Huawei is hiring talented technology engineers with pay at US$140,000 to $319,000 plus perks and stock options.

Huawei is hiring talented technology engineers with pay at US$140,000 to $319,000 plus perks and stock options. It is comparable to pays in the West. The best benefit for Chinese and Asians is working in a safe environment in China with real freedom and human rights protection and your families not subject to Asians Hate and gun violence everyday. It does not matter how much money you make when your lives constantly at risk as you cannot takes your money to heaven. 華為正在招聘才華橫溢的技術工程師,薪酬為 140,000 美元至 319,000 美元,外加津貼和股票期權。 這與西方的薪酬相當。 對於中國人和亞洲人來說,最大的好處是在中國安全的環境中工作,真正的自由和人權得到保護,您的家人不會每天遭受歧視亞洲人的仇恨和槍支暴力。 當您的生命天天處於危險之中時,您賺多少錢並不重要,因為您無法將錢帶到天堂. World Journal Newspaper San Francisco 美國加州舊金山世界日報 June 12 2021

Op-eds in a Chinese state tabloid slammed U.S. policy. The author worked at the Pentagon. Franz Gayl, a civilian who works at the Pentagon, is facing a counterintelligence investigation after writing pieces attacking U.S. foreign policy for a Chinese state tabloid.

Op-eds in a Chinese state tabloid slammed U.S. policy. The author worked at the Pentagon. Franz Gayl, a civilian who works at the Pentagon, is facing a counterintelligence investigation after writing pieces attacking U.S. foreign policy for a Chinese state tabloid. (Salwan Georges for The Washington Post)
June 11, 2021

The headline hardly stood out on the website of the hyper-nationalistic Chinese newspaper.

“Why US will lose a war with China over Taiwan island,” announced the April 27 op-ed in the Global Times, which also referred to Taiwan’s democratically elected leaders as “renegade secessionists” and called U.S. Congress interest “corrupt.”
What was unusual about the article was its author.

Franz Gayl isn’t just an American. He is a celebrated whistleblower — whose conduct was praised by then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) — and a retired Marine major working at the Pentagon.

“I knew it would get everybody’s attention,” Gayl told The Washington Post. “And man, did it.”

Some commenters accused him of treason for the piece, which comes at a time of elevated tensions between Washington and Beijing, after it was picked up by a conservative publication. But Gayl shrugged off the criticism.

He even penned another piece for the Global Times, which the Trump administration had designated a Chinese government entity, a month later.

Then the U.S. government launched a counterintelligence investigation, suspending the 64-year-old’s security clearances while it seeks to determine whether Gayl has been compromised.

The Marine Corps confirmed an “on-going investigation” regarding Gayl but would not provide details. Representatives of both the Marines and the Pentagon say Gayl’s op-eds were not submitted for required prepublication review and are not representative of U.S. policy.

After 18 years, Gayl faces an early exit from the civil service.

“If we don’t talk about this now, we are going to sleepwalk into this conflict,” Gayl said of a potential war between the United States and China. “I’m glad that I did it … but it was probably a step too far with the Marine Corps.”

In May 2007, amid a U.S. troop surge in Iraq, Wired magazine published a piece titled “Military Dragged Feet on Bomb-Proof Vehicles.” The article unleashed a whirlwind of controversy that led to congressional hearings and, ultimately, hundreds of millions of dollars for lifesaving equipment.

The exposé didn’t mention Gayl, but he had leaked a key document to Wired. As a science adviser to the Marine Corps, he had recently returned from a stint in Iraq, where he had seen signs the military had delayed the rollout of much-needed armored vehicles known as MRAPs. Gayl briefed the staffs of Sens. Biden and Kit Bond (R-Mo.), who both later praised him as a “hero.”

The incident landed Gayl in hot water. But the outcome convinced him that the headlines — and headache — had been worth it.

Fourteen years later, he again turned to the media in what he said is a similar bid to protect American soldiers.

Gayl’s recent op-eds come four years after President Donald Trump called China a “rival power.” The Biden administration has also taken a hard approach to Beijing, which has grown more authoritarian at home and more assertive abroad in recent years.

“Any reasonable man or woman would say that it’s outrageous for a civil servant working inside the bowels of the Pentagon to write on a communist news site, right?” Gayl said. “Under any other circumstances, I’d say yeah. But I needed to get this thing elevated.”

In a Global Times piece, Gayl criticized what he called the “independence hubris” of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, which is headed by President Tsai Ing-wen. (Taiwan Presidential Office/AP)

Gayl said he gets his intensity from his father. Franz Joseph Ferdinand Gayl grew up in Germany and, despite being part-Jewish, became a Luftwaffe paratrooper.

“He could be the first one to go overboard. And with this Global Times thing, I guess I went overboard,” he said.

When Gayl was a child, his father — who spent time in prisoner-of-war camps in the United States before becoming an architect in Minnesota — moved the family to an uninhabited island. There, he taught Gayl to drive a World War II-era amphibious landing craft.

After dropping out of high school, Gayl joined the Marines. “I owe everything to the Marine Corps,” he said.

After 22 years of active duty, he retired but stayed on as an adviser.

In 2005, amid the “war on terror,” Gayl found what he thought was the “real hot spot”: Taiwan.

He was cleared by the U.S. military to interview a Chinese diplomat for a graduate school research project, he said, and spoke to a Chinese consular official named Jia Xiudong.

Gayl incorporated the interview into his research. It advocated that, among other steps, Washington recognize Chinese sovereignty over self-governing Taiwan.
The project won an award but also raised alarms. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted a counterintelligence investigation that it later told Washington Monthly was “resolved in Gayl’s favor.”
NCIS began looking into him again in 2008 over concerns Gayl had divulged classified documents during the MRAP affair.

At one point, he was booted from a room at the Pentagon where confidential materials are handled and stripped of his security clearance. He was accused of inserting a USB device into a computer containing classified information and then failing to turn over the device to a supervisor.

[Marine whistleblower Franz Gayl: Security clearance removal is retaliation]
Gayl fought the attempt to fire him, saying he was the subject of reprisals over the MRAP affair. In 2011, the Navy reinstated his clearance.

As tensions mounted last year between the United States and China, including sparring over the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, Gayl revisited his project.

He adapted it into an article published in January, with his superiors’ permission, in the Marine Corps Gazette. He also sent copies to officials including Trump, Biden and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who thanked Gayl in an email for his “thoughtful perspectives.”

“But what I really wanted was a big splash,” Gayl said.

So he began submitting similar op-eds to newspapers including The Washington Post. When none would run the piece, Gayl decided to go with an outlet he felt certain would want his op-ed. Its publication would come at a price.

In mid April, Gayl emailed the Global Times with a plea to publish his article.

“It will be widely read throughout D.C. because I am a federal civil servant in the Pentagon,” he wrote. “I will probably get in some trouble for reaching out to an authoritative Chinese publication to raise issues that counter bad US policy. But the imminent war will be a tragedy we will all regret.”

The op-ed was published 12 days later.

“They actually toned it down, if you can imagine that,” Gayl said.

Gayl showed The Post an email exchange in which he rejected the Global Times’ offer of around 1,000 yuan, or roughly $150, for the op-ed. He said he has never taken money from the newspaper.

Gayl, photographed at his home in Virginia, is planning to retire after spending decades working for the U.S. government. (Salwan Georges for The Washington Post)

The op-ed reflected Chinese state media’s strategy of highlighting “non-Chinese foreigners’ views to counter the [mainly negative] mainstream discourse … about China in the English-language international media,” said King-wa Fu, a journalism professor at the University of Hong Kong.

Beijing has said it hopes to see more Edgar Snows — a reference to the American writer who provided insight into Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong but has also been described as China’s “perfect mouthpiece.”

Gayl claims he didn’t receive any blowback over the first op-ed, but that changed after he wrote another claiming “China-averse special interests” in the United States were “othering” or trying to “dehumanize” the Chinese in preparation for a war.

On June 1, Gayl was at his desk in the Pentagon when he was once more summoned to the security office and, like a decade ago, stripped of his clearance. Gayl was given a letter that said he was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation but did not provide more details. One superior hinted the issue was his op-eds, Gayl recalled.

The NCIS said it does not comment on or confirm details relating to ongoing investigations.

“I knew the things I was saying weren’t going to get approval, but … we are running out of time as a country,” Gayl said.

Having gone through one counterintelligence investigation, Gayl said he didn’t want to put his family through it again. Instead, he plans to retire. Leaving means his security clearance won’t be returned, ruling him out of many jobs in Washington.

“But that’s okay,” he said. “I’m ready to do something different.”

Katerina Ang contributed to this report.

Michael E. Miller is a reporter on the local enterprise team. He joined The Washington Post in 2015 and has also reported from Afghanistan.

Global Times: Yang-Blinken phone talk shows US realizes seeking conflicts can’t address its concerns, coordination with China needed: analysts

Global Times: Yang-Blinken phone talk shows US realizes seeking conflicts can’t address its concerns, coordination with China needed: analysts

China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi had a phone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the latter’s invitation on Friday, stressing dialogue and cooperation should be the mainstream of China-US relations.

Experts reached by Global Times on Friday said that Yang has stated clearly about the situation between China and the US since Biden took the office, as well as China’s fundamental stance. Similar to the Alaska talks, the conversation Friday also referred to the need for the US and China to advance their relationship in the spirit of the telephone call between the two presidents in February.

It also reflected that the US has realized that merely seeking conflicts with China, and being blindly arrogant, hardline while engaging in extremely selfish unilateralism cannot address Washington’s concerns or have its goals reached, noted the expert, and the US still needs to coordinate with China regarding issues like trade and regional order, they said.

Yang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, stated that cooperation should be mutually beneficial and address each other’s concerns in a balanced way.

“China is committed to achieving non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation with the US. At the same time, China is firmly committed to safeguarding its sovereignty, security and development interests,” Yang said, urging the US to follow the spirit of the phone call between the two countries’ leaders on the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve and work with China to bring bilateral relations back on the right track.

“Constructive discussion today with the People’s Republic of China Director Yang Jiechi on pressing global issues. We will continue to conduct practical, results-oriented diplomacy with Beijing on global challenges,” Blinken said on his Twitter.

The phone call was at the US’ invitation, according to news report. Given Washington’s diplomatic style, there must be something urgent about which the US believes a conversation with China is indispensable, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times.

During the phone call, Yang mentioned the island of Taiwan, stressing that the question is a matter of China’s core interest and the island is an inalienable part of China. “We urge the US to abide by the one-China principle, honor its promise, prudently and properly handle Taiwan-related question, and take concrete actions to safeguard the overall interests of China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits,” Yang said.

China’s Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday slammed the visit of three US senators to the island of Taiwan by military plane, condemning the move as “very vicious political provocation” and the visit was a “political show” using the Taiwan question to challenge the one-China principle, in further attempt to contain China.

Yang stressed that there is only one system and one order in the world, that is the international system centered on the United Nations and the international order based on international law, rather than the so-called system and order advocated by a few countries.

The diplomat also underscored the necessity to safeguard multilateralism, respect on sovereignty instead of interfering in other country’s domestic affairs in the name of human rights, as well as the support to the global community on combating COVID-19.

According to the China Central Television, Blinken said that the recent series of contacts between the US and China are beneficial to bilateral relations and the US is looking forward to increasing contact and exchanges with China at all levels. The US adheres to the one-China principle and abides by the three China-US joint communiques. The US hopes to maintain communication and coordination with China on major international and regional issues, Blinken said.

The US is aware that if it continues bottomless provocations over the Taiwan question, it will eventually have to pay a price for “Taiwan secession” at the cost of US own interests. This is what US decision makers and political elites have been striving to avoid. They are willing to use the island of Taiwan as a card to hold the Chinese mainland in play, but they will never sacrifice US long-term essential interests for the card. On the Taiwan question, Blinken has returned to the standpoint we wish the US to, Li pointed out.

“From Blinken’s remarks over the Taiwan question, we can see US wants to maintain flexible in its handling of China-US relationship. It is reluctant to go all-in. This is a very important indicator, as the Taiwan question is the most vital indicator for us to observe China-US relations,” Li stressed.

The talk between Yang and Blinken also came amid the opening of the Group of 7 summit in the UK, in which the Western camp led by the US are expected to single out the “threats” from China and Russia.

Analysts said it is likely that the US aimed to charge China a price before the “deal” being made amid G7 summit. Besides, Washington may also take the conversation to show its “leadership is back”- Washington is the representative from the West to talk with China, said the experts.

“No matter what the motivation for the US to invite China to have the phone talk, and no matter how much the two sides differ on the content of the talks, such communication is positive for China-US relations,” Diao Daming, an expert on US studies at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday.

One day before the conversation, China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo had a “candid and pragmatic” exchange of views on relevant issues of mutual concerns in the business sector. This was the third discussion over a two-week period between top Chinese and US economic and trade officials since Biden took office. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He held a virtual meeting with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on June 2. Liu also held a phone call with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on May 27.

In the climate sector, Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy for climate change affairs, held talks with his US counterpart John Kerry during his visit in Shanghai from April 14 to 17.

In February, Yang Jiechi urged the US to correct its mistakes, control divergence, and push for healthy bilateral ties with China, during a phone call at the invitation of Blinken.

In March, the China-US high-level strategic dialogue in Anchorage, Alaska started intensely due to the US behavior without hospitality and diplomatic etiquette. Yang’s tough response at the meeting impressed observers worldwide, showing that China is not there to compromise on key issues and hear lectures, but to point out the US problems face-to-face and find solutions with sincerity.

How Billion-Dollar Foundations Fund NGOs to Manipulate U.S. Foreign Policy: A Case Study from Nicaragua By Rick Sterling

How Billion-Dollar Foundations Fund NGOs to Manipulate U.S. Foreign Policy: A Case Study from Nicaragua By Rick Sterling – June 8, 2021

U.S. foreign policy is increasingly promoted by billionaire-funded foundations. The neoliberal era has created individuals with incredible wealth who, through “philanthropy,” flex their influence and feel good at the same time. While these philanthropists can be liberal on some issues, they almost universally support U.S. foreign policy and the “free market.” Because many of these super-rich individuals made their wealth through investments and speculation, most do not like a planned economy, socialized services beyond the private sector, or greater government control.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/06/08/how-billion-dollar-foundations-fund-ngos-to-manipulate-u-s-foreign-policy-a-case-study-from-nicaragua/

These mega-wealthy individuals, and the people who run their foundations, are often intimately connected to the U.S. foreign policy establishment. Grants are given to projects, campaigns and organizations which align with their long-term goals. In this direct way, supposedly independent think tanks and NGOs are influenced if not controlled. There is much truth in the old saying, “He who pays the piper, calls the tune.”

Independent Nicaragua

Nicaragua is a good example. For historical and contemporary reasons, Washington is hostile to the Nicaraguan government. The socialist Sandinista Front ousted the U.S.-supported dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979 and governed until 1990. Then, following a decade of U.S.-sponsored “Contra” war and economic sanctions, the Sandinistas were voted out of office. Next, after 16 years of neoliberal governments, the Nicaraguan people voted to return the Sandinistas to power in 2006. Since then, the Sandinista Front (FSLN) has won two subsequent elections, with more support, 62%, in 2011 and more still, 73%, in 2016.

Nicaragua’s Ortega Ready to Meet Trump Despite US Threat | Voice of America – English

Nicaragua’s current leader Daniel Ortega was a leader of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution and has long been a target of Washington regime-change plots. [Source: voanews.com]

Nicaragua under the Sandinistas has sustained a capitalist economy, but the government provides many social services, including health care and education, along with community-based policing and an impressive 90% food self-sufficiency. Nicaragua maintains an independent foreign policy which sometimes aligns with Cuba, Venezuela and other independent movements in Latin America.

Nicaragua has made plans for a trans-oceanic canal. Because this would compete with the Panama Canal and be independent of heavy U.S. influence, the United States does not approve. With the financial collapse of the canal’s Chinese investor, the plans have been suspended if not cancelled. Regardless of whether the plan is implemented, the U.S. foreign policy establishment and associated media are hostile to the Nicaraguan government for daring to plan this project.

U.S. Targets Nicaragua

U.S. meddling in Nicaragua is thinly veiled behind the U.S.-funded “civil society,” a “new generation of democratic leaders” and an “ecosystem of independent media.” In September 2016, a high USAID official, Marcela X. Escobari, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that 2,200 youth had received “leadership training.”

Marcela Escobari [Source: brookings.edu]
U.S. governmental hypocrisy is quite astounding. Imagine if Nicaragua (or Russia or any other country) trained thousands of U.S. activists to “promote democracy” in the USA.

In December 2018, the U.S. ratified the “Nicaragua Human Rights and Anticorruption Act” which imposes sanctions and commits the U.S. to preventing Nicaragua from receiving loans, financial or technical assistance from U.S.-dominated financial institutions.

In August 2020, journalist Ben Norton at The Grayzone reported details of a new USAID “task order” called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN). The document “outlines plans for a U.S. regime-change scheme against Nicaragua’s elected leftist government.” In short, Washington is not just hostile but actively trying to undermine, destabilize and replace the Sandinista administration.

USAID Nicaragua transition coup
[Source: thegrayzone.com]
The Foreign Policy Establishment, Nicaragua and Elliott Abrams

A key institution of the foreign policy establishment is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Its role and importance are analyzed in a two-volume history, “Imperial Brain Trust,” and “Wall Street’s Think Tank,” by Laurence N. Shoup, whose titles convey the main thesis. CFR events and publications, including Foreign Affairs magazine, give a good picture of key foreign policy priorities and debates.

A picture containing text, book

Hostility to the Nicaragua government is reflected in CFR reports and publications. One important example is an article by Elliott Abrams, who has been a major foreign policy official for 40 years. He was convicted of lying to Congress, yet he is a Senior Fellow at CFR. In September 2015 he wrote an article published at CFR titled “The Sandinistas Attack the Miskito Indians – Again.” He ends the article with an appeal to environmental and human rights groups:

“The open question is whether anyone – groups defending the environment, or defending Indian rights or human rights more generally, or fighting against Sandinista repression—will help them.”

Elliott Abrams: The War Criminal Running US Policy in Venezuela
[Source: therealnews.com]
Seemingly in response to Elliott Abrams’s suggestion, several major foundations have financed reporting on Nicaragua that emphasize conflict and tensions in the indigenous Miskito zone.

In March 2017 a Guardian article based on research funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation described “Lush heartlands of Nicaragua’s Miskito people spark deadly land disputes.”

An armed Miskito man on patrol along the bank of the Coco river in Wiwinak, Nicaragua

Armed Miskito on contested land bank prepared to fight the Sandinista government. In the past, the CIA has helped arm and finance these groups. [Source: theguardian.com]
Report cover

[Source: oaklandinstitute.org]
In the fall of 2018, the Oakland Institute received a grant of $237,294 for “Land Dispute Project – Nicaragua” from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. This year the Oakland Institute published “Nicaragua’s Failed Revolution.” The subtitle of the report is “The Indigenous Struggle for Saneamiento,” with “saneamiento” being the final step of the process toward regaining indigenous rights.

The funding for these reports came from foundations where the key players are interconnected with the foreign policy establishment. For example, Howard G. Buffett, the former Executive Director at the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and son of Warren Buffett, the multi-billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is a member of CFR. Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), is a writer for CFR publications and speaker at CFR events.

Howard Buffett Net Worth | Celebrity Net WorthHoward G. Buffett. [Source: celebritynetworth.com]
Melinda Gates – WikipediaMelinda Gates [Source: wikipedia.org]
We do not know if they were influenced by Elliott Abrams’s appeal, but the anti-Sandinista message was likely heard one way or another. Land disputes involving indigenous groups are widespread in the Americas, including North America. Research and reports could be done regarding almost every country. But instead of researching and reporting on indigenous land conflicts in Colombia or Honduras or British Columbia, the billionaire foundations chose to fund reports on Nicaragua.

The Miskito indigenous in Nicaragua are not new to conflict. During the 1980s the CIA manipulated them to advance their proxy Contra army. Many Nicaraguans died as a result. Now, 35 years later, people such as Elliott Abrams are trying to use the Miskito all over again. The Miskito may have legitimate grievances against the Nicaraguan government. But are their supposed champions in the U.S. seeking a solution or are they seeking to use them for their own purposes? There is a big difference.

A picture containing person, military uniform, weapon, group

Description automatically generated
Contra fighters in the 1980s included Miskito Indians. [Source: legacyofgena.medium.com]
Economic Warfare and “Conflict Beef”

The United States is increasingly using sanctions and economic warfare to hurt those governments deemed to be “adversaries.” Some right-wing foreign policy advisers would like to amplify the economic damage to Nicaragua. Some would like to prevent the U.S. from importing beef from Nicaragua.

Cattle ranching is a major part of the economy in Nicaragua. Previously Nicaragua exported large amounts of beef to Venezuela. But with the extreme economic hardships, exports have declined. Nicaragua has helped fill the gap by exporting larger quantities of high-quality beef to the U.S.

A picture containing grass, outdoor, tree, cow

Description automatically generated
Cattle farm in Indio Maíz Biological Reserve in Nicaragua. [Source: news.mongabay.com]

On the October 20, 2020, broadcast of the PBS Newshour, a nine-minute video about “Conflict Beef” was shown. The documentary said the increase in Nicaraguan exports is “coming at a high cost for indigenous communities that are being run off their land to make way for cattle ranches.” This accusation, and the suggestion that perhaps Nicaraguan beef should not be imported, was a core message of the video which merged journalism with activism.

Reveal depiction of supermarket beef
[Source: fair.org]

Subsequent research, including interviews with indigenous leaders from the area, reveal that the PBS Newshour report is fundamentally inaccurate. Journalist John Perry, based in Nicaragua, gives details in the article Progressive Media Promoted a False Story of Conflict Beef from Nicaragua, published by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Some of the reported violence was made up; some was exaggerated. The claims of “genocide” are not credible.

The exaggerated and untrue accusations in the PBS report are based on four sources. Lottie Cunningham is an indigenous attorney who heads the Center for Justice and Human Rights on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (CEJUDHCAN). Her organization is a USAID recipient and she is close to the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua. The United Nations Human Rights Commission has issued press releases based solely on her accusations. Judging by this “Conflict Beef” report, her accusations are sometimes exaggerated and sometimes untrue.

A person wearing glasses

Another source for this report is Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute. The Institute received a grant of nearly $250,000 for its research on Nicaraguan “land conflict.”

Much of the information came from the Oakland Institute report and the claims of Lottie Cunningham, who in addition to being a USAID grant recipient, received the Lush Spring Prize, sponsored by Lush Cosmetics. Recently published interviews with numerous elected indigenous leaders from Nicaragua’s autonomous zones indicate that Lottie Cunningham is viewed with skepticism if not hostility. The leaders believe that her organization, CEJUDHCAN, does not represent the interests of indigenous communities and is actually promoting violence and publicity for personal gain.

Nathan Halverson | Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting Journalist | Muck Rack

Nate Halverson [Source: muckrack.com]
The lead journalist for the PBS report “Conflict Beef,” was Nate Halverson at the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). CIR is well funded, with a budget around $10M, and has received large grants from dozens of individual foundations: Hearst ($625K), Soros ($325K), Gates ($247K), Ford ($250K), Pierre Omidyar ($900K).

Another journalist, Camilo de Castro Belli, appeared in the video. He is the son of author and Sandinista critic Giacondo Belli and a “Central America Fellow” at the neoliberal Aspen Institute. The Aspen Institute is funded by grants from the Rockefeller, Ford, Gates and other U.S. philanthropic foundations. Its chairman, James S. Crown, is the Lead Director of the General Dynamics Corporation, one of the world’s top arms manufacturers, and was appointed by Barack Obama to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.[1]

Camilo-de-Castro-BelliCamilo de Castro Belli [Source: califoundation.org]
James Schine CrownJames Crown [Source: aspeninstitute.org]

Key allegations in the “Conflict Beef” story are untrue. The beef for export comes from cattle that are NOT from the indigenous zones. The cattle are individually tagged and regulated by the national IPSA (Institute for Agricultural Protection and Health) which is in turn audited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nicaraguans are currently in discussion with European regulators in preparation for export there. This video, from one of the Nicaraguan beef producers, gives a sense of their professionalism.

Even the introduction to the PBS report is untrue. They sensationally claim that a young Miskito girl was shot in the face by someone “sending a message” to the community. The girl was accidentally shot while playing with another youth who had his father’s gun. This version is confirmed by the president of the local indigenous community who knows the family of the victim. The girl survived the incident, and the family accepted a bribe to fabricate the story.

Another claim—that “dozens of armed men attacked another Indigenous village in northeast Nicaragua, killing four people in the Mayangna community”—is false. A version of this same story was repeated twice in the Oakland Institute report and sent by Lottie Cunningham (CEJUDHCAN) to the United Nations Human Rights Council which dutifully issued a press release. This despite the fact the claims had been quickly exposed as false by the president of the Mayangna indigenous community. The media quickly jumped on the story, reportedly after two phone calls but no verification.

When a government is targeted by Washington, as the Sandinista government clearly is, the media attitude seems to be “guilty until proven innocent.”

This story about “Conflict Beef” reveals how big foundations influence reports which promote the U.S. foreign policy goals on Nicaragua: to defame and economically punish those who are too independent.

A leading donor to Obama, Crown was the subject of a criminal probe while chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Company after losing $6.2 billion through high-risk credit derivative trades that were unknown to regulators. See Jeremy Kuzmarov, Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019). ↑

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About the Author

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He is active with the Taskforce on the Americas and other organizations including Syrian Solidarity Movement and the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center.

Rick has researched and written articles challenging the trend toward corporatization of higher education.

He is an active supporter of KPFA (listener sponsored radio) and Rossmoor Voices for Justice in Palestine.

Rick was a full-time activist in his early years, had a 25-year detour working as an engineer in the electronics and aerospace industries, primarily at UC Berkeley, and has now returned to work full time where his heart is: progressive international causes.

He can be contacted at rsterling1@protonmail.com.

Video: What happened on June 12, 2019? What did NED do? The 1st attempts after Tiananmen Square 30 years ago, also failed.

Video: What happened on June 12, 2019 in Hong Kong? What did NED do? The 1st attempts after Tiananmen Square 30 years ago, also failed. 勿忘612 當日香港究竟發生了什麼. 2019年6月12日,香港出現令人難忘的一幕幕,香港一整天都發生了什麼事?美國民主基金會, 即美國中情局海外代理人最後衝刺但失敗了, 像三十年前在天安門一樣的失敗了.
https://vimeo.com/562066714
https://youtu.be/NnM_gAbEul8
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/509146223642041/?d=n

The Times of Israel: US alerted Israel, NATO to disease outbreak in China in November 2019 — TV report – White House was reportedly not interested in the intel, but it was passed onto NATO, IDF; when it reached Israel’s Health Ministry, ‘nothing was done’

The Times of Israel: US alerted Israel, NATO to disease outbreak in China in November 2019 — TV report – White House was reportedly not interested in the intel, but it was passed onto NATO, IDF; when it reached Israel’s Health Ministry, ‘nothing was done’ By TOI STAFF 16 Apr 2020

Remember the leaked conversation with Woodward? Why Trump tried to hide it?
Especially when he knew how dangerous the virus is going to get as early as November 2019, Israel, US and their NATO allies had advanced knowledge of the upcoming pandemic before China’s first reported case.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-alerted-israel-nato-to-disease-outbreak-in-china-in-november-report/

US intelligence agencies alerted Israel to the coronavirus outbreak in China already in November, Israeli television reported Thursday.

According to Channel 12 news, the US intelligence community became aware of the emerging disease in Wuhan in the second week of that month and drew up a classified document.

Information on the disease outbreak was not in the public domain at that stage — and was known only apparently to the Chinese government.

US intelligence informed the Trump administration, “which did not deem it of interest,” but the report said the Americans also decided to update two allies with the classified document: NATO and Israel, specifically the IDF.

The network said Israeli military officials later in November discussed the possibility of the spread of the virus to the region and how it would affect Israel and neighboring countries.

The intelligence also reached Israel’s decision makers and the Health Ministry, where “nothing was done,” according to the report.

Last week, ABC News reported that US intelligence officials were warning about the coronavirus in a report prepared in November by the American military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence.

It was unclear if that was the same report that was said to have been shared with Israel.

Colonel Shane Day, the NCMI director, denied last week that any such report existed. “As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters,” he said. “However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.”

In its first major step to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Israel announced on January 30 it was barring all flights from China, ten days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued his first public comments on the virus and the Asian country’s top epidemiologist said for the first time it could be spread from person to person.

An Associated Press report on Wednesday said Xi’s warning came seven days after Chinese officials secretly determined that they were likely facing a pandemic, potentially costing China and other countries valuable time to prepare for the outbreak.

Doctors in Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak in China, are reported to have first tried to have warn about the virus in December, but were censored.

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied suppressing information in the early days, saying it immediately reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization.

Agencies contributed to this report.

Video: The Nightmare Of Western Pharma Giants Just Begins! One more reasons why Western Empires hated China. China already has a capacity of five billion doses, and it may expand its facilities even faster.

Video: The Nightmare Of Western Pharma Giants Just Begins! One more reasons why Western Empires hated China. China already has a capacity of five billion doses, and it may expand its facilities even faster. 西方製藥巨頭的噩夢才剛剛開始!又多一個原因西方帝國討厭中國. 中國已經擁有 50 億劑的能力,而且它可能會更快地擴大其設施. Also, it has been helping other countries build local factories to manufacture the covid vaccine. As for the approvals of the World Health Organization for the two Chinese vaccines, they should have been awarded several months earlier if some country did not intervene. And the W H O may still hold the approvals if the second wave did not attack India.
India is the most prominent vaccine contractor, but the US and Europe control the technology and raw materials. Indian pharmaceutical companies are western countries’ tools to make money. Chinese vaccine manufacturers, however, have both technology and raw materials of their own. And the scariest thing is that Chinese products are priced so competitively that no western companies can survive. The nightmare of western pharma giants begins. We think it is normal for them to complain, shout and cry!
https://vimeo.com/561654499
https://youtu.be/jjKm19E50rg
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/508564303700233/?d=n

The Dirty Secrets of D Day and the War in China

The Dirty Secrets of D Day and the War in China By VT Editors -June 10, 2021 By Jeff J. Brown for VT

Dirty, dark secrets of D-Day France, 6 June 1944, with crucial World War II background in China and Japan. China Rising Radio Sinoland 210606

Pictured above: the city of Le Havre was flattened by totally gratuitous, genocidal Allied bombing across Normandy, before and following D-Day in France on June 6, 1944. Come to think of it, Le Havre looked just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after they were wiped of the face of the map with atomic bombs. What a coincidence.

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the Allied D-Day Landing in France.

The Dirty Secrets of D Day and the War in China

I’m sure not going to make any friends among the French side of my family, by writing this post. They have roots in Normandy and have been coming to Arromanches-les-Bains for summer vacations for four generations.

I live is the small village where Allied troops arrived on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, with their celebrated floating port, that was shipped over from England and built on site, to bring in all the materiel needed for the invasion. The family house we live in was billeted as the Allied post office and we can see the landing beach from it. On the paternal side, the other house here was taken over as a military command, since it looks right out over the water, where the port was built. Needless to say, my attachment to D-Day is above average.

The landing was a daring, brilliant operation, getting high marks as a feat of engineering, while thousands of US, British and Canadian soldiers died during and after the invasion.

Today there will be lots of celebrations. Normally, thousands of people, including global leaders and dignitaries come, but with the great reset covid plandemic, it is just a bunch of European tourists.

So far, so good. Be that as it may, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been snubbed for years, as has Chinese President Xi Jinping. Russia always invites Western leaders to attend Victory Day in Moscow, every May 9th. Since 2015, V-Day in China is honored on September 3rd and all Western leaders are invited http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2015/09/04/from-may-9th-in-moscow-to-september-3rd-in-beijing-the-anti-west-order-comes-full-circle-moscow-beijing-express-on-the-saker-44-days-radio-sinoland/ Nevertheless, Eurangloland leaders continue to refuse to participate in these events, which is a sad statement indeed, about the arrogance and racism of empire. To do so would be to admit the truth: Allied forces did not liberate Europe and Asia from global fascism. The Soviet Union (Russia) and China did.

Yes, thousands of Allied soldiers died during World War II and with them, a total of 966,000 military and civilian people in the two theaters, east and west, were lost among the Five Eyes allied countries: the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war At the same time, Russia and China each lost no fewer than 25,000,000 citizens, a total of 50 million, with credible research showing they each lost closer to 35 million compatriots, or 70 million total. Even at the lower figure, Russia and China lost 50 times more people than the allied countries together. Put another way, the Allies lost 2% as many people as Russia and China combined.

More statistics reveal hard truths that totally demythify relentless, Western Big Lie Propaganda Machine (BLPM) brainwash. In June 1944, when the Allies landed outside my window, Germany had 287 divisions of troops, with seven in Germany, 150 on the Eastern Front and 66 on the Western (French) Front. You can do the math. This means that the D-Day landing was doing battle against only 23 percent of the Wehrmacht’s forces https://www.axishistory.com/axis-nations/134-campaigns-a-operations/campaigns-a-operations/2085-number-of-german-divisions-by-front-in-world-war-ii This, while the Soviet Red Army was grinding Nazis into dog food, on its relentless drive towards Berlin, losing millions of its own in the process.

It’s the same story in the Pacific, about which I wrote in The China Trilogy https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/06/30/praise-for-the-china-trilogy-the-votes-are-in-it-r-o-c-k-s-what-are-you-waiting-for/ Mao Zedong and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were fighting three enemies simultaneously: fascist Japan, fascist Chiang Kai-Shek’s Guomindang (GMD, oftentimes noted as KMT) and imperialist United States. Western propaganda likes to censor the fact that the US gave GMD billions of dollars in weapons, materiel and training, with 100,000 red-white-and-blue military personnel fighting side-by-side with them, along with many remaining Japanese troops, trying to exterminate the unstoppable Chinese Communist revolution.

Before Japan’s surrender on September 3rd, 1945 to China, the United States in the Pacific theater was fighting only 18% of the Japanese Imperial Army. The other 82% were bogged down in China and Japan, thanks to Mao Zedong, the PLA (People’s Liberation Army), millions of revolutionary citizen martyrs, whose heroic efforts freed their nation from foreign terrorism and the West’s illegal drug cartel (opium, morphine and heroin) that was destroying the Chinese people.

The Allies had a hell of time fighting against only 23% of Germany’s might in France and the US had its hands full fighting 18% of Japan’s forces. Let’s be honest, if it weren’t for the Russians and Chinese killing the vast majority of fascist Axis troops, and dying themselves by the tens of millions to reach victory, it’s highly unlikely the Allies would have gotten very far against a bigger force in the two theaters. In both cases, the Allies got into World War II when Russian and Chinese victories were already a foreseen conclusion.

What we can say is that the Allies prevented the Soviets from invading Japan, which they were preparing to do, and they stopped the Red Army in Germany, instead them being able to finish off the Nazi Wehrmacht in France. The Allies can take credit for reducing Stalin’s negotiating chips by five countries, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, but that’s about it. Germany and Japan would have still lost against the Russians and Chinese, without any Allied participation. These sobering truths are vehemently refuted and censored behind the Great Western Firewall, with two generations of BLPM psychological warfare, ongoing, but are undeniable.

Truman’s atomic bombs that incinerated two cities’ worth of civilians, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were not the reason the Japanese emperor surrendered to the United States on August 14th, 1945.

First, as background, General Curtis LeMay was transferred from Europe to China in the fall of 1944. He was not satisfied with the destructiveness of classic (saturation) bombing missions with traditional aerial bombs being used in China and Japan. Harvard University had just developed their M69 incendiary bomb, with a war crime concoction of phosphorous and napalm. LeMay’s psychopathy and Yankee racism, with being able to quickly kill lots of “Yellow niggers” on a grand scale https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/06/slavs-and-the-yellow-peril-are-niggers-brutes-and-beasts-in-the-eyes-of-western-empire-china-rising-radio-sinoland/ aligned for American genocide in China and Japan. Wuhan, a mighty industrial center on the Yangtze River, and in Mao Zedong’s home province, was a hotbed of communist activity, as well as being used by the Japanese as a logistics base. Red Chinks and Yellow Nips was a two-fer trophy for LeMay and the US Air Force. Double the fun.

On December 18th, 1944, 94 US B-29 Fortress Super Bombers were loaded full, with 500 tons of Harvard’s genocidal M69 bombs. In a matter of a few hours, 40,000 innocent Wuhan citizens were incinerated, along with their neighborhoods http://www.chinaww2.com/2015/09/12/the-us-firebombing-of-wuhan-part-1/

Not stopping there, the USA continued to mass bomb Taiwan, China, which was isolated and a threat to no one.

On March 1st, 1945, Tainan, Taiwan, one of the island’s largest and oldest cities, 44 B-24 Liberators dropped 387 incineration 500-pound bombs across residential areas. March 12-13, 1945, another 84 1,000-pounders were unleashed on the citizens below. On March 20th, 1945, 34 B-24s finished off the civilian city of Tainan with 260-pound fragmentation bombs, 100-pound napalm bombs and 100-pound incineration bombs, burning untold thousands of innocents.

USA genocide in China continued in Taipei, Taiwan, where only civilian targets were left. On May 31st, 1945, 117 B-24s dropped 3,800 bombs in the heart of the city, in only three hours. Officially, 3,000 were killed, which was likely a gross underestimate, and the wounded weren’t even counted, since the US-supported GMD fled to the island after losing to the communist PLA.

The USA’s senseless, genocidal bombing slaughter in China was and is completely censored by the BLPM and expunged from the history books.

Having shown its effectiveness in exterminating tens of thousands of civilians, as well as incinerating their homes in a matter of hours, it was time for the USA to begin its campaign of genocide in Japan. Kobe was the first city to be scorched off the face of Japan’s map, in February, 1945 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M69_incendiary American genocidists had the blood lust, racist-filled time of their lives, continuing to incinerate 67 Japanese cities by fire bombing. Millions of women, children and elderly were torched to death, while causing many more millions to be homeless and dying of starvation. With Japan becoming a weak US, postwar vassal, these numbers are heavily officially underestimated.

Still, the emperor did not call it quits. This, while the United States repeatedly refused Japan’s requests to negotiate a surrender. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were simply cities number 68 and 69 to be pulverized into non-existence, along with 200,000 innocents turned to dust. Déjà vu. Tokyo lost 100,000 on March 9th, as many as each of these two A-bombed cities, and millions more were slaughtered in between. The fact that the Japanese knew the two A-bombs were different than the 2,000,000 high-explosive and 5,000,000 incendiary bombs that had already destroyed the country was of no consequence to them https://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_bombs_were_dropped_in_Japan_during_World_War_2

Losing two more cities on top of the 67 already disappeared was not why he surrendered. What caused the emperor to capitulate was that the Soviet Red Army had just wiped out Japan’s best army, the one in Manchuria, in Northern China. The Russians annihilated 80,000 of Japan’s finest in just ten days, and was heading for the Yellow Sea coast to launch an invasion of Japan. The thought of 100,000 Red Army troops (he was anti-communist and racist against the “Slavic hoard”) swarming over what was left of Japan was why the emperor surrendered, not because the US torched two more cities to the ground, on top of the previous 67. This is another statement of fact that is continually denied by the West’s BLPM.

Nor are these some pro-commie ravings. Even uber-establishment Foreign Policy magazine admitted the same thing https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/

Back here in France, there is another dirty, dark secret about D-Day, and that is the Allies gratuitously massacred tens of thousands of French citizens in Normandy, leading up to and after June 6th, 1944. The United States and Britain committed war crimes, by needlessly bombing many cities in Normandy and beyond in France, when they knew that they were not killing German troops, nor destroying their materiel.

These genocidal D-Day bombings caused the unnecessary death of 50,000 French citizens, war crimes all. American soldiers also found the time to rape 3,620 French girls and women before and after the invasion. Yank troops also raped 2,420 English lassies behind the lines, and 11,040 German ladies on the front. Given that only one out of ten rapes is ever reported, this shocking truth was undoubted grossly underreported https://wais.stanford.edu/ztopics/week020105/france_050201_civilianskilledinwwII.htm as it was in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and everywhere US soldiers are stationed.

All in all, the Allies bombed over 1,500 cities in France, most of them at least 75% leveled. Along with the 50,000 aforementioned massacred, 100,000 French were injured, and millions were left homeless and starving, having lost 420,000 homes, with another 890,000 partially destroyed. Let those numbers sink into your grey matter for a while. The occupying Germans killed around 30,000 Frenchmen, making them look like honorable saints, compared to the bloodthirsty Allies.

Italy was also gratuitously wiped out by Allied bombs. In fact, over one-third of all Allied bombs in Europe were dropped on France and Italy, with 60,000 Italians also exterminated https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=36238 Why, except to weaken two large non-Anglo-Saxon “allies” and make them totally dependent on the USA and Britain, postwar? Spain and Portugal were already loyal fascist dictatorships in service to Western global capitalism, so along with Germany destroyed, the economic, industrial and agricultural heartland of Europe was devastated by all this genocide and infrastructure destruction.

Having come to Arromanches many times since 1988 (and living here for five years in the late 90s), I can attest that the French are in complete denial about the Allied genocide. It is telling that the English version of Wikipedia lists 50,000 killed, whereas the same page in French records only 20,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Normandy and https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardement_de_la_Normandie A humiliating and shameful reality that the French cannot face, it was finally publicly acknowledged by a leading official, President François Hollande, in 2014, for the 70th D-Day landing anniversary, right here in little Arromanches-les-Bains https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27703724 That year, Russian President Vladimir Putin was allowed to come participate (the last time since and Xi Jinping never invited). Knowing the true facts about World War II and who really won the war and Putin standing nearby, maybe Hollande made it official out of a guilty conscious.

The West developed its bloodlust for massacring millions from the air during World War II. Germany killed 20,000 Brits by aerial bombing. Allies bombed more than 1,000 German cities, just like they did all across France, Italy and Japan, targeting above all else many millions of innocent civilian women, children and elderly and destroying thousands of cultural and religious heritage sites http://www.revisionist.net/bombing-germany.html and https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=55 It was even official policy, as told to the bomber pilots,

It has been decided that the primary objective of your operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular, of industrial workers. The aim is the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilized community life throughout Germany. It should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives; the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale; and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy, they are not by-products of attempts to hit factories. – U.K. Bomber Commander Arthur Harris, 1942, showing pilots a list of 60 German cities to be wiped off the map.

Having whet their appetite for aerial genocide in World War II, the West went on to even greater crimes against humanity, obliterating millions more in Korea, Vietnam, Serbia, many more and now, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/united-states-bombings-of-other-countries and https://wikispooks.com/wiki/US/Bombing_campaigns_since_1945 The list is long. This does not even include hundreds of lethal civilian drone strikes, happening day after day.

No, it was not German and Japanese fascists who invented it, in spite of all the BLPM brainwash. Western total war (burn all, steal all, kill all – and we can add rape all) has been perfected since biblical times, where it is sanctioned and glorified in the Old Testament/Torah, and with advances in technology over the ages, is blood splattered across Eurangloland’s history books and daily headlines. Nobody does it better.

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