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Guns and Butter Presents The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy (2016)

07 Wed Dec 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Fascism, Anti-Imperialism, Anti-Totalitarianism, Anti-War, Asia, Eurasia, Neoliberalism, Open Economy Macroeconomics, Political Economy, Political Science, Presidential Election 2016, Sociology, Turkey

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al-Qaeda, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (b. 1949), Bonnie Faulkner, China, Council On Foreign Relations, David Howell Petraeus AO (b. 1952), Donald John Trump (b. 1946), Dr. David Rockefeller (b. 1915), Dr. F. William Engdahl (b. 1944), Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh (b. 1882–1967), Dr. Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (b. 1928), Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Global Research, Guns and Butter, hegemonic stability theory (HST), ISIS, KPFA, Michael Arthur Ledeen (b. 1941), Michael Thomas "Mike" Flynn (b. 1958), Muhammet Fethullah Gülen (b. 1941), mujahideen, Northwest University (China), Osama bin Laden (1957-?), Pacifica Radio Network, Plaza Accord (1985), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b. 1954), Roy Marcus Cohn (1927–1986), Russia, Steven Terner Mnuchin (b. 1962), Strait of Malacca, transcript, Turkey, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (b. 1952), Walid Phares (b. 1957)

Guns_and_butter_logoLUMPENPROLETARIAT—On this week’s edition of free speech radio’s Guns and Butter, host Bonnie Faulkner broadcast an interview with American German historian, economic researcher and investigative journalist F. William Engdahl, author of The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy (2016). [1]  Listen (and/or download) here.  (Also see transcript below.) [2]

UPDATE—[14 DEC 2016]  The Guns and Butter broadcast for December 14, 2016 was a fund drive special, which focused on the work of Dr. William Engdahl. (Also see transcript draft below.) [3]

UPDATE—[21 DEC 2016]  The Guns and Butter broadcast for December 21, 2016, entitled “The Incredible Trump Deception” also focused on the work of Dr. William Engdahl. [4]

UPDATE—[28 DEC 2016]  The Guns and Butter broadcast for December 28, 2016, entitled “The Lost Hegemon: How the CIA Lost Its Holy War Crusade” also focused on the work of Dr. William Engdahl.  Excerpts of this interview with Dr. Engdahl were previously aired during a fund drive special broadcast (14 DEC 2016). [5]

Messina

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Guns and Butter.]

GUNS AND BUTTER—[7 DEC 2016]  [SASHA LILLEY:  “Thank you all, who’ve called and pledged.  We made the match.  Thank you all so much.”  C.S. SOONG:  (overlapping) “Thank you sooo much.”  MIKE BIGGS:  “And this is KPFA; KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1; KFCF in Fresno, 97.5; K24ABR in Santa Cruz; and online at kpfa.org.  It is 1pm; up next is Guns and Butter.”]

“This is Guns and Butter.  [theme music]

“I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  Today on Guns and Butter, J. William Engdahl.  Today’s show:  ‘The Incredible Trump Deception’.

“F. William Engdahl is an international best-selling author and political economist.  He has specialised for more than 30 years in geopolitical analysis of global events with special focus on the interaction of economics with politics.  He is currently Visiting Professor of Geopolitics at Northwest University in Xi’an [city], China.  Among his best-known books are A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics; Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century; Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation; Target China: How Washington and Wall Street Plan to Cage the Asian Dragon.  His latest English book is—The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy—about the CIA and political Islam.  It was published in March of 2016.  (c. 1:46)

“The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy is our thank-you gift, our premium today on Guns and Butter for a donation to KPFA of $110 dollars.  We will talk a lot more about the specifics of The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy—about the CIA and political Islam.  But today’s interview with William Engdahl is ‘The Incredible Trump Deception’.  (c. 2:19)

“So, Mike, let’s get started with the very beginning of that talk I had with William Engdahl.”  (c. 2:25) 

Begin pre-recorded interview

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “William Engdahl, welcome.”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Thank you.  I’m glad to be with you, Bonnie.”

On Trump’s true pedigree, which is “stagecraft“, but not the working class populism Trump portrayed during his campaigning.  Dr. Engdahl cited an article he previously wrote about Donald Trump’s background entitled “The Mafia Don”.

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “Your latest article is entitled ‘The Dangerous Deception Called ‘The Trump Presidency’‘. [6]  Donald Trump put forth some populist ideas in his presidential campaign, such as his goal to have good relations with Russia; his criticism of the vicious ISIS jihadis; support for rebuilding domestic infrastructure; among others.  What do you consider to be the dangerous deception?” (c. 2:56)

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “The dangerous deception is, number one, Donald Trump.  Who he is, as a person, is not at all what people or the world, really, is hoping.  He is a complete, uh, showman, a work of, I dunno, stagecraft.  He has no qualification and no business being anywhere near the White House, and certainly not as president of the world’s largest and most powerful superpower.

“That being said, we have to look behind the people, who are elected president.  Look at how it was with Obama when he came in on the banner of [hope].  And what did he do?  The first thing he did was ramp up the Afghan War with a 30,000 troop surge—the Patraeus Strategy.  And, ever since then, he’s been in Arab Spring, uh, wars across the Middle East: the destruction of Libya, trying to destroy Syria, uh.  (c. 4:12)

“Every single financial appointment of Obama was dictated by Robert Rubin and the people at Goldman Sachs and Citi Group.  So, we’ve had that experience with Obama.  And, now, we have this thing called the Trump Presidency.

“Well, we, as human beings, love to hope.  We love to have hopes.  And I know so many, normally intelligent people , commentators, analysts, like myself, uh, who have a sense of world politics, who are just taken in by this shill called Donald Trump.  The man’s—look at his background.  And this I did back in March/April in a piece I wrote on my website called ‘The Mafia Don’.  (c. 5:02)

“Donald Trump is a protégé of organised crime, full stop.  His mentor was a mafia lawyer in New York named Roy Cohn.  And Roy Cohn, who’s famous—infamous in the Joseph McCarthy hearings back during the ’50s and the Cold War.  Roy Cohn was a lawyer for the mob.  He was connected with the Cardinal Spellman of New York back in the ’50s and the ’60s—one of the leading architects of the Cold War.

“And Roy Cohn, as a human being, was a—if you want to use the term—a despicable specimen.  And he would take Donald Trump to Studio 54.  I remember when I was—in those days, back in the 1970s, working as a journalist in New York City; and Studio 54 was infamous for its cocaine parties or its, uh, glitteria, that would come there.  And Donald Trump, in his autobiography, some years ago, describes going there with Roy Cohn and watching eight breathtakingly beautiful models fornicating in the middle of the floor of Studio 54.  Now, what role Donald Trump did or didn’t play in that, he didn’t bother to say.  (c. 6:25)

“But, okay, let’s say he underwent a remarkable transformation.  Then, we have to look a little bit into: who are the people around Donald Trump?  In my view, Donald Trump is pure showtime.  He’s a choice of, what I call, the American patriarchs, the David Rockefellers, the George Soros, and so forth.  And the idea that a maverick, a real upsetter, a man of the raw blue-collar working people, who is gonna reverse all these trade policies and do this, that, and the other thing to make America great again, even though the banks of Wall Street aren’t gonna like it and the military industrial—whatever.  That the people like David Rockefeller would sit there and have their jaws open and say, my gawd, we can’t do anything to stop this Trump phenomenon!  What a crock!  What a nonsense!  You know?  Wake up.  (c. 7:29)

On the political theatre of Trump’s staged political competition, ‘perhaps even Hillary Clinton’s role was staged’, in exchange for a secured two-term presidency in 2020 or 2024, speculated Dr. Engdahl.

“Look at this.  This was orchestrated.  Probably, the Hillary thing was orchestrated as a part of the same theatre.  But, certainly, the Cruz and Rubio and Ben Carson and Jeb Bush, you know, they were all given their roles to play that Trump would emerge as this phenomenon.  You know; he certainly did, but with the full support of the critical media going—attacking Trump, so that the, uh, man on the street would think: Oh, this guy is against the mainstream establishment. Let’s look at him more closely.  Well, let’s take a look at this grassroots revolution of Donald Trump in the form of the people, he’s appointed.

“Take, for example, Mike Flynn, a three-star general, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, supposedly, we are told, was fired from DIA by the Obama administration because he objected to the demonization of Putin and Russia and thought the military of the United States should focus more on ISIS and the Islamic terrorism in the Middle East.

“Well, Mike Flynn is—he will be, now—the National Security Advisor.  He is, reportedly, sitting next to Donald Trump and making all the decisive votes on who shall be the other key figures for the Trump administration and in terms of defense, national security, uh, and so forth.  (c. 9:12)

On US foreign policy under President Trump, advisor Walid Phares, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and their ostensible opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is ‘the mother of the mujahedeen, Al Qaeda’, et al.

“So, Mike Flynn, we are told that, uh, he’s a good guy because he later admitted, after being in favour of the invasion of Iraq by Bush in 2003, said that was actually a mistake, looking back on it.  He said it’s a strategic mistake.  It’s not a tragic mistake, but a strategic—he’s a military man.  Okay.

“The Flynn policy is connected very much with the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu.  This may shock some of your listeners.  But let’s go to another person—Walid Phares, Trump’s advisor on terrorism in the Middle East. Well, Walid Phares gave an interview in the Egyptian press where he said that Donald Trump plans to back legislation to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood.  Now, keep in mind, Huma Abedin, the right-hand, uh—I don’t know what you want to call it—of Hillary Clinton for the last, since she was 19 years old, the estranged wife of, uh, Mr. Weiner, the former congressman.  Huma Abedin is a Muslim Brother.  She’s a member of a death cult out of Egypt called the Muslim Brotherhood.  Her mother is a Muslim brother.  They call it the Sisterhood ‘cos it’s an all-man’s society.  But there are females.  And Huma and her mother are members of that female branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.  (c. 10:42)

“It’s a terrorist organisation.  It’s the mother of organisation of the mujahideen, to al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden.  It’s a CIA project, that goes back to the 1920s in Egypt, but when British intelligence was working with them.  But, uh, during the Second World War, they were in Nazi Germany broadcasting into Palestine hate broadcasts against the Jews.  And this, now, is on the bad list of, apparently, of the Trump Presidency.

“But look more closely at: Who is Walid Phares, the advisor of Trump?  You know?  He didn’t just drop out of a tree somewhere.  He’s a Senior Fellow on a very small and highly politicised think-tank in Washington called the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Now, the FDD—let’s call it the FDD—was set up in the wake of September 11, 2001.  The moneybags for it come from the notorious Sheldon Adelson, a friend of Donald Trump at the Las Vegas and Macao gambling casino billionaire, who gave the Trump campaign $25 million in the closing days and who, also, is the main financial supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Likud.  (c. 12:07)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “[exhales]”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Other backers of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where’s Trump’s Middle East terrorist advisor comes from, include the whiskey heirs Samuel and Edgar Bronfman; Wall Street billionaire speculators Michael Steinhart and Paul Singer; every single one of them are Israel first-, Netanyahu/Likud-connected.

“The vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is a man [sic] called Toby Dershowitz.  He spent 14 years as AIPAC communications head.  For those of you, who don’t know, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been described by John Mearshiemer of the University of Chicago as, quote, ‘an agent of the Israeli government with a stranglehold on the United States Congress with its power and influence.’

“Donald Trump was a featured speaker in the March 2016 AIPAC annual meeting, as, of course, was Hillary.  (c. 13:02)

“Okay, now, let’s slowly go back to Mike Flynn, the man, who will head up the National Security Council.  But his plan is to change the powers of the National Security Council and the advisor to the president to make him the sole powerful figure of the entire U.S. intelligence community with power to hire or fire.  If the director of the CIA doesn’t suit his liking, he’s gone.  This is the bill, that Mike Flynn is advocating in the Trump Presidency.  We’ll see how that goes.

“And Flynn agrees that the Iran Nuclear deal that Obama made with Iran should be scrapped.  He calls Iran a state-sponsor of terrorism.  So, that’s something, that Netanyahu finds very nice.

“But here’s the interesting thing.  For those of you, who have the memory that goes back to the 1970s and world geopolitics, Flynn co-authored a book, that was published here this year with a man named Michael Ledeen.  Now, I’m an author.  I’ve written nine books in—over the years.  And you don’t just co-author a book with any bloke on the street.  You have to have someone, whose thoughts are in full harmony with yours, otherwise it doesn’t work.  (c. 14:32)

“Well, who is Michael Ledeen?  He’s also a freedom scholar at—well, isn’t this interesting?—at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Uh, CIA director James Woolsey III, a frothing-at-the-mouth neocon, who talked about a 30 Years War after 9/11, and whose rumoured for some top position in the Trump project, is a member of the FDD, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ leadership council.

“So, now, we begin to get an idea this, uh, whole foreign policy of Trump.  Let’s step back a little bit.

On the Shanghai Corporation, a ‘platform to erode the institutions of nation states in favour of global corporate rule

“A year ago, the foreign policy strategy, that had been followed since 9/11 by George W. Bush and Cheney by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, et al., was a catastrophic failure.  The decision by Washington to create a coup d’état in Ukraine to drive a wedge between the European Union, especially Germany and Russia to break the economic links, that were growing very, very strong because it’s a natural fit.

“Well, that coup d’état had a backfire effect, a boomerang effect.  It drove Russia closer to China.  And it created the political nightmare, that Zbigniew Brzezinski talks about in his famous 1997 book, The Grand Chessgame [sic].  The cohesion of Eurasia—now, if anyone takes out a map and looks at the landspace of Russia, which goes all the way to the Pacific, Vladivostok, and the land space of China, and look a the countries, who are in between, are all members of something called the Shanghai Corporation organization.  And the fact that China is building a network of high-speed, cutting edge, state-of-the-art railways, infrastructure, crisscrossing all of this space, including Russia, then we begin to see that the patriarchs, or the oligarchs, who viewed the United States as their kind of platform to destroy the world and destroy nation states all over the world, they were beginning to lose everywhere.  And when the president of a small country, the Phillippinnes, which has been occupied by the United States since 1898, calls the President of the United States a son of a whore, then you know the the credibility and the, uh, the influence, the soft power of the United States is really hurting. [7] (c. 17:24)

“So, everywhere.  Turkey, after the failed CIA coup with Fetullah Gulen back in July of this year.  [Erdoğan] began making very, very strong moves toward cooperation, not only with Russia, but with the Shanghai Corporation countries, with Eurasia.  And it’s a natural fit.  The Turkish future isn’t the European Union.  The European Union is collapsing.  It’s falling apart.  Turkey is beginning to sense its economic future lies with Russia, lies with cooperation with China and the high speed rail links, that would be a natural fit for the Turkish economy.

“So, something drastic had to be done.  And that drastic something, from the standpoint of the US oligarchy or patriarchs—the silly old patriarchs, as I call them sometimes—is called Donald Trump.  (c. 18:23)

“And the job of Donald Trump is, through deception, to split Russia from China.  You have to divide and rule.  That combination is something the US cannot defeat, as long as it’s growing.  So, they have to start making a courtship of Putin and say, listen, let’s make a deal, like Trump would say [chuckles] and whisper pretty things in the ears of Vladimir Putin and most Russians.  The Russian media, I know—I’ve travelled to Russia quite often.  My books are translated in the Russian language, my articles as well.  I know many, many Russians.  The Russian media is probably more pro-Donald Trump than the US media.  They think this is finally—you know, so tired of this: Every bad thing that happens in the world is because of Putin.  It’s like being mobbed.  And, finally, here comes Trump whispering friendly things.  (c. 19:22)

“But that’s the game, to shift away from the Muslim Brotherhood card, that was the Obama administration geostrategy, using radical Islam as a proxy for expanding empire—if you wanna call it—to using Israel, using the Mossad, using the Israeli defence forces and all of the geopolitical leverage, that Israel has in the Middle East and other places, which is considerable as their strategic weapon.  At the same time, this thing about making America great again, it’s more becoming clear what Trump and his economic advisors are talking about is a Reagan kind of rebuilding of the American military might.  The Navy has been allowed to deteriorate over the last 20 or 30 years, significantly.  The spending on the Pentagon is so out of control the auditor general last summer, uh, the inspector general, who is responsible for the audits of the service branches certified that there were $6.5 trillion dollars of US Army expenses in recent years, that doesn’t have a paper trail.  There is no audit trail possible—$6.5 trillion dollars.  Look at this all-purpose, all-service fighter jet.  It’s gonna cost tax payers $1.3, $1.5 trillion dollars for something, that’s a heap of junk.  It doesn’t work.  (c. 21:09)

“So, with a shoe-string budget, after the invitation to intervene in Syria against the terrorists, Russia demonstrated that with a shoestring budget they had developed military technologies, that are leading edge, not just state-of-the-art, leading edge and, literally, shocked the Pentagon military strategists what Russia has accomplished in the last ten years, quietly.

“But when the US announced that it was going for missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic in 2007, if you recall then, Vladimir Putin, in his first presidency, was invited to Munich for the International Security Conference, an annual conference.  He gave a speech.  And he said, to say that this missile defence in Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed at rogue states, like Iran or North Korea, is, as we say in Russia, like using your right hand to scratch your left ear. It’s nonsense. This is aimed at Russia.  And it is aimed at Russia.  (c. 22:18)

“So, since that time, of course, it’s greatly expanded.  NATO troops are being mounted on the border of Russia.  Uh, the US—Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for eastern Europe and Europe—and Turkey also, by the way—uh, brought a bunch of neo-nazis into the regime in Kiev when they ousted the democratically-elected president—he may have been a thief; but he was democratically elected—and, uh, put in a bunch of fascist oligarchs, that are simply looting and plundering Ukraine and making war against the eastern parts of Ukraine.  It’s just a—it’s a failed state.  That is the US handiwork.  That’s the Washington project.

“So, something had to be done.  And that something is what you see shaping up with Trump.  (c. 23:12)

“They’re going to make China into the enemy image.  They’re gonna try to split off Russia through hook and crook, through disinformation, through—who knows what.  They’ll probably lift the sanctions at some point, uh, to try to get Russia off guard and try to sow seeds of discord between Russian and China.  And, then, with that, they’re gonna target China massively.  They’ve already begun it with this so-called accidental phone call between Trump and the president of Taiwan, breaching some 40 years of diplomatic protocol.  (c. 23:53)

Trump’s new team comes from the “war faction of the Bush-Cheney administration”

“So, this is the Trump presidency.  Michael Ledeen is the godfather—the co-author with Flynn of this book—he’s the godfather of the neoconservatives.  He’s the mentor of Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the war of faction of George W. Bush.  This is Donald Trump.”  (c. 24:13)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “You’ve been listening to the voice of author and political analyst William Engdahl.  I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  This is Guns and Butter.  Today is the fund drive, our December Fund Drive on KPFA.  (c. 24:31)

[Bonnie Faulkner continued with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA, the world’s original listener-sponsored free speech radio station, which PBS and NPR later copied, but in a non-free speech manner with corporate underwriting.]  (c. 25:17)

“I’d love to get some support on the phone for KPFA radio, for the Pacifica Radio Network.  Please give us a call.  1.800.439-5732.  1.800.439-5732.  $110 tax-deductible donation to KPFA and we would be delighted to provide you with William Engdahl’s newest book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy.  Of course, this is a history of the Muslim Brotherhood, the mujihedeen, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the United States CIA involvement with this War of Terror against Muslim jihadis.  1.800.439-5732.  (c. 26:13)

“In about a minute or two, I’m going to play you a description of the book by the author, William Engdahl.  The Lost Hegemon, of course, refers to the United States.

“In his foreword to the book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy, he talks about the Islamic state and the lost hegemon.

ISIS, later calling itself IS, had been created as a joint project by the CIA and Israeli Mossad to combine psychotic mercenaries, posing as Islamic jihadists gathered from around the world, Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, even Chinese-Turkish Xinjian province in what the CIA called ‘Operation Hornet’s Nest’ when some Israeli journalist experts pointed out that the letters I-S-I-S stood for the English name of Mossad—Israeli Secret Intelligence Service.  The jihadis quickly proclaimed, over YouTube, a new name—Islamic State, or IS—in what appeared to be clumsy cover-up attempt.  (c. 27:27)

“That is just one paragraph from William Engdahl’s foreword to his new book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy.

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]  (c. 28:08)

“I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  This is Guns and Butter.  I think what I would like to do right now is play you a brief six-minute description by the author of his new book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy.”

[broadcast cuts to pre-recorded interview clip]  (c. 28:26)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “Could you talk a bit about your new book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy?  What is your new book about?”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “It’s about an organisation.  It’s about the Muslim Brotherhood, primarily.  But, uh, it’s about the marriage—I call it, in the book, ‘a marriage made in hell’—between the Central Intelligence Agency, back in the early 1950s, at the end of World War II, beginning in the Cold War, and their discovery in Munich, Germany, of all places, of secret networks, that were discovered by the Nazis, Hitler, and used—they were networks—Muslim Brotherhood networks used against Soviet Russia and communism because they regard communism as the infidels.  And the CIA realised that these particular Muslims had nothing to do with the religion.  They had such a fanatical hatred, that they were a beautiful weapon. (c. 29:39)

“Well, then, they got more involved with the organisation.  And the station chief of the CIA in Cairo at that time, Miles Copeland, years ago—I talked with him before his death when was retired—he kind of, you know, like old men do sometimes, uh, warriors or whatever, they wanna brag a little bit about what they’ve done.  But, uh, he admitted that he smuggled the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt into Saudi Arabia after they had been banned by Nasser when they tried to assassinate him—the president of Egypt.

“And, there, began one of the most perverse marriages in modern history.  The Muslim Brotherhood, with their political activism, their messianic political activism, combined—and it’s a death cult, explicitly a death cult, by the teachings of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of it in Egypt—together with the most reactionary, pre-feudal Bedouin stream of Islam; if you wanna call it a religion, call it Wahhabism.  And the Muslim Brotherhood provided the scholars and the madrasas and the universities in Saudi Arabia because they didn’t have enough, uh—you know, you come out of the desert a generation ago and all you know how to do is take care of your camel.  I’m not being cynical.  This is the state of the culture in Saudi Arabia today.  Look at how they treat women. (c. 31:19)

“So, that became—the oil riches of Saudi Arabia financed the worldwide agenda of the World Muslim League [sic], which is a Muslim Brotherhood.  They expanded into Pakistan.  They expanded into Afghanistan and many other countries in between and beyond.  And that all became connected with the CIA, and became, what I describe in the book in great detail with footnotes and documentation, it became the project of the CIA called Osama bin Laden and the mujahideen against the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan, the CIA project that took ten years to, uh, bring it to a close.

“And, then, the CIA,  brought those Muslim Brotherhood and mujahideen.  They flew them into former Soviet Union Azerbaijan, created a regime change, coup, a coup d’état there, that would save British Petroleum and the American oil companies against the Russian.  And that used to be part of the Soviet Union, keep in mind, in 1991, ’92.  (c. 32:29)

“And, then, they brought them into Chechnya, where an old Soviet pipeline went from Baku in Azerbaijan into Russia and on to the world market.  Well, if British Petroleum is gonna build a pipeline, they’re gonna have to destroy the Russian pipeline.  So, they brought in the terrorists to create the Chechen War during the time of Yeltsin.  And, from there, Boznia and Herzegovina, in Yugoslavia against the Serbs and so on, right down to, uh, al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Syria morphed into something called the Islamic State in Iraq.  And, then, I think somebody realised that I-S-I-S is the abbreviation sometimes used by the Mossad for, uh, the Hebrew designation of the Mossad.  And they thought, maybe we better change it to I-S, so nobody is tempted to thread that connection.  That’s speculation.  But some Israeli journalists have made that speculation. (c. 33:29)

“In any case, the book deals with this, including in Turkey, a fascinating figure, that almost has totally taken over the institutions of power in Turkey over the past 30 years, named Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania since 1998, even though he, up until 2013, was a supporter of the party of Recep Erdoğan, the president of Turkey now.  They had a falling out, [since] Gülen was behind a poorly organised CIA coup, once Erdoğan began to make rapprochement with Putin and turn east against the wishes of Washington. (c. 34:21)

“So, the book details this.  It’s unique as far as the research, most of the literature on the subject.  Uh, it puts together a pattern from the standpoint of U.S. geopolitics, that has not been done until now.  But that’s the broad outline of the book.”  (c. 34:44)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “That’s the voice of William Engdahl, describing his new book, which is our premium today for a $110 dollar, tax-deductible donation to KPFA.

“The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy” (c. 35:03)

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]  (c. 35:23)

“He’s written some very famous, very incredible books.”

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]  (c. 35:45)

“And, like he said, he doesn’t know any other author, who has written a book like this.  It’s a full, detailed analysis and history of the mother of the Muslim Brotherhood, the mujahideen, al-Qaeda, ISIS, the War On Terror.  This is a very, very important subject.

“Let me tell you a few of the chapters.  It begins with The Islamic State and The Lost Hegemon.  And, of course, the lost hegemon is the United States.  He analyses this whole policy of the War On Terror and supporting, uh, the jihadists, violent jihadists as a failed policy.

“And, of course, as you heard in our interview today, ‘The Incredible Deception of the Trump Presidency’, there’s going to be, in his view, in his analysis, a shift away from support of Muslim Brotherhood, uh, violent jihadis, into a rapprochement with Russia and political geo-strategy of pulling closer to Israel. (c. 37:02)

“His introduction to the book is called Brotherhood of Death: Organising the New Terror Crusade.  Jihad Comes to Germany.  Iraq and Washington’s Crusade Against Islam.  Roots of Islamic Rage: Sykes-Picot, Balfour, and British Perfidy.  Death In the Service of Allah: the Muslim Brothers Are Born.  Then, The Muslim Brotherhood Joins Hitler’s Holy War Against the Jews.  From Munich to the Soviet Steps: The CIA Funds the Muslim Brothers.  The CIA’s Afghan Crusade: Opium Wars, bin Laden, and Mujahideen.  Globalizing Jihad: From Afghanistan to Bosnia.  Holy War and Heroin In Kosovo and the Caucasus.  CIA Backs a New Ottoman Caliphate In Eurasia.

“These are all chapter headings.  So, you’ll know exactly the content of this book, The Lost Hegemon.  The CIA’s Jihad Comes to Russia.  A Holy War Against China.  A War On Terror: Using Religion to Make War.  And chapter 14, NATO’s Arab Spring And Unintended Consequences.

“Those are the chapter headings from The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy by William Engdahl, our gift to you today for a $110 donation to KPFA. (c. 38:45)

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.  Also mentioned is the KPFA Crafts Fair at the Craneway Pavilion.]  (c. 41:10)

“We’re offering today, the newest book by William Engdahl, um, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy.  And, that, of course, is a history of the Muslim Brotherhood and its involvement with the CIA over many, many decades, a global strategy, that William Engdahl says has been a basically a failure, a disaster.  And he also—no, we’re gonna go back to, uh, in a few minutes—I wanna get some people on the phone, get some pledges coming in to KPFA, and we’ll go back to this interview.” (c. 41:44)

“This interview, hour-long interview, ‘The Incredible Trump Deception‘—uh, we’re gonna have the full hour-long interview up on the Guns and Butter website, GunsAndButter.org, within a few days, so you can hear the whole thing.  We’ll get back to some of it.  It’s his analysis of what the Trump Presidency means, where it’s going, who his appointees are, what the agenda is.

“Of course, he has talked in the beginning, that I broadcast at the beginning of the hour, about, um—well, I guess he hasn’t gotten to that part yet.  We’re preparing for, he believes, the US is preparing for a new war, that it’s gonna take many, many years to get ready for this war.  He doesn’t think they’re going to really pull it off.  There’s gonna be a change in strategy, a geopolitical shift to have better relations with Russia to go after China.  (c. 42:49)

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]  (c. 45:00)

“Keep this precious resource on the air.  I’ve noticed, as many of you have noticed, that there is a growing crackdown on information websites.  The Washington Post had that article listing, uh, fake news websites, 200 of them.  And I was reading the list and I thought, oh, my gosh, these are a lot of the websites, that I read every day.

“There is a real crackdown on freedom of speech, of information, uh, now, more important than ever to support KPFA, to support the Pacifica Network.  This is an incredible resource, the kind of analysis and information and authors and analysts, that we bring you weekly on Guns and Butter wouldn’t be heard on any other radio station.  This is so important to support KPFA.  (c. 45:51)

“A $25 dollar donation makes you a Member of KPFA for a year.  Those $25 dollar donations—donations in any amount—are very important to KPFA.  Not everyone can afford to donate $110 dollars.  $25 donations go a long way.  The important thing to do is to call in and support the station.  1.800.439-5732.

“Well, as long as we have, uh, a few minutes left, I’d like to hear—let’s play a little bit more of this interview, that I did with William Engdahl.”

[broadcast cuts to pre-recorded interview clip]  (c. 46:31)

On the “Oligarchs/Patriarchs” and “Plan B” for positioning Trump into power

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “You’ve described the Trump Presidency as the install Plan B President.”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Yeah.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “You’ve kind of started to talk about what Plan B is.”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “M-hm.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “You have written that Donald Trump was put into office to prepare America for war.”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Yeah.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “Now, of course, the people, that have been, uh, listening to his campaign would, uh, probably not think that.”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Sure.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “But what in your view—what—” [overlapping]

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Well, he doesn’t want it.  But he wants to win the power.  The people behind him want him to win the power.  They don’t want to freak the population out.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “Well, what, in your view, would this war look like?  And what would be a time-frame?  And maybe you can talk about that in conjunction with some of these other cabinet appointees.  I mean—”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Sure.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “—he’s got quite a few of ’em now.”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Yeah.  I think what they realise is that the banks of Wall Street, the financial crash of 2008, the fact that the six criminal banks of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and so forth, have been on artificial life support, now, for eight years at point-two-five [.25] interest rate of the Fed.  Uh, this this isn’t a military base to win a war. [sic]  They want—Russia did in Syria, that tiny little shoestring budget, that they deployed in Syria.  If that’s combined with the, uh, military buildup, that’s going on in China, then you have the capacity to defend the Eurasian landspace against anything the United States can send.  (c. 48:17)

“Keep in mind the agenda of people like Zbigniew Brzezinski, the agenda of David Rockefeller, the agenda of these oligarchs.  And I assume that your listeners understand the term oligarch because that’s what these people are. They’re patriatrchs, really.  Their agenda is new world order, one world government, glob—this isn’t conspiracy theory.  This is their agenda.  David Rockefeller even stated so on his autobiography several years ago.  He said, if this is the charge I’m charged with, I’m proud of it.

“So, Zbigniew Brzezinski, back in the ’70s, in his Technotronic Era book, writes about the fact that the nation state has to be eliminated. [8]

“So, who are the strongest nation states in the world today?  China, Russia, Iran.  And the three of them are cooperating in a way, that never has taken place before.  So, this is the war that they are preparing for.  I think, my own guess is, it’ll take between four, six, or eight years, something of that time-frame.  It won’t work in the end.  It’s a failed strategy.  But that’s all they know.  Their mentality is going back to 1939, Roosevelt and the military buildup for World War II.  That’s the, you know, template they have in their mind that we just do that again on a technology and blah-deeh, blah-dee, blah. (c. 49:51)

“So, it’s already—Trump has pledged the biggest naval buildup, under his presidency, since the huge naval buildup of Reagan.  And, you know, you look at the Secretary of State—for the first time since George Marshall, the beginning of the Cold War—there’s a retired military general as Defense Secretary.  There had been a tradition to always have a civilian as head of defense.

“Now, we’ve got a man, whose known as the Warrior Monk, Mad Dog Mathis.  , the man that I would say, if I were a clinical psychologist, I would call him a psychopath from statements he’s made and things he’s done.  The soldiers love him.  When you’re in the trenches, he’s down there with you.  That’s said to be the case.

“But, as Trump said, he’s the, uh—what did he call him?—uh, a modern-day General Patton.  Well, General Patton wasn’t exactly [chuckles] a beautiful human being, either.  So, this is really not a group of pacifists, that is coming around Trump.  I think what you’re gonna see—the choice of Wilbur Ross as Commerce Secretary, together with his campaign manager, Steve Mnuchin, former partner at Goldman Sachs, as was his father.  Steve Mnuchin, a former partner with the, uh, Soros Fund, management of George Soros.  Steve Mnuchin, a business associate of Donald Trump, going back to Trump’s casino days. (c. 51:46)

“They are going to create, probably, some kind of national infrastructure bank or fund.  They’re gonna have a strong dollar policy, the way, uh, Bush, Sr. had, or actually, Reagan-Bush from 1980 until about 1985, when the dollar got so high it was threatening everything.  And they had this Plaza Accord meeting and had Japan, uh, bring the dollar down.

“But, uh, the policy will be to start interest rate increases with Europe in the critical bad shape its in, especially after the Italian referendum, the European Bank crises, and so forth, it won’t take much to create a massive capital flight out of the Eurozone into—where you gonna go?—the US dollar.  Trump’s building infrastructure.  There are new projects.  So, there’s gonna be hundreds of billions of dollars coming into the dollar.  That’ll drive up the dollar as well.  That’ll suck capital out from China. [9]  That’ll suck capital out from the emerging markets, the BRICS countries and so forth.  And it’s gonna be as simple as that, I think. (c. 53:03)

“Wilbur Ross, he cut his teeth for about 14 years, as I recall, for Rothschild, Incorporated, the New York arm of the British and French Rothschild Banking group, restructuring bankrupt companies.  So, he’s gonna restructure bankrupt America, perhaps. [10]

“But it has, as their aim, to rebuild as the Project for a New American Century said back in 2000, rebuild America’s defenses for war, not just to play monopoly or dominoes or something.  And that’s a bit crazy, but that’s, you know, that’s—”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “It’s interesting what you’re saying about their economic plan because I was reading a financial analyst on the internet trying to sell his analysis to investors.”

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Yeah.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “And he was saying exactly the same thing, basically, that there’s gonna be flight capital [sic] out of Europe into a safe haven.  And it’s gonna create a stock market boom in the US.”  (c. 54:14)

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “Yeah.  It’s, uh, so clear to me.  The people, that, you know—most of the intelligent people I speak with, here, in Europe, uh, where I live, in Germany, uh, they just don’t get it.  They, they can’t quite see where it’s headed.  But, today, the Prime Minister of Italy resigned because he lost a referendum, uh, Renzi.  The Renzi government resigned.

“Now, the Italian banks—”  [Bonnie Faulkner’s voice overlaps]

[end of pre-recorded interview clip]

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “That’s the voice of William Engdahl.  I was speaking to him about the coming economic situation, that Europe is going down.  There’s gonna be flight capital [sic] out of Europe, creating a stock market boom here, at least temporarily, I suppose.  He is the author of a new book, The Lost Hegemon—which refers to the United States—Whom the gods would destroy.  This is a book, a brand new book, a history of the Muslim Brotherhood through the mujahideen; al-Qaeda; ISIS, their involvement with the CIA; the War On Terror as a failed strategy.  (c. 55:25)

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]  (c. 56:13)

“I just wanted to mention briefly that the entire hour-long interview on the coming Trump Presidency, all of his appointees, and how William Engdahl thinks this is gonna go, that will be up—the full interview—at GunsAndButter.org within the next few days.  I’d also like to say that, next week, we’re gonna do—I’m gonna do—a whole hour-long interview with William Engdahl on his book about The Lost Hegemon, about the Muslim Brotherhood. (c. 56:44) 

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]  (c. 56:57)

“I’m so excited to have him on the show.  I’ve wanted to have William Engdahl on for years.  And I just haven never gotten around to it, until now.  (c. 56:06)

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, focusing on appeals for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]  (c. 59:00)

“But, you know, the fundraisers are kind of fun.  It gives me a chance to come in live, which I always enjoy.  And, also, it’s a way to give sort of an extended platform to some of these incredible books and authors and DVDs.

“1.800.439-5732.  I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  This is Guns and Butter.  Please send me an email with any of your comments to faulkner@gunsandbutter.org.  Visit William Engdahl’s website at WilliamEngdahl.com.  He has a newsletter, that he sends out.  You could sign up for that.  GunsAndButter.org.  I’ll have his full interview up in a week.  And, also, I’m hoping to see a lot of you at the Craneway Crafts Fair.  1.800.439-5732.

“Thank you so very—” (c. 59:59)  [7 DEC 2016]

Learn more at GUNS AND BUTTER.

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Guns and Butter.]

GUNS AND BUTTER—[14 DEC 2016]  (synopsis)  “A program that investigates the relationships among capitalism, militarism and politics, hosted by Bonnie Faulkner.”

[“Thank you.”  Board operator:  “It is now one o’clock here at KPFA, 94.1 FM in Berkeley; 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley; 88.1 KFCF in Fresno; 97.5 K24ABR in Santa Cruz; and online at kpfa.org.  Please stay tuned for Guns and Butter.”] 

“[via telephone] This is Guns and Butter.  [Guns and Butter theme music begins]

“I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  Today on Guns and Butter, F. William Engdahl.  Today is a fundraiser for KPFA.  And I’m offering two of William Engdahl’s books, The New Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy [sic] and A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order.  Both of these books are very important.  Today, we’re going to start with William Engdahl’s overview of the American century, or what he calls the debt-slavery system.  Lucretia, let’s hear that first track.” (c. 1:25)

On global capitalist imperialism, post-WWII

DR. F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL:  “What I would like to do is talk about how I see the world since 1945, since the end the Second World War.  And I wanna go back to a project, that was initiated in 1939.  It was done in top secrecy.  Today, some of the archives have been released by the Council On Foreign Relations, the think-tank set up at the end of the First World War in London, or Versailles, rather, by the bankers, JP Morgan and Rockefeller, their representatives there as well as the leading circles of British strategic policy called the Roundtable.  And they created the newer Council On Foreign Relations to coordinate with the Chatham House in London, that they also created at the same time—the Royal Institute for International Affairs—to coordinate a grand strategy across the Atlantic, that would more or less dominate the world.  (c. 2:36)

“And, in 1939, in the midst of the Great Depression, before the German Nazi Panzers had rolled into Poland and formally began World War II, the New York Council On Foreign Relations was given a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation to do a project, a top secret project, called War and Peace Studies.  War and Peace Studies.

“And the project gathered together some of the top minds, political minds, of America and brought them in.  One of the leading figures was Professor Isaiah Bowman, then, the president of Johns Hopkins University and a geographer, interesting enough  In other words, geography of the world was his expertise.  He even called himself, unfortunately—he realised that—America’s Haushofer because Karl Haushofer was the architect, or the ghostwriter, actually, in the 1920s of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf when he was in prison.  (c. 3:49)

“And this group operated under the assumption that World War II was about to unfold.  And they said:  We have to plan now so that America is the survivor of that war and will replace all other contenders as the dominant power on the planet.

“So, they, literally, brought in experts of every part of the globe—central Asia; Asia,  Burma; China; India; South America; uh, Africa, of course; Middle East, with the oil.  And they worked out plans for dominating the key nations, the key geography spots, the Straits of Malacca with the Navy; the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, all these chokepoints for oil flows or trade flows.

“And they created what was called a project called ‘The United Nations Organisation’, that became official at Dumbarton Oaks.  And the idea was to create a geopolitical map of the world where the power of the United States military could dominate that world.  And that, more or less, was what emerged from World War II.  They waited, these strategists, and Roosevelt was informed of their plans, they waited until quite late into the war—1942—sometime after Pearl Harbor, December 1941, which Roosevelt also had foreknowledge of through cracking the Japanese codes, but let happen in order to mobilise the rage and fear of the American population for a war, a war that was not, initially, against Nazi Germany and Europe. [11]

“And, after that war, the United States emerged.  The Federal Reserve Bank had the largest reserves of monetary gold in the world, 70% by some estimates.  They had much of the gold of the defeated powers—the Nazi gold and others—and American industry, because of war mobilisation—the aluminum industry; the aircraft industry; the vehicle industry of Detroit; the steel industry, that was used to feed that—was strongest in the world.  It was American quality, that was in demand everywhere.  Europe was in an ash-heap of rubble and bombed-out cities.

And Europe, also, had no credible currencies.  So, they desperately needed to have dollars.  And the Marshall Plan, that was proposed and implemented in the end of the ’40s, early ’50s, was actually a way of giving taxpayer dollars, so that they could buy American goods, buy American oil for their own recovery.  So, it was not an act of pure charity.  It was a very calculated act to get dollars in circulation in Europe.  And that allowed the dollar to dominate the reserves of the emerging post-war central banks of Europe—the Bank of England; the Bank of France; the Bank of Italy; and so forth; and, ultimately, the Bundesbank, when that was allowed to be created. (c. 7:49)

“The process of American hegemony went flawlessly, one could almost say.  It wasn’t quite flawless.  They made a coup d’état in Iraq with the CIA and MI6 of Britain in the eraly 1950s against a nationalist, who wanted to have a fair share of the revenues of British Petroleum from the extraction of Iranian oil.  His name was Mohammad Mosaddegh. (c. 8:24)

[snip]

[On Nixon unilaterally closing the gold window, effectively ending the gold standard when he ended convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold by declaring that he’s ripping up the Bretton Woods agreement, which were signed in 1944 at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference; Dr. Engdahl incorrectly refered to it as a “treaty”.]

(c. 15:00)  [Bilderberg Group meets in May of 1973.  Its organisers hand-picked 78 ruling class elites, including Henry Kissinger to discuss a challenge to the power of the OPEC nations and what to do about “recycling oil dollars” or “petrodollars into their banks.]

[USA jacks up its interest rates, causing global financial turmoil, such as the Latin American financial crisis.  Then, austerity politics and privatization and neoliberalism prevailed thereafter.]

(c. 28:00)  [Misunderstanding (or being unaware of) modern monetary theory (MMT), Dr. Engdahl incorrectly stated the U.S. is ‘more than $3 trillion dollars in deficit’.  We recall Bonnie Faulkner flew to Rimini, Italy in 2012 to cover an international conference on MMT.  Faulkner broadcast seven hours worth of coverage on Guns and Butter, during which Dr. Stephanie Kelton (UMKC) taught us that, at the federal level, “taxes don’t pay for anything”.  This is an undisputed fact of our monetary system.  So, the USA doesn’t need to tax its populace to raise money for government spending.  Another common myth, which Dr. Engdahl unfortunately seems to believe, suggests that the USA needs to borrow dollars from China and other places.  It is incorrectly believed that the interest, which the USA owes to its bondholders, for example, is the USA ‘borrowing’ dollars from China and so forth.  Yes, the USA issues bonds, for which it pays interest.  But the USA every day makes good on those bonds, which many Americans also hold.  The USA faces no risk of insolvency as it is the sovereign currency issuer of the US dollar.  For more on MMT, check out the blog for the heterodox economics department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC); it’s called NewEconomicPerspectives.org.]

[Bonnie Faulkner continued with her remarks, but with a focus on appealing for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]

[Bonnie Faulkner played another clip from her interview with Dr. Engdahl on his ‘description of the Lost Hegemon’.]

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, but with a focus on appealing for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]

[Bonnie Faulkner played a clip from an upcoming Guns and Butter show with Dr. Engdahl on the ‘Trump Deception’.]

[Bonnie Faulkner continues with her remarks, but with a focus on appealing for listener sponsorship of free speech radio KPFA.]

[additional notes pending]

[snip]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at GUNS AND BUTTER.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

[1]  About the author:  F. William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst, strategic risk consultant, author, and lecturer. He has authored nine books that have been translated into 14 foreign languages including Chinese, German, Japanese, including the international best-selling A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics; Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation; Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order His works trace the basis of the rise of the US as an international superpower, the emergence after 1945 of America as a new kind of Empire, one not based upon sole military occupation. It was an ‘informal empire,’ where control of finance, of the basic food chain, of energy—above all of oil, would be the basis for what would become the greatest concentration of power in history, an American Hegemon, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. William Engdahl grew up in Texas. After earning a degree in politics from Princeton University, and graduate study in comparative economics at Stockholm University, he worked as an economist and investigative journalist in the USA and Europe. He was Named Visiting Professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology and delivers talks and private seminars around the world on different aspects of economics and politics with focus on geopolitical events. www.williamengdahl.com.

[2]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Guns and Butter, this one-hour broadcast hosted by regular host Bonnie Faulkner, Wednesday, 7 DEC 2016, 13:00 PDT.

Also recall HST:

Hegemonic stability theory (HST) is a theory of international relations, rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history. HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single nation-state is the dominant world power, or hegemon.[1] Thus, the fall of an existing hegemon or the state of no hegemon diminishes the stability of the international system. When a hegemon exercises leadership, either through diplomacy, coercion, or persuasion, it is actually deploying its “preponderance of power.” This is called hegemony, which refers to a state’s ability to “single-handedly dominate the rules and arrangements …[of] international political and economic relations.”[2] HST can help analyze the rise of great powers to the role of world leader or hegemon, which have been ongoing since the 15th century. Also, it can be used to understand and to calculate the future of international politics through the discussion of the symbiotic relation between the declining hegemon and its rising successor.[3]

Research on hegemony can be divided into two schools of thought: the realist school and the systemic school. Each school can be further sub-divided. Two dominant theories have emerged from each school. What Robert Keohane first called the “theory of hegemonic stability,”[4] joins A. F. K. Organski‘s Power Transition Theory as the two dominant approaches to the realist school of thought. Long Cycle Theory, espoused by George Modelski, and World Systems Theory, espoused by Immanuel Wallerstein, have emerged as the two dominant approaches to the systemic school of thought.[5] 

Charles P. Kindleberger is one of the scholars most closely associated with HST, and is regarded by some as the theory’s father.[6] In the 1973 book The World in Depression: 1929-1939, he argued that the economic chaos between World War I and World War II that led to the Great Depression was partly attributable to the lack of a world leader with a dominant economy. Kindleberger’s reasoning touched upon more than economics, however: the central idea behind HST is that the stability of the global system, in terms of politics, international law, and so on, relies on the hegemon to develop and enforce the rules of the system.[7]

In addition to Kindleberger, key figures in the development of hegemonic stability theory include George Modelski, Robert Gilpin, Robert Keohane, Stephen Krasner, and others.[8][9]

[3]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Guns and Butter, this one-hour broadcast, a Fund Drive Special, hosted by regular host Bonnie Faulkner, Wednesday, 14 DEC 2016, 13:00 PST.

[4]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Guns and Butter, this one-hour broadcast, entitled “The Incredible Trump Deception“, was hosted by regular host Bonnie Faulkner, Wednesday, 21 DEC 2016, 13:00 PST.

[5]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Guns and Butter, this one-hour broadcast, entitled “The Lost Hegemon: How the CIA Lost Its Holy War Crusade“, was hosted by regular host Bonnie Faulkner, Wednesday, 28 DEC 2016, 13:00 PST.

[6]  “The Dangerous Deception Called ‘The Trump Presidency’” by F. William Engdahl, 25 NOV 2016, GlobalResearch.org:Trump doigt

The project called the Trump Presidency has just two months before its formal beginning. Yet already the hopes and fantasies of much of the world are making him into something and someone Donald Trump most definitely is not.

Donald Trump is yet another project of the same bo2ring old patriarchs who try again and again to create a one world order that they control absolutely, a New World Order that one close Trump backer once referred to as universal fascism.

Ignore the sometimes fine rhetoric in some of his speeches.  Talk is cheap.  If we consider rather the agenda that’s taking form even in these very early days of cabinet naming, we can see that Donald Trump is the same agenda of war and global empire as Obama, as Bush before him, as Bill Clinton and Clinton’s “tutor”, George H.W. Bush before him.  There is no good side to what the world is about to experience with President Trump.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, It’s Showtime!’ Today we give you Donald Trump.

He will tell you just what many of you want to hear.  Trump the showman will tell you he will make America great again; Trump will say he will ship at least 3 million illegals back across the Rio Grande; Trump will introduce a bill to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization; Trump will bring jobs back to America from China and other low wage countries; Trump will sit down with Putin and work out some kind of a deal to calm things down; Trump will scrap the Iran nuclear deal of Obama…

Often during this election campaign, which was more a Hollywood “D1” grade movie than any honest debate of policies and ideas candidate Trump made statements that resonated with the “silent majority” of not only so-called blue collar workers, but also the disenfranchised middle class whose earnings have been declining in real terms since the 1970’s.  Trump, like an earlier actor-President named Ronald Reagan, has a talent to make himself sound sincere.

[snip]

Learn more at GLOBAL RESEARCH.

[7]  Of course, President Rodrigo Duterte may not hold much credibility as a character witness, given the fact that his administration is being charged with human rights violations and killings.  See Hard Knock Radio for 21 DEC 2016.

[8]  Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, quoted in the book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era:

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society.  Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values.  Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen.  These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

[9]  Fact-check pending.

[10]  Fact-check pending.

[11]  The apparently deliberate and self-serving late entry of the United States armed forces into WWII is also documented in Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States.

***

[7 DEC 2016]

[Last modified at 21:43 PST on 15 JAN 2017]

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09 Mon May 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Imperialism, Anti-War, Political Economy, Political Science, Presidential Election 2016

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Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens (1960-2012), Awakening Councils, Bernie Sanders, Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Catonsville Nine, David Dellinger (1915-2004), David Petraeus (b. 1952), Donald Trump, drone program, drone programme, drone warfare, Fallujah, Father Daniel Berrigan (1921-2016), First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Hillary Rodham Clinton, investigative journalism, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Jeremy Scahill, kill list, KPFA, Leonard Peltier, Letters and Politics, Libya, Mitch Snyder (1943-1990), Obama administration, Pacifica Radio Network, Paul Bremer, Project for the New American Century, Revolutionary Nonviolence, Saddam Hussein (1937-2006), Salvador Option, Saudi Arabia, Shia death squads, The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government's Secret Drone Warfare Program (2016), Thomas Merton OCSO (1915-1968), William Kristol

Scahill in Berkeley-9-may-2016LUMPENPROLETARIAT—Award-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, the author of Blackwater (a 2007 George Polk Award winner) and Dirty Wars, has graced his loyal Berkeley/San Francisco Bay Area/northern California audience with his consistently earnest appraisals of the state of the nation, the state of the empire.  Jeremy Scahill has earned loads of awards, including the Izzy Award, Project Censored Awards, and the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize, one of the richest literary awards in the world.

Hosted by free speech radio’s Brian Edwards-Tiekert earlier this evening at the First Congregational Church of  Berkeley, Jeremy Scahill discussed the USA’s imperial “assassination complex”.  Your Lumpenproletariat correspondent was in attendance and filed the following notes. [1]

UPDATE [9 MAY 2016]  Free speech radio’s UpFront, in anticipation of Jeremy Scahill’s presentation at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 9 MAY 2016, broadcast a discussion with the author.  Listen (or download) here. [2]

UPDATE [11 MAY 2016]  Free speech radio’s Letters and Politics has decided to broadcast excerpts from Jeremy Scahill‘s speech from Monday, 9 MAY 2016, at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley.  Listen (or download) here. [3]

Messina

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[Working draft transcript of actual event by Messina for Lumpenproletariat, Jeremy Scahill, and KPFA; apologies for gaps at the outset.  I was visiting with a KPFA friend, Perrine Kelly, tabling for KPFA in the lobby, when I heard BET begin and I had to scramble for a seat.  So, I failed to capture clearly the complete event.  N.B.:  The annotated time-stamps correspond to my personal audio recording digital file.]

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY, Berkeley, California; Monday, 9 MAY 2016, 19:30 PDT

BRIAN EDWARDS-TIEKERT:  “[SNIP] (c. 0:01)  [inaudible]  The culmination of that work is gathered together in this book, that Jeremy has kindly joined us to present tonight.  It’s entitled The Assassination Complex:  Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program.  I’d like you to join me in giving a very warm welcome to Jeremy Scahill. [audience/congregation applause]

JEREMY SCAHILL:  “Well, it’s really great to see so many of you here tonight.  I know you’d rather be at the [inaudible] or a Bernie rally.  But you came here.  [SNIP]  So, I really appreciate it.

“It really is always a treat to come to Berkeley and to be around friends from KPFA.

“In many ways, I grew up at Pacifica Radio.  [I’m trying to say] I started off by working an [inaudible].  I was more of a [inaudible].  [audience laughter]

[inaudible] volunteer.  But, over the years, I participated at all of the Pacifica stations many times.

“[inaudible]  And there was nothing I would rather be doing than working in radio.  [inaudible]  And Democracy Now! was very much my university.  And I learned journalism, like so many people who had gone through KPFA or KPFK or WBAI or KPFT or WPFW.  And that was learning journalism as a trade, like a plumber, or an electrician, or their trade.  And I think, if you come at it that way, you’re much more inclined to embrace the key principles of good journalism, or responsible journalism, that you hold those in power accountable, regardless of what political party they’re from, that you give voice to the voiceless, and that you provide people with information, that is actionable, that they can translate into action, help them make informed decisions on what policies to support or oppose and how to shape different ways of seeing the world, than those in power would have us believe is the truth and nothing but the truth.  (c. 3:19)

“So, I feel at home among the community at KPFA.  And I commend this radio station for giving so many young people an opportunity to study journalism and study rebel journalism.  So—” [strong, sudden, audience applause]

“As we’re speaking today on May 9th [2016], it would have been the 95th birthday of Father Daniel Berrigan, the amazing Jesuit priest, antiwar activist, poet, author.  I would say that the four people who’ve had the greatest impact on my life as a young person trying to figure out what I wanted to do were David Dellinger, the great pacifist who was most known for being one of the Chicago Eight, also a fierce and tireless advocate for political prisoners, particularly Leonard Peltier, who was once again just passed over for clemency by President Obama.

“David Dellinger was not just an activist, but he was also a journalist.  And I always tell young people that if you wanna read one busy, excellent collection of essays from someone who really didn’t give a shit if someone called him an activist journalist or not—oh, we’re in church; [audience laughs] sorry God [audience laughs]—read Dave Dellinger’s collection of essays called Revolutionary Nonviolence.  You can find copies of it online.  But it was really a book, that changed my life.

“And, then, of course, Amy Goodman is still to this day my mentor and one of my greatest friends. [audience applause]

“But through a sort of twist of personal fate, I ended up living with Phil Berrigan for over a year painting houses with him in Baltimore.  I had left the University of Wisconsin before it [inaudible].  And I hitched a ride out to Washington, D.C.  And I moved into a homeless shelter called the Community for Creative Nonviolence.  And some of you may remember Mitch Snyder, who was—throughout the Reagan era—he was on hunger strike and doing creative actions, and releasing rats onto the lawn of the White House [inaudible]

“And I was there in the summer of 1995.  It was the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasake.  The whole peace movement really descended on Washington that summer.  And there were people getting arrested everyday.  And every night there would be speakers in church.  And everyone from the Berrigans to Daniel Ellsberg and so many that it was really like a [inaudible] crash course in alternative history of the United States, or the real history of the United States.  [inaudible] like listening to KPFA.

“And one day I was approached by Phil Berrigan.  And he said:  You know, we could use a [inaudible] like you [inaudible] in Baltimore. [audience laughs]

“Anyway, it was Phil Berrigan.  So, what was I gonna say?  No?  He said: Come over for a weekend.  And I ended up staying for a year and a half. (c. 6:55)

“I would get up really early in the morning.  I would go [inaudible] just make up a series of numbers as a social security number, [audience laughs] which I always thought at some point [inaudible].  But the way that they supported their community was out of the industry of painting houses.  And it was all [inaudible] of the payroll, no taxes, legally, in Livingston.

“And, so, I would get up early in the morning.  And we’d load the truck.  And Phil and myself and others would go and paint houses.  And that’s how that community supported itself.

“And, through that, I met Dan Berrigan.  And the Berrigan brothers had a profound impact on me and what I wanted to do with my life.

“And Dan Berrigan authored the statement of the Catonsville Nine, which was in May of 1968, where Dan and Phil Berrigan, both of whom were at the time priests in good standing, went to a draft house, a customs house, in Catonsville, Maryland and in broad daylight entered the building and began to open the file cabinets where the draft files were being held for people of that area and put them into metal waste bins.  And, then, they took them out into the parking lot; and they piled them up.  And they had created their own napalm from a U.S. Army field manual, that they had gotten.  And they made napalm.  And they burned the draft files with homemade napalm.

“And the statement that the Catonsville Nine hand-wrote, one line of it I always remember because it’s, it—it chokes me up, but it also gives me chills.  It’s about the responsibility we all have, people around the world who live on the other side of the barrel of the gun that is U.S. foreign policy.  And it began:

“Our apologies good friends for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper, instead of children…

“And I remember that.  And I remember that the—[inaudible]—Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, when he was asked about the war in Vietnam.  Are you on the side of the Việt Cộng?  Are you on America’s side?  Whose side are you on?  He said:  I’m on the side of the people, that are being burned, which is really the only answer you have in war, that you’re on the side of the people, that are being burned. [4]

“And, so, I just wanted to bring Dan into this room with us because he was such a profound resistance figure in this country and, I think, someone whose legacy and work we cannot let die. [audience applause]  (c. 9:53)

“We are gathered here at a moment when all three of the major candidates seeking the presidency, the Republican Donald Trump, and then Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, all three of the major party candidates seeking the presidency, support the kill list. [5]  Yes, Bernie Sanders supports the kill list.

“Bernie Sanders says he supports the kill list, as it’s being administered by President Obama.  Bernie Sanders says he supports drone strikes.

“You see; Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, those are easy targets.  We know Hillary Clinton’s record very, very well.  Hillary has not met a war she hasn’t loved.  And she was a part of regime change.  And she is an empire politician.

“But, as journalists, we also have to hold those accountable, that may be popular with progressives.  Our conscience doesn’t stop at the entrance to Bernie Sanders’ rallies. [audience applause]

“Now, I could give a speech all night to tell you about everything, that Hillary Clinton has done.  Now, I’ll touch on some of that.  But I just wanna shed a bit of light on Bernie Sanders right now.

“In 1998, the Project for the New American Century, which was the neocon cabal, that later would serve as the heart of the Bush administration’s imperial wars and agenda, they signed a letter—and it was the all-star cast.  It was Donald Rumsfeld.  It was William Kristol, and Paul Wolfowitz, and on and on and on.  They wrote a letter to President Clinton, that called for Clinton to sign into law legislation, that would make regime change in Iraq the law of the land.

“And, ultimately, the neocons’ letter served as the basis for legislation, that would become the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.  Bernie Sanders supported that legislation, which laid the groundwork for the later invasion of Iraq because it meant that there could be no negotiated solution in Iraq because the U.S. law was that the regime had to fall.

“This wasn’t just about the pretext of 9/11 for invading Iraq.  The groundwork had already been laid in 1998. [6]

“And, then, Bernie Sanders followed up that vote by supporting the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam, at the time, under the guise of the so-called No Fly Zones in the north and south of Iraq, that the Clinton administration claimed were protecting the Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north.  But, as I travelled around Iraq in that period, you would see Shia and Kurds being killed in record numbers in U.S. airstrikes, and not being protected.  Bernie Sanders supported that policy.

“Bernie Sanders supported the most brutal regime of economic sanctions in modern history, that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by depriving them of basic foodstuff and medicine and medical supplies.

“When you would travel around Iraq in the 1990s and go into hospitals, they were like, it was like going to death row for infants.  Bernie Sanders supported that policy.

“So, when Bernie Sanders rightly goes after Hillary Clinton for her love of regime change—and I think he should; and I wish that he was hitting harder on those issues.  You know, occasionally, we’ll see Bernie catch the fire; and he’ll go after her for Henry Kissinger.  And he’s the only candidate, that I’ve ever heard since the time, since the 1950s, who has brought up the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, which was one of the CIA’s first acts, the overthrow of Mosaddegg in Iran, the dirty business of the United States supporting dictators and death squads throughout Central and Latin America, and Bernie has rightly linked Hillary to that legacy because of who she has around her, in the form of Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, and then the permanent Democratic power structure.

“But Bernie Sanders‘ record is not clean on regime change.  And he can harp on Hillary Clinton‘s vote in favour of the Iraq Invasion all he wants; but, when the groundwork was being laid, Bernie said:  Yes.  Let’s do it.  Let’s target the Iraqi people in an effort to starve them and deprive them of medicine, so that they will rise up and overthrow their government.

“It was a bankrupt policy.  It didn’t harm Saddam Hussein anymore than the embargo on Cuba harmed Fidel Castro, personally. [audience applause]

“This is U.S. policy, starving people into submission.  So, it’s unfortunate that we don’t, actually, on foreign policy, have a radical difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, except in some of the rhetoric, because when it comes down to it—and I don’t know who Bernie is listening to on a foreign policy level—but, when he is ever pressed on it, he comes off as an apologist for militarism.  His own track record is not some kind of an anti-interventionist, anti-imperialist foreign policy.  No, no, no.

“Bernie—when Hillary wasn’t even in the Senate yet—was supporting the war in Iraq.  That has been consistent from the 1991 Gulf War until the present.  It’s been consistently anti-Iraqi people.  This is all the same war.  You know; all of this attention right now is being paid to ISIS.

“ISIS is a brutal, murderous force, no doubt about it.  I knew James Longley(sp?), who was beheaded by ISIS, several journalists were beheaded by ISIS, aid workers, people were set on fire. [7]  They’re pushing gay people off of buildings.  They’re pushing stone walls onto adulterers.  All of that is a horrid atrocity, that we watch, played out on television.

“But no one asks the question:  Who is ISIS?  Where did they come from?  Did ISIS just appear out of nowhere and some guy named Baghdadi—who, by the way, had been in a U.S. prison in Iraq—that Baghdadi, somehow, appeared out of nowhere and declared that he was the caliph?  And that they were gonna establish the caliphate?

“No.  The propagandists from ISIS, they appeared.  Many of them from the west, some of them, that grew out of what was called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, or Al Qaeda in Iraq.  But that’s not where they get their military know-how.  That’s not the military strength of ISIS.  The military strength of ISIS is made up of former Ba’athists, some of whom were trained by the United States when the U.S. was backing Iran and Iraq in an effort to try to have them kill each other off.

“One of the top military commanders in the early stages of ISIS was the king of clubs on the U.S. deck of cards, when they were going after Saddam Hussein, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri al-Tikriti.  He’s no radical jihadist.  The military core were largely secular members of Saddam Hussein’s military, who were fired by Paul Bremer when the United States invaded Iraq because they were obsessed with equating Saddam with Hitler, the Ba’ath Party with the Nazi Party.

“Do you think that Jihad John, from Britain, knows how to operate a U.S. tank?  No.  Who knows how to operate a U.S. tank?  They were people, that had been in Saddam’s military.  Are they fighting for the caliphate?  No.  They’re fighting the same war, that they have been fighting for a very long time.  It’s about tribes.  It’s about territory.  And it’s about a marriage of convenience.  It is enemy of my enemy is my friend.

“When the United States came into Iraq and fired 250,000 Iraqi soldiers, many of them Sunnis, and then the Shia death squads were built up by David Petraeus and the people, that implemented what they called the Salvador Option.  They started massacring people in the western parts of the country, in the Sunni parts of the country.

“The United States wanted to destroy any attempt at a unified resistance.  So, they opened a two-front war against the Sunnis in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Anbar, and against Muqtadā al-Ṣadr‘s forces in the south, in Najaf, Karbala, and also in Sadr City.  And, in the process, they unleashed a cage of horrors, that no one could shut. (c. 18:37)

“And, so, what happened was that the United States, realising that they had allowed Iran to gain incredible, unprecedented, influence in Iraq, as a result of the invasion, began panicking.  And they ran back to the Sunnis, who they had backed in the form of Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party.  And they created what they called the Awakening Councils.  And they started funneling money to the Sunnis.  And they were actually paying them not to kill U.S. troops.  That was the strategy for a while.

“And, then, the U.S. decided that that wasn’t worth it anymore.  So, then, they just pulled out.  And, then, bloodbath occurred between the pop-up militias, that the United States had created on the Shia side and, then, the Awakening Councils, that they had created on the Sunni side. (c. 19:25)

“So, then, when Iraq became a free-for-all and Iran started becoming more and more in control of the country, the Sunnis started to unite again.  And they got into a marriage of convenience with these wackos from ISIS, that you see on the videos because it aided their propaganda attempt.  It gave some meaning and an internationalism, albeit a twisted internationalism, to their struggle.

“We can’t talk about ISIS without talking about how the United States played a central, if not the central, role in creating the conditions, that made a group like ISIS viable in the parts of Syria and Iraq, that they now control. [audience applause]  (c. 21:05)

“And, then, to talk about Hillary Clinton, when you look at what’s happened under the Obama administration, they were clinging for dear life under Hosni Mubarak, when the uprising began in Egypt.  And you could go back and read the statements about Hillary Clinton talking about: How wonderful Mubarak’s wife is. And Mubarak is our ally.  And they were on the wrong side of that until the eleventh hour.  And, then, there actually was an election.  But the wrong person won the election, which is also what happened in Gaza.  And, when the wrong people win a democratic election, then, it doesn’t count.  You know? We will tell you who the candidate you can vote for is.  And that’s been the way the U.S. has done it for a very, very long time.

“So, when the wrong candidate won in Egypt and, then, there was a coup against Mohamed Morsi, who also, by the way, was a terrible president; but that’s a whole other discussion.  And then Morsi gets imprisoned and is going to, either, die in that prison cell or eventually be executed.  There was a coup by General Sisi.  General Sisi is like Mubarak after Mubarak.  It’s like the difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke.  There’s a little bit of a flavour change.  Maybe there’s a different chemical in it, that makes you think you’re not gonna get fat from drinking it.  But it’s largely the same end-product.  That’s the same thing with Sisi and Mubarak. (c. 21:32)

“The United States, now, is fully backing Sisi.  And the fact that there had been a coup of the first democratically-elected president of Egypt in—ever—is like off the map now.  No one talks about it.

“And you look at what the U.S. has done in Libya.  They overthrew Gaddafi.  The idea that that was a popular uprising, that brought down Gaddafi is one of the biggest lies of the Obama administration.  That was a regime change by air power. [audience applause]

“Now, the Republicans, the only deaths, that they ever will recognise in Libya are the deaths, that happened in Benghazi.  And the thing is:  Because there’s such a carnival of bat-shit craziness coming from the Republicans about Benghazi, we can’t talk about the real issue.  The real issue there:  This wasn’t about a Muḥammad movie.  This wasn’t about an anniversary of 9/11.  This was the fact that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command [JSOC] were running a little mini-covert assassination campaign inside of Libya.  And that was blowback.

“The attack that happened on the annex and on the compound, where Ambassador Stevens was, that wasn’t angry locals responding to a video some wacko in California made about the Prophet Muḥammad.

“This was part of an ongoing war where the U.S. was killing people, that were important to tribes.  And there was an uprising against the United States there.  (c. 42:37)

“Hillary Clinton should be answering for that.  Hillary Clinton should be answering for the deaths of those Americans, but in that context. [audience applause]

“This isn’t just about:  Oh, they failed to send the right backup to the Navy SEALs and the CIA contractors, that were protecting Ambassador Stevens that day.  Why did those people attack the compound?

“But no one wants to talk about that.  No one wants to talk about the fact that when you overthrow people, like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, you’re gonna have to face the consequences.  And the U.S. never wants to take responsibility for that.

“I spent much time in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  That was a brutal dictatorship.  I met people who had their tongues cut out because their children had told their teachers that their dad was smarter than Saddam Hussein.  The Ba’ath Party then comes.  They take you out of your home.  And you have your tongue surgically removed.  I have no doubt in my mind about who Saddam Hussein was.  But you could walk down the street without getting murdered in Saddam’s Iraq, as long as you kept your mouth shut.

“You can’t walk anywhere now.  The sectarianism, that has been fueled in Iraq is largely a modern creation.  You had so much intermarrying.  You had a secular strand, that ran strong through that society.  And that’s all been obliterated.  It forced people into a Balkanisation, that they didn’t want, but now is there.  And now it’s become a breeding ground for terrorism. (c. 24:24)

“You know; there was no Al Qaeda presence in Iraq prior to 9/11, except in the northern parts of Iraq, which the U.S. and its allies controlled.  [inaudible] , who was in northern Iraq, had regularly engaged in firefights with Saddam Hussein’s forces.  After the invasion of Iraq, all of a sudden, it became like fly paper with jihadists around the world, who wanted to come and fight the United States.  It was an open front.  The same thing is happening in Libya.  The same thing is happening in Syria.  (c. 24:56)

“You know; the book, that we’re gonna discuss tonight is about secret and top-secret, classified documents on the drone programme.  And we are waiting, any day now, for President Obama to release their official statistics on how many people have been killed outside of Iraq and Afghanistan in drone strikes, including, you understand, civilians that have been killed.

“Now, I’m not privy to that.  I don’t hang out with the journalists, that would get those kinds of leaks from the White House.  But I would imagine that the numbers, that they are going to provide are going to be shockingly low for anyone who’s been paying even a minute bit of attention to the deaths, that have been caused by drone strikes.

“But I’ll share something with you that the White House doesn’t wanna talk about, that the military and CIA don’t want to talk about.  The reason that President Obama can get on television and give speeches where he says that the number of civilians, that have been killed in drone strikes is minimal is because they have created a mathematical formula, that will almost always produce the number zero when the question is:  How many civilians have been killed?

“Let me tell you what I mean by that.  Every drone strike, that is a so-called personality strike, involving one target, one objective, that person has their selectors, that are put into the kill database, their SIM cards, their handset numbers of the actual phones, that they have, if they have email addresses, if they have other digital fingerprints of who they are in touch with and their assigned numbers, sometimes they’re assigned numbers, sometimes they are assigned nicknames.  But each strike is intended to kill one individual, unless it’s a signature strike, which I’ll talk about in a second.

“But most strikes are what are called personality strikes.  So, they are going after one person.  Now, in many cases, they kill that person, or don’t kill that person but a lot of other people are killed.  And sometimes they may be armed associates of the individual that the United States is hunting and that they’ve ordered, through a whole process with the individuals involved in the drone programme, to hit.  (c. 27:09)

“When they kill those people, if they’re not clearly identifiable as women or children, they automatically categorise them as EKIA—enemies killed in action.  And, only if you are posthumously proven to have not been a militant—which they never define—a terrorist, or an associate of a terrorist, you shall remain an enemy killed in action.

“So, when they kill someone in a drone strike and the president says how many people were killed.  They’ll say: Well, we got a jackpot—which is the intended target.  And, then, they’ll report the EKIA, four enemies killed in action.

“But if the president wanted to dig a little bit deeper and say:  Well, how do you know those people were enemies [inaudible]?  Now, that would be an interesting question.

“But if you don’t ask that question, then you don’t have to take on the moral burden of what the answer might be.  So, you can say:  Well, our reports from the agencies, from the military, is that we killed this bad guy and there were five other enemies killed in action.

“That’s why the president can say: Well, the number of civilians killed is minimal.  Unless journalists were on the scene, or human rights workers were on the scene, or people survived—you know; some of the documents, that have been published also show the kill chain, how it makes its way all the way up to the president’s desk.  And it’s, actually, an incredible bureaucracy, if you look at it.  And a lot of it originates with intelligence given by foreign governments to the United States.  (c. 28:42)

“So, in Yemen, for instance, much of the information, that is used to target people, is given to the U.S. by Saudi Arabia.  The Saudis have their own war, which is a horrifying crime playing out now in Yemen.

“But they also have their own internal struggles, beyond a war, that—most wars you can see in some reality around the world.

“The Saudis have their own agenda.  And they keep telling the United States:  This person’s a terrorist.  That person’s a terrorist.  This person’s a terrorist.  The former dictator of Yemen would also be giving names to the Americans.  And on multiple occasions, the United States killed individuals in Yemen, who were not Al Qaeda, but instead were domestic opponents of the regime in Yemen.  (c. 29:25)

“The same happens with the Kenyans and the Ugandans giving information about the numbers that the United States has killed in Somalia.  And, so, that intelligence gets piped into the system.  And it goes through the military commanders, task forces; and there’s nominations, then, that are presented to a committee made up of the top deputies to senior cabinet officials.

“And those people would usually gather on Tuesdays.  I don’t know if they still do it.  But they would have Terror Tuesdays, where they would go through what they actually call baseball cards, BBCs.  And it’s just like baseball cards when you were a kid, if you collected baseball cards.  They have a picture.  They have stats. (c. 29:53) [SNIP]

[SNIP]

“And let me say something about Trump.  I do think that Donald Trump is espousing overtly fascist ideas.  But I don’t think that this is somehow unique to Trump.  What I think Trump is doing is bringing to the surface a fascism, that already existed. [audience applause]  He’s making it more visible. [applause continues]

“And this is tough to say in some circles.  I’m not convinced that Trump’s foreign policy would somehow be categorically different from Hillary Clinton‘s. [audience applause]  I’m not convinced of that. [applause continues]

“I’m not saying anyone should vote for Donald Trump by any stretch of the imagination.  But I’m also saying: Don’t just assume that Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy is going to be less belligerent or less dangerous.  She is a politician of empire.  There are big risks in this no matter which of those candidates win.

“I think that if Trump wins there’s a greater likelihood that strong neocon voices may get him to do the insane, which would be to do some sort of overt military action against Iran, which would have extraordinarily grave consequences.

“But, at the same time, Hillary Clinton is going to continue to widen the sandbox of all these little wars, that are just destabilising huge swaths of territory around the world.

“And the message, that the United States has been sending to Muslim countries everywhere is that: There is a war against your religion.  The secularism of some of those societies, particularly Iraq, where you had western educated engineers and doctors and lawyers.  That’s done.  It’s overwhelmingly, it’s finished.

“And when the people fall, who is there to catch them?  In societies where we’ve destroyed the civil infrastructure, where we’ve destroyed secular educational institutions, where we’ve pushed people into looking for some meaning in life, a lot of people are caught by religion.  It’s the same in this country, too, with radical right-wing Christians.  It’s the same kind of mentality.

“But we are creating a condition where there are generations of young people growing up with a perception that, in their eyes, is the only reality.  And that is that who they are is being attacked.  And we can talk about whether or not they should view it that way; it’s irrelevant because that’s the way that so many young people view it.

“You know they talk about homegrown terrorism in this country.  Well, what are these young people watching?  What are the videos, that they’re watching?  They’re watching Guantánamo.  They’re watching the drone strikes.  They’re watching bodies being pulled from rubble.  They’re watching invasions and overthrows.

“You know; it’s like we erase all the context from all of this.  History is irrelevant.  It’s just:  We’re going to kill the bad guys.  That is the entire philosophy right now.  We’re going to kill our way to victory.  And, if that continues to be the policy, then we are going to get hit so hard in this country, beyond anything that we can imagine right now.

“We are creating the conditions for a very serious war against American civilians because the perception is that the United States is a gratuitous enemy, that kills civilians.

[SNIP]    (c. 1:35:00)

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.  Apologies for gaps in text; we must invest in a better quality audio recorder, which can better deal with recording in such rooms with echo.]

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ALSO SEE THESE RELATED AND/OR RELEVANT ARTICLES:

  • “The Assassination Complex: Inside Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program by Jeremy Scahill”, Lumpenproletariat, 3 MAY 2016
  • “Thích Nhất Hạnh, Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, and peace activist on Being Peace”, Lumpenproletariat, 8 JUN 2015

***

[1]  KPFA Benefit organised by free speech radio KPFA (Berkeley, CA) and held at First Congregational Church, Channing Way, Berkeley, California, on Monday, 9 MAY 2016 at 19:30 PDT.  Advance tickets were sold through Brown Paper Tickets at $12 per general admission ticket plus $1.41 online ticket service fee.

Jeremy Scahill was introduced by Brian Edwards-Tiekert.  Scahill critiqued Bernie Sanders and his poor foreign policy.  But the sad fact is that Sanders’ domestic policy could be better, too.  Even though Bernie Sanders has hired one of my UMKC professors, as his Chief Economist, Dr. Stephanie Kelton, he doesn’t seem willing to fully present all of her ideas.  For example, if Sanders had more grit, he would communicate to the American people some of the basics of Modern Money Theory (MMT) and how modern money can be employed for public purpose.  This would include a study of the Job Guarantee, how the USA, being the sovereign currency issuer of the US dollar, can afford to always make good on its financial obligations.  Sadly, Sanders has failed to mention to the American people how the government with a sovereign currency can always afford to hire all the unemployed people.

Scahill in Berkeley May 2016, IMG_20160509_195607

BET vs Scahill Berkeley, May 2016, IMG_20160509_204358

Free speech radio’s Brian Edwards-Tiekert filtered/whittled audience questions.

Jeremy Scahill & Messina May 2016, IMG_20160509_221214

Jeremy Scahill and Messina, First Congregational Church of Berkeley,     9 MAY 2016, Berkeley, California

Scahill in Berkeley MAY 2016 poster, IMG_20160509_194332

[2]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  UpFront, hosted by Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Monday, 9 MAY 2016, 07:00 PDT.

[3]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Letters and Politics, hosted by Mitch Jeserich, Wednesday, 11 MAY 2016, 10:00 PDT.

[4]  We recall Steve Albini‘s eternal primal scream on behalf of all underdogs:  I side with the defenders!

[5]  On the USA’s illegal state-engineered kill list, see:

  • “I’m on the Kill List. This is what it feels like to be hunted by drones” by Malik Jala, The Independent, 12 APR 2016
  • “”Where Does This End?”: After Drone Papers Leaks, U.K. Gov’t Has a Kill List of Its Own”, Democracy Now!, 22 OCT 2015
  • “JSoc: Obama’s secret assassins” by Naomi Wolf, The Guardian, 3 FEB 2013
  • “Kill List (Episode #93 – Jeremy Scahill, Jung & Naiv)”, 21 OCT 2013:

  • “Obama’s Kill List: Silence Is Not an Option” by the Editors of The Nation, The Nation, 6 JUN 2012  [This article cites, among others, an article by Jeremy Scahill entitled “Target: Yemen”, 5 MAR 2012]

[6]  Free speech radio’s Project Censored (and, perhaps, Flashpoints and Guns and Butter) is one of the few news organisations, which I’ve heard discussing this fact over the years, that is the role of the Project for the New American Century manufacturing a pretext for endless war being projected everywhere by US imperial hegemony for the perpetual enrichment of war profiteers.  It’s good that Jeremy Scahill talks about this.  Perhaps, then, the less radical broadcasters at KPFA and Pacifica Radio (e.g., Brian Edwards-Tiekert, and his faction, SaveKPFA) will gather the courage to speak more honestly and frankly in future.

I’ll have to dig through KPFA’s archives (or my personal archives, if KPFA has deleted from public access) and find past Project Censored broadcasts, particularly during the now-defunct KPFA radio morning show The Morning Mix with Project Censored.  I remember some excellent broadcasts there on the Project for the New American Century.  Such analyses obliterate any remaining shreds of credibility of the official state narratives used to justify U.S. military aggression in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, particularly following the attacks of 9/11.

[7]  See the following:

  • “Still In Motion Interview with Laura Poitras, Director of My Country, My Country“, 19 APR 2008.

***

[10 MAY 2016]

[Last modified 05:48 PDT  19 MAY 2016]

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Dr. Michel Chossudovsky: State Terrorism, Franco-American Style

16 Wed Mar 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Fascism, Anti-Imperialism, Anti-War, Globalisation, Police State

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al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, Article 5 (NATO), Bonnie Faulkner, Centre for Research on Globalization, CFA Franc, Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, François Hollande (b. 1954), General Intelligence Presidency, GIP, Global Research, Guns and Butter, Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI, ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jemaah Islamiyah, Juliet ONeill, KPFA, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, MI6, Mokhtar Belmokhtar (b. 1972), Mossad, neoliberalism, Obama administration, Operation Northwoods, Pacifica Radio Network, President Obama, Secret Intelligence Service, Syria

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—Dr. Michel Chossudovsky is a Canadian economist and author.  He is a professor of economics at the University of Ottawa and the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, known online as GlobalResearch.ca.

Dr. Chossudovsky has acted as an economic adviser to governments of developing nations and has worked as a consultant for international organisations, including the United Nations Development Programme, the African Development Bank, the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning, the United Nations Population Fund, the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organisation, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. [1]

On this week’s episode of Guns and Butter, free speech radio host Bonnie Faulkner broadcast a recent interview with Dr. Michel Chossudovsky spanning a broad range of topics of contemporary political economy, police state repression, and imperial wars. [2]

Messina 

***

[Official programme summary from the KPFA audio archive webpage for Guns and Butter for Wednesday, 16 MAR 2016]

State Terrorism: Franco American Style with Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky’s most recent research on the alleged ISIS terror in Paris, as well as the Radisson Hotel terror in Bamako, Mali, is discussed.  Analysis of current state sponsored terror in general, within a larger global geopolitical and economic framework, is addressed.  Topics include the fundamental contradiction in the official narrative of the War on Terror versus the Islamic state or ISIS; Islamic State, a creation of U.S. intelligence; the geopolitical agenda; the militarization of Africa; the Berlin Conference in the late 19th century; foreknowledge of the Paris terror; French military escalation against Syria planned before the attacks; replication of the 9/11 discourse as a pretext to justify a new wave of bombing against Syria; attack by a foreign power justifies a state of war; the Doctrine of Collective Security, Article 5 of NATO; the Muslim community subjected to a witch hunt; the criminalization of the state and the financial system; the end of the French Republic.

Links and Resources:

  • Visit Guns and Butter online
  • Follow Guns and Butter on Twitter
  • Listen to Guns and Butter on Sound Cloud
  • Subscribe to our free newsletter for the show announcements and other information.

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Guns and Butter]

michel chossudovsky-consulvenemontreal.orgGUNS AND BUTTER—[16 MAR 2016]  “This is Guns and Butter.  [intro theme music]

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “But the thing is that to enforce an imperial agenda, you scrap the Republic.  Now, Julius Caesar understood that perfectly well.  I can’t remember the exact quote.  But he said:  You don’t build an empire with a republic.  And I think that, in effect, what’s happening is that the republic is being scrapped.  It’s not only being scrapped in France, it’s being scrapped in America.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  Today on Guns and Butter, Michel Chossudovsky.  Today’s show:  ‘State Terrorism: Franco American Style.’

“Michel Chossudovsky is an economist and is a founder, director, and editor of the Center for Research on Globalization based in Montreal, Quebec.  He’s the author or eleven books, including The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, War and Globalization: The Truth Behind September 11th, America’s “War On Terrorism”, The Globalization of Terror: America’s Long War Against Humanity. [3]

“Today, we discuss his most recent articles on the alleged ISIS terror in Paris as well as the Radisson Hotel terror in Bamako, Mali, a former French colony.  We analyse current state-sponsored terror in general within a larger global geopolitical and economic framework.

“Michel Chossudovsky, welcome.”  (c. 2:09)

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “I’m delighted to be on Guns and Butter.”

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “On November 13, 2015, shootings and suicide bombings were staged in five different locales in Paris, the capitol of France.  130 people were killed.  Less than a week after the Paris gun-and-suicide-bomb attacks, a group of heavily armed gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the capitol of Mali, a former French colony, in which 21 people were killed.

“There have been a string of recent high profile terror attacks, from bombings in Beirut and the downing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai desert.

“Where do you think we should begin in trying to address all of these recent terror attacks?” (c. 2:59)

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “I think there’s a fundamental contradiction in the official narrative, both, of the United States and, of course, of France and its allies.  The United States is leading a War On Terrorism, which is directed against the so-called Islamic State.  Yet, the evidence amply confirms that the Islamic State and the various al-Qaeda-related terrorist organisations are creations of US intelligence. [4]  They’re what are called, in intelligence parlance, intelligence assets.

“And the other dimension, of course, is that, in effect, Obama is not waging a campaign against the terrorists because these terrorists are, in fact, the foot soldiers of the western military alliance in Syria.  And they are, in fact, protecting these terrorists.  This is amply confirmed.

“And it’s come to our attention, since the onset of the Russian bombing.  And the Russians are going after the real terrorists.  So, that when an occurrence, such as that of Paris or Bamako is presented, then, to the media, although the media analyses these events, what they do is simply copy and paste official narratives without presenting an understanding of who is actually behind these terrorist organisations. (c. 4:47)

“Almost immediately, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, the French media went into overdrive stating, unequivocally, and that was prior to the conduct, even, of a police investigation, that the Islamic State was indelibly behind these attacks.

“And, then, the president François Hollande ordered by decree a national emergency, the suspension of civil liberties, the right to enter homes and arrest people without a warrant, and, at the same time, he closed down the borders.

“Now, this, as I recall, was announced a few minutes before midnight on November 13th, local time, prior to any consultation with any of his cabinet colleagues.  He actually confirmed that the cabinet meeting was to take place subsequently.  And, in his speech, he says:  We know who they are.  And, immediately, the French media says: This is the French-style 9/11.  And they, in other words, say in French:  Le 11 septembre à la française.

“And following from that, the official story prevails.  But the official story is based with the fundamental contradiction.  You can’t, on the one hand, say you are the victim of the Islamic State, when, in fact, you are the creator of the Islamic State.  It’s a non sequitur.  You cannot say that the attacks—and he was very explicit—the attacks from outside France, from Syria, originating from Syria, you can’t say that the attacks originating from Syria, directed against the French Republic and, at the same time, support covertly these same terrorists.  And there’s ample evidence that, not only, the United States and its allies supported the I.S.I.S. and its affiliates, such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. [4]  So, is France, with weapons, with training, with financing, and so on.

“So, that is the situation.  And what the French public and western public, in general, have been led to believe is that these terrorists are involved in crimes against humanity, without realising that, in fact, their intelligence services, which are under the auspices of an elected government, are manipulating these terror organisations, are supporting them, are providing them with weapons.” (c. 8:09)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “You write that: The Islamic State, ISIS, the alleged architect of the Paris Attacks, was originally an al-Qaeda-affiliated entity created by U.S. intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP).

“You write that, quote:  ‘From the outset of Obama’s bombing campaign in August-September 2014, the U.S.-led coalition has not bombed ISIS rebel positions.’

“Has the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign been fake?” (c. 8:54)

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “Well, absolutely. (c. 8:57) [SNIP]  [Dr. Chossudovsky explains that the so-called War On Terror is only a false pretext to push for a regime change in Syria.  The initiative for the western military alliance was started by NATO.  The USA and its allies are involved in a criminal undertaking.  Now, the bombing campaign is really in response to the fact that government forces had managed to pacify large portions of territory.  So, the western bombing is actually designed to destabilise the region.  However, nations such as Saudi Arabia are allied with the western powers.  And the actual terrorists continue to be trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  In fact, the proclaimed architect of the bombing of the Hotel in Bamako, Belmokhtar, was recruited by the CIA in 1991, when the Soviet-Afghan War was already over.  Yet, the CIA was still recruiting intelligence assets, which it could exploit in the Middle East/South Asia.  Many of these assets have been used by NATO towards US/NATO imperialist ventures, including training from the CIA.]  There’s CIA all over the place. (c. 16:18)

“And they cannot deny, because the evidence is so compelling, that the intelligence services of western countries are supporting the terrorists and, at the same time, the governments of western countries are waging a campaign, allegedly, against the Islamic State, when, in fact, they are also supporting the Islamic State.  And they are using this as a pretext to bomb a sovereign country, resulting in tens of thousands of casualties, a refugee crisis, the destruction of entire cities, and so on, during a period of four years.”  (c. 17:02)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “[inhales]”

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “That is the picture.  And we don’t need to start engaging in any kind of conspiracy theories to underscore the fact that, if the intelligence services of France and the United States are supporting I.S.I.S., and I.S.I.S. is designated as the threat to the security of the French nation, there’s an obvious contradiction because you can’t support the I.S.I.S. and, then, make a speech at 12 o’clock at night—I’m talking about president Hollande saying: We know who they are.  They’re attacking us.  They’re killing our people.

“So, I think, to put it mildly, president François Hollande has blood on his hands.” (c. 17:52)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “I’m speaking with economist and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, Michel Chossudovsky.  Today’s show:  State Terrorism: Franco American Style.  I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  This is Guns and Butter.

“Now, you’ve been referring to the Bamako, Mali attacks, the most recent terror attacks.  News media report that the Bamako terror operation was coordinated by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, whom you have mentioned.  What do you think is the significance of the Bamako attacks?  And were the Mali attacks in Bamako related to the Paris terror?  For instance, what was France’s role in the Libyan War and the take-down of Muammar Gaddafi?  Is this all related?” (c. 18:46)

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “Well, let me put it this way.  Both attacks, both, the Paris Attacks as well as the Bamako attacks, have geopolitical implications.

“First, with regards to Paris, it’s worth noting that one week before these attacks occurred, Paris, the Hollande government had ordered the deployment of the Charles de Gaulle Aircraft Carrier Group to the Mediterranean, to the east of the Mediterranean.  And this was in support of the alleged campaign against terrorism in Syria.  So, that they were, actually, even before these attacks occurred, they’d already been preparing to send their, this powerful Navy and Air Force deployment to the Middle East in support of Obama’s campaign against the I.S.I.S. (c. 19:44)

“And, in the wake of the Paris attacks, as we recall, the French Air Force went in and bombed the alleged headquarters of I.S.I.S.  And the official declaration from the Ministry of Defence was that they had actually targeted the command post.  We got information from Syria that, in fact, what they targeted were health clinics, a museum, and a stadium, in other words, the country’s civilian infrastructure.  And that has been persistent throughout the last year, since the United States started to bomb Syria. (c. 20:24) [SNIP]

[Dr. Michel Chossudovsky also elaborated on the geopolitical implications of the Bamako attacks, namely to “create a pretext and a justification for the intervention of France and the United States in Sub-Saharan Africa.”  Again, argued Dr. Chossudovsky, all of the so-called terrorists are western intelligence assets.  The end goal is a recolonisation and militarisation of the African continent via AFRI-COM.  Dr. Chossudovsky also argued that French president François Hollande is a U.S. proxy, who acts in a subordinate role on behalf of Washington, D.C. to pave the way toward the U.S. colonisation of the African continent, which was originally colonised by the European empires.  The Berlin Conference carved up the African continent amongst the European imperialists, France, Portugal, Belgium, et al.] (c. 23:56)  The dollar will eventually replace the CFA Franc, which is a proxy currency linked to the French—well, it’s linked to the French Treasury, but it’s tied in to the Euro.

“And, so, that is the—I think that is the scenario.  It’s the conquest of the African Continent, which is supported by the mandate, the self-proclaimed mandate of the Obama administration to go after the terrorists in Sub-Saharan Africa: Boko Haram, AQIM, and so on.

“And they’re doing that in all the various areas where they want to extend their zone of influence.  So, you have, of course, in south-east Asia you will have Jemaah Islamiyah, in Indonesia and Malaysia.  And, then, you’ve got, of course, various other jihadist organisations in the western parts of China, which are involved, again, in insurgencies.  And they’re also supported by western intelligence via Pakistan’s ISI.” (c. 25:04)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “It sounds like the United States and France are working very closely together.  And that there is, then, evidence that the French military escalation directed against Syria was planned before the November 13th terrorist attacks.

“What evidence is there, if any, of official foreknowledge of the Paris terror itself?”

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “Well, you’re absolutely right that France has been participating in the bombing raids right from the outset.  (c. 25:38)  [SNIP]

[Dr. Chossudovsky cautiously approached the question of foreknowledge, citing an article in 1994 in a “widely read” “tabloid”, which is somehow “authoritative”.  This tabloid, argues Dr. Chossudovsky, predicted a 9/11-like attack in France.  Dr. Chossudovsky argues that French authorities used the bombings as a pretext to engage in US/NATO imperialism in target regions, particularly in Syria, citing Article 5, even though France was not under attack by a ‘foreign power’, even though the bombings were a police matter, not a military matter.]”  (c. 29:11)

“But they’re doing exactly the same.  They’re replicating the discourse, the 9/11 discourse, the fact that this is an attack from a foreign power.  It just so happens that that foreign power is in northern Syria somewhere.

“And they’re using this as a pretext to escalate the war against Syria, not against their proxy terrorists in Raqqa, and to justify a new wave of bombing by coalition forces.  And I think that is, ultimately, the agenda.” (c. 29:51)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “I’m speaking with economist and director for the Centre for Research on Globalization, Michel Chossudovsky.  Today’s show:  ‘State Terrorism: Franco American Style.’  I’m Bonnie Faulkner.  This is Guns and Butter.” (c. 30:09)

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “Then they have to confront Russia because Russia is also—Russia is going after the real terrorists.  Okay? (c. 30:16) [SNIP]  [Dr. Chossudovsky goes on to argue that US/NATO imperialists need a pretext to undermine Russia’s endeavours, which consist of destroying the foot soldiers of the western military alliance, i.e., the intelligence assets, which are the terrorists supported perversely by the CIA, MI6, and the Mossad.  Isreal is also behind the terrorists, as they’ve admitted that “they have a facility in the Golan Heights, which provides hospital treatment to wounded terrorists.] (c. 31:45)

“So, the issue is that none of what we’re discussing here will be given coverage in the mainstream media.  And the public is drowned with a humanitarian discourse.  Innocent people are being killed.  And it’s those events, where terrorists attack innocent people, which, ultimately, creates within everybody this feeling of solidarity, of fear as well.  Ultimately, when people die we feel it.  Okay?

“And, then, what we do is we side with the government.  Okay?  That’s what they’re doing.  And everybody’s siding with the French government, even people who hate them—François Hollande.  They’re siding with the French government because the French government is there to protect them.  And they are shocked and concerned about the loss of life.  And that concept, or that procedure there, is well-entrenched, in fact, in U.S. military doctrine. (c. 33:03)

“I should remind listeners of what was called Operation Northwoods.  It was during the Kennedy administration.  It was a secret plan by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to start killing people in the Miami Cuban community as well as in Washington with a view to justifying a war of retribution against Cuba.

“And I quote from the official document.  They said, We kill people in Miami and that creates, quote, ‘a useful wave of indignation’—okay?—‘indignation of U.S. public opinion,’ which is a normal thing.  Everybody has indignation when people are killed.

“And, then, they say:  Well, Cuba, Fidel Castro, has attacked America.  We have to attack Cuba in retribution.  Now, that is the logic of these so-called false flags.

“And Operation Northwoods, the documents are there.  People can go and consult them because those secret documents have been declassified after half a century.  And we know that the U.S., that the U.S. military were contemplating this.  It was turned down by Kennedy.  And it was also turned down by the Defense Secretary McNamara, at the time.  Okay?

“So that, in effect, it was a plot from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, no doubt also supported by U.S. intelligence at the time. (c. 34:44) [SNIP]  (c. 36:05)

BONNIE FAULKNER:  “I’m glad you mentioned Operation Northwoods because we are actually recording this interview on November 22nd [2015], which is the 52nd Anniversary of the assassination of the president in the United States.  Of course, we have seen endless war ever since.

“In terms of the media coverage of the Paris terror attacks, it seems like the notion of revenge is being used as a motivating factor.  And, of course, this is a contradictory claim.  Right?”

DR. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY:  “Well, you know, revenge, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, has been with us for several thousand years.  You need a pretext to wage war.  And war, in the modern context, and the political leaders know that war is the ultimate crime under Nuremberg.  Whatever is the underlying motive, the only war, which is allowed, is a war of self defence.  Okay?

“You are allowed to defend yourself against aggression.  But, under Nuremberg, any act of war against a foreign country is a criminal undertaking. (c. 37:19) [SNIP]

[SNIP]

[SNIP]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at GUNS AND BUTTER.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

[1]  For more on Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, see:

A bio of Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, published by the Venezuelan Consulate in Montreal:

Born in Canada in 1946. He graduated as an Economist from the University of Manchester, England, and obtained a PhD at the University of North Carolina, USA; he is professor of economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa.

Chossudovsky has been a visiting professor in countries throughout Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Also, he has been involved with consulting several different international organizations and has been an advisor to governments of developing countries.

He was the President of the Canadian Association of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is an active member of the anti-war movement in Canada and has written extensively on the war in Yugoslavia. After the September 11 attacks, he has been involved in highlighting the historical events between the Government of United States, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

His most outstanding work titled “The Globalization of Poverty” was published in 11 languages. It is also a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. In 2003 Chossudovsky won the prize for human rights for the protection of civil rights and human dignity in Berlin. Profesor Chossudovsky is President and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), an independent research and media organization based in Montreal, Canada.  This centre maintains a website that promotes different views about policies and international relations between the United States and NATO.

*

A bio of Michel Chossudovsky, published in the Ottowa Citizen, “Battling Mainstream Economics” by Juliet ONeill.

The faint moans of his daughter’s cello practice barely break the hush of Michel Chossudovsky’s household.

The kitchen, bathed in winter light, is gleaming. It is here, at a well-worn wooden table, that the University of Ottawa economics professor wants to talk.

The sunken-leather sofas of the living room — with its gallery of African masks, Peruvian pottery, Chinese teapots and other treasures from some of the 100 countries he has visited –would be “too comfortable.”

Stiff-backed chairs do feel more appropriate for the subject at hand: How poverty is increasing around the world and how this is not by accident, but by the design of a small, powerful banking and business elite at whose behest the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have provoked “economic and social collapse” in many countries.

The discussion is about widespread complacency toward what Mr. Chossudovsky calls a global financial crisis — in which private speculators wield more power than governments over central bank coffers — that may swerve into a crash far worse than the Dirty Thirties, jeopardizing pension and retirement savings funds.

It is about how so many people, expert and layman alike, accept a dominant “neo-liberal” economic dogma which makes suffering and sacrifice — from unemployment and social service cuts in Ontario to mass destitution in Russia — seem inevitable, if not justifiable and acceptable.

“Absurdity,” he says. “I have difficulty in understanding why the dismantling or closing down of productive assets — hospitals and schools — could constitute the key to prosperity. But that is what is actually being conveyed. The official mainstream economic agenda is that you have to close down, downsize, lay off, and that is the key to prosperity.”

Mr. Chossudovsky, a 52-year-old author who has learned to speak 10 languages and writes in three (English, French and Spanish), has persisted for three decades with an increasingly unfashionable perspective on world events.

It keeps him on the margins of mainstream commentary in Canada but wins praise from such equally anti-establishment social theorists as American Noam Chomsky.

He agrees to being described as having a leftist perspective, but emphasizes that he is not allied with any political party, including socialists, at home or abroad.

“One doesn’t know who the socialists are any more because the socialists are all in favour of the neo-liberal agenda,” he says. “If you look at socialists in Europe, what are they doing? They’re adopting austerity measures. I wouldn’t want to put a political label on myself because the neo-liberal consensus is supported by right-wing and left-wing parties alike, including the New Democratic Party.”

Raised in Geneva, Switzerland, Mr. Chossudovsky followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming an economist. But his father, a Russian emigre, made a career as a United Nations diplomat, while Mr. Chossudovsky put his economics training to use as a teacher and analyst. He came to the University of Ottawa in 1968, attracted by the promise of a bilingual lifestyle.

It was as a young visiting professor at the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile, that Mr. Chossudovsky’s interest in “economic repression” was first pricked.

Augusto Pinochet’s military junta, which overthrew Salvador Allende in 1973, quadrupled the price of bread and introduced other measures that would now be referred to as “a structural adjustment program.”

Mr. Chossudovsky set out, with a doctor, to study the malnourishment resulting from the bread price hike. He wound up with a paper that held the Pinochet regime responsible not only for conventional forms of political repression but for “economic repression” that impoverished three-quarters of Chile’s population.

Since then he has documented the purposeful impoverishment of people in dozens of countries. His latest book, the Globalization of Poverty, contains case studies of the collapse of economies and social structures in Somalia, Rwanda, Vietnam, India, Brazil, Peru, Russia and the former Yugoslavia. In some of these countries, IMF/World Bank intervention preceded violent conflict.

He refers often to “the hidden agenda” of the big banking and financial organizations. They orchestrate collapses, he says, by demanding payment of debt service charges and then lending money to cover the charges but only on condition the recipient country impose such measures as austerity, privatization and currency devaluation. The impact is usually destructive: mass shutdowns, huge unemployment, a wipeout of savings and pensions and purchasing power, a loss of social services.

Such economic shock therapy, he says, has pushed Russia, for one, “back to the medieval era,” impoverishing millions of people, deepening the country’s foreign debt, driving more than half the country’s industrial plants into bankruptcy and allowing organized crime to flourish in the banking, real estate and other sectors of the economy.

Mr. Chossudovsky generally condemns “the criminalization” of the global economy in which increasingly large amounts of drug money and other illegally obtained funds are deposited in the world’s 55 offshore havens, escaping taxation. The funds are laundered through an international banking system in which capital movement is easier than ever owing to the revolution in digital communications.

“This critical drain of billions of dollars in capital flight dramatically reduces state tax revenues, paralyses social programs, drives up budget deficits and spurs the accumulation of large public debts,” he writes.

An end to offshore tax havens is one of the few solutions Chossudovsky advocates. He also says the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and commercial banks should not be allowed to “pillage” the central banks of troubled countries.

He is much stronger on description than prescription. But his descriptions alone constitute a defiance of mainstream economic scholarship in which “critical analysis is strongly discouraged.”

It has not, however, stopped him from teaching for 30 years at U of O and as a visiting professor in several other countries, as well as publishing several books, the latest appearing in nine languages. And while the mainstream media in Canada do not publish his commentary, he is published frequently in Le Monde Diplomatique and smaller magazines that don’t have investors or business advertisers.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky has documented impoverishment of people in dozens of countries.

[2]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Guns and Butter, hosted by Bonnie Faulkner, for Wednesday, 16 MAR 2016, 13:00 PDT.

[3]  Also see a selected Chossudovsky bibliography here.

[4]  With regard to “the evidence”, of which Dr. Michel Chossudovsky speaks, perhaps, we should begin with the research available at his website for the Centre for Research on Globalization, or Global Research.

***

[17 MAR 2016]

[Last modified 23:29 PDT  17 MAR 2016]

 

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