US-NATO allies

The most honest man in Britain today is Julian Assange, while the most dishonest are those who are engaged in his ongoing persecution.

(This article by John Wight was first published at https://www.rt.com/op-ed/461768-assange-extradition-justice-british/ on 13 June 2019.)

Review of Kenneth Eade's The Involuntary Spy: Who among us realised that Monsanto has huge plans for Ukraine? We learn that Ukraine's current president, Poreschenko, has been in cahoots with the US for years, and that Monsanto has been buying up land and lobbying to change Ukraine's anti-GMO laws, inserting a key clause in an EU Association agreement.

If you wonder what on earth the US is messing around in Ukraine for, this thriller series may actually have some of the inside story.

Kenneth Eade is an international and internet lawyer whose expertise includes the scientific history and laws associated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He writes terrific novels around these themes.

Not normally a fan of American spy thrillers, I was, however, intrigued, in light of Edward Snowden, to find that the subject of Eade's spy thriller series, The Involuntary Spy was a US whistleblower who fled to Russia.

Downloading a 'sample' of the book, I was further drawn in by the politics of a car chase through Kiev, as an unsafe place for American whistleblowers in transit to Russia. Hmm, this writer knew a lot about Russia and Ukraine that you don't hear on CNN or read in Murdoch's press. I looked up his biography and discovered that, after practising law for 30 years in the United States, becoming an expert in GMO law, he was disbarred for five years over a disagreement about a Russian goldmine, was married to a Russian woman and lived, apparently more or less in exile, in France. Kenneth Eade's 'faction' novels might have been partly lived as well as derived from real science.

Further reading disclosed that this was an industrial spy novel with a serious ecological and scientific base. Seth, the protagonist, is a genetic biologist attracted to the industry by the ideology of GMOs solving 'world hunger' as well as the prestige and perks of his position. He works for a multinational giant called Germinat, which derives billions from world-wide sales of a pesticide called 'Cleanup Ready' and the promotion of crops it has engineered to be able to survive this ubiquitous and persistant product.

Despite some awareness of French Professor Seralini's (2012-2014) experiments using Monsanto insecticide-resistant GMO sources to feed laboratory rats over a long period of time and how the rats suffered grave consequences which had not happened when they had been fed the actual insecticide, The Reluctant Spy educated me significantly more on the problems with industrial GMOs. I learned that Seralini was not the first scientist to be persecuted for publishing results that put GMOs in a bad light. The author tells us about Arpad Pusztai, who was discredited at first with his 1998 studies (one of the first) on GMO potatoes, showing damage to the gut and immune system.

I knew that Monsanto was extremely powerful and had backed up its patents on genetically modified organisms with legal suits. I did not realise that its position as 'owner' of organisms it has engineered could be used to stop people it did not approve of from testing its scientific claims.[1]

And I learned that, contrary to claims of GMO safe process, organisms used to splice genes have not been limited to the relatively safe unicellular ones; genes from complex organisms with the capacity for multiple and unpredictable outcomes were surrepticiously built into the foundations of today's GMOs.

"It was always thought that bacterial genes were the best form of genes for genetic engineering. Bacterial genes were not as complicated as genes from most plants and animals, because they did not have introns, which could create hundreds or even thousands of different proteins from a single gene, meaning that the gene could not only produce the desired trait, but thousands of others, so there was no chance that the bacterial gene could produce proteins other than the ones it was intended to create. However, when the Bt gene was first introduced into plants, it produced very little Bt protein. So, to pump up production, they added introns because those increased Bt protein production. Instead of testing for whether the introns would also cause the production of other unintended proteins, scientists went with their original assumption that the gene would produce only the Bt protein and nothing else. " Eade, Kenneth (2015-09-15). An Involuntary Spy Series Box Set One: Books one and two (Kindle Locations 857-858). Times Square Publishing. Kindle Edition.)

Seth realises there is a risk that organisms receiving these genes could try to correct what they perceived as a genetic irregularity in themselves and that such an attempted correction could give rise to tumours.

Back at the laboratory, Seth is placed in a position where, like Arpad Pusztai, he is expected to conduct quick and dirty experiments, to back up his employer's dishonest safety claims. His boss, Bill, is 'somewhat of a social climbing stuffed shirt', 'more of an administrator than a scientist' despite 'impressive scientific credentials'. When Seth reports problems, Bill says, irritatingly, "You’re gonna have to do better than shrunken rat’s balls, Seth," and sends him back to the lab.

Typical of the industry, Seth is surrounded by colleagues too fearful of being out of a job to disobey their slickly tyrannical employer, but Seth cannot let go of the truth.

"Genetically modified foods were a grab bag of pesticides, allergens, toxins, dormant viruses and antibiotic resistant molecules that were being consumed by humans for the first time. It was only a matter of time before their immune systems become unable to recognize what to protect against. In this experiment, the entire American public were the test rats and the chemical companies the only winners." Eade, Kenneth (2015-09-15). An Involuntary Spy Series Box Set One: Books one and two (Kindle Locations 1874-1877). Times Square Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Seth discovers more and more apalling things about Germinat, and that people in the United States Government are complicit with its illegal activities. If he goes to the authorities, higher-ups with a stake in Germinat are likely to have him charged as a traitor. He realises his life is in danger. He plans to leave the country. Eventually he has to flee the country. At an unscheduled plane stop in Kiev he narrowly avoids assassination in that state where the elites are so cosy with the US ones.

Half of the book is set in Russia in a seamless and entertaining back and forth. Seth finishes up in a Russian outpost where there is a lot of heavy drinking and promiscuous sex, and he falls in love with a beautiful local. When he tries to negotiate his way back into the United States the author, an international lawyer, gives us some insight into the whistleblower's legal position.

At the end of the first book Kenneth Eade has provided an essay documenting the background to his novel. I cite some highlights here:

[Since 1994] "Genetically engineered foods are in almost all processed food products in the United States. A simple reading of the label will reveal one or more of the following ingredients in every one of them: corn or corn oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil (made from rapeseed oil, a GMO product), soy and/ or soybean oil, and/ or high fructose corn syrup. Genetically engineered corn and soy are used for most of the animal feed in the United States. And GMO sweet corn is now appearing in stores. There are no current federal labeling laws for GMO products, and two labeling measures in California and Washington have been defeated, in the wake of heavy spending of millions of dollars against the measures by Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Bayer, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s, and many others whose name you will see on products on your breakfast, lunch or dinner table. A member of the board of directors of Mc Donalds and one from Sara Lee sit on the board of directors of Monsanto." (Eade, Kenneth (2015-09-15). An Involuntary Spy Series Box Set One: Books one and two (Kindle Locations 786-792). Times Square Publishing. Kindle Edition. ).

Ukraine story: To Russia for Love

In the second book in the series, To Russia for Love, the action takes place in Kiev. It's still about GMOs. Whilst some of you may be aware that Ukraine's location near the Caspian Sea oil reserves and among various oil and gas pipelines thence emanating makes it an object of international interest, who among us realised that Monsanto has huge plans for Ukraine?

We learn that Ukraine's current president, Poreschenko, has been in cahoots with the US for years, and that Monsanto has been buying up land and lobbying to change Ukraine's anti-GMO laws, inserting a key clause in an EU Association agreement. Impoverished Ukraine farmers do not have much defense against financial inducements from Monsanto. Ukraine is the 'bread basket of Europe' with superb soil its main asset, but it is losing control of that last precious resource. And Monsanto benefits from the chaos of US prompted 'regime change' and civil war.

"In late 2013, Victor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine, rejected a European Union association agreement tied to a $ 17 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. Instead, he chose a Russian aid package worth $ 15 billion plus a discount on Russian natural gas. This decision led to his forcible removal from office in February 2014 and the current crisis and devastating civil war. The present government of the Ukraine pursued the IMF loan and a European Union Association Agreement. On July 28, 2014, the Oakland Institute released a report entitled “Walking on the West Side: the World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict,” which revealed that the World Bank and the IMF, under the terms of their $ 17 billion loan to Ukraine, would open the country to genetically-modified (GM) crops in agriculture. Because of its rich soil, Ukraine has always been referred to as the “breadbasket of Europe.” According to the Oakland Institute’s report, “Whereas Ukraine does not allow the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, Article 404 of the EU agreement, which relates to agriculture, includes a clause that has generally gone unnoticed: it indicates, among other things, that both parties will cooperate to extend the use of biotechnologies. There is no doubt that this provision meets the expectations of the agribusiness industry. As observed by Michael Cox, research director at the investment bank Piper Jaffray, ‘Ukraine and, to a wider extent, Eastern Europe, are among the most promising growth markets for farm-equipment giant Deere, as well as seed producers Monsanto and DuPont’. From "Afterword" in Eade, Kenneth (2015-09-15). An Involuntary Spy Series Box Set One: Books one and two, Times Square Publishing. Kindle Edition.

"[...] Recent efforts to speed up the annexation of Ukrainian agriculture have been documented by the Oakland Institute’s report. Their fact sheet on the “Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture” shows how the law firm of “Frishberg and Partners” found loopholes in a moratorium on Ukrainian agricultural land sales, and suggested a two-step approach to circumventing this moratorium, which remains in force until January 1, 2016. The first step described by Frishberg is to lease Ukrainian agricultural land instead of purchasing it. This, when combined with legal purchases of industrial spaces adjoining the land, results in ownership. The second step is to buy large amounts of shares in leading Ukrainian agribusinesses and then reform these companies from the inside. This is a strategy that international agribusiness giants such as Cargill, Monsanto and DuPont have employed. For example, in 2014 Cargill bought a five percent share in the largest land bank in Ukraine. From the requirements such as those listed in the EU association agreement it is clear that Ukraine is not being set up for economic prosperity and independence, but for international exploitation. While these develops, on the surface, may appear to be innocent, as Big Ag would prefer Ukrainian farmers and the civilian population to believe, the links between government organizations and agribusiness are clear. The entry point into these connections can be found on the board of the US-Ukraine Business Council. The U.S.-Ukraine Business Council’s Executive Committee contains representatives from Monsanto, John Deere, DuPont Pioneer, Eli Lilly, and Cargill. These companies are taking control of Ukraine’s agricultural sector with the aim of introducing their organizations are at the forefront of introducing GMO products. For the past two years, thanks to the civil war, the news coming out of Ukraine has been providing these U.S. based argi-giants with the perfect cover to exploit Ukraine’s resources. Since the declaration of its independence in 1992, international companies have been colonizing Ukraine’s agricultural sector." From "Afterword" in Eade, Kenneth (2015-09-15), second book of An Involuntary Spy Series Box Set One: Books one and two, Times Square Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Dramatising the truth in novels has a long tradition. Technoscience thrillers are a rising genre with the ability to effectively situate the reader in a novel technical environment. Kenneth Eade's highly enjoyable novels carry profound political and scientific messages.

NOTES

[1]The situation is dangerously ludicrous:

"Moreover, due to legal and copyright restrictions surrounding GMO patents, independent scientists must ask for the chemical companies’ permission before publishing research on their products. As a result, almost all of the long-term animal feeding studies that have ever been conducted on GMO feed have been carried out by the biotech companies themselves, with their own rules and using their own standards of reporting. What few independent studies have been conducted have shown a range of adverse health effects from reduced fertility to immune system dysfunction, liver failure, obesity and cancer." (Loc 3722 of 6067 in Eade Kenneth (2015-09-15), first book of An Involuntary Spy Series Box Set One: Books one and two, Times Square Publishing. Kindle Edition.

).

The June 7 parliamentary election in Turkey could have a huge impact on the conflict in Syria. The invincible image of President Erdogan has been cracked. There is a real chance that the election might lead to substantive change in Turkish foreign policy promoting the war in Syria. (This article first published at Dissident Voice on June 24th, 2015.)

Even though Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the most votes, they lost their majority in parliament and must now find a coalition partner. Turkey’s new parliament was seated for the first time on Tuesday June 23. Now begins the political bargaining and negotiations to form a governing coalition.  Depending on the outcome, Turkey may stop or seriously restrict the flow of weapons and foreign fighters through its territory into Syria.  If Turkey does this, it would offer a real prospect for movement toward negotiations and away from war in Syria. Why?  The Syrian war continues because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, USA, France, UK and others are spending billions of dollars annually to fund the armed opposition and sustain the war in violation of the UN Charter and international law.

Closely allied with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey has been the primary path for weapons and foreign fighters in Syria. ISIS has depended on export of oil and import of weapons and fighters through Turkey.  Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and other armed opposition groups have depended on weapons and foreign fighters coming in via Turkey for attacks on northern Syria including Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Turkish Government Support of War on Syria

The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:

• Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.
• Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video Syria: Wolves of the Valley: “Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary.”
• Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups.  According to court testimony they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria.
• Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here.  In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities.
• Turkey’s foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding.
• Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kms inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue.
• Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This has led to the recent assaults by thousands of foreign fighters on Idlib and Jisr al Shugour in northern Syria. Armed with advanced weaponry including TOW missiles, and using suicide bomb vehicles, the armed groups over-ran Syrian armed forces defending both cities. The assaults were facilitated by Turkey jamming and disrupting Syrian radio communications.
• Turkey has facilitated travel into northern Syria by extremist mercenaries from all parts of the globe including Chechen Russians, Uyghur Chinese, Europeans, North Africans, South Asians including Indonesians and Malaysians.  The assault on Jisr al Shugour was spearheaded by Chinese Uyghur fighters and suicide bombers crossing over from Turkey with tanks and heavy artillery.
• Turkey itself has provided steady supply of recruits to the Islamic State. Like other countries which have had citizens indoctrinated with wahabi fanaticism, they have done little or nothing to limit the indoctrination or restrict emigration for ‘jihad’.
• Turkey has permitted the supply of huge quantities of car bomb ingredients (ammonium nitrate fertilizer) to the Islamic State. On May 4 the NY Times reported these shipments at the Turkish border. Sixteen days later ISIS over-ran Ramadi in an assault that began with 30 car bombs with ten reportedly the size of the Oklahoma City bombing.
• Finally, as part of its continuing effort to draw the U.S. and NATO into direct participation in the war on Syria, Turkey is an active player in various propaganda campaigns. For example, the “White Helmets” or “Syrian Civil Defence” are trained and supplied in Turkey. Some of the videos purportedly from Syria are likely filmed in Turkey at their training site. White Helmets and Syrian Civil Defence are both creations of the West and join with Turkey in calling for a “No Fly Zone”.

Turkish Repression of Journalism, Police and Courts

The AKP government has vigorously tried to suppress information about the extent of Turkey’s support of the war on Syria. They have resorted to repression and intimidation such as:

• Turkish authorities have charged four regional prosecutors with attempting to topple the government. Their “crime” was to insist on the inspection of four trucks headed from Turkey to Syria. The trucks contained weapons and ammunition in violation of Turkish law. The trial of the four prosecutors is ongoing, 18 months after the inspection.
• Turkish authorities arrrested seven high ranking military officers over the inspection of trucks taking weapons and fighters to Syria.
• Turkish authorities banned social media and news outlets from reporting on arms shipments through Turkey to Syria. Twitter and Facebook accounts that talked about the shipments where shut down. Erdogan went on to threaten to “eradicate” Twitter.
• Turkish President Erdogan threatened two life term sentences for the editor of Hurriyet daily newspaper for publicizing support of the armed opposition in Syria by Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT.
• A whistle-blowing MIT (intelligence agency) officer who opposed the agency’s collusion with terrorism in Syria was arrested, convicted and imprisoned. After two years he managed to escape and tell his story. The blockbuster account was broadcast on Turkey’s OdaTV and later translated into English and published here.

Was American Journalist Serena Shim Murdered?

As seen in the examples above, Turkish AKP authorities have aggressively tried to suppress information on the involvement in Syria. If they have been that aggressive with Turkish journalists, prosecutors and military officers, how far might they go against a foreign journalist working for Iran’s Press TV?

The American born journalist Serena Shim died just days after she documented the use of World Food Program trucks to transport foreign fighters to the border with Syria and into ISIS territory.  After learning that Turkish intelligence was looking for her, Serena Shim was so concerned that she expressed her fear on television. Two days later, Serena Shim’s car was hit head-on by a cement truck.  The driver of the cement truck disappeared but was later found. There are many discrepancies about what happened. The first reports indicated the truck and driver left without stopping.  Then the driver and truck were located, and then photos appeared showing a collision.

While some Turkish security services have preemptively exonerated the driver of the cement truck,  the local prosecutor has filed charges against the driver, accusing him of causing death through negligence. There are many suspicious aspects, not least is the fact that the cement truck’s wheels are angled toward the car, not away as one would expect with a vehicle trying to avoid collision.

The death of American journalist Serena Shim, and her factual investigative reporting on Syria and Turkey, stands in sharp contrast with the sensational media accounts about the “kidnapping” of NBC reporter Richard Engel. That event turned out to be a hoax contrived by “rebels” to manipulate American political opinion.  With the complicity of individual reporters and mainstream media, the fraud was successful.  The bias in mainstream western media is further demonstrated by the almost complete media silence about the death of Serena Shim and her important journalistic work.

Turkey’s Election

For the past 13 years Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has had majority control of Turkey’s parliament.  In the recent election AKP’s share of the popular voted plummeted 10% and they lost their parliamentary majority.  The results are a clear rebuff to Erdogan and AKP policies.  Sixty percent of voters went against AKP, splitting the vote among the three alternative parties. The pro-Kurdish and Leftist People’s Democratic Party (HDP) burst onto the scene capturing 13% of the votes and equaling the number of parliamentary seats captured by the rightist and anti-Kurdish National Movement Party (MHP). The main opposition party is the social democratic Republican Peoples Party (CHP) with 26% of the vote.

Over the coming weeks, AKP will try to form a coalition government with one or more of the alternate parties.  However, it won’t be easy. The natural bedfellow would be the anti-Kurdish and rightist MHP, but they are demanding the resumption of a corruption trial against AKP leaders including Erdogan’s son Bilal.  That trial would probably lead back to President Erdogan himself, so it seems unlikely AKP will ally with MHP. The three alternative parties could form a coalition to govern without AKP, but it’s hard to imagine the staunchly anti-Kurdish MHP allying with the pro-Kurdish HDP.

If a majority coalition cannot be formed within 45 days, the Turkish constitution requires a rerun of the election.

Election Should Bring Major Change in Syrian Policy

Even with severe repression and intimidation, the Turkish public is aware of Turkey’s policy supporting war on Syria. One consequence of the war has been almost 2 million immigrant refugees with the dispersal of many throughout Turkey, providing cheap labor and adding significantly to the unemployment problem.  In addition, there have been terrorist attacks in the border region and an escalation of corruption and repression as external money and weapons have flooded the area en route to Syria. The war against Syria has been widely unpopular and played a significant role in the election.

• All the opposition parties called for change in Turkey’s foreign policy.
• Criticism of Erdogan and Davutoglu’s policy even comes from within the AKP membership: “Many believe that one reason for the AKP’s dismal showing in the 2015 elections is its policy on Syria.”
• The head of the main opposition party (CHP) says Turkey will start controlling the border and stop the flood of arms and fighters into Syria.

The coming weeks will indicate how Turkey moves forward:  Will AKP manage to form a coalition government with one of the opposition parties? Or will there be another election?

Will Turkey start enforcing the border and stop shipments of arms to the armed opposition as demanded by the leader of the main opposition party?  This would be a huge change in the dynamics within Syria. Without a rear base of constant and steady support, the armed opposition would be forced to rely on their own resources rather than those of foreign governments.  They would quickly wither since they have very little support base within Syria.

Since the election, there are already signs of a shift in the balance. Kurdish forces recently captured ISIS’ important border crossing at Tal Abyad. This has been the main route of weapons, fighters and supplies between Turkey and the Islamic State’s ‘capital’ at Raqqa in eastern Syria.

The Past Year and Looking Ahead

Thirteen months ago it looked like the war in Syria was starting to move toward resolution. The last remaining armed opposition in the “capital of the revolution” Homs, reached reconciliation and withdrew from the Old City of Homs in May 2014.  On June 3, 2014 the election in Syria confirmed substantial support for the government.

Since then, we have seen dramatic changes. On June 10, 2014 ISIS surged through western Iraq and captured the city of Mosul and huge quantities of American armaments including tanks, rockets, humvees, etc. That led to the creation of the “Islamic State” and expansion in eastern Syria including Tabqa Air Base where hundreds of Syrian soldiers and ISIS fighters died.

This past spring saw the coalescing of numerous foreign and Islamist groups into the Jaish al Fatah (Army of Conquest) supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  With high powered TOW anti-tank missiles and thousands of shock troops they were able to overtake both Idlib and Jisr al Shugour near the Turkish border.

ISIS and the Army of Conquest are both dependent on the Turkish supply line. If that is closed off or seriously restricted, it will dramatically change the situation.

With the prospect of losing their base of support in Turkey, will the opposition try something desperate to draw the US and NATO into the conflict directly?

The Turkish people have indicated they want to stop their government’s war on Syria.  If their will is respected, it should lead to restricting and stopping the foreign funding and promotion of the conflict. If Turkey stops the flood of weapons and foreign fighters into northern Syria, it will be following instead of violating international law. This will give peace a chance in Syria.

Rick Sterling is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center. He can be emailed at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Rick.

This article was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2015 at 7:53pm and is filed under Elections, France, Kuwait, NATO, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Terrorism (state and retail), Turkey, United Kingdom.