Resolution includes extensive list of weapons and equipment provided to Ukraine.
February 9, 2023
Press Release
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) today led a group of 11 lawmakers in calling for the United States to halt additional military and financial aid to Ukraine through the introduction of the “Ukraine Fatigue” Resolution. If passed, the Resolution would express through the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States must end its military and financial aid to Ukraine, and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement.
Since the onset of the war last February, the United States has been the top contributor of military equipment and aid to Ukraine, sending over $110 Billion of taxpayer money to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including an additional $2 Billion in aid announced on February 3rd.
Congressman Gaetz was joined by the following original co-sponsors on the “Ukraine Fatigue” Resolution: Reps. Andy Biggs (AZ-05), Lauren Boebert (CO-03), Paul Gosar (AZ-09), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14), Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13), Thomas Massie (KY-04), Mary Miller (IL-15), Barry Moore (AL-02), Ralph Norman (SC-05), and Matt Rosendale (MT-02).
“President Joe Biden must have forgotten his prediction from March 2022, suggesting that arming Ukraine with military equipment will escalate the conflict to ‘World War III.’ America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war. We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately,” Congressman Gaetz said.
Full text of Rep. Gaetz’s Ukraine Fatigue Resolution can be found HERE gaetz(dot)house(dot)gov/sites/gaetz.house.gov/files/documents/Ukraine%20Fatigue%20Res.pdf.
Additionally, exclusive coverage of the Ukraine Fatigue Resolution by Fox News can be found HERE foxnews(dot)com/politics/gaetz-introduces-resolution-end-military-financial-aid-ukraine-urge-peace-deal
We demand that equal aid be provided to Syria and Turkey (Based on need), and that aid to Syria be distributed by the legitimate government of Syria in Damascus and by the Syrian Red Crescent Society which was formed by the Syrian state some 70 years ago.
Statement from the Syria Support Movement
In the early morning hours of February 6, 2023, a 7.8 Earthquake struck in the vicinity of the Syrian Border with Turkey. At the end of the day, February 5, there were at least 1,700 dead, more than 20,000 injured, thousands more missing and hundreds of thousands displaced in Syria. Victims and rescue crews are struggling with continuing aftershocks and sub zero temperatures.
Syria Support Movement wholeheartedly stands with the victims of this massive earthquake, and through our charitable engagement, we will participate in delivering aid. At the same time, we condemn the hypocritical stance of the U.S. government and their European allies. Due to devastating U.S. Sanctions enacted under the Caesar Civilian Protection Act in December, 2019, there are few avenues of relief for majority of Syrians affected, who are living in the government held areas. The United States has taken every opportunity to impede rebuilding Syria following their devastating decade long proxy war against the people of Syria, during which they spent billions of dollars supporting murderous terrorist groups who raped and pillaged throughout the land.
During the war, much of the country’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, many people were displaced and since then the U.S. Unilateral Sanctions combined with the U.S. occupation have made it difficult to rebuild. This earthquake has brought a new round of death and devastation to northern Syria and the people who live there.
Following the devastating earthquake that occurred on February 6, Antiwar.com asked U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price if the government is considering lifting sanctions in light of the humanitarian disaster caused by the earthquake. He replied that the U.S. engages with the government in Turkey, but only with NGOs in Syria. The problem is that U.S. NGOs in Syria do not operate in government-controlled areas where the majority of the population reside, but only in Idlib, a small terrorist-controlled province in the north of Syria. No aid will go through U.S. approved NGOs to Aleppo, a huge city where buildings are once again crashing on the people who live and work in them, or Hama or Latakia, a large province to the west of Idlib. There cannot be an equitable disbursement of aid under these discriminatory circumstances.
With stone-faced hypocrisy, Price went on to say that
[it] would be quite ironic, if not even counterproductive, for us to reach out to a government that has brutalized its people over the course of a dozen years now.
Throughout those dozen years, the United States has continuously waged war on the Syrian people, while the Syrian government and the Syrian Arab Army fought valiantly to protect them. Unlike many other governments in countries similarly attacked by the U.S., the Syrian government stayed the course. Whether the U.S. likes it or not, that is why the Syrian people continue to support their government in a large majority.
Price went on to claim that the U.S. has given more aid to Syria over the last decade than any other country. These remarks would be laughable if U.S. policy towards Syria over the last decade were not so devastating for the Syrian people.
Beyond the sanctions, the United States has been occupying approximately a third of the country, in the east where Syria’s oil wells and Syria’s grain fields are located, using Kurdish militias to manage the region. They have been pumping the oil and shipping it into Iraqi Kurdistan for sale, and using at least some of the proceeds to support their proxies in the region. On more than one occasion, the wheat fields have been burned, though some of it is sold back to the Syrian government at high cost.
After Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Negative Effects of Unilateral Coercive Measures, spent two weeks in Syria in late 2022, she wrote [1]
“I am struck by the pervasiveness of the human rights and humanitarian impact of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria and the total economic and financial isolation of a country whose people are struggling to rebuild a life with dignity, following the decade-long war.”
Before this current tragedy struck, Ms. Douhan [2] said that 12 million people in Syria live with food insecurity. She urged “the immediate lifting of all unilateral sanctions that severely harm human rights and prevent any efforts for early recovery, rebuilding and reconstruction.”
To this day, however, the United States continues its rapacious policy
Meanwhile, the the United States has a new round of sanctions in the works through the Captagon Act, which has passed the house and is scheduled to be included in the 2023 Defense Authorization Act, just as the Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act was embedded in the 2021 Defense Authorization Act so as to avoid debate on the details. Like the Caesar Act, the Captagon Act enables the United States to place further Unilateral Coercive Measures, on the Syrian government, Syrian businesses and Syrian financial affairs, thereby undermining the economy of the country and the human right of dignity and free exchange, as well as the fundamental rights of food, medicine and building materials necessary to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
All this in the midst of a horrific natural disaster.
“Syrians, while dealing with the earthquake catastrophe, are digging among rubble by their own hands or using simplest tools as the equipment of removing the rubble are banned because they are punished by the US.”
Syrian banks are disengaged from international channels of trade; Syrian businesses are unable to obtain basic materials necessary for the manufacturing goods, and the maintenance of manufacturing facilities, basic medicines and tools. Meanwhile, the United States is occupying Syria’s primary region for producing grain and oil, forcing the government to buy food and power for survival of the people rather than invest in trade and the development of a self-sustaining economy. Secondary sanctions hold those who violate these sanctions accountable to severe penalties, thereby enforcing the siege internationally, not so much on the Syrian government as on the Syrian people.
Now that the welfare of Syria’s population is further devastated by natural disaster, food, medicine, and building materials are more necessary than ever. These Unilateral Coercive Measures are designed to impede reconstruction, after constraining immediate humanitarian assistance. How is this protecting Syrian Civilians?
According to Syrian Journalist Steven Sahiounie, “Countries who have offered help to Syria [as of Feb 6] are: China, Russia, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Iraq, Algeria, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden and Bahrain.” At the moment, it is nearly impossible to get aid into Syria from western countries.
End the Sanctions Now ** End the Siege ** Immediate Aid for the Syria People
We demand that equal aid be provided to Syria and Turkey (Based on need), and that aid to Syria be distributed by the legitimate government of Syria in Damascus and by the Syrian Red Crescent Society which was formed by the Syrian state some 70 years ago.
The National Union of Syrian Students in an appeal to international student and youth organizations:
A humanitarian catastrophe befell our homeland, Syria, at dawn on Monday, February 6, 2023, after it was exposed to a devastating 7.7 degree earthquake, resulting in an initial outcome of hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries, the collapse of tens of residential buildings, the cracking of others, and severe damage to the infrastructure, which was followed by several tremors.
Despite the blockade and unjust sanctions against Syria and its people, the Syrian government and all unions, syndicates and civil society organizations responded from the first moments by putting all available financial, human and logistic capabilities in order to help and rescue citizens, treat the wounded and injured, and secure the afflicted families in adequate housing, in addition to all other assistance such as food, clothing, and others.
In the face of this devastating catastrophe and human tragedy, the National Union of Syrian Students and the masses of students and the youth inside and outside Syria, appeal to all sister Arab unions, organizations, associations, bodies and institutions and foreign friendly ones to move quickly and urgently to put pressure on governments to:
— Immediately end the siege and unilateral coercive economic sanctions imposed on Syria and its people for (12) years.
— Provide immediate and urgent aid to Syria and its people to mitigate the suffering and the impact of the earthquake and the siege.
— Support and aid humanitarian situations in the world, and separate between humanitarian and official political stances.
— Meet the appeals of Syrian students and communities, in terms of facilitating the arrival of cash transfers for the benefit of those affected.
National Union of Syrian Students Damascus 07/02/2023
On February 9 the Washington Post published a report[1] claiming that the Kiev regime forces “never launch HIMARS rounds without detailed coordinates provided by US military personnel situated elsewhere in Europe”. This also seems to include other NATO member states, while Washington DC gives the final authorization for any given HIMARS attack.
This effectively means that the political West (particularly the United States) is a party to the conflict in Ukraine and although this was clear from the very start, there was still no conclusive evidence to support such claims. However, the latest reports are an indisputable confirmation that NATO personnel is directly targeting both Russian soldiers and civilians.
According to the Washington Post, at least one senior US and three Kiev regime officials confirmed the reports. This doesn’t only include the HIMARS, but also similar platforms such as the M270 MLRS (multiple-launch rocket system) used by other NATO member states. The unnamed senior US official acknowledged “the key American role in the campaign” and stated that “the targeting assistance served to ensure accuracy and conserve limited stores of ammunition for maximum effectiveness”, further adding that “the United States provides coordinates and precise targeting information solely in an advisory role”.
The conclusion is quite laughable given the fact that the so-called “advisory role” of the political West has been rather decisive and as direct as it could possibly be (short of WW3, albeit this is also now in question). The aggressive US-led alliance is still posing as “not a party to the conflict”, but the level of involvement of both Washington DC and Brussels leaves no doubt that Moscow effectively sees both as direct military threats and that the Eurasian giant is now holding back only due to its desire to prevent direct confrontation which would inevitably lead to a world-ending thermonuclear exchange. Russia is perfectly aware this is the political West’s most important proxy war since World War Two and that the belligerent power pole has been planning this for decades (if not longer).
Washington Post further claims that the US officials consistently declined to comment on how exactly they provide coordinates for the HIMARS attacks, citing “concerns about operational security”, instead “highlighting the limitations of American involvement”. A senior Kiev regime official also stated that their military personnel identifies targets they want to attack, as well as their location, and that information is sent up the chain of command. Senior commanders then relay this to their US counterparts for more accurate coordinates. And while both Washington DC and the Neo-Nazi puppet regime insist that the role of the US is “strictly advisory” and that Kiev could use the HIMARS on its own, they admit they “don’t want to waste valuable ammunition and miss”, so they “usually choose not to strike without US confirmation”.
As previously mentioned, this admission alone should be enough to present the US as a party to the conflict, despite the rather comical attempts to justify and exonerate Washington DC. Worse yet, for nearly a year, the Neo-Nazi junta has been insisting on getting longer-range weapons from NATO, which would enable strikes deeper within Russia. The systems currently fielded by the Kiev regime forces have an official range of up to 80 km, but this too has been called into question, as there is ample evidence that it could be double, since the Neo-Nazi junta has routinely been launching strikes from as far as 150 km. Although neither the US nor Kiev have yet confirmed which type of munitions are being used for these longer-range strikes, various sources indicate that it could be an updated version of the GMLRS guided rockets [Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System].
For the time being, it seems the Neo-Nazi junta still hasn’t received the ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) system capable of strikes at ranges of up to 300 km, but given the political West’s propensity toward a “very liberal” understanding of what truth is, such claims are indeed highly questionable.
Various intelligence sources now suggest that the Kiev regime uses not just the standard M30 and M31 munitions, but also the new ER-GMLRS rockets. The US pressed these weapons into service (production began only in early 2022) and then secretly transferred them to their favorite puppet regime. On the other hand, the mainstream propaganda machine is trying to whitewash Washington DC, insisting that the US “consistently refuses to allow the delivery of longer-range missiles to avoid escalation with Moscow and drag us directly into the war”.
As previously mentioned, such claims are hardly taken seriously in Russia given the sheer magnitude of the inconsistency between America’s claims and actions. What’s even less credible is the Kiev regime’s insistence that “it would not use the longer-range missile to strike across the border inside Russia” given the fact that it has already launched several attacks up to 700 km within Russia. Despite ample evidence that the Neo-Nazi junta couldn’t be trusted, it claims it would be limited in longer-range attacks by Washington DC’s will to provide targeting data.
The unnamed Kiev regime official stated that “you’re controlling every shot anyway, so when you say, ‘We’re afraid that you’re going to use it for some other purposes,’ well, we can’t do it even if we want to”, while another senior Kiev official added that targeting Russian forces “goes through an American installation on NATO soil” and described the process as “very fast”.
*
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
We render you, corporations obsessed with war profiteering, accountable; answerable!
– Cornel West, Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal Member
The Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal (November 10-13, 2023) will hold accountable — through testimony of witnesses — U.S. weapons manufacturers who knowingly produce and sell products which attack and kill not only combatants but non-combatants as well. These manufacturers may have committed Crimes Against Humanity as well as violated U.S. Federal criminal laws. The Tribunal will hear the evidence and render a verdict.
To reach the largest possible audience and to maximize international participation, the testimonies of the witnesses for the Tribunal will be video-recorded throughout the upcoming year as investigative teams identify witnesses and elicit their testimony. This will include testimonies from the victims of war, military and weapons analysts, lawyers, journalists, and moral philosophers and theologians.
These recorded testimonies will then be presented to the Tribunal and a world-wide audience (via the internet) during the weekend of November 11, 2023. The opening session with the Tribunal members will be live (and livestreamed) providing an opportunity to introduce each Tribunal member, review the purpose of the Tribunal, the charges at issue, and the naming of the defendants. Similarly, the final session of the weekend will be live with Tribunal members discussing the evidence and offering their opinions and recommendations.
Teams of college and university students led by their professors and lawyers will conduct many of the aforementioned video interviews around the world. We will ask corporate directors of weapons manufacturers to sit for recorded interviews. A video library of these testimonies will be assembled over the course of the next year. The video testimonies will then be reviewed by lawyers and analysts to select those that are most pertinent.
By presenting prerecorded videos of the witnesses rather than live testimonies, we will create a structured and unique presentation of the evidence to the Tribunal. Technical interruptions and other delays during the Tribunal will be minimized. Additionally, the gathering of video evidence can begin soon.
An outline of the presentation is as follows:
Opening comments by the Tribunal.
Session 1 – Testimonies of victims of war harmed by United States weapons.
Session 2 – Testimonies from experts regarding the types and destructive power of weapons that have caused the harm described by the witnesses in Session 1. This will include, where possible, video of tests of these weapons showing their destructive power.
Session 3 – Testimonies from experts on the specific manufacturers of the weapons used, the amount of weapons produced and sold to the United States and abroad, the cost of such weapons and the profits resulting.
Session 4 – Testimonies from experts regarding lobbying practices, advertising and other methods used by weapons manufacturers to influence Congress and the public, not only in the purchase of weapons but also to influence United States warmaking policy.
Session 5 – Testimonies from philosophers, theologians and others regarding the morality of weapons manufacturers engaged in the conduct presented and the impact of their conduct within the United States and globally.
These five sessions will be followed by discussion and recommendations by Tribunal members.
A “contempt citation” was served today, Valentine’s Day, on Raytheon and a “subpoena to appear” on Secretary of “Defense” Lloyd Austin for war crimes.
Organizers of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and their supporters served a “Citation for Contempt” on the corporate offices of Raytheon in Arlington, Virginia for failing to comply with a “Subpoena” previously served on them on November 10, 2022. Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics have all been served and “Indicted” for their complicity in aiding and abetting the United States government in committing War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Bribery, and Theft. This action on Valentine’s Day is called “Melt Your Cold, Cold Heart.”
Simultaneous actions were planned in San Diego, CA; New York City; Asheville, NC; and Syracuse, NY.
On the same day the Tribunal also serveed Secretary of “Defense,” Lloyd Austin, with a “Subpoena” compelling him to testify before this public Tribunal answering questions involving his previous employment with Raytheon and the role these weapons manufacturers play in fomenting needless war for corporate profit.
These Subpoenas and Citations are issued by the Tribunal on behalf of victims of deadly attacks by the United States since 9/11 in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Lebanon, enabled by weapons produced by the above-named defendants. The People of the World are delivering these subpoenas in preparation for the upcoming Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, which will be held November 10, 2023.
The Tribunal is unusual in holding private actors accountable for enabling war crimes and promoting militarism and war. The Tribunal’s work is inspired by the U.S. Senate’s Nye Committee after World War I; the 1945 Nuremberg trials of German industrialists at the close of World War II; the 1966 Russell Tribunal on the Viet Nam War; and the filing this year of a case against three French arms makers for complicity in attacks by Saudi Arabia against Yemeni civilians.
The four defendants generate billions of dollars in profits each year by knowingly manufacturing, marketing, and selling products that kill not only combatants but noncombatant civilians as well.
By funding the political campaigns of members of Congress charged with oversight of the military, as well as other members of Congress, these defendants are alleged to have bribed public officials to approve billion-dollar contracts funded by taxpayer money. Defendants are also alleged to have directly influenced U.S. war-making policy to increase their profits.
The Tribunal itself will hear direct testimony from victims of war crimes, military analysts, and legal authorities during the Tribunal hearings in November of 2023. Those testimonies are currently being collected. Additional evidence is also being gathered.
Support and participation in this Tribunal include Dr. Cornel West, Marjorie Cohn, Bill Quigley, Col. Ann Wright, Ajamu Baraka, Marie Dennis, Col Lawrence Wilkerson, Marie Dennis, Medea Benjamin, John Pilger, Richard Falk, Matthew Hoh, among others. The public viewing of the Tribunal will educate the citizens of the world on the direct role weapons manufacturers are alleged to play in fomenting needless war and suffering across the planet, violating numerous national and international laws, and engaging in war profiteering.
The Tribunal encourages victims of these crimes, employees of these corporations, and government employees to come forward if they have information pertinent to the work of the Tribunal.
Ray McGovern discusses Seymour Hersh’s story, “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline” on Garland Nixon and Wilmer Leon’s radio show, The Critical Hour. (With transcript).
Transcript
Garland Nixon
Sy Hersh has a piece at his Substack account entitled How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline. The New York Times called it a, quote unquote mystery. But the United States executed a covert C.I.A. operation that was kept secret until now. For insight into this, let’s turn to our first guest. He works with Tell the World, The publishing arm of the Ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner city Washington; has 27 year career as a C.I.A. analyst, serving as chief of the Soviet foreign policy branch and preparing the president’s daily brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and he is, of course, Ray McGovern. As always, Ray, welcome back.
Ray McGovern
Thanks for having me.
Garland Nixon
So Sy Hersh writes, last June, the Navy divers operating under the cover of a widely publicized midsummer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that three months later destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines. This is according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
What I’ll say, Ray, is usually when we hear of unknown sources, we tend to question the veracity or validity of the piece.
But if it’s Sy Hersh, I got to give it its due. Ray McGovern.
Ray McGovern
I know Sy Hersh.
Garland Nixon
I know you do.
Ray McGovern
I know him to be a meticulous reporter, winner of five Polk Awards, Pulitzer Prize, you name it. Back in the day when honest reporters were so honored. This piece has all the earmarks of Sy’s meticulous approach, and he clearly has a very good source who felt, well, he felt a constitutional obligation to honor his or her oath to the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme oath any of us take. And that is to make sure that you tell the truth, especially when the Constitution is being violated.
Now, this was an act of war, pure and simple. Curiously enough, it was against Germany. And curiously enough, President Joseph Biden, at a press conference in the presence of the chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, said this is going to happen if Russia invaded Ukraine. And, of course, he was asked, well, how do you do this? I mean, how can you how can you be so confident that Nord Stream will be killed and Biden said, well, just, you know, trust me, it’s going to happen.
And so she, bilingual, the Reuters reporter, turned to Scholz – and this is not widely available now for obvious reasons – and she said, well, I mean, do you agree with that? I mean, hello, how do you feel about this? And this hack, this political hack said: we do everything together. We do everything together. We will be together on this now. So that’s available now. It’s available. Not Sy Hersh’s piece yet, but that interview is available in Germany.
You know, I describe Olaf Scholz as kind of the epitome of the abused spouse. Stands there and is abused not only by his master, Joe Biden, but also by this hack that he has as foreign minister. Her name is [Annalena] Baerbock. She is the the most vociferous of all the people saying that we are at war. That’s what she said. We are at war with Russia.
So the question will be: it has been 90 years, count them, nine zero years since the Nazis were making a push for power in Germany. What happened? The Reichstag, the German parliament building was burned down at the end of January, 1933. What happened? The Germans caved. The Nazis didn’t have a majority, but they scared the living daylights out of German citizens.
First of all, Social Democrats gave in. Next to fall, the Zentrum party, the Catholic Party. No one spoke up. We know the rest of the story. All right. Now, sometimes history is replete with ironies. Here it is exactly to the month, 90 years later. Will the German people acquiesce in their industry, and then their bodies being frozen out this winter? Or will they rise up and say: “Look, Mr Scholz, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, and neither does Baerbock. Get out of here!”, and replace that government?
Now, the key to all this, of course, is the fact I have already mentioned. Sy Hersh’s piece has not been published in Germany. The New York Times hasn’t published it. The major media haven’t published. Where did Sy have to publish this? On Substack. Now, at one point he had a friend at the German newspaper, Die Welt, and they published an incredible exposé on Syria. It turned out to be true, but Sy couldn’t get it published anywhere else. He used to publish in The New York Times, then in The New Yorker. He has been banned.
So the question is, will it be possible to inform not only the American people, but more important, the German people that they’ve been had? Okay? This is depriving them of livelihoods and industry. Will they, unlike 90 years ago, act like adults, stand up and say: “Now we’ve had it. Blowing up our our gas pipeline, that’s too far. We’re going to look at things differently. First and foremost, our involvement in Ukraine.”
Garland Nixon
Ray, domestically. Here. In this piece, if it is to be believed – which, I believe it and it certainly warrants an internal investigation here – the Biden administration admitted that what they were doing was an act of war, which means they understood that only Congress could, in fact, constitutionally clear that action. And they, with malice and aforethought, took action to mitigate their accountability to the Constitution and Congress.
And Joe Biden was the head guy there. He was the man that… eventually they decided rather than just put explosives on it, apparently Biden wanted to give the word for when it was done. This is an impeachable offense. This is a requirement of Congress, to act on it. Your thoughts on Congress not acting on it? I don’t suspect they will. And if there will be ultimately in the long term, any ramifications for that? Your thoughts on that anyway Ray.
Ray McGovern
Well, again, if the big tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it fall, does it make a sound? It is incredible how The New York Times – actually I’ve taken to calling The New York Times The New Yellow Times, after yellow journalism, which as most people know is what you do when you exaggerate or slant things beyond the truth.
The New Yellow Times can prevent this from being heard, and more important now, prevent corroboration from being a voice. We have corroboration now from Gil Doctorow in Brussels, Larry Johnson in Tampa, it’s coming in. And so I applaud the source that told Sy Hersh all this information. I believe it implicitly. Sy has never been wrong on really important issues like this. As I say, he’s meticulous, and he was distraught – and I know this personally – distraught at all this stuff about Russiagate.
He and Bob Parry used to – my mentor, Robert Parry, Consortium News– used to commiserate on the phone and, you know, what’s happened to the to the media? So here again, we have the media right in the middle of this thing. Only Tucker Carlson has had the cajones so far to play this story. Will it go further? I suspect… well, I don’t know but I like to try to be the optimist. Can The New York Times and the major media suppress this indefinitely? Well, I suppose they can. They’ve suppressed other stories, equally important, like the fact that the Russians are proven not to have hacked into the DNC, and that the ‘Russian offensive’ there with Facebook amounted to nothing.
So if they can deceive the American people, as the American people are willing to be deceived, then you know this will not have its desired effect. The fact that that Sy had to go on Substack to do this is really a lurid manifestation of the fact that not even the most prized, the most meticulous investigative reporter in the United States, could not get this published elsewhere.
That speaks volumes.
Garland Nixon
Part of this piece, Sy discusses meetings that Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan held in the executive office of the President, where they debated options for an attack on the pipeline. And he writes that the C.I.A. argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. And at the time, the C.I.A. was directed by Bill Burns, as Sy describes him, a mild mannered former ambassador to Russia. I know you know Burns well. He says that Burns quickly authorized a C.I.A. working group whose ad hoc members included someone who was familiar with the capacity of these Navy deep sea divers. Your thoughts on Burns’s involvement in this?
Ray McGovern
I do know Burns. He let me, well, in effect shame James Clapper by pointing out to an audience that Clapper had admitted that he fudged the evidence on weapons of mass destruction before the attack on Iraq. Burns was, some of us hoped, that he might be the adult in the room, but Burns is the epitome of a cog in the wheels of the system. He’s a state Department type. He got to be number two in the State Department and you don’t get to be number two in the State Department unless you salute. Whether it’s a harebrained scheme or not you salute. Well, here you have the epitome of a harebrained scheme. Did did Burns salute? Yes, as soon as the president said do it. He turned to his people and he said, Do it.
And they they rubbed their hands and said: Oh, man, this is going to be fun! We can do this. We can work with the Navy. We can do it. Okay. Now, what do the analysts say? Well, Burns didn’t give a rat’s patootie about what his analysts say, but Sy Hersh includes the notion that some of them said: You know, this is really crazy, this is really stupid. This is going to come back to bite us.
That’s what we always used to say on cockamamie schemes like this. What’s the point here? The point here is that the operations people at C.I.A. get all the money, get all the attention and get all the influence over whatever director comes in and another side lesson here is that if you’re going to pick a director for the C.I.A., don’t go to the State Department for a yes man. You don’t go to the Congress for somebody who compromises, for God’s sake. You find somebody like Admiral Stansfield Turner, four star, who had made his own his own mark on life and was not going to take any crap from nobody else, is going to tell the truth. He’s the last guy we had like that. God forbid we keep having these, well, these bureaucrats that salute when the president says jump.
Garland Nixon
One thing I did want to ask you, I had some thoughts. You know, the last – interesting – the last sentence where, you know, whoever the source is says, Oh, yeah, they did this thing. It was a brilliant operation, blah, blah, blah. He says the only flaw was the decision to do it. Here’s what it seems to me. I’m guessing it seemed like it came from somebody in the Pentagon, based on the knowledge. They basically said: You know, these idiots in the executive department, they have not a good move.
And C.I.A. was not real smart. State Department, bad move. The Pentagon wasn’t mentioned. And there are generally, I have heard recently, there are some pragmatists. It almost seems like there may. Well, anyway, your thoughts on the origins of this, if you have any?
Ray McGovern
Well, all I can say is that Sy Hersh has proven for about 40 years now that he is a trusted journalist. And when someone – and I suspect it aptly pertained to this particular source – when someone sees that an act of war has been has been committed by our government against all the… well, against the Constitution, maybe not against the U.S. designed “rules based order,” but, you know, we all swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Now this guy took that seriously. I suspect he went to that little corner in that bar where Sy meets his – I know where that is – meets his sources and told him this whole story. Sy said it only took him three months. I believe that. And American people… it’s eminently believable. The question is the fallout and whether the mass media can prevent this story from sneaking into the consciousness of Americans who have been taught, who have been brainwashed over the last seven years. Okay? Seven years now, to hate Russia.
Okay. Will Rogers had that wonderful aphorism, the comedian way back a century or two ago. Will Rogers put it this way. He said: “The problem is this: it’s not what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so.” That’s the problem. And the people think that the Russians are just evil to the core. That Putin… Here’s an example. Okay? At the time when Sy Hersh’s story is going out, here’s The New York Times on February ninth. A yellow journalism piece by a fellow named Constant Méheut – a Frenchman, apparently – and it shows that Vladimir Putin was personally responsible for killing the 298 aboard Malaysian Airlines MH 17 over Ukraine in July of 2014. Now it says that in the title; it says that in the first paragraph; and third paragraph it says: Well, we can’t prove that Putin was really… Give me a break! Okay. So this is a day when they should have been featuring Sy’s research. They’re still at it. Blackening Putin, first and foremost, the rest of the Russians, and, you know, this was consequential.
Let me remind you that after the coup in Kiev, after the annexation of Crimea, the U.S. could still not get the Europeans to shoot themselves in the foot by sanctions. It was only after Malaysian Airlines MH 17 was downed – according to The New York Times, by Vladimir Putin himself – that they could get real sanctions that bit the Europeans more than they bit anyone, including the Russians. So this was consequential. This was the beginning of really strict sanctions. And I just wonder if the West Europeans and the East Europeans will wake up and say: “You know, this is a this is a bad deal to get involved with, what the U.S. wants, because they want war with Russia. And this is going to come to, as the Chinese used to call it, a no good end.”
Garland Nixon
Ray McGovern, as always, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate that analysis and we look forward to having you back.
Ray McGovern
Aye and most welcome.
The views expressed are solely those of the speakers and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Since the end of the Cold War, the world has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of sanctions regimes, particularly by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the United States. This is due in part to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which ended the deadlock between superpowers at the Security Council. Over the past few decades, sanctions were slowly reconfigured from war time weapons into peacetime policy instruments. In order for this effort to materialize, policymakers, legal scholars, and government officials campaigned to legitimate sanctions as a lawful weapon to punish nations who refuse to submit to the United States and Europe.
The International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades, and Economic Coercive Measures approaches economic coercive measures as inherently violent, designed to maintain economic inequality, continue the theft of wealth from the Global South, and preserve racial hierarchy in the international system. Such measures are structurally incapable of reform, and cannot incorporate humanitarian concerns. The Tribunal is a collective effort to build systems of accountability—rooted in global cross-movement solidarity—both within and outside of the law, to challenge the violence of imperialism through sanctions. We interrogate sanctions not from the perspective of those who enforce them, but from the perspective of those most impacted by them, namely the peoples of Asia, Africa, and South America.
WHY HOLD A PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL?
People’s Tribunals capture the ethos of self-determination and internationalism that was expressed through twentieth century anti-colonial struggles and was institutionalized in the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Cuba. They bring together movement lawyers, scholars, and organizers from around the world and are designed by and accountable to the social movements and communities in which they are rooted. Operating outside of the logics and institutions of capitalist and imperialist law, People’s Tribunals make decisions that may not be binding and do not have the force of law, but their achievements in a political and discursive register inspire and provide the tools necessary for present and future organizing. People’s Tribunals allow the oppressed to judge the powerful, defining the content as well as the scope of the procedures, which reverses the norm of the powerful creating and implementing the law.
There is a long tradition of radical organizers and lawyers using the law to put capitalism and imperialism on trial. Organized by the Civil Rights Congress, and supported by the Communist Party as well as a host of Black leftist luminaries, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Claudia Jones, and Paul Robeson, We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief of a Crime of the United States against the Negro People, indicted the political-economic system of capitalism and white supremacy for inflicting numerous forms of structural and physical violence on Black people in the U.S. as well as drawing parallels to U.S. imperialist violence abroad. The Russell Tribunal was set up in 1966 to judge U.S. military intervention and war crimes in Vietnam. The same format reemerged in later Russell Tribunals dealing with the U.S.-backed Brazilian and Argentinian military dictatorships (1964 and 1976, respectively), the U.S.-backed coup in Chile (1973), and the U.S.-European interventions against Iraq (1990, 2003). The 2016 International Tribunal for Democracy in Brazil critically examined the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the role of the U.S. government. Organized in Brussels by both Philippine and international groups, the 2018 International People’s Tribunal on the Philippines exposed and condemned the multiple forms of state violence visited on the people of the Philippines since Rodrigo Duterte became president in 2016. And finally, the U.S. government was put directly on trial by a pair of innovative People’s Tribunals, including the 2007 International Tribunal on Katrina and Rita and the 2018 International Tribunal on U.S. Colonial Crimes Against Puerto Rico.
“What are thought of as mere limits on financial transactions are a form of warfare which kill as surely as bombs and bullets. Sanctions are war crimes, violating prohibitions against the targeting of civilian populations.
This book SANCTIONS – A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy is vital to understanding how the United States and its allies create suffering around the world.”
— Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report
The anthology: SANCTIONS: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy challenges a deadly U.S. policy.
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Intensifying US sanctions, imposed on a third of humanity, are sending shock waves through the world economy. Now this brutal form of economic warfare on civilian populations is being contested.
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The sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela are closing off every form of exchange.
Sanctions have boomeranged back on the US and EU countries with inflation, supply chain shortages, and a looming recession causing hardship at home. But by far the greatest burden is borne by 40+ sanctioned countries. The US response is doubling down on harsher sanctions. What are the implications?
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