By Bill Van Auken

September 16, 2015 “Information Clearing House” – “WSWS” –  Last week, US officials once again marked the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington with solemn speeches vowing a never-ending war on terrorism. President Barack Obama spoke to US troops at Fort Meade, Maryland about "significant threats coming from terrorist organizations and a terrorist ideology," while US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter vowed at a Pentagon ceremony that "terrorists will not escape the long arm and the hard fist of American justice."

Alongside this official 9/11 rhetoric, which grows more hollow with every passing year, a different discussion is taking place within the ruling political establishment and the military and intelligence apparatus. It centers on a proposal that Washington recruit factions of Al Qaeda—the group blamed for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 14 years ago—as its proxy troops in a simultaneous war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The point man for this scheme is David Petraeus, the retired four-star Army general who served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency after postings as the US military commander in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The attention given to Petraeus' proposal is indicative of the continuing influence that he wields within US ruling circles, despite his sacking as CIA director over illegally passing binders filled with highly classified information to his biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell. He received only a misdemeanor conviction and a sentence of a $100,000 fine and two years probation for essentially the same offense for which Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison. Manning leaked information documenting war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq in which Petraeus himself was among those most directly responsible.

In recent weeks, Petraeus has confirmed the thrust of a story that first appeared on the DailyBeast web site, which quoted unnamed sources in Washington to the effect that the retired general "has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda's Al Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria."

Petraeus told CNN: "… it might be possible at some point to peel off so-called 'reconcilables' who would be willing to renounce Nusra and align with the moderate opposition (supported by the US and the coalition) to fight against Nusra, ISIL, and Assad."

In promoting his plan, Petraeus boasts about the supposed "success" of his "surge" policy in Iraq, which included the "peeling off" of Sunni elements that had fought against the US occupation, intimidating and bribing them into forming the "Sons of Iraq" militias to combat Al Qaeda in Iraq. In reality, the "Sons of Iraq" quickly disappeared after the US withdrew the bulk of its troops and with the relentless growth of sectarian tensions first fostered by the US occupation's divide-and-conquer strategy. Today, many of those who comprised the "Sons of Iraq" are part of ISIS.

Some media liberals have feigned shock at Petraeus' proposal to harness Al Qaeda to the US war wagon in Syria. In reality, the plan is fully in line with policies pursued both before and after 9/11 of using armed Islamist factions to advance US imperialist interests in the Middle East.

Al Qaeda itself was the product of the CIA-orchestrated war waged by the so-called mujahideen against the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan that plunged that country into decades of war, costing millions of lives. Osama bin Laden worked closely with the CIA and its Pakistani and Saudi intelligence counterparts.

Well before that, US policy in the region was pursued through the support of Islamist elements as a counterweight to radical nationalist and socialist movements in the Arab world. Washington covertly funded and mobilized right-wing Islamists as a crucial component of the CIA-backed 1953 coup that toppled the Mossadegh government, which had nationalized Western oil interests in Iran, ushering in the Shah's 25-year dictatorship. In Egypt, it secretly supported the Muslim Brotherhood against the government of Col. Abdel Nasser, during the period when it nationalized the Suez Canal.

More recently, the Obama administration relied upon Islamist militias, including elements who had previously been targeted by Washington for their affiliation to Al Qaeda, as proxy ground troops in the 2011 US-NATO air war to topple the secular government of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

Fresh from its "success" in murdering Gaddafi, destroying Libya's government and plunging the country into bloody chaos that continues to this day, the White House and the CIA embarked on a similar venture in Syria, relying on similar elements.

Under the guiding hand of the CIA, Washington's key regional allies—Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar—funneled billions of dollars worth of arms and aid into the Al-Nusra Front, ISIS and other Islamist militias, which have, from the beginning, served as the main fighting force in the Western-backed war for regime change in Syria.

With the rise of ISIS and its offensive last year that routed the US-trained and armed security forces in Iraq, the policy of aggression and subversion pursued by the Obama administration in the region produced a debacle. Billions of dollars more worth of US weaponry fell into the hands of ISIS from the fleeing Iraqi troops.

The proposed turn to the Al-Nusra Front is a tacit admission that the so-called "moderate opposition," touted for years by US officials, does not exist on the ground in Syria. The Pentagon's abortive attempt to arm and train "vetted" rebels has proven an unmitigated fiasco, with the handful sent back into Syria being routed and captured by Al-Nusra, to which they swore fealty. The only indigenous force that has effectively resisted ISIS, the Kurdish militias, have themselves become the principal target of Washington's main ally in the so-called war against ISIS, Turkey, which is concentrating its firepower on destroying them.

Petraeus is not alone in advocating a turn to Al Qaeda-linked elements to do Washington's dirty work in Syria. Robert S. Ford, the US ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, drafted an article for Middle East Institute this summer calling for Washington to make an approach to Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of the Levant) another Islamist militia with its roots in Al Qaeda.

Ford acknowledges that Ahrar al-Sham advocates "an Islamic state in Syria" and a "Sunni theocracy," but claims that it has "ideological and political differences" with Al-Nusra and Al Qaeda. He admits that its record is "problematic," with its fighters massacring Alawi civilians and desecrating Christian sites, but points in their defense to a propaganda video showing "its fighters visiting priests."

Ahrar al-Sham's founders include Abu Khalid al Suri, who was designated as Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's representative in the Levant, and Abu Hafs al Masri, an Egyptian, who was a military commander and trainer for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Both have been killed in the last year fighting with the militia.

The call by key men of the state like Petraeus and Ford for a more explicit turn to Al Qaeda-linked forces in Syria only underscores the complete fraud of the "war on terrorism." It likewise points to the real aims of US imperialism in its current war in Iraq and Syria. Washington is fighting neither against terrorism nor for "democracy" and "human rights." It is prosecuting another predatory war of aggression aimed at securing a US stranglehold over the Middle East and its vast energy reserves and thereby preparing for even more catastrophic conflicts with Iran, Russia and China.

Copyright © 1998-2015 World Socialist Web Site – All rights reserved

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42874.htm

By David Morgan

September 16, 2015 “Information Clearing House” – “LPJ” – It seems clear now that the West wants to defeat Russia in Syria at all costs. This latest protracted confrontation in the Middle East can be understood as a proxy war of the US and NATO against Putin's resurgent Russia. But Syria is just one zone of engagement in a much wider war against Russia that has been taking place since Putin started to stand up to the West. The same confrontation also occurs in Ukraine and formerly in Georgia, where Russia successfully halted, albeit temporarily, the Western advance. This amounts to a new Cold War or an undeclared war where East and West are once more in global confrontation.

To date the policy to unseat Assad has failed miserably despite the West's imposition of punishing economic sanctions, its bombing of the country and the sponsoring, financing and training of what are little more than terrorist mercenaries. It is virtually impossible to distinguish the moderate rebels from the Islamist fanatics of ISIS (Islamic State).

In reality the root of the current refugee crisis in Syria lies in the strategy of "regime change" adopted by the West over many years. After its failure to effect regime change in Syria, the West now appears intent on ruthlessly exploiting the misery of the Syrian people that the West itself has contributed towards creating in the first place, using the human desperation as the latest leverage to weaken and inflict a final defeat on a country that has been outside its control for decades.

From this perspective the generous German ‘offer’ to take in 500 thousand Syrian refugees a year can be interpreted as a cynical strategic ploy to persuade the Syrian population to break their attachment to Russia’s last remaining ally in the Middle East; thus bribing a desperate people weakened by years of conflict. Such an enticement to escape from increasingly intolerable conditions will effectively decant Syria of the most able-bodied members of its population, who will be vital to help rebuild its economy in the future.

This new tactic seems to be working where sanctions and sponsoring terrorism have failed. Many of the refugees now fleeing the conflict are apparently former members of the Syrian armed forces who have simply become exhausted and had enough of the relentless fighting; this reduction in military personnel is seriously depleting Assad’s ability to resist ISIS.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry has threatened Russia for its alleged military ‘build up’ in Syria and NATO has inevitably echoed Kerry's concerns. These accusations of an increased Russian military presence in the country conveniently ignores the longstanding cooperation between Moscow and Damascus and flagrantly dismisses the significant role that Russia is playing in assisting Syria to combat the advance of ISIS, which is supposedly the main rationale for the current US-led military operations in Syria.

Perhaps we must conclude that the West is not very serious about defeating ISIS or at least that it sees removing Assad as the top priority irrespective of the consequences. Washington does not even have a plausible puppet government-in-waiting to take the reins of power should Assad be toppled; the political vacuum is much more likely to be filled by ISIS.

Surely the West's policy advisers understand this is the all too likely outcome.

Tightening the noose on Russia and Syria, EU states Bulgaria and SYRIZA-led Greece are now denying Russia the use of vital airspace to supply Syria, which is clearly a further calculation designed to weaken Damascus – although Iran has offered Russia an alternative flight route.

Furthermore, it needs to be stressed that, as has been widely reported, the so-called "moderate rebels" so assiduously promoted by the US are actually linked to Al-Qaeda, which makes for an unholy alliance if ever there was one. The end result of the conflict in Syria could be that ISIS will come to rule and it could even eventually head a pro-Western state. This outcome is not really so farfetched if one considers the repressive nature of some of the West's other long-term allies in the region and around the world. Washington and the European powers have never really had a problem in dealing with dictators despite all their high-minded talk of human rights in this and in other contexts. Human rights discourse is simply another weapon in a strategic power game.

Another front in the war against Russia is Ukraine, which has been transformed into one of the most anti-Russian regimes in Europe and sees the extension of NATO right up to Russia's border. NATO has been broadening its presence in Ukraine for some time but is making this new military relationship more formal with an official visit to Kiev by its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg who was to take part in the Ukrainian Security Council. At the same time, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry indicated that the opening of the very first NATO office in Ukraine is planned. Furthermore, Mikhail Saakashvili, the virulently Russophobe former president of Georgia, who is already the governor of Odessa, is now even being touted to become a future Prime Minister of Ukraine; which can only be interpreted in Moscow as a gross provocation.

Elsewhere, NATO member Turkey seeks to smash the Kurds who are not only officially branded as terrorists by the EU and US, but are seen as suspiciously socialist and subversive of the existing neoliberal order.

Turkey has been allowed to launch bombing raids on PKK camps in Northern Iraq, which the UN Secretary General has defended on the basis of the country's right to self-defence. It needs recalling that Turkey was supposed to be joining the US-led campaign against ISIS but instead it preferred to use the occasion in an opportunistic manner to attack the PKK which it sees as its main enemy, while it has been accused of aiding ISIS advances, particularly in the case of the Kurdish border city of Kobane which had come under sustained attack from ISIS.

Ironically, it speaks volumes that the US is remaining largely silent and uncritical in face of the mounting death toll arising from Erdogan's decision to abandon his rapprochement with the Kurds in favour of what increasingly looks like escalating into an all-out civil war. The West seems none too bothered about this outcome. We hear only muted complaints, for instance, when independent journalists are picked up and deported by Turkey.

In marked contrast to the criminalisation of the Kurdish movement in Turkey, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, which has always been tenaciously pro-Western, was fulsomely praised in Parliament by PM David Cameron on 7 September during the debate on Britain's policy shift on taking in Syrian refugees in the wake of the outcry at the death of the Kurdish boy washed up on the shores of Bodrum, in Turkey. This praise for the KRG is meant to teach the PKK and its affiliates in Syria a hard lesson: they are being warned, 'embrace our ideology and you will prosper, defy us and Turkish aggression will be mercilessly unleashed and we won't help you'. The social confrontation now raging across Turkey has seen violent attacks on Kurdish organisations such as the burning of offices of the HDP, which led one commentator from Turkish Daily News to describe it as an impending Turkish 'Kristallnacht'.

The conflict now raging in Turkey was initiated by President Erdogan after his failure to achieve a much sought absolute majority for his AKP in the country's June election. Frustrated by the election outcome, he has since sought to find a means to reverse the setback setting his sights on the HDP whose surprise 14 percent in the poll denied Erdogan the victory which he virtually believed was in his grasp as a destiny. Hence, his increasingly erratic, manic and messianic approach to politics. This has laid the basis for an unnecessary conflict that might easily have been averted given the potential to build on all the efforts that had been put into the peace process with the Kurds. Sadly, a magnanimous and more imaginative politician who was truly concerned for the entire nation’s welfare rather than narrow party interest might have achieved a historic breakthrough. Tragically wise counsel from Turkey's allies seems not to have been made available or at least what had been attempted has proved to be ineffective in deterring Erdogan from his destructive trajectory.

There are fears that a deal had been struck between US President Obama and Erdogan to allow Turkey to sort out its Kurdish problem by force in exchange for permitting the US use of Incirlik airbase to bomb Syria.

If the assumption that this is what was agreed is correct, the responsibility for the renewed conflict would lie not with Ankara alone. Not only will this be another 'great betrayal' of the Kurds by the Western powers, it will amount to a huge miscalculation in that the Kurdish social movement cannot simply be eradicated by employing force, however brutal that might be. This bloody course of action will simply contribute towards the further destabilisation of an extremely unstable region. The social conflicts inside Turkey will not easily be healed, but, in fact, they may well last for generations, significantly weakening the country in the meantime.

Incidentally, it might also be mentioned that some of the Gulf States, who are ‎generally backing the “opposition” to Assad financially and diplomatically, are also seeking to gain an economic foothold into Ukraine by buying up tracks of fertile agricultural land, of which the country is plentiful, to obtain vital food resources to satisfy the needs of their own growing populations.

In addition, Qatar has recently played host to a conference of the so-called Iraqi opposition – with US support- one aim of which was to unite former Baathists and pro-ISIS groups in Iraq in a bid to change the government in Baghdad. This is yet one more zone of engagement in the wider confrontation.

The US has also found it impossible to renege on the Iran nuclear deal, but lobbied by its traditional allies in the region, Washington still seeks to contain any possible expansion of Tehran's influence.

UK leaders demonstrate a similar negative attitude to Iran reflected in their reluctance to condone its involvement in any deal to resolve the conflict in Syria. Thus, replying in the Parliamentary debate to a call by Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn for an international conference on the Syrian crisis that would include Iran and Russia, Cameron was quick to remind MPs that Iran remains disqualified because of its alleged continued support for "terrorist" organisations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This casual and routine repudiation of any proposals for peace talks to resolve the conflict only works to prolong the misery of the Syrian people whom the likes of Berlin and Brussels are currently proclaiming to offer a place of refuge. There is a certain contradiction here and the hypocrisy is quite nauseating.

Syria, Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. These are seemingly separate conflicts with different causes and their own self-contained solutions, but underlying them there is a grand plan which is to exert control over a strategically vital region and by so doing gain possession of its rich resources. These conflicts are related zones of engagement within this overarching conflict. It amounts to an undeclared world war.

The roots of the current Syrian refugee crisis lie in the adoption of regime change as a key plank of US and NATO foreign policy. The suffering inflicted on the people of Syria by Assad is actually as nothing compared to the collateral damage that has been inflicted in the campaign to topple him and achieve strategic advantage against Moscow.

London Progressive Journal is © 2008-2015 ISD

See also – The Syrian Crisis is Part of a Proxy War Waged on Russia by the West: Syria is just one zone of engagement in a much wider war against Russia that has been taking place since Putin started to stand up to the West.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42873.htm

At a recent naval conference a Chinese Vice Admiral did not mince words.

Speaking at this year's First Sea Lord/RUSI International Sea Power Conference in London, Chinese Vice Admiral Yuan Yubai, commander of the People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLAN) North Sea Fleet, did not shy away from controversy. He emphatically stated that the South China Sea belongs to China.

"The South China Sea, as the name indicates, is a sea area that belongs to China. And the sea from the Han dynasty a long time ago where the Chinese people have been working and producing from the sea," he said through an interpreter, according to Defense News.

Yubai was sitting on a panel with the U.S. Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Rear Adm. Jeff Harley and the President of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's Command and Staff College, Vice Admiral Umio Otsuka, discussing the role of naval power in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/CIA

Yubai's statement came in response to Otsuka criticizing the land reclamation activities of "certain state actors" in the region. "Land reclamation conducted by some countries has been a problem in the South China Sea (and) we have to admit that the rule of law is at risk in this region. The JMSDF will secure the credibility of a deterrence capability and seek a multilateral framework in the Indo-Pacific region," he said.

Otsuka also expressed his worries that commercial fishing fleets are used as maritime militias defending territory claimed by Beijing. "This may provoke, sooner or later, a debate how the conflict between military and maritime militia, if any, should be handled," he stated. The Japanese admiral warned that China's activities could turn the area from "an ocean of peace" to an "ocean of war." However, Yubai cautioned:

I'm firmly convinced that the problems around the South China Sea, so far, can be successfully solved with the joint efforts and consultation of the hosting countries around the South China Sea.

He added:

 China has conducted consultation with countries in the South China Sea… the principle we adopt is peaceful utilization and joint development (of the sea). The real situation is that safety of navigation can now be assured.

He also mentioned that China and the United States are working on a code of conduct for aircraft encounters, which will reduce the likelihood of conflict, according to Yubai.

Meanwhile, according to satellite photographs taken on behalf of a D.C.-based think tank, China is set to begin construction of a third airstrip on the on Mischief Reef, an artificial islands Beijing has created in the Spratly archipelago.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/chinese-admiral-south-china-sea-belongs-to-china/5476361

Recently I worked in another Maine city and was astonished at the number of patients I encountered who were using heroin.  I had never seen anything like it, during a lifetime practicing medicine. In New Hampshire, it was said, deaths from heroin now exceed deaths from car accidents.  Nationwide, CDC noted, "Between 2002 and 2013, the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled, and more than 8,200 people died in 2013." Massachusetts (population under 7 million) had 1,000 deaths related to (all) opioids in 2014, "the highest ever recorded."

I've heard stories on NPR about insufficient state funding of heroin treatment facilities. I've heard about plans to make Narcan injections available to iv drug users, for overdoses. Another popular angle I've seen repeated multiple times (and one currently pushed by the US Drug Enforcement Agency) claims prescription narcotics became harder to get, so users switched to heroin, instead.

However, the DOJ-DEA 2014 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary notes that cocaine availability "remains stable at historically low levels throughout most domestic markets along the East Coast."  So users are switching to heroin, but not switching to cocaine from prescription narcotics. Hmmm. Might this be because we have no large military-CIA presence currently in cocaine-trafficking areas, as we did during the 1980s Contra war in Nicaragua, when cocaine use was at high levels? (Coca leaves are only grown in Latin America.) According to a 2010 UN document, "Based on seizure figures, it appears that cocaine markets grew most dramatically during the 1980s, when the amounts seized increased by more than 40% per year".  (See this 1987 Senate hearing and this for evidence of CIA and State Dept. connivance with cocaine trafficking by the Contras.)

You can frame stories about the current heroin problem in many ways.  But the real heroin story isn't being discussed–which is that since the US military entered Afghanistan in 2001, its opium production doubled, per the UN Afghanistan Opium Survey, 2014 , p.34.  The area under opium cultivation in Afghanistan tripled. And the resulting heroin appears to more easily make its way deep into our rural, as well as urban communities. The graph below is from the 2014 UN Opium Survey:

The world supply of opium increased 5-fold between 1980 and 2010, according to the UN."Afghanistan account[s] for around 90% of global illicit opium production in recent years. By itself, Afghanistan provides 85% of the estimated global heroin and morphine supply, a near monopoly."(see pp 37-38).

The narcotics trade poisons the Afghan financial sector and undermines the Afghan state's legitimacy by stoking corruption, sustaining criminal networks, and providing significant financial support to the Taliban and other insurgent groups," John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in an October 2014 letter to the heads of the Departments of Defense, State and Justice, which have all played major roles in the failed drug intervention effort. "Despite spending over $7 billion to combat opium poppy cultivation and to develop the Afghan government's counter-narcotics capacity, opium poppy cultivation levels in Afghanistan hit an all-time high in 2013.

Despite the (now) US $8.4 billion spent to defeat this trade, it just keeps growing.  The costs of US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan total "$110 billion, after adjusting for inflation, [which] exceeds the value of the entire Marshall Plan effort to rebuild Western Europe after World War II" according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, speaking in May 2015.

The Special Inspector General noted elsewhere that, "US reconstruction projects, particularly those devoted to "improved irrigation, roads, and agricultural assistance" were probably leading to the explosion in opium cultivation."

Only 1.2% of the acreage used for Afghan opium production (est. 224,000 hectares) was eradicated in 2014, according to the UN. Also according to the UN, Burma is the world's second largest producer of opium, currently growing only about 10% as much as Afghanistan. But Mexico has been increasing production.

According to the UN World Drug Report, in the 1990's Afghanistan supplied opium that was converted into half the world's heroin production.  By 2010, it supplied 90% of the total.

But the DEA, White House and other official US sources claim that US heroin derives almost entirely (96%) from Latin American opium (based on seizures of shipments); the DEA in 2014 claimed that Latin America was the source for the vast majority of US heroin, with southwest Asia (i.e., Afghanistan) accounting for only 4% of US heroin in 2012.

This is highly unlikely.  In 2008, the UN estimated that the US and Canada accounted for 13% of global heroin use.  With about 95% of global heroin derived from Afghanistan, Burma, Thailand and Laos, Latin America (mainly Mexico with a small amount from Colombia) does not produce enough to supply the majority of US heroin, let alone 96%. In fact, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy undercuts this claim when it says Mexico had 10,500 hectares under poppy cultivation in 2012, while Afghanistan alone had 154,000 hectares in 2012 and 224,000 hectares in 2014, per UN estimates.

This DEA claim, based on heroin interdiction, suggests a different explanation.  Perhaps heroin shipments from Afghanistan are at lower risk of being seized than heroin coming from Latin America. Might some be entering through government channels, when so much materiel and so many personnel (soldiers, aid workers, diplomats and contractors) fly directly between the US and Afghanistan?

Putting aside the issue of the provenance of the US heroin supply for the moment, surely we can look at heroin as we would any other global commodity.

Congruent with the US occupation of Afghanistan, Afghanistan expanded its opium production, and the global supply of heroin increased dramatically. The price dropped as a result. New buyers entered the market. And the US now has several hundred thousand new addicts.  Russia and Europe have even more. The resulting social problems are hugely tragic and hugely costly for millions of families, and for our societies as a whole.

If we start being honest about why there is a major heroin epidemic, maybe we can get serious about solving the problem with meaningful eradication and interdiction. Aerial spraying of crops with herbicides or similar methods has been prohibited in Afghanistan, but it works. In 2014, Britain's former Ambassador to Afghanistan (2010-2012) called for legalization and regulation of illicit drugs as one means of attacking the problem.

Looking beyond the Mexican border for heroin, and inspecting all flights from southwest Asia, including military and CIA flights, could have a large impact on supply as well.

Serious measures are needed.  Total world production of opiates always gets consumed: historically, the market for opiates has been extremely elastic.  Land under poppy cultivation (in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle and Mexico) continues to increase. Without meaningful efforts to reduce opium production and entry of narcotics into the US, the epidemic of heroin addiction may become a considerably bigger problem than it is today.

UPDATE:  From the Sept 7 Wall Street Journal, we learn that a US "friendly fire" airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Sept 6 "hit a 30 member elite counternarcotics police unit as they were on a mission…"

At least 11 died in "one of the deadliest friendly fire incidents in the country in recent years." Here is the Reuters story. The US denied the strike in Helmand province, but admitted to airstrikes in the adjacent province of Kandahar. According to the Guardian, "The US is the only member of the NATO coalition known to have carried out bombing raids in Afghanistan this year." The AP/WaPo on 9/8/15 reported that, "Brigadier General Shoffner [Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications in Afghanistan] said 'based on information we received [on 9/8], we feel it is prudent to investigate the airstrike our forces conducted in Kandahar.'"

The airstrike killed approximately as many people as died in counternarcotics efforts in all Afghanistan throughout 2014.

I will have more to say about the subject of heroin in a later post.

Meryl Nass, M.D.  is  a board-certified internist and a biological warfare epidemiologist and expert in anthrax. Nass publishes Anthrax Vaccine.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/extensive-heroin-use-in-us-the-real-afghanistan-surge-is-in-opium-production/5476345

U.S. and Cuban delegations met in Havana in early September to "focus on setting priorities for the next steps in the normalization process," according to the Miami Herald. They set up a "steering committee in the rapprochement process" expected to hold regular meetings. The process was laid out last month after the American flag was raised at the newly-opened U.S. embassy in Havana. Secretary of State John Kerrynoted on the occasion that "the road of mutual isolation that the United States and Cuba have been travelling is not the right one, and that the time has come for us to move in a more promising direction." The Obama administration has since announced loosening of restrictions that would permit American citizens to travel to Cuba on both commercial flights and cruise ships.

Superficially, it would seem that U.S. policy has moved away from a half-century of economic warfare,terrorism, subversion, and interference in the internal affairs of the nation American politicians have long considered a "natural appendage" of the United States, which would fall into the U.S. orbit like an apple from a tree, as John Quincy Adams once said.

If U.S. policy makers had indeed abandoned this attitude and actually moved in a more promising direction, it would mean they finally decided to engage their counterpart as Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez stated his government was willing to with the United States itself: "through a dialogue based on mutual respect and sovereign equality, to a civilized coexistence, even despite the differences that exist between both governments, which makes it possible to solve bilateral problems and promote cooperation and development of mutually beneficial relations, just as both peoples desire and deserve."

But despite extending formal diplomatic courtesies and speaking in a more conciliatory tone, the Obama administration has demonstrated behind the scenes that it does not intend to demonstrate mutual respect or recognize sovereign equality.

As the delegations met on Friday, Obama quietly renewed Cuba's status as an "enemy" under the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917. Under this Act, utilized against Cuba by every President since John F. Kennedy in 1962, the government issues the Cuban Assets Control Regulations to set the terms of the embargo (more accurately described by Cuba and the United Nations as a blockade).

By extending this enemy designation, the Obama administration is reserving the right to dictate the terms of the embargo, rather than allowing Congress to do so under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. While Obama has shown himself more willing than Congress to relax some punitive and illegal aspects of the embargo than the current Congress, by continuing to define Cuba as an enemy he is both sending an hostile signal to Cuba and employing a transparent legal fiction.

An "enemy" in the TWEA is specified as a government with which the U.S. is at war, as declared by Congress. Congress has never declared war on Cuba. They have not declared war on any country since Japan in 1941.

While it may be true that renewing the TWEA against Cuba may be more beneficial to Cuba by granting the executive branch greater flexibility, the fraudulent nature of the continued imposition of legal sanctions against Cuba should be emphasized. Though Obama has said U.S. policy against Cuba "has been rooted in the best of intentions," it has in reality been rooted in vindictiveness and shrouded in legal distortions that continue to this day.

At the same time, the flood of U.S. taxpayer dollars earmarked with the express purpose of regime change in Havana continues unabated. The fiscal year 2016 budget contains $30 million for this purpose.

One use of these funds is for a US propaganda agency to hire mercenaries to denigrate Cuban civil and political personalities. As Tracey Eaton notes in his blog Along the Malecón: "The U.S. government wants to hire entertainers who would produce 'uniquely funny, ironic, satirical and entertaining' comedy shows targeting Cuban officials, politicians and others on the island. The Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio & TV Martí, is looking for a team that would produce 10 30-minute comedy sketch shows."

The infamous Radio Martí has been broadcasting John Birch Society type propaganda from Miami into Cuba since the 1980s. The U.S. has continued to fund the station, despite its being declared illegal by the Cuban government. One wonders how the U.S. government itself would react if the Russian or Chinese government financed a program lambasting Obama, Kerry, and other Americans for political gain while disguising it as organically developed entertainment? It is not likely they would view a strategic attack created and financed abroad, rather than being a homegrown political expression of dissent, as protected free speech.

USAID, after being exposed for its subversive Cuban Twitter program "ZunZuneo", which sought to sow discontent and stir unrest among the Cuban population, and its effort to co-opt Cuban hip hop artists, announced last week that it is seeking three program managers to be awarded six-figure salaries.

Eaton writes that the job description calls for "experience in the areas of democracy promotion, human rights, civil society development" and that candidates must obtain a "secret" security clearance. It is not hard to imagine that these highly compensated program managers would likely be implementing similar covert programs to destabilize Cuban society and attempt to turn its citizens away from the Revolution.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – an arm of US foreign policy that overtly carries out programs that previously were undertaken covertly by the CIA – is also hiring a Program Officer to work on NED's "Cuba grants program" and "developing the Endowment's strategy for Cuba." Unlike the USAID positions, which are indicated to be in Washington, this position would require "regular field visits."

Cuban blogger and former State Security Agent Percy Francisco Alvarado Godoy writes that the position is for "someone in charge of mounting all types of subversion against the Cuban government on behalf of the NED… completely illegal, meddlesome, and violative of our sovereignty and, therefore, will not admit any of his activity in our territory."

It is clear that the U.S. continues to act towards Cuba with utter disregard for mutual respect and sovereign equality despite the formalities uncritically accepted by mainstream media as true normalization. By looking beyond the face value of the words of American officials, one can't help but recognize that relations are anything but normal. Until the U.S. government recognizes that normal cannot include sanctioning, illegally occupying, and spending tens of millions of dollars on subversion and interference in another country's internal affairs, "normalization" remains nothing more than a vacuous abstraction.

Matt Peppe writes about politics, U.S. foreign policy and Latin America on his blog. You can follow him on twitter. 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/subversion-against-cuba-continues-uninterrupted-amidst-normalization/5476318

Confirming Frederick Douglass's adage, "Power concedes nothing without a demand," prisoners held in solitary confinement for many years in California have won an unprecedented victory. After three hunger strikes, in which tens of thousands of California inmates participated, and a federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a landmark settlement was reached. It effectively consigns indefinite solitary confinement in California to the dustbins of shameful history.

More than 500 prisoners had been held in isolation in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay prison for over 10 years, and 78 of them had been there for more than 20 years. They spend 22 ½ to 24 hours every day in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell, and are denied telephone calls, physical contact with visitors, and vocational, recreational, and educational programs.

Now California prisoners will no longer be sent to the SHU solely based on allegations of gang affiliation, but rather based on infraction of specific serious rules violations. Prisoners will only be put in solitary confinement if they commit a serious offense such as assault or murder in prison, and only after a due process hearing. And they will be put into solitary for a definite term – no more indeterminate solitary confinement. An estimated 95 percent of California prisoners in solitary confinement based solely on gang affiliation (about 2,000 people) will be released into the general prison population.

The settlement also limits the amount of time a prisoner can spend in the SHU, and provides a two-year step-down program for transfer from SHU to general population. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 prisoners will be released from SHU within one year of this settlement.

"California's agreement to abandon indeterminate SHU confinement based on gang affiliation demonstrates the power of unity and collective action," the plaintiffs said in a joint statement. "This victory was achieved by efforts of people in prison, their families and loved ones, lawyers, and outside supporters."

The plaintiffs in Ashker v. Governor of California argued that California's use of prolonged solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and denies the prisoners the right to due process.

The federal district court judge found that prolonged solitary confinement had deprived the plaintiffs of "normal human contact, environmental and sensory stimulation, mental and physical and health, physical exercise, sleep, nutrition, and meaningful activity" which could constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Although no U.S. court has yet ruled that solitary confinement violates the Eighth Amendment, Justice Anthony Kennedy indicated in a concurring opinion in June that he would likely entertain such an argument in the future. Commenting on the case of a man who had been isolated for 25 years in California, Kennedy told the U.S. Congress in March that solitary confinement "literally drives men mad."

Indeed, after visiting Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in 1842, Charles Dickens noted, "The system here, is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it … to be cruel and wrong … I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body." Dickens felt that isolation of prisoners was a thing that "no man had the right to inflict upon his fellow creature."

Juan Mendez, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, concluded that solitary confinement for more than 15 days constitutes torture. He wrote that prolonged solitary confinement violates the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The United States has ratified both of these treaties, making them part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Ireland refused to extradite a man to the United States to face terrorism-related charges earlier this year. The High Court of Ireland worried that he might be held in indefinite isolation in a Colorado "supermax" prison, which would violate the Irish Constitution.

Between 80,000 and 100,000 people are held in some type of isolation in U.S. prisons on any given day, generally in supermax prisons, in 44 states and the federal system. Yet there is no evidence that solitary confinement makes prisons safer, the Government Accountability Office determined in 2013.

Solitary confinement exacerbates mental illness. In Madrid v. Gomez, a U.S. federal court judge wrote that for those with diagnosed mental illness, "placing them in [solitary confinement] is the mental equivalent of putting an asthmatic in a place with little air to breathe."

Professor Craig Haney described the deprivation of basic human needs of social interaction and environmental stimulation as a "painfully long form of social death."

The European Court of Human Rights has determined that "complete sensory isolation coupled with complete social isolation can no doubt destroy the personality," in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Likewise, the Inter American Court of Human Rights has stated that prolonged solitary confinement may violation the American Convention on Human Rights.

Suicide rates in California, New York, and Texas are significantly higher among those held in solitary confinement than in the general prison population. And juveniles are 19 times more likely to take their own lives in isolation than in the general population. Connecticut, Maine, Oklahoma, New York, and West Virginia have banned or put restrictions on solitary confinement of juveniles.

President Barack Obama has asked his attorney general to "start a review of the overuse of solitary confinement across American prisons." Obama said, "The social science shows that an environment like that is often more likely to make inmates more alienated, more hostile, potentially more violent."

The purpose of the penal system is social rehabilitation, according to the ICCPR. In contravention of that mandate, the California legislature has specified that the purpose of sentencing is punishment. Solitary confinement implicitly denies any chance of social rehabilitation. The ICCPR requires that prison guards respect the inherent dignity of every inmate. Prolonged solitary confinement, like other forms of torture, destroys a person's dignity.

Mendez proposed a worldwide ban on nearly all uses of solitary confinement, which has increased throughout the globe, especially in the context of the "war on terror" and "threats to national security." He particularly criticized the routine use of isolation in U.S. supermax prisons.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy quoted Dostoyevsky: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." So one must wonder why the United States refuses to ratify the U.N. Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, which requires international inspection of prisons.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She is editor and contributor to "The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse." See www.marjoriecohn.com.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/prisoners-struggle-ends-indefinite-solitary-confinement/5476395

And biotech only made ‘2 GM traits in 40 years’

No one bats 1000, but according to Ignacio Chapela, a microbiologist from UC Berkeley in California, the biotech industry has utterly failed. He says they've only come up with 2 genetically modified traits in 40 years despite fouling our air, water, and soil, while genetically engineering our food to withstand copious amounts of toxic chemicals.

Chapela says that no one talks about just how badly biotech is progressing, despite billions spent on research and the forever-promise of new organisms that repel pests, or to supposedly stop malaria from spreading, or some other biotech-specific trait that they have yet to master.

Chapela points out that GMO scientists have become like priests, with a 'central dogma' that specific traits are determined by certain genes. If that were true, we could have put wings on pigs to make them fly. He explains:

"The whole foundation of genetics turns out to be wrong. Eye color is not determined by a single gene. DNA is not a master molecule. We have the benefit of 40 years (of GMOs failing) and should liberate ourselves from the central dogma. How many (GMO) traits have they developed? Two after 40 years."

Chapela, and others like Bruce Lipton, a PhD biologist, don't believe that DNA is a 'master molecule' that determines a person or plant's traits. He and those who share his rare viewpoint understand that environment plays a bigger role.

"What I become wasn't in my grandparents' DNA, it came from the environment. If that single story is true, the whole edifice of genetic engineering is mud on the ground," said Chapela at a National Heirloom Seed Expo.

Chapela also points out that genetic engineering is based on an obsolete paradigm and is largely being pushed by a political agenda. He said instead of promoting this dogma, scientists should be challenging the erroneously-erected paradigm, instead of selling out to it.

"The knowledge that a farmer has is as important as the soil, and seeds can't be seen in isolation," Chapela said.

Chapela is essentially championing the emerging field of epigenetics, which sees the world around an epigenome as having a direct influence on the DNA. There are numerous papers that show that a gene's DNA sequence is affected by its environment, and by changing this environment (i.e., removing pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc. from the soil) we can also change multiple generations of an organism's health, improving it considerably and eradicating disease.

As a paper by Danielle Simmons, PhD, explains:

"Epigenetics is involved in many normal cellular processes. Consider the fact that our cells all have the same DNA, but our bodies contain many different types of cells: neurons, liver cells, pancreatic cells, inflammatory cells, and others. How can this be? In short, cells, tissues, and organs differ because they have certain sets of genes that are "turned on" or expressed, as well as other sets that are "turned off" or inhibited.

Epigenetic silencing is one way to turn genes off, and it can contribute to differential expression. Silencing might also explain, in part, why genetic twins are not phenotypically identical. In addition, epigenetics is important for X-chromosome inactivation in female mammals, which is necessary so that females do not have twice the number of X-chromosome gene products as males (Egger et al., 2004). Thus, the significance of turning genes off via epigenetic changes is readily apparent."

It is a well-known fact that the biotech industry still cannot pinpoint which genes are turned 'on' or 'off' in the genetic experiments, and the rogue genes that sometimes occur are pathogenic.

As Lipton aptly states, it is not only the industrial agricultural model which is misinformed, but also the field of medicine:

"Our health is not controlled by genetics. Conventional medicine is operating from an archaic view that we're controlled by genes. This misunderstands the nature of how biology works."

Chapela is a Mexican-born scientist who was on the front lines in 2000, when the heart of the world's corn basket was being threatened by cross-pollination with GM maize. He brought Mexican corn samples to Berkeley for testing more than a decade ago. Rigorous testing found that biotech has infiltrated one of the most pristine corn-growing regions in the world. Since that time, indigenous Mexicans have fought to protect 59 different types of corn from biotech's hand.

Chapela's involvement in the emergence of Mexico's GM corn attests to his time in the trenches fighting biotech. He knows what this industry can do to erase organisms that have developed over thousands of years – only to be wiped out in a single growing season once they have been exposed to genetically modified varieties. Is it any wonder that he would question the 'dogma' that the industry continually promotes?

But is it safe for Chapela to ask the questions that few others will? In a documentary, he joins another silenced scientist, Arpad Pustazi, with a warning: "One question means one career."

Chapela continued:

"You ask one question, you get the answer and you might or might not be able to publish it; but that is the end of your career."

I, for one, am glad he is asking, and I will do my best to keep asking these questions of the biotech industry and Big Ag, too. Won't you?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/microbial-biologist-says-biotech-is-like-a-religion-and-it-is-failing/5476440

The laundry list for the attackers on Jeremy Corbyn grows by the day, traversing the inane and the insipid. There come, not in any necessarily important order, from views about not picking women for his inner cabinet (note, several refused to even want to be in the cabinet to begin with) to his stance on combating terrorism and not retaining Trident.

Then latest storm in a tea cup issue was whether he, well, sang at the national service for the Battle of Britain. This was always going to be touchy, as it was an occasion commemorating the 75^th anniversary of the battle in which Britain repelled the Luftwaffe with weapons and Churchillian rhetoric.

Politicians are watched closely on such occasions, if only to see if they stumble up on protocol. Smile at the right moments; curtsy at others. When it came to Corbyn, horror of horrors, he decided not to burst into full song when the anthem was sung.

The situation reached a certain absurdity when the Guardianreported that, "One onlooker at the service said they had watched Corbyn for several minutes as the national anthem was being sung and did not see his lips move." Either the entire audience was daft, or this onlooker was the only one not on the patriotic sauce.

The tut tuts were positively deafening from Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames, whose claim to fame is being Winston Churchill's grandson. To not sing the anthem was simply "very rude and very disrespectful".

Soames, the child of public occasion, stunted by convention, could only assume that Corbyn was himself being the infant of the occasion. "It was an extremely disrespectful thing and I think he needs to make his mind up whether he is a grown-up or not." Presumably, pacifist republicans tend to be in the swaddling clothes of principles and morality.

Naturally, the school teacher in Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell suggested that he could teach Corbyn the words, showing a true sense of proportion. The newly elected Labour leader should "understand that the British people are overwhelmingly supportive of our monarch and our constitution". By all means, old fellow, behave in such an inappropriate manner in private, but for matters of state, well, duty called for a different face. "It is his duty, and the duty of any leader of any party that seeks to be prime minister, to accept that we are the nation that we are." At times jingoist, very monarchist and fundamentally antediluvian, naturally.

The conservative Spectator even went so far as to take issue with the official Labour statement released on behalf of Corbyn. "As he said in the words issued this morning, the heroism of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain is something to which we all owe an enormous debt of gratitude. He stood in respectful silence during the anthem." To which Isabel Hardman would conjecture "what the difference between respectful silence and stony silence is."[1]

That said, even Hardman had to accept that Corbyn, despite knowing that such a stance might infuriate onlookers felt it "more important to stick to his republican pacifist principles" many of which are shared by numerous Labour admirers.

Corbyn did have his defenders, and not necessarily from familiar quarters. "The fact he was there properly dressed, wearing a tie, good on him," remarked a member of the Defence Select Committee, Conservative MP James Gray. "He is a pacifist and not a royalist but he has gone along and stood in the front row."

At state functions, fluff and convention matter, not substance. Never mind that Corbyn was sincerely remembering the role of his parents in the war. "My mum served as an air raid warden and my dad in the Home Guard." And never mind that he was wearing the Air Raid Precautions medal from his mother. No, his damn lips did not move. Not doing so was not merely pissing on the parade but shitting on it.

Corbyn has made some concessions, such as accepting the post of privy councillor from Her Majesty, whom he has expressed a desire at certain points to abolish. Protocol watchers will certainly be keeping an eye on the next round of Corbyn's republican defiance. Will he, for instance, kiss Elizabeth II's hand come the time he formally accepts the post?

The Spectator suggests Corbyn make a borrowing from the late Tony Benn, who, when faced with the dilemma, placed his thumb across the back of the Queen's hand as he took it, thereby kissing his hand instead of that of the Royal Personage. "And we all stood there," recalled Benn in his political diaries, "holding our little red boxes, I mean it really was ridiculous."

Corbyn is simply not playing by the rules, battling those who believe we are wandering, as Matthew Arnold might have put it, between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. In doing so, he may be annihilated, or storm the barricades with success. There is no harm in trying, and if a British politician can, as the fiendish Michael Gove fears, bring people onto the streets, and not sing the national anthem on commemorative occasions, then hurrah for that.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

Note

[1] https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/09/labour-defends-jeremy-corbyns-respectful-silence-during-the-national-anthem/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/watching-lips-in-corbyns-britain/5476418

The year 2015 hasn't been kind to Monsanto. In March, the World Health Organization declared that the company's flagship product, its herbicide glyphosate or Roundup, is a probable human carcinogen. Increasingly, national health ministries are taking a hard second look at glyphosate's health and environmental dangers and efforts are underway to ban the herbicide.[1] To protect its citizens, last year the Netherlands, Bermuda and Sri Lanka have either banned or imposed strict limits on Roundup. Last June, France banned its use in gardens. Brazil, Germany and Argentina are considering legislative bans. And this month, California's environmental protection agency launched plans to label Roundup as a carcinogen.[2]

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world today. Over 130 countries currently permit extensive use of the chemical. The US is the largest consumer, using approximately 20% of the world's Roundup.[3] The latest reliable figures from the US Geological Survey record 280 million pounds of Roundup were used in 2012, nearly a pound for every American.[4] In 2013, gross profit of $371 million on crop chemicals including Roundup climbed 73% due to a 37% increase in sales. That same year Monsanto's net income rose 22% to $1.48 billion.[5]

Over the years a large body of independent research has accumulated and now collectively provides a sound scientific rationale to confirm that glyphosate is far more toxic and poses more serious health risks to animals and humans than Monsanto and the US government admit. Among the many diseases and health conditions non-industry studies identified Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and autism since Roundup has been shown to instigate aluminum accumulation in the brain. The herbicide has been responsible for reproductive problems such as infertility, miscarriages, and neural tube and birth defects. It is a causal agent for a variety of cancers: brain, breast, prostate, lung and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Other disorders include chronic kidney and liver diseases, diabetes, heart disease, hypothyroidism, and leaky gut syndrome. In addition to lung cancer, glyphosate may be responsible for today's growing epidemics of chronic respiratory illnesses among farm workers and their families.[6] However, these findings derive from outside the Big Agriculture industry. Private industries routinely defend themselves by positing their own research to refute independent reports. Consequently, for several decades it has been a he-said-she-said stalemate. Monsanto is content with this. It can conduct business as usual, Roundup sales increase, and the debates and media wars continue without government interference. Then who is protecting the public?

Government officials and health regulators more often than not simply ignore these studies even if published in peer-reviewed journals. The bulk are independently funded. Most have been performed in foreign nations and therefore American bias dismisses them outright. Furthermore, Monsanto and other large chemical agricultural companies are quick to counter and discredit adverse scientific findings. The company has the financial means to retain large international PR firms, such as Burson-Marsteller and Fleishman Hillard, consultation firms and think tanks, as well as large armies of hired trolls and academic spokepersons to mobilize damage control upon notice and protect the integrity of Monsanto's products and public image. It funds and orchestrates self-serving research at universities and research laboratories to increase an arsenal of junk science. And of course it has Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates as its celebrity cheerleaders.

The EPA continues to align itself with Monsanto's safety claims and limits glyphosate's risks to kidney, reproductive and carcinogenic damage; and the warning only applies for very long-term exposure to high levels of the toxin. Anything under that is considered harmless. The EPA continues to approve small amounts of glyphosate as safe in drinking water to children. Its safety level is 0.7 ug/L. This was determined back in 1994, and after 20 years of further research into glyphosate's biomolecular activities and health risks, the level has remained the same.[7,8] A review of existing data sponsored by Moms Across America found that out of 21 drinking water samples analyzed, 13 had glyphosate levels between 0.08 and 0.3 ug/L, well below the EPA's limit, but significantly above the European Union's limit of 0.1 ug/L.[9]

While the company manages to successfully dodge scientific research outside its purview, the tables would certainly turn if it could be proven in a court of law that Monsanto has known for decades that glyphosate is one of the most toxic substances ever launched on the public, which adversely affects almost every tissue and cell in a mammal's body.

Imagine for a minute that evidence emerged to implicate Monsanto on a massive cover-up and manipulation of scientific data from hundreds of research trials. If it were Monsanto's data indicting itself about glyphosate's toxicity, and if it can be shown the company falsified, masked or fudged its data to win regulatory approval, it may likely be the largest corporate scandal in history. The question could Monsanto be charged with crimes of omission and more deservingly crimes against humanity?

This scenario may not be fantasy or the wishful thinking of GMO's opponents. The case has a precedent and has been played out in the courts before. In November 1998, the US government won a judgment against the four largest US tobacco companies: Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard. The case came to trial after a former vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson, Jeffrey Wigand, turned whistleblower and revealed that his company concealed the tobacco's health risks and was making concerted efforts to addict people to smoking. High ranking executives were found to have approved the inclusion of known addictive and carcinogenic chemicals, such as coumarin, in its cigarettes to increase smoking, sales and profits.

Before the trial there had never been a lawsuit lost by a tobacco company because no one could prove with absolute medical certainty that smoking had ever caused lung cancer or emphysema. During Congressional hearings, all seven CEOs representing the four tobacco giants lied under oath stating they had no knowledge about an association between nicotine and brain addiction. Their rationale was that they believed their research data and marketing strategies were protected under propriety secrecy claims and therefore they could avoid conviction. Although FDA scientists possessed all the necessary information that could condemn Big Tobacco's false claims, the industry relied upon proprietary rules in order to hide behind legal protection. The FDA was silenced and powerless to make the industry's information public. Consequently it is estimated that millions of people died from a risk that could have been prevented or at least reduced substantially. Instead, the FDA honored the tobacco industry above all human life.

The guilty verdict, which resulted in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement against the tobacco companies, enforced a minimum $206 billion settlement over a 25 year period. While the majority of payments were to settle 46 states' Medicaid lawsuits to recover smoking related health costs, the settlement unfortunately exempted the industry from private tort claims. Many critics of the Agreement state that the settlement was too merciful. No tobacco executive went to prison and evidence indicates the industry emerged stronger and consolidated the companies into an ever more powerful cartel.[10]

What busted the tobacco companies was not the scientific evidence piling up outside the industry. Rather it was its crimes of omission about cigarettes' health risks within the industry. The industry's own research prosecuted itself. And this is demanded today in order to bring down Monsanto's chemical regime and to protect populations and children throughout the world.

Perhaps we might want to consider the atmosphere Monsanto faced after it first developed glyphosate in 1973 and prepare for EPA approval for the remainder of the decade.

During the latter half of the 1970s, Monsanto's leading products were under federal inquiry and public assault regarding safety. Dioxin had been banned. Safety concerns arose over its sweetener saccharin, and cyclamate was removed from the market. The company's attempts to get it's new artificial sweetener aspartame confronted obstacles during FDA scientific review. Independent research had shown that aspartame caused brain tumors in mammals. And its best selling herbicide at the time, Lasso, was showing signs of carcinogenicity. Today Lasso is a restricted-use pesticide due to its oncogenicity. With sales falling and future growth under threat, Monsanto faced a desperate need to launch a new and novel flagship product. Monsanto found itself banking its future on its new herbicide glyphosate. As we recently discovered, enormous amounts of research, analysis and hundreds of trials were conducted to learn as much as possible about the compound's bioactivity in mammals and its potential health risks. All of this research data, studies and reports were subsequently sealed as trade secrets upon submission to the EPA. For over thirty years it has sat in the EPA vaults.

Monsanto has yet to be caught and charged for falsifying scientific data on glyphosate. However on earlier occasions two laboratories Monsanto outsourced research to were caught and indicted. In 1978, the EPA busted Industrial Biotest Laboratories for rigging laboratory results; the company's executives were found guilty for submitting fabricated data supporting glyphosate positively to the government. In 1991, another firm, Craven Labs, was found guilty on similar charges with 20 felony counts.[11]

To this day, Monsanto continues to assert that Roundup is environmentally friendly. We are told it biodegrades rapidly and therefore poses no long-term risks after repeated usage. We are told that the herbicide is ideal for weed control. Throughout the US, it is liberally sprayed on our public parks, school playgrounds, sporting fields, and throughout our lawns and gardens. We are told it doesn't bio-accumulate in the body's cells and tissues and is excreted rapidly. We are also told that glyphosate toxicity is dose specific. Only exceedingly high levels of the pesticide pose any serious health risks.[12]

How factual are these claims or are they mere propaganda to obscure scientific truths far more deceptive and sinister? To answer that we would have to know for certain whether or not Monsanto conducted long-term studies on glyphosate that revealed devastating toxic effects on mammal health. We would need evidence that their own data clearly negates their scientific declarations, and that the company intentionally, and with forethought, either distorted or concealed data from federal regulatory officials and the public.

There is now an enormous cache of evidence on both scientific and legal grounds that Monsanto in fact conducted numerous studies in the 1970s and 1980s on glyphosate's toxicity and health risks and intentionally sealed this research from independent and public review and scrutiny. As with Big Tobacco's proprietary claims that prevented the FDA from publicly warning Americans about the dangers of smoking, the EPA has sat on Monsanto's own deleterious data for decades.

Anthony Samsel is an independent research scientist working internationally in the interest of public health and the environment. He is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and a former scientist and consultant at Arthur D. Little, one of the world's leading management consulting firms. Now retired, Samsel has devoted much of his independent research on Roundup's toxicological characteristics and bioactivity. Unable to gain access to research reports and data Monsanto submitted to the EPA through FOIAs, he turned to his senator's office, who assisted in the procurement of studies and reports he sought. Months later he received a hoard of scientific documents, over 15,000 pages worth, covering Monsanto's complete glyphosate research.

With his co-investigator Dr. Stephanie Seneff at MIT the two have been reviewing Monsanto's data. Their conclusion is Monsanto's claims about glyphosate's safety are patently false. The company has known for almost four decades that glyphosate is responsible for a large variety of cancers and organ failures. Clearly it was for this reason that Monsanto demanded the data and reports to be sealed and hidden from public scrutiny as proprietary trade secrets.

During an exclusive interview on the Progressive Radio Network on September 4, Samsel stated that Monsanto used an industry trick to dismiss evidence about glyphosate's risks in its own research. "Monsanto misrepresented the data," says Samsel, "and deliberately covered up data to bring the product [glyphosate] to market."[13]

In order to minimize and cancel out its adverse findings, Samsel explained that Monsanto had relied upon earlier historical animal control data, toxicological research with lab animals afflicted with cancer and organ failures, and completely unrelated to glyphosate. In some cases the control animals displayed kidney, liver and pancreatic diseases. Many of Monsanto's own studies required the inclusion of extraneous studies in order to cancel out damaging results. This is not an uncommon industry habit, particularly in toxicological science. It enables corporations to mask undesirable outcomes and make claims that observable illnesses and disease are spontaneous occurrences without known causal factors. Frequently, Monsanto would have to rely on three external control studies to negate the adverse effects of a single one of its own. Samsel found other incidences in Monsanto's data where 5, 7 and in one case 11 unrelated studies were necessary to diminish the severity of its own findings. In effect, glyphosate received licensure based upon a platform of junk tobacco science. By ignoring cause and effect relationships behind the onset of multiple cancers and other life-threatening diseases throughout many of its research trials, Monsanto engaged in a radical scientific denialism that has since raked in tens of billions of dollars.

But the cache of Monsanto documents, after Samsel's and Seneff's review, reveals much more that we should be worried about.

In addition, Monsanto's studies included doses from low to high range. Samsel observed that low glyphosate doses were equally if not more toxic than higher doses. The company later discontinued low dose trials, relying only on higher levels because it is customarily assumed to have greater toxicological risks. Samsel's observation has recently been confirmed by a study published in the August issue of the Environmental Health Journal by scientists at Kings College London and the University of Caen in France. The two year study found that glyphosate administered at an ultra low dose of 0.1 ppb (the EU's safety limit) in drinking water altered over 4000 gene clusters in the livers and kidneys of rats. These alterations, the study reports, "were consistent with fibrosis, necrosis, phospholipidosis, mitochondria membrane dysfunction and ischemia."[14] Consequently low doses of Roundup are far more toxic than US EPA limits.

During its years investigating glyphosate's bioactivity, Monsanto conducted hundreds of trials on mice, rats, beagle dogs, rabbits and other life. Among the many cancers and diseases Monsanto's own research found associated with glyphosate are:

Adenoma cancer in the pituitary gland
Glioma tumors in the brain
Reticular cell sarcomas in the heart
Malignant tumors in the lungs
Salivary mandibular reticular cell carcinoma
Metastatic sarcomas of the lymph gland
Prostate carcinoma
Cancer of the bladder
Thyroid carcinoma
Adrenal reticulum cell sarcomas
Cortical adenomas
Basal cell squamous skin tumors

In female mammals there were cancers of the lung, liver, thymus, stomach, bladder adrenal glands, ovaries, colon, uterus, parathyroid and mammary glands.

Samsel and Seneff also noticed that Monsanto had conducted many long-term studies, as much as two years, on mice and rats. When Gilles-Eric Seralini and his French team reproduced and extended the length of Monsanto's 3-month GMO maize rat-fed study for the life of the animals, they observed profuse cancer and tumor development started after the 4th month of the study. Monsanto continues to stand by its 3-month study as sufficient proof of GM maize's safety. Yet the thoroughness and variety of Monsanto's research operations should give strong reason to suspect that Monsanto has likewise conducted long term studies and knows all too well the deleterious effects of its pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified crops.

One of Monsanto's claims is that glyphosate doesn't bio-accumulate in tissues, rapidly bio-degrades and is excreted from the body readily. Contrary to this claim, Monsanto carried out meticulous studies to determine levels of accumulation and the organs, tissues and cells glyphosate reaches. Glyphosate was radio labeled with carbon 14 and given in 10 mg doses to seven groups of animals, male and female. After only 24 hours, the toxic chemical was found in the lungs and all body fluids: lymph, blood, urine and cerebral spinal fluid. Glyphosate also accumulated in the bone by 30 ppm and in the bone marrow by 4 ppm. Monsanto's studies were comprehensive. It found an accumulation of the chemical in red cells, thyroid, uterus, colon, testes and ovaries, shoulder muscle, nasal mucosa, heart, lung, small intestine, abdominal muscle and the eyes.

Samsel and Seneff noted that the bioaccumuilation in the pancreas was not reported. Why would such meticulous efforts be made to measure radio labeled carbon 14 laced glyphosate levels in all the other organs, tissues and bodily fluids and then ignore the pancreas? The scientists believe this was deliberate.

Samsel notes that glyphosate does a "particular number on the lungs." According to a 2014 report by the National Cancer Institute, lung cancer rates have been declining. The decline is largely due to the national decrease in smoking. However, other lung cancers such as adenocarcinomas are on the rise. The NCI is unable to account for this anomaly.[15] Yet the Institute is not considering that Americans are increasingly being exposed to glyphosate in their food, water and environment?

During the PRN interview, Dr. Seneff stated that the pancreas may be driving glyphosate to gather in the lungs. The pancreas is responsible for the release of the enzyme trypsin. which in turn infiltrates the lungs. A study published by Brazil's Universidade Federal de Santa Maria in the medical journal Ciencia Rural measured glyphosate's reactivity with digestive enzymes including trypsin. Trypsin activity was found to increase in parallel to higher glyphosate concentrations.[16] Seneff suggests that this may be contributing to the increase of glyphosate in the lungs that is contributing to the dramatic rise in COPD and asthma conditions, as well as lung cancers.

The occurrence of cataracts is rising rapidly, particularly in Mid-Western states such as ND, SD, NB, IA, KS, and MO. According to Prevent Blindness America's statistics, 17% of adults over 40 years have cataract problems. The NIH projects the rate will reach nearly 40% by 2030.[17] Monsanto's study showing glyphosate activity in the eye may be contributing to this epidemic. Dr. Seneff stated that the eye's exposure to sunlight reacts with glyphosate residue thereby potentially making the chemical more toxic. Farmers often apply glyphosate on crops when it is warm, moist and when there is plenty of sunlight in order for the chemical to activate more effectively. These are similar conditions to our eyes during the day.

Monsanto's research was not limited solely to the Roundup compound. It also performed extensive research on glyphosate's individual metabolites, the intermediate molecules that result after Roundup's breakdown through metabolic reactions. Many of these metabolites are every bit as toxic as glyphosate. All the glyphosate metabolites in solutions fed to rats were measured before and after feeding. One of Samsel's more disturbing discoveries was that levels of the metabolite N-Nitrosoglyphosate (NNG) were found in higher concentrations in the rats' feces and urine excretions than the original amount in the feeding solutions. NNG is a known carcinogen and endocrine disruptor. Samsel postulates that our own body's natural nitrous acid reacts immediately with glyphosate, without requiring a catalyst, to produce NNG. Both the EPA and the World Health Organization acknowledge that NNG is present in glyphosate during the manufacturing process. The agencies therefore have established safety limits for NNG. However, for any endocrine disruptor, there is no realistic safety limit because such chemical disruptors destroy cells on a molecule to molecule basis.

Nitrous acid naturally occurs in the colon, urinary tract and skin tissue. According to the CDC, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the US, and affects more men than women. The Skin Cancer Foundation estimates that "each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and colon."[18,19] Basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas are the two most common forms, both which have been identified by Monsanto with glyphosate exposure, particularly in males. When glyphosate reacts in the skin along with nitrous acid the metabolites NNG contributes to skin melanomas. Other chemicals are added to Monsanto's Roundup to increase its effectiveness such as the surfactant POEA (polyethoxylated tallow amine), which also increases its toxicity.

We don't pay enough attention to these other ingredients, Samsel states, because the EPA permits Monsanto to add anything it wants to enhance Roundup's potency while identifying these substances innocuously as "inert." When Monsanto convinces the public that glyphosate breaks down quickly, we are not told that the compound's metabolic byproducts are equally toxic.

Therefore Anthony Samsel's unprecedented discovery and review of Monsanto's actual scientific and toxicological data of Roundup has provided us with information that warrants a thoughtful pause. Samsel and Seneff cover the subject in more detail in a new peer-reviewed paper titled "Glyphosate Pathways to Modern Diseases IV: Cancer and Related Pathologies." The paper has been approved for publication in October.

During recent years dozens of states are submitting bills to label GMO foods. These food crops are heavily laced with glyphosate residue. Not only GM crops, but even non-GM produce are sprayed with Roundup. According to the Organic Consumers Association, non-organic and non-GM foods such as wheat, barley, oats, flax, peas, lentils, beans and sugar cane are also being sold to farmers "as a dessicant, to dry out all their crops so they could harvest them faster."[20] Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Grocery Manufacturers of America and other agro-chemical companies are aggressively combating labeling efforts. The Big Ag lobby is today pushing for a national bill to prevent GMO labeling that would supersede individual state's rights. We can only wonder what the voting outcome in California, Colorado, Washington and Oregon may have been had Monsanto's own research been made available to the media and public. Is it therefore not time for full Congressional hearings to learn the truth once for all and make the disclosure of Monsanto's Roundup research public for all?

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation's longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Seeds of Death about GMOs and Poverty Inc. More at the Progressive Radio Network

Notes:

[1] Daniel Cressey. "Widely Used Herbicide Linked to Cancer" Nature. March 25, 2015

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-cancer/

[2] RT (Russian TV). "California EPA mulls labeling Monsanto's Roundup as being 'known to cause cancer" September 6, 2015https://www.rt.com/usa/314544-california-epa-glyphosate-carcinogenic/

[3] Alexis Baden-Mayer, "Monsanto's Roundup. Enough to Make You Sick" Organic Consumers Association. January 21, 2015

https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/monsanto%E2%80%99s-roundup-enough-make-you-sick

[4] Mary Ellen Kustin. "Glyphosate Is Spreading Like a Cancer Across the U.S." Environmental Working Group. April 7, 2015

http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2015/04/glyphosate-spreading-cancer-across-us

[5] Jack Kaskey, "Monsanto Raises Forecast as Profits Tops Estimates on Corn" Bloomberg Business, April 3, 2013.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-03/monsanto-raises-forecast-as-profit-tops-estimates-on-corn-seed

[6] Alexis Baden-Mayer, op.cit.

[7] Environmental Protection Agency "Glyphosate Fact Sheet"http://www.epa.gov/safewater/pdfs/factsheets/soc/tech/glyphosa.pdf

[8] Environmental Protection Agency. "Basic Information about Glyphosate in Drinking Water"

http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/glyphosate.cfm

[9]Zen Honeycutt, Henry Rowlands, Lori Grace. "Glyphosate Testing Full Report: Findings in American Mothers' Breast Milk, Urine and Water," Moms Across America. April 7, 2015 http://www.momsacrossamerica.com/glyphosate_testing_results

[10] "Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement," Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement

[11] "Monsanto Timeline of Crime 1901-2014" Children of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance. February 16, 2015.http://covvha.net/monsanto-1901-2014-timeline/

[12] EPA, "Glyphosate Fact Sheet" op cit.

[13] Interview with Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. Gary Null Show, Progressive Radio Network. Broadcast on September 4, 2015. http://prn.fm/the-gary-null-show-09-04-15/

[14] Mesnage R, Arno M, Costanzo M, Seralini G-E, Antoniou M., "Transcriptome profile analysis reflects rat liver and kidney damage following chronic ultra-low dose Roundup exposure" Environmental Health 2015, 14:70 doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0056-1

[15] "Lung Cancer Fact Sheet." American Lung Association. http://www.lung.org/lung-disease/lung-cancer/resources/facts-figures/lung-cancer-fact-sheet.html

[16] Salbero I, Pretto A, Machado da Silva V, Loro V, Lazzari R, Baldisserotto B. "Glyposate on digestive enzymes activity in piava (Leporinus obtusidens). Cencia Rural Vol. 44 no. 9. September 2014.

[17] "Vision Problems in the US," Prevent Blindness America. http://www.visionproblemsus.org/cataract/cataract-map.html

[18] Skin Cancer Foundation. "Skin Cancer Facts." http://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/skin-cancer-facts

[19] "Skin Cancer Statistics," Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/skin/statistics/

[20] Alexis Baden-Mayer, op cit.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsantos-sealed-documents-reveal-the-truth-behind-roundups-toxicological-dangers/5476443

Obama's so-called war to degrade and destroy it is a complete fabrication. Defeating it is simple. Stop recruiting, arming, funding, training and directing its elements.

Stop using terrorists as US proxy foot soldiers. Wage peace, not war. Isolated on its own, it'll wither over time and disappear, or be too impotent to rampage like now.

Washington bears full responsibility for human floods fleeing war ravaged areas for safe havens anywhere. Bashar al-Assad told RT International the crisis is "not about that Europe didn't accept them or embrace them as refugees. It's about not dealing with the cause. If you are worried about them, stop supporting terrorists."

If we ask any Syrian today about what they want, the first thing they would say: 'We want security and safety for every person and every family." The international community should unite around what the Syrian people want.

Ongoing conflict can only be resolved "through dialogue and the political process (as well as) unit(y) in the struggle against terrorism."

With an approval rating of 89%, Vladimir Putin is likely the world's most popular leader – for supporting nation-state sovereignty, multi-world polarity and opposing America's ruthless imperial agenda, waging endless wars on humanity.

He's vilified in the West for forthrightly supporting world peace and stability, as well as wanting all conflicts resolved diplomatically and proposing workable solutions if adopted.

At the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, he urged the international community to set aside geopolitical differences and unite against a common enemy.

"Extremists from many countries of the world, including, unfortunately, European countries, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) undertake ideological and military training in the ranks of Islamic State," he explained. "(C)ertainly we are worried that they could possibly return" and make trouble.

Russia, as you know, has proposed to form a wide coalition to fight extremists without any delay. It should unite everyone who is ready and is already contributing to tackling terrorism.

If Russia had not been supporting Syria, the situation in the country would have been worse than in Libya and the refugee flow would have been even bigger.

Moscow didn't ravage and destroy Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Donbass, and other countries – or occupy any. It doesn't use terrorist mercenaries as proxy foot soldiers – or wage endless wars on humanity.

It's not responsible for exponentially growing human floods of desperate people fleeing war-torn areas for safe havens anywhere out of harm's way.

It accepted over a million Ukrainian refugees fleeing Obama's war on Donbass, treating them humanely, regularly supplying Donetsk and Lugansk with badly needed humanitarian aid – doing the same thing for Syrians.

Russia is Europe's leading peace and stability proponent. Wherever America shows up, genocide, mass destruction and human misery follow.

Peace is anathema. So are democratic freedoms. America's agenda intends a ruler/serf world unfit to live in – greed and rapaciousness triumphing over equity and justice for all.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-unspoken-truth-is-obamas-responsibility-to-protect-the-islamic-stateisis-the-objective-is-to-degrade-and-destroy-iraq-and-syria/5476391