Famous holistic author, naturopath and researcher Ann Boroch was found dead in Los Angeles on Thursday, as the community of physicians seeking to operate outside the confines of Big Pharma continues to be decimated. She was 51.

Ann Boroch, the author of Healing Multiple Sclerosis and The Candida Cure, was famous for curing herself of multiple sclerosis at the age of 24, and remaining symptom free for over two decades.

Boroch was also outspoken on many issues including the dangers of vaccination, and she was actively campaigning for people to take control of their lives and reject Big Pharma’s crippling products in favor of natural healing. She believed that education is the most important tool to heal your mind and body.

Her sudden and unexpected death has left her family and supporters in such a state of shock that her cousin Lisa had to confirm on Facebook that the news was unfortunately correct.

From her official Facebook page:

“It is with a heavy heart we share with you that Ann Boroch, passed away suddenly on Tuesday, August 1, 2017. Many of you are familiar with Ann’s story…..

“Throughout her early 20’s, she battled Multiple Sclerosis. When traditional medicine provided no relief, she created her own self-help program and discovered that yeast and fungal toxins are the main culprit in autoimmune disease. By diligently maintaining a strict candida diet, Ann was able to cure herself of MS. Grateful for the healing triumph, she realized that it had become her mission to educate the public.

“Ann went back to school and became a naturopath, certified clinical hypnotherapist and certified nutritional consultant. After that, Ann opened her own practice in Los Angeles, and for almost 20 years has been the guiding light to healing for thousands of people around the world.”

[Days After Holistic Author’s Death, Her Work Is Scrubbed From Internet]

A selection of Ann Boroch’s published works.

Ann Boroch Facebook Page

Over 60 holistic doctors and researchers have been found dead in the past 18 months, most of whom died in suspicious and unsolved circumstances.

Check out some of Ann Boroch’s TV appearances below. Her decades of study meant she had much wisdom to share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc-wDN1MUuo&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPiHuvuP7mo&feature=youtu.be

SOURCE 

Be Informed of the Dangers -Counseling THE WEALTHY MAN

A certain rich man, a Roman citizen and a Stoic, became greatly interested in Jesus' teaching, having been introduced by Angamon. After many intimate conferences this wealthy citizen asked Jesus what he would do with wealth if he had it, and Jesus answered him: "I would bestow material wealth for the enhancement of material life, even as I would minister knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual service for the enrichment of the intellectual life, the ennoblement of the social life, and the advancement of the spiritual life. I would administer material wealth as a wise and effective trustee of the resources of one generation for the benefit and ennoblement of the next and succeeding generations."

But the rich man was not fully satisfied with Jesus' answer. He made bold to ask again: "But what do you think a man in my position should do with his wealth? Should I keep it, or should I give it away?" And when Jesus perceived that he really desired to know more of the truth about his loyalty to God and his duty to men, he further answered: "My good friend, I discern that you are a sincere seeker after wisdom and an honest lover of truth; therefore am I minded to lay before you my view of the solution of your problems having to do with the responsibilities of wealth. I do this because you have asked for my counsel, and in giving you this advice, I am not concerned with the wealth of any other rich man; I am offering advice only to you and for your personal guidance. If you honestly desire to regard your wealth as a trust, if you really wish to become a wise and efficient steward of your accumulated wealth, then would I counsel you to make the following analysis of the sources of your riches: Ask yourself, and do your best to find the honest answer, whence came this wealth? And as a help in the study of the sources of your great fortune, I would suggest that you bear in mind the following ten different methods of amassing material wealth:

"1. Inherited wealth--riches derived from parents and other ancestors.

"2. Discovered wealth--riches derived from the uncultivated resources of mother earth.

"3. Trade wealth--riches obtained as a fair profit in the exchange and barter of material goods.

"4. Unfair wealth--riches derived from the unfair exploitation or the enslavement of one's fellows.

"5. Interest wealth--income derived from the fair and just earning possibilities of invested capital.

"6. Genius wealth--riches accruing from the rewards of the creative and inventive endowments of the human mind.

"7. Accidental wealth--riches derived from the generosity of one's fellows or taking origin in the circumstances of life.

"8. Stolen wealth--riches secured by unfairness, dishonesty, theft, or fraud.

"9. Trust funds--wealth lodged in your hands by your fellows for some specific use, now or in the future.

"10. Earned wealth--riches derived directly from your own personal labor, the fair and just reward of your own daily efforts of mind and body.



And so, my friend, if you would be a faithful and just steward of your large fortune, before God and in service to men, you must approximately divide your wealth into these ten grand divisions, and then proceed to administer each portion in accordance with the wise and honest interpretation of the laws of justice, equity, fairness, and true efficiency; albeit, the God of heaven would not condemn you if sometimes you erred, in doubtful situations, on the side of merciful and unselfish regard for the distress of the suffering victims of the unfortunate circumstances of mortal life. When in honest doubt about the equity and justice of material situations, let your decisions favor those who are in need, favor those who suffer the misfortune of undeserved hardships."


After discussing these matters for several hours and in response to the rich man's request for further and more detailed instruction, Jesus went on to amplify his advice, in substance saying: "While I offer further suggestions concerning your attitude toward wealth, I would admonish you to receive my counsel as given only to you and for your personal guidance. I speak only for myself and to you as an inquiring friend. I adjure you not to become a dictator as to how other rich men shall regard their wealth. I would advise you:

"1. As steward of inherited wealth you should consider its sources. You are under moral obligation to represent the past generation in the honest transmittal of legitimate wealth to succeeding generations after subtracting a fair toll for the benefit of the present generation. But you are not obligated to perpetuate any dishonesty or injustice involved in the unfair accumulation of wealth by your ancestors. Any portion of your inherited wealth which turns out to have been derived through fraud or unfairness, you may disburse in accordance with your convictions of justice, generosity, and restitution. The remainder of your legitimate inherited wealth you may use in equity and transmit in security as the trustee of one generation for another. Wise discrimination and sound judgment should dictate your decisions regarding the bequest of riches to your successors.

"2. Everyone who enjoys wealth as a result of discovery should remember that one individual can live on earth but a short season and should, therefore, make adequate provision for the sharing of these discoveries in helpful ways by the largest possible number of his fellow men. While the discoverer should not be denied all reward for efforts of discovery, neither should he selfishly presume to lay claim to all of the advantages and blessings to be derived from the uncovering of nature's hoarded resources.


"3. As long as men choose to conduct the world's business by trade and barter, they are entitled to a fair and legitimate profit. Every tradesman deserves wages for his services; the merchant is entitled to his hire. The fairness of trade and the honest treatment accorded one's fellows in the organized business of the world create many different sorts of profit wealth, and all these sources of wealth must be judged by the highest principles of justice, honesty, and fairness. The honest trader should not hesitate to take the same profit which he would gladly accord his fellow trader in a similar transaction. While this sort of wealth is not identical with individually earned income when business dealings are conducted on a large scale, at the same time, such honestly accumulated wealth endows its possessor with a considerable equity as regards a voice in its subsequent distribution.


"4. No mortal who knows God and seeks to do the divine will can stoop to engage in the oppressions of wealth. No noble man will strive to accumulate riches and amass wealth-power by the enslavement or unfair exploitation of his brothers in the flesh. Riches are a moral curse and a spiritual stigma when they are derived from the sweat of oppressed mortal man. All such wealth should be restored to those who have thus been robbed or to their children and their children's children. An enduring civilization cannot be built upon the practice of defrauding the laborer of his hire.


"5. Honest wealth is entitled to interest. As long as men borrow and lend, that which is fair interest may be collected provided the capital lent was legitimate wealth. First cleanse your capital before you lay claim to the interest. Do not become so small and grasping that you would stoop to the practice of usury. Never permit yourself to be so selfish as to employ money-power to gain unfair advantage over your struggling fellows. Yield not to the temptation to take usury from your brother in financial distress.


"6. If you chance to secure wealth by flights of genius, if your riches are derived from the rewards of inventive endowment, do not lay claim to an unfair portion of such rewards. The genius owes something to both his ancestors and his progeny; likewise is he under obligation to the race, nation, and circumstances of his inventive discoveries; he should also remember that it was as man among men that he labored and wrought out his inventions. It would be equally unjust to deprive the genius of all his increment of wealth. And it will ever be impossible for men to establish rules and regulations applicable equally to all these problems of the equitable distribution of wealth. You must first recognize man as your brother, and if you honestly desire to do by him as you would have him do by you, the commonplace dictates of justice, honesty, and fairness will guide you in the just and impartial settlement of every recurring problem of economic rewards and social justice.


"7. Except for the just and legitimate fees earned in administration, no man should lay personal claim to that wealth which time and chance may cause to fall into his hands. Accidental riches should be regarded somewhat in the light of a trust to be expended for the benefit of one's social or economic group. The possessors of such wealth should be accorded the major voice in the determination of the wise and effective distribution of such unearned resources. Civilized man will not always look upon all that he controls as his personal and private possession.


"8. If any portion of your fortune has been knowingly derived from fraud; if aught of your wealth has been accumulated by dishonest practices or unfair methods; if your riches are the product of unjust dealings with your fellows, make haste to restore all these ill-gotten gains to the rightful owners. Make full amends and thus cleanse your fortune of all dishonest riches.


"9. The trusteeship of the wealth of one person for the benefit of others is a solemn and sacred responsibility. Do not hazard or jeopardize such a trust. Take for yourself of any trust only that which all honest men would allow.


"10. That part of your fortune which represents the earnings of your own mental and physical efforts--if your work has been done in fairness and equity-- is truly your own. No man can gainsay your right to hold and use such wealth as you may see fit provided your exercise of this right does not work harm upon your fellows."


When Jesus had finished counseling him, this wealthy Roman arose from his couch and, in saying farewell for the night, delivered himself of this promise: "My good friend, I perceive you are a man of great wisdom and goodness, and tomorrow I will begin the administration of all my wealth in accordance with your counsel."
 

▼Source▼

UB

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death." It is altogether possible to fall victim to the peaceful deception of pleasant adjustment to the paths of sin and death".

This incredible story is from a flight attendant on Delta Flight 15:

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying over the North Atlantic.

All of a sudden the curtains parted and I was told to go to the cockpit, immediately, to see the captain.

As soon as I got there I noticed that the crew had that “All Business” look on their faces. The captain handed me a printed message. It was from Delta’s main office in Atlanta and simply read, “All airways over the Continental United States are closed to commercial air traffic. Land ASAP at the nearest airport. Advise your destination.”

No one said a word about what this could mean. We knew it was a serious situation and we needed to find terra firma quickly. The captain determined that the nearest airport was 400 miles behind us in Gander, Newfoundland.

He requested approval for a route change from the Canadian traffic controller and approval was granted immediately — no questions asked. We found out later, of course, why there was no hesitation in approving our request.

While the flight crew prepared the airplane for landing, another message arrived from Atlanta telling us about some terrorist activity in the New York area. A few minutes later word came in about the hijackings.

We decided to LIE to the passengers while we were still in the air. We told them the plane had a simple instrument problem and that we needed to land at the nearest airport in Gander, Newfoundland, to have it checked out.

We promised to give more information after landing in Gander. There was much grumbling among the passengers, but that’s nothing new! Forty minutes later, we landed in Gander. Local time at Gander was 12:30 PM …. that’s 11:00 AM EST.

There were already about 20 other airplanes on the ground from all over the world that had taken this detour on their way to the US.

After we parked on the ramp, the captain made the following announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, you must be wondering if all these airplanes around us have the same instrument problem as we have. The reality is that we are here for another reason.”

Then he went on to explain the little bit we knew about the situation in the US. There were loud gasps and stares of disbelief. The captain informed passengers that Ground control in Gander told us to stay put.

The Canadian Government was in charge of our situation and no one was allowed to get off the aircraft. No one on the ground was allowed to come near any of the air crafts. Only airport police would come around periodically, look us over and go on to the next airplane.

In the next hour or so more planes landed and Gander ended up with 53 airplanes from all over the world, 27 of which were US commercial jets.

Meanwhile, bits of news started to come in over the aircraft radio and for the first time we learned that airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York and into the Pentagon in DC.

People were trying to use their cell phones, but were unable to connect due to a different cell system in Canada . Some did get through, but were only able to get to the Canadian operator who would tell them that the lines to the U.S. were either blocked or jammed.

Sometime in the evening the news filtered to us that the World Trade Center buildings had collapsed and that a fourth hijacking had resulted in a crash. By now the passengers were emotionally and physically exhausted, not to mention frightened, but everyone stayed amazingly calm.

We had only to look out the window at the 52 other stranded aircraft to realize that we were not the only ones in this predicament.

We had been told earlier that they would be allowing people off the planes one plane at a time. At 6 PM, Gander airport told us that our turn to deplane would be 11 am the next morning.

Passengers were not happy, but they simply resigned themselves to this news without much noise and started to prepare themselves to spend the night on the airplane.

Gander had promised us medical attention, if needed, water, and lavatory servicing.

And they were true to their word.

Fortunately we had no medical situations to worry about. We did have a young lady who was 33 weeks into her pregnancy. We took REALLY good care of her. The night passed without incident despite the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements.

About 10:30 on the morning of the 12th a convoy of school buses showed up. We got off the plane and were taken to the terminal where we went through Immigration and Customs and then had to register with the Red Cross.

After that we (the crew) were separated from the passengers and were taken in vans to a small hotel.

We had no idea where our passengers were going. We learned from the Red Cross that the town of Gander has a population of 10,400 people and they had about 10,500 passengers to take care of from all the airplanes that were forced into Gander!

We were told to just relax at the hotel and we would be contacted when the US airports opened again, but not to expect that call for a while.

We found out the total scope of the terror back home only after getting to our hotel and turning on the TV, 24 hours after it all started.

Meanwhile, we had lots of time on our hands and found that the people of Gander were extremely friendly. They started calling us the “plane people.” We enjoyed their hospitality, explored the town of Gander and ended up having a pretty good time.

Two days later, we got that call and were taken back to the Gander airport. Back on the plane, we were reunited with the passengers and found out what they had been doing for the past two days.

What we found out was incredible…..

Gander and all the surrounding communities (within about a 75 Kilometer radius) had closed all high schools, meeting halls, lodges, and any other large gathering places. They converted all these facilities to mass lodging areas for all the stranded travelers.

Some had cots set up, some had mats with sleeping bags and pillows set up.

ALL the high school students were required to volunteer their time to take care of the “guests.”

Our 218 passengers ended up in a town called Lewisporte, about 45 kilometers from Gander where they were put up in a high school. If any women wanted to be in a women-only facility, that was arranged.

Families were kept together. All the elderly passengers were taken to private homes.

Remember that young pregnant lady? She was put up in a private home right across the street from a 24-hour Urgent Care facility. There was a dentist on call and both male and female nurses remained with the crowd for the duration.

Phone calls and e-mails to the U.S. and around the world were available to everyone once a day.

During the day, passengers were offered “Excursion” trips.

Some people went on boat cruises of the lakes and harbors. Some went for hikes in the local forests.

Local bakeries stayed open to make fresh bread for the guests.

Food was prepared by all the residents and brought to the schools. People were driven to restaurants of their choice and offered wonderful meals. Everyone was given tokens for local laundry mats to wash their clothes, since luggage was still on the aircraft.

In other words, every single need was met for those stranded travelers.

Passengers were crying while telling us these stories. Finally, when they were told that U.S. airports had reopened, they were delivered to the airport right on time and without a single passenger missing or late. The local Red Cross had all the information about the whereabouts of each and every passenger and knew which plane they needed to be on and when all the planes were leaving. They coordinated everything beautifully.

It was absolutely incredible.

When passengers came on board, it was like they had been on a cruise. Everyone knew each other by name. They were swapping stories of their stay, impressing each other with who had the better time.

Our flight back to Atlanta looked like a chartered party flight. The crew just stayed out of their way. It was mind-boggling.

Passengers had totally bonded and were calling each other by their first names, exchanging phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses.

And then a very unusual thing happened.

One of our passengers approached me and asked if he could make an announcement over the PA system. We never, ever allow that. But this time was different. I said “of course” and handed him the mike. He picked up the PA and reminded everyone about what they had just gone through in the last few days.

He reminded them of the hospitality they had received at the hands of total strangers.

He continued by saying that he would like to do something in return for the good folks of Lewisporte.

“He said he was going to set up a Trust Fund under the name of DELTA 15 (our flight number). The purpose of the trust fund is to provide college scholarships for the high school students of Lewisporte.

He asked for donations of any amount from his fellow travelers. When the paper with donations got back to us with the amounts, names, phone numbers and addresses, the total was for more than $14,000!

“The gentleman, a MD from Virginia , promised to match the donations and to start the administrative work on the scholarship. He also said that he would forward this proposal to Delta Corporate and ask them to donate as well.

As I write this account, the trust fund is at more than $1.5 million and has assisted 134 students in college education.

“I just wanted to share this story because we need good stories right now. It gives me a little bit of hope to know that some people in a faraway place were kind to some strangers who literally dropped in on them.

It reminds me how much good there is in the world.”

“In spite of all the rotten things we see going on in today’s world this story confirms that there are still a lot of good people in the world and when things get bad, they will come forward. Let’s not forget THIS fact.

This is one of those stories that needs to be shared. Please do so…

North Korea and the “Axis of Evil”

By S. Brian Willson

Global Research, July 06, 2017

Global Research 22 April 2004

By S. Brian Willson Global Research, July 06, 2017 Global Research 22 April 2004 Region: Asia Theme: Crimes against Humanity, US NATO War Agenda In-depth Report: NORTH KOREA

This 2004 article by award winning author, peace activist  and Vietnam war veteran Brian Willson brings to light the process of demonization directed against the people of North Korea. 

In the words of General Curtis Lemay who led the bombing raids during the Korean war:  “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.” 

According to Brian Willson:

“It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.”

Let us carefully analyze the current context of confrontation between Washington and Pyongyang. Since the end of the Korean War, the DPRK has repeatedly put forward a proposal involving  a peace treaty, the reunification of North and South Korea,  the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea, the end of the conduct, on a yearly basis of  a month-long U.S-South Korean war games.

This year’s US-South Korea war games in mid March involve a “hypothetical” US nuclear attack against the DPRK.  The war games constitute a deliberate act of provocation by the World’s foremost military power.

The media consensus –which nobody dare to challenge–  is that North Korea rather than the US  is a threat to global security. 

Where is the threat, North  Korea or the US?

A pre-emptive nuclear war against North Korea has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for over half a century.

Lets ask ourselves: Who is the Killer State? Who Possesses the WMDs? Who has the money and military hardware to pursue a global military agenda, in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East?

How could a small country of 25 million which lost 30 percent of its population as a result of US bombings in the 1950s constitute a threat to global security.

Why is this impoverished country –which has been the object of economic sanctions for the past sixty years– being threatened? 

Since the end of the Korean war the threat of a US led nuclear has been relentless, for more than half a century. 

Is Washington committed to world peace? 

Recent history suggests that countries which are opposed to US expansionism are routinely the object of acts of aggression.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, April 5, 2013, July 5, 2017

This 2004 article by award winning author, peace activist  and Vietnam war veteran Brian Willson brings to light the process of demonization directed against the people of North Korea.  In the words of General Curtis Lemay who led the bombing raids during the Korean war:  “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.”  According to Brian Willson: “It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.”

Let us carefully analyze the current context of confrontation between Washington and Pyongyang. Since the end of the Korean War, the DPRK has repeatedly put forward a proposal involving  a peace treaty, the reunification of North and South Korea,  the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea, the end of the conduct, on a yearly basis of  a month-long U.S-South Korean war games. This year’s US-South Korea war games in mid March involve a “hypothetical” US nuclear attack against the DPRK. 

The war games constitute a deliberate act of provocation by the World’s foremost military power. The media consensus –which nobody dare to challenge–  is that North Korea rather than the US  is a threat to global security.  Where is the threat, North  Korea or the US? A pre-emptive nuclear war against North Korea has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for over half a century. Lets ask ourselves: Who is the Killer State? Who Possesses the WMDs? Who has the money and military hardware to pursue a global military agenda, in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East? How could a small country of 25 million which lost 30 percent of its population as a result of US bombings in the 1950s constitute a threat to global security.

Why is this impoverished country –which has been the object of economic sanctions for the past sixty years– being threatened?  Since the end of the Korean war the threat of a US led nuclear has been relentless, for more than half a century.  Is Washington committed to world peace?  Recent history suggests that countries which are opposed to US expansionism are routinely the object of acts of aggression. Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, April 5, 2013, July 5, 2017

North Korea and the “Axis of Evil”

by S. Brian Willson

The demonization of North Korea by the United States government continues unrelentlessly. The wealthy oil and baseball man who claims to be president of the United States, used his first State of the Union address on January 29, 2002 to brand perennial enemy North Korea, along with former allies Iran and Iraq, as “the world’s most dangerous regimes” who now now form a threatening “axis of evil.” Unbeknown to the public, because it was intended to have remained a secret (whoops!), was the fact that this claimed president presented a “Nuclear Posture Review” report to Congress only three weeks earlier, on January 8, which ordered the Pentagon to prepare contingency plans for use of nuclear weapons. The first designated targets for nuclear attack were his newly identified members of the “axis of evil,” along with four other lucky nations as well – Syria, Libya, Russia, and China. That this is nothing short of a policy of ultimate terror remains unaddressed in the U.S. media.

That Koreans are deeply concerned is an understatement. However, they understand the context in which their “evil” is being portrayed, not an altogether new threat levelled at them. However, the dangerous escalation of policy rhetoric following the 9-11 tragedy now boldly warns the world of virtual total war. Vice-president Richard Cheney, another oil man from Texas, declares that the U.S. is now considering military actions against forty to fifty nations, and that the war “may never end” and “become a permanent part of the way we live.”1 The Pentagon has declared that the widening gap between the “Haves” and “Have-nots” poses a serious challenge to the U.S., requiring a doctrine of “full spectrum dominance.” Thus, the U.S. demands total capacity to conquer every place and its inhabitants in and around the Earth, from deep underground bunkers, including those in North Korea and Iraq, through land, sea, and air, to outer space. All options for achieving global and spatial hegemony are now on the table. Already, the U.S. military is deployed in 100 different countries.2 Total war, permanent war. Terror!

Addiction to use of terror by the United States is nothing new. The civilization was founded and has been sustained by use of terror as a primary policy. For example, in 1779, General George Washington ordered destruction of the “merciless Indian savages” of upstate New York, instructing his generals to “chastize” them with “terror.” The generals dutifully carried out these orders. In 1866, General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered “extermination” with vindictive earnestness of the Sioux. They were virtually exterminated. Secretary of War Elihu Root (1899-1904) under President’s McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, justified the ruthless U.S. military conduct in the Philippines that savagely killed a half-million citizens by citing “precedents of the highest authority:” Washington’s and Sherman’s earlier orders.3

War against nations around the world is not new either. The U.S., over its history, has militarily intervened over 400 times, covertly thousands of times, in over one hundred nations.4 Virtually all these interventions have been lawless. It has bombed at least eighteen nations since it dropped Atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. It has used chemical warfare against Southeast Asia, and has provided chemical warfare agents for use by other nations such as Iraq. It has used biological warfare against China, North Korea, and Cuba. The Koreans are quite aware of most of this history. Most U.S. Americans are not. But now the U.S. has declared a unilateral terrorist war on the whole world.5

Two of the interventions in the Nineteenth Century were inflicted against Korea, the first in 1866. The second, larger one, in 1871, witnessed the landing of over 700 marines and sailors on Kanghwa beach on the west side of Korea seeking to establish the first phases of colonization. Destroying several forts while inflicting over 600 casualties on the defending Korean natives, the U.S. withdrew realizing that in order to assure hegemonic success, a much larger, permanent military presence would be necessary. The North Korean people regularly remark about this U.S. invasion, even though most in South Korea do not know of it due to historic censorship. Most in the U.S. don’t know about it either, for similar reasons, even though in all of the Nineteenth Century, this was the largest U.S. military force to land on foreign soil outside of Mexico and Canada until the “Spanish American War” in 1898.

North Korea and the “Axis of Evil” by S. Brian Willson The demonization of North Korea by the United States government continues unrelentlessly. The wealthy oil and baseball man who claims to be president of the United States, used his first State of the Union address on January 29, 2002 to brand perennial enemy North Korea, along with former allies Iran and Iraq, as “the world’s most dangerous regimes” who now now form a threatening “axis of evil.” Unbeknown to the public, because it was intended to have remained a secret (whoops!), was the fact that this claimed president presented a “Nuclear Posture Review” report to Congress only three weeks earlier, on January 8, which ordered the

Pentagon to prepare contingency plans for use of nuclear weapons. The first designated targets for nuclear attack were his newly identified members of the “axis of evil,” along with four other lucky nations as well – Syria, Libya, Russia, and China. That this is nothing short of a policy of ultimate terror remains unaddressed in the U.S. media. That Koreans are deeply concerned is an understatement. However, they understand the context in which their “evil” is being portrayed, not an altogether new threat levelled at them.

However, the dangerous escalation of policy rhetoric following the 9-11 tragedy now boldly warns the world of virtual total war. Vice-president Richard Cheney, another oil man from Texas, declares that the U.S. is now considering military actions against forty to fifty nations, and that the war “may never end” and “become a permanent part of the way we live.”1 The Pentagon has declared that the widening gap between the “Haves” and “Have-nots” poses a serious challenge to the U.S., requiring a doctrine of “full spectrum dominance.”

Thus, the U.S. demands total capacity to conquer every place and its inhabitants in and around the Earth, from deep underground bunkers, including those in North Korea and Iraq, through land, sea, and air, to outer space. All options for achieving global and spatial hegemony are now on the table. Already, the U.S. military is deployed in 100 different countries. *2 Total war, permanent war. Terror! Addiction to use of terror by the United States is nothing new.

The civilization was founded and has been sustained by use of terror as a primary policy. For example, in 1779, General George Washington ordered destruction of the “merciless Indian savages” of upstate New York, instructing his generals to “chastize” them with “terror.” The generals dutifully carried out these orders. In 1866, General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered “extermination” with vindictive earnestness of the Sioux. They were virtually exterminated. Secretary of War Elihu Root (1899-1904) under President’s McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, justified the ruthless U.S. military conduct in the Philippines that savagely killed a half-million citizens by citing “precedents of the highest authority:” Washington’s and Sherman’s earlier orders.*3 War against nations around the world is not new either.

The U.S., over its history, has militarily intervened over 400 times, covertly thousands of times, in over one hundred nations.*4 Virtually all these interventions have been lawless. It has bombed at least eighteen nations since it dropped Atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. It has used chemical warfare against Southeast Asia, and has provided chemical warfare agents for use by other nations such as Iraq. It has used biological warfare against China, North Korea, and Cuba.

The Koreans are quite aware of most of this history. Most U.S. Americans are not. But now the U.S. has declared a unilateral terrorist war on the whole world.5 Two of the interventions in the Nineteenth Century were inflicted against Korea, the first in 1866. The second, larger one, in 1871, witnessed the landing of over 700 marines and sailors on Kanghwa beach on the west side of Korea seeking to establish the first phases of colonization. Destroying several forts while inflicting over 600 casualties on the defending Korean natives, the U.S. withdrew realizing that in order to assure hegemonic success, a much larger, permanent military presence would be necessary.

The North Korean people regularly remark about this U.S. invasion, even though most in South Korea do not know of it due to historic censorship. Most in the U.S. don’t know about it either, for similar reasons, even though in all of the Nineteenth Century, this was the largest U.S. military force to land on foreign soil outside of Mexico and Canada until the “Spanish American War” in 1898.

Pyongyang. Capital of the DPRK

I believe it important for U.S. Americans to place themselves in the position of people living in targeted countries. That North Korea, a nation of 24 million people, i.e., one-twentieth the population of the U.S., many of them poor, a land slightly larger in area than the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, continues to be one of the most demonized nations and least understood, totally perplexes the Korean people. It is worthwhile to seek an understanding of their perspective.

I recently visited that nation and talked with a number of her citizens. I travelled 900 ground miles through six of North Korea’s nine provinces, as well as spending time in Pyongyang, the capital, and several other cities. I talked with dozens of people from all walks of life. Though times have been hard for North Koreans, especially in the 1990s, they long ago proudly rebuilt all of their dozens of cities, thousands of villages, and hundreds of dykes and dams destroyed during the war.

U.S. interference into the sovereign life of Korea immediately upon the 1945 surrender of the hated Japanese, who had occupied the Korean Peninsula for forty years, is one of the major crimes of the Twentieth Century, from which the Korean people have never recovered. (SEE “United States Government War Crimes,” Spring 2002 – issue # 1 of Global Outlook). From a North Korean’s perspective they

(1) have vigorously opposed the unlawful and egregious division of their country from day one to the present,

(2) were blamed for starting the “Korean War” which in fact had been a struggle between a minority of wealthy Koreans supporting continued colonization in collaboration with the U.S. and those majority Koreans who opposed it,

(3) proudly and courageously held the U.S. and its “crony U.N. allies” to a stalemate during the “War,” and

(4) have been tragically and unfairly considered a hostile nation ever since. They have not forgotten the forty years of Japanese occupation that preceded the U.S. imposed division and subsequent occupation that continues in the South. They deeply yearn for reunification of their historically unified culture.

Pyongyang. Capital of the DPRK I believe it important for U.S. Americans to place themselves in the position of people living in targeted countries. That North Korea, a nation of 24 million people, i.e., one-twentieth the population of the U.S., many of them poor, a land slightly larger in area than the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, continues to be one of the most demonized nations and least understood, totally perplexes the Korean people. It is worthwhile to seek an understanding of their perspective.

I recently visited that nation and talked with a number of her citizens. I travelled 900 ground miles through six of North Korea’s nine provinces, as well as spending time in Pyongyang, the capital, and several other cities. I talked with dozens of people from all walks of life. Though times have been hard for North Koreans, especially in the 1990s, they long ago proudly rebuilt all of their dozens of cities, thousands of villages, and hundreds of dykes and dams destroyed during the war. U.S. interference into the sovereign life of Korea immediately upon the 1945 surrender of the hated Japanese, who had occupied the Korean Peninsula for forty years, is one of the major crimes of the Twentieth Century, from which the Korean people have never recovered. (SEE “United States Government War Crimes,” Spring 2002 – issue # 1 of Global Outlook).

From a North Korean’s perspective they

(1) have vigorously opposed the unlawful and egregious division of their country from day one to the present,

(2) were blamed for starting the “Korean War” which in fact had been a struggle between a minority of wealthy Koreans supporting continued colonization in collaboration with the U.S. and those majority Koreans who opposed it,

(3) proudly and courageously held the U.S. and its “crony U.N. allies” to a stalemate during the “War,” and

(4) have been tragically and unfairly considered a hostile nation ever since. They have not forgotten the forty years of Japanese occupation that preceded the U.S. imposed division and subsequent occupation that continues in the South. They deeply yearn for reunification of their historically unified culture.

Everyone I talked with, dozens and dozens of folks, lost one if not many more family members during the war, especially from the continuous bombing, much of it incendiary and napalm, deliberately dropped on virtually every space in the country. “Every means of communication, every installation, factory, city, and village” was ordered bombed by General MacArthur in the fall of 1950. It never stopped until the day of the armistice on July 27, 1953. The pained memories of people are still obvious, and their anger at “America” is often expressed, though they were very welcoming and gracious to me. Ten million Korean families remain permanently separated from each other due to the military patrolled and fenced dividing line spanning 150 miles across the entire Peninsula.

Let us make it very clear here for western readers. North Korea was virtually totally destroyed during the “Korean War.” U.S. General Douglas MacArthur’s architect for the criminal air campaign was Strategic Air Command head General Curtis LeMay who had proudly conducted the earlier March 10 – August 15, 1945 continuous incendiary bombings of Japan that had destroyed 63 major cities and murdered a million citizens. (The deadly Atomic bombings actually killed far fewer people.)

Eight years later, after destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, LeMay remarked, “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.”6 It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.

Virtually every person wanted to know what I thought of Bush’s recent accusation of North Korea as part of an “axis of evil.” Each of the three governments comprising Bush’s “axis of evil” of course immediately condemned the remarks, North Korea being no exception. I shared with them my own outrage and fears, and they seemed relieved to know that not all “Americans” are so cruel and bellicose. As with people in so many other nations with whom the U.S. has treated with hostility, they simply cannot understand why the U.S. is so obsessed with them.

Koreans were relieved to learn that a recent poll had indicated eighty percent of South Koreans were against the U.S. belligerant stance against their northern neighbors.

The North Korean government described Bush as a “typical rogue and a kingpin of terrorism” as he was visiting the South in February, only three weeks after presenting his threatening State of the Union address.7 It was also encouraging that the two Koreas resumed quiet diplomatic talks in March just as the U.S. and South Korea were once again conducting their regular, large-scale, joint military exercises so enraging to the North, and to an increasing number of people in the South among the growing reunification movement there. *8

In the English-language newspaper, The Pyongyang Times, (February 23, 2002) there were articles entitled “US Is Empire of the Devil,” Korea Will Never Be a Threat to the US,” and “Bush’s Remarks Stand Condemned.” Quite frankly, all three of these articles relate a truth about the U.S. that would draw a consensus from many quarters around the world.

While in country, together we listened to Bush’s March 14 Voice of America (VOA) radio chastizement of North Korea.

First, he stated that the North’s 200,000 prisoner population was proof of terrible repression. Though I had no way of knowing the number of prisoners in the North, any more than Bush did, I do know that the United States has 2 million prisoners which is similar in per-capita detention rate to that of North Korea if the 200,000 figure is accurate. Furthermore, the U.S. has a minimum of 3 million persons, mostly minority and poor, under state supervision of parole and probation. The U.S. sweeps its class and race problems into prison.

Second, Bush declared that half the population was considered unreliable and, as a result, received less monthly food rations. The Koreans are a proud people living in a Confucian tradition, having rebuilt their nation from virtual total destruction during the Korean war. I did not notice any obvious display of dissent. That some Koreans are desperate due to lack of food, water, and heat, especially in some rural areas, does not necessarily translate into dissent, though some are seeking relief by travel to neighboring countries.*9

Third, Bush claimed that Koreans who listen to foreign radio are targeted for execution. Together we regularly listened to U.S.VOA radio broadcasts and they freely discussed the content of the broadcasts without fear of reprisals.

Fourth, Bush condemned the DPRK for spending too much on its military, causing food shortages for the people. Note: Again it must be remembered that it was the U.S. that unilaterally divided Korea following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, and subsequently ruled with a military occupation government in the south, overseeing the elimination of virtually the entire popular movement of (majority) opposition to U.S. occupation, murdering hundreds of thousands of people.

The consequent Korean civil war that openly raged in 1948-1950 was completely ignored when the U.S. defined the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. The U.S. remains at war with the DPRK, never having signed a peace treaty with her. The war has left a deep scar in the Korean character with a memory that is regularly provoked by continued belligerance directed at the DPRK. The U.S. regularly holds joint military exercises with South Korean military forces aimed at the DPRK. The U.S. retains 37,000 military troops at 100 installations south of the 38th parallel.

The U.S. has its largest Asian bombing range where it practices bombs five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, despite opposition from many South Koreans. And now Bush has identified North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” targeted for nuclear attack. This is no remote idea to North Koreans. The U.S. possesses nuclear weapons on ships and planes in the Pacific region surrounding North Korea. Virtually every nation in this perilous position would be concerned about their defense.

It is worth noting that the United States is the leading military spender in the world resulting in substantial underfunding of its own indispensable social programs.

Fifth, Bush accused the DPRK of selling weapons to other nations. That is like the pot calling the kettle black. The U.S. is by far the largest manufacturer of conventional, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the world. It is also the largest seller of these weapons, and has used conventional (against dozens of nations), biological (Cuba, China, Korea, perhaps others), chemical (Southeast Asia), and nuclear (Japan, and threatened to use them on at least 20 other occasions) weapons. In addition it has armed other nations with these weapons of mass destruction, including Iraq, one of those countries now identified as part of the “axis of evil.” In the year 2000, international arms sales were nearly $37 billion, with the U.S. being directly responsible for just over half of those sales. South Korea was the third largest buyer of weapons from the United States with $3.2 worth of military hardware.10  And in January 2002, South Korea was seriously contemplating purchasing an additional $3.2 billion worth of 40 F-X fighter jets from U.S. arms giant Boeing.

At the conclusion of this VOA radio broadcast, Koreans and I looked at each other in disbelief. But we also knew that we were in solidarity with each other as part of the human family. When I said goodbye to my new friends we embraced knowing that we live in a single world made up of a rich diversity of ideas and species. We know that we are going to live or die together, and hope that the arrogant and dangerous rhetoric and militarism of the United States will soon end so we can all live in peace. However, for that to happen, there will need to be a dramatic awakening among the people and a corresponding expression of massive nonviolent opposition that will make such threatening behavior impossible to carry out.

Notes

1. Bob Woodward, “CIA Told To Do ‘Whatever Necessary’ to Kill Bin Laden,” The Washington Post, October 21, 2001.

2. Bradley Graham, “Pentagon Plans New Command For U.S. Four Star Officer, Would Over See Homeland Defense,” The Washington Post, January 26, 2002.

3. Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building. New York: Schocken Books, 1990, p. 329.

4. B.M. Blechman and S.S. Kaplan, Force Without War: U.S. Armed Forces As A Political Instrument. Wash., D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1978, Appendix B; Congressional Research Service (Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division), Instances of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-1993. Wash., D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1993; William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Intervention Since World War II. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995; John Stockwell, The Praetorian Guard.Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1991.

5. William Blum, Rogue State. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000; Stephan Endicott and Edward Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets From the Early Cold War and Korea. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998.

6. Richard Rhodes, “The General and World War III,” The New Yorker, June 19, 1995, p. 53.

7.”North Korea Calls Bush ‘Kingpin of Terrorism,” Reuters wire story, February 23, 2002.

8.”South Korea Envoy to Travel North,” BBC News Online: World: Asia-Pacific, March 25, 2002. Retrieved March 26, 2002, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1891000/1891457.stm

9. Ji-Yeon Yuh, “North Korean Enemy Should Be Made Friend,” The Baltimore Sun, February 27, 2002.

10. Thom Shanker, “Global Arms Sales Rise Again, and the U.S. Leads the Pack, ” The New York Times, August 20, 2001.

S. Brian Willlson is a Vietnam veteran, long-time peace activist, and writer. He has visited a number of countries studying the impacts of U.S. policy. His essays are posted on his website, brianwillson.com. He published a small autobiography, On Third World Legs (Charles Kerr, 1992), which describes his ordeal of having been intentionally run over by a U.S. Government munitions train accelerating to over three times the 5 mph legal speed limit during a peaceful protest in California in 1987. He now walks on two prostheses after losing each leg below the knee. Brian Willson possesses two honorary Ph.D.s and a Juris Doctor degree.

Global Research Canada

Next one for us won't be until April 2024!

For more information on this Event click the image below? 

Canada: Fascist Shift, a New-old Right and Neo-liberalism

In The End of America, Naomi Wolf shares concerns about the increasingly authoritarian nature of government in the United States; she calls to action on this matter reflecting on the nature of fascism as a process (a shift) rather than something that takes place overnight. Fascism came to power in both, Italy and Germany, legally, incrementally and in the mist of functioning democracies, she said. It is important for people to know this because many believe that fascism came to power violently and overnight. Knowing about this process can help people identify and hopefully prevent fascist shifts.  

Canadians understand themselves as distinct from Americans and politicians seem to agree and accept that having a distinct identity favors pride in a vision of Canada as a caring society. With the arrival of neo-liberalism and the signing of free trade agreements Canada becomes more like the United States. The Canadian U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) forces integration with the U.S. and with the signing of NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement) continental integration starts. Free trade agreements are not about trade but about corporate money flow and increased power in decision making. Adopting these agreements was like adopting a new Economic Constitution for Canada, and one that greatly limits what the Canadian state can and cannot do. Sadly, McBride and Shields point,

“the Canadian state has thus been actively complicit in its own dismantling, a process that can best be explained by the dominance of capital in the political process of the country” (8).

Thus, when the Harper government came to power (2006-2015) important neo-liberal work had already been completed. Harper expanded and cemented ideological efforts changing Canada’s culture, with the support of think tanks, into a meaner, more militaristic and secretive society while furthering the agenda of corporations and the rich to the detriment of an increasing number of Canadians. Harper’s way, in keeping with “Reform,” brought a hate-based culture that shocked and scared many of us; and yet, it was a culture in sync with the purpose of free trade and neo-liberalism. Mc Bride and Shields define it as a transition in preparation for things to come.

“Neo-liberalism provides the perfect ideological vehicle for a transition from a society based on democratic political decision-making to one where many issues are outside politics and are settled by the undemocratic rule of the marketplace.” (8) That is, corporate rule.

Naturally, if asked, most Canadians would disagree with moving towards a hateful, non-egalitarian Canada, where growing numbers of part-time, minimum wage jobs and fewer benefits and programs become the norm. And yet here we are, even after the Harper government, continuing to ignore evidence, science and truth, in crucial areas like the environment, in favor of the hocus pocus of privately funded “think tanks.” As governments change but free trade and war remain unquestioned, we need to ask who, then, keeps taking us back to the 19th century. In mid-September 2006 members of the Canadian business elite organized a three-day meeting at the Banff Springs Hotel including top-level American, Canadian and Mexican government officials and many senior corporate heads. The clandestine meeting organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canada West Foundation was discovered; not seeing information about it anywhere, Mel Hurtig sent information to the media including the meeting agenda. Still, nothing appeared on the Globe and Mail, the National Post, CBC, CTV or Global (6).

Local rumors about the meeting, however, prompted a few media enquires. Linda McQuaig explains that

“John Larson, who acted as a spokesperson for the gathering, which called itself the North American Forum, refused to confirm who attended or to release details of what was discussed. ‘The participants joined the conference essentially knowing that it would be a private function,’ he said.” The meeting, says McQuaig, “is the ultimate expression of the treachery of our business and political elite…the essence of what was going on in Banff was that key members of our elite were meeting with business and political leaders from the United States to discuss ways to further a far-reaching agenda that is at odds with the Canadian public interest.” (9)

There are elements of a fascist shift in the coming to power of neo-liberalism in Canada; neo-liberal policies increase inequality and unfairness, and attack democratic processes that could eventually generate discontent and favor collective action. In many third world countries this elitist corporate agenda could not be imposed by regular governments, dictatorships were required. In Chile, the Pinochet dictatorship turned to neo-liberalism with support and guidance from the “Chicago boys” (the Chicago School of neo-liberal thinking). Chile was the first and it was used later as example to impose neo-liberalism everywhere, privatizing state enterprises and even pensions.

Some say the ideological impact of the Mulroney government made it impossible for liberal governments after him to challenge neo-liberalism. Liberals did not try to but expanded the neo-liberal grip by signing NAFTA, cutting benefits and programs even farther and faster than conservatives; and, leading us to conclude that there is collusion among political parties. Therefore, focusing on “Harper the mean,” like Chileans focusing on “Pinochet the mean” (more likely given his Darth Vader’s cape and shades), mainly distorts truth helping to hide the workings of a corporate elite managing from behind our political parties, and ensuring their “peculiar” vision of globalization, one that takes us back to the Age of Capital, is implemented. In this way neo-liberalism creates a neo-liberal world.

In Canada, and during the last half of the 20th century, dissent has been managed generally through ideology, but this was not always this way, there were struggles and confrontations before, and, more of this could take place in the future. The Chilean motto of “by reason or by force” favors ideological dominance too, when feasible, but force is there to be used when enough concern encourages people to take to the streets to actively organize to protect their rights. In Canada, today, we seem mostly unconcerned about neo-liberalism returning us to our oppressive past; we march behind the Pied Piper decidedly focused on unlimited consumerism and generally oblivious to increasing personal and national debt. Our money elite, however, has enough experience to know that one day this could change and those captured by the Piper could wake up; then, “reason” may no longer work.  Our elite prepares for such a time, ensuring key elements are in place if needed. This is how fascist shifts connect with oppressive ideologies like neo-liberalism; they can be useful when force, rather than reason, becomes the answer.

What about fascist shifts

A fascist shift implies a militaristic system opposed to democracy and seeking to crush it. It also implies top-down terror to which most people (the non-targeted) somehow adapt through complicity, so while a minority of citizens is terrorized and persecuted a majority lives fairly “normal” lives by stifling dissent and going along “quietly” with the state’s act of violent repression. The cases of Italy and Germany show how legislation, cultural pressure, and baseless imprisonment and torture were used to progressively consolidate fascist power. In both cases, state terror was used to subordinate and control individuals and in both cases dominant ideology was radically antidemocratic and used the law aggressively to pervert and subvert it (1).

Fascist shifts include ten crucial steps. All dictators

(a) invoke an external and internal threat,

(b) create a secret prison system,

(c) develop a paramilitary force,

(d) use surveillance on ordinary citizens,

(e) arbitrarily detain and release them,

(f) infiltrate/harass citizens’ groups,

(g) target writers, entertainers and other key individuals for dissenting,

(h) intimidate the press,

(i) recast dissent as treason and criticism as espionage, and, eventually,

(j) subvert the rule of law.

These same ten steps shut down democracies during the 20th century all over the world, not just in Italy and Germany, in Indonesia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Paraguay, Ecuador, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina; people paid a high price. Those of us who lived though one understand Wolf´s argument as basically correct.

Wolf sounds the alarm about changes taking place in the U.S. since September 11, 2001, publishing her book during George W. Bush time. She is not arguing that the U.S. is a fascist state; she is identifying “historical echoes” that help citizens know how episodes today connect with the past and fascism. The “mob of young men dressed in identical shirts, shouting at poll workers outside a voting center in Florida during the 2000,” or “Bush supporters in the South holding organized public events to burn CDs by the Dixie Chicks,” echo Nazi events. When in 2002 the Bush administration created the “Department of Homeland Security,” calling the U.S. homeland was peculiar, homeland is how Nazi propagandists in 1930 referred to Germany. The USA PATRIOT Act, requiring doctors to give up confidential records echoes Nazi Germany doctors having to disclose citizen medical records to the state.

Enemies are treated harshly after September 11. President Bush “argued that the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay could be treated harshly because they were not covered by the Geneva Conventions.” The Nazis argued their invading troops in Russia should treat the enemy with marked brutally because they were not covered by the Hague Conventions. American perceptions also changed. Condoleezza Rice (National Security Advisor) and Vice President Cheney coined a new phrase: America was on a “war footing.” Nazi leaders after the Reichstag’s fire said Germany was on a war footing too (a kriegsfausz). The White House under the Bush administration embedded reporters with US military units in Iraq. Nazi propaganda officials did the same so “Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was embedded with Nazi troops in Poland” and “U.S. correspondent William Shirer drove with German units into occupied France.”

The new-old right in Canada

Changes in our neighbor affect us more after free-trade. Concerns about a “new” political culture emerged with the Reform Party -vocal, militant, aggressive and more in sync with the U.S. Republicans. But our political culture started changing during the Mulroney government (1984-1993) as we moved closer to U.S. Republicans under Reagan and because of CUSFTA. Mulroney knew of the impact the agreement will have in moving our parties to the right. He facilitated neo-liberal ideological takeover by cutting funding to three of the neutral, academic research-based organizations created before him –The Economic Council of Canada (1963-1992), The Science Council of Canada (1966-1992) and The Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security (1984-1992). He also transformed the Foreign Investment Review Agency into “Investment Canada” to fit his purposes (3).

The next conservative government followed suit and cut funding to the surviving ones –the Law Reform Commission of Canada (1970-2006), the Canadian Policy Research Networks (1994-2009), the National Welfare Council (1968-2012) and the North-South Institute (1976-2014).  The Institute for Research on Public Policy (1972) survived because it had its own endowment. Mulroney and Harper were strategic, eliminated unbiased publicly funded research advising policy to make room for the biased recommendations of privately funded neo-liberal think tanks, like C.D. Howe Institute or the Fraser Institute (3).

Liberal governments after Mulroney (Chretien, Martin) did not challenged this; over the years these neo-liberal think tanks earned a legitimacy they did not deserve, becoming government preferred source of information and advice (3).  They are obviously ideological. I attended a full day event organized by the Fraser Institute at the Convention Centre in Edmonton -free of charge, lunch included. It discussed immigration and other issues. I left after the morning section afraid of the ideology portrayed. It was “survival of the fittest,” which meant abandoning people at the mercy of the markets. Individuals needed to manage on their own and within their families (if they had one). Decentralization of the state and privatization of public corporations were mantras. The welfare state and the unions were the enemy. Immigration perspectives were market-based. It was a pervasive ideology in the West.

It turned out it was quite common in other places too. Mulroney did not believe in free trade but changed his views in 1984 adopting neo-liberalism and opening the country to foreign investment. He was following The C.D. Howe Institute, which adopted neo-liberalism and free trade in the early 1980s. Free Trade was promoted by Mulroney with a wink and a smile; it was bad medicine taken with sugar. When Mulroney was defeated and Progressive Conservatives were decimated, there was something already cooking in the West. Harper will become leader of the Canadian Alliance and eventually merge it with the Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative Party of Canada (8).

Harper worked with Preston Manning and Tom Flanagan –the guru of the “Calgary School” at the department of political-science of the U of C. Flanagan was an American recruited by Burke Inlow –also American, head of the U of C political-science department (by invitation and directly after an assignment for the Pentagon). Flanagan and Harper understood neo-liberalism as favoring the primacy of “economic freedom” over everything else. Dismantling the welfare state was the goal, but not ending welfare to corporations. A strong state, not a weak one, is a neo-liberal requirement because the state needs power to create and enforce markets, and to prop them up when they fail -like they did in the 2007-2008 financial melt-down (3).  Neo-liberalism changed politics in England and the U.S. facilitating the ascendance of Thatcher and Regan. It will do the same for Harper. In Canada it was delayed by the re-election of Pierre Trudeau until 1984.

Harper came to power in a convoluted way that Flanagan describes in his 2007 book (Harper’s Team) -a book Harper did not like, not because Flanagan did not praise him enough; Harper may prefer to keep details secret, concerned information can be used against him. Much of the political culture had already changed by then and Harper knew it. He explained it to Civitas in 2003 this way:

“socialists and liberals began to stand for balanced budgeting, the superiority of the markets, welfare reversal, free trade and some privatization.”

Harper used the ideological work of neo-liberal think tanks to further change and to support his policies (3).

Harper favored incremental change because it worked and favored less resistance. To achieve majority Harper was in constant political campaign, focusing only on voters he could win. He played on the perception of “western alienation” while building on regional discontent. He targeted minorities because of their conservative views of the family. He controlled and suppressed information, manipulated the media (when not with him), and trained party representatives on what to say, not to say and how to say it. He spent lots of money on negative ads attacking the opposition. He muzzled bureaucracy and scientists working for government. He worked at keeping his party, Cabinet, and any dissent within the ranks under control. And he developed a unified (closed) Prime Minister Office (PMO). Harper authoritarian, controlling, and ruthless style was his Achilles heel (1).

Fascist shifts and neo-liberalism

Canada does not have secret prisons or a paramilitary force; and yet the Harper government used a number of strategies included in fascist shifts. Harper government favored undemocratic strategies and an authoritarian style, internal and external threats, the surveillance of ordinary citizens and harassment of specific citizen groups and key individuals (David Suzuki stepped down from the Board of Directors of the Suzuki Foundation in 2012 to avoid government harassment). The press was restricted, public servants were mistreated and criticism was treated as espionage and dissent as treason.

Dictators and undemocratic leaders: authoritarian styles in fascist shifts

Harper ran one of the most undemocratic regimes in Canadian history, undermining and abusing democratic institutions and procedures. He is the only Canadian prime minister to be found in contempt of Parliament after his government refused to release costs on certain programs to opposition MPs. Harper pushed Bill C-51 which raises concerns about the criminalization of free speech, allows government agencies to share personal information and gives intelligence agencies freer range to spy anybody. These agencies (Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, the Royal Canadian Mounted police, RCMP, the Communications Security Establishment Canada CSEC) can hold people for up to a week in “preventative detention.” For Christian Nadeau (political philosopher, Université de Montréal) the Harper government is the worse we had ever had:

“We have a weaker democracy…a weaker social justice system…compromised the environment for many decades to come…” (2).

Harper is an “arrogant autocrat” said Hurtig, while pointing to the need of reforming our electoral system to ensure proportional representation. Thus, in the future we do not have a Harper repeat of majority power in Parliament with only 39.6 percent of the votes, that proceeds to

“systematically dismantle our democracy, crippling or eliminating many of the institutions…developed over decades to deliver programs…and to allow for a democratic exchange of information and ideas between the electorate and the elected” (5).

Protesters outside the Central East Detention Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, 2015. Photo by Jeff Bierke via VICE

The Harper government took democracy to its limit and proved that much damage can be caused. Harper prorogued Parliament four times, shutting it down for a total of 181 days. He used omnibus bills showing his government cared little about democratic procedures, discussion or dialogue. Starting in 2010 Harper tabled a bill of 883 pages including changes to Canada Post and environmental assessments and, as he often did, put a cap limiting discussion time. Harper followed with 10 more such bills, all pushed through in Parliament without much discussion. Bill C-38 gutted Canada’s environmental laws, cut $36-billion from health care funding, weakened Canada’s food inspectors (cutting jobs), and made it harder to qualify for EI benefits. Harper’s Fair Elections Act overhauled Canada’s election laws in dealing with electoral fraud, weakened the power of Elections Canada, muzzled the chief electoral officer from communicating with the public and MPs about investigations, cutting off the investigations arm (2).

Internal and external threats

Much evidence suggests that deficits and rising public debt have little to do with excessive government expenditures and much to do with forgone tax revenues, high interest rates, and recessions largely the product of neo-liberal economic policies (8).  A number of writers have argued that loopholes, tax breaks and tax expenditures lead to a shortfall of revenues since 1975 –and, even though not all these tax breaks benefitted corporations or the wealthy most did (8).  Despite this deficits are used to cut benefits and programs dismantling our welfare state.

Terrorism, an external threat, encouraged the Harper and Mulroney governments towards militarism. Harper put greater effort in promoting patriotic militarism as key to our political culture. For Lawrence Martin “Harper´s far-more hawkish stance benefited greatly from the events of 9/11.”  In 2006, the Harper conservatives responded with Cold War style rhetoric, echoing the U.S., adopting a “war on terror” discourse and committing Canada enthusiastically to military action. Harper visited the troops in Afghanistan and had Governor General Michaëlle Jean visit too and sport a military uniform at the November 11 ceremonies in Ottawa. Still, Canadians remained opposed to the Afghan mission. Canada’s participation in the Libyan expedition was expanded at Harper’s request; his persistence, however, did not move Canadians towards militarism (1).

A Canadian child prisoner in Guantanamo Bay

The Harper government ignored Omar Khadr, taken prisoner to Guantanamo Bay were he stayed for 10 years before being brought to Canada by insistence of the Clinton administration. Khadr was taken in Afghanistan in 2002 at the age of 15; his family returned home and his father, affiliated with an extreme group, indoctrinated him to fight. The 15 year old became involved and was injured when captured. He confessed to throwing a grenade and pleaded guilty, not remembering what happened but following his lawyer advice and hoping to return to Canada. Khadr was finally repatriated in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence; he was released on bail in May 2015 but only after the Alberta Court of Appeal refused to block his release as requested by the Harper government (6).

Freedom of Speech, Citizen´s surveillance and the harassment of organizations in Canada

The Harper government limited freedom of speech by not allowing scientists working for government to share information about their research with the press or in international conferences. The government also used propaganda (paid from the public purse by taxpayer’s money) estimated in $500 million dollars (between 2009-2015) by the Toronto Start. (2)  Citizens’ surveillance and spying, acceptable under Harper, was used on environmental, aboriginal activists and on groups like Idle No More, Leadnow, Forest Ethics Advocacy, Council of Canadians, Eco-Society, Dogwood Initiative and the Sierra Club of BC. This was discovered by Jeffrey Monaghan, a criminologist at Carleton University, when he obtained documents from CSIS and the RCMP and found they have been spying particularly on those opposing pipelines or participating in the National Energy Board (NEB) hearings. Harassing groups through auditing was acceptable too; the groups selected were those working with the environment or civil society, and charities working in areas considered problematic (environment, anti-poverty, foreign aid and human rights). Among the audited was Amnesty International, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the United Church of Canada, but not one conservative think tank or group (2).

Restricting the press

“The Harper Conservatives came to power with a visceral dislike of the entire fourth estate at the national level, believing it represents a central-Canadian bias as well as a liberal one. As a result, the Harper government has worked hard to control and limit its interactions with the national media.”

Harper refused to participate in traditional media scrums after parliamentary debates using instead scripted press conferences. Later, he insisted in a lineup of questioners provided to his press secretary in advance and those deemed “hostile” to him or his government were often not allowed to place a question. Soon the media fell into line; only a handful of print-media columnists dared to criticize or even report on this state of affairs. As time went on the PMO prevented any media access at all. Techniques helpful in portraying the prime minister in a positive light, like prepared texts and photos, were adopted (1).

Intimidation of public servants

The Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health declared:

“there was a mental health crisis in the federal public service…According to several observers the primary culprit was the climate of fear that the government was creating further damaging the bureaucracy´s already strained relationship with the Harper government.” (1)

Government behavior intimidated bureaucracy, the government dismissed public servants who did not agree with its agenda, often vilifying them before and after their dismissal and painting them as both incompetent and unstable. Jean-Pierre Kingsley (Elections Canada), and Robert Marleau (Information Commission) resigned. Linda Keen (chair of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission), Alan Leadbeater (Assistant Information Commission), Adrian Measner (president, Canadian Wheat Board), Dr. Arthur Carter (National Science Adviser), Kevin Page (Parliament Budget Officer), Paul Kennedy (chair, RCMP Complaints Commission), Peter Tinsley (chair, Military Police Complaints Commission), Pat Stogran (ombudsman, Veteran Affairs), Mary Cheliak (director, RCMP Firearms Registry) were all dismissed (1).

“Given its zero tolerance for dissent and its single-minded pursuit of critics, it is hardly surprising that the Harper government includes opposition parties on its enemies list. What is surprising is the degree of success the Conservatives have had in convincing Canadians that their hard-line approach to their political adversaries is both reasonable and fair in a democratic society. Essentially, their approach has been to bankrupt the opposition and hopefully destroy the Liberal Party, which Harper continues to see as his principal opposition and the epitome of liberal thinking. As senior Harper adviser Keith Beardsley acknowledged that “He hates the Liberal Party, and I would say his aim from day one –and I don´t think anyone would disagree- was to break the brand…” (1).

In summary, Canada shows evidence of fascist shifts including many of the steps discussed by Wolf. There is still reason to be concerned about Canada after Harper; trade agreements are in place to be expanded and they are the economic framework of neo-liberalism. The liberal government under Justin Trudeau has completed some work towards rebuilding institutional damage, ensuring a more open government, stopping anti-union legislation, implementing the mandatory long Census form and initiating a national inquiry on the murders of indigenous women among others. And yet, it does not question neo-liberalism or our war involvement. Both free trade agreements and the war on terror are not being challenged and crucial elements of the neo-liberal agenda remain in place.  Canada should focus on citizens’ basic human rights to food, shelter, education, health, employment, and protection and safety including ensuring citizen safety from abuses by the state.

Sources

1. Brooke Jeffrey, Dismantling Canada. Stephen Harper’s New Conservative Agenda. (2015, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press).

2. Bruce Livesey, “Is Harper Canada’s worst prime minister?” News (June 7th, 2015) Part 1 and 2 of 32 articles from “Assessing Stephen Harper” (Special Report).

3. Donald Gutstein, Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada. (2014, Toronto: James Lorimer & Co. Ltd. Publishers).

4. Naomi Wolf, The End of America: a letter of warning to a young patriot. (2007, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company).

5. Mel Hurtig, The Arrogant Autocrat. Stephen Harper´s Takeover of Canada. (2015, Vancouver: Mel Hurtig Publishing).

6. Mel Hurtig, The truth about Canada. (2008, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd).

7. Wikipaedia, Omar Khadr, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khadr

8. Stephen McBride & John Shields, Dismantling a Nation. The Transition to Corporate Rule in Canada. (1998, Halifax: Fernwood Publishing).

9. Linda McQuaig, Holding the bully´s coat. (2007, Doubleday Canada-Randon House of Canada Ltd).

Featured image: Alternate History

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Nora Fernandez, Global Research, 2017

---

Comment on Global Research Articles on our Facebook page

Become a Member of Global Research

.

 

Saudi Attack on Qatar; U.S. Threat to Iran

Two weeks after the grand pomp of President Trump’s visit, Saudi Arabia announced the complete blockade of small neighboring state Qatar on June 5. The blockade is an act of war.

Emboldened by Trump’s visit, Saudi Arabia quickly gathered eight other countries to participate in the blockade. The action includes cutting all food shipment and all land, sea and air travel; severing all diplomatic relations; freezing Qatari bank accounts; and expelling all Qatari citizens, within 48 hours, from nine countries in the region.

These are devastating acts, as the Doha International Airport in Qatar is a transit point for 37 million people a year. Qatar imports almost all its food and basic supplies, with 600 to 800 trucks a day rolling into Qatar from Saudi Arabia.

Source of terror: U.S. wars

Hardly any political commentator from left to right, or any media from major corporate to alternative, believes Saudi Arabia’s official reason for the blockade of Qatar.

The pretext is that Saudi Arabia is carrying out President Trump’s demand to end the funding of terrorists in the region. Trump has projected the notion of a grand Arab-NATO military alliance supposedly to fight the Islamic State group and Iran. Trump immediately took credit, in a tweet, for the Saudi action against Qatar.

CONTINUE READING ARTICLE >>>

GlobalResearch.ca

Source - The Free Thought Project

by Claire Bernish, May, 31st, 2017

Whistleblower Edward Snowden does not mince words, and his ardent assessment of our perpetually-dwindling rights in the United States and around the world — offered live in a teleconference Tuesday — certainly didn’t break that mold.

“Government will not act in accordance with the public interest unless it is made to,” Snowden contended, beginning what would arguably be one of the most powerful public appearances since he blew the whistle and the U.S.’ Intelligence Community’s expansive surveillance programs in 2013.

“You may never be safe in any country — whether it’s Brussels, or Russia, or Portugal, or the United States — to speak a necessary, but inconvenient, truth,” he continued, addressing the erosion of free speech, and a lack of justice for those who exercise that right.

Terrorism won’t be combated by governments — nor by invasive surveillance. Rather, Snowden argues, such programs have proven more harmful, overall.

For instance, “the United Kingdom passed the … most extreme surveillance law in the history of the Western World last year — it’s called the Investigatory Powers Bill. It authorizes objectively obscene intrusions into the public’s ability to communicate, to interact, to relate to one another, to engage in industry, to trade — without interference — so long as they’re not doing anything wrong.

“This is justified, of course, as a means of combating terrorism.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTWb0KxRTVs&feature=youtu.be

Estoril Conferences @EstorilConf

"Mass surveillance is effective for many things but it does not save lives" @Snowden #EstorilConferences

3:01 PM - 30 May 2017

Snowden stressed that nation-states invariably target the most extreme speech in platforms such as social media — posts by literal terrorists, child abuse, and other “things that are unobjectively contentious” — but the purview of governmental censorship and surveillance extends far beyond such broadly objectionable items.

However, “there is no public evidence showing that these policies are effective; that they save lives; that they make us safer.

“But there is clear evidence that they cause harm to the public. We have seen people fall on blacklists. We have seen, again and again throughout history, political parties be hamstrung, to face resistance, to be silenced by governments — because of their politics, because of their beliefs, because of their ideologies — which, over time, are always derived from what state security agencies say is a necessary effort to protect the nation.

 

“I’m not going to so far to say this is sort of an evil plan on behalf of the United Kingdom or any other nation, but we need to focus on one thing, the need for speech, access to free speech, free association, a free press, the ability to pick up a phone and be able to dial someone that you love without worrying about what that looks like in government database somewhere — how that will be reviewed ten years from now, when you get on a politician’s bad side.

“This is the foundation of any free society.”

He added, echoing statements made in previous public appearances,

“Arguing that you don’t care about free speech, because you have nothing to hide; arguing that you don’t care about the censorship of the Internet, because you’re not a criminal … is like arguing you don’t care about freedom of speech, because you have nothing to say.”

Delving into the crucial topic of how we, as a people, can work to thwart abusive overreach by governments — including imperious censorship by a State surreptitiously working to quash dissension, Snowden asserted,

“We need the right of disagreeing. We need the right of dissent. And that means, ladies and gentlemen, we need the right to speak out — even if it’s objectionable. Even if it’s offensive. Even if it’s problematic.

“The way to defeat bad ideas, the way to discredit terrorist ideas, is not by driving them into the shadows. It’s not by censoring them from public spaces.”

Prohibiting such cadres of dangerous thought from seeing the light of day, in effect, creates an echo chamber, hidden from criticism, thus, amplifying perilous ideas — without challenge.

Such censorship and suppression isn’t necessary, Snowden continued, because “these ideas are not attractive; these ideas grow best in the dark.

“If you want to defeat terrorism, if you want to cast down radicalism, don’t hide it in the dark — drag it out into the light. And on the stage of the world, show people why it’s wrong. And why we can do better.”

“Terrorists don’t hate us for our freedom,” the former NSA contractor asserted, “they don’t even know what our freedoms are… Terrorists are incapable of destroying our rights or diminishing our society they lack the strength — only we can do that.”

Lambasted as a traitor to the United States by some and hailed as a hero defender of human rights and constitutional protections by others, Snowden dismissed this dichotomous criticism as entirely moot, stating,

“I say, it doesn’t matter what you think of me as a person. It doesn’t matter if you think I’m the best person in the world, it doesn’t matter if you think I’m the worst person in the world — the facts are the facts, regardless. They are discoverable. And — more import than what people think about me or my reputation — is what you think about what’s going on in the world. What you’re going to do about it. Do you have the capability to influence power, to change the world in a positive direction.”

 

“You have to stand for something. You have to go out there and risk something. You have to dare yourself to actually get out there and change the world — even if in a small way, even if only for one person, even if for only one instant, you lay down a brick upon which everyone else can build.”

“That, ladies and gentlemen,” Snowden concluded, “is the only way the world has ever gotten better.”

 

About the Author 

 

Claire Bernish

Claire Bernish began writing as an independent, investigative journalist in 2015, with works published and republished around the world. Not one to hold back, Claire’s particular areas of interest include U.S. foreign policy, analysis of international affairs, and everything pertaining to transparency and thwarting censorship. To keep up with the latest uncensored news, follow her on Facebook or Twitter: @Subversive_Pen.

FREE YOUR MIND

Scientists say your “mind” isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body

You might wonder, at some point today, what’s going on in another person’s mind. You may compliment someone’s great mind, or say they are out of their mind. You may even try to expand or free your own mind.

But what is a mind? Defining the concept is a surprisingly slippery task. The mind is the seat of consciousness, the essence of your being. Without a mind, you cannot be considered meaningfully alive. So what exactly, and where precisely, is it?

Traditionally, scientists have tried to define the mind as the product of brain activity: The brain is the physical substance, and the mind is the conscious product of those firing neurons, according to the classic argument. But growing evidence shows that the mind goes far beyond the physical workings of your brain.

No doubt, the brain plays an incredibly important role. But our mind cannot be confined to what’s inside our skull, or even our body, according to a definition first put forward by Dan Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine and the author of a recently published book, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human.

He first came up with the definition more than two decades ago, at a meeting of 40 scientists across disciplines, including neuroscientists, physicists, sociologists, and anthropologists. The aim was to come to an understanding of the mind that would appeal to common ground and satisfy those wrestling with the question across these fields.

After much discussion, they decided that a key component of the mind is: “the emergent self-organizing process, both embodied and relational, that regulates energy and information flow within and among us.” It’s not catchy. But it is interesting, and with meaningful implications.

The most immediately shocking element of this definition is that our mind extends beyond our physical selves. In other words, our mind is not simply our perception of experiences, but those experiences themselves. Siegel argues that it’s impossible to completely disentangle our subjective view of the world from our interactions.

“I realized if someone asked me to define the shoreline but insisted, is it the water or the sand, I would have to say the shore is both sand and sea,” says Siegel. “You can’t limit our understanding of the coastline to insist it’s one or the other. I started thinking, maybe the mind is like the coastline—some inner and inter process. Mental life for an anthropologist or sociologist is profoundly social. Your thoughts, feelings, memories, attention, what you experience in this subjective world is part of mind.”

The definition has since been supported by research across the sciences, but much of the original idea came from mathematics. Siegel realized the mind meets the mathematical definition of a complex system in that it’s open (can influence things outside itself), chaos capable (which simply means it’s roughly randomly distributed), and non-linear (which means a small input leads to large and difficult to predict result).

In math, complex systems are self-organizing, and Siegel believes this idea is the foundation to mental health. Again borrowing from the mathematics, optimal self-organization is: flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized, and stable. This means that without optimal self-organization, you arrive at either chaos or rigidity—a notion that, Siegel says, fits the range of symptoms of mental health disorders.

Finally, self-organization demands linking together differentiated ideas or, essentially, integration. And Siegel says integration—whether that’s within the brain or within society—is the foundation of a healthy mind.

Siegel says he wrote his book now because he sees so much misery in society, and he believes this is partly shaped by how we perceive our own minds. He talks of doing research in Namibia, where people he spoke to attributed their happiness to a sense of belonging.

When Siegel was asked in return whether he belonged in America, his answer was less upbeat: “I thought how isolated we all are and how disconnected we feel,” he says. “In our modern society we have this belief that mind is brain activity and this means the self, which comes from the mind, is separate and we don’t really belong. But we’re all part of each others’ lives. The mind is not just brain activity. When we realize it’s this relational process, there’s this huge shift in this sense of belonging.”

In other words, even perceiving our mind as simply a product of our brain, rather than relations, can make us feel more isolated. And to appreciate the benefits of interrelations, you simply have to open your mind.

Read next: Neuroscience backs up the Buddhist belief that “the self” isn’t constant, but ever-changing

source 

The following text by Michel Chossudovsky was presented in Seoul, South Korea in the context of the Korea Armistice Day Commemoration, 27 July 2013

A Message for Peace. Towards a Peace Agreement and the Withdrawal of US Troops from Korea.

Introduction

Armistice Day, 27 July 1953 is day of Remembrance for the People of Korea.

It is a landmark date in the historical struggle for national reunification and sovereignty.

I am privileged to have this opportunity of participating in the 60th anniversary commemoration of Armistice Day on July 27, 2013.

I am much indebted to the “Anti-War, Peace Actualized, People Action” movement for this opportunity to contribute to the debate on peace and reunification.

An armistice is an agreement by the warring parties to stop fighting. It does signify the end of war.

What underlies the 1953 Armistice Agreement is that one of the warring parties, namely the US has consistently threatened to wage war on the DPRK for the last 60 years.

The US has on countless occasions violated the Armistice Agreement. It has remained on a war footing. Casually ignored by the Western media and the international community, the US has actively deployed nuclear weapons targeted at North Korea for more than half a century in violation of article 13b) of the Armistice agreement. 

The armistice remains in force. The US is still at war with Korea. It is not a peace treaty, a peace agreement was never signed.

The US has used the Armistice agreement to justify the presence of 37,000 American troops on Korean soil under a bogus United Nations mandate, as well as establish an environment of continuous and ongoing military threats. This situation of “latent warfare” has lasted for the last 60 years. It is important to emphasize that this US garrison in South Korea is the only U.S. military presence based permanently on the Asian continent.

Our objective in this venue is to call for a far-reaching peace treaty, which will not only render the armistice agreement signed on July 27, 1953 null and void, but will also lay the foundations for the speedy withdrawal of US troops from Korea as well as lay the foundations for the reunification of the Korean nation.

Michel Chossudovsky Presentation: 60th anniversary commemoration of Armistice Day on July 27, 2013, Seoul, ROK. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdVK1ZyXJew&feature=youtu.be&list=UUvtTGZEcS8mbWdB7prg4QNw

Armistice Day in a Broader Historical Perspective.

This commemoration is particularly significant in view of mounting US threats directed not only against Korea, but also against China and Russia as part of Washington’s “Asia Pivot”, not to mention the illegal occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the US-NATO wars against Libya and Syria, the military threats directed against Iran, the longstanding struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel, the US sponsored wars and insurrections in sub-Saharan Africa.

Armistice Day July 27, 1953, is a significant landmark in the history of US led wars.  Under the Truman Doctrine formulated in the late 1940s, the Korean War (1950-1953) had set the stage for a global process of militarization and US led wars. “Peace-making” in terms of a peace agreement is in direct contradiction with Washington “war-making” agenda.

Washington has formulated a global military agenda. In the words of four star General Wesley Clark (Ret) [image right], quoting a senior Pentagon official:

“We’re going to take out seven countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran” (Democracy Now March 2, 2007)

The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first major military operation  undertaken by the US in the wake of  World War II,  launched at the very outset of  what was euphemistically called “The Cold War”. In many respects it was a continuation of World War II, whereby Korean lands under Japanese colonial occupation were, from one day to the next, handed over to a new colonial power, the United States of America.

There was no “Liberation” of Korea following the entry of US forces. Quite the opposite.

As we recall, a US military government was established in South Korea on September 8, 1945, three weeks after the surrender of Japan on August 15th 1945. Moreover,  Japanese officials in South Korea assisted the US Army Military Government (USAMG) (1945-48) led by General Hodge in ensuring this transition. Japanese colonial administrators in Seoul as well as their Korean police officials worked hand in glove with the new colonial masters.

From the outset, the US military government refused to recognize the provisional government of the People’s Republic of Korea (PRK), which was committed to major social reforms including land distribution, laws protecting the rights of workers, minimum wage legislation and  the reunification of North and South Korea.

The PRK was non-aligned with an anti-colonial mandate, calling for the “establishment of close relations with the United States, USSR, England, and China, and positive opposition to any foreign influences interfering with the domestic affairs of the state.”2

The PRK was abolished by military decree in September 1945 by the USAMG. There was no democracy, no liberation no independence.

While Japan was treated as a defeated Empire, South Korea was identified as a colonial territory to be administered under US military rule and US occupation forces.

America’s handpicked appointee Sygman Rhee [left] was flown into Seoul in October 1945, in General Douglas MacArthur’s personal airplane.

The Korean War (1950-1953)

The crimes committed by the US against the people of Korea in the course of the Korean War but also in its aftermath are unprecedented in modern history.

Moreover, it is important to understand that these US sponsored crimes against humanity committed in the 1950s have, over the years, contributed to setting “a pattern of killings” and US human rights violations in different parts of the World.

The Korean War was also characterised by a practice of targeted assassinations of political dissidents, which was subsequently implemented by the CIA in numerous countries including Indonesia, Vietnam, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq.

Invariably these targeted killings were committed on the instructions of the CIA and carried out by a US sponsored proxy government or military dictatorship. More recently, targeted assassinations of civilians, “legalised” by the US Congress have become, so to speak, the “New Normal”.

According to  I.F. Stone’s “Hidden History of the Korean War” first published in 1952 (at the height of the Korean War), the US deliberately sought a pretext, an act of deception, which incited the North to cross the 38th parallel ultimately leading to all out war.

“[I. F. Stone’s book] raised questions about the origin of the Korean War, made a case that the United States government manipulated the United Nations, and gave evidence that the U.S. military and South Korean oligarchy dragged out the war by sabotaging the peace talks, 3

In Stone’s account, General Douglas MacArthur “did everything possible to avoid peace”.

US wars of aggression are waged under the cloak of “self defence” and pre-emptive attacks. Echoing I. F. Stone’s historical statement concerning General MacArthur, sixty years later US president Barack Obama and his defence Secretary Chuck Hagel are also “doing. everything possible to avoid peace”. 

This pattern of inciting the enemy “to fire the first shot” is well established in US military doctrine. It pertains to creating a “War Pretext Incident” which provides the aggressor to pretext to intervene on the grounds of “Self- Defence”. It characterised the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941, triggered by deception and provocation of which US officials had advanced knowledge. Pearl Harbor was the justification for America’s entry into World War II.

The Tonkin Gulf Incident in August 1964 was the pretext for the US to wage war on North Vietnam, following the adoption of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution by the US Congress, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to wage war on Communist North Vietnam.

I. F. Stone’s analysis refutes “the standard telling”  … that the Korean War was an unprovoked aggression by the North Koreans beginning on June 25, 1950, undertaken at the behest of the Soviet Union to extend the Soviet sphere of influence to the whole of Korea, completely surprising the South Koreans, the U.S., and the U.N.”:

But was it a surprise? Could an attack by 70,000 men using at least 70 tanks launched simultaneously at four different points have been a surprise?

Stone gathers contemporary reports from South Korean, U.S. and U.N. sources documenting what was known before June 25. The head of the U.S. CIA, Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenloetter, is reported to have said on the record, “that American intelligence was aware that ‘conditions existed in Korea that could have meant an invasion this week or next.'” (p. 2)  Stone writes that “America’s leading military commentator, Hanson Baldwin of the New York Times, a trusted confidant of the Pentagon, reported that they [U.S. military documents] showed ‘a marked buildup by the North Korean People’s Army along the 38th Parallel beginning in the early days of June.'” (p. 4)

How and why did U.S. President Truman so quickly decide by June 27 to commit the U.S. military to battle in South Korea? Stone makes a strong case that there were those in the U.S. government and military who saw a war in Korea and the resulting instability in East Asia as in the U.S. national interest. 4

According to the editor of France’s Nouvel Observateur Claude Bourdet:

“If Stone’s thesis corresponds to reality, we are in the presence of the greatest swindle in the whole of military history… not a question of a harmless fraud but of a terrible maneuver in which deception is being consciously utilized to block peace at a time when it is possible.”5

In the words of renowned American writers Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy:

“….we have come to the conclusion that (South Korean president) Syngman Rhee deliberately provoked the North Koreans in the hope that they would retaliate by crossing the parallel in force. The northerners fell neatly into the trap.” 6

On 25 June 1950, following the adoption of UN  Security Council Resolution 82, General Douglas MacArthur, who headed the US military government in occupied Japan was appointed Commander in Chief of the so-called United Nations Command (UNCOM). According to Bruce Cumings, the Korean War “bore a strong resemblance to the air war against Imperial Japan in the second world war and was often directed by the same US military leaders” including generals Douglas MacArthur and Curtis Lemay.

US War Crimes against the People of Korea

Extensive crimes were committed by US forces in the course of the Korean War (1950-1953).  While nuclear weapons were not used during the Korean War, what prevailed was the strategy of  “mass killings of civilians” which had been formulated during World War II. A policy of killing innocent civilians was implemented through extensive air raids and bombings of German cities by American and British forces in the last weeks of World War II. In a bitter irony, military targets were safeguarded.

This unofficial doctrine of killing of civilians under the pretext of targeting military objectives largely characterised US military actions both in the course of the Korean war as well as in its aftermath. According to Bruce Cummings:

On 12 August 1950, the USAF dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons.U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II. 7

The territories North of the 38th parallel were subjected to extensive carpet bombing, which resulted in the destruction of 78 cities and thousands of villages:

“What was indelible about it [the Korean War of 1950-53] was the extraordinary destructiveness of the United States’ air campaigns against North Korea, from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing (mainly with napalm), to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final stages of the war.  ….

As a result, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed. …. 8

General Curtis LeMay [left] who coordinated the bombing raids against North Korea brazenly acknowledged that:

“Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population. … We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too”. 9

According to Brian Willson:

It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerence of another.” 10

Translation: the city of Pyongyang was totally destroyed in 1951 during the Korean war

Extensive war crimes were also committed by US forces in South Korea as documented by the Korea Truth and Reconciliation Commission. According to ROK sources, almost one million civilians were killed in South Korea in the course of the Korean War:

“In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950.” 11

During The Second World War, the United Kingdom lost 0.94% of its population, France lost 1.35%, China lost 1.89% and the US lost 0.32%. During the Korean War, the DPRK lost more than 25% of its population. The population of North Korea was of the order of 8-9 million in 1950 prior the Korean War. US sources acknowledge 1.55 million civilian deaths in North Korea, 215,000 combat deaths. MIA/POW 120,000, 300,000 combat troops wounded. 12

South Korean military sources estimate the number of civilian deaths/wounded/missing at 2.5 million, of which some 990,900 are in South Korea. Another estimate places Korea War total deaths, civilian plus combat at 3.5 million.)

North Korea: A Threat to Global Security?

For the last 60 years, Washington has contributed to the political isolation of North Korea. It has sought to destabilize its national economy, including its industrial base and agriculture. It has relentlessly undermined the process of reunification of the Korean nation.

In South Korea, the US has maintained its stranglehold over the entire political system. It has ensured from the initial appointment of Sygman Rhee the instatement of non-democratic and repressive forms of government which have in large part served the interests of the U.S.

US military presence in South Korea has also exerted a controlling influence on economic and monetary policy.

An important question for the American people. How can a country which has lost a quarter of its population resulting from US aggression, constitute a threat to the American Homeland?

How can a country which has 37,000 US troops on its immediate border constitute a threat to America?

Given the history war crimes, how do the people of North Korea perceive the US threat to their Homeland. There is not a single family in North Korea which has not lost a loved one in the course of the Korean War.

The Korean War was the first major US led war carried out in the immediate wake of World War II.

While the US and its NATO allies have waged numerous wars and military interventions in all major regions of the World in the course of what is euphemistically called the “post War era”, resulting in millions of civilians deaths, America is upheld as the guardian of democracy and World Peace.

War Propaganda

The Lie becomes the Truth.

Realities are turned upside down.

History is rewritten. North Korea is heralded as a threat.

America is not the aggressor nation but “the victim” of aggression.

These concepts are part of war propaganda which is fed into the news chain.

Since the end of the Korean War, US led propaganda –funnelled into the ROK news chain– has relentlessly contributed to fomenting conflict and divisiveness between North and South Korea, presenting the DPRK as a threat to ROK national security.

An atmosphere of fear and intimidation prevails which impels people in South Korea to accept the “peace-making role” of the United States. In the eyes of public opinion, the presence of  37,000 US occupation forces is viewed as “necessary” to the security of the ROK.

US military presence is heralded as a means to “protecting the ROK” against North Korean aggression. Similarly, the propaganda campaign will seek to create divisions within Korean society with a view to sustaining the legitimacy of  US interventionism. The purpose of this process is create divisiveness. Repeated ad nauseam, the alleged “North Korean threat” undermines –within people’s inner consciousness– the notion that Korea is one country, one nation, one history.

The “Truman Doctrine”

Historically, in the wake of World War II, the Truman doctrine first formulated by Foreign Policy adviser George F. Kennan in a 1948 State Department brief established the Cold War framework of US expansionism:

What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign policy, from “Containment” during the Cold War era to “Pre-emptive” War. It states in polite terms that the US should seek economic and strategic dominance through military means:

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. (…)

In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to “be liked” or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers’ keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and—for the Far East—unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. 13

The planned disintegration of the United Nations system as an independent and influential international body has been on the drawing board of US foreign policy since the inception of the United Nations in 1946. Its planned demise was an integral part of the Truman doctrine as defined in 1948. From the very inception of the UN, Washington has sought on the one hand to control it to its advantage, while also seeking to weakening and ultimately destroy the UN system. In the words of George Kennan:

“Occasionally, it [the United Nations] has served a useful purpose. But by and large it has created more problems than it has solved, and has led to a considerable dispersal of our diplomatic effort. And in our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part.

In our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part. 14

Although officially committed to the “international community”, Washington has largely played lip service to the United Nations. In recent years it has sought to undermine it as an institution. Since Gulf War I, the UN has largely acted as a rubber stamp. It has closed its eyes to US war crimes, it has implemented so-called peacekeeping operations on behalf of the Anglo-American invaders, in violation of the UN Charter.

The Truman Doctrine Applied to Korea and East Asia

The Truman doctrine was the culmination of a post World War II US military strategy initiated with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and the surrender of Japan. [Harry Truman left]

In East Asia it consisted in the post-war occupation of Japan  as well the US takeover of Japan’s colonial Empire including South Korea (Korea was annexed to Japan under the 1910 Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty).

Following Imperial Japan’s defeat in World War II, a US sphere of influence throughout East and South East Asia was established in the territories of Japan’s “Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

The US sphere of influence included Philippines (a US possession occupied by Japan during World War II), Thailand (a Japanese protectorate during World War II), Indonesia (Occupied by Japan during World War II, becomes a US proxy State following the establishment of the Suharto military dictatorship in 1965). This US sphere of influence in Asia also extended its grip into France’s former colonial possessions in Indochina, including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which were under Japanese military occupation during World War II.

America’s hegemony in Asia was largely based on establishing a sphere of influence in countries which were under the colonial jurisdiction of Japan, France and the Netherlands.

Continuity: From the Truman Doctrine to the Neo-Conservatives

The Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a (bipartisan) “Post War” foreign policy framework, which provides the basis for the planning of the contemporary wars and atrocities including the setting up of torture chambers, concentration camps and the extensive use of prohibited weapons directed against civilians.

From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the “Truman Doctrine”. Despite significant policy differences, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, over a span of more than sixty years, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama have carried out this global military agenda.

US War Crimes and Atrocities

What we are dealing with is a criminal US foreign policy agenda. Criminalization does not pertain to one or more heads of State. It pertains to the entire State system, it’s various civilian and military institutions as well as the powerful corporate interests behind the formulation of US foreign policy, the Washington think tanks, the creditor institutions which finance the military machine.

Starting with the Korean War in 1950 and extending to the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, this period is marked by extensive war crimes resulting in the death of more than ten million people. This figure does not include those who perished as a result of poverty, starvation and disease.

War crimes are the result of the criminalization of the US State and foreign policy apparatus. We are not solely dealing specifically with individual war criminals, but with a process involving decision makers acting at different level, with a mandate to carry out war crimes, following established guidelines and procedures.

What distinguishes the Bush and Obama administrations in relation to the historical record of US sponsored crimes and atrocities, is that the concentration camps, targeted assassinations and torture chambers are now openly considered as legitimate forms of intervention, which sustain “the global war on terrorism” and support the spread of Western democracy.

Historical Significance of the Korean War: America’s Project of Global Warfare

The Korean War had set the stage for subsequent US military interventions. It was an initial phase of a post-World War II “military roadmap” of US led wars, special operations, coups d’etat, covert operations, US sponsored insurgencies and regime change spanning over of more than half a century. The project of global warfare has been carried out in all major regions of the World, through the US military’s geographic command structure, not to mention the CIA’s covert operations geared toward toppling sovereign governments.

This project of Worldwide conquest was initially established under the so-called “Truman Doctrine”. The latter initiated what the Pentagon later (in the wake of the Cold war under the NeoConservatives) entitled America`s “Long War”.

What we are dealing with is global warfare, a Worldwide process of conquest, militarization and corporate expansionism. The latter is the driving force. “Economic conquest” is implemented through the support of concurrent intelligence and military operations. Financial and monetary destabilization is another mechanism of economic warfare directed against sovereign countries.

In 2000, preceding the eleciton of George W. Bush to the White House, The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), A Washington Neoconservative think tank had stipulated  four core missions for the US military:

• “defend the American homeland;
• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;”

George W. Bush’s Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had commissioned the PNAC blueprint prior to the 2000 presidential elections.

The PNAC outlines a roadmap of conquest.

It calls for “the direct imposition of U.S. “forward bases” throughout Central Asia and the Middle East: “with a view to ensuring economic domination of the world, while strangling any potential “rival” or any viable alternative to America’s vision of a ‘free market’ economy”

Distinct from theater wars, the so-called “constabulary functions” imply a form of global military policing using various instruments of military intervention including punitive bombings and the sending in of US Special Forces, etc. Constabulary functions were contemplated in the first phase of US war plans against Iran. They were identified as ad hoc military interventions which could be applied as an “alternative” to so-called theater wars.

This document had no pretence: its objectives were strictly military. No discussion of America’s role in peace-keeping or the spread of democracy. 15 The main PNAC document is entitled Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.(The PNAC website is:  http://www.newamericancentury.org)

US Military Occupation of South Korea, The Militarization of East Asia

Washington is intent upon creating political divisions in East Asia not only between the ROK and the DPRK but between North Korea and China, with a view to ultimately isolating the DPRK. In a bitter irony, US military facilities in the ROK are being used to threaten China as part of a process of military encirclement. In turn, Washington has sought to create political divisions between countries as well fomenting wars between neighboring countries (e.g. the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the confrontation between India and Pakistan).

The UN Command Mandate (UNC)

Sixty years later under a bogus UN mandate, the military occupation by US forces of South Korea prevails. It is worth noting that the UN never formally created a United Nations Command. The designation was adopted by the US without a formal decision by the UN Security Council. In 1994, the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali clarified in a letter to the North Korean Foreign Minister that “the Security Council did not establish the unified command as a subsidiary organ under its control, but merely recommended [in 1950] the creation of such a command, specifying that it be under the authority of the United States”

Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command (CFC)

South Korea is still under military occupation by US forces. In the wake of the Korean War and the signing of the Armistice agreement, the national forces of the ROK were placed under the jurisdiction of the so-called UN Command. This arrangement implied that all units of the Korean military were de facto under the control of US commanders. In 1978 a binational Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command (CFC), was created, headed by a US General. In substance, this was a change in labels in relation to the so-called UN Command. To this date, Korean forces remain under the command of a US general.

The CFC was originally to be dismantled when the U.S. hands back wartime operational control of South Korean troops to Seoul in 2015, but there were fears here that this could weaken South Korea’s defenses. The change of heart comes amid increasingly belligerent rhetoric from North Korea.

Park told her military brass at the briefing to launch “immediate and strong counterattacks” against any North Korean provocation. She said she considers the North’s threats “very serious,” and added, “If any provocations against our people and country ake place, the military has to respond quickly and strongly without any political consideration.” 16

United States Forces Korea (USFK)

United States Forces Korea (USFK) was established in 1957. It is described as “as a subordinate-unified command of U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM)”, which could be deployed to attack third countries in the region including Russia and China. There are officially 28,500 US troops under the jurisdiction of USFK. Recent figures of the US Department of Defense confirm that 37,000 US troops under USFK are currently (April 2013) stationed in South Korea.

USFK integrated by US forces is distinct from the Combined Forces Command (CFC) created in 1978. The CFC is commanded by a four-star U.S. general, with a four-star ROK Army general as deputy commander.17 (See United States Forces Korea | Mission of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command).

Continue Reading Part 2 ↪