Foundations of Evil

By Cassandra Anderson
Morphcity, March 8, 2011

Foundations, Depopulation & the Taxpayer

Many "philanthropic" foundations have been used in America as a tax dodge to protect family fortunes, to polish tarnished images of robber barons and worst of all, to make the public fund depopulation and other detrimental policies that benefit the controlling elite.  Some tax-funded depopulation programs include vaccines, genetically modified (GM) crops and "reproductive rights" which is a euphemism for abortion, birth control and sterilization under the elites' eugenics programs.  Incredibly, the public is paying for its own demise!  This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'death and taxes'.

What is a Foundation?

There are 1.6 million so-called 'nonprofit' 501(c)3 organizations in the US. Nonprofits are misnamed and are anything but not-for-profit; a more accurate description is that they are TAX EXEMPT organizations. The two two major types of tax exempt organizations are:

• Foundations- these are the grantors and they are required to donate 5% of their assets each year to charitable organizations. They enjoy enormous tax breaks from the federal government and pay no income tax, no corporate tax and no capital gains tax. States and local governments may also exempt them from property and sales taxation. Some powerful foundations are extremely influential in setting political policies and making laws that benefit their enterprises and pass the cost onto taxpayers.
  
• Nonprofit Organizations or NPOs also enjoy the same tax exemptions as foundations (no income, corporate or capital gains taxes). NPOs are structured like a business and seek grants from foundations, government subsidies and corporate and private donations. They do pursue profits.

Foundations make grants to NPO "charities".  Assets within foundations are not owned by individuals, but individuals control the assets.  Because they are allowed to continually re-invest assets without taxation, foundations are used to protect family wealth through estate planning; this scheme is now expanding into business development which means that some businesses are seeking to cut their taxes by pretending to be charitable organizations.

Foundations date back to Greek and Roman times.  They became popular with the elites in the U.S. when they created the fraudulent Federal Reserve System and the income tax. 

How the Public Pays for its Own Demise 

The formula for coercing the public to pick up the bill for destructive programs begins with foundations creating a constituency, buying off politicians, and convincing Congress that an issue should be regulated by the government.  Once the issue is government controlled, it becomes taxpayer funded.

A good example of this man-made global warming, one of the cornerstones of UN Agenda 21, the overarching blueprint for total control and depopulation.  Fear and hysteria were created (based on flawed science from the UN) using NPOs in order to usher in government regulations funded by taxpayers.  

Here is a more detailed explanation of the process:

1.  Foundations create constituency groups or supporters.

Education- foundations provide grants to schools and colleges; they often place one of their representatives on the school Board of Directors to influence curriculum.

Media- foundations spend a lot of money to make a splash in the news, sponsor media events and generate publicity.

Activism- foundations and their officers "donate" to NPOs and may then direct them.

2.  Politicians may bought or receive funding that influences them.  They may receive "donations" and campaign contributions from foundations, corporations and individuals.  OpenSecrets.org is a good source for finding information on political and lobbying contributions.

OpenSecrets.org provides information on politicians, their donors, contributors to government departments, corporate donors and lobbyist groups.

3.  The most critical step is for representatives of foundations argue in Congress that their issue should be regulated or acted upon by the government.  Once government policies are created, costs are passed on to the public through taxes, permit fees and other governmental charges.  David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer prize winner and author, said that this can be proven by investigating legislative back history, but it is very laborious process.

Foundation-inspired laws and regulations are not limited to the federal government, as state and local governments are targeted, too.

4.  Foundations may write the actual laws and regulations and administer them.

5.  Foundations may also lobby for for tax breaks and subsidies that benefit their interests.

6.  In some cases this entire process can be bypassed if there is enough money and power involved.  For example, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates met with Obama recently to discuss "fixing" the U.S. economy- who knows what deals were struck behind closed doors. 

Another example is the prince of the UAE who pledged $50 million to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for vaccines; ultimately, the prince's money is derived from the citizens.

7.  Foundations can bolster their image or the image of their members at a discount rate by employing the 'Pillsbury Formula'; this method is when the foundation puts up half the money (or some percentage) and demands matching funds from another source.  The finished project is created in their name and generates positive publicity at a bargain rate.

Conclusion:

Malthusian overpopulation myths are lies perpetrated by the controllers who seem to fear losing power and command over resources.  In fact, The UN's owndocuments are a direct contradiction to their lies; world population is expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050 and is projected to remain at that level through 2300.  Many large foundations are dedicated to depopulation, especially those controlled by Rockefeller, Buffett and Gates.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's 'Giving Pledge' is a not a foundation; it is merely a promise by wealthy elites to donate over half of their fortunes to "philanthropy" upon their death.  The Giving Pledge currently has over 50 members; the goal is to accumulate $600 billion in pledges from 400 billionaires.  The donors may choose any foundation or "charitable" foundation that they woud like to support.  Many are likely to choose a foundation that will take their donations and invest it in markets to make money, with an annual payout of only 5%.  Therefore, generating more wealth and influencing political policy to be funded by taxpayers (and destructive to the public in many cases) is a plausible result. This is hardly admirable.

People who are interested in finding out more about foundations and NPOs may obtain a free membership for independent researchers at GuideStar.org to investigate tax exempt entities' IRS 990 tax forms which provides information about how much money they have, and may include the names of grant recipients, the names of the donors and a list of companies with whom they invest.  Not all foundations are corrupt, but the large ones that influence public policy deserve close scrutiny.  Please help by investigating and reporting your findings.

Click here to find out how to spot NPOs that may be working against public interest.

Acknowledgements:

David Cay Johnston, author of 'Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You with the Bill',  (short video here), provided the key to how tax payers fund governmental programs conceived by foundations.  This can be accomplished by arguing in Congress to have an issue regulated or to have the government take action, leaving the taxpayer assuming the costs.

G. Edward Griffin, producer of 'The Hidden Agenda' documentary film (video and transcript) about foundations' role in social engineering and his advice were an invaluable source of information.

Michael Shaw, President of FreedomAdvocates.org, lawyer and former tax expert says, "Foundations, Non Governmental Organizations and non-profits are generally exempt from income taxes.  They have been arranged from the beginning to promote globalism and today this is accomplished through the implementation of Agenda 21.  The creation of the Federal Reserve coupled with the adoption of the income tax in 1913 provided the one world elite opportunity to avoid taxes throught the formation of Foundations and other tax exempts.  This was key to creating the financing system that has promoted globalism and which now threatens us all with world tyranny."
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Sheeple: Government Handouts = 35 Percent Of U.S. Wages But For Michael Moore That Is Not Nearly Enough

From The Economic Collapse Blog:

The ratio of government handouts to wages and salaries in the United States is now at an all-time high.  According to TrimTabs Investment Research, government handouts have reached a level that is equivalent to 35 percent of all wages and salaries in the United States.  Considering the fact that this figure was only 21 percent back in the year 2000 and only 10 percent back in 1960 that is very frightening.  The sad truth is that today the American people are more dependent on direct government payments than they ever have been before.  What this does is that it takes formerly independent Americans and transforms them into "sheeple" and pets of the government.  Today we have tens of millions of Americans that eagerly await the crumbs that the federal government tosses them each month.  This is one reason why our national debt is exploding, but our politicians like this system because it enables them to buy votes.  Meanwhile, the federal government and the international corporations that dominate our economy have rigged the game so that power and money are becoming increasingly centralized in their hands.  As a result of the system that the "big boys" have developed, millions of small businesses across the country are being absolutely crushed, the standard of living of the middle class is gradually being destroyed and more American families slip into poverty ever single day.  What we need to do is to dramatically reduce the power of both the federal government and the big corporations so that small businesses and individuals can thrive once again, but instead "activists" such as Michael Moore are out there demanding even more taxes and even more government handouts.

Not that a "safety net" is a bad thing.  We simply are not going to allow tens of millions of Americans to starve out in our streets.  However, it has gotten to the point where the majority of American families are now dependent on the U.S. government in one form or another and that is very, very wrong.

More government handouts are never a long-term solution to anything.  Handouts do not give people dignity.  Handouts do not teach people to be independent.  Handouts do not enable people to live the "American Dream".  Handouts are not the path to prosperity.

What the American people need are jobs and an environment where small businesses can thrive.  But instead, the federal government has allowed the big global corporations to ship millions of our jobs out of the country and the federal government continues to burden our small businesses with an endless array of new taxes and regulations.

Who is successful in America today?

It is the big boys.  Everyone else is being crushed.

This is what the founding fathers tried to warn us about.  They did not want the federal government to have much power at all, and they were deeply suspicious of large corporations.

But we have turned our backs on the principles of the founding fathers.

We should be figuring out how to get back to the America that our founding fathers originally tried to create, but instead all of the attention is being given to "activists" such as Michael Moore who are calling for even more taxes and even more government handouts.  The following video is of Michael Moore giving a speech to protesters in Madison, Wisconsin on March 5th, 2011.  His speech was entitled "America Is Not Broke"....

Yes, the "little guy" is being absolutely crushed in America today.  But for people like Michael Moore the solution is always to tax the middle class more and to pass out even more government handouts.

That isn't going to solve anything.  Most of the ultra-wealthy have turned avoiding taxes into an art form.  A third of all the wealth in the world is now held in "offshore banks".  Many of our largest corporations don't pay a dime in federal taxes even as they pass out multi-million dollar bonuses to their executives.

Raising taxes in most definitely not the answer.  Those that have mastered the art of avoiding taxes will continue to do so no matter how high you raise them.

The truth is that we need to shut down the IRS and scrap the current tax system entirely.  It simply does not work.

What we need to do is to get the federal government and the big corporations under control and transfer the power back to the American people.

That is what our founding fathers intended.  They intended for the common man to be empowered  to start businesses, create wealth and pursue happiness.

But instead tens of millions of Americans have become addicted to government handouts.  When large numbers of people give up and willingly become wards of the government that is not good for society.

Unfortunately, more Americans today are dependent on the U.S. government than ever before.  Just consider the following statistics....

-According to TrimTabs Investment Research, social welfare benefits in the United States have risen by $514 billion over the past two years alone.

-As 2007 began, only about 26 million Americans were on food stamps, but today over 44 million Americans are now on food stamps.

-Over 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid.

-Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today,one out of every 6 American is on Medicaid.

-53 million Americans received $703 billion in Social Security benefits in 2010.

-Right now the U.S. government is either writing or guaranteeing well over 90 percent of all mortgages in the United States.

-It is being projected that extended unemployment benefits will cost the federal government $34 billion over the next two years.

-30 U.S. states have borrowed a total of $41.5 billion from the federal government just so that they could continue paying out unemployment benefits during the recession.

-Entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare now account for 58% of all U.S. government spending.

But what else should we expect?  The federal government has been using a sledgehammer to endlessly pound away on the capacity of small businesses and individuals to create wealth and jobs and opportunities.  The business atmosphere in the United States is now so toxic that it is amazing that any small businesses have survived.

Most Americans find themselves with no other way to make a living other than to work for someone else.  But the big global corporations have discovered that they can make much larger profits by getting rid of American workers and by shipping our jobs overseas and our politicians are allowing them to get away with it.

The truth is that both political parties don't have the answers.  Neither party seems to have any clue about how to stop millions of jobs from leaving the United States and neither party seems to have any clue about how to create a business environment inside the United States where individuals and small businesses can actually thrive.

How much longer will it be before we all finally admit that we are experiencing total system failure in this country?  Should we all just quit trying and sit on our couches waiting for the next government handout?  The truth is that there aren't nearly enough jobs for all Americans anyway.

The middle class is dying and the establishment has us all fighting with each other.  The left and the right are busy fighting about taxes and budget cuts while the ultra-wealthy continue to enjoy massive profits and incredibly low taxes in the globalized economic system that we have allowed our politicians to create.

Yes, there are tens of millions of Americans that are deeply suffering right now and they need to be helped.

But government handouts are never a long-term solution to anything.  What we need to do is to massively reduce the power of the federal government, massively reduce the power of the big corporations and stop businesses and jobs from being shipped out of the country.  We also need to create an environment in the United States that is very favorable to small businesses.  That would give our country a chance to start creating good jobs again.

But instead, we continue to allow our politicians to destroy our economy.  We actually have 10 percent fewer middle class jobs in this country than we did just ten years ago.  The middle class is being systematically destroyed.  All of the wealth and all of the power are slowly being transferred into the hands of big government and the big corporations.

The vast majority of the rest of us are being transformed from strong, independent, prosperous Americans into dehumanized sheeple that can't wait for the next government check to come in.

Does anyone out there actually believe that this is what our founding fathers originally intended?
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21 Signs Of Impending Doom For The 2011 Economy

Governments are about to lose control of the markets

From Financeandeconomics, 7 March 2011:
By  Alasdair Macleod

The low interest rate honeymoon is coming to an end, and we can now expect rates to rise and continue to rise for the foreseeable future. For Western economies and their banking systems it is the worst possible time for this to happen. The reason interest rates will go up is because inflation, not deflation, now presents the greatest danger and a policy response is required.

Agricultural commodity prices have been rising for some time, and the central banks have dismissed them as being due to special factors and too small a part of the CPI to worry about. To this inconvenience can now be added the political revolutions in the Middle East and their effect on energy prices. It is perhaps this development that forced Jean-Claude Trichet to break ranks last week and admit that the ECB will have to consider an interest rate rise.

There is no such admission from Mr Bernanke and Mr King, the latter still denying that an official UK inflation rate of over 4% requires remedial action. And this high inflation rate was recorded before the current jump in energy costs. All three central bankers have been effectively caught on the hop by events. They have been ignoring inflation while wrestling with two immediate problems: financing government budget deficits and keeping the banking system alive. For these reasons the Fed and the BoE have been simply printing money by buying government debt. What made this strategy attractive is that it lowered the cost of government borrowing below that demanded by the free market, making government finances appear far better than they would be without this intervention, and at the same time it gives valuable breathing-space to the banking system.

Consequently, there is money in circulation that will have to be neutralised if inflation is to be controlled. It will require the central banks to sell back into the markets much of the government stock they have accumulated, at the same time as government borrowing continues at its high pace. This will force governments to bid up against their own central banks in the market for private sector savings. The increase in interest rates along the yield curve would therefore be sudden and brutal, and theoretically only stop when enough consumption is switched into savings, attracted by the high rates.

For this to happen when economies are fragile is the last thing the central banks need. Any hope of economic recovery will be quickly replaced by expectations of a slump, leading to deterioration in government finances everywhere, as tax revenue estimates are adjusted sharply downwards and welfare commitments sharply upwards. Add to that increases in the cost of government borrowing from higher interest rates, and the sudden collapse in government finances becomes truly alarming. The dramatic moves in the prices of precious metals are, perhaps, an early warning of this escalating risk.

The prospects for precious metals will ultimately depend on the central banks determination to control inflation. If only it was so simple; but a higher interest rate environment will break the banks, which are full of dodgy loans dating from credit-crunch days. So what does a central banker do? Does he squeeze inflation out of the system, while governments slash their spending, or does he find another way of rigging the markets, while governments dither over their deteriorating finances?

Paul Volcker faced up to the problem and picked the former course thirty years ago, but this time the levels of private and public sector debt are a whole magnitude larger and government spending is a far greater problem. This time, embarking on austerity and interest rate plans sufficient to control inflation is simply too painful to contemplate in social democracies. The markets are beginning to understand this, having now been kicked awake by escalating energy prices.

History never repeats itself precisely, but there are similarities to late 1973, when inflation was on the rise and the Arab oil-producing nations imposed an oil embargo on Western nations, leading to considerably higher energy prices. This gives us perhaps a basis for divining today’s outcome, but there were notable differences.

US Inflation, on a comparable basis, is now running at about 5%[i] compared with 6% then, but interest rates are now close to zero compared with 7% in October 1973. An inflationary kick from higher oil prices could therefore lead to a much greater interest rate increase today. Government finances were far stronger then, reflecting economic growth, compared with the serious and deteriorating situation now. So rather than higher oil prices occurring at the top of the economic cycle, today it is happening when the world’s developed economies are struggling to recover.

The pick-up in inflation today is therefore more directly a function of monetary developments than excess demand. Arguably, this makes it more considerably serious than that faced in October 1973, which was easier to diagnose. It is a direct consequence of the monetary expansion that is the bedrock of economic policy. This is not welcomed by the establishment, which seems to think inflation can only occur as a result of excess demand. That is perhaps why the Mervyn Kings and Ben Bernankes of this world turn a blind eye to inflationary pressures, because so far as they are concerned it should not be happening until later in the cycle.

This unfortunate result of current monetary policy gives them an uncomfortable dilemma, because the consequences of stopping or even slowing the printing presses are too ghastly for them to contemplate. The truth is that there are not enough lenders, other than the central banks themselves, to finance government deficits at anything like current interest rates. To stop printing puts government finances in deep crisis and runs counter to cherished Keynesian and monetary theories, so it is hard to see how central bankers will take the initiative to jack up interest rates and bring inflation under control.

This phase of the inflation crisis has been brewing since the Lehman bankruptcy, when the Fed first dramatically expanded its balance sheet to rescue the American banking system. The policy since then has been to muddle along, printing more money to cover deficits and to get the economy recovering. But the crisis in the Middle East is putting an end to that approach and control of the markets is therefore shifting away from the authorities. The markets will raise interest rates against inflating governments whether they like it or not, and their currencies will suffer if central banks are slow to respond. At long last, markets will make governments face the reality they have been so keen to avoid.

The effect on asset prices will be dramatic, and share and bond markets, currently reflecting zero interest rates, are likely to be badly hit. Property is similarly vulnerable, with the end of any pretence that over-leveraged homeowners can afford their mortgages and commercial property tenants their rents. Values for collateral held by the banks against their loan books will therefore be further undermined, putting into doubt the banking system’s survival.

This new phase is stagflation, pure and simple. Asset prices fall, while the prices of goods rise. It is an outcome that has been obvious to some of us since the printing-presses were first cranked up after the credit-crunch. It will now become obvious to the wider public, because the authorities are finally losing control of the markets.

7 March 2011

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[i] See www.Shadowstats.com, which removes most of the “adjustments” to the CPI that have been made over the last thirty years.
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Obama orders resumption of military trials at Guantanamo

By Barry Grey

WSWS, March 8 2011 President Barack Obama on Monday announced the lifting of a 25-month stay on new military trials at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison camp, effectively repudiating his post-inauguration pledge to close the infamous facility. In a White House announcement, Obama said he had ordered the Defense Department to lift the order, issued on the first full day of his administration over two years ago, suspending the filing of new charges in the military commissions at the camp. Obama at the time presented the order as the first step in shutting the facility within a year. Administration officials said new charges against some of the 172 detainees remaining at the prison would be filed within days or weeks. Obama also signed an executive order establishing a process to hold some Guantanamo detainees indefinitely without charge or trial, a further assault on the principle of habeas corpus and step in the direction of a police state. The US government considers that some of those being held—having been seized in various places around the world and imprisoned for nearly a decade without any legal recourse—cannot be tried even by the drumhead military commissions because they have been tortured or held on the basis of "evidence" elicited through the torture of others. There are no doubt others among the prisoners whose testimony could embarrass the government by revealing the complicity of US intelligence agencies with Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits. Obama said his actions "broaden our ability to bring terrorists to justice, provide oversight for our actions and ensure the humane treatment of the detainees." The administration claims that new procedures for the military commissions bring them more in line with international laws and standards. However, they deny basic due process protections, even when compared to the regular military court martial process. All of those being held as prisoners in the "war in terror," moreover, are denied the basic protections granted to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement Monday declaring: "The executive order issued by the president today strengthens the legal framework under which we will continue to detain those individuals who are at war with our country and who pose a significant threat to the security of the United States." Holder said the administration would continue to seek to try some of the Guantanamo prisoners in civilian criminal courts, and criticized Congress for passing a law late last year restricting the ability of the administration to transfer terrorism suspects to the United States from Guantanamo for trial. That action blocked the administration from proceeding with plans to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court on the US mainland. Holder also said the White House remains committed to closing Guantanamo, but just last week he told a congressional panel that he did not know if the administration would be able to close the facility by the end of Obama’s first term. The executive order signed by Obama Monday seeks to provide a fig leaf of legality to the unconstitutional indefinite detention of prisoners. It sets out rules requiring a review of all Guantanamo detainees’ status within a year, and every three years thereafter, to determine whether they remain a threat. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Human Rights First all criticized Obama’s announcement for institutionalizing the indefinite detention of people who have never been formally charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime. The Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement, "The creation of a review process that will take up to a year—designed to be repeated every four years—is a tacit acknowledgment that the Obama administration intends to leave Guantanamo as a scheme for unlawful detention without charge and trial for future presidents to clean up…" Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, said, "This is a step down the road toward institutionalizing a preventive detention regime." Congressional Republicans praised Obama’s action. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Howard McKeon of California, welcomed the revival of the military commissions. McKeon said he was "pleased" that the president had "reversed his earlier decision and will restart military commissions at Gunatanamo." Obama’s continuation of the Bush-era military commissions and maintenance of the Guantanamo gulag is of a piece with his continuation and escalation of Bush’s war policies. Obama won election by appealing to anti-war sentiment and opposition to torture and other criminal methods. He has, however, continued the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while continuing and expanding the anti-democratic policies of his predecessor. The Obama administration has refused to prosecute a single Bush administration official for employing lies to invade Iraq and engaging in torture, abductions and the use of secret prisons. Obama has continued the practice of rendition to kidnap alleged terrorists and transfer them to other countries to be tortured, used the claim of "state secrets" to block victims of rendition and torture from going to court, upheld the right of the president to declare people "enemy combatants" and unilaterally condemn them to indefinite detention in military jails, and even signed an order to assassinate an American citizen. Just five days before Obama announced the revival of military commissions at Guantanamo, his administration sanctioned the filing of 22 new charges against alleged WikiLeaks source Private Bradley Manning, including the capital charge of "aiding the enemy." The administration is threatening to execute the 23-year-old soldier for the "crime" of helping to expose US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American diplomatic conspiracies around the world. _________- Related: The Government's Indefinite Detention Policy is Based on Circular Reasoning The government's indefinite detention policy - stripped of it's spin - is literally insane, and based on circular reasoning. Stripped of p.r., this is the actual policy: If you are an enemy combatant or a threat to national security, we will detain you indefinitely until the war is over It is a perpetual war, which will never be over Neither you or your lawyers have a right to see the evidence against you, nor to face your accusers But trust us, we know you are an enemy combatant and a threat to national security We may torture you (and try to cover up the fact that you were tortured), because you are an enemy combatant, and so basic rights of a prisoner guaranteed by the Geneva Convention don't apply to you Since you admitted that you're a bad guy (while trying to tell us whatever we think you want to hear to make the torture stop), it proves that we should hold you in indefinite detention See how that works? US to resume Guantanamo trials US president lifts two-year ban on controversial military tribunals as he acknowledges the prison will not close soon. AlJazeera.net March 8, 2011 - The US president has approved the resumption of military trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. The move ends a two-year ban and was the latest acknowledgement that the prison Barack Obama had vowed to shut down within a year of taking office will remain open for some time to come. But even while announcing a resumption of military commission trials on Monday, Obama reaffirmed his support for trying terror suspects in US federal courts - something that has met resistance in Congress... Obama: Military Trials Again at Guantanamo; Indefinite Detention Now Official US Policy By Kenneth J. Theisen March 8, 2011 - The Obama administration announced on Monday, March 7th that it will resume kangaroo trials at the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This ends a two-year ban imposed by President Obama the day after he took office. Back then he also announced that he was ordering the closure of Gitmo which in the eyes of the world had come to symbolize torture and the abuse of due process for the prisoners held in the U.S. war of terror. Of course Gitmo is still open and the atrocities it came to represent continue there and at other U.S.-run hellholes such as the expanded prison at Bagram, Afghanistan...

The Old Gang's All Here - Libya and the Return of Humanitarian Imperialism

By JEAN BRICMONT

Counterpunch, March 8, 2011 The whole gang is back: The parties of the European Left (grouping the "moderate" European communist parties), the "Green" José Bové, now allied with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who has never seen a US-NATO war he didn’t like, various Trotkyist groups and of course Bernard-Henry Lévy and Bernard Kouchner, all calling for some sort of "humanitarian intervention" in Libya or accusing the Latin American left, whose positions are far more sensible, of acting as "useful idiots" for the "Libyan tyrant." Twelve years later, it is Kosovo all over again. Hundred of thousands of Iraqis dead, NATO stranded in an impossible position in Afghanistan, and they have learned nothing! The Kosovo war was made to stop a nonexistent genocide, the Afghan war to protect women (go and check their situation now), and the Iraq war to protect the Kurds. When will they understand that all wars claim to have humanitarian justifications? Even Hitler was "protecting minorities" in Czechoslovakia and Poland. On the other hand, Robert Gates warns that any future secretary of state who advises a US president to send troops into Asia or Africa "must have his head examined". Admiral McMullen similarly advises caution. The great paradox of our time is that the headquarters of the peace movement are to be found in the Pentagon and the State Department, while the pro-war party is a coalition of neo-conservatives and liberal interventionists of various stripes, including leftist humanitarian warriors, as well as some Greens, feminists or repentant communists. So, now, everybody has to cut down his or her consumption because of global warming, but NATO wars are recyclable and imperialism has become part of sustainable development. Of course the US will go or not go to war for reasons that are quite independent of the advice offered by the pro-war left. Oil is not likely to be a major factor in their decision, because any future Libyan government will have to sell oil and Libya is not big enough to significantly weigh on the price of oil. Of course, turmoil in Libya leads to speculation that itself affects prices, but that is a different matter. Zionists are probably of two minds about Libya: they hate Qaddafi, and would like to see him ousted, like Saddam, in the most humiliating manner, but they are not sure they will like his opposition (and, from the little we know about it, they won’t). The main pro-war argument is that if things go quickly and easily, it will rehabilitate NATO and humanitarian intervention, whose image has been tarnished by Iraq and Afghanistan. A new Grenada or, at most, a new Kosovo, is exactly what is needed. Another motivation for intervention is to better control the rebels, by coming to "save" them on their march to victory. But that is unlikely to work: Karzai in Afghanistan, the Kosovar nationalists, the Shiites in Iraq and of course Israel, are perfectly happy to get American help, when needed, but after that, to pretty much pursue their own agenda. And a full-fledged military occupation of Libya after its "liberation" is unlikely to be sustainable, which of course makes intervention less attractive from a US point of view. On the other hand, if things turn badly, it will probably be the beginning of the end of the American empire, hence the caution of people who are actually in charge of it and not merely writing articles in Le Monde or ranting against dictators in front of cameras. It is difficult for ordinary citizens to know exactly what is going on in Libya, because Western media have thoroughly discredited themselves in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine, and alternative sources are not always reliable either. That of course does not prevent the pro-war left from being absolutely convinced of the truth of the worst reports about Qaddafi, just as they were twelve years ago about Milosevic. The negative role of the International Criminal Court is again apparent, here, as was that of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in the case of Kosovo. One of the reasons why there was relatively little bloodshed in Tunisia and Egypt is that there was a possible exit for Ben Ali and Mubarak. But "international justice" wants to make sure that no such exit is possible for Qaddafi, and probably for people close to him, hence inciting them to fight to the bitter end. If "another world is possible", as the European Left keeps on saying, then another West should be possible and the European Left should start working on that. The recent meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance could serve as an example: the Latin American left wants peace and they want to avoid US intervention, because they know that they are in the sights of the US and that their process of social transformation requires above all peace and national sovereignty. Hence, they suggest sending an international delegation, possibly led by Jimmy Carter (hardly a stooge of Qaddafi), in order to start a negotiation process between the government and the rebels. Spain has expressed interest in the idea, which is of course rejected by Sarkozy. This proposition may sound utopian, but it might not be so if it were supported by the full weight of the United Nations. That would be the way to fulfill its mission, but it is now made impossible by US and Western influence. However, it is not impossible that now, or in some future crisis, a non-interventionist coalition of nations, including Russia, China, Latin America and maybe others, may work together to build credible alternatives to Western interventionism. Unlike the Latin American left, the pathetic European version has lost all sense of what it means to do politics. It does not try to propose concrete solutions to problems, and is only able to take moral stances, in particular denouncing dictators and human rights violations in grandiloquent tones. The social democratic left follows the right with at best a few years delay and has no ideas of its own. The "radical" left often manages both to denounce Western governments in every possible way and to demand that those same governments intervene militarily around the globe to defend democracy. Their lack of political reflection makes them highly vulnerable to disinformation campaigns and to becoming passive cheerleaders of US-NATO wars. That left has no coherent program and would not know what to do even if a god put them into power. Instead of "supporting" Chavez and the Venezuelan Revolution, a meaningless claim some love to repeat, they should humbly learn from them and, first of all, relearn what it means to do politics. Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium and is a member of the Brussels Tribunal. His book, Humanitarian Imperialism, is published by Monthly Review Press. He can be reached at Jean.Bricmont@uclouvain.be.