War

[Petrochemical]

i didn't know we got free spanish history channel here

Iknow right God forbid you get a history lesson in a little bit of Education while you're here watching people have pissing contest and play grab- grab-ass online, as for the paella if it's Seafood who in their right mind wouldn't pay for that?

 

[Petrochemical]

[FONT=berlingske_serifmedium]Russia recruits out-of-service military since 2012[/FONT]

• 10 April 2022
• Written by The editorial
• Posted in Global

[FONT=berlingske_serifmedium](Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes)[/FONT]
[FONT=berlingske_serifmedium] [/FONT]
[FONT=berlingske_serifmedium]In response to the high number of casualties that Russian troops have suffered in Ukraine, the Kremlin is recruiting off-duty military personnel since 2012 to increase its strength, the UK Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.[/FONT]

[FONT=berlingske_serifmedium]The Russian armed forces are also trying to recruit soldiers in the Moldovan region of Transinistria, separated from the rest of the country by the Dniester River and self-proclaimed independent, adds the intelligence information released by Defense on its official Twitter account.
Western countries estimate that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian military personnel have been killed since the Kremlin-ordered invasion began.
The British Ministry has stressed that the withdrawal of Russian forces from northern Ukraine has highlighted the "disproportionate" number of deceased "non-combatants" and underlines the existence of mass graves and the use of hostages as human shields.
It also warns that Moscow troops use improvised explosive devices (IED) to increase the number of victims, "lower the morale" of the Ukrainians and restrict their freedom of movement.
Attacks on infrastructure also carry a high risk of causing collateral damage to civilians, underlines the United Kingdom, which notes an action that destroyed a nitric acid tank in the city of Rubizhne, in the eastern region of Lugansk.[/FONT]


https://elobrero.es/component/k2/865...esde-2012.html

Technically the threads name is war Flash any engagement I don't know that it's specifically pointed at Putin himself doesn't our little miserable h.h. here have a go f*** Putin thread

 

[Petrochemical]

Thank you very much. About these last ones of the explorations, invasions, wars and alliances, between Spaniards and natives of the USA, Petrochemical has asked me to expand them; I have already told him that if you thought that they fit in the subject of your thread, I would be delighted. Although I would love to see more sources from the native side.
Now, about the South West of USA:


National Geographic.
History.
U.S.A.; México; Spain

Themes / Wars
spaniards and comanches, the war in new mexico

Towards the end of the 18th century, after having reached peace agreements with the Pueblo Indians and the Apaches, the Spanish of New Mexico faced the ruthless and warlike Comanches

wars History of Spain

updated to July 28, 2017 10:26​

Comanche attack on the mission of San Sabá (Texas)

On March 16, 1758, some 2,000 Comanches sacked the enclave and killed two friars.




Horses, bison and weapons

By 1770, trading horses and bison meat and hides, as well as slaves for ransom, enabled Comanches to procure all kinds of manufactured goods—from guns and knives to cloth—from the French, British, and Americans. Spanish people; horses and weapons lent them an enormous military advantage. Above, the church of Las Trampas (Texas), a former Spanish enclave on the Comanche frontier.



The Comanche Warriors

19th century Comanche ceremonial shield. Ethnological Museum, Berlin.


Pd: Note the hispanocomanche syncretism.


apache chieftain

Painting of an Apache warrior from around the year 1800. Representation by Claudio Linati.

Pd: Typical Pura Raza Española or Hispano-Arabian type horse, the main origin of the current American Mustang.


Juan Bautista de Anza

Portrait of Juan Bautista de Anza, explorer and governor of New Mexico between 1778 and 1788. The work, by an unknown author, was possibly painted from a previous oil portrait of Fray Orsi in 1774.



n 1775, the Spanish Governor of New Mexico, Don Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta , reported that, during that year, the Spanish had buried six New Mexicans for every Comanche dead. The Comanches roamed freelyby the current states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. In the latter, even Santa Fe, the capital, suffered threats and incursions from the new owners of the prairies. In fact, the town of Pecos, about 40 kilometers east of the capital, and Galisteo, less than 50 kilometers to the south, were the most affected populations. Since 1750, both places had lost half of their population. The attacks had become so frequent that the survivors no longer dared to work the fields and in the summer of 1776 they lived on old animal skins cooked in the form of bacon or, failing these, they fried the soles of old shoes.

Gone are both the almost one hundred years that the Spaniards of New Mexico had taken to find peace with the Pueblo Indians and the recent agreements with the Apaches, the tribe that, thanks to the horses brought by the Spaniards to the New World, had become owner of the great prairies since the mid-seventeenth century. The Spanish had built their most important cities next to the settlements of the Pueblos , and the survival of both depended on mutual understanding. Relations with the Apaches had reached such a level of trust that they left their wives and children with the Spaniards when the men went out to hunt buffalo for several months.But it seemed that the Spanish had chosen to ally with the wrong tribe.


SCALP HUNTERS

One of the reasons the Apaches had made peace with the Spanish was to seek protection from the Comanches, who had taken over the prairies in the late 18th century. They had displaced the Apaches from the fertile lands and the latter had found relief in the barren lands and under the protection of the Spanish.

The horse had become the key element in a war that the Comanches completely dominated.​

Comanche society had expanded thanks to its mastery of the art of war and the fact that its social hierarchy was based on the exploits of its warriors . The Comanches collected scalps from their victims, and these were more important if they had been removed in the heat of battle and not when the enemy had already died. The horse had become the key element in a war that the Comanches completely dominated.In addition, they had the best firearms that could be found in the region thanks to the French, who had always helped the most powerful tribes to stop the British expansion to the west; not even the Spanish had as many muskets as the Comanches. Governor De Anza himself bought firearms from Comanches at the Taos fair. The Comanches did not take prisoners: they had no place to keep them prisoners. And in battle they showed no compassion for their enemies, just as they did not expect it if they were defeated. In battle, the Comanche fought to the death.
UNANSWERED ATTACKS

The Spanish were not prepared for the war that the Comanches were carrying out . The Apaches had generally been content to steal the towns' horses , and their swift raids rarely turned into direct confrontations, limiting the number of casualties on both sides. When the Spanish were attacked, they sent a group of soldiers to capture the looters. Years of disputes with the Apaches had allowed the Spaniards to discover the vast majority of the places they chose to hide.

The Comanches avoided direct confrontation in open country. They based their victories on surprise attacks and dizzying escapes.​

The Comanches carried out their attacks in larger groups, which allowed them to face their defenders in superior conditions. The Spanish, in most cases, had to protect themselves in the tower of the attacked plaza and wait for the Comanches to leave. When the raid was over, the Comanches fled to farther places unknown to the Spanish. More often than not, the Spanish soldiers failed to follow the trail of the Comanche party, were ambushed by them, or lost in unfamiliar terrain . Other times, they would run into a group of Indians completely unaware of the attack and take out their frustration on them. Desperate, Fermín de Mendinuetahe wrote to the viceroy of New Spain and even considered abandoning New Mexico if he did not receive 1,500 horses and more powder for his soldiers' old muskets.
The situation worsened until Juan Bautista de Anza took over the government of New Mexico in 1778. He had just settled California and knew that lasting peace with the Comanches could only be achieved through a show of force. De Anza received the horses that were needed and assembled an army of 600 men including soldiers, settlers, and Pueblo Indians. He knew that he could not continue fighting Comanches the way European troops were fighting each other. The Comanches avoided direct confrontation in open country. They based their victories on surprise attacks and dizzying escapes.
COMANCHE WAR

De Anza hit the Comanches on their own territory. Cuerno Verde, the Comanche chief who had terrorized the area for years, protected women and children from him near present-day Colorado Springs . It was difficult to get there without being discovered by the Comanches stationed throughout the territory. In August 1779, de Anza opted to make a detour to the west, taking a more mountainous area (the end of the Rockies) that was controlled by the Utes. On his way, he managed to recruit for his army about two hundred more men, belonging to the Jicarilla Apaches and the Utes.

The different Comanche tribes were divided when it came to seeking peace with the Spanish​

When they arrived at the town of Cuerno Verde, the Indian chief and his warriors were not there. They were on their way to Taos to loot the city. De Anza attacked the town and when Cuerno Verde heard the news he hurried back. The Spanish ambushed him, and Cuerno Verde and his warriors fought to the death. De Anza returned victorious and boasting of having suffered only one casualty in the battle. He was already in a position to make peace with the Comanches.
The different Comanche tribes were divided when it came to seeking peace with the Spanish. De Anza assured that he would not accept peace with just a few clans: he would sign if all the Comanches agreed under the same leader. Toro Blanco's faction called for revenge, while Chief Ecueracapa's faction was in favor of peace. Juan Bautista de Anza's strategy paid off. Ecueracapa assassinated Toro Blanco and peace with the Spanish was possible. De Anza offered free trade to the Comanches and they found in the western border of the Comanchería an area where they could buy European products and sell the stolen horses in the rest of their territories. The peace lasted until 1821, the year in which New Mexico proclaimed its independence and ceased to belong toSpain .


​​​​​Until then, and for two hundred years, a minority of settlers and soldiers managed to govern the inhospitable northern border of the Hispanic Empire thanks to peace agreements with the native populations: first, with the Pueblo Indians; then, in the seventeenth century, with the Apaches, and finally, in the eighteenth century, with the Comanches.
TO KNOW MORE

distant flags . Fernando Martínez Laínez, Carlos Canales Torres. Edaf, Madrid, 2009.
The Comanche Empire . Pekka Hämäläinen. Peninsula, Barcelona, ​​2011.


https://historia.nationalgeographic... .mFUR2PS1zBpzp4

Who are the tula tribe that they encountered I'll deal

 

[mexcurandero420]

Who financed WW1 1914-1918? More than 100 years later another great war is about going to start.



​​​​​​​

 

[Petrochemical]

If only you believed in miracles
so would I



the war of the human mind

 

[Montuno]

Who are the tula tribe that they encountered I'll deal

Maybe you loose It:

And about what you ask me, Petrochemical about expanding on the interectuations between De Soto and the Native American Tula / Caddo people I refer you to this current document in English from the Caddo tribe itself, in which they present and comment on their history up to today, with several chapters, I believe, desiccated to their interaction with Spain
I haven't read the whole thing yet:

https://books.google.com/books/about...d=eYtJfJ9yDEQC



Pd: the "bloodhounds" dogs, were in reality the ancestors of Álano Español, Presa Canario y Mastín Español Leones dog breds.

Pd 2: Maybe only a concidence, but the "8 points Caddo' Star" is very similar to the "8 points Tartessic' Star", in my Avatar...
Tartessic' Stars:













(She looks just like my cousinin by father blood's O. at her age, heh).

 

[Montuno]

Who financed WW1 1914-1918? More than 100 years later another great war is about going to start

Wait !!! Wait! I know!!! I got it...What was it like?!?...Let's see, it started with J..Like, now I don't remember...Weren't they the same ones who killed Christ first, and then self-immolated in the lice extermination camps of the varied diversity of clothing that the glorious Third Reich supplied them with??...

​​​​​​​

 

[Petrochemical]

If creeper Park is upset with us doing this history thing here in his thread then I apologize to him if anybody else complains about it it's f****** noise to me I really really enjoy what you're doing and I'm soaking this s*** up I love it I love it I love it you need to know how much I appreciate you taking the time to share with me

 

[mexcurandero420]

Wait !!! Wait! I know!!! I got it...What was it like?!?...Let's see, it started with J..Like, now I don't remember...Weren't they the same ones who killed Christ first, and then self-immolated in the lice extermination camps of the varied diversity of clothing that the glorious Third Reich supplied them with??...

 

[Montuno]

 

[Montuno]

Fortunately, there are still good bankers, bankers who live up to their motto "Humanity above all; money does not buy everything", to counteract the evil plans of Jewish Banking....

• home
• teaching
• Bankers with Hitler

Bankers with Hitler


Documentary: Bankers with Hitler
Producer: BBC Timewatch
Director: P. Elston
Year: 1998
Duration: 44 minutes
Synopsis: Swiss banks are accused of collaborating with the Nazis during World War II. This was suspected at the time by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States H. Morgenthau, who began to investigate this collaboration. He found that the Swiss were not alone. His files reveal that both British and American bankers continued to do business with Hitler. Key members of the Bank of England, along with their German counterparts, established the BIS, the Bank for International Settlements, which launders Europe's looted gold. On its board of directors were key Nazis such as W. Funk and S. Hjalamar. The president of the BIS was an American, T. McKittrick, who easily socialized with Nazi leaders. Not only the BIS, but other allied banks worked hand in hand with the Nazis. One of the largest American banks maintains a branch open in occupied Paris, and with the full knowledge of the managers in the United States, it froze the accounts of the French Jews. Deprived of money to escape France, many ended up in concentration camps. When Roosevelt died in 1945 Morganthau lost his protector and his crusade against the banks came to an end.


https://www.aehe.es/banqueros-con-hitler/

 

[Montuno]

OpinionSwitzerland and the gold of the Jews

Swiss neutrality is historically called into question


December 7, 1996, 10:45 AM


Jorge Rhenan Segura
Finally, after more than half a century, the necessary investigations are being carried out to clarify the role played by the Helvetic Confederation during World War II, although it has been an initiative carried out by international pressure and not on its own. Today international public opinion demands that Switzerland clarify its participation during World War II, that it make a new reading of its history. The new Swiss generations need to know the "dark areas of their past". It was always an open secret that Switzerland had not been so neutral in the last world war,
In Switzerland it has always been taboo to question political, social and banking institutions, since the declaration of neutrality by the European powers in 1815, the small Alpine country has played with its neutrality according to its own interests and those of its international banks and national. The
Swiss teachings of official history, that the country during World War II was surrounded by enemies, are changing into a sense of national shame. Swiss neutrality has historically been called into question. In World War I, the Swiss took a clear position in the conflict in favor of Italy, but they always managed to cover their actions with a cloak of legality; Later, on the eve of World War II, the Swiss were the ones who provided the weapons to fascist Italy for its African conquest and always justified it by claiming that the opposite meant unemployment and lack of resources for its population. Already during World War II, Switzerland became the most extraordinary "laundry" of gold, money, works of art and other goods looted not only from the Jews, who were the ones who suffered the most, but from all other social sectors that they were victims of the Nazis in those dark years of terror and death.
All the gold in the reserves of the central banks of the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania and Yugoslavia went to Swiss banks. It is estimated that about $550 million of those then, which would be equivalent to about $6.5 billion today, was sent to Switzerland where it was converted into money used to buy raw materials and food for Nazi Germany. In 1946, the Allies, through the so-called Washington Accords, forced the Swiss to contribute to the reconstruction of Europe, but they cleverly managed to deliver only 12 percent of the gold that had been purchased from the Third Reich. Although there is strong controversy about the latter, since the Swiss Bank says that $388 million were delivered at the time, and some North American and British investigations say that the amount was smaller. Whether the amount is greater or less, it does not matter; The important thing at this time is to clarify the matter with the ghosts of the past to verify what was the true role played by the Helvetic Confederation during past world conflicts. In addition, all of the above leads us to another aspect that is also being discussed internationally: the fact that Swiss banking secrecy has allowed all the dirty money in this world to end up in that country. The colossal fortunes of African (Mobutu), Asian (Marcos), and Latin American (Perón, Stroessner and Duvalier) dictators are in Switzerland, a country that also does not recognize fraud or tax evasion as crimes. Nevertheless,





Paradoxically, banking secrecy was elevated to the rank of law in 1934 to protect the Jews who were then threatened by the first Nazi persecutions. The Swiss banking authorities maintain that all the fuss caused by Jewish money and gold is due to a dirty campaign by the British and Americans, its specificity and everything that has to do with bank secrecy and tax matters. This is a very weak argument. The situation has reached this extreme, because for the first time a series of documents that were previously protected by state secrets have been consulted.
The Swiss government and banking authorities have promised to carry out a "definitive, exhaustive and transparent" investigation to clarify the fate of the gold, money and works of art allegedly deposited in Swiss banks. Said commission, made up of 12 independent personalities, all of them Swiss, subject to the principle of absolute confidentiality, will be integrated at the beginning of 1997 and must submit a report within five years. The aforementioned commission will have the mandate not only to scrutinize banking entities, but also anyone who would have had a part in the recycling of values, such as lawyers, notaries, insurance companies, companies and others. We do not doubt the honest outcome of this commission, but it is also necessary to clarify historically the role of this country in relation to Nazi Germany. For half a century in several European countries an official story has been sold that tells us ad nauseam that Nazism and fascism were the product of two or three men with names and surnames and that the people were forced to follow them. Europeans or many of them forget that their silences and actions are often a sign of acceptance. Certain historical events must not be forgotten and we must fight against oblivion and against the utilitarian handling of history. For half a century in several European countries an official story has been sold that tells us ad nauseam that Nazism and fascism were the product of two or three men with names and surnames and that the people were forced to follow them. Europeans or many of them forget that their silences and actions are often a sign of acceptance. Certain historical events must not be forgotten and we must fight against oblivion and against the utilitarian handling of history. For half a century in several European countries an official story has been sold that tells us ad nauseam that Nazism and fascism were the product of two or three men with names and surnames and that the people were forced to follow them. Europeans or many of them forget that their silences and actions are often a sign of acceptance. Certain historical events must not be forgotten and we must fight against oblivion and against the utilitarian handling of history.
History must be transparent and not be full of myths. Switzerland is a country that has always sold a truth "above all suspicion". The controversy over Switzerland's role in World War II has nothing to do with rhetoric. The debate will undoubtedly serve for the Swiss country to review not only its past, but also its role today on the international scene, because, as André Gorz, one of its historians, tells us, "Switzerland does not exist. It is a State that it constantly avoids taking an international position, which refuses to take sides and sometimes denies the reality of the conflicts that tear men and peoples apart".
Geneva, November 1996

https://www.nacion.com/opinion/suiza...VFKWWXQ/story/

 

[Montuno]

by OCCRP and Süddeutsche Zeitung
20 February 2022


Despite two decades of pledges by Credit Suisse to crack down on illegitimate funds, data leaked from the bank reveals that it catered to dozens of criminals, dictators, intelligence officials, sanctioned parties and political actors with outsized wealth.
Key Findings

• Accounts identified by journalists as potentially problematic held over $8 billion in assets.
• Compliance experts who reviewed journalists’ findings said many of these customers should not have been allowed to bank at Credit Suisse at all.
• Asked why so many of these accounts existed, current and former employees described a work culture that incentivized taking on risk to maximize profits.
• Journalists and experts say Switzerland’s draconian banking secrecy laws effectively silence insiders or journalists who may want to expose wrongdoing within a Swiss bank. A Swiss media group was unable to participate in the Suisse Secrets investigation due to the risk of criminal prosecution.

A Yemeni spy chief implicated in torture. The sons of an Azerbaijani strongman who rules a mountainous territory as his own private fiefdom. Bureaucrats accused of looting Venezuela’s oil wealth and hastening its descent into humanitarian crisis.

They come from all over the world, each associated with a different corrupt, authoritarian regime and each enriching themselves in their own way. But there is one thing that unites them: Where they kept their money.

After its luxury watches, snow-capped mountains, and superior chocolates, the Alpine nation of Switzerland is perhaps known best for its secretive banking sector. And at the heart of that sector is Credit Suisse, which over its 166-year history has become one of the world’s most important financial institutions.

With nearly 50,000 employees and 1.5 trillion Swiss francs in assets under management for 1.5 million clients, this banking behemoth is still just the second-largest bank in Switzerland, a testament to how central the banking sector is to this wealthy and comfortable nation.

But, as a new global investigation spearheaded by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and OCCRP reveals, this glittering success has its murky side.

Journalists have obtained leaked records identifying more than 18,000 accounts belonging to foreign customers who stashed their money at Credit Suisse. The records are nowhere near a complete list of the bank’s clients, but they provide a revealing glimpse behind the curtain of Swiss banking secrecy.

Over 160 reporters from 48 outlets spent months poring through the data — and found that dozens of the accounts belonged to corrupt politicians, criminals, spies, dictators, and other dubious characters. These are not obscure names, their misdeeds often identifiable through a simple Google search. And yet, their accounts — which held over $8 billion — remained open for years.
EXCHANGE RATES


The accounts in this story are denominated in Swiss francs. Since the value of the franc has fluctuated over time, we have converted the account holdings to their historic U.S. dollar equivalents.

Credit Suisse’s clients included the family of an Egyptian intelligence chief who oversaw torture of terrorism suspects for the CIA; an Italian accused of laundering criminal funds for the infamous ‘Ndrangheta criminal group; a German executive who bribed Nigerian officials for telecoms contracts; and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who held a single account worth 230 million Swiss francs ($223 million) at its peak, even as his country raked in billions in foreign aid.

Venezuelan elites accused of plundering the state oil firm funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into Credit Suisse accounts. The money flowed during a period when widespread looting from government coffers precipitated an economic collapse that has prompted six million people to flee the country and driven others into near starvation. The bank kept its Venezuelan clients’ accounts open even as global media exposed corruption cases against many of them.

Compliance experts who reviewed OCCRP’s findings said many of these people should not have been allowed to bank at Credit Suisse at all.

“People should not have access to the system if what they are carrying is corrupt money,” said Graham Barrow, an independent expert on financial crime. “The bank has a clear duty to ensure that the funds it handles have clear and legitimate provenance.”

Credit Suisse is not the only culprit. Many major banks and financial service firms have faced similar scandals over the years. Many have then pledged to reform. And yet — as projects like this one reveal — they have continued to allow dodgy clients who have enriched themselves in countries with poor legal systems and lax oversight to safeguard their wealth in some of the safest and most secure places in the world.

“The irony is that Switzerland has become the place for dirty money to go because it is pure, well-managed, reliable,” says James Henry, a senior adviser to the U.K. charity Tax Justice Network who has studied tax evasion at Credit Suisse. “The business model of taking money out of poor countries is the problem.”

Asked to comment on the findings of the Suisse Secrets project, Credit Suisse said that risk management was “at the very core of our business.” While refusing to discuss individual customers, the bank said that they were “predominantly historical” and that an “overwhelming majority” of problem accounts identified by journalists “are today closed or were in the process of closure prior to the receipt of the press inquiries.”

“As a leading global financial institution, Credit Suisse is deeply aware of its responsibility to clients, and the financial system as a whole to ensure that the highest standards of conduct are upheld,” it added.

Read the bank’s full response.
The Suisse Secrets Investigation


Suisse Secrets is a collaborative journalism project based on leaked bank account data from Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse.







MOREInsider Opinions


OCCRP talked to more than a dozen former and current Credit Suisse employees to see if they could explain why the bank took on so many problematic clients. None would talk on the record, saying the bank was highly litigious against former employees, and none offered documentary proof for their comments. However, many of those interviewed mentioned the same issues, and there was consensus about some problems.

While some said compliance was diligent and had improved considerably in recent years, most talked of a highly toxic corporate culture that incentivized taking on risk to maximize profits — and bonuses.

Employees said bonuses were tied to how much “net new money” they brought in.

“The bank incentivizes a banker to look the other way with an account they know to be toxic,” said a former senior manager in private banking. “If you close a toxic account, especially a large account in excess of $20 million, the banker finds himself in a deep hole. A deep hole that is almost impossible to get out of.”

This has led to a culture, Credit Suisse employees say, where there are two sets of rules for two sets of clients: the rich and the ultra rich.

“Due diligence of customers and accounts –– say at a level of $1 million –– are very thorough,” said a former senior executive. “But when it comes to high net-worth accounts, bosses encourage everyone to look the other way and managers get intimidated about their bonuses and job security.”

In addition, very big accounts are kept so secret that only a few senior executives might know who owns them.

“When someone wants to engage in money laundering after he loots assets of the country, for example, he needs to transfer the money. So holders of big accounts go directly to the very senior managers,” he said.

The system was based on plausible deniability, said former employees. Bankers are given strict rules, but the incentives are to ignore them.

“The bank’s compliance department are masters of plausible deniability,” the former senior manager said. “Never ask a question you do not want to know the answer to.”

“It’s never the bank’s fault, it’s always this bad apple employee who is responsible for something bad happening,” one manager said. The end result is a disconnect between the bank and its employees.

“The kind of people the bank attracts are mercenaries, and they all look to enrich themselves first – probably understanding that there is no real relationship with the bank. You’re only there for as long as you make money, however you make that money,” the manager said.

“You don’t need to worry about what happens eight to 10 years from now, because you’re unlikely to be there. Usually that’s how long it takes for deals to blow up.”

These insider accounts echo allegations Credit Suisse is now fighting in court, in the first criminal case ever launched against a Swiss bank in Switzerland. Prosecutors say the bank allowed a group of Bulgarian cocaine smugglers to launder 146 million euros in drug money through Credit Suisse accounts.

Senior managers are accused of ignoring many warnings that their Bulgarian clients were up to no good, including the fact that they were depositing suitcases of cash – suitcases at least one other Swiss bank refused. Even after two of the criminals were assassinated and named in the media as a cocaine trafficker, the bank looked the other way.

A banker who dealt with the Bulgarians testified that Credit Suisse trained her carefully on how to present herself to potential clients and on the importance of Swiss banking secrecy, but not on compliance, the Financial Times reported this month.

As evidence, one of her compliance tests was presented in court. She had answered only a quarter of the questions correctly.

The bank was also criticized in a leaked 2017 report by FINMA, the Swiss financial regulator, which revealed a culture where senior managers were prepared to “whitewash” and “turn a blind eye” to compliance failures when a star banker defrauded lucrative clients.

“There were even attempts to gloss over the violations,” the report said.
Pitching Privacy


Swiss banks sell privacy. Reporters from OCCRP wanted to find out how.

A journalist got in touch with Credit Suisse and asked if she could open an account on behalf of an investor from an African country. The bank’s representatives were careful about what they said and preferred to talk by phone rather than email. From the beginning their focus made it clear that privacy was what they were selling.

“There are limited people even within the bank who would be able to access your account information,” a Credit Suisse vice president assured the reporter.

“Information is treated strictly with secrecy and on a need-to-know basis,” said another banker in an email.

Although Credit Suisse still offers what they call “numbered relationships” at a cost of around $3,000 per year, the bank steered the African investor towards other options.

"Numbered accounts are a service we are actually phasing out, as the protections offered by this have diminished greatly over the years,” said the Zurich-based vice president overseeing emerging markets.

The secrecy of numbered accounts took a series of hits in the 2010s, when repeated tax evasion scandals led to international pressure on Switzerland to share clients’ tax information with foreign governments –– although the agreement excluded developing countries, which Credit Suisse said were its biggest target markets.

Top Credit Suisse executives proposed several alternatives to numbered accounts in their presentation to the prospective client, including putting her money in a trust.

Trusts are a common financial vehicle in many jurisdictions, but they have come under fire from transparency advocates because they allow the true owners to hide behind “nominees,” who can act as shareholders and directors.

In the presentation, Credit Suisse indicated that its staff can act as nominee shareholders and directors in holding companies, trusts and bank accounts, which can be registered to anonymous holding companies. That service would create legal layers of ownership that would allow wealthy individuals to distance themselves from their wealth.

Trusts have not been widely used in Switzerland until recently — in large part because banking secrecy filled the same role. But that may be about to change. Last month, Switzerland introduced a new draft law that would allow Swiss bankers to create trusts in Switzerland for the first time.

Sebastian Guex, a professor of history at the University of Lausanne who studies the Swiss banking industry, said this was a direct reaction to new tax-sharing agreements that opened up wealth stored in Swiss banks to more scrutiny.

“Swiss bankers have found solutions that will allow them to continue to hide the wealth of the most interesting clients, those who bring in the most profits, i.e. the famous ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” he told the Guardian.

“These solutions will involve the creation of tax-evasion systems for this clientele based on the family foundation or, even more so, on the Anglo-Saxon legal institution, the trust.”


Credit: Credit SuisseCredit Suisse marketing materials show how trusts can shield assets.A Secret History


Switzerland’s reputation for financial secrecy goes back hundreds of years.

In 1713, the Council of Geneva banned bankers from divulging their clients’ details to safeguard the interests of the French monarchy, which wanted to obscure its dealings with banks in a ‘heretical’ protestant country.

Switzerland’s internationally recognized status of neutrality, dating from the 19th century, helped attract huge amounts of capital from abroad, as did an expanding tourism sector that was trying to lure Europe’s wealthiest for long stays in lakeside palaces or Alpine sanatoriums.

Credit: Alamy/history docu photoBasel, Switzerland, in the 19th century.

“To add something that other countries didn’t have, they also adopted tax measures to stimulate rich people coming from outside to stay long in Switzerland,” said Guex.

Switzerland became a tax haven, and started competing with France and other European banking heavyweights to attract foreign capital. Whether it was the mountains or the laws, it worked — wealthy foreigners started arriving in droves, and brought their money with them.

With the outbreak of the First World War, wealthy Europeans turned to Switzerland to insulate themselves from economic instability and tax hikes associated with the war effort. The Second World War repeated the pattern, and while most of Europe was left in ruins, neutral Switzerland came out unscathed and flush with deposits from all sides.

In 1934 Switzerland upped its secrecy with the Banking Act, a law which promised to jail any bank employee seeking to disclose confidential customer information.

More recently, Switzerland has made changes to the way its banking sector is regulated.

After the 2008 financial crash, the country agreed to lift the veil on thousands of accounts after a UBS employee told U.S. prosecutors how the bank was helping Americans hide their assets.

But the agreement also secured the dismissal of U.S. charges of enabling tax evasion and raised the maximum sentence for breaching financial secrecy laws from six months to three years.

Experts say the law essentially criminalizes whistleblowing, silencing insiders and even journalists who may want to expose wrongdoing within a Swiss bank.

Article 47 of Switzerland’s banking law puts journalists in the country at risk of being prosecuted for merely possessing, much less publishing, private banking data. For that reason, Tamedia, a Swiss media group that was approached as a partner in the Suisse Secrets investigation, chose not to participate.

“This law is a massive restriction of press freedom in Switzerland,” said Arthur Rutishauser, Tamedia’s chief editor. “It only serves to censor and intimidate the media. The law can protect criminals and their assets. Journalists who try to expose them risk criminal proceedings.”

“It seems like a law from the 1800s,” said Jeffrey Neiman, a U.S. lawyer representing Credit Suisse whistleblowers. “That law demonizes those who come forward with good information to expose corruption.”
Buying Secrecy


If Credit Suisse was selling secrecy, there were plenty of buyers.

Credit: Billal Bensalem/AlamyKhaled Nezzar in 2012.
The leaked records analyzed by reporters show accounts held by several alleged human rights abusers, such as Algeria’s former defense minister Khaled Nezzar. As head of the armed forces, Nezzar was considered Algeria’s de facto leader from 1991 to 1993, when the country was embroiled in a civil war marked by atrocities committed against civilians.

Despite well-publicized allegations against him, Nezzar was a Credit Suisse client, holding two accounts worth at least 2 million Swiss francs ($1.6 million at the time). It remained open until 2013, two years after an investigation into his involvement in war crimes was opened in Switzerland.

His lawyers said he “strongly denies any wrongdoing. He did not commit nor did he order war crimes. He did not provide assistance to, nor did he knowingly allow the commission of war crimes.”

The two sons of an Azerbaijani strongman who rules an isolated region of the country with an iron fist also had Credit Suisse accounts. As their father’s regime imposed his brutal whims on the population of Nakhchivan — at one point even banning them from baking bread at home or hanging laundry on balconies— Rza and Seymur Talibov used their Swiss bank accounts to take in millions of dollars from shell companies associated with money laundering systems.

Credit Suisse also offered banking services to key figures implicated in corruption scandals in some of the poorest countries in the world. In Angola, a disgraced banker under investigation in Portugal after the bank he led collapsed with $5.7 billion in untraceable debt, held several Credit Suisse accounts, some of which are being looked at by Portuguese prosecutors. In Kenya, Credit Suisse banked a key player in a huge corruption scandal even after authorities declared him wanted in a criminal probe. Millions of dollars appeared to be withdrawn from the account even as investigators in Switzerland and Kenya were trying to trace the stolen funds.

A number of Central Asian names also appear in the leaked data. Though they make up only a small fraction of the clients identified by reporters, billions of Swiss francs passed through their accounts. These people represent large swaths of the Central Asian elite, including oligarchs who made their wealth from natural resource extraction, ministers, and other top officials, some of whom have been convicted of massive corruption. Even the children of two former presidents, Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, controlled Credit Suisse accounts — while the two men were still in power.

Credit: OCCRPCarlos Luis Aguilera Borjas.
Another Credit Suisse client was former Venezuelan spy chief Carlos Luis Aguilera Borjas. Aguilera was close to former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013 after establishing a socialist regime that has become mired in corruption, with officials looting state funds and stashing the money overseas.

In 2001, Aguilera was installed as head of the secret service, where he kept a low profile, avoiding interviews and photographs.

“They call him ‘The Invisible One,’ Carlos Aguilera, the head of the political police. Nobody sees him. I know where he is,” Chávez said in a 2002 national broadcast of his weekly TV show, “Hello President.” But Aguilera fell out of favor later that year after failing to prevent a coup attempt that almost toppled Chávez. He left his secret service post and entered the private sector full time, amassing wealth most Venezuelans could only imagine.

In 2007, Aguilera became the major shareholder of Inversiones Dirca S.A., a Venezuelan firm that secured a $1.85 billion contract the following year to renovate a Caracas metro line. There was no public bidding process, and Aguilera took a 4.8 percent commission worth almost $90 million.

In 2011, two accounts were opened in Aguilera’s name and credited with at least 7.8 million Swiss francs ($8.6 million). The Aguilera accounts were still open well into the last decade when the Suisse Secrets data was collected.

“By any definition, he’s high-risk,” said Barrow, the financial crime expert, adding that banks are responsible for making sure the sources of funds from politically connected customers are legitimate.

Aguilera did not respond to OCCRP’s emailed questions.
’How Many Rogue Bankers Do You Need to Have?’


Credit Suisse has repeatedly pledged to crack down on illicit funds, following a string of scandals beginning over two decades ago with the death of an infamous Nigerian dictator. After Sani Abacha died in 1998, it emerged that Credit Suisse had helped stash some of the billions of dollars his family had looted from his country.

In an effort to defuse the fallout from that revelation, the bank’s then-chairman said in 2000 that it had “continuously improved … control procedures and compliance with them.”

Later that year, Credit Suisse became a founding member of the Wolfsberg Group, an international banking association assembled to curb illicit financial flows.

“The bank will endeavor to accept only those clients whose source of wealth and funds can be reasonably established to be legitimate,” read a Wolfsberg Group mission statement in 2000.

Yet Credit Suisse’s promises to clean up did little to prevent its entanglement in criminal cases for many years to come. Here are some of those scandals:


From money laundering to tax evasion, Credit Suisse has repeatedly broken rules or fallen short on regulations during the past two decades.

“The bank likes to say it’s just rogue bankers,” said Jeffrey Neiman, the American lawyer. “But how many rogue bankers do you need to have before you start having a rogue bank?”

Neiman does not represent the source of the Suisse Secrets leak, but his clients include a whistleblower who told a U.S. court last year that Credit Suisse continued to help American citizens illegally hide hundreds of millions of dollars offshore. If true, this would be a violation of a 2014 pledge the bank made in order to settle criminal charges in the U.S.

The Department of Justice and the powerful Senate Finance Committee are currently investigating whether Credit Suisse continued to facilitate tax evasion after it settled and paid a record $1.3-billion fine in 2014.

Credit: AlamyCredit Suisse executives testify before the U.S. Senate in 2014.

The bank’s chairman at the time, Urs Rohner, conceded mistakes in its handling of the tax evasion scandal but told a Swiss television station that he himself had “clean hands.”

Recalling this incident in a recent interview with OCCRP, Swiss member of parliament Gerhard Andrey said he was still incredulous that Credit Suisse executives never accepted personal responsibility for the scandal.

“He’s the head of the company,” Andrey said by phone as he paced the foyer of the Swiss parliament, where he represents the Green Party. “If you’re CEO or president, you can’t say, ‘It has nothing to do with me,’ because you’re responsible for defining the culture. Culture is defined top-down by senior staff, the board and executives.”

Experts say that fines aren’t enough: Large and wealthy banks won’t change until they face more serious measures, like the suspension of licenses or prosecution of individual leaders.

Frank Vogl, a former World Bank official who is now an anti-kleptocracy campaigner, said bankers appear to treat even very large fines as “merely the costs of doing business.”

He said U.S. and European authorities had filed an “astounding” number of cases against Swiss and Switzerland-based banks — “yet not a single chairman of such banks has ever been personally prosecuted, or even lost his job because of those crimes.”

“CEOs have to go to jail for this to hit home,” said Henry of Tax Justice Network, noting that the $1.3 billion U.S. penalty paid by Credit Suisse was even tax deductible.

While critics accuse Credit Suisse of negligence, they reserve much of the blame for Switzerland’s government, which is responsible for a lax regulatory environment and laws that punish those who speak out against corruption.

Stefan Lenz, a Swiss former federal prosecutor who led major corruption cases, said there are very few investigations targeting Swiss banks or their management for accepting illicit money. “There seems to be a lack of both political will and law enforcement resources,” Lenz told OCCRP.

Andrey, the Green Party parliamentarian, urged the government to take action for the sake of its citizens.

“I’m a proud Swiss,” he said. “It hurts me when banks spoil my country’s reputation with this behavior.”

“People are angry at the scandals that have already been exposed — and we don’t even know the unknown scandals.”

Research on this story was provided by OCCRP ID. Data expertise was provided by OCCRP's Data Team. Fact-checking was provided by the OCCRP Fact-Checking Desk.

https://www.occrp.org/en/suisse-secr...savory-clients

 

[Montuno]

Systematic looting fueled Hitler's war machine

International

Tuesday, December 2, 1997
Last updated: 07:31

THE TREASURY OF THE III REICHPIERRE HAZAN
LIBERATION/THE WORLD
January 1939. Adolf Hitler is actively preparing for war. He is furious because he has just learned the contents of a confidential note, dated January 7, from the chairman of the Reichsbank board, Hjalmar Schacht. The tone of the message is alarming. The Third Reich, explains Schacht, is on the verge of bankruptcy. Germany, which a few months later is going to launch its troops into an assault on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and France, has its coffers empty.
Hitler knows that gold is the axis of modern warfare. He allows to buy the necessary strategic materials for the armed forces of the III Reich. Thus, the Nazis organize systematic looting from the beginning of the conflict. The lightning victories of the Wehrmacht in June 1940 mark the beginning of an unprecedented treasure hunt.
In all the occupied territories, the services of the Reichsbank, the SS, the Foreign Office and the economic services of other ministries are involved in the looting of bullion, jewelry and money. The operational arm of this state gangsterism is the Devisenschutzkommandos, the currency protection commandos. Their power is limitless: they empty safes, private banks and their subsidiaries, collect gold from jewelers, filter the black market, seize private assets and break into customers' safe deposit boxes at banks.
The results live up to the expectations of the Nazis. In Belgium alone, between November and December 1940, the foreign exchange protection commandos made off with a loot of 4.32 billion current francs and 250 million in foreign currency. In Holland the Nazis seize 100,000 kilos of gold from the national bank.

THE GOLD OF THE DEAD .- In the summer of 1942, the concentration and extermination camps provided a frightful booty: gold teeth, gold eyeglass frames, rings, bracelets, watch chains... According to statements by the dentist of Treblinka, "every week two suitcases weighing 8 to 10 kilos left the camp", that is, the equivalent of two million Swiss francs at the time. And Treblinka is a relatively unprofitable field.
SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler follows these operations closely. Thus, at the end of June 1944, he asks the management of the Birkenwald concentration camp how much gold is available. A telex passes the macabre list: some gold plates, a watch and six chains, as well as bracelets and other pieces, in total, 4,399 kilos.
In Auschwitz the teeth were extracted immediately after the victims suffocated to death in the gas chambers and before they were burned in the crematorium ovens. The work was carried out by the dentists of the Sonderkommando (special section composed of the prisoners themselves). Melted into ingots, the gold was sent to Oranienburg, near Berlin, where an SS office was located in charge of managing the assets. Much of that gold was then sent to the Reichsbank.
Shlama Dragon, a Polish Jew who worked in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, recounts: "When the camp doctor, Joseph Mengele, confirmed that the men were dead, he would say: 'Es ist schon fertig' [it's over]. An SS he opened the doors of the chambers and we, with anti-gas masks, collected the corpses.
In one corridor the hairdressers cut their hair, in another compartment the dentists pulled their teeth."
The central bank of the Reich received gold and money from the Jews, but also from fleeing or murdered opponents of the regime. The Eizenstat report, prepared at the request of Bill Clinton and published in 1996, underlines: "At least part of the gold sold abroad was taken from the victims of the concentration camps, as well as from other civilians."
"The systematic and massive looting of gold, in the occupied countries, from the victims of Nazism was not an operation left to chance: its objective was essentially the financing of the German war machine. Among the neutral countries, Switzerland was the main banker and financial intermediary of the Nazis", states the Eizenstat report. Was Switzerland the cover-up for Hitler and his systematic pillaging policy? If so, did Switzerland's policy of economic collaboration prolong the war and cause additional casualties? The Swiss Government continues to deny these accusations, which it considers unfounded. However, the facts are incontestable.

FEAR .- Since May 1940 and after the defeat of France, Switzerland, surrounded by the Axis forces, is in a difficult position. She fears being eaten by the Wehrmacht. Its greatest asset is its position at the center or hub, and the importance of the Swiss franc, the only convertible currency throughout the war. This point is capital. The German war machine desperately needs neutral countries: Sweden supplies it with iron and bearings. Portugal provides numerous mineral resources such as tungsten, an additive used in the production of steel. Spain maintains an active trade in raw materials. Turkey provides chrome. But none of those countries accept payment in Reichmark (the German currency). The Nazis must pay in gold or in currencies tradable on the market, especially Swiss francs.
Following the defeat at Stalingrad, several neutral countries question whether they should accept German gold. Wouldn't it be better to reject it to avoid possible political problems after the war? Soon, Spain and Portugal decide not to accept it.
Switzerland's role then becomes essential. Walter Funk, president of the Reichsbank, notes: "Switzerland is the only country where significant amounts of gold can still be converted into foreign currency."
In October 1942, Paul Rossy, vice president of the Swiss National Bank, proposes to transform German gold into Swiss gold. A perfect operation that takes shape with triangular actions: Hitler exchanges stolen gold for Swiss francs. Then he pays with that money for strategic raw materials from Turkey, Spain or Portugal. In turn, these countries sell their Swiss francs for gold bearing the Swiss certificate of origin. Thus, they manage to avoid any criticism from the allies: they can claim that they have only bought Swiss gold. Whitewashing is a complete success.

post war agreements

LIBERATION/THE WORLD

Swiss banks continue to work with the Nazis until the end of the war.
After the establishment of peace, the allies demand from Switzerland the restitution of the stolen gold. Allied negotiators estimate that between $200 million and $398 million in stolen gold is in Switzerland. Negotiations begin in early 1946 in Washington. For 68 days, the Swiss invent a thousand and one excuses. On the eve of the conference they deny even receiving gold stolen during the war.
Faced with Swiss inflexibility, the allies decide to reduce their claims to 130 million dollars (10 times more at the current exchange rate) first, and later to 88 million, the amount of gold stolen from Belgium that the Swiss admit to possessing.
Finally, they pay 58 million dollars in 1946 as "balance of all account". The Swiss negotiators managed to include in the preamble that the Confederation did not consider "the restitution of gold" to be based on law, and that its gesture was due to the fact that Switzerland was "desiring to contribute to the pacification and reconstruction of Europe". Switzerland had just managed to enter the post-war economic system.
In September 1946, a tripartite commission was established to examine the demands of governments -not private persons- for the restitution of stolen gold. Made up of representatives from the United States, France and Great Britain, its function is to ensure that each requesting country obtains restitution proportional to what was stolen by the Germans. From 1947 to the present day, the commission has distributed 329 metric tons of gold worth $4 billion.


The US melted down part of the loot looted by Germany from the Jews
JULY A. PARRADO
SPECIAL FOR THE WORLD
NEW YORK .- Responsibilities for the plundering of Jewish gold also reach the US. Seven years after the end of World War II, hundreds of buttons, plates, gold medals from Hitler's death camps arrived in the United States and were converted into gold bullion by the Treasury Department.
According to a secret document that will be presented today at the London meeting, the Americans also collaborated in erasing any trace of the dramatic origin of that gold, which ended up transformed into 40 bars. Those responsible for the Federal Reserve of New York found in the archives the origin of these ingots and have decided to make it public now.
The documents show that the Federal Reserve obtained the gold from the US High Commissioner for Germany in 1952 in 17 boxes. However, the Federal Bank is unable to give more details. Its function, according to those responsible, was to guard the gold administered by the Tripartite Commission.
According to documents from the time, US liberation forces seized some of the gold during the last days of the war. Gold was found in deposits and in concentration camps.
Last week, other files revealed how the Treasury Department had melted down gold bars marked with the Nazi swastika, which had previously been held by the Bank of Spain. This gold was re-stamped with the Treasury Department seal and was formally received in the US in compensation for the supply of telephone equipment to Spain.
Switzerland rejects "any unfounded or exaggerated reproach"

GENEVA .- Switzerland attends the conference on Nazi gold today with the intention of rejecting "all unfounded or exaggerated reproaches" against the country "or its institutions" for the role it played during World War II.
According to a partial report by the Bergier Commission published yesterday, Swiss banks bought more than 9,000 million pesetas worth of gold from the Reichsbank until 1945, which is three times the amount estimated up to now.
Thomas Borer, head of the Swiss delegation, however, was optimistic and estimated that the conference will provide an opportunity to explain the measures taken by Switzerland to clarify its position during and after the war. Borer recalled that his country has always defended the right of victims to be compensated.


https://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/1997/diciembre/02/internacional/02N0043.html

 

[mexcurandero420]

 

[Montuno]

As human imbecility has neither race, nor nationality, nor religion, nor culture, nor ideology of its own, besides the ultra-right "type" Trump and the neo-fascist, also certain sectors of the left, more discreetly, are using all the defects of Ukraine (that I, being a Marxist, see and denounced), as well as all the crimes and hypocrisies that drag the parties that support Ukraine (NATO, USA, EU, etc.), to magically and more hypocrisy, justify Putin:
Wassent Hussein's regime a criminal dictatorship, and we do not hesitate on the left to qualify the last invasion of Iraq as an illegal invasion full of war crimes?
Do the Russian and NATO invasions justify Taliban terrorism?
Do the Nazi bombings justify the bombing of Dresden?
Do the human sacrifices and the oppression and total blockade of the Republic of Tlaxcala by the Triple Alliance of the Mexica Empire justify the Spanish crimes during its Conquest?
Would the U.S. embargo on Cuba justify a nuclear attack on Miami from Havana?

I love the term coined to describe these individuals, who immediately call a Marxist "NATONAZI" for criticizing Putin's crimes: Staliban (Stalinists + Taliban).
So that they can herd with the numerous pro-Putin ultra-right-wing flock, I propose to group them under the denomination of Stalibanazis :

THE DILEMMA
Ukraine and the left

A sector of the right and one of the left agree that it is okay to bomb civilians, provided that those bombed are bad. They share the same nihilistic vision of international legality
Santiago Alba Rico 8/04/2022

Street full of bodies of people killed by the Russian army in Bucha.
RTVE

Unlike other media, at CTXT we keep all our articles open. Our commitment is to recover the spirit of the independent press: to be a public service. If you can afford to pay 4 euros a month, support CTXT. Subscribe!

They have rightly scandalized the statements of María Jamardo, a radical journalist, in a Telecinco program: "Neither the one who bombed was so bad nor those who were bombed were so good", referring to the bombing of Gernika by the Nazis in 1937, a crime invoked by the Ukrainian president in his appearance before the Congress of Deputies last Tuesday. Zelensky, misinformed, believed he had found a universal symbol capable of arousing in his favor the indignant imagination of all Spaniards; he was unaware that our Azov battalion, much more numerous than the Ukrainian one, continues to justify Franco's coup d'état and to thank the German help against the evil communists and the perverse Basque separatists. However, what Zelenski did not know either is that his words were going to annoy a sector of the left (which I call "Staliban") that has considered that Jamardo's words, monstrous in the case of Spain, are applicable, instead , to that of Russia and Ukraine: neither the Russian bombers are so bad nor the bombed Ukrainians are so good. Even more: the Russians are somehow the good guys, because they are bombing the Ukrainian Nazis. A section of the right and a section of the left agree that it is okay to bomb civilians in another country, provided that those bombed are bad. They share the same nihilistic vision of international law and legality; they disagree about the content of the evil to be extirpated. monstrous in the case of Spain, they are applicable, on the other hand, to Russia and Ukraine: neither the Russian bombers are so bad nor the bombed Ukrainians are so good. Even more: the Russians are somehow the good guys, because they are bombing the Ukrainian Nazis. A section of the right and a section of the left agree that it is okay to bomb civilians in another country, provided that those bombed are bad. They share the same nihilistic vision of international law and legality; they disagree about the content of the evil to be extirpated. monstrous in the case of Spain, they are applicable, on the other hand, to Russia and Ukraine: neither the Russian bombers are so bad nor the bombed Ukrainians are so good. Even more: the Russians are somehow the good guys, because they are bombing the Ukrainian Nazis. A section of the right and a section of the left agree that it is okay to bomb civilians in another country, provided that those bombed are bad. They share the same nihilistic vision of international law and legality; they disagree about the content of the evil to be extirpated. A section of the right and a section of the left agree that it is okay to bomb civilians in another country, provided that those bombed are bad. They share the same nihilistic vision of international law and legality; they disagree about the content of the evil to be extirpated. A section of the right and a section of the left agree that it is okay to bomb civilians in another country, provided that those bombed are bad. They share the same nihilistic vision of international law and legality; they disagree about the content of the evil to be extirpated.

If we prove that the Ukrainians are to blame, then we can believe what the Kremlin says. This reversal of roles is the propagandistic norm of imperial aggression​

This Stalinist argument – ​​multiplied in tweets in recent days – is one of the protean procedures, some more intelligent, others duller, used by the left to shamelessly clone the propaganda of the Russian aggressor. It's not that they don't know to be wary of the propaganda of an invading power; They have always done it, and with good sense, while the invader was the US or NATO. You can't give credibility, we know, to what a murderer says; if I want to believe his words, therefore, I need to exonerate or mitigate his participation in the crime. In order to trust Russian propaganda, in short, as happened with the American propaganda on other occasions, it is necessary to invert the victim/perpetrator relationship and attribute all responsibility for what is happening to the bombed party. If we prove that the Ukrainians, NATO puppets and the US are to blame, so we can believe and repeat what the Kremlin says. This reversal of roles, of notable ethical infamy, is the propagandistic norm of imperial aggression and we criticize it for this in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today many leftists succumb to this rule who, between denialism and contextualization, have no qualms about opposing pro-Ukrainian mainstream thinking with pro-invasion mainstream propaganda. Bucha's killings have triggered real delusions. Journalists on the ground –people like Alberto Sicilia, Hibai Arbide or Mikel Ayestaran– have even been scolded for taking the testimonies of the survivors seriously and not talking about “alleged war crimes”, judicial caution that, in reality, some would like to extend to the war itself: “alleged” Russian invasion, “alleged” bombing of Ukraine, “alleged” siege of Mariupol. Russia cannot be doing what is attributed to it because it is the victim; and is also a victim, therefore, of enemy propaganda. Fine analysts and foolish pamphleteers, politicians transvestite as journalists and crazy Stalinists share this factual horizon, matrix of all their discursive similarities: if Russia invades Ukraine, it is the US that invades Ukraine; if Russia bombs Ukraine, it is NATO that bombs Ukraine. What is happening is not happening, quite the opposite. Denialism cannot be limited, no, to the Bucha massacres; Bucha's massacres can be denied, on the contrary, because Putin's aggression and, therefore, its consequences, are denied at the root. If it weren't tragic, it would be heartwarming to see so many grown-ups,

There is a Soviet ember in the anti-system rebellion of a certain left, just as there is an ember of Francoist nostalgia in the anti-system rebellion of the right​

And why is it “ours”? They assault us like cold war rages. Some, even very young, succumb to the illusion because, despite their alliances with the world extreme right, despite their statements against Lenin, they see a continuity between Putin and the Bolshevik revolution. There is a Soviet ember in the anti-system rebellion of a certain left, just as there is an ember of Francoist nostalgia in the anti-system rebellion of the right. The majority succumbs, in any case, because they continue to think, in short, of the disturbing plurality of the new world order years behind schedule; that is, against the absolute hegemony of the US and NATO. His position reveals a kind of negative and actually very narcissistic ethnocentrism: it is our Western institutions that introduce all the evil in the world. Against them not only any means is allowed; It is worse: against them, we end up claiming, as politically and socially superior, atrocious dictatorships (let us think, for example, of Bachar Al-Asad) and alternative imperialisms, such as the Russian, whose criminal intervention in Syria we overlook or defend as liberating. It cannot be ruled out that, if Saudi Arabia were to get too close to China one day and the theocratic regime in Riyadh, today a friend of the US, were questioned and pressured from the White House, Salmán would end up seeming sympathetic to us and the stonings would be revolutionary and progressive. whose criminal intervention in Syria we overlooked or defended as liberating. It cannot be ruled out that, if Saudi Arabia were to get too close to China one day and the theocratic regime in Riyadh, today a friend of the US, were questioned and pressured from the White House, Salmán would end up seeming sympathetic to us and the stonings would be revolutionary and progressive. whose criminal intervention in Syria we overlooked or defended as liberating. It cannot be ruled out that, if Saudi Arabia were to get too close to China one day and the theocratic regime in Riyadh, today a friend of the US, were questioned and pressured from the White House, Salmán would end up seeming sympathetic to us and the stonings would be revolutionary and progressive.


This reversal of roles (between victims and perpetrators) usually uses two cognitive files. One is geopolitical fatalism; that is, geopolitics reduced to realpolitik. The other is moral historicism; that is, history conceived as a war against evil. The latter is the one that, from the left side, reproduces Jamardo's phrase: accepting that Ukraine was being bombed (which has yet to be proven), it somehow deserves it for its rapprochement with the EU, NATO and the US .: Ukrainians are not as good as they seem; They are not as good as the media tells us. Suddenly, the same left that, with reason, provisionally set aside the bloody dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to condemn, with more reason, the US invasion of Iraq, now becomes casuistry and prickly. You have to know if Ukraine is and to what extent a democracy, go through Zelensky's biography with a wary eye, denounce every small Nazi group and be very sensitive –while justifying or silencing the Baath tyranny in Syria– in the face of suspension, so other unjustifiable, of political parties in Ukraine. One must be morally intolerant of the unforgivable, but isolated, war crimes of the Ukrainian army while considering Russian massacres, Russian bombing and Russia's own invasion of Ukraine to be “alleged”.

The same left that considers it legitimate for Latin America to free itself from the US yoke accepts Russia's right to have its "backyard" as a dictate of realpolitik.​

This casuistic criminalization of the victim is usually inscribed in a geopolitical fatalism summed up in a thought that, even in the most well-reasoned and well-documented texts, assumes more or less this formula: “It is what happens when you stick your finger in the old man’s eye. Russian bear”. The same left that considers it legitimate and even imperative that Latin America free itself from the traditional US yoke, the one that denounced the Bay of Pigs and celebrated the Cuban victory, the one that is justifiably indignant with each change of government rigged from Washington, accepts as a dictate of realpolitik the right of Russia to have its own “backyard”. A kind of mechanical fatalism forces us to take into account the consequences of sticking a finger in the eye of the Bear, who cannot avoid the claws, while, on the contrary, you must revolutionaryy pierce old Uncle Sam's hat and pluck the American Eagle. Putting your finger in the Bear's eye is reprehensible; plucking a feather from the eagle's chest is commendable, legitimate, necessary, and celebrated. As a consequence of the combination of these two logics – geopolitical fatalism and moral historicism – this sector of the left never waits for the facts because it never waits for history to produce any facts: it knows in advance which peoples act spontaneously and which ones are being manipulated by NATO and the US; and decides, therefore, which peoples have the right to rebel against a tyranny, national or foreign, and which must submit to the necessities of the struggle against Yankee imperialism. In this way, he decrees in advance that the events in Ukraine – the Bucha massacre, for example – is Ukrainian propaganda while Russian propaganda, in the mirror, is an incontestable fact. The invader is the true victim and does not lie; and that is why we replicate and spread their versions with the mystical relish of one who, against the stubbornness of “dominant thought”, has direct and privileged access to the truth.

It is not uncommon for the right and left to mix here, Javier Couso and César Vidal, Iker Jiménez and Beatriz Talegón, flat earthers and anti-imperialists​

Because there is also a lot of elitism in this Stalinist left that likes to be right against common sense and the common of mortals, trapped in the guts of the system, blind and meek. That elitism is, in spirit, the same that, against the "system", we have seen among deniers and anti-vaccines during the pandemic; and it is not uncommon, therefore, that here the right and the left are mixed, Javier Couso and César Vidal, Iker Jiménez and Beatriz Talegón, flat earthers and anti-imperialists. As I have written on other occasions, where the shared institutional and media frameworks of credibility have been weakened, the maximum incredulity becomes the threshold of the maximum credulity. When you no longer believe in anything, you are about to believe in anything. We don't even have a shared lie so that the most minority lie, the one that the least people share, is the one that seems most appealing to us and therefore the most true. The web provides thousands of niches to accommodate this desperate desire for "distinction." In the case of leftisms, it is more painful and less justifiable, since their cognitive elitism, the result of the impotence for political intervention, aggravates this impotence by separating themselves from the common sense that they would like to attract. They isolate themselves in “reason” from the world and, in this way, in addition to being unreasonable, they become politically useless. Or dangerous. for their cognitive elitism, the result of the impotence for political intervention, aggravates this impotence by separating themselves from the common sense that they would like to attract. They isolate themselves in “reason” from the world and, in this way, in addition to being unreasonable, they become politically useless. Or dangerous. for their cognitive elitism, the result of the impotence for political intervention, aggravates this impotence by separating themselves from the common sense that they would like to attract. They isolate themselves in “reason” from the world and, in this way, in addition to being unreasonable, they become politically useless. Or dangerous.


Geopolitical fatalism and paranoid elitism, intertwined sources of the same syndrome, end up denying others autonomy, will, capacity for agency. They, who "know", cannot do anything; the others, who do something, are pure pawns of evil on the geostrategic chessboard. Thus, they inscribe their permanent negative rumination in a context from which politics is absent. And they resign themselves to delegating their impotent reason to the surrogate action of any power destructive enough to disrupt the established world order. Thus, the same leftists who defend, at the local level, the right to sovereignty, deny it to the Ukrainians at the international level, who are asked, in the name of pacifism, to surrender to the power of the strongest, on condition that he is not American. Western-centric anti-Westernism distrusts any desire for emancipation that does not pass through the anti-imperialist molds of the old left, which continue to think and think and think the world, as Marx said of Don Quixote, "to the extent of a that no longer exists." That already happened in Syria, as explained by the enormous Yassin al-Haj Saleh, one of our greatest intellectuals, a communist, imprisoned for sixteen years in the prisons of the dictatorship, in an extraordinary article in whichcriticizes even the position of the admired Chomsky for his ethnocentric blindness. The obsession with the United States in a disordered world, in which evil has been fragmented, decentralized and emancipated from the American monopoly, correctly points out, for example, the power of NATO, but underestimates other dangers as subordinate, subsidiary or inoffensive. –for democracy and the freedom of peoples– that determine, however, the individual and collective destiny of a large part of the planet. Chosmky, of course, is under no illusions about Putin; just the opposite. But his anti-American neurosis led him to abandon in Syria those who gambled and, in many cases, lost their lives fighting the dictatorship; and to feed in Ukraine the thesis that the Russian invasion is, in some way, an automatic response to the NATO encirclement.

The left is missing not only the opportunity to sympathize with a just cause; is also missing the opportunity to criticize Europe for what it deserves to be criticized for​

We contextualize and contextualize and contextualize; and we suspect and suspect and suspect. And by dint of contextualizing and suspecting, we dissolve Russian responsibility in a perpetual war between equivalent evils, a magmatic inter-imperialist conflict, an impersonal capitalist crisis, a "natural" consequence of civilizational decline, etc. We deal so much with history and "structures" that we melt into it Putin's decision to invade a sovereign country and generate thousands of deaths and millions of refugees. If it made any sense to invoke international legality against the invasion of Iraq, it also makes sense to invoke it against the invasion of Ukraine; If it still makes sense to distinguish between negotiations, pressure, sanctions and military aggression, it makes sense to denounce Putin's Russia as solely responsible for a new situation in which world peace and planetary survival, along with the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, are tragically in danger. Any reason that Putin could have against NATO was left behind from the moment his army crossed the Ukrainian border and, with it, the line that separates a geopolitical movement from an armed aggression. There are no automatisms in the story. NATO is responsible for having mismanaged the victory in the Cold War, as the European powers mismanaged the defeat of Germany in World War I. But the Ukrainians are not victims of NATO, just as the Jews were not victims of the Versailles treaty. Even more: it is terrible to say it, but Putin has shown that at the moment there is no alternative to NATO. The European left should be thinking about proposals in this regard for the future instead of preaching a pacifism that makes a lot of sense in Russia, against its government's decision to wage war, but that in Ukraine is synonymous with submission and surrender. The Ukrainians have decided not to surrender and no one, it seems to me, should blame them.

The left is losing not only the opportunity to sympathize, against Vox and on the side of a sensible majority, with a just cause; it is also missing the opportunity to criticize Europe for what it deserves to be criticized for: its slow Putinization, for which the institutions are also largely to blame. I have said it before: Europe has neither gas nor oil and therefore tragically depends on less and less reliable sources. The only thing it has are "values", "practices", "models of political intervention" that it is rapidly losing without ever fully consolidating them. Many times it has betrayed itself abroad by supporting ill-fated interventions, of an economic or military nature, or by closing borders to immigrants and refugees, and this in such a way that for much of the world, submerged in an unprecedented crisis, it is no longer an example to follow. But also, the other way around, it has happened that this distrustful world, in full democratization, has penetrated Europe. Putin had already stealthily invaded the EU through far-right parties that, in Hungary, in France, in Italy, in Spain, have much more support than their equivalents in Ukraine. In this difficult time, our task must be to "denazify" Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. is no longer an example to follow. But also, the other way around, it has happened that this distrustful world, in full democratization, has penetrated Europe. Putin had already stealthily invaded the EU through far-right parties that, in Hungary, in France, in Italy, in Spain, have much more support than their equivalents in Ukraine. In this difficult time, our task must be to "denazify" Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. is no longer an example to follow. But also, the other way around, it has happened that this distrustful world, in full democratization, has penetrated Europe. Putin had already stealthily invaded the EU through far-right parties that, in Hungary, in France, in Italy, in Spain, have much more support than their equivalents in Ukraine. In this difficult time, our task must be to "denazify" Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. It has happened that this distrustful world, in full democratization, has penetrated Europe. Putin had already stealthily invaded the EU through far-right parties that, in Hungary, in France, in Italy, in Spain, have much more support than their equivalents in Ukraine. In this difficult time, our task must be to "denazify" Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. It has happened that this distrustful world, in full democratization, has penetrated Europe. Putin had already stealthily invaded the EU through far-right parties that, in Hungary, in France, in Italy, in Spain, have much more support than their equivalents in Ukraine. In this difficult time, our task must be to "denazify" Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. Putin had already stealthily invaded the EU through far-right parties that, in Hungary, in France, in Italy, in Spain, have much more support than their equivalents in Ukraine. In this difficult time, our task must be to "denazify" Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. Putin had already stealthily invaded the EU through far-right parties that, in Hungary, in France, in Italy, in Spain, have much more support than their equivalents in Ukraine. In this difficult time, our task must be to "denazify" Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. our task must be to “denazify” Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe. our task must be to “denazify” Europe from within by deepening democracy; that is, through social, civil and economic policies that consolidate and increase our democratic rights. If we do not press for the EU to be fairer, more democratic, more independent, more ecological, more hospitable, it will be useless for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine because he will have won it in Europe.
This is the paradox: an invasion has turned into a war thanks to the Ukrainian resistance. It is a war of independence. It is a priority to prevent this war from involving NATO; it is a priority to support, defend, ensure the independence of Ukraine. Our warmongering must be limited by the need to avoid international conflict and nuclear confrontation; our pacifism by the need to affirm justice and international law. That is the dilemma, I think, about which the left should be discussing and not about whether or not Zelensky should be applauded in Parliament or whether the Azov battalion is all Nazis or there are also anarchists. Or – for God's sake – whether Bucha's survivors are lying or not. The dilemma is so great, it is so full of dangers and uncertainties, it requires all our intelligence and all our composure to such an extent that we should not be guilty of blurring the only thing that the left, like everyone else, should be clear about: who is the attacked and who is the aggressor. Who do we have to support – at least mentally – and who do we have to condemn.



AUTHOR >

Santiago Alba Rico

He is a philosopher and writer. Born in 1960 in Madrid, he has lived for nearly two decades in Tunisia, where he has developed a large part of his work. His last two books are "To be or not to be (a body)" and "Spain".​

https://ctxt.es/es/20220401/Firmas/3...ia-Jamardo.htm

 

[Montuno]

Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic



MAIN MENUSEEK

HISTORY AND DEBATES , INTERNATIONAL
Chomsky and Syria



Yassin al-Haj Saleh

Image: A neighborhood in the Syrian city of Aleppo, destroyed by barrel bombs dropped by the regime in 2015, taken from Al Jazeera
Just three weeks after being released from 16 years in prison in Syria, I started translating a book into Arabic. The book was Perspectives on Power: Reflections on Human Nature and Social Order by Noam Chomsky. It had taken me a while to realize that the leading linguist and the harsh critic of US imperialism were the same person. It struck me as a remarkable and much-needed example of the social and political responsibility of scientists and intellectuals. Your active participation in the civil rights movement and the mobilization against the Vietnam War were impressive, along with his prolific writing on both linguistics and politics. In the book he translated, there were two essays on linguistics, one on intellectual responsibility, and five on politics.
For former communist political prisoners who had spent long years in detention and lived through the fall of communism while in jail, this American benchmark was important. He told us that the fight for justice and freedom was still possible, that we had partners in the world and that we were not alone, and that the fall of the Soviet bloc could be emancipatory, not a heartbreaking loss.
The second book I worked on in translation with another former political prisoner was “A Life of Dissent” by Robert Barsky . It was about Chomsky's life and politics. Even at that early stage , we had some criticism of Chomsky's rigid system of thought, limited by his US - centrism , which only resulted inpartially useful for analyzing many struggles, ours included. We ourselves were dissidents in our country and on two levels: opposing a regime that displayed blatant discriminatory and oppressive tendencies, and expressing critical views on the Soviet Union and its communism. A fundamental principle of the party in which I was a young member was istiklaliyya (independence or autonomy), which meant that it was we, and we alone, who decided the right policies for our country and our people, not any center in the Foreign. So thatWe were not orphans looking for a new father, nor were we moved by the desire to replace Marxism-Leninism with a kind of Chomskian catechism. However, we always thought that our cause was the same : to fight against inequality and oppression everywhere, and on a basis of equality and fraternity.

But time revealed that it was an illusion, for which we are solely responsible . In the 11 years since the start of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, Chomsky has not once written about Syria to inform his many readers about the country's drama . His scattered comments reveal that he sees the Syrian struggle - like all other struggles - solely through the framework of US imperialism. Therefore, he is blind to the specifics of Syrian politics, society, economy and history.
Moreover, his perception of the role of the United States has shifted from parochial American -centrism to a kind of theology, in which the United States takes the place of God: even though he is an evil God , he is the only mover . Understandably , this perspective questions the autonomy of other actors, echoing the free will debates of Islamic theologians some 1,200 years ago. Chomsky seems to be closer to the Jabriyyeen , who totally deny human freedom and affirm the omnipotence of God, than to the Qadariyyeen, who thought that God's justice and human freedom went together.
Today's jihadists primarily adhere to the tradition of the jabriyyah . Chomsky has been persistent in his own jihad for decades, in a way reminiscent of Ibn Hanbal or Ibn Timiyyah , albeit without risking freedom or life as the two fathers of modern Salafism did (save during his brief arrest after a protest ). at the Pentagon during the Vietnam War).
The United States has never been a force for democracy, the rule of law , and human rights in the Middle East. Its destructive role in the region, since at least 1967, is justifiably compared to the role of state tyranny and possibly Islamic nihilism behind the US occupation of Iraq. However, the United States has not been the central protagonist of the Syrian catastrophe, as a declaration that Chomsky himself signed in March 2021 admits . The most that the United States has done is to try for not harming the Assad regime, even after he violated international law prohibiting the use of chemical weapons and crossed then-President Barack Obama's "red line" in 2013, as he did many times before and after it .


Chomsky's American -centric perspective systematically tends to downplay the crimes of states that oppose the United States. In a recent interview published by the DAWN newspaper in January 2022, he said : "Iran can hardly be accused of illegal or criminal behavior for supporting the government recognized [by the United Nations]" in Syria. Supporting a regime that Chomsky himself describes as "monstrous" is neither criminal nor illegal, he insists. He finds nothing illegal in supporting a regime that denies any rights to its subjects, and believes it would be illegal to punish that same regime for killing more than 1,400 of its citizens with chemical weapons in a clear violation of international law.This was expressed to Independent Global News in September 2013.
What Chomsky calls the "recognized government" of Syria is the dynastic regime that has been in power for 52 years, precisely half of the 104 years that comprise the entire history of the modern Syrian state. During these five decades, Syria has twice suffered internal conflicts. There were tens of thousands of victims in the first wave (1979-82) and hundreds of thousands in the second (2011 to present). Both are structurally related to the clique - like and discriminatory configuration of the regime. Commentators such as Chomsky note their qualification of the regime as "brutal" and "monstrous," but hardly as the preface to what they see as the real problem: the role of the United States and its allies in the region. They are wrong.
The monstrous character of the regime is the central fact of this conflict and, even more so, of Syria's history since 1970. It is the key to understanding the country's continuing catastrophe and the root of everything else. But Chomsky's approach has the effect of relativizing the crimes of the regime, which account for 90% of the victims and the destruction. It seems that if the United States cannot be blamed for these crimes then they are of little importance.
It is also quite curious that Chomsky mentions rather blandly and nonchalantly that when Iran extends its influence in the region, it does so mainly in "Shia areas or areas close to Shia", as if this were somehow a fact neutral without destructive social and political implications. Leftists and nationalists in the region call this sectarianism, a singularly important source of civil conflict and genocidal massacres in many countries. Chomsky seems not to have been familiarnot at all with the work of many Arab intellectuals, mostly leftists, on sectarianism and its destructive effects since the 1970s. So perhaps a Spivakian question should be asked: Can subaltern intellectuals speak? Based on my recent personal experience, the answer is no . My letter to the Progressive International on Syria was not published , and its members stopped contacting me after I sent them the letter, although it had been their initiative to speak to me in April 2020 and invite me to organizea whole dossier on Syria for them. Apparently, there is no place for us Syrian leftists and democrats who oppose the Assad regime in an international progressive coalition.



Since the days when the "Eastern Question" was raised more than a century and a half ago, sectarianism has developed through the nexus between external colonial interventions and internal "interventions," so to speak, when groups National socio-cultural groups are pushed to demand the protection of external powers. French imperialism offered a prime example of this paradigm until the independence of Syria and Lebanon after World War II, and that history is still relevant.
By supervising Shiite militias imported from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, and by coordinating with highly sectarian military formations like the Syrian Army's Fourth Division (led by Maher al-Assad, Bashar's brother) and other equally sectarian security agencies, Iran it is not merely a "supposed threat," as Chomsky asserted in the same interview; rather it is another ruthless colonial power, criminally manipulating the social divisions that the Assad regime has been exacerbating for half a century. Iran is guilty of war crimes against Syrians who oppose the regime.
Within Chomsky's theology, none of this is visible. The transformation of the oldest Arab republic into a privatized state with a growing genocidal potential stemmed from pursuing the chimera of permanent, absolute, mobile security that has always led to mass atrocities in Syria and elsewhere, as Dirk Moses argues in "The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression". This reactionary transformation, the largest in post-independence Syrian history, has never received attention from Chomsky's perspective.
Not surprisingly, Syrians are not represented in his comments on Syria. Chomsky never refers to a Syrian, nor does he quote one, nor does he even mention a Westerner who supports the Syrian cause. His sources are people like Patrick Cockburn, who considers the regime a lesser evil, and possibly the late Robert Fisk, the British journalist who gave voice to sectarian killers like Jamil Hassan , the head of notorious air force intelligence, and Suheil Hassan . , the leader of the equally notorious Tiger Forces, but never to people critical of the chemical regime. All three share a "high political" perspective focused on "recognized governments" - Russia, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia - as well as on jihadists and US imperialism.

From Cockburn, Chomsky borrows the notion of " Wahhabization of Sunni Islam ," which is a hasty and irresponsible generalization, and is therefore so useful to those who don't know and want others to think they know. This generalization is not at all unlike Raphael Patai's notoriously racist book, "The Arab Mind," which provided the theoretical basis for torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, according to Judith Butler in "Frames of War." Cockburn said nothing to Chomsky about the Iranianization of Shia Islam, also a huge generalization, though a little more plausible considering that Shias are a minority group in most Muslim countries and because there is an active imperial center in Tehran.
It is quite revealing, by the way, that DAWN left out Chomsky's exonerations to Iran and his "acting mainly in Shia or near Shia areas" in the Arabic version of their interview with him. They have a better understanding of the subject, and it seems that they felt embarrassed by what he said.
If the " Wahhabization of Sunni Arabs" is the correct diagnosis of a fundamentalist disease exposed by the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda, then perhaps the correct remedy would be the kind of de-Wahhabization we have seen in Syria's beastly military prison of Sednaya, Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, where " improved interrogation techniques " can be tested and developed . Characters like Cockburn and Chomsky have helped desensitize Western public opinion to what might happen to the "Wahhabized herd," something that increases the precariousness of their lives and legitimizes the very wars that Chomsky opposes.
But why is Cockburn, who doesn't even speak Arabic, "the most serious commentator" on Syria and the region, according to the co-author of "Fabricating Consensus"? Aren't there people in the region who are capable of seriously discussing their own affairs and representing themselves? Is it conceivable today that even mainstream US authors would call a foreign journalist "the most serious commentator" on another foreign country or region? In this unexpectedly colonial practice, Chomsky could benefit from a healthy dose of Edward Said.

Incidentally, there are a few books in Arabic on contemporary Islam, Syria, and groups like the Islamic State, more informative and nuanced than Cockburn's " The Rise of Islamic State : ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution , " whose "analysis" sectarian and knowledge stereotypicallycolonial is uncritically regurgitated by "the world's most quoted living public intellectual." Fisk was even more mechanical in deploying this colonial method of analysis. These three men repeat stale colonial things, rehabilitated by internal colonial regimes like Assad's and by cruel expansionist powers like Iran and Russia for their own benefit.
What both Chomsky and his "most serious commentator" ignore is that Islamism in all its variants is a minority and elitist phenomenon, and that is one of the reasons why it is so violent. Arab Barometer surveys in 2018-19 showed that “less than 20% of people in Tunisia and Egypt (as well as in Algeria, Jordan, Iraq and Libya) trusted Islamist parties. More than 76% would be in favor of democracy and civil status. These figures are quoted in Asef Bayat's book "Revolutionary Life: The Day-to-Day of the Arab Spring." In this book, published in 2021, we find a genuinely democratic approach, a subaltern perspective, nuanced analysis, respect forthe facts, a principled anti-racism, unlike Chomsky's theology and its source. Syria is not at all different from the societies that appear in the survey.
In the following paragraphs I will try to show readers just how superficial the Wahhabization thesis is, though without going into too much detail.
Contemporary Islamism is the attempt to generate politics in societies that do not have a true internal politics, in States that do not have true sovereignty at the international level either. It shows the limits of political poverty in societies that have suffered from politicide, such as Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Because the only "assembly" that even the exterminating regimes cannot dissolve is that of believers in places of worship, and the only "opinion" that they cannot silence is that of the holy scriptures. This circumstance is the reason whyIslamists have come to play a relatively important role in the last four decades. Islam allowed many people to meet and talk, and even protest on public issues.

However, Islamism's hierarchical and elitist structure also systematically alienates people from politics since Islamism has moved from protest to power. Even in the case of jihadism, which constitutes an even smaller minority within the Islamist minority, it would be an oversimplification to reduce it to a process of Wahhabization triggered by the Saudi monarchy. Rather, jihadism is a war waged when modern Arab and Muslim states cannot fight foreign invaders (American, Israeli, etc.) and can only wage war against their subjects. The Islam that was formed by the empire (instead of forming it), is responsible for responding to this long-term condition of the deficient sovereignty of thee states. There is definitely an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist component to jihad, but it is not captured by the mythologized imperialist imagination and memory of contemporary Islamism.
In Syria, in particular, the reduction of a sociocultural majority to a political minority—with discrimination, politicide, torture, and massacres as methods of effecting minorization—has considerable explanatory power for a better understanding of Sunni Islam. Unrepresented people, who are denied rights and the ability to organize, tend to find representation in their religious identities. The coincidence with aggressive state tyranny -which looks at the governed with the gorgonian eye of sovereignty (unity, slaughter, exception) and at regional and international powers with the benign eye of politics (plurality, negotiation, rules)- means that the rise of violent Islamism is a historical certainty.
In our upside-down states, where war is within and politics is out (unlike classical Islam and the ideal type of modern nation-states), contemporary jihadism represents sovereignty without politics, wars out and in inside. I dwell a bit on this question of fundamentalism because it seems to be an important point in Chomsky's theology and because of the pathetic level of knowledge about Islam in the West. In contemporary analysis, Islamists, and especially jihadis, seem irrational, irresponsible, and mindless. With this as a theory, the solution cannot be other than to send them to Guantanamo, to Abu Ghraib, to the Guantanamo in Europe.(the al-Hol detention camp in northeast Syria, where thousands of women and children, hundreds of them of European origin, are detained indefinitely for being related to some "illegal fighters" of the Islamic State) or Sednaya (and Tadmur in the years of my youth) without any rights, and leave them there indefinitely. They have been made inhuman, and therefore their lives do not matter.

Does the serious study of Islamism in its wide spectrum, from practicing individuals to nihilistic organizations such as the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda, justify and legitimize the latter? Absolutely. But it can certainly help us understand an important global phenomenon and avoid the reactionary battles that these Islamists, along with their powerful counterparts in the West, Russia, India and China, want us to sink into for generations.
Chomsky's "ideas" on the matter are just another expression of the Western humanities' failure to humanize: It takes the dehumanization part for granted, reproduces a poor version of it, and consolidates it. There is a global Islamic issue (Islamism plus Islamophobia, which is actually a mixture of Sunniphobia and Arabophobia), and the way Islam and Islamism are portrayed everywhere only seems to chart a path to ever-increasing carnage. In this, the guru criticized here is as conservative as can be .
The situation in Syria, with five occupying powers , is instructive for anyone who is really interested in improving their understanding of the current world situation. We have the American forces in one part of the country, the Russians and Iranians protecting the "recognized government", the Turks in another part, all four with their local or imported proxies; And before all of that, we have the Israelis, who have occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 and have monopolized the skies over Syria in coordination with the Russians.
Syria is a rare situation of "liquid imperialism," to paraphrase the late Zygmunt Baumann; however, the fact that there are five powerful states in one small country, or what may be called "imperialism in one country," does not seem to interest Chomsky. Let us also not forget that "the conquered imperialists", or the imperialists without an empire - I am referring to the Sunni jihadists from all over the world - are still there. This complex situation cannot be explained by relativizing the crimes of the adversaries of the United States and absolutizing those of the Americans .

Chomsky says that Russia's intervention in Syria is "wrong" but " not imperialist ", because "supporting a government is not imperialism". Russia has many military bases in Syria, has leased the port of Tartous for 49 years, and has killed 23,000 Syrian civilians in six years. Putin and his aides have repeatedly boasted that they have successfully tested more than 320 weapons systems in Syria and that 85% of Russian army commanders gained combat experience in Syria. In 2018 and 2019, Russia received $51.1 billion and $55 billion worth of arms orders. These actions do not figure at all in Chomsky's analysis; In response to Syrian physician Taha Bali's question about Russian imperialism, Chomsky denied that an imperialist practice was taking place before rushing into his eternal monologue: “What does the United States do? Support countries that are developing jihadist movements”, referring to the Saudi monarchy.
This view is rather superficial, as I hope is clear by now. In any case, it is the lack of sovereignty of the Saudi state and its need for foreign protectors, rather than their active support, that explains jihadism. Osama bin Laden was quite clear on this point in 1990 when he called for the Saudis not to allow US and other troops to have bases in the kingdom and said that only Muslims should defend Muslim lands. However, US support for the Saudis should not be considered imperialism either, since the Saudi government is also recognized by the UN.
An idea of ​​Chomsky's embarrassing level of knowledge about Syria can be seen in the same video interview in which he states that there was no uprising in Syria in 2012 (to our subordinate knowledge, the uprising started in March 2011) and then gives understand that if there were protesters, they were there alongside the Islamic State and other jihadist groups.
Chomsky 's mindset is just as interestingly glimpsed when, on the issue of humanitarian intervention after the 2013 chemical massacre, he asks the same Syrian doctor and activist: Who should the Americans bomb in Syria? To the regime? Because that, of course, would undermine the "resistance front" to the jihadists. Chomsky 's reduction of the Syrian struggle to this dominant framework is shared by Eric Zammour , the French right-wing presidential candidate , who recently recommended rehabilitating relations with the Syrian regime because the options are on . the status quo or the Islamic State and the caliphate. Another adept is Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, who declared in 2012 that Russia would not accept Sunni rule in Syria. Chomsky has many fixed ideas, and it seems easier to move mountains than to expect him to revise them or admit error .

Amid all this, Chomsky's critique of the US role in Syria seems wholly superfluous. Given that the United States did exactly what Chomsky likes: It never bombed the regime, it only fought the jihadists, it thought, like him, that it is either Assad or it is jihadism, and it supported the Kurds, whom it wanted the evil American God protect (see his participation in «International Left Dissidents», edited by Andy Heintz, 2019, page 26). doWhy protect them, but not everyone else? The Syrians have been asking for international protection since the fall of 2011, some six months after their entirely peaceful uprising, to no avail. Only after mobilizing their own peaceful collective power and then demanding protection from the world they believed themselves to be a part of, did many people start turning to Allah, which was good for the alacratic groups .
Interestingly, Chomsky speaks in Heintz's book like a military general, telling the US imperialist hegemon that "he should do all he can to protect the Kurds instead of maintaining past policies of habitual treason." For once, humanitarian intervention is possible.
In reality, the Syrians have been Palestinianized while the regime is Israeliized with Russia filling the role of the United States: vetoing a UN Security Council resolution to shield the regime from finger pointing 16 times . But Chomsky's thought seems to reside in theology rather than history, free of context or position and eternally valid, therefore immutable. This privilege of the system over context and position explains why Chomsky makes reference to the chemical massacre of Saddam Hussein in Halabja in 1988 in his interview with DAWN while mentioning nothing about the numerous chemical massacres perpetrated by the regime in Syria, even though they are much more recent. By now I should beencouragingly clear why: the United States was implicated in the first, so its victims are to be pitied. The US role in the Syrian chemical massacre was more ambiguous: it condemned the attack but strayed from its own red line and went on to negotiate a sordid deal with Russia. The event did not lend itself to Chomsky's deterministic view, so he resolved his cognitive dissonance by resorting to denial.

"It is not so obvious why the Assad regime would have carried out a chemical warfare attack at a time when it is practically winning the war," he said . Well, it's not so obvious why the Nazis would have carried out executions in gas chambers at a time when they were practically winning the war in the East. For at least six months, Hannah Arendt doubted the very existence of the gas chambers because they were not militarily necessary . It didn't work eitherIt is obvious why the US military was humiliating, terrorizing and torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib after successfully overthrowing Saddam 's regime. It is not even obvious why the Assad regime itself would go on torturing people in his dungeon for years, only to execute them in the end.
Substituting primitive logic for facts, Chomsky's comment on the August 2013 massacres is not an expression of knowledge, but of denial based on self-serving reasoning . It was not impossible for him to read reports from Eastern Ghouta, based on field research and activism, by the likes of the great Razan Zeitouneh, translated into English, and published just after the huge massacre of August 2013 (see here and here ). But Chomsky has never allowed facts to complicate his neat schemes. In his analysis, Syrian activists and writers are invisible, non-existent in fact.
Chomsky supported Ted Postol , the conspiracy theorist who denies the Khan Sheikhoun chemical massacre , where 92 people died on April 4, 2017. This "MIT professor" was described by Comrade Noam as "a very serious analyst and credible", certainly comparable to the "most serious commentator." Are there people in Khan Sheikhoun that you can contact and ask about what has happened to your community and who you think was responsible for killing your loved ones? Not in the world of "MIT professors." In our world, the subaltern may have a voice, but they have no audience within America's elite universities.

One concludes that a crime is a crime when it is committed by US imperialism or against those who are not its allies. On the other hand, a crime is not a big deal when the perpetrators are not Americans or the victims are only from "Wahhabized" communities. There is nothing "criminal" or "illegal" about killing those in the latter category. Even support for a monstrous regime cannot be criminal, because that same monster is a government.
The "government" of Syria runs a torture machine; it is extremely corrupt, extremely sectarian, and extremely destructive of the truth. In a sane world this means that it is illegitimate. It is a junta under whose long rule Syria has gone from being an underdeveloped country to a hopeless slaughterhouse. In the Assad family's 52 years of rule, it has legitimized itself using the colonial trope of "protecting minorities." Another legitimizing idea used by the regime after the revolution is the imperialist war on terror, the only " big story "» that remains on our planet, and the base of criminal alliances against popular movements and in favor of criminal boards everywhere. It is therefore extraordinary that Chomsky, a self-proclaimed anarchist, would justify Russian intervention in Syria because it was invited by his "recognized government."
The ossification of Chomsky's system of thought explains the paradox of describing the regime as brutal and monstrous without being able to say a single positive sentence about any of those who have fought against it. Among other things, his system strangles his better judgment. He cannot be blind to the fact that the Assad dynastic regime is one of the worst on the planet. Instead, Chomsky is guided by a dead system, indifferent to people's legitimate desire not to live under violent tyranny, as well as the magnitude of human suffering and pain inflicted on them when they act on that desire. He clings to a reified system because it functions ascommon language that he shares with his fans and followers. That is why it is more difficult for him to dissent from this system than from the US imperialist system. In Islam, they call the first dissent the major jihad. It is always easier to fight against declared enemies than against one 's own speech and imperial self.

Being a lifelong leftist myself, what has struck me in the Western leftist discourse on Syria has not been the unbrotherly, undemocratic and unsympathetic position of many of those involved, but the triviality of the debate, a stultifying combination of ignorance and arrogance. Syria has never been the focus of the debate; rather it has been just a tool to reiterate old dogmas about US imperialism and its intrigues. It is the same solipsistic shell within which Cockburn and Fisk thrive. Chomsky cannot recognize Syrians because we destabilize this system, complicate the language, and insist on our right to represent ourselves.
Some readers may find this criticism harsh and emotional in his rebuttal of a supposed ally. It is. And it is precisely because he was supposed to be an ally. Chomsky is quite influential, and is responsible for spreading misjudgment and apathy about the biggest fight of this century. It is no longer proper conduct to absolve him of criticism, as we Syrian writers and activists have done so far. The problem with Chomsky is not that he knows little about Syria (which is in fact the case); the problem is that he can never say 'I don't know'. From his perspective, he is as omniscient as US imperialism is omnipotent. I am sorry to say that her sensitivity to him is even less than how little he knows, asdemonstrates his unforgivable commentary on the 2013 chemical massacre. He can conduct himself as a debater in a rather dishonorable manner, as a lengthy email exchange between him and Sam Hamad in 2017 shows. What seemed to be at stake for him is his own correctness. , not the fate of millions of people. Such insularity is an insult to any truly leftist and liberating politics, and deserves to be left behind.
If Chomsky has done anything, it is helping to make Syrian activists and writers who fight for democracy and social justice invisible, instead of helping to make us and our cause more visible. Hardly the behavior of an ally.

It is easy to detect a strong imperialist component in Chomsky's top-down anti-imperialism, which simply does not see ordinary people in their struggle for life and dignity; yet he does not shy away from informing us about what genuine struggle is , what threats are real and what are supposed , and who is allowed to make sense of them. Annexing all the struggles to the one that Chomsky and his followers decide on is no different from annexing other lands to an imperialist center. The first demands istiklaliyya (independence as a mentality) and the other istiklal(self-government). The imperialist anti - imperialist always knows what is convenient without bothering to study . Prosaic facts are not important.
Chomsky's influence abroad surpasses even American presidents in symbolic power; however, unlike them, he is not subject to even theoretical "checks and balances." It is intimidating to criticize such an authority. It can be dangerously intimidating to criticize political authorities, as is still the case in my country, in Russia, in Iran and in many parts of the world. But it is our duty as ethical agents in contemporary struggles for freedom and justice to question these authorities and show their limitations. I have tried to show that, in relation to the Syrian cause, this particular authority lacks basic information, nuanced analysis, intellectual curiosity and human empathy. It is fair to say that this is an unconstitutional authority,
Twenty-five years after translating "Powers and Perspectives," I find that its author decisively closes off any prospect of a different future. Chomsky's perspective contradicts democracy in many fundamental respects: high politics, American - centrism , jabriyyah , omniscience, disregard for the contingent and the surprising (which is history), top-down imperialist anti-imperialism , and a total denial of the agency of peoples. who fight for freedom and justice. The thought system of this authority is authoritarian. It is an establishment with which one must dissent as much as with Soviet communism and its derivatives.

*Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian writer and former political prisoner. Article originally published in English by New Lines Magazine .

MSOFWORKERS23 MARCH, 2022

https://mst-rd.org/2022/03/23/chomsky-y-siria/

 

[Creeperpark]

If creeper Park is upset with us doing this history thing here in his thread then I apologize to him if anybody else complains about it it's f****** noise to me I really really enjoy what you're doing and I'm soaking this s*** up I love it I love it I love it you need to know how much I appreciate you taking the time to share with me

You're cool, friend, very sobering posts!

 

[Montuno]

Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic



MAIN MENUSEEK

HISTORY AND DEBATES , INTERNATIONAL
against russian imperialism



Russian Socialist Movement and Ukrainian Social Movement

Illustration: Kamshat Nurlanova
Note from MST-RD.org: Due to its interest in the debate on the Latin American and Caribbean left, we translate this joint statement between the left-wing organizations Russian Socialist Movement and Social Movement of Ukraine. Unfortunately, in our region the rejection of the imperialist invasion is not majority on the left, due to the weight of Stalinist and Chavista currents that have supported anti-worker capitalist regimes in recent decades such as those of Syria, Iran, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the country itself. Putin's Russia. As we have stated in our declaration , as socialists in the Dominican Republic, we consider that the only consistently anti-imperialist and class-independent position in the face of Putin's invasion is solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance ,without this implying any support for the capitalist government of Zelensky or NATO. We have also stood in solidarity with the left, the intellectuals and activists who in Russia have spoken out against the invasion, despite the brutal repression that the regime led by Putin, with increasingly more fascist elements, has unleashed against all dissent. That is why we highly value a joint declaration of Russian and Ukrainian socialists and leftists.
Within the framework of that solidarity, and of the criticism we make of the pro-Yankee government of the Dominican Republic for not breaking diplomatic relations with the Russian regime, we understand that support for the Ukrainian resistance logically implies defending its right to receive weapons from any country to defend itself from invasion. Where we have differences, and this is how we respectfully present it to the Ukrainian and Russian fighters, is with the call for the participation of UN peacekeepers to protect humanitarian corridors for the exit of civilians from cities besieged by Russian imperialist troops. We believe that Russian imperialism would only accept the presence of blue helmets if they serve its general strategy of conquest, in exchange for costly strategic concessions, while the UN would never deploy a contingent of blue helmets without Russian agreement. Rather, we believe that it is fundamental to strengthen the call to the workers' organizations of the world, especially to the port unions, to follow the example of the Dutch, British and American workers who have boycotted Russian ships, and to intensify the initiatives of the world working class such as sending convoys with material support to the Ukrainian resistance. Internationalist solidarity among peoples is the key to defeating Russian imperialism in Ukraine, as well as defeating other imperialist aggressions against the peoples such as the colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, the tutelage of US imperialism in Haiti, the occupation of Western Sahara or the aggressions of French imperialism in Africa. and to intensify the initiatives of the world working class such as the sending of convoys with material support to the Ukrainian resistance. Internationalist solidarity among peoples is the key to defeating Russian imperialism in Ukraine, as well as defeating other imperialist aggressions against the peoples such as the colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, the tutelage of US imperialism in Haiti, the occupation of Western Sahara or the aggressions of French imperialism in Africa. and to intensify the initiatives of the world working class such as the sending of convoys with material support to the Ukrainian resistance. Internationalist solidarity among peoples is the key to defeating Russian imperialism in Ukraine, as well as defeating other imperialist aggressions against the peoples such as the colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, the tutelage of US imperialism in Haiti, the occupation of Western Sahara or the aggressions of French imperialism in Africa.


against russian imperialism

• [COLOR=#1e1e1e !important]
  
  [/COLOR]
• [COLOR=#1e1e1e !important]
  
  [/COLOR]

Although the majority of the left has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the unity of the left camp is still lacking. We would like to address those on the left who still cling to the "plague in both houses" position that sees the war as an inter-imperialist war.

It is time for the left to wake up and carry out a "concrete analysis of the concrete situation" instead of reproducing worn-out Cold War frameworks. Ignoring Russian imperialism is a terrible mistake for the left. It is Putin, and not NATO, that is waging war on Ukraine. That is why it is essential to redirect the focus from Western imperialism to Putin's aggressive imperialism, which has an ideological and political base as well as an economic one.

Russian imperialism consists of two elements. First of all, it implies revisionist Russian nationalism. After 2012, Putin and his establishment moved from a civic concept of the nation (like rossiysky , "related to Russia") to an exclusive and ethnically based concept of Russity (like russkiy, "ethnically/culturally Russian"). Their aggression in 2014 and 2022 was legitimized by the recovery of "originally" Russian lands. Furthermore, this concept of (ethnic) “Russianism” revives the 19th century imperial concept of the Russian nation, which reduces Ukrainian and Belarusian identity to regional identities. According to this vision, Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians are one people. The use of this concept in official rhetoric implies a denial of Ukraine's independent statehood. That is why we cannot say with certainty that Putin only wants recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and Donbas. Putin may wish to annex or subjugate the whole of Ukraine, threats that appear in his article On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainiansand in his speech on February 21, 2022. Lastly, the prospects for Ukraine-Russia peace talks look rather bleak, as Russia's negotiating team is headed by former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, one of the most committed believers in the ideology of the russkiy mir (the Russian ethnic world), a world in which, believe us, no one will be happy.

Second, although Putin's aggression is difficult to explain rationally, current events have shown that it can be quite reasonable, however, to take Russian imperialist rhetoric at face value. Russian imperialism is fueled by the desire to change the so-called "world order." Thus, Putin's demand that NATO withdraw from Eastern Europe may be a signal that Russia may not stop at Ukraine, and Poland, Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia may be the next targets of Putin's aggression. It is very naive to demand the demilitarization of Eastern Europe, because in light of current


circumstances, that will only give in to Putin and make Eastern European countries vulnerable to aggression from him. The talk about NATO expansion hides Putin's desire to divide the spheres of influence in Europe between the United States and Russia. Being in the Russian sphere of influence means the political subordination of a country to Russia and subjection to the expansion of Russian capital. The cases of Georgia and Ukraine show that Putin is willing to use force to influence the political affairs of countries that, in his opinion, want to leave the Russian sphere of influence. It is important to keep in mind that as Putin understands it, the key players in the world order are basically limited to the United States and China. He does not recognize the sovereignty of other countries, considering them as satellites of one of these agents of international order. Being in the Russian sphere of influence means the political subordination of a country to Russia and subjection to the expansion of Russian capital. The cases of Georgia and Ukraine show that Putin is willing to use force to influence the political affairs of countries that, in his opinion, want to leave the Russian sphere of influence. It is important to keep in mind that as Putin understands it, the key players in the world order are basically limited to the United States and China. He does not recognize the sovereignty of other countries, considering them as satellites of one of these agents of international order. Being in the Russian sphere of influence means the political subordination of a country to Russia and subjection to the expansion of Russian capital. The cases of Georgia and Ukraine show that Putin is willing to use force to influence the political affairs of countries that, in his opinion, want to leave the Russian sphere of influence. It is important to keep in mind that as Putin understands it, the key players in the world order are basically limited to the United States and China. He does not recognize the sovereignty of other countries, considering them as satellites of one of these agents of international order. The cases of Georgia and Ukraine show that Putin is willing to use force to influence the political affairs of countries that, in his opinion, want to leave the Russian sphere of influence. It is important to keep in mind that as Putin understands it, the key players in the world order are basically limited to the United States and China. He does not recognize the sovereignty of other countries, considering them as satellites of one of these agents of international order. The cases of Georgia and Ukraine show that Putin is willing to use force to influence the political affairs of countries that, in his opinion, want to leave the Russian sphere of influence. It is important to keep in mind that as Putin understands it, the key players in the world order are basically limited to the United States and China. He does not recognize the sovereignty of other countries, considering them as satellites of one of these agents of international order.

Putin and his establishment are very cynical. They use the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the US intervention in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq as a shield for the bombing of Ukraine. In this context, the left must show consistency and say no to all imperialist aggression in the world. Today the imperialist aggressor is Russia, not NATO, and if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, it will definitely continue its aggression.

Furthermore, we should not have any illusions about the Putin regime. It offers no alternative to Western capitalism. It is an authoritarian and oligarchic capitalism. The level of inequality in Russia has increased significantly during the 20 years of his leadership. Putin is not only an enemy of the working class, but also an enemy of all forms of democracy. Popular participation in politics and voluntary associations is treated with suspicion in Russia. Putin is essentially an anti-communist and an enemy of everything he fought for on the left in the 20th century and what he fights for in the 21st. In his view of his world, the strong have a right to beat up the weak, the rich have the right to exploit the poor and the strong men in power have the right to make decisions on behalf of their disempowered population. This worldview must be dealt a serious blow in Ukraine. For political change to occur within Russia, the Russian military must be defeated in the Ukraine.

We want to address a very controversial demand, that of military aid to Ukraine. We understand the repercussions of militarization for the progressive left movement around the world and the left's resistance to NATO expansion or Western intervention. However, more context is needed to provide a more complete picture. First of all, NATO countries provided weapons to Russia despite the 2014 embargo (France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, and Spain). So the discussion about whether weapons shipped to the region end up in the right or wrong hands sounds a bit late. They are already in the wrong hands, and the EU countries would only be correcting their previous mistakes by supplying Ukraine with arms. Besides, the alternative security guarantees that the Ukrainian government has proposed require the participation of several countries, and can probably only be achieved with their participation as well. Second, as numerous articles have highlighted, the Azov regiment is a problem. However, unlike in 2014, the far right is not playing a prominent role in today's war, which has become a people's war – and our comrades from the anti-authoritarian left in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are fighting together against the imperialism. As has become clear in recent days, Russia is trying to make up for its failure on the ground with air strikes. Air defense will not give Azov any additional power,

In our opinion, the left should demand:

– the immediate withdrawal of all Russian armed forces from Ukraine
– new targeted and personal sanctions against Putin and his billionaires. (It is important to understand that Putin and his establishment only care about their own private assets; they are oblivious to the state of the Russian economy in general. The left can also use this claim to expose the hypocrisy of those who sponsored the regime and the army of Putin and even now continue to sell weapons to Russia)
– the sanction of Russian oil and gas
– the increase in military support to Ukraine, in particular the supply of air defense systems
– the introduction of UN peacekeepers from non-NATO countries to protect civilians, including the protection of green corridors and the protection of nuclear power plants (Russia's veto in the UN Security Council can be overcome in the General Assembly)

The left should also support the Ukrainian leftists who are resisting, giving them visibility, focusing their voices and supporting them financially. We recognize that it is the millions of Ukrainian essential workers and humanitarian aid volunteers who make the greatest resistance possible.

Other demands - support for all refugees in Europe, regardless of citizenship, cancellation of Ukraine's foreign debt, sanctions against Russian oligarchs, etc. - are widely accepted on the left and therefore not we discuss here.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine sets a terrible precedent for the resolution of conflicts that carry the risk of nuclear war. For this reason, the left must propose our own vision of international relations and the architecture of international security, which may include multilateral nuclear disarmament (binding for all nuclear powers) and the institutionalization of international economic responses to any imperialist aggression in the world. The military defeat of Russia must be the first step towards the democratization of the world order and the formation of an international security system, and the international left must contribute to this cause.

https://mst-rd.org/2022/04/08/contra...rialismo-ruso/

 

[Montuno]

with panache

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE OF SPAIN:

VIRTUAL EXHIBITION:

Maps and the first circumnavigation of the world. The expedition of Magellan and Elcano:

The first circumnavigation of the world, which began in 1519 and ended in 1522, is the greatest exploratory feat in all of history, which can be compared to more current milestones such as the arrival to the Moon. This Spanish enterprise was promoted and captained by the Portuguese emigrated to Spain Ferdinand Magellan and commanded back to Seville by Juan Sebastian Elcano.

Our exhibition shows in a cartographic journey the most interesting aspects of the trip: its background, preparations, development and consequences. Starting from the geographical concepts of the ancients, we will go through the unexpected discovery of the American continent, the Treaty of Tordesillas by which Spain and Portugal divided the world, the cartographic espionage between the two Iberian powers, the trade of spices as the real objective of the expedition or the first maps of the Strait of Magellan and the Moluccas Islands, all set in the Spain of the 16th century:
​

​​​​​​https://www.ign.es/web/resources/exp...loxbKBDU1U1YYM

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC :

MAGELLAN-ELCANO EXPEDITION
the first travel around the world

500 years ago, the Magellan-Elcano expedition completed the circumnavigation of the planet for the first time. Five ships with about 250 men on board left Sanlúcar de Barrameda on September 20, 1519. Three years later, only a handful of survivors would reach port.

Emma Lira​

updated to May 27, 2020 7:20 PM·Reading:30 min


The only ship that returned

The Victoria appears on a map by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598). Of the five ships of Magellan's expedition, this was the only one that returned to Seville after going around the world 3 years later.

Ferdinand Magellan

The Portuguese expeditionary was in command of some 250 men who left with him in 5 ships on September 20, 1519 from Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Here in an oil on panel, anonymous, 16th century. Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid.

Juan Sebastian Elcano

Elcano led the expedition from the death of Magellan. Here in an oil based on the engraving by L. Fernández Noseret on a drawing by J. López Enguídanos, 1791-1814. Naval Museum, Seville.

in the summer of 1519, 500 years ago now, a fleet departed from Seville under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, a veteran Portuguese navigator who had sold the King of Spain his idea of ​​reaching the Spice Islands from the west. Neither he, nor the young sovereign who trusted his intuition, nor Juan Sebastián Elcano, the experienced Basque sailor who had just enlisted as master of one of the ships, could imagine that this expedition would end up circumnavigating the planet for the first time, making history.


Hunger and fatigue for all, death for many and glory for a chosen few was the balance of the deedthat connected the entire world for the first time. The story of those who lived to tell it and those who died trying has come down to us through several of the men who starred in it, especially the Greek pilot Francisco Albo, the Spanish sailor Ginés de Mafra and the Italian chronicler Antonio de Pigafetta. Only that of the latter, "a stalwart of Magellan," says Lola Higueras, naval historian and former director of the Madrid Naval Museum, would be published in full after the return of the expedition. It would be the vision of this man with the soul of a reporter that would greatly condition the current narrative about an expedition that circled the globe without intending to.


THE ORIGIN OF A HISTORICAL DEED

But let's try to understand how such a feat could be carried out without intending it. Since the mid-fifteenth century Europe was seething in search of new worlds, new ports and new trade routes. The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by Sultan Mehmed I had marked the beginning of a new era. And not only for the Ottoman Empire, but, paradoxically, for the expansion of a continent that, with the land route to spices in the hands of the Turk, had no choice but to take to the sea and face the monsters that populated its maps. . At the end of the century, when the discovery of America showed that there were still lands to be explored, the enlightened majority already sensed that the world did not end in an abrupt leap into the voidand that the sphericity of the Earth was something more than a hypothesis. The expedition that would depart from Seville in 1519 was, without knowing it, about to confirm it.

Since the mid-fifteenth century Europe was seething in search of new worlds, new ports and new trade routes. The expedition that would depart from Seville in 1519 was, without knowing it, about to confirm it.​

There were several factors that coincided so that the circumstances and the ideal moment arose: technological advances in the design of ships, navigation instruments and cartography, the development of a more global thought with the irruption of the Renaissance and, Of course, a powerful incentive: the search for the riches that awaited beyond the seas.


A WORLD STILL UNKNOWN

Fernando de Magallanes brought together the knowledge, experience and motivation obtained during his expeditions in the service of the King of Portugal. The Treaty of Tordesillas had divided in 1494 a world not entirely known between the two peninsular neighbors.The Portuguese kingdom had already founded colonies in Africa, in the purest Phoenician style, skirting the continent at the Cape of Good Hope, and had traveled up the eastern African coast to reach India and reach, in what is now Indonesia, the mythical The Spice Islands, the only ones in the world that produce cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg, goods that were in high demand in Europe. Magellan, who had already navigated the area and glimpsed its possibilities, tried to sell the King of Portugal the possibility of chartering an expedition to reach the islands by a shorter way, the one to the west.

TO KNOW MORE


The wealth that sustained the monarchy


read article


AN INNOVATIVE IDEA?

The idea was not new, as historian José Luis Comellas points out. Columbus had already wielded it before the Catholic Monarchs 30 years earlier, with results known to all. It is probable that both sailors drank from the same sources: Toscanelli's map, now lost, which "demonstrated" that the distance to the west was considerably less than that of the "Portuguese route". King Manuel I of Portugal rejected Magellan's proposal , perhaps because he did not need an alternative route or perhaps advised by his Board of Mathematicians, who intuitively found dissonances in the distances established by Toscanelli. Indeed, there were: based on Ptolemy's calculations,Toscanelli thought that the Earth was a quarter smaller than it really is and estimated its circumference at 29,000 kilometers instead of the 40,000 that we now know it to measure . A calculation error.
Rejected by the Portuguese king, Magellan arrived in Spain accompanied by Rui de Faleiro, a prestigious cosmographer who claimed to be able to calculate geographic longitude, the coveted variable that was missing when making measurements at sea. Both designed a proposal, contacted important supporters such as Juan de Aranda, factor of the Casa de Contratación; Diego Barbosa, warden of the Reales Alcázares of Seville, and the Burgos merchant Cristóbal de Haro, representative of the Central European bankers Fugger. They thus managed to get Carlos I, the very young Spanish sovereign, to listen to them.
They claimed to know a "passage" through the Americas to border the new continent and reach that South Sea that Vasco Núñez de Balboa had already sighted five years earlier. And that was not all: they could show that the Moluccas were located on the Spanish side of the Treaty of Tordesillas. A risky statement without knowing the size of the world, but so attractive – and lucrative, if true – that the Spanish monarch did not need much more to put them in command of a fleet.

Photo: Anna Serrano/Hemis/Gtres
TO KNOW MORE


The discovery of the Pacific Ocean


read article


In March 1518, the capitulations between the Spanish king and the Portuguese navigator were signed in Valladolid. The objectives were set in them (the search for a passage through the south of the Indies that would lead to the Maluco Islands and the verification that they were in the Spanish zone), the obligations (not to enter into conflict with local tribes, not to penetrate in the Portuguese demarcation and promptly informing the rest of the captains of the defeat) and the rewards (entry into the Order of Santiago, a share in the profits and a system of lordship based on the new lands discovered).
The expedition, with a cost of eight million maravedís (which today would be 1.5 million euros), was financed by the Crown of Castile, the Haros and the Fuggers. Despite rumors that the King of Portugal would try by all means to sabotage the expedition, while the ships were provisioning in Seville, Magellan's dream seemed about to materialize . There was only one change in the initial proposal: Rui de Faleiro stayed on land.

Financed by the Crown of Castile, the Haros and the Fuggers, the expedition had a cost of about 8 million maravedís, which would be about 1.5 million euros today.​

"Health problems were argued, but I believe that Magellan's assumption of command of the company made him take a prudent step back," says historian Xabier Alberdi, director of the Basque Maritime Museum. Others, such as Luis Mollá, captain of the Spanish Navy and author of the fictional epic La fleet of spices , believe that Faleiro was a piece sacrificed by the Casa de Contratación, at the head of which Bishop Rodríguez de Fonseca did, at the last moment, a sieve of Portuguese. Juan de Cartagena – his nephew or his natural son, depending on the sources – took the place of the cosmographer as a joint person with Magellan, in charge of the ship San Antonio. «Fonseca established a bicephaly in the expedition –says Luis Mollá–. And a bicephaly in the sea never works.


250 MEN, 5 SHIPS AND A GREAT ADVENTURE AHEAD

On September 20, 1519, 40 days after setting sail from Seville, the ships began their ocean voyage from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with provisions for two years. No one imagined that the expedition would last longer. From this moment, regardless of crowns, kings or nationalities, there would only be men, about 250 aboard five ships. As such, their behaviors, successes and errors would simply obey human emotions.
Cartagena and Magallanes collided from the first moment. The navigator refused to consider the person imposed by the king an equal, while the captain of the San Antonio , aware of his charge, felt ignored. According to some authors, during the first stopover in Tenerife Magellan received notices about the discontent of the rest of the commanders, who might want to turn against him, and about the maneuvers that Portugal was carrying out to sabotage the expedition. We can imagine the discomfort of the navigator: persecuted by his compatriots, for whom he was a traitor, or watched by the Spanish commanders, for whom he could be a spy for the Portuguese, Magellan, contrary to the capitulations signed with the king, refused to give information or share defeats, which exacerbated the bad relations between him and Juan de Cartagena. This rebuked him, asking for explanations, and Magellan took advantage of the confrontation to arrest him and relieve him in the government of the ship. A historically questioned maneuver that, perhaps trying to avoid a riot, ended up provoking it.

TO KNOW MORE


The day Christopher Columbus sighted land


read article


During the second and long stopover of the expedition, in the bay of Santa Lucía, near present-day Rio de Janeiro, the crew's spirits calmed down for a while, but the unrest resumed when almost a month later they made their way back to the sea. For weeks Magellan explored the mouth of each river, which led his crew to think that the captain general was actually unaware of the place that supposedly connected the two seas and that they navigated erratically. There must have been something like that, because no one had reached further south than the Río de la Plata. All the maps ended there. In anticipation that winter would set in, on March 30 Magellan ordered to anchor in the bay of San Julián, in what is now Argentine Patagonia, and to proceed with food rationing; the ships would not move until the good weather arrived. AND,there is nothing worse for a sailor than to be stopped and consuming provisions ». The discontent, widespread and unstoppable, had all the makings of a riot.


A RIOT IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH

And the riot happened. On the night of April 1, 1520, the captains of two other ships, Quesada and Mendoza, released Juan de Cartagena with the intention of forming a common front that would force Magellan to comply with his requirements. The uprising was repelled and the Portuguese sailor immediately ordered the death penalty for those involved. "In the sea a mutiny is punishable by death," says Mollá, "but it would be necessary to question whether that can be called a mutiny, or at least whether Magellan had the authority to arrest Cartagena, his equal."

Some historians think that Magellan acted with an excess of authority, which subsequently conditioned the expedition itself.​

Lola Higueras is more forceful in stating that Magellan acted with excessive authority and that this would end up conditioning his relationship with the crew and, therefore, the expedition's own progress. « He had the corpses of Quesada and Mendoza dismembered and abandoned Cartagena –the man appointed by the king and the bishop– and Sánchez Reina –a clergyman who opposed him– on a desert island . He did not dare to execute them himself and left them to the judgment of God ».
At the last moment, the already indisputable captain general allowed himself to condone the execution of the rest of the 40 men involved, among whom was Juan Sebastián Elcano, master of the ship Concepción . "It was not about generosity," continues Higueras. It is that he could not afford to do without a whole crew ».
The winter, with a brief attempt to advance in which the ship Santiago was lost , although not its crew members, who had to be divided among the other four ships, lasted about seven months. During that wait, the cold, the discouragement, the inactivity and the weight of the dead or abandoned companions took their toll. Stranded in what they called Puerto de Santa Cruz, none of them had any way of knowing that the long-awaited step awaited them just a few days away.When at last, after setting sail again, they discovered in the labyrinth of channels and bays that opened to the west that the water was still salty, Magellan opted for the first time to submit the decision that had to be made to the judgment of the rest of the commanders. . There could be the much desired step. What should they do, cross it in search of the Moluccas or return to Spain to tell about it?

Photo: Wang Weiguang/ Age Fotostock


GO BACK OR GO FORWARD

«Esteban Gómez, the pilot of the San Antonio, defended the second option –explains Higueras–. He was traveling in the pantry ship. He knew better than anyone that they only had three months' worth of food left, and he advised going back, restocking, and leaving again. But since his was the only objection, Magellan did not heed his proposal ». Esteban Gómez will take advantage of a moment when the ships are separated to overthrow the captain of the San Antonio , Álvaro de Mesquita (Magellan's cousin), turn around and return to Spain . «He is clear about what he wants –adds Higueras–, and that is to tell the king everything. He returns for Cartagena and Sánchez Reina, for humanity or for the validity of his testimony, but he does not even find his remains ».
Xabier Alberdi argues in line with the defection of Esteban Gómez, also Portuguese, that the proverbial confrontation between officers had nothing to do with Spanish-Portuguese quarrels, but with disagreements between people. "He was always jealous of Magellan, as he had also proposed his own expedition to the king of Spain," he says. Paradoxically, he would end up carrying it out. « Before the king he will affirm that he has lost himself from the rest of the ships, which undoubtedly the “madness” of Magellan has pushed to death », reviews Luis Mollá. In 1525, the king would end up creating a branch of the Casa de Contratación in La Coruña in order to find another passage, the Northwest, and in command of that expedition will send the Portuguese pilot. Did he get it? Obviously not, but he spotted other new places. In fact, on the maps of the mid-16th century, a large part of the current United States bears his name: Tierra de Esteban Gómez.

Photo: Carlos Guevara


But this is another story, a story that Magellan will never know. Aware that the San Antonio had deserted, the Portuguese did not have many other options: he could only flee forward, reach the Moluccas and complete the mission entrusted by the king. “Only in this way will he be able to counteract the criticism that he knows that Esteban Gómez is pouring over him,” says Mollá. At the end of November, the pass we now know as the Strait of Magellan was crossed for the first time.. Pigafetta gives an account of nebulae identified in the sky that they baptized with the name of the navigator and the star that would be called the Southern Cross. On land, the distant bonfires sighted gave a name to the world they left behind: Tierra del Fuego. Happy to finally find themselves in a deceptively peaceful ocean, they headed for the equator and the long-awaited islands. They didn't even stop to stock up. They had no way of knowing that they were facing the largest sea that had ever been sailed . Nor that, from there, they were the same distance from the Moluccas as they were from the European continent.

On land, the distant bonfires sighted gave a name to the world they left behind: Tierra del Fuego. Happy to finally find themselves in a deceptively peaceful ocean, they headed for the equator and the long-awaited islands.​

Would Magellan have acted differently if he had known the vast ocean that awaited them? It is difficult to evaluate. For three desperate months they sailed northwest, seeking the equator and the Moluccas , with no land in sight, victims of heat, stillness, hunger, thirst, and scurvy, passing islands they never got to see. A score of men had died and had traveled more than 13,000 miles when they managed to stock up on fresh fruit on what is now the island of Guam, in the Marianas. By the time the three remaining naos reached the islands of San Lázaro, now the Philippines, it was clear that the Moluccas, on the equator, had been well to the south .
"His men began to suspect that he had been lost," says Mollá, "but that was impossible." Juan Sebastián Elcano would later point out that the captain general "never had the intention of reaching that defeat." Historians believe that, indeed, Magellan was no longer in such a hurry to get to the spice store. "Let's not forget that he would obtain the lordship of at least two of the islands that he found," recalls Higueras. It is possible that the new territories that he was finding diverted him from his mission ». For Mollá, it is not ambition that guides the Portuguese navigator: « He has already achieved the step he was looking for, now he wants something more than spices. He needs to establish new alliances and make merits before the king ».


PAY A VERY HIGH PRICE

Those alliances cost him dearly. Humabón, the chief of Cebu, suggested that he reduce a rival chief, Lapu Lapu, so that he would end up ruling over all the islands, which of course he would put at the service of the distant king of Spain. Magellan must have considered the little skirmish worthwhile, accepted the proposal, and headed for Mactan with 49 of his men. Everyone underestimated Lapu Lapu, who waited with 1,500 warriors crouched on the beach for the Spanish, thigh-deep in water and heavily armored, to reach the shore.willing to engage in an unequal battle. Contrary to what Magellan thought, victory will not be obtained by artillery, but by the greatest number of combatants. Mollá attributes the result to the strategic capacity of Lapu Lapu. Higueras, to the arrogance of Magellan, of whom he affirms that he "was incapable of assessing the risk."
A very affected Pigafetta narrated the death of Magellan as that of the hero he always saw in him, riddled by the natives, while defending the withdrawal of his own. "They finished him off, our mirror, our light, our consolation, our true guide," intoned the Italian. The captain of the expedition had not even reached the long-awaited Moluccas, which awaited him some 1,500 miles further south. That April 27, 1521, the crew of the only three remaining ships had just lost their guide.

Photo: Mendi Urruzuno


I RETURN TO SPAIN

On September 6, 1522, at the dock in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, a handful of survivors shed tears of emotion at finding themselves back on the land they left behind three years ago. Meanwhile, still aboard the dilapidated ship that has brought them home, Juan Sebastián Elcano writes a letter to Emperor Carlos V , whom he would never have imagined addressing. With sober lines that barely contain the emotion of the moment, he gives the first official news of the reality that would change the conception of things: «Your Majesty will know that we have gone around the whole round of the world».
End of April 1521. A year and a half to go until that glorious moment. A long time, a long world and many deaths still ahead. That of the captain general, Ferdinand Magellan, in the absurd battle of the island of Mactan, was by no means the first, but it was the most forceful. His dream of reaching the Moluccas from the west has culminated far to the north of the coveted islands, in the Philippines, lands that no one in Europe knows . In an attempt to continue the project, Duarte Barbosa, his brother-in-law, and João Serrão are named captains of the battered expedition, but not for long. The local victory over the foreigners – still celebrated today in the Philippines – has stripped them not only of their leader, but also of something much more valuable: his aura of invulnerability.

Photo: Buyenlarge/Getty Images

On May 1, just a week after the death of Magellan, a grieving Humabón, rajá of the island of Cebu, organizes a tribute dinner to which he invites the main commanders of the expedition: pilots, captains, masters, boatswains… He expresses his condolences, shows his respects and presents them with rich gifts for that distant and almighty King Charles, but he has already decided that the alliance with those foreigners cannot last. The delivery of the presents is the signal for the ambush. Only João Carvalho, who arrives late and sees something suspicious, sounds
the alarm and manages to reach the ships. The rest, 26 high officials of the expedition, are brutally murdered by Humabón's men,hidden in the thicket. The outstanding Antonio de Pigafetta, self-appointed chronicler of the expedition, and Juan Sebastián Elcano, master of the ship Concepción , are not among them . The health problems that prevented them from disembarking to attend the homage of the local cacique have saved their lives. Together with the rest of the survivors, they go to sea and only stop at the island of Bohol, where they are forced to burn the Conception for not having enough people to govern it. There are 115 men who prefer to reduce one of their ships to ashes rather than see it in enemy hands.
“The said Captain Ferdinand Magellan is missing us with many others due to his death” , Elcano writes laconically, synthesizing a whole world of uncertainty in one line. The expedition, headless and decimated, sailed aimlessly under the command of Carvalho and Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa, cautiously stopping at different islands until they reached Borneo. In Brunei they find that the new lands have nothing to do with those they have left behind in terms of riches, civilization and magnificence. Sultan Siripada welcomes them and grants them free rein to undertake commercial operations, but the idyll does not last long: it takes the distrustful Carvalho to open fire on a group of boats, among which are some of Siripada's sons.Twenty days after their arrival, the two ships leave exquisite Borneo and its world of possibilities. No fatalities, but leaving three prisoners on the ground. Seen what was seen, it could have been much worse.


HEADING TO THE MOLUCCAS

Carvalho's hasty decision, which has expelled them from paradise, and their erratic course, which leads them to survive as corsairs, take their toll on the Portuguese captain. On August 15, it is decided to replace him. Espinosa takes command of the Trinidad and Elcano rises in rank and goes from master to captain of the Victoria.
Since the death of Magellan, successions of commands will take place without bloodshed. “Real leadership cannot be imposed through fear; you have to earn it and Elcano gets it”, says Xabier Alberdi, director of the Basque Maritime Museum. Perhaps this explains why from that moment the seafaring experience and the common sense of the Basque navigator prevailed. Haven't they gone looking for the Moluccas? To the Moluccas, then. They head south, take – willingly or by force – two native pilots who claim to know the defeat and on November 8, a little more than six months after Magellan's death, the two ships anchor off Tidore, the first producer of cloves in the world, the island that, without a doubt, the late captain general dreamed of every night of his life.
A pleasant surprise awaits them: Tidore welcomes them like old partners. His sultan, Almansur, has been in dealings with Arabs and other foreign merchants before. He knows how the market works. The necessary agreements are closed and the nail begins to be stored to load the two Spanish ships. We can imagine the faces of the sailors who have taken two long years to reach the spice shop and suddenly find themselves face to face with such wealth.
"A sack of cinnamon was then equivalent to a lifetime's salary," warns Luis Mollá, a ship's captain and a great scholar of the feat that the expedition entailed. A new factor is added to the disbelief and uncertainty of returning to Spain: the rush. Tidore must be left as soon as possible to avoid the risk of being discovered by the Portuguese. But when both ships are loaded to the limit of their capacity, the joints of the Trinity become dislodged due to excess weight and the ship leaks. The sensible thing is for her to stay on Tidore for repairs, but lest two cargoes and two crews be put at risk, the Victory must go.
Perhaps that is when it is decided that the Trinidad, once seaworthy, try to touch Panama, in a presumably shorter route. Besides, the Darien is Spanish territory, and there the ship, the men and the cargo will be safe. La Victoria, on the other hand, will leave for Spain, but not through the Pacific, but through the Indian Ocean.

La Victoria, on the other hand, will leave for Spain, but not through the Pacific, but through the Indian Ocean.​

Sailing through Portuguese waters
«We resolved, either to die, or with all honor to serve Your Majesty to make him aware of said discovery, and leave with a single ship», writes Elcano already in Sanlúcar. How was the decision to sail through Portuguese waters made, when the Spanish king had expressly requested in the capitulations that it not be done so as not to enter into conflict with the neighboring kingdom? Would Magellan have done so too? "Yes. Any ship captain in his right mind would have made Elcano's decision – Luis Mollá maintains – and the safest option for his crew would have prevailed, even if that would have meant disobeying that of his own monarch ». Manuel Vilas Boas, a descendant of Magellan and a student of the figure of the illustrious relative, on the other hand, is not so clear about it. This is how he explains it in a BBC documentary that recounts the feat: “I think he would have gone back the way they had come. I believe that he would not have disobeyed the King of Spain, nor incurred even more the wrath of his countrymen».

Any ship captain in his right mind would have made Elcano's decision and would have preferred the safest option for his crew, even if that would have meant disobeying his own monarch.​

Beyond the hypotheses, the truth is that Elcano faced a journey that was never included in the travel plans, that the crew was divided between the two ships and that the brave sailors said goodbye crying, perhaps sensing that the vast majority of them would never be seen again.
The emotional scene is described by Pigafetta, who, although he would later omit Elcano from his writings, chose to embark with him on the Victoria.

Brave sailors said goodbye crying, perhaps sensing that the vast majority of them would never see each other again.​

The fate of Elcano is known, but it is rarely told what became of Espinosa and Trinidad , who left three months later than his companion and in the opposite direction. His route to American lands was extraordinarily intuitive, but the winds and storms made a very hard journey impossible in which thirty men died, according to Ginés de Mafra. The rest could only try to return to Tidore, under cover of Almansur, to repair again a mortally wounded ship. They never arrived. The Portuguese intercepted them at Ternate and the Trinidad was dismantled and sunk after requisitioning a load of cloves that in the markets was worth more than the lives of the men who transported them. Subjected to ill-treatment, only youThree of its crew members returned to Spain five years later, in 1527, repatriated by the Portuguese . In a most painful and undignified way, they too went around the world.
Elcano sets off with a complex objective: to navigate out of the Portuguese defeats, something he had to do without touching land and without knowing the winds that govern the seas not previously navigated. On his journey they discover the South Moluccas, where "nutmeg and pepper are given" as he will refer to his sovereign in the report. From Timor, an island unknown to the Portuguese, he left in mid-February 1522 for an open sea voyage of more than 20,000 kilometers. From there, the only known point of it is the Cape of Good Hope.The historian José Luis Comellas affirms that, with great intuition, Elcano follows an almost perfect orthodromic route, that is, he traces the shortest path when crossing the surface of a sphere from one point to another. Perhaps if he had navigated less efficiently and gone a little further south, he would have discovered Australia.

Photo: White Fox/AGF/Getty Images


There are many decisions that the crew has to face. Decisions in which life is at stake and which, Alberdi points out, «Elcano submits to the vote of the crew, without impositions; willing to abide by the opinion of the majority. The first of these is whether or not to land in Madagascar, which would mean the same as surrendering to the Portuguese. He wins the no. The second, during the arduous journey, overcoming the Cape of Good Hope, without throwing the load of nails into the water in order to lighten the ship. Again he wins the no: to return without the precious spices would be to recognize the failure of an expedition that sails only in pursuit of survival and dignity. The third decision occurs when the most difficult thing seems already done.With the heat and calm of the equatorial zone come thirst, dehydration, hunger and scurvy. Elcano summed it up laconically for the king «Between the Cape of Good Hope and the Cape Verde Islands, twenty-two men died on us» . The terrible paradox is that those dying men were lying on top of 27 tons of cloves, extraordinarily rich in vitamin C. Unbeknownst to them, Pigafetta and Elcano are saved by quince jam, reserved for officers, but the rest of the crew is on the verge of exhaustion. Thus, when, between June and July 1522, a new consultation was made as to whether they should dock in Cape Verde, the yes was imposed. This time, men can no longer.

Elcano was forced to flee and launch the Victoria ship in a wild race to avoid the Portuguese persecution.​

In Cape Verde they deceive themselves by saying that they are returning from the Americas and have been delayed by their fleet due to a storm. It works on a first provisioning, but not on the second. It is not known for sure what happened: perhaps someone mentions the death of Magellan, of which the world has no news; perhaps someone tries (now without money or other goods with which to exchange goods) to pay for their purchases with the precious nail. The lie is discovered. “The Governor seized my boat with 13 men and wanted to take me along with all my men on a ship that was returning to Calicut from Portugal, saying that only the King of Portugal could discover the Spice Shop ,” Elcano tells Carlos V. The one who will be the architect of the first voyage around the world is forced to flee and launch the shipVictory to a wild race to avoid the Portuguese persecution. The winds are so contrary that they cannot even dream of landing in the Canary Islands and they are forced to go up the Azores, descend again in front of Lisbon and double the Cape of San Vicente before sighting a Sanlúcar de Barrameda that, without a doubt, knows to mirage.


ARRIVAL IN SANLUCAR

On September 6 they arrive in the town of Cadiz. On the wharf people are unable to recognize in that handful of undead the proud squadron that left there almost three years before. The ship and they themselves are so battered that they ask for a ship to tow them to Seville. It is during this wait that Elcano writes his missive to the young sovereign that he left as king and already receives him as emperor. By then, between hauled, tacked and island navigations, he estimates that the survivors have traveled about 42,000 miles, that is, about 78,000 kilometers. Not one, but almost two trips around the world.
Carlos V responds to Elcano's letter barely a week later. He asks him to take two men he trusts to meet him in Valladolid and tell him about the adventure in person. «He is the emperor of the world –says the historian Carlos Martínez Shaw–, but he does not know the world. It is Elcano who shows it to him». In his letter, he also takes for granted the only two things that the Basque sailor has requested: the release of the men who remained in Cape Verde and the proportional part that all the survivors must receive of the almost 600 quintals of nail that has arrived to port. He himself is given a coat of arms with the precious spices and the motto "primus circumdedisti me"(you were the first to circumnavigate me), and a salary of 500 ducats a year. He pity that the bureaucracy was not up to the glory of the moment or the magnanimity of the king. Elcano would die before even one of those payments was made effective.

Photo: Cegalerba/Szwemberg/HMIS/Gtres


Antonio de Pigafetta , the unconditional chronicler of Magellan, manages to be received at the courts of Carlos V, Juan III of Portugal and Francisco I of France to make the adventure known, and undertakes the work to turn his notebook into a real book , Account of the first voyage around the globe . His pen and the magic of the printing press do the rest: the aura of Magellan, presented as the hero of the deed, grows internationally, while the Basque sailor who has faced the decision to go around the world is deliberately silenced. A subtle revenge of the Italian towards the man who reaped a glory that, for him, always belonged to the Portuguese.
"However, both are complementary," says Luis Mollá. The feat would not have been possible without one of them. The sum of the two figures turns a commercial expedition into a historical journey that breaks with ancient beliefs, reveals the true scale of our planet and opens new trade routes that will be used for centuries, until the construction of the Panama Canal . A multinational expedition that transcends the universal and draws a line of no return between medieval knowledge and the innovations of the Renaissance. "The enlightened class compared the epic with that of Jason and the Argonauts, elevating the story almost to myth," says María Luisa Martín Merás, former director of the Madrid Naval Museum. They opened up the ocean. And with him, the world. And with it, the minds».

The sum of the two figures turns a commercial expedition into a historical journey that breaks with old beliefs and opens new trade routes that will be used for centuries.​

Today we call it globalization. Perhaps it took a while to germinate, but here the seed of that knowledge and transoceanic commercial exchange was conceived, with its lights and shadows. “After that, Europe could not remain the same”, says the writer Gabriel Sánchez Sorondo.
Elcano was unable to answer the geographical question that most concerned the Spanish monarch: on which side did the Spice Islands fall? Neither he nor anyone else could do it, because until 250 years later the method of lunar distances that allowed measuring longitude would not be invented. And by then, the location of the Moluccas did not interest anyone. In 1529, three years after his wedding with Isabel of Portugal, Carlos V would renounce his claims on them in favor of the neighboring country. The price of the islands that claimed so many lives was estimated at 350,000 gold ducats.


A NEW EXPEDITION

Here the story of the expedition that circumnavigated the Earth could end, but not that of Elcano. Eager to claim that handful of islands, the king chartered a new expedition three years later, in 1525, at the head of which, together with Elcano, he placed Jofré de Loaysa. It was an absolute failure . As in an imitation of the previous one, ships and lives were lost, straits were discovered and desertions were suffered. And as in her, in a sort of curse, his captains died in the Pacific before reaching the Moluccas.
On August 6, Elcano's corpse rested forever in the ocean where he had grazed glory. One of his trusted men, Andrés de Urdaneta, lamented his death in the on-board diary without imagining that he would be called upon to continue his feat upon discovering, 40 years later, the famous tornado that would connect both shores of the Pacific through the precious route of the Manila galleon between the Philippines and Acapulco.

(Article published in the September 2019 and October 2019 issues of the print edition of National Geographic Spain)


TO KNOW MORE

Assault on the Spanish galleons

read article



https://historia.nationalgeographic....TStH5rmySE9BOg