Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You have worked on the theme of the Western Left. According to you, can we say that this left is in crisis?

Dr. Tomasz Pierscionek: The past decade of austerity, which has seen the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else and demonstrated that capitalism is a failing system unable to solve major global problems, provides an opportunity for the Left to demonstrate alternate programmes that benefit the majority rather than a wealthy and powerful minority. In Western Europe and the US, affected by years of indoctrination about the ‘failures’ of socialism, left-wing politicians and parties of labor have been cautious not too appear too left-wing and face the wrath of the rich and their media auxiliaries. In this way, they have failed to realize the potential of the Left to explain and advocate for socialist ideas and directly challenge capitalism. Far from being Marxists, as demonized by the media, the leaders of the Western Left have adopted the half-baked ideas of left of center social-democracy – ie: let’s tinker at the edges of capitalism and smooth out its rougher bits whilst leaving its fundamental principles unchanged.

Nevertheless, even the possibility of a left of center leader being elected to a position of influence inspired thousands to join the UK’s Labour Party during and after Jeremy Corbyn’s election campaign. Likewise, there was much enthusiasm and excitement amongst American workers and youth who became politicized in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ campaign to become the US Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate. Yet he was pushed out of the way by Clinton and those leaders of the Democratic Party who are keen to portray themselves as leftists and men/women of the people, whilst they are really just an extension of the ruling class. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters are routinely attacked by MPs in the Labour Party who would feel more at home within the Conservative party.

Another problem the Left currently faces is the reactionary (and certainly not progressive) scourge of identity politics. A core principle of socialism is the idea of an overarching supra-national solidarity that unites the international working class and overrides any factor that might divide it, such as nation, race, or gender. Workers of all nations are partners, having equal worth and equal responsibility in a struggle against those who profit from their brain and muscle.

Some sections of the Western Left have lost focus and become preoccupied with identity politics. In doing so, they spend more time attacking their own comrades rather than capitalism’s ills and drift away from a left-wing mindset towards one that indirectly promotes segregation. One of the cleverly crafted tools used to divide the Western Left is identity politics. This modern middle-class led phenomenon helps those in charge keep the masses divided and distracted. In the West, you are free to choose any gender or sexuality, transition between these at whim, or perhaps create your own, but you are not allowed to question the foundations of capitalism or liberalism. Identity politics is the new opiate of the masses and prevents organized resistance against the system. The idea that identity politics is part of traditional left-wing thought is promoted by the right who seek to demonize left wing-movements, liberals who seek to infiltrate, backstab and destroy said left-wing movements, and misguided young radicals who know nothing about political theory and have neither the patience nor discipline to learn.

MA: You evoke George Soros as a billionaire “white male” and one of the main funders of the identity movement. This character played a pivotal role in the Arab Spring that wreaked havoc in the Middle East. Is George Soros an ideologue or just an executor of a roadmap decided by the ruling class?

DTP: I believe that Soros and groups such as the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up during the 1980s to promote ‘democracy’ in developing countries and which receives around $100 million a year from the US government, work to destabilise nations and remove leaders that will not submit to the will of the US/NATO agenda. This can be done in a number of ways such as supporting the opposition or even radical anti-government factions and inciting them to protest and by creating problems for a leader or government that fails to tow the US line. Funding is given to opposition ‘human rights’ or ‘democracy’ activists and various anti-government NGOs or other 5th columnists who can be used to make a color-revolution when the timing is right.

Soros is a billionaire and he will naturally support any system that provides him with the opportunity to keep and further add to his wealth. He is a natural ally of those leaders who seek to topple any nation standing in the way of Western (US) hegemony and its acquisition of wealth.

MA: Do not you think that the Arab Spring served, not the interests of the Muslim peoples, but those of Israel?

DTP: I believe the Arab Spring was a genuine grassroots movement that took both the Arab world and the West by surprise. People had had enough of autocratic leaders, many of whom were allies of the West. A spark (namely Tunisian street vendor Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire in protest at police harassment) was all that was required for long built up grievances to manifest as mass protest. However, as happened in Ukraine a few years later, the West and its allies in Arab countries were quick to try to influence and control the direction of these movements and use them as a tool to serve American interests. Some of the leaders of the Arab Spring protests had in the past reportedly received funding from various US-based NGOs as well as training in how to organize and use social media.

Perhaps with the exception of Tunisia, were any of the leaders ousted in the Arab Spring replaced by genuine democrats? In Egypt, for example, the military dictatorship has merely had a change of name and face – Mubarak replaced a short while later by Field Marshall al-Sisi, who gained power in a coup.

The ethos of the Arab Spring was also used as an excuse to get rid of Gaddafi and plunge the country into chaos. Gaddafi was overthrown and one of the richest and most stable countries in Africa became a failed and lawless state controlled by a mishmash of rebel groups, some affiliated or sympathetic to Al-Qaeda. Gaddafi had planned to start selling oil in dinars (a new gold-backed pan-African currency) instead of US dollars or euros, and encouraged his African neighbors to do the same.

MA: You mentioned the military-humanitarian complex in an article. What can you tell us about this concept?

DTP: Former US President Dwight Eisenhower warned US citizens in 1961 about what he termed the military–industrial complex, namely the “…conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry”.

In my article The military-industrial-humanitarian complex: Spreading Western hegemony under the guise of virtue, I described the expansion of this alliance to include NGOs and supposedly well-meaning human right activists, journalists and commentators, who provide justification for the military-industrial arm to flex its muscles and invade other sovereign states (which pose no threat to the US or its NATO allies) by appealing to ‘democracy’ and by decrying human rights abuses (real or imagined) to shock and awe public opinion into accepting a humanitarian intervention / invasion.

I wrote that “Traditionally honourable words such as ‘humanitarian’ and ‘democracy’ have come to acquire a darker and more cynical meaning following their misappropriation to justify the invasion of sovereign nations and to promote the spread of Western military and cultural dominance across the globe. The mainstream media, alongside some human rights activists, assist these ventures by helping disseminate mistruths and by tapping into the emotions of fear, anger and revulsion to soften public opinion and make aggression against a sovereign state appear justified.”

Activists who support the agenda of the military-industrial-humanitarian complex receive much applause and airtime from the Western media and their political allies and are sometimes manufactured to fit the required narrative. A seven year old Syrian girl in Aleppo (Bana al-Abed) who apparently spoke hardly any English and was somehow able to have internet access in a city with limited electricity was feted in the West media, invited to the Oscars and received a Freedom Award from the pro-NATO Atlantic Council think tank on account of her numerous twitter postings in good English calling for the regime change (or even WW3) eg: – “Dear world, it’s better to start 3rd world war instead of letting Russia & Assad commit #HolocaustAleppo.”It seems to me far more likely the girl’s anti-Assad parents had a role in her postings.

Razan al-Najjar, the 21 year old Gaza medic killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1, treating an injured man, undated photo from Palestine Live on twitter.

In any case, I’m waiting to see if a seven-year-old from Yemen, Donbass or Gaza receives the same level of attention. Can you imagine politicians, media and celebrities in the West reacting favorably to a seven-year-old in the West Bank or Gaza calling for humanitarian intervention and regime change in Israel?

MA: Do not you think that under the false pretext of spreading “democracy” and “human rights”, Western governments have spread chaos all over the planet from Latin America to the Arab-Muslim world? Former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner theorized the concept of humanitarian intervention. In your opinion, are these interventions in different countries, not neocolonialism?

DTP: Of course. In centuries past the excuses used to justify colonialism included the need to ‘civilise the natives’ to save them from themselves (via the barrel of the gun). In reality capitalism, then in its infancy, needed to subjugate these people to gain access to their resources and open up new markets for European products.

Nowadays the notions of democracy, human rights and the need to save the people of a foreign nation from an alleged tyrant (though these people are never asked if they want to be saved) are used to justify sanctions, no-fly zones, bombings and even invasion for the real purpose of obtaining access to resources, gaining a military base in a geopolitically strategic region or simply because a foreign leader refuses to submit to Western dominance.

There are a number of countries with appalling human rights records perpetrating numerous abuses against their own people or occupied populations (eg: Israel, Saudi Arabia) who are allies of NATO and not only avoid criticism for their lack of democracy and human rights but even receive money and weapons from the US and its allies.

MA: In your opinion, have the mainstream media not lost all credibility by being the tool par excellence of big capital and imperialism? Are some NGOs, “human rights” activists and some media not the soldiers of imperialism and big capital? Is the debate on Fake news not biased knowing that the mainstream media that have become propaganda tools misinform the public every day? For example, your site London Progressive Journal is inaccessible this Sunday, November 25. Are alternative media that inform citizens with credible and quality information not the target of the establishment?

DTP: Sections of the mainstream media, journalists and political commentators played a supporting role in the invasions of Iraq and Libya and advocated for regime change in Syria by playing upon the public’s emotions and disseminating fake news. They became purveyors of propaganda and imperialist collaborators.

One such example of Fake News (before the term became popular) involved an article written by former UK Labour Party MP Ann Clwyd in the Times just two days before the US-led Coalition of the Willing began destroying Iraq in 2003. She asserted that Saddam possessed a ‘human-shredding machine’ into which adversaries were fed feet-first and turned into fish food. The article, titled “See men shredded, then say you don’t back war,” had the double effect of causing the reader to feel revulsion and of making the anti-war lobby appear callous and indifferent to the plight of the Iraqi people. The existence of a human shredder was later challenged and such a machine has yet to be found.

The growth of the internet, including alternative news websites and Youtube, has allowed some of the facts to slip out from behind the curtain. In the past you needed lots of money to set up, operate and distribute a printed newspaper with a sizeable readership. Clearly, most people could not do this. Nowadays its costs very little to set up a blog, website or Youtube channel viewed by millions which challenges the narratives disseminated by the mainstream media. Hence the move to denounce a number of alternative media websites and Youtube channels, both right-wing and left-wing, as fake news or Russian propaganda. Western elites are losing their grip on what the public see, hear and think and aren’t fans of this new glasnost. They fear and demonize what they cannot control.

The London Progressive Journal was only inaccessible as the bandwidth was exceeded that month – ie: too many hits/views.

MA: Why do all these right-minded NGOs and media turn a blind eye to the massacre of the Palestinian people by the Zionist entity of Israel?

DTP: There is little political capital to gain and much to lose for any politician or public figure daring to criticize Israel. Due to its strategic geographical location, its alliance with the US and the power of the pro-Israeli lobby and their Christian-Zionist auxiliaries, even the slightest criticism of Israel is met with aggression and the worn out claim of anti-semitism. Even Jewish activists are demonized for speaking out against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Look at how many stories have been published in the mainstream media trying to ‘prove’ that Jeremy Corbyn is against Jews and that the Labour Party has a problem with anti-semitism.

Of course these stories are ridiculous, scrape the bottom of the journalistic barrel and are soon disproven but the aim of this fake-news is to a) at least make some of the slurs stick so as to demonize the individual in the eyes of the public and b) send a strong message to anyone who might think of criticising Israel’s policies that they will face an aggressive barrage of attacks and harassment from a small and well-connected group of individuals. However, fear only works to an extent and for a limited time. If people are afraid to say something openly, they will just end up thinking the same thing silently and more intensely.

The sad thing is that the boy who cries anti-semitism will not be believed if the anti-semitic wolf really does show up one day. Repeatedly denouncing critics of Israel’s occupation of Palestine as anti-semites trivializes an abhorrent and inexcusable ideology, one which led to the deaths of millions during the 1930-40s, as people no longer take the claim of anti-semitism (genuine or politically motivated) seriously.

At the same time, we see far right and neo-nazi militias in Ukraine, some of whom take their symbols and ideology from the 1930-1940s, operating with relative impunity, perpetuating numerous human rights abuses both upon the people of the Donbass and West Ukraine. Yet neither the West nor Israel seems to be too interested even though the Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently reported that weapons sent by Israel to Ukraine are ending up in the hands of far-right militias, such as the Azov battalion.

MA: Why, in your opinion, do these “human rights” NGOs and the media in the hands of big capital turn a blind eye to the massacre committed by Saudi Arabia, an ally of the West, against the people of Yemen?

DTP: Saudi Arabia would be the frontrunner were there a prize for the world’s worst human rights record. In the West some human rights groups do speak out against the massacres committed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and against its appalling human rights record – it’s so obvious you can’t really ignore it. Yet this does not make a difference because the leadership of the UK and US have decided that Saudi Arabia is an important ally and thus all can be forgiven. They are selling this nation billions of dollars worth of weapons in exchange for oil. Saudi Arabia has used British made bombs in Yemen, resulting in numerous civilian deaths.

A few years ago a Saudi Arabian diplomat was appointed to head (or should that be beheaded?) a panel of experts on the UN Human Rights Council. In 2016 the nation was re-elected to sit on the UN Human Rights Council. The following year Saudi Arabia won a seat on the UN women’s rights commission which according to the UN is responsible for “promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women”.

Due to powerful Western and Saudi business interests, no matter what Saudi Arabia does, there will be no calls for regime change, sanctions or a no-fly zone.

MA: Crisis Group relayed by the newspaper Financial Times and Le Monde evokes acatastrophic situation in which Algeria will be in 2019. In your opinion, when these imperialist media and think tanks target a country, is there not an immediate danger for this country, in this case, Algeria? Do not you think that for a country to protect itself better from imperialist interventions, it must consolidate an internal front?

DTP: I don’t know much about what is happening in Algeria at the moment but I would say watch this space. If media and think tanks are targeting Algeria it is clearly not out of genuine concern for its citizens. They are likely softening up the public for whatever agenda is due to be played out next year.

A united internal front is essential, so long as it holds. Imperialist intervention and color revolutions are only the final stage of a long process which starts with buying off members of the opposition, training activists to organize protests and arrange confrontations with government forces, funding a 5th column of Western-backed NGOs and even fermenting violence and civil war. Once a nation’s leadership faces internal problems manufactured abroad and sections of the opposition are taking their orders from the US or one of its allies, it is very hard to act in a resolute manner to prevent a color revolution or any other form of destabilization.

MA: You talked about Deep fake technology in a very interesting article and you asked some key questions. Who do you think is behind this technology?

DTP: Capitalism which will try to find a way to commodify (make money out of) any commodity or new technology.

When I wrote that article, I warned that this technology enables a person to live out vast portions of their real life inside a virtual reality bubble alongside a virtual supermodel with no limits on the actions they can perform, whilst they remain totally oblivious to what is going on outside their front door. Excessive social media use has been shown to adversely affect mental health and interpersonal communication. Customized virtual reality porn will further isolate people from each other and erode their ability to communicate with and form healthy social and sexual relationships in the real world. This is of particular concern as the birth rates across developed countries are already low and decreasing further.

MA: What hide the Insect Allies program of DARPA, a Pentagon agency? Is humanity safe from a biological war fomented by US imperialism to ensure its survival?

DTP: Many technologies have dual use potential and can be applied to either civilian or defense projects. The knowledge obtained from civilian projects can be modified to have military applications, even if the age of biogenetic warfare is still some years away. Although the US government might not officially sanction the creation of a biogenetic weapon, it is unlikely to have complete oversight of the entirety of its vast military-intelligence apparatus and the unfathomable deep state. The knowledge to create such a weapon could also spread from a state to a non-state actor tasked with carrying out the dirty work.

Although the US empire is in steady decline, it remains strong and will continue playing a major role on the world stage for some years to come. However, nations such as Russia and China are in the ascendant and have already ensured that the 21st century will be defined by a multipolar world rather than the Project for the New American Century. In recent years, Russia has put in check a number of US plans which included setting up a NATO base in Crimea, destabilizing Russia’s neighbors and turning Syria into a rogue state run by terrorists. A small number of immensely wealthy and powerful individuals, as well as allies Israel and Saudi Arabia whose fates are intertwined with that of the US, have everything to lose and will pull out all stops to delay the decline of American hegemony and its inevitable consignment to the dustbin of history. The US and its closest allies have frequently demonstrated they have no misgivings and few red-lines when it comes to committing the worst human rights abuses in the interests of money and power. The urge to use a biogenetic weapon to incapacitate a rising competitor may one day prove too much of a temptation to ignore.

MA: You are an experienced scientist, do not you think that science in the hands of some imperialist lobbies is becoming a criminal tool rather than an asset to humanity?

DTP: See answer above. I would also add that it is the nature of capitalism to squeeze out the maximum amount of profit possible from any new technology or find military applications for said technology. These two often go hand in hand. Civilian or peaceful applications tend not to be as profitable.

MA: Julian Assange is living for years in intolerable conditions that have worsened recently. How do you explain the fury against Julian Assange?

DTP: Through the website, Wikileaks Julian Assange has helped expose numerous dirty secrets that the warmongers and financial elites would prefer hidden. This includes the 2007 Collateral Murder video which showed a US Apache helicopter crew killing a dozen civilians, including two Iraqis employed by Reuters, and laughing about the murders they had just committed. There are also the ‘Afghan War Logs’, the ‘Iraq War Logs’, the ‘Guantanamo files’, the ‘State Department Cables’ and many other diplomatic communiques that illustrate the dark side of the self-proclaimed ‘land of the free’. It’s no surprise that the Pentagon claims Wikileaks poses a threat to national security and this explains the US’ fanatical desire to seize Assange. The attempts to have him extradited from the safety of London’s Ecuadorian embassy to Sweden, which would have been one step closer to him forever disappearing into a US black site, have failed. But the US will not give up so easily.

MA: Does the US not seek a direct confrontation with Russia, China, Iran and Korea? Do not we see another cold war cycle with what is happening in Ukraine?

DTP: The US backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 was a failed attempt to expand NATO influence right up to the borders of Russia to contain the nation and prevent its further emergence as a key player on the world stage. The US is trying to do the same with China where it is also failing to prevent the emergence of a multi-polar world.

The US cannot seek a direct confrontation with any major power because even one of these powers (let alone an alliance) could hold its own in battle against the US and that could escalate into WW3 and the destruction of all. Thus the US prefers to fight proxy wars via its agents of influence in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere. The 21st century was supposed to be the ‘American Century’, in large part because the US was the only major nation to emerge from WW2 relatively unscathed and thus had a significant edge over all other countries when it came to expanding its influence during the latter half of the 20th century. However, we are not even two decades into the 21st century and it is already clear that this will be the ‘multipolar century’.

I was in Moscow a few months ago and as I was walking through Gorky Park I recalled the words of the song Wind of Change by the Scorpions which references the park. The song was released in 1991 as the USSR was in the process of collapse. The lyrics provide a message of hope that as the cold war is now ending there will be friendship and unity amongst the peoples of the East and West.

The Winds of Change are blowing again but this time in a direction unfavourable to the US and its allies. Now it is the US empire and the EU who face decline in the coming years. Perhaps this century, following the emergence of a multipolar world, a strong and long-lasting friendship will finally arise between all peoples of the world.

MA: Why, in your opinion, neither Daesh nor Al Qaeda have ever fired a single bullet against Israel? Western governments that supported terrorists in Syria, Libya, etc. as they did with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the USSR, are they not harvesting, with the attacks on their soil, what they sowed?

DTP: Israel is not a direct threat to ISIS or Al Qaeda. They all seek to overthrow Assad and ferment instability and disunity in the Middle East. It’s interesting to note that during the Syrian conflict Israel has provided medical treatment to Al-Nusra (Syrian Al-Qaeda) fighters and other alleged ‘moderate’ rebels. Perhaps one day the Israeli leadership will extend its newly discovered humanitarianism to the women and children of Gaza.

Of course, Western support for extremists in Libya, Syria and Ukraine will backfire, as their support for the Mujahideen in the 1980s did. The Syrian Arab Army continues to liberate more and more territory, either through defeating ISIS and other terror groups or by negotiating that militants leave a certain area and in exchange receive safe passage to other parts of Syria (typically Idlib province on the Turkish border). Eventually, these militants will have nowhere else to go and likely cross over to Turkey and, if Erdogan has no use for them, will be pushed out towards Europe. Some of the ‘moderate rebels’ supported by the UK and France could thus make their way to Europe.

MA: How do you explain the staggering statement by the British chief of staff, General Mark Carleton-Smith, who says in The Telegraph on November 23 that “Russia is now “indisputably” a greater threat to the security of Britain and her allies than Islamist extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil)” ? In your opinion, is not the Skripal affair a machination fomented by the British government to target Russia?

DTP: There are so many unanswered questions about the whole Skripal affair that it is unclear where to begin. Former UK diplomat Craig Murray has written some good articles on this subject exposing holes in the UK’s official narrative. It is yet another (less than successful) attempt to demonise Russia but the mud is not really sticking.

As for General Mark Carleton-Smith’s comments that “Russia is now “indisputably” a greater threat to the security of Britain and her allies than groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, I can understand the General’s remarks in the context that ISIS and similar groups do not pose a direct threat to the UK’s global interests and even further these interests by seeking to remove Assad. However, due to Russia’s intervention, Syria will now not go the way of Iraq or Libya and is on the path to again becoming a united and stable nation with a secular and diverse identity. This is one intervention which prevented the destruction of a nation and saved millions from the unimaginable nightmare of life under ISIS. This is the opposite of the Western approach, by which a unified nation is plunged into anarchy and the terrorists appear only after the ‘humanitarian’ intervention has transpired.

It must be acknowledged that only Russia and Iran intervened in the Syrian conflict at the request of the nation’s legitimate government. All other nations involving themselves in the Syrian conflict are in breach of international law and warrant expulsion from Syrian territory.

Russian and Iranian soldiers gave their lives to prevent Syria collapsing into Islamist anarchy and Russia’s successful intervention in Syria goes some way towards wiping away the nation’s painful memories of its intervention (as the USSR) in Afghanistan during the 1980s when it failed to prevent the US backed Islamic extremists from taking control of the nation.

MA: What do you think of the movement of Yellow Vests in France?

DTP: The Yellow Vest protests started in Paris after the Macron government announced plans to increase fuel tax (a plan since abandoned). At a time when austerity is crippling large parts of Europe, increasing the cost of fuel would have had a significant negative impact upon commuters, especially those residing outside urban areas.

The protests soon became about much more than the price of fuel as the Yellow Vests continued to take to the streets in Paris and other French cities to protest against rising living costs and the failings of the Macron government in general. They extended their demands to call for (amongst other things) a rise in the minimum wage, progressive taxation, greater job security, promotion of small businesses, pension reform, rent caps, and a cut in politicians’ salaries. Calls for Macron’s resignation followed. Large numbers of students and workers have joined the Yellow Vest protests as they progressed from being a general outpouring of anger over the proposed fuel tax rise to a critique of the Macron government, austerity, and capitalism’s failures in general.

Of course, the protests have been met with mass arrests (by now in the thousands over the past several weeks) and police violence – not uncommon when the elites of self proclaimed democratic and liberal societies find themselves under even slight pressure by the masses. The politicians and media in the West spare no effort in pointing out how democratic, liberal and respectful of civil rights their societies are and act with disdain towards (non ally) governments that deal harshly with protesters. Imagine how differently the media here would portray events if these protests were happening in Russia, China or Iran. The media have by and large ignored police violence and instead focused on the violence of a small number of protestors, putting out the message that the protests have been hijacked by the far left and far right when in reality the issues raised by the Yellow Vests affect working and middle class French citizens across the board, regardless of their political stance, and the participants come from a wide range of backgrounds and have a diversity of views.

As the protests started to in some ways resemble the 1968 situation in France, the closest thing to a revolution France has had in modern times,the Macron government has been forced to offer a few concessions such as a withdrawal of plans for the fuel tax, a 100 euro increase in the minimum wage, and a request that profitable businesses pay their workers an end of year bonus.

When the wealthy and their political representatives face pressure from below they become willing to compromise, albeit it with small concessions, rather than risk the protests growing and thus risk losing far more. We see the success of direct action.No doubt they will look for any opportunity in the future to claw back the small amount of ground reluctantly ceded. In a sign of desperation, we have seen the ‘if all else fails blame the Russians’ script wheeled out as stories have emerged of allegedly pro-Kremlin social media accounts promoting the Yellow Vests protests. This propaganda only makes Macron and his allies appear all the weaker and more ridiculous.

Contrast this with Ukraine where the West really did have a hand in the Maidan protests in 2013-2014, which later turned into a coup against an elected President. American politicians were in Kiev in 2014 addressing protesters and handing out cookies. The West’s media took a generally favourable position toward the protests in Ukraine which were far more violent and involved police being attacked and killed by armed far right paramilitary groups.

Although this would of course never happen, wouldn’t it be funny to see senior Russian politicians appear in Paris to encourage the protesters in their goal to unseat Macron whilst Russian, Chinese and Iranian media would report round the clock about the French police’s brutal and authoritarian reaction to peaceful protest and chastise the country’s lack of democracy, human rights and stability.

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This interview was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

Dr.Tomasz Pierscionek is a medical practicioner and social commentator on medicine, science, technology and politics. He was previously on the board of Medact, a charity of health professionals that campaigns against health inequalities both domestic and global. As part of Dr. Pierscionek’s work in Medact, he co-authored a successful report examining the public health effects of armed drones.The report, Drones: the physical and psychological implications of a global theatre of war, received media coverage in various newspapers and academic journals, including the BMJ, the Lancet and the Guardian.