UK Regulators Investigating Barclays CEO’s Ties To Jeffrey Epstein
Sooner or later, every rich and powerful individual who has been publicly linked to deceased financier/blackmail artist/pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is going to face some repercussions, particularly if they stayed in contacted with him after his first conviction back in 2008.
Now it looks like it’s Jes Staley’s turn.
Barclays disclosed during Thursday’s earnings report that financial regulators in Britain, including the Financial Conduct Authority (the British equivalent of the SEC) and the Prudential Regulation Authority, are investigating the bank’s CEO over his ‘friendship’ with Epstein.
The regulators are investigating “Mr. Staley’s characterisation to the company of his relationship with Mr. Epstein and the subsequent description of that relationship in the company’s response to the FCA.”
Shareholders have nothing to worry about, the bank insisted, because Staley has been 100% transparent about the relationship since Epstein’s arrest last year. Epstein committed suicide in August – or at least that’s the ‘official’ story. Many suspect that the financier was secretly murdered by one of the many powerful people in his orbit, and this belief has since become one of the most widely accepted ‘conspiracy theories’ in the US, the AP reports.
Barclays said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange that “as has been widely reported, earlier in his career Mr. Staley developed a professional relationship with Mr. Epstein.” Since joining Barclays in December 2015, Staley hasn’t had any contact with Epstein, the bank said.
It added that Staley maintains “the full confidence of the board.”
“Mr. Staley retains the full confidence of the board, and is being unanimously recommended for re-election at the annual general meeting,” the London-based bank said in a statement.
Regulators said they are looking into Epstein’s “characterization” of his relationship with Epstein when he gave information to the bank and regulators last year. Staley has insisted that he had no contact with Epstein in the years prior to his arrest.
“Earlier in his career Mr. Staley developed a professional relationship with Mr. Epstein,” the bank said. “In the summer of 2019, in light of the renewed media interest in the relationship, Mr. Staley volunteered and gave to certain executives, and the chairman, an explanation of his relationship with Mr. Epstein. Mr. Staley also confirmed to the board that he has had no contact whatsoever with Mr. Epstein at any time since taking up his role as Barclays Group CEO in December 2015.”
Staley met Epstein when the Barclays chief was still working at JP Morgan, where he ran the US megabank’s private banking division. According to CNBC, Staley reportedly went to visit Epstein in Florida after he had been convicted, and that his final visit with Epstein occurred in mid-2015, when Staley traveled on Epstein’s yacht.
At least Staley was able to package the Epstein news (reminding shareholders of your connection with a notorious pedophile is never a good look) with some good news: the bank managed to hit its profitability targets for 2019 – it hit its return on tangible equity target of 9%.
But Barclays also delivered a cautious outlook for 2020, joining the chorus of companies warning about the potential economic blowback of the coronavirus outbreak.
The London Times has become the latest media outlet to suggest that embracing traditional gender roles is a form of extremism with an article that claims so-called ‘trad wives’ are on a par with “ISIS brides.”
“A growing online community of women are rejecting feminism in favour of submission to men. The techniques used to radicalise them are similar to those used to groom Isis brides,” writes Julia Ebner.
Ebner works for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank that partners with national governments, Google and others “to counter hate and extremism in the UK.”
It went from women being “empowered” to ‘women who want to embrace traditional gender roles are on a par with ISIS brides of terrorists’. pic.twitter.com/JqUpyyQOan
The New York Times also published an article asserting that “mommy-vlogging is a virulent strain of white nationalism.”
Running alongside what could be mistaken for a peculiar style of mommy-vlogging is a virulent strain of white nationalism. Who are these women? They call themselves tradwives. https://t.co/0zeVeepBo4
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) June 1, 2018
And while young people are being encouraged to chase a lifetime of vacuous promiscuous sex, mothers are being publicly shamed on national television for wanting to take care of their husbands.
A Brisbane mum has been SLAMMED after revealing online that she doesn’t go to bed until the house is clean and wakes up at 4:30am to make her husband breakfast and coffee. What do you think about this? #9Todaypic.twitter.com/DX5NMQUszH
Perhaps the funniest thing about all this hysteria is the fact that ‘trad wives’ is largely just a meme on Twitter.
However, there does exist a tiny minority of people living in the west who want to embrace more traditional faith-based gender roles in order to escape the degenerate hellscape of modernity that has contributed to record high depression and suicide rates amongst young people.
And for that, they are demonized on a par with actual terrorists.
The media hates you.
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Last summer, the Trump Administration loosened restrictions on Huawei stemming from the Commerce Department’s decision – made earlier in the year – to add Huawei to a “black last” barring American firms from selling their products to the company. The company has technically remained on the blacklist, but the export ban was, for the most part, not enforced (Commerce only intervened if it was a matter of important national security).
The decision comes not long after the UK decided to allow Huawei parts in “non-core” elements of its national 5G network.
But according to Politico, the Trump Administration and the Pentagon are conspiring once again to tighten the screws on the Chinese telecom behemoth. A meeting to discuss the proposed policy change is reportedly being held on Wednesday, and will include a smattering of cabinet members and other administration officials.
Pentagon undersecretary of policy John Rood is reportedly overseeing the new policy, and has overruled concerns about potential blowback to American semiconductor firms.
The Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy, John Rood, has overruled those concerns, the people said.
Defense and Commerce did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. semiconductor companies found other ways around the blacklisting, including supplying Huawei through subsidiaries or partners in foreign countries.
Currently, a foreign-produced good that contains 25 percent U.S.-origin content can be exported to a company on the entity list. The Commerce rule would cut that threshold down to 10 percent for any goods exported to Huawei or its in-house semiconductor business HiSilicon.
Politico doesn’t go into great detail on the policy, but it does say that it would reduce the threshold for companies on the Commerce Department’s “entities list” – that is, the blacklist. Under current rules, they can buy products that contain up to 25% American-made components. The new rule would lower that threshold to 10%.
The Commerce Department reportedly withdrew the plan at some point in the not-too-distant past because of these objections.
Further restricting sales of American made components and products to Huawei might hurt American tech firms and ultimately give China an advantage as the two countries battle for the best chip technology. But cutting Huawei off from the American market would create serious complications for the companies supply chain.
If anything, it shows us that Washington believes protecting the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance – the intelligence-sharing pact between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – might be worth destabilizing trade relations with Beijing and allowing American semiconductor producers to take a serious shellacking.
Most importantly, readers should remember that this report follows a series of reports yesterday claiming the German legislature is on track to follow the UK – and its conservative Trump ally leader PM Boris Johnson – and reject Washington’s arguments about Huawei being a national security threat.
There will never again be a route to Scottish independence deemed legal by Westminster. The 2014 referendum will never be repeated.
The U.K. will never willingly give up a third of its land, most of its fisheries, most of its mineral resources, its most marketable beef, soft fruit and whisky, most of its renewable energy potential, a vital part of its military including its primary nuclear base, its best universities in a number of key fields including life sciences, its ready pool of intellectual and professional talent. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is for once honest when he says keeping the Union together is his top priority. It is the top priority of the entire British Establishment.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron only agreed to the 2014 referendum because he thought the result would humiliate and kill off Scottish nationalism. Support for independence was at 28 percent in the polls at the time he agreed.
Westminster had the most enormous and horrible shock when support for independence grew to 45 percent during the campaign as many people for the first time in their lives heard the real arguments. The Whitehall panic of the last week of the 2014 referendum campaign is not something the British Establishment ever intend to repeat.
Trident submarine leaving its base on River Clyde, with Scottish Highlands village of Strone in background.(bodgerbrooks, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
There is a charmingly naive argument put forward by some that, if support for independence can be grown to 60 percent in the opinion polls, Johnson and Westminster will have to “grant” a referendum. This is the opposite of the truth. If support for Independence is at 60 percent, the very last thing that the Tories will do is agree a referendum they will lose. Their resistance will be massively hardened. Remember, the Tories could have zero Tory MPs in Scotland and still have a majority of 73 in Westminster. There is no political damage for Johnson in unpopularity in Scotland. In England, his anti-Scots stance is very popular with a core support base of knuckle-dragging, ill-educated racists.
The “intellectual justification” for this stance was trailed by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on TV: Irrespective of the wishes of the majority in Scotland, the U.K. has a duty to stop Scottish Independence, to prevent anarchic secessionist forces being unleashed across Europe; he named Italy, France and Spain.
Westminster will never agree to another referendum, and the more we look like winning it, the less they will agree to it.
Nor is there a route to a “legal” referendum through the courts. If a court rules that a consultative referendum is legal under the current Scotland Act (which it might well be), then the Tories will simply pass new legislation at Westminster to make it illegal. They have already done this at Westminster to overturn Scottish parliament decisions, and the U.K. Supreme Court have already made clear that the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament cannot be challenged.
Scotland can become independent, but becoming independent is, without doubt, going to be illegal in terms of U.K. law — which is to say Westminster law. There will not be a route to Independence agreed with Westminster.
Westminster Has No Right
If you believe in Scottish independence, you believe that the Scottish nation are a “people” within the meaning of the UN Charter, and thus have an inalienable right of self-determination. That means that Westminster has no right, by legislation or by any other means, to prevent the Scottish people from exercising their self-determination.
I am sorry, but this is the fact: If you believe Scotland should only move to independence in a Westminster-approved process, you do not really believe in Scottish Independence at all.
Nicola Sturgeon campaigning in rich SNP territory, Kirkintilloch. (Ninian Reid, Flickr)
Which brings us to Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party and first minister of Scotland. Her much-trumpeted speech on the way forward following Brexit was disgraceful in explicitly stating that any referendum must be held with Westminster agreement, and that any referendum held without Westminster agreement could be “illegal.” She used the words “illegal” and “wildcat” to denigrate the idea of Scotland acting without Westminster permission.
Even the most loyal to Sturgeon of all major independence bloggers, such as James Kelly and Paul Kavanagh, could not support Sturgeon on this point.
“Toom Tabard” as King John was derided, with his crown and scepter symbolically broken and with a blank coat of arms as depicted in the 1562 “Forman Armorial,” produced for Mary, Queen of Scots.(Wikimedia Commons)
What Sturgeon said amounts to an explicit acknowledgement of U.K. sovereignty over the Scottish people as both legitimate and immutable. She is accepting that the Act of Union did permanently alienate the right of self-determination. Sturgeon should heed the tale of Toom Tabard as to what respect English rulers show to Scottish leaders who accept their authority. Her speech reinforced my view that she really is much too comfortable in her role of colonial governor.
And yet…
Constitutional Convention
When Sturgeon started talking about calling a constitutional convention I first scoffed, thinking she was merely fulfilling my prediction that her “plan” would be to start yet another talking shop. But then I was astonished when she outlined the potential membership — the elected representatives of Scotland sitting together, constituting MSPs, MPs, (former) MEPs and council leaders.
I have explained at length over the last two years my proposal for a route to Independence that would lead to recognition by the international community. Donald Tusk,the former president of the European Council, today confirmed all I have been saying about the enormous sympathy there will be in the EU towards welcoming Scotland back, now the U.K. has switched status to third country state. (I knew Donald Tusk reasonably well when I was first secretary of the British embassy in Warsaw in the 1990s and he was an out-of-office politician the same age as me. I should like to think I had an effect!)
But the heart of what I was proposing is this, as I put it in December 2018:
“The Scottish Parliament should then convene a National Assembly of all nationally elected Scottish representatives – MSPs, MPs and MEPs. That National Assembly should declare Independence, appeal to other countries for recognition, reach agreements with the rump UK and organise a confirmatory plebiscite. That is legal, democratic and consistent with normal international practice.”
“We should assemble all of Scotland’s MEP’s, MP’s and MSP’s in a National Assembly and declare Independence on the 700th Anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, thus emphasising the historical continuity of the Scottish state. The views and laws of London now being irrelevant, we should organise, as an Independent state, our referendum to confirm Independence, to be held in September 2020.”
Debating chamber of Scottish Parliament. (Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Please do read the articles linked if you have not already done so. They explain how Scotland can legitimately become an independent nation without regard to U.K. domestic law.
Now, until Sturgeon’s speech, I had never seen anybody else but me put forward the proposal that the way forward is via an assembly of all MPs, MSPs and MEPs, giving the triple legitimacy of democratic election. Sturgeon has enhanced this by adding council leaders.
There is a huge difference between an assembly — or convention — of elected representatives, and an appointed one of the great and the good. This new assembly proposed by Sturgeon is very different indeed in that respect from the convention of the same name that helped formulate devolution.
Now I do not think for one moment that Sturgeon has convened this convention to declare independence. But an assembly of Scotland’s MPs, MSPs, MEPs and council leaders will have a clear independence majority numerically and a massive Independence majority intellectually. It will have an extremely strong claim to be a properly representative assembly whose members each have a democratic mandate. The French Revolution was of course similarly precipitated by constitutional innovation convening a National Assembly combining the different Estates, and that assembly was swept along by fervor to take proto-revolutionary measures which went far beyond the initial positions of any of its members.
The dynamic of a new constitutional body whose members feel they command legitimacy, should not be underestimated. The convening of this body will be a real constitutional innovation. We need to make sure, that like that French National Assembly, they can clearly hear a huge mob outside their windows, demanding radical and speedy change.
Army Reconstitutes Cold War Era ‘V Corps’ To Bulk Up Europe Defenses Against Russia
In yet another sign that we’re in the midst of a new Cold War 2.0, the US Army has announced it is establishing a new command headquarters for the sake of coordinating with European allies against the “Russian threat”.
According to the Army statement, it will actually be a reconstitution of a World War I era Army institution called Fifth Corps, or “V Corps”— which was at that time based in Germany through the 20th century until it was deactivated in 2013. It was a crucial center of Washington coordination with Europe throughout the Cold War.
While the newly reconstituted V Corps will keep the same name, it will not be based in Germany, but initially at Fort Knox, Kentucky and is slated to include at least 600 troops — 200 of which will be regularly rotated through Europe, according to the WSJ. A European command post is expected to be selected at some point within the next year after meetings between Defense Secretary Mark Esper and NATO allies.
Soldiers from the Fifth Corps prior to the 2013 end of the Cold War institution. Image source: US Army/Stars & Stripes
“It brings the ability to synchronize Army and allies’ tactical units together,” Gen. James McConville, chief of staff of the Army, described of the command center. “It gives us the ability to take advantage of the capabilities and capacities of our allies, and it really unites us.”
He said V Corps will further facilitate effective military cooperation with European and NATO partners, including war games, training, and if need be coordinated operations against potential threats from Russia.
The announcement comes after recent statements by Defense Secretary Esper identifying Russia and China as significant long-term threats to American interests and security. It also comes after growing criticism from national security pundits that US defenses are weakened by tens of thousands of troops being bogged down in Middle East quagmires.
The administration says it’s determined to pull out of Middle Eastern “forever wars” so it can focus on countering the rise of Russia and China.
But many of President Donald Trump’s actions send a much different message — from his decisions to send thousands more troops to the Mideast to last month’s killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. And that mismatch is already fueling skepticism on Capitol Hill about the proposed $741 billion defense budget that the White House is rolling out next week.
This also comes after President Trump has spent years demanding greater defense spending among NATO allies, and voicing a desire to get out of the Middle East altogether.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper speaking at a prior NATO summit, via the AP.
Meanwhile, Russia’s response to news of the newly reconstituted V Corps and its purposes is as follows, according to the WSJ:
“Russia is not a dominant military force in Europe,” Mr. Lavrov said at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday. “NATO has this status.”
Meanwhile, many have pointed out that despite a recent US troop surge into the Middle East to “counter Iran,” the Mideast is precisely where Russia holds most sway.
The United States seems to be pumping troops into the region ultimately to no political benefit (considering especially the recent severed relationship with Iraq, which may already be looking to be wooed by Moscow).
So the V Corps appears a meager, if not entirely symbolic attempt to tell European allies that Washington still has its eye on the ‘long game’ of curtailing Russian as well as Chinese global power.
The global persecution of Christians has reached unprecedented levels: “260 million Christians experience high levels of persecution” around the world, notes the recently published Open Doors World Watch List 2020, an annual report that ranks the top 50 countries where Christians are most persecuted for their faith.
Additionally, “2,983 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons. On average, that’s 8 Christians killed every day for their faith”: “9,488 churches or Christian buildings were attacked,” and “3,711 Christians were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced and imprisoned.” (Note: All quotes in this article are from the World Watch List 2020 report.)
Dictatorial paranoia continues to make North Korea (#1) the worst nation. “If North Korean Christians are discovered, they are deported to labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot.”
Otherwise, and as has been the case in all statistics and reports on the global persecution of Christians, not only does “Islamic oppression” remain the chief “source of persecution” faced by Christians in seven of the absolute ten worst nations, but 38 of the 50 nations composing the list are either Muslim-majority or have a sizeable Muslim population.
The overwhelming majority of these Muslim nations are governed by some form of shari’a (Islamic law). It is either directly enforced by government or society or, more frequently, both, though societies — family members in particular — tend to be more zealous in its application. Brief summaries of the seven Muslim nations making the top ten follow:
Afghanistan (#2) is “an Islamic society where Christianity exists in secret.” Not only is it “illegal for an Afghan person to leave Islam,” but family members are often first to attack or kill them.
In Somalia (#3), “[c]onversion to Christianity is regarded as a betrayal”; ” family members and clan leaders will harass, intimidate and even kill” converts. Al Shabaab, “the youth,” an Islamic group, slaughters Christians “on the spot when discovered.”
In Libya (#4), “There is no freedom of speech, no equal treatment of Christians, no recognition of the church and no churches being built.”
Pakistan (#5) “is afflicted by numerous radical Islamic groups,” which “regularly target” churches. More generally and in the eyes of both government and people, “Christians are regarded as second-class citizens. Also, the country’s anti-blasphemy laws are disproportionately applied against the Christian minority — making it difficult and dangerous to live out one’s faith in public.”
In Sudan (#7), “the government has arrested or intimidated many Christian leaders, and numerous churches have been demolished. Extremists have attacked Christians, especially in the Nuba Mountain region, where thousands of Christians have been killed or displaced.”
In Yemen (#8), civil “war has allowed radical Islamic groups to expand their operations in certain areas, leading to Christians being abducted and killed. Open church activities are forbidden and leaving Islam is forbidden. Muslims who decide to follow Jesus could face the death penalty.”
In Iran (#9), which “is governed by Islamic law,… the rights and professional possibilities for Christians are heavily restricted…. [I]t is illegal to produce Christian literature or hold church services in Farsi. Converts from Islam face persecution from the government.”
Some notable trends are also on the rise. Christians in sub-Saharan Africa are “increasingly under threat from Islamic extremist groups”:
In Burkina Faso (No. 28, a rise of 33 spots from 2019), long-known for its religious tolerance, Christians say they are in a fight for survival. Dozens of Catholic priests have been killed, and Protestant pastors and their families have been killed or kidnapped by violent Islamic militants. In Mali (No. 29), the president said in late 2018 that his country’s existence is under threat because of Islamic jihadists. Central African Republic (No. 25) is in constant upheaval partially due to the fighting of rebel Islamic militants, many of whom target Christians. And Cameroon (No. 48) faces violence in the north—still a stronghold of Boko Haram [which, along with Muslim Fulani herdsmen, are slaughtering Christians in Nigeria, #12].
Militant Islam has also arisen in unexpected areas. “In Sri Lanka (No. 30, up from 46 in 2019) 250 people died and more than 500 were injured in attacks on Catholic and Protestant churches and hotels on Easter Sunday.” Maldives (#14)—popularly recognized as a beautiful island nation and tourist destination—is a bastion of shari’a:
The Maldives’ constitution requires all citizens to be Muslim. Conversion from Islam means that someone can be stripped of their citizenship and punished under Shariah law. Even foreign workers who are Christians are closely watched, which makes church life extremely difficult and practically non-existent. Churches are outlawed, and openly carrying the Bible is illegal. The country is so tightly controlled by Islamic law that there is not even a Bible fully translated into the native language of most citizens of the Maldives.
Algeria worsened by five sports — going from #22 last year to #17 in 2020 — due to “the seemingly systemic closure of Protestant churches. In some of these cases, Christians were forcibly expelled by police in the middle of church services. Pressure from family also remains high, particularly for Christians who were previously Muslim.”
Aside from “Islamic oppression,” the targeting of Christians around the world has become more widespread than ever. Part of this is because “persecution against Christians has taken a technological turn.” For example, in India (#10) — where “Hindu radicals often attack Christians with little to no consequences” — “the government plans to introduce a national facial recognition system. There were at least 447 verified incidents of violence and hate crimes against Christians in India… There is fear that more tracking could increase these attacks.”
Similarly, China (#23) — which seeks to make all religions, including Christianity, “fall in line with their interpretation of communism” — is “rolling out a country-wide Social Credit System (SCS) by which authorities plan to reward ‘good’ citizenship and punish ‘bad'”:
Already, one community has reportedly decided to add penalties for those who “illegally spread Christianity.” It’s easy to see how surveillance technology could be used in tandem with the SCS to make everyday life very difficult for anyone the Chinese government deems insufficiently “Chinese” — including Christians.
Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that the number of persecuted Christians continues to grow year after year: “260 million Christians experience high levels of persecution,” says the new 2020 report. This represents a 6% increase from 2019; then, 245 million Christians were persecuted — and that was a 14% increase from 2018, when 215 million was the number.
Will this trend ever stop and reverse, or will it continue to get worse — and possibly even spill into those nations that, for now, enjoy religious freedom and equality?
In the 1940s and 50s, advocating Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism could get you fired from your job, blacklisted, deplatformed and even imprisoned. Though communists and socialists were instrumental in the struggles of the 1930s and 40s that built the industrial labor movement in the U.S., by the late 1940s those radical ideas were vilified and virtually outlawed.
Communism was purposely conflated with the crimes of Stalin. Communists and socialists were driven out of the unions. A layer of union bureaucrats that supported the witch-hunt was promoted. For fear of reprisals, many radicals kept quiet and self-censored. Some “recanted” socialist beliefs. Some fingered others to save themselves.
The poison unleashed by that witch-hunt dealt a body blow to the labor movement and its devastating effects are felt to this day. It’s no coincidence that the U.S. is the only major capitalist country with no independent labor party, no universal healthcare, no federally mandated vacation and no parental leave.
After a time, the leader of the anti-communist witch-hunt, Joseph McCarthy, was discredited and the formal apparatus for pursuing the campaign was dismantled. But the damage had already been done.
Moreover, McCarthyism was so effective in house-breaking the labor movement that the tool would never be permanently abandoned by the powers that be. It was merely set aside, to be resurrected again once the need arose and memory of its corrosive cost faded.
Two key features of McCarthyism are thought control and guilt-by-association.
Certain ideas are ruled out of bounds.
Anyone who defends the censored ideas or questions the censorship regime itself is harshly dealt with.
Anyone defending or associating with someone accused of running afoul of the thought police is dealt with just has harshly. The net result is generalized fear, self-censorship and compliance.
Fast forward to 2016. The Democratic Party manipulated its own presidential primary process to ensure that neoliberal warmonger and Wall Street servant Hillary Clinton ran against odious billionaire Donald Trump. And the Democrats lost!
Rather than engage in any self-examination to determine why a career Democratic politician lost to a Republican gameshow host, the Democrats concocted the Russiagate conspiracy.
Trump, we were told, colluded with Russia to steal the election. The evidence for this was razor-thin, but anyone who questions the narrative is smeared as a Russian agent or Putin apologist. Anyone associated with or speaking in defense of someone smeared as a Russian collaborator is denounced and attacked as well. A new McCarthyism blossomed.
Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s multi-year investigation into the affair concluded that “…the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government…” But the smears, evidence-free charges and witch-hunt associated with Russiagate persist to this day. Many on the liberal “left” – from Democracy Now! to the New York Times – bought into and continue to promote this baseless conspiracy.
Meanwhile, another McCarthyite witch-hunt has spread like wildfire. This one proclaims that people can be born into the “wrong” body and denounces anyone who questions this belief as a reactionary bigot. Sadly, in this case, the socialist, as well as the liberal left, has jumped onto the McCarthyite bandwagon.
Trans identified males are biological males who think of themselves as females. Trans identified females are biological females who think of themselves as males. No democratic-minded person questions the right of everyone, including transgender individuals, to their own beliefs, behaviors and lifestyle preferences, free from bigotry or discrimination.
But extreme transgender ideology goes a step further.
It demands not only support for the civil rights of trans people but insists that everyone must also embrace the beliefs of trans extremists.
Not only is the imposition of the belief of one group a violation of the democratic rights of others, this particular belief has negative implications for the rights of women, gays, lesbians and children:
Gays and lesbians are accused of bigotry if they insist on choosing partners based on biological sex rather than gender.
Minor children experiencing gender dysphoria are steered toward life-altering surgeries and hormone treatments, even though 80-90% of childhood gender dysphoria resolves itself naturally after puberty, and a many untreated, formerly dysphoric children grow up to be healthy gays and lesbians.
To question extreme trans ideology today is to be denounced, de-platformed, fired, face death threats and physical attack. As with all McCarthyite campaigns, thoughts which question the orthodoxy are ruled out of order. Anyone raising censored thoughts is persecuted and isolated.
In this way, facts and material reality are jettisoned. In this manner, those promoting extreme transgender ideology avoid having to make their case; they simply rule any contrary facts and opinions out of bounds. So, the following facts are deemed heretical, bigoted and in need of suppression:
Sex and gender are not synonyms.
Biological sex is objective and real, while gender is a subjective social construct.
There is no such thing as a distinctly male or female brain.
There are only two sexes because there are only two gametes. One sex (male) is optimized to produce small, mobile gametes. The other sex (female) is optimized to produce large, immobile gametes.
99.98% of all humans are unambiguously identifiable as male or female at birth.
One can change their appearance, but no one can chemically or surgically change their biological sex.
A tiny percentage of people are born with Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs, or Intersex conditions.) The vast majority of intersex people are not transgender, and the vast majority of transgender people are not intersex.
Homosexuality and transgenderism are not analogous. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation, but extreme trans ideology is based on the denial of biological sex.
There are as many gender expressions as there are human individuals.
Transwomen (i.e. trans identified males) are not literally female.
Transmen (i.e., trans identified females) are not literally male.
Transgender extremists do not speak for all trans people.
According to the largest socialist groups in the US – Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Socialist Alternative and the International Socialist Organization (ISO before it imploded) – accepting or even debating the above assertions cannot be allowed because that would somehow “deny the existence” of trans people.
The same holds for the British Labor Party (which currently has a trans-identified male as its Constituency Women’s Officer) and for many smaller socialist groups in the US and around the world.
Of course, those on the liberal “left,” like Democracy Now!, the ACLU, the Democratic Party and others, march in lockstep with extreme trans ideology and vigorously pile on anyone who might suggest that the emperor has no clothes.
A perfect example is provided by the February 1, 2020 meeting held at the Seattle Public Library entitled Fighting the New Misogyny: A Feminist Critique of Gender Identity which explored many of the above points.
The event was protested by trans activists who slanderously claimed the gathering was a “fundraising event for transphobic hate speakers,” and that “These speakers include professional anti-trans hate writer Meghan Murphy, and a WoLF [Women’s Liberation Front] board member.”
They continued:
We, as a city, must rally against this event to tell transphobic hate groups that they are not welcome here, that transphobia has no place in feminism, and that Seattle Public Library must make major changes to make our libraries safe for trans employees and patrons.
These same activists tried unsuccessfully to have the Library ban the event outright. If they had their way, the important ideas outlined above would be forever censored.
Unfortunately, among those opposing the meeting and siding with the McCarthyites was Socialist Alternative City Councilperson Kshama Sawant, whose office sent representatives to the anti-meeting protest.
Marxism, the philosophical underpinning for the socialist left, relies heavily on historical materialism. That is, the idea that there are tangible, physical reasons for what we observe in the development and interaction of societies and classes of people within those societies.
This makes it all the more astonishing when some socialists so thoroughly reject biology and material reality in their analysis of transgender ideology and its effect on other oppressed groups.
The left’s abdication on this issue – especially the misdirection of the socialist left – is a gift to the right, as it allows those on the right to pose as the sane ones. The socialist left bears particular responsibility because it presents itself as a collection of thoughtful, considered leaders.
All the more tragic, then, is the fact that this new McCarthyism, which disingenuously wraps itself in the mantle of “woke” leftism, could never have taken hold if the real left had spoken out clearly and forcefully from the start.
At this point, it remains to be seen whether the left will correct its error or be bypassed by the multitudes who will surely punish those who tried to gaslight them into rejecting material reality.
Mysterious Deep Space Radio Signal Repeats At Regular Intervals, Baffling Astronomers
A startling scientific find by space researchers which sounds straight from the plot of the 1990’s sci-fi movie “Contact” is the last thing you might expect to read on CNN this week.
“Mysterious radio signals from space have been known to repeat, but for the first time, researchers have noticed a pattern in a series of bursts coming from a single source half a billion light-years from Earth,” the report begins.
Illustrative file image: The Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder, via New Scientist
The “mystery radio signal” has been recorded as repeating based on a clear discernible pattern according to a new paper by a team of astrophysicists in Canada that pinpointed bursts which are unprecedented, identified as “fast radio burst” — or a short radio emission, with a 16-day cycle.
“The discovery of a 16.35-day periodicity in a repeating FRB source is an important clue to the nature of this object,” the team of scientists said in the paper. A brief summary of some of the key findings are as follows:
Between September 16, 2018 and October 30, 2019, detected a pattern in bursts occurring every 16.35 days. Over the course of four days, the signal would release a burst or two each hour. Then, it would go silent for another 12 days.
…The signal is a known repeating fast radio burst, FRB 180916.J0158+65. Last year, the CHIME/FRB collaboration detected the sources of eight new repeating fast radio bursts, including this signal. The repeating signal was traced to a massive spiral galaxy around 500 million light-years away.
The team hopes to eventually trace the origin of the mysterious bursts, which has a variety of possibilities, and has even raised the question of alien life “reaching out” to establish contact.
So could it be aliens seeking to establish contact via hidden messages meant to be deciphered from rational patterns?
The MIT Technology Review’s Neel Patel, who first broke the story this week of the research team’s latest breakthrough, thinks it highly unlikely:
Wait, is it aliens? Almost certainly not. The signals are a sign of energetic events that are on the extreme scale of the cosmos. Even a highly intelligent species would be very unlikely to produce energies like this. And there is no detectable pattern so far that would suggest there’s a sentient hand at play.
Patel offers likely scenarios including a celestial body orbiting another object, such as a “low-mass black hole.”
Some analysts have elsewhere suggested it’s the result of a binary system involving two massive stars orbiting each other. And Phys.org described what could be the most mundane theory, that it could be “nothing more than the noise created when two stars collide.”
“Another possibility is that stellar winds might be alternately boosting or blocking signals from a body behind them. Or it could be that the source is a celestial body that is rotating,” the same source offered.
The CHIME telescope in British Columbia will attempt to detect future fast radio bursts (FRBs), via USA Today.
Regardless, the breakthrough observation could help future astronomers better map out the universe.
“Understanding fast radio bursts can also help astronomers learn more about the universe itself,” CNN concludes. “The more bursts they can trace, the better they may be able to use the signals to map how matter is distributed across the universe.”
Facing accusations that it issued a doctored report alleging a chemical attack in Syria, the OPCW has released an inquiry attacking two whistleblowers as rogue actors. Leaked documents obtained by The Grayzone reveal serious distortions in the OPCW inquiry as well as a campaign of intimidation against internal dissenters.
For the past year, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been roiled by allegations that it manipulated an investigation to falsely accuse the Syrian government of a chemical weapons attack. An OPCW report released in March 2019 lent credence to claims by Islamist militants and Western governments that the Syrian military killed around 40 civilians with toxic gas in the city of Douma in April 2018. The accusation against Damascus led to US-led military strikes on Syrian government sites that same month.
But leaked internal documents published by Wikileaks show that OPCW inspectors who deployed to Douma rejected the official story, and complained that higher-level officials excluded them from the post-mission process, distorted key evidence, and ignored their findings.
After months of virtual silence, the OPCW has responded with an internal inquiry that lambasts two veteran officials who raised internal objections, attacking their credibility and qualifications. The OPCW’s self-described “independent investigation” describes the pair as rogue, low-level actors who played minor roles in the Douma mission and lacked access to crucial evidence. In a briefing to member states, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias dismissed them as disgruntled ex-employees.
The two “are not whistle-blowers,” Arias said.
“They are individuals who could not accept that their views were not backed by evidence.”
But a leaked document calls Arias’ assertions into serious question. Ian Henderson, one of the two inspectors, recently addressed a special session of the United Nations Security Council with his concerns about the Douma mission. Henderson submitted a supplemental written account that was distributed among participating UN member states and obtained by The Grayzone. It offers the most extensive and detailed account of the internal dispute over the OPCW’s Douma investigation to date.
Henderson provides a thorough timeline that bolsters suspicions that the OPCW leadership covered up a staged deception in Douma. Combined with the available record – which includes other OPCW leaks, as well as Arias’ and the OPCW’s own statements – Henderson’s account firmly demonstrates that he and a fellow dissenting colleague occupied veteran leadership roles inside the organization, including during the Douma fact-finding mission.
Henderson also exposes key gaps in the OPCW’s inquiry, which fails to specifically address the revelations that critical evidence was kept out of the OPCW’s published reports; that key findings were manipulated – and that all of this occurred under sustained US government pressure.
In addition to Henderson’s complete testimony, The Grayzone has obtained a chilling email from a third former OPCW official. The former official, who worked in a senior role, blamed external pressure and potential threats to their family for their failure to speak out about the corruption of the Douma investigation.
This official was not among the pair of dissenting inspectors targeted by the inquiry. The email corroborates complaints by Henderson and his colleague about senior management’s suppression of evidence collected by the team that deployed to Syria.
“I fear those behind the crimes that have been perpetrated in the name of ‘humanity and democracy’”
In his briefing about the investigation of the inspectors, Arias, the OPCW Director-General, described the pair as stubborn actors “who took matters into their own hands and committed a breach of their obligations to the Organization.” He characterized their behavior as “egregious.”
But leaked documents and testimony point to an OPCW leadership that has committed egregious acts of its own, including intimidating internal dissenters.
In an email obtained by The Grayzone, a former senior OPCW official described their tenure at the OPCW as “the most stressful and unpleasant ones of [their] life,” and expressed deep shame about the state of the organization they departed in disgust.
“I fear those behind the crimes that have been perpetrated in the name of ‘humanity and democracy,’” the official confided, “they will not hesitate to do harm to me and my family, they have done worse, many times, even in the UK… I don’t want to expose my self and my family to their violence and revenge, I don’t want to live in fear of crossing the street!”
The former OPCW senior official went on to denounce the removal of members of the original fact-finding team to Syria “from the decision making process and management of the most critical operations…” This tracks with complaints expressed in leaked OPCW documents that superiors who had not been a part of the investigation in Douma marginalized those who had.
The atmosphere of intimidation was confirmed by a second member of the OPCW’s original fact-finding mission to Douma. The whistleblower, identified by the pseudonym “Alex,” spoke to the journalist Jonathan Steele and to a panel convened by the Courage Foundation in October 2019. Alex revealed that a delegation of three US officials visited the OPCW at The Hague on July 5th, 2018. They implored the dissenting inspectors to accept the view that the Syrian government carried out a gas attack in Douma and chided them for failing to reach that conclusion. According to Steele, Alex and the other inspectors saw the meeting as “unacceptable pressure.” In his statement to the UN Security Council, Henderson confirmed that he attended the meeting.
The US intervention at the OPCW could possibly violate the chemical weapons convention, which forbids state parties from attempting to influence investigations. It would not be the first time Washington has attempted to bully the OPCW into submission. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002, the George W. Bush administration engineered the ouster of the OPCW’s First Director-General, Jose Bustani. The Bush administration was concerned that Bustani’s negotiations with Iraq about allowing international inspectors could undermine its plans for war.
Bustani later revealed that John Bolton, then an under secretary of state, had personally threatened him and his family with violent retaliation. The US pressure on the OPCW over Douma also took place under Bolton’s watch. When the US bombed Syria in April 2018 and pressured OPCW officials just three months later, Bolton was in the midst of his first months as President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor. (Bustani, meanwhile, was among a group of panelists who heard direct testimony from Alex at a gathering convened by the Courage Foundation in October 2019.)
OPCW’s inconsistent story on “Inspector A”
The OPCW’s internal inquiry goes to great lengths to denigrate and discredit the two former staffers that challenged the official story on Douma. It refers to its two targets as “Inspector A” and “Inspector B.” The latter’s identity has not been publicly confirmed. “A” is Ian Henderson, a South African engineer and veteran OPCW official with extensive military experience.
Henderson’s written testimony to the United Nations, obtained by The Grayzone, undercuts the negative portrayal of his former managers, and offers a window into the pressure campaign and cover-up that he and his colleagues faced.
A suppressed internal study by Henderson first brought the OPCW scandal to public attention. In May 2018, an engineering assessment bearing Henderson’s name was leaked to a group of British academics, the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media. The document is a detailed engineering analysis of two gas cylinders found at the scene of the alleged attacks in Douma. Whereas the OPCW’s final March 2019 report concluded that the cylinders were likely dropped from the air, Henderson found that there is “a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed… rather than being delivered from aircraft.” The OPCW’s final report made no mention of this conclusion.
The inference of Henderson’s study is that the attack was staged by the armed opposition. At the time, Douma was under the control of the extremist Saudi-backed militia, Jaysh Al-Islam, and was on the brink of being re-taken by Syrian government forces.
From a political and military standpoint, a chemical weapons attack was the most self-destructive and unnecessary action the Syrian military could possibly take. From the standpoint of a foreign-backed militia on the verge of defeat, however, staging a chemical attack was a desperate Hail Mary operation that offered the hope of US military invention in accordance with Washington’s “red line” policy. The suspected gambit by Jaysh Al-Islam appeared to have paid off when the Trump administration accepted its claims that a chemical attack had killed dozens of civilians in Douma, and initiated cruise missile strikes in response. Yet the US-led attacks failed to prevent the Syrian government from retaking Douma and the whole of eastern Damascus. Within days, Western reporters had entered the area and were able to access local eyewitnesses who claimed that the chemical attack was a staged deception.
Henderson was among the first OPCW staffers to visit the site of the alleged attack in Douma. However, the OPCW inquiry dismissed Henderson’s role in the Douma probe, characterizing his engineering study as a personal, rogue operation. Henderson, the inquiry said, “was not a member of the FFM [Fact Finding Mission]” that deployed to Douma, and only “played a minor supporting role.”
There is ample evidence that contradicts this characterization. In his written UN testimony, Henderson revealed that he served in five Douma deployments as part of the FFM. This includes three instances as a sub-team leader for critical operations: visiting a suspected chemical weapons production site in Douma; conducting interviews and taking chemical samples at the Douma hospital; taking detailed measurements at one of the sites; and inspecting, itemizing, and securing the two cylinders that were removed from the sites of the alleged gas attack. The notion that he “was not a member” of the mission that he played such an active role in strains credulity.
A leaked email shows that at least one of Henderson’s colleagues protested a previous instance in which the OPCW leadership attempted to minimize his role. The “falsehood… that Ian did not form part of the Douma FFM team,” the colleague complained, was “patently untrue” and “pivotal in discrediting him and his work.”
The inquiry also falsely insinuated that Henderson was a low-level official. While acknowledging that Henderson served as an OPCW team leader during his first tenure with the OPCW from 1997 to 2005, the inquiry said that he was “rehired at a lower level” when he returned in 2016, and remained there until his departure in May 2019. Yet the OPCW’s own documents from that latter period showed that Henderson was described as an “OPCW Inspection Team Leader” as late as February 2018, just two months before his deployment to Douma as part of the OPCW’s Fact-Finding Mission (FFM). According to his UN testimony, Henderson served as an inspection team leader for multiple inspections of Syrian laboratory facilities at Barzaeh and Jamrayah in November 2017 and in November 2018, after the US bombed Barzeh on dubious grounds.
After casting doubt on Henderson’s status within the organization, the OPCW inquiry dismissed his engineering report as “a personal document created with incomplete information and without authorisation.” Henderson, the investigators said, defied higher-level officials’ orders and conducted a study on his own with outside contractors.
In his briefing to member states on the inquiry’s findings, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias echoed this conclusion, describing Henderson’s report as “a purported document disseminated outside the Organisation.”
But Arias’ statements today contradict his own words from less than a year ago. Just days after Henderson’s report was leaked in May 2019, Arias delivered an extensive briefing and announced that an inquiry into the disclosure was underway. Arias made no claims of Henderson going rogue, and described his report as an “internal document… produced by a staff member.” It is unclear how Henderson’s report went from an “internal document” by an OPCW staffer in May 2019 to a “purported document disseminated outside the Organisation” in February 2020. Arias has not explained this discrepancy.
In his latest missive, Arias has offered a completely new rationale for keeping Henderson’s report from the public. In May 2019, Arias stated that because Henderson’s report “pointed at possible attribution,” it was therefore “outside of the mandate of the FFM [Fact-Finding Mission] with regard to the formulation of its findings.” The FFM is prevented from assigning blame to parties involved in chemical attacks. However, the OPCW’s published conclusion suggested the Syrian government was to blame for the attack – an act of attribution – since the Syrian military (or its Russian ally) was the only warring party in Douma with aircraft. Even more curiously, by accusing Henderson of freebooting and “subterfuge,” Arias and his organization’s independent inquiry has now offered a completely different explanation than it previously had for the omission of Henderson’s report.
Why was critical evidence excluded?
In yet another highly dubious assertion, the OPCW inquiry claimed Henderson “did not have access to all of the information gathered by the FFM team, including witness interviews, laboratory results, and assessments by independent experts regarding the two cylinders—all of which became known to the team after [Henderson] had stopped providing support to the FFM investigation.”
But an important piece of context is missing from this salvo: by the time Henderson carried through on his study in summer 2018, he and other members of the FFM had already complained to the OPCW leadership that their findings were being manipulated and suppressed.
According to Henderson’s testimony, a draft interim report circulated in June 2018 was subjected to “‘last-minute unexpected modifications” that were “contrary to the consensus that had been reached within the team.” This included a change to “reflect a conclusion that chlorine had been released from cylinders,” which was not consistent with the findings at that stage. An intervention by one of the FFM team members, possibly Inspector B, forced FFM team leader Sami Barrek to revise the interim report before its eventual release on July 6 2018.
Despite agreeing to hear his team’s objections, Barrek personally blocked critical evidence that conflicted with the official story of Syrian government responsibility. One email chain revealed that Barrek resisted pleas from an inspector to include the relatively low levels of chemicals found in Douma. Alex, the anonymous second OPCW whistleblower, told journalist Jonathan Steele that chlorinated organic chemicals at the scene “were no higher than you would expect in any household environment.”
Another leaked document showed the OPCW had consulted with toxicologists in June 2018 to determine whether symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine. According to minutes of that meeting, “the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure.” But these critical findings, which dramatically undercut the official narrative, were inexplicably omitted from both the interim and final report.
The “core” cover-up team
One day after US officials attempted to bully OPCW staff into submission on July 5 2018, an interim report on Douma was published that reflected some of the inspectors’ key objections, albeit with watered-down language and significant omissions. A critical change then took place. OPCW officials announced that the ensuing final report would be drafted by a “core team” that was separate from the one which deployed to Douma. That left the core team without any of the FFM members who had been on the ground at the site of the supposed attack, with the exception of one paramedic. Henderson told the UN that the move deprived the core team of anyone qualified to conduct the needed engineering assessments on the chlorine cylinders that were said to have been dropped in Douma.
With superiors omitting critical information, Douma inspectors excluded from the so-called “core” team, and US officials applying direct pressure, Henderson attempted to carry on with his report. Despite the inquiry’s claims, Henderson presented evidence to the UN that his work was approved by his superiors. Henderson reported that he held several meetings with top OPCW officials beginning in late summer 2018, where he informed them of his study and relayed concerns about the methodologies of the then-FFM team leader. Henderson said he was told by the then-Chief of Cabinet, Sebastien Braha: “I don’t see why both studies can’t be done.” Henderson took that as a green light.
Henderson completed his engineering study in January 2019 and submitted a “detailed executive summary” for peer review. OPCW colleagues, including members of the Douma FFM, an unidentified former “core team” former inspector, and other “trusted [Technical Secretariat] staff members who had expertise in specific areas,” studied Henderson’s work and offered written feedback.
“This review was considered necessary and responsible,” Henderson wrote, “in that I knew (after the analysis had been completed) that these would be unpopular findings; therefore, I wanted to make sure there were no objections to any of the facts, observations, methodology used or findings reported in the summary.”
In its bid to portray Henderson’s engineering study as the work of a disconnected freelancer, the OPCW’s inquiry strangely made no mention of this peer review.
When he met with FFM team leader Sami Barrek the following month, Henderson ran into more obstructions. Barrek flatly rejected Henderson’s report, “stating that he had been instructed not to accept it.” Alarmed by the possibility that the OPCW would soon release a final report without a sound engineering assessment, Henderson submitted a physical copy to the OPCW’s Documents Registry Archive, and alerted management by email.
It was then that another hostile response arrived from above. Braha, the Chief of Cabinet, emailed back an order: “Please get this document out of DRA (Documents Registry Archive) … And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.”
Days later, on March 1 2019, the OPCW’s final report was released. Omitting Henderson’s engineering findings, it reached a conclusion that contradicted that of its own inspectors. According to the report, the investigation found that there were “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place…This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine.” For its analysis of the cylinders, the report claims it relied on “three independent analyses” without specifying them and only directly citing one.
This raises an ineluctable question: why did the OPCW rely on three unspecified “independent analyses” from outside experts who never set foot in Douma, rather than on the evidence-based reports of a veteran OPCW staffer and his colleagues who investigated the site of the supposed attack? The OPCW has yet to offer an explanation.
“I was shocked by the decision to release the report without having taken into account the engineering report, as all the FFM management knew it had been submitted,” Henderson recounted in his UN testimony. “I had expected the report to reflect the situation that had been the consensus of the Douma FFM team after the deployments, and for the assessment of the cylinders to be consistent with the findings of the engineering assessment, but found the complete opposite. I saw what I considered to be superficial and flawed analysis in the section on the cylinders.”
Henderson tried to resolve his concerns internally. He met with at least six high-level officials, and sought a meeting with Arias. A senior manager angrily rebuffed that request, telling Henderson that “you will never get to the Director-General, and if you try and go around me to get to him, there will be consequences.” Henderson also submitted a detailed dossier outlining his concerns to the Acting Director of the Office of Internal Oversight, which was later rejected.
Perhaps most critically, Henderson sought a meeting where the drafters of the FFM report – the so-called “core” team that had excluded all but one member of the team that visited Douma – “would explain what new information had been provided or new analysis conducted, that had turned around the situation from what had appeared to be clear at the end of deployments to Douma.”
Henderson also requested an opportunity to hear from the “three experts” who had conducted the engineering studies cited by the FFM’s final report. “This would be a technical discussion, comparing the information and inputs used and methodology applied, and interpretation of results, and would very quickly identify any flawed approaches and would help clarify the situation,” Henderson recalled.
“Throughout this period, I acknowledged there was a possibility that I could be wrong, but stressed that I was not the only one with concerns,” he added.
“Investigating the situation would bring things to light and potentially defuse the situation.”
But Henderson’s requests were denied. “Whilst many in management were shocked and concerned, and all expressed sympathy with my concerns,” Henderson told the UN, “the responses I received included ‘this is too big’; ‘it’s too late now’; ‘this would not be good for the [Technical Sectrariat’s] reputation’; ‘don’t make yourself a martyr’; and ‘but this would play into the Russian narrative’.”
A leaked memo written by Henderson to Arias, the OPCW Director General, in March 2019, captures his contemporaneous objections. The final report, Henderson wrote, “does not reflect the views of all the team members that deployed to Douma,” a view he said was shared by about 20 inspectors. (Alex relayed a similar account to Jonathan Steele: “Most of the Douma team felt the two reports on the incident, the Interim Report and the Final Report, were scientifically impoverished, procedurally irregular and possibly fraudulent.”) On top of the fact the report was written by a “core” team that excluded all but one Douma inspector, Henderson complained that its authors “had only operated in Country X” – believed to be Turkey.
Arias instructed Henderson to submit his report to the newly formed Investigation and Identification Team, which had been mandated to further investigate the Douma attack. The IIT met with Henderson in March 2019 and accepted a copy of his report. But two months later, Henderson was suspended and removed from the OPCW building after a leaked copy of his engineering assessment was published on the internet. The OPCW’s inquiry does not accuse Henderson of responsibility for the leak.
Conspicuous claims about “Inspector B”
Less is known about “Inspector B,” the second OPCW inspector targeted by the inquiry. It is possible, though unconfirmed, that B is the same person as “Alex,” the aforementioned Douma team member turned whistleblower. Like Henderson, B has been with the OPCW since its formation. The inquiry notes that B initially served from July 1998 to December 2011, including as Team Leader, and then again from September 2015 until August 2018.
As with Henderson, the inquiry attempted to portray Inspector B as a marginal figure in the Douma inquiry who went rogue after he had left the OPCW. While acknowledging that he was a member of the FFM team that deployed to Syria in April 2018, the report said that B “never left the command post in Damascus”, and therefore did not visit Douma.
By the OPCW’s own standards, however, that was hardly disqualifying: Sami Barrek, the FFM team leader, was only in Damascus for three days and departed before his team members – including Henderson – first reached Douma. Yet Barrek was tasked with drafting the final report, and, as leaked emails show, faced internal complaints that he excluded critical evidence.
According to the Working Group, the British academic collective that received and published Henderson’s leaked report, Barrek subsequently visited Turkey where he met with members of the White Helmets. The White Helmets are a Western government-funded organization known for carrying out rescue operations in areas under the control of foreign-backed anti-government militias. As The Grayzone has reported, the US and UK-funded White Helmets have operated alongside extremist militants during Syria’s proxy war, and been used for propaganda efforts to promote U.S. military intervention and sanctions on Syria. In the case of Douma, the White Helmets participated in a staged video to create the appearance that a local hospital was treating victims of a chemical attack.
Conspicuously, the inquiry offered no specifics on what “Inspector B” did in Damascus or his role in the FFM. This omission could be seen as an indication that an accurate description of his role would reveal that he played a significant one. The inquiry noted that he “was involved in the drafting of the interim report on the Douma incident” – but did not offer further details. It seems unlikely that someone with a limited role in the investigation would have been entrusted to participate in drafting the public report on its findings.
As with its portrayal of Henderson, the inquiry claimed that the FFM “undertook the bulk of its analytical work, examined a large number of witness interviews, and received the results of sampling and analysis,” in the months after Inspector B was no longer involved. But it had nothing to say about Inspector B departing only after raising concerns that the Douma team’s analytical work was manipulated and excluded, including on vital chemical samples. Accordingly, the fact that more work was done after B’s ouster did not resolve his concerns; if anything, it only raised further questions about the OPCW’s faulty final product.
Western media outlets complicit in cover-up
The OPCW’s unprecedented rebuke of two career officials has received a warm reception in mainstream media outlets that have carefully ignored the OPCW scandal to date, turning a blind eye as one explosive internal document after another appeared on Wikileaks.
Though the scandal was itself a product of disclosures by the OPCW’s own staff, The Guardian bizarrely described it instead as “a Russia-led campaign” that has now “been dealt a blow” by the OPCW’s inquiry. The New York Times published reports by Reuters and the Associated Press that also aired the inquiry’s conclusions without a scintilla of critical scrutiny.
At a time when whistleblowing is supposed to be held in high esteem, the Western political and media establishment’s flagrant disinterest and disregard for the two dissenting inspectors and the explosive leaked documents is glaring. This carries significant dangers.
As the email by a “former senior official at the OPCW” – someone who was not among the pair of dissenting inspectors – made clear, fear within the organization is almost as profound as the pressure to self-censor and conform to the dominant narrative.
The experience of the OPCW’s first director-general, Jose Bustani – who was ousted from his position after direct threats from John Bolton to him and his family – attests to the threats these new whistleblowers face. When Bustani heard Alex’s testimony, he came away from the meeting firmly convinced that something had gone extremely wrong at the OPCW.
“The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had,” Bustani said after the session.
“The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing.” Bustani added that he hoped the Douma revelations “will catalyse a process by which the [OPCW] can be resurrected to become the independent and non-discriminatory body it used to be.”
In his statement to the United Nations, Henderson echoed this sentiment. The ousted expert called on the United Nations to allow for a scientific, peer review process to weigh his report against the three “independent experts” whom the OPCW claimed to rely on for its final report. The “method of scientific rigour,” Henderson wrote, “dictates that one side cannot profess to be the sole owner of the truth.
“Should an independent scientific panel be allowed, he concluded, “I have no doubt that this would successfully clarify what happened in Douma.”
With his explosive UN testimony and the leaks that preceded it, Ian Henderson and his colleagues have made clear that the OPCW experts who deployed to Syria are determined to bring the cover-up of an elaborate deception to light.
Federal Judge Dismisses Some Charges Against Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes
Late on Tuesday, a Federal judge dropped several charges against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes but allowed wire fraud charges to stand. The wire fraud charges accuse Holmes and her former boy-toy, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, of misleading patients about the abilities of Theranos’ blood tests.
The court ruled that since the tests were paid by customers’ medical insurance companies, that the patients were not deprived of any money or property in using Theranos’ blood testing services, according to Reuters. The court also found that there was “no evidence” to show that Holmes and Balwani directed doctors to make misrepresentations to their patients.
The indictment alleges that Holmes and Balwani knew that Theranos was not capable of consistently producing accurate results, yet they encouraged doctors and patients to use their tests regardless. They were both indicted in June of 2018 on 11 counts of conspiracy and wire fraud.
Recall, about two weeks ago, we noted that Holmes literally phoned in her defense in an Arizona fraud lawsuit after her civil lawyers quit due to non-payment.
Holmes still maintains a team of “high caliber” attorneys for her criminal case in San Jose federal court. But in the concurrent civil suit taking place in Phoenix, Holmes was forced to dial into an audio feed without a lawyer several weeks ago, telling the judge she wouldn’t make any arguments.
The civil hearing, which ended without a decision, was to try and determine whether or not the case should advance as a class action. The judge asked Holmes at the beginning of the hearing if she wanted to make any arguments and Holmes said she was relying on the arguments made by attorneys for her co-defendants.
The lawyers representing her in Arizona quit back in September, claiming Holmes hasn’t paid them. As Bloomberg noted at the time, “it’s highly unusual for a defendant of Holmes’s stature in such a suit to not be represented by an attorney, prompting some speculation on her financial situation.”
