Draft March 20, 2021

Letter of Invitation- to participate in –

Objective: Raise search engine rankings of peace organizations and alternative news (alt-news) providers thereby attaining parity with corporate owned news media via inter-linking. The only way to start to end the wars and deadly economic sanctions is to communicate more directly with the voting publics in western countries. That won’t happen without site ranking parity.

[Draft: March 17, 2021]

Peace Organizers and Alt-News Providers,

I am not a 501c3 and/or 501c4 organization; I don’t want your money and have no commercial interests in this whatsoever. My sole motivation is that I truly detest violence, having, been on the receiving end of it so often and a sense of compassion for all humans.

Raising internet rankings of peace organizations and alt-news providers

The Great Linking is based on a simple concept: raise internet site rankings of peace organizations and alt-news providers such that that the voices of the advocates for peace and critics of the hegemonic war machine can be heard on the internet and compete fairly with Mainstream Media (MSM) which at this time holds a near monopoly in regards to internet site rankings on the internet.

Peace organizations in this context includes non-profit: major peace/anti-war, religious and inter-faith, and humanist organizations. There are collectively thousands of these organizations around the world with most operating as separate fiefdoms although some of the larger religious and inter-faith organizations and some of the peace organizations interlink to varying degrees within their own niches.

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Alt-news here refers to news providers that investigate and are actively critical of the Euro-American hegemonic military-industrial-media complex, abrogation of civil and human rights, and the ever-widening wealth gaps within and between countries.

The situation now

The mainstream media functions as a loudspeaker for the corporate owed politicians who are bought by lobbyists of the weapons corporations. For the most part mainstream news media only repeat (corporate owned) government rational for starting and escalating wars, and to cover up all or at least most of the bad news when the USA is losing a war – like in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, etc., just to help the weapons corporations keep their production lines moving.

Having corporate controlled politicians means corporate own news media is more than willing to please their corporate masters by starting wars and helping provide dividends to weapons corporations. Thus, mainstream news media’s virtual monopoly on the news is essential to the profits of the weapons corporations while civilian casualties, mount.

Profit-driven murder of innocents in American wars

Afghanistan

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/16/trump-us-military-peace-agreement-war-afghanistan/

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1057921

https://www.statista.com/chart/23716/afghan-civilians-killed-in-airstrikes

Iraq

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269729/documented-civilian-deaths-in-iraq-war-since-2003

Syria

https://www.statista.com/topics/4216/the-syrian-civil-war

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/syrias-shocking-civilian-death-toll

Yemen

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/yemen

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-yemen

Somalia

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https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-office-russian-media

https://blackagendareport.com/somali-election-impasse-historical-context

https://www.dailysabah.com/world/africa/civilian-deaths-mount-from-us-air-strikes-in-somalia

https://www.justsecurity.org/69705/us-ramps-up-war-in-somalia-killing-more-civilians

Women and children make up more than half of civilian casualties.

Incessant warfare is not a “new normal” but the same old normal for the USA.

More recently:

Syria Says Four Dead in First Israeli Strike Since Biden Took Office by Kinda Makieh and Dan Williams, Reuters Wire Service, January 21, 2021“…A father, mother and their two children were killed in the strikes, and four other civilians were wounded, while three houses were destroyed, the Syrian military source said.“Israel has previously said its strikes in Syria were necessary to protect its northern front from its enemy Iran…”https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-01-21/syrian-air-defenses-confront-israeli-aggression-in-hama-state-mediaNew US Military Base in Northeast Syria Latest of Biden’s Warlike Moves

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Many of Biden’s first moves in the Middle East, including the building of a new base in Syria, suggest his term will be more of the same rather than a break with the old. By Alan Macleod, February 10th, 2021

https://www.mintpressnews.com/new-us-military-base-northeast-syria-latest-biden-warlike-moves/275260

And to think the whole war against Syria is predicated upon an elaborate series of false flag operations1, proof that the USA can attack anywhere, anytime and anyone.

The stakes now have never been higher. Russia for example might not take kindly to an American attempt to do a final “sweep” of the Middle East via an escalation wars against Syria and Iran. Such a conflict will almost certainly be initiated with a false flag operation of some kind as that is the normal, “business as usual” thing for the American Department of Defense to do.

The potential for nuclear war has not been this high since the Cuban Missile Crisis, however the personality types of the leadership in Washington D.C. now may not be so stable as in 1962.

Nuclear escalation2, incessant bombing of Syria and assassinations of Iranians, 25,000 people starving to death every day (mainly due to economic sanctions), the New Cold War,3 the suppression of alternative news and peace advocacy organizations by algorithmic tyranny and shadow regulation - are significant issues of concern to all people of conscience.

1 Syria false flag ops https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/14/5-former-opcw-officials-join-prominent-voices-to-call-out-syria-cover-up https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/11/new-leaks-shatter-opcws-attacks-douma-whistleblowers https://www.rt.com/news/517949-opcw-scandal-douma-coveruphttps://www.mintpressnews.com/as-mainstream-journalists-acknowledge-douma-attacks-were-staged-the-humanitarian-syria-regime-change-network-tries-to-save-a-sinking-ship/255223https://www.mintpressnews.com/un-bows-to-western-pressure-blocks-opcw-team-from-investigating-douma-attacks/240860 2 Both American and British are increasing nuclear stockpiles https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/15/cap-on-trident-nuclear-warhead-stockpile-to-rise-by-more-than-40 3 New Cold War https://blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-establishment-role-anti-asian-bigotry https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/17/report-uyghur-genocide-sham-university-neocon-punish-china https://thegrayzone.com/2020/08/18/us-government-funded-coda-story https://www.mintpressnews.com/shame-on-you-new-york-times-scientists-speak-out-media-disinformation-china/275382https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-seeks-anti-china-alliance-on-tech-with-joe-bidenhttps://www.rt.com/russia/517738-bbc-anti-moscow-informationhttps://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-office-russian-media https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/25/as-leaks-expose-uk-op-to-weaken-russia-suppression-of-grayzone-reporting-backfires https://consortiumnews.com/2019/03/18/sucking-liberals-into-a-new-cold-war/?print=pdf

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Does anyone have a better reality-based plan to reverse all of this?

Petitions, conventions, demonstrations, articles and hundreds of 501c3s and 501c4s haven’t even slowed the war machine and economic sanctions down. Voters could change this but have no idea what’s really going on because of MSM’s monopoly on “news” and the internet.

As we know web-crawlers of the major browsers search the internet 24/7 and “assess” sites according to a number of criteria, including links in and out from quality sites, how often the sites are updated, number of visits, key-word placement, the age of your domain name and quite a number of other things.

Links to your site from “quality” sites is a major factor in the site ranking algorithms used by major browsers. Some of the details follows.

Out-link effects on your sites’ ranking (Not a major ranking factor)

When first attempting to configure the Great Linking, I thought of just adding simple link-lists to each of the peace organizations and alt-news providers internet sites. But Google’s updated ranking algorithms may assign penalty points for overly simplistic attempts to raise site rankings regardless as how legitimate the effort may be.

Google's John Mueller was asked if there is such a thing as having too many outbound links, even if those links are natural. John said "I'm not aware of anything like that." He did add that maybe there is a situation where you are lacking content because you have so many links, i.e., like directories.

But in general, there is no sort of penalty for linking out too much. In fact, outbound links are not a ranking factor. I mean, if you link to a lot of bad places, you can get a manual action from Google but having tons of outbound natural links won't be something Google penalizes you for.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-too-many-outbound-links-29949.html

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Links-in to your site (a major ranking factor)

Links in to your site from other quality sites are a major factor of the site ranking algorithm used by browsers to rank sites. This is the primary value of the Great Linking concept. Both the old and new site ranking systems work by counting the number of links to a page from “quality websites” to determine a rough estimate of how important your website is. The assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

It’s recommended that two Great Linking articles (one with Peace organizations, the other with alt-news) be placed on different dedicated pages in your website. Link lists are near the end of this Invitation. You can write your own feature articles and embed the links in them, or use my sample two feature articles. Alternatively you can just add the two link-lists at the end of this Invitation, but again it’s recommended that they be posted on two different pages (to keep out-link numbers down).

You are certainly free to run a batch analysis of the peace organizations and alt-news sites with an SEO evaluation program like Ahrefs and cut those links you think are not “authoritative.” Some SEO specialists recommend it. Others say it’s irrelevant.

The safest alternative is for each of the peace organizations and alt-news sites to publish two multiple-link embedded articles on different pages of their websites: Peace Advocacy and Alt-News.

Being embedded in articles with original content enhances the “quality content” factor on the ranking systems. There is a ranking score for each page on a site that influences the overall site ranking on search engines. Publishing the articles on different pages reduces the overall number of out-links on one page. According to google, sites are not penalized for out-links, whereas some SEO experts claim there can be in some circumstances, primarily related to links to, for example spamming sites. Unfortunately, all of the factors in Google’s ranking systems are not transparent to the regular person.

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https://patents.google.com/patent/US9165040B1/en

(There will be a quiz on the mathematical formula above at the end of this invitation letter. Sorry, I thought a little levity might be appropriate to engender some potential for optimism here.)

One article is about the value of peace organizations (major peace/anti-war, religious and inter-faith, secular humanist, and civil/human rights) with an introduction followed by a list of those peace organizations with short descriptions and links to them, followed by a reasonable conclusion.

The other article is about the value of alt-news organizations with features similar to the peace organizations cited above.

There are small differences of opinion whether or not google may in some cases penalize a site for too many out-bound links.

Google: No Such Thing as Too Many Outbound Linkshttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-too-many-outbound-links-29949.html

Another SEO expert reports 40 – 50 outbound links is safe without the risk of “leak” on the newer versions of PageRank.

https://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors#domain (See #44) Posted 2021, however refers to:

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/too-many-outbound-links-bad-seo/7808/6 (Posted 2011; more recent ranking analysts do NOT agree with this.)

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The most recent SEO research I can find suggests out-links improve your site rankings, even if some are not SEO optimized or even dead links (as long as they not to spammers).

Bias in some search engines’ site ranking systems

The below quoted articles generally agree search engine bias can shift voting results by at least 20%, more than enough to swing most elections. There are no questions about 1) the existence of bias in Google’s site ranking systems, and 2) that bias has a powerful effect of voters.

Google exercises more direct control over search results than it has admitted, report claims

Published Fri, Nov 15 2019

Google has changed its search algorithm to alter search results in ways it has publicly denied in the past, a new investigation from The Wall Street Journal finds.

The report could add fuel to conservatives’ claims of bias and censorship by Google based on how it determines what content surfaces in its search engine and on its video platform, YouTube.

CNBC reports Thursday that the 50 state attorneys general probing Google are planning to expand their investigation into Google’s search and Android businesses…

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/15/google-tweaks-its-algorithm-to-change-search-results-wsj.html

Here is that WSJ article:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-search-algorithms-and-changes-your-results-11573823753

Also see:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/google-autocomplete-rightwing-bias-algorithm-political-propaganda

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112/33/E4512.full.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280911470_The_search_engine_manipulation_effect_SEME_and_its_possible_impact_on_the_outcomes_of_elections

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3134677

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Other kinds of bias?

Google fires another AI ethics researcher amid row over ‘censorship & racism,’ as team member accuses company of ‘smear campaign, February 20, 2021

Google has terminated the head researcher on its AI ethics team over what the tech giant deemed a violation of its “code of conduct,” as the company faces an internal revolt over a previous firing of a black data scientist…

Gebru’s termination kicked up a storm of controversy among Google employees well beyond Mitchell, prompting an open letter signed by no fewer than 2,695 Googlers and some 4,300 “academic, industry and civil society supporters” demanding the company explain its decision to fire the researcher…

“The termination is an act of retaliation against Dr. Gebru, and it heralds danger for people working for ethical and just AI – especially black people and people of color – across Google,” the letter said…

https://www.rt.com/usa/516113-google-fires-researcher-racism

This Great Linking - a work in progress.

I sent out my first small batch of invitations to this Great Linking program March 3 rd. The next day I received an email from a (former, very excellent) alt-news provider reporting he was nearly driven out of business by Google’s algorithm and “challenging mainstream narratives.” I then decided to “optimize” this invitation further and am just now sending out a second batch of invitations.

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Would you or I know it if the monoliths of MSM already have inter-linked circles of SEO shadow network “news” sites? Are we even ‘in the game,” or sitting on the sidelines?

Alt-news and peace advocacy organizations (including religious, interfaith, secular and humanist) are not likely to be found using ordinary key word searches anymore. Meanwhile endless wars continue with the vast majority falling beneath the radar, and a nuclear arms race accelerates.

On January 1, 2021 the American Congress enacted the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) authorization to upgrade the intercontinental ballistic missile system (ICBM), ground-based leg of the nuclear triad at the cost of $1,509,759,000.00 Also approved was the NEXT GENERATION AIR DOMINANCE program costing a paltry extra $974,089,000 to replace America’s “aging” nuclear arsenal. Now is not the time for business as usual. Official reports state that Russia has nuclear parity with the USA, but Russia has always planned to win a nuclear war from the beginning whereas the USA has not. Now is no time to try to do a “clean sweep” of the Middle East (with “our” aging nuclear arsenal and plans to build a newer better one).

If we saw a simple reality-based strategy to test for bias in site ranking, would we try it?

This Great Linking plan isn’t the end-product. It’s only 1) a way to test the site ranking algorithms and 2) hopefully raise all of the alt-news and peace oriented site rankings.

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If it doesn’t, we have to ask why not and potentially prepare a class-action law suit against those search engines that don’t upgrade the ranking of sites that joined the Great Linking.

“Links in” to a site (from other quality sites) are one of the primary criteria built into, at least Google’s site ranking algorithms. Permitting mainstream news that primarily parrots government dictums to monopolize the news on the internet could be 1) surrendering to a violation of First Amendment Rights, and 2) interpreted as a form of “passive aggression” (letting bad things happen by doing nothing, rather like the concept of “sins of omission”).

A sense of urgency is needed now

I became even more than usual acutely aware of the “reality-based extreme need,” to test Google’s algorithm as I watched President Biden load his administration with known “interventionists” (proven predilections towards war): Burns, Austin, Blinken, Haines, Powers and Nuland.

I believe those who don’t have a sense of urgency right now have never been in a war, never lost innocent loved ones in a war and/or have never been a “displaced person.”

Below is the site with additional information about this very simple project.

https://thegreatlinking.org

I constructed it to share this Invitation, post two sample feature articles with embedded link-lists and some other related materials.

I may feel the urgency of this current situation more intensely than most people because I’ve lived and traveled outside the US for almost half of my 63 years, including several (hegemonic) conflicts working as a journalist, with a few of them “falling beneath the radar.”

If your colleagues approve of your organization participating in this Great Linking endeavor please consider the following:

METHODS

1) Below you will find two link lists, one for peace organizations, the other for alt-news sites. You can write two feature stories and “embed” each of the link-lists within each story. Alternatively, you can copy and paste some variation of the two link-list embedded articles I wrote introducing the peace organizations and alt-news providers on different pages of your internet site. You may want to change the article titles and introductory paragraphs at least a little as original material is rewarded. A third alternative is to simply add the two link-lists as they are to your site.

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2) Please send me a note letting me know why or why not your organization decided to participate in this Great Linking project. If your organization does decide to participate, please let me know if you: Wrote your own link-list embedded article, just used my articles with or without modifications, or just added the link-lists by themselves.

3) Please keep a record of weekly visits to your site. I hope to find an existing organization that will assist in collating data in the near future. For now, a simple Excel database is good enough.

4) If possible, please consider doing weekly systematic key word searches for your site using a consistent set of key words. This will function as an independent measure of search engine rank change, or the lack of it. As of February 2021 Google has 86% of the global search engine market, so it’s probably best to focus on their ranking system.

5) If you have additional peace/anti-war, religious, interfaith, civil, and/or alt-news URLs you would like added to the initial link-list I’m starting with, please let me know. If you want to shorten the link-list, that is also an option.

6) Analysis of results will take time. As more alt-news and peace-oriented websites post two link-list embedded articles on their sites, the individual site rankings should increase within a month or two. To begin with, a simple line chart will be good enough to record progress. One can hope for enough increases in site visits and browser ranks to warrant a t-test for significant differences and correlation analysis between number of participants in the Great Linking and increased site visit numbers and search engine ranks.

Google updates its algorithms regularly (12 times in 2020) and thus the situation is always fluid.

Two Link Lists – Alternative News and Civic Organizations for Peace

Alt-news sites (39 as of March 20, 2021)http://cepr.nethttp://covertactionmagazine.com http://www.globalresearch.cahttp://www.informationclearinghouse.infohttp://www.palestinechronicle.comhttps://afgj.orghttps://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk

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https://consortiumnews.comhttps://deepstateblog.orghttps://dissidentvoice.orghttps://fair.orghttps://imemc.orghttps://masspeaceaction.orghttps://palestinelegal.orghttps://ploughshares.cahttps://reprieve.org.ukhttps://rightsanddissent.orghttps://ronaldthomaswest.comhttps://stephenlendman.orghttps://thegrayzone.comhttps://truthout.orghttps://unlimitedhangout.comhttps://wikileaks.orghttps://www.blackagendareport.comhttps://www.cato.orghttps://www.commondreams.orghttps://www.counterpunch.org https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.comhttps://www.fort-russ.comhttps://www.globalsecurity.orghttps://www.hrw.orghttps://www.icij.orghttps://www.liberationnews.orghttps://www.mintpressnews.comhttps://www.projectcensored.orghttps://www.revealnews.orghttps://www.splcenter.orghttps://www.telesurenglish.nethttps://www.theguardian.com

The following have valid viewpoints that deserve to be heard:http://www.sana.sy/enhttps://en.irna.irhttps://www.chinadaily.com.cn/index.htmlhttps://www.globaltimes.cnhttps://www.rt.comhttps://www.aljazeera.com

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The victim nations of American hegemonic wars have legitimate points of view that deserve to be heard. Thus far they have only been tried and convicted within American corporate boardrooms, not the ICC. I believe defendants have a right to be heard before execution of their children.Below are the basic link-lists:

Peace/anti-war, religious, interfaith, and humanist

http://anothermother.org

http://ccawr.org

http://humanclub.org

http://ronpaulinstitute.org

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org

http://www.gpja.org.nz

http://www.icbl.org/en-gb/home.aspx

http://www.ifor.org

http://www.peaceandfreedom.org

http://www.peaceworldwide.org

http://www.worldcantwait.net

http://www.wpc-in.org

https://americanhumanist.org

https://blackallianceforpeace.com

https://caat.org.uk

https://centeronconscience.org

https://charterforcompassion.org

https://childvoice.org

https://cnduk.org

https://epfnational.org

https://front.moveon.org

https://globalexchange.org

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https://humanists.international

https://iacenter.org

https://iacenter.org

https://ing.org

https://ivsgb.org

https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org

https://mcc.org

https://militaryfamiliesspeakout.com

https://muslims4peace.org

https://mvpr.org

https://nonviolence.com

https://paxchristi.net

https://pcpj.org

https://peace1.wordpress.com

Above are links to 36 peace organizations. That’s enough for one page. According to some SEO experts too many out-links may incur penalty points, but less than 40 should be fine. Other experts assert that a site can have as many as they like without incurring penalty points. As for this writer, I opt to play on the safe side. If you are an alt-news or peace organization webmaster, please consult your SEO expert and ask their opinion.

Below are links to 37 other peace organizations probably best posted on another page. With Google one can never be sure exactly what the rules are because they are changed frequently, and their methodologies are somewhat opaque even to most experienced SEO experts.

https://peacealliance.org

https://peacenow.org.il/en

https://pugwash.org

https://resist.org

https://sanctionskill.org

https://soaw.org/home

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https://wagingnonviolence.org

https://warchildusa.org

https://worldbeyondwar.org

https://www.allmep.org/about-us-allmep

https://www.anglicanpeacemaker.org.uk

https://www.answercoalition.org

https://www.antiwar.com

https://www.catholicworker.org

https://www.church-and-peace.org/en

https://www.codepink.org

https://www.consciencecanada.ca

https://www.disciplespeace.org

https://www.fcnl.org

https://www.fcnl.org

https://www.lutheranpeace.org

https://www.mpf.org.uk

https://www.nationalsjp.org

https://www.onearthpeace.org

https://www.onevoicemovement.org

https://www.peaceaction.org

https://www.peacejusticestudies.org

https://www.presbypeacefellowship.org

https://www.prio.org

https://www.rfp.org

https://www.stopwar.org.uk

https://www.svenskafreds.se/om-oss/english

https://www.unacpeace.org

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https://www.warchild.org

https://www.warresisters.org

https://www.whistleblowers.org

https://www.wri-irg.org/en

Alternatively, you can just copy and paste a couple of articles I wrote with the embedded links.

Two link-embedded articles

Two pre-written articles with “embedded” link-lists can be downloaded from below the Invitation Letter posted on: https://thegreatlinking.org

Please feel free to change the titles, vary the text, and add other relevant organizations (provided they meet the criteria of promoting peace). Likewise, please feel free to write your own articles to showcase the sites listed. Please recall quality text earns extra ranking points.

Search engine ranking elevation comes primarily from the links-in to your site from other quality sites. That means this is a cooperative win-win strategy. This should make a significant difference in everyone’s site ranking, if enough of the above organizations agree to post some version of link-embedded articles or at least link-lists on their sites.

https://wallpaperaccess.com/avatar-tree

I hope all of the publishers of the above sites participate in this mutually beneficial endeavor or at least send me some feedback on this strategy. I really don’t think people of conscience can just wait around and hope for things to change by themselves. The

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increasing polarization between the wealthy and the poor has gotten more extreme every year for decades resulting in extremely explosive situations around the world. Meanwhile a new Cold War and a new nuclear arms race have started.gregbrundage@live.com https://thegreatlinking.org NOTE:Please be aware I am not so naïve as to believe the US can suddenly just pack-up all military bases and suddenly leave. That would cause dangerous power vacuums in some or many cases. Instead planning and diplomacy in each unique nation will be needed. I believe those efforts could be finalized within one to three months in even the most extreme case, like Afghanistan. Most nations with violent conflicts in which the US is involved are primarily motivated by the desire to rid their nation of foreign influence. In some cases, such as Iraq, they could definitely leave within a few weeks. Complete withdrawal from Afghanistan might require a few months in order to ensure the Taliban are on-board to participate in some form of stable government (unexpected terrorist attacks during that period can be expected; in most cases those attacks will be False Flag operations perpetrated by PMCs with the intention of prolonging the war). The US can and should leave Syria immediately. Each situation is unique.

Economic sanctions can and should be lifted world-wide immediately and all American wars, including proxy wars supported by American tax dollars, ended very quickly.

The injury and death of one innocent person is too much.

Photo: 14-month-old baby Siba Abu Era killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza, Palestine on 4 May 2019. Photo by https://imemc.org

http://muslimnews.co.uk/news/palestine/palestine-6-palestinians-incl-pregnant-woman-baby-killed-israeli-airstrikes

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