International Criminal Court Judge Resigns, Following US Threats

RT | January 30, 2019

A senior judge has resigned from the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, after the United States threatened judges investigating alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.

The judge, Christoph Flügge, has worked with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) since 2008. More recently, he got involved with preliminary investigations into claims that US military service members and CIA operatives tortured prisoners in Afghanistan.

Flügge told German newspaper Zeit that he handed in his resignation after open threats from US officials, including a speech by hawkish national security adviser John Bolton last September, where Bolton “wished death” on the Court.

“If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the US or investigate an American citizen, he said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted,” Flügge told Zeit, in an interview translated by The Guardian.

“The American security adviser held his speech at a time when The Hague was planning preliminary investigations into American soldiers who had been accused of torturing people in Afghanistan,” Flügge explained. “The American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat.”

Bolton’s speech was delivered in September to the conservative Federalist Society in Washington, DC. It came a year after the ICC began investigating claims that at least 61 detained persons in Afghanistan had been tortured by American troops and another 27 by the CIA at secret prisons in Afghanistan and abroad, according to prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Bolton called the investigation “utterly unfounded” and “unjustifiable,” and promised to “protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.”

The senior US official also vowed to defend Israeli citizens from the court. US “friend and ally” Israel was at the time accused of perpetrating war crimes against Palestinian civilians. He warned that the US would disregard arrest warrants, ban judges and prosecutors from entering the country, and even try them in American courts.

Flügge said his colleagues were “stunned” that “the US would roll out such heavy artillery,” but added “it is consistent with the new American line: ‘We are No 1 and we stand above the law’.”

American disregard for the ICC is not a new phenomenon. After much debate, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court, but the Congress never ratified it. Clinton’s successor George W. Bush symbolically ‘un-signed’ the treaty in 2002, when the war in Afghanistan was in full swing.

Later that year, the Congress passed the American Service Members’ Protection Act, which obliged the president to prevent any ICC prosecution of US armed forces “to the maximum extent possible,” and even authorized military force to free any US service members from ICC custody. Bolton, incidentally, was Bush’s under-secretary of state at the time.

The court has come under fire from more countries than just the US. Russia withdrew its signature from the Rome Treaty in 2016, after the court criticized the reunification of Crimea. China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are among the other nations that never signed the treaty.

via International court judge resigns, citing ‘shocking’ interference from ‘above the law’ US

Italian Court Orders Public Safety Campaign

In a victory for advocates of precaution, an Italian court has ordered the government to launch a campaign to advise the public of the health risks from mobile and cordless phones.

Counter Information

Must Begin by July 16; Government Will Not Appeal Decision

By Microwave News

Global Research, January 30, 2019

Microwave News 16 January 2019

In a victory for advocates of precaution, an Italian court has ordered the government to launch a campaign to advise the public of the health risks from mobile and cordless phones.

The information campaign must begin by July 16.

The court in Rome reached its decision last November, but the announcement was only made yesterday. The decision is here.

Today, the government announced that it would not appeal the ruling, Stefano Bertone told Microwave News. Bertone is with the law firm of Ambrosio and Commodo in Turin, and is helping represent a citizens group called APPLE, which sued to force the government to act. APPLE is an acronym for the Association for the Prevention of and Fight Against Electrosmog.

In a joint press release…

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Are Mandated Hep B Vaccines for Infants Unconstitutional?

The Flawed Logic of Hepatitis B Vaccine Mandates

By the Children’s Health Defense Team

Summary:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that newborn babies receive the hepatitis B vaccine on their first day of life.
• The infants, toddlers and young children receiving this vaccine face little to no chance of hepatitis B infection, but the vaccines impose significant risks, including the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, autoimmune illness and even death.
• In the 0-1 age group, there is at least a 20:1 ratio of reported vaccine injuries/deaths associated with hepatitis B vaccines compared to cases of hepatitis B infection.
• The constitutionality of hepatitis B vaccine mandates in these populations where there is little risk for disease is arguably questionable.
• Hepatitis B vaccination mandates fail to honor young children’s liberty, equal protection, and health.

Unless their mothers harbor the virus (determined by routine prenatal blood testing), newborns are probably the least likely human beings on the planet at risk of actually getting hepatitis B.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) strongly recommend that newborn babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on their first day of life. About 12 million doses are administered to American babies in any given year. However, unless their mothers harbor the virus (determined by routine prenatal blood testing), newborns are probably the least likely human beings on the planet at risk of actually getting hepatitis B. Infection risks are also extremely low for young school-age children, but—in all but two states (Alabama and South Dakota)—three to four doses of hepatitis B vaccine are not only recommended but mandated for preschool attendance, K-12 education or both.

New cases of hepatitis B were low in the 1970s; they began climbing in the early 1980s (coincident with the HIV/AIDS epidemic) but then started falling again. Although the CDC first began recommending hepatitis B vaccination on a limited basis in 1982 for the small population of at-risk adults (and infants of infected mothers), the agency attributes the decline in hepatitis B cases during the 1980s and early 1990s to “reduction of transmission among men who have sex with men and injection-drug users, as a result of HIV prevention efforts.”

At the time, hepatitis B was a relatively “obscure” infection of “little direct relevance to most Americans,” but in the early 1990s the “picture of hepatitis B being held up before Americans” changed, as the CDC began promoting a more comprehensive hepatitis B vaccine dragnet. With a stark shift in policy emphasis toward universal vaccination for all newborns (1991), adolescents (1995) and children through age 18 (1999), “a vaccine with a limited initial target population [came] to be accepted as compulsory for every child in the country.”

Whereas the young people being vaccinated face little to no chance of hepatitis B infection, the vaccines impose significant risks …

A questionable rationale

From the beginning, hepatitis B vaccines have had their critics, who question the public health logic of across-the-board hepatitis B vaccination for infants and children. Whereas the young people being vaccinated face little to no chance of hepatitis B infection, the vaccines impose significant risks, including the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, autoimmune illness and even death. In the decade from 1991 to 2001 (when hepatitis B vaccines contained the mercury-based preservative thimerosal), vaccine exposure in early infancy resulted in an estimated 0.5-1 million U.S. children being diagnosed with learning disabilities, representing lifetime costs in excess of $1 trillion. Other hepatitis B vaccine ingredients (including aluminum adjuvants and yeast) as well as the vaccines’ use of recombinant DNA technology have been linked to a variety of adverse outcomes.

In 1986 (five years before the CDC began pushing for vaccination of all newborns), the nation documented fewer than 280 cases of hepatitis B infection in children under age 14; by 2006, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had received over 23,000 reports of adverse events related to hepatitis B vaccination in the 0-14 age group, including nearly 800 deaths.

In congressional testimony in 1999, the father of a five-week-old who died immediately following a hepatitis B shot described a 20:1 ratio of VAERS reports compared to cases of hepatitis B infection in the 0-1 age group (likely an underestimate due to VAERS underreporting). Given that the vaccine has been shown—by the CDC itself—to wear off well before the age of any likely exposure to hepatitis B virus, the father concluded that hepatitis B mandates for newborns represented a “teaming up” of “ravenous corporate greed and mindless bureaucracy” against “common sense.”

The out-of-date legal context for mandates

The legal framework that seemingly permits compulsory childhood vaccination, including hepatitis B vaccine mandates for preschoolers, is astonishingly out-of-date. The U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed compulsory vaccination “in any depth” for over a century and has not revisited the issue at all since 1922, despite the fact that “the contours of the vaccine issue have changed fundamentally since the early 1900s” [. . .]

Continued at Kennedy News and Views: Children’s Health Defense Fund

Capitalism: The Role of Violence Against Women

Sylvia Federici

Jan 9, 2019 talk

In this talk, Sylvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch (see Witch Burning and Women’s Oppression) discusses her two latest books Witches, Witch Hunting and Women and Re-Enchanting the World.

Witches, Witch Hunting and Women elaborates on two key premises: 1) that the extensive free labor women perform is fundamental to the success of capitalism and 2) that violence against women is never accidental. According to Federici, it’s “structural”, ie fundamental to the human exploitation necessary for capitalist accumulation.

Federici divides violence against women into three main categories: domestic, public and institutional. Domestic violence occurs in the context of a domestic relationship, public violence includes non-domestic rape, paramilitary violence and narco-trafficking, and institutional violence consists of police violence, female incarceration (which is increasing) and criminalization of pregnancy.

Federici is also concerned about the growing frequency of actual witchcraft accusations in Latin America, India and Africa. She blames this on what she refers to as “re-colonization,” aka globalization, whereby millions of poor peasants are being driven off their land and turned into refugees. The original witchcraft trials occurred during the 16th and 17th century enclosures, when people were being violently thrown off of communal land.

Re-Enchanting the World, the second book she describes, depicts how this violent dispossession also destroys the community ties and solidarity working people rely on to resist capitalist violence. It strikes a positive note in describing how Latin American women who are forced to urbanize (after losing their land) are starting to collectivize to meet their survival needs. Examples include organizing to fight for access to water and power and to build schools and clinics.

Congress holds first hearings on insulin, high drug prices

It remains unclear whether Democrats, who control the U.S. House of Representatives, and Republicans, who control the U.S. Senate, will find a bipartisan way to address rising drug costs.

US Football in Decline As Routine Brain Injuries Exposed – by Patrick Hruby (Guardian) 30 Jan 2019

Since 2014 alone, high school football has lost more than 45,000 participants.

THE MEDIA MONOPOLY: Protests in France and Venezuela – Spot the Difference

Why are angry street protestors in France bad, but in Venezuela very good?

RIELPOLITIK

Source – geopolitics.co

– “…French authorities have responded to the street protests with force…but this has largely been ignored by Western ‘liberals’ who would be so quick to denounce similar actions in other countries, whose government they don’t approve of. Instead, the message is ‘law and order must be maintained’…The real reason why Venezuela must be conquered is its vast resources like oil and rare earth minerals”

Protests in France and Venezuela – Spot the Difference

he ‘Yellow Vest’ anti-government protests in France is growing, but have received limited coverage in Western media and what coverage there has been has been quite hostile to the protestors.

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Venezuela: What Activists Need to Know About the US-Led Coup

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Two things stand out about the US coup in Venezuela. First, it is unusually open. Typically, the US tries to hide its coups. Second, the coup is built on a series of obvious falsehoods, yet the bi-partisans in Washington, with a few exceptions, keep repeating them.

First, we will correct the falsehoods so readers are all working from the same facts. Second, we will describe how this coup is being defeated. It will be another major embarrassment for the Trump administration and US foreign policy.

It is important to understand Venezuela has become a geopolitical conflict as Russia and China are closely allied with Venezuela. China and Russia coming into the backyard of the United States challenges the antiquated Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and the second largest gold reserves, as well as diamonds and other minerals such as coltan (needed for electronic devices). And, Venezuela is taking over as president of OPEC and will be in a position to push for oil payments in non-dollar currencies or in cryptocurrencies, a major threat to the US dollar.

Correcting the Record

There are a series of false statements repeated by DC officials and corporate media to justify the coup that are so obvious, it is hard to believe they are not intentional. In his two-paragraph comment on the coup, even Senator Bernie Sanders repeated them.

1. Truth: President Nicolás Maduro is the legitimate president.

President Maduro was re-elected on May 20, 2018, in response to the opposition demanding an early election. The legitimacy of the election of Maduro is so evident that it must be assumed those who say he is illegitimate are either intentionally false or ignorant. The election was scheduled consistent with the Venezuelan Constitution and in consultation with opposition parties. When it became evident that the opposition could not win the election, they decided, under pressure from the United States, to boycott the election in order to undermine its legitimacy. The facts are 9,389,056 people voted, 46% of eligible voters. Sixteen parties participated in the election with six candidates competing for the presidency.

The electoral process was observed by more than 150 election observers. This included 14 electoral commissions from eight countries among them the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America; two technical electoral missions; and 18 journalists from different parts of the world, among others. According to the international observers, “the elections were very transparent and complied with international parameters and national legislation.”

Venezuela has one of the best electoral systems in the world. Voter fraud is not possible as identification and fingerprints are required for each voter. Voting machines are audited before and immediately after the election. Venezuela does something no other country in the world does — a public, citizen’s audit of a random sample of 53% of voting machines that is televised. All 18 parties signed the audits.

Maduro won by a wide margin, obtaining 6,248,864 votes, 67.84%; followed by Henri Falcón with 1,927,958, 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82%; and Reinaldo Quijada, who obtained 36,246 votes, 0.39% of the total.

This same voting system has been used in elections that Maduro’s party has lost in governor’s and legislative elections. Venezuela is a real democracy with transparent elections. The United States could learn a good deal about real democracy from Venezuela.

2. Truth: The economic crisis is caused by outside intervention, internal sabotage and the decline in oil prices.

There is no doubt the economic situation in Venezuela is dire. The cause is the economic war conducted by the United States, the major decline in oil prices and economic sabotage by the opposition. In essence, the United States and opposition created problems in the Venezuelan economy and now say Maduro must be replaced because of problems they created. [. . .]

 

via Venezuela: What Activists Need to Know About the US-Led Coup

MK-Ultra, LSD and the CIA War on Musicians and Activists

Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA War on Musicians and Activists

https://www.drugsasweaponsmovie.com/

Film Review

On January 29, John Potash will release his film Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA War on Musicians and Activists – based on his 2015 book Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA’s Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac and Other Activists. A virtual encyclopedia of illegal government drug trafficking, the film begins with the involvement of the JP Morgan, Russell and other first families with the British East India Company and the opium wars that forced China to allow their opium trade.

Potash crams a massive amount of detail in his two-hour film, tracing how these and other powerful Wall Street families were instrumental in launching he CIA to protect their financial and political interests and how illegal drug trafficking (initially heroin trafficking from Southeast Asia) was essential to the CIA’s MO from its very inception in 1947.

He goes on to explore how the CIA/FBI assisted 9,000 Nazi war criminals to secretly settle in South America after World War II – where they helped establish paramilitary death squads to assassinate labor and human rights leaders who threatened US-installed dictators. Under the leadership of Klaus Barbie, they would also link up with local cocaine barons in establishing CIA-supported networks to smuggle the to the US.

Potash next details the probable role of the CIA/FBI in a host of suspicious OD’s, suicides and “lone nut” assassinations of activist rock stars and political figures who posed a threat to Wall Street interests. The list (as the book’s title suggests) includes John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Janis Joplin, Jim Hendrix, Tupac Shakur and Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, among others.

For me the most fascinating part of the 2015 book concerns the extensive distribution of the hallucinogen LSD via the CIA’s MK-Ultra program in the sixties and seventies. Potash documents how CIA drug agents deliberately sought out targeted civil rights and anti-war activists and activist rock stars (eg John Lennon, George Harrison and Mick Jagger) in the hope of “neutralizing” any threat they might pose to corporate interests.

Although a two-hour film can’t possibly offer the same level of documentation as a 440-page book, the evidence this documentary presents paints a cogent and credible picture of the CIA as an immoral criminal enterprise dedicated to serving the interests of a tiny US financial elite.

About the Filmmaker

John Potash first came across evidence of the CIA role in disseminating LSD to activists and rock musicians in FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in the Media) co-founder Martin Lee’s book Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion (Grove Press 1985). The book details a high level Italian investigation of US intelligence officer Ronald Stark, who oversaw the trafficking of tens-to-hundreds of million of acid hits world wide. This led Potash to Operation Julie (W.H. Allen 1978), a book by high level British detective Dick Lee. Lee also investigated Stark’s operation and its network of intelligence links. Later Potash, a drug and alcohol counselor, would deal with clients who obtained LSD from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a Stark-linked operation in the US.

Potash is also the author of the FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders (Progressive Left Press 2008) and has made a prior documentary (by the same title) based on the book.

Full interview with John Potash at Drugs as Weapons Against Us – Interview with John Potash

 

Drugs As Weapons Against Us – Interview with John Potash

Full Interview with John Potash About His New Film

1. What was your motivation for writing your 2015 book Drugs as Weapons Against – and for making a film based on the book?

I had a number of motivations for writing the book, Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA’s Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac and Other Activists. For one, I wanted to break the media censorship regarding the hidden history of some great activists, along with some great musicians who aspired to do more activist work. That is one of the reasons for the long subtitles. It helps get the word out on these issues.

Personally, I grew up with socialist grandparents and somewhat activist parents as my father organized fellow doctors against the Vietnam War and mother ran NOW lectures.  got into anti-war and anti-racism activism, and found out about U.S. intelligence operations, such as the CIA’s Project MK-Ultra that used LSD to undermine anti-racist and anti-war activists. I further read about the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, which targeted leftist activists in general, but was particularly murderous against black activists such as The Black Panthers.

I eventually found much evidence of how the CIA and MK-Ultra worked with the FBI in such targeting, and used many drugs, particularly LSD, heroin, and cocaine against anti-war and anti-racism activists. Later evidence supported the use of other drugs in this way, particularly MDMA/Ecstasy. My book got the information to a certain percentage of people with a certain amount of trust. My film will hopefully get it to more people, and depicts the actual sources of the information, such as CIA whistleblowers, saying some of the things I quote in the book.

I eventually found much evidence of how the CIA and MK-Ultra worked with the FBI in such targeting, and used many drugs, particularly LSD, heroin, and cocaine against anti-war and anti-racism activists. Later evidence supported the use of other drugs in this way, particularly MDMA/Ecstasy. My book got the information to a certain percentage of people with a certain amount of trust. My film will hopefully get it to more people, and depicts the actual sources of the information, such as CIA whistleblowers, saying some of the things I quote in the book.

2. For me the most eye opening aspect of both the book and the film was learning the CIA had deliberately disseminated massive amounts of LSD to anti-war protestors and activist pop stars in a deliberate effort to undermine their political and creative effectiveness. How did you come across this information?

After college, I got back into activism and saw Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) co-founder Martin Lee speak. I later got his book, Acid Dreams, loosely subtitled, The CIA, LSD and the Sixties. It documented the CIA dissemination of acid.

That book got some decent publicity and attention, even from some mainstream newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Village Voice. It included the details of an Italian judge ruling over a case of a U.S. intelligence agent, Ronald Stark, heading the trafficking of tens-to-hundreds of millions of hits of acid worldwide. 

Amongst other sources, I found a book by high level British police detective Dick Lee, who was the lead investigator of Operation Julie, and the author of a book by the same name. Lee detailed how his team’s investigation uncovered Stark’s operation and its network of intelligence connections, before higher authorities tried to cover it all up again.

I also confirmed aspects of U.S. intelligence’s continuance of their operations. For example, about four years ago I surprised an acid dealer I counseled by asking him if he was getting his acid from The Brotherhood of Eternal Love. He fearfully confirmed that The Brotherhood, a Stark-aided and U.S. intelligence-linked operation, was his supplier in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I further found whistleblowers confirming the continuance of intelligence operations under different names.

3. How did you finance your film?

I never left my day job and still do counseling for a living, with a particular expertise in addictions and trauma work. My first book continues to sell well. I poured the profits from that book, my first film, and my second book, into this film. Still, none of my projects could ever come close to paying my bills with the mainstream media censorship in the U.S. I see these more as activist projects.

4. How do you plan to distribute it and what’s the best way for people to see it?

My first film was lower budget and more low-key. I mostly sell that on my website and through Amazon. For my second film, I thought I’d try to get a distributor. I didn’t know how it all worked and so I took one of my first offers for distribution, Gravitas Ventures. I signed a North American distribution deal with them and they are officially releasing it on 1/29/19. I’m still looking for a distributor of the film for the UK, Europe, Australia and your New Zealand area.

In America and Canada, the best ways to see the film are renting it on Itunes, Vimeo, Vudu, Google Play/Youtube, and Microsoft Xbox. It’s also available for purchase on Amazon, and at Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Walmart, etc.

I highly recommend people buy the film because the purchased film will have an extra 16 minutes of deleted scenes. These scenes include eyewitness evidence of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones’s murder, just after he was gaining agreements from his friends Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon to form a super-group in 1969. It further includes the apparent CIA hypnotist in charge of aiding RFK’s assassination talking about everything he could get people to do through drugs and hypnosis. It finally includes more on Occupy Wall Street and Bob Marley.

https://www.drugsasweaponsmovie.com/