Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts

Sunday, April 28, 2019

Why is the USA attacking Iran and Venezuela?

This is the English version of an interview I made for Kayhan news of Iran, on April 15, 2019. The interview was published in Persian.


My interview was made prior to the USA announcement of April 22, 2019, that it would enforce zero-export of Iranian oil with heavy penalties against any non-compliant nation.

My interview explains why the aggressive warring sanctions should be expected, from the consistent USA campaign for world dominance, and why the USA wants war in both Iran and Venezuela.

<< Overall, the USA will continue its vile wars of sanctions against the peoples of all independent nations that have energy resources — Iran, Syria, Russia, and Venezuela — in a bid to reserve profit from oil and gas for itself and the allies it controls. The USA will also do everything it can to limit the development of China. China is responding with Eurasian trade development, by developing its massive coal reserves, and by energy security agreements with free nations. >>

I explain that the drive to war follows a clear longstanding pattern, anchored in preventing development of independent countries and regions, by imposition of the US dollar as the world currency, rather than being primarily the result of partizan politics or the interests of allies (see interview with Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif).

Here is the full unedited interview:


K:  What is the aim of America by designating IRGC as a terrorist group? What is Trump looking for by doing such an irrational international act?

DR:  The USA wants to control the Middle East because it wants to control both a high price of oil and who can benefit from selling oil; and gas, by extension.

Let us start at the beginning. The USA has been negotiating a dilemma since 1971 when it unilaterally cancelled the Bretton Woods trade agreement with its post-World-War-II allies and its controlled jurisdictions. The allies were developing too much. I explained this in my recent report entitled “Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics Drive Successive Eras of Predatory Globalization and Social Engineering”.

The dilemma, since 1971, is that on the one hand the USA must have high oil prices and force oil contracts to be signed in US dollars in order to secure the US dollar as the de facto world currency, its main financial instrument of global exploitation, whereas on the other hand, nations not under USA control can produce oil and gas and greatly benefit from the high price, thus driving their independence and development.

Development of sovereign nations outside of USA control inescapably leads to a multipolar world with balanced competing regional interests, rather than a world dominated by the USA and largely held in underdevelopment. The USA is desperate to delay the inevitable natural emergence of economic and military multipolarity. The USA is insecure, rationally fearful of revenge, and addicted to its power. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov states this in his characteristically pithy and diplomatic words as: “The United States has a fear of fair competition”.

High-price commodities other than oil and gas also serve to artificially maintain the US dollar as the world currency. These include the payments on forced loans made in US dollars, US military hardware sales imposed on its subservient allies, and opium (Afghanistan) and USA-patented pharmaceuticals. 

In this context, Iran threatens USA domination in two ways. First, Iran is the anchor of an axis of resistance against USA-Israeli domination in the region. Iran is a rare entirely sovereign and strong nation. Second, Iran produces oil, which can be used to fund its own sovereign security, its own popular development, and its defensive influence and ties with neighbouring countries Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. As such, Iran has been identified by the USA regime as the main threat against USA-Israeli domination of the Middle East. Iran is a focal point of opposition against USA hegemony, so USA aggression against Iran will not end until the USA experiences sufficient backlash, producing a more balanced world.

That is the aim of putting the IRGC on the USA list of terrorist organizations. The unprecedented move is part of a USA declared war of sanctions, aimed at destabilizing and weakening Iran, in order to create opportunities for political interference, terrorist attacks, and military strikes, to provoke a collapse. The targeting of Iran is a long-term goal of Republican administrations. This goal was rejected by the Democratic Obama administration as too risky. Democrats wanted “containment”, although Hilary Clinton is an extreme war hawk. Republicans want war.

In terms of partisan factions, war in the Middle East (or Venezuela) helps the Republican energy (shale oil and gas) and arms sectors. Whereas contained stability with USA domination helps the Democrat base of financiers (Wall Street). War in the Middle East also props up Israel by giving it an expanded role within the USA regime.

Overall, the USA will continue its vile wars of sanctions against the peoples of all independent nations that have energy resources — Iran, Syria, Russia, and Venezuela — in a bid to reserve profit from oil and gas for itself and the allies it controls. The USA will also do everything it can to limit the development of China. China is responding with Eurasian trade development, by developing its massive coal reserves, and by energy security agreements with free nations.


K:  What would be the security and intelligence consequences of America’s decision for the region?

DR:  The USA has become an unlawful rogue regime, and the illusion that it created in the United Nations now frustrates its intentions to intimidate and destabilize in order to delay the inevitable emergence of independent nations and regions.

The unlawful, vicious, and rogue USA behaviour is now clearly seen on many fronts: Economic and trade sanctions used as weapons of mass suffering, covert wars by supporting terrorists, such as in Syria, support for the genocidal war against Yemen, fomenting deadly instability in Ukraine, the recent cold-blooded murder of the nation of Libya, interference and direct war threats against Venezuela, deciding that it can use its courts to prosecute alleged crimes in foreign sovereign nations, in absentia, demanding arrests of citizens of foreign sovereign nations (Julian Assange, Meng Wanzhou), running torture camps (Guantanamo), declaring sovereignty over militarily occupied territories (Golan Heights), and so on.

The USA is the main global security threat at this time, without any close competitor. Naming the IRGC as a terrorist organization is the new norm in its outrageous behaviour. Imagine that: Unilaterally deciding that a national military organization, created to defend against the main rogue regime on the planet, is a “terrorist organization”.  The USA is asserting that those who defend themselves are terrorists.

This is an interesting development. It means that the USA is setting the precedent that a national military can be termed a terrorist organization. There is no basis in international law for such nonsense. But if such are the new rules, then surely the greatest terrorist organization at present, occupying entire continental regions, has to be the USA military and the CIA.

In other words, Trump’s irresponsible move puts USA occupiers and covert operatives at risk everywhere, of being detained and prosecuted as terrorists. That is why top USA intelligence and military officials, including General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposed the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

The USA is in the throes of trying to slow the development of the free world. There will be more and more episodes of USA miscalculations. The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization may turn out to be such a miscalculation. If so, it will not be the last.


K:  American intelligent services are blamed for murdering innocent people and covertly supporting terrorist groups, still they point to IRGC for terrorist acts while the entity has devoted itself to fighting terrorism. How does this paradox get answered in West?

DR:  My definition of stupidity is a chronic inability to perceive objectively, due to class immunity and subservience. The paradox (reality) is not perceived because of self-image-based allegiance to the USA regime. Therefore, there is no paradox, no perceived reality that could cause cognitive dissonance.

This explains why ordinary citizens do not actually oppose the USA regime’s domestic and foreign violence. The regime does everything to indoctrinate by effective propaganda, rather than allow individual thought. When propaganda and institutionalized indoctrination are not enough, then the USA regime jails its own citizens, at the highest incarceration rate in the world (almost 7 incarcerated citizens per 1000 population).

On the other hand, USA elite planners should be concerned about the paradox that you describe, because such incongruities produce vulnerability for the empire. An empire can topple very quickly by a cascade of reactions if it produces fertile ground for such reactions.

The USA has lost its ability to produce and promote great statesmen and has become a cauldron of often pathological special interests. At the same time, it pursues an arms race, and is itching to use nuclear weapons. The world needs to limit USA adventures and ambitions. This is the most urgent problem of our era. Thankfully, Russia, China, Iran, and others are highly mature nations, with strong institutions and internal incubation of thoughtful leaders.


K:  It is reported that the Pentagon severely disagrees with the Trump decision. What is the reason?

DR:  Yes, as I mentioned earlier, the Pentagon seems to be the voice of reason in this matter. Military men have strong classical educations, at military academies, and this education includes the societal conditions for national stability and successful military campaigns.

Wars are not won solely by technology. Advanced technology can be defeated in unpredictable ways. Furthermore, coercive systems are by nature unstable. I think the Pentagon often does everything that it can to inject components of “reality on the ground”.

Unfortunately, the Israel model is too often followed by the USA, both domestically and in its foreign projects. The Israel model is one of brutal occupation by overwhelming force, combined with a massive system to recruit, bribe and blackmail collaborators. This may or may not, in the end, achieve the desired genocidal outcome in Palestine, but it is not a model that realistically can be applied on the global scale, without major diplomatic concessions, in my opinion.


K:  Could this decision relate to the Israel election?

DR:  Of course, yes. Netanyahu publicly thanked Trump on twitter for declaring the IRGC a terrorist organization: “Thank you for accepting another important request of mine.” This would have given Netanyahu a boost of credibility in time to influence the Israeli election.  This would explain why the designation was done in such a rush by the Trump administration, according to insider accounts.



Thursday, June 15, 2017

Geopolitical Trajectories

As I see it...

The USA wants continuous instability and violence because global stability and respect for national sovereignty (the very basis of the UN Charter) imply the natural development and independence of Eurasia, Latin America, Africa... and the natural loss of USA hegemony.

Likewise, Israel wants continuous war and conflict in the Middle East to assert its military and enforcement hegemony, which is otherwise naturally eroded by regional development.

Russia and China want diplomacy and collaboration to avoid USA mayhem and economic predation.

The more the USA and Israel support violence and bully nations with sanctions and military campaigns and support for terrorist proxies, the more emerging nations must collaborate and respond. Next the USA dollar will continue to be displaced.

The USA is losing its global bully status. The only question is how brutal it will be in its downfall. (Current examples: Syria, Philippines...) It may also find dignity, but historic examples of authentic USA dignity are rare. There is little choice other than firmly resisting USA madness.


A few relevant recent links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iu1ksEQHnA
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/06/08/path-hell-daesh-philippines-us-project.html

Monday, January 30, 2017

Causes of Quebec mosque terrorism

By Denis G. Rancourt, PhD

My blame list for the Quebec mosque terrorism, in order of importance:

  1. The increasingly unjust and authoritarian enforced class hierarchy in Canada, which attacks all in all of us: our very minds, families, communities, cultures, personalities, freedoms of expression, privacy, independence... using all the state institutions of education, media, law, enforcement, surveillance, health... (We become maintained zombies without independent thought or feeling.)
  2. Together with Canada's vicious foreign policy of global exploitation and war aggression, aligned with US dominance-imposition mass crimes and military threats in Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Eurasia...
  3. Specifically, the Quebec state and corporate media (prominently including Radio Canada CBC) campaigns that constantly and heinously vilify Muslim cultural and political independence that is rightly critical of the Quebec state, as exemplified by the unending barrage against Adil Charkaoui [1].
  4. The Canadian state use of "Security Certificates" that destroys Muslim families and communities across the country, and that serves the state's political and propaganda agendas without any societal benefit. (And the associated "security" assault-campaigns against Muslim communities.)

Endnote

[1] See my analysis of this example of many: Denis G. Rancourt, "Vicious media mobbing of Adil Charkaoui, in Quebec", Veterans Today, 2015-04-20.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Dear honourable Sayyid Ali Khamenei

Dear honourable Sayyid Ali Khamenei:

Although I am not young in years, I read your November 29, 2015, letter to Western youth (in English, en français) with great interest and fascination. The letter excited both my intellect and my heart.

Iran is truly blessed to have a servant such as you. In Canada, we have only disingenuous and self-interested petty politicians who vie for corporate and USA favour, and who speak in platitudes for the national media.

I really appreciated your deep analysis of the psychological and geopolitical roots of global terrorism. I believe that your explanation is fundamentally correct, and I am amazed at your communication of this truth.

I hope that Western youth will study and critique your letter, and, as you, I hope that it will help to catalyze a much needed awakening of the Western heart and mind.

In thankful admiration,

Denis Rancourt
(Former university professor)

Related post: Paris - Who made the terror?


Saturday, November 14, 2015

Paris -- Who made the terror?

By Denis G. Rancourt

PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 12: French troops patrol around the Eifel Tower on January 12, 2015 in Paris, France. France is set to deploy 10,000 troops to boost security following last week's deadly attacks while also mobilizing thousands of police to patrol Jewish schools and synagogues. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) *** BESTPIX *** 

The US and its allies murdered one million civilians in Iraq, using indefinite sanctions and war, destroyed all public infrastructure, and gutted all institutions. Do you think that would cause some people to be pissed off and desperate?

These “leaders of the free world” went on to inflict the same such “humanitarian” medicine on Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria (by proxy) and Yemen. And these “leaders” condone the regular genocidal slaughters perpetrated by Israel as part of its brutal occupation and program of land seizures.

Do you think some people are starting to grasp the meaning of US “freedom and democracy”?
These wars target the land-based resources and territories of the Middle East, and target the Muslim populations in order to incapacitate them sufficiently not to develop self-governance. As such, these are racist wars, and their impact on populations is necessarily the imposition of extreme racist suppression.

Many Muslims both identify with those directly targeted by the wars and genocides and are themselves subjected to local racist suppression in the same Western countries that are the architects of the Middle East campaigns. The local racist suppression has many forms including: economic apartheid, police targeting, media Islamophobia, second-class citizenry, discriminatory administrative burdens, and daily racism.

An effective state response to diffuse or mask these domestic threats is “multiculturalism”. On the spectrum of state social engineering, this approach is more common in Canada and the UK, and less common in France and the US, which prefer hard-core forced integration and police-state sequestration.

In my view, the relatively high per-capita degree of “Muslim” revolt and now terror in France is a predictable consequence of the combination of French militarism abroad and French structural and societal racism. This creates a fertile ground in which young desperate men (who perceive the Western geopolitical onslaught against “Islam” – against their identity – and against any influence they might have in the world) will want to lash out and act against the perceived oppressor, as violently as possible.

This “fertile ground” can spontaneously create acts of terror that do not have a clear geo-strategic purpose, that are locally nurtured by the physiological “rewards” of action, amplified by the media attention and by the feedback of “solidarity in desperation”. These are features of gang-culture psychology.

The same “fertile ground” can also be exploited and manipulated by state actors, of both the home state and other states. There are two aspects of such exploitation: A state can exploit the outcome of the terror, or a state can more directly covertly influence the execution of the terror, such as by facilitating access to weapons, by infiltration, by entrapment, etc.

The analyst must keep in mind that there is no doubt that a Western home state can perpetrate horrendous acts of violence against its own citizens. In the words of Paul Craig Roberts:
“Some people are so naive and stupid as to think that no government would kill its own citizens. But governments do so all the time. There are an endless number of false flag attacks, such as Operation Gladio. Operation Gladio was a CIA/Italian intelligence operation that relentlessly bombed innocent Italians, such as those waiting in a train station, murdering hundreds, and then blaming the violence on the European communist parties in the post-WW II era in order to block the communists from electoral gains.
A president of Italy revealed the truth about Operation Gladio, and you can read the sordid detail in a number of books and online. The bombings were not done, as was widely reported in the corrupt Western media, by communists. The bombings were done by Italian intelligence aided by the CIA. In one of the Italian investigatory hearings, a member of Italian intelligence said that the sites to be bombed were chosen in order to maximize the deaths of women and children, because these victims were most useful in discrediting the communists.”

With Paris, the home state is already exploiting the outcome of the terror to prop up its image and to justify whatever “responses” it will want to have. France is completely in league with Saudi Arabia in supporting ISIS mercenary thugs to remove Assad, and now it will use this domestic terror as a pretext for more muscular (illegal) military interventions to weaken the state that will be headed by Assad, as the current Russia-backed victories against ISIS continue. This is a disgustingly cynical manipulation of the victims of terrorism by French rulers.

If France wanted to respect the victims of these terror attacks it would stop its callous messaging exploitation, stop creating terror in other nations, concentrate on and allow independent investigative police work that is not politically hampered, be transparent about the results of such independent investigations, and concentrate on repairing domestic social injustices.

Finally, if we wish to theorize about which outside nations would most benefit from covertly facilitating the Paris terror, we need only ask which outside nation or gang would have realistic motives. The terror is of benefit to ISIS for recruiting, no doubt. The frantic police-state reactions are a gift to those who seek the empowerment and adrenaline of direct action. The state reaction conveys fear loud and clear. Just in that regard, the French government is irresponsible, and must next appear to have captured or killed to perpetrators. ISIS also benefits by a multiplication of battle fronts, and the potential to discourage or frenzy the enemy, although that is an unrealistic long shot. Furthermore, ISIS does not have physical access to the “fertile ground”. Thus, in my view, it is unlikely that the terror was directed or facilitated by ISIS.

Another state actor that could obviously benefit is Israel. Israel has been a constant promoter of the doctrine of a “war on terror” and of a constant and global terror threat that can only be solved by removing all the regional nations seeking independence from US domination, which compete against Israeli control of the region (Iran, Syria, Iraq, …) [1]. In the case of Paris, the Western media have already attributed the terror to ISIS, without any actual investigation, and the desired and foreseen or planned response could be a NATO intervention into Syria and Iraq? That would be ideal for Israel, because it would incapacitate any future Syria and Iraq, and would weaken Syrian allies Iran and Hezbollah.

Probably, Germany and other EU nations will see that a such NATO war would be a high-risk venture that can only create more terror and refugees for Europe, all for the benefit of Israel and US geopolitical domination.  Hopefully, Paris will not be a 9/11 event that launches new colonial wars of aggression. Hopefully, Europe will think for itself and not step into another US project of death.

Endnote: My personal and limited knowledge of French society comes from having traveled, lived, and worked in France. I have witnessed the egregious class segregation and extreme racism of that country first hand, and have personally suffered some of its consequences. Within the young professional classes in Paris there is little racism, but between the dominant social classes towards the lower classes there is viscous and palpable racism. The disdain of the elite classes for the working and un-working classes is highly racialized, as is their view of former French colonies. The French ruling and elite classes are extremely chauvinistic and racist. I have not felt anything so palpable in other European countries where I have worked or traveled for work: The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, UK, … In my view, this determinative class-racism is part of the mechanism that creates this domestic terror, as I have outlined above.

[1] http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/11/10/iran-deal-fallout-clarifies-the-geopolitics-of-apartheid-and-genocide/

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Obama's ISIS project is nothing but a pretext to murder and destroy Syrian society



The US military-finance-corporate empire (US-Empire) is characterized by (LINK):
  • global military projection using over 1000 military bases
  • control over the global finance instruments (and the money supply)
  • corporate exploitation of labour and resources on the scale of entire continents
  • dominant influence on World organizations such as the United Nations
  • a demonstrated willingness to annihilate entire populations and societies -- directly or by proxy -- in order to ensure complete compliance
The nations entirely destroyed recently by the US-Empire include: Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and so on. These actions are outright crimes of mass aggression viciously targeting entire peoples, using combinations of military devastation, political overthrows, and brutal economic blockades.

No other regime in today's world is responsible for such premeditated and repeated acts of mass murder against entire modern societies. The US with its military allies, most notably Israel, is presently by far the greatest threat to peace and the greatest purveyor of terror on the planet.

This is not debatable by reasonable people. The US-Empire's present preeminent position of brutal global thug is a self-evident truth based on hard facts regarding the magnitudes of death and destruction; counted in millions of lives, millions of refugees, and nation-wide obliterations of civil infrastructure, not to mention annihilations of national and civil institutions. US crimes do not diminish the importance of injustices perpetrated by non-aligned regimes, but there is an obvious asymmetry of magnitudes that simply cannot be denied.

It is also apparent that the US-Empire's projects of nation destruction are strategic and premeditated. Having built an instrument for annihilating nations, it appears difficult for the US-Empire to not use it, irrespective of any moral or legal considerations. US "diplomacy" has become strictly an exercise in promoting its wars for geopolitical design.

It is in this realistic context of a ferocious, rogue and barely-constrained superpower that we must understand Obama's emanations about ISIS as nothing but a pretext to "remove Assad". And "removing Assad" can only mean destroying the Syrian nation and its people because the Syrian army and the Syrian people stand together and overwhelmingly support Assad against the foreign invaders.

The legitimate political dissidence in Syria was used as a front and a pretext to inject massive numbers of externally-funded foreign rebels into a proxy war for the US-Empire and its regional partners-in-crime. This is established by every credible researcher. (And, of course actively masked by the US-Empire's propaganda.)

And now an element (ISIS) of the injected foreign rebels is used as a pretext for all-out war US-style. For Syria, this means complete annihilation of the national defence forces, and total destruction of civilian infrastructure to bring the population to its knees and lay siege to any resistance. Straight-up crimes against humanity as the modus operandi for "regime change", a la USA, followed by US corporation predation, territorial control, etc.

Obama's ISIS project is nothing but a pretext to murder and destroy Syrian society.

Obama's ISIS project is nothing but a pretext to murder and destroy Syrian society.

Obama's ISIS project is nothing but a pretext to murder and destroy Syrian society.


* * *

Dr. Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and Full Professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is known for his applications of physics education research (TVO Interview). He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, and has written several social commentary essays. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. While he was at the University of Ottawa, he supported student activism and opposed the influence of the Israel lobby on that institution, which fired him for a false pretext in 2009: LINK. 

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Breaking News - Ottawa, Canada - Terror suspect will hear bail decision on October 31st


An Ontario Superior Court judge will render his decision October 31st whether an Ottawa resident civil servant accused of enabling and financing international terrorism will be granted bail pending trial.

The accused is federal employee of 22 years Randall Shoemaker.

Shoemaker is accused of helping to finance racial terrorism against the people of Afghanistan, including women and children, by providing regular installments from his pay and by helping to cover up the thus financed and ideologically motivated war-like aggression.

He is believed to have associations with co-terrorists who also contribute to the financing and who conspire to maintain a reign of terror in Afghanistan by shielding others who manufacture and deliver the weapons, including helicopter machine guns and guided missiles used against civilian targets for the purpose of destabilizing that country's national politics.

The Crown's case against bail was strong but is subject to a non-publication ban. Before the ban was ordered the Crown presented some evidence that the accused also helped support an ideological and fanatical criminal regime in the Middle East which has illegally occupied an entire nation for decades under conditions in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Ottawa Police chief Vernard Verywhite has called for all persons with information about any other members of this believed broad terrorist network to come forward. Verywhite said "It could be anyone, your neighbours, your employees, your parents, even your closest friends."

Investigators of CSIC Project Shitonthem were involved in the difficult and extensive undercover work that led to Shoemaker's arrest last month. CSIC believes that more similar plots are planned against other sovereign nations with brown people, including women and children, for many years to come if not uprooted soon.

(c) 2010 Activist Teacher All Rights Reserved

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Psycho-biological basis for image leverage and the case of Israel

by Denis G. Rancourt


Psycho-biological basis for image leverage – General model

Family and friends keep the First World financial-corporate elite bosses from murdering brown people in the developing world. Not directly of course but via a psycho-biological survival reflex: We don’t feel secure living with overt psychopaths.

In other words, for the elite bosses to continue practicing genocidal predation for power and profit it is necessary that the predation be cast in a false cover of humanitarian aid, democratic development, solidarity, progress, and the like, and that the most overtly murderous practices be cast as necessary in a fight against evil.

If sufficient care is not taken to secure this cover of mental imagery, then the bosses’ actions will appear more to be what they are, murderous and psychopathic, and the bosses’ children may not feel comfortable sitting on the bosses’ laps and the bosses’ partners may not feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed…

Actually, this problem is solved within the elite nuclear family with a strong family culture of elitism and racism. And it is solved in the bosses’ communities of friends with a strong community culture of classism, elitism, and racism.

But these gated communities are not hermetic. The elite classes have contacts and interactions with the more vibrant broader society. That’s where things get tricky. If the broader society sees the bosses as being psychopathic then by reflection the gated community will see itself as defective and this will represent a serious challenge to its self-image and to its sense of security.

One reaction is for the gated community to further isolate itself, to deepen its elitism, classism, and racism and to build higher walls around its community but this strategy is not sustainable [1]. Often, just the potential for the broader community to develop a negative impression of the elite bosses is enough to somewhat keep the elite psychopaths in check.

A main battlefield therefore is the mental environment in the broader society. The elite bosses own the media and control the schools and the institutions. They work hard and continuously at branding themselves and their finance-corporate projects in a positive light. Energy extraction giants are “green”, in fact greener than ever. Finance giants bring development to the world – one wonders why we need NGOs. NGOs alleviate any guilt or second thoughts from the rampages of exploitation and wholesale destruction. An elaborate mesh of lies is constantly constructed and maintained in order to keep the bosses hidden and their dirty work clean.

The mental environment therefore is a place where elite forces cross swords in winning over hearts and minds (read impulses and impressions) and where activists can have a counter influence. People talk. Errors get through. Interpretations go wrong. New communication platforms suffer temporary democracy.

An important tool in the activist’s arsenal is to go for the jugular. Call murder murder and genocide genocide. Call it displacement, extermination, and a war crime when that is what it is and name the exploiters and murderers. Find them and name them. Expose it in the broad society and flyer it in the gated community if you can.

Once the blood on their hands starts to show they will want to escape the mess that they have created. They will be more constrained than before. Having to create appearances always caries a real price – a new standard to which the mental environment must conform... Expose expose expose and they will need to spend more resources than ever defending their image. And the more they spin the more obvious it becomes that they are spinning.

So our job is to keep them honest by bold, creative, radical and repeated affirmations about their crimes, in the hope that their partners and children will leave them until they come to their senses and discover inter-class and inter-race civility, in the hope that their desires to be accepted in the broader society will reign them in.

This model of leverage on the powerful via public image is applicable at every level of a given control hierarchy and in relationships between individuals, institutions, corporations, and sovereign nations…

Individual Example – Terrorist vs. Freedom Fighter

The military understands this. An essential step in creating a killing machine that follows orders is to separate him/her from his/her nuclear family and community and to displace all self-worth evaluation in the individual to the sole standard of following orders, to replace community with an isolated squadron of death legitimized by orders and to demonize the enemy.

Following this, the more community-tied and morally constrained individuals, if they don’t escape or rebel, suffer “post traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD), no wonder. The more the war is questioned by the broader society and the aggressor home community, the greater the need for soldier and military-community isolation and the greater the incidence of PTSD. “Support our troops” becomes a military exigency.

Soldiers following orders in geopolitical wars of aggression – even if masked in aggressor-nation “self-defence,” like elite finance-corporate boss predators and “facilitators,” are terrorists.

Similarly, an essential step in making a suicide bomber is to kill his/her family, to separate him/her from his/her original community, to isolate him/her both physically and ideologically, and to replace all self-worth evaluation with liberation through martyrdom. The difference is that the suicide bomber is fighting the perceived killer of his/her actually-murdered family and actually-destroyed community in a desperate act of guaranteed death, not playing a video game from the relative safety of a helicopter gunship.

The freedom fighter on the other hand is a self-defence fighter on home territory [2], relatively integrated with the home community during the fighting. The freedom fighter is motivated by his/her ties with community, rather than artificially isolated from it. As a result, freedom fighters do not suffer PTSD but instead are strengthened by the solidarity of a community struggle for survival. This is why the Viet Cong and Northern People’s Army of Vietnam were unbeatable without massive all-out nation-wide aerial and economic destruction.

This is why US-trained and supported “contra” forces kill community. This is why they are trained to root out and murder all community organizers and visible leaders of civil society, to remove the community from the freedom fighters, to destroy the motivation to resist.

Contrary to Empire soldiers and trained killers, freedom fighters readily move from battle to civil society and from defence to community, without suffering overly debilitating adjustments. I have met former civil war freedom fighters with battle scars (including a bullet hole in the head) that were among the most adjusted, rational and authentic community builders I have ever known, including a village mayor, an independent war museum guide, and a community historian. Where are the former Empire soldiers in these positions? – Few and far between.

Nation State Example – The case of Israel

Take the case of Israel [3][4]. It is the local super power in the Middle East and the uncontested military occupier of Gaza and Palestine. From the evidence available, the only thing keeping it from all out genocide of the Palestinians and nuclear extermination of Muslims in the region is public opinion in combination with Israel’s desire to be accepted as part of the broader community of nations.

This is why Israel considers its branding in the world a military priority, because its image limits its military options. This is why the recent flotilla fiasco [1] was a national emergency, because world opinion can tie Israel’s hands and cause the blockade on Gaza to be lifted. This is why jam and crackers are now allowed into Gaza, in order to alleviate public opinion leverage as the international community demands an impartial inquiry.

This is why Israel wants its ballet dancers to tour the world and its scientists to exchange with international laboratories and its perfumes to sell in supermarkets around the world, because positive image is a prerequisite for colonial occupation and indigenous genocide. Ask Canada. Ask the US. Ask Australia. Ask any First World nation that uses immigration labour and practices finance-corporate colonialism.

This is why Boycott-Divestments-and-Sanctions (BDS) for Palestine is such a big deal. BDS alone cannot hurt Israel’s economy. It hurts its image. This in turn produces real leverage regarding Israel’s treatment of Palestinians because it can affect Israel’s relationships even to its closest allies, thereby significantly putting its military economy at risk.

Israel’s image is so low that it is bringing down the credibility of its allies, the US and Canada. How far can this go before the allies want to distance themselves? This is why the Israel Lobby in the US and Canada is part of the real battle [5]. It must constantly fabricate domestic US and Canadian support for Israel and constantly battle infiltration of negative image and opinion from the rest of the world.

Damn it’s hard to practice a proper colonial genocide these days when the indigenous population does not collaborate and has friends in the broader world! It’s tough being Israel.

Our job is to make certain that all colonial exploiters and elite bosses get the image that they deserve. In the case of Israel the violations are flagrant and the leverage is real (thank God).

Notes

[1] "Israelis Celebrate IDF Flotilla Attack" - youTube.
[2] "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." Jean-Paul Sartre.
[3] "Rabbi Weiss Criticizes Zionist Occupation of Palestine" - youTube.
[4] Norman Finkelstein on the Israel-Palestine conflict - website.
[5] "The Israel Lobby (Marije Meerman, VPRO Backlight 2007)" - youTube.

* * *

Denis G. Rancourt was a tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He practiced several areas of science which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals. He developed popular activism courses and was an outspoken critic of the university administration and a defender of student and Palestinian rights. He was fired for his dissidence in 2009 by a president who is a staunch supporter of Israeli policy. [See www.academicfreedom.ca]

List of other essays by Denis G. Rancourt:
www.academicfreedom.ca/blogs/essays

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Political terrorism against national bank in Ottawa, Canada

This remarkable video shows the May 18, 2010, fire bombing of a bank in Canada's capital city. This is the first political terrorism in Ottawa in the memory of its citizens.

The video includes a statement by the group claiming responsibility for the incident.



The video and incident were immediately report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: HERE.

Other news links include:
ABC News
Ottawa Citizen
Globe and Mail
Toronto Sun

How does social change occur?

One of the most interesting aspects of this action is the blogger comment backlash being directed against the political terrorist group. It shows a vehement attempt to quash this form of direct action resistance.

Another outcome is that this action shows how easy it is to physically resist. It shows that arson is a simple yet devastatingly effective form of direct action against powerful hierarchical structures.

The mainstream media is stating that the political terrorist group responsible for the fire is an anarchist group.

Let's see if the police state apparatus of Kanada will catch these brave daredevils? The police certainly are giving it their best attempt. If they fail, they will look very bad, with all those surveillance cameras and web trolling tactics and all...

Two societal responses are possible:
  1. more police
  2. addressing the underlying injustices and lack of democracy
INSERT BLOGGER POLL CLICKER THINGY HERE.