Geopolitics, Profit, and Poppies: How the CIA Turned Afghanistan into a Failed Narco-State

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a death knell to so many industries in Afghanistan. Charities and aid agencies have even warned that the economic dislocation could spark widespread famine. But one sector is still booming: the illicit opium trade. Last year saw Afghan opium poppy cultivation grow by over a third while counter-narcotics operations dropped off a cliff. The country is said to be the source of over 90% of all the world’s illicit opium, from which heroin and other opioids are made. More land is under cultivation for opium in Afghanistan than is used for coca production across all of Latin America, with the creation of the drug said to directly employ around half a million people.

This is a far cry from the 1970s, when poppy production was minimal, and largely for domestic consumption. But this changed in 1979 when the CIA launched Operation Cyclone, the widespread funding of Afghan Mujahedeen militias in an attempt to bleed dry the then-recent Soviet invasion. Over the next decade, the CIA worked closely with its Pakistani counterpart, the ISI, to funnel $2 billion worth of arms and assistance to these groups, including the now infamous Osama Bin Laden and other warlords known for such atrocities as throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women.

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Via https://ncrenegade.com/how-will-the-cia-replace-this-revenue-source/

Smart Meter News

In United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judges in favor of environmental health groups and petitioners; finds FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act and failed to respond to comments on environmental harm.

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in the historic case EHT et al. v. the FCC that the December 2019 decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to retain its 1996 safety limits for human exposure to wireless radiation was “arbitrary and capricious.”

The court held that the FCC failed to respond to “record evidence that exposure to RF radiation at levels below the Commission’s current limits may cause negative health effects unrelated to cancer.”  Further, the agency demonstrated “a complete failure to respond to comments concerning environmental harm caused by RF radiation.”

“We are delighted that the court upheld the rule of law and found that the FCC must provide a reasoned record of review for the thousands of pages of scientific evidence submitted by Environmental Health Trust and many other expert authorities in this precedent setting case. No agency is above the law. The American people are well served,” said Dr. Devra Davis, president of Environmental Health Trust.

Edward B. Myers, attorney for Environmental Health Trust, the lead petitioner in the case, EHT et al. v. the FCC stated, “The court granted the petitions for review because, contrary to the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the commission failed to provide a reasoned explanation for its assertion that its guidelines adequately protect against the harmful effects of exposure to radio frequency radiation.”

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In overturning the FCC determination for its lack of reasoned decision making, the court wrote that the commission cannot rely on agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) if the FDA’s conclusions are provided without explanation.

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The court further noted that the FCC failed to respond to approximately 200 comments on the record by people who experienced illness or injury from electromagnetic radiation sickness.

The landmark case centers around the FCC’s decision not to update its 1996 exposure limits for wireless radiation from cell phones, cell towers, and wireless devices. Environmental Health Trust experts have long argued that the FCC’s outdated limits place Americans everywhere at risk, especially in the era of 5G.

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[According to Theodora Scarato MSW, Executive Director of Environmental Health Trust and a petitioner in the case], “If cell phones were a drug they would have been banned years ago. 5G would never have been allowed to market. An ever mounting body of published studies — ignored by the FCC — clearly indicates that exposure to wireless radiation can lead to numerous health effects, especially for children. Research indicates wireless radiation increases cancer risk, damages memory, alters brain development, impacts reproductive health, and much more. Furthermore, the way the FCC measures our daily exposure to cell phone and cell tower radiation is fatally flawed and provides a false sense of security.”

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Via https://smartmeternewsupdates.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/in-historic-decision-federal-court-orders-fcc-to-explain-why-it-ignored-scientific-evidence-showing-harm-from-wireless-radiationunited-states-court-of-appeals-for-the-district-of-columbia-circuit-jud/

Marcie Smith Parenti

The GrayZone

Amid rising reports of vaccine-related menstrual disruptions, the CDC and FDA are dismissing women’s concerns and denying them information while corporate media pathologizes them in sexist fashion.

This August 11, the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) overhauled its COVID-19 vaccine guidance for pregnant women, now “urging” them to accept their shots.

Just 23% of pregnant women in the US have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Only something like 11.1% have been fully vaccinated.

The CDC is seeking to drive these numbers up, but it is not doing the one thing that would, perhaps more than anything else, assuage the “hesitations” of these so-called “anti-vaxxers”: investigate and explain widespread reports of menstrual disruption post-Covid 19 vaccine – and, if necessary, add a warning about it.

Why?

I have five female friends who, after receiving Covid-19 vaccines, experienced disruption to their menstrual cycles. Their symptoms have included hemorrhagic bleeding lasting more than a month; heavy intermittent bleeding for four months; passing golf-ball size clots of blood; and extreme cramping, serious enough to land one friend in the ER.

Most of these women are in their 20s and 30s, and at least one of them thinks she might want to have children. She now worries that her symptoms might be the harbinger of long-term fertility problems. At least two of my friends have symptoms that have not resolved. All are feminists and have throughout the years been consistent Democratic Party voters.

Other women of childbearing age have reported becoming temporarily “postmenopausal” after their second mRNA shot; conversely, women in menopause are reporting suddenly beginning to bleed again; trans men on hormone therapy have also reported sudden bleeding. Apparently, the number of vaccinated women around the world reporting alarmingly disrupted menstruation is, to be conservative, in the tens of thousands.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, does not warn women who get the shots that they may experience a disrupted menstrual cycle.

Why is this? In part because even though menstruation is sometimes called the sixth vital sign and directly implicates fertility, and the fact that women on average suffer higher rates of adverse reaction to vaccines of all sorts and medication in general, the effects of Covid vaccines on women’s health specifically, including the menstrual cycle, were not studied as part of the Emergency Use Authorization process.

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The fact that there is no warning, nor any urgent research into whether there should be a warning, seems jarringly sexist when you consider that the FDA has established and does warn that the mRNA Covid vaccines may cause rather trivial short-term side effects including the following: rashes, itching, hives, injection site pain, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, fever, nausea, swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea, vomiting; plus the recently added and potentially lethal conditions myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the lining outside the heart), which primarily affect young men.

In other words, the FDA sees fit to warn that you might get itchy after the shot but has not deemed it important to determine, and if necessary, tell women – women who might be trying to conceive – that getting the shot could, at least in the short term, scramble their cycle.

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The severity of COVID-19 does not negate women’s need for a rigorous and trustworthy scientific appraisal of the benefits and risks they face if they accept a COVID-19 vaccine.

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Instead, women concerned about the health effects of Covid-19 vaccines have been subjected to 1950’s-style dismissals and demonization in blatantly sexist terms that stand at odds with #MeToo era calls to “believe women.”

Zero published studies on the effects of Covid vaccines on women’s reproductive systems

By early spring 2021, anecdotal testimonies of sudden, early, disturbingly prolonged, abruptly absent, extremely painful, or unusually heavy and clot-filled menstrual cycles post-Covid 19 vaccination were circulating on social media. By May 17th, the UK’s Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency had received 4,000 reports of post-vaccine menstruation disruption. By early July, that agency had received 13,000 such reports. Similar reports emerged from other countries like Canada and India.

In the U.S., adverse reactions to vaccines are tracked by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which was created in 1987 and is co-managed by the FDA and the CDC. As of July 26, VAERS showed many thousands of reports of various menstruation disorders, most related to mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.

There had been 1,624 reports of “menstruation irregular” logged; 1,352 reports of “menstrual disorder”; 563 reports of “menstruation delayed”; 803 reports of “vaginal hemorrhaging”; 239 reports of “postmenopausal hemorrhage”; 95 reports of “hemorrhage urinary tract”; 57 reports of “abnormal uterine bleeding”; and 41 reports of “hemorrhage in pregnancy.” Even more seriously, there were 691 reports of “abortion spontaneous”; 88 reports of “fetal death”; and 25 reports of “stillbirth.” The CDC claims rates of miscarriage by vaccinated women is within the normal range.

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Via https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/13/cdc-fda-women-covid-19-vaccines-menstrual-disruption/