The Manchester Arena False Flag

Richard D. Hall Deserves Our Support 

by Iain Davis
March 1, 2024

Richard D. Hall is an independent investigative journalist and documentary film maker who has gone further than any other journalist to examine the evidence surrounding the alleged 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. If we look at the evidence, which is the only way to ascertain the truth, the Manchester Arena bombing was, in my view, a false flag.

The official Manchester Arena Bombing narrative asserts the following as “fact.”

On 22nd of May 2017, 22 people were killed by a 22 year old Islamist terrorist Salman Abedi who committed suicide when he detonated his TATP (triacetone triperoxide) backpack bomb at around 22.30. The bomb detonated just after Ariana Grande ended her set following the conclusion of her 22nd song.

Initially 59 people were reportedly injured, 38 directly by the bomb. By 2018 it was more than 800. The majority must have been injured in the stampede and this significantly increased number includes those psychologically traumatised by the event.

Among those initially injured were Ruth Murrell, Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve. Martin was reportedly struck by 22 pieces of shrapnel.

The terrorist, Salman Abedi, was known to the intelligence agencies and was considered a to be among a tiny group of individuals, marked as a “subjects of interest” (SOI), who “merited further examination.” Despite being “of interest,” Abedi frequently flew back and forth between the Libya and the UK, passing numerous UK border check without issue.

This appeared to be the continuation of the “open door policy” the UK government had with the terrorist members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which was linked to al Qaeda. In a subsequent 2018 parliamentary written statement, Alistair Burt MP wrote:

​During the Libyan conflict in 2011 the British Government was in communication with a wide range of Libyans involved in the conflict against the Qaddafi regime forces. It is likely that this included former members of Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and 17 February Martyrs’ Brigade, as part of our broad engagement during this time.

Members of the LIFG Islamist terrorist group, including Salman Abedi’s father, Ramadan Abedi—also known as Abu Ismail—and their families were settled in the UK from where they could plan and coordinate attacks in Libya. Salman grew up in Fallowfield, Manchester among the UK-based Islamist terrorist community.

As a teenager, Salman joined terrorist operations in Libya during the school holidays. A very frequent flyer, he arrived back in the UK from Libya, via a stopover in Germany, just four days before the alleged attack. As usual, no one questioned him.

Richard D. Hall has “questioned” the official narrative of the Manchester Arena bombing in its entirety.

Following his extensive and diligent research, Hall subsequently published his book “Manchester: the Night of The Bang” in 2020. He released an accompanying film.

Hall reported, in both the book and the film, a significant body of evidence that strongly suggests the official account of the Manchester Arena bombing is false. He has continued to conduct his research and added further evidence since publication.

For me, that body of evidence is compelling and shows the official State narrative of the Manchester Arena bombing is not true. The evidence indicates it was a false flag operation conducted by the UK state or elements within the UK state. I reserve the right to maintain my opinion until someone can show me some evidence to change my mind.

There is no evidence in the official account that leads me to believe Manchester was not a false flag. The official account is not plausible and I have no reason to accept it.

Hall has clearly demonstrated, to anyone that actually familiarises themselves with his work, that the official narrative is constructed from a partial record of the evidence. Virtually none of the evidence reported by Hall has been discussed or examined in any depth by either the authorities or the legacy media (LM). Any conclusion that does not account for all of the evidence is questionable. A conclusion based upon an investigation that ignores or deliberately evades evidence is meaningless.

The Establishment simply insists you believe whatever it tells you about Manchester without discussing, or even acknowledging, the bulk of the evidence. Hall is the only named journalist to have reported the information otherwise excluded from public discourse. For doing so, he has been attacked by the entire UK legacy media and faces bankruptcy in the courts.

One of the reported victims of the Manchester Arena bang, Martin Hibbert, has lodged a civil claim against Hall alleging that Hall’s investigative journalism amounts to harassment and GDPR breaches. Hall has shown evidence that strongly suggests the BBC were instrumental in instigating the case against him.

In an interview aired on ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB), Martin Hibbert spoke about his relationship with Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester. Mr Hibbert stated that if he wins the case against Hall, he, Burnham and his legal team are seeking to use the ruling to push for the creation of a new criminal offence.

Hibbert and his supporters want to make it illegal to question any reported victim account of an alleged terrorist attack. If enacted, it will ensure that no investigative journalist can ever question State narratives about terror events. Once on the statute books, it is highly likely that the offence will be extended to prohibit the questioning of other State narratives, wherever it is claimed someone was harmed. Murder, for example.

At no stage did GMB question anything Mr Hibbert said. They noted that the case against Hall was ongoing, but then allowed Martin Hibbert to make a series of unchallenged, false claims about Hall. Thus, further jeopardising Hall’s defence.

The GMB interview appeared to contravene Sections 5 and 7 of the OFCOM Code. Some people have submitted complaints to OFCOM. An example of the kind of complaints raised can be read HERE. If you are satisfied that the interview breached OFCOM regulations, perhaps you might consider submitting something similar yourself.

The UK High Court of Justice has issued a summary judgment in Hall’s case. High Court Master Davison decided that all of the evidence we are about to discuss was “farcical” or “preposterous” and ruled it inadmissible. Hall cannot present key evidence in his own defence.

Journalism and its ability to question power is directly threatened by the civil action brought against Richard D. Hall. Yet virtually no legacy media nor independent media outlet, with a couple of notable exceptions, is seemingly willing to publish anything that broaches this issue or defends either Hall or his work.

A possible injunction could see all of Hall’s research and the evidence he has reported removed from the internet. His books will be burned. It seems obvious that the UK state is determined to silence Hall but, more importantly, to hide and destroy the evidence he has reported.

The UK government, the compliant legacy and many in the so-called independent media have reported a Manchester Arena “story,” primarily based upon witness testimony. The official narrative is largely anecdotal and there is a dearth of physical evidence corroborating any of it.

As Hall showed, the State’s relied upon witness testimonies are contradictory and many are not consistent with the authorities’ yarn.

For example, Hall reported the published witness testimonies of the 21 eyewitnesses who say they saw the explosion. Ten described a bright flash or orange light or fireball when it occurred and five described smoke. TATP, the explosive allegedly used, does not emit either light or smoke when it explodes.

At the subsequent public inquiry into the Manchester Arena bang—the Saunders Inquiry—paramedic Simon Butler testified that he “treated” survivors for more than three hours but added “I didn’t see a patient actively bleeding.”

Hall discovered and reported that the first people to respond to 22 dying and 38 seriously injured people in the City Room were Manchester Arena medical staff. To give you some sort of unpleasant mental image of what they supposedly faced—according to the official account—the blast was so immense that Salman Abedi’s dismembered head and torso were flung more than 160 feet through the air to land near the Victoria Station ticket stall.

Hall has provided photographic evidence—not shown at the inquiry—of the Manchester Arena medical team leaving the Arena, immediately after working in the bloodbath. They didn’t have any blood on them. Perhaps they had time to wash it off and get changed or perhaps they “didn’t see a patient actively bleeding” either.

Hall has scrutinised every single available image and CCTV frame offered as “official evidence” of what happened that night. He even created an online tool to enable anyone else to peruse the images. Which is highly recommended.

He reports, and I agree:

There are no CCTV images that show any deceased victim or seriously injured victim in the City Room or anywhere else in the Arena.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but, following a major terrorist bombing that supposedly killed 22 people and directly injured at least 38 more, any reasonable person would expect to see some physical evidence that a bombing had, in fact, occurred. None, nada, zilch, showing anything remotely corroborative of the official account has ever been shown anywhere.

There is no publicly available, physical evidence of a large TATP bomb, packed with metal shrapnel, detonating in the City Room. To ignore this and maintain that the official story is beyond doubt, is utterly ridiculous.

The physical evidence reported by Hall has not been acknowledged by anyone who claims the Manchester Arena bombing happened as described by the authorities. It seems likely that it has been ignored because it completely contradicts and wholly undermines everything we are supposed to believe about the Manchester Arena bombing.

Perhaps the most absurd pieces of evidence analysed by Hall is the Nick Bickerstaff video. Widely reported by the legacy media, the selfie-video shows Bickerstaff, supposedly searching for his daughter, having just seen the devastation in the City Room.

Unlike the legacy media, Hall took the time to analyse and investigate the clip. He provided verifiable evidence that proved the Bickerstaff footage was filmed before the explosion occurred. In the video, Bickerstaff said there were people in the City Room who were “bashed to bits.” This clearly indicated that Bickerstaff was relaying foreknowledge of the alleged Manchester Arena bombing.

Hall interviewed John Barr. Barr was an eyewitness who was in the City Room within four minutes of the explosion. This was 40 minutes before the first paramedic arrived and the only medical first-responders on the scene at that time—according to the official account—were the Manchester Arena medical staff, who, apparently, weren’t bloodstained by their ordeal.

John Barr filmed the scene and posted it on social media. Barr possessed a documentary record of the physical evidence observable in the immediate aftermath of a major terrorist attack. Barr was not invited to testify at the subsequent inquiry and his footage was not entered into evidence or examined.

To be clear: the Barr footage captured the scene inside the Arena Foyer (City Room) less that four minutes after the alleged explosion.

We are told that a terrorist had just detonated a massive TATP suicide bomb that sprayed deadly shrapnel over a wide area, scything through a densely packed crowd. It killed 22 people and severely injured at least 38 more. Nearly all of those 60 people would still have been in the City Room when Barr shot the footage.

So let’s consider what we can see on the John Barr video, as reported by Richard D. Hall.



Of course, what we think we see and what we imagine we see is entirely subjective. But let me briefly describe what I don’t see.

I don’t see 22 people killed by a bomb. I don’t see 38 people seriously injured by a bomb. I do not see dismembered tissue nor anywhere near enough blood to corroborate the story we are given.

I don’t see any notable panic nor, indeed, any frenetic activity at all. I don’t see anyone attempting any kind of emergency medical procedure.

I don’t see “any” structural damage.

Now please allow me to say what I do see.

I see people stood around amiably chatting. I see entirely intact paper posters and flimsy merchandise stalls—supposedly located close to the epicenter of the blast—that have not sustained any damage at all. I see completely undamaged and fully operational lighting. I see intact glass panel doors. I see unmarked walls.

I see a Ruth Murrell, who supposedly just had a bolt blown through her right leg, walking with ease in high heels, without even a limping, bringing her full weight to bear on her right leg. I see Ruth’s jeans, without any damage, despite a shrapnel supposedly passing through them. I see what looks like some minor “bleeding” that I suspect is fake.

I see too few people lying on the ground and what appears to be some limited moulage. I see an event that looks practically identical to the fake mass shooting and suicide bombing that occurred in Manchester’s Old Trafford Shopping Center one year prior, almost precisely, to the alleged Manchester Arena bombing.

I see a simulation of a terrorist attack. I see a training exercise. I see crisis actors. I see a hoaxed false flag.

Were this the only evidence that Hall had reported it would be enough, in my view, to cast significant doubt on the official narrative. But this is just one tiny slither of the evidence he has tried to draw to public attention.

Taken from his latest video covering the court case, the claimant’s media statements and the alleged Manchester Arena bombing, let’s just consider a few more examples of the evidence Hall has unearthed.

Richard D. Hall reported:

Evidence in witness testimony [given to the Saunders Inquiry] from the emergency services suggests emergency services did not act in a normal fashion and were deliberately inhibited by their chains of command. British Transport Police were kept out of the City Room until after the blast [emergency response was concluded] despite it being standard practice for them to be there to help manage egress from the concert. Greater Manchester Police, who arrived 15 minutes after the blast, did not establish any chain of command with the senior officer at the scene throughout the emergency response period and did not declare a major incident. [. . .] [The whole police response] was isolated from any control outside [of the City Room].

As has been widely reported elsewhere, Hall also highlights the “bizarre” decision to direct Fire Service crews from their station located near the Arena to a rendezvous point two miles further away. Thus moving them three miles away from the building, where a bomb had supposedly exploded, and keeping them there for two hours. Apparently, they weren’t needed.

If that makes no sense, the ambulance response is mind-bending. Consider what we are told about the horrific scale of this alleged terrorist attack.

Hall reported:

North West Ambulance Service was only allowed to send three paramedics to attend a scene with 60+ alleged casualties, two of the paramedics arriving 44 minutes after the blast despite there being four more hazardous trained area paramedic on-site. Eight of the first trained people to respond at the scene—the Arena medical staff—were not interviewed by the public inquiry.

Hall reported the statements of key paramedics and doctors who attended the scene. Paddy Ennis, Dan Smith, Christopher Hargreaves, Joanne Hedges, Dr Edward Tunn and Helen Motram. All of them stated that it was not their role to treat any dying or injured people and they testified that they did not treat “any.”

Hall reported that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) inspector Mike Smith and British Transport Police (BTP) Constable Dale Allcock, testified that a member of the public reported seeing an Asian male—matching Abedi’s officially reported appearance on the night—place a rucksack in the City Room before running out of the Arena. This reported sighting was confirmed by Operational Firearms Commander Edward Richardson.

Hall has presented evidence that the Saunders inquiry entered incorrectly time-stamped still images into the public inquiry. The inquiry stated they were taken 1 second before the “blast” but Hall has convincingly shown it is highly likely they were taken 30 seconds prior to detonation. This apparent 30 second gap possibly indicates an attempt to hide what happened in the City Room in the immediate moments before the bang. Did the missing CCTV images show Abedi fleeing?

In short, there is no solid evidence supporting the official narrative of the alleged Manchester Arena Bombing. It is notable only for its absence. Richard D. Hall has investigated, collated and reported the hard, verifiable evidence that casts immense doubt on the official Manchester Arena “story.”

This brings us to the most contentious aspect of Hall’s findings. People allegedly died and many were injured. Clearly, Ruth Murrell’s account of the injuries she sustained is extremely dubious.

The evidence presented by Hall indicates that the Manchester Arena bombing was a false flag. Evidence, such as the John Barr video, also suggests the possibility that it was a simulated or “hoaxed” false flag. Thus, the potential seemingly exists that no one died and no one was injured in the City Room on 22nd May 2017.

Therefore, with the information he had already uncovered in hand, Hall set about investigating the claimed deaths and injuries. He did so knowing what an immense risk he was taking. Few journalists have the guts to even contemplate undertaking such an investigation.

I will not explore the perfectly plausible theories that Hall presented in his book potentially accounting for many of the deaths and the injuries. Suffice to say, in my view, the Manchester Arena terrorist attack was a hoax and the claimed deaths and injuries cannot simply be accepted as proven facts without further investigation.

But no one, and I mean no one, wants to hear that.

The notion that the state could fake such an attack is hard enough for most people to swallow. Although some awareness of the State’s long history of using false flag terror might help overcome this strain of cognitive dissonance. As would some knowledge of the crisis actor industry.

What people blankly refuse to consider is that the State would ever claim deaths and injuries happened when they either didn’t or transpired as a result of unrelated events. The State habitually lies to us about pretty much everything, so why people find this impossible to even contemplate is hard to say, though we can speculate.

Lives lost to terrorist attacks, especially children’s, have a significant emotional impact upon us. When the entire legacy media constantly reinforces the emotions elicited by those reported deaths, if convinced by this, we run the risk of basing our comprehension of politically significant terrorist attacks on nothing but emotion, rather than on the evidence.

It is the alleged deaths and injuries that renders questioning the event unthinkable for the vast majority. Reported deaths and injuries are essential if you are going to convince an entire nation that a large-scale terrorist attack struck a city like Manchester. Especially if you haven’t got any other evidence to substantiate your claim.

We know that the UK state has been actively involved in terrorism that killed civilians. It doesn’t care about our lives. Begging the question why bother with a hoaxed false flag? Why not use a real bomb?

Again, we can only speculate.

The hoaxed false flag inevitably draws researchers to conclude that the reported deaths didn’t happen. We have seen a slew of court cases, on both sides of the Atlantic, focus upon the highly emotive and controversial claim that no one died. As the public is wholeheartedly convinced that this is an egregious and despicable slur on the memories of those who perished, juries and benches are predisposed to find these researchers guilty of defamation or harassment. Based on their emotions, few would question such rulings.

This, in turn, supports the State’s assertion that measures need to be taken to stop the so-called “conspiracy theorists” making such outrageous claims and spreading supposed disinformation and “hatred.” The United Nations is using this claim as justification for its proposed global Cybercrimes Treaty. Once signed, every signatory nation will pass laws to stop the sharing of any information that “may have an adverse impact on States, enterprises and the well-being of individuals and society.”

Is the hoaxed false flag an effective honey trap? Is the intention to lure independent journalists and researchers into exposing apparently fake deaths and then capitalise on the resultant outrage, using the media, public opinion and the courts to seemingly legitimise laws to end free speech?

If people are genuinely killed that leaves grieving families who will never let go of seeking the truth. If they aren’t, if the participants have signed some sort of enforceable contract or have been coerced in some way, this is less likely.

For example, the families of the 9/11 victims are still pursuing the US government, not to examine alleged “failures” of intelligence, as is often the case, but to ascertain what actually happened.

It should be noted that some of the families of the Manchester Arena attack are also seeking answers. While there is no questioning of the event itself, many want to know more about the apparent intelligence failures.

In truth we don’t know why a hoax was evidently favoured for the Manchester Arena false flag. Investigating State crimes without being censored or prosecuted or worse, is extremely difficult and high risk. By its nature, the evidence is not easy to gather. Often, we are left with questions and not many answers.

But questions can be well informed and rooted in the evidence. In the case of Manchester, certainly the questions posed by Hall’s work are founded firmly upon the solid evidence he has reported.

Hall would be the first to admit he doesn’t have all the answers. His work is not beyond dispute and it should be critically evaluated. The only way to start doing that is to appraise yourself of it.

“Appeal to emotion” is both a logical fallacy and a propaganda technique. Our emotions are subjective feelings and do not constitute evidence. If we care about the truth we must pursue the evidence and nothing but the evidence. That is what Richard D. Hall has done.

We may not like his conclusions and they may not be entirely correct, but the evidence he has reported is more than enough to determine that the official account of the Manchester Arena bombing is false. A reported victim of the bombing is now pursuing Hall through the courts—supported by politicians, the legacy media and a very expensive legal team—with a view to establishing a law that could end any possibility of questioning State fabricated terror events or any State narrative relating to harm supposedly caused.

So powerful are our emotions that even so-called independent media journalists either can’t see beyond them or use “appeal to emotion” as if it were a rational argument.

In a recent podcast [go to 28:36] about Hall’s case and his Manchester work, independent radio host, Richie Allen, focused almost exclusively on the emotions surrounding the Manchester Bombing to largely discredit Hall’s work. Listening to the podcast is recommended because Allen neatly packaged the “appeal to emotion” propaganda, used by the legacy media to dissuade anyone from looking at the evidence Hall reported, in his podcast.

Saying that he hadn’t read Hall’s book and that he wasn’t overly familiar with his work, Allen nonetheless felt he was sufficiently well informed to pontificate on the evidence he presumably knew nothing about. He said Hall wasn’t a “real” journalist and stated that Hall didn’t have any evidence to back up his claims. Apparently, according to Allen, none of the evidence reported by Hall—discussed in this article—exists.

Richie Allen acknowledged many of the anomalies in the official narrative. He conceded that hoaxed false flags have happened before, he even mentioned the Nick Bickerstaff video. Allen said he was “at a loss” to understand it and that it was “one of the most bizarre” things he had ever reported. Had Allen read Hall’s analysis he might have been able to understand that the Bickerstaff video demonstrates foreknowledge of an alleged terrorist attack.

Allen offered an anecdote—told to him by a friend—about injured people being treated on the night as “evidence” that proved everything Hall has investigated and reported is baseless. He called Hall’s work “bollocks.”

When the bangs were heard, as shown in numerous TV reports, the crowd panicked and a stampede ensued. Thanks to Hall’s investigative journalism, this is is one of the reasons we can deduce that the Bickerstaff video was shot before the bang. The absence of the warning sirens heard in the Barr footage being another.

Thirty eight people were reportedly treated for injuries caused by a bomb. Many hundreds were reportedly treated for injuries that were not caused by a bomb.

Evidently, this hasn’t crossed Allen’s mind. He apparently assumes that all treated injuries were incurred as the direct result of bomb blast shrapnel.

Allen insisted that the victims were killed by a bomb because funerals were held which mourners attended. Of course, a funeral is not evidence demonstrating how, when or where a person died. Although Allen found it substantive.

Allen noted that many of the funerals had been covered extensively by the legacy media. He said that the people who attended the funerals believed they were saying their last goodbye to someone they cared about. While Hall has questioned some funeral attendees, he has never suggested that the majority of the mourners weren’t genuine, despite Allen telling his listeners that he did.

When his guest, Nick Kollestrom, highlighted the John Barr video (above), Allen speculated that it might show some sort of “hybrid event.” He proffered that there could have been both a real terrorist attack and a fake one which were, coincidentally, identical. Presumably, Ruth Murrell, a prominent “injured” survivor of the Manchester Arena bombing, just happened to attend both simultaneously—if Allen’s off the cuff hybrid theory is to be believed.

Ultimately, by focusing upon nothing but the emotions evoked by Hall’s claims, Allen effectively, indeed overtly, endorsed the High Court claim made against Hall. He stated, without offering any evidence, that Hall had, in some way, harassed the claimants, primarily it seems by questioning their personal accounts and seeking evidence to verify how, where and when they sustained their injuries.

Allen asked what was in it for the claimants in Hall’s case. What could they possibly gain from challenging Hall?

Richard D. Hall is being sued for £50K plus costs. Richie Allen is very well known “journalist” in the “independent media” which he frequently castigates as the “truther industrial complex.”

Richard D. Hall has uncovered the evidence that clearly indicates Manchester was a hoaxed false flag. If I am honest with myself, and if you also find his evidence compelling, then this leaves us with no choice but to agree with Hall that the reported deaths and injuries were not caused by a bomb that exploded in the Manchester Arena City Room at approximately 22.30 on the 22nd May 2017.

This is Hall’s specific allegation. He does not assert that no one died or that none of the claimed injuries are real. He suspects that some of the alleged deceased didn’t die and that some people’s injuries are fake. His only assertion, in this regard, is that no one died or sustained injuries as a direct result of Salman Abedi detonating a bomb in the Manchester Arena.

Like Hall, I don’t know what happened to those people. Hall has looked at the evidence and suggested some possible explanations. He has also presented more than enough high quality, verifiable evidence to question the State’s narrative and that includes questioning the stories we have been told about the alleged deaths and injuries. We have every right to ask those questions and to seek the answers.

Any personal offence caused is an unfortunate consequence of asking perfectly legitimate questions. Being offended is no reason to silence those questions.

Hall has requested that the claimants in his case provide the medical records that show where and when they sustained their injuries. He has asked the High Court to provide the moving CCTV footage that places the claimants in the Arena. The claimants say they have seen these images, as have their solicitor and an unnamed family liaison officer apparently. So all we have to “prove” these images exist is hearsay.

Reviewing this alleged medical and CCTV evidence in the High Court would categorically demonstrate that Hall’s theories about the claimants are wrong. You would imagine that the claimants would be eager to submit it themselves. Instead, the claimants have successfully obtained a summary judgement enabling them to avoid providing that evidence. It is not unreasonable to ask why they would do this?

Richard D. Hall’s Manchester book and all his films are freely available to the public from his Richplanet website. If you want to support Richard D. Hall’s work you can also buy a hard copy of his book from Amazon—or Richplanet. You can go to the Richplanet store and purchase more of his books and merchandise there. These sales enable Richard to earn a modest income from his work.

Richard D. Hall is one man fighting the entire UK State. Hall is appealing against the summary judgment and needs your financial help to press ahead with his ongoing legal battle. It is argumentation that Hall neither sought nor started. He is defending himself against attack.

Richard D. Hall deserves support from all who care about the truth.

Connect with Iain Davis: website | substack

Cover image credit: Ardfern
Tributes and memorials at St Ann’s Square,Manchester, England, re Manchester Arena bombing, May 2017
(creative commons license, vignette framing added)

Who are ISIS? — ISIS Are Back and They Are Faker Than Ever

“It is entirely reasonable to conclude that ISIS was created as ‘the bastard army’ of the Anglo-American ‘military industrial intelligence complex’ and its vassal, allied states, notably Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Our elected leaders have not led a battle against them because ISIS, knowingly or not, works for same corporate power elite who control the politicians.

“All the evidence points to the West’s consistent use of ISIS as a destabilising force in an energy rich part of the world whose impact on the global economy shaped the 20th century and remains a key strategic region at the start of the 21st . ISIS’ murderous barbarity suits the known geopolitical agenda of the Western powers. Cui bono?”

Who are ISIS?

by Iain Davis
sourced from OffGuardian
August 19, 2023

Kit Knightly, from the OffGuardian, recently published ISIS are back and they are faker than ever.

ISIS are back…and they’re faker than ever.

He explored the apparent return of the ISIS bogeymen and the media narrative that preempted their re-emergent threat. He observes that ISIS, having taken a break during the alleged COVID-19 pandemic, is seemingly the “creation of marketers and PR firms rather than any geopolitical reality.”

This article—Who Are ISIS— was written in June 2018 and offers some of the historical background which strongly suggests Kit Knightly is absolutely right.

Who Are ISIS?

Despite ISIS’ apparent defeat in Syria and Iraq it seems likely that the ISIS hydra will raise another head elsewhere in the world. Indeed they seem to be able to cling on in U.S held territory, though not Syrian/Russian held territory.

The new ISIS is something the US administration are already warning the world to prepare for. With evidence of war crimes committed by the US led coalition in the Syrian City of Raqqa, Nathan Sales, the State Department’s Counter Terrorism Coordinator said on March 2nd 2018:

As we defeat ISIS on the battlefield, the group is adapting to our success. The fight is by no means over – it’s simply moving into a new phase: from military solutions to law enforcement solutions. Increasingly, we’re going to need to supplement our military efforts to defeat ISIS with civilian measures that can ensure the group’s enduring defeat……..We’re not just worried about ISIS core, which as we all know has been degraded quite severely in its territorial holdings in Syria and Iraq, but as that territorial core has eroded, we’ve seen an increase in activity by ISIS elements elsewhere in the world.

It is heartening to know that it was actually the US who defeated ISIS on the battlefield. Perhaps some may be surprised by the US government’s apparent reticence to make greater political capital out of their victory. The warnings from Washington were far from triumphant.

You have to wonder if even they believed in their ‘stunning victory.’ You also have to question what they meant by ‘civilian measures.’ Are we to be drafted? Do they want our young, or are they simply talking about censorship and a crack down on freedom of speech?

According to the US State Department, ISIS will re-emerge in Iraq and Syria, in a different form, and is looking to spread its operations to other countries. The US have decided that three new versions already exist in the form of ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Philippines, and ISIS-Bangladesh.

If the State Department are right ISIS’ organisational, logistical and central planning capabilities are impressive. Following significant military defeats in the middle east, they can immediately reappear in different locations, thousands of miles apart, simultaneously. Amazing don’t you think? How did they do that?

It’s almost as if there’s an underlying support structure which is able to finance and tactically support ISIS (or whatever they may be called in the future) on an international scale. Given the West’s long standing support for Islamist extremist organisations perhaps we don’t need to look far to identify who is providing that support. Certainly if we look at the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria a distinct prime suspect emerges.

During the U.S led coalition’s occupation of Iraq tens of thousands of Islamist extremists were thrown into mass detention centres, along with tens of thousands of other, less extreme, Iraqi’s who had been swept up during coalition raids and protest policing operations. Among the detainees was the future Caliph of the Islamic State Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. It was in Camp Bucca, under US and UK guard, where the Islamic State (and ISIS) initially took shape.

Details about Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s time in Camp Bucca are sketchy. Some reports stated he was interned for a relatively brief period in 2004 – 2005 while others said he was imprisoned for five years between 2004 -2009. What is undeniable is that Camp Bucca was effectively a radicalisation centre for the Islamists. According to Iraqi strategic analyst Hisham al-Hashim, 17 of ISIS’ top 25 commanders came through the Camp Bucca system.

The US led coalition’s explanation for this “oversight” was that their intelligence, regarding “who was who,” was often lacking and compounded by a lack of interpreters. This meant that relatively innocuous prisoners, snared in by US and Iraqi National Guard ‘policing’ operations, found themselves thrown in with the more hardcore Islamists and radical preachers. Angered by what many saw as their unjust incarceration by the US and its allies, the incarcerated moderates were open to the radical proselytising of the extremists.

When full, Camp Bucca could hold more than 24,000 inmates, split into groups of 1000 in large wire fenced compounds. Following widespread allegations of the abuse of prisoners, some leeway was granted allowing prisoners to attend prayer meetings with other prisoner groups. For the most extreme, this served as the ideal recruitment ground. Former enemies, such as al Qaeda members and Ba’athist Party, were able to meet and plot, in relative safety, against their common foe.

In 2007 U.S military strategy in Iraq was built around the so called ‘surge.’ From a starting point of 132,000 US troops in January 2007, peaking at 168,000 in September, the ‘surge’ saw an increase in US troop deployment and a shift towards mass imprisonment in the hope or reducing combatant numbers. The crack down that accompanied ‘the Surge’ meant it was difficult for the Islamist extremists to congregate in the cities and towns, but they faced no such problems inside the Camp Bucca, Cropper and Taji detentions centres.

In a 2014 briefing paper, the Intelligence Analysis company the Soufan Group stated:

The reshaping of what is now the Islamic State (IS) began among the detainee populations in military prisons such as Camp Bucca in Iraq, where violent extremists and former regime personalities forged mutual interests over years of confinement. IS is now a chimera of Ba’athist and takfiri ideologies, with the organizational skills of the former helping channel the motivational fervor of the latter. The former regime officers who are now senior leaders in IS appear fully committed to the ideals and goals of the group, a result of a thorough radicalization that has extended from imprisonment [. . . ].

Of course, this was all deemed to be a terrible mistake. The result of a combination of short sighted policy decisions and human error by coalition officials struggling to deal with difficult conditions within the camps.

By the time of their closure in 2009, at least 100,000 Islamists had been through the US controlled camp system. As soon as they were released they re-established the networks they had built in the camps, rejoined the jihad, and set about building their caliphate. To start constructing their army they required, experienced fighters, money and armaments. Luckily for them help was on its way.

There is no doubt at all that collaboration with Islamist groups, linked to al Qaeda, was a key strategy in Iraq and Syria. Speaking in 2015 Lieutenant. General Michael T. Flynn, formerly assigned as the Pentagon’s Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA,) stated the plan to arm the Islamists was a “wilful decision”. He claimed the DIA warned the Obama administration that the policy of working with al Qaeda affiliated groups risked the creation of an ISIS like entity across the entire region. Flynn’s career was ignominiously destroyed when he committed the heinous crime of talking to Russians, instead of calling them names.

However Flynn’s comments were entirely consistent with the available evidence. Following a law suit by Judicial Watch, the DIA released a previously ‘classified’ 2012 report that confirmed the accuracy of Flynn’s statement.

It revealed the Pentagon were fully aware their support (with the notable assistance of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) for AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) and ISI (Islamic State in Iraq) would be likely to lead to the rise of ISIS. The 2012 DIA Intelligence Information Report stated:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

It is important to fully understand what this meant. We can paraphrase this statement as follows:

• The continued destabilisation of the region is likely to create the Islamic State. This is precisely what the West, NATO (including Turkey) and its allies in the Persian Gulf want. It will hopefully isolate Syria from its Shi’ah allies and break its strategic alliance with Iran and Iraq and ultimately Russia.

The predicted emergence of a “Salafist principality” was seen as a strategic opportunity to isolate the Syrian government. The document acknowledged, “the Salafist [sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” and that, “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition [the insurgency in Syria].”

The creation of ISIS was no accident. It wasn’t the result of policy mistakes but, given the evidence, appeared to be the intended consequence of a deliberate strategy. Either that or the Obama administration were intent upon ignoring their own Defense Intelligence Agency report.

The subsequent level of support the U.S led coalition provided for ISIS renders any claim that this was all an ‘error’ untenable. Flynn was absolutely correct when he said the arming of the Islamists was a “wilful decision.” The Obama administration and other western governments were under no illusions. Their strategy would inevitably lead to the creation of ISIS.

Under the leadership of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, in 2013 the former camp Bucca, Cropper and Taji detainees allied to AQI and ISI groups, announced a unifying name change to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS.) Fighters and arms started to pour in from the U.S led coalition allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and notably Libya.

Along with the arms coming from defeated militaries in Libya and Iraq, ISIS received shipments of weaponry manufactured in Eastern Europe. A study from the Conflict Armament Research group (CAR), commissioned by the EU, traced the route of these weapons [which is available to download].

The CAR stated that ‘large numbers’ of these weapons were bought in Europe by US, Saudi and Qatari dealers. The sellers were allegedly “deceived” about the destination, thereby violating the sale and export licenses. The arms were then shipped via the “rat line” through Turkey into Syria. Once in Syria they were distributed by ‘moderate’ terrorists, such as al Nusra (al Qaeda in Syria), to their ISIS counterparts.

This was later confirmed when significant quantities of the traced weapons were found in ISIS controlled territory, such as Tikrit, Ramadi, Falluja and Mosul. However, these shipments were dwarfed by some very lucky coincidences which turned the ISIS terrorist group into a fully equipped army.

Following the withdrawal of the large scale US troop deployment from Iraq in 2011, the Iraqi army were supported by the US led coalition in their fight against the Islamist insurgency. Having destroyed Iraq’s army in 2003, the coalition then spent billions of US taxpayers’ money rebuilding it, with the profits naturally going to the global arms manufacturing corporations. The US left behind Military Transitions Teams (MiTT’s) to oversee the training and deployment of their proxy Iraqi army.

In 2014, a relatively small ISIS force, of no more than a 1000 fighters, took the Iraqi city of Mosul. At the time, the city was defended by two Iraqi Armoured divisions amounting to 30,000 soldiers. Following sporadic skirmishes on the outskirts, as ISIS approached Mosul, the entire Iraqi force simply abandoned their posts and left.

US supplied, state of the art, military hardware, stored at the al-Qayara base in Mosul, was seemingly just handed over to ISIS. Similar mysterious vanishing acts then followed in Ramadi, again with very little military pressure from ISIS, once more giving them access to heavy weapons and equipment.

In the space of a few months, ISIS not only seized hundreds of millions of dollars from various regional banks but had ‘captured’ six divisions of lethal, US supplied, military hardware. This included more than 2000 US Humvee armoured troop carriers, at least 30 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, 50 or so 155mm M198 howitzers (artillery guns,) helicopters, thousands of PKC machine guns, rocket launchers and tons of small arms and ammunition.

Recently ‘evidence’ offered by the British and French governments to ‘prove’ that Bashar al Assad gassed his own people in Douma stated that only his Arab Syrian Arab Army possessed the helicopters capable of dropping Chlorine barrel bombs. This was a lie. ISIS also had the required helicopters, ‘seized’ from Mosul and Ramadi.

The reason given for handing ISIS enough military hardware to form an army capable of fighting nation states was simply incompetence and crap training. However, even the worst army in the world knows enough not to simply abandon all its weapons to the enemy. If the Iraqi army were in such a terrified rush to run away, why didn’t they leave in the protection of their armoured vehicles?

Further questions arise in light of the statements made by the Mosul based head of Iraqi intelligence Ahmed al Zarkani. He said that he had repeatedly warned the US puppet government in Baghdad about the approach of ISIS.

According to Zarkani, he informed the government of Nouri al-Maliki on numerous occasions about ISIS training camps being prepared in the Nineveh region; he called for air strikes against their positions; he alerted the local military command and, following prisoner interrogations, he even discovered the time, date and code-name of the impending ISIS attack.

When he reported that the ‘Al-Eres’ (The Wedding Party) operation was imminent, he was shocked to discover, despite all the intelligence he had provided, the commander of the Mosul divisions had ‘gone on holiday.’ Nothing was done at any stage to stop ISIS from seizing their own armoured divisions.

With all its newly acquired American hardware, ISIS needed fighters trained to use it. In 2015, a report from the International Center for Counter Terrorism estimated that 30,000 foreign fighters had joined ISIS. This flow had increased with ISIS’ expansion into Syria in May 2013. Thousands of seasoned, battle hardened terrorists from the Balkans, including fighters from Kosovo, and the Caucasus, such as the Chechen Islamists, came into Syria via the NATO nation of Turkey. Many of these fighters were familiar with heavy weaponry and were capable of flying aircraft. By then, ISIS numbers were conservatively estimated at around 70,000.

The CIA operation to arm, train and equip Islamist terrorists in Syria was called Timber Sycamore. It supposedly began in 2012, it was allegedly phased out in 2017 by the Trump administration as a result of ISIS, and other terrorist groups, military losses to Syrian and Russian forces.

Western coalition special forces also started terrorists training camps in Jordan in 2011. This was basically a continuation of the training programs they had run for the KLA, NLA and al Qaeda in the Balkans.

With a budget of $1billion, thousands of fighters came through the program. Many of these fighters ended up fighting for Al Nusra, whose numbers grew to 20,000 by the alleged end of Timber Sycamore in 2017. In addition the Pentagon was funding the shipment of arms through European countries such as Denmark and Bulgaria on diplomatic flights to avoid inspection. This wasn’t just a US effort, a number of European states were also involved.

However, despite significant ground forces and plenty of armour and weapons, ISIS lacked air support and were vulnerable to air strikes. In 2014 Barrack Obama announced the US intended to launch air strikes against both Iraq and Syria to ‘degrade and destroy‘ ISIS. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

After more than 800 sorties, ISIS territory had more than doubled in Syria. Far from ‘degrading and destroying’ ISIS, US air strikes were apparently assisting ISIS in Syria. In fact, they had the effect of pushing ISIS towards Syria, where they seemed to benefit greatly from US bombing. Was this all another monumental mistake?

It is difficult to see how supplying weapons via airdrops to ISIS was degrading them. This happened on numerous occasions. For example, according to Iraqi intelligence, the US had dropped supplies to besieged ISIS fighters in the Yathrib and Balad districts of Iraq. Strangely this ‘accident’ provided ISIS fighters exactly what they most needed at the time, food and armour piercing rounds.

Then there are the numerous occasions when US air strikes appeared to have directly provided a strategic advantage to ISIS.

The isolated Syrian city of Deir Ezzor had been under siege by ISIS for more than a year. However, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) were holding it, mainly because they had control of the local airport. This enabled the city to be resupplied by Syrian and Russian airdrops. The airport was well protected by SAA artillery positions in the overlooking Tharda hills, giving the SAA a decisive tactical advantage.

ISIS had consistently failed to take these key strategic positions. However, on September 16th/17th 2016 the US launched air strikes against the SAA who were fighting ISIS. As soon as the SAA defences had been destroyed ISIS then launched a large scale attack and seized the positions. It appeared to be a coordinated offensive, timed precisely with the US air strikes. It was no spur of the moment assault by ISIS. Its scale and precision clearly indicated it had been planned well in advance.

Of course the US commanders said this was all an honest mistake. US Brig. Gen. Richard Coe said it was the result of human error. However, forces commanded by Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L Harrigan dispatched a reconnaissance drone to gather intelligence the day before the air strike. They claimed they ‘misinterpreted’ the intelligence, believing the positions were ISIS rather than SAA controlled, despite the fact the fixed SAA positions were no secret.

They US then ‘accidentally’ gave the Russian military the wrong targeting information, rendering them unable to warn the US that they were planning to attack the SAA not ISIS. This contravened a recent ceasefire agreement, which broke down as a result of the air strikes.

As ISIS moved in to take Deir Ezzor the MSM tried to cover up the US support for their assault. The British Daily Telegraph wrote:

The US-led coalition, as well as the Russians, have been bombing the jihadists in Deir Ezzor for the last 18 months but have been unable to dislodge them.

This was a false claim, you could call it disinformation or fake news. The US hadn’t launched any major air strikes against ISIS forces surrounding Deir Ezzor. The US attacks had been against the SAA and vital city infrastructure. For example, in January 2016 the US bombed Deir Ezzor’s electricity plant while the SAA were holding the city.

Again in May 2017 the US hit a convoy of Shi’ah Iraqi militiamen, loyal to Damascus, and a unit of armed Iranians. At the time the Syrian Arab Army, and their Iraqi and Iranian allies, were pushing ISIS back towards Iraq. The northern Syrian city of Raqqa, held by ISIS, was close to being cut off from ISIS supply lines. The convoy was taking heavy weaponry to forward positions in the battle against ISIS. Yet another example of US air strikes benefiting ISIS terrorists.

There is no doubt at all the US coalition were aware of the funding of ISIS by their Gulf allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. A State Department memo in 2014 stated:

We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isis and other radical groups in the region.

Are we to believe this was all just another string of ‘mistakes’ which caused unforeseen ‘blowback‘, accidentally creating, arming, equipping, supplying and tactically supporting ISIS? You can if you like, but if you do you need to account for the evidence which suggests otherwise.

Documentation revealed the US led coalition were anticipating the rise of a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria” and it was central to their strategic thinking; ISIS very easily obtained billions of dollars of US military equipment; ISIS benefited from US bombing campaigns in Syria, and the US appeared to have provided them with tactical air support on a number of occasions; the US led coalition were actively training and arming Islamist extremists who went on to fight for ISIS and the West’s Gulf allies were known and accepted to be funding ISIS.

Similarly, the US’ European allies had their own justifications for military action with attacks in London, Paris and Munich to mention but a few. This led them to take offensive actions in Libya, based once more upon ‘flawed intelligence,’ producing the same destabilisation and a perfect environment for the Islamists to gather and spread their form of violent jihad. This, once again, particularly benefited ISIS, who were able to use Libya as staging point for their operations in Iraq and Syria.

Obama’s departure changed nothing. Following the alleged chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun Donald Trump, who had come into office promising to end foreign wars of intervention, authorised a missile strike on Al Shayrat airfield in a supposed attempt to damage the Syrian’s ability to launch further alleged chemical weapons attacks.

In yet another remarkable ISIS benefiting “coincidence,” it just so happened that the al Shayrat airbase was the centre of Syrian operations against ISIS forces around Homs and Palmyra. Syrian forces had used it to gain a growing military advantage over ISIS. The missile strike greatly reduced the number of air strikes against the terrorists. The missile strike on al Shayrat was another example of the US effectively providing tactical air cover for ISIS.

It is entirely reasonable to conclude that ISIS was created as ‘the bastard army’ of the Anglo-American ‘military industrial intelligence complex’ and its vassal, allied states, notably Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Our elected leaders have not led a battle against them because ISIS, knowingly or not, works for same corporate power elite who control the politicians.

All the evidence points to the West’s consistent use of ISIS as a destabilising force in an energy rich part of the world whose impact on the global economy shaped the 20th century and remains a key strategic region at the start of the 21st . ISIS’ murderous barbarity suits the known geopolitical agenda of the Western powers. Cui bono?

Just like the tale you were spun about weapons of mass destruction, prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, practically everything you have been told about ISIS and the conflict in Syria is part of a monstrous deception.

Despite their contrition, following the lies they told about Iraqi WMDs, and promises to the public that they would never let them down again, the entire Western mainstream media has cheered the war machine along every step of the way. The simplistic narratives we have been given about ISIS have never mentioned the clear evidence that links the rise of the Caliphate to U.S led coalition objectives.

Every single time people noticed the coalitions military actions seemed to benefit ISIS, the MSM either covered this up with another ‘unfortunate coincidence’ story, accused those who raised these issues of being ‘conspiracy theorists‘ or created entirely false story lines to obfuscate the reality.

Once again, it appears most of us fell for it.

You can read more of Iain’s work at his blog IainDavis.com (Formerly InThisTogether) or on UK Column or follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his SubStack. His new book Pseudopandemic, is now available, in both in kindle and paperback, from Amazon and other sellers. Or you can claim a free copy by subscribing to his newsletter.

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The Homage of the Slaves

by Iain Davis
May 4, 2023

As the coronation of Charlie-boy approaches, the Royal household thought it would be nice to offer the British public the opportunity to swear their allegiance to King Charles III and declare themselves his slave. This “homage of the people” has been very popular amongst some. Presumably, they’re dead keen to live a life of slavery.

Apparently, Shabana Mahmood, the Labour Party’s national campaign coordinator, thinks slavery is a “lovely idea” and that involving the people in the coronation, by offering them to opportunity to become slaves, was a “lovely touch.” The UK transport secretary, Mark Harper, thinks that elective slavery represents a “fantastic opportunity.” Although, he didn’t specify for whom.

Harper went on to suggest that enslaving millions of people will provide a “great showcase for Britain around the world.” This doesn’t appear to be necessary. Given its colonial past and current foreign policy, it seems likely that most people are already familiar with the way the British state rolls.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “homage of the people” has not been pitched by the Establishment as the “homage of the slaves”. It’s an invitation, not a command, and everyone knows that merely attempting to enslave people is a kind of altruism.

Like Shabana and Mark, Vince, the Archbishop of Westminster, described this invitation as “remarkable” and “lovely,” with Sky News reporting:

For the first time in history the public will be given an active role in the coronation, having been invited to say the oath to the King out loud.

Of course, the whole point of his oath is that he, as the head of state, swears his allegiance to us. But let’s not allow our codified constitution to get in the way of a good old, statist hallucination. We haven’t for more than 800 years, so why start now?

That being said, it is not without good reason that an apparent majority of people have decided that they do not want to pay “homage” to an inept toff. This seems reasonable, because it avoids making the bat-shit crazy decision to pledge your “obligation of fidelity and obedience” to some bloke wearing a load of moody gold.

For those who fancy the idea of enslaving themselves to a clueless aristocrat, before you guffaw in scornful rejection of any suggestion that you are, in fact, choosing to be a slave, it is perhaps worth noting what an oath of allegiance actually means:

[. . .] the obligation of fidelity and obedience which the individual owes to the government under which he lives, or to his sovereign in return for the protection he receives

Your “allegiance” means you pledge your “obedience” in return for protection. This is commonly known as a “protection racket.”

It get’s worse:

The citizen or subject owes an absolute and permanent allegiance to his government or sovereign, or at least until, by some open and distinct act, he renounces it and becomes a citizen or subject of another government or another sovereign.

You may have noticed your somewhat limited choices if you are ever dumb enough to swear an oath of allegiance to the parasite class. You can’t really get out of it unless you subsequently swear your “absolute and permanent” “fidelity and obedience” to the next parasitic scumbag that elbows their way in to your life.

Still, each to their own. Who am I to put anyone off opting to be a slave?

Nonetheless, before you do, perhaps spare a moment to consider your choices. There are better slave masters laying about, should you want one.

Perhaps you could choose to be Elon Musk’s slave instead? As these things go, choosing Charles as your personal oppressor might be a bit iffy.

Charles was mentored by his father’s uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten (Prince Louis of Battenberg), who he affectionately called “Uncle Dickie.” A frequent visitor to his “honorary grandpapa’s” Broadlands estate, the young Charles often holidayed with the Mountbattens.

As an adult, Charles was encouraged by “Uncle Dickie” to use Broadlands for any sexual rendezvous that Charles would rather keep quiet. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) described Mountbatten as a paedophile “with a perversion for young boys.”

King Charles’ was extremely close to Jimmy Savile. The necrophiliac paedophile and child pimp was a confidant and adviser to the Royal household, and Charles in particular, for more than 30 years.

When the Bishop and notorious paedophile, Peter Ball, first accepted a caution—prior to his subsequent conviction in 2015—Charles felt that a “monstrous wrong” had been inflicted upon the pederast. Knowing the nature of the allegations, and Ball’s admission of guilt, Charles purchased a property for Ball and his twin brother.

King Charles subsequently denied all knowledge of Ball’s vile crimes in the letter he submitted to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. The explanation he offered was idiotic:

I was certainly not aware at the time of the significance or impact of the caution that Peter Ball has accepted, or indeed sure if I was even told about it. Whilst I note that Peter Ball mentioned the word in a letter to me in October 2009, I was not aware until recently that a caution in fact carries an acceptance of guilt.

This is in keeping with the story we are given about Charles which suggests he is a gullible pillock. Presumably, this naive stupidity extends to the enormous advisory team that surrounds Charles and the Royals.

It seems, no one advised Charles to stop hanging around with nonces. Although, admittedly, in his family, it is hard to avoid them.

Not a single one of his vast array of advisers took the time to explain to Charles what the legal implications of a caution were. Furthermore, all of them were completely unaware that their future, simple-minded King was “accidentally” maintaining a series of close friendships and “special” relationships with child rapists.

Despite all of this, some people really love waving their little flags and remain eager to declare their oath of obedience to this man. Perhaps because they have have no idea what it means or perhaps because they are as thick as he is.

It is good to know that becoming Charles’ slave is not a direct command. Many people would prefer to completely ignore the World Economic Forum (WEF) spokesman and hypocrite, King Charles III. We certainly wouldn’t want to spoil his day by telling him to shove his “invitation” where the sun doesn’t shine.

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The Lockdown Files Psyop: A Fairy Tale Spun by the UK Government and Its Propaganda Arm, the Mainstream Media

“As British people continue to die in unprecedented numbers, the Lockdown Files have been released to shift the entire blame for increased mortality to “failures” and “errors” in public health policy. It is an attempt to avert any exploration of the apparent role that the Covid–19 jabs have also played in killing people.

As G3P “partners,” both the UK Government and its propaganda arm, the mainstream media, have colluded to manipulate public opinion and control the British people once again. The whole Lockdown File narrative is just another mainstream media deceit.”

The Lockdown Files Psyop 

by Iain Davis, UK Column
March 29, 2023

The whole point of the recent Lockdown Files media storm is to wage psychological war on the public. The Lockdown Files “story,” carefully managed as mainstream media propaganda, is designed to convince you of a series of fundamental falsehoods.

The MSM and its government partners want you to believe that you still have a free and pluralistic mainstream media that take their duty to question power seriously. This controlled release of information, already extensively and comprehensively exposed by the so-called “alternative media,” is, in part, a mainstream media cover-up to obscure their own role as the state propagandists that misled the public throughout the pseudopandemic.

The mainstream media themselves are culpable for the harm caused to the British people by the British state, as they unquestioningly assisted the UK Government’s attack on the public. The mainstream media rarely, if ever, question power and they are neither independent nor objective.

The intention behind seemingly exposing government “failings” is to persuade you that catastrophic government policies and legislation were politically motivated mistakes. While they were certainly politically motivated, the policy decisions were deliberate. There were no “mistakes.” The assault on the public was intentional.

The Lockdown File fairy tale has been spun to deny both the Government’s intent to cause harm and to divert attention away from its real motivations. The pseudopandemic was a hybrid warfare operation undertaken by a global public-private partnership (G3P) to accelerate the transformation of society and the global economy.

As British people continue to die in unprecedented numbers, the Lockdown Files have been released to shift the entire blame for increased mortality to “failures” and “errors” in public health policy. It is an attempt to avert any exploration of the apparent role that the Covid–19 jabs have also played in killing people.

As G3P “partners,” both the UK Government and its propaganda arm, the mainstream media, have colluded to manipulate public opinion and control the British people once again. The whole Lockdown File narrative is just another mainstream media deceit.

The Story We Are Supposed To Believe

The journalist, editor, author and media commentator, Isabel Oakeshott, a biographical ghostwriter for David Cameron, Matt Hancock and other political heavyweights, was given access to Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages while she wrote his Pandemic Diaries for him. Oakeshott, ostensibly a fierce critic of lockdown policies, then divulged these messages to the Daily Telegraph, thus establishing the basis for the raft of Lockdown Files-related stories.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the Lockdown Files supposedly reveal that the UK Government did not “follow the science” but instead “key decisions were made on the fly for political reasons.” The Telegraph claims that 40,000 vulnerable adults “died of the virus” in the spring of 2020 because Matt Hancock, then health secretary, ignored then chief medical officer Chris Whitty’s advice to test all residents before allowing them to be discharged from hospital into care homes.

A string of similar allegations have flowed from the Lockdown Files. The files intimate that key decisions regarding when and whom to lockdown were made in response to polling rather than scientific advice. Scientific data analysis reports on mortality risks and infection rates were ignored as Hancock used his media connections to push jab targets regardless.

Supposedly, the decision to enforce mask-wearing upon schoolchildren was taken to avoid a Westminster spat with the Scottish Government. We are told that Hancock didn’t loosen lockdown restrictions when advised to do so, because he didn’t want to give the impression that the decision to prolong them was wrong.

The Lockdown Files also supposedly reveal that the Cabinet was misled by Hancock and his team as vital information was withheld. We are reliably informed that the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, then serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer, fought hard against Hancock’s excesses as the two were pitted against each other.

Matt Hancock was, we are led to believe, drunk with power as he pressurised the police to enforce his erroneous lockdown restrictions. But it seems his greatest sin is that he decided to engage in “Project Fear.” It was Hancock who supposedly led his team to weaponise and “deploy” the release of information about Covid–19 variants to “scare the pants off everyone”, in the most memorable quotation to have emerged from the Lockdown Files, and to make them comply with his misplaced policy decisions.

While this does reveal the depth of the manipulation which the state used to convince the British people that they should take the “pandemic” seriously, the Lockdown Files stories declare that political desperation and errors of judgement were the drivers. While acknowledging the damage caused by these supposed mistakes, the Lockdown Files narrative blames supposedly rogue policymakers who got aspects of the lockdowns wrong.

The Lockdown Files narrative spins the yarn of a string of policy failures made during the panic and fear caused by a deadly virus. Some politicians—most notably Matt Hancock, ably assisted by politicised civil servants right up to the nation’s top bureaucrat, Sir Simon Case, who chuckled along with him in the WhatsApp group—overstepped the bounds of their authority and used the “deadly pandemic” as a platform to advance personal political agendas.

The narrative would have it that the Cabinet was deceived at times, as Matt Hancock occasionally placed political expediency over his duty to protect public health and inform Cabinet colleagues. Other supposedly conscientious ministers, such as the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, fell victim to his machinations, despite their innate sense that the Government shouldn’t abuse its power.

The Lockdown Files reportedly reveal that Hancock desperately tried to salvage his career after footage, leaked by someone inside the House of Commons, exposed his affair with his parliamentary aide. He resigned as health secretary—jumping before he would have been pushed—but soon managed to get his political career back on track. Yet, just a few months later, Hancock suddenly lost all interest in his own advancement and effectively ended his political career by agreeing to participate in a reality TV programme.

The Lockdown Files squarely point the finger at Matt Hancock. It is primarily he who is left carrying the can for the lockdown “mistakes”. So it is incredibly fortuitous for the current government, nominally led by Hancock’s alleged adversary Rishi Sunak, that Hancock had the whip withdrawn for going on dross TV and now sits as an independent MP, somewhat distanced from the current ruling Conservative Party government.

But we don’t need to think about any of this, because other sections of the mainstream media have already told us what the Lockdown Files are all about. According to the Wall Street Journal, the mainstream media always knew that “the science about Covid was confused” and that “policy mistakes were inevitable”.

Sure, “the expansive powers that governments exercised in that period bled into the personal ambitions of the politicians making the rules”, but this is to be expected. “Expansive powers” were unavoidably necessary and some politicians are ruthless self promoters. It’s just the nature of adversarial politics.

The Spectator tells us more about how we should perceive the Lockdown Files. It spells out that it is “the role of journalism in a democracy is to cast light where politicians would prefer there to be darkness.” The Daily Telegraph was committed to illuminating the darkness, the Spectator claims in collegiality, and was tenacious in its efforts to ensure whatever it published about the Lockdown Files “had the full context.”

The Spectator maintains that the Lockdown Files are really important because they are about “how we are governed.” Thankfully, the Spectator‘s fellow mainstream journalists over at the Daily Telegraph will help us to appreciate “how we can learn from mistakes to better protect society next time.”

This sentiment is echoed by the supposedly politically oppositional Guardian, which tells us:

The balance of evidence shows that government-imposed restrictions [. . .] cut infection rates and saved lives. [. . .] Countries that acted more quickly to impose social restrictions did a better job of protecting the economy. Allowing the virus to spread uncontrolled would have incurred substantial economic costs.

The Guardian continues to claim that the Lockdown Files are “important for learning lessons from the pandemic” and that we all “urgently need a rational assessment of what the government got right and wrong”.

Also from what passes for the Left, the Fabian-founded New Statesman tells us that the Lockdown Files simply confirm what we, and the mainstream media, already knew:

To some extent, they show cabinet government working properly[.] [. . .] Everyone involved is exactly who you thought they were; everyone cares about the things you thought they did. [. . .] We should be appalled by the lockdown files, I know: by the failure of our government [. . .] But after years of this government, and austerity and Brexit and decline and pandemic and two and a half lockdowns and two lost Christmases, none of this comes as a surprise[.]

In summary: the Lockdown Files narrative is propaganda.

The Lockdown Files have been used to construct another pandemic myth and all they “reveal” is that the mainstream media continue to act as the propaganda wing of the state.

The Lockdown Files Cover-Up

The mainstream media are obsessed with maintaining our “trust”. The Trusted News Initiative has been created specifically “to protect audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy[.]” While the mainstream media expect to command our trust, they do not trust us. We might believe the wrong things if we don’t “trust” whatever the mainstream media tell us. Only the mainstream media can determine what constitutes the truth. We are, apparently, incapable of doing so.

If the Lockdown Files reveal anything, it is that the mainstream media are the greatest purveyor of “disinformation”, utterly unworthy of our “trust”. But, for propaganda to succeed in the future, we must continue to trust the propagandists.

While the Lockdown Files “investigations” concede that the mainstream media disseminated little other than disinformation during the pseudopandemic, they also insist this was all the result of mistakes that weren’t identified at the time. The release of the Lockdown Files is an attempt to reassert that the mainstream media are, and always were, willing to question power and are trustworthy, despite their having admittedly misled the public for more than two years. The Lockdown Files are subtle and intricate propaganda. Unfortunately, this is often the most successful kind.

The Covid–19 narrative is scrupulously maintained by the Lockdown Files. The Lockdown Files story promotes the notion of a devastating pandemic in which people died in unprecedented numbers from a dangerous disease. It reinforces the idea that lockdowns were necessary—but concedes that the policy was possibly mismanaged. Lessons can be learned from the alleged “failures”.

The policy decisions made were not errors. Legislation was created, and regulations enforced, in the full and certain knowledge that the threat they supposedly mitigated did not exist.

The evidence does not prove that a disease-driven pandemic ever occurred. Consequently, nor is there anything to suggest that a political response of any kind was warranted.

The observed “pandemic” mortality patterns appeared to be the product of government policy. Every related policy decision increased the mortality risk for the most vulnerable, who were the only people apparently at any risk from the so-called “disease”.

As yet, not a single laboratory anywhere in the world has produced a physically isolated sample of the alleged SARS–CoV–2 virus. There is no physical evidence that SARS–CoV–2 exists, and the alleged “science” of virology, the whole basis for the pandemic mythos, appears to be highly questionable.

Covid–19 symptoms were indistinguishable from other influenza-like illnesses. The only way to allegedly identify Covid–19 was with the use of tests that were specifically “non-diagnostic”. Positive tests were misleadingly called “cases”, despite there being no symptoms to evidence the presence of any disease in test subjects, let alone Covid–19.

Lockdowns were never considered to be an appropriate response to a pandemic. In 2019, just a few months prior to the “pandemic,” the World Health Organisation published its report on the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for managing influenza pandemics. It specifically ruled out lockdowns and social isolation because there was “no obvious rationale for this measure.”

Social distancing, which became the idea of reducing the spread of a “viral” respiratory disease with lockdowns, was the original idea of a fourteen-year-old Albuquerque schoolgirl. As politicians started eyeing “confinement by quarantine” as an enticing tool for population control, so incensed were epidemiologists that one of the disciplines leading lights, Professor Donald A. Henderson, published a withering criticism of “lockdowns” entitled Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza:

There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods. [. . .] The societal costs involved in interrupting all air or train travel would be extreme. [. . . ] It might mean closing theatres, restaurants, malls, large stores, and bars. [. . . ] Implementing such measures would have seriously disruptive consequences [. . .] a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe.

Professor Knut Wittkowski, the epidemiologist who originally defined the reproduction number or “R number” we heard so much about, said:

With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity. About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus. [. . .] So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible. [. . .] We are experiencing all sorts of counterproductive consequences of not well-thought-through policy [. . .] We will see more death because the school children don’t die, it’s the elderly people who die, we will see more death because of this social distancing.

The UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) knew that lockdowns and social isolation would increase the “infection” risk. SAGE published minutes of a meeting it held on 16 March 2020, in which its members concluded:

The risk of one person within a household passing the infection to others within the household is estimated to increase during household isolation, from 50% to 70%.

Epidemiology—”the science”—was absolutely clear. Lockdowns were never considered a sensible response to pandemics unless the disease was incredibly severe, and the UK Government knew that Covid–19 certainly wasn’t.

The WHO declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020. By 19 March 2020, the UK Government was undeniably aware that there was no pandemic risk: the Government’s own High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) group stated that Covid–19 was not an HCID because it had a “low overall” mortality rate.

By this point, contrary to all the prevailing epidemiology, the UK Government had already committed itself to “Project Fear”. Speaking on 13 March 2020, then prime minister Boris Johnson said:

I must level with the British public: many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.

This was not, as the Lockdown Files story suggests, Matt Hancock’s personal fault. He was certainly culpable for spreading anxiety inducing propaganda, but the UK Government has long been misusing applied psychology and behavioural change techniques to manipulate the public, as UK Column was the first platform to report on systematically.

It was the technocrat scientists at SAGE who suggested that the Government should “use media” to increase the “perceived level of personal threat”, not Matt Hancock. He is the patsy for the Lockdown Files cover up. Whether he is a willing patsy or not is hard to say, though his behaviour suggests that possibility.

The UK Government was never “led by science”. It deliberately ignored the epidemiology that was inconvenient, but readily exploited the behavioural psychology that it abused to convince millions to believe in its policies. The Government was able to make its claims about “following the science” because certain “scientists”, such as the Government’s chief scientific officer Patrick Vallance, were also willing to cherry-pick science to suit the Government’s policy agenda.

Knowing full well that lockdowns would be likely to move “a manageable epidemic [. . .] toward catastrophe”, and presumably understanding that the country would “see more death because of this social distancing”, Vallance endorsed the prime ministers baseless alarm. While claiming that his role was to “speak scientific truth to power,” he seemingly reneged on that responsibility entirely and defended Johnson, saying lockdowns would mean “a large number of people at home being isolated”, noting that such a policy would have “quite a big impact”. Indeed so: far more people would die as a result.

It wasn’t a “mistake” that Hancock guaranteed an inordinate supply of life ending drugs during the spring 2020 “outbreak”; the NHS instructions not to convey vulnerable patients to hospital was not made by accident; the removal of NHS mortality safeguards, only brought in in the first place in very recent years as a result of the Harold Shipman and Mid Staffordshire scandals, was not an oversight; the automatic discharge of tens of thousands of the most vulnerable patients from hospital into poorly staffed, under equipped and isolated care homes wasn’t a mishap; enforcing Do Not Resuscitate orders, to be combined with prescribing of a dangerous cocktail of respiratory suppressing drugs, on an industrial scale, wasn’t a slip; and rolling out experimental jabs that hadn’t completed any clinical trials was not an error.

The Daily Telegraph‘s Lockdown Files psyop would have you believe that they all were. That the mainstream media continue to cover for the Government’s assault on the British people is unconscionable.

Reason to Doubt the Mainstream Media’s Lockdown Files Story

Throughout the pseudopandemic, the Government was the mainstream media’s biggest advertising partner. As the pandemic strategy unfolded, the Government ploughed billions into mainstream media fear campaigns, which mainstream journalists published and broadcast without hesitation. “Project Fear” was, in accordance with scientific advice—which the Lockdown Files now attempt to blame on faulty politicians—enabled by the mainstream media, who ran whatever “hard-hitting messaging” the Government wanted to use to spread terror.

But the mainstream media went much further than simply running government-approved scare stories. When scientists and doctors questioned the lockdowns, the mainstream media viciously attacked them. When doctors expressed concerns about the treatments offered to patients, it was the mainstream media that bayed for them to be punished.

The mainstream media labelled people sceptical about vaccines refuseniks, a term hideously misappropriated from the Soviet persecution of Jews, and much worse. Mainstream media Coryphaeuses lied about the scale, conduct and purpose of large-scale peaceful demonstration and “othered” those who actually did question the lockdown measures.

The mainstream media acted as a single, unified propaganda organisation for the duration of the pseudopandemic. Not only did they never question the state’s evidence-free pandemic proclamations, they went so far as to marginalise, ridicule, smear and target anyone who did.

Yet, according to the “journalists” who have interpreted the the Lockdown Files for us, the mainstream media knew the lockdown rationale was “confused” all along. They simply didn’t see fit to report it at the time. We might consider whether some “journalists” knew a lot more than that.

With the publication of the Lockdown Files stories, we are now expected to believe that, having slavishly propagandised on behalf of the state throughout the pseudopandemic, the mainstream media are now ready fearlessly to question power. This improbable Damascus Road moment alone might give us reason for doubt, but the fact that the Lockdown Files have been propagated by the Daily Telegraph and Isabel Oakeshott adds further reason still.

There were a tiny number of mainstream media journalists, such as Isabel Oakeshott and Peter Hitchens, who did question the Government’s lockdown policies and its fearmongering. Their voices were swamped under the amassed weight of mainstream media propaganda that steadfastly terrorised the public.

For example, appearing as a talking head on Sky News, Oakeshott defended the Great Barrington Declaration that advocated the herd immunity approach. But Oakeshott never questioned the premise of the pandemic itself, despite acting as if there wasn’t one.

When the Partygate scandal broke, all mainstream media criticism was restricted to discussing the fact that the Conservative Party leading figures who set the rules, broke the rules. Only the misnamed “alternative media” highlighted the obvious point that these social gatherings demonstrated that the attendees did not behave as if there was a “pandemic” health risk.

Oakeshott seemingly shared this perspective. She was among a throng of partygoers who attended a similar knees-up during the height of the lockdown restrictions. Again, the Westminster festive crowd was evidently unconcerned about facing any risk from a supposed pandemic of deadly disease.

Yet none of the mainstream media “lockdown sceptic” journalists, including Oakeshott and Hitchens, exposed the most telling and damaging aspect of Partygate. They all maintained the “dangerous pandemic” myth.

The Lockdown Files story promotes the notion that dispassionate scientists, such as Chris Whitty, were ignored by the political class, thus insinuating that it might be better if the politicians were removed from decision-making during a crisis of “pandemic” magnitude. Perhaps lives could be saved if a technocracy of scientists and other experts were in charge?

The Lockdown Files narrative certainly appears to support the currently-drafted International Health Regulations amendments and the World Health Organisation’s proposed Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, which urges the formation of such a technocracy. This is something that all G3P “partners”, such as the World Economic Forum, are eager to promote. The UK Government is among the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty’s staunchest advocates.

The Daily Telegraph has long been known as the go-to propaganda outlet for British intelligence and the UK state. When Tony Blair’s Labour Government concocted its dodgy dossier, falsely claiming that Iraq’s Ba’athist government could launch “weapons of mass destruction” within 45 minutes, it was the Telegraph that first published the story.

Other notorious examples include the Telegraph‘s security and defence editor, Con Coughlin, publishing a “fake news” story attempting to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. Prior to this, the Telegraph had alleged that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was working a European money-laundering and counterfeiting scam with Iranian officials. Gaddafi issued a libel writ and the subsequent judgement revealed that Coughlin and the Telegraph had been taking stories directly from British intelligence and government officials for years. The Telegraph would then publish the propaganda verbatim, passing it off as journalism.

Until 1977, the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD) worked with media organisations to spread state propaganda, masquerading as journalism. Since then, a number of other organisations have sprung up around and beyond Whitehall to perform essentially the same role.

Among these are the Integrity Initiative. Acting under the UK Government’s Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme, the Integrity Initiative is a mainstream media propaganda “partner”. It took its website down and “went dark” after its exposure in 2018, in which UK Column had a substantial role.

Isabel Oakeshott was listed as an invitee to an Integrity Initiative seminar where it seems she was being considered as a potential “journalist” for what the Integrity Initiative called its defence reform lobby. Whether Oakeshott took up the offered propaganda role or not, or even attended the seminar, is unknown. Coincidentally, in 2018, Oakeshott, and her fellow Integrity Initiative invitee and mentor Lord Ashcroft, co-wrote and published White Flag?—An Examination of the UK’s Defence Capability, which argued for defence reform without tackling European military unification.

The Lockdown Files narrative is a limited hangout. The deliberate, controlled release of information is designed to alleviate pressure, as the weight of evidence increasingly exposes the Covid–19 scam.

The story primes the public to expect future disclosures that certain policy decisions were “errors of judgement” and should not be imputed to the state. The Lockdown Files restricts criticism of the state’s role during the pseudopandemic to softball questions about the effectiveness of its response, or lack thereof, and to trite remarks about the individual foibles of all-too-human politicians.

The underlying assumptions promoted by the Lockdown Files are all falsehoods. The “full context” of the Lockdown Files story, carefully crafted by the Daily Telegraph, is state disinformation from top to bottom. There was no pandemic.

The Lockdown Files story, broken by the Telegraph and formulated by Oakeshott, serves the same limited hangout purpose as the “lab leak” revelations, which are also being pushed by the mainstream media. The Daily Telegraph is among the mainstream media outlets that would now like you to entertain the possibility that some aspects of the “pandemic” were the result deliberate acts.

The Lockdown Files and the “lab leak” stories establish their respective Overton windows. The Lockdown Files strictly confine any discussion of culpability to policy “mistakes” and human error, and the lab leak tale is ascribed to similar “oversights” and suggested “enemy actions”.

In truth, the evidence suggests that the entire so-called “pandemic” was a fabrication on a global scale and, therefore, the whole escapade was a “deliberate act”. The mainstream media do not want you to know this and it will never discuss it.

The mainstream media have to account for emerging evidence somehow, and have prepared the narratives designed to do so. The Lockdown Files psyop is currently being deployed to that end.

Iain Davis is an author, blogger, researcher and short film maker. You can read more of Iain’s work at his blog IainDavis.com. 

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Central Bank Digital Currency Is the Endgame (Pt. 1)

by Iain Davis
originally published March 2, 2023

Central bank digital currency (CBDC) will end human freedom. Don’t fall for the assurances of safeguards, the promises of anonymity and of data protection. They are all deceptions and diversions to obscure the malevolent intent behind the global rollout of CBDC.

Central Bank Digital Currency is the most comprehensive, far-reaching, authoritarian social control mechanism ever devised. Its “interoperability” will enable the CBDCs issued by various national central banks to be networked to form one, centralised global CBDC surveillance and control system.

Should we allow it to prevail, CBDC will deliver the global governance of humanity into the hands of the bankers.

CBDC is unlike any kind of “money” with which we are familiar. It is programmable and “smart contracts” can be written into its code to control the terms and conditions of the transaction.

Policy decisions and broader policy agendas, restricting our lives as desired, can be enforced using CBDC without any need of legislation. Democratic accountability, already a farcical concept, will become literally meaningless.

CBDC will enable genuinely unprecedented levels of surveillance, as every transaction we make will be monitored and controlled. Not just the products, goods and services we buy, even the transactions we make with each other will be overseen by the central bankers of the global governance state. Data gathering will expand to encompass every aspect of our lives.

This will allow central planners to engineer society precisely as the bankers wish. CBDC can and will be linked to our Digital IDs and, through our CBDC “wallets,” tied to our individual carbon credit accounts and jab certificates. CBDC will limit our freedom to roam and enable our programmers to adjust our behaviour if we stray from our designated Technate function.

The purpose of CBDC is to establish the tyranny of a dictatorship. If we allow CBDC to become our only means of monetary exchange, it will be used enslave us.

Be under no illusions: CBDC is the endgame.

What Is Money?

A commodity accepted by general consent as a medium of economic exchange. It is the medium in which prices and values are expressed. It circulates from person to person and country to country, facilitating trade, and it is the principal measure of wealth.

Money is a “medium”—a paper note, a coin, a casino chip, a gold nugget or a digital token, etc.—that we agree to use in exchange transactions. It is worth whatever value we ascribe to it and it is the agreed value which makes it possible for us to use it to trade with one-another. If its value is socially accepted “by general consent” we can use it to buy goods and services in the wider economy.

We could use anything we like as money and we are perfectly capable of managing a monetary system voluntarily. The famous example of US prisoners using tins of mackerel as money illustrates both how money functions and how it can be manipulated by the “authorities” if they control the issuance of it.

Tins of mackerel are small and robust and can serve as perfect exchange tokens (currency) that are easy to carry and store. When smoking was banned within the US penal system, the prisoners preferred currency, the cigarette, was instantly taken out of circulation. As there was a steady, controlled supply of mackerel cans, with each prisoners allotted a maximum of 14 per week, the prisoners agreed to use the tinned fish as a “medium of economic exchange” instead.

The prisoners called in-date tins the EMAK (edible mackerel) as this had “intrinsic” utility value as food. Out-of-date fish didn’t, but was still valued solely as a medium of exchange. The inmates created an exchange rate of 4 inedible MMAKs (money mackerel) to three EMAKs.

You could buy goods and services in the Inmate Run Market (IRM) that were not available on the Administration Run Market (ARM). Other prison populations adopted the same monetary system, thus enabling inmates to store value in the form of MAKs. They could use their saved MAKs in other prisons if they were transferred.

Prisoners would accept payment in MAKs for cooking pizza, mending clothes, cleaning cells, etc. These inmate service providers were effectively operating IRM businesses. The prisoners had voluntarily constructed a functioning economy and monetary system.

Their main problem was that they were reliant upon a monetary policy authority—the US prison administration—who issued their currency (MAKs). This was done at a constant inflationary rate (14 tins per prisoner per week) meaning that the inflationary devaluation of the MAKs was initially constant and therefore stable.

It isn’t clear if it was deliberate, but the prison authorities eventually left large quantities of EMAKs and MMAKs in communal areas, thereby vastly increasing the money supply. This destabilised the MAK, causing hyperinflation that destroyed its value.

With a glut of MAKs available, its purchasing power collapsed. Massive quantities were needed to buy a haircut, for example, thus rendering the IRM economy physically and economically impractical. If only temporarily.

The Bankers’ Nightmare

[DeFi] seeks to replicate conventional financial services within the crypto universe. These services are enabled by innovations such as programmability and composability on permissionless blockchains.

The BIS defined DeFi as:

[. . .] a set of activities across financial services built on permissionless DLT [Distributed Ledger Technology] such as blockchains.

The key issue for the central bankers was “permissionless.”

A blockchain is one type of DLT that can either be permissionless or permissioned. Many of the most well known cryptocurrencies are based upon “permissionless” blockchains. The permissionless blockchain has no access control.

Both the users and the “nodes” that validate the transactions on the permissionless blockchain network are anonymous. The network distributed nodes perform cryptographic check-sums to validate transactions, each seeking to enter the next block in the chain in return for an issuance of cryptocurrency (mining). This means that the anonymous—if they wish–users of the cryptocurrency can be confident that transactions have been recorded and validated without any need of a bank.

Regardless of what you think about cryptocurrency, it is not the innumerable coins and models of “money” in the “crypto universe” that concerns the BIS or its central bank member. It is the underpinning “permissionless” DLT, threatening their ability to maintain financial and economic control, that preoccupies them.

The BIS more-or-less admits this:

Crypto has its origin in Bitcoin, which introduced a radical idea: a decentralised means of transferring value on a permissionless blockchain. Any participant can act as a validating node and take part in the validation of transactions on a public ledger (ie the permissionless blockchain). Rather than relying on trusted intermediaries (such as banks), record-keeping on the blockchain is performed by a multitude of anonymous, self-interested validators.

Many will argue that Bitcoin was a creation of the deep state. Perhaps to lay the foundation for CBDC, or at least provide the claimed justification for it. Although the fact that this is one “conspiracy theory” that the mainstream media is willing to entertain might give us pause for thought.

Interesting though this debate may be, it is an aside because it is not Bitcoin, nor any other cryptoasset constructed upon any permissionless DLT, that threatens human freedom. The proposed models of CBDC most certainly do.

CBDC & The End of the Split Circuit IMFS

Today, we use “fiat currency” as money. Commercial banks create this “money” out of thin air when they make a loan (exposed here). In exchange for a loan agreement the commercial bank creates a corresponding “bank deposit”—from nothing—that the customer can then access as new money. This money (fiat currency) exists as commercial bank deposit and can be called “broad money.”

Commercial banks hold reserve accounts with the central banks. These operate using a different type of fiat currency called “central bank reserves” or “base money.”

We cannot exchange “base money,” nor can “nonbank” businesses. Only commercial and central banks have access to base money. This creates, what John Titus describes—on his excellent Best Evidence Channel—as the split-monetary circuit.

Prior to the pseudopandemic, in theory, base money did not “leak” into the broad money circuit. Instead, increasing commercial banks’ “reserves” supposedly encouraged them to lend more and thereby allegedly increase economic activity through some vague mechanism called “stimulus” .

Following the global financial crash in 2008, which was caused by the commercial banks profligate speculation on worthless financial derivatives, the central banks “bailed-out” the bankrupt commercial banks by buying their worthless assets (securities) with base money. The new base money, also created from nothing, remained accessible only to the commercial banks. The new base money didn’t directly create new broad money.

This all changed, thanks to a plan presented to central banks by the global investment firm BlackRock. In late 2019, the G7 central bankers endorsed BlackRock’s suggested “going-direct” monetary strategy.

BlackRock said that the monetary conditions that prevailed as a result of the bank bail-outs had left the International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS) “tapped out.” Therefore, BlackRock suggested that a new approach would be needed in the next downturn if “unusual circumstances” arose.

These circumstances would warrant “unconventional monetary policy and unprecedented policy coordination.” BlackRock opined:

Going direct means the central bank finding ways to get central bank money directly in the hands of public and private sector spenders.

Coincidentally, just a couple of months later, the precise “unusual circumstances,” specified by BlackRock, came about as an alleged consequence of the pseudopandemic. The “going direct” plan was implemented.

Instead of using “base money” to buy worthless assets solely from commercial banks, the central banks used the base money to create “broad money” deposits in commercial banks. The commercial banks acted as passive intermediaries, effectively enabling the central banks to buy assets from nonbanks. These nonbank private corporations and financial institutions would have otherwise been unable sell their bonds and other securities directly to the central banks because they can’t trade using central bank base money.

The US Federal Reserve (Fed) explain how they deployed BlackRock’s ‘going direct’ plan:

A notable development in the U.S. banking system following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the rapid and sustained growth in aggregate bank deposits [broad money]. [. . .] When the Federal Reserve purchases securities from a nonbank seller, it creates new bank deposits by crediting the reserve account of the depository institution [base money] at which the nonbank seller has an account, and then the depository institution credits the deposit [broad money] account of the nonbank seller.

This process of central banks issuing “currency” that then finds its way directly into private hands will find its ultimate expression through CBDC. The transformation of the IMFS, suggested by BlackRock’s “going direct” plan, effectively served as a forerunner for the proposed CBDC based IMFS.

The “Essential” CBDC Public-Private Partnerships

This is nonsense. The new “two-tier” CBDC system is nothing like its more distant predecessor and much more like “going direct.”.

CBDC potentially cuts commercial banks out of the “creating money from nothing” scam. The need for some quid pro quo between the central and the commercial banks was highlighted in a recent report by McKinsey & Company:

The successful launch of a CBDC involving direct consumer and business accounts could displace a material share of deposits currently held in commercial bank accounts and could create a new competitive front for payment solution providers.

McKinsey also noted, for CBDC to be successful, it would need to be widely adopted:

Ultimately, the success of CBDC launches will be measured by user adoption, which in turn will be tied to the digital coins’ acceptance as a payment method with a value proposition that improves on existing alternatives. [. . .] To be successful, CBDCs will need to gain substantial usage, partially displacing other instruments of payment and value storage.

According to McKinsey, a thriving CBDC would need to replace existing “instruments of payment.” To achieve this, the private “payment solution providers” will have to be on-board. So, if they are going to countenance displacement of their “material share of deposits,” commercial banks need an incentive.

Whatever model CBDC ultimately takes, if the central bankers want to minimise commercial resistance from “existing alternatives,” so-called public-private partnership with the commercial banks is essential. Though, seeing as central banks are also private corporations, perhaps “corporate-private partnership” would be more appropriate.

McKinsey state:

Commercial banks will likely play a key role in large-scale CBDC rollouts, given their capabilities and knowledge of customer needs and habits. Commercial banks have the deepest capabilities in client onboarding [adoption of CBDC payment systems] [. . .] so it seems likely that the success of a CBDC model will depend on a public–private partnership (PPP) between commercial and central banks.

Accenture, the global IT consultancy that is a founding member of the ID2020 Alliance global digital identity partnership, agrees with McKinsey.

Accenture declares:

Make no mistake: Commercial banks have a pivotal role to play and a unique opportunity to shape the course of CBDC at its foundation. [. . .] CBDC is developing at a much faster pace than that of other payment systems. [. . .] In the U.S. at least, the design of a CBDC will likely involve the private sector, and with the two-tier banking system set to remain in place, commercial banks must now step up and forge a path forward.

What Model of CBDC?

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS)—the central bank for central banks—offers a definition of the wholesale CBDC variant:

Wholesale CBDCs are for use by regulated financial institutions. They build on the current two-tier structure, which places the central bank at the foundation of the payment system while assigning customer-facing activities to PSPs [non-bank payment service providers]. The central bank grants accounts to commercial banks and other PSPs, and domestic payments are settled on the central bank’s balance sheet. [. . .] Wholesale CBDCs and central bank reserves operate in a very similar way.

Wholesale CBDC has some tenuous similarities to the current central bank reserve system but, depending upon the added functionality of the CBDC design, increases central bank ability to control all investment and subsequent business activity. This alone could have an immense social impact.

The BIS continues:

[. . .] a more far-reaching innovation is the introduction of retail CBDCs. Retail CBDCs modify the conventional two-tier monetary system in that they make central bank digital money available to the general public, just as cash is available to the general public as a direct claim on the central bank. [. . .] A retail CBDC is akin to a digital form of cash[.] [. . .] Retail CBDCs come in two variants. One option makes for a cash-like design, allowing for so-called token-based access and anonymity in payments. This option would give individual users access to the CBDC based on a password-like digital signature using private-public key cryptography, without requiring personal identification. The other approach is built on verifying users’ identity (“account-based access”) and would be rooted in a digital identity scheme.

It is “retail CBDC” that extends central bank oversight and enables it to govern every aspect of our lives. Retail CBDC is the ultimate nightmare scenario for us as individual “citizens.”

While the BIS outlines the basic concept of retail CBDC, it has thoroughly misled the public. Suggesting that retail CBDC is the users “claim on the central bank” sounds much better than acknowledging that CBDC is a liability of the central bank. That is, the central bank always “owns” the CBDC.

It is a liability which, as we shall see, the central bank agrees to pay if its stipulated “smart contract” conditions are met. A retail CBDC is actually the central bank’s “claim” on whatever is in your CBDC “wallet.”

The BIS assertion, that CBDC is “akin to a digital form of cash,” is a lie. CBDC is nothing like “cash,” save in the remotest possible sense.

Both cash, as we understand it, and CBDC are liabilities of the central bank but the comparison ends there. The central bank, or its commercial bank “partners,” cannot monitor where we exchange cash nor control what we buy with it. CBDC will empower them to do both.

At the moment, spending cash in a retail setting—-without biometric surveillance such as facial recognition cameras—is automatically anonymous. While “token-based access” retail CBDC could theoretically maintain our anonymity, this is irrelevant because we are all being herded into a retail CBDC design that is “rooted in a digital identity scheme.”

The UK central bank—the Bank of England (BoE)—has recently published its envisaged technical specification for its CBDC which it deceptively calls the Digital Pound. The BoE categorically states:

CBDC would not be anonymous because the ability to identify and verify users is needed to prevent financial crime and to meet applicable legal and regulatory obligations. [. . .] Varying levels of identification would be accepted to ensure that CBDC is available for all. [. . . ] Users should be able to vary their privacy preferences to suit their privacy needs within the parameters set by law, the Bank and the Government. Enhanced privacy functionality could result in users securing greater benefits from sharing their personal data.

Again, it is imperative to appreciate that CBDC is nothing like cash. Cash may be preferred by “criminals” but it is more widely preferred by people who do not want to share all their personal data simply to conduct business or buy goods and services.

The Digital Pound will end that possibility for British people. Just as CBDCs in every other country will end it for their populations.

The BoE model assumes no possible escape route. Even for those unable to present state approved “papers” on demand, “varying levels of identification” will be enforced to ensure that the CBDC control grid is “for all.” The BoE, the executive branch of government and the judiciary form a partnership that will determine the acceptable “parameters” of the BoE’s, not the users, “privacy preferences.”

The more personal identification data you share with the BoE and its state partners, the sweeter your permitted use of CBDC will be. It all depends upon your willingness to comply. Failure to comply will result in you being unable to function as a citizen and ensure that you are effectively barred from mainstream society.

If we simply concede to the rollout of the CBDC, the concept of the free human being will be distant memory. Only the first couple of post CBDC generations will have any appreciation of what happened. If they don’t deal with it, the future CBDC slavery of humanity will be inescapable.

This may sound like hyperbole but, regrettably, it isn’t. It is the dictatorial nightmare of retail CBDC that we will explore in part 2, alongside the simple steps we can all take to ensure the CBDC nightmare never becomes a reality.

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Central Bank Digital Currency Is The Endgame (Pt. 2)

by Iain Davis
originally published March 6, 2023

In Part 1 we noted that “money” is no more than a medium of exchange. If we cooperate in sufficient numbers, we could create an economy based upon an entirely voluntary monetary system. We don’t need banks to control our exchange transactions and modern Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has made voluntary exchange on a global scale entirely feasible.

We contrasted the true nature of “money” with the proposed Central Bank Digital Currencies. CBDC is being rolled out across the world by a global public-private partnership . What we call money is actually fiat currency conjured out of thin air by central and commercial banks. Even so, CBDC is nothing like “money” as we currently understand it.

Prior to the pseudopandemic, fiat currency circulated in a split-monetary circuit. Only commercial banks could access a type of money called “central bank reserves” or “base money.” In late 2019, the global financial institution BlackRock introduced a monetary plan that advocated “going direct” in order “to get central bank money directly in the hands of public and private sector spenders.”

We discussed how the idea of putting “central bank money” directly into the hands of “private sector spenders” is precisely what that new CBDC based International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS) is designed to achieve. But CBDC will accomplish far more for the global parasite class than merely revamp its failing “debt” based IMFS.

If it is universally adopted, CBDC will afford the bankers complete control over the our daily lives. The surveillance grid will be omnipresent and every aspect of our lives will be engineered.

CBDC is the endgame and, in this article, we will explore how that game will play out.

If we allow it.

The Interoperable CBDC Empire

The BIS does not come under the jurisdiction of any nation state nor intergovernmental organisation. It is exempt from all “law” and is arguably sovereign over the entire planet. As its current monetary system power-base declines, it is rolling out CBDC to protect and enhance its own authority.

While a “most likely” CBDC “platform” model has emerged, there is, as yet, no agreed single technical specification for CBDC. But, for the reasons we discussed previously, it is safe to say that no national model will be based upon a permissionless DLT—blockchain or otherwise—and all of them will be “interoperable.”

In 2021 the BIS published its Central bank digital currencies for cross-border payments report. The BIS defined “interoperability” as:

The technical or legal compatibility that enables a system or mechanism to be used in conjunction with other systems or mechanisms. Interoperability allows participants in different systems to conduct, clear and settle payments or financial transactions across systems

The BIS’ global debt based monetary system is “tapped out” and CBDC is the central bankers’ solution. Their intended technocratic empire is global. Consequently, all national CBDCs will be “interoperable.” Alleged geopolitical tensions are irrelevant.

The CBDC Tracker from the NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council, currently reports that 114 countries, representing 95% of global GDP, are actively developing their CBDC. Of these, 11 have already launched.

Just as the pseudopandemic initiated the process of getting “central bank money” directly into private hands so, according to the Atlantic Council, the sanction response to the war in Ukraine has added further impetus to the development of CBDC:

Financial sanctions on Russia have led countries to consider payment systems that avoid the dollar. There are now 9 cross-border wholesale CBDC tests and 7 cross-border retail projects, nearly double the number from 2021.

That this evidences the global coordination of a worldwide CBDC project, and that the BIS innovation hubs have been established to coordinate it, is apparently some sort of secret. China’s PBC, for example, is a shining beacon of CBDC light as far as the BIS are concerned:

[. . . ] improving cross-border payments efficiency is also an important motivation for CBDC work. [. . .] The possibilities for cross-border use of retail CBDC are exemplified by the approaches in the advanced CBDC project in China[.]

The People’s Bank of China (PBC) has been coordinating development of its CBDC cross-border payment system in partnership with the BIS via the m-Bridge CBDC project which is overseen by the BIS’ Hong Kong innovation hub.

Supposedly, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR – Bank of Russia) was suspended by the BIS. Apparently, it was also ousted from the SWIFT telecommunications system. We were told that this was a “punishement” for the Russian government’s escelation of the war in Ukraine. In reality, it is doubtful that the BIS suspension ever occurred, and the SWIFT sanction was a meaningless gesture. Developing interoperable CBDC’s takes precedence over anything else.

All we have to substantiate the BIS suspension claim is some Western media reports, citing anonymous BIS sources, and an ambiguous footnote on a couple of BIS documents. Meanwhile, the CBR is currently listed as an active BIS member with full voting rights and no one, either from the BIS or the CBR, has made any official statement in regard to the supposed suspension.

The CBR’s cross-border CBDC development uses two of the three BIS m-Bridge CBDC models and it is testing its interoperable “digital ruble” with the PBC. Seeing as the PBC is BIS m-Bridge development “partner,” alleged suspension or not, there is no chance that the “digital ruble” won’t be interoperable with the BIS’ new global financial system.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) provides the world’s most pervasive encoded inter-bank messaging system. Both central and commercial banks, as well as other private financial institutions, use SWIFT to securely transmit transaction data.

There are a number of SWIFT alternatives. For example, the CBR developed its parallel System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) in 2014 which went live in 2017. Numerous Russian banks were already using the PBC’s China International Payments System (CIPS) long before any supposed censure by SWIFT.

CIPS was developed by the PBC  in partnership with SWIFT. As a result of SWIFT’s “sanction” of the CBR, the PBC and the CBR then started collaborating in earnest on a potential CIPS based SWIFT replacement. If the stories we are told are true, SWIFT’s action appears to have been an empty act of self-defeating folly.

None of the various communication layer technologies are financial systems in and of themselves, but they enable banks, trading platforms, clearing houses, payment processing systems and all the other elements of the global financial system to communicate with each other. For CBDCs to be successful they need to be interoperable both with these systems and with each other.

Interoperability also extends to existing fiat currencies and other financial assets, such as mortgage backed securities and exchange traded funds (ETFs). These assets, funds, currencies and securities, etc. can be “tokenised.” As can practically any physical or virtual asset or commodity.

Hidera, a distributed ledger technology company that uses the hashgraph based DLT—a blockchain alternative—is backed by a number of wealthy global corporations. The company explains the asset tokenisation (or tokenization) process:

Asset tokenization is the process by which an issuer creates digital tokens on a distributed ledger or blockchain, which represent either digital or physical assets. [. . .] Suppose you have a property worth $500,000 in New York, NY. Asset tokenization could convert ownership of this property into 500,000 tokens — each one representing a tiny percentage (0.0002%) of the property. [. . .] The possibilities are endless as tokenization allows for both fractional ownership and proof-of-ownership. From traditional assets like venture capital funds, bonds, commodities, and real-estate properties to exotic assets like sports teams, race horses, artwork, and celebrities, companies worldwide use blockchain technology to tokenize almost anything.

The ability to trade tokenised assets internationally in any market, using CBDC, will facilitate the creation of a new CBDC based IMFS. Furthermore, digital “tokenisation” means anything can be converted into a financial asset and then traded on the new, CBDC based, digital IMFS.

For example, the BIS’ Project Genesis tokenised “government green bonds.” The World Bank explains “green bonds”:

A bond is a form of debt security. A debt security is a legal contract for money owed that can be bought and sold between parties. [. . .] A green bond is a debt security that is issued to raise capital specifically to support climate related or environmental projects.

Using CBDC’s added “smart contract” functionality, Project Genesis appended “mitigation outcome interests” smart contracts (MOIs) to their green bond purchase agreements. When the bond matured, in addition to any premium or coupon payments from the bond itself, the investor received verified carbon credits. The carbon credits are also tradable assets and they too can be tokenised.

Tokenised assets, traded using the CBDCs that central banks create from nothing, will generate almost limitless permutations for the formation of new markets. Subsequent profits will soar.

This “financialisation of everything” will further remove an already distant financial system to from the real, productive economy the rest of us live in. Needless to say, “interoperability” is a key desired “feature” of CBDC.

The BIS published its Project Helvetia report in December 2020 which demonstrated proof of concept for the settlement  payment for “tokenised assets” using CBDC. SWIFT subsequently published the findings from its Connecting Digital Islands: CBDCs modelling experiment in October 2022.

SWIFT’s stated objective was to link various national CBDCs to existing payment systems and thereby achieve “global interoperability.” SWIFT was delighted to report:

These new experiments have successfully demonstrated a groundbreaking solution capable of interlinking CBDC networks and existing payments systems for cross-border transactions. Interlinking is a solution to achieve interoperability [.] [. . .] This solution can provide CBDC network operators at central banks with simple enablement and integration of domestic CBDC networks into cross-border payments [.]

In its associated press release, SWIFT announced:

Swift has successfully shown that Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and tokenised assets can move seamlessly on existing financial infrastructure – a major milestone towards enabling their smooth integration into the international financial ecosystem.

Whatever CBDC design national central banks adopt, no matter which inter-bank payment system they access—be it SWIFT, CIPS or some new communication layer—global interoperability is assured. Thus many different CBDCs can form one, centrally controlled IMFS that will transact in near instantaneous real time.

Control of this CBDC system will also mean the centralised global power to limit or block payments, target users, redirect funds, enforce purchases, trade assets, add contracts, tax at source and generally exploit any of the other endless range of “functions” CBDC is capable of. In near instantaneous real time.

The CBDC Flimflam

There is scope for innovation to generate further efficiencies in payments, allowing for faster and/or cheaper payments. [. . .] The digital pound could also complement existing financial inclusion initiatives, for example if it were able to provide for offline payments.

In its 2021 document on the Digital Ruble Concept, the CBR said that it had developed its Russian CBDC in response to:

[. . .] growing demand from households and businesses to improve the speed, convenience and safety of payments and transfers, as well as for cost reduction in the financial sphere.

The claimed advantages of cost saving, efficiency, speed , convenience, financial inclusion, improved resilience, financial security and so on, are trotted out time and time again. All of it is part of a dangerous and completely disingenuous sales pitch deceiving you into accepting your own monetary slavery.

Further on, the CBR reveals what has really spurred its development of the “digital ruble:”

[. . .] smart contracts may also be used to mark digital rubles, which will allow setting conditions for spending digital rubles (e.g. defining specific categories of goods/services that can be purchased with them) and tracing the entire chain of movement of the marked digital rubles. [. . .] Digital ruble settlements do not provide for the anonymity of payments.

The digital ruble might initially seem more “convenient” but it is also designed to enable the the Russian central bankers to identify exactly who is buying what, anywhere in the country at any time. It will also empower them to set the “contract” conditions which will determine what Russians can buy, when and from whom. The central bankers will decide what “choices” Russian CBDC users are allowed to make.

We should not be duped by the faux rationales offered by the proponents of CBDC. Despite all the cosy rhetoric from the likes of the CBR and the BoE, the real objective is to enhance the global power and authority of bankers. As far as they are concerned, this power will know no bounds.

For instance, the BoE’s Jon Cunliffe added:

[. . .] there are broader macro-economic and geopolitical issues that need to be considered. The Bank of England is working actively on these issues with international counterparts through the Bank for International Settlements Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), through the G7, the G20 and FSB [Financial Stability Board] and through close cooperation with a small group of advanced economy central banks.

Don’t be surprised that the central bankers consider geopolitics to be within their remit. Their stated intention to “actively” work on geopolitical “issues” has no “democratic” mandate whatsoever, but so what? They don’t care, why should they? Who is paying attention? Most of us are too busy worrying about feeding ourselves and paying our energy bills.

The fact that bankers have long been able exert inordinate influence over geopolitics, economics and society has always been to our detriment. If we continue to neglect our duty to defend each other and ourselves, and if we blindly accept CBDC, the bankers’ power and authority will be immeasurable.

In 2020, the Russian Federation government amended its legal code with the “Law on Digital Financial Assets” (DFAs). The amendment regulated “non-cash ruble” DFAs. The CBR soon added its commercial bank partner Sberbank to the list of financial institutions authorised by the CBR to issue DFAs. In December 2022 Sberbank launched its “gold backed ” DFA offering “tokenised” gold.

Since 1971, when central banks finally abandoned any semblance of gold standard, many have lamented the supposed loss of fiat currency’s “intrinsic value.” The possibility of adding “intrinsic value” to CBDC through smart contracts is apparently enticing some to now welcome CBDC and, thereby, their own enslavement.

The Russian and Iranian governments have already proposed a possible gold-backed CBDC “stablecoin” for interoperable cross border payments. “Interoperability” suggests it could be “backed” by Sberbank’s tokenised gold DFA.

If this sounds suspiciously like a shell game that’s because it is. Nonetheless, some are convinced and have extolled the alleged virtues of this “gold backed” CBDC.

It makes no difference if CBDC is backed by gold, oil, nuclear weapons or unicorn horns. All claims of its advantages are nothing but CBDC flimflam.

No matter how it is spun, the brutal fact is that CBDC affords an unimaginable degree of social control to those who program it. From our perspective, unless we have completely taken leave of our senses, nothing warrants taking that risk.

The Programmable CBDC Nightmare

Not that it matters much, because the BoE assurances given in its CBDC technical specification don’t provide reason for optimism:

Central bank-initiated programmable use cases are not currently relevant to the Bank and HM Treasury’s policy objectives for CBDC.

Perhaps “not currently” but enforcing programmable CBDC may well become “relevant,” don’t you think? Especially given that the BoE adds:

The design of a UK CBDC must deliver the Government and Bank’s [the BoE] policy objectives. [. . .] Over the longer term, innovation and evolving user needs may mean a broader range of CBDC payment types could be offered. For example, offline and cross-border payments could support public policy objectives.

As if this mealymouthed squeamishness wasn’t bad enough, the BoE then goes on to suggest we should welcome their dream of a stakeholder-capitalism CBDC Wild West:

[T]he Bank [BoE] would aim to support programmable functionality[.] [. . .] These functionalities would be implemented by PIPs [Payment Interface Providers] and ESIPs [External Service Interface Providers], and would require user consent. PIPs could implement some of these features, such as automated payments and programmable wallets, by hosting the programmable logic [. . .]. But other features [. . .] might require additional design considerations. [. . .] [T]he Bank would only provide the necessary infrastructure to support PIPs and ESIPs to provide these functionalities. [. . .] An automated payment could be particularly useful in IoT [Internet of Things] use cases. [. . .] PIPs could host their own logic that triggers a payment.

If the BoE don’t “currently” feel the need to program your “money,” how about handing program control over to HSBC, Barclays, Mastercard or PayPal? They will program your CBDC to “deliver the Government and Bank’s [the BoE] policy objectives.” Undoubtedly adding some lucrative “contract logic” of their own along the way. What could possibly go wrong?

Let’s say EDF Energy is your energy provider. You could let BlackRock, working in partnership with the manufacturers it invests in, exploit the IoT to program your washing machine to automatically pay for your energy use by deducting your “money” from your CBDC “wallet”, subject to whatever “contract logic” BlackRock has agreed with EDF Energy.

If you run a small UK business you could let your bank automatically deduct income tax from your earnings and pay it directly to the Treasury. No need for the inconvenience of self-assessment. CBDC will be so much more “convenient.”

Of course, this will be entirely “optional,” although it may be a condition of opening a business account with your bank. In which case your CBDC “option” will be to work in a central bank managed CBDC run business or don’t engage in any business at all.

How does that all sound to you? Because that is exactly the “model” of retail CBDC that the BoE are proposing. So are nearly all other central banks because CBDC is being rolled out, for all intents and purposes, simultaneously on a global scale.

The Retail CBDC Nightmare

The BoE claims that retail CBDC is essential to maintain access to central bank money. This is only “essential” for bankers, not us.

It also alleges that its digital pound model has been offered to the public merely for “consultation” purposes. Yet it has only offered one, very specific CBDC design for our consideration and the “consultation” deploys the Delphi technique to ensure that responses are limited to expressing levels of agreement with the imposed, underlying premise. The only question appears to be when we will adopt CBDC, not if.

The usual flimflam, talking about inclusion, cost savings, offering choice and yada yada, peppers the BoE’s statements and documents. The BoE also lays out its retail CBDC panopticon.

The UK’s CBDC won’t initially target everyone. Speaking about the design of the digital pound, Jon Cunliffe said:

We propose a limit of between £10,000 and £20,000 per individual as the appropriate balance between managing risks and supporting wide usability of the digital pound. A limit of £10,000 would mean that three quarters of people could receive their pay in digital pounds, while a £20,000 limit would allow almost everyone to receive their pay in digital pounds.

If working people are “paid” in CBDC they won’t actually have any “choice” at all. The low paid and those reliant upon benefits payments will have no option but to use CBDC. The independently wealthy, for whom £20,000 is neither here nor there, won’t.

Cunliffe’s comments highlight the possibility that savings can also be limited in the brave new CBDC world. He clearly suggests that those on low incomes won’t be able to hold more than CBDC-£20,000 and will perhaps be limited to as little as CBDC-£10,000.

Unsurprisingly, the UK’s CBDC won’t be based upon a permissionless DLT that could potentially grant anonymity, but rather upon, what the BoE calls, its “platform model.” The BoE will “host” the “core ledger” and the application layer (API) will allow the BoE’s carefully selected private sector partners—called Payment Interface Providers (PIPs) and External Service Interface Providers (ESIPs)—to act as the payment gateways.

The PIPs and the ESIPs will be “regulated,” and will thus be empowered on a preferential basis by the central bank. If CBDC becomes the dominant monetary system, as is clearly the intention, by controlling “access to the ledger,” all user transactions—our everyday activity—will be under the thumb of a public private-partnership led, in the UK, by the BoE.

While the majority of British people don’t have anywhere near £10,000 in savings, the ability to control the amount we can save, and the rate at which we spend, is a tantalising prospect for the central bankers. Add in the ability to specify what we can spend it on and it’s their dream ticket.

The BoE wishes to impose the most oppressive form of retail CBDC possible, but they aren’t alone. The Russian CBR’s model is another, among many others, that is just as tyrannical. The Russian’s CBDC is also constructed upon a “platform” model that is uncannily similar to the UK’s.

Just like British citizens, Russian’s behaviour will be monitored and controlled by their private central bank and its partners through their CBDC “wallets.” The CBR’s “Model D” CBDC is also a “a retail two-tier model with financial institutions [private corporate partners] as settlement participants.”

The CBR states:

Digital rubles are unique digital codes (tokens) held in clients’ electronic wallets on the digital ruble platform. [. . .] The Bank of Russia opens wallets for financial institutions and the Federal Treasury while financial institutions open wallets for clients [businesses and individuals] on the digital ruble platform. Only one digital ruble wallet is opened for a client.

Every Russian business and private citizen will each have one CBDC wallet allocated to them by the CBR. Russian commercial banks will enable the “client onboarding” to speed up adoption of CBDC. The commercial banks and other “financial institutions” will then process CBDC payments and act as payment intermediaries on the CBR’s Model D “platform.”

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are among those considering programming expiration dates into their CBDC’s. This will ensure that Chinese and Indian CBDC users can’t save and have to spend their issued “money” before it expires and ceases to function. Thereby “stimulating” economic activity in the most “going direct” way imaginable.

The BoE proposes exactly the same in its model of digital pound. The BoE is reluctant to concede that its CBDC will be used to enforce policy. Instead, it has devolved this power to its commercial banks “partners” which the BoE will then control through regulation:

A range of programmable features might be enabled by providing API access to locking mechanisms on the core ledger. [. . .] This enables PIPs and ESIPs to facilitate more complex programmable functionality off ledger. [. . .] The funds would be locked until a pre-defined condition has been met. [. . .] The PIPs and ESIPs would host contract logic on their own infrastructure, but would instruct the release of funds via API to the core ledger. [. . .] If the set conditions are not met, all locks would have an expiry time where the funds are released back to the original owner.

The BoE public-private partnership could, for example, program its CBDC with an expiry date. The PIPs or the ESIPs could then modify the program adding “more complex” conditions through their own “contract logic” infrastructure. For example, the BoE could specify that the CBDC your “wallet” will expire by next Wednesday.

A PIP or ESIP could add some contract logic to ensure you can only buy Italian coffee—before next Wednesday. This could be enforced at the point of sale in any retail setting (off ledger).

This is a silly example, but don’t be fooled into believing such an excruciating degree of oppressive control isn’t possible. Programmable CBDC, probably programmed by AI algorithms, is capable of enforcing an intricate web of strictures over our everyday lives.

Just as you can send an encrypted message to anyone else on the same message app, so CBDC “smart contracts” can be tailored to the precisely prescribe what you can or cannot do with your “money.”

They Wouldn’t Do That Though Would They?

We don’t know who’s using a $100 bill today and we don’t know who’s using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.

We can look to other influential central bankers to appreciate what kind of “rules” central banks might choose to “enforce” by exercising their “absolute control.”

Bo Li, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of China and the current Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), speaking at the Central Bank Digital Currencies for Financial Inclusion: Risks and Rewards symposium, offered further clarification

CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program [CBDC] to create smart-contracts, to allow targetted policy functions. For example[,] welfare payments [. . .], consumptions coupons, [. . .] food stamps. By programming, CBDC money can be precisely targeted [to] what kind of [things] people can own, and what kind of use [for which] this money can be utilised. For example, [. . .] for food.

Nigeria has already launched its eNaira retail CBDC. The Nigerian central bank and the BIS have immediately used it as a tool to roll out Digital ID:

Universal access to eNaira is a key goal of the CBN [Central Bank of Nigeria], and new forms of digital identification are being issued to the unbanked to help with access. [. . .] When it comes to anonymity, the CBN has opted to not allow anonymity even for lower-tier wallets. At present, a bank verification number is required to open a retail customer wallet.

The French central bank—the Banque de France—hosted a conference in September 2022 where US and EU central bankers decided that their retail CBDC would also force Digital ID upon users. Indeed, all central banks have effectively “ruled out” any possibility of “anonymous use” of their programmable money.

The Reserve Bank of India states:

Most central banks and other observers have, however, noted that the potential for anonymous digital currency to facilitate shadow-economy and illegal transactions, makes it highly unlikely that any CBDC would be designed to fully match the levels of anonymity and privacy currently available with physical cash.

Once we have no option but to use CBDC nor will we have any but to accept Digital ID. We will be fully visible on the grid at all times.

Currently if the state wishes to lockdown its citizens or limit their movement within 15 minutes of their homes they need some form of legislation or enforceable regulation. Once we start using CBDC that is linked to our Digital ID, complete with biometric, address and other details, they won’t need legislation or regulation.

They can simply switch off your “money,” making it impossible to use outside of your restriction zone. Potentially limiting you to online purchases made only from your registered IP address. CBDC will ensure your compliance.

It is no use imagining that “they wouldn’t do that.” We have already seen the use of monetary punishment and control in our so-called liberal democracies. Numerous private payment providers removed access from those who, in their view, expressed to wrong opinion.

When Canadians exercised their legitimate right to peaceful protest and their fellow Canadians chose to offer their financial support to the protesters, the commercial banks worked in partnership with the Canadian state to freeze protesters accounts and shut down their funding streams.

CBDC will make this a matter of routine, as targeted individuals are punished for their dissent or disobedience. It stretches naivety to wilful ignorance to believe that it won’t.

The whole point of CBDC is to control the herd and enhance the power and authority of the parasite class. CBDC is a social engineering tool designed to establish a prison planet. Unless you want to be a slave, there is no possible justification for using CBDC. Submitting to CBDC enslavement truly is a “choice.”

Please share these articles. It is absolutely vital that as many people as possible understand the true nature of CBDC. We cannot rely upon the state or the mainstream media for anything approaching transparency or honesty on the subject. With regard to our potentially calamitous adoption of CBDC, they are the enemy.

Fortunately, if we decide to resist there is no reason why we have to succumb to using CBDC. In order to construct better systems of exchange that will render CBDC superfluous, we have to come together in our communities. It won’t be easy, there are no simple solutions nor one “perfect” strategic response.

But the fact is, we simply cannot afford CBDC.

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Cover image credit: cocoparisienne

War Certainly Is a Racket

by Ian Davis
February 10,  2023

In 1935, Major General Smedley Butler’s seminal book “War Is A Racket” warned of the dangers of the US military-industrial complex, more than 25 years before the outgoing US President Eisenhower implored the world to “guard against” the same thing. One of the most decorated soldiers in US military history, Butler knew what he was talking about, famously writing that war is “…conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.”

While he lamented the loss of his fallen comrades and despite the gongs he received for defending his country, Butler came to understand that he was actually a “high class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers.” Later, the historian Antony C. Sutton proved that Butler was right.

When the US administration of George Bush passed its Foreign Operations Appropriation Law in 1991, it ended all US credit to the former, thriving socialist republic of Yugoslavia. At the time the perception on the Hill was that Yugoslavia was no longer required as a buffer zone between the NATO states and their former Warsaw Pact adversaries, so its independent socialism was no longer tolerated.

The US military industrial complex, that Butler and Eisenhower told everyone to tackle, effectively destabilised the entire Balkan region, destroyed hitherto relatively peaceful countries and then fuelled the resultant wars with its pet Islamist terrorists. Ably assisted by the World Bank and the IMF.

So-called “assistance,” via the Train and Equip Program, gave US taxpayers the opportunity to funnel $500M to private security contractors like DynCorp. DynCorp put taxpayer’s money to use, seemingly by training terrorists and child trafficking to paedophiles.

The US and its Western allies’ military industrial complex pulled off more or less the same trick in Iraq, Libya and nearly in Syria. In hindsight this doesn’t appear to have been a very good idea. That is, if you think wars are fought for the reasons we are told.

Having bombed Iraq into the stone age, to stop its regime producing the WMDs it didn’t have, the US then “rescued” the country, from the horrific violence and starvation sanctions the US government itself visited upon the Iraqi people, by establishing the US led coalition’s puppet Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) government. Once installed, the CPA did things like award US engineering firm Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) a ‘sole source contract’ to fix and operate all of Iraq’s oil wells.

That US Vice President Dick Cheney, who lied passionately about Iraqi WMD, was also in receipt of an annual $2M stipend from KBR was just a coincidence. As was the massive boost to the value of his Halliburton shareholdings as a direct result of the war he was instrumental in starting.

When the former UK Prime Minister Teresa May OK’d missile trikes upon Syrian civilians, the fact that her husband made millions out of it, as his investments in missile manufactures went through the roof, was also just a coincidence. In no way did she personally profit from killing children and the fact that her family continues to make a fortune by killing more children in Yemen does not undermine Theresa’s very public profile as a champion of good causes. Although, it appears, not killing children isn’t one of them.

So we shouldn’t be surprised when, once again, we discover that war, far from an impediment to business, actually improves operational margins, increases production, boosts markets and offers white collar criminal enterprises industrial scale profits.

Sure, people, including children, die in huge numbers but so what? Where there’s muck there’s brass. War certainly is a racket.

It turns out that Ukraine has been buying Russian fuel from the EU member state Bulgaria throughout the Ukraine War. An odd oversight for alleged combatants in a war. It is similar to the Ukrainian government’s decision to allow the continuing transit of Russian gas from Gazprom to EU markets through its resident pipelines.

The Russian energy giant Lukoil, whose former CEO Ravil Maganov accidentally fell out of a window a few months ago—a common problem for the wrong Russian executives—has been shipping Russian oil to its refinery in the Bulgarian port city of Burgas. The Burgas refinery is the only one in Bulgaria and the largest in the Balkans. From there the refined gas-oil (red diesel) is exported to Russia’s supposed enemy, Ukraine.

This was all being done in secret, says the Russian MSM, although this is just perception management, pro-war propaganda. There has also been a lot of nonsense written by the Western MSM, alleging that Bulgaria has been illicitly circumnavigating EU “sanctions.” Regardless of the fact that this too is monumental tripe.

There isn’t anything “secret” about it. In truth, the door was left open for Russia and Bulgaria to continue this trade, at least until the end of 2024, because the EU inserted a loophole to ensure that they could. Presumably, the Russian government knew nothing about the massive oil shipments, which is why it remained a “secret,” according to Russian MSM.

Given that the “secrecy” narrative is total claptrap, why would both the Western and the Russian MSM want to peddle essentially the same disinformation? Let’s spend a moment to reflect upon the EU’s non-sanction sanctions shall we?

It means that third party non-EU trading nations, like Kazakhstan for instance, can ship Russian oil to the EU unhindered by the inconvenience of alleged sanctions. The sanctions are for reordering global energy flows, not ending them.

While the switch-over has plunged European citizens into an energy crisis, that’s OK. It is essential for the future of the planet that Europeans are convinced to accept ever increasing energy prices. Otherwise they might not welcome the transition to the “sustainable energy” that will make their lives much worse.

Red diesel in Ukraine is used for industrial and heavy machinery, in agriculture and manufacturing for example. It is also used for, oh I don’t know, fuelling tanks and armoured personnel carriers, mobile artillery units and stuff like that.

Stories from European news outlets that Bulgaria provides nearly 40% of Ukrainian military fuel are all nonsense because reasons. Officials have denied the evidence, such as confirmation from the former Bulgarian President, so it isn’t “officially approved” evidence. Consequently, it can safely be discounted by anyone gullible enough to do so.

Don’t forget, according to Western and Russian MSM outlets, it’s all a secret. Which may come as a relief to some, because otherwise the Russian government would have been colluding with the EU to ensure that the Ukrainian military could stay in the fight wouldn’t it?

Recently, despite apparently running out of weaponry, if you believe Western propaganda that is, Russia has launched a massive missile strike on Ukraine, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. According to Russian MSM this is part of the Russian governments efforts to undermine Ukraine’s “military capabilities.”

The fact that it ensures that Ukraine will need to be rebuilt by borrowing enormous sums from international financiers, with the diligent assistance of Gazprom investors BlackRock, is not relevant. So ignore this too please.

Gazprom sells gas to Moldova which is now going to provide gas to Ukraine via the Ukrainian transit gas pipelines that Russian bombing has accidentally missed entirely. The Moldovan government is keen to stress that this is not the gas it buys from Gazprom but is rather the gas it buys from somewhere else it hasn’t specified despite admitting that it is completely reliant upon Russian energy.

If the energy and the fuel from countries like Moldova, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan is used by the Ukrainian government’s military, which it won’t under any official circumstances whatsoever, and Gazprom gas helps keep Ukrainian’s lights on, despite the missile strikes, it looks like the Russian government’s objective is to keep Ukraine at war while hobbling it just enough to ensure it can’t win.

This can’t be true because NATO appears to be doing exactly the same thing and Russia and NATO are enemies. Although NATO’s not quite enough assistance differs from the Russian governments not quite enough aggression, it essentially amounts to the same thing.

The piddly number of tanks offered to Ukraine by its NATO “partners,” the reluctance from NATO to give Ukraine military aircraft and the tepid reception for Ukraine’s more recent pleas to join NATO, appears to signal that NATO isn’t prepared to provide, or perhaps isn’t capable of providing, the military support Ukraine would need for victory. But it is seemingly willing to give it just enough old used scrap to keep it loosing.

This means Ukrainians, the new Russian populations in the Donbas, and troops on both sides, though primarily the Ukrainians, will continue to die while the geopolitical landscape continues to shift around them. Meanwhile the military industrial complex and the billionaires it enriches, such as Elon Musk, are making a fortune. When the conflict is concluded, multinational corporations on both sides will be awarded the contracts to rebuild the stuff their government partners have just destroyed.

Butler wrote:

Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted.

While some might think it wise to add politician’s to that list, for some unfathomable reason, far more people seem to think this is a good point but that it isn’t a serious proposal. Why not? Do they not get it, do they not understand what Butler, Eisenhower, Sutton and many more like them have been trying to tell them for nearly a century?

What is it about the military industrial complex that they assume to be inevitable? Why on Earth do they think it is a “necessary evil?”

It is only necessary because millions, perhaps billions, of us accept that war is the “failure” of foreign policy and diplomacy, instead of understanding the obvious fact that it is the extension of foreign policy. As we are seeing right now with the warmongering posturing of the West and China, war is the intended product of foreign policy and sledgehammer diplomacy.

Wars don’t just “happen” by accident. They are planned, engineered and delivered as required. Our’s and our children’s deaths mean nothing to the people who we allow to lead us into war. They don’t have skin in the game but they should and we have the power to make sure that they do. All we have to do is refuse to fight. It really isn’t rocket science. Obedience is not a virtue.

But we won’t because we continue to fall for the same old lies, time and time again. We continue to imagine, like amnesiac slaves, that we can only be led to a better future by following another bunch of parasitic criminals.

Around and around we go: blowing up and starving children to death, condemning pensioners to freezing fuel poverty and accepting that we might just have to sacrifice ourselves and our loved ones along the way.

When the warmongers next press gang our sons and daughters into dying for their ambitions, we will again say it is in a good cause: for the defence of our country, our culture or our way of life.

It isn’t, it never was and it never will be as long as we continue to go along with it.

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Cover image credit: geralt