New York Times fights America’s wars

 How the New York Times fights America’s wars
 Mondoweiss on April 27, 2024 by Writers Against the War on Gaza

On the morning of March 14, hundreds of protesters streamed into the lobby of the New York Times’ headquarters in midtown, Manhattan.

Donning face masks and kuffiyehs, we unfurled a series of banners: one featuring a crossword puzzle with the words “boycott, divest, unsubscribe”; another containing the company’s logo with the word “Times” crossed out in red and replaced with “War Crimes.” After a few minutes, a chant rang out: “Free, free Palestine!” A chorus of voices responded in unison, Just a few feet away, a very different scene unfolded. Esteemed editors and board members gathered for the annual “State of the Times”
address, in which the company’s publisher, A. G. Sultzberger reflected on the journalism that the paperproduced—and the criticism it had generated—over the past year.

“In moments when the criticism is at its loudest and most fevered, we should remind ourselves why the Times receives such intense focus,” he said, perhaps to the encroaching sounds of the protesters’ chants.

    Because the public reads us. Because they trust us. Because they expect a lot of us. Because they believe what we say matters. What a great privilege.

The occupation of the Times’ lobby—in which over 100 protesters were rounded up and arrested by the New York Police Department—was part of a series of coordinated actions around the city targeting the Times for its coverage of the zionist entity’s genocide in Gaza. Outside the building and across the boroughs, “paperboys” handed out fresh copies of the New York War Crimes, a bi-monthly publication of our organization, Writers Against the War on Gaza. Earlier that morning, a group of us blockaded the entrance of the company printing plant in College Point, Queens, severely limiting the circulation of that morning’s paper. And a new website was launched to house our systemic critique of the Times.

The multi-site action in mid-March marked a significant escalation in our campaign against the Times.

But why The New York Times?

All kingdoms require consent to function, for, as James Baldwin wrote in 1972, “no kingdom can maintain itself by force alone.” Consent is constructed through historical narrative, mythology which articulates why the kingdom’s dominance is justified.

A cynical, self-interested, blood-soaked history is not a sustainable narrative.

The ugly truth of U.S. empire—illegal wars, clandestine coups, napalm, fire, brimstone and the imposition of violent corporate governance—must be transformed into a palatable story. Much like the European empires of the 19th and 20th centuries cast themselves as the benevolent saviors of dark, savage worlds, the U.S. must also justify its flagrant abuses of power.

So who do they call on? Where does the empire go to launder its crimes?

Who dutifully produced a phony pretext for the brutal invasion of Iraq? Who presented the fraudulent case that Libya must be bombed? Where do the zionists turn to reinvigorate support for their increasingly sadistic and unpopular war?

The White House’s favorite accomplice, the so-called paper of record: The New York Times.

The Times is far from the only guilty institution, but it does occupy a special niche in the cultural consciousness. To paraphrase Sulzberger: the public reads and trusts the Times. When it screams across the front page that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is ready to use them, people listen. The paper has the power to set the course of the news. Even those who do not read the Times likely consume media influenced by its editorial choices. As Rashid Khalidi told us:

    It’s the gray lady. It’s the newspaper of record. It takes itself extremely seriously. It is relied upon by vast numbers of people. And it is, as far as my own concerns go–which is to say the Middle East–a thoroughly unreliable and extremely noxious agent. And has been for a very, very long time.

More materially, the Times is fast becoming the only game in town for journalism. It is the only large-scale, profitable paper in the U.S. It employs thousands of journalists, allowing it to cover far more ground than any other outlet. Its readership is massive, eclipsing the next few major newspapers combined.

The aftermath of Donald Trump’s election—when the Times subscriber base received a massive shot in the arm—demonstrated that many people see the Times as a bastion of progressive, muckraking journalism. It is broadly understood as a repository of objective knowledge and the platonic ideal of journalistic integrity.

This carefully cultivated reputation is a liberal fiction.

For decades, the empire’s crimes have been refracted through the Times’ surrealist prism. On the other side a narrative emerges that speaks not of the horrors which the U.S. unleashes on the world, but of benevolent international leadership, legitimate responses to existential threats, and the promotion of “democratic values.”

In the sordid pages of the Times, war crimes transform into necessary evils; right-wing coups are presented as popular movements toward democracy; and the context from which resistance to U.S. power arises is erased.

Our project—The New York War Crimes—makes a systematic case that the Times is not an unbiased fount of information, but a sophisticated ideological weapon. Despite its long and shameful history, the past seven months may be its darkest hour. The Times has stooped to new lows to depict Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza as a justified defensive war, providing cover for the occupation army’s relentless assault on hospitals and schools, while blaming Hamas for the mass murder of Palestinians.

The paper’s editors have hired former Israeli intelligence officers to fabricate pure atrocity propaganda and run glowing profiles of zionist propagandists who spread sensationalist lies about October 7th. For many months, the Times minimized the Israeli-engineered famine in northern Gaza, casting it as a natural disaster and rendering the perpetrator’s role invisible. Its journalism has grotesquely characterized women in the IOF carrying out a genocide as a victory for feminism. Israel’s mass murder of journalists has been absent from the Times’ coverage, despite its lofty rhetoric about protecting the free press. Unlike in the case of Ukraine, where the Times lionizes resistance to invasion, it does not acknowledge Palestinians’ right to resist occupation, siege and apartheid with counter-violence.

And in typical fashion, the Times has uncritically reprinted IOF claims despite their long and well-documented history of lying to the press. These lies have, in real time, helped justify ghastly war crimes like the invasions of al-Shifa Hospital and the Flour Massacre.

Our data-driven research (along with the work of others, like The Intercept) further exposed gross patterns of dehumanizing language, extreme bias in sourcing and refusal to report on unsavory developments. For example, the newspaper quoted Israeli and American sources more than three times as often as Palestinian ones. This trend is much starker when examining only quotations from officials. Israeli and American officials’ quotes outnumber Palestinians nine to one.

Since October 7th, we’ve published physical papers critiquing The New York Times’ coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, including a January edition, co-authored with the Feminist Solidarity Network for Palestine, which exposed the infamous Hamas mass rape story as atrocity propaganda. Our paper also platforms Palestinian artists, writers and poets–precisely who you will not see foregrounded in The New York Times. We have been honored to publish poetry, art and writing directly from Gaza, while paying those contributors and helping them raise money to evacuate.

The Times malfeasance is systematic. Case in point, our meticulous examination of The New York Times’ archive revealed a disgraceful history.

The paper demonizes U.S. enemies and supports U.S.-backed regime change, like in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Bolivia (2019). It dutifully manufactures consent for U.S. wars, most famously through fraudulent claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons, and unsubstantiated stories which built a pretext for NATO intervention in Libya.

The Times also collaborates directly with the White House and the CIA to squash potentially damaging reporting. In 2004, under pressure from the Bush administration, the papershelved a bombshell report on a massive illegal NSA spying program until after Bush won re-election. Just days before the 1954 U.S.-backed coup which deposed Guatemalan leader Jacobo Árbenz, the Times pulled their correspondent out of the country at the behest of CIA Director Allen Dulles.

Our goal is to unmask the Times and expose the paper for what it is: a tool of empire encased in a liberal veneer.

We take our name from The New York Crimes, a project of the ACT-UP coalition, a grassroots project that leveled a powerful critique of the paper’s coverage of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. As Avram Finklestein, a co-producer of the original Crimes told us in an interview:

    The New York Times is a capitalist rag, there’s just no way out of it. And yet, it’s considered to be a ‘liberal’ paper, even though it is so frequently wrong and politically pernicious.

Our ask of you is simple: boycott, divest, and unsubscribe. Do not purchase the Times’ recipes; do not play their games. If you work there, quit. If you’re unable to leave your job, leak us information. Talk to your family and friends who read the Times. Invest your time and money in independent media.

As Palestinian revolutionary Ghassan Kanafani famously wrote:

    Imperialism has laid its body over the world, the head in Eastern Asia, the heart in the Middle East, its arteries reaching Africa and Latin America. Wherever you strike it, you damage it, and you serve the World Revolution.

On October 7, the Palestinian resistance created a rare opening in the empire’s armor. Ever since, the hypocrisy of the zionist entity’s chief accomplice has been on full display, from the White House press room where Biden aids express sympathy for the deaths the administration is funding to the college campuses where riot police are sent to arrest anti-war protesters. Institutions like the Times that maintain and reproduce the zionist narrative no longer appear invincible.

When we delegitimize the Times, we strike the empire’s central nervous system and undermine the myths that prop up its ailing body.

Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) is an ad hoc coalition committed to solidarity and the horizon of liberation for the Palestinian people. Drawing together writers, editors, and other culture workers, WAWOG hopes to provide ongoing infrastructure for cultural organizing in response to the war. This project is modeled on American Writers Against the Vietnam War, an organization founded in 1965.

Asian ‘NATO’ encircles China

Asian ‘NATO’ encircles China
Morning Star Online on April 25, 2024 by Fiona Edwards

MAJOR new announcements this month indicate that the U.S. is intent on escalating its military interference in the Asia-Pacific and the seas around China.

The first announcement by the defence ministers of the U.S., Britain and Australia on the April 8 2024, revealed that the Aukus military alliance is seeking to expand with plans to invite Japan into the anti-China pact.

This was followed by another announcement three days later, at a summit in Washington between U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida, and the President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, where a new trilateral agreement between the countries was unveiled, including plans to conduct joint naval exercises in the South China Sea this year.

Days before this announcement, on April 7, the first joint naval and air drills between the U.S., Australia, Japan, and the Philippines took place in the South China Sea.

These new initiatives aim to bolster the U.S.’s already substantial military encirclement of China, threatening to destabilize the region and lay the foundations for a U.S.-led hot war against China.

Washington is whipping up conflict in the South China Sea

Under the disingenuous rhetoric of safeguarding “peace and security” in the Asia-Pacific and the South China Sea, the U.S. is cajoling the Philippines and Japan into following its militaristic policy against China.

Since Ferdinand Marcos Jnr became president of the Philippines in June 2022, there has been a significant shift in the country’s foreign policy orientation with a departure from the neutral policy pursued by the previous government led by former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The new anti-China orientation of the current Philippine government has been strongly influenced by the US.

This was evident when President Marcos Jnr announced in 2023 that the U.S. would be granted access to four additional military bases, bringing the total number of Philippine bases used by the U.S. to nine.

Two of the new sites are located just across from Taiwan and southern China.

The trilateral summit between the U.S., the Philippines, and Japan on April 11 announced a further advance of the U.S. strategy: joint naval exercises in the South China Sea, which aim to whip up tensions between the Philippines and China.

The shift in the Philippines’ foreign policy has been strongly criticized by the country’s former president, Duterte, who has warned that his country risks being used as a pawn in a potential U.S.-led hot war on China.

Duterte said:

    The Americans are the ones pushing the Philippine government to go out there and find a quarrel and eventually maybe start a war… But I do not think that America will die for us… I would tell the Americans, you have so many ships, so you do not need my island as a launching pad or as a launching deck for you.

It is important to understand these developments take place in the wider context of U.S. aggression against China. The U.S. already surrounds China with around 400 military bases. The U.S.’s main foreign policy goal now, and for a least the next decade, is to preserve

U.S. global hegemony by stopping the peaceful rise of China.

The U.S. claims that its actions are “defensive” and designed to preserve the “status quo” in the region. These claims turn reality on its head.

The South China Sea is 12,000 kilometres away from the U.S. Countries in the region would be able to discuss and resolve their disputes peacefully without imperialist meddling from Washington.

The U.S. administration has appointed itself the world’s “policeman” and is attempting to stoke division in the Asia-Pacific and create tensions through militaristic interference.

The U.S.’s claim that confronting China in the South China Sea is necessary to defend its own “national security” is nonsensical. China poses no “threat” to the U.S.–Beijing is not conducting naval exercises off the coast of California and has no military bases surrounding the U.S.

The U.S. push for an ‘Asian Nato’

The U.S. wants its global North allies to join its military build-up against China. The founding of the Aukus military alliance between the U.S., Britain, and Australia in 2021 was a significant advance in that project.

The announcement that Aukus is now seeking new members, chiefly the former colonial power Japan, is an ominous development.

Many analysts are warning that the U.S.’s plans to expand Aukus are an attempt to create an “Asian Nato,” pointing to the risk that Aukus could emulate NATO’s role in Europe, which has intentionally provoked a devastating proxy war in Ukraine with the goal of “weakening Russia.”

The Aukus pact promotes nuclear proliferation. The agreement involves the U.S. and Britain transferring tons of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to Australia, a non-nuclear state. This breaches The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT).

The plan to invite Japan into Aukus threatens to escalate Japanese militarism and encourage Japan to move even further away from its post-War World II pacifist constitution.

In 2022 there was a significant shift in Japan’s foreign policy when it was announced that the country’s military spending would be increased to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, after decades of being capped at 1 percent.

This increase in military spending is claimed to be necessary to provide the funds for Japan to buy cruise missiles from the U.S. that are capable of hitting North Korea and parts of China.

An imperialist clique targeting China

It is particularly grotesque that the U.S. is proposing that Japan, a country with a shameful colonial history of invading and subjugating China in the 19th and 20th centuries, joins a military alliance aimed at stopping the peaceful development of China.

Japan has committed many brutal atrocities in China. In World War II Japan murdered millions of Chinese people and carried out mass rapes of women and girls.

Britain, already a member of Aukus, has its own appalling colonial history. Britain infamously launched two opium wars against China, forcing it to import and legalize drugs against its government’s will.

Britain invaded and colonized Hong Kong in 1841 and then ruled it with an iron fist for 156 years.

Unlike Japan, Britain, and the U.S., China’s remarkable rise over the past 70 years has not been achieved through invasions, colonialism, slavery, and genocide but through peaceful means.

It is precisely this peaceful development of China that the U.S. is determined to stop.

The stepping up of Washington’s militarised aggression in the Asia-Pacific takes place in the context of the U.S.’s failures to compete with China economically.

The U.S. has not been able to raise its own rate of growth nor slow down China’s through its cold war measures. China’s economy is currently growing at a rate two-and-a-half times faster than that of the U.S..

To compensate for its relative economic decline, the U.S. is doubling down on military aggression, the sphere in which the U.S. remains globally dominant.

The U.S.’s increasing militarization of the Asia-Pacific is a key component of Washington’s global war drive. It should be vigorously opposed by all those who want to stop the U.S. dragging everyone into another world war.

FCC Hid Phones Radiation Limits From Public and Courts

FCC testing showed popular cellphone brands exceeded the agency’s safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation, but the agency hid the information from the public and the courts, according to data obtained by the Environmental Health Trust.

FCC Knew Phones Exceeded Radiation Limits, Hid Info From Public and Courts
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.
04/24/24

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) knew for years that certain popular smartphones exceeded the agency’s safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation when held close to the body, according to data obtained by the Environmental Health Trust (EHT) via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Rather than going public with the testing results, the FCC hid them — even when important lawsuits concerning cellphone radiation’s impact on people’s health were underway.

The outcome of such lawsuits might have been different, had the agency been honest about what it knew, said W. Scott McCollough, lead litigator for Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless cases. McCollough called the FCC’s actions “scandalous.”

Miriam Eckenfels-Garcia, director of CHD’s EMR program, told The Defender:

“While we are not surprised that the FCC is hiding information and prioritizing the protection of big industry over people’s health, seeing the FCC’s actions play out in this way reminds us why the work we are doing in this program is hugely important and why CHD is proud to be on the forefront of holding the FCC and telecom industry accountable through our litigation, education and advocacy.”

Eckenfels-Garcia and McCollough commended the nonprofit scientific research and education group EHT for getting the information out to the public.

“EHT deserves great credit for digging this out,” McCollough told The Defender, “and exposing the FCC’s extraordinary efforts to protect the industry it is supposed to regulate, rather than protecting the people whose health it should be safeguarding, by concealing information people need to know.”

Five phones surpassed FCC radiation limit

According to EHT, the FCC undertook the 2 millimeter (mm) testing on Aug. 30 through Sept. 23, 2019, after an Aug. 21, 2019, Chicago Tribune investigation reported that some cellphones exceeded the FCC’s wireless radiation limits when tested 2 mm from the body.

The FCC typically uses a separation distance of roughly 10mm, or potentially more, for premarketing cellphone testing.

The Chicago Tribune chose 2mm to mimic the real-world experience of those who carry their cellphone in a tight pants pocket or against their skin, EHT said.

The FCC didn’t release its 2 mm testing results until Sept. 29, 2023, in response to EHT’s FOIA requests seeking documents related to cellphone radiation tests performed by the FCC from January 2017 through April 2020.

The FCC’s testing results showed that five of 11 cellphone models it tested exceeded the FCC’s safety limit of 1.6 watts per kilogram (W/kg) when tested at a distance of 2 mm from the body:

    Apple’s iPhone XS, measured at 2.34 W/kg and 1.99 W/kg.
    Samsung’s Galaxy S9, measured at 4.52 W/kg and 4.38 W/kg.
    Samsung’s Galaxy J3, measured at 5.20 W/kg and 5.14 W/kg.
    Motorola’s Moto g6 Play, measured at 1.98 W/kg and 1.98 W/kg.
    BLU’s Vivo 5 Mini, measured at 2.2 W/kg and 2.75 W/kg.

McCollough said he suspected the FCC hid its results because releasing them would have supported the Chicago Tribune’s investigation results.

“The FCC was intent on hiding this information because they knew how bad it would reflect on the commission and the industry it serves.”

“The FCC has abandoned its primary mission, and is now just a servant to telecom industry masters, conspiring against the public’s interest,” McCollough added.

According to McCollough, the Chicago Tribune’s investigation led to some lawsuits — “most famously Cohen v. Apple.”

The plaintiffs in that lawsuit alleged that Apple failed to warn iPhone users that they would receive excessive radiation if they placed the phone close to their body.

McCollough said the case’s dismissal in 2020 relied on the fact that the FCC claimed to have tested Apple phones and found them compliant with FCC exposure regulations.

“The separation distance was addressed there too, but one has to believe that if the court there had known about the other results — now exposed by EHT — it may have made a different decision in that case,” he said.

Additionally, McCollough said, “Had we known this when CHD and EHT were challenging the FCC’s exposure limits before the D.C. Circuit” — referring to CHD and EHT’s historic win in 2021 that challenged the FCC’s safety limits — “it would have turned out even worse for the FCC.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the FCC failed to consider the non-cancer evidence regarding adverse health effects of wireless technology when it decided that its 1996 radiofrequency (RF) emission guidelines protect the public’s health.

The court sent the case back to the FCC and said the agency had to “provide a reasoned explanation for its determination that its guidelines adequately protect against harmful effects of exposure to radiofrequency radiation.”

The FCC has still not complied with the court’s mandate.

If the court had known about the 2 mm testing results, “that court might have done more than just send the case back without any deadline for compliance with the mandate,” McCollough said.

Joe Sandri, a lawyer for EHT, pointed to another set of lawsuits — still ongoing — that might be affected by the testing results.

The roughly 80 plaintiffs in the consolidated set of cases, Motorola Inc. v. Murray, allege injuries and fatalities — mostly but not exclusively through brain cancer — may have been caused by the wireless radiation emitted by their cellphones.

“The industry has been working hard to keep out evidence, and this has impeded those lawsuits’ progress,” Sandri told The Defender.

‘Phones should be tested the way they are used’

When the FCC finally released the results to EHT, the agency noted it was doing so “with the caveat that the 2 mm separation distance test results are inconsistent with FCC practice … and are misleading because they reflect extreme conditions.”

Theodora Scarato — EHT’s vice president for policy and education who filed the FOIA requests — pointed out that using a 2 mm separation distance isn’t “misleading” or “extreme.”

“It is outrageous that the U.S. allows phones to be tested with whatever separation distance the companies want. Phones should be tested the way they are used,” she said in a press release.

“Children and adults use and carry phones pressed to their body for hours every day. … It is time for a new approach to cell phone testing, one that reflects the way people use phones today,” Scarato said.

Scarato also recommended the U.S. adopt “a strong oversight and compliance program, including post-market RF emission and health effect surveillance.”

FCC still withholding documents

When the FCC sent EHT its 2019 testing results, the commission refused to share seven related documents — including intra-agency communications containing “pre-decisional internal deliberations” — claiming that doing so would “chill deliberations within the Commission and impede the candid exchange of ideas.”

EHT, via Scarato, on Dec. 28, 2023, appealed the FCC’s decision to deny public access to the seven documents, noting that the public health implications for withholding the information are far-reaching.

Sandri said EHT waited until now to go public with releasing the FCC’s testing results obtained last September because it wanted to give the FCC — which has a new administration — a “civil amount of time” to comply with the 2021 court remand and the FOIA appeal.

“Now that this delay has gone on, it’s time to go public,” he said.

In EHT’s appeal letter, Scarato pointed out that scientific research has found adverse effects from cellphone radiation exposure at levels well below FCC limits. The adverse effects include cancer, the induction of oxidative stress, epigenetic effects, damage to neurotransmitters, memory, brain development and the immune, endocrine, hematological and reproductive systems.

The public interest in releasing the documents outweighs the public interest in withholding them, Scarato said.

“If there is a balance to be weighed between protecting deliberative privilege and the notification of the public of harmful interference the balance should be on the side of transparency and public health.”

The FCC has not yet responded to the appeal.

The FCC did not immediately respond to The Defender’s request for comment about its 2019 testing results and the seven related documents it is withholding from public view.

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa.

Human nervous system manipulating AI Systems should be banned

A.I. Systems Which Manipulate The Human Nervous System (Thoughts, Emotions, Perceptions) and Derogate Fundamental Human Rights
Should be Banned Outright. Open Letter to the European Parliament
By Mojmir Babacek
Global Research, January 31, 2024

On December 9, 2023, the European Parliament published a press release, where it stated that it reached a political deal with the Council of the European Union “on a bill to ensure AI in Europe is safe, respects fundamental rights and democracy“. The future bill is supposed to ban “AI systems that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent their free will“.

According to the press release the deputies also “agreed“ on “clear obligations“ with respect to “AI systems used to influence the outcome of elections and voter behavior“ (see this). No one and no place elaborated on those issues. In a reply to the petition of several representatives and members of the world human rights organizations, the chair of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, quoted the preparatory document of the EP, which stated:

“The placing on the market, putting into service or use of certain AI systems with the objective to or the effect of materially distorting human behavior, whereby  physical or psychological harms are likely to occur, should be forbidden. This limitation should be understood to include neuro-technologies assisted by AI systems that are used to monitor, use or influence neural data gathered through brain-computer
interfaces insofar as they are materially distorting the behavior of a natural person in a manner that causes or is likely to cause that person or another person significant harm.“

Those statements both address and hide the  feasibility of mass manipulation of the human nervous system (thoughts, emotions, perceptions, functioning of internal organs or even causing death of people) at a distance. It is evident that only when masses of people’s brains are controlled at distance, the AI systems can be “used  to influence the outcome of elections and voter behavior“  by forming political opinions of voters and imposing their decision to vote for certain parties or persons.

For that matter, 11 human rights organizations replied to Dolors Montserrat:

“We are deeply concerned with your reply to the petition number 0716/2023.

After studying the information on the agreement between European Parliament and member states of the EU on artificial intelligence legislation (see this and this), we do not see their sincere intention to prevent the manipulation of human thinking emotions etc by governments agencies with the use of pulsed microwaves, extra long electromagnetic waves or other as yet unpublished energies. This means that so far there are no measures taken to prevent the development of the European union member states into the totalitarian regimes where thinking of citizens will be controlled by the governments using those radiations and artificial intelligence. To prevent such situation, the governments would have to declassify the technologies of remote control of the human nervous systems and create agencies

objectively capable and legally obliged to disclose the abuse of human rights and democracy by AI technologies. When the governments keep them classified, they keep for themselves open the option to manipulate the minds of their citizens, whenever they see fit.

Possession of those tools will relieve them of responsibility in the face of their citizens in cases where catastrophes may happen due to the fact that they neglected dangers, connected with further development of civilization.

The scientific evidence proving that at least pulsed microwaves (including transmissions of cell phone systems) and extra long electromagnetic waves can be used to control human thoughts, emotions, perceptions, cause pains etc. at distance can be found here.

The proposal of legislation, which would satisfy requirements on the political system respecting human rights and freedoms of  citizens in the electronic era, can be found here.

In summary, we believe the EU AI Act should include legislation that explicitly prohibits EU governments, including law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military, from using artificial intelligence to manipulate at distance human thoughts, emotions, etc. using published or other as-yet unpublished energies. The legislation should also include the obligation of EU governments to protect their citizens from such manipulation by non-EU governments or other entities.

It is worth very serious consideration, whether in the not distant future, where majority of state’s citizens could be unemployed  or underemployed due to the use of artificial intelligence, they will be allowed to have a freedom to vote according to their opinions or whether the state power will decide that they are not responsible enough to make the right choice in the elections and will produce their decisions in their minds instead.

In this way they would not even have the right to vote against  the use of artificial intelligence, which deprived them of their jobs and dignity.

According to the analysis of the International Monetary Fund, the introduction of the Artificial Intelligence “is set to affect nearly 40% of all jobs“ worldwide and about 60% in advanced economies and in this way “AI will likely, worsen overall inequality“ (see this).

Commander Cornelis van der Klaauw from Royal Netherlands Navy and Expert from Strategic Communications and Information Operations NATO Joint Warfare Centre wrote in an article in 2023:

“The reason why cognitive attacks go unnoticed by their targets is that cognitive activities bypass the conscious mind and directly target the subconscious of a person… most of our decisions are made by our subconscious… Cognitive attacks are aimed at exploiting emotions rooted in our subconscious, bypassing our rational conscious mind“.

You can sign the petition to the European Parliament demanding the deputies to produce the legislation which will secure the democracy and respect for human rights in the European union in the transparent and unequivocal way by clicking here. The text of the Petition is in the Appendix Below.

ANNEX
Text of the Petition
BAN REMOTE CONTROL OF THE HUMAN NERVOUS SYSTEM
An initiative of Mojmír Babáček
 
We, the undersigned, ask the European Parliament to include in the legislation on Artificial Intelligence the following:

1. Prohibit the use of  Artificial Intelligence to remotely control and/or decode the activity of the human nervous system with electromagnetic waves, directed energies, potential waves, non-local photon or electron connections or any other energies, without explicit consent.

 2. Prohibit all EU government organizations, including law enforcement, intelligence agencies, military, and their contractors, to use Artificial Intelligence to remotely control and/or decode the activity of the human nervous system of civilians using the above-mentioned means. The legislation should also include the obligation of EU governments to protect their citizens from such manipulation by non-EU governments or other entities.

3. Provide for the establishment of EU agencies that are objectively capable and legally obliged to investigate and disclose the abuse of human rights and democracy by Artificial Intelligence used to remotely control and/or decode the activity of the human nervous system using the above-mentioned means. Mentioned EU agencies should operate independently of EU member states and the EU should set itself the goal to engage the United Nations Organization as the last arbiter in deciding the cases where people from around the world will complain against abuse of their human rights by those neurotechnologies and artificial intelligence.

 We remind you that Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for social and human sciences stated on July 13, 2023: “We are on a path to a world in which algorithms will enable us to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions”

As well commander Cornelis van der Klaauw from Royal Netherlands Navy and Expert from Strategic Communications and Information Operations NATO Joint Warfare Centre wrote in an article in 2023:

“The reason why cognitive attacks go unnoticed by their targets is that cognitive activities bypass the conscious mind and directly target the subconscious of a person… most of our decisions are made by our subconscious… cognitive attacks are not science fiction anymore.

They are taking place already now… neural nanotechnology can be used to bring nano-sized robots close to a neuron via the bloodstream and make it possible to link the human brain directly (i.e. not intercepted by our senses) to a computer, making use of artificial intelligence in the process… Warfare is no longer a purely military concept; it has become much broader and more complex. In the future, there will only be one rule in warfare:

There are no rules. While other domains can provide tactical and operational victories, the human domain is the only domain in which we can secure a full victory.

It is our hope that  you will not vote in favour of  a future, whereby great powers will fight to control the brains of the world population.

For detailed argumentation see the following articles.

The Effects of Pulsed Microwaves And Extra Low Frequency Electromagnetic Waves on Human Brains? Governments Routinely “Classify Information” Pertaining to the Manipulation of the Human Nervous System

The Dignity of Human Beings and Their Personality: Neurotechnology and The Manipulation of The Human Nervous System. “Saving Freedom and Democracy”. Open Letter to the European Union and Governments around the World

Scientific Consensus Really Be Trusted Anymore!

A brilliant summary of the tactics used to promote the illusion of consensus. It's amazing how money was used to turn normal people into behaving like morons, namely the pro-narrative pushers.

Up until the fifteenth century the "scientific consensus" was that the earth is flat and that bathing was a cause for illness. According to the "science" cats and dogs in the middle ages were destroyed as they were the cause of the plague. The result was the explosion of the Black Death.
Today's situation is reminiscent of the Inquisition with the "consensus" destroying people's lives. Violence usually appears to be a result of desperate people trying to cover up their lies and in some cases the embarrassment of realizing they have been taken in by these lies.

Everything has become a hot topic and “science” has definitely suffered. True scientific discovery has been abandoned to the point where we are now living in a new type of dark age. Politics and money have thoroughly corrupted any semblance of honest public discourse.

When people have to fear for their careers by simply speaking the truth as we know it and laws are only applied to one subset of citizens we are no longer a free or open society. Historians will view this time as a culture of denial and corruption. That is if we don’t start behaving like rational people again and can refrain from initiating a nuclear war.

This has become the worst “best of times” in that people have access to more information than at any other time yet are too lazy to check out information beyond the skinny headlines and deafening drum beat of pundits on maintstream media. Wake up sheeple!

With the revealing of the huge amount of bots prevalent in all social media, I wonder how "organic" the spread of the mentioned hashtags really was. The rollout of the whole covid debacle world wide was orchestrated by the unmentioned Municipal Corporation known as "US Department of Defense". Take a look at what agencies that are under this criminal organizations umbrella here:

http://www.paulstramer.net/2023/03/getting-caught-up-after-160-plus-years.html

Detaching From "Scientific Consensus" Propaganda: "Science" Can't Really Be Trusted Anymore
The mainstream works hard to convince people there is a "scientific consensus" on various topics, but is this true?
Arjun Walia
The Pulse, Apr 17, 2023

“Scientific consensus” surrounds us everywhere. We saw it with all things COVID despite the fact that, to me at least, it seemed that doctors, scientists, and other experts in the field who were questioning government health policies during this time, like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, vaccine safety/efficacy and mask mandates were actually in the majority. Or at least a very large minority.

We were presented with a “clear consensus” type of narrative via mainstream media and government health authorities, but this clearly wasn’t the case.

In a recent interview, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked about his scientific views about COVID-19 and he said “I’m only interested in consensus.” So, agreeing with the “consensus” is quite prevalent today even though it may not even be the consensus.

I’ve said it before many times and I’ll say it again, the mainstream can make the majority seem like the minority and the minority seem like the majority.

    “I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled…Consensus is the business of politics….The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such
thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
    - Michael Crichton - physician, producer, and writer

We’ve also seen consensus propaganda in other areas like climate science. The public is often told that approximately 97 percent of scientists agree with the catastrophe narrative, but this isn’t true when we really explore where this claim came from.

As Aaron Kheriaty, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently said:

    “Science is an ongoing search for truth & such truth has little to do with consensus. Every major scientific advance involves challenges to a consensus. Those who defend scientific consensus rather than specific experimental findings are not defending science but partisanship.”

It reminds me of “Groupthink.” It’s a phenomenon that occurs when a group of individuals reaches a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation. It’s based on a common desire not to upset the balance of a group of people, or the “herd.”

It Was So Obvious That Mass Censorship Was Needed

What we were being presented with regarding all things COVID was opposed by so many experts in the field that a massive censorship machine had to step in and uphold the status quo of “consensus.”

New emails released during litigation against the Biden administration reveal incredible efforts to silence the concerns of many scientists, doctors, journalists, and other experts in the field. They actively censored content they knew contained, as White House officials Andy Slavitt and Rob Flaherty called it, “true content” to protect political policy.

Throughout the pandemic fact-checkers have not really been fact-checking, but rather narrative checking. Social media has been one of the many long arms of the government to enforce its narrative control tactics.

The origin of COVID is a classic example. Twenty-seven scientists published a letter in The Lancet condemning “conspiracy theories” that suggested the virus did not have a natural origin. Dissenting views were censored on social media and labelled “misinformation.” But now, the US Department of Energy and the FBI say the virus was likely the result of a lab leak in Wuhan. Even though their confidence level in the evidence is low, it still remains a strong possibility that wasn’t allowed to be openly discussed before. Why?

The recent release of the ‘Twitter Files’ revealed how government agencies, Big Tech, media, and academia colluded in an effort to police online content, and censor dissenting voices to create a false perception of consensus.

I go more in-depth on this massive censorship machine and the relationship between Big tech, media and several federal agencies that have orchestrated it in the article below for those who are interested.

Shame and Ridicule Ensues

The shaming started right from the start of the pandemic. On Twitter, #covidiot started to trend on the evening of March 22, 2020, and by the time the night was over thousands of tweets had co-opted the hashtag to denounce poor public health practices.

Words like selfish dumbfucks, village idiots, flat earther, inbred trash, negative IQ, and more became quite common. It was sad to see. People encouraged hospitals to not provide care for anybody who opposed what we were being told by the government.

That is how quickly the masses can be made to believe something, especially when massive amounts of fear and propaganda are used to paint a misleading picture that’s far from the truth.

It’s discouraging to see how quickly we can turn on our fellow citizens.

A piece written by Gabrielle Bauer, titled “Those Who Chose Shaming Over Science” explains,

    “From the earliest days of the pandemic, something deep inside me – in my soul, if you will – recoiled from the political and public response to the virus. Nothing about it felt right or strong or true. This was not just an epidemiological crisis, but a societal one, so why were we listening exclusively to some select epidemiologists? Where were the mental health experts? The child development specialists? The historians? The economists? And why were our political leaders encouraging fear rather than calm?

    The questions that troubled me the most had less to do with epidemiology than with ethics: Was it fair to require the greatest sacrifice from the youngest members of society, who stood to suffer the most from the restrictions? Should civil liberties simply disappear during a pandemic, or did we need to balance public safety with human rights? Unschooled in the ways of online warriors, I assumed the Internet would allow me to engage in “productive discussions” about these issues. So I hopped online, and the rest was hysteria.”

When I talk about shame and ridicule, I like to point to a paper I’ve cited in many of my articles from several researchers from academic institutions in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada.

    “Public and political discourse quickly normalized stigma against people who remain unvaccinated, often woven into the tone and framing of media articles; for example, a popular news outlet compiled a list of “notable anti-vaxxers who have died from COVID-19” (Savulescu and Giubilini, 2021). Political leaders have singled out the unvaccinated, blaming them for: the continuation of the pandemic; stress on hospital capacity; the emergence of new variants; driving transmission to vaccinated individuals; and the necessity of ongoing lockdowns, masks, school closures and other restrictive measures.

    Political rhetoric has descended into moralizing, scapegoating, blaming and condescending language using pejorative terms and actively promoting stigma and discrimination as tools to increase vaccination.

    This has become socially acceptable among many vaccinated individuals and pro-vaccine groups as well as the public at large. The effect is to further polarize society – physically and psychologically – with limited discussion as to the reasons why people remain unvaccinated.“

So, the next time you hear the words “scientific consensus.” Remember this article.

Legacy of British Empire's Violence

“Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire” – book review
Palestine Chronicle on April 12, 2024 by Jim Miles

This is an amazing history, one that should be on the list of every history class dealing with modern history, history of the British Empire, and further on to those studying economics, politics, and geopolitical strategies. For anyone else it should be a must read in order to understand current events as they are unfolding today throughout the world, for our current geopolitical scenarios are highly based on Britain’s Legacy of Violence.

The book encompasses about two hundred years of British imperial history, leaving out the depredations of the empire in North America—which preceded and actuated much of what followed—and ends with the dissolution of empire after World War II. In between is a sordid tale of violence shellacked over with propaganda, hubris, racism, a willingly compliant press, and an ignorant domestic audience. Several themes are consistent through Britain’s imperial endeavours.

Violence is obviously the first theme, and it came, and continues to come, in many forms: overt military, covert military and espionage, a wide range of torture, extra judicial executions (murder), concentration camps, removals, starvation, sexual abuse, chemical weapons, and on…

In all the subject colonies examined in Legacy of Violence all these actions are similar, and as the colonial experience of repression advances through the years, the techniques were refined to be more painful at the same time pretending to be more in accordance with developing international law.

International law

International law has become more and more codified in particular after the great World Wars of the Twentieth Century, but the British Empire has always found ways to work around any increasing surveillance of their actions. While ultimate responsibility always arrived home in London, the local colonial governors were given a legalized carte blanche to do as they felt necessary to impart civilization to the savages under their control.

The outright violence of domination was quasi legalized by declaring colonies or areas of colonies as zones of terror and rebellion allowing the enactment of martial law. Under these regimes, thousands of laws were created by the colonial government in order to quell any riots, protests, disturbances, or outright rebellions. These laws provided the “veneer of legal permissibility.”

Occasionally news of these events arrived in the homeland, and were either written off as the standard “bad apple in a barrel” excuse, or turned around the other way and blamed the indigenous people of being savages without morals, and that force was necessary to deal with their intransigence and inability to work in a civilized state.

As international law became more codified, the powers that be allowed for “derogations” or exemptions from the rule of law, in the event of “terror” or “rebellion” in the colonies. As a result “Britain became synonymous with a ‘derogation regime’ that…normalized the exception in international law and practice.” It is perhaps most obviously seen in today’s modern meaningless parlance as the “rule of law…. a time honored term in the empire of legalized lawlessness.”

Throughout Elkins book, the idea of morality and savagery courses through all the colonial eras and areas, from South Africa, Malaysia, India, Palestine, Kenya, on through to post war Cyprus and much closer to home in Ireland. The British always claimed a superior civilization and morality, and the “uncivilized and savage populations of the world… needed a different set of rules.”

Morality

While discussing the Arab rebellion in pre-war Palestine, Chaim Weizmann reflected on the use of violence against the Arabs, being “heartened to know ‘it has produced a salutary moral effect’.” This view has continued up to today’s propaganda concerning events in Gaza.

It produced the effect of considering the meaning of “morality” in relation to the slaughter in Gaza, as Israel has always proclaimed it has the most ‘moral’ army in the world. Events in Gaza, and indeed throughout Palestine, would indicate that the Israel Occupation Force has learned well the British imperial application of morality.

The techniques they have used throughout their colonization of Palestine have been adopted from the previous British occupation: removals, torture, concentration camps (Gaza itself), and on as listed above.

This most ‘moral’ army has adopted the morality of violence as a means to overcome the resistance to their occupation and settlement of an indigenous culture. It has been fully expressed as a means to ethnically cleanse Gaza, by removal or genocide—with a note that the official definition of genocide involves the intent to kill, and also the intent to destroy the culture and survivability of the people even if not directly murdered by military means.

The New Anglo-American Empire

After World War II, the creation of the UN, and the writing of Declaration of Human Rights, but more importantly the weakening of the financial “sterling area” and the strengthening of the U.S. financial and military empire, Britain was forced into closing down its empire…at the same time doing its best to maintain power of some kind through its Commonwealth of Nations, most powerfully including the settler-colonial states of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

With the advent of the Cold War and manufactured fears of communism, maintaining the sterling area required U.S. underwriting, as “The Americans needed to tread lightly on imperial designs lest they antagonize their much-needed NATO partners…standing firm against the Soviets.”

A 1966 British counterinsurgency manual, aimed at communist insurgencies, “included the necessity of adhering to the rule of law and winning the hearts and minds of the civilian population.” As per Elkins, hearkening back to Malaysia, it “emerged as the [italics in original] reference point for counterinsurgency success, influencing the American’s Petraeus Doctrine in Iraq and shaping Western counterinsurgency operations to this day.”

Hearts and minds along with the rule of law are essentially propaganda terms covering up the forcible removal and resettlement of indigenous populations, accompanied by the more hidden tortures and executions.

Not only did it influence the Petraeus Doctrine, but Britain’s imperial legacy of violence has left loopholes for post independent regimes to enact coercive violence of all kinds within their own nations, nations frequently divided by ethnicities previously manipulated for better or worse by British governors and their cronies.

Today in Gaza

All of this culminates in today’s violence and slaughter—genocide—in Gaza, supported by the financial and military might of the United States and its imperial ambitions. Elkin’s Legacy of Violence was written before these events and wisely she did not attempt to bring her work into the realm of current events, yet it is obvious that Israeli actions follow from their heritage as a British colony initiated far back in the days of supreme colonial power immediately after World War I.

The British empire’s Legacy of Violence has morphed into an Anglo-American rule of violence with the violence and rules stemming mainly from the United States. However, as a nuclear armed belligerent and racist nation, Israel directs its own actions in Gaza, an ‘in your face’ attitude towards the U.S.’ feeble attempts to appear to be humanitarian while supplying the financial and military means for Israel to maintain the slaughter.

Epilogue

The British empire lives on, subsumed by the military-industrial-financial power of the United States, as well as being evident in many still smoldering regions of the world where indigenous people are attempting to overcome the legacy of violence perpetrated by the former British power and the current U.S. imperial power.

Caroline Elkins work is a must read for anyone interested in understanding more of the background of today’s geopolitical violence. The information is very well referenced and researched and provides significant detail—in spite of the empire’s burning of colonial records—along with first hand anecdotal references.

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews to Palestine Chronicles. His interest in this topic stems originally from an environmental perspective, which encompasses the militarization and economic subjugation of the global community and its commodification by corporate governance and by the American government.

USA using India as a tool to contain China

India as a tool to contain China-Geopolitics explained

by Chris Kanthan

World Affairs June 13, 2020

Four years ago, I wrote an article explaining how there were ulterior motives behind the U.S. allowing Indians to become CEO’s of big American corporations. Now, India has gone further down that path and has almost definitely sealed its fate as a satellite of the U.S. The consequence will be that India will be stuck in the middle-income trap forever and won’t have much sovereignty in the spheres of economics or foreign policy.

Geopolitics 101

Let me explain the basics of geopolitics. A superpower like the U.S. maintains its status by keeping all the potential rivals weak. Here’s a chart of how the U.S. would like the world to look like:

When one of the rivals gets a bit too strong, it will be attacked mercilessly. For example, by 2012, Russia’s GDP had grown 1000% in a decade. Immediately, the U.S. created problems in Ukraine, brought down the price of oil, attacked Ruble and destroyed half its value, and has been imposing sanctions on Russia ever since. Also, by creating frictions between Russia and Germany, the U.S. kills two birds in one stone–keeping two competitors down at the same time. (Just like how India-China conflicts will be America’s wet dream).

In the 1980s, Japan came under severe attack after Japanese cars and semiconductors started challenging the U.S. Every propaganda that’s used against China now was used against Japan. Result? Plaza Accord, which killed the Japanese semiconductor sector, forced Yen to double in value, blackmailed Japanese auto companies into moving manufacturing to the U.S., and basically forced Japan to commit suicide. Japan never recovered.

This is why Chinese leaders always said, “Hide your strength and bide your time.” But when ZTE announced world’s first 5G call in February 2018, the U.S. imposed sanctions on ZTE within two months, forced the company to pay big fines, and accept American supervisors. Similar attacks on Huawei, dozens of other successful Chinese hi-tech companies, and on entire China has been going on since 2017. Why? China today has grown a bit too much:

In purchasing power, China surpassed the U.S. in 2014. And, as I show in my blog post, China will very likely be the largest economy by nominal GDP within five years (by 2025) as well. Thanks to the extraordinary screw up in handling the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. may actually lose its #1 spot by 2025. Hence all the anti-China hysteria.

How India was Recruited and Groomed

In the war against China, the U.S. has chosen India to be the big pawn, as traditional U.S. “allies” like Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia have all signaled that they don’t want to be a part of WW3. To give credit to the U.S., they have been planning on recruiting India for a long time. Let’s expound on this more …

First, one must understand the Faustian bargain that India made with the U.S. America opened up its job market for Indians, and India opened up its entire economy for the US! And the USA wins in both sides of the deal. Get the brightest workers from India; and in return get two things: (1) access to 1.3 billion consumers, and (2) a geopolitical puppet state.

Democracy and Free Market are propaganda slogans. Why hasn’t the U.S. tried to spread democracy in Saudi Arabia? No, that would be very dangerous–what if a populist Saudi guy gets elected and kicks out the U.S. military base and starts selling oil in Yuan? That would be the end of USA’s global hegemony.

Throughout the Cold War history, the U.S. supported and installed dozens of dictators and mass murderers all over the world–in Cambodia, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, all over Latin America, Middle East, Africa etc. Currently, the U.S. funds and arms about 70% of all non-democratic governments around the world. Just last year, when the socialist leader of Bolivia won the election, the U.S. instigated a military coup and overthrew the winner. In the 1970s, the U.S. even staged a coup in Australia and overthrew the popular Prime Minister who wasn’t very pro-U.S. Here is the general idea: “You can choose anyone democratically, as long as he is pro-USA.”

Thus, India shouldn’t fall for the propaganda for “like-minded democratic nations” getting together to contain China.

And “free market” was great until China started to win. Now the U.S. likes protectionism and hates WTO, which the U.S. created! When Walmart buys FlipKart–India’s successful e-commerce startup–that’s cheered on as free market. But do you think the U.S. would have allowed FlipKart to buy Walmart? Of course, not.

The Indian executives in America will never be able to go back to India and start competing corporations. The U.S. has made sure that it has enough control over Indian banks, VC’s and other financial structures to guarantee that there won’t be any funding for Indian versions of Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Facebook, Amazon etc.

China has Alibaba, Huawei, Tencent, TikTok, Baidu, BeiDou, SMIC, Xiaomi etc. to compete with every large American/European firm. India has no such indigenous players. And given the recent moves, India will never have such domestic giants.

Totally Different Success Stories for China and India

Compare India to China, which competes with the U.S. for the global market in all areas of technology, commerce, finance etc. There are 7 Indian companies in the Global Fortune 500 list; and there are 120 mainland Chinese companies on that list! India–7; China–120.

China beats India in every metric–GDP-per-capita (5x), international patents (28x), Unicorns (7x), foreign exchange reserves (6x), manufacturing output (10x), foreign trade (6x), electricity generation (4.5x), installed solar capacity (6x–38GW versus 240 GW), government spending (8x), R&D spending (20x), rice yield per hectare (2x), median wealth of an adult (13x), e-commerce market (20x), mobile internet speed (9x), bullet trains (39,000 Km in China versus zero in India), life expectancy (77 versus 69), healthcare (world ranking: China—48, India—145) and the list goes on.

In emerging technologies–5G, AI, blockchain, robotics, IoT etc.–and foundational technologies such as semiconductor chips, there’s just no comparison at all between China and India. (All the capable Indians in these fields are in the US).

You know where India beats China? In all the WRONG statistics:

• Child mortality rate: India = 4x China
• Adult Illiteracy rate: India = 8x China
• Poverty rate: India = 20x China
• Homicide/Murder rate: India = 5x China

Keep in mind that, in 1991, India and China were at pretty much the same level for all those metrics.

What changed? Well, India and China both opened up to the world, but in different ways. China protected its sovereignty, while India blindly embraced “reforms” and American neoliberalism. Now, it’s likely that India will turn out like any other numerous developing nations–Brazil, Mexico etc.–which will always be poorer and obedient “allies.”

To totally control a country, one must control 8 primary institutions or sectors: finance, business, media, technology, politicians, military, farming, and natural resources.

You can look at India and clearly see US’ total dominance in all these sectors. Worse, India is accelerating its vassal statehood by privatizing its state-owned banks, insurance companies, airlines, railways etc. Recently, Facebook and U.S. private equity firms like KKR bought a big chunk of Reliance Jio Platforms–the Indian telecom, digital services and e-commerce giant.

Looking at all the Indian media and the trolls on social media, it’s clear that Indians have been completely brainwashed to hate China. Indians who are so afraid of Huawei and TikTok possibly spying will gladly be 100% spied upon by Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nokia/Ericsson and every other western tech corporation–and all of them are linked to U.S. spying agencies. This is a strategic blunder.

Has India forgotten the revelations of Edward Snowden–how the U.S. tapped Modi’s cell phone?

While it’s great that an Indian guy is the CEO of Microsoft, don’t forget that Microsoft worked with the NSA to create backdoor for Skype, Outlook etc. From Google to Facebook and Intel to Qualcomm, every U.S. hi-tech company has been proven to work with U.S. gov to enable spying. In 2020, an American company with close ties to U.S. military was revealed to have rigged 500 mobile apps to spy on hundreds of millions of people all over the world!! The PRISM program of NSA has backdoors into all the global U.S. software:

Every Ally is Disposable

What Indians forget is that how the U.S. can easily switch back and forth, turning allies into enemies or other way around. This is geopolitics and is not understood by people who get carried away with emotions of the moment. Let us take a look at some examples:

1947-1992: The U.S. supported Pakistan and often opposed India. All the jihadists in Kashmir were supplied with U.S. weapons in the 1980s. Yeah, Bin Laden was also America’s Best-Friend-Forever. After the collapse of the USSR, the U.S. swiftly dumped Pakistan and Afghanistan.

1972: To fight the USSR, the US embraced China in 1972. To woo China, the U.S. kicked Taiwan out of the permanent UN Security Council; and even told China that it could eventually take over Taiwan, the obedient vassal state!

WW2: The U.S. partnered with Russia during WW2 to defeat Hitler. At that time Stalin was America’s (temporary) best friend–later on, he was constantly demonized by the U.S. And even though Russia destroyed 70% of the Nazi military, the U.S. took all the credits for defeating Hitler. Furthermore, within a few weeks after WW2, military generals in the U.S. were seriously considering dropping nuclear bombs on Russia! (Kill your ally and take over the world!)

Hitler and Nazis: Hitler and Nazi conglomerates were funded by Wall Street and Rockefeller before WW2. Then after WW2, all the top Nazi scientists were brought to the U.S. under CIA’s covert “Operation Paperclip.” Nazi scientists got top jobs in NASA! And Nazis all over Europe were recruited by the USA to fight the Soviet Union (Operation Gladio)! Yes, it makes your head spin.

Saddam Hussein: In the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam Hussein was America’s friend and pawn to attack Iran. The U.S. actually helped Saddam build his chemical weapons, and even helped him use it against Iran. After ten years of brutal war, Saddam was demonized and targeted for regime change. (Another shocking fact is that the U.S. sold some weapons to Iran as well during the Iraq-Iran war!)

Syria 2011-2020: The U.S. armed Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Kurds to attack Assad. Anything it takes to achieve geopolitical goals. There’s no morality. As U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo boasted, “We stole, we cheated, we lied.”

The list of American Machiavellian schemes goes on. If India thinks that the American boyfriend is going to marry her and happily live ever after, Indians are too naive and don’t understand geopolitics at all.

If there’s an India-China war, not a single American is going to die for India. However, the U.S. will ensure that the proxy war continues as long as possible. This will be great business for U.S. arms dealers. Remember the words of the famous Indian activist, Arundhati Roy:

At the end of the war, India’s economy will be so weak that U.S. corporations will buy even more Indian assets for pennies on the dollar.

Furthermore, India must understand how the U.S. economy and even the U.S. military depends on China. American missiles and fighter jets cannot work without the rare earth minerals from China; and the U.S. economy literally cannot function for even a few months without Chinese goods and labor. Also, U.S. corporations based in China rake in tons of money, thanks to the Chinese middle class, which is the largest in the world. America’s S&P 500 companies based in China made $700 billion of revenue in 2018.

Conclusion

No, China shouldn’t be India’s enemy

First of all, China is a rising power and America is a declining power. Thus, from a practical point of view, the current Indian policy makes no sense. Most Indians are clueless about how advanced China is now. Check out my blog on China’s global leadership in technology, economy, and other areas.

India won’t catch up with China any time soon. Maybe America is blowing smoke up India’s you-know-what and feeding delusion that India can be the Asian hegemon. Even if India grows at 8-9% every year, its nominal GDP will be only $6 trillion by 2030. At that point, China will still be 5-6x larger than India and also a superpower bigger than the USA.

Let’s take a step back. For 2000 years, the two largest economies in the world were China and India. Guess how many wars they fought during those prosperous years? ZERO!

Ten years ago, there was a visionary concept called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). What happened to it?

Russia and China have a 3,500 km border, and they are not at each other’s throat. Why? Because of trade, interdependence, and a win-win strategy.

A smart India will stay friends with the U.S. and, at the same time, leverage China to make peace with Pakistan. That will be the wisest and Nobel prize-deserving ingenuity. Freeze border disputes for a few years and focus on growth, trade and peace. Don’t become a victim of the divide-and-rule playbook.

Imagine if India could get cheap oil and gas from Central Asia, transported through Pakistan–that will solve India’s future energy problems. Encourage China to move some of its manufacturing to India–especially electric cars/buses, which will reduce pollution; hire China to build housing projects for tens of millions of people stuck in Indian slums; and use China’s expertise to build high-speed rail.

India should also join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has more than 120 countries as members, including European nations such as Italy and Greece. India can learn a lot from China–for example, how China plans 5, 10, 40 years in advance; and how China has laser-focus attention and resolute meritocracy. There are numerous areas where India and China can cooperate and also compete in healthy ways.

In 1954, Indian Prime Minister Nehru went to Beijing and spent three days with Mao. And they came up with the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.” The famous slogan in those days was, “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai”–meaning “Indians (and) Chinese (are) Brothers.” Hopefully, sometime in the future, there will be new leadership that will try diplomacy based on those ideals.

India’s global ranking in Human Development Index (HDI) is #130. That is, people in 129 countries are better off than Indians. India also has a lot of systemic and structural problems that will drag the country down, if left unsolved (see my blog). Thus, for the next twenty years or so, India’s focus should be on improving its economy, technological innovation, infrastructure, housing, healthcare, education, and environment.

As a final warning, India shouldn’t become a pawn of a disastrous war that will murder the “Asian century” in its infancy.