TBR News June 8, 2020

The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. June 8, 2020: Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.
When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.
I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.
He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.
He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.
It is becoming more and more evident to even the least intelligent American voter that Trump is vicious, corrupt and amoral. He has stated often that even if he loses the
election in 2020, he will not leave the White House. I have news for Donald but this is not
the place to discuss it.
Comment for June 8, 2020: “If Trump thought that he would become America’s first führer, he is rapidly becoming disillusioned. The far, far right love him as do the Jesus Freaks but they are not sufficient in number to get him reelected. His behavior is disillusioning many Republican senators and it would not be impossible to see major defectons. Not joining the Democrats but disassociating from Trumps third reich politics.”

Trump Approval Rating
Jun. 2-5
Morning Consult Approve Disapprove
36%         59%

The Table of Contents
Trump’s use of the military backfired – but will it back him if he refuses to go?
Trump uses force as a first resort. And now the firepower is aimed at his own people
Congressional Democrats to unveil sweeping U.S. police reform proposal after Floyd death
Analysis: White House, Pentagon tensions near breaking point
Steve Bannon’s Bizarre Plot to Take Down the CCP
The Militarization of ‘Officer Friendly’
The Empire in Collapse
George Floyd unrest : What Trump states make of unrest
The Pentagon’s Bio-Weapons

Trump’s use of the military backfired – but will it back him if he refuses to go?
Faced with the George Floyd protests, the president wants to be seen as a strongman. What happens if he loses at the polls?
June 7, 2020
by Robert Reich
The Guardian
History teaches that mass protests against oppression can lead either to liberation or brutal repression.
This past week, Donald Trump bet his political future on repression. Much of the rest of America, on the other hand, wants to liberate black people from police brutality and centuries of systemic racism. As of this writing, it looks like Trump is losing and America winning, but the contest is hardly over.
Trump knows he can’t be re-elected on his disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic or on what’s likely to be a tepid economic recovery. But he must believe a racist campaign could work. After all, stoking racism got him into the White House in the first place.
The protests against George Floyd’s brutal killing by Minneapolis police seemed like a golden opportunity.
History teaches that mass protests against oppression can lead either to liberation or brutal repression.
This past week, Donald Trump bet his political future on repression. Much of the rest of America, on the other hand, wants to liberate black people from police brutality and centuries of systemic racism. As of this writing, it looks like Trump is losing and America winning, but the contest is hardly over.
Trump knows he can’t be re-elected on his disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic or on what’s likely to be a tepid economic recovery. But he must believe a racist campaign could work. After all, stoking racism got him into the White House in the first place.
The protests against George Floyd’s brutal killing by Minneapolis police seemed like a golden opportunity.
“The nation needs law and order,” Trump responded immediately, repeating the phrase that propelled Richard Nixon to the presidency after a summer of black unrest across the country.
His trump card was threatening to send federal troops into American cities. Trump called on states to bring in the military to combat “lowlifes and losers”, promising “total domination” of protesters and telling governors “if you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time.” Previous presidents haven’t even used this language to describe invading other countries.
But Trump overplayed his hand.
He looked like a deranged dictator, an impression made all the more vivid as officers in riot gear used flash grenades and chemical spray (a weapon banned in war) on peaceful protesters to clear a path for Trump to walk from the White House through Lafayette Square to a photo op in front of St John’s church.
t was too much even for Trump’s own top military brass. The defense secretary, Mark Esper, insisted military personnel “be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations”. Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, reminded the armed services of the rights of their fellow citizens to free assembly, adding: “We all committed our lives to the idea that is America – we will stay true to that oath and the American people.”
But it was Trump’s own former secretary of defense, James Mattis, whose rebuke cut deepest.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people,” Mattis said. “Instead he tries to divide us … We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our constitution.
It was an “emperor-has-no-clothes” moment that prompted the Republican senator Lisa Murkowski to admit she was considering not voting for Trump and suggest other Senate Republicans felt the same way.
“Perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up,” she said.
Trump expected white voters to recoil from the rioting and looting. Over the past week, Fox News obliged by mentioning rioting or rioters six times as much as CNN. But 64% of Americans sympathize with the protesters and appear receptive to stopping police brutality and 55% disapprove of Trump’s response.
Black Americans are now more committed than ever to defeating him in November. More than 80% believe he’s a racist. If black voters return to the polls at 2012 levels, Joe Biden would win the electoral college 294-244, according to the Center for American Progress.
College-educated white people and younger voters have also been galvanized against Trump. The most racially diverse generations in American history, millennials and Gen Z voters could make up as much as 37% of the electorate this year.
But although Trump’s response to the protests seems to have backfired, it also raises a troubling question. If Trump loses and refuses to give up the presidency, will the military support him?
The possibility is hardly far-fetched. As Trump’s former bagman Michael Cohen warned in congressional testimony in March 2019, “I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 there will never be a peaceful transition of power.” After winning in 2016, Trump claimed without evidence that 3-5m votes were illegally counted for Hillary Clinton.
A former chairman of joint chiefs of staff, Adm Mike Mullen, wrote recently that although he remains “confident in the professionalism of our men and women in uniform”, he is “deeply worried” they “will be co-opted for political purposes”.
If that happens, the mass protests against decades of harsh policing and unjust killings of Black Americans will be followed by another uprising, this time against Trump’s murder of American democracy.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US

Trump uses force as a first resort. And now the firepower is aimed at his own people
The US president’s threats against those protesting at George Floyd’s killing simply ramp up a trend that began decades ago
June 7, 2020
by Simon Tisdall
The Guardian
The menacing sight of heavily armoured US military vehicles and personnel seizing control of the streets is a familiar one for residents of Baghdad and Kabul. Last week, citizens of Washington and other American cities experienced similar treatment – at the hands of their own government.
Donald Trump’s alarming over-reaction to the mostly lawful protests that followed George Floyd’s death produced a powerful backlash among political and military leaders. It also highlighted increased US reliance, at home and abroad, on the aggressive use of force as a first resort.
The militarisation of US police forces, and American society as a whole, is rooted in the response to the 9/11 attacks, when George W Bush plunged the country into a state of perpetual war. Paradoxically, his “global war on terror” intensified international and domestic insecurity.
It sparked a huge, parallel expansion in the powers and reach of the homeland security apparatus. As Pentagon spending grew to a whopping $738bn this year, total police and prison budgets have also soared, reaching $194bn in 2017. About 18,000 law enforcement agencies employ 800,000 officers nationwide. Many are armed to the teeth.
Deserving or not, members of the US armed forces are routinely described as heroes by Trump and others. Amid high levels of gun violence, many on the frontline of domestic law enforcement plainly feel they are worthy of similar status and protection.
Yet when police officers are uniformed, equipped and armed like soldiers, it is unsurprising that they act with soldier-like impunity, treating civilians as the enemy in what Mark Esper, the defence secretary, calls the urban “battlespace”. In the past week, there were multiple incidents of police combat and resulting gratuitous violence.
Trump’s panicky actions further blurred the line between military and civil power, by linking patriotism and militarism. He is not the first president to wrap himself in the flag. But this Vietnam draft-dodger who is commander-in-chief exhibits scant understanding of what fidelity to country and constitution means.
Trump boasts about US military power and his bigger, better nuclear weapons. He sought personal legitimacy by hiring savvy generals such as HR McMaster and James Mattis, then rejected their advice. He recklessly threatens states such as North Korea with “fire and fury”. He mounts military parades to glorify himself.
But the problem is not simply Trump or the police. Since declaring cold war victory in 1991, an unfettered America has increasingly relied on the continuous projection of military force overseas, downgrading diplomacy, mediation and “soft power” approaches.
This militarist mindset, ever focused on warfare, conflict and supremacy (or “domination”, to quote Trump), has had an inevitably corrosive impact at home. The bill fell due last week.
James Madison, one of the founding fathers, warned of the danger over 200 years ago. “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded … In war, the discretionary power of the executive is extended … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare,” Madison wrote.
The belief that unchecked militarism is inimical to liberty has been usefully explored in recent years by Andrew Bacevich, a Boston university historian and former army colonel and Vietnam veteran.
“Today as never before in their history, Americans are enthralled with military power,” he wrote in his 2005 bestseller, The New American Militarism, which excoriated Bush’s “immoral, illicit and imprudent” Iraq invasion. The quest for supremacy always ended in degeneracy.
“America will surely share the fate of all those who in ages past have looked to war and military power to fulfil their destiny. We will rob future generations of their rightful inheritance. We will wreak havoc abroad. We will endanger our security at home. We will risk the forfeiture of all that we prize,” Bacevich warned.
Neo-conservatives hated his message. But with present-day generals up in arms about Trump’s abuse of military power, and the nation enraged at the actions of paramilitary police, maybe the right is listening now.
Patriotism and pride in one’s country are not the issue here. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with saluting the flag and supporting the troops – or the police, if they do their job right.
But when it becomes a fetish, when it’s obligatory, when such natural instincts are hijacked by demagogues such as Trump, when militarism, ultra-nationalism and hateful jingoism, fuelling entrenched racism and xenophobia, take hold – that’s when catastrophe looms.
It renders the US a threat to itself and others, and weakens its global influence. Perhaps the police and social reforms urged by Barack Obama will gain traction as anger over Floyd subsides. Internationally, the harm done to US standing looks serious.
Scornful Chinese and Russian claims of hypocrisy, and the appalled reaction of allies in Europe, Canada and Australia, are galling but manageable. More dangerous is the damage to American leadership and the global cause of democratic governance.
Trump’s repressive action “gives a tool to dictators, autocrats and thugs”, Jake Sullivan, senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, told a Foreign Policy magazine webinar. “It leads them to believe they are righteous, that they don’t have to listen to complaints about human rights, equality and democracy.”
Ironically, it also undermined US national security, Sullivan said. “The US cannot be a secure country if it is not capable of being a just and equal country.”
That warning was echoed by Richard Haass of the US Council on Foreign Relations. “The US is and appears to the world divided, diminished and distracted,” he tweeted. “Hard to believe we will not be challenged somewhere, somehow by someone wanting to take advantage of these circumstances. These are truly dangerous times.”
In other words, as a militarised America turns its fire on itself, outside enemies take aim.

Congressional Democrats to unveil sweeping U.S. police reform proposal after Floyd death
June 8, 2020
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. congressional Democrats on Monday plan to unveil a sweeping package of legislation to combat police violence and racial injustice, after two weeks of protests across the nation sparked by George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody.
The proposal is expected to ban police chokeholds and racial profiling, require nationwide use of body cameras, subject police to civilian review boards and abolish the legal doctrine known as qualified immunity, which protects police from civil litigation, according to congressional sources.
“It is time for police culture in many departments to change,” Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Representative Karen Bass, told CNN on Sunday.
She added that she hoped the wave of largely peaceful protests seen across the United States over the past two weeks would increase pressure on lawmakers to act.
“We’re in a real moment in our country, the passion that the people are displaying,” Bass added. “That it is going to lay the basis for the momentum for us to bring about the change that we need to do.”
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kamala Harris along with Bass are expected to discuss the bill at a 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT) briefing.
It is unclear if the proposal will receive support from Republicans, who control the U.S. Senate. Their support and that of Republican President Donald Trump would be needed for the measure to become law.
Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, where a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, was the latest in a string of killings of black men and women by U.S. police that have sparked anger on America’s streets and fresh calls for reform.A Reuters investigation published last month revealed how qualified immunity here, refined over the years by the U.S. Supreme Court, has made it easier for cops to kill or injure civilians with impunity.
Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker

Analysis: White House, Pentagon tensions near breaking point
June 6, 2020
by Robert Burns
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tensions between the White House and Pentagon have stretched to near a breaking point over President Donald Trump’s threat to use military force against street protests triggered by George Floyd’s death.
Friction in this relationship, historically, is not unusual. But in recent days, and for the second time in Trump’s term, it has raised a prospect of high-level resignations and the risk of lasting damage to the military’s reputation.
Calm may return, both in the crisis over Floyd’s death and in Pentagon leaders’ angst over Trump’s threats to use federal troops to put down protesters. But it could leave a residue of resentment and unease about this president’s approach to the military, whose leaders welcome his push for bigger budgets but chafe at being seen as political tools.
The nub of the problem is that Trump sees no constraint on his authority to use what he calls the “unlimited power” of the military even against U.S. citizens if he believes it necessary. Military leaders generally take a far different view. They believe that active-duty troops, trained to hunt and kill an enemy, should be used to enforce the law only in the most extreme emergency, such as an attempted actual rebellion. That limit exists, they argue, to keep the public’s trust.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper, a West Point graduate who served 10 years on active duty, argued against bringing federal troops into Washington. In a contentious Oval Office meeting with Trump and others on Monday, the president demanded 10,000 federal troops be sent to the capital city, according to a senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Esper then pushed for governors from several states to send National Guardsmen as a way of steering Trump away from a buildup of federal forces in Washington, the senior defense official said.
Vincent K. Brooks, a recently retired Army four-star general, says the military’s “sacred trust” with the public has been breached by Trump’s threat to use federal troops for law enforcement in states where he deems a governor has not tough enough against protesters.
“It is a trust that the military, especially the active-duty military — ‘the regulars’ — possessing great physical power and holding many levers that could end freedom in our society and could shut down our government, would never, never apply that power for domestic political purposes,” Brooks wrote in an essay for Harvard University’s Belfer Center, where he is a senior fellow.
Esper has made known his regret at having accompanied Trump to a presidential photo opportunity in front of a church near the White House. He has said he did not see it coming — a blind spot that cost him in the eyes of critics who saw a supposedly apolitical Pentagon chief implicitly endorsing a political agenda.
Esper two days later risked Trump’s ire when he stepped before reporters at the Pentagon to declare his opposition to Trump invoking the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act. That law allows a president to use the armed forces “as he considers necessary” when “unlawful obstructions … or rebellion against the authority of the United States” make it impractical to enforce U.S. laws in any state by normal means.
Esper said plainly that he saw no need for such an extreme measure, a clear counterpoint to Trump’s threat to use force. Almost immediately, word came from the White House that Trump was unhappy with his defense secretary.
On Saturday, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said Trump “remains confident” in Esper.
“Secretary Esper has been instrumental in securing our nation’s streets and ensuring Americans have peace and confidence in the security of their places of business, places of worship, and their homes,” she said.
After a night of sometimes violent protesting in Washington last Sunday, Esper pulled several active-duty units, including a military police battalion, to bases just outside the nation’s capital. He never called them into action; just positioning them close to the capital satisfied Trump for the time being, the senior defense official said. On Friday, the last of those active-duty units were being sent back home.
Trump lost his first defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, over an accumulation of grievances, and it took an unusually long time to replace him. For half a year after Mattis resigned in December 2018, the Pentagon was run by acting secretaries of defense — three in succession, the longest such stretch of interim leadership in Pentagon history — before Esper took over last July.
This week, Mattis added weight to the worry that Trump is militarizing his response to the street protests in Washington and across the nation.
Mattis wrote in an essay for The Atlantic that keeping public order in times of civil unrest is the duty of civilian state and local authorities who best understand their communities and are answerable to them..
“Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society,” Mattis wrote.
The worry felt among Pentagon leaders is reflected in the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, reaching out privately to members of Congress in recent days to discuss concerns about use of the military on American streets.
Milley has been publicly quiet since he caused a stir by joining Esper on the walk with Trump across Lafayette Square last Monday. The optics were awkward. Police had forcibly pushed peaceful protesters out of the way just before Trump and his entourage strolled to St. John’s Church, where Trump held up a Bible.
Esper made matters worse by saying, in a conference call earlier that day with governors, that they should use their National Guard troops to “dominate the battlespace,” a term widely interpreted by critics as suggesting street protesters should be treated like battlefield enemies. Esper said later it was a poor choice of words.
“America is not a ‘battle space,’ former Defense Secretary William J. Perry said in a statement. “And the people he threatens to dominate are American citizens, not enemy combatants.”
___
EDITOR’S NOTE — AP National Security Writer Robert Burns has covered the Pentagon and national security affairs for The Associated Press since 1990

Steve Bannon’s Bizarre Plot to Take Down the CCP
June 8, 2020
by Dave DeCamp
AntiWar
New Yorkers looked to the sky in puzzlement the night of June 3rd as a fleet of airplanes circled New York Harbor with banners that read “Congratulations New Federal State of China.” Behind the bizarre stunt was exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. The duo deemed the Chinese Communist Party illegitimate and declared a new state of China from a boat floating in front of the Statue of Liberty.
In a live stream, Guo and Bannon read the Chinese and English versions of “A Declaration of the New Federal State of China,” a document that lays out their fantastical plan to take out the CCP and form a Western-style democracy in China. The live stream aired in China on June 4th, which marked the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown in Beijing. “The Chinese Communist Party is a terrorist organization funded by the Communist International which has subverted the legitimate Chinese government in the past,” the document declares.
The declaration lists what it calls “horrific atrocities” committed by China’s government, included in that list is the Covid-19 pandemic. “Recently, it [the CCP] unleashed a biological attack on the free countries of the world with the CCP-virus (the Covid-19 virus), which poses a serious threat to the health and survival of all human beings.”
The declaration outlines a plan to change the system of government in China. “It is suggested that the New Federal State of China should draw up a Constitution in reference to the democratic and legal systems of the West, and any relevant international laws.” Guo and Bannon also announced the formation of the Himalaya Supervisory Organization, a group created to oversee this imaginary transition of governments. “Under the supervision and advocacy of Himalaya Supervisory Organization, the New Federal State of China will be a land without CCP,” the declaration reads.
Railing against the Chinese government is nothing new for Steve Bannon, but his rhetoric has sharply escalated since the start of the pandemic. In January, Bannon changed the name of his radio show to War Room: Pandemic, where he often blames the outbreak on China, using catchy phrases like “biological Chernobyl,” and calls for a “Nuremberg-type trial” in Wuhan. For China hawks like Bannon, the pandemic has served as an instrument to increase tensions with the Asian country, and turn public opinion against Beijing.
Although Bannon did not last long in the Trump Administration, a recent story from The New York Post says Bannon might be creeping his way back into the White House. In his short stint as chief strategist, Bannon pushed hard for a trade war with China and advocated for tariffs along with his ally Peter Navarro who still serves as a trade advisor to President Trump. A recent report from The New York Times revealed Navarro played a key role in continuing US support for Saudi Arabia’s horrific war in Yemen.
Last year, Bannon helped form the Committee on Present Danger: China (CPD), an anti-China think-tank that considers Beijing an “existential and ideological threat” to the US. The content that fills the pages of the think-tank’s website looks a lot like the militant anti-China rhetoric coming out of the White House. Currently, the home page has a video of President Trump’s recent speech defining his new policy towards China, a speech that essentially ushers in a new Cold War. In the address, Trump repeats the talking points coming out of the CPD and Bannon’s radio show concerning the pandemic and other flashpoints in US-China relations.
Conservative filmmaker Michael Pack, another Bannon ally, was just confirmed by the Senate to head the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM, formerly the Broadcasting Board of Governors). The USAGM is Washington’s propaganda arm; the agency runs Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and other US government-funded media outlets, an operation that requires a massive budget ($660 million for the 2019 fiscal year). Neoconservative Frank Gaffney, who founded the CPD with Bannon, took to Twitter to celebrate Pack’s appointment as head of the USAGM. “I’m congratulating the new CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors who will help ensure that the US breaks down the CCP’s Great Firewall and counters the lies it enables the regime to force-feed the Chinese people,” Gaffney said.
Another major Trump supporter and donor has joined the effort to bombard the American public with rabid anti-China propaganda. Robert Mercer is a hedge fund manager and one of Trump’s largest donors. A report from Responsible Statecraft shows Mercer injected almost one million dollars into The Epoch Times, a media outlet run by the Falun Gong, a religious group whose stated goal is the destruction of the CCP. The Epoch Times recently ran an enormous ad campaign on YouTube, and print newspapers are showing up in people’s mailboxes who never ordered a subscription. The papers are full of sensationalist headlines like, “How the Chinese Communist Party Endangered the World.”
Besides the propaganda war, Washington has ratcheted up tensions with Beijing in other arenas. One major flashpoint has been Hong Kong, where China is enacting a new security law that the State Department determined violates the city’s autonomy, and the “one country, two systems” agreement worked out for the 1997 handover from British control. Washington’s blatant interference in the Hong Kong protests served as a justification for China to pass the new law.
Another flashpoint is China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province. A bill that calls for sanctions against Chinese officials for human rights abuses in Xinjiang recently passed through the House and Senate and is awaiting Trump’s approval. Like most anti-China legislation, the bill blasted through Congress, with only one no vote from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has been consistent in his stance on bills that meddle in Beijing’s affairs.
Other theaters for confrontation between the US and China include Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Trump’s trade war. The Pentagon and the administration are lock-step in their pivot towards great power competition in the Pacific. While Bannon and Guo Wengui’s plan and declaration might seem absurd, there is a real risk of a hot war with China, and some of Bannon’s most hawkish rhetoric is getting through to Trump.
In the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq some of the most influential neocons that orchestrated the propaganda campaign operated outside of the White House (Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan come to mind). While Steve Bannon is not outright calling for the US military to invade China, the idea of forcibly bringing Western-style democracy to a country of 1.4 billion people would make the Iraq War look like child’s play.
Dave DeCamp is assistant editor at Antiwar

The Militarization of ‘Officer Friendly‘
Militarization is a dangerous and ultimately deadly perversion of the honorable purpose of policing—and it is out of control.
June 3, 2020
by Jim Hightower
Common Dreams
From 1776 forward, Americans have opposed having soldiers do police work on our soil, but in recent years, Pentagon chiefs have teamed up with police chiefs to circumvent that prohibition. How? Simply by militarizing police departments.
Through the little-known 1033 program, the Pentagon has been shipping massive amounts of surplus war equipment to our local gendarmes. This reflects a fundamental rewiring of the mindset now guiding neighborhood policing. Police chiefs commonly send out squads brandishing heavy arms and garbed in riot gear for peaceful situations. Recruiting videos feature clips of SWAT team officers dressed in black, hurling smoke grenades into homes and then storming them, firing automatic weapons. Who wants anyone recruited by that video working their neighborhood?
Let’s check the weaponry: more than 93,000 machine guns, 533 planes and helicopters, 180,000 magazine cartridges and 432 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. While it sounds like this could be the U.S. military, it’s your and my local police departments patrolling our cities. Remember “Officer Friendly,” the beat cops who were known as “peace officers”? The friendlies have largely been transformed into militarized forces, armed with and garbed in war gear, and indoctrinated in military psychology, rather than the ethic of community policing.
Thirty years ago, Congress created the 1033 military transfer program, providing federal grants so chiefs of police and sheriffs could buy surplus firepower from the Pentagon. In a stunningly short time, our local police forces have become macho-military units, possessing an armory of Pentagon freebies ranging from 30-ton tanks to rifle suppressors. They’ve gone from peacekeeping beats to over-the-top SWAT team aggression, with SWAT teams unleashed on the citizenry tens of thousands of times a year, mainly for ordinary police work.
Corporate arms peddlers, of course, have leapt into direct sales, holding field demonstrations and trade shows to titillate the fancy of police chiefs and other officials. Genasys, for example, makes the long-range sound cannons that are used on protestors, literally blasting away demonstrators with ear-shattering pain. Also, such tear gas makers as CTS are having a field day supplying and resupplying police agencies. Then there’s Axon’s electrocution guns (which can stop hearts), now on the hip of nearly everyone with a badge.
Militarization is a dangerous and ultimately deadly perversion of the honorable purpose of policing — and it is out of control. Most of our states have received suppressors, or silencers to use in surreptitious raids. A sheriff in a North Dakota rural county with only 11,000 people told a New York Times reporter that he saw no need for silencers. When it was pointed out that his department had 40 of them, he was baffled, saying: “I don’t recall approving them.”
And a city councilman in rural Wisconsin commented when told his police officers were getting a 9-foot-tall armored vehicle, “Somebody has to be the first person to say ‘Why are we doing this?'” The New York Times reported that the town’s police chief responded, “There’s always a possibility of violence.” Really? Who threatens us with such mayhem that every burg needs a war-zone armory and a commando mentality?
In 2015, the Obama administration banned many of the military weapons and equipment from being transferred to local police. This came in response to public fury over law enforcement using excessive militarized force against protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, after Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, was killed by a white police officer for the crime of jaywalking. However, just two years later, President Donald Trump overturned Obama’s ban, returning weapons of war to local police departments including small rural towns and — get this — school police departments across the country. Now we’re seeing this equipment being used once again against peaceful protesters who are protesting police violence.

George Floyd unrest : What Trump states make of unrest
June 8, 2020
by Tara McKelvey
BBC News
President Donald Trump talks about imposing law and order, and his hardline approach towards the protesters this week is helping to shore up his base of supporters. But what do the parts of the US that propelled him to victory in 2016 think of his aggressive strategy?
Shirley Hartman, an artist who works in watercolour and acrylics, moved to Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, years ago because she wanted to feel safe. She had been robbed in Philadelphia, a city about 60 miles away, and she was looking for a place where she did not have to worry about violence.
With protests unfolding across the US, she says that she is again concerned about her safety and is glad that the president acted forcefully, threatening to deploy the military. The demonstrators went too far, she says, and he responded appropriately.
“It’s gotten out of hand,” says Ms Hartman. “They’ve gone to extremes, and sometimes it’s necessary to go to extremes, too, to respond.”
The protests have continued for more than a week, with tens of thousands taking to the streets across the US. The demonstrations were largely peaceful, however, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests most people in the US disapprove of the president’s hardline approach.
Still a significant number of people, one-third of those who were surveyed, support the president and his actions.
Many of them are like Ms Hartman – they live in suburban areas of the country and are concerned about security. Their views will play a significant role in the November election.
Ms Hartman lives in a swing district in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which Mr Trump won in 2016 and is widely viewed as crucial to his chances again this time around.
For that reason, political operatives, scholars and others are watching closely to see how the president’s law-and-order message plays in key states across the country.
In a week of more than 20 interviews in Pennsylvania, Missouri and North Carolina – three states Trump won in 2016 – most people echoed the views of Ms Hartman and agreed that the president’s tough rhetoric was necessary and say they will support him in November.
Some said they supported the protesters and their goals, but were concerned about those who had become violent.
“I understand how people feel about George Floyd and I agree that something needs to change. But burning a church, looting, turning over cars – I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with burning a town to the ground,” says Brian Bufka, 47, who lives in Warrenton, Missouri, and runs a printing company.
“I support our president – I think his heart is in the right place, and I will vote for him again.”
Lyle Updike, who is 75 and lives in Kearney, Missouri, says: “I’m strong on law and order. I don’t tolerate this violence – this rioting. I’d like to see the president tighten the screws better.” He added: “The mayors and governors won’t do it, so he needs to.”
Rosella Roberts, who works for a musical theatre company in Steelville, Missouri, says she is concerned about the violence: “I’m not saying that all of the people who are protesting are evil. But when you shoot at a policeman – that’s just evil.”
The election is still five months away, and the fortunes of the candidates and their political parties may change dramatically. One of the factors is the economy.
For many conservatives, the Trump presidency has been a blessing – spiritually as well as financially. Brian Watts, 45, the general manager of a radio station in Kearney, Missouri, says that he loves the image of the president holding a bible while walking near the White House: “It shows he’s for the church.”
Mr Watts’ radio station has survived the financial problems brought about by the pandemic, and he is confident that Mr Trump will pull the country out of its malaise.
This upbeat view could play a crucial role in the election. As Matthew Dallek, a historian at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, points out, most elections hinge on economic concerns, not social issues.
“In the end the president’s law-and-order mandate probably won’t contribute much to the election,” says Mr Dallek. “But coronavirus and the economy will.”
Economists are predicting an uptick in the coming months, a trend that is likely to help Mr Trump. The monthly job numbers this week were better than expected but it’s unclear how the pandemic – and possible new infection spikes – will affect the economic recovery.

The Empire in Collapse
Because of the growing, and serious, public discontent that had been manifested during the course of the Vietnamese War from 1950 through 1973, the American governmental establishment resolved to take steps to recognize, infiltrate and neutralize any significant future national anti-government actions.
Once the most powerful nation, the United States is rapidly losing its premier position in the international sphere while at the same time facing a potential serious anti-government political movement developing in that country. The number of unemployed in the United States today is approximately 97,000,000. Official American sources claim that employment is always improving but in fact it is not. Most official governmental releases reflect wishful thinking or are designed to placate the public
This situation is caused by the movement, by management, of manufacturing businesses to foreign labor markets. While these removals can indeed save the companies a great deal of expenditure on domestic labor, by sharply reducing their former worker bodies to a small number, the companies have reduced the number of prospective purchasers of expensive items like automobiles.
The U.S. government’s total revenue is estimated to be $3.654 trillion for fiscal year 2019.
•Personal income taxes contribute $1.836 trillion, half of the total.
•Another third ($1.224 trillion) comes from payroll taxes.
This includes $892 billion for Social Security, $270 billion for Medicare and $50 billion for unemployment insurance.
•Corporate taxes add $355 billion, only 10 percent.
•Customs excise taxes and tariffs on imports contribute $146 billion, just 4 percent
•The Federal Reserve’s net income adds $70 billion.
•The remaining $23 billion of federal income comes from estate taxes and miscellaneous receipts.
•The use of secret offshore accounts by US citizens to evade U.S. federal taxes costs the U.S. Department of the Treasury well over $100 billion annually.
By moving from a producing to an importing entity, the United States has developed, and is developing, serious sociological and economic problems in a significant number of its citizens, and many suffer from serious health problems that are not treated.
It is estimated that over 500,000 American citizens are without any form of housing. Many of these people either are living on the streets, in public parks, living in cars or in charity shelters. There are at present over 200,000 family groups in America with over 300,000 individuals involved and 25% of the total are minor children.
Over 80,000 individuals are permanently without any residence. Many of these have physical disabilities such as chronic alcoholism or drug addiction. Many are classified as having severe mental disorders.
About 50,000 of these homeless individuals are military veterans, many of whom have serious physical or mental problems. One of the most common mental disorders is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Governmental treatment for these individuals is virtually non-existent. Approximately half of this number are either black or Latin American (“Hispanics” in official designation.)
Of the total number of the homeless individuals, approximately 10% are female.
Official but private, estimates are that there over 500,000 youths below the age of 24 in current American society that find themselves homeless for periods lasting from one week to a permanent status.
Over 100,000 of this class are young people who are defined as being homosexual. Those in this class find themselves persecuted to a considerable degree by society in general and their peer groups in specific.
Approximately 50% of this homeless population are over the age of 50, many of whom suffer from chronic, debilitating physical illnesses that are not treated.
Drug deaths in the U.S. in 2017 exceeded 60,000. Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths involved prescriptions. Opioids are a class of strong painkillers drugs and include Percocet, Vicodin and OxyContin which are synthetic drugs designed to resemble opiates such as opium derived morphine and heroin. The most dangerous opioid is Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller 50-100 times more powerful than morphine. The increasing demand for these drugs is causing them to be manufactured outside the United States.
Suicide is the primary cause of “injury death” in the United States and more U.S. military personnel on active duty have killed themselves than were killed in combat last year.
The growing instability of American families is manifested by the fact that:
• One out of every three children in America lives in a home without a father.
• More than half of all babies are being born out of wedlock for women under the age of 30 living in the United States
• The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the developed world.
• The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world although the numbers have declined in recent years due to the use of contraceptives.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world. The criminal justice system in the United States holds more than 4,166,000 people in 1,719 state prisons, 102,000 in federal prisons, 901,000 in juvenile correctional facilities, and 3,163,000 in local jails. Additionally, 5,203,400 adults are on probation or on parole.
The number of people on probation or parole has increased the population of the American corrections system to more than 9,369,400 in 2017. Corrections costs the American taxpayer $69 billion a year.
There are a huge number of American domestic and business mortgages, (67 million by conservative estimate) which have been sliced up, put into so-called “investment packages” and sold to customers both domestic and foreign. This problem has been covered up by American authorities by cloaking the facts in something called MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System)
This results in the fact that the holders of mortgages, so chopped and packed, are not possible to identify by MERS or anyone else, at any time and by any agency. This means that any property holder, be they a domestic home owner or a business owner, is paying their monthly fees for property they can never own.
Another festering problem consists of the official loans made to students in colleges and universities in the U.S. the predatory nature of the $90 billion student loan industry. These so-called student loans are the most serious economic problem faced today by American university students.
This problem arose due to federal legislation originating in the mid-1990s which effectively removed basic consumer protections from student loans, thus permitting extensive penalties and the methodology for enforced collection.
Because of the highly inflated cost of higher American education, very few students from high school can afford university education. The new college graduate has, on average, a student loan in excess of $20,000 and students attending graduate programs have average debts of over $40,000.
America today has seriously failing public school systems. Upper economic class Americans are able to send their children to expensive private schools and avoid the exceedingly incompetent public systems. The average American lower school graduates are only a step above illiteracy and their lack of knowledge of world affairs is quite unbelievable.
A small number of extremely wealthy men control and operate all of the major American print and television media.
Each of the few very powerful, rich men have their own reasons for deciding what qualifies as news.
But the public in America now gets its news, without cost, from various internet sites and the circulation number of major print news has dropped dramatically. This has forced the internet editions of the print news media to erect what they call “paywalls.” This permits a very limited number of articles to be read or downloaded before the system demands money for the use of additional material.
The major print media in America is faced with imminent bankruptcy and are making frantic efforts at attempts to prevent free news sites from being aired on the internet.
Government surveillance of the American public is very widespread and at the present time, almost every aspect of an American citizen, or resident, is available for official surveillance. This includes mail, television viewing, telephone conversations, computer communications, travel, ownership of property, medical and school records, banking and credit card transactions, inheritances and other aspects of a citizen’s daily life.
This is done to circumvent any possible organization that could contravene official government policy and has its roots in massive civil resistance to governmental policy during the war in Vietnam. The government does not want a reprise of that problem and its growing surveillance is designed to carefully watch any citizen, or groups of citizens, who might, present or future, pose a threat to government policy.
Another factor to be considered is the current American attitudes towards racial issues. There has always been prejudice in the United States against blacks. In 1943 there were bloody riots in Detroit and Los Angeles, the former aimed at blacks and the latter against Mexicans. Since then, there has been chronic racial prejudice but it has been relatively small and very local. Also, there is growing anti-Semitic prejudice in American but this is officially ignored and never is mentioned in the American media. Much of this growing problem is directed at the brutal actions of Israel against Palestinians. Israelis have an undue influence in the American political scene. The very far right so-called neo-cons are almost all Jewish and most are Israeli citizens. Also, the middle-level ranks of American CIA personnel are heavily infiltrated by Israelis and it is said that any secret the CIA has is at once passed to Israel and that countries needs are assuming importance in CIA actions.
The attitudes of the working class Americans were inflamed during the last presidential elections by Mr. Trump who catered to them and encouraged rebellious attitudes. By speaking against Central American illegal immigrants, Mr. Trump has caused a polarization of attitudes and the militant right wing in America, currently small in number but well-organized and potentially very dangerous, has begun to make its views very well known in public demonstrations.
This movement has played into the hands of far-right American political manipulators.
It is their intention to clandestinely arm these groups and use them to cause violent public confrontations with the far left groups.
By causing this potential violence, the manipulators intend to use the American military to move into unstable area to, as they say, ‘establish law and order’ while in reality, they will use martial law to firm up their basic control of a potentially fractious public.
It is then intended, according to information, to incorporate organized, para-military groups into a sort of domestic Federal police force. These people will not be punished for their actions but rewarded and utilized to ensure further right-wing control of the country.

The Pentagon’s Bio-Weapons

The US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN Convention on the prohibition of Biological Weapons. Hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases. Bio warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program– Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.
The Lugar Center, Republic of Georgia
The US Army has been deployed to Vaziani Military Air Base, 17 km away from the Pentagon bio-laboratory at The Lugar Center.
Georgia is a testing ground for bioweapons
The Lugar Center is the Pentagon bio laboratory in Georgia. It is located just 17 km away from the US Vaziani military airbase in the capital Tbilisi. Tasked with the military program are biologists from the US Army Medical Research Unit-Georgia (USAMRU-G) along with private contractors. The Bio-safety Level 3 Laboratory is accessible only to US citizens with security clearance. They are accorded diplomatic immunity under the 2002 US-Georgia Agreement on defense cooperation.
The USA-Georgia agreement accords diplomatic status to the US military and civilian personnel (including diplomatic vehicles), working on the Pentagon program in Georgia.
Information obtained from the US federal contracts registry clarifies some of the military activities at The Lugar Center – among them research on bio- agents (anthrax, tularemia) and viral diseases (e.g. Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever), and the collection of biological samples for future experiments.
Pentagon contractors produce bio agents under diplomatic cover
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has outsourced much of the work under the military program to private companies, which are not held accountable to Congress, and which can operate more freely and move around the rule of law. US civilian personnel performing work at The Lugar Center have also been given diplomatic immunity, although they are not diplomats. Hence, private companies can perform work, under diplomatic cover, for the US government without being under the direct control of the host state – in this case the Republic of Georgia. This practice is often used by the CIA to provide cover for its agents.
Three private American companies work at the US bio-laboratory in Tbilisi – CH2M Hill, Battelle and Metabiota. In addition to the Pentagon, these private contractors perform biological research for the CIA and various other government agencies.
CH2M Hill has been awarded $341.5 million DTRA contracts under the Pentagon’s program for bio-laboratories in Georgia, Uganda, Tanzania, Iraq, Afghanistan, South East Asia. Half of this sum ($161.1 million), being allocated to The Lugar Center, under the Georgian contract.
According to CH2M Hill, the US Company has secured biological agents and employed former bio warfare scientists at The Lugar Center. These are scientists who are working for another American company involved in the military program in Georgia – Battelle Memorial Institute.
Battelle as a $59 million subcontractor at Lugar Center has extensive experience in research on bio-agents, as the company has already worked on the US Bio-weapons Program under 11 previous contracts with the US Army (1952-1966).
The private company performs work for the Pentagon’s DTRA bio laboratories in Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia, Uganda, Tanzania, Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Battelle conducts research, development, testing, and evaluation using both highly toxic chemicals and highly pathogenic biological agents for a wide range of US government agencies. It has been awarded some $2 billion federal contracts in total and ranks 23 on the Top 100 US government contractors list.
The CIA-Battelle Project Clear Vision
Project Clear Vision (1997 and 2000), a joint investigation by the CIA and the Battelle Memorial Institute, under a contract awarded by the Agency, reconstructed and tested a Soviet-era anthrax bomblet in order to test its dissemination characteristics. The project’s stated goal was to assess bio-agents dissemination characteristics of bomblets. The clandestine CIA-Battelle operation was omitted from the US Biological Weapons Convention declarations submitted to the UN.
Top Secret Experiments
Battelle has operated a Top Secret Bio laboratory (National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center – NBACC) at Fort Detrick, Maryland under a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract for the last decade. The company has been awarded a $344.4 million federal contract (2006 – 2016) and another $17.3 million contract (2015 -2026) by DHS.
Amongst the secret experiments, performed by Battelle at NBACC, are: Assessment of powder dissemination technology ; Assessment of hazard posed by aerosolized toxins and Assessment of virulence of B. Pseudomallei (Meliodosis) as a function of aerosol particle in non-human primates. Melioidosis has the potential to be developed as a biological weapon, hence, it is classed as a category B. Bioterrorism Agent. B. Pseudomallei was studied by the US as a potential bioweapon in the past.
Besides the military experiments at the Lugar Center in Georgia, Battelle has already produced bioterrorism agents at the Biosafety Level 4 NBACC Top Secret Laboratory at Fort Detrick in the US. A NBACC presentation lists 16 research priorities for the lab. Amongst them to characterize classical, emerging and genetically engineered pathogens for their BTA (biological threat agent) potential; assess the nature of nontraditional, novel and non-endemic induction of disease from potential BTA and to expand aerosol-challenge testing capacity for non-human primates.
Pentagon biolabs at the epicenter of the Ebola crisis
The US Company Metabiota Inc. has been awarded $18.4 million federal contracts under the Pentagon’s DTRA program in Georgia and Ukraine for scientific and technical consulting services.
Metabiota services include global field-based biological threat research, pathogen discovery, outbreak response and clinical trials.
Metabiota Inc. had been contracted by the Pentagon to perform work for DTRA before and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa and was awarded $3.1 million (2012-2015) for work in Sierra Leone – one of the countries at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
Metabiota worked on a Pentagon’s project at the epicenter of the Ebola crisis, where three US biolabs are situated.
A July 17, 2014 report drafted by the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium, accused Metabiota Inc. of failing to abide by an existing agreement on how to report test results and for bypassing the Sierra Leonean scientists working there. The report also raised the possibility that Metabiota was culturing blood cells at the lab, something the report said was dangerous, as well as misdiagnosing healthy patients. All of those allegations were denied by Metabiota.
Military Experiments on biting insects
Entomological warfare is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to transmit diseases. The Pentagon has allegedly performed such entomological tests in Georgia and Russia.
Biting Flies in Georgia
In 2014 The Lugar Center was equipped with an insect facility and launched a project “Raising Awareness about Barcoding of Sand Flies in Georgia and Caucasus”. The project covered a larger geographic area outside of Georgia – Caucasus. In 2014-2015 Phlebotomine sand fly species were collected under another project “Surveillance Work on Acute Febrile Illness” and all (female) sand flies were tested to determine their infectivity rate. A third project, also including sand flies collection, studied the characteristics of their salivary glands.
As a result Tbilisi has been infested with biting flies since 2015. These biting insects live indoors, in bathrooms, all year long, which was not the typical behaviour of these species in Georgia previously (normally the Phlebotomine fly season in Georgia is exceptionally short – from June to September). Local people complain of being bitten by these newly appeared flies while naked in their bathrooms. They also have a strong resistance to cold and can survive even in the sub-zero temperatures in the mountains.
Since the start of the Pentagon project in 2014 flies similar to those in Georgia have appeared in neighboring Dagestan (Russia). According to local people, they bite and cause rashes. Their breeding habitats are house drains.
Flies from the Phlebotomine family carry dangerous parasites in their saliva which they transmit through a bite to humans. The disease, which these flies carry, is of high interest to the Pentagon. In 2003 during the US invasion of Iraq American soldiers were severely bitten by sand flies and contracted Leishmoniasis. The disease is native to Iraq and Afghanistan and if left untreated the acute form of Leishmoniasis can be fatal.
A 1967 US Army report “Arthropods of medical importance in Asia and the European USSR” lists all local insects, their distribution and the diseases that they carry. Biting flies, which live in drains, are also listed in the document. Their natural habitats, though, are the Philippines, not Georgia or Russia.
In 1970 and 1972, Sand Fly Fever tests were performed on humans according to a declassified US Army report – US Army Activities in the US, Biological Warfare Programs, 1977, vol. II, p. 203. During operation Whitecoat volunteers were exposed to bites by infected sand flies. Operation Whitecoat was a bio-defense medical research program carried out by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland between 1954 and 1973.
Despite the official termination of the US bio-weapons program, in 1982 USAMRIID performed an experiment if sand flies and mosquitoes could be vectors of Rift Valley Virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Eastern Equine Encephalitis – viruses, which the US Army researched for their potential as bio-weapons.
Killer Insects
A. Aegypti
The Pentagon has a long history in using insects as vectors for diseases. According to a partially declassified 1981 US Army report, American bio warfare scientists carried out a number of experiments on insects. These operations were part of the US Entomological Warfare under the Program for Biological Weapons of the US.
The Pentagon: How to kill 625,000 people for just $0.29 cost per death
A US Army report in 1981 compared two scenarios – 16 simultaneous attacks on a city by A. Aegypti mosquitoes, infected with Yellow Fever, and Tularemia aerosol attack, and assesses their effectiveness in cost and casualties.
Operation Big Itch: Field tests were performed to determine coverage patterns and survivability of the tropical rat flea Xenopsylla cheopis for use as a disease vector in biological warfare.
Operation Big Buzz: 1 million A. Aegypti mosquitoes were produced, 1/3 were placed in munitions and dropped from aircraft, or dispersed on the ground. The mosquitoes survived the airdrop and actively sought out human blood.
Source: Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as a potential Danger to the US and European NATO nations, US Army, March 1981 Report
Operation May Day: Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes were dispersed through ground based methods in Georgia, USA, during a US Army operation codenamed May Day.
Parts of the 1981 US Army report such as the “Mass production of Aedes Aegypti” have not been declassified, potentially meaning that the project is still ongoing.
Aedes Aegypti, also known as yellow fever mosquito, have been widely used in US military operations. The same species of mosquitoes are alleged to be the vectors of dengue, chikungunya and the Zika virus, which causes genetic malformations in newborns
Operation Bellweather
The US Army Chemical Research and Development Command, Biological Weapons Branch, studied outdoor mosquito biting activity in a number of field tests at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, in 1960. Virgin female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which had been starved, were tested upon troops out in the open air.
For reference: Outdoor Mosquito Biting Activity Studies, Project Bellweather I, 1960, Technical Report, US Army, Dugway Proving Ground
Military Experiments with Tropical Mosquitoes and Ticks in Georgia
Such species of mosquitoes and fleas (studied in the past under the US Entomological Warfare Program) have also been collected in Georgia and tested at The Lugar Center.
Under the DTRA project “Virus and Other Arboviruses in Georgia” in 2014 the never-before-seen tropical mosquito Aedes albopictus was detected for the first time and after decades (60 years) the existence of Aedes Aegypti mosquito was confirmed in West Georgia.
Aedes Albopictus is a vector of many viral pathogens, Yellow fever virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika.
These tropical mosquitoes Aedes Albopictus having never been seen before in Georgia, have also been detected in neighboring Russia (Krasnodar) and Turkey, According to data provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Their spread is unusual for this part of the world.
Aedes Aegypti Mosquitoes have been distributed only in Georgia, Southern Russia and Northern Turkey. They were detected for the first time in 2014 after the start of the Pentagon program at The Lugar Center.
Under another DTRA project “Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia” (2013-2016) 6,148 ground ticks were collected ; 5,871 were collected off the cattle and 1,310 fleas and 731 ticks were caught. In 2016 a further 21 590 ticks were collected and studied at The Lugar Center.
Anthrax Outbreak in Georgia and NATO Human Trials
In 2007 Georgia ended its policy of having compulsory annual livestock anthrax vaccination. As a result, the morbidity rate of the disease reached its peak in 2013. The same year NATO started human based anthrax vaccine tests at The Lugar Center in Georgia.
In 2007 despite the anthrax outbreak the Georgian government terminated the compulsory vaccination for 7 years, 2013 saw NATO start human trials on a new anthrax vaccine in Georgia.
Pentagon Research on Russian Anthrax
Anthrax is one of the bio agents weaponized by the US Army in the past. Despite the Pentagon’s claims that its program is only defensive, there are facts to the contrary. In 2016 at The Lugar Center American scientists carried out research on the “Genome Sequence of the Soviet/Russian Bacillus anthracis Vaccine Strain 55-VNIIVViM”, which was funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program in Tbilisi, and administered by Metabiota (the US contractor under the Pentagon program in Georgia).
In 2017 the DTRA funded further research – Ten Genome Sequences of Human and Livestock Isolates of Bacillus anthracis from the Country of Georgia, which was performed by USAMRU-G at The Lugar Center.
34 people intentionally infected with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) in Georgia
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is caused by infection through a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus). The disease was first characterized in Crimea in 1944 and given the name Crimean hemorrhagic fever. It was then later recognized in 1969 as the cause of illness in Congo, thus resulting in the current name of the disease. In 2014 34 people became infected (among which a 4-year old child) with CCHF. 3 of which died. The same year Pentagon biologists studied the virus in Georgia under the DTRA project “Epidemiology of febrile illnesses caused by Dengue viruses and other Arboviruses in Georgia”. The project included tests on patients with fever symptoms and the collection of ticks, as possible vectors of CCHV for laboratory analysis.
Source: NCDC-Georgia
The cause of the CCHF outbreak in Georgia is still unknown. According to the local Veterinary Department report, only one tick from all of the collected species from the infected villages tested positive for the disease. Despite the claims of the local authorities that the virus was transmitted to humans from animals, all animal blood samples were negative too. The lack of infected ticks and animals is inexplicable given the sharp increase of CCHF human cases in 2014, meaning that the outbreak was not natural and the virus was spread intentionally.
In 2016 another 21 590 ticks were collected for DNA database for future studies at The Lugar Center under the Pentagon project “Assessing the Seroprevalence and Genetic Diversity of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV) and Hantaviruses in Georgia”.
Symptoms of CCHF
Military bio-lab blamed for deadly CCHF outbreak in Afghanistan
237 cases of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) have also been reported across Afghanistan, 41 of which were fatal as of December 2017. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Health most of the cases have been registered in the capital Kabul where 71 cases have been reported with 13 fatalities, and in the province of Herat near the border with Iran (67 cases).
Afghanistan is one of 25 countries across the world with Pentagon bio-laboratories on their territory. The project in Afghanistan is part of the US bio-defense program – Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), which is funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The DTRA contractors, working at The Lugar Center in Georgia, CH2M Hill and Battelle have also been contracted for the program in Afghanistan. CH2M Hill has been awarded a $10.4 million contract (2013-2017). The Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan and Georgia are the same and so are the diseases which are spreading among the local population in both countries.
Why the Pentagon collects and studies bats
Bats are the reservoir hosts to the Ebola Virus , Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and other deadly diseases. However, the precise ways these viruses are transmitted to humans are currently unknown. Numerous studies have been performed under the DTRA Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP) in a search for deadly pathogens of military importance in bats.
Bats have been blamed for the deadly Ebola outbreak in Africa (2014-2016). However, no conclusive evidence of exactly how the virus “jumped” to humans has ever been provided, which raises suspicions of intentional and not natural infection.
Engineering deadly viruses is legal in the US
MERS-CoV is thought to originate from bats and spread directly to humans and/or camels. However, like Ebola, the precise ways the virus spreads are unknown.
1,980 cases with 699 deaths were reported in 15 countries across the world (as of June 2017) caused by MERS-CoV.
3 to 4 out of every 10 patients reported with MERS have died. Source: WHO
MERS-CoV is one of the viruses that have been engineered by the US and studied by the Pentagon, as well as Influenza and SARS. Confirmation of this practice is Obama’s 2014 temporary ban on government funding for such “dual-use” research. The moratorium was lifted in 2017 and experiments have continued. Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (PPPs) experiments are legal in the US.
Such experiments aim to increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens.
Tularemia as Bioweapon
Tularemia, also known as Rabbit Fever, is classified as a bioterrorism agent and was developed in the past as such by the US. However, the Pentagon’s research on tularemia continues, as well as on possible vectors of the bacteria such as ticks and rodents which cause the disease. The DTRA has launched a number of projects on Tularemia along with other especially dangerous pathogens in Georgia. Especially Dangerous Pathogens (EDPs), or select agents, represent a major concern for the public health globally. These highly pathogenic agents have the potential to be weaponized with proof of their military importance seen through the following Pentagon projects: Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia (2013-2016) (60 000 vectors were collected for strain isolates and genome research); Epidemiology of Human Tularemia in Georgia and Human Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance of Especially Dangerous Pathogens in Georgia (study of select agents among patients with undifferentiated fever and hemorrhagic fever/septic shock).
F. Tularensis is a highly infectious bacterium and has the potential to be weaponized for use through aerosol attacks.
Tularemia is one of the bio-weapons that the US Army developed in the past.
The DoD Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has funded 11 bio-laboratories in the former Soviet Union Country Ukraine, bordering on Russia.
The US military program is sensitive information
Ukraine has no control over the military bio-laboratories on its own territory. According to the 2005 Agreement between the US DoD and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine the Ukrainian government is prohibited from public disclosure of sensitive information about the US program and Ukraine is obliged to transfer to the US Department of Defense (DoD) dangerous pathogens for biological research. The Pentagon has been granted access to certain state secrets of Ukraine in connection with the projects under their agreement.
Biowarfare scientists under diplomatic cover
Among the set of bilateral agreements between the US and Ukraine is the establishment of the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU) – an International organization funded mainly by the US government which has been accorded diplomatic status. The STCU officially supports projects of scientists previously involved in the Soviet biological weapons program. Over the past 20 years the STCU has invested over $285 million in funding and managing some 1,850 projects of scientists who previously worked on the development of weapons of mass destruction.
364 Ukrainians died from Swine Flu
One of the Pentagon laboratories is located in Kharkiv, where in January 2016 at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers died from Flu-like virus in just two days with 200 more being hospitalized. The Ukrainian government did not report on the dead Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkiv. As of March 2016 364 deaths have been reported across Ukraine (81.3 % caused by Swine Flu A (H1N1) pdm09 – the same strain which caused the world pandemic in 2009).
According to DPR intelligence information the US bio lab in Kharkiv leaked the deadly virus.
Police investigate infection with incurable disease
A highly suspicious Hepatitis A infection spread rapidly in just few months across South East Ukraine where most of the Pentagon biolabs are located.
37 people have been hospitalized for Hepatitis A in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv as of January 2018. Local police have launched an investigation into “infection with human immunodeficiency virus and other incurable diseases”. Three years ago more than 100 people in the same city became infected with Cholera. Both diseases are alleged to have spread through contaminated drinking water.
In the summer of 2017 60 people with Hepatitis A were admitted to hospital in the city of Zaporizhia, the cause of this outbreak is still unknown.
In the Odessa region, 19 children from an orphanage were hospitalized for hepatitis A in June 2017.
29 cases of Hepatitis A were reported in Kharkiv in November 2017. The virus was isolated in contaminated drinking water. One of the Pentagon bio-labs is located in Kharkiv which was blamed for the deadly Flu outbreak a year ago which claimed the lives of 364 Ukrainians.
Ukraine and Russia hit by new highly virulent cholera infection
In 2011 Ukraine was hit by a cholera outbreak. 33 patients were reportedly hospitalized for severe diarrhea. A second outbreak struck the country in 2014 when more than 800 people all across Ukraine were reported to have contracted the disease. In 2015 at least 100 new cases were registered in the city of Mykolaiv alone.
A new highly virulent variant of the cholera agent Vibrio cholera, with a high genetic similarity to the strains reported in Ukraine, hit Moscow in 2014. According to a 2014 Russian Research Anti-Plaque Institute genetic study the cholera strain isolated in Moscow was similar to the bacteria which caused the epidemic in neighboring Ukraine.
Southern Research Institute one of the US contractors working at the bio-laboratoriesin Ukraine, has projects on Cholera, as well as on Influenza and Zika – all pathogens of military importance to the Pentagon.
Along with Southern Research Institute, two other private American companies operate military bio-labs in Ukraine – Black&Veatch and Metabiota.
Black & Veatch Special Project Corp. was awarded $198.7 million DTRA contracts to build and operate bio-laboratories in Ukraine (under two 5-year contracts in 2008 and 2012 totaling $128.5 million), as well as in Germany, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Thailand, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Armenia.
Metabiota has been awarded a $18.4 million federal contract under the program in Georgia and Ukraine. This US company was also contracted to perform work for the DTRA before and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa, the company was awarded $3.1 million (2012-2015) for work in Sierra Leone .
Southern Research Institute has been a prime subcontractor under the DTRA program in Ukraine since 2008. The company was also a prime Pentagon contractor in the past under the US Biological Weapons Program for research and development of bio-agents with 16 contracts between 1951 and 1962.
Southern Research Institute was also a subcontractor on a Pentagon program for anthrax research in 2001. The prime contractor being Advanced Biosystems, whose president at that time was Ken Alibek (a former Soviet microbiologist and biological warfare expert from Kazakhstan who defected to the US in 1992).
Ken Alibek
Ken Alibek was the First Deputy Director of Biopreparat, where he oversaw a program for biological weapon facilities and was the Soviet Union’s main expert on anthrax. After his defection to the US, he was engaged on Pentagon research projects.
$250 000 for lobbying Jeff Sessions for “research for US intelligence”
Southern Research Institute lobbied the US Congress and US Department of State hard for “issues related to research and development for US intelligence” and “defense related research and development”. The lobbying activities coincided with the start of the Pentagon projects on bio-labs in Ukraine and other former Soviet states.
The company paid $ 250 000 for lobbying the then Senator Jeff Sessions in 2008-2009 (currently the US Attorney General appointed by Donald Trump), when the institute was awarded a number of federal contracts.
Watson Donald
For a 10-year period (2006-2016) Southern Research Institute paid $1.28 million for lobbying the US Senate, House of Representatives , the State Department and the Department of Defense (DoD). Senator Jeff Sessions’ aide on Capitol Hill – Watson Donald, is now a Senior Director at Southern Research Institute.
Police investigate Botulism toxin poisoning in Ukraine
119 Botulism cases, with 12 deaths, were reported in Ukraine in 2016.
In 2017 the Ukrainian Ministry of Health confirmed a further 90 new cases, with 8 deaths, of botulinum toxin poisoning (one of the most poisonous biological substances known). According to the local health authorities, the cause of the outbreak was food poisoning into which police launched an investigation .
The Ukrainian government stopped supplying antitoxin in 2014 and no botulism vaccines in stock were available during the 2016-2017 outbreak.
Botulism is a rare and extremely dangerous illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
1 gm of the toxin can kill as many as 1 million people
Botulinum neurotoxin poses a major bio-weapon threat because of its extreme potency, ease of production and transport. It causes muscles paralyses, respiratory failure and ultimately death if not treated immediately. A single gram of crystalline toxin, evenly dispersed and inhaled can kill more than one million people. It could be disseminated via aerosol, or by contamination of water and/ or food supplies.
Botulinum Toxin was tested as a bio-weapon by the US Army in the past, as well as Anthrax, Brucella and Tularemia. Although the US bio-weapons program was officially terminated in 1969 documents show that the military experiments have never ended. Presently the Pentagon produces and tests live bio- agents at the same military facility as it did in the past – Dugway Proving Ground.
Bioweapons factory in the US
The US Army produces and tests bio-agents at a special military facility located at Dugway Proving Ground ( West Desert Test Center, Utah), as proven in a 2012 US Army Report. The facility is overseen by the Army Test and Evaluation Command.
The Life Sciences Division (LSD) at Dugway Proving Ground is tasked with the production of bio-agents. According to the Army report, scientists from this division produce and test aerosolized bio-agents at Lothar Saloman Life Sciences Test Facility (LSTF).
Lothar Saloman Life Sciences Test Facility (LSTF) where bio-terrorism agents are produced and aerosolized.
Biological Agents produced by the US Army at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, USA
The Life Sciences Division consists of an Aerosol Technology branch and a Microbiology Branch. The Aerosol Technology Branch aerosolizes biological agents and simulants. The Microbiology branch produces toxins, bacteria, viruses and agent-like organisms which are used in chamber and field testing.
The fermentation laboratories at the Life Sciences Test Facility grow bacteria in fermentors ranging from a small 2 L to a large 1500 L system. The fermentors are tailored specifically to the requirements of the microorganism that is being engineered – pH, temperature, light, pressure, and nutrient concentrations that give the microorganism optimal growth rates.
After the bio-agents are produced, the scientists challenge them at containment aerosol chambers.
Aerosol experiments with Botulinum Neurotoxin and Anthrax
Documents prove that the US Army produces, possesses and tests aerosols of the most lethal toxin in the world – Botulinum Neurotoxin. In 2014 the Department of the Army purchased 100 mg of Botulinum Toxin from Metabiologics for tests at Dugway Proving Ground.
The experiments date back to 2007 when an unspecified quantity of the toxin was procured to the Department of the Army by the same company – Metabiologics. According to the 2012 West Desert Test Center Report, the military facility performs tests with Botulinum Neurotoxin Aerosol, as well as with aerosolized Anthrax, Yersinia pestis, and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus (VEE).
Outdoor field test programs at Dugway Proving Ground
US Army documents and photos show that the Pentagon has developed various dissemination methods for bioterrorism attacks including by explosives.Dissemination of contaminants for biological/chemical tests.
The US Army report lists numerous dissemination techniques including by bio-aerosol sprayers. Such sprayers called Micronair disseminators have already been developed by the US Army and tested at Dugway Proving Ground. According to the documents, they can be vehicle-mounted, or worn as a backpack, with a pump system which can be fitted to the unit to increase the accuracy of the release. Micronair sprayers can release 50 to 500 mL of bio-liquid simulant per minute from 12 L tanks.
The US stole bacteria from Saddam Hussein’s bio weapons factory
Bacillus thuringiensis is an insect pathogen that is widely used as a bio-pesticide. B. thuringiensis (BT) Al Hakam was collected in Iraq by the UN Special Commission led by the US in 2003. It is named after Al Hakam – Iraq’s bio-weapons production facility. Apart from Pentagon field tests, this bacterium is also used in the US for the production of GM corn, resistant to pests. Photos posted by the CIA prove that the bacteria was collected by the US in Iraq. According to the CIA, the vials containing bio-pesticide, were recovered from an Al Hakam scientist’s home.
CIA: A total of 97 vials-including those with labels consistent with the al Hakam cover stories of single-cell protein and bio-pesticides, as well as strains that could be used to produce BW agents were recovered from a scientist’s residence in Iraq in 2003.
Bacillus thuringiensis
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) federal project for laboratory analysis and field tests with bacteria. Source: govtribe.com
The tests are performed on Kirtland Air Force Base (Kirtland is the home of the Air Force Materiel Command’s Nuclear Weapons Center). Here weapons are being tested, meaning that the field tests with biological simulants (bacteria) also fall into this group.
The DTRA contractor on this project – Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute (LBERI), operates an Animal Bio-safety 3 Level (ABSL-3) laboratory which has Select Agent status. The facility is designed to conduct bioaerosol studies. The company has been awarded a 5-year contract for field tests with biological simulants at Kirtland Air Force Base.
Field tests with Biological Simulants (bacteria)
What the Pentagon is now doing is exactly what it did in the past, meaning that its bio-weapons program was never terminated. The US Army performed 27 field tests with such biological simulants, involving the public domain from1949 to 1968, when President Nixon officially announced the end of the program.
Field tests in Chechnya
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which runs the US military program at the Lugar Center in Georgia, is alleged to have already performed field tests with an unknown substance in Chechnya, Russia. In the spring of 2017 local citizens reported on a drone disseminating white powder close to the Russian border with Georgia. Neither the Georgian border police, nor the US personnel operating on the Georgia-Russia border, commented on this information.
$9.2 million US military project on Russia-Georgia border
DTRA has full access to the Russia-Georgia border, granted under a military program called “Georgia Land Border Security Project”. The activities, related to the project have been outsourced to a private American company – Parsons Government Services International. DTRA has previously contracted Parsons for similar border security projects in Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Syria. Parsons have been awarded a $9.2 million contract under the Pentagon border security project on the Russia-Georgia border.
Local citizens in Chechnya noticed a UAV sprayer near the Russian border with Georgia in 2017.
US Defense Agency tests GM Insects to transmit GM Viruses
The Pentagon has invested at least $65 million in gene editing. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded 7 research teams to develop tools for genome engineering in insects, rodents and bacteria under DARPA’s Safe Gene program, using a novel CRISPR-Cas9 technology.
Under another military program –Insect Allies, GM insects are engineered to transfer modified genes to plants. The $10.3 million DARPA project includes both gene editing in insects and in the viruses that they transmit. Ecological Niche-preference Engineering is a third ongoing military program for genome engineering in insects. The Pentagon’s stated objective is to engineer GM organisms so that they can resist certain temperatures, change their habitat and food sources.
Genetically engineered humans
Besides gene editing in insects and in the viruses they transmit, the Pentagon wants to engineer humans as well.
DARPA Advanced Tools for Mammalian Genome Engineering Project seeks to create a biological platform inside the human body, using it to deliver new genetic information, and thus altering humans at the DNA level.
The Pentagon Bio-WeaponsDARPA wants to insert an additional 47th artificial chromosome into human cells. This chromosome will deliver new genes that will be used for engineering the human body. SynPloid Biotek LLChas been awarded two contracts under the program totaling $1.1 million (2015-2016 – $ 100,600 for the first phase of the research; 2015-2017 – $ 999,300 for work which is not specified in the federal contracts registry. The company has only two employees and no previous record on bio-research.
Top Secret Research on Synthetic Viruses
Between 2008 and 2014, the United States invested approximately $820 million in synthetic biology research, Defense being a major contributor. Much of the military projects on synthetic biology are classified, among them are a number of classified studies by the secretive JASON group of US military advisors – e.g. Emerging Viruses and Genome Editing for the Pentagon, and Synthetic Viruses for the National Counterterrorism Center.
JASON is an independent scientific advisory group that provides consulting services to the U.S. government on matters of defense science and technology. It was established in 1960 and most of their resulting JASON reports are classified. For administrative purposes, the JASON’s projects are run by the MITRE Corporation, which has contracts with the Defense Department, CIA and the FBI. Since 2014 MITRE has been awarded some $27.4 million in contracts with the DoD.
Although the JASON Reports are classified, another US Air Force study titled Biotechnology: Genetically Engineered Pathogens, sheds some light on what the secretive JASON group has researched – 5 groups of genetically engineered pathogens that can be used as bio-weapons. These are binary biological weapons (a lethal combination of two viruses), host swapping diseases (animal viruses that “jump” to humans, like the Ebola virus), stealth viruses, and designer diseases. Designer diseases can be engineered to target a certain ethnic group, meaning that they can be used as ethnic bio-weapons.
Ethnic Bioweapons
Ethnic biological weapon (biogenetic weapon) is a theoretical weapon that aims to primarily harm people of specific ethnicities, or genotypes.
Although officially the research and development of ethnic bio-weapons have never been publicly confirmed, documents show that the US collects biological material from certain ethnic groups – Russians and Chinese.
The US Air Force has been specifically collecting Russian RNA and synovial tissue samples, raising fears in Moscow of a covert US ethnic bio-weapons program.
Apart from Russians, the US has been collecting biological material from both healthy and cancer patients in China. The National Cancer Institute has collected biological samples from 300 subjects from Linxian, Zhengzhou, and Chengdu in China. While another federal project, titled Serum Metabolic biomarkers discovery study of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in China, includes analysis of 349 serum samples which have been collected from Chinese patients.
The US National Cancer Institute has been collecting biological material from patients of the Chinese Cancer Hospital in Beijing.
Chinese biological material has been collected under a series of federal projects including saliva and cancer tissue. Among them, Genotyping DNA Samples from Lymphoma cases and from controls (healthy patients), Breast cancer tissue blocks from breast cancer patients, Saliva samples of 50 families who have 3 or more cases of UGI cancer, Genotype 50 SNP’S for DNA samples from the Cancer Hospital, Beijing, Genotypes from 3000 cases of gastric cancer and 3000 controls (healthy patients) in Beijing.
Tobacco Vaccines
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has invested $100 million in vaccines production from tobacco plants.
The companies, involved in the project, are owned by the biggest American tobacco companies – Mediacago Inc. is co-owned by Philip Morris and Kentucky BioProcessing, a subsidiary of Reynolds American which is owned by British American Tobacco. Currently they are producing Flu and Ebola vaccines from tobacco plants.
The $100 million program Blue Angel was launched as a response to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. Medicago being awarded $21 million to produce 10, 000 million doses of an influenza vaccine within one month.
Blue Angel program manager Dr. John Julias explains: “Although there are multiple plant species and other organisms being explored as alternative protein production platforms, the US Government has continued to make an investment in tobacco-based manufacturing.”
The plant-based vaccine production method works by isolating a specific antigen protein that triggers a human immune response from the targeted virus. A gene from the protein is transferred to bacteria, whichis used to infect plants. The plants then start producing the protein that will be used for vaccinations.
It is not clear why the Pentagon choses to invest in vaccines produced from tobacco plants amongst all other plant species, which they explored. Medicago, co-owned by Philip Morris, paid $495,000 for lobbying the Department of Defense, the Congress and The Department of Health and Human Services for “funding to advance technology to support public health preparedness applications”. The Pentagon funded tobacco companies to develop new technology and to profit from vaccines.
Biological Experiments are war crimes
Article 8 of The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court (ICC) defines biological experiments as war crimes. The US, however, is not a state party to the international treaty, and cannot be held accountable for its war crimes.