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"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."

-- Patrick Henry

News and Opinion

The US military is operating in more countries than we think

U.S. military forces have been engaged in unauthorized hostilities in many more countries than the Pentagon has disclosed to Congress, let alone the public, according to a major new report released late last week by New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice.

“Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe Libya. If you asked the average American where the United States has been at war in the past two decades, you would likely get this short list,” according to the report, Secret War: How the U.S. Uses Partnerships and Proxy Forces to Wage War Under the Radar. “But this list is wrong – off by at least 17 countries in which the United States has engaged in armed conflict through ground forces, proxy forces, or air strikes.”

“This proliferation of secret war is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it is undemocratic and dangerous,” the report’s author, Katherine Yon Ebright, wrote in the introduction. “The conduct of undisclosed hostilities in unreported countries contravenes our constitutional design. It invites military escalation that is unforeseeable to the public, to Congress, and even to the diplomats charged with managing U.S. foreign relations.”

The 39-page report focuses on so-called “security cooperation” programs authorized by Congress pursuant to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, against certain terrorist groups. One such program, known as Section 127e, authorized the Defense Department to “provide support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating authorized ongoing military operations by United States special operations forces to combat terrorism.”

According to the report, that “support” has been broadly — or, more accurately, too broadly — interpreted by the Pentagon. In practice, it has enabled the U.S. military to “develop and control proxy forces that fight on behalf of and sometimes alongside U.S. forces” and to use armed force to defend its local partners against adversaries (in what the Pentagon calls “collective self-defense”) regardless of whether those adversaries pose any threat to U.S. territory or persons, and, in some cases, whether or not the adversaries have been officially designated as legitimate targets under the 2001 AUMF. ... Congress rarely hears of these incidents because, according to the report, DOD insists they are too minor or “episodic” to rise to the level of “hostilities” that would trigger reporting requirements under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

Zelensky And Bush To Give Joint Pro-War Presentation

War criminal George W Bush and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be appearing at an event next week at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, in partnership with US government-funded narrative management operations Freedom House and National Endowment for Democracy. The goal of the presentation will reportedly be to address the completely fictional and imaginary concern that congressional Republicans won’t continue supporting US proxy war efforts in Ukraine.

CNN reports:

Former US President George W. Bush will hold a public conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky next week with the aim of underscoring the importance of the US continuing to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.

The event, which will take place in Dallas and be open to the public, comes amid questions about the willingness of the former president’s Republican Party to maintain support for Ukraine.

“Ukraine is the frontline in the struggle for freedom and democracy. It’s literally under attack as we speak, and it is vitally important that the United States provide the assistance, military and otherwise to help Ukraine defend itself,” David Kramer, the managing director for global policy at the George W. Bush Institute, told CNN. “President Bush believes in standing with Ukraine.”

The Struggle for Freedom event will take place on Wednesday, in partnership with the Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy, at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

To be clear, there is absolutely no reality-based reason to believe Republicans will meaningfully shy away from full-scale support for arming and assisting the Ukrainian military. The proxy war has only an impotent minority of opposition in the party and every bill to fund it has passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Some “MAGA” Republicans have claimed that funding for the war would stop if the GOP won the midterm elections, but they were lying; there was never the slightest chance of that happening.

Bush, you may remember, drew headlines and laughter earlier this year with his Freudian confession in which he accused Vladimir Putin of launching “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq — I mean, of Ukraine.” The fact that the president who launched a full-scale ground invasion which destabilized the entire region and led to the deaths of over a million people is now narrative managing for the US empire’s current aggressively propagandized intervention says everything about the nature of this war.

Also appearing with Bush will be the leader who’s slated to become the face of the US empire’s next proxy war, Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan. CNN writes:

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen will also take part in the event next week. She will deliver a recorded message, in which she is expected to underscore that the struggle for freedom is a global challenge.

And sure, why not. If you’re going to manufacture consent for proxy warfare against multiple powers as your empire flails around frantically scrambling to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world, you may as well save time and promote them all on the same ticket.

Former President George W. Bush: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/UMwNMwMnmX

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 19, 2022

Many people who support the US proxy war in Ukraine now recognize that the Iraq war was a horrific disaster, but Ukraine isn’t the good war, it’s just the current war. Western propaganda means people always oppose the last war but not the war that’s currently being pushed by the propaganda of today. The US provoking and sustaining its Ukraine proxy war is no more ethical than its invading of Iraq; it just looks that way due to propaganda.

It is only by the copious amounts of propaganda our civilization is being hammered with that this is not immediately obvious to everyone. In the future (assuming we don’t annihilate ourselves first), the propaganda will have cleared from the air enough for people to look back with clarity on 2022 and realize that they were lied to, yet again.

It’s easy to oppose the last war. It’s hard to oppose current wars as the propaganda machine is shoving them down our throats. Everyone’s anti-war until the war propaganda starts.

Clare Daly: Has the war in Ukraine been a blow to multilateralism?

War Spurs Ukraine to Ramp up Defence Industry, Including 'Army of Drones'

Ukraine plans to build up a powerful military and defence industry including an "army of drones", and this week's state takeovers of privately-held stakes in strategic companies are part of that drive, Ukraine's defence minister said.

Oleksii Reznikov told Reuters Ukraine was looking at making NATO-calibre Ukrainian artillery and needed to manufacture drone jamming capabilities and its own air, underwater and land drones, which he called "the future of war on the planet".

Ukraine, he said, was already in the process of making an "army of drones" to resist Russia's invasion, in which Moscow has unleashed waves of Iranian-made "kamikaze" drones to hit vital Ukrainian infrastructure in recent weeks.

"We are trying to be like Israel - more independent during the next years," he said in an interview in the heavily-guarded government district in central Kyiv on Nov. 10.

"I think the best answer (can be seen) in Israel ... developing their national industry for their armed forces. It made them independent."

Russia Donetsk Advance, Promises to Retake Kherson, Ignores US Diplomatic Advances, Talks to Iran

Russia Announces Kherson Withdrawal Completed, Kremlin Says Region’s Status Is Unchanged

The Russian Defense Ministry announced the completion of its withdrawal from areas in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson on the west bank of the Dnieper River, including the provincial capital, on Friday. This development, which reportedly saw tens of thousands of troops leave the area, is seen by some US and Western officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, as an opportunity to finally pursue negotiations. However, the Kremlin, while remaining open to talks, disputes that the withdrawal changes the region’s status as a part of Russia. ...

On Friday, Serhiy Khlan, a deputy for Kherson Regional Council, said that a Ukrainian flag had been raised in the regional capital, while President Volodymyr Zelensky announced "our defenders are approaching the city. In quite a bit, we are going to enter. But special units are already in the city.” 

While the withdrawal is being celebrated by Kiev and its Western supporters, the Kremlin says the status of the territory has not changed. According to the Associated Press, Russia maintains control of 70% of the Kherson region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Kherson’s status was “fixed."

Zelensky, "We are ready for peace." CIA Burns meets Russia's Naryshkin

UN envoy admits fabricating claim of Viagra-fueled rape as ‘Russian military strategy’

In a November 10 call with Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, better known by their aliases Vovan and Lexus, UN Envoy on Sexual Violence Pramila Patten admitted that there was no evidence to back up her widely publicized claims from October that the Russian government was using Viagra-fueled mass rape as a weapon of war.

During the call, Vovan and Lexus pressed Patten on whether she had any proof of her incendiary allegation. Clearly flustered, Patten responded: “No, no, no. And I don’t — like I said, it’s not my role to go and investigate. I sit in New York, in an office in New York, and I have an advocacy — and I have an advocacy mandate. My role is not to investigate.”

She continued: “The investigation is going on by the Human Rights Monitoring Team and the International Commission of Inquiry. In their reports so far, there’s nothing about Viagra.”

Patten told the pranksters that the claim was relayed to her “from survivors and service providers” and “in the presence of” high-ranking Ukrainian officials while she was in Kiev in early May. ...

The mainstream press that reprinted Patten’s lurid claims without skepticism failed to read the UN report which contained lengthy sections on the topic of sexual violence in the war. Despite her claim that Russian soldiers were “equipped with Viagra,” the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) made no reference to the drug — nor any other pharmaceutical prescribed to treat ED — in its September report on the Ukraine conflict. In fact, the OHCHR website contains no references to Viagra throughout this entire year.

The report merely states that “OHCHR documented 9 cases of rape” between February 1st and the 31st of July this year; hardly the Rape of Nanjing redux insinuated in CNN’s headline. In falsely accusing Russian military commanders of juicing their troops on Viagra to carry out mass rape, Patten dusted off the Libya regime change playbook and deployed one of its most discredited – but effective – propaganda set-pieces.

Biden & Xi Meet in Bali; Could This Help Cool U.S.-China Tensions & Reduce Risk of a Military Clash?

Joe Biden will seek to establish US-China red lines in Xi Jinping talks

Joe Biden, buoyed by the military breakthrough in Ukraine and Democrat retention of the US Senate, said he would seek to establish red lines in the US’s relationship with China when he meets President Xi Jinping on Monday before the G20 summit of world leaders in Bali.

At an Asian summit on Sunday in advance of his first bilateral with Xi, Biden laid down some firm parameters about freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and warned China against attempting an invasion of Taiwan, to which it lays claim. But he also said he wanted to keep lines of communication open with Beijing.

“I know Xi Jinping, he knows me,” he added, saying they had always had “straightforward discussions”. The two have known each other for more than a decade, since Biden’s time as vice-president, but Monday will be their first face-to-face meeting as leaders.

“We have very little misunderstanding. We just got to figure out what the red lines are,” Biden said. His aides say they are looking for a formula with China that allows competition and coexistence. ...

Biden is likely to press China to do more to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and push for more ambitious carbon reduction targets. ... China objects to what it regards as the weaponising of trade, while the ministry of foreign affairs accused the US of attempting to create an Asia-Pacific version of Nato with Australia, Japan and South Korea to “disrupt security and stability” in the region.

Worth a peek, there's more at the link.

The nation’s first trillion-dollar defense budget looms

It’s not here yet, by most accounting, but we’re within spitting distance of spending $1 trillion annually on the U.S. military. This might actually be a good thing, if more spending made us safer. But it doesn’t. It only makes us feel safer, which is a devil’s bargain.

The Senate version of the 2023 defense authorization act earmarks $857 billion (PDF) for national defense. The slackers in the House only want $850 billion (PDF), which may be why it’s known as the “lower house.” Both bills are well beyond President Biden’s $813 billion request. Differences between the two versions will be ironed out in the coming weeks, but the bottom line is that the Pentagon is bound to break the trillion-dollar barrier relatively soon.

Even let’s-spend-more conservatives are split on this gusher. “We need a $1 trillion defense budget,” argued Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, earlier this year. “We need more and better weapons for a newly threatening security environment,” he wrote shortly after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine. “Russia’s aggression underlines the potential of the U.S. having to fight simultaneous wars in Europe and Asia, to defend NATO and to stave off a China attack on Taiwan or elsewhere, when our forces currently may not be adequate to winning one fight.” Simultaneous wars in Europe and Asia? Be thankful he didn’t enlist the Star Wars’ Sith
to inflate the threat even more.

But Lowry’s colleague Philip Klein shot the notion down. “We can’t afford a $1 trillion defense budget,” Klein maintained, citing the fiscal challenges facing the nation and bipartisan stupor when it comes to dealing with them. And, as always, there is the political angle: “If conservatives get behind the idea of massive hikes in the military budget, it gives them a lot less credibility in arguing against the massive social spending being proposed on the left.”

DEBATE: What's Next For US-Israel Relations? Benjamin Netanyahu RETURNS As Israeli Prime Minister

A really interesting article worth a peek, there's a lot more to this situation than the minimal reporting in the U.S. has indicated.

US Farmers and Big Ag Corps Press Panic Button on Mexico’s Upcoming GMO Ban

Thanks to NAFTA and US agricultural subsidies, Mexico has become a major importer of US-produced staples such as corn, rice and beans. In 2021, the country, once the birthplace of modern maize, became the world’s second largest importer of corn. Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador (or AMLO as he’s commonly known) is determined to reverse this trend. Since coming into office in late 2018, AMLO has made food security and self-sufficiency one of the main priorities of his government.

“We have to aim for self sufficiency in food, just as we have done with energy,” said AMLO in his regular morning press conference this Wednesday. “Producing what we consume in Mexico is the best strategy for tackling the problem of inflation.”

These words were deemed so important by the Mexican government that it shared them on its official twitter account. But they will not have gone down quite so well among corn growers and Big Ag corporations on the other side of the Rio Grande. Nor will the recent announcement that Mexico plans to cut the cost of 24 basic goods by curbing food exports, including white corn and beans, in a big to tackle raging food inflation.

All the while the Jan 31, 2024 deadline for the Mexican government’s ban on all imports of the “probably” carcinogenic weedkiller glyphosate and prohibition of the cultivation and importation of genetically modified (GM) foodstuffs looms ever larger. For US corn farmers and Big Ag corps, the threat could not be greater: 90% of the yellow corn they produce is genetically modified, and Mexico represents 25% of their entire export market. ...

The US is already locked in a trade dispute with Mexico over the AMLO government’s energy policies, which are primarily geared at bolstering Mexico’s energy security. Now, the US is considering opening another one, this time over Mexico’s agricultural policies.

Republicans Make HUGE Demands On New Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Democrats retain control of Senate after crucial victory in Nevada

Democrats have kept control of the Senate after the crucial race in Nevada was announced in their favor, cementing a midterms election performance for the party that widely beat expectations.

Democratic US senator Catherine Cortez Masto has now beaten Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press.

With Masto’s victory coming on the heels of Democratic senator Mark Kelly winning re-election in Arizona late on Friday, the win takes the Democrats to the crucial number of 50 seats in the Senate, with the Republicans at 49. The race in Georgia is set to go to a runoff in December, but even if Republicans win there, a 50-50 split means the Senate would effectively be controlled by the Democrats because the tying vote falls to the vice-president, Kamala Harris.

GOP CIVIL WAR: Trump Backs McConnell Challenge

McCarthy Faces MAJOR Speaker Challenge

US intelligence document describes UAE efforts to influence American politics – report

A classified US intelligence report details efforts undertaken by the United Arab Emirates to influence American politics, offering a scrutinizing look at a close US ally, according to the Washington Post.

Written by the National Intelligence Council, the report says that the UAE has for years – across multiple presidential administrations – illegally and legally attempted to shape US policy. The Post cited three anonymous sources who have read the report, which the council has been showing to policymakers in recent weeks.

Those familiar with the report said that it included influencing measures known to national security officials, but also operations that “more closely resemble espionage”, the Post said. According to the report, the UAE has spent over $154m on lobbyists since 2016 and millions more on donations to US universities.

COP27: Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Swarm Climate Talks

The COP27 talks in Egypt have been billed as an opportunity for countries to “showcase unity” against the existential threat of climate change, but an analysis released Thursday shows there are more fossil fuel lobbyists attending the conference than representatives of the 10 nations most affected by the crisis, heightening concerns that industry influence will water down any agreements reached at the event.

A data analysis of the United Nations’ provisional attendance list for the closely watched conference shows that 636 fossil fuel lobbyists have been registered at the talks, up 25 percent from last year’s COP26 conference in Glasgow.

According to Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness — the groups that conducted the analysis — there are more fossil fuel lobbyists registered at COP27 than any single national delegation with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

While officials from the conference’s host country of Egypt have characterized the talks as “the African COP,” pledging to center the developing world in negotiations over climate solutions, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber any national delegation from Africa, where oil and gas giants are aggressively pursuing new fossil fuel development even as climate-driven extreme weather ravages the continent.

Additionally, the new analysis shows there are more fossil fuel lobbyists at COP27 than officials from Puerto Rico, Myanmar, Haiti, the Philippines, Mozambique, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand and Nepal, which the GermanWatch Global Climate Risk Index deems the 10 countries most impacted by the worsening global climate emergency.

“With time running out to avert climate disaster, major talks like COP27 absolutely must advance concrete action to stop the toxic practices of the fossil fuel industry that is causing more damage to the climate than any other industry,” said a spokesperson for the three watchdog organizations. “The extraordinary presence of this industry’s lobbyists at these talks is therefore a twisted joke at the expense of both people and planet.”

A list published by Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness shows that corporations and trade groups attending COP27 include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — a powerful lobbying organization that has been dubbed the “chamber of carbon” — as well as Exxon, Chevron, and other major oil and gas firms.

The U.S.-based public relations firm that the Egyptian government hired to run communications for COP27 has close ties to the fossil fuel industry, with a client list that includes Exxon.

The outsized presence of the industry most responsible for the climate crisis has outraged climate campaigners, who are vocally protesting polluters’ influence on the COP27 talks as they continue to produce woefully insufficient action plans.

“The climate crisis is upon us, yet world governments continue to protect the interests of a few greedy corporations instead of the people who are most affected,” said the Kick Polluters Out campaign, which is holding a protest on the ground in Sharm El-Sheikh on Thursday. “Nowhere is that more clear than at COP27, where big polluters like fossil fuel lobbyists have once again converged to greenwash their polluting image and block the climate action we so desperately need.”

Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness noted that unlike fossil fuel lobbyists, activists from the Global South and others harmed disproportionately by the climate crisis “have effectively been shut out of the talks by high costs, visa challenges, and repressive actions by the hosting country.”

“Rather than being the start of the real climate action needed, COP27 looks set to be a festival of fossil fuels and their polluting friends, buoyed by recent bumper profits,” a spokesperson for the coalition said.

“Tobacco lobbyists wouldn’t be welcome at health conferences, arms dealers can’t promote their trade at peace conventions,” the spokesperson added. “Those perpetuating the world’s fossil fuel addiction should not be allowed through the doors of a climate conference. It’s time governments got out of the pockets of polluters, come to their senses, and help make COP27 the success the world vitally needs it to be.”

The 1.5C climate target is dead – to prevent total catastrophe, Cop27 must admit it

In his Cop27 speech this week, our will-he-go, won’t-he-go prime minister said that stopping the planet dangerously overheating was still within our grasp, leaving many wondering just what planet he was on. According to Rishi Sunak, last year’s Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow was all about keeping alive the possibility of preventing the global average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution from climbing above 1.5C. That is “alive”, as in connected to a drip, in a coma and suffering cardiac arrest every few hours. ...

In 2015, at Cop21 in Paris governments agreed to pursue efforts to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5C. To say that progress made since has proceeded at a snail’s pace would be an insult to molluscs. Instead, we are in a position whereby, to achieve this, emissions would need to fall 45% in the next seven and a bit years – when they are actually on track to rise by 10%, compared with 2010 levels. Seven years ago, the 1.5C target seemed a sensible one. Now, it is at best, irrelevant, and at worst, dangerous. It has to go.

Continuing to argue for the viability of 1.5C is misleading and raises false hopes. As such, it is vital that Cop27 squashes claims that the goal is still alive. Not only this, it needs to hold up its hands and acknowledge the fact that missing this critical target represents a colossal failure for the whole Cop apparatus.

In retrospect, it is clear that having a specific target, rather than fighting to stop every fraction of a degree in temperature rise, has actually been counterproductive. There is a perennial problem with targets, and that is that they are always still reachable – until they aren’t. In this way, they can be used to justify inertia right up until it is too late. And this is exactly how fossil-fuel corporations, world leaders and others have used 1.5C – as a get-out-of-jail card to justify inaction on emissions. Continuing to present this temperature threshold as an attainable target provides a fig leaf for business as usual. Take it away, and this dangerous jiggery-pokery is exposed for all to see.

Only if Cop acknowledges that 1.5C is now lost, and that dangerous, all-pervasive climate breakdown is unavoidable, will corporations and governments no longer have anywhere to hide, and no safety net that they can use as an excuse to do little or nothing. Only if they finally lay bare the bankruptcy of efforts to achieve the goals of Cop21 will we be able to move on to acknowledging that every 0.1C temperature rise needs fighting for.

The arrest that shocked the firefighting world – and threatens a vital practice

Hours before Rick Snodgrass was cuffed and loaded into a squad car, he’d called the sheriff himself. The United States Forest Service burn boss had requested the help of local law enforcement in Grant county, Oregon, reporting his crew was being harassed while conducting a controlled burn within the Malheur national forest.

It was the second burn that crews had conducted in the area in two weeks, with flames intended to char around 300 acres. But that warm October afternoon, the treatment did not go according to plan. Flames jumped their bounds, licking more than a dozen acres of private land beyond the planned perimeter. Wary of federal agencies and frustrated that some of their fences burned, the family that owned the property dialed 9-1-1. Soon after, Snodgrass was arrested for reckless burning, a Class A misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to a year in jail and $6,250 fine.

The arrest of a fire chief over a burn gone wrong – an unprecedented event, according to people in the wildland firefighting system – has sent shockwaves through the field and has sparked fears that growing public pushback will hamper this essential work. Locals – including the sheriff who arrested Snodgrass – claim there were serious issues with the actions taken by the federal agency and they are calling for more accountability as fire dangers grow.

While parts of Oregon have a long history of distrust towards government agencies, concerns like these are not confined to the state. Across the American west, the eruption of long-simmering tensions between the authorities conducting prescribed burns and those opposed to them has only added to the increasing obstacles – and urgency – posed by a warming world.

Prosecutors haven’t filed charges against Snodgrass yet, pending investigation. Even if they determine charges are unwarranted, experts are concerned the arrest is enough to have a chilling effect on a practice considered critical to mitigate the growing wildfire risk.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Patrick Lawrence: Why Are the Russians Retreating in Ukraine?

The Atlantic Is A Shitty Propaganda Rag Run By Elitist Wankers

Stella Assange: ‘Corrupting the System at Every Level’

Corruption exposed: US meddled in Ecuador’s election, using Julian Assange as bargaining chip

Concealing US Militarism By Making It Sacred

Washington Attempts to Bully India into Cutting Ties with Russia

‘A Business Venture’: Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Has a Plan to Expel Arabs

The Depression-Era Veterans Who Marched on DC

Why Democrats Don't Win The Way They Should

Nik Turner, Hawkwind co-founder and saxophonist, dies aged 82

A Little Night Music

Syl Johnson - Different Strokes

Syl Johnson - Steppin' Out

Syl Johnson - Anyway The Wind Blows

Syl Johnson - Concrete Reservation

Syl Johnson - I hear the love chimes

Syl Johnson - Back For A Taste Of Your Love

Syl Johnson - Sexy Wayz

Syl Johnson - Surrounded

Syl Johnson - Take Me To The River