Russia and China are also targeted, and the governments of both countries continue in their gullibility to play into Washington’s hands. Both governments permit American-financed Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to operate in their countries in open treasonous activities against the governments [...]
American capitalism is based on plunder. With the continental USA plundered, American capitalism hoped to continue enriching itself by plundering Russia as it did under Yeltsin, carefully including the Russian “Atlanticist Integrationists” in the spoils in order to have support from the liberal, progressive forces in Russia for stripping Russia of its assets. But Putin more or less put a halt to the American/Israeli rape of Russia, although it still continues through the neoliberal economics that Harvard brainwashed into the Russian central bank and economics profession. Brainwashed Russian economists are the main reason Washington is able to punish a powerful country such as Russia with economic sanctions.
The dependency of American capitalism on plunder is the reason Washington seeks to overthrow the people’s government of Venezuela. Chavez established a reformist government in Venezuela, one continued by Maduro. The reformist government nationalized Venezuela’s oil reserves. Instead of the profits being carted off by the American oil companies, they were kept at home where they raised the literacy rate and lowered the poverty rate. American capitalism wants the revenues back. Thus Washington’s attack on Venezuela.
The same for Iran. The Iranians were the first and most successful in throwing off the yoke of American imperialism. They overthrew the American puppet, the Shah in 1979, and used the oil revenues for the development of Iran instead of the purchase of arms from the US military/security complex. All of the propaganda against Iran is part of the effort, supplemented by sanctions, to regain control of Iran’s oil wealth and to shut down Iran as a supplier of the Hezbolah militia that has prevented Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon.
Russia and China are also targeted, and the governments of both countries continue in their gullibility to play into Washington’s hands. Both governments permit American-financed Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to operate in their countries in open treasonous activities against the governments. The ongoing street protests in Hong Kong are a Washington operation directed at undermining the reputation and stability of the Chinese government. One must wonder why the Chinese government sets itself up as a target for Washington.
The Putin government’s toleration of American-paid traitors resulted in the recent riots and protests that the Russian police were pressed to control. The Russian government investigated not the protesters and their American financiers, but the police for protecting public order in Russia! The Russian police were criticized for being “too brutal” in the Russian government’s view in putting down the American organized attack on the Russian government. A government this confused has a low survival rate. Perhaps the situation is different inside Russia from how it is presented in the US media, but the way it is presented in the US is the way the world sees it. And it is not to Russia’s advantage.
Little wonder Washington regards Putin and the Chinese leadership as politicians who can be trifled with.
Perhaps Russia and China are so desperate for Western approval that they prove how democratic they are by permitting foreign orchestrated insurrection. The Hong Kong youth waving American flags must be unaware that the US is ruled by a smaller and worse oligarchy than China.
The US allows no foreign countries other than Israel to finance NGOs dedicated to influencing the United States Government. I am unaware of any Russian, Chinese, Iranian, or Venezuelan NGOs that are permitted to operate in the US. Who can imagine Israel permitting Palestinian NGOs to operate in Israel and stage street demonstrations and riots. In the United States the President is not even permitted to communicate with Russia without being accused of being a “Putin stooge” involved in a conspiracy to sell out America to Russia.
Russia has one economist who understands economics. His name is Sergei Glazyev. Glazyev, the most competent economist in Russia, understands that Russia’s economic development does not depend on foreign loans and capital from abroad. Loans from the West are simply a way of ensnaring Russia in the hands of external creditors, as happened to Greece. According to a recent report, Glazyev has been removed from his position as an adviser to Putin. It seems as if the pro-American Atlanticist Integrationists are going to keep Russia down until Russia has to submit to Washington for a bailout.
Awaiting the chance to resume exploitation of Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China, American capitalism in the meantime is going to plunder what is left of the public’s lands—the national forests, parks, monuments and wildlife refuges. You can read about it below.
Trump Regime Opens US National Forests to Plunder by Private Timber Companies
If a proposed change in federal land use rules goes through, the 90,000 acres of Green Mountain National Forest that fall within Addison County could see a lot more commercial logging, road building and utility corridors — all without environmental review or public input.
“Basically, the rules would take the ‘public’ out of public land management,” said Jamey Fidel, Forest and Wildlife Program Director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC).
At issue is a proposal by the United States Forest Service (USFS) to revise the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which is the foundation of environmental policy making in the United States. It requires agencies like the USFS to analyze the environmental effects of their proposed actions prior to making decisions.
The USFS proposal would drastically alter those requirements by greatly expanding the number and type of projects that would count as “categorical exclusions,” which can be approved without environmental assessments or impact statements.
Projects the USFS would reclassify as “categorical exclusions” include:
• Commercial logging, including clear cutting, on areas up to 4,200 acres at a time. • Building new roads through the forest up to five miles at a time. • Reconstructing old roads through the forest up to 10 miles a time. • Bulldozing up to four miles of pipeline and utility rights-of-way through the forest. • Closing roads and trails used for recreational purposes. Adding illegally built roads and trails to the official USFS road and trail system.
New rules would also allow the USFS to bypass public input on nearly every project decision.
According to estimates from a number of forestry and environmental organizations, the proposal would eliminate public and environmental review from more than 90 percent of all USFS projects.
The Forest Service says it needs to do this because, among other things, the agency has a backlog of “special use permits or renewals” that “are awaiting environmental analysis and decision affecting more than 7,000 businesses and 120,000 jobs.” [The jobs are not needed if in fact the US has a full employment rate of 3.5% unemployment. ]
In addition, such challenges as the recent increase in wildfires are taking up more and more of the agency’s resources and personnel. [In other words, global warming is using up the agency’s budget fighting fires.]
What the USFS does not mention, however, is that according to the Congressional Research Service, the Trump administration has proposed cutting Forest Service spending by nearly $1 billion for fiscal year 2020, including a $654.4 million cut in Wildland Fire Management.
“This (proposed change to NEPA) is happening at a time when the Forest Service is slashing its own budget, and lacks the resources to evaluate what it’s doing,” wrote Sam Evans in The New York Times.
Evans, who works in the Southern Appalachian national forests, went on to call the USFS proposal “an attack on the very idea” of public lands.
“If the Forest Service has its way, visitors won’t know what’s coming until logging trucks show up at their favorite trailheads or a path for a gas pipeline is cleared below a scenic vista.”
The USFS insists that the changes “meet both the spirit and intention of the NEPA,” but critics see the recent proposal as part of a larger trend.
Last December, after revoking permits that would have allowed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to build through parts of the George Washington and Monongahela national forests, as well as across the Appalachian Trail, the 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals rebuked the Forest Service for granting permits that violated both the National Forest Management Act and NEPA.
The three-judge panel concluded that the agency had “abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources.” Of particular note was the way the Forest Service’s “environmental concerns … were suddenly, and mysteriously, assuaged in time to meet a private pipeline company’s deadlines.”
IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS
In Vermont, recent USFS projects in the Green Mountain National Forest (GMNF) have sparked concern among a number of environmental organizations, including the VNRC.
“In the past, when the Forest Service has undertaken major projects on the GMNF there has been ample opportunity (in accordance with the NEPA) for public comment and involvement,” wrote VNRC officials in a May 3 blog post. “VNRC has participated in these opportunities and we have enjoyed a collaborative relationship with the GMNF.”
But starting in the second half of 2018, the USFS began limiting public comment on projects — one to conduct even-aged timber harvesting on 15,000 acres in the southern half of the forest, and another that would require dozens of miles of new roads to implement 9,630 acres of timber harvesting.
Altogether, according to the VNRC, “the Forest Service is planning to construct 84 miles of road (57 miles of new and temporary roads and 26.7 miles of reconstructed roads over the next 15 years) with no opportunity for public comment on the environmental impacts of these activities.”
The Green Mountain National Forest is one of only two national forests in New England. It was established in 1932 in response to excess logging, fire and flooding. As of 2011, the GMNF covered 821,040 acres, nearly half of which was federally owned.
More than 18 percent of Addison County lies within the forest.
The Independent was unable to reach GMNF officials for comment in time for this story.
Supporters of public and environmental review see the proposed NEPA changes as an attempt by the Trump administration to codify the Forest Service’s recent practices.
And many of them are fighting back.
Organizations ranging from the National Audubon Society to the Sierra Club to the National Parks Conservation Association are urging concerned citizens to submit a public comment on the proposed rule changes.
The deadline for commenting is Aug. 26.
“Please make your comments specific and unique to your concerns and relate your comments to a particular national forest, like the Green Mountain National Forest,” wrote VNRC officials on July 25. “The Forest Service will lump together (similar comments) and count them as one comment, so please make your comments unique to be counted.”
According to the Forest Service website, comments may be submitted: • online via https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=FS-2019-0010-0001 (Note: This info has been updated from the print version of this article.) • or by mail to NEPA Services Group, c/o Amy Barker, USDA Forest Service, 125 South State St., Ste. 1705, Salt Lake City, UT 84138. • or by email to nepa-procedures-revision@fs.fed.us. (Note: This info has been updated from the print version of this article.)
Reach Christopher Ross at christopherr@addisonindependent.com.
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
For almost 2 decades, the US pursued a list of ‘enemy countries’ to confront, attack, weaken and overthrow. This imperial quest to overthrow ‘enemy countries’ operated at various levels of intensity, depending on two considerations: the level of priority and the degree of vulnerability for a ‘regime change’ operation.The criteria for determining an ‘enemy country’ and its place on the list of priority targets in the US quest for greater global dominance, as well as its vulnerability to a ‘successfully’ regime change will be the focus of this essay. We will conclude by discussing the realistic perspectives of future imperial ...
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is calling for an “impartial investigation” into grisly reports by a European investigative commission alleging that Kosovo government officials were involved in the trade of human organs.In an exhaustive report released by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in December, it was alleged that Serbian detainees of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were kidnapped and murdered by Kosovo Albanians so their organs could be sold on the black market.The report says the crimes occurred after the Kosovo War ended in 1999.These shocking allegations came on the heels of a two-year investigation into a ...
GR Editor’s Note: This incisive article was written on April 30, 2003, by historian and political scientist Jacques Pauwels. A timely question: Why Does Hillary Want War… ? And why do people support her? * * *Wars are a terrible waste of lives and resources, and for that reason most people are in principle opposed to wars. The American President, on the other hand, seems to love war. Why? Many commentators have sought the answer in psychological factors. Some opined that George W. Bush considered it his duty to finish the job started, but for some obscure reason ...
With criminal corporate monopoly media masking the US created prosecutable genocide ongoing in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan by focusing attention on Russia, fantasized as a dangerous enemy needing military confrontation, it might be a good time to review past US planned, facilitated and at times perpetrated genocidal crimes in Russia. History in context kind of puts to rest all the hype about evil Russia seeking to expand when it already is the largest country in the world spanning nine time zones with only half the population of the US to fill it.In 1900, Russia and America ...
So much after the fact; so much in terms of opportunism gone to seed and destruction. But planned historical calamities tend to be rare. There are only absurd moments, dastardly opportunities, and tragic convergences. History is less the outcome of wise deliberation than folly dressed up as reason, occasionally tinged by a touch of malice.On November 2, 1917, the British government published the Balfour Declaration (one of “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations”) by means of a letter written by Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild. It suggested forthcoming British assistance for the establishment of a Jewish ...
Claiming that Macedonians voluntarily chose to rename our country into “North Macedonia” and ethnicity into “North Macedonians” is like saying that Indigenous groups choose to be called “Redskins”. And when Western media attack Macedonians for denouncing the forced name change, it would be akin to them attacking Indigenous groups for denouncing anti-Indigenous terms.Welcome to The Surreal World: Macedonia.Yes, Macedonians get attacked for denouncing the derogatory terms used against us. Why? Because the United States says so. And they fund media and so-called “think tanks” to do the same. These same groups accuse Macedonians of the exact tactics that are being ...
So, here's how it is:1) There is still no evidence - that has been presented to the public - that Assad ordered a chemical weapons (CW) attack.2) Yes, that evidence should be made public, discussed and debated by Congress, and a vote taken before we use force. I acknowledge that the War Powers Resolution gives the President the authority to use force for 60 days - but the interests of peace and stability are better served through a debate and a democratic process as opposed to a unilateral decision made in secret, especially when the military action is punitive and ...
Originally published in June 2018.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
The interesting detail of the Lockerbie bombing was the extent of how far the plotters went to divert blame to Libya.There can be no better example of the old saying “a lie can travel half way around the world before the truth is even putting its shoes on” than Lockerbie. This tragic story of a U.S. passenger flight brought down by a bomb over the small Scottish village just a few days before Christmas in 1988 is heartbreaking on a number of levels. But the main one is that even to this day, the Americans continue to keep the huge ...
Editor’s note:This article by Michel Collon was first published by Global Research in December 2003. It outlines with foresight the strategy of the US, through covert intelligence operations, of breaking up Iraq into a number of separate states. The unleashing of a civil war with a view to deliberately breaking up Iraq was part of the US war agenda from the outset.They have found the solution! Divide Iraq into three mini-states and then pit them against one another. Does that remind you of something else? Oh, yes! It’s not the first time something like this happened….The New York Times published ...
The following article was written before the recent referendum in Venice and Lombardy. It remains relevant as far as, everything happening in Europe those days is becoming, more a more, a manifestation of extreme social “egotism”, of generalized destruction of any form of solidarity and adherence to more general projects. This is especially true after the strategic defeat and capitulation of the European Left on the Greek question. “Everybody for himself” seems to dominate the continent. It is the historic triumph of the neoliberal Europe, but it reminds somehow the triumphs of the cancer on living organisms. Europe will hardly ...
Author’s note: The following article focussing on the jihadist terrorist insurgency in Macedonia was first published by antiwar.com in July 2001, barely two months before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.Known and documented, since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahedin (“holy warriors”) to fight covert wars on Washington’s behest had become an integral part of US foreign policy. A report of the US Congress had revealed how the US administration – under advice from the National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake – had “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment ...
March 16, 2017, was the 49th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, located in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. It was Saturday morning, March 16, 1968, when approximately 115 U.S. Army soldiers of the Americal Division’s Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, landed in helicopters just outside the village of My Lai 4. Over the course of the next four hours, these American soldiers, and their Military High Command, who were flying overhead in helicopters observing the massacre, took part in a horror show far beyond the human imagination. They took the term, “War Crimes,” and added a butcher shop to ...
A highlight of Peter II’s 1942 official state visit to the U.S. was his speech before the U.S. Congress. That speech solidified and affirmed Yugoslavia as an ally of the U.S. during World War II.Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had issued a statement in support of Peter II and the Yugoslav government.FDR’s message of April 8, 1941 emphasized that the U.S. would provide aid and assistance to Yugoslavia:“The people of the United States have been profoundly shocked by the unprovoked and ruthless aggression upon the people of Yugoslavia. The Government and ...
Not satisfied with having sponsored the artificial creation of Kosovo, the United States has now decided to ram the mafia state through NATO and the European Union. A new member with such characteristics is the last thing that Europe needs right now. However, it should work wonders for the consolidation of U.S. political and military agenda in the region, not to speak of the flourishing heroin trade from Afghanistan…both of which, as Engdahl points out in this sharp analysis, pose a threat to Russia and may backfire in the end.In one of the more bizarre foreign policy announcements of a ...
PrefaceKosovo (Serb. Kosovo-Metochia, Alb. Kosova) is a square-shaped province of the Republic of Serbia of 10,877 sq. kilometres that is approximately the size of the USA state of Connecticut. The province is situated in the southern interior of the Balkan Peninsula in South-East Europe.[1] For most of the 20th century-history, this province was part of Serbia like in the Middle Ages but from 1455 to 1912 it was occupied by the Ottoman Empire. After the 1998‒1999 Kosovo War the province is an autonomous territory under the formal administration of the UNO but, in fact, USA’s colony. Officially, the province has ...
Having already violated every tenet of international law in its proxy jihadist war against Syria, including the seizure of one-third of the country, the United States invoked a Non-Law, a Law That Never Was, to justify its missile strikes against fictitious “chemical warfare” facilities. Syrian President Assad “kills his own people,” said Trump, leader of the nation whose police kill more of its “own people” than any country except (fellow white settler state) Brazil, and whose prisons entomb one-quarter of all the world’s inmates. (One out of every eight prisoners on the planet is an African American.)On the Saturday morning ...
As the contemporary Corona virus hysteria narrative continues to collapse (here and here) another dubious narrative, launched a quarter of a century ago – Srebrenica genocide – comes to mind. The common thread of both narratives is that they have just enough genuine elements to provide a seemingly plausible foundation for a vastly exaggerated tale. The Covid-19 virus can endanger health, and even be lethal, to certain classes of the population, but how much more than that is it? In Srebrenica in July of 1995, about a thousand Muslim prisoners were executed by a rogue outfit of the Serb army. ...
The United States is indisputably the world’s most frequent and extensive wager of aggressive war, largest occupier of foreign lands, and biggest weapons dealer to the world. But when the United States peeps out from under the blankets where it lies shivering with fear, it sees itself as an innocent victim. It has no holiday to keep any victorious battle in everyone’s mind. It has a holiday to remember the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — and now also one, perhaps holier still, to recall, not the “shock and awe” destruction of Baghdad, but the crimes of September 11, 2001, ...
We have to keep in mind that a term and notion of security usually implies a kind of sense of protection and safety from different possible harms coming from „outside“. Therefore, it can be generally acceptable and understandable that the states want to protect their own territories by expanding great resources in making their territorial safe. Security topics are of very different kinds, ranging from the causes of conflict between states to deterioration in the global climate or women’s rights in global politics.The Conception of a SystemThe conception of international systems of states is crucial as an explanatory mechanism of ...
