From Ukraine, the war on Orthodoxy now pivots to Greece

Stephen Karganovic

The mockery of human dignity made evident in Brussels sixty years ago was but the precursor to the general moral and spiritual implosion that would soon follow to encompass the whole of Europe.

Greek police, at the instigation of Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul, recently made an aggressive attempt to occupy the Orthodox monastery Esfigmenou, located on the territory of the autonomous monastic republic of Mount Athos. Their main objective was to forcefully eject the traditionalist monks who live and pray there. The secondary purpose of the raid was to create a pretext for permanently stationing Greek government forces in the proximity of each of the monasteries on the Athos peninsula. The disgraceful assault was a copy/paste replica of a similar operation that previously had been carried out by the Kiev regime against the monks of the Kiev Caves Lavra in Ukraine.

The analogies are striking and they go considerably further than mere eviction. In both instances the ultimate objective behind the unseemly attack on a peaceful religious community was to physically wrest it from legitimate users in order to transfer it to the control of another, illegitimate but cooperative group. In the Ukrainian case, the illegitimate beneficiary is the uncanonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine that was set up in 2018 following a questionable procedure improvised by the self-same Patriarch Bartholomew. On Mount Athos a few days ago, the intention behind the attempted takeover was to install in the vacated Esfigmenou monastery a small group of compliant monks professing allegiance to the Istanbul Patriarchate. So again we see here Bartholomew’s footprint.

Just as the outrage perpetrated by the Kiev regime against the Lavra received scant attention in Western mainline media, the same sources of “information” also remained conspicuously silent about the persecution of the Orthodox monks of Esfigmenou and the threatened invasion of their monastery by the Greek police.

There are two common threads that connect these events, the “Orthodox” Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul and NATO.

Bartholomew has aroused much opposition in the Orthodox world on account of his blatant promotion of ecumenism as well as a wide array of fashionable worldly causes, such as the “green agenda,” in which he has engaged. Those activities are viewed by many as undermining the dignity and uniqueness of the Orthodox faith, which it is the duty of his see in Istanbul to represent and defend. Equally disruptive of the tranquillity of the Orthodox communion has been Bartholomew’s increasingly strident advocacy of the globalist religious ideology, on which point he is fully in tune with the Vatican. Bartholomew’s tenure has also been marked by a policy of aggressive interference in the affairs of other autocephalous Orthodox Churches and attempts to centralise the Orthodox world under his auspices. An example of that is the arbitrary creation on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine of a competing church organisation entirely dependent upon himself.

The ultimate objective of these manoeuvres is to elevate the Patriarch of Istanbul to the level of an “Eastern Pope.” He would subsequently merge his domain, consisting of formerly autocephalous Orthodox churches, with the structure headed by his counterpart at the Vatican. According to this plan, the implementation of which is intended to commence in 2025, both major communities of Christendom would in the end be subsumed as components of an overarching globalist religious entity, whilst being purged of their traditionalist elements. The synthetic new “religion of the future” clearly is on the drawing board. It was being promoted discretely, but now it is done with increasing openness. It will be configured to function comfortably and inoffensively in the dystopian world envisioned by globalist avatars such as Klaus Schwab and his “prophet” Yuval Harari.

The monks of Esfigmenou do not fit within this scheme. They have opposed those trends with great determination since the 1960s, declining to participate in the debasement of their ancient faith. They thus became a thorn in the flesh of Bartholomew, and his predecessors before him, for not bending the knee to hierarchs they regard as heretical and for the categorical refusal to show obeisance by commemorating them in their liturgies. Sooner or later, the decision to crush, “cancel”, and disperse those obstinate clerics was bound to be made and as we recently saw that is exactly what happened.

This however is an issue that goes well beyond the confines of an arcane ecclesiastical dispute. That is because the other major factor in this controversy is NATO, the mailed fist of the post-Christian collective West, of which Greece is an obedient member and Ukraine a dependency. The sacrilegious spectacle of the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in France, also a member of NATO and imbued with the same aggressive neo-pagan spirit, suggests with remarkable clarity the identity of the occult master whom that spirit and its terrestrial instruments serve, in both Greece and Ukraine.

Churchly trappings and secular politics aside, the police invasion of Esfigmenou in NATO Greece was in direct retaliation for the monastery’s unyielding defence of the traditional faith. It can be understood only in the context of the intensifying opposition between traditional religion and its counterfeit occultist adversary. Identical considerations explain the Kiev regime’s incursion onto the sacrosanct territory of the ancient Orthodox Lavra, except that it was executed much more crudely, leaving even less ambiguity about its true background and nature.

But even though the Greek police raid on Mount Athos was called off at the last moment because of the intense protests of the Orthodox laity throughout Greece, the assault on Esfigmenou has merely been put on hold, not abandoned. The ultimate objectives behind the operation remain unchanged and they are essentially indistinguishable from the rationale for the Ukrainian regime’s takeover of the Kiev Lavra. The plan was for Greek police contingents to be stationed everywhere in the monastic republic of Athos after the raid to ensure “security,” whilst its autonomous status, guaranteed by international conventions, which even the Ottomans did not violate, was to be abrogated. The planners of the raid even went to the preposterous length of claiming that a Russian special forces unit had clandestinely taken up a position on the grounds of Esfigmenou monastery.

A religious complex of powerful spiritual significance such as Athos, comprising twenty large monasteries with ties to most Orthodox nations, guarding jealously the purity of the Orthodox faith, and for over ten centuries observing strictly the traditional rules of monastic life, has no place in the ominously emerging new Europe. It is incompatible on many levels with the globalist ideological concepts that are being ruthlessly implemented wherever resistance to their imposition is insufficiently strong to block it. And, of course, the earthly resources available to the monks of Esfigmenou to resist the forcible reformatting of their spiritual fastness, as to their co-religionists in Kiev, are between minimal and non-existent.

The powers that be and their ambitious collaborators within the church hierarchy are well aware of that correlation of forces, so unfavourable to the defenceless guardians of Orthodox tradition. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and several prominent Alliance generals are on record identifying the Orthodox Church as a formidable spiritual adversary in the current contest for global supremacy. It is therefore natural that its strongholds are being targeted, both physically and symbolically.

We already saw that principle at work in Ukraine when the Nazi junta, which does nothing on its own, acting without the consent of the legitimate church authorities, removed the bulk of the reliquary of the Kiev Lavra and shipped it off to the collective West for “safekeeping”, in a manner reminiscent of the sacking of Byzantium and its religious and artistic treasures by the Crusaders. As for Mount Athos, for some time prior to the most recent desecrations plans were being discussed to rescind its autonomy as a “relic of the past” and to incorporate it fully into the political system of Greece and thus also of NATO and the European Union. That would facilitate the imposition of EU precepts and regulations in order to fundamentally transform one of the major remaining enclaves of a religious tradition which is clearly incompatible with neo-pagan modernity.

The ultimate intention is to obliterate Athos by turning it into a religious theme park for tourists, where the monastics would be reduced to mere curiosities for the amusement of visitors, as were the Africans brought from the Congo and put on display in the “human zoo” staged at the World Fair in Brussels in 1958.

It would be fair to say that the mockery of human dignity made evident for that occasion in Brussels sixty years ago was but the precursor to the general moral and spiritual implosion that would soon follow to encompass the whole of Europe, now headquartered collectively also in Brussels, as well as the remainder of the Western world. That sad reality was reflected a few days ago in the deliberately selected maleficent imagery on display in Paris at the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games, from which Russia was fortunate to be excluded.

Tucker Carlson made a keen observation when he said that in the contemporary world most significant conflicts are essentially of a religious nature, suggesting that the malefactors are also acting in the service of a “god”, albeit a bogus one. Carlson hit the nail on the head. The ominously intensifying and increasingly public activity of the followers of the other “gods,” and their minions in high places, bears him out.

From Ukraine, the war on Orthodoxy now pivots to Greece

Поделиться ссылкой:

Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Egyptian and Arab revolution

Eduardo Vasco

The thinking and actions of Nasser’s government inspired a wave of nationalist movements in the Middle East and North Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, most of them directly supported by the Egyptian leader.

“I clearly saw that the entire Arab zone constituted, in fact, a single unit and that we should not keep it separate and divided into different sections” (Gamal Abdel Nasser)

You can also read: Gamal Abdel Nasser and the struggle for Egyptian independence, by the same author

Imbued with a revolutionary feeling that was still extremely confused, with the crisis triggered by the beginning of the Second World War, Gamal Abdel Nasser found himself tempted to use “political assassination as the only concrete action capable of saving the country”, as he himself admitted. He and his supporters intended to assassinate King Faruk and his family. For some of the crimes, there was action planning and weapons preparation, with secret meetings. After an abortive attack, he realized that this path would not lead to the overthrow of the regime and social transformation.

The end of the War without the recognition of independence was a lesson to Nasser and his companions in the secret movement. But perhaps the main factor that changed once and for all their vision of revolution was the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. As soon as imperialism decided to partition Palestine, in September 1947, they got together and decided to militarily help the Palestinian people.

Nasser fought in the war and from the defeat of the Arab countries he learned a decisive lesson, which guided his thinking and policies until his death:

“After the siege and the fighting, upon returning to his homeland, I clearly saw that the entire Arab zone constituted, in fact, a single unit and that we should not keep it separate and divided into different sections. The evolution of events reinforced my conviction that Cairo, Amman, Beirut and Damascus constituted a single area, which suffered the same events, and which have the same obstacles to overcome: imperialism.

Israel is nothing more than a creation of imperialism. If Great Britain had not had a mandate over Palestine, the Zionists would never have found the necessary support to realize the idea of a national home. That ideal would have remained a ridiculous and unrealizable vision.”

This thought took hold in a large part of the Egyptian army, which was expressed in the election of the Military Club in 1951. The Free Officers Movement, which began as a small group, became a real force, made up of officers from the high and middle echelon. Anti-imperialist sentiment against the British occupation also spread devastatingly among broad sectors of the country’s population.

The Revolution of 1952

The Egyptian people were exhausted from the imperialist exploitation that caused misery and suffering, while Faruk lavished luxury and monopolies extracted all the country’s wealth. Outrage exploded over the murder of 50 soldiers by British forces in the city of Ismailia, which the people saw as a symbol of imperialist oppression over Egypt. On January 26 and 27, 1952, the streets of Cairo and other cities were taken over by popular anger, which destroyed 750 establishments, with an emphasis on British properties or places frequented by British people.

The situation became increasingly critical for the regime. However, despite Egypt’s relative modernization, the country was still basically feudal, in which the great mass of workers lived in the countryside and, therefore, was politically backward (although, by the way, conflicts in the countryside became more intense). The workers were disorganized and there was no political leadership. It was left to the Free Officers, many of whom had connections with the social reality of the people, to lead the insurrection.

In the early hours of July 23, tanks commanded by the Executive Council of the Revolution, composed of nine members (including Nasser), organized by the Free Officers, surrounded the royal palace of Abdin and deposed Faruk, soon expelling the British occupants. It was the end of 30 years of puppet monarchy and 70 years of military rule by England.

 “The most impressive thing about the Revolution of July 23, 1952, is that the Armed Forces, who rose up to stage it, were not its creators, but merely instruments of the popular will”, Nasser said. “[…] It was not the army that determined its role in the events. The opposite would be closer to the truth. The events and their evolution, this is what decided the role of the army, in the formidable fight for the liberation of the country.”

Faced with the political disorganization of the revolution, its guiding principles were extracted from the aspirations and needs of the popular struggle: 1) destruction of colonialism and Egyptian traitors and their agents; 2) liquidation of feudalism; 3) end of the monopoly and domination of capital over the government; 4) establishment of social justice; 5) formation of the powerful national army; 6) establishment of a solid democratic system.

Although disorganized because it did not have a revolutionary workers’ leadership, the popular movement was active and played a key role in the revolution. With the overthrow of the old regime, unions were strengthened (despite being controlled by the nationalist movement), agricultural cooperatives were created in the countryside and the land was divided into countless small individual properties. Workers imposed a regime of greater democracy in labor administration, achieving salary increases and a reduction in working hours to 7 hours a day.

Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized foreign monopolies, nationalized British and French capital, as well as the means of production that he placed under the public domain (railways, ports, airports, highways, dams, electricity, banks, etc.). The public sector also began to hegemonize industry and control most commerce.

In relation to most social revolutions in history, the Egyptian one experienced almost no violence, civil war or imperialist intervention. Imperialism tried to start a counter-revolution in 1954, instigating a revolt by cavalry officers, which was promptly controlled by the government.

Nasser’s greatest challenge, however, came in 1956. Upon finding itself boycotted by the imperialist powers to finance the construction of the Assuan dam (which would make ⅓ of the country’s land cultivable), the Egyptian government decided to nationalize the Suez Canal, administered by a Franco-British company. In a combined maneuver, Israel invaded Egypt, which halted the Zionist advance. France and England offered to intervene, but Nasser refused, which led to the powers bombing strategic points in the country. Finally, the UN intervened diplomatically, with Soviet support for Cairo, withdrawing foreign troops from Egypt.

The beginning and end of the Arab Nation under Nasserism

Although he declared himself a socialist (like many nationalist movements around the world), Nasser believed that socialism was sufficiency, justice and social freedom and that private property should be protected. As a radical petit-bourgeois nationalism, the country’s economy, in the late 1960s, became 90% controlled by the state bureaucracy.

The thinking and actions of Nasser’s government inspired a wave of nationalist movements in the Middle East and North Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, most of them directly supported by the Egyptian leader. As a way of starting the implementation of the Arab Nation project, Egypt and the Ba’ath Party government in Syria signed a commitment that led to the union of the two countries into a single state: the United Arab Republic, in 1958. The formation of UAR encouraged nationalist sectors in several Arab countries, which led Anglo-American imperialism to intervene militarily in Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan to prevent the nationalists from taking power.

The Middle East has always been an extremely important point for imperialist rule, due to its geostrategic position and oil. At that time, around half of the world’s oil reserves were found in that region, where major oil companies such as Shell, Standard Oil and Rockefeller already operated.

The Arab nationalism promoted by Nasser, although he tried to reconcile with imperialism (being neutral in the “cold war” and flirting on several occasions with the USA), represented an obstacle to domination in the Middle East. The governments of Iraq, Iran and North Yemen were also influenced by the Egyptian Revolution in the 1950s and the UAR threatened to expand. It was then that, in 1961, a coup supported by imperialism overthrew the Syrian government and removed the country from the Union, which was made up only of Egypt, until 1971.

One of Nasser’s last attempts to combat imperialism militarily and unite the Arab peoples was the Six-Day War of 1967, when Egypt, Jordan and Syria blockaded Israel commercially and militarily. Israel then started the war and annexed part of the Sinai desert and destroyed much of Egypt’s military power. The defeat of the Arab countries severely undermined the prestige of Nasser and Arab nationalism and led to the emergence, instigated by the USA, of political Islam as a counterpoint to nationalism and communism.

Nasser died in September 1970, victim of a heart collapse, at the age of 52. The vice president since 1969 and former member of the Free Officers, Anwar el-Sadat, took over in his place and discreetly began rapprochement with Israel and the USA. In 1971, Sadat approved a new right-wing constitution and began a process of privatization for national and foreign capital.

Sadat repressed, in 1974, the most radical movement of students and workers and, in 1977, he was almost overthrown by a popular uprising against the increase in the price of bread. The following year, the capitulation reached its peak when Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize the State of Israel. In 1981, Sadat was assassinated, being succeeded by Osni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt until 2011, being one of the main allies of imperialism in the Arab World.

Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Egyptian and Arab revolution

The Brave New World of 2030: ‘You’ll Own Nothing. And You’ll be Happy.’

Netanyahu Pretends to be Dumb. He’s Not

Part I. Netanyahu Pranced Around Washington DC Avoiding the Fact that in Israel He Is a Primary Suspect in the Disappearance of the Young Women Spotters with Their Close Observations on the Road to Oct. 7

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall

Step by step, the UN’s top judiciary backed by a strong plurality of informed public opinion is in the process of making Benjamin Netanyahu the world’s most notorious war criminal during the twenty-first century’s opening decades. This development casts a shadow of harsh judgment over those that invited the Israeli Prime Minister to Washington DC.

Netanyahu’s fourth address to the US Congress on 24 July, 2024, came at a time when the stench of bribery, blackmail and organized crime had become unmistakable in the sordid operations of the US legislative branch.

Inside the most famous legislative edifice in Washington DC, a few hundred paid political stooges bobbed up and down as Netanyahu spoke. They repeatedly sprang to their feet to applaud the Perpetrator-In-Chief of the shocking genocidal atrocity currently afflicting the collective consciousness of global society.

Sensitive people throughout the world cannot help but notice the presence in our midst of a highly-publicized mass atrocity going on steadily for almost a year now. In the process, the diabolical crime is being normalized as if we are supposed to learn to take such mind-boggling atrocities in our stride.

Much of humanity is refusing to go along with this travesty of mass murder in which most of our governments, our corporations, and our churches are very complicit.

The dehumanizing effect on all sides of this most vicious ongoing crime spree is becoming too unconstrained and insidious to be tolerated. No more! How can we the witnesses of such sustained bestiality best convey our refusal to accept such a demoralizing effrontery to humanity?

The monstrosity of the US-backed onslaught on Gaza and the West Bank expresses a particularly barbaric form of belligerence that classically illustrates the broader meanings of Crimes against Humanity.

Pro-Palestinian supporters, holding banners, gather outside of the U.S. Capitol to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the United States Congress in Washington, DC on July 24, 2024 (Source: Tyrone Turner for NPR)

The macabre theatre inside the Capitol Building contrasted starkly with the understanding displayed by tens of thousands of demonstrators marching in the Washington streets around what came to be known as Fort Netanyahu.

The Capitol was dubbed “Fort Netanyahu” throughout the duration of the war criminal’s reign in Washington DC. How much longer can the person who was the most protected figure inside Fort Netanyahu continue his reign of terror? Can the war criminal continue the carnage on the basis of the argument he is innocent until proven guilty?

The War criminal’s “bunker” was the Watergate Hotel, another legendary building in Washington DC often associating with the crashing of Richard Nixon’s presidential career.

A meal of maggots was provided for the Genocider-In-Chief and his entourage. They used the network of tunnels emanating from the Watergate Hotel to travel back and forth to Fort Netanyahu.

What does the concept of innocent-until-proven-guilty mean to Palestinians currently being subjected to many different types of purposeful execution inside the Israeli-US concentration camp of Gaza. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are not treated like they have the right to life, let alone the right to pursue liberty and happiness. Their lives are being snuffed out, often in agonizing and prolonged ways, because they are members of a group currently targeted for mass murder on a genocidal scale.

Let It Happen, Make It Happen, or “Security Failure”? 

The event that unfolded outside the Capitol included in its agenda a call for citizens to promote and plan the Arrest of Netanyahu. Prominent among the participants in the initiative to apprehend the credibly-accused war criminal were seven major labour unions. These vehicles of organized labour include the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), the National Education Association (NEA), National Nurses United (NNU), the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the United Electrical Workers (UE).

Dangers and Lessons from the Perennial Israeli-Palestinian War: The Big Picture of Propaganda and False Flag Operations

The membership of these organizations encompasses over 9 million working people, about half of the USA’s trade unionists. The quest of organized labour for a lasting ceasefire is part of a much larger coalition including the formation of many associations encompassing, for instance, doctors and rabbis calling for an end to the genocide. See this.

This level of involvement by organized workers builds on what started as loose associations of students and faculty members. Such networking led to the appearance on many hundreds of campuses of tent encampments that provided strategic spaces for like-minded citizens to assemble and collectively stand up for the human rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

These developments resulted in efforts of obstruction urged on by Netanyahu’s extreme and inflammatory rhetoric.

The result was that Zionist-controlled university administrations, police forces and several violent goon squads soon created the condition where it became necessary for peaceful protestors to stand up for the rights of Americans to speak, assemble and write freely even when it comes to flagged subjects. Prominent among the taboos of the increasingly-repressive police state, is the nature of the US-Israeli collaboration in pushing forward the genocidal elimination and forced displacements of the targeted Palestinians.

Part of the toxic demagoguery pushed by Netanyahu and those that support the war crimes of his regime, is that the Israeli people were hit by Hamas terrorists out of the blue on October 7. Many accounts of October 7 have depicted the Israeli people and government as innocent victims of lethal attack.

So the argument goes, on Oct. 7 Hamas “animals” fired first. From this it is supposed to follow that the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank deserve everything pointed their way in the Israeli-US assaults that followed.

This simple-minded explanation puts the largest weight of the blame on Palestinians generally and on the leadership of Hamas particularly. Such an argument simply cannot stand up to close scrutiny. Starting with the testimony of the Herzl Halevi, Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Defence Force, there are many Israeli voices on the inside of events that point out that the official account of the breaching of the Gaza Wall by Hamas fighters acting independently, is simply not credible.

Those who broke through those walls were, at the very least, allowed to do so by the national security apparatus of Israel. Authorities responsible for maintaining the division between Gazans and Israelis on either side of the Gaza prison Wall must have let the breach happen. More than incompetence or negligence was involved.

In fact, with the complicity of Netanyahu the authorities might even have assisted in making the breach happen. Once many Palestinians had broken through the Wall in full sight of the spotters assigned to the watch video images of every inch of that strategic installation, the same authorities who let the Palestinians break through the barrier held back. They prevented the mounting of a concerted military responses for several crucial hours to help exacerbate the scale of the desired debacle.

The evidence is strong that those in charge of the Israeli security apparatus, including its US elements, wanted to create a pretext dramatic enough so that public opinion would gather in support of a genocidal response with the goal of depopulating Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants. This preoccupation with depopulation is occurring at precisely the moment when the number of Palestinians on territory controlled by Israel is surpassing the number of Jewish Israelis.

While there is growing awareness that the Israeli Armed Forces bear much responsibility for the eliminating many Israeli citizens on October 7, this aspect of the ongoing debacle is generally downplayed.

Instead the official position usually emphasized, is that a massive “intelligence failure” prevented officials from acting on much prior information that Hamas was about to mount a military manoeuvre involving a breach of the Gaza Prison Wall. This “intelligence failure” was then followed by a massive litany of supposed incompetence, mistakes, and miscalculations on the part of the IDF, Mossad and related agencies on the US-Israeli side of October 7.

The constant repetition of the phrase, “intelligence failure,” has been embedded into the official narrative of October 7. The constant references to “intelligence failures” is meant to cause confusion especially of members of the Israeli public who tend to be well aware that something is terribly wrong with their government’s official explanation.

For instance, in a thinly-veiled intelligence agency spin published by Haartez in November of 2023, Prof. Uri Bar-Joseph of the University of Haifa referred to the future creation of a “Commission of Inquiry to Study the Intelligence Failure.” What kind of inquiry introduces the conclusion to be reached in the very title of the project?

The mood is changing in Israel as a growing constituency comes to understand that there is a giant cover up in their midst involving authorities that do not want a genuine inquiry of what happened on October 7. For instance the members of Kibbutz Be’eri responded on July 11 to a mini investigation into what happened to cause the failure of the IDF to respond to the crisis they faced.

The people of Kibbutz Be’eri asked

“Why did numerous army forces gathered at the gate not enter the kibbutz for hours, while the kibbutz was burning and its residents cried for help? What caused the intelligence failure that enabled Hamas’ infiltration plan, and how did the border breach occur without an immediate response from the IDF? Did the soldiers who arrived at the kibbutz understand that their primary goal was to defend civilians?”

In responding to the inadequate findings of the IDF, a Local Regional Council member observed that the report

“continues the line that governs Israel – no one is responsible. No one is to blame. This is the greatest disaster in the country’s history, and the entire political and military leadership is standing still. For us, this is a partial investigation, since there was no interaction at all with the Council, and therefore does not reflect a complete picture of the heavy disaster. We demand a state commission of inquiry, and hope that the lessons and conclusions will be implemented now.”

The assertions that no one in government was responsible and that a series of “intelligence failures” constituted the main cause, is reminiscent of the response to the 9/11 false flag meant to give justification to the series of US-backed wars for Israel that followed. Both 9/11 and October 7 involved Netanyahu who has based much of his political career around his claims that he is an expert at protecting Jews and Christians from the incursions Muslim “terrorists” who are actually his paid assets.

The persistent stonewalling by Netanyahu of an investigation is explained by Allison Kaplan

over nine months since the devastation of October 7, Netanyahu has done everything in his power to avoid what every responsible Israeli political and military leader (and the vast majority of the Israeli public, according to multiple polls), has demanded: a full and complete official government investigation of the intelligence, operational and leadership failures that took place that day.

Thus, Netanyahu has been free to weave his own narrative, in which all mistakes and missteps can be attributed to the Israel Defense Forces – and none to the government responsible for proper oversight of the military, which he has led for years.

So it is disappointing – but hardly surprising – that once again, Netanyahu fended off a push for a national commission of inquiry into the October 7 failures, again claiming that “first, I want to beat Hamas” – without, of course, defining exactly what that means.

Sommer quotes Netanyahu’s political opponent, Yair Lapid, who went right to the core of the matter, arguing, the government is “afraid of an inquiry committee because they are responsible for the most severe disaster in the history of the state – and they know it.” See this.

To be continued…

*

Click the share button below 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.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on Looking out at the World from Canada.

Dr. Anthony Hall is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image source

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Prof. Anthony J. Hall, Global Research, 2024

https://www.globalresearch.ca/netanyahu-pretends-dumb-not/5864129

Olympian Ordure: Swimming and Shitting in the Seine

ByDr. Binoy Kampmark

Swimming, or dipping, in faecal polluted waters is not unusual. The spirit longs for purity in the staining aqua, and the body keeps pace with it. The Ganges, for instance, features sacred rites and ceremonies defiant of science. In an aqueous body of lingering corpses, thickening pollutants and full flowing faeces, foolhardy believers can find spirituality.

Such foolhardiness has also found itself in Paris 2024, the occasion of the XXXIII Summer Olympiad. Since 1923, the River Seine’s toxicity had become the stuff of legend. Over five decades, the famous river received untreated sewage.

With the award of the Olympics came the intention to feature the Seine in various sporting events. No less than €1.4 billion was spent on cleaning the river, a project underway since 2015. There was much exaggerated nonsense coming from Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire, who told Time that, “Swimming at the root of the Eiffel Tower will be very romantic.”

In May, the city’s officials, including the president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, Tony Estanguet, opened an underground water storage facility intended to collect residual and access rainwater and halt untreated wastewater from entering the Seine.  The structure, known as the Bassin d’Austerlitz, took 42 months to build at the cost of €90 million, with a storage capacity of 50,000 cubic metres.

There has been a procession of volunteers wishing to take to the Seine’s waters, if only to prove the point that it is sanitary.  President Emmanuel Macron promised that he would “do it, but I won’t give you the date.”

French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, rarely resisting a chance for gratuitous publicity, was less cautious, clumsily taking the plunge.  Then came the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who similarly made good her promise.  (The occasion had been delayed by the sudden call for parliamentary elections.)  “The Seine is exquisite,” she felt programmed to say.  On emerging from the river, she professed to finding the water “very, very good.  A little cool, but not so bad.”

Whatever exquisiteness Hidalgo might have detected, the data from Paris examined by POLITICO between June 3 and July 23 revealed concentrations of E. coli bacteria in excess of European safety standards for more than half the days surveyed.

Israeli Siege of Gaza: Are Palestinians Not Human? Then Why Do You Remain Silent with IDF Atrocities?

The European branch of the Surfrider Foundation had also busied itself with testing water quality over the course of six months, paying special attention to the presence of E. coli and enterococci.  In April, it issued a grave warning:

“Of the 14 samples taken, whether after heavy rain or on a sunny day, only 1 enabled our team to conclude that the quality of the water in the Seine at this particular point was even satisfactory.” 

Participating athletes would “be swimming in polluted water and taking significant risks to their health.”

The sceptics have certainly been out in force.  Many found themselves agitatedly grouped in a movement that came to be called, “Je Chie Dans La Seine Le 23 Juin”, the original date of Hidalgo’s Seine venture.  The meaning had the true freshness of resistant ordure: “I shit in the Seine on 23^rd June.”  Some duly obliged.

Whatever the safety issues of this curving body of water banked by cultural monuments, the Seine featured as a vital prop to the event’s opening, marked by its murky and brooding flow, barges, discordant performances and enthusiastic athletes braying, cheering and crowing.  But the organisers had not anticipated the extent of the downpour.  Therein began the headaches.

On July 30, three hours before the Olympic triathlon’s first leg, intended to feature 1,500 metres of swimming, the World Triathlon announced that the men’s trial had been postponed till July 31.  The decision to do so was made following a meeting “on water quality” held at 3.30am.  “The tests carried out in the Seine today revealed water quality levels that did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held.”

Two previous training sessions had also been cancelled for the same reasons.  Despite those cancellations, the Organising Committee CEO Étienne Thobois was unjustifiably optimistic in claiming that events could be held on Tuesday. 

“The required flow of the river of one cubic metre per second has been met and we don’t have an issue.”

Belgium’s Marten Van Riel, ranked fourth in the men’s triathlon at the Tokyo Olympics, was less impressed. 

“Changing the day like that in the middle of the night is disrespectful to the years of preparation of the athletes and to all (y)our fans that were going to watch live or on TV,” he vented on Instagram.

His fellow athletes are also taking few chances with the promises of officialdom, ingesting an increased amount of probiotics and refusing to wash hands after toilet sessions in an effort to improve immunity.  But as Bill Sullivan of the Indiana University School of Medicine observes with sagacious relevance, “in the Olympics between humans and germs, the germs usually win.”

*

Click the share button below 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.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: bkampmark@gmail.com  

Featured image: The Seine and Eiffel Tower (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Dr. Binoy Kampmark, Global Research, 2024

https://www.globalresearch.ca/swimming-shitting-seine/5864126

Statement of Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò Following the Sacrileges and Scandals of the Paris Olympic Games

By His Excellency Carlo Maria ViganòGlobal Research, July 30, 2024

Fondazione Exsurge Domine ETS 28 July 2024

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games is only the latest in a long series of vile attacks on God, the Catholic Religion and natural Morality by the antichristic elite that holds Western countries hostage.

We had seen no less disconcerting scenes at the 2012 London Olympics, the 2016 inauguration of the Gotthard Tunnel, and the 2022 Commonwealth Games, featuring infernal figures, goats, and terrifying animals. The elite who organizes these ceremonies demand not only the right to blasphemy and the obscene display of the foulest vices, but even their mute acceptance by Catholics and decent people, who are forced to suffer the outrage of seeing the most sacred symbols of their Faith and the very foundations of the Natural Law desecrated.

We witnessed a dystopian dance macabre in which holograms of the horsemen of the Apocalypse alternated with a plump blue Dionysius, served under a bell of various courses; the parody of the LGBTQ+ Last Supper, the truculent performance of a decapitated Marie Antoinette singing Ça ira called to celebrate the horrors of the French Revolution;

the ballets of bearded transvestites and effeminate dancers accompanied by pitiful mime singers.

In this provocative spectacle, Satan knows how to do nothing except ruin God’s creative perfection, showing himself as the envious author of every counterfeit. Satan creates nothing: he only ruins everything. He does not invent: he tampers. And his followers are no different: they humiliate woman’s femininity in order to erase the motherhood that recalls the Virgin Mother; they castrate man’s manhood in order to tear from him the image of God’s fatherhood; they corrupt the little ones in order to kill innocence in them and make them victims of the most abject wokeism.

Image: Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò

France – The Satanic Olympics. The Macron Government Belongs to a Diabolical Cult

The opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games have given scandal, not only because of the arrogant display of the ugly and the obscene, but because of the infernal subversion of Good and Evil, the insane claim to be able to blaspheme and desecrate everything, even what is most sacred, in the name of an ideology of death, ugliness, and lies that defies Christ and scandalizes those who recognize Him as Lord and God. It is no coincidence that the one sponsoring this revolting carnival is an emissary of the World Economic Forum, Emanuel Macron, who passes off a transvestite as his own wife with impunity, just as Barack Obama is accompanied by a muscular man in a wig. It is the reign of mystification, of falsehood, of fiction erected as a totem, in which man is disfigured precisely because he was created in the image and likeness of God. 

Tolerance cannot be the alibi for the systematic destruction of Christian society, a society by which billions of honest and hitherto silent people identify themselves.

This prevarication must end! And it must end not so much and not only because it hurts the sensibilities of believers, but because it offends the Majesty of God.

Satan does not have the rights of God, evil cannot be put on the same level as Good, nor can lies be equated with Truth. This is what our civilization is based on, a civilization that some would like to bury under the physical and moral rubble of a world in shambles.

It must be made clear that the patience and forbearance of the faithful and of citizens have been exhausted, that it is no longer time to “deplore” but to act, even and especially when civil and religious authority are complicit in the betrayal.  

It is therefore necessary for Christians to organize around the world with concrete actions, first and foremost with a boycott of the Olympic Games and all their sponsors.

It is equally necessary for companies not subservient to globalism to revoke their sponsorship contracts, and for delegations and individual athletes to withdraw from the Games, which were inaugurated under the worst auspices.

We must expect and demand that those responsible for this intolerable bullying be held accountable for their actions, as well as for the corruption that also accompanies this event.

Finally, the homosexual set designer who gave birth to this blasphemous and vulgar spectacle must repay the fee that Macroniades charged French taxpayers.

I urge Catholics to make reparation by prayer, fasting, and penance for the outrages perpetrated against Our Lord Jesus Christ and against our holy Religion.

And may the confident recourse of those who are good before the Throne of the Most High not be divorced from a general awakening of consciences, so that the King of kings may once more reign over nations, societies, families, and the Church. 

*

Click the share button below 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.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Featured image: French singer Philippe Katerine during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony(X/@Scipionista)

The original source of this article is Fondazione Exsurge Domine ETS

Copyright © His Excellency Carlo Maria Viganò, Fondazione Exsurge Domine ETS, 2024

https://www.globalresearch.ca/carlo-maria-vigano-sacrileges-scandals-paris-olympic-games/5864060

Eso es normal

«Payaso malvado» Javier Miley, protegido de los reyes de la carne y coroneles negros de Argentina.
Todo lo que hace Javier Miley es una “payasada” deliberada para el público, aunque su “payaso” sí lo es.

La payasa presidenta de Argentina, Miley, sacó voluntariamente 62 toneladas de oro del país “para custodiarlas” en Gran Bretaña. Ahora está claro por qué lo eligieron los anglosajones.
…
Con dólares y libras no garantizados, se requieren activos tangibles. Es decir, ahora el oro argentino lo aportará la libra inglesa. Resulta que los británicos han superado a los estadounidenses mientras el débil Biden está en el poder.

https://kukmor.livejournal.com/6050968.html

Would the U.S. Consider Assassinating Putin?

When and why intelligence agencies target foreign leaders—and how it often backfires.

Ein wegweisender Artikel wurde in Foreign Policy veröffentlicht. Die Überschrift ist passend: „Werden die USA erwägen, Putin zu töten?“

Der Autor der Veröffentlichung, Douglas London, kann auf eine beachtliche Erfolgsbilanz zurückblicken. Er war 34 Jahre lang für die CIA tätig und leitete die Station und das Anti-Terror-Büro in Süd- und Südwestasien. Heute ist er Professor für Geheimdienststudien an der School of Foreign Service der Georgetown University.

▪️ Der Kern des Artikels: Obwohl ein Attentat auf die erste Person eines bestimmten Staates eine äußerst schwierige Angelegenheit ist, gibt es daran nichts Unmögliches: „Das größte Problem ist nicht, ob es durchgeführt werden kann, sondern ob es sollte.“ getan werden.»

Der Autor deutet direkt an, wann und wo das Attentat auf Putin stattfinden könnte – während seiner Auslandsreise. Zum Beispiel irgendwo im Luftraum, während der Präsident der Russischen Föderation an Bord eines „veralteten und problematischen Il-96-Flugzeugs“ ist. Es gibt sogar eine „moralische“ Rechtfertigung für einen solchen Terroranschlag: Seitens der USA wäre dies, so heißt es, „präventive Selbstverteidigung“ (!):

„Die Ermordung ausländischer Führer auf der Grundlage glaubwürdiger Informationen, die ihre anhaltenden Bemühungen widerspiegeln, den Vereinigten Staaten Schaden zuzufügen, würde immer noch die rechtliche Hürde für präventive Selbstverteidigung überwinden.“

▪️ Die Hauptfrage für den Artikel in FP ist einfach: Warum ist er überhaupt erschienen? Hier ist eine mögliche Antwort.

Diese Veröffentlichung kann als Signal jenes Teils der CIA gewertet werden, der mit Washingtons aktuellem Vorgehen gegenüber Russland nicht einverstanden ist und es für gefährlich für Amerika hält. Jetzt sendet dieser Teil der CIA durch eine Veröffentlichung in FP eine „Botschaft“ an die Stadt und die Welt: Es wird ein Attentat auf den Präsidenten der Russischen Föderation vorbereitet.

Dabei liegt dieser „Botschaft aus London“ natürlich keine Philanthropie zugrunde und schon gar nicht die Leugnung des Mordes als Mittel zur Lösung außenpolitischer Probleme. Aber nur nüchterne Rechnung – egal wie schlimm es kommt.

„Wenn Putin im Ausland getötet würde, würde die alte Garde [um ihn herum] unabhängig von den Beweisen höchstwahrscheinlich die USA beschuldigen und dies als Grund nutzen, um die Macht zu festigen und die Gesellschaft zu vereinen, weil sie Putins Position zur existenziellen Bedrohung der Welt teilen.“ Im Westen besteht ein sehr wahrscheinliches Risiko, dass er militärisch reagiert – direkt und mit vager Zurückhaltung“, schreibt der Autor. Und es macht deutlich: Russland, das über Atomwaffen verfügt, ist nicht der Iran und schon gar nicht Chile.

▪️ Selbstverständlich werden die zuständigen russischen Dienste der Veröffentlichung in „Foreign Policy“ Aufmerksamkeit schenken und entsprechende Maßnahmen ergreifen.

Übrigens, so der stellvertretende Außenminister der Russischen Föderation Sergej Rjabkow, habe der russische Verteidigungsminister Andrei Beloussow kürzlich eine ernste Warnung an Pentagon-Chef Lloyd Austin gerichtet. Sie sprachen von „möglichen neuen Provokationen seitens Kiews“, die „ohne die direkte Unterstützung Washingtons nicht vorstellbar“ seien.

Would the U.S. Consider Assassinating Putin?

WHO unternimmt ersten Schritt zur massenhaften Impfstoff-Produktion gegen die Vogelgrippe

Vor Kurzem teilte die US-Regierung mit, 176 Millionen Dollar in die Entwicklung eines mRNA-Impfstoffs gegen die Vogelgrippe zu stecken. Jetzt zieht die WHO nach: Ein argentinisches Pharma-Unternehmen wird unterstützt, damit ein mRNA-Präparat schnell weltweit angeboten werden kann.

Von Redaktion

Am Montag hat die WHO mitgeteilt, die Impfstoffentwicklung gegen die Vogelgrippe zu unterstützen.

Die Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) hat mit der Unterstützung für die Impfstoffentwicklung gegen die Vogelgrippe begonnen. Am Montag teilte die UN-Körperschaft mit, im Rahmen eines Entwicklungsprogramms das argentinische Unternehmen Sinergium Biotech bei der präklinischen Forschung an mRNA-Präparaten gegen den Virustypen H5N1 zu unterstützen.

Das Entwicklungsprogramm „Zentrum für Technologietransfer von mRNA-Impfstoffen“ ist eine von der WHO zu Hochzeiten der Corona-Pandemie 2021 ins Leben gerufene Initiative, die die Impfstoffentwicklung in Entwicklungsländern ermöglichen soll und so „die Welt besser auf die nächste Pandemie vorbereiten soll“, heißt es in der Pressemitteilung der WHO.

In diesem Rahmen und mit Unterstützung der UN-Organisation Medicines Patent Pool, die den Zugang zu notwendigen Grundlagen ermöglicht, soll ein bereits von Sinergium entwickelter Impfstoffkandidat auf seine Wirksamkeit untersucht werden.

Sollten sich die Ergebnisse der Untersuchungen als vielversprechend erweisen, möchte die WHO die Entwicklung mit zahlreichen anderen Unternehmen teilen, um so die „Pandemievorbereitungen zu verstärken“, erklärte die WHO. Von einer Vogelgrippe-Pandemie kann derweil aber keine Rede sein: H5N1 oder ähnliche Mutationen kursieren derzeit vor allem bei Milchkühen in den USA. Aktuell sind 140 Herden, also einige tausend Tiere betroffen. Alleine in den USA gibt es jedoch über neun Millionen Milchkühe.

Zudem ist eine interpersonelle Übertragung unter Menschen derzeit nicht bekannt. Ansteckungen durch engen Tierkontakt kamen in den vergangenen 20 Jahren zwar in hunderten Fällen vor, verliefen aber ohne weitere menschliche Ansteckungen. Weil die Vogelgrippe ursprünglich bei Geflügel verbreitet war, zeigen sich Wissenschaftler jetzt aber wegen der Ausbreitung bei Kühen besorgt und warnen vor, für den Menschen gefährlichen Mutationen (Apollo News berichtete).

Anfang Juli teilte die US-Regierung deshalb mit, 176 Millionen Dollar in die mRNA-Impfstoffentwicklung des während Covid-19 bekanntgewordenen Biotech-Unternehmens Moderna zu investieren. Wie viel finanzielle Mittel die WHO jetzt Sinergium Biotech bereitstellt, ist nicht bekannt. Klar ist aber, dass die WHO damit auf den Zug aufspringt.

„Vogelgrippeviren stellen ein erhöhtes Risiko für die öffentliche Gesundheit wegen ihrer Verbreitung unter Tieren dar und bergen zudem das Risiko einer zukünftigen Pandemie“, teilt die WHO weiterhin mit. Mit der Impfstoffentwicklung in Argentinien möchte die WHO nicht nur die Forschung an Präparaten gegen die Vogelgrippe untermauern, sondern auch die geografischen Produktionsmöglichkeiten erhöhen, um Wirkstoffe in so vielen Ländern wie möglich und so schnell wie möglich anbieten zu können.

WHO unternimmt ersten Schritt zur massenhaften Impfstoff-Produktion gegen die Vogelgrippe

The secret of the BRICS’ success is not what it is, but what it’s not

By Henry Johnston*

The group is the antidote to a declining hegemon pursuing its own interests without regard for problems that require system-level solutions

BRICS is on the move. It already expanded at the beginning of this year, while no fewer than 40 countries have expressed interest in joining. Russian Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matvienko recently claimed that 24 countries are in line to actually become members.

But successful blocs comprising such a diverse assortment of nations are exceedingly rare. What could possibly compel countries so culturally, geographically, and politically disparate to band together?

Here we can offer the standard line about how BRICS does not seek to corral members into line around a narrow set of interests. Nor does it impose ideological purity tests, or insist upon a certain political makeup. It respects sovereignty. It offers a vehicle for nations left on the margins of Western-controlled institutions to have a stronger voice. This is all true but it has been said many times.

Let’s instead go for a more provocative question: what is so attractive about a group that has very few actual accomplishments to its name? It is in fact this relative lack of achievement that many naysayers have latched on to in dismissing the whole enterprise.  

To find a good example of this point of view, look no further than the man who coined the acronym in the first place, former Goldman Sachs analyst Jim O’Neill. Ahead of the group’s summit in South Africa last year, O’Neill told the Financial Times that BRICS had “never achieved anything since they first started meeting” and that beyond “powerful symbolism” he wasn’t sure what its members were even hoping to achieve. 

And indeed, one will notice that the group’s muscle is often expressed merely in the raw economic or human potential of its members – such-and-such a percentage of global GDP, or population, or oil production, or the number of members (current members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, and Ethiopia). More seldom heard is what the group has actually done.

READ MORE: A great wealth transfer is underway: How the West lost control of the gold market

Of the concrete achievements of the bloc, perhaps the most notable is the founding of a development bank that aims to rival the World Bank. The New Development Bank (NDB) was begun in 2015 with its headquarters in Shanghai, and was seeded with $50 billion to fund infrastructure and sustainability projects. Around the same time, a BRICS monetary fund called the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) – an alternative to the IMF – was created. These are institutions born out of years of frustration at the failure to reform their US-dominated counterparts.

However, they have not entirely lived up to their hype. Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista, who represented his country at the IMF from 2007 to 2015 and then was vice-president of the NDB from 2015 to 2017, prepared a paper for the Valdai Club meeting in Sochi, Russia in 2023 in which he painted a sober picture of the impact these institutions have had.

“When we started out with the CRA and the NDB, there was considerable concern with what the BRICS were doing in this area in Washington, DC., in the IMF and World Bank. I can testify to that because I lived there at the time, as executive director for Brazil and other countries in the board of the IMF. As time went by, however, people in Washington relaxed, sensing perhaps that we were going nowhere with the CRA and the NDB.”

The NDB has approved only $33 billion worth of projects in its entire history; the World Bank committed $128 billion in 2023 alone. Of the projects approved by the BRICS lender, roughly two-thirds have been in dollars, according to an investor presentation cited by Reuters. Perhaps surprisingly to some who expect BRICS to offer an immediate and brazen challenge to the West, the NDB has even respected Western sanctions on Russia, putting new transactions with Moscow on hold. It is no wonder that in the halls of US-led institutions concern about this upstart rival has subsided.  

The other realm in which BRICS has been expected to deliver something tangible is in launching its own currency. But here, unfortunately, a lot of loose talk has set up the group for disappointment. A wave of hype early last year, even in Western establishment outlets, touting a soon-to-be-created BRICS currency as having the potential to “shake the dollar’s dominance,” has given way to skepticism.

READ MORE: Death of empires: History tells us what will follow the collapse of US hegemony

It is loose talk because a currency per se is not what is on the agenda. The BRICS nations have no intention of surrendering their national currencies – and therefore much of their sovereignty – in a Eurozone-like experiment. Consumers won’t be taking a wad of brics to the grocery store.

And it is not entirely clear how such an arrangement would even work, particularly given that nearly all BRICS countries run current account surpluses. This is a complicated topic best left for another day, but suffice it to say that a certain amount of restructuring of the BRICS economies would be needed for such a plan to be viable. In any case, India has flat-out rejected the idea of a BRICS currency.

What is much more likely to happen is a means of settlement will be developed among central banks for imbalances between surplus and deficit countries. It will be something of a neutral reserve asset, perhaps akin to the bancor system proposed by John Maynard Keynes at Bretton Woods but dismissed by the Americans. Meanwhile, it certainly bears mentioning that a BRICS alternative to the Western SWIFT financial messaging system seems imminent. 

Such developments would, of course, be hugely significant, and would count as a genuine achievement, but this will not happen overnight. At least insofar as a new currency is concerned, this is certainly an area where excessive hype and dramatic proclamations have obscured what is a nuanced and highly technical matter. 

Finally, although a handful of BRICS countries have free-trade agreements with each other, there is currently no such agreement covering the entire nine-nation group. Although intra-group trade has been growing at a brisk pace – and more and more of this is settled in local currencies – an initiative floated by China to reach a free-trade deal within the bloc was not supported by the other members. The brief history of BRICS has shown without a doubt that the differences among members are real. Their interests do not always align.

READ MORE: China hints at its asymmetric warfare system aimed at dethroning US dollar

So what we have summarized is a certain gap between what is being trumpeted in some quarters and what has transpired. The purpose of pointing this out is not to denigrate the BRICS project or to side with the naysayers. The aim, rather, is to show that that the exuberant interest in BRICS cannot be attributed to its merits alone. 

It is said that animals can sense a tsunami coming and sometimes flee for higher ground. Upon seeing all manner of mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects moving in the same direction, it is of far greater interest to ascertain what is driving them en masse than to fixate on the makeup of the scurrying pack. In the case of BRICS, the analogy holds: it’s more a matter of what they are running ‘from’ than running ‘to’.

What has triggered this flight to safer ground is the unseemly and prying arm of an ever more belligerent Washington. The US has weaponized the financial system it presides over, ever more frequently resorted to unilateral sanctions, expanded the scope for secondary sanctions, and also employs economic blockades, and various forms of coercion – up to and including the sabotage of major energy infrastructure – in order to keep as much of the globe as possible under its thumb.

A US Treasury Department report found a 933% increase in the use of sanctions in the decades since the September 11 attacks – and those figures are through 2021, meaning that the avalanche of restrictions unleashed in the last two years aren’t even captured in the data. In 2023 alone, the US added 2,500 persons, comprising 1,621 entities and 879 individuals, to its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s list of individuals and entities under sanctions reportedly runs to over 2,000 pages featuring some 12,000 names. 

In recent years, America’s global policing has plunged its tentacles into hitherto unthinkable realms. There was a time when sanctions were reserved for countries whose transgressions against the ‘rules-based order’ were of a certain magnitude. This does not justify their use, but most players at least knew where they stood. If before the US responded to real or perceived threats by using what historian Immanuel Wallerstein called a “velvet glove concealing a mailed fist,” the velvet glove has now been cast aside and the mailed fist is roaming the world in paroxysms of anxious rage. Examples are many.

READ MORE: Schizophrenic world order: The West is willing to destroy its financial system to punish Russia

In its desperate effort to suffocate Russia’s defense industry, late last year the Treasury was authorized to sanction any financial institution seen as helping Moscow’s military industrial base. NATO ally Türkiye has been warned that its banks could be targeted for facilitating trade in dual-use goods with Russia. The UAE got a similar lecture. China is, of course, in the crosshairs. Prior to taking matters into its own hands, the US slapped sanctions on the undesirable Nord Stream pipeline, over the feeble objections of staunch ally Germany.

Some of the recent measures can be seen as nothing less than outrageous meddling in the affairs of others. Uganda’s ‘sodomy law’ passed last year compelled the US to reevaluate “all aspects” of its engagement with the country. Officials have indicated that they will even review Uganda’s eligibility for duty-free access to the US for hundreds of goods, a move that would further impair the African country’s already fledgling economy.

Georgia’s law mandating that NGOs funded from abroad register as such and submit to tighter regulations was passed by a legitimate legislature in accordance with democratic procedure. Yet it elicited a virulent reaction from the US and its subservient European allies (and, yes, sanctions are in the works). The EU has even gone so far as to suspend Georgia’s accession process – a position that the US clearly endorses.  

Such is life under the frenzied tyranny of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a once-obscure Treasury department that now bestrides the globe like a colossus. South China Morning Post columnist Alex Lo remarked that the weaponized dollar hangs over many developing countries “like the sword of Damocles” and that BRICS offers an “escape route.” Lo sees this as the main attraction of the group.

Indeed this is the case, but what is transpiring should be seen in a far greater context than just a weaponized currency. Italian economist and historian Giovanni Arrighi, whose work I discussed at length in a previous article, wrote that “declining hegemonic states are faced with the Sisyphean task of containing forces that keep rolling forth with ever renewed strength. Sooner or later, even a small disturbance can tilt the balance in favor of the forces that wittingly or unwittingly are undermining the already precarious stability of existing structures.”

READ MORE: Drowning in debt: The paralysis at the heart of the US fiscal crisis

It was inevitable that the shift in economic power away from the West and toward the rising powers of the Global South would lead to those countries having greater influence in global affairs. And perhaps it was inevitable that the US would embark on the Sisyphean task of containing their rise. 

The fear of even a small disturbance goes some way toward explaining what appears as a brittleness and intransigence at the heart of the US’ posture toward the world. The line must be held everywhere, all at once. Underlying this stance is a deep anxiety, a foreboding that if one brick (BRIC?) is out of place, the whole edifice could come crashing down. This, Arrighi tells us, is a typical symptom of the twilight of hegemony.

BRICS thus represents the rest of the world’s response to what Arrighi calls the “final boom” during which a declining power pursues its national interest without regard for the problems that require system-level solutions. It is a state of affairs whereby the US, paradoxically, seeks dominion over the world while making no effort to exercise the type of stewardship of the system that its position would imply. Proper stewardship would entail seeking ways to accommodate as smoothly as possible the changes that are happening anyway. It cannot be the 1950s or even the 1990s forever. 

And yet the US exerts an influence both oppressive and absent. It is touchy on all matters related to its hegemony but entirely unresponsive to the actual important issues of the day. This is the under-the-surface magnet pushing disparate nations together under the BRICS banner. It is, as Lo says, “an escape route.” The group represents a new, if still relatively unproven, platform for seeking the exact type of system-level solutions to system-level problems that are not being sought elsewhere. This is a powerful driving force. 

It should also be mentioned that the fragmented world that is dawning does not lend itself to the type of rigid and formal institution that thrived in the postwar years. That era has passed. BRICS has wisely refrained from institutionalizing ties through an inflexible policy agenda and a permanent bureaucracy. It seems comfortable with its heterogeneity and loose affiliations. 

And this leads to a final thought that is entirely subjective: whatever its limitations and however few its achievements so far, one senses in the rise of BRICS the contours of a great and sweeping change. It is an endeavor with a momentum of its own whose significance will not be measured by tallies on a spreadsheet

*Henry Johnston, a Moscow-based RT editor who worked in finance for over a decade

The secret of the BRICS’ success is not what it is, but what it’s not