March 19th marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq. This seminal event in the short history of the 21st century not only continues to plague Iraqi society to this day, but it also looms large over the current crisis in Ukraine, making it impossible for most of the Global South to see the war in Ukraine through the same prism as U.S. and Western politicians.
While the U.S. was able to strong-arm 49 countries, including many in the Global South, to join its “coalition of the willing” to support invading the sovereign nation of Iraq, only the U.K., Australia, Denmark and Poland actually contributed troops to the invasion force, and the past 20 years of disastrous interventions have taught many nations not to hitch their wagons to the faltering U.S. empire.
Today, nations in the Global South have overwhelmingly refused U.S. entreaties to send weapons to Ukraine and are reluctant to comply with Western sanctions on Russia. Instead, they are urgently calling for diplomacy to end the war before it escalates into a full-scale conflict between Russia and the United States, with the existential danger of a world-ending nuclear war.
The architects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq were the neoconservative founders of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), who believed that the United States could use the unchallenged military superiority that it achieved at the end of the Cold War to perpetuate American global power into the 21st century.
The invasion of Iraq would demonstrate U.S. “full spectrum dominance” to the world, based on what the late Senator Edward Kennedycondemned as “a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other country can or should accept.”
Kennedy was right, and the neocons were utterly wrong. U.S. military aggression succeeded in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, but it failed to impose a stable new order, leaving only chaos, death and violence in its wake. The same was true of U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Libya and other countries.
For the rest of the world, the peaceful economic rise of China and the Global South has created an alternative path for economic development that is replacing the U.S. neocolonial model. While the United States has squandered its unipolar moment on trillion-dollar military spending, illegal wars and militarism, other countries are quietly building a more peaceful, multipolar world.
And yet, ironically, there is one country where the neocons’ “regime-change” strategy succeeded, and where they doggedly cling to power: the United States itself. Even as most of the world recoiled in horror at the results of U.S. aggression, the neocons consolidated their control over U.S. foreign policy, infecting and poisoning Democratic and Republican administrations alike with their exceptionalist snake oil.
Corporate politicians and media like to airbrush out the neocons’ takeover and continuing domination of U.S. foreign policy, but the neocons are hidden in plain sight in the upper echelons of the U.S. State Department, the National Security Council, the White House, Congress and influential corporate-funded think tanks.
PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and was a key supporter of Hillary Clinton. President Biden appointed Kagan’s wife, Victoria Nuland, a former foreign policy adviser to Dick Cheney, as his Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth most senior position in the State Department. That was after she played the lead U.S. role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which caused its national disintegration, the return of Crimea to Russia and a civil war in Donbas that killed at least 14,000 people.
Nuland’s nominal boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was the staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2002, during its debates over the impending U.S. assault on Iraq. Blinken helped the committee chairman, Senator Joe Biden, choreograph hearings that guaranteed the committee’s support for the war, excluding any witnesses who did not fully support the neocons’ war plan.
It is not clear who is really calling the foreign policy shots in Biden’s administration as it barrels toward World War III with Russia and provokes conflict with China, riding roughshod over Biden’s campaign promise to “elevate diplomacy as the primary tool of our global engagement.” Nuland appears to have influence far beyond her rank in the shaping of U.S. (and thus Ukrainian) war policy.
What is clear is that most of the world has seen through the lies and hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy, and that the United States is finally reaping the result of its actions in the refusal of the Global South to keep dancing to the tune of the American pied piper.
At the UN General Assembly in September 2022, the leaders of 66 countries, representing a majority of the world’s population, pleaded for diplomacy and peace in Ukraine. And yet Western leaders still ignore their pleas, claiming a monopoly on moral leadership that they decisively lost on March 19, 2003, when the United States and the United Kingdom tore up the UN Charter and invaded Iraq.
In a panel discussion on “Defending the UN Charter and the Rules-Based International Order” at the recent Munich Security Conference, three of the panelists–from Brazil, Colombia and Namibia–explicitly rejected Western demands for their countries to break off relations with Russia, and instead spoke out for peace in Ukraine.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira called on all the warring parties to “build the possibility of a solution. We cannot keep on talking only of war.” Vice President Francia Márquez of Colombia elaborated, “We don’t want to go on discussing who will be the winner or the loser of a war. We are all losers and, in the end, it is humankind that loses everything.”
Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila of Namibia summed up the views of Global South leaders and their people:
“Our focus is on solving the problem…not on shifting blame,” she said. “We are promoting a peaceful resolution of that conflict, so that the entire world and all the resources of the world can be focused on improving the conditions of people around the world instead of being spent on acquiring weapons, killing people, and actually creating hostilities.”
So how do the American neocons and their European vassals respond to these eminently sensible and very popular leaders from the Global South? In a frightening, warlike speech, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrelltold the Munich conference that the way for the West to “rebuild trust and cooperation with many in the so-called Global South” is to “debunk… this false narrative… of a double standard.”
But the double standard between the West’s responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and decades of Western aggression is not a false narrative. In previous articles, we have documented how the United States and its allies dropped more than 337,000 bombs and missiles on other countries between 2001 and 2020. That is an average of 46 per day, day in day out, for 20 years.
The U.S. record easily matches, or arguably far outstrips, the illegality and brutality of Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. Yet the U.S. never faces economic sanctions from the global community. It has never been forced to pay war reparations to its victims. It supplies weapons to the aggressors instead of to the victims of aggression in Palestine, Yemen and elsewhere. And U.S. leaders–including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden—have never been prosecuted for the international crime of aggression, war crimes or crimes against humanity.
As we mark the 20th anniversary of the devastating Iraq invasion, let us join with Global South leaders and the majority of our neighbors around the world, not only in calling for immediate peace negotiations to end the brutal Ukraine war, but also in building a genuine rules-based international order, where the same rules—and the same consequences and punishments for breaking those rules—apply to all nations, including our own.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The numbers of casualties of U.S. wars since Sept. 11, 2001 have largely gone uncounted, but coming to terms with the true scale of the crimes committed remains an urgent moral, political and legal imperative, argues Nicolas J.S. Davies, in part two of his series.
In the first part of this series,I estimated that about 2.4 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the illegal invasion of their country by the United States and the United Kingdom in 2003. I turn now to Afghan and Pakistani deaths in the ongoing 2001 U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. In part three, I will examine U.S.-caused war deaths in Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. According to Ret. U.S. General Tommy Franks, who led the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in reaction to 9/11, the U.S. government does not keep track of civilian casualties that it causes. “You know, we don’t do body counts,” Franks once said. Whether that’s true or a count is covered up is difficult to know.
As I explained in part one, the U.S. has attempted to justify its invasions of Afghanistan and several other countries as a legitimate response to the terrorist crimes of 9/11. But the U.S. was not attacked by another country on that day, and no crime, however horrific, can justify 16 years of war – and counting – against a series of countries that did not attack the U.S.
As former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz told NPR a week after the terrorist attacks, they were crimes against humanity, but not “war crimes,” because the U.S. was not at war. “It is never a legitimate response to punish people who are not responsible for the wrong done.” Ferencz explained. “We must make a distinction between punishing the guilty and punishing others. If you simply retaliate en masse by bombing Afghanistan, let us say, or the Taliban, you will kill many people who don’t believe in what has happened, who don’t approve of what has happened.”
As Ferencz predicted, we have killed “many people” who had nothing to do with the crimes of September 11. How many people? That is the subject of this report.
Afghanistan
In 2011, award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter was researching night raids by U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan for his article, “How McChrystal and Petraeus Built an Indiscriminate Killing Machine.” The expansion of night raids from 2009 to 2011 was a central element in Barack Obama’s escalation of the U.S. War in Afghanistan. Porter documented a gradual 50-fold ramping up from 20 raids per month in May 2009 to over 1,000 raids per month by April 2011.
But strangely, the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported a decrease in the numbers of civilians killed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2010, including a decrease in the numbers of civilians killed in night raids from 135 in 2009 to only 80 in 2010.
UNAMA’s reports of civilian deaths are based on investigations by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), so Noori Shah Noori, an Afghan journalist working with Porter on the article, interviewed Nader Nadery, a Commissioner of the AIHRC, to find out what was going on.
Nadery explained to Noori,
“…that that figure represented only the number of civilian deaths from 13 incidents that had been fully investigated. It excluded the deaths from 60 other incidents in which complaints had been received, but had not yet been thoroughly investigated.”
“Nadery has since estimated that the total civilian deaths for all 73 night raids about which it had complaints was 420,” Porter continued. “But the AIHRC admits that it does not have access to most of the districts dominated by the Taliban and that people in those districts are not aware of the possibility of complaining to the Commission about night raids. So, neither the AIHRC nor the United Nations learns about a significant proportion – and very likely the majority – of night raids that end in civilian deaths.”
UNAMA has since updated its count of civilians killed in U.S. night raids in 2010 from 80 to 103, still nowhere close to Nadery’s estimate of 420. But as Nadery explained, even that estimate must have been a small fraction of the number of civilian deaths in about 5,000 night raids that year, most of which were probably conducted in areas where people have no contact with UNAMA or the AIHRC.
As senior U.S. military officers admitted to Dana Priest and William Arkin of TheWashington Post, more than half the raids conducted by U.S. special operations forces target the wrong person or house, so a large increase in civilian deaths was a predictable and expected result of such a massive expansion of these deadly “kill or capture” raids.
The massive escalation of U.S. night raids in 2010 probably made it an exceptional year, so it is unlikely that UNAMA’s reports regularly exclude as many uninvestigated reports of civilian deaths as in 2010. But on the other hand, UNAMA’s annual reports never mention that their figures for civilian deaths are based only on investigations completed by the AIHRC, so it is unclear how unusual it was to omit 82 percent of reported incidents of civilian deaths in U.S. night raids from that year’s report.
We can only guess how many reported incidents have been omitted from UNAMA’s other annual reports since 2007, and, in any case, that would still tell us nothing about civilians killed in areas that have no contact with UNAMA or the AIHRC.
In fact, for the AIHRC, counting the dead is only a by-product of its main function, which is to investigate reports of human rights violations in Afghanistan. But Porter and Noori’s research revealed that UNAMA’s reliance on investigations completed by the AIHRC as the basis for definitive statements about the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan in its reports has the effect of sweeping an unknown number of incomplete investigations and unreported civilian deaths down a kind of “memory hole,” writing them out of virtually all published accounts of the human cost of the war in Afghanistan.
UNAMA’s annual reports even include colorful pie-charts to bolster the false impression that these are realistic estimates of the number of civilians killed in a given year, and that pro-government forces and foreign occupation forces are only responsible for a small portion of them.
UNAMA’s systematic undercounts and meaningless pie-charts become the basis for headlines and news stories all over the world. But they are all based on numbers that UNAMA and the AIHRC know very well to be a small fraction of civilian deaths in Afghanistan. It is only a rare story like Porter’s in 2011 that gives any hint of this shocking reality.
In fact, UNAMA’s reports reflect only how many deaths the AIHRC staff have investigated in a given year, and may bear little or no relation to how many people have actually been killed. Seen in this light, the relatively small fluctuations in UNAMA’s reports of civilian deaths from year to year in Afghanistan seem just as likely to represent fluctuations in resources and staffing at the AIHRC as actual increases or decreases in the numbers of people killed.
If only one thing is clear about UNAMA’s reports of civilian deaths, it is that nobody should ever cite them as estimates of total numbers of civilians killed in Afghanistan – least of all UN and government officials and mainstream journalists who, knowingly or not, mislead millions of people when they repeat them.
Estimating Afghan Deaths Through the Fog of Official Deception
So the most widely cited figures for civilian deaths in Afghanistan are based, not just on “passive reporting,” but on misleading reports that knowingly ignore many or most of the deaths reported by bereaved families and local officials, while many or most civilian deaths are never reported to UNAMA or the AIHCR in the first place. So how can we come up with an intelligent or remotely accurate estimate of how many civilians have really been killed in Afghanistan?
The Afghan government reported that 15,000 of its soldiers and police were killed through 2013. The authors of Body Count took estimates of Taliban and other anti-government forces killed in 2001, 2007 and 2010 from other sources and extrapolated to years for which no estimates were available, based on other measures of the intensity of the conflict (numbers of air strikes, night raids etc,). They estimated that 55,000 “insurgents” were killed by the end of 2013.
In Afghanistan, U.S. Army Pfc. Sean Serritelli provides security outside Combat Outpost Charkh on Aug. 23, 2012. (Photo credit: Spc. Alexandra Campo)
The years since 2013 have been increasingly violent for the people of Afghanistan. With reductions in U.S. and NATO occupation forces, Afghan pro-government forces now bear the brunt of combat against their fiercely independent countrymen, and another 25,000 soldiers and police have been killed since 2013, according to my own calculations from news reports and this study by the Watson Institute at Brown University.
If the same number of anti-government fighters have been killed, that would mean that at least 120,000 Afghan combatants have been killed since 2001. But, since pro-government forces are armed with heavier weapons and are still backed by U.S. air support, anti-government losses are likely to be greater than those of government troops. So a more realistic estimate would be that between 130,000 and 150,000 Afghan combatants have been killed.
The more difficult task is to estimate how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan through the fog of UNAMA’s misinformation. UNAMA’s passive reporting has been deeply flawed, based on completed investigations of as few as 18 percent of reported incidents, as in the case of night raid deaths in 2010, with no reports at all from large parts of the country where the Taliban are most active and most U.S. air strikes and night raids take place. The Taliban appear to have never published any numbers of civilian deaths in areas under its control, but it has challenged UNAMA’s figures.
There has been no attempt to conduct a serious mortality study in Afghanistan like the 2006 Lancet study in Iraq. The world owes the people of Afghanistan that kind of serious accounting for the human cost of the war it has allowed to engulf them. But it seems unlikely that that will happen before the world fulfills the more urgent task of ending the now 16-year-old war.
Body Count took estimates by Neta Crawford and the Costs of War project at Boston University for 2001-6, plus the UN’s flawed count since 2007, and multiplied them by a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 8, to produce a range of 106,000 to 170,000 civilians killed from 2001 to 2013. The authors seem to have been unaware of the flaws in UNAMA’s reports revealed to Porter and Noori by Nadery in 2011.
But Body Count did acknowledge the very conservative nature of its estimate, noting that, “compared to Iraq, where urbanization is more pronounced, and monitoring by local and foreign press is more pronounced than in Afghanistan, the registration of civilian deaths has been much more fragmentary.”
In my 2016 article, “Playing Games With War Deaths,” I suggested that the ratio of passive reporting to actual civilian deaths in Afghanistan was therefore more likely to fall between the ratios found in Iraq in 2006 (12:1) and Guatemala at the end of its Civil War in 1996 (20:1).
Mortality in Guatemala and Afghanistan
In fact, the geographical and military situation in Afghanistan is more analogous to Guatemala, with many years of war in remote, mountainous areas against an indigenous civilian population who have taken up arms against a corrupt, foreign-backed central government.
The Guatemalan Civil War lasted from 1960 to 1996. The deadliest phase of the war was unleashed when the Reagan administration restored U.S. military aid to Guatemala in 1981,after a meeting between former Deputy CIA Director Vernon Walters and President Romeo Lucas García, in Guatemala.
U.S. military adviser Lieutenant Colonel George Maynes and President Lucas’s brother, General Benedicto Lucas, planned a campaign called Operation Ash, in which 15,000 Guatemalan troops swept through the Ixil region massacring indigenous communities and burning hundreds of villages.
President Ronald Reagan meeting with Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt.
CIA documents that Robert Parry unearthed at the Reagan library and in other U.S. archives specifically defined the targets of this campaign to include “the civilian support mechanism” of the guerrillas, in effect the entire rural indigenous population. A CIA report from February 1982 described how this worked in practice in Ixil:
“The commanding officers of the units involved have been instructed to destroy all towns and villages which are cooperating with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor [the EGP] and eliminate all sources of resistance,” the report said. “Since the operation began, several villages have been burned to the ground, and a large number of guerrillas and collaborators have been killed.”
Guatemalan President Rios Montt, who died on Sunday, seized power in a coup in 1983 and continued the campaign in Ixil. He was prosecuted for genocide, but neither Walters, Mayne nor any other American official have been charged for helping to plan and support the mass killings in Guatemala.
At the time, many villages in Ixil were not even marked on official maps and there were no paved roads in this remote region (there are still very few today). As in Afghanistan, the outside world had no idea of the scale and brutality of the killing and destruction.
One of the demands of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Revolutionary Organization of Armed People (ORPA) and other revolutionary groups in the negotiations that led to the 1996 peace agreement in Guatemala was for a genuine accounting of the reality of the war, including how many people were killed and who killed them.
The UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission documented 626 massacres, and found that about 200,000 people had been killed in Guatemala’s civil war. At least 93 percent were killed by U.S.-backed military forces and death squads and only 3 percent by the guerrillas, with 4 percent unknown. The total number of people killed was 20 times previous estimates based on passive reporting.
Mortality studies in other countries (like Angola, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda) have never found a larger discrepancy between passive reporting and mortality studies than in Guatemala.
Based on the discrepancy between passive reporting in Guatemala and what the U.N. ultimately found there, UNAMA appears to have reported less than 5 percent of actual civilian deaths in Afghanistan, which would be unprecedented.
Costs of War and UNAMA have counted 36,754 civilian deaths up to the end of 2017. If these (extremely) passive reports represent 5 percent of total civilian deaths, as in Guatemala, the actual death toll would be about 735,000. If UNAMA has in fact eclipsed Guatemala’s previously unsurpassed record of undercounting civilian deaths and only counted 3 or 4 percent of actual deaths, then the real total could be as high as 1.23 million. If the ratio were only the same as originally found in Iraq in 2006 (14:1 – before Iraq Body Count revised its figures), it would be only 515,000.
Adding these figures to my estimate of Afghan combatants killed on both sides, we can make a rough estimate that about 875,000 Afghans have been killed since 2001, with a minimum of 640,000 and a maximum of 1.4 million.
Pakistan
The U.S. expanded its war in Afghanistan into Pakistan in 2004. The CIA began launching drone strikes, and the Pakistani military, under U.S. pressure, launched a military campaign against militants in South Waziristan suspected of links to Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Since then, the U.S. has conducted at least 430 drone strikes in Pakistan, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and the Pakistani military has conducted several operations in areas bordering Afghanistan.
Map of Pakistan and Afghanistan (Wikipedia)
The beautiful Swat valley (once called “the Switzerland of the East” by the visiting Queen Elizabeth of the U.K.) and three neighboring districts were taken over by the Pakistani Taliban between 2007 and 2009. They were retaken by the Pakistani Army in 2009 in a devastating military campaign that left 3.4 million people as refugees.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that 2,515 to 4,026 people have been killed in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, but that is a small fraction of total war deaths in Pakistan. Crawford and the Costs of War program at Boston University estimated the number of Pakistanis killed at about 61,300 through August 2016, based mainly on reports by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) in Islamabad and the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) in New Delhi. That included 8,200 soldiers and police, 31,000 rebel fighters and 22,100 civilians.
Costs of War’s estimate for rebel fighters killed was an average of 29,000 reported by PIPS and 33,000 reported by SATP, which SATP has since updated to 33,950. SATP has updated its count of civilian deaths to 22,230.
If we accept the higher of these passively reported figures for the numbers of combatants killed on both sides and use historically typical 5:1 to 20:1 ratios to passive reports to generate a minimum and maximum number of civilian deaths, that would mean that between 150,000 and 500,000 Pakistanis have been killed.
A reasonable mid-point estimate would be that about 325,000 people have been killed in Pakistan as a result of the U.S. War in Afghanistan spilling across its borders.
Combining my estimates for Afghanistan and Pakistan, I estimate that about 1.2 million Afghans and Pakistanis have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Nicolas J.S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapter on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.
Featured image: U.S. Marines patrol street in Shah Karez in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on Feb. 10. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Robert Storm)
In the third and final part of his series, Nicolas JS Davies investigates the death toll of U.S. covert and proxy wars in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen and underscores the importance of comprehensive war mortality studies.
In the first two parts of this report, I have estimated that about 2.4 million people have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while about 1.2 million have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In the third and final part of this report, I will estimate how many people have been killed as a result of U.S. military and CIA interventions in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
Of the countries that the U.S. has attacked and destabilized since 2001, only Iraq has been the subject of comprehensive “active” mortality studies that can reveal otherwise unreported deaths. An “active” mortality study is one that “actively” surveys households to find deaths that have not previously been reported by news reports or other published sources.
These studies are often carried out by people who work in the field of public health, like Les Roberts at Columbia University, Gilbert Burnham at Johns Hopkins and Riyadh Lafta at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, who co-authored the 2006 Lancet 2006 of Iraq war mortality. In defending their studies in Iraq and their results, they emphasized that their Iraqi survey teams were independent of the occupation government and that that was an important factor in the objectivity of their studies and the willingness of people in Iraq to talk honestly with them.
Comprehensive mortality studies in other war-torn countries (like Angola, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda) have revealed total numbers of deaths that are 5 to 20 times those previously revealed by “passive” reporting based on news reports, hospital records and/or human rights investigations.
In the absence of such comprehensive studies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, I have evaluated passive reports of war deaths and tried to assess what proportion of actual deaths these passive reports are likely to have counted by the methods they have used, based on ratios of actual deaths to passively reported deaths found in other war-zones.
I have only estimated violent deaths. None of my estimates include deaths from the indirect effects of these wars, such as the destruction of hospitals and health systems, the spread of otherwise preventable diseases and the effects of malnutrition and environmental pollution, which have also been substantial in all these countries.
U.S. Army forces operating in southern Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Apr. 2, 2003 (U.S. Navy photo)
For Afghanistan, I estimated that about 875,000 Afghans have been killed. I explained that the annual reports on civilian casualties by the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) are based only on investigations completed by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), and that they knowingly exclude large numbers of reports of civilian deaths that the AIHRC has not yet investigated or for which it has not completed its investigations. UNAMA’s reports also lack any reporting at all from many areas of the country where the Taliban and other Afghan resistance forces are active, and where many or most U.S. air strikes and night raids therefore take place.
I concluded that UNAMA’s reporting of civilian deaths in Afghanistan appears to be as inadequate as the extreme under-reporting found at the end of the Guatemalan Civil War, when the UN-sponsored Historical Verification Commission revealed 20 times more deaths than previously reported.
For Pakistan, I estimated that about 325,000 people had been killed. That was based on published estimates of combatant deaths, and on applying an average of the ratios found in previous wars (12.5:1) to the number of civilian deaths reported by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) in India.
Estimating Deaths in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen
In the third and final part of this report, I will estimate the death toll caused by U.S. covert and proxy wars in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
These wars have been catastrophic for the people of all these countries, but the U.S.’s “disguised, quiet, media-free” approach to them has been so successful in propaganda terms that most Americans know very little about the U.S. role in the intractable violence and chaos that has engulfed them.
The very public nature of the illegal but largely symbolic missile strikes on Syria on April 14, 2018 stands in sharp contrast to the “disguised, quiet, media-free” U.S.-led bombing campaign that has destroyed Raqqa, Mosul and several other Syrian and Iraqi cities with more than 100,000 bombs and missiles since 2014.
The people of Mosul, Raqqa, Kobane, Sirte, Fallujah, Ramadi, Tawergha and Deir Ez-Zor have died like trees falling in a forest where there were no Western reporters or TV crews to record their massacres. As Harold Pinter asked of earlier U.S. war crimes in his 2005 Nobel acceptance speech,
“Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to U.S. foreign policy? The answer is yes, they did take place, and they are in all cases attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”
For more detailed background on the critical role the U.S. has played in each of these wars, please read my article, “Giving War Too Many Chances,” published in January 2018.
But the war instead killed far more civilians than any estimate of the number killed in the initial rebellion in February and March 2011, which ranged from 1,000 (a UN estimate) to 6,000 (according to the Libyan Human Rights League). So the war clearly failed in its stated, authorized purpose, to protect civilians, even as it succeeded in a different and unauthorized one: the illegal overthrow of the Libyan government.
SC resolution 1973 expressly prohibited “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” But NATO and its allies launched a covert invasion of Libya by thousands of Qatari and Western special operations forces, who planned the rebels’ advance across the country, called in air strikes against government forces and led the final assault on the Bab al-Aziziya military headquarters in Tripoli.
“We were among them and the numbers of Qataris on the ground were in the hundreds in every region. Training and communications had been in Qatari hands. Qatar… supervised the rebels’ plans because they are civilians and did not have enough military experience. We acted as the link between the rebels and NATO forces.”
There are credible reports that a French security officer may even have delivered the coup de grace that killed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, after he was captured, tortured and sodomized with a knife by the “NATO rebels.”
Smoke is seen after an NATO airstrikes hit Tripoli, Libya Photo: REX
A parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry in the U.K. in 2016 concluded that a “limited intervention to protect civilians drifted into an opportunistic policy of regime change by military means,” resulting in, “political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of Isil [Islamic State] in north Africa.”
Passive Reports of Civilian Deaths in Libya
Once the Libyan government was overthrown, journalists tried to inquire about the sensitive subject of civilian deaths, which was so critical to the legal and political justifications for the war. But the National Transitional Council (NTC), the unstable new government formed by Western-backed exiles and rebels, stopped issuing public casualty estimates and ordered hospital staff not to release information to reporters.
In any case, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, morgues were overflowing during the war and many people buried their loved ones in their backyards or wherever they could, without taking them to hospitals.
A rebel leader estimated in August 2011 that 50,000 Libyans had been killed. Then, on September 8th 2011, Naji Barakat, the NTC’s new health minister, issued a statement that 30,000 people had been killed and another 4,000 were missing, based on a survey of hospitals, local officials and rebel commanders in the majority of the country that the NTC by then controlled. He said it would take several more weeks to complete the survey, so he expected the final figure to be higher.
Barakat’s statement did not include separate counts of combatant and civilian deaths. But he said that about half of the 30,000 reported dead were troops loyal to the government, including 9,000 members of the Khamis Brigade, led by Gaddafi’s son Khamis. Barakat asked the public to report deaths in their families and details of missing persons when they came to mosques for prayers that Friday. The NTC’s estimate of 30,000 people killed appeared to consist mainly of combatants on both sides.
The most comprehensive survey of war deaths since the end of the 2011 war in Libya was an “epidemiological community-based study” titled “Libyan Armed Conflict 2011: Mortality, Injury and Population Displacement.” It was authored by three medical professors from Tripoli, and published in the African Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2015.
The authors took records of war deaths, injuries and displacement collected by the Ministry of Housing and Planning, and sent teams to conduct face-to-face interviews with a member of each family to verify how many members of their household were killed, wounded or displaced. They did not try to separate the killing of civilians from the deaths of combatants.
Hundreds of refugees from Libya line up for food at a transit camp near the Tunisia-Libya border. March 5, 2016. (Photo from the United Nations)
Nor did they try to statistically estimate previously unreported deaths through the “cluster sample survey” method of the Lancet in Iraq. But the Libyan Armed Conflict study is the most complete record of confirmed deaths in the war in Libya up to February 2012, and it confirmed the deaths of at least 21,490 people.
In 2014, the ongoing chaos and factional fighting in Libya flared up into what Wikipedia now calls a second Libyan Civil War. A group called Libya Body Count (LBC) began tabulating violent deaths in Libya, based on media reports, on the model of Iraq Body Count (IBC). But LBC only did so for three years, from January 2014 until December 2016. It counted 2,825 deaths in 2014, 1,523 in 2015 and 1,523 in 2016. (The LBC website says it was just a coincidence that the number was identical in 2015 and 2016.)
The U.K.-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project has also kept a count of violent deaths in Libya. ACLED counted 4,062 deaths in 2014-6, compared with 5,871 counted by Libya Body Count. For the remaining periods between March 2012 and March 2018 that LBC did not cover, ACLED has counted 1,874 deaths.
If LBC had covered the whole period since March 2012, and found the same proportionally higher number than ACLED as it did for 2014-6, it would have counted 8,580 people killed.
Estimating How Many People Have Really Been Killed in Libya
The Libyan Armed Conflict (LAC) study was based on official records in a country that had not had a stable, unified government for about 4 years, while Libya Body Count was a fledgling effort to emulate Iraq Body Count that tried to cast a wider net by not relying only on English-language news sources.
In Iraq, the ratio between the 2006 Lancet study and Iraq Body Count was higher because IBC was only counting civilians, while the Lancet study counted Iraqi combatants as well as civilians. Unlike Iraq Body Count, both our main passive sources in Libya counted both civilians and combatants. Based on the one-line descriptions of each incident in the Libya Body Count database, LBC’s total appears to include roughly half combatants and half civilians.
Military casualties are generally counted more accurately than civilian ones, and military forces have an interest in accurately assessing enemy casualties as well as identifying their own. The opposite is true of civilian casualties, which are nearly always evidence of war crimes that the forces who killed them have a strong interest in suppressing.
So, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I treated combatants and civilians separately, applying typical ratios between passive reporting and mortality studies only to civilians, while accepting reported combatant deaths as they were passively reported.
But the forces fighting in Libya are not a national army with the strict chain of command and organizational structure that results in accurate reporting of military casualties in other countries and conflicts, so both civilian and combatant deaths appear to be significantly under-reported by my two main sources, the Libya Armed Conflict study and Libya Body Count. In fact, the National Transitional Council’s (NTC) estimates from August and September 2011 of 30,000 deaths were already much higher than the numbers of war deaths in the LAC study.
When the 2006 Lancet study of mortality in Iraq was published, it revealed 14 times the number of deaths counted in Iraq Body Count’s list of civilian deaths. But IBC later discovered more deaths from that period, reducing the ratio between the Lancet study’s estimate and IBC’s revised count to 11.5:1.
The combined totals from the Libya Armed Conflict 2011 study and Libya Body Count appear to be a larger proportion of total violent deaths than Iraq Body Count has counted in Iraq, mainly because LAC and LBC both counted combatants as well as civilians, and because Libya Body Count included deaths reported in Arabic news sources, while IBC relies almost entirely on English language news sources and generally requires “a minimum of two independent data sources” before recording each death.
In other conflicts, passive reporting has never succeeded in counting more than a fifth of the deaths found by comprehensive, “active” epidemiological studies. Taking all these factors into account, the true number of people killed in Libya appears to be somewhere between five and twelve times the numbers counted by the Libya Armed Conflict 2011 study, Libya Body Count and ACLED.
So I estimate that about 250,000 Libyans have been killed in the war, violence and chaos that the U.S. and its allies unleashed in Libya in February 2011, and which continues to the present day. Taking 5:1 and 12:1 ratios to passively counted deaths as outer limits, the minimum number of people that have been killed would be 150,000 and the maximum would be 360,000.
Syria
The “disguised, quiet, media-free” U.S. role in Syria began in late 2011 with a CIA operation to funnel foreign fighters and weapons through Turkey and Jordan into Syria, working with Qatar and Saudi Arabia to militarize unrest that began with peaceful Arab Spring protests against Syria’s Baathist government.
The mostly leftist and democratic Syrian political groups coordinating non-violent protests in Syria in 2011 strongly opposed these foreign efforts to unleash a civil war, and issued strong statements opposing violence, sectarianism and foreign intervention.
But even as a December 2011 Qatari-sponsored opinion poll found that 55% of Syrians supported their government, the U.S. and its allies were committed to adapting their Libyan regime change model to Syria, knowing full well from the outset that this war would be much bloodier and more destructive.
Smoke billows skyward as homes and buildings are shelled in the city of Homs, Syria. June 9, 2012. (Photo from the United Nations)
The CIA and its Arab monarchist partners eventually funneled thousands of tons of weapons and thousands of foreign Al-Qaeda-linked jihadis into Syria. The weapons came first from Libya, then from Croatia and the Balkans. They included howitzers, missile launchers and other heavy weapons, sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenades, mortars and small arms, and the U.S. eventually directly supplied powerful anti-tank missiles.
Meanwhile, instead of cooperating with Kofi Annan’s UN-backed efforts to bring peace to Syria in 2012, the U.S. and its allies held three “Friends of Syria” conferences, where they pursued their own “Plan B,” pledging ever-growing support to the increasingly Al-Qaeda-dominated rebels. Kofi Annan quit his thankless role in disgust after Secretary of State Clinton and her British, French and Saudi allies cynically undermined his peace plan.
The rest, as they say, is history, a history of ever-spreading violence and chaos that has drawn the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, Iran and all of Syria’s neighbors into its bloody vortex. As Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies has observed, these external powers have all been ready to fight over Syria “to the last Syrian.”
The bombing campaign that President Obama launched against Islamic State in 2014 is the heaviest bombing campaign since the U.S. War in Vietnam, dropping more than 100,000 bombs and missiles on Syria and Iraq. Patrick Cockburn, the veteran Middle East correspondent of the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, recently visited Raqqa, formerly Syria’s 6th largest city, and wrote that, “The destruction is total.”
“In other Syrian cities bombed or shelled to the point of oblivion there is at least one district that has survived intact,” Cockburn wrote. “This is the case even in Mosul in Iraq, though much of it was pounded into rubble. But in Raqqa the damage and the demoralization are all pervasive. When something does work, such as a single traffic light, the only one to do so in the city, people express surprise.”
Estimating Violent Deaths in Syria
Every public estimate of the numbers of people killed in Syria that I have found comes directly or indirectly from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), run by Rami Abdulrahman in Coventry in the U.K. He is a former political prisoner from Syria, and he works with four assistants in Syria who in turn draw on a network of about 230 anti-government activists across the country. His work receives some funding from the European Union, and also reportedly some from the U.K. government.
Wikipedia cites the Syrian Centre for Policy Research as a separate source with a higher fatality estimate, but this is in fact a projection from SOHR’s figures. Lower estimates by the UN appear to also be based mainly on SOHR’s reports.
SOHR has been criticized for its unabashedly opposition viewpoint, leading some to question the objectivity of its data. It appears to have seriously undercounted civilians killed by U.S. air strikes, but this could also be due to the difficulty and danger of reporting from IS-held territory, as has also been the case in Iraq.
A protest placard in the Kafersousah neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 26, 2012. (Photo credit: Freedom House Flickr)
SOHR acknowledges that its count cannot be a total estimate of all the people killed in Syria. In its most recent report in March 2018, it added 100,000 to its tally to compensate for under-reporting, another 45,000 to account for prisoners killed or disappeared in government custody and 12,000 for people killed, disappeared or missing in Islamic State or other rebel custody.
Leaving aside these adjustments, SOHR’s March 2018 report documents the deaths of 353,935 combatants and civilians in Syria. That total is comprised of 106,390 civilians; 63,820 Syrian troops; 58,130 members of pro-government militias (including 1,630 from Hezbollah and 7,686 other foreigners); 63,360 Islamic State, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) and other Islamist jihadis; 62,039 other anti-government combatants; and 196 unidentified bodies.
Breaking this down simply into civilians and combatants, that is 106,488 civilians and 247,447 combatants killed (with the 196 unidentified bodies divided equally), including 63,820 Syrian Army troops.
The SOHR’s count is not a comprehensive statistical survey like the 2006 Lancet study in Iraq. But regardless of its pro-rebel viewpoint, the SOHR appears to be one of the most comprehensive efforts to “passively” count the dead in any recent war.
Like military institutions in other countries, the Syrian Army probably keeps fairly accurate casualty figures for its own troops. Excluding actual military casualties, it would be unprecedented for SOHR to have counted more than 20% of other people killed in Syria’s Civil War. But SOHR’s reporting may well be as thorough as any previous efforts to count the dead by “passive” methods.
Taking the SOHR’s passively reported figures for non-military war deaths as 20% of the real total killed would mean that 1.45 million civilians and non-military combatants have been killed. After adding the 64,000 Syrian troops killed to that number, I estimate that about 1.5 million people have been killed in Syria.
If SOHR has been more successful than any previous “passive” effort to count the dead in a war, and has counted 25% or 30% of the people killed, the real number killed could be as low as 1 million. If it has not been as successful as it seems, and its count is closer to what has been typical in other conflicts, then as many as 2 million people may well have been killed.
Somalia
Most Americans remember the U.S. intervention in Somalia that led to the “Black Hawk Down” incident and the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1993. But most Americans do not remember, or may never have known, that the U.S. made another “disguised, quiet, media-free” intervention in Somalia in 2006, in support of an Ethiopian military invasion.
Somalia was finally “pulling itself up by its bootstraps” under the governance of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a union of local traditional courts who agreed to work together to govern the country. The ICU allied with a warlord in Mogadishu and defeated the other warlords who had ruled private fiefdoms since the collapse of the central government in 1991. People who knew the country well hailed the ICU as a hopeful development for peace and stability in Somalia.
But in the context of its “war on terror,” the U.S. government identified the Islamic Courts Union as an enemy and a target for military action. The U.S. allied with Ethiopia, Somalia’s traditional regional rival (and a majority Christian country), and conducted air strikes and special forces operations to support an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia to remove the ICU from power. As in every other country the U.S. and its proxies have invaded since 2001, the effect was to plunge Somalia back into violence and chaos that continues to this day.
Estimating the Death Toll in Somalia
Passive sources put the violent death toll in Somalia since the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006 at 20,171 (Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) – through 2016) and 24,631 (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED)). But an award-winning local NGO, the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre in Mogadishu, which tracked deaths only for 2007 and 2008, counted 16,210 violent deaths in those two years alone, 4.7 times the number counted by UCDP and 5.8 times ACLED’s tally for those two years.
In Libya, Libya Body Count only counted 1.45 times as many deaths as ACLED. In Somalia, Elman Peace counted 5.8 times more than ACLED – the difference between the two was 4 times as great. This suggests that Elman Peace’s counting was about twice as thorough as Libya Body Count’s, while ACLED seems to be about half as effective at counting war deaths in Somalia as in Libya.
UCDP logged higher numbers of deaths than ACLED from 2006 until 2012, while ACLED has published higher numbers than UCDP since 2013. The average of their two counts gives a total of 23,916 violent deaths from July 2006 to 2017. If Elman Peace had kept counting war deaths and had continued to find 5.25 ( the average of 4.7 and 5.8) times the numbers found by these international monitoring groups, it would by now have counted about 125,000 violent deaths since the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in July 2006.
But while Elman Peace counted many more deaths than UCDP or ACLED, this was still just a “passive” count of war deaths in Somalia. To estimate the total number of war deaths that have resulted from the U.S. decision to destroy Somalia’s fledgling ICU government, we must multiply these figures by a ratio that falls somewhere between those found in other conflicts, between 5:1 and 20:1.
Applying a 5:1 ratio to my projection of what the Elman Project might have counted by now yields a total of 625,000 deaths. Applying a 20:1 ratio to the much lower counts by UCDP and ACLED would give a lower figure of 480,000.
It is very unlikely that the Elman Project was counting more than 20% of actual deaths all over Somalia. On the other hand, UCDP and ACLED were only counting reports of deaths in Somalia from their bases in Sweden and the U.K., based on published reports, so they may well have counted less than 5% of actual deaths.
If the Elman Project was only capturing 15% of total deaths instead of 20%, that would suggest that 830,000 people have been killed since 2006. If UCDP’s and ACLED’s counts have captured more than 5% of total deaths, the real total could be lower than 480,000. But that would imply that the Elman Project was identifying an even higher proportion of actual deaths, which would be unprecedented for such a project.
So I estimate that the true number of people killed in Somalia since 2006 must be somewhere between 500,000 and 850,000, with most likely about 650,000 violent deaths.
Yemen
The U.S. is part of a coalition that has been bombing Yemen since 2015 in an effort to restore former President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to power. Hadi was elected in 2012 after Arab Spring protests and armed uprisings forced Yemen’s previous U.S.-backed dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to resign in November 2011.
Hadi’s mandate was to draw up a new constitution and organize a new election within two years. He did neither of these things, so the powerful Zaidi Houthi movement invaded the capital in September 2014, placed Hadi under house arrest and demanded that he and his government fulfill their mandate and organize a new election.
The Zaidis are a unique Shiite sect who make up 45% of Yemen’s population. Zaidi Imams ruled most of Yemen for over a thousand years. Sunnis and Zaidis have lived together peacefully in Yemen for centuries, intermarriage is common and they pray in the same mosques.
The last Zaidi Imam was overthrown in a civil war in the 1960s. In that war, the Saudis supported the Zaidi royalists, while Egypt invaded Yemen to support the republican forces who eventually formed the Yemen Arab Republic in 1970.
In 2014, Hadi refused to cooperate with the Houthis, and resigned in January 2015. He fled to Aden, his hometown, and then to Saudi Arabia, which launched a savage U.S.-backed bombing campaign and naval blockade to try to restore him to power.
While Saudi Arabia is conducting most of the air strikes, the U.S. has sold most of the planes, bombs, missiles and other weapons it is using. The U.K. is the Saudis’ second largest arms supplier. Without U.S. satellite intelligence and in-air refueling, Saudi Arabia could not conduct airstrikes all over Yemen as it is doing. So a cut-off of U.S. weapons, in-air refueling and diplomatic support could be decisive in ending the war.
Estimating War Deaths in Yemen
Published estimates of war deaths in Yemen are based on regular surveys of hospitals there by the World Health Organization, often relayed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). The most recent estimate, from December 2017, is that 9,245 people have been killed, including 5,558 civilians.
But UNOCHA’s December 2017 report included a note that,
“Due to the high number of health facilities that are not functioning or partially functioning as a result of the conflict, these numbers are underreported and likely higher.”
Even when hospitals are fully functioning, many people killed in war do not ever make it to a hospital. Several hospitals in Yemen have been struck by Saudi air strikes, there is a naval blockade that restricts imports of medicine, and supplies of electricity, water, food and fuel have all been affected by the bombing and the blockade. So the WHO’s summaries of mortality reports from hospitals are likely to be a small fraction of the real numbers of people killed.
A neighborhood in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa after an airstrike, October 9, 2015. (Wikipedia)
ACLED reports a slightly lower figure than the WHO: 7,846 through the end of 2017. But unlike the WHO, ACLED has up to date data for 2018, and reports another 2,193 deaths since January. If the WHO continues to report 18% more deaths than ACLED, the WHO’s total up to the present would be 11,833.
Even UNOCHA and the WHO acknowledge substantial underreporting of war deaths in Yemen, and the ratio between the WHO’s passive reports and actual deaths appears to be toward the higher end of the range found in other wars, which has varied between 5:1 and 20:1. I estimate that about 175,000 people have been killed – 15 times the numbers reported by the WHO and ACLED – with a minimum of 120,000 and a maximum of 240,000.
The True Human Cost of U.S. Wars
Altogether, in the three parts of this report, I have estimated that America’s post-9/11 wars have killed about 6 million people. Maybe the true number is only 5 million. Or maybe it is 7 million. But I am quite certain that it is several millions.
It is not only hundreds of thousands, as many otherwise well-informed people believe, because compilations of “passive reporting” can never amount to more than a fraction of the actual numbers of people killed in countries living through the kind of violence and chaos that our country’s aggression has unleashed on them since 2001.
The systematic reporting of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has surely captured a larger fraction of actual deaths than the small number of completed investigations deceptively reported as mortality estimates by the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan. But both of them still only represent a fraction of total deaths.
And the true number of people killed is most definitely not in the tens of thousands, as most of the general public in the U.S. and in the U.K. have been led to believe, according to opinion polls.
We urgently need public health experts to conduct comprehensive mortality studies in all the countries the U.S. has plunged into war since 2001, so that the world can respond appropriately to the true scale of death and destruction these wars have caused.
As Barbara Lee presciently warned her colleagues before she cast her lone dissenting vote in 2001, we have “become the evil we deplore.” But these wars have not been accompanied by fearsome military parades (not yet) or speeches about conquering the world. Instead they have been politically justified by “information warfare” to demonize enemies and fabricate crises, and then waged in a “disguised, quiet, media free” way, to hide their cost in human blood from the American public and the world.
After 16 years of war, about 6 million violent deaths, 6 countries utterly destroyed and many more destabilized, it is urgent that the American public come to terms with the true human cost of our country’s wars and how we have been manipulated and misled into turning a blind eye to them – before they go on even longer, destroy more countries, further undermine the rule of international law and kill millions more of our fellow human beings.
“We can no longer afford to take that which is good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live.”
*
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Nicolas J.S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapter on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
We have both been reporting on and protesting against U.S. war crimes for many years, and against identical crimes committed by U.S. allies and proxies like Israel and Saudi Arabia: illegal uses of military force to try to remove enemy governments or “regimes”; hostile military occupations; disproportionate military violence justified by claims of “terrorism”; the bombing and killing of civilians; and the mass destruction of whole cities.
Most Americans share a general aversion to war, but tend to accept this militarized foreign policy because we are tragically susceptible to propaganda, the machinery of public manipulation that works hand in hand with the machinery of killing to justify otherwise unthinkable horrors.
This process of “manufacturing consent” works in a number of ways. One of the most effective forms of propaganda is silence, simply not telling us, and certainly not showing us, what war is really doing to the people whose homes and communities have been turned into America’s latest battlefield.
The most devastating campaign the U.S. military has waged in recent years dropped over 100,000 bombs and missiles on Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa in Syria, and other areas occupied by ISIS or Da’esh. An Iraqi Kurdish intelligence report estimated that more than 40,000 civilians were killed in Mosul, while Raqqa was even more totally destroyed.
The shelling of Raqqa was the heaviest U.S. artillery bombardment since the Vietnam War, yet it was barely reported in the U.S. corporate media. A recent New York Times article about the traumatic brain injuries and PTSD suffered by U.S. artillerymen operating 155 mm howitzers, which each fired up to 10,000 shells into Raqqa, was appropriately titled A Secret War, Strange New Wounds and Silence from the Pentagon.
Shrouding such mass death and destruction in secrecy is a remarkable achievement. When British playwright Harold Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, in the midst of the Iraq War, he titled his Nobel speech “Art, Truth and Politics,” and used it to shine a light on this diabolical aspect of U.S. war-making.
After talking about the hundreds of thousands of killings in Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Nicaragua, Pinter asked:
“Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes, they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy.”
“But you wouldn’t know it,” he went on. ”It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
But the wars and the killing go on, day after day, year after year, out of sight and out of mind for most Americans. Did you know that the United States and its allies have dropped more than 350,000 bombs and missiles on 9 countries since 2001 (including 14,000 in the current war on Gaza)? That’s an average of 44 airstrikes per day, day in, day out, for 22 years.
Israel, in its present war on Gaza, with children making up more than 40% of the more than 11,000 people killed to date, would surely like to mimic the extraordinary U.S. ability to hide its brutality. But despite Israel’s efforts to impose a media blackout, the massacre is taking place in a small, enclosed, densely-populated urban area, often called an open-air prison, where the world can see a great deal more than usual of how it impacts real people.
Al Jazeera correspondent Wael El-Dahdouh cries as he holds one of his family members who were killed in an Israeli air strike on a building in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on October 25, 2023. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)
Israel has killed a record number of journalists in Gaza, and this appears to be a deliberate strategy, as when U.S. forces targeted journalists in Iraq. But we are still seeing horrifying video and photos of daily new atrocities: dead and wounded children; hospitals struggling to treat the injured; and desperate people fleeing from one place to another through the rubble of their destroyed homes.
Another reason this war is not so well hidden is because Israel is waging it, not the United States. The U.S. is supplying most of the weapons, has sent aircraft carriers to the region, and dispatched U.S. Marine General James Glynn to provide tactical advice based on his experience conducting similar massacres in Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq. But Israeli leaders seem to have overestimated the extent to which the U.S. information warfare machine would shield them from public scrutiny and political accountability.
Unlike in Fallujah, Mosul and Raqqa, people all over the world are seeing video of the unfolding catastrophe on their computers, phones and TVs. Netanyahu, Biden and the corrupt “defense analysts” on cable TV are no longer the ones creating the narrative, as they try to tack self-serving narratives onto the horrifying reality we can all see for ourselves.
With the reality of war and genocide staring the world in the face, people everywhere are challenging the impunity with which Israel is systematically violating international humanitarian law.
Michael Crowley and Edward Wong have reported in the New York Times that Israeli officials are defending their actions in Gaza by pointing to U.S. war crimes, insisting that they are simply interpreting the laws of war the same way that the United States has interpreted them in Iraq and other U.S. war zones. They compare Gaza to Fallujah, Mosul and even Hiroshima.
But copying U.S. war crimes is precisely what makes Israel’s actions illegal. And it is the world’s failure to hold the United States accountable that has emboldened Israel to believe it too can kill with impunity.
The United States systematically violates the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force, manufacturing political justifications to suit each case and using its Security Council veto to evade international accountability. Its military lawyers employ unique, exceptional interpretations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, under which the universal protections the Convention guarantees to civilians are treated as secondary to U.S. military objectives.
The United States fiercely resists the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), to ensure that its exceptional interpretations of international law are never subjected to impartial judicial scrutiny.
When the United States did allow the ICJ to rule on its war against Nicaragua in 1986, the ICJ ruled that its deployment of the “Contras” to invade and attack Nicaragua and its mining of Nicaragua’s ports were acts of aggression in violation of international law, and ordered the United States to pay war reparations to Nicaragua. When the United States declared that it would no longer recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ and failed to pay up, Nicaragua asked the UN Security Council to enforce the reparations, but the U.S. vetoed the resolution.
Atrocities like Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the bombing of German and Japanese cities to “unhouse” the civilian population, as Winston Churchill called it, together with the horrors of Germany’s Nazi holocaust, led to the adoption of the new Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949, to protect civilians in war zones and under military occupation.
On the 50th anniversary of the Convention in 1999, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is responsible for monitoring international compliance with the Geneva Conventions, conducted a survey to see how well people in different countries understood the protections the Convention provides.
They surveyed people in twelve countries that had been victims of war, in four countries (France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.) that are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and in Switzerland where the ICRC is based. The ICRC published the results of the survey in 2000, in a report titled, People on War – Civilians in the Line of Fire.
The survey asked people to choose between a correct understanding of the Convention’s civilian protections and a watered-down interpretation of them that closely resembles that of U.S. and Israeli military lawyers.
The correct understanding was defined by a statement that combatants “must attack only other combatants and leave civilians alone.” The weaker, incorrect statement was that “combatants should avoid civilians as much as possible” as they conduct military operations.
Between 72% and 77% of the people in the other UNSC countries and Switzerland agreed with the correct statement, but the United States was an outlier, with only 52% agreeing. In fact 42% of Americans agreed with the weaker statement, twice as many as in the other countries. There were similar disparities between the United States and the others on questions about torture and the treatment of prisoners of war.
In U.S.-occupied Iraq, the United States’ exceptionally weak interpretations of the Geneva Conventions led to endless disputes with the ICRC and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which issued damning quarterly human rights reports. UNAMI consistently maintained that U.S. airstrikes in densely populated civilian areas were violations of international law.
For instance, its human rights report for the 2nd quarter of 2007 documented UNAMI’s investigations of 15 incidents in which U.S. occupation forces killed 103 Iraqi civilians, including 27 killed in airstrikes in Khalidiya, near Ramadi, on April 3rd, and 7 children killed in a helicopter attack on an elementary school in Diyala province on May 8th.
UNAMI demanded that “all credible allegations of unlawful killings by MNF (Multi-National Force) forces be thoroughly, promptly and impartially investigated, and appropriate action taken against military personnel found to have used excessive or indiscriminate force.”
A footnote explained,
“Customary international humanitarian law demands that, as much as possible, military objectives must not be located within areas densely populated by civilians. The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area.”
UNAMI also rejected U.S. claims that its widespread killing of civilians was the result of the Iraqi Resistance using civilians as “human shields,” another U.S. propaganda trope that Israel is mimicking today. Israeli accusations of human shielding are even more absurd in the densely populated, confined space of Gaza, where the whole world can see that it is Israel that is placing civilians in the line of fire as they desperately seek safety from Israeli bombardment.
Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza are echoing around the world: through the halls of the United Nations; from the governments of traditional U.S. allies like France, Spain and Norway; from a newly united front of previously divided Middle Eastern leaders; and in the streets of London and Washington. The world is withdrawing its consent for a genocidal “two-state solution” in which Israel and the United States are the only two states that can settle the fate of Palestine.
If U.S. and Israeli leaders are hoping that they can squeak through this crisis, and that the public’s habitually short attention span will wash away the world’s horror at the crimes we are all witnessing, that may be yet another serious misjudgment. As Hannah Arendt wrote in 1950 in the preface to The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain.”
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Featured image: Girl holds improvised white flag, to tell Israel to respect Geneva Conventions and spare her fleeing family. Photo credit: Yasser Qudih
The original source of this article is Global Research
Das Pentagon wurde beim Kauf von Erdölprodukten aus russischen Rohstoffen erwischt.
Die amerikanische Zeitung „Washington Post“ führte eine Untersuchung durch, die angeblich ergab, dass die Raffinerie Motor Oil Hellas in Griechenland, ein Lieferant des US-Militärs, russisches Heizöl über eine mehrteilige Kette erhalten könnte, an der ein Händler aus den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten und ein türkisches Terminal beteiligt sind.
„Russisches Öl wird umbenannt und an eine griechische Raffinerie verkauft, die dem US-Militär und anderen Ländern dient, die Erdölprodukte (aus Russland) verboten haben“, heißt es in dem Artikel.
Das US-Verteidigungsministerium teilte der Veröffentlichung mit, dass die Verantwortung für die Einhaltung der Sanktionen bei den Lieferanten selbst liege.
“During and since World War II , the United States has killed more than 40 million people in a number of countries, most of them civilians, either directly or through proxy by its puppet regimes.”
The casualties resulting from military operations undertaken by the U.S. and its proxy regimes do not however take into account America’s acts of economic and social warfare not only directed against the Global South but also, in recent years, against the “developed countries” of the European Union, where poverty is rampant and the Welfare State is being broken to pieces.
Economic and Social Warfare
The purpose of economic warfare (which goes hand in hand with military warfare) is to shut down and loot the resources of the targeted economies and subject these countries to increasing levels of poverty and depopulation to the benefit of the Western financial elites which in the course of the last few years have become exceedingly wealthy.
There are several instruments being used by this elite to accomplish these goals, especially:
The Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
The handing over of entire economies and sectors in the Global South to American investment companies such as BlackRock as well as to Western mining and grain corporations such as Newmont, Cargill and Monsanto.
The generation of large-scale famines particularly in Africa.
Deindustrialization in the West resulting from free trade agreements and outsourcing of manufacturing which has significantly increased unemployment and poverty prominently in the U.S. and Canada. The middle class has been sharply reduced in both countries.
Spiraling energy, water, food and housing prices globally which put basic necessities out of the reach of millions more people.
The COVID-induced shutdowns of 190 countries since 2020 which caused the economic collapse of many.
And of course all this is done in conjunction with the spreading of wars globally as seen in our previous article.
Never-ending Colonialism
The template for economic warfare has been set by 600 years of colonialism which never ended just assumed new names and forms as the Western elite has continued attacking and looting the Global South and increasingly its own population as well. The combination of economic and military imperialism is particularly prominent in the case of Africa where:
“The U.S. government has through the Pentagon, the CIA, the World Bank and the IMF, systematically demolished African economies, health and education sectors, and fueled 12 wars on the continent with arms transfers and military training. This genocidal imperial strategy has killed more than four million Africans and allowed the U.S. and the West to attain Africa’s abundant natural riches cheaply.”
Western countries colonized 80% of the world’s surface and this process destroyed the economies of Africa, Asia and Latin America for more than five centuries spreading poverty and famine globally.
India which was “the richest polity of its age” (according the New York Times) (India’s age being the 17th and 18th centuries) was converted by 200 years of British colonialism into an abyss of poverty. The British looted$45 trillionfrom India and killed up to165 million Indians through periodic famines, massacres, deindustrialization and high taxes.
“Britain used this flow of tribute from India [the $45 trillion] to finance the expansion of capitalism in Europe and regions of European settlement, like Canada and Australia. So not only the industrialisation of Britain but also the industrialisation of much of the Western world was facilitated by extraction from the colonies.”
This British plunder destroyed Indian society as Hickel explains:
“During the last half of the 19th century – the heyday of British intervention – income in India collapsed by half. The average life expectancy of Indians dropped by a fifth from 1870 to 1920. Tens of millions died needlessly of policy-induced famine.”
“India’s share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23 per cent. By the time the British left it was down to below four per cent. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India.
“In fact, Britain’s industrial revolution was actually premised upon the de-industrialisation of India...India went from having 27% of world trade to less than 2%.”
Colonialism and the slave trade had a similarly destructive impact on the African continent. For 400 years, more than 20 million Africans were enslaved by Britain, Portugal, Spain, Holland and France.
These slaves were worked to death (in many cases) on Caribbean plantations and those in the United States and South America. As Professor Sabelo J. Ndlovu Gatsheni explains “This drained Africa of its most robust labour needed for its economic development.” It also impoverished African economies while enormously enriching Western countries.
Cambridge University history lecturer Dr.RichardDrayton’sGuardian article (August 2005) is titled “The Wealth of The WestWas Built on Africa’s Exploitation.” Drayton asks:
“Why, most crucially, was there no recognition of how wealth extracted from Africa and Africans made possible the vigour and prosperity of modern Britain? Was there not a case for Britain to pay reparations to the descendants of African slaves?…African slavery and colonialism are not ancient or foreign history; the world they made is around us in Britain.”
According to Drayton, the wealth that Britain alone looted from Africa is so enormous that its debt to the continent is “incalculable”:
“For without Africa and its Caribbean plantation extensions, the modern world as we know it would not exist.
“Profits from slave trading and from sugar, coffee, cotton and tobacco are only a small part of the story. What mattered was how the pull and push from these industries transformed western Europe’s economies. English banking, insurance, shipbuilding, wool and cotton manufacture, copper and iron smelting, and the cities of Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, multiplied in response to the direct and indirect stimulus of the slave plantations.”
The effect of colonialism was to shut down Southern economies and subordinate them to Western requirements for cheap or free labour, captive markets for Western goods and cheap raw materials for Western industrialization. This process of shutting down and poverty creation continued in the era of neocolonialism which followed that of colonialism. Neocolonialism continues today as a form of economic and military warfare.
The region most devastated by SAPs has been Africa where they have decimated national economies and health and education sectors. SAPs offer loans on condition that governments drastically reduce public spending (especially on health, education and food subsidies) in favour of repayment of debt owed to Western banks, increase exports of raw materials to the West, encourage foreign investment and privatize state enterprises; the last two steps mean selling whatever national assets a poor country may have to Western multinational corporations.
Under SAPs, Sub-Saharan Africa’s external debt actually increased by more than 500%. In 1997, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stated that in the absence of debt payments, severely indebted African countries could have saved the lives of 21 million people and given 90 million girls and women access to basic education by the year 2000. The All-African Conference of Churches has called the debt “a new form of slavery, as vicious as the slave trade.”
After forty years of SAPs, 490 million Africans lived in extreme poverty (40.8% of the 1.2 billion population) in 2021. This is up from 313 million Africans who lived in extreme poverty in 2001.
Life expectancy in Africa today is 63 years, the lowest in the world. In February 2023, a fifth of the African population (278 million) was undernourished, and 55 million African children below five years of age were stunted due to severe malnutrition according to OXFAM.
Due to SAPs, between 2001 and 2015, government spending on health, as a proportion of overall spending, decreased in 21 African countries. More than half of African citizens have no access to health care and every year 97 million Africans are faced with “catastrophic healthcare costs” which push 15 million of them into poverty.
Given the annihilating social impact of SAPs all over Africa, it is not surprising that EmilySikazwe, director of the Zambian anti-poverty group “Women for Change,” asked: “What would they [the World Bank and the IMF] say if we took them to the World Court in The Hague and accused them of genocide?”
Gatsheni sums up the four phases of the West’s looting of Africa as:
“The first is the epoch of enslavement of Africans and their shipment as cargo out of the continent. This drained Africa of its most robust labour needed for its economic development. The second was the exploitation of African labour in the plantations and mines in the Americas without any payment so as to enable the very project of Euromodernity and its coloniality.
“The third is the colonial moment where Africa was scrambled for and partitioned among seven European colonial powers (Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal) and its resources (both natural and human) were exploited for the benefit of Europe.
“The fourth moment is the current one characterized by “debt slavery”whereby a poorcontinent finances the developed countries of the world. Overseeing this debt slavery is the global financial republic constituted by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other financial institutions. All these exploitative journeys of capital were enabled by colonialism and coloniality.”
Military and Economic Warfare Combined with Corporate Dominance Brings Worst Famine to Africa
The endless suffering of Africa continues to increase as the continent slides into an an alarming famine driven by Western-created wars, SAPs and multinational corporate control of national mining sectors and the world food system. Here we have a horrifying example of how these three elements of the Western colonial war system work together to devastate an entire continent.
Currently, Africais in the grip of its worst food crisis ever, driven by a perfect storm of climate crisis conditions— drought and floods—along with raging armed conflicts and spiraling grain import prices.
A record 278 million Africans— one in five—are facing hunger. The number of East Africans in this predicament has gone up by 60% in 2021 alone and it has gone up by 40% in West Africa.
According to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and its Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Violentconflict remains the primary driverof acute hunger [in Africa and other areas].”
Since the 1980s the United States has fueled 12 wars on the continent through arms transfers and military training, as well as proxy invasions and direct invasions.
These wars include the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Angola, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Congo-Brazzaville and Nigeria. The U.S. has given military assistance to 51 out of 54 African countries.
“When there is conflict, it becomes practically impossible for farmers to produce food needed to sustain the population. There is a clear correlation between the many conflicts ongoing in Africa, food scarcity, drought and climate change,” explains OmoladeAdunbi, a professor of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.
The DRC and Libya have been the countries most destabilized by U.S. military intervention in Africa. The U.S. instigated the invasion of the DRC by its proxies Rwanda and Uganda in 1996 and 1998, and the subsequent slaughter of more than seven million Congolese has destroyed the country.
Washington’s goal was to plunder the mineral riches of the Congo through the proxy use of Rwanda’s and Uganda’s troops. The U.S. has ensured that Congo’s rich mines have been handed over to Western mining companies. Rwanda and Uganda withdrew their forces from the Congo in 2003, but continued looting its minerals through their puppet militias thus perpetuating the state of war.
“The U.S. has financed and given overall direction to the worst genocide since World War II,” says Glen Ford, editor of the Black Agenda Report, the leading website on U.S. policy towards Africa.
It is no surprise that, according to the WFP, “DRC is one of the largest hunger crises in the world. Hunger and conflict fuel one another, with armed conflict and widespread displacement prevailing for the past 25 years.” More than 25 million people (almost a quarter of the population) faced crisis levels of food insecurity at the end of September 2023.
The steep 23.9% increase in African food prices in 2022 is usually attributed to the Russia-Ukraine War by the mainstream press, but the question that should be asked is: why do African countries need to import grain from Russia, Ukraine and other countries?
This is due to the debilitation of African agriculture, mainly caused by structural adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on most African countries that cut official subsidies to farmers and enforce the import of grains and the export of cash crops.
These three policies—cutting official subsidies to farmers, enforcing the import of grains and the export of cash crops—have been undermining food security in Africa since the 1980s.
The global food system, dominated by Western multinational corporations, has “squeezed out small farm holders in many countries of the Global South. Nowhere is this more applicable than African countries,” according to Adunbi.
“The neoliberal practices of asking African countries to discontinue subsidy regimes have a more devastating impact on farmers who are not able to access credits to support their farming business. The irony of it all is that multinationals enjoy huge subsidies from countries of the Global North, whereas small farm holdings in Africa do not enjoy the same benefits.
“Where credit facilities are made available to farmers in Africa, stringent conditions impair their ability to access such facilities. This amounts to a double standard, whereby Africans are constantly being blamed for problems that are not of their own creation.
“The second thing to note is that the current food insecurity is, most times, blamed on the Africans, whereas the real issue is the lack of a level playing field for the farmers who had to endure a form of double jeopardy—squeezed by their government and multinational corporations.”
Depopulation
The U.S.’ depopulation agenda was made clear during the administration of President RichardNixon (1969-1974) in National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200 (1974)titled World Population Growthand U.S. Security.
According to Stephen Mumford, an expert on fertility research:
“NSSM 200 was intended to be and is a definitive interagency study of the threat of overpopulation to U.S. security. NSSM 200 details how and why world population growth gravely threatens U.S. and global security… From his first days in office, President Nixon understood the grave dangers of high rates of population growth — more than any other president. He responded appropriately when he perceived that his people and their way of life were gravely threatened.”
NSSM 200 states that “mandatory programs [for population reduction] may be needed and that we should be considering these possibilities now.” The document asks:
(1) “Should the U.S. make an all out commitment to major limitation of world population with all the financial and international as well as domestic political costs that would entail?
(2) “Should the U.S. set even higher agricultural production goals which would enable it to provide additional major food resources to other countries? Should they be nationally or internationally controlled?
(3) “On what basis should such food resources then be provided? Would food be considered an instrument of national power? Will we be forced to make choices as to whom we can reasonably assist, and if so, should population efforts be a criterion for such assistance?
(4) “Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can’t/won’t control their population growth?”
NSSM 200 was also known as “The Kissinger Report” being supervised by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s National Security Adviser.
The text of the document makes clear that it was aimed at “curbing world population with a view to serving U.S. strategic and national security interests” as Prof. Michel Chossudovsky puts it.
This is no surprise coming from Nixon and Kissinger, two genocidal U.S. leaders who had just made a massive contribution to world depopulation by killing 4.3 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians in the Vietnam War.
Kissinger was also behind the September 11, 1973 Military Coup in Chile
Image: Henry Kissinger and General Augusto Pinochet (mid-1970s)
Chossudovsky adds that “The NSSM 200 has been the source of inspiration of Klaus Schwab, et al in the formulation of the World Economic Forum’s Depopulation Agenda.”
“Big Money” and the Depopulation Agenda
The Western elite’s depopulation agenda is no secret. On May 26, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported in an article titled “Billionaires Try to Shrink World’s Population” that Bill Gates, WarrenBuffett, David Rockefeller, George Soros and Michael Bloomberg amongst others had met in New York privately to discuss this reduction.
Chossudovsky points out that:
“Shrink the World Population” (the WSJ Title) goes beyond Planned Parenthood which consists in “Reducing the Growth of World Population”. It consists in “Depopulation”, namely reducing the absolute size of the World’s Population, which ultimately requires reducing the rate of birth (which would include reduced fertility) coupled with a significant increase in the death rate.”
Bill Gates appeared to confirm this in his TED talk in February 2010 when he stated
“And if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that [the world population] by 10 or 15 percent”.
(See quotation on Video starting at 04.21. See also screenshot of Transcript of quotation)
Transparency requirements in the U.S. forced NuScale proponents to disclose the projected costs of electricity to potential investors on a regular basis. This is not the case in Canada.
none of the Canadian nuclear proponents have laid out the projected costs of electricity production. In New Brunswick, the government has changed legislationto force the electricity utility to purchase power from new nuclear reactors even when it is not the lowest cost option.
The sudden cancellation last week of the first small nuclear reactor project in the United States, the NuScale project, calls into question the economic viability of Canada’s plans to develop and deploy small modular reactors.
Potential customers in Utah balked at the soaring projections for the cost of electricity the NuScale reactor would generate, and the project was unable to recruit other customers to buy its power.
Today, in response, civil society groups across Canada are demanding transparency and accountability for the costs of other small nuclear reactor designs planned in this country.
“Canada should stop writing blank cheques to nuclear promoters who cannot deliver on their promises of cheap, reliable electricity,” said Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
Transparency requirements in the U.S. forced NuScale proponents to disclose the projected costs of electricity to potential investors on a regular basis. This is not the case in Canada.
Earlier this year, the target price for electricity from the NuScale project rose by over 50 percent to $89 US per MWh ($122.99 Canadian) with indications that future increases would be forthcoming. Investor confidence was shaken, and the project was scrapped.
The NuScale reactor design has been in development for more than 15 years and the company’s first commercial joint venture with electrical utilities in Utah was launched in 2015.
Governments in New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta have committed to building small reactors, while the Quebec government is conducting feasibility studies.
However, none of the Canadian nuclear proponents have laid out the projected costs of electricity production. In New Brunswick, the government has changed legislationto force the electricity utility to purchase power from new nuclear reactors even when it is not the lowest cost option.
Three years ago, more than 140 civil society groups across Canada signed a statement calling the proposed new reactors a “dirty, dangerous distraction,” from real climate action.
Nuclear critics have consistently said these new reactor designs will take too long to develop, and will cost too much compared with existing proven renewable energy option, to deal effectively with the climate crisis that requires immediate action.
To date, federal and provincial taxpayers have subsidized these reactors through a $970 million low interest loan to Ontario Power Generation, more than $100 million in grants to private companies and public utilities in Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and millions more to research fuelling requirements for small reactors at Chalk River.
Civil society groups are demanding accountability for these costly nuclear developments. Without full transparency, taxpayers and ratepayers will be forced to subsidize these experimental reactor projects and pass on an unwanted economic debt legacy to our children and grandchildren, along with the radioactive waste legacy that all nuclear reactors are adding to every day.
Quotes:
Michael Poellet, President, Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Cooperative:
“Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) were meant to remedy the grossly excessive, over-budget costs of nuclear power generation. With the price of renewables dropping precipitously the economics of SMRs has only worsened. The cancellation of the NuScale project with its utility partner Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems demonstrates that commercial electrical generation with SMRs is not economically viable. Canadian federal and provincial governments must allow the economic realities to break the spell that enchantment with SMRs has over them.”
rix ?
Media release from CRED-NB and collaborators. Le français suit…
The sudden cancellation last week of the first small nuclear reactor project in the United States, the NuScale project, calls into question the economic viability of Canada’s plans to develop and deploy small modular reactors.
Potential customers in Utah balked at the soaring projections for the cost of electricity the NuScale reactor would generate, and the project was unable to recruit other customers to buy its power.
Today, in response, civil society groups across Canada are demanding transparency and accountability for the costs of other small nuclear reactor designs planned in this country.
“Canada should stop writing blank cheques to nuclear promoters who cannot deliver on their promises of cheap, reliable electricity,” said Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
Transparency requirements in the U.S. forced NuScale proponents to disclose the projected costs of electricity to potential investors on a regular basis. This is not the case in Canada.
Earlier this year, the target price for electricity from the NuScale project rose by over 50 percent to $89 US per MWh ($122.99 Canadian) with indications that future increases would be forthcoming. Investor confidence was shaken, and the project was scrapped.
The NuScale reactor design has been in development for more than 15 years and the company’s first commercial joint venture with electrical utilities in Utah was launched in 2015.
Governments in New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta have committed to building small reactors, while the Quebec government is conducting feasibility studies.
However, none of the Canadian nuclear proponents have laid out the projected costs of electricity production. In New Brunswick, the government has changed legislationto force the electricity utility to purchase power from new nuclear reactors even when it is not the lowest cost option.
Three years ago, more than 140 civil society groups across Canada signed a statement calling the proposed new reactors a “dirty, dangerous distraction,” from real climate action.
Nuclear critics have consistently said these new reactor designs will take too long to develop, and will cost too much compared with existing proven renewable energy option, to deal effectively with the climate crisis that requires immediate action.
To date, federal and provincial taxpayers have subsidized these reactors through a $970 million low interest loan to Ontario Power Generation, more than $100 million in grants to private companies and public utilities in Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and millions more to research fuelling requirements for small reactors at Chalk River.
Civil society groups are demanding accountability for these costly nuclear developments. Without full transparency, taxpayers and ratepayers will be forced to subsidize these experimental reactor projects and pass on an unwanted economic debt legacy to our children and grandchildren, along with the radioactive waste legacy that all nuclear reactors are adding to every day.
Quotes:
Michael Poellet, President, Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Cooperative:
“Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) were meant to remedy the grossly excessive, over-budget costs of nuclear power generation. With the price of renewables dropping precipitously the economics of SMRs has only worsened. The cancellation of the NuScale project with its utility partner Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems demonstrates that commercial electrical generation with SMRs is not economically viable. Canadian federal and provincial governments must allow the economic realities to break the spell that enchantment with SMRs has over them.”
David Geary, Writer and Researcher, Clean Green Saskatchewan:
“Our group, Clean Green Saskatchewan, was always confident that NuScale and all other SMR startup enterprises, GE-Hitachi included [a new reactor design selected for Ontario and Saskatchewan], would fail because of the ‘bottom line’ … i.e., the economics, the ‘financials’. They simply cannot compete in the energy marketplace…compared to any other electrical energy producing technology.”
Jack Gibbons, Chair, Ontario Clean Air Alliance
“The failure of the most advanced small nuclear project in the U.S. to come even remotely close to being financially viable should be a wake-up call for politicians in Canada dreaming about castles in the sky. Counting on unproven new nuclear technology to provide low-cost power is like counting on snow in July. It is time for Premier Ford to follow Hydro Quebec’s example and develop a financially prudent plan to meet all of Ontario’s future electricity needs by investing in energy efficiency, renewables and storage. It doesn’t make sense to waste public money on high-cost, high-risk nuclear projects when we have much cleaner, safer and lower cost options to keep our lights on.”
Susan O’Donnell, Spokesperson, Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick
“Our provincial government is backing two nuclear start-ups and their experimental small reactor designs. These two designs are based on earlier reactors that never operated successfully commercially despite billions of dollars in public subsidies in other countries. We believe that despite the tens of millions of public dollars given to the start-ups so far, their costly boondoggles will never be built. In effect, our government is kicking the can down the road, delaying real climate action by betting on unicorns and fairy dust.”
Gordon Edwards, President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
“Public utilities are owned by the government. People elect the government. So every citizen is a shareholder in the utility company and deserves to be kept informed of all business decisions that they will ultimately have to pay for. In the midst of a climate crisis and crippling inflation, Spending Money Recklessly (SMR) is a terrible strategy. We should not delay climate action by wasting our time, our money, and our political will on speculative reactors that are all ‘first-of-a-kind’ experiments.”
Jean-Pierre Finet, Porte-parole, Regroupement des organismes environnementaux en énergie
“There is no social acceptability for nuclear energy in Quebec. Small modular reactors are not only costly, they take away government funding that would be better used on proven technologies such as heat pumps and heat storage. It is time that the Canadian government comes clean about the cost of this pseudo clean energy.”
L’intransigeance de M. Benyamin Nétanyahou a surpris certains. De ce premier ministre mal élu, théoriquement ficelé par la signature de ses prédécesseurs au bas des accords d’Oslo et en principe soumis à la volonté de l’Europe comme des Etats-Unis de voir avancer les négociations, ils attendaient un minimum de réalisme. Il n’en a rien été. En quatre mois, les décisions du dirigeant du Likoud ont provoqué parmi les Palestiniens une explosion de colère sans précédent depuis l’Intifada. « Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop. » Le proverbe s’applique ici on ne peut mieux. Car, si son entrée en politique remonte à moins de quinze ans, le chef du gouvernement israélien est un pur produit du sérail « révisionniste », mâtiné il est vrai d’ultralibéralisme américain.
On a présenté son père, Ben-Zion, comme un professeur d’histoire juive, spécialiste de l’Inquisition en Espagne. Information exacte, mais incomplète : il fut surtout, dans les années 30, le secrétaire particulier de Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky, le fondateur du courant sioniste le plus réactionnaire, dit révisionniste. Homme de conviction, Ben-Zion Nétanyahou décida même, en 1962, de fuir le « socialisme » israélien en s’exilant, avec sa famille, aux Etats-Unis où il éleva ses fils dans la fidélité aux idées de Jabotinsky. Un retour en arrière, aux sources de l’extrême droite juive, s’impose donc.
Vladimir Jabotinsky se fait connaître durant la première guerre mondiale en créant la Légion juive, qui contribuera — tardivement — à la « libération » de la Palestine par les troupes du général Allenby en 1918. Intégré en 1921 dans l’Exécutif sioniste, il en dénonce les compromissions avec la puissance mandataire britannique et le quitte pour fonder, en 1923, le Betar (1), puis, en 1925, l’Alliance des sionistes révisionnistes. Entre-temps, par antibolchevisme, il s’est compromis avec les hommes de l’ataman Simon Petlioura, pourtant responsables, dans son Ukraine natale, d’épouvantables pogroms où périssent quelque 40 000 juifs (2)…
En quoi les révisionnistes s’opposent-ils à la majorité des sionistes, au point de quitter, en août 1935, l’Organisation mondiale, au sein de laquelle ils ont rassemblé jusqu’à 21 % des suffrages ? Au socialisme dans lequel le parti Mapaï dissimule son nationalisme, Jabotinsky préfère un modèle occidental à la fois politiquement autoritaire (3) et économiquement libéral, qui plaît à la bourgeoisie et aux classes moyennes affluant alors en Palestine. Pour le reste, les sionistes révisionnistes disent tout haut ce que les sionistes socialistes et libéraux pensent sans doute tout bas, mais estiment nécessaire de dissimuler.
Mieux vaut, considèrent David Ben Gourion comme Haïm Weizmann, s’abriter derrière la présence britannique pour conquérir la Palestine hectare après hectare, plutôt que de prétendre former, sans attendre et par la force, un Etat. Vladimir Jabotinsky, lui, ne veut pas de ce vague commonwealth national au statut et aux frontières mal définis. « Le but du sionisme, explique-t-il en 1924, est de créer un Etat juif. Son territoire : les deux rives du Jourdain. Le système : la colonisation de masse. La solution du problème financier : un emprunt national. Ces quatre principes ne peuvent être appliqués sans une approbation internationale. D’où le mot d’ordre de l’heure : une nouvelle campagne politique et la militarisation de la jeunesse juive d’Eretz Israël et de la diaspora» (4).
« mur d’acier » contre les Arabes
Voilà le fameux « mur d’acier ». Marqué par les premières émeutes antijuives de 1921 et 1922, Vladimir Jabotinsky livre sous ce titre, dans l’hebdomadaire sioniste russe Rasswyet, le 4 novembre 1923, le fond de sa stratégie : « Tous les peuples indigènes — qu’ils soient civilisés ou sauvages — considèrent leur pays comme leur foyer national, dans lequel ils seront toujours les seuls maîtres. Ils n’accepteront pas volontairement non seulement un nouveau maître, mais même un nouveau partenaire. Ainsi les Arabes. (…) La colonisation sioniste, même la plus limitée, doit soit s’arrêter, soit s’accomplir au mépris de la volonté de la population indigène. C’est pourquoi cette colonisation ne peut se poursuivre et se développer que sous la protection d’une force indépendante de la population locale — un mur d’acier que la population indigène ne puisse percer. (…) Le mur d’acier, c’est le renforcement en Palestine d’un gouvernement sur lequel les Arabes n’auraient aucune influence, autrement dit un gouvernement contre lequel les Arabes se battront » (5).
Entre le sionisme révisionniste et les fascismes alors en pleine ascension, il y a plus que des ressemblances : une parenté. D’autant que les militants du mouvement portent volontiers la chemise brune, célèbrent le culte du chef et se comportent en armée disciplinée. Chez eux, la violence est une seconde nature : contre les grévistes ou les meetings juifs de gauche, ils font le coup de poing ; contre les militants nationalistes arabes, ils tirent des coups de fusil. Et lorsque les Palestiniens déclenchent leur grande révolte, en 1936, les révisionnistes, avec leur milice, la Haganah-B, aident les troupes britanniques à la réprimer dans le sang. Même le racisme n’est pas absent de la pensée de Jabotinsky : il affleure notamment dans sa nouvelle, Samson, qui rejette toute « mixité « entre juifs et non-juifs. Tant et si bien que David Ben Gourion surnommera Jabotinsky « Vladimir Hitler » — et les nazis des — « révisionnistes allemands ».. Le futur premier ministre d’Israël commentera même publiquement un article du Führer en affirmant : « Je pensais lire Jabotinsky — les mêmes mots, le même style, le même esprit (6) ».
Idéologique et politique, le rapprochement se matérialise sur le terrain. Si Jabotinsky se défend d’admirer le Duce, Mussolini, lui, ne tarit pas d’éloges à son sujet. « Pour que le sionisme réussisse, il vous faut un Etat juif, avec un drapeau juif et une langue juive. La personne qui comprend vraiment cela, c’est votre fasciste, Jabotinsky », confiera-t-il en 1935 à David Prato, futur grand rabbin de Rome (7). Généreux, le maître de l’Italie accepte d’accueillir une école navale du Betar à Civitavecchia, au nord de Rome. Lors de son inauguration, les étudiants révisionnistes entonnent Giovinezza, l’hymne fasciste, et crient : « Vive l’Italie ! Vive le roi ! Vive le duce ! (8) »…
A la mort de Jabotinsky, en 1940, ses héritiers se divisent pour un temps. La seconde guerre mondiale voit les tenants de l’Irgoun respecter la trêve dans le combat contre les Britanniques, qui sont en revanche la cible de nombreuses actions armées du groupe Stern, puis Lehi — ce dernier se déshonorera en proposant une alliance au Troisième Reich (9)… Tous se retrouveront néanmoins pour recourir au terrorisme dans leur « lutte de libération » : de l’attentat de l’Hôtel King David, qui fit 200 morts et blessés le 22 juillet 1946, au massacre du village palestinien de Deir Yassine (9 avril 1945), où tombèrent 250 civils, les pages les plus noires de la naissance de l’Etat d’Israël et de l’expulsion de 800 000 Palestiniens sont signées par les hommes de Menahem Begin et de M. Itzhak Shamir, dont on sait le rôle qu’ils joueront, trente ans plus tard, à la tête du Likoud et de l’Etat juif.
M. Benyamin Nétanyahou a de qui tenir.
Dominique Vidal
Notes :
(1) Acronyme de Brit (alliance) Trumpeldor, du nom d’un officier juif de l’armée tsariste, héros de la guerre russo-japonaise, mort en défendant la colonie juive de Tel Hai, en Haute-Galilée, contre les Bédouins du voisinage. L’hymne du Betar commence par ces mots : « Betar,De la fosse, pourriture et poussière,Naîtra une racePar le sang et la sueur,Fière, généreuse, dure. ».
(2) Sur ce point, voir l’excellente Histoire de la droite israélienne, de Marius Schattner, coll. « Questions au XXe siècle », Complexe, Bruxelles, 1991.
(3) Les révisionnistes extrémistes, dits birionim (brigands), préconisent même ouvertement la dictature. Dans ses « Chroniques d’un fasciste » (sic), publiées par le journal Doar Hayam, leur chef, Aba Ahimeir, écrit en 1928 : « Je ne suis pas un démocrate et je suis fermement convaincu que la seule forme de gouvernement possible est celle d’une minorité active sur une majorité passive » (Cité par Yaacov Shalit, Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement. 1925-1948, Frank Cass, Londres, 1988, p. 365). A peine les nazis arrivés au pouvoir, Ahimeir suggérera à ses amis de prendre « la pulpe antimarxiste » et de rejeter « l’écorce antisémite ». « Hitler, assure-t-il, ne nous a pas fait plus de mal que Staline. ». (Cité par Marius Schattner, ibid, p. 110.)
(4) Cité par Walter Laqueur, Histoire du sionisme. Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1973, p. 386.
(5) Cité par Lenni Brenner, The Iron Wall. Zed Books, Londres, 1984, pp. 74 et 75.
(6) Cité par Michel Bar-Zohar, Ben Gourion. Fayard, Paris, 1986, pp. 112 à 115.
(7) Cité par Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. Croom Helm, Londres et Canberra, 1983, p. 117.
(9) Même M. Itzhak Shamir le reconnaît, tout en rejetant la responsabilité sur Abraham Stern. Ce qui ne l’empêche pas de commenter ainsi ces démarches : « Elles n’étaient pas de mon goût et pourtant, du point de vue moral et national, j’estimais qu’elles n’étaient pas interdites. ». (Voir Charles Enderlin, Shamir, Olivier Orban, Paris, 1991, pp. 80 à 82.)
Relisant l’excellente biographie que Jean Lacouture a consacré au général de Gaulle 1, nous sommes frappés par les similitudes de la politique du gouvernement américain envers la France libre avec le comportement de la « diplomatie » U.S. contemporaine. Lacouture considère que l’attitude américaine envers de Gaulle et le Comité National Français 2 puis le Comité Français de Libération Nationale 3 est en grande partie le fait de la psychologie propre à Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt, assez enclin aux jugements à l’emporte-pièce, fondés sur des à-priori, alimentés par des informations de seconde main et dédaigneux des éléments qui pourraient perturber ses convictions quand les faits contredisent sa vision théorique. Pour nous, qui avons devant nos yeux l’erratique politique internationale américaine, au moins depuis le 11 septembre, l’étude de l’attitude de Roosevelt envers de Gaulle apporte un enseignement plus… général.
Nationalisme souverainiste vs anticolonialisme impérialiste «Le phénomène d’allergie, qui dès l’origine empoisonna les rapports Roosevelt de Gaulle… ne s’enracine guère dans l’histoire»4, nous dit Jean Lacouture. Par contre, l’attitude de Roosevelt nous parait de nos jours singulièrement familière s’agissant de la diplomatie et de la politique . La présidence de FDR marque le début d’une nouvelle époque des rapports entre les USA et le reste du monde, celui de la domination, d’abord partagée avec l’union soviétique, puis exclusive. Qui dit domination dit distance, complexe de supériorité, mépris envers les dominés ou considérés comme tels. Le premier accroc intervient lors de l’expédition de l’amiral Muselier, alors chef militaire de la France libre, pour s’assurer du ralliement de St-Pierre-et-Miquelon à la France libre et y neutraliser une radio vichyste qui émettait depuis l’archipel. L’opération se passe sans difficultés, un référendum immédiatement organisé tournant au plébiscite en faveur de la France libre. Cependant, le secrétaire d’État américain, Cordell Hull, est furieux que « l’action des navires soi-disant « français libres » avait été accomplie sans que le gouvernement des États-Unis (…) ait donné son consentement et indiqué avoir demandé à Ottawa, de rétablir le statut quo (c.à.d. Vichy) dans les îles ». S’ensuivra une passe d’arme diplomatique entre de Gaulle, Churchill et l’administration américaine ; de Gaulle ne supportant pas que les États-Unis s’arrogent un droit de regard sur l’administration d’un territoire français. Nous voilà d’entrée au cœur du problème.
La France n’existe plus Le président américain considère ce pays, qui a pactisé avec l’ennemi, comme vaincu. A ce titre il n’a droit à aucun égard et se trouve rejeté du camp des alliés. Diplomatiquement l’on traite avec son gouvernement légitime (Pétain), fut-il collaborationniste. Ainsi FDR envoi le prestigieux amiral Leahy auprès de Pétain, « hommage solennel rendu au maréchal et aux amiraux de Vichy » écrit Jean Lacouture. La France est considérée moins comme un pays à libérer qu’un territoire à conquérir. Vichy est vu comme une base de recours possible en cas d’effondrement britannique. De Gaulle n’est qu’un gêneur, « constamment agité d’idées fumeuses, de récriminations et d’exigences ». Et quand Vichy perd toute indépendance avec l’invasion de la zone libre, tandis que la légitimité de de Gaulle auprès de la résistance intérieure s’affirme toujours plus, Roosevelt ne change pas de cap : « le président des États-Unis ne saurait s’être trompé». «D’après lui (Roosevelt), la Grande-Bretagne, les États-Unis et la Russie devaient détenir, après la guerre, l’ensemble des armements européens. Les petites puissances n’auraient à leur disposition rien de plus dangereux que des fusils » 5. S’agissant de l’avenir de la France et de la Belgique, Roosevelt préconise la création d’un État appelé la Wallonie, qui comprendrait la partie wallonne de la Belgique, ainsi que le Luxembourg, l’Alsace-lorraine (!) et une partie du nord de la France. Probablement dans l’idée de créer un État-tampon entre la France et l’Allemagne, une nouvelle Lotharingie. Bref, du grand n’importe quoi, dans un mépris total des populations, une méconnaissance absolue de l’histoire et des sociétés. Les États-Unis adorent planifier des recompositions géographiques plus ou moins absurdes (voir leurs plans de démantèlement de la Russie ou du moyen orient). France désarmée, police internationale pour maintenir l’ordre, gestion des affaires courantes par une commission américaine, voilà le programme de Roosevelt pour la France. FDR avait « la conviction … que la France n’avait plus sa place dans le directoire des grandes puissances auquel il voulait confier l’avenir du monde. Conviction cordialement partagée par (le secrétaire d’État) Cordell Hull et la majorité du State department ». Le nationalisme meurtri du général de Gaulle était incompatible avec les plans de restructuration, de la France que Roosevelt avait en tête, telle l’idée saugrenue de détacher de l’hexagone les départements du nord et de l’est pour former cette grande Wallonie, ou la volonté très affirmée de décolonisation et de disparition de l’empire colonial français, principalement, car sur ce terrain-là il faut ménager l’allié britannique. La France pour avoir perdu une bataille ne représentait plus rien pour Roosevelt. Les territoires reconquis sur les nazis seraient des territoires occupés, la France libérée serait soumise à une administration militaire américaine et découpée selon les fantasmes de la diplomatie U.S.
Les a-priori de Roosevelt « Qu’il y ait eu… heurt de personnalités dominatrices n’est pas niable: mais les relations directes se réduisant à cinq rencontres, dont trois assez brèves… on ne saurait voir là l’essentiel du différent. Dans les échanges entre le président et le général, c’est chez le premier surtout qu’on relève une misperception irrationnelle et obstinée, qui finit par relever de l’aveuglement et aboutit à un ostracisme poussé au delà du raisonnable. Il semble qu’un mauvais génie se soit acharné à faire brouiller les cartes par des gens uniquement préoccupés d’envenimer relations et perspectives. La relation (…) fut modelée par de multiples intermédiaires, des notes de « spécialistes », des confidences, des rapports, des ragots. Mais le rôle du chef est d’interpréter les documents qu’on lui fournit… chacune des interventions FDR fut celle non de l’avocat, ni même de celle du président de tribunal, mais du procureur ». Ce sont des diplomates comme Maynard Barnes et Freeman Matthews, « qui orientèrent le président des États-Unis et le state department sur la France et les chefs qui pouvaient la diriger ou la représenter. Sous la plume de Barnes, la France fracassée et défaite à cessée d’exister comme nation. Sous celle de Freeman Matthews, les gaullistes forment une sorte de gang, formule que reprendra à son compte le ministre de l’intérieur de FDR, Horold Ickes ».
De Gaulle est tantôt un « personnage sans relief », tantôt un « chef arrogant ». « une vipère que le maréchal à couvé dans son sein » ou un « apprenti fasciste ». « Le sous-secrétaire d’État Sumner Welles (…) qui passait pour être un expert parce qu’il affectait le style oxfordien, parlait un peu le français et avait fait une longue tournée en Europe au début de la guerre…estimait n’avoir rencontré sur le vieux continent qu’un seul homme de premier plan : Mussolini ».
Tous les représentants de l’administration américaine ne partageaient pas l’opinion de FDR sur de Gaulle et la France libre. Citons Henry Morgenthau, secrétaire d’État au trésor, et intime de Roosevelt ; l’ambassadeur des États-Unis à Londres, John Wynant ; ou encore Félix Frankfurter, juge à la cour suprême, et Harry Hopkins – deux proches de FDR qui n’étaient pas antigaullistes. Plus tard, Cordell Hull, le secrétaire d’État, saura tempérer ses préventions : à la différence de (…) « celui de Roosevelt, l’antigaullisme de M. Hull, plus circonstanciel (St-Pierre-et Miquelon…), et moins envenimé par la vanité et le souci de sa réputation, s’atténua sur la fin ».
Roosevelt accordait son oreille à des hommes comme René de Chambrun, gendre de Laval (!) ; Jean Monnet, qui avait refusé de rester à Londres pour se joindre à de Gaulle et restera – en dépit ou grâce à son travail en faveur du réarmement par les États-Unis des forces françaises réunifiées – un agent américain ; ou encore Alexis Léger, le fameux Saint John Perse, qui ne pardonnait pas à de Gaulle d’avoir confié à René Massigli, son ennemi juré, la direction de la diplomatie de la France libre.
Morale et politique Pour Roosevelt :« La France à pillé l’Indochine pendant cent ans. Le peuple d’Indochine mérite mieux que cela ». Lacouture commente : « si peu favorable que l’on soit au régime fondé à Hanoï en 1884 (Jules Ferry est alors un président du conseil français très partisan de la colonisation du Tonkin), voici un résumé de la situation que FDR n’aurait peut être pas osé signer à propos des Philippines... ». L’Amérique fustige ses rivaux, donne des leçons de morale, et se drape dans sa vertu auto- proclamée.
Vichy Roosevelt pense que Vichy serait une meilleure base de départ, territoriale et politique, pour lutter contre le nazisme en cas d’effondrement britannique. Négocier avec Vichy lui paraît préférable à une reconnaissance pleine et entière de la France libre qui, selon lui, n’apporte rien à la cause des allées. D’où le dialogue avec Vichy qui ira jusqu’au fameux expédient provisoire de l’acceptation du ralliement de Darlan aux anglo-américains. Politique à courte vue, se voulant réaliste, dénuée de toute morale sinon dans les postures et les discours. Roosevelt va ainsi privilégier Pétain, puis Darlan, Giraud enfin, contre de Gaulle. Politique dont les exemples abondent dans l’histoire de la diplomatie américaine depuis 1945 : le soutien aux dictateurs et aux juntes militaires est un schéma récurrent de la politique états-unienne.
FDR annonce à André Philip, émissaire du comité national français de Londres, qu’il entraîne « un corps de spécialistes politico-militaires qui assureront l’administration de la France en attendant le rétablissement de la démocratie. » 6. Et Roosevelt ajoute « Moi monsieur je ne suis pas un idéaliste comme Wilson, je m’intéresse avant tout à l’efficacité, j ai des problèmes à résoudre. Ceux qui m y aident sont les bienvenus (sauf de Gaulle apparemment ?!), Aujourd’hui Darlan me donne Alger, et je crie: Vive Darlan ! Si Quisling – dictateur norvégien pro nazi – me donne Oslo, je crie: Vive Quisling ! …Que demain Laval me donne Paris, et je crie : Vive Laval! ». Plus tard, FDR préférera jouer Giraud plutôt que l’homme du 18 juin, celui des temps difficiles du blitz et de l’armistice. Un Giraud évadé d’Allemagne, qui, de retour à Vichy, devra proclamer sa fidélité au maréchal sous peine d’être renvoyé en captivité.
Pour Roosevelt seul compte le résultat à obtenir. La morale n’entre pas en ligne de compte. Et l’ objectif est surtout la mise en place de la future domination mondiale américaine. FDR, c’est l’incroyable capacité états-unienne à s’accoquiner sur le terrain avec les pires des alliés, toujours de circonstances et suivant des considérations tactiques, et à les laisser tomber sans appel dès qu’ils ont perdu leur utilité. Nous allons bien voir ce qui risque de se passe prochainement en Ukraine. A l’inverse on ne soutient pas un partenaire défendant la même cause, si celui-ci n’a pas de fonction pratique dans la vision géopolitique à court terme qui est celle du pragmatisme américain. Vision limitative car, comme le savait de Gaulle, la guerre est avant tout une affaire morale et ne pas en tenir compte apporte toujours des désagréments sur le long terme. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Irak, Lybie, Syrie… la liste est longue des exploits diplomatico-militaires américains.
Dès le début de Gaulle est conscient du problème : « J’ai toutes les raisons de croire que l’attitude actuelle du state department … à l’égard des français libres et de Vichy, ne fasse beaucoup de tord à l’esprit de la lutte en France et ailleurs. … cette sorte de préférence accordée publiquement par le gouvernement des États-Unis aux responsables de la capitulation et aux coupables de la collaboration. Il ne me parait pas bon que, dans la guerre7, le prix soit remis aux apôtres du déshonneur ».8
Guerre d’Ukraine, vieux nazi applaudi au parlement canadien, l’esprit anglo-saxon n’a pas changé. Ce que l’on estime être du réalisme – à courte vue – à toujours primauté sur la morale, que l’on juge préservée grâce aux déclarations d’intention et aux postures théâtralisées.
Trouble-jeu Tandis que se prépare l’opération Torch (débarquement en Afrique du nord), Roosevelt écrit à Churchill : « Je juge indispensable que de Gaulle soit tenu à l’écart et qu’il ne lui soit communiqué aucun renseignement, sans qu’on se préoccupe de savoir s’il s’en irritera ou deviendra plus irritant . » 9 De Gaulle aura l’intelligence politique de ne pas s’en formaliser officiellement et soutiendra le débarquement pour éviter d’être exclu des opérations politiques qui vont suivre et faire triompher sa cause : le rétablissement de l’État à travers les français libres. Roosevelt, par contre, informe Pétain « Nous venons parmi vous seulement pour réduire et vaincre vos ennemis. Ayez foi en notre parole. Nous ne voulons vous causer aucun préjudice ». De Gaulle est mis sur la touche, pas Pétain. Un Pétain qui répond à Roosevelt : « Vous invoquez des prétextes que rien ne justifie. Vous prêtez à vos ennemis des intentions qui ne se sont jamais traduite en actes. J’ai toujours déclaré que nous défendrions notre empire s’il était attaqué…Vous saviez que je tiendrais ma parole. » Lacouture précise : « Des témoins de l’audience accordée ce matin-là, 8 novembre (jour de la réception de la réponse de Pétain par Roosevelt) au chargé d’affaires américain Tuck, ont noté qu’ayant lu sagement au visiteur cette vigoureuse protestation, le « cher vieil ami »10, se retourna et regagna ses appartements en sifflotant… ».
Robert Murphy, « vedette de la diplomatie américaine » (Lacouture), envoyé spécial de FDR à Alger, « …utilisa sans gêne apparente les jeunes militants (Gaullistes) pour ouvrir la route aux forces américaines débarquées à Alger, avant de les laisser incarcérer par le pouvoir néo- vichyste », puis de se tourner vers Darlan…
Attitude qui provoquera cet avertissement que de Gaulle enverra à Churchill : « Vous invoquez des raisons stratégiques, mais c’est une erreur stratégique que de se mettre en contradiction avec le caractère moral de cette guerre (…) Si la France devait, un jour, constater que, du fait des Anglo-saxons, sa libération, c’est Darlan, vous pourrez peut être gagner la guerre du point de vue militaire, vous la perdriez moralement et, en définitive, il n’y aurait qu’un seul vainqueur Staline11. »
La presse anglo-saxonne (apparemment plus libre que celle d’aujourd’hui) se déchaîne : « Tant en Grande-Bretagne qu’aux États-Unis un cri d’indignation s’éleva … ce honteux marchandage avec un Quisling aussi notoire (Il s’agit de Darlan) constituait une trahison de l’idéal des alliés ».12
Même le général Eisenhover, commandant en chef des forces américaines en Afrique du nord puis en Europe, trouvait l’attitude de Roosevelt indécente.
Sans faire machine arrière Roosevelt qui pense à sa réélection, s’adresse à la presse le 16 novembre pour lui déclarer : « L’accord provisoire n’est qu’un expédient temporaire…sauver des vies…éviter une période de « nettoyage. »…
FDR ne semble pas avoir de vision stratégique à long terme dans ses rapports avec la France, sinon considérer qu’elle n’existe plus, ce qu’il affirmera plusieurs fois à ses visiteurs. Alors, comme il faut préserver les apparences, et ne surtout pas donner à la France libre la possibilité de combler la vacance de fait du pouvoir politique en France, surtout à partir de l’invasion de la zone libre, le 11 novembre 1942 13, on bricole des solutions provisoires d’opportunité.
Roosevelt à la presse : « J’ai demandé la libération de toutes les personnes emprisonnées en Afrique-du-nord pour s’être opposées aux tentatives de domination mondiale des nazis, et j’ai demandé l’abrogation de toutes les lois et décrets inspirés par les gouvernements nazis ou les idéologies nazies ». Et Lacouture de préciser : « Ce qui est reconnaître que huit jours après le débarquement, les prisons algéroises sont encore pleines de combattants anti nazis, et que les textes de Vichy sont encore en vigueur… ». Expédient provisoire l’intronisation de Darlan ? « Dans les semaines qui suivent , rien ne change à Alger. Les lois raciales restent en application. Les portraits du maréchal sont partout. Les internés politiques (gaullistes et communistes) restent en prison ». Darlan assassiné, FDR tente d’imposer à de Gaulle une collaboration avec Giraud, collaboration qui doit dissoudre de Gaulle et la France libre dans un exécutif français reconnu par les américains et dirigé par Giraud. Pour Roosevelt, il n’est pas question d’accepter une France qui s’affirme. Il lui faut un prête-nom, légal mais sans véritable légitimité, qui laissera les mains libres à l’administration américaine dans ses velléités d’utiliser la France comme simple base de reconquête du territoire européen et rendra plus facile le démantèlement de son empire colonial.
Significatif de la manière de voir du chef de l’exécutif américain, celui-ci affirme à de Gaulle lors de la rencontre de Casablanca : « Dans les affaires humaines il faut offrir du drame au public…Une déclaration commune des chefs français, et même s’il ne s’agissait que d’un accord théorique (toujours le bricolage…), produirait l’effet dramatique qui doit être recherché ». C’est là que prend place la fameuse photo où l’on voit de Gaulle serrer la main de Giraud sous le patronage de Roosevelt et les yeux d’un Churchill dubitatif. Rien n’est encore conclu – et rien ne le sera – mais Roosevelt tient son opération de communication…
FDR privilégie le show au détriment de la vérité, et manipule l’opinion en tentant de faire croire à une réconciliation franco-française sous l’égide bienveillant des anglo-saxons, alors qu’il n’y a pas encore eu d’accord et que la bienveillance est pour le moins absente de ses manœuvres. De Gaulle ne signe aucun document et finira par retourner la situation en sa faveur. Il saura faire durer le temps de la « négociation », installer sa présence à Alger, « digérer » Giraud, lui ôter peu à peu tout pouvoir politique véritable. De Gaulle va parvenir à s’imposer à Alger, comme à Londres et sur le territoire national – via le développement des liens de la France libre avec la résistance intérieure – comme le seul légitime représentant de la France.
Anfa Vient le temps de la conférence de Casablanca, située à Anfa en périphérie de la ville chérifienne, le 24 janvier 1943. Les alliés anglo-saxons comptent y décider des orientations stratégiques à venir – les anglais plaident pour un débarquement dans le sud de l’Europe – et convaincre de Gaulle de rencontrer Giraud ; proposition faite originellement par de Gaulle à Giraud, qui l’a dans un premier temps refusé. De Gaulle, de son côté, ne souhaite pas se rendre à une invitation de rencontre entre deux généraux français organisée par les anglo-américains sur le sol « français ». Churchill menace de Gaulle de ne plus tenir compte de lui s’il ne participe pas à la rencontre et ne soutient pas les mesures qui y seront prises. Pour les anglo-saxons, il est important de parvenir à circonvenir de Gaulle et l’empêcher de nuire au leadership qu’ils souhaitent imposer à la France, particulièrement sur le sol de ses colonies. De Gaulle se résout à participer à la conférence : « Un réseau de barbelés encercle la conférence, (De nos jours, certaines ambassades américaines en Europe sont de véritables camps retranchés), des gardes – toujours américains – veillent à ne laisser entrer ni sortir personne. C’était la captivité » conclu de Gaulle. Le fait qu’on lui applique ces règles et de surcroît «en terre de souveraineté française » lui donne l’impression d’« une sorte d’outrage ».
Robert Murphy : « Dans ce climat languide et cette atmosphère exotique…son humeur (celle de Roosevelt) était celle d’un gamin en vacances, ce qui explique la façon légère , presque frivole, dont il aborda certains problèmes délicats qu’il avait à traiter… Pour ce qui est de de Gaulle il est évident que le président n’avait pas le moins du monde changé son opinion (…) ; Roosevelt était plus que jamais convaincu qu’il avait eu raison de traiter avec Vichy de 1940 à 1942 (…) Il n’abandonna jamais cette attitude bien qu’elle devienne de plus en plus difficile à soutenir14».
Jean Lacouture : Le premier entretien Roosevelt – de Gaulle se déroula sur un ton cordial.
De Gaulle :« Comme chaque fois que je le vis par la suite (le président) se montra empressé de porter son esprit vers le mien, usant du charme, pour me convaincre, plutôt que des arguments, mais attaché, une fois pour toutes, au parti qu’il avait pris… ».
Lacouture : « Si nuancé qu’aient pu être les propos échangés, ce tête-à-tête n’en fut pas moins l’un de plus lourds de menaces réelles de tous ceux qu’a retenus l’histoire diplomatique. Pour s’en convaincre il nous faut lire l’invocation qu’en à fait Harry Hopkins, le plus proche conseiller et confident de Franklin Roosevelt. « Soudain, raconte-t-il, je remarquais que tous les hommes des services secrets étaient dissimulés derrière le rideau et au-dessus de la galerie du living-room, postés à toutes les portes qui donnaient accès à la pièce, ; j’aperçus même une mitraillette aux mains de l’un d’eux »… S’esquivant en catimini pour en savoir plus, Hopkins trouve les gardes du corps de la présidence « armés jusqu’aux dents, et munis d’une douzaine de mitraillettes au moins »… Roosevelt croyait-il que de Gaulle allait lui sauter à la gorge ou lui planter un couteau dans le cœur, Judith chez Holopherne en version hollywodienne ? Un tel niveau d’infantilisme est inconcevable. Une constante des oligarchies anglo-saxonnes est le mépris ontologique qu’elles éprouvent à priori pour qui ne fait pas parti de leur monde culturel, géographique ou social.
Lacouture pressent l’origine du problème: Roosevelt est originaire d’un « milieu patricien qui compte déjà un président… nourri dans le sérail du parti démocrate de New-York…il vole de parlement en ministère et de gouvernorat en présidence » ; tandis que de Gaulle est un homme de terrain, saint-cyrien, combattant de la première guerre mondiale, écrivain militaire, officier de terrain et d’état-major, commandant un régiment blindé qui fit front durant la débâcle, « une vie hérissée de défis.». Les rapports avec les généraux Marshall (celui du plan…) ou Eisenhower, qui ne font pas parti de cette élite de naissance, auront été beaucoup plus chaleureux et compréhensifs. FDR se pique d’être un réaliste, mais son réalisme se fonde sur une vision fausse des réalités et des hommes, une vision nourrie des préjugés de sa caste. Tout comme les Blinken, Nuland, Clinton ou Obama d’aujourd’hui.
Refus de se remettre en question Roosevelt ne sent pas à quel point l’histoire détermine son interlocuteur. Il ne songe qu’à se gausser de ses références (« Il (de Gaulle) se prend pour Jeanne d’arc, pour Napoléon, pour Clemenceau »). Chez Roosevelt le passé ne compte guère…Qu’est ce que ce général échappé on ne sait trop comment à une armée de vaincus, qui vient lui parler de droits imprescriptibles », de « grandeur ancienne » et de « France immortelle » ?
FDR voyait toujours Pétain comme un grand chef. De Gaulle n’existait pas à ses yeux. Il avouera à son fils, après la conférence de Anfa, n’avoir aucune confiance en de Gaulle. Il se méfie d’un homme qu’il aurait du considérer comme un allié. L’appel du 18 juin, le refus de la capitulation,l’organisation de la France libre, ce n’est pas rien comme bilan en 1940-1942. Pourtant, Roosevelt refusera de tenir informé le chef de la France libre du changement de plans concernant la libération de son pays 15 : l’opération Sledgehammer pour un débarquement en Normandie étant annulée en faveur du débarquement en Afrique du nord, sur le territoire colonial de cet allié que l’on ne tient pas au courant. FDR cherche à marginaliser la France libre et peinera à reconnaître le Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Française (GPRF)) quand celui-ci sera une évidence pour tous, gouvernement britannique et Union soviétique compris.
« Ce qui déconcerte, en cette douloureuse affaire… ce n’est pas que Franklin Roosevelt ait eu quelques préjugés – qui n’en a ? – … c’est que ses préventions n’aient pu être corrigées, ou atténuées par aucune objection, qu’elle vint de son entourage le plus intime Hopkins, Morgenthau ou de personnalités – françaises entre autre – dont FDR pouvait attendre quelque compétence dans le jugement ou quelque sûreté dans l’information ».
Même l’intervention en faveur de la France libre de l’ancien chef de gouvernement du front populaire, Léon Blum, qui écrit à Roosevelt depuis sa prison de Bourassol 16 ni aura pas servi : «C’est un bonheur, au milieu de tant de désastres, que cet homme existe (…) Si le général de Gaulle incarne cette unité (de la résistance nationale), c’est qu’il en est, dans une large mesure l’auteur. Ce sont ses actes et ses paroles qui l‘on créé (…) C’est lui qui a ranimé peu à peu l’honneur national, l’amour de la liberté, la conscience patriotique et civile (…). On sert la France démocratique en aidant le général de Gaulle à prendre dès à présent l’attitude d’un chef ». 17 Lacouture de conclure : (Roosevelt) …crut il mieux connaître la France, ses sentiments, ses intérêts, son âme profonde, que le leader socialiste ?».
L’antigaullisme de Roosevelt à ceci de confondant… que les faits n’en sont que des composants très secondaires. L’appui de Léon Blum, celui du CNR et de la résistance intérieure unifiée, l’effondrement moral de Vichy dans la collaboration, les manœuvres de Darlan auprès des nazis, les ralliement de personnalités profondément républicaines comme Mendes-France 18, Edouard Herriot 19, Jules Jeanneney 20, les cinq rencontres avec de Gaulle, qui a su convaincre ses autres hôtes américains de son antifascisme et de ses ambitions démocratiques pour la France, rien ne touche Roosevelt.
« Aveuglement obstiné, serein », ajoute Lacouture. Une obstination dans l’erreur et une sérénité qui apparaît, au survol de plus d’un demi-siècle de diplomatie américaine, comme une marque de fabrique.
Concordances On veut bien croire, avec Jean Lacouture, que ce n’était pas l’état d’esprit des fondateurs de la démocratie américaine, les George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, respectueux de leurs partenaires diplomatiques. Par contre, la similitude d’état d’esprit et de comportement entre Roosevelt et ses successeurs impériaux laisse rêveur 21. Méconnaissance des dossiers, informations de seconde main, sélections des faits en fonction d’une vision pré-établie du monde, refus de ce qui ne correspond pas aux préjugés de la caste, aveuglement, obstination mal fondée travestie en force de caractère, immaturité et manœuvres politico-diplomatiques aux côtes mal taillées.
Il y a loin de la connaissance à la compréhension des choses nous dit Slobodan Despot dans son intervention (Twitter) sur l’affaire du parlement canadien à propos de l’inénarrable Justin Trudeau. Trudeau qui comme tous les politiciens contemporains construit son personnage sur l’apparence du professionnalisme, la jovialité des buonisti (tout va bien, tout est sous contrôle, ne vous inquiétez pas), le soi-disant « charme » enfin, si prisé des politiciens contemporains, Youg Global Leaders en tête.
Le charme, c’est-à-dire l’apparence et la superficialité préféré à une véritable capacité à convaincre qui soit fondée sur une connaissance profonde des dossiers, de l’histoire et de la psychologie humaine. Un personnage qui cherche à charmer ses interlocuteurs se concentre sur son apparence et étudie l’effet que celle-ci provoque chez les autres. Il est difficile d’être (Poutine, Lavrov, …) et de paraître (cool…) dans le même temps (Trudeau, Clinton, Obama, Johnson, Ardent 22…). Charme des politiciens soi-disant atypiques à la Boris Johnson, coiffure en bataille, ou gendre bourgeois idéal à la Macron 23, mâtiné d’exotisme bien-pensant à la Sunak. Charme gouailleur d’un Clinton, d’un Obama à œillades jouant en permanence son personnage cool et détendu. Charme dont Roosevelt se flattait qu’il soit son principal atout. Pathétique théâtre du dynamisme feint, de la maîtrise proclamée et de la morale d’évidence.
Naturellement, Roosevelt, qui est aussi l’homme du New deal, avait une autre stature que ses successeurs contemporains. S’il est difficile d’affirmer que les États-Unis de Roosevelt étaient « l’empire du mensonge », il est vraisemblable que sa vision du monde et sa diplomatie, ancrée dans un profond sentiment de supériorité de caste, fondée sur un pragmatisme tactique à courte vue et mis en œuvre à travers un machiavélisme de cour de récréation, ne pouvait, perte de prépondérance symbolique aidant, que générer cet « empire du mensonge » qu’est devenu l’État américain et sa diplomatie.
Roosevelt finira par céder devant l’évidence que de Gaulle est la seule solution, tout en feignant de tenter d’adouber lui-même le Connétable 24, pour ne pas perdre la face, en l’invitant à une rencontre de réconciliation à Alger, de retour de Yalta ; invitation que de Gaulle refusera, considérant n’avoir pas à répondre à l’invitation d’un chef d’État étranger faite sur le sol français…encore une fois !
Dernière bourde diplomatique et dernier manque de tact de la part d’un Roosevelt qui allait disparaître quelques semaines plus tard. Dernière occasion pour de Gaulle de prendre à contre-pied un président américain qui se sera beaucoup ridiculisé devant l’histoire à son contact.
Comment justifier un tel amateurisme de la part de la diplomatie du plus puissant État du monde sinon par un mode de fonctionnement emblématique d’une caste « sûre d’elle-même et dominatrice » pour paraphraser le général de Gaulle qui s’exprimait ainsi envers un autre peuple, un autre gouvernement…mais ceci est une autre histoire.
Notes:
1 De Gaulle. Tome 1 Le rebelle (1890-1944) 2 Crée à Londres en Juin 1940 3 A partir de juin 1941 4De Gaulle. Tome 1 Le rebelle. Les citations de Jean Lacouture proviennent des chapitres 25: Un amiral à la mer, p 489 à 505 ; 27: L’ostracisme, FDR et le Connétable p523 à 547 ; 30: La torche et la cendre p595 à 627 et 31: Le quatuor d’Anfa p 628 à 650, chapitres dont nous ne pouvons que chaudement recommander la lecture à qui souhaiterait entrer dans les détails des rapports que nous évoquons brièvement ici. 5 Anthony Eden mémoires TII p 373 6 Philip cité par Lacouture p 545 7 Vue par de Gaulle comme une continuation exacerbée de la lutte politique. 8 Télégramme à Winston Churchill. Cité dans les Mémoires de guerre.Tome 1 p 503 9 Robert Sherwood. Le mémorial de Roosevelt. tome II 1959 p 176 10 Roosevelt voulait faire précéder sa lettre à Pétain de la mention « Mon cher vieil ami ». Churchill l’en dissuada. 11 Lettres. Notes IV p434 12 William Langer Le jeu américain à Vichy. Paris Plon 1948 p385 13 Invasion qui répond au débarquement anglo-américain en Afrique du nord, trois jours auparavant, le 8 novembre. 14 Diplomats among warriors. Robert Murphy p 165-170 15 Rencontre de Gaulle – Marschall 23 Juillet 1942 16 Château où furent incarcérés les prévenus du procès de Riom. 17 Œuvres de Léon Blum. tome VII 18 Sous-secrétaire d’État au Trésor du second gouvernement Blum. 19 Ancien président de la chambre des députés de 1936 à 1940. 20 Président du Sénat de 1932 à 1940. 21 Lire l’incontournable Histoire secrète de l’oligarchie anglo-saxonne de Carroll Quigley. Traduction française : Le retour aux sources. 2015 22 …quelques personnages significatifs du monde politique anglo-saxon et non seulement américains. 23 Français de nationalité, mondialiste de confession… 24 Surnom donné à de Gaulle par son colonel de l’école militaire et qui lui restera.
Abipartisan group of 16 members of Congress has called on President Biden to drop the case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, warning of the grave threats to press freedom if he is convicted.Advertisements
about:blank
REPORT THIS AD
The lawmakers made the call in a letter sent to President Biden on Wednesday. The effort was led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA), who began circulating the letter to their colleagues for signatures last month.
“It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of government,” the letter reads, according to a press release from Assange Defense.
“The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible,” the letter states.
The letter was also signed by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Greg Casar (D-TX), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Cori Bush (D-MO), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Eric Burlison (R-MO), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Jesús García (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Matthew Rosendale (R-MT), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
The letter comes as the Biden administration has been under pressure from the Australian government to free Assange, who is an Australian citizen. In September, a delegation of Australian members of parliament from across the political spectrum visited Washington and met with US officials to lobby for Assange. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese brought up the case with President Biden when he visited the White House in October.
Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the US and convicted for exposing US war crimes. The charges stem from documents published by WikiLeaks that Assange obtained from his source, former Army Private Chelsea Manning, a standard journalistic practice. Assange has been held in London’s Belmarsh Prison since April 2019 as his legal team is fighting against US efforts to extradite him.
Der Friedensstifter 