Japan Tries Anti-Russian Provocation, Fails

Andrew Korybko reports on a failed attempt by Japan to stage an anti-Russian provocation, using India.

A scandal suddenly erupted within the Quad earlier this week after India refused to allow a plane from fellow partner Japan’s “Self-Defense Forces” (SDF) to pick up humanitarian supplies in the country that were destined for Poland and Romania. New Delhi quickly clarified, however, that “We have conveyed our approval for picking of such supplies from India using commercial aircraft.” The Hindu noted that the use of civilian aircraft is obviously preferred by India over military ones like the SDF plane that was initially dispatched on this mission since the South Asian state very proudly practices a policy of principled neutrality. It continues to do so despite immense American pressure to publicly condemn Russia for its ongoing special military operation in Ukraine. Since the scandal has now been clarified, it’s time to analyze exactly why it even happened at all and what everything related to it might mean.

India and Japan have excellent relations and closely cooperate bilaterally and through the Quad alongside America and Australia. They’re officially driven by their pursuit of mutually beneficial outcomes that supposedly aren’t directed against any third party even though most observers suspect that shared concerns about their mutual Chinese neighbor’s rise played a role in bringing them closer together over the past decade at the accelerated pace that their relations have since developed. Whether that’s the case or not, there’s also no denying that these two strategic partners practice different policies towards Russia: India’s is one of principled neutrality while Japan has dutifully complied with its American overlord’s demands to sanction that Eurasian Great Power even though it’s declined to quit its Sakhalin energy project on the pretext that doing so would somehow help Moscow.

Nevertheless, the Japanese leadership seems to believe that their national interests are best served by taking on a more prominent role in their American overlord’s anti-Russian campaign to the extent that’s realistically possible given Tokyo’s limitations in this respect. With that in mind, it seems to have plotted to rope India into an anti-Russian provocation by dispatching its SDF plane to pick up humanitarian aid in that country en route to Ukraine’s NATO neighbors in Central Europe. Had New Delhi approved its landing, then the optics would have been such that Moscow might have wondered why its special and privileged strategic partner would allow a military plane from a newly designated unfriendly country (the legal category of which refers to states like Japan and those in the EU that have sanctioned Russia) to carry out this humanitarian mission when a civilian one could have been used instead.

India’s strategists have very wise and know their Russian de facto allies very well, which is why they weren’t going to get roped into this provocation by their fellow Quad partner. That’s why they refused to authorize the SDF plane’s landing since Japan should have known better by dispatching a civilian aircraft for carrying out this humanitarian mission instead.

[Read the rest at  One World Press.]

 

Pakistan PM Khan On Way Out: Blames Foreign-Funded Conspiracy

Pakistan PM and former cricketing super-star, Imran Khan, is set to leave office after losing key support needed to survive a no-confidence vote, only the third Pak leader to face such a challenge. The military and ISI are set to take over. There is now the dire prospect of instability in the nuclear-armed state.

A few days ago, at a huge rally he revealed that a foreign-funded conspiracy of which he later gave proof was demanding his ouster, because it did not want Pakistan to pursue an independent foreign policy.

Three weeks ago, Khan raged against the EU for telling him to vote condemning Russia, and asked, “Are we your slaves?”

Now the opposition has the votes needed to oust him.

USG injected Guatemalans with syphilis & gonorrhea

From the National Security Archive:

Washington, April 25, 2011—Between 1946 and 1948, U.S. public health researchers infected hundreds of Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers and mentally ill patients with syphilis and gonorrhea, without their knowledge or consent, in order to test the effectiveness of penicillin. The experiments were carried out in Guatemala under the cloak of confidentiality, and the results were never published in the United States. But after a scholar discovered archives chronicling the program at the University of Pittsburgh and published her findings last year, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) took custody of the documents and on March 29 made them publicly available.

In the press release issued by the National Archives, the collection is described as consisting of some 12,000 pages of reports, correspondence, patient records and graphic photographs of the effects of syphilis infection on Guatemalan subjects. The papers belonged to the late Dr. John C. Cutler, an expert in sexually transmitted diseases and a leading researcher at the U.S. Public Health Service, who designed and oversaw the syphilis experiments. Before his death in 2003, Cutler donated the records to the university. NARA has since posted the collection on-line for public access, and made the originals available through the National Archives in Atlanta.

According to Cutler’s main report on the syphilis study, the program began with an invitation to carry out human experiments in Guatemala from the head of the Venereal Disease Control Division of Guatemala’s Public Health Services, Dr. Juan Funes. With funding from the National Institute for Health, Cutler arrived in Guatemala in the fall of 1946 to lead the project, co-sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Pan American Sanitary Bureau and the Guatemalan government. The first experiments were carried out in Guatemala’s Central Penitentiary, where the U.S. researchers sought to transmit syphilis to prisoners by paying infected prostitutes to have sex with them. When this method proved inefficient, the team decided to inoculate subjects directly with the disease. Looking for a way to infect a large number of subjects and study the effects over a period of months, the team settled upon the country’s “insane asylum” as the ideal site for their work. There, they had hundreds of captive and vulnerable men and women patients with no understanding of the procedures being performed on them, and the freedom to experiment without constraint or consultation with families.

It is clear from the language of the report that the U.S. researchers understood the profoundly unethical nature of the study. In fact the Guatemalan syphilis study was being carried out just as the “Doctors’ Trial” was unfolding at Nuremberg (December 1946 – August 1947), when 23 German physicians stood trial for participating in Nazi programs to euthanize or medically experiment on concentration camp prisoners. (Sixteen of the doctors were found guilty and seven were executed: see the University of Missouri-Kansas City Web site on the Nuremberg Trials.)”

 

Western Churches Funding Conversions, Terrorism, Secession

Bharatabharati.wordpress.com reports on the Indian government’s crack-down on foreign funding of NGOs engaged in subversive politics:

“The latest report of the Home Ministry showed that more than Rs 10,000 crore was sent to India during 2009-2010, mostly from the USA and Europe to NGOs in India.

[Lila: 1 crore is 10 million rupees, which is $1590.584 million (or approximately $1.5 billion) at an exchange rate of 62.87 rupees to a dollar, calculated at this forex site.

“The report says that while it is not proper to make sweeping generalisations, it is necessary to note that the NGO sector in India is vulnerable to the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing……..

The report, approved by Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh in January 2012, revealed that major donors from abroad and receivers in India are Christian Missionaries and Church-sponsored NGOs.

“The list of foreign donors is topped by the Gospel For Asia Inc of the USA (Rs 232.71 crore) followed by Fundacion Vicente Ferrer, Barcelona, Spain (Rs 228.60 crore) and the World Vision Global Centre of the USA (Rs 197.62 crore),” said the report of Home Ministry on foreign contribution and regulation for the period of year 2009-2010.

These three are evangelical organisations. The fourth largest donor, Compassion International, is also from the US (Rs131.57 core) and belongs to the same category.

The India Today, in its story ‘Freelancers of God – Independent churches mushroom across India attracting foreign funds’ (published on 9 May 2011) has given an account of Indian Christian missionaries who are propelling their ‘work’ to convert Hindus to Christianity with the help of foreign funds.

The India Today story says that, “The preachers are not trained in theology. They often play with the sentiments of people and lure them with incentives and create communal tension. Most new pastors work among Dalits in the region. They also widely use faith-healing methods, which are not popular among mainstream churches. Political parties such as the Congress and the Akali Dal have refused to make conversions a controversy and the VHP and Bajrang Dal have accused both parties of playing to the Christian vote bank.”

Senior French journalist and writer Francois Gautier reveals in his article that, “The foreign funds sent for Gospel cause has a huge but obscure impact. Out of seven states in North East India four have absolute control of the Church. Most of the North East subversive groups / Terrorist outfits including Maoists have definite connection with Evangelical groups. 45% of non-Arab foreign funds coming to India are utilized through Churches for conversion and camouflaging services, while 40% Arab foreign funds are coming to boost up Jihad and Islamic services. Christian Fathers and nuns are living most lavish life in India by utilizing the money collected from overseas in the name of service to the poor people of the third world.”

Francois Gautier has busted the myths of the so-called ‘social and human rights activists like Medha Patkar.

In his article ‘The Truth about Medha Patkar’, Gautier has given a reference of letter of Dr Urmilaben Patel, member of the Congress Working Committee, written to Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Minister for External Affairs.

Patel wrote that, “You are kindly aware, that Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) headed by Medha Patkar is actively involved in opposing all hydro projects in India. I have recently received material which I find quite disturbing. I specifically draw your attention into the message of Ms. Patkar using the words of “pressurizing the UPA government”, and “honouring” a Supreme Court Judge for a favourable verdict, as is explicit in the emails.”

Gautier gives details of exchange of confidential emails between Patkar and Patrick McCully, ex-Director, International Rivers Network (IRN) based at Berkeley (United States). This mail conversation exposes how Patkar ‘reports’ to Patrick every details of the case and which Judge ‘favoured’ her and should be ‘honored”….

…Teesta SetalvadIt is always demanded to inspect the income source of the infamous Teesta Setalvad and her NGO ‘Citizen for Justice and Peace’. Teesta Setalvad is always been in clouds of mystery for her activities and how she raised funds for her NGO and how does she managed expenses of providing legal help and from which source, she got money to lure witnesses for the cases against Narendra Modi in Gujarat riots. Her bank statements with specific details are out suggesting how Setalvad allegedly used money to buy witnesses and how through manipulative activities, false submission before different probe panels and courts were allegedly filed. Again the pointer turns to the source of foreign funds. But no one wants make understand the fact.

No scope for Indian Media to escape in case of foreign funding issue. Gospels of Charity in Spain, Southern Baptist Church, World Christian Council, St. Peters Pontifical Church, Melbourne, Joshua Society, Berne, Switzerland are some of the sponsors which funds major Indian Media which ‘speaks for’ secularism and human rights in India.

The analysis of the Home Ministry’s 42-page report shows that 14,233 NGOs received foreign contribution of Rs 10,337.59 crore. The biggest fund inflow to NGOs has come from the USA (Rs 3,105.73 crore) followed by Germany (Rs 1,046.30 crore) and the UK (Rs 1,038.68 crore). These three countries have topped in the donors’ list of Home Ministry for many years.

As per the report, most the funding has been generated from Christian missionaries of USA, Germany and UK and the donor missionaries have also formed their Indian subsidiaries. The other toppers come from Italy (Rs 583.47 crore), the Netherlands (Rs 509.46 crore), Spain (Rs 437.25 crore) Switzerland (Rs 302.06 crore), Canada (Rs 297.98 crore), France (Rs 189.12 crore) and Australia (Rs 148.28). The eleventh big donor to Indian NGOs is from UAE with Rs 133.15 crore.

World Vision Chennai According to MHA figures, the funding for Christian mission agencies has shown a regular increase. Also, over 80 percent of the voluntary organisations receiving foreign funds are Christian Mission agencies. “The highest amount of foreign contribution was received by the World Vision of India, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (Rs 208.94 crore).”

Ukraine: In Russia’s Sphere Of Influence, Not America’s

At Forbes, Doug Bandow at Cato has written an excellent piece on the turmoil in Ukraine, over which the imperial bullies in DC (and their covert adjutants are salivating:

“Washington should endorse justice and human dignity, which justifies support for honest elections and warnings against police brutality.  Of course, America’s message would have greater credibility if Washington better respected such values both at home and in its dealings with other nations which don’t always share America’s “interests and values.”

But Ukraine’s “economic health,” “European future,” “turn toward Moscow,” and reengagement “with the European Union” aren’t American values and are barely American interests.  Indeed, they really aren’t proper U.S. concerns.  How would Americans feel if Ukrainian politicians showed up at an “Occupy Wall Street” rally in Washington vowing to stand with protestors in demanding economic redistribution, a North American Union, and a turn away from Europe—all in the name of Ukrainian “interests and values”?

It’s obviously difficult for Washington to imagine any issue that doesn’t warrant U.S. meddling, but Ukraine’s status is one.  Alexander J. Motyl of Rutgers University (Newark) spoke of Washington and Brussels having “vital interests at stake in Ukraine.”  Only in Kiev’s dreams.

More extreme was former UN Ambassador John Bolton, who contended “that tectonic plates are being realigned in Europe” and that Ukraine is “the great prize.”  Robert Zubrin of Pioneer Energy argued that “the events unfolding in Ukraine right now are of global historic importance.”  Indeed, he added, Moscow’s reach for influence in Kiev is part of a “dark program” which “threatens not only the prospects for freedom in Ukraine and Russia, but the peace of the world.”   To suggest that Ukraine is vital to global peace is beyond exaggeration.

A stable, democratic Ukraine would be good for all concerned—and America’s Ukrainian diaspora deserves credit for its long-standing support for its homeland—but Kiev’s orientation isn’t important to Washington.  Ukraine spent centuries subject to Moscow and the U.S. never noticed. Vladimir Putin wants to reestablish Russian influence, but that doesn’t mean he can put the Soviet Humpty Dumpty back together.  Today’s protests in Kiev demonstrate that Ukraine will never be a quiescent tool of Moscow.

On the security side, Russia’s activities in Ukraine do not threaten the U.S.  The reverse, however, is not true.  Bringing NATO up to Russia’s southern border cannot help but be seen as dangerous by Russia—imagine Americans would view the Warsaw Pact expanding to Mexico. Washington’s policy today looks like the fabled “Brezhnev Doctrine,” what is mine is mine, and what is yours is negotiable.  America seeks to dominate not only the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Central Asia, but all along Russia’s borders.  Washington wants to hold all of the geopolitical chips.

The better strategy would be for the West to treat Russia with respect, acknowledging that it has legitimate interests in Ukraine, while using the prospect of greater economic opportunity to convince Kiev to look westward.  Yanukovich has been rented, not bought.  Complained the Economist:  “Mr. Yanukovich’s favored option seems to be to preserve the status quo and refrain from joining either camp while continuing to milk both.”  Which sounds like a sound strategy from Ukraine’s standpoint.  The EU, which obviously has the most at stake, could up its offer and reconsider its political demands.  How badly does it want to “win”?

Moreover, Europe should look for compromise opportunities with Moscow.  Kiev has proposed creation of “a tripartite commission to handle complex issues.”  Such an approach has promise.  Former congressional staffer Jim Jatras cited recent talks between the EU and Russia over “aspects of the AA with Ukraine that Moscow considers detrimental to its own economy, specifically a massive flow of EU products into Russia via Ukraine.”  All would benefit with greater links between the EU and the Russian-lead CU, which might reduce Moscow’s pressure on Kiev.

Ukraine matters, to Ukraine.  It also matters to Russia.  But less to Europe and much less to the U.S.  If Kiev wants to look east, so be it.  The West is most likely to win influence if it makes itself more attractive, not if it treats the issue like a new Cold War.  Despite Russia’s money Yanukovich’s reelection prospects are weak and Ukraine is likely to eventually join the West.  If not, however, so be it.  The country never was the EU’s or Washington’s to lose.”

Why Do US Diplomats Need Personal Paramilitary?

David Lindorff at Counterpunch writes:

“What’s the deal with these “State Department Agents” who investigated the Indian Deputy Consul General’s visa application and her housekeeper’s pay arrangements, initially in India, and who then made the arrest at her home in New York? ……..

Doesn’t the US government have enough “law enforcement” and “defense” organizations already, without giving the State Department its own armed paramilitary operation? Embassies and Consulates already have Marine guards, already have CIA agents working undercover as “diplomats,” and have access to the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the DOD, the Secret Service and who knows what other three-lettered organizations with armed personnel to investigate law-breaking and to defend diplomats. Why do they need this one too, particularly if all it can do is piss off the people of another country through gratuitously abusive treatment?””

Mays Fired From Their Jobs

The NY Times reports:

“Two U.S. State Department employees in India have been removed from their posts for writing racist Facebook comments about their host country.

Wayne May, head of the security team for the U.S. embassy in New Delhi, and his wife Alicia Muller May, the embassy’s community liaison officer, posted messages during their three years in India about how “bizarre” the country was and in one instance joked about “vegetarians that are doing the raping” in response to the gruesome wave of violence in the country.

Well, the Mays should go, but not for being racists.  For being dumb. They can feel anyway they want to about India or Indians. However, as long as they represent this country to India, they ought to keep their feelings to themselves. The Mays could also have been posted elsewhere, where they would have felt comfortable.

Of course, the Mays are also welcome to comment in future at my blog, since I love outrageous commentary, and, as you can see from the way I engage with the underworld of American blogging, I am very gentle with the confused and intellectually-challenged..

Let’s be clear, the Mays were fall guys in all this.

There is no way a caper that had Bharara, the US State Dpt, the US Marshals, some Delhi police, the entire NGO world, and the major media all lined up together on one side, could have taken place without anything but the full sanction of some big bosses.

Please note the pecking order.

Notice that when the NGOs and the State Dpt. and the Human Rights folk were lined up with the maid, Devyani Khobragade couldn’t get a fair shake in the mainstream papers. You couldn’t open a page without hearing a lecture about the “slavery” routinely practiced by Indian barbarians.

We already knew about the Mays by then, but no one thought to fire them for having circumvented the judiciary of a sovereign nation.

But, as soon as Mr. May and his wife, who executed what was probably conceived at higher levels, got caught by social media in unpleasant remarks – oh, then, and only then, do the moral arbiters of the universe become outraged.

In other words, fire the guy for dumb remarks his wife made on social media, probably not intended to be seen.

[Sorry, correction: they were posting OPENLY on Facebook, which, in the circumstances, is really stupid.  Also, the FB pages were not hacked. Nor were they doctored in any way.  That’s just damage-control spin being put out by the army of intelligence hacks employed to keep public perceptions thoroughly spun.]

So, this is how it goes – fire May for comments made by his wife on FB, but don’t fire May for his part in circumventing/obstructing the Indian judiciary, enabling visa fraud ( T3 visa to Sangeeta Richard, when she she was already facing criminal charges in India); or for concocting either a trumped-up or badly exaggerated case that led to custodial rape of a senior married female diplomat; or for committing various crimes in India (tax-fraud and smuggling).

Makes sense?

This plot wasn’t put together by some agent. It was choreographed by someone higher at the State Department.

Terror Camps Targeting Kashmir Excluded From Drone Strikes

The New Indian Express cites the NY Times on a back room deal struck between the US and Pakistan to allow terrorist training camps that targeted Kashmir to be excluded from drone strikes:

“A New York Times report said back room bargains for covert drone wars began und­er George W Bush and was expanded by President Barack Obama. “Pakistani intelligence off­icials insisted they be allowed to approve each drone strike, giving them tight control over the list of targets. And they insis­ted that drones fly only in narrow parts of tribal areas — ensuring they would not venture where Islamabad did not want Americans goi­ng: Pakistan’s nuclear facilities and mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were being trained for attac­ks in India,” NYT reported, quoting excerpts from The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth.

The report said “the ISI and CIA agreed that all drone flights in Pakistan would operate under the CIA’s covert action authority — meaning the US would never acknowledge the missile strikes and Pakistan wo­uld either take credit for individual killings or remain silent”. The revelation came a day after a US Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center report that Lashkar-e-Toiba runs camps in Muzaffarabad for war against India.”

US is the mother of all police states

Glen Ford at The Black Agenda Report:

“When U.S. corporate media operatives use the term “police state,” they invariably mean some other country. Even the so-called “liberal” media, from Democracy Now to the MSNBC menagerie, cannot bring themselves to say “police state” and the “United States” without putting the qualifying words “like” or “becoming” in the middle. The U.S. is behaving “like” a police state, they say, or the U.S. is in danger of “becoming” a police state. But it is never a police state. Since these privileged speakers and writers are not themselves in prison – because what they write and say represents no actual danger to the state – they conclude that a U.S. police state does not, at this time, exist.

[Lila: Please note that line –  US activists are usually not put in jail because their activism is NO THREAT  to the state, but, as is quite obvious, a quite lucrative industry encouraged BY the state, to channel  discontent, mark the boundaries of dissent, hide or obscure more effective dissent, and to lend credibility to the “freedoms” of the police state.]

Considering the sheer size and social penetration of its police and imprisonment apparatus, the United States is not only a police state, but the biggest police state in the world, by far: the police state against whose dimensions all other police systems on Earth must be measured.

By now, even the most insulated, xenophobic resident of the Nebraska farm belt knows that the U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world. He might not know that 25 percent of prison inmates in the world are locked up in the U.S., or that African Americans comprise one out of every eight of the planet’s prisoners. But, that Nebraska farmer is probably aware that America is number one in the prisons business. He probably approves. God bless the police state.

For the American media, including lots of media that claim to be of the Left, it is axiomatic that China is a police state. And maybe, by some standards, it is. But, according to United Nations figures, China is 87th in the world in the proportion of its people who are imprisoned. China is a billion people bigger than the United States – more than four times the population – yet U.S. prisons house in excess of 600,000 more people than China does. The Chinese prison population is just 70 percent of the American Gulag. That’s quite interesting because, non-whites make up about 70 percent of U.S. prisons. That means, the Black, brown, yellow and red populations of U.S. prisons number roughly the same as all of China’s incarcerated persons. Let me emphasize that: The American People of Color Gulag is as large as the entire prison population of China, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people.”

Source and full piece: Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report, 28 August 2012

Ford Foundation: Funding Espionage & Subversion In India

Haindava Keralam reports on the Ford Foundation’s multi-year funding of research in support of policy-making by Indian parliamentarians, via The Institute for Policy Research. Apparently, the researchers were using their work as an excuse to access Indian government files. The Ford Foundation has also been funding Teesta Setalvad, a notoriously  unethical and anti-Hindu journalist and faux secularist.

“Ford Foundation , an International NGO hit the news other day following their interference in policy making of Indian MP’s. To provide assistance to MP’s in ‘Research and Analysis’ , The Institute for Policy Research Studies applied for approval to Home Ministry to receive US $8,55,000 (around `4,70,25,000) from Ford Foundation under this project. The project drew flak when the Institute’s staffers started accessing Government files under the garb of providing assistance to MPs. These “researchers” had free access to Parliament Library and been sourcing crucial documents for the last six years under this project.

This very same Ford Foundation based in US was also behind funding huge funds to Sabrang – An NGO Ran by notorious Teesta Setalvad. Ford Foundation. The Foundation was created by Edsel and Henry Ford , pioneers in car manufacturing. In 2009 Ford foundation has donated $250,000 to feed Teesta’s mouth which in turn have used to propagate Anti Hindu propagandas and to target Narendra Modi personally.