Before Collapse, Credit Suisse Quietly Conquered an Obscure Debt Market – Debt-for-nature Swaps

Bloomberg

March 21, 2023

WATCH: Negating Colonial Lies About Russia

Streamed live on March 20, 2022.

 

Continued discussion on Russia’s defensive war in Ukraine against the global colonial powers.

“The attitude of the Russians were quite different because they are not attitudes that were born, that came from, [that] developed from slavery and colonialism like you find in the so-called West where the colonialism and slavery has its origins, and that continues to dominate the consciousness of white people, here, now. That’s why you see the white left, the so-called leftists in the United States, they are white nationalists. Most of them are like colonialist leftists. They are left colonizers and they’re not, generally speaking, able to unite against the oppression of the peoples of the world – including unite with Russia in this defensive war that is fighting against the United States through Ukraine…

This propaganda against Russia extends beyond just the war – the Russian people are being targeted in various places in the free world, in the colonial world. The fact of the matter is that this left, this left that comrade Tasha is talking about, this left that supports Ukraine,
is the same left that Lenin was criticizing more than a hundred years ago. It’s the same left. It’s an opportunist left. It’s a colonial base left. So it’s nothing new with how this left is acting. In the United States, or in much of Europe. This left supported French colonialism. At the same time the French claimed to be fighting against colonialism, fascism, in the 1940s – they were oppressing and killing black people in in Algeria – and and they continued to control something like fifteen different countries in Africa today under colonialism. And the communists of those countries supported that. They worked with that. So there’s a difference in a struggle against colonialism. If you don’t understand that – that the entire foundation of so-called western civilization rests upon colonial domination of Black people and other oppressed peoples around the world – that’s why we stand with Russia.”  — Chairman Omali Yeshitela

 

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Chairman Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), Alexander Ionov, President, Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, LIVE from Moscow, Luwezi Kinshasa, Secretary General, African Socialist International (ASI) and Tafarie Mugeri, Director of Organization, ASI Africa Region.

 

 

WATCH: Russia & Ukraine – What’s Really Happening? [Feb 23, 2022]

LISTEN: Dr. Mordecai Ogada – A Case for Scrutinizing the Climate Narrative

Death in the Garden

November 13, 2021

Podcasts by Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan

 

 

 

“On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” as COP26 ends in Glasgow, Jake and Maren share their second interview with Dr. Mordecai Ogada, carnivore ecologist, activist for the Decolonization of Conservation, and co-author of The Big Conservation Lie. In our previous conversation with Mordecai, he mentioned the “Our Land, Our Nature” congress in Marseille, which we were lucky enough to attend and acquire this interview in person. This time we go deep into speculating about the more nefarious side of the global climate change narrative, including the obsession with the fertility of African women, the prospect of protected areas being refuges for elites, the establishment of decentralized colonies headed by colonizing NGOs, and conservation being a smoke screen for extraction and industry.

In a time where there are so many “solutions” being thrown up in the air about climate change, we feel it is very important to question everything and consider every detail. Where is the money coming from, and where is it going? Listen to Mordecai Ogada make the case for increasing our scrutiny of conservation NGOs, and demanding accountability and transparency for their dealings, as well as the narrative of climate change as a whole.”

WATCH: The New Financial Markets on Nature’s Destruction Explained to my Grandmother – Frederic Hache

Published November 24, 2020

 

 

“This video summarizes the below reports: – 50 shades of green part II: the fallacy of environmental markets – 50 shades of green part III: sustainable finance 2.0″ [Source: Green Finance Observatory] [Download: 50-shades-biodiversity-final]

“This [] illustrates why protection of nature based on a price mechanism is more unstable than protection based on law.” — Frederic Hache

 

[Frédéric Hache is a financial expert. He worked for twelve years in investment banking, selling and structuring currency derivatives. After that he was head of policy analysis at the NGO Finance Watch for six years, analysing EU legislation linked to systemic risks / financial stability. He now heads the Belgian think tank Green Finance Observatory, lectures in sustainable finance at Science Po Paris, works as a freelance expert on sustainable finance and environmental markets and is pursuing a PhD in political economy. His research interests are about market-based solutions applied to environmental and social policies. They include natural capital, carbon and biodiversity markets, catastrophe bonds and sustainable finance.]

WATCH: White Saviors and Latin America: Profiting from Humanitarianism

ANTICONQUISTA

August 22, 2021

 

“ANTICONQUISTA will discuss the recent news coming out of Latin America. There are few if any media sites that provide an overview of what’s happening in Latin America especially for those of us in the diaspora. The omission and separation of our people from what is happening in the homelands is intentional. It alienates us from our people and from knowing the abuses and exploitation going on day to day. Our new program seeks to provide a roundup of news in Latin America to make those connections between our people. Continue to support ANTICONQUISTA and the work we do on Patreon and our website where we post articles. All of our money raised goes to funding anti-imperialist movements in or allied with Latin America. https://www.patreon.com/anticonquista https://anticonquista.com/“.

 

 

Defending Latin America’s Resistance Axis

Tortilla con Sal

August 2, 2021

By Stephen Sefton

 

Early in July this year Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke to a conference in which he outlined the main elements of the region’s Resistance Axis’ media and communications strategy. He stressed the rightness of the Resistance cause challenging Western imperialism, in particular Israel’s genocidal, colonialist settler occupation of Palestine. He pointed out the strength, unity and resilience of the Axis, led by Iran and Syria, but including Hezbollah itself and allied movements in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen. Nasrallah also emphasized the importance of the Resistance Axis leadership’s determination to report the facts of events in the region truthfully with rigorously honesty when offering analysis.

Together moral right and political strength, truthful reporting and analytic honesty have created and nurtured deep, broadly based, committed support across the region. Few observers doubt that the Resistance cause will ultimately triumph in Syria and Palestine, given the relentless relative decline of US and allied imperial power relative to Russia and China and the steadfastness of Iran and Syria. The formidable unity and solidarity of the movements successfully challenging the US and Israel in Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Yemen offer lessons essential for their resistance counterparts in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Sayyed Nasrallah’s remarks have particular relevance to the Resistance Axis composed of the ALBA countries led by Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela whose governments all strongly support Iran and Syria. In varying degrees, these countries have also long suffered relentless aggression from the United States, its allies and regional proxies, in Cuba’s case for over sixty years. Nasrallah’s criteria defnitely apply to the experience of this bloc of resistance to US and allied imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The moral right of these countries is founded on their historic struggle against imperial domination and on the fundamental principles of modern international law, namely, non-aggression and the right to self determination. To circumvent that profund moral right the US and its allies seek to apply their own illegal “rules based order” applying all kinds of aggression on the basis of false accusations of human rights violations processed through the corrupt institutions of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. As in the case of Palestine and wider West Asia, this genocidal Western aggression is driven by profound nostalgia for the era of unlimited colonial and neocolonial domination.

The moral right of the ALBA countries to their resistance is undeniable and so too is the formidable political strength, unity and resilience they have mobilized to defend their cause against relentless economic, diplomatic, media and psychological warfare, domestic terror and even military attack. Over centuries, all these countries’ peoples have resisted foreign domination. Cuba’s Revolution triumphed in 1959 and has resisted Yankee and allied onslaught and destabilization for over 60 years. Likewise, Venezuela since Comandante Chávez became president in 1998 and Bolivia since Evo Morales was elected president in 2006, have also endured relentless US and allied hostility and aggression. Nicaragua has been the target of US intervention ever since the Sandinista Front for National Liberation overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979.

Despite everything the US and its allies have attempted in recent years, these countries have stood firm in defense of their right to self-determination. In their case too, the combination of moral right, political strength and unity, truthful reporting and honest analysis has consolidated not only solid domestic support to resist US and allied aggression, but also national consensus rejecting neoliberal policies promoting corporate greed, in favor of socialist development programs focused on the needs of the human person. The frustration and desperation of the US, its allies and their regional mercenaries and proxies will certainly intensify as their efforts continue failing to break down broad popular support for the ALBA countries’s governments. All four governments are now well aware of the methods deployed by the US and its allies to carry out their wildly misnamed “soft coups”.

To expose, disarm and defeat the increasingly desperate imperialist campaigns of aggression effectively, the Resistance Axis led by Iran and Syria has shown the importance of ever closer unity and coordination between governments, popular movements, media outlets and all expressions of popular consciousness and awareness. Nicaragua has not suffered the same economic and military aggression as Cuba and Venezuela, but its leadership, especially Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, have been subjected to perhaps an even more systematic and comprehensive campaign of demonization, as intense as that against Muammar al Gaddhafi prior to and during the destruction of Libya. In fact, most progressive and even anti-imperialist media outlets and intellectuals tended to accept at face value the false imperialist media account of the failed coup attempt in 2018.

However, by telling the truth honestly in the most determined way, Nicaragua’s government has largely overcome the concerted psychological warfare campaign deployed against it, preserving and reinforcing support and solidarity where it is most needed, both among Nicaragua’s people and internationally in bodies like the Foro Sao Paulo. The government’s dignified, forceful and persistent presentation of the country’s reality at a diplomatic level has successfully defeated efforts by the US and its allies to isolate the country. Similarly, good faith reporting by international organizations, like the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Panamerican Health Organization, UNESCO, or even the World Bank, on their work with Nicaragua consistently contradicts claims by the corrupt human rights organizations of the UN and the OAS that the country’s government is a repressive dictatorship denying basic rights to its people.

The failed coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018, the coup in Bolivia in 2019, continuing constant aggression of all kinds against Venezuela and, most recently, the US organized and funded protests in Cuba and the accompanying intensification of the blockade, are all part of what Stella Calloni and other writers have identified as the new Plan Condor. This reality is very well understood by now, both across the region and increasingly among the anti-imperialist movements in North America and Europe. As Sayyed Nasrallah has explained in the context of occupied Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, by persistently reporting events in the region truthfully and analyzing them honestly our governments and popular movements can build and consolidate the moral and political strength and unity necessary to overcome the US and its allies and achieve the definitive Second Independence of Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

 

 

Nicaragua – Varieties of Neocolonial Solidarity

Tortilla con Sal,

TeleSUR

July 7, 2021

View of the facade of the Organization of American States (OAS), today, in Washington (United States). | Photo: EFE

[Stephen Sefton is a member of the Tortilla con Sal collective based in Nicaragua]

From Eritrea to Bolivia: Who Supported the Washington Backed Coup?

 

On October 18th, 2019 Eritrean activist Vanessa Tsehaye quote tweeted an article from Bolivian activist Jhanisse Vaca Daza published on the Human Rights Foundation page, encouraging the overthrow of socialist leader Evo Morales.

“If democracy and human rights are further compromised, Bolivia could become the next Venezuela. The presidential election on October 20 is a critical opportunity to remove Morales from power and restore justice in Bolivia. Our planet cannot afford another authoritarian leader who remains in power at the expense of the natural world.”

A few weeks later in Bolivia, the world witnessed a successful coup by the fascist junta and the ousting of Evo Morales, leaving him in exile, humiliated, and targeted.

The new regime immediately went on a killing rampage, murdering dozens, massacring Indigenous protesters, and overturning all economic and political gains made by the socialist government. The coup advanced Washington’s foreign policy that has been consistent from Latin America to Africa in targeting socialist leaders or any non-compliant state.

Who is Vanessa Tsehaye, and why is an Eritrean activist so close with a Bolivian regime change activist?

The connection is the Human Rights Foundation, where Jhanisse V. Daza is the manager of the Freedom Fellowships, a program they selected Vanessa to be a part of on May 21, 2019. Jhanisse revealed on the announcement of the fellowship program : “Anyone running a non-profit or civil society organization or start-up needs help and guidance with personal leadership, movement building, marketing and media strategy, fundraising, and digital security. My own experience was transformative, and I’m looking forward to bringing world-class expertise in each of these areas to 10 new Fellows.”

What is her experience and who are the “world-class experts”?

A more detailed examination of Jhanisse Vaca Daza’s connections and working relationships reveal that she guides an international network of Washington-backed regime change operations from Bolivia, Hong Kong and other strategic regions.

As first reported by Wyatt Reed and Ben Norton from the GrayZone, Daza is linked to Venezuelan figures Leopoldo Lopez, and Thor Halvorssen, the founder and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation. They are both connected to the right-wing and racist oligarchy who have been waging a long campaign of destabilizing Venezuela with the support of Washington.

Furthermore, Daza is associated with Srdja Popovic, the former organizer with the group Otpor which had substantial financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Otpor group was one of many decades-long sophisticated operations to target socialist Yugoslavia and break it apart.

As per the investigative report by The GrayZon revealed:

“CANVAS had been funded largely through the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cut-out that functions as the US government’s main arm of promoting regime change.”

 

According to internal emails from Stratfor, an intelligence firm known as the “shadow CIA,” CANVAS “may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle.”

 

CANVAS grew out of the Otpor! movement, a US-backed cadre of youth activists that brought down Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was targeted for overthrow by NATO for being insufficiently compliant.

 

An email by a Stratfor staffer boasts: “the kids who ran OTPOR grew up, got suits and designed CANVAS… or in other words a ‘export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions. They are still hooked into U.S. funding and basically go around the world trying to topple dictators and autocratic governments (ones that U.S. does not like ;).”

 

Stratfor revealed that CANVAS “turned its attention to Venezuela” in 2005, after cultivating opposition movements that led pro-NATO regime-change operations across Eastern Europe. Among those trained by CANVAS were the leaders of Venezuela’s coup attempt this year, including Juan Guaido, Leopoldo Lopez, and scores of figures associated with the US-supported Popular Will party.”

Bolivian anti-Evo Morales activist Jhanissa Vaca Daza (center) with Otpor leader and CANVAS founder Srdja Popovic (right)

On July 19th, 2019, Vanessa also tweeted in support of Srdja Popovic: “We can only succeed by learning from the ones who fought similar before us”.

Meron Estefanos is another Eritrean activist that is also associated with Human Rights Foundation and connected with Srdja as seen by the tweet below in May of 2015. Both Meron and Vanessa’s Twitter accounts are verified and are always centered on all news developments to give the impression of representing an impartial Eritrean voice, despite their connection to shadowy elements and aims for the state. Vanessa Tsehaye was also nominated for the Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Award in 2016:

As reported by Morning Star :

“Index on Censorship continues to function today, posing as an organisation that promotes freedom of expression across the world. But a cursory glance at its major donors sets alarm bells ringing. As well as the aforementioned Ford Foundation, it is funded by Open Society Foundations, Open Democracy and the shady soft power organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)”

What can we infer about the active harm on the state of Bolivia and Eritrea from Vanessa in the Eritrean diaspora spaces, and her links with Jhanisse Vaca Daza/Human Rights Foundation? Her emergence is part of many counter-revolutionary aims over the years to defang the Eritrean revolution of its socialist roots, demoralize the Eritrean people’s sense of revolutionary nationalism, and weaken the state. The strategy of Washington has been multi-faceted and sophisticated in its deployment and execution in the diaspora since 2007, as stated in WikiLeaks cables from former Ambassador Ronald K. McMullen. The Impeccable achievement of the Eritrean revolution under the guidance of ELM, ELF initially and then EPLF, which had a socialist foundational aim after independence, was a threatening example for Africa. Therefore, Eritrea has been a victim of imperialist design and destruction for decades:

-1890-1945-Survived and resisted Italian colonialism without the influence of Italian culture, language, and the racist period of the fascist era.

-1945-1960 Survived and resisted British colonialism objectives in partitioning Eritrea and dividing its people.

-1961-1991 Survived and resisted US/UK/USSR supported Ethiopian colonialism and brutal occupation.

-1991-1998 Peace and transition.

-1998-2000 Survived western supported invasion of Eritrea by Washington backed TPLF just like it did years later in Somalia.

-1998-2018 Survived and resisted Washington aggression and support of the Ethiopian regime aims at state collapse, destabilization, and economic sabotage to make the people revolt and submit.

-2009-2018 Survived debilitating UN sanctions against the state, defense capability, and collective punishment of the people.

The prevailing emergence of neoliberal diaspora activism currently led by Vanessa/OneDaySeyoum is operated on individual issues in a celebrity-like consideration over the community and collective struggle. This is why it is social media-driven with no serious offline popular legitimacy with the Eritrean community, as the aim is not unity but to sow discord, political fragmentation and externalize all of the actual problems in Eritrea. Neoliberal diaspora activism is directed by Twitter likes, metrics and online drama, like the dogpiling of comedian Tiffany Haddish who visited Eritrea on a personal narrative and wanting to publicize her father’s country. It must be understood Tiffany Haddish was viscously targeted, when she was not a political voice at all. Vanessa purposely used the social media bullying of Tiffany to publicize her organization and use that public stunt toward centering her organization and profile.

OneDaySeyoum/Vanessa Tsehaye did not oppose the Susan Rice lobbied sanctions on the state of Eritrea from 2009 to 2018 and was silent on the 18-year war of aggression from Washington backed regime in Addis Ababa. Most of the Gen Z diaspora youths who support her on Twitter are being misled into an imperialist undertaking, filled with superficial campaign and PR with no serious impact on the Eritrean people nor the state. The social media campaign only helps to build the “activists brand” and their profile, it doesn’t materially address the problems of the Eritrean people. They politically exploit the serious problem of Eritrean refugees in Libya to blame the state only, with no mention of the role of imperialism in destabilizing Libya and the aggression on Eritrea. This is likened to being an arsonist at night but performing like firefighters in daylight. What does supporting sanctions, economic/military destabilization of the Eritrean state have to do with advocating for refugees? Additionally, Vanessa gained notoriety and social media capital off Ciham’s misfortune in Eritrea. We must move away from single issues social media campaigns as that itself is liberalism, and truly engage in a high-level approach to supporting the Eritrean people beyond PFDJ by not selling out to imperialism. Advocating for Ciham’s freedom is the right thing to do, but there is no reason to engage in liberalism and align the campaign with Vanessa Tsehaye, who is funded by the Human Rights Foundation. The social media campaign around Ciham and its performative spectacle only benefited the career profile of Vanessa Tsehaye. As Ivan Marovic, one of the founders of Otpor stated: “It’s not cool.  Normal people hate politics . . . but . . . you need normal people if you’re gonna make change.  To do that, you need to make politics sexy.  Make it cool.  Make it hip.  REVOLUTION as a FASHION LINE”

In Defense Of Eritrean Leftist Commentary

“Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories…”

 

-Amilcar Cabral

Over the years there has been an external push toward a neoliberal flavored type of activism that aims to reverse the legacy of the elder generation of Eritreans with leftist politics and a sense of revolutionary nationalism. The revolutionary nationalism itself is being targeted, although it must be clear that PFDJ has been failing Eritrea and the diaspora to be a vanguard in the same spirit as the true socialist vanguard EPLF. The elder Eritrean generation who were active in the late 1980s and 1990s with revolutionary nationalism, built up the diaspora communities and developed a long-lasting movement to help Eritrea.  The rise of Vanessa/OneDaySeyoum opposes the rich history of the community-owned activism and bottom-up grass-roots that was prevalent in the 1980/90s and early 2000s in the diaspora, originally shaped by the true socialist vanguard EPLF. The neoliberal diaspora activists are running counter to the history of Eritrean organizers, who stood for  solidarity, anti-imperialism, and collective struggle building that united Eritreans and defended the state and revolution.  Unfortunately, Isaias Afewerki and PFDJ have not been able to maintain that legacy and now we have youth who are vulnerable to grifters and counter-revolutionary warfare. The fear of critical leftist narratives against both PFDJ and the pro State Department elements like Vanessa is serious, and the counter-response is to spew ad hominem attacks and discredit any leftist criticism.

For example below, in the past few months, I have been targeted by Vanessa Tsehaye/OneDaySeyoum by spreading misinformation and gaslighting my commentary, dismissing me as a man who is misogynistic, sexist, and targeting Eritrean women for publicly condemning her ties to imperialist hands and her support of the coup in Bolivia. The below tweet of mine is addressing imperialism and Vanessa Tsehaye responded by falsey proclaiming that I’m misogynist:

(By the way, her name was Vanessa Berhe on all articles in the past, Al Jazeera interviews and that was the name I used before she changed her name,  I was not aware she changed her name but I have now updated as to respect her choice)

Is legitimate public criticism of a hyper-visible activist misogynist or sexist? If that is the case I have no problem being self-corrected, but this is motivated with aims to smear my political criticism.

Equally important, the individual’s account associated with Vanessa has sent direct messages to popular black leftists with large followings, by proclaiming with no public independent investigation, that I’m targeting Eritrean women when that is not true. My personal address has been doxxed by one of the vocal members of OneDaySeyoum with threats to do me harm offline, plus other Youtube comments threatening to call my family and publishing the name of my partner. Moreover, the individuals associated with Vanessa Tsehay/OneDaySeyoum have targeted the organization I’m a member of by continuously aiming to send their associates to monitor our activities, and to penetrate and sabotage our efforts. The HOA-PALS(Horn of Africa-Pan Africanist for Liberation and Solidarity is aiming to build an alternative leftist space that is multi-generational,women-led, and LGBTQ+ welcoming. Fallacious claims of me targeting Eritrean women are flawed, considering I am a member of a women-led organization where we have had various internal dialogue on how this was a political hit job to discard my commentary. My commentary is direct, blunt, and has no aim to harm marginalized communities, but to question reactionary elements, whether it is the activists or the cadres of PFDJ or Eritrean officials. I have been blocked by the Eritrean ambassador to Japan for criticizing his anti-Cuba/USSR/Marxist views, I have been blocked by WHO Director, Tedros Adhanom for his time as Foreign Minister under TPLF, I have been blocked by US ambassador in Djibouti, MC Hammer for support Selassie/Menliek and have had more issues with reactionary men in our community than women.

As a cis Eritrean man, I understand the optics of publicly criticizing women and have been doing more to be careful in the language I use, reading Queer Marxist feminist works to better stamp out my internalized patriarchy to do better with my approach, while maintaining the guiding principles of anti-imperialists, and highlighting the problems of Washington foreign policy in the Horn of Africa.

To be a revolutionary Eritrean in the diaspora demands one not be associated with the Washington State Department on the one hand, or uncritically support Isaias Afewerki on the other. There is a transformative approach to transitioning Eritrea beyond Isaias Afewerki and it won’t work by being in collusion with the State Department/Human Rights Watch/Amnesty and activist(OneDaySeyoum). Eritreans have a right to defend the state and we should not be intimidated and gaslighted to work with imperialists and their lackeys. No Eritrean with revolutionary potential believing in our collective struggle is my enemy, whether they operate within PFDJ or in the opposition, as we must maintain a united frontline.

Kwame Ture spoke on the differences between mobilization and organization. He says, mobilization usually leads to reform action, not to revolutionary action.  “Those of us who are revolutionary are not concerned with issues, we are concerned with the system.” Mobilization of the masses on a bigger scale will require radical approaches through organizations focused on collective struggle rather than individual issues and social media spectacles.

The young diaspora Eritrean youths and non-Eritreans drawn by the emotionally targeted propaganda campaign on Twitter are innocent in that they don’t recognize they are being pulled into something dangerous for Eritrea and the region. This sophisticated campaign targets diaspora youths and individuals with large followings, who are unfamiliar with Eritrea.

One can engage in deconstructing the role of imperialism in how Eritrean refugees are displaced in Libya and facing grave threats, without excusing the internal failures of Isias Afewerki to reduce harm and destructive policies . One can be leftists without supporting PFDJ.

People’s class positioning in the diaspora reflects in their politics for the Horn of Africa. Class perspectives and analysis have been buried by diaspora neoliberal oriented activism towards single issues that deflect emotions and spectacles instead of historical analysis and deeper investigation.

Do you want freedom for your people? From what class positioning? We black leftists are duty-bound to be media savvy and well versed in informational warfare targeting Black America and Africa. Oftentimes people with liberal politics don’t understand piercing’ criticism and ideological persuasion. Do we have malicious intent by bringing to light the harmful political positioning of Eritrean elements from the pro-State Department accounts and pro-Isaias Afewerki accounts? No. The intent is to push the conversation to the left away from reactionaries via PFDJ or a few opposition accounts.

We have a problem with the rampant anti-socialist sentiment within the neoliberal Eritrean activist spaces and their continued online surveillance campaign with support of shadowy backers. Eritrean leftists are being targeted and harassed for their critical commentary and views. The Black global left needs to understand that elements like those in this article who want to discredit Eritrean leftist viewpoints and that those leftists who organize online, must be clear to investigate who they interact with and their shadowy associations.

As to discredit the Eritrean leftist position, any defense of the state or revolution is intentionally equated with the support of Isaias Afewerki and his failures. This is how pro-State Department Eritrean activists rationalize demonizing any defense of the state by deflecting to Isias/PFDJ. Defending Bolivia, Venezuela, Iran, China from western aggression does not mean one agrees with the internal politics or head of state just like Eritrea, but we are guided by the principles of anti-imperialism and a non-interventionist line.

In the spirit of Pan Africanism, the Black Radical Tradition, and anti-imperialism, the Eritrean leftist commentary and the Eritrean revolution must be defended beyond hyper-nationalism, neoliberal diaspora activism, and rightward tendencies.

 

[Filmon Zerai is an independent blogger with commentary on the Horn of Africa & global politics. His views have appeared on @ajstream, @Radio702, @bbc, @SputnikInt, @blkagendareport]

WATCH: Zero Days [U.S. & Israel Attack on Iran via Cyberwarefare, 2016 Documentary]

November 28, 2020

 

 

“What does it mean to be anti-imperialist? It means supporting nations under attack by empire even when or if it is opportunistically inconvenient. It means to stand with all nations under attack, without prejudice, without wavering, and to never serve interests of empire – even if it means you sacrifice popularity or lose social media followers.”

 

– Alexandra Valiente, Internationalist360

 

Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators

Iran calls on int'l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 27, 2020

 

“A black ops cyber-attack launched by the U.S. and Israel on an Iranian nuclear facility unleashed malware with unforeseen consequences. The Stuxnet virus infiltrated its pre-determined target only to spread its infection outward, ultimately exposing systemic vulnerabilities that threatened the very safety of the planet. Delve deep into the burgeoning world of digital warfare in this documentary thriller from Academy Award® winning filmmaker Alex Gibney.

 

[Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Alex Gibney are those of the filmmaker’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of WKOG. Any thoughts in the following interview contrary to WKOG’s expressed opinions are not intended to malign any region, group, country or people.]

 

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT – ALEX GIBNEY

What do you do when your government launches a global war and keeps it a secret?

That’s the question that haunted me when making “Zero Days,” a film about the spectre of a new generation of classified cyber weapons.

I started out making a small film investigating “Stuxnet,” the self-replicating computer virus invented by the US and Israel to infiltrate and sabotage the Iranian nuclear centrifuges at Natanz.   What I discovered was a massive clandestine operation involving the CIA, the NSA, the US military and Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad to build and launch secret cyber “bombs” that could plunge the world into a devastating series of criss-crossing attacks on critical infrastructure, shutting down electricity, poisoning water supplies and turning cars, trains and planes into deadly weapons.  Even more terrifying, this science fiction scenario, possibly resulting in the loss of millions of lives, could happen without anyone – including our own government – knowing who is responsible.

In the words of David Byrne, “You may ask yourself: How did we get here?”  

When I started, I knew that the Stuxnet worm (a self-replicating virus) had spread all over the world.  The secrecy of the operation was blown.  But every US official I asked about the operation either refused to talk about it or even admit that it happened.

Everyone justified their silence with claims of national security.  As Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and the NSA, told me, a covert operation “automatically goes into the do-not-talk-about-it box.”

But Stuxnet wasn’t just another covert op.  It represented a fundamental change in the threat landscape.  For the first time in history, a computer virus crossed the threshold from the virtual reality of 1s and 0s to the physical world.  Stuxnet took control of machines and commanded them to destroy themselves.  Then the code leaked all over the world so that it could be re-purposed by other nations, criminals and terrorists.

Keeping that secret was like saying, after Hiroshima, “what bomb?”

And it reached the height of absurdity when I learned that the Department of Homeland Security triggered a high alert to protect the US from Stuxnet, since the NSA never let the other branches of government know that the weapon we launched was now attacking the homeland.  We had met the enemy and it was us.

Since government officials were trying to hide the dangers they had caused, my team and I reached out to others.  We first contacted the cyber detectives, Liam O’Murchu and Eric Chien, from the anti-virus company Symantec, who were the first ones to discover the purpose of Stuxnet.  They took apart the weapon for us so that we could understand both its delivery system and payload.

Then we traveled to Moscow – the capital of cyber crime and headquarters for Russia’s cyber weapons units – and to Israel, the key partner for the US in the development of Stuxnet.  What we discovered in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, by talking to politicians, journalists and – on background – agents for Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, was that “Stuxnet” was not a technical computer story at all.  Rather, it was part of a much larger operation which involved the Mossad, the CIA, the US military unit, Cyber Command, and included covert operations – sometimes directed at American companies, like Microsoft – the assassination of Iranian scientists, and weapons of cyber mass destruction that made “Stuxnet” look like a computer game.

Armed with this level of detail, we returned to the United States and were able to persuade some people inside the NSA and the CIA to talk to us provided we kept their identities a secret.  By now, it’s well known that the Obama Administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined.  So we had to take careful precautions to protect our sources.

We recorded interviews on audio recorders with no wifi capability, transcribed them on electric typewriters and then destroyed the data cards.  We used a system of codes to identify the sources and then integrated their testimony in a “script” that was factually accurate but which masked phrases that could lead investigators to identify our witnesses.   Then we used a system called “Depthkit,” to photograph our “essential source” via a 3-D video capture device that allowed us to break down a human face into separate fields of flesh, dots and lines.  In final post, we recombined those elements with new computer tilts and pans to portray a cyber whistleblower whose “hacked” look harmonized with the film’s animation of the actual Stuxnet code.

(Note: in the code animation sequences we only used excerpts of the Stuxnet code, which would not allow anyone reconstitute the weapon.  That said, our co-producer, Javier Botero, didn’t have much difficulty obtaining the entire code, something that makes the government secrecy about it all the more absurd.)

Our whistleblowers were able to give us an entirely new perspective on the Stuxnet operation, known inside the government as “Olympic Games,” and the new world of cyber weapons.   Among the key elements of information in “Zero Days” that have been revealed in the popular media for the first time are:

-The US, as a matter of policy, has not dedicated sufficient resources to cyber defense. Instead, it is focusing on cyber offense, and hoping that the threat of counterattack will prevent our enemies from launching cyber weapons against us.  So far, that strategy has failed.  Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have all launched limited cyber attacks against us and likely hidden thousands of backdoors to computer networks that have the potential of damaging key portions of our critical infrastructure: power grids, water filtration plants, transportation systems, heat, air conditioning, etc

-While “Olympic Games” was a joint operation between the US and Israel, each country had the ability to modify and deploy the OG cyber weapons in ways they wished. This caused animosity and tension, when the Mossad – pressured by an impatient Bibi Netanyahu – launched, without consultation with the US, a virulent version of the virus that spread all over the world.  This raises very difficult questions about the nature of our relationship with Israel.

-Following “Olympic Games,” the NSA developed far more powerful cyber weapons. One operation involving those weapons, named “Nitro Zeus” (disclosed for the first time in “Zero Days”) had the capacity to jam all of Iran’s air defenses and to shut down many of the key power grids in Iran.  As one of our sources told us, “the science fiction cyber war scenario is here.”

-Department of Defense officials in US Cyber Command showed a remarkable lack of sophistication or concern about the amount of destruction that these weapons could cause. As one source noted, when key power plants are shut down, they don’t just “pop back up.  It’s more like Humpty Dumpty…lots of people die.”  In discussing targets in Iran, State Department lawyers objected to the fact that US cyber attacks would shut down hospitals causing large numbers of fatalities.  The Department of Defense overruled those objections.

-“Olympic Games” was a CIA-led operation. For every attack, an officer from the CIA had to stand behind NSA computer operators and give them attack commands.

-When Iran, in retaliation for Stuxnet, launched a cyber attack on US banks, the US government was aware that the attacks were coming from Iran but did not counterattack because the the computers controlling the “botnet” (a network of private computers infected with malicious software)was in another country and the US State Department was concerned that a US attack might involve a friendly nation in a growing cyber conflict.  This highlights one of the dilemmas of cyber war: attribution is very difficult, raising the spectre of “false flags” and mistaken counterattacks that could lead to a cyber world war.

-The “Stuxnet” virus was autonomous. No operator commanded it to attack.  Once Stuxnet found its target inside Natanz, it was programmed to launch its attack on its own, without human intervention.  An increasing number of  cyber weapons share this characteristic.

-The secrecy over offensive cyberweapons and their capability is not only impeding democratic debate but also making us less safe. Indeed, our sources came forward because they believe that secrecy itself is putting us all at enormous, possibly existential, risk.

-The revelation of “Nitro Zeus” sheds new light on the Obama Administration’s deal with Iran on nuclear weapons. While many critics have suggested that Obama was negotiating from a position of weakness, it is likely – given “Nitro Zeus” – that he was negotiating from a position of strength, knowing that the US could virtually shut down the entire country in the event that Iran cheated on the deal.

-Our sources have confirmed that, since the launch of Stuxnet, offensive cyber operations – conducted by nation states – are an every day occurrence. (O’Muchu and Chien from Symantec have confirmed that the number of nation state attacks have increased exponentially in the last few years.) Government secrecy and the inability of the media to report on this story is the only reason we don’t know more about cyberweapons. They are being launched – by and against us – every day.

 

Alex Gibney, April 2016 – New York City