A Pivotal Year For Mankind
The year 2016 has been pivotal one for mankind. The foreign and economic policies of the USA are in shambles as the Obama era ends. A new President, one with no political experience, takes office in some days having promised to “make America great again.” He has promised to “drain the swamp” of special interest corporate influence in Washington yet has chosen his cabinet from the banks of those special Wall Street interests, has chosen his national security and Pentagon figures from US military generals, and has chosen no fewer than five cabinet members who are billionaires, and seeks counsel of geopolitical architects of war such as Henry Kissinger
The European Union is nearing a dissolution of the Brussels construct that is so anti-democratic. Not only Brexit, but now also likely in coming months Italy, Hungary, Greece, even France are possible candidates to leave the dysfunctional European Union. The Euro project has created deeply divided EU. The refugee crisis that has been created by Brussels, and by the German government, is causing social unrest and conflict unprecedented in peacetime.
To the east of the EU, despite continuing economic sanctions, Russia has decisively turned to the east and cooperation with China has deepened on all levels, a geopolitical nightmare for Washington. China for its part is engaged in the largest infrastructure construction in history, its One Bridge, One Road, new high-speed rail and deep-water port shipping infrastructure linking for the first time undeveloped resources and potential markets across Eurasia. The Washington policy of war by proxy to destroy Syria’s regime has decisively failed. Russia is emerging as a major power after a quarter century of abject humiliation by the Western NATO powers after 1991.
And Russia has taken decisions that will benefit all mankind by its law banning all planting of Genetically Modified seeds or GMO. Russia is, as a result, emerging as one of the most healthy natural food producers on the planet, in direct opposition to the USA which has allowed GMO to completely takeover American food.
It’s becoming increasingly clear to more people that the agenda of GMO, of Monsanto, which soon will vanish into the bowels of Bayer AG of Germany, is one of harm, not of feeding the hungry world. Its special agrichemicals like Roundup are labelled “probable carcinogens” by the WHO, yet governments ignore independent tests showing the harm. While Russia has just taken a courageous decision to ban all GMOs, China’s government looks set, despite the domestic opposition, to promote GMO as “biotechnology,” a huge error.
As we begin a new year we find our world beset with problems, with hate, murder, power addiction, and at the same time we find more pockets of hope, of life, of optimism that our world is weary of the endless wars and genuinely wanting peace. May peace, not war, be the hallmark of the coming year!
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”