted support from Colombia, Brazil, and the Venezuelan opposition. By Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours after President Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward. With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.” “Pachamama will never return to the palace,” declared the pastor to his side, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.” [Bolivia] [Coup]
• Released Lula in for Greatest Fight of His Life
  Better not mess with the former Brazilian president; Putin and Xi are his real top allies in the Global Left By Pepe Escobar Global Research, November 12, 2019 Region: Latin America & Caribbean Theme: Law and Justice, Police State & Civil Rights He’s back. With a bang. Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo, and drawing on his unparalleled political capital, called all Brazilians to stage nothing short of a social revolution. When my colleagues Mauro Lopes, Paulo Leite and myself interviewed Lula at the federal prison, it was his Day 502 in a cell. By August, it was impossible to predict that release would happen on Day 580, in early November. His first speech to the nation after the prison saga – which is far from over – could never be solemn; in fact he promised a detailed address for the near future. What he did, in his trademark conversationalist style, was to immediately go on the offensive taking down a long list of every possible enemy in the book: those who have mired Brazil into an “anti-people agenda.” In terms of a fully improvised, passionate political address, this is already anthology material. Lula detailed the current “terrible conditions” for Brazilian workers. He ripped to pieces the economic program – basically a monster sell-out – of Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy and Pinochetist who’s applying the same failed hardcore neoliberal prescriptions now being denounced and scorned every day in the streets of Chile. [Lula]
• The Strategic Battle for Lithium. Huge Reserves in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile
  By Enzo Pellegrin Global Research, November 14, 2019 On March 15, 2018, Maurizio Stefanini, reporter of an italian right think-tank, complained that the huge reserve of Lithium present in Bolivia was in the hands of the State“” and of the bad example“” of Evo Morales. (1) In the same article it was pointed out that, on the contrary, Chile and Argentina, the other two Saudi Arabian”of Lithium, had generated a real race for lithium”, as in romantic Yukon era. In Chile, according to 2016 data, 68,874 metric tons ™ of lithium carbonate equivalent (cle) were extracted by private companies Albemarle and Sociedad Química de Minerales de Chile (SGM). The latter is owned 29 percent by billionaire Julio Ponce Lerou, who ranked 422 on the Forbes chart of the rich planetary planets, thanks to the Lithium boom. At that time, Chile had a 33% share of the Lithium world market. [Lithium] [Bolivia]
• The Costs of Post 9/11 Wars: $6.4 Trillion
  US Budgetary Costs and Obligations of Post-9/11 Wars Through FY2020: $6.4 Trillion By Prof. Neta C. Crawford Global Research, November 14, 2019 Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $6.4 Trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars—an estimated $5.4 Trillion in appropriations in current dollars and an additional minimum of $1 Trillion for US obligations to care for the veterans of these wars through the next several decades.[2] The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined, was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al Qaeda and affiliated organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries — becoming a truly “global war on terror.” Further, the Department of Homeland Security was created in part to coordinate the defense of the homeland against terrorist attacks. These wars, and the domestic counterterror mobilization, have entailed significant expenses, paid for by deficit spending. Thus, even if the United States withdraws completely from the major war zones by the end of FY2020 and halts its other Global War on Terror operations, in the Philippines and Africa for example, the total budgetary burden of the post- 9/11 wars will continue to rise as the US pays the on -going costs of veterans’ care and for interest on borrowing to pay for the wars. Moreover, the increases in the Pentagon base budget associated with the wars are likely to remain, inflating the military budget over the long run. [War] [Imperialism] [Middle East] [Cost]
• All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change
  by Michael Klare All Hell Breaking Loose is an eye-opening examination of climate change from the perspective of the U.S. military. The Pentagon, unsentimental and politically conservative, might not seem likely to be worried about climate change—still linked, for many people, with polar bears and coral reefs. Yet of all the major institutions in American society, none take climate change as seriously as the U.S. military. Both as participants in climate-triggered conflicts abroad, and as first responders to hurricanes and other disasters on American soil, the armed services are already confronting the impacts of global warming. The military now regards climate change as one of the top threats to American national security—and is busy developing strategies to cope with it. Drawing on previously obscure reports and government documents, renowned security expert Michael Klare shows that the U.S. military sees the climate threat as imperiling the country on several fronts at once. Droughts and food shortages are stoking conflicts in ethnically divided nations, with “climate refugees” producing worldwide havoc. Pandemics and other humanitarian disasters will increasingly require extensive military involvement. The melting Arctic is creating new seaways to defend. And rising seas threaten American cities and military bases themselves. [Climate change] [Pentagon]
• Bolivia's new leader seeks quick election, Morales says he could return
  Gram Slattery, Daniel Ramos LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivia’s new interim president pledged on Wednesday to hold new elections as soon as possible and denied a coup had taken place, while from Mexico former leader Evo Morales hinted he could return to the South American nation. Senate vice-president and conservative Jeanine Anez, 52, had assumed the interim role on Tuesday after Morales fled Bolivia after his 14-year socialist rule ended in violent protests and recriminations. Morales resigned on Sunday on the back of rising pressure over accusations of vote rigging in last month’s election. But he struck a defiant tone from Mexico where he is seeking asylum. Related Coverage “If my people ask, we’re ready to go back. We’ll return sooner or later... to pacify Bolivia,” he said at a news conference in Mexico City. Anez faces an immediate challenge from lawmakers from Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, who hold a majority in parliament and have threatened to hold a rival session to nullify her appointment. [Bolivia] [Coup] Morales] [Anez]
• Is the Run on the Dollar Due to Panic or Greed?
  By Ellen Brown
  Global Research, November 09, 2019 What’s going on in the repo market? Rates on repurchase agreements (“repo”) should be around 2%, in line with the fed funds rate. But they shot up to over 5% on September 16 and got as high as 10% on September 17. Yet banks were refusing to lend to each other, evidently passing up big profits to hold onto their cash – just as they did in the housing market crash and Great Recession of 2008-09. Since banks weren’t lending, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York jumped in, increasing its overnight repo operations to $75 billion; and on October 23 it upped the ante to $120 billion in overnight operations and $45 billion in longer-term operations. Why are banks no longer lending to each other? Are they afraid that collapse is imminent somewhere in the system, as with the Lehman collapse in 2008? Perhaps, and if so the likely suspect is Deutsche Bank. But it looks to be just another case of Wall Street fattening itself at the public trough, using the funds of mom and pop depositors to maximize bank profits and line the pockets of bank executives while depriving small businesses of affordable loans. [Banking]
• The ‘War’ for the Future of Middle East
  Alastair Crooke November 4, 2019 Oh, oh, here we are again! In 1967, it was then the ‘threat’ of the standing Arab Armies (and the ensuing six-day war on Egypt and Syria); in 1980, it was Iran (and the ensuing Iraqi war on Iran); in 1996, it was David Wurmser with his Coping with Crumbling States (flowing on from the infamous Clean Break policy strategy paper) which at that time targeted secular-Arab nationalist states, excoriated both as “crumbling relics of the ‘evil’ USSR” and inherently hostile to Israel, too; and in the 2003 and 2006 wars, it was Saddam Hussein firstly; and then Hezbollah that threatened the safety of the West’s civilizational ‘outpost’ in the Middle East. And here we are once more, Israel cannot safely ‘live’ in a region containing a militant Hezbollah. [US Middle East Strategy]
• Another Armistice Day With No Trump Weapons Parade
  November 11, 2019, is Armistice Day 101 (or 102 if you want to be all mathematically accurate and elitist about it). Anyway, it’s been over a century now since World War I was ended at a scheduled moment (11 o’clock on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918). For decades in the United States, as elsewhere, Armistice Day (in some countries it’s called Remembrance Day) was a holiday of peace, of sad remembrance and the joyful ending of war, and of a commitment to preventing war in the future. The holiday’s name was changed in the United States after the U.S. war on Korea to “Veterans Day,” a largely pro-war holiday on which some U.S. cities forbid Veterans For Peace groups from marching in their parades because only Veterans for war can be part of Veterans Day. Last year we raised quite a fuss in opposition to a weapons parade through Washington, D.C. that Trump had proposed to hold in his own honor. It wasn’t held. Nor was it held on July 4th, as he later suggested. Nor is it being held now.
• ISIS Chief Al-Baghdadi Killed on Turkish Border while Fleeing Idlib
  By Nauman Sadiq Global Research, October 28, 2019 This article was completed on October 26, 2019. Islamic State’s self-styled Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in a United States Special Ops overnight raid Saturday involving helicopters, warplanes and a ground clash on the Turkey-Syria border while fleeing Syria’s northwestern Idlib Governorate, Reuters and Newsweek are reporting, and President Trump [has made] the major announcement of the biggest symbolic victory of his administration in the war against terrorism soon. What’s worth noting in the news reports about the killing of al-Baghdadi is the fact that although the mainstream media had been trumpeting for the last several years that the Islamic State chief had been hiding somewhere on the Iraq-Syria border in the east, he was found hiding in the northwestern Idlib Governorate, under the control of Turkey’s militant proxies and al-Nusra Front, and was killed while trying to flee to Turkey in Brisha village on the Syria border. Reuters reports [1]: “Two Iraqi security sources and two Iranian officials said they had received confirmation from inside Syria that Baghdadi had been killed. ‘Our sources from inside Syria have confirmed to the Iraqi intelligence team tasked with pursuing Baghdadi that he has been killed alongside his personal bodyguard in Idlib after his hiding place was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib toward the Turkish border,’ one of the Iraqi officials said.” [al-Baghdadi] [Assassination]
• Rebuilding Syria – without Syria’s oil
  Compare US pillaging with Russia-Iran-Turkey’s active involvement in a political solution to normalize Syria By Pepe Escobar What happened in Geneva this Wednesday, in terms of finally bringing peace to Syria, could not be more significant: the first session of the Syrian Constitutional Committee. The Syrian Constitutional Committee sprang out of a resolution passed in January 2018 in Sochi, Russia, by a body called the Syrian National Dialogue Congress. The 150-strong committee breaks down as 50 members of the Syrian opposition, 50 representing the government in Damascus and 50 representatives of civil society. Each group named 15 experts for the meetings in Geneva, held behind closed doors. This development is a direct consequence of the laborious Astana process – articulated by Russia, Iran and Turkey. Essential initial input came from former UN Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. Now UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen is working as a sort of mediator. The committee started its deliberations in Geneva in early 2019. Crucially, there are no senior members of the administration in Damascus nor from the opposition – apart from Ahmed Farouk Arnus, who is a low-ranking diplomat with the Syrian Foreign Ministry. Among the opposition, predictably, there are no former leaders of weaponized factions. And no “moderate rebels.” The delegates include several former and current parliament members, university rectors and journalists. [Syria] [Peace]
• Islamic State vows revenge against U.S. for Baghdadi killing
  Hesham Abdulkhalek, Ulf Laessing CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State confirmed on Thursday that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a weekend raid by U.S. special forces in northwestern Syria, and vowed revenge against the United States. Late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is seen in an undated picture released by the U.S. Department of Defense in Washington, U.S. October 30, 2019. U.S. Department of Defense/Handout via REUTERS The Iraqi rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims, holding sway over huge areas of Iraq and Syria from 2014-2017 before Islamic State’s control disintegrated under U.S.-led attacks. The group confirmed his death in an audio tape posted online and said a successor, identified as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, had been appointed.
  Aymenn al-Tamimi, a researcher at Swansea University focusing on Islamic State, said the name was unknown but could refer to a leading figure in Islamic State called Hajj Abdullah, whom the U.S. State Department had identified as a possible successor. [ISIS] [Intelligence]

• Iran’s $280 Billion Sanction Skirting Scheme
  By Simon Watkins - Oct 22, 2019, 6:00 PM CDT Given that China has put its expansion into Iran on hold for the time being due to the backlash in Iran on the extent of such plans, Tehran is now looking at ways in which it can plug the initial US$280 billion that had been expected from China to develop its oil, gas, and petrochemicals sectors. As U.S. sanctions make direct investment by foreigners extremely difficult and also act as a brake on international investment flowing into the Tehran Stock Exchange, the bond market looks like the only fund-raising game in town for Tehran. The chief executive officer of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Masoud Karbasian, said last week that Iran is looking at a range of such offerings and, following extensive talks with various senior figures in Iran connected to the Petroleum Ministry, OilPrice.com can now confirm to know what these options are. [Iran] [Sanctions evasion]
• Russia Releases Damning Evidence Of The U.S. Smuggling Syrian Oil
  MOSCOW, October 26, 2019 – RIA Novosti – The Russian Ministry of Defense has published satellite intelligence images, showing American oil smuggling from Syria. Image 1: Situation in the Syrian Arab Republic as of October 26, 2019. According to the ministry, the photos confirm that “Syrian oil, both before and after the routing defeat of the Islamic State terrorists in land beyond the Euphrates river, under the reliable protection by US military servicemen, oil was actively being extracted and then the fuel trucks were massively being sent for processing outside of Syria.” [US Syria] [Oil] [Legality]
• The death of Elijah Cummings: Democrats, media glorify a mediocrity
  By Patrick Martin 21 October 2019 The death of Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) early Thursday morning became the occasion for an outpouring of praise from both Democrats and Republicans, hailing the late Baltimore congressman as a paragon of political principle and moral rectitude. The corporate media joined in, making a political mountain out of a molehill, glorifying a run-of-the-mill member of Congress as though he were a hero of the civil rights movement. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times published front-page tributes to the 68-year-old Cummings in their Friday editions. The Post headline described him as “A congressman of principle and resolve,” while the Times called Cummings a “Fighter Revered by Democrats as a ‘North Star’.” Large photographs of Cummings accompanied both obituaries.
  The real purpose of the flowery tributes was to give a “progressive” gloss to the impeachment campaign launched by the House Democrats, in which Cummings played a significant role to the very end, issuing subpoenas by the House Government Oversight Committee from his sickbed at a Baltimore hospice. The reality is that if Cummings had died in 2017, when he suffered a serious heart ailment and had to have surgery on his aorta, his passing would have been relegated to a perfunctory notice on the inside pages: one more Democratic machine politician, soon to be replaced by another. It is only his role in the past eight months that has caused the corporate media to sing hallelujahs to the Maryland congressman. [Impeachment] [Democratic Party]
• Russia Calls U.S. Move to Protect Syrian Oil Fields 'Banditry'
  U.S. military convoy drives the he town of Qamishli, north Syria, by a poster showing Syrian President Bashar Aassad Saturday, Oct. 26. 2019. A U.S. convoy of over a dozen vehicles was spotted driving south of the northeastern city of Qamishli, likely heading to the oil-rich Deir el-Zour area where there are oil fields, or possibly to another base nearby. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, also reported the convoy, saying it arrived earlier from Iraq. U.S. military convoy drives the he town of Qamishli, north Syria, by a poster showing Syrian President Bashar Aassad Saturday, Oct. 26. 2019. A U.S. convoy of over a dozen vehicles was spotted driving south of the northeastern city of Qamishli, likely heading to the oil-rich Deir el-Zour area where there are oil fields, or possibly to another base nearby. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, also reported the convoy, saying it arrived earlier from Iraq. Baderkhan Ahmad—AP By JIM HEINTZ / AP October 26, 2019 (MOSCOW) — Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday harshly criticized the United States decision to send armored vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to protect oil fields, calling it “banditry.” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said the move is aimed at keeping the fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants. The decision was the latest sign that extracting the U.S. military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump has made it out to be. [US Syria policy] [Oil] [Legality] [Trump] [Withdrawal] [Pushback]
• Hillary Clinton is still sabotaging progressives—Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard, Tucker Carlson, Jimmy Dore, and Paul Maté comment
  October 23, 2019 The Grayzone Pushback with Aaron Maté Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein responds to Hillary Clinton calling her a “Russian asset” and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard a potential Russian dupe. Clinton and centrist Democrats, Stein says, are following a “well-worn script” of trying to undermine progressive candidates that challenge party elites’ militarist and corporatist policies. Guest: Dr. Jill Stein, former Green Party presidential candidate.   BONUS FEATURES WITH JIMMY DORE Tulsi Drops Hammer On Red-Baiting Hillary OCT 21 2019 WITH TUCKER CARLSON Tucker: Hillary spreads vicious lies about fellow Democrats Oct 21 2019 [Hillary Clinton] [Smear] [[Gabbard]
• U.S. Anti-war Movement Should Stay Focused on Getting U.S. Out of Syria
  By Sara Flounders Global Research, October 24, 2019 Oct. 20 – The author visited Syria in 2014 and 2015 in small International Action Center solidarity delegations. At that time, no road in the country was safe and one-third of the population was displaced — taking refuge inside Syria or in surrounding countries. The schools, mosques, churches and community centers in Damascus were packed with tens of thousands of desperate refugees. Everywhere, including downtown Damascus, was being shelled. Today Syria is rebuilding after eight years of war. More than 1,550 schools have been rebuilt, and in the past month 10,000 teaching jobs were added. But U.S. war planners are still active. When forces in U.S. ruling circles contend with and denounce each other to justify foreign intervention — as is currently happening in reaction to the announced U.S. pullback from the Kurdish area of Syria — this generates speculation, analysis and confusion in the population, including among anti-war activists. It demands a clear political response. This confusion takes place because U.S. apologists invent pretexts for the government’s military interventions. They falsely claim it sends troops to defend democracy or to protect the human rights for some group. Rather, U.S. troops are sent to intervene only to protect and expand the strategic or economic interests of U.S. imperialism. U.S. forces in Syria have brought nothing but misery to that country’s people, including its Kurdish population. The Pentagon was there neither to promote democracy in Syria nor to defend Kurdish self-determination. Washington has tried to maintain its dominance in the Middle East by inflaming sectarian, national, ethnic and religious differences. In the long war against Syria, where all the people of Syria have suffered, the many statements for or against the Kurds in Syria take the focus off the real culprit — U.S. imperialism. [US Syria policy] [Imperialism]
• Nuclear Arms Control: A Game-Changer for the Asia-Pacific?
  By Ralph Cossa Ralph Cossa (Ralph@pacforum.org) is Pacific Forum president emeritus and WSD-Handa Chair in Peace Studies. I was recently asked at an international conference to address the question, “Is nuclear arms control a game-changer for the Asia-Pacific?” My simple answer is that nuclear arms control COULD be a game-changer for the Asia-Pacific but probably WON’T be, simply because not all of the nuclear actors in the region are likely to want to play the game. Please note I use the term nuclear actors, by which I mean nuclear-armed states rather than nuclear weapon states (NWS) per se since the nuclear community still pretends there are only five states with nuclear weapons, as described in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Don’t get me wrong: I fully understand the political implications of acknowledging other nuclear-armed states as NWS, but when it comes to arms control, we can no longer pretend they don’t exist. If a country has declared itself a nuclear-armed state and has in fact demonstrated that capability to the world, then it needs to be part of the nuclear arms control dialogue, regardless of whether or not it has official NWS status. The great irony, as I talk to representatives of the nuclear-armed states, is that the only state that seems eager to join a multilateral dialogue on arms control is the one country no one wants to invite to the discussion, namely the DPRK. Pyongyang sees participation in the global debate as a means of legitimizing its self-proclaimed status as a nuclear power, which rightfully the rest of the world will not (and should not) accept. [Arms control] [US Asia]
• The “ISIS Resurgence” is Fake News The evidence is clear – ISIS are, and always have been, a US creation
  Kit Knightly Donald Trump’s decision to “withdraw” from Syria has kicked up a lot of dust – there’s sympathy for the poor Kurds, concern for the stability of the region, fear of “increased Russian influence”…and dire warnings of a possible “resurgence of ISIS”. Lindsay Graham and his chorus of retired generals and bloodthirsty lunatics have been tweeting about it all over the place: Every concern I had about President Trump’s Syria decision is coming true in spades. ➡️ The reemergence of ISIS is on the way. And if you think only Europe is threatened — you are sadly mistaken. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 11, 2019 Nearly all of our allies around the world and through the Middle East have condemned this unnecessary operation that risks a revival of ISIS and destabilizing NE Syria, which had been the heart of ISIS’s caliphate. — Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) October 11, 2019 Trump shameful decision to green light the Turkish attack on Syrian Kurd allies has directly menaced the US and Europe with the revival of the ISIS terror threat. There are 12,000 ISIS fighters who may break free. 15,000 ISIS already loose. https://t.co/KwheQiSlko — Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) October 13, 2019 Politico, Newsweek and (of course) The Guardian have been enthusiastically spreading the story. As have dozens of others. How seriously should we take these warnings? Well, not seriously at all, honestly. It’s vital we all remember that “ISIS” – the balaclava-wearing, black-clad, sword-swinging, TV-channel having death cult; with fleets of matching Toyotas, their own end of year reports, a brand new currency and a plan for world domination – are not real. They are a creation, a myth. The CIA’s traditional “Islamic zealot” proxies, with a video-game generation make-over and their own twitter accounts. As the media’s favourite bogeymen are warming up for an encore, we look back over our coverage, highlighting just how absurd the “ISIS” narrative has always been. [ISIS] [Outsourcing]
• Bolivia Wants More Evo
  October 21, 2019 Alfredo Serrano Mancilla How does Evo Morales fit in that pessimistic thesis of the “end of the progressive cycle?” He does not fit at all. Bolivia decided once again that they want more of Evo Morales. With 16 percent of the votes still to be counted, with a strong amount of those votes in rural areas, the indigenous President reached 45 percent of the votes with a difference of 8 points over his closest contender, Carlos Mesa (37%); the third place was achieved against all odds by Korean evangelist minister Chi Chung, who got 8%. He represented a novelty with his extreme conservative speeches; the big loser was Oscar Ortiz, the “Jair Bolsonaro” from the Santa Cruz province, who got 4%. [Bolivia] [Korean Diaspora] [Evo Morales]
• The Putin-Nazis Are Coming (Again)!
  C J Hopkins October 21, 2019 Little doubt by now that Hillary Clinton has been one of the most nefarious characters (in a long list) to occupy positions of power in the American plutocracy. So, it looks like that’s it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have “hacked,” or “influenced,” or “meddled in” our democracy. Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up a last-minute military coup, it’s four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration camps, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public schools, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death’s heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards. We probably should have seen this coming. [US_election20] [Hillary Clinton] [Smear] [Gabbard]
• Everybody Betraying Everybody in Syria
  October 16, 2019 After some eight years of civil conflict, the situation in Syria is basically reverting to the pre-conflict norm, writes Graham E. Fuller. By Graham E. Fuller grahamefuller.com Just what have we witnessed in the recent events in Syria? It’s hard to know, given the avalanche of superficial and over-the-top headlines in most U.S. media: betrayal of the Kurds, handing Syria over to Russia, caving to Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan, bestowing a gift upon Iran, allowing ISIS to once again run wild, end of U.S. leadership. Yet the bottom line of the story is that after some eight years of civil conflict, the situation in Syria is basically reverting to the pre-conflict norm. The Syrian government is now close to re-establishing its sovereign control again over the entire country. Indeed, Syria’s sovereign control over its own country had been vigorously contested, in fact blocked, by many external interventions — mainly on the part of the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and a few European hangers-on — all hoping to exploit the early uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and overthrow it. In favor of what was never clear. [US Syria policy]
• The Predictable Mess on Syria’s Border with Turkey
  Patrick Lawrence October 14, 2019 Trump just missed an opportunity to pull back troops without inducing another bloodbath. By Patrick Lawrence Special to Consortium News In less than a week, a new front has opened in Syria’s 8-year, all-but-over war, featuring hot- and cold-running proxies from its earliest days. Syrian sovereignty is once again violated as casually as a schoolboy cuts across a neighbor’s lawn. The Assad government in Damascus now faces a new threat to its stability. Thousands of Islamic State jihadists may now escape captivity and reactivate their savage campaign to turn Syria, a secular state, into an Islamic autocracy. All this was set in motion when President Donald Trump advised Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Turkish counterpart and one of the Middle East’s most unprincipled despots, that U.S. troops would withdraw from positions in northeastern Syria in advance of a Turkish attack on Kurdish forces in the area. Trump spoke to Erdogan by telephone the Sunday before last. The Turkish incursion commenced three days later. Whether or not Trump “green-lighted” Erdogan’s long-planned attack on Syrian Kurds got a lot of ink last week, but it is not an interesting question. Of course, he did. Here is the interesting question: Is the mess now unfolding along Syria’s border with Turkey precisely the outcome the national security state desired when Trump let the green light shine? Was the perfectly predictable chaos, destruction, and desperation enveloping the region somehow unforeseen? Or was it, from the perspective of Washington’s hawkish, coup-cultivating factions, the fundamental point of this latest travesty on Syrian soil? [US Syria policy]
• How The Win-Win-Win-Win Plan For Syria's Northeast Succeeds
  October 16, 2019 The Syrian and Russian operations in the northeast of Syria are going well. Russian troops prevented attempts by Turkish supported Jihadis to attack Manbij. Russian and Syrian units now also entered Ayn al-Arab/Kobani. Syrian government troops took control of the electricity producing dam in Tabqah and some units set up posts in Raqqa. Other units entered the Conoco and Al-Umar oil fields north of Abu Kahmal and east of Deir Ezzor. Some local tribe which profited from the oil explorations there held a small protest against the return of government control. The Turkish controlled Jihadis made little progress. Mostly Kurdish fighters are preventing them from expanding from the area they are informally allowed to hold. The Turkish command has called up more irregular 'rebel' troops including Jihadis from Jaish al-Islam who had once controlled Ghouta in the east of Damascus. They had been transported to Idleb after their defeat. A video shows them on a bus traveling through Turkey to reinforce the Turkish attack. The Russian air force in Syria is preventing the use of the Turkish air-force in support of the Turkish attacks. Yesterday a Turkish F-16 entered Syrian air space but retreated when some Russian fighters appeared to hunt for it. [[Syria]
• Washington abandons its Kurdish proxies as Ankara and Damascus step in
  October 15, 2019 Aram Mirzaei THE SAKER BLOG A “Rojava” (Kurdish) fighter. The Kurds have been very smart in disseminating many pictures of their attractive women fighters. Even though I have my doubts over whether Washington will actually withdraw from Syria fully, it seems as if their Kurdish proxies in northern Syria have been left to defend for themselves against the ongoing Turkish offensive. I can’t say I’m surprised since Washington has done this to their Kurdish “partners” many times before, yet the Kurdish leadership across Iraq and Syria have failed to learn from history yet again. Once more, the Kurdish leadership have been proven to have put their faith in the wrong allies. When Moscow stepped into the Syrian war four years ago, Moscow gave the YPG the same offer that Assad had given before: reconcile with Damascus and join forces against terrorism. They refused. Moscow tried again by offering them to set up a consulate in Moscow, inviting them to peace talks in Astana and offering them safety from Turkish attacks, if they agreed to a deal with Damascus, one that respects Syria’s territorial integrity. Moscow even offered talks on a guarantee for future Kurdish participation in Syrian politics. They refused once again, with a spokesperson for the YPG explaining that Washington does not allow them to talk to Moscow. Such was the nature of the US-Kurdish “alliance”. [US Syria policy] [Kurds]
• Lessons from Ukraine: Shift Foreign Aid to U.S. Desperate Domestic Aid Programs
  By Dr. Barbara G. Ellis Global Research, October 15, 2019 Region: USA Theme: History, Media Disinformation [print] If anything, the Trump-Ukraine impeachment issue reveals to the American public that ever since 1961 when the Foreign Assistance Act was passed, perhaps nearly trillions of our tax dollars have been used by decades of administrations as a primary tool to dictate foreign policy to resource-rich, poverty-ridden countries. Or those considered geographically strategic. Humanitarian and developmental aid have always been a cynical cosmetic cover. The real objective—imposed by the State Department’s USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) program since 1961—has been to help U.S. corporations exploit and profit off those nations like European colonizers of old. A bonus is obtaining cheap labor, railroads, ports—and free protection by U.S. armed forces instead of paying for security as is done at home offices. To ensure cooperative obedience from recipient countries for all this, as Consortium News’s Joe Lauria noted, it’s been “routine” to conduct such policy “with bribes, threats, and blackmail.” USAID’s very name suggests an agency devoted solely to furnishing basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, schools, and healthcare to dozens of needy nations. So perhaps the current Ukrainian situation has shocked many Americans to learn that some $391 million ($115,000,000 in military aid) of their taxes for FY2019 were delayed to force that government to provide corruptive evidence against Trump presidential rival Joe Biden. Others aren’t surprised, however, nor do they ever expect such Mafia-like extortion to end any time soon. For instance, Congressional appropriations to DOS from the FY2020 budget rest on demands—major and minor— to several Balkan countries, Burma, Columbia, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Libya, Mexico, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Venezuela. [Aid weapon] [Softwar]
• Why Barack Obama Was Particularly Unsuited to Live up to the Ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize
  October 14, 2019 Nick Lehr interviews David Bromwich about his new book, which is unsparing in his assessment of Obama’s legacy. By Nick Lehr The Conversation A decade ago, in October 2009, Barack Obama learned that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was uncomfortable with the prize, saying that he didn’t feel that he deserved “to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.” Nonetheless, he added that he would “accept this award as a call to action,” noting “the growing threat posed by climate change” and the responsibility he had “for ending a war.” But by the time Obama arrived in Oslo to accept the prize two months later, he had approved a 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan, dashing any hopes that the anti-war candidate would reverse the militarism of the Bush administration. By the end of his second term, Guantanamo Bay – the closing of which he had made a cornerstone of his first presidential campaign – remained open. In his recently published book, “American Breakdown,” Yale Sterling Professor of English David Bromwich is unsparing in his assessment of Obama’s legacy. [Obama]
• The New York Times’ Preemptive Reporting on James Comey
  Ray McGovern: October 13, 2019 With the Justice Dept.’s coming inspector general report that could find serious wrongdoing by former FBI director James Comey and other senior officials the Times runs a glowing defense of Comey. By Ray McGovern Special to Consortium News “James Comey Would Like to Help: The former F.B.I. director wants an end to the Trump presidency. And yes, he knows you might think he caused it” is the headline atop an instructive article on Sunday by Matt Flegenheimer of The New York Times. His article makes clear the Times remains determined to support former FBI Director James Comey and sustain the discredited Russiagate narrative they share to the point of helping Comey and his partners avoid possible time in prison. In late August, the Department of Justice decided to let Comey off with a slap on the wrist for leaking to the Times, through an intermediary, highly sensitive information from his talks with President Donald Trump. At that juncture, it was already a no-brainer to warn that the victory lap Comey chose to run was clearly premature. Consequential leaks to the media by a former FBI director are serious enough. Now, however, we are talking about possible felonies. Comey is standing in such deep kimchi that he may drown — despite how tall he is, and despite preemptive puff pieces protesting a purity of the caliber of Caesar’s wife. This time, even with the Establishment media and Comey’s accomplices offering fulsome praise for him, there’s serious doubt whether he can wangle a Stay-Out-Of-Jail Card. Over the last year and a half, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been investigating how Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, and three deputy attorneys general (Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, and Dana Boente) thought they could get away with signing applications for surveillance of former Trump associate Carter Page without disclosing that, as McCabe later testified, the application was based largely on the shabby, unverified “Steele dossier” paid for by the Democrats. Providing incomplete, misleading information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a felony [Comey] [Russiagate]
• As Turkey Prepares to Slice Through Syria, the US has Cleared a New Breeding Ground for Isis
  by Patrick Cockburn “Never get into a well with an American rope” goes the saying spreading across the Middle East, as the US abandons its Kurdish allies in Syria to a Turkish invasion force. People in the region are traditionally cynical about the loyalty of great powers to their local friends, but even they are shocked by the speed and ruthlessness with which Donald Trump greenlit the Turkish attack. [Trump] [Syria] [Kurds] [Turkey] [Renege]
• Republicans Are Going to Remove Trump Soon
  by Rob Kall It will not be long before Trump is out of the White House and off the 2020 presidential ballot. In spite of what virtually all the mainstream media have been saying about impeachment going nowhere in the Senate, I am very confident that Trump will not be president and will not be on the ballot for the 2020 presidential election. Here’s why. At least five polls have shown a fast, big shift in support by the public towards supporting both an impeachment investigation and full impeachment. Worse, all the polls are showing Trump will lose the Whitehouse. The GOP does its own polling and I am sure it is seeing that not only Trump will lose, but if he is at the top of the ballot he will take down a huge percentage of the down ballot candidates on the ticket– US Senators and Congresspeople, state legislators, governors, even school board members and judges. If Trump stays at the top of the ticket, it will energize a massive swell of anti-Trump voters. [Trump] [Republicans] [US_election20]
• Zimbabwe Extreme levels of food insecurity triggered by a reduced 2019 harvest and high prices that have acutely impeded access to food
  previous five-year average (see Figure 1). Downscaled to the household level, cereal stocks have consequently been depleted earlier than normal, and incomes derived from agricultural activities have also declined. Zimbabwe is facing extreme levels of food insecurity and the situation is likely to deteriorate in the coming months. According to the latest Vulnerability Assessment Committee’s (VAC) evaluation, an estimated 4.7 million people are in need of food assistance between October and December 2019. This number is projected to rise to 5.5 million people during the January to March 2020 period, which would be the highest number on record. The severe food insecurity levels are mainly driven by a steep reduction in the 2019 domestic cereal harvest and significantly high food prices that have resulted in severe food access constraints. In addition, economic difficulties have hampered the country’s ability to access grains from the international market, with further adverse effects on domestic availabilities and prices. Sharp reduction in the 2019 cereal production due to poor weather conditions The country experienced adverse weather conditions during the 2018/19 cropping season (October-June), including extreme rainfall deficits and the impact of Cyclone Idai. The combined effect of these events caused a steep decline in the area harvested and lowered yields, resulting in a maize output of about 780 000 tonnes, more than 40 percent below the Highlights:•The number of food insecure people in Zimbabwe is projected to rise to 5.5 million peoplebetween January and March 2020, which would be the highest number on record.•The heightened food insecurity is mainly the result of a cereal production shortfall and extremely high food prices, while macroeconomic difficulties have exacerbated the situation. [Zimbabwe] [Food situation]
• In Defence of Realism
  Frank Lee Ratification of the Treaty of Westphalia 1648 One of the unstated and extant features of the post-modern age has been the demise of the Westphalian Treaty. This arrangement had in times past regulated the relationship and clashes of interest among the great powers. We should remind ourselves that the key precepts of the system were preceded by the carnage of the 30 years’ war of 1618-1648, and eventually agreed upon at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 – an arrangement which brought an end to the wars of the Reformation, agreed upon and binding on all parties. These precepts were: A recognition of the existence of sovereign states within their own clearly defined borders and sphere of influence. Each states sovereignty being recognised by others. Principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Toleration of religions between states (catholic and protestant). States might be monarchies or republics. Permanent state interests or raison d’etat was the organizing principle between different nations. War was not completely eliminated but it was mitigated by diplomacy and balance-of-power politics. The object of this balance-of-power was to prevent one state becoming so powerful that it could conquer others and destroy the world order. This system had collapsed throughout WW2 for obvious reasons. However, in general terms, this Realist geopolitical fait accompli became evident during the first Cold War being ushered in by Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech at Fulton Missouri in 1946. This de facto resuscitation during Cold War 1 gave rise to the standoff between the US/NATO and the USSR/Warsaw Pact. [Westphalian System] [NCW]
• One in four Americans ‘have never eaten a vegetable’
  A frozen food company surveyed Americans to find out their favourite vegetables — but discovered something shocking. Frank Chung@franks_chung news.com.auOctober 11, 201911:55am It ain’t easy eating green. A frozen food company surveyed Americans to find out their favourite and least favourite vegetables but discovered something shocking — a staggering one quarter of respondents had never even eaten one. The survey of 2000 adults, conducted by research firm OnePoll in May on behalf of Dr. Praeger’s, found that even among those who do eat them, only one third (36 per cent) of their meals actually included a vegetable. Seventy-two per cent of respondents said they wanted to eat more vegetables and 67 per cent said they felt guilty when they failed to eat vegies with their meal. So what’s holding them back? One in four Americans said both that vegetables were simply “too expensive” and that “they always rot before I get a chance to eat them”, 24 per cent said they didn’t have convenient access to buying them, 22 per cent said they took too much time to prepare and 19 per cent said they didn’t know how to cook them properly. “Most of us already know they should be eating more vegetables,” Dr. Praeger’s chief executive Larry Praeger said in a statement. “While more and more people are adopting plant-based diets, there’s still a long way to go toward reaching recommended consumption levels.” [Bizarre] [US] [Food] [Vegetables]
• Farmers kept refusing to let him have sex with their animals. So he sought revenge, authorities say.
  In recent months, members of New Jersey's equestrian community reported receiving disturbing emails from a self-described “animal lover.” They may be linked to the homemade tire-slashing devices that were found on local farms. By Antonia Noori Farzan October 11 at 6:47 AM For well over a year, two mysteries consumed a peaceful New Jersey community. There were the strange letters that showed up in the mailboxes of local barns, asking about the possibility of forming a “sexual relationship” with horses, cows or other large animals. And then, there were the homemade tire-slashing devices that farmers kept finding in their driveways or near the entrances to rural farm roads. Now, authorities in Sussex County, N.J., are saying that both were the work of the same man, Richard Decker, who lashed out by harassing people who refused to let him have sex with their farm animals. The 31-year-old was arrested Oct. 3, according to the New Jersey Herald. Prosecutors said at a Wednesday detention hearing that since August 2018, he had been sending letters and emails detailing his request to farms, stables and horse-boarding facilities throughout Sussex County, located in the northernmost point of the state. Unsurprisingly, many of the recipients were not thrilled to learn that an adult man was interested in having a sexual relationship with their livestock. [Bestiality] [Bizarre]
• Can the US Starve Hezbollah of Funds?
  By Elijah J. Magnier Global Research, October 08, 2019 Over the years, researchers have copied and parroted inaccurate declassified US intelligence reports on Hezbollah’s sources of income around the world. These documents claim Hezbollah lives off selling smuggled cigarettes and illegally copied CDs or on income generated by selling drugs in Latin America and around the world. The US also accuses Hezbollah of profiting from commercial or business projects abroad and of having bank accounts worldwide. These claims were pretexts for the US to impose sanctions on the group and confiscate foreign accounts that, in reality, did not belong to Hezbollah. When all attempts to curb Hezbollah’s finances failed, a few options remained to the US government. One was to prevent Khums (tithes, a religious obligation referring to one fifth, or 20%, of acquired wealth at the end of a fiscal year) paid by Shia immigrants from reaching Hezbollah. Another was to impose heavy sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah’s main ally and financial provider. And the last was to impose sanctions on Shia individuals and banks in Lebanon dealing with Hezbollah ministers or members of parliament or other wealthy Shia with close ties to the organisation. The objective was to push Shia society -which represents a third of the entire Lebanese population – to distance itself from Hezbollah. The US aims to break the policy of unity approved by the parliament, the council of ministers and the President, which calls for the solidarity of “the Army, the People and the Resistance” against any Israeli aggression on Lebanon. Can the US succeed in undermining the status of Hezbollah in Lebanese society, and in neutralising its finances? Lebanese Hezbollah is a quasi-state actor, with 73 members of parliament and 18 members of the council of ministers in its camp. Its legitimacy is ensured by the legislative and executive authorities, along with a significant part of the security forces and the majority of the Shia that represent a bit less than a third of the population. Both President Michel Aoun and the pro-US Prime Minister, the dual nationality holder (Lebanese and Saudi) Saad Hariri, reasserted very recently Lebanon’s right to retaliate against Israel for sending two suicide drones into a suburb of Beirut, violating the cessation of hostilities agreed within the UN resolution 1701 following the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006. [Hezbollah] [Lebanon]
• “Your Transaction Has Been Canceled”: Lessons in Lebanon’s Economy
  by Robert Fisk October 8, 2019 I sniffed something was wrong in Lebanon when the central bank governor Riad Salame announced to us all that there were plenty of dollars in the system. No shortages. No tightening of the purse strings. I still have the papers with his announcement on page one. Both before, during and after the 1975-1990 civil war, you’ve been able to pay for anything here in Lebanon in US dollars: dinner bills, rent, militias, guns (during the war), cars, airline tickets, groceries. The Lebanese pound fell amid the conflict but settled afterwards – courtesy of the country’s billionaire prime minister Rafiq Hariri – at 1,500 “lebs” to the dollar. [Lebanon]
• Iraq is in Revolt
  by Patrick Cockburn Iraq is poised at a turning point in its modern history as its people wait to see if the government curfew and close down of the internet will end the ongoing demonstrations. I am staying in the Baghdad Hotel, off Sadoon Street in central Baghdad, not far from Tahrir Square, the focus of most protest movements in Iraq. On Tuesday I was expecting to visit Iraqi army bases north of Baghdad to find out if Isis was still a threat and what the chances were of it making a comeback. I never went: on Tuesday afternoon at about 4pm I began to hear the “put put” of rifle fire in the distance which at first I disregarded, thinking there might be a wedding or some other celebration. But the sound got louder and soon there was the sharp crack of weapons being fired close by. In the lobby of my hotel, a man stopped me and said, “There are 10 dead already and the fighting is going to get worse.” It turned out that the government had managed to turn a small demonstration of 3,000 people in Tahrir Square, who had been protesting for three months against official corruption, a lack of jobs and poor services, into a major incident. The protesters had tried to cross the Jumhuriya Bridge which leads in the direction of the green zone, the site of the parliament, the prime minister’s office and other official buildings. The riot police, who have a bad reputation in Iraq, opened fire with rubber bullets, stun grenades, and, eventually, live rounds. Soon a video was flashing around social media of the protesters, mostly under 20, being attacked by the police and hosed with hot water. It was this incident which turned a small scale protest into mass demonstrations which may bring down the government of prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The riot police inadvertently detonated the explosive resentment felt by almost all Iraqis towards the kleptocratic state which has stolen as much as $450bn since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. [Protest] [Imperialism] [Corruption]
• Don't solve the crisis in Northeast Asia - transform it
  Posted : 2019-10-07 10:51 Updated : 2019-10-07 17:43 Do we really need to spend taxpayers' dollars to promote a new "cold war" in Asia? By Emanuel Pastreich The United States faces an unmitigated catastrophe in Northeast Asia today that is the result of a thoughtless trade war with China, companion tariff battles with Japan and South Korea, and an effort to promote China as a military threat that have undercut a broad range of cooperative efforts. We are watching in silence the metastasis of benign neglect into malignant neglect. Asians may be reticent to speak, but perceptions of Washington as a destructive force are spreading rapidly. [US Asia]
• What it Takes for U.S. Foreign Policy to Succeed in the Middle East
  Alice Wenner July 17, 2019 brett.jpg Former Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL Brett McGurk at the 2019 Oslo Forum in Norway. Photo: Oslo Forum Brett McGurk, the former Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, has had a busy summer. Between working on a new book contract, travelling to international security conferences on two continents and prepping for his upcoming class — “Presidential Decision-Making in Wartime” — which will be taught this fall at Stanford, the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation sat down with the Freeman Spogli Institute to reflect on what he’s learned about Middle Eastern politics this summer. [US Middle East Strategy] [Brett McGurk] [Obama] [Anti-Trump]
• Trumpenstein Must Be Destroyed!
  CJ Hopkins
  So here we go. Like a 1960s straight-to-drive-in Hammer Film Production, the 2020 campaign season has begun. Dig into your bucket of popcorn, pop the flap on your box of Good & Plenty, turn off your mind, and enjoy the show. From the looks of the trailer, it’s going to be a doozy. That’s right, folks, it’s the final installment of the popular Trumpenstein horror movie series, TRUMPENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED! It will be playing, more or less around the clock, on more or less every screen in existence, until November 3, 2020 … or until Trump takes that lonely walk across the White House lawn to the Marine One chopper and flies off to Mar-a-Lago in disgrace. Here’s a quick recap of the series so far, for those who may be joining us late. When we last saw Trumpenstein he was out on the balcony of the White House South Portico in his Brioni boxers, ripped to the gills on Diet Coke and bellowing like a bull elephant seal. Having narrowly survived the Resistance’s attempts to expose him as a Russian intelligence asset (and the reanimated corpse of Adolf Hitler), he was pounding his chest and hollering angry gibberish at the liberal media like the Humongous in the second Mad Max movie. The liberal mob was standing around with their torches and pitchforks in a state of shock. Doctor Mueller, the “monster hunter,” had let Trumpenstein slip through his fingers. The supposedly ironclad case against him had turned out to be a bunch of lies made up by the Intelligence Community, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media. Russiagate was officially dead. The President of the United States was not a Russian secret agent. No one was blackmailing anyone with a videotape of Romanian prostitutes peeing on a bed where Obama once slept. All that had happened was, millions of liberals had been subjected to the most elaborate psyop in the history of elaborate deep state psyops … which, ironically, had only further strengthened Trumpenstein, who was out there on the Portico balcony, shotgunning Diet Cokes with one hand and shaking his junk at the mob with the other. It wasn’t looking so good for “democracy.” Fortunately, even though Russiagate had blown up in the Resistance’s faces and Trumpenstein could no longer be painted as a traitorous Russian intelligence asset (or as Vladimir Putin’s homosexual lover), he was still the reanimated corpse of Hitler, so they went balls out on the fascism hysteria, which kept the Resistance alive through the summer. Which was all they really needed to do. Because these last three years were basically just a warm-up for the main event, which was always scheduled to begin this autumn. Russiagate, Hitlergate, and all the rest of it … it was all just a prelude to these impeachment hearings, and to the mass hysteria surrounding same, which the global capitalist ruling classes, the Intelligence Community, and the corporate media will be barraging us with until November 2020. The details don’t really matter that much. They were always going to impeach him for something, and they were always going to do it now, and throughout the 2020 campaign season. You do not honestly believe they are going to let him serve a second term, do you? He took them by surprise in 2016. That isn’t going to happen again. Seriously, take a moment and reflect on everything we’ve been subjected to since Hillary Clinton lost the election … the unmitigated insanity of it all.
• The Manufacturing Of Greta Thunberg – For Consent: The Political Economy Of The Non-Profit Industrial Complex [Act I]
  October 5, 2019 Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise. Cory Morningstar Volume I: In ACT I, I disclose that Greta Thunberg, the current child prodigy and face of the youth movement to combat climate change, serves as special youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, We Don’t Have Time. I then explore the ambitions behind the tech company We Don’t Have Time. [Climate change] [Manipulation]
• Death toll climbs, unrest spreads in Iraq in days of protests
  Ahmed Rasheed, Ali Hafthi BAGHDAD/HILLA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who defied a curfew in Baghdad on Thursday and exchanged fire with gunmen in southern cities, bringing to 27 the death toll from three days of anti-government protests. The protests spread to other cities in predominantly Shi’ite Muslim southern Iraq, where policemen said they increasingly encountered demonstrators carrying weapons. Two policemen and two protesters were killed late on Thursday in the city of Diwaniya some 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, according to police. In nearby Hilla one protester was bludgeoned to death, according to police and hospital sources. [Protests] [Casualties] [Double standards] [Media]
• October 4, 2019 A Year After Khashoggi’s Murder, Saudi Arabia is Lurching Toward Chaos
  by Robert Fisk The Saudis are taking a pasting. Video pictures from the Houthis of Saudi soldiers and their allies killed or surrendering inside the Saudi border town of Najran represent a devastating blow to a kingdom which is constantly threatening war against Iran. If it can’t protect its own armed forces inside Saudi territory, what is the point of wasting time menacing Iran with military action over the massive destruction of the oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais almost two weeks ago? This is the same Saudi Arabia which kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister Saad Hariri, bombed thousands of civilians in Yemen and tried to wipe out Qatar’s independence. Not to mention the little matter of chopping up Jamal Khashoggi almost one year ago in the country’s Istanbul consulate and then secretly burying bits of his body, for which Mohamed bin Salman – perhaps the worst crown prince in Saudi history – now takes national (but not personal) responsibility. The news that King Salman’s personal bodyguard has now been murdered in Jeddah – by a “friend”, we are told – only adds a hysterical note to the chaos within the country. Are the Americans now going to be asked to act as mercenaries for this bizarre kingdom? Clearly Saudi Arabia’s own armed forces, clotted with jet fighters, missiles, American – and British – assistants, are as hopeless as they always were. Remember how they couldn’t defend themselves from Saddam after his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which brought a pageant of international armies to “protect” them? The Iranians may have concluded that Donald Trump – in the immortal words of American columnist Nicholas Kristof – is “the mother of all bunny rabbits”, but it seems pretty clear that Trump’s decision to tear up US commitments under the Iranian nuclear deal is a colossal disaster.[Saudi Arabia] [US Middle East Strategy]
• Bolivia’s Remarkable Socialist Success Story
  President Evo Morales has transformed his country’s economy with an unapologetically left-wing agenda—but can it last? By Zeeshan Aleem October 1, 2019 Sahuiña is an emblem of how life has changed for millions of ordinary Bolivians over the past 13 years. Since taking office in 2006, Morales, a former coca grower and labor activist, has nationalized key industries and used aggressive social spending to reduce extreme poverty by more than half, build a nation with modern infrastructure, and lower Bolivia’s Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, by a stunning 19 percent. For much of Bolivia’s majority-indigenous population in particular, his tenure marks the first time that they’ve lived above poverty and benefited from their country’s tremendous natural resources. It’s now clear that a redistributionist agenda has not been ruinous to Bolivia’s economy. Far from it: During the Morales era, the economy has grown at twice the rate of the Latin American average, [Bolivia] [Socialism]
• Fearful of Lula’s Exoneration, His Once-Fanatical Prosecutors Request His Release From Prison. But Lula Refuses.
  Glenn Greenwald October 4 2019, 1:08 p.m. Secret Brazil Archive Part 10 Lula’s accusers are desperately trying to get him out of prison, while he insists on staying there until he’s fully exonerated. SP - Sao Paulo - 07/04/2018 - Lula attends Mass for Marisa - Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends this Saturday's Mass in honor of his wife, Marisa Leticia, who died in 2017. The event takes place in in front of the headquarters of the Sindicato dos Metalurgicos do ABC, in the city of Sao Bernardo in Sao Paulo, where Lula has taken refuge since Judge Sergio Moro ordered his arrest. Photo: Marcos Bizzotto / AGIF (via AP) Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attends a Mass in honor of his wife, Marisa Letícia, on April 7, 2018. Photo: Marcos Bizzotto/AGIF via AP The same Brazilian prosecutors who for years exhibited a single-minded fixation on jailing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are now seeking his release from prison, requesting that a court allow him to serve the remainder of his 11-year sentence for corruption at home. But Lula — who believes the request is motivated by fear that prosecutorial and judicial improprieties in his case, which were revealed by The Intercept, will lead to the nullification of his conviction — is opposing these efforts, insisting that he will not leave prison until he receives full exoneration. [Lula]
• Dr. Gottschalk’s “World War II Heat Bump”: Did the War Contribute to Air Pollution and Global Warming?
  The Geoengineering Stakes By Ian Baldwin Global Research, September 25, 2019 On January 19, 2017 a New York Times front-page story, “For Third Year, the Earth in 2016 Set Heat Record,” featured a complex NOAA chart showing multiple global temperature readings taken from 1880 to 2016. Studying the front-page chart, Harvard physicist Dr. Bernard Gottschalk noticed an intriguing anomaly, a brief but suggestive ‘bump’ in temperatures that coincided with WW2 (1939-1945). Relative to the big sweeping curve of climbing temperatures over the prior hundred years, the bump was not particularly noticeable, at least to the average person. But it was noticeable to Gottschalk’s expert eye. He decided to see whether or not the WW2 temperature bump was a robust feature of the NOAA data. He applied what statisticians call ‘curve fitting’ techniques and ‘parametric analysis’ to eliminate the scatter in the data and discern the forest from the trees. He submitted his results to Cornell University’s online archive [Type here] 2 of scientific pre-publication articles in March 2017. Here is what Gottschalk’s curve-fitted ‘bump’ looks like. Gottschalk showed the rise-and-fall behaviors common to eight of the NOAA data-set measurements, four land-based and four ocean-based, during WW2. Of the possible explanations for the WW2 heat bump, Gottschalk concluded the “simplest and most likely” one was that it was “a consequence of human activity.” [1] The following year, in 2018, a colleague showed Gottschalk’s online paper to geoscientist J Marvin Herndon. Herndon was immediately struck by the WW2 heat bump. If CO2 had caused the sudden rise in temperatures in 1939, their abrupt fall in late 1945 and 1946 could not have happened, because CO2 has a very long residence time in the atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere, CO2 and its presumed heat effects don’t suddenly disappear. Moreover, ice core data showed “no significant increase in CO2 during the war years 1939– 1945.” [2] What then could have ramped up the heat in 1939-40 and subsequently caused it to plummet in 1946, after the war had ended? Gottschalk’s WW2 temperature bump was a provocative anomaly in the 136-year global heat record, especially given the ‘consensus’ that anthropogenic CO2 is the primary cause of global warming. Herndon surmised that unlike greenhouse gases, air pollution particles have a short residence time in the lower atmosphere, or troposphere, time measured in days and weeks. If war-related particulate air pollution had caused the heat bump, then Earth’s surface temperatures could be expected to fall abruptly with the cessation of global hostilities. As in fact happened. Herndon decided “to consider the broader activities of WW2,” especially the role of particulate matter that might act to alter Earth’s delicate energy balance. Particulate air pollution is comprised of small, including microscopically small, solid or liquid particles light enough to float in air. Aerosols are particulates that are immersed in a gas or liquid and are produced by fires, fossil fuel use, agriculture, industry, mining, marine-aviation-and-vehicular transport (especially diesel), unpaved roads, construction and demolition, among other human activities, all producing dust (vehicular road traffic), fly ash (coal), soot (coal and diesel), smoke (forest fires), and fumes (mining and metallurgy). Relative to earlier years, WW2 produced significantly more amounts of particulate aerosols. “A great spike in wartime air pollution inevitably occurred from maximized industrial production,” Herndon wrote in his first of six papers on the role of particulate pollution in global warming, “from smoke and coal fly ash spewing out of smokestacks of industries, utilities, and locomotive engines, from greatly increased marine and aeronautical transport, and from extensive military activities that polluted the air with aircraft, ship, and vehicle exhaust and with the consequences of vast numbers of munition detonations.” [3] Early in the war the Allies, possessing superior airpower and led by Great Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF), developed the practice of ‘area bombing’—to an extent already carried out by Japan in China, and by Germany in Poland—that deliberately targeted civilian and non-military zones for wholesale demolition. [4] In early March 1945, to take but one notable example, [Type here] 4 hundreds of US B-29 Superfortress bombers dropped 1,700 tons of incendiary explosives over Tokyo, creating a firestorm that burned for days, incinerating 16 square miles and killing as many as 100,000 humans, all in one blow. The near-total instantaneous destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later ended the war in the Pacific. By war’s end in 1945, the Allied Forces had dropped over 2.7 million tons of bombs in Europe alone, creating maelstroms of smoke, debris, dust, and soot, with fires that could rage for days. [Climate change] [WWII]
• Afghanistan’s Low-turnout Election, Insecurity and Unsettled Prospects for Peace
  As Afghanistan waits for the next U.S. steps in the on-and-off diplomacy to end its long war, the fourth presidential election since 2001 brought perhaps 26 per cent of the electorate to the polls. The contest features an incumbent, President Ashraf Ghani, who is likely to fend off the dozen challengers seeking to replace him. Ghani’s strongest rival is his reluctant partner in a unity government since 2014, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Although both leading campaigns have already claimed more than 50 per cent of the vote and a first-round victory, official preliminary tallies are not expected until mid-October. [Afghanistan] [Election]
• Saudi Arabia - Another Defeat In Yemen - King's Bodyguard Killed
  Something curious is happening in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. For the second time in a month the Yemeni forces aligned with the Houthi surrounded and captured brigade size forces of Saudi soldiers and mercenaries. The Houthi media report that 2,400 fighters and several hundred vehicles were captured. The reports say that 500 Saudi soldiers were killed. This video shows the fighting. Another video shows several hundred prisoners being led away from the front. Here are additional pictures. Most of the prisoners seem to be poor men that the Saudis had hired. Only a few have complete uniforms. The events happened north of Kitaf near the Saudi Yemeni border and at least partially in the Najran region within Saudi Arabia. Here is a report of the previous operation. Overnight some ten short range ballistic missiles were launched from Yemen against the airport of Al Jadhea in Saudi Arabia. The personal bodyguard of the Saudi King Salman has been killed. The official claim is that it was during a personal dispute. Conveniently the shooter is also dead. But there is more behind this: Ali AlAhmed @AliAlAhmed_en - 2:47 UTC · Sep 29, 2019 I can now confirm the death of personal guard of #Saudi @KingSalman General Abdulaziz AlFaghem by gunfire. He is seen here with the king. He was dismissed from his post just days ago which makes his death extremely suspicious. Working on details. [Saudi Arabia] [MBS] [Yemen] [Assassination]
• The U.S.-Iran Off Ramp Goes Through Yemen
  September 30, 2019 by Kevin L. Schwartz If both the United States and Iran wish to escape the cycle of provocation and escalation in which they currently find themselves, they should begin by ending their involvement in the war they are already fighting in Yemen. Terminating involvement in what started as a local revolt and turned into a proxy war, in which each country sponsors an opposing belligerent, would demonstrate a mutual desire to back away from the prospect of direct armed confrontation. It is also the right thing to do, given the instability, destruction, and loss of human life the war has caused in the Middle East’s most fragile country. The United States and Iran can end support for their proxies in Yemen—Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, respectively—and afford themselves a face-saving off-ramp from direct confrontation while also disengaging from an arena of ongoing miscalculation, mistrust, and ill-informed escalations. There would be several benefits to doing so. [Iran confrontation] [False balance] [Yemen]
• Democrats Are Blowing A Huge Opportunity on Venezuela
  Sep 25, 2019 Days after the Democratic presidential candidates missed yet another opportunity to challenge President Donald Trump’s failed Venezuela policy on the debate stage on September 12, President Nicolás Maduro signed an important agreement with four opposition parties. These events offer insight into the differing perspectives on the economic, social and political crises in Venezuela—one perspective from the Washington political establishment, the other from Venezuelans. The Trump administration has applied brutal economic sanctions on Venezuela that functionally create a blockade. It has also threatened military force, has been credibly accused of sabotaging attempts at dialogue on two occasions (in the Dominican Republic in 2018 and in Barbados in 2019), attempted to impose a puppet president and activated a regional defense treaty that could serve as the first step to a military intervention. With a few exceptions, these efforts at regime change have been welcomed by Democrats. [Imperialism] [Venezuela] [Bipartisan] [Democratic Party]