I write about world events, trends, and leaders from a big-picture perspective that connects the dots. I observe current events through several prisms: Economics, the media, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, white-collar crime, power, corruption, sociology, and history. I have readers in 106 countries.

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Iran then Russia

March 2, 2026

Iran has been described as the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism, but Russia is. The recent attack by Israel and America on Iran’s leaders and military is a welcome development. It’s too early to declare victory, but the decapitation of Tehran’s leadership is a great start. The U.S.-Israeli operation also represents a major setback to Vladimir Putin because Iran props up Russia as its major weapons supplier. Its pummelling is also embarrassing to Moscow. The Kremlin was nowhere to be seen as American forces surrounded the Ayatollah’s regime, or when the U.S. recently assaulted its other allies, Venezuela and Cuba. Obviously, the next culprit that should be neutralized is Russia itself, which is the “Iran” of Europe. It has unleashed 57,000 Iranian-made missiles and drones against Ukraine, and Zelensky said that “whenever there is American resolve, global criminals weaken. This understanding must also come to the Russians.”

Fortunately, Israeli and American bombs stopped the flow of ballistic missiles and drones to Moscow, which have devastated Ukraine. “Damaging Iran’s military-industrial base directly impacts Russia’s ability to sustain its [Ukrainian] invasion. From Kyiv’s vantage point, that’s unambiguously good,” wrote Kyiv Post Chief Editor Bohdan Nahaylo. “Iran’s diminished capacity will hurt the Kremlin where it counts. Tehran has provided Russia with thousands of Shahed drones, which have rained down on Ukrainian cities, destroyed power grids, and killed hundreds of civilians. The Islamic Republic has kept Putin’s war machine running when Russia’s own factories couldn’t keep pace.”

Crippling Iran also undermines Putin’s geopolitical reach. “Putin has staked political capital on the Iran relationship, holding it up as proof that Russia still matters on the world stage. The strike humiliates Moscow,” added Nahaylo. “When it counts, US military power still writes the rules in the Middle East, and Russia can’t do anything about it. This lands at an awkward moment for Putin’s courtship of Trump, which has lurched between talk of a `deal’ on Ukraine and unpredictable American shows of force. Now the question is whether Washington will show the same resolve in backing Ukraine to victory and Russia to defeat. The Iranian people deserve freedom. So do Ukrainians.”

The facts are that more than bombs will be required to neuter Iran. The assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many of his clerical and military leaders is helpful, but a successor government is being selected among those still in charge. This means Iranians remain captive in a reign of terror and cannot flood the streets demanding complete regime change, or they will be shot. Trump’s statement before the attacks began was aspirational but not realistic: “It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.”

The New York Times called Trump “reckless” because his goals in Iran were ill-defined. An Israeli newspaper also warned before the attacks that the failure to have a concrete plan to seize control immediately was hazardous: “The systematic thinning of Iran’s military capabilities, mainly its ballistic missiles, and the completion of the `destruction‘ of its nuclear installations are undoubtedly vital goals, whose attainment could significantly shrink the strategic threat posed by Iran, but these do not ensure the replacement of the government.”

Besides Trump’s stirring and wishful rhetoric about Iranian democracy, there’s little in place to bring about a desirable regime change. Currently, there are no landlines or cellphone service to help organize a “takeover,” and the chosen replacement, Reza Pavlavi, who is the son of the late and controversial Shah, is untested and needs the backing of Iran’s military. Concerns are that as an internal power struggle ensues among the Ayatollah’s remaining ruthless leaders, several possibilities loom: A military junta will take over that is more repressive and headed by another fanatic; or a civil war may develop among warring factions or ethnic groups, leading to a splintered or unstable country with 93 million that will export trouble throughout the region.

The New York Times was blunt: “There exists no Iranian opposition group of any stature, which creates deep uncertainty about what comes next. Ayatollah Khamenei had a succession plan that favored clerics, but U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that the power vacuum could result in hard-line factions of the Revolutionary Guards seizing control. The risks of civil war, internal slaughter, and regional instability are profound.”

Besides that, the war is not over because the regime has not been eliminated. Those remaining have more cards to play: Shutting down the Strait of Hormuz is likely, which will send oil prices soaring and cause economic damage globally. (To counteract this, the wealthy Gulf oil state regimes pre-emptively agreed they will flood markets with oil to keep prices down. Even so, the disruption will be widespread.) The other “card” would be to roil the region by unleashing Iran’s terrorist proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen to wreak havoc. Tehran has already begun to bomb its neighbors in the Gulf in retaliation for their support of the United States,

The United Nations, as usual, has been useless because Russia sabotages the Security Council by vetoing any peacekeeping efforts involving its allies or victims. Putin publicly called the death of the Ayatollah “a murder committed in cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law”. Russia used the UN platform to condemn the joint US-Israeli military operation by summoning a description of its own 2022 invasion of Ukraine: It was a “pre-planned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent UN member state in violation of fundamental principles and norms of international law.”

However, this Iranian intervention has gone a long way toward upending the current world order. Tehran’s collapse exposes the fact that Putin’s claim to great-power status is baseless. Russia can no longer claim hegemony in the Middle East without Iran’s missiles, drones, and terrorists. It will be impeded in conducting its war against Ukraine and Europe. Hopefully, Americans and Europeans will be emboldened to enhance the struggle by Ukrainians against Russia by boosting support and sanctions to disable the Russian economy and military permanently. This is a matter of survival. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett articulated the strategy against Iran, which should also apply against nuclearized Russia: “Anything is better than this regime”, he said, “which is a global octopus of terror hitting everywhere.”

Iran is a good start.

30

Mexico’s Mortal Battle

Feb 26, 2026

Last year, activists searching for Mexico’s thousands of missing persons were tipped off about atrocities at a large cattle ranch 60 miles west of Guadalajara. They entered its gates and found mass graves, 200 pairs of shoes, clothing, suitcases, several ovens, and human bone fragments. The site belonged to the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) and was where homeless or kidnapped boys were trained to become drug smugglers and killers. It was also a death camp where gang rivals or victims would be tortured and disposed of. One searcher noted that “there were children’s toys in there.” The grim discovery took place just after the election of Mexico’s first female President, Claudia Sheinbaum, a law-and-order social activist and scientist who lost relatives in the Holocaust. She immediately took control of the case and this month escalated the battle against drug cartels by ordering Mexico’s armed forces, with help from American intelligence, to hunt down CJNG’s leader, “El Mencho”. He died on February 22 after a firefight, and his death marks the beginning of a battle against the drug cartels that have oppressed the country for years.

Murder and mayhem in a few areas followed the elimination of the CJNG cartel boss “El Mencho” because it triggered turf wars between that criminal gang and its arch-rival, the Sinaloa cartel. While upsetting to tourists and locals, Sheinbaum’s gutsy move marks the beginning of a fight that is necessary and overdue. She was pressured into action by President Donald Trump, but was elected by Mexicans to clean up the place. As Mayor of Mexico City, she had cracked down on crime and developed close working relationships with American security groups. Ironically, another female, Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley, was the first to publicly suggest that special U.S. operatives be sent to help Mexico dismantle its cartels. “It’s time to treat them like the terrorists that they are,” said Haley. “If Mexico won’t, then I will.”

Trump has declared the cartels in Latin America to be “terrorists” to facilitate interdiction and military involvement. He removed Maduro from Venezuela and has bolstered forces in the Caribbean to halt drug shipments. But his first move was to tighten the US-Mexico border, and Sheinbaum immediately collaborated by sending 10,000 Mexican National Guardsmen to patrol Mexico’s side of the border. However, dismantling the cartels will take time. They are monstrous in size, each earning an estimated $400 million per month from drug smuggling alone. They also employ paramilitary forces armed with missiles, tanks, drones, and helicopters. They source drugs from all over the world and produce fentanyl inside Mexico. They have built competing supply chains that funnel illegal aliens, contraband, and drugs to distribution hubs they own across the United States and the rest of the world.

These criminals are burrowed deeply in Mexico’s establishment, and much of its society, who are either intimidated or on the take. Assassinations of politicians, journalists, and priests are common. Estimates are that drug lords employ 450,000 directly and 3.2 million indirectly, mostly in poorer regions. This criminalized Mexico thrives in the shadows, but the rest of the country is safe and enjoyable, for millions of locals, tourists, and retirees — as long as they avoid its “no-go zones”.

In my February 12 newsletter, I predicted that this cartel clash was imminent. More than 30,000 people are killed every year in Mexico, one of the world’s highest murder rates. Since 2006, when the Mexican federal government began to deploy its military against the cartels, hundreds of thousands have been killed, with tens of thousands more missing. But little changed. And Sheinbaum was elected to take on the problem.

The Mexican federal government now deploys federal forces across all cartel-affected states. But stopping fentanyl trafficking will also require Trump and Mexico to crack down hard on China, where the precursor fentanyl ingredients are produced and then mailed to Mexico. These chemicals are formulated into tiny pills in ordinary household kitchens for distribution. About $1 million worth of pills can be hidden in a passenger car. In addition to providing ingredients, China also launders money for these cartels. The reality is that Beijing is up to its armpits in culpability, and Trump must address that too.

Mexico’s cartels are multinationals, with huge distribution and manufacturing networks throughout the US and Europe, and global partnerships. Collectively, they have also captured political control over large swaths of Central and South America by intimidating or undermining their governments, militaries, and courts. (Read my August piece, American Narco State Capture.) Their biggest profit maker is cocaine from Colombia, but the Mexican smugglers also have a 70-per-cent market share of all the meth, cannabis, opioids, and heroin sold in the U.S.

China promised to ban the export of precursors a few years ago, but nothing changed. In addition, however, America must tackle its addiction crisis. America’s self-declared War on Drugs is a failure, and Latin America is its principal casualty. No amount of U.S. aid or trade, or interdiction can reverse the slow-motion collapse due to cartels that control Latin American civil societies, their institutions, and economies. One helpful course of action would be to decriminalize certain drugs, which Europe and Canada have done. There, addiction is considered a medical problem, not a moral or legal one, and health care systems provide treatment, as well as substitute drugs, such as methadone, to addicts under strict supervision. Their systems are not perfect, but America’s is irresponsible.

Until changes occur, both Mexico and the United States will remain captive to the cartels. Mexicans elected Sheinbaum as President because she cracked down on crime in Mexico City. But she now holds the most dangerous job in Mexico, fighting drug traffickers as the head of state. If she fails, is removed, and China is not held to task, millions more Americans will die of overdoses, and Mexicans and Latin Americans will live in failing states.

30

Putin’s $14-trillion Swindle

February 23, 2026

Diane Francis

Feb 23, 2026

The Brooklyn Bridge was infamously “sold” several times to hapless investors in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries by George Parker, one of history’s most audacious swindlers. When his buyers attempted to erect toll gates on the bridge, authorities refused because they lacked legal title. Parker died in prison, but fraudsters prosper because there’s “a sucker born every minute”. Currently, the biggest conman is Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who dangles $14-trillion worth of business opportunities to New Yorker Donald Trump and his cronies in an attempt to distract efforts away from stopping the shooting in Ukraine. Over the past year, parallel “peace” talks have occurred, one about stopping the war and another about making tons of money in Russia for Americans. Trump’s negotiators are businessmen, not military strategists, and have not imposed sanctions or military pressure on Russia. They think they’re the smartest guys in the room, but to Russians, they’re no different than the saps who thought they bought the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Kremlin is a criminal organization that not only steals from its people but has skinned alive generations of foreign investors. Putin’s team offers “opportunities” to buy oil fields, pipelines, mines, or other assets, but in a mafia state like Russia, deals are not worth the paper they’re written on. There is no rule of law across its 11 time zones; judges and police are for sale, and regulatory corruption is rampant, along with bribery and extortion. The economic history of Russia is marked by numerous financial casualties from around the world. Despite documented wreckage, Reuters reported in August that the U.S. began encouraging American businesses and investors to discuss big business deals with Moscow “as incentives to encourage the Kremlin to agree to peace in Ukraine, and for Washington to ease sanctions on Russia”.

Three massive transactions are being discussed: ExxonMobil’s repossession of its Russian Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project; the refurbishment and expansion of LNG projects in the north by Americans, which are currently under Western sanctions; and the potential purchase by the US of a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers from Russia. Hundreds of billions of dollars from the United States would flow into the industrial base of a predator nation that’s destroying Ukraine and exporting terrorism globally. Trump’s strategy is to make deals, not bring the carnage to an end, and Putin plays for time.

The facts prove that Russia is the “Brooklyn Bridge” of investment or business destinations. What follows is the list of recent casualties, and American corporations have sustained the largest financial losses in Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, among foreign companies. As of early 2025, direct losses for U.S. businesses—stemming from asset seizures, forced sales, and write-offs—could total up to $324 billion, based on the valuation of lost future earnings and physical assets.

High-Profile Exits & Seizures:

- ExxonMobil: Recorded a $4 billion write-off after exiting its Sakhalin-1 oil project.

- McDonald’s: Left the market, selling to a local licensee and incurring exorbitant losses.

- J.P. Morgan: Russian courts seized over $440 million from their accounts in 2024. Citigroup left in 2025 after slowly winding down operations.

- Other major companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Cargill, Pratt & Whitney, Procter & Gamble, and Starbucks experienced severe disruptions and massive losses, with many selling assets to Moscow or to oligarchs at discounts of 90–100%.

- The Russian government has, since its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, moved from allowing orderly exits to forcibly seizing assets. As of 2026, 547 international companies have fled Russia, and most of the 2,260 international companies that remain do so only to avoid expropriation and exit taxes.

The Kremlin will steal whatever it can in the future from companies encouraged to do deals there. Putin and his henchmen systematically shake down or target foreigners. They appoint “temporary managements” and take control of the assets. Companies that downsize or leave are levied “exit taxes”. In 2024, some $2.7 billion in “exit taxes” were collected. There is no appeal, and judges simply freeze or seize cash and property without justification.

Even worse, those who resist or legally fight end up being jailed or even murdered, as happened to Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in custody in Moscow in 2009 after objecting to a Moscow tax scam designed to confiscate assets from his client, American investor William Browder. He had become the biggest owner of shares in Russia’s newly public companies, and he has campaigned ever since against the regime. “If I could do it all again, I would never have invested in Russia,” he said. He promoted the Magnitsky Act in 2012, which is a US law authorizing sanctions, such as travel bans and asset freezes, against foreign individuals responsible for human rights abuses or corruption. It was targeted against the Russians who killed Magnitsky, but the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act expanded this authority worldwide.

So why would Trump lead American investors and businesses into Russia? The answer is simple: There’s one born every minute. He believes that Moscow will honor deals reached with major American companies and Trump dealmakers, even though history shows that’s not the case. And once these Americans take Putin’s “sucker bait,” and their checks have cleared in Putin’s Swiss bank accounts, Russia will devour them, and American investors, shareholders, companies, and taxpayers will end up footing a staggering bill.

30

Epstein: Super Pimp

February 9, 2026

Jeffrey Epstein isn’t the first “investment banker” to make money by procuring sex for clients, but he industrialized it with help from his highborn British consort, Ghislaine Maxwell. She came by crime “honestly”: Her father was the notorious and successful late Robert Maxwell, a Czech refugee who made his first fortune after World War II, selling secrets to the British about the KGB and vice versa. He parlayed that into becoming a publishing tycoon, co-opting politicians and the powerful alike, and expanded his rolodex from spies to financiers, scoundrels, billionaires, Royals, sleazy Soviet leaders, and the Mossad. Maxwell invented the template that Epstein and his daughter expanded, and both men died mysteriously as the law closed in on their criminal schemes. Ghislaine now languishes in an American jail, convicted of child sex trafficking, and knows all the secrets about Epstein’s career and more.

The Epstein case is salacious and one of the biggest scandals in American and British history, as well as a geopolitical issue. The two were a team: Jeffrey was the “maestro”, a convicted pedophile, and Ghislaine, the daughter of a fallen tycoon, was the “madam”. He procured the men, and she procured the female victims. They were incredibly successful and knew no bounds, networking tirelessly and globally. He marketed by dropping names shamelessly, including Vladimir Putin’s, whom he pretended to know, to attract interest in his gentleman’s “fraternity.” The scheme grew exponentially as rich, famous, and powerful men joined their circle, bolstered mostly by promises of access to the world’s bigshots and underpinned with the promise of access to sex with young women.

Epstein staged fancy, celebrity-filled dinners at his Manhattan mansion, Paris apartment, or Caribbean island brothel. The two collected large amounts from the men for services rendered, and events attended – income which was mostly for sexual favors but disguised as fees for “tax or investment” advice. Epstein was also a financial wheeler-dealer who profited from transactions that he initiated or completed with his clients and various corporations. He also used members to procure privileges for other members, and sought secret information to profit from or pass along to others for political or social reasons. The result of all his wheeling and dealing was that by 2019, after he was found dead in a jail cell awaiting trial for sex trafficking, his estate totalled $600 million.

The Epstein scandal came to light a few years ago, but has exploded since the U.S. Congress released 3.5 million documents and tens of thousands of photos, all amassed by Epstein. His clients were drawn from all walks of life: Politics, finance, technology, science, and entertainment, and Epstein kept meticulous records of all his interactions and relationships. He memorialized every deal with documents, emails to himself, and photographs. Why would anyone create 3.5 million documents and photographs? These were handy for blackmail and extortion purposes.

The two also recruited an elaborate network of prostitutes and venues for sexual encounters. Women were interviewed, inspected, and then catalogued by height, age, and other measurements. Epstein also sought out “trophy” men, such as Putin, to enhance the prestige of his events. He never connected with Putin, but constantly mentioned “Putin” at least 1,000 times in these emails. Mentions promised access that he didn’t have to enhance his prestige. Interestingly, an FBI report years ago claimed that Epstein “was President Vladimir Putin’s wealth manager” and also Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler, Robert Mugabe’s. Both statements remain unproven but were likely based on rumors that Epstein himself propagated to promote his services.

Even so, the implications of such a possibility are so serious that Poland is launching an investigation into possible links between Epstein and Russian authorities to determine whether the financier worked for Russian intelligence services.

Naturally, the Kremlin laughed off the idea that he was a Russian intelligence asset when recently asked by the press. “I’m tempted to make a lot of jokes about that theory, but let’s not waste our time,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov further claimed that the Kremlin had never received a request from Epstein to meet Putin.

But it is certainly plausible. A Ukrainian newspaper scoured the documents and noted that Epstein had, as did Robert Maxwell decades before, ties to members of Russia’s elites, such as oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Epstein said in his emails that Russians asked him to act as an intermediary for introductions to prominent Americans or for visa advice. However, German newspaper Deutsche Welle (DW) said direct Epstein-Putin contacts were unlikely, but U.S. security officials disclosed that Epstein had ties to Russian organized crime to procure prostitutes from Russia.

Epstein also cultivated relationships with serial womanizers such as former President Bill Clinton, Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and Italy’s skirt-chasing Berlusconi. And the two European leaders developed deep, public friendships with Vladimir Putin even after he invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine for the first time in 2014. Epstein also swept through Britain and Europe — thanks to Ghislaine’s address book — developing relationships with Britain’s Lord Mandelson, Prince Andrew, and members of Norway’s royal family. The Daily Mail commented that the result of all this was that “he created the world’s biggest `honey trap’” to blackmail rich and famous men.

As scandals go, this is a whopper, and the ramifications are so widespread that they will be lasting. It infuriates females worldwide and confirms suspicions that a world patriarchy that is misogynistic and predatory runs the world. The “me too” movement toppled Harvey Weinstein and others, but this scandal has ruined the reputations of many more prominent American men as a result of their association with Epstein. These include Microsoft’s Bill Gates, former Harvard President Larry Summers, Steve Bannon, and Woody Allen. An odor also hangs over Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, who was a buddy of Epstein’s, but claims he never partook of his services and kicked him out of the Mar-A-Lago club years ago. Ghislaine Maxwell said Trump was not involved, but whatever she says is unreliable.

In Britain, the scandal has swept up Lord Mandelson (underpants photo above), whose relationship with Epstein and his appointment as Britain’s Ambassador to Washington by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, now threatens the existing government.

But some women are involved. Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit apologised for her lengthy and mysterious friendship with Epstein, one of several scandals to hit the Nordic country’s monarchy. Then there’s Sarah Ferguson, ex-wife of disgraced Prince Andrew, who remained pen pals with Epstein to the end, and these new revelations have led to the closure of her humanitarian charity.

And, of course, co-conspirator and Maxwell’s daughter, Ghislaine, remains in jail. Her co-accused committed suicide while awaiting trial in 1991, but she claims Epstein was murdered. She also claimed her father had been murdered. She’s currently locked away for a long time and may never leave prison, but she knows everything and has agreed to testify before Congress in the coming weeks. If she reveals damning evidence against more rich and powerful men, she may spring herself from jail or put herself in danger. Stay tuned.

30

AI then AGI

Diane Francis

Oct 30, 2025

Blockbuster deals, market windfalls, warfare, and controversies involving artificial intelligence (AI) dominate newscasts as we enter a new era of business and technology. What we call “AI” today is artificial generative intelligence, a collection of powerful statistical engines that can perform specific tasks by using machine learning algorithms to process large amounts of data, identify patterns, and learn to make decisions or perform tasks without explicit programming. However, the next technological leap — the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — is only a few years away and will upend human existence. AGI remains hypothetical, but when it arrives, it won’t be about building tools, but will be about building entities with human-level cognitive abilities that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a vast range of intellectual tasks. AI performs tasks, but AGI will be self-sufficient, potentially self-directed, and is just a few years away. Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” worries that AGI will advance so quickly that it will slip beyond human control. “The risks of misuse, accidents, and societal harm are profound. We’re not prepared.”

Human interaction with generative artificial intelligence chatbots — such as Grok or ChatGPT — is already creating concern. In Belgium, a man recently committed suicide after weeks of conversations with an AI chatbot that encouraged his despair and decision to kill himself. In the United States, a father killed his children, and a 47-year-old tech professional killed himself and his mother, after each had relied on advice and encouragement from AI chatbots. Usage of these bots is staggering already, and their interactions are unimpeded. In 2025, ChatGPT alone received more than 2.5 billion daily prompts from users worldwide, reported Axios.

AI’s potential to encourage harm is not confined to mental health risks. Another problem is that the number of deepfakes—AI-generated photos, audio, and video—is exploding online. A fake image of Pope Francis in a designer coat went viral in 2023. That was amusing. However, fake images of world leaders declaring war, or candidates confessing to crimes they never committed, will not be funny. The U.S. election in 2024 was the first in which AI-generated disinformation became mainstream. By 2030, distinguishing truth from falsehood may be impossible without expensive verification tools—creating new divisions between information “haves” and “have-nots.” Democracies may not survive such an onslaught.

There is also a legal vacuum, and AI companies are shielded by the same liability loopholes that allowed Facebook and Twitter to be absolved for reproducing damaging social media posts. Today, no company can be held fully liable for the damage. But if such immunity continues, and regulation is not in place, consequences will be more serious by 2030 when AI firms create AGI entities that will cross the threshold. Their systems will reason, learn, and plan across domains like a human mind in lightning speed and scale. Already, AI has disrupted industries, education, media, and politics, but AGI could transform civilization itself. AGIs will be able to understand, reason, replicate, predict, and learn, and include emotional and contextual awareness. This will be the big leap. The danger is that the line between the two may blur quickly, and in a few decades, we may face not just disruptive machines but autonomous intelligences beyond our control.

When does AGI take hold? Experts disagree as to when this will happen: Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI) predicts ChatGPT will be capable of reasoning, learning, and planning across domains like a human mind by the early 2030s. “We know how to build AGI,” he said in early 2024. Jensen Huang (CEO of Nvidia) believes that within five years, AI will match human capability if performance by hardware increases with the exponential growth in computing power. Geoffrey Hinton (Pioneer of Deep Learning) says it’s hard to predict and may occur sometime between 2028 and 2043.

But the most dangerous consequence of AI—and potentially AGI—is geopolitical. Nations see it not just as an economic tool but as a weapon. Cartels and mafias will see it as a profit center and a tool. Two years ago, Eric Schmidt warned that AI could transform warfare by 2027, with autonomous drones, swarms of robotic soldiers, and predictive cyberattacks. However, the “Frankenstein War” has already arrived in Ukraine, where the world’s most talented IT sector is already present and has reinvented and digitized warfare. China is also racing ahead, integrating AI into surveillance, military logistics, and censorship. Beijing has declared it will be the world’s AI leader by 2030. It has the advantages of a government run by technocrats, a massive population, lax privacy standards, and a government willing to mobilize resources at scale.

The United States still leads, and its technology is controlled by private firms whose interests don’t necessarily align with national security or democratic values. America has the expertise and capital, but a libertarian and deregulatory mindset. President Donald Trump has embraced Silicon Valley and its leaders, leading Washington for the first time into state capitalism, and has bought stakes in the country’s tech monoliths such as Intel and Nvidia.

Trump is correct in bringing tech experts into government decisions because they represent the biggest governance challenge in history. US tech giants will reap trillions globally from their AI and AGI innovations and disrupt employment on a mass scale. Amazon just slashed 30,000 jobs from its payroll, with more cuts to follow. To their credit, some tech leaders have already promoted the fact that governments must devise a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to retain social stability, economic well-being, and provide time for “white collar workers” to transition into new occupations or regions. Several tech billionaires are personally financing UBI pilot projects to illustrate the need and possible solutions. Goldman Sachs projects that 300 million jobs could be automated by generative AI worldwide, and lawyers, accountants, journalists, and computer programmers are vulnerable. Then there’s AGI.

The human condition will worsen unless governments rein in technology, regulate it, prohibit monopolization, and outlaw weapons, fraud, and media manipulation. There must be global standards, as is the case with nuclear weapons. The staggering wealth that will be generated cannot be hoarded, but must be captured through taxation to provide support and training for dispossessed workers as well as for research into conquering diseases and solving other planetary challenges. In other words, we must devise ways to control it before it controls us. Albert Einstein wisely stated, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”. After the creation of the atomic bomb, he stressed the need for ethical considerations and wisdom to ensure that technological advancements serve to uplift, rather than diminish, humanity.

That time has arrived again.

Tehran Toppled

June 22, 2025

Diane Francis

Jun 22, 2025

The world just became safer because Israel and the United States launched a war against Iran, destroying its nuclear program, disabling its military, and neutralizing its fanatical regime and terrorist network. The Ayatollah and his government have been a destabilizing influence throughout the world, along with Russia, their biggest ally. For decades, Iran’s people have been suppressed, and its oil wealth squandered, to serve a malevolent agenda. Tehran’s most significant export has been terror. Its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, have upended the Middle East, ruined Syria, attacked Israel on October 7 to launch the Gaza war, flooded the region and Europe with millions of refugees, backed Russia’s genocide in Ukraine by providing missiles and drones, and broken sanctions by smuggling cheap oil to China. That’s why there should be no tears for Tehran, as its regime unravels, and its murder and mayhem end. “We stopped the nuclear threat,” announced President Donald Trump. “Iran is the bully of the Middle East… and can choose between peace and tragedy…If you respond, we have more targets left and we will hit them.”

The war will be brief, but it is the result of weeks of coordinated messaging and military efforts between Israel and the United States. Israel alerted the world that Iran was close to building an atomic bomb. Then the Americans offered Iran a diplomatic solution through negotiations designed to prevent it from enriching uranium to create a nuclear arsenal. The Iranians denied the existence of such a program, despite evidence provided by nuclear oversight agencies, and talks ended after months of their bad-faith bargaining.

Israel quickly and unilaterally launched air attacks on Tehran’s nuclear and military facilities and was attacked in return. In short order, the Israeli air force disabled Iran’s air defense capability and gutted its leadership. This was designed to pave the way for the US to drop specialized bunker buster bombs. Trump kept his cards close to his chest, for a change, as the Pentagon prepared to attack. Flanked by protective Israeli air escorts, it was bombs away. Iran’s most dangerous nuclear activities were buried hundreds of feet underground, and 14 American bunker-busters obliterated them.

Europe was also involved. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly praised Israel for doing the West’s “dirty work” by attacking Iran. Then, after the US-Iran talks broke off, Germany, France, and Britain quickly stepped in by offering an alternative diplomatic off-ramp to Tehran.

But talks are unlikely in the immediate future. Iran is now in chaos, both politically and militarily. For the world, this represents a dangerous moment. The Ayatollah hides in a bunker, while his people have no protection, and his inner circle has diminished after the Israelis systematically assassinated his top echelon of military leaders. The Ayatollah, like others, will likely end up fleeing to Moscow, as did Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. But even that is unsafe. In the days leading up to the war launched by Israel, the Arab News reported that al-Assad had been poisoned in Moscow by persons unknown. He is allegedly recovering.

The most significant question at this point is whether the Ayatollah will, like Hitler in his Berlin bunker, order the destruction of Iran’s oil facilities to create chaos in oil markets? Will he attack U.S. military bases in the region to widen the war? Or will his subordinates, like Hitler’s, ignore such orders because their country is losing and to do so would cripple the country’s economy for decades. It’s notable that Iran’s proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon quickly announced that it would not participate in retaliation on behalf of Iran. "Iran is a strong country capable of defending itself; logic dictates that it can confront America and Israel," said a Hezbollah spokesperson.

Another question is whether Russia and China will get involved or continue to stay on the sidelines, despite both being negatively impacted by this turn of events. That’s unlikely because they’ve remained on the sidelines until now, except rhetorically, and especially now that Trump is fully invested in crippling Iran. They won’t dare.

The only good news is that as Iran is besieged, Moscow’s murderous rampage in Europe will end sooner because Putin’s supply of Iranian drones and missiles won’t be available. Likewise, China’s economic pace and tariff battle with the United States will likely subside as Beijing now becomes preoccupied with replacing Iranian oil to keep the lights on and its factories running.

Europe can also breathe a sigh of relief because it was within range of Iran's missiles. It won’t be deluged with refugees, nor will the Arab world, as Iran falls apart. This is because Iranians are not Arabs and won’t be welcome in neighboring countries or anywhere. And America, once more, has assumed the role of the “world’s policeman,” and Trump did not equivocate about his commitment to stay the course. “We have lost thousands as a direct result of their hate. It will not continue.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled off a coup for his country (and region) by convincing Trump to become directly involved. The geopolitical shift is profound: This is no longer Israel’s war against Iran. It is now the West’s “war” against Iran, Russia, and China. In his thank-you speech to America after it openly entered the fray, Netanyahu defined the moral importance of the moment: “This was an awesome and righteous attack.”

Trump's Russian Playbook

March 6, 2025

On February 28, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was thrown out of the White House after a shouting match with President Donald Trump and his Vice President concerning a minerals deal. It shocked the world that Trump would treat the leader of a heroic nation so shabbily while fawning and making concessions to Russia’s mass murdering President Vladimir Putin. Naturally, some speculated Trump was a KGB operative or Putin had “negatives” on him. However, Trump is transactional and believes in realpolitik, which is politics based on practical objectives rather than ideals. He has been applying pressure or giving concessions to force the two parties to negotiate. For instance, after ousting Zelensky, Trump stopped the arms flow to Ukraine on March 3. The next day, Zelensky sent a contrite letter to Trump which the President jubilantly read in his address that evening before Congress: “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer … We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine, maintain its sovereignty and independence. …Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time.” While difficult for Ukraine to write, the good news is that the letter was also the Kremlin’s worst nightmare.

It’s interesting to note that the Russians are upset that Zelensky and Trump have mended the torn relationship. This is because Moscow has concentrated on extracting concessions from America, not stopping the fighting. According to a Russian quoted by The Moscow Times, “We [Russia] are valuable to Trump primarily in the context of solving a problem: the war in Ukraine. If that issue falls off the agenda, then the entire agenda is thrown into question — what else is there to talk about?”

Trump has done a reasonably good job as a mediator to set the table for talks, but his team is out of its depth when it comes to handling the dangerous and slippery Russians. The cardinal rule in negotiations is that the mediator (America in this case) must meet with each party separately, challenge each one with the arguments presented by their opponents, determine reasonable options or compromises, focus on interests rather than positions or criticisms, and objectively point out everyone’s shortcomings. For instance, during the dust-up in DC, Trump repeatedly told Zelensky, “You have no cards” – a reference to poker that meant he could not win and had no bargaining position. He has also publicly stated that Putin must end his “ridiculous war” against Ukraine, which is “destroying Russia”.

Russia knows that if it doesn’t negotiate, America will double sanctions and armaments to Ukraine. Ukraine was told it must sign the minerals deal and be prepared to give up the lands already lost because it cannot afford to wage the war any longer. It’s also a good guess that Germany and the European Union were told they “have no cards” and must provide peacekeeping troops to Ukraine or face more punitive American tariffs than the threatened 20% to 30%.

However, former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who resigned from Russia’s diplomatic mission to the UN in Geneva in protest against the invasion, explained Putin’s extensive agenda beyond negotiating a truce. “Ukraine, territorial recognition, ‘demilitarization,’ ‘denazification’ — including elections that bring pro-Russian figures to power in Ukraine — and lifting sanctions. That’s the minimum that Putin would like to have.”

Worse, it appears that the Russians have “played” Trump by offering an enticing counter-proposal that has nothing to do with ending the war: A Grand Bargain between the two countries aimed at reordering the world. Russians have told Americans that if sanctions are lifted and Putin’s global standing can be regained, Moscow will do the following: a) decouple from China and help isolate Beijing; b) prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb and financing proxies that destabilize the Middle East, and c) stop meddling and disrupting Africa and join forces to develop its countries. On paper, this is a preposterous promise, but it appeals to Trump, who regards China as a bigger threat than Russia or any other country. A Russian source said: “The Americans will be strung along with talk about a potential reassessment of Moscow’s relationship with Beijing”. In addition, Russia has cluttered negotiations with many demands beyond the end of the war, such as Arctic joint ventures and research projects that allow it to tap into US technologies.

Trump wants a Grand Bargain. On February 12, Trump first raised the idea of Moscow playing a role in diplomacy with Tehran. “The United States and Iran should resolve all problems through negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying. “[Moscow] is ready to do everything in its power to achieve this.” Then, on February 25 and not coincidentally, Trump came across with an enticement to please Russia’s oligarchs by launching a “gold card” visa that would be a path to U.S. citizenship and sold to anyone for $5 million. He heralded this innovation and said the new visa holders “will be wealthy and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful.

(And they will also be crooks and conmen and kleptocrats.)

Such horse-trading with Russia is problematic because Moscow is two steps and centuries ahead of an American businessman like Trump. The Donald was a “sharp operator” who skirted legalities but operated in lawful jurisdictions, not anarchic circumstances. He’s also in a hurry and egotistical, so Putin courts him with flattery and makes promises galore. At the same time as the two try to rearrange the world, Ukraine gets the short end of the stick. For instance, after the fractious meeting with Zelensky, Trump halted all military assistance and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine other than information for “force protection” or protecting Ukrainian troops under attack. This “short pause” was designed to bring Ukraine to the table, and it did. On March 4, the Ukrainian president issued his statement, in which he called the quarrel "regrettable" and reaffirmed his commitment to work toward peace under Trump's "strong leadership."

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz called the statement a "good, positive first step.” Trump voiced appreciation for Zelensky's words and mentioned the statement in his address to Congress. But as of March 5, the bans had still not been lifted. When asked why, Waltz said they will end once peace talks are scheduled and actually begin. “I think if we can nail down these negotiations and move towards them and put some confidence-building measures on the table, then the president will take a hard look at lifting this pause. We must know that both sides are sincerely negotiating towards a partial, then permanent, peace.”

Meanwhile, Russia has continued to fight, and the situation places Ukraine in a Catch-22: No arms or shared intelligence will flow until Ukraine sits at the table, and it cannot sit at the table because Russia sabotages the talks and negotiation process. For instance, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov claimed that Zelensky would be a problem in negotiations due to “unresolved nuances” — whatever that means. Russians also want Ukraine to hold elections to elect a new President, which is impossible during a war. Such delaying tactics help Russia make more gains on the battlefield because Ukraine is held back by weapons and intel bans. A CIA officer explained the significance. “There is no way to replace the capabilities that the US intelligence can provide from our European allies," he told the BBC. “This will likely inspire Russia to push harder on their efforts to take more terrain from Ukraine and away from the negotiating table."

Rookie blunders, carelessness, or both spell disaster for Ukrainians. It is naive for Trump to believe that Russia would double-cross its biggest drone supplier, Iran, or its biggest oil customer, China, or that it could be forced to do so. Trump may know how to pick up real estate bargains in Manhattan and negotiate terms, but transactional foreign policy doesn’t work in complicated, life-and-death situations. Lives are at stake, not mortgage payments, and every single day the war continues, thousands more die or are wounded. Trump and his team of Wall Streeters and political hacks are over their heads in dealing with a sociopathic, war criminal who plays to weaknesses, manipulates, and offers terms that he has absolutely no intention of honoring.

Trump is not a Russian sympathizer. He’s become a patsy.

Trump Mugs The Neighbors

February 3, 2025

Donald Trump launched his geo-economic world war this weekend by mugging his neighbors, including friendly Canada, with a population of 40 million polite and compliant people. It was a classic bully move. Instead of taking on the most significant, meanest kid on the block – Russia – or the biggest, most successful foe – China -- he picked on the scrawny, nice kid north of the border who never causes trouble. By slugging Canada so mercilessly and abrogating a trade agreement forged in Trump’s last presidency, he has successfully sent shivers down the spine of all nations that trade with America. And at the same time, he also launched a war against fentanyl by deploying tariffs. "The President will be implementing tomorrow 25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada, and a 10% tariff on China, for the illegal fentanyl they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans," stated the White House.

It’s not an imagined problem. Large volumes of fentanyl cross the heavily fortified Mexican border into the US, and smaller amounts cross the undefended Canadian border. Still, both boundaries must be shut down, or smugglers will shift activities to Canada; thus, both countries are being penalized. Last year, 110,000 Americans died of fentanyl overdoses, and the drug’s usage has become a significant social problem across America. It’s also not coincidental that both Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance have made this a priority because addictions have tragically afflicted both their families. Further, the fentanyl crisis is a national security issue because China has weaponized it into an epidemic. Beijing subsidizes companies that make and ship the ingredients to North America, according to Congressional investigations. Chinese officials encourage the production of precursor chemicals by giving "monetary grants and awards to companies openly trafficking illicit fentanyl materials… The fentanyl crisis has helped [Chinese Communist Party-linked] organized criminal groups become the world's premier money launderers, enriched the [Chinese] chemical industry, and has had a devastating impact on Americans.”

Mexico’s cartels turn precursors into pills and then smuggle these into the United States. In Canada, gangsters and Chinese gangs called triads are behind fentanyl formulation and trafficking into America. Then, in October, one of Canada’s most prominent banks — TD Bank — was fined $3 billion for laundering the proceeds made by Chinese entities from fentanyl proceeds. US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo stated: “TD Bank facilitated over $400 million in transactions to launder money on behalf of criminals that were selling fentanyl and other deadly drugs that are poisoning our neighborhoods.”

Trump’s tariffs will damage all three economies and their ongoing relationships for years and be complicated. Their supply chains are integrated, and tariffs will force them to undertake the economic equivalent of unscrambling an egg. Branch plants in each country will close and move back home. Companies and consumers in all three countries will be damaged as 25% tariffs increase the price of goods and services, stoking inflation. Canada and Mexico announced measured retaliatory tariffs against American exports in response. This will bring about job losses, lower profits, and inflation in American regions, greatly dependent on the three-way relationship. Then, a large portion of American states depend on trade with China.

An American backlash is starting to build and will grow. The venerable Republican Wall Street Journal has already blasted the whole exercise in an editorial on January 31. “The dumbest trade war in history… for no good reason…Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says they’ve `enabled illegal drugs to pour into America.’ But drugs have flowed into the US for decades and will continue to do so as long as Americans keep using them. Neither country can stop it.”

The adverse knock-on effects will have dire consequences for all. Canada will be “devastated” economically, but Mexico may be bankrupted. Trump has earlier announced he will take on Mexico’s cartels directly (having declared them as “terrorist organizations”). These vicious organizations control and have corrupted the entire country, and America will likely end up sending special forces to take them on. The tariffs will also bring about the “reshoring” or relocation back to America of thousands of American companies located along Mexico’s border. Tariffs will also impair Mexico’s agricultural base, supplying American and Canadian consumers with fruits and vegetables.

Mexico will become a basket case as it is forcibly deindustrialized and impoverished. Canada, likewise, will suffer as U.S.-owned branch plants shutter their operations and move back home. Roughly half of all foreign direct investment in Canada is American, and Americans control the country’s two most significant export sectors: automobiles and oil. Estimates show North America’s auto industry may shut down within a few days to restructure itself and reduce the damage caused by tariffs. At the same time, many American states heavily depend on exports or imports from Canada, as illustrated above.

Another underlying motivation for Trump’s geo-economic war is that America now bears nearly 40% of all the world’s military costs to guard wealthy regions like Europe, Canada, Mexico, Israel, oil-rich Arab nations, Japan, and South Korea. America has also racked up unsustainable trade deficits with countries, hovering around $1 trillion annually. He wants countries to pony up more for their defense and the world’s and to grant other concessions involving trade or access to natural resources. (Interestingly, Trump pulled his punches concerning Canada by lowering his tariffs on Canadian oil to 10%. This was to avoid higher pump prices for American gasoline because Canada supplies roughly half of the oil the United States consumes. Without Canada’s oil, the United States is not energy “independent”.)

As pushback grows and if crackdowns against fentanyl and illegal migrant smuggling occur in Mexico and Canada, Trump will back off. But he now hints about annexation, a threat designed to obtain concessions. Canada, for instance, will have to guarantee access to oil and other essential resources that America needs. It will have to agree to defend its entire perimeter, meet its NATO commitments, and protect its Arctic, none of which it can afford. Mexico will have to dismantle its cartels, root out corruption, and stop the immigration mess, no matter how difficult or costly. Each nation will also be required to fork out billions to defray the cost of continental defense (by building an Iron Dome and contributing more to alliances like NATO or NORAD). Both must declare war against the drug cartels that operate in their countries. If they do little or nothing toward these goals, the three-way trade deal will be permanently dissolved by Trump on April 1.

America's Technocracy

January 13, 2025

America became wealthy because, in 1901, its leaders bridled its “robber barons.” This reduced skulduggery and corruption and closed the enormous gap in wealth. It created opportunities, innovation, and economic development. However, few countries have adopted this meritocratic model. Most are run by dictators, monarchs, chieftains, or oligarchs. But America has also changed and spawned Silicon Valley, reinventing the world and garnering an unprecedented concentration of economic power at home. Its seven biggest companies are the size of nations, and its owners have become the wealthiest individuals in the world and the most politically powerful. Their interests in Washington are represented by Elon Musk, who spent a quarter of a billion dollars to get Donald Trump elected. Now, he works beside him and meddles by sending out a constant flow of goofy ideas and critiques. “We’re not just going to have President-elect Trump as a billionaire rage-tweeting at 4 a.m.,” said a Senator. “We’re going to have Elon Musk also injecting instability into how we tackle very complicated and important issues.”

Elon Musk, the face of Silicon Valley, is brash, brilliant, and arrogant. He’s become a full-time fixture in the Florida White House and participates in classified phone calls and cabinet meetings. At the same time, he runs an empire, tweets around the clock, and has been given the task of slashing federal expenses.

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He is also a one-man wrecking ball in foreign affairs, calling out leaders online to his 211 million X followers, making unproven allegations, lobbying for privileges for his companies, and even joining efforts to overthrow elections or governments. “Ten years ago, if someone had told us that the owner of one of the world’s biggest social media companies would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany, who would have imagined that?” French President Emmanuel Macron told ambassadors last week.

Some joke, but this is a geopolitical version of “Revenge of the Nerds.” (A silly film about a bunch of nerdy “geeks” at a college who outsmart the “jocks” that have harassed them for years.) Elon’s power grab has encouraged his fellow Silicon Valley billionaires to make pilgrimages to Mar-A-Lago and to lavish Trump with praise or donations. For instance, Google, or Alphabet, has remained apolitical for years while fighting anti-trust actions in Washington but recently tripled its usual donation toward the Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump.

Facebook’s (Meta’s) Mark Zuckerberg has also trekked to Florida and announced he would end content moderation on Meta. (A few years ago, his site cracked down on hate, libel, and unfactual postings after it was sued and criticized around the world for stoking violence.) But he will now let anything go, as do Musk and Trump on their respective sites, “X” and “Truth Social.” At a recent press conference, Trump was asked whether he thought Zuckerberg’s moderation climb-down was due to his complaints, and he replied, “Probably.”

Another new Trump convert is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post. During the election, he pleased the Trump camp by forbidding his liberal-leaning newspaper from endorsing either candidate. Another billionaire, not in the tech world but originally from China, owns the LA Times and did the same.

Why have tycoons, who mainly were Democrats in the past, suddenly swung to the MAGA side? First and foremost, they are businessmen whose job is to optimize profitability, so they oppose regulations, higher taxes, research restrictions, and government interference. But unlike other enterprises, their sector is colossal and wields more clout than others. The tech ecosystem comprises millions of people and hundreds of thousands of enterprises. At the top are the “Magnificent Seven” or Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla. Their combined market capitalization is equivalent to half of America’s GDP. In 2024, their combined value increased more than Japan’s GDP.

Wealth creation is beneficial, but the heft of tech in America can be hazardous if unsupervised. Silicon Valley employs armies of lobbyists to fend off attempts to impose antitrust or other restrictions on its operations. Thus, it will continue to grow financially, as will its political influence. This worries some in their industry. A headline in a tech trade publication in 2023, when Microsoft reached $3 trillion in value, noted, “They are already richer than many countries, and the rise of AI looks set to increase their influence.” By comparison, the value of the seven most significant European tech stocks collectively adds up to less than $1 trillion.

America’s tech world is also becoming more significant than the U.S. federal government. It spends more on research and development and infrastructure than Washington. Besides wielding such economic power, the hyper-masculine tech culture is a concern. The “bros” rule, and bosses are almost always guys. For those who think this is an exaggeration, peruse the names of the most prominent players in Silicon Valley. For those who believe this is not a problem, look at the lawsuits waged against these companies by many females claiming discrimination or worse.

The government must have oversight, as is the case with other industries. They play tax games, operate everywhere, and invent potentially dangerous technologies – artificial intelligence, humanoids, autonomous weaponry, genetic modifications, and quantum computing. They sell, license, or participate in technological initiatives in areas or places that are troublesome. For instance, scientists in China breached an internally recognized protocol a few years ago that forbids the engineering of human embryos. The situation came to light, and promises were made that this would not happen again anywhere, but there is no supervision globally for this, nor is there adequate supervision over biological weapons of mass destruction or artificial intelligence.

Any attempts to impose controls are fought because many of these tycoons are libertarians or members of the “New Right,” espoused by Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal and Palantir and backer of J.D. Vance). He and others follow software engineer blogger Curtis Yarvin, who believes that democracy is a “destructive” form of government and that a techno-monarchy should run the world.

Thanks to Musk, America will experience a test run involving heavy-handed technocratic management. Trump announced that Musk and another tech “bro,” Vivek Ramaswamy, would lead DOGE, or the “Department of Government Efficiency.” He said it will be “the Manhattan Project” of this era, driving “drastic change” throughout the government with significant cuts and new efficiencies in bloated federal bureaucracy agencies by July 4, 2026. (Ramaswamy sought the Republican nomination against Trump. During his campaign, he promised to eliminate the Education Department, the F.B.I., and the Internal Revenue Service. He proposed to axe 75% of all federal jobs and slash foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.)

Such cuts may never happen, but the two will cause chaos and don’t get along. Ramaswamy has taken repeated shots online against Musk. In May 2023, he wrote about Musk’s unsuitability to be part of the Trump regime due to his conflicts of interest in China and elsewhere. “I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,” a reference to China’s leader. In a separate X post, he added, “The U.S. needs leaders who aren’t in China’s pocket.”

He’s right, but the U.S. also needs leaders not in Silicon Valley’s pocket. As arrogance fills the airwaves, the time will come when America may have to once again bridle its “robber barons.”

The Art of the Steal

November 14, 2024

A gradual takeover of the White House by the “New Right” is underway. Its public face is Elon Musk, who entered politics by purchasing Twitter in 2022 and turning it into a giant megaphone for himself and Republican political propaganda. This year, he campaigned with Trump and has become the elected president’s policy whisperer. He will reign as secretary of everything in the new cabinet. The two egos may clash and part, but it won’t matter because Musk already “bought” the Vice Presidency for his disciple J.D. Vance, who will stay behind. This represents a sea-change, or the de facto “acquisition” of America by Musk and other tech tycoons, who are as wealthy as nation-states and have decided to upend America’s government. These rich guys believe America’s a mess, and they also know it’s for sale. One of Musk’s pals, Reid Hoffman (founder of Linkedin), published the tech business plan: “In the matrix of people supporting Trump…`Are they purchasable?’ Biden and Harris are not purchasable, and Trump is the most purchasable president in our lifetime.” As it turned out, Hoffman was right. He donated to Harris, but Musk and fellow Paypal founder Peter Thiel backed Trump and have “bought” the Oval Office.

Political capture is nothing new. Mark Twain penned: “America has the best politicians that money can buy.” The U.S. political system remains corrupt because there are no limits on contributions, no disclosure requirements, and no barriers. The country’s political class is for sale to the highest bidder, individually or collectively. That’s why it’s little wonder that America’s democracy has been subjected, over the years, to waves of extremists or philosophical fads. This latest “New Right” infiltration is nothing new except that it’s concentrated in the hands of only a few people. The Democrats were in the grip of the “squad” and “progressives,” who convinced the party to be more concerned about pronouns and political correctness than about fixing the border or stoking the economy.

Now, a tail will still wag the dog, except the “New Right” dances to the tune of a mysterious software engineer blogger named Curtis Yarvin. It should come as no surprise that MAGA maestro Steve Bannon is also a Yarvin fan and that Yarvin believes that democracy, or rule by the people, doesn’t work or result in good decisions. He believes that democracy is a “destructive” form of government and that a techno-monarchy should run the place with a national chief executive who knows what he’s doing. Yarvin is close to Thiel, who’s close to Musk, who’s close to Trump.

Thiel made his first high-profile move into politics in 2022 by becoming a Republican Kingmaker and the most significant donor during those mid-term elections. He specialized in efforts to unseat moderate GOPs who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Capitol insurrection. He spent $15 million getting J.D. Vance elected to the Senate that year. But Thiel had dabbled before, quietly giving millions to libertarian Ron Paul in 2012, then in 2016, he publicly endorsed Trump in a keynote speech at the Republican convention. By 2020, he had abandoned Trump after spending months inside his dysfunctional administration, a disappointment that led to the decision by these tech giants to insert Musk inside the regime to ensure quality “control.” The result is that Elon Musk is currently the “shadow president.”

This week, Trump announced that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead a “Department of Government Efficiency.” He said it would be “the Manhattan Project” of this era, driving “drastic change” throughout the government with significant cuts and new efficiencies in bloated federal bureaucracy agencies by July 4, 2026. (Ramaswamy sought the Republican nomination against Trump. He promised to eliminate the Education Department, the F.B.I., and the Internal Revenue Service. He proposed to axe 75 percent of all federal jobs and slash foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.)

It’s also important to note that Trump’s two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, facilitated this tech takeover. They convinced their father to appoint Vance as his Vice Presidential running mate and to meet Musk and others. Now they are part of the tech world: Eric runs a cryptocurrency start-up, and Donald Jr. just announced he would join the same Thiel venture capital firm that trained Vance and made him rich. That firm also owns a piece of Tucker Carlson’s media company. Thus, Silicon Valley billionaires are forming a Yarvin-style “monarchy,” complete with an aristocracy of useful “princes” and a succession plan.

(By the way, everyone involved in this tech cabal has also made a killing. Musk’s shares in Tesla and Space X have soared by tens of billions, and Silicon Valley’s considerable stakes in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have rocketed upward. Even better, their tech-bro coup d’etat will eliminate the cost to all tech giants of fending off Congress's pesky onslaughts about the sector’s anti-competitive, predatory, and unethical practices.)

So here’s where America is headed. The mastermind is Thiel, who explained his beliefs in a 2009 libertarian blog: “I remain committed to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself `libertarian.’ But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically in terms of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Behind their philosophy is Yarvin, whose beliefs are described as “radical libertarianism,” “anti-progressive,” “anti-egalitarian,” and “anti-democratic.” But essentially, he believes in an enlightened dictatorship run by an elite, which would presumably include himself and his tech buddies. Weirdly, he also refers to the U.S. ruling regime as “the cathedral” and blames academics and journalists for propping up the current system. In Trump-talk, this translates into “fake news.”

Yarvin believes this “cathedral” must be destroyed. He also writes about RAGE, his acronym for Retire All Government Employees. This underpins Musk’s goal to slash $2 trillion from government overheads, which can only be realistically achieved by dismantling the Pentagon and cutting Medicare and Social Security obligations.

Finally, Yarvin’s centrally managed economy is led by a monarch who acts like a corporate CEO and can bypass all governmental procedures. All this “theology” underpins the “New Right” takeover and, frighteningly, gives new meaning to the alarming statement Trump made in July at a campaign rally: “Get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed and fine; you won’t have to vote anymore if you vote for me.” (When a Fox News journalist asked whether this meant he wouldn’t leave the Presidency in four years if he won, he said he would. “I left it the last time.” )

However, everyone knows that Trump fought to remain in the Presidency in 2020. He launched litigation, made threats, and helped organize a riot at the Capital Building that killed four and injured 174 to stay in power. Another worry is that Yarvin is also a revisionist. He has blamed democracy for electing Hitler and World War II when the facts are that Hitler won only 30 percent of the votes and stole the Chancellorship of Germany by hoodwinking an aging, demented German aristocrat, President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler’s takeover wasn’t an example of democracy’s shortcomings. It revealed the danger of elitism without checks and balances — a history that German-born Peter Thiel surely knows and that America must avoid.

Ukraine Will Win

November 21, 2024

Ukraine has offered America a deal that Donald Trump can’t refuse. President Volodymyr Zelensky wants American businesses to invest in his country’s natural resources, worth $26 trillion, equivalent to Canada’s or Australia’s mineral wealth. Zelensky also pledges that Ukraine’s military will help protect Europe’s security after the war. Ideally, a Marshall Plan using $350 billion of frozen Russian assets will also help rebuild Ukraine, as will Westerners who partner with Ukraine’s resource, industrial, and technology sector, the Silicon Valley of Europe. By contrast, after Trump’s election, the Russians responded by escalating their murderous attacks on Ukrainian civilians and cities, making nuclear threats again, and Russian State TV congratulated Trump and then aired nude photos from Melania Trump’s modeling past. However, Zelensky’s pitch to Trump is a “wise move to show that Ukraine is not a burden for the West…Trump wants to be a winner, not a loser,” said Ukrainian Member of Parliament Oleksandr Merezhko. “To become a winner, he must show Putin his place.”

This business approach by Zelensky is part of his “Victory Plan” and has been shown to Trump. It is not off-base or insulting to talk about dollars and cents. It is inspired and appropriate, turning Ukraine from a burden into a prize. It also mirrors Putin’s obsession with Ukraine, which has been more about money than about erasing or subjugating an ethnic group. He is a trillionaire tycoon who controls a nasty oligarchy that has exploited and harvested the resources of Ukraine and other former “colonies” for decades, as did Czars before them. Putin’s invasion on February 24, 2022, aimed to reconquer Ukraine and grab its massive resource endowment. In business terms, the calculus is simple: If the war costs $500 billion and Russia loses its $350 billion in frozen assets seized by Western banks, the capture of $26 trillion in resources, or even half or a quarter of that, represents a spectacular return on investment.

The West has been enormously generous to Ukraine and deserves to be rewarded and reimbursed for its military and humanitarian aid expenditures. It can also help rebuild the country. In August, talks began between Washington and Kyiv to formalize economic cooperation, launch joint investment projects, and devise plans to seize frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts. Ukrainians want and need American businesses to help turn its mining and processing industries into world-beating sectors and to produce high-tech products and semiconductors. The European Union and its companies will also invest in Ukraine, and they have already switched from Russian natural gas to American (and Norwegian) liquefied natural gas. Increasing US gas imports will also meet another Trump goal: dramatically reducing America’s trade deficit with Europe.

Adam Mycyk, a partner in Dentons’ Kyiv law office, published an estimate and summary of Ukraine’s natural resources. His figures show that Ukraine has more uranium than any country in Europe, the second largest natural gas reserves in Europe, and the second largest iron ore reserves worldwide. “The country boasts approximately 20,000 mineral deposits, covering 116 types of minerals. Essential resources include titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel. Ukraine holds the largest titanium reserves in Europe, accounting for 7 percent of the world’s reserves and almost 500,000 tons of lithium. This valuable strategic element could contribute to meeting the global demand for batteries.” There’s also enough oil and gas in Ukraine to meet the needs of Europe and shut Russian energy out of the region altogether.

These charts demonstrate how many billions Americans and Europeans have already provided to Ukraine:

In July 2021, the EU-Ukrainian Strategic Partnership on Critical Minerals was signed and aimed to provide government incentives to encourage the development of 100 mining projects. Kyiv has also auctioned lithium, copper, cobalt, and nickel exploration permits to Westerners. Some of Ukraine’s state-owned mining companies have already been auctioned off, and there are plans to sell more. However, Kyiv will shut China out of future sales and development inside Ukraine, which is appropriate given its collaboration with Russia during the war. For over a decade, China has quietly become one of the country’s most prominent foreign investors. By using Ukrainian oligarchs as proxies, Beijing has snapped up industries, farmland, and mineral-rich land spreads, and once the war ends, it should be forced to return all these assets to Ukrainians.

(Reports are that Trump was “interested” in Zelensky’s investment plan and liked its “ABC—anybody but China” stipulation.)

It must also be noted that Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was about resources too: Moscow recaptured Ukraine’s industrial heartland and coal mines plus Crimea with its vast offshore oil and gas reserves. The 2022 invasion is now designed to get the rest and disrupt and damage supply chains and opportunities for Europe and America. Now, even if 20 percent of Ukraine’s land remains occupied by Russia, the other 80 percent can be rebuilt and become a European economic and military-industrial powerhouse. This will destabilize Putin’s existing empire and may speed its dissolution, as happened to the Soviet Union in 1991.

Putin also hunts for oil and gas in Ukraine. In 2014, he snatched Crimea for its naval base and geopolitical vantage point. But the peninsula is surrounded offshore by colossal oil and natural gas reserves of up to 13 trillion cm of gas. Putin’s army currently attempts to capture central Ukraine’s major oil and gas-producing region, the Dnipro-Donetsk basin, which produces 90 percent of its production. There is also oil and gas in Western Ukraine’s Carpathian region, and one-third of Europe’s shale gas reserves are in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, which are also being fought over.

Kyiv’s other offer to President Trump is that Ukrainian soldiers replace American ones posted at NATO bases across Europe. This would save the US billions, and their cost would be borne by European nations, which have benefitted more than any other region from Ukraine’s sacrifices.

The “Victory Plan” will develop Ukraine’s vast resource wealth, rebuild the country, pay back its allies, and serve as a security guarantee. European troops inside Ukraine will secure any Trump peace deal, says Estonia. And Brussels is in the process of redirecting billions of euros to defense and security. That, along with substantial Western investments in the country for reconstruction and creating an extensive resource sector and military-industrial complex, will be as valuable as membership in NATO. Ukrainians will finally escape Russian threats and oppression once they are fully integrated with Europeans inside the Western alliance.

Frankly, it’s the deal of the century.

AI: Artificial or Apocalypse Intel?

October 10, 2024

It’s been a momentous few days in the world of artificial intelligence. On October 8, Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed a “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence”, won the Nobel Prize. A physicist, he created technologies that have led to the creation of ChatGPT and other AI breakthroughs. However, he is a member of the Future of Life Institute, a non-profit dedicated to convincing governments and companies to implement safety regulations to govern AI research and development globally. Hinton no sooner received his award than he immediately warned, as he has done before, that artificial intelligence must be supervised or one day it will be capable of controlling or wiping out humans. Unfortunately, California Governor Gavin Newsom wasn’t listening. On September 29, he vetoed SB 1047, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act — the world’s first legislative attempt to make AI developers liable for the safety and preventing “critical harms.” Newsome vetoed it, succumbing to intense tech lobbying. The Bill’s sponsor, State Senator Scott Wiener, declared that the veto was “a setback for everyone who believes in oversight of massive corporations that are making critical decisions that affect the safety and welfare of the public and the future of the planet.”

Fortunately, there is still time to address the world’s foremost existential challenge. At this stage, AI is not sentient, cannot think independently, and has no intention of destroying mankind. But in 2023, Hinton quit Google because of his concern that protections were not in place to guide the multi-billion dollar race among America’s tech giants to create machines that will be smarter than human beings and eventually upend existence. He has said he regretted his life’s work because it can be hard to stop “bad actors from using it for bad things.”

In an interview after his Nobel was announced, he said: “The risks are having a whole class of people who are unemployed and not valued much because what they-- what they used to do is now done by machines.” He also pointed out the benefits of AI, such as diagnostic and drug formulation breakthroughs that have advanced medicine. However, he said autonomous military robots should be banned globally, and regulations should be strict regarding all AI applications. “It may be we look back and see this as a turning point when humanity had to decide whether to develop these things further and what to do to protect themselves if they did. I don't know. I think my main message is there's enormous uncertainty about what's going to happen next. These things do understand. And because they understand that we need to think hard about what will happen next. And we don't know.”

One of his Future of Life Institute colleagues, MIT physics professor Max Tegmark, is more blunt. “It is unfortunate to frame this as an arms race. This is more of a suicide race. It doesn’t matter who is going to get there first. It just means that humanity could lose control of its destiny.”

Last month, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari weighed into the AI debate with his latest book “Nexus.” He examines the history of information networks – from ancient times and influential books to newspapers and social media -- and warns that AI is not a tool but an inorganic agent “over which we may lose control.” This “Frankenstein” prediction is nothing new. Neither is the danger of media brainwashing. After all, Hitler harnessed the radio and started a world war that murdered tens of millions. Today, a “Silicon Curtain” replaces the Iron Curtain in totalitarian countries like China or Russia, where information is used to manipulate people and events.

Even in nations where open access exists, social media sites run by an oligopoly of tech tycoons allow the spread of lies, disinformation, propaganda, hate, incitement to violence, conspiracies, and dangerous ideologies. Harari believes such poisonous information exchanges will worsen once AI takes over information networks and can participate in and oversee operations. AI cannot be controlled, which will be ruinous. “Humanity is closer than ever to annihilating itself,” he wrote.

Harari points out that bots already generate 29 percent of all tweets without controls. “Democratic conversation is falling apart, and at fault is this technology,” he stated. Algorithms created by humans direct these, but AI can make decisions by itself and create new ideas, such as texts, images, and video. “You should never summon a power you cannot control,” he cautioned. For instance, a dictator might delegate the power to launch nuclear attacks to an AI, which will then decide when or if to do so.

Social media and falsehoods stoked recent race riots in Britain, which were transmitted by bots. Such techniques influenced the Brexit vote and the 2018 slaughter of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Myanmar, which was fuelled by racist and false Facebook posts about a rape that never happened.

Technologist investor Marc Andreessen says all this is overstated. He is one of the brightest and richest technology guys in the world and labels Harari’s “doomsday” pronouncements as predictable and irrational. He wrote in 2023: “AI will not destroy the world, and in fact may save it… First, a short description of AI: The application of mathematics and software code to teach computers how to understand, synthesize, and generate knowledge in ways similar to how people do it. AI is a computer program like any other – it runs, takes input, processes, and generates output. AI’s output is useful across various fields, from coding to medicine to law and the creative arts. It is owned and controlled by people, like any other technology.”

He dubbed concerns a form of “moral panic,” a chronic social contagion that follows any technological advance. “Now, it is certainly the case that many new technologies have led to bad outcomes – often the same technologies that have been otherwise enormously beneficial to our welfare. So it’s not that the mere existence of a moral panic means there is nothing to be concerned about,” he conceded. “But the fear that technology of our creation will rise and destroy us is deeply coded into our culture. The Greeks expressed this fear in the Prometheus Myth – Prometheus brought the destructive power of fire, and more generally technology (“techne”), to man, for which Prometheus was condemned to perpetual torture by the gods.”

In modern times, technology fear has been stoked by “Frankenstein” and the killer robot in James Cameron’s Terminator films. Andreessen labels this belief as a “category error.” “AI is not an animal that has evolved over billions of years to survive ruthlessly over other species. AI is math–code computers built and controlled by people. It is like a toaster or a car – it doesn’t `want,’ have `goals’, or intend to `kill you’ because it’s not `alive.’” He goes further and describes doomsayers as members of an “apocalypse cult” that’s been around throughout history.

But he misses the point, while Harari and most of us do not. The fear is about the humans, corporations, or governments who make and control the technology. The root of the problem is not machines but is about the failings of humanity and the ruthless pursuit of power or wealth through any means available. “Why would human societies choose to entrust power to their worst members? Most Germans in 1933, for example, were not psychopaths. So why did they vote for Hitler?” he posited. Fortunately, he adds, “Computers are not yet powerful enough to destroy human civilization by themselves. As long as humanity stands united, we can build institutions that will regulate AI.”

Andreessen stresses that AI will enhance people’s lives. Every child will have an AI tutor; every person will have an AI mentor or advisor or therapist; every scientist will have an AI collaborator; and every CEO or leader will have the same. Abundance will result in productivity growth, lower living costs, and medical breakthroughs to extend lifespans. “Don’t get me wrong, cults are fun to hear. The short version is if the murder robots don’t get us, the hate speech and misinformation will,” he concluded.

He also stated that governments should work with the private sector and engage in each potential risk area to protect society. America must also retain dominance in the field. “To prevent the risk of China achieving global AI dominance, we should use the full power of our private sector, our scientific establishment, and our governments in concert to drive American and Western AI to absolute global dominance, including ultimately inside China itself. We win, they lose.”

But what’s important to note is that he and other tech tycoons talk about the need for government control, but few will agree to submit to it. Exhibit A: This month, the world’s first attempt to control tech development flopped, thanks to lobbying by the tech industry in California, which Andreessen has helped build.

Where is Greenpeace or Greta?

May 20, 2024

The biggest “ecocide” in history unfolds as Russia rolls out diabolical weapons and measures specifically designed to destroy Ukraine’s environment. Where are the world’s environmentalists, or climate change politicians who cloak themselves in “green causes” to win votes? Where is the outrage at the fact that Russian planes, or artillery, scatter landmines called “little petals” that have contaminated nearly one-third of Ukraine’s land and forests, equivalent in size to Austria and Hungary. It will take years and billions to de-mine the country and until that’s accomplished hundreds of thousands of people and animals will be injured or killed. “Scattered from aircraft or delivered by mortars, the ‘petals’ spin through the air, bite into the earth and explode upon contact with as little as five kilograms of weight. Hectare by hectare, Russia’s invasion turns barren the country which contains almost a quarter of the world’s chornozem, a highly fertile soil. Even after the contaminants are removed, the toxins they release will affect the fields’ fertility for years,” wrote Dr. Sasha Dovzhyk, a researcher with the Ukrainian Institute. At a recent conference in New York she added “ecocide is now a tool of war”.

Ukraine has become the world’s biggest minefield. But this isn’t the first environmental catastrophe that Russia has visited upon Ukrainians. In 1986, Kremlin incompetence caused a nuclear reactor to explode at Chernobyl, spreading radioactivity across the country and Europe. Now a massive steel and concrete structure, or sarcophagus, covers that reactor and is located inside a 30-kilometer exclusion zone, 90 kilometers from Kyiv. The accident, and the Kremlin coverup, contributed mightily to the dissolution of the Soviet Union by revealing its dysfunction and colonial disregard for life.

Now Putin doubles down. In March 2022, right after the February 24 invasion, his army occupied Chernobyl and took over Ukraine’s four operating nuclear complexes, including the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Europe’s largest. Operations are overseen by Russian military officials who permit limited oversight by the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). This is a disaster waiting to happen. The NEA recently wrote: “The IAEA observers at ZNPP reported that they continued to be denied timely and appropriate access to all areas important to nuclear safety and security.”

Maintenance is inadequate and there is insufficient power or water to keep reactors cool at all times. Testing and inspections are also a problem and Ukrainian power officials have been banned from the site. The staffing of the facility has gone from 11,500 workers to 4,500. Then on June 6, 2023, the Russians blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam – 80 miles away – and dangerously reduced the water levels in the reservoir that cools ZNPP’s reactors. Water is now pumped in from local wells.

The Russians have also set up a military base around the plant and are shelling nearby Ukrainian areas with impunity because shelling back would be catastrophic. The strategy is demonic: Putin now has control over the safety of all Ukrainian nuclear facilities, as well as over the integrity of the Chernobyl sarcophagus which prevents the escape of radiation. This is eco-terrorism on an unimagined level: If just ZPNN explodes or is blown up, a meltdown would cause a massive fire and explosion that would release radiation over a vast area.

As shown in the video, a radioactive cloud would spread across many countries - from Russia in the east to Poland in the west - over a 72-hour period. Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Russia would all be affected. IAEA Director General warned last year of problems:  “We are living on borrowed time when it comes to nuclear safety and security at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Unless we take action to protect the plant, our luck will sooner or later run out, with potentially severe consequences for human health and the environment.”

And the odds of catastrophe increased after the destruction of the Nova Khakovka dam by Russia – a bombing that Moscow denies and blames Ukraine for doing. This act of ecological terrorism is the first involving a dam and unleashed water equivalent in size to America’s gigantic Great Salt Lake in Utah which is larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. The flooding caused damage to humans, animals, topsoil, forests, wildlife, livestock, farming, local industries, villages, infrastructure, and drinking water. It was the “first ever” intentional dam explosion, commented Dovzhyk. “Ecocide on this scale should be a crime in the International Criminal Court and isn’t yet.”

Another environmental cataclysm unfolds at a large Donetsk coal mine where an underground nuclear test was conducted years ago by Russia and left behind massive amounts of radioactive material. Now Russian-occupied since 2022, mine maintenance has been neglected and the radioactive portion of its underground shafts have flooded which has resulted in radioactive water seeping steadily into a vast portion of Eastern Ukraine’s water table. This didn’t occur before because the water that entered the underground mine was pumped out to avoid flooding and contamination.

Putin’s ecocide is also a war against the Global South because he despoils Ukrainian food lands that feed hundreds of millions of poor people around the world. Arif Husain, chief economist at the UN World Food Program, said last fall “we tend to address the symptoms and forget the root cause, and the root cause is war. The numbers do not lie. Pre-Covid we were looking at about 135 million people in crisis or the worst type of food security situation. Today, including Ukraine’s impact, that number is 345 million. There are about 50 million people in the world who are what we call in hunger emergencies, meaning one step away from famine. That’s the magnitude, that’s the scale of the problem we’re talking about.”

The countryside is scarred with landmines, but also with pock marks, and are vicious aerial attacks without value other than to permanently destroy the agricultural base. “Two dozen experts who spoke with Reuters — including soil scientists, farmers, grain companies and analysts — said it would take decades to fix the damage to Europe's breadbasket due to contamination, mines and destroyed infrastructure - and that global food supplies could suffer for years to come. Shelling has also upset the delicate ecosystems of microorganisms that turn soil materials into crop nutrients such as nitrogen while tanks have compressed the earth, making it harder for roots to flourish,” reported Indian broadcast network NDTV.

Putin is barbaric and uncivilized, and his tactics are borrowed from ancient times. Thousands of years ago, Roman soldiers, after each murderous conquest, would sprinkle salt on occupied lands to ensure that nothing could ever grow there again, then steal and enslave the women and children. Today, Russia’s Evil Empire transgresses nuclear proliferation treaties too by turning nuclear reactors into potential “dirty” nuclear bombs. An occupied nuclear plant that can be blown up is a nuclear weapon.

And yet the world’s noisy and well-funded green movement stands silent as this global ecological tragedy unfolds.

That is simply unforgiveable.

Build The Bloody Wall

February 8, 2024

Why can’t the richest and most powerful country in the world guard its southern border? In 2023, more people scammed their way into the United States, 2.5 million, than live in most American cities. That’s a rate of 6,800 illegal aliens daily whose identities, criminal records, and intentions are unknown. They came from all over the world and are mostly young males from violence-prone cultures. They are released and asked to return for a hearing. Most don’t. Donald Trump’s “build that wall” and “make Mexico pay for it” pledges helped him win the 2016 election, but he didn’t fix it and neither has the current occupant in the White House. Recently, Republicans extracted serious border reforms from President Joe Biden by hitching them to an omnibus bill that included support for Israel and Ukraine’s war. Then they double-crossed Biden, at Trump’s behest, by sabotaging the bill in order to harm Biden’s re-election chances by refusing to mend the turmoil at the border. Attempts are underway to pass a standalone bill to fund Ukraine and Israel, but Trump’s troops will stop at nothing, including perpetuating the border mess, to try and capture the White House. This is war. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” gloated ringleader Matt Gaetz this week after he helped reforms go down in flames.

Gaetz’s politics have paid off, but President Joe Biden returned fire politically in a speech: “The border has been broken for years. But the only reason the border is not secure is because of Trump and his MAGA friends…Republicans would rather weaponize it than fix it. And opposing this bill [which includedf Ukrainian aid] is playing into Putin’s hands.” But rhetoric isn’t enough. He must deliver solutions by addressing the migration problem with whatever executive privileges and powers he has. In the defeated legislation, he agreed to enact the most restrictive migrant legislation in years and now must implement it. Reforms included adding thousands more border staff to interdict and adjudicate asylum claims; setting a firm cap on how many asylum claims daily will be processed, and shutting down the border, except to commercial trade, when the border is overwhelmed.

He also must clean the country’s streets by finding and deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented, and dangerous, illegals. For instance, a recent report said 617,607 aliens with criminal records that were let into the country have disappeared.

The perpetual failure by Washington to seal the border is a shocking lapse. Two Presidents, both national parties, and Congress have fiddled as “Rome burns”. America’s mainstream media has also failed by one-sidedly misrepresenting the “immigration” issue as a humanitarian situation when it’s simply a massive crime scene. Mexican cartels make billions smuggling people and drugs into the US by gaming a system that should have been scrapped years ago. And it worsens. Since Biden became President, a total of 3.3 million illegals have been released into the United States — a migration tsunami that is costing state and federal governments $150.7 billion annually. This money pays for their medical care, for the incarceration of those who break laws, and for housing and welfare. According to a recent Congressional report, this cost is larger than the total GDP of 24 American states.

Washington’s foot-dragging has been mostly due to the fact that the crisis is felt locally, in border states like Texas and Arizona that don’t control the national agenda or media. But last year, Texas and Florida officials began busing and dumping hundreds of thousands of illegals into Democratic cities such as New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In 2023, New York City received 145,000 “asylum seekers” and now spends $1 billion a year on housing and support – a tab that has forced cutbacks on other spending. Dislocations and street crime have increased, as has opposition.

America’s generosity is not returned in kind and dangers multiply. On January 30 a violent incident in New York City illustrated how hazardous the situation has become as well as how inept the system is to protect the public. That day, security cameras in Times Square caught five young illegals viciously beating up two policemen. They were arrested and charged with assault, but hours later were released without bail. Reports are that they the fled then swapped immigration identification numbers with other people at their refugee shelter and used those identities at a church to obtain food vouchers and free bus tickets to California.

All five were members of a pickpocket gang of Venezuelans operating for months in crowded tourist areas in the city. Some were allowed into the country despite criminal records, and had racked up offenses for months. All five were released without bail despite other pending charges. One had a dozen larceny charges outstanding involving credit card theft, and another faced assault and robbery. Others awaited trials concerning resisting arrest, larceny, and criminal possession of stolen property. After the incident, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted: “Illegals can walk across the border, beat up cops in NYC, and be released without bail. This is a national embarrassment. Deport the illegals and close the border.”

The incident received scant national media attention. The footage was shown but short-lived. Meanwhile, the country’s immigration cheerleaders – The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and the Washington Post – virtually ignored it or gave it short shrift. By so doing, they once again failed to inform the public about the seriousness of the “immigration” problem. Only Fox News covered it and continues to lead the nation journalistically by stationing cameras at the border and airing critics and statistics that describe Washington’s dereliction of duty.

Other forms of economic damage remain unreported. In 2023, nearly 143,000 illegal immigrants were deported – a costly correction required because they should never have been allowed in. Untold thousands work illegally for cash under the table, commit crimes, or are employed by the Mexican cartels to work off the $5,000 smuggling fees they owe to them. In the employ of cartels, their duties include robberies or pushing, smuggling, processing, or delivering illicit drugs and contraband.  

What’s frustrating is that solutions exist. Asylum applications should only be made from outside the United States (in accordance with the UN Asylum rules). Tens of thousands of Immigration agents must be hired to track down and deport those who never showed up for their asylum hearing. An e-verify system must be required to crack down on illegal employment. And those who employ illegals should be prosecuted. Most importantly, Mexico must be ordered to block its southern border and ports of entry from illegals, and stop their transit.

Republican Presidential candidate, and former U.N. Ambassador, Nikki Haley also offered a few bold suggestions. She supports bringing in the US military. “When it comes to the cartels, we should treat them like the terrorists that they are," Haley told Fox News in a recent interview. "I would send special operations in there [Mexico] and eliminate them just like we eliminated ISIS and make sure that they know there's no place for them. If Mexico won't deal with it, I'll make sure I deal with it.”

President Biden must initiate strong measures and seal the border. A physical wall need not be necessary. A virtual one can prevent unwanted crossings by deploying satellite surveillance and laser fencing to detect illicit activity and drugs, on either side. Mexico must cooperate or face the possibility that the North American trade deal with the US and Canada will become bilateral. If Biden cracks down and closes the border to illegals, he will win the Presidency. After witnessing years of political grandstanding and incompetence, Americans now realize that the border with Mexico is the country’s most important domestic issue. As Louisiana Senator John Kennedy comically remarked before voting against tougher measures: “The border’s wide open. It’s easily fixed. Just stop people from coming in.”

Putin's 143 Million Prisoners

January 22, 2024

DIANE FRANCIS

Amidst all the attention about Donald Trump and America’s 2024 Presidential election, the faux “re-election” of Vladimir Putin rolls on. Of course, it is a sham and he will win on March 17 because Russia is a criminal organization where elections are window-dressing and speech is about as free as it is inside China’s Politburo. Even so, credible polls reveal that support for Putin’s war ebbs as the conflict drags on, killing or maiming 315,000 and imperilling another 300,000 Russians at the warfront. But politics are also about “local” issues and Russians are upset because eggs are scarce and expensive, interest rates high, and frozen pipes burst constantly leaving hundreds of thousands without heat. But Russians endure by using dark humor and sarcasm to express feelings and opinions. One anti-war joke making the rounds these days is that “Putin’s partial mobilization means that you are drafted in whole and return back with parts missing”. But this election is different because movements opposing the war appear which may be why Putin suggests, through back channels, that he will accept a ceasefire even though, publicly, he doubles down. His latest billboard campaign boasts Imperially beneath his image that “Russia’s borders do not end anywhere” and recently declared that he still wants all of Ukraine.

Surely Putin realizes that his army cannot beat a NATO-backed Ukraine. At the same time, however, he also realizes that he cannot lose power at home. So he bides his time and hopes for Western war fatigue and a Trump victory in the fall. This week, Trump won the Iowa Republican primary and repeated that he could solve the Ukraine war “very fast” – a pledge only possible if the White House threatens to stop providing military aid to Ukraine unless it negotiates a cease-fire. But Europeans rally to help Ukraine, in response to Washington’s political gridlock, and Kyiv is about to deploy this spring a few dozen F16s, donated by EU nations, that could decimate Putin’s hapless cannon fodder along the front line.

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But internal threats lurk inside Russia. Its obscene casualty rate has sparked a low-key, but effective anti-war protest from women relatives of soldiers, dubbed the “white scarves” movement. They hide their identities, gather to lay carnations at unknown soldier’s monuments, and have issued a manifesto calling Putin’s mobilization of their menfolk “legalized slavery”. Other groups have sprung up in remote regions where a disproportionate number of men from ethnic minorities have been press-ganged into the military and died. Putin avoids putting into uniform the rich, well-connected young “white” Russians who live in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as described in my June 12 newsletter “Putin’s other genocides”.

Russian draftees die in droves due to improper training and equipment. Once inducted, they disappear, leaving relatives in the dark as to their whereabouts or condition. Many deaths are unreported and reports surface that conscripts have been shot as deserters for retreating or for refusing to obey dangerous orders. Army morale is low and many escape and hide. A recent investigation alleged that a group of draftees, who complained to officers, were purposely sent to their deaths in battle. “Our problems have been constantly ignored, but we won’t let our men be forgotten,” said Maria Andreyeva, the wife of a mobilized soldier and one of the few members of the movement willing to go public.

The “white scarves” leaders tread carefully and, thus far, have not been subjected to the arrests and abuse that most anti-Putin activists incur. There has been some intimidation, and bans against certain protests, but violent repression is taboo. This is why the movement – online and off – continues and grows. Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin believes this relatives’ movement is “a serious symptom of growing problems” in the country. And it is why authorities cautiously handle the situation because “the consequences [of action] could be unpredictable.”

These women spread concern. A Russian investigative website reported recently that a letter signed by 100 family members of soldiers stationed in Ukraine demanded an end to Putin’s “meat assaults” against Ukraine’s military. Another reporter wrote that an entire platoon just deserted in Crimea and is being hunted. True or false, underground stories spread like COVID across Russia and the quiet protest by women has even garnered the attention of the esteemed Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington. It recently commented that the “angry relatives” are Putin’s biggest concern. "Putin's presidential campaign will reportedly not focus on the war in Ukraine, and the Kremlin likely considers the relatives of mobilized personnel to be a social group that may pose one of the greatest threats to his campaign.”

Then there are the eggs and price of groceries. Police recently arrested a member of the Uzbek diaspora for “inciting hatred” with an online meme that spoofed both the country's economic inflation and the military mobilization. He faces a jail sentence for this post and caption in Russian: “Screw you and your eggs! Bring back the roosters from the front.”

Don’t laugh.

Last month, Putin publicly apologized for the soaring cost of eggs. But discontent grows, according to recent polls conducted by non-governmental, independent organizations. Support for Putin’s war hits rock bottom, according to Euronews. In October, Russian pollster, the Chronicle, said support for the invasion had halved in two years. It added that 40 percent of Russians favor the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine without war aims being achieved and that only 33 percent were against exiting from the war, down from 47 percent one year ago. Another poll found that 80 percent of Russians are worried about their financial well-being, a figure that’s 30 percent higher than recorded in May. Such anxiety is worrisome in any election, rigged or otherwise, but in combination with Putin’s quagmire in Ukraine is now reportedly unsettling Putin’s “siloviki” or the intelligence and security inner circle.

Journalists say oligarch “clans” openly feud and discredit one another to shift blame as well as to secure more power for themselves after the election and war. Putin has always encouraged infighting to retain power. This tactic was demonstrated last year when a raucous rivalry between his military brass and the late oligarch and mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin surfaced. The clash resulted in a violent but quick mutiny by Prigozhin; a climb down then a love-in with Putin, and finally his assassination weeks later.

The reality is that the election is a foregone conclusion and Russia’s 143 million people are prisoners in a gigantic gulag with 10 timezones. Heroic political foe Alexey Navalny still survives and says that Russia will “collapse and crumble”. But his recent tweet illustrates his personal plight in captivity after being recently transferred during the election to a jail near the Arctic Circle.

Putin keeps Navalny alive, and lets him communicate to the outside world, because he serves a purpose. Navalny’s increasingly gaunt appearances convey the message: Putin’s power is intractable and the consequences of anyone who opposes him are dire. Navalny recently resurfaced at a court hearing at his new hideous prison, and deployed the same dark humor and sarcasm that all Russians use to cope. He entered the court smiling and told the judge that he wanted the court to know that he missed the guards from his last prison, which caused the judge to laugh. Then he described his new conditions. “At this temperature, you can walk for more than half an hour, but only if you have time to grow a new nose, ears, and fingers.” Then he joked, tragically, that he hoped to figure out what court would accept a lawsuit from him so that he could change the weather.

It’s World War III

November 6, 2023

The Israel-Gaza and Ukraine-Russia conflicts are the result of a world war started in 1999 by Vladimir Putin to recreate the Soviet Union’s empire. Russia’s war machine operates in the shadows and is behind most of the world’s strife. It is not a goose-stepping monolith, but a hidden Hydra with thousands of tentacles that reach worldwide and have grown for decades. Putin prefers to wage hybrid warfare and deploys mercenaries, rogue nations, and non-state players such as terrorists or political extremists to foment unrest and revolts. He weaponizes food and fuel and sabotages economies, elections, reputations, and industries. Russian operatives corrupt nations; torture, poison, or bribe individuals; kidnap children; take hostages, and launch cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns on an industrial scale. Such tactics have culminated in the two major wars underway in Europe and the Middle East, and, despite ample evidence of Russia’s involvement, there is no global consensus that this is World War III and must be stopped. Instead, leaders haggle over next moves and whether to fund Ukraine as opposed to Israel, as though the same Evil wasn’t behind all conflicts. Only a global alliance will stop Russia’s war.

If you examine the current geopolitical problems through the prism of a world war orchestrated by another ruthless leader, there is no room for appeasement, neutrality, avoidance, nor for dreams that negotiations, ceasefires, or peace talks will stop the mayhem. Only eradication of Russia’s network, in all its guises, will win the peace. Russia’s nation-state allies are Iran and North Korea, but Moscow has also financed and trained thousands of non-state actors that are embedded everywhere to cause trouble. Hamas and Hezbollah are well-known terrorist guerrilla armies on the payroll of Russia and Iran, but so is a roster of anti-West countries, political parties, terrorist sleeper cells, movements, and leaders. Finally, there is Russia’s huge conventional army as well as the Wagner Group mercenaries that have played an over-sized role in destabilizing Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Venezuela. All must be defeated.

Instead, the world currently focuses on the killing fields of Israel and Ukraine, but should view them as tragedies that have happened because of the world’s strategic blindness to the existence of this insidious global war. The current Israeli situation, for instance, illustrates at least two mistakes: The failure by Israel and others to recognize and stop Putin’s behind-the-scenes maneuvres; and the reliance on conventional armed forces to provide security against elusive, hybrid warfare. The result was that on October 7 (Putin’s birthday) Hamas slaughtered 1,400 people despite Israel’s large military and Putin’s “friendship” with Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, in retaliation, Israel counter-attacked by conducting massive bombing raids and a ground invasion of Gaza to destroy Hamas as if it were a static nation-state and not a cunning mobile insurgency that had already “left town”.

By the time the tanks arrived, Hamas was gone or hiding behind Palestinian civilians as shields. Israel’s ferocious retaliation demolished half of Gaza, killed thousands of civilians, but eliminated only a few dozen terrorists. This outcome handed Russia and its global tentacles an opportunity to weaponize the air waves by amplifying the plight of Palestinian civilians at the hands of Israel. This has roiled world opinion and resulted in criticism of Israel even among its allies. Theoretically, if the world had realized what Putin was up to, an allied hybrid war capability might have detected and prevented the attack or, having failed to do so, could have conducted a surgical counterattack with fewer civilian casualties. But now the West and Israel have been undermined, American politicians divided, Arab and Muslim allies alienated, and the possibility of a two-state solution postponed indefinitely.

Not surprisingly, Vladimir Putin granted a rare interview days later with Qatar-owned Al Jazeera where he expressed concern about the “catastrophic increase” in the number of civilians killed in Israel and the Gaza Strip. “The Russian leader also took aim at Washington’s policy in the Middle East which he said had failed by not taking the needs of Palestinians into account,” read the website.

The failure to take a global approach to Russia’s predations allows one ally to be pitted against another or to make a grave strategic error that damages all. Clearly, a unified alliance must create a hybrid war counter-offensive that can identify, track, anticipate, infiltrate, and destroy Russia, Iran and their malevolent non-state actors before they attack. The failure to muster a global force against Russia allows Putin to gain ground, geographically or politically, by dividing and conquering foes, isolating targets, and generating instability across the world.

Ukraine is another example of what happens when the civilized world fails to unite against Russia. In 2008, Putin invaded Georgia, then Ukraine in 2014 without much fuss by America, Europe, or others. The Obama regime opted to do a reset with Russia, a nonsensical strategy given the sociopathy of the Putin regime. That miscalculation, along with appeasements, led to the invasion of Ukraine on February 2022. But if the West had understood that Putin was salami-slicing the West on a quest to dominate Eastern Europe once more, other strategies would have been undertaken. For starters, Europe would have realized it could never become fully dependent on Russian oil and natural gas; NATO would have expanded into Scandinavia, Georgia, and Ukraine years ago, and the West would have invested billions in protecting the collective security, not forced to play catch up for the past 20 months.

Fresh from these two major triumphs, Russia will continue its “hybrid warfare” globally. It will fund any anti-American, anti-European Union, anti-Israel, or anti-NATO group, media, political party, and leader. Such efforts have already borne fruit. Putin’s tentacles have backed anti-European Union populists such as Marine LePen in France, Victor Orban in Hungary, Slovakian or Serbian politicians, Britain’s “Brexit” movement, white supremacists in America, and anti-Europe celebrities like Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and Tucker Carlson in America — whether they know it or not.

Russia has also weaponized migration into Europe and America to destabilize both politically and socially. As many as 20 million refugees have landed in Europe following Russian military interventions in Syria and Ukraine. Neither jurisdiction has secured its borders or properly screened entrants. (Read my “Global Refugee Mess” published on October 2.) If one agrees with my assertion that World War III is already underway, it’s hardly a stretch to speculate that included, among the tens of thousands of Venezuelan and Central American men who enter the United States, are spies, criminals, drug mules, or terrorists. In addition, thousands more arrive from further afield, including Russia. And Europe is in worse shape because it lacks a continental navy and is inundated with refugee claimants, most recently arriving by boat from the Middle East, or countries in Africa where Russian influence is powerful.

China has stayed on the sidelines in this global war despite boasts by Putin about being “no limits friends”. Russia would love nothing better than to convince China to open a third theater in its world war by invading Taiwan. But this is a Kremlin distraction combined with wishful thinking. Since Ukraine’s invasion, China has distanced itself from Russia, and refused to provide military aid. Military conquest is not China’s style. Its foreign policy has been mercantilist, via its Belt and Road Initiative. Besides that, Beijing moves toward détente with the United States and Europe out of self-interest to shore up its exports and economy in future. And it too fears Russia, as it should. Russia, not China, initiated and backed the only post-war invasions in Asia -- Korea and Vietnam. Both conflicts embroiled the United States for years as its alliance of conventional troops fought to stalemates against guerrilla armies.

Today Russia remains a global scourge and is winning its world war. This is why an alliance must stop and dismantle its deadly war machine.

Israel’s Hidden War Redux

I’M REPUBLISHING THIS ADDITIONAL NEWSLETTER, FROM JUNE 3, 2021, WHICH EXPLAINS THE DANGEROUS DIVIDE WITHIN ISRAELI SOCIETY THAT HAS NOW LED TO THE CURRENT WAR.

IT DESCRIBES THE UNFATHOMABLE DIVIDE IN THE COUNTRY WHICH THREATENS ITS ECONOMIC FUTURE AND MAY EVENTUALLY RESULT IN CIVIL WAR BETWEEN SECULAR ISRAELIS, WHO ARE PUTTING THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE IN ITS ARMED FORCES, AGAINST RELIGIOUS ISRAELIS WHO REMAIN EXEMPT FROM MILITARY SERVICE AS WELL AS FROM PAYING TAXES. THE DIVIDE IS ALSO EDUCATIONAL — HIGHER, WELL-ROUNDED EDUCATION FOR SECULAR ISRAELIS VERSUS NARROW, SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS FOR RELIGIOUS ISRAELIS.

THE NETANYAHU GOVERNMENT, CONTROLLED BY RADICAL RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS, TOOK OVER AND FAILED TO PROTECT ISRAELIS ALONG ITS BORDER WITH GAZA WHO WERE MASSACRED ON OCTOBER 7 BY ISLAMIC TERRORISTS. IT HAS ALSO ENCOURAGED RELIGIOUS SETTLERS IN THE WEST BANK TO ILLEGALLY ANNEX PALESTINIAN LANDS.

HERE IS A TWO-YEAR-OLD NEWSLETTER THAT EXPLAINS THE ROOTS OF THE TERRIBLE WAR, AND SHOCKING REPRISALS BY NETANYAHU’S REGIME:

June 3, 2021 — The latest Israel-Palestinian crisis flared for a handful of days as bombs rained down on both sides, causing the predictable diplomatic flurry and another cease-fire deal that won’t last. Nothing will change for two reasons: Fortress Israel is impregnable, and the Palestinians in the occupied territories cannot get their act together because of their dysfunctional and corrupt leaders. So the cycle will repeat, and pundits will bleat, about a two-state solution and other options that are unattainable.

But Israel’s real existential challenge is within. It’s about an irreconcilable clash between worldviews: Israelis (Jewish and Arab citizens) who want Israel to remain a vibrant economic and technological powerhouse and liberal democracy; and ultra-orthodox Jews, or Haredim, who believe Israel should be a theocracy for the devout. The hidden war is due to demographics and the fact that the Haredim population explodes and in less than two generations will represent half of Israel’s population.

This challenge is behind the creation this week of a broadly-based coalition of eight political parties — right, left, centrist, and the United Arab List parties — which aims to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his radical policies. It’s important, however, to note that this is an awkward alliance that only agrees on one issue, his removal. Governance going forward will be tricky, to say the least, and the coalition intends to be led for two years by Naftali Bennet as Prime Minister, a hard-line religious-nationalist, then by centrist leader Yair Lapid, favored by secular Israelis.

The coalition is a metaphor for Israel’s deep divisions. Arab Israelis represent 20 percent of the population (and 25 percent of its children), the ultra-orthodox or Haredim represent 14 percent (and 20 percent of the country’s children), and the remaining majority consists of secular and religious Jews. The Haredim have been awarded major privileges by Netanhayu over the years while the Arab minority has been neglected in state budgets and housing and land policies. Further, in 2018, an incendiary Nation-State Law passed that enshrined the right of national self-determination as being “unique to the Jewish people,” rather than to all Israeli citizens.

While a blow, Arabs in Israel enjoy higher living standards and more freedoms than their counterparts anywhere else and are becoming democratically engaged. Arab parties are in the new coalition, and Arabs also becoming more successful. For instance, today half of Israel’s pharmacists and one-fifth of all its physicians are of Arab background.

Israel’s biggest “threat”, politically and economically, is the exponential population growth — and political clout — of the Haredim, or ultra-orthodox Jews. (“Haredim” is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “a member of any of various Orthodox Jewish sects characterized by strict adherence to the traditional form of Jewish law and rejection of modern secular culture, many of whom do not recognize the modern state of Israel as a spiritual authority.”) They are not a threat because of their religion, but because their worldview differs from other Israelis who believe in liberal democracy.

Demographically, the Haredim will take over Israel’s population in two generations because of exploding birthrates. Their political clout is already dominant and Netanyahu has taken the country radically to the “right” in favor of special privileges for the Haredim. This demographic alarum has been raised often by Professor Dan Ben-David, an economist at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Public Policy who heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research. The Haredim, he says, constitutionally enjoy enormous privileges while, at the same time, disdain modern life and gainful employment, therefore living off all Israeli taxpayers.

This trajectory will result in unresolvable internal conflicts which have begun to bubble over into the population at large. For the first time inside Israel, serious inter-communal violence broke out during the latest crisis with Hamas in Israel’s “mixed communities” as far-right Jewish militias attacked Arabs, who retaliated, according to news accounts.

“The most shocking developments occurred on the streets of Israel, as rival Jewish and Arab mobs attacked cars, shops, and people in several towns and cities,” wrote The New York Times. “In Bat Yam, a seaside suburb south of Tel Aviv … dozens of Jewish extremists took turns beating and kicking a man presumed to be Arab, even as his body lay motionless on the ground. Another occurred in Acre, a northern coastal town, where an Arab mob beat a Jewish man with sticks and rocks, also leaving him in a critical condition.”

This is happening at a time when Arabs have integrated more with their Jewish neighbors in recent years, wrote The New York Times. “But at the same time, the Israeli Jewish leadership has grown more right-wing and nakedly racist.”

When the Haredim won certain inalienable rights in 2018, etched into the country’s Basic Laws, they obtained special status, wrote Ben-David. This includes exclusive control over the education of their children and support for their growing “community of learners” (Torah students) who are not only exempt from military service but may refrain from paid work too, and must be supported by taxpayers. The result is that employment rates among Haredi men are low.

These low employment rates among Haredim men are partly a choice (to pursue religious studies) but are also the result of poor educational outcomes. Yeshivas don’t teach core subjects and Ben-David adds that many Arab children attend schools that are under-funded and sub-standard. “One-quarter of Israel’s schoolchildren are Arab-Israeli and perform poorly in core subjects – in math, science and reading – even below that of other Muslim countries, and most of the Haredim (ultra-orthodox) children, which comprises one-fifth (20 percent) of the total, and is growing exponentially, don’t study these subjects in their religious schools,” wrote Ben-David in an article for The Times of Israel in 2019.

Not surprisingly, Israeli students as a whole underperform the rest of the developed world in terms of test results.

This means that Israel will lose its status as a “start-up nation” unless educational and other reforms are enacted because already nearly half of Israel’s children will be unprepared to assume the reins of a high-tech nation, argues Ben-David. “How is it even possible that government after government refuses to grant an exponentially increasing number of Haredi children the basic right to a core curriculum – a right that is stipulated by the law in every developed country, except Israel.”

This dramatic demographic shift results in conundrums: How can Israel’s pluralistic and meritocratic society continue to grant special status and financially support an increasing number of unproductive persons, based on religion? How can the country tolerate poor educational outcomes, and welfare dependency, and still deliver economic prosperity? “Not only is Israel’s labor productivity among the lowest in the developed world, but the gap between the leading G7 countries (the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, and Japan) and Israel has increased over three-fold over the past forty years,” he wrote.

The proportion of Haredi men with an academic degree has remained very low and unchanged over the past decade and a half, however, a slight increase has occurred among Haredi women.

Will this growing divide result in more inter-communal clashes, such as those that just occurred during the latest conflict? Fortunately, these were sporadic and relatively short-lived because, it’s important to note that calm was restored, thanks to centrist politicians representing both Arab Israelis and secular Jews. “The vast majority of the people of Israel -- Jews and Arabs -- are far better than this,” said Yair Lapid. Likewise, Ayman Odeh, a young Israeli-born, multilingual lawyer of Arab descent who describes himself as secular and heads the Joint Arab List representing four Arab parties, publicly called for restraint and urged followers to participate only in organized demonstrations.

Odeh is a respected power broker who recites Martin Luther King and concentrates on establishing peaceful co-existence among all Israelis. He was born in Israel and describes himself as an Arab Israeli, not a Palestinian. And in a leadership debate in 2015, he made his mark when he was attacked by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a right-wing leader of Israel’s Our Home party, who sneered at him: “Why did you come to this studio, why not to Gaza, or Ramallah? Why are you even here? You are not wanted here; you are a Palestinian citizen.”

Odeh was unruffled and replied: “I am very welcome in my homeland,” he said in Hebrew, then referred to the fact that Lieberman migrated from the Soviet Union. “I am part of nature, the surroundings, the landscape.”

Hopefully, the new coalition can begin to address the country’s need to level the playing field, institute comprehensive, systemic education reform that will turn Israel’s schools – including in the Haredi sector – into the world’s best, and improve healthcare, infrastructure, and policing in all poor neighborhoods.

In The Times of Israel piece, Ben-David concludes with a demographic warning: “It should be clear that the complexity of the challenges that Israel faces extends far beyond the issue of Haredim. Pervasive poverty and income inequality also exist among non-Haredi Jews, not to mention Arab-Israelis. Not everything begins and ends with education. But if a population group this large continues to exercise considerable influence on the direction and amplitude of flows from the government faucet in a manner that only further enhances their exponential growth, while concurrently depriving their children [and others] of the vital tools necessary for integration into a competitive global economy and a modern society, Israel will cease to exist.”

Putin's Pope

August 17, 2023

On the morning of June 2, 1979 church bells pealed across Poland as Pope John Paul II stepped from his plane onto the soil of his native country then knelt to kiss its ground. His dramatic gesture of devotion and his crusade against human rights abuses helped demolish the Soviet Union. Polish insurgents were allowed to meet, organize, and pass messages in Catholic churches as their Pope spoke out eloquently against Soviet wrongdoing everywhere. In 2003, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize and declined out of humility. In 2014, he was canonized. By contrast, the current incumbent, Pope Francis, has never directly condemned Vladimir Putin or Russia by name in the 18 months since their horrific war began against the Ukrainian people. Worse, the Pope’s first quoted reaction echoed Kremlin talking points when he suggested that the war was a consequence of “NATO barging at Russia’s gate” and the “international arms industry”. This Pope’s failure to publicly condemn Putin and Russia, and his moral equivocation when pressed, is unforgivable and reminiscent of the Papacy’s tacit acceptance of Hitler and his Second World War.

Pope Francis is creating another “historic mess” because he aims to “show that he is neither on one side or the other,” commented Giovanni Maria Vian, a former editor of the Vatican’s newspaper. The Papal silence is perplexing, given that Catholicism is the largest religion in Europe and that 10 percent of Ukrainians are members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which recognizes the Holy See. Other religious Ukrainians belong to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine which broke away from its Russian counterpart in 2019, but their worldwide spiritual leader, Patriarch Bartholomew, immediately labelled Russia’s invasion as “unholy and demonic”. And this March, he also directly accused the Russian branch of the Orthodox church and the Kremlin of cooperating “in the crime of aggression and shared the responsibility for the resulting crimes, like the shocking abduction of the Ukrainian children.”

Perhaps Pope Francis refuses to name the predators because one of them is a friend — Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill who also happens to be a former KGB agent and confidante of Putin’s. A few years ago, Forbes Magazine estimated that Kirill’s personal net worth was $4 billion, but this remains unverified. However, he wears $30,000 watches and owns a private jet, a palatial estate, a yacht, and valuable real estate in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Suspicions are that his fortune was accumulated by skimming profits made by his Church in the mid-1990s after it was granted a monopoly to import cigarettes duty-free.

After the February 2022 invasion, Kirill did not condemn it as the worldwide Orthodox Patriarch did, but issued a directive to Russian soldiers that “your task is to wipe the Ukrainian nation off the face of the Earth”. Despite such a shocking pronouncement, Pope Francis told newspapers in Italy a few weeks later that he spent 40 minutes on a zoom call with his friend Kirill and warned him against becoming “Putin’s altar boy”, wrote The Washington Post. He warned him? Surely, the Pope knew that Kirill was a Putin insider and collaborator and had publicly promoted genocide.

One year later, on 30 April 2023, Pope Francis announced that the Vatican was embarking on a secret "peace mission" to try to end the war. In May, President Zelensky flew to meet the Pope to discuss the mission, but left in disgust and tweeted: “I asked [the Pope] to condemn [Russia’s] crimes in Ukraine. Because there can be no equality between the victim and the aggressor. I also talked about our Peace Formula as the only effective algorithm for achieving a just peace. I proposed joining its implementation.”

The next day Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted a withering condemnation of the Vatican’s inaction, failure to call out the culprits, and use of the Kremlin’s damaging narrative. “The Vatican is primarily about morality. When you call an aggressor by their name. When you harshly and directly condemn mass crimes. When you openly side with a country that is being killed and destroyed without provocation. When you personally defend those who are unconditional victims of Russian aggression. When you call evil, which is Russia, by its name. Only then does Holy Justice emerge.”

One month later Pope Francis personally announced that his peace mission was over because there was no apparent end in sight to the war after his envoy held three days of talks in Moscow. But a Vatican statement followed which revealed that the Pope’s consultations were doomed (or cynical) from the start because they were between the Pope’s envoy and one of President Vladimir Putin's closest foreign policy advisors as well as the odious Patriarch Kirill.

The International Affairs Institute of Italy analyzed why the Pope failed to mediate a deal. It blamed the Pope’s NATO-bashing narrative which aligned him with the Kremlin and portrayed Ukraine’s struggle for freedom and democracy and justice as simply a proxy war between colonial powers. “It denies agency to the Ukrainian people, undermining their ability to be active participants in the conflict and possible negotiations. Instead, it presents Ukraine, and its population of over 40 million, as a mere pawn in the hands of the so-called `great powers’,” it concluded.

So is this Pope tone deaf or co-opted? Is it because he’s not European, but from the Global South where Europe remains resented? Or is it because he’s a Jesuit, an order of priests devoted to education who are often theological “eggheads” that indulge in parsing and dissembling moral issues even when answers are simple and obvious. Such casuistry, or unsound reasoning in relation to moral questions, certainly afflicts this Pope. When asked by an Italian newspaper whether it was right to send weapons so Ukraine could defend itself, he said “I don’t know.” When pushed to castigate Putin and Russia, he responded “I am simply against reducing complexity to the distinction between good guys and bad guys, without reasoning about roots and interests, which are very complex” then added Russia’s war in Ukraine was “perhaps somehow either provoked or not prevented.” 

Whatever the underlying causes, his behaviour is inexcusable. The facts are simple: Ukraine was invaded by Russia, its people are being killed, the country is being destroyed, his friend Kirill has called for genocide, and every perpetrator must be condemned and punished. This is not morally debatable.

It’s surprising that, despite the Pope’s dereliction of duty, some members of his flock haven’t lost faith. In August, many young Ukrainians attended the Apostolic Visit by the Pope in Portugal on World Youth Day hoping he would take up their cause. “The Pope said nothing”, remarked Rev. Roman Demush reported The New York Times. He leads the youth ministry office for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. “The war should make us scream, and it silences. He said he was impotent in front of this evil. It’s not enough just to listen — he has to do something. We want the Pope to be clear, in an understandable way, that Russia is a terrorist state.”

Russia's Sopranos

June 26, 2023

The bizarre events in Russia over the weekend provide a glimpse into the reality that the country is not a nation, but an empire with warring factions that is run by a mafia. Vladimir Putin has reigned as the “Boss” for 23 years and remained in place by enriching Russia’s thugs, bridling them, and playing one off against another. Under his rule, they have built palaces, stolen the national wealth, become warlords, amassed staggering portfolios, and lived like Czars. But on February 24, 2022, Putin decided to escalate the grift by invading Ukraine to steal more of its resources. Now this war is failing, as is Russia’s economy and Putin’s grip on power. And on June 23, Putin’s inability to control a wartime feud between warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russia’s military brass turned into a full-blown armed mutiny. Prigozhin pulled his mercenaries from the frontline in Ukraine and led a “march for justice” against Putin’s military inside Russia. Putin labeled Prigozhin a “traitor” on national television, ordered his arrest, then instructed his puppet in Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, to make an offer to Prigozhin that he couldn’t refuse: Stand down, charges would be scrapped, and move to Minsk. The crisis ended quickly, but Putin, the Russian Federation, and the war in Ukraine, will never again be the same.

Prigozhin grew up in St. Petersburg, where Putin did, and went to jail as a young man for fraud and theft. He has since become a billionaire oligarch as a result of his connections to Putin and business smarts. More recently, he has become a household word in Russia because of the success of his personal army, the Wagner Group mercenaries, as well as his diatribes on social media against Russia’s generals. He has accused them of poor strategies, corruption, and of using Russian soldiers as cannon fodder. His gutsy stances have made him a populist hero even though he is also a member of the elite. But Prigozhin is different. He’s gone “native” and dons fatigues, is on the frontlines with his mercenaries in the Ukrainian war zone, and excoriates Putin’s generals for drafting young Russians from poor families and regions then sending them to their deaths by the thousands without training or proper equipment.

“The children of the elite smear themselves with creams, showing it on the internet; ordinary people’s children come in zinc, torn to pieces,” said Prigozhin, a reference to metallic coffins. “Those killed in action had tens of thousands of relatives, and society always demands justice and, if there is no justice, then revolutionary sentiments arise.”

Prigozhin warns of revolution but is not a revolutionary. He became a successful chef, then caterer and started a mercenary army that has operated for years surreptitiously around the world on Putin’s behalf. For instance, Wagner helped Putin occupy Crimea and Donbas in 2014, it fought in Syria and various African countries for Moscow for years, and has been involved in the 2022 invasion, fighting alongside Russian regulars in Ukraine. But last year he began to aggressively criticize Russia’s Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, and Chief of General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov and Putin never intervened. This was because he was doing Putin’s dirty work again and blaming the generals for military failures. But Shoigu and Gerasimov struck back by sabotaging the Wagner Group on the battlefield. Prigozhin claimed they withheld ammunition and provided only sub-standard equipment. Then, last month, he alleged that the two actually shelled Wagner troops.

By June, Prigozhin’s success in the battlefield and growing social media presence across Russia and abroad was becoming a threat, so Putin sided with his generals. He ordered Wagner fighters to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense by July 1. This represented a de facto expropriation which is why Prigozhin pulled his troops from the front line in Ukraine on June 23 and marched them into Russia. That night, Putin condemned Prigozhin on state television and ordered Lukashenko to deliver the deal. Putin has not surfaced since June 24, and unconfirmed reports are that he fled Moscow.

A coup or armed conflict was avoided, but damage was done. Putin’s climb-down and capitulation to a man he had just called a “traitor” destroyed his tough-guy image. It’s obvious that he is not the “Boss”, but merely a figurehead who sits atop a rotten system of squabbling and greedy oligarchs. Prigozhin’s stunt also unveiled Russia’s vulnerability. He was able to march two-thirds of the way toward Moscow in a few hours without resistance. His troops also reportedly shot down six Russian helicopters and an IL-22 airborne command-center plane, killing 13 airmen, along the way, without consequences.

Prigozhin backed down and agreed to self-exile, but he’s not going to disappear, except physically. The generals he demanded that Putin fire still remain in power so he will continue to broadcast his criticisms from afar and plot a comeback, either from a dacha somewhere around the world or on a yacht. He will rebuild Wagner and may attract allies inside and outside Russia who want to overthrow Putin and his generals. He may aspire to be President but that is unlikely. He would be thoroughly unsuitable as President, but, unless assassinated, his ongoing crusade will be a catalyst for change inside Russia and serve the interests of Ukraine and the West. Prigozhin has already undermined Russia’s leadership, damaged frontline morale, stirred up the public, and shredded Putin’s concocted narrative that the invasion was necessary because Ukraine and NATO were a threat to Russia’s existence.

There’s little likelihood that a grassroots movement against Moscow will sprout around Prigozhin because it is a reign of terror and because he’s another thug whose forces have killed many Ukrainians and others. But his popularity was rising in polls before his armed mutiny because his rants resonated with civil society, mostly younger people. He also attracted international recognition with his condemnation of the war itself in the days leading up to the confrontation: “The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” he said. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”

The weekend’s events may not have brought about regime change, but Prigozhin has already dealt Putin, and Russia as currently constituted, a fatal blow. As the war continues to backfire, Ukraine and its alliance will push harder and so will separatist movements inside Russia who want autonomy or secession. Putin’s weakness is now apparent, and his tenure uncertain, which will also convince neighboring nations and Russian allies to recalibrate their relationship or forge new ones. Most significantly, Putin’s cave-in and cowardice concerning Prigozhin also means that his many “red lines” in this war are meaningless which is why many have been crossed and more should be ignored in future.

It is ironic that Prigozhin has opened a Pandora’s Box about corruption and injustice in a country run by criminals like himself. His lightning attack also raises fears internationally as to how secure Russia’s nuclear arsenal is from seizure by disgruntled factions such as Wagner or others. Experts say the events haven’t altered the security status of Russia’s nuclear weapons, and the West carefully monitors their movement and storage facilities.

But the country is run by gangsters who have upended the world order. Only “100 beneficiaries and several thousand accomplices” own everything, said Mikhail Kodorovsky, an oligarch jailed by Putin in 2005 on trumped-up charges. “Most of these people began their careers in the criminal underworld of St. Petersburg. Despite having now taken control of the Presidency, the group retains every aspect of the criminal ilk from which they came.” 

Putin’s Russia is a criminal organization that must be overthrown. And finally, one of its own has told the world, and Russian people, why it must disappear.